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 Sim-Life wrote:
Are people really bad at reading their dice or something? Even rolling like 90 dice picking out misses takes about 5-10 seconds tops for most people in our group.

Or is this one of these non-issues Dakka likes to act are mountains when they're really just molehills?

You have to count your dice so you have the right amount for each throw and with a large number of dice it can take some time. The more dice the more time it takes to pick up and read to not make a mistake.

If you have to roll 10 dice and remove 5 from the pile it might take 4s if include finding and counting the 10dice. If we have 20 it might take 10s and with 40 the whole process is closer to half a minute. The sheer amount of dice just gets unwieldy.

I can throw 97 dice and remove the 1s and 2s in the blink of an eye. I cant count 97 dice and out put them in my hand in a few seconds though.

Sometimes I just remove models/units like scouts if they have less than a 20% chance of surviving just to skip the rolling of dice from 20 guardsmen. Not worth my time just to see if Im very lucky.

 jasper76 wrote:
They really did away with terrain rules? I mean, is there still a functional point to having scenery?

Did they at least maintain Line of Sight requirements?

Terrain rules are very poor. You can even draw a LOS through a forest to your target without any penalties. And it doesn´t help that GW sells those poor bare plastic forests...

Klickor wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
Are people really bad at reading their dice or something? Even rolling like 90 dice picking out misses takes about 5-10 seconds tops for most people in our group.

Or is this one of these non-issues Dakka likes to act are mountains when they're really just molehills?

You have to count your dice so you have the right amount for each throw and with a large number of dice it can take some time. The more dice the more time it takes to pick up and read to not make a mistake.

If you have to roll 10 dice and remove 5 from the pile it might take 4s if include finding and counting the 10dice. If we have 20 it might take 10s and with 40 the whole process is closer to half a minute. The sheer amount of dice just gets unwieldy.

I can throw 97 dice and remove the 1s and 2s in the blink of an eye. I cant count 97 dice and out put them in my hand in a few seconds though.

Sometimes I just remove models/units like scouts if they have less than a 20% chance of surviving just to skip the rolling of dice from 20 guardsmen. Not worth my time just to see if Im very lucky.

don't you use trays to throw dice. We use them at our store. 10 dice fit in to a single line, there is 20 lines. so getting the proper number of dice rolled is fast. Only thing slowling down dice rolling for us, is not the rolling itself, but checking if the opponent isn't picking up extra dice when he is rolling 40+ dice.

It's funny to compare 40k to other games in regards to dice rolling. I played lion rampant yesterday, it's a medieval squad based skirmishing game. Here is an example of a unit attacking another: some crossbowmen wants to shoot knights, they check to activate with 2d6. Success, now they roll 12 dice and hit on 5+. wow 5 hits cool! knights have 4 armour meaning it takes 4 hits to kill one. One dies the last hit is discarded. End of sequence.

Units in the game only roll batches of 12 d6 or 6 d6 if they are crippled. Armour is automatic, no rolls. 14 dice rolled for one attack sequence with one out of your 4-6 squads. The game is fast paced yet exciting. Compared to 40k where 40pts units shoot 76 dice and you have 2000pts armies.

Funny how one man's trash is another man's treasure. Some of the mechinaics of 40k they did away with (apparently) were some of my favorite parts of the game. So many dice you need a bucket, and especially especially scatter, blast markers and templates.

As a side question, when 8th was 8n rumor-mill phase, one of the non-startets was they were talking about doing away with the points system. Did that happen?

 jasper76 wrote:
Funny how one man's trash is another man's treasure. Some of the mechinaics of 40k they did away with (apparently) were some of my favorite parts of the game. So many dice you need a bucket, and especially especially scatter, blast markers and templates.

As a side question, when 8th was 8n rumor-mill phase, one of the non-startets was they were talking about doing away with the points system. Did that happen?

You can’t please everybody all the time, but 8th Ed seems to be very successful. Regarding terrain, there is still cover, but you have to be on/in the terrain to have an effect. LOS. An still be blocked, but you just need to see a bit of the target.

Points still exist, but they also have Power Level (PL) as a streamlined method. It didn’t really catch on with the wider community, but it can work. We will likely now see a vitriolic battle on the subject...

ThE “doing away with points” thing was simply internet rumour-inventing based on AOS launch.

It didn’t happen.

Regarding terrain, it’s incredibly easy to amend any of the terrain rules to suit your game. We use 95% homemade terrain and just borrow bits from the official datasheets that suit. It’s not difficult to do and makes games more enjoyable. I have had to build more tall terrain, as LOS-blocking is crucial to include, but area terrain and ruins you can see into can still be meaningful. If terrain is meaningless in your games try doing something different. We find maneuvering for LOS to generate some of the best moments in our games. Just make meaningful terrain and it’ll have a meaningful impact. Use a handful of Swiss cheese plastic ruins and plastic pipes on Planet Bowling Ball and you’ll have a shocking experience.

Didn't GW try it in 8th with power points though? it is just that no one wanted to play the game that way.

Karol wrote:
Didn't GW try it in 8th with power points though? it is just that no one wanted to play the game that way.

No, they gave another way. Points and PL launched at the same time.

But they really tried to push the new thing, deep strike was for a second limited by it, not by actual points. all the adverts were saying that point costs of units come in the box, but those were only PL , which no one sane uses.

Just because GW fail at implementation and people didn't like it, doesn't mean they didn't want it to be a thing.

It is a thing if you want to use. And it’s not insane to use PL, don’t be that guy. Be polite. It’s an option for those who enjoy it and is in no way the main thrust of 40K. Sure points are behind a paywall but that is Not A New Thing. Matched Play is the default and GW embrace that, whilst providing other play options for those who enjoy them.

Karol wrote:
But they really tried to push the new thing, deep strike was for a second limited by it, not by actual points. all the adverts were saying that point costs of units come in the box, but those were only PL , which no one sane uses.

Just because GW fail at implementation and people didn't like it, doesn't mean they didn't want it to be a thing.

I use Power Levels for games of Basement Hammer - I think I’m sane. It’s not a bad way to start out. I use points for matched play at the FLGS. If they had wanted to do away with points then they would have done away with them. I wouldn’t call it a failure.

 JohnnyHell wrote:
ThE “doing away with points” thing was simply internet rumour-inventing based on AOS launch.

It didn’t happen.

Actually, I think it did and then GW changed it at the last minute.

I'm 99% sure that 8th edition was intended to only use power levels. Hence why only Power Levels are included on each model's dataslates. Points are nowhere to be seen.

I think the pages of point values were a last-minute inclusion after they saw the players' reaction to AoS.

The issue with the 8th edition is that while it is certainly more streamlined than 7th it quickly developed all of the same problems: Rules bloat, rollercoaster power curve, and no idea of the scale that it wants to be. As well as constant and often obvious errors that need to be FAQd within weeks when even a cursory glance would reveal the issues. It's like they are rushing things out without really concerning themselves and just saying oh well we will fix it later so it doesn't matter. This is made worse (or better, YMMV) by the fact it's clear a lot of designs are being driven by the need to satisfy the endless loop of the competitive crowd, I am sure in no small part instigated and pushed by the fact that the ITC and major tournament organizers are also the playtesters. And yes, while balancing the game around competitive play will overall make a more balanced game, GW appears to be simply playing catch-up constantly which results in perfectly fine rules being nerfed into the ground because they are abused in cutthroat competitive play or due to their release schedule having broken things stay broken for months on end and by the time they get fixed, the competitive crowd has already moved on to the next broken thing so fixing the previously broken thing achieves nothing more than grandstanding to show "See? We are taking feedback and balancing things!" for the PR.

Those are still huge problems that continue to exist. So overall I feel 8th is still in a very poor place, but compared to 7th edition it seems like a shining beacon, so people continue to sing its praises and ignore the obvious flaws.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 vipoid wrote:

 JohnnyHell wrote:
ThE “doing away with points” thing was simply internet rumour-inventing based on AOS launch.

It didn’t happen.

Actually, I think it did and then GW changed it at the last minute.

I'm 99% sure that 8th edition was intended to only use power levels. Hence why only Power Levels are included on each model's dataslates. Points are nowhere to be seen.

I think the pages of point values were a last-minute inclusion after they saw the players' reaction to AoS.

I would not be surprised. Launch AOS was an experiment that, sadly, fell flat on its face. GW was trying in part to divest their game from the cutthroat competitive nature it had become as well as move back to the "oldschool" style of gaming often seen in historical wargaming where points and "balance" are up to you and a social agreement to not be an ass is in play. It was soundly rejected by the community which for the most part no longer wants that sort of game but wants something with broad tournament appeal and support.

Power Level was and remains the best idea that 8th edition had, it helps to get away from mini-max play styles, and competitive play where every point spent on a force has to be worthwhile.

Sadly it was poorly implemented and needs to be fixed a bit more as it can still be abused. However it came from a very good idea, one that I wish GW had of paid more focus to and scraped points entirely.

Selecting units as blocks with a Power Level point for a weapon option gave GW the parimater for the weapon impact, this would have helped give balance.

 stonehorse wrote:
Power Level was and remains the best idea that 8th edition had, it helps to get away from mini-max play styles, and competitive play where every point spent on a force has to be worthwhile.

Sadly it was poorly implemented and needs to be fixed a bit more as it can still be abused. However it came from a very good idea, one that I wish GW had of paid more focus to and scraped points entirely.

Selecting units as blocks with a Power Level point for a weapon option gave GW the parimater for the weapon impact, this would have helped give balance.

It's a good idea but one that is fundamentally flawed because competitive-minded people will (and do) jump at "free". I often say that when it comes to Power Levels if your immediate thought is "Woo hoo I'll take every single upgrade I can because they're free!" then you're missing the point of power level.

Wayniac wrote:

 stonehorse wrote:
Power Level was and remains the best idea that 8th edition had, it helps to get away from mini-max play styles, and competitive play where every point spent on a force has to be worthwhile.

Sadly it was poorly implemented and needs to be fixed a bit more as it can still be abused. However it came from a very good idea, one that I wish GW had of paid more focus to and scraped points entirely.

Selecting units as blocks with a Power Level point for a weapon option gave GW the parimater for the weapon impact, this would have helped give balance.

It's a good idea but one that is fundamentally flawed because competitive-minded people will (and do) jump at "free". I often say that when it comes to Power Levels if your immediate thought is "Woo hoo I'll take every single upgrade I can because they're free!" then you're missing the point of power level.

Exactly, very much a just because one can, doesn't mean one should.

Sadly I think 40k is too infected with players having a need to win for something like PL to flourish, due to the tournament/competitive scene.

Casual play requires a certain mind set, that the game seems to be less focused upon in my opinion.

 stonehorse wrote:

Wayniac wrote:

 stonehorse wrote:
Power Level was and remains the best idea that 8th edition had, it helps to get away from mini-max play styles, and competitive play where every point spent on a force has to be worthwhile.

Sadly it was poorly implemented and needs to be fixed a bit more as it can still be abused. However it came from a very good idea, one that I wish GW had of paid more focus to and scraped points entirely.

Selecting units as blocks with a Power Level point for a weapon option gave GW the parimater for the weapon impact, this would have helped give balance.

It's a good idea but one that is fundamentally flawed because competitive-minded people will (and do) jump at "free". I often say that when it comes to Power Levels if your immediate thought is "Woo hoo I'll take every single upgrade I can because they're free!" then you're missing the point of power level.

Exactly, very much a just because one can, doesn't mean one should.

Sadly I think 40k is too infected with players having a need to win for something like PL to flourish, due to the tournament/competitive scene.

Casual play requires a certain mind set, that the game seems to be less focused upon in my opinion.

It is. I will 100% state that competitive play has its benefits, in that it often encourages better-written rules and, in most cses (read: non-GW games) better balance. So casual play certainly can benefit from that, but not in Warhammer with GW writing the rules as has consistently been shown over the years.

 vipoid wrote:


Actually, I think it did and then GW changed it at the last minute.

I'm 99% sure that 8th edition was intended to only use power levels. Hence why only Power Levels are included on each model's dataslates. Points are nowhere to be seen.

I think the pages of point values were a last-minute inclusion after they saw the players' reaction to AoS.

there seemed to be a lot of things they planed for 8th that didn't happen in the end, because of how some reactions to AoS. For example the reset in 8th was suppose to be more in depth. And it isn't even suprising that GW reacted by not implementing some of the stuff fully. It is one thing to experiment with stuff that is not making or even losing you money, then to do the same to the thing that keeps you out of the red.

Where do you get the impression that 8th was supposed to be more in depth? It reads to me like 8th was supposed to be a lot *less* deep. The core rules and first books strongly skewed that way. So now we have a shallow system with deep bandaids instead of a deep system with shallow bandaids.

the changes to the lore wer suppose to be more in depth. To a point where some stuff wouldn't come over from prior edition.

I mean you can even read the new marine books now. Normal marines are practicaly not mentioned there. Art is mostly of primaris stuff. Examples for lets say marine progression are made with primaris. Fluff stuff is often and they do X cool things to the sound of bolt rifle fire.

Someone here said that durning one of the studio talks on their channel it was mentioned that initialy they played for Inari to be the eldar of 8th ed.

I wonder if that colossal Tyranid planet/creature that gets a brief mention in the Tyranid Codex was going to be part of the re-write for the Tyranids, but as it didn't go ahead it was left in as an interesting idea.

Karol wrote:
the changes to the lore wer suppose to be more in depth. To a point where some stuff wouldn't come over from prior edition.

I mean you can even read the new marine books now. Normal marines are practicaly not mentioned there. Art is mostly of primaris stuff. Examples for lets say marine progression are made with primaris. Fluff stuff is often and they do X cool things to the sound of bolt rifle fire.

Someone here said that durning one of the studio talks on their channel it was mentioned that initialy they played for Inari to be the eldar of 8th ed.

Ah, I see.

Deep/Depth tends to be about how complex/convoluted/insight-worthy/interesting something is.

Wide/width tends to be about how sweeping/different/changed something is.

I'd call what you're referring to wide but not deep. That's what confused me.

 jasper76 wrote:
Funny how one man's trash is another man's treasure. Some of the mechinaics of 40k they did away with (apparently) were some of my favorite parts of the game. So many dice you need a bucket, and especially especially scatter, blast markers and templates.

As a side question, when 8th was 8n rumor-mill phase, one of the non-startets was they were talking about doing away with the points system. Did that happen?

No. Points are still here.

But I'm glad templates & scatter are gone. The current system doesn't necessarily feel as satisfying as holding a green disk of death over a tower full of devastators, but it slowed down the game more than any number of dice under FRF-SRF [Looking at you, Wyvern!] and resulted in so many "It went this way!" arguments. Mostly I hate the "It went this way!" discussions. I feel like I should give my opponent the benefit of the doubt, but some times it was pretty ridiculous with a claimed 60 degrees difference between us, and of course the whole thing where the tank is 4" wide on it's narrow direction, the template is 5" is diameter, no, I didn't miss, because it's physically impossible for me to miss with a deviation 3"!




As for depth, as I said earlier, detail and complexity do not equal tactical depth. I would say that tactical depth is the range of deciding and meaningful choices you have to make. 8th has a lot more tactical depth than 7th [though some of it is from the stratagem system that could be backwards-applied to earlier editions], though it reduced the overall level of detail and complexity.
Vehicle facing and weapons arcs, which are generally portrayed as the most common area where depth was reduced, were, I don't think, actually seriously meaningful. Everything is on a scale, and I think they were more on the end of their effect just being detail and flavor than tactically meaningful. Outside of edge cases where specific special rules allowed weapons to ignore facing in the late lifecycle of the game [which were just terrible] flanking vehicles was pretty much impossible since the actually weak rear arc was narrow and basically always faced the board edge, and with all weapons generally able to fire in the front arc, minimal ability to split fire of different weapons systems, and restrictions of weapons you can actually use while moving, pointing the tank such that it can shoot at the target also generally put all guns that want to shoot it in the frontal arc.
To be fair, it could have mattered if units had been designed around it, but there weren't generally a whole lot of things that really took advantage of it. The current system has a similar underutilization of the giving of tanks toughness and armor ratings, allowing a theoretically very large range of variation in the defensive properties of vehicles and the effectiveness of weapons against them... but every vehicles is T7/8 Sv3+ W10-12.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

 jasper76 wrote:
Funny how one man's trash is another man's treasure. Some of the mechinaics of 40k they did away with (apparently) were some of my favorite parts of the game. So many dice you need a bucket, and especially especially scatter, blast markers and templates.

As a side question, when 8th was 8n rumor-mill phase, one of the non-startets was they were talking about doing away with the points system. Did that happen?

No. Points are still here.

But I'm glad templates & scatter are gone. The current system doesn't necessarily feel as satisfying as holding a green disk of death over a tower full of devastators, but it slowed down the game more than any number of dice under FRF-SRF [Looking at you, Wyvern!] and resulted in so many "It went this way!" arguments. Mostly I hate the "It went this way!" discussions. I feel like I should give my opponent the benefit of the doubt, but some times it was pretty ridiculous with a claimed 60 degrees difference between us, and of course the whole thing where the tank is 4" wide on it's narrow direction, the template is 5" is diameter, no, I didn't miss, because it's physically impossible for me to miss with a deviation 3"!




As for depth, as I said earlier, detail and complexity do not equal tactical depth. I would say that tactical depth is the range of deciding and meaningful choices you have to make. 8th has a lot more tactical depth than 7th [though some of it is from the stratagem system that could be backwards-applied to earlier editions], though it reduced the overall level of detail and complexity.
Vehicle facing and weapons arcs, which are generally portrayed as the most common area where depth was reduced, were, I don't think, actually seriously meaningful. Everything is on a scale, and I think they were more on the end of their effect just being detail and flavor than tactically meaningful. Outside of edge cases where specific special rules allowed weapons to ignore facing in the late lifecycle of the game [which were just terrible] flanking vehicles was pretty much impossible since the actually weak rear arc was narrow and basically always faced the board edge, and with all weapons generally able to fire in the front arc, minimal ability to split fire of different weapons systems, and restrictions of weapons you can actually use while moving, pointing the tank such that it can shoot at the target also generally put all guns that want to shoot it in the frontal arc.
To be fair, it could have mattered if units had been designed around it, but there weren't generally a whole lot of things that really took advantage of it. The current system has a similar underutilization of the giving of tanks toughness and armor ratings, allowing a theoretically very large range of variation in the defensive properties of vehicles and the effectiveness of weapons against them... but every vehicles is T7/8 Sv3+ W10-12.

Armour facing was very important, it allowed fast units/models to utilise their speed and strike the more vulnerable areas.

Not only this, but it also creates situations where vehicles may be in a tough situation, as they may want to move to get to a better position to shoot/block loS/deny objective/etc, but to do so would mean opening up their less armoured sides to attack.

It was about trade off, which while not very deep on the surface when seen in isolation. They offer a lot of depth when the game has a lot of them that compound upon each other

The change to rapid fire weapons as they were in 3rd made a big loss in trade off.

They may have been difficult for new people to see, and frustrating as experienced players could and would capitalise upon them. However, there inclusion made the game more of a game of tactical choices. Unlike now where it is all about list building around a powerful combo and command point farming to use the best strategems for the combo.

 stonehorse wrote:


Armour facing was very important, it allowed fast units/models to utilise their speed and strike the more vulnerable areas.

Not only this, but it also creates situations where vehicles may be in a tough situation, as they may want to move to get to a better position to shoot/block loS/deny objective/etc, but to do so would mean opening up their less armoured sides to attack.

It was about trade off, which while not very deep on the surface when seen in isolation. They offer a lot of depth when the game has a lot of them that compound upon each other

The change to rapid fire weapons as they were in 3rd made a big loss in trade off.

They may have been difficult for new people to see, and frustrating as experienced players could and would capitalise upon them. However, there inclusion made the game more of a game of tactical choices. Unlike now where it is all about list building around a powerful combo and command point farming to use the best strategems for the combo.

This is wholly incongruent with my experience. From my experience in 7th, the "more experience players" than I [by which case I mean the people who beat me], generally weren't using light fast units with ranged weapons that couldn't penetrate the front/side of my tank to get shots against it's AV10 rear, they were using units that had multi-shot Destroyer weapons that I could only hit on 6's [if at all], large sections of multiwound melee cavalry models with a 2+ invulnerable save [and a half dozen special characters for their special rules] that I could still only hit on 6's if target at all, monstrous creatures with the ability to move after they shot and long range firepower, and if they were taking advantage of the fact that my rear armor was 10 and front 14, they were doing so by using a units brought in a special set of units that when brought together and near each other always hit the rear armor and had a 2+ cover save...

Which sounds a lot more like the power combo stacking you're decrying that anything in the modern day.


I rarely had fast lightly armed units try to flank my tanks. The only things that every really tried to get in my rear arc were deep strikers, and if they were going for that they usually carried meltaguns and were equally happy to land to the side or the front of the tank as long as they were close.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

 stonehorse wrote:


Armour facing was very important, it allowed fast units/models to utilise their speed and strike the more vulnerable areas.

Not only this, but it also creates situations where vehicles may be in a tough situation, as they may want to move to get to a better position to shoot/block loS/deny objective/etc, but to do so would mean opening up their less armoured sides to attack.

It was about trade off, which while not very deep on the surface when seen in isolation. They offer a lot of depth when the game has a lot of them that compound upon each other

The change to rapid fire weapons as they were in 3rd made a big loss in trade off.

They may have been difficult for new people to see, and frustrating as experienced players could and would capitalise upon them. However, there inclusion made the game more of a game of tactical choices. Unlike now where it is all about list building around a powerful combo and command point farming to use the best strategems for the combo.

This is wholly incongruent with my experience. From my experience in 7th, the "more experience players" than I [by which case I mean the people who beat me], generally weren't using light fast units with ranged weapons that couldn't penetrate the front/side of my tank to get shots against it's AV10 rear, they were using units that had multi-shot Destroyer weapons that I could only hit on 6's [if at all], large sections of multiwound melee cavalry models with a 2+ invulnerable save [and a half dozen special characters for their special rules] that I could still only hit on 6's if target at all, monstrous creatures with the ability to move after they shot and long range firepower, and if they were taking advantage of the fact that my rear armor was 10 and front 14, they were doing so by using a units brought in a special set of units that when brought together and near each other always hit the rear armor and had a 2+ cover save...

Which sounds a lot more like the power combo stacking you're decrying that anything in the modern day.


I rarely had fast lightly armed units try to flank my tanks. The only things that every really tried to get in my rear arc were deep strikers, and if they were going for that they usually carried meltaguns and were equally happy to land to the side or the front of the tank as long as they were close.

Yep that was 7th, how much D can you take, and how strong of a deathstar can you take.

The only time facing had any importance was in 5th and prier and even then many armies didnt care b.c of special rules like Lance, Rend, melta, etc.. I dont remember ANY of my games where the facing actually made the game better tactically, it was more of a "yeah its there and it is cool fluff rule that really doesn't feel needed"

What really mattered was the chart, did you wreck it or not, it could take 1 wound to do it, and other times 10 wounds. So you would prepare multi shots at the same tank no matter what, you might have 1 or 2 on a side, but the rest almost never could be, i think that is why it never really mattered. A lot of the times a head on shot in 4th/5th made them fail that 4+/5+/6+ roll (different weapons had different modifiers on the chart).

Edit: Didnt play 2nd or 3rd, was into fantasy, but from 4th up is my experience, so for me 4 editions and facing never mattered in any of my games.

The issue with facings is that they only affected a single unit type, vehicles. Not monsters, not emplaced artillery, not heavy and crew served weapons, nor giant robots using monster rules.

Even with vehicles, facing often didnt matter. Many, if not most, vehicles had identical or close front/side armor (e.g. all Eldar/Dark Eldar vehicles/Necron vehicles, most SM vehicles), while rear armor was almost universally AV10 and 99% of the time only mattered for CC (where it was a stand-in as opposed to a tactical facing). A Rhino, Falcon, Land Raider, Raider, Doom Barge, Vyper, Dreadnought, Venom, Wave Serpent, Ravager, Razorback, etc ad nauseum didn't care about you fast flanking unit hitting side vs front armor, mostly only IG had to *really* care a whole lot.

Add to that the weirdness with hull shapes and sometimes dealing with as many as two dozen or more hulls on the table, and they became complexity for its own sake rather than adding any real tactical depth to the game. Particularly by the 6E/7e era when so much would either just ignore or overcome any AV (like half a dozen drop podding meltaguns, D weapons, Haywire, etc) or could just strip HP's after their introduction, facing became increasingly less relevant.

If we're gonna deal with facings, it needed to be more widespread to something more than just conventional vehicles, and at a smaller scale where we aren't having to deal with entire tank companies, and in situations where front/side have more meaningful differences for more units. Given the direction of 40k and 8E, losing facings was fine for the ~2000pt games most people play.

They probably could have gone with just a rear facing and rear and sides for super heavy.
Even if not used for armour, you could do something with rear facings that give a bit more thought.
But would not be much if the game itself doesn’t use it.

You could even have 3facings on things like eldar tanks. But I think only super heavy with weapons that are effected would really need sides.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

 stonehorse wrote:


Armour facing was very important, it allowed fast units/models to utilise their speed and strike the more vulnerable areas.

Not only this, but it also creates situations where vehicles may be in a tough situation, as they may want to move to get to a better position to shoot/block loS/deny objective/etc, but to do so would mean opening up their less armoured sides to attack.

It was about trade off, which while not very deep on the surface when seen in isolation. They offer a lot of depth when the game has a lot of them that compound upon each other

The change to rapid fire weapons as they were in 3rd made a big loss in trade off.

They may have been difficult for new people to see, and frustrating as experienced players could and would capitalise upon them. However, there inclusion made the game more of a game of tactical choices. Unlike now where it is all about list building around a powerful combo and command point farming to use the best strategems for the combo.

This is wholly incongruent with my experience. From my experience in 7th, the "more experience players" than I [by which case I mean the people who beat me], generally weren't using light fast units with ranged weapons that couldn't penetrate the front/side of my tank to get shots against it's AV10 rear, they were using units that had multi-shot Destroyer weapons that I could only hit on 6's [if at all], large sections of multiwound melee cavalry models with a 2+ invulnerable save [and a half dozen special characters for their special rules] that I could still only hit on 6's if target at all, monstrous creatures with the ability to move after they shot and long range firepower, and if they were taking advantage of the fact that my rear armor was 10 and front 14, they were doing so by using a units brought in a special set of units that when brought together and near each other always hit the rear armor and had a 2+ cover save...

Which sounds a lot more like the power combo stacking you're decrying that anything in the modern day.


I rarely had fast lightly armed units try to flank my tanks. The only things that every really tried to get in my rear arc were deep strikers, and if they were going for that they usually carried meltaguns and were equally happy to land to the side or the front of the tank as long as they were close.

That was one of the major problems with 7th edition. There were also six editions prior to that..........