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 Afrodactyl wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
Templates are/were excellent.

Fixed that for ya.

Great in a vacuum, terrible in practice. It slows down the game so much when everyone sits there places their minis exactly 1.9999" apart to stay in coherency but not be vulnerable to blasts.

It's fine when you're running very small units but god forbid anyone turn up with a unit with more than 10 models in it. Imagine no one wanting to play against you just because you're forced to slow the game down so much so you don't auto lose to a blast template.

In my opinion, this was more of a problem with template sizes and coherency rules being a total mismatch.

The flamer template was fun, because it didn't scatter. Anything else...felt more like rules bloat, especially the small templates that would rarely hit more than two models. A plasma gun often ended up being more effective than a plasma cannon.
I'd say templates could have worked better if you have had no scatter but hit a specific model with a normal to hit roll and if you have had coherency rules like OPR, i.e. All models of a squad have to be within 6" of each other.

Dudeface wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
Templates are/were excellent.

Fixed that for ya.

Your mileage may vary, but it was an extra thing to remember to take to a game, drop on minis, get into debates over and resulted in almost obligatory 2" movement trays for everyone. Crap design.

I'd take them over the implementation of Strats any day.

Blasts in particular worked quite well in conjunction with good terrain rules/setups that encouraged the use of cover. There was a good organic choice between clumping up models in or behind cover, or losing the cover bonus in order to disperse enough to make Blast weapons less effective. When there are rules and situations that disincentivise the '2" spread', reacting to potential Blasts provides important defensive decisions.

As for "Remembering to bring templates, uughh", that's just reaching. Keeping them with your dice and measuring tape is trivial.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
The flamer template was fun, because it didn't scatter. Anything else...felt more like rules bloat, especially the small templates that would rarely hit more than two models. A plasma gun often ended up being more effective than a plasma cannon.
I'd say templates could have worked better if you have had no scatter but hit a specific model with a normal to hit roll and if you have had coherency rules like OPR, i.e. All models of a squad have to be within 6" of each other.

I agree that the thing that caused the most arguments was the scatter. That's the place I'd look for making adjustments.

Proposal: Place Blast Marker centered on a model in the target unit. Firing model gets to roll to-hit for each model under the Blast Marker.

Which makes things easier, but does unfortunately cut down on the visceral butt-clinch moments when rolling for Demolisher scatters.

Templates aren't coming back, not at the current scale the game is played.

As for blast rules. Maybe if they had an anti msu rule, something like: If target unit is 5 models or less, blast weapons can make attacks against enemy units within 3" of that enemy unit. Halve (rounding up) the number of attacks made against such units (because all blast weapons are random number of attacks) and those attacks don't further benefit from the blast rules.

 Tyran wrote:
Templates aren't coming back, not at the current scale the game is played.

And yet they exist in current 30k/HH. A game played at the exact same (or greater) scale as 9e 40k....

ccs wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
Templates aren't coming back, not at the current scale the game is played.

And yet they exist in current 30k/HH. A game played at the exact same (or greater) scale as 9e 40k....

And HH is more of a simulationist pseudo-historical game of Space Marines vs Space Marines. And yes it technically has non-Space Marine factions, but it is obvious just by looking at the promotional material and website that it is not build with non-Space Marines in mind, because the Heresy was all about Marine vs Marine.

40k isn't that, and shouldn't be trying to be that.

EDIT: Moreover HH 2.0 balanced templates to minimize them as much as possible with most of them being AP4 or worse in a game in which almost everyone is Sv3+ or better.

 Insectum7 wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
Templates are/were excellent.

Fixed that for ya.

Your mileage may vary, but it was an extra thing to remember to take to a game, drop on minis, get into debates over and resulted in almost obligatory 2" movement trays for everyone. Crap design.

I'd take them over the implementation of Strats any day.

Blasts in particular worked quite well in conjunction with good terrain rules/setups that encouraged the use of cover. There was a good organic choice between clumping up models in or behind cover, or losing the cover bonus in order to disperse enough to make Blast weapons less effective. When there are rules and situations that disincentivise the '2" spread', reacting to potential Blasts provides important defensive decisions.

As for "Remembering to bring templates, uughh", that's just reaching. Keeping them with your dice and measuring tape is trivial.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
The flamer template was fun, because it didn't scatter. Anything else...felt more like rules bloat, especially the small templates that would rarely hit more than two models. A plasma gun often ended up being more effective than a plasma cannon.
I'd say templates could have worked better if you have had no scatter but hit a specific model with a normal to hit roll and if you have had coherency rules like OPR, i.e. All models of a squad have to be within 6" of each other.

I agree that the thing that caused the most arguments was the scatter. That's the place I'd look for making adjustments.

Proposal: Place Blast Marker centered on a model in the target unit. Firing model gets to roll to-hit for each model under the Blast Marker.

Which makes things easier, but does unfortunately cut down on the visceral butt-clinch moments when rolling for Demolisher scatters.

I mean, yes if having to remember to carry (by the end of 7th) a 3", 5" and 10" disc, multi blast, normal flame or a 15" flame template to a game isn't an inconvenience sure. But that very obviously isn't the main complaint, which you ignore the times people dink/drop them on your models, argue over unclear hits due to it being in the middle and nobody being able to get directly over, the difficulties in agreeing the exact angle on a scatter die that isn't anywhere near the template necessarily, making someone hold the fething thing for 3 mins whilst you check chain blast rules.

They're a nice mechanic for people of a particular mindset, but the games healthier for them having gone imo. Although likewise I agree that the current strst implementation is a cluster of equal magnitude.

 Tyran wrote:

ccs wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
Templates aren't coming back, not at the current scale the game is played.

And yet they exist in current 30k/HH. A game played at the exact same (or greater) scale as 9e 40k....

And HH is more of a simulationist pseudo-historical game of Space Marines vs Space Marines. And yes it technically has non-Space Marine factions, but it is obvious just by looking at the promotional material and website that it is not build with non-Space Marines in mind, because the Heresy was all about Marine vs Marine.

40k isn't that, and shouldn't be trying to be that.

EDIT: Moreover HH 2.0 balanced templates to minimize them as much as possible with most of them being AP4 or worse in a game in which almost everyone is Sv3+ or better.

I don't see how a focus on Space Marines would have any bearing on including Blasts as a mechanic.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Dudeface wrote:

I mean, yes if having to remember to carry (by the end of 7th) a 3", 5" and 10" disc, multi blast, normal flame or a 15" flame template to a game isn't an inconvenience sure. But that very obviously isn't the main complaint, which you ignore the times people dink/drop them on your models, argue over unclear hits due to it being in the middle and nobody being able to get directly over, the difficulties in agreeing the exact angle on a scatter die that isn't anywhere near the template necessarily, making someone hold the fething thing for 3 mins whilst you check chain blast rules.

They're a nice mechanic for people of a particular mindset, but the games healthier for them having gone imo. Although likewise I agree that the current strst implementation is a cluster of equal magnitude.

I agree that accessibility and speed are important in 40k. But the complete removal of template-based mechanics is a net loss. The Flamer in particular is a prime casualty.

As for 7th taking things a bit too far? I think we can all agree on that

 Insectum7 wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
Templates are/were excellent.

Fixed that for ya.

Your mileage may vary, but it was an extra thing to remember to take to a game, drop on minis, get into debates over and resulted in almost obligatory 2" movement trays for everyone. Crap design.

I'd take them over the implementation of Strats any day.

Blasts in particular worked quite well in conjunction with good terrain rules/setups that encouraged the use of cover. There was a good organic choice between clumping up models in or behind cover, or losing the cover bonus in order to disperse enough to make Blast weapons less effective. When there are rules and situations that disincentivise the '2" spread', reacting to potential Blasts provides important defensive decisions.

As for "Remembering to bring templates, uughh", that's just reaching. Keeping them with your dice and measuring tape is trivial.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
The flamer template was fun, because it didn't scatter. Anything else...felt more like rules bloat, especially the small templates that would rarely hit more than two models. A plasma gun often ended up being more effective than a plasma cannon.
I'd say templates could have worked better if you have had no scatter but hit a specific model with a normal to hit roll and if you have had coherency rules like OPR, i.e. All models of a squad have to be within 6" of each other.

I agree that the thing that caused the most arguments was the scatter. That's the place I'd look for making adjustments.

Proposal: Place Blast Marker centered on a model in the target unit. Firing model gets to roll to-hit for each model under the Blast Marker.

Which makes things easier, but does unfortunately cut down on the visceral butt-clinch moments when rolling for Demolisher scatters.

You could hybridize your proposal with the old scatter rules: place the template anywhere over your target and count the models underneath. Count all as 'hit' on a successful roll to hit. If you miss by one, subtract 2 from the hit total, miss by 2 subtract 4, etc. Rolled ones to hit miss outright as before. Not perfect, but then nothing is. Better at least than these wonky 'if a squad has x models then y happens' silliness.

 Insectum7 wrote:
I don't see how a focus on Space Marines would have any bearing on including Blasts as a mechanic.

Because on of the most notable effects of blast templates on gameplay is horde players (and xeno horde players in particular) having to spread their models as perfectly as possible, which lead to hours long movement phases.

HH for obvious reasons doesn't care about Ork Boys orTermagants.

EDIT: And again, HH nerfed most blast weapons to the point only the heaviest blast weapons are actually a threat to Space Marines.

 Tyran wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
I don't see how a focus on Space Marines would have any bearing on including Blasts as a mechanic.

Because on of the most notable effects of blast templates on gameplay is horde players (and xeno horde players in particular) having to spread their models as perfectly as possible, which lead to hours long movement phases.

HH for obvious reasons doesn't care about Ork Boys orTermagants.

Again, my counter to that is providing downsides to spreading models out so much. Lack of cover being an important element.

EDIT: And again, HH nerfed most blast weapons to the point only the heaviest blast weapons are actually a threat to Space Marines.

Sounds like 3rd/4th edition. Editions which had more restraint in their weapon and army design. It's an indication that the issue isn't the mechanic itself, but how it was distributed.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 amanita wrote:


You could hybridize your proposal with the old scatter rules: place the template anywhere over your target and count the models underneath. Count all as 'hit' on a successful roll to hit. If you miss by one, subtract 2 from the hit total, miss by 2 subtract 4, etc. Rolled ones to hit miss outright as before. Not perfect, but then nothing is. Better at least than these wonky 'if a squad has x models then y happens' silliness.

Yeah, the squad model count thing is really awkward.

Trying to compare proposals. I feel like simply rolling to hit each model is the more straight forward way to go, and accomplishes about the same thing? Am I missing an incentive for your take?

Edit: I guess you're likelier to hit more models with your method.

 Insectum7 wrote:
Again, my counter to that is providing downsides to spreading models out so much. Lack of cover being an important element.

Except that doesn't really change the issue, and arguably makes it worse because now you have to weight different benefits and downsides. A perfect spread distance is still the goal, that it isn't the full 2" doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

 Tyran wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Again, my counter to that is providing downsides to spreading models out so much. Lack of cover being an important element.

Except that doesn't really change the issue, and arguably makes it worse because now you have to weight different benefits and downsides. A perfect spread distance is still the goal, that it isn't the full 2" doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Weighing different benefits and downsides is the feature? Like . . . The whole point?

There is a meaningful mechanical difference at the tactical level on the tabletop in 40k between a Slaanesh army that bum-rushes enemy units with 48 daemons in 4 groups of 12, and one that bum-rushes enemy units with 48 daemons in 8 groups of 6.

That's like saying "well the big flaw in the Russian battleplan in Ukraine is squad size. Having an 8 man rifle squad makes them far more vulnerable to Ukrainian artillery and tanks than the little five man motorized Rifle squads of the Ukrainians"

And then being okay with that abstraction/analysis.

 Insectum7 wrote:

Weighing different benefits and downsides is the feature? Like . . . The whole point?

When the scale can be hundreds of models per side... that degree of detail becomes cumbersome.

I personally don't enjoy having to measure the position of every gaunt. At the scale 40k operates I want incentives for unit scale maneuvering and positioning because I only have to manage around a dozen units. I don't want to manage the exact position of every model in every unit.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Tyran wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Again, my counter to that is providing downsides to spreading models out so much. Lack of cover being an important element.

Except that doesn't really change the issue, and arguably makes it worse because now you have to weight different benefits and downsides. A perfect spread distance is still the goal, that it isn't the full 2" doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Weighing different benefits and downsides is the feature? Like . . . The whole point?

Meaningful tabletop decisions at the tactical level based on terrain and relative capabilities between friendly and enemy units is *haaaard*, Insectum.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tyran wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

Weighing different benefits and downsides is the feature? Like . . . The whole point?

When the scale can be hundreds of models per side... that degree of detail becomes cumbersome.

I personally don't enjoy having to measure the position of every gaunt. At the scale 40k operates I want incentives for unit scale maneuvering and positioning because I only have to manage around a dozen units. I don't want to manage the exact position of every model in every unit.

Well it's a good thing 9th edition fixes this and individual model position doesn't matter on the tabletop, then.

Right?

 Unit1126PLL wrote:


Well it's a good thing 9th edition fixes this and individual model position doesn't matter on the tabletop, then.

Right?

The fact that 9th edition has plenty bad design decisions doesn't mean that going back to an older (and obsolete) rule set is the answer, because classic 40k also had plenty of bad design decisions.

I would like a good ruleset, 9th isn't it but neither was classic 40k, so I would prefer new attempts at answering these design issues rather than this false "current vs old" paradigm.

 Tyran wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

Weighing different benefits and downsides is the feature? Like . . . The whole point?

When the scale can be hundreds of models per side... that degree of detail becomes cumbersome.

I personally don't enjoy having to measure the position of every gaunt. At the scale 40k operates I want incentives for unit scale maneuvering and positioning because I only have to manage around a dozen units. I don't want to manage the exact position of every model in every unit.

You don't have to measure it. Measuring every move is your choice.

Do you measure specifically each models move already? If you do, you're already doing the work. If you don't, then eyeballing your squads dispersion should come easy.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tyran wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:


Well it's a good thing 9th edition fixes this and individual model position doesn't matter on the tabletop, then.

Right?

I would prefer new attempts at answering these design issues rather than this false "current vs old" paradigm.

You mean like proposals as have been presented in this very thread?

The "new vs. Old" framing is yours.

 Tyran wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:


Well it's a good thing 9th edition fixes this and individual model position doesn't matter on the tabletop, then.

Right?

The fact that 9th edition has plenty bad design decisions doesn't mean that going back to an older (and obsolete) rule set is the answer, because classic 40k also had plenty of bad design decisions.

I would like a good ruleset, 9th isn't it but neither was classic 40k, so I would prefer new attempts at answering these design issues rather than this false "current vs old" paradigm.

There are many ways to fix this problem; most require the rebuilding of 40k from the ground up and require a second look at some of the most fundamental abstractions in the game.

Templates provide a tongue-in-cheek way to point out that this was a solved problem "back in the day" - and since the critiques of it mostly stem from the rest of the rules *around* templates being bad (e.g. coherency and movement), it's only fair to complain about the rest of the rules of the current edition too.

 Afrodactyl wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
Templates are/were excellent.

Fixed that for ya.

Great in a vacuum, terrible in practice. It slows down the game so much when everyone sits there places their minis exactly 1.9999" apart to stay in coherency but not be vulnerable to blasts.

It's fine when you're running very small units but god forbid anyone turn up with a unit with more than 10 models in it. Imagine no one wanting to play against you just because you're forced to slow the game down so much so you don't auto lose to a blast template.

just fix coherency, force models to be base 2 base. individual positioning of models in a unit is too precise for the scale of 40k

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Afrodactyl wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
Templates are/were excellent.

Fixed that for ya.

Great in a vacuum, terrible in practice. It slows down the game so much when everyone sits there places their minis exactly 1.9999" apart to stay in coherency but not be vulnerable to blasts.

It's fine when you're running very small units but god forbid anyone turn up with a unit with more than 10 models in it. Imagine no one wanting to play against you just because you're forced to slow the game down so much so you don't auto lose to a blast template.

just fix coherency, force models to be base 2 base. individual positioning of models in a unit is too precise for the scale of 40k

There's loads of ways to fix having to measure, most not so draconian as this. Most don't affect the movement rules, but changing the movement rules could also work (e.g. measuring from the unit leader and then fitting everyone into a radius around him at the player's discretion, etc.). But again, all these require a reexamination of 40k's most fundamental abstractions so... yeah. Not likely.

 Insectum7 wrote:
You don't have to measure it. Measuring every move is your choice.

Do you measure specifically each models move already? If you do, you're already doing the work. If you don't, then eyeballing your squads dispersion should come easy.

No it doesn't. To some it may come ease, but it never came ease to me. And because I would be punished by it, I prefer to not have to deal with that.

You mean like proposals as have been presented in this very thread?

The "new vs. Old" framing is yours.

"Bring back templates" is not what I would call a new proposal.

Moreover I wasn't the one that made a comparison argument with 9th ed.

 Tyran wrote:


Moreover I wasn't the one that made a comparison argument with 9th ed.

Well you did say removing templates fixed the issue of having to worry about precise model position.

I think pointing out that this isn't the case rather shoots down the argument, doesn't it?

"Removing templates is good because of x"
"X is still a thing"
"Removing templates is good ... for REASONS!"

 Unit1126PLL wrote:


There's loads of ways to fix having to measure, most not so draconian as this. Most don't affect the movement rules, but changing the movement rules could also work (e.g. measuring from the unit leader and then fitting everyone into a radius around him at the player's discretion, etc.). But again, all these require a reexamination of 40k's most fundamental abstractions so... yeah. Not likely.

that wouldnt fix the issue of perfectly spreading out models to minimize the effects of templates tho.

it 100% should already be like that tho, SW:Legions does it and the movement is sooo much more fluid

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:


There's loads of ways to fix having to measure, most not so draconian as this. Most don't affect the movement rules, but changing the movement rules could also work (e.g. measuring from the unit leader and then fitting everyone into a radius around him at the player's discretion, etc.). But again, all these require a reexamination of 40k's most fundamental abstractions so... yeah. Not likely.

that wouldnt fix the issue of perfectly spreading out models to minimize the effects of templates tho.

it 100% should already be like that tho, SW:Legions does it and the movement is sooo much more fluid

Well yes it does only because models can spread out as much or little as they want to fit within the circle around the unit leader. Two termagants could be 6" or .5" away from each other, with empty space or not in between, so long as they meet the radius requirement.

Of course you could do some kind of math with an equation to figure out how to maximize surface area and minimize density, but if someone is willing to go that far then perhaps the problem is them and not the rules...

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Tyran wrote:


Moreover I wasn't the one that made a comparison argument with 9th ed.

Well you did say removing templates fixed the issue of having to worry about precise model position.

I think pointing out that this isn't the case rather shoots down the argument, doesn't it?

"Removing templates is good because of x"
"X is still a thing"
"Removing templates is good ... for REASONS!"

And bringing them back would make it worse, so your point?

 Tyran wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Tyran wrote:


Moreover I wasn't the one that made a comparison argument with 9th ed.

Well you did say removing templates fixed the issue of having to worry about precise model position.

I think pointing out that this isn't the case rather shoots down the argument, doesn't it?

"Removing templates is good because of x"
"X is still a thing"
"Removing templates is good ... for REASONS!"

And bringing them back would make it worse, so your point?

Would it? I feel like if you just plopped templates into the current edition instead of the Blast keyword, people would still cram behind los blocking terrain and expand to cover their melee frontage when not.

Current blast rules do MORE hits to units than the old blasts did in most cases - a Russ battlecannon would rarely do 9 hits to 30 orks spread out even just an approximation of 1.5".

Alternatively make Blast a new weapon type

Blast X : the attacks characteristic of this weapon is equal to X but cannot exceed the number of models in the target unit.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Would it? I feel like if you just plopped templates into the current edition instead of the Blast keyword, people would still cram behind los blocking terrain and expand to cover their melee frontage when not.Current blast rules do MORE hits to units than the old blasts did in most cases - a Russ battlecannon would rarely do 9 hits to 30 orks spread out even just an approximation of 1.5".

And would do like twice that amount against a densely packed unit. I fail to see the need for that.

In fact, if we are going to bring back blast templates, why not balance them around their targets being clustered together? That's basically what HH did to the battlecannon by making it a 3" blast.

EDIT: And that is without considering the changes to wounding and hitting. A battlecannon back then doing doing 9 hits means 7-8 very dead orks if in the open. Nowadays it means more about 4 because you still need to roll to hit and wounding on 3+ rather than 2+.

Movement sticks like star wars would be sublime for 40k pacing.

Or just standardize front of base to back of base moving, so you can lay down a template or ruler and pick up and move without having to fenagle around the ruler.