Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:
No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.
If you are already a member then feel free to login now.
Anyone get flashbacks of 5e Wound Allocation Shenanigans with Nobz?
Yeah, I actually stopped using my Nob mob for a while, because it was just too exhausting trying to track all of the wounds. Hence my suggestion that it should have just gone with the normal system, but once a multi-wound model takes a wound, the next one goes to him as well until he's dead. Much less housekeeping that way.
But on the flip side, you have 'tactics' involving taking some uber tanky character to eat all the shots and then spend 5 mins rolling LoS saves.
Which is a non issue with str "die you insufferable leech" shooting typically fielded by IG, where one failure is likely to be very unpleasant. Separately, it's less the tanky character that matters so much as the heavy weapon specialist. Why should Brother Grav Cannon be ambushed from behind by a squad of camo plasma veterans, take 4 direct hits at point blank range, but brothers Grunt, Scrub, Wash, and Disposable fall over, just because the veteran sgt just happend to slightly tan him with a laspistol?
The "shooting all at once" component is arguably a bigger change between editions, and either combination can be gamed. I'm strongly supportive of the death from the front approach and am unlikely to change, simply because the attacker has potentially more agency than the opponent in resolving the outcome... which is what an attack should be.
Now if the system was built with an intent to handle both perspectives, which is entirely possible, then i'd be all for it. Precision shots when rolling exactly your to-hit value for everything, a 'replaceable'/'irreplaceable'/'Red shirt' USR that shapes the way damage affects the unit that both players can participate in and both game depending on the situation? Yes please.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2016/12/20 02:07:00
Some people find the idea that other people can be happy offensive, and will prefer causing harm to self improvement.
So everyone's shots happen to home in on the guy who is coincidentally the least valuable member of a unit. Not stupid at all.
No, everyone's shots happen to hit the unit. Some number of casualties happen. If the guy with the special gun dies, someone else picks up his gun, unless the shooter gets a Torrent of Fire casualty pick.
"Hey, Sarge?"
"Yeah?"
"The guy with the missile launcher died."
"So?"
"Should I pick it up?"
"No, you stick with your lasgun, you idiot. Billy's the only squad member who's ever allowed to use the Missile Launcher."
"But, I mean, I could at least provide a distraction by firing a shot and getting wasted by enemy fire while someone who knows what they're doing makes use of the opportunity, right? That's why they taught all of us how to fire that thing in a cursory manner without training us all extensively on it?"
"Nope."
"So we're just gonna leave it there, not doing anything?"
"Yup."
"We're gonna lose, aren't we?"
"We're in WH40k. Defeat and victory are the same thing for most of us because we're back to WW1 tactics involving the deaths of tens of thousands for a mile of land."
"...Don't we have orbiting spaceships that could blast the crap out of the enemy?"
Anyone get flashbacks of 5e Wound Allocation Shenanigans with Nobz?
Yeah, I actually stopped using my Nob mob for a while, because it was just too exhausting trying to track all of the wounds. Hence my suggestion that it should have just gone with the normal system, but once a multi-wound model takes a wound, the next one goes to him as well until he's dead. Much less housekeeping that way.
You could've just equipped them all identically to solve that issue.
But on the flip side, you have 'tactics' involving taking some uber tanky character to eat all the shots and then spend 5 mins rolling LoS saves.
Which is a non issue with str "die you insufferable leech" shooting typically fielded by IG, where one failure is likely to be very unpleasant. Separately, it's less the tanky character that matters so much as the heavy weapon specialist. Why should Brother Grav Cannon be ambushed from behind by a squad of camo plasma veterans, take 4 direct hits at point blank range, but brothers Grunt, Scrub, Wash, and Disposable fall over, just because the veteran sgt just happend to slightly tan him with a laspistol?
The "shooting all at once" component is arguably a bigger change between editions, and either combination can be gamed. I'm strongly supportive of the death from the front approach and am unlikely to change, simply because the attacker has potentially more agency than the opponent in resolving the outcome... which is what an attack should be.
I think the best IG story I ever heard was one guy who went for a "Khaki Tide" army, and did some math before a game started, then said to their opponent, "I did the math. You do not have enough shots in your entire army for this entire game's duration to kill every one of my soldiers. It is a mathematical certainty that you cannot table me, as I brought more bodies than you brought bullets."
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2016/12/20 02:01:46
I think the best IG story I ever heard was one guy who went for a "Khaki Tide" army, and did some math before a game started, then said to their opponent, "I did the math. You do not have enough shots in your entire army for this entire game's duration to kill every one of my soldiers. It is a mathematical certainty that you cannot table me, as I brought more bodies than you brought bullets."
"Oh you brought an eversor assasin."
"oh.. I just lost all my commissars"
"Oh, my entire army just routed"
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/12/20 02:06:31
Some people find the idea that other people can be happy offensive, and will prefer causing harm to self improvement.
But on the flip side, you have 'tactics' involving taking some uber tanky character to eat all the shots and then spend 5 mins rolling LoS saves.
Which is a non issue with str "die you insufferable leech" shooting typically fielded by IG, where one failure is likely to be very unpleasant. Separately, it's less the tanky character that matters so much as the heavy weapon specialist. Why should Brother Grav Cannon be ambushed from behind by a squad of camo plasma veterans, take 4 direct hits at point blank range, but brothers Grunt, Scrub, Wash, and Disposable fall over, just because the veteran sgt just happend to slightly tan him with a laspistol?
The "shooting all at once" component is arguably a bigger change between editions, and either combination can be gamed. I'm strongly supportive of the death from the front approach and am unlikely to change, simply because the attacker has potentially more agency than the opponent in resolving the outcome... which is what an attack should be.
Why is it that no one can pick up the gun dropped by Brother Grav Cannon and carry on the fight heroically? Did Brothers Grunt, Scrub, Wash, and Disposable miss that day in shooting training? Letting the owning player remove their own models makes equal sense from a fluff perspective and you have the added benefit of being much quicker, simpler, and smoother in the middle of the game. When you have 2000pts of models to control, do you really want to spend 5 mins throwing LoS saves and measuring which model is closest and so on? I know I don't because it doesn't add anything to the game from a fluff perspective or from a tactical perspective, because you're just micro-managing models at that point.
As for your second paragraph, I'm strongly supportive of pick your own casualties and am unlikely to change, simply because the defender has more agency than the opponent in revolving the outcome, which is how a game at this scale should operate; on a unit by unit basis, not a model by model basis. Furthermore, you can simply introduce some modified mechanics like they had in 4th as a middle ground between having zero agency as an attacker to having some if you pour enough firepower in.
Either way, 40k at the scale its currently played at needs less model by model interactions rather than more.
Mordian Iron Guard - Major Overhaul in Progress
+Spaceship Gaming Enthusiast+
Live near Halifax, NS? Ask me about our group, the Ordo Haligonias!
Why is it that no one can pick up the gun dropped by Brother Grav Cannon and carry on the fight heroically? Did Brothers Grunt, Scrub, Wash, and Disposable miss that day in shooting training? Letting the owning player remove their own models makes equal sense from a fluff perspective and you have the added benefit of being much quicker, simpler, and smoother in the middle of the game.
Off the top of my head, because he'd have to disconnect his armour's power pack in combat conditions, reattach the grav cannon's much heavier one for which his armour isn't calibrated, may not in fact have been consecrated by the techmarines to operate this particular cannon's machine spirit, and perhaps have taken a vow forbidding the use of grav weapons. This is assuming they were even wearing the same mark of power armour and it can even be done at all from a compatibility perspective.
But this is what I mean in my edit - if you want to have resilient models at the troop level, represent it in the rules directly instead of a blanket ruling."Can pick up fallen gear" USR on a 4+ is entirely appropriate. Hell have it go between squads, march the survivors of a tac squad to an objective with reclaimed melta guns. Getting to choose "I just keep this guy because feth you" isn't exactly the height of defensive planning.
When you have 2000pts of models to control, do you really want to spend 5 mins throwing LoS saves and measuring which model is closest and so on? I know I don't because it doesn't add anything to the game from a fluff perspective or from a tactical perspective, because you're just micro-managing models at that point.
Erm. What armies do you play with/against that this is a problem for you? My standard game these days is around the 5k mark and I play IG main, to do this effectively I roll, stack up the AP-X wounds, usually in an order that means the armour saves go first then the plasma/melta/whatever happens, and say to my opponent "X wounds at AP Y from this direction please, followed by Z wounds at AP Foo ". With enough dice to hand this rarely takes more than 30 seconds per unit.
Could you tell me where your perspective is coming from?
As for your second paragraph, I'm strongly supportive of pick your own casualties and am unlikely to change, simply because the defender has more agency than the opponent in revolving the outcome, which is how a game at this scale should operate; on a unit by unit basis, not a model by model basis.
Can you please explain to me how just getting to choose which one of your own models survives is somehow *NOT* operating the game at a model by model basis? Compared to, "i'm setting the nearest guys on fire, roll to see how many of the guys who know i'm shooting at them survive"?
malamis wrote: Off the top of my head, because he'd have to disconnect his armour's power pack in combat conditions, reattach the grav cannon's much heavier one for which his armour isn't calibrated, may not in fact have been consecrated by the techmarines to operate this particular cannon's machine spirit, and perhaps have taken a vow forbidding the use of grav weapons. This is assuming they were even wearing the same mark of power armour and it can even be done at all from a compatibility perspective.
But this is what I mean in my edit - if you want to have resilient models at the troop level, represent it in the rules directly instead of a blanket ruling."Can pick up fallen gear" USR on a 4+ is entirely appropriate. Hell have it go between squads, march the survivors of a tac squad to an objective with reclaimed melta guns. Getting to choose "I just keep this guy because feth you" isn't exactly the height of defensive planning.
So basically "Because Space Marines need the whole game designed around them"?
malamis wrote: Off the top of my head, because he'd have to disconnect his armour's power pack in combat conditions, reattach the grav cannon's much heavier one for which his armour isn't calibrated, may not in fact have been consecrated by the techmarines to operate this particular cannon's machine spirit, and perhaps have taken a vow forbidding the use of grav weapons. This is assuming they were even wearing the same mark of power armour and it can even be done at all from a compatibility perspective.
But this is what I mean in my edit - if you want to have resilient models at the troop level, represent it in the rules directly instead of a blanket ruling."Can pick up fallen gear" USR on a 4+ is entirely appropriate. Hell have it go between squads, march the survivors of a tac squad to an objective with reclaimed melta guns. Getting to choose "I just keep this guy because feth you" isn't exactly the height of defensive planning.
So basically "Because Space Marines need the whole game designed around them"?
If you really want me to give a detailed account of what happens when an untrained grunt operates a piece of heavy weaponry which may or may not have been hit by an anti tank missile, i've no problem doing that. I doubt it'd benefit anyone though.
On the subject of grunts, or perhaps grots, giving horde armies an auto pass, bonuses to or special benefits from battlefield salvage would make things interesting.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2016/12/20 02:42:08
Some people find the idea that other people can be happy offensive, and will prefer causing harm to self improvement.
Off the top of my head, because he'd have to disconnect his armour's power pack in combat conditions, reattach the grav cannon's much heavier one for which his armour isn't calibrated, may not in fact have been consecrated by the techmarines to operate this particular cannon's machine spirit, and perhaps have taken a vow forbidding the use of grav weapons. This is assuming they were even wearing the same mark of power armour and it can even be done at all from a compatibility perspective.
Replace Grav Cannon with plasma gun, or melta gun, some weapon that doesn't need to be connected to the armour and you get the idea. Same with any number of wargear items that are easily dropped and picked up again.
You get the idea.
But this is what I mean in my edit - if you want to have resilient models at the troop level, represent it in the rules directly instead of a blanket ruling."Can pick up fallen gear" USR on a 4+ is entirely appropriate. Hell have it go between squads, march the survivors of a tac squad to an objective with reclaimed melta guns. Getting to choose "I just keep this guy because feth you" isn't exactly the height of defensive planning.
The whole point is to get rid of tedious dice rolling and micro managing. Adding a USR to allow you to pick up weapons adds so much tiny, useless detail. You'd need to track what weapons are dropped, where they were dropped, figure out which model it goes to after doing the dice rolling, then have some way to represent it on the tabletop after.
As for the height of defensive planning, keeping a ring or guardsmen around your sergeant isn't exactly rocket appliances either.
Erm. What armies do you play with/against that this is a problem for you? My standard game these days is around the 5k mark and I play IG main, to do this effectively I roll, stack up the AP-X wounds, usually in an order that means the armour saves go first then the plasma/melta/whatever happens, and say to my opponent "X wounds at AP Y from this direction please, followed by Z wounds at AP Foo ". With enough dice to hand this rarely takes more than 30 seconds per unit.
Could you tell me where your perspective is coming from?
And the alternative is saving all that time and letting the owning player pluck his casualties as he sees fit, no extra dice rolling or measuring. It doesn't matter how fast you do it now, it is objectively faster and simply using the old method because you didn't have to check for ranges and angles.
Can you please explain to me how just getting to choose which one of your own models survives is somehow *NOT* operating the game at a model by model basis? Compared to, "i'm setting the nearest guys on fire, roll to see how many of the guys who know i'm shooting at them survive"?
Its a unit basis interaction because the special weapons and other bits and bobs in the squad aren't seen as separate models; they're seen as upgrades to the whole unit and treated as such until sufficient casualties have removed that ability. The current method has you treating all incoming fire and measuring each model to see which one is closest, effectively treating each model as its own unit.
The idea behind a unit based interaction is that the models are more or less wound markers until you start digging into the models that matter.
Mordian Iron Guard - Major Overhaul in Progress
+Spaceship Gaming Enthusiast+
Live near Halifax, NS? Ask me about our group, the Ordo Haligonias!
Let me get this straight people are complaining that 40k has become more literal yet they at the same argue its stupid that models cant pick up dead team mates weapon, Which is it? Also wouldn't doing wound allocation the old way be considered dumbing down the game? Right now you have to put some thought into model placement and allows your opponent to out think/maneuver you. Yes its a touch slower but I still can get most games done in around 2 1/2 hours even with playing IG. I mean if we are going to argue its stupid to not take the models from the front as a guard player why cant I shoot into combat ? How is it even remotely fluffy that a commissar cant order artillery down on his own unit that is being over run by daemons. 7th edition has a whole host of big issues but they are not what your all arguing about, the meta has changed and fair enough if you don't like it but its evident the enough people like it otherwise people playing older editions would be a thing like it is with fantasy. (I know on dakka people will play older editions but so far I have not met one person that is interested in playing a old edition for more then a game or two.)
malamis wrote: Off the top of my head, because he'd have to disconnect his armour's power pack in combat conditions, reattach the grav cannon's much heavier one for which his armour isn't calibrated, may not in fact have been consecrated by the techmarines to operate this particular cannon's machine spirit, and perhaps have taken a vow forbidding the use of grav weapons. This is assuming they were even wearing the same mark of power armour and it can even be done at all from a compatibility perspective.
But this is what I mean in my edit - if you want to have resilient models at the troop level, represent it in the rules directly instead of a blanket ruling."Can pick up fallen gear" USR on a 4+ is entirely appropriate. Hell have it go between squads, march the survivors of a tac squad to an objective with reclaimed melta guns. Getting to choose "I just keep this guy because feth you" isn't exactly the height of defensive planning.
So basically "Because Space Marines need the whole game designed around them"?
As opposed to designing the whole game around non-Marine human armies? Xenos and Daemons tend to be uniformly armed and don't care about the wound-allocation issue beyond keeping the sergeant alive.
malamis wrote: Off the top of my head, because he'd have to disconnect his armour's power pack in combat conditions, reattach the grav cannon's much heavier one for which his armour isn't calibrated, may not in fact have been consecrated by the techmarines to operate this particular cannon's machine spirit, and perhaps have taken a vow forbidding the use of grav weapons. This is assuming they were even wearing the same mark of power armour and it can even be done at all from a compatibility perspective.
But this is what I mean in my edit - if you want to have resilient models at the troop level, represent it in the rules directly instead of a blanket ruling."Can pick up fallen gear" USR on a 4+ is entirely appropriate. Hell have it go between squads, march the survivors of a tac squad to an objective with reclaimed melta guns. Getting to choose "I just keep this guy because feth you" isn't exactly the height of defensive planning.
So basically "Because Space Marines need the whole game designed around them"?
If you really want me to give a detailed account of what happens when an untrained grunt operates a piece of heavy weaponry which may or may not have been hit by an anti tank missile, i've no problem doing that. I doubt it'd benefit anyone though.
On the subject of grunts, or perhaps grots, giving horde armies an auto pass, bonuses to or special benefits from battlefield salvage would make things interesting.
My dad was in the Canadian Reserves in the late 70s to early 80s.
He was a radio technician, so he wasn't really expected to go into battle, but they still had him fire a Carl Gustav (sp?) with a concrete practice warhead at a firing range, basically so that in a pinch he'd know how to fire one and might prove a distraction for someone who actually knew what they were doing with a rocket launcher who'd be able to use the distraction to get in a good hit.
malamis wrote: Off the top of my head, because he'd have to disconnect his armour's power pack in combat conditions, reattach the grav cannon's much heavier one for which his armour isn't calibrated, may not in fact have been consecrated by the techmarines to operate this particular cannon's machine spirit, and perhaps have taken a vow forbidding the use of grav weapons. This is assuming they were even wearing the same mark of power armour and it can even be done at all from a compatibility perspective.
But this is what I mean in my edit - if you want to have resilient models at the troop level, represent it in the rules directly instead of a blanket ruling."Can pick up fallen gear" USR on a 4+ is entirely appropriate. Hell have it go between squads, march the survivors of a tac squad to an objective with reclaimed melta guns. Getting to choose "I just keep this guy because feth you" isn't exactly the height of defensive planning.
So basically "Because Space Marines need the whole game designed around them"?
As opposed to designing the whole game around non-Marine human armies? Xenos and Daemons tend to be uniformly armed and don't care about the wound-allocation issue beyond keeping the sergeant alive.
IG don't attach their weapons to their uniforms, non-heavy weapons like meltaguns or flamers that aren't attached even to Space Marines, Tau Fire Warriors sometimes have Pulse Carbines....
But really you literally just described why taking the weapon from a dead Devastator would be impractical, to explain the change to wound allocation not letting you keep the special weapon trooper.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
zalak wrote: Let me get this straight people are complaining that 40k has become more literal yet they at the same argue its stupid that models cant pick up dead team mates weapon, Which is it?
"Literal" in this case means treating the game as though the actual models are fighting the battle, instead of the game being a loose depiction of a battle.
So both.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2016/12/20 02:59:00
Generally I concluded my Sisters of Battle would be sensible enough to not launch missiles out of a pipe organ and instead use a more standard missile launcher and simply play the rockin' tunes over a loudspeaker.
You mean like in the good ol' days, when the Exorcist design actually made sense?
Truth be told, Forge World versions look better and make more sense (i.e. Mars-Alpha/Ryza Leman Russ variants). Too bad Forge World is costly, doesn't have the quality control to match the prices, and discontinues models at a fairly steady rate.
zalak wrote: Let me get this straight people are complaining that 40k has become more literal yet they at the same argue its stupid that models cant pick up dead team mates weapon, Which is it?
I suspect it might be that various people have various complaints about the current state of the game.
Also wouldn't doing wound allocation the old way be considered dumbing down the game? Right now you have to put some thought into model placement and allows your opponent to out think/maneuver you.
Sure, you have to put some thought into it. That doesn't automatically make it better. If you had to allocate wounds to every second model, skipping over any model with more than 314 grains of sand on their base, that would also force you to put some thought into model placement... but at some point, that extra thought comes at the cost of playability.
I mean if we are going to argue its stupid to not take the models from the front as a guard player why cant I shoot into combat ?
Replace Grav Cannon with plasma gun, or melta gun, some weapon that doesn't need to be connected to the armour and you get the idea. Same with any number of wargear items that are easily dropped and picked up again.
You get the idea.
I do, but you were asking for a fluff perspective. If we're using fluff as a justification for why a dudesmen can do something like this, there's an equal and opposite number of reasons he shouldn't. There's just as many fluff reasons to start splitting hairs as to which ones he should and shouldn't, who would be more apt at doing it, to what degree, what potential downsides there are, overall impact on the unit, meta game consequences of having meatshields with upgrades transfer their upgrades and so on. Would make for great kill team supplement rules, not so much for 6k Lord of War off.
The whole point is to get rid of tedious dice rolling and micro managing. Adding a USR to allow you to pick up weapons adds so much tiny, useless detail.
We have it already, it's called Look Out Sir! and if it was streamlined it'd work fine. Modify it to roll all of them at once where relevant and if you pass them all you keep your model.
You'd need to track what weapons are dropped, where they were dropped, figure out which model it goes to after doing the dice rolling, then have some way to represent it on the tabletop after.
Put the equipped model on its side, when the replacement scrub gets to it, remove him from play and reintroduce the model that was on its side.
As for the height of defensive planning, keeping a ring or guardsmen around your sergeant isn't exactly rocket appliances either.
I think this indicates where our doctrine splits, as i'm going to guess you're an SM player. We (IG) have redundant high value elements (3 melta guns in a 60pt troops choice haha!), you don't. OF COURSE you'll want them to live longer.
And the alternative is saving all that time and letting the owning player pluck his casualties as he sees fit, no extra dice rolling or measuring. It doesn't matter how fast you do it now, it is objectively faster and simply using the old method because you didn't have to check for ranges and angles.
Honestly if you want to go for objectively faster, you should just roll 200 dice at the start of the game and pick & choose which results you want to use when it suits your purposes. Exaggerated for effect of course ( and people do this apparently) but you're giving yourself a tactical advantage that I can't do anything about, whereas the death from the front you can position defensively, I can position offensively, and both actions have a chance to backfire on the luck of the roll.
Its a unit basis interaction because the special weapons and other bits and bobs in the squad aren't seen as separate models; they're seen as upgrades to the whole unit and treated as such until sufficient casualties have removed that ability. The current method has you treating all incoming fire and measuring each model to see which one is closest, effectively treating each model as its own unit.
Now this I can understand and even get behind.... but you're effectively treating every unit as a vehicle. It would mean tracking original unit sizes though which is another layer of complexity which would require non-table located assets.
Some people find the idea that other people can be happy offensive, and will prefer causing harm to self improvement.
malamis wrote: ... whereas the death from the front you can position defensively, I can position offensively, and both actions have a chance to backfire on the luck of the roll.
The problem is that this level of model-level micromanagement is uneccessary and tedious in a game the size of 40K.
In a small-scale skirmish game, worrying about the placement of individual models is fine. For a game the size of 40K, you should be worrying about the placement of your units, not the individual models in them.
Generally I concluded my Sisters of Battle would be sensible enough to not launch missiles out of a pipe organ and instead use a more standard missile launcher and simply play the rockin' tunes over a loudspeaker.
You mean like in the good ol' days, when the Exorcist design actually made sense?
Truth be told, Forge World versions look better and make more sense (i.e. Mars-Alpha/Ryza Leman Russ variants). Too bad Forge World is costly, doesn't have the quality control to match the prices, and discontinues models at a fairly steady rate.
That is literally the Forge World Exorcist you just linked to a picture of.
malamis wrote: ... whereas the death from the front you can position defensively, I can position offensively, and both actions have a chance to backfire on the luck of the roll.
The problem is that this level of model-level micromanagement is uneccessary and tedious in a game the size of 40K.
In a small-scale skirmish game, worrying about the placement of individual models is fine. For a game the size of 40K, you should be worrying about the placement of your units, not the individual models in them.
Then this is where I must respectfully disagree on the foundation of your assertion and withdraw because i've nothing more to add :<
Have fun y'all.
Some people find the idea that other people can be happy offensive, and will prefer causing harm to self improvement.
insaniak wrote: I suspect it might be that various people have various complaints about the current state of the game.
Sure, you have to put some thought into it. That doesn't automatically make it better. If you had to allocate wounds to every second model, skipping over any model with more than 314 grains of sand on their base, that would also force you to put some thought into model placement... but at some point, that extra thought comes at the cost of playability.
These two statements make me wish I could hug you IRL.
A lot of what is wrong with 40K is due to the design of the game favouring complexity over depth. There is a huge abundance of rules to learn which cover very few actual player choices in what we can do in the game.
Having to focus on such small details as individual model placement adds complexity to the game (micro-managing individual models within a unit) without adding a corresponding amount of depth (this micromanagement doesn't give the player any more in-game options than a system without it, it only limits their chances of making use of the options which already exist).
Extra Credits explain it better than I could, though in the context of Video Games, but I think the points carry over well.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2016/12/20 03:45:03
The Laws of Thermodynamics:
1) You cannot win. 2) You cannot break even. 3) You cannot stop playing the game.
Colonel Flagg wrote:You think you're real smart. But you're not smart; you're dumb. Very dumb. But you've met your match in me.
Anyone get flashbacks of 5e Wound Allocation Shenanigans with Nobz?
Yeah, I actually stopped using my Nob mob for a while, because it was just too exhausting trying to track all of the wounds. Hence my suggestion that it should have just gone with the normal system, but once a multi-wound model takes a wound, the next one goes to him as well until he's dead. Much less housekeeping that way.
Ahh...the days when Paladins were OP instead of dust-catchers...
Also wouldn't doing wound allocation the old way be considered dumbing down the game? Right now you have to put some thought into model placement and allows your opponent to out think/maneuver you.
Sure, you have to put some thought into it. That doesn't automatically make it better. If you had to allocate wounds to every second model, skipping over any model with more than 314 grains of sand on their base, that would also force you to put some thought into model placement... but at some point, that extra thought comes at the cost of playability.
How does having the defending player pick which model to take better for play-ability? Sure it makes the game go by quicker by a few minutes but how is that inherently better? Simpler does not equal better gameplay just as much as adding extra features wont make it better, but hell if I wanted a more easier game to play I would play Dawn of War. 7th ed does need simplification in areas but why remove some thing that allows for more in-depth gameplay and strategy/tactics. Also im not say us a some thing silly like your ideas, taking the models from the front is pretty straight forward.
Edit: I am bad with forums :\
This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2016/12/20 05:54:48
zalak wrote: How does having the defending player pick which model to take better for play-ability? Sure it makes the game go by quicker by a few minutes but how is that inherently better? Simpler does not equal better gameplay just as much as adding extra features wont make it better, but hell if I wanted a more easier game to play I would play Dawn of War. 7th ed does need simplification in areas but why remove some thing that allows for more in-depth gameplay and strategy/tactics. Also im not say us a some thing silly like your ideas, taking the models from the front is pretty straight forward.
Edit: I am bad with forums :\
Because it means the defending player gets to do some stuff when being killed by deciding which of their models die, if you're looking for something objective.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/12/20 05:56:46
zalak wrote: How does having the defending player pick which model to take better for play-ability? Sure it makes the game go by quicker by a few minutes but how is that inherently better? Simpler does not equal better gameplay just as much as adding extra features wont make it better, but hell if I wanted a more easier game to play I would play Dawn of War. 7th ed does need simplification in areas but why remove some thing that allows for more in-depth gameplay and strategy/tactics. Also im not say us a some thing silly like your ideas, taking the models from the front is pretty straight forward.
Edit: I am bad with forums :\
Because it means the defending player gets to do some stuff when being killed by deciding which of their models die, if you're looking for something objective.
While not a bad idea but is it really a player deciding stuff? 99% of the time they will just take the random mook and leave the special weapons and characters alone.
zalak wrote: While not a bad idea but is it really a player deciding stuff? 99% of the time they will just take the random mook and leave the special weapons and characters alone.
Yup. They're deciding to keep their best stuff alive as long as possible, like a good general.
Occasionally there are important decisions to make, as you get into a situation where you can remove a random mook or a special model, but the random mook dying would take you out of unit coherency and you'd lose some actions on your next turn to make up for it.
If you want a really good reason though, I'll give you one.
Flamers.
They want to be close to the enemy, as template weapons. But at the same time, if they're close to the enemy and casualties are removed from the front, they're among the first to die.
Basically the "remove from front" rule turned my army's flamers into Overwatch weapons, which isn't terribly fun.
The best reason of all is that WH40k battles are now so large we really need to streamline stuff to keep things moving along, and the player owning the models that are dying removing whichever ones they want is the easiest and quickest with no dispute possible as to which one's technically closest.
zalak wrote: but why remove some thing that allows for more in-depth gameplay and strategy/tactics.
Because it doesn't. It just allows for micro management of individual model placement, severe handicapping of the assault capabilities of light armored assault armies, and more opportunities to use your tape measure.
Some sort of bonus for flanking an enemy would add more depth and strategy to the game.
Some sort of ability for units to provide covering fire to nearby friendly units would add depth and strategy to the game.
Being able to snipe the guy with the flamer because he's a fraction of an inch closer to one of your guys than his squad mates are? Not so much.
zalak wrote: why remove some thing that allows for more in-depth gameplay and strategy/tactics.
Because 99.9% of the time it doesn't add more strategy or tactics. You put your key models behind the meatshields, unless you need to move them up to get them into range. The vast majority of the time you're adding no meaningful strategy compared to the simple method of "the owner of the unit chooses which models to remove".
Also im not say us a some thing silly like your ideas, taking the models from the front is pretty straight forward.
Not if you do it by strict RAW. You have to constantly measure to see which model is 0.000000000000000001" closer, and god help you if there's any terrain between the units that would block the tape measure. The only way to have a functioning game is to ignore the rule and go with "that looks about right", which is a sign that the rule is broken.
There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices.
Generally I deal with the reality of 7e by playing video games instead of WH40k tabletop and shelving my armies semi-permanently.
I also lost faith in GW's ability to recover the situation a long time ago.
I feel the same, but with 3 tabletop clubs in easy traveling distance and generally wanting to increase my collection, the temptation to get back into tabletop wargaming is too much to pass up.
Generally people come to the Internet when they have questions they can't answer themselves.
Your question is "How can I have fun in an edition which is absurd to me?"
The logical answer is, "If you don't know, we sure as heck can't figure it out for ya."
Be a glorious comrade, then you don't need to tolerate the absurdities of the filthy capitalists.
Generally I concluded my Sisters of Battle would be sensible enough to not launch missiles out of a pipe organ and instead use a more standard missile launcher and simply play the rockin' tunes over a loudspeaker.
You mean like in the good ol' days, when the Exorcist design actually made sense?
Truth be told, Forge World versions look better and make more sense (i.e. Mars-Alpha/Ryza Leman Russ variants). Too bad Forge World is costly, doesn't have the quality control to match the prices, and discontinues models at a fairly steady rate.
That is literally the Forge World Exorcist you just linked to a picture of.
Indeed. That's why I mentioned Forge World. And it's too bad the Forge World Exorcist is OOP.
Mordian Iron Guard - Major Overhaul in Progress 
