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 Eihnlazer wrote:
Another option is:

Units within 1" of enemy models may choose to "fall back" during their movement phase. If they do so they must move their full move characteristic away from the enemy models they were engaged with. They can no longer choose to shoot or assault for the remainder of the turn. Any allied units now receive a -2 to hit the enemy unit they were engaged with in the following shooting phase as they do not want to hit their retreating allies. This penalty does not stack for retreating multiple units, but does stack with any other penalties to hit.



This is a small addition to the rules and does not cause much confusion. You can still choose to fall back and shoot with everything, only with a -2 to hit.

You would need to clarify what "away from the enemy" means when your units are spread out and wrapped in weird positions. Also, there will be weird edge cases like my dark reapers who would still shoot the enemy unit without penalty, but that's a rare exemption. Overall, I'd be okay with that solution, but it still isn't really ideal. Orks would basically never get to shoot an enemy after their, for instance, gretchin bubble wrap fall back. While the -2 to hit penalty does take a lot of the sting out of being left hanging in the wind, your opponent will usually still shoot you with whatever he was going to shoot before. Have some tactical marines or conscripts in the neighborhood with no better targets? May as well unload into those berzerkers over there. But yeah. That''s not a bad way to handle it overall.

I still like having non-flying units fall back in the charge phase. It doesn't add rules so much as it moves them, and it gives you a reason to take cheap troops and counter charge units. Kroot would be great for this, for instance. Dire Avengers wouldn't be bad either, and gretching fleeing just as a stampede of orks charges in seems fun.

-2 to hit? So marines get a 50% reduction and orks get 100% reduction. (Yes, occasionally orks may want to fall back and shoot.)

No thankee.

 Eihnlazer wrote:
Another option is:

Units within 1" of enemy models may choose to "fall back" during their movement phase. If they do so they must move their full move characteristic away from the enemy models they were engaged with. They can no longer choose to shoot or assault for the remainder of the turn. Any allied units now receive a -2 to hit the enemy unit they were engaged with in the following shooting phase as they do not want to hit their retreating allies. This penalty does not stack for retreating multiple units, but does stack with any other penalties to hit.



This is a small addition to the rules and does not cause much confusion. You can still choose to fall back and shoot with everything, only with a -2 to hit.

This isnt so great in terms of how it effects everyone, orks would never be able to shoot and anything that aint a 3+ to hit is flat overwatching. This sounds good in theory but would suffer badly in practice because of the large gap between godly shooting and cruddy shooting. a 2+ shooter would still hit on a 4, which is a huge distinct advantage to armies that can either

a: have really good base shooting
b: can somehow mitigate some of the dmg the penalty creates (+1 modifiers come to mind)

Not every army has access to this and some armies have a huge access to this. The idea of falling back during the fight phase is to give the player a simple choice:

Do i run from the battle, potentially exposing my other units into the line of fire that the now released enemy could potentially capitalize or

Do i let this unit stand and take one for the team so that i could utilize their martyrdom to benefit my army in the long run.

The person who was able to get into that close combat should be rewarded proportionally to the risk he/she had just taken. Having such a high risk maneuver rewarded with such a lackluster and mostly suicidal reward doesn't bode well for a game priding itself in 'strategic' fighting

Yeah the moving away would be clarified a bit to mabey:
must move as far away as possible without passing through any other units.

I understand it effects some armies differently, but tbqf armies that have higher BS are paying for it in some manner.

Even if they can still hit, a -2 is a huge nerf to the incoming damage potential. I wouldn't mind at all if they have to shoot their entire army into my squad with a -2 since they aren't shooting any of the rest of my army.

As for orks, they just have to shoot something else instead. It still lets them get the grots out of the way for the boys to charge in.

Make following changes to your battle primer. Discuss with opponent. Call it a day.

Page 3 – Movement
Add the following to the last paragraph:
‘Units starting the movement phase within 1” of an enemy unit cannot be selected to move during your movement phase.”

Page 3 – Falling Back
Remove the entire paragraph

Page 5 – Shooting Phase
Add the following note “Disengage”:
“At the end of your shooting phase, after all eligible units that you want to shoot with have done so, units that have started the turn within 1” of an enemy unit can either remain in combat or Disengage. If you choose to Disengage, the unit must end its move more than 1” away from all enemy units. If a unit Disengages, it cannot charge later that turn.

If a unit can FLY, it can choose to Disengage before you make any shooting attacks with eligible units that you want to shoot with.”

Effect:
Makes the traditional fall back a retreat (or potential slingshot) only move, does not grant retreating player benefit unless CP spent.

 Eihnlazer wrote:
Yeah the moving away would be clarified a bit to mabey:
must move as far away as possible without passing through any other units.

I understand it effects some armies differently, but tbqf armies that have higher BS are paying for it in some manner.

Even if they can still hit, a -2 is a huge nerf to the incoming damage potential. I wouldn't mind at all if they have to shoot their entire army into my squad with a -2 since they aren't shooting any of the rest of my army.

As for orks, they just have to shoot something else instead. It still lets them get the grots out of the way for the boys to charge in.

in other words, feth the orks. You do realize the Orks could already shoot another unit, right? And your argument about fleeing grots is mindless. The grots died in combat the previous turn.

Look I love orks, but since they already are limited by game rules to not be allowed to shoot into an ongoing melee (which they wouldn't give a rats a$$ about in fluff) then my proposition isn't really hurting them that bad.

If an enemy is in their face they aren't gonna sit back and shoot it to begin with. They would charge right into them, firing their guns up into the air.

 Eihnlazer wrote:
Look I love orks, but since they already are limited by game rules to not be allowed to shoot into an ongoing melee (which they wouldn't give a rats a$$ about in fluff) then my proposition isn't really hurting them that bad.

If an enemy is in their face they aren't gonna sit back and shoot it to begin with. They would charge right into them, firing their guns up into the air.

It doesn't matter if it's fluffy, it's a universal rule that orks cannot use whatsoever. This would absolutely hurt them because they would not be allowed to shoot at these units while literally every other army would.

 Eihnlazer wrote:
Look I love orks, but since they already are limited by game rules to not be allowed to shoot into an ongoing melee (which they wouldn't give a rats a$$ about in fluff) then my proposition isn't really hurting them that bad.

If an enemy is in their face they aren't gonna sit back and shoot it to begin with. They would charge right into them, firing their guns up into the air.

Eh. To play ork's advocate, not all orkz iz choppy. Lootas, bustas, and flash gitz all have compelling reasons to shoot a unit and not charge it. A -2 penalty literally prevents them from shooting an enemy unit. Although others have recently pitched the idea that orkz should always be able to hit on a 6 even if penalties would normally make hitting impossible. So if you implement both of those suggestions, your proposed to-hit penalty would be less problematic for orkz.

That said, I still rather like the "non-flying units fall back in the charge phase" suggestion. Does anyone have a compelling argument against that particular approach? I feel it does interesting things for oft-maligned "melee" units in shooty armies like ogryn and kroot, it prevents the unit that you fall back from from being exposed to a full shooting phase worth of damage, and it still lets you run away rather being forced to wait until your poor non-melee units finally get butchered by the assaulty unit.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vitali Advenil wrote:

 Eihnlazer wrote:
Look I love orks, but since they already are limited by game rules to not be allowed to shoot into an ongoing melee (which they wouldn't give a rats a$$ about in fluff) then my proposition isn't really hurting them that bad.

If an enemy is in their face they aren't gonna sit back and shoot it to begin with. They would charge right into them, firing their guns up into the air.

It doesn't matter if it's fluffy, it's a universal rule that orks cannot use whatsoever. This would absolutely hurt them because they would not be allowed to shoot at these units while literally every other army would.

I think what we should all be acknowledging right now is how cool an ork stratagem that lets you shoot at units locked in combat with gretchin (and only gretchin) would be.

1CP Dey'z Just Grots!
Use this in your shooting phase. An <ork> unit of your choice may shoot at an enemy unit even if that unit is within 1" of a gretchin unit.

Honestly orks would shoot into melee even if allies are there. That could definitely be a stratagem without the grots component.

You guys seriously want to go back to where units could just hide in melee forever? That was one of the worst things about previous editions of 40k.

 argonak wrote:
You guys seriously want to go back to where units could just hide in melee forever? That was one of the worst things about previous editions of 40k.

[citation needed]
Most of the people here have actually argued for keeping Fall Back, but allowing for there to be some kind of cost or risk involved for doing so. The fact that there's no reason to NOT fall back removes any tactical choice and invalidates a number of positive choices that GW did made for assault

 Luke_Prowler wrote:

 argonak wrote:
You guys seriously want to go back to where units could just hide in melee forever? That was one of the worst things about previous editions of 40k.

[citation needed]
Most of the people here have actually argued for keeping Fall Back, but allowing for there to be some kind of cost or risk involved for doing so. The fact that there's no reason to NOT fall back removes any tactical choice and invalidates a number of positive choices that GW did made for assault

But isnt a penalty for falling back in itself suicidal and not in anyways tactical? All of the proposals for fall back are essentially sepuku maneuever where the units that fall back suffers some sort of damage, if not an elected wipe, so the rest of your army can shoot at the guys that fell back. I dont agree with that at all.

 Eihnlazer wrote:
Look I love orks, but since they already are limited by game rules to not be allowed to shoot into an ongoing melee (which they wouldn't give a rats a$$ about in fluff) then my proposition isn't really hurting them that bad.

If an enemy is in their face they aren't gonna sit back and shoot it to begin with. They would charge right into them, firing their guns up into the air.

You love orks, yet you are advocating for a rule that singles them out and locks them out of one phase of the game, with no compensation whatsoever?

That's like saying "I like the black pieces in chess, but I think the black queen should only move like a bishop, because reasons. The white queen can still move like a queen however, because fair is fair."

Really? Why would you deliberately advocate for a global rule that hurts one faction vastly more than the rest? Why?

 skchsan wrote:
But isnt a penalty for falling back in itself suicidal and not in anyways tactical? All of the proposals for fall back are essentially sepuku maneuever where the units that fall back suffers some sort of damage, if not an elected wipe, so the rest of your army can shoot at the guys that fell back. I dont agree with that at all.

The difference is that units those units taking damage are because there were assaulted, which is the end point of a LOT of effort for the other player which gets completely negated by being able to dance out of assault. Losing a few extra models is not "suicidal" since even losing the whole unit is preferable to not being able to shoot at a unit now sitting on it's thumbs in double tap range. Expecially if it's conscripts, cultists, drones, or any other chaft unit

 skchsan wrote:

 Luke_Prowler wrote:

 argonak wrote:
You guys seriously want to go back to where units could just hide in melee forever? That was one of the worst things about previous editions of 40k.

[citation needed]
Most of the people here have actually argued for keeping Fall Back, but allowing for there to be some kind of cost or risk involved for doing so. The fact that there's no reason to NOT fall back removes any tactical choice and invalidates a number of positive choices that GW did made for assault

But isnt a penalty for falling back in itself suicidal and not in anyways tactical? All of the proposals for fall back are essentially sepuku maneuever where the units that fall back suffers some sort of damage, if not an elected wipe, so the rest of your army can shoot at the guys that fell back. I dont agree with that at all.

With the current rule set, falling back is basically no risk at all, like someone setting up the table for the falling back army while the CC fighters give them a variety of things to F their stuff up.

If you had a position that got overrun in any other gaming system, that unit (or units) were dead men. It was an accepted reality of the ruleset.

But this is the only edition that actually punishes Close combat units if they don't wipe the unit they charged or if they wanted to tactically tie up multiple units at the risk of loosing their combat effectiveness. You must remember that tying up units in CC has always been a high risk move since 6th edition because of the ways that shooting got progressively better.

Now that overwatch got REALLY good and Multi charging became even more of a health Hazard. To basically say "ohh well done for not getting completely destroyed while capitalizing on your enemies mistake as he clumped his stuff together. Here's a small penalty for the units falling back and only those units. Have fun face tanking an entire round of shooting as you try to repeat this thing all over again"

Like i said before in a previous post, Risk has to equal the reward. If something is very high risk then you need to reward the player for achieving said high risk.

Cause as it stands falling back is the most low risk to massive reward you can get. It's basically a free get out of jail free card and 200$ for landing on a blank spot

Edit: And also... if anyone says not being able to shoot is a massive penalty You must be smoking something. If i were given the chance of falling back a unit or two from CC so my entire army can focus fire that target, i would gladly make them fall back. Cause it's only 2 units, while i have 8-14 units behind them ready to unleash hell. Why do you think last edition people took CC units that couldn't instant wipe the enemy unit in the turn they charged? Ill give you a hint, it's to stop the same thing that happening now

Why can't the unit being retreated from just have a follow-up opportunity? Does that not work in practice?

M.

My recommendation. If a unit falls back from combat. The unit they were in combat with cannot be shot at in that same turn. This is to represent that in that turn, you have your own unit breaking away and running away from a general melee. So, it is still very messy with your own people mixed in with melee, and some or more only gradually breaking away. So, your other units simply wouldn’t be able to get a good shot in.

In addition to that. In order to fall back successfully, both sides roll and add their leadership. The unit falling back must get a score that is higher than the attacker’s roll plus leadership. This represents that only a well organized and well led unit who listens to orders well is able to properly disengage and fall back. Whereas a disorganized mob is likely to just fail to break away and keep on fighting. If you roll lower and fail to break away, you don’t get to fall back and combat continues.

This way, with all the inherent risks and overwatch that melee armies have to take. At least when they do finally get into combat, the ranged units they are fighting with do not get such an easy get out of jail card anymore. And even if they successfully fell back, the assaulting unit does not then eat the rest of his buddy’s ranged fire just for a successful fall back.

Does retreating from CC even need a nerf when you can currently lock an enemy unit in combat so they can't retreat? I play both Chaos Daemons and a close combat Space Wolves army and don't have issues with keeping my opponent locked in combat. It is all about positioning of your models and ensuring that when you consolidate that you surround at least 1 enemy model with 3 of yours.

The most important thing that I learnt is to ensure that you don't kill too many enemy models in your turn. You can do this by having a portion of your models outside of 1" after you pile in. When you go to consolidate you should aim to surround multiple models. If you have been successful you will have just locked the enemy in combat as they can't move through your models when they consider falling back.

JakeSiren wrote:
Does retreating from CC even need a nerf when you can currently lock an enemy unit in combat so they can't retreat? I play both Chaos Daemons and a close combat Space Wolves army and don't have issues with keeping my opponent locked in combat. It is all about positioning of your models and ensuring that when you consolidate that you surround at least 1 enemy model with 3 of yours.

The most important thing that I learnt is to ensure that you don't kill too many enemy models in your turn. You can do this by having a portion of your models outside of 1" after you pile in. When you go to consolidate you should aim to surround multiple models. If you have been successful you will have just locked the enemy in combat as they can't move through your models when they consider falling back.

Unless they are one of the units that has the fly keyword, in which case they just move over you and fall back and then shoot you.

Sure, but then your problem is with fly - not units falling back out of combat. It's unlikely (outside of a few select builds) that your opponent has only fly units - so tie something else up in combat that can't fly so they can't shoot you.

My concern here is that all of the nerfing proposals exist to justify being able to shoot at the units it fell back from combat with.

Fall back was largely introduced to deal with situations like a 150 man platoon being locked in combat with a dreadnought they cant hurt for the rest of the game, not to provide means to punish assault oriented units.

How about the unit that was retreated from, gets a reactionary Consolidate move?
Maybe without the 'towards the closest enemy unit' restriction?

Korbee11 wrote:
How about the unit that was retreated from, gets a reactionary Consolidate move?
Maybe without the 'towards the closest enemy unit' restriction?

I really like this. It means that you have to get everyone away from the melee if you want out, not just back up 1.1 inches, otherwise you're still locked in combat again. It can force some very unwieldy move options for your opponents if you force them to fall back at least four inches, and create space around your assault units unless they want to have an entirely different unit consolidated into. It also makes it hurt more to get multi-assaulted, because if you want to leave that combat they get to consolidate twice or more. That makes things a lot more tactical without outright slaughtering any unit that wants to fall back, and makes the choice dependent on relative board position, which is definitely a good thing.

 argonak wrote:
You guys seriously want to go back to where units could just hide in melee forever? That was one of the worst things about previous editions of 40k.

People aren't asking for that. If you go back and reread, you can clearly see a lot of people want the fall back mechanic to stay, but are concerned with how easy and safe it is, as opposed to the assault unit having to get there in the first place while getting shot and possibly the entire unit tripping over their shoe laces once they get close.

The current way that fall back is implemented is one of the bigger design errors of the edition.

niv-mizzet wrote:

 argonak wrote:
You guys seriously want to go back to where units could just hide in melee forever? That was one of the worst things about previous editions of 40k.

People aren't asking for that. If you go back and reread, you can clearly see a lot of people want the fall back mechanic to stay, but are concerned with how easy and safe it is, as opposed to the assault unit having to get there in the first place while getting shot and possibly the entire unit tripping over their shoe laces once they get close.

The current way that fall back is implemented is one of the bigger design errors of the edition.

This guy/gal has the right idea

Breng77 wrote:

JakeSiren wrote:
Does retreating from CC even need a nerf when you can currently lock an enemy unit in combat so they can't retreat? I play both Chaos Daemons and a close combat Space Wolves army and don't have issues with keeping my opponent locked in combat. It is all about positioning of your models and ensuring that when you consolidate that you surround at least 1 enemy model with 3 of yours.

The most important thing that I learnt is to ensure that you don't kill too many enemy models in your turn. You can do this by having a portion of your models outside of 1" after you pile in. When you go to consolidate you should aim to surround multiple models. If you have been successful you will have just locked the enemy in combat as they can't move through your models when they consider falling back.

Unless they are one of the units that has the fly keyword, in which case they just move over you and fall back and then shoot you.

I play against people who are actually smart and line up their mobs in single file lines, it's literally impossible to stop them from falling back because you cannot pile in behind them.

Normally how i mitigate this with daemons is with Skarbrand, which is Ironic because he went from worst bloodthirster to best this edition because of his aura. Still a pain to try and get him into an active fight with at least some combat effectiveness

But yea. Little tip for those who run mob style shooting armies, line them up single file and watch your opponent cry tears as your dudes fall back in a clean and almost trollish way

Single file set up isnt anything novel... Also, as per rules theres nothing preventing you from "falling back" in any direction as long as you move away 1" from thr enemy.

What if cc was just powerfull enough to punish shooty units that got themselfes in melee at the firstplace. I propose that all strictly melee weapons give +1 attack and some more specialized melee weapons like lightningclaw or power weapons and equalients get something like +2 or even +3 attacks depending on weapon. This way the fall back rule could stay as it is now since melee unit would get MUCH more wounds done in the fight phase and shooty units could get to retreat all they want (if there are any to retreat left). Afterall its just strange i think that for shooting weapons there are weapon profiles that dictate number of attacks but for melee weapons in most part its unit that dictates the amount of attacks.

Or hek there is other option too. Give melee weapons attack profiles like shooting weapons have. For example basic cc weapons could be something like

slashing (slashing weapons give x2 attack when chargin)

Or something like powerfist could be

high powered (when swinging with highpowered weapons substract 1 from hit rolls and enemy sawing throw rolls)

Or powersword could be like

rapid strike (rapid strike weapons give x2 attacks at any fight phase)

There could allso be very special weapons like manreapers having profile like below

High reach (when swinging with high reach weapon all dmg done pools to unit in addition this weapon can be used at shooting phase with following profile)

assault 1 range 3" S6 AP-2 D D3

Something like this would cure cc.

mchammadad wrote:

I play against people who are actually smart and line up their mobs in single file lines, it's literally impossible to stop them from falling back because you cannot pile in behind them.

You mean that even after they take casualties they manage to remain a perfect single line without room for you to consolidate through?

Yeah, how does the CCongo line work?

M.