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 kodos wrote:
this is a problem since 6th for the same reason, GW does not understand what game mechanics are time consuming and which are not and they are focus on the wrong ones

This times a million.

I will celebrate the day when I no longer need to make pick up a model and move it 120 times in a single turn because a mob of boyz charged. That's 360 times for a horde army, plus another 60 if you decide to fight twice. Just for having troops use their primary damaging ability.

Is it really too hard to just change melee so that up to X models can fight if two units are touching after a charge move?

Sounds like Apocalypse is for you.

It's really not, but I wish some lessons learned from that game would be transferred over to regular 40k.

No reason not to. I mean, there's nothing in the design of 40k that requires it only be played a certain way. The miniatures are rules-agnostic. I'm absolutely loving the Apocalypse unit trays, so I should try it sometime...

 Jidmah wrote:


Is it really too hard to just change melee so that up to X models can fight if two units are touching after a charge move?

Maybe it is like the gaming industry, that thinks that if getting 100% completed takes you 360hours of doing the same 3-4 things over and over again you are going to be stuned by the quality of the game, and to make the game even better you just need more time gates.

I mean if a normal game is 2000pts, and you have to paint it, or you practicaly lose every game. Then the time investment in to the game, the long game mechanics is going to be so extensive that anyone who doesn't quit right at the start is going to be fooling himself in to eternity that GW fix to the things they don't like is just around the corner. I mean if they wait 8-12 years, what is another 3-6 months wait time, and stuff like 5 hour games seem practicaly trivial in comperation.

So, my nephews that I've been playing ProHammer with are getting the Indomitus box for xmas from their parents - and no doubt this will push me to play games of 9th edition with them

I'm about a few things raised here that others might be able to shed some light on.

(1) When people talking about the increased "lethality" of the game - what are the main factors contributing to this increased lethality?

(2) Morale in 8th / 9th seems to be a big weak point. I wonder about just replacing the whole morale phase with a more traditional/classic approach, where units actually break and fall back, need to re-group, etc. I wonder if some of the issues with mission objectives being to melee focused is that you can't force units to actually fallback and have to move off of an objective.

 Mezmorki wrote:
So, my nephews that I've been playing ProHammer with are getting the Indomitus box for xmas from their parents - and no doubt this will push me to play games of 9th edition with them

I'm about a few things raised here that others might be able to shed some light on.

(1) When people talking about the increased "lethality" of the game - what are the main factors contributing to this increased lethality?

(2) Morale in 8th / 9th seems to be a big weak point. I wonder about just replacing the whole morale phase with a more traditional/classic approach, where units actually break and fall back, need to re-group, etc. I wonder if some of the issues with mission objectives being to melee focused is that you can't force units to actually fallback and have to move off of an objective.

1) I would primarily chalk up 1 to the reduction of the effectiveness of cover saves combined with the new AP system. 8th style cover was significantly less effective in most circumstances and SIGNIFICANTLY harder to claim than the previous cover paradigm of how people actually played 7th and earlier cover (i.e., everything was Ruins, the most powerful cover type). 9th takes a babystep in the right direction with more easily claimed model-by-model cover and the addition of dense cover allowing you to have both +1sv and -1 to hit, but for a lot of units that's still significantly worse than the 4+ cover save or 3+ if you went to ground that you used to get from cover. Also 9th took a step back in basically removing anything but infantry and beasts from being able to interact with most cover on the board.

The new AP system makes some difference but I'm not actually convinced it's that much, as primarily in 7th and ealier you'd rarely be choosing to shoot a weapon with a worse AP than the model's cover save unless you had a good chance of just overwhelming by weight of fire.

My first impressions going directly from 7th to 8th was that I hated terrain, overall light infantry and light vehicles felt tougher, and heavy infantry and heavy vehicles felt much weaker. You were much more likely to be able to successfully harm, say, a land raider with a lascannon (3+ to hit, 3+ to wound, 5+ armor save vs D6 damage) in 8th+ than in 7th- (3+ to hit, 5 to glance, 6 to pen) though admittedly if you DID get that pen it was possible to just one-hit-KO the whole tank all at once, which led to the 7th- problem of heavy vehicles going from indestructible to "oops, it's gone" in one shot.

2) I don't think that would alter things much tbh. What I'd really love to see is a split Suppressed/Pinned/Broken mechanic whereby failing a morale test is easier, but if you fail only by a little bit you are merely suppressed and suffer a lethality penalty (but otherwise act normally), if you are pinned you are basically 'stunned' for a turn and must go to ground, and if you are Broken you actually fall back and have to rally in subsequent turns (if you are merely pinned or suppressed you recover automatically)

The reason I say morale fails in 9th is because the function of morale in a wargame is to give a player ways to impede enemy units without simply destroying them. That's the point: to allow the models to stay on the table to maybe be useful later, but to have them be ineffective temporarily, which allows reducing lethality without making it frustrating as all hell to just fling fire into something and not kill it.

A split mechanic like that would allow morale to apply to everything in the game (including heavy units - we DESPERATELY need a system whereby heavy units can be impeded but not destroyed by lighter firepower) and it would allow more mechanical levers for design than simple morale immunity. For example, ATSKNF could be immunity to Broken state, but not immunity to Suppression or Pinnning. Various "Bezerk" units could go on an uncontrolled rampage when Broken, attacking the closest unit friend or foe, rather than running away. Necron Self-Preservation Protocols could grant immunity to suppression, but still allow Pinning and Broken to occur in extreme circumstances when the unit must preserve itself as best it can in preparation for phase-out (which could occur in the case of a failed Rally test when the unit is broken). Just a few examples.

The other thing that morale could 100% use is an easier to track trigger point than the current 'track how many casualties have been removed from every unit on the board this turn'.

 Mezmorki wrote:


(1) When people talking about the increased "lethality" of the game - what are the main factors contributing to this increased lethality?

AP on every weapon in a game where there are often over 150 models per side, which makes normal stats worse point wise then chaff stats, and defensive stats have to be bordering or crossing in to the OP territory to be a valid option to take.

higher Damage output in general (more shots per weapon and multi-damage weapons) combined with higher range and more AP while the overall defence stats stayed the same and are just slowly changing now

Yeah - why couldn't they have made cover work more like it did in older editions?

I wonder about just retrofittingn that back in.

would it a ton of rules if models in cover could just get a 4+ or 5+ cover save (not affected by weapon AP) again?

It would be a massive buff to light infantry, which were the ones that used cover the most in the old system.

It would also be a nerf to high save models that benefit the most of the new system.

 Tyran wrote:
It would be a massive buff to light infantry, which were the ones that used cover the most in the old system.

It would also be a nerf to high save models that benefit the most of the new system.

So what?

Why not have a dual system of a cover save and if the armor is equal or better improve the armor save by one?

It's frankly absurd that guardsmen are just as good off in a trenchline then they are in the open to put bluntly.

 kodos wrote:
higher Damage output in general (more shots per weapon and multi-damage weapons) combined with higher range and more AP while the overall defence stats stayed the same and are just slowly changing now

With a few exceptions like some of the new primaris stuff I haven't really found this all that true. Even the big bugbear throughout most of 8th, the FRFSRF infantry squad was only 37 lasgun shots at 12" compared to 30 lasgun shots in the previous edition (when IIRC your sarge could take a lasgun and FRFSRF added +1 shot rather than making you Rapid Fire 2)

Mostly the difference just comes from new cover, new AP and strats, which are heavily slanted towards offense over defense for sure.

The AP change is in general is a good thing.

Sure it made armored units more vulnerable to lighter weapons, but it made them more resistant to heavy ones.

E.g my Carnifex is more vulnerable to Autocannons (AP 4 in the old system, now AP -1), but considerably more resistant to Missile Launchers (AP 3 in the old system, now AP -2). It even gets a 6+ save against Lascannons (AP 2 in the old system, now AP -3).

The old AP systems was to binary, which favored low AP spam over medium AP that most of the time was useless.

E.g a hotshot lasgun was pretty much just a normal lasgun if fired at a Terminator.

 Tyran wrote:
The AP change is in general is a good thing.

Sure it made armored units more vulnerable to lighter weapons, but it made them more resistant to heavy ones.

E.g my Carnifex is more vulnerable to Autocannons (AP 4 in the old system, now AP -1), but considerably more resistant to Missile Launchers (AP 3 in the old system, now AP -2). It even gets a 6+ save against Lascannons (AP 2 in the old system, now AP -3)

The old AP systems was to binary, which favored low AP spam over medium AP that most of the time was useless.

E.g a hotshot lasgun was pretty much just a normal lasgun if fired at a Terminator.

The opposite was true though for vehicles. Heavy units were less vulnerable to dedicated antitank and more vulnerable to midstrength weapon spam in 7th. Its precisely why that edition was the Scatter Laser Edition - 4 glances and you're dead for most vehicles, no saves nothing.

the_scotsman wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
The AP change is in general is a good thing.

Sure it made armored units more vulnerable to lighter weapons, but it made them more resistant to heavy ones.

E.g my Carnifex is more vulnerable to Autocannons (AP 4 in the old system, now AP -1), but considerably more resistant to Missile Launchers (AP 3 in the old system, now AP -2). It even gets a 6+ save against Lascannons (AP 2 in the old system, now AP -3)

The old AP systems was to binary, which favored low AP spam over medium AP that most of the time was useless.

E.g a hotshot lasgun was pretty much just a normal lasgun if fired at a Terminator.

The opposite was true though for vehicles. Heavy units were less vulnerable to dedicated antitank and more vulnerable to midstrength weapon spam in 7th. Its precisely why that edition was the Scatter Laser Edition - 4 glances and you're dead for most vehicles, no saves nothing.

Depends on the vehicle in question, of course. Truly heavy units had very little to fear from scatterlasers. Medium units like Hellhounds and Predators did, though (though a Predator was immune to scatterlasers from the correct facing).

But generally agreed. Hullpoints, AKA wounds-but-for-tanks, were bad for the game. So GW decided the problem was that Vehicles needed to act more like MCs with ... wounds-for-vehicles.

the_scotsman wrote:

 kodos wrote:
higher Damage output in general (more shots per weapon and multi-damage weapons) combined with higher range and more AP while the overall defence stats stayed the same and are just slowly changing now

With a few exceptions like some of the new primaris stuff I haven't really found this all that true. Even the big bugbear throughout most of 8th, the FRFSRF infantry squad was only 37 lasgun shots at 12" compared to 30 lasgun shots in the previous edition (when IIRC your sarge could take a lasgun and FRFSRF added +1 shot rather than making you Rapid Fire 2)

Mostly the difference just comes from new cover, new AP and strats, which are heavily slanted towards offense over defense for sure.

like Boltgun being 1 shot at 24" if stationary or 2 shots at 12" (18" including movement) with no charge possible after, Twin-Linked being just a re-roll no D2+ weapons at all etc

it is not just the new Primaris stuff but moving + shooting at max range, Damage values and increasing the number of shots in addition to re-rolls changed a lot
which was needed to compensate for the high-Wound Monster/Tanks, yet the output was not increased on the specific Anti-Tank weapons (1 shot D6 Damage is less effective than 2 shots 2 Damage)

Did any weapons get an increased D value so far in 9th?

 BertBert wrote:
Did any weapons get an increased D value so far in 9th?

Multimelta's at half rage technically did as they have a range of 3-8 damage instead of 1-6

 BertBert wrote:
Did any weapons get an increased D value so far in 9th?

Incubi glaives so far. Macharius Vanquishers went from 1d6 damage to 9 flat, regular Russ vanquishers went from 6 to 3+d3. Just off the top of my head in 10 seconds.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:


Depends on the vehicle in question, of course. Truly heavy units had very little to fear from scatterlasers. Medium units like Hellhounds and Predators did, though (though a Predator was immune to scatterlasers from the correct facing).

But a lot to fear from haywire and grav.

But generally agreed. Hullpoints, AKA wounds-but-for-tanks, were bad for the game. So GW decided the problem was that Vehicles needed to act more like MCs with ... wounds-for-vehicles.

Having a type of unit that uses an entirely different ruleset from the rest of the game is usually considered bad design.

GW always struggled to balance vehicles, with some editions (like 5th) making them to strong, while others making them to weak.

It seems to me that you could implement a set of house-rules in 40K such that when you're in cover, you can do one of two things:

(1) Take the hit on your armor as normal, with cover providing a bonus on your armor save.

OR

(2) Take the hit on the cover, which would be an unmodified flat save depending on the strength of the cover. 6+ for soft cover (woods, vegetation, etc) and 5+ for hard cover (ruins, rocks, etc). Could have a 4+ for fortifications and more defensible stuff. Or maybe 5+/4+/3+ if you want to give more durability to units. This, couple with changing morale and allowing actual fallback moves and regrouping would seem to do a ton to reduce the lethality of the game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tyran wrote:

Having a type of unit that uses an entirely different ruleset from the rest of the game is usually considered bad design.

GW always struggled to balance vehicles, with some editions (like 5th) making them to strong, while others making them to weak.

GW's issue IMHO was that they always swung the pendulum too far when they made a change. Vehicles were too strong in 5th, so instead of changing the damage table incrementally, they added Hull Points that ensured a vehicle died after X glancing or penetrating hits, then vehicles were too weak. Before that in 4th edition, vehicles were again too weak in general because a 4+ on the penetrating hit table blew them up, and you had ordinance and high AP and open-topped vehicles making it even more likely to get a 4+. 5th edition would've been fine, if they just tweaked the damage table result a little bit. But GW rarely does that, they always swing too far in the opposite direction and never get to a happy median.

To your first point - I reject that having different types of units use different rules is bad design. Vehicles are fundamentally VERY different than an infantry unit. Why shouldn't the rules reflect that?

I'm also thinking about how to account for vehicle facing and damage rolls in 9th edition again. Maybe something where the toughness of the vehicle is lower when in the rear arc or side arc. Or maybe a bonus to the wound roll? Gotta think about what that would look like.

 Tyran wrote:


Depends on the vehicle in question, of course. Truly heavy units had very little to fear from scatterlasers. Medium units like Hellhounds and Predators did, though (though a Predator was immune to scatterlasers from the correct facing).

But a lot to fear from haywire and grav.

Heavy anti-tank weapons were worthless in 7th unless they had D strength.

And very few wargames are as asymmetric as 40k. When some factions can spam their entire army in metal boxes (like Guard) and others don't have a single vehicle (Tyranids), having entirely different rule-sets causes an unnecessary schism that is prone to imbalance.

40k has always been Hella lethal. You used to get free 4++ saves for standing in grass though... Even back in those days you could get an ignore cover death star and just blow every unit away. Plus D weapons. I spammed the heck outta d weapons in 7th man. Those could go right through invune saves.

Biggest change really? No more go to ground.

 Tyran wrote:
Heavy anti-tank weapons were worthless in 7th unless they had D strength.

As someone who plays 30k, which is basically modern 7th, I can assure you this is a consequence of badly-written codexes, rather than a consequence of the core rules.

 Tyran wrote:
And very few wargames are as asymmetric as 40k. When some factions can spam their entire army in metal boxes (like Guard) and others don't have a single vehicle (Tyranids), having entirely different rule-sets causes an unnecessary schism that is prone to imbalance.

But you said having different damage models for vehicles in games was bad game design. Are you now moving the goalpost to "factions having different access to bits of gear is bad game design"? Because that's not an issue I'm arguing about.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

But you said having different damage models for vehicles in games was bad game design. Are you now moving the goalpost to "factions having different access to bits of gear is bad game design"? Because that's not an issue I'm arguing about.

Somewhat, although is not just different bits of gear, but unit types with massive rule differences. If an unit type is simply not accessible to entire factions while easily accessible to others, then that unit type is going to have large impact on inter-faction balance.

8th consolidation of Monsters and Vehicles under the same basic rules was IMHO an improvement. The actual rules could have been written better, but they are finally on the same playing field.

But in the end the intreduction of stuff like the castellan made most vehicles not usable.

What was used were LoS artilery, Flyers which played a game of their own in 8th, and at the very end of 8th stuff that got boosted to high heaven thanks to 9th ed rules synergy in 8th ed.

 Tyran wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

But you said having different damage models for vehicles in games was bad game design. Are you now moving the goalpost to "factions having different access to bits of gear is bad game design"? Because that's not an issue I'm arguing about.

Somewhat, although is not just different bits of gear, but unit types with massive rule differences. If an unit type is simply not accessible to entire factions while easily accessible to others, then that unit type is going to have large impact on inter-faction balance.

8th consolidation of Monsters and Vehicles under the same basic rules was IMHO an improvement. The actual rules could have been written better, but they are finally on the same playing field.

I'm not really concerned with having the argument you're trying to have; I've generally refuted your original claim that vehicles being treated differently to everything else was bad game design.

As for the proper balance between Vehicles and MCs, they were fine in 4th edition and most of 5th for example (and are fine in 30k). They weren't nearly as drastically cocked up as they were in 6th-7th, nor were the vehicle rules as shoddy at making vehicles vehicular as 8th and 9th.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:


I'm not really concerned with having the argument you're trying to have; I've generally refuted your original claim that vehicles being treated differently to everything else was bad game design.

As for the proper balance between Vehicles and MCs, they were fine in 4th edition and most of 5th for example (and are fine in 30k). They weren't nearly as drastically cocked up as they were in 6th-7th, nor were the vehicle rules as shoddy at making vehicles vehicular as 8th and 9th.

Fair enough, similarly I have no interest to returning to the pre-8th paradigm.