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Made in ca
Renegade Inquisitor with a Bound Daemon





Tied and gagged in the back of your car

I like the core of what 8th provides, but I still feel like it's really missing that little hop at the end to make it shine. Namely, the large shift towards alpha strike and horde style armies, which all feel very point-and-click. I've thought out some fixes that might go to serve to make the game more reasonably balanced on a whole (although there's still some serious balance problems that would need to be addressed, these changes would at least provide a better canvas for those changes to be developed upon), while also providing options for more tactical play.

Movement Phase
•Reserves: Roll a D6 equal to the number of units placed in reserve at the start of your movement phase. For each 4+, you may pick one unit that is allowed to be deployed according to its reinforcement rules. At the beginning of your third turn, any units remaining in reserve are allowed to be deployed. Any units not deployed at the end of your third turn count as being destroyed.

Psychic Phase:
•Smite: Any time a psyker attempts to manifest the Smite psychic power, they suffer a -1 modifier to their psychic test for each previous attempt made to cast Smite during that turn.

Shooting Phase:
•Characters: If an enemy model with the CHARACTER keyword is within 3" of another enemy unit, than the model with the CHARACTER keyword may not be targetted by enemy shooting unless they are the closest enemy model. Otherwise, CHARACTERs may be targetted normally.

•Medium and Long Range: Models targetting units 18" away or more (medium range) suffer -1 to the to-hit rolls of their shooting attacks. Models targetting units 36" away or more (long range) suffer an additional -1 to the to-hit rolls of their shooting attacks.
Faction traits that apply a -1 to to-hit rolls from shooting attacks outside of 12" are now appended to change medium ranges and long ranges of shooting attacks made agains them to 12" and 24" respectively.

•Scouts/Spotters: Append various faction-specific units to include the role of negating Medium and Long Range shooting penalties. This would have to be done on a case-by-case basis. Scout Sentinals with search lights may forgo shooting to shine their light on a target 24" away, removing penalties while shooting against the lit-up unit for the rest of the phase, Adeptus Mechanicus Phosphor weaponry (weapons with 'phosphor' in the name) remove the penalty against units they hit for the rest of the phase, etc.

Imperial Guard:
•Scout Sentinels and Armoured Sentinels gain the following special rule
Spotters: Units with this special rule may forgo shooting in the shooting phase in order to mark a unit within 24" and within line of sight until the end of the phase. Friendly units shooting at marked units do not suffer the penalties for medium or long ranged shooting.

Adeptus Mechanicus
•Faction-wide special rule
Phosphor Weaponry: If an enemy unit is hit by a phosphor weapon in the shooting phase (any weapon with 'phosphor' in its name is a phosphor weapon), it is marked. Friendly units shooting at marked units do not suffer the penalties for medium or long ranged shooting.
•Sicarian Ruststalkers gain the following special rule
Spotters: Units with this special rule may forgo shooting in the shooting phase in order to mark a unit within 24" and within line of sight until the end of the phase. Friendly units shooting at marked units do not suffer the penalties for medium or long ranged shooting.

Space Marines (and derivatives)
•Space Marine Scouts, Assault Marines, Reivers, Landspeeders, and Drop Pods gain the following special rule
Spotters: Units with this special rule may forgo shooting in the shooting phase in order to mark a unit within 24" and within line of sight until the end of the phase. Friendly units shooting at marked units do not suffer the penalties for medium or long ranged shooting.

Chaos Space Marines
•Raptors and Chosen gain the following special rule
Spotters: Units with this special rule may forgo shooting in the shooting phase in order to mark a unit within 24" and within line of sight until the end of the phase. Friendly units shooting at marked units do not suffer the penalties for medium or long ranged shooting.

Orkz
•Faction-wide special rule
More Dakka!: Ork units never suffer penalties from medium or long ranged shooting. In addition, Ork units always hit on an un-modified roll of a 6, regardless of any modifiers. GRETCHIN and KILLA KANZ may never benefit from this rule.




•Flamers/Heavy Flamers: Flamers, heavy flamers, and other flamer-type weaponry on a case-by-case basis (because Heavy D-Scythes do not need more dakka) gain an additional D6 hits for every 10 models in the enemy unit. Flamers do not check for range when firing in Overwatch.

Assault Phase
•Characters in Assault: If a CHARACTER is within 1" of any friendly models who are within 1" of an enemy model during the assault phase, then that CHARACTER may pile in and attack, acting as if the friendly model within 1" of an enemy model is from their own unit.

Morale Phase:
•Horde Leadership: When rolling for leadership tests, roll a D6 for every 10 models in a unit (minimum 1), and add that to the number of models lost over the course of the turn.



Thoughts? The primary purpose of these changes would be to make horde armies have specialized counters (I'd also advocate for certain melee specialists, like Striking Scorpions, Wyches, and Ruststalkers gaining extra attacks based on enemy count, but I'd like to stick to generalized changes as much as possible here), and to encourage long-range gunlines and other alpha-strikers to engage in more tactical and active play, while also diverting their resources to in order to function as effectively as possible. This also ends up indirectly nerfing the "-1 outside 12" faction trait, which ends up being a little too dominant in many situations.

Lastly, the character changes encourage them to function more closely with units, especially in close combat, where heroic intervention can't be so easily blocked.

This message was edited 5 times. Last update was at 2017/12/13 02:16:38


 
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut






Springfield, VA

Wow, I'm generally alright with it... but holy hell that shooting nerf.

I suppose you don't want guard to field weapons with a range greater than 36" for some reason?
   
Made in us
Potent Possessed Daemonvessel





Big No on the horde leadership.

So if I have say 12 Models and lose a single model, then roll boxcars for a results of 13, If I am LD 7 I lose 6 models. But if I had 10 models, if I lose 1 model and roll a single 6 I lose nothing? Sorry but no. The morale in the game is fine as is, what needs to be addressed are the multiple ways horde factions ignore the morale rules.

With your rules if I have a squad of 30 grots (with no character) and I lose 9. I roll 9+3D6 vs my LD of 4. SO I lose 5 + 3D6 Models or an average of 15 models. Meaning in a single turn I have gone from 30 models to 6? Terrible rule. You may as well have a rule that says horde factions cannot be played.

On the flip side if all the ways to ignore morale stay in the game hordes won't care anyway.

A better thing to do would be to remove morale immunity in the game and make the morale rules have a capped number of losses in some manner.

Most of the rest I am ok with, though I think reserves I would prefer 3+ to come in turn 1, 2+ turn 2, auto turn 3.

Shooting I might go more for something like old fantasy, no penalty for half range of a weapon, -1 for over half range. Then exempt pistols and assault weapons from this penalty. Then maybe make -1 for shooting that ignores LOS if it doesn't have LOS.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/12/12 15:44:26


 
   
Made in us
Omnipotent Necron Overlord






I like these changes. They are all pretty good. My 2 cents.
-Maybe restrict the -1 to hit outside of 18 inches to units that don't have the vehical/monster key word (vehicles are very stable and designed to engage at long range) This might make them more appealing considering their weak close range abilities
-Also in the case of weapons firing out of LOS should always have a -1 to hit penalty if they can't see their target.
-Things like Sniper should also ignore all range penalties.
-Just remove 36" range penalty - there is 0 reason for that. Units are already -1 at that range.

-The reserve rule I love.
-Don't see much need for the smite nerf but I' rarely casting smite more than once a turn anyways.
-Character rule is good

To clarify on the assault phase rule - is your intent to remove this interaction - or are you just trying to make heroic intervention weaker - I don't agree with heroic intervention getting weaker. - I had this happen in a game once and I was very very frustrated. I had a brood lord in CC with a few singing spears and as insurance I brought in a unit of 3 warriors to assist in taking them down. The warriors had to attack first because they charged and my opponent removed the model that the brood lord was in contact with - now the brood lord is no longer within 1 inch of an enemy so he can't fight. That BS needs to be removed immediately. Any unit locked in assault at the beginning of the phase should be allowed to pile in and fight.

Leadership rule is terrible though IMO. It is not needed. What is needed is leadership reductions on cheap units. Conscripts at a 4 seems reasonable for most units under 5PPM - maybe a 5. Then maybe fix up leaders in horde armies to allow them to use their leadership instead of their squad profile (it seems this is really just focused on imperial gaurd - and maybe tau). Replace conscript nerf with this change.

All in all - I would play this rendition over what we have currently even without my proposed changes so - good ideas here.

If we fail to anticipate the unforeseen or expect the unexpected in a universe of infinite possibilities, we may find ourselves at the mercy of anyone or anything that cannot be programmed, categorized or easily referenced.
- Fox Mulder 
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut






Springfield, VA

For once, I generally agree with Xenomancers. The character interaction he describes is absolutely undesirable imo.
   
Made in ca
Renegade Inquisitor with a Bound Daemon





Tied and gagged in the back of your car

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Wow, I'm generally alright with it... but holy hell that shooting nerf.

I suppose you don't want guard to field weapons with a range greater than 36" for some reason?


I actually play a long ranged gunline. But it gets pretty boring when the game doesn't change at all.

Keep in mind that the range nerf is meant to be paired with giving a spotting ability to units like Scout Sentinals and other similar units that don't really have much of a niche right now. Every army should have the tools to negate these penalties in at least one way or another. By having to rely on mid-to-close range support to do their job properly, it becomes more interesting (and challenging) to play gunline armies, and makes achieving a first turn alpha strike harder.

 Xenomancers wrote:
I like these changes. They are all pretty good. My 2 cents.
-Maybe restrict the -1 to hit outside of 18 inches to units that don't have the vehical/monster key word (vehicles are very stable and designed to engage at long range) This might make them more appealing considering their weak close range abilities
-Also in the case of weapons firing out of LOS should always have a -1 to hit penalty if they can't see their target.
-Things like Sniper should also ignore all range penalties.
-Just remove 36" range penalty - there is 0 reason for that. Units are already -1 at that range.


I should have added in the original post, Snipers would definitely ignore the penalty. As for vehicles, I don't see why they'd need to ignore the nerf. Given a scout to assist in targetting, they'd be shooting normally anyway. The point is not to necessarily encourage the backline units to move forward, but rather coordination (and the necessity) of mid-line and front-line units.

To clarify on the assault phase rule - is your intent to remove this interaction - or are you just trying to make heroic intervention weaker - I don't agree with heroic intervention getting weaker. - I had this happen in a game once and I was very very frustrated. I had a brood lord in CC with a few singing spears and as insurance I brought in a unit of 3 warriors to assist in taking them down. The warriors had to attack first because they charged and my opponent removed the model that the brood lord was in contact with - now the brood lord is no longer within 1 inch of an enemy so he can't fight. That BS needs to be removed immediately. Any unit locked in assault at the beginning of the phase should be allowed to pile in and fight.


Heroic Intervention gets stronger, as the character would normally not be able to attack even if he cannot get directly within 1" himself. I've noticed that Heroic Intervention is currently really weak right now, since it's very easy to pile in around a single corner of a unit, or use one of your opponents' own models to block a character from being able to get into combat.

The Leadership changes could use some redressing, I'll admit, although that's a problem that the all-or-nothing style leadership system 8th edition has created, and something that is hard to work around.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2017/12/12 16:39:29


 
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut






Springfield, VA

The issue with requiring scouts is that melee armies do not require scouts to do their damage, so essentially you're just saying "shooting lists have to pay a tax in order to shoot more than 18". Furthermore, that tax can be removed, which means that it won't even last the whole game."

It doesn't really force maneuver, or anything. It doesn't force tactics. It forces shooting units into an even more alpha-strikey build, because the scouts aren't going to last very long in the lethal environment of this edition, so they have to maximize their force while they're alive.

Essentially, having a -2 beyond 36" means Guard may well not even try (hitting on 6s with weapons costed to hit on 4s is very badly inefficient). So the guard will just snipe the enemy's scouts that are closer, and then sit there and suck their thumbs until the melee army that they can't kill until it's within 18" finally gets within 18". That's not... interesting, really.

Heck, why do units like Basilisks that don't even have to see the enemy and are designed specifically to engage units that are miles and miles and miles away faced with extreme difficulty performing their function?

EDIT:
I just feel like your changes are encouraging Deep Strike shooting even more, because static shooting is now bad, and simultaneously makes screens even more necessary (as you need that extra turn of shooting with the enemy within 18", so you better damn well have units to absorb the charge and fall back!) and makes alpha strikes worse (gee, I better REALLY front-load my firepower, because those scouts are going to die someday...).

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/12/12 16:23:55


 
   
Made in us
Potent Possessed Daemonvessel





It isn't actually that hard to work around.

Just use LD as is and reduce/remove all the ways armies ignore it. Then if hordes need addressing, because they are exploding to morale too easily you can either give LD bonus for having a larger squad or CAP how many models can be lost to a single failed morale check.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Unit1126PLL wrote:
The issue with requiring scouts is that melee armies do not require scouts to do their damage, so essentially you're just saying "shooting lists have to pay a tax in order to shoot more than 18". Furthermore, that tax can be removed, which means that it won't even last the whole game."

It doesn't really force maneuver, or anything. It doesn't force tactics. It forces shooting units into an even more alpha-strikey build, because the scouts aren't going to last very long in the lethal environment of this edition, so they have to maximize their force while they're alive.

Essentially, having a -2 beyond 36" means Guard may well not even try (hitting on 6s with weapons costed to hit on 4s is very badly inefficient). So the guard will just snipe the enemy's scouts that are closer, and then sit there and suck their thumbs until the melee army that they can't kill until it's within 18" finally gets within 18". That's not... interesting, really.

Heck, why do units like Basilisks that don't even have to see the enemy and are designed specifically to engage units that are miles and miles and miles away faced with extreme difficulty performing their function?

EDIT:
I just feel like your changes are encouraging Deep Strike shooting even more, because static shooting is now bad, and simultaneously makes screens even more necessary (as you need that extra turn of shooting with the enemy within 18", so you better damn well have units to absorb the charge and fall back!) and makes alpha strikes worse (gee, I better REALLY front-load my firepower, because those scouts are going to die someday...).


That is why I like -1 for above half range, and -1 for lacking LOS. Though I could see some longer range artillery actually reverse the penalty for range, where they get worse the closer the opponent.

Thinking though maybe a better design would be -1 to hit if the opponent moved at least x" in the previous turn, and -1 for lacking LOS. So it is easier to target units that are sitting still (other heavy support options, objective camping squads etc) than squads that are moving

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/12/12 16:29:16


 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut




Aside from the leadership one, these are pretty solid. I personally would tweak/add a few things though.

-Reserves: Add "roll a D6 for every model that arrives from deepstrike. On a 1 that model is slain." This could be tweaked for certain expensive units (like a trygon)

-Characters: Change the wounds characteristic to less than 5 instead of 10 for targeting purposes. It has been my experience that if a model has 6 wounds it is pretty big already, and is a high priority target. (tau commanders, ork warbosses...) I would supplement this change with more bodyguard options.

-Flamers: Realistically flamers were designed to clear bunkers and such, not to kill swathes of guys in the open. I would change them to be really good at clearing units in cover. For example: "Flamers ignore cover bonuses and do 6 auto hits against targets in cover". I'd also increase range to 10".

-Range Penalties: I like the feel of what you proposed, but I could see it being easily broken. What if range penalties were based on weapon type instead? Maybe give a close range bonus and a long range penalty: e.g. 0-12" gives +1 to hit but 24"+ gives -1 to hit. Heavy weapons would still be an issue though.

-Morale: Add "If a unit fails a morale test while it is within 1" of an enemy unit, double the number of models removed as a result of the test" basically units in close combat are easier to break.
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut






Springfield, VA

Yeah.

By this ruleset I am wondering why an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (the Deathstrike) would become more accurate when it's target is within 18" of it.
   
Made in ca
Renegade Inquisitor with a Bound Daemon





Tied and gagged in the back of your car

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Yeah.

By this ruleset I am wondering why an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (the Deathstrike) would become more accurate when it's target is within 18" of it.


For what it's worth, it doesn't make sense for them to be on the table at all. But artillery usually requires targetting support of some form.
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut






Springfield, VA

 Fafnir wrote:
 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Yeah.

By this ruleset I am wondering why an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (the Deathstrike) would become more accurate when it's target is within 18" of it.


For what it's worth, it doesn't make sense for them to be on the table at all. But artillery usually requires targetting support of some form.


Well it depends on what you're targeting; I mean, you can fire an ICBM at a city without much help, but trying to hit a single individual is way below even the CEP of the weapon.

I do think 40k assumes you have orbital scans of your opponent available for to use, otherwise there would in fact need to be rules for spotters.
   
Made in us
Norn Queen






 Fafnir wrote:
I like the core of what 8th provides, but I still feel like it's really missing that little hop at the end to make it shine. Namely, the large shift towards alpha strike and horde style armies, which all feel very point-and-click. I've thought out some fixes that might go to serve to make the game more reasonably balanced on a whole (although there's still some serious balance problems that would need to be addressed, these changes would at least provide a better canvas for those changes to be developed upon), while also providing options for more tactical play.

Movement Phase
•Reserves: Roll a D6 equal to the number of units placed in reserve at the start of your movement phase. For each 4+, you may pick one unit that is allowed to be deployed according to its reinforcement rules. At the beginning of your third turn, any units remaining in reserve are allowed to be deployed. Any units not deployed at the end of your third turn count as being destroyed.


What happens with Jormungandr units in tunnels that have no way to deploy on their own? Or other such rules like trygon taxis?

Psychic Phase:
•Smite: Any time a psyker attempts to manifest the Smite psychic power, they suffer a -1 modifier to their psychic test for each previous attempt made to cast Smite during that turn.


You need to also apply this rule to all the other powers and allow them to be cast multiple times a turn. Only applying it to smite makes most psykers worthless because all they can cast is smite. You want to increase the viability of psykers who can know and cast multiple powers a turn, which means you want them all casting multiple powers a turn.

Shooting Phase:
•Characters: If an enemy model with the CHARACTER keyword is within 3" of another visible enemy unit, than the model with the CHARACTER keyword may not be targetted by enemy shooting unless they are the closest enemy model. Otherwise, CHARACTERs may be targetted normally.


Added wording to make it work without exploitation.

•Medium and Long Range: Models targetting units 18" away or more (medium range) suffer -1 to the to-hit rolls of their shooting attacks. Models targetting units 36" away or more (long range) suffer an additional -1 to the to-hit rolls of their shooting attacks.
Faction traits that apply a -1 to to-hit rolls from shooting attacks outside of 12" are now appended to change medium ranges and long ranges of shooting attacks made agains them to 12" and 24" respectively.


What happens to Orks here? I do agree with the comment above about making monsters and vehicles a potential exception to this, but more importantly is how this effects the outriders. Orks are crippled by this. (worse then they already are)

•Scouts/Spotters: Append various faction-specific units to include the role of negating Medium and Long Range shooting penalties. This would have to be done on a case-by-case basis. Scout Sentinals with search lights may forgo shooting to shine their light on a target 24" away, removing penalties while shooting against the lit-up unit for the rest of the phase, Adeptus Mechanicus Phosphor weaponry (weapons with 'phosphor' in the name) remove the penalty against units they hit for the rest of the phase, etc.


Unless you can provide examples of how this would work fairly in every army I am skeptical.

•Flamers/Heavy Flamers: Flamers, heavy flamers, and other flamer-type weaponry on a case-by-case basis (because Heavy D-Scythes do not need more dakka) gain an additional D6 hits for every 10 models in the enemy unit. Flamers do not check for range when firing in Overwatch.


I think it's better to have it be a +1 hit.

Assault Phase
•Characters in Assault: If a CHARACTER is within 1" of any friendly models who are within 1" of an enemy model during the assault phase, then that CHARACTER may pile in and attack, acting as if the friendly model within 1" of an enemy model is from their own unit.


Agree

Morale Phase:
•Horde Leadership: When rolling for leadership tests, roll a D6 for every 10 models in a unit (minimum 1), and add that to the number of models lost over the course of the turn.


This rule is fething terrible. You want to drastically hurt horde armies in moral? You want to encourage MSU MORE!? Why?


These are my opinions. This is how I feel. Others may feel differently. This needs to be stated for some reason.
 
   
Made in us
Blood-Drenched Death Company Marine




Little Rock, Arkansas

-reserve rolls
Please no. In the last several editions I never took anything that had to wait in reserve unless it had at LEAST a rerollable 3+ to come in. Things as important as whether or not a 400 point unit decides to even show up on the board should not be up to single dice rolls. If anything I'd prefer that they show up t1 unless you make a die roll to tactically delay them.

-Smite
Maybe -1 for each successful smite? Although more to the point I'd rather 90% of the game's mortal wound abilities turn into "auto-wounds at ap-5" so that they allow invulns. Little rhinos blowing up and human psyker mind bullets shouldn't be bringing down chapter masters and knights with no defensive rolls whatsoever. It's not balanced NOR fun. The straight up "wounds you can't do jack about" should be reserved for titans blowing up and orbital strikes and stuff like that.

-Character targeting
I would like this better, yes. It's silly that I need to check range on a unit over on the left flank to check if I can target a character over on the right flank.

-ranges
I hate static shooting armies as much as the next guy, but that seems brutal. I think something like "first turn, all units shoot as if they had moved earlier in the turn" might be enough to bring long range shooty lists back in line with close range lists. It would effectively just be -1 to hit with most heavies.

-flamers
Yeah these need to have an anti-horde mechanic built in. I'd be in favor of removing their random number of hits, and just making them "scores 1 hit per model in the target unit that is within range." Probably with d6 wall of death hits for overwatch regardless of range.

-help heroic intervention
yes please. Hell, I'd make it that if he can get within 1" of the engaged friendly with a 3" pile in, he should be legal to fight. I seriously haven't seen an intervention yet since the edition started, because it's so flippin easy to position so that you don't trigger it.

-morale
Nah. We just need anti-horde weapons (like flamers above) to actually get mechanics that make them point for point better against hordes than other targets. Perhaps on some of the traditionally anti-horde weapons like the whirlwind missiles and heavy bolters and such, they could gain a +1 to hit when targeting a unit with 11 or more models.

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Made in ca
Renegade Inquisitor with a Bound Daemon





Tied and gagged in the back of your car

 Lance845 wrote:
 Fafnir wrote:
I like the core of what 8th provides, but I still feel like it's really missing that little hop at the end to make it shine. Namely, the large shift towards alpha strike and horde style armies, which all feel very point-and-click. I've thought out some fixes that might go to serve to make the game more reasonably balanced on a whole (although there's still some serious balance problems that would need to be addressed, these changes would at least provide a better canvas for those changes to be developed upon), while also providing options for more tactical play.

Movement Phase
•Reserves: Roll a D6 equal to the number of units placed in reserve at the start of your movement phase. For each 4+, you may pick one unit that is allowed to be deployed according to its reinforcement rules. At the beginning of your third turn, any units remaining in reserve are allowed to be deployed. Any units not deployed at the end of your third turn count as being destroyed.


What happens with Jormungandr units in tunnels that have no way to deploy on their own? Or other such rules like trygon taxis?


It would either require additional successful reserve slots to deploy multiple units, or a special rules on the part of the delivery system specifying an exception.

Psychic Phase:
•Smite: Any time a psyker attempts to manifest the Smite psychic power, they suffer a -1 modifier to their psychic test for each previous attempt made to cast Smite during that turn.


You need to also apply this rule to all the other powers and allow them to be cast multiple times a turn. Only applying it to smite makes most psykers worthless because all they can cast is smite. You want to increase the viability of psykers who can know and cast multiple powers a turn, which means you want them all casting multiple powers a turn.


Most psykers are going to have more than smite that they're capable of casting. You have some fringe cases, like Grey Knights, but they function with a speshul version of the power, which itself can provide an exclusion from the normal version of the power and the above restriction.

•Medium and Long Range: Models targetting units 18" away or more (medium range) suffer -1 to the to-hit rolls of their shooting attacks. Models targetting units 36" away or more (long range) suffer an additional -1 to the to-hit rolls of their shooting attacks.
Faction traits that apply a -1 to to-hit rolls from shooting attacks outside of 12" are now appended to change medium ranges and long ranges of shooting attacks made agains them to 12" and 24" respectively.


What happens to Orks here? I do agree with the comment above about making monsters and vehicles a potential exception to this, but more importantly is how this effects the outriders. Orks are crippled by this. (worse then they already are)

•Scouts/Spotters: Append various faction-specific units to include the role of negating Medium and Long Range shooting penalties. This would have to be done on a case-by-case basis. Scout Sentinals with search lights may forgo shooting to shine their light on a target 24" away, removing penalties while shooting against the lit-up unit for the rest of the phase, Adeptus Mechanicus Phosphor weaponry (weapons with 'phosphor' in the name) remove the penalty against units they hit for the rest of the phase, etc.


Unless you can provide examples of how this would work fairly in every army I am skeptical.


I didn't want to have to go into army specific rules, but here we go:

Imperial Guard:
•Scout Sentinels and Armoured Sentinels gain the following special rule
Spotters: Units with this special rule may forgo shooting in the shooting phase in order to mark a unit within 24" and within line of sight until the end of the phase. Friendly units shooting at marked units do not suffer the penalties for medium or long ranged shooting.

Adeptus Mechanicus
•Faction-wide special rule
Phosphor Weaponry: If an enemy unit is hit by a phosphor weapon in the shooting phase (any weapon with 'phosphor' in its name is a phosphor weapon), it is marked. Friendly units shooting at marked units do not suffer the penalties for medium or long ranged shooting.
•Sicarian Ruststalkers gain the following special rule
Spotters: Units with this special rule may forgo shooting in the shooting phase in order to mark a unit within 24" and within line of sight until the end of the phase. Friendly units shooting at marked units do not suffer the penalties for medium or long ranged shooting.

Space Marines (and derivatives)
•Space Marine Scouts, Assault Marines, Reivers, Landspeeders, and Drop Pods gain the following special rule
Spotters: Units with this special rule may forgo shooting in the shooting phase in order to mark a unit within 24" and within line of sight until the end of the phase. Friendly units shooting at marked units do not suffer the penalties for medium or long ranged shooting.

Chaos Space Marines
•Raptors and Chosen gain the following special rule
Spotters: Units with this special rule may forgo shooting in the shooting phase in order to mark a unit within 24" and within line of sight until the end of the phase. Friendly units shooting at marked units do not suffer the penalties for medium or long ranged shooting.

Other faction specific versions would also be warranted (and Grey Knights should definitely get [i]The Shrouding[/b] back in some form), but that would be the core of it. Admech's phosphor is notable simply because it already has a pretty good fluff precedence on Dragoons.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/12/13 00:53:37


 
   
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 Fafnir wrote:


Movement Phase
•Reserves: Roll a D6 equal to the number of units placed in reserve at the start of your movement phase. For each 4+, you may pick one unit that is allowed to be deployed according to its reinforcement rules. At the beginning of your third turn, any units remaining in reserve are allowed to be deployed. Any units not deployed at the end of your third turn count as being destroyed.

I'd be okay with returning to something like this. You get to alpha/beta strike a little less reliably and risk coming in piecemeal, but the fact that scattering/mishapping is no longer a thing means you don't have to risk not playing with a unit at all. I would strongly advise against the "lose a unit on a roll of 1" suggestion posted above. It's frustrating to not even be able to put your toys on the table and fork over kill points for no good reason, and I just end up feeling bad for my opponent when it happens to them. I've offered to start a game over when early game mishaps wipe out key units. Just a feel bad rule in general.


 Fafnir wrote:

Psychic Phase:
•Smite: Any time a psyker attempts to manifest the Smite psychic power, they suffer a -1 modifier to their psychic test for each previous attempt made to cast Smite during that turn.

I just started a thread in General Discussion where I admit to not having enough experience on the receiving end of smite spam to feel comfortable commenting about it, so... yeah.

 Fafnir wrote:

Shooting Phase:
•Characters: If an enemy model with the CHARACTER keyword is within 3" of another enemy unit, than the model with the CHARACTER keyword may not be targetted by enemy shooting unless they are the closest enemy model. Otherwise, CHARACTERs may be targetted normally.


So what I'm worried about here is the scenario where I make a charge with the unit standing in front of my psyker, then flub the charge with the psyker leaving them exposed due to no longer being within 3" of an ally. Also, I feel like snipers finally sort of kind of have a role this edition, and this diminishes it a bit. Granted, the models I really want to snipe always have enough wounds and a good enough invul save to make snipers suboptimal against them.

 Fafnir wrote:


•Medium and Long Range: Models targetting units 18" away or more (medium range) suffer -1 to the to-hit rolls of their shooting attacks. Models targetting units 36" away or more (long range) suffer an additional -1 to the to-hit rolls of their shooting attacks.
Faction traits that apply a -1 to to-hit rolls from shooting attacks outside of 12" are now appended to change medium ranges and long ranges of shooting attacks made agains them to 12" and 24" respectively.


I think I like this. It dulls the alpha strike potential of gunlines without making them useless. I'd probably simpllify it as, "To-hit rolls made against a target more than 18" away suffer a -1 penalty." It's just cleaner and easier to only have to worry about one range band instead of two. You can usually eyeball whether or not an enemy is 18" away, but you'd have to pause and measure a lot if 36" was also an issue. As others have suggested, it might make sense to invert this for certain artillery-style wepaons.

 Fafnir wrote:

•Scouts/Spotters: Append various faction-specific units to include the role of negating Medium and Long Range shooting penalties. This would have to be done on a case-by-case basis. Scout Sentinals with search lights may forgo shooting to shine their light on a target 24" away, removing penalties while shooting against the lit-up unit for the rest of the phase, Adeptus Mechanicus Phosphor weaponry (weapons with 'phosphor' in the name) remove the penalty against units they hit for the rest of the phase, etc.

Neat. It gives me more of a reason to outflank things like war walkers or to deepstrike my rangers. Both of whom I assume would qualify as spotters. It would be neat to give units like tactical marines and guardians "auspex" gear that allows them to serve as spotters as well. "Brothers! I am transmitting the target's auspex-identifieid position now!" I'd be mildly worried that not all factions would have a good spotter though. I think Xenos are mostly covered (maybe not 'crons and dark eldar), but what about chaos marines? Sisters? It's conceptually cool, but I would worry it would end up nerfing armies arbitrarily.

 Fafnir wrote:

•Flamers/Heavy Flamers: Flamers, heavy flamers, and other flamer-type weaponry on a case-by-case basis (because Heavy D-Scythes do not need more dakka) gain an additional D6 hits for every 10 models in the enemy unit. Flamers do not check for range when firing in Overwatch.


I like the spirit of the rule, but I question the specifics. Every once in a while, a single flamer is going to kill 18 gribblies all on its own. Which will be awesome for you and significantly less awesome for your opponent. A modest flat bonus to the number of hits, as proposed above, seems more reasonable to me. +1 hit for every 5 models in the unit rounding up? So you'll always get between 2 and 7 hits, and you can potentially get really lucky and hit 12 guys in a 30 man unit.

 Fafnir wrote:

Assault Phase
•Characters in Assault: If a CHARACTER is within 1" of any friendly models who are within 1" of an enemy model during the assault phase, then that CHARACTER may pile in and attack, acting as if the friendly model within 1" of an enemy model is from their own unit.

Yeah. Sure. I've been there. Your super cool character is right there, but he isn't allowed to swing because your opponent opted to remove the guy in base to base with him when your other unit swung.




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. Psychic tests are unfluffy. Your longing for AV is understandable but misguided. Your chapter doesn't need a separate codex. Doctrines should go away. Being a "troop" means nothing. This has been a cranky service announcement. You may now resume your regularly scheduled arguing.
 
   
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Absolutely no to those shooting rules. This means I literally cannot shoot my long range weapons as orks, and I'm hitting on 6's for pretty much everything else.

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 Vitali Advenil wrote:
Absolutely no to those shooting rules. This means I literally cannot shoot my long range weapons as orks, and I'm hitting on 6's for pretty much everything else.


Most competitive armies have the tools to do that already. My proposal focuses on setting a standard for the most common enemy hit modifiers that would allow forces to be developed around tools to mitigate and control that.
   
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 Vitali Advenil wrote:
Absolutely no to those shooting rules. This means I literally cannot shoot my long range weapons as orks, and I'm hitting on 6's for pretty much everything else.


Actually, don't orks potentially come out ahead with Fafnir's proposed rules?

Against any enemy that normally imposes a -1 to hit penalty on you for being too far away (Alaitoc, Raven Guard, Alpha Legion), you're basically breaking even unless you happen to be more than 36" away. So it potentially screws over lootas, but you'll generally end up with lots of targets within 36" in a standard game, no?

Conversely, all of your ork units are going to be more difficult to shoot to death unless the enemy gets within charging range!

That said, I'm fully in favor of the "orks always hit on 6s" proposal that was pitched a couple weeks back.


ATTENTION
. Psychic tests are unfluffy. Your longing for AV is understandable but misguided. Your chapter doesn't need a separate codex. Doctrines should go away. Being a "troop" means nothing. This has been a cranky service announcement. You may now resume your regularly scheduled arguing.
 
   
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In My Lab

Wyldhunt wrote:
I like the spirit of the rule, but I question the specifics. Every once in a while, a single flamer is going to kill 18 gribblies all on its own. Which will be awesome for you and significantly less awesome for your opponent. A modest flat bonus to the number of hits, as proposed above, seems more reasonable to me. +1 hit for every 5 models in the unit rounding up? So you'll always get between 2 and 7 hits, and you can potentially get really lucky and hit 12 guys in a 30 man unit.


Do you want the odds of killing 18 people from a 30 man unit? Here-and I'll do it with a Heavy Flamer versus Ork Boyz even!

1/6^3-odds of rolling 3 6s for number of hits.
2/3^18-odds of rolling 18 successful wound rolls.

So, that is (1/216)*(262144/387420489), or 262144/83682825624, which is...

0.00000313259

So, if you fire a Heavy Flamer at 30 Ork Boyz 320,000 times... You can expect to kill 18 once. ONCE.

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CO

I actually kind of like these ideas. Maybe the reserves rule should be similar to your proposed changes to smite?

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Here is the issue with your shooting ranges rules. You thoight about this with spotters in mind for the good to avaerage shooting armies. People with 3+ bs so that they dont HAVE to have spotters just to function. But you are not considering the inpact on the 4+ 5+ armies.

You give examples of imperium and chaos marines (essentially just marines for the sake of this discussion) butyou dont consider that your pigeon holeing orks, nids, even mostly tau who cant stack up the tons of +1 BS that they used to into requiring a list stacked with a specific spotter unit simply to function.

What ork unit do you require them to spam in every list just so they can shoot?

Which nid unit now needs to be baked into every build that isnt pure melee?

Its not the mechanic on its own thats bad. Its the impact it has on the whole army building structure. Its called emergent gameplay. You didnt tell people they HAD to bring x unit. You just made not bringing x unit completely unviable.


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I had appended the first post with an Ork rule a while back. Here it is.

Orkz
•Faction-wide special rule
More Dakka!: Ork units never suffer penalties from medium or long ranged shooting. In addition, Ork units always hit on an un-modified roll of a 6, regardless of any modifiers. GRETCHIN and KILLA KANZ may never benefit from this rule.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/12/13 03:22:20


 
   
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Krieg! What a hole...

Mhmm, never liked that suggestion for Orks, it makes so little sense, they care so little about aiming that... they'll hit at some point? Meh... I'd rather with everyone always hitting on 6 regardless of modifiers and leave it at that.

And how would you price something that lets Earthshaker/Thudd guns/Heavy mortar carriages ignore the medium/long range penalty, Krieg can't take Sentinels, but their crewmen kit comes with a model looking through some sort of rangefinder that would fit well for them.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2017/12/13 04:02:59


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I feel like the shooting rules could be fixed if terrain were addressed.

If you can see 50% of less of the enemy model you suffer a -1 to hit penalty. Model owners call or dice off/4+?

If direct line of sight traverses any forest, ruin, building or barricade the enemy unit gets +1 save?

Change the current cover rule (unit wholly within) to provide +1 toughness?

I think lack of meaningful terrain rules is why turn 1 alpha strikes are so important because positing means little to nothing. If I can see your gun you are going to get alpha struck off the board.

Change the current -1 modifiers to take advantage of these rules so raven guard, opponents suffer an additional -1 to hit when they can see 50% or less of your model. Alpha Legion, your models gain an additional +1 toughness when in terrain. Altroic, enemies suffer -1 to hit if they cannot see all of the unit they are shooting at.

Would reduce the monotony of the -1 to hit armies and the problems of that -1 to hit stacking so well. Reduce the static nature of turn 1 and the game in general?

I feel the ranges thing punishes armies who get -1 to shoot heavy weapons if they move. Rewards CC armies, deepstrike and infiltrators way too much and if it stacks with the -1 to hit basically makes reapers even more OP than they already are...
   
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 Fafnir wrote:
I had appended the first post with an Ork rule a while back. Here it is.

Orkz
•Faction-wide special rule
More Dakka!: Ork units never suffer penalties from medium or long ranged shooting. In addition, Ork units always hit on an un-modified roll of a 6, regardless of any modifiers. GRETCHIN and KILLA KANZ may never benefit from this rule.


If you have to patch your core mechanic rules with special snow flake exceptions then the core mechanic is broken and needs to go back to the drawing board.


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 Lance845 wrote:
 Fafnir wrote:
I had appended the first post with an Ork rule a while back. Here it is.

Orkz
•Faction-wide special rule
More Dakka!: Ork units never suffer penalties from medium or long ranged shooting. In addition, Ork units always hit on an un-modified roll of a 6, regardless of any modifiers. GRETCHIN and KILLA KANZ may never benefit from this rule.


If you have to patch your core mechanic rules with special snow flake exceptions then the core mechanic is broken and needs to go back to the drawing board.



...that was part of the 'faction specific rules' for interacting with range modifiers that I had originally mentioned, and you asked how factions would deal with it specifically. I even said every army would have means to deal with it. I mean, you could just as easily drop the exception and make Kommandos and warbuggies act as spotters, but it's much more fluffy for them not to be affected by range, since they don't really aim in the first place.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/12/13 08:36:18


 
   
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No, I think the whole mechanic is bad. I think requiring armies to have spotters to shoot effectively is bad because of what it does to list building. I think having the armies effected by it the most get special rules to be exceptions to it is bad (no army should be blanket immune to core mechanics of the game). I think the extent to which it impacts those armies requiring them to have these special exceptions is bad.

It needs to be scrapped and reworked from the ground up.

Again, 1) no army should be blanket exempt from a core mechanic. 2) No army should be required to take specific options just to function. 3) No core mechanic should cripple a unit/armies ability to function.


These are my opinions. This is how I feel. Others may feel differently. This needs to be stated for some reason.
 
   
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 Fafnir wrote:
I had appended the first post with an Ork rule a while back. Here it is.

Orkz
•Faction-wide special rule
More Dakka!: Ork units never suffer penalties from medium or long ranged shooting. In addition, Ork units always hit on an un-modified roll of a 6, regardless of any modifiers. GRETCHIN and KILLA KANZ may never benefit from this rule.


Range hit penalties are a terrible idea for 40k. This isn't the player-base you want to aim things like that towards.

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Just a quick thought on the Alpha Strike Prevention rules:
I also feel that dice rolls to come in from reserve can be awkward and in previous editions I was always gunning for a reserve manipulation Warlord Trait or Steatlh in Ruins (good times).

My Proposal-
All the reserve rules remain the same. Units which can be deployed via a "deep strike" type of mechanism can be deployed to the equivalent of:

1) The accumulated number of turns that have passed in the game without a deep strike deployment from my army.

Example: In turn 1, one unit could be deployed via deep strike. I withhold the decision to deploy a unit. In turn 2, I could now deploy 3 units. Again, I withhold the decision to deploy. In turn 3 I can now deploy 6 units (and so on).

2) The number of the turn the game is currently in.

Example: In turn 1, one unit can be deployed via deep strike. I choose to do this. In turn 2, I can only deploy 2 units. I choose to do this. In turn 3, I can only deploy 3 units (and so on).

Do you see more pros or cons to this idea?

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