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1. Let swarms move through ruin walls. The whole idea behind infantry/beasts being able to do so is that they're squeezing through tight spaces, vaulting over rubble that would slow a bike, etc. It seems like swarms should excel at this sort of thing.

2. Swarms take a max of 1 damage non-blast weapons, but take double damage from blast weapons. It's weird that a lascannon or power klaw is somehow popping whole swarms, yet blast weapons have no inherent advantage against critter clouds that are just begging for some splash damage.

3. Scrap the overwatch stratagem entirely. Make overwatch a thing you can do with specific weapons (like flamers) or with specific special abilities. As-is, overwatch is kind of a feels-bad rule. 99% of the time, it's a bad idea to use it because hitting on 6s makes it too unreliable to be a good use of command points. The other 1% of the time, it's too effective (basically a free shooting phase) and feels bad to face. Or put another way, overwatching with bolters and doing nothing feels bad for the overwatcher, but overwatching with flamers and wiping out a unit in the movement phase feels bad for the overwatched.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
1. Let swarms move through ruin walls. The whole idea behind infantry/beasts being able to do so is that they're squeezing through tight spaces, vaulting over rubble that would slow a bike, etc. It seems like swarms should excel at this sort of thing.

2. Swarms take a max of 1 damage non-blast weapons, but take double damage from blast weapons. It's weird that a lascannon or power klaw is somehow popping whole swarms, yet blast weapons have no inherent advantage against critter clouds that are just begging for some splash damage.

3. Scrap the overwatch stratagem entirely. Make overwatch a thing you can do with specific weapons (like flamers) or with specific special abilities. As-is, overwatch is kind of a feels-bad rule. 99% of the time, it's a bad idea to use it because hitting on 6s makes it too unreliable to be a good use of command points. The other 1% of the time, it's too effective (basically a free shooting phase) and feels bad to face. Or put another way, overwatching with bolters and doing nothing feels bad for the overwatcher, but overwatching with flamers and wiping out a unit in the movement phase feels bad for the overwatched.

1) Agreed
2) Max of one damage from non-blast feels REALLY strong. I don't think my Nurglings should be able to tank three Lascannons that get through their invulns. Maybe half damage?
3) Fair.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:
1. Let swarms move through ruin walls. The whole idea behind infantry/beasts being able to do so is that they're squeezing through tight spaces, vaulting over rubble that would slow a bike, etc. It seems like swarms should excel at this sort of thing.

2. Swarms take a max of 1 damage non-blast weapons, but take double damage from blast weapons. It's weird that a lascannon or power klaw is somehow popping whole swarms, yet blast weapons have no inherent advantage against critter clouds that are just begging for some splash damage.

3. Scrap the overwatch stratagem entirely. Make overwatch a thing you can do with specific weapons (like flamers) or with specific special abilities. As-is, overwatch is kind of a feels-bad rule. 99% of the time, it's a bad idea to use it because hitting on 6s makes it too unreliable to be a good use of command points. The other 1% of the time, it's too effective (basically a free shooting phase) and feels bad to face. Or put another way, overwatching with bolters and doing nothing feels bad for the overwatcher, but overwatching with flamers and wiping out a unit in the movement phase feels bad for the overwatched.

1) Agreed
2) Max of one damage from non-blast feels REALLY strong. I don't think my Nurglings should be able to tank three Lascannons that get through their invulns. Maybe half damage?
3) Fair.

2.) Idk. I feel like lascannons should never have really been a good tool for that particular job in the first place, and the blast changes mean they'd be much easier to remove via blast weapons than before. So while those lascannons are stuck popping one or two booger demons at a time, a frag missile or battle cannon would make quick work of them.

It shouldn’t come for free, at a minimum.
Nurglings are already good, and ripper swarms are too (I think)

 Wyldhunt wrote:

2. Swarms take a max of 1 damage non-blast weapons, but take double damage from blast weapons. It's weird that a lascannon or power klaw is somehow popping whole swarms, yet blast weapons have no inherent advantage against critter clouds that are just begging for some splash damage.

the warhammer armies project for fantasy does something similar to this

Warhammer Armies Project wrote:However, any Swarm base that is hit by a template attack suffers Multiple Wounds (D6) rather than 1.

JNAProductions wrote:It shouldn’t come for free, at a minimum.
Nurglings are already good, and ripper swarms are too (I think)

Hmm. Maybe. I'm not sure how prevalent blast weapons are at the moment, so not sure how big of a buff it would be for swarms to switch weaknesses from high D weapons to blast weapons. I guess the half damage approach could work if blasts turn out to be too rare or something. I wouldn't want to raise the points costs of swarms overly much just because I made their weakness rarer.

StudentOfEtherium wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:

2. Swarms take a max of 1 damage non-blast weapons, but take double damage from blast weapons. It's weird that a lascannon or power klaw is somehow popping whole swarms, yet blast weapons have no inherent advantage against critter clouds that are just begging for some splash damage.

the warhammer armies project for fantasy does something similar to this

Warhammer Armies Project wrote:However, any Swarm base that is hit by a template attack suffers Multiple Wounds (D6) rather than 1.

Makes sense. Iirc, the oldschool rule was that blasts (and templates?) did 2 Wounds instead of 1. So a frag missile wasn't wiping a base of scarabs on its own, but it was relatively efficient compared to most weapons. I don't recall whether they were immune to insta-death from high-strength weapons or not.

1. 100% Agree

2. I like this idea, but points would have to be re-balanced as this would be a large buff. There are way more damage 2+ weapons running around than there are blast weapons.

3. Yeah, it is in a weird spot. I always liked the old overwatch rule where you just got to do it for free if anyone charged you, but I do see how that slows down a game too.

Tying it to weapons of characters is a neat idea. Going by that logic, I'd make it a unit keyword that works on a -1 to your BS (so that is negatively stacks with Stealth). That way it's still not as accurate as normal shooting, but also doesn't often feel pointless either.

 Tawnis wrote:
1. 100% Agree

2. I like this idea, but points would have to be re-balanced as this would be a large buff. There are way more damage 2+ weapons running around than there are blast weapons.

Fair enough then. JNA's suggestion of halving damage from high strength weapons instead of setting it to 1 might be more appropriate then. The fluff is sketchy, but letting high-strength weapons continue to have some (limited) extra effectiveness against swarms is probably better for the game. Especially because I feel like increasing the points of most swarm units is likely to be too big of a downside.

3. Yeah, it is in a weird spot. I always liked the old overwatch rule where you just got to do it for free if anyone charged you, but I do see how that slows down a game too.

It slowed the game down, and it also just kind of felt bad. Your opponent's melee dreadnaught or deff dread finally managed to lumber across the board to reach your ravager or war walker, and then it randomly just dies when it finally tries to charge. It doesn't create interesting decisions; just random feelbad moments.

Tying it to weapons of characters is a neat idea. Going by that logic, I'd make it a unit keyword that works on a -1 to your BS (so that is negatively stacks with Stealth). That way it's still not as accurate as normal shooting, but also doesn't often feel pointless either.

I could see that for a character that grants overwatch to a unit. I was also picturing having some weapons with the overwatch keyword be allowed to overwatch, but the rest of the squad doesn't get to join them. So the flamer guy(s) in a tactical squad could overwatch, but their bolter buddies couldn't.