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Tokhuah wrote: The concept of turning a miniatures game into a Living Card Game (LCG) was like a highly infectious STD carried by Fantasy Flight Games that was passed onto GW during their brief love affair. Strategems are the festering lesions of a gaming venereal disease, causing such irreparable damage to the minds of the playerbase that they now think they like it.
This is your truth, your opinion, and I won't dispute it.
I played RPG's before table-top games, and I played Card games at roughly the same time. I always liked all 3. Sometimes I feel like pure RPG's or pure CCG's or pure Table-top games.
But most often I find a game that scratches all three itches at the same time to be the most fun. Again, that's MY truth, based on my preferences and my needs- I'm not trying to change your mind or invalidate your point of view. I just want to make it clear that it isn't the only point of view.
nou wrote: No pre-measuring is a dead rule anyways. It might have made some sense on green grass plains of 2nd and 3rd, but nowadays there are so many precise visual cues, that sight measuring is easier than ever - modular 2'x2' boards, Zone Mortalis boards, street grid of neoprene mats or even known sizes of bases result in sight measuring to 0.5" accuracy. I pretty much use tape measure for movement only, because measuring range is usually pointless.
I disagree that sight measuring is any easier today than it was before.
Where ever you played? You knew how big the table was. Whatever the year, a 4x6/4x8 table is still 4x6/4x8.
Known base sizes. You think we didn't know what size bases our models were on in the past?
I'll ad to this that we also knew the dimensions of models/vehicles. My Chimeras haven't changed length/width in 25 years....
Terrain features of known dimensions. Same thing as with bases & tables. You learned the dimensions of the stuff in your terrain collection.
And yet people would marvel that I could reliably drop a Basilisk round within 1/4" (at most) difference of my "guess"....
Newsflash: There was no guessing. The table may as well have had a grid overlay on it. The inaccuracy was because I often didn't take more than a casual glance before stating my so-called guess.
2nd/3rd ed tables were relatively empty compared to today's overcrowded boards. Nowadays you can often literally just count the bases parallel to your line of fire. Back in the day you had to at least imagine those bases along the line so there was some room for miscalculation. And yes, you knew that the table was 6x4, but today I mostly play on a 6x4 table divided to a nice 2'x2' grid, often with a sub-grid of Zone Mortalis-like tiles. The board is almost literally a sort of tape measure.
jeff white wrote: Why and how are these mechanics "deeply at odds with a simulationist approach"? I mean, do people get to pull out tape measures before they decide to engage with enemy A or B in real life? Range finders are a thing, but are their use always practical? What about smoky battlefields with chunks of flag and flesh blowing by in between unit X and enemies A and B? Might these interfere with such range finding? Terrain? Hills? Stubby scrubby brush, perhaps also blowing past in the explosions?
For one thing, rangefinding IRL is a lot easier than I find wargamers tend to think it is. Parallax rangefinders on artillery pieces can determine distance through optical effects that aren't affected by smoke or terrain, magnified optics often have built-in rangefinders that use a ~1.8m reference height (ie, the average height of an enemy soldier), some optics have fancy compensatory solutions that ensure you don't need an accurate range measurement to score a hit. Plus if you have a topographical map of the area- let alone something integrated/electronic- it's not hard to work out distance that way.
For another, it's way more binary in 40K than it is in real life. In real life if I mistakenly guess a target to be at 300m when it's actually at 350m, I observe my fall of shot and compensate, and now I'm producing effective fire. A lot of guys never even use the range adjustment on their service rifles, because having a standard zero and applying holdover as needed is quicker and easier. In 40K, though, if I order a Guardsman squad to fire and the enemy turns out to be 24.1" away, their shots all disappear into the aether and do exactly nothing.
But most importantly: You don't expect me to pull out a BB gun and a silhouette to determine if a Guardsman hits his target or not, and you shouldn't expect me to apply my range estimation skills to determine where the Guardsman puts a shell. I'm the commander sitting in the TOC with a map layout of the battlespace, with adjutants and rulers on-hand to assess distances as needed, and providing fire orders to the artillery pieces. I'm not the guy sitting behind the breechloading artillery piece, working out the distance to target when that order comes down.
Edit: This also relates back to the discussion on randomness- it's not to everyone's taste, but I like games where you don't know who's going to be up for activation next or exactly how far your troops will get, because that's the commander's experience. You can issue orders, but you can't control whether your soldiers make it to where you're sending them, whether they hit their targets, or whether they deploy artillery correctly.
A well-built wargame will decide exactly who you are playing as, and set the abstraction and randomness accordingly. That said, it's a common conceit for the sake of fun to let you operate as two adjacent command echelons simultaneously, but more than that is often a sign that the game lacks coherent vision. For example, if you are playing as the company commander in charge of an overall force of several platoons, it's not uncommon for you to also play the role of the platoon commanders who decide where squads go- but you shouldn't be micromanaging individual soldiers.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2022/02/25 17:47:00
Almost as if two people with different expectations for the game should be able to communicate their expectations and then draw up ideas how to have a fun game that doesn't involve the most hyper-tooled lists in existance...
Sure, but the bad-faith casual at all costs scrub isn't going to come to that negotiation trying to make sure their opponent has a fun time too.
Hecaton wrote: The problem is that there's a lot of people who think it's unfun when their opponent uses superior listbuilding and gameplay skills to beat them.
I'm talking about more games than just 40k here. Scrubby players exist in all game systems.
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nou wrote: Just to add on what AndromaderRake and Cyel wrote above, „superior listbuilding” and „superior game skills” rarely occur at the same time and more often than not „superior listbuilding” is a crutch that makes up for poor game skills.
Nah, good gameplay skills and good listbuilding usually go hand in hand.
Tokhuah wrote:The concept of turning a miniatures game into a Living Card Game (LCG) was like a highly infectious STD carried by Fantasy Flight Games that was passed onto GW during their brief love affair. Strategems are the festering lesions of a gaming venereal disease, causing such irreparable damage to the minds of the playerbase that they now think they like it.
nou wrote: No pre-measuring is a dead rule anyways. It might have made some sense on green grass plains of 2nd and 3rd, but nowadays there are so many precise visual cues, that sight measuring is easier than ever - modular 2'x2' boards, Zone Mortalis boards, street grid of neoprene mats or even known sizes of bases result in sight measuring to 0.5" accuracy. I pretty much use tape measure for movement only, because measuring range is usually pointless.
I disagree that sight measuring is any easier today than it was before.
Where ever you played? You knew how big the table was. Whatever the year, a 4x6/4x8 table is still 4x6/4x8.
Known base sizes. You think we didn't know what size bases our models were on in the past?
I'll ad to this that we also knew the dimensions of models/vehicles. My Chimeras haven't changed length/width in 25 years....
Terrain features of known dimensions. Same thing as with bases & tables. You learned the dimensions of the stuff in your terrain collection.
And yet people would marvel that I could reliably drop a Basilisk round within 1/4" (at most) difference of my "guess"....
Newsflash: There was no guessing. The table may as well have had a grid overlay on it. The inaccuracy was because I often didn't take more than a casual glance before stating my so-called guess.
2nd/3rd ed tables were relatively empty compared to today's overcrowded boards.
{shrugs} That all depends on where you played/who you played with/what had available & what you set up.
We often built jungles, canyons, an entire swamp table once.... Cities (ruined & not). etc One person new to the shop commented "Where do you put the models? Wish I had some pics.
You look at todays tables & see overcrowded. I look at the average board & think it's too sparse.
nou wrote: Nowadays you can often literally just count the bases parallel to your line of fire. Back in the day you had to at least imagine those bases along the line so there was some room for miscalculation. And yes, you knew that the table was 6x4, but today I mostly play on a 6x4 table divided to a nice 2'x2' grid, often with a sub-grid of Zone Mortalis-like tiles. The board is almost literally a sort of tape measure.
So going back to something I feel that some of the issues with shooting would be balanced by range degredation. Perhaps -1 for every 6" would be a bit much, but -1 over half would at least push people to get closer to be more effective. Pair that with terrain modifiers to shooting amd not giving units direct access to to-hit modifiers so we don't see the return of -5 jank and I feel the system would feel more balance between ranged and shooting.
Obscuring itself is okay IMO, it's a cludge bandage to make up for the fact that if a building has windows (like all of GW's) they're almost useless for blocking LoS.
However, that combined with Breachable means infantry can quite happily hide behind a building, immune to any shooting, then suddenly rush forwards.
Another factor is also the extreme lethality of the game. You're either untargetable or you're dead. If cover was improved and lethality reduced to the point there was some kind of in-between, you could reach a less extreme solution as well.
ClockworkZion wrote: So going back to something I feel that some of the issues with shooting would be balanced by range degredation. Perhaps -1 for every 6" would be a bit much, but -1 over half would at least push people to get closer to be more effective. Pair that with terrain modifiers to shooting amd not giving units direct access to to-hit modifiers so we don't see the return of -5 jank and I feel the system would feel more balance between ranged and shooting.
Fireball Forward uses a funky system where you roll a range die in addition to your firepower dice. If the range die + your weapon's base range fails to equal or beat the actual range to target, the attack fails. For a rifle team a typical combo might be a 12" base range and a D20 as the range die, so you can generally expect to take fire if you're inside 18", but you could potentially get hit up to 32" away. It both neatly accounts for range and prevents the 'as long as I stay 30.1" away, he can't shoot me next turn' scenario.
Chain of Command gives rifles and machine guns an optimal range, but maximum range is unlimited. Your weapons are more effective up close, but at the scale of the game if you can see a unit, it's within the max range of a rifle. At first I was against that sort of mechanic, but after trying it out I have to say it's less 'hide out of LOS or you die' than 40K is, just because cover is actually effective as a means of reducing casualties. It also helps that the game's deployment system explicitly puts units out of LOS of one another until they get fairly close.
As far as simple solutions for 40K go, though, I was surprised that 9th Ed didn't adopt the Kill Team mechanic of obscuration being -1 and firing over half range being -1. I thought it was a simple way to produce less effective fire at range, particularly with how those factors stack to really incentivize use of cover at long range. Having defensive buffs leverage those mechanics (eg, 'this unit always counts as Obscured when over 12" away') rather than stack additional penalties on top might allow such a system to work without the current penalty capping.
Generally speaking I'd really like to see ranged combat not be so dependent on LOS-blocking terrain, particularly because that severely curtails movement. Ideally, I'd like a 'typical' table setup to have a couple of large pieces of terrain that vehicles/monsters can move around and infantry fight within, rather than be a maze of impassible barriers, and a return of hills (ie, terrain that limits LOS without limiting movement). There is just no good way to deploy a Leman Russ (let alone a Baneblade) on a table that looks like this.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/02/25 18:29:06
kirotheavenger wrote: Obscuring itself is okay IMO, it's a cludge bandage to make up for the fact that if a building has windows (like all of GW's) they're almost useless for blocking LoS.
However, that combined with Breachable means infantry can quite happily hide behind a building, immune to any shooting, then suddenly rush forwards.
Another factor is also the extreme lethality of the game. You're either untargetable or you're dead. If cover was improved and lethality reduced to the point there was some kind of in-between, you could reach a less extreme solution as well.
I feel like 40k needs a garrisoning system like WHFB had and abstract the way LoS interacts with terrain. Like you simply can't see through any building, if the unit is garrisoning the building they can be shot at but get a bonus to their saves or something. TLoS causes more problems than it solves honestly.
Those who are obsessed with realistic stuff should love Gotcha moments then. In real life wars the opposing factions not always know the secret strategies, available assets, tools and synergies of the enemy. In fact even today the most powerful forces can't know everything about possible and actual enemies. Now imagine if we're talking about wars between alien factions. Seriously, getting caught by surprise by unknown factors is extremely realistic, we should love that!! .
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2022/02/25 19:00:51
Totally agree with others that "realistically" units would have sorts of range finders and stuff for target acquisition. And from a "desire for simulation fidelity" standpoint, I see the argument based on that for why pre-measuring should BE allowed.
But this is one of those topics where I said the ProHammer goals sometimes rub up against each other. From a scope standpoint, the idea is that you're playing the role of the battlefield commander and issuing orders. There's some degree of separation behind the player as the commander versus what an individual model on the ground is dealing with. So for instance, it might very well be your intent, as commander, to have Unit A shoot at Enemy X, and give orders to that effect. Only for your squad to fumble about and reply that the target it out of range, or they have no shot, etc. This notion of player as commander is ALSO why we like having declared fire (and declared charging). You're issuing your intent for what you want units to be doing and seeing how it all shakes out, rather than acting in some omnipotent manner where you can pause time and see how one unit's shooting went before deciding how the next unit will shoot. All of this is supposed to be happening simultaneously.
The above is approaching the issue from a fidelity standpoint, but there's also the gameplay / decision-making side to consider. Personally, with things like declared fire and no-premeasuring I like the uncertainty and ambiguity that the decision poses. It puts me, as the player-commander, into the position of having to make some gut-level decisions. I can't measure things out with perfect precision, I can't incrementally resolve firing to squeeze out and optimize ever shot. Sometimes I'll overshoot a target, and sometimes I'll undershoot it (and both of those outcomes contribute to reducing lethality by the way!).
This same gestalt-level, gut-decision making is also why we retained the IGOUGO turn structure. As a commander, you're having to devise an orchestrated plan of movement (these troops go here, this tank moves up and screen's them, these reserves come on over here, etc...) which then plays out all at once. These bigger sweeping movements provide more opportunity for the game state to swing and undulate, as oppose to an AA-type system where any isolated movement can be immediately countered at the next step. The AA-system becomes less about planning and big sweeping movement, and more about manipulation of activation order and fine grained tactical counter-plays.
On the broader topic of randomness....
For any given mechanic, it's a helpful experiment to view outcomes as binary state, ignoring the detailed percentages, and ask... is this mechanic or unit action something I want to work 100% of the time, none of the time, or in a 50/50 manner. What are the core functions and actions that a unit should be able to perform with a degree of reliability, and what are the actions where variability is warranted.
One example: I really dislike the 2D6" random charge distances introduced in 6th edition and carried through to 9th. Being able to charge a reliable distance and having the emphasis fall on the player to maneuver their unit so they are within that distance is a "core competency" of a melee-oriented unit. It's problematic, in my mind, when a unit randomly gets a terrible roll and can't at least do their basic function. It would be like saying that when you pick a unit to shoot, even through you are "in range" with your weapon, there's a 50% chance they'll actually be out of range, and you don't even get an option to make an attack roll. So for me, a random charge distance is a randomizing element that hinders the gameplay.
Anyway - I gotta bounce for now - but great discussion!
Blackie wrote: Those who are obsessed with realistic stuff should love Gotcha moments then. In real life wars the opposing factions not always know the secret strategies, available assets, tools and synergies of the enemy. In fact even today the most powerful forces can't know everything about possible and actual enemies. Now imagine if we're talking about wars between alien factions. Seriously, getting caught by surprise by unknown factors is extremely realistic, we should love that!! .
I love games with fog of war. There are scenarios you can get in double-blind games that would never occur in a typical perfect-information game.
But getting caught out by an unexpected rule in a game that doesn't have fog of war and does allow perfect information of the battlefield is a 'gotcha', and that's not fun. It should be the other player that takes you by surprise, not the game designers. If I'm not supposed to know the capabilities of the enemy, that should be a by-design part of the game, not a result of the game being too damn complicated to remember all the rules.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/02/25 19:56:52
But in real life opposing factions might not have the same tools from the beginning. One faction might be super technological with tons of knowledge (like the player who knows by heart every single codex), the other faction might just have a basic or even underdevolped intelligence section. In real life opposing factions don't fight with the same rules, resources, knowledge, etc... so it's not realistic to put everyone on the same level.
An AM commissar, even the most skilled and experienced one, might completely ignore about the enemy gotcha stratagem/relic/etc... can't possibly know about everything he could face in the galaxy, and that's very realistic I think. Getting wiped out by a "gotcha mechanic" from an horde of tyranids or any other enemy faction is even fluffy. Maybe not enjoyable, and in fact I even dislike too much realism in a game like 40k. But those who want realism at all cost should appreciate that.
I certainly don't defend gotchas, although I think people overreact about them and there aren't that many in the game, I'm just arguing that some people want realism only if that fits their agenda. They don't really want more realism, just some clunky mechanics that they preferred over current ones, arguing that they should return in the name of realism. Abstraction is typically much better than realism.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/02/25 20:28:22
I love games with fog of war. There are scenarios you can get in double-blind games that would never occur in a typical perfect-information game.
But getting caught out by an unexpected rule in a game that doesn't have fog of war and does allow perfect information of the battlefield is a 'gotcha', and that's not fun. It should be the other player that takes you by surprise, not the game designers. If I'm not supposed to know the capabilities of the enemy, that should be a by-design part of the game, not a result of the game being too damn complicated to remember all the rules.
There is 'random' and 'ran-dumb'. Hidden info and fog of war can be awesome. Best game we ever played was a Home brewed flames of war (tanks and anti tank guns only) game with ^squint^ historical accuracy.
Germans (attackers) versus Russians (defenders).
Rosters were historically accurate-ish. Russians were t-34s mainly, germans had some tigers but mainly mk3 and mk4 panzers.
Russians had a 'hidden deployment' so units didn't start on the map. Locations were marked on a hand drawn map based on the board. I had to advance into an unknown deployment/unknown # of forces and seize thr village crossroads at the centre of the map (we are good enough at eyeballing matching forces that putting together a 'fair' contest was straight forward).
The idea was the German attackers had to use their mk3 and mk4s as 'recon' units as they were used tactically in the war with the tigers as the big punchers; I couldn't just attack with everything; as an attacker I had limited resources I had to husband carefully. My recon units could attempt to 'spot' Russians if it was reasonable to expect they could see them (ie they got close etc)instead of shooting. Russians would reveal themselves by shooting (ambush). However communications would have to get relayed back and Germans could only shoot discovered/revealed Russians on the next turn.
Anyway I was ze Germans and fog of war killed me (in a good way!). Left flank I advanced slowly and ended up in a stand off with Russians hidden in cover. Was losing slowly. Or at least was losing units in the firefight that tactically/logistically was silly. I Saw what I thought was an opening on the right and wheeled my right flank into the forces facing my left. Yeah, i didn't recon. Thought it was safe. Sure I did my awesome tactical wheel in front of a whole bloody russian tank squadron qt 12" that then revealed itself and had a 'turkey shoot' at my expense. Ive never hoped for 1s so much in my life! Somehow survived with some tanks, pulled back both flanks since it was obvious attacking both flanks would just get me murdered pointlessly, regrouped, concentrated on olthr right flank and took it with some luck, wheeled again and took out the original forces that had blocked my left.
My god, what a game. Tense, exciting, evocative and most of all, it felt authentic. It genuinely felt like this is something that could have happened to a German tank platoon in ze war.
Would recommend.
This message was edited 5 times. Last update was at 2022/02/25 20:46:01
Blackie wrote: But in real life opposing factions might not have the same tools from the beginning. One faction might be super technological with tons of knowledge (like the player who knows by heart every single codex), the other faction might just have a basic or even underdevolped intelligence section. In real life opposing factions don't fight with the same rules, resources, knowledge, etc... so it's not realistic to put everyone on the same level.
An AM commissar, even the most skilled and experienced one, might completely ignore about the enemy gotcha stratagem/relic/etc... can't possibly know about everything he could face in the galaxy, and that's very realistic I think. Getting wiped out by a "gotcha mechanic" from an horde of tyranids or any other enemy faction is even fluffy. Maybe not enjoyable, and in fact I even dislike too much realism in a game like 40k. But those who want realism at all cost should appreciate that.
I certainly don't defend gotchas, although I think people overreact about them and there aren't that many in the game, I'm just arguing that some people want realism only if that fits their agenda. They don't really want more realism, just some clunky mechanics that they preferred over current ones, arguing that they should return in the name of realism. Abstraction is typically much better than realism.
You're confusing realism with simulation. Reductio ad absurdum also.
In addition to what kirotheavenger and catbarf said about "no premeasuring" potentially being anti-simulationist, there is also this:
"No premeasuring" totally flattens the battle-sense of every unit on the board and turns it into a single measure. For every unit that quality become an extension of the player's ability to estimate range on a 2D plane. From an elite Space Marine to a Grot, who has never held a gun, they're all at the mercy of the player 2D spatial accuracy.
It kind of reminds me of a bugbear from roleplaying games; that is, the tabletop expression of an "intelligent" character (who may be being played by a flesh-and-blood human who is distinctly not a once-per-generation intellectual titan). The mechanics of the game should offer opportunities to express that intellect.
And a wargame should do the same. Troops should be expected to engage successfully most of the time, without the intermediate step of playing a personal guessing game. One player's marines should not have better fire discipline than another player's marines because one player is better at estimating range.
Although I would also be totally cool with a system that integrated pre-measuring with unit characteristics, like having to take a leadership test to measure something to/from a unit, or use your warlord's LD for measurements between random points on the table.
Obviously 40K is different things to different people, each with their own biases and expectations for a war game. The trick I suppose is to find that balance based upon your game environment. What rules, armies, terrain, time and other players are on hand to make it a worthwhile experience for you? Each answer is likely unique to each individual. It's not so much as to what is wrong to players, but what is more right.
We don't pre-measure in our game either. Not because it's more or less realistic, but because pre-measuring feels wrong to us. A squad moving through a ruined city breaks out into a plaza with enemies all around and they somehow have time to find the optimal firing solution for every target?? Nah, lack of pre-measuring helps to capture the feel of snap decisions required in short time increments under duress. If people complain about the lack of realism there why don't they complain about not being able to shoot at a target 25" away with their 24" range weapon? The game is often more art than science, and that's ok.
@ Mezmorki - we tried determining fire at targets ahead of shooting but it didn't work out for us because it actually took more time. It makes sense on several levels, but our staunchest proponent of it was also our slowest player at the time and he insisted on using colored chits or ones with symbols to help keep track of what was shooting what. It became a mess that wasn't worth the effort. Perhaps if we just set dice next to the targets with the proper pip showing to indicate which unit is firing would be better. What do you guys do?
A few pages back there was a brief discussion on twin-linking. We've always just used the old rule of granting a reroll to hit. It was suggested that it should also be a reroll to wound or even a reroll for armor saves. In this case gut feel is not the best way to gauge the efficacy of a rule change, but math is. Do people realize that rerolling to hit and wound is often better than simply two shots? If that is the effect people want, that's fine but I'd rather use a mechanic that is better than just the reroll but not as good as two shots. HBMC's model of giving and extra hit on a natural 6 works best in my opinion finding that middle zone, so I'll propose that to my group.
If I'm not supposed to know the capabilities of the enemy, that should be a by-design part of the game, not a result of the game being too damn complicated to remember all the rules.
I think it very much is by design. I think the reason GW thought it was okay to give every army in the game 3-4 pages of strats, and give bespoke names to them rather than giving them common names is that it absolutely is their design philosophy that you're not supposed to try and memorize all the strats in the dex of every possible opponent. And I'm willing to bet that game designers think it's bat$#!+ crazy that some players think that they are supposed to memorize all the strats of every possible opponent.
But getting caught out by an unexpected rule in a game that doesn't have fog of war and does allow perfect information of the battlefield is a 'gotcha', and that's not fun. It should be the other player that takes you by surprise, not the game designers.
The intention of the designers shouldn't make the experience of not knowing something feel different. I'm not sure about the exact mechanism of the fog of war rule, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt- maybe there is something within that mechanism that does make it feel different than when you get caught of guard by a strat. Could you clarify?
But getting caught out by an unexpected rule in a game that doesn't have fog of war and does allow perfect information of the battlefield is a 'gotcha', and that's not fun. It should be the other player that takes you by surprise, not the game designers.
The intention of the designers shouldn't make the experience of not knowing something feel different. I'm not sure about the exact mechanism of the fog of war rule, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt- maybe there is something within that mechanism that does make it feel different than when you get caught of guard by a strat. Could you clarify?
Imo because the mechanics or abilities of Strats are often kind of bizarre, but maybe more because there's no "unknowns" for the player enacting the Strat, while the "victim" of the Strat can be caught off guard. When people are using Fog of War mechanics I imagine both players are acting with uncertainty, and if one player manages an advantageous situation there's usually either more forethought or outright luck involved. The perception is that one is more "meritable", possibly.
amanita wrote: Do people realize that rerolling to hit and wound is often better than simply two shots?
After running a couple combinations of numbers I find this hard to believe. Am I missing something?
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/02/26 00:49:13
amanita wrote: Do people realize that rerolling to hit and wound is often better than simply two shots?
After running a couple combinations of numbers I find this hard to believe. Am I missing something?
6+ to-hit and to-wound.
With 2 shots, you get 18 rounds of firing for one wound.
With 1 shot, rerolling hits and wounds, you need around 11.
Now, if that's 5+/6+, then it's 9 rounds of firing 2 shots for one wound, or 6 for 1 shot rerolling.
So under EXTREME circumstances, yes, you can actually do better than doubling your shots based on rerolls. Such as Guardsmen shooting Lasguns at a T6+ model through Dense Cover. Except Lasguns aren't Twinlinked.
Clocks for the clockmaker! Cogs for the cog throne!
One of things I want to bring up design wise is simulation versus abstraction. Simulation tries to emulate all the details while the abstraction tries to emulate the general idea and feel of something. I feel 40k works best leaning towards abstraction over simulation, mainly because the further towards simulation you go the more into the weeds you have to go and the slower the game plays.
Now I'm not claiming it should go full abstract (if we did that we might as well just go play Risk or Statego or a number of abstracted war based traditional games), but that the rules should aim more towards capturing the feel of something while not trying to make players count all the grains of sand on Armageddon just to play the game.
kirotheavenger wrote: 9th already leans quite heavily into melee doesn't it, based on terrain rules and objective scoring.
Only on sufficiently obscurring terrain dense tables.
Honestly I'd like obscurring to go away because it's made terrain too binary in that people want to be behind it but almost never in or on it.
I just miss cover saves. It was straightforward, and you either had them or didn't.
The current mess is a result of GW trying to hard with terrain and failing badly. Not at realism, but at trying to do too much with it and trying to force GW brand terrain kits rather than the former (more realistic) concession that they'll never know what terrain real people are using (or how they're using it).
The pages of this that and the other cover and examples of what might have which rules is just a failure.
kirotheavenger wrote: 9th already leans quite heavily into melee doesn't it, based on terrain rules and objective scoring.
Only on sufficiently obscurring terrain dense tables.
Honestly I'd like obscurring to go away because it's made terrain too binary in that people want to be behind it but almost never in or on it.
I just miss cover saves. It was straightforward, and you either had them or didn't.
The current mess is a result of GW trying to hard with terrain and failing badly. Not at realism, but at trying to do too much with it and trying to force GW brand terrain kits rather than the former (more realistic) concession that they'll never know what terrain real people are using (or how they're using it).
The pages of this that and the other cover and examples of what might have which rules is just a failure.
I like *most* of the cover system. My issue is with how obscuring works honestly. It feels off for the setting, especially when even the most basic weapon can punch holes right through concrete walls and shoot at people you think might be at the other side.
Everything feels off. Walls are impermeable to some units, but not others, sometimes height of the terrain matters (but different heights), some things can never not be seen, even if they're smaller than other things that aren't seeable, heavy cover rather bizarrely protects attackers in melee not defenders, hills exist, but aren't terrain (somehow), but affect LOS, buildings exist, but roofs are apparently vortices into the netherworld and can't be used, difficult ground affects maximum movement rather than Movement, and 'common' terrain features basically got a d6 roll of how many random traits would be assigned.
Blackie wrote:But in real life opposing factions might not have the same tools from the beginning. One faction might be super technological with tons of knowledge (like the player who knows by heart every single codex), the other faction might just have a basic or even underdevolped intelligence section. In real life opposing factions don't fight with the same rules, resources, knowledge, etc... so it's not realistic to put everyone on the same level.
If you want to simulate that, put it in the game. It's utter nonsense if a tribe of backwoods feral Orks who have never seen an outsider somehow has perfect intelligence on the invasion force (because their player knows the game inside and out), while the Space Marine force, veterans of a thousand battles, has no idea what the Orks are capable of (because the player is new to the game).
It's doubly nonsense if the game is designed around perfect information- there is no rule against me asking to see your codex, asking to see your army list, or going on Wahapedia to look up the rules, all whenever I want. Getting caught out by rules gotchas isn't a simulationist mechanism, nor a deliberate gameplay mechanic; it's the result of a game that's too complicated for its own good combined with real-world constraints on pausing play to look up the rules.
At a very basic level, which idea do you prefer: That the game designers know all the rules they're writing and so are playing with better information than the players, biasing their playtesting outcomes; or that they don't know all their rules either?
PenitentJake wrote:I'm not sure about the exact mechanism of the fog of war rule, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt- maybe there is something within that mechanism that does make it feel different than when you get caught of guard by a strat. Could you clarify?
Getting surprised because I assumed the face-down counter was a platoon of infantry, when it turned out to be a platoon of Tiger tanks, is fun. I got outplayed by my opponent through a mechanic designed into the game.
Getting surprised because I was trying to get on with the game instead of dragging it out by asking to see my opponent's codex every five minutes just to make sure I'm not about to run into a relevant stratagem or special ability is not fun. I got surprised because I didn't know the rules of the game we're playing.
Losing games because you didn't know the rules you were playing by isn't fun.
amanita wrote: Do people realize that rerolling to hit and wound is often better than simply two shots?
After running a couple combinations of numbers I find this hard to believe. Am I missing something?
6+ to-hit and to-wound.
With 2 shots, you get 18 rounds of firing for one wound.
With 1 shot, rerolling hits and wounds, you need around 11.
Now, if that's 5+/6+, then it's 9 rounds of firing 2 shots for one wound, or 6 for 1 shot rerolling.
So under EXTREME circumstances, yes, you can actually do better than doubling your shots based on rerolls. Such as Guardsmen shooting Lasguns at a T6+ model through Dense Cover. Except Lasguns aren't Twinlinked.
It doesn't have to be extreme at all.
A 4+ roll has a 50% chance of success. A 4+ roll with a reroll has a 75% chance of success.
Two shots, hitting on 4+ and wounding on 4+, average 0.5 wounds.
One shot, hitting on 4+ with rerolls and wounding on 4+ with rerolls, averages 0.75 * 0.75 = 0.5625 wounds average.
So even if you're succeeding on 4s, it's better to get full rerolls than to double your shots.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2022/02/26 03:20:25
kirotheavenger wrote: 9th already leans quite heavily into melee doesn't it, based on terrain rules and objective scoring.
Only on sufficiently obscurring terrain dense tables.
Honestly I'd like obscurring to go away because it's made terrain too binary in that people want to be behind it but almost never in or on it.
I just miss cover saves. It was straightforward, and you either had them or didn't.
The current mess is a result of GW trying to hard with terrain and failing badly. Not at realism, but at trying to do too much with it and trying to force GW brand terrain kits rather than the former (more realistic) concession that they'll never know what terrain real people are using (or how they're using it).
The pages of this that and the other cover and examples of what might have which rules is just a failure.
Bingo
9th ed terrain rules were an attempt by GW to make up for the fact that the 8th ed terrain rules were basically non existent.
The terrain height of 9th VS area terrain and solid terrain of pre-8th is a personal gripe of mine. when it takes an entire paragraph in the main rule book to explain heavy cover so that tourney players will not abuse it. there is a problem with the game design.
The idea of AP reduction and wonky terrain modifiers is lifted directly from WHFBs, there are many reasons why i didn't play it and that is one of them.
All or nothing saves, hard cover saves and true blocking LOS terrain helped reduce the lethality of turn 1 alpha strikes and promoted player interaction with the terrain.
The real problem always lies with the lack of adequate amounts of terrain in most games prior to 8th especially at tournaments.
For 40K i like how it works prior to 8th, 8th even works on a macro scale for enormous battles (we use it for our epic rules). i also enjoy other games that use more and less complex rules. Dust is a throwback to 4th ed terrain rules (it's Andy Chambers so not a surprise) all area terrain block LOS unless you are in it and within 4" of an edge to look/shoot out, infinity uses a modifier to hit that also boosts saves so long as you are actively using the terrain (up against it and the shots must travel across the terrain piece to the target). in battletech it provides a to hit modifier or completely blocks LOS based on height of the terrain. additionally hits that land on the obscured area of the target hit the terrain instead.
GAMES-DUST1947/infinity/B5 wars/epic 40K/5th ed 40K/victory at sea/warmachine/battle tactics/monpoc/battletech/battlefleet gothic/castles in the sky,/heavy gear/MCP
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