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So blasts still feel kind of weird to me. I get that they have variable shots depending on the number of enemies you shoot, but I wonder if we could do more to make them feel more blast-like.

To that end, I suggest that blasts will always hit, but still roll to hit. it will make sense, trust me!

So I suggest that if a blast misses, then that is treated as a hit with half the S and AP (rounding down). For example: a blast weapon with S8 AP-3 rolls 5 shots, rolls 2 hits and 3 misses, and so scores 2 hits at S8 AP-3 and 3 hits with S4 AP-1.

This would make blast weapons always feel like they are causing big explosions! It also makes low BS blast weapons a bit more effective, which makes sense - can't hit anything? blow the whole area up!

You could even go as far as to say "-1 to hit on units with 5 or less models" instead of the current blast rules, and then give blast weapons a flat amount of shots (EG D6 becomes 4, D3 becomes 2). these shots can never miss, but a hit is more powerful.

What do you think?

It sounds interesting. I think (!) A lot of blastweapons should then increase in price and different armies would profit differently (Orks a lot more than SM for example).

Also units relying on negative to hit modyfiers might need a slight discount as they would loose a lot of their survivability. Also blast weapons would suddenly be excellent AA weapons, which might not be intended.

So all in all: interesting mechanic, but it would afford quite some adjustments.

I don't hate it. I do worry that you end up rolling even more dice than you do now for even less effect than you get now. If I shoot some eldar plasma missiles or frag missiles at my opponent's tactical marines, then I'll end up with two to-wound pools instead of 1 and possibly two save pools instead of 1, and the "missed' shots will only wound on a 6+ and only get through armor on a 1 or 2. Fishing for 6s can get annoying if you have to do a lot of it (remember snapshots in 7th?)

Also, letting a good number of weapons in the game suddenly auto-hit their targets (even at a reduced strength) is a pretty big nerf for those armies/units that rely on to-hit penalties to survive. Consider the impact on a Culexus assassin, for instance.

Probably a workable idea though.

I would play it to try it out. Sure. Why not. Templates were best imho but this is a fine approximation.

Wyldhunt wrote:
I don't hate it. I do worry that you end up rolling even more dice than you do now for even less effect than you get now. If I shoot some eldar plasma missiles or frag missiles at my opponent's tactical marines, then I'll end up with two to-wound pools instead of 1 and possibly two save pools instead of 1, and the "missed' shots will only wound on a 6+ and only get through armor on a 1 or 2. Fishing for 6s can get annoying if you have to do a lot of it (remember snapshots in 7th?)

Also, letting a good number of weapons in the game suddenly auto-hit their targets (even at a reduced strength) is a pretty big nerf for those armies/units that rely on to-hit penalties to survive. Consider the impact on a Culexus assassin, for instance.

Probably a workable idea though.

Perhaps the Blast auto hit effect would only work against models with more than 9 wounds and units with five or more models to show that a single character model like an assassin is both more difficult to hit and can more easily evade.

 SergentSilver wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:
I don't hate it. I do worry that you end up rolling even more dice than you do now for even less effect than you get now. If I shoot some eldar plasma missiles or frag missiles at my opponent's tactical marines, then I'll end up with two to-wound pools instead of 1 and possibly two save pools instead of 1, and the "missed' shots will only wound on a 6+ and only get through armor on a 1 or 2. Fishing for 6s can get annoying if you have to do a lot of it (remember snapshots in 7th?)

Also, letting a good number of weapons in the game suddenly auto-hit their targets (even at a reduced strength) is a pretty big nerf for those armies/units that rely on to-hit penalties to survive. Consider the impact on a Culexus assassin, for instance.

Probably a workable idea though.

Perhaps the Blast auto hit effect would only work against models with more than 9 wounds and units with five or more models to show that a single character model like an assassin is both more difficult to hit and can more easily evade.

That is an option, but then again, if you're trying to hit an evasive model, a large explosion's kind of a good way to do it!

Getting -1 to hit (or -1 to BS, so it stacks with to hit modifiers) against him means you're more likely to hit single models with shrapnel rather than the bulk of the blast. An assassin getting a few S4 AP-1 hits is better than the current, where it could take a bunch of S8 AP-3 hits with multiple damage.

Speaking of damage, I would say that shrapnel hits (the misses) would have half strength, half AP, and 1 damage.

Then you could re-introduce the "Ordnance" rule, which would mean that shrapnel hits have damage 2, because these are seriously big explosions! This would be applied to anything with damage 4+ (or over D3).

 some bloke wrote:

Spoiler:

 SergentSilver wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:
I don't hate it. I do worry that you end up rolling even more dice than you do now for even less effect than you get now. If I shoot some eldar plasma missiles or frag missiles at my opponent's tactical marines, then I'll end up with two to-wound pools instead of 1 and possibly two save pools instead of 1, and the "missed' shots will only wound on a 6+ and only get through armor on a 1 or 2. Fishing for 6s can get annoying if you have to do a lot of it (remember snapshots in 7th?)

Also, letting a good number of weapons in the game suddenly auto-hit their targets (even at a reduced strength) is a pretty big nerf for those armies/units that rely on to-hit penalties to survive. Consider the impact on a Culexus assassin, for instance.

Probably a workable idea though.

Perhaps the Blast auto hit effect would only work against models with more than 9 wounds and units with five or more models to show that a single character model like an assassin is both more difficult to hit and can more easily evade.

That is an option, but then again, if you're trying to hit an evasive model, a large explosion's kind of a good way to do it!

Getting -1 to hit (or -1 to BS, so it stacks with to hit modifiers) against him means you're more likely to hit single models with shrapnel rather than the bulk of the blast. An assassin getting a few S4 AP-1 hits is better than the current, where it could take a bunch of S8 AP-3 hits with multiple damage.

Speaking of damage, I would say that shrapnel hits (the misses) would have half strength, half AP, and 1 damage.

Then you could re-introduce the "Ordnance" rule, which would mean that shrapnel hits have damage 2, because these are seriously big explosions! This would be applied to anything with damage 4+ (or over D3).

Seems good to me


Automatically Appended Next Post:
As someone who has been a big fan of IG since Dark Crusade, I would love to see the big guns feel like big guns again. Especially the Basilisk. I've wanted one since I started playing, and now that I have one (and some other supports to proxy a full squad), I got recommended to remove them from my list because there are better options now.

One big downside of the increasingly smaller table sizes is that the old artillery guns have no real place. What made them mighty was their range that gave them the ability to hit anywhere on the table from their placement. These days, even a 72" range is bordering on unnecessary, with most tank guns hitting much harder for their shorter range.