Thirdeye wrote:
Yeah, I gotta say I was a little confused about this project as well. A “satirical” version of "Pathfinder 4DK"? If you ask me the game is already pretty “satirical” (or just stupid sometimes), like a Grot can be two inches from twenty Battle Cannons and still survive a round of ranged combat.
The Pathfinder reference was made in the context of when a corporate game maker completely loses touch with its player community. So much so as that the community fights back and creates system of which the corporation has no interest or control.
The Satirical part is to:
A)Have fun with this
B)Bring back the silliness that used to be in the game before the giant corporate cash grab and special snowflakes that all want their very own special rule made things overly serious. This is why I went with this being an Ork directed work. A reminder that this game should have some old Bugs Bunny, Daffy & Elmer Fudd type humour. Look at the old Rogue Trader cover and you could tell that this was not supposed to be an all doom and gloom game. This is why I am looking for people to help create the artwork to go with.
C)Help cover our asses. Satire is protected. Old unsupported works do not benefit from IP protection.
and
D)Because I want an Ork on the front page flipping the British "up yours" salute while wearing a gak eating grin.
Thirdeye wrote:
focusedfire wrote:
... The biggest issue I'm gonna have is the new movement tables to simulate a more "real" scale of movement. The new increased movement rates are going to make for wicked fast games. The reduction to cover is gonna mitigate infantry covering up to 18+ inches in a turn. Some units will be able to cover between 48-60 inches in a turn but leave themselves very vulnerable and unable to do any damage if they choose to flat-out/sprint.
Don’t like the sound of that. "real" scale of movement? How far can a 28mm model (or 15mm) move in a game turn? How long is a game turn anyway. How does infantry movement scale compare to weapons range? “reduction” to cover? Why would you want to do that? Maybe that’s the “satirical” part. The game already has that; paint yourself red and stand in the open while everyone’s shooting at you. I would rather make it a bit more... (dare I say it?...) real, with unlimited weapons ranges (at long range) and more cover for troopers to hide in. And with meaningful cover saves.
I'll answer these in sequence:
1)Real scale as in figuring model height and calculating how that translates into table distance. While
40K infantry movement is a little more than 25% of what true scale movement should be. But, at 15mm scale
40K ends up being about 50%-ish of true scale for infantry and average skirmish/front-line shooting ranges. Vehicles and flyers are not so much and need much more work. It is my intent to scale the movement for close to true scale 15mm which should bring 28mm models above the 50%.
2) By the long standing claimed turn time, an infantry model should be able to move/sprint up to 50-60 yards in a turn, vehicles, bikes, jump infantry and flyers should be much more than that.
Unfortunately, in 28mm scale, the battle zone is limiited to 48 yds x 72 yds on a conventional 4' x 6' table. In 15mm scale the distances are just about doubled to 96 yds x 144 yds.
By setting the infantry movement between 18"-24" we end up with a base movement that dictates, both, a much faster game and reduced model count armies. Sorta like the 28mm skirmish game
40k started of as.
3)How long is a turn? While the system is ugoigo it is assumed that all of the action happens simultaneously. This means that both player turns = 1 game turn. Having said that, each turn is supposed to represent about 6 seconds on the battle field.
4)The weapon ranges for
40k are almost decent in 15mm scale, but in 28mm they are ridiculously short. In order to fix 28mm movement and shooting to be true scale on an average game table aplayer would be able to cover the whole board on foot in one turn and all weapons but flamers would be considered close to unlimited. Again, this is why I am going to set the movement for 15mm true scale.
5) Reduction to cover is necessary because of the increased movement rates. The increased speed will also probably/hopefully mean the end of re-rolling saves(at least in shooting).
6)What other reasons do I have for reducing cover? Because it is ridiculously good now and in a game where movement allows armies to assault in turn 1 if the player decides to make a suicidal charge then those assault units do not need cover. Basically, I am shooting for people to play tactically and to work for the cover saves. Stupid suicide charges should be just that, suicide.
This is a pet peeve of mine where
40k is concerned, it is completely counter intuitive. Currently the rules reward stupid charges through open terrain because it is "cinematic" and supposedly "forges a narrative". In reality, it is teaching dumb tactics. I want to get away from that.
Now, don't get me wrong, I am not against
CC/
HTH. It absolutely has its place when in close quarters and infiltration missions. I just want it to be a balanced part of the game that encourages good use of tactics and movement.
.
Thirdeye wrote: focusedfire wrote:
Also looking for help on if the system should remain
D6. Or move to
D10 or
D12/
2D6???
Well, if your going to a different dice type your not staying with 5th Ed. rules. A move to a
D10 should be easiest but it will still be a big project.
2D6 wont work unless you want to roll everything separately. Why not a system that used different D-Types to represent different troop quality; say like Imp. Guards are a
D6 and Marines are a
D8?
Honestly, I really want to leave it as a
D6 system for now but figured that I would leave it open for discussion. My preference, in the long run, is for there to be a stream-lined
D10 or
D12 40K skirmish system but for now am leaning towards keeping it
D6.
Thirdeye wrote: focusedfire wrote:
Definite things to be considered for inclusion:
-cover = -1 or -2
BS to shooter, depending on cover quality.
What if the attacking unit has different
BS and the target unit has different
AP and under different kinds of cover? How do you handle that?
Please to note that I did not write those words. you mis-edited and applied another posters words to my having said them.
Thirdeye wrote: focusedfire wrote:
One thing immediately I am doing is to differentiate between Cover saves(Something between target and shooter) and Jink saves(Fast moving units moving erratically to prevent accurate targeting).
Why? Jink is just a form of cover save.
Please to re-read what I typed. I described why they are not the same thing. If I make them no longer related to one another then the current over the top cover stacking will stop and we can go back to 4+ cover save or Jink save as opposed to the 2+ that is seen so often. Again, increased movement is the reason for toning down the saves against shooting. If a player wants his units to survive then he can make sure that there is
los blocking terrain conveniently(tactically
) placed on the board.
Thirdeye wrote: focusedfire wrote:
I am hesitant to do away with all re-rolls. Am thinking of a scale where 2+&3+ can re-roll at 4+ and where 4+&5+ can re-roll at 6+.
I dislike re-rolls. It’s a terrible mechanic. If you need it then it means your core rules lack depth.
Not necessarily. There are other limiting factors that can make re-rolls a good game mechanic. For instance:
A) The
D6 system is inherently limiting. This is also compounded by the fact that the normal
D6 does not roll each side the statistical 16.666% of the time. they roll 1's about 19-24% of the time if they are the vegas square edge. Chessex round edges have been shown to roll 1's from 25% to 33% of the time. There is a thread here on Dakka explaining the whys and hows of this phenomenon.
B)You want to show that a character is blessed or has incredible luck.
C) You want to show that certain units have exceptional skill in something.
Now, I do agree that re-rolling has gotten out of hand and will be looking for ways to tame this beast that games workshop has released.
Thirdeye wrote: focusedfire wrote:
2)I would like shooting to be resolved on an individual model basis. Basically, only models in range and line of sight may be targeted, player then rolls shooting attacks. Hits are then counted and distributed as evenly as possible starting with the closest model. If wounds exceed the number of models in line of sight and within range then the wounds start back at the closest model. Repeat until all wounds are assigned. This is done for each different weapon type/group with the shooting player choosing when each weapon type/group fires.
Then the defender rolls the saves for each model and applies the results.
I like the sound of that too but you are still going to have problems with mixed units because of all the stats
GW uses.
It shouldn't be to bad. This is a close proximity of what was in play when the game had its fastest shooting phase. I am just limiting the amount of player exploits by limiting it to visible models only. The models within
los and range only also creates the opportunity for the tactical situation to shoot a unit out of coherency
,,,something that almost never happens anymore in current
40k.
Thirdeye wrote: focusedfire wrote:
... Am thinking that it is ok for a unit to "Pick-up" a special weapon from a downed model within its same unit,,no
sc doing this tho... If allowed, I feel that there would have to happen in next turn with penalty to movement.)
Too much detail for a company size game. If you’re rolling individual saves then individual models die, including the special weapons guy.
I disagree, I think options that encourage the aggressor to slow down and make tactical decisions is important... especially in a game in which movement may have been substantially increased.
Thirdeye wrote: focusedfire wrote:
3)Close combat is ok in 5th ed. Only real changes would be to do away with the stupidity of "fearless wounds" and not allow a 50 man guard platoon get wiped by 2-3 models just because they fall back. Basically, no more auto-destruct for units that break. Am looking at instituting a fighting withdrawal type mechanic.
GW close combat, any edition, is waaay too complicated. It shouldn’t like that for a company size game. There are just waaay too many stats and rules involved. It doesn’t have to be like that.
I understand that
40k combat can be intimidating and cumbersome. However, my inclination is to first try and fix what is known. Then if that Fails we can look at other options. Again, I'm looking to make a core rule set that works with and balances existing codices. If I move to far from the current system then players will be forced to constantly ignore stats and values already printed in their army books. Sorta looking to refine and further lighten what was the most stream-lined edition of the game.
Still, if you could please post some concise versions of your concepts, I would like to see them.
Thirdeye wrote: focusedfire wrote:
4) Agree and dis-agree about morale. I agree it should have more "effect" but maybe less "affects". I really want to separate pinning and morale. Being pinned down is not a sign of cowardice, rather it is a sign of being intelligent enough to know when you are going to get your guys needlessly slaughtered if you don't duck. If we can fix pinning now by taking away the morale element then I feel that adding a suppression rule that limits either movement,
bs or initiative could be in order.
Point I'm getting to is that I want to fix or remove the broken parts before adding a lot of new stuff.
Well it doesn’t help morale if you’re hugging cover to avoid getting blasted to death and you can’t see what going on around you. The two are related; no need for fine distinctions. Better to have one system that fits all.
I don't think you caught what I was getting at here. The way I am describing pinning would make it work against the majority of armies again. Sure, we can still add it causes -1 to leadership or something, but if worded right we can have a game were pretty much all factions have to deal with pinning weapons slowing them down if they get caught out in the open. Think
SM's not auto re-grouping because it is now about not losing precious gene-seed as opposed to being a sign of cowardice.
AnomanderRake wrote:On dice size:
d6s can be small, easy to acquire in bulk, tessellate very well for transport, and everyone's already got a lot of them. Trying to rescale the game for larger dice would be unnecessary work for not much return.
On armour: The idea of a flat save value ignored by some weapons and permitted by others makes low-
AP weapons too good in some situations and requires them to be too expensive for any other situation (see my post at
http://knightofthegrey.wordpress.com/2014/05/19/aegis-design-parameters/ for an attempt at a more detailed explanation). This also makes low-
AP blast/template weapons (the sort
GW's been putting into every new book without the consequences inherent in pre-5e low-
AP blasts) very, very powerful.
On Riptides, Wraithknights, Dreadknights, etc: Some combination of bad pricing in the first case and the armour problems with 2+ armour models going down too fast to AP1-2 weapons and not going down at all to AP3+ weapons. Fix the armour problem and rework the pricing and they're no longer a problem.
On
BS modifiers versus cover saves: I implemented a system wherein the roll to hit is based on
BS versus a new Evasion stat with enough modifiers to replace jinks and cover plus a few extras and got some flak from Lanrak and Thirdeye for making it too complicated; flat score and modifiers would need to be scaled carefully and you'd have to control the modifiers tightly but it could work.
On rerolls: Ninety percent of the inherent problems here can be removed by prohibiting a unit from having multiple Blessing powers active at the same time; specifying the value of a given reroll could work but it might get hard to track.
On points: If you don't get into the hornet's nest of changing points values you're not going to solve half the problems you're setting out to patch. You don't have to assert you're going to go out and come up with an entirely new set of numbers overnight and they're going to be correct, if you leave yourself room to change points on the fly (updating documents posted to a thread here) you'll have more freedom to actually get things done.
On models shooting as individuals: I actually tried something not unlike this for Aegis and it ended up playing really, really slowly. It sounds fine on paper, but it's too byzantine in practice. As to models picking up the heavy weapon when the heavy weapon guy goes down that was the logical explanation behind 4e wound allocation picked by the defender, it's a simple and effective way to handle it.
On scale: Divide the distances in
40k by two (including blast marker radius) and you've got a 15mm game. Done. (I personally prefer 28mm miniatures because they're easier to paint well).
On Flyers: Minimum move and minimum turn are intended to represent ground-attack planes running low and slow to hit ground units. Assuming a linear scale of things (which is unlikely since all tracked tanks without Fast have the same speed despite wide variances in
FW numbers) the 18" minimum move is a stall speed of around a hundred to a hundred and twenty kilometers per hour, which isn't at all far-fetched for VTOL-capable vehicles (evidence:
40k planes have rough landing skids, not wheels). Their move mode isn't all that much of a problem rules-wise, put tougher restrictions on their armament (no more and they stop being an issue altogether. Miscommunication as regards to what the plane is shooting exactly is more likely for off-map support than the ground attack planes in visual range of their targets (even at a hundred KPH it's hard to confuse a Land Raider painted bright blue from an Ork Battlewaggon painted bright red) and isn't actually rational in lore for people who aren't the Guard.
On Dice- I am leaning towards simplicity and staying with the
D6. It greatly limits the game system but feel that a move to
D10 or
D12 would present to great a jump,...for now. Maybe later, after we get this hammered out.
On-Armour- another way to fix the
Ap issues is to borrow from the pancake edition and shoot for a much shorter game length of 3-4 turns on average. This can be accomplished by my proposed movement rate revisions. Basically everything gets up in everything else's face very quickly. This limits the number of shooting turns and makes it ok for shooting to be very deadly. It should also make assault more viable. As to vehicles, I think that if they can be in your face on turn 2 when playing long edges on the table then making them have more realistic weaknesses versus S8 AP3 rockets and such normal anti-tank weapons will be ok.
On the Monstrous Jump infantry/walker things that got wound values as opposed to
AV facings, I think giving them a "heavy" or ponderous type rule might work...heh...make them prone to tripping and have to roll wounds for the fall. .....You knowe, if any of them were taken off of their feet it would take a full turn at least to right themselves. If this ends up being to big of a nerf.....will have to think about it. I have strong personal views about these models even having a place in regular
40K. *Note- By thinking about it I mean that I am aware that my personal bias and good game design may not be the same.
On Re-rolls....Yeah, I am hoping to avoid almost all of the 6th ed Psychic rules bloat/
op nonsense. I want to work on the movement and shooting rules before tackling the Psychic stuff. When we do get to it, will be looking for suggestions. I do agree that blessing type powers should not stack at least in how I envision this coming together..... you know... on some level I want humour to play a very real part of perils in the warp. Kinda the idea that not all chaos gods are about war. That you can have some Loki (Kegoragh?? Eldar Laughing God)) type mishaps. Your
GK Inquisitor is now a Jokero???
Where was I?? Oh re-rolls. There may still be a place for "some" but nothing like what showed up a the end of 5th and only got worse in 6th ed.
On points- there are more ways to change points values than by simply changing the number. When re-writing the core rules you are able to change the base inherent value of almost all the stats/ units/
USR's.
On models shooting as individuals- The system I am using here is kinda a mix of 4th ed with 6th ed line of sight rules. The only way to exploit this set up is through tactical positioning to try and snipe certain characters. That in itself is not a bad thing. The rest of the system could possibly use the old 4th ed speed rolling rules. It would be faster than the 5th ed wound allocation and 6th eds Look Out Sir nightmares. Remember, my system has all shooting and wounds applied and then rolls to save. The shooter just gets to decide his firing order and the order by which weapon type groups wounds are applied.
On Scale- as I replied to Thirdeye. There is no way 28mm scale will be accuate but 15mm can be close. Because of this I am going to increase the movement rates to make the 15mm scale close to accurate which will alleviate some of the unrealistic movement in 28mm. The increase in speed also means less special rules and cover saves needed to keep assaulter's alive long enough to be effective. This in turn decreases the rules bloat and inherently speeds the game up. It is for this reason that I am leaning towards declaring whether you are maneuvering for a shot, launching an assault or sprinting/flat-out for better position in the movement phase with the other player getting a defensive reaction(shooting or voluntary fallback) before the player who moved shoots and then resolves close combat. I think this could stream-line the game but may be a shock to players due to how brutal a system it is likely to be.
On Flyers- 18" equals 18 yds in
40k. 18 yds in 6 seconds equals about 6 MPH or about 5 Knots. This is why I hate Flyers in Game.
Now we could fix
40k's scale vs movement issue if we cut the stated turn length from equaling 6 seconds down to 2 or 3 seconds
......But if this was done then players would have to choose between moving, shooting or assaulting in each turn...
.......which while I don't have a problem with bringing in such tactical decision, I think most other players might find such a bit boring for the first 3-4 turns.
And it still leaves flyers moving at about 18 MPH/16-ish Knots at stall speed.(I really do not like Flyers as an in game model/unit. Liked it better when such things were an off table effect like orbital bombardment.
At a representative 2-3 second turn most movement could stay where it is now but leaves the problem of shooting vs
CC balance. Which in turn leaves a bunch of the rules bloat that is used to keep units alive under several turns of fire.
As to Flyers and target confusion. Sometimes it will be a red Land raider next to the red Looted wagon made from a Land Raider. Other times it is an enemy infantry unit in cover(ruins or trees) and the plane targets the wrong ruin or group of shrubberies. Even in todays high-tech battlefield the need for spotters to prevent collateral damage/friendly fire is very much a necessity. This is why I was going to nominate a unit or wargear item from each faction to get the spotters special rule that prevents targeting mistakes by the fast movers. Kinda felt that it was a nice touch. This would add a mechanic to help get some lesser played units onto the table while not really hurting the fliers anymore than my may only stay on table for 1 full game turn rule.
Well, that is one long reply. Anyway, thanks for the responses. please to keep them coming. Just chatting things over is helping me to sort my ideas. Also looking forward to more of your ideas.
Shouldn't be to hard 
Officially elevated by St. God of Yams to the rank of Scholar of the Church of the Children of the Eternal Turtle Pie at 11:42:36 PM 05/01/09 
1400 points of EW/MW Italians (FoW)
2200 points of SoB and Inquisition (40K)
1000 points of orks (40K)
Just starting out with Ultramarines (30K)
Four 1000-2500 point forces for WHFB (RIP)
One orc team (Blood Bowl) 
20000+ points
