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You are working with the conception that a charge means the unit immediately accelerates and moves at its fastest speed directly towards the enemy until it has used up the few second or minute or however long a turn is in 40K, and the distance travelled is therefore governed by Newton's Laws of Motion. However this is not what happens.

How is it then that Terminators can in game turns move as far as Bikes?

One reason is that Terminators are completely bullet proof and don't need to bother to take cover as they move, so they go faster than a normal move, whereas Bikes jink and swerve a lot to avoid enemy fire, and have to go more slowly than normal.

PhantomViper wrote:

 Flinty wrote:

 Banzaimash wrote:


Rationalise terminators running as fast as a bike.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Or gretchin for that matter

How long is a phase? Where does it state that all phases are the same length, or even that different units utilise the same length of time to undertake their actions? How fast is the bike going? Its all a representation.

The rules specifically state that the normal 6" movement represents a careful advance taking frequent pauses to check for the enemy, stop for orders and take firing positions. Its easy to extrapolate that to allowing infantry to move much faster with less caution, e.g. to charge into combat.

Alternatively when infantry makes really big rolls, maybe it represents the combined movement of the charging unit plus an enemy counter-charge.

Cool story. Still doesn't explain how that charging unit is moving at the same speed as a motorbike or why your "enemy counter-charge" doesn't change its board position, but it is a cool story!

I frequently move faster than motorbikes. Given the rough and uncertain terrain of a battlefield (plus the additional fun of being shot at) just how fast do you think bikers are moving?

During the resolution of an assault both units move repeatedly. There are the pile in moves and then there is the final consolidation move at the end.

People seem to be making the not uncommon mistake of applying "realism" to 40K.

This is not a debate about realism, it is a debate about making two aspects of the game play more evenly with one another.

If you end your movement 20" away from your opponent, then you know for a fact that your bolters will be in range come the shooting phase.

If you finish your move ~7" away, then you have a ~50/50 chance of making the assault move, assuming you forgo any shooting that unit may have in order to avoid accidentally making the charge harder for yourself, therefore handicapping yourself further by limiting your army's potential damage output that turn.

Bikes moving faster than terminators or whatever be damned, it is about placing as much control in the players hands as possible and not having a turn, or even a game, go to gak on the roll of 2D6.

Personally, I'd advocate D6+I as assault range, limited to 12" maximum after all modifiers. This strikes a balance between the 'unpredictability of war' and retaining sufficient predictability to reward sensible play IMO.

 azreal13 wrote:
.
Personally, I'd advocate D6+I as assault range, limited to 12" maximum after all modifiers. This strikes a balance between the 'unpredictability of war' and retaining sufficient predictability to reward sensible play IMO.

I personally don't see a big advantage in random charge distances at all. I'd be happy enough to allow pre measuring and a non-random charge distance.

If we insist on a random distance, make it 6+d3" IMO, so it's still a well defined range with a small variation to avoid range-stand-offs. I don't like the idea of Ini+D6 as there's models with low Ini that I don't think should be hamstrung. If we want some characteristic + d6/3, just reintroduce the damned movement characteristic. Ini is how fast a model can react more than how fast it can cover ground.

 azreal13 wrote:

Personally, I'd advocate D6+I as assault range, limited to 12" maximum after all modifiers. This strikes a balance between the 'unpredictability of war' and retaining sufficient predictability to reward sensible play IMO.

I'd advocate the get back to the 6" of 3rd, 4th and 5th edition and stop taking choices away from the player's hands, but that is just me!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Flinty wrote:

I frequently move faster than motorbikes. Given the rough and uncertain terrain of a battlefield (plus the additional fun of being shot at) just how fast do you think bikers are moving?

I also frequently move faster than motorbikes, especially when they are parked!

And they apparently move fast enough that they get a special save due to their speed that your "run as fast as a motorbike" infantry doesn't get?

 Flinty wrote:

During the resolution of an assault both units move repeatedly. There are the pile in moves and then there is the final consolidation move at the end.

What does that have to do with anything?

 azreal13 wrote:
People seem to be making the not uncommon mistake of applying "realism" to 40K.

This is not a debate about realism, it is a debate about making two aspects of the game play more evenly with one another.

If you end your movement 20" away from your opponent, then you know for a fact that your bolters will be in range come the shooting phase.

If you finish your move ~7" away, then you have a ~50/50 chance of making the assault move, assuming you forgo any shooting that unit may have in order to avoid accidentally making the charge harder for yourself, therefore handicapping yourself further by limiting your army's potential damage output that turn.

Bikes moving faster than terminators or whatever be damned, it is about placing as much control in the players hands as possible and not having a turn, or even a game, go to gak on the roll of 2D6.

Personally, I'd advocate D6+I as assault range, limited to 12" maximum after all modifiers. This strikes a balance between the 'unpredictability of war' and retaining sufficient predictability to reward sensible play IMO.

Fair points all. As a response I think the random charge range is a response to dedicated assault armies being very hard to kill with gunlines in previous editions because as soon as they get into combat they are "safe". You might know that your guns are in range, but the effectiveness of shooting is mediated entirely by the to-hit and to-wound rolls (yeah, ok range does come into it as well), whereas the effectiveness of close combat is also mediated by the ability to get into combat in the first place.

In my mind I think its relatively hard to kill a whole unit by shooting, but that bit easier to do so in combat. Maybe thats something to mathhammer. The likelihood of equal points worth of models split into shooting and combat specialisms to kill the same number of points worth of enemy troops.

I would, however, tend to agree that the 2D6" variability is a little too much and could do with being evened out a little.

It might be pedantic, but getting a 7 on 2D6 is not a 50-50 probability, but closer to a 60% chance

 Flinty wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:
People seem to be making the not uncommon mistake of applying "realism" to 40K.

This is not a debate about realism, it is a debate about making two aspects of the game play more evenly with one another.

If you end your movement 20" away from your opponent, then you know for a fact that your bolters will be in range come the shooting phase.

If you finish your move ~7" away, then you have a ~50/50 chance of making the assault move, assuming you forgo any shooting that unit may have in order to avoid accidentally making the charge harder for yourself, therefore handicapping yourself further by limiting your army's potential damage output that turn.

Bikes moving faster than terminators or whatever be damned, it is about placing as much control in the players hands as possible and not having a turn, or even a game, go to gak on the roll of 2D6.

Personally, I'd advocate D6+I as assault range, limited to 12" maximum after all modifiers. This strikes a balance between the 'unpredictability of war' and retaining sufficient predictability to reward sensible play IMO.

Fair points all. As a response I think the random charge range is a response to dedicated assault armies being very hard to kill with gunlines in previous editions because as soon as they get into combat they are "safe". You might know that your guns are in range, but the effectiveness of shooting is mediated entirely by the to-hit and to-wound rolls (yeah, ok range does come into it as well), whereas the effectiveness of close combat is also mediated by the ability to get into combat in the first place.

In my mind I think its relatively hard to kill a whole unit by shooting, but that bit easier to do so in combat. Maybe thats something to mathhammer. The likelihood of equal points worth of models split into shooting and combat specialisms to kill the same number of points worth of enemy troops.

I would, however, tend to agree that the 2D6" variability is a little too much and could do with being evened out a little.

It might be pedantic, but getting a 7 on 2D6 is not a 50-50 probability, but closer to a 60% chance

It is as said, a hangover of the past. 3rd edition to be exact where assault was the thing so broken it was painful for any shooting army. From then on, GW solved it as usual by hitting one nerf after another until assault can only really be done by a small few select units and even less in the current edition. I don't disagree with a bit of randomness strictly because a consistent range could very easily be exploited but more like a Move+d3. Consistent enough one can rely on it but not so much that somebody can stand a CM off and laugh at it. Then again I'd also say if you failed the charge you have to move it. Then again, I'm also one that'd like assault largely reworked to be equal and even then I honestly kind of dislike sweeping advance.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:
.
Personally, I'd advocate D6+I as assault range, limited to 12" maximum after all modifiers. This strikes a balance between the 'unpredictability of war' and retaining sufficient predictability to reward sensible play IMO.

I personally don't see a big advantage in random charge distances at all. I'd be happy enough to allow pre measuring and a non-random charge distance.

If we insist on a random distance, make it 6+d3" IMO, so it's still a well defined range with a small variation to avoid range-stand-offs. I don't like the idea of Ini+D6 as there's models with low Ini that I don't think should be hamstrung. If we want some characteristic + d6/3, just reintroduce the damned movement characteristic. Ini is how fast a model can react more than how fast it can cover ground.

I'm not totally off the idea of some randomness in assault range, people who argue in favour of something representing dodging fire, clearing obstacles etc do have a point, just not with such an extreme curve of outcomes as we have now. I agree the I isn't the perfect stat to represent it, but it would be the most appropriate (unless one linked it to unit type like standard moves are already) as speed of thought or reaction, acrobatic ability etc tend to be reflected in a higher initiative stat. Also, on balance, assault units do tend to have higher I scores, the D6+I system would slightly buff the likes of Banshees and Wyches, while, with the new FMC rules, not allowing the likes of Hive Tyrants or Daemon Princes to be overly dominant.

I think it would be a nice middle ground, I do think Assault should be slightly harder to pull off than shooting, as it can potentially destroy units in much shorter order than shooting, so the increased damage potential should be reflected in slightly tougher execution, just not anything like the disparity we have now.

Assaults are already hard enough to pull off as it is. First a unit has to get within feasible range for assault, then they have to charge, potentially risking being left in the open and vulnerable to fire if the roll is not long enough. Then they have to charge, weather overwatch, hit, wound and hope the opponent fails armour saves. After combat, the assaulting unit in question will either be stuck in combat for another turn or sweep the enemy and be left in the open and vulnerable to enemy fire.

Meanwhile shooters simply have to whip out a measuring tape, check which enemy units are in range and LOS and hit, wound and hope for failed armour saves. Assault 'may' be more effective due to sweeping, but it takes more effort, and with shooting of the calibre it is nowadays, shot units are usually wiped out anyway.

I just think that 2d6 assault not only takes control away from players, but also makes assaulting unfeasible, which sucks if your whole army is pretty much assaulters. A whole assault army should be just as possible to pull off as a whole shooting army, but it isn't. It would be better if they had set assault moves like 4th and 5th edition, and no pre-measuring, putting both shooting and assaulting down to the judgement of a player rather than a random dice roll.

But before pre-measuring there was an unfair advantage to experienced people who could reliably eyeball distances compared to the n00bs or those with less well developed spacial awareness. With assaulting now it is at least totally random and equally unfair to n00b and veteran alike

 Flinty wrote:
But before pre-measuring there was an unfair advantage to experienced people who could reliably eyeball distances compared to the n00bs or those with less well developed spacial awareness. With assaulting now it is at least totally random and equally unfair to n00b and veteran alike

I think you just put your finger on something. The game should not be "fair" to noob and veteran alike. Veterans should be better than noobs. A game that is so random you can't get better at it, that is not a game.

I'd just like to point out that I've always hated having to roll for random spells in Fantasy and random psychic powers in 40k.

I mean, it's just a cosmic facepalm. Wizards/controlled psykers are supposed to be very disciplined, trained, and exacting. And it makes building around a specific power or set of powers much less fun. I could see chaos magic-users having some form of randomness in their abilities in exchange for greater potential, but I would never imagine an Empire Battle Wizard forgetting the powers that he prepares until right before the battle. It's quite lame. (I never like the basic powers that you can swap for, either.)

No biggie, but this is the main reason why I've never bothered to make much use of magic in either 40k or Fantasy.

I'm just glad magic users in D&D and psykers in Dark Heresy don't wake up every day with a completely different set of powers from the previous one.

 PrinceRaven wrote:
I'm just glad magic users in D&D and psykers in Dark Heresy don't wake up every day with a completely different set of powers from the previous one.

From what I remember in D&D magic users needed to rest to learn new spells and were then stuck with those that were chosen until they next rested. If you chose the wrong spells for a particular situation then you just had to make do and the randomness was up to the DM to provide. I don't see this as being particularly different to 40k. The Psyker doesn't know what he/she/it/them will be facing in a particular engagement and so has chosen something they think is reasonable.

 Flinty wrote:

 PrinceRaven wrote:
I'm just glad magic users in D&D and psykers in Dark Heresy don't wake up every day with a completely different set of powers from the previous one.

From what I remember in D&D magic users needed to rest to learn new spells and were then stuck with those that were chosen until they next rested. If you chose the wrong spells for a particular situation then you just had to make do and the randomness was up to the DM to provide. I don't see this as being particularly different to 40k. The Psyker doesn't know what he/she/it/them will be facing in a particular engagement and so has chosen something they think is reasonable.

I'm pretty sure my Chaos Lord would beat my Chaos Sorcerers upside the head if not outright kill them for disobeying him if they didn't choose what he wanted them to choose.

 knas ser wrote:

 Flinty wrote:
But before pre-measuring there was an unfair advantage to experienced people who could reliably eyeball distances compared to the n00bs or those with less well developed spacial awareness. With assaulting now it is at least totally random and equally unfair to n00b and veteran alike

I think you just put your finger on something. The game should not be "fair" to noob and veteran alike. Veterans should be better than noobs. A game that is so random you can't get better at it, that is not a game.

He is beng polite - lots of people flat out cheated.............

I play with games that have pre-mesuring and set charge distances and equally happy with that and 40Ks random charge distance - enjoy both

 Mr Morden wrote:

 knas ser wrote:

 Flinty wrote:
But before pre-measuring there was an unfair advantage to experienced people who could reliably eyeball distances compared to the n00bs or those with less well developed spacial awareness. With assaulting now it is at least totally random and equally unfair to n00b and veteran alike

I think you just put your finger on something. The game should not be "fair" to noob and veteran alike. Veterans should be better than noobs. A game that is so random you can't get better at it, that is not a game.

He is beng polite - lots of people flat out cheated.............

I play with games that have pre-mesuring and set charge distances and equally happy with that and 40Ks random charge distance - enjoy both

And I'm really sorry about your play experiences since you seem to be surrounded by cheaters, your fixation with them seems to point to some really deep trauma... But those cheaters of yours only cheated while judging charge distances? Because the 2 guys that we have over here that cheated while judging distances also cheat in pretty much every other stage of the game: they fake dice rolls, they accidentally move their models and terrain with their elbows, they move their models more than they are supposed to, they "forget" that a wizzard or psyker didn't roll that power that they really needed that turn (and the powers also seem to change from turn to turn along with some choice wargear), etc.

So unless your argument is that you have some kind of special cheater that only cheats when judging distances (and it appears that your entire meta is composed of these types of players), changing charge ranges from fixed to random doesn't really solve any cheating problem...

 Flinty wrote:

 PrinceRaven wrote:
I'm just glad magic users in D&D and psykers in Dark Heresy don't wake up every day with a completely different set of powers from the previous one.

From what I remember in D&D magic users needed to rest to learn new spells and were then stuck with those that were chosen until they next rested. If you chose the wrong spells for a particular situation then you just had to make do and the randomness was up to the DM to provide. I don't see this as being particularly different to 40k. The Psyker doesn't know what he/she/it/them will be facing in a particular engagement and so has chosen something they think is reasonable.

Depends, some of them get a large list of spells and every time they rest can choose which to prepare.
Others, known as spontaneous casters, get a smaller list of spells but can cast any without having to prepare them.

Also, how would you not know what you'll be facing? It's not like in the weeks of transit to the war everyone would avoid telling the psyker who they're actually fighting for the lulz.

bullyboy wrote:
my only issue with allowing people to choose their warlord traits and psyker powers is that the same ones would be used over and over again. It would be another way of gaming your army, finding every combo and trick in the book to give you the advantage. Granted, this may be what you want in a tourny style game but I actually like variety (I did a thread on random generation of units a few weeks ago). I find people will generally play the same thing over and over which gets a little stale. The game already has balance issues, adding points for warlord traits and psychic powers will only make this worse as GW will not take the time to playtest them correctly.
There is nothing stopping a TO (or a group of friends) establishing a system that allows a player to "buy" his warlord trait or psyker powers for x points.
I'm a casual gamer though so like the "forge a narrative" approach that GW currently adopts. I could see this as an issue for competitive players though but I feel the system has way too much imbalance as it stands already. No reason to add more.

But I build my army to perform a specific task, not randomly shaking a box of models onto the table to choose my army.

Then simply warlord traits and psyker Powers are broken and needs fixing, randomness isnt fixing it.

And if your warlord can choose its traits does that one get the extra Points for army building?


Theres good random and then theres bad random and then theres GW random.

Excusing GW's poorly implemented rules "forging a narrative" isnt helping anyone neither casual or competive has anything positive to gain from poorly worded rules or random nun-chucks.

As of late gw's models have been of very good quality, and from what ive Heard most exellent customer support regarding replacements if broken, so why cant they put in minimum effort to make the game enjoyable for everyone to play.

Bishop F Gantry wrote:
.

As of late gw's models have been of very good quality, and from what ive Heard most exellent customer support regarding replacements if broken, so why cant they put in minimum effort to make the game enjoyable for everyone to play.

Because you can't please everyone all of the time, expecially a game as complex as 40k. So they've chosen a route designed to give a lot of variability, i assume with the aim of maximising replay value by making every game different.

They seem to have chosen a route that has pissed off a lot of their keen veteran players who had been replaying the prior version of the game for years. I am not sure that is a clever strategy.

 Flinty wrote:
Because you can't please everyone all of the time, expecially a game as complex as 40k.

No, but you can please a lot more people than 40k currently pleases. The only reason 40k doesn't do better is that GW's rule authors are lazy and/or incompetent. They've figured out that 12 year olds buying boxes of space marines will probably never play the game, so they just need the idea of a game to inspire them to beg their parents for more toys. And why spend money developing a high-quality game if the core market doesn't care about quality?

So they've chosen a route designed to give a lot of variability, i assume with the aim of maximising replay value by making every game different.

No, they've chosen a route of "publish that rough draft ASAP because our next financial report is going to kill our stock price if we don't get 7th edition out in time". 40k isn't the result of reasonable design decisions made by intelligent professionals, it's a shameful mess of stuff thrown together without any overall plan and published without anywhere near adequate playtesting. There's simply no justification for the current state of the rules.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Flinty wrote:
Because you can't please everyone all of the time, expecially a game as complex as 40k.

No, but you can please a lot more people than 40k currently pleases. The only reason 40k doesn't do better is that GW's rule authors are lazy and/or incompetent. They've figured out that 12 year olds buying boxes of space marines will probably never play the game, so they just need the idea of a game to inspire them to beg their parents for more toys. And why spend money developing a high-quality game if the core market doesn't care about quality?

So they've chosen a route designed to give a lot of variability, i assume with the aim of maximising replay value by making every game different.

No, they've chosen a route of "publish that rough draft ASAP because our next financial report is going to kill our stock price if we don't get 7th edition out in time". 40k isn't the result of reasonable design decisions made by intelligent professionals, it's a shameful mess of stuff thrown together without any overall plan and published without anywhere near adequate playtesting. There's simply no justification for the current state of the rules.

And also GW seems to have realized far too late that advertising is good for a company.

Perhaps if the company hadn't become a modeling department echo chamber this mess could have been avoided.

 Flinty wrote:

Bishop F Gantry wrote:
.

As of late gw's models have been of very good quality, and from what ive Heard most exellent customer support regarding replacements if broken, so why cant they put in minimum effort to make the game enjoyable for everyone to play.

Because you can't please everyone all of the time, expecially a game as complex as 40k. So they've chosen a route designed to give a lot of variability, i assume with the aim of maximising replay value by making every game different.

you roll some Dice and move, you roll some Dice and shoot, you roll some Dice and charge your roll some Dice and cast, you roll some Dice and remove models. 40K aint that complex Deep down, even if it has 16ish factions they all follow the core rules with slight codex variations.

A pickup game should be easy and fast to get started, all this randomness just means you have to spend more time arguing with your opponent what type of game to play than actually playing the game, fracturing the playerbase isnt helping anyone involved.

Most noob pick up games , where the noobs didn't study the game before buying stuff , end on day one , when they are confronted with ++2 with re-rolls ,patch work armies , multi expansion builds or PKZ , which are country wide tournament FAQ that everyone uses here in normal games too.

I think we should roll some dice, to see if we should roll some dice, To decide if all this dice rolling is good for the game.

I'm still laughing at the potential number of rolls the new psychic phase adds to the game.

Now, after rolling a dice to see how many you can roll, you get to pick to roll a certain number of those dice to roll, and see if you pass/fail or perils. If you perils, you get to roll on a chart. Depending on the result, you get to roll a leadership check. Depending on the specific result, you get to roll a dice to see how many hits the unit takes. Then roll for those hits.

Before; leadership check roll.

Truly divine.

#Forgethenarrative

*Edit* Forgot the opponent's dispel roll too.

At least you can't peril while trying to dispel. Imagine that or if someone is playing Chaos Space Marines and can re-roll some of his dice. It is as if they wanted the game to take hours to play.

I agree that GW has made some odd choices and that they could have done things better. Equally though I don't think its as bad as the internet likes to make out.

Bishop F Gantry wrote:

 Flinty wrote:

Bishop F Gantry wrote:
.

As of late gw's models have been of very good quality, and from what ive Heard most exellent customer support regarding replacements if broken, so why cant they put in minimum effort to make the game enjoyable for everyone to play.

Because you can't please everyone all of the time, expecially a game as complex as 40k. So they've chosen a route designed to give a lot of variability, i assume with the aim of maximising replay value by making every game different.

you roll some Dice and move, you roll some Dice and shoot, you roll some Dice and charge your roll some Dice and cast, you roll some Dice and remove models. 40K aint that complex Deep down, even if it has 16ish factions they all follow the core rules with slight codex variations.

A pickup game should be easy and fast to get started, all this randomness just means you have to spend more time arguing with your opponent what type of game to play than actually playing the game, fracturing the playerbase isnt helping anyone involved.

The complexity comes from balancing the factions, the units within the factions with different specialities and abilities and still try to keep in line with the established background.

The GW website lists 864 different unit entries available for purchase. Now admittedly there are probably a number of duplications in there, but that is still a lot of degrees of freedom to consider.

 Flinty wrote:
I agree that GW has made some odd choices and that they could have done things better. Equally though I don't think its as bad as the internet likes to make out.

Internet's a big place, and for every negative reaction, I've seen a positive one.

I'm simply commenting on the absurd number of dice rolling and time they've added when nothing needed to be changed in the first place.