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Seeing so many responses to the "change one thing" thread being related to 8th edition's incredibly lackluster base terrain system, it made me wonder whether people had given the new "Cities of Death" ruleset a try from CA2018.

To me, that system has almost infinitely more potential than the "there's basically nothing here" system in the base rulebook, the only flaw is that in typical GW fashion they either add too much stuff, or not enough, and I feel there's just a hair too much stuff to easily digest within the CoD terrain set, particularly when it comes to allllllll the included stratagems (some of which are incredibly vital to make the ruleset work, like Breaching Gear, and others just don't really do anything at all, like all the myriad ways to make terrain into "dangerous terrain")

for those that maybe don't know, CoD 2018 adds the following base rules:


My assessment of the ruleset so far is that it fixes a LOT of what makes terrain not feel good in 8th, makes games last longer, durable troops feel more durable (nothing like a space marine getting a 4+ vs a plasma gun) and simultaneously adds value to maneuvering around the board while also giving you tools in several stratagems to make moving around more possible.

I like some of the new additions but until GW consolidates this vast collection of "rulebooks" I'll stick with the standard rules (and errata...and faqs...and...)

I haven't yet but I want to, just it's hard to sell something marketed as narrative in Matched Play because it's immediately seen as not balanced/not fair.

 Lord Clinto wrote:
I like some of the new additions but until GW consolidates this vast collection of "rulebooks" I'll stick with the standard rules (and errata...and faqs...and...)

So, do you not play with the changed points values from the latest CA2018? Is it rules contained within a book that you don't accept as valid changes?

the_scotsman wrote:

 Lord Clinto wrote:
I like some of the new additions but until GW consolidates this vast collection of "rulebooks" I'll stick with the standard rules (and errata...and faqs...and...)

So, do you not play with the changed points values from the latest CA2018? Is it rules contained within a book that you don't accept as valid changes?

And this is one of the big problems with all these rule supplement books that you have to pay for. It makes sweeping changes to the base game and if you don't have the most recent book then your playing an out of date version of the game. It causes a desync between two players who have different rule sets.

Cities of death is amazing. Durability goes way up which reduces the power of alpha strike. The generic strats are fun and it makes strategic play so much more important that throwing buckets of dice

 Vankraken wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

 Lord Clinto wrote:
I like some of the new additions but until GW consolidates this vast collection of "rulebooks" I'll stick with the standard rules (and errata...and faqs...and...)

So, do you not play with the changed points values from the latest CA2018? Is it rules contained within a book that you don't accept as valid changes?

And this is one of the big problems with all these rule supplement books that you have to pay for. It makes sweeping changes to the base game and if you don't have the most recent book then your playing an out of date version of the game. It causes a desync between two players who have different rule sets.

This is definitely true. I have played plenty of other games that use a similar model of "so many supplements you couldn't possibly own all of them" - mainly RPGs, but those tend to be less "oppositional" games. Historicals also tend to go that route, but nobody really plays "pick up games" of historicals in my experience.

I prefer it to no game updates, though. Obviously the ideal situation would be some kind of living E-rulebook that I could just get a monthly subscription to and receive live updates.

On an economics side, I am curious about the "consumer surplus/deficit" of various forms of rules delivery. Is GW still printing paper books because people are more willing to pay for something they can hold in their hands? For the time the dedicated playerbase devotes to complaining about a ruleset, how much would you actually be willing to PAY for the rules to play the game if you didn't get something physical you could put on a shelf? It seems like in most online video games, peoples' expectation is "continuous change to the game should be free, with no obligation to purchase anything on my part, and I will still complain if the changes I want made don't get made."

Does anyone know of any major game system that's tried an electronic living ruleset like this? How was it structured? did it cost money?

I haven't played in a year so I can't contribute to the poll, but while we're taking about that other thread asking about one change you'd like to make and all the people saying making a single change is not a bright idea, I couldn't help but stop and think when I read this point:

the_scotsman wrote:
-Obscurement. A non-monster/vehicle unit where every model is at least partially obscured from the perspective of the firer is -1 to hit. Vehicle/Monster units that are 50% obscured or more are also -1 to hit.

So generally the new rules allow for more terrain interaction, which is a good thing and far superior to what the base rules provide. But then you have a rule like this. So now you can have a Baneblade with -1 to hit for barely poking out of cover, which makes sense, but you can still shoot your entire complement of weapons from the tip of your antenna? Shiny.

In other words, all these tacked on little rules just don't fix the rotten foundation of the ruleset. It's better than nothing, I guess, but I reckon people asking for a change to terrain rules won't find the Chapter Approved rules quite what they are looking for.

 Vankraken wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

 Lord Clinto wrote:
I like some of the new additions but until GW consolidates this vast collection of "rulebooks" I'll stick with the standard rules (and errata...and faqs...and...)

So, do you not play with the changed points values from the latest CA2018? Is it rules contained within a book that you don't accept as valid changes?

And this is one of the big problems with all these rule supplement books that you have to pay for. It makes sweeping changes to the base game and if you don't have the most recent book then your playing an out of date version of the game. It causes a desync between two players who have different rule sets.

Seconded. If GW were serious about this whole living ruleset business, they'd release the full core rules for free and adjust them as needed.

Like I said, I haven't played 40k in a year and right now I don't think I'd want to pick up the game again even if I thought 8th ed had somehow become a good game. I wouldn't want to sort through all the various books and errata to cobble together what might be the current ruleset. It's not just that it's too much work, I wouldn't know where to start nor whether I'd get everything relevant together.

 Lord Clinto wrote:
I like some of the new additions but until GW consolidates this vast collection of "rulebooks" I'll stick with the standard rules (and errata...and faqs...and...)

Don't worry, I've made a list for you

I tried them only once and am not really sure if I like all of them. (We also totally forgot height advantage in that game and didn't use any of the stratagems).
But even though our table was filled with terrain I was surprised that it wasn't as easy to always get cover as I thought. Especially since you have to keep in mind that a unit only counts as obscured if every model is obscured, and that you can also ignore models of the unit you're firing at fopr LOS. So if you're in an elevated position and fight against a unit that stands in two rows behind a barricade it's quite possible they won't get a bonus from obscured as the second row isn't actually covered (and they possibly also don't get the cover bonus because you have to be completely within 1'').
The second problem is that it furthens the gap between units with Fly and without.
Overall I like it though, you really need to be careful with maneuvering and terrain is not just there for pretty looks.

 Geifer wrote:
I haven't played in a year so I can't contribute to the poll, but while we're taking about that other thread asking about one change you'd like to make and all the people saying making a single change is not a bright idea, I couldn't help but stop and think when I read this point:

the_scotsman wrote:
-Obscurement. A non-monster/vehicle unit where every model is at least partially obscured from the perspective of the firer is -1 to hit. Vehicle/Monster units that are 50% obscured or more are also -1 to hit.

So generally the new rules allow for more terrain interaction, which is a good thing and far superior to what the base rules provide. But then you have a rule like this. So now you can have a Baneblade with -1 to hit for barely poking out of cover, which makes sense, but you can still shoot your entire complement of weapons from the tip of your antenna? Shiny.

In other words, all these tacked on little rules just don't fix the rotten foundation of the ruleset. It's better than nothing, I guess, but I reckon people asking for a change to terrain rules won't find the Chapter Approved rules quite what they are looking for.

The base rulebook does not provide a strict definition for what is "The point of view of the firer" only a strict definition for what constitutes "visible" (a straight line can be drawn from any part of the firer to any part of the target).

If you decide to define "point of view" as "the player chooses a single point anywhere on the firing model and then looks from that strict point of perspective to the entire enemy model" then that is how the rule works. However, antennae, banners, and weapons are called out as being ignored for the purposes of drawing line of sight, so I would assume that you could not draw line of sight from them.

Another way to define "point of view" would be to roughly attempt to draw line of sight from all points on the firing model and determine obscurement based on that - that way, any model which would be obscured from the perspective of any other model would also treat that model as obscured from their perspective. This does lead to some other interactions that could be complained about (a unit taking cover behind a wall would then treat all things in front of the wall as obscured).

The way I see it, you have to make an abstraction somewhere. there will always be some situation where you can construct a scenario that feels unrealistic in a game like 40k where you have such a massive breadth of models available. If you go with route A, you cay "oh, so now tanks can target through their treads and shoot units while they receive cover!" if you go with route B, you say "oh, so now my soldiers hiding behind a wall can't fire over it with full effect?" if you decide LOS must be drawn from the tip of a shooting weapon, you say "Oh, so my models that have their guns pointing straight up in the air have this huge advantage?" or "what about my model with no defined weapon tip - where do the Flickering Flames come from on my Tzeentch Daemons?"

In my experience, option A (any single point on firing model attempts to draw LOS to all points on target model, determine obscurement from that) is the route that causes the least arguments, and relatively fewer situations that feel unrealistic as compared to "Generic LOS Drawing System B" (all points on firing model to all points on target). CoD2018 already HEAVILY nerfs shooting armies - you have terrain that gives you bonus movement, stratagems that give you bonus movement and charge rolls, and cover that goes from +1 to save to +2 to save AND -1 to hit, that you can reliably have access to. The "wonky baneblade" example requires your opponentt o have cover, and you to be standing in an open field - in almost all situations it won't happen because you also will be obscured if your opponent is firing from more than 12" away.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
I tried them only once and am not really sure if I like all of them. (We also totally forgot height advantage in that game and didn't use any of the stratagems).
But even though our table was filled with terrain I was surprised that it wasn't as easy to always get cover as I thought. Especially since you have to keep in mind that a unit only counts as obscured if every model is obscured, and that you can also ignore models of the unit you're firing at fopr LOS. So if you're in an elevated position and fight against a unit that stands in two rows behind a barricade it's quite possible they won't get a bonus from obscured as the second row isn't actually covered (and they possibly also don't get the cover bonus because you have to be completely within 1'').
The second problem is that it furthens the gap between units with Fly and without.
Overall I like it though, you really need to be careful with maneuvering and terrain is not just there for pretty looks.

...I think you may have misread a rule.

You ignore models in YOUR OWN unit (the firing unit) when determining obscurement, not models in the TARGET unit. So if I have a unit where I have two rows, and the first row is obscured by a baricade and the second is obscured by the first row, they are still obscured.

The only models you are allowed to ignore when determining obscurement are other models in specifically the unit making the shooting attack. All other models friend and foe on the table contribute to obscurement.

the_scotsman wrote:
The base rulebook does not provide a strict definition for what is "The point of view of the firer" only a strict definition for what constitutes "visible" (a straight line can be drawn from any part of the firer to any part of the target).

If you decide to define "point of view" as "the player chooses a single point anywhere on the firing model and then looks from that strict point of perspective to the entire enemy model" then that is how the rule works. However, antennae, banners, and weapons are called out as being ignored for the purposes of drawing line of sight, so I would assume that you could not draw line of sight from them.

Another way to define "point of view" would be to roughly attempt to draw line of sight from all points on the firing model and determine obscurement based on that - that way, any model which would be obscured from the perspective of any other model would also treat that model as obscured from their perspective. This does lead to some other interactions that could be complained about (a unit taking cover behind a wall would then treat all things in front of the wall as obscured).

The way I see it, you have to make an abstraction somewhere. there will always be some situation where you can construct a scenario that feels unrealistic in a game like 40k where you have such a massive breadth of models available. If you go with route A, you cay "oh, so now tanks can target through their treads and shoot units while they receive cover!" if you go with route B, you say "oh, so now my soldiers hiding behind a wall can't fire over it with full effect?" if you decide LOS must be drawn from the tip of a shooting weapon, you say "Oh, so my models that have their guns pointing straight up in the air have this huge advantage?" or "what about my model with no defined weapon tip - where do the Flickering Flames come from on my Tzeentch Daemons?"

In my experience, option A (any single point on firing model attempts to draw LOS to all points on target model, determine obscurement from that) is the route that causes the least arguments, and relatively fewer situations that feel unrealistic as compared to "Generic LOS Drawing System B" (all points on firing model to all points on target). CoD2018 already HEAVILY nerfs shooting armies - you have terrain that gives you bonus movement, stratagems that give you bonus movement and charge rolls, and cover that goes from +1 to save to +2 to save AND -1 to hit, that you can reliably have access to. The "wonky baneblade" example requires your opponentt o have cover, and you to be standing in an open field - in almost all situations it won't happen because you also will be obscured if your opponent is firing from more than 12" away.

Starting with a personal note, I've played seven editions of 40k and while I'd never claim any one of them was perfect or devoid of abstractions that could, in some cases, break immersion, I'd say without the slightest doubt that the only one that consistently did so for me was 8th ed. Even the dreaded 7th ed with all its problems somehow failed to top "I'll shoot all my guns out of the front of my right track" (since antennas don't count, apparently ). Open-topped vehicles did that previously, which was silly too, when for some reason GW decided that they could define fire points on other vehicles, but somehow defining the transport platform for the shooting infantry was off limits. So just to get that out of the way, stuff like that existed before. I just wish GW didn't double down on the stupid.

My comment was specifically aimed in support of the idea (as put forward in the other thread) that the rules are a network of interacting things where you can't change just one thing and expect everything to be improved. I saw this as a a good example of how implementing good change to the terrain rules in one way did nothing to address a fundamental flaw in the terrain rules.

You're quite right that your option A is better than your option B, but that's only a good argument if you won't touch the ruleset and have to work in its (very limiting) confines to write something better. Vehicles are (usually) not organic. Drawing LOS from gun mounts has never in the history of wargaming been a problem. Add firing arcs at your discretion. Got a problem with the size of your miniatures range? Add all that information on the datasheet. Cruel Seas for instance does this just fine with a handy ship diagram that features firing arcs and gun positions. Worried that this will create a gap between vehicles and monsters and favor the latter like in earlier editions? Measure from their bases and give the firing arcs. Got a problem with LOS on models prancing around? Use their bases. Bases are standardized across the game and can be used for reference fairly uniformly. Oval bases might be a problem and need to be specially addressed, perhaps.

Abstraction really isn't the problem. Sometimes the absence of abstraction may cause problems, such as when GW tried to measure from any part of the model in the initial version of Age of Sigmar. But GW's problem is more that they want to advertise their game with a super slim core ruleset while hiding all those little extra rules on individual datasheets, which does nothing to create a cohesive rule system and adds similar rules tailored to that specific unit with a name specific to that rule and possibly little variations that, if I followed GW's erratas correctly (and you may correct me on that, since I haven't been following it too closely), GW has now on occasion figured out is bogus and they had to change rulings and bring some similar but different rules in line with each other. But hey, at least they can advertise that their core rules are only eight pages long.

With an attitude to the core rules like that, specifically with the unwillingness to put down universal definitions that all units in the game the follow, it's not surprising that simplistic and limited terrain (and LOS) interaction is a problem. And I just don't see tacking additional rules onto the game in a way that may or may not see use fixing anything. The problem lies with the core rules.

I haven’t been keeping up with the rulebooks (I dislike being nickeled and dimes to death for a game), so I was unaware of these rules, but they look like good house rules to implement. Will be trying them out.

C4790M wrote:
Cities of death is amazing. Durability goes way up which reduces the power of alpha strike. The generic strats are fun and it makes strategic play so much more important that throwing buckets of dice

You picked out one of the best features of them IMO - the generic strats really help out armies that just have poor strats. Like marines for example.

The terrain rules are a lot better and more meaningful. They are also an order of magnitude better than the binary ITC rules which are just horribly non-interactive.

Decent terrain rules makes you suddenly care about things that ignore cover, including sub-factions which typically get overlooked because that is their schtick and its meaningless in base rulebook terrain or in the ITC house-rules. With durability to shooting so much better the combat phase just becomes a bit more relevant in a way that feels natural and organic.

I find it amazing personally, it makes fighting my Tyranid swarm from a shooting gallery to a fight on multiple fronts, suddenly destroying targets becomes a gamble and close combat units gain a lot more out of the increased cover, penalties to hit but aren't overbearing since natural 6's still hit (WHY ISNT THIS A BASE RULE?!)

bonus points for -2 to hit Carnifexs, which is hilarious but can be cheesy, especially when I run 6 Dakka fexs cause I am a raging lover of all things carnifex.

I havent played with them, but ever since i read them I have really wanted to as they seem to give a lot more strategic play to the game.
Future games I'll be pushing for them to try them out.

Gir Spirit Bane wrote:
(WHY ISNT THIS A BASE RULE?!)

 Stormonu wrote:
I haven’t been keeping up with the rulebooks (I dislike being nickeled and dimes to death for a game)

Probably because it is in a book you have to buy. They make it very clear that these rules can be added to any game of 40k, but (I'm guessing, obviously) they didn't want to make them "required base rules" because then you'd be REQUIRED to buy CA2018 to play the game.

Now, does the pairing of the free rules PDF combined with CA2018 make for a better and cheaper rulebook than the BRB at this point? Yes, IMO.

the_scotsman wrote:

...I think you may have misread a rule.

You ignore models in YOUR OWN unit (the firing unit) when determining obscurement, not models in the TARGET unit. So if I have a unit where I have two rows, and the first row is obscured by a baricade and the second is obscured by the first row, they are still obscured.

The only models you are allowed to ignore when determining obscurement are other models in specifically the unit making the shooting attack. All other models friend and foe on the table contribute to obscurement.

I looked it up again, in CA under obscured targets it says:
"For the purposes of determining whether or not a model is obscured, a model can see through other models in its own unit and other models in the target unit."

So, I don't think I've misread that?

Sgt. Cortez wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

...I think you may have misread a rule.

You ignore models in YOUR OWN unit (the firing unit) when determining obscurement, not models in the TARGET unit. So if I have a unit where I have two rows, and the first row is obscured by a baricade and the second is obscured by the first row, they are still obscured.

The only models you are allowed to ignore when determining obscurement are other models in specifically the unit making the shooting attack. All other models friend and foe on the table contribute to obscurement.

I looked it up again, in CA under obscured targets it says:
"For the purposes of determining whether or not a model is obscured, a model can see through other models in its own unit and other models in the target unit."

So, I don't think I've misread that?

Huh. That is very odd. In my paper version of the book it says only the firing unit, but in my friend's ebook version it says firing and target.

I'm guessing it is a version issue, and "firing and target" is most likely intended as the e-book is more likely up to date.

Sorry about that - and yeah, I agree that is a bit strange. But I also think it would not have changed too much in the games I've played recently - really it just makes it a bit harder to gain Obscurement behind teeny tiny walls that obscure your model's knees. In most situations people bring up when they complain about 8th ed terrain rules (models firing through buildings, forests, tiny holes in walls etc) you would gain obscurement. If a firer is on a roof, looking down at a target that isn't even close enough to a small barricade to claim a cover save, that seems like a situation where they would not be obscured.

I like them!

except the always hitting on 6...

what benefit should the Orks gain to compensate for everyone else having their basic ability?
(granted, Orks get the extra shot as well on a 6... but ...
I'm an Ork player!!! )

Have looked at them, but only really experimented with them while my nephew was over to play. I like them tbh.

Okay so I answered the poll question before reading the first post - my answer reflected the fact that I use the expanded matched play terrain rules in CA 2018, but I haven't used either CA 2018 narrative or BRB matched play COD expansion rules...

For the most part I like them, but the +2 to cover is a bit much imo. I just play hard cover as soft cover, and let reinforced position stratagem add an additional 1 to saves.
Additionally I measure distance to the hull OR base whichever is closer. This allows bigger things to hit second story troops in melee.
I'm also thinking about letting melee range be 6" vertically (so 1" horizontal, up to 6" vertically) Only because it's so difficult to fit things on crowded platforms but I haven't tried it yet. It kinda mirrors unit coherency too.

Dandelion wrote:
For the most part I like them, but the +2 to cover is a bit much imo. I just play hard cover as soft cover, and let reinforced position stratagem add an additional 1 to saves.
Additionally I measure distance to the hull OR base whichever is closer. This allows bigger things to hit second story troops in melee.
I'm also thinking about letting melee range be 6" vertically (so 1" horizontal, up to 6" vertically) Only because it's so difficult to fit things on crowded platforms but I haven't tried it yet. It kinda mirrors unit coherency too.

There is definitely still the "I have packed my unit tightly on a tiny platform so they are unassaultable" problem, but in MOST circumstances I've found that either A) a unit small enough to do that is fairly non-impactful and can just be handled by shooting, or B ) the unit is large enough or the platform small enough that they can't pull off the "exploit". With the addition of Breaching Gear and Grappling Hooks as universal stratagems, MOST units on elevated platforms are assaultable by using either the former in the charge phase to guarantee a long charge roll or the latter in the movement phase to get right up next to them before you even declare their charge.

I was far more concerned with the "platform problem" when I didn't have stratagems to mitigate every ruin automatically adding at least 6" to the distance my units needed to move or charge to get to the enemy.

I have also played a variation of the BRB "fire in the hole" rule where we declared that all anti-infantry bunker clearing type weapons like grenades and autohit weapons of all types always scored the maximum number of hits against enemies in hard cover. That meant that ruins didn't automatically make you totally immune to small arms, as even though you'd likely have a 2+ save vs flamers, you'd be taking like 10+ wounds against units with a bunch of them.

The expanded terrain rules from Cities of Death are now our standard rules, as they add so much to the game. Terrain and positioning really matters now and the problem of digging an enemy unit out of a well defended position actually requires new tactics and makes oft overlooked units useful.

One thing we've found though; any terrain where you gain cover simply by being on a base is treated as soft cover. Anything like walls, barricades etc that gives +2 cover bonus is treated using the updated barricade rules from the cover/terrain section of CA2018. This means they can be flanked, which adds even more to the tactical aspect of moving your troops.

We've been running cities of death at my local gw store for the last few weeks and I think they're generally great.
One thing that would help is having ruins mounted on bases to help determine what's actually in cover. Infantry on higher levels are easy to determine but anything else seems a bit vague.
Also units that can fire indirectly shouldn't suffer the-1 to hit from obscurement since surely that's their whole shtick?

kingheff wrote:
We've been running cities of death at my local gw store for the last few weeks and I think they're generally great.
One thing that would help is having ruins mounted on bases to help determine what's actually in cover. Infantry on higher levels are easy to determine but anything else seems a bit vague.
Also units that can fire indirectly shouldn't suffer the-1 to hit from obscurement since surely that's their whole shtick?

They've already put out an FAQ answer saying that indirect fire units treat units as fully obscured when determining whether they have a cover save if they can't see them at all (the question was before CA2018, about cover types that only grant cover if the model is 50% or more obscured). So, it is pretty clear that any target they are firing blind at, they are -1 to hit with.

Try shooting a basketball hoop. You could make that hoop even if there were a 6-foot wall between you and the hoop, right? because the throwing motion is arced. But then try putting on a blindfold and shooting a basketball hoop - you can even have your buddy tell you where the hoop is.

I'm guessing you are successful a lot less while blindfolded.

the_scotsman wrote:
Does anyone know of any major game system that's tried an electronic living ruleset like this? How was it structured? did it cost money?

Warmahordes has War Room, which gives you very basic stuff for free (basically the starter boxes), and you can buy faction decks unlocked with all the unit stats. I forget the cost per faction but it was $99 one-time for the lifetime of the edition to get everything that ever gets updated or added (so if a new book came out that gave a new unit, you would get it if you had that faction or everything unlocked; if a unit got updated you would get the updated unit card) for every faction, including any new factions that were added (for example when the Grymkin faction was added, I had immediate access to all of the unit stats, I think maybe even before the units were fully released). It was amazing and is IMHO the baseline for how digital rules and army building apps need to be.

You didn't get the physical books without buying them, but all the rules for the models were in the app, anytime something got updated it would immediately reflect it. The rules were 100% free and accessible from the app, including any errata changes. The app even IIRC had a glossary built in so you could like tap on a keyword/icon and it would pop up what it meant (that might have been in v1 and v2 it just took you to the PDF of the rules, I cannot recall).

Yes, but a lot of other players don't want to use the rules as they have set their armies up to take advantage of the current awful rules...

Since urban conquest came ok ur about 20 of us @ our flgs have been playing using the new stuff from CA18 & UC. It has made the game soooo much more interesting. The way obscured & cover works are probably some of the best things they've done since 8th came out.

I hope they continue with the enhancements to the base mechanics.