10 wounds, worse than 9?

[Jorin Helm-splitter]

 

 

Really, the other big point I wanted to raise with the thread and remind people of is the idea that if a unit has 10 wounds, if it were to be pointed compared to a 9 wound version of itself, it would have to be pointed cheaper to be reasonable. Basically, I am saying if a contemptor dreadnought in stats lost 1 wound and became a 9 wound dread it would actually be worth more due to no damage table.

 

Agreed. 10-12 wounds should be cheaper than 9 imo. At least for characters since for non-characters it depends on how punishing the degrading profile is.

 

 

I completely agree, but I think most people don't want to elaborate on that point because its rare to find comparable units that have a variant with a damage table and one without. Contemptor vs. venerable Dreads, and Raiders vs. Venoms are the two that come to mind for me.

 

Contemptors vs. Venerables have very similar base costs, I value a 5++ more than 6+ fnp, the contemptor is faster in the top tier of its damage table. So it is possible that GW gave them a slight discount for 10 wounds vs. 8. I don't like this example because the Contemptor's loadout of one CCW and one Heavy leaves a lot to be desired, so its hard to pin down what the discount should be.  

 

For raiders vs. venoms, I don't think there was a discount for 10 wounds vs. 6. Granted that is based on my estimate of what a flickfield is worth IMO (20 pts.) which makes venoms cost a little less than 6 points per wound compared to 6.5 for raiders. Even if GW considered it a minor upgrade 5-10 points there still wouldn't be a substantial discount. What I don't like about this comparison (besides wanting landspeeders to become a lot better, I'm super jealous of venoms lol), is that the venom can be one shot which I think should be reflected in the point cost.

 

Either way I think people weren't responding to the that part of your post because its hard to find direct comparisons more so than any disagreement with your sentiment. I honestly don't what the discount should be for both of these comparisons. For what its worth I'd actually prefer that Contemptors/Redemptors ignore the heavy weapon penalty to help justify the existing cost.

[Claws and Effect]

...and then the characters die, like the squishy things they are. They are too protected and some people are too precious about them. In the Grimdark future they will not be missed.

Very thematic, but that penalizes some armies far more than others.

 

A Tyranid army still keeps trucking right along if a Broodlord dies, with almost no effectiveness lost. Similarly, an Ork player won't care if a Big Mek or Warboss dies unless it is the Warlord.

 

Contrast that with a Guard army who loses their ability to give orders or a Marine army that loses their auras.

 

It also would mean that the player who goes first has a HUGE advantage.

 

If you could target characters freely regardless of wounds, people will start bringing weapons that don't need line of sight and wiping them out in the first turn. If you could freely target characters Whirlwinds and Thunderfire cannons suddenly look a LOT more attractive to take in a list.

[Halandaar]

IMO, make all characters targetable regardless of wound count, but allow all infantry units within 3" to intercept wounds on a 2+ except against Sniper weapons. Still gives value to chaff as character screens, but doesn't make a character the size of a Dreadnought (Guilliman) immune to shooting just because there are dudes in front of him.

[Beams]

IMO, make all characters targetable regardless of wound count, but allow all infantry units within 3" to intercept wounds on a 2+ except against Sniper weapons. Still gives value to chaff as character screens, but doesn't make a character the size of a Dreadnought (Guilliman) immune to shooting just because there are dudes in front of him.

Then e just end up back in 7th with 50 wolves jumping in front of smash face captains

[Wassa]

3" would cause everyone to huddle together a lot more.

 

It would reduce Guards effective order range from 6" to 3" too.

[Subtleknife]

No I think the rules are pretty good as is. Dont need the death stars of 7th back. I have always found there is plenty to shoot at in 40k and I like how it makes characters more survivable so I usually get a character v character fight as well.

[chapter master 454]

IMO, make all characters targetable regardless of wound count, but allow all infantry units within 3" to intercept wounds on a 2+ except against Sniper weapons. Still gives value to chaff as character screens, but doesn't make a character the size of a Dreadnought (Guilliman) immune to shooting just because there are dudes in front of him.

 

Sadly you just create further reason for people to just bundle up and to be honest you encourage the gulliman castle even more than before.

 

Solutions to the targeting problem for characters is varied due to some visual issues. We can all agree that it would be harder to spot a captain among marines, even a terminator captain among terminators along with being almost impossible to spot a company commander among guardsmen. Even the fact it protects assassins feels fairly thematic, they are stealthy and that good at being hidden you can't spot them, especially when there is larger problem at hand.

 

The issue comes from units that it seems really odd as to why you can't target them. I mean, Gulliman can't really hide as he stands somewhere what? twice the height of an astartes, armour so bedecked in regalia he could pass as a budget golden throne. Abbaddon can hide away reasonably due to just needing some terminator body guards and boom, he would be harder to spot, only a sharp eye along with knowing what he looks like fully would let you pick him out but Gulliman, not really. Same applies and is likely exaggerated by dreadnought librarian and dreadnought chaplains, these units again for some reason cannot be targeted unless closest yet...we can free target dreadnoughts.

 

Possibly what needs to happen is some form of "Target Typing" with keywords. Gulliman naturally would need some looking into but possibly character targeting needs to have an additional clause in regards to units that have the vehicle or monstrous keyword. Possibly they ignore the 10 wound count parameter but instead require a similar unit to be around and closer, so if the librarian dreadnought had an entourage of dreadnoughts with him, as long as he stayed behind them he couldn't be targeted.

Same thing for the lord discordant, maybe make it so he can't be targeted freely until you get rid of his precious creations of forge/maulerfiends.

Just something to think about to help ease it out a little and certainly there would need to be addendums for some armies needing to be done (I could see tyranids needing to get some special rules relating to this and their synapse creatures to help cover them). Just throwing an idea out there to help ease the awkwardness of how you can't shoot Gulliman because a single scout stands in front of him.

 

"You won't hurt my Gulliman-Senpai!"

[Interrogator Stobz]

Guard characters are cheap, the squads they could potentially hide in are cheap, they should die easily.

If that hurts Guard infantry lists more than others because the player relies heavily upon buffs and hiding in the open to remain competitive instead of having to think about positioning and tactics they should die, sounds nice and grimdark.

 

They, being cheap and nasty should not have a 100% immunity from non snipers, it is redonkuluos to think that a barrage of high explosives cannot hurt them because something else is closer, it. is. redonkulous.

 

They should live or die based on positioning, being last in a unit they have joined, cover, being in a vehicle or their own resilience. Not some redonkulous core rule mechanism.

 

It would be great to see a few more Whirlwinds on the table again IMHO.

 

The Deathstars of old are now just moving blobs of interlocking auras, nothing has really changed there.

 

Joining Characters to units and keeping the aura rules means the little squishy Lt. can issue orders to multiple squads but is only protected by one, nothing unfair there, and if each character is attached to a different squad they will need a lot of moving, even with the big scary Whirlwinds :D but are not immune.

It also helps G Man and others by giving them ablative wounds instead of 100% hide in the open shenanigans.

Make players think more tactically, and less gimmicky.

 

Just my 2c

[Finkmilkana]

Guard characters are cheap, the squads they could potentially hide in are cheap, they should die easily.

If that hurts Guard infantry lists more than others because the player relies heavily upon buffs and hiding in the open to remain competitive insteads of having to think about positioning and tactics they should die, sounds nice and grimdark.

 

I would kinda agree if it was not for the rule of 3. 3 Company Commanders (+possibly 3 pretty inneficient Platoon commanders)

is already a quite low number of orders for full infantry guard. If they would now also just die like flies turn 1 to light, cheap artillery like mortars without much chance to protect them, the whole concept just falls apart.

[Interrogator Stobz]

If we are fixing rules, fix that too.

 

What's the expected kill rate of mortars vs. Guard? I ask because a squad of ten in cover should be all the protection a cheap Lt should get. He is cheap and doesn't deserve a 100% immunity from shooting.

[Finkmilkana]

At that point you would start to need a completely new edition (or large revision to almost all codixes). Which might not be the worst thing to happen, but the chance of it happening anytime soon is minimal.

 

Against guardsmen? Each 13 points mortar kills about 0.8 guardsmen.

[Lord Raven 19]

Maybe anyone that targets characters under 10 wounds should hit on 6+ regardless of modifiers.

 

Or just deathstrike + vortex missile a nearby unit.

[Interrogator Stobz]

That's what we are talking about, I'd be gobsmacked if GW made such a change in a CA or FAQ.

[Finkmilkana]

The problem with „always hit on 6“ is that it’s impact is very different depending on an army’s BS, exactly opposit to how likely it is that the faction in question has the discipline to single out characters (Orks won’t care, marines/custodes might as well not try to shoot them).

[Interrogator Stobz]

Interesting to mention Marines and Custodes, they are literally designed for the type of warfare that cuts the head of the snake to weaken the opposition, they can spot an Lt. in the open on a crowded battlefield. They should not be 100% unable to shoot him.

I agree that the hit on 6s is not the best fix.

[Lord Raven 19]

Maybe they could have a faction wide rule to represent that? Models in an Adeptus Astartes army always hit on a X+ against characters

[Finkmilkana]

Maybe they could have a faction wide rule to represent that? Models in an Adeptus Astartes army always hit on a X+ against characters

I feel the problem is less that marines damage get reduced 80% (which still would lead to squishy characters just dying if let’s say a whirlwind scorpius shoots at them), and more that ork damage only gets reduced by 50%.

[Panzer]

I think if I were to change something about the character targeting I'd completely change how shooting and cover works. Essentially making the game a lot less killy by pure shooting and more positioning relevant.

 

Remember the whole "if you shoot through an enemy unit the target gains the benefits of cover" thing? I'd introduce the same thing to this edition but with a to-hit penalty instead and against characters an additional to-hit penalty. So shooting through an enemy unit to hit an enemy character would be a -2 to hit or whatever (not careing for exact numbers as it's just an idea and obviously not optimised for balance).

Now to not go back to last edition where we had to carefully check LoS to determine whether a unit is intervening or not and to not ignore the size of models and terrain either (I really don't like the true line of sight thing we had in 7th ... way too bothersome to use and creates more arguments than anything else) I'd re-introduce another thing back from the WHFB days. I'd give each unit a size keyword on their datasheet and give terrain like ruins the rule that for each story it increases the size by 1 (or 2 depending on the height of the floors, it's something people would have to determine before the game begins like always with non-standard terrain).

To not get the penalty for shooting through an enemy unit, either both the target unit and the shooting unit has to be at least one "size" level taller than the intervening unit or either the target or the shooting unit has to be at least two "size" levels taller than the intervening unit (so infantry can still count as intervening when the enemy infantry tries to shoot the tank behind them without being elevated etc). Sniper would ignore that additional hit penalty against characters of course.

That way screening would even work against shooting and the alpha strike problem wouldn't be as severe anymore either (Knights and similar would still be able to shoot pretty much anything, but they themselves would be easier to get shot at too).

Would I let this kind of hit penalty stack? Yeah but it would require to take a look at some of the worst offenders of stacking such things to not suddenly have an untargetable army with cheap screens (probably just Eldar who'd require to be taken a peck down as I'd be fine with Alpha Legion getting screened by Cultists and Raven Guard getting screened by Guardsmen tbh).

[Interrogator Stobz]

I agree with most of that; the to hit penalty works great in limiting shooting in Kill Team, they could definitely move some of those ideas to regular 40k.

It might need the removal of the negative hit mods of so many armies or the stacking gets silly. Maybe -1 for behind a unit, -1 for cover, with the abilities count as one of those and is not extra.

Scouts/camo cloaks etc. make them really hard to hit (occasionally impossible for crap shooters) but that's still fair. But that's what anti sniping barrage is for, ignoring cover and/or line of sight. They had that right in the past.

 

But I personally preferred true line of sight to the older size and height method, makes folks 'play' the minis. I actually like templates too, rolling a massive bunch of dice to me is less fun than placing and looking at dead things, I'm one of the folks that are more stimulated by visual effects than statistics.

[Panzer]

Fair enough. In my games it was mostly just bothersome and often resulted in a roll-off because both sides were convinced their view was right.

 

EDIT: also I like the idea of properly including actual cover into that system and adjusting the -1 to hit traits to 'just' giving cover. A logical conclusion to such a change of core rules.

[Interrogator Stobz]

Same, and to bring my template discussion on to the topic of Characters that have less than 10 wounds, I love the semi-indiscriminant nature of them; only being able to target one unit with a large blast equivalent is as redonkulous as a guy standing in plain sight whilst a hidden unit closer makes him impervious

The only exception to the targeting more than one thing I can think of belongs to a Warlord gun and several mortal wound mechanics like exploding, that gets a wow from me.

 

And don't get me started on the low number of possible 'shots' a blast type  gun gets now...off topic.

Of course managing how damage is applied from templates to multi wound minis could be an issue, or it could be easy but I'll leave that there.

 

One of these solutions (joining units again or to hit mods) could easily fix the issues the OP mentioned regarding Dreads of varying wounds, G-Man, and any other little squishy buggers. If the target is big and can be seen it is easier to hit, if it's little and squishy it is more likely to be able to hide in a crowd.

Units could be costed fairly based on their own wounds and size and not on some imho redonkulous core rules mechanic that is causing the problem.

[Panzer]

Yeah blast weapons are another issue. I'm glad templates are gone for the same reasons I don't like true line of sight, but I'm certainly not satisfied with the current situation either. ^^

[Interrogator Stobz]

Again the Kill Team rules on shooting at multiple minis could fix the issue from both our perspectives when applied to targeting characters (of any size or number of wounds ).

 

And put some well needed pressure on clusters of Characters hiding in plain sight in the middle of a bunch of infantry units, if they want to share bubbles they risk being bombed as the bigger juicier target they present.

[Claws and Effect]

This thread brings a question to mind.

 

Has GW ever produced an edition of 40k that everyone was equally satisfied with?

[Finkmilkana]

This thread brings a question to mind.

 

Has GW ever produced an edition of 40k that everyone was equally satisfied with?

Is that even possible?