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Tactical Reactions and Crowd Control Strats (Inspired by the latest Morale/Pinning Thread)  [RSS] Share on facebook Share on Twitter Submit to Reddit
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Made in us
Fixture of Dakka





This is half-baked, but it felt like it warranted its own thread to avoiding derailing the other one.

Changes to morale and pinning are a fairly common discussion here in Proposed Rules. One point that tends to come up in such threads is that half the armies in the game have strong fluff reasons for not not being afraid/prone to panic. So maybe we shouldn't frame things like going to ground as a matter of freaking out. Instead, let's look at going to ground (and other reactions to incoming fire) as a thing that units actively do to better their position in response to enemy fire. And similarly, let's look at intentionally pinning the enemy in place as something our units actively do rather than a side effect of of an especially lethal round of shooting.

GOALS:
* Add some interesting tactical choices to the game.
* Keep those choices simple to track and resolve.
* Reframe pinning, making the enemy fall back, etc. as conditions you actively inflict on the enemy.
* Make those conditions interesting; not just morale casualties on top of normal casualties.

NOT GOALS:
* Revising morale/combat attrition. I'm all for changing those systems, but my idea here doesn't directly touch on those systems. You're welcome to suggest ways to tie those systems together in the discussion below if you're so inclined. Also, there's another thread discussing that right now. Check it out if you haven't.

THE PROPOSAL
Reactions:
Basically, I want to introduce some "Reactions" that units can opt to use when they're targeted by shooting or charges (per each Reaction's description.) Most of the reactions presented here are universally available to all units that meet the prerequisites in the Reactions' descriptions. The intention is for these Reactions to be genuine trade-offs. If you feel like you'd always use one of them every time the opportunity arose, then that probably means I've made the cost too minor or the benefits too strong.

A unit may only use a single reaction per turn.

Some off-the-cuff possibilities would include...

Go to Ground
An infantry or beast unit may use this reaction when it is targeted by a ranged attack in the Shooting phase. Until the end of the phase, the unit
* gains the benefits of light cover.

Until the end of its following turn, a unit that goes to ground...
* may not willingly Fall Back, Move, or Advance
* and suffers a -1 to ranged to-hit rolls.

Jink
A flying unit may use this reaction when it is targeted by a ranged attack in the Shooting phase or when it is declared the target of a Charge. The unit may...
* immediately move up to half its Movement (rounding up),
* and to-hit rolls made against it for the remainder of the turn suffer a -1.

Until the end of its following turn, a unit that Jinks...
* may only move up to half its speed,
* may not charge or advance,
* suffer a -1 to all to-hit rolls,
* and may not shoot at enemy units farther than 12" away.

Other things that might become reactions include:
* Warp spiders' flicker jump (probably just becomes access to the Jink reaction.)
* Sacrisans' ability that lets them stab better if they don't overwatch.
* Setting to Defend.
* Auspex Scanning enemies arriving from reserves. (Probably giving up shooting the following turn for reactionary shooting at -1 to hit.)
* Priming GSC vehicles to explode on death. (As something you do instead of Fighting; no longer a strat that costs CP).

You get the idea.

Crowd Control Strats
I also want to introduce some new strats that have a chance of locking the enemy down and/or forcing them to use use certain Reactions. The hope is that this makes certain weapons more appealing and creates player options that don't revolve around overpowering/killing the enemy. I'm also hoping that making these stratagems limits some of the potential abuse you'd see if these rules were baked into a weapon profile (because you can only use the stratagem once each phase).

Suppressive Fire (0/1CP)
Use this stratagem when you target an enemy unit with one or more Pinning weapons. Before resolving any attacks, roll 2d6. If the total equals or exceeds the highest Leadership in the targeted unit must use the Jink or Go to Ground Reaction if possible. If the target is not forced to use a Reaction, this stratagem costs 0CP. Otherwise, it costs 1CP.

Cover That Angle (X CP)
Use this stratagem at the end of your Shooting phase. Select any number of units that did not shoot, and place a token anywhere on the table. At the end of the next Movement phase, all selected units may immediately shoot at any enemy unit that passed within 6" of the center of the token during that Movement phase and may add +1 to their to-hit rolls. Units may ignore line of sight when resolving these attacks provided they had line of sight to the moved unit at some point during the Movement phase. (Wording probably needs work.) X = 1/2 the number of units selected (rounding up).

Target Spotted (1CP)
A unit with the SPOTTER keyword may use this stratagem at the end of your Shooting phase. Place a token anywhere on the table that the SPOTTER model has line of sight to. During your next Shooting phase, attacks made against enemy units within 4" of the center of the token gain +1 to-hit.

So you've got a strat that makes the enemy go to ground, jink, etc. even when they normally wouldn't want to, a strat that makes the enemy want to avoid moving/deepstriking within a certain area, and a stratagem that makes makes the enemy want to leave a certain area to avoid taking heavier-than-normal losses. The idea here is that you're spending CP to influence your opponent's decision making (overtly in the case of Suppressive Fire).

Thoughts?



ATTENTION
. Psychic tests are unfluffy. Your longing for AV is understandable but misguided. Your chapter doesn't need a separate codex. Doctrines should go away. Being a "troop" means nothing. This has been a cranky service announcement. You may now resume your regularly scheduled arguing.
 
   
 
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