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I agree on the not enough HP thing. Personally I always like the idea of removing the damage table entirely and upping hull points on all vehicles. Then having HP dealt on a degree of penetration basis.

Glance = 1 HP
Pen = 2 HP
Severe Pen = 3 HP

with severe pen being exceeding HP by say 4 or more. WIth bonuses for AP 1(+2) and 2(+1) and open topped(+1).

So Say we double current HP on a Rhino to 6, It would take 6 glances to kill, or 3 pens or 2 Severe pens. So say a lascannon hits it you end up with it doing nothing 1/6th of the time, removing 1 HP 1/6th of the time, removing 2 HP 1/2 of the time, and removing 3 HP 1/3rd of the time.

Vs
Using and autocannon where you do nothing 1/2 of the time, remove 1 HP 1/6th of the time, and remove 2 1/3rd of the time.

What you end up with is if you had guardsman shooting both weapons, each has a 50% chance to remove at least one HP, but the lascannon has a 42% chance to remove more than 1 HPvs only a 33% for the autocannon, and a 16% chance to remove 3, vs no chance for the autocannon.

To me this makes dedicated anti-vehicle units better at their job, makes fluke vehicle deaths much less likely, and makes glancing things to death much harder.

The real issue is that HP are essentially just wounds, and vehicles don't get saves.

Give a Land Raider the same 2+ save as its contents and now it's fine. Give a rhino the same 3+ save as its contents, same thing (though probably underpriced). You could even do this based on what side you're shooting at, simply by basing a save on AV. If you're AV 14, you also get a 2+ save. If you're 11-13, you get a 3+ save, if you're AV10, you get a 4+ save.

Look at what vehicles get used - ones that have built-in saves of some some, whether that be an invul or a jink.

If you want vehicles to have hit points, then you need to give them saves or they die too easily to mass fire.

And, then, just to streamline everything further, introduce critical hits on monsters. There's no reason I should be able to one-shot a dreadnought but not a dreadknight. There's no reason I shouldn't be able to use a rocket to shoot the arm off a carnifex. There should be a penetrating-hit rule for MCs, where if you roll two over what you need to inflict a wound, you get a damage result roll akin to the vehicle pen table.

 Redbeard wrote:
The real issue is that HP are essentially just wounds, and vehicles don't get saves.

Give a Land Raider the same 2+ save as its contents and now it's fine. Give a rhino the same 3+ save as its contents, same thing (though probably underpriced). You could even do this based on what side you're shooting at, simply by basing a save on AV. If you're AV 14, you also get a 2+ save. If you're 11-13, you get a 3+ save, if you're AV10, you get a 4+ save.

Not sure about that. It seems like it's strengthening the wrong vehicles. Land Raiders will get little benefit from a 2+ save because virtually all the weapons strong enough to damage it are AP1-2. On the other hand, already cheap transports get 3+ saves against all the Autocannons, Tesla Destructors and similar weapons aimed at them.

 Redbeard wrote:
Look at what vehicles get used - ones that have built-in saves of some some, whether that be an invul or a jink.

Not always - there are a lot of vehicles without those saves that still get used.

 Redbeard wrote:

If you want vehicles to have hit points, then you need to give them saves or they die too easily to mass fire.

It seems like you could just give them more hull points.

 Redbeard wrote:

And, then, just to streamline everything further, introduce critical hits on monsters. There's no reason I should be able to one-shot a dreadnought but not a dreadknight. There's no reason I shouldn't be able to use a rocket to shoot the arm off a carnifex. There should be a penetrating-hit rule for MCs, where if you roll two over what you need to inflict a wound, you get a damage result roll akin to the vehicle pen table.

By the same token, should we introduce critical hits on characters? I mean, it seems a bit odd if a weapon can blow the arm of a dreadnaught or carnifex, but a SM captain can just shrug it off.

Regarding the vehicles having saves thing I've figured that they should get a save based on their AV. For AV10 they get none, AV11 6+, AV12 5+, AV13 4+, AV14 3+, AV15(+) 2+. That gets them an armor save that can be AP'd by anti-tank weapons, but provides some anti-glance protection.

The flip side of all of this is some armies (Tyranids, Dark Eldar, Grey Knights) need some real and legitimate anti-heavy tank options to balance the game out better.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I'm not against the "more Hull Points" idea either, and think that ideally things would have both.

The vehicle rules are a gigantic mess. While I'd like to think that saves for vehicles to compensate for HP's will help things, the problem is that for most things capable of hurting them, particularly as you get into AV14 tanks, will ignore the save and anything that doesn't won't be able to hurt them (thus making a save pointless), or for many medium vehicles, if given a save, they'd be in a situation where common heavy anti-infantry weapons can still effectively ignore their save, as there's tons of S5/6/7 weaponry that will ignore anything short of a power armor save.

Heavy anti-infantry weapons being able to hurt light tanks makes sense honestly though.

 Vaktathi wrote:
The vehicle 40k rules are a gigantic mess.

Fixed that for you.

 vipoid wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
The vehicle 40k rules are a gigantic mess.

Fixed that for you.

Some of the 40k rules are a mess. There are decently written rules in there, they just get dragged down by the ones that aren't that good.

I don't think anyone claimed that every 40K rule is a mess, Clockwork.

In any case, if I had my way vehicles would have hull-points but only penetrating hits would be able to strip them. Glances would only be able to shake, stun, destroy weapons( 5) or immobilize (6).

Hull-points were introduced because it was functionally impossible to blow up vehicles without AP1 weapons, needing to first get through its AV and then needing to roll a 5+ with AP2 or a 6 without. So you could pen a vehicle over and over and not get any meaningful results.

But stripping hullpoints through pens would work.


If you want to destroy a vehicle, bring actual anti-tank.

This would also make lance weapons and strength 10 vital again. As most lance weapons are single-shot, they're currently far less efficient than merely glancing vehicles.

 Vaktathi wrote:
The vehicle rules are a gigantic mess. While I'd like to think that saves for vehicles to compensate for HP's will help things, the problem is that for most things capable of hurting them, particularly as you get into AV14 tanks, will ignore the save and anything that doesn't won't be able to hurt them (thus making a save pointless), or for many medium vehicles, if given a save, they'd be in a situation where common heavy anti-infantry weapons can still effectively ignore their save, as there's tons of S5/6/7 weaponry that will ignore anything short of a power armor save.

What about giving invulns? Av14 gets a 5++?

 BlaxicanX wrote:
I don't think anyone claimed that every 40K rule is a mess, Clockwork.

In any case, if I had my way vehicles would have hull-points but only penetrating hits would be able to strip them. Glances would only be able to shake, stun, destroy weapons( 5) or immobilize (6).

Hull-points were introduced because it was functionally impossible to blow up vehicles without AP1 weapons, needing to first get through its AV and then needing to roll a 5+ with AP2 or a 6 without. So you could pen a vehicle over and over and not get any meaningful results.

You needed a 5+ unless you were AP1, AP2 didn't matter for squat in 5E. That said, we now have a completely superfluous damage table, the continued existence of which is largely punitive without serving much of a balance aspect anymore.

Honestly I didn't mind the vehicles in 5E. It meant there was a point to AT guns rather than just spamming plasma. Also, it wasn't most vehicles that people had problems with, people didn't complain about things like Predators, Hellhounds, Hammerheads, Leman Russ tanks, Ravagers, Dreads, Sentinels, Fire Prisms, Devilfish, Wave Serpents, Medusas, etc being too hard to kill really, it was stuff like having to stop half a dozen transports filled with scoring assault troops where they only cared about a minority of the damage chart since guns and shooting didn't matter. There were plenty of armies that could easily deal with 10+ vehicle hulls on the board routinely without a problem.

Effectively what the rules in 5E meant was that vehicles were T6-10 W1 models, where if you rolled the minimum required to wound them or they made a 3+ save (since a kill was a 5+) they were crippled or disabled in some way instead of being killed.

The old damage table was very focused on shutting down vehicle shooting, only one result would allow a vehicle to continue to fire (and being Immobilized often meant it may not have viable targets), while often on a pen many transports were fine 50% of the time and on a glance up to 5/6ths of the time.

 Robisagg wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
The vehicle rules are a gigantic mess. While I'd like to think that saves for vehicles to compensate for HP's will help things, the problem is that for most things capable of hurting them, particularly as you get into AV14 tanks, will ignore the save and anything that doesn't won't be able to hurt them (thus making a save pointless), or for many medium vehicles, if given a save, they'd be in a situation where common heavy anti-infantry weapons can still effectively ignore their save, as there's tons of S5/6/7 weaponry that will ignore anything short of a power armor save.

What about giving invulns? Av14 gets a 5++?

I mean they could work on invuls, there's something to that, though I'm not sure of the best way to implement that off the top of my head. It just felt weird imagining a Land Raider with a 2+ save it would never really get to use except against a very small list of weapons.

I always liked the way Flames of War dealt with vehicles, where every AT gun had an Anti-Tanks and a "firepower" rating, and you compared the AT of the weapon to the strength of the hull, where the "Firepower" was rolled after determining penetration to determine how powerful it was. So, for example, a Sherman with an AT of 10 and a FP of 3+ shooting at a Tiger's side armor of 8, the Tiger gets a defense roll, on a 1 the AT10 shot penetrates through (and on a 3+ it kills the Tiger, on a 1 or 2 the crew bails out, essentially crew stunned), on 2 it glances the armor (on a 3+ the crew bails out, on a 1 or 2 nothing happens) and on a 3+ the shot bounces off. Then the Tiger hits back with an AT 13 FP 3+ shot against the Sherman, the front armor is only 6, the Sherman can't roll high enough to save against it (6+(theoretical D6 max of 6) is still lower than 13), so it just went straight to the 3+ roll to see if the Sherman got killed or if it just got bailed out on a 1 or 2.

I've thought about that in 40k for a long time, and something like that could be cool. Unfortunately the best way to do that would be directly translating the AP stat, which would make too many guns way too effective (e.g. melta auto-killing instead of on a 4+, Lascannons killing rhinos on a 3+ to pen and 2+ AP, etc). Without some sort of other radical rules change I just can't think of a good way to translate that into 40k however.

I loved 5th in how concise it was, and how predictable armies were so you could actualy plan for a game. Now since 6th shat and puked over all that already, I like how there are countless combinations in 7th. Allies, FW, Superheavies, Unbound. All flyers wing meeting an Imperial Knights mechwarrior esque lance? Awesome! The actual matchup will be borked because GW but hey it sounds great. In fact in real word a TAC list doesnt exist either, example a mixed SS would be decimated by a mediocore soviet tanks if catched on a plain field. Anyway snce I accepted the fact that the core rules and balance are just abysmal, I see a lot of opportunieties for stupid fun.

But, tbh I only like the idea. The actual rules I find not tactical enough so Im writing my own for home use. Funnily enoug there will be more micro managment but only because I want it to actualy matter. So, heavy weapon does not have to shoot the same target as the rest of the squad because that makes no sense, the position of models will really matter etc. Really the problem wih scale in 40k is that its neither the company level ruleset nor skirmish taken big ruleset, its just a weird mixup of both and its most cardinal sin, it doesnt provid tactical possibilities from either of those.

Down to single rules, what I hated about 5th was 30 termagants hiding behind a building and you could shoot them all down because a single one was visible. Look out sir is equaly dumb though so that evens out I guess. Also you should be able to shoot into CC, some reactive fire mechanics too and maybe overrun so you can attack another unit if you killed everyone from the first one in CC (only once though). Fliers are bad suspension of disbelief wise but provide much needed mobility so not sure here.

I think flyers should be renamed to Super-Fast Skimmers.

A proper flyer wouldn't even be on the table.
Drop Zone Commander has some proper flyer rules that represents air combat much better.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Regarding the vehicles having saves thing I've figured that they should get a save based on their AV. For AV10 they get none, AV11 6+, AV12 5+, AV13 4+, AV14 3+, AV15(+) 2+. That gets them an armor save that can be AP'd by anti-tank weapons, but provides some anti-glance protection.

The flip side of all of this is some armies (Tyranids, Dark Eldar, Grey Knights) need some real and legitimate anti-heavy tank options to balance the game out better.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I'm not against the "more Hull Points" idea either, and think that ideally things would have both.

The whoe armour save system is not working. Ap 3+ is the thing, while everything belov that just makes the lighter armour even more worthless. It's also good divider because 4+ and worse cover is easily available, making the worse than 3+ armour (and worse than 3ap) just cost points without much use. Good example are the ap5 ccw:s that Gw are pushing. They make the models better against the stuff that they wouldn't have any problems anyways (and at the same time more expensive) while not helping at all against heavier stuff.

I would bring back the save modifiers. A simple rule change that could be tested as a house rule would be changing the ap so that ap5 would be -1 to save and every point above that would be a -1 more. So ap1 would be -5. At the same time I would change the marines (and equal) to have 2+ save and terminators (and equal) to have 2+ save on d8. That way marine would save on 3+ against bolters, 4+ against heavy bolters and the terminators would be very hard to kill with small arms, but against stuff like lascannons and meltaguns they would be about as resisitant as now. And it would matter to shoot them with missile instead of a lasgun.
At the same time cover could be just a bonus to armour save infinity-style. With almost all cover giving +1 to armour, and the heaviest fortifications +2, where the lighter terrain would be just a movement modifier and LoS element.

Alternatively we bring in Fantasy's shooting system to make shooting less effective. There firing multiple shots with a weapons is -1 BS, and cover modifies BS further, and it goes below needing a 6+ like 40k is. So far below that you can actually need two consecutive 6+ to hit.

With shooting getting modified like that I think we'd swing back into a better balance between close combat and shooing as well.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Alternatively we bring in Fantasy's shooting system to make shooting less effective. There firing multiple shots with a weapons is -1 BS, and cover modifies BS further, and it goes below needing a 6+ like 40k is. So far below that you can actually need two consecutive 6+ to hit.

With shooting getting modified like that I think we'd swing back into a better balance between close combat and shooing as well.

i actually played the end of 6th edition mostly with hit modifiers instead of cover and snap shots. It worked fine, but had some issues (like making eldar even better ).

Maybe I'm just not seeing it, but how'd it make Eldar better?

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Alternatively we bring in Fantasy's shooting system to make shooting less effective. There firing multiple shots with a weapons is -1 BS, and cover modifies BS further, and it goes below needing a 6+ like 40k is. So far below that you can actually need two consecutive 6+ to hit.

With shooting getting modified like that I think we'd swing back into a better balance between close combat and shooing as well.

Modifying BS doesn't nerf shooting as it instead buffs already durable units. Here is an example

Lets say you have a SM squad shooting bolters and they have a -2BS modifier (for shooting into cover or w/e) so went from hitting on 3+ to 5+. Thats a 50% cut in damage output so is basically a 4+ save.

If you shot at Guardsmen their normal 5+ armor is getting ignored by the Ap5 bolters. So the only damage reduction they get is the -2BS which is basically giving a 4+ save. This is identical to if they were just in a ruin and got a 4+ cover save in our current system. It is completely identical damage either way thus resulting in no nerfing to the shooting output against the fragile unit.

However if you shot at another SM they get their 3+ armor save still. But there still is the -2BS so the SMs basically get a 4+ save in addition to their 3+ armor save making them twice as durable as they were before.

As a result all switching to BS modifiers did was buff units already good at getting shot and do nothing for the fragile units that you'd want to nerf shooting for in the first place.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Alternatively we bring in Fantasy's shooting system to make shooting less effective. There firing multiple shots with a weapons is -1 BS, and cover modifies BS further, and it goes below needing a 6+ like 40k is. So far below that you can actually need two consecutive 6+ to hit.

With shooting getting modified like that I think we'd swing back into a better balance between close combat and shooing as well.

The problems I see are that it makes more sense for shooting to be poorer in a Fantasy setting. it's a little weird if Space Marines with the latest technology and weapons still need 5s and 6s to hit.

The other aspect is that it seems like you'd need to rebalance a lot of units. e.g. Marines are now getting their 3+ save *and* cover against small arms fire, whereas units like Guardsmen, DE, nids etc. are gaining no extra benefit.

Similarly, you'd have to be careful in terms of the modifiers applied because it really doesn't take much to make a squad's shooting all but worthless - which matters even more if that squad is carrying Heavy/Special weapons. In fantasy, shooting tends to be more uniform. Aside from the occasional character weapon, squads are generally all carrying the same weapons. And, any weapon can hurt any toughness. in 40k, you have squads with single heavy weapons, which may be the only weapons that can hurt a tank or MC.

To put it another way, units can't compensate for poor shooting by just taking more bodies, as they can in fantasy.

It's not necessarily a bad idea, but it's something you'd really need to build both the system and the armies around. You couldn't just add it as a patch job (like GW does with every other rule).

@CrownAxe: If most units come out roughly the same, and Power Armor actually feels a little safer (as right now it feels like slightly thicker than average tissue paper with all the AP3 stuff that's come into the game in the last couple editions) than I fail to see a problem. Plus it'd make vehicles more durable, which was mainly the point.

@Vipoid: Latest technology does nothing for you when you're moving and trying to draw a bead on your enemy, or while firing more than one shot (recoil). And there are Fantasy rules that ignore some modifiers (be it firing more than one shot, or ignore movement penalties) so it's not like every army would be exactly the same. Plus with the modifiers we could extend weapon ranges a lot more (allowing them to shoot up to double the range, but at -1BS for anything over the max range of the weapon for example) so it didn't feel like the bullets were just vanishing into the ether at their max range.

Basically I'm saying it'd make the game a bit more realistic, a bit more tactical and make shooting less the automatic answer to everything.

And I agree it's not something that can be just slapped in but it's one of the core mechanics from Fantasy I really think could work in 40k with some proper tweaking and setup.

Yes, that's why I said that it didn't work too well. But I must say that part of the thinking behind the modifiers was indeed to make the durable units more durable. Remember that it was in 6th edition when basic marines were suffering from extinction. And marines hitting on fives guardsmen without cover saves is exactly the same as marines hitting on 3+ and the guardsmen getting 5+ cover save. Afterall against bolters the cover save is simulating the units in cover being harder to hit than actually the trees stopping the exploding rounds.

And it made eldar better because the modifeirs from jink, coupled with their already good survivability made them quite hard. And also the abundant re-rolls helped them quite a lot hitting stuff.

I must say that my "new save modifier mod" feels a lot better as it also includes the cover. Current cover system has always felt stupid as it is dependant on the armour save of the model shot.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Alternatively we bring in Fantasy's shooting system to make shooting less effective. There firing multiple shots with a weapons is -1 BS, and cover modifies BS further, and it goes below needing a 6+ like 40k is. So far below that you can actually need two consecutive 6+ to hit.

With shooting getting modified like that I think we'd swing back into a better balance between close combat and shooing as well.

Welcome to 2nd edition.

While we're at it, we might as well bring Save Modifiers back. After all, how is it that Power Armor offers the same protection against an Autocannon as it does against a Laspistol?

 ClockworkZion wrote:
@CrownAxe: If most units come out roughly the same, and Power Armor actually feels a little safer (as right now it feels like slightly thicker than average tissue paper with all the AP3 stuff that's come into the game in the last couple editions) than I fail to see a problem.

Because marines aren't currently priced correctly for getting an additional 4+ save against small arms fire?

 ClockworkZion wrote:

@Vipoid: Latest technology does nothing for you when you're moving and trying to draw a bead on your enemy, or while firing more than one shot (recoil).

Surely that depends on the technology?

 ClockworkZion wrote:
And there are Fantasy rules that ignore some modifiers (be it firing more than one shot, or ignore movement penalties) so it's not like every army would be exactly the same.

But exceptions aren't something you can just assume will be applied correctly.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Plus with the modifiers we could extend weapon ranges a lot more (allowing them to shoot up to double the range, but at -1BS for anything over the max range of the weapon for example) so it didn't feel like the bullets were just vanishing into the ether at their max range.

Please no. Weapons in 40k already have stupidly long ranges. Let's not make them even longer.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Basically I'm saying it'd make the game a bit more realistic, a bit more tactical and make shooting less the automatic answer to everything.

If you want to make things more tactical, try reducing weapon ranges so that manoeuvring becomes important.

Infinity does this well with the optimum range modifiers for the weapons. Something that we had also in 2nd edition. Although I'm not massively into too complicated rules in a game with 50+ models, but on the other hand, general 40k army has in general about as many units to do actions as in infinity. And 40k already has too complicated rules

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Alternatively we bring in Fantasy's shooting system to make shooting less effective. There firing multiple shots with a weapons is -1 BS, and cover modifies BS further, and it goes below needing a 6+ like 40k is. So far below that you can actually need two consecutive 6+ to hit.

With shooting getting modified like that I think we'd swing back into a better balance between close combat and shooing as well.

Welcome to 2nd edition.

While we're at it, we might as well bring Save Modifiers back. After all, how is it that Power Armor offers the same protection against an Autocannon as it does against a Laspistol?

I'm definitely not against that idea actually. Heck, you could even keep AP and use that to determine the save modifiers instead of strength just to not throw things completely out a window.

 vipoid wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
@CrownAxe: If most units come out roughly the same, and Power Armor actually feels a little safer (as right now it feels like slightly thicker than average tissue paper with all the AP3 stuff that's come into the game in the last couple editions) than I fail to see a problem.

Because marines aren't currently priced correctly for getting an additional 4+ save against small arms fire?

It's not an additional save if the mechanics make them harder to hit. And if we bring the save modifers in (as mentioned) what does hit, would still be reducing their saves so they'd die more often.

 vipoid wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

@Vipoid: Latest technology does nothing for you when you're moving and trying to draw a bead on your enemy, or while firing more than one shot (recoil).

Surely that depends on the technology?

When mounted on a vehicle, maybe. We are talking about physics here and while a lasgun may not (since it's a lightweight laser weapon) a bolter definitely would suffer that problem.

 vipoid wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
And there are Fantasy rules that ignore some modifiers (be it firing more than one shot, or ignore movement penalties) so it's not like every army would be exactly the same.

But exceptions aren't something you can just assume will be applied correctly.

I'm not assuming anything, I'm just stating a thing I'd personally like to see.

 vipoid wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Plus with the modifiers we could extend weapon ranges a lot more (allowing them to shoot up to double the range, but at -1BS for anything over the max range of the weapon for example) so it didn't feel like the bullets were just vanishing into the ether at their max range.

Please no. Weapons in 40k already have stupidly long ranges. Let's not make them even longer.

They're also supposed to be as at least as accurate as the guns we use today, and if 1"=2m' then my M4 I had in the Army had a better range than a lasgun (24"=48m range, M4=500m point, 600m area or 250" and 300" ranges on the table respectively). Now I'm not saying that it should be easy to hit that far out (I mean 300m can be a right pain with just iron sights if conditions aren't in your favor) but surely balancing a lowered chance to hit with a longer range is not that game breaking.

 vipoid wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Basically I'm saying it'd make the game a bit more realistic, a bit more tactical and make shooting less the automatic answer to everything.

If you want to make things more tactical, try reducing weapon ranges so that manoeuvring becomes important.

As pointed out that actually hurts realism more. Shorter ranges don't make the game more tactical, they just push players to using faster platforms to engage with things more quickly. All you do is push a meta of armies with the fastest units to the top. So Eldar again.

Games Workshop, since 5E, has made 40k a mess of scale of conflict and rules bloat. It's just too cumbersome and really could be 3 different games (titanic combat, vehicle combat, skirmish combat) at this point. And it's all mashed into one.

Allies, with proper grooming and control a la Warmahordes, could work, but as they stand, are so heavily skewed towards Imperium that it's entirely dumb and busted. You have armies that are just flat out bland, flat, or gutted with new releases; all of which encouraging the further proponent of allies and the purchasing of more rules.

It's hot steaming mess. If they had stayed on 5E mentality and just polished some of the issues there, we could have had a 6E/7E where an army was an army, some flavorful allies could be had, theme lists could be introduced that enhance fluff armies that are lacking in potency, flyers and titans would stay in Apoc due to scale, and the rules would get clearer and smaller. Not bigger and worse.

And the continued addition of pure random elements, including ones you have to pay for, is extremely poor game design.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

It's not an additional save if the mechanics make them harder to hit. And if we bring the save modifers in (as mentioned) what does hit, would still be reducing their saves so they'd die more often.

But more fragile infantry will also have their saves reduced - usually to nothing, whilst the marines will still get some save.

That said, I think armour modifiers would be a good replacement for AP.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

As pointed out that actually hurts realism more. Shorter ranges don't make the game more tactical, they just push players to using faster platforms to engage with things more quickly. All you do is push a meta of armies with the fastest units to the top. So Eldar again.

Shorter ranges do make the game more tactical because positioning becomes a lot more important. You can't just stick some broadsides in one corner of the table and still hit models in the opposite corner.

Again, this wouldn't be a quick fix - you'd need to change a lot of other stuff along with it. But, I do believe it would create a more tactical game.

 TheKbob wrote:
Games Workshop, since 5E, has made 40k a mess of scale of conflict and rules bloat. It's just too cumbersome and really could be 3 different games (titanic combat, vehicle combat, skirmish combat) at this point. And it's all mashed into one.

I think you hit the nail on the head there. The game needs formatting, it's wayyyy too bloated. This could be done as you suggest through various expansions/formats.

The easiest thing GW could have done is indexed certain things to point level.

1500pts normal ass 40k (skirmish ala 5th ed, no silly crap)

2000pts some silly crap

3000pts all the silly crap you want, for realz


That at least would facilitate some level of communication that doesn't leave both parties lobbying to play with the toys they want.

 Crablezworth wrote:

 TheKbob wrote:
Games Workshop, since 5E, has made 40k a mess of scale of conflict and rules bloat. It's just too cumbersome and really could be 3 different games (titanic combat, vehicle combat, skirmish combat) at this point. And it's all mashed into one.

I think you hit the nail on the head there. The game needs formatting, it's wayyyy too bloated. This could be done as you suggest through various expansions/formats.

The easiest thing GW could have done is indexed certain things to point level.

1500pts normal ass 40k (skirmish ala 5th ed, no silly crap)

2000pts some silly crap

3000pts all the silly crap you want, for realz


That at least would facilitate some level of communication that doesn't leave both parties lobbying to play with the toys they want.

That would entail them actually caring. The common argument is that the players should make the game different scales, but that almost never works in the context of pickup games, because different people want different things. When you add all the superheavy crap from Epic the game becomes basically whoever shoots first wins, and there are so many special rules that are little different than others that they might as well not exist.