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 Hellebore wrote:
IMO you need to go back to basics and decide what each army or faction's concepts are, and then build rules around them, rather than trying to make them fit the ever decreasingly complex core rules.

I'll harp on it until the day I die, but a feature of all eldar factions was their 'speed=defence', they used being hard to hit to make them more survivable than their statline would otherwise suggest.

But if the game's only mechanism of resilience is T,W,Sv, there are no rules to use to represent that concept.

So things like daemons, is an invuln a good representation, or just the best you can use given the limitations of the system?


Starting with the what and then determining the best representation for that will create better outcomes. Either that or you push further down the abstraction route and just ignore the meanings of the stats and use them for their mechanics - ie all eldar are W2 because the first wound they lose is a 'graze' to represent their speed.

For daemons, they are not wholly corporeal, so they sometimes just don't get struck, or they don't really suffer any damage if they do. So what if they had a 'Warp save' which was applied to hits rather than wounds? Just an example of how you can find different ways to represent the concepts that might better reflect what they actually are. Another idea might be that daemons can only ever suffer 1 damage from an attack, regardless of its damage value, because they just don't interact with it the same way as a corporeal creature. Only psychic key words or daemonic keywords inflict normal damage.

It's pretty much this. ++Saves cover for a lot of missing rules. Right up until you get to the "Devastating/Mortal Wounds" stuff. Does a Daemon or a Harlequin really care what weapon is being shot/swung at them? Not really, unless it's maybe a Blast weapon in the case of the Space Elf Murder Clown Hobos. Those would ignore the Holofield, yet don't, in any edition I can think of. Or Blessed/Holy weapons in the case of Daemons.

Why? Too complex for the smoothbrains at GW to grab onto. It wouldn't really require much more than a single line in each unit's roster. "The Holofield Save may always be taken, except against weapons with the Blast characteristic." Or, "The Daemonic Invulnerable Save may always be taken, except against Blessed or Holy attacks." Then put "Blessed" or "Holy" in certain unit's weapon stats. Sisters, Gray Knights, etc.

Boom. Done. Those units now ignore DW/MW except in certain circumstances. Then, DON'T give those specific units FNP on top of everything, unless it's a super-special-secret-squirrel unit, like, say the Solitaire or something equivalent in the Daemon lists.

Why doesn't GW do this sort of thing? Because they're not smart enough to write coherent rulesets, but they are smart enough to understand if they make the rules significantly different between every edition or every other edition, you buy more models.

Complexity dies with every new edition. FFS, just look at what happened to WFB. Or 40k from RT through today. It's crazy.

That's not to say each edition is bad, or not fun, or a gak game, but, each edition is a little bit dumber.


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 alextroy wrote:
Random Charge Distances and Overwatch were a rules reaction to allowing players to premeasure distances at any time. Premeasuring allows player to guarantee a charge was possible (I am within 6" of you after I move, charge time) or impossible (I am more than your move + 6" away from you at the end of my move, you can't charge me next turn).

Here's the chain of thought.

1. You don't want to exclude people from the game based on their ability to estimate distances visually. Some people have disabilities that prevent that. Some of us just suck at it.

2. You don't want the ability to premeasure at any time to allow players to guarantee avoiding being charged.

I disagree.

Not every hobby is for every person. If you can't judge a handspan on a tabletop, you're probably not interested in miniature wargaming. If you suck at judging a simple ruler's worth of distance, you played a lot of versions of 40k instead of 7th or earlier WFB.

Having to judge how far away you were from an enemy unit before declaring a charge was literally the meat-and-bones of WFB for 7 editions. Maybe 8, I forget if you were allowed to pre-measure in 8, I played it for so short a time. AoS is 40k with WFB minis. It's dumbed-down garbage. When I want to play 40k, I'll play 40k. Otherwise, I'll play Oldhammer.

Sorry if this sounds harsh, but I'm against the complete homogenization of my wargames. I like them to be different in some meaningful way. Otherwise, what's the point?

 Kagetora wrote:


It's pretty much this. ++Saves cover for a lot of missing rules. Right up until you get to the "Devastating/Mortal Wounds" stuff. Does a Daemon or a Harlequin really care what weapon is being shot/swung at them? Not really, unless it's maybe a Blast weapon in the case of the Space Elf Murder Clown Hobos. Those would ignore the Holofield, yet don't, in any edition I can think of. Or Blessed/Holy weapons in the case of Daemons.

Why? Too complex for the smoothbrains at GW to grab onto. It wouldn't really require much more than a single line in each unit's roster. "The Holofield Save may always be taken, except against weapons with the Blast characteristic." Or, "The Daemonic Invulnerable Save may always be taken, except against Blessed or Holy attacks." Then put "Blessed" or "Holy" in certain unit's weapon stats. Sisters, Gray Knights, etc.

Boom. Done. Those units now ignore DW/MW except in certain circumstances. Then, DON'T give those specific units FNP on top of everything, unless it's a super-special-secret-squirrel unit, like, say the Solitaire or something equivalent in the Daemon lists.

Why doesn't GW do this sort of thing? Because they're not smart enough to write coherent rulesets, but they are smart enough to understand if they make the rules significantly different between every edition or every other edition, you buy more models.

Complexity dies with every new edition. FFS, just look at what happened to WFB. Or 40k from RT through today. It's crazy.

That's not to say each edition is bad, or not fun, or a gak game, but, each edition is a little bit dumber.

Since your brain is apparently more wrinkly and the game and seemingly other players are too dumb for you, here's the very obvious issues with your solutions:

Typically expensive elite harelquin infantry are now incredibly survivable against say custodes whose lower volume of attacks means they cant handle them any more, but get wiped with a boring level of regularity by guardsmen with grenade launchers.

Daemons are essentially worthless against 2 armies of the game but incredibly hard to handle by the rest. This cannot be adequately balanced, as their only defensive layer being situationally removed en mass is terrible game design.

 alextroy wrote:
That leads us to today, where overwatch cost a CP and is rarely worth bothering to pay the cost. It would be more functional rules-wise if units were just better during the first round of combat because everyone is firing their guns as they charge or are charged.

I disagree. Overwatch is probably one of them most used stratagems in my games and those playing in my crusade. If a unit has a decent amount of shots and it's highly effective against a running unit past/at them, the main concern for using overwatch is whether there is a more valuable unit to overwatch or if you need that CP for another stratagem later that turn.

I have had flash gits shred my charging helbrute in overwatch and I'm regularly losing buggies to Leman Russ Demolishers overwatching them. If there is a unit with high AP, 3 damage weapons, no one will deep strike unit of terminators next to them more than once.
Of course, there is no point in using overwatch against a unit that you are not good at hurting. But at that time, you're really just wasting time by fishing for sixes.

There a lot of things you can say about overwatch as a stratagem, but being worthless is not one of them.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Hellebore wrote:
IMO you need to go back to basics and decide what each army or faction's concepts are, and then build rules around them, rather than trying to make them fit the ever decreasingly complex core rules.

I'll harp on it until the day I die, but a feature of all eldar factions was their 'speed=defence', they used being hard to hit to make them more survivable than their statline would otherwise suggest.

But if the game's only mechanism of resilience is T,W,Sv, there are no rules to use to represent that concept.

I think this problem is not just about core rules.

The issue with old editions was that for eldar it was not just speed equals defense but also speed equaled damage and movement and armor penetration and initiative and close combat skill. They also had powerful psykers and technology to mitigate their weaknesses.

In the end, it was an army that was pretty much good at everything, which made them dominate many editions. Fast eldar units being extremely hard to kill had a big part in that.

I firmly believe that turning craftworld eldar into glass cannons was a conscious decision by the design team, and not an oversight.

 PenitentJake wrote:
I think the thought behind overwatch is that it would be stupid to stand there with a gun and do nothing while a close combat monster charges in to tear you to pieces.

Clearly, 40k is not a "total simulation game" - but I think in any discussion of overwatch, it's important to come back to the thing it represents before settling on a mechanic.

If it's more simulation, overwatch doesn't make sense on a timing sense because the turns simulate passage in time (with each turn absatracting unknowns and uncertainties somewhat), though maybe if they sacrifice their shooting phase for it (and you have to declare which unit you will overwatch when you do it).

 alextroy wrote:
Random Charge Distances and Overwatch were a rules reaction to allowing players to premeasure distances at any time. Premeasuring allows player to guarantee a charge was possible (I am within 6" of you after I move, charge time) or impossible (I am more than your move + 6" away from you at the end of my move, you can't charge me next turn).

Here's the chain of thought.

1. You don't want to exclude people from the game based on their ability to estimate distances visually. Some people have disabilities that prevent that. Some of us just suck at it.

2. You don't want the ability to premeasure at any time to allow players to guarantee avoiding being charged.

3. So you instead add ambiguity to charges by randomizing the distance. They settled on 2d6 being the Charge range, probably because of the bell curve of distance it gives and the simplicity of the roll.

4. Now there needs to be a downside to allowing units to charge unto 12 inches, so they resurrected the name overwatch and gave your opponent an opportunity to avoid a charge. Back in 6th, casualties were taken from the closed models to the firing unit, so charges could be pushed out of range by an effective round of Overwatch.

Now this became a total time sink as unit after unit fired overwatch at units attacking them. Then GW had the brilliant idea to allow Tau units to fire overwatch for their neighbors, making it that much worst!

That leads us to today, where overwatch cost a CP and is rarely worth bothering to pay the cost. It would be more functional rules-wise if units were just better during the first round of combat because everyone is firing their guns as they charge or are charged.

For random charges, maybe they should do the sane thing and put charging back into the movement phase and use something like M+2K1 (2D6, keep one), then giving charged targets reactions.

 Hellebore wrote:
IMO you need to go back to basics and decide what each army or faction's concepts are, and then build rules around them, rather than trying to make them fit the ever decreasingly complex core rules.

I'll harp on it until the day I die, but a feature of all eldar factions was their 'speed=defence', they used being hard to hit to make them more survivable than their statline would otherwise suggest.

But if the game's only mechanism of resilience is T,W,Sv, there are no rules to use to represent that concept.

So things like daemons, is an invuln a good representation, or just the best you can use given the limitations of the system?


Starting with the what and then determining the best representation for that will create better outcomes. Either that or you push further down the abstraction route and just ignore the meanings of the stats and use them for their mechanics - ie all eldar are W2 because the first wound they lose is a 'graze' to represent their speed.

For daemons, they are not wholly corporeal, so they sometimes just don't get struck, or they don't really suffer any damage if they do. So what if they had a 'Warp save' which was applied to hits rather than wounds? Just an example of how you can find different ways to represent the concepts that might better reflect what they actually are. Another idea might be that daemons can only ever suffer 1 damage from an attack, regardless of its damage value, because they just don't interact with it the same way as a corporeal creature. Only psychic key words or daemonic keywords inflict normal damage.

Easy solution: Re-introduce the Initiative stat, and make it the stat BS compares against (like how S compares with Toughness).

Gotta love all those "Just introduce a mechanic with massive problems from the past. That will solve everything!" posts without any further elaboration

 Jidmah wrote:

 alextroy wrote:
That leads us to today, where overwatch cost a CP and is rarely worth bothering to pay the cost. It would be more functional rules-wise if units were just better during the first round of combat because everyone is firing their guns as they charge or are charged.

I disagree. Overwatch is probably one of them most used stratagems in my games and those playing in my crusade. If a unit is a decent amount of shots and it's highly effective against a unit past them, the main concern for using overwatch is whether there is a more valuable unit to overwatch or if you need that CP for another stratagem later that turn.

I have had flash gits shred my charging helbrute in overwatch and I'm regularly losing buggies to Leman Russ Demolishers overwatching them. If there is a unit with high AP, 3 damage weapons, no one will deep strike unit of terminators next to them more than once.
Of course, there is no point in using overwatch against a unit that you are not good at hurting. But at that time, you're really just wasting time by fishing for sixes.

There a lot of things you can say about overwatch as a stratagem, but being worthless is not one of them.

Agreed Jidmah- not to mention blast weapons which don't need to roll to hit, unit abilities or strats that augment overwatch, miracle dice for specials, and weapons that force break trests working out of turn, overwatch is pretty sweet.

 Jidmah wrote:

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 Hellebore wrote:
IMO you need to go back to basics and decide what each army or faction's concepts are, and then build rules around them, rather than trying to make them fit the ever decreasingly complex core rules.

I'll harp on it until the day I die, but a feature of all eldar factions was their 'speed=defence', they used being hard to hit to make them more survivable than their statline would otherwise suggest.

But if the game's only mechanism of resilience is T,W,Sv, there are no rules to use to represent that concept.

I think this problem is not just about core rules.

The issue with old editions was that for eldar it was not just speed equals defense but also speed equaled damage and movement and armor penetration and initiative and close combat skill. They also had powerful psykers and technology to mitigate their weaknesses.

In the end, it was an army that was pretty much good at everything, which made them dominate many editions. Fast eldar units being extremely hard to kill had a big part in that.

I firmly believe that turning craftworld eldar into glass cannons was a conscious decision by the design team, and not an oversight.

And again, agreed. Because Hellebore doesn't like strats and unit rules, they forget about the speed as defense options they offer to many units, as well as core rules like stealth or lone operative, and even some of the new battle focus special moves. Many of these things feel speedier and are less problematic than a "fix by statline" approach. Yes, always getting to hit first and being harder to hit do represent speed, but they don't feel as fast as reactive moves.

Amen. Chasing Eldar around the board with DG for four turns without ever getting into rapid fire range feels way more speedy than indestructible wave serpents and windriders tanking whole mobs of orks without any damage ever did.

 alextroy wrote:
Here's the chain of thought.

1. You don't want to exclude people from the game based on their ability to estimate distances visually. Some people have disabilities that prevent that. Some of us just suck at it.

2. You don't want the ability to premeasure at any time to allow players to guarantee avoiding being charged.

'No premeasuring' can die in the same fire as Guess range weapons; I'm here to play a wargame, not exploit the use of 12" terrain tiles or skills that have nothing to do with my generalship. But why is allowing players to guarantee avoiding being charged a problem? We allow players to guarantee avoiding being shot (fixed ranges), and we allow players to guarantee getting out of LOS (fixed movement). Having an opponent sit 12.1" away so you can't charge them isn't any different from the enemy sitting 16.1" away so they can shoot you but your meltaguns won't reach.

Overwatch as a balancing mechanism for random charge ranges, to discourage going for every 12" charge, doesn't even work evenly. If I'm looking at a unit with no credible shooting, I'm still going to try for that hail mary roll. If you wanted to discourage that behavior, having a failed charge cause some detriment to the charger would be the better way to go.

Or just fold charging into movement and be done with it, rather than treating it as separate bonus movement. Works pretty well in OPR's Grimdark Future- move 6" and shoot, move 12" and don't shoot, or move 12" as a charge into melee.

 catbarf wrote:

 alextroy wrote:
Here's the chain of thought.

1. You don't want to exclude people from the game based on their ability to estimate distances visually. Some people have disabilities that prevent that. Some of us just suck at it.

2. You don't want the ability to premeasure at any time to allow players to guarantee avoiding being charged.

'No premeasuring' can die in the same fire as Guess range weapons; I'm here to play a wargame, not exploit the use of 12" terrain tiles or skills that have nothing to do with my generalship. But why is allowing players to guarantee avoiding being charged a problem? We allow players to guarantee avoiding being shot (fixed ranges), and we allow players to guarantee getting out of LOS (fixed movement). Having an opponent sit 12.1" away so you can't charge them isn't any different from the enemy sitting 16.1" away so they can shoot you but your meltaguns won't reach.

Agreed entirely.

Though I'd add, too, that since random charge distances were introduced, we've also seen a lot of abilities, powers, stratagems etc. that allow for additional movement in one form or other.

Thus, depending on what army you're against, it can be quite tricky to place a unit just out of charge distance without still leaving it open to charges if the right power/ stratagem/whatever is used.

How would you define a fixed charge distance?

Move characteristic? 6"? 8"?

 Tyran wrote:
How would you define a fixed charge distance?

Move characteristic? 6"? 8"?

Charging used to be just double your movement, or fixed 6" or 12" regardless of movement, depending on edition.

 Daba wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
How would you define a fixed charge distance?

Move characteristic? 6"? 8"?

Charging used to be just double your movement, or fixed 6" or 12" regardless of movement, depending on edition.

I prefer double movement, because I always thought it was kinda dumb when a drug fueld sprint-master 9000 Dark Eldar could blaze across the tabletop like the Flash high on methamphetamine, but couldn't move more than 6" when it came to entering close combat.

 Quixote wrote:

 Daba wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
How would you define a fixed charge distance?

Move characteristic? 6"? 8"?

Charging used to be just double your movement, or fixed 6" or 12" regardless of movement, depending on edition.

I prefer double movement, because I always thought it was kinda dumb when a drug fueld sprint-master 9000 Dark Eldar could blaze across the tabletop like the Flash high on methamphetamine, but couldn't move more than 6" when it came to entering close combat.

When was it double? I'm sure it was either 6" and movement was 6" (even for said druggies), or moved to 6" move and 2d6 charge in 6th/7th. My brain only goes as far back as 3rd though.

 Daba wrote:
Easy solution: Re-introduce the Initiative stat, and make it the stat BS compares against (like how S compares with Toughness).

While I'd be happy to see Initiative come back to determine combat order, I'd rather see an Evasion stat to compare BS to - high I should not always equal high E, and vice versa.


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Dudeface wrote:
When was it double? I'm sure it was either 6" and movement was 6" (even for said druggies), or moved to 6" move and 2d6 charge in 6th/7th. My brain only goes as far back as 3rd though.

I'd need to find books to confirm, but I believe it was in RT & 2nd edition.

Of course, at that point the baseline infantry speed was 4"...

In terms of Charge distance, any thoughts on models having extra distance at the cost of not shooting?

e.g. normal charge move = a unit's movement value (M).

If the unit didn't shoot, it can instead Charge 1.5x M (or maybe 2x M?).

 vipoid wrote:
In terms of Charge distance, any thoughts on models having extra distance at the cost of not shooting?

e.g. normal charge move = a unit's movement value (M).

If the unit didn't shoot, it can instead Charge 1.5x M (or maybe 2x M?).

I feel that might be too much on today's economy. A zerker doesn't give a rats ass about his bolt pistol but an assured 30" charge with jugger lord in the unit? Sure.

How about a stratagem that allows a unit to fall back when charged instead of shooting overwatch... that might be fun.

 Dysartes wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
When was it double? I'm sure it was either 6" and movement was 6" (even for said druggies), or moved to 6" move and 2d6 charge in 6th/7th. My brain only goes as far back as 3rd though.

I'd need to find books to confirm, but I believe it was in RT & 2nd edition.

Of course, at that point the baseline infantry speed was 4"...

Yah, 2nd ed it was double. But the game framework was different too. You didn't move, shoot, and then move again to assault. You declared a charge in your movement phase, foregoing shooting, and moved double your movement characteristic to launch forward into base contact before moving on to the shooting phase. Humans/Marines/Orks had a move of 4, most Eldar 5, and most Tyranids 6!

3rd ed ironically allowed *everyone to assault as fast as a 2nd ed Nid, because *everyone got a move of 6, and then a subsequent Assault move of 6.

*Typical baseline units.


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 Quixote wrote:
How about a stratagem that allows a unit to fall back when charged instead of shooting overwatch... that might be fun.

"Run awaaaay!"

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Quixote wrote:
How about a stratagem that allows a unit to fall back when charged instead of shooting overwatch... that might be fun.

"Run awaaaay!"

Running away? No, Commissar, we were, um, performing a retrograde advance to a more advantageous position. Very complicated and longstanding tactical maneuver. Definitely needed a Command Point to perform, and well worth the investment.

Ye olde "tactical retreat"

Anyone remember the Purity Seals wargear bit from 3rd/4th ish? Allowing you to roll an extra D6 for Fallback and pick your results? I used to annoy the *#$! outta my friends with that one. Always pulling away from combat and repositioning to re-engage more optimally, or just Rapid Fire into the assaulting unit left out in the open. "Run away faster" wargear

Then in 5th there was a rule for UM or Space Marines or something where you could always choose to fail a morale check too. "K thx byeeee!"

 Quixote wrote:
How about a stratagem that allows a unit to fall back when charged instead of shooting overwatch... that might be fun.

We have quite a few of those in armies/detachments where they make sense. Dread mob gretchin even leave a squig mine behind for you to step on. For fans of character-centric rules, Mortarion can order a nearby deathguard unit to fall back when someone gets too close to them.

IIRC Custodes even had a stratagem that allowed you "overwatch-charge" a unit, but I'm not sure it made it to the current codex.

 vipoid wrote:
In terms of Charge distance, any thoughts on models having extra distance at the cost of not shooting?

e.g. normal charge move = a unit's movement value (M).

If the unit didn't shoot, it can instead Charge 1.5x M (or maybe 2x M?).

Sounds like the old Fleet USR. In 4th it was forego shooting and move an additional D6 in the shooting phase. Then in 5th it became Run which anyone could do and then Fleet was modified to allow charging after running.

So in the current environment it would look like M+D6+2D6 charge range. Banshees with up to 26" charge range (average 18.5)"? Yes, please.

Dudeface wrote:

 Kagetora wrote:


It's pretty much this. ++Saves cover for a lot of missing rules. Right up until you get to the "Devastating/Mortal Wounds" stuff. Does a Daemon or a Harlequin really care what weapon is being shot/swung at them? Not really, unless it's maybe a Blast weapon in the case of the Space Elf Murder Clown Hobos. Those would ignore the Holofield, yet don't, in any edition I can think of. Or Blessed/Holy weapons in the case of Daemons.

Why? Too complex for the smoothbrains at GW to grab onto. It wouldn't really require much more than a single line in each unit's roster. "The Holofield Save may always be taken, except against weapons with the Blast characteristic." Or, "The Daemonic Invulnerable Save may always be taken, except against Blessed or Holy attacks." Then put "Blessed" or "Holy" in certain unit's weapon stats. Sisters, Gray Knights, etc.

Boom. Done. Those units now ignore DW/MW except in certain circumstances. Then, DON'T give those specific units FNP on top of everything, unless it's a super-special-secret-squirrel unit, like, say the Solitaire or something equivalent in the Daemon lists.

Why doesn't GW do this sort of thing? Because they're not smart enough to write coherent rulesets, but they are smart enough to understand if they make the rules significantly different between every edition or every other edition, you buy more models.

Complexity dies with every new edition. FFS, just look at what happened to WFB. Or 40k from RT through today. It's crazy.

That's not to say each edition is bad, or not fun, or a gak game, but, each edition is a little bit dumber.

Since your brain is apparently more wrinkly and the game and seemingly other players are too dumb for you, here's the very obvious issues with your solutions:

Typically expensive elite harelquin infantry are now incredibly survivable against say custodes whose lower volume of attacks means they cant handle them any more, but get wiped with a boring level of regularity by guardsmen with grenade launchers.

Daemons are essentially worthless against 2 armies of the game but incredibly hard to handle by the rest. This cannot be adequately balanced, as their only defensive layer being situationally removed en mass is terrible game design.

You're correct, in a way. You're also very wrong.

First, the person I was responding to was asking for more variety/fluff-based rules, as the game used to have. Not better balance. So I made a couple suggestions. Were they great? No. They were off the top of my head as I was stream-of consciousness typing last night in a hotel room in Butte. How about this? Same setup, Daemons and Harlies always get the Inv save, but Blessed/Holy and Blast weapons get the Devastating Wounds rule against them automatically. Better? Now GK and Sister's weapons ignore Daemonic Saves when they get a Critical Wound, and anything Blast does the same to the Clowns. I mean, at least I'm spitballing things here. What are you doing?

Second, this is 40k. It's never been balanced, and there are always bad matchups when it comes to every edition. There's what? 27 factions? Maybe a bit less if you just lump all the Marines together under "Marines." A quick look at Wahapedia shows 25 listings under "Factions." I mean, look back on earlier editions and the insanity of some of the issues in them.

That's literally impossible to balance. I'm not even bashing GW for the imbalances, because it would take an AI Quantum Supercomputer to figure out "balance," and "fair matchups" across the board. I'll give GW some credit, at least they're sort of trying, in their usual half-assed way, by altering points values every so often determined by tournament data.

If you want balance and fair match-ups, there are other games to play. Wargods (mostly) comes to mind, maybe 30k since everyone is a Marine...I'm sure there are others. 40k isn't, and never will be, balanced or fair. 25+ Factions, 1000+ individual Datasheets for the little plastic models we put on a tabletop. And, if it isn't going to be balanced or fair, why not a little spice with some fluff-based rules, like before?

As long as we avoid the "Speedy Eldar Defense" thing everyone is talking about. I remember the days where if I got to go first, Wave Serpents with Holo-Fields and Spirit Stones were all but immortal. And if you didn't go first, you just picked them up unless by some miracle there was enough terrain out there to hide them from every Missile Laucher or Lascannon after your opponent got to move their models to get LoS. With the Reserve rules as they are, we should probably avoid anything similar.

there are many ways to represent speed=defence and yet again most people here complaining about it throw the baby out with the bathwater. the concept is fine even if the implementation isn't great.

Which is true of strategems too. I never said I think they shouldn't exist, I only asked what they were actually doing in the game as they are currently designed. What value does their current design of resource managing special rules have, and why are they arbitrary in their useage, from wargear to skills.


40k has had strategy cards of some kind since the 90s, the implementation has just changed.

I am personally not a big fan of the resource managing, gamification combo style of play that the CURRENT strategem paradigm uses, because it leans too much into gameism over simulation. That's not an objectively better thing to be, it's just my preference.

Kagetora wrote:

 alextroy wrote:
Random Charge Distances and Overwatch were a rules reaction to allowing players to premeasure distances at any time. Premeasuring allows player to guarantee a charge was possible (I am within 6" of you after I move, charge time) or impossible (I am more than your move + 6" away from you at the end of my move, you can't charge me next turn).

Here's the chain of thought.

1. You don't want to exclude people from the game based on their ability to estimate distances visually. Some people have disabilities that prevent that. Some of us just suck at it.

2. You don't want the ability to premeasure at any time to allow players to guarantee avoiding being charged.

I disagree.

Not every hobby is for every person. If you can't judge a handspan on a tabletop, you're probably not interested in miniature wargaming. If you suck at judging a simple ruler's worth of distance, you played a lot of versions of 40k instead of 7th or earlier WFB.

Having to judge how far away you were from an enemy unit before declaring a charge was literally the meat-and-bones of WFB for 7 editions. Maybe 8, I forget if you were allowed to pre-measure in 8, I played it for so short a time. AoS is 40k with WFB minis. It's dumbed-down garbage. When I want to play 40k, I'll play 40k. Otherwise, I'll play Oldhammer.

Sorry if this sounds harsh, but I'm against the complete homogenization of my wargames. I like them to be different in some meaningful way. Otherwise, what's the point?

Your opinion is yours, but GW's opinion is the rules

Daba wrote:

 alextroy wrote:

Spoiler:

Random Charge Distances and Overwatch were a rules reaction to allowing players to premeasure distances at any time. Premeasuring allows player to guarantee a charge was possible (I am within 6" of you after I move, charge time) or impossible (I am more than your move + 6" away from you at the end of my move, you can't charge me next turn).

Here's the chain of thought.

1. You don't want to exclude people from the game based on their ability to estimate distances visually. Some people have disabilities that prevent that. Some of us just suck at it.

2. You don't want the ability to premeasure at any time to allow players to guarantee avoiding being charged.

3. So you instead add ambiguity to charges by randomizing the distance. They settled on 2d6 being the Charge range, probably because of the bell curve of distance it gives and the simplicity of the roll.

4. Now there needs to be a downside to allowing units to charge unto 12 inches, so they resurrected the name overwatch and gave your opponent an opportunity to avoid a charge. Back in 6th, casualties were taken from the closed models to the firing unit, so charges could be pushed out of range by an effective round of Overwatch.

Now this became a total time sink as unit after unit fired overwatch at units attacking them. Then GW had the brilliant idea to allow Tau units to fire overwatch for their neighbors, making it that much worst!

That leads us to today, where overwatch cost a CP and is rarely worth bothering to pay the cost. It would be more functional rules-wise if units were just better during the first round of combat because everyone is firing their guns as they charge or are charged.

For random charges, maybe they should do the sane thing and put charging back into the movement phase and use something like M+2K1 (2D6, keep one), then giving charged targets reactions.

I a perfect world for me, they would look strongly at Kill Team when it comes to the turn structure and unit actions. If you wanted to stay closer to current 40K rules, I'd move the Charges into the Movement Phase and give it the same distance as Advance, Move + 1d6 + Modifiers. Any units you want to have long charges could be given Positive Charge Modifiers. I would also remove the failed Charge doesn't move, just force the unit to move as close a possible to the target unit but apply some negative to a failed charge (how about free Overwatch by the target unit?). Finally, I'd allow the Charging unit to fire its Pistols at the Charged Unit in the Shooting Phase. Much better than the current rules where so many Assault units carry Pistols they never fire in anger!

 alextroy wrote:
Your opinion is yours, but GW's opinion is the rules

You're not wrong, but if you took a poll of people older than 30, who played wargames like WFB where you had to maneuver and judge distances to be successful, I'd bet SOLID money they'd agree something fundamental was lost with adding another pathetic 2d6 roll to the game to determine the outcome randomly. Oh well. The past doesn't matter, right? Only the shiny new thing the latest generation grew up with.

 Kagetora wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

 Kagetora wrote:


It's pretty much this. ++Saves cover for a lot of missing rules. Right up until you get to the "Devastating/Mortal Wounds" stuff. Does a Daemon or a Harlequin really care what weapon is being shot/swung at them? Not really, unless it's maybe a Blast weapon in the case of the Space Elf Murder Clown Hobos. Those would ignore the Holofield, yet don't, in any edition I can think of. Or Blessed/Holy weapons in the case of Daemons.

Why? Too complex for the smoothbrains at GW to grab onto. It wouldn't really require much more than a single line in each unit's roster. "The Holofield Save may always be taken, except against weapons with the Blast characteristic." Or, "The Daemonic Invulnerable Save may always be taken, except against Blessed or Holy attacks." Then put "Blessed" or "Holy" in certain unit's weapon stats. Sisters, Gray Knights, etc.

Boom. Done. Those units now ignore DW/MW except in certain circumstances. Then, DON'T give those specific units FNP on top of everything, unless it's a super-special-secret-squirrel unit, like, say the Solitaire or something equivalent in the Daemon lists.

Why doesn't GW do this sort of thing? Because they're not smart enough to write coherent rulesets, but they are smart enough to understand if they make the rules significantly different between every edition or every other edition, you buy more models.

Complexity dies with every new edition. FFS, just look at what happened to WFB. Or 40k from RT through today. It's crazy.

That's not to say each edition is bad, or not fun, or a gak game, but, each edition is a little bit dumber.

Since your brain is apparently more wrinkly and the game and seemingly other players are too dumb for you, here's the very obvious issues with your solutions:

Typically expensive elite harelquin infantry are now incredibly survivable against say custodes whose lower volume of attacks means they cant handle them any more, but get wiped with a boring level of regularity by guardsmen with grenade launchers.

Daemons are essentially worthless against 2 armies of the game but incredibly hard to handle by the rest. This cannot be adequately balanced, as their only defensive layer being situationally removed en mass is terrible game design.

You're correct, in a way. You're also very wrong.

First, the person I was responding to was asking for more variety/fluff-based rules, as the game used to have. Not better balance. So I made a couple suggestions. Were they great? No. They were off the top of my head as I was stream-of consciousness typing last night in a hotel room in Butte. How about this? Same setup, Daemons and Harlies always get the Inv save, but Blessed/Holy and Blast weapons get the Devastating Wounds rule against them automatically. Better? Now GK and Sister's weapons ignore Daemonic Saves when they get a Critical Wound, and anything Blast does the same to the Clowns. I mean, at least I'm spitballing things here. What are you doing?

That's still not a good suggestion as it still disproportionately makes some matches wonkier than others. I get you're not aiming for balance, but I'd still rather have a fair game than get lumbered with near auto wins/losses in the name of flavour. You'd be better off pairing an army rules where if Daemons and their counterparts meet, there's a buff/weakness trade off for them both of some variety. Have the dev wounds but in return the daemons get movement bonuses due to being enraged by their presence or something.

The important part of it is the attitude. Your tone is one of dismissive superiority with no evidence to back it up.

Second, this is 40k. It's never been balanced, and there are always bad matchups when it comes to every edition. There's what? 27 factions? Maybe a bit less if you just lump all the Marines together under "Marines." A quick look at Wahapedia shows 25 listings under "Factions." I mean, look back on earlier editions and the insanity of some of the issues in them.

That's literally impossible to balance. I'm not even bashing GW for the imbalances, because it would take an AI Quantum Supercomputer to figure out "balance," and "fair matchups" across the board. I'll give GW some credit, at least they're sort of trying, in their usual half-assed way, by altering points values every so often determined by tournament data.

This bit however I do agree with, which is why I gwt annoyed when the hubris fuelled die hards brand anything not hyper efficient as "unplayable". Perfect balance is unobtainable, but something not being in a position to leverage the factions best possible win rate isn't by extension worthless.

A lot more people could do with returning their mindset to having a game as a fun time filler with friends rather than a sport.

Enjoy the hotel.

 Hellebore wrote:
there are many ways to represent speed=defence and yet again most people here complaining about it throw the baby out with the bathwater. the concept is fine even if the implementation isn't great.

That's not what I said. I said that removing speed=defense is a conscious design decision because frankly, speed is already one of the most powerful things in the game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kagetora wrote:
Second, this is 40k. It's never been balanced, and there are always bad matchups when it comes to every edition. There's what? 27 factions? Maybe a bit less if you just lump all the Marines together under "Marines." A quick look at Wahapedia shows 25 listings under "Factions." I mean, look back on earlier editions and the insanity of some of the issues in them.

That's literally impossible to balance. I'm not even bashing GW for the imbalances, because it would take an AI Quantum Supercomputer to figure out "balance," and "fair matchups" across the board.

I hate to break it to you, but 10th edition is largely considered to be balanced, and data supports that. Sure, new rules cause ripples, but GW tends to iron those out rather quickly.
All but one of the 28 factions we currently have at least one archetype that can compete, and the one that isn't is imperial agents, an ally faction. Even the best armies are sitting at ~55% which would barely have qualified as tier 2 in 7th edition. Match-ups between factions vary between 40-60%, were in every oldhammer edition completely unwinnable matchups were the norm.
Today we are talking about archetypes, not "lists". Because in the past, despite (or because of) the FOC, players were running one specific list to win, deviating from that list was considered handicapping yourself. Today, even the worst codices allow players to chose between multiple options, even GT winners running the same archetype often look completely different, never the same.
Speaking of, a good number of well-written codices have multiple well-performing archetypes, especially in less competitive setting, where in old hammer having two lists revolving around the same core of powerful units was already a rare thing.
Spamming the bestest thing as often as you can is mostly a thing of the past. Almost all top placing armies use a wide array of units, often bringing just one or two of any given datasheet to gain more synergy and options. Outside of extremely limited factions like WE or Knights, units that are spammed are either dedicated transports or basic infantry.
The overwhelming majority of competitive armies actually look like "real" armies. Infantry is an essential tool to win the game, despite no one rules explicitly forcing players to bring specific things, they still do.

TL;DR: You're wrong. GW has proven that 40k is not impossible to balance, and there is data to prove it.

 Jidmah wrote:

Spoiler:

 Hellebore wrote:
there are many ways to represent speed=defence and yet again most people here complaining about it throw the baby out with the bathwater. the concept is fine even if the implementation isn't great.

That's not what I said. I said that removing speed=defense is a conscious design decision because frankly, speed is already one of the most powerful things in the game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kagetora wrote:
Second, this is 40k. It's never been balanced, and there are always bad matchups when it comes to every edition. There's what? 27 factions? Maybe a bit less if you just lump all the Marines together under "Marines." A quick look at Wahapedia shows 25 listings under "Factions." I mean, look back on earlier editions and the insanity of some of the issues in them.

That's literally impossible to balance. I'm not even bashing GW for the imbalances, because it would take an AI Quantum Supercomputer to figure out "balance," and "fair matchups" across the board.

I hate to break it to you, but 10th edition is largely considered to be balanced, and data supports that. Sure, new rules cause ripples, but GW tends to iron those out rather quickly.
All but one of the 28 factions we currently have at least one archetype that can compete, and the one that isn't is imperial agents, an ally faction. Even the best armies are sitting at ~55% which would barely have qualified as tier 2 in 7th edition. Match-ups between factions vary between 40-60%, were in every oldhammer edition completely unwinnable matchups were the norm.
Today we are talking about archetypes, not "lists". Because in the past, despite (or because of) the FOC, players were running one specific list to win, deviating from that list was considered handicapping yourself. Today, even the worst codices allow players to chose between multiple options, even GT winners running the same archetype often look completely different, never the same.
Speaking of, a good number of well-written codices have multiple well-performing archetypes, especially in less competitive setting, where in old hammer having two lists revolving around the same core of powerful units was already a rare thing.
Spamming the bestest thing as often as you can is mostly a thing of the past. Almost all top placing armies use a wide array of units, often bringing just one or two of any given datasheet to gain more synergy and options. Outside of extremely limited factions like WE or Knights, units that are spammed are either dedicated transports or basic infantry.
The overwhelming majority of competitive armies actually look like "real" armies. Infantry is an essential tool to win the game, despite no one rules explicitly forcing players to bring specific things, they still do.

TL;DR: You're wrong. GW has proven that 40k is not impossible to balance, and there is data to prove it.

I'm with you here, though I'd add that many vehicles apparently are in a bad spot. Ork buggies, SM tanks you name it.
Since this thread is about improvements to the game in general, what would you do to help vehicles? Is it a pure codex thing or do they need help in the base rules?

 vipoid wrote:
In terms of Charge distance, any thoughts on models having extra distance at the cost of not shooting?

e.g. normal charge move = a unit's movement value (M).

If the unit didn't shoot, it can instead Charge 1.5x M (or maybe 2x M?).

Shooting and charging should just be made mutually exclusive. It could even help cut down the phases and just have charge put into the movement phase (just make it 2D6 + Movement + whatever extra distance the unit would need to have), make them all done before normal moves. I

If a unit *must* have shooting before combat, just let them shoot their opponents during the shooting phase as long as they have the special rules/traits to do so during the relevant times (e.g. if they charged this turn, or always, or if they didn't charge this turn).