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Out of all the blunders that GW committed during 6th edition overwatch is probably the biggest since it has had the longest lasting impact in this game, and I wonder why it wasn't removed from the rule set once 8th hit. Now why do I think that overwatch is a horrible rule, simple, it rewards bad gameplay of getting your shooting units into melee. The only way this would be good was if deep strike charging became a too big of an issue, but you could simply remove that instead of nerfing all melee accross the board.

It at the very least needs a mirror. When falling back a unit is subject to a full round of melee that hits on 6s. Sprinkle in some "this unit hits on 4s when units flee from them" Strategems.

Agreed on a mirror for melee. Strike back hitting on -1WS of the unit you're fleeing from.

Overwatch is tedious and takes time, but as a mechanic it makes sense, is thematic, and ultimately doesn't slow the game.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Overwatch is tedious and takes time, but as a mechanic it makes sense, is thematic, and ultimately doesn't slow the game.

IMO it's weird that a unit which normally will fire one round of shooting per turn can potentially fire as many times as units attempt (and fail) to charge it. 40K is otherwise generally rigid in its time modeling, with primarily just stratagems allowing units to shoot more than once.

More importantly, it lacks any kind of decision-making. You don't have to put your units into Overwatch like you did in 2nd, so you never have to decide between being prepared to repel an assault versus moving forward to engage. You just reflexively get to shoot, and your chance of success is the same regardless of what you did on your turn.

I've played a couple of games where the reaction system allowed you to take immediate actions in response to enemy activity, at the cost of both reduced effectiveness and losing an action when that unit's next opportunity to act comes along. Battlefleet Gothic used a similar system where you could elect to Brace For Impact in response to an attack, but then on your ship's next turn, it would have reduced effectiveness. This added some interesting decision space, because you were borrowing against the unit's next activation for the opportunity to do something now.

I'm not sure how to translate something like that to 40K, but there's room for greater interactivity.

Biggest problem is that any unit gets to fire an infinite number of times. 8th made a bad rule simply unfair.

 JimOnMars wrote:
Biggest problem is that any unit gets to fire an infinite number of times. 8th made a bad rule simply unfair.

Which simply doesn't happen.

Come on, it's really not that bad. There are many ways to avoid or minimize the damage you take, including out-of-LOS charges, sending in tougher units first, heroic interventions, and a variety of items and abilities. Working your way around overwatch is part of knowing how to use a melee-based army effectively. And I think it's good that there is something that makes you think twice before attempting a 10+ inch charge. "Is it worth taking a faceful of overwatch?"

But perhaps it should be a once-per-phase thing. Looking at you, Tau.

Some units across various factions could also have "flash grenades" or something of the sort, which deal no damage but keep a target non-vehicle unit from firing overwatch if you score a hit. Of course, to throw the grenade, you have to get within 6 inches in your movement phase.

.

And what considerations do the far more powerful shooting armies have to make. How many screen models to pick up to fall back with for free at a time?

 catbarf wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Overwatch is tedious and takes time, but as a mechanic it makes sense, is thematic, and ultimately doesn't slow the game.

IMO it's weird that a unit which normally will fire one round of shooting per turn can potentially fire as many times as units attempt (and fail) to charge it. 40K is otherwise generally rigid in its time modeling, with primarily just stratagems allowing units to shoot more than once.

More importantly, it lacks any kind of decision-making. You don't have to put your units into Overwatch like you did in 2nd, so you never have to decide between being prepared to repel an assault versus moving forward to engage. You just reflexively get to shoot, and your chance of success is the same regardless of what you did on your turn.

I've played a couple of games where the reaction system allowed you to take immediate actions in response to enemy activity, at the cost of both reduced effectiveness and losing an action when that unit's next opportunity to act comes along. Battlefleet Gothic used a similar system where you could elect to Brace For Impact in response to an attack, but then on your ship's next turn, it would have reduced effectiveness. This added some interesting decision space, because you were borrowing against the unit's next activation for the opportunity to do something now.

I'm not sure how to translate something like that to 40K, but there's room for greater interactivity.

I'd be all for limiting it to one Overwatch for a unit when being charged.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Overwatch is tedious and takes time, but as a mechanic it makes sense, is thematic, and ultimately doesn't slow the game.

It seems like Overwatch was added as a consolation prize for shooting armies when they introduced 2D6" charge moves. There's an obvious solution: revert both changes. No overwatch, and fixed shorter charge moves. Boom: problem fixed, game sped up, rainbows and puppies live in peace and harmony!

My main issue with Overwatch is that it's not a choice. By letting you Overwatch every time until someone makes it in, there's no "Should I?" involved, it's just free extra shots that usually don't do much because you only hit on 6s.

agreed with earlier poster, falling back should allow melee units to swing needing 6s.

It sort of made sense back when casualty removal was from the front of the unit. As despite inflicting very little damage, by taking out the front 1 or 2 models it would have a very meaningful impact on whether a charge was successful.
I'm not saying it was a fair mechanic, as assault units were at a big disadvantage even without it. But at least you could look at it from a game design perspective and see a logical interaction with the other assault rules.

It really should not have made it into 8th edition. With the changes to casualty removal in 8th, it just becomes nearly pointless dice rolling, barring the occasional army or unit having special rules to improve it to the point of relevancy. Since some armies like tau have it as their special thing, maybe they should keep some version of it. But as a core rule, it no longer has a purpose.

Arson Fire wrote:
It sort of made sense back when casualty removal was from the front of the unit. As despite inflicting very little damage, by taking out the front 1 or 2 models it would have a very meaningful impact on whether a charge was successful.
I'm not saying it was a fair mechanic, as assault units were at a big disadvantage even without it. But at least you could look at it from a game design perspective and see a logical interaction with the other assault rules.

It really should not have made it into 8th edition. With the changes to casualty removal in 8th, it just becomes nearly pointless dice rolling, barring the occasional army or unit having special rules to improve it to the point of relevancy. Since some armies like tau have it as their special thing, maybe they should keep some version of it. But as a core rule, it no longer has a purpose.

It does though, it makes you balance the 'move out of turn' against 'maybe get shot a few times.'

Arson Fire wrote:It sort of made sense back when casualty removal was from the front of the unit. As despite inflicting very little damage, by taking out the front 1 or 2 models it would have a very meaningful impact on whether a charge was successful.
I'm not saying it was a fair mechanic, as assault units were at a big disadvantage even without it. But at least you could look at it from a game design perspective and see a logical interaction with the other assault rules.

It really should not have made it into 8th edition. With the changes to casualty removal in 8th, it just becomes nearly pointless dice rolling, barring the occasional army or unit having special rules to improve it to the point of relevancy. Since some armies like tau have it as their special thing, maybe they should keep some version of it. But as a core rule, it no longer has a purpose.

Absolutely this. Back when overwatch had a chance to impact charge range, it still had all the same problems it does today, but it was kind of "cinematic." Sure, tau denying orks the charge after they had to slog through no man's land wasn't necessarily great game design, but at least it was sort of cool to picture the tau army keeping the wave of charging foes at arm's length with desperate volleys of fire. Now, we've lost the cinematic excuse but still have the resulting slowdown and additional shooting/melee imbalance.

bullyboy wrote:agreed with earlier poster, falling back should allow melee units to swing needing 6s.

I see this suggested a lot, and I really dislike it. The main issue with falling back isn't that you don't damage the falling back unit enough; it's that the charging unit is left exposed to the enemy gunline after finally reaching melee. Your guard opponent doesn't care that you "reverse overwatched" a few of his falling back guardsmen. They're not in his list to survive. They're not falling back to turn around and shoot you later. They already did their job by getting you to charge them instead of some tanks, and now they're falling back so that those tanks can shoot you.

One of my preferred solutions to the falling back issue is to make units that were fallen back from untargetable out of X inches (with X being something like 6 or 12.) The result is that your opponent has to keep/bring his units close to your melee unit in order to shoot at it, thus leaving them more exposed to followup assaults in previous turns. Plus, unless his whole gunline is concentrated within X" of you, he's probably not going to be able to point all the guns at you that he'd normally like to.

JNAProductions wrote:My main issue with Overwatch is that it's not a choice. By letting you Overwatch every time until someone makes it in, there's no "Should I?" involved, it's just free extra shots that usually don't do much because you only hit on 6s.

Agreed. With that in mind, I do think that factions that have overwatch as their "thing" can keep some form of it for this reason. If Mordians retain overwatch, then you've opted to "buy" overwatch instead of cadian rerolls or catachan benefits. I also think that certain weapons can gain the "overwatch" rule that lets them overwatch as they do now (or possibly even at a better ballistics skill given that there would be so much less overwatch floating around).



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JimOnMars wrote:
Biggest problem is that any unit gets to fire an infinite number of times. 8th made a bad rule simply unfair.

Disagree about the infinite overwatches being the real issue. It's pretty rare for me to charge a given unit with more than two or three of my own. And if I am charging with a dozen different units at the same enemy unit, it's pretty unusual for me to fail with so many charges that my opponent actually generates a meaningful amount of damage with their overwatch. Outside of units with an absurd number of shots, flamer-heavy units, and tau (who can only overwatch once anyway if they use supporting fire), most units don't reliably do much damage with overwatch.

The issues with overwatch as I see them are:

* It's normally a lot of dice rolling for not a lot of results. Meaning you slow the game down to accomplish little/nothing.

* When your overwatch gets lucky and actually does accomplish something, it feels unearned for the overwatcher and disempowering for the charger. I've had a dark lance ravager overwatch an unwounded Old One Eye to death. I didn't celebrate. I apologized.

* It's an advantage for shooty armies that punishes melee armies, and shooty armies really don't need another advantage over melee right now. Given that overwatch usually doesn't make a difference but favors the already advantaged gunlines when it does, it seems like it would make sense to simply remove the mechanic (with exceptions) and speed the game up as a result.

IMO all dedicated melee units should have No escape 4+ see DE wyches

Honestly, I don't mind overwatch. If it was once per phase, that'd be cool.

As for melee overwatch, I'd rather the squad being ran from be given a free pile in of 3-6 inches to allow them to possibly capture another unit/catch the unit fleeing.

Not that it would see much use in 40k, I do like the Killteam approach of either fire Overwatch, or retreat 3 inches and screw your opponents charge.

I kinda hope 9th takes some of Killteam and some of Apocalypse to make a more interactive system for both players.

Unfortunately overwatch is a required mechanic for 8th, since we don't have bonus on charges.

In 7th if you multi charged, you lost your charge bonus. In 8th there wouldn't be any reason to not declare multi charges if it wasn't for overwatch.

That said, i don't like it.

It slows down the game and isn't working particularly effective without added rules. It also isn't a choice.

I would change it to be a full shooting, but the unit cannot fire in the next turn. It would represent the unit frantically reloading and shooting what they can at the enemy who got too close, but doing so they were distracted from shooting at the intended target.

Instead of applying a penalty to shooting (hit only on 6) which is absurd because it impacts elites more than grunts, you say than when you declare overwatch you roll a dice for every model. On a roll of 4+ they can shoot, -1 if they want to use heavy weapons, +1 if they want to shoot with a pistol.
You then convert all the overwatch bonuses of IH/Mordians/whatever to a bonus on that dice.

This creates a choice and more interaction. You could use your units to "scare" the opponent into shooting at it while trying some 10" or more inch charges, effectively representing forward units that try to grab the enemies attention.

The time spent doing overwatch is spared the next turn when not shooting.

warmaster21 wrote:IMO all dedicated melee units should have No escape 4+ see DE wyches

I love No Escape on my wyches, but it's not really a fix for the falling back issue. If we accept that falling back is a problem (because it lets gunline screens fall back and light up the melee units that had to cross the table to reach them), then making it so that you can only do the problematic thing some of the time means you'll still do the problematic thing some of the time. It reduces the frequency with which the problem occurs, but it doesn't deal with the root of the issue.

Carnikang wrote:Honestly, I don't mind overwatch. If it was once per phase, that'd be cool.

As for melee overwatch, I'd rather the squad being ran from be given a free pile in of 3-6 inches to allow them to possibly capture another unit/catch the unit fleeing.

But then units with a movement of 6" or less just automatically get caught some of the time while units with movement of 7"+ just autoescape all of the time. And if you randomize it, you're basically just creating a more complicated version of No Escape but with more time spent moving models.

This would potentially put the hypothetical gunline player in a position where they've messed up their positioning in a previous turn by putting non-essential units within 6" of a screen, but that's more of a punishment for not agonizing over precise model placement than an increase in interesting decisions. The gunliner will still be in a position where he'll just look at his screens and the units around them and then proceed to fall back if doing so will let him light up the enemy melee unit.

Nightlord1987 wrote:Not that it would see much use in 40k, I do like the Killteam approach of either fire Overwatch, or retreat 3 inches and screw your opponents charge.

I kinda hope 9th takes some of Killteam and some of Apocalypse to make a more interactive system for both players.

Agreed. Without some adjustments, however, wouldn't this just make it impossible to charge out of deepstrike without strats or charge range buffs?

Spoletta wrote:Unfortunately overwatch is a required mechanic for 8th, since we don't have bonus on charges.

In 7th if you multi charged, you lost your charge bonus. In 8th there wouldn't be any reason to not declare multi charges if it wasn't for overwatch.

That said, i don't like it.

It slows down the game and isn't working particularly effective without added rules. It also isn't a choice.

I would change it to be a full shooting, but the unit cannot fire in the next turn. It would represent the unit frantically reloading and shooting what they can at the enemy who got too close, but doing so they were distracted from shooting at the intended target.

Instead of applying a penalty to shooting (hit only on 6) which is absurd because it impacts elites more than grunts, you say than when you declare overwatch you roll a dice for every model. On a roll of 4+ they can shoot, -1 if they want to use heavy weapons, +1 if they want to shoot with a pistol.
You then convert all the overwatch bonuses of IH/Mordians/whatever to a bonus on that dice.

This creates a choice and more interaction. You could use your units to "scare" the opponent into shooting at it while trying some 10" or more inch charges, effectively representing forward units that try to grab the enemies attention.

The time spent doing overwatch is spared the next turn when not shooting.

Hmm. I don't know. You'd end up rolling fewer total dice doing it that way, but you'd probably end up rolling more individual pools of dice. Say you've got a scion squad with a laspistol sergeant, some hotshot lasgunners, and some plasmaguns. You'd have to roll 3 pools of dice to figure out which of those models get to fire overwatch, then roll the normal pools of to-hit/wound/saves. Except you'd have to roll your pistols separately from your lasguns because they'd hit on different numbers. And then you'd have a small added amount of book keeping as you track which units did and did not overwatch in the previous turn. And you are adding a small amount of complexity by adding in heavy weapon and pistol to-hit modifiers on top of that (which isn't a huge deal, but I'm a fan of trimming extra rules where reasonable).

So rather than adding complexity and book keeping to support a mechanic that favors already advantaged shooting armies, why not just drop the mechanic as a core rule (and turn it into a gimmick for Mordians, etc.) Is there a compelling reason to have overwatch in the game at all? I'd argue it adds complexity and a tiny amount of extra imbalance without adding interesting decisions or fun moments to the game. Unless you and your opponent really enjoy it when your charging unit gets evaporated by lucky overwatch. In which case, more power to you.

 Eldarain wrote:
It at the very least needs a mirror. When falling back a unit is subject to a full round of melee that hits on 6s. Sprinkle in some "this unit hits on 4s when units flee from them" Strategems.

Yup. This!


A charge is not automatic. You have to roll 2D6 and beat a number (distance). Same should apply for falling back (a 2D6 Ld check or something).

A charge is risky. Whether it succeeds or not, you take overwatch. Same should apply for falling back (e.g. a "swing on 6s" by the opponent if you attempt to fall back).

Playing the 'deep strike charging is my game' army GSC, there's nothing terribly wrong with overwatch as is. It makes charging a consideration rather than a blanket yes whenever you have the opportunity.

Personally I wish the leadership rules reflected the old 'wipe out a squad in CC' rules, that would make it feel far more worth eating however much overwatch. But even still, it's just something to manage, even at t3 with a 5+ jockstrap save I'm rarely losing more than 2 models to it. Use the disposable mass you have up front to tie them up, and then move the more expensive models in behind those. You just can't constantly take MSU so you can absorb the loses.

And honestly, as GSC I use overwatch to my advantage constantly. It's real fun watching the thinking process kick in when I remind my opponent their counter charge from 5 inches is going to be eating 10 hand flamers in overwatch.

Overwatch is one of remarkably few ways positioning matters right now, even to my own gross benefit I'd rather not lose it.

Spoletta wrote:

It slows down the game and isn't working particularly effective without added rules. It also isn't a choice.

I would change it to be a full shooting, but the unit cannot fire in the next turn. It would represent the unit frantically reloading and shooting what they can at the enemy who got too close, but doing so they were distracted from shooting at the intended target.

Instead of applying a penalty to shooting (hit only on 6) which is absurd because it impacts elites more than grunts, you say than when you declare overwatch you roll a dice for every model. On a roll of 4+ they can shoot, -1 if they want to use heavy weapons, +1 if they want to shoot with a pistol.
You then convert all the overwatch bonuses of IH/Mordians/whatever to a bonus on that dice.

So your solution to something that slows the game down would be to slow it down even more? Rolling dice to see how many dice you can roll is one of the most annoying parts of 8th and pretty much epitomises its terrible design.

Overwatch is one of the most annoying elements of 40k for me, pretty much for the reasons everyone's mentioned. It involves no decisions, it doesn't reward good play and it further punishes close combat, which is absurd in a game that already favours shooting as much as it does. If overwatch stays I'd rather see it as an option to shoot instead of making attacks, but only after a successful charge and probably at the point you would have made your close combat attacks. So now a weak close combat unit like Guardsmen can swap their S3 4+ to hit attacks for double the number of S3 attacks hitting on 6s plus some higher strength attacks from their special/heavy weapons.

What I'd really like to see, though, is a complete rework of charging and close combat. Fall Back is a stupid rule with too few consequences and actually getting an effective close combat unit into assault is very difficult, while it's probably too easy to fly something like a Wave Serpent or Venom up the board and tag a unit to shut down their shooting without any real penalties for throwing a totally unsuitable unit into close combat. It's a bizarre paradox, but in terms of pure in-game effectiveness a Venom is probably "better" at close combat than Assault Terminators because it can reliably get there and all you care about achieving is denying a unit the ability to shoot next turn, not actually killing anything. GW dropped the ball when they massively increased movement distances in 8th so the first place to start would probably be reining them in a little bit. Then they could look at making Fall Back more punishing or making a unit that was fallen back from not quite such a sitting duck.

well that is good for horde style armies. But what about armies that have one big unit that does the charge. If it gets focused fired by buffed overwatch with re-rolls from a castel, it is ofte game over. It gets even worse if GW decides to not give you any range buffs just re-rolls, then half the time your not making it in to melee but still eat all the shots.

YeOldSaltPotato wrote:

And honestly, as GSC I use overwatch to my advantage constantly. It's real fun watching the thinking process kick in when I remind my opponent their counter charge from 5 inches is going to be eating 10 hand flamers in overwatch.

To be fair, if your opponent takes those 10 hand flamers of overwatch, then they've simply failed to position their unit properly.
The hand flamers only have 6" range, so the opponent can move their unit to put a single guy slightly within 6" of one of the hand flamer models, so they take only 1 flamer of overwatch, and make it an easy 5" charge.

Maybe you can catch someone off guard from time to time, but personally I don't put much value in something that requires my opponent to make an easily correctable mistake in order to work.

Overwatch needs to be implemented in any shooting game. Either you do it like in 2nd or need a skill for it like in N17.

But one thing is certain: The "hitting only on 6" bs which doesn't takes account of the shooter's proficiency with a gun needs to go the way of the dodo.

I agree overwatch is a bad rule, it needs to go. It slows the game down, and usually does very little damage. Unless you play IH or AM, which is unfair. Why should these two factions get better overwatch, and the others dont ?

 p5freak wrote:
I agree overwatch is a bad rule, it needs to go. It slows the game down, and usually does very little damage. Unless you play IH or AM, which is unfair. Why should these two factions get better overwatch, and the others dont ?

Tau, get better, as do R&H. as do scourged.
it's more common then you think A, and B comparatively to multi charging and pile in shenanigans atm needed to make melee work it isn't taking that long.

I believe it ought to be a choice with an advantage and a disadvantage. If a unit gets charged, either it choses to fire at the incoming foe in hopes of blunting the charge by causing a few casualties, or either they brace themselves for the impact by drawing their knives, holstering their guns or something.

So in case of Overwatch, the unit suffers a minor bonus in CC, like striking ALWAYS last (and nothing can allow it to strike at any other point in time), or something more severe like reroll Hit rolls of 6 in CC to portray their unreadiness to fight correctly.

In the case of Bracing, the unit doesn't shoot, but suffers neither from any malus because of being engaged in CC. The charging unit still gets to fight first like it is the case today but can seize the initiative with stratagems and whatnot.

Additionally they should really implement back a system of pursuit or malus when a unit disengages, as it is it's plainly dumb to assume that 10 Berzerkers will stay right there when their Fire Warriors targets just draws back. And it shouldn't be hits on 6s like I saw earlier in the thread, you hit someone easier when he's turning his back to you and don't defend himself after all isn't it ?

But all this would probably see life only in the next edition, as there's just too many mechanics we'd have to change for this to happen, and several codex entries or stratagems.

Arson Fire wrote:
Maybe you can catch someone off guard from time to time, but personally I don't put much value in something that requires my opponent to make an easily correctable mistake in order to work.

I am saying counter charge, as in my charge failed to work and they're considering their options. I swarm like hell and do my best to box the enemy in even in the case I fail a charge, I've left people with out other options than charging or eating a charge the next turn. Typically in cases where holding an objective is important. Go a head, pull back out of objective range to get the charge you can't re roll without wasting CP on it. You'll have to move far enough back to make closing back in a question to avoid the hand flamers, and that's even more than I could ask for in such things. These aren't specialized melee units, find a reason to make them not be able to move or not want to move and you can hammer them with things like this.

Typically I pull things like dropping a particularly large unit around someone at 3 inches, or drop 2 or 3 units on opposing sides of them and see if I can get them where I want them. It's really not that hard to pull off, it's just a matter of pulling the enemy out of their castle which objectives are great for.