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I like the "Actions" mechanic added to 9th, and I think it has some very good potential if they can expand on it, which can also help reduce lethality!

One thought: Action: Go To Ground. Infantry or Beast units can perform at any point. This action is completed at the end of your next shooting phase. If a unit which has Gone to Ground would benefit from Cover (Light Cover, Heavy cover, adjust wording to make this work how it should) then the unit can only be hit by shooting attacks on an unmodified roll of a 6.

This would render a unit useless for anything except holding an objective, but would allow a unit to dive for cover if it's getting focused on - giving you some utility in keeping your own units alive. And yes, they can still charge out of the cover, but they can't move first so it's not such an issue. Breaking cover for a short charge is reasonably fluffy, to me.

What do you think? What other actions might you like to see to help keep models alive and increase tactical play?

Also, damnit I put this in the wrong forum. Please can a Mod move this to the Proposed Rules section?

I like the idea of seeing actions utilized in more places. I could see various healing abilities becoming actions. Maybe tech priests go back to being able to fortify a position by spending an action each turn. Maybe drukhari can spend an action to take slaves near a destroyed enemy unit in crusade games to gain extra post-game benefits. Maybe add an action that lets you overwatch during your opponent's following turn. Lots of potential.

Regarding your Going to Ground. A few disorganized thoughts:

* It seems very powerful. Possibly too powerful. Dislodging a 10 man cultist unit on terrain would now take an average of 60 shots just to get 10 hits. And you'd still have wounds, saves, etc. after that.

* Making this a universal ability available to pretty much every cheap objective grabber weirdly devalues good ballistics skill. Marines and eldar are functionally taking a -3 to hit penalty (75% reduction in total hits) while orks are only taking a -1 (50% reduction in total hits), and the orks are presumably paying fewer points for the BS stat.

* I feel like the various "ignore cover" rules should interact with (ignore?) this.

* I'd probably say you can go to ground "when targeted by an enemy shooting attack" rather than "at any time." The latter lets you pop GtG at awkward times/force your opponent to declare buffs that you could then negate.

* As a less powerful alternative, how about just causing light cover to grant an additional +1 to saves? That way, you're not negating more valuable BS stats, "ignores cover" rules would still be useful, and you no longer need 60 shots to kill 10 cultists.

I like the idea of techpriests and healing buffs to become actions, that's a good one.

I also agree it's very powerful. The goal is to make it a difficult thing to combat. Expensive units doing it become largely useless, as these will generally have other things they want to do.

One way to combat its effectiveness from a tactical standpoint is to make contesting objectives an action as well, meaning a unit which has gone to ground doesn't count for the objective.

Most armies with decent ballistic skill can also take flamers, which ignore cover. I would also make a generic change for Grenade type weapons to ignore cover, as they are going to be thrown into cover from close range, and we can assume that everyone with a grenade has the basic training on how to throw one. This would improve peoples capabilities in overcoming this action.

Yes, Ignores Cover would do as it's usually worded that the target unit "does not get the benefit of cover", and this would only apply if the unit had the benefit of cover.

In the same token, if a unit is in a ruin and goes to ground, and you walk in there and shoot them, they don't have the benefit of cover from this attack so don't benefit from go to ground. so it's actually an easily worked around action, but is effective at long range.

I'd be happy with going to ground when targeted by a shooting attack.

an extra +1 to saves is meaningless for the units who should actually be going to ground. 6+ saves are the ones who need cover, and going to 4+ isn't enough to make them survive. And as my goal is to make the game more survivable (whilst sacrificing combat ability) I want the unit of cultists to take a lot of shooting to kill if they go to ground, unless you either walk up to them and shoot them, or use flamer weapons or grenades.

I'd be reluctant to make auto-hitting weapons a semi-mandatory part of list creation. For my aeldari, such weapons aren't widely available and usually aren't on ideal choices. I don't generally take storm guardians for instance, and I don't really want to give up a meltagun and put a squad of fire dragons away from tanks just so I can use a dragon's breath flamer from the exarch. My drukhari cronos is surprisingly points efficien this edition, but at strength 3, he'll only be wounding gaunts and guardsmen half the time (for an average of 1.75 wounds on his d6 auto hit weapon.) And as grenades are usually only 1d6 shots and only 1 grenade per unit, I feel like you'll have trouble displacing a cheap unit that has gone to ground in short order.

I also feel like a squad of 5 tactical marines going to ground every turn is a bit of a nightmare to dislodge with shooting. Or heck, 5 veteran intercessors that would also be able to beat half my melee specialists in close combat.

I really feel that "ignore 5 out of 6 sides on the to-hit die" is just too strong an ability. Especially considering we're talking about using it on cheap units whose whole job is to sit on an objective and not die. While it's true that you'd be encouraging people to take flamers and melee units that they might not normally take, they'd be doing so because they'd kind of be screwed if they didn't take such options. Which means you're going to end up turning a lot of codex options into a bad idea. I can't picture myself enjoying facing a bunch of GtG marines with something like a tau army or even my typical craftworlder lists that have *some* melee but not a ton of it.

I also feel you might be dismissing an extra +1 to armor saves too easily. Sure, a cultist is "only" getting a 4+ save, but that's a huge leap from a 6+. And if you're not facing armies like 'crons and marines who have lots of AP on their basic guns, you're really going to feel the difference. My drukhari and tau dakka would be way less effective against a bunch of 4+ armor cultists.

On a unit with a 5+ armor save, we're now talking about a power armor save while camping an objective. Heck, my guardian defenders could even end up with a few 1+ saves thanks to their weapon platforms. A fire warriors would have a 2+ save if his job was to stand on an objective while the rest of his pals do the shooting.

I think you've missed a couple of points:

You can go to ground and get no benefit if you wouldn't benefit from cover. So outmaneuvering the opponent becomes a valid tactic, so instead of them ducking behind a wall, you would see them lying on the ground, and you would shoot them as normal. your Aeldari would be able to ignore the effect of going to ground by denying the opponent the benefits of cover - EG joining them in the ruin.

Alternatively, the rule could be for any shots from outside 12" range. so getting close is enough to mitigate it - but then, that makes it a lot less effective.

It could also disallow holding an objective. So if you have a unit on an objective and they go to ground, they cannot claim the objective.

This would be done by making "Claim an Objective" an action to perform in the Command phase, which is a no-brainer unless you happen to be performing an action already. so objective camping whilst going to ground is a no-no. Going to ground would then be used to play a long-game, trying to get rid of what's shooting your precarious objective-holders and giving your squishy unit half a chance to survive. no, they can't hoist a flag right now, so they're hiding.

making things hit on a 6 is equal in value as far as the guy in cover is concerned - making the enemy hit on 6's is as much of a benefit to a grot as it is to a terminator, whereas giving a terminator +2 to save is significantly better than giving a grot +2 to saves.

As for armies which make up for poor BS by pumping out a lot of shots - yes, they make this tactic less effective, in the same way as armies which overwatch at full BS make charging ineffective, and armies which reroll everything make -1 to hit ineffective, and armies which inflict mortal wounds make invulnerable saves ineffective, and armies which have lots of AP-2 or better make 3+ saves ineffective.

The goal is for this to be a tool for your box, and I'd rather have its effectiveness hinge on your opponent than hinge on the unit you choose to use it on - anyone can make a terminator lie down with a stormshield for a -1+ save, whereas no-one can guarantee they aren't fighting orks, or lots of flamers. It becomes a tactic you have to consider on a game-by-game basis, not a "if I do this on that unit then cast this then this will always happen!" tactic.

It is, though, significantly too powerful as a tool in the box.

I cannot see a single army that wouldn't use the everloving hell out of this action.

For a bit of perspective, the Alaitoc-specific stratagem lets you spend 1CP to make a specific type of unit (eldar rangers) only get hit on 6+. Rangers are T3, 1 wound, have a 3+ save while in cover, and are 15 points per model (I think). 75 points gets you a minimum squad of 5 wounds.

With this rule, 50 points of guardsmen would get the same benefit for 0CP and twice as many wounds. A squad of tactical marines would cost a few (15?) points more than the rangers but also have double the wounds while also having T4 and a 2+ save.

It's a bit like giving automatically-cast 7th edition invisibility to a unit.

Granted, if you made it so a GtG unit can't score objectives, then you make this a lot less powerful, but you'd still be making GtG units all but immune to enemy fire.

I feel that you might be understating the difficulty of getting into the same piece of light cover as a target unit. If I know that I can make my unit semi-immune to shooting by keeping my opponent out of a piece of terrain, I'll just be sure to wall off the border of that terrain with bodies so that my opponent has to use much more movement (often more than they have) to walk around me and enter the terrain. And I say that as a primarily aeldari player whose units typically have a bit more mobility to work with. With these rules in place, my kabalites would always be flayed skull and my craftworlders would always take masterful shots (both let you ignore cover) because they'd be the only way to keep large chunks of the enemy army from being immune to most of my army's offense.

I'm not sure I follow how it is so powerful...

for 1CP you make your rangers only hit on a 6+, during which they can move, shoot, charge, and claim objectives, and there's nothing the opponent can do about it (except autohits)

for 0CP you can make your unit do absolutely nothing except get shot (not even fight back in CC) and only get hit on a 6+, as long as they benefit from cover.

A unit which has gone to ground has become exclusively a target. It cannot do anything except be damaged. It is worth nothing, and would only benefit from doing so if it were only going to be destroyed during the opponents turn - it's literally a "sacrifice everything for a turn to try and survive" deal. And even then, it can be circumvented by:
1: getting rid of cover (weapons with the rule, getting around them, moving into cover with them)
2: Auto-hitting weapons, which most armies have access to.


Now, I think one thing I will have to do is change when it happens, as if it is when a unit gets shot it becomes less counter-able. I would instead have "go to ground" happen at the end of your movement phase, and last until the end of your next movement phase. so you can get a unit into cover, and instead of shooting etc. you would go to ground, and then the opponent knows you have gone to ground before they start their turn - meaning they can use deepstrikers to get behind you, or change their tactics to reflect it. In your next turn, you cannot move - so charging armies don't just run from cover to cover whilst being unkillable.

How would that compare for you guys?

 some bloke wrote:
I'm not sure I follow how it is so powerful...

for 1CP you make your rangers only hit on a 6+, during which they can move, shoot, charge, and claim objectives, and there's nothing the opponent can do about it (except autohits)

for 0CP you can make your unit do absolutely nothing except get shot (not even fight back in CC) and only get hit on a 6+, as long as they benefit from cover.

The thing is, rangers usually don't want to move because their guns are heavy, they don't actually shoot all that well in most situations, and they have basically the melee performance of a guardsman (with a much higher price tag). So claiming objectives is usually the main thing you want to accomplish with them.

Preventing units from claiming objectives when they go to ground might make it okay. At that point, you're kind of just putting them in a stasis bubble for a turn. If your opponent has the means to kill them while they're gtg, you probably won't have them gtg in the first place. So you basically gain the option to stop scoring points and fighting enemy units in exchange for being situationally semi-immune to enemy shooting.

And I'm having trouble wrapping my brain around exactly what that looks like. I guess if my opponent can kill my gtg unit efficiently, gtg doesn't do me any good. So I just won't use it. But if he doesn't have the tools to efficiently bypass it (because he didn't take flamers or extra melee units and I've movement blocked him from getting on the same terrain), and if I won't lose VP for doing so, I'll gtg at that point.

It probably adds some meaningful decisions to the game. Which is good. I'm just not sure if it would actually be fun to play against. I suspect some armies will have great gtg units and will become very annoying to deal with while others won't really be able to make use of it but might have to take more flamers or melee units to deal with it. I could see unhittable kabalite warriors screening out deepstrikers being a thing, for instance. Or maybe kroot doing the same for a tau gunline. I guess it would also let you put a character on an objective and gain the gtg unit's protection too.

Wyldhunt wrote:
I guess it would also let you put a character on an objective and gain the gtg unit's protection too.

That's a good catch, it would have to prevent this as well. If they are lying down and you're stood up, that's not exactly going to hide you!

Rule number one of not being seen: not to stand up.

 some bloke wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:
I guess it would also let you put a character on an objective and gain the gtg unit's protection too.

That's a good catch, it would have to prevent this as well. If they are lying down and you're stood up, that's not exactly going to hide you!

Rule number one of not being seen: not to stand up.

Classic stuff. XD