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 oni wrote:
OK... I get it, some of it feels awkward when logic is applied, but we cannot pick and choose where to apply logic to a game system that is inherently illogical. Character targeting rules!?!

Yeah, the character rules are garbage too.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Look at the big rock again. Tell me that that seems right to you that the tank can fire all its guns from that position, and that it's an abstraction that would require to move it's entire length out of cover in order to fire, yet in doing so it doesn't suffer the penalties for firing had it actually moved?

Cover and positioning should mean something. Right now, much like the FOC, they don't.

“Seems right”, no. But it’s clear to me this is GW’s intent. We don’t have an absolute scale for the amount of time a given turn covers and only a rough estimate of actual distances in the game. Having played some online tank games *I* can easily image the tank creeping forward, taking the shot and then quickly retreating to avoid enemy fire, with the resultant “average” being the tank’s position on the board is represented by only the fore of the tread sticks out. Kinda like a missile-launcher bearing space marine could be positioned so he “leans” around a corner to shoot a rocket at an enemy while his model on the board has only a sliver of the left-hand shoulder of his model (with the launcher physically over his right shoulder) visible in the window of a ruin and he can still shoot without counting as moving. It isn’t simulationist in the least, but then nothing in 40K is anything more than an approximation at best anyways.

It’s clear that this state isn’t favored by a portion of the gaming community, and they’d prefer a different way of handling the situation (including me), but I can somewhat see GW’s train of thought. Personally, I’d wish for firing arcs (for everything - including infantry) to be in the game, but 40K is such a beastly mix of models already that at the scale they’re promoting I’d prefer the quicker, more abstract method than the processes from 6E/7E that resulted in sloooooow games.

(Maybe this conversation is something to move to another thread if we want to continue discussing?)

The issue with terrain is that it doesn't really do anything...it's "blocks LOS or nothing". +1 save doesn't really do that much given the lethality of firepower in 8th edition, and LOS blocking is rare outside of house rules and custom terrain. There needs to be something in between "you can't shoot me" and "it's only slightly harder to kill me" to make terrain (and the movement phase) more important.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I don't see how measuring LOS from weapons, and needing to see properly see the target are things that "bog the game down".

well for a start, it means models are, effectively, limited by their model design, which can make some units under performing simply because they're not an optimal design. unless GW's mdoel designers are willing to completely change the mentality which they take into army design, this seems a bad idea.

 greyknight12 wrote:
The issue with terrain is that it doesn't really do anything...it's "blocks LOS or nothing". +1 save doesn't really do that much given the lethality of firepower in 8th edition, and LOS blocking is rare outside of house rules and custom terrain. There needs to be something in between "you can't shoot me" and "it's only slightly harder to kill me" to make terrain (and the movement phase) more important.

I suggest you (and others) actually read the terrain section of the big rulebook.

I'm always amazed at how many people either don't know there's a terrain section in the rulebook or just ignore it because they're incapable getting past the specific mention of <GW Kit Name>.

Try reading the terrain rules and replace <GW Kit Name> with something more generic, perhaps something you see on the tabletops you typically play on. There's rules for craters, woods, tank traps & obstacles, etc. All of which can influence the game in different ways beyond just giving +1 to the saving throw.

 Stormonu wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Look at the big rock again. Tell me that that seems right to you that the tank can fire all its guns from that position, and that it's an abstraction that would require to move it's entire length out of cover in order to fire, yet in doing so it doesn't suffer the penalties for firing had it actually moved?

Cover and positioning should mean something. Right now, much like the FOC, they don't.

“Seems right”, no. But it’s clear to me this is GW’s intent. We don’t have an absolute scale for the amount of time a given turn covers and only a rough estimate of actual distances in the game. Having played some online tank games *I* can easily image the tank creeping forward, taking the shot and then quickly retreating to avoid enemy fire, with the resultant “average” being the tank’s position on the board is represented by only the fore of the tread sticks out. Kinda like a missile-launcher bearing space marine could be positioned so he “leans” around a corner to shoot a rocket at an enemy while his model on the board has only a sliver of the left-hand shoulder of his model (with the launcher physically over his right shoulder) visible in the window of a ruin and he can still shoot without counting as moving. It isn’t simulationist in the least, but then nothing in 40K is anything more than an approximation at best anyways.

It’s clear that this state isn’t favored by a portion of the gaming community, and they’d prefer a different way of handling the situation (including me), but I can somewhat see GW’s train of thought. Personally, I’d wish for firing arcs (for everything - including infantry) to be in the game, but 40K is such a beastly mix of models already that at the scale they’re promoting I’d prefer the quicker, more abstract method than the processes from 6E/7E that resulted in sloooooow games.

(Maybe this conversation is something to move to another thread if we want to continue discussing?)

Probably, but it’s been discussed by a select few in several threads over the Edition.
It won’t get anywhere. Everyone has their minds set.

I can see it your way.
Rules wise it doesn’t matter about the gun positioning or whether some thing looks silly, as you are playing a rule set and follow it exact.
Cinematically it doesn’t matter, as things happen as you say, tentative advancement and firing.

It’s the mix of the two that people are applying where the problem comes. They want the rules to look cinematically correct (unfortunately no tabletop game ever will be, as you can imagine how the rules would have to be so complex/busy (bit of move, turn, shoot, more move, maybe reposition, etc etc, all in one units turn)

I really like that you don't need to measure from the guns anymore. It was tiresome to check LOS separately for each weapon. You didn't do it for infantry an monsters anyway. I like that I can freely rearrange the positions of the weapons without it becoming modelling for advantage/disadvantage.

 oni wrote:

 greyknight12 wrote:
The issue with terrain is that it doesn't really do anything...it's "blocks LOS or nothing". +1 save doesn't really do that much given the lethality of firepower in 8th edition, and LOS blocking is rare outside of house rules and custom terrain. There needs to be something in between "you can't shoot me" and "it's only slightly harder to kill me" to make terrain (and the movement phase) more important.

I suggest you (and others) actually read the terrain section of the big rulebook.

I'm always amazed at how many people either don't know there's a terrain section in the rulebook or just ignore it because they're incapable getting past the specific mention of <GW Kit Name>.

Try reading the terrain rules and replace <GW Kit Name> with something more generic, perhaps something you see on the tabletops you typically play on. There's rules for craters, woods, tank traps & obstacles, etc. All of which can influence the game in different ways beyond just giving +1 to the saving throw.

If you're referring to the rules on page 248 of the BRB, then as far as the effect of cover for shooting is concerned, you would be wrong. It does have an effect on certain ways to charge, but nothing else.

I brought up cover being a problem, and I'm less concerned with tank positioning as I am about how hard it is to get cover with large units and the fact that it's possible to make units unassaultable by taking up all the space on a floor of a building

BrianDavion wrote:
well for a start, it means models are, effectively, limited by their model design, which can make some units under performing simply because they're not an optimal design. unless GW's mdoel designers are willing to completely change the mentality which they take into army design, this seems a bad idea.

I don't even know what you mean by this. "Optimal design". What?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
well for a start, it means models are, effectively, limited by their model design, which can make some units under performing simply because they're not an optimal design. unless GW's mdoel designers are willing to completely change the mentality which they take into army design, this seems a bad idea.

I don't even know what you mean by this. "Optimal design". What?

My bet is that It is the fact the model designers create the model first (and what weapon it’s carrying) before it gets statted out. Top it off that the designer models it with, say, holding a melta gun instead of a plasma cannon. Thus, its not the most effective thing to deploy without some conversion.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
well for a start, it means models are, effectively, limited by their model design, which can make some units under performing simply because they're not an optimal design. unless GW's mdoel designers are willing to completely change the mentality which they take into army design, this seems a bad idea.

I don't even know what you mean by this. "Optimal design". What?

I remember things like the land raider having difficulty using both sponsons if a target was too close or slightly off center. Of the storm talon having a 360 degree nose assault cannon because it looked cool, while the storm hawk has a fixed forwards mount in the same place. And the nightmare of the firing arc on the heldrake.

 Crimson wrote:
To me the biggest issue with the terrain is that you need to be in the terain or basically touching the terrain to gain the benefit. Intervening terrain does nothing unless it completely blocks the LOS. So if there is a huge ruined building between my guys and the enemy that is shooting them, I do not receive cover if my guys are not in the ruins. Actually by RAW any of the ruins without upper floors GW sells do not provide cover, as they lack base thus you can never be in them!

This is what I wrote in my survey, essentially. They need to update their terrain rules to work a little better with the terrain they actually sell e.g. all the new and fantastic looking sector imperialis being full of gaps. That terrain works very well when the rules are written like in Kill Team, but in 40k only infantry can really take advantage of those scenery models.

I'd rather not go down the road of each gun needing individual line of sight, though.

I also wrote in that I'd like to see them use Blackstone Fortress and Kill Team to inject some new life into some factions that need a little love, such as Inquisition. They've already shown they can and will do this with the GSC and AdMech characters released already.

One last thing I wrote was for them to do more with their painting and building/kitbashing videos and warhammer community content. Their videos are just really brief and lack a lot of explaination. We all know that what they show us in those videos is not how they get the results shown for their studio armies. Maybe they could separate painting/modelling tutorials into "Warhammer: Battle Ready" and "Warhammer: Advanced" or something like that, IDK. I know they want to have videos for people to find and make it look easy and not scary, but I wouldn't mind picking the brains of their studio artists a bit more.

 MajorWesJanson wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
well for a start, it means models are, effectively, limited by their model design, which can make some units under performing simply because they're not an optimal design. unless GW's mdoel designers are willing to completely change the mentality which they take into army design, this seems a bad idea.

I don't even know what you mean by this. "Optimal design". What?

I remember things like the land raider having difficulty using both sponsons if a target was too close or slightly off center. Of the storm talon having a 360 degree nose assault cannon because it looked cool, while the storm hawk has a fixed forwards mount in the same place. And the nightmare of the firing arc on the heldrake.

exactly this. the designers model the weapon placement etc on what looks cool, and some models in the old day of weapon LOS had some distinct issues as a result

Quasistellar wrote:

I'd rather not go down the road of each gun needing individual line of sight, though.
.

I don't understand this mentality. We draw line of sight from each infantry model in a unit. A tank is often as big or bigger than a unit of infantry. What's so hard about treating their guns the same way as the guns in an infantry squad? It's not like a squad of 20 can all shoot if a single model can see.

Zustiur wrote:

Quasistellar wrote:

I'd rather not go down the road of each gun needing individual line of sight, though.
.

I don't understand this mentality. We draw line of sight from each infantry model in a unit. A tank is often as big or bigger than a unit of infantry. What's so hard about treating their guns the same way as the guns in an infantry squad? It's not like a squad of 20 can all shoot if a single model can see.

No, but a single model can and a vehicle is a single model. The equivalent is measuring from an infantry model's weapon, not from a single model in a unit(especially since many vehicles can make units).

BrianDavion wrote:
exactly this. the designers model the weapon placement etc on what looks cool, and some models in the old day of weapon LOS had some distinct issues as a result

To which I say: So what?

I'd rather there be actual design flaws or deficiencies in designs than a Baneblade being able to fire all its guns around a corner from the front of its track, or a Land Raider being able to fire it's guns through itself.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
exactly this. the designers model the weapon placement etc on what looks cool, and some models in the old day of weapon LOS had some distinct issues as a result

To which I say: So what?

I'd rather there be actual design flaws or deficiencies in designs than a Baneblade being able to fire all its guns around a corner from the front of its track, or a Land Raider being able to fire it's guns through itself.

You make it sound like it's one or two extremes. here's a easy way to do it. Assign guns to specific arcs, based off the mini and apply a bit of common sense (or put all future tanks on bases so that those arcs can be calculted off the base)

So, let's use a Land raider as an example here..

A land raider is armed with 4 lascanons, 2 heavy bolters, and a stormbolter.
right now you can fire everything, which is I admit a bit silly. Assign those guns to specifics arcs as follows.

2 Lascanons: Left Sponson
2 Lascanons Right Sponson
2 Heavy Bolters: Front
Stormbolter: Turret.

So what does this mean? it means that the stormbolter has a 360 degree firing arc, the heaby bolters a 90 degree fireing arc to the front, and the las canons can fire two to a side, or all 4 to the front or back.

there's no dicking around with individual line of sight and detirmining that "ohh those lascanons actually clip throuh the hull thus can't fire to the front" etc. in the baneblade example you've posted the baneblade would be able to fire some of it's side weapons yes, which is silly sure, but at least it'd have some limits on it.


end of the day you have to keep in mind 40k isn't a simulation but an abstration. a 40k simulation table top game would be a NIGHTMARE, and IMHO you'd not be able to do it. you'd likely take hours to play a squad vs squad thing.

Firing arcs slowed the game right down in previous editions and caused disagreements, I'm glad to see the back of them.

Why people defending firing arcs uses square shaped imperial vehicles as an example instead of all xenos or demonic engines ones? That was were the problem was.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I suggested that, for Blackstone Fortress, that they release:

1. Proper expansions at a decent price (the current ones are super lame and sparse in content).
2. That they give players the opportunity to grow their own characters, rather than using specific named characters that GW invent for you.
3. That they greatly expand the "between missions" stuff like Old Skool Quest had.

 oni wrote:
I keep seeing mention of better rules for terrain and I don't understand why.

8th edition has the clearest and most concise terrain rules we've ever seen.

I have had literally zero issues with terrain rules, function, etc. in my games this edition. It's been spectacular.

Where's the issue? I'm inclined to chalk these mentions of 'better terrain rules' to player shenanigans and TFG's.

They're not good.

HBMC, you're my My hero :p

Agree a 100%

ryuken87 wrote:
Firing arcs slowed the game right down in previous editions and caused disagreements, I'm glad to see the back of them.

Yeah I don't entirely disagree. as I said, it works when the models are designed with them clearly in mind, the Lemen Russ for example is a pretty well designed mini in that regard, clear and obious fields of fire etc.

but then you get things like the helldrake, the new vencom crawler etc, where the arcs are a bit harder to judge.

Not to mention the arguments that a dorsal weapons on a flyer - like the turret on the Stormraven - would be unable to target anything on the ground unless you parked it on a slope. Because you know, an aircraft wouldn't be able to pitch or something.

Or the age-old question what happens with multibarrel weapons like twin-linked lascannons where one barrel has clear line of sight but the other is blocked. Lose twin-linked? Half the shots? Does have cover?

Firing arcs did tend to slow things down and it was clunky ...would it be too messy to require a simple line of site to each weapon for it to shoot at a particular target?

I feel like much of the impracticality of certain vehicles being able to aim all there weapons at one target are already addressed by allowing them to target several different targets.

Frankly it's pretty dumb to have flyers in the game at all. But that ship has sailed.

I am assuming this is all Tourny player anger over arcs?

The previous arc setup was dumber than a box of rocks. This one is too.......the difference? One is easier and faster to deal with.

As for Flyers......they are fun, don't see how that is an issue.

 Da-Rock wrote:


As for Flyers......they are fun, don't see how that is an issue.

Apparently tourney players don't play for fun.

 Da-Rock wrote:
I am assuming this is all Tourny player anger over arcs?

The previous arc setup was dumber than a box of rocks. This one is too.......the difference? One is easier and faster to deal with.

As for Flyers......they are fun, don't see how that is an issue.

That would be my guess. In the every day player scene, at least in my area no one cares about the cover/LOS/arc issue. Literally no one I talked to today at our store even said anything about it other than "8th is so much better than the nightmare that was AV/FA positioning."

 Da-Rock wrote:
I am assuming this is all Tourny player anger over arcs?

I don't play in tournaments.

I don't see it as a toruny vs non tourny thing but a "Realism vs abstraction" thing the abstraction makes it easier yes, but some people want a more "Realism" type mind set. neither side is wrong, it's, ultimately a matter of preferance.