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 Anpu42 wrote:

 Luciferian wrote:

 Anpu42 wrote:

 jeff white wrote:
12% do not matter.
Of the rest, 49/88 want less random than current rules.
39/88 want same or more.
Seems pretty clear where sentiments lie here.

I would not call 10% Pretty Clear.
It seems that 32 out of 88 want No Random and 62 out of 88 want a Random Charge distance.

It can be read either way.

...That's 94 out of 88...

The numbers might have changed as I was typing , but the point was there.

As of 12:38 PCT on 05/04:

78 out of 229 want no rolls, versus 115 out of 229 who desire a roll.
106 are satisfied with the current state of affairs, versus 121 who desire a lower range and 2 who desire an increase.


Keep in mind, the probability distributions are different. 2d6 is less random than 1d6, but has a wider range.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

 Anpu42 wrote:

 Luciferian wrote:

 Anpu42 wrote:

 jeff white wrote:
12% do not matter.
Of the rest, 49/88 want less random than current rules.
39/88 want same or more.
Seems pretty clear where sentiments lie here.

I would not call 10% Pretty Clear.
It seems that 32 out of 88 want No Random and 62 out of 88 want a Random Charge distance.

It can be read either way.

...That's 94 out of 88...

The numbers might have changed as I was typing , but the point was there.

As of 12:38 PCT on 05/04:

78 out of 229 want no rolls, versus 115 out of 229 who desire a roll.
106 are satisfied with the current state of affairs, versus 121 who desire a lower range and 2 who desire an increase.


Keep in mind, the probability distributions are different. 2d6 is less random than 1d6, but has a wider range.

I think an important thing to realize for some of the people clicking the 1d6 options...
Some of them aren't saying... "I want 1d6+ a number"
Some of them are saying... "I want 1d6 and no additional values because I want to nerf Assault ranges."
Same with the people with who don't want random.
Some of the people who don't want random want a flat value so they know exactly how far they need to be so that Assault will NEVER BE A THREAT.

That's part of the reason why this poll is pointless. Not enough options to really know what the people who voted are thinking.

 Talamare wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:


As of 12:38 PCT on 05/04:

78 out of 229 want no rolls, versus 115 out of 229 who desire a roll.
106 are satisfied with the current state of affairs, versus 121 who desire a lower range and 2 who desire an increase.


Keep in mind, the probability distributions are different. 2d6 is less random than 1d6, but has a wider range.

I think an important thing to realize for some of the people clicking the 1d6 options...
Some of them aren't saying... "I want 1d6+ a number"
Some of them are saying... "I want 1d6 and no additional values because I want to nerf Assault ranges."
Same with the people with who don't want random.
Some of the people who don't want random want a flat value so they know exactly how far they need to be so that Assault will NEVER BE A THREAT.

That's part of the reason why this poll is pointless. Not enough options to really know what the people who voted are thinking.

You can't tell any of that from the poll. You can tell exactly as follows: Of 249 respondents:
79 would rather have no roll.
3 would rather have a D3 roll.
41 would rather have a D6 roll.
95 would rather have the current system, a 2D6 roll.
2 would like a system with a greater range than 2D6.
16 do not have a preference for any of the above options
3 have a preference not described
and 9 are honest about not being interested in answering the poll.

They were arguing over numbers and what they mean, and were working on twisting statistics to their purposes, and then saying "you used statistics wrong". So, I broke it down with the most current numbers.

The poll isn't particularly great anyway. As I said, 2d6 is less random than 1d6, but has a wider range.

I like a bit of randomness about the charge range but the single shot on 2d6 is too often a slap in the face.
Still, since you actually move the failed distance forwards in 8th it does mean a melee force is still moving forwards which is nice - I'd still prefer 6" + 1d6.

 Luke_Prowler wrote:
Do we even know if Assault is as deadly as it was before? they removed sweeping advance, and with battleshock any wounds can cause a unit to lose models. even from overwatch.

The big thing that makes assault decisive and deadly in 40k is actually pretty firmly because it is the only time when a player gets to act and kill at their full effectiveness outside of regular turn order. This and the general trend of assault weapons often allowing for more attacks at higher strength or better AP than most shooting units can produce. It was never entirely down to things like sweeping advance and the like.

A shooting unit can fire on its own turn for full effect, and now it can sometimes overwatch for heavily reduced effect outside of the turn order.

An assault unit, once stuck in, is attacking on its owning player's turn and possibly on the opposing player's turn (assuming it wasn't immediately crushed and driven off).

With that said, with voluntary fallback in 8th this will be changed up a bit and more in the hands of the players than in the hands of chance. But we'll need to also see if assault also retains its higher-than-average number of attacks as well as a penchant for high strength and/or good AP in greater numbers. An individual shooting unit in 40k may have one or two high strength attacks with a good AP among a bunch of chaff. A good assault unit in 40k often made that output seem almost quaint for the amount of hurt they could lay down in one turn (the main issue always being "but can they get there to use it in a timely manner? as to whether or not assault was viable in a given edition).

So we'll have to see what CC weapon statistics and what the stats of proper assault troops look like to know the whole story. But either way, basically getting double the number of turns to kill things has made assault fairly decisive in past editions and if GW are aiming to make 1st/2nd turn charges a lot more common (depends on assaulting out of transports as well as what movement modifiers for assault armies look like) to be balanced out by voluntary fallback and overwatch then assault is likely to remain deadly and hopefully a viable strategy.

But it is still way too early to tell exactly how assault will go. The viability of assault is more than charge range and morale rules after all.

 auticus wrote:
Yeah. There is no "pretty clear" here unless you want to try to push an agenda of a variant of appealing to authority or try to have the weight of a perceived majority to validate ones' opinion..

Its pretty clear that the community lies roughly split in half on the issue as it always has, and your poll results will vary by forum. On a more competitive tourney minded forum, people wll not like random as much as compared to a less serious casual forum.

Pretty clear that most polled want change if they care enough to report on it. The degree of change is not clear but the desire for change seems to be especially given general resistance to change.

Frankly I have no agenda though I wonder how people complain about things like balance and end up looking at Yahtzee to get it.

 jeff white wrote:

 auticus wrote:
Yeah. There is no "pretty clear" here unless you want to try to push an agenda of a variant of appealing to authority or try to have the weight of a perceived majority to validate ones' opinion..

Its pretty clear that the community lies roughly split in half on the issue as it always has, and your poll results will vary by forum. On a more competitive tourney minded forum, people wll not like random as much as compared to a less serious casual forum.

Pretty clear that most polled want change if they care enough to report on it. The degree of change is not clear but the desire for change seems to be especially given general resistance to change.

Frankly I have no agenda though I wonder how people complain about things like balance and end up looking at Yahtzee to get it.

Hahahahaha....


Okay, agenda aside. 2d6 is not Yahtzee. It's actually pretty reliable.

 Saber wrote:
Well, if you want to get 'realistic' the entire of idea of charging is stupid. No one runs wildly at their enemy on the battlefield, and it certainly doesn't give them an advantage (like +1 attack or striking first). The exception, of course, is guys on horseback, but even then they don't go crashing into other people or nonsense like that.

You failed your history classes didn't you?

 Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote:

 Saber wrote:
Well, if you want to get 'realistic' the entire of idea of charging is stupid. No one runs wildly at their enemy on the battlefield, and it certainly doesn't give them an advantage (like +1 attack or striking first). The exception, of course, is guys on horseback, but even then they don't go crashing into other people or nonsense like that.

You failed your history classes didn't you?

Charging like that is a great way to get piked.

You advance at a steady and fast walk, in good order and staying in formation. A headlong charge at a run across the battlefield with make you tired and dead.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:
Charging like that is a great way to get piked.

You advance at a steady and fast walk, in good order and staying in formation. A headlong charge at a run across the battlefield with make you tired and dead. You run the last short distance to close with the enemy and cut off a final volley.

A lot really depends on the time frame in question.

If you're used to running in battle kit all the time, and many of these soldiers and warriors were back in the day, then a Charge wouldn't tire you out so much. Take Celts, African, and American tribesmen as several examples. Now, their battle kit wasn't a full armor or even a shield of the mass seen in a phalanx or a Roman legion set up, either.

A lot of tactics and strategy relied on what you knew your people could do and what you knew your equipment could do. You then shaped that around what you thought your opponent could do. Let's face it, a naked "giant" running and screaming at you with a huge sword is going to have a certain amount of psychological shock.

Charges really lost their oomph in WWI, but then we had the machine gun at that time, and that was the best weapon for breaking up a charge. Add artillery on top of it, and you have a scenario where only the craziest person would try to cross it.

But charges needed to happen, as those were the only way to get your men in to their machine gun nests and artillery positions and advance the line. Trenchwarfare is very nasty and effective in disallowing infantry charges to be effective, as it pretty much requires them to cross a kill zone. Vehicle Armour changed much of that, as it allowed the infantry protection to hit the trenches. Then warfare was centered around maneuver of the vehicles, both ground and air.

Then you get in to guerilla warfare where vehicle combat is limited, such as extremely rugged mountains, dense rain forest/jungle, or even urban environments, and things start working more and more to "small" units operating with light vehicle support.

40K changes much of that because of the willingness for certain enemies to engage in melee for their own reasons (Orks, Tyranids, and Eldar) and personal armor and modifications which allow one to traverse the average kill zone in relative safety (Astartes), while other armies try to establish that kill zone (Tau, IG, Necron).

I think a simple solution would be 1d6 + leadership value.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

 Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote:

 Saber wrote:
Well, if you want to get 'realistic' the entire of idea of charging is stupid. No one runs wildly at their enemy on the battlefield, and it certainly doesn't give them an advantage (like +1 attack or striking first). The exception, of course, is guys on horseback, but even then they don't go crashing into other people or nonsense like that.

You failed your history classes didn't you?

Charging like that is a great way to get piked.

You advance at a steady and fast walk, in good order and staying in formation. A headlong charge at a run across the battlefield with make you tired and dead.

A medievil charge, while pikes were still in use, was made under the pinning effects of arrows and usually in cases of high mobility warfare so the enemy didn't get much of a chance to set up an immobile pike wall that couldn't be shot down by said arrows, it was also usually led by cavalry which is why the pikes mattered at all. So, what do we get from this information? The effective range of a longbow is debated a ranges between 180 metres and 300 metres, not a big distance for a horse to travel, even weighed down in armour and carrying an armoured rider. Modern soldiers carry around a hundred pounds on their back, some less, most more and can run three hundred metres pretty handily, the most heavy medieval armour was dedicated medieval jousting armour, which only saw use on horseback and was specialised to a single task, usually weighed less than a hundred pounds and was spread over their entire body.
So, we know charges were not made over long distances, were made under suppressing fire and were made in armour that weighs less than a modern soldier's backpack.

Push forwards a few centuries to the age of the musket, once again the furthest possible range is less than 300 metres and takes up to a minute to reload, about six times the reloading and firing time of a slow person with a longbow. The English, Scottish and some American militaries used to add extras to the powder to get more smoke in order to cover their next actions, particularly in the case of a charge.

Another few centuries and weaponry has advanced well beyond the ability to grant mobility to said weaponry so units bunkered down in trenches, still often less than 300 metres from the enemy.

Back to 40k.
*We're talking planetary scale assault that for some reason is often not open to orbital bombardment for whatever reason.
*We have "negotiable" terrain - apparently everyone just respects landscapers that much.
*We have "no man's land" an expression from trench warefare but trenches in the 40k universe don't work because they supply easily ignored cover but don't block line of sight - possibly because nobody in the 40k universe is smart enough to dig down another few feet.
*No melee army has ranged weaponry that makes it hard for the enemy to shoot them.
*We have magic.
*We also have armies that just don't work - tough luck if you purchased Nids or Orks.

 Dakka Wolf wrote:
*No melee army has ranged weaponry that makes it hard for the enemy to shoot them..

This always bugged me, honestly. From a mechanics stand point, armies with a focus on assault would have supporting elements, either on their assault units or even in their shooting units, that allow them to suppress or deny other army's units. Yet pinning seems solely a shooting army thing, and I think there's one item in the whole game that prevents overwatch and that the CSM dirge caster. And that's a vehicle upgrade.

Hopefully GW fixes that, but eh

 Luke_Prowler wrote:

 Dakka Wolf wrote:
*No melee army has ranged weaponry that makes it hard for the enemy to shoot them..

This always bugged me, honestly. From a mechanics stand point, armies with a focus on assault would have supporting elements, either on their assault units or even in their shooting units, that allow them to suppress or deny other army's units. Yet pinning seems solely a shooting army thing, and I think there's one item in the whole game that prevents overwatch and that the CSM dirge caster. And that's a vehicle upgrade.

Hopefully GW fixes that, but eh

There's also a mask availiable to the Harlequinns - who never make it into charge range.

 davou wrote:

 niv-mizzet wrote:
and remember that there is no bonus attack for charging now,

This isn't confirmed yet; but very likely

It was directly stated in the live q&a, when he revealed that the bonus for charging would be striking first. Someone asked about bonus attacks and he reiterated that no, the bonus for charging was just striking first.

 Dakka Wolf wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:


Charging like that is a great way to get piked.

You advance at a steady and fast walk, in good order and staying in formation. A headlong charge at a run across the battlefield with make you tired and dead.

A medievil charge, while pikes were still in use, was made under the pinning effects of arrows and usually in cases of high mobility warfare so the enemy didn't get much of a chance to set up an immobile pike wall that couldn't be shot down by said arrows, it was also usually led by cavalry which is why the pikes mattered at all. So, what do we get from this information? The effective range of a longbow is debated a ranges between 180 metres and 300 metres, not a big distance for a horse to travel, even weighed down in armour and carrying an armoured rider. Modern soldiers carry around a hundred pounds on their back, some less, most more and can run three hundred metres pretty handily, the most heavy medieval armour was dedicated medieval jousting armour, which only saw use on horseback and was specialised to a single task, usually weighed less than a hundred pounds and was spread over their entire body.
So, we know charges were not made over long distances, were made under suppressing fire and were made in armour that weighs less than a modern soldier's backpack.

Push forwards a few centuries to the age of the musket, once again the furthest possible range is less than 300 metres and takes up to a minute to reload, about six times the reloading and firing time of a slow person with a longbow. The English, Scottish and some American militaries used to add extras to the powder to get more smoke in order to cover their next actions, particularly in the case of a charge.

Another few centuries and weaponry has advanced well beyond the ability to grant mobility to said weaponry so units bunkered down in trenches, still often less than 300 metres from the enemy.

Back to 40k.
*We're talking planetary scale assault that for some reason is often not open to orbital bombardment for whatever reason.
*We have "negotiable" terrain - apparently everyone just respects landscapers that much.
*We have "no man's land" an expression from trench warefare but trenches in the 40k universe don't work because they supply easily ignored cover but don't block line of sight - possibly because nobody in the 40k universe is smart enough to dig down another few feet.
*No melee army has ranged weaponry that makes it hard for the enemy to shoot them.
*We have magic.
*We also have armies that just don't work - tough luck if you purchased Nids or Orks.

Orbital Barrage is a part of 40k. Note that all those Space Marine ships carry bombardment cannons for softening up defenses before and assault and providing harassing fire against enemy positions. However, the Imperial Guard doesn't get orbital support because the Imperial Army was split into the Imperial Navy and Imperial Guard in an effort to limit the effects of units from either turning renegade. The Imperial Guard is expressly denied orbital bombardment to make them weak if they rebel.

Trenches are also a thing. In Siege of Vraks there are a lot of pictures of trenches dug into the ground and Kriegsmen hiding inside them, and they're described as being fairly protective. WWI is the DKoK's whole thing, so it makes sense. On the tabletop, we have the Wall of Martyrs and the Aegis Defense Barricade, which have to be above ground out of necessity: we can't really have trenches dug into our table!

And with regards to pinning, it's not so much that suppressive fire doesn't exist, it's just that everybody can ignore it and steel their resolve to continue their advance into the teeth of the enemy guns while their comrades are gunned down around them.


Anyway, the point I was making wasn't that medieval charges weren't headlong rush at the enemy, because you'd end up on the pointy end of the enemy's pointy sticks. Remaining close order and keeping formation was essential. A lone man or a man separated from his formation was a dead man when he reached the enemy lines.



40k also represents more of tiny firefight than an major battle. I put what, five-dozen soldiers and a half-dozen tanks on the field? There were 900 tanks in battle at Prokhorovka. A million men fought in the first day's assault on the Somme. Even the largest games we play are tiny.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

 Dakka Wolf wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:


Charging like that is a great way to get piked.

You advance at a steady and fast walk, in good order and staying in formation. A headlong charge at a run across the battlefield with make you tired and dead.

A medievil charge, while pikes were still in use, was made under the pinning effects of arrows and usually in cases of high mobility warfare so the enemy didn't get much of a chance to set up an immobile pike wall that couldn't be shot down by said arrows, it was also usually led by cavalry which is why the pikes mattered at all. So, what do we get from this information? The effective range of a longbow is debated a ranges between 180 metres and 300 metres, not a big distance for a horse to travel, even weighed down in armour and carrying an armoured rider. Modern soldiers carry around a hundred pounds on their back, some less, most more and can run three hundred metres pretty handily, the most heavy medieval armour was dedicated medieval jousting armour, which only saw use on horseback and was specialised to a single task, usually weighed less than a hundred pounds and was spread over their entire body.
So, we know charges were not made over long distances, were made under suppressing fire and were made in armour that weighs less than a modern soldier's backpack.

Push forwards a few centuries to the age of the musket, once again the furthest possible range is less than 300 metres and takes up to a minute to reload, about six times the reloading and firing time of a slow person with a longbow. The English, Scottish and some American militaries used to add extras to the powder to get more smoke in order to cover their next actions, particularly in the case of a charge.

Another few centuries and weaponry has advanced well beyond the ability to grant mobility to said weaponry so units bunkered down in trenches, still often less than 300 metres from the enemy.

Back to 40k.
*We're talking planetary scale assault that for some reason is often not open to orbital bombardment for whatever reason.
*We have "negotiable" terrain - apparently everyone just respects landscapers that much.
*We have "no man's land" an expression from trench warefare but trenches in the 40k universe don't work because they supply easily ignored cover but don't block line of sight - possibly because nobody in the 40k universe is smart enough to dig down another few feet.
*No melee army has ranged weaponry that makes it hard for the enemy to shoot them.
*We have magic.
*We also have armies that just don't work - tough luck if you purchased Nids or Orks.

Orbital Barrage is a part of 40k. Note that all those Space Marine ships carry bombardment cannons for softening up defenses before and assault and providing harassing fire against enemy positions. However, the Imperial Guard doesn't get orbital support because the Imperial Army was split into the Imperial Navy and Imperial Guard in an effort to limit the effects of units from either turning renegade. The Imperial Guard is expressly denied orbital bombardment to make them weak if they rebel.

Trenches are also a thing. In Siege of Vraks there are a lot of pictures of trenches dug into the ground and Kriegsmen hiding inside them, and they're described as being fairly protective. WWI is the DKoK's whole thing, so it makes sense. On the tabletop, we have the Wall of Martyrs and the Aegis Defense Barricade, which have to be above ground out of necessity: we can't really have trenches dug into our table!

And with regards to pinning, it's not so much that suppressive fire doesn't exist, it's just that everybody can ignore it and steel their resolve to continue their advance into the teeth of the enemy guns while their comrades are gunned down around them.


Anyway, the point I was making wasn't that medieval charges weren't headlong rush at the enemy, because you'd end up on the pointy end of the enemy's pointy sticks. Remaining close order and keeping formation was essential. A lone man or a man separated from his formation was a dead man when he reached the enemy lines.

Uh... how do you think IG get from planet to planet?
The Imperial Navy carry's them around everywhere, it is just that the captains of ships follow a different command structure and are not beholden to IG officers,
You can ask them to blow things up, but it is up to them if they will.
Most planets don't have any IG stationed on them, most planets have PDF forces, only important locations and sectors tend to have some IG that are there as a garrison.
Otherwise they are constantly on the move to the next battle, they practically live on ships when they aren't fighting.
IG digs in and makes fortifications and trenches all of the time to hold defensive lines.
The issue with IG and not having Orbital Bombardments is that they can't just pickup their Vox line and tell the captain of the ship to drop his ship batteries on a specific target. They don't have the authority to do so, it has to come from way up the chain in order to happen. SM's on the other hand have their own ships and need merely request that their cruiser or battle barge kindly obliterate said enemy position. Usually the ships perform bombardments from space then launch the IG into a cleared safezone. They get orbital bombardments, they just can't control when and where.

To the point at hand, charges need to have a degree of variability in order to account for combat, if you are about to charge at some guys they could...run away maybe? Which could easily account for a failed charge. I do agree that charging should definitely have some kind of advantage when done successfully, but there also needs to be somewhat of a variability to them as well esp at the longer ranges, I have no issue with shorter range charges trending towards a guarantee.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

 Dakka Wolf wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:


Charging like that is a great way to get piked.

You advance at a steady and fast walk, in good order and staying in formation. A headlong charge at a run across the battlefield with make you tired and dead.

A medievil charge, while pikes were still in use, was made under the pinning effects of arrows and usually in cases of high mobility warfare so the enemy didn't get much of a chance to set up an immobile pike wall that couldn't be shot down by said arrows, it was also usually led by cavalry which is why the pikes mattered at all. So, what do we get from this information? The effective range of a longbow is debated a ranges between 180 metres and 300 metres, not a big distance for a horse to travel, even weighed down in armour and carrying an armoured rider. Modern soldiers carry around a hundred pounds on their back, some less, most more and can run three hundred metres pretty handily, the most heavy medieval armour was dedicated medieval jousting armour, which only saw use on horseback and was specialised to a single task, usually weighed less than a hundred pounds and was spread over their entire body.
So, we know charges were not made over long distances, were made under suppressing fire and were made in armour that weighs less than a modern soldier's backpack.

Push forwards a few centuries to the age of the musket, once again the furthest possible range is less than 300 metres and takes up to a minute to reload, about six times the reloading and firing time of a slow person with a longbow. The English, Scottish and some American militaries used to add extras to the powder to get more smoke in order to cover their next actions, particularly in the case of a charge.

Another few centuries and weaponry has advanced well beyond the ability to grant mobility to said weaponry so units bunkered down in trenches, still often less than 300 metres from the enemy.

Back to 40k.
*We're talking planetary scale assault that for some reason is often not open to orbital bombardment for whatever reason.
*We have "negotiable" terrain - apparently everyone just respects landscapers that much.
*We have "no man's land" an expression from trench warefare but trenches in the 40k universe don't work because they supply easily ignored cover but don't block line of sight - possibly because nobody in the 40k universe is smart enough to dig down another few feet.
*No melee army has ranged weaponry that makes it hard for the enemy to shoot them.
*We have magic.
*We also have armies that just don't work - tough luck if you purchased Nids or Orks.

Orbital Barrage is a part of 40k. Note that all those Space Marine ships carry bombardment cannons for softening up defenses before and assault and providing harassing fire against enemy positions. However, the Imperial Guard doesn't get orbital support because the Imperial Army was split into the Imperial Navy and Imperial Guard in an effort to limit the effects of units from either turning renegade. The Imperial Guard is expressly denied orbital bombardment to make them weak if they rebel.

Trenches are also a thing. In Siege of Vraks there are a lot of pictures of trenches dug into the ground and Kriegsmen hiding inside them, and they're described as being fairly protective. WWI is the DKoK's whole thing, so it makes sense. On the tabletop, we have the Wall of Martyrs and the Aegis Defense Barricade, which have to be above ground out of necessity: we can't really have trenches dug into our table!

And with regards to pinning, it's not so much that suppressive fire doesn't exist, it's just that everybody can ignore it and steel their resolve to continue their advance into the teeth of the enemy guns while their comrades are gunned down around them.


Anyway, the point I was making wasn't that medieval charges weren't headlong rush at the enemy, because you'd end up on the pointy end of the enemy's pointy sticks. Remaining close order and keeping formation was essential. A lone man or a man separated from his formation was a dead man when he reached the enemy lines.

Note that not even all loyalist Space Marine forces actually have tabletop access to said bombardments. It doesn't matter if they have it in the fluff, if there is no tabletop representation then it might as well not exist.

Again with the fluff, the problem is that none of those fortifications like the aegis actually work anything like a trench, they work like a wall made by squad that was short changed on sandbags.

40k armies resist supppressing fire because it literally has no tabletop representation, it's all good and well to say "Oh, they would have resisted it anyway" but armies like Tau and Eldar don't, they regularly fail leadership checks, problem is that melee armies can only force these tests when they've already made it past the firepower to get into combat. Orks and Daemons and Astra Militarum aren't too fond of leadership tests either.

As for charges being slow, orderly affairs there have been plenty of successful charges throughout history that were neither, distraction raids come to mind, as do berserkers and wolf warriors, charging units were often sacrificial so that another charge could play out as an ambush and even charging by its very definition is a rapid and aggressive advance. Nobody is trying to say that no-one died charging or that some charges weren't pointless, they're saying they happened and were often pivotal and what's the point of making melee armies for the tabletop if you aren't going to make the damn things capable of making melee!?

 Dakka Wolf wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

Anyway, the point I was making wasn't that medieval charges weren't headlong rush at the enemy, because you'd end up on the pointy end of the enemy's pointy sticks. Remaining close order and keeping formation was essential. A lone man or a man separated from his formation was a dead man when he reached the enemy lines.

Note that not even all loyalist Space Marine forces actually have tabletop access to said bombardments. It doesn't matter if they have it in the fluff, if there is no tabletop representation then it might as well not exist.

Again with the fluff, the problem is that none of those fortifications like the aegis actually work anything like a trench, they work like a wall made by squad that was short changed on sandbags.

40k armies resist supppressing fire because it literally has no tabletop representation, it's all good and well to say "Oh, they would have resisted it anyway" but armies like Tau and Eldar don't, they regularly fail leadership checks, problem is that melee armies can only force these tests when they've already made it past the firepower to get into combat. Orks and Daemons and Astra Militarum aren't too fond of leadership tests either.

As for charges being slow, orderly affairs there have been plenty of successful charges throughout history that were neither, distraction raids come to mind, as do berserkers and wolf warriors, charging units were often sacrificial so that another charge could play out as an ambush and even charging by its very definition is a rapid and aggressive advance. Nobody is trying to say that no-one died charging or that some charges weren't pointless, they're saying they happened and were often pivotal and what's the point of making melee armies for the tabletop if you aren't going to make the damn things capable of making melee!?

Vikings used formations when met with opposing forces in battle. An arrowhead formation was particularly common offensively, as I understand it, with shields locked along the flank of the arrowhead and advancing into the enemy, slowly at first and accelerating to a run before colliding with the enemy lines, using the momentum of the formation to break the opposing formation.

A disordered, dispersed charge has fairly minimal effect, and results in lots of your dead people and not a lot of their dead people. I've tried it. Running dispersed at a shield line is fairly ineffective, but advancing upon a shield line shoulder to shoulder works out much better.

As someone who plays primarily shooty armies, I felt that 2d6 was upgrade over old fixed 6 inches. In the past I was always safe over 6 inches away, now 8 inches is pretty routine and only at around 11 inches I feel somewhat safe. And then of course Eldar, whose threat range on foot increased from 12 to 18 inches to 24 inches...longer than my basic guns range.

Of course sometimes they roll 2 or 3 and flop, and that is always hilarious...

oooooh man, this thread, lol. I don't like the results so i'll change the poll, i don't like the new results so lets pull out our 9th grade stats class and follow it up with another rousing discussion of 40k and realism.

Good times, good times.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
In real life, charges do not fail because someone stumbled on a rock (rather, the success of a charge usually depends on the morale of both sides). Neither should it be that way in 40k. That is ridiculous.
If we want to keep a degree of randomness for whether a charge fails or succeed, I feel it would be better to have an alternative, more realistic system where charge distance is more or less fixed but whether your troops get to reach the enemy depends on passing morale checks.

That's a really good point IMO. I think it's a good idea to link randomness in charging to morale rather than, well, just random randomness.

A Space Wolf should be pretty bloody consistent with their ability to succeed at a charge, an Ork maybe slightly less so, a Guardsman even less so again.

I was rather disappointed with the morale system for 8th just being "well, if you lose morale you lose more models!". A morale system could be so much more than that, having a unit's state of morale contributing to things like random rolls to determine if a unit can charge, shoot and even move would be a much more interesting system IMO.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ERJAK wrote:
oooooh man, this thread, lol. I don't like the results so i'll change the poll, i don't like the new results so lets pull out our 9th grade stats class and follow it up with another rousing discussion of 40k and realism.

Good times, good times.

I didn't even see the other poll when I posted this one

I always attempt to write my polls in a less biased way, I won't say I always succeed, but having a scientific background I don't like anything that can be dismissed because of bias.

As for "9th grade stats class", I don't get why people are acting like we're doing some sort of mathematical trickery here. 50% of people would prefer it to be less random than it currently is.... people are acting like adding numbers together is somehow manipulating them There are 3 poll answers that represent less randomness than we currently have and 2 that represent equal or greater randomness, I don't see any problem with adding those together.

I will admit I expected it to be more than 50%.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

 Dakka Wolf wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

Anyway, the point I was making wasn't that medieval charges weren't headlong rush at the enemy, because you'd end up on the pointy end of the enemy's pointy sticks. Remaining close order and keeping formation was essential. A lone man or a man separated from his formation was a dead man when he reached the enemy lines.

Note that not even all loyalist Space Marine forces actually have tabletop access to said bombardments. It doesn't matter if they have it in the fluff, if there is no tabletop representation then it might as well not exist.

Again with the fluff, the problem is that none of those fortifications like the aegis actually work anything like a trench, they work like a wall made by squad that was short changed on sandbags.

40k armies resist supppressing fire because it literally has no tabletop representation, it's all good and well to say "Oh, they would have resisted it anyway" but armies like Tau and Eldar don't, they regularly fail leadership checks, problem is that melee armies can only force these tests when they've already made it past the firepower to get into combat. Orks and Daemons and Astra Militarum aren't too fond of leadership tests either.

As for charges being slow, orderly affairs there have been plenty of successful charges throughout history that were neither, distraction raids come to mind, as do berserkers and wolf warriors, charging units were often sacrificial so that another charge could play out as an ambush and even charging by its very definition is a rapid and aggressive advance. Nobody is trying to say that no-one died charging or that some charges weren't pointless, they're saying they happened and were often pivotal and what's the point of making melee armies for the tabletop if you aren't going to make the damn things capable of making melee!?

Vikings used formations when met with opposing forces in battle. An arrowhead formation was particularly common offensively, as I understand it, with shields locked along the flank of the arrowhead and advancing into the enemy, slowly at first and accelerating to a run before colliding with the enemy lines, using the momentum of the formation to break the opposing formation.

A disordered, dispersed charge has fairly minimal effect, and results in lots of your dead people and not a lot of their dead people. I've tried it. Running dispersed at a shield line is fairly ineffective, but advancing upon a shield line shoulder to shoulder works out much better.

Yes, vikings used formation advances - they generally still moved forward at a fair clip rather than staying on the beach, they also used the Berserkers because a few big crazy dudes hitting the front or side of any resistance as the shield wall moved forwards made the resistance softer for when the invaders closed closed, they also charged straight up out of the boats because being disorganised and barbaric often has a shock and intimidation value that formations simply lack and some people struggle to respond to.

As for your results - is there any reason in particular people should care about your success, or lack of it?

 Dakka Wolf wrote:


Yes, vikings used formation advances - they generally still moved forward at a fair clip rather than staying on the beach, they also used the Berserkers because a few big crazy dudes hitting the front or side of any resistance as the shield wall moved forwards made the resistance softer for when the invaders closed closed, they also charged straight up out of the boats because being disorganised and barbaric often has a shock and intimidation value that formations simply lack and some people struggle to respond to.

As for your results - is there any reason in particular people should care about your success, or lack of it?

Where are you getting this knowledge about "real life berserkers"?

What i've heard of zerkers is that they were kind of champions that didn't really fight in battles and instead specialised in duels.

Good points in the thread.

Random effect is good, but I would suggest that you roll 2D6 but you can change one of the roll for guaranteed 6 but then you lose the extra attack due to charging. This would guarantee you around 8-9 inch charge most times.

I think most armies should have kind of very fast (Fast Attack!!??) unit available that can easily do first turn charge. This way even shooty armies would be forced to take some sort of melee-fodder units on front to absorb this fast unit. The fast unit should at the same time be designed in a way that you cannot make death star out of it. The only function would be to punish armies that go for static big guns only armies with no actual line holders.

Also I really dont understand the mentality that fast units cannot be faster than slower units. But I think faster units shouldn't be too strong in close combat, even fluffwise you would have your bikes and jump packs flank and dive in from the sky to attack artillery and other shooting units. With fast you attack the weak targets, however this kind of equilibrium certainly doesn't exist in current 7th Ed. as bikes are much better than jump marines with hardly any price increase. Although bike models are significantly more expensive than jump marines, so I see what GW did there...

 Dakka Wolf wrote:


Yes, vikings used formation advances - they generally still moved forward at a fair clip rather than staying on the beach, they also used the Berserkers because a few big crazy dudes hitting the front or side of any resistance as the shield wall moved forwards made the resistance softer for when the invaders closed closed, they also charged straight up out of the boats because being disorganised and barbaric often has a shock and intimidation value that formations simply lack and some people struggle to respond to.

As for your results - is there any reason in particular people should care about your success, or lack of it?

The speed and distance you can charge is governed by how fast and how long you can maintain your formation. If your formation separates because not everyone is running at the same speed, then your charge fails.

The vikings primarily used a shield line defensively, and as I said, a arrowhead offensively. Lone warriors were incredibly uncommon. Their best troops would be at the point of the arrowhead, and as I said, they'd advance and gather speed until they impacted at a run, hoping to disperse the enemy formation using their momentum.

They also made extensive use of ambush tactics, and when landing would either land unopposed, or would beach their ships, debark, form up, and then charge.

Random charge distance is probably one of the biggest reasons I went retrogamer, I'd cheer if it got quashed.

 jeff white wrote:
12% do not matter.
Of the rest, 49/88 want less random than current rules.
39/88 want same or more.
Seems pretty clear where sentiments lie here.

The only thing clear is that you're still butthurt that the majority don't agree with you.

Let it go, bruh. Let it go...

 koooaei wrote:

 Dakka Wolf wrote:


Yes, vikings used formation advances - they generally still moved forward at a fair clip rather than staying on the beach, they also used the Berserkers because a few big crazy dudes hitting the front or side of any resistance as the shield wall moved forwards made the resistance softer for when the invaders closed closed, they also charged straight up out of the boats because being disorganised and barbaric often has a shock and intimidation value that formations simply lack and some people struggle to respond to.

As for your results - is there any reason in particular people should care about your success, or lack of it?

Where are you getting this knowledge about "real life berserkers"?

What i've heard of zerkers is that they were kind of champions that didn't really fight in battles and instead specialised in duels.

Mostly they're mentioned in enemy scources, they also get a fair shout out in The Volsunga saga - it's probably about as historic as the story of Musashi but all the best stories have grains of truth.

The Norse were claimed to have Berserkers, people who would transform into bear and wolf monsters, bite on their shields and launch themselves roaring into battle to break the enemy at the front. Others claimed they were immune to fire and steel in battle.

What I believe is more likely is they were a shock force that wore bear-shirts/bear-skins over or as part of their armour and were successful at ambush or crackerjack tactics. Rather than admit they got blindsided and their front was broken by a small number of whackjobs in animal cloaks the soldiers perpetuated the image of monsters, same with people who failed at guard duty.
As for the other stuff I've never really looked into Northern European medicine but it sounds like an early version of Ice.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
[
As for "9th grade stats class", I don't get why people are acting like we're doing some sort of mathematical trickery here. 50% of people would prefer it to be less random than it currently is.... people are acting like adding numbers together is somehow manipulating them There are 3 poll answers that represent less randomness than we currently have and 2 that represent equal or greater randomness, I don't see any problem with adding those together.

I will admit I expected it to be more than 50%.

In some parts of the United States, Mathematics are akin to witchcraft and are treated as such.