According to the Leaked rules, as in what is being discussed in this topic, it dose not matter what type of weapon is fired. You can fire an amount based on your vehicle type and wether you moved or not. So no restrictions as we know them now. How this works in the actual 6th ed rules is anyones guess though.
I'll think of something appropriate soon enough to put here.
So here's a fun game to pass the time.
Let's say that the most recent debunking rumor was correct: that this doc is the result of an old GW Rules Development Jamboree, and that it was rejected and sent back to the drawing board. Thus it will not be what 6th looks like.
BUT, let's assume that while wholesale changes (like flipped phases or Evasion) aren't likely to make it, that some of the smaller changes still represent developer ideas and might end up making it in to 6th. Based on that, which of the smaller rules changes would you LIKE to see survive?
I personally liked:
-Covering Fire. The ability for line infantry to do something to aid their special weapon-toting members makes them more valuable, and less like filler. It promotes non-MSU units, and is cinematic to boot.
-Flamer utility. The ability to attack units in transports is enough, though the additional attacks in Assault makes sense as well.
-The leadership changes. I like the idea of making LD checks more common and easier to fail (using Pinning weapons) but less punishing and more tactical (Shaken, Fall Back changes).
-I like the idea of reducing cover saves, especially if it's concurrent with the ability to GtG without as many penalties (Shaken status) but I think it still needs some tweaks so that foot infantry doesn't get hit too bad.
Anyone else have thoughts?
Draigo's Razor: When presented with multiple explanations for a new piece of 40K content, the most likely answer is the one intentionally designed to make you, personally, angry.
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Tales of the Seferim Sector: an ongoing series of narrative battle reports.
Kommanda Shinbash's Misfits - 1500 pt Orks
Turn sequence change. I know you said not the turn sequence, but you don't necessarily need to change the turn sequence to address the problem it does, namely the assault moves after shooting - or the Have Cake phase followed by the Eat It phase, to give them their proper names - meaning it seems like one army is literally standing stock still and allowing the other to pound on it for a bit. And I hope the will to address that remains.
I also like everything you mentioned, particularly the Leadership changes - but overall my next favourite thing was directed hits in general. It probably needs a little balancing with regard to leader models and sniper fire, but in concept it's great - not only does it solve the problem of grunts with assault rifles being nothing but ablative wounds for specialists (via covering fire, as you say), it also gets rid of the "shoot less to kill more" magic healing bullets of wound allocation. Two of my biggest 5th ed pet hates taken out with one stone.
And the modular keyword system is brilliant too, much more modern and professional.
Last edited by Bubble Ghost; 06-04-2012 at 18:10.
Idiots... nothing can live forever.
Echo the modular keywords. USRs taken to the next, logical level.
My Craftworld Yme-Loc project log It lives! Completed Night Spinner. Updated 11/27/12 Now with 100% more Dark Eldar!
It actually promotes MSU tactics by reducing the value of ablative wounds. All Directed Strike mechanics make grunts less useful relative to specialists.Originally Posted by Theocracity
Most units have a hard time using Covering Fire even at their full strength. Something like rolling three 6s to hit is a lot to depend on when you have seven normal bolter shots. This limits the utility of the mechanic to troops that reliably put out three 6s in a turn of shooting (you'd want 30+ shots to make that something worth betting on because a 50/50 isn't good) and troops that put out a lot of blast weapons. The most common unit to be able to reliably take advantage of this I think is Long Fangs with missile launchers (most fire frag to satisfy Covering Fire and one fires krak to snipe). Normal Devastators will have a little more trouble getting everything to line up because there's so little slack (one bad scatter and no sixes from your ablative wounds will mean the Covering Fire fails).
As I mentioned before, since vehicles don't care about Directed Strikes and neither do troops inside transports I think it pushes the game toward mechanized armies and suicide MSU units.
It's definitely cinematic though.
I'm afraid it doesn't. Since wound allocation goes by armor group and wounds still don't carry over you can place all the really nasty wounds on a single model with different armor. Directed Strikes make the issue less prevalent but fail to actually get rid of it.
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The turn sequence change is the best of the document I think. It mitigates the problem of troops moving more quickly when they stop to fight someone.
I also like the idea of explicitly calling Deep Strike a form of movement. That would help to quash rules misinterpretations. Similarly the mechanic for disembarking and embarking handled relatively well (yo-yo tactics notwithstanding).
I actually consider Directed Strikes separate for the purpose of piecing out the new rules ideas that were thrown in; that's why I didn't mention it when talking about Covering Fire. If Directed Strikes didn't exist but Covering Fire did (with different bonuses), would it make more sense from your perspective?
Draigo's Razor: When presented with multiple explanations for a new piece of 40K content, the most likely answer is the one intentionally designed to make you, personally, angry.
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Tales of the Seferim Sector: an ongoing series of narrative battle reports.
Kommanda Shinbash's Misfits - 1500 pt Orks
The problem I diagnosed with Covering Fire is that it hurts infantry sometimes (and big infantry units in particular because they pay so many points for ablative Wounds) while never hurting vehicles (with the possible exception of some corner cases with vehicle squadrons) or troops in transports.
The rule can work in the right context, but it doesn't fit into an overall drive away from MSU army list building. Possible fixes to that problem include making a separate mechanic for hurting vehicles or using a different benefit (one that applies to vehicles as much as infantry, such as twin-linking a weapon rather than giving it Directed Strikes).
I agree. If Directed Strikes are gone, it could give twin linking or rerolls to wound / penetrate. As an individual rule it's okay, with some tweaks.
Draigo's Razor: When presented with multiple explanations for a new piece of 40K content, the most likely answer is the one intentionally designed to make you, personally, angry.
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Tales of the Seferim Sector: an ongoing series of narrative battle reports.
Kommanda Shinbash's Misfits - 1500 pt Orks
You're being a bit pedantic here, I think. It would reduce that effect to a negligible level - and that's even before you consider that you're generally going to want that "single model with different armour" to live.
I never said it was perfect, I just prefer it to what we've got. In fact...
No objection to this way of looking at it either. I like what covering fire does (by which I mean the general concept of a squad's basic weapons fire synergising with its specialists and leader) and it's not dependent on directed hits.
That said, I'm not seeing that itcamefromthedeep's fears about MSU would come to light particularly.
Change of tone here: I completely agree with you. The main problem I have with that issue is not so much "troops moving more quickly when they stop to fight someone"; the abstract concept of rewarding success with further action is something I don't mind in gaming. The problem I have with it here is that is that it's specific to whose turn it is - sometimes a round of combat will hold you up and sometimes it won't, depending entirely on whose turn the fight started in. This leads to nonsense like a squad rushing to intercept another but declining to actually charge them, instead justing parking in front of them, with is silly because of what 40K's ludicrously hefty "charge" bonuses tell is is happening with the units' relative movement - it suggests that the intercepting unit is literally reaching their enemy and then just stopping for no reason. And also it contributes to that stupid "please please please let my guys run away or get butchered!!" thing, which is my single biggest 40K hate.
But again, the turn sequence isn't the only way of addressing this, so hopefully they're still of a mind to do something about it.
Last edited by Bubble Ghost; 07-04-2012 at 19:19.
Idiots... nothing can live forever.
Well there are Gun Drones and Shield Drones off of the top of my head. I suspect that the number of games played against Tau who use suits with drones is more than "negligable". You can run into the problem with Nobz and 'eavy armour. Company Champions with combat shields in a SM command squad will count as a different group as well. Then you have nemesis warding staves. Neophytes in a Crusader squad happen. The same problem can crop up with Fenrisian Wolves as a different armor group when they're taken as upgrades for a Space Wolf hero.
I suppose negligible is a subjective term but you're neglecting quite a few units here.
I get where you're coming from, but you're always, always, always going to be able to find specific situations in which a change doesn't work completely as intended, especially in ancient codexes. That's unavoidable, you can't change the core rules and have them work flawlessly with supplements written for a previous version, not if you want to make any meaningful changes. But any way you look at it, there's a tiny fraction of the opportunities to abuse wound allocation here that there are in the current rules.
Incidentally, the whole point of shield drones is to allocate hits to them, that's how you represent shots hitting the shields they're generating. No problem there.
Idiots... nothing can live forever.
Codex: Space Wolves and Codex: Grey Knights are not ancient. There are plenty more examples of mixed saves that are open to abuse in the Dark Eldar book.
Tau aren't going to lose Shield Drones and Black Templars will almost certainly be able to mix Neophytes in with Initiaties (that's kinda a defining visual thing for the army). This means that the problem will persist in newer versions of those books. Old army books aren't the problem here.
I thought we were all agreed that a "more shots >> fewer deaths" situation is bad. The fact that it's happening with models designed to work as bodyguards doesn't make it any more intuitive. Getting in the way of lascannon hits from a Devastator Squad should not be made easier *because* they're also shooting bolters at you.
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Problem 1: When a "uniquely-armed" model takes overkill wounds the excess are lost where they would not be if the unit were all armed identically (particularly notable where only some wounds ignore armor, such as with rending).
Solution: Overkill wounds carry over to other groups in the unit, as the defending player chooses. Instant Death instead means that the models suffers a number of wounds equal to its Wounds value instead of just one from that weapon (meaning that ID will carry over, and that ID on a wounded model will mean that another model take the wounds that the ID'd model had suffered and thus stopping players from ignoring ID wounds by allocating them to already-wounded models).
Problem 2: Wounds are "spread around" in a multi-wound unit.
Solution: Saves to be made and wounds from other models that are "carrying over" must first be allocated to models that have already suffered one or more wounds. << Perhaps imperfect, but not a bad start for someone who isn't paid the big bucks to do this sort of thing.
With solutions so obvious they're practically slapping me in the face with a cod, going back to the 4e wound allocation system seems really strange to say the least. The 5e system just needs another couple clauses and wound allocation abuse virtually disappears.
Didn't say it was only ancient codexes. That was just in response to your choice of examples. It was conversational, not empirical.
I actually disagree with you on that last bit. Wound allocation really, really annoys me but I think it's fine for a shield drone/bodyguard type ability, as long as those don't get too common. Purely opinion there though.
I'm not keen on either of those solutions either, to be honest. As a fix to 5th ed's allocation system, I much prefer adding the caveat that no model can be given a second wound that will ignore its save until everybody has one. That doesn't do anything about Instant Death but for the sake of simplicity I think it comes close enough. And as for spreading wounds around a multiwound unit, this thing does actually address that with that 'tidying up' idea, which is pretty much the same thing as what you came up with.
No one is paid the big bucks for this sort of thing.
Last edited by Bubble Ghost; 09-04-2012 at 19:21.
Idiots... nothing can live forever.
Covering fire would not be required if units could just split their fire in the first place. It makes so much more sense.
I would just allow a unit to split its fire in any way it likes. All a units firepower must be allocated before any dice rolls, any weapons that do not have LoS or range to the selected target miss automatically.
Or you could reduce it to 2 targets to avoid situations where every bolter is being fired at a separate target
Or you could limit it to wargear like wound allocation. Anyone with a bolter fires at target A, everyone with melta fires at target B, everyone with missile fires at target C
Or if it seems like too much of a boon, put in a Targetting Priority Test (Ld) If failed all the unit must fire at target A or closest enemy unit
As for wound allocation
How about something like
Gather all to wound dice.
Any weapon that causes ID is allocated first, roll to save. Remove models who failed their saves
Next any weapon that does not allow saves is allocated. Roll any invulnerables. Remove models that fail to save/cannot save.
Any multiwound model you allocate to must keep taking wounds until it is removed
Next allocate any remaining wounds as in 5th Edition, but unsaved wounds will spill over into other groups, saving player chooses.
Again, Any multiwound model you allocate to must keep taking wounds until it is removed
ex. A unit of 5 nobz all uniquely armed are hit by lascannon, 3 flamer hits and 6 lasguns.
1 nob is removed from S9 Lascannon
3 flamer hits are AP 5, which allows no save so 1 nob is removed and 1 is allocated a wound.
6 lasgun wounds are spread on the remaining 3 nobs. 2 each.
first nob saves twice.
second nob saves once, and is on 1 W
third nob (wounded) fails both saves and takes 2 wounds.
the wound spills over and MUST be allocated to second nob, as he is wounded.
All that remains is a single unwounded nob
Would that remove most of the abuses?
Is it too complex? Unfair in some way?
I'm not really in favor of making all infantry units into Long Fangs. That dilutes their unique trait and could make things too deadly.
I'm also not entirely sure about the proposed wound system. It seems overly complex, and I don't like the way that wounds can bounce back on models that have already passed their saves just because a different wounded model fails theirs.
While we're on the subject of rewriting rules though, here's how I think Covering Fire could be done without using Directed Strikes:
After selecting a target, the unit may nominate one weapon type held by one or more models in the unit. All models in the unit, except for the nominated models, forgo all shooting attacks and roll a single dice. Each dice result of 6 will allow the nominated models to reroll any single dice in their normal shooting attack. This reroll can be used for To Hit, Scatter Dice, To Wound, Armor Penetration or Vehicle Damage.
How does that sound? It only allows a single weapon type to get the rerolls, which means (for example) a unit of Devestators with only rocket launchers would not be eligible but a mixed-weapon infantry unit would (though a unit with bolters, plasma and melta would have to choose which special weapon they're covering fire with - not both). It would be good against vehicles or heavy infantry but not great against units that could be hurt by small arms. My main concerns regard how many dice the covering fire units get to roll (1 only or full shooting attack) and what the reroll can apply to (is vehicle damage too much?)
Last edited by Theocracity; 10-04-2012 at 13:17.
Draigo's Razor: When presented with multiple explanations for a new piece of 40K content, the most likely answer is the one intentionally designed to make you, personally, angry.
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Tales of the Seferim Sector: an ongoing series of narrative battle reports.
Kommanda Shinbash's Misfits - 1500 pt Orks
Imagine if Preferred Enemy gave you the option to re-roll failed to wound or armor penetration...
Army of the Southern Gate
theDarkGeneral
T'raj the Terrible
Khorne Legion Daemongorge
It may be a bit much I suppose. I was mostly trying to figure out a way to avoid a situation of 'more rerolls than dice to reroll.' It still isn't exactly like PE, as you have a pool of reroll dice rather than a full reroll. But it could just apply to hits.Imagine if Preferred Enemy gave you the option to re-roll failed to wound or armor penetration...
Draigo's Razor: When presented with multiple explanations for a new piece of 40K content, the most likely answer is the one intentionally designed to make you, personally, angry.
/////
Tales of the Seferim Sector: an ongoing series of narrative battle reports.
Kommanda Shinbash's Misfits - 1500 pt Orks
Keeping it restricted to splitting fire to 2 targets would be enough for 99% of units, give long fangs something else unique. I think they got the spit fire rule back in 3rd Edition, what did they have in 2nd?
Vehicles could also split fire at will
It is not perfect, the reason I added the bounce back wounds was to avoid the problem in 5th where I can heap all the wounds on 1 group to keep others safe. It might not be required if ID and no save ones are rolled separate to regular wounds. What if the final step removed spill over damage? Do you think it is too complex? It just means rolling in batches rather than all at once. The only real problem arises if an AP4 weapon fires at a squad with 3+ saves and 4+ saves. Do you assign it to no save pool or 3+ pool? Can you think of a fair solution? Assign it to 3+ pool, but if all 3+ models have wound assigned, you must assign it to 4+ save group models that have no wound assigned?
Do they get to roll a dice if they are out of range?
Vehicle Damage reroll seems a bit much. I would leave it at To Hit(including Scatter), To Wound, Armour Penetration
IG blob squads get another boost with this. With about 26 support shots (for 30 man blob) they should get to reroll to hit and penetrate with several heavy weapons each turn.
This isn't a rules development thread.
I gave an example of another way of solving the wound allocation problem to give context for why I have issues with how the proposed 6e deals with it. The complaint I leveled is that it can be done better, which really begs the question of what that better way would be. I only mentioned the way I would do it because my discussion of the topic required that for context.
As I'm sure the mods will soon note, this is not a rules development thread. Let's not get it closed.
You're right. I got carried away in extrapolating how the rules concepts presented in the doc could be separated from each other (the concept of Covering Fire without using Directed Strikes).
Draigo's Razor: When presented with multiple explanations for a new piece of 40K content, the most likely answer is the one intentionally designed to make you, personally, angry.
/////
Tales of the Seferim Sector: an ongoing series of narrative battle reports.
Kommanda Shinbash's Misfits - 1500 pt Orks
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