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 Galas wrote:
I don't understand how having english as a second lenguage I can understand without a problem this kind of rules at a first, at most second reading, and people is complaining about it being too complicated?

You aren't a victim of the British education system

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

PenitentJake wrote:
Though they didn't show them in the excerpt from the stream, the bullet points appear under the rule in the Tyranids Faction focus. If the rule is too wordy, stick to the bullets.

Check out the version in the Tyranid focus; I'm sure you'll like it better.

I appreciate the bullet points, but the big wall of text is still there, and I'm fairly sure the bullet points don't cover everything in it.
Guess I'll have to wait.

I think what is happening is they're pulling in all the relevant pieces that make the rule work - like how line of sight is drawn. At the most basic level someone that benefits from Dense cover has -1 to be hit if it's 3" tall, no penalty shooting from within that piece of terrain, and big/flying stuff can't benefit. They probably should have another bullet point for ignoring the terrain if the attacker is w/i 3" of it.


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 Galas wrote:
I don't understand how having english as a second lenguage I can understand without a problem this kind of rules at a first, at most second reading, and people is complaining about it being too complicated?

I think people get thrown by the typo, which makes it appear much weirder than it should be.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

PenitentJake wrote:
Though they didn't show them in the excerpt from the stream, the bullet points appear under the rule in the Tyranids Faction focus. If the rule is too wordy, stick to the bullets.

Check out the version in the Tyranid focus; I'm sure you'll like it better.

I appreciate the bullet points, but the big wall of text is still there, and I'm fairly sure the bullet points don't cover everything in it.
Guess I'll have to wait.

I think what is happening is they're pulling in all the relevant pieces that make the rule work - like how line of sight is drawn. At the most basic level someone that benefits from Dense cover has -1 to be hit if it's 3" tall, no penalty shooting from within that piece of terrain, and big/flying stuff can't benefit. They probably should have another bullet point for ignoring the terrain if the attack is w/i 3" of it.


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 Galas wrote:
I don't understand how having english as a second lenguage I can understand without a problem this kind of rules at a first, at most second reading, and people is complaining about it being too complicated?

I think people get thrown by the typo, which makes it appear much weirder than it should be.

I think that Obstacles will have a rule saying it's "[your] terrain feature" if you're within 3" of it, hence that part being missing from the bullet points (since it would already be covered by the second one).

Another cool new and needed rule in 9th, making it seem like the edition is going to be a massive improvement over 8th...

...eeeeexxxxcceeeepppttttt the existence of Loyalist Marines basically makes another new thing completely worthless. Hey, if you're playing a game of 9th and nobody is using LSM, this is a cool and interesting rule. May as well throw it out the fething window when Marines are on the table though. A -1 to hit is worthless in that context.

Very nice rule. I think terrain pices are going to need bases in 9th.

 Bosskelot wrote:
Another cool new and needed rule in 9th, making it seem like the edition is going to be a massive improvement over 8th...

...eeeeexxxxcceeeepppttttt the existence of Loyalist Marines basically makes another new thing completely worthless. Hey, if you're playing a game of 9th and nobody is using LSM, this is a cool and interesting rule. May as well throw it out the fething window when Marines are on the table though. A -1 to hit is worthless in that context.

If you're referring to abilities that prevent targets from gaining the benefit of cover, that's not remotely a Marine only function, and its exceptionally unlikely that 9th will permit such things to just toggle off all terrain based modifiers.

I think many are over reacting (on dakka, you don't say?) regarding the wordy aspect of the rules for terrain. Yes, at first glance they seem a bit convoluted, but when you get used to it, you'll look at a piece of terrain...label it dense, and immediately know how it interacts with the game and your models. It's just the immediate shock of reading, it'll pass.

Well I did like this rule. They had to throw that 18 wound break point in there didn't they? So a repulsor executioner that isn't fully covered by the piece of terrain is -1 to be hit, and a super heavy tank that is fully covered by it doesn't.

Doesn't do much for big squads of cheap infantry either.

Sterling191 wrote:

 Bosskelot wrote:
Another cool new and needed rule in 9th, making it seem like the edition is going to be a massive improvement over 8th...

...eeeeexxxxcceeeepppttttt the existence of Loyalist Marines basically makes another new thing completely worthless. Hey, if you're playing a game of 9th and nobody is using LSM, this is a cool and interesting rule. May as well throw it out the fething window when Marines are on the table though. A -1 to hit is worthless in that context.

If you're referring to abilities that prevent targets from gaining the benefit of cover, that's not remotely a Marine only function, and its exceptionally unlikely that 9th will permit such things to just toggle off all terrain based modifiers.

That is an interesting point, I've been wondering for a while what they are going to do with those traits now that they want to make terrain more impact full. Having it on one unit here and there might be fine but IW and Imperial Fists (I think?) that ignore it for most of their army? That has got to change or you have a bunch of armies that ignore entire pages of rules for no reason.

 Castozor wrote:

That is an interesting point, I've been wondering for a while what they are going to do with those traits now that they want to make terrain more impact full. Having it one one unit here and there might be fine but IW and Imperial Fists (I think?) that ignore it for most of their army? That has got to change or you have a bunch of armies that ignore entire pages of rules for no reason.

My personal expectation is that they'll translate to "do not get the benefit of cover to saving throws".

 Castozor wrote:

Sterling191 wrote:

 Bosskelot wrote:
Another cool new and needed rule in 9th, making it seem like the edition is going to be a massive improvement over 8th...

...eeeeexxxxcceeeepppttttt the existence of Loyalist Marines basically makes another new thing completely worthless. Hey, if you're playing a game of 9th and nobody is using LSM, this is a cool and interesting rule. May as well throw it out the fething window when Marines are on the table though. A -1 to hit is worthless in that context.

If you're referring to abilities that prevent targets from gaining the benefit of cover, that's not remotely a Marine only function, and its exceptionally unlikely that 9th will permit such things to just toggle off all terrain based modifiers.

That is an interesting point, I've been wondering for a while what they are going to do with those traits now that they want to make terrain more impact full. Having it one one unit here and there might be fine but IW and Imperial Fists (I think?) that ignore it for most of their army? That has got to change or you have a bunch of armies that ignore entire pages of rules for no reason.

There are also a fair few things in the game that give units "the benefit of cover" that might need to be clarified as to what they are intended to do with the changes in cover mechanics.

Sterling191 wrote:

 Bosskelot wrote:
Another cool new and needed rule in 9th, making it seem like the edition is going to be a massive improvement over 8th...

...eeeeexxxxcceeeepppttttt the existence of Loyalist Marines basically makes another new thing completely worthless. Hey, if you're playing a game of 9th and nobody is using LSM, this is a cool and interesting rule. May as well throw it out the fething window when Marines are on the table though. A -1 to hit is worthless in that context.

If you're referring to abilities that prevent targets from gaining the benefit of cover, that's not remotely a Marine only function, and its exceptionally unlikely that 9th will permit such things to just toggle off all terrain based modifiers.

No, I'm referring to Chapter Masters and giant rate of fire with a 3+ BS.

There's a reason -3 Eldar Flyers dropped off, it's because hit modifiers don't matter vs LSM.

 Bosskelot wrote:

No, I'm referring to Chapter Masters and giant rate of fire with a 3+ BS.

There's a reason -3 Eldar Flyers dropped off, it's because hit modifiers don't matter vs LSM.

Again, not for a second a Marine specific circumstance.

Karol wrote:
Very nice rule. I think terrain pices are going to need bases in 9th.

The nice thing is, with both Obstacle (within 3" and between firer and target) and Area (on or within) available, you can pretty equivalently use either. You do not need to reconfigure your collection either to have a base, or to not have a base.

....which is exactly how a system that is supposed to work for stuff that people build themselves from scratch is supposed to work.


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Darsath wrote:

 Castozor wrote:

Sterling191 wrote:

 Bosskelot wrote:
Another cool new and needed rule in 9th, making it seem like the edition is going to be a massive improvement over 8th...

...eeeeexxxxcceeeepppttttt the existence of Loyalist Marines basically makes another new thing completely worthless. Hey, if you're playing a game of 9th and nobody is using LSM, this is a cool and interesting rule. May as well throw it out the fething window when Marines are on the table though. A -1 to hit is worthless in that context.

If you're referring to abilities that prevent targets from gaining the benefit of cover, that's not remotely a Marine only function, and its exceptionally unlikely that 9th will permit such things to just toggle off all terrain based modifiers.

That is an interesting point, I've been wondering for a while what they are going to do with those traits now that they want to make terrain more impact full. Having it one one unit here and there might be fine but IW and Imperial Fists (I think?) that ignore it for most of their army? That has got to change or you have a bunch of armies that ignore entire pages of rules for no reason.

There are also a fair few things in the game that give units "the benefit of cover" that might need to be clarified as to what they are intended to do with the changes in cover mechanics.

You could just change all current references to Cover to Light Cover, considering it is a version of the current rule.

....but I'm guessing they change it to any rule with Cover in the name, because there's nothing like handing a bunch of armies that everyone currently loooooooooooves to face - Space Marines, Custom Craftworld Eldar, you know, the greatest hits, everyone's big faves across the table - a whole chunk of free power and going "We will fix it, laterrrrrrrrrrrrrr!"

Sterling191 wrote:

 Bosskelot wrote:

No, I'm referring to Chapter Masters and giant rate of fire with a 3+ BS.

There's a reason -3 Eldar Flyers dropped off, it's because hit modifiers don't matter vs LSM.

Again, not for a second a Marine specific circumstance.

Ah right I didn't realize full re-rolls with the sheer quality and quantity of Marine firepower existed elsewhere. Care to point to the other army that has Chapter Masters, Centurions, Intercessors, TFC's or Aggressors?

Only Expert Crafters Eldar even comes close and even then, that's (less) qualitative and nowhere near quantitative.

Frostgrave's entire Shooting through terrain rules have less text and are more player friendly. Actually, every game system I am looking back at has more streamlined rules than this. As I see more of 9th rules I cannot help but ponder... I understand why people like GW models but there are better rule systems out there so what is the draw to following content?

 Bosskelot wrote:
No, I'm referring to Chapter Masters and giant rate of fire with a 3+ BS.

There's a reason -3 Eldar Flyers dropped off, it's because hit modifiers don't matter vs LSM.

The fact they also got points increases also probably didn't help.

Really though minuses to hit are still minuses to hit. 8/9 is about 18% more than 3/4.

I guess my concern is that this is going to skew things and make Guard/Tau (smallest violins in the world etc etc) be a bit crap, if they are usually hitting most stuff on 5s.
But then at least it can't be worse than that.

Depends on how easy/common it will be to have this trait though I guess.
Tournament tables will presumably be designed with a mix of terrain features. Can perhaps see some arguments for pickup games though.

The bulleted list is either incomplete or does not fully describe the rules - you still need to read the unbulleted section and understand it at a basic level in order to apply the bulleted format of the rules. The reverse is also true (the details about the Aircraft, for example, are not anywhere within the text of the rules itself).

The writing could very easily have been cleaned up without the need for bullet points if they would simply define the mechanics of "a line" as a separate section. I.E. - "When a rule refers you to draw a straight line between two models or units, assume it is 1mm in thickness. Additionally, always measure from a single fixed point on an attacking models base to all points on the target" or something along those lines (but better written lol). That would eliminate about half of the 75+ words in the first sentence of this rule alone, and would result in similar gains across a number of other line-based rules. This is the sort of thing that really should be standardized and defined rather than repeated in every bespoke instance for basically this exact reason.

Anyway, I think if the rule was well written it would look something like:

If this terrain feature is at least 3" in height, measured from its base to its heighest point, then subtract 1 from the hit roll when resolving an attack with a ranged weapon, unless:

-The attacking model can resolve Line of Sight; or

-The attacking model is in an Area Terrain feature and the only terrain feature that Line of Sight is resolved through is the terrain feature that the attacking model is on or within; or

-The attacking model is within 3" of an Obstacle feature with this trait if it is the only feature through which Line of Sight is resolved; or

-The target model is an Aircraft; or

-The target model has 18+ wounds.

where "resolving Line of Sight" is a standardized defined rule elsewhere that functions as described in this rule (or if this works differently from how line of sight normally works, then call it something else - again, this isn't the only time that the rules call for you to draw a line 1mm wide from point a to point b, this action should be standardized).

This is way to wordy for something simple. But it is overall good. If you trace LoS over or through dense terrain you suffer a -1 penalty to hit the target unit. If you are within 3" of the terrain you treat the terrain as open ground. Simples.

 harlokin wrote:

 Galas wrote:
I don't understand how having english as a second lenguage I can understand without a problem this kind of rules at a first, at most second reading, and people is complaining about it being too complicated?

You aren't a victim of the British education system

Arent we all (little bit of politics...)

Seems decent if weirdly wordy but still need to see the wording on the +/-1 rule

 Bosskelot wrote:


Ah right I didn't realize full re-rolls with the sheer quality and quantity of Marine firepower existed elsewhere. Care to point to the other army that has Chapter Masters, Centurions, Intercessors, TFC's or Aggressors?

Only Expert Crafters Eldar even comes close and even then, that's (less) qualitative and nowhere near quantitative.

Eldar, AdMech and Tau. If you think Marines are bad now, I cannot wait to see the hissy fit you throw when post-Engine War Mars lists start showing up at your LGS.

The title of this post did not use a variation of this quote, I hereby arrest daed for thought crime.

Late to the party.


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the_scotsman wrote:
The title of this post did not use a variation of this quote, I hereby arrest daed for thought crime.

I surrender.

That took me, like, thirty seconds. GW seriously needs a technical writer, this is borderline unreadable. The legalese approach is really not the best way to write rules. The way it's worded is just not intuitive; it sets up the -1 as the default case and then provides the exception of clear LOS, when it should be the opposite, telling you the conditions under which you suffer the penalty.

I was thinking this exact thing. I run a content team, and if one of my technical writers turned this in to me, even as a rough draft, I'd send it back. More and more of these rules are reading like poorly written SAT questions.

As painful as it is, the more 40k approaches legalese levels of rules interaction, the fairer the system becomes. Laws are complicated because grey areas cannot be decided on. Language is required, therefore, to adjudicate gray areas into the either/or scenarios that most games require.

The first part of that statement isn't in any way accurate. Even with the best level of "legalese" possible, you can still have a remarkably unfair play experience. Only now, it's unfair, and impossibly obtuse. Laws are complicated because they have to take into account a significantly higher amount of variables and interactions than the rules in a table top war game. You can have a rule set that suffciently removes as many grey areas as possible, but is still fairly approachable. Other systems don't appear to struggle so hard with this. What's that old saying? "If you can't explain something simply, you probably don't understand it well enough."

Doesn't do much for big squads of cheap infantry either.

At this point I feel like it's probably safe to put light infantry on the "endagered" list for 9th. There's an awful lot going against them so far.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
Well I did like this rule. They had to throw that 18 wound break point in there didn't they? So a repulsor executioner that isn't fully covered by the piece of terrain is -1 to be hit, and a super heavy tank that is fully covered by it doesn't.

Doesn't do much for big squads of cheap infantry either.

Repulsor will always get -1 to hit (unless the shooter is within 3").

As with all 3D-objects, it's physically impossible to draw a line from point A to every single point on the target object. Some part is always facing directly away (furthermore, in 40K, some part of the model or base is also sitting on the table).

Sunny Side Up wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
Well I did like this rule. They had to throw that 18 wound break point in there didn't they? So a repulsor executioner that isn't fully covered by the piece of terrain is -1 to be hit, and a super heavy tank that is fully covered by it doesn't.

Doesn't do much for big squads of cheap infantry either.

Repulsor will always get -1 to hit (unless the shooter is within 3").

As with all 3D-objects, it's physically impossible to draw a line from point A to every single point on the target object. Some part is always facing directly away (furthermore, in 40K, some part of the model or base is also sitting on the table).

Sigh. It's like a brain virus. He's got the BCB.

....Since BCB isn't answering this question, do you care to answer why it is that an imaginary line that explicitly within the rule references passing through objects is not allowed to pass through parts of a model or base?

Or are you also just going to assume that the 8th edition rules for drawing line of sight for a shooting attack for some reason apply to this other rule that you just read totally unrelated to that purpose?

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
Well I did like this rule. They had to throw that 18 wound break point in there didn't they? So a repulsor executioner that isn't fully covered by the piece of terrain is -1 to be hit, and a super heavy tank that is fully covered by it doesn't.

Doesn't do much for big squads of cheap infantry either.

Yeah this probably explains why the playtesters were saying it's a good for "medium" vehical meta. Almost everything is going go be able to achive lots of cover aslong as it's under 18 wounds.
Be ever better if it can fly as it will get all the benifits with non of the downsides.

I wounder what faction has a lot of Sub 18 wound flying vehicals oh yeah Primaris.

At this point it's feeling less like 9th edition and more like 9 flavours of Primatis edition.

Tycho wrote:

That took me, like, thirty seconds. GW seriously needs a technical writer, this is borderline unreadable. The legalese approach is really not the best way to write rules. The way it's worded is just not intuitive; it sets up the -1 as the default case and then provides the exception of clear LOS, when it should be the opposite, telling you the conditions under which you suffer the penalty.

I was thinking this exact thing. I run a content team, and if one of my technical writers turned this in to me, even as a rough draft, I'd send it back. More and more of these rules are reading like poorly written SAT questions.

As painful as it is, the more 40k approaches legalese levels of rules interaction, the fairer the system becomes. Laws are complicated because grey areas cannot be decided on. Language is required, therefore, to adjudicate gray areas into the either/or scenarios that most games require.

The first part of that statement isn't in any way accurate. Even with the best level of "legalese" possible, you can still have a remarkably unfair play experience. Only now, it's unfair, and impossibly obtuse. Laws are complicated because they have to take into account a significantly higher amount of variables and interactions than the rules in a table top war game. You can have a rule set that suffciently removes as many grey areas as possible, but is still fairly approachable. Other systems don't appear to struggle so hard with this. What's that old saying? "If you can't explain something simply, you probably don't understand it well enough."

Look, you're not wrong, I am just trying to be generous to GW. No doubt this is bad writing, but GW technical writers have clearly demonstrated for 20 years that they cannot be pithy. At least now they are trying to spell out scenarios that we can use as data for adjudicating disputes. Writing short sentences that are definitive is very hard. Technical writing that "distills" without losing "essence" is hard, as I am sure you know

Tau, Necrons, Eldar, D Eldar.

Vehicles with the Fly Keyword are not rare.

the_scotsman wrote:

Sigh. It's like a brain virus. He's got the BCB.

....Since BCB isn't answering this question, do you care to answer why it is that an imaginary line that explicitly within the rule references passing through objects is not allowed to pass through parts of a model or base?

Or are you also just going to assume that the 8th edition rules for drawing line of sight for a shooting attack for some reason apply to this other rule that you just read totally unrelated to that purpose?

I assume it because the rule itself implies the possibility that things can also not be (fully) visible.

If the line of sight is not blocked by models or terrain, it would inversely be impossible to not always draw lines to every single part of the model and the condition would be just as pointless.