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Karol wrote:

Racerguy180 wrote:
Terrain and the tactical problems that they provide, gives the skilled commander either an advantage or the enemy a disadvantage.

I dont understand how people keep complaining 8th isnt tactical. They removed the excessive minutiae (finally) and left a smooth (altho not best) game that everybody can enjoy. All you have to do is play on an appropriately terrain'd board and think about turn 2 or 3 when you deploy. Use the CA18 &19 special missions with the new rules and you'll have an in depth and fun game(if everyone has same intent).

I tried out some of the CA missions, they don't help to make GK more valid at all. In fact the closer range and the focus on movment and relocation, when reserves don't work the way they use to makes GK just as bad as they were before the CA. But I get you, all the people that still play w40k around here play the good builds and good armies, all those who could afford it switched games. Playing a bad army in 8th is not fun. And to be honest I am scared to think how bad w40k had to be to GKs, if what they have in 8th is considered good ,balanced and fun.

Sorry GK suck start leafblowers, I'm not sure what to tell you. Poland mustn't be a very nice place to play anything other than the "good".

Nothing about GK is good, balanced, or fun currently. I would look into maybe something else. Hell, I understand cash is tight but at least you have some cool models and can save a little here & there to get something else. You can use this as a learning experience on how to evaluate a faction you're interested in the future. Maybe read some of the BL books before you jump in as well.

Lots of the tactical depth has been gradually stripped out of the 40k.

Just last edition and in earlier editions it was common that you couldnt split fire, or there were restrictions to it. Of course GW with their scale creep did away with this because they make larger more expensive units far less efficient. Although GW nowadays gives some of the special snowflake units a special rule that allows them to override core mechanics, like knights can leave melee and shoot on the same turn. There is literally no drawback for them doing this. Only reason they do this is to make them playable while meanwhile this forced breaking of core rules makes knight lists quite unbearable to play against for certain armies.

 Sherrypie wrote:

Trollbert wrote:

And I would absolutely welcome the standard game size being smaller if their were some changes. To me more units basically mean that the decisions you have to take in the game need to be clearer so you can actually finish a game in 3 to 4 hours.

For fun, Trollbert, try this with maybe 1000-1500 points:

1) Ditch player turns, there is only the game round where all players act.
2) At the beginning of each round, players count the number of units they have and put as many coloured chips/tokens/dice whatever in a bag. Add one for the starting player as determined by the scenario.
3) Draw blindly from the bag until the colour of things changes.
4) The player indicated by the colour of the first group of draws takes a mini-turn with as many units as there were draws (ie. a draw of black, black, black, red would indicate the player with black tokens activating three units and the red player going after them). Go full move-psychic-shoot-fight routine but not morale yet. Chargers strike in Fight phase, as well as those who were charged or heroically intervened. A unit that gets charged in multiple miniturns gets to fight back in all of them. Obviously every unit can only be activated once. After this miniturn is done, draw from the bag again, starting the next activation set with the chip that stopped the previous one (in the previous example the red one).
5) All lasting effects like psionic buffs last until the end of the round (want to get most out of them? Cast them early on.), things like Orders are given on the commander's activation and happen on the target's activation. Counterplay aplenty.
6) When all activations are done, handle Morale.
7) Repeat through the game.

Solves many problems you might have with the current rules, if you have good company to play with.

Seems like it could be nice, however I've got some questions

1-how do you deal with units in transports?
2-what's stopping cheap MSU fun f fueling early turns for Knights and such?

 BoomWolf wrote:


Seems like it could be nice, however I've got some questions

1-how do you deal with units in transports?
2-what's stopping cheap MSU fun f fueling early turns for Knights and such?

1. You get a token for all units as normal, ie. the transport and every unit inside. The restrictions are as normal: if you want to disembark with a unit, you have to do that before the transport moves but otherwise you just move that unit out and act with it. Likewise you get a token for all units in reserves if they are able to come on the field that turn. Haven't had any problems with that even with both sides flinging Rhinos and Chimeras around while scions and terminators drop from the sky in a nice staccato. The cool thing here is that you can get some extra mileage out of transports by first moving with a unit that embarks on one and then speeding away with it. Like you would, you know, with a machine dedicated to transporting things!

2. In an alternating action game early moves are often bad, because your opponent is either hiding or biding their important moves until an opportunity presents itself. Sure, you can have lots of units and ensure you probably get the first move, but then that's done and your knight stays where it is and the enemy has easier time adapting their forces to deal with it. Especially if you get into combat with it, the enemy can then fall back and carry on blasting it apart. Given how this system creates a lot more ebb and flow in the game compared to regular 40k, things like Rotate Ion Shields and such aren't so frustratingly powerful as the situation can then change after further moves. Personally I'm not opposed to MSU's in this context as the opponent will still have time to react, even if taking heavy blows early on (that are still a lot less devastating then the whole force alpha strikes you see in IGOUGO). For another personal anecdote, my Death Guard usually runs maybe 7-8 tokens against Guard's 15-20, so I usually get to do 1-2 at a time against 3-5 from them and I'm not seeing too much problems even when they spend some of those first ones on Leman Russes hammering me. Hell, then I know where my terminators will strike in retaliation

Most importantly, as a caveat, this style is meant to create better and deeper games with like-minded fellows and there are going to be situations where the quick and dirty frame requires some sportsmanship. A nice talk between sensible adults should make clear what's the level of cheese desired

Hummm. And how do you deal with missions like "defend objective" the down multiple turns?
Or MSU taking advantage of its late turns to dominate any end of turn objectives?

 BoomWolf wrote:
Hummm. And how do you deal with missions like "defend objective" the down multiple turns?
Or MSU taking advantage of its late turns to dominate any end of turn objectives?

As the flow of the game changes, naturally some mission parameters change too and this affects tactics that get used. Defending something is easy enough: whereas in regular 40k you have to hold objective for your turn and the enemy turn (meaning both sides get to move and shoot once), here you could either say you score that at the end of the round (the opportunistic version) or at the end of such a round where you controlled it in the beginning (meaning you have to take it one round and then defend it through the next one, a bit slower though). Preferences vary, personally I'd lean on the second option to differentiate from just capturing them like normal.

Do note that MSU might not get the advantage of late turns, as the tokens are drawn blindly. By virtue of volume, they are likely to get larger activation sequences at once earlier on, but as the bag dwindles, the odds of going last are actually dipping towards the player with fewer tokens (especially if they destroy unactivated units from the player with more tokens, thus forcing them to use their draws "earlier" and ending their final draws for the turn as duds that don't actually activate anyone).

Ghorgul wrote:
Lots of the tactical depth has been gradually stripped out of the 40k.

Just last edition and in earlier editions it was common that you couldnt split fire, or there were restrictions to it. Of course GW with their scale creep did away with this because they make larger more expensive units far less efficient. Although GW nowadays gives some of the special snowflake units a special rule that allows them to override core mechanics, like knights can leave melee and shoot on the same turn. There is literally no drawback for them doing this. Only reason they do this is to make them playable while meanwhile this forced breaking of core rules makes knight lists quite unbearable to play against for certain armies.

To me, the old lack of split fire never made much sense when most of a squad was forced to fire its weapons uselessly at a tank whilst the lascannon took aim. I know there was the fluff justification of "suppressing" the tank with small arms, but with no mechanic to actually do this. In reality, infantry would generally suppress the infantry supporting the tank, whilst the antitank weapon lined up the shot. So to me, split fire makes a lot of sense.

However, I agree that there need to be more consequences for such things. I think there needs to be a chance of failure, and a need to consider back-up options.

Therefore, why not require a successful Ld test to do such actions? Things like split fire and falling back. Ld is such a horribly underused stat, and was in previous editions too. It makes absolute sense to me that a squad of renegade rabble is going to be less likely to successfully coordinate firepower or make an orderly retreat than a CSM squad lead by a veteran Aspiring Champion, as an example. Failure would mean all shots have to be at the same target (perhaps even the closest visible target), or simply no falling back.

To make it a real choice for split fire, how about if you shoot all weapons at the same squad, you can shoot any squad in LOS, but if you fail the Ld test, you can only shoot the nearest squad?

Or maybe target priority should just be a thing in general again. That would promote more tactical movement. I think making Ld tests more common would also make the game feel more like you are a general commanding the army, rather than directing robots completely under your control.

 Haighus wrote:

Ghorgul wrote:
Lots of the tactical depth has been gradually stripped out of the 40k.

Just last edition and in earlier editions it was common that you couldnt split fire, or there were restrictions to it. Of course GW with their scale creep did away with this because they make larger more expensive units far less efficient. Although GW nowadays gives some of the special snowflake units a special rule that allows them to override core mechanics, like knights can leave melee and shoot on the same turn. There is literally no drawback for them doing this. Only reason they do this is to make them playable while meanwhile this forced breaking of core rules makes knight lists quite unbearable to play against for certain armies.

To me, the old lack of split fire never made much sense when most of a squad was forced to fire its weapons uselessly at a tank whilst the lascannon took aim. I know there was the fluff justification of "suppressing" the tank with small arms, but with no mechanic to actually do this. In reality, infantry would generally suppress the infantry supporting the tank, whilst the antitank weapon lined up the shot. So to me, split fire makes a lot of sense.

However, I agree that there need to be more consequences for such things. I think there needs to be a chance of failure, and a need to consider back-up options.

Therefore, why not require a successful Ld test to do such actions? Things like split fire and falling back. Ld is such a horribly underused stat, and was in previous editions too. It makes absolute sense to me that a squad of renegade rabble is going to be less likely to successfully coordinate firepower or make an orderly retreat than a CSM squad lead by a veteran Aspiring Champion, as an example. Failure would mean all shots have to be at the same target (perhaps even the closest visible target), or simply no falling back.

To make it a real choice for split fire, how about if you shoot all weapons at the same squad, you can shoot any squad in LOS, but if you fail the Ld test, you can only shoot the nearest squad?

Or maybe target priority should just be a thing in general again. That would promote more tactical movement. I think making Ld tests more common would also make the game feel more like you are a general commanding the army, rather than directing robots completely under your control.

I pretty much agree 100% with you.

Ghorgul wrote:

 Haighus wrote:

Ghorgul wrote:
Lots of the tactical depth has been gradually stripped out of the 40k.

Just last edition and in earlier editions it was common that you couldnt split fire, or there were restrictions to it. Of course GW with their scale creep did away with this because they make larger more expensive units far less efficient. Although GW nowadays gives some of the special snowflake units a special rule that allows them to override core mechanics, like knights can leave melee and shoot on the same turn. There is literally no drawback for them doing this. Only reason they do this is to make them playable while meanwhile this forced breaking of core rules makes knight lists quite unbearable to play against for certain armies.

To me, the old lack of split fire never made much sense when most of a squad was forced to fire its weapons uselessly at a tank whilst the lascannon took aim. I know there was the fluff justification of "suppressing" the tank with small arms, but with no mechanic to actually do this. In reality, infantry would generally suppress the infantry supporting the tank, whilst the antitank weapon lined up the shot. So to me, split fire makes a lot of sense.

However, I agree that there need to be more consequences for such things. I think there needs to be a chance of failure, and a need to consider back-up options.

Therefore, why not require a successful Ld test to do such actions? Things like split fire and falling back. Ld is such a horribly underused stat, and was in previous editions too. It makes absolute sense to me that a squad of renegade rabble is going to be less likely to successfully coordinate firepower or make an orderly retreat than a CSM squad lead by a veteran Aspiring Champion, as an example. Failure would mean all shots have to be at the same target (perhaps even the closest visible target), or simply no falling back.

To make it a real choice for split fire, how about if you shoot all weapons at the same squad, you can shoot any squad in LOS, but if you fail the Ld test, you can only shoot the nearest squad?

Or maybe target priority should just be a thing in general again. That would promote more tactical movement. I think making Ld tests more common would also make the game feel more like you are a general commanding the army, rather than directing robots completely under your control.

I pretty much agree 100% with you.

I feel the simplest way to implement this would be to remove any skills, like those mentioned above, from the core rules and add an "advanced manouevres" section- everything in the section requires a passed Ld test to function, along with any consequences for failing. That would avoid having to write out "this needs a Ld test" all over the place.

What manouevres would you consider appropriate? If we really want to promote positioning and movement, I'd say:
Falling back
Target priority + split fire (I think one Ld test to be able to do both simultaneously would be fine, but they could be separate too)
Charging a different unit to that shot in the shooting phase
Firing overwatch? (Could perhaps be +1 to Ld for this test if in cover or something)
Running/turbo boost? (Could be random distance as normal, Ld test to guarantee max roll, say 6 to run if passed).



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Advanced drills could be a better term for them.

Our club has 4'x10' tables, and we've taken to using the whole table for any given game along with diagonal deployment zones and a full 48" seperation between deployment zones. Combined with the city-fight rules and putting a LOT of terrain on the table we've gotten to the point where it's not unusual for an army to have no chance to make any attacks at all on turn one.

An army designed for the normal "deploy at the edge of rifle range like it's the frelling civil war" is at a massive disadvantage on a board like that, and we're seeing all kinds of weird builds because of it. Deepstrike gets a bit stronger, but transports (particularly fast transports) get a whole lot more valuable.

It's been fun.

The Newman wrote:
Our club has 4'x10' tables, and we've taken to using the whole table for any given game along with diagonal deployment zones and a full 48" seperation between deployment zones. Combined with the city-fight rules and putting a LOT of terrain on the table we've gotten to the point where it's not unusual for an army to have no chance to make any attacks at all on turn one.

An army designed for the normal "deploy at the edge of rifle range like it's the frelling civil war" is at a massive disadvantage on a board like that, and we're seeing all kinds of weird builds because of it. Deepstrike gets a bit stronger, but transports (particularly fast transports) get a whole lot more valuable.

It's been fun.

Sounds fun! I'd like to play on a board set up that way.

Doesn't it give a big boost to indirect artillery? Basilisks especially can lay down firepower from the start, but mortars, whirlwind launchers etc will still have a lot of reach.

The Newman wrote:
Our club has 4'x10' tables, and we've taken to using the whole table for any given game along with diagonal deployment zones and a full 48" seperation between deployment zones. Combined with the city-fight rules and putting a LOT of terrain on the table we've gotten to the point where it's not unusual for an army to have no chance to make any attacks at all on turn one.

An army designed for the normal "deploy at the edge of rifle range like it's the frelling civil war" is at a massive disadvantage on a board like that, and we're seeing all kinds of weird builds because of it. Deepstrike gets a bit stronger, but transports (particularly fast transports) get a whole lot more valuable.

It's been fun.

That sounds brilliant, transports and deep strike should get to shine more than they do in the overcrowded land of "drive forwards one turn and dump your things out". Artillery benefitting wouldn't bother me, as that can be negated with proper deep strikers or at least forces the player to commit some forces to their defence, which is not running towards the objectives or in range of their own guns.

 Sherrypie wrote:

Trollbert wrote:

And I would absolutely welcome the standard game size being smaller if their were some changes. To me more units basically mean that the decisions you have to take in the game need to be clearer so you can actually finish a game in 3 to 4 hours.

For fun, Trollbert, try this with maybe 1000-1500 points:

1) Ditch player turns, there is only the game round where all players act.
2) At the beginning of each round, players count the number of units they have and put as many coloured chips/tokens/dice whatever in a bag. Add one for the starting player as determined by the scenario.
3) Draw blindly from the bag until the colour of things changes.
4) The player indicated by the colour of the first group of draws takes a mini-turn with as many units as there were draws (ie. a draw of black, black, black, red would indicate the player with black tokens activating three units and the red player going after them). Go full move-psychic-shoot-fight routine but not morale yet. Chargers strike in Fight phase, as well as those who were charged or heroically intervened. A unit that gets charged in multiple miniturns gets to fight back in all of them. Obviously every unit can only be activated once. After this miniturn is done, draw from the bag again, starting the next activation set with the chip that stopped the previous one (in the previous example the red one).
5) All lasting effects like psionic buffs last until the end of the round (want to get most out of them? Cast them early on.), things like Orders are given on the commander's activation and happen on the target's activation. Counterplay aplenty.
6) When all activations are done, handle Morale.
7) Repeat through the game.

Solves many problems you might have with the current rules, if you have good company to play with.

As per many such systems this appears easily gamed by cheap MSU units sprinkled with some really strong alpha units.

 Daedalus81 wrote:


As per many such systems this appears easily gamed by cheap MSU units sprinkled with some really strong alpha units.

If that happens in your games and feels problematic, just alter the system for them. Your game, mate, own it. One could require units to be activated somewhat according to their battlefield role (heavy acts later than troops etc.), require activating X units between obvious alphas, accept it and adapt their tactics to that fact, use terrain that makes life more interesting for such units and what not.

Could write a tighter version for tournament style, but since 40k is IMHO best at other purposes, haven't bothered as other design projects could use that brain capacity

 Haighus wrote:

The Newman wrote:
Our club has 4'x10' tables, and we've taken to using the whole table for any given game along with diagonal deployment zones and a full 48" seperation between deployment zones. Combined with the city-fight rules and putting a LOT of terrain on the table we've gotten to the point where it's not unusual for an army to have no chance to make any attacks at all on turn one.

An army designed for the normal "deploy at the edge of rifle range like it's the frelling civil war" is at a massive disadvantage on a board like that, and we're seeing all kinds of weird builds because of it. Deepstrike gets a bit stronger, but transports (particularly fast transports) get a whole lot more valuable.

It's been fun.

Sounds fun! I'd like to play on a board set up that way.

Doesn't it give a big boost to indirect artillery? Basilisks especially can lay down firepower from the start, but mortars, whirlwind launchers etc will still have a lot of reach.

Yes and no. Like SherryPark said, you can park Basilisks on your back line and still hit targets on a table in the next county, but Obscured hurts their effectiveness (and we decided indirect fire absolutely gets the Obscured penalty) and if you don't leave enough in the backfiled to protect them then they're easy prey for any strong Deep Strike forces.

Ahh, I see. Yeah, giving some kind of penalty to indirect fire nicely balances heavy artillery on such a board. Good idea.

If we want more detail and depth, we have to shrink the game. You can get lots of depth out of XWing or Infinity because you have a tiny number of models on the board and everything is playing at a similar scale. XWing doesnt try and make itself able to portray large fleet battles with capital ships and Infinity doesn't try to do anything beyond a squad of infantry for the most part.

40k tries to play handle everything from the largest titans to individual Grots, as distinct invididual models all operating under the same ruleset for pretty much any scale of battle. As a result, it has to deal with almost everything by abstraction once the game actually starts. People want it to matter that their Sergeant has a power axe and not a power mace, but also want to run a tank company and a Gundam in the same list at the same time. So all th detail goes into statlines and gear, while the game mechanics get abstracted so it remains playable.

 Haighus wrote:
Ahh, I see. Yeah, giving some kind of penalty to indirect fire nicely balances heavy artillery on such a board. Good idea.

It helped that Obscured is official when you're using Cities of Death.

 Haighus wrote:
I feel the simplest way to implement this would be to remove any skills, like those mentioned above, from the core rules and add an "advanced manouevres" section- everything in the section requires a passed Ld test to function, along with any consequences for failing. That would avoid having to write out "this needs a Ld test" all over the place.

What manouevres would you consider appropriate? If we really want to promote positioning and movement, I'd say:
Falling back
Target priority + split fire (I think one Ld test to be able to do both simultaneously would be fine, but they could be separate too)
Charging a different unit to that shot in the shooting phase
Firing overwatch? (Could perhaps be +1 to Ld for this test if in cover or something)
Running/turbo boost? (Could be random distance as normal, Ld test to guarantee max roll, say 6 to run if passed).

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Advanced drills could be a better term for them.

I don't want to add too many dice rolls, but I definitely think that Falling Back should be behind leadership roll, maybe in a way that failed leadership roll on fallback ("disordered fall back") causes automatic hits or allows the opponent to automatically attack once with every model or something (but no flat mortal wounds because that would disproportionally punish elite units). This has been discussed before and its fundamentally silly how charging is random high risk effort (unless you have special snowflake unit with bonuses on top of high melee efficiency) while falling back carries very little drawback. Yeah, one can prevent fallbacks with consolidations, but this option is only really available to relatively high model count units while small elite units have difficult time preventing fall backs.
So at least split firing and falling back should be behind leadership roll mechanisms in my opinion, maybe something else also. In general making Leadership a bigger factor would add more tactical depth and support elite armies and units because with higher leadership they would be far more predictable in their performance. But I feel like this is just nostalgia for the old skirmish like gameplay of earlier editions, we are not going back to that, scale creep is real and it's not going to stop.

GW in general is in favor of increasing scale and decreasing complexity (has to be done like this, otherwise the matches would become far too long) so I'm pessimistic any of these will ever be implemented. People like to crap on 7th edition, but if we disregard few weird rule interactions there wasn't really nothing wrong with the rules themselves. Really I must ask, were the normal 3 hull point vehicles unplayable because how hull points worked on fundamental level, or because of power creep thanks to the prevalence of super heavy units and zooming flyers that most armies couldn't shoot down? Seriously many flyers were dirt cheap considering they were nigh indestrutible unless you came prepared. One can't fix the innate power creep GW tends to do, and it's happening in this edition also. That's something one can't fix it because it apparently happens by design, these are not honest mistakes.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vaktathi wrote:
If we want more detail and depth, we have to shrink the game. You can get lots of depth out of XWing or Infinity because you have a tiny number of models on the board and everything is playing at a similar scale. XWing doesnt try and make itself able to portray large fleet battles with capital ships and Infinity doesn't try to do anything beyond a squad of infantry for the most part.

40k tries to play handle everything from the largest titans to individual Grots, as distinct invididual models all operating under the same ruleset for pretty much any scale of battle. As a result, it has to deal with almost everything by abstraction once the game actually starts. People want it to matter that their Sergeant has a power axe and not a power mace, but also want to run a tank company and a Gundam in the same list at the same time. So all th detail goes into statlines and gear, while the game mechanics get abstracted so it remains playable.

If XWing worked on similar scale field as 40k, one would see individual fighters and battlecruisers on same board, this is not the case however in XWing afaik. 40k was for long time a skirmish game where predators and land raiders were the biggest units on table. Scale has been steadily increased, but they have kept most of old units intact, there is literally very little statline changes on normal MEQs from 3rd Ed to 8th Ed. Basically they just have been adding scale and copy-pasteing units directly from older editions with very little consideration how they actually function in the new environment. One can't really say 3rd 40k is just older edition of 8th Ed 40k, these are different games.

EDIT: Grammar correction.

Sherrypie wrote:1. You get a token for all units as normal, ie. the transport and every unit inside. The restrictions are as normal: if you want to disembark with a unit, you have to do that before the transport moves but otherwise you just move that unit out and act with it. Likewise you get a token for all units in reserves if they are able to come on the field that turn. Haven't had any problems with that even with both sides flinging Rhinos and Chimeras around while scions and terminators drop from the sky in a nice staccato. The cool thing here is that you can get some extra mileage out of transports by first moving with a unit that embarks on one and then speeding away with it. Like you would, you know, with a machine dedicated to transporting things!

2. In an alternating action game early moves are often bad, because your opponent is either hiding or biding their important moves until an opportunity presents itself. Sure, you can have lots of units and ensure you probably get the first move, but then that's done and your knight stays where it is and the enemy has easier time adapting their forces to deal with it. Especially if you get into combat with it, the enemy can then fall back and carry on blasting it apart. Given how this system creates a lot more ebb and flow in the game compared to regular 40k, things like Rotate Ion Shields and such aren't so frustratingly powerful as the situation can then change after further moves. Personally I'm not opposed to MSU's in this context as the opponent will still have time to react, even if taking heavy blows early on (that are still a lot less devastating then the whole force alpha strikes you see in IGOUGO). For another personal anecdote, my Death Guard usually runs maybe 7-8 tokens against Guard's 15-20, so I usually get to do 1-2 at a time against 3-5 from them and I'm not seeing too much problems even when they spend some of those first ones on Leman Russes hammering me. Hell, then I know where my terminators will strike in retaliation

Most importantly, as a caveat, this style is meant to create better and deeper games with like-minded fellows and there are going to be situations where the quick and dirty frame requires some sportsmanship. A nice talk between sensible adults should make clear what's the level of cheese desired

I like this system you've described, but personally I'd just draw and activate one unit at a time, a la Bolt Action- I think there's some fun tension when you activate a unit not knowing if you'll get another activation before the opponent can retaliate.

The only concern I have with it is that the melee retaliation system greatly disfavors horde units. In current 40K, I can charge a unit of Terminators with four squads of Guardsmen, hit with all my squads, and then the Terminators hit back. With this alternating activation system, the Terminators get to hit back after every Guardsman squad charges (!). I'd maybe limit it to saying that each unit can counterattack once, and fight once on their own turn. That way a unit locked in melee is fighting twice per combined-turn, just as now.

Haighus wrote:I feel the simplest way to implement this would be to remove any skills, like those mentioned above, from the core rules and add an "advanced manouevres" section- everything in the section requires a passed Ld test to function, along with any consequences for failing. That would avoid having to write out "this needs a Ld test" all over the place.

What manouevres would you consider appropriate? If we really want to promote positioning and movement, I'd say:
Falling back
Target priority + split fire (I think one Ld test to be able to do both simultaneously would be fine, but they could be separate too)
Charging a different unit to that shot in the shooting phase
Firing overwatch? (Could perhaps be +1 to Ld for this test if in cover or something)
Running/turbo boost? (Could be random distance as normal, Ld test to guarantee max roll, say 6 to run if passed).

I really like this idea. I've been thinking lately that one of the big problems with 40K as a wargame is the lack of any real command and control system, which per the fluff should be a huge difference between a coordinated, elite army like Space Marines and an inflexible line of Guard. Epic has an activation system that addresses this well by giving each army an activation value, and keeping it separate from Ld allows a designer to distinguish between 'fearless mobs' and 'elite supermen', but adding yet another stat to the game might be a bit much.

Haighus wrote:Doesn't it give a big boost to indirect artillery? Basilisks especially can lay down firepower from the start, but mortars, whirlwind launchers etc will still have a lot of reach.

I'd rule that a unit can't be targeted by indirect weapons until it has been spotted by at least one unit in the opposing army.

 Haighus wrote:
I feel the simplest way to implement this would be to remove any skills, like those mentioned above, from the core rules and add an "advanced manouevres" section- everything in the section requires a passed Ld test to function, along with any consequences for failing. That would avoid having to write out "this needs a Ld test" all over the place.

What manouevres would you consider appropriate? If we really want to promote positioning and movement, I'd say:
Falling back
Target priority + split fire (I think one Ld test to be able to do both simultaneously would be fine, but they could be separate too)
Charging a different unit to that shot in the shooting phase
Firing overwatch? (Could perhaps be +1 to Ld for this test if in cover or something)
Running/turbo boost? (Could be random distance as normal, Ld test to guarantee max roll, say 6 to run if passed).

Please no. "Roll to see if your army works" is a terrible and frustrating mechanic.


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 Daedalus81 wrote:
As per many such systems this appears easily gamed by cheap MSU units sprinkled with some really strong alpha units.

Why is this a problem? Every system can be gamed, and at least now the winning strategy is to take a diverse mix of units instead of one-dimensional spam.

I would want them to add back armor facings and weapon arcs. I miss those more than most stuff that got cut when 8th dropped. It made positioning of a vehicle matter and made you actually have to make a decision of bringing all your firepower to bear or keeping your more armor sides pointed towards the enemy.

HoundsofDemos wrote:
I would want them to add back armor facings and weapon arcs. I miss those more than most stuff that got cut when 8th dropped. It made positioning of a vehicle matter and made you actually have to make a decision of bringing all your firepower to bear or keeping your more armor sides pointed towards the enemy.

IMO you'd have to put vehicles on square bases to do this. Measuring corner to corner for the facings worked ok-ish on a rectangular Imperial tank, but where's the corner on an Eldar tank? I like the idea of facing mattering, but the mechanic as it was had way too many arguments over where the line should be drawn and which facing a shot should be in.

If it really was a close call, which most of the time it isn't, just let the player whose tank it is decide and move on with the game.

I've been playing for over 10 years and really never ran into much arguing over facings or blast markers, etc. I pretty much have only heard of such things on the internet.

It can be rather important if you're in a tournament and hundreds of dollars in prize money are on the line.

In a tournament though you have neutral judge who can help determine that.

Even with tank like the eldar that are rounder, taking two rulers and forming an X over the center of the tank give a pretty clear picture of what the facings should be.

HoundsofDemos wrote:
I would want them to add back armor facings and weapon arcs. I miss those more than most stuff that got cut when 8th dropped. It made positioning of a vehicle matter and made you actually have to make a decision of bringing all your firepower to bear or keeping your more armor sides pointed towards the enemy.

The problem there is that having only one unit type care about angles and facings was really awkward and GW could never get it balanced right. Why a Russ or Hammerhead or Predator had to deal with firing arcs and facings, but a heavy weapons team, carnifex, riptide, wraithlord, vibrocannon support battery, Centurion, etc didn't was hard to justify and just complicated the game, especially with often 20+ tanks on the board.

 Peregrine wrote:


Please no. "Roll to see if your army works" is a terrible and frustrating mechanic.

Eh, it would be "roll to allow a complex action". Simple actions would still be available. Just provides a nice distinction between chaff and elite units, and might make CSM, veterans etc. more popular if they are notably more capable than their alternatives (like cultists).

I play AM as my primary army. This change would hurt me more than most. I still think it would be a good idea for at least falling back to require a Ld test.

 Peregrine wrote:

HoundsofDemos wrote:
I would want them to add back armor facings and weapon arcs. I miss those more than most stuff that got cut when 8th dropped. It made positioning of a vehicle matter and made you actually have to make a decision of bringing all your firepower to bear or keeping your more armor sides pointed towards the enemy.

IMO you'd have to put vehicles on square bases to do this. Measuring corner to corner for the facings worked ok-ish on a rectangular Imperial tank, but where's the corner on an Eldar tank? I like the idea of facing mattering, but the mechanic as it was had way too many arguments over where the line should be drawn and which facing a shot should be in.

1 idea might be to have an illustration on the page of the vehicle which would show the armour facings on a diagram. It would help cut down most (but not all) legitimate arguments about armour facings on unusually-shaped vehicles.

HoundsofDemos wrote:
In a tournament though you have neutral judge who can help determine that.

Even with tank like the eldar that are rounder, taking two rulers and forming an X over the center of the tank give a pretty clear picture of what the facings should be.

But what X shape? Remember, the lines were corner to corner, not 90* angles. Is the X at 90* angles? 70* angles? 45* angles? Having a judge doesn't really help much when there's no single answer to the question and the judge's decision is going to be just as arbitrary as the players' decision. And a rule where whether you're shooting at AV 13 or AV 10 comes down to subjective opinion and "I think that should be back arc" is a very poorly designed rule. Maybe, at best, it works sort of ok in a narrative game where the players can agree on which answer is better for the story, but in a competitive game? no.


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 Haighus wrote:
Eh, it would be "roll to allow a complex action". Simple actions would still be available. Just provides a nice distinction between chaff and elite units, and might make CSM, veterans etc. more popular if they are notably more capable than their alternatives (like cultists).

I play AM as my primary army. This change would hurt me more than most. I still think it would be a good idea for at least falling back to require a Ld test.

But these "complex" actions are straightforward and simple ones. Take target priority for example. Choosing which unit to shoot is a basic part of the game, but now you have to roll to see if you can shoot at the obvious correct target instead of the irrelevant cannon fodder that is 0.1" closer. That's a significant difference in how the game goes and it's determined entirely by the dice and not by player actions. Randomly having your units fail to work is not fun.