Bring back the weapon TEMPLATES (ok maybe not, but?)

[aknorthroader]

I was watching a YouTube on the possible changes to the Executioner and I thought I would bring that conversation over here. I think that the problem with the Executioner isn't that it looks like a floating pin cushion (not the best design), but how shooting weapons across the board for all races have evolved over the different editions to a point that they no longer fit their profile so GW thinks the numbers need to be built out to counter. Once this starts, everyone cries 'CHEESE' but no one really looks at the why.

 

Big case in point is the blast weapons. In earlier additions, you placed your blast marker/template and rolled to hit. If you missed you added scatter plus distance. But the shell still went off and you could still hit something. Now it is a roll to see how many attacks(what?) you get, so instead of one shot(and one chance to roll a 1), you now roll d3/d6 for the number of attacks, roll to hit, and then roll for the number of wounds. That is not a blast weapon. If you want to get rid of the template and just count bodies, still a single roll to hit, if you hit (heavy plasma here) then d3+N(maybe 1/2), if you miss then d3 and if you roll a 1, you still get the d3 hits, but you take a mortal wound. This could easily work for battle cannons with a bigger blast template, but lower ballistic skill. d6+N(again 2 or 3, up to maximum number of models) on a hit, d6 on a miss, d3 on a 1. You have to remember that these were pretty good size 'pie plates' and even a miss led to some being under it. This could be applied across all races pretty easily and would bring these weapons up to where they were before.

 

Another would be flamers. Yes, they are auto-hit, but you are still rolling how many which if you remember the template, you could get a lot more then just d6 under(and you didn't roll 4+ for partials) To remove the template, base the number of hits on the size of the flamer up to the maximum number of models in the opposing squad. Hand flamer 3-5(d3+2?) models, regular flamer 4-8(2d3+2) models, heavy flamer 6-12(3d3+3) models. Work that with limited ranges (6", 12", 18"), strengths (3, 4, 5) and then you are just rolling to wound. This replicates how the flame template should operate. Yes, it makes flame weapons strong, but they are suppose to be strong up close. Not as swingy as they are right now. And this would be for anything with flamer in their name.

 

Lastly is heavy energy weapons or heavy projectiles. Thinking of the weakness of Lascannons is that they are strength 9 but single shot, which means for all that power, you have the potential of killing only one thing. Thinking of the fluff behind these weapons and or really heavy projectiles, if the strength is equal to/greater then the toughness of what you are shooting, afflicted wounds should carry from model to model, within the group. This would give all heavy weapons across the board a bit more oomph and fit their profile better.

 

Back to the Execution itself. It has to be how many weapon systems they crammed into that turret that bothers me. The heavy Gatling needs to be removed(maybe as an upgrade for the twin heavy bolters in the front). Also remove the two stormbolters on the back corners... And this thing is designed to carry troops? Drop that too, but add the option for side sponsons like a predator tanks. Basically this should have been the next generation of the Predator. A little heavier, maybe stronger guns. But this thing can't even pull its own weight at the moment.

Edited September 23, 2020 by Xenith
Editied for clarity

[MegaVolt87]

The design intent for 9th is higher points for horde units, more hits on those units via the relevant weapon changes, then diminishing returns for smaller units so they don't get wiped on one shot from just one attack. Template weapons have been also called for a return to bust up the castle play meta, however with aura changes and the CORE addition, may well be the solution provided its a meaningful limitation and not a pretend one. Template spam seemingly works in 30k due to the asymmetrical nature + common availability of most units with templates and phosphex weapons got a re-work so they are far less overbearing than they initially were, so easier to balance as a result. How 9th is making a throwback to blast and template weapons is a more elegant solution for the design + evolution of 40k post 8th ed. 

[chapter master 454]

Remember the ork players who would perfectly space out their conga line of orks 2" apart with more military precision than mordians on Commissar uniform inspection day? I do. I also remember the moment showing any sort of template weapon would strangely cause this behaviour where units kept to social distancing rigourously! :D

 

The concept was neat (and retains an element of it for things like Necromunda and 30k) but due to some mathematical issues with the templates, it lead to warping how players actually played to extreme levels. No-one cares about being 2" apart until someone busts out a frag missile or Thunderfire Cannon and at that point it becomes important and not only slows the game down but makes the template player feel bad because of how they worked, you WANTED to scatter as it would result in more hits.

Too many parts of the mechanic caused game altering behaviour. That's to say the least of any arguments about how far 5" is and which direction exactly did the scatter die point.

 

Not to mention...that isn't how flamethrowers work (the way the Hellhound worked in 40k 7th edition and before actually represents it better).

I did it, I brought real space science to the universe of space dwarves, elves and gods who sit on toilets all day!

[Marshal Valkenhayn]

As many game systems I play that use templates, I'm not all that interested in seeing them brought back to 40K. Let's let 9th get some steam and see how these problems are addressed. 

[Xenith]

I took the liberty of editing your previous post into more clear paragraphs, it was a bit hard to read and the wall of text dampened your argument somewhat.

 

 

Blast: I think you're looking at this the wrong way. The D6 roll to see how many shots you get is to see how many models are hit. You assume that the blast weapon always hits it's target, then you roll to see how many people are hit by the exploding projectile.

 

Templates were ok in smaller, friendly games, but as 40K took off and people got competitive, it slowed the game down way too much, as per the 2" spacing mentioned above. They did away with guess range weapons in fantasy with the reasoning "why would a veteran cannon crew miss?". They did the same with old 3rd ed barrage weapons, like the whirlwind and basilisk where you had to say how far you were firing.

 

Now, with professional armies with weapons guidance systems, etc., the blast weapon always lands on target, with varying effectiveness. Templates are ok for things like Necromunda, where your guys are untrained, maybe unskilled, and there's 5 - 12 guys per side. 

 

Flamers: Again, you'd get loads of hits if the opponent didnt space their models, and 2-3 if they did. You'd get one hit vs characters. So flamers have got better v single models, and slightly worse v hordes. I agree flamers should have got more hits, though. 

 

Energy weapons: You lose your point here. At the start you argue for more realism, then argue for less, with lascannons boomeranging to kill multiple models. They're single shot, high power things. Why would a beam of light suddenly scatter to hit 6 different ork boyz? If you're using lascannons to kill horde infantry, then you don't deserve any extra help! 

Edited September 25, 2020 by Xenith

[Lord_Caerolion]

That, or the lascannon assumes that the models are actually all lined up nicely in single-file, so the lascannon can bore through each in turn. At most, copy the rules from the Fellglaive in 30k, where it fires in a straight line, hitting everything up until max range, but in this case stops the moment it doesn't kill a model, and decreases in potency with each model hit. Even that's a bit too much complication for what the rules are like now in 9th.

[Magos Takatus]

One of the disadvantages over the old templates is that it was possible to hit multiple units if they were tightly clumped together. Now people are complaining about a castle metagame where multiple units are crowded around a couple of buff-providing units. I am not claiming that the removal of blast templates has resulted in this bubblehammer as there are more moving pieces than that, but it is a large contributing factor.

 

As for my opinion? I enjoyed being able to use the templates, as it felt less abstract than it does now. It now feels like blast weapons fire a lot of "shots" rather than one large impact. I do feel that not squabbling over the exact direction of the scatter die is far more pleasant, however.

[Xenith]

One possible alternative is the same as orbital strike/coruscating beam/linebreaker bombardment, where you pick a point on the table and units within X" take the appropriate number of hits. It vastly slows the game down, though, and is a bit unrealistic as why would a tank commander fire at the empty ground between 2 units instead of directly in the middle of a unit? 

 

I think Castling could be countered with a stratagem in the same way defended positions countered alpha strike. Give everyone a 3CP preliminary bombardment stratagem. Pick a point on the table, every unit within 2d6" of that point takes D3 MW on a 4+, -2 to the roll for characters. 

[WarriorFish]

As much as I miss templates (and I do, was always fun throwing out those pie plates o' doom from Leman Russ tanks) they did slow the game down so I think their time is over and this is probably for the best. Even if you didn't have people spreading out models perfectly the placement and scattering wasn't quick and that mounted up quickly over a game.

 

Aside from the theatrics of it, as noted the main thing missing is the counter to clumping or castling. There are a few things that can hit/jump to nearby units but not enough to matter in the bigger picture and with auras the game promotes it. The new Blast rule adds a little bit back for dealing with large units, but not for nearby ones. Short of adding something like a "Large Blast" weapon rule that can inflict some damage on units close by I'm not sure how this can be resolved? Even that feels a bit clunky, how could you make sure it is balanced right?

[aknorthroader]

Thank you Xenith for formatting...  it had been a copy paste and didn't come over well.

 

I wasn't necessarily arguing that the templates needed to come back, but that the numbers for the wounding from blast weapons as a whole could be more reflective of what they had been.  I agree that people would min/max the distance between models to lower the number effected, but it seems that is what people are doing still, but to limit drop zones for deep strikes and possibly benefit from aura bubbles.  I do think the new 'Core' designation will cut down a little on the castling as you are not going to park your heavies around the Captain/Lieutenant, but I do think we are going to see more of a spiderweb approach as people will leave one trooper in the bubble and then stretch out for objectives and to deny space to opponents to bring units down.  I also think bringing back some of the affects of cover and the negatives of breaking unit coherency will change how people deploy their minions. 

 

As to the heavy projectile or energy weapon, I pretty sure it is close.  Let's say you throw 10 guys in a room, everyone with light flack jacket.  A 9mm round should wound somebody, might kill.  .45 cal will wound, higher chance of kill.  Larger caliber of small arms and the odds increase for both but never more then one person effected.  Now fire in a 20mm cannon round or a 105.  The chances of passing through one and on to another are huge.  10 guys in a room, and you can easily connect multiples.  Yes, if they are strung out perfectly perpendicular to the shooter, only one guy would get hit, but that is perfect world.  I attributed the effects of energy weapons the same.  Yes, a lasgun will only effect one person, but a lascannon can blow through one and on to another.  

 

Well, as I typed that and stared at it, I can already see the counter.  "But AK, a lascannon can do d6 damage, surely you don't think you could kill 6 guardsmen with one shot?"  LOL, no I don't and yes I agree that they are made for antivehicle not infantry...  this is not the Matrix...  d6 just seems SO underwhelming...  

 

I guess in the end we should let 9th play out for a while...  we barely have the rule book and they are making some pretty serious changes before the first codex release.  yes, it is probably all planned out, but they didn't mention 'core' in the rule book at all...  Let us see where it goes...

[MegaVolt87]

In the lore, at the dropsite massacre lascannons did kill multiple astartes from one shot when the loyalists fell back to their drop zones, but they fell back in a marching order not expecting to be fired on at their own lines. Marines don't fight in such close order like that in the open especially. In a battle situation, on tabletop represents squads spacing so things like lascannons and melt etc can't do that, even if they could in the lore. Shooting is powerful enough as it is in 40k.

[mughi3]

Our group has already solved this problem, we went back to playing 5th ed with some rules from other editions house ruled into 5th to make it the best edition 40K should have been. 

[Dr. Clock]

Templates were cool, but somewhat annoying and IMO far too dependent on minute positioning that really doesn't help in a battle game like 40k.

 

As remarked, enemies could pretty easily neuter them by keeping at max coherency, but also:

 

1) you had to make sure to keep the firing model in a position where they wouldn't flame their friends

 

2) you had to move to try and drop the 'big end' of the template over the center of the enemy unit; at really close ranges  you'd frequently get only 2 hits or something as the template mostly went past the target.

 

3) Their 'shorter than pistols' ranges were vulnerable to being completely outmaneuvered by charging units, and rendered them useless on any turn you came in from DS (making charges from 9" meant that the flamer did nothing... this last continued to be an issue with the short ranges in 8th, but finally we're getting the 12" ranges we need on these).

 

All in all, these factors meant that you rarely got more than 3 hits on a given unit, and you had to be in very specific positions to get the most out of this kind of weapon.

 

Personally I think flamer-type weapons are in a pretty good situation right now, but they'd probably benefit from a similar but not quite as massive 'scaling' rule to Blasts... something like 'min. 3 hits vs. units of 10 or more, mostly to make sure that units with 3+ flamers don't become absolutely OP horde clearers.

 

Alternatively, there is some interesting potential in making these into 'defensive' weapons and give them a 'melee' statline: (d3 auto-hits instead of D6 to represent the close range and need to not flame into your own guys.

 

Basically, I like the idea that flamers should not just be 'the cheap option', but rather the 'close in/ infantry assault' option at the same price point as plasma or melta.

 

Cheers,

 

The Good Doctor.

[mughi3]

 

Templates were cool, but somewhat annoying

 

 

I've been playing 40K with templates since 3rd, and a host of other games that use them in various ways(DUST, INFINITY, warmachine/hordes etc..)  because of the abstract of what they represent at any scale other than epic where the scale is impractical they are a must in my gaming experience. for normal scale play of 8th ed 40K  where they d6 hit system was started they really don't work in any reasonable manner

 

 

All in all, these factors meant that you rarely got more than 3 hits on a given unit, and you had to be in very specific positions to get the most out of this kind of weapon

 

 

Uh last time a helldrake dropped a template in one of our games on a squad in a ruin he got 13 hits. they do their job just fine with 5th ed now that the old confirm partials  on a 4+ rule went away.

 

Hell of a lot more useful than a max D6 hits.   

 

 

 

Personally I think flamer-type weapons are in a pretty good situation right now

 

Well since i don't play 9th and i only use 8th for epic scale play....it doesn't really effect me, otherwise i would say they are currently garbage in any normal setting.

Edited September 24, 2020 by mughi3

[Noserenda]

Urgh yeah Templates are best gone, they work ok in small games with few models or a skirmish format but the more minis on the table the gamier they get until you have major problems and nonsense.
 

[Vykes]

Aknorthroader's point is taken decently enough and it has some interesting notions behind it.  Of course, I do worry about complexity and the inevitable arms race of being XD3/D6+X which will almost inevitably end up being different in the pursuit to make factions differentiated for difference sake. But, so long as it's not a return to actual templates, I can probably get behind it.  That being said, I do rather like how 9th has handled the minimum hit numbers based on target unit.  It feels elegant and relatively simple in a post template 'world'. 

 

What did stick with me was the AT projectile weapon thing.  Now, I do think that certain heavy weapons, particularly las cannons, are stuck as a legacy weapon in which we intrinsically think "this weapon must be strength 9" when really they could be quite a bit higher now that st.10 isn't the absolute stat cap.  Adding something like a mortal wound or simply a potential second hit on a particularly good roll to hit/wound vs. infantry groups based on the double plus T factor of non blast 'Heavy' weapons is something I probably wouldn't mind either.  It wouldn't do a lot, but it might do something like core a pair of terminators which could be cool on a lucky roll. 

 

The Executioner and the myriad of weapon systems on some of the primaris vehicles are more of an issue just because of volume, and the somewhat 'busy' designs that stud some otherwise elegant designs.  But intrinsically that's an individual problem as far as I'm concerned.

 

Templates themselves... -long, hard, unhappy sigh- played since 2E, loathed 5E, have seen the number of horde armies grow, still play 30K a ton, and altogether I'd be more than happy if we could leave those things in the dust.  The meta play of checkerboard horde formations and area denial based on unit coherency, and then separate unit coherency based on some units (thanks Custodes) means that games end up not looking like the Napoleonic art pieces that are typically representing the background information.  For someone like me, it doesn't add some grand tactical 'genius' to the game to space out pieces 2" apart to avoid getting hit by an artillery shell only to shove everything together during a close combat assault, it's just busy work.  

 

I'm not saying Templates are always a hassle, but they end up often being a point of contention.  I'm fine with templates in AT, or skirmish games with a dozen pieces or so, but when my marine army is 450 frigging models and I regularly bring 100+ to even modest games, it's just unnecessary.  I'm glad they're gone, games are actually starting to look like big dynamic art pieces which I'm definitely enjoying a lot more which is a direct result of the removal of the template game. 

[Special Officer Doofy]

Templates were terrible and there is a reason they are gone. They did more harm then good. Slowed the game down drastically for a lot of factions and led to many arguments.

[mughi3]

Templates were terrible and there is a reason they are gone. They did more harm then good. Slowed the game down drastically for a lot of factions and led to many arguments.

Funny,  i find nothing you said to be true, in my experience it is just the opposite. Not having templates is terrible, it actually makes the game go faster and i never had big arguments over them. but then again i play in a casual setting so if there was a question on if a model was or wasn't under the template i let my opponent call it. 

[Special Officer Doofy]

 

 

Templates were terrible and there is a reason they are gone. They did more harm then good. Slowed the game down drastically for a lot of factions and led to many arguments.

Funny, i find nothing you said to be true, in my experience it is just the opposite. Not having templates is terrible, it actually makes the game go faster and i never had big arguments over them. but then again i play in a casual setting so if there was a question on if a model was or wasn't under the template i let my opponent call it.

 

All good, I found nothing you said to be true either. How are the templates faster? You had to roll a scatter die, check a template and count models (which could lead to arguments). Now you just roll a die, or with certain units and blast weapon don't even roll now for shots. Flamers are still faster now with rolling a die and reading a number than fetching a template, aiming it, leaning over the template and counting models (which again can lead to arguments). I don't even see how you could argue the time. The couple extra models hit from the templates still involved rolls to remove them, and any time gained from taking away a couple extra infantry a turn is completely negated and trumped by people moving their horde units perfectly spaced out to minimize templates impact and the additional time of using the template over the battlefield in the first place.

 

At any rate, I'm not going to argue what's "better", because the only opinion that matters to me is GW's because they make the rules, and they sided with no templates for the foreseeable future.

[havlar]

Wouldn't something like number of attacks dependent on number of models in targeted units be viable alternative?

Something like number of models divided by 2 or 3, but at the same time with minimal and maximal values? So even if a single model-unit is targeted it's going to suffer some attacks (e.g. 2), but for larger units it could be for example 5 (10 / 2).

[Lord_Ikka]

I dislike templates in general- the randomness of the scatter dice was terrible for me, and I never like how subjective it was (trying to figure out the exact angel of scatter was more than annoying). Flamers were also hit or miss, depending on how the enemy set up his troops and how you moved your flamer guys. I do think that template/flamer weapons lost quite a bit of punch from 7th to 8th edition, but the change to Blast weapons is a welcome one and the new flamers coming out being 12 inch range more than makes up for the loss of some punchiness in my mind. I don't want to go back to templates ever, and if I do I'll just play Necromunda where the templates make a lot of sense/impact.

[Dr. Clock]

 

 

All in all, these factors meant that you rarely got more than 3 hits on a given unit, and you had to be in very specific positions to get the most out of this kind of weapon

 

 

Uh last time a helldrake dropped a template in one of our games on a squad in a ruin he got 13 hits. they do their job just fine with 5th ed now that the old confirm partials  on a 4+ rule went away.

 

Hell of a lot more useful than a max D6 hits.  

 

TBF I was talking about 'conventional template' weapons on ground units... units with the old 'torrent' rule where you could just drop the teardrop anywhere w/in 6-12" around a single unit as long as the narrow end was closest were an exception... and indeed that was one of the things that made heldrakes so ridiculous when they were on top of the meta. The difference between 'template' and 'torrent' was night and day... Admittedly now d6 hits from a heldrake is a bit anemic, and using something similar to Blast minimums would help make sure that hits scale to unit size more or less.

 

Cheers,

 

The Good Doctor.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

 

Templates were terrible and there is a reason they are gone. They did more harm then good. Slowed the game down drastically for a lot of factions and led to many arguments.

Funny,  i find nothing you said to be true, in my experience it is just the opposite. Not having templates is terrible, it actually makes the game go faster and i never had big arguments over them. but then again i play in a casual setting so if there was a question on if a model was or wasn't under the template i let my opponent call it. 

 

.

Templates invariably make the game take longer and can lead to arguments:

 

how many models are underneath it

having to take the time spread out each model for max coherency which in fact goes against the new rules and would make them OP

having to take the time to move the template - especially for multiple shots that flip

 

Anything that gets rid of potential arguments is a good thing. So is great you have a group that likes to play an older edition with house rules BUT don’t expect anyone else to feel the same .

Edited September 25, 2020 by Black Blow Fly

[War Angel]

In no way has it ever been faster for people to count how many models are under a templet (which includes checking different angles to see what’s most effective) than rolling a die or 2. I never once saw a single opponent I played against properly use the scatter die, each time they went in the general direction. If the arrow was aimed left and down, they were scattering left and up, conveniently scattering the missile onto a different unit instead of away. The fact that there’s an argument here right now about it proves it.

 

The one thing that they did semi right was add a small amount of realism to the shooting. “If a missile misses it might have only missed by a few feet, that’s still going to hurt” “if 6 people are next to each other they’ll all be hit by the same flamer”. The problem with this is, everything else is largely so abstract, why is this the thing that makes sense? A space marine is probably 6-8 feet tall, the model is about 1.5 inches tall, so a bolt rifle has a max range of 128 feet. Hot damn weapons got a lot shorter ranged in the future. Point is, everything else about the board and models has a level of abstraction to it, that trying to provide realism to two weapons just makes it all weird.

 

There’s other games that have template weapons, and they have more realism to all of the weapons.

[Warhead01]

I enjoyed templates. My Orks would reliably do more damage to the enemy at range with template and blast weapons than they ever did rolling buckets of dice. 
Can't recall too many arguments about the number of models under blast markers, I mostly asked my opponent as i did a rough count, difficult to argue with math. 
As for the scatter die I got into the habit of rolling the dice next to the blast marker, as close as possible to help keep the drift to the actual angel minus human error as happens. 
I don't know that they really help all that much but have hit 3 or 4 vehicles with a good scatter from time to time and honestly that's usually part of the plan anyway. 
Do they need to come back? Not really but I think two sets of mechanics for blast weapons would be ideal, one for targeting troops and one for targeting vehicles. I have yet to play 9th and like the blast rule. 
The only thing I miss when thinking about blast/template weapons of old is guessing the range, I got very good at it.  
And as for the above mention of Orks marked out at 2" apart, that would have been me as well.  Ya gotta do what ya gotta do.