Single rule change. What would you do?

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**GorillaWarfare**

Kain wrote:
GorillaWarfare wrote:
Accipiter wrote:
Roll to hit.
Then have cover/armour/invul saves go.
Then roll to wound.

Its done the current way to save time.

He's saying simply swap the armor save and toughness roll's spots.

It changes pretty much nothing but it does make more sense.

I know it makes more sense, but its slower. If you change then you have player 1 roll to hit, then player 2 takes the dice and rolls armor saves, then we go back to player 1 and roll to wound. It may not seem like a big thing, but half way through the game after dozens of shooting actions it can get tedious.

**Kain**

GorillaWarfare wrote:
Kain wrote:
GorillaWarfare wrote:
Accipiter wrote:
Roll to hit.
Then have cover/armour/invul saves go.
Then roll to wound.

Its done the current way to save time.

He's saying simply swap the armor save and toughness roll's spots.

It changes pretty much nothing but it does make more sense.

I know it makes more sense, but its slower. If you change then you have player 1 roll to hit, then player 2 takes the dice and rolls armor saves, then we go back to player 1 and roll to wound. It may not seem like a big thing, but half way through the game after dozens of shooting actions it can get tedious.

I just have player 2 roll to wound, it's his model after all.

**Exergy**

Slayer le boucher wrote:
Rage gives a flat out +2 A, not only when assaulting...

Can assault from an immobile transport.

Dark Apotheosis allows you to keep your Wargear, rules and powers( like in Fantasy).

Scour from the Taus markerlights only worsen your covers save for 1point, not completly negate it...

Freakin Deamon Engines has a better WS and I values...

Fear while not making ATSKNF units flee in terror, inflicts a -1 to their combat resolution.(they are not afraid, just concerned)

When a vehicule reach 0 HP, he isn't automatically destroyed, he just always throws on the damage chart when taking Penetrating Hits or Glancing Hits.

All Missile launchers should have the Anti-air missiles option for free.

Assault ranges are 6+D6".

mostly yeah
Rage: umm kinda powerful. Maybe no +1 attack further for charging. I liked it better when MoK just gave you +1 attack base and you got +1 from charging.
Hull points renamed damage points-for each damage point already done add +1 to the damage chart. When vehicle has reached it's maximum damage point, any additional shots force it to roll on the damage table for both glances and pens.

Thus if you glance a rhino first turn, then you pen it you do +1 damage.
If you glance a rhino three times first turn, then you glance it again you get +3 damage and likely explode it.
If you glance a rhino 5 times, the 5th one is guarenteed to explode it, unless it was all done by the same unit.
IE a unit of lootas fire at a trukk and do 7 glancing hits, it has 7 damage points. Next a lobba hits it and glances again, it rolls on the damage chart at +7

No way to wreck vehicles though....

**la'DunX**

Daba wrote:
la'DunX wrote:
Daba wrote:
Initiative is a nice, fair stat since the ones that suffer less from going down to BS1 (Orks, Tau) have lower initiative, while the more elite ones that do suffer more thanks to being balanced around BS4 get a larger chance at it (Eldar, Space Marines).

wait are you saying that tau would suffer less for failing that initiative test?

Going from BS 3->1 is obviously less bad than going BS 4->1. Then there's supporting fire on top of that.

yes but most races can actually survive cobat, if you're making races fire overwatch with higher bs then melee units shouldn't shouldn't and shooty units should

**Daba**

A dedicated shooting unit for everyone apart from Marines don't have good odds in combat. It's not as if Tau are extra crippled, and Tau have more tricks for avoiding combat than anyone else.

Also, this is for the Sweeping Advance proposed change, to stop wiping out an enemy unit in your own turn being a disadvantage. The other solution is to make a unit that won an assault in its own turn plain immune to shooting in the next turn, which is even worse.

**la'DunX**

I'm saying that units that are shooty and don't do combat well should be considered, if you're giving an initiative test for units to fire during their own turn you need to help low initiative units such as firewarriors fire at full BS, maybe do away with the check completely and just allow units firing overwatch in this situation to fire at their full BS, I'm not saying this just for firewarriors, but any frail unit whose turn you want to remove.

players in my gaming group use their sweeping advances to retreat into cover from my firing lines after assaulting, why not do that? 6theds focus is away from melee, this means I can finally get some victories rather than just being steamrolled and frankly I'm not keen to give that up.

**Daba**

Because fundamentally winning in your own turn being bad compared with the enemy turn is a bad bing for the game. It is a broken mechanic that needs fixing.

Sweeping Advance may fix this, and in this time were assault is much weaker it may be time to bring it back.

Consolidating after winning in your turn into cover (which D6 is not too handy for) is not preferable to fighting it out in the enemy turn.

The initiative test makes things interesting, so not everyone gets to do things for free (which is the direction this game is going in)

The shooting units got close enough to be assaulted in the first place. They should be punished for bad positioning, not rewarded for the enemy winning in their turn.

**AlmightyWalrus**

la'DunX wrote:

players in my gaming group use their sweeping advances to retreat into cover from my firing lines after assaulting, why not do that? 6theds focus is away from melee, this means I can finally get some victories rather than just being steamrolled and frankly I'm not keen to give that up.

5th edition was already shooting-centric, 6th edition is even more so. Assault needs some love, shooting does not.

**la'DunX**

Pretty sure shooting armies that weren't vehicles got smeared in 5th.

The idea that "not everyone gets to do something" is not the problem, entire armies not getting to do something is, assault doesn't need love, mêlée as a concept is flawed logistically. Warhammer is meant to have a little bit of realism and this is where it's at. Remember, mêlée is usually a much surer way of knowing you're going to do some killing than shooting. If closing is not a problem then mêlée is no longer balanced.

**Kain**

So a game with a (well four or five actually) god of hitting things in close combat should punish close combat as much as possible?

Better tell Khorne to drop the axe and pick up a gun then.

**AlmightyWalrus**

la'DunX wrote:
Pretty sure shooting armies that weren't vehicles got smeared in 5th.

The idea that "not everyone gets to do something" is not the problem, entire armies not getting to do something is, assault doesn't need love, mêlée as a concept is flawed logistically. Warhammer is meant to have a little bit of realism and this is where it's at. Remember, mêlée is usually a much surer way of knowing you're going to do some killing than shooting. If closing is not a problem then mêlée is no longer balanced.

Tell that to Imperial Guard. Regardless, the fact that shooting was so much better at killing the spammed transports, combined with the fact that said transports usually packed a mean ranged punch, made the edition shooting-centric.

If mêlée can't reliably close, shooting is no longer balanced.

**marv335**

If I could pick one, I'd go back to armour save modifiers and drop the AP system.

If I could change anything else, I'd go back to abstract LoS, and I'd give every model a set base size.

**la'DunX**

Kain wrote:
So a game with a (well four or five actually) god of hitting things in close combat should punish close combat as much as possible?

Better tell Khorne to drop the axe and pick up a gun then.

No, don't punish, just don't solve all of it's problems for it's users

Cover and los provide balance for shooting and closing to mêlée

Just think about how unbalanced chaining mêlées would be
1 you charge into a firing line
2 you destroy the firewarriors in the line in your turn and assault into the next team
Now this can go two ways, you can resolve now or during the enemy turn so let's look at both
3.1 you destroy the firewarriors and a) repeat steps starting at 1, or b) you stop in the open
Now I'm not happy with a and I know you won't be happy with b.
You can also resolve during enemy assault
3.2 the enemy models cannot shoot at the most dangerous unit next to them and must move, let's assume they do their max movement (so 6+1d6, right?) that is probably still in assaulting range so you repeat step 1 either instantly because you're close enough or during your assault phase so that you are even closer

Can I just say no thank you.

**Kain**

la'DunX wrote:
Kain wrote:
So a game with a (well four or five actually) god of hitting things in close combat should punish close combat as much as possible?

Better tell Khorne to drop the axe and pick up a gun then.

No, don't punish, just don't solve all of it's problems for it's users

Cover and los provide balance for shooting and closing to mêlée

Khorne is angry that his chosen need so much trickery to get into assault without getting utterly gutted while cowards wih guns sneer at his angry ragemen. Khorne does not like being low tier this edition.

**la'DunX**

Khorne and his peons have awesome toughness and armour saves and maybe deepstrike? I haven't read chaos yet.

**Daba**

marv335 wrote:
If I could pick one, I'd go back to armour save modifiers and drop the AP system.

If I could change anything else, I'd go back to abstract LoS, and I'd give every model a set base size.

I would do to for the first one, but the problem is that would require a re-write of pretty much everything. I really hate the AP system, but it currently works reasonably in in the sphere of 6th edition so it's not one of the things I could apply as a 'single rule change'.

More abstract LOS would work for me too. I don't know about specific sizes, but I think granting types of terrain as 'LOS blocking' through it (or through x inches of it), while granting an all round cover save is ok.

**wildboar**

I'll second the idea of placing fortifications after scenery that has been placed mentioned a few times already.

To add my own to the discussion, give Mandrakes rending. A codex change rather than a BRB change but I need an excuse to get them out of the case! They're painted and really keen!

**marv335**

The main trouble with the AP system is that it creates a very binary armour save system.
It weights 2+/3+ disproportionally.
It's easy enough to fix with an errata listing weapons and the modifier.

As to the line of sight issue, The way I'd implement it is that a model occupies an area equivalent to the area of its base in a cylinder reaching to a set height, this allows for custom bases and exaggerated posing of models/great conversions, because it completely ignores the model itself. (swarms at H1, short units (like grots or halflings) at H2, Humans/marines/eldar/etc at H3 and so on.)
Terrain gets a set height too.
Graduated cover saves depending on the relative heights of the units.
H1 behind H3 gets 4+
H3 behind H3 gets 5+
H3 behind H1 gets 6+
For example.
Going to ground could be used to reduce the H stat of a model to improve the cover save.

**Mywik**

Units with interceptor that shot in their own shooting phase cant use interceptor in the opposing players movement phase. So basically exactly the other way around than currently.

This way its a choice if you intercept OR shoot.

**Kain**

la'DunX wrote:
Khorne and his peons have awesome toughness and armour saves and maybe deepstrike? I haven't read chaos yet.

Nope. No cult terminators, Bloodcrushers were nerfed into having a 6+ save and T4 down from a 3+ and T5 (and three wounds) and now cost 5 more points (and then came the power sword nerf) than they used to. Bezerkers are mediocre and require a distinctly unkhornate amount of trickery and forethought to get them to do a job they get worse at every edition, while the loyalists just around the corner have some of the simplest assault units in the form of hammernators. Bloodletters got nerfed with the new power sword rules and are now only T3 so enjoy dying like guardsmen.

Khornate Daemon Princes really, really stink compared to their counterparts from other gods due to not being able to get psyker powers, Flesh Hounds are awesome and Bloodthirsters are pretty nasty but so much as a single markerlighter can knock these lords of war out of the sky to be shot to crap, Kharne is a cheapish but very much vulnerable beatstick and Skarbrand is an axe induced violation chain (well...until he eats plasma to the face and dies) but cannot hope to compare to Kairos' sheer versatility and power spam. Khornate heralds while not bad per se, usually just get passed up in favor of the heralds of other gods, especially those of Tzeentch.

The Skull Cannon is a pretty nice anti-cover camping piece of kit, but is a fragile vehicle that must be hidden like a coward rather than artillery that can do away with the need for unkhornate tactics such as "cover."

Really, the strongest of the Chaos gods and fourth greatest entity in 40k (after gork, mork, and the hive mind) deserves better.

**la'DunX**

T3? My fire warriors are T3, daaaaaamn, khorne does deserve better, but mêlée doesn't, have demons had a codex for 6th yet (sorry I really don't keep track of these things)

**Tehjonny**

Talizvar wrote:
AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Accipiter wrote:
Roll to hit.
Then have cover/armour/invul saves go.Then roll to wound.
But why? That changes nothing.

I agree with this change for one reason it has always bugged me that the order now makes no sense.
First you roll to hit, what did you hit? = Armour, make an armour save, when you get past that what did you hit? The squishy insides (or you pulped him inside his armour from the impact) = roll to wound.

Not a game changer but makes the OCD people feel better.

I've got a mate who spoke to one of the game designers a couple of years ago, and he brought this exact thing up.

They said the reason they do it like that is for psychological, or playing experience reasons. You've just rolled to hit, you're picking up your hit dice in anticipation of seeing how many wounds you can inflict before you hand those to your opponent for his saving throws (if he has any). It's doubling up on that feeling of anticipation, chance, and hope. You don't want to hand your dice to your opponent halfway through to see his armour saves, so really it's just about that feeling of momentum as you attack a unit more than anything else, hence the saves come last, also psychological because it is your opponents last chance to save his men, following your fluid (in terms of dice rolling) attack.

**Daba**

Also rules like rending rely on it.

**AlmightyWalrus**

la'DunX wrote:
T3? My fire warriors are T3, daaaaaamn, khorne does deserve better, but mêlée doesn't, have demons had a codex for 6th yet (sorry I really don't keep track of these things)

Yes, Daemons have had a 6th ed book.

Why dmes mêlée not deserve better? Can you imagine having to roll for range (essentially old night fighting) every time you wanted to fire a weapon? Because that's the level of reliability we're talking about in assaults. Even if you for some ludicrous reason think that CC was too powerful in 5th edition, wouldn't no assault from transports or outflank be enough? Wouldn't casualties from the front and Overwatch be enough?

In fact, I'll steal this post from Ailaros to make my point for me:

Ailaros wrote:
Time to shake this out again:

Ailaros wrote:
Godless-Mimicry wrote:Actually they are pretty straight forward; here's a look at what assault lost, and what it gained.

It's actually worse than that. To take your list and expand...

RELATIVE BUFFS FOR SHOOTING

- Your charge distance is at the mercy of the dice. I have seen several assaults that would have been in range in 5th fail in 6th.

- You can no longer run and assault with Fleet.

- Grenades got nerfed for assaulting through terrain.

- Assault grenades no longer hurt vehicles.

- Overwatch

- And, because it really needs to be mentioned twice given the scope of the rule, transported units can overwatch if their transport gets charged, walkers can overwatch, and flamers are overwatch BEASTS. There is now literally no point in attempting to assault a unit of burnaz.

- A unit type that IS IMMUNE TO CLOSE COMBAT was born and became a staple in many lists (fliers)

- You can't assault out of a non-assault vehicle ever and that includes when it is destroyed on you

- Multi-charges were nerfed

- Challenges killed a lot of the potential of combat beast characters

- You can't assault on the turn you come on from reserves

- You can't assault if you Infiltrate or Scout and go first

- The distance from which an assault vehicle brings you closer to the enemy is reduced

- Some random objectives half your assault range

- Furious Charge got nerfed

- Wound allocation forces you to take the models from the front as casualties, this makes an assault unit take an extra turn(s) of being exposed to gunfire before they can get stuck in.

- Wound allocation means that hidden weapons upgrades are no longer hidden. You only need to kill a squad to the point where the upgrade model is the closest to something. This is very easy to achieve with deepstriking.

- Loss of by-unit cover in favor of by-model cover destroys the ability for foot hordes to advance upfield.

- Addition of focus fire

- Addition of Precise Shot.

- Worsening of cover. Intervening units only give 4+, hills no longer area terrain, etc.

- Power weapons got screwed up. Either Ap3, or I1, take your choice...

- You can no longer disembark after moving more than 6" in a transport (killing mech assault units).

- grenades can now be thrown.

- walkers can no longer tie up squads in close combat.

- grenades now work against monstrous creatures in close combat. This hurts dedicated assault units relative to basic infantry that have no desire to be in close combat.

- pre-measuring makes it much easier to make sure shooting weapons are in range, while not helping assault units make it into assault more reliably.

- rapid fire now puts more shots out on the move.

- you can now move and fire heavy weapons. This and the above change to rapid fire mean that you can now back up away from assault units while still shooting.

- parts of a squad can now move without affecting the accuracy of heavy weapons.

- old wound wrapping gotten rid of. I'm glad, but for the purposes of this discussion, it is a boost to shooting more than assaulting.

- pile-in moves reduced to 3" from 6".

- unengaged models in a unit that is locked in close combat must now move closer to the enemy units. Used to capture objectives far away while in close combat with this one in 5th.

- barrage weapons may now fire within their minimum ranges.

- barrage weapons no longer lose strength against vehicles from off-center scatters.

- artillery units got MUCH more survivable.

- models with two pistol weapons can now fire them both.

- vehicles can shoot all weapons at cruising speed.

- in order to charge a vehicle, you must have some way of damaging it.

RELATIVE BUFFS FOR ASSAULT

- hypothetical increase of maximum charge range from 6" to 12". Given that assault range is no longer reliable, I still consider this more of a nerf than a buff. I mean, if you're 12" away, are you really going to attempt to charge? The most likely result is that your opponent will get some free overwatch, and you're still not making it into close combat.

- hammer of wrath.

- assaulting vehicles now gives you much better chance to hit.

- rage rule change

- gets hot now affects those rare vehicles that have it

So, some of these changes are more important than others, and you can uselessly nit-pick them all you like, but the fact is that there were 39 rule changes to make shooting better, and arguably up to 5 rule changes that make assault better.

Put another way, for every rule that made assault better, there were EIGHT rules that make shooting better.

6th ed is a shooting edition. End of.

And that's just the changes in 6th ed. 5th ed also whacked assaulty armies a lot, what with the introduction of real transports acting as automatic speedbump, the lack of consolidating from one close combat into another, etc.

One could make the argument that close combat was overpowered in 4th edition, but assault needed in that case to be toned down a bit, not had its manhood chopped off with a pair of rusty pliers and being forced to watch romantic comedies.

**Aleph-Sama**

I personally think that the sniper special rule should increase the BS of the firer by 1. Just a fluff thing. I know that in 3rd edition, sniper rifles always hit on a 2+ which makes sense, considering that you're typically shooting a high velocity round at center of mass, instead of firing "in a general that way direction"

**la'DunX**

Why dmes mêlée not deserve better?

when Encyclopaedia Dramatica was up, did you ever see their 40k page?

I'll go with probably not, for a number of social reasons.

And you'll probably want to discount any points because of the same social reasons (I'll insert appropriate social phenomenon here when I remember it)

But WH40k was mocked for having so much melee orientation when ranged fire is the better tool by far.

Look, you're not going to change my mind and I really don't feel like justifying myself any more, unless you're enjoying this then I'ma just leave it here.

**Kain**

la'DunX wrote:
Why dmes mêlée not deserve better?

when Encyclopaedia Dramatica was up, did you ever see their 40k page?

I'll go with probably not, for a number of social reasons.

And you'll probably want to discount any points because of the same social reasons (I'll insert appropriate social phenomenon here when I remember it)

But WH40k was mocked for having so much melee orientation when ranged fire is the better tool by far.

Look, you're not going to change my mind and I really don't feel like justifying myself any more, unless you're enjoying this then I'ma just leave it here.

A love of melee even in an era of reliable ranged firepower is a trope as old as musket lines and has been in scifi forever.

Also, ED is essentially /b/'s mouthpiece and /b/ hates everything.

If you want semi realistic scifi with no melee combat go play Tiberium wars.

40k is space fantasy, not science fiction.

**marv335**

Melee used to be the preferred method of combat in 40k, and it was ridiculously powerful for a sci fi game.

Ever seen this?

I'm glad to see shooting in the ascendant.

**A-P**

On topic:

If I have to choose just one, it would be to allow assault out of a stationary vehicle.

**illuknisaa**

la'DunX wrote:

But WH40k was mocked for having so much melee orientation when ranged fire is the better tool by far.

This isn't true at all.

The best tool is the one that is better at penetrating enemy's armor.

Which one is better? A blade that disrupts molecular bonds or a flashlight?