Vehicle fire arcs are gone in 8th

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**Galas**

Critical decisions, the hallmark of a great strategy game.

I can understand people that you like firing arcs and LOS for weapons, but don't make those pedantic statements, please.

You are putting it as the definitive TACTICAL wallmark for a good strategic game, when it has never been even near that. You are putting so much weight in firing arcs that has become just awful to read.
The reality is much more simple. You like those gaming features. Is cool. It offers some decisions. A game without them offers other kind of decissions. Thats cool too to people that like them.

It happens that for now GW has decided to not add that feature to the game. It sucks to people that like it, is great for people that doesn't like it, and is indiferent to the mayority of the people that doesn't have strongs feelings about the feature one way or the other.

But this presentation as something like that as some kind of vital part of a tactical and strategic game? Please...

It can be. But isn't only one way of adding tactical and strategy in games.

**Kaiyanwang**

Martel732 wrote:
The Dreadknight was probably the actual worst thing Ward ever did in 40k, because it opened the door to all the other super-MCs of 6th/7th. And then GW massively overreacted to parkinglot-40K of 5th and then took a big dump on vehicles.

FTFY. Fantasy Daemons.

**Galas**

Warhammer Fantasy Daemons of 7th edition... that Armybook broke that edition. I have never seen an army so OP. Not even Wraithknights.

**Aipoch**

Galas wrote:
Critical decisions, the hallmark of a great strategy game.

I can understand people that you like firing arcs and LOS for weapons, but don't make those pedantic statements, please.

Pedantic? You're too kind

You are putting it as the definitive TACTICAL wallmark for a good strategic game, when it has never been even near that. You are putting so much weight in firing arcs that has become just awful to read.

Are you saying it has never been a tactical hallmark for WH40k, or for strategic games in general? As for the weight being put into it, I assure you it is minor, though my apologies for your reading experience.

The reality is much more simple. You like those gaming features. Is cool. It offers some decisions. A game without them offers other kind of decissions. Thats cool too to people that like them.

I'm curious, just what are these other kinds of decisions you speak of?

It happens that for now GW has decided to not add that feature to the game. It sucks to people that like it, is great for people that doesn't like it, and is indiferent to the mayority of the people that doesn't have strongs feelings about the feature one way or the other.

Accurate statement is accurate, nothing to see here, moving along.

But this presentation as something like that as some kind of vital part of a tactical and strategic game? Please...
It can be. But isn't only one way of adding tactical and strategy in games.

The main rub: are firing arcs and LOS a vital tactic in a strategy game? To which I, and many others, state yes, yes they are. They aren't the only type of tactic in strategy games, true, but they are among the most fundamental. With them removed, terrain is even less useful than it was (one of my biggest real complaints), the game hasn't played any faster (arguably slower, with more time debating which weapon will fire onto which target), the movement phase has 1-dimensional tactics now, and I can't help but think the reason it was done away with in the first place is to remove the possibility of modeling for advantage/fringe cases where LOS/arc can't be agreed upon by both players. Which, if true, seems a steep price to pay for such a loss of tactical depth.

**Plumbumbarum**

Spoiler:

Vaktathi wrote:
Plumbumbarum wrote:
Vaktathi wrote:
Plumbumbarum wrote:
First I'd like to say, I don't understand complaints about facing being complex/ problematic/ time wasteing. My 6 year old kid has no problem with it, looks out to not touch the tanks, can clearly say what sees what.

It was never an issue, and if you want to remove things people argue about then remove half of 40k. Please start with things irrelevant to game depth though.

Vaktathi wrote:
that works in an RPG where you have 3-5 people fighting 1-12 enemies and a dedicated game master to just focus on running the game.

When you have just two players running a game with a dozen tanks on the field, half a dozen MC's, 80 infantry of 4 different types, and buildings to boot, that level of detail, particularly for a single unit type, becomes too granular to be of value and creates additional balance issues as a result as well. I have the same issue with power weapon types as well, who cares if the IG sergeant is wielding a power axe or sword...why are we bothering with that level of detail?

But, if we are bothering with that level of detail, why can't we bother with details of facing? As 40k is that mixup of skirmish and company level game, why not make maximum out of it when it comes to depth, for little cost that would be adding facing to MCs and leaving it for tanks?
because it wasnt a little cost. Tanks were always something that never quite worked right, hence the big changes and huge swings in power of vehicles in literally every edition of 40k. 40k's problem is that it tries to blend scales and has always done so really poorly.

The eternal problem of GW being crap rules writers. The way to go, especialy given the fresh start and all, was to remove the useless fat, keep the depth and make it work. They seem to have removed the last bits of depth and some fat, and it's probably still not going to work as written imo.
That's entirely possible, likely even

The issue is that 40k is and largely always has been a relatively simple game tactically speaking. There's lots of complexity and complication, but relatively little actual depth when it comes to using your forces. GW wants lots of little gubbins to play with, but has never really built 40k as a deep tactical simulator. If such is going to be the case, I'm ok with vehicles being simplified if it makes it easier to balance stuff in general, rather than dealing with the eternal see-saw that we've seen with tanks for the last two decades.

It's obvious that you accepted their incompetence as a fact of life, and it's probably a mature thing to do, but it also makes the critique kind of valid, doesn't it. They're making shortcuts because they're bad, should have done better.
I'd agree with this. Facings and arcs aren't all *that* complicated, but GW can never seem to manage it, and there's really no upsides to facings for vehicles (as the only units in the game that ever had to deal with it), only downsides, that never seem to integrate right anyway, especially when it's not uncommon to see 20+ on the field, and thus, accepting that, I'm ok with them just dropping it.

But typical game of 40k is not dealing with entire tank companies,I'd say average is a few tanks. Ofc when you play armored IG, you can have 2 in a standard game but it's a borderline case, just like horde orks for example and ofc can get a bit unwieldy with the sponson checkin heh. Still, I think it was manageable and you saved time on other things like moving a crapton of infantry or checking cover for multiple guys etc.
In some ways, but, it's not at all uncommon to see 20+ vehicles on a board, especially in the latter days of 7E with Gladius detachments and the like. It may not be routine, but hardly irregular.

Doesn't Flames of War use different stats for side, rear and front? Quite a few tanks there, don't know much about the system though.
Flames of War has Front and Side/Rear as one value, but it's a lot simpler than 40k's. Basically when you shoot at a tank, if you're in the front 180* you hit front, if not you hit side/rear. No HP's, and only 3 possible damage results (no effect, bailed (stunned), destroyed). Very simple vehicle rules compared with 40k. There's no "oh I blew off a gun" or "it's immobilized but can still shoot" or HP's to count or anything like that, and with tanks being easy boxes (as opposed to something like a Wave Serpent) it's not hard to define facing. They also don't have to worry about dealing with hover tanks and stompas and the like. Infantry are pretty much all the same thing too, don't have to worry about an MG42 vs a Maxim vs a Bren (whereas 40k would want to define each of those as distinct weapons in many cases), don't have to worry about power armored infantry or naked Orks, they're all treated pretty much the same. Much simpler units in general. Nobody is worrying about a Power Sword vs Power Axe, or fighting out individual challenges, or casting psychic powers, or rolling to resolve for each individual gun in an artillery battery, etc.

I consider Wargame series quite casual heh. Might be saying more about me than about the game though heh.

But your whole point blank range with rpg rules scale mixup argument works just as much for as against detailed rules. When in doubt, go for depth I'd say.
In some instances, sure, but in others it can get painful (such as my example of Shadowrun grenades earlier in the thread), and more detail doesn't necessarily translate to additional depth, as has been 40k's bane for most of its existence. We've got special rules for over a dozen different varieties of Astartes, but 2/3rds of them basically still play the same or amount to the same thing. We've got rules for Hellstrike missiles, but did they really need to be called out as a unique weapon, or could we just have used the standard Hunter Killer missile profile instead? Stuff like that is what 40k drowns in, but what it really looks to push. That doesn't work well with greater operational level gameplay however. Going back to Flames of War as an example, weapons profiles, units, unit types, etc are all wayyyyyyyyyyyyy simpler than 40k. This allows for greater tactical depth. 40k likes its unit detail, but has always rather eschewed tactical depth.

Facing/ flanking are not only for simulation purposes. The game can be heavily abstracted but have flanking for movement phase depth's sake, and I'd play 8th like that. In fact I might, if I ever play 8th it will be with houserules for facing probably, actualy it sounds as a good basis for sth like that, assumig it's really more balanced than what was before.
We'll see. I've been vaccilating between hope and despair for the last month

180 degrees front probably for CC purposes, and because my system would include rules for rear attacks in CC, he'd still has his back vulnerable (not to shooting ofc, though you could make up some gak about those wings of him). Maybe some special round attack, he's a bloodthirster after all heh.
Deciding where the front and rear are is the hard part, where exactly is the front 180* on a model like that, which can be posed and situated a number of ways along with the base? That's one of those issues where facing can get weird without solid mechanisms to determine such things, especially when originally built without such concern.

You have to admit it's not the best justification for the new system.
It's not, but it's enough. If they can't manage to make facings work, either because they don't care or can't be bothered, then I'm all for making it simpler and easier to balance.

Anyway, to sum it up. I tend to agree with and enjoy your posts but here I think you are wrong. I see where you're coming from, and are probably just happy that vehicles might be viable again. Still, it was possible to make a much simplier but deeper system that doesn't make vehicles into another infantry variant. The lack of facing and its consequences are bad for cinematics, bad for flavour and bad for game depth, an incredibly crude fix for balance issues. The other benefits, like the small time savings and slight increase in ease of play are totaly not worth it.

I think the biggest benefits will be balance and record keeping related over time savings, we'll see how GW manages the execution, I'm not holding my breath, but it should at least be easier to balance in theory. As for the cinematics, that's mostly I think a holdover of older editions, Tyrannofex's, artillery, IG heavy weapons teams, etc never seemed to generate significant issues of cinematics and flavor for lacking facings with people. But I don't expect everyone to agree with me, and hell, my opinion may change in time as well, we'll see

Yes I agree, 40k was not the deepest game around. That's why I dislike the change tbh, not because I have such a high standard for depth (I do in fact, but it's not the reason here) but because it's really easy to push into very shallow territory.

I'm also not only for a tactical simulator. In fact, I'd also like a game with complexity level like you describe Flames of War has, simple but concerned with depth of gameplay. Ofc it would have more unit types and profiles, but I would do flavour with 1 or 2 rules per faction and seriously simplify stats.

The other way would be go fully into detail, with individual model's position being important, facing, etc. A glorified mass skirmish, full blown simulator indeed but at least taking advantage of all that granularity in form of gameplay depth (ie checking facing for every single model for the sake of LoS). That ofc would be a 6 hours game and probably not really a mainstream one heh but at least it would have some clear vision for itself.

Anyway, 40k 8th seems to be a game still in the middle, just little less cluttered but more shallow.

As for the bloodthirster's arcs, you just mark it on the base, or model or sth.

MCs are bit more mobile than tanks, for cinematic purposes of facing. I was posting about MCs that should have facing a few years back already though, for purposes of depth.

Anyway, now I hope it's better than I think, for the sake of all that are hoping heh.