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Although if we are talking about realistic turning rates and all that, tracked* tanks should be like aircraft in which they can only pivot at the start of their movement. It is kinda ridiculous when a tank model moves parallel to its original position, makes perfect turns at max speed and always manages to have the best (at least according to the controlling player) position regardless of how far it moved.

Being slow to turn should restrict movement.

*Hovercraft vehicles wouldn't really suffer this because of the inherent advantages of flying around.

Dudeface wrote:

Spoiler:

ccs wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 0beron wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
That anything can kill, regardless of the type of weapon it is.

Yeah, when small-arms fire brings down a Predator or Fire Prism, the question is always: "Why would anyone bother building armored vehicles in this universe?"

They're not mathematically doing it in droves. The vehicle would have to have like 2 wounds left.

You'd literally fix the problem just by giving vehicles (and monsters) just a couple of additional wounds.

The problem isn't that they're doing it in droves. Or rarely. It's that it's happening at all in the 1st place.
And you literally fix it by making it not possible. If the weapon isn't of x str or better, it has zero chance to cause damage. Problem solved.

And we go back to "enjoy not having enough mathematical units/weapons to kill my list". Better to let the lil guys have a chance at interacting rather than just being meatbags to sit on objectives while getting chewed up by any heavy armour.

That's only a thing if you screw up writing codexes and rules.

For example, Knights wouldn't have been such a challenge for Orks in 7th if Ork Tankbustas could actually have used all their tankbusta bombs in combat like in prior editions. You just have to provide mechanical solutions in ways other than the lame "spray and pray" we have now.

 vict0988 wrote:

Which spins faster, Drukhari Venom or Space Marine Centurion? I don't have tanks, I have alien warmachines of doom, I don't want them just to be bad tanks or terrible monsters.

Weren't venoms classed as skimmers, which didnt have facings? (i never played older edition so im genuinely asking)

 vict0988 wrote:

Stratagems are cancer, i've been playing OPR and its so much more enjoyable, i'm not drained after a game of looking in the book/wahapedia to make sure i'm not forgetting a strat.

I think it's just a bad implementation.

true, if they were heavily trimmed and on the datasheet of HQs that unlocked them, it might be better

 vict0988 wrote:

why can't 6 warlord traits be enough?

With more WL traits you can have something for everyone. It's really not a big deal whether you have 3 or 18. You pick the one you like and then your opponent can explain the one they picked at the start of the game. The problem with WL traits right now to me isn't that there are too many, it's that there is no difference between a lot of them and there is no reason why some factions don't get access to a fun WL trait. With 18 you can cover pretty much everything, you can't have a Flayed One WL trait or a Reanimation Protocols WL trait but those can just be Relics.

Thats exactly why the game is so bloated right now, GW is trying to give little bits of fluffy rules to everyone, it doesnt work at the scale theyre pushing.

7th and early also had the additional issue that they were peak "forging the narrative with beer and pretzels", and the narrative was that horde xenos sucked to make protagonists factions feel better.

 Tyran wrote:
Although if we are talking about realistic turning rates and all that, tracked* tanks should be like aircraft in which they can only pivot at the start of their movement. It is kinda ridiculous when a tank model moves parallel to its original position, makes perfect turns at max speed and always manages to have the best (at least according to the controlling player) position regardless of how far it moved.

Being slow to turn should restrict movement.

*Hovercraft vehicles wouldn't really suffer this because of the inherent advantages of flying around.

This seems slightly backwards, depending on how your hovertank is actually propelled, and all the 40k hovervehicles use rear-facing thrusters for movement and either or a combination of thrust vectoring or aerodynamic surfaces for steering.
If anything, I'd evaluate them as more restricted in their ability to turn than tracked vehicles; and more like an airplane than a Rhino or Leman Russ.

Tracked vehicles are about as agile as it gets. Many can run one track backwards and one forward to turn on a dime, and all of them can at least turn about one stationary track. They can turn at speed only marginally less easily than wheeled vehicles, and can actually handbrake turn about a stopped track at unexpectedly high speeds.


Of the 40k hovertanks, the only one I would bet on to do so with any haste would be the Hammerhead chassis, and it would have to be very careful about it and it would be ill advisable for it to do so at speed.


This is not to say the hovertanks can't turn, they definitely can, just that a tracked tank can almost certainly turn tighter and more quickly to do something like wind around corners or follow an "S" path to present it's front the same direction at both ends of a move that appears lateral.

ccs wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 0beron wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
That anything can kill, regardless of the type of weapon it is.

Yeah, when small-arms fire brings down a Predator or Fire Prism, the question is always: "Why would anyone bother building armored vehicles in this universe?"

They're not mathematically doing it in droves. The vehicle would have to have like 2 wounds left.

You'd literally fix the problem just by giving vehicles (and monsters) just a couple of additional wounds.

The problem isn't that they're doing it in droves. Or rarely. It's that it's happening at all in the 1st place.
And you literally fix it by making it not possible. If the weapon isn't of x str or better, it has zero chance to cause damage. Problem solved.

It was already happening with AV10 on most rears of tanks. Plus it's far better than lucky Melta shot or Haywire/Grav mechanics.

 Tyran wrote:
Although if we are talking about realistic turning rates and all that, tracked* tanks should be like aircraft in which they can only pivot at the start of their movement. It is kinda ridiculous when a tank model moves parallel to its original position, makes perfect turns at max speed and always manages to have the best (at least according to the controlling player) position regardless of how far it moved.

Being slow to turn should restrict movement.

*Hovercraft vehicles wouldn't really suffer this because of the inherent advantages of flying around.

Given the complete lack of definition of range on the board and time for a turn, does it really matter how quickly any unit or model can turn?

That's the thing about 40K. It is so abstract that allowing a tank to "shoot through itself" is not an actual thing since the unit's orientation is almost never actually relevant in the rules (Flyers as the exception).

Some of us think that a unit's orientation - specifically for vehicles - should matter.

 0beron wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

Which spins faster, Drukhari Venom or Space Marine Centurion? I don't have tanks, I have alien warmachines of doom, I don't want them just to be bad tanks or terrible monsters.

If the Venom is hovering at a standstill, maybe the Venom. But actually aligning a target with hull-mounted weapons is much more difficult than with a weapon you're holding.

Let's agree to disagree, I've never operated a vehicle-mounted weapon and you've never done it for a Venom or Centurion suit, I'll accept the high likelihood that you might be more knowledgeable on the subject of hull-mounted weapons and I have no idea how I'd be convinced so me arguing further would not be in good faith.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

Which spins faster, Drukhari Venom or Space Marine Centurion? I don't have tanks, I have alien warmachines of doom, I don't want them just to be bad tanks or terrible monsters.

Weren't venoms classed as skimmers, which didnt have facings? (i never played older edition so im genuinely asking)

 vict0988 wrote:

why can't 6 warlord traits be enough?

With more WL traits you can have something for everyone. It's really not a big deal whether you have 3 or 18. You pick the one you like and then your opponent can explain the one they picked at the start of the game. The problem with WL traits right now to me isn't that there are too many, it's that there is no difference between a lot of them and there is no reason why some factions don't get access to a fun WL trait. With 18 you can cover pretty much everything, you can't have a Flayed One WL trait or a Reanimation Protocols WL trait but those can just be Relics.

Thats exactly why the game is so bloated right now, GW is trying to give little bits of fluffy rules to everyone, it doesnt work at the scale theyre pushing.

Skimmers worked like other vehicles when it came to facings and firing arcs.

I'm not sure what you're saying is the problem, if we agree that WL traits are good for the game, the question then becomes should we have 3, 6, 12 or 18 generic ones and should we have 6+ faction WL traits per faction? I would argue we don't need faction WL traits, but I don't think they're as harmful as Stratagems because you get a tonne of Stratagems without making a choice. I don't see an argument for why having 18 generic WL traits is too much in a world where you are removing 500 Stratagems from the game and 200 WL traits. With 18 WL traits there can still be massive differences between them, enough to justify the number IMO.

VladimirHerzog 807584 11458632 wrote:

Thats exactly why the game is so bloated right now, GW is trying to give little bits of fluffy rules to everyone, it doesnt work at the scale theyre pushing.

That's the eternal tension of 40k. From the beginning of rogue trader you had a set of rules with many RPGish elements that were suited for engagements of a couple squads per side (a small platoon). But players always wanted bigger battles . GW obliged and the game is now around Company level but the unique character of 40k units was always a big attraction and players have never been willing to accept a corresponding level of abstraction in their rules.

Every attempt to simplify the rules has been followed by adding back in layers of special rules and exceptions to put that level of detail/flavor back in the game. That's a bad recipe that gives you the worst elements of simple and complex games.

I don't have a dog in the fight as I'll probably never come back to GW rules after discovering OPR. However, I do think 40k needs a brand new ruleset with some modern aspects (Alternating activations maybe?). Most importantly, a level of crunch that is more than 8th and less than what came before. Piling special rules on a simple ruleset is as silly as an over complicated ruleset for company level combat.

Put another way, 40k needs a ruleset that looks ahead to what the game will be in a couple years and can accommodate that experience. It does not need a basic ruleset whose character and play experience will be redefined by Codices and such adding layers of rules and exceptions.

I don't think WLT/Relics especially add bloat to the game. I guess when "the best ones" come in paid DLC it is annoying - but by and large their impact is modest, and players quickly learn the standard ones for any given faction. (And many of the non-standard ones are things like 2 damage pistols, which almost never see play/are so inconsequential when they do who cares?)

To my mind the problem isn't the width of the WLT/Relic/Stratagem pile - its the resultant stack of everything piled on everything else.

I.E. Having to factor the following into rolling an attack:
Unit Special Rules
Weapon Special Rules.
Faction Special Rules
Faction Purity Bonus
Chapter Tactic
Character Buffs
WLT/Relic Buffs
Psychic Power Buffs
1-2 Stratagems
Terrain Rules

In a computer game it can just automatically process to determine how many dice are successful. But instead you are having to sit there working it all out. Over time some of this will become second nature - but its unclear what its adding to the process.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

ccs wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 0beron wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
That anything can kill, regardless of the type of weapon it is.

Yeah, when small-arms fire brings down a Predator or Fire Prism, the question is always: "Why would anyone bother building armored vehicles in this universe?"

They're not mathematically doing it in droves. The vehicle would have to have like 2 wounds left.

You'd literally fix the problem just by giving vehicles (and monsters) just a couple of additional wounds.

The problem isn't that they're doing it in droves. Or rarely. It's that it's happening at all in the 1st place.
And you literally fix it by making it not possible. If the weapon isn't of x str or better, it has zero chance to cause damage. Problem solved.

It was already happening with AV10 on most rears of tanks. Plus it's far better than lucky Melta shot or Haywire/Grav mechanics.

It could happen. But against any but stupid/inexperienced players it generally wasn't. And when it was? In game effort/risk was required to achieve it + something greater than a lasgun. The exception being transports that had to end up exposed to drop their passengers.
But there was none of this silliness of shoot anything & everything from str 1+ & hope for a 5 or 6. What we have now is just stupid & designed to pander to children who'll feel bad if they can't succeed no matter what.

ccs wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

ccs wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 0beron wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
That anything can kill, regardless of the type of weapon it is.

Yeah, when small-arms fire brings down a Predator or Fire Prism, the question is always: "Why would anyone bother building armored vehicles in this universe?"

They're not mathematically doing it in droves. The vehicle would have to have like 2 wounds left.

You'd literally fix the problem just by giving vehicles (and monsters) just a couple of additional wounds.

The problem isn't that they're doing it in droves. Or rarely. It's that it's happening at all in the 1st place.
And you literally fix it by making it not possible. If the weapon isn't of x str or better, it has zero chance to cause damage. Problem solved.

It was already happening with AV10 on most rears of tanks. Plus it's far better than lucky Melta shot or Haywire/Grav mechanics.

It could happen. But against any but stupid/inexperienced players it generally wasn't. And when it was? In game effort/risk was required to achieve it + something greater than a lasgun. The exception being transports that had to end up exposed to drop their passengers.
But there was none of this silliness of shoot anything & everything from str 1+ & hope for a 5 or 6. What we have now is just stupid & designed to pander to children who'll feel bad if they can't
succeed no matter what.

"Something greater than a Lasgun" so basically every other army besides one. Stellar argument.

Also it WAS incredibly easy to do it due to Deep Strike mechanics; positioning has never been important. Y'all need to stop pretending AV mechanics are some gold standard.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Also it WAS incredibly easy to do it due to Deep Strike mechanics; positioning has never been important. Y'all need to stop pretending AV mechanics are some gold standard.

yeah but deepstrike can be played around and at the very least requires a bigger decision tree than "move into range, shoot"

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Also it WAS incredibly easy to do it due to Deep Strike mechanics; positioning has never been important. Y'all need to stop pretending AV mechanics are some gold standard.

yeah but deepstrike can be played around and at the very least requires a bigger decision tree than "move into range, shoot"

I've used Deep Strike with Flamer units. The dangers of Deep Strike have always been incredibly overestimated.

The dangers and viability of deepstrike are entirely dependent on the faction.

Tyel wrote:
I don't think WLT/Relics especially add bloat to the game. I guess when "the best ones" come in paid DLC it is annoying - but by and large their impact is modest, and players quickly learn the standard ones for any given faction. (And many of the non-standard ones are things like 2 damage pistols, which almost never see play/are so inconsequential when they do who cares?)

To my mind the problem isn't the width of the WLT/Relic/Stratagem pile - its the resultant stack of everything piled on everything else.

I.E. Having to factor the following into rolling an attack:
Unit Special Rules
Weapon Special Rules.
Faction Special Rules
Faction Purity Bonus
Chapter Tactic
Character Buffs
WLT/Relic Buffs
Psychic Power Buffs
1-2 Stratagems
Terrain Rules

In a computer game it can just automatically process to determine how many dice are successful. But instead you are having to sit there working it all out. Over time some of this will become second nature - but its unclear what its adding to the process.

Do you think 40k would be better off with dead simple attacks, like Apocalypse where taking a plasma gun and a combi-plasma on a unit of Tacticals is not an option? Do you want Characters to go back to being beat sticks?

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Also it WAS incredibly easy to do it due to Deep Strike mechanics; positioning has never been important. Y'all need to stop pretending AV mechanics are some gold standard.

yeah but deepstrike can be played around and at the very least requires a bigger decision tree than "move into range, shoot"

I've used Deep Strike with Flamer units. The dangers of Deep Strike have always been incredibly overestimated.

Doesn't matter, getting to the rear armor of a vehicle to fish for 6s is still requiring you to actually move units to do so, making it infinitely superior to the current paradigm.

 vict0988 wrote:

Tyel wrote:
I don't think WLT/Relics especially add bloat to the game. I guess when "the best ones" come in paid DLC it is annoying - but by and large their impact is modest, and players quickly learn the standard ones for any given faction. (And many of the non-standard ones are things like 2 damage pistols, which almost never see play/are so inconsequential when they do who cares?)

To my mind the problem isn't the width of the WLT/Relic/Stratagem pile - its the resultant stack of everything piled on everything else.

I.E. Having to factor the following into rolling an attack:
Unit Special Rules
Weapon Special Rules.
Faction Special Rules
Faction Purity Bonus
Chapter Tactic
Character Buffs
WLT/Relic Buffs
Psychic Power Buffs
1-2 Stratagems
Terrain Rules

In a computer game it can just automatically process to determine how many dice are successful. But instead you are having to sit there working it all out. Over time some of this will become second nature - but its unclear what its adding to the process.

Do you think 40k would be better off with dead simple attacks, like Apocalypse where taking a plasma gun and a combi-plasma on a unit of Tacticals is not an option? Do you want Characters to go back to being beat sticks?

I'd wager we could afford to go to having "special weapon" rather than plasma gun, melta gun, flamer, grav gun etc. Which avoids a lot of the no model no rule shenanigans.

^Hard "no".

I'm fine consolidating certain things. Bolters can mostly fit into Bolt Pistol, Bolter, Heavy Bolter, with a few things falling outside. Most Power Weapons can fall into Light, Medium, and Heavy Power Weapons. But consolidating flamers and meltas with plasma? They all serve different purposes.

 TheBestBucketHead wrote:
I'm fine consolidating certain things. Bolters can mostly fit into Bolt Pistol, Bolter, Heavy Bolter, with a few things falling outside. Most Power Weapons can fall into Light, Medium, and Heavy Power Weapons. But consolidating flamers and meltas with plasma? They all serve different purposes.

Is the definition between melta and plasma really so wide? High S, high ap, multiple damage ranged weapon. Taking the point on flamers, there could easily be a "anti-infantry" and "anti-heavy" special weapons. Go look through the guard release thread at the multiple pages over the fact people don't take grenade launchers and rarely flamers. Melta and plasma is decided mostly by points for an edition.

 vict0988 wrote:
Do you think 40k would be better off with dead simple attacks, like Apocalypse where taking a plasma gun and a combi-plasma on a unit of Tacticals is not an option? Do you want Characters to go back to being beat sticks?

Varies I guess. Taking out special weapons feels a bit of a leap. But equally I'm not overly bothered to see a big list of things consolidated down because there just aren't enough meaningful "niches" for them to exist. I think rolling out say "Accursed Weapons" beat having lightning claws, power axes, power mauls, power swords, chain swords all in the same unit etc.

Its kind of the same for characters. I like that characters provide buffs. I think it is a great way of making a bunch of characters viable beyond being "bad beat sticks". And WLT/Relics have been a key part of that process.

But I feel my point about the rule-stack still stands. I think its a major reason why people feel 40k has become complicated - and I'd therefore look at reducing it down in a new edition. I feel the stack wasn't this big at the outset of 8th - its grown up over time.

10th edition should just be a reprint of 3rd edition.... word-for-word. That is how you cut costs.


/S..... maybe?

I played mainly guard and space Marines, consolidating flamer and grenade launcher into a support weapon (random amount of Auto-hits with a bit range), that could easily represent a heavy machine gun found in WW2 kits, and consolidating plasma, melta, grav into a special weapon (high energy, high AP, low shots), would at least mitigate the problem of one option always being worse.
The game has already little reason to have 5 different special weapons just from the amount of possible rules interaction, without one option just being a worse alternative.
Way more interesting to have a meaningful choice between taking a special weapon or not, then the choice between a good option and a lot of worse options.
All those different weapons get quite tedious at larger games, anyway.

Dudeface wrote:

 TheBestBucketHead wrote:
I'm fine consolidating certain things. Bolters can mostly fit into Bolt Pistol, Bolter, Heavy Bolter, with a few things falling outside. Most Power Weapons can fall into Light, Medium, and Heavy Power Weapons. But consolidating flamers and meltas with plasma? They all serve different purposes.

Is the definition between melta and plasma really so wide? High S, high ap, multiple damage ranged weapon. Taking the point on flamers, there could easily be a "anti-infantry" and "anti-heavy" special weapons. Go look through the guard release thread at the multiple pages over the fact people don't take grenade launchers and rarely flamers. Melta and plasma is decided mostly by points for an edition.

Quite wide. Plasma remains a longer ranged, multi-shot weapon. Melta however has crazy damage potential up close. (And won't kill you).

You know the"forgotten special"? The grav-gun.

The Grenade Launcher for Guard is interesting because it's Assault iirc. At least in prior editions it has been.

 Insectum7 wrote:
Quite wide. Plasma remains a longer ranged, multi-shot weapon. Melta however has crazy damage potential up close. (And won't kill you).

Wide on the scale of an infantry skirmish game, maybe. But on the scale from grot to warlord titan? Not so much. For a game like 40k merging them into a single weapon works just fine as an approximation, especially since going back to at least 4th edition they've had overlapping roles and you always take the one which is better under the current rules.

Brickfix wrote:
I played mainly guard and space Marines, consolidating flamer and grenade launcher into a support weapon (random amount of Auto-hits with a bit range), that could easily represent a heavy machine gun found in WW2 kits, and consolidating plasma, melta, grav into a special weapon (high energy, high AP, low shots), would at least mitigate the problem of one option always being worse.
The game has already little reason to have 5 different special weapons just from the amount of possible rules interaction, without one option just being a worse alternative.
Way more interesting to have a meaningful choice between taking a special weapon or not, then the choice between a good option and a lot of worse options.
All those different weapons get quite tedious at larger games, anyway.

You have a valid point, but it is also worth noting that if GW was decent at balancing this wouldn't be an issue. It is their lack of skill at writing rules for their own system, and balancing said rules, that creates the problem. The concept itself isn't inherently flawed.

But again, you still aren't wrong (sadly).

Gue'vesa Emissary wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Quite wide. Plasma remains a longer ranged, multi-shot weapon. Melta however has crazy damage potential up close. (And won't kill you).

Wide on the scale of an infantry skirmish game, maybe. But on the scale from grot to warlord titan? Not so much. For a game like 40k merging them into a single weapon works just fine as an approximation, especially since going back to at least 4th edition they've had overlapping roles and you always take the one which is better under the current rules.

Although warlord titans do technically exist in 40k, that's clearly not the design space the game is built around. Far, far, far from typical.

It's easy to differentiate between to two by making the melta the vehicle killer. Flamer for hordes, plasma for elite infantry, melta for heavy infantry/vehicles. No problem. And some crossover is fine.

Hell, make them good at taking on superheavies. I know I favored drop-Meltas when locals were occasiinally taking Gargants and Warhounds.

 Insectum7 wrote:
It's easy to differentiate between to two by making the melta the vehicle killer.

History shows that it's a lot harder than you think. For an anti-elite weapon you need high strength to wound on 2s, good AP to get through their saves, D2 or better to kill a whole model with every shot, and decent volume of fire. And those things are also exactly what you need for an effective vehicle killer, with the only difference being the melta does its damage in one big shot vs. two smaller shots with the same total damage. Going back at least as far as 5th it's rarely been the case that both of them are viable choices at the same time. Usually one is the obvious winner and the other only has very circumstantial advantages. In 5th it was melta everywhere for killing tanks and elite infantry, now it has shifted to plasma almost exclusively (with a period of grav spam in the middle for anyone who had it).

If you want to differentiate them without making one the obvious choice you'd need to do a major overhaul of the core rules, introducing something like the split AP/AT profiles from Epic and Apocalypse to prevent the overlap by force. But as long as both targets have such similar ideal weapon profiles it's going to be very difficult.