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Right, but that's sort of the point. Making one change requires changing a lot of things. It's the sort of thing best left to the past where those other changes exist, at least in part.

. . . of course, GWs gone and corrected for that by further inflating other characteristics or adding newer special rules. Guardsmen dealing Mortal Wounds via Lasfire. Dire Avengers carrying Shuriken Catapults with 3 attacks at S 4 AP -2 . . . and the inflation leads to other funny stuff. . .

Which is basically getting un-wound. Much of that extra stuff is going away.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Right, but that's sort of the point. Making one change requires changing a lot of things. It's the sort of thing best left to the past where those other changes exist, at least in part.

"We can't advocate for changing anything because it would take effort." What a weak-a** cop out.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

. . . of course, GWs gone and corrected for that by further inflating other characteristics or adding newer special rules. Guardsmen dealing Mortal Wounds via Lasfire. Dire Avengers carrying Shuriken Catapults with 3 attacks at S 4 AP -2 . . . and the inflation leads to other funny stuff. . .

Which is basically getting un-wound. Much of that extra stuff is going away.

We'll see where it ends up in a couple months I suppose. But I bet that even if they got balance somewhere reasonable they'll just change it a again.

Why is it a cop-out? You're asking to change something that has consequences. I'm saying it appears to be equitable ( so far ) and changing it just makes it so they have to toss out a ton of work. That doesn't seem like a reasonable approach. It feels more like 'change for the sake of nostalgia or preference' than 'change for the sake of balance'.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Right, but that's sort of the point. Making one change requires changing a lot of things. It's the sort of thing best left to the past where those other changes exist, at least in part.

Funny how this was not considered an issue when it came to giving Marines that extra wound.

Yep, still a cop-out.

And yes, it's actually for balance. Just a different balance than what we have. A world where Infantry don't feel so unrewarding when facing Marines, but where Marines still feel elite because they bring other strong characteristics to bear. But also a world where Marines benefit from cover against small arms, because it's an intuitive interaction.

And "preference" is quite a different thing than "nostalgia".

 vipoid wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Right, but that's sort of the point. Making one change requires changing a lot of things. It's the sort of thing best left to the past where those other changes exist, at least in part.

Funny how this was not considered an issue when it came to giving Marines that extra wound.

Bang on. Or cynically, maybe it was, and it's just a reason to drive churn.

They did consider it at least partially -- the roll-out was the problem. If you took 8th indexes, stripped strats and traits, and played as if it were 9th it'd probably be decent.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Insectum7 wrote:
A world where Infantry don't feel so unrewarding when facing Marines, but where Marines still feel elite because they bring other strong characteristics to bear. But also a world where Marines benefit from cover against small arms, because it's an intuitive interaction.

How do you define rewarding? What should a squad of IS do to marines? What should a squad of marines do to IS?

Dudeface wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

 AtoMaki wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
The concept of 'just change this "simple" thing' and there are no consequences is folly.

Every new edition in a nutshell.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 catbarf wrote:
I get that, I'm just confused as to why you're saying it matters for heavy bolters, especially since- although not explicitly stated- you appear to be using ~18pts/Marine in your example. You could put that W1 Marine at 13pts and the heavy bolter would then be just as efficient against it as it is against Guardsmen. That's a lot of leeway.

Absolutely - the goal was to highlight that these sorts of changes touch a lot of things and once you start messing around there's a lot you have to consider.

...and this is why we can't have good things. Sure it can be done better, but it takes a crapton of honest effort and you have to be borderline crazy to jump into that kind of an endeavor.

Yet we have people in this thread telling us we're narrow minded idiots for thinking this, because "making good rules isn't hard".

It isn't, especially when they're supposed to get paid to do it, and y'all are still ignoring the point regarding Sisters and various Aspect Warriors.

You can pay me to make a plane, I still would never get on it though. What is your point about sisters/aspect warriors exactly? We're all largely talking in the context of bolters and 3+ saves, which ticks off sisters as a minimum, it also isn't universal to all aspects to have a 3+.

But there's Aspects that DO have then, in fact five of them: Dark Reapers, Fire Dragons, Warp Spiders, Striking Scorpions, and Shadow Spectres, all of which would love to use cover in some manner (Fire Dragons less so, but still entirely would).

In fact, isn't that a majority of the Aspect Warriors, so those with a 4+ would actually be an exception, not the rule?

And striking scorpions are supposed to be all about sneaking around through cover, so extra relevance there.

But yeah, the point about sisters and aspect warriors is that regardless of how you feel about marines, there are non-marine units with 3+ saves who also won't be benefitting from cover against lasguns. And while that may still be for the best (vs having 2+ saves all over the place), it still feels weird that sisters and scorpions don't have an incentive to take cover against lasguns.

Maybe marines striding out in the open as humanoid tanks is fluffy and proper, but sisters and eldar are generally portrayed as being a lot less hardy.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

But there's Aspects that DO have then, in fact five of them: Dark Reapers, Fire Dragons, Warp Spiders, Striking Scorpions, and Shadow Spectres, all of which would love to use cover in some manner (Fire Dragons less so, but still entirely would).

In fact, isn't that a majority of the Aspect Warriors, so those with a 4+ would actually be an exception, not the rule?

Ok, so now tell me how the previous 2 pages of discussion about the fact a 3+ in cover gets a 100% increase in survivability against ap- has anything to do with the name or race of the model receiving the 3+. As a hint to your expansive super brain which can encompass the entire game with every thought and suggestion whilst rewriting rules with ease, it doesn't. A 3+ is a 3+ save irrespective of model and going to a 2+ is a 100% increase of saves against ap-, no gaks given if you're a sister, dark reaper, marine, possessed, stealth suit or whatever.

 Insectum7 wrote:
But also a world where Marines benefit from cover against small arms, because it's an intuitive interaction.

Disregarding whatever else has been said in the context of this argument, this is the bit that strikes me as most perplexing. All the mechanics that feed into and from this are mapped out to produce a result. Hit roll, wound roll, armour save, damage – all these serve a single purpose: they tell us what happens when one model fires a weapon at another model. All we're really interested in once we're actually at the table is the outcome. While I understand that the hit roll and the armour save can be considered an intuitive interaction – after all, it's not difficult to imagine from those single rolls a precise image of what is happening in that instant – the disconnect that people are getting here from how cover does/does not interact with a flying bullet is nowhere near as great as the disconnect I get from the fact that the wound roll happens before the armour save. Which we've all been living with ever since we started playing 40k irrespective of what edition that might have been in.
I get that this whole benefit of cover thing is being discussed in light of how it affects game balance, and I'm not versed enough in investigating the details concerning the math to tell how much flipping the wound roll/armour save sequence would affect balance, but I'm just a little baffled by how one detail in outcome modelling is nailed to a cross while another is passed by without a second glance.

[/rambling digression]

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

ccs wrote:

 catbarf wrote:


Same averages, but much greater variance. That can lead to feels-bad moments when a squad passes all its saves or loses half its number from an inconsequential bit of shooting.

Clearly if a squad just lost 1/2 its #s that was NOT an inconsequential bit of shooting.....

i shoot 5 skitarii vanguards at these theoretical marines
15 shots
7 hits
3 wounds

Marine player is unlucky and rolls 3 1's, loses 3 marines....

now don't tell me that 5 unbuffed vanguards have impactful shooting usually

Ok, now calculate me the odds of a joke sailing over your head.

Dudeface wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

But there's Aspects that DO have then, in fact five of them: Dark Reapers, Fire Dragons, Warp Spiders, Striking Scorpions, and Shadow Spectres, all of which would love to use cover in some manner (Fire Dragons less so, but still entirely would).

In fact, isn't that a majority of the Aspect Warriors, so those with a 4+ would actually be an exception, not the rule?

Ok, so now tell me how the previous 2 pages of discussion about the fact a 3+ in cover gets a 100% increase in survivability against ap- has anything to do with the name or race of the model receiving the 3+. As a hint to your expansive super brain which can encompass the entire game with every thought and suggestion whilst rewriting rules with ease, it doesn't. A 3+ is a 3+ save irrespective of model and going to a 2+ is a 100% increase of saves against ap-, no gaks given if you're a sister, dark reaper, marine, possessed, stealth suit or whatever.

Because your sole focus has been on Marines and is clouding your judgment so much that now you think Sisters and Aspect Warriors hugging cover is broken because you don't want to theoretically adjust with using other weapons.

ccs wrote:


Ok, now calculate me the odds of a joke sailing over your head.

Sorry, tone isnt properly conveyed via text only, hence the purpose of emoticons or even the classic "/jk"

since i'm not alone to have called out your comment, i'd assume the problem was on your end, not ours


Automatically Appended Next Post:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Because your sole focus has been on Marines and is clouding your judgment so much that now you think Sisters and Aspect Warriors hugging cover is broken because you don't want to theoretically adjust with using other weapons.

Marines are more common on the tabletop than these other ones.

Oh and its also faster to just say "Marines" rather than "Marines, Sisters, Dark reapers, warp spiders,etc...."

 Wyldhunt wrote:
And striking scorpions are supposed to be all about sneaking around through cover, so extra relevance there.

But yeah, the point about sisters and aspect warriors is that regardless of how you feel about marines, there are non-marine units with 3+ saves who also won't be benefitting from cover against lasguns. And while that may still be for the best (vs having 2+ saves all over the place), it still feels weird that sisters and scorpions don't have an incentive to take cover against lasguns.

Maybe marines striding out in the open as humanoid tanks is fluffy and proper, but sisters and eldar are generally portrayed as being a lot less hardy.

Obviously it's because Sisters and Aspect Warriors gain nothing with a fence and it represents a lucky Lasgun hit going through their helmet eye lens, ya know because all these units have helmets all the time.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
A world where Infantry don't feel so unrewarding when facing Marines, but where Marines still feel elite because they bring other strong characteristics to bear. But also a world where Marines benefit from cover against small arms, because it's an intuitive interaction.

How do you define rewarding? What should a squad of IS do to marines? What should a squad of marines do to IS?

I define rewarding as the player controlling them having at least some return on having maneuvered their unit into an advantageous position, and opens fire on Marines out of cover. At the moment, a full GEQ* unit manages only a single wound with pure Lasfire against Marines in the open. Not even a kill. It'd be nice to push that up to a kill. Then, if armed appropriately, killed a second with their special. If three GEQ squads, even armed with poor weapons, found themselves in a position to attack Marines out of cover, I think it's reasonable that those Marines pay for it. I also think it's reasonable that those Marines could seek cover to mitigate the attack and try to defend themselves.

*GEQ - Why GEQ? Because other units exist other than Guardsmen, such as Cultists (Chaos or Genestealer). IS are propped up by their Mortal Wound thing, and I think that's a rule that should go.

But before we lose focus by ratholing on GEQ, I have Termagants and Eldar Guardians in my collections too. Rolling buckets of dice and seeing next to nothing happen sucks.

On the flip side, a squad of 5 Marines should be a serious threat to a full IS squad. I would expect 5 Marines to be able to win an encounter handily should they get the drop on the opposition. For a truly devastating attack though I would leverage CC and morale.

But you still haven't answered my question. How Many Marines should it take to kill a Marine?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Snugiraffe wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
But also a world where Marines benefit from cover against small arms, because it's an intuitive interaction.

Disregarding whatever else has been said in the context of this argument, this is the bit that strikes me as most perplexing. All the mechanics that feed into and from this are mapped out to produce a result. Hit roll, wound roll, armour save, damage – all these serve a single purpose: they tell us what happens when one model fires a weapon at another model. All we're really interested in once we're actually at the table is the outcome. While I understand that the hit roll and the armour save can be considered an intuitive interaction – after all, it's not difficult to imagine from those single rolls a precise image of what is happening in that instant – the disconnect that people are getting here from how cover does/does not interact with a flying bullet is nowhere near as great as the disconnect I get from the fact that the wound roll happens before the armour save. Which we've all been living with ever since we started playing 40k irrespective of what edition that might have been in.
I get that this whole benefit of cover thing is being discussed in light of how it affects game balance, and I'm not versed enough in investigating the details concerning the math to tell how much flipping the wound roll/armour save sequence would affect balance, but I'm just a little baffled by how one detail in outcome modelling is nailed to a cross while another is passed by without a second glance.
[/rambling digression]

Haha, interesting question.

Mathematically the order of Wound vs. Save actually makes no difference as they're both a multiplication. I think one benefit of the order as designed is one of dice ergonomics. The player who rolls to hit then picks up all their positive-to-hit dice, and then rolls to wound. Rolling the other way, saves first, means players switch back and forth more, which might feel more awkward. The other benefit is that the player whose models are getting killed gets the last say, which feels better somehow.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Wyldhunt wrote:
And striking scorpions are supposed to be all about sneaking around through cover, so extra relevance there.

But yeah, the point about sisters and aspect warriors is that regardless of how you feel about marines, there are non-marine units with 3+ saves who also won't be benefitting from cover against lasguns. And while that may still be for the best (vs having 2+ saves all over the place), it still feels weird that sisters and scorpions don't have an incentive to take cover against lasguns.

Maybe marines striding out in the open as humanoid tanks is fluffy and proper, but sisters and eldar are generally portrayed as being a lot less hardy.

Yeah that's also a really good point.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

But there's Aspects that DO have then, in fact five of them: Dark Reapers, Fire Dragons, Warp Spiders, Striking Scorpions, and Shadow Spectres, all of which would love to use cover in some manner (Fire Dragons less so, but still entirely would).

In fact, isn't that a majority of the Aspect Warriors, so those with a 4+ would actually be an exception, not the rule?

Ok, so now tell me how the previous 2 pages of discussion about the fact a 3+ in cover gets a 100% increase in survivability against ap- has anything to do with the name or race of the model receiving the 3+. As a hint to your expansive super brain which can encompass the entire game with every thought and suggestion whilst rewriting rules with ease, it doesn't. A 3+ is a 3+ save irrespective of model and going to a 2+ is a 100% increase of saves against ap-, no gaks given if you're a sister, dark reaper, marine, possessed, stealth suit or whatever.

Because your sole focus has been on Marines and is clouding your judgment so much that now you think Sisters and Aspect Warriors hugging cover is broken because you don't want to theoretically adjust with using other weapons.

Are you just being intentionally obtuse here? You do realise the ap- weapon you use is largely irrelevant? It could be a heavy assault rapidfire 5000000 S87 AP- D500000000 weapon firing at a marine, sister, fire dragon, rhino, immortal. They all get a 100% increase in durability.

You do understand the maths make all of your points irrelevant here? If by other weapons you mean stuff with ap-1 or greater, hence negating the effect of cover in the first place, those are irrelevant as the effect is equal to all.

So again, what is your point?

Wyldhunt wrote:And striking scorpions are supposed to be all about sneaking around through cover, so extra relevance there.

But yeah, the point about sisters and aspect warriors is that regardless of how you feel about marines, there are non-marine units with 3+ saves who also won't be benefitting from cover against lasguns. And while that may still be for the best (vs having 2+ saves all over the place), it still feels weird that sisters and scorpions don't have an incentive to take cover against lasguns.

Maybe marines striding out in the open as humanoid tanks is fluffy and proper, but sisters and eldar are generally portrayed as being a lot less hardy.

Not any different from how it was prior to 8th, though. You still took cover to avoid heavy weapons, and T3/3+ still takes an average of 12 lasgun shots to eliminate a single model, which isn't nothing.

I wouldn't mind certain units still getting a cover benefit against AP0 as a special ability. Just not entire armies.

Snugiraffe wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
But also a world where Marines benefit from cover against small arms, because it's an intuitive interaction.

Disregarding whatever else has been said in the context of this argument, this is the bit that strikes me as most perplexing. All the mechanics that feed into and from this are mapped out to produce a result. Hit roll, wound roll, armour save, damage – all these serve a single purpose: they tell us what happens when one model fires a weapon at another model. All we're really interested in once we're actually at the table is the outcome. While I understand that the hit roll and the armour save can be considered an intuitive interaction – after all, it's not difficult to imagine from those single rolls a precise image of what is happening in that instant – the disconnect that people are getting here from how cover does/does not interact with a flying bullet is nowhere near as great as the disconnect I get from the fact that the wound roll happens before the armour save. Which we've all been living with ever since we started playing 40k irrespective of what edition that might have been in.
I get that this whole benefit of cover thing is being discussed in light of how it affects game balance, and I'm not versed enough in investigating the details concerning the math to tell how much flipping the wound roll/armour save sequence would affect balance, but I'm just a little baffled by how one detail in outcome modelling is nailed to a cross while another is passed by without a second glance.

[/rambling digression]

Other unintuitive/unrealistic gameplay elements that 40K players don't question:
-Hitting a Titan is just as easy as hitting a Grot.
-Hitting a target 2" away is just as hard as hitting a target 20" away.
-Hitting a jetbike flying at 200mph is no harder than hitting a stationary tank.
-Whether or not you can shoot the jet with your flamethrower depends entirely on where the arbitrary timescale causes it to stop. Also, you can shoot a jet with a flamethrower.
-If the Sergeant with the fancy sword is the only guy you can see, you still kill the entire rest of the squad first before he gets hurt.
-Bringing a bullet-absorbing energy field doesn't protect your character at all unless the bullets are powerful enough to pierce his normal armor.
-You can freely shoot another unit 2" away, but the dude in the back of your unit can't shoot the dudes in the back of the enemy unit 6" away if someone else in the unit is engaged in melee.
-You can walk up to the enemy and shoot them in the face and they can't do anything about it, but step the extra inch to get into melee and suddenly they have the opportunity to shoot you with all guns.
-Charging into melee is faster than just running, but if the enemy is far enough away then your charge fails and you don't move at all.
-Your army has perfect coordination and nobody ever misunderstands an order or has incomplete information.

There are a whole heaping ton of gameplay abstractions that don't make strictly logical sense if you put them under a microscope. Like you said, what we care about is the outcome and that the gameplay effects are ideal. So yeah, I find it hard to get worked up about whether it's intuitive that some models won't benefit from cover against certain weapons.

 catbarf wrote:
So yeah, I find it hard to get worked up about whether it's intuitive that some models won't benefit from cover against certain weapons.

As someone who is a staunch defender of the 3-7 paradigm I totally get this.

But, as someone who taught 3-7 I repeadedly observed it being a sticking point for new players. "Going in to cover doesn't help?"

I see both sides of this.

 Insectum7 wrote:
As someone who is a staunch defender of the 3-7 paradigm I totally get this.

But, as someone who taught 3-7 I repeadedly observed it being a sticking point for new players. "Going in to cover doesn't help?"

I see both sides of this.

"You get a 3+ Ward Save against anything that isn't a Plasma Gun. Meanwhile my kabalites get nothing against Bolters?"

 catbarf wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:And striking scorpions are supposed to be all about sneaking around through cover, so extra relevance there.

But yeah, the point about sisters and aspect warriors is that regardless of how you feel about marines, there are non-marine units with 3+ saves who also won't be benefitting from cover against lasguns. And while that may still be for the best (vs having 2+ saves all over the place), it still feels weird that sisters and scorpions don't have an incentive to take cover against lasguns.

Maybe marines striding out in the open as humanoid tanks is fluffy and proper, but sisters and eldar are generally portrayed as being a lot less hardy.

Not any different from how it was prior to 8th, though. You still took cover to avoid heavy weapons, and T3/3+ still takes an average of 12 lasgun shots to eliminate a single model, which isn't nothing.

True, and to be clear I'm not losing any sleep over the topic. It's just that on some level I want to be incentivized to utilize cover. It lets me pretend that I'm making interesting choices by weighing the pros and cons of staying inside terrain. Plus for fluff reasons, I want to feel like my sneaky scorpions are actively utilizing cover as close the gap with their targets. With the rules as previewed, howling banshees (Sv 4+) who are known for rushing forward while literally screaming are rewarded for sticking to cover moreso than striking scorpions who are supposed to be huge on sneaking around through cover.

Ultimately, this will probably just become one of those quirky little abstractions that feels a bit off.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 catbarf wrote:
So yeah, I find it hard to get worked up about whether it's intuitive that some models won't benefit from cover against certain weapons.

As someone who is a staunch defender of the 3-7 paradigm I totally get this.

But, as someone who taught 3-7 I repeadedly observed it being a sticking point for new players. "Going in to cover doesn't help?"

I see both sides of this.

Yeah. I distinctly remember a friend being frustrated that taking the time to stick a marine in cover didn't help said marine at all against my frag missile back in 5th.

 Insectum7 wrote:
I define rewarding as the player controlling them having at least some return on having maneuvered their unit into an advantageous position, and opens fire on Marines out of cover. At the moment, a full GEQ* unit manages only a single wound with pure Lasfire against Marines in the open. Not even a kill. It'd be nice to push that up to a kill. Then, if armed appropriately, killed a second with their special. If three GEQ squads, even armed with poor weapons, found themselves in a position to attack Marines out of cover, I think it's reasonable that those Marines pay for it. I also think it's reasonable that those Marines could seek cover to mitigate the attack and try to defend themselves.

*GEQ - Why GEQ? Because other units exist other than Guardsmen, such as Cultists (Chaos or Genestealer). IS are propped up by their Mortal Wound thing, and I think that's a rule that should go.

But before we lose focus by ratholing on GEQ, I have Termagants and Eldar Guardians in my collections too. Rolling buckets of dice and seeing next to nothing happen sucks.

On the flip side, a squad of 5 Marines should be a serious threat to a full IS squad. I would expect 5 Marines to be able to win an encounter handily should they get the drop on the opposition. For a truly devastating attack though I would leverage CC and morale.

But you still haven't answered my question. How Many Marines should it take to kill a Marine?

I appreciate the explanation.

So out of cover, IS kills a marine and marines perhaps kill 2 IS from shooting and follow up in CC - does that sound about ballpark-ish with your thoughts?

I have to do some chores and such so I'll expand my thoughts on that and marine on marine then.

 catbarf wrote:


Other unintuitive/unrealistic gameplay elements that 40K players don't question:
-Hitting a Titan is just as easy as hitting a Grot.
-Hitting a target 2" away is just as hard as hitting a target 20" away.
-Hitting a jetbike flying at 200mph is no harder than hitting a stationary tank.
-Whether or not you can shoot the jet with your flamethrower depends entirely on where the arbitrary timescale causes it to stop. Also, you can shoot a jet with a flamethrower.
-If the Sergeant with the fancy sword is the only guy you can see, you still kill the entire rest of the squad first before he gets hurt.
-Bringing a bullet-absorbing energy field doesn't protect your character at all unless the bullets are powerful enough to pierce his normal armor.
-You can freely shoot another unit 2" away, but the dude in the back of your unit can't shoot the dudes in the back of the enemy unit 6" away if someone else in the unit is engaged in melee.
-You can walk up to the enemy and shoot them in the face and they can't do anything about it, but step the extra inch to get into melee and suddenly they have the opportunity to shoot you with all guns.
-Charging into melee is faster than just running, but if the enemy is far enough away then your charge fails and you don't move at all.
-Your army has perfect coordination and nobody ever misunderstands an order or has incomplete information.

There are a whole heaping ton of gameplay abstractions that don't make strictly logical sense if you put them under a microscope. Like you said, what we care about is the outcome and that the gameplay effects are ideal. So yeah, I find it hard to get worked up about whether it's intuitive that some models won't benefit from cover against certain weapons.

I will say that most of these crept in over time as editions continued to iterate, and that I've seen a lot of them cause head-scratching without the wound/save sequence ever coming up, but I'll take Insectum7's explanation about giving the player whose models are dying the last hand (because yeah, I feel that) and then let it rest.

The fact about not switching dice rolling side is probably the most important.

Apocalypse managed to be a much faster game, and a lot of it depended on the fact that one player rolled all his dices for all his units, and then the opponent rolled all the saves for all the units.
A.Lot.Faster.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
I define rewarding as the player controlling them having at least some return on having maneuvered their unit into an advantageous position, and opens fire on Marines out of cover. At the moment, a full GEQ* unit manages only a single wound with pure Lasfire against Marines in the open. Not even a kill. It'd be nice to push that up to a kill. Then, if armed appropriately, killed a second with their special. If three GEQ squads, even armed with poor weapons, found themselves in a position to attack Marines out of cover, I think it's reasonable that those Marines pay for it. I also think it's reasonable that those Marines could seek cover to mitigate the attack and try to defend themselves.

*GEQ - Why GEQ? Because other units exist other than Guardsmen, such as Cultists (Chaos or Genestealer). IS are propped up by their Mortal Wound thing, and I think that's a rule that should go.

But before we lose focus by ratholing on GEQ, I have Termagants and Eldar Guardians in my collections too. Rolling buckets of dice and seeing next to nothing happen sucks.

On the flip side, a squad of 5 Marines should be a serious threat to a full IS squad. I would expect 5 Marines to be able to win an encounter handily should they get the drop on the opposition. For a truly devastating attack though I would leverage CC and morale.

But you still haven't answered my question. How Many Marines should it take to kill a Marine?

I appreciate the explanation.

So out of cover, IS kills a marine and marines perhaps kill 2 IS from shooting and follow up in CC - does that sound about ballpark-ish with your thoughts?

I have to do some chores and such so I'll expand my thoughts on that and marine on marine then.

I would say a 5 man Marine squad should kill more than 2 GEQs in return, Rapid Firing. 4-5 ish maybe. In open terrain that ought to go south for the IS pretty quickly. Shooting plus charge should wipe out the unit, imo.

The intent is that the MEQ shock troops should be able to go through GEQs very fast on the attack. But some sort of counterplay needs to be possible or else the GEQ player is just wasting their time. The scenario where a few squads of guardsmen surround those 5 CSM and gun them down needs to be a thing.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 catbarf wrote:
So yeah, I find it hard to get worked up about whether it's intuitive that some models won't benefit from cover against certain weapons.

As someone who is a staunch defender of the 3-7 paradigm I totally get this.

But, as someone who taught 3-7 I repeadedly observed it being a sticking point for new players. "Going in to cover doesn't help?"

I see both sides of this.

I don't disagree. It's not particularly intuitive and as I've said before I would prefer cover just be a straight FNP-esque save that you can take in addition to armor. But if we want to take on all the ways that 40K is unintuitive, well, that's a long list. I have also taught new players and had them question some of the things I mentioned- but we don't question them because they're the status quo.

Also it's a sidenote, but I've never felt the explanation of having the defender roll saves so they 'get the last say' to be particularly compelling. I played Tyranids and Guard primarily in 3rd-5th, so I rarely got a save to begin with. You could easily swap it around and have the attacker roll to hit and roll to penetrate armor, then the defender gets a 'toughness save', and that'd always give you at least some chance to survive.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:And striking scorpions are supposed to be all about sneaking around through cover, so extra relevance there.

But yeah, the point about sisters and aspect warriors is that regardless of how you feel about marines, there are non-marine units with 3+ saves who also won't be benefitting from cover against lasguns. And while that may still be for the best (vs having 2+ saves all over the place), it still feels weird that sisters and scorpions don't have an incentive to take cover against lasguns.

Maybe marines striding out in the open as humanoid tanks is fluffy and proper, but sisters and eldar are generally portrayed as being a lot less hardy.

Not any different from how it was prior to 8th, though. You still took cover to avoid heavy weapons, and T3/3+ still takes an average of 12 lasgun shots to eliminate a single model, which isn't nothing.

True, and to be clear I'm not losing any sleep over the topic. It's just that on some level I want to be incentivized to utilize cover. It lets me pretend that I'm making interesting choices by weighing the pros and cons of staying inside terrain. Plus for fluff reasons, I want to feel like my sneaky scorpions are actively utilizing cover as close the gap with their targets. With the rules as previewed, howling banshees (Sv 4+) who are known for rushing forward while literally screaming are rewarded for sticking to cover moreso than striking scorpions who are supposed to be huge on sneaking around through cover.

Preserving your Armor Save against all the non-AP0 weapons flying around the battlefield is not a reason to incentivize using cover?

As to the much asked question of how many attacks should be needed to kill a Space Marine, it makes me recall the Space Marine slap fights of 5 3rd/3.5 edition. One S4 AP - attacks per Marine meant it took 9 Marines to kill one (same result for bolters over 12"). I guess that is why Power Weapons and Power Fist were so popular back then. A Powersword Veteran Sergeant was more dangerous than the other 4 members of a Combat Squad combined. From what we know of 10th, we have Intercessors making 3 attacks each, so 6 Intercessors kill 1 Intercessors with their Close Combat Weapon (same number for their Bolt Rifles if they aren't stationary).

 catbarf wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 catbarf wrote:
So yeah, I find it hard to get worked up about whether it's intuitive that some models won't benefit from cover against certain weapons.

As someone who is a staunch defender of the 3-7 paradigm I totally get this.

But, as someone who taught 3-7 I repeadedly observed it being a sticking point for new players. "Going in to cover doesn't help?"

I see both sides of this.

I don't disagree. It's not particularly intuitive and as I've said before I would prefer cover just be a straight FNP-esque save that you can take in addition to armor. But if we want to take on all the ways that 40K is unintuitive, well, that's a long list. I have also taught new players and had them question some of the things I mentioned- but we don't question them because they're the status quo.

I think the cover-increases-save is not great. The only issue I have with FNP is the extra roll. Although personally I tend to swing back to the 2nd ed subtraction To Hit roll, which has the extra bonus of removing dice from the roll process earlier. The problem is it starts to suck for low BS models, although for 40k I think a "6s always hit" works well as a solution.

Also it's a sidenote, but I've never felt the explanation of having the defender roll saves so they 'get the last say' to be particularly compelling. I played Tyranids and Guard primarily in 3rd-5th, so I rarely got a save to begin with. You could easily swap it around and have the attacker roll to hit and roll to penetrate armor, then the defender gets a 'toughness save', and that'd always give you at least some chance to survive.

Interesting idea . . .

 alextroy wrote:
Preserving your Armor Save against all the non-AP0 weapons flying around the battlefield is not a reason to incentivize using cover?

It's an incentive to use cover if I think some good AP weapons are going to be pointed my way. My point is just that it's weird that they don't benefit from cover when they're going after a bunch of cultists with autoguns or whatever. I get that realistically there will usually be some AP floating around that will make me want to take cover. But in a vacuum, the guys-known-for-using-cover don't have a reason to use cover when up against AP0 enemies, and the squad-known-for-screaming-and-charging-in-stark-contrast-to-the-cover-using-guys will always have a reason to get into cover if they can.

Again, not the end of the world, but feels weird.

 alextroy wrote:

As to the much asked question of how many attacks should be needed to kill a Space Marine, it makes me recall the Space Marine slap fights of 5 3rd/3.5 edition. One S4 AP - attacks per Marine meant it took 9 Marines to kill one (same result for bolters over 12"). I guess that is why Power Weapons and Power Fist were so popular back then. A Powersword Veteran Sergeant was more dangerous than the other 4 members of a Combat Squad combined. From what we know of 10th, we have Intercessors making 3 attacks each, so 6 Intercessors kill 1 Intercessors with their Close Combat Weapon (same number for their Bolt Rifles if they aren't stationary).

Still, at 6, it makes me think of the sound of two dumpsters continuously banging together.

I think the cover-increases-save is not great. The only issue I have with FNP is the extra roll. Although personally I tend to swing back to the 2nd ed subtraction To Hit roll, which has the extra bonus of removing dice from the roll process earlier. The problem is it starts to suck for low BS models, although for 40k I think a "6s always hit" works well as a solution.

Yeah. Feels like something like this might work better. Maybe only have the to-hit modifier kick in outside of X" or something (sort of like the ravenguard/alaitoc faction abilities) so that all armies have some counterplay to offset the to-hit penalty. A crossfire mechanic would work well here too.