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 Vash108 wrote:
What would you say to change overwatch to d6 + 1 shots for every 5 models in the unit?

Another pointless change that adds more rules to the bloated mess but doesn't actually accomplish anything.

Seriously, even if you delete overwatch entirely you aren't doing very much to help assault units. Overwatch rarely makes any difference unless you have a habit of spacing everyone out in a maximum-coherency line pointed at the target unit, so that one casualty increases the required charge distance by 3". In realistic situations, where you have several models at roughly the same range from the target, overwatch is just a random dead model or two with negligible effect on your charge distance. And since the units that can inflict meaningful damage with overwatch get auto-killed in assault it's really little more than a "here, throw some dice so you feel like you have a chance when your units get slaughtered" rule.

If you want to make meaningful improvements to assault units/armies you need to address two things: inability to make "safe" charges consistently, and the early-turn shooting advantage that effectively ends the game before anything can reach melee range.

Really, I just think they need to add more risk to shooting. Declare all shooting at the same time, roll for for units and such like normal. Have wounds assigned to models by the shooting player, with LOS! have any model LOS! on a 4+ and any character on a 2+ any overkill is lost. Any unit that loses it's target loses it's action.

And overwatch shouldn't exist because it does have an effect. Going even from 6" to a 7" charge is huge. It increases the odds of failure by 10%.

Make models that shoot well more expensive. Because they are more valuable than models with clubs. Done.

Martel732 wrote:
Make models that shoot well more expensive. Because they are more valuable than models with clubs. Done.

I am still confused as to why hormagaunts cost more than termagants.

All this stuff comes back to GW not understanding math or just not caring. You can't even say they're trying to sell models, because they will leave models useless for literally a decade. You can't say they are selling codices with codex creep, because it's totally random which codex is OP in each edition. It's not a sequential pattern.

JPong wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Make models that shoot well more expensive. Because they are more valuable than models with clubs. Done.

I am still confused as to why hormagaunts cost more than termagants.

Cause the Horma comes with +1I, +1A, the special rules bounding leap, fleet.

Base Gants are pretty bad too, but devourer's are good so thats what's taken, but it doubles their cost as a result. Not to mention what made Gants so awesome before was the Tervigon's spreadable buffs...And even then you still want a Tervigon for them.

Terms also have guns with better str and ap than gaunts. They also don't eat themselves the moment they are out of synapse.

JPong wrote:
Declare all shooting at the same time...

That would be so horrible to play that I would quit playing that edition. The amount of targets that I would have to remember with infantry Guard would be insane.

 Trickstick wrote:

JPong wrote:
Declare all shooting at the same time...

That would be so horrible to play that I would quit playing that edition. The amount of targets that I would have to remember with infantry Guard would be insane.

It's not that hard. At worst you could name all your units, and make little tokens representing them, then just put them by the units you are shooting.

JPong wrote:

 Trickstick wrote:

JPong wrote:
Declare all shooting at the same time...

That would be so horrible to play that I would quit playing that edition. The amount of targets that I would have to remember with infantry Guard would be insane.

It's not that hard. At worst you could name all your units, and make little tokens representing them, then just put them by the units you are shooting.

Or...do away with the IGOUGO system and do alternating unit activations.

Kills so many more birds with the same stone.

 Havok210 wrote:
Overwatch in 6th is really not too much of a deterrent to me if I really plan on charging someone. Its the other random factors, such as random charge distances, special rules that buff overwatch (which are not needed in my opinion), etc. that really make me think twice.

Coming into this game, the random charge/run distance is very weird to me. Also, "Run" seems like someone hauling ass to cover as much distance as possible, while "Charge" is what you do when you are within reach of your enemy but not quite close enough. I feel like having a set charge distance but having running be a random 2d6 would make more sense.

I also tend to agree with the Overwatch debate. Giving it a consequence would be fair (I love overwatch btw).

To weigh in on the Overwatch debate, I would be perfectly fine with forfeiting my own shooting phase in order to use Overwatch on the enemy turn, but only if I can use it at any point in the enemy turn and only if it's at full BS. If I can use it to interrupt my enemy's movement, or sit on it to spoil a charge, that is giving me a level of tactical flexibility that I'm just not getting in the game right now. One of the historicals I play has a game mechanic just like this and it isn't broken or cheesy. It makes finding good firing lanes even more important, and is great for making your opponent careful when they're moving their units.

A reserve move mechanic would also be very interesting. Allowing me to forfeit my movement and shooting so that I could move a unit in between unit activations on the opponent's turn would open up a lot of options and could do a lot to help get things into assault. I know I'd certainly have to think very carefully if some Death Company or some other nasty assault unit was on Reserve Move and could pop it off near the end of my own turn, leaving me to eat the charge on the enemy's turn right afterwards.

Of course, I expect none of this from GW as it's a pretty radical departure from the current ruleset and I don't think radical departures are what they're after right now. But damn, it would be awesome.

I would be happy with just removing the battle brother mechanic and that was it...

Will 7th change anything?

Yes.

It will change Warhammer into Warmachine when they litter the field with super heavies and d weapons.

Of you are using in overwatch, in the assault phase you are reduced to 1A with a basic CCW, unless you are armed with a pistol + CCW/PW/PF in which case your 1A can be made with that weapon, but no matter what your A stat is, you only get 1A in the assault that follows the shooting. The shooting is made at full BS if you pass an initiative test or it's BS1 (except heavy weapons, which are always BS1), and you cannot then fire in the following shooting phase if the charge fails, but you can run.

Doesn't really help so much with the likes of Tau firewarriors, or guard, but in ways they are the units that need the help with overwatch and would fire as the enemy advances, but stops units that meant to be more combat specialized having their cake and eat it.

I would think (and have heard it said) that this is going to be more of a 6.5e, than a revamp of the BRB rules. It stands to reason that it'll be a collection of dataslates, FAQs and supplements all rolled into one with the rules.

I think a change to overwatch is just wishful thinking. I'm open to the idea though.

Overwatch change sounds a bit pointless. I think that I'll have to agree with Peregrine on this one (also, guys, ad hominem attacks are weaksauce).

What seems to nail assault is just that you can't get into it. Assault was always the best way to wipe out a unit and claim its position, thanks to sweeping advance and suchlike. But right now you really struggle to get at the enemy unit in question. Beyond that we have the real and painful power of shooting, which has gotten better and better. For a brief example, fliers are completely shooting centric for both sides. And there is no easy way to make all assault units better value than shooting units without massive codex rewrites.

For this reason, the consolidation change could be a big help: it allows a unit to be able to more quickly kill more stuff, thus achieving efficiency. Remember that shooting units have more turns of actual efficient use, thanks to their 24" guns and whatnot. But more practically I'd be in favour of returning outflank and run charges, since with overwatch and interceptor they are not able to completely deny the enemy the chance to charge. Also, dammit, I never got around to making Kommandos and I feel like I missed out on something glorious!

Just make it playable without having to flick through the rulebook all the time and lawyering half of the match...
There is no reason why there should be special rules with fancy names that just give you a random set of special rules with fancy names out of the core rulebook. Rules that share the same mechanics should share a name too.
And please don´t punish me for killing my enemies in my first round of assault... This might be the rule that buggers me the most.
And I´d like to declare different targets for every trooper like in Warmachine. What´s the point in having guys sitting around doing nothing while one dude shoots his LasCan on a tank.

JPong wrote:
Really, I just think they need to add more risk to shooting. Declare all shooting at the same time, roll for for units and such like normal. Have wounds assigned to models by the shooting player, with LOS! have any model LOS! on a 4+ and any character on a 2+ any overkill is lost. Any unit that loses it's target loses it's action.

And overwatch shouldn't exist because it does have an effect. Going even from 6" to a 7" charge is huge. It increases the odds of failure by 10%.

fething LOS! can fething do one too.

Characters are already well enough protected when in a squad as long as you are thoughtful about where you place your models, they're supposedly on a battlefield, sometimes they will get shot in the head.

Challenges either need to disappear or have a massive overhaul too. I'm neutral as to which way, I'm not a huge fan of them now, but neither do they bother me hugely. If they were to stay, then there need to be greater consequences for your officer cowering at the back of his unit like a pleb, and there need to be greater bonuses for butchering him in front of his men. If my Bloodthirster utterly destroys some nameless Vet Sgt, is it really 'cinematic' that it has no further effect on morale than some random bloke getting a knee to the codpiece in the general melee?

 tommse wrote:
Just make it playable without having to flick through the rulebook all the time and lawyering half of the match... There is no reason why there should be special rules with fancy names that just give you a random set of special rules with fancy names out of the core rulebook. Rules that share the same mechanics should share a name too.

I completely agree with this. I love games that are elegant because you can sit down at a demo table and pick up the basics in 20 minutes. Mastering the tactics and special rules of the game comes later, but the initial learning curve to these games is flatter.

I think 40k's biggest defect is just the way in which the rules are laid out in the books. There is some cohesive structure to the books (fluff, then units, then rules, then pictures, etc), but there is a major problem of redundancy within the sections. I really like the mini rulebook because I can find things a little quicker in it, but it still has issues. I end up using the reference section in the back more than anything, but there's always one tiny piece of information missing from that chart and I end up having to flip back. It's funny to me that more than a few people have suggested that I just memorize everything. For the sake of reducing error, this is a very bad piece of advice, and I bet it leads to more arguments.

I wonder if a proper edit would fix a lot of things. These books do not read like something that was edited by a professional. It would interesting to see if the core rulebook being edited in a logical way (without changing anything) would make things flow smoothly.

Making only small changes as announced above are pointless and a tight rule set which doesn't require flipping pages is wishful thinking.

In our gaming group, there is a tendency for Warmahordes.

When people say to memorize the rulebook, they don't mean to actually memorize every word as written. They mean to memorize where it is, and how the rule works. That way, if there is an argument, you know where to look to find the answer.

No one gets the rulebook 100%, and not really because it's big. It's just that to every rule there are exceptions, and if you are not familiar with the exceptions (particularly those found in the army codex) it makes arguments come up. The game itself is actually quite simplistic.

Now, why knowing the rules is considered TFG or rule lawyering by so many people, I have no idea. There is no exploiting loopholes, just following the rules. Everyone is playing by the same rules. If you think something someone does is too good to be true, but you can't find a reason why they can't do it in a game, let it go and do some research for next time.

So the biggest complaint with assaulting is that if you roll bad, you're penalized by eating another round of shooting? So make assault available out of reserve/deepstrike and after running then make it a set distance like 8". Now if you can assault you still take the overwatch but you'll still make it into cc. I totally disagree with variable run/assaults ranges. They should be set ranges.

On a separate note I would like to see the random terrain and objective tables go the way of the dodo. A better system would be battlefield conditions like a high gravity planet would subtract 2" off all movement while a low gravity planet could add 2" to all movement. Or a windstorm planet could take 6" off the range of all shooting weapons to a minimum of 6" and would automatically make blast templates scatter (no direct hits unless distance rolled is less than BS). Or a dark side of the planet option where night fighting is in place all game. Rather than rolling for each piece of terrain it would be much easier to remember and I think would make the game more interesting.

Brutal Viking wrote:

On a separate note I would like to see the random terrain and objective tables go the way of the dodo. A better system would be battlefield conditions like a high gravity planet would subtract 2" off all movement while a low gravity planet could add 2" to all movement. Or a windstorm planet could take 6" off the range of all shooting weapons to a minimum of 6" and would automatically make blast templates scatter (no direct hits unless distance rolled is less than BS). Or a dark side of the planet option where night fighting is in place all game. Rather than rolling for each piece of terrain it would be much easier to remember and I think would make the game more interesting.

I think there is a place for these things in a sci-fi game, between consenting players. I don't think there's a place for them in the base rules though. I think any random effects that are applied after you've picked your army are asking for bad games and mismatches that aren't really fun for either player.

In real-world terms, if you're a commanding general, you're going to know that there's no gravity on the planet you're invading, and you're going to equip your force appropriately. You're not just going to stumble into these effects with the force you happen to have with you and hope for the best.

 Redbeard wrote:

In real-world terms, if you're a commanding general, you're going to know that there's no gravity on the planet you're invading, and you're going to equip your force appropriately. You're not just going to stumble into these effects with the force you happen to have with you and hope for the best.

Arguably. Both Napoleon and Hitler ought to have known that winter in Russia sucks. You're assuming perfect information on the part of the commanders.

I just know I always forget what the mysterious terrain does and it's bitten me a few times

A few people are saying the issue with assault units is getting them into assault before they are blown to bits. As a nid player who loves cc I totally agree. Nidz have it especially bad as there are no transports and units must walk/run across the board bar a couple of outflanking options or fliers soloing across the table.

Consolidating into assault would be a nice boon but for my army I would massively prefer the old fleet rule back (you can run and charge in same turn) or that fleet adds to the run distance rather than a reroll. 1d6 plus 6" charge would be a huge boon. Assaulting from outflanking would also be a huge boon to stealers and I miss that option.

Selfishly I was hoping to see such changes in the first dataslate... But no chance.

removing random charge distances would go a big way into helping this. or at least increasing the minimum to say 4 inches with a d3 of additional range

Brutal Viking wrote:
I just know I always forget what the mysterious terrain does and it's bitten me a few times

That's more the fault of the player than the fault of the ruleset. Planets like Catachan are part of the setting.

 Psienesis wrote:

Brutal Viking wrote:
I just know I always forget what the mysterious terrain does and it's bitten me a few times

That's more the fault of the player than the fault of the ruleset. Planets like Catachan are part of the setting.

Just because planets with dangerous terrain are part of the setting does not mean that their implementation in the rules doesn't leave a lot to be desired.


Consider that movement is defined as being deliberate, but stopping periodically to check your surroundings. That's the standard 6" move, and that definition comes right from page 10. And yet, in spite of this deliberate movement, you have no idea that the forest, that may well be in your deployment zone, has ironbark or is carnivorous until you actually walk into it. Sure, that makes loads of sense.

We're talking about warfare in the far future, apparently where the range of ones guns are known so exactly that a weapon with a mile range can know whether it needs to shift an inch forward before firing, but you have no clue what the forest 5 feet from you is made of until you stick your head in it.

It's more "cinematic" BS random tables designed to obfuscate the fact that the game designers have no idea how to make a balanced game. Because if the worst army in the game can get a win sometimes because a forest eats their opponent, hey, balance, right?