What could Chapter Approved do?

[Kallas]

But something I want to stress in Emperor’s name PLEASE DO NOT BRING BACK TEMPLATES. I honestly never want to have to roll to scatter or have to run around my LGS to find a flamer, small or large blast template again. Also I’d change back deep strikes to that first turn player cannot bring them in. But the player going second can as normal.

Totally agree on templates going away, but, please give old template weapons something to make them less pants against hordes. Flamers are pathetic, unless they're cheap/en masse like Guard Special Weapon/Command Squads.

 

Template/blast weapons need some benefit against bigger squads (and possibly just nearby concentrations of troops, similar to how Linebreaker Bombardment works) - some weapons have a bonus against bigger squads, such as the Demolisher Cannon's d3 -> d6 if the unit is 5+; but that's really not enough, in fact it's woefully inadequate. The Grav-Flux Bombard has the right idea of +d3 shots per 5 models, so it can (vs a unit of 30) have 7d3 shots; not all weapons should have that, but they should some scaling benefit vs large concentrations of troops.

[Tyriks]

I think if they made what used to be Blast weapons scale (maybe with a cap based on the weapon) it would help a lot. Like an IG mortar might be d6 per ten models capped at 3d6 where a demolisher cannon is d6 per five capped at 5d6. That would mean cheap blasts don't become insanely good and big, earth-shaking weapons scale better.

[Schlitzaf]

Honestly? Flamers are just fine as they are imho. Their best ‘normal’ usage is on assault infantry that is advancing almost every turn. Because they can auto hit. I see folks running plasma guns too often on units meant to be assaulting, and then say “why you run flamers”.

 

Like don’t get me wrong I think flamers should be cheaper (likewise for meltaguns. Both need to be cut in half points wise imho). But as is? I think flamers do their job which is 9 points for the equivalent number of attacks of 2 marines. (3.5 auto hits = approx 6 strength 4 AP - attack’s or 26 points). So your saving 2-4 points in that regard. Just compared to Plasma which is a 13 points upgrade, is rougly 4 Marines for price of two depending on overcharging. (1(13)Marine does 0.11 wounds post while 1 Marine w/Plasma (26 points) does either 0.38-0.45 points). Which is compared to the flamer is 26 vs 3 point saving. If you reduced the flamer by half. While the price is still in favor of the plasma. It’s much closer, being the saving equivalent of 26 v 9-10 points. It’s a far more reasonable variance.

[MARK0SIAN]

You could bring back flamer templates without any problem. They don’t scatter and are pretty quick to resolve. They’d add some reliability to flamer type weapons and would partially resolve one of my biggest annoyances which is that area effect or blast weapons can only target a single unit, no matter how tightly packed everything is together.

[Schlitzaf]

Not really tbh, if my foe is run templates I am going take the time to position my models 2” away from each other. Secondly how often did you actually get the full template with flamers. And then we still have the issue of lugging around template be it singular and then we have the issue of arguing how many models are under it.

[MARK0SIAN]

Not really tbh, if my foe is run templates I am going take the time to position my models 2” away from each other. Secondly how often did you actually get the full template with flamers. And then we still have the issue of lugging around template be it singular and then we have the issue of arguing how many models are under it.

But to be honest you should have to think about positioning your models. It’s getting silly just seeing everything clumped tightly around around a reroll bubble, everything packed into a few square inches. It’s also a good counter to hordes that way because they can either clump together so they get more models into combat in the charge/pile in but risk being fried or they can spread out to reduce the flamer damage but get less models into combat.

 

I’ll agree you rarely got the whole template over everything but I never had a time where I got less than 2 models under it and normally more. The problem is, hordes are just not scared of flamers and they should be. I think a flamer template would help with that.

[toaae]

 

Not really tbh, if my foe is run templates I am going take the time to position my models 2” away from each other. Secondly how often did you actually get the full template with flamers. And then we still have the issue of lugging around template be it singular and then we have the issue of arguing how many models are under it.

But to be honest you should have to think about positioning your models. It’s getting silly just seeing everything clumped tightly around around a reroll bubble, everything packed into a few square inches. It’s also a good counter to hordes that way because they can either clump together so they get more models into combat in the charge/pile in but risk being fried or they can spread out to reduce the flamer damage but get less models into combat.

 

I’ll agree you rarely got the whole template over everything but I never had a time where I got less than 2 models under it and normally more. The problem is, hordes are just not scared of flamers and they should be. I think a flamer template would help with that.

 

 

It was tedious. I'm not happy with just moving blast and template weapons to a d6, but removing templates was a good move. As an Ork player, it wasted so much time spacing out units to minimize the threat of flamers, a tedious task that didn't add any fun to the game, for both me and my opponent. Removing them was an abstraction that was well worth its cost.

 

If anything, add "If the target unit has 10 or more models, change this weapon to Assault 6" to flamers, but don't bring back templates.

[MARK0SIAN]

 

 

 

Not really tbh, if my foe is run templates I am going take the time to position my models 2” away from each other. Secondly how often did you actually get the full template with flamers. And then we still have the issue of lugging around template be it singular and then we have the issue of arguing how many models are under it.

But to be honest you should have to think about positioning your models. It’s getting silly just seeing everything clumped tightly around around a reroll bubble, everything packed into a few square inches. It’s also a good counter to hordes that way because they can either clump together so they get more models into combat in the charge/pile in but risk being fried or they can spread out to reduce the flamer damage but get less models into combat.

 

I’ll agree you rarely got the whole template over everything but I never had a time where I got less than 2 models under it and normally more. The problem is, hordes are just not scared of flamers and they should be. I think a flamer template would help with that.

It was tedious. I'm not happy with just moving blast and template weapons to a d6, but removing templates was a good move. As an Ork player, it wasted so much time spacing out units to minimize the threat of flamers, a tedious task that didn't add any fun to the game, for both me and my opponent. Removing them was an abstraction that was well worth its cost.

 

If anything, add "If the target unit has 10 or more models, change this weapon to Assault 6" to flamers, but don't bring back templates.

But in your example you’re now free to clump all those models together in base contact with each other ensuring that almost all of them get into the charge and can fight in the next phase. They’re not worried about the flamer template and they also don’t care about the vindicator shell dropping on them which previously would’ve erased the entire unit. Perhaps spacing them did take too long, but at the moment you can have all the advantages of spacing them tightly together with none of the drawbacks.

 

Like I said, horde armies just do not fear or care about previously good anti-horde weapons. Even changing the flamer to assault 6 is still only going to average 2-3 dead orks. We need better anti-horde weapons in this edition as there’s only a handful that I can think of that are a genuine threat to a blob of orks, cultists or daemon chaff and all the ones I can think of cost considerably more points than the horde unit they would target.

[WarriorFish]

I think we might be better served taking the template discussion elsewhere, it's not news on CA and I think we can all agree it's not going to be. Thanks.

[Montford]

I am loathe to approve of any significant change to the core rules at this point (cover, templates, etc) because since I first played 1994/1995 WH40K has never been both as much fun or as free from niggling arguments as it is now. The game has always been enjoyable, however it is now also refreshing and rejuvenating, and its never really been that way for me before.

 

*edit for clarity*

[Ishagu]

Indeed. We should remember that the game is more fun, popular and balanced than it's ever been.

 

That's not to say the factions don't need to be looked at and adjusted.

[Interrogator Stobz]

Two out of three, it still lacks balance. Hence the discussion ;)

...along with your last sentence.

[kombatwombat]

Indeed. We should remember that the game is more fun than it's ever been.

Hey now, let’s not present opinions as facts. As someone who still plays with the 7th Ed ruleset (albeit in 30k) and played a lot of 7th Ed 40k, I had and have as much fun with 7th as I do with 8th. One Edition is not empirically more fun than the other, they’re just different.

 

That being said, I do find myself playing 8th and thinking ‘I wish this worked like 7th’ far more often than thinking ‘I wish this worked like 8th’ when playing 7th.

[Ishagu]

Not for me at all. 7th was an ugly, bloated, imbalanced mess!

 

Even the 30k HH rukes are balanced more poorly than 8th edition armies...

[kombatwombat]

If you’re going to base your argument on ‘8th is better than 7th because it’s balanced’ then as a player of a fluffy Black Templar army then I have to tell you that you’ve lost that argument before you’ve begun! :P

 

Balance in 7th Ed was about as wonky as 8th Ed is, until you added formations into the mix, at which point it just became a crapshoot. 30k is in a similar place to 8th balance-wise.

 

The thing is, though, that I play most of my games with a group of mature gamers for whom having a laugh and playing a game is more important than starting a knife fight over whether a scattering template clipped a fourth Marine. We choose our armies to make a good game rather than trying to kick the other player’s teeth in. In that environment, 7th Ed is just a more thematic and complete experience.

 

What’s really odd about that though is that the style in which we play is actually what the GW designers seem to make their games for - a beer and pretzels game. And given that 7th Ed is a better experience in that environment, from my point of view 8th is a failed experiment. (But an enjoyable one nonetheless.)

[Panzer]

The thing is, though, that I play most of my games with a group of mature gamers for whom having a laugh and playing a game is more important than starting a knife fight over whether a scattering template clipped a fourth Marine. We choose our armies to make a good game rather than trying to kick the other player’s teeth in. In that environment, 7th Ed is just a more thematic and complete experience.

 

What’s really odd about that though is that the style in which we play is actually what the GW designers seem to make their games for - a beer and pretzels game. And given that 7th Ed is a better experience in that environment, from my point of view 8th is a failed experiment. (But an enjoyable one nonetheless.)

 

I can't agree on that. Our group is pretty laid back and we only do beer&pretzels games as well but 8th just feels way smoother to play than 7th. Even if you don't argue whether a 4th Marine is clipped or not it was just too bothersome using blast templates and only slowed the game down. Flamer templates were good tho and didn't need to go imo.

[Margulix]

I wish the add some rules for cc armies...

 

For example a free pistol shot on fall-backing enemy from CC or something.

[Panzer]

Would be nice if falling back would require a LD test or something. LD became very obsolete very quickly again this edition.

[Ipsen]

Attack of opportunity. Ws6 melee hits on a fall back. Like overwatch but when the enemy runs away instead of charges. Certain factions/units could be better at it just like overwatch as well as other similar methods for denying it. Though would probably benefit armies like orcs the most that roll lots of dice.

[Panzer]

Well I already don't care a whole lot about overwatch most of the time so I'm not sure such an attack of opportunity would change much. ^^

[Ipsen]

Do you play against tau? Aim wouldn’t be to make running from everything equally punishing.

[Panzer]

No, I play T'au myself. But my opponents rarely care about my overwatch all that much either unless it's my unit of flamer Crisis.

Of course there are exceptions like T'au Sept lists which overwatch on a 5+ with all their FtGG support. That really punishes charges. However most of the time you don't play against T'au Sept lists and instead against AdMech, Eldar, Marines and so on so overwatch is only mildly interesting unless it's a nasty flamer unit or something with a sick amount of shots like the Kastelans.

[TheUbikator]

I'm more scared about CA than hoping that it would fix anything. 

 

I'm afraid that it'll increase the cost of guardsmen (because of some WAAC players keep fielding brigades/battalion to fund slamguinius and knights).

 

Honestly last CA was a goddamn mess, meltagun costs went higher (which made them altogether poor choice), they didn't fix any problems with Deathwatch (until codex dropped in may), and nerfs to Rowboat and Celestine were laughable. 

 

Honestly, more and more I'm missing 7th ed. 8th is just contrived, boring and frustrating at this point.

[Ishagu]

I think Guardsmen, Cultists and other similar units will indeed go up.

 

Could make conscripts appealing once again.

[TheUbikator]

I think Guardsmen, Cultists and other similar units will indeed go up.

 

Could make conscripts appealing once again

 

But why?!

 

Conscripts should go back to costing 3 points per model. It's one of the examples how GW rules team can't write good rules.

 

Guardsmen die like flies, have poor ld, have weak firepower. Those things are balanced because they are cheap and can be buffed with orders. 

 

They only problem with guardsmen is Loyal 32 which is a bigger problem with how CP work in a game then with the unit itself.