Overwhat? Overwatch! Just less of it

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**Wakshaani**

Well, let's look at the sample snippet we have:

"Any rule that states that the unit cannot be targeted unless it is the closest target (e.g. Look Out, Sir) does not apply when firing Overwatch."

From this we can extrapolate that the new character rule is Look Out, Sir and that, at least in part, it reads "This model cannot be targeted unless it is the closest model." or words to that effect.

There may be a targeting restriction (IE, can shoot this model if another is closer but can't be targeted, such as one behind a wall 3" away vs a character 14" away), and there may some cases where it isn't in effect (IE, a model with 10+ wounds) but, overall, this looks to be the general character rule.

**Arachnofiend**

Gadzilla666 wrote:
Daedalus81 wrote:
H.B.M.C. wrote:
Two words: Character sniping.

My hope is that "Look Out, Sir!" is a strat that allows protection against Snipers. If it's a general rule that make characters harder to target, that means characters can be targeted, which means death for a lot of character units (who's going to bring the otherwise useless Malanthrope if it can be shot from the word go?), and it also takes away the point of actual sniper units.

Oh, right. My mental process went to the current character targeting along with Look Out, Sir. Sniper units are way more lethal now and plenty of armies lack bodyguards.

Plenty of armies lack snipers as well.

Snipers being a threat to characters wouldn't be as much of a problem if everyone's snipers were a threat to characters. Deathmarks and many of the other older snipers are useless and as you said some armies straight up don't have access to a sniper unit.

**H.B.M.C.**

Daedalus81 wrote:
Oh, right. My mental process went to the current character targeting along with Look Out, Sir. Sniper units are way more lethal now and plenty of armies lack bodyguards.

I'm fine with their being a rule to counter snipers. Snipers should be dangerous, and having to expend a strategic resource to protect against them seems fair.

I do not want all characters to be targetable at all times, which is why the "Look Out, Sir!" thing has me worried. It would be a massive shift in power, and utterly invalidate certain units (Guard officers might as well not show up).

Of course, in the case of Guard Officers, if they were actually part of their command squads, which they used to be, which was the entire point of Command Squads and why they were introduced in second edition (and lasted 6 whole editions!), then that'd be less of a problem for them. But that's a separate issue.

**Argive**

JNAProductions wrote:
Castozor wrote:
It is not bad game design though. Why exactly should my tanks fear bolters plinking of the last 2 wounds they have? I will admit this is my first edition of 40k but I never had a problem with certain units not being able to wound my super tough units in other games.
The fact that I can have an entirely T8 army. (T9, with Chaos Knigts, at the cost of d3 mortals a turn.)

So once I silence your anti-tank weapons, I'm effectively immune to you.

Except now you wont be able to see any of the AT shooting at you let alone holding/taking actions on objectives to score VP.

The old wound chart makes much more sense than fishing for 6's... re-rolling 1's.

**Amishprn86**

Arachnofiend wrote:
Gadzilla666 wrote:
Daedalus81 wrote:
H.B.M.C. wrote:
Two words: Character sniping.

My hope is that "Look Out, Sir!" is a strat that allows protection against Snipers. If it's a general rule that make characters harder to target, that means characters can be targeted, which means death for a lot of character units (who's going to bring the otherwise useless Malanthrope if it can be shot from the word go?), and it also takes away the point of actual sniper units.

Oh, right. My mental process went to the current character targeting along with Look Out, Sir. Sniper units are way more lethal now and plenty of armies lack bodyguards.

Plenty of armies lack snipers as well.

Snipers being a threat to characters wouldn't be as much of a problem if everyone's snipers were a threat to characters. Deathmarks and many of the other older snipers are useless and as you said some armies straight up don't have access to a sniper unit.

The problem is Imperial has a good assassin sniper, i think that is what they really are concerned about.

**Slayer-Fan123**

dhallnet wrote:
yukishiro1 wrote:
Stuff not being able to hurt other stuff is bad game design. One of the better things they have done in recent editions is made 6s always wound, and in 9th, 6s will also always hit. It would be very strange indeed to flip it around in 9th so 6s always hit but don't always wound.

8th edition suffers hugely from rolling too many dice, but "fishing for 6s" is such a tiny part of that equation. Rerolls and ridiculous rate of fire are the main culprits.

No, it's not.
With how the game is set up, the "new" wounding chart is actually an issue. Everything being able to hit and wound everything is quite bad. It is the basis of what promotes quantity over quality, as it covers every bases you'll need in your army and tends to promote medium size weapons (anti light vehicles, heavy infantry) which in turns either reduce the usability of their favoured targets or force designers to buff them out of proportion (I'm pretty sure everyone one has obvious examples in mind). It also promotes wound inflation in profiles as toughness isn't as good as it should.

I don't know why it feels normal to have troops with knifes be able to blow up a predator just because they have numbers.
If you design a game with such a scale that you have nurglings facing titans, it's perfectly fine for something to not be able to wound something else. It actually already exists with hand to hand units without fly and aircrafts for example. I dunno why it can't be a thing for vehicles or tough monsters versus F4 or lower for example.
If someone has to face off against an army it can't scratch, it's kinda his own issue. If someone had no option to deal with aircrafts at the moment, I don't think we would be saying "OMG, the rules needs to be changed !!!" rather than "it's ok mate, get some ranged weapons next time".

The new wounding chart is an issue because GW is still sticking with a D6 system.

**yukishiro1**

Troops with knives destroying a tank isn't that far-fetched. Obviously they're not going to be chopping the tank up with their knives, but you can think of it as infantry swarming the tank and disabling its treads, ripping stuff off it, or prying a cover open and getting into the tank to kill the people inside it.

Nor is it particularly far-fetched that a lot of laser guns or exploding slugs can damage and ultimately disable a tank with enough shots. Every weapon in 40k is much more deadly than the weapons we have today.

I honestly don't get the "realism" argument here at all. It just seems objectively wrong.

The gameplay argument doesn't convince me at all either. I don't see any good that comes from making heavy units completely immune to weaker weapons. The reason people gravitate towards mid-S weaponry is because it's the most efficient against a wide range of targets - isn't that exactly as it should be? At the very most, it's an argument that things like lascannons are overcosted - in which case, just bring down their points?

**H.B.M.C.**

Same issue that they described with overwatch: If you're just rolling dice fishing for 6's because you can, then it's wasting time in the game. A bunch of Slugga boyz firing at Knight 'cause they've got nothing else to do shouldn't be a thing.

Plus it's not a "realism" argument, it's just something that doesn't work on a conceptual level. Infantry don't unload their weapons into enemy armour in the hope they'll get lucky. They take cover and call in anti-tank assets.

**catbarf**

It takes 99 S4 hits on average to kill a Predator, or 216 S4 hits to kill a Leman Russ. How many of the people complaining about this remote possibility have actually done so in-game?

The complaint is based on the sheer possibility that a low-strength attack could hurt a tank, so switching to a D10 wouldn't fix anything- people would still complain that theoretically enough lasguns could roll 10s or whatever to kill a Predator from full health.

**JNAProductions**

I mean, in theory, 8 Goff Choppa Boys who advanced can kill an Iron Hands Land Raider from full to dead in one turn.

Sure, the odds are about .00000000000000000000000000000000000024%, but hey!

**yukishiro1**

Using your shooting or melee phase to make attacks isn't really "fishing for 6s" and it isn't something that should be discouraged, no matter how unlikely the chance of success. The argument here seems to be: they should just roll over and die to save time. I don't think that's fun gameplay.

If each model making their shooting and/or melee attack is slowing down the game too much, that's because the volume of dice is too high to begin with. Saying "the game takes too long because too many weak units are trying to hurt strong ones when really they shouldn't even be able to hurt them at all" seems really silly to me.

**Vaktathi**

catbarf wrote:
It takes 99 S4 hits on average to kill a Predator, or 216 S4 hits to kill a Leman Russ. How many of the people complaining about this remote possibility have actually done so in-game?

The problem becomes when those bolters get to reroll hits and wounds and are sporting AP-2, and all of a sudden a basic Troops unit is putting out more hurt on a tank than a Quadlas Predator is.

Alternatively, when people insist on rolling their mass-o-infantry dice in the hope of maybe plinking off a wound and waste a bunch of time repeatedly doing so to no real meaningful effect just because they could

**yukishiro1**

Yeah, but again, that's a problem with volume of fire and rerolls and AP bonuses and everything else that makes you end up rolling a bajillion dice and making armor marginally effective.

**Daedalus81**

H.B.M.C. wrote:
Same issue that they described with overwatch: If you're just rolling dice fishing for 6's because you can, then it's wasting time in the game. A bunch of Slugga boyz firing at Knight 'cause they've got nothing else to do shouldn't be a thing.

Plus it's not a "realism" argument, it's just something that doesn't work on a conceptual level. Infantry don't unload their weapons into enemy armour in the hope they'll get lucky. They take cover and call in anti-tank assets.

There's tons of exposed crap on Knights and other vehicles.

Whilst many hand-held infantry anti-tank weapons will not penetrate the front armor of a tank, they may penetrate the less heavily armored top, rear, and sides. Anti-tank weapons can damage the tracks or running gear to inflict a mobility kill. Early WWII tanks had open vision slits that could be fired through to kill the crew. Later tanks' slits had thick glass, as well as sights and periscopes which could still be damaged with powerful small arms such as anti-tank rifles and heavy machine guns, hampering the crew. If all else fails, the hatch could also be forced open and grenades thrown inside, although later tank designs often have hatches designed to be difficult to open from the outside.

**Gadzilla666**

Want infantry to be able to realistically bring down heavy armour without dedicated anti-tank weapons? Let em stick them with krak grenades and melta bombs in cc again. An infantry squad can bring down a warhound titan if they stick enough melta bombs in the right place.

Worked for First Claw.

**H.B.M.C.**

Daedalus81 wrote:
There's tons of exposed crap on Knights and other vehicles.

Yeah and they still wouldn't shoot them for that reason.

As I said, infantrymen don't unload small arms, draining their M-16 magazines and then moving onto their sidearms and then finally their combat knives in the hope that the weight of fire and the chance of hitting "weak spots" will blow up enemy tanks. They call in dedicated AT support instead.

And it is fishing for 6's.

**Spoletta**

H.B.M.C. wrote:
Daedalus81 wrote:
There's tons of exposed crap on Knights and other vehicles.
Yeah and they still wouldn't shoot them for that reason.

As I said, infantrymen don't unload small arms, draining their M-16 magazines and then moving onto their sidearms and then finally their combat knives in the hope that the weight of fire and the chance of hitting "weak spots" will blow up enemy tanks. They call in dedicated AT support instead.

And it is fishing for 6's.

In a modern conflict and using modern warfare rules they will not.

This will not stop an ork at unloading his shoota just because he can.
That will not stop a tyranid at shooting whatever crap he has at the tank.
That will not stop an Astartes, because they have mini rocket launchers and the accuracy to make it count.
That will not stop a necron from disintegrating your armor.
That will not stop even guards at times! Because not firing at the enemy and running for cover can be bad news if you have a commissar near you!

In the end, 40K is not an highly logical and highly efficient warfare. Soldiers are not kept in high consideration due to morale reasons and due to the high cost of training one. In 40K life is cheap pretty much for all factions.

40K warfare is a meatgrinder where selfless/foolish/desperate acts like unloading your gun at a tank are a common sight, and the rule system of 40K needs to manage those kind of actions, because they are dramatic and epic. You can't just say "Lol dumb move everyone dies", because the narrative of 40K is not like that.

**aphyon**

To funny. they have a rule that existed in 2nd ed, they then removed it for 3rd, 4th and 5th, brought it back in 6th (and i say it was a fine part of the game that never should have left) but then they redesign the entire game mechanics and suddenly it becomes a problem ...so now they highly restrict it's use.

Gotta love the GW roller coaster.

**JawRippa**

aphyon wrote:
To funny. they have a rule that existed in 2nd ed, they then removed it for 3rd, 4th and 5th, brought it back in 6th (and i say it was a fine part of the game that never should have left) but then they redesign the entire game mechanics and suddenly it becomes a problem ...so now they highly restrict it's use.

Gotta love the GW roller coaster.

Wasn't Overwatch a completely different beast back then? Instead of freebie shooting you had to skip your shooting phase to shoot during opponent's turn?

**Eldarain**

JawRippa wrote:
aphyon wrote:
To funny. they have a rule that existed in 2nd ed, they then removed it for 3rd, 4th and 5th, brought it back in 6th (and i say it was a fine part of the game that never should have left) but then they redesign the entire game mechanics and suddenly it becomes a problem ...so now they highly restrict it's use.

Gotta love the GW roller coaster.

Wasn't Overwatch a completely different beast back then? Instead of freebie shooting you had to skip your shooting phase to shoot during opponent's turn?

Correct. The free bullets version added in 6th shares little beyond the name and whose turn it happens in.

**JawRippa**

I have a funny theory. Since charging is not punished all the time by opponent showering your squad with dice, you can attempt any 12" charge. This could probably slow down the game, so in time GW will return fixed charging ranges based on movement speed.

Now THAT would be some roller coasting I'd love to see

**Eldarain**

JawRippa wrote:
I have a funny theory. Since charging is not punished all the time by opponent showering your squad with dice, you can attempt any 12" charge. This could probably slow down the game, so in time GW will return fixed charging ranges based on movement speed.

Now THAT would be some roller coasting I'd love to see

A rumor that correctly predicted the Overwatch change also said you'll fail multi charges if you don't reach every target. Presumably in direct response to the removal of the previous deterrent.

**Blackie**

JawRippa wrote:
I have a funny theory. Since charging is not punished all the time by opponent showering your squad with dice, you can attempt any 12" charge. This could probably slow down the game, so in time GW will return fixed charging ranges based on movement speed.

Now THAT would be some roller coasting I'd love to see

Not that rolling charges really slows the game down because, you know, not many charges are actually rolled but I'd also love fixed charging ranges, I'd just keep the dice rolling for units that arrive by deep strike because otherwise they'd either teleport and auto charge (broken combo) or can't charge at all, being 9'' from the enemy and having lower charge range.

**dhallnet**

yukishiro1 wrote:
Troops with knives destroying a tank isn't that far-fetched. Obviously they're not going to be chopping the tank up with their knives, but you can think of it as infantry swarming the tank and disabling its treads, ripping stuff off it, or prying a cover open and getting into the tank to kill the people inside it.

Yeah, you're gonna pry open armoured plates on a moving tank with a knife. In the span of a battle.
And the guys inside will be surprised and not prepared to take you out when you manage to get in.
It all makes sense !

Nor is it particularly far-fetched that a lot of laser guns or exploding slugs can damage and ultimately disable a tank with enough shots. Every weapon in 40k is much more deadly than the weapons we have today.

Anti infantery weapons/ammo isn't designed to take out vehicles. It will scratch the paint job and that's it. Even a bolt, it's an explosive ammo, not an armour plating penetrating device. Even if the weapons are deadlier, the armor is designed to withstand them, otherwise it makes no sense to produce armor in the first place. A tank designed to endure a few lascanon shots, should probably not be concerned at all by lasguns.

The gameplay argument doesn't convince me at all either. I don't see any good that comes from making heavy units completely immune to weaker weapons. The reason people gravitate towards mid-S weaponry is because it's the most efficient against a wide range of targets - isn't that exactly as it should be? At the very most, it's an argument that things like lascannons are overcosted - in which case, just bring down their points?

We are arguing that mid-S weapons are too efficient because the wounding table favors them too much.
You are arguing that since they are so efficient AV weapons should cost less.
It's debatable how to fix this but it seems we are agreeing there is an issue. I personally don't think it's worth risking AV weapons becoming decent against elites by diminishing their cost just to keep knifes being able to blow up tanks.

**Mad Doc Grotsnik**

JawRippa wrote:
I have a funny theory. Since charging is not punished all the time by opponent showering your squad with dice, you can attempt any 12" charge. This could probably slow down the game, so in time GW will return fixed charging ranges based on movement speed.

Now THAT would be some roller coasting I'd love to see

Would it slow it down though?

A charged unit rolling to hit, to wound, charging unit rolling saves then charge unit rolling damage (where applicable) followed by potential backup saves by the charging unit simply does not equate to ‘roll 2D6 to determine your charge reach’. Even where re-rolls and other perks might be involved.

Rolling for every charge you could potentially make does not slow the game down. Like, at all.

**aphyon**

dhallnet wrote:
yukishiro1 wrote:
Troops with knives destroying a tank isn't that far-fetched. Obviously they're not going to be chopping the tank up with their knives, but you can think of it as infantry swarming the tank and disabling its treads, ripping stuff off it, or prying a cover open and getting into the tank to kill the people inside it.

Yeah, you're gonna pry open armoured plates on a moving tank with a knife. In the span of a battle.
And the guys inside will be surprised and not prepared to take you out when you manage to get in.
It all makes sense !

Nor is it particularly far-fetched that a lot of laser guns or exploding slugs can damage and ultimately disable a tank with enough shots. Every weapon in 40k is much more deadly than the weapons we have today.

Anti infantery weapons/ammo isn't designed to take out vehicles. It will scratch the paint job and that's it. Even a bolt, it's an explosive ammo, not an armour plating penetrating device. Even if the weapons are deadlier, the armor is designed to withstand them, otherwise it makes no sense to produce armor in the first place. A tank designed to endure a few lascanon shots, should probably not be concerned at all by lasguns.

The gameplay argument doesn't convince me at all either. I don't see any good that comes from making heavy units completely immune to weaker weapons. The reason people gravitate towards mid-S weaponry is because it's the most efficient against a wide range of targets - isn't that exactly as it should be? At the very most, it's an argument that things like lascannons are overcosted - in which case, just bring down their points?

We are arguing that mid-S weapons are too efficient because the wounding table favors them too much.
You are arguing that since they are so efficient AV weapons should cost less.
It's debatable how to fix this but it seems we are agreeing there is an issue. I personally don't think it's worth risking AV weapons becoming decent against elites by diminishing their cost just to keep knifes being able to blow up tanks.

Great points dhallnet, it is one of the more infuriating things about 8th edition for me when it comes to immersion. you want to kill a tank, bring a dedicated anti-take weapon...otherwise you just roll crew inconvenienced (TSOLR joke)

There is no way an infantry arm should be able to even damage a tank especially facing front armor. or infantry "swarming " a tank moving at combat speed. lets see you run up to and hit/jump on a tank doing 30MPH + 4th edition vehicle assault rules got that part right.

**Sherrypie**

Infantry swarming vehicles has always been a thing. In the battles of Shanghai and Taierzhuang Chinese forces used suicide bombers with grenade and dynamite harnesses to literally throw themselves under the tracks and succeeded in halting the Japanese armour from advancing in the second Sino-Japanese war. During the Winter War, Finnish ambush troops regularily stopped and destroyed Soviet tanks by forcing firewood in their tracks and filling their engine decks with Molotov cocktails. Same with the undersupplied insurgents of the Warsow uprising. Or the desperate night battles of the Pacific with US marines etc.

It's not that taking armour out by hand is stretching any believability, it's just very dangerous. In 40k you have endless masses of troops either too dumb or fanatic to care about their lives, so it's very much the expectation that an unsupported tank will get destroyed in close assaults in short order even if it makes the enemy pay a high price in men to do so.

**Mad Doc Grotsnik**

It’s also not them beating on the hull with fists, is it?

Get up close, jam the barrel of your gun in a vision slit and have at it, or jam a Krak Grenade under an armour plate, right in the squishy bits. Hell, even stuff rags into exhaust pipes, blocking them up as best you can.

**dhallnet**

Sherrypie wrote:
Infantry swarming vehicles has always been a thing. In the battles of Shanghai and Taierzhuang Chinese forces used suicide bombers with grenade and dynamite harnesses to literally throw themselves under the tracks and succeeded in halting the Japanese armour from advancing in the second Sino-Japanese war. During the Winter War, Finnish ambush troops regularily stopped and destroyed Soviet tanks by forcing firewood in their tracks and filling their engine decks with Molotov cocktails. Same with the undersupplied insurgents of the Warsow uprising. Or the desperate night battles of the Pacific with US marines etc.

It's not that taking armour out by hand is stretching any believability, it's just very dangerous. In 40k you have endless masses of troops either too dumb or fanatic to care about their lives, so it's very much the expectation that an unsupported tank will get destroyed in close assaults in short order even if it makes the enemy pay a high price in men to do so.

Infantry fighting tanks with grenades or stratagems is fine. Them hitting tanks with their fist or using their knife as can openers, isn't.
Infantry doesn't pay a high price in men if they assault a tank in 8ed since they are immune to any damage as long as they stay in contact unless the tank explode.

**Tristanleo**

Blackie wrote:
JawRippa wrote:
I have a funny theory. Since charging is not punished all the time by opponent showering your squad with dice, you can attempt any 12" charge. This could probably slow down the game, so in time GW will return fixed charging ranges based on movement speed.

Now THAT would be some roller coasting I'd love to see

Not that rolling charges really slows the game down because, you know, not many charges are actually rolled but I'd also love fixed charging ranges, I'd just keep the dice rolling for units that arrive by deep strike because otherwise they'd either teleport and auto charge (broken combo) or can't charge at all, being 9'' from the enemy and having lower charge range.

Instead of a fixed charge range, wouldn't it be more ideal to consider charge as similar to an advance move? I mean, if a model moves 12" normally, how does it make sense that they could fail a 3" charge. To balance out, wouldn't a system of you use your movement rate (To a maximum of 6") plus D6" for charge range. That way, people aren't crossing the entire board in a single charge move, the 12" bubble of charge is still largely in play and charging feels like less of a flop.