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 Peregrine wrote:
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.

My opponent and I basically go with whichever one looks closest. If two appear equally distant, we then let the owning player pick rather than break out the tape measure.

For the love of god, I haven't played a game of WH40k in over two years, why the hell do I remember these things!?


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 oldravenman3025 wrote:
Indeed. That's why I mentioned Forge World. And it's too bad the Forge World Exorcist is OOP.

The OOP FW Exorcist is actually more recent than the official metal/plastic one though, isn't it?

 insaniak wrote:

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.

Would it not just be better to fix charging by making it a fixed amount or at least have it d6 + 6, that way losing the front guys is not so brutal to cc armies. Admittedly I should probably just be playing bolt action with 40k armies (I tried it once it was a million times better of a game I felt).





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 Pouncey wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
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.

My opponent and I basically go with whichever one looks closest. If two appear equally distant, we then let the owning player pick rather than break out the tape measure.

For the love of god, I haven't played a game of WH40k in over two years, why the hell do I remember these things!?

I do the same thing, heck if we wanted the game to go smoother why not remove blast templates? personally I find that to be the most tedious thing with no added fun/tactics to the game.

Random charging is a whole separate issue (and yes, I feel the minimum distance possible should be something more than 2")...

But no, just doing that wouldn't fix the inherent silliness of the current system.

zalak wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

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.

Would it not just be better to fix charging by making it a fixed amount or at least have it d6 + 6, that way losing the front guys is not so brutal to cc armies. Admittedly I should probably just be playing bolt action with 40k armies (I tried it once it was a million times better of a game I felt).

In 3rd edition, charge distances were actually fixed. Most units had a 6" charge range. A few had 12".

Also Fleet of Foot/Claw/Hoof/Etc did something totally different.

zalak wrote:
I do the same thing, heck if we wanted the game to go smoother why not remove blast templates? personally I find that to be the most tedious thing with no added fun/tactics to the game.

That's not really the same. Blast templates often involve legitimate strategy choices. It's a risk vs. reward thing, do you space your models out at maximum coherency to mitigate the threat of blast weapons, or do you pack them into the smallest possible footprint to hide behind terrain/fit through gaps/etc? There are strategic arguments to be made for either option, and rarely a single correct answer. With closest-first casualty removal, on the other hand, there's very little strategy involved and the vast majority of the time you're just slogging through the tedious process of making sure everything is correctly arranged.

 Peregrine wrote:

zalak wrote:
I do the same thing, heck if we wanted the game to go smoother why not remove blast templates? personally I find that to be the most tedious thing with no added fun/tactics to the game.

That's not really the same. Blast templates often involve legitimate strategy choices. It's a risk vs. reward thing, do you space your models out at maximum coherency to mitigate the threat of blast weapons, or do you pack them into the smallest possible footprint to hide behind terrain/fit through gaps/etc? There are strategic arguments to be made for either option, and rarely a single correct answer. With closest-first casualty removal, on the other hand, there's very little strategy involved and the vast majority of the time you're just slogging through the tedious process of making sure everything is correctly arranged.

Ahh that is true forgot about that aspect. :\

 Pouncey wrote:


I think WH40k would actually be more fun if you just LARPed the battle with your opponent instead of doing any dice rolling, like you're a child playing with cheap toy Army Men again.

I... may have put that theory to the test one day and found it truthful.

I've actually sat down with my youngest son and his bucket o' troops (pirates vs. skeletons, orcs vs. elves, army men) and done this. It was actually more satisfying than playing 40K. And we were done in about 30 minutes.

40K is a rules disaster. I've come to appreciate Bolt Action has a much superior rule set, and it isn't too difficult to adapt it to slimmed down 40K stats.

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
The issue is the vocal minority audience, not the silent majority audience. Bitch all you want, the rest of us will enjoy what we can of the content while voting with our wallets.

SJ

True dat man! After all, it worked so well for WHFB!

dosiere wrote:I never played anything pre 5th edition in 40k, but I've been playing with my 40k minis using the bolt action second edition rule set and it's been really cool. It's shockingly familiar to 40k but I particularly love the activation system and the way terrain works.

In my last game I was able to use a captain to activate a flanking force that moved behind an area of ruins that was dense terrain (blocks line of sight through it), and then on the next turn advanced through the ruins before finally assaulting on the third turn. My poor tactical squads had a rough time holding the line in the meanwhile but it was worth it when my assault squads pounced out of the ruins, forcing enemy units off of both objectives and giving the tac squads a breather and a chance to advance themselves to hold said objectives.

Was fun, and it feels more realistic. A solid, playable rule set with my cool GW minis? I'm all in.

That sounds odd but interesting- it could work! But how do you get Bolt Action to work with the wide variety of xenos and power armour in 40K? As the last time I looked at Bolt Action it naturally had rules which assume that everyone is a human wearing khaki. Do you mean just using the BA rules for movement and terrain?

malamis wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:

Coulda solved it by just tallying up all hits from blast weapons before rolling to wound.

Which would have been non-standard 40k, because
1. all firing from a squad was simultaneous
2. the defending player got to pick which model took saves, unless the attacker managed to cause wounds equal to the squad count +1
3. again with the blasts, the defender could intentionally lose models in such a way that each subsequent blast was less effective.

Again, this took for- ever, especially against Chaos and units with 3-4 different armour save values (alpha legion).

Blasts were always a bit weird in 40K. In 4th a huge blob of infantry will be safe from an explosion just because the firer wasn't an ace sniper. And from 5th onwards it was arguably worse because while they fixed the vansishing explosions problem they effectively made blast weapons less accurate for no good reason. A better solution would be to let them hit on BS but rolling the full 2D6 if they miss.

Pouncey wrote:Oh gods.

Anyone get flashbacks of 5e Wound Allocation Shenanigans with Nobz?

Nob Bikers should have been on the front of the 5th Ed cover.

insaniak wrote:

 malamis wrote:

Going to have to contend this in light of what I just posted re: 4ths version. What you got was "Oh i'll just have my chaos lord pass a single 2+ save on 4 wounds and kill the remaining 3 pts (I think?) cultists from all your anti Uber Character shooting, and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it".

That is the point of putting a character in a unit, yes.


Nobody other than a sniper should be able to specifically target the character, IMO.

IIRC in 4th ed you either had the Marksman special rule (Vindicare Assassin) or you didn't. The current sniper rules aren't too bad as IIRC you can aim at specific models but it's not too overpowered as you don't get regular Marine Scounts sniping your good models every single time. The only issue I have with it is how it feels weird in the narrative; "I was going to aim at that guy, but as the bullet was super accurate it's now going towards the Sergeant". I guess the idea is that he's aiming at the Sergeant all along but the other models get in the way. But still it doesn't feel right.

AFAIR 4th edition had "height" paramenter for terrain and models, so model with height 3 (daemon prince) couldn't hide behid height 2 hill. But otherwise game was quite flat and it gave A LOT options for modeling and basing without minding the trueLoS. And measuring LoS from base to base was SO convenient. It required like 5 seconds and a straight line. Nowdays tournament are SO much more cumbersome with referees required much more frequently for LoS check.

I wonder why instead of extending that height-system they replaced it for true LoS ... wait a minute, didn't they released laser pointer right along with 5ed rulebook? Oh, greedy GW.


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And there were only three options to kill specific model in a squad:
1. allocate more wounds than the models in a targeted unit
2. vindicare
3. hole in the large blast of the necron monolith

Why my damn space marine can't pick up a missile launcher dropped by his fellow marine? So absurd. :(

 Stormonu wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:


I think WH40k would actually be more fun if you just LARPed the battle with your opponent instead of doing any dice rolling, like you're a child playing with cheap toy Army Men again.

I... may have put that theory to the test one day and found it truthful.

I've actually sat down with my youngest son and his bucket o' troops (pirates vs. skeletons, orcs vs. elves, army men) and done this. It was actually more satisfying than playing 40K. And we were done in about 30 minutes.

40K is a rules disaster. I've come to appreciate Bolt Action has a much superior rule set, and it isn't too difficult to adapt it to slimmed down 40K stats.

Kinda start to think maybe kids have a point about adults needing to overcomplicate fun with dumb rules...

 Pouncey wrote:
...Kinda start to think maybe kids have a point about adults needing to overcomplicate fun with dumb rules...

If the fun is getting overcomplicated it's a sign that the writers were bad at writing rules, not that we should all be playing a rule-less game game.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:
...Kinda start to think maybe kids have a point about adults needing to overcomplicate fun with dumb rules...

If the fun is getting overcomplicated it's a sign that the writers were bad at writing rules, not that we should all be playing a rule-less game game.

Is there really any dissent to the idea that 40k rules are badly designed? They're written in conversational language, and don't stick to a common set of terms for anything. I've heard that in the first... I dunno, 20 pages? of the BRB, a "model" is referred to by like a dozen different words, because in English creative writing it's considered poor form to repeat the same word over and over again, even though in any sort of rules system that's the opposite of what you want, since rules benefit from terminology being consistent and clear to avoid confusion.

 Pouncey wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:
...Kinda start to think maybe kids have a point about adults needing to overcomplicate fun with dumb rules...

If the fun is getting overcomplicated it's a sign that the writers were bad at writing rules, not that we should all be playing a rule-less game game.

Is there really any dissent to the idea that 40k rules are badly designed?

With the exception of a few 2nd and 4th ed games my local wargaming clubs seem quite fond of the current rules; however I suspect that's more to do with the fact that alot of the players there like going to tournaments and thus they don't want to get rusty on old/different rules rather than them actually believing hand-on-heart that 7th ed is the best thing ever to grace a table.

 SDFarsight wrote:
With the exception of a few 2nd and 4th ed games my local wargaming clubs seem quite fond of the current rules; however I suspect that's more to do with the fact that alot of the players there like going to tournaments and thus they don't want to get rusty on old/different rules rather than them actually believing hand-on-heart that 7th ed is the best thing ever to grace a table.

Personally, I think any game where magic-users know random spells that change from game-to-game is poorly-designed, but I am a bit of a lore nerd.

 Pouncey wrote:

 SDFarsight wrote:
With the exception of a few 2nd and 4th ed games my local wargaming clubs seem quite fond of the current rules; however I suspect that's more to do with the fact that alot of the players there like going to tournaments and thus they don't want to get rusty on old/different rules rather than them actually believing hand-on-heart that 7th ed is the best thing ever to grace a table.

Personally, I think any game where magic-users know random spells that change from game-to-game is poorly-designed, but I am a bit of a lore nerd.

Indeed that is another thing which I still don't really understand the point of in the post-5th ed rules. Sure the psyker powers seem more fluffy and less like mind-guns but do we really need an entirely new phase and all this "deny the witch" nonsense? It slows the game down IMO.

 Pouncey wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:
...Kinda start to think maybe kids have a point about adults needing to overcomplicate fun with dumb rules...

If the fun is getting overcomplicated it's a sign that the writers were bad at writing rules, not that we should all be playing a rule-less game game.

Is there really any dissent to the idea that 40k rules are badly designed? They're written in conversational language, and don't stick to a common set of terms for anything. I've heard that in the first... I dunno, 20 pages? of the BRB, a "model" is referred to by like a dozen different words, because in English creative writing it's considered poor form to repeat the same word over and over again, even though in any sort of rules system that's the opposite of what you want, since rules benefit from terminology being consistent and clear to avoid confusion.

I was trying to point out that there's a difference in comparing 'a game with rules' and 'children larping', as opposed to comparing 'a game with terribly-written rules' and 'a game with well-written rules'. There's a bit of a false dichotomy going on in blaming 40k on "adults overcomplicating fun".

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:
...Kinda start to think maybe kids have a point about adults needing to overcomplicate fun with dumb rules...

If the fun is getting overcomplicated it's a sign that the writers were bad at writing rules, not that we should all be playing a rule-less game game.

Is there really any dissent to the idea that 40k rules are badly designed? They're written in conversational language, and don't stick to a common set of terms for anything. I've heard that in the first... I dunno, 20 pages? of the BRB, a "model" is referred to by like a dozen different words, because in English creative writing it's considered poor form to repeat the same word over and over again, even though in any sort of rules system that's the opposite of what you want, since rules benefit from terminology being consistent and clear to avoid confusion.

I was trying to point out that there's a difference in comparing 'a game with rules' and 'children larping', as opposed to comparing 'a game with terribly-written rules' and 'a game with well-written rules'. There's a bit of a false dichotomy going on in blaming 40k on "adults overcomplicating fun".

Ah.

Sorry, that confusion's my fault. I have a bad habit of treating forum threads like conversations and letting the topic drift naturally through other topics. As a result I often make tangentially-related comments that aren't direct remarks.

On most forums I post on, moderators don't really care if threads drift into topics other than what they started on. Dakka has an unusually hardcore adherence to staying "on topic" and I still find it difficult to adjust to the idea of never making any related remarks that aren't directly about the OP./

pm713 wrote:
Can someone please explain to me why they have such an issue with removing wounds from the front? Nobody I know has complained about it.

Look out sir, sergeants/independent chars and large numbers of shots are my main gripe. It's a great way to freeze the game, I think it breaks any and all immersion. The added realism is nice in theory, but is a character "tanking" all hits for the entire squad realistic (e.g. ork megaboss with da lucky stick, 2+ rerollable tanking hits for Boyz with t-shirt saves)? Mechanic-wise I prefer the old "defending player chooses who dies". We justified it as: sure the special weapon guy got shot, but his squadmate picked up his gun.

Fan67 wrote:
AFAIR 4th edition had "height" paramenter for terrain and models, so model with height 3 (daemon prince) couldn't hide behid height 2 hill.

The height categories only applied when the LOS involved area terrain or close combats. So your height 3 Daemon Prince would have been perfectly capable of hiding behind a hill, provided the hill was tall enough to obscure him.

Not sure where you got the idea that LOS was from base to base. That's never been a part of the 40K rules.

I wonder why instead of extending that height-system they replaced it for true LoS ...

I suspect because true LOS is easier than remembering what 'size' everything is.

 insaniak wrote:

Fan67 wrote:
AFAIR 4th edition had "height" paramenter for terrain and models, so model with height 3 (daemon prince) couldn't hide behid height 2 hill.

The height categories only applied when the LOS involved area terrain or close combats. So your height 3 Daemon Prince would have been perfectly capable of hiding behind a hill, provided the hill was tall enough to obscure him.

Not sure where you got the idea that LOS was from base to base. That's never been a part of the 40K rules.

I wonder why instead of extending that height-system they replaced it for true LoS ...

I suspect because true LOS is easier than remembering what 'size' everything is.

It also involved units. For example the Tau's 'Fish of Fury' tactic was nerfed in 5th exactly because the Firewarriors had to just stand there with their TLOS and give the enemy a cover save rather than shooting under the skimmer.

 insaniak wrote:
I suspect because true LOS is easier than remembering what 'size' everything is.

True LOS has its own inherent issue though.

Our models are opaque, solid objects. Getting the same view as our models is thus impossible for a human to do reliably from any angle, as we cannot interject our head into the exact position of the model's eyes, and due to the relative size of our eye to the model, we're seeing things that they cannot.

The best we can do is line up the top of the model's head with the target from behind, which is effectively like comparing our own vision as human beings with a camera the size of a couch about 50 meters behind and slightly above us trying to judge what we can see based on how things line up with the top of our heads.

A lot of height-system games define height by base size, so it's fairly easy to remember. So you could for example not see past one 40mm-base figure to see another directly behind it, but you could see the 60mm-base one standing behind both of them.

 SDFarsight wrote:

It also involved units. For example the Tau's 'Fish of Fury' tactic was nerfed in 5th exactly because the Firewarriors had to just stand there with their TLOS and give the enemy a cover save rather than shooting under the skimmer.

Fish of Fury had nothing to do with 4th ed size categories. It made use of the fact that Skimmers at one point didn't block LOS... So fire warriors could disembark behind their transport and blast away at close range without getting assaulted sure to the transport being in the way.

 insaniak wrote:

 SDFarsight wrote:

It also involved units. For example the Tau's 'Fish of Fury' tactic was nerfed in 5th exactly because the Firewarriors had to just stand there with their TLOS and give the enemy a cover save rather than shooting under the skimmer.

Fish of Fury had nothing to do with 4th ed size categories. It made use of the fact that Skimmers at one point didn't block LOS... So fire warriors could disembark behind their transport and blast away at close range without getting assaulted sure to the transport being in the way.

Granted it wasn't strictly a size catagory in the same way that terrain was, but the fact remains that there was a rule as to what models could see. That like alot of things changed with TLOS.

 insaniak wrote:

 SDFarsight wrote:

It also involved units. For example the Tau's 'Fish of Fury' tactic was nerfed in 5th exactly because the Firewarriors had to just stand there with their TLOS and give the enemy a cover save rather than shooting under the skimmer.

Fish of Fury had nothing to do with 4th ed size categories. It made use of the fact that Skimmers at one point didn't block LOS... So fire warriors could disembark behind their transport and blast away at close range without getting assaulted sure to the transport being in the way.

Uhhhhhh...

If skimmers didn't block LoS, how did it block melee armies from being able to charge? Shouldn't the assaulting squad be able to draw LOS through the skimmer and charge anyways?

 Pouncey wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

 SDFarsight wrote:

It also involved units. For example the Tau's 'Fish of Fury' tactic was nerfed in 5th exactly because the Firewarriors had to just stand there with their TLOS and give the enemy a cover save rather than shooting under the skimmer.

Fish of Fury had nothing to do with 4th ed size categories. It made use of the fact that Skimmers at one point didn't block LOS... So fire warriors could disembark behind their transport and blast away at close range without getting assaulted sure to the transport being in the way.

Uhhhhhh...

If skimmers didn't block LoS, how did it block melee armies from being able to charge? Shouldn't the assaulting squad be able to draw LOS through the skimmer and charge anyways?

Assaulting units could draw LOS but they could only shoot under it rather than charging; as you can't move through enemy units. If you're looking for a fluff explanation, I'd say it's because the Devilfish was high enough to shoot under but still low enough to block or at least slow down assaulting models.

 Pouncey wrote:

If skimmers didn't block LoS, how did it block melee armies from being able to charge? Shouldn't the assaulting squad be able to draw LOS through the skimmer and charge anyways?

You didn't need LOS to charge. You did need a clear path... Which meant having to go around the skimmer.

 Pouncey wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

 SDFarsight wrote:

It also involved units. For example the Tau's 'Fish of Fury' tactic was nerfed in 5th exactly because the Firewarriors had to just stand there with their TLOS and give the enemy a cover save rather than shooting under the skimmer.

Fish of Fury had nothing to do with 4th ed size categories. It made use of the fact that Skimmers at one point didn't block LOS... So fire warriors could disembark behind their transport and blast away at close range without getting assaulted sure to the transport being in the way.

Uhhhhhh...

If skimmers didn't block LoS, how did it block melee armies from being able to charge? Shouldn't the assaulting squad be able to draw LOS through the skimmer and charge anyways?

The charging unit had to keep 1" away from the skimmer in order to charge the fire warrior unit, plus drones the Devilfish could drop off. So with careful placement it could be a mathematical impossibility for the unit that was short to be able to manoeuvre round the devilfish and be in charge range of the fire warriors behind it.

 SDFarsight wrote:
Assaulting units could draw LOS but they could only shoot under it rather than charging; as you can't move through enemy units. If you're looking for a fluff explanation, I'd say it's because the Devilfish was high enough to shoot under but still low enough to block or at least slow down assaulting models.

Like in a movie when a character looks under a vehicle and shoots their enemy in the feet/ankles/shins?

Personally, I've always viewed skimmers as hovering high enough off the ground that an assaulting force could duck under the hull to get to a unit on the other side. Skimmers can fly over terrain like it's not there, they're not like cars.


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 A Town Called Malus wrote:
The charging unit had to keep 1" away from the skimmer in order to charge the fire warrior unit, plus drones the Devilfish could drop off. So with careful placement it could be a mathematical impossibility for the unit that was short to be able to manoeuvre round the devilfish and be in charge range of the fire warriors behind it.

Since the game represents a battle that is not actually turn-based in the lore, I find it impossible to believe that an anti-grav transport can block anyone from moving under it while also allowing its squad to disembark and fire under the vehicle at enemies on the other side.

I concede that it is theoretically possible for a military force to devise such a maneuver though, and the idea of using armored vehicles as mobile cover for infantry is not new. It also seems like the kind of thing that a progressive, forward-thinking race like the Tau would conceive of. Thus I retract the apparent impossibility of the situation.

I also believe that anyone trying to move under a skimmer might find themselves crushed by the pilot defending his/her squad and lowering altitude when they try it.

So it sounds like an incredibly frustrating, tough-to-deal with situation. Thus it seems appropriate for the lore, as in war, the idea of fair play and giving the enemy an equal chance to kill you is not a serious consideration.