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Or, hear me out here, we classify vehicles seperatly and implement armor facings? Right? that way, we have positioning and angle of attack counting for something, and terrain would become even more important? Right?

Which is great in theory. But led to vehicles being infinitely inferior to monsters in every single way for more points. Not to mention the arguments of which arc you are actually in.

Not as long as a vehicle in this kind of position receives zero benefits for cover and can fire all its guns, even the ones on the opposite side of the tank, without having to move.

I'm sorry if your suspension of disbelief allows for monsters or infantry to do just that, but not something powered by technology. Good news for you, vehicles no longer take penalties for moving and shooting. Now you can just imagine they drove out and took their shot, like you did with every other model that fired from its toes.

Frankly in a good game I'd expect all of the above, different armor depending on arc, firing arcs for different gun mountings, etc. But we're playing 40k, its not a good game. Its fun mind you, but it has gigantic warts. I think that given GW's rule writing capabilities. I'd stay away from asking for armor facings and gun arcs back. They were never able to get it right before.

Justyn wrote:

Or, hear me out here, we classify vehicles seperatly and implement armor facings? Right? that way, we have positioning and angle of attack counting for something, and terrain would become even more important? Right?

Which is great in theory. But led to vehicles being infinitely inferior to monsters in every single way for more points. Not to mention the arguments of which arc you are actually in.

Not as long as a vehicle in this kind of position receives zero benefits for cover and can fire all its guns, even the ones on the opposite side of the tank, without having to move.

I'm sorry if your suspension of disbelief allows for monsters or infantry to do just that, but not something powered by technology. Good news for you, vehicles no longer take penalties for moving and shooting. Now you can just imagine they drove out and took their shot, like you did with every other model that fired from its toes.

Frankly in a good game I'd expect all of the above, different armor depending on arc, firing arcs for different gun mountings, etc. But we're playing 40k, its not a good game. Its fun mind you, but it has gigantic warts. I think that given GW's rule writing capabilities. I'd stay away from asking for armor facings and gun arcs back. They were never able to get it right before.

See, their sales models turned more and more torwards selling rules, might aswell hold them accountable for that.
But yeah, GW sucking at writing is an issue, but let's not pretend the system we have now is better for vehicles or monsters, it isn't. Especially contextualised with the wounding chart GW uses atm, which is utterly shoddy work. Not to mention that GW yet has to understand how To wound modifiers are a massive issue and values them massively to cheap, cue Votwl f.e.

The only important point I was trying to get across is that in previous editions facings and arcs were giant drawbacks that didn't come with discounts. I think the current system is better for vehicles in that one respect. But yeah GW hands out rules willy nilly and then don't understand why Iron Hands dominate the meta until its literally spelled out to them. Now that they have taken a bit of a nerf everyone is moving to the Chapter/Klan/Craftworld that lets you re-roll 1 hit and 1 wound and 1 damage with every unit, every turn. Because that doesn't significantly increase the effectiveness of your models over the course of a game. Agreed wound modifiers are an egregious example.

Justyn wrote:

Or, hear me out here, we classify vehicles seperatly and implement armor facings? Right? that way, we have positioning and angle of attack counting for something, and terrain would become even more important? Right?

Which is great in theory. But led to vehicles being infinitely inferior to monsters in every single way for more points. Not to mention the arguments of which arc you are actually in.

Not as long as a vehicle in this kind of position receives zero benefits for cover and can fire all its guns, even the ones on the opposite side of the tank, without having to move.

I'm sorry if your suspension of disbelief allows for monsters or infantry to do just that, but not something powered by technology. Good news for you, vehicles no longer take penalties for moving and shooting. Now you can just imagine they drove out and took their shot, like you did with every other model that fired from its toes.

Frankly in a good game I'd expect all of the above, different armor depending on arc, firing arcs for different gun mountings, etc. But we're playing 40k, its not a good game. Its fun mind you, but it has gigantic warts. I think that given GW's rule writing capabilities. I'd stay away from asking for armor facings and gun arcs back. They were never able to get it right before.

Firing arcs are not 'good game design' they're 'simulationist' game design. In practice they're inherently doggak, especially in a game with vehicles that aren't square and vehicles that have some sort of sponson. You have to balance the tank around it's own fat butt so you either price it at what it does when it shoots directly in front of it, which makes it terrible in practice, or you price it at what it does when it only half of it can shoot, which makes it OP as balls when there;s something it can shoot in front of it.

A rebuttal to Erjak that almost certainly will be ignored:

1) simulationist design is why I am here. If you want boardgame mechanics get someone to 3D print tiny space marines for your next game of Risk. You could even turn the map upside down and call it "hive world whatever".

2) If you can't conceive of ways to write armor facings (such as a top-down datasheet view highlighted in different colors) that doesn't confuse you, don't assume the rest of us share your lack of spatial comprehension. I am able to pick up, say, a Wave Serpent and can identify which way it is pointing. To whine that you can't know where the sides are is just whining for whining's sake.

3) Other popular games that are far more balanced than 40k as it is (without armor facings) that possess gun arcs and armor facings. I suspect your inability to differentiate between "GW is bad" and "a rule is conceptually bad" affects your thinking.

Unit1126PLL wrote:A rebuttal to Erjak that almost certainly will be ignored:

1) simulationist design is why I am here. If you want boardgame mechanics get someone to 3D print tiny space marines for your next game of Risk. You could even turn the map upside down and call it "hive world whatever".

There's a world of difference between Risk and 40k being anything but simulationist.

2) If you can't conceive of ways to write armor facings (such as a top-down datasheet view highlighted in different colors) that doesn't confuse you, don't assume the rest of us share your lack of spatial comprehension. I am able to pick up, say, a Wave Serpent and can identify which way it is pointing. To whine that you can't know where the sides are is just whining for whining's sake.

Short of making the top down datasheet, it doesn't matter if *you* can identify the faces on a Wave Serpent if your opponent disagrees and thinks they're elsewhere. And when you reach the grey area where you can see both the front and side facings - what then?

And I'd be all for the top down "here's what the faces are", only that then starts to suck for people who like scratchbuilds or heavy conversions.

There's a world of difference, yes, but miniatures wargaming is more simulationist than miniatures boardgaming. That's exactly the difference. Praising a miniatures wargame for the absence of realism is like praising a miniatures boardgame for making you measure the degrees/second of tank turret traverse.

What do you mean what then? I let my opponent have his way, because arguing with someone is silly. The only time I would even worry about it is if he is clearly wrong, in which case I know he is just doing it to get an advantage, will express as much, and then slot his name in the "never play again" pile.

Can *you* tell which direction a WS is pointing?

Everyone can tell which way a Wave Serpent is point. I have no idea where the front ends and the sides begin. I just never had to worry about it since it was 12/12/10 and the rear was rather obvious.

 alextroy wrote:
Everyone can tell which way a Wave Serpent is point. I have no idea where the front ends and the sides begin. I just never had to worry about it since it was 12/12/10 and the rear was rather obvious.

That's only true if you're shooting directly up it's arse.

Actually look at the thing and try to think about where the 'rear' is. The very back most part of the wave serpent is a rectangle, is it the rear if you're still shooting at the sides of that rectangle? Because if not that's like a 15 degree arc you'd have to be in to hit rear, which seems like an unfairly narrow target. If the sides ARE part of the rear, you'd have a 180 degree arc where you'd be hitting rear with the center point at the back of where the turret sits. Which seems way too big.Or is the 'rear' only the back parts of the flairs, which could create a situation where you have a model NOT in the rear that could move an inch either left OR right and now be in rear arc. Which seems silly. Everybody thinks they know where the back of a wave serpent is until it's the last model you opponent has on an objective and you have a meltagun kinda behind it...ish.

It's almost as if making vehicles that aren't perfect rectangles make it difficult to determine facing.

For a very simple quartered POV, I'd say extend the black lines that make up the V on the studio's Saim-Hann WS to form an X, and use that as a guideline.

I mean, given the Wave Serpent is on a base, and when measuring distances to models with a base we ignore the model and go base-to-base, I'd say add markings on the flight stand/base to cover the quarters, keep them lined up with where the vehicle is pointing, and whichever spot works out to be closest on the base is which quarter you're shooting at.

You'd still need LOS to the WS to make it an eligible target, but as long as that's the case, use the markings on the base to determine the arc you're shooting at.

Same principle covers other Eldar grav tanks, DE skimmers and Tau tanks, though not necessarily their Gundams.

I do like the alternative suggestion of the datasheet including a top-down view of the model with the arcs highlighted, though.

Just use the closest point of the model. If that is the back, it is the back, if that is the side it is the side. If it is the side of the back, it is the back, because it isn't the side of the tank.

If you don't know / can't decide where the armor is thinnest, what hope do your men have? And model positioning isn't absurd. In fact, I would argue it is crucial for tactics.

Edit:
And the top-down datasheet view with the arcs highlighted is just my suggestion. There are people smarter than me who have designed other games who can figure this stuff out. Just not GW.

Unit1126PLL wrote:There's a world of difference, yes, but miniatures wargaming is more simulationist than miniatures boardgaming. That's exactly the difference. Praising a miniatures wargame for the absence of realism is like praising a miniatures boardgame for making you measure the degrees/second of tank turret traverse.

I disagree - I don't think that wargaming needs angles to be counted as wargaming.

What do you mean what then? I let my opponent have his way, because arguing with someone is silly. The only time I would even worry about it is if he is clearly wrong, in which case I know he is just doing it to get an advantage, will express as much, and then slot his name in the "never play again" pile.

But that's the thing - what defines "clearly" wrong? It's imprecise - I'd rather a system that doesn't rely on imprecise "guesses" and just either does away with it, or makes it crystal clear.

Can *you* tell which direction a WS is pointing?

I can tell which way it's facing. But I can't promise that my guess on what the "front, side and back" start would be the same as yours. Which is my point.

Unit1126PLL wrote:Just use the closest point of the model. If that is the back, it is the back, if that is the side it is the side. If it is the side of the back, it is the back, because it isn't the side of the tank.

And what if we can't make up our minds if the closest point is indeed part of the back or front? You're acting like the issue isn't that we don't know what side is what.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
A rebuttal to Erjak that almost certainly will be ignored:

1) simulationist design is why I am here. If you want boardgame mechanics get someone to 3D print tiny space marines for your next game of Risk. You could even turn the map upside down and call it "hive world whatever".

2) If you can't conceive of ways to write armor facings (such as a top-down datasheet view highlighted in different colors) that doesn't confuse you, don't assume the rest of us share your lack of spatial comprehension. I am able to pick up, say, a Wave Serpent and can identify which way it is pointing. To whine that you can't know where the sides are is just whining for whining's sake.

3) Other popular games that are far more balanced than 40k as it is (without armor facings) that possess gun arcs and armor facings. I suspect your inability to differentiate between "GW is bad" and "a rule is conceptually bad" affects your thinking.

1) Then you're in the wrong fething place. Even if the rules WERE simulationist, and they aren't and aren't intended to be; the 40k universe is a ridiculous, over the top, heavy metal album cover. In universe it wouldn't be weird at all for eldar vehicles for example to just be able to dodge half of your shots by dancing around your bullets because 40k is INSANE and it's rules make less sense compared to our current military than the actual game does. Sorry if you thought a warwalker was just a sherman tank or something but honestly that's a problem with your lack of imagination in regard to the scale 40k actually operates on.

2) I could, I just wouldn't because it's stupid. It never made decisions meaningful in game (do I immediately blow up your vehicle on a 3 or spend 3 turns running around to blow it up on a 2?) it's not actually tactical because the ranges of weapons means you can just sit in a corner with your butt to the board edge, it doesn't make any sense in universe, and it's a worthless waste of additional codex space to have technicolor schematics of the exact side and angles of penetration for a hundred different vehicles in a hundred different goofy shapes, that no one will agree on anyway. Which leads me to my final point, they've already tried that and it failed. They tried that gak with knights remember? People bitched about EVERY permutation of knight arcs that they put out because a shape like that leaves 'front' 'rear' and 'side' inherently somewhat subjective. EVERYONE hated the knight pictures they put out for one reason or another. And you would have a grand time picking where the back of a wave serpent is until the first time someone disagrees with you. Claiming it to be 'whining' won't get you of the discussion that there is legitimate ambiguity in regards to the exact 'front/middle/rear' of a wave serpent. All attempting to dismiss that outright will do is force you to be stubborn. Even if your interpretation was wrong.

3) And that works within the context of those games. X-wings entire shtick is firing arcs and that works great(even though it is ALSO conceptually not ideal because you're reducing 3 dimensional combat into a 2 dimensional space). It doesn't work in 40k and never has. They've tried multiple different permutations of firing arcs across 40k and 30k and not a single one of them has added anything meaningful to the game. It's not that I can't divorce 'gw bad' from a rule being 'conceptually bad' I just think rules you like are 'conceptually bad' as they apply to 40k. I think most of the things you appear to enjoy about wargaming in other games would be pointless faff in 40k and would add nothing except apparently goofy little color coded schematics.

The problem is, you keep trying to pretend like 40k is you reenacting Rommel's north african campaign rather than what it actually is and you get frustrated when it just continues on being 40k. I don't and have never seen any need to add any of the simulationist nonsense you've been pushing because you've never once been interested in applying 40k rules to 40k. You keep trying to make Wave Serpents and Doomsday arcs function like Sherman's and Panzers because that's what you're able to conceptualize. The fact that that's less realistic to the setting than them getting up and karate kicking things seems to pass you by.

Even in the 40k universe a vehicle can have more armor on the front, and a sponson cannot fire through the vehicle to the opposite side.

Well, the speed freeks game has these paper-gubbins that you can hold to the buggies and warbikers to find out their firing arcs. This only works for oval bases though, so as long as there are models like wave serpents, doomsday arks or defilers in the game, I don't think that there is a good way to implement firing arcs when even in 9th these models are causing issues when measuring to them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Insectum7 wrote:
a sponson cannot fire through the vehicle to the opposite side.

The taurox is clear evidence of this not being true

Insectum7 wrote:Even in the 40k universe a vehicle can have more armor on the front, and a sponson cannot fire through the vehicle to the opposite side.

Even in the 40k universe, a vehicle can move to get a better angle with it's various weaponry.

I'm sure a Space Marine's power armour is stronger at the front too, or a Hive Guard's carapace. Shall we put facings in for them?

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Insectum7 wrote:Even in the 40k universe a vehicle can have more armor on the front, and a sponson cannot fire through the vehicle to the opposite side.

Even in the 40k universe, a vehicle can move to get a better angle with it's various weaponry.

I'm sure a Space Marine's power armour is stronger at the front too, or a Hive Guard's carapace. Shall we put facings in for them?

Oh and Bikers too!

1) don't confuse my desire for 'simulationism' to be limited to our reality. I want the 40k universe to be simulated, not ours. But right now, even the Heavy Metal Album cover is done wrong, because in the 40k universe, tanks have facings and on the tabletop they do not.

2) they never tried it, and if people complained, it was likely about implementation than concept. Furthermore, I played for 5 editions against Eldar, in scheduled games and pickup games, and all 5 editions had armor facings. Unless you count "what facing am I in" "well, that guy is side but the rest of the squad is rear" "are you sure he isn't rear too?" "Yep" "fair enough" as an argument, I never really had an argument about it that lasted past a few sentence.

3) simply because you don't believe it is meaningful in earlier editions of 40k doesn't mean it wasn't. Furthermore, the fact that it can conceptually work for those games mean the problem is with GW's implementation, rather than with the concept.

And I want Wave Serpents and Doomsday Arks to function just like they would in the 41st millennium. And do you know what? In the insane madness of the 41st millennium, it is easier to penetrate the rear armor of a Leman Russ than the front armor.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
As for facings on littler units, that depends on game scale.

Time matters. If a turn is about six seconds (which is about right for a tank to fire a single shot) facing should matter for stuff that can't turn around in that time. Obviously, myself being a human, I can turn around in six seconds, so we need not give human models facings.

Facings are gone and aren’t coming back. What do they have to do with the thread topic?

 JohnnyHell wrote:
Facings are gone and aren’t coming back. What do they have to do with the thread topic?

Datasheets in the unit boxes would be a perfect place to outline unit facings!

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 JohnnyHell wrote:
Facings are gone and aren’t coming back. What do they have to do with the thread topic?

Datasheets in the unit boxes would be a perfect place to outline unit facings!

See above: facings are gone and aren’t coming back. You’re looking for a Core Rules change we know hasn’t happened.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Insectum7 wrote:Even in the 40k universe a vehicle can have more armor on the front, and a sponson cannot fire through the vehicle to the opposite side.

Even in the 40k universe, a vehicle can move to get a better angle with it's various weaponry.

I'm sure a Space Marine's power armour is stronger at the front too, or a Hive Guard's carapace. Shall we put facings in for them?

It's very simple, you just chose a point to enforce a cutoff of the broad level abstractions in favor of increasing the importance of large model maneuvering.

Fun fact: 2nd ed had firing arcs on infantry. It also had defensive arcs for Terminators with Storm Shields.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Insectum7 wrote:Even in the 40k universe a vehicle can have more armor on the front, and a sponson cannot fire through the vehicle to the opposite side.

Even in the 40k universe, a vehicle can move to get a better angle with it's various weaponry.

I'm sure a Space Marine's power armour is stronger at the front too, or a Hive Guard's carapace. Shall we put facings in for them?

Oh and Bikers too!

Bikers were vehicles in 2nd, and thus could have armor facings.

 JohnnyHell wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 JohnnyHell wrote:
Facings are gone and aren’t coming back. What do they have to do with the thread topic?

Datasheets in the unit boxes would be a perfect place to outline unit facings!

See above: facings are gone and aren’t coming back. You’re looking for a Core Rules change we know hasn’t happened.

Yes, but I think you are trying to shut down discussion. I couldn't let Erjak's first ignorant post go unrebutted, and this is one of the few times my reply wasn't ignored. So engage I did, because getting Erjak to talk honestly about preferring board game to war game mechanics with me is difficult.

 Jidmah wrote:
Well, the speed freeks game has these paper-gubbins that you can hold to the buggies and warbikers to find out their firing arcs. This only works for oval bases though, so as long as there are models like wave serpents, doomsday arks or defilers in the game, I don't think that there is a good way to implement firing arcs when even in 9th these models are causing issues when measuring to them.

I'm curious, Jidmah - why are those models causing problems when measuring to them?

Wave Serpent and Doomsday Arc both have bases, going by the pictures on the GW webstore - as per Measuring Distances in the rulebook, you measure distances base-to-base, so can ignore the hull in their cases.

The Defiler I can see being a little messier, as it normally doesn't have a base - is it really that tricky to determine the closest point to the enemy from it?

Unit1126PLL wrote:1) don't confuse my desire for 'simulationism' to be limited to our reality. I want the 40k universe to be simulated, not ours. But right now, even the Heavy Metal Album cover is done wrong, because in the 40k universe, tanks have facings and on the tabletop they do not.

Everything has "facings". The question is "what are those facings" and "is it worth measuring these facings".

Space Marines have facings. Is it even worth measuring them? What about a Knight? A Dreadknight? A Dreadnought? A Carnifex?

2) they never tried it, and if people complained, it was likely about implementation than concept. Furthermore, I played for 5 editions against Eldar, in scheduled games and pickup games, and all 5 editions had armor facings. Unless you count "what facing am I in" "well, that guy is side but the rest of the squad is rear" "are you sure he isn't rear too?" "Yep" "fair enough" as an argument, I never really had an argument about it that lasted past a few sentence.

Whereas I remember ones like "cool, I'm going to shoot at that vehicle" "right, that's a 4 to pen." "err, no, that's side armour. That's a 6 to pen." "No, I'm shooting rear" and so on.

Which player is in the wrong? Sure, either player can turn around and say "fine, you get it", but the point remained that there wasn't a way to determine, and facing aren't as simple as you want them to be.

3) simply because you don't believe it is meaningful in earlier editions of 40k doesn't mean it wasn't.

And likewise, simply because you believe it was meaningful in earlier editions doesn't mean it was.

And I want Wave Serpents and Doomsday Arks to function just like they would in the 41st millennium. And do you know what? In the insane madness of the 41st millennium, it is easier to penetrate the rear armor of a Leman Russ than the front armor.

Cool, and I want to reflect that Terminators would be easier to penetrate from the rear than from the front, that Mark 3 power armour has more frontal durability than Mark 4, and the varying marks of lasguns as well as an overcharged lasgun being able to break open a Dreadnought's chassis.

Or, we can accept abstractions and say "well, your bolter wounded my Leman Russ. Guess you must have gotten a shot in at a weak spot" or "your lascannon failed to wound? Guess you must have hit the stronger armour plating". There's your representation.

As for facings on littler units, that depends on game scale.

Time matters. If a turn is about six seconds (which is about right for a tank to fire a single shot) facing should matter for stuff that can't turn around in that time. Obviously, myself being a human, I can turn around in six seconds, so we need not give human models facings.

I don't put much faith in the whole "six seconds" thing, given how it can allow Guardsmen to run faster than their guns can shoot, or how much realism we should ascribe to that.

Imagine thinking armor facings were any important when you simply used suicide melta or haywire or gauss or later on Grav to deal with vehicles to begin with LOL

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
And for comparison's sake, the average armour pen of Lascannon in 2nd Ed was 19.5, and the HK was 22.5. So yes, it was a dedicated anti-tank weapon.

GW is trying to replicate this with S10 without realising that that's not what kills vehicles in 9th, and hasn't been since the start of 8th.

Or they really just wanted to make it slightly better - especially when more T5 and T8 will hit the field without making it more expensive to field.

Just because GW didn't do what people expected them to do doesn't mean they don't understand what they did. Every comment is otherwise kind of circle-jerking to make themselves feel superior.

 Dysartes wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
Well, the speed freeks game has these paper-gubbins that you can hold to the buggies and warbikers to find out their firing arcs. This only works for oval bases though, so as long as there are models like wave serpents, doomsday arks or defilers in the game, I don't think that there is a good way to implement firing arcs when even in 9th these models are causing issues when measuring to them.

I'm curious, Jidmah - why are those models causing problems when measuring to them?

Wave Serpent and Doomsday Arc both have bases, going by the pictures on the GW webstore - as per Measuring Distances in the rulebook, you measure distances base-to-base, so can ignore the hull in their cases.

Both have rules that tell you to ignore their base (hovering/hover tank) and have fiddly bits that stick out from their main hull, the spikey bits on the serpent that are representing its shield and the doomsday ark has the gauss-flayer array on its sides. Properly measuring the distance to small things off the ground is fiddly at best, especially when a tenth of an inch matters. Worst case scenario is a player who hasn't glued or modified the flight stands, then touching one of them might even spin the model.
Removing those rules would make assaulting these models a nightmare instead. For the editions with facings, both are the ones who caused arguments on facings most often, among with the battlewagon and heldrake (both whose issues disappeared in 8th and 9th).

The Defiler I can see being a little messier, as it normally doesn't have a base - is it really that tricky to determine the closest point to the enemy from it?

Three problems - upward curved spikes protruding from kneecaps, the extremely long scourge weapon (might be closest when on the top floor of a ruin) and legs that can be moved during the game. Similar walkers like soul grinders or triarch stalkers have similar issues, but lack the problem with the weapon.