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 Galas wrote:

You need to eliminate the extreme cases or your game becomes a Rock/Paper/Scissors game that is just unfun for everybody.

Why? "Everything can hurt everything" -principle is pointless since for practical purposes, extreme cases still can't hurt each other. Because if light weapons had a serious, game-affecting ability to hurt very toughest models, it would feel unrealistic and people would complain. So the chance is reduced to so small it is for basically irrelevant. Trying to hurt a Land Raider or Knight with Lasguns is just as hopeless as trying to kill those Invisible 2++ rerollable Deathstars. And everyone remembers how much fun THAT was, no?

(I mean, seriously, I've heard this a lot that it is "unfun" when there were weapons in the game which couldn't hurt some models. Hello? It was game breaking when Boltguns couldn't hurt a Leman Russ or Land Raider? Did we play the same game? I never heard or read such a complaint. What I DID hear and read were complaints about 2++ rerollable Deathstars, which COULD be hurt by any weapon in the game.)

Another issue is the current Wound table which greatly reduces granularity regarding S and T values. It is similar to the old Weapon Skill table which made WS largely irrelevant. In 8th, if you have a low S weapon you wound on 5+, and high S you wound on 3+. That is true 90% of the time and all other cases are rare exceptions. It's made worse that Toughness values are so limited and cap on T8. For example, S10 is no benefit in 8th. It's just as good as S9.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ERJAK wrote:

The new S/T system is sooooo vastly better. The old syatem was doggak.

With the old system S3 S5 S7 and S9 were totally irrelevant, the value of going from an even strength to an odd strength was next to nothing compared to going from odd to even and then S1 and S2 were so useless almost nothing in the game actually had them.

Nonsense. S5 was awesome improvement over S4. Most infantry was T3-4 so S5 gave much more wounds. Also, most Monstrous Creatures were T6 so S5 gave two times as many wounds as S4. And there were many light Vehicles with AV10-11.
By contrast, in 8th edition, all S5 does over S4 is that you wound T4 models with 3+ instead of 4+. That is literally all. Oh well, you do wound T8 models on 5+ instead of 6+, but T8 isn't terribly common.

T8 is extremely common now as a vehicle toughness level, so heavy bolters can now be thought of as a more viable threat to tanks than a bolt gun is.

The new chart also created a new point of durability for marines and Orks. Now mid level heavy weapons like autocannons and multilasers have a harder time wounding those models.

Marines are significantly more durable on the table, allowing those fielding them to not feel as though their army is simply.ply cannon fodder.

I find it interesting that people argue that the granularity of the to wound chart is somehow worse than before. It is almost entirely the same, it is just weighted toward the center rather than the extremes. In 7th the use of 3s,4's, and 5s to wound was very small, and 2s and 6s were extremely common. In 7th S5 was many times worse than S6 because it was wise at wounding, T4,5 and 6 (very common toughness), was worse at hurting all vehicles, didn't instant kill T3 models. There was a reason heavy bolsters were not a huge thing in the last several editions.

I also find complaints about random damage interesting, I assume all those same people hated the vehicle damage table as that is exactly what random damage is now. I find it to be a much better mechanic than instant death where a lascannon vaporizes a marine captain, unless he is on a bike, then he is just fine. You could argue having everything be set damage would be better (so lascannons deal 3 wounds) but I think you then end up with some weapons being way too powerful unless they are insanely expensive. I think the damage rolls add some drama to the game as well.

 Galas wrote:
All say it again.

In a game where all of this can be fighting in the same table at the same time and even fielding armies of only one of this kind of models:

Spoiler:

You need to eliminate the extreme cases or your game becomes a Rock/Paper/Scissors game that is just unfun for everybody.

Funny that other games manage to have stuff that parts of enemy cannot kill no matter what and yet it's not a problem for them...

...but to make it like that requires skill&effort from the rules writers. Too much to ask from GW.

Breng77 wrote:
I find it interesting that people argue that the granularity of the to wound chart is somehow worse than before. It is almost entirely the same, it is just weighted toward the center rather than the extremes. In 7th the use of 3s,4's, and 5s to wound was very small, and 2s and 6s were extremely common. In 7th S5 was many times worse than S6 because it was wise at wounding, T4,5 and 6 (very common toughness), was worse at hurting all vehicles, didn't instant kill T3 models. There was a reason heavy bolsters were not a huge thing in the last several editions.

It was because of the AP system. AP4 brought little benefit as Sv4+ wasn't terribly common (most MC's and Bikes were 3+ or better, ditto for much of the infantry) and even when there was one, often there was cover present, giving them 5+ anyway (or 4+ in 5th edition...). So if given a choice between Multi-Laser and Heavy Bolter, former was superior in nearly every situation since AP4 was useful only sometimes, whilst high S was always useful.
In 8th edition, there is very little practical difference between S8-S10 weapons. S8 is worse only when shooting T8 models, and most of the MC's and Vehicles are T7 or T6 against which all those weapons perform identically.

Backfire wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
I find it interesting that people argue that the granularity of the to wound chart is somehow worse than before. It is almost entirely the same, it is just weighted toward the center rather than the extremes. In 7th the use of 3s,4's, and 5s to wound was very small, and 2s and 6s were extremely common. In 7th S5 was many times worse than S6 because it was wise at wounding, T4,5 and 6 (very common toughness), was worse at hurting all vehicles, didn't instant kill T3 models. There was a reason heavy bolsters were not a huge thing in the last several editions.

It was because of the AP system. AP4 brought little benefit as Sv4+ wasn't terribly common (most MC's and Bikes were 3+ or better, ditto for much of the infantry) and even when there was one, often there was cover present, giving them 5+ anyway (or 4+ in 5th edition...). So if given a choice between Multi-Laser and Heavy Bolter, former was superior in nearly every situation since AP4 was useful only sometimes, whilst high S was always useful.
In 8th edition, there is very little practical difference between S8-S10 weapons. S8 is worse only when shooting T8 models, and most of the MC's and Vehicles are T7 or T6 against which all those weapons perform identically.

Your assessment is wrong

S8 wounds T5-7 T8 on 4+, T9+(unless we have T16 at some point) on 5+
S9 wounds T8 on a 3+, T9 on a 4+, and 10+ on a 5+
S10 wounds T5 on a 2+, T6-9 on a 3+ and T10 on a 4+

Now given there are not T9 and 10 models that I am aware of at this time, but they may exist in the future, but even then S10 wounding T5 on a 2+ vs a 3+ is a difference. SO against light vehicles or heavy infantry S10 is better than 8 or 9. Also remember that S of higher than 10 now exist, so that matters as well. I think the issue here is the lack of usage of T9 and 10 more than the to wound table. I would have liked to see say the Stompa be T10 with a 4+ save or similar, but part of that might be that they seemed hesitant to have anything higher than S10 outside of close combat.

In the end the granularity was always going to be limited by using a D6

Full or nothing saves were horrible. Ap as a save modifier is much more representative of armor protecting and being easier to bypass with stronger or more penetrative weapons.

The new to-wound chart does make entire ranges of strength meaningless when it interacts with certain Toughness values; but those ranges are not meaningless vs other t values. It is a very complex interaction that is written simply. Take the humble boltgun for example: against a weedy elder or guardsman it wounds on a 3+ as italways has. Against an ork or fellow beekie it continues to wound at 4+ same as before. Shooting at most vehicles it now wounds on a 5+(t6 or t7) while the ubiquitous lasgun only wounds on a 6+. This is a fairly good representation of a gyro-jet 22mm autocannon round vs an AK-47(lasgun and autogun have the same strength): you might get lucky firing the AK at an armoured vehicle, hitting something that causes real damage. The single_shot or 3-round burst from the 22mm will punch deeper into the armour or do more damage on that lucky hit.

Tanks have always been vulnerable to infantry swarming tactic; which in 40k is melee.

 Kommissar Kel wrote:
Full or nothing saves were horrible. Ap as a save modifier is much more representative of armor protecting and being easier to bypass with stronger or more penetrative weapons.

[\quote]

yup the old method was terrible it made wide ranges of weapons more or less useless, it also rendered lower armor saves to be just token values that were rarely used. My only change to the new system would have been making all cover a negative to hit modifier, rather than a bonus to save.

That would have been a good way to do it.

That is how tau stealth fields work.

I also hated the old AP system for most of the weapons that ignored cover: they didn't have the AP to remove most saves; basically only killing Orks nids and guard(ians). Aspect warriors, tau, and MEQ just laughed at most ignores cover weapons and took their armor saves that were better than what the cover offered anyway. The only exceptions were flamestorm/baleflamer for everything and heavy flamers/ nova cannons at ap4.

ERJAK wrote:

 vipoid wrote:
Whilst I can understand the intent, I do wonder if this was the best way to go about it. It's certainly a bit odd when S7 is no better than S5 against T4 or T8-9 targets.

In this regard though, I think a major limitation is that the game only uses d6s.

I think the main issue though (as others have already mentioned) is that the scale of 40k is beyond ridiculous. Infantry should not be on the same board as titanic behemoths.

It would be far better for 40k to put Apocalypse units (Flyers, super-heavies, lords of war etc.) back into Apocalypse. They simply have no place in standard 40k and trying to shoehorn them in has consistently led to buggering up the rules for everyone.

I hate this argument. You know what's actually buggering up the rules? You know what actually makes the game silly? You know what REALLY doesn't have a place in 40k?

Fething Melee. The fact that this game has melee combat in it at all is the dumbest, most illogical, most unbalancing, most 'immersion' breaking bullcrap in the history of bullcrap.

Titans make sense in 40k, Planes make sense in 40k, Gargantuans make sense in 40k, a Furry running around with a hunk of metal glued to a stick and thinking he's helping is idiotic.

Yeah giant Alien Dinosaur Lizards have no business using melee. Neither do giant Demon Monsters, how rediculious, almost as rediculious as your post claiming melee has no business in 40k. Let's just invalidate 3 or 4 armies so we only have guys running around with armour and guns! If that's immersion breaking to you I suggest you change table top game

Erjack: go watch Starship troopers. There is a scene in bootcamp where one of the recruits asks the drill sgt why they are learning hth combat since in a nuke war all you have to do is push a button. The drill sgt tells the trooper to hold up his hand and then throws a knife into his palm. While retrieving the name he explains the lesson: "The enemy cannot push a button, if you disable his hand."

Even in our modern warfare soldiers are trained in hth. It can become necessary, and in 40k your enemy just might be some alien monster that closes the distance and bites/claws/or stabs at you without any form of ranged attack available. Making use of real-life predator tactics such as pack-hunting, ambush, speed, or sheer resiliance to make it to the target.

Firstly, I want to say the following arguement is not being made from a crunch perspective but a fluff one:

The game finally resembles the lore. Thanks to the changes Marines can shrug off more damage as they need to be by S8+ to start being wounded by twos, and most weapons give them some level of save, this is perfectly in line with them wading into fire and shrugging off heavy wounds. Likewise with everything having the potential to kill anything we have those moments where someone gets lucky and accidently kills a vehicle through a desperate attempt, but at the same time we have vehicles with enough wounds that those lucky shots are more likly just going to be chipping paint instead of actually doing anything useful.

The flow of the game resembles the universe as a whole that we know and love and frankly that is a wonderful thing. A friggin plus job on this.

Now, from a crunch side, I also appreciate the changes. No longer does an army of mostly infantry need to standby and doing nothing just because the opponent is still inside their metal boxes, of because someone brought an army of Knights. Yes, regular guys aren't the best choice to kill tanks or Knights or even a bugzilla list, but they actually have a reasonable chance now, which makes the game a heck of a lot more balanced than it ever was before.

I disagree with homogenizing vehicle damage. This is one of those things where I felt like fixing the core mechanics to enable more tactical play. Be it making vehicles have more restrictive movement options (remove the Tokyo Drift Aspect of metal boxes), making Overwatch a properly fleshed out choice (so you can wait until the enemy disembarks before getting a chance to shoot), making anti-infantry relevant, fixing vehicle/MC damage distribution, or even being able to do crazy tricks like air-dropping mines or tank traps, there should be more alternatives to disabling your opponent besides creating a system where rock beats Merkava.

Anecdote time. Just after the 6th ed Dark Eldar book dropped a friend and I had a game where he brought wyches without haywire grenades. I charged those units with 2 Armored Sentinels in the second turn. Those units were locked for the rest of the game because only 1 model in each wych unit had any weapons that good glance on a 6. Sentinels were crud at fighting the wyches so never even killed 1. The rest of my all infantry guard shot up the rest of his dark eldar forces before any of them could bring any decent weapons to bear.

Anything can potentially wound anything is a great thing. That potentiality may be very low, but again: good.

We're still on about the "anything can hurt anything" deal? Really?
Low Strength weapons will take hundreds of shots to kill a high toughness target with a good save and multiple wounds, something that is almost certain not to happen over the course of a game. Are people really going to complain that you can strip a couple of wounds off a Knight with lasguns, when the new system allows for wounds and stat profiles to actually matter?

AP without modifiers and the old To Wound table were terrible ideas since 3rd edition, and they were one of the main reasons the game got so bloated and unbalanced.

I like the new chart. It gives the game cohesion and the ability to have different Strength and Toughness values without being tightly coupled to a chart that is rigid and inflexible.

I am also completely okay with anything having a chance to wound anything. A Lasgun can be overcharged in the fluff to draing its charge and punch right through a Chaos Space Marine (anyone read Gaunt's Ghosts recenty?), so they can be powerful enough to do significant damage to heavily armored targets. A Boltgun is firing a little explosive rocket, and Eldar Shuriken weapons send zillions of little sharp slivers at the target. That 6+ to wound anything can represent the shooter getting a lucky shot through a vision slit/monster's face, taking off a piece of equipment (you seen how many dangling hoses, comm-dishes, smoke launchers, or other fiddly bits the tanks have?), overcharging an energy weapon, or the unit concentrating fire on a single fixed point, or getting lucky shots in a hole or gaping wound that was already blown open by a different weapon's blast. Does it take some imagination and creativity to come up with possible explanations? Sure! But why is that a bad thing?

I also like the simplified damage chart for vehicles. Rather than trying to keep track of everything on a tank for damage, just keep track of its remaining wounds to know what it can do. This way can still keep some vehicles kind of deadly with luck, giving them a chance to still do SOMETHING even if they have weathered tremendous amounts of damage and just won't go down, rather than being stun-locked, or having all weapons destroyed and becoming a mobile paperweight. Plus, having the same mechanic apply to Monstrous Creatures helps bring them in line with vehicles on the power spectrum.

 Galas wrote:
... even if I don't like them, I can emphatize with people that do and has spend money and time in those models.

Empathy is a skill that seems to be lacking on these forums when it comes to Edition changes.

steerpike92 wrote:
When you consider how many filters are in place to prevent low strength, low ap, low damage weapons from hurting high toughness, high armor, many wound models, this is a non-issue.

It's not fair to claim any weapon can "hurt" any model. It's more fair to say any weapon can "interact" with any model.

Indeed, a unit's durability is not just in its Toughness and Save anymore, but also in its Wound count. (I mean, 2 Wound Terminators! How long have people been asking for that?) But really, the high Wound count on units is how a monstrous creature and tank can be given greater survivability, and the degrading damage chart works just fine for representing damage over time, rather than having additional charts to roll on for damage.

 Don Savik wrote:
In the world wars they had tanks being brought down by flamethrowers, machine guns, mines, grenades, planes, etc etc etc. Tanks aren't invincible behemoths that require other tanks to destroy them. They're versatile, fast, and deadly, but a single skilled person can destroy them. I see no reason why the sci-fi future should be different. Its not like Predators have force fields or something.

Heck in games like Halo they have Spartans blowing up whole Scarabs by themselves. In Star Wars they have fighters not meant for heavy combat taking out giant armored walkers. Or worse, a single gungan being lucky/stupid (jar jar would make a great ork). I don't see why 40k should be the one universe were none of what I just talked about applies.

Ah, I remember those days, playing Halo 3.... Making lucky grenade tosses, sniping drivers out of their vehicles (including the flyers), and having awesome moments of a team being coordinated and concentrating fire on targets (infantry and vehicles alike) and bringing the enemy down swiftly. My favorite time was when I carried my team in a 16v16 Team Deathmatch, and I scored 50 kills to the other teams 49 and won the game (seriously, I don't know how that happened, but it was awesome!).

The hotels and the little thimbles in Monopoly are totally our of scale with each other. Only a relative giant could use those thimbles! So who the hell lives in the hotels?!?!? It doesn't make any sense.

stratigo wrote:

fe40k wrote:
Most things will be at a 5+, or more likely 6+, to wound a vehicle. That's not factoring in the To Hit roll or the Armor Saves;

I'm glad that things are killable. That said, they have so many more wounds now that GL killing them with anything but dedicated anti-tank.

It actually isn't hard to mass enough melee or lasguns to blow up a land raider in a turn.

Yes it is, quit propagating this nonsense. And if you managed to pull it off, that's still a million times better then a 250+ point unit dying to a freaking 5 point infantry upgrade in 6th/7th. (Melta Bombs)

As for the ops question, go play it. It's not that different then before except now vehicles actually stand a chance instead of just evaporating on a lucky 6.
List of units that got substantially better:
Chariots (No more sniping riders)
Leman Russ (No more ordinance and instant death nonsense for the tank commanders)
Land Raiders, Takes much more than one melta gun to kill it with a 2+ save. Four melta guns are going to do 12-16 wounds, and you have a chance to save on a 6+.
Transports in general
ALL Dark Eldar Vehicles
Ork Trukks
Tempestus Prime

The Ork Trukk and Prime are now the most annoying vehicles in the game. Everyone on this board will be tired of assaulting ork trukks and Prime Spam in a couple months, mark my words.

Think of it this way as well, your infantry no longer get "doubled out". Leadership checks are much harsher and have been nerfed on armies that previously ignored it, and buffed or kept the same on armies that were well off before.

To sum up: Infantry have much more ways of outright dying, which nerfs some of the nonsense in 7th. Vehicles are substantially tougher, but can take negative modifiers the more they get damaged. Nothing is "immune" to damage, but the tougher units take a ton of damage before they go down. (And in nids case they can take units with them when they die lol.)

 Luciferian wrote:
We're still on about the "anything can hurt anything" deal? Really?
Low Strength weapons will take hundreds of shots to kill a high toughness target with a good save and multiple wounds, something that is almost certain not to happen over the course of a game. Are people really going to complain that you can strip a couple of wounds off a Knight with lasguns, when the new system allows for wounds and stat profiles to actually matter?

AP without modifiers and the old To Wound table were terrible ideas since 3rd edition, and they were one of the main reasons the game got so bloated and unbalanced.

I respectfully disagree with this. The reason for bad balance between armies between the editions is not because of some individual statistical legerdemain, so much as on an army-per army-per level, some armies either lacked critical tools altogether, or had non-scalable Force Organization Charts/bad detachments, or some got some tools that were a bit too much for an edition/ignored rules other armies had to adhere to.

That being said, the issue was not that vehicles were binary ("you have AT or you don't") so much as the game made many vehicles relatively low-damage for their cost, as they were paying for the illusion of durability. However, the HP system introduced in 6th ultimately made it far easier to kill vehicles by stripping HP down with weight of fire (Scatter Lasers, Autocannons, etc) than weapons which were supposedly specialized for AT (Krak Missiles, Lascannons, etc). Nobody ever took Heavy Rail Rifles on Broadsides for example, when Hi Yield Missile Pods cost the same, had 4 times as many shots, and only one strength less.

So you tweak the system by adding more HP to vehicles, and modifying the vehicle damage charts upward, starting at AP 3 or even 4. Just to keep "one shots" from being a thing, replace Instant Death and Vehicle Destroyed-Explodes with "an extra d3 wounds/hp" or so. You don't create a system where you can have Land Raiders theoretically attritioned down by Shuriken Catapults (Doom and Bladestorm do make it far more probable compared to other options), or a game where Rhinos get roadblocked on 2-point Brimstone Horrors while they get Smited to death.

FWIW: I always felt that Knights should have separate profiles for their legs/arms/Hull, rather than a single one, so you could focus on shooting its RFBC off for example.

In what i've played so far, vehicles being wounded by small arms is really not a concern. They have been totally and completely ineffective and i'm glad when people fire their small arms into my tanks.

Where this gets interesting is the diminished value of strength 6, and strength 7. While these used to reliably wound on 2 against most of their choice targets, they're now wounding on 3s. On the flip side, strength 3 weaponry is far superior to what it once was, wounding T5 models on a 5.

 MagicJuggler wrote:


That being said, the issue was not that vehicles were binary ("you have AT or you don't") so much as the game made many vehicles relatively low-damage for their cost, as they were paying for the illusion of durability. However, the HP system introduced in 6th ultimately made it far easier to kill vehicles by stripping HP down with weight of fire (Scatter Lasers, Autocannons, etc) than weapons which were supposedly specialized for AT (Krak Missiles, Lascannons, etc). Nobody ever took Heavy Rail Rifles on Broadsides for example, when Hi Yield Missile Pods cost the same, had 4 times as many shots, and only one strength less.

Yeah and the end result is krak missile felt very weak and autocannons became the new standard for stripping hull points. Even looking at a lot of heavy weapons in 8th, plenty just seem too niche and too low output. Value amount of shots far before damage output, I haven't seen enough high toughness models to care. Even looking as say a vindicator vs a stalker, the stalker seems better most of the time.

I don't think it makes sense for there to be 1 tank in a battle. I think it makes even less sense for there to be one missile launcher, one self-propelled howitzer, and one mortar carrier grouped up in an artillery section. It makes still even less sense for that artillery to be within 100 yards of the enemy. It also makes no sense to have a maximum gun range of 50 yards on rifles. So if we're going to complain about realism, let's start there.

With regards to vehicles, I think that Monstrous Creatures and things with multiple would in general aren't great. I don't see why my Leman Russ Vanquisher Cannon won't blow a massive chunk out of a Riptide, crippling it.

I don't think the problem was with vehicles being too fragile, I think it was with multiple wound targets being too tough. An antitank shell achieving penetration is effectively a disable tank.

I always thought of wounds [and structure points] as a sort of plot-armor, not a measure of toughness. That's what toughness and armour represent.

I proposed elsewhere that my preferred solution would have been to do away with the Monstrous Creature type entirely. Make Carnifexes 11/11/10 Walkers. Any result of the vehicle damage table can be logically applied to a Carnifex or other monstrous creature without difficulty.

 Marmatag wrote:
In what i've played so far, vehicles being wounded by small arms is really not a concern. They have been totally and completely ineffective and i'm glad when people fire their small arms into my tanks.

Orcs dont need to fire their small arms anymore. They will charge, and eat any vehicle for breakfast in 8th, in CC. Unless it has T8 and/or 2+ SV. Any vehicle lower than that is killed in 1-2 rounds.

 Kommissar Kel wrote:
Erjack: go watch Starship troopers. There is a scene in bootcamp where one of the recruits asks the drill sgt why they are learning hth combat since in a nuke war all you have to do is push a button. The drill sgt tells the trooper to hold up his hand and then throws a knife into his palm. While retrieving the name he explains the lesson: "The enemy cannot push a button, if you disable his hand."

Even in our modern warfare soldiers are trained in hth. It can become necessary, and in 40k your enemy just might be some alien monster that closes the distance and bites/claws/or stabs at you without any form of ranged attack available. Making use of real-life predator tactics such as pack-hunting, ambush, speed, or sheer resiliance to make it to the target.

You know that Starship Troopers isn't a documentary right? Nor are you supposed to think they are right about the crazy things they are often saying. The movie is literally a parody of the macho attitude that segment is trying to exemplify.

You know how else you can disable the enemies hand? Shooting them with the pistol right there by your side. Shooting them with the rifle which will kill them much more quickly and much more accurately.

Does the military still train hand to hand? Yes, but there isn't a large emphasis on it and it is primarily intended for conditioning and mentality, not for practical effect. Or for incredibly specific and specialized missions or desperation.

Even in the most close quarters urban combat, the primary weapon is rifles, or if you really need to cut down, submachine guns.

In response to the guy saying the military would arm a guy in power armor with a sword as a primary weapon in real life? The only way that would happen is if there were no ranged weapons which could cut through power armor. If that soldier could be armed with a plasma rifle that can cut through armor and heavily damage even vehicle armor? At no point would you ever invest in arming your power armored troopers with a "power sword." At best, you might see something like a power knife or possibly short sword used as a sneak weapon for special forces squads when shooting a plasma weapon could blow the mission. You know what else can cut through armor at close range? Plasma rifles. Just like it is now. A sword is still lethal. Arguably more lethal than it was in the middle ages as almost no one wears the kind of armor that would stop a sword from cutting into you. The problem is, rifles will cut through people at the same range swords will + every range longer than that.\

Which is fine, 40k works on rules of cool not rules of simulation. Which is kind of the point. Every part of 40k is absurd. The focus on melee combat, the weapon ranges, the concepts of how to arm your infantry, the flyers, just about everything about 40k is silly on every level. If you want better simulationist rules for sci fi go for Infinity. It actually is skirmish based and has a lot more sense making - but there is still crazy shenanigans everywhere because it's hard to make a fun game that is simulationist.

Well, I didn't expect this thread to get this much discussion. Excellent.

In light of what people have said I am actually feeling quite optimistic about this new edition and am considering getting into after leaving early 7th ed. I suppose one bonus of having every weapon capable of causing damge is that you could use big, distracting tough units to draw fire away from your weaker troops; something that wouldn't work if they were invulnerable to low-mid strength anti-infantry weapons.

I still think there's merit in arguing for 1+ to wound. If a T3 model survives lascannon hit because it only grazed him the I'd say thats an effect of the shot not being completely on target, not function of how tough he is. However if one wants to reduce the number of dice rolls in the game then it's probably not worth focusing on high strength weapons that roll very few dice.

Don't have a problem with the wound chart here, yes anything can take the odd wound off anything - the bigger stuff has so many wounds that if that one or two wounds extra matters the thing is either near dead (in which case 'fred finished it off with a lone pole into something vital' fits) or its an early would, maybe damaging something that caused a cascade effect later.

It also allows the occasional moment of awesome when a grot finishes off something expensive, and its something to punish over confidence which is no bad thing.

Actually think melee should be more dangerous than it is, but harder to get into - infantry up close may have trouble blowing a tank up, but can certainly immobilise it by jamming the tracks and render its weapons useless by blinding it - which is in effect a kill.

The issue with melee to me is how ridiculously easy it is to get into, models move far too fast relative to weapons ranges and overwatch is nowhere near good enough - through in a proper pinning mechanic and then you are talking.

e.g. borrow the Flames concept, a pinned unit shoots with half rate of fire (round down, minimum of one) - so to assault you need to weaken a unit, then pin it, but when you get in you'll murder them

ERJAK wrote:

 vipoid wrote:
Whilst I can understand the intent, I do wonder if this was the best way to go about it. It's certainly a bit odd when S7 is no better than S5 against T4 or T8-9 targets.

In this regard though, I think a major limitation is that the game only uses d6s.

I think the main issue though (as others have already mentioned) is that the scale of 40k is beyond ridiculous. Infantry should not be on the same board as titanic behemoths.

It would be far better for 40k to put Apocalypse units (Flyers, super-heavies, lords of war etc.) back into Apocalypse. They simply have no place in standard 40k and trying to shoehorn them in has consistently led to buggering up the rules for everyone.

I hate this argument. You know what's actually buggering up the rules? You know what actually makes the game silly? You know what REALLY doesn't have a place in 40k?

Fething Melee. The fact that this game has melee combat in it at all is the dumbest, most illogical, most unbalancing, most 'immersion' breaking bullcrap in the history of bullcrap.

Titans make sense in 40k, Planes make sense in 40k, Gargantuans make sense in 40k, a Furry running around with a hunk of metal glued to a stick and thinking he's helping is idiotic.

What's even worse is that up until the 17th, Running one super-elite melee squad was more effective than any shooting unless you were fielding enough firepower to completely table a 2k point army in 1-2 turns.

Apocalypse units are bad?

Death Star units were bad. They caused me and my entire group of friends to abandon 40k, or even wargaming all-together, for almost 2 entire editions because they were absolutely no fun.

My friend that played chaos? He loved deathstars.

My necrons? Can't do them at all.

And, they make all my neat, shiny, new units completely irrelevant.

If we're going to talk about stuff that doesn't belong in 40k, lets talk about deathstars and how much fun I've had in the past week now that I don't have to freaking worry about them.

Marksman224 wrote:
Well, I didn't expect this thread to get this much discussion. Excellent.

In light of what people have said I am actually feeling quite optimistic about this new edition and am considering getting into after leaving early 7th ed. I suppose one bonus of having every weapon capable of causing damge is that you could use big, distracting tough units to draw fire away from your weaker troops; something that wouldn't work if they were invulnerable to low-mid strength anti-infantry weapons.

I still think there's merit in arguing for 1+ to wound. If a T3 model survives lascannon hit because it only grazed him the I'd say thats an effect of the shot not being completely on target, not function of how tough he is. However if one wants to reduce the number of dice rolls in the game then it's probably not worth focusing on high strength weapons that roll very few dice.

We now have the hilarious fact that Guardians are point-for-point a better AT choice than Fire Prisms. So the system is... weird...

At least damage/toughness/wound comparisons are easier now. One thing I quite like about 8e is that the rules need only one or two readings, and then you only need to reference for specific things or because your memory is bad.

And it still has a lovable clunkiness.

In regards to a 1+ to-wound, I find it a bit meh. There's always a chance that you just hit the dude in the hand or whatever. I wouldn't object to an "Overpenetration" rule, where one-shot high-power weapons shooting at weak infantry get to hit a second time if they successfully wound.

ERJAK wrote:


I hate this argument. You know what's actually buggering up the rules? You know what actually makes the game silly? You know what REALLY doesn't have a place in 40k?

Fething Melee. The fact that this game has melee combat in it at all is the dumbest, most illogical, most unbalancing, most 'immersion' breaking bullcrap in the history of bullcrap.

Titans make sense in 40k, Planes make sense in 40k, Gargantuans make sense in 40k, a Furry running around with a hunk of metal glued to a stick and thinking he's helping is idiotic.

 Slayer le boucher wrote:

ERJAK wrote:


I hate this argument. You know what's actually buggering up the rules? You know what actually makes the game silly? You know what REALLY doesn't have a place in 40k?

Fething Melee. The fact that this game has melee combat in it at all is the dumbest, most illogical, most unbalancing, most 'immersion' breaking bullcrap in the history of bullcrap.

Titans make sense in 40k, Planes make sense in 40k, Gargantuans make sense in 40k, a Furry running around with a hunk of metal glued to a stick and thinking he's helping is idiotic.

This is the only appropriate response to people who say no to 40k melee XD