Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:
No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.
If you are already a member then feel free to login now.
2025/11/04 23:06:32
Subject: Would You Still Play 40k if they adopted the AoS Combat System?
An Ogre Irongut swinging its Great Weapon does D3. If it’s just walloped some W1 rubes? That’s three going splat.
From a Cinema Of The Mind perspective, that’s wonderful. Huge, powerful swings absolutely buttering smaller beings.
It's just moved the attacks value to the damage value instead though. This is allowing 1 hit/wound to cause 3 hits. I'm not sure that's better than the maths requiring 3 hit rolls with damage 1 each. If it at least required you to roll to wound the additional targets that would be something, but it collapses all the uncertainty from multiple hit and wound rolls into a single roll generating a huge outcome.
So I only have the 9th GK book. I thought I had 9th and 10th Ksons, but right now I can only find my 10th ed; some of the campaign books had psychic rules, but I'm not so sure I'm down for that much of a deep dive just to post about it.
Some of the 10th Crusade stuff for Ksons is pretty cool- high power rewards that allow you to choose two targets for powers instead of one on a high enough roll are common, and provide on in-battle choice related to the psychic test, and this can effect both buffs or offensive powers.
But 10th is out of scope for the conversation, so I didn't go deep.
As for 9th ed GK, it's worth noting that there where TWO psychic disciplines plus dedicated Brotherhood psychic abilities, and yes... That's a list building choice BUT:
Wardmakers had a strat that let them do a game long swap of a Dominus power they didn't know for Any power they did- cool, because it gave units that did not normally HAVE access to Dominus powers a way to use them... But once you use it, it lasts the whole game.
They also had a Warlord trait that made their psychic powers immune to Deny the Witch provided the psychic test was passed and the roll was unmodified 8+.
Another Generic Strat allowed a Paladin unit to swap a Santic power it didn't know for any power it did.
There was a generic strat to roll three dice for the test and pick two.
There was a generic stat to extend the range of a power.
There was a strat for Captains to grant +1 to tests of any psychic unit with 6 inches.
There was a strat that let you manifest an additional power.
Not all of these affect or are affected by the psychic roll, but they are all in-game choices with opportunity costs that enrich the psychic environment of the game.
There was a relic that made Deny the Witch succeed on an 8+ and another that made any enemy unit with 18 inches suffer Perils on any double, and a third that prevented units within 9 inches from ever suffering perils.
Now yes, those relics are CHOSEN at list building, but which units they affected was an in-game choice determined by positioning.
There was a Chaplain power that added one to psychic tests made by units within 6 inches and another that allowed one unit with 6 inches to cancel the effect of an enemy psychic power and be immune to psychic powers for the remainder of the phase.
There was another effect that allowed you to cat a power more than once, but each time you did it added one to the psychic test- I saw it the first time through the book, but damned if I can find it a second time, so I don't know if it was from a strat, a warlord trait, a relic or crusade relic.
The generic psychic fortitudes for crusade were cast an extra power, make and extra Deny or know an extra power.
The GK psychic fortitudes were cooler- one let a psyker measure the range for a power her was casting from an allied psychic unit with 12 inches rather than from himself.
Another added one to a characters strength for the remainder of the turn if it successfully manifested any powers in the psychic phase.
Another allowed a psychic unit to do a mortal to any unit that tried to Deny one of its powers.
Obviously, not all of these are what people are looking for- I know people want generic psychic phase rules that provide some variety and flexibility to the generic casting rules.
But all of these abilities do add complexity to the psychic environment, and well many of them are CHOSEN during list building, actually USING them once they are chosen does involve positioning and opportunity costs, etc.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2025/11/05 02:59:28
2025/11/05 07:51:44
Subject: Would You Still Play 40k if they adopted the AoS Combat System?
An Ogre Irongut swinging its Great Weapon does D3. If it’s just walloped some W1 rubes? That’s three going splat.
From a Cinema Of The Mind perspective, that’s wonderful. Huge, powerful swings absolutely buttering smaller beings.
I hate it, because it removes a possible lever for balance and player choice. It makes figuring out the best weapon purely a case of maths rather than thinking about the profile of likely targets, the general popularity of 1-wound or multi-wound units and it means there's no concept of trying to deal with a big scary melee unit that deals 3 damage per swing with a horde of little critters.
It's one of the reasons I wish GW would expand the range of stats on melee weapons in 40k. Everything's in this really narrow range of D1-3, S4-8, A3-4 and AP1-2. Quite often Damage, AP and S all increase together, too. Why not something like A2, S9, AP0 D4? Or any number of combinations that might work? Flawless Blades were an awful unit on release. They got an update to make them thoroughly OK. That update literally added 1 Attack. I'd have pushed for a completely different damage profile. Give them fewer attacks but a big damage number. Then they need to go hunting big, worthy targets but are comparatively less good at killing units of 1-2W infantry. Unfortunately, for these ideas to work GW would likely have to massively scale back on the number of Invulnerable saves.
2025/11/05 08:08:05
Subject: Would You Still Play 40k if they adopted the AoS Combat System?
So I only have the 9th GK book. I thought I had 9th and 10th Ksons, but right now I can only find my 10th ed; some of the campaign books had psychic rules, but I'm not so sure I'm down for that much of a deep dive just to post about it.
Some of the 10th Crusade stuff for Ksons is pretty cool- high power rewards that allow you to choose two targets for powers instead of one on a high enough roll are common, and provide on in-battle choice related to the psychic test, and this can effect both buffs or offensive powers.
But 10th is out of scope for the conversation, so I didn't go deep.
As for 9th ed GK, it's worth noting that there where TWO psychic disciplines plus dedicated Brotherhood psychic abilities, and yes... That's a list building choice BUT:
Wardmakers had a strat that let them do a game long swap of a Dominus power they didn't know for Any power they did- cool, because it gave units that did not normally HAVE access to Dominus powers a way to use them... But once you use it, it lasts the whole game.
They also had a Warlord trait that made their psychic powers immune to Deny the Witch provided the psychic test was passed and the roll was unmodified 8+.
Another Generic Strat allowed a Paladin unit to swap a Santic power it didn't know for any power it did.
There was a generic strat to roll three dice for the test and pick two.
There was a generic stat to extend the range of a power.
There was a strat for Captains to grant +1 to tests of any psychic unit with 6 inches.
There was a strat that let you manifest an additional power.
Not all of these affect or are affected by the psychic roll, but they are all in-game choices with opportunity costs that enrich the psychic environment of the game.
There was a relic that made Deny the Witch succeed on an 8+ and another that made any enemy unit with 18 inches suffer Perils on any double, and a third that prevented units within 9 inches from ever suffering perils.
Now yes, those relics are CHOSEN at list building, but which units they affected was an in-game choice determined by positioning.
There was a Chaplain power that added one to psychic tests made by units within 6 inches and another that allowed one unit with 6 inches to cancel the effect of an enemy psychic power and be immune to psychic powers for the remainder of the phase.
There was another effect that allowed you to cat a power more than once, but each time you did it added one to the psychic test- I saw it the first time through the book, but damned if I can find it a second time, so I don't know if it was from a strat, a warlord trait, a relic or crusade relic.
The generic psychic fortitudes for crusade were cast an extra power, make and extra Deny or know an extra power.
The GK psychic fortitudes were cooler- one let a psyker measure the range for a power her was casting from an allied psychic unit with 12 inches rather than from himself.
Another added one to a characters strength for the remainder of the turn if it successfully manifested any powers in the psychic phase.
Another allowed a psychic unit to do a mortal to any unit that tried to Deny one of its powers.
Obviously, not all of these are what people are looking for- I know people want generic psychic phase rules that provide some variety and flexibility to the generic casting rules.
But all of these abilities do add complexity to the psychic environment, and well many of them are CHOSEN during list building, actually USING them once they are chosen does involve positioning and opportunity costs, etc.
Which all kind of highlights the problems more. Firstly, the psychic phase was so poorly integrated into the game as a whole, only very specific armies got anything added that affected it. If you played Necrons or Tau you basically just sat there and got hammered by MW for the entire game with no way to interact at all. It's some of the least fun times I've had playing 40k. GK and TS were just terrible play experiences for the most part because of the limitations of the psychic phase.
Mainly, though, that list contains a host of non-choices or laughably useless abilities. Not able to Deny the Witch if I roll high enough that you wouldn't have tried anyway? Brilliant! I think in the entirety of 8th and 9th I probably Denied a grand total of 10 powers. Rolling extra dice is a classic example of an always-use strat that requires no real forethought at all. That also highlighs one of my problems with strats that are integral to an army. All they actually do is force players to keep CP aside to use them. There's really not much strategy or choice there. The system didn't even allow for proper scaling. WH had a built-in limit with the way Winds of Magic worked, that allowed more powerful wizards to feel powerful, but prevented them from being spammed because eventually you just ran out of dice to cast. So you had to think about the trade-off between power, flexibility and efficiency at army construction and you had to manage your resources in the magic phase. The increasing cost of a power you mention were the basic rules for Smite. Every psyker could take Smite and it had a rule allowing it to be cast by multiple casters per phase because at the start of 8th it needed that otherwise armies with more than 1 psyker would run out of powers to cast (did I mention how poorly implemented the whole psychic phase was?) Instead of getting rid of the most boring power in the game once armies got access to their own disciplines, they stapled on a handbrake to its power that didn't really do much because it was cast on a 5+, so the first three casts were pretty much fine. I played against Nids often enough that I saw multiple attempts at 10+ Smites because the system was so mindless there was no reason not to attempt them.
2025/11/05 08:21:45
Subject: Would You Still Play 40k if they adopted the AoS Combat System?
I think the reason melee profiles tend to gravitate to a certain profile is that they need to work on most (all?) things.
With ranged weapons and free split fire you can position and shoot what you want. With assault you've got to get across the board and successfully make a charge. You can fail. You can be screened. You can be shot or counter charged on the way over. If you make your way through all that then find "woops, these don't work on this target" then the unit has too many fail states to be successful.
Maybe this is something you can solve by points, but a unit that can chop 90% of targets is just better than one that's only good into say 20%.
Since it's all sequential you can to a degree manipulate the inputs but the outputs need to be broadly similar.
2025/11/05 09:15:36
Subject: Would You Still Play 40k if they adopted the AoS Combat System?
I think that's a solvable problem, and it comes back to giving players agency, IMO. Melee has to be more destructive than shooting because it's harder to get there in the first place, but I think there's still room to expand the range of possible profiles. For example, right now very few things are really good into vehicles or monsters without anti-vehicle, lethal hits or absurd level of bonuses that make them ridiculous at killing everything. I don't think it's a problem to have a melee unit that specialises at killing larger, tougher targets with 3+ wounds. Having units that are pretty good into everything makes the game worse.
I think the ease with which units can just leave combat is part of the problem as well. If you could actually lock units in combat you could have additional trade-offs with putting sub-optimal melee units into an enemy to pin them even if you're not going to kill them quickly. With everyone being able to just fall back and leave the melee unit exposed you have situations where you have to kill your target in one phase or it's just not worth it.
2025/11/05 13:41:40
Subject: Would You Still Play 40k if they adopted the AoS Combat System?
[DCM]
Chief Deputy Sub Assistant Trainee Squig Handling Intern
One of the main advantages of HTH is you get to dish out some damage in both player turns. Shooting, typically, can’t. And of course, unless the rules have changed? Once you’re engage in fisticuffs, ranged units can shoot into it.
We saw the game skewed heavily in HTH’s favour in 3rd ed. Melee dedicated armies got speedy, and could comfortably be knocking heads by turn 2. From there? They could follow up or overrun into combat after combat after combat, ending up well insulated from ranged attacks. Too insulated. Blood Angels were notoriously dull to face, as they had very few problems getting into Melee incredibly swiftly, and once there it was pretty much game over for an army that wasn’t itself melee centred.
Black Templars likewise. Cheaper ablative wounds in their squads, and if you shot them up, they may end up running toward you even faster.
So, there does need to be a balance. I’ve no problem with devastating combat or shooting units, provided the underlying rules provide me with at least a chance, and don’t heavily encourage speccing into just one.
Fed up of Scalpers? But still want your Exclusives? Why not join us?
LunarSol wrote: The problem there though is points are a stat all of their own and you will NEVER pay for a better pistol. It's just way too niche of a choice. That's always been the problem with wargear points and very much what min/maxing is all about. You strip every bit of extraneous wargear to buy more generic bodies with generic stuff. I personally think the game is better when sergeants have cool pistols they never use over generic pistols they also never use. It's not like the generic pistols are gone from the game. It's just what you see on the grunts.
I'm not sure I agree. In 10th, I'm constantly wishing I could fill in my remaining points with some upgrades rather than dropping whole units to finagle my list into a decent shape that doesn't a ton of extra points unspent. Using something like the devastator approach in my previous post, I think people trying to build optimized lists would basically end up with a lot of units that look like 10th edition units sans the sergeant upgrades, but then they'd have the option to go through and spend those last 30 points unlocking power weapons and special guns on their sergeants, etc.
A blast pistol in my drukhari isn't very impressive, but it's probably impressive enough for me to spend 5 or 10 points upgrading a hekatrix to have it and a power weapon rather than a splinter pistol and hekatarii blade.
An Ogre Irongut swinging its Great Weapon does D3. If it’s just walloped some W1 rubes? That’s three going splat.
From a Cinema Of The Mind perspective, that’s wonderful. Huge, powerful swings absolutely buttering smaller beings.
I hate it, because it removes a possible lever for balance and player choice. It makes figuring out the best weapon purely a case of maths rather than thinking about the profile of likely targets, the general popularity of 1-wound or multi-wound units and it means there's no concept of trying to deal with a big scary melee unit that deals 3 damage per swing with a horde of little critters.
It's one of the reasons I wish GW would expand the range of stats on melee weapons in 40k. Everything's in this really narrow range of D1-3, S4-8, A3-4 and AP1-2. Quite often Damage, AP and S all increase together, too. Why not something like A2, S9, AP0 D4? Or any number of combinations that might work? Flawless Blades were an awful unit on release. They got an update to make them thoroughly OK. That update literally added 1 Attack. I'd have pushed for a completely different damage profile. Give them fewer attacks but a big damage number. Then they need to go hunting big, worthy targets but are comparatively less good at killing units of 1-2W infantry. Unfortunately, for these ideas to work GW would likely have to massively scale back on the number of Invulnerable saves.
Inclined to agree. I like having weapons that are good at killing tanks without also being particularly good at clearing squads of guardsmen or even marines. A lascannon with AoS's rules is basically an anti-horde weapon in addition to being an anti-big-things weapons.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Which all kind of highlights the problems more. Firstly, the psychic phase was so poorly integrated into the game as a whole, only very specific armies got anything added that affected it. If you played Necrons or Tau you basically just sat there and got hammered by MW for the entire game with no way to interact at all. It's some of the least fun times I've had playing 40k. GK and TS were just terrible play experiences for the most part because of the limitations of the psychic phase.
To play devil's advocate, I think the crux of the issue there was mortal wounds; not necessarily the lack of reactions/interactions in the psychic phase. Not everyone had a reactive strat they could use when being shot at in the shooting phase, and we were all kind of fine with that. Mortal wounds are the same concept, but with the extra sting that they bypassed the defensive stats and rules you'd invested in (Stealth, Toughness, saves).
Fundamentally, there isn't really a huge difference between a set of rules that lets zoanthropes do an average of X damage to you in the shooting phase vs X damage to you in the psychic phase. Both require the 'thropes get in range, have line of sight, and succeed on some rolls on their end. The big difference was just that they did X damage without having to care about the durability stats of the things they were hurting.
Not saying you're doing this, but I do think a lot of people get hung up on psychic attacks formerly being in the psychic phase and somehow end up feeling like they're entitled to more interaction with that phase than they do with, for instance, the shooting phase.
"I'm taking damage in the shooting phase, and I don't have any stratagems or special rules that let me interact with this incoming volley of shots? Well, that's fine. That's simply not a thing my army does."
"I'm taking damage in the psychic phase and don't have any stratagems or special rules that let me interact with this incoming volley of mind bullets? Absurd. What terrible game design."
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2025/11/05 17:12:12
ATTENTION. Psychic tests are unfluffy. Your longing for AV is understandable but misguided. Your chapter doesn't need a separate codex. Doctrines should go away. Being a "troop" means nothing. This has been a cranky service announcement. You may now resume your regularly scheduled arguing.
2025/11/05 22:19:05
Subject: Would You Still Play 40k if they adopted the AoS Combat System?
There's some truth in what you say about the psychic phase. There are some fundamental differences, though. MW are the main problem. Combined with being able to freely target any models, it made psychic attacks uniquely annoying to deal with and it represented a fundamental difference to other types of attacks. Against any other attack I could use my positioning or defensive stats to attempt to stay alive. That just didn't work against psychic attacks. In most cases there was literally no defence, so in a very real sense they were fundamentally different.
2025/11/05 22:25:52
Subject: Would You Still Play 40k if they adopted the AoS Combat System?
It has been a minute, but I think most mortal wound generating psychic powers still required line of sight, right? So you'd still factor in positioning in that your distance from the psyker and your ability to hide behind terrain would both still matter.
ATTENTION. Psychic tests are unfluffy. Your longing for AV is understandable but misguided. Your chapter doesn't need a separate codex. Doctrines should go away. Being a "troop" means nothing. This has been a cranky service announcement. You may now resume your regularly scheduled arguing.
2025/11/07 00:44:57
Subject: Would You Still Play 40k if they adopted the AoS Combat System?
Wyldhunt wrote: It has been a minute, but I think most mortal wound generating psychic powers still required line of sight, right? So you'd still factor in positioning in that your distance from the psyker and your ability to hide behind terrain would both still matter.
Yep. And most had ranges too... Though those ranges could be manipulated through strats/ relics/ WL Traits/ Battle Honours etc.
Also, Psyker Characters couldn't join units to get ablative wounds the way they can now.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2025/11/07 00:46:22
2025/11/07 01:00:05
Subject: Would You Still Play 40k if they adopted the AoS Combat System?
Wyldhunt wrote: It has been a minute, but I think most mortal wound generating psychic powers still required line of sight, right? So you'd still factor in positioning in that your distance from the psyker and your ability to hide behind terrain would both still matter.
Yep. And most had ranges too... Though those ranges could be manipulated through strats/ relics/ WL Traits/ Battle Honours etc.
Also, Psyker Characters couldn't join units to get ablative wounds the way they can now.
When you couldn't target them unless they were the closest, the distinction is pretty minimal.
Clocks for the clockmaker! Cogs for the cog throne!
2025/11/07 11:42:00
Subject: Would You Still Play 40k if they adopted the AoS Combat System?
Wyldhunt wrote: It has been a minute, but I think most mortal wound generating psychic powers still required line of sight, right? So you'd still factor in positioning in that your distance from the psyker and your ability to hide behind terrain would both still matter.
Yep. And most had ranges too... Though those ranges could be manipulated through strats/ relics/ WL Traits/ Battle Honours etc.
Also, Psyker Characters couldn't join units to get ablative wounds the way they can now.
When you couldn't target them unless they were the closest, the distinction is pretty minimal.
They were easier to target then than they are now.
She/Her
"There are no problems that cannot be solved with cannons." - Chief Engineer Boris Krauss of Nuln
Kid_Kyoto wrote:"Don't be a dick" and "This is a family wargame" are good rules of thumb.
Wanting some deep interaction in the psychic phase does feel like a reach given how there isn't one for shooting and not much of one for combat.
"40k but its Infinity" could be interesting, but its miles away from where we are or have ever been.
With that said, I feel the decision of "these factions get psykers, these don't" was just bad. I'd argue today Necron Crypteks are basically pyskers. Tau Ethereals could be too, although they moved away from that in 10th. DE could have got "effectively psyker powers" through all sorts of mechanisms - even if its just Haemis running around with mad evil science etc.
2025/11/08 16:10:22
Subject: Would You Still Play 40k if they adopted the AoS Combat System?
That's the way they went in OPR: C'tan, Ethereals, Haemunculi, all effectively psykers.
Personally I didn't really get the complaint about psychic phases as in 40K you had Tau with their very own markerlight phase instead of psychic phase, you had C'tan with psychic powers in all but name, you had Daemons not participating in the shooting phase, so the whole complaint of: not everybody has psykers didn't really bother me, as not every army has shooters, not every army does CC, and with the nature of IGOUGO until 8th you had extreme downtimes anyway. 8th at least made the CC phase more interesting in that both sides could do something and you couldn't just walk away from the table as you could in th 3rd to 7th framework.
2025/11/08 19:23:15
Subject: Would You Still Play 40k if they adopted the AoS Combat System?
I wonder if we're conflating "does not do x well" with "cannot do x" here. I won't claim encyclopedic knowledge, but IIRC there were only ever a handful of units that couldn't pick up a rock and fish for 6s in CC. Shooting is a bit closer to "cannot do", as a number of units didn't have guns, but the number of factions that didn't have shooting options was much smaller, making it as much a choice on the player's part during listbuilding as anything (and many CC units did still come with guns; one could, again, always say a prayer and fish for 6s if necessary). Contrast that with psychic, where spells could bypass normal rules/defenses, some factions not just didn't have psykers but per lore couldn't have psykers (effectively locking them out of a Psychic Phase, barring the introduction of lore-breaking units/wargear that might feel bad to take), and a much more binary unit choice (you either brought psykers/anti-psyker wargear or you didn't take part), and I don't think it's all that unusual for the have-nots to enjoy the Psychic Phase less than the have-nots for shooting/CC.
2025/11/08 20:18:51
Subject: Would You Still Play 40k if they adopted the AoS Combat System?
waefre_1 wrote: I wonder if we're conflating "does not do x well" with "cannot do x" here. I won't claim encyclopedic knowledge, but IIRC there were only ever a handful of units that couldn't pick up a rock and fish for 6s in CC. Shooting is a bit closer to "cannot do", as a number of units didn't have guns, but the number of factions that didn't have shooting options was much smaller, making it as much a choice on the player's part during listbuilding as anything (and many CC units did still come with guns; one could, again, always say a prayer and fish for 6s if necessary). Contrast that with psychic, where spells could bypass normal rules/defenses, some factions not just didn't have psykers but per lore couldn't have psykers (effectively locking them out of a Psychic Phase, barring the introduction of lore-breaking units/wargear that might feel bad to take), and a much more binary unit choice (you either brought psykers/anti-psyker wargear or you didn't take part), and I don't think it's all that unusual for the have-nots to enjoy the Psychic Phase less than the have-nots for shooting/CC.
If I've chosen to play a faction that couldn't participate in a phase (notably Psychic) then I've also decided that I'm OK with that. Otherwise why would I have spent the $$?
2025/11/08 20:20:34
Subject: Would You Still Play 40k if they adopted the AoS Combat System?
Tyel wrote: Wanting some deep interaction in the psychic phase does feel like a reach given how there isn't one for shooting and not much of one for combat.
I mean, I'd quite like to have some interaction in those phases, too.
blood reaper wrote: I will respect human rights and trans people but I will never under any circumstances use the phrase 'folks' or 'ya'll'. I would rather be killed by firing squad.
the_scotsman wrote: Yeah, when i read the small novel that is the Death Guard unit options and think about resolving the attacks from a melee-oriented min size death guard squad, the thing that springs to mind is "Accessible!"
Argive wrote: GW seems to have a crystal ball and just pulls hairbrained ideas out of their backside for the most part.
You're not. If you're worried about your opponent using 'fake' rules, you're having fun the wrong way. This hobby isn't about rules. It's about buying Citadel miniatures.
Please report to your nearest GW store for attitude readjustment. Take your wallet.
2025/11/08 20:43:35
Subject: Would You Still Play 40k if they adopted the AoS Combat System?
Tyel wrote: Wanting some deep interaction in the psychic phase does feel like a reach given how there isn't one for shooting and not much of one for combat.
The problem with the psychic phase in 8th and 9th is that it basically just spammed MW. Shooting and melee work on the core rules where defensive stats are actually useful, so the "interactions" here are with the S/T AP/Save and D/W stats. Psykers just got around that with an avalanche of MW that left you feeling like you weren't participating at all. Psykers also got around the targeting protection that characters had in those editions. It's not so much about a lack of interaction, but more about just bypassing most of the core rules.
2025/11/09 00:02:04
Subject: Would You Still Play 40k if they adopted the AoS Combat System?
vipoid wrote: I mean, I'd quite like to have some interaction in those phases, too.
Its a fair desire. But I can't see them fundamentally changing the game that way.
I think I made this point years ago - but I think a lot of people (and me sometimes) want this complicated game of manoeuvre and counter manoeuvre - and its layers and layers of strategy all the way down.
But 40k is more "I have a big hammer. You have a big hammer. We are going to swing at each other 5 times, and someone's going to fall over".
2025/11/09 00:07:44
Subject: Would You Still Play 40k if they adopted the AoS Combat System?
vipoid wrote: I mean, I'd quite like to have some interaction in those phases, too.
Its a fair desire. But I can't see them fundamentally changing the game that way.
I think I made this point years ago - but I think a lot of people (and me sometimes) want this complicated game of manoeuvre and counter manoeuvre - and its layers and layers of strategy all the way down.
But 40k is more "I have a big hammer. You have a big hammer. We are going to swing at each other 5 times, and someone's going to fall over".
Which is great for armies who are thematically aligned with that like Orks marines and necrons.
But try to play an army that does anything more sophisticated and either their rules are declared unfun when they win in a non hammer way, or they just don't compete and fall over.
Sgt. Cortez wrote:That's the way they went in OPR: C'tan, Ethereals, Haemunculi, all effectively psykers.
Personally I didn't really get the complaint about psychic phases as in 40K you had Tau with their very own markerlight phase instead of psychic phase, you had C'tan with psychic powers in all but name, you had Daemons not participating in the shooting phase, so the whole complaint of: not everybody has psykers didn't really bother me, as not every army has shooters...
This. As someone who plays tau (sorta) and 'crons and drukhari, I've never understood this weird sense of entitlement that non-psychic army players sometimes had. Like, tau players understand that the fight phase isn't really for them. And half the time, the psychic phase was just when I was distributing the buffs that marines and other armies had on automatically all the time. No one was demanding they should get a Deny the Commander roll to turn off a chapter master's rerolls, you know?
I feel like people kind of got trained by 6th edition onward to feel like they should always have a chance of randomly turning off psychic powers for some reason even if there's not a friendly psyker or psychic null or bit of blackstone in sight.
Slipspace wrote:
Tyel wrote: Wanting some deep interaction in the psychic phase does feel like a reach given how there isn't one for shooting and not much of one for combat.
The problem with the psychic phase in 8th and 9th is that it basically just spammed MW. Shooting and melee work on the core rules where defensive stats are actually useful, so the "interactions" here are with the S/T AP/Save and D/W stats. Psykers just got around that with an avalanche of MW that left you feeling like you weren't participating at all. Psykers also got around the targeting protection that characters had in those editions. It's not so much about a lack of interaction, but more about just bypassing most of the core rules.
Yep. This is a thing I often point out when people complain about not being able to do stuff in the psychic phase. Most of the time, the thing they are or should be mad at is mortal wounds; not the fact that they don't get to randomly jam the enemy's psychic guns or whatever. When a plasma gun chunks its way through your tank, you at least feel like your Toughness and Save stats were factors in the equation. If the tank dies despite those stats, it is what it is: a dice game. But when mortals kill a tank (even if your opponent was spending similar points to do similar damage compared to that plasma squad), suddenly it feels worse because those toughness and save stats you invested in weren't part of the conversation.
Being mad at the psychic phase for not letting you deny the witch is like being mad at the markerlight phase for not letting you make a Jam the Gun roll.
Hellebore wrote:But try to play an army that does anything more sophisticated and either their rules are declared unfun when they win in a non hammer way, or they just don't compete and fall over.
Forever a little bit salty that jump-shoot-jump stopped being a big part of the game because non-xenos couldn't be bothered to maneuver their models or utilize reserves. (Kidding. Mostly.)
ATTENTION. Psychic tests are unfluffy. Your longing for AV is understandable but misguided. Your chapter doesn't need a separate codex. Doctrines should go away. Being a "troop" means nothing. This has been a cranky service announcement. You may now resume your regularly scheduled arguing.
2025/11/09 07:42:16
Subject: Would You Still Play 40k if they adopted the AoS Combat System?
Imo the aspect of a psychic type of attack that's interesting to have as a unique feature is its reactive or unique targeting.
That doesn't mean others can't use the same concept for different things, like drone reaction times/speeds or ctan powers.
It's more making them distinct from just shooting and adding a new type of dimension to the game that psychic abilities fit into alongside other special actions
Sgt. Cortez wrote:That's the way they went in OPR: C'tan, Ethereals, Haemunculi, all effectively psykers.
Personally I didn't really get the complaint about psychic phases as in 40K you had Tau with their very own markerlight phase instead of psychic phase, you had C'tan with psychic powers in all but name, you had Daemons not participating in the shooting phase, so the whole complaint of: not everybody has psykers didn't really bother me, as not every army has shooters...
This. As someone who plays tau (sorta) and 'crons and drukhari, I've never understood this weird sense of entitlement that non-psychic army players sometimes had. Like, tau players understand that the fight phase isn't really for them. And half the time, the psychic phase was just when I was distributing the buffs that marines and other armies had on automatically all the time. No one was demanding they should get a Deny the Commander roll to turn off a chapter master's rerolls, you know?
I feel like people kind of got trained by 6th edition onward to feel like they should always have a chance of randomly turning off psychic powers for some reason even if there's not a friendly psyker or psychic null or bit of blackstone in sight.
Indeed. The pendulum just swinged (swung?) back after 6/7th edition where psychic powers outside of a selective game deciding few where basically special effects, but worse and with more dice rolling.
In 6th/7th, you rolled on a random table which power you got on your psyker. Then you rolled for random amount of psychic points every round. Then you rolled for casting. Then you had a (99.9% of times unsuccessful) deny the witch role. And if it was a witchcraft I think you then rolled the whole shooting process for some D6 attacks with AP5 crap that resulted in a dead grot and SOULBLAZE on the unit (if you don't know what that is, look it up. Probably the most pointless of special rules in the history of 40K and symptomatic for the 6th/7th edition bloat).
As a nurgle player I would usually go through all the hassle to put some "gets hot!" on the weapons of an opposing unit. Meanwhile Tau had a prototype system that did the exact same thing - just with no rolling at all IIRC. More often than not Chaos psychic powers were just special rules with additional rolling that the non-psychic faction just got through other means automatically(warlord traits, upgrades whatever). But 5th to 7th were dark times for Chaos anyway if you didn't want to play Greater Daemons only, so maybe it's unfair to take them as the measuring stick.
All that being said I liked the 8th/9th psychic process, but I wouldn't have minded if many of the mortal wound powers wouldn't have been straight mortals but following S/T/save system. I mean, there were tables floating around with the maths showing that in most cases the basic smite with its D3 mortals was better than all the nonsense faction specific powers (Don't just roll a D3, instead roll 6D6 and every 6 does a mortal, ooh, how creative and totally different!)
2025/11/10 15:13:32
Subject: Would You Still Play 40k if they adopted the AoS Combat System?
I really don't need or want a psychic phase, but I'd like psychic powers to be more impactful. The main issue with them in 10th is a lot of them are indistinguishable from Strategems or just basic leaderships. Da Jump is a proper psychic ability Sustained Hits 1 is not.
I think there's a lot of ways to make Psykers cooler without putting a phase around it. They just need to give their abilities some identity much like how CP bonuses define "commanders" currently.
2025/11/10 23:28:22
Subject: Would You Still Play 40k if they adopted the AoS Combat System?
Sgt. Cortez wrote:
All that being said I liked the 8th/9th psychic process, but I wouldn't have minded if many of the mortal wound powers wouldn't have been straight mortals but following S/T/save system. I mean, there were tables floating around with the maths showing that in most cases the basic smite with its D3 mortals was better than all the nonsense faction specific powers (Don't just roll a D3, instead roll 6D6 and every 6 does a mortal, ooh, how creative and totally different!)
Yeah. Mostly agree. I still don't *love* psychic tests because librarians and sorcerers failing to put up a forcefield or shoot a lightning bolt when they try to do so just isn't really a thing in the lore/novels. I'd rather it be either a succeed/succeed more mechanic or a succeed-but-you-have-to-manage-stress-like-battle-tech-heat system.
But just taking 9th's approach and ditching 90% of the mortal wound powers for something more flavorful and 7th-edition-shaped would have been a big improvement.
LunarSol wrote:I really don't need or want a psychic phase, but I'd like psychic powers to be more impactful. The main issue with them in 10th is a lot of them are indistinguishable from Strategems or just basic leaderships. Da Jump is a proper psychic ability Sustained Hits 1 is not.
I think there's a lot of ways to make Psykers cooler without putting a phase around it. They just need to give their abilities some identity much like how CP bonuses define "commanders" currently.
I can mostly get behind that sentiment. Craftworlders are my main army, so dice manipulation like dice/roll manipulation does fit our fate manipulation/precognition shtick. But I get that eldar are a bit of an exception in that regard, and there are plenty of psychic powers out there that could be more flashy and flavorful. Even for eldar, old Mind War was a leadership roll-off that did damage based on the difference in your rolls which meant it was good for bullying low-leadership units but less reliable against units lead by characters (who tended to have decent leadership.) The modern version is just a psychic sniper rifle. The old mechanic required more explanation/non-standard mechanics, but it also told more of a story with those mechanics. Heck. Eldritch Storm used to let me pick up the enemy tanks and literally spin them around. The modern version is a useful gun, but it's *just* a gun.
ATTENTION. Psychic tests are unfluffy. Your longing for AV is understandable but misguided. Your chapter doesn't need a separate codex. Doctrines should go away. Being a "troop" means nothing. This has been a cranky service announcement. You may now resume your regularly scheduled arguing.
2025/11/10 23:34:36
Subject: Would You Still Play 40k if they adopted the AoS Combat System?
I'd love to see ALL Characters have a couple of ability options.
But Psykers could choose theirs at start of game, instead of in list-building. Gives them a bit of extra flexibility.
Clocks for the clockmaker! Cogs for the cog throne!
2025/11/10 23:44:27
Subject: Would You Still Play 40k if they adopted the AoS Combat System?
I'd take it a step further and just make choosing from a list of abilities each turn the norm for psykers (but rare for most other units). Let a librarian choose 2 of 3 things each turn: Put up a forcefield, shoot lightning at people, or buff his squad with precognition or whatever. That's a simple, minimal bookkeeping way to convey the idea that a psyker has a bunch of tricks but can only do so many things at a time.
It was always a little weird to me that a librarian had to forget how to put up a forcefield one game so he learn how to telekinetically toss a rock the next back when powers were generated pregame ala 7th. My farseer should probably know how to see the future *and* shoot lightning *and* lash out telepathically (Mind War).
ATTENTION. Psychic tests are unfluffy. Your longing for AV is understandable but misguided. Your chapter doesn't need a separate codex. Doctrines should go away. Being a "troop" means nothing. This has been a cranky service announcement. You may now resume your regularly scheduled arguing.
