Hey all

just read this on Warseer, and i was wondering what you thought:

http://warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=117503

alphastealer wrote:Hi,

I was considering the following based on how blast weapons are currently being used.

When you fire a plasma cannon at a squad you check to see how many guys are under the small marker then roll for partials, then roll to wound.\

Lets say you wound 2 guys. The defender can remove any 2 models, not just those that were under the template. While I understand that this is fair, it should also then not matter if the guy has spaced out his models to prevent more than one from being under the template...since he can remove models from the other side of the unit anyway.

This just disadvantages blast weapons.

I propose that if you hit with a blast weapon you then roll D3 to see how many wounds you cause..regardless of how many guys are actually under the template.

This makes it more fair, as a lot of guys tend to space their models out to negate a blast weapon. It is also a fair number of possible wounds, since it is almost impossible to get more than 3 wounds at the best of times.

What do you think?

first of all, i personally get the impression that Blast Weapons were intentionally toned down in 4th ed:
- the hole in the marker now has to be over a model
- Multiple Blasts are now resolved sequentially (casualties thin out the unit as you go through the process, causing later Blasts to score less hits)

with regards to the OP's suggestion, i think that unit density (how tightly packed the models are) should affect the number of hits, i.e. a unit should be able to spread out to protect themselves against Blast weapons, and units that dont should suffer because of it.

however, something that a lot of people dont realise, with regards to Blast weapons (not Ordnance or Barrage) is that the marker (or even its hole) does not have to be placed within either Range or LOS. as long as the target unit has at least one model within range and LOS to the firer, then the Marker can be placed anywhere over the unit (as long as all of the hole is over the base of a model in the unit). this allows the firing player to place the marker at the most densly packed part of the unit - this causes the unit density to actually be the maximum value.

Casualties must still come from within range and LOS as normal, of course.

for example, if a unit has 3 models spread out in the open and 3 packed tightly together to hide behind a piece of Terrain, the Marker could be placed over the hidden models to score enough hits to kill all of the more spread out ones.

in this regard, its a bit like Maj T (Shooting) or ToF: you count the whole unit, even models that cannot be hit. for example, the toughness of models that cannot be hit can make it easier (or harder) to kill the models that can be hit, and the models hidden from view can make it harder to pick out one of those that can be seen.

yes its abstract, but then again so is the casualty removal process for Blasts in the first place (models dont have to come from under the marker, heck, they dont even all have to be able to fit under the marker at the same time) - the Marker isnt representative of an ingame explosion, it is just a tool that allows us to convert unit density into a number of hits.

now, if people dont like the way it works, how could it be improved? while the OP's suggestion is simple and fast, it doesnt take into consideration the unit density, so that puts me off. its a shame we dont have a way of calculating the overall density (or even just the density of models that can be hit) more accurately (if 40K was played through a computer im sure this could be measured).

another problem with the OP's suggestion is that it doesnt allow multiple units to be hit with a single Blast.

so how about this little twist on the OP's idea: place the Marker, so that the hole is over a model (we can discuss separately whether said model should be within Range and LOS or not). any unit with 1 model under the marker takes D3 hits, and any unit with more than 1 model under the marker takes D6 hits instead (im not sure how partials should be factored in here - any suggestions?).

this stays relatively true to his idea, whilst still allowing density to play a small part in the process.

alternatively, we could go back to the less abstract 3rd ed route, where the marker is considered more like an ingame explosion - i.e. casualties from it must come from under it.

if we do this, how do we consider range and LOS?
- all models under the marker are counted, but only those in Range and LOS can be removed
- only models within range and LOS under the marker are counted and only those can be removed
- as long as the hole in the marker is within range and LOS, all models under it are counted and can be removed, regardless of range and LOS
- the marker can be placed anywhere over the target unit, and all models under it are counted and can be removed, regardless of range and LOS


and what about placing it over a model as opposed to targeting the space between models?

and should we adopt rules similar to those for Template weapons, in so far as we should be forced to score as many hits as possible? could this get around the Sniping issue (something i havent even touched on yet, which was handled in 3rd ed by allowing the defending player to reposition the marker before resolving it, as long as it still covered at least as many models in the target unit) - i.e. if you dont want your important models (Sergeant, Heavy Weapon, IC joined to the unit etc) to be picked out, then they shouldnt stand near the point at which the unit is most densly packed.

or i suppose we could go back to the 3rd ed way of doing things (although i dont want this to just be a case of going back to how things used to be simply because it is more familiar/viewed through rose tinted specs etc - if we do revert to 3rd ed i want it to be for the right reasons).

oh and if we are going to only count the density of models that can be hit (by whatever method we choose), should this be carried across to other parts of the game that are as similarly abstract as the current method? for example, should we contradict the FAQ and only count models that can be hit when working out Maj T (shooting)? should we only count models that can be hit when working out the number of wounds required to invoke ToF?

so, thoughts/comments/suggestions?

bear in mind that im not talking about actually changing the rule - im just discussing the possibilities open to those that arent happy with it as it currently stands (i dont really mind the current rule, personally).

cheers

~ Tim
p.s. it might be a good idea for someone to PM the original OP on Warseer a link to this thread...

I'm not sure how i feel about them, the whole seperation aspect that was added by "resolving seperately" so that a plasma cannon devastator squad on top of all its ills can't TOF does vex me since they pay the points and should be able to do what a heavy bolter squad can do without incremental penalties.
They have taken a massive hit and now are only brought out to bring the smack down on people who
a) deepstrike near me
b) to fundamentally prop up with cardboard my new gen chaos armies as they have no other way of killing enough gribblies if they squidge into enough cover.
At all other times they are pretty useless- that said as I say maybe A and B are enough.

I think I'd just prefer for its benifits to be made = to its negatives, something like more units be vulnerable to.. or open topped etc, its bigger and better than a plasma gun it should be treated as such. Its quite rare I can say oh good I brought my plasma cannons (necron swarms = very mr plasma cannon), but someof that is down to opponents seeing them and changing their tactics accordingly, which I guess is usefull.

BTW(\partial hijack)
How do small blast weapons work with those massive guard heavy weapon bases, I made a call (which a player ignored yesterday) due to the problems with p30, he reckoned it had to centre on the big massive base =maximum casulties 2, i reckoned his opponent could just centre it on one of the models= 4(with the bits about partials getting into a muddle later on)
Was I very wrong?

I don't like the idea of rolling a random number of wounds for a blast marker. As you point out, it doesn't take the unit density into account - a spread out unit should take fewer hits than a tightly packed unit.

killmaimburn wrote:I'm not sure how i feel about them, the whole seperation aspect that was added by "resolving seperately" so that a plasma cannon devastator squad on top of all its ills can't TOF does vex me since they pay the points and should be able to do what a heavy bolter squad can do without incremental penalties.

well they can invoke ToF... just differently, by whittling the target down as the fire. they might even get to invoke it multiple times in a round (!), so its 'swings and roundabouts' in this regard, IMO.

killmaimburn wrote:Its quite rare I can say oh good I brought my plasma cannons... but someof that is down to opponents seeing them and changing their tactics accordingly, which I guess is usefull.

this could be part of the 'nerf' being intentional. Blast weapons can be used to make opponents spread out when they normally wouldnt want to, where as Heavy Bolters (for example) do not.

im not saying i agree with Blasts being de-powered in 4th, its just i can see that it could well have been intentional (and i tend not to go against RaI).

killmaimburn wrote:How do small blast weapons work with those massive guard heavy weapon bases, I made a call (which a player ignored yesterday) due to the problems with p30, he reckoned it had to centre on the big massive base =maximum casulties 2, i reckoned his opponent could just centre it on one of the models= 4(with the bits about partials getting into a muddle later on)
Was I very wrong?

you dont have to centre the marker over a base (FAQ).

although i wouldnt recommend anyone actually use those bsb's (big silly bases) as their bases: put the models on proper bases then sit them on top of the big one and use it like a movement tray by all means, but each model really should have its own base/defined area (even if that means cutting the bsb in half, or marking out which area is occupied by which model).

if you are going to really play that both models occupy the same base, then covering that base = 2 full hits. but i wouldnt suggest it.

~ Tim
p.s. any more thoughts on my proposals, guys? cheers!