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Made in pl
Tough-as-Nails Ork Boy




So I was looking at some of the other threads on this website and doing my own reading into this sort of thing and I've come to look at strategems as a good start but poorly executed.

Strategems shouldn't be a powerup type deal. They should in my opinion be more akin to various shaping operations your commander's conduct prior to battle and the effects of those operations playing out. Things such as the employment of non standard munitions needing to be procured from the armory (Statis Shells), ready reserves being available (like the Tyranid Endless swarm strategem), or positioning forces into flanking maneuvers.

But quite a lot of choice is being bound up into this sort of thing and I do hope that as time goes on GW moves away from it.

Reflecting on this sort of thing I figure that being able to effect the battlefield in ways to better suit your soldiers is a better way to handle them. Say paying CP prior to the game to set things up. Now lets get specific on the framework I intend to propose.

Lets start with something simple. Smoke Shells, Dense terrain and less than Lethal Artillery Shells.
Say you're a guard player and you are running and infantry and artillery heavy list and you know that in order to effectively use your infantry against say Tau you need to close the distance since they outrange you. You could pay CP prior to the game to issue smoke shells to some of your artillery and then they'd have the option to lay dense terrain anywhere within their range of certain set sizes depending on the gun. Say have a Basilisk throws out a 5"x3" area terrain. This "smoke screen" would then increase the survivability of the army since it would reduce the damage inflicted by shooting, and possibly slow down enemy units as they attempt to close the distance, perhaps against Orks or melee outfitted CSM.

Another example would be something like "Hit Em Harder" one I find myself regularly using with my Meganobz against large targets. Yet it makes little sense that sometimes my Meganobz can hit so hard they regularly one shot terminators while other times they can't. Hit placement from a powerclaw and other potential examples aside this is the sort of strategem I dislike on a fundamental level, much as I dislike the various fight twice or shoot twice strategems. Imagine it with a pre battle buff to a selected ork unit, or rather if you wanted harder hitting Meganobz, they just made Killsaws the heavy Melee option. The Teleporta strategem makes a good deal of sense to me, you pay the opportunity cost of using the teleported unit turn 1 (highly variable in terms of real cost, those all melee Deff Dreads pay a lot less than a fully kitted out Kannonwagon) but its protected and can arrive essentially where ever it needs too.

Things like extra relics costing CP I understand but I believe that as a whole they should unlock alternative options for unit usage rather then serve as togglable buffs. Tell me what you guys think of this particular idea. I'm no game designer but I wish I could articulate this better.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/02/04 16:05:12


 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut




Nah, you're correct that the Strats that are straight up buffs to offense/defense make no sense. One Aggressor unit shrugging off D1 weapons and the other doesn't is really stupid.
   
Made in dk
Loyal Necron Lychguard






Your pre-game Stratagems would get rid of gotchas which I hugely approve of. The downside is that you seem to get rid of CP management which is something I really enjoy personally and I think it adds a strategic element to the game. Unfortunately, a lot of Stratagems are very undercosted or overcosted which leads to players solving the management of CP by saying "we spam these 2 Stratagems until we have no more CP and start spamming them again when we have CP".

My main question is what does this solve that getting rid of Stratagems entirely does not solve, what does this add to the game?

I'm not convinced amplification Stratagems are a bad idea. It's very abstract, but I think abstraction is okay in service of telling a story. If your Ork Warlord organizes his army around making the most of his Meganobz and commands his army to get his Meganobz into position to do a lot of damage then that is expressed by the Hit Em Harder Stratagem. I'm not a fan of Stratagems that only apply to one unit, I think it leads to too much bloat, I was just trying to explain what the very abstract effect could be representing. The good thing about single-unit Stratagems is that they should be easier to balance, but since GW doesn't really do that anyway I think that's a point we can ignore.

Fight and shoot twice effects are very liable to be used whenever possible, but it's not every turn you have a potent melee unit in melee, I think the shoot twice effect could be balanced by a downside that makes it less universally useful. Slow long ranged units struggle in 9th from what I understand, having a shoot twice effect that only works on units that remain stationary could be way to enable those units to be more powerful and provide an incentive to not blindly use it every turn.

I know fight/shoot twice seemingly has caused endless issues, but they're very compelling, I think a lot of what has made them bonkers is combining them with other effects to add +1 to hit +1 to wound and re-roll 1s to hit. Instead of having 150% worth of bonus efficiency from buffs you have 289% worth of bonus efficiency, so you're really shooting 4 times instead of 2 times.

The alternative if you want to keep CP management in the game is much weaker effects like Hit Em Harder, but how many of these are bad? The OP of the Imperial Fists thread complained about his Stratagem not being impactful enough.

The story I want to tell with fight/shoot twice is a sub-factions focus on dealing massive damage in the fight and/or shooting phase. Between restrictions on who can use it and how many other buffs the unit benefitting from the Stratagem will get as well as a high CP cost I would hope that the other Stratagems available that represent the faction's focus on stealth or on maintaining relics would also get used.
   
Made in ca
Fully-charged Electropriest






EviscerationPlague wrote:Nah, you're correct that the Strats that are straight up buffs to offense/defense make no sense. One Aggressor unit shrugging off D1 weapons and the other doesn't is really stupid.


panzerfront14 wrote:Another example would be something like "Hit Em Harder" one I find myself regularly using with my Meganobz against large targets. Yet it makes little sense that sometimes my Meganobz can hit so hard they regularly one shot terminators while other times they can't.


I'm pretty sure these types of stratagems are meant to represent things like heroic resolve and soldiers fighting against the odds at critical moments during a battle.

Maybe things like that can be used in a system kind of like how it is done in AoS with Heroic Actions.
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut




 KingGarland wrote:
EviscerationPlague wrote:Nah, you're correct that the Strats that are straight up buffs to offense/defense make no sense. One Aggressor unit shrugging off D1 weapons and the other doesn't is really stupid.


panzerfront14 wrote:Another example would be something like "Hit Em Harder" one I find myself regularly using with my Meganobz against large targets. Yet it makes little sense that sometimes my Meganobz can hit so hard they regularly one shot terminators while other times they can't.


I'm pretty sure these types of stratagems are meant to represent things like heroic resolve and soldiers fighting against the odds at critical moments during a battle.

Maybe things like that can be used in a system kind of like how it is done in AoS with Heroic Actions.

Heroic resolve is cool and all but it shouldn't be based on a limited resource when said heroic resolve happens for two turns if you as the Commander choose it.

Stratagems should be more......strategic, or at least the offensive ones should have more requirements. VotLW is the worst example of all. Maybe a CHAOS character should have to cause a wound first which then causes the squads of nobodies to act up stronger, for example.
   
Made in ca
Fully-charged Electropriest






EviscerationPlague wrote:

Heroic resolve is cool and all but it shouldn't be based on a limited resource when said heroic resolve happens for two turns if you as the Commander choose it.

Stratagems should be more......strategic, or at least the offensive ones should have more requirements. VotLW is the worst example of all. Maybe a CHAOS character should have to cause a wound first which then causes the squads of nobodies to act up stronger, for example.


One solution I can think of is to make strats like those only usable once per unit. I also agree with the idea of more requirements for such things and I like the idea of a nearby champion inspiring the others to fight harder throught deeds not just presence.
   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka





panzerfront14 wrote:So I was looking at some of the other threads on this website and doing my own reading into this sort of thing and I've come to look at strategems as a good start but poorly executed.

Strategems shouldn't be a powerup type deal. They should in my opinion be more akin to various shaping operations your commander's conduct prior to battle and the effects of those operations playing out. Things such as the employment of non standard munitions needing to be procured from the armory (Statis Shells), ready reserves being available (like the Tyranid Endless swarm strategem), or positioning forces into flanking maneuvers.

But quite a lot of choice is being bound up into this sort of thing and I do hope that as time goes on GW moves away from it.

Reflecting on this sort of thing I figure that being able to effect the battlefield in ways to better suit your soldiers is a better way to handle them. Say paying CP prior to the game to set things up. Now lets get specific on the framework I intend to propose.

I think I agree with all this.

When GW first introduced the concept, I was excited about the idea of using "stratagems" to shape my army's game plan. Then it turned out that strats were mostly just raw power boosts that you paid CP for, which is less my jam. I think there is a place for mid-combat stratagems (or AoS style command abilities), but they should require setup or have trade-offs; not just be a raw power boost your spend mana on. Ex: I like the idea of spending CP to let units get a "crossfire" bonusu when shooting an enemy that they've flanked. Or maybe something like the 4th/5th edition version of bladestorm where your dire avengers could empty their weapon clips to get an extra shot (going from Assault 2 to Assault 3) for a turn, but then couldn't shoot at all on the following turn (busy reloading.) So you could make the tactical decision to do more damage when you needed it, but you were actually doing less damage overall (3 shots over 2 turns instead of 4). That sort of thing can be neat. Just getting to fire twice or ignore some wounds because your unit decided to try real hard all of a sudden feels meh.

Honestly, I'm not sure if I'm all that interested in letting the "heroic moments" be handled stratagems or similar rules. In addition to it being difficult to discourage people from just spamming them or predictably using them at the same point every game... part of me feels like it also takes a little of the magic out of the dice rolling? Like, staying alive because you popped transhuman is just a tactical move with predictable results. Staying alive because the dice smiled on you is way more memorable/exciting (to me). And also, any strat where the unit suddenly just decides to try harder makes me wonder why they were slacking off the rest of the game.


ATTENTION
. Psychic tests are unfluffy. Your longing for AV is understandable but misguided. Your chapter doesn't need a separate codex. Doctrines should go away. Being a "troop" means nothing. This has been a cranky service announcement. You may now resume your regularly scheduled arguing.
 
   
Made in pl
Tough-as-Nails Ork Boy




Exactly, and I do seriously despise the various transhuman rules that are thrown around. A cannon that can tear a land raider in half will not care that you are tougher than a normal Astartes, unless you can match a Titan then yeah you are getting smeared across the pavement. Something about it bothers more than even the various "plot Armor" rules that guys like Abby and Ghaz have, I seriously just wish that elite Bodyguards were more common, like how Deathshroud and Tyrant Guard can absorb fire for Morty/Hive Tyrants.

Those complaints aside, perhaps having stratagems be dependent upon positioning or being nearly exclusively pregame would be best. You could even configure a specific set around which warlord you took in your codex. I doubt that the Warboss would use same the ploys as a Mekboss for instance, or that a Hive Tyrant will lead a swarm the same way a Tervigon would.

I still like the idea of strategems being ways to use your equipment in unorthodox ways, particularly to shape the battlefield as opposed to a set of "commander abilities" like healing a carnifex or tank.
   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka





If I were to overhaul stratagems, I think I'd do something vaguely Sigmar-ish. Give some units the "commander (x)" rule that lets them issue x commands during the command phase. Issuing a command lets you use either one of the commander's command abilities or one of the target unit's "tactic"abilities.

So for example, an Autarch might have Commander (3). My swooping hawks have the "Sky Leap" tactic. My Autarch can use a command on the hawks to either let them use their Sky Leap tactic or to give them the benefits of one of his command abilities. (Those abilities likely being something like Fall Back and Shoot, Move After Shooting, and some other effect that's currently a stratagem.)

Alternatively, you could ditch the (X) part of the Commander(X) rule and just fuel such commands with CP. Either way, the idea is your commanders are actually calling out plays instead of just yelling at units to kill better. Any command ability or tactic that directly made a unit more lethal or durable should have some sort of positioning requirement (like crossfire) or other drawback (like not being allowed to shoot on the following turn).


ATTENTION
. Psychic tests are unfluffy. Your longing for AV is understandable but misguided. Your chapter doesn't need a separate codex. Doctrines should go away. Being a "troop" means nothing. This has been a cranky service announcement. You may now resume your regularly scheduled arguing.
 
   
Made in us
Resolute Ultramarine Honor Guard





 vict0988 wrote:
Your pre-game Stratagems would get rid of gotchas which I hugely approve of. The downside is that you seem to get rid of CP management which is something I really enjoy personally and I think it adds a strategic element to the game. Unfortunately, a lot of Stratagems are very undercosted or overcosted which leads to players solving the management of CP by saying "we spam these 2 Stratagems until we have no more CP and start spamming them again when we have CP".

My main question is what does this solve that getting rid of Stratagems entirely does not solve, what does this add to the game?



I like the Chapter Command Strats and the like. I don't particularly like the Affects This Unit stratagems - they should be fairly universal short term power ups like pop smoke: Play during your command phase, Pick one Vehicle unit- until your next command phase all shooting units within 24" or whatever hits on 5's at best or some such. (Note: this is a theme sample, not any sort of balanced thought out suggestion)

I also think Strats are where to put the Historical Enmity type abilities. 1CP: Playing during the first player's first command phase, All Crimson Fists now have Hatred: Orks - the Ork Player can also pay 1CP to get XYZ bonus vs Crimson Fists as they realize they're in for a good scrap.

My WHFB armies were Bretonians and Tomb Kings. 
   
 
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