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Feedback on the rules for Only War
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Hunter-Killer and Recon Regiments
while it makes sense that the regiments hanging out inside a tank wouldn't get better armour or weapons, with the hunter-killer and recon regiment types, you're often going to have most of the squad walking beside the vehicle (except in the case of recon regiments in a Chimera). Shouldn't they get some kind of better armour and better standard weapon? And how is the rest of the squad supposed to keep up with the vehicle in the hunter-killer regiment, anyways. I assume they're going to be going fast for those hunter-killer missions?
JuankiMan said:
WittyDroog said:
We always played it as only granting the bonus if you were stationary during your turn. I thought that's how it worked and it seems to work just fine.
I know it only works when stationary. The item description told me that. What I ask is how stationary, as in completely stationary or stationary as in just not moving from the spot but firing back and such. A -30 to everyone shooting at you makes you almost invincible in a firefight if you can return fire. Go prone and even sharpshooters will find hitting you almost impossible.
Stationary would probably be not using your move action that turn.
JuankiMan said:
I know it only works when stationary. The item description told me that. What I ask is how stationary, as in completely stationary or stationary as in just not moving from the spot but firing back and such. A -30 to everyone shooting at you makes you almost invincible in a firefight if you can return fire. Go prone and even sharpshooters will find hitting you almost impossible.
I see what you're asking now. We say as long as you don't take a move action you're fine. So a dude hiding in a cloak could totally play the sniper shooting at everyone. Yes you're difficult to hit, snipers tended to be very hard to hit in any conflict which is why they go through the trouble of minimizing their target size and using camo. That said there are many solutions to this issue if you're concerned as a GM that a player will get a fine shooting position. Being stationary, at least in my games, was quite a gamble to take.
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WittyDroog said:
JuankiMan said:
I see what you're asking now. We say as long as you don't take a move action you're fine. So a dude hiding in a cloak could totally play the sniper shooting at everyone. Yes you're difficult to hit, snipers tended to be very hard to hit in any conflict which is why they go through the trouble of minimizing their target size and using camo. That said there are many solutions to this issue if you're concerned as a GM that a player will get a fine shooting position. Being stationary, at least in my games, was quite a gamble to take.
Yes, if the sniper wears camaleonine he'll be harder to hit. But this is Only War. Pick the Camaleonine doctrine or spend the points in the Regimental Kit and everyone gets the bonus. The heavy bolter, the plasma gun, the guy with the hellgun… everyone. Also, you don't even need to be in cover, just stationary. Against foes like orks, wild beasts and other melee-centric foes it is not that big a benefit, but against traitor guard, tau and esentially any ranged threat the whole squad is invincible unless you literally bend over backwards to come up with ways to force them to move. And you have to do this in every single firefight or else there's no challenge at all.
They should have kept the errata'd version from Dark Heresy, which simply increased the distance by one bracket (short becomes normal, normal becomes long, etc). Still very good but not as overpowered.
Hunter-Killer regiments really should be the following: One Tauros per squad or one Sentinel per squad member.
I've converted Dark Heresy to the Only War system. Please take a look!
https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0B517sKRcjGNrcmZmV21GSkVoVVU/edit
And so what if the whole group has fancy camo armor? They have to be stationary to use it properly which, as I've said before, is a gamble in many of the games I've played in. It'll serve you no good against melee targets that engage you, or indiscriminate artillery and blast weapons, and a skilled shooter can still hit you despite the penalties if properly trained and equipped. All the option does is change how the regiment fights (opting for a stealthy and stationary approach) and how the GM will deal with it. Its hardly a game breaker, just means some tactics will be harder.
And I'm still not keen on the entire squad getting Sentinels for reasons I've said before in the thread.
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Disregard my last comment, I thought I made my sentinel argument here but it was in another thread.
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WittyDroog said:
And so what if the whole group has fancy camo armor? They have to be stationary to use it properly which, as I've said before, is a gamble in many of the games I've played in. It'll serve you no good against melee targets that engage you, or indiscriminate artillery and blast weapons, and a skilled shooter can still hit you despite the penalties if properly trained and equipped. All the option does is change how the regiment fights (opting for a stealthy and stationary approach) and how the GM will deal with it. Its hardly a game breaker, just means some tactics will be harder.
As I already mentioned, it is true that it isn't that great against melee foes, but the problem is that only a skilled shooter with superior training and equipment has any kind of chance to hit them. Enemy guardsmen? Useless. Ork shootas? Their accuracy was atrocius before, now their chance to hit is zero. Tau fire warriors? Even making standard attacks they are as accurate as orks.
And it goes the other way too. If the squad faces a foe wearing camaleonine, their only tactical option is to try and rush into melee (and it has to be melee, camaleonine inflicts -30 to hit even at point-blank), hoping that they can deflect enemy bullets with the bullets already lodged in their face. The players usually won't have indiscriminate artillery on hand and blast weapons are bound to miss and scatter harmlessly.
I think camaleonine is indeed a game breaker because it kills any challenge a firefight might have for the side that has it, and punctuating every firefight with an artillery bombardment that forces the players to move their butt will stop being serious quite quickly. Also the players will start to wonder if every single ranged enemy suddenly sports a telescopic sight or has the Marksman talent, the only two reliable ranged counters I can think of.
My retort is that if you, GM or Player, are allowing your opponent to remain stationary while they shoot you then you need to rethink your strategy. I'm not sure about your games, but its not like mine have six rounds of guys standing across the hall from each other just shooting until the other team dies.
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JuankiMan said:
WittyDroog said:
And so what if the whole group has fancy camo armor? They have to be stationary to use it properly which, as I've said before, is a gamble in many of the games I've played in. It'll serve you no good against melee targets that engage you, or indiscriminate artillery and blast weapons, and a skilled shooter can still hit you despite the penalties if properly trained and equipped. All the option does is change how the regiment fights (opting for a stealthy and stationary approach) and how the GM will deal with it. Its hardly a game breaker, just means some tactics will be harder.
As I already mentioned, it is true that it isn't that great against melee foes, but the problem is that only a skilled shooter with superior training and equipment has any kind of chance to hit them. Enemy guardsmen? Useless. Ork shootas? Their accuracy was atrocius before, now their chance to hit is zero. Tau fire warriors? Even making standard attacks they are as accurate as orks.
And it goes the other way too. If the squad faces a foe wearing camaleonine, their only tactical option is to try and rush into melee (and it has to be melee, camaleonine inflicts -30 to hit even at point-blank), hoping that they can deflect enemy bullets with the bullets already lodged in their face. The players usually won't have indiscriminate artillery on hand and blast weapons are bound to miss and scatter harmlessly.
I think camaleonine is indeed a game breaker because it kills any challenge a firefight might have for the side that has it, and punctuating every firefight with an artillery bombardment that forces the players to move their butt will stop being serious quite quickly. Also the players will start to wonder if every single ranged enemy suddenly sports a telescopic sight or has the Marksman talent, the only two reliable ranged counters I can think of.
Maybe I'm thinking too much in terms of real world and not enough in game terms, but I think that there is one easy way out of this pond: Frag grenades.
When a character lobs a frag he doesn't need to aim it at the target, but just to a spot next to it. So if the squad has a general idea of where their camalaoline-wearing opponents are they can lob a few frags over and see what happens. Since they can target terrain features in the area the bonus from camaleoline doesn't apply. Also if the opponents dodge they will lose the camaleoline, if they stay still they will be showered with metal fragments all over.
"Vimes cupped his hands around the flame, sucked on the foul tobacco, tossed the match into the gutter and
slouched off down the damp, puddle-punctuated alley.
If there was anything that depressed him more than his own cynicism, it was that quite often it still wasn't as
cynical as real life."
Terry Pratchett Guards! Guards!
WittyDroog said:
My retort is that if you, GM or Player, are allowing your opponent to remain stationary while they shoot you then you need to rethink your strategy. I'm not sure about your games, but its not like mine have six rounds of guys standing across the hall from each other just shooting until the other team dies.
Yes, you need to rethink your strategy because a whole wide aspect of combat has become non-viable, namely ranged combat. After all, if staying still makes you almost untouchable, then why move? Lobbing frags might work, but you need to get to lobbing range, at which point the enemy will be throwing hell at you at short range. Flamers have the same problem. Flanking is a no-go, it's just as hard hitting from the side as from the front. Also, being stationary doesn't mean being inactive. The cloaked guys will still fire, use supression, their own grenades and generally try to disrupt whatever might be attempted with near impunity.
I still claim is a game breaker because one side has a whole slew of tactics to choose from while the other is incredibly limited in what they can do to have a fighting chance.
The "old" Chameleoline Cloak rules are IMHO better for snipers as when you (a Ratling Sniper) are shooting from your Extreme Range (negating penalties with a Telescopic Sight or Marksman talent) with a Long Las (>450m) or a Sniper Rifle (>600m), you simply can't be targeted, even by enemy snipers, as the cloak makes you out of range. Yay for fluffy snipers — you'll need a mortar or several to silence a skilled sniper in an entrenched position.
That said, under current rules, just lying down in the open like 10m away from my squad mates (so melee fighters can't reach me easily) means -50 to hit me (-30 for Cloak, -10 for lying, -10 for being a Ratling), while I receive a minimum of +10 for Half Aim, +10 for Standard Attack, +10 for Accurate, +10 for Red Dot Sight and +10 for Short Range for +50 to hit on every shot. Add Custom Grip for +55. This is just too unfair, I should need to actively avoid being shot at (make Stealth tests to duck under cover or set up a far away shooting position with clear view) instead of getting a free pass to blow heads and appendages with minimum additional XP expenditure. If everybody has cloaks… well, just standing & shooting isn't viable, but if the squad has a Stormtrooper, Ogryn or Sergeant and a Medic, they can effortlessly tank excessive damage while their squadmates shoot the enemies to bits, impossible to hit themselves.
Oh come on, "standing and shooting" isn't a wide breath of battlefield tactic. I mean you could argue the same case for a lot of encounters designed to combat a particular fighting style. Melee-centered characters are going to have to rethink attacking incredibly tough and heavily armored targets, frontline troops will need different weapons than their lasguns if a tank is rolling towards them, you can't just "sit there" when you're being bombarded by mortars and other explosives, nor can you sit in a spot while stealthy assassins approach you from behind.
In short, yes you'd be very hard to hit if you're standing still shooting back, but that's just one aspect of battle and it can be very easily avoided by simple change in tactics. Enemies and players should not be diluted into such a simpleton tactic simply because the game would get boring if you just sat there. Like I said if you're concerned that the players are too powerful with the cloaks then just use a different approach. Think outside the box, as they say.
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WittyDroog said:
Oh come on, "standing and shooting" isn't a wide breath of battlefield tactic. I mean you could argue the same case for a lot of encounters designed to combat a particular fighting style. Melee-centered characters are going to have to rethink attacking incredibly tough and heavily armored targets, frontline troops will need different weapons than their lasguns if a tank is rolling towards them, you can't just "sit there" when you're being bombarded by mortars and other explosives, nor can you sit in a spot while stealthy assassins approach you from behind.
In short, yes you'd be very hard to hit if you're standing still shooting back, but that's just one aspect of battle and it can be very easily avoided by simple change in tactics. Enemies and players should not be diluted into such a simpleton tactic simply because the game would get boring if you just sat there. Like I said if you're concerned that the players are too powerful with the cloaks then just use a different approach. Think outside the box, as they say.
Incredibly tough and armored targets, tanks, mortar barrages and stealthy assasins approaching you from behind should be relatively rare occurences for an infantry squad (also, why are the assasins included? if they're stealthy you don't know they're coming so you wouldn't have reason to move anyways). They happen, sure, but 70% what they're gonna be doing is going toe to toe with other line infantry. Also, you say it can be "easily avoided with a change of tactics", so I'd like to hear it. What change of tactic would turn the table on a cloaked foe that cannot be easily countered by said foe from their almost untouchable position? Note that I'm implying that the camo cloak is a hindrance to you, e.g. you're normally a ranged combatant. If you're an ogryn you don't need any change of tactics at all.
Virtus said:
The "old" Chameleoline Cloak rules are IMHO better for snipers as when you (a Ratling Sniper) are shooting from your Extreme Range (negating penalties with a Telescopic Sight or Marksman talent) with a Long Las (>450m) or a Sniper Rifle (>600m), you simply can't be targeted, even by enemy snipers, as the cloak makes you out of range. Yay for fluffy snipers — you'll need a mortar or several to silence a skilled sniper in an entrenched position.
That said, under current rules, just lying down in the open like 10m away from my squad mates (so melee fighters can't reach me easily) means -50 to hit me (-30 for Cloak, -10 for lying, -10 for being a Ratling), while I receive a minimum of +10 for Half Aim, +10 for Standard Attack, +10 for Accurate, +10 for Red Dot Sight and +10 for Short Range for +50 to hit on every shot. Add Custom Grip for +55. This is just too unfair, I should need to actively avoid being shot at (make Stealth tests to duck under cover or set up a far away shooting position with clear view) instead of getting a free pass to blow heads and appendages with minimum additional XP expenditure. If everybody has cloaks… well, just standing & shooting isn't viable, but if the squad has a Stormtrooper, Ogryn or Sergeant and a Medic, they can effortlessly tank excessive damage while their squadmates shoot the enemies to bits, impossible to hit themselves.
Also factor in weather, lighting conditions, & cover. Also like to point out that cloak shouldn't really protect you against scopes like prey sight. The number one rule on a battlefield for sniper is don't shoot twice in same spot. Evn if they can't see you, there's probably etter chance of hitting you if you stay in same spot.
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