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@Hellebore. I'd be okay with most of that. A couple things:

* Am I correct that you're suggesting treating pistols as melee weapons? That could work out, but it definitely turns an inferno or fusion pistol into some of the best melee weapons in the game. Or do you mean that pistols grant extra attacks based on their profile (3 attacks for a Pistol 3 weapon)? That could also work and would be easier to price. It does mean that you have to double the number of dice pools rolled for many units in close combat though. Many eldar units are strength 3 but with strength 4 pistols, for instance.

* You'd be dramatically decreasing rapid fire's offense with that change. Bolters, gauss flayers/blasters, pulse rifles, and splinter rifles would all be putting out roughly half as many shots.

It could be done, but we'd have to juggle around points on a lot of units. Lowering the cost of a guardsman by even a single point does weird things to unit efficiency and army creation. Especially when you consider that a kabalite is only a couple (1?) points more expensive than a guardsman at the moment. We'd probably have to up the cost of most units in the game by a few points so that things compare reasonably. Of course, there's an argument that that ought to be done regardless of any other changes.

Wyldhunt wrote:
@Hellebore. I'd be okay with most of that. A couple things:

* Am I correct that you're suggesting treating pistols as melee weapons? That could work out, but it definitely turns an inferno or fusion pistol into some of the best melee weapons in the game. Or do you mean that pistols grant extra attacks based on their profile (3 attacks for a Pistol 3 weapon)? That could also work and would be easier to price. It does mean that you have to double the number of dice pools rolled for many units in close combat though. Many eldar units are strength 3 but with strength 4 pistols, for instance.

* You'd be dramatically decreasing rapid fire's offense with that change. Bolters, gauss flayers/blasters, pulse rifles, and splinter rifles would all be putting out roughly half as many shots.

It could be done, but we'd have to juggle around points on a lot of units. Lowering the cost of a guardsman by even a single point does weird things to unit efficiency and army creation. Especially when you consider that a kabalite is only a couple (1?) points more expensive than a guardsman at the moment. We'd probably have to up the cost of most units in the game by a few points so that things compare reasonably. Of course, there's an argument that that ought to be done regardless of any other changes.

1: I'm not sold on either tbh. I was just thinking about how, although pistol rules are now technically more accurate in that they are still used in the shooting phase, that they're just weird and i preferred the combat phase to stay its own thing. As simple as it is, the pistol whipping rules of 3rd ed were effective and made a clear delineation between phases and weapon uses.

Part of the problem here is also that dual melee weapons don't do anything anymore, which requires its own special rules for characters carrying two special melee weapons (Abaddon etc).

My main thrust was just to make it clear that a pistol is simply a melee usable ranged weapon. What actual rule is used to represent that is less important to me.


2: I'm also not sold on any specific version of full auto/rapid fire, I just don't like a basic weapon that has two profiles and uses a doubling mechanic. Storm bolters are ridiculous at the moment, whether they're good or not.

An even simpler version is simply to say Full Auto (X), where the X is the number of extra shots granted. This decouples it from the starting number of shots so you aren't forced to make a Rapid Fire 2 weapon shoot 4 times.

It also gives you subtle control on units. ie a bolter might be FA(1), but a lasgun could be (2).

If you were to do this, I would probably follow the modifier convention of the other weapons:

Full Auto - a weapon with this can choose to add a number of extra shots to its attacks. If it does, it cannot run and suffers -1 to hit if it moves. targets at long range suffer an additional -1 to hit.



Now this swings it a bit back to making shooting better as the extra shots go to full range (even with a negative), however I think you really need to work on revising overwatch at the same time.


Combat responses
Fall Back: if you choose this option, the attacking unit makes its attacks at 6+ to hit and the unit is moved back. No morale test is required. Running away shouldn't be free.

Overwatch: you may choose to shoot with your ranged weapons before the enemy attacks, using the weapon's base attacks profile and hitting on 6+. If you do, you can't make any melee attacks. This means that overwatch is a choice and not just an extra attack option.

Combining making melee harder for defenders and guns potentially better at longer ranges and bringing back bonus attacks for extra melee/pistol weapons, should balance out somewhat.

1.) Fair enough. I do kind of like the idea of being able to add a pistol's attacks to the rest of your melee, but there are a few odd pistols out there (thinking of assassin pistols and those thousand shot strength 2 skitarii pistols) that would be harder to account for than a single plasma or melta shot.

2.) I get what you're saying here. However, I'm not sure I feel strongly that FA(2) or FA(3) compared to Rapid Fire 2 solves any major issues with the game. Storm bolters are pretty decent right now, but I'm not sure they're breaking the game. Splinter rifles and pulse rifles definitely aren't. You've got some reasonable mechanics there; I'm just not sure I see the problem they're meant to be the solution for.

Combat responses
Fall Back: if you choose this option, the attacking unit makes its attacks at 6+ to hit and the unit is moved back. No morale test is required. Running away shouldn't be free.

Overwatch: you may choose to shoot with your ranged weapons before the enemy attacks, using the weapon's base attacks profile and hitting on 6+. If you do, you can't make any melee attacks. This means that overwatch is a choice and not just an extra attack option.

I don't think I'm a fan of this. You say falling back shouldn't be free, but the issue with falling back screens isn't that they do too much damage in melee before falling back; it's that the unit that charged them is exposed to retaliatory fire from the rest of the screen's army.

Similarly, I don't generally have an issue with the melee attacks done by a unit that is good at overwatch. If some fire warriors manage to put a wound on me with their 5+ WS and Strength 3, good for them. If the death company I'm charging manage to put a wound or two on me in overwatch, I'm not generally all that concerned. My main issues with overwatch are...

A.) It's a lot of rolling for not a lot of effect unless you have special rules to make it have some effect.

B.) When you get lucky and wipe out a charging unit, it's frustrating for the charging player and feels unearned on your part.

I'd rather ditch overwatch (make it a special rule for certain units/weapons) and go with a solution to falling back that addresses the main issues with it.

Overwatch wouldn't be necessary if the game used alternating activations, so I don't see it necessary if the turn structure changed.

love it or hate it, melee weapons take up a large chunk of rules and melee units are not insignificant. I'd like to see them get back to being an equivalent choice.

Currently the number of rules required and extremes needed to create effective melee makes it unnecessarily difficult.

As unrealistic as it is, I think if you're going to have melee, you need to make a melee attack as simple to apply as a shooting attack.

Otherwise you're basically going to have to change what a point is worth if its a melee attack or a shooting attack. At the moment, unless your unit is stacked with move buffs and other tricks to avoid retaliation, melee is worth like 50% as much as a shooting attack.


I'm also not a fan of the fact that you can run away from melee, but have no ability to dive out of the way of enemy fire. All these downsides are applied to melee attacks only.

If units could 'dive for cover' and be completely unharmed from enemy shooting, I don't think anyone would like it. But people put up with it happening to melee attacks all the time.


A lot of this could be solved by creating alternating activations though.

Hellebore wrote:
Overwatch wouldn't be necessary if the game used alternating activations, so I don't see it necessary if the turn structure changed.

I don't think overwatch is necessary even with the current turn structure. It's a cute thematic rule for those who can use it well, but it's also either a time sink or a generator of feels-bad moments.

love it or hate it, melee weapons take up a large chunk of rules and melee units are not insignificant. I'd like to see them get back to being an equivalent choice.

Currently the number of rules required and extremes needed to create effective melee makes it unnecessarily difficult.

As unrealistic as it is, I think if you're going to have melee, you need to make a melee attack as simple to apply as a shooting attack.

Otherwise you're basically going to have to change what a point is worth if its a melee attack or a shooting attack. At the moment, unless your unit is stacked with move buffs and other tricks to avoid retaliation, melee is worth like 50% as much as a shooting attack.

It could be argued that melee weapons and buffs are calculated different from shooting attacks. I can't tell you exactly how many points GW's values 3 Attacks vs 2 Attacks or whether those attacks are on a unit that has a high movement versus a low one, but it is entirely possible to charge fewer points for an AP-3 power sword than for an AP-3 gun.

I'm also not a fan of the fact that you can run away from melee, but have no ability to dive out of the way of enemy fire. All these downsides are applied to melee attacks only.

If units could 'dive for cover' and be completely unharmed from enemy shooting, I don't think anyone would like it. But people put up with it happening to melee attacks all the time.

Go to Ground and Jink used to be a thing. You'd increase your odds of shaking off some damage at the cost of doing less damage yourself on the following turn. Sort of like how a melee unit will still do some damage to a unit before it falls back; just not as much as if that unit didn't fall back. I really liked those mechanics. They felt like meaningful decisions/gambles. People might object to mechanics that let you straight up choose to take zero damage from shooting, but I'm guessing there are plenty of us that wouldn't mind having an option to reduce damage from shooting again. Jinking always felt way better than spending 2CP on Lightning Fast reactions.