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 Insectum7 wrote:
It's not an either/or thing. You can keep objectives while expanding the menu of on-table actions and player agency.

They already have been expanded though. If you keep expanding them you remove the impact of list building in a way that favors certain players while directly hurting other players.

Krak grenades used to be able to be used by the entire squad in CC against vehicles.

That didn't stop those same units from getting locked down by any walker with 13 front AV or higher.

Do you think removing "mass-Krak" attacks was a good thing?

Given that vehicles are already barely usable in many armies there's a risk that this is a bridge too far.

But to the greater "skew" point. If the critique of points and the freedom of list building is the potential for skew, why would you be adverse to in-game mechanics that reduce the harmful potential of skew in compensation?

Mostly because no skew list is actually good and thus just hurts those lists more. If you wanted to make it so vehicle skew had better anti-horde options and both sides got a slight buff back against TAC lists it could be okay but thus far you've been asking for very one-sided buffs that hurt a single specific playstyle.

It's true that you can already mitigate against skew. But we've established that there are many players that find merely playing to objectives in the face of skew to be less rewarding than being able to engage more meaningfully with it. So why not provide more tactical options?

What does engaging meaningfully mean? Players can already move block vehicles, play for objectives, and most lists will have some options to hurt vehicles even if they're lackluster. If players want to bracket knights and blow up land raiders every turn without building for it that's a step too far.

@Canadian 5th: Modern 40k tries to solve skew by Infantry move-blocking vehicles (imo stupid), and allowing IG to Mortal Wound on 6s (imo also stupid) Do you like these solutions?

@Catbarf: That is much more clear, I concur with much of it. The CoC explanation is great, although:

 catbarf wrote:

Chain of Command doesn't have these issues, because you pick your support assets after the enemy force and mission are known. I don't need to worry about running into massed Volksgrenadiers that make my anti-tank weapons useless, or running into multiple T-34s and not having enough anti-tank: if I'm facing tanks I bring anti-tank weapons, and if I'm facing infantry I don't. What 40K calls 'skew' is what CoC calls 'crippling overspecialization', and you're encouraged to take complementary capabilities rather than min-maxing into one thing that the enemy can just hard-counter. And even if I know that my buddy has a Tiger that he's itching to field, that information doesn't benefit me or enable me to better counter his army.

I don't see how knowing my opponent wants to field aTiger doesn't help me?

 Insectum7 wrote:
@Canadian 5th: Modern 40k tries to solve skew by Infantry move-blocking vehicles (imo stupid), and allowing IG to Mortal Wound on 6s (imo also stupid) Do you like these solutions?

Yes. I think the current options are fine as the vehicle skew lists aren't a threat in any meta and narratively infantry versus tanks should involve the infantry hunkering down and waiting for a bigger stick to arrive to solve their issue. I don't even have an issue with move blocking as it promotes tactical gameplay and because many types of infantry are crunchy enough or just plain old threatening enough that a tank could easily think twice before trying to run them down.

I don't think you gain anything by giving players who don't choose to index into anti-tank extra tools when we're not giving armies extra tools for foot hordes or to deal with MEQ or TEQ spam. Suck it up and get good.

I don't see how knowing my opponent wants to field a Tiger doesn't help me?

Are you going to over-index into anti-tank because they're hoping to bring a single support asset that you have other means to defeat? You could just ignore the Tiger and play to your objectives or bring some support anti-tank guns. It's just one tank even if it does have a heavy-hitting gun and good armor.

 catbarf wrote:
It lessens the impact of in-a-vacuum listbuilding, but skew is still a problem and, honestly, I think it makes for a blander experience. Weapons have more overlap in roles than they used to, and often there are clear winners and losers when two weapons do the same thing but one's better at it. In 8th and 9th this converged towards moderate-strength, some-AP, high-volume weapons being reasonably effective against most things, and overly-specialized weapon profiles don't see much play.

It's a solution. I don't think it's an ideal one.

I don't know about ideal - but I don't think its an issue. I think its better than a system of "if you don't have anti-X you can't touch them, but if you have all the anti-X you quickly wipe them off the table".

I don't think skew is a major issue in today's 40k as compared with "points imbalance" (i.e. my army is just obviously "better" than yours). Sure you can skew - but it doesn't seem that competitive based on results. If it was we'd expect the upper echelons of tournaments to be full of rock-paper-scissors lists and they just aren't. Pointing out there's a skew into moderate S, some AP preferably 2 damage shots is surely like observing there was a skew into AP3 (and even a bit of AP2) attacks in older editions. Or you went the other way and got bazillion AP6 or AP nothing because Terminators will roll 1s and die.

Is it a bit lame that your Phobos Marine army (or whatever) has to play the objectives rather than go toe to toe with knights? Maybe. But then if you don't like the fact they can scratch knights with massed bolter fire, isn't getting rid of that just going to make it even worse?

You can obviously control the game so you can't run armies of pure knights - or equally 200 boyz etc. But equally if its not stomping on people, I don't know why its an issue for the people who want to run that list for whatever reason. I mean I don't have the models - and I'll almost certainly never get them because its a gimmick list which would get old real fast - but I've always liked the idea of say 3 Tervigons and 180~ Termagants*. I think most tournament lists could murder that fairly reliably. If your list can't, at what point is that a "you problem" rather than the game? If I found that fun, whose toes am I stepping on?

 Canadian 5th wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
@Canadian 5th: Modern 40k tries to solve skew by Infantry move-blocking vehicles (imo stupid), and allowing IG to Mortal Wound on 6s (imo also stupid) Do you like these solutions?

Yes. I think the current options are fine as the vehicle skew lists aren't a threat in any meta and narratively infantry versus tanks should involve the infantry hunkering down and waiting for a bigger stick to arrive to solve their issue. I don't even have an issue with move blocking as it promotes tactical gameplay and because many types of infantry are crunchy enough or just plain old threatening enough that a tank could easily think twice before trying to run them down.

I don't think you gain anything by giving players who don't choose to index into anti-tank extra tools when we're not giving armies extra tools for foot hordes or to deal with MEQ or TEQ spam. Suck it up and get good.

So in order to show that infantry can be dangerous to a tank in close quarters . . .you'd choose to have infantry block the tanks movement . . . Rather than actually make the infantry dangerous to the tank. . .

Yeah I'm gonna prefer my proposal instead

Not only because it's a more literal mechanical interpretation of what's being represented, but also because you can then have infantry that aren't dangerous to a tank not impede it's movement. It even allows for differentiation bettween tiers of tank in addition to tiers of infantry, as tough tanks will be more capable of ignoring infantry.

 Insectum7 wrote:
So in order to show that infantry can be dangerous to a tank in close quarters . . .you'd choose to have infantry block the tanks movement . . . Rather than actually make the infantry dangerous to the tank. . .

Unless you want to go back to the days when the other guy at the table got to pick up your models and plop a tank down movement blocking is here to stay.

Also, why the obsession with tanks? Hordes can be equally problematic and have a decent chance of being good again before armor skew does, yet you don't seem concerned about it.

 Insectum7 wrote:
@Catbarf: That is much more clear, I concur with much of it. The CoC explanation is great, although:

 catbarf wrote:

Chain of Command doesn't have these issues, because you pick your support assets after the enemy force and mission are known. I don't need to worry about running into massed Volksgrenadiers that make my anti-tank weapons useless, or running into multiple T-34s and not having enough anti-tank: if I'm facing tanks I bring anti-tank weapons, and if I'm facing infantry I don't. What 40K calls 'skew' is what CoC calls 'crippling overspecialization', and you're encouraged to take complementary capabilities rather than min-maxing into one thing that the enemy can just hard-counter. And even if I know that my buddy has a Tiger that he's itching to field, that information doesn't benefit me or enable me to better counter his army.

I don't see how knowing my opponent wants to field aTiger doesn't help me?

I just find that knowing what's in my opponent's collection is way less impactful in CoC than in 40K. Part of that is because supports are chosen after the mission is known and not a fixed part of your 'list', and part of that is because those non-infantry units are only a subset of your army. If I know you're going to field a tank company in 40K I can list-tailor to exploit that pretty hard. If you have enough support points to take a Tiger in CoC, I'm probably going to be taking some form of anti-tank regardless, and I don't need to worry about you fielding three Tigers and no infantry.

Tyel wrote:
Is it a bit lame that your Phobos Marine army (or whatever) has to play the objectives rather than go toe to toe with knights? Maybe. But then if you don't like the fact they can scratch knights with massed bolter fire, isn't getting rid of that just going to make it even worse?

As Insectum has suggested, I'd like to see units have more capabilities to interact with the enemy. Having to ignore the other army and just play the objectives is lame, and taking down Knights with massed bolter fire is also lame. I'd be completely fine with those Phobos Marines being unable to scratch the Knights with their bolters, yet able to do credible damage with meltabombs if they can get close.

FWIW I like the shift towards objective play and prefer 'you can still play the objectives and win' over 'you're toast, sucks to suck', but I do feel that it's patching over a systemic issue. In a game where your on-paper stats are far more relevant than board state in determining how much damage you can inflict, it's easy to get matchups where one army just doesn't have a realistic chance of victory and generalship can't overcome listbuilding. Force-multiplier mechanics like GSC's Crossfire, that emphasize positioning and maneuver over raw statlines, are a step in the right direction and I'd like to see more of that.

 Canadian 5th wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
So in order to show that infantry can be dangerous to a tank in close quarters . . .you'd choose to have infantry block the tanks movement . . . Rather than actually make the infantry dangerous to the tank. . .

Unless you want to go back to the days when the other guy at the table got to pick up your models and plop a tank down movement blocking is here to stay.

That's neither how it worked (owning player moved their own models), nor how it has to work.

Also, why the obsession with tanks? Hordes can be equally problematic and have a decent chance of being good again before armor skew does, yet you don't seem concerned about it.

I'm not obsessed with it, you're just missing the forest through the trees. It was simply an example where unit interaction could improved, and I've expressed that point several times.

 catbarf wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
@Catbarf: That is much more clear, I concur with much of it. The CoC explanation is great, although:

 catbarf wrote:

Chain of Command doesn't have these issues, because you pick your support assets after the enemy force and mission are known. I don't need to worry about running into massed Volksgrenadiers that make my anti-tank weapons useless, or running into multiple T-34s and not having enough anti-tank: if I'm facing tanks I bring anti-tank weapons, and if I'm facing infantry I don't. What 40K calls 'skew' is what CoC calls 'crippling overspecialization', and you're encouraged to take complementary capabilities rather than min-maxing into one thing that the enemy can just hard-counter. And even if I know that my buddy has a Tiger that he's itching to field, that information doesn't benefit me or enable me to better counter his army.

I don't see how knowing my opponent wants to field aTiger doesn't help me?

I just find that knowing what's in my opponent's collection is way less impactful in CoC than in 40K. Part of that is because supports are chosen after the mission is known and not a fixed part of your 'list', and part of that is because those non-infantry units are only a subset of your army. If I know you're going to field a tank company in 40K I can list-tailor to exploit that pretty hard. If you have enough support points to take a Tiger in CoC, I'm probably going to be taking some form of anti-tank regardless, and I don't need to worry about you fielding three Tigers and no infantry.

I'll have to check it out. I had already taken a note about CoC as I think UNIT mentioned it in a recent thread.

FWIW I like the shift towards objective play and prefer 'you can still play the objectives and win' over 'you're toast, sucks to suck', but I do feel that it's patching over a systemic issue. In a game where your on-paper stats are far more relevant than board state in determining how much damage you can inflict, it's easy to get matchups where one army just doesn't have a realistic chance of victory and generalship can't overcome listbuilding. Force-multiplier mechanics like GSC's Crossfire, that emphasize positioning and maneuver over raw statlines, are a step in the right direction and I'd like to see more of that.

^Word.

 Insectum7 wrote:
That's neither how it worked (owning player moved their own models), nor how it has to work.

There were disputes over how models were moved almost as bad as the fights over how a blast marker scattered.

I'm not obsessed with it, you're just missing the forest through the trees. It was simply an example where unit interaction could improved, and I've expressed that point several times.

You've not made any suggestions for anything besides anti-armor.

Also, are you going to answer my question about how much interaction is needed before players who don't want to change their lists and who don't enjoy playing to objectives will be satisfied? How many wounds per turn should a unit armed with krak grenades be able to take from a Knight or a Landraider?

Beyond that, how would you compensate armies like Tyranids, Dark Eldar, Necrons, Orks, Eldar, Tau, and Genestealer Cults who don't tend to arm their basic troops with anti-tank grenades? Please, be specific as to how you would buff these units against tank/monstrous creature skew, hordes, MEQ spam, and TEQ/Custodes all of which require different tools to combat.

'No I will not acknowledge the overall point being made, please design extremely specific mechanics for every army so that I can nitpick them.'

 catbarf wrote:
'No I will not acknowledge the overall point being made, please design extremely specific mechanics for every army so that I can nitpick them.'

If you want to fight skew without changing much else about 40k that's exactly what you'd need to do.

You can't just say, "It would be nice to have extra ways to do [x]" without considering the impacts that will have on how every army, especially armies that don't have ways to do [x] natively baked into their troop choices. It's easy to suggest things for marines and even IG as they tend to have loads of generalist units but it gets tougher when when you actually have to put on your work boots and design for the entire game.

Once again you folks on here remind me of why I was quite validated in going back to 3rd Edition. The most we had to deal with was creative template moves which was usually quashed with a simple laser pointer...

I like that how in melee models could threaten tanks with grenades and bombs in earlier editions even if they couldn't scratch the paint in shooting. It might sound like that make melee infantry too good but you have to remember that stuff couldnt move and charge as far as they can do now and if having marines in melee kills your entire mechanical force then perhaps some infantry units that could protect your tanks would be a good idea. Almost like in real life that unsupported tanks are easily taken out by infantry up close.

In Middle Earth SBG you get double the attacks to wound if you have trapped(easiest way is to tri-point but not that easy in reality when you have closed ranks) or knocked down (cavalry charge) the enemy model and quite a few models can also 2h their weapons or do some special strikes with axes for good damage boost but increased risk of dying themselves. Sauron (400pts) for example can only be wounded on 6+/6+ (needs 2 sixes in a row) by the most common strength value in the game and S2 (normal bows and hobbits) can't even wound him. Hardest to wound model in the game. But if you surround him with a bunch of cheap warriors(5-12pt) and a good hero (80-250pts), let the Hero make sure you win the combat and then have your warriors go two handed while piercing strike with their axes they go from 1 attack each needing 6+/6+ to 2 attacks each that wound on 5+/4+. From 1/36 wounds a warrior to 1/3 attacks wounds. That is a 12x increase in lethality coming from using movement and tactics and not just pure stats. With the right list you can even make a 6pt orc warrior go from 1 str 3 hit that wounds on 6+/6+ to 2 that wounds on 4+/3+. A 7pt Goblin Prowler that is also Str 3 base can even do it at 3+/2+ in the right situation. Suddenly something that was almost immune to small hits can now be killed by a bunch of 7pt Goblins if the Sauron player messes up but in a normal fight is still almost unbeatable.

If 40k had more stuff like that then you can have more varied stat lines on models and weapons without everything easily getting a 50% return on investment always. But if you play your models right and set up good situations for yourself then anything can be lethal to almost anything. This kind of gameplay is sadly missing from 40k

 Canadian 5th wrote:

If you want to fight skew without changing much else about 40k that's exactly what you'd need to do.

There are numerous other methods to punish skew without having to change any datasheets... imo the best would be a sideboard type situation.

Tittliewinks22 wrote:

 Canadian 5th wrote:

If you want to fight skew without changing much else about 40k that's exactly what you'd need to do.

There are numerous other methods to punish skew without having to change any datasheets... imo the best would be a sideboard type situation.

I've suggested that myself but people complain about needing to bring an extra case of models to events.

 Insectum7 wrote:
@Canadian 5th: Modern 40k tries to solve skew by Infantry move-blocking vehicles (imo stupid), and allowing IG to Mortal Wound on 6s (imo also stupid) Do you like these solutions?

@Catbarf: That is much more clear, I concur with much of it. The CoC explanation is great, although:

 catbarf wrote:

Chain of Command doesn't have these issues, because you pick your support assets after the enemy force and mission are known. I don't need to worry about running into massed Volksgrenadiers that make my anti-tank weapons useless, or running into multiple T-34s and not having enough anti-tank: if I'm facing tanks I bring anti-tank weapons, and if I'm facing infantry I don't. What 40K calls 'skew' is what CoC calls 'crippling overspecialization', and you're encouraged to take complementary capabilities rather than min-maxing into one thing that the enemy can just hard-counter. And even if I know that my buddy has a Tiger that he's itching to field, that information doesn't benefit me or enable me to better counter his army.

I don't see how knowing my opponent wants to field aTiger doesn't help me?

To be honest, most of 40k solves the vehicle skew problem by making vehicles near universally terrible. Or at least they have since 6th.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Just Tony wrote:
Once again you folks on here remind me of why I was quite validated in going back to 3rd Edition. The most we had to deal with was creative template moves which was usually quashed with a simple laser pointer...

I don't know much about 3rd, but I know that someone who looked at all the myriad options of games out there and said 'hey, let's play a Games Workshop game, but with 1990s design sensibilities!' doesn't get to feel validated about anything.

ERJAK wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
@Canadian 5th: Modern 40k tries to solve skew by Infantry move-blocking vehicles (imo stupid), and allowing IG to Mortal Wound on 6s (imo also stupid) Do you like these solutions?

@Catbarf: That is much more clear, I concur with much of it. The CoC explanation is great, although:

 catbarf wrote:

Chain of Command doesn't have these issues, because you pick your support assets after the enemy force and mission are known. I don't need to worry about running into massed Volksgrenadiers that make my anti-tank weapons useless, or running into multiple T-34s and not having enough anti-tank: if I'm facing tanks I bring anti-tank weapons, and if I'm facing infantry I don't. What 40K calls 'skew' is what CoC calls 'crippling overspecialization', and you're encouraged to take complementary capabilities rather than min-maxing into one thing that the enemy can just hard-counter. And even if I know that my buddy has a Tiger that he's itching to field, that information doesn't benefit me or enable me to better counter his army.

I don't see how knowing my opponent wants to field aTiger doesn't help me?

To be honest, most of 40k solves the vehicle skew problem by making vehicles near universally terrible. Or at least they have since 6th.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Just Tony wrote:
Once again you folks on here remind me of why I was quite validated in going back to 3rd Edition. The most we had to deal with was creative template moves which was usually quashed with a simple laser pointer...

I don't know much about 3rd, but I know that someone who looked at all the myriad options of games out there and said 'hey, let's play a Games Workshop game, but with 1990s design sensibilities!' doesn't get to feel validated about anything.

Since you admit to not knowing much about 3rd edition it'd seem reasonable that you also don't know much about wether someone could feel validated about choosing to play it vs the current edition..

Quick catchup, but just a little reaction to the idea of calculating value. First off, its an excellent if not essential tool and should absolutely be utilized and acknowledged as such. That said, from my experience it doesn't actually create balance as much as help you discover imbalance. It's good for comparing relative value and it can absolutely create a baseline to work from, but the problem always comes in when you realize all the context specific elements to the equation.

Like if you have a unit that is clearly worth 3 and another that is worth 4, great, but more often than not some factor of game design breaks the equation. Maybe activations matter, in which case having 4 units that cost 3 is always better than 3 units that cost 4. Sometimes its as simple as working in a 50 point system and other things in the army make it really easy to come to 41 points. In scenarios like this being worth 4 leaves you out when to fit in the list you really have to pay 4.5.

This is where I see the idea of granularity break down. The ideal of dialing in to the perfect value is tempting, but the result is an ever more specific jigsaw puzzle with too many pieces. There's nothing worse than being worth 38 points in a 100 point system and seeing just how often other things add up to 63.

That's not to say points are worthless, just that I think players put too much faith in them to do dictate balance. More and more I find myself preferring that games have broad, low granularity points that models are designed to fill. It forces designers to be more deliberate and differentiate things that compete for design space. The trap of relying on a points bump to make your trooper+ balanced has never really worked in a way that results in both units seeing the table.

 LunarSol wrote:
Quick catchup, but just a little reaction to the idea of calculating value. First off, its an excellent if not essential tool and should absolutely be utilized and acknowledged as such. That said, from my experience it doesn't actually create balance as much as help you discover imbalance. It's good for comparing relative value and it can absolutely create a baseline to work from, but the problem always comes in when you realize all the context specific elements to the equation.

Like if you have a unit that is clearly worth 3 and another that is worth 4, great, but more often than not some factor of game design breaks the equation. Maybe activations matter, in which case having 4 units that cost 3 is always better than 3 units that cost 4. Sometimes its as simple as working in a 50 point system and other things in the army make it really easy to come to 41 points. In scenarios like this being worth 4 leaves you out when to fit in the list you really have to pay 4.5.

This is where I see the idea of granularity break down. The ideal of dialing in to the perfect value is tempting, but the result is an ever more specific jigsaw puzzle with too many pieces. There's nothing worse than being worth 38 points in a 100 point system and seeing just how often other things add up to 63.

That's not to say points are worthless, just that I think players put too much faith in them to do dictate balance. More and more I find myself preferring that games have broad, low granularity points that models are designed to fill. It forces designers to be more deliberate and differentiate things that compete for design space. The trap of relying on a points bump to make your trooper+ balanced has never really worked in a way that results in both units seeing the table.

Hence PL being good in this case?

If PL, a less granular points, allows you to value both units at a level that both hit on the table.

 Blndmage wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
Quick catchup, but just a little reaction to the idea of calculating value. First off, its an excellent if not essential tool and should absolutely be utilized and acknowledged as such. That said, from my experience it doesn't actually create balance as much as help you discover imbalance. It's good for comparing relative value and it can absolutely create a baseline to work from, but the problem always comes in when you realize all the context specific elements to the equation.

Like if you have a unit that is clearly worth 3 and another that is worth 4, great, but more often than not some factor of game design breaks the equation. Maybe activations matter, in which case having 4 units that cost 3 is always better than 3 units that cost 4. Sometimes its as simple as working in a 50 point system and other things in the army make it really easy to come to 41 points. In scenarios like this being worth 4 leaves you out when to fit in the list you really have to pay 4.5.

This is where I see the idea of granularity break down. The ideal of dialing in to the perfect value is tempting, but the result is an ever more specific jigsaw puzzle with too many pieces. There's nothing worse than being worth 38 points in a 100 point system and seeing just how often other things add up to 63.

That's not to say points are worthless, just that I think players put too much faith in them to do dictate balance. More and more I find myself preferring that games have broad, low granularity points that models are designed to fill. It forces designers to be more deliberate and differentiate things that compete for design space. The trap of relying on a points bump to make your trooper+ balanced has never really worked in a way that results in both units seeing the table.

Hence PL being good in this case?

I think PL was a good idea left half finished. It needed a bit of datasheet restriction to really work. Like for example, you could only take as many of a special weapon as came on the sprue or some kind of wargear allotment currency within the datasheet that limits things a bit where needed. As it was implemented though it was just a less granular point system with a whole bunch of options that had clear winners and losers because they were only balanced by cost. That doesn't really work. You need to design your game around the points system, not just tack one on.

 Just Tony wrote:
Once again you folks on here remind me of why I was quite validated in going back to 3rd Edition. The most we had to deal with was creative template moves which was usually quashed with a simple laser pointer...

While I don't agree that 3rd was all that good, I can respect the fact that you found something that works for you and that you have escaped the GW product treadmill.

The discussion of Chain of Command (of which I know nothing, btw) does bring out one of the glaring problems with points and the GW approach to gaming in general, which is to say: Geography matters.

Unless you're doing some sort of "surprise attack!" scenario, you would always know what you are fighting against. A great source of imbalance could be solved simply by having foreknowledge of who you are going against. The notion of an "all-comers" army has always been absurd if not stupid.

Historical games work in part because no one in their wildest dream would imagine a platoon of US Marines using 1942 equipment fighting 1945 Germans in the snow. Or maybe 1937 Japanese against 1945 Germans. 40k shrugs it off as a matter of course.

So here again we come back to the problem not being the points, but other decisions made by the game designers.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
Unless you're doing some sort of "surprise attack!" scenario, you would always know what you are fighting against. A great source of imbalance could be solved simply by having foreknowledge of who you are going against. The notion of an "all-comers" army has always been absurd if not stupid.

I think a middle ground would be ideal- an army rarely gets to bring exactly the equipment they want for a given matchup (insert quip about preparing to fight the last war), but at the same time, there's some flexibility once intelligence on the enemy and objectives is available.

That's why I've been interested in the idea of sideboard mechanics. Maybe you can't swap out your whole army, but being able to change out at least a few things to tailor a bit to the scenario would be nice. Bring 2000pts, field 1500pts of it. Something like that.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
Historical games work in part because no one in their wildest dream would imagine a platoon of US Marines using 1942 equipment fighting 1945 Germans in the snow. Or maybe 1937 Japanese against 1945 Germans. 40k shrugs it off as a matter of course.

Battletech has a similar style to historicals in that regard- most of the time when you set up a game you agree on an era with your opponent, and that drives what units and upgrades are available. But that game is much more lenient on WYSIWYG than 40K, so it's much easier to minorly adapt your force to use in any era, just by picking earlier or later variants of the same mech.

 catbarf wrote:

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
Unless you're doing some sort of "surprise attack!" scenario, you would always know what you are fighting against. A great source of imbalance could be solved simply by having foreknowledge of who you are going against. The notion of an "all-comers" army has always been absurd if not stupid.

I think a middle ground would be ideal- an army rarely gets to bring exactly the equipment they want for a given matchup (insert quip about preparing to fight the last war), but at the same time, there's some flexibility once intelligence on the enemy and objectives is available.

That's why I've been interested in the idea of sideboard mechanics. Maybe you can't swap out your whole army, but being able to change out at least a few things to tailor a bit to the scenario would be nice. Bring 2000pts, field 1500pts of it. Something like that.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
Historical games work in part because no one in their wildest dream would imagine a platoon of US Marines using 1942 equipment fighting 1945 Germans in the snow. Or maybe 1937 Japanese against 1945 Germans. 40k shrugs it off as a matter of course.

Battletech has a similar style to historicals in that regard- most of the time when you set up a game you agree on an era with your opponent, and that drives what units and upgrades are available. But that game is much more lenient on WYSIWYG than 40K, so it's much easier to minorly adapt your force to use in any era, just by picking earlier or later variants of the same mech.

I think a sideboard mechanic would be cool-but some armies would need adjustments for sure.

Marines, Tau, IG, all those can probably get by on equipment swaps.
But other forces, like Necrons, Daemons (especially if mono-god), and such cannot vary nearly as hard.

EviscerationPlague wrote:
Yeah, 3 Bolter varieties should've been the MAX, not a minimum.

The game has had more than three types of bolters since Rogue Trader.

 alextroy wrote:
Plasmagun: Rapid Fire 1, R 24", S 7, AP -3, D 1, any Unmodified Hit Dice Roll of 1 (before or after rerolls) destroys the firing model after all attacks of the unit are resolved.

Uhh! I hate that "destroys model" rule. It's so black and white and doesn't scale at all. It makes taking plasma weaponry on multi-wound models (especially characters) very bad if not suicidal. It also completely bypasses the standard methods of causing damage to models, creating a separate 'insta-kill' mode that nothing protects or mitigates in any way, which doesn't make conceptual sense (the same issue applies to the current "morale" rules).

Like everything, it should be a scalable weapon rule:

Overheats (X) - Any unmodified To Hit rolls of 1 (after any re-rolls) cause a number of Mortal Wounds to the firing model equal to the X value of the weapon.

It means your characters don't die instantly to a plasma pistol overheating, so there's actually a reason to use them. It also means that you don't need special rules exceptions on bigger units with plasma weaponry to avoid them dying instantly to plasma overheats, and it allows you to show the difference in overheat capacity between a Plasma Pistol and a Plasma Blast Gun.

(And before re-rolls doesn't make any sense; you're re-rolling it, so the previous result is wiped)

Don't worry. It was in no way a suggestion of what the rule should be, or even exactly what it accurately was before. It was an example on how the Plasmagun problem was an issue of the rules not the weapon point value.

Hopefully, GW did a much more thoughtful job in 10th Edition balancing the different upgrade weapons to reduce the probability of there being a right option and a wrong option. The Terminator Squad datasheet shows two weapon options that you have to think about.

Is there enough vehicle targets of sufficient toughness to make a Chainfist a reasonable choice over a Powerfist?

Will the rules associated with the Assault Cannon and the Heavy Flamer make them compelling choices over a Storm Bolter and Cyclone Missile Launcher?

 Canadian 5th wrote:

 catbarf wrote:
'No I will not acknowledge the overall point being made, please design extremely specific mechanics for every army so that I can nitpick them.'

If you want to fight skew without changing much else about 40k that's exactly what you'd need to do.

You can't just say, "It would be nice to have extra ways to do [x]" without considering the impacts that will have on how every army, especially armies that don't have ways to do [x] natively baked into their troop choices. It's easy to suggest things for marines and even IG as they tend to have loads of generalist units but it gets tougher when when you actually have to put on your work boots and design for the entire game.

"Changing things requires balancing" is the incredibly astute assertion you're making here. To which I'll respond with "Duh."

Implementation is always trickier than theory. But since you're not even grappling with the theory particularly well, I'm not about to take the time pouring over the entire game for your amusement.

 JNAProductions wrote:
I think a sideboard mechanic would be cool-but some armies would need adjustments for sure.

Marines, Tau, IG, all those can probably get by on equipment swaps.
But other forces, like Necrons, Daemons (especially if mono-god), and such cannot vary nearly as hard.

That's why I figure if 40K ever adopts a sideboard mechanic, it'll just be about bringing a list and then choosing a subset from it for the battle.

Swapping out wargear options is too granular (most players don't have spares for each squad) and would affect armies totally differently. But you could see that the mission requires defending an objective, and so elect to leave your Wraiths and max out on Immortals instead.

 catbarf wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
I think a sideboard mechanic would be cool-but some armies would need adjustments for sure.

Marines, Tau, IG, all those can probably get by on equipment swaps.
But other forces, like Necrons, Daemons (especially if mono-god), and such cannot vary nearly as hard.

That's why I figure if 40K ever adopts a sideboard mechanic, it'll just be about bringing a list and then choosing a subset from it for the battle.

Swapping out wargear options is too granular (most players don't have spares for each squad) and would affect armies totally differently. But you could see that the mission requires defending an objective, and so elect to leave your Wraiths and max out on Immortals instead.

sideboard as a concept only really works on a few armies.

How would a sideboard work for Harlequins/Custodes/Demons/etc. These armies have such anemic options that you're pretty much always bringing most options anyway

I would say that that's a sign that those armies ought to have more varied options and capabilities if they're to be their own standalone armies, rather than an argument against sideboard mechanics.

At the same time, even if your 2000pt army is just a 1500pt army with more repetition, the ability to choose exactly which 1500pts of it you field would still allow more flexibility. Nurgle Daemons might not have a lot of options, but at least if you know the mission will require you to be fast, you can take more Plague Drones and fewer Beasts of Nurgle.