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auticus wrote:

Units on foot blowing cannonballs through three layers of forests however do not make sense and are unintuitive.

You should read about the Battle at Bunker Hill and the fallback to Charleston. You know... The battle where units on foot were blowing cannonballs through forests with great success. There's even a story about a guy from NH who had survived a cannonball to the chest only to be killed by another one that had gone through a tree first.

Thats cool. If the rules had t hings like... you are -1 to hit for each set of forests you are shooting through, where it was possible to hit your target but not without penalty, I'd also be ok with it. Something where you had a penalty to hit at least so that the terrain was giving you some kind of benefit.

But when you have 30 guys taking cover, 29 are out of sight completely, 1 guy's horn on his helmet can be seen through three layers of woods because citadel woods don't block any line of sight, and the entire unit can be shot at with no penalty, I have a major problem with immersion at that point.

Maybe its that all of the guys i play with that hate it, to include myself, are military veterans that were in combat MOS that know that firing through treelines with tanks that have image enhancement still is more difficult than shooting targets out in the open, and would like that reflected just a little bit on the table. (I was a 19k, tanker... filled every role on a tank from driver to gunner to tc)

 Kanluwen wrote:

 EnTyme wrote:
Kanluwen, the limits of melee are built into the mechanics of the game. Charge can be "shut off" by the dice, and we don't need a terrain piece that makes units untargetable by melee beyond 1" because most melee weapons only have a 1" reach. The open table makes units untargetable by melee beyond 1".

There's a difference between "unable to attack" and "untargetable".
A unit that is out of 18" range for a bowman is "untargetable" by your definition otherwise.

Functionally, what's the different?

 EnTyme wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 EnTyme wrote:
Kanluwen, the limits of melee are built into the mechanics of the game. Charge can be "shut off" by the dice, and we don't need a terrain piece that makes units untargetable by melee beyond 1" because most melee weapons only have a 1" reach. The open table makes units untargetable by melee beyond 1".

There's a difference between "unable to attack" and "untargetable".
A unit that is out of 18" range for a bowman is "untargetable" by your definition otherwise.

Functionally, what's the different?

It's a bit hard to explain but the basic concept:
Your melee unit being outside of that range does not mean that you cannot ever use the melee unit. You'll also know from the very outset that "This is going to be out of range" and plan accordingly--whether it be with stuff that lets you run+charge or running the unit from cover to cover to prep for a charge. Effectively while a melee unit might have a range of 1" on their weapon, their actual threat radius is 12".

A ranged unit has a (no pun intended) threat range of a certain distance, with the potential threat range dropping significantly once a melee unit hits 12" out since that's the average Charge range and will then lock the ranged unit into combat with them either being forced to retreat during your next Movement or only being able to shoot that specific unit.
Retreating, unless you have an Allegiance or Warscroll specific ability, means you can't do anything during your Shooting.
Staying put means that you're being leashed by the melee player. I can't throw a roadblock unit in front of my ranged unit to prevent being leashed in--if the enemy can pile into me? Ranged are then forced to be shooting that target.

Now certainly it might be my fault in that second example, but hey if we're simply going off "immersiveness" what's more immersive than a shieldwall holding off the enemy fighters while your ranged fire volleys over their heads?

 Future War Cultist wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Overlords have no wizards; they cannot cast the Aethervoid Pendulum. They would need an allied wizard to do it.

Is that a joke? I honestly can’t tell.

I was thinking more of don’t nerf shooting too much because whilst it has an advantage it’s not the be all and end all.

It was a joke based off wildly misinterpreting "swing the pendulum"

Now certainly it might be my fault in that second example, but hey if we're simply going off "immersiveness" what's more immersive than a shieldwall holding off the enemy fighters while your ranged fire volleys over their heads?

I may just not get the jist of this example visually in my head, but this very occurrence happened last night in my game.

My opponent had a shieldwall of tzaanagors holding off my blight kings while his skyfires and other ranged heroes were firing volleys of magic and arrows from right behind them over the combat and into my great unclean one.

auticus wrote:

Now certainly it might be my fault in that second example, but hey if we're simply going off "immersiveness" what's more immersive than a shieldwall holding off the enemy fighters while your ranged fire volleys over their heads?

I may just not get the jist of this example visually in my head, but this very occurrence happened last night in my game.

My opponent had a shieldwall of tzaanagors holding off my blight kings while his skyfires and other ranged heroes were firing volleys of magic and arrows from right behind them over the combat and into my great unclean one.

If there had been space enough for you to do it, you could have piled in your Blight Kings and locked down the Skyfires to only firing at them.

That's where the issue comes from. As long as you touch an enemy's ranged unit with one of your units, they're leashed in.

Well that part I don't have a problem with, and I know you disagree with me and thats fine. But to me if a unit is engaged in melee, they aren't going to be ignoring the unit they are in melee with to shoot something else.

That to me is not immersive. That to me is gamey.

The only consideration that I have is actually how I had it set up in Azyr back in the day, and it went over well, was that models within 3" of an enemy could only fire at the enemy.

So if you have a unit of archers, and some were in melee, then the ones not in melee could fire at whatever they wanted.

This was a houserule I used all the way up until last fall (2017) when we were asked to minimize houserules so that one got cut. But I liked it a lot.

 Kanluwen wrote:

auticus wrote:

Now certainly it might be my fault in that second example, but hey if we're simply going off "immersiveness" what's more immersive than a shieldwall holding off the enemy fighters while your ranged fire volleys over their heads?

I may just not get the jist of this example visually in my head, but this very occurrence happened last night in my game.

My opponent had a shieldwall of tzaanagors holding off my blight kings while his skyfires and other ranged heroes were firing volleys of magic and arrows from right behind them over the combat and into my great unclean one.

If there had been space enough for you to do it, you could have piled in your Blight Kings and locked down the Skyfires to only firing at them.

That's where the issue comes from. As long as you touch an enemy's ranged unit with one of your units, they're leashed in.

The Tzeentch player would have ensured a 3" gap, that is a bit obvious.

auticus wrote:
Well that part I don't have a problem with, and I know you disagree with me and thats fine. But to me if a unit is engaged in melee, they aren't going to be ignoring the unit they are in melee with to shoot something else.

That to me is not immersive. That to me is gamey.

And a unit that is engaged in melee isn't going to be ignoring the unit they're in melee with to go stab something else.

It's funny how you're all for "positioning" and "tactics" when it comes to ranged armies having to move, but you just shrug and call it "gamey" when melee armies can do exactly what you accuse ranged armies of--them just doing whatever and then getting rewarded for it.

How does a melee unit ignore what they are in melee with? They have to swing at something.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
The Tzeentch player would have ensured a 3" gap, that is a bit obvious.

With the size of the base for Blight Kings? Doesn't matter.

Also doesn't matter as the shooting rules specify a 3 inch "leash"--so it's a hell of a lot worse than I've initially represented it. As long as you're within range to perform a Pile-In, you're leashing ranged units.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
How does a melee unit ignore what they are in melee with? They have to swing at something.

By piling in to grab another unit and swing at that unit instead?

You're not forced to swing at the unit you charged.

A unit that is in melee is composed of multiple models. Those models are fixated on a target.

If I'm in melee and I slide off to engage an archer next to the unit, I'm (the model) engaged with the model.

That is a world difference from an archer engaged with a model trying to cut their head off and ignoring them and firing arrows over the units head while a guy's trying to kill them.

Having spent five years in the SCA doing armored combat, those things are exactly what happen in a battle. If you are stupid enough to put archers right behind a mainline unit that is getting enveloped by a larger enemy or are outpositioned and flanked by an enemy, they are going to overlap and hit the archers too.

The simple answer is keep a 3" gap between your missile unit and your melee screen and you don' t have to worry about it except for if you want to split hairs to win some technicality.

Or do what I had to do and houserule the game to where you enjoy it more.

 Kanluwen wrote:

auticus wrote:
Well that part I don't have a problem with, and I know you disagree with me and thats fine. But to me if a unit is engaged in melee, they aren't going to be ignoring the unit they are in melee with to shoot something else.

That to me is not immersive. That to me is gamey.

And a unit that is engaged in melee isn't going to be ignoring the unit they're in melee with to go stab something else.

It's funny how you're all for "positioning" and "tactics" when it comes to ranged armies having to move, but you just shrug and call it "gamey" when melee armies can do exactly what you accuse ranged armies of--them just doing whatever and then getting rewarded for it.

I'm not sure what you're referring to here. Are you saying a unit wouldn't break combat with one enemy to go defend an objective, or to find a more favorable fight? That's pretty common.

And you're also shifting goalposts. A lot.

This originated with discussing forests and not shooting through them.

You have taken my approval of this rule for immersion purposes and are trying to somehow make that wrong or illogical because there are other gamey elements (in your opinion)

So if I like immersion... and I like that forests block line of sight... the game shouldn't allow that because if I don't keep a 3" gap melee units can fight whatever they want and thats gamey too.

Sorry. Pick your battles. Petition to have that rule changed too and see what the designers do. Or houserule it for your games.

auticus wrote:
A unit that is in melee is composed of multiple models. Those models are fixated on a target.

If I'm in melee and I slide off to engage an archer next to the unit, I'm (the model) engaged with the model.

That is a world difference from an archer engaged with a model trying to cut their head off and ignoring them and firing arrows over the units head while a guy's trying to kill them.

Having spent five years in the SCA doing armored combat, those things are exactly what happen in a battle. If you are stupid enough to put archers right behind a mainline unit that is getting enveloped by a larger enemy or are outpositioned and flanked by an enemy, they are going to overlap and hit the archers too.

The simple answer is keep a 3" gap between your missile unit and your melee screen and you don' t have to worry about it except for if you want to split hairs to win some technicality.

Or do what I had to do and houserule the game to where you enjoy it more.

Hey, you know how different things have different sized bases?

And realistically, if you want to try to lecture someone about "shifting goalposts"--I'd suggest you revisit your own strategies for discussion. You've been doing nothing but shifting goalposts. You keep talking about "ranged armies" dominating tables or throwing anecdotes about them driving people away while continually forgetting to mention that it's trash like Judicator and Skyfire spam. That's not a ranged army, that's people playing tournament min-max filth in a casual setting.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 EnTyme wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

auticus wrote:
Well that part I don't have a problem with, and I know you disagree with me and thats fine. But to me if a unit is engaged in melee, they aren't going to be ignoring the unit they are in melee with to shoot something else.

That to me is not immersive. That to me is gamey.

And a unit that is engaged in melee isn't going to be ignoring the unit they're in melee with to go stab something else.

It's funny how you're all for "positioning" and "tactics" when it comes to ranged armies having to move, but you just shrug and call it "gamey" when melee armies can do exactly what you accuse ranged armies of--them just doing whatever and then getting rewarded for it.

I'm not sure what you're referring to here. Are you saying a unit wouldn't break combat with one enemy to go defend an objective, or to find a more favorable fight? That's pretty common.

I'm saying that he's a hypocrite and this showcases it.

He'll talk and talk and talk about how ranged armies need to be controlled but when push comes to shove, he won't say crap about similar issues for close combat units.

I shouldn't be able to drop a unit of Akhelians or Thralls and lock down a gunline. But I can. And from his posting, it seems that's a-OK by him.

That said, I'm going to duck out of this for awhile and go enjoy some painting.

Jesus christ dude. Adding you to my ignore list. You won't get anymore responses from me.

*redacted* I'm bored of this conversation.

Personally I’m a fan of forests blocking LoS. I do think 1” is a bit much. I prefer a simple see into, out of, but not thru. Not going to really complain about the 1” though.

 AduroT wrote:
Personally I’m a fan of forests blocking LoS. I do think 1” is a bit much. I prefer a simple see into, out of, but not thru. Not going to really complain about the 1” though.

I'd like this solution a little more but ultimately I like the addition of the rule. I don't play much in the way of shooting lists so I admit some bias but overall I like that forests create better alleys and blind spots.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
The Tzeentch player would have ensured a 3" gap, that is a bit obvious.

With the size of the base for Blight Kings? Doesn't matter.

Also doesn't matter as the shooting rules specify a 3 inch "leash"--so it's a hell of a lot worse than I've initially represented it. As long as you're within range to perform a Pile-In, you're leashing ranged units.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
How does a melee unit ignore what they are in melee with? They have to swing at something.

By piling in to grab another unit and swing at that unit instead?

You're not forced to swing at the unit you charged.

I do not understand how base size matters to having a three inch gap between a shield wall unit and a ranged unit behind them. Nor how a pile in to shift targets is unrealistic; if two lines of infantry hit each other that pile in isn't going to allow the whole unit to direct all their attacks to one guy on the flank. You are not making sense here.

I really enjoy the LoS blocking rule that appeared with the forests. Had a situation where an opponent recklessly charged into a unit, only to get piled in by the hidden unit later on.

Is it possible to have auticus and Kan put each other on ignore?

I don't want to ignore them because I appreciate many of their posts bit I feel like I'm reading the exact same argument month after month when their paths cross.

I've already put him on ignore and won't be responding to any of the things he posts from this point forward.

 AduroT wrote:
Personally I’m a fan of forests blocking LoS. I do think 1” is a bit much. I prefer a simple see into, out of, but not thru. Not going to really complain about the 1” though.

The old 40K way of doing it where the woods counts as area terrain, and you can only see 6" deep in or out but never all the way through regardless of depth was about the perfect solution. I'd have loved it if WFB had adopted that as well, as it was the terrain rules for WFB were a bit unforgiving.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Future War Cultist wrote:
The other day I had to fight a Stardrake that had a 1+ save with rerolls on the 1, a 4+ save against mortal wounds and healing. 40+ attacks from Orruk Brutes failed to do anything. An entire game spent attacking it did nothing. I am a little disappointed that this kind of thing can happen in the game. Am I a sore loser or is ok to be peeved at this kind of thing?

You are entirely justified; that is an unfun experience and I encourage you to send GW an email stating as such. GW wants AoS to be a big thing but to do that they need to be better. That means we need to inform them of issues like this because the people they use for playtesting are (as has been made abundantly clear through three GHBs) insufficiently skilled at the task.

I don't think it's that the playtesters are doing a bad job, I think the biggest problem is that there are too few of them... from the podcasts I listen to that feature these playtesters my impression is that it's a pretty small group of guys that sometimes goes to GW to play for a couple of days and give their input during that time. Which is nice, but what they actually need is a community of playtesters who could actually keep up with testing hundreds and hundreds of new and old warscrolls when there's a new release or big rules change.

I would be less harsh in my criticism if things that are obvious problems just from reading the rules were not present, or limited to one or two issues. When something like Seraphon slips past that tells me there was no critical analysis of significance, nor was there any testing of the army worth mentioning. Many units can be seen as over/under powered from math alone, even ones in the starter that should have been tested more thoroughly.

 Mymearan wrote:


I don't think it's that the playtesters are doing a bad job, I think the biggest problem is that there are too few of them... from the podcasts I listen to that feature these playtesters my impression is that it's a pretty small group of guys that sometimes goes to GW to play for a couple of days and give their input during that time. Which is nice, but what they actually need is a community of playtesters who could actually keep up with testing hundreds and hundreds of new and old warscrolls when there's a new release or big rules change.

There actually is and have been a community of play-testers from the beginning. GW just chooses to pay attention to those that are within an arms reach, can see in person etc - it is just a policy of the company I guess. PPC and Azyr have been probably testing and balancing the point costs since day 1.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I would be less harsh in my criticism if things that are obvious problems just from reading the rules were not present, or limited to one or two issues. When something like Seraphon slips past that tells me there was no critical analysis of significance, nor was there any testing of the army worth mentioning. Many units can be seen as over/under powered from math alone, even ones in the starter that should have been tested more thoroughly.

The marketing dept has truly taken over design dept!

 CoreCommander wrote:

 Mymearan wrote:


I don't think it's that the playtesters are doing a bad job, I think the biggest problem is that there are too few of them... from the podcasts I listen to that feature these playtesters my impression is that it's a pretty small group of guys that sometimes goes to GW to play for a couple of days and give their input during that time. Which is nice, but what they actually need is a community of playtesters who could actually keep up with testing hundreds and hundreds of new and old warscrolls when there's a new release or big rules change.

There actually is and have been a community of play-testers from the beginning. GW just chooses to pay attention to those that are within an arms reach, can see in person etc - it is just a policy of the company I guess. PPC and Azyr have been probably testing and balancing the point costs since day 1.

From what I've been able to ascertain, a lot of it comes down to the fact that they can see in person and verify how those playtesters are playing things. That seems to be just as important to them as anything else.

It also looks like certain groups/testers are given specific responsibilities/factions--and they usually have some kind of vested interest in the faction from the outset. Which is good(they have knowledge of the faction and what's important to it) and bad(they might just let the power go to their head and conveniently 'forget' certain things they noticed during testing).