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Seems odd to blame GW for players doing unreasonable things like shooting at a model because it's not modeled to be crouched behind cover. My experience of the game is talking to my opponent about what counts as I move around, so that we don't run into situations where stuff gets killed because it wore a particularly extravagant hat to the battle that day.

It's GW job to codify against players like that. Not leave it to the customers.

 Lance845 wrote:

 SeanDavid1991 wrote:
I know there is no FAQ or anything for like 100% confirmation.

But I'm pretty sure in chapter approved (maybe BRB but i think CA), there's a designers note that says "do not use banners and arials... for line of sight" so on so forth.

1) that was a rule in 7th.

2) it doesn't matter if some guy says some crap in something that is not rules. Put it in a faq errata or it doesn't matter.

*sigh*

Chapter Approved 2018, page 28 designer's note on Cities of Death:

"When checking if a model is obscured, consider the main body of the firing model and its target - do not include the model's bases or parts that are 'sticking out' like aerials, banners, weapons or particularily impressive hairstyles, but do include all limbs."

Sure, that's not in the core rules and some players for unfathomable reasons avoid working terrain rules even when provided by GW, but it is there in the writ. The absurdity of firing your antenna with my tracks is just bad sportsmanship applied to a ruleset which isn't written for devil's advocates.

 Sherrypie wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

 SeanDavid1991 wrote:
I know there is no FAQ or anything for like 100% confirmation.

But I'm pretty sure in chapter approved (maybe BRB but i think CA), there's a designers note that says "do not use banners and arials... for line of sight" so on so forth.

1) that was a rule in 7th.

2) it doesn't matter if some guy says some crap in something that is not rules. Put it in a faq errata or it doesn't matter.

*sigh*

Chapter Approved 2018, page 28 designer's note on Cities of Death:

"When checking if a model is obscured, consider the main body of the firing model and its target - do not include the model's bases or parts that are 'sticking out' like aerials, banners, weapons or particularily impressive hairstyles, but do include all limbs."

Sure, that's not in the core rules and some players for unfathomable reasons avoid working terrain rules even when provided by GW, but it is there in the writ. The absurdity of firing your antenna with my tracks is just bad sportsmanship applied to a ruleset which isn't written for devil's advocates.

It's 'bad sportsmanship' to play the rules as written when they contradict designer's commentary for an optional expansion we may not be using?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Nurglitch wrote:
Seems odd to blame GW for players doing unreasonable things like shooting at a model because it's not modeled to be crouched behind cover. My experience of the game is talking to my opponent about what counts as I move around, so that we don't run into situations where stuff gets killed because it wore a particularly extravagant hat to the battle that day.

Does needing to talk about what counts as LOS when you move around make the game easier/faster for you than having clearer LOS rules would?

Karol wrote:
So you want to tell me, that because GW designed rules in a certain way and then made GK models in a specific way, now the whole store has to adjust and buy or build terrain just to fit in GK termintors, specially as GW did not see the need to give rised long pole arms, swords or banners?

And it isn't even a GK problem. A guy that started playing BA at our store made very nice kit bashes of AoS models and primaris parts to make his smash captins. he was devasted, after first game, when his descending from the sky captin got shot while standing behind a 2 tier building, because part of the wing was visible. The fact that most marines players model their captins and chapter masters crawling or kneeling is a disgrace.

Sigh...

Pics or it didn't happen Walter Mitty...

It is a terrain problem. Full stop. All you need is more LOS blocking terrain. As for those captains, they knew the risks going in. Presuming they are made from those Stormcast minis, whose wings spread out at least twice as wide as they are then they complain when they get shot (despite also being a character, so hiding from LOS is not always necessary, but whatever...)?

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Sherrypie wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

 SeanDavid1991 wrote:
I know there is no FAQ or anything for like 100% confirmation.

But I'm pretty sure in chapter approved (maybe BRB but i think CA), there's a designers note that says "do not use banners and arials... for line of sight" so on so forth.

1) that was a rule in 7th.

2) it doesn't matter if some guy says some crap in something that is not rules. Put it in a faq errata or it doesn't matter.

*sigh*

Chapter Approved 2018, page 28 designer's note on Cities of Death:

"When checking if a model is obscured, consider the main body of the firing model and its target - do not include the model's bases or parts that are 'sticking out' like aerials, banners, weapons or particularily impressive hairstyles, but do include all limbs."

Sure, that's not in the core rules and some players for unfathomable reasons avoid working terrain rules even when provided by GW, but it is there in the writ. The absurdity of firing your antenna with my tracks is just bad sportsmanship applied to a ruleset which isn't written for devil's advocates.

It's 'bad sportsmanship' to play the rules as written when they contradict designer's commentary for an optional expansion we may not be using?

Personally, somewhat, yeah. It is quite amusing to look how much people have fits over GW writing bad rules, like the bazillion posts we've seen in a few years calling for their designers to be fired for writing stuff like antennae shooting each other, and then in the same breath deriding any solutions they make to fix that because they "aren't in the core rules" like those would be some holy text never to be altered. The core rules are that, core, they get you going. Most games of this breadth and choice tend to have core and advanced rules, where the expectation is that you read the core, try a game or two and then add the rest of the game in there as the whole experience. While I'm not defending GW's business practices of decentralized rules writing, their design philosophy is quite easy to glean from their texts. The game proper is still played between two or more human beings and reasonable discussions happen to ensure good games. If those players at the table happen to be of the type that sneers at GW's idiocy for antennae firefights yet insist on doing so when they could simply choose not to, that is on them. Having a good time is up to the players at the table, regardless of the game being played.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Nurglitch wrote:
Seems odd to blame GW for players doing unreasonable things like shooting at a model because it's not modeled to be crouched behind cover. My experience of the game is talking to my opponent about what counts as I move around, so that we don't run into situations where stuff gets killed because it wore a particularly extravagant hat to the battle that day.

Does needing to talk about what counts as LOS when you move around make the game easier/faster for you than having clearer LOS rules would?

Clarity is always nice, but often requires super abstract area rules and GW clearly isn't currently inclined to do that. Too bad. In the absence of that, the classic "five minute chat" to clear how the players want to play (do you see through this forest, is obscuration a thing, what terrain slows you down or goes boom if you step on mines etc...) is good. It is a sign of being a good sport that you can engage in this human interaction honestly from time to time, though in a tournament setting these are often decided beforehand by the TO. Then again, in my opinion tournament 40k really is the narrow and restricted version of the game so take of that what you will.

 Grimtuff wrote:
It is a terrain problem. Full stop. All you need is more LOS blocking terrain.

What's your idea of LOS blocking terrain? I've got a bunch of hills that I built in 2" tall increments of verticality, so that they can fully block LOS to infantry, but particularly tall back banners can stick out. I also have a bunch of buildings, 3-4" tall so that they can shield vehicles, but stuff like Dreadnought banners tend to protrude over the top. None of it can be seen through so I call it LOS blocking, but there are these edge cases where details stick out.

Or does 'LOS blocking terrain' really mean 'infinitely tall walls'? Because I'm kind of reluctant to play 40K exclusively on Infinity-esque industrial boards just so that the bare-bones terrain/LOS rules can function.

 Grimtuff wrote:
As for those captains, they knew the risks going in. Presuming they are made from those Stormcast minis, whose wings spread out at least twice as wide as they are then they complain when they get shot (despite also being a character, so hiding from LOS is not always necessary, but whatever...)?

My prone heavy weapon teams can't see over sandbags.

My sergeant with raised sword is a lightning rod for fire that can kill his whole squad.

I have to actually think about how posing will affect a model's performance ingame, because the characters they represent are considered to be forever locked into the posture I set- a larger-than-default conversion actively penalizes me, while something like converting a character to have more restrained posture can actually be considered 'modeling for advantage'.

I find this mechanic aggravating, and unforgivably stupid as a design. You shouldn't need to 'know the risks' of a characterful conversion.

I hope they at least take a leaf out of KT rules.
I only played KT the once but it felt like real 40k which is ironic.

Apart from the obscuring if over half range thing. That can go.
Alternating activation certainly would be interesting.

 Sherrypie wrote:
..Personally, somewhat, yeah. It is quite amusing to look how much people have fits over GW writing bad rules, like the bazillion posts we've seen in a few years calling for their designers to be fired for writing stuff like antennae shooting each other, and then in the same breath deriding any solutions they make to fix that because they "aren't in the core rules" like those would be some holy text never to be altered. The core rules are that, core, they get you going. Most games of this breadth and choice tend to have core and advanced rules, where the expectation is that you read the core, try a game or two and then add the rest of the game in there as the whole experience. While I'm not defending GW's business practices of decentralized rules writing, their design philosophy is quite easy to glean from their texts. The game proper is still played between two or more human beings and reasonable discussions happen to ensure good games. If those players at the table happen to be of the type that sneers at GW's idiocy for antennae firefights yet insist on doing so when they could simply choose not to, that is on them. Having a good time is up to the players at the table, regardless of the game being played.

I don't like this argument. If the core rules are a starting point I'm supposed to add to in order to produce a game why are they sold as a game? Why do they exist at all? If it's okay to need to have a discussion with my opponent to figure out how line of sight rules work is it okay to need to have a discussion with my opponent to figure out what units should be able to kill what? How about how far units move? How the mission works? Should I need to build an entire wargame on the fly with my opponent every time I want to play a game?

...super abstract area rules and GW clearly isn't currently inclined to do that...

They're perfectly happy to say "all cover is +1 to your save if everyone's touching the terrain piece."

Let's not nerf the Harlequin vehicles even more, please lol. Most have guns pointing backwards.

Vehicle facings and firing arcs are bad rules in a game like this. They are busy work and book keeping in a game that has lots of models and takes a long time.

They are fine in small, skirmish games however.

 Ishagu wrote:
...They are busy work and book keeping in a game that has lots of models and takes a long time...

Again, as opposed to trying to figure out how to actually hide units out of LOS under "my antenna shoots your antenna" rules?

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Ishagu wrote:
...They are busy work and book keeping in a game that has lots of models and takes a long time...

Again, as opposed to trying to figure out how to actually hide units out of LOS under "my antenna shoots your antenna" rules?

Exalt !!

I would add as well as moving everyone within those auras..

 AnomanderRake wrote:


They're perfectly happy to say "all cover is +1 to your save if everyone's touching the terrain piece."

or having a fix mount tanks do a back flip and shot at something behind it

It is a terrain problem. Full stop. All you need is more LOS blocking terrain. As for those captains, they knew the risks going in. Presuming they are made from those Stormcast minis, whose wings spread out at least twice as wide as they are then they complain when they get shot (despite also being a character, so hiding from LOS is not always necessary, but whatever...)?

we have enough terrain. But it is stupid when I can shot at one farseer on a jetbike because she has a spear pointing at a 45 angle upwards, and the other has it downards. Makes more sense to play with not fully assembled models, because they take up more space.

My dreads can hide behind a tier 2 building, because it has no banner. But the dread of our only DA player has a hand painted banner, so it sticks out through the windows that are on tier 2. And it is both bad ,when he shots with that banner or gets hit by having it.

And almost every captin with jump pack here has kneeling kromlech legs and doing a super hero landing. I have metal terminators, so my sgts have halabards pointing straight up. this makes them almost the high of a normal dreadnought.

People have their banner ancients models holding the banner down to avoid geting sniped.

Karol wrote:


People have their banner ancients models holding the banner down to avoid geting sniped.

Of course they do...

Bet they break them too when they die.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Sherrypie wrote:
..Personally, somewhat, yeah. It is quite amusing to look how much people have fits over GW writing bad rules, like the bazillion posts we've seen in a few years calling for their designers to be fired for writing stuff like antennae shooting each other, and then in the same breath deriding any solutions they make to fix that because they "aren't in the core rules" like those would be some holy text never to be altered. The core rules are that, core, they get you going. Most games of this breadth and choice tend to have core and advanced rules, where the expectation is that you read the core, try a game or two and then add the rest of the game in there as the whole experience. While I'm not defending GW's business practices of decentralized rules writing, their design philosophy is quite easy to glean from their texts. The game proper is still played between two or more human beings and reasonable discussions happen to ensure good games. If those players at the table happen to be of the type that sneers at GW's idiocy for antennae firefights yet insist on doing so when they could simply choose not to, that is on them. Having a good time is up to the players at the table, regardless of the game being played.

I don't like this argument. If the core rules are a starting point I'm supposed to add to in order to produce a game why are they sold as a game? Why do they exist at all? If it's okay to need to have a discussion with my opponent to figure out how line of sight rules work is it okay to need to have a discussion with my opponent to figure out what units should be able to kill what? How about how far units move? How the mission works? Should I need to build an entire wargame on the fly with my opponent every time I want to play a game?

That's up to you, as always. You aren't necessarily supposed to do anything, but you can. If you do, you can have a better game built on a common ground you and your play partner like. If you don't, you can have a barebones match with less questions. Instead of bad faith slippery slopes, you can just make peace with yourself on the way you want to peruse GW's offerings (which usually really boils down to a couple of terrain rulings, it's not like you need to rewrite everything from the basest of axioms) or keep on grumbling while playing with unsatisfactory rules. Personally I'm fine with dabbling with the engine, including entire revamps of the turn structure, because I know I'm responsible for my own fun as an adult as well as that of the person I'm playing with. Heck I routinely play rpg wargames where we need to come up with the weirdest of rulings for things all the time as an intellectual pastime. There are games which require less fiddling, true, but the absurdist worries of having to design 40k as a whole again if you dare to ask your opponent "yo, wanna play with CoD rules for obscurement and count this scatter terrain as cover if it's between you and the shooter?" are mainly amusing.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

...super abstract area rules and GW clearly isn't currently inclined to do that...

They're perfectly happy to say "all cover is +1 to your save if everyone's touching the terrain piece."

Sorry if that was unclear, I mainly meant rules like the old "can't see through woods, can see 2" into and out of them" or "this ruin is X units high", or something akin to Infinity's magic cylinder silhouettes. GW tends towards true LoS, which is a thing where the simple obscuration penalty is something we've found quite satisfying because then all the scatter terrain and stuff you cannot physically easily stand in comes into play more often.

Karol wrote:


People have their banner ancients models holding the banner down to avoid geting sniped.

If people are putting characters too far forward without screening they can't exactly be surprised when they get killed due to easy advantage and misplay no?

It is in the deployment zone. I mean we could bar all the top building windows, block LoS totaly and then turn them game in to LoS ignoring palooza.

I mean it is simple. If someone has two buy identical Lt, because buying one with the rised sword means he is easier to hit, and in a perfect world you would want him to sit down, holding his knees or laying on the ground.

I am not painter, I don't convert models. But anything that makes people not make models look the way they want them to be, because they are going to be sniped easier, is not a good thing. A kneeling normal jump pack cpt does not look as cool as a winged cool BA captin.

On a personal level I don't want people to shot at my entire units just because my metal termintor sgts have been modeled by GW to have their halabards pointing up.

 NurglesR0T wrote:

Karol wrote:


People have their banner ancients models holding the banner down to avoid geting sniped.

If people are putting characters too far forward without screening they can't exactly be surprised when they get killed due to easy advantage and misplay no?

There are units like eliminators that will trash a poor standard bearer or a Librarian wearing his favorite banner even if there are 50 guys in front.

Klickor wrote:

 NurglesR0T wrote:

Karol wrote:


People have their banner ancients models holding the banner down to avoid geting sniped.

If people are putting characters too far forward without screening they can't exactly be surprised when they get killed due to easy advantage and misplay no?

There are units like eliminators that will trash a poor standard bearer or a Librarian wearing his favorite banner even if there are 50 guys in front.

Yeah but they don't even need los because they have "magic " sniper rifles. Guess they "curve " the bullets.

For feths sake gw.

 Sherrypie wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

 SeanDavid1991 wrote:
I know there is no FAQ or anything for like 100% confirmation.

But I'm pretty sure in chapter approved (maybe BRB but i think CA), there's a designers note that says "do not use banners and arials... for line of sight" so on so forth.

1) that was a rule in 7th.

2) it doesn't matter if some guy says some crap in something that is not rules. Put it in a faq errata or it doesn't matter.

*sigh*

Chapter Approved 2018, page 28 designer's note on Cities of Death:

"When checking if a model is obscured, consider the main body of the firing model and its target - do not include the model's bases or parts that are 'sticking out' like aerials, banners, weapons or particularily impressive hairstyles, but do include all limbs."

Sure, that's not in the core rules and some players for unfathomable reasons avoid working terrain rules even when provided by GW, but it is there in the writ. The absurdity of firing your antenna with my tracks is just bad sportsmanship applied to a ruleset which isn't written for devil's advocates.

Some people, such as me, don’t buy/have access to/use rules beyond BRB and what’re counts as their codex. Regardless, I’d Dreadsock someone who tried to use the antenna argument on me.

"But there are rules for it in the CityFight expansion!" doesn't really solve the problem. I don't like that my Hive Tyrant can get shot because my opponent can see the tip of the spines on its wings even though the rest of the model is completely behind LOS. I don't like that an aerial or part of a banner means your fair game for shooting.

40K has major LOS and terrain issues that need addressing before they get to anything else.

 Sherrypie wrote:
...That's up to you, as always. You aren't necessarily supposed to do anything, but you can. If you do, you can have a better game built on a common ground you and your play partner like. If you don't, you can have a barebones match with less questions. Instead of bad faith slippery slopes, you can just make peace with yourself on the way you want to peruse GW's offerings (which usually really boils down to a couple of terrain rulings, it's not like you need to rewrite everything from the basest of axioms) or keep on grumbling while playing with unsatisfactory rules. Personally I'm fine with dabbling with the engine, including entire revamps of the turn structure, because I know I'm responsible for my own fun as an adult as well as that of the person I'm playing with. Heck I routinely play rpg wargames where we need to come up with the weirdest of rulings for things all the time as an intellectual pastime. There are games which require less fiddling, true, but the absurdist worries of having to design 40k as a whole again if you dare to ask your opponent "yo, wanna play with CoD rules for obscurement and count this scatter terrain as cover if it's between you and the shooter?" are mainly amusing...

I've mostly stopped playing 40k because the crowd at my FLGS decided this was the edition they all wanted to be tournament-competitive and insist on things like antenna-to-antenna line of sight. When I do play it is usually either 30k or with rules I have actually gone and rebuilt because I find 8e slow, bloated, and not particularly immersive. I keep showing up here to grumble because I'd like a ruleset I can just pick up out of the box and play with strangers without needing to either sell them on my houserules or sit down to negotiate which units we can and can't use before every game, but apparently those are unreasonable demands to put on people who claim to be writing a rulebook for a game.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
"But there are rules for it in the CityFight expansion!" doesn't really solve the problem. I don't like that my Hive Tyrant can get shot because my opponent can see the tip of the spines on its wings even though the rest of the model is completely behind LOS. I don't like that an aerial or part of a banner means your fair game for shooting.

40K has major LOS and terrain issues that need addressing before they get to anything else.

...why exactly doesn't it? It solves exactly that kind of problems, when applied to a normal game. It's not hard to find those rules, they apply to all forces, they soften the blow of alpha shooting, breathe life to different battlefield roles like breaching squads and in general make for a better game. Mostly by adressing LOS and terrain rules. The only thing they don't do for that is be written in the old BRB, because they are newer. Army rules come in separate books, big FAQs and even White Dwarves. Why is being in Chapter Approved a different kettle of fish?

Again, it's simply odd to me to see people ask for something, have it right there and refuse to use it, but to each their own.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
AnomanderRake, that's a shame you don't have more open minded opponents there. Naturally we'd all like to have a clear cut system to just get on with, but that isn't really the nature of 40k as it stands.

 Sherrypie wrote:
...why exactly doesn't it?

For reasons that have already been explained. It's an expansion. It's not regular 40K.

Those LOS rules from Cities of Death are for Cities of Death. Would it be better if they applied to regular 40K? Sure, but that's easier said than done, as you'd have to ask "Can we use the Cities of Death terrain rules in this game?" each time you play. That might be fine for a group of friends, or a TO that's setting the rules ahead of time, but it's not viable for random pickup games, especially in a store/club environment.

And Chapter Approved is held differently as it is an update on the base game. Somehow I think you know all this...

I do ask that every time when I play, it takes a few seconds and causes zero extra effort with the general chit chat. If the opponent says no, that's fine, but it's not like it's any burden to do.

Codexes are updates to the game. So are supplements and campaign books. Those seem to go down just fine. Chapter Approved has mandatory, forced updates to matched rules too and those are taken in a stride too. Only difference is the heading they are under, as many 40k players are downright hostile towards anything not thus forced, even if ruleswise minor but meaningful at the table. That, combined with the simultaneous dumping on GW somehow not doing their job, is just ironic.

How many other games do you play where you need to ask "How are we handling (this strange/nonfunctional bit of the rules)?" every time you play?

 AnomanderRake wrote:
How many other games do you play where you need to ask "How are we handling (this strange/nonfunctional bit of the rules)?" every time you play?

Happens pretty much in any RPG in my experience.

This isn't an RPG.

Martel732 wrote:
This isn't an RPG.

It works better if you assume that it kinda is.

 Crimson wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
This isn't an RPG.

It works better if you assume that it kinda is.

40k rules wise does remind me of RPGs a lot. And it definitely isn't designed to be a sport.