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For reference, "re-introducing" 3rd edition Rapid Fire rules to work with 8th would be as such:

Model is Stationary: Normal shots at full range, Double Shots at 12"
Model Moved: Normal shots at 12"
Units that have INFANTRY models that shoot Rapid Fire or Heavy weapons cannot charge the turn they fire them.

How are you dealing with Bolter Discipline if shifting the general RF rules back to 3rd? Because if you are not changing that, then all the units that qualify (TDA, Bikes, etc) are going to benefit massively

Bolter Discipline should have been an additional shot at half range. It's dumb enough they have Marines fighting pitched battles. Encouraging them to stay in place in overlapping auras is even worse.

Nerfing rapid fire back into the stone age is going to be a big boost for anyone who has the option for an assault weapons. Like the entire Primaris line. You will never see the basic rifles again. All the the modern assault versions are balanced against rapid fire with the modern rules. It will kill all? the classic marines, as they are stuck with basic bolters. Things like shotgun scouts might come into vogue as cheep filler.

It will be a relative boost to armies like Eldar, which do not rely on rapid fire.

Custodes are already pretty crap at shooting if you don't use FW units, this wouldn't help them at all.

The armies least affected are craftworlds, harlequins, tyranids, orks.

Most marines, necrons, dark eldar, guard, have Rapid fire weapons.

IMO the issue is less with rapid fire per se and more about how it and assault weapons compare to one another.

Given that not all armies use RF as their basic weapon, they shouldn't keep pushing them to be better and better at the expense of assault weapons.


the 3rd ed rules for RF created interesting tactical decisions - you forwent your ability to assault to fire them, but you have a lot of tactical freedom in how you shot.

In this edition assault weapons were exactly that, weapons you could fire during an assault.

However it screwed with the dark eldar and orks as neither could shoot AND assault despite being very assault oriented.

You could fix this by converting their weapons to assault weapons instead and orks have that now anyway. Terminators had assault stormbolters for this reason, which was changed currently because assault sucks compared to the output of a rapid fire weapon (and the ability to assault with all weapons).


In the end there needs to be a difference but not a superiority between RF and Assault weapons that matters during the game.

I think slow RF units are going to be hit the hardest, so with Drukhari you could get within 12" to RF pretty easily, it'd be dangerous but you could do it. Necrons would become more reliant on transports and the Deceiver to be able to shoot at all and the already massively better tesla carbine would become stronger relative to the gauss blaster, I know that's really specific but you'd probably have to nudge tesla back to Assault 1 instead of Assault 2 and nerf a lot of other assault weapons to be better in line with post-nerf RF weapons, same thing with Primaris assault weapons buff from the second 8e Marine codex.

Staying just outside of range of RF weapons is going to mean they are useless, like the Necron Ghost Ark M12" R24" RF10, move or stand still if my opponent is more than 24" away it's going to be useless. This means RF units are going to be worse going first and transports are going to become more worthwhile since you're not losing out on shooting T1.

Tau Fire Warriors and AdMech Rangers have no efficient transport options. Their range might be good, but that changes them from M6 to M0, that is going to mean fewer objectives, harder to regroup and stuff like that.

RF units are going to become less mobile or more aggressive. Any effect that extends RF range is going to be huge, think Death Guard or Astra Militarum custom regiment.

Are you still working on your rewrite project BCB? I'm assuming you're considering going back to the old RF rules. Will you post updates on Dakka?

 vict0988 wrote:
Are you still working on your rewrite project BCB? I'm assuming you're considering going back to the old RF rules. Will you post updates on Dakka?

I am still working on my project, but I am not considering going back to the old RF rules. This was more of just a Elseworlds style "what if" post. I am going to be keeping Rapid Fire the same, but there will be changes to Imperial Guard Infantry Squads and Orders at the very least.

As for posting on Dakka, I probably won't for reasons.

 BaconCatBug wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:
Are you still working on your rewrite project BCB? I'm assuming you're considering going back to the old RF rules. Will you post updates on Dakka?

As for posting on Dakka, I probably won't for reasons.

Where, if anywhere, will you post?

Rapid fire should just give the attacker +1 to hit when conditions are met instead of doubling the rate of fire.

Most multiplicative functions in the game doesn't scale evenly.

 skchsan wrote:
Rapid fire should just give the attacker +1 to hit when conditions are met instead of doubling the rate of fire.

Most multiplicative functions in the game doesn't scale evenly.

This actually isn't the worst idea in the world, but it would be a better idea if the game were done under D8 or D10. +1 to hit or wound is too good in a D6 system.

I had thought about that too, but in the current system of fixed to hit rolls, its utility swings wildly from ok to amazing.

If it was a comparative system where units compared their BS to the target's Initative/defence/evade etc, then a +1BS would work well.

When it was in place, it increased a tendency to sit and shoot.

It lead to a lot of situations where moving forward put you in range of your opponents’ weapons, before you could shoot them.

Making the “standard” RF range 20”, would increase the survivability of assault units in a more meaningful way.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
When it was in place, it increased a tendency to sit and shoot.

It lead to a lot of situations where moving forward put you in range of your opponents’ weapons, before you could shoot them.

Making the “standard” RF range 20”, would increase the survivability of assault units in a more meaningful way.

I like the idea of rapid-fire weapons getting shorter range, it would reduce their effectiveness and make rifle-type weapons more punchy.

I also like the idea of rapid-fire weapons being shoot-or-charge, and of assault weapons going back to allowing a charge after you move, which again reduces killiness and increases tactical decisions.

Current edition is everyone doing everything they want, and every rule which restricts them is countered by a different rule or stratagem. Everyone is used to doing whatever they want, I never hear "oh, I can't do that" or "I dd X so I can't do Y". It's a permissive ruleset to the extreme, damn near everything is permitted!

 some bloke wrote:
I like the idea of rapid-fire weapons getting shorter range, it would reduce their effectiveness and make rifle-type weapons more punchy.

I also like the idea of rapid-fire weapons being shoot-or-charge, and of assault weapons going back to allowing a charge after you move, which again reduces killiness and increases tactical decisions.

Current edition is everyone doing everything they want, and every rule which restricts them is countered by a different rule or stratagem. Everyone is used to doing whatever they want, I never hear "oh, I can't do that" or "I dd X so I can't do Y". It's a permissive ruleset to the extreme, damn near everything is permitted!

Part of me likes the sound of this, but I'm not sure I'd like it in practice. A few concerns:

* Presumably, heavy weapons would also prevent charging after being fired. Given that 8th doesn't have a bunch of baked in unit type rules or a relentless USR, this would mean that you couldn't, for instance, charge a dreadnaught or razorback after shooting its heavy weapon. Ditto monsters, terminators, etc. You could write new rules to make exceptions for basically any unit that used to have the Relentless USR, but that's creating a lot of new rules to support the proposed change.

* In the past, marines with bolters were in an awkward place where their statlines and upgrades made them want to shoot bolters and then charge, but the rapid fire rule made them choose between one or the other. You could get around that problem by either writing another exception for marines or by making bolters into assault weapons, but the latter feels like a red flag; bolters are the most common rapid fire weapon in the game, after all.

* Kabalite warriors run into the same issue marines do. Granted, they don't really want to get into melee these days, but the handful of cute melee buffs and wargear options they have access to become that much less viable if they can't charge after shooting. Also, lowering the range on splinter rifles dramatically changes the threat range of kabalites and of the venoms they ride around in.

The only other common rapid fire weapons that spring to mind are...
* Storm/combi bolters - We probably don't need to nerf the melee terminators or other storm bolter platforms.
* Plasmaguns - I don't generally see people charging after shooting these as-is outside of niche units like chaos terminators.
* Tau pulse weapons - Tau don't generally charge as-is.
* Guard lasguns - Probably the non-marine rapid fire platform that would be the most impacted. Your proposed rules wouldn't feel all that out of place on guardsmen, but I'm not sure they're necessary either. I know catachans can be decent in melee, but I'm under the impression that the melee power of guard infantrymen isn't a problem that needs fixing at the moment.

TLDR; I see where you're coming from, but I'm not sure the game would be improved by that particular rapid fire nerf.

Yeah, I think the game probably has gone too far in the "everyone gets a medal" direction to snap back into place with a couple of patches. stormbolters used to be assault weapons, dreadnaughts and monstrous creatures had relentless, as did terminators. I guess I'm just a bit nostalgic for the time when marines couldn't do whatever they wanted (want to reroll? there's an aura for that! want to shoot then charge? it's allowed! want to move, then shoot as if stationary? there's a chapter tactic for that! want to rapidfire at full range? have bolter discipline! Want to move and fire a lascannon? it's ok, it's just -1 to hit!, etc, etc). Units used to have downsides, limitations which had to be bolstered by mixed list building. You put powerklaws in units in case of rear armour 11 vehicles, you took dreadnaughts to lock shooting units in CC, you had to weigh up shooting rapidfire or charging - units had weaknesses and shortcomings. Now the only weakness units exhibit is "dies easily to X".

I get what you're saying, but half of those examples never seemed appropriate from a lore or mechanics perspective.

A marine having to pick between shooting and punching instead of running forward while shooting followed by punching, for instance. Extra weirdness when he took the time to clip his bolter to his backpack and pull out his pistol before punching to maximize his number of attacks.

Dreadnaughts tying up shooting units that literally weren't allowed to hurt it just resulted in me mentally shouting, "It's AV12! You're accomplishing nothing! Just fail a morale test so that you run away and let your friends shoot it already!"

I'm not opposed to lowering the lethality and number of rerolls in the game or to designing units to have interactive weaknesses, but not every weakness or rules limitation contributed positively to the game.

In 3rd ed infantry could charge after shooting rapid fire i believe. That restriction is from later editions. I think changing both the way rapid fire works and charge restrictions is a bit too much of a double whammy.

Gitdakka wrote:
In 3rd ed infantry could charge after shooting rapid fire i believe. That restriction is from later editions. I think changing both the way rapid fire works and charge restrictions is a bit too much of a double whammy.

3rd Edition BGB, Page 62 wrote:A unit of warriors that remained stationary to fire heavy and/or rapid fire weapons cannot assault as it is assumed to be spending the whole turn shooting.

So if you fired at full effectiveness you couldn't charge, but if you moved and fired only the 1 shot at 12" you could.

This was changed in 4th edition to a flat prohibition

4th edition BGB, Page 29 wrote:Models carrying rapid fire weapons that wish to charge into close combat in the Assault phase may not fire in the Shooting phase - being constantly on the move limits them to short, close range bursts of fire as they charge in, the effects of which are included in the assault.

In short, this was to stop the Blood Angel Rhino Rushes of 3rd where a unit would blast up 12", pull a handbrake turn, disembark, shoot off a whopping TEN shots, then charge and then probably sweeping advance into 3 other fresh assaults.

Who are the biggest losers?

Tau of course. Few of their Rapid fire Weapons are the 24" of the Imperium, with the Krootox Gun being affected the most (not that it is taken that often...).

 BaconCatBug wrote:
In short, this was to stop the Blood Angel Rhino Rushes of 3rd where a unit would blast up 12", pull a handbrake turn, disembark, shoot off a whopping TEN shots, then charge and then probably sweeping advance into 3 other fresh assaults.

Correction: Sweeping advance happened at the morale phase when the enemy unit flees, towards the enemy unit that fled. Therefore, sweeping advance could not have been used to enter into another assault.

Was it “consolidation” instead? I do remember the rhino rush and units moving into contact with new targets in the “chase them” part of close combat.

No, it was sweeping advance. If you wiped out the enemy unit you could advance into another unit. It's one of the things the trial assault rules were meant to address.

 skchsan wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
In short, this was to stop the Blood Angel Rhino Rushes of 3rd where a unit would blast up 12", pull a handbrake turn, disembark, shoot off a whopping TEN shots, then charge and then probably sweeping advance into 3 other fresh assaults.

Correction: Sweeping advance happened at the morale phase when the enemy unit flees, towards the enemy unit that fled. Therefore, sweeping advance could not have been used to enter into another assault.

The rule quite literally says

3rd edition BGB, Page 69 wrote:Sweeping Advance
Advancing units must move the full distance rolled, in the same direction towards and though the enemt if they outpace them. If this brings them into contact with fresh enemy they move directly into base contact, effectively assaulting the enemy and beginning another close combat.

No further combat is fought during the turn that advance is madel combat is, instead, fought in the following turn. The advancing unit is considered to have launched an assault that turn, and recieves the normal +1 Attack bonus.

While you couldn't attack a second time, and the unit that Sweeping Advanced could be shot at by other units, you got to fight in the next turn with +1 attack. Remember back in 3rd you couldn't voluntarily fall back, hence the daisy chaining of combats as you'd simply advance from unit to unit, tying up units and making the units you advance into unable to shoot. Combined with the fact that Blood Angels were pretty killy and pretty hard to kill...

I think skchsan is remembering the trial assault rules which prevented "daisy chaining" combats. If you successfully pursued the unit that was attempting to fall back you merely remained in combat with it instead of wiping it out and potentially moving into another unit.