Blast weapons and their inaccuracy.
Yesterday I fought a battle. It was a battle which totally depended on dice rolls. A Contemptor saved 3 Penetrating hits in close combat in one turn with 3 x 6s for its invulnerable save, a Sergeant vs sergeant challenge lasted for 3 game turns, I got 2 precision orbital bombardment hits on a 10 man assault squad with a Master of signal and consistently killed all but 1 of an enemy squad before I was charged by said remnant.
The thing which infuriated me the most was the rolls I got for my new Destroyer squad. I found my squad within 6" of a 5 man Rampagers squad. I lined up the first Phosphex bomb I was ever going to throw and it would have totally covered the whole squad and possibly killed them all. The Sergeant (a veteran space marine) managed to launch the canister onto the top of a near by roof after it scatters 6". This left me upset as you can imagine. . . "Ho hum it's the rules and I guess this pro must have had it ricochet off a gutter or something". Then my Legionary with a Suspensor Heavy weapon rad missile launcher shoots at the same target. The shot scatters 5" directly on top of my Sergeant (an 1" from the firer), "ah. . . I guess he has just shot the sergeant as he accidentally stepped in front of the rocket. . . Hmm". Luckily I managed to make 2 saves on my Sgts Artificier armour saving the unit. Funnily enough though the 3 other Bolt pistol gunslingers managed to kill 1 of the Rampagers.
Then later in the game the exact same thing happened again. The Destroyer sergeant managed to throw the canister 6" onto another roof "ha. . . have you been drinking with Mortarion feth-wit".
Then on the last turn I line up my last canister on a 7 man tactical squad (all lovely and tightly bunched up) and the guy pulls the pin and lobs it another 6" over the squad. "Are you fething kidding me, go jump in some Phosphex u little fether!!!!".
So this is it. Blast weapons and scatter is literally broken. It does not work and it makes no sense. So I have decided to propose alternative rules to fix the sodding things.
Ok then. This is by no means tested etc so just roll with it.
Blast Weapons.
When firing a blast weapon, choose a target in range, line of sight and not having the shot hit friendly models or into a assault currently taking place.
Place the blast marker on top of the chosen target and roll the scatter dice near to target so as to not have the need to argue about the scatter direction. If a Hit is rolled then the shot is on target and no other dice need to be rolled. If an arrow is rolled, you need to roll an amount of D6 x the firers BS (I.e. A Space Marine rolls 4 D6 as he has BS 4) and the shot scatters the lowest result rolled. So if a 6,4,4,2 are rolled the shot scatters 2" in the direction indicated of the arrow.
If the Blast weapon is over 50% of its range then the amount of BS D6s are reduced by 50% rounding up. So a 48" blast weapon is shooting at a target 26" away, and the firer has a BS of 3, would mean he rolls 2 D6 for the scatter distance and chooses lowest.
Twin Linked Blast Weapons
Twin linked Blast Weapons allow you to re-roll the scatter arrow.
Barrage blast Weapons
If there is a line of sight treat as normal, if there is no line of sight the Firer must remove the lowest dice in the hand he rolls. I.e. A Space Marine Whirlwind fires at a target 36" away (more than 50% so rolls just 2 BS D6) and gets an arrow a 2 and a 4, he has to remove the 2 as it is the lowest and keep the 4.
Multiple Barrage stays as normal.
These are alternative Blast Weapon rules. Please feel free to try them out and share your verdict below. They can't be as bad as the current ones for Throne' sake.
Drake Seta
I like these rules, simple and actually makes sense. I have never understood how a marine can throw a grenade so totally off target.
ReplyDeleteI know. It's not me throwing my toys out of the pram for an unlucky game, it just seems illogical something that close going so far off.
DeleteI blame the idea that these marines are almost always firing. When I scatter off I'll blame a random shot hitting the artillery and sending it off course. In the case of grenades, I like to think the other squad manages to use a bolter as a baseball bat and send it away at least a little distance if not a good ways away.
ReplyDeleteSucks you kept rolling 10 and 11 for scatter though.
Yeah. It's alright coming up with a narrative to explain it away. I would love to see some sort of "GRENADE!!!" Kind of rule where if a grenade is thrown into a squad you can elect to have the nearest trooper jump on top of it by rolling under his initiative on 2 x D6
DeleteAside from grenades there are many rules that seem to be really dumbed down so as not to be over-complicated. This brings my mind along the path of thoughts I've had for a long while: cover saves replacing armor saves, as well as invulnerable saves. I have always thought the cover rules should be split into 2 categories: cover, and concealment. Cover being the physical protection of what you are hiding behind and concealment being the effect on the firer's aim as he cannot clearly see his target. In the case of cover it would work as it does currently with the minor exception of AP values working against the physical cover. Concealment would be taken before armor/cover, but ap does not affect it.
ReplyDeleteInteresting ideas. I liked the to hit modifiers they used to have for scenery. So -1 to hit in a woods -2 trench etc I think it was. But then it would be a very slow game of people digging in etc.
ReplyDeleteSure, but that was always what close combat, templates, and blasts were for; clearing the dug in troops. I actually feel like things die too fast in most situations currently, even when they have cover.
ReplyDeleteYeah. Flamer templates and whole Flamer equipped squads (Tactical Support Squads and LAST editions' Flamers of Tzeentch) are awesome at getting dug in troops out.
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