Does AP need changing in 10th

[Reskin]

The "wound" system they have now is way more streamlined and easier to handle, meaning quicker phases when rolling dice. Plus, as previously mentioned, the inclusion of Imperial Knights. I just wish they didnt cap things at +/- 1 for hit rolls and wound rolls.

 

I would prefer to never go back to demolisher cannon tanks again. Str10 just instantly kills my paladins, not to mention, it would now kill extremely expensive custodian guard. And that not good for the game at all.

 

As a lot of the time, I find myself either being able to achieve the +2 to wound or -2 to hit me scenario. This would slow the game down a tad, but would also make me more survivable, more lethal in some degree.

 

Wouldn't make me as survivable as reworking the AP system and stripping back AP from guns across all armies in 40k.

Which, if I haven't made myself clear, I'm advocating for. And the hope is, to generate enough noise, that perhaps GW see this and take note.

[Captain Idaho]

I think there are GW employees who still frequent the forums. There are sometimes little references to them on Warcom and even some rules changes heralded from here.

[MARK0SIAN]

We might be able to get some small hints across to GW about future codexes but if 10th edition is coming out in June/July then it’s already at the printers. We just have to hope GW were already aware of the issues we’ve discussed here. 

[jaxom]

I think Votann and Guard could be seen as either the first 10th ed codexes or the the first soft-9.5 codexes. Votann seem to indicate the way the GW design team wants to approach making tougher armies actually tougher. The entire codex reads like ideas they had for the 9th ed Codex:Space Marines, but were too afraid to try at the time.

[phandaal]

3 minutes ago, jaxom said:

I think Votann and Guard could be seen as either the first 10th ed codexes or the the first soft-9.5 codexes. Votann seem to indicate the way the GW design team wants to approach making tougher armies actually tougher. The entire codex reads like ideas they had for the 9th ed Codex:Space Marines, but were too afraid to try at the time.

 

The Votann codex was designed to be on par with pre-nerf Tyranids and pre-nerf Eldar, so it is more like peak 9th edition than 10th edition. Guard seems to have followed a similar track.

 

Not sure if it is indicative of 10th edition or just certain writers being stubborn about certain design choices. For example, auto-wounds counting as 6 to wound, when 6 to wound triggers bonus effects. Neither Guard nor Votann are the first time that has been tried. GW's rules team seems to have a serious case of "this time it will be different."

[Evil Eye]

On the wounding subject, I maintain the old way was superior. Yes, it required a tiny bit more book-keeping but it was both far more immersive and made for a more satisfying game. It also reduced the lethality issue, as grots couldn't spitball a Hierophant to death with their pea-shooters (and a Stompa couldn't be chewed up by hormagaunts!). There are some weapons that lose out a bit from this system, like flamers, but then again nobody takes them under the current system anyway and I feel if we returned to the older wound chart system there would be ways you could make them more useful without upending the entire game. I'd personally give flame weapons in particular the chance to set vehicles on fire; this would both add to immersion (fire and incendiary weapons are a huge threat to even modern tanks!) and to game balance (it'd give them a niche against vehicles; meltas are more expensive and more guaranteed to destroy vehicles bit are also very specialized against them, plasma is medium priced, great against armoured infantry and light vehicles but has a risk of exploding, and flamers would be dirt cheap, great against infantry and are a high-risk-high-reward weapon against vehicles- if you flub your roll the crew just whack up the air conditioning, if you get lucky the vehicle is possibly wrecked and the crew are either scared out their minds or on fire!).

[sairence]

Oh yeah, I remember playing my Guard in 7th and 70% of my army being functionally meaningless in the fight except as squishy roadblocks, because the wound chart meant they could do diddly squat to my opponents army. 

 

No thanks. There's plenty of flaws with the current wound system, but it's still heaps better than it was in the past. 

[Djangomatic82]

Yeah, as i said before, the old wound chart is way too complicated.  I personally would be turned off the edition if that kind of needless complexity came back, especially on top of all of the book keeping that is already present due to current rules bloat

 

I do agree that a 6 to wound is a bit too low of a ceiling for a wounds system right now.

Personally I would just make a tiny change to the current chart as it is now, something like a lucky shot mechanic, where if the Strength of the attack is LESS than HALF of the targets toughness, only a 6+ To-Hit  moves on to the To-Wound roll.

 

Is the Strength TWICE (or more) than the Toughness = 2+
Is the Strength GREATER than the Toughness =3+
Is the Strength EQUAL to the Toughness = 4+
Is the Strength LOWER than the Toughness = 5+
Is the Strength HALF the Toughness = 6+

Is the Strength LESS than HALF of the Toughness = 6+ To Hit AND 6+ to Wound

Edited January 18, 2023 by Djangomatic82

[Cleon]

I must admit to being surprised people found the old wound chart complicated. Unless there was a version I don't remember, while it was only ever presented as a table, the rule was quite straightforward:

if str = T+2 or more 2+ to wound

str= T+1, 3+
Str=T, 4+

Str=T-1, 5+

Str=T-2 or T-3, 6

Str=T-4 no chance.

 

You just counted up or down from evens chance (4+) and got an extra go at 6s, I don't think we even looked at the table after our first few games.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

4 minutes ago, Cleon said:

I must admit to being surprised people found the old wound chart complicated. Unless there was a version I don't remember, while it was only ever presented as a table, the rule was quite straightforward:

if str = T+2 or more 2+ to wound

str= T+1, 3+
Str=T, 4+

Str=T-1, 5+

Str=T-2 or T-3, 6

Str=T-4 no chance.

 

You just counted up or down from evens chance (4+) and got an extra go at 6s, I don't think we even looked at the table after our first few games.

Idk if it’s complicated but I like the current system, just need to reign in the AP.

[The Unseen]

Ignoring vehicles for a moment, because that *was* actually different, the old wounding chart literally looked the same when written out, just the numbers were different.

 

Is the Str 2 higher (or more) than the target? 2+ to wound

Is the Str 1 higher? 3+ to wound

Is the Str Equal? 4+ to wound

Is the Str 1 less than the target? 5+ to wound

Is the Str 2 or 3 less than the target T? 6+to wound

Is the Str 4 or more lower than the targets toughness? You can't wound

 

That isn't a complicated system, it's only slightly odd bit is that it isn't perfectly symmetrical. And the To-Wound chart printed was handy, but anyone who played the game could memorize this. You started with strength=toughness on a 4+, and the first step changes the die value by 1, and the 2nd and 3rd step move it again 1 die value, and then if you are stepping more than 3 down, you fail. But I don't remember anything with T9 or higher except maybe some LoW that were limited to Apocalypse, so in play it basically meant that T7 was immune to lasguns, and T8 was immune to bolters. Throwing the way hurting vehicles was different in at the same time definitely added to the complexity, but they simplified the To Wound chart AND got rid of AV as a system, and the middle range of weapons got screwed over hard.

Edit: Cleon beat me too it.

Edited January 18, 2023 by The Unseen

[MARK0SIAN]

I can only echo what Cleon and The Unseen say, the old wound chart is not complicated. People are obviously free to dislike it but it’s not a complicated thing to remember. It was also more granular. With the current one, as the T goes up, increments of strength matter less and less.
 

Under the current system if something is T5 then S6, 7, 8 & 9 all wound it on exactly the same roll which seems absurd given the difference in the strengths of those weapons. It only gets worse as you go higher too.

 

The inverse is also true in that it makes things less durable. If you moved something from T8 to T9 to try and toughen it up then it would only make a difference to S8 & 9 weapons. S4, 5, 6 & 7 are completely unaffected. 

Edited January 19, 2023 by MARK0SIAN
Spelling

[Jorin Helm-splitter]

I don’t really care which wound chart they use, but if AP is a problem because a lot of models don’t feel durable enough the old chart would not help. 

 

I also don't think it would make a lot of the old specials that much better. The range of models has more to do with their lack of popularity because you need your list to be able to handle knights.

[jaxom]

38 minutes ago, Jorin Helm-splitter said:

because you need your list to be able to handle knights.

^

One of the issues that the designers said they wanted to tackle was pick up games. The idea was any army, of any composition, should have a way to interact with the other person’s army, without having to tailor a list.

[Lord Marshal]

My issue with the current 9th AP system is that it only really works if you believe the rules writers will be able to restrain themselves from doling out buckets of -1 and -2 on basically everything. Unfortunately everybody knows GW is seemingly unwilling or incapable of maintaining that level of self-discipline and inevitably they'll ensure the house of cards crumbles in on itself.

 

Of course the argument could easily be made that in a classic/30k system there's nothing stopping them from giving everything AP2/AP3 and we end up in a similar situation.

 

I think both methods have their merits, but both rely on GW not getting overexcited/overreacting rather than one inherently being superior to the other.

 

Edited January 19, 2023 by Lord Marshal

[Evil Eye]

17 hours ago, sairence said:

Oh yeah, I remember playing my Guard in 7th and 70% of my army being functionally meaningless in the fight except as squishy roadblocks, because the wound chart meant they could do diddly squat to my opponents army. 

 

No thanks. There's plenty of flaws with the current wound system, but it's still heaps better than it was in the past. 

Well 7th was probably the second worst out of all the pre-8th editions (pipped out to that dishonourable spot by 6th, which was so bad it lasted less than a year), with similar problems to 8th/9th (an excessive proliferation of super-units and free buffs) so not really a great comparison. The basic system is fine and makes sense, it's just from the latter half of 5th onwards the game "ecosystem" was overtaken by min-maxed netlists, often revolving around "deathstar" units. The solution is to restrict access to super-units such that they appear infrequently enough that armies can deal with them without being dedicated to destroying them. Lasguns should not be destroying a Chaos Land Raider; that's what you take anti-tank guns for.

 

I actually feel the whole "streamlining" argument has somewhat lost its meaning. 7th for certain was a bloated mess of intermeshing USRs, formations, unit types and general nonsense, but I feel we've gone much too far the other way. The more I think about it the more I realize, for instance, that the old vehicle rules were much better than what we have now, especially as far as actually representing how vehicles work goes. I also feel like the focus on pick-up games as a "basic model" is a massive mistake for balancing; the combination of over-simplification and attempting to make anything be able to defeat anything else renders a lot of the finer, more interesting parts of the game utterly meaningless (to say nothing of the erosion of the social element of the game and the expectation that instead of making friends, forming a group and having regular opponents and even long-term campaigns, everyone just hops from opponent to opponent on the same standardized scenario). Having an army completely consisting of light anti-infantry weapons be just as effective against an army consisting mainly of vehicles and heavy infantry as it would be against its intended target is ridiculous; I'm not saying the game should be designed to reward min-maxing and hyper-optimization (in fact I think there should be restrictions built into the game to prevent people doing this) but at the same time? If I go against an Imperial Guard armoured company with no anti-tank capability, I should be facing an uphill struggle, just as if the Guard player faces a Tyranid army containing large amounts of Gaunts and hasn't brought any horde-clearing weapons, he should struggle.

 

There should be some degree of balancing built into the game via list-building that rewards sensible choices. But the balancing should be based around what actually makes sense rather than totally abstracted, videogame-esque mechanics completely detached from the setting and indeed from any basic logic.

[Orange Knight]

9th edition is not streamlined, sadly.

 

The core rules of 40k are very elegant in 9th edition. Unfortunately the way the codex books have been written, and the way rules are layered on top of each-other in combinations with countless stratagems, have made the game complex and bloated in all the wrong ways. 

 

I feel that games in 9th edition, more than ever before, are won in the list building stage. 

 

These problems are compounded by the utterly excessive and heavy handed FAQs and Erratas that change the ways armies function, and go as far as to make the individual faction and core rulebooks almost redundant. 

 

I think that 9th edition is now worse than 7th edition, but oddly I think that 8th was easily the best since 5th. 

 

7th edition was an absolute clown show in terms of balance, but the rules felt more thematic and inventive - even though they spiralled out of control. Also the mission design was more fun. I think 9th edition has the least enjoyable mission design of any edition of 40k, and it's the worst for creating a fun game in any casual setting (casual being any setting outside of a tournament).

[jaxom]

3 hours ago, Evil Eye said:

to say nothing of the erosion of the social element of the game and the expectation that instead of making friends, forming a group and having regular opponents and even long-term campaigns, everyone just hops from opponent to opponent on the same standardized scenario

This sounds to me like the difference between narrative-play and match-play?

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

10 hours ago, MARK0SIAN said:

I can only echo what Cleon and The Unseen say, the old wound chart is not complicated. People are obviously free to dislike it but it’s not a complicated thing to remember. It was also more granular. With the current one, as the T goes up, increments of strength matter less and less.
 

Under the current system if something is T5 then S6, 7, 8 & 9 all wound it on exactly the same roll which seems absurd given the difference in the strengths of those weapons. It only gets worse as you go higher too.

 

The inverse is also true in that it makes things less durable. If you moved something from T8 to T9 to try and toughen it up then it would only make a difference to S8 & 9 weapons. S4, 5, 6 & 7 are completely unaffected. 

Yeah a D10 system would be better

[Reskin]

On 1/19/2023 at 8:38 AM, sairence said:

Oh yeah, I remember playing my Guard in 7th and 70% of my army being functionally meaningless in the fight except as squishy roadblocks, because the wound chart meant they could do diddly squat to my opponents army. 

 

No thanks. There's plenty of flaws with the current wound system, but it's still heaps better than it was in the past. 

says the guard player who now pumps out more auto wounds than anyone else in the entire game...

 

figures.

[Captain Idaho]

20 hours ago, jaxom said:

^

One of the issues that the designers said they wanted to tackle was pick up games. The idea was any army, of any composition, should have a way to interact with the other person’s army, without having to tailor a list.

 

Thing is, no one is beating Knights lists with S4. The problem still exists only now lighter vehicles can be damaged by anti-infantry weapons whereas before (7th edition and before) they couldn't.

 

So a solution GW proposed to a problem they created (i.e. allowing/promoting Knights into the game) doesn't fix the problem, creating another problem.

[jaxom]

Beating? No, but still being able to use everything. Definitely had a lot of law of unintended consequences. I agree that Knights (and super heavies and flyers too in my opinion) don’t fit well into a “standard” 40k game.

[sairence]

2 hours ago, Reskin said:

says the guard player who now pumps out more auto wounds than anyone else in the entire game...

 

figures.

 

For the record, I've played a number of games with the new Codex so far. In none of them have I fielded either Leontus or a single Kasrkin. 

 

Not that my playstyle has any relevance whatsoever to the shortcomings of the wound systems. 

 

Edited January 20, 2023 by sairence
Typo

[Valkyrion]

Remove AP as a baseline weapon stat.

Introduce Destroyer, Rending, Breaching and Piercing (X+) abilities which work like in 30k, with the number required when making a To Wound roll indicated in the brackets.

Destroyer would become AP-4, Rending AP-3, Breaching AP-2 and Piercing AP-1 equivalents.

 

A Multi Melta could be Destroyer (3+), meaning it becomes AP-4 on a to wound roll of 3+. A Shuriken Catapult could be Piercing (6+), giving it AP-1 on to wound rolls of 6, Krak Missiles Breaching (4+) and so on.

 

You've still got to make the To Wound roll, so it's not automatic (i.e, S8 vs T8 would still need 4+ to wound even if it had Destroyer 3+), and not every wound roll will generate an AP modifier, thus increasing survivability because all wounds that don't meet the threshold will allow a full armour save. 

 

This system works well for Rending and Breaching in 30k, but they default to AP2 (so basically AP-5, no save).  By introducing different levels you can get more nuance.

 

 

[Djangomatic82]

Maybe approaching this from a different angle would be beneficial.

Let's take an example of a unit with the worse Sv. In the game and see what tier of weapon people think should strip said model of its armour save, barring an invuln, etc...

 

Let's start with a basic Orc Boy, ignore the T5, focus on the Sv.6+.

What existing weapons should ( not currently do or do not) strip a basic Boy of that 6+ Sv?

Lasguns? Boltguns? Shurriken or Gausse?

 

Edit: Please do not think that i am suggesting that the weapon profile is the only thing that should come into play when determining what removes the Orc Boyz Sv. I am assuming that all of the army abilities, strats and what not still exist in the scenario, I am just asking that you set those aside in this consideration, to determine what should be the minimum required to remove that 6+Sv.  A Lasgun? Bolter? Gausse? Heavy Bolter? etc.....

Edited January 20, 2023 by Djangomatic82