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If there was only a way to decrease lethality from an opponent getting a whole turn to kill everything, like if units kinda did movements in tandem with the other player as though the units were alternating. That would be far too complex though and GW has given no precedence with those kinds of rules.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
If there was only a way to decrease lethality from an opponent getting a whole turn to kill everything, like if units kinda did movements in tandem with the other player as though the units were alternating. That would be far too complex though and GW has given no precedence with those kinds of rules.

Lord of the Rings?

Kill-Team?

Old-AI?

You could just blanket give any unit that has yet to move or shoot in a battle -1 to hit and +1 armor save as they're dug in and defensive. You'd need to tweak scoring so that going second doesn't become an advantage, but the whole hasn't moved or shot clause could also be used by player one with advanced deployed units that may find holding still all game and keeping the bonus a good idea.

If nothing else, it adds a layer of decision making around something other than just doing the most damage.

KurtAngle2 wrote:

 catbarf wrote:
the_scotsman, I would also suggest as two more possibilities:

1. Add the long range to-hit modifier from Kill Team. Combined with obscurement, it would be much easier to avoid heavy attrition on turn 1. The problem, though, is that anything impacting to-hit penalties disproportionately impacts armies with poor BS to begin with, while armies with high BS and easy access to re-rolls are hardly affected, so this would mean some major rebalancing would be needed. Ork shooting would be in the toilet, Marines wouldn't really care.

2. AoS-style gradual accrual of CP, rather than the all-up-front allocation, would make turn 1 much less of a maximum-damage CP blowout.

I'd start at 2CP/turn base plus 1CP extra for each Battalion/3CP for each Brigade, making Battalions/Brigades less critical to generating CP than they are currently. Stratagems that are used before the game starts could just reduce from your turn 1 starting value, or even create a multi-turn deficit if you really spent a lot.

That would make stratagems more of a trade-off against each other (eg if I take two extra relics for 3CP, I might not be able to shoot-twice on the first turn), which I think would make for a more interesting play experience on top of reducing the lethality of the first two turns.

As far as other ways to reduce the negative qualities of alpha strike, I remain a big fan of Bolt Action-style alternating activation. It provides more decision points since you can be constantly reacting to your opponent, and all but guarantees that your shiny toy will be able to act before getting wiped off the board. Apocalypse and Kill Team both did something similar with a phased alternating activation mechanic, and I really enjoy the greater opportunity for counterplay it provides over IGOUGO.

Denied, too many armies need a lot of CP for pregame strats to make some units/detachments viable (GSC, Orks come to mind), therefore you can't arbitrarily kill some armies just because you don't like current CP allocation

You got me. If there's a broken mechanic that some armies need in order to function, we can't change it. We certainly never could adjust balance after the fact, or maybe fix those armies that depend on the current brainless and alpha-strike-encouraging CP mechanic.

Remember when you could start with your entire army in DS, and GW never changed it because GSC needed it to function? Good times.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
If there was only a way to decrease lethality from an opponent getting a whole turn to kill everything, like if units kinda did movements in tandem with the other player as though the units were alternating. That would be far too complex though and GW has given no precedence with those kinds of rules.

Lord of the Rings?

Kill-Team?

Old-AI?

Think the sarcasm was kinda lost there so my apologies.

 Vaktathi wrote:
The biggest fundamental problem is scale. GW wants its whole universe to be playable and represented under the same ruleset, no matter how ludicrous. We get a game where ICBM's, bayonets, divisional or corps-level artillery, simple handguns, automatic rifles, and fusion powered energy cannons bigger than battle tanks are all portrayed in the same design space, often attempting to portray each individual gunshot or blade stroke or to differentiate between different blade types of close combat weapon. We have creatures like Grots (the size of household pets) being portrayed as individual distinct elements in the same battle space as tank companies and Titans, and have armies that may numbers as few as five models or as many as a couple hundred.

This i exactly why i use 8th ed with epic scale models using half ranges for weapons/movement to play 40K on a 4x6 table because you can actually do all of those things and not have a broken game that cannot decide if it wants to be a platoon level action or an full army wide action on a 6X4 table where your ridiculously close to your enemy in 28mm scale. i mean seriously, why would you have an artillery battery START the battle within assault range of an enemy force? thats something that always bugged me about IG. 240" range(20FT) for a basalisk on at most a 4X6 table. you drop that into epic scale with a 10 foot max range even using the full 4X8 tables we have at the FLGS it just barely makes the thing use its full range across the entire table while allowing for a defense in depth as the IG like to do.. where nothing short of deepstrike, infiltration or air power can get to them comparatively quickly.

The goal should be extending the life of games, and making the game more about the experience, not encouraging people to run better lists.

Also a reason why i prefer to play 30K or 5th edition with a few house rules (incorporating the better rules from editions 3-7) to make 5th even more enjoyable for both players. this allows for a more strategic play mechanic on the table VS magic deck building stratagem reliant gotcha lists(with faction iconic traits in-built and not tied to using strats). with a much more toned down volume of fire/re-rolls in the game. remember when the biggest named characters had at most 4 wounds? the biggest monsters had 6? non-super heavy vehicles had effectively a single wound, but could also take cumulative damage? and at most dreadnoughts had 3 base CC attacks with the introduction of ironclads?(a huge deal when they got released) assuming they didn't get an arm blown off before they got there.

The games tended to last longer and be decided on a razors edge making the random turn 6 or 7 have a serious effect on the game. nobody i play with ever likes a totally one sided match especially early in turn 1/2 because it is not fun for both players. defeating the point of actually PLAYING the game to begin with.

 aphyon wrote:

The games tended to last longer and be decided on a razors edge making the random turn 6 or 7 have a serious effect on the game. nobody i play with ever likes a totally one sided match especially early in turn 1/2 because it is not fun for both players. defeating the point of actually PLAYING the game to begin with.

This is true. For older editions (and now 30k) many games were decided in later turns. Sometimes just like you say on razors edge.

What about if you had a system where the player who had to go second got to select the deployment, and the side of the board they deployed on, and got to see their opponent's complete deployment before they laid a single unit down, to give them lots of LoS blocking and cover and to set ranges? And what about if, on top of that, we made it so that a big part of the scoring for the batle-turn happened at the end of their turn, so their ability to score points for holding more objectives for example, gave the second player an advantage?

How does that all sound?

 grouchoben wrote:
What about if you had a system where the player who had to go second got to select the deployment, and the side of the board they deployed on, and got to see their opponent's complete deployment before they laid a single unit down, to give them lots of LoS blocking and cover and to set ranges? And what about if, on top of that, we made it so that a big part of the scoring for the batle-turn happened at the end of their turn, so their ability to score points for holding more objectives for example, gave the second player an advantage?

How does that all sound?

It'd improve some issues, but overall it still would be more dependant on the actual terrain and terrain rules at play no.

Also it still doesn't solve the issues that some armies fold T2 at the latest

 grouchoben wrote:
What about if you had a system where the player who had to go second got to select the deployment, and the side of the board they deployed on, and got to see their opponent's complete deployment before they laid a single unit down, to give them lots of LoS blocking and cover and to set ranges? And what about if, on top of that, we made it so that a big part of the scoring for the batle-turn happened at the end of their turn, so their ability to score points for holding more objectives for example, gave the second player an advantage?

How does that all sound?

That helps but it doesn't solve the core problem of extreme lethality. I think the best solution I've seen suggested here (other than a complete rewrite to adjust the lethality from the ground-up) is more missions that don't have your entire army start on the board in exactly the configuration you want. The problem we have right now is that a player can build an army with al these layered buffs with re-rolls and bonuses to hit and wound and, due to a combination of weapon ranges, poor terrain rules and fixed deployment, know with certainty they'll be able to buff basically everything they want from turn 1. We need to change that. I fondly remember a couple of the scenarios from 8th edition WH but one in particular was excellent because it forced players to split up their armies and think on their feet much more than 40k des right now. There was a mission in CA a few years ago that almost did this (Recon, I think) by having some of your army start off the board, but it fumbled its attempt at making an interesting scenario by having units not on the battlefield for deployment come on from turn 1.

But, if lethality was removed, at least in its extrem form, then wouldn't games with 100-200 models turn in to gigantic mosh pits. Plus powerful center pices, would be practicaly unkillable for some armies.

Now this could of course be countered by playing less points, but first I doubt GW is going to make a game system that is balanced around playing fewer models, and second there is no way for people who already bought those 2000pts amries are going to be okey with it.

Karol wrote:
But, if lethality was removed, at least in its extrem form, then wouldn't games with 100-200 models turn in to gigantic mosh pits. Plus powerful center pices, would be practicaly unkillable for some armies.

Now this could of course be countered by playing less points, but first I doubt GW is going to make a game system that is balanced around playing fewer models, and second there is no way for people who already bought those 2000pts amries are going to be okey with it.

There are ways to handle those sort of armies without needing rules that allow people to literally kill every last one of them. Morale is a big factor that 40k currently basically ignores, for example. The main point though is that reducing lethality is something that would require a complete rewrite anyway. You don't just reduce BS and AP across the board, for example, but take a more nuanced approach.

I don't think that GW is either willing to write or able to use and balance such rules.

What would happen, I think, would be that either GW would suddenly create a unit or weapn that is evaporating whole armies and gets spamed in every possible slot. While at the same time other armies, would get getting supposed anti something units that hit like a wet noodle.

nuanced and GW also doesn't seem to go hand in hand. GW things that just because something is called the same it should cost the same. And even new players like know that a RG centurion starting right in someones face, shouldn't have the same cost as a 4" moving salamander centurion starting 24"+ away.

Just look at the IH fix, instead of fixing IH, GW decided to nerf the big rule, suddenly hiting armies like DA, who were not the problem, hard. And before that almost every big FAQ or errata had changes that were nerfing GK, just because they wanted to change something in other armies.

Simple and fewer rules, is probably a safer thing with GW.

I will say No.

Games can be over on turn 2, sure. Most of mine are decided by turn 4 or cemented by 5.

When equally skilled players engage, both with optimised lists, games are rarely secured early. You get stompings when people who perhaps haven't discussed what experience they are looking for prior to a game.

Why would anyone want to speak with people they play against in the first place? it either takes up time, so others take the table, and now you can wait an hour for it to be your time to play, or more if someone else reserved the table for different hour.

And durning game talking is just distracting from following the game. Plus it somehow assumes that the people playing against each other are on neutral enough terms to talk to each other in the first place. It doesn't cover the moments where you don't want to talk to people, or when people plain and simple dislike each other.

To play games with people I hate, League of Legends is better than warhammer.

@Karol We're talking about a few messages back and forth on the club facebook page the week before game night, not taking each other out for a romantic dinner

Karol wrote:
Why would anyone want to speak with people they play against in the first place? it either takes up time, so others take the table, and now you can wait an hour for it to be your time to play, or more if someone else reserved the table for different hour.

And durning game talking is just distracting from following the game. Plus it somehow assumes that the people playing against each other are on neutral enough terms to talk to each other in the first place. It doesn't cover the moments where you don't want to talk to people, or when people plain and simple dislike each other.

Are you not capable of just saying to someone on the club facebook page "Hey what sort of game you looking for, casual or comp?"

It takes literal seconds.

Karol wrote:
Why would anyone want to speak with people they play against in the first place? it either takes up time, so others take the table, and now you can wait an hour for it to be your time to play, or more if someone else reserved the table for different hour.

And durning game talking is just distracting from following the game. Plus it somehow assumes that the people playing against each other are on neutral enough terms to talk to each other in the first place. It doesn't cover the moments where you don't want to talk to people, or when people plain and simple dislike each other.

Why are you spending hobby time with people you actively dislike? Communication can happen before you even get to the store. The only reason I ever use Facebook is to sign up for X-Wing tournaments and arrange 40k games - it's not a difficult concept to pre-arrange stuff.

OTOH, I would say the very fact you need this level of pre-game discussion is not the sign of a well-designed game. None of the other games I play require anything like that. At most there might be an agreement on points level.

Slipspace wrote:

Why are you spending hobby time with people you actively dislike?

Why are you guys assuming Karol has negative feelings toward his opponents if he doesnt want to talk to them? Maybe he is just completely neutral towards them and mostly care about the game itself?

Playing against people you dislike mostly can happen during the tournament.

Glumy wrote:

Slipspace wrote:

Why are you spending hobby time with people you actively dislike?

Why are you guys assuming Karol has negative feelings toward his opponents if he doesnt want to talk to them? Maybe he is just completely neutral towards them and mostly care about the game itself?

Playing against people you dislike mostly can happen during the tournament.

Because I've talked to Karol for more than 5 seconds? Karol allegedly plays warhammer in some kind of maximum security prison gang facility where if you don't walk into the warhammer store and punch the biggest guy there, you get dragged out back by toughs with imperium tattoos and beaten with chaos dreadnoughts in socks.

the_scotsman wrote:

Glumy wrote:

Slipspace wrote:

Why are you spending hobby time with people you actively dislike?

Why are you guys assuming Karol has negative feelings toward his opponents if he doesnt want to talk to them? Maybe he is just completely neutral towards them and mostly care about the game itself?

Playing against people you dislike mostly can happen during the tournament.

Because I've talked to Karol for more than 5 seconds? Karol allegedly plays warhammer in some kind of maximum security prison gang facility where if you don't walk into the warhammer store and punch the biggest guy there, you get dragged out back by toughs with imperium tattoos and beaten with chaos dreadnoughts in socks.

The statement that his local FLGS is not F and the groupings around it are also rarely friendly aswell as hyper competitive with winning above all else in a hobby, would have sufficed, no need to bring in the chaos dread sock off doom.

Bosskelot wrote:

Karol wrote:
It doesn't cover the moments where you don't want to talk to people, or when people plain and simple dislike each other.

Why are you guys assuming Karol has negative feelings toward his opponents if he doesnt want to talk to them?

Because that's what he said. Also, I've read his other posts over the years.

well said, scotsman
Honestly, Karols Post once again shows a situation of his playgroup that makes me wonder why anyone would play the game there.
And to answer his question, 40K is a social interaction between two players. It doesn't work without talking imo, or at least it would be a terrible experience for me if it was just "okay, 2000 points Maelstrom, let's go" and then two hours of nothing but rolling dice.
A good 40K game means you spend 20 minutes prior to the game making up a background story why these two forces fight against each other and why they're composed the way they are. I understand that's not what you do in a tournament because of time restraints, but if it was possible to have a proper 40K game with Trash Talk about the fluff in a tournament I'd probably attend one....

I agree.

I feel a lot of people who have issues with the social aspect would be better suited to put their time in a video game. One with no communication between players, preferably.

Karol wrote:
But, if lethality was removed, at least in its extrem form, then wouldn't games with 100-200 models turn in to gigantic mosh pits. Plus powerful center pices, would be practicaly unkillable for some armies.

Now this could of course be countered by playing less points, but first I doubt GW is going to make a game system that is balanced around playing fewer models, and second there is no way for people who already bought those 2000pts amries are going to be okey with it.

No they already had that fixed in previous editions through LD checks, templates, hit&run USR, instant death, fixed movement for all unit types and the fact EVERYTHING had far fewer wounds. important people had 2, non monster big leaders had 3, anything more was special and rare. the points creep back from 3rd through 5th went 1,500, 1,750, 1,850 and finally 2,000 so GW could get you to buy all those shiny big models. but keep in mind the points didn't always get you the same amount of stuff you have in 8th. although there were alot more options in the codex that didn't rely on CP to allow their use, just points cost.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
well said, scotsman
Honestly, Karols Post once again shows a situation of his playgroup that makes me wonder why anyone would play the game there.
And to answer his question, 40K is a social interaction between two players. It doesn't work without talking imo, or at least it would be a terrible experience for me if it was just "okay, 2000 points Maelstrom, let's go" and then two hours of nothing but rolling dice.
A good 40K game means you spend 20 minutes prior to the game making up a background story why these two forces fight against each other and why they're composed the way they are. I understand that's not what you do in a tournament because of time restraints, but if it was possible to have a proper 40K game with Trash Talk about the fluff in a tournament I'd probably attend one....

Just staring, eyes locked, silently rolling dice for four hours, engaged with your opponent in a titanic, sweaty, let me just say DEEPLY sensual battle of mental wills with your foe. The contest pauses only to reapply oil and re-set miniatures for another game.

It can go for weeks. This is how TRUE men engage in the game, nay, the glory of war-hammer forty thousand.

Sounds like someone wants to play 7th edition? Lol

Go play it

 grouchoben wrote:
What about if you had a system where the player who had to go second got to select the deployment, and the side of the board they deployed on, and got to see their opponent's complete deployment before they laid a single unit down, to give them lots of LoS blocking and cover and to set ranges? And what about if, on top of that, we made it so that a big part of the scoring for the batle-turn happened at the end of their turn, so their ability to score points for holding more objectives for example, gave the second player an advantage?

How does that all sound?

All this does is shift the incentive to going second. Pff - on top of all of this you can even seize the initiative which should ultimately be removed from the game at this point IMO. LOS blocking terrain as a metric for balancing the game just stagnates the game play IMO. The end result of this is very little combat because who wants to peak their head around the corner and get blasted by a whole army when you can just hide and pick around the corners. I can see some people having fun in this way but it's not the way I enjoy playing. I want both armies to meet and wither each other to pieces and I think ultimately that is the kind of game GW wants too. The issue is - the lethality is way too high. When the game is played in this way the OP is correct. Your army can only stay on the feild for a max of 3 turns before it is entirely reduced. It should be closer to 6 turns before that happens.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Galas wrote:
To play games with people I hate, League of Legends is better than warhammer.

Yes. If I want true competitive game play and to get adrenaline truly pumping. LOL all day. The cool thing about 40k is it is supposed to be fun for both players. In LOL - the fun is in making the other players not have fun.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Pff - on top of all of this you can even seize the initiative which should ultimately be removed from the game at this point IMO.

The existence of seizing the initiative is extremely important for the game. It forces the player going first to consider giving up an optimal first turn due to the risk of being blown out. For a single game, it can make sense to accept the possibility and maximize turn 1, and a poor player will accidentally do this. However, in a tournament or series, it's very likely the initiative will get seized at some point, so you always have to prepare for it.

LOS blocking terrain as a metric for balancing the game just stagnates the game play IMO. The end result of this is very little combat because who wants to peak their head around the corner and get blasted by a whole army when you can just hide and pick around the corners.

That's what objective scoring is for. Strong LoS terrain rules make the movement phase more important, and that phase is probably the most skill-testing part of the game. Otherwise the game devolves into rolling dice back and forth until somebody loses, and the only skill test is target selection, which is very straight forward.