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 BorderCountess wrote:

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
I wish they would bring back water terrain.

Standing or running?

I think lakes and pools would be easier, as rivers and streams would be a nightmare.

Since I was told by a doctor to never cross the streams.

I just want a big green ball cactus with bright red spikes on full display in the rulebook as an example of terrain.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:

 BorderCountess wrote:

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
I wish they would bring back water terrain.

Standing or running?

I think lakes and pools would be easier, as rivers and streams would be a nightmare.

Since I was told by a doctor to never cross the streams.

Dudeface wrote:
The important shift is the layouts are made with the missions in mind, which means terrain layout is a valid balance dataslate lever to pull. That means by extension rules and units performance cam be altered as a result of the terrain layouts. So anyone not using them might be playing a wonky game in comparison.

Which isn't anything new. In older editions I used to frequently see people complain about gunlines only for it to come out that they were playing with nowhere near the recommended 25% table coverage. Go figure you might have a bad experience when your table looks nothing like the environment the game was playtested in. More subtle things like how big each piece of terrain was, whether it blocked line of sight, whether it blocked movement, all had impact on the gameplay as well. It was a huge piece of the game balance that was essentially left up to 'here's a picture of an example layout, here are some suggestions, figure it out with your opponent'.

I imagine that will still be perfectly fine for casual play. It's if you want the tightest possible balance (and a predictable competitive experience) then terrain needs to be accounted for in a predictable and consistent manner. You can always deviate from that example; if nothing else, it's nice to have a reference for how the game is supposed to work so you can understand how your deviations might impact gameplay.

 catbarf wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
The important shift is the layouts are made with the missions in mind, which means terrain layout is a valid balance dataslate lever to pull. That means by extension rules and units performance cam be altered as a result of the terrain layouts. So anyone not using them might be playing a wonky game in comparison.

Which isn't anything new. In older editions I used to frequently see people complain about gunlines only for it to come out that they were playing with nowhere near the recommended 25% table coverage. Go figure you might have a bad experience when your table looks nothing like the environment the game was playtested in. More subtle things like how big each piece of terrain was, whether it blocked line of sight, whether it blocked movement, all had impact on the gameplay as well. It was a huge piece of the game balance that was essentially left up to 'here's a picture of an example layout, here are some suggestions, figure it out with your opponent'.

I imagine that will still be perfectly fine for casual play. It's if you want the tightest possible balance (and a predictable competitive experience) then terrain needs to be accounted for in a predictable and consistent manner. You can always deviate from that example; if nothing else, it's nice to have a reference for how the game is supposed to work so you can understand how your deviations might impact gameplay.

Back then the shooting army might not get its points cut as a result of tables not having enough terrain in an official GW setting for example though. I also keep seeing people forget that terrain are the objectives now. So unless people are going to regularly deviate on objective placement as well, I expect to see very few none standardised games as a result.

 LunarSol wrote:

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
I wish they would bring back water terrain.

Crater rules generally work fine for this.

Considering how the 11th terrain rules are described, what if water terrain slowed movement, and gave +1 to be hit? Skimmers could ignore those penalties (and amphibious vehicles like the Chimera as well).

Doohicky wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
Not a fan of -1 to hit for orks, but it's only for infantry and maybe orks get a rule to ignore that.

While it doesn't specifically say in this, I think -1 to hit will be the general cover thing.
This article is only saying what happens to certain units in terrain.

Dat Article wrote:Infantry, Beasts and Swarm units in terrain areas also gain the benefit of cover

It then explains cover is -1 to BS.

These two points are pertinant I think.
1. I think being obscured will also give cover and is how vehicles etc will get it, just like now, whereas infantry etc can be in clear view, but still get it if in terrain.
2. -1 BS is different from -1 to hit, so possible stacking which could be bad for orks.


HOWEVER! Last edition they capped cover saves to never improve beyond 3+, so perhaps they will go the other way and say cover caps at BS5+?

Yeah, there is a lot of IFs to be clarified, so I'm not panicking yet. I do hope they have a solution, I'm not looking forward to another edition with ork shooting being gutted.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
Not a fan of -1 to hit for orks, but it's only for infantry and maybe orks get a rule to ignore that.

Potential, will depend on the points of course upside? Ork Boyz at least appear to come with Slugga, Choppa and Shoota as basic equipment, going off the one shown off so far.

If that’s universal, and doesn’t reflect an option to have both loadouts? At least you can’t mis-arm them.

Sadly it doesn't depend on points. Ork shooting dropping by half from is not something you can compensate with points - a well known problem we have experienced in many editions. It's completely binary, either the unit punches way above its weight against units without cover or shooting units in cover is never a good option. There is no sweet spot in-between.

At this point it's probably worth noting that more than half of the dataslates in the ork codex are dedicated shooting units. They are a combined arms force just like marines/CSM.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
Not a fan of -1 to hit for orks, but it's only for infantry and maybe orks get a rule to ignore that.

Depends on how much Orks will lean into sustained hits in 11th.

During the More Dakka meta, Orks basically did not care about BS whatsoever.

You are aware what happened to the more dakka meta, right?

If your unit is operating at 300% efficiency, losing 50% still makes it great, obviously.
I think everyone agrees that not having another more dakka meta is better for everyone involved..


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BorderCountess wrote:
It's not like Orks are a shooty army. They're certainly more quantity over quality, anyway.

Everything in the ork codex disagrees with that statement.
Heck, even the one new unit we are getting is a dedicated shooting unit.

Dudeface wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
The important shift is the layouts are made with the missions in mind, which means terrain layout is a valid balance dataslate lever to pull. That means by extension rules and units performance cam be altered as a result of the terrain layouts. So anyone not using them might be playing a wonky game in comparison.

Which isn't anything new. In older editions I used to frequently see people complain about gunlines only for it to come out that they were playing with nowhere near the recommended 25% table coverage. Go figure you might have a bad experience when your table looks nothing like the environment the game was playtested in. More subtle things like how big each piece of terrain was, whether it blocked line of sight, whether it blocked movement, all had impact on the gameplay as well. It was a huge piece of the game balance that was essentially left up to 'here's a picture of an example layout, here are some suggestions, figure it out with your opponent'.

I imagine that will still be perfectly fine for casual play. It's if you want the tightest possible balance (and a predictable competitive experience) then terrain needs to be accounted for in a predictable and consistent manner. You can always deviate from that example; if nothing else, it's nice to have a reference for how the game is supposed to work so you can understand how your deviations might impact gameplay.

Back then the shooting army might not get its points cut as a result of tables not having enough terrain in an official GW setting for example though. I also keep seeing people forget that terrain are the objectives now. So unless people are going to regularly deviate on objective placement as well, I expect to see very few none standardised games as a result.

But we did see GW making balance changes during 8th and 9th on the basis of tournament results, and in my experience it's historically been pretty common for events to go light on terrain so that the TOs can populate more tables. Having specific, prescriptive layouts leaves no room to cut corners.

For what it's worth, if the practical outcome of this change is that it becomes impossible to get a pickup game that isn't a tournament-style mirror matchup, I will be disappointed. But as with the 60x44 minimum board size and the arguments over that, I feel an unwillingness to deviate at all from the tournament format is a culture problem as much as it is a rules problem. If GW were to write their rules as casual-first, with an optional Standard Tournament Board Layout Pack, that might help, but it's clear their focus has become competitive gaming and the rules are written around that.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
Ork players should just get to roll buckets of dice for everything.

Most players I know wouldn't care if Orks only hit on natural sixes if they got to roll 800 dice in a game.

Not sure what you are trying to say here. No ork player wants a dysfunctional army with half of the options being worthless on the shelf for an entire edition.

 Jidmah wrote:

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
Ork players should just get to roll buckets of dice for everything.

Most players I know wouldn't care if Orks only hit on natural sixes if they got to roll 800 dice in a game.

Not sure what you are trying to say here. No ork player wants a dysfunctional army with half of the options being worthless on the shelf for an entire edition.

Oh, I wasn't slamming the army or it's players. It's just that most Ork players I've run across have been the most exciting players who really get into the game. Most seem to really enjoy when they get to roll a giant pile of dice.

I honestly think that orks should be the shootiest, if not the most accurate army in 40k.

Ah, then I probably didn't read that right.

I'm a huge fan of rolling a ton of dice, but it's significantly less fun when the result of 100+ dice is "those intercessors in cover take 1 wound".

Orks really are the heart of Warhammer. Even in the 90s when I was mad about Terminators, Tyranids and Howling Banshees, the Orks were the most popular with friends and it was usually because they were comically violent. Even I tried to make a Stompa out of a flower pot!

 Jidmah wrote:
Ah, then I probably didn't read that right.

I'm a huge fan of rolling a ton of dice, but it's significantly less fun when the result of 100+ dice is "those intercessors in cover take 1 wound".

I think 11th will end up being a case of certain units are enormously effective and others not so much.

Lootas and Tankbustas are small infantry units that can easily deploy on the first floor of a ruin, safely hide there, then shoot when it suits them and benefit from being at full strength, with stacked +1BS and +1 to hit. These guys will shoot like space marines without stratagems or character support.

Shoota boys are too big to fit on an elevated position, and their guns suck too much to bother trying to stack buffs on. They'll often be hitting on 6's, but nothing of value has been lost (they were never capable of digging tough units out of cover with guns alone).

But, said Shoota Boyz may be coming with Slugga and Choppa too. So sure, they may find only occasional situations where a load of Dakka is the ticket. But they can still cross the board to give the gits a good kicking.

Can I deploy 3 Dreads on the 1st floor too?

 Jidmah wrote:
You are aware what happened to the more dakka meta, right?

If your unit is operating at 300% efficiency, losing 50% still makes it great, obviously.
I think everyone agrees that not having another more dakka meta is better for everyone involved..

I think you may have (intentionally, from your tone?) missed the point. The point is that there are ways it can be designed around. It doesn't have to be as broken as More Dakka for that to be possible.

 cuda1179 wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
I wish they would bring back water terrain.

Crater rules generally work fine for this.

Considering how the 11th terrain rules are described, what if water terrain slowed movement, and gave +1 to be hit? Skimmers could ignore those penalties (and amphibious vehicles like the Chimera as well).

This is just effectively impassible terrain then. One of the big challenges with terrain rules in general is balancing the simulation aspect with how the game actually flows. When you put a lot of rough terrain style penalties down it tends to negate any ability to cross the terrain in general. Models just don't actually move that far over the course of the game for it to be worth not just moving around. Doubly true if moving through it is likely to get you killed faster. The more likely result is something a gunline parks behind and turns into a really unfun game of shooting ducks in a barrel. That's probably a true simulation of water in warfare, but not really something fun without a custom scenario built around sieging a moat style fortification.

 LunarSol wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
I wish they would bring back water terrain.

Crater rules generally work fine for this.

Considering how the 11th terrain rules are described, what if water terrain slowed movement, and gave +1 to be hit? Skimmers could ignore those penalties (and amphibious vehicles like the Chimera as well).

This is just effectively impassible terrain then. One of the big challenges with terrain rules in general is balancing the simulation aspect with how the game actually flows. When you put a lot of rough terrain style penalties down it tends to negate any ability to cross the terrain in general. Models just don't actually move that far over the course of the game for it to be worth not just moving around. Doubly true if moving through it is likely to get you killed faster. The more likely result is something a gunline parks behind and turns into a really unfun game of shooting ducks in a barrel. That's probably a true simulation of water in warfare, but not really something fun without a custom scenario built around sieging a moat style fortification.

Is a -1 modifier to movement for a turn really that crippling? In years past it used to halve your movement, and that was on a noticably larger board, and it still worked.

For the sake of this argument, let's just shelve the movement penalty. I still think water needs some in-game effect, preferably negative as you can't duck behind it. I still think the +1 to be hit makes sense. It's not overwhelming oppressive, is already a game mechanic, and seem correct.

I think the issue LunarSol means to highlight is that 40k, at least in its current state (and presumably also 11th since it retains current codex books and core structure), is so incredibly lethal that unless you are one of a handful of very oppressively durable units in this game, staying in the open is essentially a death sentence.

The water is pointless since no one will willingly enter it, because nothing will make it to the other side. Most units will just die same as they would in open terrain (perhaps with the enemy needing to commit slightly less firepower due to the hit bonus), and the few actually tanky units such as C'tan are absolutely not going to risk giving up their advantage by helping you cross the damage threshold needed to kill them in one turn.

In other games such as Battletech where damage is much more nuanced and gradual, water features are very interesting. A Kodiak can stand in the open and be decently sure it will survive doing so, even though it may be unwise to not seek cover unless it's part of some greater plan. That's just not how 40k works. 40k is a pendulum game of unit A stepping into the open and being deleted, bringing out units to delete the units the opponent used to delete unit A, and so on. Especially with vehicles and large models being favoured in 10th, which themselves do not lose as much damage when wounded as they used to, meaning injury is very all or nothing.

 Insularum wrote:
Lootas and Tankbustas are small infantry units that can easily deploy on the first floor of a ruin, safely hide there, then shoot when it suits them and benefit from being at full strength, with stacked +1BS and +1 to hit. These guys will shoot like space marines without stratagems or character support.

Most ork units besides tank bustas lack the range to hide in ruins and wait for a target, so that's not going to work.

Shoota boys are too big to fit on an elevated position, and their guns suck too much to bother trying to stack buffs on. They'll often be hitting on 6's, but nothing of value has been lost (they were never capable of digging tough units out of cover with guns alone).

Just as a reference, ork shooting units are:
Blitza-bommer
Boomdakka Snazzwagon
Burna Boyz
Burna-bommer
Dakkajet
Deffkoptas
Flash Gitz
Killa Kans
Kustom Boosta-blasta
Lootas
Megatrakk Scrapjet
Mek Gunz
Morkanaut
Rukkatrukk Squigbuggy
Shokkjump Dragsta
Stompa
Tankbustas
Warbikers
Wazbom Blastajet

Dedicated melee units are:
Beastsnagga Boyz
Boyz
Breaka Boyz
Deff Dread
Gorkanaut
Hunta Rig
Kommandos
Meganobz
Nobz
Squighog Boyz
Stormboyz

The few missing datasheets are either transports which are both or gretchin which are neither.

 Jidmah wrote:
gretchin which are neither.

Bring back Gretchin with Autoguns.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
You are aware what happened to the more dakka meta, right?

If your unit is operating at 300% efficiency, losing 50% still makes it great, obviously.
I think everyone agrees that not having another more dakka meta is better for everyone involved..

I think you may have (intentionally, from your tone?) missed the point. The point is that there are ways it can be designed around. It doesn't have to be as broken as More Dakka for that to be possible.

No, I took your post seriously. I was trying to joke about how explosive dice rolls do stupid things to statistics and clearly failed. Both the dakkadakka rule from 9th and the more dakka detachment caused massive problems because lucky rolls caused so much extra damage that it was impossible to balance. Having a SAG deal 68 damage to a storm raven turn one was fun for me - but not for my opponent.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Platuan4th wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
gretchin which are neither.

Bring back Gretchin with Autoguns.

Well, gretchin with Zodgrod are a terror, but I didn't want to overload the post.

I still remember the 'dangerous terrain' rules of 3rd edition, and how jump packs troops had a chance of crashing for daring to set foot on anything other than flat tabletop. That's the sort of stuff I guess we're never getting back.

Are we sure that maluses to hit don't still cap at -1?

 Ashiraya wrote:
I think the issue LunarSol means to highlight is that 40k, at least in its current state (and presumably also 11th since it retains current codex books and core structure), is so incredibly lethal that unless you are one of a handful of very oppressively durable units in this game, staying in the open is essentially a death sentence.

The water is pointless since no one will willingly enter it, because nothing will make it to the other side. Most units will just die same as they would in open terrain (perhaps with the enemy needing to commit slightly less firepower due to the hit bonus), and the few actually tanky units such as C'tan are absolutely not going to risk giving up their advantage by helping you cross the damage threshold needed to kill them in one turn.

In other games such as Battletech where damage is much more nuanced and gradual, water features are very interesting. A Kodiak can stand in the open and be decently sure it will survive doing so, even though it may be unwise to not seek cover unless it's part of some greater plan. That's just not how 40k works. 40k is a pendulum game of unit A stepping into the open and being deleted, bringing out units to delete the units the opponent used to delete unit A, and so on. Especially with vehicles and large models being favoured in 10th, which themselves do not lose as much damage when wounded as they used to, meaning injury is very all or nothing.

Serious question: how wide are people making their river terrain? The ones I've made are about as wide as a Rhino. A +1 to be hit only effects you if you stop in it, so wouldn't that only have a major impact on models that both move slowly AND have larger bases? ( Thinking Obliterators/ Centurions here) And that would only be if you can't charge after moving. For most models it would only be a minor inconvenience in deciding between a minor loss in movement, or loss in durability.

 Ashiraya wrote:


The water is pointless since no one will willingly enter it, because nothing will make it to the other side.

This operates under the assumption that the only purpose of terrain is to provide cover. While that is certainly one of the most important functions of terrain, if not the most important, it is not the only purpose.

Water creates exclusion zones on a battlefield. Those provide certain tactical advantages and disadvantages. Things like bridges become absolutely critical to infantry models in a way that they aren't on boards without water.

Certain types of models (flyers) are IMMUNE to water's "exclusion effect" and therefore overperform othe unit choices on watery boards.

And if you put an objective in water, people absolutely will enter it whether it's dangerous or not, because they must in order to win.

I'm not saying it has as much utility as other forms of terrain- that is undeniable. I am saying that calling it "pointless" is a little much.

Strange objectives, laying in ponds distributing victory points is no basis for a system of determining who wins a game…

LOL!

As it stands, the Vindicare Assassin will be able to kill you if you have Lone Op 36 inches away. But not if you are hidden 19 inches away.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
As it stands, the Vindicare Assassin will be able to kill you if you have Lone Op 36 inches away. But not if you are hidden 19 inches away.

To be fair, if I was going to put together a list of models that get to ignore/modify the hiding in terrain rule, the Vindicare would be pretty high on the list.