40K TACTICS:
Map Tactics

It won't work under Ed 2.

If you want to play 2nd Ed on a larger table you will encounter the following problems:

1. Heavy/Support weapons will be very effective and quite cheap.
2. Vehicles will be extremely effective and a real bargain!
3. Foot troops with no jump pack will have difficulties to get somewhere (if you are not allowed to cramp them into a transport), especially with the turn limit.
4. Support weapons will not get very far as well. Some of them cannot be towed.
5. You cannot use standard missions due to altered ranges and available time.

If you use a different table and skip the turn limit, you'd better re-adjust PCs [of course both sides have to face the same problems, but again, players will field ANYTHING other than "reasonable" armies; Swooping Hawks, skimmers, speculative firing Thudd Guns, etc].

And you have to provide convenient means for transporting all types of foot troopers (like Eldar, Tyranid constructs and large creatures like Ogryns or Tyranids) and for "tow"-ing all types of support weapons (like Eldar anti-grav platforms, Tarantulas etc).

I agree with you that playing on larger tables with a bit of terrain between the opponents is more interesting AND the new set-up rules are not that dominating [most of you will know the situation where you place your models first just to look down those big enemy guns some minutes later].

BTW, why not rolling 2 or more d6 and add the strategy rating to determine who sets up first [the idea is to produce an outcome which strongly depends on the strategy rating but holds the occasional surprise of catching the Marines flat-footed - just an interesting variant].

PC 1500 to PC 2000 on a 8-by-4 is quite nice. To pile PC 2500+ on such a table is no fun with all the troopers stepping on each others' toes, there is no room for moving troops [I only use a 4-by-4 when playing PC 1000 games of Man'o'War].

The Turn Limit

The A POSTERIORI approach:

• A game lasts for 3+ turn.
• Roll 1d6 at the end of each complete turn (ie player 1 and player 2 each completed 1 turn):

  Turn            3       4       5
  Game ends on    5+      4+      3+
  
  [or 2+ or 1+ as preferred]

The TIME LIMIT approach:

• As given in the rules book (?), agree on a certain amount of real time for the game.
• Or: Set a time limit for completing individual turns (to avoid players to kill some unwanted time and to press them into decisions); thinking time + moving time + target allocation time. Dice rolls for shooting, CC and psychics are resolved during "freeze" time. As all the dice rolling and record keeping takes some time (along with ordering pizza) you'll get a sudden termination of the game. At least by setting an alarm clock while banning all other chronometers beside one of these machines you use for chess from the room.

VPs

If you cannot be stopped from using them, choose them in a convenient way, either before (depending on game philosophies) or after purchasing armies.

It works better to do it the epic way; nominating a couple of (eg, 4) objectives (like buildings or bridges) and award VPs to the player controlling them at game's end. As both players have the same "mission" it allows for better balanced games with less problems concerning the army size : VPs ratio. For even better results, the VPs for controlling objectives could be adjusted in relation to the army size [after all, had the objectives been of greater interest to the armies' commanders, they would have sent more troops].

The VP approach (for terminating a game):

• Agree on a certain VP level: The player who reaches it 1st wins.

  I suggest pointing out some objectives to be controlled for awarding VPs Though, the idea of awarding VPs for killed troops should not be skipped. Especially the choice between better equipment and lower VP value is very interesting. But that is something bound for further experimenting.

• Randomize a single mission: The player who completes it 1st wins.

Terrain

As GW says, place a lot [or at least, don't complain if you had not]. There is reason to it.

[Of course, GW keeps things very easy and general, especially when it comes down to summoned efforts on the home team's side]

How about:

• Ask a third 40k player [better not pressing a peasant] to set up the terrain.
• Compose some sort of terrain generator (like in the epic system) or use another method of piling a "reasonable" heap of terrain onto the battle field. But don't forget to allow vehicles to move across the table somewhere [like allowing each player to rearrange a certain number of pairs of terrain feature that may not be moved a second time then].

The Speshool Troops

1. As such they are excellent. They add colour and variety to your battle plan.
2. Problem is, you do not get two of them, you can purchase them by the pound, with no need to buy something decent at all!
3. To be sure, there are too many troops [models AND/OR pieces of equipment] too good in a lot of different roles.

BAD:

• Range of 32" [though, as the two set-up zones are only 24" apart this is not very -y]
• Jams [ignore 1st jam when stuck to vehicle]

• High S
• high DAM
• high AP
• high rate of fire [3 SF-dice]; this is definitely too much for a single weapon [you can stick to any vehicle, etc].

[Note that vehicles take damage by the HIT not by the DAM-characteristic! Lascannons will cause a SINGLE hit on a vehicle if AP-ing while the Assault cannon may cause MULTIPLE hits at slightly lower AP. Ok, the Assault Cannon jams BUT NOT BEFORE firing. As a Lascannon may fire 3-5 times per battle, ie once per turn, you usually get more shots off an Assault Cannon, even if it jams with the 1st firing action.]

Some statistics:

• Average number of hits with 3 SF dice: 4.5
• Average number of jams with 3 SF dice: 0.5 (!)

[I did talk about Assault Cannons and Lascannons only, of course the above applies to a lot more heavy weapons]

BTW, I'd say when mounting other weapons to your vehicles (DM conversion table) you may NOT mount weapons that are not in your army list, for the sake of NO-CHEESE.

[No eg, Ork Warbikes with 2 linked Assault Cannons or Cyclones on a Wartrack or Rhinos with Shuriken weapons]

Note: I'd say the given special rules for Space Marine DNs from DM apply no matter which vehicle it is mounted to [though I do not like these specials altogether], since "increased ammo capacity and improved targeting systems blabla" are not a DN-only feature.

Ah, almost missed the topic. There is a concept that can be used on any "reasonable" game that rules the fair-factor of special troop types.

Eg, chess: 8 Pawns, 2 each of the others and 1 of King and Queen + their "VPs". The more you have of a certain troop type the worse its performance and vice versa, therefore poor troop types will give away few VPs [and will be pretty cheap if you have to buy them]. The King is not very spectacular in its daily business but as you lose the game when it is killed that makes it very special, so you get only one as well. Note that messengers are worth less than towers, especially later in the game, as have access to half the board only.

Basically, there are 3 factors that determine a trooper's value:

1. How far you can go
2. How easy you can kill
3. How much you can endure

For a better tactical feeling troops have to be created according to the principle "the more a trooper specializes in a certain role the worse its general performance [or giving it a real handicap]".

Of course there is a place for characters who are better in all aspects, but then there is the inavailability [or better there should be one] and high PC.

IMHO, J.'s "I know he will buy this, so I buy this" is a problem, but in quite a different way.

1. There always should be ways of preventing the opponent from getting off nasty tricks, so any army should be able to eliminate any threat offered [with "reasonable" means that is and most of the time only].
   • The Sniffer Squigs are splendid when it comes down to ACME [Assassination Counter MEasures]. They do not prevent the enemy from deploying one, they do just reduce the possible harm [BTW, polymorphine is a bit too cheap at PC 20, as the killed enemy trooper is more expensive most of the time].
   • The Vortex Detonator is crap [maybe you think different getting regular visits from Assassins] as it always works. There should be a chance of failure (1 in 6?). Why not let the Null Shield help out? Vortex is warp stuff, psychics are warp stuff, so what! Maybe increase PC. After all Vortex grenades are expensive and have a rather limited range. It's ok to run danger of wasting the PC but to get yourself blown up regularily is no fun.
2. The problem is the PC ratio measure : counter measure. Like, Orks are better advised to purchase both the Vaxxine Squig and the Sniffer Squigs just in case the opponent fields the most hated ones. While the opponent may most happily spend PC on whatever he likes.

While you're on the offense, it wont matter much if you skip an option or two - while it can and most likely will cost you much when skipping a defence or two.

On the other hand, it should not be too easy to defend your troops against a certain attack [eg, by just purchasing a single item or so].

Army Lists
The "No Yellow Smelly Stuff" Approach

1. SHIFTING TROOPS/ALLOCATIONS approach:
   • Characters: NO MORE THAN 25% OF PCtotal [Maybe squad minimum should be increased, but I have other plans for those]
   • Kick some of the so called squads out and place them under support [how about support stuff & special squads], eg Space Marine Terminators and Eldar Aspect Warriors. Eldar Harlequins already have a similar status. And all the not-plain-clan Orkse.
   • As there were some arguments lately, transports are paid for from support allowance and not squad allowance.
   • If you can't be stopped from taking allies, I suggest to use the PC allowances (characters/squads/support) for the allied contingent as well. [Armies of characters 75% and Terminators 25% (with the odd Dreadnought hiding somewhere) really smell, IMMAHO]
2. Return to the "BY THE SQUAD"-PURCHASE approach: Like, Devastator, Assault and Tactical Squads are considered regular squads and you may not have more special squads [any non-regular squad] than regulars. Eg, 1 Devastator + 1 Tactical + 2 Termies are ok, but you may not purchase a, say, Scout squad without purchasing another regular as well.

[GW should have done it this way or another (maybe more convenient one). For tournaments' sake. See, if you feel like terminating everything, feel free. Agree with your opponent and you're in for some real mutilation. Instead GW produced codex after codex listing all the different troop types with "in case it will not work agree on something different" being the only help offered. Thank you.]

"Reason is the first casualty in every war"

Mutilate! Here goes GW's rule No. Uno in flames and shrapnel. In the heat of battle with your eyes dilluted by the fog of war, your hands drenched in your enemies' blood and your mind gone numb in the barrages you always will get off better once rules are not quite clear. I played with a lot of people and most of them are worth some parsecs of elastic tape measure (I should get them nominated - or did anybody of you try to hit two buildings with a single ballisticaly fired shell since the closer one was higher than the other) while there are some people (Hi Chris!) you can discuss matters on the spot [something I prefer to rolling a dice to decide who's right].

P.S.

The up to 6 locations per vehicle is rather limiting. Eg, There is a 1 in 6 chance to hit a Rhino's bolters (with your only Lascannon) while the Land Raider's Heavy Bolter destroyed result comes with aspecific hull hit.

Why GW do not use non-d6 dice for their games? Where is the problem? Hey, it works with armour penetration!

And why skipping the target grid. True, it was time consuming. But there are approaches that work, like the epic Titan hit locations. Skip some detail, take some special dice, paint some fancy diagrams - 'ere we go!

- Heinz Roehrl