Warhammer 40K Tabletop Thread XL: Bloated Rules

[LansXero]

The Onslaught Cannon looks like it's placed directly in the wrong spot, like it's designed to take off the Driver's head at some point.

So the driver should be a firstborn! Now they have some use, being shorter means they dont get their heads shot off in the quadbikes. And if they go deaf, who cares, nobody was gonna talk to them anyways.

[Voidhawk]

I dislike the turret on principle. Marines are meant to be a rapid strike force not a stationary wall (sorry Dorn), and the last thing the game needs is more reasons to be a gunline. At least the Thunderfire has the decency to have tracks and pretend it can move.

The buggy I'm more on the fence about. It looks like it wants to be a landspeeder variant, but until this point I've always disliked the primaris skimmers because they're too large, too cartoony, and don't fit with the theme. Mostly it looks like firing the cannon will immediately cause it to flip over.

[druid91]

On the 'well they just dabble in it' front, its still money thats been spent on stuff that has to be sold. I get that not everyone will be super into it, but why do you bring in a line to let it orphaned and sabotage it? Many owners in the LGS groups that Im in sound profesional, centered and smart, but so many also sound so amateurish. Like people I wouldn't hire to mop the floors bad, let alone put in charge of a business.

Now, if you're staffing your family business, thats actually worse. Thats where you eat from, why arent you trying your best? Even if its just a side hustle for your parents, it doing well means you doing well :s. But then, Im probably looking too hard into it.

I'd be curious though if someone had an article or numbers about the impact, both positive and negative, that LGS as someone's point of contact with the hobby have in its growth / sustainability. We can exchange anecdotes both awesome and dreadful, but I wonder if someone has collated something more concrete.

Something I've noticed a pattern of, but also have no hard statistics to back up....

Most FLGS seem to be more of a "I like these hobbies, so I want to make a clubhouse and also make some money off of it." rather than being more of a business. Like, you don't see someone opening a Walmart because they have a passion for sports gear. But you do see people opening FLGS's..... And then they expand into things beyond their specific hobby, because rent on stores isn't cheap.

[Don Qui Ho Tep]

Well in other news I've gone back to my hometown to be close with my family during this time (perks of teaching remotely), and my brother and I have been pulling out all the games we haven't played in years. We got really into Specialist games back in the early 2000s for some reason. So we played ourselves a game of 1995 Necromunda, my Redemptionists vs his house Orlock. I was pretty impressed with the rules on a re-read. A lot of it did what I liked out of Kill Team and Infinity. It played pretty quickly as well, with both of us trading casualties pretty consistently until he knocked out my leader and forced my gang to bottle out.

Close combat wasn't super intuitive but once we got the hang of it I liked how much damage could get put out - my zealots with the big old chainswords were scoring between 5 and 8 hits each - but our juves were only trading a few hits each and couldn't quite seem to damage anybody. Nobody felt superhuman, it felt very desperate and dirty, a proper no-holds-barred scrap. We're going to have at least one more training game before starting up a campaign - I have to move my list around. Too many flamers, not enough range to fill the 4' x 4' board.

[Rizhail]

I'm in the 'why does the rapid assault army have a turret?' camp. Slight reshaping and put a servitor in place of the marine and it'd be great for admech or guard, but never for marines.

I think what bothers me most about the quad is that it's so low to the ground, in defiance of all logic. All terrain vehicles, especially military ones, like to have a lot of space between the ground and the chassis (see: Jeeps, humvees, commercial 4-wheelers, etc.). This one is so low that the driver can power it with his feet like he's Fred Flintstone.

[Wraith]

I remember when Space Marines had the Tarantula heavy weapon platform; a single static heavy weapon with BS4.

This was second edition, and it never, ever had a model as they were kind-of-sort-of subsumed into becoming Thundercannons.... until now, 20 years on, apparently.

[Cheesegear]

This was second edition, and it never, ever had a model as they were kind-of-sort-of subsumed into becoming Thundercannons.... until now, 20 years on, apparently.

Someone doesn't pay attention to Forge World, I suppose.
Not only have Tarantulas been a thing for a while, but they were totally replaced by Rapiers, and, thanks to GW ridiculousness, buying a (legit!) Rapier from Forge World, is cheaper than buying a Thunderfire Cannon. Especially 'cause Thunderfires were sold out for a while, because everyone wanted two TfCs, if not three. And if you bought Rapiers, you could flex on nerds with 'standard' Thunderfires.

[Renegade Paladin]

We kitbashed some Tarantulas out of spare Guard heavy bolters and lascannons a couple of years ago for our Space Wolves player to fill out his defensive Apocalypse list.

[Aliess]

You could also get tarantulas in the old old old space crusade dreadnought expansion.

I now have a Monty Pythonesq sketch stuck in my head of a tech priest trying to describe the virtues of the new atv to a chapter master.
Choice lines like "Where? Behind the Ork war buggy?"
"No my Lord, it IS the Ork war buggy."
And
"Can it go faster than the land speeder?"
"Well... No."
"Oh, so it can handle worse terrain than the land speeder?"
"Umm, no."
And so on.

And yes I know they are closer to replacements for attack bikes, but it amused me at least.

[Cheesegear]

I don't like doing it, but here's a wish list for the third Space Marines Codex in two years. Let's see what happens!

HQs
There are 7 Captain Datasheets. Terminator Armour on models with good Invulnerables is vastly overvalued. AP affects everything equally, and if you're gonna take the Invulnerable save anyway, you can take it for cheaper, with less redundancy. Captains in Gravis Armour are still a clusterf*.

There are 3 Chaplain Datasheets.
There are 4 Librarian Datasheets.
There are 3 Lieutenant Datasheets. It bothers me that Lieutenants can't ride Bikes, and Phobos Lieutenants can't Concealed Positions for no reason.

Troops
GW progressed the storyline, remember? At this stage, every Tactical Marine alive has at least 100 years' combat experience over any of their Primaris counterparts. Please reflect this...Somehow. Except the only way to do this, would be to make Veterans, which already exist...So just phase out Tactical Marines, I guess? At this stage, Tactical Marines should be, in the rules, what Matt Ward said they were, in the fluff.

Infiltrators and Incursors still have to compete with Intercessors, which is a no-contest. Because Intercessors are cheaper, and better, in any Mission where Objectives aren't the focus - and, in 9th Ed., apparently that's going to be all of them.
S4, AP- is trash. Next.

Elites
Elite <Characters> just shouldn't take Role slots. They just shouldn't.

Aggressors need...Something else. I don't know what it is. But they need something. I do not want Assault Centurions nerfed. I want White Scars and Raven Guard to have their Stratagems nerfed into the ground. Big difference.

Apothecaries need a rework. At the moment, they are either totally useless because paying points to fail. Or, they are utterly broken because they can bring back models that cost more than the Apothecary does, and even if the Apothecary works once during the entire game, it has done its job (specifically, on Centurions).

3 Ancient Datasheets, with a fourth to come; Another model that needs a significant rework. Now, to be clear, Ancients are very, very good mechanics-wise. What they aren't, is good, gameplay-wise. A good Ancient is proc'ing three units at any given time, and repeatedly interrupting your opponent's Shooting phase is really, really bad, in a game that potentially takes up to three hours. Now, I'm aware that some people, apparently have 6 hours to play a single game, and isn't Space Marines vs. Space Marines 'Bouncing Banners' totally fun? But just...No.
I admit, that turn interrupts need to be a thing, to force your opponent to switch up their tactics in the middle of their turn, depending on what happens. However, an Ancient is interrupting your opponent's turn several times per phase, exactly half the time, you interrupt for no reason because you failed the roll. If you roll fire, and every model gets back up for an extra shot, your opponent is in agony because their turn is interrupted constantly.
Again, as far as winning games goes, Ancients are incredibly good. That's not my issue:
Q. How many turn interrupts is too many turn interrupts?
A. Ancients. Ancients is how many.

4 Terminator Datasheets; Frankly, there's not enough differentiation between them to warrant so many. Especially given that other Codecies (e.g; Space Wolves), can easily roll Terminators and Assault Terminators into the same Datasheet. But, the problem with Terminators is that this isn't 2nd Ed. The game has moved way on since Terminators were good. Space Marines aren't Black Legion. If Codex Marines want Storm Bolters in their list, they can get them pretty much anywhere else. And, obviously, Melee Terminators are woefully outclassed by Vanguard Veterans. Terminators are...Incredibly bad. I don't even know how to fix them without changing how they work entirely.

Veterans; Regular Veterans have issues. However, post-CA'19, it's unclear how much Bodyguard units are required, now that Eliminators and Deathwatch Stalkers are staples of the meta. Certainly, some people have found success with Bodyguards, and other times they don't do much.

Sternguard; Special Issue Boltguns need...Something. However, the elephant in the room is that Deathwatch get these guys as Troops. Masterful Marksmanship is a decent Stratagem, but it's simply not enough, not when Troops have Invulnerable saves (Tzaangors), Ignore Wounds (Poxwalkers), or both (Plaguebearers). Maybe phase out the Veteran Datasheet, and roll the Bodyguard rule onto Sternguard. It would be interesting. But fact is, Deathwatch exist, and make decent Allies to Marine armies now that they have Combat Doctrines.
I don't want Masterful Marksmanship to just be something that Sternguard just have. But they do need it to be effective.

All Dreadnoughts are inferior to Vicky Warsuits.
Are Dreadnoughts bad? Or do Vicky Warsuits need a nerf? ...I'm not sure.

Servitors should just get Legends'd. They belong in AdMech.

Reivers should be Troops. Full stop.

Fast Attack
I have no idea how to fix Assault Squads without a) Making them Troops, or b) Making them exactly like Reivers (which should be Troops) and/or Vanguard Veterans, both of which already exist.

Bloat. Bloat. Bloat. Bloat.
Instead of fixing Bikes and Attack Bikes, GW added even more Bikes and Attack Bikes. Why improve something you already own, when GW can invalidate your old models and make you look stupid? inb4; 'You can still use your old Bikes.' Sure, you're dumb if you do, though.

Land Speeders have already been fixed. Vehicles can move and shoot without penalty in 9th Ed.

Suppressors need to be able to move and shoot without penalties.

Heavy
Hunters & Stalkers; Any weapon that gets worse when it shoots ground targets, probably needs a points reduction.

Predators are going to be less terrible in 9th Ed. But, is a buff, enough of a buff?

Vindicators will get buffed, because Blast will be a thing. But it's not going to be enough. The problem with Vindicators is that you're paying over 100 Points for a S10, AP-3 weapon...That deals 1 Damage.

Ded. Transports
I dread the return of Razor-spam. From all appearances, it looks like cheap gun-Vehicles (e.g; Land Speeders, of all things!) are going to make a pretty significant comeback. As always, whether something is broken or not will always depend on points costs. So we'll wait to see what happens.

Fliers
None of them need anything.
The Stormhawk Interceptor already got exactly what it needed - moving and shooting, no penalties. Now it wont be just Iron Hands and Ultramarines players who run them, it'll be everyone...Depending on points costs, of course.

[LeSwordfish]

I think part of the issue is that Primaris marines are so big that even two-man vehicles or one-man ride-on turrets feel wierdly huge compared to how we normally think of vehicles in the old scale, like Rhinos and Chimeras. Sure, that's because the old tanks are too small, but it still feels off.

[Saambell]

My brother and I 100% agree someone will take the new SM Buggie and slap in some orks and metal plates and make some real buggies. Meanwhile for actually how good it will be, unless the gun is Assault, or the thing has a rule removing the moving with heavy weapons debuff, its going to have the exact same problem land speeders have. Frail, poor hit chance, and not that great damage, unless its cheap in points.

EDIT: and i totally missed the vehicle buff, so now im super happy to bust out my land speeders, love the model was always sad it wasnt good. Any advice on a loadout for them?

[Cheesegear]

My brother and I 100% agree someone will take the new SM Buggie and slap in some orks and metal plates and make some real buggies. Meanwhile for actually how good it will be, unless the gun is Assault, or the thing has a rule removing the moving with heavy weapons debuff, its going to have the exact same problem land speeders have. Frail, poor hit chance, and not that great damage, unless its cheap in points.

From appearance, it looks like an Onslaught Gatling Cannon (i.e; As good as two Heavy Bolters). If it has the <Biker> Keyword, White Scars will spam them. If it's a <Vehicle>...Well, whether they're good or not will come down to points costs, and how big Terrain will actually matter in 9th, because Land Speeders can <Fly>, and thus are inherently better than something that can't. The ATVs will reportedly be Easy-to-Build (i.e; Cheap), which means if they're good, people will buy three on day 1.

I hope they're not Vehicles.
But they don't look like Bikers.
We'll find out.

EDITim super happy to bust out my land speeders [...] Any advice on a loadout for them?

Is that a real question?
Assault Cannon, of course. It's the best weapon in the book.
Though depending on your meta and how much Vehicles make a comeback, Typhoon Missile Launchers (provided you haven't butchered your Typhoon parts to make Missile Launchers for your Dreadnoughts).

[Brookshw]

Where the heck is the front of that new go-cart?

[Saambell]

Where the heck is the front of that new go-cart?

Batman stole it to use on the front of his tank. Seriously, a Raven Guard painted one will look a lot like the Tumbler from The Dark Knight. Like, they took The Dark Knights Tumbler, shrunk it, took a bunch of the front armour off it, then added a ork buggie turret.

[Cheesegear]

Like, they took The Dark Knights Tumbler, shrunk it, took a bunch of the front armour off it, then added a ork buggie turret.

To me, it straight up just looks like the original Warbuggy.

Spoiler: From 2nd Ed.

Show

Except, because it's Space Marines, the stupid design makes less sense because Space Marines should know better...Shouldn't they?

My Facebook Groups are being lit up by Mario Kart memes. So there you go. Everyone sees something different, I guess.

[Renegade Paladin]

Mario Kart and Red vs. Blue (of all things) memes.

[Brookshw]

To me, it straight up just looks like the original Warbuggy.

So SM's looted an Ork buggy? Wait, no, I've got it, Ork's already looted the front of the SM go-kart to make their buggies. Boom, nailed it.

And someone already made a real one!

[druid91]

So. Going through Engine war.... Pteraxii have basically utterly eliminated the Infiltrators Niche in my army. Both Variants of Pteraxii do infiltrators job better than Infiltrators ever could, while also doing other things as well.

The Skystalkers are literally just a weapon for weapon repeat of Infiltrators, with better stats and the ability to fly, and soar in and out of the battlefield, rather than being dropped once and being stuck. While also having a nice attached strategem.

Sterylizers are just outright amazing. I love them.

[Renegade Paladin]

Necron preview. Death Rays are Blast, and Necron Warriors are going to 12ppm. The new gauss reaper weapon is 14" range Rapid Fire 1, S5, AP-2, D1.

[Lord Torath]

Well in other news I've gone back to my hometown to be close with my family during this time (perks of teaching remotely), and my brother and I have been pulling out all the games we haven't played in years. We got really into Specialist games back in the early 2000s for some reason. So we played ourselves a game of 1995 Necromunda, my Redemptionists vs his house Orlock. I was pretty impressed with the rules on a re-read. A lot of it did what I liked out of Kill Team and Infinity. It played pretty quickly as well, with both of us trading casualties pretty consistently until he knocked out my leader and forced my gang to bottle out.

Close combat wasn't super intuitive but once we got the hang of it I liked how much damage could get put out - my zealots with the big old chainswords were scoring between 5 and 8 hits each - but our juves were only trading a few hits each and couldn't quite seem to damage anybody. Nobody felt superhuman, it felt very desperate and dirty, a proper no-holds-barred scrap. We're going to have at least one more training game before starting up a campaign - I have to move my list around. Too many flamers, not enough range to fill the 4' x 4' board.

If you want to play as Marines/Eldar/Orks/etc, you might like the WarpStrike rules from the link in my signature.

[Cheesegear]

It's been two weeks. GW has been drip-feeding us information for clicks.
But at this point we're starting to get a clear picture.

9th Ed. How does it work?

Crusade: Crusade will be a Narrative Play game set up so that you can progress your individual army with advantages and weaknesses. There are no checks, and the balances are likely to be super wrong. Rubber Band mechanic is confirmed, but no-one, anywhere, is under any obligation to actually have bad units in their army...Unless those weakened units have no actual weaknesses. "Oh no, my Devastators have -1 to Advance and Charge, whatever will I do-o-o..." The system also uses Power Rating for more unfairness. Obviously, the whole point behind Crusade is Narrative. However, Stormwind Fallacy is invoked and you don't get to say that a person with a good army isn't necessarily playing Narratively.
I can see the appeal of the system on the surface.
When I look slightly deeper, and knowing what I know about mechanics, and people, the system looks very broken and cheating appears to be very easy.

Board Size: Boards are now slightly smaller than 5x4'. Something, something 'kitchen tables'. Ignoring that a Kitchen Table is literally any size you want it to be, and whatever fits your accommodation. The big problem, is that when 6x4' is the minimum play space, for logistical reasons, 6x4' becomes the maxium play space. Which, everywhere I've ever been, it has been difficult to place non-active things on the table; Reserves and rulebooks can rarely be placed on the table, and finding a 'clean space' to roll dice, at many times, is impossible. If you've already got a 6x4' table...Good. What you don't want, is a 6x4' board, because that now leaves space for...Stuff. However, we all know what this really means, is that if the minimum space is slightly less than 5x4', we know that that becomes the new maximum play space, and what we really want to do is pack people into buildings like fish, breach capacity and break public health and safety (fire) codes.
Gameplay-wise, the width of the board is now less than 48", which means that the cost of weapons with ranges longer than 40" are now inflated for no reason, and the real firefights will be between 24-36". That being said, Bolter Discipline is now very good, and Rapid Firing your opponents with Bolt weapons is now a super viable tactic (Imperial Fists, go!).
The shorter board does not mean that Melee is easier, because Deployment Zones are measured from the middle of the board, not the edge. So distance between DZs remain at 24".

Vehicles and Monsters: Can now shoot in Melee, against the unit(s) they're engaged in engagement range with. Heavy weapons have -1 to hit. This is a huge bonus to gun-tanks and gun-beasts (e.g; Razorbacks with Twin Assault Cannons), as getting Charged by your opponent no longer renders them inoperable. Tyranid Monsters can run up the board, just like they used to, and despite having four guns, can still perform relatively well in Melee. Suddenly, the Vicky Warsuit doesn't seem so special now, because now every Vehicle and Monster is more-or-less equipped with Pistols. Good stuff.
- Heavy: The Heavy rule now only affects Infantry. So gun-tanks (e.g; Razorbacks with Twin Assault Cannons) see a massive boost in effectiveness.

Aircraft: All Aircraft can set up anywhere. Try not to inflate this to be more than it is because Aircraft all have big footprints. Which just means that they can set up in the middle of the board, same as almost all other Reserves. They gain a lot rules, which more or less boil down to "They're not on the board, unless you want to attack them." More or less just rolling Aircraft Errata from 8th, into 9th.
Non-Hover Aircraft will see a massive boost because the Heavy rule no longer affects them. But this has nothing to do with the Aircraft Keyword, and everything to do with everything that simply isn't Infantry is now way better.

8th Ed.: "We need to make Space Marines not good, and we need to make Infantry matter."
9th Ed.: "...Scratch that."

Blast: A new 'tailor to your meta' rule that either wins games or totally useless, and you wont know until after you see your opponent's list. Blast attacks against 6+ model units have a minimum of 3 attacks, and Blast attacks against units of 10+ models roll max attacks. How prevalent are they going to be? Will weapons that have multiple dice (e.g; Thunderfire Cannons) also be Blast, or will everything be changed? "You can use your old Codex...With 20 pages of Errata." The point is, Blast is going to be a rule that your army either does, or doesn't have.
So, you've brought 100 Plaguebearers?
"Yep. Got any Blast weapons?"
Not as many as I'd like.
"Good game?"
Yes. Adding Blast is an improvement. But unless it's game-wide and applied evenly...Haves and Have-Nots, meet a new rule. Also, it's another rule that discourages your opponents to put Infantry on the board, 'cause what's the point if you're just going to fire 6 shots every time? No. What your opponent really wants to do is slam down as many T6+ models as they can so at least S3 Attacks need 6s to wound. If you've got T7 or T8 available to you, even better, because then you're looking at needing specialised weapons to bring them down...And specialised weapons cost points.

Aww shiz. This is sounding real familiar. ****'s sake.

Terrain: Some Cover now applies a bonus armour save in Melee, too. Castle up, son! Even against Melee armies. Additionally...Obscuring not-as-hyped. It only applies to terrain that is 5" or more high. Which means that your board is going to want to be covered in 3" Ruins. You get the Cover save, but you don't lose Line of Sight (it's important to remember that the unit in Obscuring terrain, loses LoS, too, so it's actually a hindrance...Unless you accidentally place the terrain so it's over/around fixed Objectives). You are also not Obscured if you're in the terrain, only outside it. So, more-or-less, Terrain doesn't really do anything, and is not really any different to a solid tower that you can see inside...And if you can see inside it, it's not Cover, because AP-1 and -2 is the name of the game for a reason, and everything good, is going to ignore Cover.
Either way, Obscuring is not what people expected it to be, and leads to very boring terrain maps. But...It's not like that's any different to now, right?

Matched Play
Across the board, things will be getting a points hike, explicitly so that people would put less things on the board, so games go quicker. This is in direct opposition to GW's business model of getting you to buy more models, so expect everything to come back down to more sane levels when GW asks us to pay for a patch to the game they broke.

Detachments and CPs: Detachments cost CPs. Your Warlord's Detachment is free - actually, in bad game design, your Warlord's Detachment has its CPs refunded. Other than that, every single army starts the list-building process with the same amount of CPs. This means that the 'casual' army of Battalion+Vanguard/Spearhead sees more CPs. But the 'competitive' army of dual- or triple-Battalions sees significantly less CPs. However, it should be noted that it will still be relatively normal for most armies to start the game with 9 or more CPs, which distinctly does not prevent armies from alpha striking. What would prevent armies from alpha striking is significant nerfs to the 'problem Stratagems' that allow it in the first place. As mentioned, some alpha striking armies will actually see an increase in available CPs, especially given that CPs regenerate at 1 (or more) per round.

"More Stratagems for everyone." is actually in reference to the fact that the main rulebook Stratagems have increased from 3, to 7. At least one of which is likely tied to how Reserves work. Players who are used to dual- and triple-Battalion armies actually will see less Stratagems used on the Battlefield. But, you've got even more choices that you wont use, so it all works out, right? Thanks, GW.

Win Conditions
Actions: Actions appear to be what a unit can do instead of Shooting. Of course, it seems that you can't do an Action if there is an enemy unit near. Which means that Fighting becomes the default option, whenever possible. This generally favours Melee units, as they can now stand on Objectives and do something, even if they're not doing what they're supposed to be doing (i.e; Being in Melee and racking Kill Points). This is only a boost to fraction of units in the game. Since every other unit in the game really wants to be Shooting.

Secondary Objectives: The ones we've seen are cribbed almost directly from ITC. So we already know that the best way to play, is to stack as many relevant Kill Point objectives to your opponent's army as possible, and then if there's room, pick up the board control ones. Each Secondary Objective is worth exactly the same, so the aim of the game, is to pick the easiest Objectives, and then build your army around those Objectives. The Faction that can complete the easiest Objectives, the easiest, will be the best Faction(s) in the game. In case it needs spelling out; Removing your opponent's models, makes it easier to complete non-Kill Point Objectives (if you have them, including Primaries), in future turns. Removing your opponent's models, makes it harder for them to complete any Objectives in future turns. When you tie removing your opponent's models to a win condition, in and of itself, you significantly increase the impact of removing your opponent's models. You win easier, regardless of Objectives, your opponent loses easier, regardless of Objectives.
- Primary Objectives: Of the two examples we've seen, we see that Primary Objectives can't be completed in the first round (this is to prevent armies that spam alternate deployments [e.g; Space Marines and Concealed Positions] from simply taking the game on Turn 1). This means that the first round of any game, will be devoted to achieving Secondaries removing your opponent's models.

"We're trying to prevent alpha strikes..." Actually, turns out, we're forcing them to happen, at least in some games.

Overall, the last two weeks have left me...Cautiously disappointed. It feels like a resurgence of 5th Ed. (the edition with the meta that I hated the most...Yes...Even more than I hated 6th Ed.'s Death Star-meta), mixed in with ITC battle tactics. None of the quality of life improvements really mean anything, because a game is made or broken on its win conditions, which inform how the game should be played. Since 9th Ed. is also using the same Codecies as before ("There is no rules bloat in 40K. There are no Skaven in The Empire."), we know what units are already good, and how they perform, and the only thing that matters is how points change, and whether or not certain Stratagems (You know the ones ) get hard nerfed. The edition is solved on Day 1. One person will find it hard to reconcile on their own. But, if you're in a group, where ideas are bounced back and forth, and clarificatio- Oh wait. This is the internet. Everyone is in the same group and everyone has access to the same information, and each other's information and ideas. Edition solved in the first week.

If anything, you should be treating 9th Ed., as simply a really, really big version of Chapter Approved (OMG... Now that I've typed that, I feel really mad ).

Then again, it's GW, so I'm cautious. Maybe the examples that GW has given are simply the two worst ones in the book, and that Primary Objectives can be scored in the first round and the game isn't revolved solely around Mathhammer removing your opponent's models (in order to make future turns easier...Oh, and also it wins you the game). Maybe GW will have some special
rule where Obscuring isn't solely for 5" high pieces and all boards definitely wont look the same because there wont be optimal terrain types and terrain placement maps - there will be.

But somehow, given previous experiences with GW's marketing, if they haven't grabbed me in two weeks with more than a half-dozen articles...That's a bad sign.

Everything I've read, indicates that Imperial Fists are going to be real good - Ignore Terrain, Rapid Fire the **** out of your opponent with Bolt weapons. Bonus damage vs. Vehicles.
And yet somehow, I'm still cautiously disappointed...Almost like I like winning games and having fun at the same time.
But I'm told that that's not possible.

[Renegade Paladin]

(it's important to remember that the unit in Obscuring terrain, loses LoS, too, so it's actually a hindrance...Unless you accidentally place the terrain so it's over/around fixed Objectives).

Um... The terrain article was quite explicit that Obscured doesn't apply to units that are in the terrain, either coming or going, only to units that are not in the terrain vis a vis units also not in the terrain but on the other side of it. The rule as written precludes magic boxes.

[Cheesegear]

Um... The terrain article was quite explicit that Obscured doesn't apply to units that are in the terrain, either coming or going, only to units that are not in the terrain vis a vis units also not in the terrain but on the other side of it. The rule as written precludes magic boxes.

The way I read it, nobody can draw LoS through the terrain. EDIT: Correct.
If your target is also in the same terrain as you, that's fine, Obscuring doesn't apply. EDIT: Also correct.

EDIT: You can draw LoS through the terrain if you're in the terrain. In which case it's more or less exactly the same as it was before.

EDIT: Oh I get it!
Terrain is useless. Always stand outside it, that way Terrain blocks the shooter. But if you stand in the Cover, to get the save, you can be targeted, but who cares 'cause your opponent has AP-1 and/or ignores Cover and nothing does anything. So what's the point...Unless the terrain has multi-levels, and you can not be on the ground to be Charged.
****. We've just made multi-storey Ruins the go-to Terrain...Again Still.

Obscuring Terrain, is just a non-solid Tower. You can't see through it, but it's still a Tower. Haven't we been using those for ages?

Somehow I'm even less impressed by the 'new Terrain rules'.

[Fable Wright]

Honestly, I think you may be a bit negative here, since a lot of these rules are in place in Malifaux, where they do good work.

Obscuring terrain there is a risk/reward thing. Poke your model into the woods and you get clear LoS through and it's extra terrain to charge you, BUT it's easier to shoot you. Same concept here, though with the bonus that you get is Cover.

This also means that gunlines are better if they can move, since that means that they can poke their heads in to "ignore" some ruins, which may help break up castle design. Could help compensate for more claustrophobic tables, now that your only defense isn't outranging.

Models going around performing non-shooty acts would admittedly be better if they were a general rule and models could interact with them, but this does mean that boots on the ground are likely to matter, and that castling up and racking KP may not win the game.

Ultimately, how the game feels depends on a few things:

1. Whether there will be a boost to running model blobs with objectives.
2. Whether it's possible that each army only has one Kill Point objective.
3. Whether GW has learned, after Kill Team, that zone control objectives leads to more interesting games than killing objectives, and that Blast rules were intended as ways for elite armies to interact more meaningfully with horde armies given that the latter start at an advantage in zone control games.

Number 3 is the only case in which the changes make a lick of sense... but because it's GW, I don't necessarily have that faith. If it's capped at one kill strat per faction, this could be manageable. Force armies to engage with the board. Ultimately, it really depends on whether they go more Kill Team or ITC in design. We can't really say if this will become a second Fifth Edition until we know that.

[Cheesegear]

Obscuring terrain there is a risk/reward thing. Poke your model into the woods and you get clear LoS through and it's extra terrain to charge you, BUT it's easier to shoot you. Same concept here, though with the bonus that you get is Cover.

As someone who plays Kill Team, the only reason to break or move through Cover, is if you can Charge, or there's an Objective.
If Unit A, is standing on an Objective, and Unit B, is standing on an Objective, and there's a Tower in the middle. Neither unit can do anything, more importantly, even if they could? Would they want to?

We can see this in current ITC games, where both players are clustered around one or two Objectives with Characters in the middle, maximising their Cover/no-LoS footprint - however it's not neccessary. Neither side is interested in leaving their castle. They're already standing on Objectives, they're not in LoS, and they're standing next to a Character with an Aura ability. Why should either player move, or do anything, until the final turn(s)?

The current ITC system where Space Marines, T'au and Craftworlds dominate, is a pretty clear indication of how the meta worked. Very similar to 5th Ed., except in 8th Ed., Vehicles are trash. Now we're going headfirst into the castle play-style, and also Vehicles will be good again - points willing.

This also means that gunlines are better if they can move, since that means that they can poke their heads in to "ignore" some ruins, which may help break up castle design.

If the gunline already is sitting on one or two Objectives, they don't need to move. This is the problem that the ITC faces, and nobody seems to be able to fix it, because Shooting your opponent is simply way more efficient than trying to Melee them.

Whether it's possible that each army only has one Kill Point objective.

We already know that that's not true.
You can get VPs for killing numbers of models, and you get VPs for killing Characters. That's two KP Objectives. If that's all there is, great. But I have no reason to believe that, 'cause I know the ITC Objectives.

If it's capped at one kill strat per faction, this could be manageable.

I hope so. But we've seen both Thin Their Ranks as 'Purge the Enemy' and Assassinate as 'No Mercy, No Respite'. So that's at least two VPs you can take every single game as they're separate categories. So basically, we need to know how many categories there are (and there at least has to be 5, with multiple cards in each, to say nothing of Faction Objectives).

As I said, the goal will be to take as many KP Objectives as possible. Hopefully, it wont be five. But it's definitely not 1.

Force armies to engage with the board.

That's what the Action Objectives are.

[Avaris]

EDIT: Oh I get it!
Terrain is useless. Always stand outside it, that way Terrain blocks the shooter. But if you stand in the Cover, to get the save, you can be targeted, but who cares 'cause your opponent has AP-1 and/or ignores Cover and nothing does anything. So what's the point...Unless the terrain has multi-levels, and you can not be on the ground to be Charged.
****. We've just made multi-storey Ruins the go-to Terrain...Again Still.

GW have said that they’ve done something about the multi level thing, but not what. So there might be improvement there. We haven’t seen what all of the characteristics do either.

Also, not entirely sure why ‘terrain effects the game’ is ‘terrain is useless’. Terrain blocks line of sight: that’s instantly a step up from what we had previously, where TLoS was all that mattered and the terrain sets available were poor at doing that. Previously, your terrain was either solid walls like ITC, or useless.

Here, you have a choice: if you stay outside the terrain, you can’t be shot, but also you can’t shoot your opponent. If you want to shoot the opponent, you can move into the terrain, which is always going to be worse than not being able to be shot at all! It’s a trade off. If your opponent has lots of things that ignore cover, it’s probably not a good trade off, but that depends on the match up.

I agree that having obscuring only work on terrain above 5” is poor though, given a lot of terrain is shorter than that, including stuff like GW’s moonbase.

Ultimately, what I want out of terrain is for a wood to feel different from a ruin and both to feel different to an intact building. It sounds like this does this? So is an improvement in my book.

[LeSwordfish]

I was going to respond to that wall of text more eloquently but then I got to "the new rules are bad because GW is encouraging people to breach health and safety laws" and realised it was a bad-faith argument based on deciding "everything sucks" and then trying very hard to find a reason why everything sucked.

[Avaris]

I was going to respond to that wall of text more eloquently but then I got to "the new rules are bad because GW is encouraging people to breach health and safety laws" and realised it was a bad-faith argument based on deciding "everything sucks" and then trying very hard to find a reason why everything sucked.

Oddly, just before navigating back here, I saw a very relevant quote from Iroh in Avatar: “If you look for the light, you can often find it. But if you look for the dark, that’s all you’ll ever see.”

[Forum Explorer]

Also the Obscuring keyword can be added to more terrain then just ruins. Take Forests for example. I think those are around 5 inches (the official GW ones anyways), and it would certainly make sense for them to be Obscuring.