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Cyel wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
It's not like GW didn't put pictures of how they expect tables to look into the rulebook...

Tbh I remeber (since 2nd ed.and I've been an avid WD reader for a few editions of WH40K) most White Dwarf battle reports being along those lines:

Spoiler:

i.e. no LOS-blocking terrain, armies deploy opposite each other and run at each other screaming and rolling dice, with someone, occasionally, getting the cover bonus in some crater. Which was never a good approach to playing this game.

You prefer trench warfare...Trust me. If fun is your objective. Less cover is better than more. It has always been that way. The competitive players in this game. Who #1 know that the game is not balanced for competitive play across all armies - have come up with this idea that you can make an unbalanced game balanced by altering the objective of the game and covering the board with LOS blocking terrain. All that accomplishes is makes the game boring for everyone that is not harlequins and some weeboos who recently ported over from MTG. 9th edition literally blows. The sad part is 90% of players would agree with me if they showed any interest in expressing their opinion - they are too busy actually doing the hobby than crying about balance online.

Cyel wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
Or you could have units have either actions with different costs to them

movement action.
short action.
long action.

then allow each activation to do either a long action or 2 (in any combination) short/movement action.
then have it so your opponent can react everytime you activate a unit to do stuff like shoot back, dodge or even try and hack your robots.

Ahh, Warzone and Chronopia... such neat systems with amateurish balance that made them unplayable But the action system was really good, expecially in Chronopia. I believe it may have had direct influence on Warmachine, which just improved and tidied up the idea.

i was referring to infinity, i never tried the ones you mentionned


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Xenomancers wrote:
You prefer trench warfare...Trust me. If fun is your objective. Less cover is better than more. It has always been that way. The competitive players in this game. Who #1 know that the game is not balanced for competitive play across all armies - have come up with this idea that you can make an unbalanced game balanced by altering the objective of the game and covering the board with LOS blocking terrain. All that accomplishes is makes the game boring for everyone that is not harlequins and some weeboos who recently ported over from MTG. 9th edition literally blows. The sad part is 90% of players would agree with me if they showed any interest in expressing their opinion - they are too busy actually doing the hobby than crying about balance online.

There it is all laid out in plain text, you keep projecting. Most people i play with enjoy maps with a lot of terrain that require you to think about your movement. Including admech,imperial guard, CSM players that can't spam flying units. And none of them is "some weeabo who recently ported from MTG"

9th editon has been super fun to play, we talk about balance because the core of the game is mostly better than 8th.

 Xenomancers wrote:

Cyel wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
It's not like GW didn't put pictures of how they expect tables to look into the rulebook...

Tbh I remeber (since 2nd ed.and I've been an avid WD reader for a few editions of WH40K) most White Dwarf battle reports being along those lines:

Spoiler:

i.e. no LOS-blocking terrain, armies deploy opposite each other and run at each other screaming and rolling dice, with someone, occasionally, getting the cover bonus in some crater. Which was never a good approach to playing this game.

You prefer trench warfare...Trust me. If fun is your objective. Less cover is better than more. It has always been that way. The competitive players in this game. Who #1 know that the game is not balanced for competitive play across all armies - have come up with this idea that you can make an unbalanced game balanced by altering the objective of the game and covering the board with LOS blocking terrain. All that accomplishes is makes the game boring for everyone that is not harlequins and some weeboos who recently ported over from MTG. 9th edition literally blows. The sad part is 90% of players would agree with me if they showed any interest in expressing their opinion - they are too busy actually doing the hobby than crying about balance online.

Yeah, because staying still and rolling dice for 3 hours is more interesting than maneuvering, looking for firing lanes, deciding whether to hide or go for it...sigh

I know that GW markets their mechanics saying that dice chucking is so cool and such an interesting activity (understandably, they do this because their games have little more ). But most players I know actually prefer making some decisions while playing, not being human random number generating machines.

 Xenomancers wrote:

Cyel wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
It's not like GW didn't put pictures of how they expect tables to look into the rulebook...

Tbh I remeber (since 2nd ed.and I've been an avid WD reader for a few editions of WH40K) most White Dwarf battle reports being along those lines:

Spoiler:

i.e. no LOS-blocking terrain, armies deploy opposite each other and run at each other screaming and rolling dice, with someone, occasionally, getting the cover bonus in some crater. Which was never a good approach to playing this game.

You prefer trench warfare...Trust me. If fun is your objective. Less cover is better than more. It has always been that way. The competitive players in this game. Who #1 know that the game is not balanced for competitive play across all armies - have come up with this idea that you can make an unbalanced game balanced by altering the objective of the game and covering the board with LOS blocking terrain. All that accomplishes is makes the game boring for everyone that is not harlequins and some weeboos who recently ported over from MTG. 9th edition literally blows. The sad part is 90% of players would agree with me if they showed any interest in expressing their opinion - they are too busy actually doing the hobby than crying about balance online.

cool stuff, now I have to tell all the Bolt Action, Battletech, Deadzone, Kings of War, Infinity, T9A, Vanguard, Necromunda, Mortheim, Malifaux, WildWesr Exidus, Epic, Titanicus (but also World of Tanks, World of Warships, Counter Strike) Players that their games are only fun if they remove all terrain that adds cover or blocks LOS

And I am sure 100% of them would call you bad words for even thinking that this makes a fun game and terrain is just propaganda from the competitive crowd

of course, if you have fun with no terrain and rolling dice this is ok, but you are not looking to play a Wargame or Tabletop (neither Beer&Brezel nor competitive) but want a gamy boardgame
which is fine, but don't expect anyone who wants to play a Tabletop Wargame to agree with you that "gamy" is the real fun they are looking for

In my humble opinion, if a game need a certain kind of terrain to be fun, there is something wrong in the game, because it doesn't allow me to try different type of scenario and in the end it became boring.

The_Grim_Angel wrote:
In my humble opinion, if a game need a certain kind of terrain to be fun, there is something wrong in the game, because it doesn't allow me to try different type of scenario and in the end it became boring.

Tbf, the type of terrain is only an issue because GW is about as good at making terrain and board interacting rules as i am at painting freehand symbols, aka NOT by any stretch of the margin, on an acceptable level

Even a salt desert , without many physical permanent structures can be made interesting via storms and ability to create clouds etc.

Not Online!!! wrote:
Even a salt desert , without many physical permanent structures can be made interesting via storms and ability to create clouds etc.

I recently played an RTS (Deserts of Kharak) which had one of the best LoS implementations I have seen in recent games, despite all battles exclusively taking place in deserts. Having buggies hide behind a dune and race over that dune to ambush enemy artillery and tanks advancing under the cover of smoke were some of the primary strategies of that game.

To bad that creating such a battlefield isn't really doable on a tabletop.

 Jidmah wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
Even a salt desert , without many physical permanent structures can be made interesting via storms and ability to create clouds etc.

I recently played an RTS (Deserts of Kharak) which had one of the best LoS implementations I have seen in recent games, despite all battles exclusively taking place in deserts. Having buggies hide behind a dune and race over that dune to ambush enemy artillery and tanks advancing under the cover of smoke were some of the primary strategies of that game.

To bad that creating such a battlefield isn't really doable on a tabletop.

Have you heard of our lord and sviour, the holly trinity of clouds and smoke makers?
Plasticard, wire and cotton wool?

On a side note, making a dune isn't that difficult, you can technically use the same technique i used for my terrain pieces in my Pm blog, staple some styro boards together, start cutting to get the form, then put on a cardboard piece or plasticard again or leave it blank and move as required.

There's 0 reason to not make such a table infact.

I'm thinking of something like this:

Those dunes should be able to hide a landraider or dread, while not being to steep to have all the models tumbling over all the time. I don't think you can fit that on a 6x4/60x44 board.

 Jidmah wrote:
I'm thinking of something like this:

Spoiler:

Those dunes should be able to hide a landraider or dread, while not being to steep to have all the models tumbling over all the time. I don't think you can fit that on a 6x4/60x44 board.

Well no, you'd indeed need a bigger board, or go torwards a smaller scale, however i feel a land raider is still possible within 6x4board.

That's how I prefer to play WH40K (if my friends convince me to do this ) and still this amount of LOS blocking terrain doesn't really translate into an interesting, decision-driven game IMO.


There are several problematic things which determine that in this game it's better to run forward and try to kill as much as possible with things you have, before they themselves get killed rather than lie to yourself that you're so smart to hide, bide your time, carefully maneuver and keep things alive for later. The "two guys hitting each other with hammers" vs "two master fencers" difference of how the game feels.

-cover bonus is laughable, at best meaning less than one die in six rolling out of average, at worst meaning nothing at all
-large single models and large footprint of units, coupled with the possibility to kill everyone when you draw LOS to one model makes hiding very difficult
-it's even more difficult to hide because things are so absurdly fast, with huge ranges or just appear out of nowhere (Deep Strike)

So, yeah, better run forward and roll some damage dice because next turn you may not get a chance to, no matter how careful you are with positioning.

 Xenomancers wrote:

Cyel wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
It's not like GW didn't put pictures of how they expect tables to look into the rulebook...

Tbh I remeber (since 2nd ed.and I've been an avid WD reader for a few editions of WH40K) most White Dwarf battle reports being along those lines:

Spoiler:

i.e. no LOS-blocking terrain, armies deploy opposite each other and run at each other screaming and rolling dice, with someone, occasionally, getting the cover bonus in some crater. Which was never a good approach to playing this game.

You prefer trench warfare...Trust me. If fun is your objective. Less cover is better than more. It has always been that way. The competitive players in this game. Who #1 know that the game is not balanced for competitive play across all armies - have come up with this idea that you can make an unbalanced game balanced by altering the objective of the game and covering the board with LOS blocking terrain. All that accomplishes is makes the game boring for everyone that is not harlequins and some weeboos who recently ported over from MTG. 9th edition literally blows. The sad part is 90% of players would agree with me if they showed any interest in expressing their opinion - they are too busy actually doing the hobby than crying about balance online.

Ah yes, the el classico maneuver of 'everyone here is just a teensy-tinesy minority that basically universally thinks I'm full of crap, but SECRETLY there's a HUGE GIGANTIC MAJORITY that ALL AGREES WITH EXACTLY WHAT I SAY'

*looks at fingers with little smiley faces drawn onto them*

"right guys?"


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jidmah wrote:
I'm thinking of something like this:

Spoiler:

Those dunes should be able to hide a landraider or dread, while not being to steep to have all the models tumbling over all the time. I don't think you can fit that on a 6x4/60x44 board.

We actually ended up getting some really amazing board-toppers in the store at some point (our store owner has a tendency to buy random stuff from estate sales and it just...shows up in the gaming area until he sells it) and let me tell you in concept, a board like this is amazing. in practice, it really really sucks to play on.

I'm curious what "specific" ideas people have or have seen from other games that, were they to be added into 40K, would make for more interesting board-level interactions (i.e. make for a more tactically deep game)?

A few of my thoughts:

- Alternating activation and/or reaction actions (obviously a huge shift - reactions would be easier to integrate)
- Better morale system that feeds into other elements of play
- More choices for unit actions (i.e. standing and shooting providing a benefit over moving and shooting) to create a bigger decision space
- Rules for pinning/surpression (cross-fire, volume of fire, etc.)
- More nuanced rules for handling close combat resolution (ala WHFB?)
- Better options/method for overwatch fire and/or timing of shooting resolution?
- Bring back vehicle facing and armor

EDIT: Also - reducing the lethality in the game would also help to make it more tactical. It's hard to do interesting maneuvers with units when most of them can be wiped off the board after get shot 2 or 3 times.

 Mezmorki wrote:
I'm curious what "specific" ideas people have or have seen from other games that, were they to be added into 40K, would make for more interesting board-level interactions (i.e. make for a more tactically deep game)?

A few of my thoughts:

- Alternating activation and/or reaction actions (obviously a huge shift - reactions would be easier to integrate)
- Better morale system that feeds into other elements of play
- More choices for unit actions (i.e. standing and shooting providing a benefit over moving and shooting) to create a bigger decision space
- Rules for pinning/surpression (cross-fire, volume of fire, etc.)
- More nuanced rules for handling close combat resolution (ala WHFB?)
- Better options/method for overwatch fire and/or timing of shooting resolution?
- Bring back vehicle facing and armor

Smoke grenades that deny LoS.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

Smoke grenades that deny LoS.

I think this ties into LoS rules in general. I liked in 3rd/4th edition that area terrain no, matter the width, blocked LoS up to it's height. It means hedgerows and things would actually prevent units from being shot, giving more choices for maneuver. Maybe that was too strong and instead should've blocked LoS if going through more than 3" or 6" - but the point stands. I also think cover providing their own armor saves was better than acting as a modifier.

Interactions to reward maneuver and positioning (e.g. flanking, area-fires to encourage spreading out, etc).

Interactions that don't depend on the administrative divisions of the enemy (I hate that 30 guardsmen are treated by the rules differently if they're in 3 groups of 10 or 1 group of 30, even if in every other way including tabletop position they are identical).

Personally I'd like to see a lot more "imperfect control" added back in via the leadership system.

I like the 'split fire gated behind a LD test" addition to your prohammer system, and I'd also like to see morale redesigned to introduce Suppression as well as the current and older "break and run" mechanics.

Suppression would be a great system to allow lighter weaponry to interact with more durable units without destroying them, and would be a great way to allow players to willingly decrease their deadliness in order to impede rather than destroy a unit.

Indeed, suppression is the "classic" wargame way to allow units to interact without having DEATH or NO DEATH be the only options.

Yeah - I'm actually having another conversation about adding suppression/pinning to ProHammer.

4th edition had the "hail of fire" rule, where if a unit took more wounds (before rolling saves) than it had in models (or wounds?), then you could nominate a model to kill. I'm considering taking that same trigger but instead of killing a specific model it would force a pinning test.

Necromunda had pinning tests, and when I was playing 3rd edition 40K at the time my group had house ruled in pinning tests and it added a lot to the game for sure. Could have leadership modifiers for each subseqent pinning test you took in a turn, etc.

 Mezmorki wrote:
Yeah - I'm actually having another conversation about adding suppression/pinning to ProHammer.

4th edition had the "hail of fire" rule, where if a unit took more wounds (before rolling saves) than it had in models (or wounds?), then you could nominate a model to kill. I'm considering taking that same trigger but instead of killing a specific model it would force a pinning test.

Necromunda had pinning tests, and when I was playing 3rd edition 40K at the time my group had house ruled in pinning tests and it added a lot to the game for sure. Could have leadership modifiers for each subseqent pinning test you took in a turn, etc.

Leadership in 40k has always been weird but if you find a good implementation I am all ears! I know adding a whole 'nother stat is probably bad, but there's different effects that go into pinning vs. receiving commands, for example, so Leadership being a catchall to represent both is part of the problem.

An example is the 4th edition guard codex, where a vox caster let your officer share his leadership to other units with a vox caster board-wide. It's a cool mechanic that represents, well, Leadership. That officer is leading! But that also made the squads more resistant to pinning, which doesn't make a lot of sense (unless you think the officer is trying to rally that squad over the vox, but then he isn't giving orders to other squads....).

One idea i saw recently that was pretty cool is defining clearer sub-types of leadership tests.

There were classic "break" tests for close combat resolution, "restraint" tests for units holding back on things "regroup" tests, "pinning tests" etc. These all used a units base leadership stat but had different modifiers in play depending on the type specific test being made.

I think I'd probably keep it on the same sort of continuum as now, and just have a unit's level of suppression be based on how badly they failed their end of turn leadership test.

Something like:

-Ranged weapons with the Blast, Rapid Fire, or Heavy >1 shot can be fired for suppression rather than aimed. Shots fired for suppression suffer a -1 to the hit roll and wound roll, but each hit generates a stack of Suppression.

-During the morale phase of the turn, roll 1d6 and add all the models removed as casualties from the unit, and 1/2 (rounding down) of the suppression applied to the unit. Add 2 to the result if the unit is currently within 1" of any enemy units.

If the result is:

</= Leadership: Test Passed
1-3 Greater: Suppressed. The unit subtracts 1 from all hit rolls it makes in the next turn, and subtracts 2 from its Movement value.
4-6 Greater: Pinned. The unit has a base Movement stat of 0 and subtracts 1 from all hit rolls
7-9 Greater: Broken. The unit falls back 2d6" directly away from the closest enemy unit and cannot take actions in the following turn.

>

problem with Leadership in 40k was always that there are more units that ignore it than use it

we had target priority, gone to ground, fleeing because of casulties

Marines &CSM ignored it by default, Tyranids as well and the other armies some of the rules from time to time

As a general observation - I think GW has somewhat shot themselves in the foot by trying to overly simplify the core rules and then make up for a lack of depth by ramping up all the unit- and army-specific special rules.

But the core problem is that the design of 40K simply doesn't give players enough actual meaningful CHOICES or options for how to USE their units. You can have all the complexity and detail you want in the unit rosters and special codex rules, but when all units are functionally: move, shoot, then maybe charge, there just isn't much to work with. There are no stances or reaction moves or other things you can "do" with your units.

The companion to giving unit's more options is also creating restrictions - which in turn force players to make tougher choices. 8th/9th opened up a lot of flexibility in the game, which makes it exceedingly easy to min-max and optimize your choices. For example, all units being able to freely split fire with individual models shooting individual weapons at whatever they want.

Compare that to 3rd edition where you had to shoot the closest unit with your whole squad unless you could pass a morale test! This restriction is an example where it creates opportunities for counter-play and deeper strategy, as you could use other units as a screening force, etc. Not that this particular case didn't have other problems, but it's an example of where restrictions can actually increase the depth of the game. The core rules have moved away from this notion in many cases.

 Mezmorki wrote:
As a general observation - I think GW has somewhat shot themselves in the foot by trying to overly simplify the core rules and then make up for a lack of depth by ramping up all the unit- and army-specific special rules.

But the core problem is that the design of 40K simply doesn't give players enough actual meaningful CHOICES or options for how to USE their units. You can have all the complexity and detail you want in the unit rosters and special codex rules, but when all units are functionally: move, shoot, then maybe charge, there just isn't much to work with. There are no stances or reaction moves or other things you can "do" with your units.

The companion to giving unit's more options is also creating restrictions - which in turn force players to make tougher choices. 8th/9th opened up a lot of flexibility in the game, which makes it exceedingly easy to min-max and optimize your choices. For example, all units being able to freely split fire with individual models shooting individual weapons at whatever they want.

Compare that to 3rd edition where you had to shoot the closest unit with your whole squad unless you could pass a morale test! This restriction is an example where it creates opportunities for counter-play and deeper strategy, as you could use other units as a screening force, etc. Not that this particular case didn't have other problems, but it's an example of where restrictions can actually increase the depth of the game. The core rules have moved away from this notion in many cases.

I totally agree. At their core, the rules for 8th/9th 40K and AOS are very simple. I have come to like this for AOS, along with that games' formatting of unit warscrolls, simplified army list building (points per unit), very limited CP and uses for CP, and minimalistic "faction" traits, artifacts, and bonuses. But I have come to despise the newer 40k rules, especially the introduction of layers upon layers of faction, subfaction, and unit rules as well as the multitude of stratagem cards to memorize in order for an army to be effective.

40K has always had a more granular system for unit upgrades whilst AoS/Old World has always gone for a much simpler unit roster system. Old World did get far more complex with character/hero equipment even down to items (eg you had to buy scrolls to counter magic at one stage).

I think the new Necron codex does show that GW is at least restoring some of the simplicity of building 40K lists; the last two or so codex before got very out of hand as they moved information around into odd ways that resulted in a lot of back and forth and a lot of confusion of what was what and where prices and stats were. Much earlier codex were even simpler - it was all on the units page; the stats and costs.

Simplicty of the rules isn't a problem in itself. There are a lot of games with very simple rules, yet extremely complex and interestin board states (I love how Concordia describes its own gameplay with a single sentence in the rules )

The problem with GW rules is that they ask you to do a lot of operation of the game's engine, but very little opportunity for choices and decisions. That's why the game feels clunky, tedious and unsatisfying.

 Mezmorki wrote:
As a general observation - I think GW has somewhat shot themselves in the foot by trying to overly simplify the core rules and then make up for a lack of depth by ramping up all the unit- and army-specific special rules.

it is kind of that they never understood their own game
because the core was never a problem, minor issues that could be easily solved but nothing that needed a big change
the issue were the Army rules that either just ignored most of the core or were well off by points
yet those were the things that stayed the same and even with a reset with 8th, profiles were not touched and updated to fit the new core

people complained a lot that 40k is too hard to get into because of the rules and the army size, yet the designer thought the people meant the core is to hard to understand and to remember so this got changed

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
I'm thinking of something like this:

Spoiler:

Those dunes should be able to hide a landraider or dread, while not being to steep to have all the models tumbling over all the time. I don't think you can fit that on a 6x4/60x44 board.

Well no, you'd indeed need a bigger board, or go torwards a smaller scale, however i feel a land raider is still possible within 6x4board.

Not necessarily. It is as much about the size of the dunes which are important. Don't make them gradual, but also have high peaks. Look at roughly the base size of much of the terrain you use now, have the peaks be about the same height, and then slope them up appropriately.

How would you even implement rules for flanking fire/cross fire in 40K where units are amorphous blobs that can be any shape and have no defined facings?