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 Peregrine wrote:
IGOUGO is bad.

Have you ever considered that its a sound design decision and a bad implementation of it does not make it a fundamentally bad system?



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Mike712 wrote:

 PsychoticStorm wrote:

The idea behind the committee is to ensure that the game and it's rule-set appeal to to as much of the player-base as possible, with 20+ you are likely to get a broader representation of opinion and this I feel is critical to ending up with a game that the majority will enjoy most aspects of.The committee would also be responsible for sourcing the most popular ideas from the community, community input through discussion and poll ensures that most are happy with the rules too. This is crowd sourcing, but applied to a rule-set rather than a more typical product or service.

You are correct, play testing will be critical, this again will be a community effort, once the alpha rules are decided on and published, gamers can try them in their own games and give feedback to the project team.

These conflicting gameplays are indeed something that will be addressed with the core focus being on unit based combat and positioning as has been the case since 2nd and 3rd edition when I started playing, much of the unnecessary features of the current game streamlined or ditched completely, for example challenges as you and others have already mentioned.

It falls in the category of too many cooks in one pot, if I remember the proverb in English correct, the community can help with feedback and playtesting, but the design should be in the hands of few people.

 PsychoticStorm wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
IGOUGO is bad.

Have you ever considered that its a sound design decision and a bad implementation of it does not make it a fundamentally bad system?

I'm fairly certain I'm going get some flak, but PS, correct me if I'm wrong, but Infinity is essentially IGOUGO right? Infinity has the ARO system in place that allows the defending player to do things when it's not their 'turn' (i.e. when they're not the active player). That would be a good implementation of IGOUGO.

like I said earlier, skirmish games can get away with an IGOUGO system because the idea that you can hit someone from 48 inches away with the weapons is rare in those games.

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
Have you ever considered that its a sound design decision and a bad implementation of it does not make it a fundamentally bad system?

I've considered it and rejected it. IGOUGO is fundamentally flawed.


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 Alfndrate wrote:
I'm fairly certain I'm going get some flak, but PS, correct me if I'm wrong, but Infinity is essentially IGOUGO right?

Not really. The reaction system makes it completely different since you're not just standing around waiting for your opponent to finish their turn.

Again, how many games have you played like this? You can't talk about how it will or will not change anything until you've tried it. Come back and tell me it doesn't have a major balance effect once you've played a hundred games or so (with the same armies each time).

Personally I haven't, but alternating unit activation in 40k is used by some and documented to work well, it also removes the major issue that you have mentioned which is alpha strike. Obviously play testing will be needed to devise the best possible and most play friendly turn sequence to utilise in the balancehammer rules, I personally feel that the methods of deciding sequence I've already briefly outlined could be effective, and theoretically not game breaking anything that worked poorly in could be balanced by altering or giving a modifier to the turn sequence stat.

So, let me get this straight: you're saying here that removing IGOUGO will have significant effects on the power level of alpha strike armies and completely change target priority decisions, but you can't see how it will have any impact on the rest of the game? You just mentioned two big changes in that same paragraph!

Isn't that something a new balanced rule set would look to resolve anyway? the reduced effect of alpha strike is positive fallout that would occur if such changes are made. Briefly run through your mind how a game of 40k might play out as it stands now, but instead substitute IGOUGO for alternating based on FOC slot or a turn sequence stat, what issues do you feel may arise from this? I'm honestly interested in your opinion on the matter.

The point we're trying to tell you is that creating a balanced version of 40k is going to mean creating an entire new game using the 40k fluff/models. The question now is whether you want to create an entirely new game from a clean start with the freedom to do whatever you need to do to make it work, or an entirely new game that's stuck with a bunch of extra baggage because you need to be able to point to enough rules from 40k to legitimately call it a "rebalancing" instead of a new game.

You seem to be stuck on the idea that you can fix 40k by making a few rule changes and re-balancing the point costs, and that just isn't going to happen.

Why not? take any 2 mid tier armies and play them against each other, will you not end up with a relatively balanced game compared to say playing a mid tier army against say eldar or tau, or in 5th ed space wolves, BA or grey knights? Now add in a modified turn sequence to neuter alpha strike, would that not make for a better paced and more tactical game?

Off topic, but which site was that? RvB?

The fan site I worked for and managed the mod team of was BattleClinic.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Alfndrate wrote:
I'm fairly certain I'm going get some flak, but PS, correct me if I'm wrong, but Infinity is essentially IGOUGO right?

Not really. The reaction system makes it completely different since you're not just standing around waiting for your opponent to finish their turn.

That's why I said essentially IGOUGO. It's not alternating activations because you don't take care of an entire unit/model/whatever and then pass it to your opponent to do the same thing and back and fort etc... While your opponent is the 'active' player, you have the option of AROs, which are limited forms of what you can do when you're the active player. It's still IGOUGO, but it's IGOUGO with interruptions. I do agree that pure IGOUGO is flawed and should probably be scrapped in most cases for alternating activation.

 Peregrine wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Alfndrate wrote:
I'm fairly certain I'm going get some flak, but PS, correct me if I'm wrong, but Infinity is essentially IGOUGO right?

Not really. The reaction system makes it completely different since you're not just standing around waiting for your opponent to finish their turn.

Replying to both, first and foremost, no flack at least from me.

Infinity is indeed IGOUGO, the ARO mechanism brings it to modern era and illustrates it's strength and how it can be done correctly.

The fact that an implementation of a system from a game system is bad or antiquated does not mean that the concept itself is bad.

Mike712 wrote:
Personally I haven't, but alternating unit activation in 40k is used by some and documented to work well, it also removes the major issue that you have mentioned which is alpha strike. Obviously play testing will be needed to devise the best possible and most play friendly turn sequence to utilise in the balancehammer rules, I personally feel that the methods of deciding sequence I've already briefly outlined could be effective, and theoretically not game breaking anything that worked poorly in could be balanced by altering or giving a modifier to the turn sequence stat.

You've kind of wandered from the point here. The point isn't that it's a bad idea, it's that you need to do these things first. Play a hundred games with the activation system, make changes, play another hundred games, make changes, etc. Once you've got an absolutely solid activation system (and any other core mechanics you're going to change) you can start thinking about things like how to change fortifications.

Isn't that something a new balanced rule set would look to resolve anyway? the reduced effect of alpha strike is positive fallout that would occur if such changes are made. Briefly run through your mind how a game of 40k might play out as it stands now, but instead substitute IGOUGO for alternating based on FOC slot or a turn sequence stat, what issues do you feel may arise from this? I'm honestly interested in your opinion on the matter.

Again, the problem is that you're speculating about stuff like re-balancing fortifications that depends on the core rules. It's pointless to talk about fortifications until you've tested the new core rules because you might find out that alpha strike armies have been over-nerfed and need better fortifications to compensate, just to give one potential example.

And I don't know what issues might arise. That's what playtesting is for. You don't speculate about issues, you play a hundred games with the rules and see what comes up.

Why not? take any 2 mid tier armies and play them against each other, will you not end up with a relatively balanced game compared to say playing a mid tier army against say eldar or tau, or in 5th ed space wolves, BA or grey knights?

Only for a very generous definition of "relatively balanced". You still have awful internal balance, an awful bloated mess of the core rules, etc. It's still going to be a bad game, it's just going to be a bit less one-sided.

Now add in a modified turn sequence to neuter alpha strike, would that not make for a better paced and more tactical game?

I don't know. Play a hundred games with those rules and tell me if it's better paced and more tactical.


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 PsychoticStorm wrote:
Infinity is indeed IGOUGO, the ARO mechanism brings it to modern era and illustrates it's strength and how it can be done correctly.

It isn't because the defining characteristic of IGOUGO is that I make all of my moves, then you make all of your moves, and we don't interact much while we're doing it. Infinity isn't IGOUGO, it's an action-reaction system.

There are 4 activation system that I can think of, IGOUGO were the game is divided in turns and each player alternatively play his "half" of the turn and then his opponent does so, the alternative activation were both players play the same turn alternating the use of elements in their force until there are no more elements left, the random activation were each element is randomly assigned a "card" or some other way of randomly determining which element is activated and finally the turnles activation were each element after its activation goes back on queue, interaction between the elements is not part of the activation process.

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
There are 4 activation system that I can think of, IGOUGO were the game is divided in turns and each player alternatively play his "half" of the turn and then his opponent does so, the alternative activation were both players play the same turn alternating the use of elements in their force until there are no more elements left, the random activation were each element is randomly assigned a "card" or some other way of randomly determining which element is activated and finally the turnles activation were each element after its activation goes back on queue, interaction between the elements is not part of the activation process.

That's not a very good way of classifying them. A better general rule:

1) IGOUGO: I make my moves, you make your moves, and we don't really interact while doing it.

2) Alternating activations: I make a move, you make a move, until we've both made all of our moves.

3) Action-reaction: I make a move, you react to it.

The deciding factor is when during a turn each player is acting vs. waiting while the other player acts. IGOUGO and action-reaction are fundamentally different because IGOUGO says "this is my half of the turn, I'm going to do stuff while you watch" while action-reaction says "this is 'my' half of the turn, but you're going to make choices too". So, in 40k if I make a shooting attack the only decisions you get to make are about how you remove your casualties. In Infinity if I make a shooting attack you get to return fire, and that's a very different situation. It's different in terms of keeping you from getting bored while I take my turn, and it's different in terms of making strategic decisions at all times vs. executing your strategy and then waiting while your opponent executes theirs.

It can get quite murky if one wants to stretch it

If you have 16 elements but each turn you are allowed to move one (chess) is it a IGOUGO or alternative activation?

If in alternative activation one player purposefully swarms the opponent with elements in order to essentially get consecutive orders from the units he wants is it really alternative activation anymore?

If a player purposefully avoids any and every interacting elements of an action/ reaction mechanism (academic) what does the unit activation method makes it?

Interaction is not the same with game activation, I can design a game with alternative activation were each player in his sub turn only throws dice, yes the change will come sooner but the other guy still does not do anything while the player does stuff and could very well go make a tea for himself.

In Infinity the game system is IGOUGO but the interaction mechanic means you can really play in your opponents turn if you have played well, leaving no gap of interaction.

You have avoided mentioning the last two activation methods but both are quite popular.

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
If you have 16 elements but each turn you are allowed to move one (chess) is it a IGOUGO or alternative activation?

Alternate activation. You make a single move, followed by your opponent making a single move.

If in alternative activation one player purposefully swarms the opponent with elements in order to essentially get consecutive orders from the units he wants is it really alternative activation anymore?

Of course it is. Implicit in alternating activation is that if your opponent runs out of activations you just do the rest of yours. The swarm strategy is still working within the rules of the system (or exploiting them, if you want to criticize it) and has costs and benefits within that system.

If a player purposefully avoids any and every interacting elements of an action/ reaction mechanism (academic) what does the unit activation method makes it?

It's still action-reaction obviously. A player making terrible strategy choices out of spite (the only reason this could ever happen) doesn't change the fact that those options exist and are a fundamental part of the rules.

Interaction is not the same with game activation, I can design a game with alternative activation were each player in his sub turn only throws dice, yes the change will come sooner but the other guy still does not do anything while the player does stuff and could very well go make a tea for himself.

Can we not make up absurd straw man games? In the context of tabletop wargaming (as opposed to "games you play with your small child") there are decisions.

In Infinity the game system is IGOUGO but the interaction mechanic means you can really play in your opponents turn if you have played well, leaving no gap of interaction.

And this is why it isn't IGOUGO. The gap of interaction is a fundamental part of IGOUGO. That's why it's "I go, you go", not "we go simultaneously but one of us is kind of in charge of starting the action/reaction sequence right now".

You have avoided mentioning the last two activation methods but both are quite popular.

No, I avoided mentioning them because they're fundamentally the same as alternating activations. Random activation order or "turnless" activation are just different methods of determining what order you do those activations in.

Mike712 558192 6157422 wrote:

The idea behind the committee is to ensure that the game and it's rule-set appeal to to as much of the player-base as possible, with 20+ you are likely to get a broader representation of opinion and this I feel is critical to ending up with a game that the majority will enjoy most aspects of.The committee would also be responsible for sourcing the most popular ideas from the community, community input through discussion and poll ensures that most are happy with the rules too. This is crowd sourcing, but applied to a rule-set rather than a more typical product or service.

The 5th edition INAT Community FAQ showed why this is an impossible dream and an exercize in futility. People on the internet cannot handle a consensus or bowing to the majority.

There are always going to be people who disagree with YOUR balance or the MAJORITY's Balance and always want their own version which means even if you do a framework with 80% correct balance, people wills till have fragmented versions of the balance hammer because 'they know better than you'.

Then there are the people who reject it flat out because it isn't official and direct from GW.

Seriously, go read all the history threads and arguments over community FAQs. It was an uphill battle, and did a lot of good, but they never did get consensus of the community and people will never agree on 'what is balanced'.

So if you are prepared to do a lot of work for a system which no one will ever adopt and may never see actual play outside your gaming group and will constantly be invalidated by GW's newest release which will require re-balancing of your entire system every 3 months, then go for it. You are in for a lot of wasted time and the chances of people adopting your balance hammer widely in the community is virtually none.

Oh, and when you finally finish it, expect GW to sue you for copyright infringement and trademark infringement. They can't copyright mechanics, but they can get you for anything you reproduce in part or in whole. You would have to name the units 'generic spaceman A' and 'Alien facesmasher B' and 'Bugmonster crusher D' and such which will make appeal of your rules even less.

nkelsch wrote:
Seriously, go read all the history threads and arguments over community FAQs.

And when you do, remember that those FAQs were only intended to fix ambiguous rules that GW's own FAQs left unresolved. They didn't attempt to handle balance issues, something that is even more controversial.

Having been on a few very large committees, generally government and non-profit type stuff, I have a recommendation. Invite a few people to be your "central committee." Maybe four people. The central committee would hash out major concepts for your game and then delegate tasks to sub committees. So maybe central committee would determine how the turn system works, and then delegate movement to a movement committee.

Another recommendation is: do not make it "balance hammer," but give it a generic name and create a nice beer a pretzel game that will work for any science fiction fluff. Create general skirmish rules that can play any 28MM sci-fi or modern combat theatre and then produce "codices" that allow for easy conversion. Power armor is power armor whether Heinlein wrote it or Jervis Johnson wrote it. The idea is GURPS skirmish, 28mm. Savvy?

Finally, digitize it, make it free, and make it donation supported. That way the GW legal team can never assault your high tower, just like Linux vs. Microsoft. I pledge $20.00 right now. . .

- J

nkelsch wrote:

Mike712 558192 6157422 wrote:

The idea behind the committee is to ensure that the game and it's rule-set appeal to to as much of the player-base as possible, with 20+ you are likely to get a broader representation of opinion and this I feel is critical to ending up with a game that the majority will enjoy most aspects of.The committee would also be responsible for sourcing the most popular ideas from the community, community input through discussion and poll ensures that most are happy with the rules too. This is crowd sourcing, but applied to a rule-set rather than a more typical product or service.

The 5th edition INAT Community FAQ showed why this is an impossible dream and an exercize in futility. People on the internet cannot handle a consensus or bowing to the majority.

There are always going to be people who disagree with YOUR balance or the MAJORITY's Balance and always want their own version which means even if you do a framework with 80% correct balance, people wills till have fragmented versions of the balance hammer because 'they know better than you'.

Then there are the people who reject it flat out because it isn't official and direct from GW.

Seriously, go read all the history threads and arguments over community FAQs. It was an uphill battle, and did a lot of good, but they never did get consensus of the community and people will never agree on 'what is balanced'.

So if you are prepared to do a lot of work for a system which no one will ever adopt and may never see actual play outside your gaming group and will constantly be invalidated by GW's newest release which will require re-balancing of your entire system every 3 months, then go for it. You are in for a lot of wasted time and the chances of people adopting your balance hammer widely in the community is virtually none.

Oh, and when you finally finish it, expect GW to sue you for copyright infringement and trademark infringement. They can't copyright mechanics, but they can get you for anything you reproduce in part or in whole. You would have to name the units 'generic spaceman A' and 'Alien facesmasher B' and 'Bugmonster crusher D' and such which will make appeal of your rules even less.

Yes of course and those people will be a minority as this would be a project based on community input, if most are happy that's all that matters, if you collect enough differing opinions it becomes easy to see trends and these trends are what you base the rules and balance on.

Why even move over to a newer edition of the 40k ruleset, why the constant need for change, new scenarios could be added to keep things fresh, however if there are good concepts in a new rulebook use them of course.

GW won't sue me, if they tried they wouldn't have a leg to stand on, I'm not going to be reproducing any of their works and it doesn't infringe on any trademark law because it's a non-commercial venture. I can say and write "space marine" as much as I damn well want to as long as I'm not making any money from saying or writing it.

Mike712 wrote:



Yes of course and those people will be a minority as this would be a project based on community input, if most are happy that's all that matters, if you collect enough differing opinions it becomes easy to see trends and these trends are what you base the rules and balance on.

Why even move over to a newer edition of the 40k ruleset, why the constant need for change, new scenarios could be added to keep things fresh, however if there are good concepts in a new rulebook use them of course.

GW won't sue me, if they tried they wouldn't have a leg to stand on, I'm not going to be reproducing any of their works and it doesn't infringe on any trademark law because it's a non-commercial venture. I can say and write "space marine" as much as I damn well want to as long as I'm not making any money from saying or writing it.

'Not making money off it' is a myth. Good luck in court with that one. Websites have been threatened for years for posting rules or statlines or point values... If you attempt to use any of the current rules 'as-is' you may find yourself using copyrighted works. Reprinting rules and stats in part or in whole will get you a takedown notice especially if you are making a 'whole new ruleset' which effectively balancehammer would be seen as.

And 'As long as most are happy with it' has shown to not be successful truth at all in this community. Besides never getting 'most' you will always have people who you will never please and if they run large events in large areas, you then have a whole group of 'gamers' who may like your ideas but won't use them because actually playing the game is more important than a ruleset they can never use. If major tourneys won't even entertain your ruleset (which they won't) you will have a large number of people who may like your idea never entertain your ruleset because they simply can't use it anywhere of note, which ultimately defeats the entire purpose.

Good luck... You will need it.

 necrondog99 wrote:
Having been on a few very large committees, generally government and non-profit type stuff, I have a recommendation. Invite a few people to be your "central committee." Maybe four people. The central committee would hash out major concepts for your game and then delegate tasks to sub committees. So maybe central committee would determine how the turn system works, and then delegate movement to a movement committee.

Another recommendation is: do not make it "balance hammer," but give it a generic name and create a nice beer a pretzel game that will work for any science fiction fluff. Create general skirmish rules that can play any 28MM sci-fi or modern combat theatre and then produce "codices" that allow for easy conversion. Power armor is power armor whether Heinlein wrote it or Jervis Johnson wrote it. The idea is GURPS skirmish, 28mm. Savvy?

Finally, digitize it, make it free, and make it donation supported. That way the GW legal team can never assault your high tower, just like Linux vs. Microsoft. I pledge $20.00 right now. . .

- J

Thanks for the advice, this does make a lot of sense, if I can find just a few dedicated people that are willing to get things started it would be much easier to co-ordinate a small group initially, but still run everything by the community so we could make properly informed and unbiased decisions.

 Peregrine wrote:

Spoiler:

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
If you have 16 elements but each turn you are allowed to move one (chess) is it a IGOUGO or alternative activation?

Alternate activation. You make a single move, followed by your opponent making a single move.

If in alternative activation one player purposefully swarms the opponent with elements in order to essentially get consecutive orders from the units he wants is it really alternative activation anymore?

Of course it is. Implicit in alternating activation is that if your opponent runs out of activations you just do the rest of yours. The swarm strategy is still working within the rules of the system (or exploiting them, if you want to criticize it) and has costs and benefits within that system.

If a player purposefully avoids any and every interacting elements of an action/ reaction mechanism (academic) what does the unit activation method makes it?

It's still action-reaction obviously. A player making terrible strategy choices out of spite (the only reason this could ever happen) doesn't change the fact that those options exist and are a fundamental part of the rules.

Interaction is not the same with game activation, I can design a game with alternative activation were each player in his sub turn only throws dice, yes the change will come sooner but the other guy still does not do anything while the player does stuff and could very well go make a tea for himself.

Can we not make up absurd straw man games? In the context of tabletop wargaming (as opposed to "games you play with your small child") there are decisions.

In Infinity the game system is IGOUGO but the interaction mechanic means you can really play in your opponents turn if you have played well, leaving no gap of interaction.

And this is why it isn't IGOUGO. The gap of interaction is a fundamental part of IGOUGO. That's why it's "I go, you go", not "we go simultaneously but one of us is kind of in charge of starting the action/reaction sequence right now".

You have avoided mentioning the last two activation methods but both are quite popular.

No, I avoided mentioning them because they're fundamentally the same as alternating activations. Random activation order or "turnless" activation are just different methods of determining what order you do those activations in.

No, but you can insist that activation and interaction are the one and the same, I do not think I can sway your mind that the fundamental mechanism in an IGOUGO system is not the non intractability of the players, but a more cohesive coordination of once playing elements.

Likewise the alternative activation is a mechanism were the interruption of flow and not the interaction of elements is the fundamental mechanism

The other two are not "variations of alternative activation" since the one has a random predetermined (usually unknown) order for each turn and the other has a continuous known order of units activating without a turn order, variations and mixing between the systems are known, for example bold action has a random activation, but players choose the unit instead of been predetermined, but how and if the elements will interact with each other is not part of the activation sequence.

You may want to demonize IGOUGO all you want and maybe think alternative activation is godsend, but they are just activation systems, not interaction systems.

'Not making money off it' is a myth. Good luck in court with that one. Websites have been threatened for years for posting rules or statlines or point values... If you attempt to use any of the current rules 'as-is' you may find yourself using copyrighted works. Reprinting rules and stats in part or in whole will get you a takedown notice especially if you are making a 'whole new ruleset' which effectively balancehammer would be seen as.

And 'As long as most are happy with it' has shown to not be successful truth at all in this community. Besides never getting 'most' you will always have people who you will never please and if they run large events in large areas, you then have a whole group of 'gamers' who may like your ideas but won't use them because actually playing the game is more important than a ruleset they can never use. If major tourneys won't even entertain your ruleset (which they won't) you will have a large number of people who may like your idea never entertain your ruleset because they simply can't use it anywhere of note, which ultimately defeats the entire purpose.

Good luck... You will need it.

It's not a myth, copywrite is always protected, you can't duplicate someone else works of writing, but trademarks are only protected when something is commercial. Any rules that came from GW itself would be a case of refer to the BRB.

I don't think they could do anything about altered stat lines either, again anything that stayed the same would be a case of refer to codex.

I feel that if everyone was playing an altered rule-set because it was better, tournament organisers would be quick to pick it up, of course this would take time, but the new rules would spread throughout the community by word of mouth and on the net too if it really was a more entertaining and balanced game.

Lets be a bit realistic here.

GW is a company known to be overprotective, unreasonably demanding, legally trigger happy and with a history of claiming they own things they do not own.

Its not unreasonable to expect some heavy reaction from them, especially if they feel you are using/ misrepresenting/ profiting (remember reality does not matter)/ whatever from their IP.

I do not say it will definitely happen, but expecting it is not a bad idea too.

Mike712 wrote:
tournament organizers would be quick to pick it up, of course this would take time,

Have you ever met or talked with any of these tourney organizers who would be quick to pick up a totally different ruleset? Considering how intolerant people are to COMP, a rebalanced ruleset is by definition COMP.

nkelsch wrote:

Mike712 wrote:
tournament organizers would be quick to pick it up, of course this would take time,

Have you ever met or talked with any of these tourney organizers who would be quick to pick up a totally different ruleset? Considering how intolerant people are to COMP, a rebalanced ruleset is by definition COMP.

Initially people may be intolerant of new rules, but if the new rules becomes the game of choice when using 40k models there's no reason why they wouldn't want to play it at tournament level either, I like to think the community is not completely close minded and I've certainly met people who would be open to new rules even games workshop used to heavily promote being creative.

Hey Mike712!!

Ive been toying with a re-write as well.
No need to re-invent the wheel.
As a wargamer, the best part of the game IMHO is the sense of not knowing who is going to win the match til the very end of the game. I like the idea of issuing orders as well.
Lets face it, the 40K mechanic of a number scale form one to ten and a dice mechanic that operates on a one through six range is inhierantly ( spelling ) broken.
So first...
Change the dice...Make it a D10.
Next...Make issuing orders a part of the game.
Finally, change the IGUG manner of the game. By making an order system you can bring both players into the turn sequence.
The D10 system works like this...
Keep the stat lines the same, just change the target number from 4 to 6.
Soooo... WS 4 vs. WS4 needs a 6 to hit, not a 4. WS 5 vs WS 9 needs a 10 to hit. WS 5 vs WS10 needs a 10 as well.
WS4 vs WS10 needs a 10 followed by a 6+
just work the scale up and down with a bump of one die "pip" per point of difference.
Armor Values are just adjusted based upon the D10...Penetration is D10 + strength of weapon.
Rhinos are AV 15/15/14
Land Raider is 18/18/18
Wave Serpent becomes a 16/16/14
By adjusting the number scale into a D10, all the math suddenly works and Vehicles become cool again and Hand to Hand monsters are still viable.
The number needed to hit for shooting is BS minus 10 .. so BS 4 needs a 6+ to hit. BS 9 hits on 2+ rerolling results of one and hitting on 6+
Any other ideas out there?

I think a better solution would not to modify any of the rules of the game, but to simply re-adjust point values to reflect over/undercosted units. Then people don't need to learn to play via new rules and there is little effort to actually re-write the game, it simply changes how units cost.

Example: NOBZ and Flash Gitz are almost exactly the same price for points, but due to being heavy support and lacking NOB unit upgrades, literally a unit of NOBZ with TL shootas/kombiskorchas are more effective at shooting for less cost than Flash gitz. Flash gitz (like meganobz) deserve a discount for being inflexible. 3 MANZ are 120 pts for a PK and a 2+ save where 3 Nobz are 150pts for a PK and 4+ save. The NOBZ are more expensive because they have more options which make them 'better'. So you could fix flash Gitz simply by making them 'cheaper' than their NOB counterparts. If a more dakka git was 5-10 points cheaper than a NOB, then it would justify the lack of PKs, dedicated transport and such.

The most overpowered, underpowered unit or rule can be mitigated by point value changes.

Then all that would be required is a re-costing of all codexes when a new codex is released. If something is released which under/over values a specific type of unit, then an adjustment may be needed. Maintaining a 'recosted' list opposed to rewriting rules would keep people invested in a system they already know how to play but only require army rebuilding. Buy-in would be much easier as it would only be a change in army list opposed to a change in how the game is played.

Makes a nice change to see someone actively doing something about it other than harping on and on.
I myself do not have any issues with the balance so to speak but still I Hope it all goes well for you.

If anyone out there has played the original EPIC rules by jervis, you will see this coming..
play with an order sequence.
Each player gives thier detatchments orders before the turn.
Some are Fire! , Advance, Charge!, Fall Back..that type. Then each player activates those units with those orders on the table according to an initiative roll or perhaps an alternating first player, second player type of turn counter...?

Hi all.
It is apparent lots of people can see the symptoms of 40ks core problem.But how many can identify the cause of all these symptoms?

Some people would be happy with adjusted point values to improve internal and external balance.

However, this is hampered by the plethora of special rules , that over complicate ignore or conflict with the core game mechanics and resolution methods.(And are a completely impossible to allocate PV to with any sort of accuracy.)

And these special rules are needed as the 'core rules' DO NOT cover the game play of 40k.

Some people identify the fact that there is very limited scope to make units significantly different with deterministic use of a D6.
And think that using a larger dice in a deterministic way would improve the situation.

But this STILL limits the scope to the size of the dice.And would just 4 or 6 more results be enough?
D10 and D12 are fine if you just roll one or 2 per units, but rolling 30 at a time could be a problem.

Its the resolution methods that are REALLY limiting, not the dice size.

Over the last 15 years of 'battle game' 40k, lots of people have tried to improve 40k by making small adjustments here and there to the rules.
In general they ADD far more complication than they add to game play.(Especially GW game developers, under the instruction of GW sales department. )

Apart from those that rewind back to a 2nd ed based game and add in more modern resolution methods.
If we look at EPIC rules , they seem far more accomplished battle game rules.(Net Epic /Epic Armageddon.Better defined , less complicated , and FAR more intuitive!)

I think to get a massive improvement in game play and reduction in complication , to improve the balance of 40k .

A re write is the most effective option.

Some say why re-invent the wheel?

Well if 40k rules were a 'wheel' it would be square, with hundreds of widgets that roll, swing , or drop on the periphery of the square to allow very bumpy rolling before something fails to move at the right time or in the right way,and it comes crashing to a halt.

So I would say lets define what a wheel should do first, before we decide if we have already invented it!.

Because what we have for 40k is NOT a rule set developed for the 'intended' game play of 40k.
But a quick fix that went horribly wrong a long time a go, and NO-ONE knows how to put it back on track.(|Or decide what track it is supposed to be on.)

When new rules can be written and balanced good enough for solid competitive play within 5 years.(With community feed back.)
Why try to unpick a mess decades in the making ?

Just my 2p worth.

I try not to be so blunt and negative but my friend, this is a fool's errand if I ever saw one. How do you define community? Because that's the first thing that you need to seriously consider. I seem to think that based on what you have written you mean community as the Warhammer 40k community at large. If this is the case then you are deluded.

Do you seriously think that you're going to be able to get the entire 40k community including those who play at official GW stores, to embrace some internet bastardization ( for better or worse) to a meaningful extent where tournament organizers are going to adopt your ruleset as the defacto standard?

And the best part is that you plan on doing this with a 40 man committee! I seriously doubt you even be able to get that size committee to agree on the name of the title! You say that you are in college, try this as a little experiment.. Go to one of your classes and see if you can get everyone to agree on what to have for lunch.

In nearly 30 pages of discussion on this forum recently regarding the quantitative merits GW games have, the only defense put forth for them is the ease of access in finding players. By cooking up a homebrew ruleset that completely negates the games only selling point.

And if that's the case, then why are we even playing 40k at all?

Mike712 wrote:


Proof readers....NO TYPOS ALOUD!

Oh the irony! (That should be ALLOWED)

But since I put my head above the parapet, I'm happy to proof-read.

Cheers

Andrew

 Peregrine wrote:

Mike712 wrote:
The 40k rule-set has potential in it

Really? What potential do you see in the rules? IMO what 40k needs is a complete re-write from the beginning to get rid of awful mechanics like the IGOUGO turn structure and the D6 stat lines.

Amen.

I've had an idea playing in my head for quite a while. A mixing of what I find best in the games I play. Streamlined stats based on troop types all across factions (Light Infantry, Heavy Infantry, Armoured Infantry, etc). A turn sequence based heavily off Infinity (with the exception of a 'moral status' rule which either allows or limits AROs based on the status (either Ready, Spent, Broken or Panicked) of the unit). Limitations on the amount of dice throwing (only one dice to to both hit/wound), different armour rules (giving armour values only to vehicules and armoured troops) and a Living Card Game system to replace Reserve and the Army Org system and to include a bit of strategic gameplay above the table gameplay.

Which would leave the game looking nothing like 40k, and more like a frankenstein monster built from 40k, Wm/H, Infinity and Netrunner.