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So Overwatch, in its modern incarnation, has been around for a few editions now. Do people feel it actually warrants existing these days? Hear me out. This isn't a complaint thread.

In previous editions, casualties were removed from the front meaning overwatch could be used to make a charging unit potentially fail a charge (much to the annoyance of those who played assault armies). This is no longer the case. Most units don't do a great deal of damage with overwatch. Five tactical marines with a plasma gun, for instance, only land about 1 bolter hit per overwatch and only hit with the plasma gun at all about 1/3rd of the time. That doesn't translate to a ton of damage, but it does make players pause to roll to hit, to wound, saves, and possibly damage rolls. When overwatch does reliably do a decent amount of damage (coordinated fire from tau, units with lots of flamers, etc.), it's generally considered annoying/unengaging as assault-centric units and armies generally only h ave limited means of overcoming these forms of overwatch.

So considering that...
*It no longer really prevents charges
*It usually isn't worth the time it takes to roll and resolve
*The mechanics that make it worth the time to roll and resolve are often considered to diminish rather than improve the players' joint gaming experience...

... Should we consider dropping overwatch entirely? Alternatively, perhaps armies that really rely on it (Tau?) or feel it's a big part of their army's identity could be given overwatch as their own unique mechanic rather than making it a general rule?

Or maybe you feel that overwatch is an enjoyable, worthwhile aspect of the game and that I'm full of hot air. Thoughts?

I wouldn't mind seeing Overwatch as something you do INSTEAD of shooting (an possibly moving), but buff it to make it actually worthwhile.

I do agree that, as stands, Overwatch is a lot of dice rolling for little effect.

 JNAProductions wrote:
I wouldn't mind seeing Overwatch as something you do INSTEAD of shooting (an possibly moving), but buff it to make it actually worthwhile.

I do agree that, as stands, Overwatch is a lot of dice rolling for little effect.

I could get behind that. Maybe divorce it from charge rolls entirely and make it something that triggers when units deploy or disembark? Basically giving units something akin to interceptor if they give up a turn of shooting first? It would be a blow to deepstriking armies, but it would also give your opponent a reason to not shoot the house on turn 1.

I do think it should still allow you to fire against charges.

Maybe something like this?

Overwatch
For any unit that moved less than half its total movement AND is still eligible to shoot, they may choose to enter Overwatch instead of shooting. A unit in Overwatch may fire at any unit that is deployed, disembarks, or charges them or a friendly unit within 3" of them as soon as the action is performed. All shooting done with Overwatch is at a -1 penalty.

Note that, if you have Assault weapons, you may advance and still enter Overwatch (though you will be firing at a -2 penalty), so long as you move less than half of your (newly improved) move stat. For instance, a squad of Hellblasters with Assault Plasma weapons advances, rolling a 4. They may move up to 5" and still enter Overwatch, but will only hit on 5+s if they fire.

I kinda like this, especially Overwatching for nearby units, since it allows you to move one unit all the way forwards, fire them, and have them covered by a unit behind them.

Yes! Kill it, but let Tau overwatch the same as they do now (with FtGG.) It's annoying as all get-out but Tau wouldn't be Tau without overwatch.

A unit may activate Overwatch instead of shooting. They may do this even if they advanced/couldn't normally shoot.

If they are charged in the next enemy charge phase, they may shoot at the enemy unit at normal BS.
That way you get a benefit for both for playing defensively and for trying to get stuck in.

I agree that the current version of overwatch is complicated and quite ineffective.

Would a more interactive game turn be a better long term solution ?As this could set the expected level of interaction in the core rules.And lead to a streamlined rule set, yet tactically deep game play options.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
A unit may activate Overwatch instead of shooting. They may do this even if they advanced/couldn't normally shoot.

If they are charged in the next enemy charge phase, they may shoot at the enemy unit at normal BS.
That way you get a benefit for both for playing defensively and for trying to get stuck in.

Most people will just opt to shoot the unit first and then try and charge if they're capable.

Overwatch is fine in its current iteration.


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Lanrak wrote:
I agree that the current version of overwatch is complicated and quite ineffective.

Would a more interactive game turn be a better long term solution ?As this could set the expected level of interaction in the core rules.And lead to a streamlined rule set, yet tactically deep game play options.

What's complicated about it?

 JimOnMars wrote:
Yes! Kill it, but let Tau overwatch the same as they do now (with FtGG.) It's annoying as all get-out but Tau wouldn't be Tau without overwatch.

How so? Surely Tau were still Tau in 3rd(?), 4th, and 5th edition before the new version of overwatch was introduced. Or do you disagree? And could combined fire and/or overwatch perhaps be turned into a Tau stratagem?


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 JNAProductions wrote:
I do think it should still allow you to fire against charges.

Maybe something like this?

Overwatch
For any unit that moved less than half its total movement AND is still eligible to shoot, they may choose to enter Overwatch instead of shooting. A unit in Overwatch may fire at any unit that is deployed, disembarks, or charges them or a friendly unit within 3" of them as soon as the action is performed. All shooting done with Overwatch is at a -1 penalty.

Note that, if you have Assault weapons, you may advance and still enter Overwatch (though you will be firing at a -2 penalty), so long as you move less than half of your (newly improved) move stat. For instance, a squad of Hellblasters with Assault Plasma weapons advances, rolling a 4. They may move up to 5" and still enter Overwatch, but will only hit on 5+s if they fire.

I kinda like this, especially Overwatching for nearby units, since it allows you to move one unit all the way forwards, fire them, and have them covered by a unit behind them.

I think that half movement and recalculated half movement is probably overcomplicating things a bit. Would it be dramatically less interesting/fluffy to just say " a unit may opt not to shoot in the shooting phase. If it does so and refrains from charging, it may go on overwatch." ? I would be willing to try out the overall effect your'e going for though.




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 BaconCatBug wrote:
A unit may activate Overwatch instead of shooting. They may do this even if they advanced/couldn't normally shoot.

If they are charged in the next enemy charge phase, they may shoot at the enemy unit at normal BS.
That way you get a benefit for both for playing defensively and for trying to get stuck in.

This might work too. So you have units that people would prefer not to charge but might have to anyway.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
A unit may activate Overwatch instead of shooting. They may do this even if they advanced/couldn't normally shoot.

If they are charged in the next enemy charge phase, they may shoot at the enemy unit at normal BS.
That way you get a benefit for both for playing defensively and for trying to get stuck in.

Most people will just opt to shoot the unit first and then try and charge if they're capable.

Overwatch is fine in its current iteration.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Lanrak wrote:
I agree that the current version of overwatch is complicated and quite ineffective.

Would a more interactive game turn be a better long term solution ?As this could set the expected level of interaction in the core rules.And lead to a streamlined rule set, yet tactically deep game play options.

What's complicated about it?

Personally, I don't find it complicated so much as just being... a lot of rolling for very little effect. If you feel overwatch is fine in its current iteration, would you mind addressing some of the points I laid out in the opening post? Specifically, do you disagree that...

*It tends to be a lot of rolling for very little effect.
*Armies/units that actually can overwatch and get a decent amount of damage out of it reliably tend to be viewed as annoying or problematic.

Wyldhunt wrote:

 JimOnMars wrote:
Yes! Kill it, but let Tau overwatch the same as they do now (with FtGG.) It's annoying as all get-out but Tau wouldn't be Tau without overwatch.

How so? Surely Tau were still Tau in 3rd(?), 4th, and 5th edition before the new version of overwatch was introduced. Or do you disagree? And could combined fire and/or overwatch perhaps be turned into a Tau stratagem?

Just thinking of the modern Tau. They got nerfed hard in 8th, removing one of their remaining tricks makes them pretty pointless.

If anything, I'd get rid of the fly keyword giving free Hit & Run. Make anyone with Fly disengage but shoot at -1 to hit.

Wyldhunt wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
I wouldn't mind seeing Overwatch as something you do INSTEAD of shooting (an possibly moving), but buff it to make it actually worthwhile.

I do agree that, as stands, Overwatch is a lot of dice rolling for little effect.

I could get behind that. Maybe divorce it from charge rolls entirely and make it something that triggers when units deploy or disembark? Basically giving units something akin to interceptor if they give up a turn of shooting first? It would be a blow to deepstriking armies, but it would also give your opponent a reason to not shoot the house on turn 1.

Are you familiar with Xcom?
In that you can overwatch but what it is is you sacrifice a turn of shooting to take a shot with a hit penalty when they move from cover to cover. Then there are other upgrades like on a successful his there's a 50% to take another shot. Or take a shot when they perform any action instead of just when they move. I think that would be a better alternative

 fraser1191 wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
I wouldn't mind seeing Overwatch as something you do INSTEAD of shooting (an possibly moving), but buff it to make it actually worthwhile.

I do agree that, as stands, Overwatch is a lot of dice rolling for little effect.

I could get behind that. Maybe divorce it from charge rolls entirely and make it something that triggers when units deploy or disembark? Basically giving units something akin to interceptor if they give up a turn of shooting first? It would be a blow to deepstriking armies, but it would also give your opponent a reason to not shoot the house on turn 1.

Are you familiar with Xcom?
In that you can overwatch but what it is is you sacrifice a turn of shooting to take a shot with a hit penalty when they move from cover to cover. Then there are other upgrades like on a successful his there's a 50% to take another shot. Or take a shot when they perform any action instead of just when they move. I think that would be a better alternative

Yep. Xcom is a fun game. Old overwatch used to be something like, "point your squad in a direction, and shoot at the enemy when they move into line of sight." Basically how overwatch works in Shadow War: Armageddon now. The mono-directional nature of it is kind of a pain in modern 40k, but I think that's the basic idea JNA is going for. I'd still probably have it trigger on charges and movement though. Otherwise you have to spell out where or not a psychic power or shooting attack gets resolved after casualties are taken. If the enemy doesn't move or assault you, they're probably just sitting there shooting at you. And if that's the case, why didn't you just shoot at them on your own turn instead of overwatching?

I agree that overwatch mostly feels like rolling a bunch of extra dice for no real effect. And for a rule that GW themselves present as a realistic reaction in the heat of battle - "they don't just stand there and let themselves be charged" - it feels very unrealistic. Why does my weapon inexplicably multiply its rate of fire when some blokes decide to charge me?

I discussed this with some friends a while back, and I came up with an alternative overwatch that's almost exactly what BaconCatBug suggested. Then again, I wouldn't mind removing overwatch from the game altogether. I actually expected that would happen with 8th edition as part of streamlining the game.

All this comes from someone who has killed way more than his fair share of models with overwatch. I just think it's a bad rule.

That because many players are familiar with high BS values. As an ork player I usually hit on 5s or 6s throwing lots of dice. Overwatch is basically our regular shooting

Someone may argue to remove it not because it ends with a little result but for a different purpose, which is to reward charging units that don't suffer wounds only for attempting to charge. Close combat desperately needs some help, removing overwatch could be acceptable to make charges more effective.

Honestly I think close combat should be improved in some other way though, overwatch is not an issue and I actually like how it currently works.

I like the idea as needing to forgo shooting.

I would think something like the following would be pretty good.

Instead of shooting during the shooting phase a unit may enter overwatch. Units on overwatch cannot charge this turn. During the next enemy turn any unit on overwatch may resolve a shooting attack against any one enemy unit that ends a move within 12" (including being set up).

Then give Tau "supporting fire" - Once per turn Tau models on overwatch with rapid fire or assault weapons can fire against enemy units that enter play within 12" of any friendly Tau unit so long as they have range and LOS. This is resolved at -1 BS. This is in addition to resolving their own overwatch.

Hi folks ,
I used the term complicated, as it adds complication the the written rules and the actual game play with very little benefit.
Maybe unnecessary would have been better?

Or just make overwatch one single attempt.

the game is supposed to be an abstraction but suddenly increasing the rate of fire of your gun by the number if potential chargers is kinda nuts.

What I am doing in Warstack is: Each unit gets 2 actions per turn. When a unit activates, it may do up to 2 actions. When it interrupts, it only does one Interrupts trigger on intent to attack (so you can do stuff like duck from cover to cover). Activating or interrupting with a unit that acted takes a CP (CP are a "turn to turn" resource), and you can spend increasing amounts of CP to pre-empt interrupts, so units can

I'm sure you could make a simpler version of this work as 3 stratagems available to spend during your turn, or pregame if going second:
-Countermove: 1-3 CP. For each CP spent, select one friendly unit. If it forfeits its movement during the player turn, the unit may make a regular move at the end of the opponent's movement phase.
-Overwatch: 1-3 CP. For each CP spent, select one friendly unit. If the unit may not shoot during your shooting phase, but may shoot at the start of your opponent's shooting phase. A unit counts as having moved if has moved for any reason between your previous movement phase and your opponent's shooting phase.
-Counter Charge: 1-3 CP. For each CP spent, select one unit. That unit may not charge during your assault phase, but may declare a charge at the end of your opponent's Charge subphase.

Or something along those lines, tweaked/adjusted accordingly. Three simple CP stratagems that are universal to all armies, and give an actual "sequence break" option rather than being strict "statistical buffs" like the assorted codex-specific "+1 or reroll hit/wound" ones.

Wyldhunt wrote:


Personally, I don't find it complicated so much as just being... a lot of rolling for very little effect. If you feel overwatch is fine in its current iteration, would you mind addressing some of the points I laid out in the opening post? Specifically, do you disagree that...

*It tends to be a lot of rolling for very little effect.
*Armies/units that actually can overwatch and get a decent amount of damage out of it reliably tend to be viewed as annoying or problematic.

Would be glad to address it.
1. It's little effect, but it isn't much rolling and basically can kill a couple of light assault models to make your dudes thrive a little better. Mechanically it just makes sense too. You see a giant blue armor dude charging at you, you probably try to shoot at it with not too much discipline. It was always something I wish was introduced to the game since I started in 4th edition (why are my Grey Knights twiddling their thumbs when a Daemon charges them?) and was a mechanic I will continue to be a fan of.
2. Those armies aren't close to problematic, and weren't an issue in 6th/7th at all, and quite honestly to pull a Gamgee having Tau Overwatch for each other wasn't even bad (it looks dangerous until you look at the math). Literally the only scenario I see it being weird is with the current edition with Mordians, as their Conscripts fire Overwatch as well as the trained Soldier equivalent, and when firing Overwatch they're as effective as their regular shooting.

 JNAProductions wrote:
I wouldn't mind seeing Overwatch as something you do INSTEAD of shooting (an possibly moving), but buff it to make it actually worthwhile.

I do agree that, as stands, Overwatch is a lot of dice rolling for little effect.

That's pretty much exactly how it used to work when I played (2nd ed)
At the beginning of your turn before any moving or shooting, you declared what units (if any) were going into overwatch. Those units could not move or shoot but instead could shoot at any point during the other player's turn, even in the middle of a unit's movement.

The reason was preparing for a charge (hurt the enemy as much as you could before they charged into you) or catch a unit out in the open as they move from 1 piece of cover to another (Not sure how cover works in 8th yet but I've heard it's pretty much broken, in 2nd players got a bonus to save rolls depending how much cover they had)

 Desubot wrote:
Or just make overwatch one single attempt.

the game is supposed to be an abstraction but suddenly increasing the rate of fire of your gun by the number if potential chargers is kinda nuts.

I agree that it's silly, but unlimited overwatches isn't normally that big an issue. It only really comes up if the first charging unit is close enough to being wiped out to be shot off the table or if the overwatched unit just flubs its charge roll. And even when you do get a second chance to overwatch, you're just as prone to doing little to no damage as the first time. Obviously the edge cases, like flamer-heavy squads, are exceptions.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
What I am doing in Warstack is: Each unit gets 2 actions per turn. When a unit activates, it may do up to 2 actions. When it interrupts, it only does one Interrupts trigger on intent to attack (so you can do stuff like duck from cover to cover). Activating or interrupting with a unit that acted takes a CP (CP are a "turn to turn" resource), and you can spend increasing amounts of CP to pre-empt interrupts, so units can

I'm sure you could make a simpler version of this work as 3 stratagems available to spend during your turn, or pregame if going second:
-Countermove: 1-3 CP. For each CP spent, select one friendly unit. If it forfeits its movement during the player turn, the unit may make a regular move at the end of the opponent's movement phase.
-Overwatch: 1-3 CP. For each CP spent, select one friendly unit. If the unit may not shoot during your shooting phase, but may shoot at the start of your opponent's shooting phase. A unit counts as having moved if has moved for any reason between your previous movement phase and your opponent's shooting phase.
-Counter Charge: 1-3 CP. For each CP spent, select one unit. That unit may not charge during your assault phase, but may declare a charge at the end of your opponent's Charge subphase.

Or something along those lines, tweaked/adjusted accordingly. Three simple CP stratagems that are universal to all armies, and give an actual "sequence break" option rather than being strict "statistical buffs" like the assorted codex-specific "+1 or reroll hit/wound" ones.

I could see some variation on that working.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:


Personally, I don't find it complicated so much as just being... a lot of rolling for very little effect. If you feel overwatch is fine in its current iteration, would you mind addressing some of the points I laid out in the opening post? Specifically, do you disagree that...

*It tends to be a lot of rolling for very little effect.
*Armies/units that actually can overwatch and get a decent amount of damage out of it reliably tend to be viewed as annoying or problematic.

Would be glad to address it.
1. It's little effect, but it isn't much rolling and basically can kill a couple of light assault models to make your dudes thrive a little better. Mechanically it just makes sense too. You see a giant blue armor dude charging at you, you probably try to shoot at it with not too much discipline. It was always something I wish was introduced to the game since I started in 4th edition (why are my Grey Knights twiddling their thumbs when a Daemon charges them?) and was a mechanic I will continue to be a fan of.
2. Those armies aren't close to problematic, and weren't an issue in 6th/7th at all, and quite honestly to pull a Gamgee having Tau Overwatch for each other wasn't even bad (it looks dangerous until you look at the math). Literally the only scenario I see it being weird is with the current edition with Mordians, as their Conscripts fire Overwatch as well as the trained Soldier equivalent, and when firing Overwatch they're as effective as their regular shooting.

1. Agree to disagree I guess. To me, it generally doesn't do much and it can slow the game down a bit. I always figured that your grey knights were assumed to be doing exactly what overwatch represents (tossing some last-minute panic shots at the enemy), but that the ineffectiveness of such shooting meant it wasn't worth taking the time to roll out. Most of the time, that's still the case today. Those rare times when a unit gets lucky (or has tons of flamers) and manages to do an appreciable amount of damage in overwatch, it's more annoying than "fun."

"Oh man, I had to walk all the way across the table while getting shot at just to try this charge, and now he gets to kill a few more of my guys just so I can try to get into close combat?"

2. I mean, people still don't charge burna boyz or d-scythe wraithguard. The supporting fire for Tau was a little overhyped, but it still felt bad when a squad of ork boyz failed their charge because the tau got a "free" round of panic shooting at them.

But it sounds like our perspectives are just different on this topic. To me, overwatch is kind of time consuming, and it can be a "feel bad" rule when it actually manages to do an appreciable amount of damage. If those aren't true in your eyes, then... yeah. That's a perfectly valid point of view that I get the impression many players don't share.


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kaotkbliss wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
I wouldn't mind seeing Overwatch as something you do INSTEAD of shooting (an possibly moving), but buff it to make it actually worthwhile.

I do agree that, as stands, Overwatch is a lot of dice rolling for little effect.

That's pretty much exactly how it used to work when I played (2nd ed)
At the beginning of your turn before any moving or shooting, you declared what units (if any) were going into overwatch. Those units could not move or shoot but instead could shoot at any point during the other player's turn, even in the middle of a unit's movement.

The reason was preparing for a charge (hurt the enemy as much as you could before they charged into you) or catch a unit out in the open as they move from 1 piece of cover to another (Not sure how cover works in 8th yet but I've heard it's pretty much broken, in 2nd players got a bonus to save rolls depending how much cover they had)

Cover is basically, "If your entire unit is standing on cover, you get a +1 bonus to your armor. If you're not infantry, you have to also be obscured by the terrain."

People charge Burna Boyz all the time, and you'd charge Scythe Wraithguard with cheaper units. Genestealer Cults excelled at this when they were first introduced to 7th and people were still learning how the army played.

 JNAProductions wrote:
I wouldn't mind seeing Overwatch as something you do INSTEAD of shooting (an possibly moving), but buff it to make it actually worthwhile.

I do agree that, as stands, Overwatch is a lot of dice rolling for little effect.

Yeah, in 2nd overwatch was instead of moving, shooting, etc. And you got it once. Mind you, that caused issues of it's own (everyone guarding fire lanes on overwatch with no-one game to make the first advance).

It's pretty easy I think. You choose to go on overwatch instead of shooting.

Overwatch interupts the enemys turn for you to make a shooting attack agaisnt any valid target.

All guns shoot at 1/2 range.

Pistols become useless for overwatch while super long range weapons still get some pretty good mid range while the mid range guns become overwatch ranged guns generally shooting people are 12-15".

 Lance845 wrote:
It's pretty easy I think. You choose to go on overwatch instead of shooting.

Overwatch interupts the enemys turn for you to make a shooting attack agaisnt any valid target.

All guns shoot at 1/2 range.

Pistols become useless for overwatch while super long range weapons still get some pretty good mid range while the mid range guns become overwatch ranged guns generally shooting people are 12-15".

Not sure I like that for immersion purposes...pistols seem to me to be the best choice if someone is getting in your face.

Maybe overwatch should be limited to pistols? Make them more potent (and yea--choppa boyz!!)

The idea of overwatching with a volcano cannon is pretty dang dumb, IMHO.

 JimOnMars wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
It's pretty easy I think. You choose to go on overwatch instead of shooting.

Overwatch interupts the enemys turn for you to make a shooting attack agaisnt any valid target.

All guns shoot at 1/2 range.

Pistols become useless for overwatch while super long range weapons still get some pretty good mid range while the mid range guns become overwatch ranged guns generally shooting people are 12-15".

Not sure I like that for immersion purposes...pistols seem to me to be the best choice if someone is getting in your face.

Maybe overwatch should be limited to pistols? Make them more potent (and yea--choppa boyz!!)

The idea of overwatching with a volcano cannon is pretty dang dumb, IMHO.

The idea of waiting to shoot your big gun (volcano cannon) for the best moment (when the enemy presents itself, which happens out of sequence) isn't so dumb to me. What *is* dumb is that you get to shoot it in your turn, then get to shoot it again when you get charged. And then if that charge fails, you get to shoot it again and again ad nauseum until someone finally reaches you. To me, that is where the suspension of disbelief occurs.

edit: but yeah, pistols makes a lot of sense from a rl-perspective.

How do pistols make sense for overwatch?

Overwatch is a real thing. It's a guy, or team of guys, that take up a position to watch over their other men and protect them with long ranged weaponry.

You don't wait for people to charge you for overwatch. You shoot the enemy coming up on your allies before they can get close enough.

Ever see the movie American Sniper? He spends basically the whole movie being Overwatch.

 JimOnMars wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
It's pretty easy I think. You choose to go on overwatch instead of shooting.

Overwatch interupts the enemys turn for you to make a shooting attack agaisnt any valid target.

All guns shoot at 1/2 range.

Pistols become useless for overwatch while super long range weapons still get some pretty good mid range while the mid range guns become overwatch ranged guns generally shooting people are 12-15".

Not sure I like that for immersion purposes...pistols seem to me to be the best choice if someone is getting in your face.

Maybe overwatch should be limited to pistols? Make them more potent (and yea--choppa boyz!!)

The idea of overwatching with a volcano cannon is pretty dang dumb, IMHO.

A lot of armies don't come with pistols standard, so that seems a bit unfair.

I think the whole point of overwatch is to let the receiving player feel like he's doing something. Its a step in the right direction for GW, away from the absolute snoozefest that is IgoUgo.

So much would be fixed if they'd redo the game with alternating activations.

 Lance845 wrote:
How do pistols make sense for overwatch?

Overwatch is a real thing. It's a guy, or team of guys, that take up a position to watch over their other men and protect them with long ranged weaponry.

You don't wait for people to charge you for overwatch. You shoot the enemy coming up on your allies before they can get close enough.

Ever see the movie American Sniper? He spends basically the whole movie being Overwatch.

It depends on range. When you're at long range like a sniper, movements are less of a thing. When you're at close range? Pistols are easier to react with. They don't require you looking down a scope (which hampers your visibility) at one specific point, they give you a full field of view and allow you to go "oh gak" and quickly whip your arm at the target and fire. Either version has merits, but then you have to translate that into game rules. Anyways, my take on it.

 JNAProductions wrote:
I wouldn't mind seeing Overwatch as something you do INSTEAD of shooting (an possibly moving), but buff it to make it actually worthwhile.

I do agree that, as stands, Overwatch is a lot of dice rolling for little effect.

Overwatch counters return? Yes please.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Torga_DW wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
How do pistols make sense for overwatch?

Overwatch is a real thing. It's a guy, or team of guys, that take up a position to watch over their other men and protect them with long ranged weaponry.

You don't wait for people to charge you for overwatch. You shoot the enemy coming up on your allies before they can get close enough.

Ever see the movie American Sniper? He spends basically the whole movie being Overwatch.

It depends on range. When you're at long range like a sniper, movements are less of a thing. When you're at close range? Pistols are easier to react with. They don't require you looking down a scope (which hampers your visibility) at one specific point, they give you a full field of view and allow you to go "oh gak" and quickly whip your arm at the target and fire. Either version has merits, but then you have to translate that into game rules. Anyways, my take on it.

Pistols may not represent firepower to stop a charge though...
Tough call on this one.
Use able in cc but no overwatch without an overwatch counter IMHO.