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Let's take an example of why the current situation is hard to balance. Unit of 12 firewarriors fire one shot each at MEQ, wounding 4 guys, not counting armor saves. They then take 3 casualties and do 3 wounds to MEQ the next turn. They loose 3 more the following turn and do 2 wounds. It is predictable that every 3 firewarriors yields 1 MEQ wound. They also have the same predictable falloff against vehicles and in hand to hand each turn as well.

Now look at SM squad with plasma and lascannon. At full 10 man strength in the first round of shooting, they inflict 3.8 wounds to MEQ. Let's say they take two causalities, the next turn the inflict between 2.7 and 3.1 wounds. Two causalities in the following round for a total of 4, they are now between 2.4 and 2 wounds. Besides the gap in wounds, the squad goes from being a threat to vehicles, to zero threat depending on who lives and who dies. Same can be said for hand to hand, where the power weapon may or may not make it to hand to hand.

Having a unit which drastically changes in power and has the potential to generate an unfun game experience is poor for the long term success of the game. Warmachine found this out with V1 of their rules and changed V2 to account for the change in unit performance when unit additions died.

I entered the game in 5th, so I quite liked that system. If you dealt enough wounds I one round of shooting, you could get a lucky kill on the special weapons. A few tweaks to deal with the multi wound shenanigans (like they've done with swarms) was all that system really needed.
An example of the current system being rather annoying is the way you can soak wounds on a good save. I play Necrons and have frustrated many opponents by having an overlord with a 2+ stand in front of all his squishy 4+ brethren. I think it's a cheap tactic that's as bad or worse then any shenanigans that existed before.

Barfolomew wrote:
Let's take an example of why the current situation is hard to balance. Unit of 12 firewarriors fire one shot each at MEQ, wounding 4 guys, not counting armor saves. They then take 3 casualties and do 3 wounds to MEQ the next turn. They loose 3 more the following turn and do 2 wounds. It is predictable that every 3 firewarriors yields 1 MEQ wound. They also have the same predictable falloff against vehicles and in hand to hand each turn as well.

Now look at SM squad with plasma and lascannon. At full 10 man strength in the first round of shooting, they inflict 3.8 wounds to MEQ. Let's say they take two causalities, the next turn the inflict between 2.7 and 3.1 wounds. Two causalities in the following round for a total of 4, they are now between 2.4 and 2 wounds. Besides the gap in wounds, the squad goes from being a threat to vehicles, to zero threat depending on who lives and who dies. Same can be said for hand to hand, where the power weapon may or may not make it to hand to hand.

Having a unit which drastically changes in power and has the potential to generate an unfun game experience is poor for the long term success of the game. Warmachine found this out with V1 of their rules and changed V2 to account for the change in unit performance when unit additions died.

I don't think this is a great way of interpretation, mate. See, you're comparing two totally different units that serve totally different roles(despite being both Troops), have different purposes and gear abilities. You wouldn't have this argument if they had special weapons of any kind. Now compare them to a Tact Squad without any special guns. Now you're talking like it's some kind of a punishment for SM while it's actually a boon that they can take any at all. Tau players would be delighted if they could give their unit at least one useful special weapon and they(including me, I run gunline Tau) would be very unlikely to whine that they can lose them, because they'd be happy they can take them in the first place! Also you have to take into account other factors like the fact that tactical marines get things such as Rhinos at ridiculous cost that increase their survivability and utility value vastly and now in 7th are even less likely to explode, not even hurting the passengers(they'll just be wrecked most the times).

Same goes for power weapons - you're comparing a unit that gets no benefit with one that gets special melee weapon. While of course you can lose it, as long as they don't the unit will be much better. You're saying that "they're worse because they can lose the upgrade", I'm saying "they're better because they can get it in the first place".

 Klerych wrote:
. I mean.. when you shoot at a crowd(lol), you're going to hit the nearest people so 'peeling' a unit off is quite logical.

You're only always going to hit the closest people first if they're standing in a solid, unbroken line across the front of the crowd.

But we're not talking about shooting into a crowd. We're talking about shooting into a unit of troopers on a battlefield. They're not standing in a solid line. They're running about, taking cover as they can, and not just standing there in funky action poses. incoming shooting always taking out the closest guy first is not even remotely realistic.

And saying that it's ridiculous that flamer has to hide is.. derp, ridiculous! What, do you expect the guy to run in the front row and have everyone but him killed?

Yes, that's exactly what I expect, because otherwise flamers are useless.

As someone else pointed out, the previous used justification was simply that if the guy with the shiny gun died, someone else picked it up.

So yeah, the change, while making it harder than just running face-first guns a-blazin' and picking off all the ablative wounds with impunity is actually more realistic reasonable and.. faster than any other system that could be implemented.

Having to determine which guy is closest is not faster than the owning player being able to just grab 'this' model off from anywhere in the unit.

And having to roll 30 LoS and saves one at a time because your character wound up being the closest model is most certainly not faster than the way previous editions handled it.

 Klerych wrote:
I don't think this is a great way of interpretation, mate. See, you're comparing two totally different units that serve totally different roles(despite being both Troops), have different purposes and gear abilities. You wouldn't have this argument if they had special weapons of any kind. Now compare them to a Tact Squad without any special guns. Now you're talking like it's some kind of a punishment for SM while it's actually a boon that they can take any at all. Tau players would be delighted if they could give their unit at least one useful special weapon and they(including me, I run gunline Tau) would be very unlikely to whine that they can lose them, because they'd be happy they can take them in the first place! Also you have to take into account other factors like the fact that tactical marines get things such as Rhinos at ridiculous cost that increase their survivability and utility value vastly and now in 7th are even less likely to explode, not even hurting the passengers(they'll just be wrecked most the times).

Same goes for power weapons - you're comparing a unit that gets no benefit with one that gets special melee weapon. While of course you can lose it, as long as they don't the unit will be much better. You're saying that "they're worse because they can lose the upgrade", I'm saying "they're better because they can get it in the first place".

You went to deep. I'm merely stating that it's hard to balance something that has a high degree of variability. Tau, easy to balance because they have no options. Marines, hard to balance because they have options AND the options survive differently based on a number of rules interactions game to game.

I concur with your other points.

As much as I liked 5th Editions Wounds allocation shenanigans, I found 6th and 7th's remove from the front with LOS to be superior and more enjoyable. I did dislike the loss of the special and Heavy weapons and would have preferred the ability for a special or heavy weapons model to pick up the dropped Wargear. I can also accept the cinematic description of an unsaved wound being enough to damage and destroy armaments as well and the inability to do so on the move. I always had difficulty justifying the hidden powerfist or the squishy IC that never really had to worry about being wounded.

I do miss the lost range for assault units due to casualties and miss the loss of special weapons, but understand them. I also enjoy the ability to tactically position my models to kill out a specific troublesome models which was completely ineffective in 5th.


To each their own. Both have merit, and I've enjoyed both over the years.

 insaniak wrote:

 Klerych wrote:
. I mean.. when you shoot at a crowd(lol), you're going to hit the nearest people so 'peeling' a unit off is quite logical.

You're only always going to hit the closest people first if they're standing in a solid, unbroken line across the front of the crowd.

But we're not talking about shooting into a crowd. We're talking about shooting into a unit of troopers on a battlefield. They're not standing in a solid line. They're running about, taking cover as they can, and not just standing there in funky action poses. incoming shooting always taking out the closest guy first is not even remotely realistic.

I'll still take it over the cherry-picking that was before when everyone was a rambo.

 insaniak wrote:

And saying that it's ridiculous that flamer has to hide is.. derp, ridiculous! What, do you expect the guy to run in the front row and have everyone but him killed?

Yes, that's exactly what I expect, because otherwise flamers are useless.

No, they aren't. Again - smart players can still use them properly, it just takes some thinking instead of mindless rushing knowing they're 100% safe. Not to mention that you only pay 5pts for them and if you bring them home, they're -very- likely to pay their cost back.

 insaniak wrote:
As someone else pointed out, the previous used justification was simply that if the guy with the shiny gun died, someone else picked it up.

The gun being damaged beyond use is just as plausible explanation as to why is this not happening. Not saying that it's a good thing, but it works without adding unnecessary die rolls or suddenly making the special weapon model have as many wounds as there are models in the unit.

 insaniak wrote:

So yeah, the change, while making it harder than just running face-first guns a-blazin' and picking off all the ablative wounds with impunity is actually more realistic reasonable and.. faster than any other system that could be implemented.

Having to determine which guy is closest is not faster than the owning player being able to just grab 'this' model off from anywhere in the unit.

It's fast enough for it to be negligible unless the opponent tries to do some kind of a crescent moon move on you. Also the system is pretty reasonable in gameplay means - you killing the nearest models means that you're likely to deny both rapid fire shots from the first rows and potential nearest charging models, so your unit is actually defending itself! Not that it's any kind of argument, but it gives some advantage to those of shooty nature that -want- to keep the distance. Not to mention the joy of killing the nearest models in a unit that was going to contest your objective on last turn, suddenly making them one or two inches short of it. Glorious.

 insaniak wrote:
And having to roll 30 LoS and saves one at a time because your character wound up being the closest model is most certainly not faster than the way previous editions handled it.

I'd personally toss a limit on those throws to avoid the silly(although adorable) situation when people from 10 metres radius run to stand in front of their boss one by one, taking the mortal wounds as he walks forward with a harsh grimace on his face. Okay, scratch that, that's awesome and that's how I imagine a commissar on the battlefield - not running in face-first but having guardsmen seek Emperor's approval in death, protecting their great leader..! So NK. But yeah, I think it's okay as you're going to fail some of those LoS! throws rather than just give him additional 10-20 wounds that you can take off the rearmost row.

Dark Phoenix wrote:

WayneTheGame wrote:
Honestly I don't understand why they removed casualty removal as owner's choice. It seems like it was done deliberately to screw over special/heavy weapons.

I think they did that so we could say :
"this is a squad of ten space marines, with a powerfist sergent and a meltagun"
instead of:
"this is a powerfist sergent and a meltagun, with 8 ablative wounds"

I think they did it so they could say "the game is more tactical! You have to think about your positioning now!"

As for closest to furthest being more "realistic", I think most of us are ignoring the fact that the model's placement is meant to be an abstraction. Obviously the models aren't moving 6" and then standing around to get shot - the models are moving around dynamically behind cover, dodging incoming fire, etc. Closest to furthest just doesn't make a lot of sense in a game with an "I go, you go" system in place, where unit placement is meant to be abstract (and don't get me started on barrage).

 Andilus Greatsword wrote:

Dark Phoenix wrote:

WayneTheGame wrote:
Honestly I don't understand why they removed casualty removal as owner's choice. It seems like it was done deliberately to screw over special/heavy weapons.

I think they did that so we could say :
"this is a squad of ten space marines, with a powerfist sergent and a meltagun"
instead of:
"this is a powerfist sergent and a meltagun, with 8 ablative wounds"

I think they did it so they could say "the game is more tactical! You have to think about your positioning now!"

As for closest to furthest being more "realistic", I think most of us are ignoring the fact that the model's placement is meant to be an abstraction. Obviously the models aren't moving 6" and then standing around to get shot - the models are moving around dynamically behind cover, dodging incoming fire, etc. Closest to furthest just doesn't make a lot of sense in a game with an "I go, you go" system in place, where unit placement is meant to be abstract (and don't get me started on barrage).

I think a 5 turn game is meant to work out to what 90-120 seconds of real time (I am sure GW themselves said this a few editions back)

Hence the move distances and so on, if this is the case the allocation works in narrative sense as the boys at the front would be advancing into enemy fire effectively shielding those behind.

Of course this does start to become a tad stupid when you have genetically engineered super soldiers who are meant to be too stupid to pick their shot at a heavy weapon carrying enemy just behind a normal infantryman.

 Andilus Greatsword wrote:

Dark Phoenix wrote:

WayneTheGame wrote:
Honestly I don't understand why they removed casualty removal as owner's choice. It seems like it was done deliberately to screw over special/heavy weapons.

I think they did that so we could say :
"this is a squad of ten space marines, with a powerfist sergent and a meltagun"
instead of:
"this is a powerfist sergent and a meltagun, with 8 ablative wounds"

I think they did it so they could say "the game is more tactical! You have to think about your positioning now!"

As for closest to furthest being more "realistic", I think most of us are ignoring the fact that the model's placement is meant to be an abstraction. Obviously the models aren't moving 6" and then standing around to get shot - the models are moving around dynamically behind cover, dodging incoming fire, etc. Closest to furthest just doesn't make a lot of sense in a game with an "I go, you go" system in place, where unit placement is meant to be abstract (and don't get me started on barrage).

Well, I never said they succeded!

But I agree with you, a unit in a mass battle system (that's what 40K should be if it didn't have so much skirmish rules!) is just a "foot print", and should not be the exact position of each soldier (I'm also one of those who think that true LOS should be removed...).

And I don't think that "Terminator Tanking(tm)" is a very realistic way to allocate wounds...

Frankly I rather miss 3rd-5th edition's rules. Don't get me wrong, it had its faults (making special weapons the only real thing that mattered and in 5th multiwound shenanigans all day everyday) but I liked it more. It felt more mobile and added some more life to my playing. It made me feel like my assault armies were moving closer or dodging into cover as they died. A gun would drop for another to take claim and, in the corny cheesy design, commanders standing at front. Unrealistic yes, but 40k most certainly. Then again it's one of fifty things that nerfed asssault so I will dislike it and criticize the claim it is more realistic. It's no more realistic than the other. It feels more skirmish in design.

 Klerych wrote:
No, they aren't. Again - smart players can still use them properly, it just takes some thinking instead of mindless rushing knowing they're 100% safe.

Yeah, 'keep the special weapons at the back and hope they don't die before you can use them' is incredible tactical thinking, the kind attributable to tactical geniuses alone.

The torrent of fire rule also removed the 'knowing they're 100% safe' while still allowing them to be positioned somewhere in the unit where they could actually use their weapon.

The gun being damaged beyond use is just as plausible explanation as to why is this not happening.

Sure. Every time a model is removed as a casualty, his weapon is damaged beyond use.

Totally plausible.

Not saying that it's a good thing, but it works without adding unnecessary die rolls or suddenly making the special weapon model have as many wounds as there are models in the unit.

Except, again, the special weapon should have as many wounds as there are models in the unit, because the other guys are going to pick it up when the model carrying it dies.

It's fast enough for it to be negligible unless the opponent tries to do some kind of a crescent moon move on you.

'Fast enough' wasn't your claim. You said it was faster than any other system. Which is patently false. Having to determine which model is closer takes longer than just grabbing any model you want.

I'd personally toss a limit on those throws to avoid the silly(although adorable) situation when people from 10 metres radius run to stand in front of their boss one by one, taking the mortal wounds as he walks forward with a harsh grimace on his face.

There's already a limit on how close the model needs to be.

It's still a ridiculously clunky mechanic that should never have made it past the initial concept stage in the design process. All it would have taken to show it was a bad idea was one round of fire from a unit of 30 Boyz at a Marine squad with the Sergeant in front.

Oh well, our opinions differ. You know what'd be even faster? The attacker picking off the models his unit is shooting at!

The previous iteration gave the shot unit's owner an unfair advantage of a bajillion of ablative wounds for the special weapon, picking the gun up argument aside. Shooter picking off the models would give unfair advantage to the owner of shooting unit. As it is now it's much more balanced as the 'defending' player can't cherry pick what to take out for his best convenience while he can still protect his special weapon by keeping it safe until he decides to use it.

Again, my opinion, I think it's better, got my reasons, that's all. You disagree, I disagree.. at least it's the one I prefer that's the 'law' now, so I got that going for me, which is nice.

P.s. - know what'd be cool? Picking up enemy's special weapons and assimilating them into your unit. It's not like they're destroyed everytime a model is removed from play, right? Would be fun to pick up recently killed tactical squad's plasma gun to have 3 in CSM unit.

Whoa there mate stop climbing that slippery slope there! It's dangerous

Klerych wrote:Again - smart players can still use them properly

I'm not buying the "if players are as smart as I am, then they're fine" argument. That sounds like you're playing at No True Scotsman.

Without providing some quantifiability or some better deconstruction of the rules, you're not actually supporting you're position, you're just making it appear unfalsifiable.

Which is a bad thing, actually.

I mean, if I can take ANY rule, no matter how bad, or wonky, or poorly worded, or conflicting with other rules and just say "you're not smart enough to figure it out", well, that's not really an argument.

 Ailaros wrote:
I mean, if I can take ANY rule, no matter how bad, or wonky, or poorly worded, or conflicting with other rules and just say "you're not smart enough to figure it out", well, that's not really an argument.

Okay, I might've expressed myself incorrectly, I'm sorry - english is not my main language. My point there was related to the fact that earlier it was really a no-brainer that favoured dumb, mindless marching forward without any real risk of losing special weapons. The only gameplay-related argument I hear against the current one is that it's harder to keep them alive, which I think is -very- fine as with enough tactics it can be mitigated without making the unit an 8 wound plasma rifle running merily at the forefront, invincible as long as there are ablative wounds for it. That was a rubbish idea for me. I'm not calling people that fail at it stupid, I'm just saying that it's not really hard to keep the VIPs in the unit alive on their way home and I also think that it's more realistic and even provided gameplay-related arguments(denying charge/rapid fire/contesting range) that make it work more balanced for both players. In my opinion the 5pts paid for a flamer aren't enough to grant it a bajillion wound immunity and as it is now it's much more balanced cost-wise and the risk of losing the specialist you're not protecting adds another layer of tactical decissions just like the other player can be more tactical about it and try to shoot at your unit at an angle that'd peel the 'bodyguards' off the dangerous model(from the side, for example) and threaten it.

Although while it might sound like a scumbag quote, I think that if someone really and honestly struggles with keeping the special weapons guys alive in such an intuitive, simple system(and gets worked up about it) then I question their choice of hobby.

That being said the argument with sergeants leading from front is valid fluff-wise, but I think it's not a high price. It's not like you can't do it anymore - you just have a bigger chance to lose him if he stands out in the front like a sore thumb.

 insaniak wrote:

 cfoley wrote:
2nd was closest..

2nd ed was closest unit for choosing a target. Casualty removal was owner's choice, though, except in close combat, which was resolved one model at a time.

No, it was closest first for removing too:

REMOVING CASUALTIES

Usually it doesn't matter which actual models fall casualty in which case you can simply remove the nearest models out of a squad without further ado. Even in cases where a squad contains a particularly important model which is armed with a special weapon, for example, roll your shots together and remove the nearest opposing models as casualties.

...

If it isn't clear ... randomise by rolling a D6

(page 35)

40k has evolved from a skirmish game to something larger. The game involves dealing with units, not models. Unit placement is what counts, not model placements. I shouldn't have to spend anytime at all (even if its just 15 seconds) worry about the exact placement of individuals in a unit. I think we can assume the unit is moving in some type of formation to protect the specialists.

Its true that the 'remove closest first' allows for more effective flanking, but that would be better implemented with some type of penalty to Ld checks or something.

GorillaWarfare wrote:
40k has evolved from a skirmish game to something larger. The game involves dealing with units, not models. Unit placement is what counts, not model placements. I shouldn't have to spend anytime at all (even if its just 15 seconds) worry about the exact placement of individuals in a unit. I think we can assume the unit is moving in some type of formation to protect the specialists.

Its true that the 'remove closest first' allows for more effective flanking, but that would be better implemented with some type of penalty to Ld checks or something.

And this goes back to root cause of most of these issues and gripes: 40k is a "large scale" battle game that still uses rules that were designed for a skirmish, and as a result it gets bogged down by things like having to consider exact model placement versus "This is a unit of X".

Klerych wrote:which I think is -very- fine as with enough tactics it can be mitigated

Right, mitigated.

So, 40k does have an element of skill to it, of course. Bad players are certainly capable of playing easy odds badly and doing bone-headed things with stuff that should be easy to use. That, of course, implies that the opposite is true. That there is stuff that is difficult to play the correct odds with, and that most people will screw it up, but there are some people who can make it work anyways.

The problem is that this is an implication. Just because it plausibly exists generally doesn't mean that is necessarily true for this, specifically. For example, just because a more clever player can get more out of their bolters then a less clever one, no amount of cleverness will allow a bolt gun to blow up a land raider.

Which is my complaint. Yes, it is possible to keep special weapons alive longer by shoving them into the back of the squad, but if doing this reduces their range so much that you never actually get to shoot them before the squad is killed, then it defeats the entire point of taking special weapons in the first place (thanks to a principle called seignorage - the easiest way to explain it is to think about healing potions in RPGs. They're so valuable that you're always saving them for a worse situation, so you never actually use them, so healing potions aren't actually worth anything). As mentioned, this is ultra-true with flamers, which can't even shoot from the back of the squad, which means if they ever even get to fire (which they scarcely do without deepstriking or super-fast mobility), then they have to be at the front of the squad which guarantees that they'll be killed first the next turn.

As such, the argument that one could just be smarter and make it work anyways is specious - plausible but not actually true. At least, unless you could provide some examples of it working well, or by being able to deconstruct the rules in such a way that clears up this problem.

Having abblative wounds may have been annoying to some people, but it was very possible to come up with reasons why it's realistic, and it was literally the way that whole classes of armies were able to function at all. And I don't think the game was improved by killing off green tides, for example. Especially when there are plenty of other things they could have done to curb this problem without eliminating whole armies entirely.

GorillaWarfare wrote:40k has evolved from a skirmish game to something larger. The game involves dealing with units, not models. Unit placement is what counts, not model placements.

Actually, it's also an outgrowth of the fact that 40k was developed from WHFB.

In fantasy, you have units - blocks of pikemen, etc. - and everything is done by the unit. You have a unit that contains the upgrade of "sergeant" and the unit with the upgrade "standard bearer", etc. You can almost think of units as being somewhat akin to monstrous creatures - a single entity with certain upgrades, a certain number of attacks, and a certain number of wounds.

In this world, being able to snipe a meltagun out of a unit is about as silly as the idea that you could snipe the ion weapon off a riptide or the scatter laser off a wraithlord. They're unit upgrades, not model upgrades. The fact that only one model is carrying the upgrade is incidental to the requirements of showing them on the table.

But 6th made a radical departure from this, changing it from a game fought between units to a game fought between models thanks to the loss of by-unit cover, by-unit shooting restrictions, and by-unit wound allocation. Now, this is great for armies who have few units, and powerful models (like riptide spam, for example), but it's really, really bad for armies whose models relied on strength in numbers and being able to be protected by blobbing up with the rest of the crowd. And of course, all the strange obnoxiousness that they explicitly ruled against in 4th ed, like barrage sniping.

It feels like they made a fundamental change to the game, but they haven't really sorted out how to fix everything they broke yet.

 Ailaros wrote:

It feels like they made a fundamental change to the game, but they haven't really sorted out how to fix everything they broke yet.

I agree with you 100% on this issue; as has been more and more the case over the years, changes have been hodge-podge and poorly thought out, rather than guided by any overarching design principles. But I have to point one thing out here:

 Ailaros wrote:

But 6th made a radical departure from this, changing it from a game fought between units to a game fought between models thanks to the loss of by-unit cover, by-unit shooting restrictions, and by-unit wound allocation.

2nd Edition was very much a skirmish game; placement of individual models in a unit was important, they could shoot independently, were targeted closest-first and cover was worked out model by model (if I remember that last one correctly). 3rd edition was a radical but much needed departure in order to increase the scale of the game. They should have continued down that path with each iteration, instead they keep making "retro" changes like 6th edition's wound allocation without really considering what it does to game play.

Back to the bulk of the thread's debate:

Klerych wrote:Although while it might sound like a scumbag quote, I think that if someone really and honestly struggles with keeping the special weapons guys alive in such an intuitive, simple system(and gets worked up about it) then I question their choice of hobby.

That is kind of a scumbag quote, and partly because no one here is saying that they struggle with this. In fact that's a central point we all keep making - you say keeping your specials alive adds tactical depth but also admit that it's simple as pie to do. Where is the depth then? There is no real depth to it, it's very basic; and since the game is intended to focus on maneuvering whole units, it's not a necessary feature. No one is saying they can't do it; we're all questioning what it adds when it brings so many downsides.

Klerych wrote:My point there was related to the fact that earlier it was really a no-brainer that favoured dumb, mindless marching forward without any real risk of losing special weapons.

If 40k used stands of infantry instead of individual models, would you complain that it's a no-brainer that unit upgrades survive until the very last damage point is removed from the unit? And it's mindless that you don't have to worry about your squad losing its machine gun? No (at least I hope not), because you recognize that it's an abstraction within the rules, made to suit the scale of the game. That's all this is. Leave the tactics of individual model placement to Kill Team where it belongs, in the interest of speeding up and simplifying 40k proper.

Klerych wrote:The only gameplay-related argument I hear against the current one is that it's harder to keep them alive, which I think is -very- fine as with enough tactics it can be mitigated without making the unit an 8 wound plasma rifle running merily at the forefront, invincible as long as there are ablative wounds for it.

You clearly aren't listening then. The gameplay related arguments have all been laid out quite clearly: closest-first casualties means the movement phase takes longer, it means the shooting phase potentially takes longer due to the various common scenarios where you have to roll several dozen wounds and saves individually (honestly it's just embarrassing that this made it through into the rules), it means one special character can literally absorb all incoming fire for the squishy guys behind him (aside from being time consuming, it's unrealistic and cheesy), and I don't know if anyone's even touched on barrage sniping, another lovely side effect. in general it's out of line with the scale of the game, can be tedious, and has several negative outcomes that I feel the design studio didn't fully realize.

Further, you point out that with the bare minimum of proper placement, you can revert things back to the way they were - simply putting your special at the back effectively gives you a plasma gun with 8 ablative wounds. If that's the case, why are you so dead set against rules that skip all the needless intermediate steps and arrive at that conclusion from the start? Especially when it's dead-simple to include something like precision shots to make sure no unit upgrade is completely safe.

In the end you're always entitled to your own opinions, and I actually apologize for dog-piling you in this thread. If it's more realistic in your mind to remove the closest models, and you don't mind all the other issues it brings up, then more power to you (and you probably enjoyed 6th more than I did, which is a nice perk). But as for closest-first being faster, more realistic, or better for game play than the 3ed thru 5ed rules, I think it's a very steep uphill argument for the last two, and as implemented in 6th and 7th is certainly slower than any of the others.

That's it, you killed it, CalgarsPimpHand. You killed the thread dead. Congratulations!

You can't just apologize to someone on the internet after an argument..! That's just not right! It never happens and now everyone's too confused to carry on!



On a more serious note - thanks for consideration, I hold no grudge against anyone here, tbh. People disagree, posts turn out harsher than intended.. or people get the wrong ideas. That always should be taken into account. Either way, I know it's just a subjective thing, fortunately I like the actual version much more for reasons stated. Some people disagree, they see it different, but it's always like that. I'm pretty happy that it balanced out the ablative wounds and convenience of the 'defender'. Of course it has it's flaws, but so did the previous iteration, so it all boils down to personal opinions.

As for the depth regarding the 'ease' of covering the specialists.. I guess it's still more depth even if it's pretty simple than when there wasn't such a thing at all, but again, it's my opinion that it's better and others don't have to agree with it. :-)