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Made in us
Humming Great Unclean One of Nurgle





In My Lab

This is a rule I would add to Cultists, Grots, and Conscripts. Possibly other units as well, but those are the main ones I can think of.

Expendable
This unit, while in Engagement Range of an enemy unit, does not prevent other friendly units from firing at the enemy unit. If a friendly unit shoots at an enemy unit within Engagement Range of any units with this rule, for every successful hit roll you make against the enemy unit, you must allocate one hit of the same type to an Expendable unit, up to a maximum number equal to the number of misses with that weapon. If the weapon does not require a hit roll or automatically succeeds on hit rolls, you allocate the number of hits on the enemy unit to every Expendable unit within Engagement Range.
To make this clearer with an example, I'll use two.

Orks
A squad of fifteen Lootas with 12 Deffguns and 3 Big Shootas fires while within half range of the Deffguns at some Landspeeders, engaged in combat with Grots. The Lootas roll 36 shots and get 12 hits. They must then allocate 12 hits from their Deffguns to the Grots, as well as 12 hits on the Landspeeders. The Big Shootas roll 9 shots, and get 3 hits. They must then allocate 3 hits from their Big Shootas to the Grots, as well as 3 hits on the Landspeeders.

CSM
A squad of five Havocs, armed with four Reaper Chaincannons and a Flamer on the Champion, fire at a squad of Intercessors engaged in melee with three small squads of Cultists. The Chaincannons roll 32 shots and get 21 hits. They must allocate up to 21 hits to the Cultist squads, but since they only had 11 misses, they only need to allocate 11 hits amongst the three Cultist squads, divided as they please. The Flamer then rolls for number of hits, and gets 5. Because the Flamer does not roll to hit, instead automatically succeeding, you would allocate 5 Flamer hits to the Intercessor squad and EACH squad of Cultists.
_________________________________________________________________________________

Does that make sense? I think the rule could be cleaned up, but I hope the examples make it clear what's intended.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/08/15 21:08:14


Clocks for the clockmaker! Cogs for the cog throne! 
   
Made in us
Unbalanced Fanatic






Nice idea, perhaps strategems could give a unit the expendable ability for a phase. But this rule requires you to both count the number of hits and misses and then make a comparison between the two; as opposed to just counting hits as you normally would. I think there is an easier way, though I don't know what it would be. Maybe rolls of one less than the model's BS hit the expendable unit instead?
   
Made in de
Boom! Leman Russ Commander






I think it's an interesting rule. I guess it could be simplified by just allocating the same number of hits to the expendable unit without counting misses. I'm not sure, but I think it would seldom make a difference.

Looking from a Guard perspective it would give Conscripts an interesting role again.

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Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut





I quite like this idea, but not so sure about the execution, counting up hits and misses could become tiresome in large amounts. How about:
" Each hit roll of a natural 1 generates a Mortal Wound on the Expendable unit in engagement range with the target unit."

There would need to be a way to address weapons that don't roll to hit, like flamers, would MWs equal to the number of hits be too much?
   
Made in us
Unbalanced Fanatic






Aash wrote:
I quite like this idea, but not so sure about the execution, counting up hits and misses could become tiresome in large amounts. How about:
" Each hit roll of a natural 1 generates a Mortal Wound on the Expendable unit in engagement range with the target unit."

There would need to be a way to address weapons that don't roll to hit, like flamers, would MWs equal to the number of hits be too much?

That would be thematic, but considering how many reroll 1's there are, not appropriate. There is a reason Kharn can't reroll 1's (I think). I don't even know where to begin when making a rule like this. Could you give the rule to terminators through a stratagem? That would make mortal wounds really punishing.
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut





 Eipi10 wrote:
Aash wrote:
I quite like this idea, but not so sure about the execution, counting up hits and misses could become tiresome in large amounts. How about:
" Each hit roll of a natural 1 generates a Mortal Wound on the Expendable unit in engagement range with the target unit."

There would need to be a way to address weapons that don't roll to hit, like flamers, would MWs equal to the number of hits be too much?

That would be thematic, but considering how many reroll 1's there are, not appropriate. There is a reason Kharn can't reroll 1's (I think). I don't even know where to begin when making a rule like this. Could you give the rule to terminators through a stratagem? That would make mortal wounds really punishing.


I wasn't thinking terminators would be impacted. I was thinking along the lines of it being linked to an "expendable" keyword, as suggested by the OP, which would only be given to cannon fodder type units, like grots, conscripts etc. If the friendly unit in engagement range with the enemy doesn't have the "expendable" key word then you would treat the unit as normal - not able to shoot into the combat.

As for the prevalence of re-rolling ones, that might diminish the effect too much, but a mortal wound for each miss would be far too much. The fact that re-roll ones is an indication of improved accuracy does fit thematically with not hitting the friendly unit though. Not sure what would be a better trigger than a hit roll of a one.
   
Made in gb
Battleship Captain





Bristol (UK)

I actually think hosing down your own Terminators would be fairly common.

"Back scratching" is often used in tanks, if enemy infantry are crawling over your tanks, you just machine gun them off, you know it won't hurt the tank.
Terminators would be exactly the same.
I can see this being a lot more common than a heartless disregard for the lives of your comrades.

I'd advocate for just distributing the hits to both units, with it either being a universal rule, or a strategem to make it a universal rule.
   
Made in gb
Lord of the Fleet






London

I'd just make it so a hit roll of 1 hits the unit in Engagement Range without the MW. Doesn't make sense that a Lasgun for example becomes inconceivably lethal when fired at your own guys.
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut





 Valkyrie wrote:
I'd just make it so a hit roll of 1 hits the unit in Engagement Range without the MW. Doesn't make sense that a Lasgun for example becomes inconceivably lethal when fired at your own guys.


It depends on what you want to achieve. Currently shooting into engaged units isn’t possible at all, which means melee units can get some safety by getting into combat. The whole balance of shooting vs melee is altered if shooting into engaged units is possible across the board. In order to provide some balance there needs to be a risk/reward mechanism. If one 6th of your shots cause mortal wounds on your own units, then it is a meaningful decision to fire into that combat. If you apply the hits as normal, rolling to wound and save, the risk of harming your own units is much less, making it often an automatic choice, and becomes similar to overwatch in 8th ed. In addition the game will be slowed down by the additional wound and save rolls. MW is more streamlined.

As for shooting into terminators or vehicles engaged in melee, I think the idea has merit, but I feel that’s a separate (albeit related) discussion than the one at hand- expendable units.
   
Made in gb
Dakka Veteran




The idea is straightforward, though in practice I'd expect it to be a Stratagem - my question is why it works off hits? As it stands, a BS2+ sniper is just as likely to hit a friendly as the enemy. It feels like hits vs misses would make more sense.
   
Made in us
Ultramarine Chaplain with Hate to Spare






I love the Expendable idea.

I also see the merit of being able to target opponents among your own, more armored units.

I can't recall the edition, but I feel like I sent Whirlwind rounds near my Marines engaged with Orks in CC. That must have been in 3rd or 4th when you still guessed its range and picked a direction to fire.

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Made in gb
Regular Dakkanaut




If I'm not mistaken, isn't this concept already a unique order for one of the Astra Militarum regiments (Valhallan, I think)?

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/08/17 06:42:26


 
   
 
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