It's funny how your endless pursuit of putting Titanfall into every game you play made you find Lancer insufficiently competitive and turn it more into a co-op wargame and to find Warhammer too focused on competition and bring it closer to a pvp TTRPG. This isn't a diss I just finsd it fascinatiing
The small arms problem is a 10th ed thing. Imperial Guard Meltagun vets still give me nightmares, more than a decade later. Oh and Krak grenades deleted any medium tank that waltzed into charge range, since they hit the rear plating
I think the biggest problem with Warhammer is the scope bloat. It started out as a small scale skirmish game, and now it’s got points built towards huge armies, but troops are so bad that armies are just a bunch of big centerpiece units beating each other to death. It’s lame. Armies aren’t armies anymore. Getting rid of the troops tax was the worst decision gw ever made
CSM armies would like to have a word with you. . . . And considering the 'Guard's centerpiece model sits as close as possible to units while desperately screening itself from combat, they're giving you side-eyes too. . . . I _am_ mad that Abaddon no longer can join basic troops anymore, to be fair to you.
@@alexanderhoclippiunus7644I play CSM now purely because they’re the only faction with troops that make any remote sense. I *used* to play guard but the movement over time towards them just bringing 1 of every cool tank and whatever named character is good instead of an actual combined arms force made me fall out of love with them
@@Hy93Ri0nas someone currently playing guard, i *hate* the idea of having to take a named character as I run a custom regiment So whilst for now I've just handicapped myself but i intend to kitbash them to be more common soldiers like lord solar being a lord commissar
This is true, and weirdly enough, Apocalypse/Armageddon specialist games were what was supposed to take the place of large set-piece battles previously. So it's odd that the core 40k Tabletop experience seems to be drifting in that direction anyways.
The T'au complaint seems eerily reminiscent of complaints about sniper in tf2. I support your stance of high range motherfuckers being a nuisance in any playground where they are unique in their reach.
Battletech tends to handle this nicely, as Clans are so much more expensive and require so much more finesse that they basically require near perfect play to take advantage of that range.
@@AlexDenton0451 I suppose I was seeing red at the time, because tooth and tail also has balanced long range units. Ferrets shots are slow, can be dodged and they don't contribute to a straight fight as much as other units of equal value. Fox is a tier 3 unit that can kill a lot of units in one shot which will attrition enemy out, except other tier 3 units can end the game half a minute after being built. So in TnT they simply aren't meta picks, they are tech choices. Tooth and tail is an rts, so having your unit die in one shot is impactful, but isn't as unfun as dying in tf2. And you can't base your whole strategy around it like in warhammer.
Weirdly these problems seem more pronounced in 10th edition than nearly any previous edition. In 3rd-7th you could instakill a vehicle with a well placed lascannon shot, and in 8th-9th the AP values on infantry anti-tank weapons like multi-meltas were adequate to punch through vehicles. In 10th, high toughness models are extremely annoying to deal with.
If I may give some criticism, your testing on Toughness and Armor Saves seems pretty centered on factions that have both in spades. Some units (Such as GSC Aberrants) are reliant on a high Toughness to make up for a poor save, and the changes you’ve made to wounding nerfs them much harder than the other heavy options.
As much as I'm all for narrative games, changing how wound rolls work simply doesn't make sense, I agree that missile launchers using krak missiles should have a better strength stat, maybe a 10 or 12, but making it so that a Guardsman's punch has a 33% chance to pierce the armour of Titans simply because at worse you have a 5+ to wound roll? 16,5% is already unrealistic but hey, it's only on the best result possible on a d6, the only other thing they could do to make it better was what The Old World did and you need a minimum strength to even be able to wound some targets
There's another comment here that is a opinion on why infantry being weak against vehicles in 40k is justified, and I wanted to create a comment that supports your point Real life small arms struggle(severe under exaggeration) to take out vehicles but unlike real life infantry guardsman have limited special weapons. In real life a fireteam(4 members, one half of a squad) has a machinegunner, fireteam leader, rifleman, and grenadier. three of these two of them are usually equipped with a weapon with some form of anti armor capability. Starting with the grenadier they have a 40mm grenade launcher which has access to HEDP rounds capable of taking out light armor, and although this capability would struggle(once again a severe under exaggeration) to take out a mbt it still has a change and some equivalent in the guardsman team would give them a dedicated light anti armor weapon capable of taking out various weak scout units. As second note grenadiers have access to smoke munitions that could block line of sight. And the squad is issued two shoulder launcher munitions, these are normally issued to the rifleman. These usually are at4's which once again aren't great against things like MBT's are still better than nothing and have good capability against more lightly armored vehicles like APC's and IFV's. so my conclusion is this: in real life infantry units(even to the smallest grouping of a fireteam) are equipped with multiple special weapons some which have light anti armor capability(SLM's and 40mm HEDP) on top of weapons designed to help deal with enemy infantry(he 40mm and squad automatic weapons). And how rife infantry units are with anti tank weapons(especially when you consider that each platoon has a weapons squad equipped with dedicated anti tank weapons capable of dealing with MBT's such as javelin missiles). demonstrates how heavily underrepresented they are within 40k tabletop. ps: I wanted to note that the source for this was atp 3-21.8 specifically the 2016 edition. Proof of the slm load for a infantry squad is from 1-12 "The combat load for an SLM is two per rifle squad. Either two M72-series light antitank (AT) weapon, M136-series antitank (AT4), M141 bunker defeat munitions (BDMs), or a combination of are normally issued to the rifleman." and my source for the grenadiers having HEDP rounds for use against vehicles is from 1-18 "he grenade launcher allows the grenadier to perform three functions: suppress and destroy enemy Infantry and lightly armored vehicles with HE or high explosive dual purpose (HEDP)."
I play dark eldar, and our kabalites are pretty much this. We get 5 rifles, a flamer, 2 anti tanks etc. I think the issue is really with the lack of war gear this edition.
Man of the hour almost seems like it should be split up into a handful of universal stratagems that target your warlord, especially with how generous 10 is with command points
I agree especially with your point about the issues of ranged combat focusing on the Tau. Its a shame their core identity is effectively always going to make them a nightmare to balance. I need to see Age of Sigmars new rules fully but it looks like something that might be worth trying. Has much more of a melee focus and I *think* the vehicle problem is less so (with AOS' equivilent of vehicles being monsters)
What a cool idea. And I totally agree on epic heroes: they steal the spotlight from my own characters. Been getting excited to play 10th edition and I really want to start a Crusade campaign with friends. Looking forward to seeing if this would help add some drama to that.
As a guard player who loves infantry, I've been relying on reinforcements to keep me simply in the game and the one time I played against knights it was horrible, but my infantry waves actually killed one of the small ones Now that reinforcements is limited to one unit I either can travel an hour and just lose in the only game I get to play that month or I can take tanks
This is really cool and admirable but my friend as someone who plays a hoard army (tyranids) and regularly kills vehicles using only my basic infantry(termaguants and hormaguants) bumping them up to wounding on 5's (4's when i inevitably give them +1 to wound) would be insanity. they would be unstoppable 10" movement advance and charging vehicle blenders and would easily outpace other tyranid anti tank when rn theyre about even.
Okay but what if instead of doing something boring like giving appropriately named characters and unit champions an extra wound, how about giving them/their unit each a crusade battle trait instead? That would be a lot more interesting and gives the army a lot more flair.
havent gotten through the whole video yet, but i wanted to say THANK YOU, specifically for the part where you talk about infantry carried anti-tank, i dont play warhammer but i have some experience with other wargames, primarily Star Wars: legion and it has the same issue. You need at least a full game's worth of turns to even fathom taking out any armored vehicle with infantry and it's really upsetting cause i mainly run infantry based lists.
My mind is immediately turned to a project an friend of mine made initially based on WH40K rules. It is an X-COM wargame, originally project "X-COM 40000", but now moved to not just be XCOM (copyright) and distanced from Warhammer (mechanically). Unfortunately, I cannot really share the ruleset since it's entirely in Russian, and translating this massive thing is too time-consuming. AI won't help: specific words are important in rules, as always. From my experience with the system, its current form works well with the PvE structure of an XCOM campaign and, unlike last year, quite well in the rare PvP battles. Though that remains to be seen on higher tiers of gear and enemies.
The infantry buffs really interest me even as a Tau player. The thing that first caught my eye was how cool fire warriors with pulse rifles looked! But I have no reason to take them over points instead going hammerheads and battlesuits and infantry like Breachers that actually pack some AP, so i always feel bad taking them since they have yet to contribute to a single game I've brought them to.
The armoured vehicle vs. infantry issues goes back to 6th edition where they introduced hull points giving the damn things wounds and starting on the journey to taking vehicles and turning them into giant, overpowered, infantry models you see now.
Great video! Thoroughly enjoyed and clearly thought out on your part. I never really enjoyed the competitive side of Warhammer and unfortunately that's what most of the community content focuses on, so this really is a breath of fresh air. I was wondering what your thoughts were on One Page Rules' games like Age of Fantasy or Grimdark Future? They have more impactful rolls and only 2 checks for an attack, alternating activation instead of full turns, and a great points formula for ensuring balance between units.
I find myself both strong agreeing and disagreeing with this assessment. On the main, I agree: Warhammer 40k hasn't felt like a true "war game" since I started playing in 9e. I can really only say this with respect to 30k, which emphatically does feel like a war game. I also agree that the way list building generally works for people in 40k encourages non-lore friendly lists. But I think you're overplaying the situation between vehicles and infantry a bit. Because vehicles cannot breach ruins, Infantry can often hide completely from them and make it very difficult for the player with vehicles to find angles. Obscuring terrain makes this situation pretty common, especially on standard layouts. I think you're spot on with the pretty ridiculous situation between basic infantry and vehicles [or even how bad a Tactical Marine or even an Intercessor are relative to other choices] however. In my opinion, you're chaffing against the most recent few balance passes of the game. I think much of the problem with 40k right now stems from the self-conscious attempts by GW to cater towards competitive play. This has been an ongoing feature of the game since 8e. I think if you really want the feel of a narrative game and a wargame, you should 100% try out Horus Heresy [not Legions Imperalis]. It addresses many issues you raised here in a variety of ways.
Idea for a unit, the Samson or Gremlin(very similar ideas in design) a transport with light armor and anti tank capabilities. The Goblin as an fast air transport, the drop pod similar to the space marine drop pod. IMC-grunts because you don't have them there, a sub-faction of the Apex Predators.
I liked your ideas, especially the Battleshock one. If you're looking for ideas, Star Wars Legions seems to have addressed a lot of the same points as you. For a start there is no wound roll, hitting is a wound, but things like cover or dodge reduce the number of non-critical hits by one. It also has alternative turns, your commander matters for giving orders to nearby troops (a game mechanic) and you're required to bring a minimum of 3 units of basic troops in some variety, which while not an ideal solution does minimize the odds of armies heavily stocking vehicles. Did you address the first turn advantage? I'd be curious to see your solution, and look forward to the next video.
it also made them feel like vehicles, infantry with a new keyword. plus it fixes the main issue of small arms being useless as you can flank those vehicles, for example dreadnoughts could be one shot by a bolter to the ass, but were almost invincible to las-cannons from the front
What was the guy playing guardsmen using as a force-composition, btw? He didn't seem to have much (on the table at any rate) that included heavy vehicles, or his own artillery, or air options. Also if I'm not mistaken guardsmen can take heavy/special weapon options for free now, so idk why everybody wasn't kitted out with missile launcers & plasma against an army that fields walkers.
I think competitive play is antithetical to the hobby if your competitive game has to punish people for not painting models some thing along the way has gone wrong
it pains me to say it but it's the reality of the situation i would chop off all my limbs and replace them if given the chance alright this is not a matter of lack of interest the faction is just fucking horrible
@@cassius_scrungoman whilst i am yet to actualy play warhammer (would probably help if I finished my minis) I do think the recent rule updates are a step in the right direction for admech
ok youtube is getting ridiculous with teh notification delay, its 4 hours after the video was uploaded and I only now get the notification(I wanna be early).
yeah, I am familiar with a trying to fix some minor stuff in a game system and spiriling out of control into massive projects... like be trying to make fighter feel a bit nicer to play in dnd ... and it ballooned into reworking every martial class, how weapons function, a a rework of armor and damage/ health which requires a rework of everything... and I am cursed to finish it
I do have to disagree with the to wound change, as it makes T5 armies (orks, death guard) even frailer than they already are. Plague marines are already really frail for what they should be, as T5 was already a questionable upgrade, now it is completely meaningless except vs S8 and S9, which is marginal. They are only 90 points for 5, and they would have to go down if S4 and S3 weapons become just as good as S5 against them. 80-85 points for 5 plague marines is just sad. Units with full wound rerolls or +1 to wound, which are already super strong, are going to get even stronger still. Now incubi are high-grade anti-tank, wounding everything in the game on 3+ or 4+ at worst, at 3 attacks, 3+ WS rerolling, 3-4+ to wound rerolling, AP-3, Damage 2, for 75 points for 5 + archon + venom/boat. They have gone from wounding a russ, just a simple russ, on a 5+ before (with the +1 to wound!) to a 4+ now, which is a significant change, especially with rerolls. The whole combo costs 220 points, one pain point, and 1cp to move 14" + 2d6", do 16 wounds on average to a knight, and then run back inside their venom for safety, which doesn't even cost an extra CP if they killed their target. And that's a half size squad, a full-sized one is expected to on average one-shot a knight 98% of the time for only 305 points with your changes. Buffing low strength weapons universally ignores the fact that there are some perfectly potent low strength weapons already, that only get stronger and mess up mid-toughness things even harder with these changes. They even get around the constant 4++ invulns that many units have that specifically screw over low shot AT weapons (meltas, lascannons, ect)
Normally I agree with your takes, but complaining about infantry not being good at fighting vehicles is a bit silly to me. You’re saying that something designed to murder infantry shouldn’t be able to complete its role on the battlefield. In real life, when infantry sees a vehicle, they bug out of there because they are dead if they don’t. Trying to get an average infantryman’s small arm to overcome vehicle armor is nearly impossible, even back when AFVs were first introduced, so it’s perfectly consistent with real life and how the vehicles are described in the lore for it to not go well for them. Another thing relating to the first point you made regarding infantry vs vehicles, how there is only 1-2 special weapons per 10 infantry on average. That’s also perfectly realistic and sensible; in real life infantry squads of 10 also tend to have only 2 special weapons which might be good against vehicles. However there are dedicated teams with special weapons in the game (and as usual irl) which *do* have special weapons which are useful against a multitude of enemies, especially vehicles. You’re effectively complaining that the screening and objective holding unit (which is what infantry are and always have been, in the lore, the game, and real life) don’t shoot or survive as well as the giant machine that lumbers along behind them that has a gyroscopically stabilized artillery gun mounted in an armored box. Your point about how this is a combined arms game is valid, but it also works against your argument in regards to boosting infantry. Infantry aren’t meant to fight vehicles, so you need to stick a vehicle in there with them to fight vehicles. And a vehicle is designed to kill the vehicle directly beneath it, so sending an IFV at an MBT probably won’t work out in your favor. I’m not saying it’s a skill issue, but whether you win is down to how you choose to compose and deploy your army
I both agree and disagree with you. I think that you’re right you should not make small arms deal with vehicle but you’re also wrong. Infantry should absolutely be able to fuck a vehicles day up with proper tank equipment.
Well they can, even in game. Going with the guard, which is the army I play and what was brought up here, a cadian shock squad can take a plasma and a melta gun to take out lighter vehicles, while a regular infantry squad can take any heavy weapon such as a lascannon or a rocket launcher, on top of an additional special weapon like a melta gun. This makes them a threat against even the largest tanks. The issue there is that you’re not going to be using a lascannon or missile launcher against basic infantry very effectively, so unless you know you’re going up against a tank in particular, you’re not going to be taking those very often as opposed to more lasguns
if the average munitions in warhammer were akin to how they are today - as in, still relatively small - i would agree that small arms should be largely irrelevant, but a space marine, the most average unit in the tabletop that everything is based around, has a bolter. a gun that fires gigantic 50 cal bricks that explode on contact and are rocket propelled just for good measure. they shoot these rounds at the same rate of fire of a modern rifle. vehicles are fucked. vehicles being able to massacre infantry en masse is fine, but it not at all going the other way is ridiculous from both a gameplay and narrative standpoint. i can understand a lasgun or autogun being pretty useless against a vehicle, but pretty much any other gun in existence should be a serious threat to any target. even something like an ogryn's autoshotgun would be *really bad* to be on the receiving end of regardless of if you're a guardsman or a land raider. a huge part of this point - way more than the narrative aspect - is gameplay wise, which i think you're ignoring. how shitty the anti-tank that infantry actually has is insane, they're only marginally better at wounding vehicles and are still going to fail more often than they succeed. that is not how anti-tank works. if i was making these changes to a realistic wargame set in reality, i would 100% agree, but warhammer is not that. pretty much any vehicle in the setting should be a suicide box with how ridiculous the average munitions are.
@@cassius_scrungoman A few things: First, if vehicles were suicide boxes, they wouldn't get used; clearly, armor has improved along with weapon design. Second, bolters are primarily anti-infantry. If you want the shells to do more than put dimples in tanks, then bring specialized rounds. The Heresy novels have multiple sections where they go in agonizing detail over how terrible bolters are against even other Marines because that's not what they're designed for. Third, while I agree that much of the anti-tank weapons are no longer anti-tank, that's a consequence of Tenth's design choices. Turn one board-clears were too common, so toughness got bumped up and damage didn't. It sucks, but I'll take this over the alternative. Fourth, look to Necromunda and older editions if you need any gap-filling in your rules. Necromunda especially has a pretty solid grasp on narrative play. Feel free to tell me about any mistakes, this post has been a nightmare to fight auto-correct on.
13:00 It's a bit weird to note how your ideas came from time playing Lancer here because similarly the devs also spent as much or more time thinking of the mechanics that you changed. Both the comments and your ideas are invalidated by that line of thought for justification, which I don't think is fair for either.
I think your overly large focus weak infantry like the gaurdsman could wreck stuff for more elite infantry like say the custodes. Like they will probably be either pretty meh or custodes player could break everything with ease. Already 1 issue I see is now the worse custodes will wound on is a 4 outside very specific situations. Another thing is would 6K vs 3K with gaurd i challenge you to do it again but use custodes if you want I could do the list or that. Also the warlord trait and mam of the hour would make them stupid OP against melee armies
Normal Infantery with Anti Tank weapons? You mean the Tactical Scuad? Sorry I forgot this is 40k and not OPR, in that case you are right the posters boys dont have anti tank weapons in ther batleline.
I guess the problem is more the lack of quality and/or numbers of such weapons: Tac Marines can take a meltagun/plasmagun and a multimelta/lascannon, and Intercessors have krak nades for their launcher, but each squad only gets one every 5 (sometimes every 10 for some other faction's, like Infantry Squads and Strike/Breacher Teams), which ofc isn't much
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>Tries to add some homebrew rules.
>Adds a whole IMC army codex.
Happens with homebrew.
Yep. That's why I have an entire painted army of unusable models.
The inevitable fate of homebrew
It's funny how your endless pursuit of putting Titanfall into every game you play made you find Lancer insufficiently competitive and turn it more into a co-op wargame and to find Warhammer too focused on competition and bring it closer to a pvp TTRPG.
This isn't a diss I just finsd it fascinatiing
From the moment I understood the weakness of my rules it disgusted me I craved the strength and security of homebrew….
The small arms problem is a 10th ed thing. Imperial Guard Meltagun vets still give me nightmares, more than a decade later.
Oh and Krak grenades deleted any medium tank that waltzed into charge range, since they hit the rear plating
adding an entire new faction after trying to change the rules around is so real. like why not?
I think the biggest problem with Warhammer is the scope bloat. It started out as a small scale skirmish game, and now it’s got points built towards huge armies, but troops are so bad that armies are just a bunch of big centerpiece units beating each other to death. It’s lame. Armies aren’t armies anymore. Getting rid of the troops tax was the worst decision gw ever made
CSM armies would like to have a word with you.
. . . And considering the 'Guard's centerpiece model sits as close as possible to units while desperately screening itself from combat, they're giving you side-eyes too.
. . . I _am_ mad that Abaddon no longer can join basic troops anymore, to be fair to you.
@@alexanderhoclippiunus7644I play CSM now purely because they’re the only faction with troops that make any remote sense. I *used* to play guard but the movement over time towards them just bringing 1 of every cool tank and whatever named character is good instead of an actual combined arms force made me fall out of love with them
@@Hy93Ri0nas someone currently playing guard, i *hate* the idea of having to take a named character as I run a custom regiment
So whilst for now I've just handicapped myself but i intend to kitbash them to be more common soldiers like lord solar being a lord commissar
This is true, and weirdly enough, Apocalypse/Armageddon specialist games were what was supposed to take the place of large set-piece battles previously. So it's odd that the core 40k Tabletop experience seems to be drifting in that direction anyways.
The T'au complaint seems eerily reminiscent of complaints about sniper in tf2. I support your stance of high range motherfuckers being a nuisance in any playground where they are unique in their reach.
Battletech tends to handle this nicely, as Clans are so much more expensive and require so much more finesse that they basically require near perfect play to take advantage of that range.
@@AlexDenton0451
I suppose I was seeing red at the time, because tooth and tail also has balanced long range units. Ferrets shots are slow, can be dodged and they don't contribute to a straight fight as much as other units of equal value. Fox is a tier 3 unit that can kill a lot of units in one shot which will attrition enemy out, except other tier 3 units can end the game half a minute after being built. So in TnT they simply aren't meta picks, they are tech choices.
Tooth and tail is an rts, so having your unit die in one shot is impactful, but isn't as unfun as dying in tf2. And you can't base your whole strategy around it like in warhammer.
Weirdly these problems seem more pronounced in 10th edition than nearly any previous edition. In 3rd-7th you could instakill a vehicle with a well placed lascannon shot, and in 8th-9th the AP values on infantry anti-tank weapons like multi-meltas were adequate to punch through vehicles. In 10th, high toughness models are extremely annoying to deal with.
I’m looking forward to the rest of this mini series!
If I may give some criticism, your testing on Toughness and Armor Saves seems pretty centered on factions that have both in spades. Some units (Such as GSC Aberrants) are reliant on a high Toughness to make up for a poor save, and the changes you’ve made to wounding nerfs them much harder than the other heavy options.
As much as I'm all for narrative games, changing how wound rolls work simply doesn't make sense, I agree that missile launchers using krak missiles should have a better strength stat, maybe a 10 or 12, but making it so that a Guardsman's punch has a 33% chance to pierce the armour of Titans simply because at worse you have a 5+ to wound roll? 16,5% is already unrealistic but hey, it's only on the best result possible on a d6, the only other thing they could do to make it better was what The Old World did and you need a minimum strength to even be able to wound some targets
There's another comment here that is a opinion on why infantry being weak against vehicles in 40k is justified, and I wanted to create a comment that supports your point
Real life small arms struggle(severe under exaggeration) to take out vehicles but unlike real life infantry guardsman have limited special weapons. In real life a fireteam(4 members, one half of a squad) has a machinegunner, fireteam leader, rifleman, and grenadier. three of these two of them are usually equipped with a weapon with some form of anti armor capability.
Starting with the grenadier they have a 40mm grenade launcher which has access to HEDP rounds capable of taking out light armor, and although this capability would struggle(once again a severe under exaggeration) to take out a mbt it still has a change and some equivalent in the guardsman team would give them a dedicated light anti armor weapon capable of taking out various weak scout units. As second note grenadiers have access to smoke munitions that could block line of sight.
And the squad is issued two shoulder launcher munitions, these are normally issued to the rifleman. These usually are at4's which once again aren't great against things like MBT's are still better than nothing and have good capability against more lightly armored vehicles like APC's and IFV's.
so my conclusion is this: in real life infantry units(even to the smallest grouping of a fireteam) are equipped with multiple special weapons some which have light anti armor capability(SLM's and 40mm HEDP) on top of weapons designed to help deal with enemy infantry(he 40mm and squad automatic weapons). And how rife infantry units are with anti tank weapons(especially when you consider that each platoon has a weapons squad equipped with dedicated anti tank weapons capable of dealing with MBT's such as javelin missiles). demonstrates how heavily underrepresented they are within 40k tabletop.
ps: I wanted to note that the source for this was atp 3-21.8 specifically the 2016 edition. Proof of the slm load for a infantry squad is from 1-12 "The combat load for an SLM is two per rifle squad. Either two M72-series light antitank (AT) weapon, M136-series antitank (AT4), M141 bunker defeat munitions (BDMs), or a combination of are normally issued to the rifleman." and my source for the grenadiers having HEDP rounds for use against vehicles is from 1-18 "he grenade launcher allows the grenadier to perform three functions: suppress and destroy enemy Infantry and lightly armored vehicles with HE or high explosive dual purpose (HEDP)."
I play dark eldar, and our kabalites are pretty much this. We get 5 rifles, a flamer, 2 anti tanks etc. I think the issue is really with the lack of war gear this edition.
i play guard and it always feels like im only playing to serve as a punching bag for everyone else.
I will now use this video as an excuse to find indie wargames to annoy people about
Man of the hour almost seems like it should be split up into a handful of universal stratagems that target your warlord, especially with how generous 10 is with command points
I agree especially with your point about the issues of ranged combat focusing on the Tau. Its a shame their core identity is effectively always going to make them a nightmare to balance. I need to see Age of Sigmars new rules fully but it looks like something that might be worth trying. Has much more of a melee focus and I *think* the vehicle problem is less so (with AOS' equivilent of vehicles being monsters)
What a cool idea. And I totally agree on epic heroes: they steal the spotlight from my own characters.
Been getting excited to play 10th edition and I really want to start a Crusade campaign with friends. Looking forward to seeing if this would help add some drama to that.
As a guard player who loves infantry, I've been relying on reinforcements to keep me simply in the game and the one time I played against knights it was horrible, but my infantry waves actually killed one of the small ones
Now that reinforcements is limited to one unit I either can travel an hour and just lose in the only game I get to play that month or I can take tanks
This is really cool and admirable but my friend as someone who plays a hoard army (tyranids) and regularly kills vehicles using only my basic infantry(termaguants and hormaguants) bumping them up to wounding on 5's (4's when i inevitably give them +1 to wound) would be insanity. they would be unstoppable 10" movement advance and charging vehicle blenders and would easily outpace other tyranid anti tank when rn theyre about even.
Okay but what if instead of doing something boring like giving appropriately named characters and unit champions an extra wound, how about giving them/their unit each a crusade battle trait instead? That would be a lot more interesting and gives the army a lot more flair.
BUMP FOR THE ALGORYTHM! THIS IS AWESOME!
havent gotten through the whole video yet, but i wanted to say THANK YOU, specifically for the part where you talk about infantry carried anti-tank, i dont play warhammer but i have some experience with other wargames, primarily Star Wars: legion and it has the same issue. You need at least a full game's worth of turns to even fathom taking out any armored vehicle with infantry and it's really upsetting cause i mainly run infantry based lists.
My mind is immediately turned to a project an friend of mine made initially based on WH40K rules. It is an X-COM wargame, originally project "X-COM 40000", but now moved to not just be XCOM (copyright) and distanced from Warhammer (mechanically).
Unfortunately, I cannot really share the ruleset since it's entirely in Russian, and translating this massive thing is too time-consuming. AI won't help: specific words are important in rules, as always.
From my experience with the system, its current form works well with the PvE structure of an XCOM campaign and, unlike last year, quite well in the rare PvP battles. Though that remains to be seen on higher tiers of gear and enemies.
The infantry buffs really interest me even as a Tau player. The thing that first caught my eye was how cool fire warriors with pulse rifles looked! But I have no reason to take them over points instead going hammerheads and battlesuits and infantry like Breachers that actually pack some AP, so i always feel bad taking them since they have yet to contribute to a single game I've brought them to.
The armoured vehicle vs. infantry issues goes back to 6th edition where they introduced hull points giving the damn things wounds and starting on the journey to taking vehicles and turning them into giant, overpowered, infantry models you see now.
Did I see some space marines with the symbol of Sicario Mercenary Companie's Monarch?
*whistles*
3:20 SEAL team, and Spetznatz (and also automatic grenade launchers) do not have AT, but that is irrelevant
Great video! Thoroughly enjoyed and clearly thought out on your part.
I never really enjoyed the competitive side of Warhammer and unfortunately that's what most of the community content focuses on, so this really is a breath of fresh air.
I was wondering what your thoughts were on One Page Rules' games like Age of Fantasy or Grimdark Future? They have more impactful rolls and only 2 checks for an attack, alternating activation instead of full turns, and a great points formula for ensuring balance between units.
I find myself both strong agreeing and disagreeing with this assessment. On the main, I agree: Warhammer 40k hasn't felt like a true "war game" since I started playing in 9e. I can really only say this with respect to 30k, which emphatically does feel like a war game.
I also agree that the way list building generally works for people in 40k encourages non-lore friendly lists.
But I think you're overplaying the situation between vehicles and infantry a bit. Because vehicles cannot breach ruins, Infantry can often hide completely from them and make it very difficult for the player with vehicles to find angles. Obscuring terrain makes this situation pretty common, especially on standard layouts. I think you're spot on with the pretty ridiculous situation between basic infantry and vehicles [or even how bad a Tactical Marine or even an Intercessor are relative to other choices] however.
In my opinion, you're chaffing against the most recent few balance passes of the game.
I think much of the problem with 40k right now stems from the self-conscious attempts by GW to cater towards competitive play. This has been an ongoing feature of the game since 8e.
I think if you really want the feel of a narrative game and a wargame, you should 100% try out Horus Heresy [not Legions Imperalis]. It addresses many issues you raised here in a variety of ways.
Idea for a unit, the Samson or Gremlin(very similar ideas in design) a transport with light armor and anti tank capabilities. The Goblin as an fast air transport, the drop pod similar to the space marine drop pod. IMC-grunts because you don't have them there, a sub-faction of the Apex Predators.
I liked your ideas, especially the Battleshock one. If you're looking for ideas, Star Wars Legions seems to have addressed a lot of the same points as you. For a start there is no wound roll, hitting is a wound, but things like cover or dodge reduce the number of non-critical hits by one. It also has alternative turns, your commander matters for giving orders to nearby troops (a game mechanic) and you're required to bring a minimum of 3 units of basic troops in some variety, which while not an ideal solution does minimize the odds of armies heavily stocking vehicles. Did you address the first turn advantage? I'd be curious to see your solution, and look forward to the next video.
8:34 Eek!
long live the frontier
I remember the old rules for tanks, they where fun. The differently armour sides where fun
it also made them feel like vehicles, infantry with a new keyword.
plus it fixes the main issue of small arms being useless as you can flank those vehicles, for example dreadnoughts could be one shot by a bolter to the ass, but were almost invincible to las-cannons from the front
*praying for code 3 ability*
9:55 hear me out though... have the rule for epic heroes too... if you rename them to be "custom leaders"
What was the guy playing guardsmen using as a force-composition, btw? He didn't seem to have much (on the table at any rate) that included heavy vehicles, or his own artillery, or air options. Also if I'm not mistaken guardsmen can take heavy/special weapon options for free now, so idk why everybody wasn't kitted out with missile launcers & plasma against an army that fields walkers.
I think competitive play is antithetical to the hobby if your competitive game has to punish people for not painting models some thing along the way has gone wrong
Dont just call the funny religious cyborgs unsalvagable like that >:(
it pains me to say it but it's the reality of the situation
i would chop off all my limbs and replace them if given the chance alright this is not a matter of lack of interest
the faction is just fucking horrible
@@cassius_scrungoman whilst i am yet to actualy play warhammer (would probably help if I finished my minis) I do think the recent rule updates are a step in the right direction for admech
ok youtube is getting ridiculous with teh notification delay, its 4 hours after the video was uploaded and I only now get the notification(I wanna be early).
You should add dance emotes, obviously >:)
Commenting for the algorithm!
nice.
yeah, I am familiar with a trying to fix some minor stuff in a game system and spiriling out of control into massive projects...
like be trying to make fighter feel a bit nicer to play in dnd ... and it ballooned into reworking every martial class, how weapons function, a a rework of armor and damage/ health which requires a rework of everything... and I am cursed to finish it
Will you be posting these rules ?
I do have to disagree with the to wound change, as it makes T5 armies (orks, death guard) even frailer than they already are. Plague marines are already really frail for what they should be, as T5 was already a questionable upgrade, now it is completely meaningless except vs S8 and S9, which is marginal. They are only 90 points for 5, and they would have to go down if S4 and S3 weapons become just as good as S5 against them. 80-85 points for 5 plague marines is just sad.
Units with full wound rerolls or +1 to wound, which are already super strong, are going to get even stronger still. Now incubi are high-grade anti-tank, wounding everything in the game on 3+ or 4+ at worst, at 3 attacks, 3+ WS rerolling, 3-4+ to wound rerolling, AP-3, Damage 2, for 75 points for 5 + archon + venom/boat. They have gone from wounding a russ, just a simple russ, on a 5+ before (with the +1 to wound!) to a 4+ now, which is a significant change, especially with rerolls. The whole combo costs 220 points, one pain point, and 1cp to move 14" + 2d6", do 16 wounds on average to a knight, and then run back inside their venom for safety, which doesn't even cost an extra CP if they killed their target. And that's a half size squad, a full-sized one is expected to on average one-shot a knight 98% of the time for only 305 points with your changes.
Buffing low strength weapons universally ignores the fact that there are some perfectly potent low strength weapons already, that only get stronger and mess up mid-toughness things even harder with these changes. They even get around the constant 4++ invulns that many units have that specifically screw over low shot AT weapons (meltas, lascannons, ect)
i feel like this entire video really misses a lot of interactions that would just break the game with suggested rules
Normally I agree with your takes, but complaining about infantry not being good at fighting vehicles is a bit silly to me.
You’re saying that something designed to murder infantry shouldn’t be able to complete its role on the battlefield. In real life, when infantry sees a vehicle, they bug out of there because they are dead if they don’t.
Trying to get an average infantryman’s small arm to overcome vehicle armor is nearly impossible, even back when AFVs were first introduced, so it’s perfectly consistent with real life and how the vehicles are described in the lore for it to not go well for them.
Another thing relating to the first point you made regarding infantry vs vehicles, how there is only 1-2 special weapons per 10 infantry on average. That’s also perfectly realistic and sensible; in real life infantry squads of 10 also tend to have only 2 special weapons which might be good against vehicles. However there are dedicated teams with special weapons in the game (and as usual irl) which *do* have special weapons which are useful against a multitude of enemies, especially vehicles.
You’re effectively complaining that the screening and objective holding unit (which is what infantry are and always have been, in the lore, the game, and real life) don’t shoot or survive as well as the giant machine that lumbers along behind them that has a gyroscopically stabilized artillery gun mounted in an armored box.
Your point about how this is a combined arms game is valid, but it also works against your argument in regards to boosting infantry. Infantry aren’t meant to fight vehicles, so you need to stick a vehicle in there with them to fight vehicles. And a vehicle is designed to kill the vehicle directly beneath it, so sending an IFV at an MBT probably won’t work out in your favor. I’m not saying it’s a skill issue, but whether you win is down to how you choose to compose and deploy your army
I both agree and disagree with you. I think that you’re right you should not make small arms deal with vehicle but you’re also wrong. Infantry should absolutely be able to fuck a vehicles day up with proper tank equipment.
Well they can, even in game. Going with the guard, which is the army I play and what was brought up here, a cadian shock squad can take a plasma and a melta gun to take out lighter vehicles, while a regular infantry squad can take any heavy weapon such as a lascannon or a rocket launcher, on top of an additional special weapon like a melta gun. This makes them a threat against even the largest tanks. The issue there is that you’re not going to be using a lascannon or missile launcher against basic infantry very effectively, so unless you know you’re going up against a tank in particular, you’re not going to be taking those very often as opposed to more lasguns
if the average munitions in warhammer were akin to how they are today - as in, still relatively small - i would agree that small arms should be largely irrelevant, but a space marine, the most average unit in the tabletop that everything is based around, has a bolter. a gun that fires gigantic 50 cal bricks that explode on contact and are rocket propelled just for good measure. they shoot these rounds at the same rate of fire of a modern rifle. vehicles are fucked.
vehicles being able to massacre infantry en masse is fine, but it not at all going the other way is ridiculous from both a gameplay and narrative standpoint. i can understand a lasgun or autogun being pretty useless against a vehicle, but pretty much any other gun in existence should be a serious threat to any target. even something like an ogryn's autoshotgun would be *really bad* to be on the receiving end of regardless of if you're a guardsman or a land raider.
a huge part of this point - way more than the narrative aspect - is gameplay wise, which i think you're ignoring. how shitty the anti-tank that infantry actually has is insane, they're only marginally better at wounding vehicles and are still going to fail more often than they succeed. that is not how anti-tank works.
if i was making these changes to a realistic wargame set in reality, i would 100% agree, but warhammer is not that. pretty much any vehicle in the setting should be a suicide box with how ridiculous the average munitions are.
@@cassius_scrungoman A few things:
First, if vehicles were suicide boxes, they wouldn't get used; clearly, armor has improved along with weapon design.
Second, bolters are primarily anti-infantry. If you want the shells to do more than put dimples in tanks, then bring specialized rounds. The Heresy novels have multiple sections where they go in agonizing detail over how terrible bolters are against even other Marines because that's not what they're designed for.
Third, while I agree that much of the anti-tank weapons are no longer anti-tank, that's a consequence of Tenth's design choices. Turn one board-clears were too common, so toughness got bumped up and damage didn't. It sucks, but I'll take this over the alternative.
Fourth, look to Necromunda and older editions if you need any gap-filling in your rules. Necromunda especially has a pretty solid grasp on narrative play.
Feel free to tell me about any mistakes, this post has been a nightmare to fight auto-correct on.
13:00 It's a bit weird to note how your ideas came from time playing Lancer here because similarly the devs also spent as much or more time thinking of the mechanics that you changed.
Both the comments and your ideas are invalidated by that line of thought for justification, which I don't think is fair for either.
To note the thought as a way to dismiss the comments, I mean. I can't edit rn so just explaining what I meant in the first paragraph.
Really like this vid, but my brother you need to watch mordian glory if you feel like infantry are nerf'd
I think your overly large focus weak infantry like the gaurdsman could wreck stuff for more elite infantry like say the custodes. Like they will probably be either pretty meh or custodes player could break everything with ease. Already 1 issue I see is now the worse custodes will wound on is a 4 outside very specific situations. Another thing is would 6K vs 3K with gaurd i challenge you to do it again but use custodes if you want I could do the list or that. Also the warlord trait and mam of the hour would make them stupid OP against melee armies
Normal Infantery with Anti Tank weapons? You mean the Tactical Scuad? Sorry I forgot this is 40k and not OPR, in that case you are right the posters boys dont have anti tank weapons in ther batleline.
I guess the problem is more the lack of quality and/or numbers of such weapons: Tac Marines can take a meltagun/plasmagun and a multimelta/lascannon, and Intercessors have krak nades for their launcher, but each squad only gets one every 5 (sometimes every 10 for some other faction's, like Infantry Squads and Strike/Breacher Teams), which ofc isn't much
:»D Cool