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Not to mention that the solution to ambiguous scatter being "roll to see who's hit" completely invalidates any idea about it saving time roll dice.
Because now rather than rolling number of shots, rolling hits, then wounds..., you're rolling scatter, rolling ambiguity, then wounds..., but in the middle you've got that huge faff with actually positioning and observing the template!


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 Grey Templar wrote:
I think that is why Warmachine had fixed directions the blasts could scatter. You rolled a D6 and the blast template was marked with arrows so it could only go in fixed directions relative to the shooter. No worry about angling the blast off in an incorrect direction.

That's true, that's quite a nice way of doing scatter.
It generally gets overlooked for 40k because the templates they sell don't have them. But if scattering blasts was to come back, this is definitely how I'd want to do it.

 kirotheavenger wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
I think that is why Warmachine had fixed directions the blasts could scatter. You rolled a D6 and the blast template was marked with arrows so it could only go in fixed directions relative to the shooter. No worry about angling the blast off in an incorrect direction.

That's true, that's quite a nice way of doing scatter.
It generally gets overlooked for 40k because the templates they sell don't have them. But if scattering blasts was to come back, this is definitely how I'd want to do it.

The WMH scatter template is the same size as the Large Blast. You can look through them too, but they're dark, so you may want to bring a flashlight or something (to illuminate the models underneath).

Wyldhunt wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:I think that is why Warmachine had fixed directions the blasts could scatter. You rolled a D6 and the blast template was marked with arrows so it could only go in fixed directions relative to the shooter. No worry about angling the blast off in an incorrect direction.

That's a neat way to do it. Does that mean that I could theoretically game the scatter by moving my shooter such that there are secondary targets in the path of possible scatters? Like, could I scoot to the side before shooting so that there's a secondary target immediately left and right of my primary target?

The only real way to game that would have been to put the template down, with high priority targets at each of the cardinal points. And actually, more than once, what you are suggesting was actually a viable strategy. WMH templates DON'T actually need to be over a viable target to be put down. More than one game has been decisively decided with 'Hail Mary' shots wherein the template is placed at max range and scatters over an important target.

Not having to place a model under the target actually lead to strategies that 40k players could only dream about. Cygnar Trenchers could put down a line of LOS blocking 3" AOEs that could make them untargetable. Which would be countered by abilities that could ignore it (Legion Eyeless Sight\True Sight). Or putting down an AOE that would cover an avenue of approach for models that they would take damage moving through.

I was just looking for my WMH templates to see if there was a marker for the middle (I couldn't find them, so I'll blame the Leprechauns living in my walls for their disappearance). If you wanted to, there is nothing stopping you from getting a WMH template and using it as a Large Blast Template. The only thing I would suggest is that if you do, don't touch your scatter dice while using it. One way or the other, not both.

P.S.
Something that I find humorous is that while you would generally want the Large Blast to not scatter, the Small Blast was generally more effective if it DID scatter. Why? While templates were in use, the hole in the middle had to have a model to be the primary target centered in the middle hole. While it didn't need to be in the middle of the model, the hole had to have a primary target underneath it. And with 2" coherency, the small blast would only have 1 model underneath it while the large would generally have several even in the event of a conga line.

Wyldhunt wrote:

That's a neat way to do it. Does that mean that I could theoretically game the scatter by moving my shooter such that there are secondary targets in the path of possible scatters? Like, could I scoot to the side before shooting so that there's a secondary target immediately left and right of my primary target?

Yes you could. Though the way the 6 directions worked it could not scatter directly left or right. 1 was directly away from the shooter, 2 was away and to the right, 3 was towards and to the right, 4 was directly towards the shooter, etc...

The blast template was also a multi-use. There were 3 sizes of blasts, 3", 4" and 5" and all were marked on the same template with the scatter diagram.

Likewise with the game's equivalent of flamers, called Sprays. There was a clear plastic spray template that flared out as it went farther out. Sprays could be anywhere between 5" and 10". Interestingly, sprays had to roll to hit still but they ignored a bunch of modifiers.

 Grey Templar wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:

That's a neat way to do it. Does that mean that I could theoretically game the scatter by moving my shooter such that there are secondary targets in the path of possible scatters? Like, could I scoot to the side before shooting so that there's a secondary target immediately left and right of my primary target?

Yes you could. Though the way the 6 directions worked it could not scatter directly left or right. 1 was directly away from the shooter, 2 was away and to the right, 3 was towards and to the right, 4 was directly towards the shooter, etc...

The blast template was also a multi-use. There were 3 sizes of blasts, 3", 4" and 5" and all were marked on the same template with the scatter diagram.

Likewise with the game's equivalent of flamers, called Sprays. There was a clear plastic spray template that flared out as it went farther out. Sprays could be anywhere between 5" and 10". Interestingly, sprays had to roll to hit still but they ignored a bunch of modifiers.

I like the sound of all that. I'd still rather not bring back templates (in the way they used to exist) because tedious model spacing is a losing proposition for both players, but the WMH approach sounds like an improvement over the old system.

P.S.
Something that I find humorous is that while you would generally want the Large Blast to not scatter, the Small Blast was generally more effective if it DID scatter. Why? While templates were in use, the hole in the middle had to have a model to be the primary target centered in the middle hole. While it didn't need to be in the middle of the model, the hole had to have a primary target underneath it. And with 2" coherency, the small blast would only have 1 model underneath it while the large would generally have several even in the event of a conga line.

That's actually a great illustration of why I don't like the old blast rules. A frag missile can either hit a single model or quite a few models if they're clumped together. The difference is whether or not you sacrificed extra sand from your hourglass to be meticulous with your spacing. You won't enjoy spacing your dudes out like that. I won't enjoy watching you do it. Best we not use mechanics that punish us for skipping the spacing.

Well, that was more of an oversight that they made the 2" cohesion distance much larger than the radius of a small blast. They should have made the small blast larger to kinda give it the ability to hit at least 2 models even on direct hits.

Wyldhunt wrote:

That's a neat way to do it. Does that mean that I could theoretically game the scatter by moving my shooter such that there are secondary targets in the path of possible scatters? Like, could I scoot to the side before shooting so that there's a secondary target immediately left and right of my primary target?

I wouldn't call that gaming the system so much as hedging your bet. We do that in curling (the winter sport) plenty...go for the shot where if you miss, the result is most acceptable (heck...sometimes it ends up being better than the shot you were trying to make haha).

I can see two arguments for the removal of blast templates.
-"One-time sellability." Unlike minis, you can only usually sell 'one' set of templates to a player, as there isn't much point in having multiple small blasts lying around. If an LGS has "community" templates lying around, that isn't even a guaranteed "one player=one sale".
-"Base Creep". Back when models were on 25-28mm bases, blasts were relatively more powerful. 7th ed started migrating Marines over to 32mm bases though. On a sillier note, you had horrid edgecases like the Barkbarkstar, where you could have hordes of 8-point wolves on 40mm bases. As bases got bigger, the relative applicability of blasts 'went down'.

I'm not sure the "coherency and ambiguity of scatter" are necessarily arguments against AOEs anymore, especially with GW now selling movement trays, and 9th edition coherency requiring a model to remain within 2" of two or more other models.

Ofc, 8th-onward essentially removed several edgecases that would make it possible for blasts to get "lots" of hits. Tank Shock, "mandatory" close-combat movements, Deep Strike mechanics, etc. This essentially leaves "disembarking from exploded Transports", or preventing people from running the occasional "ultra-tight phalanx"

There is another potential issue to the return of templates.

Back in 8th it was easy to know what used to be a small template, a large template or had torrent rules in the case of flamers:

Small blast became D3, large blast D6, flamers D6 and flamers with torrent 2D6.

But 9th edition codexes are taking advantage that they are not limited to 3 templates to have greater variety of "blasts":

D3+1, D3+3, 3D3, D6+2 and D6+6 and probably others I'm not aware of. If templates ever return, we are going to need way more variety of templates.

 MagicJuggler wrote:
I can see two arguments for the removal of blast templates.

The main argument against templates is that I don't want to be spreading multiple horde units 2" each to minimize templates. Right now it is very relatively easy to simply throw a tightly packed large unit as I do not need to worry about that.

 Tyran wrote:
There is another potential issue to the return of templates.

Back in 8th it was easy to know what used to be a small template, a large template or had torrent rules in the case of flamers:

Small blast became D3, large blast D6, flamers D6 and flamers with torrent 2D6.

But 9th edition codexes are taking advantage that they are not limited to 3 templates to have greater variety of "blasts":

D3+1, D3+3, 3D3, D6+2 and D6+6 and probably others I'm not aware of. If templates ever return, we are going to need way more variety of templates.

 MagicJuggler wrote:
I can see two arguments for the removal of blast templates.

The main argument against templates is that I don't want to be spreading multiple horde units 2" each to minimize templates. Right now it is very relatively easy to simply throw a tightly packed large unit as I do not need to worry about that.

I could see something like small blast (2) where you resolve a small blast then double the hits or something working. And as far as horde things go, maybe just make them have to stay close to eachother 1”ish cohesion, but discount them or give rules to slightly decrease the effects of templates.

 Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote:

I could see something like small blast (2) where you resolve a small blast then double the hits or something working. And as far as horde things go, maybe just make them have to stay close to eachother 1”ish cohesion, but discount them or give rules to slightly decrease the effects of templates.

But at that point, we're talking about...
* Adding an additional attack resolution method (the scatter)
* An rule that modifies that mechanic ( the blast(2) thing)
* Adding a restriction on some units' behavior (is hordes spreading out even a problem right now?)
* Creating exceptions to the new attack method that lets the ideal target for that method (hordes) ignore or mitigate it.
* Oh, and you're telling all the newbies they have to go spend money on plastic circles to satiate the old timers' nostalgia.

That's a lot of drawbacks to justify holding a template over the table. And that's without getting into a return to people questioning how blasts interact with multiple levels of elevation, character sniping, scatter die arguments, etc.

My thoughts on adding back templates after thinking about for a bit:
Pros
- guard don't have to rely on their ballistics skill to deal damage
- it strikes me a a good game design feature (although not perfect) because it increases the interaction across the table. You can counter the effectiveness via model placement and/or staying out of LOS. The fiddly bit of model placement is why this isn't a perfect design feature (in my nonexpert opinion at least).
- on a personal tastes note, I also enjoy the added chaos of scatter dice and I miss handing out pie plates from a basilisk.

Cons
- the fiddly model placement takes a lot of time (I don't remember this being that much of an issue...but it's been over a decade since I played a version with templates, so I'll take everyone's word for it).
- a source of arguments (never ran into this one myself... I always played with some friends and we were pretty congenial about these sort of things)
- you have to buy a template (honestly, for a game that people drop $$$ on, the cost of a template and scatter dice is probably negligible... besides, you can always just print out a circle with a hole in the middle...flamer template is a bit more difficult)

As far as scatter arguments go, just evenly divide the template into 20 numbered lines, then don’t roll a scatter die, roll a d20 and have the blast scatter in that direction using the associated line on the template.

Yeah, I remember blast makers and templates slogging my games quote a bit (and causing more than a few arguments).

While the current system is better, I think the randomness of the D3/D6 system is a problem. It delivers huge variability and makes weapons that should be reliable (e.g. flamers) unreliable.

A different system, covered here: essentially, blast weapons could make a number of hit rolls equal to half the model count of the unit they're targeting (rounding up). Or for large blast weapons, equal to the full number of models in the target squad.

They'd be capped at a maximum number of attacks; for example, an Assault 6, Blast grenade launcher could only make 6 attacks maximum, even if firing at a huge unit. And there'd still be some randomness given the need to roll hits.

Jarms48 wrote:
I doubt GW will ever bring back templates, but I could see them tweaking blast to be better. The simplest change they could make is:

- Make blast work on every D3 or D6 dice. Then nerf 6 - 10 model blast on D3 weapons to minimum 2 shots. This means a 4D3 weapon would have minimum 8 shots against a unit with 6 - 10 models rather than not benefitting from the rule at all.

- Alternatively they could also reduce the models which trigger blast. It could change to 5 - 10 models. Which would definitely help against factions that spam 5 model MSU units.

I still think this is the answer.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
You could play 30k!

Ew.


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 Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote:
As far as scatter arguments go, just evenly divide the template into 20 numbered lines, then don’t roll a scatter die, roll a d20 and have the blast scatter in that direction using the associated line on the template.

That's much worse.


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 Hairesy wrote:

Toofast wrote:

 Hairesy wrote:
A lot of complaints about templates bogging the game down. Hard to see how hitting more models at once was slowing things down, but alright.

You don't see how placing a template, scattering the template, then arguing with your opponent about how many models are under said template is slower than counting to 14?

Fair. I sometimes forget that I have much less patience for baloney than most people. If an opponent doesn't want to call it the way it ought to be called in a game, then I have no further interest in wasting my time. I'm here to enjoy rolly-dicey games and if people can't be good sports then that's their problem. I think if more game shops adopted this attitude, you'd have a lot less rules lawyers. Besides, we have all these 3d printers now, I want some cool looking templates!

This just sounds like you being selfish. "My way or the highway!", as if you've never been wrong.