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Slipspace wrote:

 Galas wrote:
Auras are just the modern equivalent of having characters attachet to units.

I don't think that's accurate. The two really aren't equivalent. Prior to 8th edition abilities like re-rolling 1s to hit were pretty rare, re-rolling to wound even rarer. In the case of an attached character they only affected a single unit, rather than potentially affecting your entire army (even taking into account 1000-point deathstar units) and they were often taken for their increased combat power rather than purely buffing a variety of units. Some had USRs that carried over onto their unit but that's still nowhere near the same as handing out a "re-roll everything" buff to all units within 6".

The problem most people have with auras, other than how boring and unimaginative they are, is how trivially easy they are to utilise. Technically you need to position correctly to take advantage of them but having a single model within 6" of a character who's likely in the middle of your army is hardly difficult and not the mark of some brilliantly insightful tactical genius.

I mean, stuff like Aphotecaries giving 6+ FNP is literally an aura now. I'm not saying all character buffs were converted into auras 1:1 but auras are the way for characters to interact with units of 8th and 9th. So I don't understand all this gnashing of teeth agaisnt them. Having your units benefit from an aura is no difficult thats true. But it wasn't a problem before to have characters attached to a unit to buff it. It didn't required any kind of tactical thinking.

Personally, I'm neutral towards auras, I just like my characters more being independent now and feeling more powerfull, stuff like techmarines, aphotecaries, etc... (But I believe people likes their characters too much, snipers should be better in general)

yukishiro1 wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:


If both opponents have as many reps and equivalent knowledge what determines the victor? Just RNG? Just the list? What if they both have the same list?

Could you give a concrete example of a decision in LotR that has depth?

Choosing what to activate when. Choosing when to use heroic actions, and how. Choosing the order of resolving combats, and how to resolve them. We could go on for a while here actually, almost everything about LOTR's base rules system encourages meaningful gameplay decisions within the game, not just at the list-building stage. 40k is easy to plan out; you have a game plan and you pretty much execute it, aided by the non-interactivity of 40k's turn system. Trying to change plans partway through a game is almost always a mistake, you're rewarded for just doing what you set out to do in a very methodical way. When decisive, unexpected actions turn the game on its head, it's almost always because your opponent just didn't know you could do something - i.e. a rules gotcha - rather than you spotting and taking advantage of a tactical or strategic opportunity they couldn't see.

40k is basically a glorified resource management game, you trade resources of one type for resources of another - models for victory points, or models for your opponent's models which results in diminishing their ability to trade models for victory points. LOTR is more like chess but with asymmetric forces and RNG elements. Maybe even complex checkers is a better metaphor, because it has the element where if you get things set up right, you can run the whole board in just a few moves, so a lot of the skill is in setting up that board state.

As I stated before, the actual army rules for LOTR let this system down a lot in terms of creating overpowered 40k-style wombo combos that often sap a lot of the need to play smart out of the game. But that's GW for you. Even when they create an extremely promising basic rule system, they screw it up with overpowered special rules.

The things you mentioned don't demonstrate to me something that would produce an exceptional result based on the glowing review you provided or anything that can't be processed. In fact in your parlance, I would say the better player with more reps in LotR would probably out play a newer opponent who hasn't experienced such plays.

 Eldarsif wrote:
I think the reason people are less interested in every random minutia of the battlefield are several reasons:

* Time. It takes time to simulate a whole bunch of things and slowing down the game isn't always preferable. There is more to life than an unnecessarily bogged down game that is trying to be Real Life 40k: The Game. Especially when you get older and want to do more in the time allotted to you before your deathbed.

The arguments about "adding time" to the game are a distraction IMHO. Stratagems, CP management, more prolific re-rolling, and premeasuring all substantially more time to the game IMHO.

But more over, I'm not approaching 40K with an eye towards how quick it plays. It's always been a "long" game, especially ~2000 point mark. Moreover, if I'm having fun and being engaged with interesting decisions, I'm not particularly worried by the difference between a 3 hour or 4 hour game. If I don't have time for a full game, I'll play a smaller point game.

 Eldarsif wrote:
* Terrain randomness is unequal. A difficult terrain often doesn't affect hover/flying things, so how do you balance something that maybe 1/4th of the armies will encounter 1/6th of the time? It just makes some armies suck more to play than others, especially when the dice gods seem especially unfavorable to you.

Well, skimmers ending their turn in difficult terrain still had to take a test (running into trees, etc.) and depending on how fast you moved failing a difficult terrain test was even worse, as an immobilized result means your skimmer crashes and is destroyed.

 Eldarsif wrote:

* Adding these things does not automatically make the game more fun. I know I don't miss much of the convoluted random stuff from previous editions.

"Fun" is very subjective - and we need to be specific by what we each mean. For me, "Fun" in 40K means being faced frequently with opportunities for making interesting tactical decisions that lack a clear "correct" answer.

Moreover, I don't find failing a risky move to be "frustrating." It's part of the game and reflects the consequences of my risky decision. It's a cascading situation too. If I didn't want to be in position of having to take a risky move, then I need to ask myself why I'm in that position in the first place. Did I deploy poorly? Did my opponent deploy or move in an unanticipated way that's forcing my hand? Navigating through this is far more interesting and is the heart of the game to me. So it's not frustrating when I step back at look at it.

Even more moreover, these low chance random things do so much to drive the narrative and create memorable moments in my games.

 Eldarsif wrote:

Now, that is not to say some people want all this randomness back with extra bells and whistles, but it does appear a lot of people prefer the newer system. Only place I even hear people talk about the ol' systems is on Dakkadakka. Only people I might occasionally hear people lament the new editions locally are people who stopped playing over 10 years ago or people who have all they ever needed to play with themselves and are not interested in engaging with the playerbase at large, making it so that they can easily just homebrew and play in their own bubble.

I think this is fair. The game has grown a lot in recent years, no doubt a consequence of the changes to the core rules in 8th - but more so to the marketing effort that went with it. Look, "we've simplified the game - it's soo much more accessible now." Which it was for a time (index era) and managed to rope in a new generation of players (a good thing). Fast forward to today and it seems, based on plenty of other discussions in the community, that the game seems just as complicated as it was then, just in slightly different ways.

I'm all for people liking the current gameplay - but for people that never played the older editions, I wonder whether they'd like it more or not.

 Galas wrote:

I mean, stuff like Aphotecaries giving 6+ FNP is literally an aura now. I'm not saying all character buffs were converted into auras 1:1 but auras are the way for characters to interact with units of 8th and 9th.

Except that most characters didn't have any aura equivalents pre-8th (the closest would be providing their Ld to the unit . . . which basically no longer exists in the game).

Even those that did affected the squad they were attached to and *only* the squad they were attached to - not every nearby unit as well.

 Galas wrote:
Having your units benefit from an aura is no difficult thats true. But it wasn't a problem before to have characters attached to a unit to buff it. It didn't required any kind of tactical thinking.

It didn't require a great deal of tactical thinking before (does anything in 40k? ), but it did at least require an actual choice. If a character provided a buff to his unit then he could only provide it to a single unit - not every unit within 6". Thus, you had to choose which unit would get that buff.

Further, this also sped things up as you were only getting rerolls for a single unit, rather than every unit within 6".

 Galas wrote:

Personally, I'm neutral towards auras, I just like my characters more being independent now and feeling more powerfull, stuff like techmarines, aphotecaries, etc...

I don't necessarily mind characters being strong, I just don't think that has to translate to 'Friendly <KEYWORD SOUP> units within 6" reroll hit rolls of 1.'

To repeat what I said in a different thread (I was talking about special rules in general but I think it's especially pertinent with regard to auras):

 vipoid wrote:

2) They have to actually add something to the game beyond more bloody rerolls. Reroll 1s when standing near a character, reroll 1s to hit in melee, reroll 1s to wound when shooting, zzzzzZZZZZ. These rules add nothing to the game beyond bloat and we'd be far better off cutting them wholesale.

I think it's reasonable to say that a big part of unit- or faction-specific rules is to help differentiate the different units and factions. Thus, it makes no sense whatsoever if all these "faction-specific" rules basically amount to the same rules, just with different names.

As an example, let's take three units - a Space Marine Captain, a Thousand Sons Exalted Sorcerer, and a Dark Eldar Archon.

These are, I think you would agree, quite different units. You have a super-soldier who's a loyal servant of the Emperor, a high-ranking sorcerer of the Chaos god of change and mutation, and vampiric space elf who thrives on inflicting pain and suffering and excels at labyrinthine strategies.

So what special rules are these three characters given to differentiate them?

Well, the Captain has Rites of Battle, an aura that lets friendly units within 6" reroll 1s to hit.
Meanwhile, the Exalted Sorcerer has Lord of the Thousand Sons, an aura that lets friendly units within 6" reroll 1s to hit.
In stark contras, the Archon has Overlord, an aura that lets friendly units within 6" reroll 1s to hit.

This is the sort of thing I absolutely *don't* want to see when it comes to special rules for units or factions.

 Eldarsif wrote:
I think the reason people are less interested in every random minutia of the battlefield are several reasons:

* Time. It takes time to simulate a whole bunch of things and slowing down the game isn't always preferable. There is more to life than an unnecessarily bogged down game that is trying to be Real Life 40k: The Game. Especially when you get older and want to do more in the time allotted to you before your deathbed.
* Terrain randomness is unequal. A difficult terrain often doesn't affect hover/flying things, so how do you balance something that maybe 1/4th of the armies will encounter 1/6th of the time? It just makes some armies suck more to play than others, especially when the dice gods seem especially unfavorable to you.
* Adding these things does not automatically make the game more fun. I know I don't miss much of the convoluted random stuff from previous editions.

Now, that is not to say some people want all this randomness back with extra bells and whistles, but it does appear a lot of people prefer the newer system. Only place I even hear people talk about the ol' systems is on Dakkadakka. Only people I might occasionally hear people lament the new editions locally are people who stopped playing over 10 years ago or people who have all they ever needed to play with themselves and are not interested in engaging with the playerbase at large, making it so that they can easily just homebrew and play in their own bubble.

Mezomorki already addressed some of these arguments, but I'll say it this way:

Has the game really gotten that much shorter since 4th? I'd argue not. Furthermore, time is just time - it can (and should) be managed by the points level the players are playing. Time is only undesirable if it's time wasted/being bored, and if the game is fun, then I'm not wasting my time or being bored with it, regardless of the specific mechanics at play.

Terrain randomness is unequal is precisely the point. That's how good game design works. "Look, you can play the faction with heavy tanks but they are concerned about terrain, or the faction with lighter, hovering tanks that are more immune to it (though not totally!)." Conversely: "Look, you can pay points for upgrades that allow you to mitigate/ignore terrain (dozer blades) or you can spam more things!" etc. etc. These are good, desirable things, that set factions, units, and even individual decisions apart from each other. My assault platoon might have dozer blades to move up, while my fire support platoon does not - but that decision may be regretted if my fire support has to reposition through terrain for some reason!

You just have to balance things with points costs. A skimmer that ignores terrain but has light armor and few weapons might be worth the same as a heavy battle tank that has heavy armor and great weapons but is forced to slog through terrain. And on different battlefields, this may be even more unequal - less terrain means the heavy tank will have an advantage, and more terrain means the lighter skimmer will have an advantage. This is a good thing, because it's just like Real Life, where terrain affects what units are or aren't effective to a far greater degree than in Warhammer, and should, all else being equal, force armies towards a more balanced answer. An army may choose to include (as exampled above) a maneuver platoon (with dozer blades / hover tanks) and a fire support platoon (with more points spent on firepower and less on utility). This will allow the army to lean more or less on one option or the other depending on the nature of the terrain for a specific battle. Land Speeders may not be as useful as Predators on Planet Bowling Ball, but you can really lean on them for success in a cityfight mission while you relegate the predators to relatively stationary street-corner-watchers. These are all decisions the players MAKE, whether before the game, during the game, or after the game.

For your last point, as Mezomorki points out, "fun" is subjective. Sometimes, a player may want the wargame to be a WARgame, where the contest of wits in the military mileu with Clausewitzian friction and fog-of-war is rather the point.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:
... nostalgia glasses...

Cool. I think we're done here.

And I didn't play 4th, so, really, what are you arguing against? Certainly nothing I said...

You're not the only person in the thread, do you expect me to keep track of every poster's flavour of nostalgia? I am sorry if I offended you or your favourite edition by assuming it was 4th, last time I assumed it was 5th that person got offended because "4th is betterer" or something. Thinking that a Monolith getting stuck on the lip of a crater or bush is fine, but the Monolith getting to shoot despite its guns not being able to point at the target is nostalgia glasses, you cannot say that one is STUPIDD!D!! and the other is totally realistic if you view it as an abstraction of blablabla. The preference is arbitrary and the justification is something made up after the decision that one is stupid and one is fine has already been made, not part of a careful analysis of why game rules should be one way or another.

 vict0988 wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:
... nostalgia glasses...

Cool. I think we're done here.

And I didn't play 4th, so, really, what are you arguing against? Certainly nothing I said...

You're not the only person in the thread, do you expect me to keep track of every poster's flavour of nostalgia? I am sorry if I offended you or your favourite edition by assuming it was 4th, last time I assumed it was 5th that person got offended because "4th is betterer" or something. Thinking that a Monolith getting stuck on the lip of a crater or bush is fine, but the Monolith getting to shoot despite its guns not being able to point at the target is nostalgia glasses, you cannot say that one is STUPIDD!D!! and the other is totally realistic if you view it as an abstraction of blablabla. The preference is arbitrary and the justification is something made up after the decision that one is stupid and one is fine has already been made, not part of a careful analysis of why game rules should be one way or another.

I get the impression that you posted something at me, but I don't understand your argument here and I wasn't reading the other argument (since it wasn't about anything I felt like I needed to pay attention to).

I read yesterday the Epic Armageddon Basic rules. They included rules for stuff which was absent in 40K for most of it's editions:

1. Overwatch
"True" Overwatch and not that crap that you hit only on 6.

2. Crossfire
If you can draw a line between two of your units and that line passes through an opposing unit you can claim a bonus against them when shooting at it.
So outmaneuvering is a worthwhile effort here.

3. Support
If a friendly unit is near a current close combat it may contribute to it without entering melee but helping out with supporting fire.
This won't be good in a 40K skirmish scale as firing into melee was almost always prohibited. However local engagement situations in Epic represent full 40K battles so in Epic they are fine to do that.

4. Suppression
Suppression works in Epic by putting blast markers on formations/units. A target receives a single blast marker when it is simply being shot at and for each casualty it has suffered. Each blast marker prohibits a single model of the suppressed unit from firing. Blast markers can be later removed by the Marshal action.
LOL, I can already here people complaining that they don't want to track the amount of blast markers of each unit in a 40K game!

5. Morale
A unit is automatically broken when it has accumulated as many blast markers as it has models left in the unit. Broken units can later recover in the End phase by rallying. Broken units are VERY vulnerable to ranged firepower (akin to shooting fish in a barrel).
This is a much better way of handling morale than any of the 40K editions did it in the past.


All of the above rules are way more nuanced than I was willing to describe them here. There were also instances when broken units were automatically destroyed, if an opposing unit was near them when they were fleeing which again emphasizes positioning.
I will incorporate most of those rules in my custom 40K rules.

It seems to me that GW is able to pull of to write good rules but rules of such quality will never again find it's way into 40K because GW wants to broaden the appeal of their main game to a MUCH wider audience which consists to a large degree of Little Timmy's eager to surprise each other with "Gotcha" cards like in MtG. Rip 40K.

Those are all great rules that work really well in AA systems.

 vict0988 wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
Choosing what to activate when. Choosing when to use heroic actions, and how. Choosing the order of resolving combats, and how to resolve them.

Choosing who to shoot or charge with first to have a Command Re-roll handy when it is most important instead of wasting it too early. Choosing when to use Stratagems and which ones to use. Choosing which unit to fight with first and which weapons to fire or fight with first to maximize damage against multi-wound models.

This is making my point for me. The equivalent choices in 40k tend to have clear "right answers" that are easily discoverable and largely just come down to your ability to mathhammer and execute on your plan. I assume you aren't familiar with LOTR's ruleset because someone who was wouldn't be seriously positing these as choices of equivalent tactical weight as the ones you have to make in LOTR. I'm not saying there's no strategy or tactics in 40k, there clearly is. But it's not the same level as many other game systems, with LOTR just being an obvious example since it's made by the same company.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
In fact in your parlance, I would say the better player with more reps in LotR would probably out play a newer opponent who hasn't experienced such plays.

Of course they would. Why would you ever want a system where the better, more experienced player doesn't generally win?

That's not the point of the comparison. The point of the comparison is that 40k's mechanics are not very deep compared to a lot of other game systems. What they are are very wide. Hundreds of stratagems, thousands of units. There's a bajillion different variables in a 40k game. But there are clear right choices to almost all of them, it's just a question of having the knowledge of the game and mathhammer capabilities to figure out what those right choices are. It's very rare that people with roughly equal experience and knowledge ever surprise one another in 40k with tactical moves the other wasn't anticipating, and that's not a coincidence. 40k is a very controlled ruleset that doesn't tend to throw up surprises that don't fall into the "rules gotcha" category. There is very limited ability to leverage the basic rules of the game in interesting and unanticipated ways to get a tactical advantage.

Let me give you one basic example from LOTR that illustrates this: the loser in a combat has to make a 1" move backwards, before damage is resolved, and if they are trapped and unable to do so, they take double damage (the real system is a bit more complicated, but let's go with this as a summary). This itself may not seem particularly tactically deep, but because combats are resolved sequentially, you can use your opponent's models as bumper cars to block one another and set up cascading combat resolutions that can turn the game completely on its head vs if you had done them in a different order. 40k has no real equivalent to this - choosing what combat to activate first in 40k is a comparatively much more simple exercise with much more limited tactical considerations.

At the risk of sounding like a shill .... many of the things that I'm trying to elevate in the design of 40K that emphasizes position and maneuver are things that I've reworked in ProHammer in a manner where I'm trying to balance the "punitive" (or punishing) side of failure outcomes while still retaining the core decision points that more chaotic elements of the game rules might engender.

For instance....

(1) Deep striking mishaps - if you get into a bad deep strike situation (land on impassible terrain, on-top of opponent's models, etc.) then your OPPONENT gets to setup your deep striking unit in a valid location within 12" of the original drop location. This mean's your unit is never wiped out entirely (which is a feelsbad moment) but you can still end up in a pretty precarious situation or well outside your intended drop zone.

(2) Vehicle damage tables - eliminated hull points (from 6th/7th, which were too easy to spam/abuse) but modified the vehicle damage tables so that outright destruction is less likely (7+ on glancing or 6+ on penetrating). HOWEVER, we've added some additional +1 to the damage rolls - namely that if you've suffered prior damage results (weapon destroyed, engines damage, or immobilized) there is a +1 to the damage result. Strikes a great balance.

(3) Difficult Terrain Movement - most things rolls a 2D6 and you pick the highest. HOWEVER, it's been adjusted so that you aren't subject to the movement cap of the die roll unless your movement actually takes you into the difficult terrain. If I have a unit that is 3" away from difficult terrain, and I roll a 2, I could still move up to my full 6" so long as units don't go into the terrain. Whereas before if you rolled badly, even when entirely outside of the difficult terrain, then you're unit could barely move - even if still in the open. Now at least you can attempt to get closer and move up to the terrain, even if you can't fully enter it. It puts the decision and choices in the players hand AFTER. Of course, once you're already in difficult terrain it works as we've discussed.

(4) Vehicle facings - we've defined a very clear and intuitive (and quick) process for determining vehicle facing that's been working well. Identify the mid-point along the central axis of the vehicle's hull, and then make 90-degree quadrants based on the axis line. What facing you hit is only dependent on the which of these arcs the shooting model is situated within. Very to use once you see it the first time.

(5) Charging - per 3rd-5th edition, we've kept fixed charging distances. Of course, there is no premeasuring - so that works just fine. To be honest, pre-measuring (or not) is a hugely important core method in the game that affects nearly everything else. Incidentally, not being able to premeasure can be a big time saver too. People say the random charge help mitigate pre-measuring, but really it just means you can now premeasure to finesse whether you're 7" away vs 6" vs 8" or whatever. Pick your risk tolerance and pre-measure around that. Frankly it can be worse now.

Moreover, I think estimating ranges IS a skill to be rewarded in the game. Estimating movement and whether you might be in range or not, and whether you're willing to take a risk by (for example) leaving cover to get closer to the target and not knowing the exact range is great IMHO. And so much more fluid than meticulously pre-measuring everything out all the time.

Anyway, just some food for thought.

EDIT: One more to add...

(6) Declared Fire & Charges. This is something that was never part of 40K (I don't think?) but it makes a huge difference to how you balance the shooting phase. And before anyone says "it adds too much time to the game" - let me just say that "it does not." Declaring fire (again, most units can only shoot at one target) means that you don't continually have to re-assess your shooting order after each unit makes its attack. Normally, if one's shoot at the most pressing threat first, if they kill it great, you move onto the next. If not, then maybe you'll decide which other unit will now shoot at it. And so on down the line - constantly re-evaulating based on the outcomes. With declared fire - you have to make a tactical choice of how much fire to dedicate to all possible targets. Overkilling something and wasting shots is as much a risk as under-shooting at something or banking on a lucky streak of die rolls. There is some tactics involved in how much you'll assign to what. You do this once, and then just roll out the results and see what happens. Much better IMHO.

 Strg Alt wrote:
It seems to me that GW is able to pull of to write good rules but rules of such quality will never again find it's way into 40K because GW wants to broaden the appeal of their main game to a MUCH wider audience which consists to a large degree of Little Timmy's eager to surprise each other with "Gotcha" cards like in MtG. Rip 40K.

Details changed throughout the editions, but if you think 40k was ever something else than a beer&pretzels game since 3rd, you are just lying to yourself. Stratagems are some of the few things that actually added a layer of tactical decisions to the game, which makes it arguably less targeted at a younger audience. The high price level for basically everything but discounted starter boxes should keep a lot of "Little Timmys" from starting as well.

a_typical_hero wrote:

 Strg Alt wrote:
It seems to me that GW is able to pull of to write good rules but rules of such quality will never again find it's way into 40K because GW wants to broaden the appeal of their main game to a MUCH wider audience which consists to a large degree of Little Timmy's eager to surprise each other with "Gotcha" cards like in MtG. Rip 40K.

Details changed throughout the editions, but if you think 40k was ever something else than a beer&pretzels game since 3rd, you are just lying to yourself. Stratagems are some of the few things that actually added a layer of tactical decisions to the game, which makes it arguably less targeted at a younger audience. The high price level for basically everything but discounted starter boxes should keep a lot of "Little Timmys" from starting as well.

I do somewhat agree with this. I started playing in 2nd edition when I was in middle school - having learned the game on my own and then teaching my friends at the time. I just skimmed the 2nd edition rulebook the other day. I think there is an element of "fidelity" to miniature games that when done right make the rules easier to process and absorb. What I mean by this is that, ideally, the rules reflect "what you see" when you look at the table in an intuitive manner and read the game state. The facing models, true line of sight, consistent action economy, use of cover, etc. are all things that play into a intuitive understanding of the game.

Further levels of abstraction make these intuitive connections weaker. And when you then start piling on mechanics and systems and decision spaces that aren't clearly represented by the physically of models on the board moving across terrain then it's a greater cognitive load to play the game. More things to think about about, remember, and plan for other than the physical arrangement of forces.

This isn't to say that 2nd edition wasn't without faults - it was terribly clunky in many ways and it did get bloated with dark millennium, strategy cards (precursor to stratagems?), etc. But we've moved to a place where core rules are increasingly abstracted (terrain, effects of failed morale tests, handling of vehicles) with added levels of complication on top of a more abstract base, and it's complicated. I've been trying to teach my nephew 9th edition and we're starting small - but it's a burden. We've fooled around with older editions and it's gone over better. But then he looks at his indomitus box set and laments that there aren't proper rules representing his Primaris marines. GW - look what you've done!

 Mezmorki wrote:

(1) Deep striking mishaps - if you get into a bad deep strike situation (land on impassible terrain, on-top of opponent's models, etc.) then your OPPONENT gets to setup your deep striking unit in a valid location within 12" of the original drop location. This mean's your unit is never wiped out entirely (which is a feelsbad moment) but you can still end up in a pretty precarious situation or well outside your intended drop zone.

Just to say, I very much like this idea.

 vipoid wrote:

 Mezmorki wrote:

(1) Deep striking mishaps - if you get into a bad deep strike situation (land on impassible terrain, on-top of opponent's models, etc.) then your OPPONENT gets to setup your deep striking unit in a valid location within 12" of the original drop location. This mean's your unit is never wiped out entirely (which is a feelsbad moment) but you can still end up in a pretty precarious situation or well outside your intended drop zone.

Just to say, I very much like this idea.

Given that it is their turn next I see this kind of going badly since they could put you somewhere that you see nothing to shoot and they can charge you next turn.

It's a step up from simply losing the unit, but I am not sure it'd make that kind of deepstrike palatable.

If it was AA it'd be pretty cool.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

 Mezmorki wrote:

(1) Deep striking mishaps - if you get into a bad deep strike situation (land on impassible terrain, on-top of opponent's models, etc.) then your OPPONENT gets to setup your deep striking unit in a valid location within 12" of the original drop location. This mean's your unit is never wiped out entirely (which is a feelsbad moment) but you can still end up in a pretty precarious situation or well outside your intended drop zone.

Just to say, I very much like this idea.

Given that it is their turn next I see this kind of going badly since they could put you somewhere that you see nothing to shoot and they can charge you next turn.

It's a step up from simply losing the unit, but I am not sure it'd make that kind of deepstrike palatable.

If it was AA it'd be pretty cool.

If you Deep Strike a squad of Raptors and mishap, yeah, they'll go poof. 3+ is good, but T4 W1 is not.

If you Deep Strike a squad of Terminators and mishap, they'll be less effective. But they'll be an absolute pain the tuckus to remove-T4 isn't the best, but 2+/5++ W3 is great.

It's definitely better than them just dying outright.

 Mezmorki wrote:

Moreover, I think estimating ranges IS a skill to be rewarded in the game. Estimating movement and whether you might be in range or not, and whether you're willing to take a risk by (for example) leaving cover to get closer to the target and not knowing the exact range is great IMHO. And so much more fluid than meticulously pre-measuring everything out all the time.

At least as much as having hands is a skill, I guess. Spatial awareness isn't really a skill, coming as somebody with almost a complete lack of that and depth perception (both of which are key abilities when it comes to pre-measuring). It's an ability that you can hone, but it's certainly not a skill. I'll never have the ability to estimate ranges, no matter how hard I try.

edit: besides, you can cheat "no premeasuring" in so many ways it's basically a non-factor.

No premeasuring would be good in an enviroment that wasn't as easy to cheat it as in warhammer.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:
... nostalgia glasses...

Cool. I think we're done here.

And I didn't play 4th, so, really, what are you arguing against? Certainly nothing I said...

You're not the only person in the thread, do you expect me to keep track of every poster's flavour of nostalgia? I am sorry if I offended you or your favourite edition by assuming it was 4th, last time I assumed it was 5th that person got offended because "4th is betterer" or something. Thinking that a Monolith getting stuck on the lip of a crater or bush is fine, but the Monolith getting to shoot despite its guns not being able to point at the target is nostalgia glasses, you cannot say that one is STUPIDD!D!! and the other is totally realistic if you view it as an abstraction of blablabla. The preference is arbitrary and the justification is something made up after the decision that one is stupid and one is fine has already been made, not part of a careful analysis of why game rules should be one way or another.

I get the impression that you posted something at me, but I don't understand your argument here and I wasn't reading the other argument (since it wasn't about anything I felt like I needed to pay attention to).

Yeah, it was probably you, we all like one previous edition more than others, you'd have to be tasteless to like them all equally or like 6th the best

Rihgu wrote:

 Mezmorki wrote:

Moreover, I think estimating ranges IS a skill to be rewarded in the game. Estimating movement and whether you might be in range or not, and whether you're willing to take a risk by (for example) leaving cover to get closer to the target and not knowing the exact range is great IMHO. And so much more fluid than meticulously pre-measuring everything out all the time.

At least as much as having hands is a skill, I guess. Spatial awareness isn't really a skill, coming as somebody with almost a complete lack of that and depth perception (both of which are key abilities when it comes to pre-measuring). It's an ability that you can hone, but it's certainly not a skill. I'll never have the ability to estimate ranges, no matter how hard I try.

edit: besides, you can cheat "no premeasuring" in so many ways it's basically a non-factor.

Cheating it is the skill, that's how I was taught, the real pros measured the length of their forearms to "get good", easier said than done when you're a boy in a growth spurt and not a longbeard /sarcasm. Being able to pre-measure with random distance disinvites problems, agreeing to the distance needed is so much easier when neither player knows the exact distance needed, it invites good sportsmanship, where guess ranges invites bad sportsmanship.

 Galas wrote:
No premeasuring would be good in an enviroment that wasn't as easy to cheat it as in warhammer.

'No premeasure' is also a thing that I dislike. It's so easily gamed by knowing standard lengths of terrain, vehicles, no mans land, etc and then paying attention to how much they move and where their guns range out to.

 vict0988 wrote:

Rihgu wrote:

 Mezmorki wrote:

Moreover, I think estimating ranges IS a skill to be rewarded in the game. Estimating movement and whether you might be in range or not, and whether you're willing to take a risk by (for example) leaving cover to get closer to the target and not knowing the exact range is great IMHO. And so much more fluid than meticulously pre-measuring everything out all the time.

At least as much as having hands is a skill, I guess. Spatial awareness isn't really a skill, coming as somebody with almost a complete lack of that and depth perception (both of which are key abilities when it comes to pre-measuring). It's an ability that you can hone, but it's certainly not a skill. I'll never have the ability to estimate ranges, no matter how hard I try.

edit: besides, you can cheat "no premeasuring" in so many ways it's basically a non-factor.

Cheating it is the skill, that's how I was taught, the real pros measured the length of their forearms to "get good", easier said than done when you're a boy in a growth spurt and not a longbeard /sarcasm. Being able to pre-measure with random distance disinvites problems, agreeing to the distance needed is so much easier when neither player knows the exact distance needed, it invites good sportsmanship, where guess ranges invites bad sportsmanship.

Even beyond that, it can be simple things that aren't technically cheating. If you bring psykers, you get to measure things before the shooting phase. You can shoot with long range units before the short range units. Granted, that one is still unavailable to me as I wouldn't be able to figure out the ranges between the two units, but there are still ordering "tricks" you can do that are not only within the rules but necessary to do. It's not like I can somehow forget that the lascannons in my devastator unit were 20" away so the tactical marines in the unit right next to them are definitely within bolter range...

Measuring distances by eyeballing it is a skill.

It is not a skill I personally think should be needed for 40k. Your mileage may vary. You can discuss pros and cons to it, but ultimately, it's not the kind of thing that has an objective answer. It's taste and opinion.

I've never minded pre-measuring in 40k, just because it's such an awkward game without it, when you have to worry about precise distances between a hundred different models by eyeball. No-premeasuring makes sense to me in X-Wing or Armada where there are relatively few game pieces to worry about, eyeballing fire arcs is a major part of the game, and you can opt to play lists that care less about precise distances, but in bigger games with fewer movement restrictions it just slows things down unnecessarily.

I've always felt that the morale phase in 8/9th sucks. Lose models for losing models is lame.

Like if you fail the morale check, you should be forced to immediately fallback d3 inches away from nearest enemy or towatds nearest board edge.

Or next shooting phase all ranges for shooting weapons are halved or -1 to hit rolls and cannot benefit from aura abilities.

The old morale system was one of the more tactically interesting systems in 40k. I don't think it's a coincidence it got taken out and replaced with a simple "lose X more models" system.

40k is a wide and shallow rules system, and it's become progressively wider and shallower over the years. That's probably not by accident.

No pre-measuring is a sloppy way to introduce uncertainty to otherwise deterministic mechanics (I'll put myself exactly 6.01" beyond your max range, gg). I particularly dislike when it manifests as guess weapons, because it shows that the developers don't know what they're trying to simulate- I'm the general, not an artillerist.

It always felt barely a step removed from the old games where you'd set up silhouettes and shoot them with a BB gun to determine how effective your shooting was. Good riddance to mechanics like that.

If knowing precise distances causes a negative play experience, that points to greater issues of the mechanics being overly deterministic. I'd rather see randomness come from dice than from my ability to guess distances.

catbarf wrote:No pre-measuring is a sloppy way to introduce uncertainty to otherwise deterministic mechanics (I'll put myself exactly 6.01" beyond your max range, gg). I particularly dislike when it manifests as guess weapons, because it shows that the developers don't know what they're trying to simulate- I'm the general, not an artillerist.

It always felt barely a step removed from the old Kriegsspiel idea of setting up silhouettes and shooting them with a BB gun to determine how effective your shooting was. Good riddance to mechanics like that.

Reisswitz's Kriegspiel from 1824 used dice with weighted results based on field experience precisely to add randomness inherent in warfare that is beyond the general's control after orders are given. What tosh are you referring to, H. G. Wells' Little Wars (the explicitly different branch of game design that spawned more gamelike products hundred years later) and its spring loaded cannons? Completely different trains of thought there.

yukishiro1 wrote:The old morale system was one of the more tactically interesting systems in 40k. I don't think it's a coincidence it got taken out and replaced with a simple "lose X more models" system.

As well as one that added even more barely meaningful shuffling of models around the table. If you had to pick up the same unit multiple times during the turn (moving, running instead of shooting, assaulting, combat maneuver trickery, potential fall backs...), that tends to get frustrating when the game design purports to support having 100+ models per side in a normal game (it doesn't). Moving back and forth, mostly on autopilot without player input when things go awry, can feel like wasted time for many. In the context of the rest of the rules (streamlined vehicle explosions, direct player control with stratagems etc.), such a subsystem would feel off in the modern version of 40k. There are plenty of interesting morale systems out there, but simply picking one that worked adequately in its original environment would not be an especially good answer to making friction matter more in this other game.

 Sherrypie wrote:
Reisswitz's Kriegspiel from 1824 used dice with weighted results based on field experience precisely to add randomness inherent in warfare that is beyond the general's control after orders are given. What tosh are you referring to, H. G. Wells' Little Wars (the explicitly different branch of game design that spawned more gamelike products hundred years later) and its spring loaded cannons? Completely different trains of thought there.

Yes, edited accordingly. I misremembered and that wasn't fair to Reisswitz. I didn't have Little Wars specifically in mind but there were many 'wargames' in the early-1900s with similar ideas. I've seen that implemented as late as Seekrieg, a rivet-countingly complicated wargame and yet one method of combat resolution has you shoot a BB gun at a silhouette of the target vessel to determine which bulkhead is hit.

While Kriegsspiel was meant as a training tool rather than an entertainment product, some degree of friction is still needed to add uncertainty. Lack of pre-measuring is just a very crude way to do it, offloading the source of friction from the game mechanics and basing it on a player's presumed imperfect skill at guessing ranges.

 catbarf wrote:
I've seen that implemented as late as Seekrieg, a rivet-countingly complicated wargame and yet one method of combat resolution has you shoot a BB gun at a silhouette of the target vessel to determine which bulkhead is hit.

Ha, that's an interesting mismatch of ideas. All the trouble of rivet-counting simulation with the excitement of the tactile randomising act without any bearing on the fictional positioning, I can already smell the harmony of these elements

I'm all for people liking the current gameplay - but for people that never played the older editions, I wonder whether they'd like it more or not.

As someone who started a year or two before third edition was released I do prefer the current edition much more. Mostly because I just find it more engaging and interesting than the older editions personally. Sure, some of the out-there hijinks are gone, but those moments made amusing fun stories after, but not during, a game. If anything they were just a negative experience for one side during a game as it ruined their day. For the record these things still happen, just not as egregiously as before.

The arguments about "adding time" to the game are a distraction IMHO. Stratagems, CP management, more prolific re-rolling, and premeasuring all substantially more time to the game IMHO.

I agree that prolific rerolling is a time waster and something I would see less of rather than more. The changes done for example in AoS 3.0 pleased me bunch as a lot of rerolls appeared to be turned into +1 to hit/wound.

Stratagems and CP management only slow down if you are new to the army, but if you are experienced with the army they just become second nature. To be fair I tend to play quite a few games with some overly competitive individuals as well as casuals and the difference in time being played is substantially different. A game with a casual can easily take 4+ hours where as with one of the competitive players it can be around 2 hours, and not because one player is tabling the other. When people know the strengths and weaknesses of their armies intimately they rarely second guess every move, something I find casuals tend to do more of. Also, before anyone asks, I categorize myself as a Daywalker: I enjoy casual a lot(currently in a Crusade campaign), but can put on my tournament hat and do business when I find the mood.

Personally I am not against terrain having more rules, but I don't think randomness is the solution as the old "roll 1 and something bad happens" is just a feel bad moment that just ruins the game for most people on the receiving end. It is something I categorize based off my experience and my opponents as a very negative player experience that did not improve the game. Those feel bad moments also hit casual players much harder in my experience than tournament players, often turning them somewhat bitter at the game. Something that I'd imagine is not good for the health of the game.

Has the game really gotten that much shorter since 4th? I'd argue not. Furthermore, time is just time - it can (and should) be managed by the points level the players are playing. Time is only undesirable if it's time wasted/being bored, and if the game is fun, then I'm not wasting my time or being bored with it, regardless of the specific mechanics at play.

For me the game is much shorter than it was in previous editions. Also, I found a lot of the old randomness to be a negative player experience which I find boring so...

For your last point, as Mezomorki points out, "fun" is subjective. Sometimes, a player may want the wargame to be a WARgame, where the contest of wits in the military mileu with Clausewitzian friction and fog-of-war is rather the point.

I think the ultimate point is that what people view as a "wargame" is very subjective. Warhammer 40k 9th edition is very much a wargame to me even if you believe otherwise.