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Siegfriedfr wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
That really doesn't make any sense. The ranges are already stupid short.

Why are they "stupid short"?

Guess he's talking about real life. Are you unable to shoot with riles beyond rock throwing range IRL? Thre's even max range that's less than what IRL tanks would shoot for ICBM!

I would be happy to see engagement ranges in general shortened, but it is far more that just the range of shooting as others have said. Movement and melee/charge distances would need to be adjusted too.

I think the majority of shooting should be longer range than one turn of moving/charging (with possible exceptions for very fast moving units) and there should be very few ranged weapons that can shoot across the whole length of the board. I'd also like to see rate of fire reduced to similar levels as it was in 2nd ed, this way there would be a trade off between ranged attacks with less shots but able to attack from a distance and melee with more attacks but having to get into close combat range.

tneva82 wrote:

Siegfriedfr wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
That really doesn't make any sense. The ranges are already stupid short.

Why are they "stupid short"?

Guess he's talking about real life. Are you unable to shoot with riles beyond rock throwing range IRL? Thre's even max range that's less than what IRL tanks would shoot for ICBM!

I guess he was trying to pull the "realism" card.

In a sci fi tabletop game with daemons, aliens, superhumans, and fantasy weapons...

The only thing that matters is gameplay. Who cares if an ICBM has a short range, as long as it's balanced within the game rules.

I actually agree. 40k as a whole needs to make movement a bigger part of the game and it would go a long way to making movement important again.

 Sim-Life wrote:
I actually agree. 40k as a whole needs to make movement a bigger part of the game and it would go a long way to making movement important again.

Movements are more important when you can't castle and shoot. With terrain coming back as a part of the table and not just for looks, maybe it will help. In AoS the movement phase wins games.

I dont really agree. Every time I've personally suffered from a heavy Alpha Strike, it has just been my stupidity of not deploying properly. Cover and effective screening is vital for surviving first turn without overwhelming casualties, as it should be.

If I had to change something in the rules, I'd remove strats and combat doctrines. They are the only addition to the "legacy" mechanics that introduces game-breaking situations IMO.

All I can really say? Be Careful What You Wish For.

3rd-5th heavily favoured HTH, including the ‘fun’ of first turn charges where the Lawnmower unit then simply spends the game moving from combat to combat, with no opportunity to give them a good shooting up.

Combat does now seem to need a boost, particularly given weapons now dish out multiple wounds. But reducing the opportunity for shooting based armies to keep you at arms length isn’t the cure-all it first seems, as it risks the pendulum swinging too far in the other direction.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
All I can really say? Be Careful What You Wish For.

3rd-5th heavily favoured HTH, including the ‘fun’ of first turn charges where the Lawnmower unit then simply spends the game moving from combat to combat, with no opportunity to give them a good shooting up.

Combat does now seem to need a boost, particularly given weapons now dish out multiple wounds. But reducing the opportunity for shooting based armies to keep you at arms length isn’t the cure-all it first seems, as it risks the pendulum swinging too far in the other direction.

Yep, IDK if its getting to the point that more people played 8th than 3-5th or what. But no one really seems to remember a lot of the older rules and problems from those editions, not saying they all were bad, but they had their problems too.

I’m not really suggesting melee should get more powerful, or should rely on the quick and dirty tactics it does atm. And tbh, I don’t even think it’s just for melee, but to help out all armies and players in the opening of each game, and in later movement phases.
I also agree with people who think there’s more things that need to be looked at, such as lethality.

tneva82 wrote:

Siegfriedfr wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
That really doesn't make any sense. The ranges are already stupid short.

Why are they "stupid short"?

Guess he's talking about real life. Are you unable to shoot with riles beyond rock throwing range IRL? Thre's even max range that's less than what IRL tanks would shoot for ICBM!

Considering that in the real-world trained military, vastly less than 1% of bullets fired hit a person, I could say with absolute confidence that in a combat situation I would be unlikely to hit someone with a rifle at rock throwing range.

And I've hunted since age 12.

I think a big problem has been the proliferation of long-range high-power shooting on mobile, tough platforms.

These units have the ability to easily move into positions to shoot (rendering LOS blocking terrain moot or at least unreliable), deal a huge amount of damage, can soak up a huge amount of damage in return and often outrange the weaponry which would be the counter to them.

We saw this really ramp up in 6th edition with the Riptide and Waveserpent and since then it has only gotten worse since then, in my opinion.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

the_scotsman wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

Siegfriedfr wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
That really doesn't make any sense. The ranges are already stupid short.

Why are they "stupid short"?

Guess he's talking about real life. Are you unable to shoot with riles beyond rock throwing range IRL? Thre's even max range that's less than what IRL tanks would shoot for ICBM!

Considering that in the real-world trained military, vastly less than 1% of bullets fired hit a person, I could say with absolute confidence that in a combat situation I would be unlikely to hit someone with a rifle at rock throwing range.

And I've hunted since age 12.

The majority of rounds fired in combat are for the purposes of suppression, not to directly kill the enemy. You hold your enemy in place and then take them out either by dropping ordnance on their position (artillery or air support) or by flanking them. 40K has no suppression or flanking mechanics to represent this, however. In 40k if a shot didn't kill an enemy, it did nothing (the vast majority of the time).

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
All I can really say? Be Careful What You Wish For.

3rd-5th heavily favoured HTH, including the ‘fun’ of first turn charges where the Lawnmower unit then simply spends the game moving from combat to combat, with no opportunity to give them a good shooting up.

Combat does now seem to need a boost, particularly given weapons now dish out multiple wounds. But reducing the opportunity for shooting based armies to keep you at arms length isn’t the cure-all it first seems, as it risks the pendulum swinging too far in the other direction.

Agreed. I'd rather see a situation where the lockdown caused by melee is greatly reduced alongside the rigamarole you have to go through to make a melee combat happen. If Melee could just be "a thing you could do to deal damage" then I'd vastly prefer it to the weird stunlock situation we have right now and have had for many editions.

And please, for the love of fething god, please just let us not have to go through a whole freaking shooting sequence with every target unit every time you try to charge, it takes so god damn long to resolve overwatch attacks for the amount of damage it actually typically dishes out.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
All I can really say? Be Careful What You Wish For.

3rd-5th heavily favoured HTH, including the ‘fun’ of first turn charges where the Lawnmower unit then simply spends the game moving from combat to combat, with no opportunity to give them a good shooting up.

Combat does now seem to need a boost, particularly given weapons now dish out multiple wounds. But reducing the opportunity for shooting based armies to keep you at arms length isn’t the cure-all it first seems, as it risks the pendulum swinging too far in the other direction.

You contradicted yourself. You claim say that if range is reduced then melee will become dominant but also that melee needs a boost. So wouldn't shortening ranges be the boost melee needs?

 Sim-Life wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
All I can really say? Be Careful What You Wish For.

3rd-5th heavily favoured HTH, including the ‘fun’ of first turn charges where the Lawnmower unit then simply spends the game moving from combat to combat, with no opportunity to give them a good shooting up.

Combat does now seem to need a boost, particularly given weapons now dish out multiple wounds. But reducing the opportunity for shooting based armies to keep you at arms length isn’t the cure-all it first seems, as it risks the pendulum swinging too far in the other direction.

You contradicted yourself. You claim say that if range is reduced then melee will become dominant but also that melee needs a boost. So wouldn't shortening ranges be the boost melee needs?

I think the point overall is, and I agree, that melee in its current state could become overly dominant way quickly than people think.

Because it's not going to be the kind of slow, footslogging melee units that will be dominant if melee gets a huge boost. It'll be turn 1 charge zero interaction big CP combo lockdown units that emerge as the top condenders. I think when people want these kind of changes, they're looking at their poor units of say, ork boyz getting just blown away before they can ever get near an opponent on turn 3 when they'd arrive, and they don't think about stuff like Shining Spears, Custode Bikers, whatever that would just kind of be bonkers if they could just slide in turn1 guaranteed to melee.

I think with more terrain, better terrain rules, with range modifiers the reach and engagement distance could be brought down without really having to really bring it down.

Some units need to have a range increase on there weapons currently as well I think.

For infantry since I think a lot of this revolves around them, being able to jump into a pond hide in buildings. With the ability to assault into buildings and engage within them would be of huge benefit.
A lot of this would require a big change in philosophy at GW and the people making terrain to make something less like cheese, and the support for rules that match the scale 40k attempts to recreate.

Siegfriedfr wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

Siegfriedfr wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
That really doesn't make any sense. The ranges are already stupid short.

Why are they "stupid short"?

Guess he's talking about real life. Are you unable to shoot with riles beyond rock throwing range IRL? Thre's even max range that's less than what IRL tanks would shoot for ICBM!

I guess he was trying to pull the "realism" card.

In a sci fi tabletop game with daemons, aliens, superhumans, and fantasy weapons...

The only thing that matters is gameplay. Who cares if an ICBM has a short range, as long as it's balanced within the game rules.

Demons, aliens, superbeings don't invalidate ballistics that we already have. They don't invalidate physics.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
All I can really say? Be Careful What You Wish For.

3rd-5th heavily favoured HTH, including the ‘fun’ of first turn charges where the Lawnmower unit then simply spends the game moving from combat to combat, with no opportunity to give them a good shooting up.

Combat does now seem to need a boost, particularly given weapons now dish out multiple wounds. But reducing the opportunity for shooting based armies to keep you at arms length isn’t the cure-all it first seems, as it risks the pendulum swinging too far in the other direction.

5th was the beginning of shooting dominating. HTH was not favored at all.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

the_scotsman wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
All I can really say? Be Careful What You Wish For.

3rd-5th heavily favoured HTH, including the ‘fun’ of first turn charges where the Lawnmower unit then simply spends the game moving from combat to combat, with no opportunity to give them a good shooting up.

Combat does now seem to need a boost, particularly given weapons now dish out multiple wounds. But reducing the opportunity for shooting based armies to keep you at arms length isn’t the cure-all it first seems, as it risks the pendulum swinging too far in the other direction.

You contradicted yourself. You claim say that if range is reduced then melee will become dominant but also that melee needs a boost. So wouldn't shortening ranges be the boost melee needs?

I think the point overall is, and I agree, that melee in its current state could become overly dominant way quickly than people think.

Because it's not going to be the kind of slow, footslogging melee units that will be dominant if melee gets a huge boost. It'll be turn 1 charge zero interaction big CP combo lockdown units that emerge as the top condenders. I think when people want these kind of changes, they're looking at their poor units of say, ork boyz getting just blown away before they can ever get near an opponent on turn 3 when they'd arrive, and they don't think about stuff like Shining Spears, Custode Bikers, whatever that would just kind of be bonkers if they could just slide in turn1 guaranteed to melee.

Not if they can't tripoint. They just get fallen back from and die like everything else. There's nothing magical about turn 1 charge now that monsters and vehicles can shoot anyway.

Martel732 wrote:

Siegfriedfr wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

Siegfriedfr wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
That really doesn't make any sense. The ranges are already stupid short.

Why are they "stupid short"?

Guess he's talking about real life. Are you unable to shoot with riles beyond rock throwing range IRL? Thre's even max range that's less than what IRL tanks would shoot for ICBM!

I guess he was trying to pull the "realism" card.

In a sci fi tabletop game with daemons, aliens, superhumans, and fantasy weapons...

The only thing that matters is gameplay. Who cares if an ICBM has a short range, as long as it's balanced within the game rules.

Demons, aliens, superbeings don't invalidate ballistics that we already have. They don't invalidate physics.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
All I can really say? Be Careful What You Wish For.

3rd-5th heavily favoured HTH, including the ‘fun’ of first turn charges where the Lawnmower unit then simply spends the game moving from combat to combat, with no opportunity to give them a good shooting up.

Combat does now seem to need a boost, particularly given weapons now dish out multiple wounds. But reducing the opportunity for shooting based armies to keep you at arms length isn’t the cure-all it first seems, as it risks the pendulum swinging too far in the other direction.

5th was the beginning of shooting dominating. HTH was not favored at all.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

the_scotsman wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
All I can really say? Be Careful What You Wish For.

3rd-5th heavily favoured HTH, including the ‘fun’ of first turn charges where the Lawnmower unit then simply spends the game moving from combat to combat, with no opportunity to give them a good shooting up.

Combat does now seem to need a boost, particularly given weapons now dish out multiple wounds. But reducing the opportunity for shooting based armies to keep you at arms length isn’t the cure-all it first seems, as it risks the pendulum swinging too far in the other direction.

You contradicted yourself. You claim say that if range is reduced then melee will become dominant but also that melee needs a boost. So wouldn't shortening ranges be the boost melee needs?

I think the point overall is, and I agree, that melee in its current state could become overly dominant way quickly than people think.

Because it's not going to be the kind of slow, footslogging melee units that will be dominant if melee gets a huge boost. It'll be turn 1 charge zero interaction big CP combo lockdown units that emerge as the top condenders. I think when people want these kind of changes, they're looking at their poor units of say, ork boyz getting just blown away before they can ever get near an opponent on turn 3 when they'd arrive, and they don't think about stuff like Shining Spears, Custode Bikers, whatever that would just kind of be bonkers if they could just slide in turn1 guaranteed to melee.

Not if they can't tripoint. They just get fallen back from and die like everything else. There's nothing magical about turn 1 charge now that monsters and vehicles can shoot anyway.

It was HTH until GK's and Necrons, tho it always had high str shooting b.c tanks. But you had WS, BA melee focus armies along with Orks, Nids, and DE always had Wyches (tho thats b.c they are both anti tank and anti-infantry in melee), etc.. But as soon as GK's came out and then Necrons later it was 100% shooting.

IG dominated HTH lists as well. Mech vets anyone? They were shooting from vehicles that could only be hit on 6s frequently. BA were not melee focus as much as people think. We were melta focus because we needed to win the random tank damage table before we could assault anything. SW were also a shooting list that just happened to dominate HTH if someone were foolish enough to try.

The BA lists that always were around the events I went to was DSing Sguard with Priests, 2+/5++/5+++ was stupidly strong. Basically just better terminators other than shooting and they had Melta pistols/Bombs anyways. With Tacs/Rhinos/Razorbacks for anti-horde.

 Amishprn86 wrote:
The BA lists that always were around the events I went to was DSing Sguard with Priests, 2+/5++/5+++ was stupidly strong. Basically just better terminators other than shooting and they had Melta pistols/Bombs anyways. With Tacs/Rhinos/Razorbacks for anti-horde.

They were easily removed with plasma. Which IG could get dozens of easily. And then hide them in cheapo chimeras. Those lists were easy to beat. SG were garbage in 5th. Basically 5th was the beginning of AP 2 spam. Draw conclusions from that.

Why are you using melee from previous editions as an example of melee in 8th/9th? Melee has been heavily nerfed to the point that the only melee units worth taking now are the ones that can either actually pin units down and not let them fall back due to special rules or glass cannon suicide squads that can delete an enemy unit in one round.

Only a handful of those units actually exist in 8th.

 Sim-Life wrote:
Why are you using melee from previous editions as an example of melee in 8th/9th? Melee has been heavily nerfed to the point that the only melee units worth taking now are the ones that can either actually pin units down and not let them fall back due to special rules or glass cannon suicide squads that can delete an enemy unit in one round.

Only a handful of those units actually exist in 8th.

Because I can't stand revisionist history. Especially when I was there. And the gunline apologists always talk about the days when HTH dominated. Yeah, that was 3rd. Last century. Literally.

Martel732 wrote:
Demons, aliens, superbeings don't invalidate ballistics that we already have. They don't invalidate physics.

Actually daemons do invalidate physics, because they're from a dimension that doesn't follow the rules of ours.

Not if they can't tripoint. They just get fallen back from and die like everything else. There's nothing magical about turn 1 charge now that monsters and vehicles can shoot anyway.

What is this tripointing your always complaining about? The Eighth Legion has no need of such things.

 carldooley wrote:
Anyway, I currently play Tau. You want to shorten the range of my guns, make the game more decisive overall? No. If I wanted to play a cookie cutter game, I would never have stopped playing chess, or I'd have a 30k force. If you want to give your Smash Captain a gun, go right ahead, but keep in mind the difference between effective distance, and decisive distance. In the example, Effective distance is the distance at which your unit can effect other units on the board. Decisive distance, is the distance at which your unit can wipe out an enemy unit. With my Tau, and other primarily ranged armies, Effective and Decisive range is effectively the same - effective range. With melee focused armies, the ranges are again the same, except in this example it is decisive range; short melee range. Then there are armies like the Space Marines. They can effect units around them, but their goal is to get to decisive range, where they can roll the enemy units up in melee.

Ranged, Effective units generally want to stay away from enemy units, and will utilize the range of their guns as well as the movement available to them to 'kite' their opponents.
Melee, Decisive units want to get into melee as quickly as possible, and can utilize any number of what an 'effective' player could call 'dirty tricks' to get there in the shortest possible time; Drop Pods, Jetbikes, Terminator Teleports, etc.

If you are pushing for a shift towards decisive play, what are you willing to grant to effective players?

Remember when Tau were first introduced in an edition that favored melee much more strongly, but also gave them mobility tools? They weren't a static gunline faction, they were a mobile shooting faction capable of leveraging that mobility to stay at range or conduct short-ranged overwhelming strikes. And it made for a much more interesting game dynamic than 'okay, nothing moves, now I roll dice'.

Static gunlines are boring to play and boring to play against. I play Guard, and the wall of tanks with infantry meatshields as screens just isn't particularly interesting for anyone involved. So I see no compelling reason to preserve that style of gameplay as an effective strategy- if changes to the game force gunlines to adopt mobile or counter-charge elements to be effective, I consider that a win.

I don't buy this distinction between effective range and decisive range on a faction level, when we've seen that the most effective armies in ostensibly hybrid factions (namely Marines) eschew melee in favor of long-range heavy gunnery. The Iron Hands meta didn't use melee. The Imperial Fists lists loaded up with artillery and Stalker Bolt Rifles didn't either. Popular units like Aggressors and Eliminators are used solely for shooting. In a game system where there are no range penalties to shooting, taking gunline units that can stay at maximum range and put out full-strength firepower on turn 1 is far less risky than taking hybrid units that will have to close the distance (with reduced shooting effectiveness all the way) until they can make use of melee. Melee, for the most part, only works in the context of dirty tricks, with units that go all-in on it.

I used to think bringing in range and obscuration penalties from Kill Team could fix things. Having Marines go from hitting on 3+ to hitting on 5+ would be a really meaningful change. But with how readily-available re-rolls are, it would more just punish everyone who isn't a Marine with dirt-cheap Chapter Masters.

New terrain rules have the potential to work better- your anecdote about not being able to shoot a unit before it charges thanks to intervening terrain would work fine in 8th/9th, IMO. You're still going to get your free Overwatch (and as Tau, your Overwatch can be devastatingly effective), but if you want to engage the enemy normally as well, you have to either keep them at a distance to force them into the open, or flank to negate their cover. And there's more opportunity for non-gunline units to move in before being subject to fire.

For what it's worth, I recognize that the Tau codex has been hamstrung into drone spammy gunlines, and other options aren't as effective as they used to be. I think that should change. But for the good of the game as a whole, gunlines in general need some tweaking.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Demons, aliens, superbeings don't invalidate ballistics that we already have. They don't invalidate physics.

Actually daemons do invalidate physics, because they're from a dimension that doesn't follow the rules of ours.

Not if they can't tripoint. They just get fallen back from and die like everything else. There's nothing magical about turn 1 charge now that monsters and vehicles can shoot anyway.

What is this tripointing your always complaining about? The Eighth Legion has no need of such things.

THey don't invalidate ballistics, though. And while they are in our dimension, they probably don't invalidate our physics. Otherwise, chainswords wouldn't cut them, etc. Any given genre needs some base rules. Just because a few features of a genre break these rules, doesn't mean the rules are not in place. Look at the range of a modern weapon and then tell me 40K isn't silly AF.

Martel732 wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Demons, aliens, superbeings don't invalidate ballistics that we already have. They don't invalidate physics.

Actually daemons do invalidate physics, because they're from a dimension that doesn't follow the rules of ours.

Not if they can't tripoint. They just get fallen back from and die like everything else. There's nothing magical about turn 1 charge now that monsters and vehicles can shoot anyway.

What is this tripointing your always complaining about? The Eighth Legion has no need of such things.

THey don't invalidate ballistics, though. And while they are in our dimension, they probably don't invalidate our physics. Otherwise, chainswords wouldn't cut them, etc. Any given genre needs some base rules. Just because a few features of a genre break these rules, doesn't mean the rules are not in place. Look at the range of a modern weapon and then tell me 40K isn't silly AF.

yeah, but the tabletop isnt a 100% accurate representation of whats actually happening in "real life" on the battlefield. Think of it like the classic movie scene where the general moves chess pieces on a giant map.

The ranges are there to be balanced even if they don't represent accurate ranges.

Not saying that the ranges are actually balanced tho.

Martel732 wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Demons, aliens, superbeings don't invalidate ballistics that we already have. They don't invalidate physics.

Actually daemons do invalidate physics, because they're from a dimension that doesn't follow the rules of ours.

Not if they can't tripoint. They just get fallen back from and die like everything else. There's nothing magical about turn 1 charge now that monsters and vehicles can shoot anyway.

What is this tripointing your always complaining about? The Eighth Legion has no need of such things.

THey don't invalidate ballistics, though. And while they are in our dimension, they probably don't invalidate our physics. Otherwise, chainswords wouldn't cut them, etc. Any given genre needs some base rules. Just because a few features of a genre break these rules, doesn't mean the rules are not in place. Look at the range of a modern weapon and then tell me 40K isn't silly AF.

This seems like such an odd complaint to me because absolutely nothing makes sense if you take the scale literally. Why do soldiers need to stay within six feet of their comrades at all times? Why does a supersonic attack craft move around 30-40mph? Based on movement distances, is a turn only a couple of seconds? A whole game maybe ten seconds of combat?

The game's rules only start to make sense if you assume the models are grossly oversized for visual effect. The distances actually start to make sense if you play with 6mm models (Epic scale), which then puts 40K at a scale of 1" tabletop = 6ft. At that scale, 12" is 100yds and 24" is 200yds- still close range, but not unreasonable for modeling the effective range of small arms. Assume the game's scale is elastic (as Epic did) and then it works fine.

 catbarf wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Demons, aliens, superbeings don't invalidate ballistics that we already have. They don't invalidate physics.

Actually daemons do invalidate physics, because they're from a dimension that doesn't follow the rules of ours.

Not if they can't tripoint. They just get fallen back from and die like everything else. There's nothing magical about turn 1 charge now that monsters and vehicles can shoot anyway.

What is this tripointing your always complaining about? The Eighth Legion has no need of such things.

THey don't invalidate ballistics, though. And while they are in our dimension, they probably don't invalidate our physics. Otherwise, chainswords wouldn't cut them, etc. Any given genre needs some base rules. Just because a few features of a genre break these rules, doesn't mean the rules are not in place. Look at the range of a modern weapon and then tell me 40K isn't silly AF.

This seems like such an odd complaint to me because absolutely nothing makes sense if you take the scale literally. Why do soldiers need to stay within six feet of their comrades at all times? Why does a supersonic attack craft move around 30-40mph? Based on movement distances, is a turn only a couple of seconds? A whole game maybe ten seconds of combat?

The game's rules only start to make sense if you assume the models are grossly oversized for visual effect. The distances actually start to make sense if you play with 6mm models (Epic scale), which then puts 40K at a scale of 1" tabletop = 6ft. At that scale, 12" is 100yds and 24" is 200yds- still close range, but not unreasonable for modeling the effective range of small arms. Assume the game's scale is elastic (as Epic did) and then it works fine.

Yeah, the game doesn't make any sense to me in general. My main point was that the weapon ranges were already very short compared to actual weapons I can go purchase and fire myself.