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 H.B.M.C. wrote:
The issue with codifying heights of terrain is that terrain isn't uniform, unless the only rules for terrain involve only Official™ Citadel™ Branded™ Scenery™ Kits™ (which I'm sure GW would love).

People can make just about anything as terrain, from a spare box to a carefully constructed and painted table of hand-built and sculpted terrain.

By abstrating terrain height you're making the terrain itself less important.

Discuss the handmade stuff with your opponent before the game, agree what things are (though a handmade forest is still a forest, for example), and make a note so you know for next time?

 Dysartes wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
The issue with codifying heights of terrain is that terrain isn't uniform, unless the only rules for terrain involve only Official™ Citadel™ Branded™ Scenery™ Kits™ (which I'm sure GW would love).

People can make just about anything as terrain, from a spare box to a carefully constructed and painted table of hand-built and sculpted terrain.

By abstrating terrain height you're making the terrain itself less important.

Discuss the handmade stuff with your opponent before the game, agree what things are (though a handmade forest is still a forest, for example), and make a note so you know for next time?

And we are doing it even with current rules. What counts as a ruin or if something is impassable etc. And at tournaments I have been to there have been a short instruction on how the TO built the tables and what is supposed to be what and how they handle it at that event.

And with abstract heights it actually matters even less. You can say all the forest, hills and cliffs have height that is too tall to see over even if you only have 2" hills. Had a game in KoW yesterday against someone who hadnt played a game of KoW before or even read the rules. We put all hills at height 2 even though the 4 hills all had different size, the forests and cliffs at too tall to see over despite different sized trees and rocks. It worked great and it was really fast in deciding what our warmachines could see or not see despite lots of terrain and different units of all sizes. We had 13 pieces of terrain,which is more than average, and about 20% larger forces than usual at a 6x4 table. So despite a very crowded table LoS worked quick and easy due to abstract terrain and height rules.

 Jidmah wrote:
The more I read in this thread, the more I get the impressions that the whole problem is how little benefit cover provides compared to being completely out of sight.

That is really the gist of it. In a game where AP-1 and AP-2 weapons are all over the place, if you've got a 5+ save or worse you get next to no benefit from cover. So you have to stay out of LOS, but that's very difficult to do with TLOS on most terrain setups (hence the 'magic box' in ITC), and if you fail to be completely hidden then you die.

If the solution is to have more impactful cover rules, then the challenge is to come up with a system that doesn't disproportionately favor heavily armored armies (as the current one does), accurate/re-rollable armies (as to-hit penalties do), or lightly armored armies (as the old cover save system did)- while simultaneously providing some benefit for models that are obscured but not in cover.

Here's an idea: If no model in the firing unit can get an unobstructed view of any model in the target unit, the target gets a 5+ unmodifiable cover save that stacks with any other saves it already has. That way cover is baked into the TLOS rules (anything that you can at least partly hide behind gives you cover), being obscured by intervening terrain works as it should, and most of all there's a significant benefit so you don't have to stay out of LOS entirely.

The challenge is to find cover rules which are fair to everyone. Basically every solution has a downside:
1) "invulnerable" saves favor units with little to no armor and guns with low AP
2) +X to armor favors well armored units and high AP weapons, disadvantageous to units with just invulnerable saves like daemons
3) re-roll saves favors units with good saves and high ROF, and slows down the game
4) additional layer of saves is fair to everyone, but slows down the game
5) +toughness or -1 strength is useless in too many scenarios
6) -1 to hit makes units with good BS and re-rolls to hit more powerful
7) -1 to wound makes units with high toughness too hard to kill
8) reduce AP is worthless against weapons without AP and favors weapons with high AP
9) massive overhaul of the shooting rules would require new codices - not going to happen

So basically no matter what you do, someone is boned when shooting and/or cover is useless to others.
Therefore my suggestion was that cover allows to "react" to shooting by taking cover, going to ground or bracing for impact. With three different types of reactions, you can have cover benefit a much wider range of units, plus you add player interaction during the enemy turns besides stratagems.
What each of those reactions does, needs to be properly tested and balanced.

8) reducing AP, can be totally valid:
If something has AP -1, it's now AP 0.
If something has AP 0, it's now AP +1.
Positive AP should totally be a thing! It would make things much easier to manage.

 Blndmage wrote:
8) reducing AP, can be totally valid:
If something has AP -1, it's now AP 0.
If something has AP 0, it's now AP +1.
Positive AP should totally be a thing! It would make things much easier to manage.

Which is the exact same thing as a bonus to armor save, though. That'd make it solution 2.

This set of rules is not designed to be played with tons of LOS blocking terrain. They have a special game mode for that called city fight. It is designed to be a quick game where most the models get destroyed in 3-4 turns. Lowering the time it takes to play a game is one of the main reasons they made the rule set the way they did.

There is a video-game I play called World of Warships. It is funny because the most realistic map called "Ocean" is one of the most hated maps - though I love it. It is literally open ocean. Every other map is loaded with giant 1km tall islands you can't shoot over. It creates such a stagnate game-play that most players burn out in a few months. Why? Because it's boring hiding all game and waiting for someone else to say screw it and just charge around the corner and get blasted by 12 ships. Not fun = no one plays.

Games are supposed to be fun. Hiding your whole army is not fun.

And losing your entire army or a massive chunk of it in one turn because you get blasted off with no countermeasures IS fun?

I certainly won't argue that you should be able to hide your entire army, but if you can't hide key figures from snipers or a single important transport from a decent chunk of firepower, your tables could do with some more terrain.

 JNAProductions wrote:
And losing your entire army or a massive chunk of it in one turn because you get blasted off with no countermeasures IS fun?

I certainly won't argue that you should be able to hide your entire army, but if you can't hide key figures from snipers or a single important transport from a decent chunk of firepower, your tables could do with some more terrain.

Agreed - that isn't fun ether. The problem here is clearly Igougo - if both players had an opportunity to units their units every turn -the game would be quick (EVEN quicker) and also more fun. TLOS isn't really a problem.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Blndmage wrote:
8) reducing AP, can be totally valid:
If something has AP -1, it's now AP 0.
If something has AP 0, it's now AP +1.
Positive AP should totally be a thing! It would make things much easier to manage.

Which is the exact same thing as a bonus to armor save, though. That'd make it solution 2.

You could use 2 and 8 together for different types of cover.
The AP reduction deals with hard cover, and the current kind for soft or intervening models.

Cover should give a bonus to the armour save and also apply to models that normally have no armour save as cover save.
Models inside or behind any area terrain or behind another unit add +1 to their armour save (so everything that is slightly obstructed).
Models inside or behind and touching hard cover (rocks, walls, ruins, most buildings) add +2 to their armour save.
Fortifications or similar give a bonus of +3

Weapons that ignore armour saves do not automatically ignore the cover bonus (and the model still has a cover save)

 Blndmage wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Blndmage wrote:
8) reducing AP, can be totally valid:
If something has AP -1, it's now AP 0.
If something has AP 0, it's now AP +1.
Positive AP should totally be a thing! It would make things much easier to manage.

Which is the exact same thing as a bonus to armor save, though. That'd make it solution 2.

You could use 2 and 8 together for different types of cover.
The AP reduction deals with hard cover, and the current kind for soft or intervening models.

I don't understand. If you're suggesting an AP reduction (which can reduce AP below 0), that is completely identical to adding 1 to your save. Why not just say that hard cover gives you +2 to your save, instead of achieving the same result in a roundabout way?

 catbarf wrote:

 Blndmage wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Blndmage wrote:
8) reducing AP, can be totally valid:
If something has AP -1, it's now AP 0.
If something has AP 0, it's now AP +1.
Positive AP should totally be a thing! It would make things much easier to manage.

Which is the exact same thing as a bonus to armor save, though. That'd make it solution 2.

You could use 2 and 8 together for different types of cover.
The AP reduction deals with hard cover, and the current kind for soft or intervening models.

I don't understand. If you're suggesting an AP reduction (which can reduce AP below 0), that is completely identical to adding 1 to your save. Why not just say that hard cover gives you +2 to your save, instead of achieving the same result in a roundabout way?

If you use the AP reduction, then rules where a unit ignores AP -1 and what not would apply when in heavy cover, where as light cover would just add to the armour save.

 Blndmage wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

 Blndmage wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Blndmage wrote:
8) reducing AP, can be totally valid:
If something has AP -1, it's now AP 0.
If something has AP 0, it's now AP +1.
Positive AP should totally be a thing! It would make things much easier to manage.

Which is the exact same thing as a bonus to armor save, though. That'd make it solution 2.

You could use 2 and 8 together for different types of cover.
The AP reduction deals with hard cover, and the current kind for soft or intervening models.

I don't understand. If you're suggesting an AP reduction (which can reduce AP below 0), that is completely identical to adding 1 to your save. Why not just say that hard cover gives you +2 to your save, instead of achieving the same result in a roundabout way?

If you use the AP reduction, then rules where a unit ignores AP -1 and what not would apply when in heavy cover, where as light cover would just add to the armour save.

That is a very niche situation. It's a difference, alright, but it's VERY niche.

I think they should draw on from Killteam:

Shooting at obscured enemies is -1 to hit/
Weapons/hair/aerials etc. don't count for LOS.

Also, I think we are a missing thing with different levels of cover and terrain.. Should a bit of woods/junk over the same level of cover a fortfied trench or a bunker?

Currently army wide traits are more effective at giving cover saves than actual terrain.. Of course then you have LOS ignoring AND Cover ignoring weapons. To which I would ask why is this possible.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Gadzilla666 wrote:

Artillery should require a "spotter" in order to fire at full ballistic skill. Some model in your army should be able to see the target.

A unit can spot if they forgo their shooting - otherwise it is too trivial.

Rerolls just mitigate it too well, also.

Thanks for invalidating my markerlights.

 Xenomancers wrote:
This set of rules is not designed to be played with tons of LOS blocking terrain. They have a special game mode for that called city fight. It is designed to be a quick game where most the models get destroyed in 3-4 turns. Lowering the time it takes to play a game is one of the main reasons they made the rule set the way they did.

There is a video-game I play called World of Warships. It is funny because the most realistic map called "Ocean" is one of the most hated maps - though I love it. It is literally open ocean. Every other map is loaded with giant 1km tall islands you can't shoot over. It creates such a stagnate game-play that most players burn out in a few months. Why? Because it's boring hiding all game and waiting for someone else to say screw it and just charge around the corner and get blasted by 12 ships. Not fun = no one plays.

Games are supposed to be fun. Hiding your whole army is not fun.

Sounds like you game needs a time based mechanic such as mutual flag capture or points for having explored certain parts of the island or storms that can wreck static ships or fog that allows attackers to come in close or...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Argive wrote:
I think they should draw on from Killteam:

Shooting at obscured enemies is -1 to hit/
Weapons/hair/aerials etc. don't count for LOS.

Also, I think we are a missing thing with different levels of cover and terrain.. Should a bit of woods/junk over the same level of cover a fortfied trench or a bunker?

Currently army wide traits are more effective at giving cover saves than actual terrain.. Of course then you have LOS ignoring AND Cover ignoring weapons. To which I would ask why is this possible.

Yup. The current game is way too abstract. Supposedly for faster games as if this is a real thing. I mean tic tac toe is a fast playing game too! Anyways for short games why not better rules and fewer points? I would actually play 8th if the actual game was worth playing. I might have to play 500pt games because of time and have but am dpne with it. Just too many head scratching WTF moments...

 carldooley wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Gadzilla666 wrote:

Artillery should require a "spotter" in order to fire at full ballistic skill. Some model in your army should be able to see the target.

A unit can spot if they forgo their shooting - otherwise it is too trivial.

Rerolls just mitigate it too well, also.

Thanks for invalidating my markerlights.

You're welcome!

 Argive wrote:
Shooting at obscured enemies is -1 to hit/
Weapons/hair/aerials etc. don't count for LOS.

I'm really at a loss why people don't understand that -1 to hit is a terrible mechanic for cover

 Jidmah wrote:

 Argive wrote:
Shooting at obscured enemies is -1 to hit/
Weapons/hair/aerials etc. don't count for LOS.

I'm really at a loss why people don't understand that -1 to hit is a terrible mechanic for cover

Not for cover. For models that are obscured, meaning hard to see. It's harder to shoot something you can't see clearly. Ever try shooting something through dense brush or in a forest?

This is not a simulation, this is a dice rolling game.

A space marine cuddling with his chapter master doesn't give a damn about -1 to hit, an ork army loses 50% of its shooting. It's inherently unfair towards low BS units and therefore should not even be considered for a game-wide mechanic.

-1 to hit on artillery shooting at things without los or without at least another unit working as spotter would work fine though. Perhaps a point decrease on some of the bs4 artillery at the same time. Would work fine as it only affects a few units and not entire armies.

But as a general rule for hard to see would skew shooting a bit too much. If shooty marines and other very accurate ranged units were a bit more expensive and rerolls were much more rare than it might work even for obscurement but not without changing lots of pointcosts, buffs and stratagems as it is now. If GW factored in how units are affected by -1 to hit penalties in the pricing it could work but it feels like they never thought about it considering how they have treated such modifiers and rerolls this edition.

Mabey make cover a 4++ with no modifiers allowed or +1 to armor, whichever is better for your army.

But yeah, adopting a new system closer to Apocolypse's for the 9th edition update might be the right call.

Wounded models are marked, but not removed till the following battle round. Models that have a death mark cannot be chosen as bodyguards (savior protocols, grot shields, etc.). Models only get removed instantly if they are lost due to morale.

 Jidmah wrote:
This is not a simulation, this is a dice rolling game.

A space marine cuddling with his chapter master doesn't give a damn about -1 to hit, an ork army loses 50% of its shooting. It's inherently unfair towards low BS units and therefore should not even be considered for a game-wide mechanic.

In that case the problem is rerolling all failed hits. It's a bad mechanic and needs to be removed.

The problem is that -1 has more impact on unit with a low change to hit than it does on units with a high chance to hit, despite both units paying roughly the same amount of points for the same amount of hits.
Some armies having re-rolls while others don't just amplifies the problem.

Then make it a flat value.

Shooting at a target that is obscured is a 6+ to hit.

 Lance845 wrote:
Then make it a flat value.

Shooting at a target that is obscured is a 6+ to hit.

It should be max 4+ to hit. With a -1 to hit applied to your BS if you are OLOS.

 Lance845 wrote:
Then make it a flat value.

Shooting at a target that is obscured is a 6+ to hit.

That is just the same problem but reversed. Bs 3+ lose 75% of its shooting while 5+ lose 50% and bs3+ probably costs more than 50% extra while also loosing 50% more shooting compared to bs 5+.

 jeff white wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
This set of rules is not designed to be played with tons of LOS blocking terrain. They have a special game mode for that called city fight. It is designed to be a quick game where most the models get destroyed in 3-4 turns. Lowering the time it takes to play a game is one of the main reasons they made the rule set the way they did.

There is a video-game I play called World of Warships. It is funny because the most realistic map called "Ocean" is one of the most hated maps - though I love it. It is literally open ocean. Every other map is loaded with giant 1km tall islands you can't shoot over. It creates such a stagnate game-play that most players burn out in a few months. Why? Because it's boring hiding all game and waiting for someone else to say screw it and just charge around the corner and get blasted by 12 ships. Not fun = no one plays.

Games are supposed to be fun. Hiding your whole army is not fun.

Sounds like you game needs a time based mechanic such as mutual flag capture or points for having explored certain parts of the island or storms that can wreck static ships or fog that allows attackers to come in close or...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Argive wrote:
I think they should draw on from Killteam:

Shooting at obscured enemies is -1 to hit/
Weapons/hair/aerials etc. don't count for LOS.

Also, I think we are a missing thing with different levels of cover and terrain.. Should a bit of woods/junk over the same level of cover a fortfied trench or a bunker?

Currently army wide traits are more effective at giving cover saves than actual terrain.. Of course then you have LOS ignoring AND Cover ignoring weapons. To which I would ask why is this possible.

Yup. The current game is way too abstract. Supposedly for faster games as if this is a real thing. I mean tic tac toe is a fast playing game too! Anyways for short games why not better rules and fewer points? I would actually play 8th if the actual game was worth playing. I might have to play 500pt games because of time and have but am dpne with it. Just too many head scratching WTF moments...

It has capture points but also mechanics that make capturing points extremely risky. Ultimately an aggressive team will beat a passive one but with random team mates it's practically impossible to get a push going. The issue is mechanics that push passive play.

Klickor wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
Then make it a flat value.

Shooting at a target that is obscured is a 6+ to hit.

That is just the same problem but reversed. Bs 3+ lose 75% of its shooting while 5+ lose 50% and bs3+ probably costs more than 50% extra while also loosing 50% more shooting compared to bs 5+.

Exactly. A unit in cover should have the exact same percentage of protection against ork lootas as against a unit of suppressors.
Therefore -1 to hit or hitting on 6+ are inherently flawed mechanics for anything that affects multiple units at once.