Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

How do you write this as a rule where you don't need to reference a diagram for each wonky vehicle?

you don't. You add a diagram for every vehicle. Theres plenty of room for it under the unit picture

The other option would be to mark bases with the arcs but then comes the problem with unbased vehicles

The rule of thumb I aways used was to imagine a rectangle with the sides touching the front/sides/back of the model. Draw lines connecting the corners. Those are your arcs.

Not perfect, but close enough for the FLGS.

Kinda glad we no longer have to deal with firing ports/embarkation locations/firing arcs, as the could get wonky. Not that some of the artifacts of the new system are any better, just different.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Spoiler:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Tyran wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

Eldar : if youre closer to the curve, you're on the front arc, if youre closer to the non curve, youre on the back arc

Aren't Eldar vehicles 90% curve?

Googling back, it is fun to see the old rear arc threads from the days of the Wave Serpent Spam with no clear consensus, definitely not a "99 percent of the time things were clear as day."

How do you write this as a rule where you don't need to reference a diagram for each wonky vehicle?

Use the center of the model. Then use quarters or front/back.

I'm still waiting on your alluded-to system though.

ccs wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Yeah, but where would the flanks be? Do the flanks extend to the rear hatch, or to the engines?

no flanks if it doesnt make sense for the model to have them (or give Front/Flanks the same AV)


or do like SW:legions and have the arcs on the base itself and be 45degrees each

But it has flanks in the rules though?
Is the flank armour the same as the front armour?

If memory serves it was 12/12/10

Effectively front and rear. Almost elegant…

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

Catulle wrote:

Karol wrote:
if a tank has a base, then it doesn't matter if it is square or round you can easily divide it in to 4 arcs two front ones and two back ones. The vehicle can be any shape then.

Careful, that way lies MADNESS like LoS by volume and *that* causes monocle to pop all over Nottingham.

Can you imagine letting your players model their dudes with total freedom? Unthinkable!

Outrageous! Ortn't to be allowed, wot?

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

How do you write this as a rule where you don't need to reference a diagram for each wonky vehicle?

you don't. You add a diagram for every vehicle. Theres plenty of room for it under the unit picture

The other option would be to mark bases with the arcs but then comes the problem with unbased vehicles

All vehicles should probably come with bases anyway, if only to avoid paint chipping on the tracks.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

How do you write this as a rule where you don't need to reference a diagram for each wonky vehicle?

you don't. You add a diagram for every vehicle. Theres plenty of room for it under the unit picture

The other option would be to mark bases with the arcs but then comes the problem with unbased vehicles

All vehicles should probably come with bases anyway, if only to avoid paint chipping on the tracks.

Eww, gross. No bases for vehicles where it can be avoided, please.

Aye - there are three categories bases are OK for on vehicles.

- Flyers
- Walkers
- Skimmers

If it has tracks or wheels - or even both - no base should be needed.

Yeah walkers are a given. I had one of the old metal deff dreads and it didn't come with a base. Damned thing kept tipping over so I had to make it a base from cardboard.

Turns out bipedal warmachines have poor balance, go figure.

 Insectum7 wrote:
I'm still waiting on your alluded-to system though.

I'm not really in the business of future leaning hypotheticals, but if you desire half baked ideas...

Shrink the to-wound table so that less than = 6s, equal = 5s, more = 4s, 2x = 3s. Then make GSC Crossfire a universal rule - perhaps giving more elite armies an easier way to trigger crossfire due to fewer units.

Maybe some outnumber in melee mechanic that triggers when you have 2x/3x as many models.

Give Pinning to anything Heavy 3 or more that doesn't have Blast - if target unit was shot by two units that each had a pinning weapon = no charging for INFANTRY; LD test to charge; reroll LD test 6" from an HQ.

These aren't written to be scrutinized to the littlest functional detail though. They're just ways to give more interaction with the current framework. I'm sure someone more inclined could think of better ideas.

 Tyran wrote:

 G00fySmiley wrote:

mob rule does not exist anymore at all. atsknf lets you ignore modifiers, so while not as good as it used to be it is still something compared to literally nothing

The rule still exist though, it is useless most of the time but it isn't literally nothing.

Yes Mob rule does in fact exist. And I have personally played hundreds of games as an Ork player exclusively. Care to take a guess how often Mob rule has been useful? Once. In my last GT I finally had it happen where I saved 1 9pt Trukkboy from running away because a unit of Kommandos happened to be nearby and allowed him to pass his attrition test.

So in the literal hundreds of games i've played Orkz in 9th, with more infantry than most lists, Mob rule has been used one single time. The rule is functionally useless.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
I'm still waiting on your alluded-to system though.

I'm not really in the business of future leaning hypotheticals, but if you desire half baked ideas...

Shrink the to-wound table so that less than = 6s, equal = 5s, more = 4s, 2x = 3s. Then make GSC Crossfire a universal rule - perhaps giving more elite armies an easier way to trigger crossfire due to fewer units.

Maybe some outnumber in melee mechanic that triggers when you have 2x/3x as many models.

Give Pinning to anything Heavy 3 or more that doesn't have Blast - if target unit was shot by two units that each had a pinning weapon = no charging for INFANTRY; LD test to charge; reroll LD test 6" from an HQ.

These aren't written to be scrutinized to the littlest functional detail though. They're just ways to give more interaction with the current framework. I'm sure someone more inclined could think of better ideas.

That's all reasonable, and I thank you for posting them, however I was looking for something more related to the armor facing mechanics under discussion.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

How do you write this as a rule where you don't need to reference a diagram for each wonky vehicle?

you don't. You add a diagram for every vehicle. Theres plenty of room for it under the unit picture

The other option would be to mark bases with the arcs but then comes the problem with unbased vehicles

There is no problem.
You find the center of the model. You envision an X centered on that point.
Voila: f/b/side arcs.
Works for any shape/size of vehicle you can imagine.

If you need to you can make yourself a small square template. Doesn't have to be any particular size, afterall 90dg right angles are still 90dg right angles....

So, two pages of arguing about how arcs which were clear as day actually worked.

Let me chuck in this little picture:


I regularly played both the first and second variant of these "perfectly clear" arcs as I still used to frequent the many stores around here and always gave my opponent the choice on how to play it before the game.
The third one occasionally came up, but not that often.

 Insectum7 wrote:
That's all reasonable, and I thank you for posting them, however I was looking for something more related to the armor facing mechanics under discussion.

I'd just so simple things like +1AP or +1 to wound in melee "for hitting vulnerable points" and something like +1 save to vehicles who are struck on their "front" however you might fairly define that.

SemperMortis wrote:

 Tyran wrote:

 G00fySmiley wrote:

mob rule does not exist anymore at all. atsknf lets you ignore modifiers, so while not as good as it used to be it is still something compared to literally nothing

The rule still exist though, it is useless most of the time but it isn't literally nothing.

Yes Mob rule does in fact exist. And I have personally played hundreds of games as an Ork player exclusively. Care to take a guess how often Mob rule has been useful? Once. In my last GT I finally had it happen where I saved 1 9pt Trukkboy from running away because a unit of Kommandos happened to be nearby and allowed him to pass his attrition test.

So in the literal hundreds of games i've played Orkz in 9th, with more infantry than most lists, Mob rule has been used one single time. The rule is functionally useless.

I completely forgot about it honestly i had to recheck the codex. I have never actually used it and can't think of a time it would have come up since infantry is so bad. my current mortal wounds spam ork list involves 31 ork infantry and none of them hang out near each other. pre that it was literally 2 units of trukk boyz who were never close enough to use it.

 Jidmah wrote:
So, two pages of arguing about how arcs which were clear as day actually worked.

Let me chuck in this little picture:

Spoiler:

I regularly played both the first and second variant of these "perfectly clear" arcs as I still used to frequent the many stores around here and always gave my opponent the choice on how to play it before the game.
The third one occasionally came up, but not that often.

Interesting point, to me the rolla isn't part of the hull, so option 2 as the rest of the vehicle is loosely rectangular, in the case of any vehicles that were too oddly shaped or if there were disputed we defaulted to option 3.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
That's all reasonable, and I thank you for posting them, however I was looking for something more related to the armor facing mechanics under discussion.

I'd just so simple things like +1AP or +1 to wound in melee "for hitting vulnerable points" and something like +1 save to vehicles who are struck on their "front" however you might fairly define that.

I'd say that's too minimal a reward for having flanked your opponent. Under the old AV system whole classes of weapons went from literally useless to capable of taking out a vehicle when firing at the side/rear, and CC was sometimes the only viable option for some units, but provided an excellent reward for closing the distance with a vehicle. The reward for advantageous positioning should be greater than "+1", imo.

Dudeface wrote:
Interesting point, to me the rolla isn't part of the hull, so option 2 as the rest of the vehicle is loosely rectangular, in the case of any vehicles that were too oddly shaped or if there were disputed we defaulted to option 3.

At least half my opponent wanted it to be hull though, because it would reduce the size of the AV14 facing

Not making the rolla hull also caused a number of other silly interactions with 5th edition's rules, like not being able to charge the wagon from the front or guardsmen standing right in front of it not being able to draw LoS to the hull.
In general treating it as hull cause the least headaches.

Just treat it like a dozer blade and ignore it for rules purposes, and be generous with measuring if you don't want the enemy to stand models on it (or use Wobbly Model).

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
That's all reasonable, and I thank you for posting them, however I was looking for something more related to the armor facing mechanics under discussion.

I'd just so simple things like +1AP or +1 to wound in melee "for hitting vulnerable points" and something like +1 save to vehicles who are struck on their "front" however you might fairly define that.

I'd say that's too minimal a reward for having flanked your opponent. Under the old AV system whole classes of weapons went from literally useless to capable of taking out a vehicle when firing at the side/rear, and CC was sometimes the only viable option for some units, but provided an excellent reward for closing the distance with a vehicle. The reward for advantageous positioning should be greater than "+1", imo.

+1 Damage could be representative, I think.

ccs wrote:

If you need to you can make yourself a small square template. Doesn't have to be any particular size, afterall 90dg right angles are still 90dg right angles....

GW could have incorporated facing angles into the blast templates, even.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:

I can seriously get behind the theory that GW is intentionally speeding up the game through sheer killiness. Invulns? What invulns? Auto-MWs on 6's. This Psyker can do 20MWs per turn! This Cannon can bracket a titan in one turn! This HQ model can wipe a Custodes Guardian Shield squad off the map in a single turn!

That isn't a conspiracy... Talk to the game designers, it is intentional. The brief is to have a game that can be completed in 2-3 hours. With the model density and short engagement range reducing the ability to manoeuvre that means removing models fast enough to reach a decision by the end of turn x, within a reasonable time frame. You can probably find seminars/posts on reddit from designers/ex designers where they talk about the game design briefs and the decisions that come out of them. Alternatively they are quite happy to talk at open days.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

ccs wrote:

If you need to you can make yourself a small square template. Doesn't have to be any particular size, afterall 90dg right angles are still 90dg right angles....

GW could have incorporated facing angles into the blast templates, even.

Well sure, they could have. But when the molds for the templates were made it probably never crossed their minds that people were so stupid that they couldn't handle this idea on their own.
Afterall, it's a simple concept. You learn the idea of R/L/F/B somewhere in your pre-school - kindergarten years....
Additionally there's nothing stopping one from taking a sharpie & adding 4 little lines to their templates.

 Tyran wrote:

 G00fySmiley wrote:


ork vehicles have such narrow front and rear facings that unlike most imperial vehicles most shots end up on side armor. the issue there was while a landraider had 14/14/14 a battlewagon had 14/12/10 and most shots were taken on AV12 making the "ork landraider" barely better than a rhino with worse firepower for close to the same points.

BTW, I love that the Land Raider was the classic GW issue of "we ran out of design space for this thing's armor because we cannot go over 14, so lets make it all 14, defeating the whole purpose of the armor facing system."

"This vehicle is so well armored it provides consistent 360 degree protection" is a perfectly valid usage of the armor facing system.

ccs wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

ccs wrote:

If you need to you can make yourself a small square template. Doesn't have to be any particular size, afterall 90dg right angles are still 90dg right angles....

GW could have incorporated facing angles into the blast templates, even.

Well sure, they could have. But when the molds for the templates were made it probably never crossed their minds that people were so stupid that they couldn't handle this idea on their own.
Afterall, it's a simple concept. You learn the idea of R/L/F/B somewhere in your pre-school - kindergarten years....
Additionally there's nothing stopping one from taking a sharpie & adding 4 little lines to their templates.

Seriously dude, get off your fething horse - you are absolutely insufferable. Every time one of these threads come up about older rules that have been removed from the game you take a predictable stance on the superiority of the old ways and cook up record-setting amounts of copium to try to justify it. Its always "the rule is perfectly fine, there were no problems, its the players fault for not being giga-chads with omniscient knowledge of the intended usage of the rule in each and every possible corner case". You constantly ignore (often with no small amount of attempted belittlement) all the extremely valid points that peo.ple make about the failings of the rules in questio in the most demeaning and belittling manner possible. Jidmah illustrated the point quite clearly - all three of the interpretations of F/S/R that he showed are valid under RAW, there was never any formal clarification as to what the "proper" method of this apparently "simple concept" are, and the three interpretations each can produce extremely different outcomes in gameplay. - and if you insist that your interpretation is the obvious correct one then you're full of orkgak.

chaos0xomega wrote:


"This vehicle is so well armored it provides consistent 360 degree protection" is a perfectly valid usage of the armor facing system.

And that's why there are no armor facings in 9th, because all vehicles are so well armored they provide consistent 360 degree protection!

I mean, the land raider was "the exception that proved the rule". It was notable for being the *only* vehicle that had that type of armor configuration (at least until IIRC the stormraven released and had a 12/12/12 profile). If it had been more common than that you might have a point but when you're discussing literally 1-2 models out of a few dozen its not particularly a problem.

chaos0xomega wrote:
I mean, the land raider was "the exception that proved the rule". It was notable for being the *only* vehicle that had that type of armor configuration (at least until IIRC the stormraven released and had a 12/12/12 profile). If it had been more common than that you might have a point but when you're discussing literally 1-2 models out of a few dozen its not particularly a problem.

One word: Monolith.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
I mean, the land raider was "the exception that proved the rule". It was notable for being the *only* vehicle that had that type of armor configuration (at least until IIRC the stormraven released and had a 12/12/12 profile). If it had been more common than that you might have a point but when you're discussing literally 1-2 models out of a few dozen its not particularly a problem.

One word: Monolith.

The LR and monolith were basically the top end of normal 40k for a long time. It’s was OK for them to define hard targets and laugh at the little stuff.

On the flip side, I think flyweight things like land speeders were AV 10 all around.

 Tyran wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:


"This vehicle is so well armored it provides consistent 360 degree protection" is a perfectly valid usage of the armor facing system.

And that's why there are no armor facings in 9th, because all vehicles are so well armored they provide consistent 360 degree protection!

It makes sense in that it doesn't appear that any faction cares one wit about armor to weight ratios. They also seem to enjoy placing their tanks danger-close to the enemy line, where being flanked is a common event. Then there is the fact that tank killer units can literally materialize out of thin air behind a tank platoon mid-pitched combat. All of which does make the concept of focused armor a bit silly.

Armor facings only make sense as a game mechanic to potentially make the game more interesting (and that isn't always a bad thing), and because real tanks also tend to have variable thickness armor. So many historical games have it too. But like morale in other war games, it can feel like 40k designers are aping mechanics from other war games without really understanding why they exist in those games. And they are done so badly, I'd be happier with them not being there at all.

So I can do without facings as I don't see it being a thing in the setting anyway, and maneuver can be so trivial as to be elementary to accomplish, not adding much to the game. The only positive for me would be to prevent 'Tokyo Drift'-ing vehicles to provide more frontage. I'd much rather have range deceleration penetration (or good ol' fashion ranged penalties) instead, but in 40k setting-wise with the wide variety of weapons that also doesn't make a whole of sense. Sure, a Lascannon might lose some punch cutting through smoke, dust, active chaff or whatever, but many weapons wouldn't. And I wouldn't want to get into what could be counted as a 40k shaped-charge type weapon and what's not.

So, rather than fiddle with templates, facing diagrams or all the minutiae, I just live with the occasional player that has their vehicles move up the table sideways (which, honestly, is surprisingly few). Chances are I have a squad of combi-melta and powerfist Chaos Terminators in the Warp looking to rend reality and step behind the scariest armor and turn it into slag and/or pound it into scrap. I don't need some fancy bonus to do so.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Spoiler:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Tyran wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

Eldar : if youre closer to the curve, you're on the front arc, if youre closer to the non curve, youre on the back arc

Aren't Eldar vehicles 90% curve?

Googling back, it is fun to see the old rear arc threads from the days of the Wave Serpent Spam with no clear consensus, definitely not a "99 percent of the time things were clear as day."

How do you write this as a rule where you don't need to reference a diagram for each wonky vehicle?

Use the center of the model. Then use quarters or front/back.

I'm still waiting on your alluded-to system though.

That manages to have all the irritation of armor facings while being even less relevant to gameplay.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
That's all reasonable, and I thank you for posting them, however I was looking for something more related to the armor facing mechanics under discussion.

I'd just so simple things like +1AP or +1 to wound in melee "for hitting vulnerable points" and something like +1 save to vehicles who are struck on their "front" however you might fairly define that.

I'd say that's too minimal a reward for having flanked your opponent. Under the old AV system whole classes of weapons went from literally useless to capable of taking out a vehicle when firing at the side/rear, and CC was sometimes the only viable option for some units, but provided an excellent reward for closing the distance with a vehicle. The reward for advantageous positioning should be greater than "+1", imo.

And people still didn't bother. Vehicle flanking wasn't really a thing in old 40k. You either dropped deepstrikers behind tanks for a slightly easier die roll or you blew them up from the front. Didn't really make much of a difference which.