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Had a thought about the function of cover, and that I don't like it. Some people suggest putting a modifier to hit, but I don't like that either, as there's too much which does that already, and you could end up with an unshootable unit sat in cover.

My thought was to have the cover rules affect the (mostly unmolested) to-wound roll. I have 2 options:

Option 1: a flat modifier, which can't go past 2+ or 6+
IE cover confers -1 to wound. S4 shooting T4 wounds on 5's in cover. S10 vs T1 wounds on a 3+.

Option 2: A cap on "to wound" when in cover.
IE, you are never wounded on better than a 3+ when in cover, or a 4+ when in fortifications / heavy cover. Guardsman in heavy cover is wounded on a 4+ by pretty much everything.

This has the effect of reducing the hitting force of a shot, but not mitigating it's AP. if you are wounded, it's still your save.

The aim of this is to increase survivability against shooting, I want to make it more beneficial to be in cover than it is now, and not benefit armies with good saves more. Currently an ork or a termagaunt in cover is only safer against a couple of guns, all he rest just rip through it all.

I'm unsure which option I prefer - Option 1 is better against everything, and option 2 is better against higher strength weapons, or for lower toughness units.

Option 1 will benefit everything, and option 2 will not be much benefit to the high-toughness god save units which are currently quite alright by themselves. So perhaps option 2 is the better option. Landraiders shouldn't be hiding, they should be ploughing towards the enemy to deliver (preferably chaos) terminators. Knights shouldn't be concerned about hiding in cover. Guardsmen should be lying flat on their face to try and not get shot.

Reconsidering my previous statement - I prefer option 2. In this age of high-strength weapons, a cap will make cheaper weapons more beneficial, as a vindicator would effectively be S4 against a unit of guardsmen in cover, or S5 against marines/orks/necrons.

This would actually skew the meta drastically away from plasmagin spam. I think this warrants a playtest!

What about -1 to wound against units in cover?

 some bloke wrote:


Option 2: A cap on "to wound" when in cover.
IE, you are never wounded on better than a 3+ when in cover, or a 4+ when in fortifications / heavy cover. Guardsman in heavy cover is wounded on a 4+ by pretty much everything.

This has the effect of reducing the hitting force of a shot, but not mitigating it's AP. if you are wounded, it's still your save.

...I want to make it more beneficial to be in cover than it is now, and not benefit armies with good saves more. Currently an ork or a termagaunt in cover is only safer against a couple of guns, all he rest just rip through it all.

The thing is, orks and termagaunts are cheap. Typically, weapons with good AP are also more expensive and have fewer shots than guns with bad AP. So sure, the cover rules currently don't do much to help a termagaunt survive an expensive lascannon or plasmagun, but your opponent is killing termagaunts with lascannons and plasma guns.

... option 2 will not be much benefit to the high-toughness god save units which are currently quite alright by themselves. So perhaps option 2 is the better option. Landraiders shouldn't be hiding, they should be ploughing towards the enemy to deliver (preferably chaos) terminators. Knights shouldn't be concerned about hiding in cover. Guardsmen should be lying flat on their face to try and not get shot.

Knights and land raiders have a pretty rough time getting cover as is, so no worries there. However, I'm not sure we actually want cover to strongly favor cheap infantry over more durable units (including heavier infantry). Right now, guardsmen are very points efficient and tactical marines are considered very points inefficient. Given that there's a lot more strength 6 and 7 in the game than strength 8+, and given that shooting a tactical marine with a strength 8+ gun is kind of like shooting a termagaunt with a lascannon, this change would make cover very useful for already-competitive horde lists while further weakening struggling heavy infantry units.

This would make cover mostly meaningless for toughness 4 armies. Marines would need to be in some of the heaviest cover to benefit against anything less than strength 8. Meanwhile, some of the most efficient horde clearing weapons in the game would have an even harder time wiping out huge blobs of infantry.

Wyldhunt wrote:

 some bloke wrote:


Option 2: A cap on "to wound" when in cover.
IE, you are never wounded on better than a 3+ when in cover, or a 4+ when in fortifications / heavy cover. Guardsman in heavy cover is wounded on a 4+ by pretty much everything.

This has the effect of reducing the hitting force of a shot, but not mitigating it's AP. if you are wounded, it's still your save.

...I want to make it more beneficial to be in cover than it is now, and not benefit armies with good saves more. Currently an ork or a termagaunt in cover is only safer against a couple of guns, all he rest just rip through it all.

The thing is, orks and termagaunts are cheap. Typically, weapons with good AP are also more expensive and have fewer shots than guns with bad AP. So sure, the cover rules currently don't do much to help a termagaunt survive an expensive lascannon or plasmagun, but your opponent is killing termagaunts with lascannons and plasma guns.

... option 2 will not be much benefit to the high-toughness god save units which are currently quite alright by themselves. So perhaps option 2 is the better option. Landraiders shouldn't be hiding, they should be ploughing towards the enemy to deliver (preferably chaos) terminators. Knights shouldn't be concerned about hiding in cover. Guardsmen should be lying flat on their face to try and not get shot.

Knights and land raiders have a pretty rough time getting cover as is, so no worries there. However, I'm not sure we actually want cover to strongly favor cheap infantry over more durable units (including heavier infantry). Right now, guardsmen are very points efficient and tactical marines are considered very points inefficient. Given that there's a lot more strength 6 and 7 in the game than strength 8+, and given that shooting a tactical marine with a strength 8+ gun is kind of like shooting a termagaunt with a lascannon, this change would make cover very useful for already-competitive horde lists while further weakening struggling heavy infantry units.

This would make cover mostly meaningless for toughness 4 armies. Marines would need to be in some of the heaviest cover to benefit against anything less than strength 8. Meanwhile, some of the most efficient horde clearing weapons in the game would have an even harder time wiping out huge blobs of infantry.

I'm not entirely certain I agree here. From what I've read about space marines performance in 40k, the main issue is that people are bringing powerful guns which are designed to kill titans and tanks, but these guns are also disproportionately powerful against marines. If a plasmagun didn't wound a marine on better than a 4+, this will reduce the effectiveness of the powerful guns.

Think of it this way - why would a unit go into cover; to avoid the shots that it's armour can't help against. If the enemy has lasguns, cover isn't as important to a space marine as if the enemy has lascannons and plasmaguns. Essentially reducing plasmaguns to S4 against marines in cover will mean bolters, which you can field in higher quantities, are inherently buffed against anything more powerful than bolters. Marines should be walking through lasgun fire and hiding from plasmaguns. guardsmen should be hiding from anything more than a lasgun, and titans and landraiders shouldn't be hiding at all.

I would go so far as to cap wounding models in cover at 4+, or give models in cover +1T against shooting attacks. That, or go back to the good old days of cover where it was a flat save.

I think you could do it simpler with just making Cover -1 to hit if the target is outside 12" BUUUUUT also change some other things for balance.

First, you make a blanket rule that unmodified 6s always hit.
Next, you make army Traits such as Alaitoc, Raven Guard, Alpha legion, etc count as in cover even in the open (and maybe still get cover if outside 6" instead of the proposed 12"). So now these don't stack with Cover, because they ARE Cover

And that's probably all you'd need to do to make Cover -1 to hit without it creating too many "impossible to hit" situations.

-

 some bloke wrote:


I'm not entirely certain I agree here. From what I've read about space marines performance in 40k, the main issue is that people are bringing powerful guns which are designed to kill titans and tanks, but these guns are also disproportionately powerful against marines.

Not quite. Lascannons and missile launchers aren't the problem power armor is having this edition. Power armor is threatened by...

A.) Weak weapons like lasguns that are simply cheap enough to be efficient at killing marines for their points despite being individually weak.
B.) Weapons with decent rate of fire and "good enough" strength and AP to threaten marines. Think disintegrators and plasma guns.

So it's not that marines are dying in droves to weapons that wound them on 2's most of the time. They're dying to things that wound them on 3s or worse and that do so points efficiently.

If a plasmagun didn't wound a marine on better than a 4+, this will reduce the effectiveness of the powerful guns.

Except that, as I understand your proposal, most terrain would only take 2+ to wound rolls to a 3+ meaning that the cover would only help a marine against an overcharging plasma gun but not against a disintegrator or a non-overcharged plasma gun. Or are you suggesting that something like your average ruins would make plasma guns wound my dark reapers on 4's? If that's the case, I'd worry both small arms and high strength weapons would have a hard time hurting things like cheap guard blobs or buffed eldar.

Think of it this way - why would a unit go into cover; to avoid the shots that it's armour can't help against. If the enemy has lasguns, cover isn't as important to a space marine as if the enemy has lascannons and plasmaguns. Essentially reducing plasmaguns to S4 against marines in cover will mean bolters, which you can field in higher quantities, are inherently buffed against anything more powerful than bolters. Marines should be walking through lasgun fire and hiding from plasmaguns. guardsmen should be hiding from anything more than a lasgun, and titans and landraiders shouldn't be hiding at all.

Eh... Not sure that all tracks. A guy is more likely to survive a shot from a pistol if the bullet has to go through a car door (or a cement slab or a metal barricade, or...) before it hits him. Similarly, a space marine kneeling behind a concrete barrier is probably safer against lasguns or even bolters than a marine standing out in the open; I can see bolters and lasguns getting stopped from reaching their target by some concrete.

A lascannon is probably powerful enough to blast through car doors and concrete with relative ease, but at that point the benefit of cover is probably more about throwing off the shooter's aim through concealment than about reducing the raw power behind the projectile/beam.

I would go so far as to cap wounding models in cover at 4+, or give models in cover +1T against shooting attacks. That, or go back to the good old days of cover where it was a flat save.

Marines not benefitting from cover against small arms fire was the state of affairs in previous editions, and many people disliked it because it basically made cover unimportant for power armored armies in most circumstances. It removed interesting decisions from the game. I see the appeal of that approach, but it feels like a lateral move at best.





Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Galef wrote:
I think you could do it simpler with just making Cover -1 to hit if the target is outside 12" BUUUUUT also change some other things for balance.

First, you make a blanket rule that unmodified 6s always hit.
Next, you make army Traits such as Alaitoc, Raven Guard, Alpha legion, etc count as in cover even in the open (and maybe still get cover if outside 6" instead of the proposed 12"). So now these don't stack with Cover, because they ARE Cover

And that's probably all you'd need to do to make Cover -1 to hit without it creating too many "impossible to hit" situations.

-

I like this a lot, actually.

Games workshop needs to sell some “smoke” terrain. So when a tank fires smoke launchers it blocks line of sight. Incoming and outgoing.

My main interest here is story logic and perverse incentives. In Kill Team, cover represents breaking up the line of fire, so it impacts the hit roll. You therefore get around cover with autohit weapons, which makes perfect sense. In 40k, cover represents literally putting an obstacle between yourself and the guns, so it impacts the saving throw. You therefore get around cover with... high-AP weapons, which makes less sense.

So what does your proposal result in, and does that make sense? For example, your first proposal means that Poisoned Weapons are much better at killing things in cover. Your second proposal means that lasguns aren't any worse at killing guard in cover than out of cover. I'm not a fan of either result.

 Galef wrote:

And that's probably all you'd need to do to make Cover -1 to hit without it creating too many "impossible to hit" situations.
-

This all works.

Though returning to "perverse incentives", it's worth pointing out that existing non-cover cover (e.g. Taktiks, Shroudpsalm, etc) means you're less likely to use real cover at all, because why bother? So under this model, the camo-clad pathfinders of Alaitoc and the stealthy ambushers of the Raven Guard are free to stand out in the open while everyone else sets up in forests and buildings. Which is weird.

But this makes it so higher-T units get *more* benefit from Cover, instead of less...

IDeally, it'd be a to-hit penalty - although like all other such penalties, 6s really need to always hit before stacking them becomes reasonable.

One solution is to make heavy weapons have targeting penalties against light infantry and heavy infantry. Weapons intended to track other tanks shouldn’t be able to easily hit infantry that are much smaller and running between cover. It’s possible but it’s harder. This forces you to take assault weapons and get closer. Or use assault infantry or other light and heavy infantry to deal with enemy infantry effectively.

A broad "+1 to hit bigger-than-infantry, +2 to hit Vehicles, +3 to hit Titanic" style rule would make things interesting. Paired with ranged and cover penalties-to-hit, it could be really interesting. But at that point you're at a significant rebalance.

Suddenly Raven Guard/Alpha Legion Marines in cover at distance gets a bit scarier, and Alaitoc Serpents a bit less so.

Bharring wrote:
A broad "+1 to hit bigger-than-infantry, +2 to hit Vehicles, +3 to hit Titanic" style rule would make things interesting. Paired with ranged and cover penalties-to-hit, it could be really interesting. But at that point you're at a significant rebalance.

Suddenly Raven Guard/Alpha Legion Marines in cover at distance gets a bit scarier, and Alaitoc Serpents a bit less so.

I think it's important to note at this point the shooting is widely regarded as overpowered as it is. I would prefer to add a slew of negative modifiers than add a slew of positive ones.

I'd be happy if it was implemented with a -1 to hit units over half range and -1 to hit units in cover. It would be good to keep a flat "natural 6 always hits" on everything. Then either amend orks to "5's and 6's always hit" (they are shooting in your direction, not aiming - it's the mass of bullets that make something hit!) or give them something else, like ignoring the cover bonus if 15+ models shoot at the same unit.

The reason it affects the armor roll is because that roll can be managed individually and change as wounds are allocated. If you have 8 figures in a 10 man unit in cover, you do not receive cover, but if you apply wounds to the out of cover models first, once they die, you gain cover for the remaining figures. It's a pretty elegant way to make it so figures left out in the open tend to get picked off first.