10th edition wishlisting/"How do we fix this mess?" thread

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

It wasn’t meant as a nun-uh type of reply Unky. You never know how much any particular poster knows regarding rules in general.

[Orange Knight]

2 hours ago, Black Blow Fly said:

It wasn’t meant as a nun-uh type of reply Unky. You never know how much any particular poster knows regarding rules in general.

I'm sure the poster knows that in the vast majority of cases a unit can't disembark after a transport has moved, hence they requested the change in the rules.

The Impulsor is indeed an exception, however it is a very limited unit with an inflated cost.

[Captain Idaho]

No harm, no foul...

I like the idea of movement being more valuable. Some rare exceptions being able to run across the table, sure. But taking transports for transportation is rather niche nowadays.

If 10 Tactical Marines jumping out of a transport and hosing down an opponent, replicated a couple times, was effective then that would make the whole thing worthwhile.

Replace 10 Tacticals with whatever your poison is and that should be the equivalent of expectation.

Edited August 17, 2022 by Captain Idaho

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

54 minutes ago, Orange Knight said:

I'm sure the poster knows that in the vast majority of cases a unit can't disembark after a transport has moved, hence they requested the change in the rules.

 

Of course and hence why I mentioned the Impulsor. If they don’t play SM it’s possible they didn’t know.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

If they want to keep the advance mechanic but make transports useful then give us bigger tables and increase their movement.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

Also it seems like one way to reduce the time it takes to play a game would be removing the ability to pre-measure things.

sat around for over minute while my opponent has measure the distance between one unit and several points on the table, and they did that for nearly every unit…

[Valkyrion]

Pre-measuring is an important part of the game and removes a lot of feels bad moments when you want to target a unit 1" further away than it appears,
There's also nothing to stop you pre-measuring in your opponents turn, either, which also helps with preventing mistakes or cheating. I measured that tank at 24" away during your turn so I knew my multi melta would be in range. Why is it 25" away now?

I'd probably look to cap squad sizes at 10 models, but I haven't thought too hard about it. Do we really need 30 termagants rolling 60 dice with all the available rerolls, or a player trying to ensure all his 30 hormagaunts are within engagement range? I know it's a trope for some armies, but just because your army only has 10 gargoyles doesn't mean there aren't a billion of them in the skies above the snapshot of the big battle you are focusing on during your five turn game - it's just that your 10 gargoyles are the important ones. 

It also helps with balancing codexes internally and against other factions - 10 intercessors vs 10 guard vs 10 guardians vs 10 termagants vs 10 boyz - you don't end up in a situation where a shoot twice strat is used on 30 conscripts that can already shoot 4 times with FRFSRF, or 30 gaunts with a +1 to wound strat and exploding 6's ability....I don't know if those things specifically exist, but if a unit is maxed at 10 then outrageous combos are at least mitigated.

Obviously 10 boyz is not the same price as 10 marines and one for one they aren't comparable, so by way of compromise, I'd make a Brigade detachment, assuming it survives the reset, grant a bonus so that if you want to run a horde army you still can - something like a full brigade automatically gets the first turn, or gets 2 CP per turn instead of 1. Most factions can't do it and many more wouldn't want to do it at 2000 points, but guard or orks or tyranids could then choose to go down that route without suffering unduly by only having max squad sizes of 10.

[Captain Idaho]

I see what you're intending there, with some ideas having a lot of merit. My only concern would be folk who min-max would to through the roof. Then the army with the most expensive Troops choices gets hit hardest because they are a high cost Troops tax.

[Valkyrion]

Yes, there's no single ideal system really, but if 120 attacks with exploding 6's, with +1 to hit, rerolling 1's to hit, and rerolling failed wounds is the answer then the question is wrong. 

30 Hydra Hormagaunts with adrenal glands, within a Tyrant aura, with the Goaded to Slaughter Imperative, a 2CP adrenal surge Strat and a 1CP Critical Mass strat.

That is one unit rolling 120 to hit dice, which is insane in and of itself. 2/3 of those hit, so 80(!), rerolling the 1's (20) and counting the 6's as double so you've just rolled 140 dice. Of those 20 1's you've rerolled another 15 have hit, and the 20 6's you rolled become 40. So that's 155 to wound rolls, rerolling failures. Lets assume you are targeting T4 3+ models as they are the golden standard - you roll 155 dice and wound with 50 of them. YOU THEN ROLL ANOTHER 100 DICE! Another 30 of them wound, so now your opponent has to make 80 armour saves.  I'm getting drunk just thinking about it and I haven't a drink yet!  It's about 500 dice being rolled during that interaction, not including whatever your opponent can do to reroll their own stuff.

On the off chance you even have 120 dice to roll at once (we all probably have, to be honest), I'd happily put my entire model collection on none of us having hands big enough to roll them all at once and certainly not with enough control to stop them bouncing off the table, knocking models over and being stolen by the dog.

So that leads us to batch rolling, counting the hits (or misses, whatever) and so on and so on and so on - I could easily see this taking 20-30 minutes. 

I don't even play tyranids and I found this nutty combo in 15 minutes that, if you were playing Hydra the Horde wouldn't be that unlikely and could be something you build tactics around. It requires a Hive Tyrant and at least one unit of Tyranid Warriors to be alive and within Synapse and Aura range, plus 3 command points. That's it really - no psychic powers or other odd interactions, just two units you are likely to have anyway and a big blob of hormagaunts. 

 

I'm sure my maths are a bit out, but the very fact that this is even remotely possible is why we need the hard reset. It's not because nurgle beasts fully regenerate, or because of rail guns, it's because of utter silliness like this. 

[phandaal]

3 minutes ago, Valkyrion said:

I'm sure my maths are a bit out, but the very fact that this is even remotely possible is why we need the hard reset. It's not because nurgle beasts fully regenerate, or because of rail guns, it's because of utter silliness like this. 

Agreed. If it were just a handful of individual units those could be pared back.

The problem comes from stacking multi-layered rules interactions.

Honestly not sure the core rules need a hard reset though. Maybe some tweaks, but the core rules are fine. The other rulebooks need the reset.

More than that, design priorities need to change or else we will just end up right back here after 10th launches. Layers and stacks of rule systems do not write themselves. A codex does not decide on its own to contain dozens of extra rules and Strategems.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

4 hours ago, Valkyrion said:

Pre-measuring is an important part of the game and removes a lot of feels bad moments when you want to target a unit 1" further away than it appears,
There's also nothing to stop you pre-measuring in your opponents turn, either, which also helps with preventing mistakes or cheating. I measured that tank at 24" away during your turn so I knew my multi melta would be in range. Why is it 25" away now?

I'd probably look to cap squad sizes at 10 models, but I haven't thought too hard about it. Do we really need 30 termagants rolling 60 dice with all the available rerolls, or a player trying to ensure all his 30 hormagaunts are within engagement range? I know it's a trope for some armies, but just because your army only has 10 gargoyles doesn't mean there aren't a billion of them in the skies above the snapshot of the big battle you are focusing on during your five turn game - it's just that your 10 gargoyles are the important ones. 

It also helps with balancing codexes internally and against other factions - 10 intercessors vs 10 guard vs 10 guardians vs 10 termagants vs 10 boyz - you don't end up in a situation where a shoot twice strat is used on 30 conscripts that can already shoot 4 times with FRFSRF, or 30 gaunts with a +1 to wound strat and exploding 6's ability....I don't know if those things specifically exist, but if a unit is maxed at 10 then outrageous combos are at least mitigated.

Obviously 10 boyz is not the same price as 10 marines and one for one they aren't comparable, so by way of compromise, I'd make a Brigade detachment, assuming it survives the reset, grant a bonus so that if you want to run a horde army you still can - something like a full brigade automatically gets the first turn, or gets 2 CP per turn instead of 1. Most factions can't do it and many more wouldn't want to do it at 2000 points, but guard or orks or tyranids could then choose to go down that route without suffering unduly by only having max squad sizes of 10.

Get better and eyeing distances then.

everybody talks about how certain things slow the game down, we’ll premeasuring has been the single biggest culprit of this in my experience.

 

edit

back before premeasuring was allowed people had methods of mitigating those ‘feel bad’ moments of misjudging the distance. 
shooting and not sure if your guns on unit A are in range? Ok use unit B that you know is in range to shoot and measure and judge it in relation to unit A.

Edited August 18, 2022 by Inquisitor_Lensoven

[Evil Eye]

I feel premeasuring is just one problem with the game overall and if the other problems with the game were solved it would dissipate into a non-issue. "Git gud" is not a helpful solution and puts the onus on players to cope with a broken system. If there's less measuring to do in the first place the premeasuring stops being a problem, and having less sheer volume of weapons, aura abilities and similar crap to deal with would help a lot.

Someone mentioned capping units at 10, which isn't the worst idea I've ever heard. However, that would necessitate additional fixes to avoid completely gimping horde armies whose tabletop strength and entire theme is derived from massive numbers. Either giving them increased access to Troops slots, or reducing the number of models that more elite armies can field (such that they are, you know, elite). The real solution is to reduce the model count of the average game such that 60 Gaunts is about as many as you'd even want (for a regular game) and 15 Space Marines in a single army is a mighty force, but that would also require the sheer lethality of the game and consequent expendable nature of units that aren't superweapons to be fixed, and as GW's business model seems to revolve around making everything totally expendable, building lists around gigantic super-unit centrepieces which go out of vogue the moment an even bigger one comes out, and selling as many models as possible, I can't see this happening any time soon.

I have some choice words on the whole matter of lethality vs durability, power creep and 9th as a whole but I'm not typing it all out again.

[Valkyrion]

13 minutes ago, Evil Eye said:

I feel premeasuring is just one problem with the game overall and if the other problems with the game were solved it would dissipate into a non-issue. "Git gud" is not a helpful solution and puts the onus on players to cope with a broken system. If there's less measuring to do in the first place the premeasuring stops being a problem, and having less sheer volume of weapons, aura abilities and similar crap to deal with would help a lot.

Someone mentioned capping units at 10, which isn't the worst idea I've ever heard. However, that would necessitate additional fixes to avoid completely gimping horde armies whose tabletop strength and entire theme is derived from massive numbers. Either giving them increased access to Troops slots, or reducing the number of models that more elite armies can field (such that they are, you know, elite). The real solution is to reduce the model count of the average game such that 60 Gaunts is about as many as you'd even want (for a regular game) and 15 Space Marines in a single army is a mighty force, but that would also require the sheer lethality of the game and consequent expendable nature of units that aren't superweapons to be fixed, and as GW's business model seems to revolve around making everything totally expendable, building lists around gigantic super-unit centrepieces which go out of vogue the moment an even bigger one comes out, and selling as many models as possible, I can't see this happening any time soon.

I have some choice words on the whole matter of lethality vs durability, power creep and 9th as a whole but I'm not typing it all out again.

 

I mean....yes, for the most part, I agree with what you've said here (although I'm confused as to whether or not you think premeasuring is a good thing or a bad thing, but that's probably on me!)
The idea of capping units at 10 was mine, and I said that I hadn't spent much time on it but it feels natural to me to roll, say 10 dice for 10 dudes, or even 20 on special occasions, but not 30 dudes with 4 attacks each. It's too much, to me. Even in a game powered by dice, no one squad should ever roll 120 dice during its action. One hundred and twenty dice. I know I'm belabouring the point, I really do, but I feel so strongly about how ridiculous it is that a hobby I have been a part of since 1993, when weapons had rules covering two or more pages instead of paragraphs, when assault cannons could cause 3 to 90 wounds in a single burst (why?!) and you had to remember who was on fire and who wasn't  - it's now worse than that. 

I should probably put IMO, but as outrageous as other editions were, nothing seems to have been as outrageous as this. 

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

32 minutes ago, Valkyrion said:

 

I mean....yes, for the most part, I agree with what you've said here (although I'm confused as to whether or not you think premeasuring is a good thing or a bad thing, but that's probably on me!)
The idea of capping units at 10 was mine, and I said that I hadn't spent much time on it but it feels natural to me to roll, say 10 dice for 10 dudes, or even 20 on special occasions, but not 30 dudes with 4 attacks each. It's too much, to me. Even in a game powered by dice, no one squad should ever roll 120 dice during its action. One hundred and twenty dice. I know I'm belabouring the point, I really do, but I feel so strongly about how ridiculous it is that a hobby I have been a part of since 1993, when weapons had rules covering two or more pages instead of paragraphs, when assault cannons could cause 3 to 90 wounds in a single burst (why?!) and you had to remember who was on fire and who wasn't  - it's now worse than that. 

I should probably put IMO, but as outrageous as other editions were, nothing seems to have been as outrageous as this. 

Tbf a unit of 30 or 40 shouldn’t be getting 3+ attacks in my opinion. You’re then getting into elite army territory, aggressors and BGVs get a base 3 attacks and come in units of 3-6, so yeah there shouldn’t be a method for hoard armies to get those kind of melee numbers out of their troop choices.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

Also, as long as we have faction, sub faction, unit special rules, and strats there’s always going to be a lot of interactions that can result in BS that is most likely unintended by the people writing the rules, and this is why I want to get rid of strats.

 

if you can’t use faction, sub faction, and unit special rules to make an army that plays how the army is depicted in lore then that sounds like more of a ‘you’ problem than a game problem.

[Valkyrion]

bluegh - sorry guys. I will contribute 

Edited August 18, 2022 by Valkyrion

[Valkyrion]

bleugh

Edited August 18, 2022 by Valkyrion

[Valkyrion]

My bad, so please work with me X

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

4 hours ago, Valkyrion said:

My bad, so please work with me X

You ok there?

Edited August 19, 2022 by Inquisitor_Lensoven

[KnightofSigismund]

2 hours ago, Valkyrion said:

My bad, so please work with me X

You Ok buddy?

[Dont-Be-Haten]

I think the biggest question I want answered is this: Do we want the Aura style RTS style game play with activation abilities or do we want simulation style play? 

If GW decides to stay on the RTS path they need to look at Horus Heresy 2.0's allocation of reaction points. Once per turn, per phase, models in your army can do "this." By in large stratagems nuked the fridge in 8th edition, and 9th edition has seen major inconsistencies in like stratagems. Once they opened the toothpaste out of the bottle we knew it was here to stay, and overall I feel as though it has hurt the hobby. I have read a lot of discussions and dialog from a spanning of social media platforms and many people agree bake rules back into units, reduce stratagems to a few key options, or do away with them all together.

I think one of the best examples I've seen is imperial vehicles and popping smoke. Why did this get made into a stratagem? 

Alternatively if we want the game to go back to a simulation style game, we will once again need to radically change how the game functions. If we want baked in rules, reduced reliance on heoric abilities such as auras we are going to have to find a medium to do so. It has never sat right with me how vehicles and monstrous creatures have changed for the worse in 9th edition. A 400 point tank needs to feel like it is worth 400 points, a knight needs to feel fearful against anything it plays against, baring another knight. Knights, or equivalent are metophorical gundams (or mobile suits) make them feel that way. A lone model/character X with 5 wounds shouldn't be able to kill these things in a single round of combat. Likewise the greatest warriors of the galaxy shouldn't be able to be bonked on a 3+ with a thunder hammer profile 7 times and die in the same turn with no handicap other than a -1 to hit on a 2+.

The TL;DR to this post is warhammer in general is a mess right now. I don't have any real answers other than my idea of 40k isn't the same as others. My own bias is I want simulation style play not RTS.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Reactions are the same as burning a stratagem -> Auspex Scan comes to mind.

[Dont-Be-Haten]

5 hours ago, Black Blow Fly said:

Reactions are the same as burning a stratagem -> Auspex Scan comes to mind.

Very true, and I believe reactions are what stratagems should have been from the jump. They don't give a praetor the means of killing a primarch, are limited in choice but all around good. Legion specific ones are a single ability which are also good. I, for one, hope reactions stay this way. No HH army needs more than 1-2 specific reactions.

 

Edited August 19, 2022 by Dont-Be-Haten

[Lemondish]

On 8/19/2022 at 6:02 AM, Dont-Be-Haten said:

Very true, and I believe reactions are what stratagems should have been from the jump. They don't give a praetor the means of killing a primarch, are limited in choice but all around good. Legion specific ones are a single ability which are also good. I, for one, hope reactions stay this way. No HH army needs more than 1-2 specific reactions.

 

So, admittedly, I have very little experience with the new Horus Heresy. However, I've been watching some of the Battle reports for it, and reading a tad more from reviewers and the key part about reactions that I am really enticed by is that a vast majority of them are Core. Everybody can do them.

Which definitely does quite a lot to reduce the feels bad gotcha of 9th edition 40k stratagems. When you know your options are mostly the same as the options your opponent has, you're in a better place to plan ahead and know what you can expect.

HH obviously has the benefit of a vast majority of its expected games and balance will be Marine vs Marine, but certain things seem to be working very well in that system in a way that they don't in 9th edition. I'm starting to understand what folks mean when they say the rules are getting incrementally more complex the more they add abilities and concepts that trump previously established elements, like the fights first and fights last rules and how they interact. Initiative as a stat now feels so much more capable in these cases. It has been a slow expansion in complexity that doesn't actually strike me as excessive until I consider where we started and where we are now. I regret not being able to see that before.

Edited August 21, 2022 by Lemondish
I accidentally a word

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Initiative had winners and losers… Orks Necrons didn’t like a Rune Priest hopping out of a drop pod coating living linghtning.