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I feel 10th Edition handles morale the best. 10th edition morale leadership matters, but failing a battle shock test does not make a unit useless for combat. Also, 10th edition and First Edition are the only ones where characters and vehicles are seriously affected by Battle Shock Test or Leadership Test as well. Stuff like force falling back seriously slows the game down. It should only be on special rules like specific units or strategems.

[h3]The Simulation Era (1st & 2nd Edition)[/h3]

In the early days, Morale was about narrative consequence.

* The Mechanic: Roll 2d6 under your Leadership (Ld).
* The Triggers: You didn't just check for casualties. You checked if a leader died, if you were charged by something scary, or if the unit next to you broke.
* The Result: If you failed, the unit literally Fled 2d6" toward the table edge. If they reached the edge, they were gone.
* Leadership Role: Characters were "force multipliers." A Captain didn't just fight; his presence allowed units within a certain radius to use his higher Ld.

[h3]The "Fall Back" Era (3rd – 7th Edition)[/h3]

This is often called the "Golden Age" of Morale because it stayed consistent for nearly 20 years.

* The Mechanic: Roll 2d6 vs. Ld after losing 25% of the squad in a single phase.
* The Result: A failed test meant the unit was Falling Back. They would move toward their deployment zone. In your next turn, you could attempt to Rally (roll Ld again), but only if the unit was at 50% strength or higher.
* Pinning: Certain weapons (like Snipers) forced "Pinning tests." If you failed, your unit didn't run, but they hit the dirt and couldn't move or shoot for a turn.
The "Fearless" Problem: Toward the end of this era, almost every "good" unit had the Fearless* rule, which effectively deleted the Morale phase from the game.

[h3]The Attrition Era (8th & 9th Edition)[/h3]

GW decided that units "running away" was too slow for modern play, so they turned Morale into extra damage.

* 8th Edition: You rolled 1d6 + models lost that turn. If that total exceeded your Ld, you lost models equal to the difference. (Losing 10 Orks often meant 10 more would "flee.")
* 9th Edition (Combat Attrition): Failing a Morale test meant exactly one model fled. Then, you took a "Combat Attrition" test: roll a die for every remaining model. On a 1 (or 1-2 if the unit was half-dead), that model also fled.
* Leadership Role: It became a "damage mitigation" stat rather than a tactical one.

[h3]The Battle-shock Era (10th Edition - Current)[/h3]

In the current edition, Morale no longer kills you—it breaks your brain.

* The Mechanic: Leadership is now a "Target Number" (e.g., 6+). You roll 2d6 and must meet or beat it.
* The Trigger: You only check if your unit is Below Half-Strength at the start of your Command Phase.
* The Result (Battle-shocked):
* Objective Control (OC) drops to 0 (you can't hold points).
* You cannot use Stratagems on that unit.
* If you try to Fall Back, you must take "Desperate Escape" tests or models die.


* Leadership Role: It's now a tactical hurdle. A high-Ld unit (like Custodes) stays "online" longer, while low-Ld units (like Guardsmen) quickly become useless for scoring.

The biggest impact on my games had 8th edition morale rules because there wasn't much fearless stuff. It also made me play Daemons more than in any other edition.
In principle I liked the 3rd-7th version more, unfortunately most factions pretty much ignored them, they worked in HH 1 and 2, though. So it wasn't a fault of the base rules but of the Codizes that morale failed at that time.

My experience with 10th is limited, but it seems that morale comes up and doesn't suffer from too much fearless, however, it just doesn't do much. So, just like in every prior edition, special or detachment rules that do something with morale are usually the ones' to skip.

Leadership is weird. It's definitely more than a little bit of a holdover from historical wargames and its an important piece of warfare. The main issue is that it doesn't really gel with 40k's zealots for the meat grinder style of combat. Like there are definitely armies that should retreat, but not really that many.

I think mechanically the problem has always been the timing and tracking. Morale checks occurring when they do always breaks the flow of the game. It also just doesn't occur during dramatic moments in the game. A unit being scared because they got gunned down half an hour ago makes it feel more like bookkeeping than something that adds to the feel of the game.

I can't say I like any of them as a global mechanic but I'd love to see them focused as special rules for specific models. Like, -1 OC, no strats, push effects are all great rules that should go on terrifying style models, but it doesn't need to be something universal.

I don't think it would be too much to specify what units do when they break, ie grots always flee, elite infantry go to ground, space marines straight up ignore it...

But then that sounds too interesting and unique for modern it-has-to-be-competitively-balanced 40k.

Actually TOW with its three layers of leadership test makes for a very interesting one.

 Calbear wrote:


* Leadership Role: It's now a tactical hurdle. A high-Ld unit (like Custodes) stays "online" longer, while low-Ld units (like Guardsmen) quickly become useless for scoring.

You are aware that the LD difference between those "high LD" Custodes (and Marines) vs "low LD" Guardsmen is 1 pt, right? 7 is NOT difficult to roll on 2d6.
And if I attach command squads to those Guardsmen it becomes equal.

 RustyNumber wrote:
I don't think it would be too much to specify what units do when they break, ie grots always flee, elite infantry go to ground, space marines straight up ignore it...

But then that sounds too interesting and unique for modern it-has-to-be-competitively-balanced 40k.

Actually TOW with its three layers of leadership test makes for a very interesting one.

The problem with space marines ignoring it, and how they did in previous editions with its effects was that often it messed with the flow of the game and being stuck in close combat was never really punished in situations to balance it out. I think if they worked that out better, the older systems would actually be more compelling.
Sometimes being in combat should be bad, sometimes feeling should be good.

Any risk of you writing these posts yourself, rather than regurgitating AI slop?

Huh I hadn't even looked hard at the OP, you're right. Not cool

 Apple fox wrote:

 RustyNumber wrote:
I don't think it would be too much to specify what units do when they break, ie grots always flee, elite infantry go to ground, space marines straight up ignore it...

But then that sounds too interesting and unique for modern it-has-to-be-competitively-balanced 40k.

Actually TOW with its three layers of leadership test makes for a very interesting one.

The problem with space marines ignoring it, and how they did in previous editions with its effects was that often it messed with the flow of the game and being stuck in close combat was never really punished in situations to balance it out. I think if they worked that out better, the older systems would actually be more compelling.
Sometimes being in combat should be bad, sometimes feeling should be good.

Fair point, spacies could still have their own flavours of reactions. No reason them falling back in 5th for example wasn't just a tactical choice as opposed to running screaming like a fresh faced white shield. At least that's the crunch/fluff justification.

 LunarSol wrote:
Leadership is weird. It's definitely more than a little bit of a holdover from historical wargames and its an important piece of warfare. The main issue is that it doesn't really gel with 40k's zealots for the meat grinder style of combat. Like there are definitely armies that should retreat, but not really that many.

I think mechanically the problem has always been the timing and tracking. Morale checks occurring when they do always breaks the flow of the game. It also just doesn't occur during dramatic moments in the game. A unit being scared because they got gunned down half an hour ago makes it feel more like bookkeeping than something that adds to the feel of the game.

I can't say I like any of them as a global mechanic but I'd love to see them focused as special rules for specific models. Like, -1 OC, no strats, push effects are all great rules that should go on terrifying style models, but it doesn't need to be something universal.

I agree with a lot of this.

No version of morale in 40k has ever actually been all that satisfying in my experience, but 10 is probably the closest to making it sort of work. 3rd-7ths' approach was *okay*, but the fallback mechanic could be absolutely brutal for some armies and more of a bonus for others. Plus it was fiddly to resolve, and half the armies in the game ignoring it made it frustrating for the have-not armies.

The 8th/9th version was just annoying and unfluffy.

The 10th edition version has a decent big-picture idea of what morale should do, but kind of falls down on the execution. Framing it as units basically being thrown off their game by some mix of psychology or discombobulating tactics is fine and can be justified via fluff in most scenarios. It also makes morale a matter of disruption rather than just being a random chance of taking extra casualties as a punishment for taking casualties. It's just that the wonky timing of morale in 10th means that it seldom accomplishes much and frequently goes away before it has a chance to impact the game.

Something as simple as saying that shocked units have to roll to un-shock (rather than automatically un-shocking if they're above half strength) in the command phase would create more opportunities for battle shock to matter.

I could also see making it a more intentional, less-random mechanic where certain weapons, abilities, or circumstances (like being under half strength) can stack Stress Counters on units, and the more stress counters a unit has, the more likely it is to become battleshocked. So battleshock would remain pretty random and unreliable for most armies, but armies who want to lean into the psychology/disruption thing could potentially pack a lot of tools for reliably shocking a few enemy units a turn. Probably have some benefits for attacking shocked units on units known for leaning into that sort of thing.

 Calbear wrote:
This is often called the "Golden Age" of Morale because it stayed consistent for nearly 20 years.

It wasn't called that, and the rules changed somewhat every edition.
3e had units following each other towards the board edge rather than resolving on the spot, 3-4th gave fearless units wounds based on how outnumbered they were, whereas 5e onwards was based on how outnumbered you were. 6e and onwards could regroup at 25% rather than 50% and ignored nearby units. 7e could only fire snap shots while retreating and could not assault after regrouping.

Which combat resolution favoured you often depending on your units - large fearless blobs of nids and orks for example got absolutely hammered by the 5e change for example whereas something like a smashfether captain could put a few wounds down and force poor odds on any size of unit. The 6e change to regroup strength/distance was also significant.

Can I vote for none? None of the editions I've played has had successful morale and leadership rules.

Agree, all iterations of morale were gak, voting any single one feels wrong.

I'm quite hopeful for 11th edition, as morale is something they specifically wanted to tackle.

That's actually a really tough call, there were things I liked and disliked about each edition. If I had to pick one, I'd say 9th, but it's a close race and they all just okay TBH.

I never played 1st or 2nd, so I can't speak to those.

3rd-7th: I liked the results of this edition the most. Having units physically retreat across the board while having a chance to get back into the fight felt very thematic. Crashing into a line and seeing if they would break or not was always a tense and exciting part of the game. However, testing at only 25% casualties was trivial and happened all the time, and being below 50% preventing rallying invalidated a lot of lighter units that didn't have the best morale. Later, it was adjusted by so many units having Fearless that half the time the entire process was just ignored.

8th / 9th: These editions felt the best for morale based armies. There was clear incentive to stack multiple morale crippling effects on top of each other to get greater advantages. The downside though, at least in 8th primarily, was that it became too overwhelming and that it was easy to wipe a while squad after only killing half of them, which was an even worse outcome than previous. 9th mitigated this a bit with the loss of only a single model, and the chance to loose more, as only part of the unit breaks and flees, but it still didn't have the same feel as the whole unit actually breaking together and potentially rallying later. These also felt less on brand for more fearless armies like Space Marines and Necrons.

For 10th, I think they have the testing process down the best here. Testing at below 50% as well as on specific unit conditions feels like the right amount of rolling this effect on the battlefield. That being said, the results of the fail are lackluster to put it mildly and rarely feel like they have any relevance to the overall game itself. I can only recall a single game I've played where failed LD checks were a pivotal deciding factor in the game, and even then it didn't feel earned because it was me rolling horrible and failing every single save on 8 or 9 units against Chaos Knights and thus holding no objectives for a turn which was enough to flip the score.

Were I to design a new morale system, I'd try to incorporate the best parts of all of these:

Testing would happen at the end of the phase in which a unit has taken casualties and is currently below half strength. There would be three results Pass, Retreat, or Rout. Pass is obvious, a retreat is a normal fail state where the unit would immediately move its movement profile +D6 towards the nearest terrain feature (not occupied by an enemy) to seek cover. A routed unit would be one that fails the test by a significant margin and would move the same, but directly towards the closest point on their board edge. Units that are typically "fearless" would have rules that made routing harder or impossible, but could still make a "tactical" retreat. This would keep the rule relevant to all armies, but preserve the flavour as well.

Units retreating from melee would work similar to how they did in 3rd-7th, however, when caught in a sweeping advance, they would not just be killed, but would instead automatically fight last in the next combat phase if they did not rally. (The phase would now be three steps, fight first, normal combat, and fight last.)

Units would attempt to rally during their movement phase. If failed, they would continue to move (and if still in engagement range could still be perused... though this feels like it could be a little clunky, may need to think more on this. Maybe an attack of opportunity can be made or something?) If the unit rallied, they would then be able to act normally (with the caveat that they would still fight last if in combat). A retreating unit that made it to its cover would automatically rally once the entire unit has made it wholly within the terrain feature or is out of line of sight of any enemy units.

I get that this would probably be too complex a system for competitive 40k that's trying to keep matches as quick and speedy as possible, but there's nothing to say that if GW makes a stronger push to differentiate Narrative and Competitive play that we could see more stark rules contrasts between the two game modes.

Were I to design a new morale system, I'd try to incorporate the best parts of all of these:

Testing would happen at the end of the phase in which a unit has taken casualties and is currently below half strength. There would be three results Pass, Retreat, or Rout. Pass is obvious, a retreat is a normal fail state where the unit would immediately move its movement profile +D6 towards the nearest terrain feature (not occupied by an enemy) to seek cover. A routed unit would be one that fails the test by a significant margin and would move the same, but directly towards the closest point on their board edge. Units that are typically "fearless" would have rules that made routing harder or impossible, but could still make a "tactical" retreat. This would keep the rule relevant to all armies, but preserve the flavour as well.

Units retreating from melee would work similar to how they did in 3rd-7th, however, when caught in a sweeping advance, they would not just be killed, but would instead automatically fight last in the next combat phase if they did not rally. (The phase would now be three steps, fight first, normal combat, and fight last.)

Units would attempt to rally during their movement phase. If failed, they would continue to move (and if still in engagement range could still be perused... though this feels like it could be a little clunky, may need to think more on this. Maybe an attack of opportunity can be made or something?) If the unit rallied, they would then be able to act normally (with the caveat that they would still fight last if in combat). A retreating unit that made it to its cover would automatically rally once the entire unit has made it wholly within the terrain feature or is out of line of sight of any enemy units.

See, personally I'm not a huge fan of the forced movement thing. While it was "cinematic," it also tended to be fiddly, making you figure out the shortest routes to target board edges around various bits of terrain for potentially a lot of models in a given unit. And being forced to move away from the action on a bad turn is just a death sentence with extra steps for units that need to get close to the enemy to do anything.

Also, potentially causing a given unit to take morale tests 4 times per turn (movement phase fly-by attacks, shooting phase, charge phase tank shocks or hammer of wrath type effects, fight phase) would make it a lot easier to force an enemy unit to flee.

That's why I kind of prefer morale/battleshock as a representation of units having their tactics thrown off rather than literally running away. It's harder to justify necron warriors somehow ignoring direct orders from their overlord to go die in droves than it is to imagine that their beep boop algorithms struggle to instantly adapt to unexpected enemy tactics or unexpected levels of casualties.

I could also kind of go either way on whether or not morale should even be a part of 40k's core rules. Obviously factions like Night Lords are all about psychology and morale, but you could probably make the argument that factions like that are few and far between enough that morale mechanics should be tied to their detachment rules or something instead of being a core part of the game. Alternatively, morale/psychology could be a *more* central part of the game if you redesigned things to bring back target prioritization, etc., but that's not the current state of affairs.

What we have now is a not-quite-right set of mechanics where units just randomly stop being able to score points or use stratagems sometimes, and only a couple of detachments in the game have the tools to reliably lean into utilizing it.

It has always been a problem for the morale focussed detachments/ factions that they tried to do all kinds of stuff to make morale relevant and annoy the opponent with that, but everybody else was just killing stuff instead. So, morale focussed factions usually looked like the sword guy from Indiana Jones...

 Wyldhunt wrote:
That's why I kind of prefer morale/battleshock as a representation of units having their tactics thrown off rather than literally running away. It's harder to justify necron warriors somehow ignoring direct orders from their overlord to go die in droves than it is to imagine that their beep boop algorithms struggle to instantly adapt to unexpected enemy tactics or unexpected levels of casualties.

I dislike how Battleshock is implemented- I find it triggers rarely, and when it does, rarely has much tangible effect- but I agree with this. The old run-away morale system had three problems.

First, in gameplay, with only six turns, having a unit fall back on turn 2/3 might mean it was done participating in the battle. It was combat ineffective, but still required you to shuffle the models back every turn. That's just pointless bookkeeping. Second, it was too binary- a unit was either perfectly fine, or it was retreating. And third, outright retreating is hard to rationalize in a galaxy of zealots. Even Space Marines may become temporarily combat ineffective due to overwhelming fire or need to recover casualties, but most factions aren't going to piss their pants and run away.

So if I were to implement a morale system, I think I'd keep the 2D6-vs-Ld check and have it triggered by 25% casualties, but I'd make the effects both less catastrophic and more appropriate to the setting. Maybe make a failed check result in the old pinning result (ie the unit can't move or shoot- maybe give it a +1 to saves in cover), automatically rallying at the end of the turn. And if a unit fails the check below half strength, then it's routed and removed from play. Then you give Marines, Necrons, other 'fearless' units the ability to ignore routing; so they can still be disrupted by heavy fire, but will still fight to the last man. Throw in pinning weapons that always force a test regardless of casualties, but don't trigger routing, and you have some levers to play with- and hopefully a system where morale matters without being overbearing, and tangible effects can be achieved through means other than raw lethality.

...This is where I'd say 40K will never do such a thing again, because the average player nowadays is familiar with videogames, rather than historicals, and thus temporarily losing control of your dudes is considered a 'feels bad' rather than a staple of the genre. But HH and TOW really leaned into morale mechanics so who knows.

What units would actually rout?
Nids wouldn’t.
Necrons wouldn’t.
Marines wouldn’t.
Custodes wouldn’t.
Knights wouldn’t.
Daemons wouldn’t.

It doesn't have to be "run away screaming in terror" it can be anything "the synapse is scrambled and confused momentarily, the SMs decide to fall back and regroup" etc etc

For anyone not playing TOW if you lose combat you make a leadership test and modify by how many points you lost combat.

Roll under that modified score and you give ground (move back 2 inches)

roll under your leadership but higher than the modified score and you fall back in good order (flee move but you regroup at the end, when the enemy vastly outnumbers you you flee normally)

Roll above your natural leadership and flee normally.

Could this work with 40k with a similar system? The current debuff system and straight up flee being two options.

 RustyNumber wrote:
It doesn't have to be "run away screaming in terror" it can be anything "the synapse is scrambled and confused momentarily, the SMs decide to fall back and regroup" etc etc

For anyone not playing TOW if you lose combat you make a leadership test and modify by how many points you lost combat.

Roll under that modified score and you give ground (move back 2 inches)

roll under your leadership but higher than the modified score and you fall back in good order (flee move but you regroup at the end, when the enemy vastly outnumbers you you flee normally)

Roll above your natural leadership and flee normally.

Could this work with 40k with a similar system? The current debuff system and straight up flee being two options.

I think the 2" move thing would just feel fiddly most of the time. In edge cases, you maybe get arguments about how exactly the fall back is supposed to work if terrain gets in the way, if a vehicle would need to pivot, etc. But mostly it just sounds fiddly and unnecessary.

Possibly tying morale into forcing opponents to fall back if they start the turn within engagement range of an enemy unit would probably be simple enough to implement and get the same general idea across, but I'm not sure if that would actually be desirable. Generally, I think people would probably prefer to *prevent* enemies from falling back from the scary melee unit holding them hostage to avoid being shot at.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 catbarf wrote:

So if I were to implement a morale system, I think I'd keep the 2D6-vs-Ld check and have it triggered by 25% casualties, but I'd make the effects both less catastrophic and more appropriate to the setting. Maybe make a failed check result in the old pinning result (ie the unit can't move or shoot- maybe give it a +1 to saves in cover), automatically rallying at the end of the turn. And if a unit fails the check below half strength, then it's routed and removed from play. Then you give Marines, Necrons, other 'fearless' units the ability to ignore routing; so they can still be disrupted by heavy fire, but will still fight to the last man. Throw in pinning weapons that always force a test regardless of casualties, but don't trigger routing, and you have some levers to play with- and hopefully a system where morale matters without being overbearing, and tangible effects can be achieved through means other than raw lethality.

I could see something like this working. I'd still be tempted to replace the % casualty part with some sort of stress token system so that armies leaning into morale gimmicks can continue to keep the enemy pinned/debuffed by concentrating pinning fire on problem units, but I think the bones of the idea are solid.

Generally, what I *want* morale to be is a debuff/disruption mechanic that doesn't necessarily take units out of the game but does make them less threatening or lets me worry about them less for a turn while I focus on killing off other portions of the enemy army. 10th's approach *almost* accomplishes this by setting OC to 0 and preventing the use of Strats, but the inability to reliably shock units when and where you most need to do so keeps the mechanic from feeling satisfying or like something you can intentionally lean into. I can't really point at an enemy unit and yell at my forces to pin it down. Rather, battleshock is a thing that just happens at random from time to time when I fail to properly finish off an enemy unit.

I enjoyed the editions that let me rout the enemy off of the table. So I don't thing a catch all of 3 - 7th is very appropriate as they were not all the same in that regard.

I also enjoyed 2nd for the fear and terror tests.

 JNAProductions wrote:
What units would actually rout?
Nids wouldn’t.
Necrons wouldn’t.
Marines wouldn’t.
Custodes wouldn’t.
Knights wouldn’t.
Daemons wouldn’t.

Nids wouldn't... so long as they are within Synapse range.
Necrons wouldn't... at least for the basic mindless Warriors, the higher ups would, which would be an interesting inversion for the army.
Marines wouldn't... technically, but they could still tactically retreat.
Custodes wouldn't... see marines.
Knights wouldn't... Wouldn't they? They are still ostensibly human pilots, and their knight suits are valuable to their houses. If they're coming apart at the seams, some might make a hasty retreat for repairs and try to fight another day.
Daemons woulnd't... Yeah, they wouldn't, but the old instability rules worked as a decent enough substitute.

 Tawnis wrote:

Nids wouldn't... so long as they are within Synapse range.

Even then it depend on the Tyranid in question.

Plenty of Tyranid "melee" critters like rippers, hormagaunts, carnifexes, etc are all aggression without a single self-preservation instinct and would never rout.
"Morale" for Tyranids shouldn't be about routing or not, but that without Synapse Tyranids regress into semi-automatic actions like always charging the nearest thing, or always moving towards the nearest cover or always shooting the nearest target.

And while at it 40k should have an organized retreat mechanic, and Tyranids outside of synapse shouldn't be able to retreat in an organized way.

Tactical retreat is not the same as being routed.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

I think the 2" move thing would just feel fiddly most of the time. In edge cases, you maybe get arguments about how exactly the fall back is supposed to work if terrain gets in the way, if a vehicle would need to pivot, etc. But mostly it just sounds fiddly and unnecessary.

It works fine in TOW, which is by its nature a more complex and fiddly game. Though in that case it's usually on blocks of units moved via trays, to represent the close-and-separate of sword-n-board melee armies. It's the Ld test system with 3 states I'm saying is an interesting idea. Pass, partial pass, fail.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Tactical retreat is not the same as being routed.

And three SMs should be able to wipe 2000 points of Guard off the board without breaking a sweat if we're being "realistic". It's an approximation/abstraction of any number of things, to allow all armies to engage comparably with a ruleset that provides the players with interesting decisions. I do agree that with a more interesting system elite armies like SMs should behave differently to routed guuardsmen or tyranids.

 Tyran wrote:

Plenty of Tyranid "melee" critters like rippers, hormagaunts, carnifexes, etc are all aggression without a single self-preservation instinct and would never rout.
"Morale" for Tyranids shouldn't be about routing or not, but that without Synapse Tyranids regress into semi-automatic actions like always charging the nearest thing, or always moving towards the nearest cover or always shooting the nearest target.

Pretty sure that's how 5th worked, each nid type that was synapse reliant had a default behavior. I *think* it was charge-and-attack for melee gribblies and seek-cover-and-shoot for ranged.

3rd Ed and it’s common base system successors was a terrible system.

No Fear, no Terror. No Stupidity, no Frenzy. No Hatred, no psychology whatsoever, other than Break Tests and, if you were spectacularly lucky given how crap the inflicting weapons tended to be in number and power? The odd Pinning test.

Then add in far too many ways around it. ATSKNF, Synapse, Hive Node, base Ld 10 for all Necrons, Mob Rule etc.

I like the concept of Battleshock, but haven’t played anything like often enough to have a valid opinion beyond liking the concept.

But 3rd Ed Heresy? OK, it’s not 40K. But it’s Tactical Status system is solid. If you lean into it? You can hobble pretty much any unit into uselessness for a turn, maybe longer as you test to remove each extant Tactical Status.

And how the corresponding weapon Traits are distributed gives further consideration to how you arm your army. Previously scoffed at weapons, such as Rotor Cannons (weedy S3) can now slap Suppressed on an enemy unit, particularly as you only need to hit, not wound, to force the test.

And it’s all against a backdrop of lower leadership stats. Not low, just lower.

They’re a constant consideration, even for Well Hard Units. Because if your unit picks up even a single Tactical Status? They get universal nerfs, like not being able to contest objectives, striking last in combat etc.

But, and this is genuinely an honest balancing? It works well within its specific ecosystem. The majority of your opponents will be fielding some flavour of Space Marines. And so the game itself is a lot easier to balance when most folk are drawing from a common set of not just units, but unit armanent options. And so it doesn’t feel like any one force has a particular or particularly unfair advantage.

Apply it to the far more varied 40K? And it could collapse under that burden.

 RustyNumber wrote:

Pretty sure that's how 5th worked, each nid type that was synapse reliant had a default behavior. I *think* it was charge-and-attack for melee gribblies and seek-cover-and-shoot for ranged.

The idea was there, but the execution was awful and meant that Tyranids suffered from two different morale systems at the same time.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Tactical retreat is not the same as being routed.

Fair, which is why I did differentiate them in my original post, I didn't think it needed to be reiterated.

It was more a "morale could still effect them to some extent" point.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tyran wrote:

 RustyNumber wrote:

Pretty sure that's how 5th worked, each nid type that was synapse reliant had a default behavior. I *think* it was charge-and-attack for melee gribblies and seek-cover-and-shoot for ranged.

The idea was there, but the execution was awful and meant that Tyranids suffered from two different morale systems at the same time.

Yeah, I agree. Conceptually, it was really cool, but was rather fiddly in practice.

It’s more that, outside Grots, some Cultists, and some Guard units, NO ONE is gonna be routed.
It’d be easier to have basic morale be more about loss of cohesion (like with Battleshock) and then give especially cowardly units a rule where, if they’re affected by morale and in melee, they must fall back.

 JNAProductions wrote:
What units would actually rout?
Nids wouldn’t.
Necrons wouldn’t.
Marines wouldn’t.
Custodes wouldn’t.
Knights wouldn’t.
Daemons wouldn’t.

Guard, Tau, Eldar (dying race and all), Dark Eldar, Tyranids outside of Synapse, GSC (probably not the Stealers themselves, but the cultists), Orks, Chaos cultists and renegades, Votann, I'd argue Sisters and AdMech too. Could even make a case for Daemons, since daemonic instability is a thing. Remember, the mechanic doesn't have to mean 'wet themselves and ran for the hills', just 'combat ineffective'.

Either way, we're looking at a 50/50ish split, which is fine. Because the important thing is that the bit that Marines would get to ignore (routing) is secondary to the more immediately relevant and still applicable primary effect (pinning), as opposed to how it was in 3rd-7th where they got to ignore morale entirely. It's a continuum of morale effects rather than a binary y/n to functionally ignoring an entire mechanic.

 JNAProductions wrote:
What units would actually rout?
Nids wouldn’t.
Necrons wouldn’t.
Marines wouldn’t.
Custodes wouldn’t.
Knights wouldn’t.
Daemons wouldn’t.

Morale doesn't have to equal a complete rout. One problem with 2nd edition 40k was exactly this kind of thinking - faction X will be immune to virus, faction Y doesn't care about morale, etc.

That's why you abstract it a little and make it something more akin to suppression or forcing a change in combat approach. Yes, Custodes will never wholesale turn and flee, but under some circumstances they may very well pause, hold back and hunker down. The same can apply to any unit for different reasons. The first thing that's needed when thinking about having a good morale system is to make sure it affects everyone, however you want to rationalise it.