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 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.

Part of the problem with target priority tests is that they were put in to replace the old intervening model LoS rules... but didn't just apply to intervening models. It led to weirdness (and with no pre-measuring anyone with a poor eye for distance had quite a disadvantage).

In terms of adding a suppression mechanic it would probably have been easiest to just tie it into the existing leadership test taken for suffering casualties and add a little nuance like eliminating broken/pinned/solo units and immobile vehicles from consideration.

----

The thing is that you really didn't fail target priority tests all that often in practice in 4th edition but you would make a lot of 'weird' moves trying to game it, like a defender running a damage/inconsequential vehicle into the no-mans land to serve as an effective 5++ save for anything shooting your big guns, or an attacker throwing heavy fire down on a couple of random grunts to clear them from the target priority of other units, or vehicles playing tetris trying to wall off the line of sight of their own teams guns.

Mostly for tests you would have passed anyway but then every so often you'd take a shot for the game or have some kind of sure thing set up to swing things in your favour and the priority test would bite you in the ass and remind you of why you were jumping through all of these odd hoops in the first place.

It's also quite a different rule in the context of a 4th edition game where you got 3 total heavy support slots and usually sparse long ranged heavy weapons outside of them, and pretty sparse long ranged guns in general - target priority with small arms in 4th was usually stuff like being forced to fire on the two gaunts standing marginally closer than the charging pack of genestealers or warriors, where you would be scouring your list for some rhino half a board away to try and stormbolter the little guys out of the way first.

Another option would be to make it the core rule that you can only target the closest visible legal target, with units being one of a few types - generalist, anti infantry, or anti tank determining what their legal closest counts as.

And offer a basic strategem that allows command to force units to attack strategic rather than tactical targets.

Try playing a game where you feint with units forward to draw compulsory fire, while manouevring your other units around the flanks.

The game becomes more challenging and you lose the "feels bad" notion of testing, replacing with a certainty strategem cost.

 Hellebore wrote:
Another option would be to make it the core rule that you can only target the closest visible legal target

Both 2nd ed and 3rd ed had variants on this.

3rd ed the closer models would block LoS, but with limitations - gaunts weren't tall enough to screen warriors, a pair of grots weren't wide enough to screen an orc horde (later returning as cover saves in 5th onwards)

2nd ed you had to shoot the closest valid target but 'valid target' was defined as within the 90 degree fire arc you picked and included a set of exceptions (small/man-sized/vehicle/monster, broken or not, in cover or in the open).

4th was unique in the direction of fire not being a factor outside of vehicle fire arcs.

 Hellebore wrote:
Another option would be to make it the core rule that you can only target the closest visible legal target, with units being one of a few types - generalist, anti infantry, or anti tank determining what their legal closest counts as.

And offer a basic strategem that allows command to force units to attack strategic rather than tactical targets.

Try playing a game where you feint with units forward to draw compulsory fire, while manouevring your other units around the flanks.

The game becomes more challenging and you lose the "feels bad" notion of testing, replacing with a certainty strategem cost.

I'm not sure tying that to units is the best idea - that just seems tailor-made to feth over anything with a mixed loadout/profile (eg Infantry Squad with attached Lascannon, anything with a Missile Launcher, a Predator with Twin Lascannon/2x Heavy Bolter, etc.). It might be better to break down targetting by equipped weapon (eg. a Tac Squad with a Flamer and Grav-Cannon would be broken down into a group of 6 or 7 Boltguns, 1 Flamer, 1 Grav-Cannon, and maybe 1 Whatever The Sergeant Has If They Have Anything Special, each of which picks targets separately). It'd be more work, but IMO it'd be preferable to the old "no, your lasguns can't target the grots 6" away because your lascannon is shooting a Battlewagon on the side of the board" bullgak.

Unit1126PLL wrote:
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.

I could see that working. Each unit within x" counts towards the total "pressure" being put on an enemy unit. And then you would tie that into whatever targeting mechanics you end up going with. Ex:

A.) Bring back Cool. Cool is basically the threshold for how much pressure you can be under before your targeting options are limited. Ex: Cool 3 can be under pressure from 3 sources and act normally. At pressure 4, the unit can only target the nearest enemy unless he has a character/strat/etc. letting him shoot normally.

B.) Do a target priority check with pressure serving as a negative modifier (and nearby characters or the use of a universal targeting strat serving as positive modifiers.)

C.) A binary, "Units under at least X pressure may only target the closest enemy unit or the closest enemy unit of their preferred target types." Target types presumably being keyword-based.

I guess you could give each unit a "pressure" stat to reflect how threatening their proximity. And/or have larger squads exert more pressure to avoid favoring MSU too much. The main downside is that it might force you to pause and check pressure distances in a few places during your shooting phase so you can figure out your preferred firing solution.

Vibe check: do we think this is getting too complicated to be practical?

 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

Hmm. I don't know. Assuming we converted Ld back to a flat number instead of an X+, something like my dark eldar would be looking at Ld8 on most units. Landing 8 hits is pretty easy, and 8 wounds isn't that much harder. So I feel like you'd end up with a bunch of suppression checks every turn. So I'd worry that alpha striking might become a bigger problem. Spend turn one peppering a big chunk of your opponent's army with shots, force a bunch of Ld tests, now a sizeable percentage of their army can only shoot at your disposable front-line chaff meaning they're less likely to cause significant suppression to you in return. Then you just keep doing that all game, with it getting easier and easier every turn due to the advantage you secured at the top of turn 1. Granted, this is less of concern if having the right character around or using the right stratagem lets you bypass the target priority test.

The bookkeeping also seems like an issue. You're talking about tracking the number of hits or wounds a unit received plus which units those attacks came from in a game with lots of long-ranged units capable of splitting fire.

Maybe this is a bad idea, but what if we did something like:
* Some weapons have the suppression rule. When your unit is hit by a suppression weapon, put a token next to it.
* When an enemy unit shoots at you, for every X attacks being made, add a suppression token to your unit.
* During your Command phase, roll a Leadership test for any friendly units with one or more suppression tokens. Subtract 1 from the result for each token after the first. Units that fail the test are suppressed until the start of their next Command phase.
* Suppressed units can only fire at the nearest enemy unit unless some other rule says otherwise. And such rules would commonly take the form of certain characters being nearby, specialized units being allowed to target the nearest tank/monster instead of the nearest non-tank/non-monster, a universal strat that lets any suppressed units target a single enemy unit of your choice, etc.

Idk. It feels like this is getting kind of complicated fast. A simpler version might be to simply say:
* Vehicles can screen for nearby vehicles. I.e. you can't shoot Tank A if Tank B is within X inches of Tank A unless Tank B is closer. 8th/9th edition character rules, more or less, but you're screened by units of a similar unit type/weight class. So monsters and vehicles can probably screen for each other. Bikes, and cavalry probably screen for each other. Infantry and beasts. And then maybe swarms get to be special and are screened by everybody.
* You can ignore the bullet point above if you have a special rule. Such as from a nearby character, a strat, a preferred target special rule, a "hold still and aim at your target of choice" rule, etc.

I feel like that's less complicated and still adds a lot to the game. Cheaper vehicles or infantry squads become extra useful by making your expensive vehicles/infantry squads harder to target. Holding still, including cheap characters, and opting whether or not to pop the new "shoot at this unit even if you normally couldn't" strat all create interesting choices that let you bypass this screening at a cost.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 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.

The other thing you're missing is scale. Nothing says the 2 inch tall miniature means 2 inches of lateral distance is 6 feet - that would make 24 inch range bolters good to 72 feet.

40K does a poor job with scale (and, to be fair, so do a lot of 28mm wargames) so that's a whole other can of worms.

Breton wrote:

The other thing you're missing is scale. Nothing says the 2 inch tall miniature means 2 inches of lateral distance is 6 feet - that would make 24 inch range bolters good to 72 feet.

Nitpick but 2 inches would scale to around 10-12 feet. IIRC Primaris Marines are 1.6 inches tall and they are supposed to be 8-9 feet in "real scale".

 Tyran wrote:

Breton wrote:

The other thing you're missing is scale. Nothing says the 2 inch tall miniature means 2 inches of lateral distance is 6 feet - that would make 24 inch range bolters good to 72 feet.

Nitpick but 2 inches would scale to around 10-12 feet. IIRC Primaris Marines are 1.6 inches tall and they are supposed to be 8-9 feet in "real scale".

I was guesstimating/rounding - plus not really picking a single mini - and didn't really pull out a mini and measure it, but OK. Now apply that scale to a bolter range, does it make a significant difference in a combat rifle that likely measures in yards not feet?

No, I just was being pedantic with measurements. The overall point stands.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

Vibe check: do we think this is getting too complicated to be practical?

For me, yes. Any rule that needs a lot of exceptions is a bad rule. That's the guideline I'd point you to.

The whole closest target thing falls foul of the above very easily, because it quickly devolves into:
You may only select the closest target except if:
* It's a not a vehicle and there's a vehicle available
* It's not a monster and there's a monster available
* It's in cover and a more distant target is not
* It's under half strength and a more distant target is not
* Your unit is a HQ
* Your unit is attached to a HQ
* You spent CP on a stratagem
* You rolled well on your leadership test
* You maneuvered your unit into a position where it can't see the closest target that you want to ignore
* You maneuvered your other units into a position that block line of sight to the closest target that you want to ignore
* Your unit is from a certain codex
* It's a Tuesday


As for the idea you were exploring about Cool and Pressure. That also gets complicated very quickly because it turns into something like OC from 10th, but applied to all units always.
I must shoot the closest unit, except that closest unit is 3 grots worth 3 pressure, and there's a mob of boys behind the grots. How many models are left in that mob? 17? Okay, that's 17 pressure. But what about the 5 mega nobs behind them? They have a total of 20 don't they, because each is worth 4 pressure? Oh but they've got broken moral, so it's halved? Sod it, I'll just use a stratagem so I can target the lootas in the corner. That's what I wanted to shoot in the first place.

The concept is rooted in trying to mimic some sense of realism, but most implementations fall foul of the 'yes but that's doesn't make it a good game' clause. There's a reason we don't try to accurately model physics in D&D (for example).


So now that I've torn down your ideas, how can I be constructive?
Have you considered just applying range bonuses/penalties again?
Make me WANT to shoot the closest thing. Don't tell me I have to.

This thread has gone off the rails and it's just punch drunk Proposed Rules content now. Also the rules being discussed are bad.

True, so back on topic. No, I don't like weaker melta. /thread

Zustiur wrote:
True, so back on topic. No, I don't like weaker melta. /thread

Six pages worth of comments from people who failed to grasp that the title's "You" refers to you specifically, smh

(jk, for clarity's sake)

shortymcnostrill wrote:

Zustiur wrote:
True, so back on topic. No, I don't like weaker melta. /thread

Six pages worth of comments from people who failed to grasp that the title's "You" refers to you specifically, smh

(jk, for clarity's sake)

Yes, it was a pretty straight forward Y/N question wasn't it?

Indeed. Either it should be treated as a poll, or be allowed to turn into a sprawling discussion of potential alternatives. I was enjoying the discussion but I seem to have killed it with my reacting too Gibblets's comment.

While the discussion was more suited to the proposed rules forum, these days there is so little traffic on dakka that I personally think proposed rules could happily be part of general discussion.

While it's clear from my earlier post that I'm no fan of 'shoot the closest target', that's far from the only way too boost melts weapon value.

In the interest of keeping the rules simple, I like the idea that melta gains strength at short range in addition to gaining damage.

If the choise is "weapon not doing what it says on the label" vs The edition is not as deadly as 8th and 9th edition I will go with the later.

There are also good nekta units. Fire dragons in falcons. Eradicators. They are stil out there.

Honestly, I do think the new melta rule is an improvement over just d6 damage, but then again I've only been here since 8th edition.
I'd also rather it have 2d3 damage instead of d6.

As mentioned earlier in this thread, meltas would be served greatly by a bonus to-hit when up close and/or against a large target. Alas, that's probably a topic for a different thread.

Breton wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:
So far in 10th, weapons previously designed for tank hunting such as meltaguns, fusion guns, and blasters went from wounding most tanks on a 3+ to wounding on a 4+ or 5+. Consequently, people seem to generally agree (feel free to tell me if I'm wrong here) that such weapons have shifted away from being anti-tank weapons to being anti-terminators or anti-light-vehicle weapons instead.

Now that we've been living with this change for a while, how do you feel about it? Does anyone like that a meltagun only wounds a rhino half the time and has to fish for 5s against anything tougher? Have people come to enjoy using things like melta and blasters to hunt down gravis/terminator armor? Are light vehicles proving to be prevalent enough that melta/blasters still have a role as anti-vehicle weapons?

Personally, the melta changes have kept me from fielding the sisters army I was excited to build up for 10th and have left me a little sour on some of my basic drukhari units (warriors). But if there's an upside to the situation that I haven't considered, I'd be happy to have it pointed out.

Cynically, I worry that the nerfing of man-portable anti-tank weapons may have been a result of the changes to how points work in 10th. That is, GW recognized that taking a chunk out of an expensive tank was more valuable than doing a couple extra wounds to a horde. Previously this would mean you'd charge more points for the melta compared to the flamer or the blaster compared to the shredder. But as they committed to the new points system, they ended up having to devalue the melta/blaster instead because they weren't allowed to charge more points for it.

Not at all - If I were writing it, I probably would have leaned into the Two Profile thing you see on Plasma, Brutalis Claws and the like to give some zip to both the Melta/etc and what used to be the x2 melee (Klaws, Fists, Thunderhammers, and the like)

Profile 1) Basically what it is now - potential increased a little to make room for:

Profile 2) Supercharged/high power/whatever nomeclature/game name/etc fewer attacks, for higher damage and potentially more AP.

So MultiMelta
Standard Protocol: A2, S9, -4, D6, Melta 2
Anhilation Protocol: A1, S12ish, -4 D6(rerollable or 1,2 count as 3 etc) Melta 3

Power Fist/Klaws/etc (on what was traditionally an A2 model like a SM Sergeant)
Trickle Charge: A2, S8, -2 D2
Super Charge: A1 S12, -3 D2+2

I'm hoping 11th will be better. This was a fairly large change, especially for GW who does not do change well at all.

there are 2 problems with this a there would be almost no reason to us the annihilation protocol because a conditional +1 to damage isn't worth being assured another d6 of damage. 9-12 will make a difference as a lot of tanks have a toughness at or around 11 how ever that isn't going to do much. another problem is that this is the plasma weapons gimmick but with less risk as it doesn't have a hazardous test

not_a_newtsee wrote:

Breton wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:
So far in 10th, weapons previously designed for tank hunting such as meltaguns, fusion guns, and blasters went from wounding most tanks on a 3+ to wounding on a 4+ or 5+. Consequently, people seem to generally agree (feel free to tell me if I'm wrong here) that such weapons have shifted away from being anti-tank weapons to being anti-terminators or anti-light-vehicle weapons instead.

Now that we've been living with this change for a while, how do you feel about it? Does anyone like that a meltagun only wounds a rhino half the time and has to fish for 5s against anything tougher? Have people come to enjoy using things like melta and blasters to hunt down gravis/terminator armor? Are light vehicles proving to be prevalent enough that melta/blasters still have a role as anti-vehicle weapons?

Personally, the melta changes have kept me from fielding the sisters army I was excited to build up for 10th and have left me a little sour on some of my basic drukhari units (warriors). But if there's an upside to the situation that I haven't considered, I'd be happy to have it pointed out.

Cynically, I worry that the nerfing of man-portable anti-tank weapons may have been a result of the changes to how points work in 10th. That is, GW recognized that taking a chunk out of an expensive tank was more valuable than doing a couple extra wounds to a horde. Previously this would mean you'd charge more points for the melta compared to the flamer or the blaster compared to the shredder. But as they committed to the new points system, they ended up having to devalue the melta/blaster instead because they weren't allowed to charge more points for it.

Not at all - If I were writing it, I probably would have leaned into the Two Profile thing you see on Plasma, Brutalis Claws and the like to give some zip to both the Melta/etc and what used to be the x2 melee (Klaws, Fists, Thunderhammers, and the like)

Profile 1) Basically what it is now - potential increased a little to make room for:

Profile 2) Supercharged/high power/whatever nomeclature/game name/etc fewer attacks, for higher damage and potentially more AP.

So MultiMelta
Standard Protocol: A2, S9, -4, D6, Melta 2
Anhilation Protocol: A1, S12ish, -4 D6(rerollable or 1,2 count as 3 etc) Melta 3

Power Fist/Klaws/etc (on what was traditionally an A2 model like a SM Sergeant)
Trickle Charge: A2, S8, -2 D2
Super Charge: A1 S12, -3 D2+2

I'm hoping 11th will be better. This was a fairly large change, especially for GW who does not do change well at all.

there are 2 problems with this a there would be almost no reason to us the annihilation protocol because a conditional +1 to damage isn't worth being assured another d6 of damage. 9-12 will make a difference as a lot of tanks have a toughness at or around 11 how ever that isn't going to do much. another problem is that this is the plasma weapons gimmick but with less risk as it doesn't have a hazardous test

It also had a reroll damage, or min damage roll of 3 (1,2 or 3 count as 3) Melta 3 - in other words they'd do 6-9 damage per MELTA shot - and the trade off is going from multiple to single/fewer shot. I'm not a fan of hazardous. Finally the numbers I picked were somewhat thin-air-concept not math hammered out. The "standard" profile does 2.5ish damage per shot, 5ish damage per round vs T5-8 where you'd use a MM on TEQ, small Monsters and the like The Anhilation Protocol would do 4ish damage per shot, or 4 damage per round against T5/6 TEQ/Gravis - slightly less against the T7Centurions Meanwhile Standard vs a T12 tank does about one and a quarter damage per shot, or 2 and a half per round. While the supercharged profile does 2.345 damage per shot - suggesting the Anhilation Protocol profile isn't buffed enough for its preferred target of T12s - probably add more damage per shot to the Anilation Protocol that would be lost on TEQ/Gravis etc. The point is to give the Upjumped profile the ability to chew up the T12 vehicle monsters while also preventing any added efficiency vs those mid rangeT5-7 Super Heavy Infantry/Light Monster Vehicles - the primary method for that is Rate of Fire, Wound Rolls, and Lost Wounds based on number of models/wounds/pool,