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Casualty removal should be changed, so that only Models that are in range of any of the firers and in sight of any of the firers can be removed. At the moment, if half of your unit is hidden behind a big wall (for example) the hidden part can still
be counted as casualties. This would improve the advantage of cover.

I agree that any model out of LOS of the firing unit (any model in that unit, any point on a single model) should not be able to become a casualty.

Making the change to "only in range of the firers" creates positioning gaming... which isn't bad per se, but means nobody can put their sergeants or champions at the front of the unit, as people dance back to 23.5" away and, "Oops! Only your Sergeant / Special Weapons duder are in raaainge. You have to kill those dudes!"

It works the same way with LOS. Anyone else remember 6th edition and using vehicles to deliberately block LOS so that only the key model was visible and you could snipe them out?

Ha! I don't think I ever ran into that.

"Just a second, I need to adjust my Rhino-scope... fire!"

In 8th, I could see that inadvertently improving the value of transports, but I never enjoy shenanigans like that. I would keep casualty removal as is then.

 Peregrine wrote:
It works the same way with LOS. Anyone else remember 6th edition and using vehicles to deliberately block LOS so that only the key model was visible and you could snipe them out?

Worked that way in 4th I think, too. I totally took advantage of that.

The current system does cause for some occasional head scratching, but imo its the least fiddly as far as I can tell. The attacker can get some advantage via positioning, but the defender still has full choice in how to react via casualty removal. Its a good trade, and not nearly as cumbersome as worrying to a high degree about individual model positioning within the unit like 5th-7th casualty removal.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
It works the same way with LOS. Anyone else remember 6th edition and using vehicles to deliberately block LOS so that only the key model was visible and you could snipe them out?

Worked that way in 4th I think, too. I totally took advantage of that.

The current system does cause for some occasional head scratching, but imo its the least fiddly as far as I can tell. The attacker can get some advantage via positioning, but the defender still has full choice in how to react via casualty removal. Its a good trade, and not nearly as cumbersome as worrying to a high degree about individual model positioning within the unit like 5th-7th casualty removal.

I think you mean 6th and 7th, 5th was the edition where you allocated a wounds to each model in the unit evenly, it didn't matter where in the squad they were. My opinion is that we should go back to a variation on the 5th ed rules where if there are any wounded models they have to be allocated wounds before unwounded models to avoid the shenanigans that occured with grey knights paladins and nob bikers and the like.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
It works the same way with LOS. Anyone else remember 6th edition and using vehicles to deliberately block LOS so that only the key model was visible and you could snipe them out?

Worked that way in 4th I think, too. I totally took advantage of that.

The current system does cause for some occasional head scratching, but imo its the least fiddly as far as I can tell. The attacker can get some advantage via positioning, but the defender still has full choice in how to react via casualty removal. Its a good trade, and not nearly as cumbersome as worrying to a high degree about individual model positioning within the unit like 5th-7th casualty removal.

Pretty much this. The abstraction gets a bit odd when you murder a bunch of dudes behind a wall because Joey wandered into your riptide's line of sight, but at least it's quick and easy to resolve. You can always kill off your dudes in line of sight of other units that have yet to shoot first to mitigate your total casualties too.

It's just a weird artefact of edition changes. Last edition, we had game slowing positioning shenanigans as we tried to maintain a unit formation that allowed our important guys to die last and carefully measured whether or not a meltagun or bolter would be the next to die. Now, you just choose which of your own guys die last.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

I think you mean 6th and 7th, 5th was the edition where you allocated a wounds to each model in the unit evenly, it didn't matter where in the squad they were. My opinion is that we should go back to a variation on the 5th ed rules where if there are any wounded models they have to be allocated wounds before unwounded models to avoid the shenanigans that occured with grey knights paladins and nob bikers and the like.

I"m not sure I follow. The main thing I remember about 5th edition wound allocation is the part where you spread wounds out between all your guys evenly. If you require that wounded models take wounds first, what aspects of 5th edition vary from our current system? Genuine question. I don't remember the details of 5th super well.

The problem is people would back units into a certain range so that after they shoot I have to remove key models. Your 24" bolters are 23" away so after your shooting I have to remove front models including the Nob. Additionally it would force the player getting shot to remove models from the front like 6th and 7th which was no good.

Yeah, It is fantastic paying for flamers that need to be in the front of the pack to shoot their guns so they could be picked off first before they get into range. Great game design there.

Well, standing in FRONT of your friends does make you more of a target...

But it does sound like it is a bit too gamey and I think it'd likely get misused. I think if I were going to change hit allocations I'd only make one change:

On a hit, the defender chooses who to apply the wounds to in the unit. Unless the attacker rolls an unmodified '6' on the to-hit roll, in which case the attacker chooses the model to which the wound applies. '6' hits are applied before all other hits. In either case, once a model in a unit has a hit applied, keep applying hits to that model until it is removed before applying wounds to any other target in the unit.

I think that the point I am trying to make concerns "Allocate Wound" on Page 181 of the 8th Edition Rulebook. The chosen Model HAS to be both within range and within sight of the Model capable of firing. If there are no more Models, capable of complying with these criteria, then the wounds caused are limited and only applied to the Models that are within range and sight of the firers.

Dave the Walrus wrote:
I think that the point I am trying to make concerns "Allocate Wound" on Page 181 of the 8th Edition Rulebook. The chosen Model HAS to be both within range and within sight of the Model capable of firing. If there are no more Models, capable of complying with these criteria, then the wounds caused are limited and only applied to the Models that are within range and sight of the firers.

Yes, we know what your point is, you're just not getting how that rule was exploited in previous editions.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Stormonu wrote:
On a hit, the defender chooses who to apply the wounds to in the unit. Unless the attacker rolls an unmodified '6' on the to-hit roll, in which case the attacker chooses the model to which the wound applies. '6' hits are applied before all other hits. In either case, once a model in a unit has a hit applied, keep applying hits to that model until it is removed before applying wounds to any other target in the unit.

This is a really bad idea, and would make taking upgrades (other than on one-shot suicide units like plasma storm troopers that can drop in and immediately fire) pointless. Making all 6s go to the upgrade models is just too common. For example, on a BS 4+ IG unit that's a full third of the hits being allocated by the attacker. At that point the upgrade models are almost guaranteed to die, so why ever invest points into them?

Wyldhunt wrote:

I think you mean 6th and 7th, 5th was the edition where you allocated a wounds to each model in the unit evenly, it didn't matter where in the squad they were. My opinion is that we should go back to a variation on the 5th ed rules where if there are any wounded models they have to be allocated wounds before unwounded models to avoid the shenanigans that occured with grey knights paladins and nob bikers and the like.

I"m not sure I follow. The main thing I remember about 5th edition wound allocation is the part where you spread wounds out between all your guys evenly. If you require that wounded models take wounds first, what aspects of 5th edition vary from our current system? Genuine question. I don't remember the details of 5th super well.

I will try and explain with an example.
eg. You have 5 models with different loadouts. 2 of them are wounded. The unit needs to take 13 saves. Each of the 5 models gets allocated 2 wounds. Of the remaining 3 wounds 2 of them have to be allocated to the 2 wounded guys and the last one can be allocated to whichever model you want of the remaining 3.

If the same unit needs to take only 2 saves they have to be on the 2 wounded models.
It doesn't completely eliminate the shenanigans but means that the wounded models are more likely to die.

Here's a simpler option: roll saves for the entire unit at once. Defender chooses which models lose wounds for each failed save, except that a model with no wounds applied can not receive a wound if there are any models in the unit that have wounds already.

To effect what you're looking for:

"When applying wounds to a unit, if there are no more models in range and line of sight, the player may discard the remaining wounds."

Wouldn't this prevent LOS sniping, but still prevent a squad from getting just within range/los of 1 dood and killing the entire squad?

The defender still picks models, so doesn't need to lose their special/heavy/sarge if there's some chump the enemy blocked LOS to with their rhino. Otherwise, it's basically the same?

The rules as they are work ok they are abstract but the whole game is an abstraction, you don't wait untill half the squad has already made it across a street before you shoot up the stragglers.

Trying to introduce rules like your talking about would require a massive list of exceptions and rules that ignore the rules and before long your adding pages upon pages of rules and exceptions. The benifits won't outweigh the cost of adding pages of confusing rules.

Also it's not unrealistic for people to try and drag the injured into cover or pick up weapons from the injured if they are beneficial to the firefight.