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Blackie wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:

 Aenar wrote:
Apoc was so good and appreciated by the community that it's been a dead game since launch
Meanwhile 40K with its much hated IGOUGO system has been growing and growing in popularity. That should tell us something.

People will consume absolute trash as long as it's easily accessible and low effort on their part?

Works on junk food and low quality tv shows .

And Warhammer+

Main reason why Apoc is not the main game is because of the amount of units people think they need to play (and transport). Yes, you can play with smaller points and tables (IIRC Apoc rulebook says take 300 power (5000points!) and a 4x8 table) than the rulebook says but then many will say: why not just play normal 40K? And if I don't like 40Ks rules and search for an alternative why not take grimdark future which is Apoc on squad Level.

The most traction we had for 40K AA system under the ProHammer ruleset was a system where you just split your force into 3 sub-detachments (each need to have ~25% minimum of your points) and players alternate activating those detachments, with all units in that detachment taking a full turn of move/shoot/charge/fight.

I'd like to nuance it a little bit such that, for example, you can still have some reactions built in. E.G, if you shoot a unit that hasn't been activated, that unit can return fire simultaneously and casualties are resolved at the same time for both sides, but then when the reacting unit is activated, it's already burned up it's shooting action (but could still move and charge).

Deadnight wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 auticus wrote:
I wont play a game that is IGO UGO any longer personally barring some extreme exceptions like Blood Bowl or games like that.

I don't hate IGOUGO, but honestly the game has to be designed around it from the ground up and 40k is definitely not.

I mean, the igoyougo system in 40k or the more extreme igoyougo in warmachine can be problematic.

Aa is far from perfect though. Personally I often find aa (alternative activation) often jarring and immersion breaking

Bruh how is it not immersion breaking for Imperial Fists to sit twiddling their thumbs while Orks charge and only one units remembers they can Overwatch?

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Absolutely, a d12 system would be a god send to give us a far greater range of balance to work with.

fun fact, the original design with 3 D6 was to simulate the variation of a D20
but over time, the variation came down to a simply 3 times 3+ or 4+

just changing it now to a D12 won't do much, as if the designers don't even use the variation a D6 gives them, they won't use the possibilities of a D12 either

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Bruh how is it not immersion breaking for Imperial Fists to sit twiddling their thumbs while Orks charge and only one units remembers they can Overwatch?

Because i didn't say it wasn't.

There's a reason I prefer the turn structure of lotr or infinity... I'll work with 9th ed (or anything from 2nd on...) but lets face it, it's a rough system and I can't say I've ever thought 40k was a 'good' system structure...

What I liked about the 'feel' of igoyougo (at least when I played wmh back in 2nd) that I didn't get from traditional aa is the feel of implementing sweeping movements via a plan for my whole army. It actuslly felt like I was in charge of my army. Swapping over one guy/unit at a time just broke that for me.

Ymmv.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Deadnight wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 auticus wrote:
I wont play a game that is IGO UGO any longer personally barring some extreme exceptions like Blood Bowl or games like that.

I don't hate IGOUGO, but honestly the game has to be designed around it from the ground up and 40k is definitely not.

I mean, the igoyougo system in 40k or the more extreme igoyougo in warmachine can be problematic.

Aa is far from perfect though. Personally I often find aa (alternative activation) often jarring and immersion breaking

Bruh how is it not immersion breaking for Imperial Fists to sit twiddling their thumbs while Orks charge and only one units remembers they can Overwatch?

Because any immersion has already been wrung out of the system?
I mean, this is an edition where you can shoot a forward pointing hull mounted weapon out the rear of your tank. Or shoot & kill things with the tips of your banner poles. So I'm long past the point of annoyance at only 1 unit being able to fire Overwatch....

nou wrote:
It works great. As I mentioned before, my group uses alternative detachment activation with 3-5 activations per side, based on quite rigid FOC equivalent. Combined with end of round damage resolution this creates very engaging and fair game without problems typical for both pure IGOUGO and AA

I played around with it in my old simplehammer system but always seemed to run into edge cases such as assaults being spread out leading to combat resolution being delayed until end-turn leading to vehicles needing special case rules and so on. But then I never had end of round damage resolution in those.

A.T. wrote:

nou wrote:
It works great. As I mentioned before, my group uses alternative detachment activation with 3-5 activations per side, based on quite rigid FOC equivalent. Combined with end of round damage resolution this creates very engaging and fair game without problems typical for both pure IGOUGO and AA

I played around with it in my old simplehammer system but always seemed to run into edge cases such as assaults being spread out leading to combat resolution being delayed until end-turn leading to vehicles needing special case rules and so on. But then I never had end of round damage resolution in those.

That's why our system is action based instead of fixed phases. Each unit within activated detachment gets to perform two actions. Basically it is a large "chained activation" system.

nou wrote:

Deadnight wrote:

 aphyon wrote:
however i dislike the dice activation system (it is very much like SW legions card activation system). because it removes a level of control the player has as to when and where you can activate units as a battlefield commander should in a war game.

I know hordes for courses and all that but I like a wargame that is built in such a way that elements of the game and your own army are outside of your control. To me this represents both fog of war and the chaos of the battlefield. A battlefield commander won't always be able to direct things like a conductor. Messengers are shot, rqdios short out orders, orders are misheard, or misunderstood, troops panic or go rage or even worse, inprovise or go off script. You can't always control everything and you won't always be able to get your troops to do what you want them to do. You see it in a lot of historicals. And honestly being able to deal with this is what separates the good and the great, imo. It makes a far more interesting and less sterile game state.

I learned it from warlords great 'test of honour' game. I was useless at it. I struggled horribly with not having total control of my army whereas my friends just flowed with it. It taught me something of myself and my skills and frankly how much more I have to grow as a player. To the point that these days my preference is a game with a certain 'chaos' element.

It tests different skills and abilities than games like wmh where you have full control of every aspect of your army. It tests your ability to think on the fly and improvise with often less than ideal situations. Imo its a far more intriguing way of testing a players 'skill'.

IMHO this is exactly what separates wargames from war themed games. Modern 40k is war themed game and has exactly zero connection to the roots of the genre - the actual officer training tool.

That would be because, at its original core, 40K isn't a wargame, it's a mass RPG. The problem is that the studio is confused as to whether they want to keep it that way or make it a wargame.

Deadnight wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Bruh how is it not immersion breaking for Imperial Fists to sit twiddling their thumbs while Orks charge and only one units remembers they can Overwatch?

Because i didn't say it wasn't.

There's a reason I prefer the turn structure of lotr or infinity... I'll work with 9th ed (or anything from 2nd on...) but lets face it, it's a rough system and I can't say I've ever thought 40k was a 'good' system structure...

What I liked about the 'feel' of igoyougo (at least when I played wmh back in 2nd) that I didn't get from traditional aa is the feel of implementing sweeping movements via a plan for my whole army. It actuslly felt like I was in charge of my army. Swapping over one guy/unit at a time just broke that for me.

Ymmv.

So it isn't that AA is immersion breaking, you just to do all your combos with no interference or forethought.

Yeah I don't buy it.

EviscerationPlague wrote:
So it isn't that AA is immersion breaking, you just to do all your combos with no interference or forethought.
Yeah I don't buy it.

IGOUGO, when ranges and speeds are reasonable, does have it's own element of army-wide strategy that alternative activation lacks.

You have to commit your army to a course of action for the whole turn, estimating how many units you will need to achieve the task. If for example you move two units up to push a target off an objective and they don't manage it then it is too late for you to commit a third, whereas with alternating actions you can move up units one at a time until you have used exactly the minimum required to complete the task.

A.T. wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:
So it isn't that AA is immersion breaking, you just to do all your combos with no interference or forethought.
Yeah I don't buy it.

IGOUGO, when ranges and speeds are reasonable, does have it's own element of army-wide strategy that alternative activation lacks.

You have to commit your army to a course of action for the whole turn, estimating how many units you will need to achieve the task. If for example you move two units up to push a target off an objective and they don't manage it then it is too late for you to commit a third, whereas with alternating actions you can move up units one at a time until you have used exactly the minimum required to complete the task.

You can also have your plans interrupted by your opponent.

That can also be true of an IGOUGO system with a good reaction system, but 40k is not that.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

So it isn't that AA is immersion breaking, you just to do all your combos with no interference or forethought.

That's a poor interpretation of what I said and worse projection of things I didn't say at all.

So I suppose the fact that I alluded to games structures like infinity and lotr as my preference sailed past you?

Both are igoyougo.
Both allow interference and require forethought and are dynamic.

And as a caveat, while I don't play it any more, when I played wmh competitively putting your turns together did require forethought as well as the ability to read/predict the board set up 2-3 turns in advance.

And yes, it very much is the 'one unit at a time/swap over' that I find immersion breaking. While its not a game-breaking aspect-I play plenty aa games (eg warcry, kill team, newcromunda, test of hobour, shadespire, bolt action(kinda!) etc) - I'm still allowed to find it jarring and to not like it. (And for the record, doing stuff with 'a chunk' of my army at a time instead of my whole army is something I'll accept without too many issues - because hey, as I alluded as well, i accept that pure igoyougo has its issues as well.):

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Yeah I don't buy it.

^shrug^ you do you buddy. Ive been playing ttgs long enough that I know where I stand on the games I play and enjoy as well as the reasons why.

Is it time for another AA vs IGOUGO argument where the only kind of AA that exists is pure one-to-one alternation, and the only kind of IGOUGO that exists is how it currently works in 40K? Love those. Very productive.

(Edit: Just to be clear, that's not directed at you, Deadnight)

Deadnight wrote:
(And for the record, doing stuff with 'a chunk' of my army at a time instead of my whole army is something I'll accept without too many issues - because hey, as I alluded as well, i accept that pure igoyougo has its issues as well.)

Okay, now no snark: Check out Fireball Forward. The core activation mechanic is a 'chunk' system not unlike Bolt Action, but it's by squad, and you declare the activation order of your squads before you actually execute any actions. So you might arrange your cards and declare that the platoon leader is going to go (so that he can rally the MG team), then the MG team (so they can suppress the enemy once rallied), and then an infantry squad (so they can advance under machine gun cover)... and when the Plt Ld fails to rally the MG team, then you have to improvise. It also has an inherent overwatch/reaction system too, so your opponent can interfere as well.

I tend to think the best systems are the ones that aren't purely alternating or IGOUGO, but some blend of the two. Or at least IGOUGO with a robust reaction system.

 Mezmorki wrote:
^^^^ Building off what Nou said...

We used versions of this AP = Sv adjustment way back when playing 3rd and 4th. And we've been using it for 2+ years in our many games of ProHammer. It's not an issue - it works well, and it's a case where the "math" doesn't really translate directly into the lived experience of playing - there are too many other factors at play, use of cover, etc.

What it does do, is increase the survivability of units across the board - which is exactly what we want to achieve.

If your house rules work for your house game, great; however, that doesn't make them good for anything else. You like a plodding game where units don't die? Fine, but that's just not how the game is supposed to work. It's stupid that Terminators get a FREE 3++ against Lascannon, and bog standard SMs get a FREE 4++ against Krak missiles - these are the ultimate anti-tank weapons of the game, so absolutely should be punching through infantry armor without any resistance.

I like a game where poorly-placed units die quickly. A failure to have or leverage cover should be punished accordingly, and that's precisely what the game is designed for. If someone is dumb enough to hang those units out in the open, they deserve to get cut down.

As for "fluff", The Iron Cage makes it perfectly clear that Commanders who are stupid enough deploy SMs in the open will see them die to a man.

Rolling tons of dice for little results is not an achievement. To reduce lethality reduce the dice rolling. Plain and simple.

Don't add layers of saves, tools to ignore/mitigate the AP or increase the wounds. Make units fire way less shots. Maybe reducing ranges as well.

I can't accept that a dakkajet fires 36-42 shots, an ork warbike has 10-12 shots and a megatrakk scrapjet has the chance to fire more than 30 during the speedwaagh (with an average of 25ish), using 4 different weapons profiles. And those are units that don't break the game and are fine as they are considering the state of 9th edition. But they shouldn't be, they should definitely break the game with that firepower available and nerfed to fire 30% of their shots at most.

 catbarf wrote:
Is it time for another AA vs IGOUGO argument where the only kind of AA that exists is pure one-to-one alternation, and the only kind of IGOUGO that exists is how it currently works in 40K? Love those. Very productive.

Would be much easier if we use Deadzone and Kings of War as base for talking about the advantages and disatvantages of different gaming systems to compare alt-activation with alt-player turns

 Blackie wrote:
Rolling tons of dice for little results is not an achievement. To reduce lethality reduce the dice rolling. Plain and simple.

Don't add layers of saves, tools to ignore/mitigate the AP or increase the wounds. Make units fire way less shots. Maybe reducing ranges as well.

I can't accept that a dakkajet fires 36-42 shots, an ork warbike has 10-12 shots and a megatrakk scrapjet has the chance to fire more than 30 during the speedwaagh (with an average of 25ish), using 4 different weapons profiles. And those are units that don't break the game and are fine as they are considering the state of 9th edition. But they shouldn't be, they should definitely break the game with that firepower available and nerfed to fire 30% of their shots at most.

Once again I point at Apoc as a solid system as it reduced how many individual dice need to be rolled. That said, it probably swung things too far by reducing die rolls by too much.

Yes, I do stand by it probably being GW's best version of 40k so far, though it needs further work so it can give people that crunchy granularity that tends to attract people since one of 40k's big selling points is folks customize squads and make them feel more like their personal army and not a copy of a historical army that has preset gear and units.

I tried 8th Apoc a couple of times as an epic substitute and it was fine. Which was kind of the problem, it was "fine". A solid wargame but not so much a fun one, which is what makes or breaks it for me. I just didn't really feel like much was happening and the moves/countermoves didn't seem to serve a purpose. It was also over waaaay to quickly. If I'm playing Apoc I'm taking the day to finish that sucker and getting pizza and snacks alongside it.

 Gert wrote:
I tried 8th Apoc a couple of times as an epic substitute and it was fine. Which was kind of the problem, it was "fine". A solid wargame but not so much a fun one, which is what makes or breaks it for me. I just didn't really feel like much was happening and the moves/countermoves didn't seem to serve a purpose. It was also over waaaay to quickly. If I'm playing Apoc I'm taking the day to finish that sucker and getting pizza and snacks alongside it.

Like I said, it's not perfect, but when it comes to balanced wargame systems it's probably the best we've ever seen from GW and honestly with more refinement I think it'd be a solid base for a proper 40k system that is actually balanced.

Honestly if GW doesn't go that route (which knowing them they're likely done writing codexes for 9th and have been tossing in ideas for 10th into the books to try them out before they go into 10th proper) the game needs a massive overhaul. As it stands it has too much stratagem bloat, the game is often decided by turn 3 due to them overcorrecting on past editions being too tanky, terrain is often a binary system of "can't shoot me" or "can shoot me" with no use for verticality, and cool modelling ideas are basically DOA since they went to "if you can see it, you can shoot it, even if it doesn't make sense".

Basically 10th feels like it needs to be another "from the ground up" overhaul like 8th way, only taken even further.

As for USRs, I think the biggest reason they dropped them was to make it easier to tweak specific units and how the rules work on them over others without rippling through the whole game everytime they want to adjust something, but in practice this has almost never been used to actually make changes (or at least I can't recall a time they took advantage of that perk) so it's probably time to bring them back and stop basing all rules interactions around +/- 1 to hit or re-rolls of some kind. The game can be deeper than that and should be deeper than that.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Like I said, it's not perfect, but when it comes to balanced wargame systems it's probably the best we've ever seen from GW and honestly with more refinement I think it'd be a solid base for a proper 40k system that is actually balanced.

It depends on what your goals are and what you expect from 40k. To me 9th is already very balanced.

My issues with lethality aren't related to balance, I don't seek to reduce it to get more balance. But to roll less dice and to have a game that is equally spread across the whole 5 turns. Halving all the ranges for example might not increase balance but transports would become more appealing and present on the table while first turns would be mostly invested in positioning rather than killing making 40k much more a 5 turns based game. Can't do a lot in turn 1 and 2 when units move 3'' and basic weapons have 9''-12'' range.

Now I know nothing about apocalypse, but being balanced alone isn't a quality. The game might be boring and not a fun one.

 Blackie wrote:
Rolling tons of dice for little results is not an achievement. To reduce lethality reduce the dice rolling. Plain and simple.

Don't add layers of saves, tools to ignore/mitigate the AP or increase the wounds. Make units fire way less shots. Maybe reducing ranges as well.

I can't accept that a dakkajet fires 36-42 shots, an ork warbike has 10-12 shots and a megatrakk scrapjet has the chance to fire more than 30 during the speedwaagh (with an average of 25ish), using 4 different weapons profiles. And those are units that don't break the game and are fine as they are considering the state of 9th edition. But they shouldn't be, they should definitely break the game with that firepower available and nerfed to fire 30% of their shots at most.

100% this. 40k has an absurd number of dice rolls right now, and mostly that's because of GW maintaining a 1-to-1 relationship between a unit's weapons and its attack dice. So units that have 6 models, each with an Assault 6 gun and another Assault D6 gun have to roll 6 times those number of dice (then they get to do it again because they fire twice!). A more elegant approach is something closer to Apocalypse, where units roll a number of dice to represent their attacks but not necessarily in a 1-to-1 ratio with the number of weapons they have. That would also get around the problem of things like the Repulsor having 6 different weapon system, many very similar, all having to be targeted and rolled separately. It's absolute madness.

I think once any unit gets above 15-20 dice you probably need to take a step back and ask whether there's a better way to do things, especially with all the re-rolls available in the game right now. I played against Tau last week and one unit of Crisis suits put out 66 burst cannon shots as well as a smaller number of other random shots. It would have been worse but they were just out of flamer range. Why does any unit need that many dice?

Slipspace wrote:
I think once any unit gets above 15-20 dice you probably need to take a step back and ask whether there's a better way to do things, especially with all the re-rolls available in the game right now. I played against Tau last week and one unit of Crisis suits put out 66 burst cannon shots as well as a smaller number of other random shots. It would have been worse but they were just out of flamer range. Why does any unit need that many dice?

Oh dude, don't remind me. Since the new book came out I've seen pasting after pasting. All the complaining about Hammerheads when the real killers are the Suits, even Stealth Suits are cutting me to ribbons and I always viewed them as a bit lightweight. But a 2+ save in cover with -1 to hit? Pain.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Gert wrote:
I tried 8th Apoc a couple of times as an epic substitute and it was fine.

Like I said, it's not perfect, but when it comes to balanced wargame systems it's probably the best we've ever seen from GW

Basically 10th feels like it needs to be another "from the ground up" overhaul like 8th way, only taken even further.

I didn't play much 8th Apoc, but I very strongly believe the most balanced version of 40k is 3rd Edition using the rulebook lists (NO Codices). 40k3 with rulebook lists is super clean, and a couple minor tweaks would make it almost perfect.

10th probably does need a full rewrite, but I have a sense that GW and the current crop of players want a badly-designed game grossly overladen with extra-chromey special rules. Witness the entire nonsense that is "Prohammer", where the designer thinks adding more house rules against the underlying design somehow fixes things instead of just bloating and slowing the game even further. A good designer has a clear concept of how to do more with less, building off a foundation that drives clarity over complexity.

You know, I'm reminded of a little comment from the 3rd edition rulebook. It was talking about the Assault Cannon and saying that they could have had you roll 16 dice that only hit on 6s (to get across how fast the thing actually fired), but that it seemed far more sensible to instead bring that down to 4 shots at the normal BS4.

(Bear in mind, too, that the Assault Cannon probably still had one of the highest rates-of-fire at the time.)

I bring this up because it seems we've gone in the opposite direction, with designers inventing weapons with increasingly stupid numbers of shots, in direct defiance of prior philosophy.

I think lethality is the biggest issue in 40k right now. The number of dice thrown is a function of that - but so is GW's inability to stop throwing out rerolls, AP or other bonuses just for turning up.

Unfortunately I can't see how you'd resolve it without a reset - and I don't see that happening.

Tyel wrote:
I think lethality is the biggest issue in 40k right now. The number of dice thrown is a function of that - but so is GW's inability to stop throwing out rerolls, AP or other bonuses just for turning up.

Unfortunately I can't see how you'd resolve it without a reset - and I don't see that happening.

You're right, it's impossible without a reset. And at this point I just hope things don't escalate further, by starting with adding layers of saves or additional wounds in order to keep things alive longer just to compensate stuff that becomes more and more killy. Sticking with the current standards is better than releasing band aids that only increase the issue.

 Blackie wrote:
You're right, it's impossible without a reset. And at this point I just hope things don't escalate further, by starting with adding layers of saves or additional wounds in order to keep things alive longer just to compensate stuff that becomes more and more killy. Sticking with the current standards is better than releasing band aids that only increase the issue.

I feel its too late for that.
We are already at the point where a unit has to reliably "enter play" (having previously been off the board, or more likely out of LOS) and then inflict 60-150% of its points value in damage to be worth using.

And in turn the only way to protect against this ludicrous output is to stack a huge number of defenses - minus 1 to hit, invuls, minuses to damage, transhuman abilities etc.

As a result top end games can be this cagey (and undoubtedly skillful) system of cat and mouse. Which I think is why there doesn't seem to be that much outcry from that part of the community.
But more casual games are just indiscriminate slaughter that are often over bar the shouting in turn 2.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
I like a game where poorly-placed units die quickly. A failure to have or leverage cover should be punished accordingly, and that's precisely what the game is designed for. If someone is dumb enough to hang those units out in the open, they deserve to get cut down.

I'd be fine with that too- except that when all cover amounts to is an extra point of save in a system where everyone is chocked to the brim with AP, units in cover die nearly as quickly as units in the open. Placing a unit 'well' does not mean in cover with a good field of fire; it means hidden out of LOS until you can step out and make back your points in one round of shooting or assault before getting vaporized.

And in the process you roll a lot of dice for every tangible outcome.