Fixing V2.0

[SkimaskMohawk]

Character tanking isn't a problem with single wound guys in a blob of troops. People who reduce complaints about character tanking to that either is making a gross assumption, or is being disingenuous. Because ya, the tac seargent with a 2+ doesn't change the math all that much; they only average another 3 more saves and can get popped by a sniper. 

 

But it's not the lone tac seargent. It's ICs attached to other multiwound units with characters and 2+ saves. It's the suzerains or cenobium that are all characters. It's the primarch with the boys. It's the praetor with 10 dark fury. 10 snipers average 2 rends, so you can spend 200+ points to kill one of those multiwound seargents only for the IC to still step up. And yea, divination does exist to help get around the problem. But it feels bad to deal with a complex tanking set up and have...one viable solution. 

 

And that also ignores melee, where you can just break the wound pool on top of everything else. 

 

Imo it should be directional or characters dont get the exception to allocation. If there wasn't so many multiwound I'd suggest 5ths allocation over both. 

[Foudroyant Virus]

3 hours ago, Gorgoff said:

 

And when your EC opponent olay Maru Skara and outflanks 3 units of terminators or you play against BA who Deep Strike three or four Assault marine/ special units you are pretty much :cuss:ed.

Yes, i totally agree. That is why i said in the beginning: you need to totally commit to reserves or get nothing.

And that is somehow not what i feel outflank should be. It should be a small, fast force to interupt the enemy or bringing units into strategic points. But you can only make it work by maxing out on outflanking units.

 

as i said: i play EC myself. Of course i could :cuss: up every game by just outflanking 9 contemptors on turn 2. or 3 landraiders with terminators. But if you play it like that, you are the problem.

 

Another point is, you cant really combine different kinds of reserves. Want a cool droppod list with Deathstorms? The Desthstormes comes round one, the rest of the pods round two. The Deathstorms will just be obliterated without doing anything.

 

want to be a tactical genius and deepstrike a few destroyers while outflanking another unit? Well, if they dont come up in the same round (44 percent of both arriving turn 2) they will get shot off one by one without doing anything.

 

to overload on something to make it work is never a good game design.

[Bung]

6 hours ago, MARK0SIAN said:

But outflanking and deepstriking already have risks attached to mitigate them. There’s scatter and disordered for deepstrike, which if you have a Damocles makes the deep strike a very risky proposition for your opponent. It’s also easy to screen and prepare for outflanking units. 
 

you’re also talking about strategies that can cope with the intercept because they’re dropping several units at a time, they’re built to overwhelm via deepstrike or outflank. If, however, the player isn’t going all out on deepstrike/outflank units but wants to use one or two it’s tantamount to suicide as they could be intercepted by multiple units using augury scanners. 
 

If you’re not going to cap intercept at once per turn then at the bare minimum it should be a rule that no single unit can be intercepted more than once. 
 

It’s never been a good idea in any edition of this game when armies get powerful abilities for free or at very little cost, it was one of the biggest complaints about 7th editions formations. Reactions, particularly interceptor, fall into the same category for me, extremely powerful but don’t really cost anything. It needs toning down.

 

Disordered Deepstrike is a joke.

Just deepstrike a 20 man Assault Squad first and you can make a nice conga Line to get your Elite Units where you want them.

[MARK0SIAN]

6 hours ago, Bung said:

 

Disordered Deepstrike is a joke.

Just deepstrike a 20 man Assault Squad first and you can make a nice conga Line to get your Elite Units where you want them.

I don’t understand how you think a conga line makes disordered a joke? It actually makes it worse because, if the deepstrike is disordered, your opponent has a much bigger area to place the rest of your units as they can be within 24 inches of any member of the conga line. 
 

If they’re using a Damocles they’ve got a 50/50 chance of being in control of where your units arrive on the battlefield. That’s a pretty hefty risk and a good mitigation.

Edited February 24, 2023 by MARK0SIAN

[Valkyrion]

I agree with the removal of the Vehicle Damage table and instead simply introduce a minor bracket system - if a vehicle is down to less than half HP it suffers -1BS and halves its movement. It can still be battlesmithed back up. 

 

There'd have to be a benefit to AP2 and AP1 weaponry, but this way it's quick and easy.

 

I'd also double the number of HP for most vehicles, but I'd do that anyway. The risk of one shot explosions should be mitigated by having more lives against none dedicated weaponry. 

[MichaelCarmine]

5 hours ago, Bung said:

 

Disordered Deepstrike is a joke.

Just deepstrike a 20 man Assault Squad first and you can make a nice conga Line to get your Elite Units where you want them.

Yeah, i don't think "disordered" works the way, you think it does.

When the first Model of the first unit scatters bad, then your opponent places that model and you place the rest of the Unit - that's where the Conga-Sickness comes into play.

When you then roll a disordered result, your opponent places the whole unit within the given range (depending on the type of deep strike).

So as mentioned previously - building a conga-line with the first unit just gives the opponent more room to place the disordered units.

 

Edit.:

I tend to drop a Pod-Unit first, if possible. So you can benefit from the "halfed" scatter and minimise the chance of a complete Drop-Fail.

Edited February 24, 2023 by MichaelCarmine

[Cleon]

For Character tanking, the solution we were considering when it was an issue in previous 40k is to get rid of the ability to choose. Have the character decide the first time the unit is shot at if he is being 'protected' (then he takes no hits) or 'leading from the front' (then he takes all the hits and can't be protected by LoS), what annoyed us was a Teminator Character jumping about catching every bolt round then dodging the Lascannon.

[MrZakalwe]

15 minutes ago, Cleon said:

For Character tanking, the solution we were considering when it was an issue in previous 40k is to get rid of the ability to choose. Have the character decide the first time the unit is shot at if he is being 'protected' (then he takes no hits) or 'leading from the front' (then he takes all the hits and can't be protected by LoS), what annoyed us was a Teminator Character jumping about catching every bolt round then dodging the Lascannon.

That could be the answer - once a save is rolled for a model, continue applying wounds to them until they die or the wound pool empties. 

[Gorgoff]

3 hours ago, Cleon said:

For Character tanking, the solution we were considering when it was an issue in previous 40k is to get rid of the ability to choose. Have the character decide the first time the unit is shot at if he is being 'protected' (then he takes no hits) or 'leading from the front' (then he takes all the hits and can't be protected by LoS), what annoyed us was a Teminator Character jumping about catching every bolt round then dodging the Lascannon.

I second this. 

Take away the protection from them and it will solve a lot of problems without killing the core rules.

[bushman101]

Personally speaking, i dont think getting rid of the vehicle chart is a good idea. I think there is a strange balance with the chart, in regards to armor facing, weapon AP and Pen rolls.

I see 40k bracket system as part of the current problem of making vehicles balanced. 

 

Just my view on it

[Noserenda]

Yeah i much prefer degrading vehicles to the damage chart but there isnt much value in the armour system either tbf, you can have directional toughness and have high toughness immune to low strength hits easily enough and shave off a whole system of mental load. 

Id probably go further with degrading stats than 40k does though, it makes sense to me that as a tank gets damaged it should get more vulnerable for example rather than just bad at fighting back.

Any kind of wound juggling is gamey badness, it just feels more egregious on a sergeant for some reason, taking hits feels at least like something a hero could do (just not in rotation) but the unit leader jumping in the way of rockets is inane.

[Brofist]

I like the idea of degrading stats, but I don't like the record keeping in practice

[Galron]

Another thing I would change is the challenge system. If models are in a challenge then them, and them ONLY, can give and take damage from each other. Its a challenge, no one else in involved. No stupid precision hits outside of combat to units not involved in the challenge, none of the other wonkiness of units somehow damaging into the combat.  Any extra wounds simply go to combat resolution. The two challengers might as well be in a cage fight on their own doing their own fight while the battle wages around them. 

[Rejects of Anvilus]

With wound allocation we need to go back to how it used to be done  many editions ago (as far as I can remember). You allocate each wound to an individual model (or group of similar models lumped together) until everybody has one and then start again. With groups lumped together you have to take the higher strength attacks first.
 

So 10 man tactical squad (sergeant, vexilla, and 8 normal) gets shot at by let’s say a veteran squad (1 krak missiles, 2 combimelta, 13 bolter). So with 16 saves, you will get 4 guys taking one save, and 6 guys taking two saves. So sergeant gets two bolter saves (to tank on 2+), vexiIla gets one bolter save, and the eight normal guys have to take the missile, 2 combimelta, and 10 bolter saves. This will result in 3 men dying straight away, and then the other five rolling ten saves between them. 
 

Same squad gets shoot at by another tactical squad which causes 16 bolter hits gets the same allocation. This stops the sergeant tanking more than his fair share of hits. At least this is how I think it should be done. 

Edited February 25, 2023 by Rejects of Anvilus

[Valkyrion]

2 hours ago, Galron said:

Another thing I would change is the challenge system. If models are in a challenge then them, and them ONLY, can give and take damage from each other. Its a challenge, no one else in involved. No stupid precision hits outside of combat to units not involved in the challenge, none of the other wonkiness of units somehow damaging into the combat.  Any extra wounds simply go to combat resolution. The two challengers might as well be in a cage fight on their own doing their own fight while the battle wages around them. 

 

Isn't that already how it works? I thought you could only allocate wounds to a challenger once the rest of their unit was dead?

 

 

 

[Brother_Angelus]

3 hours ago, Valkyrion said:

 

Isn't that already how it works? I thought you could only allocate wounds to a challenger once the rest of their unit was dead?

Precision Strikes override the usual wound allocation rules, so RAW can be used to strike into and out of challenges.

[SkimaskMohawk]

4 hours ago, Brother_Angelus said:

Precision Strikes override the usual wound allocation rules, so RAW can be used to strike into and out of challenges.

 

The common argument to this is challenges don't follow the normal wound allocation wounds, so precision strikes cant supplant it.

[arnesh88]

Im finding the artificer armour on sergeants increasingly useless. Melee, too much ap2. Shooting, both a lot of ap2, or just too many shots for the AP to not even matter (whoop-dee-freakin-doo, I made a bunch of 2+ saves and the squad is still wiped out).

[bushman101]

Artifice Armor is kind of in a funny spot, I think. I mean, having a 2+ save is great, so we all take it. But we all plan for our opponents Arty Armor also, so we take power axes and such.

Sometimes, I don't see the point. But I still feel obligated to take my Artificer Armor with axes

[The Unseen]

I'll just drop a reference to the Legion Panoptica, which answers some of these problems. I don't personally like all the changes, rulings, and choices, but they get it close enough, and make a good starting point if your group wants to develop their own houserules. Most of the FaQ rulings at least are solidly done, barring the one exception about Combat Patrol, let aircraft that have been waiting to shoot down aircraft shoot down the aircraft they're ambushing by the Throne. Especially when Helios Targetting Arrays exist.

 

Character allocation needs a pass over, for sure. I like the idea of it being initiative base, so the hero can still *lead from the front* and tank some damage, but can't jump in front of every bullet, until he's almost dead, then let someone else do it.

But you can't make characters not ignore the normal rules in some way, or else a single precision wound comes in, and suddenly every bolter that goes that way hits the character first, which would be silly in the opposite direction. 

Also, anyone who doesn't make all the full-character squads who clearly got skipped on editing day not count as Chosen Warriors, aka the rule that was invented just for this, is taking crazy pills. Letting someone bounce 10+ wounds around before a model dies brings back bad memories of one of the most broken things from 5th edition. 

 

The interceptor should just be that no single unit can get intercepted more than once, and no unit can shoot more than once a player turn. Means that a wide front deep strike can still take a bunch of damage if they run into a bunch of Interceptor without a plan, but its spread out over the whole army and not a unit or two eating an entire shooting phase in their own bloody movement phase. And then if you want to bring a small number of reserve units, the opponent spamming scanners will have options, but can't just casually obliterate your unit or two that just showed up.

I personally think that they should have kept every unit scattering and just had units take dangerous terrain checks if they overlap other units and move as far as possible before collision, then be forced to bunch up. And disordered deep strike should've been roll an additional die on the scatter. Currently it's all or nothing, if it's disordered the opponent gets to place your army for you basically, but if it's not it's insanely strong.

 

Units intercepting, returning fire, and tben potentially overwatching in one turn is just ridiculous, and heavily favors shooting infantry in a game system that already does, nobody enjoys watching Tyrant Siege terminators vomiting 60 krak missile shots in a turn because someone had the temerity to arrive from reserves in their LoS and then someone shot them, it's dumb. Or lascannon HSS basically being impossible to not trade even at worst with.

 

Gentlemen agreements to not spam Contemptors, a few Rites of War (looking at you stone gauntlet), and a few units (as has been stated by others above me, Ultramarine units getting to be better, stupidly cheap versions of other legion units is not cool.)

 

Ohh, and Flamers need a buff, I like giving them all varying amounts of Torrent, reactions just mean even if you do maneuver your squad of war crime users close enough to burn the enemy, they just back up 6" and leave you standing there, if they don't just want to ignore all your auto hitting str4 tickleguns. 

Lascannons should cost more on non-vehicle platforms, Krak Missiles need breaching of some level so they can actually hurt dreads and terminators, and not endlessly bounce off of 2+ saves (which would be absurd to do if you didn't tone down reactions, but hey, this is my wishlist and we did that already, Tyrant squads murdering the hell out of 1 thing in a turn is fine)

 

Eternal Warrior should do either 2 or d3 damage when they get hit with Instant Death, to make the duelist Primarchs with Murderous Strike not lose to the brutes with hammers forever, and make the few characters who have it not be completely overpowered (sigismund) battle-hardened is probably fine as-is because it doesn't help a lot of the time, it basically just means fists and hammers aren't as good into them, MS characters don't care.

Maybe drop dread fists to Brutal 2 and up their price a bit if the gentlemen agreement isn't to your liking, and make them all worth 1 vp if slain in the all-dread RoW.

[MegaVolt87]

Vehicle squadrons should work like the dreadnaught talon or dreadnaughts should have the same limitations as vehicle squadrons do currently. It's not fair how they are not the same. 

[arnesh88]

3 hours ago, MegaVolt87 said:

Vehicle squadrons should work like the dreadnaught talon or dreadnaughts should have the same limitations as vehicle squadrons do currently. It's not fair how they are not the same. 

Agree 100%, it's one of my biggest gripes in the difference between dreads and vehicles. There's other factors, but that's the one I hate the most, especially since in a vehicle squad, it's easy for a traffic jam if the front vehicle is wrecked (I know you can decide to allocate to a vehicle more in the rear, but you need line of sight and within range of the weapon, which can be difficult due to vehicle size as well as 4" coherency)

[Petitioner's City]

Second @The Unseen's reference to Panoptica, which does such a good job - almost to the point of being too intimidating for groups to take on (which is a real shame).

 

You can discuss it more on the AoD Discord, under the excellent shepherding of @codewalrus

 

Another thing on it is this nice interview with Walrus about community fixing the game:

 

https://theiteratorspodcast.buzzsprout.com/1856478/11641603-ep13-liber-panoptica-a-candid-conversation-with-the-rules-writing-team

 

Edited February 28, 2023 by Petitioner's City

[Brumbaer]

My take.

I love Artificer Armour in units with PA. Best thing ever. Everything that makes PA last longer is good. I find it annoying when you have one unit in your army that might be able to handle all those elite units and Dreadnaughts your opponent brings, and Bolterfire from the Deathstar reduces it, so there is no threat to the charge. I hate games which end in the first turn of shooting or close combat depending on the army.

I never encountered a problem with the Sergeant's artificer armour. If you use it against a weapon with AP4 your just as likely to roll a 2 to make an additional save or a 1 and die. AP3 is different, but there are not that many AP3 weapons. Mainly people have it because their models have Missile Launchers. If they hadn't probably nobody would cry out.

If the Sergeant is your only Character in the unit, the penalty for using him against AP4+  is IMHO high. In my experience a drop of Leadership makes a difference.

 

Using characters is no problem at all, if you play by the book and not any understanding you have from it.

 

Page 170 PDF version of the rule book.

„Allocate Wounds

First, the player whose unit is the target of the attack selects any one model in the unit that is within line of sight and range of the attacking unit.

If any model in the target unit has already lost one or more Wounds, but has not been removed as a casualty then the Wound must be allocated to such a model, unless that model is out of line of sight of all models in the attacking unit or has the Character sub-type (see page 198)“

 

Please note, if one of you non character models has already lost a life, you can not choose a Character. It only works the other way round. If a Character already has lost a life, he must not be a chosen.

Also this is only done when called to allocate a wound, that is when and only when the first wound of a wound pool is allocated or when a model that had the previous wound of that pool allocated died.

 

Please check the rules:

Once you have chosen a model, you have to keep allocating wounds to the very same model until it is dead or the wound pool has run dry. It is not allowed to switch the model after a first loss of life that doesn't kill it.

 

Page 172

„Take Saves and Remove Casualties

A model that has been Allocated a Wound can make a Saving Throw, if the model has one. If the Save is failed, reduce that model’s Wounds by 1. If the model is reduced to 0 Wounds, it is removed as a casualty; otherwise, continue allocating Wounds to the selected model until it is removed as a casualty or the Wound Pool is empty.

If the selected model is removed as a casualty and the Wound Pool is not empty, then the player whose unit was the target of the attack selects another model in the target unit that is in line of sight and range of the attacking unit and allocates the next Wound to that model“

 

The paragraph is quite clear. So when you choose to allocate wounds to a character, he has to take all the wounds until no wounds are left in the pool or he is dead. If you risk your character on saving 30 Volkite wounds it's up to you. Of course you can change the probability of his deliverance by waiting until the pool is down to 5 and switch to the character the next time a model dies.

 

As an afterthought FNPs including shrouded are immediately taken when a wound is not saved.  There was some confusion, because the old return fire rule had you declaring to shroud after the wounds were saved and so the roll could not be taken in sequence.

 

I find deep strike generally a bad game concept,  just like a 36" charge. Everything to lessen it's effect is IMHO good. The rules got usually a roll for occurrence,  a unit and points limit and disordered to mitigate the effect of deep strikes. None of it saves you from a deathstar. That's were interceptions come into play. One interception is not enough against a Deathstar. Even the well loved 10 man Lascannon Squad with Master of Signals, will not take down a Deathstar. So please do not limit Interceptions. Anyhow what do you expect if you drop in front of 30 Lascannons ?

What to make Deep Strike more viable ? IMHO nothing directly, but indirectly by changing the LOS rules. Every terrain except if not explicitly ruled different or agreed on will handle LOS in the following way.

LOS can be traced out of a piece of terrain, LOS can be traced into a piece of terrain, LOS can never be traced through a piece of terrain. Explicitly ruled different would be low walls, craters etc.

Without being able to snipe at the target from 48" through the legs of a dreadnaught in through a window out through a door and past 6 trees, you might be able to find a blind spot or a spot where only one unit can intercept. You might have to think about deploying your deep striking units instead of putting them directly in the face of your opponent, but I never find that a negative.

 

If a unit has three firing reaction a turn, it's all of your making. Don't let it react. Land out of range or sight (seeing above LOS rules), shoot first with something that has larger range or something less important. If he ignores the less important, he might loose a model or two. Charge in with a sacrificial unit first. Let him kill something superfluous. Or do not fire before charging. Use a Librarian. Why change a rule instead of finding to play by it ?

 

When we started, Dreadnaughts were a pain. Now they are just annoying and yes they could be more inline with other units, but they are not that big a problem any more - at least not when you know how many your opponent is bringing. Main problem was the newness and the lack of suitable miniatures and experience.

 

Vehicles are the other way round. From shunned to valuable assets. The point is many people only see the Spartan as method to bring a deathstar to the enemy and if it fails they are frustrated. I'm happy you can kill it and I'm happy you can immobilise it. Otherwise we're back as the bad old, I drive my deathstar to your door and kill you. And you can do nothing but die - hopefully gracious.

I have my gripes about how easy the Predator dies against Krak Grenades but hey, I just try to keep them away from it. Vindicator, Predator, Scorpius have good fire power for low cost. They come cheap and die cheap. A Spartan with Flare shield has an hefty price - not unwarranted.

 

 

[MegaVolt87]

Arty sarge + challenges are that way so its not an instant steamroll on a charged unit. Its there to drag out the combat a bit longer and make it seem more "close". If you don't like the sarge tanking the AP 3 melee, challenge him. Don't like his tanking your shooting ? bring snipers. Don't want your blender character like siggy/ Sev etc speedbumped in challenges ? Stay away from chosen warriors/ character type units and snipe squad sarge on a unit you want to charge. You have the right tools in the toolbox, the rules are clear. Its on you if you don't use the tools to solve problems.