HH 3.0: Pinned, Suppressed, Stunned and Routed

[Deus_Ex_Machina]

So the new edition will introduce new status effects which are right up my alley as I am a fan of the video game Age of Wonders: Planetfall where you can have a ton of different status effects bothering your units. Lets speculate in this thread, as nobody right now knows the exact details, how these status effects MIGHT work. Off the top of my head it could be done like this:

 

Pinned:

Effect: Unit can´t perform actions during it´s next activation.

Source: Overwhelming firepower and sniper fire.

Caused by: Overwhelming firepower (Unit suffers a single, unsaved wound from a high strength ranged weapon which also uses a 5´´ blast template) & Sniper fire (Unit suffers a single, unsaved wound from a weapon with the Sniper trait).

 

Suppressed:

Effect: Unit can only use Snap Fire during it´s next activation. WS could be impaired as well. Depending on how the WS chart works this time this could either mean WS-1 or even halving (rounding up) WS.

Source: Heavy enemy fire, environmental effects and psychological warfare.

Caused by: Heavy enemy fire (Unit suffers equal or more wounds than it´s current number of models in the unit. This applies before any kind of saves are being made), Environmental effects (e.g. Earthquake/Hivequake, Haywire, Radiation) & Psychological warfare (Playing loud, indoctrinating, political messages towards the enemy; Playing via grammophon heart-wrenching, vintage love songs sung by a diva towards the enemy; Showering the enemy with air mail suggesting it is better to surrender than to fight on; Psychic shenanigans).

 

Stunned:

Effect: Unit´s Initiative is reduced to 1 until it´s next activation.

Source: Sheer force of impact, explosion or battlefield event.

Caused by: Sheer force of impact (Unit suffers a single, unsaved wound from a melee weapon with the Stun trait), Explosion (Unit suffers a single, unsaved wound from a weapon with the Blast trait & Battlefield event (Scenario special rule such as a preliminary bombardment).

 

Routed:

This is practically another denomination for the Fall Back order of Legions Imperialis. If a unit has suffered enough casualties to warrant a morale check and failed it then this effect applies.

 

 

What do you think?

[lansalt]

Seems to me like they designed the new tokens with 4 basic distinct reactions in mind, like the current ones used in HH2 ZM. But then they changed their mind for some reason.

But the sprues were already done, so now we're stuck with 3 very samey status effects to justify their existence and players will easily confuse them for the rest of this edition.

 

[Antarius]

Whether they will be easy to confuse will depend on their triggers and effects, I think. However, I am a little apprehensive about how much different stuff you’ll have to keep track off during the game (we see this sort of feature bloat in the new Blood Bowl, for example, where there are 3-4 ways for the ball to scatter - something that might be cool in the computer game, but less so when you have to do the bookkeeping yourself…). However, I could envision these statuses being good fun and adding a new tactical dimension.

 

 I hope it’s something along the lines of different types of weapons (snipers, ordnance etc.) and effects (spells, fear etc.) causing significant but not crippling effects, so it leads to interesting choices both in army construction and on the table. I could definitely see pinned units being easier to take out in melee and stunned units being unable to charge, for example. 

[Pacific81]

I absolutely agree with your apprehension @Antarius. I will be honest I did a double-take when I saw the stat lines include Cool, Willpower etc as I haven't used them in a game for over 30 years!

 

What is interesting for me is that I think you now have a new generation of rules writers who wouldn't have gone through the process that Priestley, Chambers & Co did around Rogue Trader and 2nd edition 40k, where the book-keeping for RT in particular was so excessive and they decided on a combined 'LD' stat. Similarly for status effects; it's fine micro-managing these for smaller games (RT and 2nd ed probably had armies at about 25% of the size of modern HH) but it becomes onerous and bogs the game down at larger scales. This is why Gav Thorpe & team made such sweeping changes for 3rd edition 40k, book-keeping becomes a problem when you up the miniature count.

 

So it's really interesting now that the modern games are following a similar cycle, and seem to have forgotten that engineers maxim of finding equilibrium when you have nothing else to take away. Like Legions Imperialis, I suspect the new HH will be 'for us, not for them'; fine if you live and breath it, an amazing amount of depth, not really suitable for multi-game events and very difficult for those of us who have families/other commitments and can only dabble in the new game.

[Galron]

I know in 40k people I play with get Lethal, devastating and mortal wounds mixed up as it is and we forget half the time. Making a tertiary stat into multiple different stats with different effects affecting them is going to drive people nuts trying to keep track of. Ok this unit is pinned, this unit is stunned, this unit is suppressed...

 

The game didnt need it this, it needed a rehash on reactions so overwatch, intercept, and return fire isnt as stupidly powerful as it is either with a reduced ability to hit or a leadership check to take effect. A buff to the ROWs that never get used. A points adjustment to the most broken units like lascannons and Fist units. Making vehicles more survivable. And simply turning dreads back into vehicles where they belong instead of the nonsense monsters they are right now, nothing wrong with them having armor values.