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1. Units would have to roll 2d6 per 12" range of their weapon; added together to determine final shooting range. More elite units would get to re-roll (all) these dice. If all of their targets are out of range, the shooting attack fails.
2. Units would block line of sight to the models behind them, unless the firing model was able to draw an uninterrupted line that doesn't cross between two models in the same unit (representing not being able to pass through small enough gaps).
3. For each enemy unit that is targeted during the shooting phase, they may attempt "counter-fire"; following normal shooting rules, but only hitting on 6's.
[4. Something about enemy units being able to shoot back during the enemies turn, once actually engaged by the enemy... I don't think there's a good enough parallel; short of allowing the enemy unit to use it's melee attacks or something as a ranged "close combat" - to represent the lesser skilled models fighting back (ala unskilled models versus skilled models in a firefight).]
5. Units engaged in a firefight can't move, unless it is to fall back. Units falling back can't advance or shoot that round, unless possessing special skills.
6. Firefight ("ranged melee") continues between engaged units...

Funny how typing all that out sounds excessive - but it's what melee models must currently endure, just to reach and engage the enemy lines.

That said, there's an interesting concept of units getting engaged in "firefights"; essentially ranged version of close combat; it pins units in place, forcing them to duke it out round to round with other enemy units - and prevents the engaged units on both sides from being able to target other units, or move around until they decide to fall back first.

Maybe the sequence would be...
1. Player's units decides to shoot at # of targets.
2. # of targets attempt "Overwatch" with their ranged weapons, hitting on 6's.
3. Player's units shoot as normal.
4. After all Player's units have finished shooting, enemy units return fire (per normal rules).
5. Unless a unit falls back, units are considered "engaged", and will continue standard shooting (in alternating format), at the end of each round; ala standard close combat rules, albeit at range.

That all sounds really tedious and annoying.

pm713 wrote:
That all sounds really tedious and annoying.

...and yet, it's the sequence of what current close combat models must go through to fight the enemy.

Meanwhile, ranged units...

fe40k wrote:

pm713 wrote:
That all sounds really tedious and annoying.

...and yet, it's the sequence of what current close combat models must go through to fight the enemy.

Meanwhile, ranged units...

So... the solution to a bad system is to make it much worse?

Radical idea: Improve the combat system rather than ruining other parts of the game.

pm713 wrote:

fe40k wrote:

pm713 wrote:
That all sounds really tedious and annoying.

...and yet, it's the sequence of what current close combat models must go through to fight the enemy.

Meanwhile, ranged units...

So... the solution to a bad system is to make it much worse?

Radical idea: Improve the combat system rather than ruining other parts of the game.

My post wasn't about changing any systems. It was merely about highlighting how significant the gap between the ease of shooting, versus the hoops a melee unit most go through to accomplish the same end result.

That said, I amended the first post with a conceptual "ranged melee" system; basically the melee system, but at range! It's an interesting thought imo; it would allow ranged units to lock eachother down and duke it out, giving time for the melee models to move/position, then eventually engaged these suppressed targets.

Ummm...close combat is king right now. Harliquens - shining spears - rever jetbikes. All these things charge you turn 1 almost automatically and kill at least 1 important unit and tie up others. Plus they can all move out of combat and act as normal for a stratagem or just as a base ability.

If Ranged worked like Melee...

Some units would be able to shoot twice in one Shooting phase! That'd be stupid gak! (looks at Leman Russes and Fire Prisms..) oops.

Getting good-AP weapons that can swing on the move without needing 6s wouldn't be hard! (looks at half the changes in the last two editions....) oops.

Units would be unasailable if they successfully shot a unit that didn't die and couldn't fall back... Wait, that one does vary. If it's not Fly. Or UM. Or uses some stratagem.

If your post is a list of rules and a title then it's a fair assumption they're suggestions.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Ummm...close combat is king right now. Harliquens - shining spears - rever jetbikes. All these things charge you turn 1 almost automatically and kill at least 1 important unit and tie up others. Plus they can all move out of combat and act as normal for a stratagem or just as a base ability.

Close combat is hardly king right now - and just because a handful of units can leap across the table turn 1, doesn't mean every unit can. The FAQ significantly slowed down melee armies, by not being able to deploy outside your deployment zone turn 1 (minus 1-2 units via special ability; Da Jump, etc.).

Meanwhile, a ranged army can bring all of their firepower to bear on turn 1, with no restrictions.

A ranged army can delete a significant chunk of an opponents army, P1T1, before their opponent has even had a chance to do anything.

Contrast this with the 1-2 units that may enter an enemies front line, only to ALSO have to roll charge distance, and hope they don't brick.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Ummm...close combat is king right now. Harliquens - shining spears - rever jetbikes. All these things charge you turn 1 almost automatically and kill at least 1 important unit and tie up others. Plus they can all move out of combat and act as normal for a stratagem or just as a base ability.

Harlequins charge you turn 1 almost automatically?

Are you playing on a 12" wide board?

If ranged worked like melee:

I shoot your unit, and if a model or two survives the shooting attack and morale, your unit cannot act during its turn.

I can then do this for every unit until I run out of bullets.

The only time units fall back from melee is if the unit's owner positioned exceptionally well (outplaying the melee player) or the melee player forgot the myriad tactics for preventing fall-back from being possible.

Or they just brought a bunch of single-model melee units that can't surround enemy models.

fe40k wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Ummm...close combat is king right now. Harliquens - shining spears - rever jetbikes. All these things charge you turn 1 almost automatically and kill at least 1 important unit and tie up others. Plus they can all move out of combat and act as normal for a stratagem or just as a base ability.

Close combat is hardly king right now - and just because a handful of units can leap across the table turn 1, doesn't mean every unit can. The FAQ significantly slowed down melee armies, by not being able to deploy outside your deployment zone turn 1 (minus 1-2 units via special ability; Da Jump, etc.).

Meanwhile, a ranged army can bring all of their firepower to bear on turn 1, with no restrictions.

A ranged army can delete a significant chunk of an opponents army, P1T1, before their opponent has even had a chance to do anything.

Contrast this with the 1-2 units that may enter an enemies front line, only to ALSO have to roll charge distance, and hope they don't brick.

Shooting is significantly nerfed with the prevalence of -1 and -2 to hit all over the place. It is becoming less and less reliable.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

the_scotsman wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Ummm...close combat is king right now. Harliquens - shining spears - rever jetbikes. All these things charge you turn 1 almost automatically and kill at least 1 important unit and tie up others. Plus they can all move out of combat and act as normal for a stratagem or just as a base ability.

Harlequins charge you turn 1 almost automatically?

Are you playing on a 12" wide board?

No I think I'm playing on a board where a 22 inch move is enough to charge turn 1. AKA - every deployment setup in the game.

This doesn't even factor in things like...double moves and deployments that start 18" apart

Post big-FAQ i'd say this game is in a pretty bad place. Shooting was always stronger than melee, which is fine, one of them has to be stronger, but the separation now is pretty intense.

If shooting were to be toned down so that transports could be viable, that might help the situation, although melee armies without access to transports (Orks, Tyranids) would struggle.

I'm in the process of restructuring my Tyranid list to have 18 Hive Guards and a bunch of Carnifex, using my gaunts purely as screens. Is this the game we wall want to play? Line up, shoot, and be done with it? Because that's where it's going.

pm713 wrote:
If your post is a list of rules and a title then it's a fair assumption they're suggestions.

Dude, anyone could see he was making a point and not actually suggesting new rules.

fe40k wrote:

pm713 wrote:

fe40k wrote:

pm713 wrote:
That all sounds really tedious and annoying.

...and yet, it's the sequence of what current close combat models must go through to fight the enemy.

Meanwhile, ranged units...

So... the solution to a bad system is to make it much worse?

Radical idea: Improve the combat system rather than ruining other parts of the game.

My post wasn't about changing any systems. It was merely about highlighting how significant the gap between the ease of shooting, versus the hoops a melee unit most go through to accomplish the same end result.

That said, I amended the first post with a conceptual "ranged melee" system; basically the melee system, but at range! It's an interesting thought imo; it would allow ranged units to lock eachother down and duke it out, giving time for the melee models to move/position, then eventually engaged these suppressed targets.

It's almost as if pointing a gun at someone and shooting them is a far simpler and more efficient solution than running across an active combat zone braving enemy fire to hit someone with an overengineered chainsaw. Crazy, I know.

For a constructive comment, systems like bolt action have really fun shooting mechanics that involve "pinning", where you can pin even the most fanatical of troops down by just hammering them with fire. Even if you don't kill them they become unable to move or fire back. You can also do ambush actions and set units up so they fire when an enemy unit moves in front of them.

Did some quick dice rolls with 500 dice on a traditional battle. Orks vs IG. 1k points of normal cadian guardsmen vs 1k pure ork boyz. Really depends on turn 1. If cadian gets turn 1 then they delite almost exsactly 50% of ork boyz. If go first and get a first turn charge then they probably win as well but depends on if they get there.

 lolman1c wrote:

pm713 wrote:
If your post is a list of rules and a title then it's a fair assumption they're suggestions.

Dude, anyone could see he was making a point and not actually suggesting new rules.

The post was a list of changes titled if shooting worked the same way close combat did. It sounds a lot like a suggestion and it's not uncommon for people to use the wrong sub forum here.

In some long ago editions, the balance came through the amount of destruction you could do in melee. Sweeping advance existed and most of the high strength low AP weapons in the game were melee. Now we have multi-shot high strength high damage shooting weapons all over the place, and melee’s unique advantages have largely been removed.

Melee combat should be harder to accomplish in a science fiction setting, filled with guns. It should be a high risk, high reward proposition and generally is. If you're electing to buy and build an army which doesn't shoot - that's on you. You're making a decision to do that. You should be prepared for the difficulties that comes with.

 lolman1c wrote:
Did some quick dice rolls with 500 dice on a traditional battle. Orks vs IG. 1k points of normal cadian guardsmen vs 1k pure ork boyz. Really depends on turn 1. If cadian gets turn 1 then they delite almost exsactly 50% of ork boyz. If go first and get a first turn charge then they probably win as well but depends on if they get there.

And that's why generals don't bring a single horde of infantry to a battle, but an army composed of a variety of parts.

 greyknight12 wrote:
In some long ago editions, the balance came through the amount of destruction you could do in melee. Sweeping advance existed and most of the high strength low AP weapons in the game were melee. Now we have multi-shot high strength high damage shooting weapons all over the place, and melee’s unique advantages have largely been removed.

I miss Sweeping Advance even though it was kind of broken. A Power Fist used to be very scary but now it's pretty pathetic to the point of getting a significant price reduction. GW seems AWARE of the issues facing melee but don't seem to have a solution yet (of they're waiting for the next Big FAQ / CA).

 Elbows wrote:
Melee combat should be harder to accomplish in a science fiction setting, filled with guns. It should be a high risk, high reward proposition and generally is. If you're electing to buy and build an army which doesn't shoot - that's on you. You're making a decision to do that. You should be prepared for the difficulties that comes with.

I disagree. There is no standard by which a science fiction wargame ought to be designed. There is no reason why melee combat should not predominate the war-scape. Fantasy technology can be anything and all it takes is armor/defenses that are capable of withstanding firepower that will cause melee combat to be superior. You can look at evolution of medieval/renaissance arms to see the interplay of armor, projectiles, and hand weapons.

I think Warhammer has a pretty awesome design. There is quite a bit more melee combat than one would expect in this kind of setting, but there is still no lack of cool science fiction guns.

That's why I said "in a science fiction setting filled with guns".

40k is just as filled with sword as it is with guns, though. It isn't even really a scifi setting, it's Fantasy In Space.

 Arachnofiend wrote:
40k is just as filled with sword as it is with guns, though. It isn't even really a scifi setting, it's Fantasy In Space.

It has far more scifi elements than fantasy. Robots, genetically modified soldiers, spaceships, super guns/lasers, the list goes on.

Robot Knights of noble households.

Genetically modified soldiers who belong to monastic orders.

Spaceships whose method of travel is magic.

super swords/shields.

The list cuts both ways.

Bharring wrote:
Robot Knights of noble households. with guns

Genetically modified soldiers who belong to monastic orders. with guns

Spaceships with guns whose method of travel is magic.

super swords/shields.

The list cuts both ways.

All I see on that list is things with guns, and then swords and shields.

I mean, we have swords and shields today in modern times, and they absolutely co-exist with guns (I own a few swords and shields alongside my gun collection!) but no one would take them seriously on the battlefield...

You're deliberately misconstruing things by claiming that the robot knights and supersoldiers only fight with guns. Some of them don't use guns at all.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Bharring wrote:
Robot Knights of noble households. with guns

Genetically modified soldiers who belong to monastic orders. with guns

Spaceships with guns whose method of travel is magic.

super swords/shields.

The list cuts both ways.

All I see on that list is things with guns, and then swords and shields.

I mean, we have swords and shields today in modern times, and they absolutely co-exist with guns (I own a few swords and shields alongside my gun collection!) but no one would take them seriously on the battlefield...

Swords/Shields do not co-exist with guns on the battlefield.

fe40k wrote:
1. Units would have to roll 2d6 per 12" range of their weapon; added together to determine final shooting range. More elite units would get to re-roll (all) these dice. If all of their targets are out of range, the shooting attack fails.
2. Units would block line of sight to the models behind them, unless the firing model was able to draw an uninterrupted line that doesn't cross between two models in the same unit (representing not being able to pass through small enough gaps).
3. For each enemy unit that is targeted during the shooting phase, they may attempt "counter-fire"; following normal shooting rules, but only hitting on 6's.
[4. Something about enemy units being able to shoot back during the enemies turn, once actually engaged by the enemy... I don't think there's a good enough parallel; short of allowing the enemy unit to use it's melee attacks or something as a ranged "close combat" - to represent the lesser skilled models fighting back (ala unskilled models versus skilled models in a firefight).]
5. Units engaged in a firefight can't move, unless it is to fall back. Units falling back can't advance or shoot that round, unless possessing special skills.
6. Firefight ("ranged melee") continues between engaged units...

7. Units falling back can't charge that turn. Don't forget that aprt.

fe40k wrote:
Funny how typing all that out sounds excessive - but it's what melee models must currently endure

I think melee units are very happy to be allowed to charge even if they were shot at lol.
As a Sisters of Battle player I am 100% okay with firefights that only allows unit to fall back if they want to move and prevents them from charging EVER.
Somehow I feel like you are still going to find a way to complain about it…

 Arachnofiend wrote:
40k is just as filled with sword as it is with guns, though. It isn't even really a scifi setting, it's Fantasy In Space.

The basic, iconic grunts from:
- T'au
- IG
- Marines
- Sisters
- CWE
- DE
- AM
- Necrons
- Custodes and SoS
have guns.

The basic, iconic Orks grunts are boyz that have either guns or just pistols and ccw. The basic, iconic Tyranid grunts are gaunts, with half of them having bio-guns. The basic, iconic harlequins have pistols.

Compare this to WFB where most units don't have any shooting weapon…