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Then add a second condition to add further play

E.g. you only need to roll for target priority if your target is more than twice away than the closest enemy unit.

That way you can counterplay by moving away because maths baby.

A.T. wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
But at the same time, the single Laacannon in a Tac Squad was only one weapon.

You were shooting one lascannon, you were getting one lascannon odds. If it was a four lascannon devastator squad you were getting four lascannon odds.

Think of it like playing poker - one lascannon is placing a bet with one ace, four lascannons is placing a bet with four aces. You can win or lose with either but the odds are not the same.
Target priority was more like having to pull a card out of the deck after betting, but before the hand was played, and if it was a club you just lost.

I understand the distribution of probabilities and the redundancy of 4 Lascannons vs. one, that's part of my point. For target priority tests you gain redundancy by bringing more units, and/or mitigate risk by implementing Ld buffs.

And no you don't "just lose", you don't lose the ability to shoot. You just lose the freedom to shoot beyond the closest (most immediate percieved threat) target.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I like what they did with the Leviathan instruction booklet rules, where the combi-weapons weren't just one amalgamated profile but instead had distinct roles without having different profiles.

They were all the same, but the Combi-Flamer had "Anti-Infantry", the Combi-Melta had "Anti-Vehicle", and the Combi-Plasma had "Anti-Monster".

Gave each type of weapon a preferred target. I do wonder what would have happened if that had carried into the greater game, with Melta weapons getting Anti-Vehicle, and all plasma weapons getting Anti-Monster.

And no, I have no idea what Combi-Grav would have been. Grav has always sat outside the main special weapons because it was shoe-horned into the game as a new hat for Malibu Stacy, and has sat awkwardly in the Marine roster ever since. New Sternguard don't even have Combi-Grav bits in the kit.

The issue I have with the idea of discriminating monsters and vehicles in the first place is that anything that's anti vehicle should be anti monster as well. It's just firepower scaling which to a point is why we have weapon strength in the first place and there was no need to reinvent the wheel. What makes more sense is giving a bonus to hit, or rather a penalty to hit, more nimble infantry which could also do well to alleviate the chronic issue of TEQ fragility in 40k over the ages. Thus weapons like lascannons or meltaguns become less friendly for rudimentary anti heavy infantry roles.

 Tyran wrote:
Then add a second condition to add further play

E.g. you only need to roll for target priority if your target is more than twice away than the closest enemy unit.

That way you can counterplay by moving away because maths baby.

Yeah. If you were to reintroduce targeting limitations, you'd want to do something in the vein of this. Preferably with a handful of limitations and ways of overcoming those limitations.

So for instance, maybe weapons with sufficiently high strength or the right keyword or whatever can always choose to prioritize vehicles/MCs oversmaller targets. So no worrying about your lascannon devastators being forced to shoot into some hormagaunts. Maybe units that hold still can shoot at whatever they want (because they're taking the time to "aim".) Maybe shooting at whatever they want becomes a common ability for "veteran" units like Chosen to represent them being a cut above their peers. Maybe units stop interfering with target priority once they're down to X or fewer models.

And then by the time you add in all those rules to create counterplay, I feel like the Ld test might do more harm than good. Because you're basically creating a % chance for the targeting limitations to not matter or for the counterplay to not matter.

I like the idea of limiting targeting options. I'm just not sure a Ld test needs to be part of it, and I kind of wonder if some of the people pushing Ld tests might be doing so out of a sense of nostalgia?

If there's this talk of a "target priority system"*, why is it limited to shooting? Some of y'all say "well, mitigate that by repositioning your units" - but why should you be able to have control then too? Surely your units should revert to some kind of "movement priority" or they just move towards the nearest enemy? Who cares if that's not what they'd realistically focus on, 'get good?'

If shooting can't be allowed to be controllable, or at least somewhat less randumb, why shouldn't movement be the same?


*which is already pretty flawed, seeing as a priority target isn't all about what's closer anyways - a single ripper swarm base isn't going to be more threatening to a unit of guardsmen than the throng of hormagants descending on them just behind the rippers - in the same way a grot isn't going to be distracting the Space Marine Devastators, but that battlewagon will - unless you bake into a unit WHAT it going to be causing it to feel threatened, "closest target" isn't enough




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Wyldhunt wrote:
So for instance, maybe weapons with sufficiently high strength or the right keyword or whatever can always choose to prioritize vehicles/MCs oversmaller targets. So no worrying about your lascannon devastators being forced to shoot into some hormagaunts. Maybe units that hold still can shoot at whatever they want (because they're taking the time to "aim".) Maybe shooting at whatever they want becomes a common ability for "veteran" units like Chosen to represent them being a cut above their peers. Maybe units stop interfering with target priority once they're down to X or fewer models.

And then by the time you add in all those rules to create counterplay, I feel like the Ld test might do more harm than good. Because you're basically creating a % chance for the targeting limitations to not matter or for the counterplay to not matter.

I like the idea of limiting targeting options. I'm just not sure a Ld test needs to be part of it, and I kind of wonder if some of the people pushing Ld tests might be doing so out of a sense of nostalgia?

Now THESE I like - less randumb, still might not hit what you're intending, but you won't be firing at completely useless targets.

If shooting can't be allowed to be controllable, or at least somewhat less randumb, why shouldn't movement be the same?

Because shoting in w40k has a huge edge over any other phase in the game, especialy after the removal of psychic phase. What 10th proves right now is that A moving without shoting or melee to a lesser degree, gives a weak army, no matter how good the movement is. B in order to melee to be even close to shoting,either the movment of melee units has to be turned in to turn 1, max turn 2 whole army charges, or the army has to be horde enough to be able to cover half+ of the table with models. Controlable shoting, is what gives us 10th eldar or Imperial Knights, end 8th ed Iron Hands, or 9th ed post codex eldar harlequins.
And it only gets worse if the shoting army, also has movment and good melee. The most "fair" shoting army in w40k is IG, and it only stays "fair" as long as it can't move. If IG could move in an aggresive maner and support strong shoting, we get something like Tau, but with ally options and melee units.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
I'm just not sure a Ld test needs to be part of it, and I kind of wonder if some of the people pushing Ld tests might be doing so out of a sense of nostalgia?

The target priority test conversation usually arises from discussion on how to make elite troops feel different from green ones in a game system where otherwise Guardsmen and Marines act pretty much identically. It's an example of how the Ld stat functioned as a soft factor in earlier editions, giving units and armies with better Ld more tactical flexibility, not just a lesser chance of fleeing off the table.

As I've said before I don't really like the mechanic and think there are better alternatives, but I appreciate what it was trying to do- make screening and relative positioning important, but also make elite armies feel elite in a manner different from just having better guns or armor.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
*which is already pretty flawed, seeing as a priority target isn't all about what's closer anyways - a single ripper swarm base isn't going to be more threatening to a unit of guardsmen than the throng of hormagants descending on them just behind the rippers - in the same way a grot isn't going to be distracting the Space Marine Devastators, but that battlewagon will - unless you bake into a unit WHAT it going to be causing it to feel threatened, "closest target" isn't enough

I find it very funny how every discussion of the old target priority system will inevitably descend into someone complaining about a flaw that didn't actually exist. Devastators (or anyone else) could, in fact, ignore grots and fire on a battlewagon without needing to test; being able to prioritize vehicles/monsters over infantry was part of the rule.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

Spoiler:

 Tyran wrote:
Then add a second condition to add further play

E.g. you only need to roll for target priority if your target is more than twice away than the closest enemy unit.

That way you can counterplay by moving away because maths baby.

Yeah. If you were to reintroduce targeting limitations, you'd want to do something in the vein of this. Preferably with a handful of limitations and ways of overcoming those limitations.

So for instance, maybe weapons with sufficiently high strength or the right keyword or whatever can always choose to prioritize vehicles/MCs oversmaller targets. So no worrying about your lascannon devastators being forced to shoot into some hormagaunts. Maybe units that hold still can shoot at whatever they want (because they're taking the time to "aim".) Maybe shooting at whatever they want becomes a common ability for "veteran" units like Chosen to represent them being a cut above their peers. Maybe units stop interfering with target priority once they're down to X or fewer models.

And then by the time you add in all those rules to create counterplay, I feel like the Ld test might do more harm than good. Because you're basically creating a % chance for the targeting limitations to not matter or for the counterplay to not matter.

I like the idea of limiting targeting options. I'm just not sure a Ld test needs to be part of it, and I kind of wonder if some of the people pushing Ld tests might be doing so out of a sense of nostalgia?

Oh I think some amount of wiggle-room is necessary, for sure. I don't think anyone wants to force a Lascannon to fire at Hormagaunts, and the older systems likewise had mechanics to help that. I also agree about "closest" potentially needing some wiggle room so that the Land Speeder 1/4 of an inch closer than the Land Raider isn't always prioritized. So you'd want conditions involved in the process, but for ease-of-use sake not overly complicated ones.

As for "nostalgia" for using Ld? I mean what else is Ld supposed to represent other than clear-minded initiative under duress? It seems pretty straight forward.

My ideal would also involve suppression and morale mechanics acting as modifiers. The squad that's broken and actively under heavy fire would have a harder time maximizing target priority decisions.

Just give units a "Height" stat and make units block any other unit thats behind them with an equal or smaller height.

And create a "Suppressive" USR which forces a battleshock test, and then make being battleshocked actually relevant for things other than scoring

 Insectum7 wrote:

Oh I think some amount of wiggle-room is necessary, for sure. I don't think anyone wants to force a Lascannon to fire at Hormagaunts, and the older systems likewise had mechanics to help that. I also agree about "closest" potentially needing some wiggle room so that the Land Speeder 1/4 of an inch closer than the Land Raider isn't always prioritized. So you'd want conditions involved in the process, but for ease-of-use sake not overly complicated ones.

Fair. Seems like we're on the same page in regards to that then.

As for "nostalgia" for using Ld? I mean what else is Ld supposed to represent other than clear-minded initiative under duress? It seems pretty straight forward.

I know that that's what Ld is *supposed* to represent, but just because the stat exists doesn't mean a random die roll is necessarily the best mechanic for determining what you're allowed to shoot at. Initiative used to exist, but I wouldn't have enjoyed needing to pass an init test to see if I'm allowed to advance or charge every turn.

Having to weigh the value of jumping through a few hoops in order to shoot at an optimal target seems like it could add interesting decisions to the game. Randomly being able to ignore those trade-offs seems like it would reduce the value of those interesting decisions. You'd go from having some interesting tactical choices to make to making those same chocies but having an X% chance of said choices not mattering.

My ideal would also involve suppression and morale mechanics acting as modifiers. The squad that's broken and actively under heavy fire would have a harder time maximizing target priority decisions.

I like the idea of suppression/morale factoring in in some way. Still, I don't think making them modifiers to a random roll is the way to go. If you go to the trouble of suppressing your opponent and positioning your forces such that they only have a 10% chance of being allowed to shoot at your leman russ... Then it's going to be that much more frustrating when they roll hot and get to ignore your hard work and the suppression weapons/tactics you invested in to just shoot the russ anyway.

Like, at that point you've put in the work to suppress me, and I've failed my suppression check or whatever. I should probably just not be allowed to shoot your russ at that point unless I've similarly invested in suppression-prevention wargear and spent a CP to snipe out your russ, or whatever.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
Just give units a "Height" stat and make units block any other unit thats behind them with an equal or smaller height.

And create a "Suppressive" USR which forces a battleshock test, and then make being battleshocked actually relevant for things other than scoring

"Height stat" is more of an LOS thing rather than target priority.

Agree with "battleshocked" not being relevant enough, but really I lean towards a more comprehensive overhaul.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
Just give units a "Height" stat and make units block any other unit thats behind them with an equal or smaller height.

And create a "Suppressive" USR which forces a battleshock test, and then make being battleshocked actually relevant for things other than scoring

"Height stat" is more of an LOS thing rather than target priority.

Agree with "battleshocked" not being relevant enough, but really I lean towards a more comprehensive overhaul.

Yeah, i started mixing up stuff, but at least with height, there is no random targetting i guess, its all up to the players to position properly

Late to the party regarding target priority.

Why not just implement some form of what the Flash Gitz have for everything in the game? If you are unaware, Flash Gitz get an extra shot if they are shooting at the closest target.

I think this would add more positioning tactical gameplay, help reduce lethality, without adding yet another layer dice rolling to the game.

It doesn't even need to be exclusive to number of shots, could have increased chance to hit, or increased damage or AP, depending on the weapon type.

Also, obviously if a system like this was implemented into every ranged weapon in the game, then you would have to rebalance the existing profile.

Here are a couple examples to illustrate the point:
Heavy Bolter: Damage 1, but damage 2 when shooting closest target.
Intercessors: BS4, but BS3 when shooting closest target.

Also, Having played more Warmaching Mk 4 recently... I think that all flamethrower or spray type weapons should copy their system as opposed to the d6 shots that auto-hit (which I haven't liked since the introduction in 8th). Warmachines spray attacks (flamers etc) are draw a line equal to the range of the weapon, and each model the line passes gets hit.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

Oh I think some amount of wiggle-room is necessary, for sure. I don't think anyone wants to force a Lascannon to fire at Hormagaunts, and the older systems likewise had mechanics to help that. I also agree about "closest" potentially needing some wiggle room so that the Land Speeder 1/4 of an inch closer than the Land Raider isn't always prioritized. So you'd want conditions involved in the process, but for ease-of-use sake not overly complicated ones.

Fair. Seems like we're on the same page in regards to that then.

👍🍻🌈

Spoiler:

As for "nostalgia" for using Ld? I mean what else is Ld supposed to represent other than clear-minded initiative under duress? It seems pretty straight forward.

I know that that's what Ld is *supposed* to represent, but just because the stat exists doesn't mean a random die roll is necessarily the best mechanic for determining what you're allowed to shoot at. Initiative used to exist, but I wouldn't have enjoyed needing to pass an init test to see if I'm allowed to advance or charge every turn.

Having to weigh the value of jumping through a few hoops in order to shoot at an optimal target seems like it could add interesting decisions to the game. Randomly being able to ignore those trade-offs seems like it would reduce the value of those interesting decisions. You'd go from having some interesting tactical choices to make to making those same chocies but having an X% chance of said choices not mattering.

My ideal would also involve suppression and morale mechanics acting as modifiers. The squad that's broken and actively under heavy fire would have a harder time maximizing target priority decisions.

I like the idea of suppression/morale factoring in in some way. Still, I don't think making them modifiers to a random roll is the way to go. If you go to the trouble of suppressing your opponent and positioning your forces such that they only have a 10% chance of being allowed to shoot at your leman russ... Then it's going to be that much more frustrating when they roll hot and get to ignore your hard work and the suppression weapons/tactics you invested in to just shoot the russ anyway.

Like, at that point you've put in the work to suppress me, and I've failed my suppression check or whatever. I should probably just not be allowed to shoot your russ at that point unless I've similarly invested in suppression-prevention wargear and spent a CP to snipe out your russ, or whatever.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
If there's this talk of a "target priority system"*, why is it limited to shooting? Some of y'all say "well, mitigate that by repositioning your units" - but why should you be able to have control then too? Surely your units should revert to some kind of "movement priority" or they just move towards the nearest enemy? Who cares if that's not what they'd realistically focus on, 'get good?'

If shooting can't be allowed to be controllable, or at least somewhat less randumb, why shouldn't movement be the same?


*which is already pretty flawed, seeing as a priority target isn't all about what's closer anyways - a single ripper swarm base isn't going to be more threatening to a unit of guardsmen than the throng of hormagants descending on them just behind the rippers - in the same way a grot isn't going to be distracting the Space Marine Devastators, but that battlewagon will - unless you bake into a unit WHAT it going to be causing it to feel threatened, "closest target" isn't enough

.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Wyldhunt wrote:
So for instance, maybe weapons with sufficiently high strength or the right keyword or whatever can always choose to prioritize vehicles/MCs oversmaller targets. So no worrying about your lascannon devastators being forced to shoot into some hormagaunts. Maybe units that hold still can shoot at whatever they want (because they're taking the time to "aim".) Maybe shooting at whatever they want becomes a common ability for "veteran" units like Chosen to represent them being a cut above their peers. Maybe units stop interfering with target priority once they're down to X or fewer models.

And then by the time you add in all those rules to create counterplay, I feel like the Ld test might do more harm than good. Because you're basically creating a % chance for the targeting limitations to not matter or for the counterplay to not matter.

I like the idea of limiting targeting options. I'm just not sure a Ld test needs to be part of it, and I kind of wonder if some of the people pushing Ld tests might be doing so out of a sense of nostalgia?

Now THESE I like - less randumb, still might not hit what you're intending, but you won't be firing at completely useless targets.

Charging is already a random, not-guaranteed affair. It's not that out-there of a suggestion.

I find it kind of funny that people in the Old World rumour thread made a big deal about Orcs and Goblins needing Animosity, a rule that prevented them from activating, as incredibly fun and fluffy but suggesting something similar for 40k to tone down the lethality of shooting is sacrilege

FlubDugger wrote:
I find it kind of funny that people in the Old World rumour thread made a big deal about Orcs and Goblins needing Animosity, a rule that prevented them from activating, as incredibly fun and fluffy but suggesting something similar for 40k to tone down the lethality of shooting is sacrilege

Unless it's the same people arguing for Animosity in TOW and against Target Priority here, I see nothing contradictory about that.
Different people have different opinions. Dakka's not a monolith.

Tittliewinks22 wrote:
...Why not just implement some form of what the Flash Gitz have for everything in the game? If you are unaware, Flash Gitz get an extra shot if they are shooting at the closest target.

I think this would add more positioning tactical gameplay, help reduce lethality, without adding yet another layer dice rolling to the game.

It doesn't even need to be exclusive to number of shots, could have increased chance to hit, or increased damage or AP, depending on the weapon type...

Well, you could do something like that, but you'd be looking at a lot of work to basically just debuff each stat of every gun by 1 pip. And I suspect you'd then run into issues where giving every weapon a bonus when shooting at the nearest enemy favors certain armies (such as those that have the defense or numbers to throw themselves into point-blank range with the enemy.) You'd probably want to make exceptions for at least some heavy weapons too; it seems weird to reward sniper rifles and plasma cannons for firing at point-blank range instead of shooting downfield.

It's an interesting idea, but I think you probably create more problems than you solve going that route.

Also, Having played more Warmaching Mk 4 recently... I think that all flamethrower or spray type weapons should copy their system as opposed to the d6 shots that auto-hit (which I haven't liked since the introduction in 8th). Warmachines spray attacks (flamers etc) are draw a line equal to the range of the weapon, and each model the line passes gets hit.

Has the same downside the old templates did in that you're punished for not wasting everyone's time while you painstakingly make sure your models are all exactly 2" apart to mitigate the impact of enemy weapons. At the risk of turning this into another flamer thread, I feel like the role of flamers should either be to let them bypass cover or to let them excel against hordes. The drawing a line thing doesn't particularly play into either of those.

Insectum7 wrote:
As I see it, much of the game is about taking actions to mitigate risk, but still involving a dice roll to represent the fact that you don't have total control, and the stats to create meaningful differences between units.

It's probably mostly just personal preference. If I had to identify a difference, I guess it would be that damaging a unit (rolling boxcars) is already accepted to be a core part of the game, plus unkillable enemies aren't much fun to face. So in your example, you've taken steps to protect yourself, but it's better for the game if there always remains at least a slim chance of me damaging your vehicle. In the case of target priority, being able to choose an optimal target is a slightly less core part of the game, plus I'm picturing there already having been at least one failure point previously. To become pinned, for instance, I presumably had to fail a Ld check already and/or had to fail enough saves to be forced to roll morale or something. So having to roll yet again to see if I can pick out a target of my choice feels redundant. And also, if we're already introducing a handful of new rules to support making units targetable/untargetable, then adding yet another mechanic on top of that (the target priority test) just for the sake of adding randomness feels unnecessary. And worse than unnecessary, it potentially renders any other decisions you made regarding target priority (ex: opting to hold still with a lascannon unit) pointless.

Choosing to hold still or issue an order to target a key enemy feel like rewarding trade-offs. Knowing that there's an X% chance you didn't have to hold still or didn't have to spend the command point. sours that a little. But reasonable people might disagree.

FlubDugger wrote:
I find it kind of funny that people in the Old World rumour thread made a big deal about Orcs and Goblins needing Animosity, a rule that prevented them from activating, as incredibly fun and fluffy but suggesting something similar for 40k to tone down the lethality of shooting is sacrilege

There are interesting, fluffy ways to tone down shooting. I just don't think randomly failing a Ld test is one of them. Back in the day, eldar wraith units had a 1 in 6 chance of freezing up for the turn if you didn't have a psyker near them. This was purely a disadvantage, but it was a fluffy one (their souls have trouble focusing without the guidance of a psyker), and it changed up how you built your army in an interesting way. It almost felt like your eldar had their own take on tyranid synapse when you were doing a wraith-heavy army. Fluffy. Leaves you with a lot of control over whether or not your wraiths find themselves isolated enough to have to worry about wraithsight. Not a terrible rule.

The way necron units currently handle things with their only detachment is interesting too. They basically nerfed most of the army's BS/WS, but you can get it back to its former glory by simply attaching a character ot that unit. Fluffy (the crons with free will are basically micro-managing their warriors). Gives you a fair bit of control over which units will actually feel the nerf.

Now compare those to your expensive, likely squishy, anti-tank unit suddenly deciding to shoot at an irrelevant chimera instead of taking out the russ or dorn that's winning the game for your opponent.

I guess I just don't really see the difference between a Wraith unit freezing up because a Psyker's not around vs a guard unit freezing and panic-shooting at the wrong giant tank that can paste them regardless.

Probably a good lesson to not put all your eggs in one very squishy anti-tank unit

As someone who's against this, but for animosity, I feel the issue is that animosity has been a key feature of Orcs and Goblins for decades. Clearly some people pick the army because they like the models etc - but others will know what they are getting into.

I feel there's a difference from deliberately picking an army of goblins with low leadership, animosity, fanatics, squig hoppers, warmachines and wizards that are all likely to "go wrong" (and over an ever expanding number of games, certainly will) - and playing regular 40k as you have for years, but now being told "no, that unit can't do this unless you pass a leadership test, and sometimes you will fail".

It would be like saying "shouldn't every army in WHFB/TOW get animosity". Well.. no?

In practice, this rule would inevitably be ignored for an ever increasing number of units and factions. As has been the story of 40k for 10 editions. Getting to the point where it just makes Ork Shooting even more of a casino than it already is, doesn't obviously make the game more interesting or fun.

The obvious comparison was the same thread showing how no one much liked the High Elves random general rule. Because it just amounted to "roll a dice, some of the time your army is worse, the end". Its not fun - you can't obviously embrace it.

FlubDugger wrote:
I guess I just don't really see the difference between a Wraith unit freezing up because a Psyker's not around vs a guard unit freezing and panic-shooting at the wrong giant tank that can paste them regardless.

To me, the key difference here is that (at the time) you could generally keep your wraiths near a seer pretty easily. So if you ended up out of range of a psyker and actually failed wraithsight, it usually meant that you had opted into that gamble by not taking more psykers or moving them closer to your wraiths. Or it meant your opponent had put in a respectable amount of work to somehow kill off all your psykers. There's a sense that you have control over whether or not the wraiths will freeze up.

In comparison, those guardsmen shooting the wrong thing would (presumably) be the result of them just taking a few casualties and flubbing a leadership check. You can't really do much to ensure that guardsmen avoid taking casualties in 40k, so there isn't that sense of "opting into" the loss of unit control. Instead, it just comes across as, as Tyel put it, "roll a dice, some of the time your army is worse, the end".

Probably a good lesson to not put all your eggs in one very squishy anti-tank unit

Let's not confuse the discussion by pretending anyone is proposing an unreasonable build or something. So far, we've been talking about things like taking a humble devastator squad with lascannons or scourges with dark lances. I'm pretty sure you don't actually want to make the case that taking such units should be seen as some sort of misstep

It is one of those issues of if 40k is supposed to be a game or war game.

Because this kind of loss of control is expected in actual warfare. War is chaos, information is unreliable, communication is unreliable and thus even veteran troops tend to make mistakes, attack the wrong target or outright get lost.

But on the other hand, a game will more often than not try to give the player an absurd amount of control because control while unrealistic is fun.

 Tyran wrote:
It is one of those issues of if 40k is supposed to be a game or war game.

Because this kind of loss of control is expected in actual warfare. War is chaos, information is unreliable, communication is unreliable and thus even veteran troops tend to make mistakes, attack the wrong target or outright get lost.

But on the other hand, a game will more often than not try to give the player an absurd amount of control because control while unrealistic is fun.

Personally, I like my 40k to have more of a small-scale feeling. Neither a 2k army nor the board it's played on is really big enough for me to feel like communication should be breaking down or what have you. I know that scale gets wonky on the tabletop, but more often than not it seems like my units are within shouting distance of each other. Coms breaking down and units getting lost would feel more at home in a more "zoomed out" game.

Scourges shooting at the wrong target feels less like a breakdown in communication more like someone messing up their execution of a football play.

"No, Lethriel. We told you. Shoot at the big tank first, then the little tank."
"This elaborate plan is far too confusing!"

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Neither a 2k army nor the board it's played on is really big enough for me to feel like communication should be breaking down or what have you. I know that scale gets wonky on the tabletop, but more often than not it seems like my units are within shouting distance of each other.

Not at all true. Communication breaks down fast on a battlefield as soon as you are out of direct line of sight. As for shouting? War is really, really loud when the shooting starts.

For an example of this, look at the attack on Foye by Easy company in WW2. Their CO froze and then split his forces, sending half of them on a flanking assault around the town, which resulted in them getting pinned down and the attack completely stalling. This hesitation resulted in communication and co-ordination between E and I company breaking down, which risked the assault failing completely if I company pulled back. This co-ordination was restored by a new CO taking command, relinking the two halves Easy into a frontal attack, as planned, then running through the enemy forces in the town to get to I company and then running back, again through the enemy forces, to E.

That is a complete breakdown in command and communication between 2 companies of men attacking a small town which was only salvaged by what should have been a suicide run. That is well within the scope of a 40K force nowadays.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
It is one of those issues of if 40k is supposed to be a game or war game.

Because this kind of loss of control is expected in actual warfare. War is chaos, information is unreliable, communication is unreliable and thus even veteran troops tend to make mistakes, attack the wrong target or outright get lost.

But on the other hand, a game will more often than not try to give the player an absurd amount of control because control while unrealistic is fun.

Personally, I like my 40k to have more of a small-scale feeling. Neither a 2k army nor the board it's played on is really big enough for me to feel like communication should be breaking down or what have you. I know that scale gets wonky on the tabletop, but more often than not it seems like my units are within shouting distance of each other. Coms breaking down and units getting lost would feel more at home in a more "zoomed out" game.

Scourges shooting at the wrong target feels less like a breakdown in communication more like someone messing up their execution of a football play.

"No, Lethriel. We told you. Shoot at the big tank first, then the little tank."
"This elaborate plan is far too confusing!"

I picture an entirely different scenario. One where the closer Chimera is charging towards the scourges, multilaser and heavy bolter firing away, the scourges taking casualties and pinned in cover. But somehow the scourges manage to ignore that immediate threat and shoot instead at the distant Leman Russ that's not even paying attention to them.

That should at least take a Leadership test or something similar.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
Just give units a "Height" stat and make units block any other unit thats behind them with an equal or smaller height.

And create a "Suppressive" USR which forces a battleshock test, and then make being battleshocked actually relevant for things other than scoring

"Height stat" is more of an LOS thing rather than target priority.

Agree with "battleshocked" not being relevant enough, but really I lean towards a more comprehensive overhaul.

Yeah, i started mixing up stuff, but at least with height, there is no random targetting i guess, its all up to the players to position properly

Well, maybe entertainingly the only edition that used Ld checks to determine whether or not a unit could engage the closest target of <class> also happened to be the only edition that used height categories for LOS.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Tyel wrote:
As someone who's against this, but for animosity, I feel the issue is that animosity has been a key feature of Orcs and Goblins for decades. Clearly some people pick the army because they like the models etc - but others will know what they are getting into.

I feel there's a difference from deliberately picking an army of goblins with low leadership, animosity, fanatics, squig hoppers, warmachines and wizards that are all likely to "go wrong" (and over an ever expanding number of games, certainly will) - and playing regular 40k as you have for years, but now being told "no, that unit can't do this unless you pass a leadership test, and sometimes you will fail".

It would be like saying "shouldn't every army in WHFB/TOW get animosity". Well.. no?

In practice, this rule would inevitably be ignored for an ever increasing number of units and factions. As has been the story of 40k for 10 editions. Getting to the point where it just makes Ork Shooting even more of a casino than it already is, doesn't obviously make the game more interesting or fun.

The obvious comparison was the same thread showing how no one much liked the High Elves random general rule. Because it just amounted to "roll a dice, some of the time your army is worse, the end". Its not fun - you can't obviously embrace it.

My counter would be that it would open up playstyle options for players, particularly when I think in the context of Guardsmen and their great 3.5 Doctrines codex.

You could play with standard, cheaper Guardsmen and YOLO it by spamming them. You could invest in more leaders and/or Vox casters so that you had a more reliable C&C network to keep your troops more disciplined. OR you could even give them all Chem Inhalers as a Doctrine, pay some extra points, but have your Guardsmen be immune to certain Morale effects. Different players could choose the style of force they wanted to play, finding their own way of dealing with the fact that their troops weren't inherently 100% reliable.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

FlubDugger wrote:
I guess I just don't really see the difference between a Wraith unit freezing up because a Psyker's not around vs a guard unit freezing and panic-shooting at the wrong giant tank that can paste them regardless.

To me, the key difference here is that (at the time) you could generally keep your wraiths near a seer pretty easily. So if you ended up out of range of a psyker and actually failed wraithsight, it usually meant that you had opted into that gamble by not taking more psykers or moving them closer to your wraiths. Or it meant your opponent had put in a respectable amount of work to somehow kill off all your psykers. There's a sense that you have control over whether or not the wraiths will freeze up.

In comparison, those guardsmen shooting the wrong thing would (presumably) be the result of them just taking a few casualties and flubbing a leadership check. You can't really do much to ensure that guardsmen avoid taking casualties in 40k, so there isn't that sense of "opting into" the loss of unit control. Instead, it just comes across as, as Tyel put it, "roll a dice, some of the time your army is worse, the end".

Do you think it would be reasonable for nearby HQs to negate the need for units to make the Ld check?

This would give HQs something to do beyond very gimmicky buffs.

 vipoid wrote:


Do you think it would be reasonable for nearby HQs to negate the need for units to make the Ld check?

This would give HQs something to do beyond very gimmicky buffs.

The Warlord definitely. But I'm unsure about other HQs as they aren't fully in charge, but would at least provide their Ld.

Insectum7 wrote:
I picture an entirely different scenario. One where the closer Chimera is charging towards the scourges, multilaser and heavy bolter firing away, the scourges taking casualties and pinned in cover. But somehow the scourges manage to ignore that immediate threat and shoot instead at the distant Leman Russ that's not even paying attention to them.

That should at least take a Leadership test or something similar.

I see your point, but the key thing in that situation is that the scourges are actively being shot at by the chimera. And to take that a step further, I think the major distraction there is that the scourges are being shot at at all; not that they're being shot at by an alternative tank target to the russ specifically. If they're getting peppered by lasgun shots from an infantry squad, I'd think their instinct would be to do something about said infantry squad; not to shoot the chimera ignoring them on the left flank.

Definitely open to pitches for how to model that in-game, although I worry we're rapidly approaching, 'big guns never fire at optimal targets because small enemies are distracting them" territory.

Tyran wrote:

 vipoid wrote:


Do you think it would be reasonable for nearby HQs to negate the need for units to make the Ld check?

This would give HQs something to do beyond very gimmicky buffs.

The Warlord definitely. But I'm unsure about other HQs as they aren't fully in charge, but would at least provide their Ld.

A page or so ago, I tossed out the idea that this would be a good niche for cheap HQs, yeah. I wouldn't make it be the warlord specifically. Rather, I would make this an incentive for taking more of your cheap lieutenant/warlock/platoon commander types. Or providing mechanics for letting a smaller number of characters count as standing near distant allies through mechanics like synapse or 'crons doing robot stuff. Heck, you could even argue for getting rid of some of the offensive buffs more mundane characters provide in favor of letting them hand out the ability to shoot straight to multiple or distant units. Thinking of autarchs or captains here. Let the commanders' roles on the battlefield actually be commanding rather than requiring them to be beatsticks or magically making their friends guns shoot harder.

And then that in turn incentivizes you to field snipers and assassin types so you can shut down the enemy's ability to go after your screened units. Honestly, I'm really like the thought of this.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

Definitely open to pitches for how to model that in-game, although I worry we're rapidly approaching, 'big guns never fire at optimal targets because small enemies are distracting them" territory.

Units can be suppressed by a number of successful Hits (or Wounds) scored against them (even if successfully saved) equal to their LD stat in a single shooting phase (counting all of the hits/wounds scored, across all firing enemy units).

Suppressed units must take a LD check to fire at anything that isn't the closest unit that shot at them, and add a further -1 to the check if they try to shoot at a unit that didn't even participate in suppressing them

 Wyldhunt wrote:

Insectum7 wrote:
I picture an entirely different scenario. One where the closer Chimera is charging towards the scourges, multilaser and heavy bolter firing away, the scourges taking casualties and pinned in cover. But somehow the scourges manage to ignore that immediate threat and shoot instead at the distant Leman Russ that's not even paying attention to them.

That should at least take a Leadership test or something similar.

I see your point, but the key thing in that situation is that the scourges are actively being shot at by the chimera. And to take that a step further, I think the major distraction there is that the scourges are being shot at at all; not that they're being shot at by an alternative tank target to the russ specifically. If they're getting peppered by lasgun shots from an infantry squad, I'd think their instinct would be to do something about said infantry squad; not to shoot the chimera ignoring them on the left flank.

Definitely open to pitches for how to model that in-game, although I worry we're rapidly approaching, 'big guns never fire at optimal targets because small enemies are distracting them" territory.

Aww yeah. Now we're getting somewhere Yeah I agree, there ought to be conditions regarding engagement, proximity, and the like. Swinging too far in the other direction is of course not ideal either.

I would however make the case for a basic "If unit is nearby (12-18") and within LOS assume some level of engagement." I think it's safe to assume some amount of fire exchange can be going on even if it's not directly rolled for.

And yeah, class of weapon should be taken into account in some way or another. I think that ought to be taken as a given.

@Unit: +1

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:

Definitely open to pitches for how to model that in-game, although I worry we're rapidly approaching, 'big guns never fire at optimal targets because small enemies are distracting them" territory.

Units can be suppressed by a number of successful Hits (or Wounds) scored against them (even if successfully saved) equal to their LD stat in a single shooting phase (counting all of the hits/wounds scored, across all firing enemy units).

Suppressed units must take a LD check to fire at anything that isn't the closest unit that shot at them, and add a further -1 to the check if they try to shoot at a unit that didn't even participate in suppressing them

So almost like Bolt Action. Just more complex.