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 catbarf wrote:
The thing people had an issue with was never really USRs themselves, which are standard practice in game design and for good reason.

The issue was 40K's use of USRs ballooning into a list of approximately three thousand different USRs in the back of the rulebook, and then half of them simply conferred other USRs.

Throw in that they weren't defined (even in brevity) on the datasheet, often had unintuitive flowery names, and missed obvious opportunities to consolidate- eg Bulky and Very Bulky should just be Bulky(#)- and yeah it was a total mess.

Standardizing and using common names for common abilities is good. Time will tell if they screw it up again.

Yet there wasn't movement for reducing USR's or getting rid of those granting other USR's. Players wanted to get rid of them all and go to bespoke.

Well not all but forums were filled with those requests.

Be careful what you wish for Bespoke rules ends up with stormshields of unit A working differently to stormshields in unit B.

 morganfreeman wrote:

 Vankraken wrote:

Can we get back proper area of effect weapons and proper cover saves again?

Current cover saves are better than the older iteration; it's O.K. that cover can be mitigated by particularly powerful weapon. It's also GOOD that marines want to take cover against weapons fire. And it's GREAT that armor isn't an all-or-nothing affair (one of the big reasons Marines were generally weak in 3rd - 7th).

I would argue that it is not. Problem is that the 8/9th system of AP just becomes win more for the most part as AP eats through armor and cover. It doesn't matter that much if your using AP-2 against Tau Pathfinders or Crisis Suits as they both are reducing the save. Back in 3-7th the ignore cover type weapons tended to have poor AP values so it could tear apart guardsmen and boyz hiding in ruins but a marine would shrug it off but those points heavy AP weapons would be fairly cost ineffective against models in cover. Also the all or nothing system made there be some tactical consideration with how you utilize those AP3 weapons. For example you would want to use that sort of weapon against MEQs or maybe carapace type armor while the opposition could utilize its 2+ armored units, flood it with t shirt cannon fodder, or focus on keeping vulnerable units in some form of cover to help mitigate the damage to make that AP3 cost ineffective. It may not be realistic but it gives a form of gameplay value to tactical situations and throws a wrench into mathhammering the game. Also shooting through other units giving even just a 5+ cover save made it a bit less effective to cherry pick what your units are firing at and thus reducing optimized play.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Removing USRs was the best and most wasted opportunity for adding a depth to the game that would have been phenomenal.

lol, no.

lol, yes.


People complain all the damn time about the "lore inconsistencies" and crap like that for weirdness. Things like the Phobos Infiltrators blocking Deep Strike from Daemons or the Webway tended to be griped about...or the whole nonsense about people crying about weapons ignoring invulnerable saves of Daemons or the like.

Yes - we're going to lose flavor. I don't see how they can handle all the current rules with USRs without making a billion of them, but then I haven't thought about the scope of it much.

The current rules could be handled with about 30 USRs.

Deep Strike, Command Aura (Rerolls 1s / adds 1 to roll), FNP, Fights First / Fights Last, Fight on Death, Body Guard, Fearless, Stubborn, Explodes, Fear, Open Topped, Assault Transport, Auto-hit / Auto-wound, Scout, Fleet, Advance & Charge, Tactical Withdrawl (if they keep Falling Back the same), Fights twice / Shoots Twice, Deployment Scramblers (the 'you cannot deep strike within X inches"), Battle Hungry (this is the Heroic Intervention / bonus to consolidate rule), Hammer of Wrath, Reroll Dice (for charges / running), Reduce Damage, Reduce AP, Reduce Range, Exploding Hits, Exceptional Resilience (cannot be wounded on rolls of X) and Always Hits / Always Wounds.

AFAIK this covers all of the "common" bespoke rules that we see, but even if I missed a couple that's just in the mid 20s. Now obviously there will be faction unique ones (Shadow in the Warp, And They Shall Know No Fear, Power from Pain) but that's standard.Boiling the game down in this way makes it simple enough to actually function while not sacrificing literally any flavor. Tau having a slightly differently worded version of Deepstrike because they came out 2 years after SM isn't flavor; it's design inconsistency. And if it is flavor, it can be added in via their codex so that it's clear it's intentional, rather than having players scratching their heads and shrugging their shoulders waiting for an FAQ on if it's supposed to work differently or not.

 Vankraken wrote:

 morganfreeman wrote:

 Vankraken wrote:

Can we get back proper area of effect weapons and proper cover saves again?

Current cover saves are better than the older iteration; it's O.K. that cover can be mitigated by particularly powerful weapon. It's also GOOD that marines want to take cover against weapons fire. And it's GREAT that armor isn't an all-or-nothing affair (one of the big reasons Marines were generally weak in 3rd - 7th).

Spoiler:

I would argue that it is not. Problem is that the 8/9th system of AP just becomes win more for the most part as AP eats through armor and cover. It doesn't matter that much if your using AP-2 against Tau Pathfinders or Crisis Suits as they both are reducing the save. Back in 3-7th the ignore cover type weapons tended to have poor AP values so it could tear apart guardsmen and boyz hiding in ruins but a marine would shrug it off but those points heavy AP weapons would be fairly cost ineffective against models in cover. Also the all or nothing system made there be some tactical consideration with how you utilize those AP3 weapons. For example you would want to use that sort of weapon against MEQs or maybe carapace type armor while the opposition could utilize its 2+ armored units, flood it with t shirt cannon fodder, or focus on keeping vulnerable units in some form of cover to help mitigate the damage to make that AP3 cost ineffective. It may not be realistic but it gives a form of gameplay value to tactical situations and throws a wrench into mathhammering the game. Also shooting through other units giving even just a 5+ cover save made it a bit less effective to cherry pick what your units are firing at and thus reducing optimized play.

Snip

This isn't an issue with the cover system, this is an issue with the design system. 8th (and especially 9th) has been on the express-train to damage, pumping any and all guns full of extreme amounts of AP to the point that "anti light infantry weapons" have been designed to worry space marines, meaning that they absolutely slaughter orks and guardsmen. Ergo orks and guard were actually fairly resilient in early 8th / Index Hammer due to decent design choices, before the codex creep really got going.

A sensibly designed system would design it so hordes are getting a chance to save against massed small-arms fire, suffering minor losses from powerful but low RoF weapons, or getting vaporized by extremely expensive weapons with high stats but also a high cost. With the end result being that your hordes are getting their saves against the anti-light-infantry options, or else making the enemy utterly waste their investments via eating basically lascannon shots. This is why orks and guard were actually fairly resilient (for their points) in early 8th / Index Hammer due to decent design choices, before the codex creep really got going.

From the tiny bit we've seen of 10th ed? I'm hopefully we'll return to this. Termagants were one of the huge examples of insane damage creep with their str 5 AP 1 flesh borers, and the fact that none of their guns have AP - as well as statements made - indictate that penetration is likely to become rarer.

tneva82 wrote:Yet there wasn't movement for reducing USR's or getting rid of those granting other USR's. Players wanted to get rid of them all and go to bespoke.

Well not all but forums were filled with those requests.

Because half the time 40K players don't know what the actual source of their frustration is, or whether the problem is the actual mechanic or the implementation thereof. They talk about USRs as if 40K is the only game that exists and the way 40K has historically handled USRs is the only way it can be done.

Every single time I have seen complaints about USRs on this forum, it's been specific elements of GW's implementations. Outside of 40K, USRs are a common industry convention and it works fine when used appropriately.

 morganfreeman wrote:

 Vankraken wrote:

Can we get back proper area of effect weapons and proper cover saves again?

Current cover saves are better than the older iteration; it's O.K. that cover can be mitigated by particularly powerful weapon. It's also GOOD that marines want to take cover against weapons fire. And it's GREAT that armor isn't an all-or-nothing affair (one of the big reasons Marines were generally weak in 3rd - 7th).

Current cover saves mean Marines are much more heavily incentivized to stick to cover than Guardsmen, which is ass-backwards. It also means high-AP weapons kill armored troops and troops in cover equally effectively, and is a contributing factor to 8th/9th being as lethal as they are.

 catbarf wrote:

tneva82 wrote:Yet there wasn't movement for reducing USR's or getting rid of those granting other USR's. Players wanted to get rid of them all and go to bespoke.

Well not all but forums were filled with those requests.

Because half the time 40K players don't know what the actual source of their frustration is . . .

Seconding this, and highlighting that this is an extremely common thing for feedback on ALL games, and probably all products in general. Sorting through feedback and discerning the true source of issues is the real skill.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

tneva82 wrote:Yet there wasn't movement for reducing USR's or getting rid of those granting other USR's. Players wanted to get rid of them all and go to bespoke.

Well not all but forums were filled with those requests.

Because half the time 40K players don't know what the actual source of their frustration is . . .

Seconding this, and highlighting that this is an extremely common thing for feedback on ALL games, and probably all products in general. Sorting through feedback and discerning the true source of issues is the real skill.

There's a well-worn adage in software engineering that step one in the sales process is letting the customer tell you what he thinks he needs, and then deducing what he actually needs

 alextroy wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Yes - we're going to lose flavor. I don't see how they can handle all the current rules with USRs without making a billion of them, but then I haven't thought about the scope of it much.

Hopefully GW will use all the space they saved in the codexes not including page after page of warlord traits, stratagems, and relics to put the flavor back in those
Also, I think those non-USR abilities will leave lots of space for flavor. I love how the Termagant ability makes them seem like a swarm of fish or herd of herbivores instantly reacting to the actions of predators.

Oh, true. I forgot about the side abilities for a bit there.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 morganfreeman wrote:


The current rules could be handled with about 30 USRs.

Deep Strike, Command Aura (Rerolls 1s / adds 1 to roll), FNP, Fights First / Fights Last, Fight on Death, Body Guard, Fearless, Stubborn, Explodes, Fear, Open Topped, Assault Transport, Auto-hit / Auto-wound, Scout, Fleet, Advance & Charge, Tactical Withdrawl (if they keep Falling Back the same), Fights twice / Shoots Twice, Deployment Scramblers (the 'you cannot deep strike within X inches"), Battle Hungry (this is the Heroic Intervention / bonus to consolidate rule), Hammer of Wrath, Reroll Dice (for charges / running), Reduce Damage, Reduce AP, Reduce Range, Exploding Hits, Exceptional Resilience (cannot be wounded on rolls of X) and Always Hits / Always Wounds.

AFAIK this covers all of the "common" bespoke rules that we see, but even if I missed a couple that's just in the mid 20s. Now obviously there will be faction unique ones (Shadow in the Warp, And They Shall Know No Fear, Power from Pain) but that's standard.Boiling the game down in this way makes it simple enough to actually function while not sacrificing literally any flavor. Tau having a slightly differently worded version of Deepstrike because they came out 2 years after SM isn't flavor; it's design inconsistency. And if it is flavor, it can be added in via their codex so that it's clear it's intentional, rather than having players scratching their heads and shrugging their shoulders waiting for an FAQ on if it's supposed to work differently or not.

I tip my hat to you.

There is still minor stuff that could get lost -- say you have Deployment Scramblers -- at the moment Thousand Sons can't use that strat unless the unit is within range of a psyker representing that automaton feel.

I'm not particularly concerned about it overall. It was just a nice little mental image.

morganfreeman wrote:This isn't an issue with the cover system, this is an issue with the design system. 8th (and especially 9th) has been on the express-train to damage, pumping any and all guns full of extreme amounts of AP to the point that "anti light infantry weapons" have been designed to worry space marines, meaning that they absolutely slaughter orks and guardsmen. Ergo orks and guard were actually fairly resilient in early 8th / Index Hammer due to decent design choices, before the codex creep really got going.

A sensibly designed system would design it so hordes are getting a chance to save against massed small-arms fire, suffering minor losses from powerful but low RoF weapons, or getting vaporized by extremely expensive weapons with high stats but also a high cost. With the end result being that your hordes are getting their saves against the anti-light-infantry options, or else making the enemy utterly waste their investments via eating basically lascannon shots. This is why orks and guard were actually fairly resilient (for their points) in early 8th / Index Hammer due to decent design choices, before the codex creep really got going.

From the tiny bit we've seen of 10th ed? I'm hopefully we'll return to this. Termagants were one of the huge examples of insane damage creep with their str 5 AP 1 flesh borers, and the fact that none of their guns have AP - as well as statements made - indictate that penetration is likely to become rarer.

There's still a major problem with how the cover system interacts with AP that the AP creep only masked. Let's say they do flatten out AP but keep the current cover system. Most things are now AP0, don't even touch your save. What happens?

Cultists who get into cover experience a 25% increase in durability (6+ -> 5+).

Marines who get into cover experience a 100% increase in durability (3+ -> 2+).

There's a non-linear improvement from cover, where the better your armor is the more benefit you get from cover. MEQs in cover become twice as hard to kill, and the counter to MEQs (most common archetype) in cover (should be on every battlefield) is to bring AP. That first point of AP is the most crucial, but if you can get AP-2 that's even better.

Making AP less accessible while retaining the same cover system won't make spamming AP less desirable; it's still the one-size-fits-all solution to both power armor and cover (and power armor in cover). The more likely outcome is that we'll be back to the absurd, counterintuitive state of Marines hiding in the treeline because it makes them oppressively difficult to kill, while units like Guardsmen that reasonably ought to be taking cover saunter forth because it barely affects their survivability anyways.

make cover an alternative save.

So a terminator in cover could either

Use his 2+ armor save (modifiable by AP)
Use his x+ cover save (modifiable by AP
Use his 5+ invuln (unmodifiable by ap)

 catbarf wrote:

There's still a major problem with how the cover system interacts with AP that the AP creep only masked. Let's say they do flatten out AP but keep the current cover system. Most things are now AP0, don't even touch your save. What happens?

Cultists who get into cover experience a 25% increase in durability (6+ -> 5+).

Marines who get into cover experience a 100% increase in durability (3+ -> 2+).

There's a non-linear improvement from cover, where the better your armor is the more benefit you get from cover. MEQs in cover become twice as hard to kill, and the counter to MEQs (most common archetype) in cover (should be on every battlefield) is to bring AP. That first point of AP is the most crucial, but if you can get AP-2 that's even better.

Making AP less accessible while retaining the same cover system won't make spamming AP less desirable; it's still the one-size-fits-all solution to both power armor and cover (and power armor in cover). The more likely outcome is that we'll be back to the absurd, counterintuitive state of Marines hiding in the treeline because it makes them oppressively difficult to kill, while units like Guardsmen that reasonably ought to be taking cover saunter forth because it barely affects their survivability anyways.

When I think about designing my own system I look at separate classes of infantry specifically for dealing with cover. It makes sense to me that "Light Infantry" are much better able to go to ground or squeeze behind sandbags. Marines are big. Terminators more so. It should be much harder for such targets to effectively obscure themselves.

Alternatively/additionally you can go the route of -'s to hit. But you get the similar problem of pooer-at-shooting troops being effected more. Even so, as a mechanic it makes some sense.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

I tip my hat to you.

There is still minor stuff that could get lost -- say you have Deployment Scramblers -- at the moment Thousand Sons can't use that strat unless the unit is within range of a psyker representing that automaton feel.

things like this is why GW keeps overcomplicating the game i think. The difference in WHY a unit can do something shouldnt be tied to HOW they do something.

Space marines use auspex to know where their enemy is coming from
Thousand Sons use psychic premonition to do the same thing


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Insectum7 wrote:
When I think about designing my own system I look at separate classes of infantry specifically for dealing with cover. It makes sense to me that "Light Infantry" are much better able to go to ground or squeeze behind sandbags. Marines are big. Terminators more so. It should be much harder for such targets to effectively obscure themselves.

Alternatively/additionally you can go the route of -'s to hit. But you get the similar problem of pooer-at-shooting troops being effected more. Even so, as a mechanic it makes some sense.

in my mind, a projectile that is able to pierce terminator armor isnt one that will be stopped by a dinky wall...

 Insectum7 wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

There's still a major problem with how the cover system interacts with AP that the AP creep only masked. Let's say they do flatten out AP but keep the current cover system. Most things are now AP0, don't even touch your save. What happens?

Cultists who get into cover experience a 25% increase in durability (6+ -> 5+).

Marines who get into cover experience a 100% increase in durability (3+ -> 2+).

There's a non-linear improvement from cover, where the better your armor is the more benefit you get from cover. MEQs in cover become twice as hard to kill, and the counter to MEQs (most common archetype) in cover (should be on every battlefield) is to bring AP. That first point of AP is the most crucial, but if you can get AP-2 that's even better.

Making AP less accessible while retaining the same cover system won't make spamming AP less desirable; it's still the one-size-fits-all solution to both power armor and cover (and power armor in cover). The more likely outcome is that we'll be back to the absurd, counterintuitive state of Marines hiding in the treeline because it makes them oppressively difficult to kill, while units like Guardsmen that reasonably ought to be taking cover saunter forth because it barely affects their survivability anyways.

When I think about designing my own system I look at separate classes of infantry specifically for dealing with cover. It makes sense to me that "Light Infantry" are much better able to go to ground or squeeze behind sandbags. Marines are big. Terminators more so. It should be much harder for such targets to effectively obscure themselves.

Alternatively/additionally you can go the route of -'s to hit. But you get the similar problem of pooer-at-shooting troops being effected more. Even so, as a mechanic it makes some sense.

You could just cap current cover saves. You can't modify it beyond a 3 or 4+. I think that would go a long way to making light infantry more resilient and prevent marines, the walking tanks who do not take cover, from parking themselves and doing nothing.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
When I think about designing my own system I look at separate classes of infantry specifically for dealing with cover. It makes sense to me that "Light Infantry" are much better able to go to ground or squeeze behind sandbags. Marines are big. Terminators more so. It should be much harder for such targets to effectively obscure themselves.

Alternatively/additionally you can go the route of -'s to hit. But you get the similar problem of pooer-at-shooting troops being effected more. Even so, as a mechanic it makes some sense.

in my mind, a projectile that is able to pierce terminator armor isnt one that will be stopped by a dinky wall...

Is that a "for" or "against"?

Much of the benefit of cover comes from being harder to aquire as a target in the first place. You may not know there's an enemy behind that wall, or you do know they're somewhere back there but you're not sure where, and you wait for them to expose themselves so you have something to shoot. It's the "concealment" part of "cover and concealment", of which terrain such as ruins and forest should be both.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 generalchaos34 wrote:


You could just cap current cover saves. You can't modify it beyond a 3 or 4+. I think that would go a long way to making light infantry more resilient and prevent marines, the walking tanks who do not take cover, from parking themselves and doing nothing.

It's not a bad idea, but then you get the situation where Marines don't benefit from cover again, and that's not ideal either.

If we used cover as a save mod and capped it, and then did Concealment as a to-hit mod, maybe we get something. Possibly a static game But hey, from my understanding real firefights often wind up like that. . . Then you'll want some suppression mechanics to facilitate protected advance . . . Maybe it could interact with Morale in some way, so that particularly brave troops get less suppressed and conscripts become more vulnerable to it . . .

Naaaah, screw it. 500 Strats is way better!

Cover should be a negative hit modifier.

Then you'd be incentivised to flush units out of cover using assaults and template/blast weapons.

The one thing I don't think GW will do is have scalable USRs.

There shouldn't be a "Deep Strike" rule. There should be Deep Strike (X), where "X" is the minimum amount of inches you can deploy the unit. It would mean that most things would keep Deep Strike (9), but you could allow for very specialist units (Callidus, Lictors, Marbo, etc.) to have Deep Strike (6) or (5) or (1000) or whatever without the need for caveats or exceptions to exceptions.

Dai wrote:
I think rare unique unit special rules are ok but obviously should be well thought out (like any rule!)

That's not really what I meant...

 Kanluwen wrote:
Removing USRs was the best and most wasted opportunity for adding a depth to the game that would have been phenomenal.

I love how you are always on the side of the things that are the worst ideas.

"Points are bad!"
"USRs are bad!"
"PLASMA GUNS!!!"

 Lord Damocles wrote:
Cover should be a negative hit modifier.

There's a difference between concealment and cover. One makes you harder to hit. The other makes you harder to hurt.

I’ve always liked the idea that cover would modify the AP of the weapon rather than the save of the target, capped so it never becomes a positive modifier. So AP 2 becomes AP1 and AP 1 becomes Ap - but but AP - doesn’t change.

Maybe not the best from a simulation standpoint, but it avoids space marines getting 2+ saves in cover.

Aash wrote:
I’ve always liked the idea that cover would modify the AP of the weapon rather than the save of the target, capped so it never becomes a positive modifier. So AP 2 becomes AP1 and AP 1 becomes Ap - but but AP - doesn’t change.

Maybe not the best from a simulation standpoint, but it avoids space marines getting 2+ saves in cover.

Oh, clever! Let's see . . . A wall in front of a Marine adds no protection other than concealment against a Lasgun, but the same wall has a chance of deflecting enough of a Lascannon to protect him. That's reaaonable.

Jesus it only took 2 editions to go back to USRs. At least they did it. Not the rest sounds all that appealing to me personally. I'd like a little more to brew with than what the WE dex has in it. But USRs are a start.

 Insectum7 wrote:

Aash wrote:
I’ve always liked the idea that cover would modify the AP of the weapon rather than the save of the target, capped so it never becomes a positive modifier. So AP 2 becomes AP1 and AP 1 becomes Ap - but but AP - doesn’t change.

Maybe not the best from a simulation standpoint, but it avoids space marines getting 2+ saves in cover.

Oh, clever! Let's see . . . A wall in front of a Marine adds no protection other than concealment against a Lasgun, but the same wall has a chance of deflecting enough of a Lascannon to protect him. That's reaaonable.

It might seem silly, but I think it would work in the game. And if you want to rationalise it, I would imagine that a lascannon fires a single powerful blast, whereas a lasgun is similar to an automatic weapon firing series of pew pew pew bolts in quick succession, so it seems fairly reasonable that a weak weapon with high ROF is more likely to hit a concealed target than a powerful single shot.

But like I said, I think it would work well in the game despite not being the best from a simulation standpoint.

Alternatively, do away with AP - and make the worst AP in game -1, balance the game around that and implement cover as a +1 modifier to the weapon’s AP. Now cover does reduce the AP of lasguns while also not improving Power Armour.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
The one thing I don't think GW will do is have scalable USRs.

There shouldn't be a "Deep Strike" rule. There should be Deep Strike (X), where "X" is the minimum amount of inches you can deploy the unit. It would mean that most things would keep Deep Strike (9), but you could allow for very specialist units (Callidus, Lictors, Marbo, etc.) to have Deep Strike (6) or (5) or (1000) or whatever without the need for caveats or exceptions to exceptions.

I think they almost have to don't they? Otherwise they'll wind up making a bunch of different deepstrikes for GSC et al and we're back at the same place.

 catbarf wrote:

There's still a major problem with how the cover system interacts with AP that the AP creep only masked. Let's say they do flatten out AP but keep the current cover system. Most things are now AP0, don't even touch your save. What happens?

Cultists who get into cover experience a 25% increase in durability (6+ -> 5+).

Marines who get into cover experience a 100% increase in durability (3+ -> 2+).

There's a non-linear improvement from cover, where the better your armor is the more benefit you get from cover. MEQs in cover become twice as hard to kill, and the counter to MEQs (most common archetype) in cover (should be on every battlefield) is to bring AP. That first point of AP is the most crucial, but if you can get AP-2 that's even better.

Making AP less accessible while retaining the same cover system won't make spamming AP less desirable; it's still the one-size-fits-all solution to both power armor and cover (and power armor in cover). The more likely outcome is that we'll be back to the absurd, counterintuitive state of Marines hiding in the treeline because it makes them oppressively difficult to kill, while units like Guardsmen that reasonably ought to be taking cover saunter forth because it barely affects their survivability anyways.

While you are right that flat-bonus cover gives a more weighty benefit to marines (the touted 25% increase vs 100%), this is again solved via designers understanding how to design the game.

Marines, for example, are tough but expensive. Being W2 and up, as well as heavily armored, makes them ideal for weapons which have high AP. Weapons which will force multiple saves via damage stats and also slag their heavy armor (even with cover). While a weapon with high strength and AP made to melt a marine in cover will also atomize an ork boy, subsequently making these weapons also on the 'expensive' end - and with limited RoF - makes them only useful when targeting units which are also tough and expensive. Ergo heavy infantry such as marines. Meanwhile, the anti light infantry weapons / standard weapons (ye lasgun, shoota, so on and so forth) are of modest strength and no AP but high RoF, making them effective against said light infantry (orks, gants, guardsmen) but can only do chip damage to marines, especially when they're in cover.

The current problem is that AP is on bloody everything. Even highly expendable horde units, meant largely to take up space on the table and do some damage by massive weight of numbers, are running around reducing armor saves. This trivializes light infantry. Furthermore there seems to be some sort of perception that orks and such shouldn't die; which is absolutely not the case. Light infantry should still sustain marked casualties to standard small arms / weapons designed to clear them (flamers, heavy bolters); a factor which should be countered by them being cheap and cheerful. If a standard Intercessor costs 12 points, ye standard Boy should cost 6 at the absolute most.

In conclusion, I guess I'll concede that the old cover system was "better" in pure terms of how the game is currently designed; where anything and everything has at least AP1 and there's a glut of high strength, high AP, high RoF weapons for cheap. This factor makes the current cover system utterly worthless to non-marines, and leaves them pining for the old one.

However, the current cover system is unequivocally superior in a world where the designers at GW suddenly develop a degree of competence or take an interest in designing the game to be good rather than to push model sales. But that's the same world with unicorns and world peace; fantasy land.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
The one thing I don't think GW will do is have scalable USRs.

There shouldn't be a "Deep Strike" rule. There should be Deep Strike (X), where "X" is the minimum amount of inches you can deploy the unit. It would mean that most things would keep Deep Strike (9), but you could allow for very specialist units (Callidus, Lictors, Marbo, etc.) to have Deep Strike (6) or (5) or (1000) or whatever without the need for caveats or exceptions to exceptions

HH 2.0 already has scalable special rules, but that's a game which is competently designed (by GW standards)... So it's a wash whether or not that'd make it into 40k.

That said, damn near everything could be made scalable with relative ease. For example:

Command Aura (Wounds) (All)

Command Aura (Hits) (1)

Tactical Withdrawl (Charge)

Deployment Scramblers (9)

GW's biggest problem, in terms of USRs, has always been that they want to give stuff flavorful names in each codex, which in turn makes everything more complicated than it needs to be. Technically speaking this whole different-names-bespoke-bs harkens all the way back to 3rd edition. I can crack open some of my old Codex's and various units will have special rules on their entry like "Aerial Insertion: This unit has the Deep Strike special rule". And in some cases simply dumb bespoke versions of the rule itself (one of the few things propping up numerous codex' in 6th and 7th edition was old bespoke iterations of deep strike / infilitrate / outflank that allowed units to arrive on the board AND charge in the same turn).

I'm all about flavor; but giving Deep Strike a different name in each codex isn't flavor. It's a complexity bandaid to try and disguise how GW's kiddie-pool-depth attempt at a wargame leaves very few ways for factions (and the units within those factions) to differentiate themselves from one another.

The new cover might feel a little more intuitive, but its results are worse than the old system.

tneva82 wrote:

 catbarf wrote:
The thing people had an issue with was never really USRs themselves, which are standard practice in game design and for good reason.

The issue was 40K's use of USRs ballooning into a list of approximately three thousand different USRs in the back of the rulebook, and then half of them simply conferred other USRs.

Throw in that they weren't defined (even in brevity) on the datasheet, often had unintuitive flowery names, and missed obvious opportunities to consolidate- eg Bulky and Very Bulky should just be Bulky(#)- and yeah it was a total mess.

Standardizing and using common names for common abilities is good. Time will tell if they screw it up again.

Yet there wasn't movement for reducing USR's or getting rid of those granting other USR's. Players wanted to get rid of them all and go to bespoke.

Well not all but forums were filled with those requests.

Be careful what you wish for Bespoke rules ends up with stormshields of unit A working differently to stormshields in unit B.

And unit C, and D, & E..... for proof look no further than Sigmar. You see a unit with shields? You have no idea what those shields might do.

 morganfreeman wrote:
While you are right that flat-bonus cover gives a more weighty benefit to marines (the touted 25% increase vs 100%), this is again solved via designers understanding how to design the game.

Marines, for example, are tough but expensive. Being W2 and up, as well as heavily armored, makes them ideal for weapons which have high AP. Weapons which will force multiple saves via damage stats and also slag their heavy armor (even with cover). While a weapon with high strength and AP made to melt a marine in cover will also atomize an ork boy, subsequently making these weapons also on the 'expensive' end - and with limited RoF - makes them only useful when targeting units which are also tough and expensive. Ergo heavy infantry such as marines. Meanwhile, the anti light infantry weapons / standard weapons (ye lasgun, shoota, so on and so forth) are of modest strength and no AP but high RoF, making them effective against said light infantry (orks, gants, guardsmen) but can only do chip damage to marines, especially when they're in cover.

The current problem is that AP is on bloody everything. Even highly expendable horde units, meant largely to take up space on the table and do some damage by massive weight of numbers, are running around reducing armor saves. This trivializes light infantry. Furthermore there seems to be some sort of perception that orks and such shouldn't die; which is absolutely not the case. Light infantry should still sustain marked casualties to standard small arms / weapons designed to clear them (flamers, heavy bolters); a factor which should be countered by them being cheap and cheerful. If a standard Intercessor costs 12 points, ye standard Boy should cost 6 at the absolute most.

In conclusion, I guess I'll concede that the old cover system was "better" in pure terms of how the game is currently designed; where anything and everything has at least AP1 and there's a glut of high strength, high AP, high RoF weapons for cheap. This factor makes the current cover system utterly worthless to non-marines, and leaves them pining for the old one.

However, the current cover system is unequivocally superior in a world where the designers at GW suddenly develop a degree of competence or take an interest in designing the game to be good rather than to push model sales. But that's the same world with unicorns and world peace; fantasy land.

I don't agree that the current system is 'unequivocally superior' so long as the designers keep AP in check. AP prevalence is a problem, but it also obscures some of the serious flaws of the current system by just making armor/cover less relevant.

Making access to high AP rarer is a good thing, absolutely. But what you'll start to notice once you don't have AP-1 or better on everything is just how impactful cover is for Marines, while being nigh-useless for armies like Guard. The current system results in a situation where common weapons fired against the most common defensive statline in the game have their effectiveness cut in half if the target is in cover, but lighter factions don't experience anywhere near that level of impact from cover. The variance between targets in cover and targets not in cover is extreme, and the variance in effects between armies is extreme.

So it's extraordinarily difficult to appropriately balance AP0 small arms when the most common target's durability could be halved by terrain- and erring on the side of balancing against 3+ creates a situation where Marines with 2+ saves become nigh-impossible to shift with AP0 weapons. You either min-max into weapons with better AP, or you quit because it becomes a bs frustrating experience to play, since having 90% of your army only able to do 'chip damage' against the overwhelmingly most common statline in the game is not a viable approach. A save system where the most common value is 3+ cannot handle bonuses, and can only handle penalties as long as they're kept logarithmic in scaling, as evidenced by it breaking open from the prevalence of mid-range AP.

That AP bloat started specifically because people weren't taking light infantry, because light infantry had no purpose in a game environment where most things are saving on 3+ or 2+. Light infantry like Cultists and Boyz with their 6+ saves weren't trivialized by AP; going from 6+ to no save is just a 20% reduction in survivability. It's Marines that suffered, because AP-1 is the magic 50-100% improvement against Marines.

The old system was unintuitive but created setting-appropriate effects- Guard kept to cover whenever possible, while Marines strode out in a hail of bullets but would wise up and take cover when heavy weapons were in play. Instead we have Marines hiding from lasguns, but staying out in the open when targeted by lascannons because hey you're not getting a save anyways; a mechanic that's trying to be simulationist but doesn't understand how cover functions as concealment. Even if the AP expansion is fixed, it's still a poor system.

I feel that people sometimes forget that this game has a 2 step wounding process.
Yes a cover save based on armor bonus is bound to have issues since applying it to a 3+ or a 7+ has wildly different effects...

So why not having it affect Strength?
Keyword: Cover(x)
Attacks with ranged weapons against units in cover of this terrain element resolve as if their strength was x lower.

Done, now it is a nice bonus for both T3, T4 and T5 profiles, which are the typical profiles you expect to find in cover.
At the same time it can be exploited in a tank fight to give some more survivability against enemy anti tank weapons (-2S does a lot to mess up S7 8 and 9 weapons). Makes strength values of 10, 11 and 12 more important because they can punch a vehicle through concrete.
Still makes it so that a wall does not protect a guardman from a lascannon.

For me a general cover save is just an abstraction mixing the difficulty to hit with the actual defense from the cover. The gameplay of just a flat 4+ cover save is better than whatever marine jerkoffery is being suggested.

 Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote:
For me a general cover save is just an abstraction mixing the difficulty to hit with the actual defense from the cover. The gameplay of just a flat 4+ cover save is better than whatever marine jerkoffery is being suggested.

Marine jerk offery = has no effect against small arms for more than half the game?

Why wouldn't marines, kasrkin, nid warriors, immortals etc etc not be more durable in cover to small arms?

Spoletta wrote:
I feel that people sometimes forget that this game has a 2 step wounding process.
Yes a cover save based on armor bonus is bound to have issues since applying it to a 3+ or a 7+ has wildly different effects...

So why not having it affect Strength?
Keyword: Cover(x)
Attacks with ranged weapons against units in cover of this terrain element resolve as if their strength was x lower.

Done, now it is a nice bonus for both T3, T4 and T5 profiles, which are the typical profiles you expect to find in cover.
At the same time it can be exploited in a tank fight to give some more survivability against enemy anti tank weapons (-2S does a lot to mess up S7 8 and 9 weapons). Makes strength values of 10, 11 and 12 more important because they can punch a vehicle through concrete.
Still makes it so that a wall does not protect a guardman from a lascannon.

I think this is a really fun idea and would add a lot of fun tactical choices when choosing how to position your units. I'm guessing light cover of -1S and heavy cover of -2S?

Yeah that's pretty much the idea.

A bolter againt a guardman in light cover would wound on 4+, or 5+ in heavy cover.

Marines trying to bolter each other in heavy cover would spend the game doing that if one does not take the initiative (wound on 6+)

The variety of solutions to cover (and the need for special rules) highlight the problems with the core system. Indeed, that's why GW always has to paper over something with special rules.

But wargaming started out as a simulation, a training and planning aid that allowed you to test options and had rules to try to reflect the constraints of reality. The more you alter the way rules interact with reality, the weirder things get.

Which is where we are.

Cover and armor saves loom large in this discussion because they're actually easy to understand and equally easy to break. GW is all over the place on it and the game see-saws with whatever take they try. Oddly, they used to have a pretty decent understanding of how it should work.

When we look at cover (which in GW speak also includes concealment), it's primary purpose is to obscure the target, thereby making it harder to it. It can also protect people hiding behind it from harm.

The easiest way to do this in a GW d6 universe is a negative to hit modifier. It provides a consistent benefit (a universal tactical rule, if you will) to all troops, regardless of how much armor they are wearing.

Using cover to boost armor is also reasonable, because incoming fire that hits it will lose energy. Obviously, it's better to be in power armor than a t-shirt, but it's beneficial either way.

The old AP system had many problems, but the biggest was that it was at odds with reality. A marine in a sandbagged trench is just better protected than one standing on a tennis court. Period. The issue we're having is that GW can't figure out which form of combat should be dominant. Are the weapons of the 41st millennium smooth-bores designed for an opening volley followed by a charge or are they capable of sweeping the battlefield?

It can go either way, and the core tension in the game is that GW cannot pin down where they want that equilibrium point to be, that is to say where the center point is on a line between melee and missile combat.

What GW has done instead is create a scatter diagram with both an x and y axis and every army had a different place on it. There's a center on the chart, but it's meaningless because all the dots keep shifting from edition to edition (and even within them).