More Swordtart Heresy

[killmaimburn]

So just to be clear-to sum up your aims in this.
to stop CC armies getting to you without being shot (alot) more
to stop mobile alien technologys from creating versatile gunlines
and in compensation
Guard (and orkies) will always go second. (due to lower than normal base initiative.)
Would that be how you'd sum up all your tweaks?

But I like going second (I win more and know what my opponent is doing more often)

Will you give certain units compensation (e.g. price drops for things where you remove their special rules) and e.g. a cavalry charge thats zooming towards the enemy on a charge.. will you bring back a sort of skimmers moving fast so that things like rough riders aren't just silly? (and lictors assasins etc surprise attacks that now happen agonisingly slowly)
You need a carrot for the stick your beating the game with unless you just want it to be quite mannila. I’d suggest it be that fast things gain some new rule akin to turboboost all fast things gaining 3++ cover (your speeding up the game the faster things need to go even faster)

"Look at it visually, a big zoomy meteor falls to earth in front of the target In all that time the target sits there watching, but does nothing? "
That isn't how the core rules work.. thats the dreadclaw argument that I said the phase shifters promote...in that in (old) IA a beserker loaded dreadclaw or drop pod appears in the opponents turn they have a minute chance of shooting it, it lands and disembarks just in time for the controlling player to decide that they should run around and slaughter everything (move shoot assualt with impunity (nobody has ever let me play out that scenario\additional ruleset)
Anyway realism, if a meteor landed beside me in the same timeframe of distance travelled that it would take me to reach it as it for me to draw my gun… I would be stunned enough that something had landed so close with the lawn trembling as to be mildly distracted and probably hesitate a moment until my gun came up.

[swordtart]

Hmmm, when you put it that way KMB it doesn't sound much of a bargain does it My intent wasn't to nerf anyone, but it looks like that is an inevitable consequence of the change. If I could neatly circumvent the pop-up issue I would, but it looks like a convoluted hotch-potch of exceptions again.

You have neatly summarised my objection to intiative based combat, I only put it forward to counter another objection about DS clumping. I like the flipping back and forth (or even dicing per turn set so you might get two turns in a row - but that brings up a load more issues)

I like your idea that fast movers get a cover save, that would in effect offset the pop-up nerfing. It wouldn't stop me shooting at them, I would just have much more difficulty hitting them, they could shoot at me without penalty as their gear would be designed around that tactic. That fits my warped world view nicely.

I think my objection arose because all the rules are based on the same cut-off distances. You move plus assault 12", my effective range is 12". The max range of a pistol is 12" etc. I find that I am infrequently getting to use the primary weapon of the guard at its most effective rapid fire range. Thus I concentrate on maxing out the heavies, thus I get to play a shooting gallery game and neither of us has much fun. If I could rely on the smaller stuff I'd use it more and thence have a more mobile battle.

In effect I suppose that allowing your opponent to shoot when assaulted is making the game shootier, but if you have made a CC only army it is because you have identified the inherent advantage of CC over shooty. Even Nids can field shooty so it must be choice. Rourkes drift tells us shooty can beat more outnumbering CC. Isahndlwana tells us that running out of bullets is an issue that needs to be addressed.

Maybe my IG battles are plain vanilla because if you want to play an IG niche (infantry mostly) then they are vanilla. I don't know what proportion of guard infantry vs guard treadhead vs other forces are. Maybe basic IG are just too expensive for the stats and kit they have (and heavies too cheap).

The drop pod visualisation was an attempt to illustrate the illogicality of the turn sequence. if you look at it from the passenger view point, if he has enough time to recover from the impact, reorganise etc. so do I. He is after all significantly closer to the impact point than me (albeit with a comfy seat). I must admit though, as I was writing it, I thought I'd be legging it, not staying round to either shoot or melee.

Maybe I should just ask for the old Overwatch type rules to be brought back. You could then keep the existing turn order and I'd sacrifice shooting in my turn to shoot in your turn when I wanted to. Minimal book keeping. Still nerfs jet troops though.

I suppose the lesson is that what can seem a minor tweak has game warping implications. What a shame that GW don't see that. Ooops sorry they are omniscient.

Oh well back to the planning room.

[Baragash]

Maybe I should just ask for the old Overwatch type rules to be brought back. You could then keep the existing turn order and I'd sacrifice shooting in my turn to shoot in your turn when I wanted to. Minimal book keeping. Still nerfs jet troops though.

Overwatch changes the whole balance of cover, and personally is something I was glad to see the back of when 2nd Ed left us.

This thread offers a variety of views on the subject:
http://warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=162062

[swordtart]

Hmm a lively discussion, it's a shame about all the "Just shut up I'm not listening la la la la" posts.

From the posters who actually bother to discuss (rather than just post "it's bad/good") the majority seem to favour an overwatch rule that has penalties over shooting in your own turn. Apart from all the unplayably complex one the one that seems right to me is summarised as follows.

Overwatch: A unit must give up it's turn to go into overwatch. It may then shoot once at any point during your opponent's movement phase. All units firing on overwatch suffer a -1 modifier to their BS. An enemy unit that was in cover at any point during it's move may also take the appropriate cover save with a -1 modifier against overwatch fire.

I think the cover save modified means a 3+ save becomes a 4+ save and would be on the best cover you could have obtained during your move. Thus if you assaulted from no cover to no cover, but could have passed though 4+ cover you would get the benefit of a 5+ cover save.

I think that rule would serve my needs and would address Baragash's cover concerns. Sensible troops will advance up in cover, screw up their courage and then run like hell.

Does this sound workable?

[swordtart]

Rereading the above I have just realised that my first two para's looks like I am referring to this thread, I should make it clear that those paras refer to the warseer thread that Baragsh links to.

I value the comments received here.

Cheers

[LordMalekTheRedKnight]

Rereading the above I have just realised that my first two para's looks like I am referring to this thread

i must admit, i was a little confused.

cheers

~ Tim

[swordtart]

The warseer thread mentions something about a FW special defensive fire rule. Does anyone know what they mean (or where I can look it up)?

On the overwatch rules above I would also clarify that even if didn't leave cover throughout your move, you would still suffer the -1 cover penalty. This represents the fact that you are not hunkered down and can be seen through holes in cover etc when moving.

The exception would be if you didn't move any figures in the unit at all during the movement phase. I would argue that you could not even target such units with overwatch as nothing has changed and there is nothing to react to. Such units could still run and assault without provoking overwatch fire as it may only take place in the movement phase.

Jet troops against non over-watching troops can
still pop-up as before.

Against overwatching troops there are 3 options for them.

Move into LOS, get shot at, shoot themselves and then Move out of LOS so that they are not in LOS in my shooting phase. Benefit forcing me to hold a unit static on overwatch thus effectively supressing me. Only exposing troops to overwatching troops rather than the whole army.

Don't move (and not be shot at), don't shoot (as you'll have no LOS), and move into another non-LOS position in the assualt phase. Benefit forcing me to hold a unit static as above but still moving yourself. If you managed to move close enough you could of course actually assault instead without reply from me.

Move into some good cover (taking hits with pretty good save), Shoot at me, assault move into more cover in LOS. Obviously in my turn you would be subject to my regular turn. I can either do something active and shoot you in your good cover or set myself to overwatch again and hope to force the -1 cover save. If the former its a regular turn but if the latter you could then not move (wasting my overwatch), shoot at me as you were always in LOS, use your assault move to repeat or hide out of LOS again. Benefit, forcing me to make tactical decisions and then choose whether they work or not (as if you don't move overwatch was the wrong decision and if I chose not to overwatch I may have missed a great chance to rapid fire you at < 12"), bouncing around like a bouncy thing whilst not suffering too much from cover penalties. Make significant advances on my position while I sit there like a melon.

Actually that small engagement with a single unit of regulars vs an advancing group of jet-troops using cover, sounds like loads of fun as it is.

Non-jet troops can still run without provoking overwatch (They're running sarge, can we shoot. Nah leave 'em alone son, they're no threat. No, I mean they're running towards us.. Too late!)
Cavalry and beasts can still assault up to 18" (d6 run + 12 assault) and fleet troops can assault up to 12" without reply.

All these cases should mean that the rule is not overused as it will generally be better to shoot in your own phase, it just gives a chance that for want of a better target you can put a little insurance by for the unexpected.

Ooooh I like this already.

[swordtart]

Belay that just realised it is FoW not FW they were referring to.

[Spack]

swordtart, just wanted to mention that you can edit your own posts - just click the "edit" button at the bottom of the posts.

[killmaimburn]

Silly question- overwatch at the moment your grasping the nettle and going for it shooting wise.
Would you consider a closecombat overwatch, surprise counter\ "its a trap" your unit has sat their waiting to be charged, but whats this.... its just uniforms on chairs..and the enemy is ..arrrrgh
A unit that does nothing in its turn gains the option to counter attack USR? Fairly simple to implement that one and I can see it being funny in some situations.
Its messes with reality a bit, but also stops the cool CCW stuff hiding at the back so much.

[swordtart]

KMB. That again doesn't seem over balanced.

You could even justify it by saying that +1 attack from counter attackers is because they are waiting util they see the whites of their eyes and then blasting away with whatever is handy.

Do you mean instead of overwatch or in addition to it? If in addition would you get to overwatch and then counter attack or is setting overwatch classed as taking an action in your turn?

To be honest I have never seen the logic of giving the attacker +1 attacks, if they can pour shots on the way in why can't the defender. Assault weapons have already poured shots in on the shooting turn, that is the advantage. If you have rapid fire weapons you cannot shoot them and assault anyway.

Unfortunately as it is a global rule it means that an attacker with no-ranged weapons still gains the +1 (and possibly extras because of extra CC weapons), so the justification falls down. If defenders got it you could at least argue that you could set your weapons against a charge (fiiiiiiix bayonets).

Alternatively let the defender always gain the initiative (to simulate his shots setting weapons etc before the enemy hit). Any troops he killed would then not be taking part (bonus for him), but the momentum of those that broke through would catch him off guard and that would justify their +1 attack (bonus for them).

All assaults would be in effect assaults into cover, offensive grenades would still negate that ability to prepare. The advantage of cover would be that it could still cause an assault to fail (due to the difficult terrain checks).

BTW how do people play grenades, if only an attached independent character has taken them, is the whole units initiative reset to base level, or only those attacking him. Seems odd that you generally have to equip an entire unit at 1pt per model if you can achive the same effect by just buying it for 1 independent character.

[LordMalekTheRedKnight]

BTW how do people play grenades, if only an attached independent character has taken them, is the whole units initiative reset to base level, or only those attacking him. Seems odd that you generally have to equip an entire unit at 1pt per model if you can achive the same effect by just buying it for 1 independent character.

unlike 4th ed, both Frag and Plasma now both work the same way, i.e. per model (it works now because its the attacker that gets penalised by cover rather than the defender getting a bonus).

so if only the Vet Sgt has Frags, then only he ignores the penalty for charging into cover.

something interesting i noticed the other day is that if the target has Gone to Ground then the attackers dont suffer a penalty for charging into cover.

~ Tim

[timewizard]

something interesting i noticed the other day is that if the target has Gone to Ground then the attackers dont suffer a penalty for charging into cover.

~ Tim

And a unit that suffers any unsaved wounds from a pinning weapon "goes to ground"!

[LordMalekTheRedKnight]

And a unit that suffers any unsaved wounds from a pinning weapon "goes to ground"!

err... if they fail their Pinning Test, right?

~ Tim

[swordtart]

Thank you m'Lud.

That all sounds very reasonable, I'm glad it has changed (and that I wasn't just imagining it)

To my mind force in the enemy to go to ground should be the only safe way to assault a positoin (cover or not).

If we went back to the alternating phases mechanism then you could in the shoot phase force me to go to ground (then in my shoot phase I wouldn't be able to shoot your assaulting troops). For this to work you would only be able to recover from going to ground a full turn after the phase you were forced into it (i.e you would loose all the phases for that unit for the current turn and the next turn up to the phase that it occured in - usually the opponents shoot phase) otherwise the person that fired second would be disadvantaged.

Using the other rulings troops that go to ground (or are pinned) loose overwatch.

I am rather looking forward to seeing how the all-new ratling snipers pan out. The way I see it they get +2 cover save when usuing the 5th edition Gone to ground (as the +1 they got before was not contigent on them loosing any capability). The option to be pinned after takeing 25% is probably superceded as they would likely opt to take the 5th before they took the casualties for the cover bonus.

You try winkling them rats out of rubble (or just shhoting them through thier mates). 3+ save by default 2+ if gone to ground. Only the flame cleanses.