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Bring Overwatch, also known as Opportunity Fire back:

Any non moving unit can forgo its shooting phase to be placed on overwatch:

In the opponents turn, the unit may elect to fire at any NEW target that presents itself at any point during the turn.  At the end of the opponents turn all overwatch is lost regardless of wether the unit fired or not.

?

(As an aside, 2 conditions should apply to an overwatch units fire, [1] it must first pass a leadership check to go on overwatch if enemy targets are already in LOS and [2] an overwatching unit may not elect to fire overwatch fire at targets that were already exposed in it's shooting phase unless they come closer to it.)

I agree with the games designers choice to remove Overwatch from the game. 2nd edition was often a game of sitting around and waiting to see who would move into the open first; in other words, very dull.

That said I do think its a little unfair that units sometimes have no ability to protect themselves from being charged: The enemy unit is behind cover during their shooting phase and can move fast enough to charge them in their following turn.

So I think that any non-moving unit should be able to go on overwatch (without taking any test) but they may ONLY fire at an enemy unit that charges them in the Assault phase. Firing would be resolved after the charging unit had finished moving, and rules would have to be written for blasts/templates (like D3 or D6 hits).

Anyway, my idea is rough, but I'd personally rather stick with no Overwatch or something limited to assaulting units then to go back to the heady days of full on overwatch.

But that's just me. . .

I don't miss the overwatch rules.

The only reason I can think of to bring it back is as a counter balance to deep strikers/drop podders/summoning, so limiting overwatch to assault only wouldn't help. Realistically, if you're crafty enough, you should have a better chance of preventing/minimizing being charged by enemy units you know are on the table then preventing being shot or in the case of daemons charged by what isn't even on the table in your turn. That being said it should be limited.

I am kinda thinking it should be something that only Troops are allowed to do. That way you are encouraging more troops selections and larger troops squads instead of minimized ones. You certainly need to figure out how to do templates and blasts. Yeah so:

If a TROOPS unit does not move it may elect to go on Overwatch. Place a counter next to the unit. A unit on overwatch is not permitted to shoot during its own shooting phase as it makes ready to fire at targets of oppurtunity. At the end of the enemies movement phase any unit on overwatch may elect to shoot the nearest enemy unit in LOS. A unit on overwatch cannot take a leadership test to shoot a further enemy unit, it can only ever shoot the nearest enemy unit. The overwatch unit can however choose to shoot at a vehicle, monsterous creature, infantry, etc. so long as it is the nearest unit of its type(vehicle, monsterous creature, infantry, etc.). Treat the unit as if it had moved (Rapid fire weapons can only shoot up to 12", no heavy weapons, etc.) If ANY model can be touched by a template weapon then the template wepon will cause D3+1 hits regardless of how many models can actually be covered by the template (It can even hit targets out of the range of the template, such is the danger in charging a flamer or the like). If a blast weapon successfully hits it will cause D3+1 hits automatically, no need to place the template. No Psychic powers may be used on overwatch. Resolve the remainder of shooting as normal. An enemy unit that suffers >25% casualties to shooting must pass a morale check or fall back as normal. Once overwatch fire is complete, remove the overwatch counter and continue with the enemies assault phase.

That is a workable beginning I think. What I do like is that you have to give up alot to do it; movement and shooting and losing use of heavy weapons, although that takes alot away from trying to pick off vehicles that are hiding. Deep strikers and such will still have a huge advantage but they might think twice before dropping into the middle of an IG Infantry platoon.

What I think needs more work is: who wants to charge a 10 man squad that can rapid fire at you as you come in, this would kill Tyranids and Orks. Maybe you should only ever get one shot (No rapid firing, assualt weapons all become Assault 1 during overwatch). If you do that then maybe you shouldn't treat the squad as moving so they can get the heavy weapons back with one shot.

Anyway, I play Grey Knights alot so now I am thinking that this whole idea kinda sucks.

It's definitely possible to include the Overwatch concept in games without paralysing movement. There are plenty of board wargames which have used it, for example Squad Leader which is reasonably close in scale to what's going on in 40K.

It was done by the order of phases in a player turn.

1. Prep fire.
2. Movement by units who didn't prep fore.
3. Opportunity fire by enemy units.
4. I can't remember if the moving units get a chance to fire -- they probably do -- it's at least 15 years since I've played the game.

The Prep fire phase allows you to try and neutralise the enemy units whose Opp fire might stop your movement. Of course Squad Leader also has an effective morale system which 40K doesn't, and it is easier to pin or break enemy units than to wipe them out as you would have to do in 40K to stop them firing.

I like the sound of the overwatch rules, because its not cool when you're playing Tau and on turn 2 out pops a callidus assassin who charges your big, mean, double big gun-toting, shielded and droned, battlesuit commander and he has to wait it out until he dies. He should be able to get a couple shots off at least.

It would also help against tau. The peek and shoot would be rendered less effective, although keeping the units from moving to be able to fire at them (which in reality would help the Tau out).

I can however see how it would keep games from really going anywhere.

yakface> I agree with the games designers choice to remove Overwatch from the game. ... a little unfair that units sometimes have no ability to protect themselves from being charged: The enemy unit is behind cover during their shooting phase and can move fast enough to charge them in their following turn.

Yak,

There is more to the issue than just defense from assaulters, as has been mentioned, protection from deepstrike, summoning, and pop and shoot are all also lacking.  I suggested this rule to address all those issues, but didn't want to list specifics until a general opinion started to form.

I don't agree with the designers intent to remove overwatch from the game.  I think a player who is anticipating any of the conditions outlined above ought to have a means to react.  Particularly in many of the special cases that offer rapid charging.  Especially Demon Prince, Tyranid, Raider and Warbuggy 2 foot+ charges, but also summoning and deepstriking to a lesser extent.

Also at this point there is no solution to the Pop and shoot abilities of Tau and Eldar double move capabilities, Overwatch would fix this.

As another branch, because of the abstraction of movement "phases" pausing a move in an arbitrary, abstract time it is possible for a unit to jump from cover to cover and entirely evade fire, even though ready armed troops have the aproach covered. This is the "gamey" effect overwatch is intended to address ultimately regardless of assault speed or other ficticious concepts, like deepstriking.

Then we'll agree to use them whenever we go to Hobby Stores. If they resist we can just show them a print-out of this forum. Then we give them a copy and they give who they meet a copy and eventually the world will revert to using Overwatch special rules.

I agree as well that atleast some of 100+ guardsmen arrayed on a grand battlefield should be able to shoot at something even though it hasnt stopped moving. Maybe we could take one point off of the BS, just to recognize the effects of shooting something thats moving.

There is more to the issue than just defense from assaulters, as has been mentioned, protection from deepstrike, summoning, and pop and shoot are all also lacking. I suggested this rule to address all those issues, but didn't want to list specifics until a general opinion started to form.

I don't agree with the designers intent to remove overwatch from the game. I think a player who is anticipating any of the conditions outlined above ought to have a means to react. Particularly in many of the special cases that offer rapid charging. Especially Demon Prince, Tyranid, Raider and Warbuggy 2 foot+ charges, but also summoning and deepstriking to a lesser extent.

While I fully understand what you are saying, but I believe that the inherent randomness of Deep Striking and the fact that Deep Strikers cannot move on the turn they arrive are built in negatives. Is Deep Striking still incredibly powerful? Sure, but it's supposed to be. The fact is, unless Deep Strikers completely overwhelm an area and shoot it to death, they are going to face serious return fire and/or charges from the remaining enemies.

If whole armies could go on overwatch against Deep Strikers that would essentially mean two whole round of firing plus potential charges compared to a single round of shooting from the Deep Strikers (and they also count as having moved too!). The whole point of Deep Striking would be nearly moot.

The fact is, Deep Strikers are supposed to have the element of surprise and if they saturate the area with enough Deep Striking troops they're supposed to signifigant damage before the enemy can respond. But the limitations of Deep Strike (randomness, chance of destruction via scattering onto the enemy or terrain) make this a somewhat risky prospect.

Now, Drop Pods are another issue altogheter. I personally think that their rules are retartedly good and need to be severly toned down, but I don't think that should be done with Overwatch, rather just changing the actual Drop Pod rules to something more sane.

I agree that pop-out attacks that Eldar and Tau can perform can be annoying, but the Eldar are supposed to be losing that ability with their new codex and the Tau units that can do it have rather short range. Their army is designed to have that advantage.


My idea presents a real decision to the player. Going on Overwatch is risky since if the enemy doesn't charge them (but just sits and shoots at them), they've essentially wasted their turn. You have to decide if it's worth it to protect against a charge even though your opponent may just decide not to charge.

Of course, if an enemy army is completely 100% assault based this would be an issue, but I think any time you propose a fairly big rules change their are going to be some balance issues that go out the window with the current units and points values.

yes, the ability to disembark your troops behind the pod can protect them from rounds of shooting by small arms. Same with dreadnoughts. I think its cool that way but its really bad if you have a cc space marine army and everyone but a 5 man group of scouts is now 12" or less away from your army. lol

I wouldn't mind seeing a prep for a charge ability, such as gaining +1 attack if the unit did not move or shoot on their proceeding turn.

So guardsmen prepare thier turn instead of moving or shooting, when demons summoned and charged into them the guardsmen simply get +1 attacks per model as if they had also charged. No extra phase, just a simple ability that makes them a little more effective. Kind of a counter charge.

Overwatch?

*spits*

Hell no.

We banned overwatch for 2nd Ed. We even banned it from Necromunda. Overwatch did nothing but bring games to a complete standstill.

"My army is on overwatch. Your turn."
"Ok, so is mine. Your turn."
"Still on overwatch. Your turn."
"Ditto. Your turn."
"Nup. Still overwatching. Your turn."

In Necromunda we made Overwatch into a Skill rather than a general rule, and made it that you had to pass an Ld check to go into Overwatch. I would hate to see such a system return.

BYE

I completely agree with HBMC.  Overwatch was an absolute and complete waste.  It basically wound up with standstill games that ended only when someone bit the bullet, moved, and then paid dearly for it.

Summoning, teleportation, drop pods, bounding leap, red paint, etc are ADVANTAGES, and are supposed to be advantages.  They each have their own risks and rewards.  Rules such as overwatch effectively rule them out of existence.  You may as well lobby to remove all special rules from the game...then we can all play Vanilla IG and have a grand old time.

one Idea that I saw that was the most balanced was sort of a shooting attack that was more of a charge reaction.

The unit took a leadership test to be able to shoot at +2 initative with one shot with their main weapons and regular saves were allowed. Also no heavy weapons were allowed to shoot. Only works for the 1st round of combat as the squad readies themselves for the charge and then blasint at their chargers. The shooting attacks count for closecombat pourposes including resoloution.

It has been playtested and works pretty fine with most of the races that suck in HtH and it does some wounds and most other races who charge espcially orks, little bug nids, and Dark Eldar lose 1-3 models more but not to a devastating effect since they most of the time waste their opponents. The only real thing that does hurt but works both ways is charging into a huge squad and usually ends up killing the charging squad before they can attack. the +2 initative works good enough that some races with low initative basically have double initative but others dont have insane initative 8 for their attacks.

Further playtesting vs huge squads it works out that using the shooting attacks in the killzone. There is no real way to make it trully balanced but since this is 4th edition and getting into assault is the hard part for some armies such as Orks and Nids; they might as well get rewarded for charging.


  Like many have said. Overwatch is promotes the shooting game and seeing how shooting games operate they turn into games where you just roll dice and see who has the bigger gun or who takes the most guns.

I think it would be interesting to make it a skill available to certain units and make it an extra skill and make it so that you can only do it with Rapid Fire or Assault Weapons (no pistols or heavy)

That way you can essentially use it the same as you use whirlwind mines, to keep certain lanes clear of enemies but have to commit a unit to doing it.

Headhunter> You may as well lobby to remove all special rules from the game...then we can all play Vanilla IG and have a grand old time.

Yes, that would be fine by me.  I detest special rules.  I once posted a topic about the USR (Universal Special Rules) and what a great idea that was, unfortunately invalidated by all the NON USR rules they keep writing for new codices and special units.  Like ways to avoid instant death creeping into every codex, and reversing the original book, like the Black Templars Land raider and Lance weapons, and a whole host of other special cases.  I also wrote about exceptions to exceptions, for example the circular FAQ about what S weapon instakills hivemind in other threads, exceptions to exceptions make the game cumbersome and just represent a chain of "Gotchas" leaving the last army holding the "most recently published in a codex title" with the prize.

If the game were played in the originally deisgned context with variety limited to points, statlines and the USR the game would be much better. IMO the only real armies in the game are IG, Tau, Eldar and Orcs, everything else is just comic book tripe (and Orcs are pushing it).

BTW HBMC is just wrong. [MEANINGLESS FLUF WARNING] Read a little history, once machine guns are around charges don't work so well... To work in 40k essentially they have to make assault models move the distance a small arm can shoot in 1 turn or more.

To return to the rules proposal, it is admisable there would be a possibility of static games, ideally there ought to also be a fire arc associated with infantry models, say 90 degrees or so.  Restoring flanking to the game, obviously one couldn't overwatch fire something outside their fire arc. (I know this is a pretty global change, pie in the sky stuff). Furthermore overwatching troops that come under fire from a direction they are not watching should have to make a fallback check just because they were fired upon...

What do you think with these conditions added on?

I think someone is tired of his Guard Army getting assaulted and thrashed by the local Chaos player that has a infiltrating lord and demon bombs.

I really do feel for you as I know how annoying it is to face an army that assaults you turn 2 thanks to some nifty summons or deepstrikers. Guard armies dont work that well in assault unless you tool them for a semi-decent counter assault.

If you dont like the deep stikers, summonings, stuff that bursts from the ground or the jack in the box attack, I suggest taking Auspexes and Mystics. Belive me when I say having inquisitors with Mystics destroys chaos demon armies dead and calling on other squads to shoot at some units does make it damn well dangerous.

Ask Greenbloater.


 p.s. if you still have much trouble in assault I suggest switching over to a Lost and the Damned army .