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I have heard a lot of complaints about the gameness of 8th. I am referring to the following issues:
1: Units can move within 1" of an enemy unit without charging into it or making a heroic intervention.
2: After the first model from a charging unit has gotten within 1" the rest of the models in the unit can move in any direction as long as they maintain coherency.
3: Unit coherency of 2" can create very long chains of models or chain out to benefit from aura abilities where the majority of the unit is outside.
4: Supersonic models can be instantly destroyed by effects that halve Movement.
5: Heroic Interventions can be performed even against enemy units that have not charged.
6: Units can be locked in combat by having a single model surrounded on three sides, locking an entire unit by holding one model captive.
7: Which direction a vehicle is shot from is irrelevant.
8: Which direction a model is pointing its guns is irrelevant.
9: There are no punishments for clumping models closely together.
10: Flamers are too effective against Supersonic models.

If you have more narrative concerns with 8th or if you have suggestions for how to fix some of these please post them. I'd like to eventually draft a set of rules that would allow people to play narrative and casual battles using written house rules agreed upon instead of unspoken rules the players may not agree on. Essentially a language for casual players to use when they wish to play people like me that love to play the game to its full gameness but is also willing to use house rules to fix these narrative issues should they be brought up before the game begins. If you could give any rules you write a somewhat unique name that'd be great. I will be posting my ideas at some point as well.

A lot of these are really narrow edge-case gripes (how many times have you actually had an effect that halves movement, and shot it at a supersonic model without Hover Mode that's damaged enough that half its maximum move is below 20"?). And you'd solve pretty much all of them by just going back and playing 7e or 30k.

7e had wound juggling, immortal flyers (barring dedicated AA), crazy psychic powers and decurion detachments, it lacks stratagems and I scarcely remember the rules. I suppose that would be one suggestion for people that really hate these parts of 8th. Personally, I would be more interested in a game of 8th with house rules rather than 7th, especially because of decurion detachments. I think maybe 5th would be my second option if not 8th. I don't think Wardcrons became really busted until 6th.

 vict0988 wrote:
...Personally, I would be more interested in a game of 8th with house rules rather than 7th...

What's left of 8th once you gut melee as a concept and bring back blast templates/vehicle facings?

It’s easy to have a set of house rules for whatever the current edition is, so that people can just use their current armies and have a better handle on the bulk of the rules.

Sure I’d rather start with TVR/TAR third as a base and then modify that but at that point there’s a lot of commitment involved for the players where you’d almost might as well go straight to a bottom up home brew with entirel different types of profile and dice and turn structure. Almost, if not for the codexes already existing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Personally I like using whatever the modern version is, because it means deciding what’s really important to change. Sure you could reintroduce facings, but is it worth it compared to three other things you want to change?

pelicaniforce wrote:
It’s easy to have a set of house rules for whatever the current edition is, so that people can just use their current armies and have a better handle on the bulk of the rules.

Sure I’d rather start with TVR/TAR third as a base and then modify that but at that point there’s a lot of commitment involved for the players where you’d almost might as well go straight to a bottom up home brew with entirel different types of profile and dice and turn structure. Almost, if not for the codexes already existing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Personally I like using whatever the modern version is, because it means deciding what’s really important to change. Sure you could reintroduce facings, but is it worth it compared to three other things you want to change?

Yeah because facings make you actually think about model position rather than just plunking stuff down and doing "death blossom" every round. Armor Valued vehicles required serious thought about both position on the field, facing, and what available blocking cover was available so you didn't stick your butt out to allow the enemy to get some free ass shots. It also rewarded the other player who out-maneuvered the AV owning player and got a flank or rear shot. The cost is of course slowing down the game. But 8th isn't a highly detailed wargame, it's 40K Arcade Edition. 7th was only broken by the silly detachments and that only really in the last 8 or so months of it's run. Take out detachments and their ridiculous bonuses and things got a lot more sensible again. Or just use 30K rules which were great just plug in 7th army lists and use the core rules. Nothing like difficult and VERY difficult terrain to make things interesting.

As of this post 8th has more rules, more faffing about with dice, and more to remember and even more books needed to play than 7th and so at this point 8th is the Fetid Bloated Nurgle edition of 40k too.

ccs wrote:
You want a dirt simple way to handle AV facings, whatever the shape of your vehicle? Here use this:
Front = X
Side/Rear = Y
Top = Z (if exists, should only apply against shots being fired indirectly (mortars & such))

front
------------------------------------
side/rear (vehicle)

See that dotted line? Its traced across the front edge of whatever the vehicle is.
Shots coming from in front of the line hit the front AV.
Shots coming from anywhere else hit the side/rear value.
In the cases where you find a squads fire coming from both sides of the line you should roll separately for specific weapons/groups as needed.

Posted here for future reference.

 vict0988 wrote:

ccs wrote:
You want a dirt simple way to handle AV facings, whatever the shape of your vehicle? Here use this:
Front = X
Side/Rear = Y
Top = Z (if exists, should only apply against shots being fired indirectly (mortars & such))

front
------------------------------------
side/rear (vehicle)

See that dotted line? Its traced across the front edge of whatever the vehicle is.
Shots coming from in front of the line hit the front AV.
Shots coming from anywhere else hit the side/rear value.
In the cases where you find a squads fire coming from both sides of the line you should roll separately for specific weapons/groups as needed.

Posted here for future reference.

Simple, elegant takes out the arguments and people trying to argue for their own benes in tournaments or "unfriendly" store games.

Kind of like ditching the scatter dice and just plugging in the rules for templates from Warmachine (no mod needed).. if you want extra "detail" you could always just go Clock Method Noon is always your opponents table edge and and roll a D12 to determine direction and 2D6 for distance - BS. There were solutions for speed that didn't involve things that 8th took. But hey, lets look forward to 9th (which will be even more "streamlined".. Look at current Apoc rules to find out how things are going to go).

 vict0988 wrote:

ccs wrote:
You want a dirt simple way to handle AV facings, whatever the shape of your vehicle? Here use this:
Front = X
Side/Rear = Y
Top = Z (if exists, should only apply against shots being fired indirectly (mortars & such))

front
------------------------------------
side/rear (vehicle)

See that dotted line? Its traced across the front edge of whatever the vehicle is.
Shots coming from in front of the line hit the front AV.
Shots coming from anywhere else hit the side/rear value.
In the cases where you find a squads fire coming from both sides of the line you should roll separately for specific weapons/groups as needed.

Posted here for future reference.

How would this work with Necron flyers? The front would be two small points?

 Blndmage wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

ccs wrote:
You want a dirt simple way to handle AV facings, whatever the shape of your vehicle? Here use this:
Front = X
Side/Rear = Y
Top = Z (if exists, should only apply against shots being fired indirectly (mortars & such))

front
------------------------------------
side/rear (vehicle)

See that dotted line? Its traced across the front edge of whatever the vehicle is.
Shots coming from in front of the line hit the front AV.
Shots coming from anywhere else hit the side/rear value.
In the cases where you find a squads fire coming from both sides of the line you should roll separately for specific weapons/groups as needed.

Posted here for future reference.

How would this work with Necron flyers? The front would be two small points?

Just a single point at the very tip front and back, models at least partially in a 90 degree angle are in the front/rear. I was going to make an extended ruleset for vehicles but I quit because I didn't have the right words for it, because two points on the front of a flyer base is too fiddly, but I reckon you should be able to find the very front or the very back of a base. Here is a diagram for how you would determine which face the model was in. https://imgur.com/a/rM3wqjs

This might seem small compared to making that 90 degree angle in the middle of the vehicle or drawing an intersecting line between the corners of the vheicle, but in 7th you needed to see where the majority of the model was, with my system you just need to check front? Rear? If it isn't at least partially within one of those it'd be in the side. All I'd need to do is make revised datasheets for vehicles with what facings the vehicle has a worse/better save in and specify which arcs the shooting weapons can use. I'd probaby try to balance the limited shooting lines with increased durability based on the incoming angle.

As far as Wave Serpents, Defilers and Triarch Stalkers are concerned, you'd find the spot between their legs that is in the middle. If I was writing the rules for those datasheets I'd put them on an imaginary base like FW did with the Seraptek Heavy Construct, I don't really need you to go around humping the legs of my Triarch Stalkers, quad-point at as you would any other square base, don't tri-point my leg you weirdo.

It'd still be a huge project though so it'd be done one faction at a time and I'm pretty sure nobody really wants this back, I certainly don't need it. But now the idea is out there.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
As far as supersonic goes I'd change it from -1 to hit into -12" range for units without the FLY keyword or maybe I'd tack it on top of the existing rule along with a nerf for the firing arcs from my vehicle suggestion.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
As Anomander mentioned melee would be gutted if you didn't allow for tri-pointing and piling into and/or consolidating into units you did not charge as well as being able to move in directions other than towards the enemy unit you charged.

My proposal is to allow units that charged to fight again at the end of the Fight phase. How this balances out I'm not sure, but that'd be my idea for balancing this melee nerf. This would also make the melee vs FLY matchup a lot better because currently it can be really hard with nothing to take captive and little to no effect from doing the bad touch.

Falling Back
If you choose to Fall Back, the unit can move through enemy models but must end its move more than 1" away from all enemy units.

4. Make Charge Move
The first model you move must finish within 1" of an enemy model from one of the target units and all models in the charging unit must end the charge move closer to the enemy unit.

2. Pile In
You may move each model in the unit up to 3" – this move can be in any direction so long as the model ends the move closer to the nearest enemy model and more than 1" away from units the model's unit did not charge this turn.

6. Consolidate
You may move each model in the unit up to 3" – this
move can be in any direction so long as the model ends
the move closer to the nearest enemy model. In addition, if any models in the unit is within 1" of an enemy unit it cannot move within 1" of an enemy unit it did not charge this turn.

Heroic Intervention
After the enemy has completed all of their charge moves, any of your Characters that are within 3" of an enemy unit that charged this turn may perform a Heroic Intervention. Any that do so can move up to 3", so long as they end the move closer to the nearest enemy model that charged this turn.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
I think bringing back blast weapons could work, but instead of scatter you see how models are under the template and that's how many shots you get, roll to hit as normal.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
At the end of the Morale phase any model outside unit coherency flees.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I'd probably change most of the datasheets that use aura abilities to work differently to nerf conga lines. One way would be to have aura abilities affect models instead of units. This would obviously be a big nerf to aura abilities and I don't know how I'd make it up.

Nerf congalines by adding a line to unit coherency. 'A model in a unit must be with 2 inches of a model in the same unit. It may not be further than 12 inches from any model in the same unit.

 =Angel= wrote:
Nerf congalines by adding a line to unit coherency. 'A model in a unit must be with 2 inches of a model in the same unit. It may not be further than 12 inches from any model in the same unit.

And units the size of 30+ are fethed completely and by consequence melee armies that relied on these?

Great suggestion

Not Online!!! wrote:

 =Angel= wrote:
Nerf congalines by adding a line to unit coherency. 'A model in a unit must be with 2 inches of a model in the same unit. It may not be further than 12 inches from any model in the same unit.

And units the size of 30+ are fethed completely and by consequence melee armies that relied on these?

Great suggestion

You can fit 110+ Boys/Gaunts in a circle with a diameter of 13".

 vict0988 wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 =Angel= wrote:
Nerf congalines by adding a line to unit coherency. 'A model in a unit must be with 2 inches of a model in the same unit. It may not be further than 12 inches from any model in the same unit.

And units the size of 30+ are fethed completely and by consequence melee armies that relied on these?

Great suggestion

You can fit 110+ Boys/Gaunts in a circle with a diameter of 13".

Which is what these units are supposed to do?
No, they aren't because you want to tag as much as possible . Else melee doesn't work.

 vict0988 wrote:

ccs wrote:
You want a dirt simple way to handle AV facings, whatever the shape of your vehicle? Here use this:
Front = X
Side/Rear = Y
Top = Z (if exists, should only apply against shots being fired indirectly (mortars & such))

front
------------------------------------
side/rear (vehicle)

See that dotted line? Its traced across the front edge of whatever the vehicle is.
Shots coming from in front of the line hit the front AV.
Shots coming from anywhere else hit the side/rear value.
In the cases where you find a squads fire coming from both sides of the line you should roll separately for specific weapons/groups as needed.

Posted here for future reference.

If we were to bring back facings, this is basically how I'd like to see it done. However, I'd like to point out that armor facings were only really relevant to shooting for...

* IG vehicles
* Imperial Knights
* A handful of especially armored tanks and dreads

For most things xenos and astartes, the front and side armor were almost always identical. It was pretty uncommon to get long-ranged hits against vehicle rear armor; hitting rear armor was more about getting close to the vehicle than anything.

So functionally, the majority of vehicles weren't really concerned about front/side armor. They were basically just concerned about getting close enough to the enemy to get assaulted or to let the enemy get behind them.

If you're genuine about bringing back facings, the common wargaming method has already been listed above. Draw a straight line across the front of the unit/vehicle. For things like 40K you could even get away with two facings: Front and Side/Rear and simply decrease the toughness of the vehicle by one when attacking from the Side/Rear arc.

A Knight or Leman Russ going to Toughness 7 is a big deal, etc. It's very easy to introduce these things. The main issues still exist though - facings were more or less a huge penalty for vehicles. If you added this rule, you'd have to reduce vehicle costs across the game, as no other unit would suffer a similar penalty.

Other "fun" vehicle rules are likewise hugely limiting if only applied to vehicles. You can see how rapidly stuff gets out of hand. 8th has gotten out of hand lately, but you definitely can't fault many of the basic core rules when it comes to simplicity and getting rid of the arbitrary differences between vehicles and other vehicle-level units in the game, etc.

 Elbows wrote:
If you're genuine about bringing back facings, the common wargaming method has already been listed above. Draw a straight line across the front of the unit/vehicle. For things like 40K you could even get away with two facings: Front and Side/Rear and simply decrease the toughness of the vehicle by one when attacking from the Side/Rear arc.

A Knight or Leman Russ going to Toughness 7 is a big deal, etc. It's very easy to introduce these things. The main issues still exist though - facings were more or less a huge penalty for vehicles. If you added this rule, you'd have to reduce vehicle costs across the game, as no other unit would suffer a similar penalty.

Other "fun" vehicle rules are likewise hugely limiting if only applied to vehicles. You can see how rapidly stuff gets out of hand. 8th has gotten out of hand lately, but you definitely can't fault many of the basic core rules when it comes to simplicity and getting rid of the arbitrary differences between vehicles and other vehicle-level units in the game, etc.

40k has always separated side and rear so if I were to use a facing system that introduced more complexity I'd want to go back to that. You could have a situation where a unit is very clearly able to shoot the side, but hardly able to shoot the front and you're still forced to shoot the front. https://imgur.com/CVs8pX8 I think the x is too inaccurate and doesn't capture the feel of earlier editions, y is what we had in earlier editions but where are the corners of a round base? Z would be my method of reimplementing facings.

I don't think it'd be too hard to balance, of course, some units are going to get out of any rules change better than others. Some things I've thought about are:
*Vehicles could have strengths and/or weaknesses, instead of just weaknesses in some facings, I'm not sure if Sv or T is a better idea but I'm leaning towards Sv.
*Vehicles could act as barricades for the purposes of cover, so if a unit is entirely within 1" of a vehicle they gain the benefits of cover against enemy units that are closer to the vehicle than the target.
*Vehicles could get the benefit of cover if 50% obscured, regardless of whether they are in terrain. A playgroup I play with once in a while actually uses the third rule.

Nope 40k did not always have armour facing - the first edition was closer to 8th with Strength, Toughness and Armour saves for vehicles.

Yeah because facings make you actually

Sure but what about compared to other things that need changing?

Say you have a regular group, and some other people who might come occasionally or come to tournaments. They all have models that they’ve built, invested in buying and painting. For lots of them, these have been more or less built around an army list, they don’t have a huge collection for that faction to pick and choose from. They’ve also invested in learning the rules and they don’t want to get into the weeds with an alternate system in case someone else wants to be lay straight GW rules.

There are lots of things to fix. It could be a suppression system, or alternating activations, cover system, better interaction between infantry and super heavies, armor and weapon facings on tanks, victory points and win conditions, armor penetration, morale, or close combat.

If it’s a whole community of people, and some visitors from other communities, who all have physical armies built to 8th or some other GW edition standards, I think you have to choose only two or three of those things to fix. Is armor facing in the top three? I don’t think it is for most people.

pelicaniforce wrote:

Yeah because facings make you actually

Sure but what about compared to other things that need changing?

Say you have a regular group, and some other people who might come occasionally or come to tournaments. They all have models that they’ve built, invested in buying and painting. For lots of them, these have been more or less built around an army list, they don’t have a huge collection for that faction to pick and choose from. They’ve also invested in learning the rules and they don’t want to get into the weeds with an alternate system in case someone else wants to be lay straight GW rules.

There are lots of things to fix. It could be a suppression system, or alternating activations, cover system, better interaction between infantry and super heavies, armor and weapon facings on tanks, victory points and win conditions, armor penetration, morale, or close combat.

If it’s a whole community of people, and some visitors from other communities, who all have physical armies built to 8th or some other GW edition standards, I think you have to choose only two or three of those things to fix. Is armor facing in the top three? I don’t think it is for most people.

Using these things might be like playing narrative battles with narrative missions, I think you can develop more intricate narratives that way than with a dozen of these rules. Just like narrative missions or the narrative playstyle as a whole, it's probably not something you'd bring out for a pickup game. If your opponent has heard of your narrative rules and would like to try them, great, hopefully, he has read what rules you want to use before the game, even if not you can probably take him along as you go. If your opponent just wants a normal casual matched play game then you can leave these house rules at home, you don't need to force your opponent to play with your 3 favourite house rules, 8th is pretty great as is IMO. Why don't you post the three top things you'd want to change, especially if they have anything to do with the gameyness of 8th and if you have solutions for making them less gamey without upsetting balance too much I'd like to see it, otherwise I might be able to develop a house rule that could help with the issue.

Not Online!!! wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 =Angel= wrote:
Nerf congalines by adding a line to unit coherency. 'A model in a unit must be with 2 inches of a model in the same unit. It may not be further than 12 inches from any model in the same unit.

And units the size of 30+ are fethed completely and by consequence melee armies that relied on these?

Great suggestion

You can fit 110+ Boys/Gaunts in a circle with a diameter of 13".

Which is what these units are supposed to do?
No, they aren't because you want to tag as much as possible . Else melee doesn't work.

A unit of 30 guys can still multi-assault, just as long as the units are 12 inches or less apart. If you want more board control/to attack across a wider front take more units. 2 units of 15 could occupy/control 24 inches of board- 1/3 of the enemy deployment zone.
Currently a 30 man unit with 1 inch bases can spread 88 inches across the table without breaking coherency- 7 feet on a 6 foot wide board. We are talking about reducing gaminess- how many feet in a 4 foot deep board do you think it's reasonable for a single game unit to occupy?