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.

 insaniak wrote:

But now? Now I can freely measure whatever and whenever I want. If I was facing 6" charge reach across your army, it's an absolute doddle to simply fall back to the requisite 12.1" to keep you at arms length, and safe from a solid kicking..

Which is brilliant. You're now further away from the objective, without my unit even having to strike a blow.

Probably not. If I'm that afraid of your charge, my objectives are all safe within my gunline and I've bought myself another turn of artillery bombardment. Perhaps, if I had to yield an objective, I'll come back out to take it back next turn after my artillery has taken another chunk out of your assault force and I'm confident I can take your charge.

This works out alarmingly well in the current edition, even with random charge. Fall back 6", shoot them, return forward 6", shoot them, shoot what's left of them when they charge.

tneva82 wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 insaniak wrote:
My preference is to move charging back into the Movement phase (ala 2nd Edition), and have it as a flat double Movement.

Simple, removes the ridiculously huge random variable, and also removes the complaint about assault units getting to shoot and fight close combat in the same turn.

Aaah yes huge nerfbat to assault armies. Just what 40k needs!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 jeff white wrote:
Declare charges in movement phase, 2x movement taking terrain into account - done.
Some units might get a bonus, or a Waagh bonus, or another unit/army specific modification, but as a base this works.

Sure if you want to nerf assault armies into oblivion

Funny. We have spent now couple editions reading "shooting is too powerfull" yet what I read now? "NERF ASSAULT ARMIES!"

How are you so sure? Have you played a game this way, counting for terrain, with a different style of overwatch (that is really overwatch, and not 'reaction shots' as my friend Lord Xcapobl calls them)?
Have you played 2nd ed. Modified 2nd ed. Have you played historical mini games? Have you considered not allowing premeasuring to the tenth of an inch?
Exactly how can you be so certain without having done so in the context of the new system as a whole?

Why dosen't everyone just cool down a bit, and hold off on burning their models untill we've actually seen all of the rules, special rules, and unit stats before we freak out.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

But now? Now I can freely measure whatever and whenever I want. If I was facing 6" charge reach across your army, it's an absolute doddle to simply fall back to the requisite 12.1" to keep you at arms length, and safe from a solid kicking..

Which is brilliant. You're now further away from the objective, without my unit even having to strike a blow.

Probably not. If I'm that afraid of your charge, my objectives are all safe within my gunline and I've bought myself another turn of artillery bombardment. Perhaps, if I had to yield an objective, I'll come back out to take it back next turn after my artillery has taken another chunk out of your assault force and I'm confident I can take your charge.

Maybe, but that is a chance that you will have to take now, won't you...
Strategy is risky. Dice rolls are random.

 jeff white wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

But now? Now I can freely measure whatever and whenever I want. If I was facing 6" charge reach across your army, it's an absolute doddle to simply fall back to the requisite 12.1" to keep you at arms length, and safe from a solid kicking..

Which is brilliant. You're now further away from the objective, without my unit even having to strike a blow.

Probably not. If I'm that afraid of your charge, my objectives are all safe within my gunline and I've bought myself another turn of artillery bombardment. Perhaps, if I had to yield an objective, I'll come back out to take it back next turn after my artillery has taken another chunk out of your assault force and I'm confident I can take your charge.

Maybe, but that is a chance that you will have to take now, won't you...
Strategy is risky. Dice rolls are random.

No. It's no risk, no chance. You can't reach me, so I get to shoot you, with 3 Basilisks, a Wyvern, a Manitcore, 4 Leman Russ Tanks, and 100 guardsmen.

If I had to worry about you rolling a 8, and catching my guardsmen, that would be risky. But with a fixed charge, unless the charge is so ridiculously long you can reach my back board edge on turn two, I can just stay exactly where you can't reach me until there's not enough left of you to be a threat, then walk out and cap the points.

Some part of tactics is calculated risk. That's where die rolls come in.

As I said, I think 2d6 works really well. It's got a nice probability curve that's easy to understand and plan around, yet still has enough variance.

 Blacksails wrote:
a) Basically what Insaniak said. We had a few editions of fixed charge range. It worked fine.

We had lots of complaining about gamey aspect of it. Not to mention how hard it was for assault armies. Hardly "working fine" when it caused lots of complaining ever since 3rd ed.

And some sort of realism is needed. God view 100% reliable is too unrealistic for suspension of disbelief.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 jeff white wrote:
How are you so sure? Have you played a game this way, counting for terrain, with a different style of overwatch (that is really overwatch, and not 'reaction shots' as my friend Lord Xcapobl calls them)?
Have you played 2nd ed. Modified 2nd ed. Have you played historical mini games? Have you considered not allowing premeasuring to the tenth of an inch?
Exactly how can you be so certain without having done so in the context of the new system as a whole?

I have played all the editions except 1st. We currently play modified 2nd. Only reason this isn't major issue there is that assault armies tend to be so disadvantaged to begin with nobody really bothers taking them!

Premeasuring is all or nothing. You either allow premeasuring or not. And no premeasuring simply hinders new players and those with bad eyesight while allowing lots more arquments. No surprise games move to premeasuring generally.

Also I have been online like 17 years. I remember very well all the complains about gameying the static charge ranges and how shooty armies could use it to stay at safety at impunity from assaulty units. That would be even more true in 8th ed with more relaxed move&shoot rules.

FunJohn wrote:
Why dosen't everyone just cool down a bit, and hold off on burning their models untill we've actually seen all of the rules, special rules, and unit stats before we freak out.

Because the rest of the game is largely irrelevant if you've already come across one part of the game that you know is going to be a deal-breaker?

They've made Overwatch sillier. They've kept the 2D6 charge. Those two things alone are enough to tell me I'm unlikely to enjoy 8th edition much more than I enjoyed 6th.

 insaniak wrote:

FunJohn wrote:
Why dosen't everyone just cool down a bit, and hold off on burning their models untill we've actually seen all of the rules, special rules, and unit stats before we freak out.

Because the rest of the game is largely irrelevant if you've already come across one part of the game that you know is going to be a deal-breaker?

They've made Overwatch sillier. They've kept the 2D6 charge. Those two things alone are enough to tell me I'm unlikely to enjoy 8th edition much more than I enjoyed 6th.

I think tanks getting Hull Points was the worst thing to happen in that change, and they've doubled down on that part of it too.

Overwatch is fairly harmless. I don't think I've ever thought twice about charging into melee because the enemy might kill me with overwatch. Being able to assault out of transports I think will do more for assault than overwatch or random charges do against it.

And I think 2d6 charges help anyway.

Biggest issue with overwatch was when it was combined with casualties at front. If that changes overwatch is rarely going to be issue.

tneva82 wrote:
Biggest issue with overwatch was when it was combined with casualties at front. If that changes overwatch is rarely going to be issue.

Even then, I rarely lose more than one Repentia to overwatch fire. Sometimes I lose 2 or 3, but that's the exception and even then it's hardly crippling.

Having to stand around after debarking from a Rhino or getting shot while running across the no-man's land without a transport is far more problematic.

I imagine you might get different results from charging Tau gunlines compared to charging Eldar or Space Marines, or tanks, though.


Overwatch is one of those things that could disappear or stay and I probably wouldn't notice. It's the least consequential of all the changes.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Biggest issue with overwatch was when it was combined with casualties at front. If that changes overwatch is rarely going to be issue.

Even then, I rarely lose more than one Repentia to overwatch fire. Sometimes I lose 2 or 3, but that's the exception and even then it's hardly crippling.

Having to stand around after debarking from a Rhino or getting shot while running across the no-man's land without a transport is far more problematic.

I imagine you might get different results from charging Tau gunlines compared to charging Eldar or Space Marines, or tanks, though.


Overwatch is one of those things that could disappear or stay and I probably wouldn't notice. It's the least consequential of all the changes.

True but biggest impact it has is generally because it managed to kill just enough to stop assault in track. Especially with flamers that could happen tad more often. But in pure damage 6's to hit generally prevent it from being huge deal breaker. If ability to stop assault by removal from front is removed like vast majority of overwatch impact vanishes away(short of like trying to charge orks into squad of 10 flamers or something silly like that!)

But generally agreed but there's still possibility overwatch suffers huge nerf if casualty removal goes to AOS style.

The argument that 2d6 helps assault units seems asinine to me. Yes, shooting units will want to get far enough way so that they can shoot and not get attacked, but here's the thing: if you want to prevent that, then you need to nerf the shooting and moving abilities that those units have. Make rapid fire have to stand still to get the shot further than 12", make Heavy weapons stand still to fire at all. force shooting armies to stand still to do damage and that solves the problem in a way that doesn't penalizes assault.

1) Not premeasuring is, always has been, and always will be completely broken. It just doesn't work. Give it up.

2) 2D6 gives a probability curve. Note that we now effectively get 2D6+1. I'm happy with probability curves. It is, after all, a game of dice...

 Luke_Prowler wrote:
The argument that 2d6 helps assault units seems asinine to me. Yes, shooting units will want to get far enough way so that they can shoot and not get attacked, but here's the thing: if you want to prevent that, then you need to nerf the shooting and moving abilities that those units have. Make rapid fire have to stand still to get the shot further than 12", make Heavy weapons stand still to fire at all. force shooting armies to stand still to do damage and that solves the problem in a way that doesn't penalizes assault.

Didn't help in 2-6 editions and now you are talking about changing entire 8th ed to insert fixed charge ranges....

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:


Overwatch is fairly harmless. I don't think I've ever thought twice about charging into melee because the enemy might kill me with overwatch.

I should have thought twice, that time I tried to charge Flamers of Tzeentch with Grey Hunters... That didn't end well.

The issue with Overwatch isn't that it's an obstacle to charging, but simply that it's poorly implemented. 2nd edition overwatch was a tactical choice: do you forgoe your turn in the hope that a target will present itself later?

6th/7th ed Overwatch is not. It's a time-waster that rarely has any significant effect on the game, unless it's against low-armoured units where, combined with casualties from the front, it's a potential get-out-of-assault-free card with no penalty or cost to the defending unit.

And they've doubled down on that little bit of stupid by allowing it multiple times.

 insaniak wrote:
And they've doubled down on that little bit of stupid by allowing it multiple times.

And possibly nerfed it into practical oblivion. I'm going to wait to see casualty removal before judging overwatch. If it's owner chooses then overwatch becomes so weak that short of flamer wall against orks etc it's pretty much minor annoyance.

 insaniak wrote:

And they've doubled down on that little bit of stupid by allowing it multiple times.

They've also made it so that if enemy units are within a certain range of a unit, they can't shoot--whether it's Overwatch or just their Shooting Phase.

 Kanluwen wrote:

They've also made it so that if enemy units are within a certain range of a unit, they can't shoot--whether it's Overwatch or just their Shooting Phase.

I like trees.

Popular does not equal better.
It means that the people voting are most comfortable with this choice at the moment.

But this is a game, there is no objectively 'better'. What well agreed criteria is being used to judge better or worse. Whilst one can indeed argue that an unpopluar game mechanic is better, a game that is that 'good' but largely unpopular is a rather hollow 'better'. Whether a game mechanic is better is largely a matter of opinion, and therefore it is also very arguable that popular = better.

How do you know why people voted. What info helps you say whether they voted cos they are comfy vs they do think it is the better mechanic?

There may be a better mechanic, but of the mechanics presented, why do you not think the voted cos they think it is the best?

 Marmatag wrote:
Current charge is fine, which has already been improved in huge ways.

You don't want Jump Infantry / Bikes being able to move + charge for 30 inches.

The possibility for counter play is what makes a game like this fun. A longer charge range removes that counter play.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Formosa wrote:
lol the people picking 2d6 are clearly gunline armies

or we play armies that rely on slower units like terminators. why would i vote for a nerf to my melee capability, which is what you're advocating here?


There should be parity between charging units. You do not have parity in move distances, but you do in charge distances. This makes slow units viable, and fast units not even more broken then they've already been.

It worked in fantasy, for quite a long time, but that was 2d6+Move, so 1d6+Move is not a problem, at all.

 Formosa wrote:
It worked in fantasy, for quite a long time, but that was 2d6+Move, so 1d6+Move is not a problem, at all.

Umm you realize that in fantasy M+2d6 is, funny enough, same as what we have now! And in 8th ed 40k it's even better for charger with M+2d6+1...

They didn't move and then charge. They just charged. Ergo M+2d6 in fantasy is exactly what 40k has. First M, then 2d6 charge range.

M+d6" for 40k charge range would be different to fantasy. That would be 2M+d6 rather than M+2d6.

 insaniak wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

They've also made it so that if enemy units are within a certain range of a unit, they can't shoot--whether it's Overwatch or just their Shooting Phase.

I like trees.

I like forests.

Without seeing how everything will interact(infiltrators, scout moves, weird deployment mechanics like that)--I'm not comfortable saying it's great or not.
I, personally, never liked that a unit could only fire Overwatch once, even if they didn't end up in CC. It just encouraged the whole "I'm going to charge a bunch of things at one unit and try to bait the overwatch fire on this unit instead of that unit" mentality.

 Kanluwen wrote:
I, personally, never liked that a unit could only fire Overwatch once, even if they didn't end up in CC. It just encouraged the whole "I'm going to charge a bunch of things at one unit and try to bait the overwatch fire on this unit instead of that unit" mentality.

Would it have been better if charges were declared simultaneously and defender picks the one target? After all it's not like they would really be charging one at a time. That's just abstraction.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

 jeff white wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

But now? Now I can freely measure whatever and whenever I want. If I was facing 6" charge reach across your army, it's an absolute doddle to simply fall back to the requisite 12.1" to keep you at arms length, and safe from a solid kicking..

Which is brilliant. You're now further away from the objective, without my unit even having to strike a blow.

Probably not. If I'm that afraid of your charge, my objectives are all safe within my gunline and I've bought myself another turn of artillery bombardment. Perhaps, if I had to yield an objective, I'll come back out to take it back next turn after my artillery has taken another chunk out of your assault force and I'm confident I can take your charge.

Maybe, but that is a chance that you will have to take now, won't you...
Strategy is risky. Dice rolls are random.

No. It's no risk, no chance. You can't reach me, so I get to shoot you, with 3 Basilisks, a Wyvern, a Manitcore, 4 Leman Russ Tanks, and 100 guardsmen.

If I had to worry about you rolling a 8, and catching my guardsmen, that would be risky. But with a fixed charge, unless the charge is so ridiculously long you can reach my back board edge on turn two, I can just stay exactly where you can't reach me until there's not enough left of you to be a threat, then walk out and cap the points.

Some part of tactics is calculated risk. That's where die rolls come in.

As I said, I think 2d6 works really well. It's got a nice probability curve that's easy to understand and plan around, yet still has enough variance.

Chance.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

puree wrote:

Popular does not equal better.
It means that the people voting are most comfortable with this choice at the moment.

But this is a game, there is no objectively 'better'. What well agreed criteria is being used to judge better or worse. Whilst one can indeed argue that an unpopluar game mechanic is better, a game that is that 'good' but largely unpopular is a rather hollow 'better'. Whether a game mechanic is better is largely a matter of opinion, and therefore it is also very arguable that popular = better.

How do you know why people voted. What info helps you say whether they voted cos they are comfy vs they do think it is the better mechanic?

There may be a better mechanic, but of the mechanics presented, why do you not think the voted cos they think it is the best?

Of course they did... I think that you misunderstood me.

Definitely a lot of passion over the charge range mechanic!

Personally, I don't mind it, on account of how many things in 40k are random - I expect that risk-management, twist-of-fate aspect from the game so it doesn't rub me the wrong way. That said, I play games with fixed melee combat charging distances as well and quite like it.

Could it work in 40k? Probably - but I only wish people weren't quite as incensed about the subject It will only rub GW the wrong way, harassing them on Twitter, trying to push an agenda with obvious lies like "Everybody hates this!!1" Thought-out, reasonable arguments will get them listening, and now with the opportunity of rules updates in the future that could be a real possibility. Engagement is good but we need less Dakka drek and more Dakka discussion

 Kanluwen wrote:
I, personally, never liked that a unit could only fire Overwatch once, even if they didn't end up in CC. It just encouraged the whole "I'm going to charge a bunch of things at one unit and try to bait the overwatch fire on this unit instead of that unit" mentality.

Well, you only get to shoot once per Shooting Phase, so why would you get to shoot more in a phase which isn't dedicated to shooting?

Nice loaded poll with the supposition that 2d6" charges are bad, and I haven't seen anything by the OP to convince me that 2d6" charges are bad. Do they make any sense? Not really. About as much sense as a 10' genetically created super soldier in fission powered armor riding a motorcycle into combat. Or said 10' tall genetically created super soldier in fission powered armor running into combat without a helmet waving a chainsaw sword around, when the rest of his fellow super soldiers are shooting automatic self guided depleted uranium gyrojet weapons, Gravity Guns that warp gravity, or Lascannons.

It's a game mechanic used to replace the old fixed charge ranges because of pre-measuring. If you go back to fixed charge ranges, then I'd say get rid of pre-measuring. If you want an idea of what fixed charge ranges and pre-measuring are like, go play Warmachine/Hordes. That's the only game I've had my opponent take out a piece of paper, calculator, and then used trigonometry to prove that his charging model could get within range of one of my models. I just laughed at his face, picked up my models, and went home. Far too serious of a player for me!

There is a huge after market right now for measuring widgets in WM/H, with players using proxy bases, measuring widgets, and laser line pointers in WM/H. I've seen players plan out their entire turn using these devices on the table, and no, it looked like crap as far as I was concerned, and it's something I would hate to see come to 40K.

Looking at the poll options, are we 100% sure this isn't a Traditio poll?

 Fafnir wrote:

 Hollow wrote:
2D6 charge is the best mechanic for this phase of the game, bar none. It helps simulate the various issues faced by troops slogging it through a battlefield, adds tactical depth, as it provides unforeseen circumstances with which to deal, is fast, clear, concise and avoids pedantry regarding miniscule movements and measurements.

It's nice to see that it has infact been proven, in real time, that GW has listened to it's customers. As the poll shows the 2D6 option, is in fact, the most popular.

How would you feel about having randomized shooting range?

I remember that for 4th's Night Fighting rules and I was fine with it

Anyone for 2d6 charge range shouldn't have a problem with 3d6 pick the highest two or 3d6 capped at 12 inches. Unless of course they really want to keep melee weak as in previous edition.

Also the idea that they should add more unit specific rules aka bloat, to fix this for fast units is also a stupid idea. The best solution is to find a compromise in a universal rule for charging. So that assault is a more viable option, otherwise we will continue to see shooty armies dominate in this edition especially with the boost to overwatch and heavy weapons not snap firing.