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I agree that, somehow, wound and save rolls should be unified. After all, wearing armor can be considered as a way to compensante for the lack of a natural toughness.

tneva82 wrote:

With d6 you get lot less variety than with 2d6.

4+ to wound, 4+ to save. 25% chance of going through. Single d6 it's 16% or 33%.

3+, 5+, 22% chance.

So yeah it's mathematically same...for SOME combos. Not all.

Idea can work but would need dice with more granularity or killing is more samey. Plasma gun or lascannon? Bolter or heavy bolter? More targets for both will be same.

In "Tabletop Wargames: A Designers’ and Writers’ Handbook" Rick Priestley explains that the decision to have 3 rolls per attack came about to keep roughly 100 possible outcomes when they switched from D100 to D6, so you are right that it would need a bigger dice. Two D10 rolls would come out to 100 results again.

Or you can just come up with a rule that let's player agree that 10 intercessors shooting can become 5 intercessors shooting with bolters that infilict double the wounds (or simply become damage 2 bolters if you are shooting at a multi wound target). instead of shooting 6 agressors, just make two shoot and they will inflict triple the number of wounds (all 6 need to be in range of course).

Those d6 dices are not going anywhere we all know that, sadly. but there are simple ways to avoid throwing more than 20 of them. I mean for a new player it can be fun throwing tons of dices around, but it gets old pretty fast doesn't it.

I have comme to really hate stuff like agressors shooting, or bad moon lootas, or acolyte close combat phases (or flamethrowers), but if I could just double or triple the damage and throw that much less dice, then I would be happy again using these units.

It is why I love mortal wounds, they are just so relaxing

 addnid wrote:
Or you can just come up with a rule that let's player agree that 10 intercessors shooting can become 5 intercessors shooting with bolters that infilict double the wounds (or simply become damage 2 bolters if you are shooting at a multi wound target).

Those d6 dices are not going anywhere we all know that, sadly. but there are simple ways to avoid throwing more than 20 of them. I mean for a new player it can be fun throwing tons of dices around, but it gets old pretty fast doesn't it

Yes if we want to alter the odds of things lots of things can be done. We do have to be sure we know it's going to be altering game play and results though

tneva82 wrote:

 addnid wrote:
Or you can just come up with a rule that let's player agree that 10 intercessors shooting can become 5 intercessors shooting with bolters that infilict double the wounds (or simply become damage 2 bolters if you are shooting at a multi wound target).

Those d6 dices are not going anywhere we all know that, sadly. but there are simple ways to avoid throwing more than 20 of them. I mean for a new player it can be fun throwing tons of dices around, but it gets old pretty fast doesn't it

Yes if we want to alter the odds of things lots of things can be done. We do have to be sure we know it's going to be altering game play and results though

Yeah more variance, so for tournament play I dunno if it is easy to implement. But for anything else, if both players agree, then match play rules should allow for it. It is a shame 9th ed doesn't seem to offer anything so far to speed games up, aside from discouraging hordes (hordes are faster to play for someone like me than elite units throwing insane amounts of dice, because i am fast at moving units, but not that fats at throwing dice, don't ask me why...) .

Even for tourney play, "I am an nice guy you are a nice guy too, so lets agree to triple damage my 20 attacks instead of me making 60 attacks", would probably not change much to the outcome of the game honestly. Variance over 20 dice make for a reliable enough outcome, no need to throw 60 if you think about it...

I wonder what is going to happen to the rule of 3 in the new edition. Currently it's an add-on for Matched Play, but not a core rule. Some of these new armies they have been talking about can't really exists with it in place. For example, a pure deathwing army is going to struggle since it only has one terminator squad (not including knights), instead of 2 separate unit entries. Normally this is a bonus (mixed weapons) but it would be a pain with rule of 3. Granted, Combat Squadding 10 man sqds does exist too.
I certainly want some form of cap though as I don't want a return of 9x best unit in codex, etc.

It's possible that the new Detachment rules are closer to AoS, where you have a minimum requirement of Core units and Heroes that scales based upon the points values you're playing at.

They did seemingly mention different 'styles' of gameplay as well.

I mean deathwing have tartaros and cathapractii too.

 Galas wrote:
I mean deathwing have tartaros and cathapractii too.

Yes, because four units of indomitus terminators is broken cheese, but three units of indomitus terminators, three units of tartator terminators and three units of cataphrachtii terminators is fine and dandy. Rule of thee is just stupid. In this instance it would force the Deathwing player to field mismatched hodgepodge of terminators instead of having an unified look and certainly not for any improvement in balance. I really hope they remove it in the 9th edition.

 bullyboy wrote:
I wonder what is going to happen to the rule of 3 in the new edition. Currently it's an add-on for Matched Play, but not a core rule. Some of these new armies they have been talking about can't really exists with it in place. For example, a pure deathwing army is going to struggle since it only has one terminator squad (not including knights), instead of 2 separate unit entries. Normally this is a bonus (mixed weapons) but it would be a pain with rule of 3. Granted, Combat Squadding 10 man sqds does exist too.
I certainly want some form of cap though as I don't want a return of 9x best unit in codex, etc.

I am very interested in the Matched Play rules that 9th will bring in - they did keep taking about all-Deathwing armies. Perhaps this was just guys on Zoom saying the first thing that pops in their head, but it was noticeable (and a little encouraging?)

The Detachment structure (assuming its still Detachments) is also something I am curious about, linked to the discussions on CPs etc.

 Crimson wrote:

 Galas wrote:
I mean deathwing have tartaros and cathapractii too.

Yes, because four units of indomitus terminators is broken cheese, but three units of indomitus terminators, three units of tartator terminators and three units of cataphrachtii terminators is fine and dandy. Rule of thee is just stupid. In this instance it would force the Deathwing player to field mismatched hodgepodge of terminators instead of having an unified look and certainly not for any improvement in balance. I really hope they remove it in the 9th edition.

Jeez. With how many people is embarked on their own personal crusade in this forum, one could assume this is a Horus Heresy roleplaying one.

 Galas wrote:
one could assume this is a Horus Heresy roleplaying one.

it is not?

 Galas wrote:
I mean deathwing have tartaros and cathapractii too.

strongly dislike both of those armour types for 40K and only have Indomitus. But still. we'll see what the new edition brings in light of army building. I will be happy to not b hamstrung by the 8th edition CP system.

 Galas wrote:

Jeez. With how many people is embarked on their own personal crusade in this forum, one could assume this is a Horus Heresy roleplaying one.

They could (should) implement the rule of 3 as a key word, as opposed to a blanket across the board rule.

Then, units that should be limited, are done so, and units that do not need to be limited would not be.

Even more efficient, would be the unlimited keyword. And then for specific armies, Deathwing as its the working example, they are able to grant units the unlimited keyword if all units in the army have the Deathwing keyword.

 Galas wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

 Galas wrote:
I mean deathwing have tartaros and cathapractii too.

Yes, because four units of indomitus terminators is broken cheese, but three units of indomitus terminators, three units of tartator terminators and three units of cataphrachtii terminators is fine and dandy. Rule of thee is just stupid. In this instance it would force the Deathwing player to field mismatched hodgepodge of terminators instead of having an unified look and certainly not for any improvement in balance. I really hope they remove it in the 9th edition.

Jeez. With how many people is embarked on their own personal crusade in this forum, one could assume this is a Horus Heresy roleplaying one.

It would be great indeed if they understood that no ones gives a f about their terminator ramblings. Maaaaaaan... I usually have a high tolerance for that kind of stuff, but some just take it too far...

I second that wound rolls are beginning to feel some what redundant and old fashioned. I mean, to hit is how good your dude is at aiming, to wound is how strong your weapon is, save is your armour, then dmg is how... strong your weapon is. So shouldn’t an amount of wounds and an amount of dmg be showing you how tough a unit is/ how strong a gun is now?

The way I see it is that all the rolls make sense so far. I haven't played in a little however, so not sure how it would hold up. But to hit = did you hit them anywhere, wound = it hit a fleshy piece (not glancing off a shoulder guard), save = did the armor hold, and damage = did I hit you in the chest with a lascannon or did I hit just blow off a hand?

I don't know. I just want Crusader squads to have a purpose again.

Rule of 3 feels like a sledgehammer solution that could use a more nuanced alternative, like maybe limiting especially problematic units to '1 per detachment' or similar.

It never felt right that I can take several dozen Leman Russes, but not four units of Veterans.

 Tiberius501 wrote:
I second that wound rolls are beginning to feel some what redundant and old fashioned. I mean, to hit is how good your dude is at aiming, to wound is how strong your weapon is, save is your armour, then dmg is how... strong your weapon is. So shouldn’t an amount of wounds and an amount of dmg be showing you how tough a unit is/ how strong a gun is now?

Yeah, this is pretty much how I've felt for most of 8th; what Damage currently does is what Strength used to do (eg Instant Death). There aren't many weapons with high S / low Dam, or low S / high Dam, and statistically they don't behave very differently on the tabletop. It would make more sense to roll to hit, roll to beat armor (including 'innate toughness'; just use a unified stat for 'how hard is this thing to hurt'), then apply damage. The problem is that, as stated by others, the D6 system doesn't allow for a ton of variance within that paradigm, especially when most things in the game hit on 3+ to start with- but rolling extra dice to get the desired bell curve is a pretty clunky resolution. Switching to a different die type- or combining different dice, like how Apocalypse does it- would help.

Not sure if you're familiar with it, but the Starship Troopers game system managed to condense it all down to a single attack roll. If you beat the target's Hit value, then they get to roll a Save, and take a wound if they fail. If you beat the target's Kill value, no save, take a wound. Unit runs out of wounds, it dies. Differences in weapon effectiveness are represented by numbers of dice, types of dice and modifiers, so a basic assault rifle might be D6, a super-armor-piercing sniper round might be D10+2, and a low-penetration but high-damage bomb might be 6D6. Throw in bonuses/penalties (eg due to accuracy) as straight modifiers, and you get a very fast-playing system that still has a usefully deep design space.

 catbarf wrote:
Rule of 3 feels like a sledgehammer solution that could use a more nuanced alternative, like maybe limiting especially problematic units to '1 per detachment' or similar.

It never felt right that I can take several dozen Leman Russes, but not four units of Veterans.

.

That would be essentially same except worse in 8th and not likely to be much better in 9th...

Yeah that sounds quite good. I like the idea of D12’s or whatever taking over from D6’s, and then rolling less dice, and moving to units having unit stats, rather than individual model stats.

Unit has X amount of wounds, hits on a 3+ or whatever, shoots a couple of dice, enemy rolls to save, takes dmg. The new Apocalypse game is quite close to that actually, and seems a lot better. I’m just not a fan of the weird random ability deck thing that goes on.

Anyway, this will never happen, unfortunately, and as much as I’d like it, 8th works okay, and 9th seems to be improving on the biggest issues, besides these things.

 Galas wrote:
I mean deathwing have tartaros and cathapractii too.

They also have Deathwing Knights you can take instead of the standard Terminator.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
I'd also like to point out that rolling saves is neither interactive nor does it allow you to influence the game. It just gives you something to do.

By giving you something to do it is therefore interactive. It's something you can do to save your troops. Not having it and just sitting there with nothing to do would be awful.

But that's not interaction. You basically being degraded to a dice rolling machine because the rules say you have to roll them instead of your opponent. If saves were rolled by the shooting person, it would change nothing about the game.
Actual interaction like previous editions going to ground would be really awesome. As it is now, I'd personally prefer wandering off and talking to other people over sitting there and rolling a few dice every minute or so. As ork or DG player I'm completely obsolete during my opponent's shooting phase.

 catbarf wrote:
Rule of 3 feels like a sledgehammer solution...

So... exactly the kind of thing GW does all the time.

 catbarf wrote:
... maybe limiting especially problematic units to '1 per detachment' or similar.

And limit sales of miniatures? I doubt that.

I for one am all for the rule of three. Until recently there was The force organization chart where players only had 3 fast attack, heavy support, and elite slots. So you couldn't have more than three non-troop units anyways and I find that to be much better than running into all the spam lists in more recent years.

Let's be honest: Rule of 3 exists because tournament player will always spam as many og a given "best unit" as they can in a single list.

Anybody claiming for a "1 per detachment" as a solution to the rule of three isn't a Tau player. Feth that nonsense approach. Rule of three is extremely fine. Theres a couple outliers here and there but as a general rule it has accomplished what it wanted.

Also the "rule of 3" isn't actually a rule, but that's a whole separate discussion...

After the excitement is wearing off, I am getting worried abot boltpistols blowing up tanks again. Ick. That always reminds me of the bridge science during Saving Private Ryan. If grots can't stop your tank, then they shoudn't be able to damage it without appropriate arms, either.

I do remember irritating a friend a long time ago, when I kept talking about how to design a tank-killing potato gun. I stole the idea of using bromine from my chem prof. Just hollow out the potato, put a flask of bromine in there, cap it, wrap it, and aim for something tender for the bromine to eat. Best I could do, but the very idea pissed him off.

 jeff white wrote:
After the excitement is wearing off, I am getting worried abot boltpistols blowing up tanks again. Ick. That always reminds me of the bridge science during Saving Private Ryan. If grots can't stop your tank, then they shoudn't be able to damage it without appropriate arms, either.

I do remember irritating a friend a long time ago, when I kept talking about how to design a tank-killing potato gun. I stole the idea of using bromine from my chem prof. Just hollow out the potato, put a flask of bromine in there, cap it, wrap it, and aim for something tender for the bromine to eat. Best I could do, but the very idea pissed him off.

I don't really want to go back to that system since it means having a tank one shotted by a good damage table roll.

Besides, there are parts of a tank that can be damaged by other weapons. Heck, get it to throw a track and it's a sitting duck.