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 Insectum7 wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Putting in my support for the 3.5 era Doctrine style system that Unit and catbarf are supporting.

Also I'm supportive of MASSIVE reductions to weapons and bespoke abilities. (looking at Bolter-bloat specifically).

Funny thing about bolter bloat, despite being marine centric 30k has less bolter profiles than codex sm by a mile.

Oh I believe it, Primaris are a HUGE source of bloat. They gave every unit of Primaris it's own specific guns, rather than the true/real/firstborn style where everyone uses the same equipment but in different ratios.

And Space Marines are supposed to be the army for new players. Having a million different variants of bolters and plasma rifles is madness. I just don't get it. They want 40k to be huge and bombastic and then bog it down with so much unnecessary bloat.

 Jidmah wrote:
Holy gak, I didn't even notice that the scrapjet had an extra point of strength, that's dumb. Why not make the drill +3S?

But yeah, their statlines should be unified and either all the big shootas get gretchin gunners or none of them.

I'd still not put them in one datasheet, it would just create one huge messy entry, especially of the load-outs are fixed anyways.

And means just 3 squadrons period. Can't have 4 types of buggies 3 each. Even if you　had points.

Wyldhunt wrote:
{army type buffs}

I will admit that this is a much more reasonable system, especially if it does replace all of the WLT/stratagem/etc bloat. I'm not convinced it's necessary, but I do like that it's at least trying to represent specialist army types with new capabilities instead of just "red marines get +1 to hit, blue marines get +1 to wound" buffs to dice math. Although I'd take it one step further and do it like 40k rites of war, where taking one buffs your specialist strategy but comes at the expense of things you don't get to have. Take a sneaky detachment, no non-stealth models can start the game on the table. Take a bike army, no heavy support units. Etc. Make specialist armies a choice, not an automatic buff, and make sure there's always an argument for just taking the basic army with no modifications.

 Gargantuan wrote:


And Space Marines are supposed to be the army for new players. Having a million different variants of bolters and plasma rifles is madness. I just don't get it. They want 40k to be huge and bombastic and then bog it down with so much unnecessary bloat.

It can be the army of a new player, but I never heard anyone from GW ever say that marines are ment as an army for new players only and that the army should be there for simple, and easy to ditch for the "real" thing as soon as someone stops being a new player.
There is a rapid fire, heavy and assault version of every weapon. What is there to not understand. Under the old marine rules, before the reaction of non marine players to the 2.0 rules, led to the nerfing of marine doctrines, each of the special bolters, plasma etc Had a home in different armies. IF wanted rapid fire weapons, WS wanted assault and static armies like IH worked nice with the heavy weapon versions of marine weapons.

And if that is too complicated for w40k players, then how are they going to deal with playing vs or with something like Ad Mecha or any of the chaos factions or Eldar etc ?

tneva82 wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
Holy gak, I didn't even notice that the scrapjet had an extra point of strength, that's dumb. Why not make the drill +3S?

But yeah, their statlines should be unified and either all the big shootas get gretchin gunners or none of them.

I'd still not put them in one datasheet, it would just create one huge messy entry, especially of the load-outs are fixed anyways.

And means just 3 squadrons period. Can't have 4 types of buggies 3 each. Even if you　had points.

Max 9 in total, yes, non counting the wartrike which in an HQ. Still an insane amount of buggies IMHO, definitely skew territory. But much more versatile than the current system that allows up to 15 models.

Have you ever fielded 15 buggies? That system very much regulates itself unless 9 of those are ignoring LoS.

You are trying to fix something that isn't broken and are making it worse in the process. Just have every buggy have a datasheet and have one buggy per slot.

Giving them all the same statline and removing those unnecessary grot gunners can be done without rolling everything into one datasheet.

Or are you also suggesting rolling burnas boyz, lootas, tank bustas, kommadoz and boyz into one datasheet as well? It's just unnecessary bloat to have them separated, right?

 Jidmah wrote:
Have you ever fielded 15 buggies? That system very much regulates itself unless 9 of those are ignoring LoS.

Absolutely, that's why reducing to 9 total, with the chance of mixing up the squadrons with multiple types of buggies that all act as standalone units after deployment, shouldn't be a big deal but actually a massive improvement in every possible way.

Maybe try spelling out what problem you are trying to fix.

Because so far you are merely promoting a solution that is lacking a problem to fix.

 Jidmah wrote:
Maybe try spelling out what problem you are trying to fix.

Because so far you are merely promoting a solution that is lacking a problem to fix.

Easy, it's what's the thread is about. What kind of detail/granularity would you like to see?

I'd like to reduce bloat. Plain and simple. And by bloat I also (mostly?) mean the number of datasheets.

So, merging five buggies into one datasheet, and consolidating their profiles, is the kind of detail/granularity I'd like to see. And a solution that wouldn't invalidate people's collections, like putting several units into legends or remove them completely, outside maybe those who really are into skew territory.

That's why I also wish Battlewagons or ork planes had a single profile for example. Or something like Kill/Hunta rig (which by the way I wouldn't even mind to merge into Battlewagons as well), boyz/beastnaggas, warboss/beastboss, weirdboy/wurrboy, etc... To me it doesn't make any sense that duplicates of the very same units, or of the very same weapons, that only differ for one or few details exist.

What does reducing five datasheets to one archive in your opinion?

Because you aren't reducing bloat when you have five buggies before your change and then have five buggies after your change. You just have the same amount of bloat written in a more complicated manner.

I think it's fine if all the variants of Dakka Jets/Battlewagons/Buggies (or Lemans Russ/Baneblades/Valkyries) have the same profile it doesn't matter if the weapon-based variants are one sheet or many.

AS LONG AS THEY HAVE THE SAME PROFILE.

What I care about is if someone has a tank or buggy that I know it has this toughness and that speed just different weapons.

It's when each one has slightly different stats despite looking essentially the same that it adds too much granularity.

Just like a bolter should be a bolter, whether or not it has a sight or a drum clip.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
I think it's fine if all the variants of Dakka Jets/Battlewagons/Buggies (or Lemans Russ/Baneblades/Valkyries) have the same profile it doesn't matter if the weapon-based variants are one sheet or many.

AS LONG AS THEY HAVE THE SAME PROFILE.

Agree 100%

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

Just like a bolter should be a bolter, whether or not it has a sight or a drum clip.

Amen.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Baneblades

Oh dear god someone please consolidate Baneblades into 1-2 datasheets. There's design space for maybe 2-3 variants max and we have a codex cluttered up with stuff like the Swordsword or whatever which is just "take a Shadowsword but make it mathematically worse against every possible target". Why? Because some CAD designer put a bunch of different gun bits on the sprue and therefore all of them need their own special rules.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:


Just like a bolter should be a bolter, whether or not it has a sight or a drum clip.

Yes, because a stg44, MP40 and a PPSz are practicaly the same gun. I mean they all fire bullets.

Karol wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:


Just like a bolter should be a bolter, whether or not it has a sight or a drum clip.

Yes, because a stg44, MP40 and a PPSz are practicaly the same gun. I mean they all fire bullets.

That's not a good analogy for what's he's saying. More like a M16 with a drum magazine or a M16 with a scope shouldn't be treated as two completely different weapons.
Maybe a M16 with a grenade launcher, because that would basically be a combi-weapon.

Karol wrote:
Yes, because a stg44, MP40 and a PPSz are practicaly the same gun. I mean they all fire bullets.

Depending on the scale of the game, yeah they are practically the same gun. In Epic they would have all been considered "small arms" and modern 40k is closer to Epic than to its skirmish-scale origins.

On a 40k scale, I'm not sure I'd draw the distinction between an AK-47 and an AR-15 or a Super Ruger Redhawk and a .44 Magnum. On an RPG scale, sure. But for 40k, even the vast differences between lasguns all end up being the same until you get to scions.

Karol wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:


Just like a bolter should be a bolter, whether or not it has a sight or a drum clip.

Yes, because a stg44, MP40 and a PPSz are practicaly the same gun. I mean they all fire bullets.

When you abstract to the point that 40K does? Yes, yes they are.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

Karol wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:


Just like a bolter should be a bolter, whether or not it has a sight or a drum clip.

Yes, because a stg44, MP40 and a PPSz are practicaly the same gun. I mean they all fire bullets.

When you abstract to the point that 40K does? Yes, yes they are.

Tbf there are in a wargame context usefull distinctions possible there, the MP 's should have the Same stats as assault weapons

the stgw 44 should be a separate class.

Alas that is still consolidation. But one that yields usefull distinctiveness mechanically.

Not Online!!! wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

Karol wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:


Just like a bolter should be a bolter, whether or not it has a sight or a drum clip.

Yes, because a stg44, MP40 and a PPSz are practicaly the same gun. I mean they all fire bullets.

When you abstract to the point that 40K does? Yes, yes they are.

Tbf there are in a wargame context usefull distinctions possible there, the MP 's should have the Same stats as assault weapons

the stgw 44 should be a separate class.

Alas that is still consolidation. But ohne that yields usefull distinctiveness mechanically.

Aren't all those lumped under "autogun" or something similar?

 Blndmage wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

Karol wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:


Just like a bolter should be a bolter, whether or not it has a sight or a drum clip.

Yes, because a stg44, MP40 and a PPSz are practicaly the same gun. I mean they all fire bullets.

When you abstract to the point that 40K does? Yes, yes they are.

Tbf there are in a wargame context usefull distinctions possible there, the MP 's should have the Same stats as assault weapons

the stgw 44 should be a separate class.

Alas that is still consolidation. But ohne that yields usefull distinctiveness mechanically.

Aren't all those lumped under "autogun" or something similar?

In 40k ?

Mp's tend to be thrown into autopistol, with the stubcarbine being special assault for the cultist leader of bsf whilest autoguns are stgw equivalents.

Mechanically that is distinct enough, for units imo but not overly granular, unlike primaris boltguns which are far too many.

Optimal case imo would be:
Pistol equivalent.
Assault equivalent for cqc units.
Rapidfire equivalent for line units.
And a potential heavy equivalent.

Those 4 brackets are good enough, no need to have 2-3 Different assault versions like primaris boltguns.

Not Online!!! wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

Karol wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:


Just like a bolter should be a bolter, whether or not it has a sight or a drum clip.

Yes, because a stg44, MP40 and a PPSz are practicaly the same gun. I mean they all fire bullets.

When you abstract to the point that 40K does? Yes, yes they are.

Tbf there are in a wargame context usefull distinctions possible there, the MP 's should have the Same stats as assault weapons

the stgw 44 should be a separate class.

Alas that is still consolidation. But ohne that yields usefull distinctiveness mechanically.

None of which really matters at the scale at which 40K is fought.

It would be like rolling for individual hits on multiple tables to determine the damage outcome against each individual tank in a wargame trying to recreate the battle of Kursk.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:


None of which really matters at the scale at which 40K is fought.

It would be like rolling for individual hits on multiple tables to determine the damage outcome against each individual tank in a wargame trying to recreate the battle of Kursk.

TBF, most factions play in smaller engagements with certain outlier factions alone breaking the scope.

Further i disagree, an assault formation with assault weapons is behaving and should be behaving diffrent on the battlefield than a line formation, which behaves diffrent from a support weaponry equipped formation.

These distinctions matter even at a kursk level wargame.

Not Online!!! wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:


None of which really matters at the scale at which 40K is fought.

It would be like rolling for individual hits on multiple tables to determine the damage outcome against each individual tank in a wargame trying to recreate the battle of Kursk.

TBF, most factions play in smaller engagements with certain outlier factions alone breaking the scope.

Further i disagree, an assault formation with assault weapons is behaving and should be behaving diffrent on the battlefield than a line formation, which behaves diffrent from a support weaponry equipped formation.

These distinctions matter even at a kursk level wargame.

Yes, such things would be important in a kursk level game. An assault formation, equipped for the most part with fully automatic weapons, should be different to the line soldiers with bolt-action rifles. But what about the difference between that assault formation and a US GI formation with M1-Garands and carbines with a couple of Thompsons and a 2 man belt-fed machine gun team? Suddenly that difference is shrinking as the effective fire rate of the semi-automatic rifles of the US soldiers is much higher than that of the bolt-action rifles under most conditions.

And 40K is a game where no basic trooper is carrying around a bolt action rifle. They are all semi-automatic at the very least, and most of them have fully-automatic capabilities if we go by the rules in other published material (the 40K RPGs etc.).

What is the difference between a lasgun and a pulse carbine which makes one assault and the other rapid fire? Especially when the lasgun profile is an abstract of countless variants including bullpup rifles, carbines etc.

Karol wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:


Just like a bolter should be a bolter, whether or not it has a sight or a drum clip.

Yes, because a stg44, MP40 and a PPSz are practicaly the same gun. I mean they all fire bullets.

This is the heart of the question!

I believe that 40k where you have 100+ figures on the board, along with tanks, monsters, robots and whatever else, works best when generally alike things have the same rules. It frees up modelers to go with what looks cool, and keeps the game flowing.

If I was doing a modern game at that size I would say all SMGs are SMGs, with the other categories being assault rifles, rifles, shotguns and pistols (with exotics like grenade launchers and sniper rifles as special weapons).

For a games with 100+ models I would not differentiate between an UZI and an MP5, both for modelling and rule of cool reasons, and because at that scale it makes no difference.

So for 40k, where you have .75 cal mini grenade launchers and guns shooting monofiliment shurikens and whatever you have keep things even more streamlines.

A lasgun is a autogun, is a stub gun.

Let Necromunda and Kill Team players worry about the differences.

Let RPG players worry about the differences between Mars pattern lasguns and triplex pattern.

 Jidmah wrote:
What does reducing five datasheets to one archive in your opinion?

Because you aren't reducing bloat when you have five buggies before your change and then have five buggies after your change. You just have the same amount of bloat written in a more complicated manner.

First, they'd all have the same stats and the same special rules which is not what we have now. Then yeah, you may have 5 different datasheets with almost identical units in them, I think it's much less complicated to have a single profile and 5 possible combinations of wargear. It's basically one datasheet that is just 5ish cmq taller instead of 5 slightly smaller ones, pretty much identical to each other. It's at least one less page to print and to look at.

I honestly don't see any difference in taking two dreads with 4 CCWs and a dread with 2 KMBs as part of the same squad, an old buggy with skorcha and a two buggies with TL rokkit launchas as part of the same squad, or a scrapjet, a KBB and a snazzwagon as part of the same squad.

It would also help to field multiple kinds of buggies, especially now that slots are about to become more precious. To me it's absurd that in a battallion detachment someone can take 9 of the same buggies, but not 4 different ones.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

CadianSgtBob wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Baneblades

Oh dear god someone please consolidate Baneblades into 1-2 datasheets. There's design space for maybe 2-3 variants max and we have a codex cluttered up with stuff like the Swordsword or whatever which is just "take a Shadowsword but make it mathematically worse against every possible target". Why? Because some CAD designer put a bunch of different gun bits on the sprue and therefore all of them need their own special rules.

Exactly. One datsheet would be perfectly fine. Merge everything in one page instead of keeping 8 pages of almost the same stuff.

 Blackie wrote:

CadianSgtBob wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Baneblades

Oh dear god someone please consolidate Baneblades into 1-2 datasheets. There's design space for maybe 2-3 variants max and we have a codex cluttered up with stuff like the Swordsword or whatever which is just "take a Shadowsword but make it mathematically worse against every possible target". Why? Because some CAD designer put a bunch of different gun bits on the sprue and therefore all of them need their own special rules.

Exactly. One datsheet would be perfectly fine. Merge everything in one page instead of keeping 8 pages of almost the same stuff.

I really don't care if BBs fit on 1 piece of paper or 8, I just want all of them to have the same stats with varying guns.

Since some have transport and some don't I'd say you need at least 2, maybe 3 to separate the ones with a single gun from the multigun tanks.

But what I would want gone is things like the Storm Lord's ability to fire twice by diverting power. It's dumb, how does diverting power shoot bullets faster? I could see it for the Shadow Sword but better to lose it. Presumably everyone on the battlefield is shooting as fast as they can and we don't need special rules for that.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:


None of which really matters at the scale at which 40K is fought.

It would be like rolling for individual hits on multiple tables to determine the damage outcome against each individual tank in a wargame trying to recreate the battle of Kursk.

TBF, most factions play in smaller engagements with certain outlier factions alone breaking the scope.

Further i disagree, an assault formation with assault weapons is behaving and should be behaving diffrent on the battlefield than a line formation, which behaves diffrent from a support weaponry equipped formation.

These distinctions matter even at a kursk level wargame.

Yes, such things would be important in a kursk level game. An assault formation, equipped for the most part with fully automatic weapons, should be different to the line soldiers with bolt-action rifles. But what about the difference between that assault formation and a US GI formation with M1-Garands and carbines with a couple of Thompsons and a 2 man belt-fed machine gun team? Suddenly that difference is shrinking as the effective fire rate of the semi-automatic rifles of the US soldiers is much higher than that of the bolt-action rifles under most conditions.

Inter factional differences in equipment are interesting in regards to asymetry of games. There is no point in comparing an hypotethical german assault formation with a US line formation. The difference that in that regard should matter is the difference between an US-Lineformation and an US Assault formation.
Mechanically these and their weapon classes should be distinct to differ the unit types within the faction.

And 40K is a game where no basic trooper is carrying around a bolt action rifle. They are all semi-automatic at the very least, and most of them have fully-automatic capabilities if we go by the rules in other published material (the 40K RPGs etc.).

just because something can switch firing modes doesn't mean you should do it, parade exemple is the STGw 90 of the swiss army, sure you can fold in the stock and it has an salvo AND full automode, it still however doesn't make it a good weapon for CQC and assaulting positions in such terrain. You can do it, don't get me wrong but it will come at performance loss compared to MP's and SMG's and especially carbine weaponry, over all of which it has a distinct range and accuracy advantage.

What is the difference between a lasgun and a pulse carbine which makes one assault and the other rapid fire? Especially when the lasgun profile is an abstract of countless variants including bullpup rifles, carbines etc.

Again with the 1st exemple. The difference is not and should not be between the Tau and the imperial weaponry, the weaponry should within a faction differ enough to dedicate units into roles.

a better exemple is the autogun family:
with the pistol, the Stubcarbine as an assault equivalent, and the Autogun as the mainline weapon, with the heavy stubber (and somewhat the AC) the heavy weapons.
indeed in regards to the imperial army and PDF's you can argue that despite the lore you can't make actual assault squads and CQC squads due to a lack of access to laspistols and CQW aswell as lascarbines.

The tau exemple releates to the main Tau pulse rifle, to which the carbine is the assault option.

The problem with over granularity comes into play, when you have something like the primaris bolt weaponry, which has now x versions of the gun that is supposed to be the mainline, x versions of the gun for assault, x heavy versions, etc.

Generally I think the game would benefit to being more model centric than pages of rules centric, and to incentivise creativity modelling.

Which means I'd generally move towards wargear profiles being more consistent between armies, units being differentiated more by stat lines even if the stat lines had to expand and move to a wider numerical range, and fewer if any stratagems/

Models should generally show *what they do* without having to know pages of other armies rules. But the counter to that is to enable gamers to modify those models with wide ranges of options and for that variety to feel relatively internally consistent, rather than Space Marines get a million options and nobody else does.

To be honest, I'd probably move more stats to base 100 rather than base 10, to give more space to move around the profile. Or shift the ruleset to allow monsters or creatures or characters to reach bigger numbers. The big, fundamental problem to me is that too many stats in 40k are bunched around the same value for everyone, and there's not enough space there to give any differentiation in stats, so the designers end up grafting on special non-stat rules to compensate.

An awful lot of differentiation could still exist if you say that (for example) Blood Angels various characteristics are taken care of by their stat lines giving them +5% to hit in combat at the cost of say, -5% to leadership as their bloodlust leads them astray. But fundamentally they'd still feel like Space Marines. At base 10 where almost every base troop has a WS 3+ or 4+ and a leadership of 7 - 8 there's just not enough room to make everyone feel different without wild overswings.