Overwatch and and advance order

[Crablezworth]

So myself and Skimaskmohawk played our first game at 2000 points last night and we decided to implement/try out the idea of limiting overwatch to detachments on first fire. 

 

This change would not effect weapons with point defense. 

 

 

I don't want to speak for my opponent but I feel like it made more sense. Both of us issued first fire orders more in this game I think than all of our other game combined. At least it felt that way. 

 

One thing it seemed to cut down on was units dump firing in overwatch at planes, if they wanted a crack at them they had to sit still at least, no more absurdity of a tank moving 10 inches than one shooting a plane out of the sky. You still get weight of fire just downing planes but at least it not always no overwatch now either because in the case of our game the unit in question wanted to move hence had advance order and had to wait and activate like everyone else and couldn't just throw a handful of dice that are likely to produce a few 6's. 

 

So overall, it felt better and made first fire feel more relevant instead of like that 4th order no one uses. 

 

It's worth noting that there are weapon special rules in the rulebook that no unit currently have but do interact with first fire or simply not moving,  siege weapon doubles the range of a weapon with it if the detachment doen't move, that doesn't mean it has to have been issued first fire, it would work as well for advance provided the unit doesn't/hasn't moved. There is also and ripple fire which explicitly states if the detachment is on first fire it can re-roll 1's to hit. There is a third rule, power capacitor, again explicitly if the detachment is on first fire, doubles the weapons dice. 

 

So there may be very compelling reasons soon to issue first fire, independent of overwatch. I still feel like it makes more sense and flows better with this change. Again tomorrow we're likely to see pre oder info for book two and in all likelihood only like 3 weeks away from its release hopefully. So probably jumping the gun with this change, but if a gw faq appeared tomorrow with this change I would welcome it. 

[Interrogator Stobz]

Nice to see you testing the theory.

We've only had a couple of games, we use FF fairly often for things that are 'going' to die and gunline things like WarBringers.

 

I haven't had the flyers issue so much as it sounds like others have. I run 3 T-Hawks and a few 6s here and there doesn't bother me much. 

In saying that, my main opponent is looking at 8 more Russes, all with Vanquisher Cannon. So things may well swing his way.

[SkimaskMohawk]

1 hour ago, Crablezworth said:

Both of us issued first fire orders more in this game I think than all of our other game combined. At least it felt that way. 

Considering this was the first game I've ever used first fire in LI, ya, more than all games combined lol.

 

1 hour ago, Crablezworth said:

One thing it seemed to cut down on was units dump firing in overwatch at planes, if they wanted a crack at them they had to sit still at least, no more absurdity of a tank moving 10 inches than one shooting a plane out of the sky. You still get weight of fire just downing planes but at least it not always no overwatch now either because in the case of our game the unit in question wanted to move hence had advance order and had to wait and activate like everyone else and couldn't just throw a handful of dice that are likely to produce a few 6's. 

 

So overall, it felt better and made first fire feel more relevant instead of like that 4th order no one uses. 

 

I felt like it cut down on overwatch in general. There was a big scrum in the middle and I had to prepare for the ogryn onslaught by hitting first fire. Under the normal rules I could have just moved away to give some breathing room and then still have had the option to overwatch with everything. Planes definitely felt better to use as you weren't just getting wiped on entry and you actually have to play the activation game to get rid of them; maybe it'll still die, but it allowed you to activate another key shooting unit (or even use interceptor). I am a little worried about air-spam in the face of the change though. Theyre all actually very cheap points wise, with money and availability being the mitigating factors.

 

[Deus_Ex_Machina]

As far as I remember there is no range increase in LI when targeting flyers. In 2nd Epic you added 25 cm when wanting to shoot down planes. Maybe a custom rule of that kind would be feasible.