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Something that has bugged me since the change to... what was it, 6th?... was that modern-day 40k infantry move way too fast on the battlefield. It makes sense for monstrous creatures with long legs as well as walkers, but infantry that is able to potentially move as far as a Flat-Out Fast Vehicle is a little mind-boggling.
Move Phase - 6"
Shoot Phase - 6"
Assault Phase 12"

Supersonic speed is 36" in a turn, Flat-Out is 24"? Infantry have this 'potential move distance' that can almost match both. When I think of Supersonic and Flat-out, I do not think that it would be matched by a sprinter. I understand that in reality it is only 18" at MAX distance if you can't charge after running, but... that is still almost as fast as a vehicle described 'punching the gas'.

Maybe I am spoiled by how LOTR:SBG feels realistic and proportional in their movement distances, but how do you feel about the infantry move distance? How would the game be affected if it went back to 6" move and 6" charge, or 6" move and D6" charge/run?

Generally you can’t run and assault, and those numbers are max distance.

More reasonably you are looking at a 6” move and a 7” assault. Which, admittedly is about the same distance between “outside optimal range” and “fix bayonets” for the average battle rifle in the game.

Hyper agile alien races and bugs from beyond the stars might be able to get those kind of distances more reliably.

Movement/distance/ranges are all a compromise to make a playable game. You want CC, as this is science fantasy, but also tanks and city busting artillery.

Check your reality at the door, shrug, and move on. It’s what I do. Look to close at the numbers and the details, things fall apart.

No matter what you do you're going to end up with some amount of abstraction. Supersonic is 760+mph, so if that equates to 36" per turn then any infantry walking 6" and running 6" in the same time period would be doing so at 250mph. If you go the other way and normalise your speed around infantry, then your Supersonic vehicles would be moving a couple hundred inches per turn, and hence would be useless (or should that be "more useless than they already are"?).

 BBAP wrote:
No matter what you do you're going to end up with some amount of abstraction. Supersonic is 760+mph, so if that equates to 36" per turn then any infantry walking 6" and running 6" in the same time period would be doing so at 250mph. If you go the other way and normalise your speed around infantry, then your Supersonic vehicles would be moving a couple hundred inches per turn, and hence would be useless (or should that be "more useless than they already are"?).

Non-hovering flyers should just be attacks you pay points for. No reason for models at the scale we play. Things like basilisks should be objective for missions; their targets are 5 table away. Again, you should just buy a number of barrages, roll reserves to see when they show up.

If you want to model it, have a spotter/fire control guy. Draw LOS from him, or scatter badly. Want your AA units to have some value, give them a chance to negate airstrikes.

40k is trying to be too many scales at once.

You can't think of distance in 40k as linear if you want any of it to have any semblance of realism. If you pretend everything's on a log scale (so instead of 12" being twice 6" it's 10x) speeds and ranges start making a bit more sense.

(Not much more, but a bit more.)

The other worry is that the game is already played on an absurdly large table by comparison to every other game in existence, if you start getting worried about scale you might have to start worrying about the table being tiny.

The man has a point....

I mean, I like Basilisks A LOT. I like that they have a minimum range too which provides the illusion. The fact that their range is shown as being ridiculously far in the profile is fun too. Alas, it is not super realistic to have arty so close to the front lines, but at least you can pretend that your army with the artillery is actually the arty guard and the opponent has breached pretty far to get to you. (What that means for arty v arty, well whatever)

What I have done in the past with supersonic and fliers is the idea that the models 'aren't actually there' but they are like moving between steep elevations as they move. 36" might be a diagonal move for them.

I just feel like allowing models to have 18" charge distance, including the move phase, as even a possibility for regular humans is weird.

My theory is that the run or shoot is explained in that 40k no longer assumes everything is happening at once but that it is systematic. So in the time that some models are stopping to prepare to fire, others are running. Which makes sense: Some people move into position to prepare a shot while others sprint past.

Maybe vehicles need to move farther, but then you make a potential problem for board-size.

I don't know. 40k in the realm of realism is nothing more than a rabbit-hole of paradoxes. LOTR:SBG is only a little better in the realism realm but it also isn't a game about guns.

 AnomanderRake wrote:


The other worry is that the game is already played on an absurdly large table by comparison to every other game in existence

I'd argue it's the opposite. 40k has so many 28mm models/gundam titans crammed onto a 6x4 it's almost comical. The bigger models really exemplify the problem even more, for example my Baneblade can move it's own length in a turn, and that barrel accounts for around 10% of the distance it's main ammunition travels. 15mm wargames play on the same size tables and even there you have some issues with weird ground scaling.

 MarsNZ wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:


The other worry is that the game is already played on an absurdly large table by comparison to every other game in existence

I'd argue it's the opposite. 40k has so many 28mm models/gundam titans crammed onto a 6x4 it's almost comical. The bigger models really exemplify the problem even more, for example my Baneblade can move it's own length in a turn, and that barrel accounts for around 10% of the distance it's main ammunition travels. 15mm wargames play on the same size tables and even there you have some issues with weird ground scaling.

Most heroic-scale miniatures games are much smaller than 40k (fifty models is an absurdly huge infantry-spam list in Warmachine, for instance), but I'm trying to make a point about the logistical challenges inherent in miniatures games. You want to play X-Wing, you need a 3'x3' space and some carboard chunks. You want to play Warmachine, you need a 4'x4' space and a few oddly-shaped chunks of construction paper. You want to play Warhammer, you need a dedicated room, a massive table, a cabinet full of terrain...

Any other miniatures game is already quicker, easier, and more portable than 40k. If you want to insist on making it bigger it'd just become more unwieldy and harder to play.

(Quick experiment: Next time you're down at your FLGS try pushing two 4'x6' tables together to make a 6'x8' table, and then try to reach the middle.)

 AnomanderRake wrote:
If you want to insist on making it bigger it'd just become more unwieldy and harder to play.

(Quick experiment: Next time you're down at your FLGS try pushing two 4'x6' tables together to make a 6'x8' table, and then try to reach the middle.)

Not really sure how you came to the conclusion that I was insistent on larger tables. Your argument seems to be more about model count than table size, quite a similar angle to mine although I think a bigger problem is the incessant upsizing of GW models to the point where it looks more like GI-Joe action hour than a game with models. Also I never play at a FLGS, awful place for gaming, but nevertheless I do understand basic mathematics.

...I don't know if you guys know this but 40k isn't a military simulation game and putting it to any kind of 'realistic' scale is silly. Play the game and focus on the fact that magic men in giant hats are slinging space magic at wolves the size of a volkswagon beetle, rather than the fact that the relative velocity of infantry men on foot and tracked vehicles is off.

Freakin nerds.

ERJAK wrote:
...I don't know if you guys know this but 40k isn't a military simulation game and putting it to any kind of 'realistic' scale is silly. Play the game and focus on the fact that magic men in giant hats are slinging space magic at wolves the size of a volkswagon beetle, rather than the fact that the relative velocity of infantry men on foot and tracked vehicles is off.

Freakin nerds.

Magic elves in giant hats, thank you very much.

Another point to consider if you want to get too worried about scale is that real-life weapons and tactics are designed for dealing with human targets on the ground, as opposed to scary giant aliens indoors. Given the existence of Genestealers on space hulks and teleporting Terminators I suspect pretty much everyone is designing weapons for stopping power, over accuracy at range.

The larger the scale of your game the harder it is to make it accurate. Keep in mind first that a lot of things are abstractions and simplifications, aimed to make 40k function as a game. Certain things just can't be realistic if we want a game that prominently features melee combat.

For starters, how long is a phase? A couple seconds, 30 seconds, a minute? This will determine how we treat things like shooting. While I imagine it's otherwise, many people are under the belief that a rapid fire weapon is literally firing 1 shot at max range and 2 shots at close range. Then we get to assault weapons though where 2 shots sounds stupid, would assault 2 be interpreted as emptying a magazine? 2 magazines? 2 seconds of shooting? Does that mean a phase is 2 seconds? How much time are we giving them to find their target, aim, reload? Why don't we incorporate more dynamic ranges to it all, if my storm bolter is scoring "2 hits" at max range why isn't it scoring 4 or 10 or 20 "hits" when it's an inch away from you?

What is an inch in game terms? Do we compare an inch to the height of a model? Or to the range of the weapons? Something else entirely? If we relate it to model sizes a board should be under 100 yards, while the effective range of modern weaponry is 500+ yards. So is a table 100 yards or 1000? At a full sprint you can cover 100 yards in 10 seconds. Back to length of a phase, how far should a model run in a phase? If we're saying a phase is 10 seconds it'll take them 5 turns to cross the board doing nothing but moving and getting 6s to run. If a phase is a couple seconds the models will never cross the table. If a phase is a minute the model will cross the board in a turn.

Or does movement plus running not equate to sprinting? Is movement walking, a fast jog, actual running? Is running instead of shooting just spending more time moving, or running faster? If it's simply running longer then why is it variable?

Overall, making a lot of assumptions and ignoring some stuff, it can work out to sort of work for small things like kill team. Here's the kicker though, that's only looking at infantry on small scale games. We need to ignore all that just to play a basic game of infantry vs infantry. Adding vehicles just doesn't work for an infantry vs infantry level game. If we perfectly set up a table so that on average a model can't cross it in a game (it currently takes about 5 to go from board edge to board edge assuming average run rolls) and so that you can't just shoot everything you can see (by manipulating how far weapons can shoot and establishing how long a phase is and movement speeds) it just all goes out the window when you introduce anything else. A full speed motorcycle (200+ mph) is only twice as fast as a guy on foot (Usain Bolt is just under 28 mph)? OP will be surprised to find out that the speed of a flat-out tank is actually pretty good compared to foot infanty, as a tank can only move 30 mph offroad (Abrams).

As per BBAP, fliers are just plain stupid. Even if you make up excuses about "oh they're flying vertically" that means that on their following turn they're now far too high to accurately use their weapons. Jets don't do loopty loops in the air so that they can stay in the same 1000 yard area and keep shooting at the stuff on the ground, it just doesn't work that way. Jets do strafing runs, they zip past a target and open fire for a few brief seconds before they're immediately gone. To make matters even worse there's a mechanic for shooting down said fliers in the form of snap shots, in no world whatsoever should anyone be shooting down a jet with anything that isn't a homing missile or otherwise dedicated anti-air weapon. Fliers shouldn't have a model unless you really want to make jet noises and pretend to make it fly over the table every turn. They just don't belong in this game.

If you want "realistic" gameplay in 40k stick to infantry only kill team games. The more you add to a ruleset the less you can do to make it work and still make sense. You need to make sacrifices at some point so that it functions as a game.

 Da Kommizzar wrote:
Something that has bugged me since the change to... what was it, 6th?... was that modern-day 40k infantry move way too fast on the battlefield. It makes sense for monstrous creatures with long legs as well as walkers, but infantry that is able to potentially move as far as a Flat-Out Fast Vehicle is a little mind-boggling.
Move Phase - 6"
Shoot Phase - 6"
Assault Phase 12"

Supersonic speed is 36" in a turn, Flat-Out is 24"? Infantry have this 'potential move distance' that can almost match both. When I think of Supersonic and Flat-out, I do not think that it would be matched by a sprinter. I understand that in reality it is only 18" at MAX distance if you can't charge after running, but... that is still almost as fast as a vehicle described 'punching the gas'.

Maybe I am spoiled by how LOTR:SBG feels realistic and proportional in their movement distances, but how do you feel about the infantry move distance? How would the game be affected if it went back to 6" move and 6" charge, or 6" move and D6" charge/run?

Infantry moves 6+d6". Bikes move 24". Seems appropriate. They aren't on a highway there. What does seem inappropriate is tha tinfantry moves 2d6+d6" in difterrain and bikes still move 24" over rocks and walls. If something, it's bikes that are too fast in 6 and 7. At least in 5 they couldn't flat out in difterrain. And didn't have armor saves vs dangerous terrain.

I wonder when the day comes when people stop comparing reality to tabletop wargames, including ones set around forty thousand years into the future.

Just doesn't work out, and doesn't need to work out really.

I am not talking about 100% realism though, it just *feels* too fast. But as mentioned, it is probably the feeling due to vehicles and each additional layer.

And unfortunately, yeah, assault would not be possible without being fast. You'd expect that to be what jump infantry, bio-engineering, and being an alien is for though and not foot-sloggers but oh well.

I am allowed to express that the game makes infantry feel too fast to me, so I'll wait for the day that random people don't take shats on other people's curiosity and skepticism.

ERJAK wrote:
...I don't know if you guys know this but 40k isn't a military simulation game and putting it to any kind of 'realistic' scale is silly.

+1 to this.

If you want a reality simulator, go play one of the dozens of them out there that almost nobody has ever heard of because they usually suck anyway. The most popular tabletop wargames remain popular in good part because they dispense with reality when it gets in the way of fun.

Yeah you have a right to say it feels fast, but so does everyone else have the right to say "it's an abstraction, deal with it" in response. No one is obligated to agree with you. Or be silent if they don't agree with you.

Honestly, I think infantry feels way too slow in the sense of how many turns it takes for sides to meet. Part of that though is simply due to their not being nearly enough incentive for both sides to meet in the middle, so one player is generally stuck crossing about twice as much table as they probably should.

The game being more mobile makes the game far more dynamic and gets your models doing their job faster. In 4th edition, unless you had a really mobile mechanized force, your guys just wouldn't see combat sometimes because of the limits to movement, shooting while moving, and assaulting.

People can say that it is an abstraction, but also with some decency.

And they have been doing exactly that. Stop complaining about people disagreeing with you.

With every generation of the game the development has leaned toward = more models + less time.

This increases (by a comical amount) lethality of the past 10 years in Warhammer, and I'd imagine movement as well. The goal is to throw pie-plates and scoop dozens of models off the table by the bucket full.

It seems like the goal nowdays is to accomplish a game in 1.5-2 hours with nearly double or triple the number of models used in, say, 2nd edition - where a game was openly intended to last "an afternoon" or "an evening". In earlier editions you had nowhere near the insane amount of firepower or close-combat attacks as you do now.

More models = more sales. The shorter game length is probably just good market research (and is further enforced by the tournament expectations which exist for the current edition).

The title of this topic stands, it feels weird, but alas it is for the best as it has been stated. I thank you all for responding to my desire for thoughts on the subject.

[MOD EDIT - RULE #1 - Alpharius]

Most engagements between in modern times (since WWI) take place within the 20-30 meter range. They don't NEED to move up much when they're in range to shoot at each other for the most part. Shots over 100 meters are fairly rare, though not unheard of.

But vehicles by contrast generally engage at much longer ranges, especially when engaging each other-- the Abrams' main gun is said to be effective up to 3500 meters, with some shots having effect up to 4000 meters, and missiles can be effective at far longer ranges if need be. Airplanes laugh at such ranges.

If the game was ONLY infantry or ONLY tanks, it could be much more realistic without having a massively larger board. But as it is, most games (rightfully so) abstract things. I mean, 40k still uses "I go you go", for crying out loud, which is not how realistic combat works to begin with

I always felt that the run rule would be the beginning of the end of army definition with regards to speed. Every army could now cross the table faster than before with never a balance towards the MEQ and the TEQ that could survive the shooting phase.

The game has become what it is and while mobility is very important, it no longer seems to matter what form the model takes. Which is pretty sad, when you have 16 armies that still funtion pretty much the same.

 Nevelon wrote:

Non-hovering flyers should just be attacks you pay points for. No reason for models at the scale we play. Things like basilisks should be objective for missions; their targets are 5 table away. Again, you should just buy a number of barrages, roll reserves to see when they show up.

If you want to model it, have a spotter/fire control guy. Draw LOS from him, or scatter badly. Want your AA units to have some value, give them a chance to negate airstrikes.

40k is trying to be too many scales at once.

...that's a really good idea. They should absolutely do that.

Bring back my skirmish game! Grumble grumble

 Da Kommizzar wrote:
I mean, I like Basilisks A LOT. I like that they have a minimum range too which provides the illusion. The fact that their range is shown as being ridiculously far in the profile is fun too. Alas, it is not super realistic to have arty so close to the front lines, but at least you can pretend that your army with the artillery is actually the arty guard and the opponent has breached pretty far to get to you. (What that means for arty v arty, well whatever)

Good idea could be two armoured columns that stumble into each other mid-redeployment. A panicked turning of all available guns on the enemy force that's materialised from the fog of war.

 Da Kommizzar wrote:

My theory is that the run or shoot is explained in that 40k no longer assumes everything is happening at once but that it is systematic. So in the time that some models are stopping to prepare to fire, others are running. Which makes sense: Some people move into position to prepare a shot while others sprint past.

Maybe vehicles need to move farther, but then you make a potential problem for board-size.

I don't know. 40k in the realm of realism is nothing more than a rabbit-hole of paradoxes. LOTR:SBG is only a little better in the realism realm but it also isn't a game about guns.

Yeah I'm a big fan of not only distance being an abstraction, but time too. The only thing that is linear in the battlefield interpretation is the order of turns/phases. Everything else is an abstraction of stuff that's happening at different times to make the game playable.

I like that the game is unrealistic, as people with giant robot fists punching tanks to death is awesome. I agree that is usually best to think about the game as being highly abstracted.

Still, it can be fun to think about fluff friendly reasons why things are the way they are.

There are a lot of questions, like how fast is a Rhino? How fast is a hormagaunt? I'm guessing that GW has given specific numbers for these things somewhere, but they also tend to vary a lot in the numbers and descriptions they give.

I did a little quick Googling, some looking on Wikipedia and Lexicanum and this is what I found for max speeds of various things:
40k things
Chimera: 70 KPH on-road, 55KPH off-road
Leman Russ: 35 KPH on-road, 21 KPH off-road
Rhino: 70 KPH on-road, 55 KPH off-road
Land Raider: 55 KPH on-road, 48 KPH off-road
Land Speeder: 350 KPH
Wave Serpent: 800 KPH estimated max speed, 80 KPH "combat" speed
Devilfish: 75 KPH

Real life things
Fit human: 30 KPH? (I couldn't find very good info on this.)
Usain Bolt: 45 KPH
Horse: 50 KPH average-ish sprint, 70 KPH world record
Cheetah: 64 KPH average-ish sprint, 98 KPH world record
M1A2 Abrams: 67 KPH on-road, 40 KPH off-road

Obviously Usain Bolt was on a track instead of a battlefield and not weighed down with flak armor and a lasgun when he set his world record.

How fast can an Eldar Guardian run? How fast can a hormagaunt run? Based off the speed of some fast animals I'd say they should be able to keep up with an Imperial APC for at least a short period of time. If a hormagaunt is as fast cheetah it would be able to significantly outpace most Imperial vehicles for at least a short period of time. These are some particularly fast examples of infantry, and not really representative of the speed I imagine an average human or ork would run at.

 Da Kommizzar wrote:
I mean, I like Basilisks A LOT. I like that they have a minimum range too which provides the illusion. The fact that their range is shown as being ridiculously far in the profile is fun too. Alas, it is not super realistic to have arty so close to the front lines, but at least you can pretend that your army with the artillery is actually the arty guard and the opponent has breached pretty far to get to you.

I'm picturing a commissar standing (posed heroically with power sword in hand) in the copula of a basilisk, rallying his battery forwards with a cry of "Drive me closer! I want to hit them with my sword!"

Honestly I feel as if most of my games are fought on a single side of the board due to how slow everything moves. Aside from deep strike, infiltration, skimmers, and bikes, everything else is pretty damn slow on the board. If everything was a little quicker I think we'd have more dynamic games.

I think the nature of the scale makes it impossible to have everything on the board move logically in comparison with each other and still have a dynamic fun game.

Minimum ranges only apply to indirect fire, don't they?