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I was wondering if anyone here has made any house rules for 8th edition.

Two I'm thinking about doing are

#1: cover for intervening terrain

#2: Only the core body counts for LOS. Antennae, Tails, Wings, Boss poles, Wings, etc. This is to keep people from losing advantage from a Sergeant with an outstretched Chainsword sticking out of cover, or a tank antennae being able to be seen over terrain.

How about you?

The only ones we've done so far is terrain. We've ditched the majority of the rules as written.

I'll be playing 8E tomorrow modified w/ alternating activation - something I'm really looking forward to.

Hatachi wrote:
I was wondering if anyone here has made any house rules for 8th edition.

Two I'm thinking about doing are

#1: cover for intervening terrain

#2: Only the core body counts for LOS. Antennae, Tails, Wings, Boss poles, Wings, etc. This is to keep people from losing advantage from a Sergeant with an outstretched Chainsword sticking out of cover, or a tank antennae being able to be seen over terrain.

How about you?

They've actually explained how LoS works with Vehicles a bit better in the Designer's Commentary, so your House Rule #2 is a bit less needed with Vehicles at least.

Q. When a model does not have a base, as is the case with many vehicles, what exactly is the ‘hull’ of the model?
A. The hull of these models refers to the main body of the model. It does not include things such as turrets,
sponsons, aerials, banners, spikes etc. If there is still doubt, we recommend both players agree about
what constitutes the hull of such models before the battle begins.

You can target and fire your weapons 1 at a time

Its dumb where you have to go "I hope my battlecannon kills your 3 marines because my heavy bolters are firing at your other squad" instead of "Oh My Battlecannon left 1 marine alive? I shall fire my heavy bolters into him"

 commander dante wrote:
You can target and fire your weapons 1 at a time

Its dumb where you have to go "I hope my battlecannon kills your 3 marines because my heavy bolters are firing at your other squad" instead of "Oh My Battlecannon left 1 marine alive? I shall fire my heavy bolters into him"

If this were applied to single models I think it would be reasonable but certainly not on units of multiple models.

 Fentlegen wrote:
They've actually explained how LoS works with Vehicles a bit better in the Designer's Commentary, so your House Rule #2 is a bit less needed with Vehicles at least.

Q. When a model does not have a base, as is the case with many vehicles, what exactly is the ‘hull’ of the model?
A. The hull of these models refers to the main body of the model. It does not include things such as turrets,
sponsons, aerials, banners, spikes etc. If there is still doubt, we recommend both players agree about
what constitutes the hull of such models before the battle begins.

I didn't notice that in the Designer's Commentary. Good to know!

The only thing we've discussed is terrain and cover in general.

The fact that a unit in the woods gets cover, but the unit behind the woods (and the unit inside them), is either untargetable (because you can't see them at all) or targeted completely normally if any one shooting model can see any part of any target model is not only ridiculous, but it also abstracts and diminishes the role of cover to a point where it makes the game feel bland.

We also have a LOT of available terrain, so we like the idea of things that can easily be moved over (just measure actual distances) and things that are difficult to move over (and so have penalties similar to woods, or other penalties).

We also have a ton of buildings and structures, so we will have to come up with rules for all of those, since all of the old ones were obsoleted, and the new rules seem to treat them as nothing but LOS blocking walls.

Given the proliferation of bespoke rules for every unit in every army, I'm really, really surprised that there wasn't a large, extensive list of terrain elements (corresponding to terrain they sell) in the rulebook.

We have a few that I was going to type out and dump into proposed rules.

Cover: keeping whole unit or no-cover, allowing intervening terrain. Completely re-doing forrest(we use forrest-bases with moveable/removable trees so abstracted into forest border is cover, more than 1" out of border is cover for target unit, 2" or more of intervening forest base is no los.

Kill teams/ swa "gangs" as a single unit. For fluffy/narrative games.

Overheating weapons have "when firing with this profile" added to the beginning.

Ignore units that cannot be targeted(like in combat) for determining if a character is the closest visible unit.

And many more.

Modifiers apply before rerolls.
VEHICLES and MONSTERS may move though INFANTRY models when falling back and making charge moves.
Plasma does D6 mortal wounds instead of outright slain when it overheats.
Flamers do 2D3 hits instead of 1D6.
Characters can be targeted if they are not within 4" of another unit, even if they aren't the closest unit.

If they added that then 8.1 edition would be so much better.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Modifiers apply before rerolls.
Plasma does D6 mortal wounds instead of outright slain when it overheats.

Mortal wounds spillover.

Flamers do 2D3 hits instead of 1D6.

You'd need a cost increase for this.

Characters can be targeted if they are not within 4" of another unit, even if they aren't the closest unit.

What scenario does this address? Very few characters are every far from a unit given then auras they provide.


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 commander dante wrote:
You can target and fire your weapons 1 at a time

Its dumb where you have to go "I hope my battlecannon kills your 3 marines because my heavy bolters are firing at your other squad" instead of "Oh My Battlecannon left 1 marine alive? I shall fire my heavy bolters into him"

You're exposing yourself to gaminess. It allows people to optimally fire weapons, wait for the result, and then move on and it completely removes any thought process of target selection.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Hatachi wrote:
I was wondering if anyone here has made any house rules for 8th edition.

Two I'm thinking about doing are

#1: cover for intervening terrain

Are you sure you want conscripts behind a forest getting a 4+ or tanks getting a 2+?

Daedalus81 wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Modifiers apply before rerolls.
Plasma does D6 mortal wounds instead of outright slain when it overheats.

Mortal wounds spillover.

Good Point. D6 AP -10 wounds then. Seems fair to allow invulnerable.

Flamers do 2D3 hits instead of 1D6.

You'd need a cost increase for this.

Flamers are already underwhelming for the cost.

Characters can be targeted if they are not within 4" of another unit, even if they aren't the closest unit.

What scenario does this address? Very few characters are every far from a unit given then auras they provide.

Scenarios like this:

Avatar of Khane Totally Alone and no other units within 19.9"<--10"-->Terminus Ultra<--9.9"--> Single Eldar Guardian.

Shall we engage the horrendous Aeldari monstrosity sitting in the open and totally and obviously targetable, Honourable Battle Brother?
Negative, Honourable Battle Brother, there is a SINGLE AELDARI CIVILIAN a Planck length closer to us!

 commander dante wrote:
You can target and fire your weapons 1 at a time

Its dumb where you have to go "I hope my battlecannon kills your 3 marines because my heavy bolters are firing at your other squad" instead of "Oh My Battlecannon left 1 marine alive? I shall fire my heavy bolters into him"

completely disagree. the rules as is simulate battle a lot more realistically. you wouldn't be waiting to see what each weapon did before firing the next one in real life.

 benlac wrote:

 commander dante wrote:
You can target and fire your weapons 1 at a time

Its dumb where you have to go "I hope my battlecannon kills your 3 marines because my heavy bolters are firing at your other squad" instead of "Oh My Battlecannon left 1 marine alive? I shall fire my heavy bolters into him"

completely disagree. the rules as is simulate battle a lot more realistically. you wouldn't be waiting to see what each weapon did before firing the next one in real life.

Also disagree,but for completwelt different reason. It's more fun when you actuallly have to make a choice that might bite you. Am I gonna be safe and make sure it dies or just shoot enough that it should die so I can use the rest of the fire elsewhere? With a house rule that allows me to pick as I go, it would also slow down the game immensely as I shoot one gun at a time to make sure I never use more than necessary.

 Fentlegen wrote:
They've actually explained how LoS works with Vehicles a bit better in the Designer's Commentary, so your House Rule #2 is a bit less needed with Vehicles at least.

Q. When a model does not have a base, as is the case with many vehicles, what exactly is the ‘hull’ of the model?
A. The hull of these models refers to the main body of the model. It does not include things such as turrets,
sponsons, aerials, banners, spikes etc. If there is still doubt, we recommend both players agree about
what constitutes the hull of such models before the battle begins.

Wow. "When drawing LOS from a tank to see if it can shoot don't draw LOS from its weapons". Remind me again why 8th is a good thing?

Because it removes how a weapon is modelled as a game consideration. This both facilitates conversions and prevents GWs designers (many of whom are not players) from screwing up how a vehicle works. (see manticore which lost its turret, various tanks with turret guns that have no depression so can't shoot infantry unless they stand on a hill, etc.)

Also, that bit of the commentary seemed to surprise you - you didn't notice that the rules never say to draw LoS from the weapons?

 Scott-S6 wrote:
Because it removes how a weapon is modelled as a game consideration. This both facilitates conversions and prevents GWs designers (many of whom are not players) from screwing up how a vehicle works. (see manticore which lost its turret, various tanks with turret guns that have no depression so can't shoot infantry unless they stand on a hill, etc.)

No, it's blatantly stupid. If I have a LRBT parked behind cover with only the turret poking out (fluff-wise an ideal firing position) I can't shoot because I don't have LOS from the "hull" of the tank. The vehicle dumpster fire of 8th was a solution in need of a problem, lack of depression was already covered by the up/down 45* rule and conversions don't need to be covered by the rules.

Also, that bit of the commentary seemed to surprise you - you didn't notice that the rules never say to draw LoS from the weapons?

No, I knew that in the original rules you could draw LOS from anywhere on the model, including tips of antennas, etc. I just didn't expect GW to take the stupid option in fixing the problem and remove the actual weapons as possible LOS points in addition to saying "banners/antennas/etc don't count".

The only thing we've comsidered house ruling so far are the gawdawful rules for deployment. Like... The way it's currently written, you're almost always better off losing the roll for placing objectives, because being able to pick deployment type AND which zone you start in is a game-winning advantage.

GW line of sight rules have been atrocious since 5th edition.
About time the community got together to do its own 9th age rules balance.

 Peregrine wrote:
No, it's blatantly stupid. If I have a LRBT parked behind cover with only the turret poking out (fluff-wise an ideal firing position) I can't shoot because I don't have LOS from the "hull" of the tank. The vehicle dumpster fire of 8th was a solution in need of a problem, lack of depression was already covered by the up/down 45* rule and conversions don't need to be covered by the rules.

That's why they ruled it this way. Its extremely unbalanced to have a unit be able to shoot and be untargetable in return. 40k is a game, not a real worl simulator

 CrownAxe wrote:
That's why they ruled it this way. Its extremely unbalanced to have a unit be able to shoot and be untargetable in return. 40k is a game, not a real worl simulator

Why would the unit be untargetable? The turret is visible, so you have LOS to the tank. The tank just gets a cover save like any other unit behind cover.

 Peregrine wrote:

 CrownAxe wrote:
That's why they ruled it this way. Its extremely unbalanced to have a unit be able to shoot and be untargetable in return. 40k is a game, not a real worl simulator

Why would the unit be untargetable? The turret is visible, so you have LOS to the tank. The tank just gets a cover save like any other unit behind cover.

I think he's getting confused. Turret isn't hull per the designer's commentary but hull is for measuring, LoS is any part of the model to any part of the model.

And you don't get cover for being behind a terrain piece - you need to be in the terrain and obscured.


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 Peregrine wrote:

 Scott-S6 wrote:
Also, that bit of the commentary seemed to surprise you - you didn't notice that the rules never say to draw LoS from the weapons?

No, I knew that in the original rules you could draw LOS from anywhere on the model, including tips of antennas, etc. I just didn't expect GW to take the stupid option in fixing the problem and remove the actual weapons as possible LOS points in addition to saying "banners/antennas/etc don't count".

That is not what they said - the definition of hull means don't measure to\from weapons. LoS is not to\from the hull, it's to\from the model.

 Scott-S6 wrote:
And you don't get cover for being behind a terrain piece - you need to be in the terrain and obscured.

I'm making the assumption that everyone acknowledges how stupid RAW is on that and makes the obvious change to have obscured models get cover saves.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Scott-S6 wrote:
And you don't get cover for being behind a terrain piece - you need to be in the terrain and obscured.

I'm making the assumption that everyone acknowledges how stupid RAW is on that and makes the obvious change to have obscured models get cover saves.

not everyone thinks it's a problem. That's your subjective opinion

 Peregrine wrote:

 Scott-S6 wrote:
And you don't get cover for being behind a terrain piece - you need to be in the terrain and obscured.

I'm making the assumption that everyone acknowledges how stupid RAW is on that and makes the obvious change to have obscured models get cover saves.

Well if we're going to start down that that road then obviously we need to bring back the ability to choose which part of a vehicle we're going to aim for because you don't just fire anti tank weapons wildly at the target and it is stupid that the RAW says we can't aim more selectively.



We can also assume that everyone acknowledges the need for different toughness values for the various armour sections & systems and that its just stupid that weapon strength and armour toughness isn't modified based on the angle between the shot and the armour.

 CrownAxe wrote:
not everyone thinks it's a problem. That's your subjective opinion

If you honestly think it's reasonable for a model/unit behind a wall that covers 75% of the model/unit to get no benefit from that cover because it isn't inside the wall, well, I don't know what to say to you.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Scott-S6 wrote:
Well if we're going to start down that that road then obviously we need to bring back the ability to choose which part of a vehicle we're going to aim for because you don't just fire anti tank weapons wildly at the target and it is stupid that the RAW says we can't aim more selectively.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope

 Peregrine wrote:

 CrownAxe wrote:
not everyone thinks it's a problem. That's your subjective opinion

If you honestly think it's reasonable for a model/unit behind a wall that covers 75% of the model/unit to get no benefit from that cover because it isn't inside the wall, well, I don't know what to say to you.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Scott-S6 wrote:
Well if we're going to start down that that road then obviously we need to bring back the ability to choose which part of a vehicle we're going to aim for because you don't just fire anti tank weapons wildly at the target and it is stupid that the RAW says we can't aim more selectively.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope

It's not a fallacy when it's the truth.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
It's not a fallacy when it's the truth.

No, it's a blatant slippery slope fallacy. There's no requirement that if you allow units behind cover (walls, buildings, etc) to receive cover saves you have to bring back the awkward and excessively detailed vehicle mechanics from 20 years ago. Allowing LOS-blocking terrain as well as area terrain worked just fine in previous editions and there was no reason to change it in 8th. The only plausible explanation is that GW's rule designers are too incompetent to get 8th out in a functional state (as demonstrated by the extensive day-one FAQs) and nobody realized that RAW was broken.

Everything in a wargame is an abstraction.

You seem really hung up on the intervening cover when abstracting that is no more "stupid" than any of the other abstractions.

What is the negative game impact of this specific abstraction? I would suggest that combining obscuration cover with the ability to fire all weapons with LoS from any point is a problematic combination (because there is no negative to being in cover).

So we also need to bring back firing arcs and LoS from the weapon mount. Are we going to do the same for monstrous creatures or are we going to bring back the MC/vehicle divide where one or the other can be significantly worse as the rules change?

It is a slippery slope.

 Scott-S6 wrote:
You seem really hung up on the intervening cover when abstracting that is no more "stupid" than any of the other abstractions.

No, it's far worse than the other abstractions because there's no good reason for it. Abstracting vehicle damage makes sense (though 8th went way too far with it) because it provides major improvements in speed/ease of play without much impact on strategic choices. This is something that GW realized very quickly, as the vehicle mechanics from 20 years ago were remove in favor of a simpler system. Abstracting cover into only area terrain doesn't offer the same benefit. It does very little to simplify the game but removes major strategic elements, and it was working just fine in previous editions so there was no reason to change it. It feels less like a sensible game design decision and more like the incompetent rule authors assigned to make 8th edition forgot to put that paragraph into the rulebook.

What is the negative game impact of this specific abstraction?

The negative impact is that large amounts of terrain features that people have been using for years suddenly become irrelevant. Walls, buildings, vehicle wrecks, etc, all lose their entire in-game purpose and you might as well toss them in the trash. They don't block LOS 100% (remember, seeing even a tiny 1mm speck of a model is enough for LOS) and they aren't area terrain that a unit can stand in so they might as well not be on the table at all. And it takes away the movement strategy of using terrain features for defense. You can no longer maneuver behind terrain features to protect a unit, you have to camp inside the terrain if you want to get any benefit at all.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Scott-S6 wrote:
I would suggest that combining obscuration cover with the ability to fire all weapons with LoS from any point is a problematic combination (because there is no negative to being in cover).

There isn't any negative to being in cover RAW. You put your unit inside the cover, you get to shoot all your weapons without any penalty and get the defensive bonus. The only difference is that more terrain features can grant cover instead of being completely pointless.

So we also need to bring back firing arcs and LoS from the weapon mount.

Yes, that's exactly what we should do. This worked just fine in previous editions and there was no reason to change it in 8th.

Are we going to do the same monstrous creatures or are we going to bring back the MC/vehicle divide where one or the other cam be significantly worse as the rules change?

The MC/vehicle divide is easy to fix: stop making vehicles have MC rules. Things like Riptides should never have been MCs, and if you limit MCs to being a handful of actual monsters and fix the point cost on some specific MCs most of the vehicle vs. MC problem goes away.

There is no negative to being in cover in this edition (which is presumably why they've made it much harder to get cover) - in previous editions most vehicles would lose some portion of their firepower for being in cover. Therefore, as you've just agreed, this is a change that will require further changes.

Fire arcs had loads of problems. Weapons that can't shoot infantry in front of them without shooting through the hull (but you're okay with that abstraction). That led to shooting sponsors through the hull (I don't recall which side of that debate you fell on). Elevation/depression was ignored by almost everyone for flyers. Points values for weapons will need to be different depending on the mounting (clearly hull mounted is worth less than sponson mounted is worth less than turret mounted - how to price the razorshark turret weapons that have 360 against ground targets but limited arcs against other flyers?) More changes needed.

As for actual gameplay impact your only negative is that smaller terrain features are now just maneuver obstacles and LoS blockers for smaller models? Its hardly the first time people have needed to adjust their terrain for a new edition. Make some tank DFPs for your table if it's something you think you really need.