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Hey Dakka-ites!

About a year ago I was looking at the differences between Kill Team & 40k, and comparing it to 40k & Apocalypse. For those who don't know, Kill Team is an extra-tiny game of 40k where each model is its own unit - effectively destroying unit coherency. Models in kill team are much more efficient than in 40k because they're separate models - you don't waste nearly as many shots, going to ground doesn't hamstring everyone else, and pinning is pretty much non-existent. However, if you look at it from the reverse, you're taking models in their "natural" state, and then adding this coherency restriction to them. It's this shift in perspective that makes regular 40k games so very different from Kill Team, and in my mind, is what the whole experience is about.

That then got me thinking, what if there's an additional "level" of coherency that we simply don't see in 40k, because it exists only when dealing with yet larger games? I often bemoan 40k's take on Apocalypse because, while lots of dice are rolled, those rolls feel far less meaningful than they should be. It loses the dynamic of shifting around each other and instead into "mash two forces against each other". If you played a 1500 point game using Kill Team rules, I'm sure you'd see and feel the same way.

I've tested some of these rules before; I tried a couple games where you had to maintain a 6" coherency with each other unit in a detachment. I called it "detachment coherency". We also made it so that a single detachment could only shoot at 1 other detachment (though they could divide their attacks within the detachment however they wished).

Pros:
- Sometimes you didn't shoot at really dangerous stuff, because the "overkill" wasn't worth it.
- The armies had to move to get into better positions, and started developing real "flanks" due to the sizes of each detachment.

Cons:
- We had detachments of "3 units minimum", which maybe still led to too many units.
- A number of game rules have to be modified.
- 6" coherency sometimes meant you lost track of which units belonged to which detachment - especially if they started intermingling.


Not bad, but not quite right yet. So now I'm thinking, what if you took every model in a detachment, and made it a single unit? 2" coherency, charging, etc. Giant blobs of models would now have to work together! The big difference here would be units made of both vehicle and non-vehicle models - which I'll call Mechanized Units. Here's the rules modifications I think I'll need:

#1 - Attacking Mechanized Units:
This would make it so that a detachment of a Captain, a Tactical Squad, and a Rhino would all be the same unit. The rules cover units of models with different properties, but never looks at what happens should two of these unit types intermix. I think the most straightforward solution would be to move the "mixed armour saves" rules up to the wounding step, so that you follow through always against the actual toughness of the closest models in the unit, rather than trying to do any average-toughness stuff. This means that if a Mechanized Unit is coming up against another unit with mostly small arms fire, it would put the vehicles up front. If it was coming up against an anti-tank unit, it'd be wiser to keep the infantry at the fore.

#2 - Charging with Mechanized Units:
Yeah, vehicles normally can't charge unless they're walkers. How then to resolve this? Why by simply allowing vehicles to charge the charge range! Then they would either be doing a Tank Shock or a Ram against whatever is in that charge range. If an enemy unit passes its Leadership test, then the models in the way are moved the minimum distance out of the way but end in base contact with the vehicle. Such vehicles would not be slowed by difficult terrain. Models with an attack characteristic would have to be within 2" of another model with an attack characteristic that's in base contact with an enemy model in order to make their attacks.

#3 - Leadership (Mechanized and regular units):
Leadership is a vitally important part of army on army combat, but when dealing with 40k detachments, it'll be easy to have a few models be Fearless. Vehicles also do not have Ld (and I'm not sure if this is still a thing or not, but are otherwise Ld10 if it absoutely needs to be known). So what to do in these situations? I think the most prudent thing would be to use the lowest Leadership value in the unit, becoming Fearless only if the entire unit is composed of models that are Vehicles/Fearless.

#4 - Characters in Units:
Characters would modify a number of rules. One would be Leadership; a unit with a Character uses the lowest Leadership amongst Characters in that unit. A Fearless character can make his/her unit Fearless until the start of your next movement phase by rolling equal to or lower than their Leadership at the start of your movement phase.


What do you think? Worth a test game?

I'm hesitant to reply, as I don't really get enough Apocalypse games in to have a good handle on how things are currently, before any modifications, but I'll riff some thoughts:

The 'detachment coherency' (6") stuff sounds cool, and makes me think of Triumph and Treachery (the Warhammer multiplayer expansion), where you choose one opponent in each phase and you're only allowed to shoot / charge that player. If I get the chance to try larger games more often, it's something I might try.

Now, the 2" stuff, sounds a bit extreme. Lets take a proverbial detachment that's going to show up alot in 40k - Demi-Company. Three tactical squads, an assault squad, a devastator squad a character and some misc stuff (including APC's) - having to keep everything within 2" means either the devastators never shoot (they're trying to keep up with the assault marines), the assault squad never assault (because the devastators can't keep up with the assault squad's jump packs) etc. Let alone what happens when they take drop pods (immobile vehicles have a hard time keeping up).

Think about what you're trying to achieve here, what do you want the rules to do? Is it so that a Titan with a Heavy 40 weapon doesn't waste shots on a single scout squad?
Likewise, what do you want from the Mechanized Units rules? A trio of rhinos making a massive tactical marine blob behind them effectively immune to small-arms fire? Overlapping damage so you can fire a tactical squad with a lascannon at another tactical squad with a rhino next to them, hitting the rhino with the lascannon whilst getting to shoot the bolters at the troops?

Shooting at a Mech unit would end up similar to the Vehicle Squadron rules - which generally don't get much mileage in normal 40k, but if they were widespread I think they would massively slow down the game (the opposite of what I want from an Apoc game). Take that theoretical Heavy 40 titan weapon - rolling each individual wound? Then waiting for your opponent to make a save before working out what your target number is?

Some good points.

My goal is not to make something that's Heavy 40 work better, but actually to make most things worse! The example of the Demi-Company having to waste its heavy weapon shots is a perfect example of how most units get worse when they all have to move and work together.

That said, I'd probably introduce a rule similar to what we did for the 6" coherency; detachments must be at least 3 units larger.

My goal here is to create a greater sense of army-on-army battle than in 40k, which I feel to be unit-on-unit battle. I want to have armies having to move and fight and reposition rather than just units.

How are handling detachments? What I mean is, is it exactly as it currently is for 40k? Can you take multiple detachments? Or is it something where you're just picking at least three units and calling them a detachment?

I meant to mention in my previous post about the Epic (Armageddon, 15mm) rules - they have combined mechanized units, unit coherency that is on a scale similar to 40k detachments, and it seems to have some similar themes to what you're aiming for with your apoc rules. They are free to download if you fancy taking a look.

I'm worried that most of the game will come down to people 'gaming' your rules, rather than making a smoother or more dynamic Apoc game (knowing that all of a detachments have to fire at the same time, adding some ablative cultists / guardsmen between tanks cuts down enemy firepower drastically, but they can't start with anti-infantry guns as the rhino up front will just ignore it, etc.)

 Quanar wrote:
How are handling detachments? What I mean is, is it exactly as it currently is for 40k? Can you take multiple detachments? Or is it something where you're just picking at least three units and calling them a detachment?

I meant to mention in my previous post about the Epic (Armageddon, 15mm) rules - they have combined mechanized units, unit coherency that is on a scale similar to 40k detachments, and it seems to have some similar themes to what you're aiming for with your apoc rules. They are free to download if you fancy taking a look.

I'm worried that most of the game will come down to people 'gaming' your rules, rather than making a smoother or more dynamic Apoc game (knowing that all of a detachments have to fire at the same time, adding some ablative cultists / guardsmen between tanks cuts down enemy firepower drastically, but they can't start with anti-infantry guns as the rhino up front will just ignore it, etc.)

I'm totally fine with people "gaming" the system - it is a game after all. Yes, a detachment of a Rhino, a squad of cultists, and then a Defiler (laid out in that order) could be very difficult to kill in a single turn, but that's great! It actually gives a real use to infantry forces - something that tends to be otherwise useless in Apocalypse. At the same time, if you position your army cleverly, you will be rewarded for attacking your opponent in the "flank" or "rear", denying them this advantage! There's also a nice niche for close combat here - as a good close combat unit is also usually useful against vehicles too, allowing these squads to be more "generalist" attack units than they are right now.

As for how large a detachment is, the "3 units" thing was just a test from a previous game that worked pretty well, but that's not set in stone yet. I think the "min 3" thing would be fine, but such detachments would have no bonus abilities like CADs and other formations do. Maybe they should even have a penalty?