Another Great Day Of Testing!

General Grant Takes Command, Unknown

Got two more test games in today. One with CaulynDarr at my house, and another down at the GP North tonight where I took notes as Farmpunk and TheNeverThere battled it out.

Everyone thought that the game was fun and that shooting/suppression really worked well. We still have to work on improving Close-Combat, but I'm already being asked about fliers, special weapons, and indirect fire. Which shows just how well the basic mechanics are working.

Farmpunk is even talking about not selling his Grey Knights now. Just so that he can run a full Knight assault list in M42. Considering how anti-40K/GW and pro-Flames he's been, that's quite a change! He was rolling dice, moving 28mm figures, and laughing with TheNeverThere just like old times. It was nice.

Good stuff aside though, there are some changes that we need to make to the rules. I'll run over the notes that I made during the course of both games.

1) If You Fail A Ld Test Because Of Suppression, You Need To Be Able To Do Something.

This was CaulynDarr's idea, and I think that it's a very good one. Basically, if you fail a Ld test when the unit is activated, you can either move 1/2 of your normal movement, or you can fire as if you moved. But not both. That gives the unit something to do at least, while still not letting the player do what they really wanted to do.

2) The Hit-Trigger For Suppression Should Be 7 Across The Board.

This was born as much out of practicality as much as anything else. Too keep track of your hits for the turn, you put dice down next to your suppression markers. If your trigger is more than 6-7, then you start having to put more dice down to keep track.

So what we settled on for the last game was using one die to keep track of hits. Every time it reset to a 1 on the 7th hit, we added a Suppression Marker.

3) We Need To Also Track Penetrating Hits.

We'll still give a Suppression Marker for penetrating at least once. But we also need to add the total Penetrations to the hit-tracking die to goose up the Suppression a bit more. So if you hit 4 times and penetrate 3 times, that counts for 7 on the hit-tracking die and you'd gain 2 markers for that round of shooting.

4) Concealment In Woods/Ruins Needs Some Clarification.

Touching the outside edge of the woods should count the same as overlapping the edge (because models will tip over otherwise). Also, if you're on the edge of a wood and are still looking through it to try and hit a target, your line of sight is going to be blocked.

5) The Autocannon's Penetration needs to be reduced to 7.

It's not a killy-ness issue, but rather one of feeling/fun. Standard Knights need to have a 6+ save, and Paladins a 5+. It sucks to be a Knight and not get a save on anything less than a 6+6.

6) The Player Going 2nd Should Get Gone-To-Ground For Free During The First Turn.

Shooting first is just a bit too powerful. You end up having to decide when you deploy if you keep things hidden to stay safe, or if you poke them out of cover so that you can get your full RoF if you win the roll to go first. It sounds like a decent decision to have to make, but in fact it's just a random gamble that gets old quick.

7) Wound Allocation Should Be Open To All Models In 2" Coherency With Target.

If a Paladin, a Knight Commander, and a Knight are standing together, they should all be able to be hit with the same volley. All 5+ hits shouldn't go on the same guy.

8) Commander/Hero Attachment Needs To Be Concretely Specified In The Rules.

Self-Explanatory.

9) Pistols Should Be Limited To One Shot In Close-Combat.

O_N suggested it just as CaulynDarr and I were coming to the same conclusion in our game.

10) Heavy Weapons That Don't Move Shouldn't Be Counted As Moving Just Because The Rest Of The Squad Does.

The Leader at least needs to be able to move around for targeting purposes without penalizing his guns' RoF.

11) Squads Firing Full RoF Need To Be Able To Move A Little Bit.

Probably half-movement, rounded down. Just enough to shift their firing position around small obstacles.

12) The Evasion-Save Mechanic Needs A Different Name.

All of the players were fine with the concept. It just needs a different name (like "Dodge") to reduce confusion.

That's my list.

Thoughts?