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Rumour has it that GW will make Ld important in the new edition. How they expect to do this with everyone having sky high leadership is beyond me. If it were up to me, I'd add "Leadership Based Special Orders".

Each unit with a Sgt type model can issue a Leadership Based Special Order once every turn. If the Sgt model is slain, the unit may no longer benefit, unless it is joined by a HQ model with a Ld value, as HQ units can always issue Leadership Based Special Orders.

Doubletime - Unit may move an additional 6", but may not shoot. If the unit has fleet of foot or fleet of claw, this may be used as normal. The unit may charge after this additional movement. After their movement, a leadership check must be taken with the base value modified downwards by 1 for every enemy unit with LOS within 18". A unit that fails its leadership check immediately becomes pinned.

Example. If I wanted to issue this order to a unit of Howling Banshees towards four units of guardsmen, all within 24" and LOS, the Banshees must make a Ld check 9 (unmodified) - 4 (No of enemy units) = 5 to succeed. This represents the danger of moving into the shooting kill-zone of four enemy units. When no enemies are around, this would enable units to move swiftly into flanking positions, or rapidly redeploy rear units to the front.

Overwatch - Unit forfiets its action to make a shooting attack against an enemy unit during your opponent's turn. This shot is subject to normal target priority rules. If in the open, the leadership value is modified downwards for every enemy unit within LOS. If in light cover (5+), this leadership value is modified downwards for every two units within LOS (rounding up) and if in heavy (4+ or better) cover, normal leadership is used. If the check is failed, this unit may not shoot until the next turn's shooting phase.

I think "countercharging", "disengaging combat" and a "stand and shoot" style rule would be good too, but I haven't given it enough thought.

Sounds a lot like Warmachine.

malfred wrote:Sounds a lot like Warmachine.

Is that a pro or a con? That system works well in Warmachine, though in application, it would be totally different in 40k as units can perform most special actions (i.e. charging, target priority, embarking / disembarking, rallying) without their unit leader. I think that the Warmachine method of having the unit leaders perform useful tasks instead of being a powerfist caddy is a step in the right direction for 40k.

One of the things that bothers me most about 40k is how the HQ models are usually beefed up infantry models. GW has this incredibly assinine formula - let's take the base racial trooper statline, slap +1 onto WS/BS and give 'em a few attacks and 3 wounds - and PRESTO. You have an army commander. How so? Does this 3 wound wonder add anything to the army that you can't find elsewhere? Does he add some sort of command ability? Nope. Most HQ guys can shoot about as well as a normal squad, minus all the abblative wounds for the heavy weapon, and fight about half as well as a full squad in HTH. HOORAY.

Its not like GW hasn't noticed this might be an issue - look at the Space Marine Master... he gives LD10 to everyone! That didn't work well, so now instead of having HQs which bring extra abilities to the table, you have a complete lack of any defining leadership qualities in your HQ. I suppose that having HQ types dictate force organization might be too complex an issue, so let's kill not have Pheonix Lord led armies have the repsective Aspect as troops, and let's make all Chaos cult marines troops by default! The Ethereal - who has some extra abilities is never taken anymore thanks to Mr 1+ Crisis Commander, and let's face it, the Chaos commanders don't really have much in the way of command abilities and are really much more like mini-hive tyrants.

In our Codex: Space Marines Revisited we recently added a system that allows Marines to perform the miraculous feats of courage they're always doing in the fluff, but it's based around Leadership Tests.

So, rather than just having a Marine squad with Furious Charge, the Veteran Sergeant might purchase a feat that gives the squad Furious Charge once a game if they can pass an Ld test. It's designed to add a little flavour to Marines without just giving them Vet Skills. Everyone we've shown it to likes it quite a lot.

BYE