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chaos0xomega wrote:
Why is that a problem? Where is the problem?

Because the complaint is that a blast weapon does less damage if thirty guys in a room are five squads on paper instead of one, and for all your paragraphs upon paragraphs of arguing for your purported solution, your proposal has the same issue, just reversed.

So if your solution isn't actually fixing the problem, there's no point.

 catbarf wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
Why is that a problem? Where is the problem?

Because the complaint is that a blast weapon does less damage if thirty guys in a room are five squads on paper instead of one, and for all your paragraphs upon paragraphs of arguing for your purported solution, your proposal has the same issue.

So if your solution isn't actually fixing the problem, there's no point.

#BringBackTemplates2022

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
The problem lies in the way blast effects actually work vs the way you suggest they work.
Doing hits to units NEAR the target unit is completely unrealistic when the target unit is half the board size

Except it is realistic. I thought you served?? You should be well aware that both the blast from a 155mm howitzer and a 500lb JDAM can conceivably kill you in the open from more than 2 football fields away, and a typical 80-120mm mortar round from about half that distance. In game terms, both these areas are larger than a 6x4 table, ergo its perfectly realistic. And also wholly fething irrelevant. Because I doubt more than 10-20% of the players on dakka ever bother to field units larger than 10 models - if gakky corner case scenarios interfere with implementation of reasonable game mechanics, you change the gakky corner case scenario (I.E. get rid of the possibility of fielding 30 man units).

If you're concerned because the blast area of certain weapons shouldn't cover such a large potential area because 10% of the playerbase sometimes fields a very large unit of infantry, well guess what we can address that by simply limiting the weapons blast based on unit size:

"If the target unit has 6 models or less, this weapon does d3-1 attacks to the closest unit within 2" of the target unit."

Voila, no more 30 man unit chicken-littling. This may come as a shock to you, but weapons that would produce extremely small blast areas could even be limited further simply by not giving them this rule! Likewise weapons more powerful can have these parameters set differently to produce bigger badabooms.

- conversely, doing hits to ONLY the target is unrealistic when many small targets are packed together.

Exactly. Ergo we need to pick one or the other, if everyone is complaining about *this*, then my proposal allows for an alternative.
You cannot have your cake and eat it too. If you are unhappy with the current status quo and you are unhappy with the proposed fix, then there isn't really a solution to the problem and theres no sense in even complaining about it - go play a different game.

Administrative concerns like "how many units are in the area" and "how many men are in each unit" shouldn't have ANY impact on the efficacy of blast weapons.

Its a game bruh, and the game already does exactly that, not just with blast and flame weapons but with regular weapons. If you put down a squad of 5 red infantry and a squad of 5 blue infantry and interlace them (i.e. like a checkerboard) on the table, and your opponent shoots at the red squad with rifles and machine guns - guess what? Your rifles and machine guns will end up only killing the red guys, even though there are blue guys next to, in front, and behind the red guys, as if it were magic. Why? Administrative concerns. You shot the red squad, not the blue squad. If you put 5 red guys down on the table, and put 5 blue guys down behind them, and you shot at the blue guys with rifles and machine guns, guess what? Red guys wouldn't get hit at all, even though the rounds physically passed through them on the way to the blue guys. Why? Administrative concerns.

Chain of Command, which I know you're a fan of, essentially solved this situation in the exact same way I proposed using administrative concerns by spreading hits from one TEAM (i.e. unit, aka administrative concern) to other teams within a close same area. Literally the exact situation that you are now attempting to argue against - the only real difference is that chain of command teams top out at something like 5-6 models so you don't have to worry about what happens with a 30 man unit, but as I just illustrated, theres a really simple fix for that.

And your argument also kinda falls flat, a blast weapon is an area saturation weapon, the more bodies saturating a given area the more effective they become. In that sense, yes "how many units in the area" and "how many men in the unit" DO AND SHOULD hae an impact on their efficacy. Theres a reason why when blast weapons used templates players would primarily prioritize placement of the template in such a way as to maximize the number of models under the template, in my own experience this usually meant putting down the template in a place where there was not just a high density of models but also a high density of units, because the more units present in an area, and the more models in each unit, the more effective the weapon would be - whether that meant removing a large amount of models in the best case scenario or simply scattering over a cluster of different models in the worst case. On the flip side, putting the template over a unit of 1 model that was 12" removed from the next closest unit meant that even a slight scattering of the template would render the shot a complete waste as nothing would be caught under the template, whereas the best case scenario only gave you a single hit because there was only a single model in the unit.

In short, even blast templates have this problem. These are the same exact considerations you are saying shouldn't matter, and yet they clearly do. The major difference here is that the current structure of the rules, as well as my proposal, take the automated luxury gay space communism approach of using RNG to streamline the process and crunch the numbers under the hood to determine what gets hit and how many hits are taken instead of putting you through the tedium of trying to figure out the optimal template placement to get the same/similar results. You're more accepting of the same issues you're complaining about with templates because its a less abstracted representation of them that you are able to overlook (either consciously or subconsciously), .

The thing that SHOULD impact the efficacy of blast weapons is the number of MODELS near the target area - at least in a game like 40k where individual model position is very important and not abstracted. There is no interaction with UNITS whatsoever. Trying to force them to interact with units rather than models leads to incredibly clumsy situations that are illogical from both a design and realism perspective.

Individual model position in 40k is arbitrarily important and almost entirely abstracted. The mechanics are designed to make it seem like it matters, but its a largely illusory importance that crumbles in the face of objective analysis. You can position your models in terrain all you like, but for the most part its the terrain keywords rather than the models position which determines whether or not the model gets a cover save. When dealing with a unit shooting at another unit, individual model positions don't matter because line of sight and determinations of cover, etc. are made in aggregate of every model in the attacking unit relative to every model in the target unit - ultimately if you can see every model in a unit you can kill every model in the unit, even if one particular model in the attacking unit can't see one particular model in the defending unit because both are obscured from eachother by terrain. When you're fighting in close combat, matters of engagement range are also handled in aggregate. Sure you have to check if each model in the unit is close enough to attack, but ultimately an attack generated by a model that is barely within engagement range of the target unit can kill a model more than 6-12" away, well outside of the range of its sword or bayonet or combat knife, if the unit it is fighting is sufficiently spread out - if you don't call that an abstraction of a models position then I don't think you actually understand what abstraction means, likewise, if you don't consider that to be clumsy, illogical, and unrealistic then you're full of gak. Everything in 40k primarily revolves around units, no matter how many arbitrary and unnecessary layers of "individual model" type rules they try to stack on top of it to obfuscate the fact.

If you want a game where individual model position matters, or hell individual models matter at all, play warmachine, thats what a game with non-abstract positional play *actually* looks like. Contrast that with 40k, the differences between the two should be immediately obvious:

-In 40k, when you move, you move UNITS (its literally the name of the 1st step of the movement phase). If one model in the unit moves they are all considered to have moved, even if some models remained in place.

In Warmachine, while you activate the unit together, the MODELS move individually, and a MODEL which did not move is considered to have remained stationary.

-In 40k, when you shoot, you select a UNIT from your army to shoot with, and you select a target UNIT for each model in the unit to shoot at. If at least one model in the target UNIT is in range and line of sight of any of the attacking models, then the attacks can kill any model in the target UNIT, even those which are out of range and line of sight from the attacker.

In Warmachine, while you activate the unit together, the MODELS attack individually, and each MODEL in the activating unit can target any MODEL that is within range and line of sight regardless of what the other MODELS in the activating unit do or what unit the target MODEL is in.

-In 40k, when you charge and fight in melee, you select a UNIT to charge/attack and a target UNIT for them to charge at and fight with. The entire Unit is considered to have charged and every model in the unit gets the corresponding benefits of doing so. When it comes to the fight phase, you select a UNIT to fight with, and base the attacks that unit generates off of engagement range, which means models within 1" of an enemy model, or a model within 1/2" of another model in the SAME UNIT which is within 1/2" of an enemy model. The attacks generated can then inflict damage against any model in the TARGET UNIT, regardless of whether or not it is in engagement range of the model which generated the attacks, or indeed within engagement range of any of the models in the attacking unit. While one model in the UNIT is engagement range of an enemy model, the entire UNIT is considered to be in engagement range and locked in combat with the enemy UNIT, and models in the UNIT may not make ranged attacks in the shooting phase (certain exceptions notwithstanding), even if that model is not itself in engagement range of an enemy model, with the exception of pistol weapons which may only target the UNIT with which the attacking models UNIT is locked in combat with.

In Warmachine, while you activate the unit together, and declare a charge for the unit as a whole, each MODEL in the unit may choose an individual target MODEL for their charge regardless of what unit it may belong to (or may instead opt to run). Only those individual MODELS which moved 3" or more as part of their charge move will gain the corresponding benefits of having charged, while those individual MODELS which opted to run may not attack whatsoever. When it comes to fighting, each individual MODEL in the activating unit may target any MODEL within their engagement range (which means within range of the melee weapon that specific MODEL is equipped with) - you don't get to attack because you're next to another model in the same unit thats in base contact with an enemy - and those attacks may only inflict damage on the MODEL which they are attacking (barring certain special rules and abilities which allow damage to transfer to another model). And if the activating unit did not receive a charge order during their activation, those MODELS not in engagement range of an enemy MODEL may make ranged attacks targeting any MODEL within range and line of sight, even if other MODELS in the activating unit are in engagement range and making melee attacks instead.

I could go on and on and on with examples of what makes 40k unit focused and Warmachine model focused and what the distinctions between such concepts are.

 catbarf wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
Why is that a problem? Where is the problem?

Because the complaint is that a blast weapon does less damage if thirty guys in a room are five squads on paper instead of one, and for all your paragraphs upon paragraphs of arguing for your purported solution, your proposal has the same issue, just reversed.
So if your solution isn't actually fixing the problem, there's no point.

If 30 guys in a room are 5 squads instead of 1, then under the current rules you would have 1-6 attacks and -at most- kill 5 guys.

With my solution, if 30 guys in a room are 5 squads instead of 1, then depending on how you configure the ability sentence for the weapon in question you could cause anywhere from 1 to however many attacks and could theoretically kill all 30 guys.

Sounds like a solution which does fix the problem to me, and I'm not seeing how my proposal has the same issue but reversed - if you bothered to go through my "paragraphs upon paragraphs" you will see that I threw out a number of ways to address 30 models in a single unit, including changing "Blast" to mean that you add an extra d6 or whatever for every 10 models in the target unit above (i.e. +1D6 for 11-20 models in target unit, +2D6 for 21-30 models, etc.) - but you will ALSO find an explanation of the existing logic behind the blast rules as it stands and the underlying assumptions below it and why you may not want a blast weapon to inflict more hits on a unit of 30 models than it will on a smaller unit. Pick your poison, basically.

#BringBackTemplates2022

No.

#BringBackTemplates2022
Yes.

There was no good reason to remove them in the first place.

There absolutely was a good reason to remove them. They fething sucked, slowed down the game, resulted in increased subjectivity in terms of the generation of results (didn't notice that one of the models was just inside the template? oh well, you missed out on rolling an extra hit you were entitled to), resulted in increased arguments as a result of said subjectivity ("no, that guy is just outside of the template, steady your hand and stop moving it around and you'll see"), and increasingly became more and more troublesome to read as models and terrain became larger/more ornate and forced you to hold the template ever higher from the objects that you were trying to hit with it, thus making it ever more unreliable, subjective, and argument prone.

No they did not, and thats such a bad faith argument to say that.

The fact of the matter is, the rule was never an issue, and saying they removed it to remove arguments is just an excuse for wanting to dumb the rules down.
It was never problem with the rule, its a problem with the players.
Argumentative players will always argue over a rule. Every group i have played with across multiple states and events all did the same thing, we never had issues over templates save for the repeat offenders who always argued over something, Always rolled the scatter die way away from the blast always argued over something being under or not under it.

Guess what happened when templates were removed? These same people argued over them, now just argued other things in the game.

the BRB even had a foot note on this, if the model was partial under and you could not agree if it was or was not "Partialy under" you rolled a die. Every blast encouter i had was "I got 5 under here do you are agree?" "Uhhhhh is that one under looks like like its just outside?" "Yeah your right ok 4 hits"

It was not a problem with the rule, it was, and always will be, a problem with the player themselves.

RE: your long-winded post about unit vs model and how model position doesn't matter

Tell me how many attacks are rolled when a unit of 17 Daemonettes is within 1" of a unit of 30 Orks without ever once considering the positions of any models.

Tell me when a unit is within but not wholly within an aura from a character without knowing the positions of any of its models.

Tell me how many Guardsmen from a unit of 10 can shoot at a Chaos Space Marine unit when the units are 24" apart without considering the positions of any models.

Tell me how many models from a 20 man unit are within 3" of an objective without consulting the positions of any models in the unit.

Nah nah, it was absolutely a problem with the rule, or rather the entire process and system because it extended well beyond the confines of a single rule. Its nice of you to focus on the argumentation part as though its the only issue and completely ignore the parts about the process slowing down the game and the subjectivity behind the system in terms of reading the results of the template (this isn't an argumentation issue, this is an issue with how easy it was to shortchange yourself or your opponent by misjudging the templates placement relative to the minis).

But thank you for reminding me about the parallax error involved in the scatter angles (sorry, you can't always roll the scatter die near the template and I don't want you to go mini-bowling on my models with your dice, sometimes theres too many minis in the vicinity and the closest you're getting the die is 18" away)! That was awful too!

BTW, if you want to talk about bad faith arguments, its "saying they removed it to remove arguments is just an excuse for wanting to dumb the rules down". In general its good game design to remove things which result in arguments which slow down play and which are subject o high degrees of subjectivity in interpretation of results. The exception to this is in role playing games where subjectivity is subject to the arbitration of an impartial third party (i.e. the GM).

Also, "roll a dice to settle the argument" isn't really the panacea you think it is. If an argumentative player is going to argue over the subjectivity of the template placement, etc. then they are also going to argue over the validity of using a dice roll to settle the dispute - see it happen more than once "no, 4-upping this is bs, I know I'm right and you're wrong."

It is possible to have templates without scatter. 4th accomplished it for 90% of the blast weapons in the game.

The argument about scatter has almost nothing to do with the argument about the reasonableness of blast. Scatter is just a goalpost move.

"Templates were bad"
"Not so much, they were the only sensible way to do things."
"Oh yeah? Well what about SCATTER, HUH? didn't that suck!"

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
It is possible to have templates without scatter. 4th accomplished it for 90% of the blast weapons in the game.

What did 4th used to do?

 Backspacehacker wrote:
#BringBackTemplates2022
Yes.

There was no good reason to remove them in the first place.

Avoiding the Argument Phase, even if you jettison the other reasons given so far. A dice roll is inarguable. "No it's pointing more that way" <moves it to a more/less advantageous spot> all that got thrown in the bin and I'm glad.

Regardless, there's no sign of templates being brought back into 40K so this is just another noise thread full of hot air.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
RE: your long-winded post about unit vs model and how model position doesn't matter

Tell me how many attacks are rolled when a unit of 17 Daemonettes is within 1" of a unit of 30 Orks without ever once considering the positions of any models.

Tell me when a unit is within but not wholly within an aura from a character without knowing the positions of any of its models.

Tell me how many Guardsmen from a unit of 10 can shoot at a Chaos Space Marine unit when the units are 24" apart without considering the positions of any models.

Tell me how many models from a 20 man unit are within 3" of an objective without consulting the positions of any models in the unit.

This does not prove that the basis of maneuver of the game is the model as opposed to the unit, only that the rules are unnecessarily illogical and clumsy by not consistently using a unit as the default reference point for mechanical interactions and complicating it by trying to keep models otherwise relevant to complete elements of the gameplay loop.

If I have 17 Daemonettes on the table and you have 30 Orks on the table and some of these models are within 1" of one another, tell me how many attacks are rolled in combat and which attacks are allocated against which models without knowing how many units there are or which models belong to which units.

If I have a character model with an aura and a number of other models seeking to benefit from it, tell me which ones are eligible to benefit from it without knowing how many units there are or which models belong to which units.

If I have 10 Guardsmen on the tabel and you have some Chaos Space Marines, tell me which Chaos Space Marines are eligible to suffer damage without knowing how many units there are are or which models belong to which units.

If I have 20 models on the table and some of them are within 3" of an objective, tell me how do you determine how the objective is being controlled or contested without knowing how many units there are or which models belong to which unit.

Tell me how the game functions at all once you've removed the concept of units from the game mechanics and rely only on models as the basis for gameplay. You can't, because the rules are written to primarily simulate the interactions of UNITS rather than models. You couldn't even deploy on the table without defining a model as being part of a unit, let alone maneuver them in such a way as daemonettes are within fighting distance of orks, or models within aura distance of a character, or chaos marines within shooting distance of guardsman, or models within objective secured distance of an objective, etc.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
It is possible to have templates without scatter. 4th accomplished it for 90% of the blast weapons in the game.

Err, no? Every weapon which used the small or large blast template (and even a rare few which used the flame template) had the potential to scatter in 4th. I think you may be misremembering your editions.

The argument about scatter has almost nothing to do with the argument about the reasonableness of blast. Scatter is just a goalpost move.
"Templates were bad"
"Not so much, they were the only sensible way to do things."
"Oh yeah? Well what about SCATTER, HUH? didn't that suck!"

Not sure what it is you're trying to say here, as far as I am concerned any discussion about the templates at all here is a goalpost move because its a dead and buried concept no longer relevant to the game mechanics as they exist today and would require a much more dramtic change to the rules than simply inserting a sentence and potentially slightly editing a few existing rules. Templates were certainly far from sensible, and the critique about issues with the scatter process, alongside every other aspect of the process and system underlying them, is certainly a valid point of critique in demonstrating how they were far from sensible. Hell, the arguments I've given in my past couple posts aren't even the full body of the problems with them, if you dig back you will find others, such as how unrealistic it is to assume that the effects of a blast have a hard stop at the edge of the template as opposed to a gradual degradtion of efects, or that all models caught under the template would suffer equal effects of the blast, or that they encouraged tedium and unnecesasry fiddiliness by incentivizing players to maximally spread their models over as wide of an area as possible (and any player who didn't do so was playing at a disadvantage), or that they assumed that each model under the template would only get hit by a single potential wound-causing effect (fun fact - about 42% of your body is lethally vulnerable to shrapnel) and thereby put blast weapons at a disadvantage when targeting smaller administrative organizations, or that a blast area is even circular to begin with, etc.

4th (which I am playing with friends literally in the current time) only scatters on Barrage and Ordnance weapons. All other blasts are only placed over the target unit after a hit roll succeeds, and if it doesn't succeed then the blast just misses. Sorry, but you are objectively wrong on this fact and can back it up with rulebook images from the 4e rulebook.

And yes the 40k rules are illogically written, that is the point of the debate.

Bringing templates back is the smallest way to fix this illogic - to make the unit the ONLY THING THAT MATTERED and make model position completely irrelevant would require a rewriting of the rules.

 JohnnyHell wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:
#BringBackTemplates2022
Yes.

There was no good reason to remove them in the first place.

Avoiding the Argument Phase, even if you jettison the other reasons given so far. A dice roll is inarguable. "No it's pointing more that way" <moves it to a more/less advantageous spot> all that got thrown in the bin and I'm glad.

Regardless, there's no sign of templates being brought back into 40K so this is just another noise thread full of hot air.

hardly noise. I've gotten better feedback in this thread than I have in over a dozen playtest games. Mainly playing with meta competitive players, overwhelmingly positive feedback as it adds a lot towards tactical maneuver largest units ive seen were 20- man units, no issues from blanketing too much of the table because theres no real need to spread minis out as much as some people say, 9" exclusion zones are bigger than people realize and unless maybe you're playing a mainly cc army the smaller table size means youre usually still going to have a good number of units in your backfield cutting off deep strike shenanigans (though maybe some of the GSC ambush stuff may change that). Im not convinced 30 man blobs are a serious issue but ill incorporate some tweaks and see how it fares, probably will skip mods to address the "30 men in 1 unit" issue as thats largely an imaginary problem born of pedantry.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
4th (which I am playing with friends literally in the current time) only scatters on Barrage and Ordnance weapons. All other blasts are only placed over the target unit after a hit roll succeeds, and if it doesn't succeed then the blast just misses. Sorry, but you are objectively wrong on this fact and can back it up with rulebook images from the 4e rulebook.

Forgive me for not having touched 4th in over a decade. zmy recollection was that most round tenplate weapons in the game had ordnance or barrage at the time. The only one I can think of that didnt was the Railheads Submunition round which was all or nothing as you described.

And yes the 40k rules are illogically written, that is the point of the debate.

Bringing templates back is the smallest way to fix this illogic - to make the unit the ONLY THING THAT MATTERED and make model position completely irrelevant would require a rewriting of the rules.

Templates would require a pretty substantial rewrite of the rules to work, and it doesn't "fix the illogic" it just shifts it somewhere else while inserting increased subjectivity into gameplay which is objectovely a bad thing as well as a heightened sour e of frustration for players. Nein danke, I hope your rose-tinted nostalgia-fueled regressivism stays out of the game design philosophy and more games move away from templates. Ill be happy to see Bolt Action undo the mistake they made and removing templates from Warmachine Mk4 is top of my wishlist.

Scattering every template was one of the reasons people hated blast markers. It slowed everything down so unnecessarily. Why they went away from place template/roll to hit/multiply hits by amount of blast markers/wound/saves/remove casualties I will never understand. It was so simple.

On the other hand, there are those people who would measure out max coherency for all their models every turn to minimise the potential damage from blast markers. I'd argue those types of people were worse than the scattering issue.

I've faced people like that. It's anti-fun.

As i said, there was never an issue with template, was not even an issue with scatter, the rules worked, they worked fine, and they worked as fast as you could count models.

The problem always lied in the fact that argumenative players would find ways to argue about a rule every single time.

Templates were the best way to represent a blast in the game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Scattering every template was one of the reasons people hated blast markers. It slowed everything down so unnecessarily. Why they went away from place template/roll to hit/multiply hits by amount of blast markers/wound/saves/remove casualties I will never understand. It was so simple.

On the other hand, there are those people who would measure out max coherency for all their models every turn to minimise the potential damage from blast markers. I'd argue those types of people were worse than the scattering issue.

I've faced people like that. It's anti-fun.

And this is my point, you will always find people who will do things like this. This is not a problem with the rules, this is a problem with the players. The players that did this kinda thing were the same people who would argue over blast templates and what was and was not under it, and the same people who would argue about scatter.

Scatter dice were none issue if players rolled it right next to where they were trying to hit.

Here is a list of the weapons in my 4th edition armies (all 3 of them) that are blast without scattering:
Missile Launchers
Plasma Cannons
Grenade Launchers
Phlegm (as fired by the mawcannon)
Aeldari missile launcher
Fire Prism main cannon, both firing variants

Here is a list of the Ordnance and Barrage blast weapons (which only ever scattered 1d6 in 4th, so the distance was shorter):
Demolisher Cannon
Mortars

90% of blast weapons in 4th were not Ordnance or Barrage, with the great exception being Imperial Guard (something something army uniqueness)

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Here is a list of the weapons in my 4th edition armies (all 3 of them) that are blast without scattering:
Missile Launchers
Plasma Cannons
Grenade Launchers
Phlegm (as fired by the mawcannon)
Aeldari missile launcher
Fire Prism main cannon, both firing variants

Here is a list of the Ordnance and Barrage blast weapons (which only ever scattered 1d6 in 4th, so the distance was shorter):
Demolisher Cannon
Mortars

90% of blast weapons in 4th were not Ordnance or Barrage, with the great exception being Imperial Guard (something something army uniqueness)

I cant speak for the edlar weapons, but i noticed taht a lot of the waepons that did not scatter are small blast tempaltes, which, was one of the worst things about later editiosn is the scattering of small blast.

Phlegm and the dispersed Fire Prism mode were large blast but not Ordnance or Barrage.

chaos0xomega wrote:
You cannot have your cake and eat it too. If you are unhappy with the current status quo and you are unhappy with the proposed fix, then there isn't really a solution to the problem and theres no sense in even complaining about it - go play a different game.

Do you hear that, Unit? If his suggestion isn't good enough for you, then obviously you are impossible to please.

chaos0xomega wrote:
If 30 guys in a room are 5 squads instead of 1, then under the current rules you would have 1-6 attacks and -at most- kill 5 guys.

With my solution, if 30 guys in a room are 5 squads instead of 1, then depending on how you configure the ability sentence for the weapon in question you could cause anywhere from 1 to however many attacks and could theoretically kill all 30 guys.

Sounds like a solution which does fix the problem to me, and I'm not seeing how my proposal has the same issue but reversed

Current state is if you shoot a unit of 30 you get flat 6 shots, and if you shoot one of 6 units of 5 you get D6 shots.

Your system is if you shoot a unit of 30 you get flat 6 shots, and if you shoot one of 6 units of 5 you get D6 shots plus D3 additional units hit for D6-1 hits apiece. Except that isn't fixing the problem at all. So you then suggest we patch in another rule that says if we shoot a squad of 21-30, we get 3D6 shots. Except now we're doing 3D6 shots to one big unit or D6 shots plus (1-3)(D6-1) bonus hits to nearby units, and the two cases still don't produce the same outcome.

You keep making it more complex without actually fixing the problem, and then writing at length about how we shouldn't see it as a problem to begin with.

Eventually you just get to the point of
"Hey what if we just brought templates back"
Every single time, a discussion or idea about how to make, and how to represent blasts always comes full circle to. We really should just bring back templates.

There are tons of things in the game (auras, engagement range, etc) that are based on units being with X" of a particular model.

Easiest approach to blast weapons is just to say for blast weapons that you roll to hit once. If you hit, pick a model in the target unit and every model within X" inches of it causes a wound on that model's unit. Bam. Done. It accounts for multiple units automatically.

You don't need to use an actual template, you can just use the same measurement method used elsewhere in the rules. You don't need to have it scatter. You don't need to make it any more complicated. You don't need to account for the size of the unit.

You CAN have blast weapons listed as Blast (X) where the X is the radius of the blast to reflect bigger AoE weapons.

Templates/flamer weapons, being more directional and shorter range can just have D6 or D3+3 or whatever hits and just cap the hits so that you can't do more hits than there are models in the unit. Done.

People will complain about people meticulously spacing out their models. Fine. Let them do that. The downside is it means their models are less tightly packed and won't be as effect in melee or for contesting objectives. Or models spaced in the back row might be out of range for making attacks, etc. It's a GOOD trade off to have in the game.

So i understand fully what you are trying to do, but thats exactly what the template is.

Saying that a weapons is blast x with x being 3" from the model is just the same as saying a large blast template, if anything, the template is faster then because i can just put it over the top of the models rather them measuring to each one individually.

As for flamer templates, depending on the weapon i could see the d3+3 being a thing or some method that guarantees hits. again though, the template is a far better representation of how it should act. As the template is meant to be the path of the flame.
If you wanted it to accurately represent an attack, you would need to have some sort of rule like the blast rule of 9th but for flamers, where if its just 1 model well the flamer can only hit it once, but if its a group there needs to be some limit to prevent you from rolling just a 1 to hit 5 dudes. This ultimatly comes back again to, the template is the best representative of how it should work, anything under it gets hit once.

Now do mind im speaking simple for number of hits in regards to the blast template mechanic, not scattering at this point.

Yes of course you can just use templates too, and it's probably faster.

My point is that one of the main arguments against the template weapons in the past, determining what models are under them, is exactly the same as determining when models are in X" of anything else - be it an aura or engagement range, or whatever else. It's the same process.

If the justification for not using templates or blast X" in 9th edition is because people will argue about the coverage, one has to wonder where the arguments are for all the other things that get measured the same way.

I think some people objected specifically to scattering, and that just doesn't need to be a part of it. It's a separate aspect to it. .

Excatlly and i agree with the argument point, i said it earlier, there was nothing wrong with the blast or the scatter rules. Because the same people that made a fuss over them, just argued about other things.

Having blasts no scatter would be the best way to rep them, but would also require a reconfigure of point cost to weapons.

 Mezmorki wrote:
You CAN have blast weapons listed as Blast (X) where the X is the radius of the blast to reflect bigger AoE weapons.

With this you're adding another analogue component, something you can get wrong, something that can be flubbed, something that relies on the vagaries of hand movement and eyesight. With blast markers you never have to measure the distance. They're always the same radius. Given that people already argued about what was covered and what wasn't, and then argued about scatter, why would you want to add a further potential pain point with variable and manual blast radius measurement?

As to your comment "... then where are the arguments...": The other analogue components that cause the most consternation would be movement (any movement), weapon range, and Line of Sight. If you're not seeing those come up during most games, then you must play either an exceptionally exacting group of friends, or far-too-chill group.

This is why I like BTech's map sheets. They're entirely digital. You're either in LOS, or not. You're either in range, or not. You can move a set amount, and you can't ever get it wrong (unless you're bad at basic addition/subtraction, of course! ). 40k, by its very nature, doesn't have that luxury, so I would be loathe to add further components that add to any part of the rules one might describe as 'interpretive'.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
As i said, there was never an issue with template, was not even an issue with scatter, the rules worked, they worked fine, and they worked as fast as you could count models.
The problem always lied in the fact that argumenative players would find ways to argue about a rule every single time.
Templates were the best way to represent a blast in the game.

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 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Scattering every template was one of the reasons people hated blast markers. It slowed everything down so unnecessarily. Why they went away from place template/roll to hit/multiply hits by amount of blast markers/wound/saves/remove casualties I will never understand. It was so simple.
On the other hand, there are those people who would measure out max coherency for all their models every turn to minimise the potential damage from blast markers. I'd argue those types of people were worse than the scattering issue.
I've faced people like that. It's anti-fun.

And this is my point, you will always find people who will do things like this. This is not a problem with the rules, this is a problem with the players. The players that did this kinda thing were the same people who would argue over blast templates and what was and was not under it, and the same people who would argue about scatter.
Scatter dice were none issue if players rolled it right next to where they were trying to hit.

Saying "its a problem with the players" is a cop-out. Players play to the rules. If the rules allow for it, then the players will do it, and its thus a problem with the rules. You can wring your hands and clutch your pearls and say "the rules are perfect, given to us by the gods themselves, I swear" but that doesn't change the fact that they aren't.

"Don't blame your players for your poorly designed rules" is basically Fundamentals of Game Design 101, as is "You can't change your players but you can change your rules."

catbarf wrote:Your system is if you shoot a unit of 30 you get flat 6 shots, and if you shoot one of 6 units of 5 you get D6 shots plus D3 additional units hit for D6-1 hits apiece. Except that isn't fixing the problem at all.

This is incorrect. I have not proscribed any solid or standard rule for these weapons, I have only provided a methodology. That methodology, assuming we are discussing a weapon that has a base d6 shots, allows for you to shoot a unit of 30 and get flat 6, or 3d6, or 18, or however many shots you want to define (no different than how some blast weapons currently do d3 hits, or d6 hits, or 2d6 hits, etc.), and if you shoot one of 6 units of 5 you get d6 shots plus however many additional units hit - which could be 0 or it could be 100 for all I care - for however many hits you want to define apiece - which could be 0, it could be a million, etc.

I have literally changed the parameters every time to illustrate the flexibility of the methodology, so you would be 100% incorrect in saying what my system does. It 100% fixes every problem that has been defined and every goalpost that has been shifted by change-fearing luddites and blast template apologists, and does so within the framework of the existing rules by simply adding a single sentence to the weapon profile, as is now common for many weapons in the game, and if needed a small change to the existing universal "Blast" rule to address the most recent round of shifted goalposts for what the "problem" is.

catbarf wrote:So you then suggest we patch in another rule

Its called "incorporating feedback", you dunce. Its standard process in game design. Oh wait, forgive me, clearly you seem to think that once a rule is written it can never be changed if playtesting and feedback determines that it doesn't work, otherwise you are "patching in another rule" and "making things more complex". If that was how this worked, every game would be literally unplayable.

catbarf wrote:that says if we shoot a squad of 21-30, we get 3D6 shots. Except now we're doing 3D6 shots to one big unit or D6 shots plus (1-3)(D6-1) bonus hits to nearby units, and the two cases still don't produce the same outcome.

Again, as I said, I've changed the variables up every single time to illustrate flexibility, without much concern for proportional damage output because thats a point of balancing rather than of mechanical design. If you're so concerned about "producing the same outcome" (which is yet another great shifting of the goalpost), then the solution to that is pretty simple, units of 21-30 take 3d6 shots and you set the variables so that if the squad is 10 models or less the 2 closest units within however many inches each take 1d6 shots - now 30 guys in 1 squad take 3d6 and 30 models in 3 squads also take 3d6. I'm sure you're going to complain that the damage output for 11-20 models is a problem, so lets fix that too. The rule looks something like this:

"If the target unit has 10 models or fewer, make d6 additional attacks against the 2 closest units within 6". If the target unit has between 11 and 20 models, make d6 additional attacks against the closest unit within 3".

There, now you're doing a consistent 3d6 regardless of how many models there are or how many units they are in, and somehow the rules text is still shorter than that of several other weapons in the game.

catbarf wrote:You keep making it more complex without actually fixing the problem, and then writing at length about how we shouldn't see it as a problem to begin with.

I haven't actually made it more complex at all, it is literally a single sentence weapon ability that you customize:

"Each time an attack made with this weapon targets a unit [with W models or less/that has between W1 and W2 models], make X additional attacks using this weapon profile against the Y closest unit(s) within Z" of the target unit."

(slight change in wording to make it more consistent with GWs phrasing)

Where W, X, Y, and Z are customizable variables that can be set on a weapon by weapon basis and the [bracketed] clause is entirely optional/variable depending on what you're trying to do. Don't confuse flexibility with complexity, because its not complex at all (certainly not moreso than some of the weapon abilities that already exist in the game) and fits squarely within the realm of the existing approach to writing weapon abilities. If you want to produce consistency like we did previously, than you duplicate the sentence to set your parameters so that you're always doing 3d6 attacks or whatever it is you want to reference as your "constant".

[quotes=Backspacehacker]Eventually you just get to the point of
"Hey what if we just brought templates back"
Every single time, a discussion or idea about how to make, and how to represent blasts always comes full circle to. We really should just bring back templates.[/quotes]

This is a logical fallacy in the extreme and not even remotely a valid argument. Just because some people can't let go of the past and will insist upon a return to the old status quo does not mean its the correct solution or even a good idea.

Mezmorki wrote:If you hit, pick a model in the target unit and every model within X" inches of it causes a wound on that model's unit. Bam. Done. It accounts for multiple units automatically.

But this brings us back to the days of "I'm going to spread each and every model in my unit out as far as possible". It also means that targeting a model on a 60mm base will produce a larger explosion (and thus cause more hits) than a model on a 25mm base, even though its the same weapon in both instances. My methodology can at least be used to keep the damage output constant.
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[quoteMezmorki]People will complain about people meticulously spacing out their models. Fine. Let them do that. The downside is it means their models are less tightly packed and won't be as effect in melee or for contesting objectives. Or models spaced in the back row might be out of range for making attacks, etc. It's a GOOD trade off to have in the game.

Ah, template discussions.

Damn those things sucked. Good riddance. Game has been better for it.

If you would rather have accuracy of measurement than convenience, that's fine.

A "Large Blast" weapon could hit every mini within 2.5" (or 2" or whatever) of the target model.

If that's all that's needed to mollify your concerns, that's FINE with me. It's just a template but harder to use.

 Eldarsif wrote:
Ah, template discussions.

Damn those things sucked. Good riddance. Game has been better for it.

No it hasn't. #Bringbacktemplates2022!