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Yeah, just ditch all terrain you have for L shaped cardboard, never use ruins, forests and it is all fine. In fact considering intent play is so big in some places, why not just make cloth of paper cut outs of terrain and agree that all of them are higher then a WK with both wright cannons rised above his head. Easy fix.

Karol wrote:
Yeah, just ditch all terrain you have for L shaped cardboard, never use ruins, forests and it is all fine

Are you saying your forests weren't L-shaped cardboard with one or two trees on? :p

Our forests have been, put in to a big box at the start of 8th ed, and not taken out till the store closed in 9th ed. Only forests I see are those for AoS and historicals/sci fi historicals.

Cut out forests, buildings walls etc which are just a pice of cloth on the table seems to be a warmachine thing though.

I'd much rather have Insectum's first example of LOS than the second.

And both are better than the one we've been stuck with in 9th and 10th.

Karol wrote:
Cut out forests, buildings walls etc which are just a pice of cloth on the table seems to be a warmachine thing though.

It was more of a 4e terrain joke.

Actual dense vision-blocking area terrain forests were rarely used in my experience as they were too awkward to put models in, so you'd get outlines or bases with a couple of trees - which of course meant that models could see perfectly well through an actual tree on the edge of the area but couldn't draw line of sight through a wide barren gap in the middle.

Fantasy was even worse when you were supposed to be keeping all of your models base to base, very much a case of marking the area with something flat and taking the trees away as required.

A.T. wrote:

Actual dense vision-blocking area terrain forests were rarely used in my experience as they were too awkward to put models in, so you'd get outlines or bases with a couple of trees - which of course meant that models could see perfectly well through an actual tree on the edge of the area but couldn't draw line of sight through a wide barren gap in the middle.

This was good, though. It was ideal.

 aphyon wrote:
Insectum, as HBMC and i are big fans of the matter of TLOS is not as big as a problem as you think if you as a players bring enough terrain including stuff that is solid and blocks TLOS as well as looks like it belongs on the battlefield. with current real world experience with 5th ed. there is more than enough terrain that provides good cover and/or blocks LOS.

Yes it's true, one can just build/buy big solid LOS blockers.

The problem I have with that is twofold.
1: Much of the commonly available terrain from GW or other manufacturers is ruins, or otherwise "visually perforated".

2: Imo the bigger issue is that "solid" blockers are generally the sort of thing that also blocks movement. Having movement blocking terrain is fine to a point, but being able to block LOS while still allow models (especially infantry) to move about is a great feature to have.

Ah but that is the beauty of 3d printed terrain. many of my large LOS blocking buildings have interiors and removable roofs. won a 5th ed game last year that way by sneaking my scouts through the marine HQ building (dawn of war from war scenery) to score an objective.

A few weeks back one of the guys had just played a game of 9th ed and we reset the table for 5th and he was going on about how there wasn't enough terrain on the table. i can understand since 9th required random mirrored terrain that doesn't make any sense give the actual terrain mat layout. i had to remind him how much different terrain worked in 5th ed games with blocking LOS and hard cover saves. it was more than enough terrain for a game of 5th 40K. the reason why LOS blocking area terrain is way more important in games like DUST and infinity is because of the reaction mechanics that exist in both games.

2nd edition rules with RT:s lore would be ideal for me.

 aphyon wrote:
Ah but that is the beauty of 3d printed terrain. many of my large LOS blocking buildings have interiors and removable roofs. won a 5th ed game last year that way by sneaking my scouts through the marine HQ building (dawn of war from war scenery) to score an objective.

Sure, but I don't want every table to be a ruined (or not ruined) city, and options for vehicle movement is nice too. Forests or similar pieces ideally block LOS, give cover to models within, and still allow big models to push through them. And for ease of use having flat templates (even fabric) to define forest extents, then having a collection of individually based trees that you can move around so models can be placed appropriately, is great.

In the end tournament probably are going to rule that first floors are not see through no matter how many doors or windows are on the actual terrain. And if that doesn't work, then people are going to start using abstraction. Point at X terrain it is now infinite in hight. Rubble and some other stuff will be used with the odd sudo True LoS GW so loves, while big ruins, buildings, forests etc will be higher then a warlord titan, in game terms.

It does kind of blow my mind that for all the ways that 10th edition feels like its full of modern game design touches, its measuring, terrain, and LOS rules are just woefully outdated.

It's hard to say. I started in 2nd, stopped after 3rd, came back for 5th through 8th.

I think I had the most fun in 5th. My Guard army was interesting and a bunch of new units. DE got an amazing revamp with amazing new models.

7th was no fun. 8th I only played with Indices but it was okay. Wasn't a fan of how they did mortal wounds instead of falling back/rallying.

Still love 2nd best for the fluff and art.

 LunarSol wrote:
It does kind of blow my mind that for all the ways that 10th edition feels like its full of modern game design touches, its measuring, terrain, and LOS rules are just woefully outdated.

What, exactly, feels "modern" about 10th edition? It just looks like another iteration on the 8th edition paradigm, to me, with an absolute garbage take on unit/options pricing.

Iteration?

That's high praise.

Just so folks know, a lot of 4th edition mechanics came back in the second edition of Horus Heresy:
1) vehicle defensive weapons (iteratively improved upon to do new things!)
2) Army leadership mechanics (needing to have a radio C3 structure for Solar Auxilia or a special rite for Marines)
3) Leadership actually mattering
4) Reduced cover saves
5) 4th edition wound allocation

They blended this forwards with some new systems (Reactions, which make the game far more interactive, are an example) and some iteratively improved older systems (Warlord traits remain but typically function in an actual warlord-y role, affecting C2, leadership, and behavior of an entire army on the battlefield).

Yeah but then they took 2 steps back with everything else in 2.0 trying to make it more in line with 9th ed 40K.

1.0 HH was mostly great as a fixed version of 7th (although they did keep the hull points mechanic which i detest and we do not use when we play it))

 Insectum7 wrote:
1: Much of the commonly available terrain from GW or other manufacturers is ruins, or otherwise "visually perforated".

The old cities of death and planetstrike terrain that was around during 5th was actually quite good for the most part. Buildings tended to have solid walls along the ground floor, the shrine had similarly blocked LoS for the lower level, bastions were tall LoS blockers as was the fortress of redemption, and the whole trench/bunker/fortification set from the start of 6th edition was solid.

Line of sight was so heavily blocked by those kits that the cities of death rules let players shoot without LoS.

Not to mention, HH could be the best, most balanced game in the world, but without Xenos and Sisters, it ain't worth jack to me, and that goes double for Epic.

PenitentJake wrote:
Not to mention, HH could be the best, most balanced game in the world, but without Xenos and Sisters, it ain't worth jack to me, and that goes double for Epic.

Couldn't agree more.

Doesn't have me 'Nids, so I don't care. The minis are nice though.

I think 4th and 5th had pretty good rules, but 5th is when the ward era of marinewank went insane and I hated the background.

The main thing I didn't like about 3-7 was the all or nothing ap system.

If they'd tweaked it to something like 'if ap=sv, make test at -1. If lower, no test can be made'.

So at least you would had a bit more balance across weapons and saves. You could keep the ccw ap rules if you did something like that.

I prefer abstract los, because tlos is ironically not very true to the events being depicted. It's true to the models, but that's a dumb metric.

'True to the events' is better covered by abstraction, because real soldiers crouch, take cover and do things not reflected by models on tactical rocks.



I would have also changed how bs worked, making it an opposing roll and using the full 1-10 range rather than 1-5. Using initiative also means speed armies get representative defence.

The main thing I didn't like about 3-7 was the all or nothing ap system

That is one of the things i love the best about it. if i wanted AP reduction i play WHFBs 40K hard cover saves made up for the all or nothing AP system.

GW used to use the other dice (other than d6s) in the original RT/2nd ed days. it doesn't work outside a skirmish system since it would slow the game down way to much above about 500 points.

 Hellebore wrote:
The main thing I didn't like about 3-7 was the all or nothing ap system

It was fast and decisive, but relied on sensible distribution of weapon AP, invulnerables, and the strength of cover saves (4+ was far too easy to get in 5th).

It fell over when you had things like 3e eldar and dark eldar bringing more AP2/3 shots that the opponent had models, and they could never quite get the price of 4+ armour saves right IMO...

 aphyon wrote:

The main thing I didn't like about 3-7 was the all or nothing ap system

That is one of the things i love the best about it. if i wanted AP reduction i play WHFBs 40K hard cover saves made up for the all or nothing AP system.

GW used to use the other dice (other than d6s) in the original RT/2nd ed days. it doesn't work outside a skirmish system since it would slow the game down way to much above about 500 points.

Well, they do use D12's in their Apokalypse system that starts at around 5000points if you go by the rulebook

A.T. wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:
The main thing I didn't like about 3-7 was the all or nothing ap system

It was fast and decisive, but relied on sensible distribution of weapon AP, invulnerables, and the strength of cover saves (4+ was far too easy to get in 5th).

It fell over when you had things like 3e eldar and dark eldar bringing more AP2/3 shots that the opponent had models, and they could never quite get the price of 4+ armour saves right IMO...

It also relied on sensible distribution of armor saves.

It doesn't quite work when a few factions hoard all the 2+/3+ saves while others are lucky to get a 4+

Insectum's picture sums it up nicely. Doing away with Area Terrain (as the idea of a gradient where models become more obscured the further they are) is what killed meaningful positioning play, which has turned out to be so essential to having a good game that the tourney scene went over GW's head and effectively reinstated it, through the ugly L shaped ruin corners, which functionally mimic the role of Area Terrain back then - LOS blocking but not movement blocking so that melee armies have a chance to walk up the board.

I do not understand this idea that CC was hard to get to or pull off in 5th ed. or the problems dealing with massed armored vehicles, as somebody who still plays it every weekend with a large pool of players with various armies. not only is it not game breaking. getting into close combat happens all the time. especially if you bring units in your force that-deepstrike, get summoned, infiltrate, outflank, or just use assault vehicles. in fact one of the banes of our guard armored company player is dealing with assault units.

 aphyon wrote:
I do not understand this idea that CC was hard to get to or pull off in 5th ed. or the problems dealing with massed armored vehicles, as somebody who still plays it every weekend with a large pool of players with various armies. not only is it not game breaking. getting into close combat happens all the time. especially if you bring units in your force that-deepstrike, get summoned, infiltrate, outflank, or just use assault vehicles. in fact one of the banes of our guard armored company player is dealing with assault units.

"The system not rewarding clever maneuvering doesn't matter because some melee units teleport"

okay.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 aphyon wrote:
I do not understand this idea that CC was hard to get to or pull off in 5th ed. or the problems dealing with massed armored vehicles, as somebody who still plays it every weekend with a large pool of players with various armies. not only is it not game breaking. getting into close combat happens all the time. especially if you bring units in your force that-deepstrike, get summoned, infiltrate, outflank, or just use assault vehicles. in fact one of the banes of our guard armored company player is dealing with assault units.

"The system not rewarding clever maneuvering doesn't matter because some melee units teleport"

okay.

One could argue that such "teleporting" is a form of 'off-table" maneuver, and that "on-table" maneuver is a great way to counter it (and it is!).

A.T. wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:
The main thing I didn't like about 3-7 was the all or nothing ap system

It was fast and decisive, but relied on sensible distribution of weapon AP, invulnerables, and the strength of cover saves (4+ was far too easy to get in 5th).

It fell over when you had things like 3e eldar and dark eldar bringing more AP2/3 shots that the opponent had models, and they could never quite get the price of 4+ armour saves right IMO...

No the problem is that it only has two states, on or off. The front loading of ap2/3 is just marines feeling what every non marine army felt against any other AP value.

AP is either useful or useless. 5+ saves almost never got used, but if you stripped the ap5 out of armies, then it would become a useless rule. You might as well have given guard no armour save and made bolters ap-. And because each ap affects the saves above it the same, ap2 was ap5 against sv5+. MArine players didn't like having to play like other armies where their save was ignored.


I always found it hilarious when people complained about ap2 when the rest of the game spent most of their time just removing models because everything was stacked against them. There's a reason it still works in HH - because sv3+ is the only thing that actually functioned in that paradigm.


So no, I'd much rather a system that had a sliding scale so everyone had an opportunity to use their save. save modifiers can actually be balanced through reduction, but static AP is either too effective or not effective enough.

Hence why I'd be ok with a static ap system that used a middle ground where the ap=sv reduces armour saves. That means that guard could still be making saves and it means that ap could be relaxed somewhat.

The only armies that functioned in the fixed ap paradigm was the sv3/2 armies, because they ignored most of the ap, making the concept pretty pointless. Remove 3+ saves from the game and AP immediately swings to being too effective and making the save stat pointless instead.