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I'm upset that in modern 40K ever since 8th edition, a direction a unit is facing makes literally zero mechanical difference. At the same time though, I feel the old Armor Value System from 7th edition is a bit unwieldy. So how about a compromise?

Certain vehicles, mainly tanks and APCs, can have the Sloped keyword. If a unit has a sloped keyword, the following is true. Whatever they were attacked, the direction the vehicle was facing and the direction the attacking unit is facing matters. It determines where the shots are hit. If the front of the vehicle is hit. The damage of each Unsaved wound is reduced by 1 to a minimum of one. If the rear, top or bottom of the unit is hit. The damage of all unsaved wounds are increased by one. Side hits do normal damage. This way, flanking units and airborne units are better at dealing with vehicles. While vehicles are overall more durable against frontal assaults. This also makes holding the high ground more valuable.

Another idea I had are are hemispheric units. A unit with the Hemispheric keyword can only target enemy units within 180 degrees of it, both vertically and horizontally. The hemisphere keyword mainly appears on sentries and other stationary or slow moving units. Such units can be cheaper to compensate for the downside.

Honestly I think the problem with facings is terrain and scale. Back when the biggest thing you might generally encounter was a Carnifex or Predator tank - it wasn't too hard to have a good bit of terrain and move things around and have facings be important.

However today we've got baneblades, knights and more. Things that have increasingly bigger bases and that makes it all the more tricky to have armour facings work (and weapon ones too) as the table gets more cluttered.

I think a 180 hemisphere of front/back wouldn't be too bad and would work well for tanks and even bigger models.

It's simplistic, but also practical and gives you a good range of angles you can move something into physically without having to sacrifice too much control or having to give up on terrain etc...

Facing seem to be a mechanic people like a lot more in theory than practice. I think it sounds cool and exciting, but the inherent need for play and counterplay creates more gotcha and micromanagement moments than intentionally interesting decisions.

First of all, I like this a lot more than AV. Playing around with the damage values seems like a decent way to reward positioning without making vehicles literally immune to small arms fire and strength 3 attacks.

Second, this proposal *does* run into all the usual problems armor facing proposals usually do in terms of figuring out where the various facings begin and end. Especially on xenos vehicles that aren't just imperial rectangles. Especially if people have modeled them to have wonky, dynamic poses or asymmetrical silhouettes. Especially if you're also adding in an element of verticality that wasn't present in past editions.

While I like where your head is at by wanting to reward the verticality, I think I'd scrap the notion of "tops" and "bottoms" of vehicles entirely. I'd also probably get rid of the notion of side armor and pitch the suggestion that we usually land on in these discussions:

Place a rectangular marker against the hull of a vehicle each time it moves. If the attacking model is closer to the marker than the vehicle, it is considered to be attacking the vehicle's front armor.

Now, your proposal calls for both front and rear armor, which complicates things a bit, so the above suggestion would have to be tweaked a bit. Just know that these discussions usually end in people abandoning the idea of side armor entirely because it's a daunting task to codify exactly where side armor begins and ends for the reasons I mentioned above.

Third, this idea *does* risk really, really hurting some vehicles. Something like a venom would be at risk of dying from 3 measley bolter rounds, for instance. But I suppose the solution there is to just not give those vehicles the sloped rule.

Fourth, and this is a super subjective nitpick, I think you need a better name than "sloped."

 Wyldhunt wrote:
First of all, I like this a lot more than AV. Playing around with the damage values seems like a decent way to reward positioning without making vehicles literally immune to small arms fire and strength 3 attacks.

Second, this proposal *does* run into all the usual problems armor facing proposals usually do in terms of figuring out where the various facings begin and end. Especially on xenos vehicles that aren't just imperial rectangles. Especially if people have modeled them to have wonky, dynamic poses or asymmetrical silhouettes. Especially if you're also adding in an element of verticality that wasn't present in past editions.

While I like where your head is at by wanting to reward the verticality, I think I'd scrap the notion of "tops" and "bottoms" of vehicles entirely. I'd also probably get rid of the notion of side armor and pitch the suggestion that we usually land on in these discussions:

Place a rectangular marker against the hull of a vehicle each time it moves. If the attacking model is closer to the marker than the vehicle, it is considered to be attacking the vehicle's front armor.

Now, your proposal calls for both front and rear armor, which complicates things a bit, so the above suggestion would have to be tweaked a bit. Just know that these discussions usually end in people abandoning the idea of side armor entirely because it's a daunting task to codify exactly where side armor begins and ends for the reasons I mentioned above.

Third, this idea *does* risk really, really hurting some vehicles. Something like a venom would be at risk of dying from 3 measley bolter rounds, for instance. But I suppose the solution there is to just not give those vehicles the sloped rule.

Fourth, and this is a super subjective nitpick, I think you need a better name than "sloped."

Thanks for the feedback. I agree that determining where the front, side, and rear arcs begin on certain vehicles—especially the more alien or unusually shaped ones—can get messy. Your marker idea helps a lot with that. If a unit is closer to the marker, it counts as hitting the front arc and deals reduced damage; if it’s closer to the actual hull, it counts as the side or rear and uses the increased damage profile. That feels intuitive and avoids arguments about weird silhouettes.

I used the word slope as a nod to real-world sloped armor. The keyword would only appear on vehicles that visually suggest different armor thicknesses across their hull. So mostly tanks and APCs—things like the Leman Russ Battle Tank or a Rhino would definitely qualify. Jetbikes and similar units wouldn’t have it

 LunarSol wrote:
Facing seem to be a mechanic people like a lot more in theory than practice. I think it sounds cool and exciting, but the inherent need for play and counterplay creates more gotcha and micromanagement moments than intentionally interesting decisions.

IMO it should be part of all unit play, not just vehicles. How it's resolved for infantry vs vehicles can be different. but 360 noscoping every unit is dull.

Use a facing ruler, 6" long and place it perpendicularly touching the base of a model in the unit. That's the direction they are facing (you can turn the squad leader to face that way and have them act as a marker if you want, or have a line running through their base that shows the forward arc). Set it when they choose a target to shoot. Now anything that attacks in the rear facing inflicts additional modifiers to battleshock tests, or crits on 5+s, or any number of other things.

For vehicles you reduce damage if the attack targets the front facing.

Stuff like that. Positioning your units is a highly important part of war and being caught in crossfires, attacked from behind etc, all act to damage unit function.

Thanks for the feedback. I agree that determining where the front, side, and rear arcs begin on certain vehicles—especially the more alien or unusually shaped ones—can get messy. Your marker idea helps a lot with that. If a unit is closer to the marker, it counts as hitting the front arc and deals reduced damage; if it’s closer to the actual hull, it counts as the side or rear and uses the increased damage profile. That feels intuitive and avoids arguments about weird silhouettes.

That feels close to a good solution, but it still only gives you two facings: front and not-front. So if you want your mechanic to provide bonus damage when hitting a weak side and reduced damage when shooting the front, you either end up *never* using the normal damage value of an attack, or you have to come up with a way to differentiate between front, rear, and side.

Putting a matching "rear armor" marker on the opposite side of a model from where you place the "front armor" marker could work, but it potentially gets weird with certain silhouettes, and it means you're moving two counters every time you move a vehicle model.

That's muckin' about.

Bounding box across the entire hull, straight 45 degree lines from the corners, done.

For least intrusive minimalist tool, all you need is this.

Place parallel to the front or rear or the vehicle depending where the attacker is.

Funny but only xenos vechicles and knights really have any sloped armor cause imperium's all just a bricks. Like idea in general, I'll add no modifiers/rerols on side armour since on most vechicles it's all screened or they to fast to shoot perpendicular movement's path. And full damage for rear armour

lord_blackfang wrote:That's muckin' about.

Bounding box across the entire hull, straight 45 degree lines from the corners, done.

Except you'd have to figure out where the corners are on something like a wave serpent. Are the rear corners to the sides of the engines or at the rear-most part near the transport bay hatch? And how does that work on an ork buggy that someone posed so that it's at a weird angle with a wheel off the ground because it looked cool? Or the battle wagon where someone modeled it to have a wonky asymmetrical silhouette? Or the tau suit or knight where they posed the model such that the torso is turned to the side meaning the legs are facing in a different direction than the upper half of the model?

Hellebore wrote:For least intrusive minimalist tool, all you need is this.

Place parallel to the front or rear or the vehicle depending where the attacker is.

Works great if you only need to figure out where a single important facing is. If they want to distinguish between rear and front and side, however, they'd need rules on placing a second marker. Not sure how tricky that would be off the top of my head. You could maybe just have them put the centers of the markers on opposite sides of the model, but I suspect that ends up with wonky interactions. Like, if you put the "front" marker of a wave serpent towards the actual front of the model along the left wing, at a / angle, then the opposite side of the model is probably near the tight side of the engine block on the opposite wing which might then cause the / line to intersect the passenger bay. But that might still be fine for mechanical purposes?

Having to line up 2 matching counters for every vehicle model in your army every time such a vehicle moves might be a pain.

kabaakaba wrote:Funny but only xenos vechicles and knights really have any sloped armor cause imperium's all just a bricks. Like idea in general, I'll add no modifiers/rerols on side armour since on most vechicles it's all screened or they to fast to shoot perpendicular movement's path. And full damage for rear armour

Not sure if you're saying to just not have any additional penalty/reward for targeting side armor (I'd agree with that) or if you're saying to turn off buffs from other sources. Ex: No rerolls from strats, farseer buffs, etc. when targeting side armor. The latter I can't agree with as it makes the value of support units too fiddly.

Well, no rerolls for attacker if side armor is selected as target. We have invul which represent anything what can block attack. Here I suggest the same. You can use your support units against all other units. That's not like we have only vehicles on tabletop.

 kabaakaba wrote:
Well, no rerolls for attacker if side armor is selected as target. We have invul which represent anything what can block attack. Here I suggest the same. You can use your support units against all other units. That's not like we have only vehicles on tabletop.

Knight lists.
Tank lists.
Dread lists.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 kabaakaba wrote:
Well, no rerolls for attacker if side armor is selected as target. We have invul which represent anything what can block attack. Here I suggest the same. You can use your support units against all other units. That's not like we have only vehicles on tabletop.

Knight lists.
Tank lists.
Dread lists.

Yeah, but you could not shoot in its side armour? Right? It's just example how to make it's more fun. We can reduce ap instead for side armor. It's gonna work even better.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

lord_blackfang wrote:That's muckin' about.

Bounding box across the entire hull, straight 45 degree lines from the corners, done.

Except you'd have to figure out where the corners are on something like a wave serpent. Are the rear corners to the sides of the engines or at the rear-most part near the transport bay hatch? And how does that work on an ork buggy that someone posed so that it's at a weird angle with a wheel off the ground because it looked cool? Or the battle wagon where someone modeled it to have a wonky asymmetrical silhouette? Or the tau suit or knight where they posed the model such that the torso is turned to the side meaning the legs are facing in a different direction than the upper half of the model?

Hellebore wrote:For least intrusive minimalist tool, all you need is this.

Place parallel to the front or rear or the vehicle depending where the attacker is.

Works great if you only need to figure out where a single important facing is. If they want to distinguish between rear and front and side, however, they'd need rules on placing a second marker. Not sure how tricky that would be off the top of my head. You could maybe just have them put the centers of the markers on opposite sides of the model, but I suspect that ends up with wonky interactions. Like, if you put the "front" marker of a wave serpent towards the actual front of the model along the left wing, at a / angle, then the opposite side of the model is probably near the tight side of the engine block on the opposite wing which might then cause the / line to intersect the passenger bay. But that might still be fine for mechanical purposes?

Having to line up 2 matching counters for every vehicle model in your army every time such a vehicle moves might be a pain.
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The angles.for the sides are there, just short.

If you need a slightly friendlier angle, just make it an L shape.

Templates are only useful if they're practical so you need to find as friendly a size as possible to make them usable.

In practice you only need to know on what side of an angle line the unit is on, so the right angle is unnecessary. the 45 degree angle sticking out is all you need to know what facing the attacker sits in.

Place template, measure along one of the angle lines out in the direction of the attack to see what side of it they sit..majority wins, ties attacker chooses.

You should quickly figure it out.

The template is just to show you where you need to measure out from, acting as reference point. Your tape measure is what would be providing the angle

 kabaakaba wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

 kabaakaba wrote:
Well, no rerolls for attacker if side armor is selected as target. We have invul which represent anything what can block attack. Here I suggest the same. You can use your support units against all other units. That's not like we have only vehicles on tabletop.

Knight lists.
Tank lists.
Dread lists.

Yeah, but you could not shoot in its side armour? Right? It's just example how to make it's more fun. We can reduce ap instead for side armor. It's gonna work even better.

I feel like you're immediately making things very clunky and/or introducing a lot of additional problems that would need to be solved. Food for thought: fire dragons are dedicated anti-vehicle specialists, and their special rule to help represent this gives them rerolls vs monsters and vehicles. So your proposed rule would mean the anti-tank specialist loses its anti-tank rule when attacking from the (usually) largest facings of the tank.

@Hellebore: Apologies. I'm having trouble visualizing what you're saying. Are you basically saying to make the markers V shapes so that between the two of them they form a diamond? And if so, doesn't that mean you'd end up with just front and rear facings?

I'm saying have a market this shape, and use the angles at the corners to figure out which facing the attacker is in.

You only need one line with 2 angles to determine this.

You will be able to tell if the vehicle's front or rear is closer to the attacker and that's where you place the marker. Your tape measure then tells you which facing you're in.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

Except you'd have to figure out where the corners are on something like a wave serpent. Are the rear corners to the sides of the engines or at the rear-most part near the transport bay hatch?
And how does that work on an ork buggy that someone posed so that it's at a weird angle with a wheel off the ground because it looked cool? Or the battle wagon where someone modeled it to have a wonky asymmetrical silhouette? Or the tau suit or knight where they posed the model such that the torso is turned to the side meaning the legs are facing in a different direction than the upper half of the model?

I already said bounding box. And anything with a pivoting pelvis comes with a base. If you can't figure out how to mark the front of a base, there's no helping you.

This bounding box idea is pretty nice, though I do think some people would still struggle with it. The "Hellebore method" of the front/rear marker looks like it would help, and you'd only need to use it if trying to get clarity on a model.

I always want to say "if the facing is unclear roll a 4+ for it", but I've seen people be disingenuous about those situations too. :/

I find it odd that all these horrible arguments that people will have over firing arcs and side armour and whatnot have never materialized in any of the Adeptus Titanicus games I've played.

Most people are sane and rational folks when it comes to actually playing games (excluding the rage baiters on YouTube).

If you mark the lines on bases, the game will run just fine.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
I find it odd that all these horrible arguments that people will have over firing arcs and side armour and whatnot have never materialized in any of the Adeptus Titanicus games I've played.

To be blunt, 40K is so popular that it probably just has a higher ratio of TFG types. I know facing isn't a bad rule or anything, but because of the nature of 40K you wind up getting more pick up games with players who are less . . . socially capable, or something.

My experience with facings in the past wasn't that you had people overtly being jerks or arguing about it. It was more that you had a bunch of situations that were kind of iffy/unclear, and generally people politely just acquiesced to their opponent if said opponent felt strongly about it, but you'd come away with this very mildly cranky feeling that those bolters probably weren't in your rear arc.

Honestly, just do Front/Rear 180 split like Knights moved to in Heresy.