Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

A.T. wrote:

 Haighus wrote:
I am less clear on if a single character with grenades confers the benefits onto the squad, but I think not.

"Troops armed with frag grenades always fight simultaneously against troops in cover"

Not the clearest of wordings and not improved in the 3e faq/errata, but the orks boyz weren't armed with grenades and so as far as I recall did not benefit any more than they would from the nob carrying krak grenades or similar.

So this would actually give it to the entire squad per third edition, as special rules effected the entire squad (and any independent characters, including vice versa) unless it specifically called out that they did not (Fewl No Pain being an example of such a carve out). So having one model with frag grenades conferred the rule to the entire squad in the same way that fearless would.

It’s worth noting that a lot of older ‘equipment’ was actually just special rules, not actually items with profiles and some such.

 morganfreeman wrote:
So this would actually give it to the entire squad per third edition, as special rules effected the entire squad (and any independent characters, including vice versa) unless it specifically called out that they did not (Fewl No Pain being an example of such a carve out). So having one model with frag grenades conferred the rule to the entire squad in the same way that fearless would.

It’s worth noting that a lot of older ‘equipment’ was actually just special rules, not actually items with profiles and some such.

Frag grandes weren't special rules - they were included in the 'special close combat attacks' section alongside power weapons, power fists, close combat weapons, and monstrous creature attacks.

To be fair, in the end pieces of equipment are actually meant to give you derogatory or special rules from you baseline profile and attacks, so I guess at some point it's more or less amounting to the same.

I think we are all overlooking three things:

1. Forrest terrain was used A LOT more back in 3-4 edition. Both featured in battle reports, and sold as scenery with limited other choices as compared today.

2. How forrests worked. It totally blocked LOS from one side to the other, and you could only see so far into it.

3. Kroot (and Catachans) back in the day ignored those rules and could see through trees.

Imagine a 6x4 board where having 2-3 large forrests, and 2 small forrests (plus a couple building and a wrecked vehicle) was the norm. Now imagine how great a unit can be simply because they can infiltrate to a spot, en mass, where they can not only be a strategic nuisance, but can see, but not be seen.

 cuda1179 wrote:
I think we are all overlooking three things:

1. Forrest terrain was used A LOT more back in 3-4 edition. Both featured in battle reports, and sold as scenery with limited other choices as compared today.

2. How forrests worked. It totally blocked LOS from one side to the other, and you could only see so far into it.

3. Kroot (and Catachans) back in the day ignored those rules and could see through trees.

Imagine a 6x4 board where having 2-3 large forrests, and 2 small forrests (plus a couple building and a wrecked vehicle) was the norm. Now imagine how great a unit can be simply because they can infiltrate to a spot, en mass, where they can not only be a strategic nuisance, but can see, but not be seen.

No, I didn't ignore any of that. I just liked (and still do) the suits, tanks, & even the Fire Warrior models better than I did any of the Kroot.
By the time I got done spending pts on that stuff there often wasn't room for any Kroot.... And when Piranhas & Pathfinders etc were released that pattern only increased.

 morganfreeman wrote:

A.T. wrote:

 Haighus wrote:
I am less clear on if a single character with grenades confers the benefits onto the squad, but I think not.

"Troops armed with frag grenades always fight simultaneously against troops in cover"

Not the clearest of wordings and not improved in the 3e faq/errata, but the orks boyz weren't armed with grenades and so as far as I recall did not benefit any more than they would from the nob carrying krak grenades or similar.

So this would actually give it to the entire squad per third edition, as special rules effected the entire squad (and any independent characters, including vice versa) unless it specifically called out that they did not (Fewl No Pain being an example of such a carve out). So having one model with frag grenades conferred the rule to the entire squad in the same way that fearless would.

It’s worth noting that a lot of older ‘equipment’ was actually just special rules, not actually items with profiles and some such.

Frag Grenades were special close combat attacks. they only worked if the model with them was in B2B contact with the enemy. If you had a unit without frag grenades, and a character with them, then only the character would benefit, and only if he was in B2B.
If you had an entire unit with frag grenades, and only half your models made B2B, then the models in B2B would attack at the same time as the unit in cover, and if they survived, any models not in B2B would get to attack.

There were exceptions to the general rule, Banshee masks allowed banshees to always strike first, even against units in cover, and models not in B2B contact could use the ability.

This extended to other things called out as special attacks, including power fists, power weapons and monstrous creatures. In the example of Banshees, then the whole unit would strike first, but only models in B2B could use power weapons, the rest had to make 1 normal close combat attack.

If a hive tyrant with hive guard attacked a unit, then the hive tyrant could only use its monstrous creature attacks (ignoring armour, and 2d6 for penetrating vehicles) If the hive tyrant was in B2B.

to be fair, most people forgot the whole B2B thing in 3rd, and it was removed, along with being limited to 1 supporting attack, in 4th. Models with frag grenades (or equivalents) still only benefited from them on a per model basis though. Close combat in 4th was much more lethal.

I agree with madtankbloke's interpretation.

 cuda1179 wrote:
I think we are all overlooking three things:

1. Forrest terrain was used A LOT more back in 3-4 edition. Both featured in battle reports, and sold as scenery with limited other choices as compared today.

2. How forrests worked. It totally blocked LOS from one side to the other, and you could only see so far into it.

3. Kroot (and Catachans) back in the day ignored those rules and could see through trees.

Imagine a 6x4 board where having 2-3 large forrests, and 2 small forrests (plus a couple building and a wrecked vehicle) was the norm. Now imagine how great a unit can be simply because they can infiltrate to a spot, en mass, where they can not only be a strategic nuisance, but can see, but not be seen.

Technically Kroot and Catachans didn't completely ignore trees, but they could see 12" through trees rather than the usual 6" when stationary (no benefit when moving, so encouraged ambushes). This was enough to ignore small-to-medium sized copses, but was cumulative. If a stationary Kroot units drew LoS through a 4" wood then across 6" of clear ground, they could only see 8" in a wood on the other side of the clearing. They did count trees as clear terrain for moving, along with the +1 to cover saves.

 Haighus wrote:
I agree with madtankbloke's interpretation.

 cuda1179 wrote:
I think we are all overlooking three things:

1. Forrest terrain was used A LOT more back in 3-4 edition. Both featured in battle reports, and sold as scenery with limited other choices as compared today.

2. How forrests worked. It totally blocked LOS from one side to the other, and you could only see so far into it.

3. Kroot (and Catachans) back in the day ignored those rules and could see through trees.

Imagine a 6x4 board where having 2-3 large forrests, and 2 small forrests (plus a couple building and a wrecked vehicle) was the norm. Now imagine how great a unit can be simply because they can infiltrate to a spot, en mass, where they can not only be a strategic nuisance, but can see, but not be seen.

Technically Kroot and Catachans didn't completely ignore trees, but they could see 12" through trees rather than the usual 6" when stationary (no benefit when moving, so encouraged ambushes). This was enough to ignore small-to-medium sized copses, but was cumulative. If a stationary Kroot units drew LoS through a 4" wood then across 6" of clear ground, they could only see 8" in a wood on the other side of the clearing. They did count trees as clear terrain for moving, along with the +1 to cover saves.

I got the specifics wrong, but the point still stands. A large unit, even if they only have bolter equivalents and a pulse rifle, that can see but not be seen is valuable. And even if you can see them they got a 4+ cover save. I had a turn one event where they glanced a Landspeeder to death before it could move, then required 2 Tactical Marine squads to take them out.

Speaking of Marines, I think we need to mention that back in the day they were all basically one wound, even Terminators. That in and of itself made Kroot more viable in the past.

I used to run a Kroot army from the chapter approved book.
Back then it was surprisingly shooty and did well in Small games.
But I not sure it would have held up going into bigger games.

Was a lot of fun.

Another thing in favour of those 3rd/4th edition Kroot was that their S4 was good enough to glance vehicles with AV10. Due to how attacking vehicles in close combat worked (hit vehicles other than walkers in their rear AV), that meant that Kroot could be a nuisance to many vehicles by sheer weight of attacks by fishing for 6s to glance a vehicle which could then impair it for at least a turn.

There was also a benefit to having _something_ in your list that could infiltrate.

If nothing else it created a 12-18" radius bubble of denial that kept enemy infiltrators off your back - it was never ideal having genestealers or heavily armed chaos marines deploying in a building 12" from your broadsides.

A.T. wrote:
There was also a benefit to having _something_ in your list that could infiltrate.

If nothing else it created a 12-18" radius bubble of denial that kept enemy infiltrators off your back - it was never ideal having genestealers or heavily armed chaos marines deploying in a building 12" from your broadsides.

Yep, definitely!

Apple fox wrote:
I used to run a Kroot army from the chapter approved book.
Back then it was surprisingly shooty and did well in Small games.
But I not sure it would have held up going into bigger games.

Was a lot of fun.

I used to play with a guy in 5th who played guard and his son ran that CA kroot army. it was pretty brutal, the great knarlocs could mount an autocannon equivalent gun and the infantry could take evicerators. and that was on top of infiltrate/ouflank, move through cover etc...

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Another thing in favour of those 3rd/4th edition Kroot was that their S4 was good enough to glance vehicles with AV10. Due to how attacking vehicles in close combat worked (hit vehicles other than walkers in their rear AV), that meant that Kroot could be a nuisance to many vehicles by sheer weight of attacks by fishing for 6s to glance a vehicle which could then impair it for at least a turn.

I thought the "melee attacks always hit rear armour" thing only came in in 5th. The 4th rulebook doesn't mention it and does mention that charging units must move towards the closest facing.

 Haighus wrote:
I thought the "melee attacks always hit rear armour" thing only came in in 5th. The 4th rulebook doesn't mention it and does mention that charging units must move towards the closest facing.

Correct. Assaults in 3rd and 4th were explicitly prevented from going 'around' a vehicle to hit a side other than the one facing them prior to the charge.

However, if a vehicle didn't move, or was previously immobilized, you automatically hit it.

 Haighus wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Another thing in favour of those 3rd/4th edition Kroot was that their S4 was good enough to glance vehicles with AV10. Due to how attacking vehicles in close combat worked (hit vehicles other than walkers in their rear AV), that meant that Kroot could be a nuisance to many vehicles by sheer weight of attacks by fishing for 6s to glance a vehicle which could then impair it for at least a turn.

I thought the "melee attacks always hit rear armour" thing only came in in 5th. The 4th rulebook doesn't mention it and does mention that charging units must move towards the closest facing.

Urgh, so easy to get edition mixed up lol.

Still, considering Tau didn't get a 5th edition codex the point still stands for the 4th edition Kroot haha

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Haighus wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Another thing in favour of those 3rd/4th edition Kroot was that their S4 was good enough to glance vehicles with AV10. Due to how attacking vehicles in close combat worked (hit vehicles other than walkers in their rear AV), that meant that Kroot could be a nuisance to many vehicles by sheer weight of attacks by fishing for 6s to glance a vehicle which could then impair it for at least a turn.

I thought the "melee attacks always hit rear armour" thing only came in in 5th. The 4th rulebook doesn't mention it and does mention that charging units must move towards the closest facing.

Urgh, so easy to get edition mixed up lol.

Still, considering Tau didn't get a 5th edition codex the point still stands for the 4th edition Kroot haha

The 4th ed vehicle assault rules were tactically superior. the first model in the charging unit has always had to move in a direct line the shortest distance to the target unit, but the rest of the unit can move up to their full move in an attempt to make B2B contact. what it did was make the player with the vehicle choose to give up effective shooting to make themselves harder to hit in CC-stand still you could fire everything but get automatically hit in CC. move up to 6" you only get hit on a 4+ and move over 6" and you needed 6+ to hit them. the hitting rear armor and only needing 3+ hit a vehicle that moved any distance was a Jervis Johnson change to 5th. when asked why he pushed for the change his stupid answer, and i am not kidding, "if you assault a vehicle you deserve to hit it"

Which is why those vehicle assault rules (and wound allocation rules) are one of the "house rules" fixes from 4th we put back into 5th to make the game more about tactical play and enjoyable for all involved.

 aphyon wrote:
the hitting rear armor and only needing 3+ hit a vehicle that moved any distance was a Jervis Johnson change to 5th. when asked why he pushed for the change his stupid answer, and i am not kidding, "if you assault a vehicle you deserve to hit it"

5th edition had the same to hit rules as 4th edition, you are thinking of 6th.
And 5th edition arguably needed the 'always hits back' rules - what were models without krak grenades supposed to do otherwise against the parking lots.

Under 4e rules you were hitting front armour even if your charge wrapped around to the sides - "individual models can only assault the side of the vehicle facing them at the start of their charge".
It got especially bad with 13+ armour where even krak grenades were no good, even more so with skimmers that were 6+ to hit when stationary.

To be fair, I'm fine with letting you strike at the rear armour in 6th.

I fondly remember how from my own tank in exercise I basically was blind some 50 meters around my tank. If anyone actually got that close, I'd have no time to actually escaped before the deed is done.

Stomping the gas to get away is not even actually an option as you have a poor feeling of your surroundings and might as well fly yourself in that tree a bit too big.

So to me this is actually fairly representative of this, plus walkers on the other hand, being designed to be agile and often for CQC, would be hit on the front armour to represent them fighting back.

I fondly remember how from my own tank in exercise I basically was blind some 50 meters around my tank. If anyone actually got that close, I'd have no time to actually escaped before the deed is done.

i think you miss the point of what it is representing. it isn't you have a bunch of guys run up and then you step on the game. it is that you were already moving at a fair speed and they try to run up and hit you. i would like to see you run at any modern tank traveling at 30 or 40 MPH and try to hit it with a close combat weapon or plant a charge on it.....it is possible but way harder than if it is sitting still or moving slower.

5th edition had the same to hit rules as 4th edition, you are thinking of 6th.

You are correct, for some reason my brain was thinking that happened in 5th, not 6th. but yeah superior rules for tactical play, as you deserve nothing in a wargame, you earn it.

It may be more difficult, but that doesn't change the fact you'll be largely able to target weaker spots, as I can't angle the vehicle to face a menace I can't see, so I was talking about hitting rear armour, and not about the specifics of the roll off, which you missed...

A.T. wrote:

 aphyon wrote:
the hitting rear armor and only needing 3+ hit a vehicle that moved any distance was a Jervis Johnson change to 5th. when asked why he pushed for the change his stupid answer, and i am not kidding, "if you assault a vehicle you deserve to hit it"

5th edition had the same to hit rules as 4th edition, you are thinking of 6th.
And 5th edition arguably needed the 'always hits back' rules - what were models without krak grenades supposed to do otherwise against the parking lots.

Isn't that a choice though? Almost every army had access to a melee grenade or equivalent* that could hurt a Land Raider or Monolith. If a list chose not to take them, then they can hardly complain if they then can't hurt tanks in melee. If your list didn't take any lascannons or meltaguns either then that was a choice.

Maybe I am unsympathetic because my Guard could never hurt tanks in melee without upgrades at S3 base.

*Meltabombs, tankbusta bomms, haywire grenades, EMP grenades, disruption fields, or even chainfists/thunder hammers/power klaws etc. I think only Tyranids lacked an equivalent but they had monstrous creatures with 2d6 armour penetration instead.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
It may be more difficult, but that doesn't change the fact you'll be largely able to target weaker spots, as I can't angle the vehicle to face a menace I can't see, so I was talking about hitting rear armour, and not about the specifics of the roll off, which you missed...

The thing for me is that it doesn't make sense that a facing of a tank could be sufficiently well armoured that it cannot be damaged by, say, a krak grenade shot from a grenade launcher, but then a squad charging the same facing can place a krak grenade in a weakspot that the launched grenade has zero chance of hitting? Surely the armour on a facing represents the minimum penetration required regardless, even for weakspots on that facing, and luck hits are represented by, say, a roll of 6 to penetrate when a 4 would do nothing.

 Haighus wrote:

The thing for me is that it doesn't make sense that a facing of a tank could be sufficiently well armoured that it cannot be damaged by, say, a krak grenade shot from a grenade launcher, but then a squad charging the same facing can place a krak grenade in a weakspot that the launched grenade has zero chance of hitting? Surely the armour on a facing represents the minimum penetration required regardless, even for weakspots on that facing, and luck hits are represented by, say, a roll of 6 to penetrate when a 4 would do nothing.

Sometimes a game mechanic is just not worth all the overthinking alot of people invest in it.

The penetration power of your weapons at hand is not represented by the face you hit but by the penetration roll. You may be able to target the tank at your advantage in close engagement but not have got any adequat weapon in your squad, which is an entirely different problem that you might encounter.

 Haighus wrote:
The thing for me is that it doesn't make sense that a facing of a tank could be sufficiently well armoured that it cannot be damaged by, say, a krak grenade shot from a grenade launcher, but then a squad charging the same facing can place a krak grenade in a weakspot that the launched grenade has zero chance of hitting?

3e and 4e were kind of the opposite - if the attacking squad were able to encircle a vehicle on the charge they'd still stubbornly be planting their grenades on the most armoured side (or whichever side they were facing before the charge).

I guess you could say that the early editions were comparable to the troops always stopping just short of the tank and chucking their grenades at it while 5e onwards had the troops swarming over the tank jamming grenades into barrels and the like. Their penetration chances didn't change, just the armour facing they were attacking.

A.T. wrote:

 Haighus wrote:
The thing for me is that it doesn't make sense that a facing of a tank could be sufficiently well armoured that it cannot be damaged by, say, a krak grenade shot from a grenade launcher, but then a squad charging the same facing can place a krak grenade in a weakspot that the launched grenade has zero chance of hitting?

3e and 4e were kind of the opposite - if the attacking squad were able to encircle a vehicle on the charge they'd still stubbornly be planting their grenades on the most armoured side (or whichever side they were facing before the charge).

I guess you could say that the early editions were comparable to the troops always stopping just short of the tank and chucking their grenades at it while 5e onwards had the troops swarming over the tank jamming grenades into barrels and the like. Their penetration chances didn't change, just the armour facing they were attacking.

I think that is a fair rationalisation.

Feels like the middle ground would be that troops can wrap around using the normal assault rules and hit the facing they are closest to.

That could be a fair middle ground. But I'd emphasise that with all things, using the rear armour value does not necessarily represent actually hitting the rear part: could be the throwing of a grenade in a hatch, de tearing apart of tracks by a powerklaw, the shattering of optic devices. Even more so as the tank getting a destroyed result or running at of pc could be interpreted as the crew fleeing in panick, the tank catching fire due to a meltting device laidnon the engine panel, the crew being stunned inside and unable to carry on fighting...

We often tend to look at mechanics as if they were "accurate depictions" of what is happening and forget that they're not. Once you start broadening your understanding of possible circumstances it gets a lot more logic. Remains the question of what the rule is worth gameolaywise obviously, and ideally you'd get a good mix of "realism" and gaming interest.