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I like the idea of weapons having a different profile for vehicles/MC/other big models and smaller models.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
I want to see:

A move to D12 for attacks, wounds and saves. D6's can still be used for other things like shot amount. I want to see charges give you the option of D12, 2D6 or 4D3. I want to see a general rule that allows for number of shots and damage to exchange xD6 for twice as many D3s.

...in general I don't like a proliferation of different dice types, but why would anyone ever not swap 1D6 for 2D3? The maximum is the same, but the average and minimum are better for 2D3. Same for 1D12 (1-12, average 6.5) vs 2D6 (2-12, average 7) vs 4D3 (4-12, average 8).

The only way this option makes sense to me would be in a system where exploding dice are a common element, meaning you're trading a lower average/minimum for the opportunity to roll 2D6 instead of 3D3. And 40k isn't that.

Hell, if you want a trade up/down system, a better approach would be D6 vs D3+2. That's 1-6 (average 3.5) vs 3-5 (average 4). Do you risk rolling a 1-2 on the D6 in exchange for the possibility of rolling a 6?

PenitentJake wrote:
What I hope is that there never is a ninth. People who want a simple, streamlined, balanced game, go all in Apocalypse. Let it become the tournament version of 40k.

That way, people who who have always seen 40k as more of a setting/ story engine can continue to live in the golden age that is 8th. If we can convince GW to just keep going, maybe we'll have viable Tau soup or Ork soup options.

The last thing I want is for a Sisters army after 15 freakin years of waiting, just to end up with a year to play it before someone hits the reset button and I have to wait until all the space marine dexes are reprinted AGAIN.

As for making everything that feels unique about an army into a strategem, please, NO! If my miracles use the same mechanic as heretics, or aliens or lowly, faithless guard I'm not sure I'll ever be able to forgive GW. And being a witch hunter doesn't really feel the same without a psychic phase. A witch doesn't feel like a witch when it's all just strategems.

If GW can just keep these games distinct, everybody wins. You want simple? You have simple- bless Apocalypse.

You don't? Well then just keep on playin 40k as is and let GW create some new armies. I love having Rogue Trader and Navigator models and actual rules for them; I can't wait to see what they do with Inquisition.

I mean, sure- updating the existing range of models is also important; fixing broken dexes is a great idea too. Kill Team and Blackstone are AMAZING ways to release new content for the existing range.

But none of these things are ever going to happen if they hit the reset button either. We'll just end up buying/ waiting out the space marine dexes AGAIN!

(Sorry to repeat myself, but since GW has done it 8 freakin times and this thread is about what to wish for when they do it AGAIN, you can forgive me for doing it twice)

I play 8th for mostly narrative games myself with my brother and friends, but we keep finding that our lists compared to each other's fluffy forces vastly differ in power. I'm not a big fan of how lethal this edition is and random number of shots/dmg is a pain. Stratagems and CP's are also a bit of a messy system. I also think, with the amount of extra things you have to buy and keep around at this point, there needs to be some sort of new edition, whether that's an 8.5 updated with all the FAQ's and extras, or 9th Ed where they switch up a few core mechanics that are a little messy.
Just my thoughts anyway.

Edit: Also I don't think I'd want 40k to go as streamlined as Apocalypse, I just like a few systems and like the idea of some moving over. But I'm not a fan of how there's no personality in the units in Apoc, and that all that is handled on randomly drawn cards.

Ozomoto wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:

Ozomoto wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
I want to see:

A move to D12 for attacks, wounds and saves. D6's can still be used for other things like shot amount. I want to see charges give you the option of D12, 2D6 or 4D3. I want to see a general rule that allows for number of shots and damage to exchange xD6 for twice as many D3s.

Damage inflicted at the end of the round, but to have the player turn order be ABBA so player 2 doesn't get too much of an advantage from knowing which of their units are dead.

The BB double turn in the thing I've seen by far the most critiques about from AoS as it's way to swingy for to many strategies.

But does AOS combine it with damage at the end of the round too however?

ABBA. I'm player B and I deepstrike bloodletters down fight twice blah blah damage is calculated; my bloodletters lost close to nothing because they wiped there targets. I take another turn fight twice with them then they are blown off the table; damage is then calculated. I basically got a free full turn of brawling over ABAB despite casualties at the end. Granted this is a particular case and not all of them end up like it but units that get to abuse such things would become the norm would be my guess.

Player A should screen their models properly then.

 TheFleshIsWeak wrote:
What I'd like to see for 9th is Fliers, Super-Heavies and Lords of War being restricted to Apocalypse games.

That's stupid.


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 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 fraser1191 wrote:
From what little I've seen I'd say damage being calculated at the end of the round would be the best and easiest to implement

All The This! /\

Whilst far from an expert, it does seem most of the beardy, dare I say boring, lists out there depend entirely on the Alpha Strike - and shonky ways to achieve that.

If stuff isn't removed until the end of the Game Round, that drastically changes how we play the game. After all? Found a neat combo which will wipe out 30 Ork Boyz, guaranteed? Go for it. They'll still be getting some say in the battle.

Conversely, no reason not to build the most glass cannon alphastrike list possible because your opponent can't do jacl gak to limit your firepower.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Breng77 wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 fraser1191 wrote:
From what little I've seen I'd say damage being calculated at the end of the round would be the best and easiest to implement

All The This! /\

Whilst far from an expert, it does seem most of the beardy, dare I say boring, lists out there depend entirely on the Alpha Strike - and shonky ways to achieve that.

If stuff isn't removed until the end of the Game Round, that drastically changes how we play the game. After all? Found a neat combo which will wipe out 30 Ork Boyz, guaranteed? Go for it. They'll still be getting some say in the battle.

Doesn't this just turn every game into a battle of attrition?

No it makes movement and target priority matter.

Not really. No matter what you target, that unit still gets to kill you back. All it really does is switch around which turn has the advantage, 1st vs 2nd.

ERJAK wrote:

 TheFleshIsWeak wrote:
What I'd like to see for 9th is Fliers, Super-Heavies and Lords of War being restricted to Apocalypse games.

That's stupid.

Why?

 vipoid wrote:

ERJAK wrote:

 TheFleshIsWeak wrote:
What I'd like to see for 9th is Fliers, Super-Heavies and Lords of War being restricted to Apocalypse games.

That's stupid.

Why?

It's excluding player's, models because someone wants to go back to 3rd edition army composition.

But as to why is it a stupid answer it missed the actual question by an entire warp rift.

If 9th Ed Had Some Similar Rules To Apocalypse, Which Rules Would You Like to See Carry Over?

Excluding models isn't carrying over rules it litterly saying dont bring over rules for classes of units.

Ice_can wrote:

It's excluding player's, models because someone wants to go back to 3rd edition army composition.

5th edition, actually.

And I really don't see the issue when there exists a dedicated game mode for using these models.

Super-heavies, fliers and Lords of War are badly suited to regular 40k and their being shoehorned into it has caused no end of issues for the game.

The release of Apocalypse provides a perfect opportunity to rectify that mistake by making these units exclusive to that format. Where they belong.

Ice_can wrote:

But as to why is it a stupid answer it missed the actual question by an entire warp rift.

Excluding models isn't carrying over rules it litterly saying dont bring over rules for classes of units.

Perhaps, but that's a separate issue. A valid point doesn't become invalid just by straying a little from the main topic.

Ice_can wrote:
But as to why is it a stupid answer it missed the actual question by an entire warp rift.

If 9th Ed Had Some Similar Rules To Apocalypse, Which Rules Would You Like to See Carry Over?

Excluding models isn't carrying over rules it litterly saying dont bring over rules for classes of units.

The Earth isn't flat.

Whoops, wrong topic. Guess that means the Earth is flat after all.

@ERJAK - already explained why it matters, and since units differ in what they are effective against trying to use your units that are strong against the return fire of your opponent is key. So if they have infantry based anti-tank use your infantry based anti-infantry unit to deal with them limiting the killing back.

As to no reason to not take the most glass cannon list, the issue is they still get to kill you back so unlike now offense is not the best form of defense. Right now the best way to make sure you live is by killing things before they can hurt you. This is the principle of a glass cannon. Your idea only works if points wise you kill more than you lose in the trade. Which is still better than right now where there is no trade.

 vipoid wrote:

Ice_can wrote:

It's excluding player's, models because someone wants to go back to 3rd edition army composition.

5th edition, actually.

And I really don't see the issue when there exists a dedicated game mode for using these models.

Super-heavies, fliers and Lords of War are badly suited to regular 40k and their being shoehorned into it has caused no end of issues for the game.

The release of Apocalypse provides a perfect opportunity to rectify that mistake by making these units exclusive to that format. Where they belong.

Ice_can wrote:

But as to why is it a stupid answer it missed the actual question by an entire warp rift.

Excluding models isn't carrying over rules it litterly saying dont bring over rules for classes of units.

Perhaps, but that's a separate issue. A valid point doesn't become invalid just by straying a little from the main topic.

Buy the same logic kill team exsist and Appocolyps exsist so 40k isnt needed. You want to play small skirmish play kill team want to play large battle play Appocolyps.
No need for a 9th edition at all.

Excluding people or models because they don't fit someones idea of what 40k is never ends well look at the BS that goes on around Forge World all the time with people complaining that all FW is OP and isn't part of 40k proper. Allowing people to dictate how other people can enjoy the game is the best way to poison a community.

I suspect that apoc will work well at 100 power level, but will be a bit more luck dependent than 40K. A lucky roll from a termagant squad can kill an hyve tyrant. Sure it is unlikely, but more likely than in 40K.

A single T'au char with a 10+ SAP gun can make that roll and now it has a 50% chance to wipe a tactical squad.

Good (and bad) dice streaks will influence the game much more than in 40K.

The game would run in 45-50 min tops though, so you can actually afford to do a best of 3 match.

Probably none. This is a super basic, streamlined version of the game.

It's going to be really fun as a visual spectacle. It won't be replacing 40k.

Apocalypse is 9th edition. This is the game GW wants 40k to be. People playing 40k at least semi-competitively have already bought up all the super-heavies and titans for their use in 40k. Now they can play that game faster.

Kill Team is fully supported as the smaller game.

There's no room for old-style 40k anymore.

This is a more minor thin, but something I liked about the command asset deck is that each card is one use and then could be used as a reroll if you want to.

CP is a mechanic that has worn out it's welcome. I don't necessarily want the deck building aspect, but having access to one use stratagems that can instead be spent for generic effects seems more sane that attempting to juice as many CPs out of a list for maybe 4 stratagems.

 Luke_Prowler wrote:
This is a more minor thin, but something I liked about the command asset deck is that each card is one use and then could be used as a reroll if you want to.

CP is a mechanic that has worn out it's welcome. I don't necessarily want the deck building aspect, but having access to one use stratagems that can instead be spent for generic effects seems more sane that attempting to juice as many CPs out of a list for maybe 4 stratagems.

The problem with that is armies like Imperial Guard are intended to have weaker stratagems you use more often while some like Custodes or Imperial Knights have powerful stratagems you use less often.

With damage being calculated at the end, it makes H2H less worthwhile, no?

For some units, charging is a viable option because they can cause mass damage to the opponent and reduce the ability of the opponent to hurt them back.... this way you don’t get the protection.

It doesn’t’t matter so much if you are charging against chaff units, but you wouldn’t ever dare charge your thunder wolf cav into other nasty melee units as they’d wipe each other out.

 Tiberius501 wrote:
Apocalypse looks a little bit flaky, and some odd choices seem to have been made between unit choices and power level costs and such. Early to tell yet though and for all I know it could be amazing. But I'd be interested to see if some of the rules made it into 9th Ed 40k. I particularly like the idea of damage all being calculated at the end of the turn, this seems really nice. I also sort of like weapons having specific to-wound rolls vs people or vehicles, but this is debatable.

What would you like to see, if any of it at all?

I like the idea of the detachment leaders, chain of command, and morale based on detachment intact-ness. It sounds like Flames of War's system.

 BaconCatBug wrote:

 Luke_Prowler wrote:
This is a more minor thin, but something I liked about the command asset deck is that each card is one use and then could be used as a reroll if you want to.

CP is a mechanic that has worn out it's welcome. I don't necessarily want the deck building aspect, but having access to one use stratagems that can instead be spent for generic effects seems more sane that attempting to juice as many CPs out of a list for maybe 4 stratagems.

The problem with that is armies like Imperial Guard are intended to have weaker stratagems you use more often while some like Custodes or Imperial Knights have powerful stratagems you use less often.

Solution: Do the thing Apocalypse seems to be doing which is granting Imperial Guard a flying fuckton of command cards by granting their officers the "Get 1 extra card if you are a warlord" ability.

You can still have the armies getting more command cards getting slightly weaker cards.

Just...figure out what the average number of detachments they'll be able to bring is, figure out an average # of cards each faction might have, and scale the relative power of strats to that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

 Tiberius501 wrote:
Apocalypse looks a little bit flaky, and some odd choices seem to have been made between unit choices and power level costs and such. Early to tell yet though and for all I know it could be amazing. But I'd be interested to see if some of the rules made it into 9th Ed 40k. I particularly like the idea of damage all being calculated at the end of the turn, this seems really nice. I also sort of like weapons having specific to-wound rolls vs people or vehicles, but this is debatable.

What would you like to see, if any of it at all?

I like the idea of the detachment leaders, chain of command, and morale based on detachment intact-ness. It sounds like Flames of War's system.

I just really really really really really hope that either A) Age of Sigmar style free character targeting is not a thing, or B) Warlord status snaps to the next highest LD model in a detachment when the warlord dies (But they lose Command benefits, again Ala age of sigmar).

Reading the eldar preview where they said that a detachment where the warlord dies might rout has me pretty concerned.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
With damage being calculated at the end, it makes H2H less worthwhile, no?

For some units, charging is a viable option because they can cause mass damage to the opponent and reduce the ability of the opponent to hurt them back.... this way you don’t get the protection.

It doesn’t’t matter so much if you are charging against chaff units, but you wouldn’t ever dare charge your thunder wolf cav into other nasty melee units as they’d wipe each other out.

This is assuming you can still shoot if you're in melee combat against something. The preview video *seems* to indicate this won't be the case wit htheir description of the Aimed Fire order (She says if you end up in combat you *fight* at -1 to hit, implying but not outright saying you'll be forced to fight rather than shoot).

If so, then charging a unit still reduces their melee capability.

But yeah, you won't want to kill a glass cannon unit like aberrants using melee unless you have a cheaper unit than them to sack.

What you can do though is sac a super cheap unit to stop a melee unit from being able to pick the target they get to fight that turn.

 BaconCatBug wrote:

 Luke_Prowler wrote:
This is a more minor thin, but something I liked about the command asset deck is that each card is one use and then could be used as a reroll if you want to.

CP is a mechanic that has worn out it's welcome. I don't necessarily want the deck building aspect, but having access to one use stratagems that can instead be spent for generic effects seems more sane that attempting to juice as many CPs out of a list for maybe 4 stratagems.

The problem with that is armies like Imperial Guard are intended to have weaker stratagems you use more often while some like Custodes or Imperial Knights have powerful stratagems you use less often.

Which is a good point, but the current system's interaction with allies results in the CP battery problem.
Besides, changing to how I'd want it would warrant changes to the current stratagems anyway. Anything that used to be wargear/ability that's clearly meant to be used multiple times should go back to being wargear/ buy-able abilities.

 vipoid wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

No it makes movement and target priority matter.

You're kidding, right?

Because it actually has the exact opposite effect.

Movement and positioning mean even less because you can be shot (or even charged) and destroyed by the same units you just shot and destroyed.

Same goes for target priority - even if you choose the optimum units to destroy, they still get a free turn to shoot you back anyway.

You might as well be playing Warhammer: The Card Game for all the difference the battlefield will make after this change.

depends on how it works, I know that in Battletech which has always had this, it works fine but battletech ahs facing rules, etc so that it can be pretty complex, and the number of times a unit can die from concentrated fire by a similer unit is pretty rare.

I like these idea and wouldn't mind to see the concept ported in one way or another into 40K :
- assigning orders : I think it's nice having to plan before hand and sticking to it. It was quite fun when playing TL/SM at least.
- untying CP generation from army list : Looks like in Apocalypse, we all start with the same number of "tricks" (it can change during the course of the game though, with some factions being able to regen them or what not) thus removing the issue with armies having troops of disparate quality and making some detachment better than others.
- the inclusion of D12s : It allows a bit more fine tuning of some profiles/stats
- the concept of anti personal and anti tank weapons : While I'm not sure it's the best implementation, it has the potential to reduce the issue with some weapons being able to fulfil every role and the fact that one of the best qualities in 40K at the moment is quantity.
- alternating player turns and what goes with it like the way damage is handled : You can't just get rid of your opponents annoying stuff before it can act, so you have to make bigger plans than having a counter in line of sight (or in charge range) during your own turn and I like the look of nice blast markers on the table top . Not sure it would really work without better terrain rules though.

I like some other stuff like putting a greater emphasis on commander characters or having a profile for the units and not the miniatures but I'm not sure they would work in 40K right now or if they are even desirable at that scale.

The thing I am intrigued by is how mass advancing infantry will play. This was always my favourite way to use Guardsmen, but the rules are usually rather cumbersome. The large amount of dice required really slow down the game, as well as the annoyance of melee rules with hordes. The idea of playing on the squad level instead of the model level is something I am excited to try out.

It's funny, I've posted in a few places how we should try and use 40k Epic Armageddon rules in 40k and was scoffed at. Now Apocalypse has basically ripped their own game off people are cheering a 20 year old GW system as revolutionary.

Quite a lot of things seem excellent about the system, so approximately in the order I care about them most to least:

Alternating detachment activation. One of the biggest complaints about 40k has always been the huge amounts of downtime; alternating activation somewhat helps with that. Fundamentally, it's poor game design for players to become disengaged from the action, which is why almost every game has interrupting actions such as making saves, dispelling things, etc. Moving away from a system of my whole turn then your whole turn makes the game more engaging, changes strategy quite a bit and, IMO, makes the battle feel more "alive" thematically as units don't just end up sitting there watching a whole army move before walking to cover. It also lets you cut rules like overwatch entirely if it's done unit by unit - don't need to make an out of order shooting attack if you can just shoot before you're charged anyway.

Seemingly no random shots/damage. I cannot with mere words express my utter disgust at these in literally all editions of 40k. I've always thought that good design is using randomness to create fun. So, to hit/wound/save - all good, because each roll has an impact, is intuitive as to what you're doing and induces relatively reliable randomness which gives just enough variation to give real highs and lows, while being fairly balanced. Random shots/damage do not, especially damage. Even if you could justify a Leman Russ doing D6 shots to infantry as the randomness of a blast, the abstraction fails against vehicles because there's a damage system; likewise, flamers with D6 shots mean that sometimes you're using a napalm strike and other times a zippo, for no rhyme or reason. Random damage is even worse - if I hit and wound a model with a lascannon and they fail their save, it makes exactly 0 sense that it might either vaporise them OR give them 1 wound. Bluntly, if you're wounded by a massive weapon, you should just die, not have yet another random roll to see if you just got vigourously tickled. Moreover, to hit/wound/save are "feel good" rolls - they can be played around, they can be mitigated, you have counterplay, so it "feels" fair; random hits and damage you have no counterplay and no real way to alter barring rerolls, so they feel terrible IMO. There are better mechanisms which can be used, such as hitting up to X models in range, random for the sake of random is slow and miserable.

D12s as lowest granularity, not D6s. I mean, dear lord, how many rules issues have been caused over the years by them trying to "cheat" extra variability in the dice with rerolls, not to mention the massive time burden they induce? I'm not happy to see rerolls at all frankly, but using a dice with more variety makes so much more sense than the current system as it gives everything much more granularity. Also, D12s are the coolest looking dice.

The seeming replacement of save modifiers to SAP/SAT rolls and D6/D12 transitions instead. Not only does this give a better way to differentiate weapons, it also means you lose a lot of clutter in the game. This is a bummer from a thematic point of view, but it solves things like invulnerable saves (you always get it anyway, they become pointless), issues with durability not being worth the cost (very hard to price something which linearly degrades,), needing to have multiple wounds to survive reliably, etc. Things which were invuln saves can instead be either a "secondary save", like ignores damage in these new rules, or just buff the save in the profile to begin with. Power armour and terminator armour should be worth something, and at the moment they really aren't. It also allows you to remove toughness and strength from the game as lookup tables; some people may dislike that but it undoubtedly makes things faster and easier.

Damage resolved at the end of the turn. This needs the morale system to function to balance it well but the fact we currently accept the status quo of "if I go second, many of my models will do absolutely nothing" seems ridiculous when you think about it, especially given the investment to get them on the table to begin with. Likewise, on a thematic level, if I shoot at someone, it's not unreasonable to see them fire back before they die unless they're taken by surprise; the current turn based system doesn't account for this at all. This doesn't mitigate alpha strikes or do half the things people are saying it does (glass cannon lists actually die harder because they rely on killing their threats before they fire, the strategy isn't better or worse just different, position matters arguably more in some ways and less in others) but it's a better approach than we have now as you, you know, actually get to play with your models.

A chain rout mechanism. I'm not 100% sold on warlord check = entire army might flee, but certainly some system where units are shaken if things nearby die, their commander dies, etc leading to entire armies retreating is something which I miss from other systems. Morale has always been poorly done in 40k as almost everything ends up ignoring it - without the huge fearless bubbles the game looks much more interesting and has an extra layer of depth. MSU should be mediated by morale and the prevalence of MSU in 40k is a testament to why the system needs something to mitigate it that's much more impactful than "unit took X wounds, needs morale check".

Removing the utterly ridiculous glut of special rules on absolutely every model. I get it, everyone wants to be a snowflake, but it hurts the game to have to memorise an encyclopedia of rules for each faction. There's always at least one moment in a game where rules are forgotten, missed, etc and that's because there's too many special exceptions. Most can be deleted, almost all others can be turned into a generic system wide rule. We don't need dozens of ways to ignore morale, or to reroll everything, or to define auras, or generate hits from other hits, etc - just make it generic, there's still more than enough variability to go around. It also makes it much easier to balance because not everything is an edge case of an edge case with special exceptions to other edge cases, such that you need an FAQ on release!

Command points to stratagems. I think they're a good system poorly implemented ATM, but the system in apocalypse looks decent, depending on relative strength. I kinda dig the idea of building a deck too which could be implemented, but I know others will hate that.

Generally, I like a lot about the system because it removes a lot of slow, non-impactful stuff and adds morale. There's a bunch of stuff I dislike too - things are a little too streamlined in terms of rules for 40k, squad based wounds massively increases variance, rerolls are still around, etc, but it's a better base than current 40k (which is basically 3e's core still) IMO.

 BaconCatBug wrote:

Ozomoto wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:

Ozomoto wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
I want to see:

A move to D12 for attacks, wounds and saves. D6's can still be used for other things like shot amount. I want to see charges give you the option of D12, 2D6 or 4D3. I want to see a general rule that allows for number of shots and damage to exchange xD6 for twice as many D3s.

Damage inflicted at the end of the round, but to have the player turn order be ABBA so player 2 doesn't get too much of an advantage from knowing which of their units are dead.

The BB double turn in the thing I've seen by far the most critiques about from AoS as it's way to swingy for to many strategies.

But does AOS combine it with damage at the end of the round too however?

ABBA. I'm player B and I deepstrike bloodletters down fight twice blah blah damage is calculated; my bloodletters lost close to nothing because they wiped there targets. I take another turn fight twice with them then they are blown off the table; damage is then calculated. I basically got a free full turn of brawling over ABAB despite casualties at the end. Granted this is a particular case and not all of them end up like it but units that get to abuse such things would become the norm would be my guess.

Player A should screen their models properly then.

Wow you very much missed the point that comment was irrelevant.