10 cm are an obvious disadvantage for anybody loving assaults.

For the same amount of models to be brought or into a firefight, you will have to start closer to the enemy, which is a nuisance and might be a catastrophe. And the side effect of having to pack the troops closer for them to be able to make it into the combat next turn, will make them easier targets for templates.

Also how do you get into base contact with an scout ?

Thanks Mosc

I do think we can't decide each one in isolation. It is the net impact of the 2 together that is important.

Thanks

James

Agreed. We've got some great ideas next door in the Stubborn thread. What we need now is some movement on this side. Much of that movement will depend upon playtesters trying to 'break' the 10cm move. When you include my very silent (and obnoxious - that means you MNB and ronsandt) friends, the number of players who have played with the 10cm move who like it vs. don't like it are close to even. That leaves us at square one, unfortunately. More games must be had to figure this one out.

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As illustrated by this game and also in numerous games since January...

10cm movement on infantry

Hard to press forwards - Siegemasters and Feral Orks struggle to threaten objectives - and they're ones that're moving 15cm. In this game the two bulky Warrior Brotherhoods were set up and spent the game shuffling around the Squat half. If you can't see this as an issue perhaps you're not playing the GT scenario enough. Major issue.

Reduced threat radius from units - in a game that premeasures like Epic canny opponents can keep his units in the 25-30cm Golden Zone where he can launch assaults with his slow 15cm infantry, but the Squats can't. It's a return to the dark days where Dwarves in WHFB couldn't charge as people stayed 6-8" away (not as much of an issue in 8th edition). Also see Kings of War 2nd edition where Alessio is struggling with how to accurately point fast units always positioning themselves so slower foes can never charge. 10cm Squats are doomed to have every humanoid infantryman dance around them like greased eels. Major issue.

Halving engagment participation - it's not just a reduced threat radius, but less participants. A Guard formation 10cm from their opponent will bring more stands into an assault that an identically-placed Squat formation with only a 10cm move. Likewise, if Squats are 5cm away from their opponent and assault, 10cm of movement will mean the other side of the formation will struggle to reach the engagement. This is exacerbated by the Warrior Brotherhood's large formation size. And Rhinos don't help this. Major issue.

Having to double to shoot where 15cm would have to single - a 10cm means Squats struggle to draw a bead on opponents in cover or round corners. With 5+ weapons this will half their firepower Rhinos don't help this.

Additionally, the mistmatch of weapons and ranges on Thunderers and Warrior makes sustaining difficult as suppression effects the formation really unevenly. If the weapons and ranges were homogenised across the formation Squat Warriors may actually do a characterful sustain from time to time. Major issue.

Easy to hack down formations as they've only got 5cm of wiggle room with the second withdrawal. If the winner's formation has a frontage or depth more that 5cm across you're in for pain. Major issue.

Unable to get in base contact with Scouts - this reduces the Squat choice if they want to bring CC to bear instead of FF, or want to dency the Scouts their FF. Minor issue.

Hard to press forwards - What about faster units like Iron Eagles and Bikers? Siegemasters never press forwards with infantry for example, they do it with their scout tanks.

Reduced threat radius - Agreed that'd be an issue. Would Squats have greater ranged firepower to compensate, ala Tau?

Halving engagement participation (when on the offensive - defensively they're unchanged) - Agreed, that'd be an issue. Are Squats the kind of army that undertake a lot of (aggressive) Engagements?

Having to double to shoot - As with above, increase ranged firepower attacks & ranges to compensate, ala Tau?

Easy to hack down - My suggestion was to incorporate a special rule that means they're only hacked down if they land in a ZoC, rather than within 15cm?

Unable to get in base contact with Scouts - Don't see a problem there.


Remembering back to the Space Marine days, my memory of Squats was that they used to rely on their Iron Eagles & Bikers to do the mobile stuff, while the Infantry and War Engines acted as slow firebases. Land Trains were somewhere in between (mobile, but also fairly hard).

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Yeah I think this is a problem. Warriors have rather bad shooting, 1/2 a heavy bolter per unit means an assault will give you bigger hittingpower many times.

I don't have a copy of the original SM rules for Squats to hand, but NetEpic has basic Squat Warriors with the same ranged attack stats as Tactical Marines (albeit with a different name).

Which'd theoretically give you a missile launcher shot per warrior unit, rather than a heavy bolter shot for every 2nd base.

For Thunderers, they're given 3 heavy weapon shots per base, as compared to the 2 heavy weapon shots per base that Devastators get. Ranges and armour save modifiers for the two heavy weapon stats stay the same.

Which'd give you three missile launcher shots per Thunderer unit, rather than 1 missile launcher shot & two twin heavy bolters (which is roughly equal on to-hit, swapping pips of AT for AP, but inferior on range, which is a killer for the Squats).



Seems to me that if the NetEpic stats are close to the original stats, that the current Squat infantry stats are under-gunned, especially the basic warriors.

I'd even suggest that if they were to keep their 10cm speed, giving them special 60cm range missile launchers would help compensate for their lack of speed on the ground.

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True. Siegemasters are 15cm movement infantry and still they leave the objectives to the faster formations. 15cm is still quite slow - but causes no issues that need patching with special rules.



That could be workable idea. It would mean upgunning Warriors to Autocannon/Missiles at the very least. Maybe adding the missing 5cm from the movement to the ranges? Maybe giving them a 60cm basic Heavy Weapon? And making sure there's a good spread of 75cm and 90cm weaponry through the list?



Defensively there's no effect, but if you're responding defensively when the fight comes to the Squat half like in this game versus the Drop Pods Squats still need to slam into engagements as promptly as a Terminator.



That's easy to be quite gamey with. You'd be able to flee a combat and then get within 15cm of a new unit. That's why I suggest balancing it with only a single withdrawal move. However, it seems more of a bubblegum repair to a fundamentally flawed 10cm move like Infiltrator on Berserkers and Hearthguard. It's a special rule that fills in an unintentional design hole instead of imparting a Squatty flavour.



It's minor, but from it I infer that Epic was designed to have basic infantry with 15cm move - it's the distance of support fire, it's the distance of Firefight, it's the distance from the centre of a pair of clumped objectives, it's the distance you deploy on from the back edge, it's the distance you turn up from Drop co-ordinates, it's the distance you have to garrison from an objective ...



A 15cm move still has this flavour. And in those halcyon days you remember so well Squats had the same infantry movement value as Marines, Guard...

Definitely all of the above.

I did a quick comparison of the current stats and the old stats above, and they do look under-gunned to me. I also suggested 60cm missile launchers, which'd give you an extra 5cm of range even when doubling, or 10cm when advancing (or 15cm when sustaining!).

I don't see that the army could work with 10cm infantry without a decent spread of ranged gunfire (which it clearly lacks right now).


A single withdrawal move @15cm is just 5cm different to two moves @10cm. Not a great difference. And then you're allowed to rally with no fear, whilst imparting -1 on all nearby enemies? More powerful, for the loss of 5cm.

An inconsequential 5cm, at that, as both proposals suggest mitigating the hackdown radius rule.


I don't really see it that way. More as a movement rule like the Tau special movement after shooting rule, something that helps them get away with having a slightly slower basic speed than you'd expect.


I don't disagree. I also think that it can be easily modded to work with them however... I'm a big fan of Ork Big Gunz which move 10cm, because they're cheap and shooty. Can't believe than Ork Big Gunz are out-shooting Squat Warriors with ease, really.


And the game was not all that balanced, either. I'm looking to the old stats as a starting point, not a tracing template.

*If* 10cm speed is found desirable as a method of giving the Squat infantry character, then I've offered some ideas that have not yet been tried that I think will work, and won't have (major) gamey issues. That's all, really.

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Good points, especially combined with the batrep. At this point I do not like the idea of increasing missile launchers to 60cm or anything like that. If we have to modify a weapon I think the bandaid has stretched too far and perhaps the 10cm move is not viable. Still pondering. I'd like to see a batrep from somebody else's gaming group (maybe Dwarf Supreme's or Borka's) where the 10cm/15cm problems are detailed out. The batrep doesn't have to be as detailed as Curis' (although that was nice), just as long as the 10cm issues/non-issues were highlighted. A little what-if-I-had-15cm-of-move subsection.

My last game (batrep still pending) I had issues with the Warriors coming out of the pithead. Specifically there wasn't a heck of a lot of room to get them on the board with. Had I moved them an additional 5cm, it would have made it easier. Now it didn't have an effect on the game, but it could have if my opponent had more AP targets.

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It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

I think Curis raised a number of points with more specific detail that I raised as generalities earlier.

Hard to Press Forward - This is an issue with any infantry-heavy force. However, with a large portion of 10cm move across the army it becomes nearly impossible. The only option is transport.

10cm move would make an infantry-heavy Squat army a non-starter. That might be okay depending on how people felt about the flavor trade-offs, i.e. does a 10cm move give more of a squat feel than allowing a napoleonic infantry line shouting "stand and deliver" as a viable army.

Reduced Threat Radius (for assaults) - I find this problematic. There are some Squat forces that are supposed to be stellar in assaults. Even with Infiltrate, it's going to be very hard to get 10cm move Berzerkers into base contact. One option might be to have the assault-oriented units with a 15cm move, but I think that starts to get fiddly.

Halving Engagement Participation - I think this is a bit exaggerated, but it does limit it as noted above.

Transports could, in theory, be an aid in some cases for assault-oriented formations. They need to be tough enough that keeping the troops loaded doesn't result in special vulnerability, like Eldar mounting Guardians or the lighter-armored Aspect Warriors in Wave Serpents. Based on army stats that match Squat background, though, I doubt that is a feasible option.

Having to Double to shoot when 15cm would allow a single move - This is obviously true, but I don't really see this as a big problem. It only comes into play within a narrow, 5cm band.

Mismatch of Weapon Ranges - I agree with Curis. Since the Squat list is effectively all old-skool legacy, we might as well make it fit the last version as much as possible. I'd go straight for 45cm, AP5/AT6 as the base attack for all Squat infantry.

Easy Hackdown - I think everyone agrees with this. It is potentially addressable in the final version of Stubborn (whatever that becomes), but not having to address it would be better.

Base contact with Scouts - Agreed, but as noted it is a minor issue.

==

While I think Curis overstated the case a bit, he has nonetheless convinced me that 10cm move is problematic.

Curis made a suggestion that IMO has the potential to replace the stubborn rule and fix the 10cm/15cm movement debate. I moved discussion on it to this thread. I'm very curious if we can make it work.

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author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

The problem then becomes one where all an opponent has to do is break those fast units and destroy a rhino from each mechanised formation and the army is effectively immobile (which is pretty much what Stompzilla did). Admittedly, this is something that effects other slow moving armies, but at least their base movement gives them an extra 10-15cm move on a double/ triple.

I think the bigger issue is that of engagements - both the threat range from mineheads/ tunnelers and the ability of fms to participate in assaults. Given that clipping FF assaults is such a powerful tactic, something that enhances that further (by reducing the no. of units that can countercharge into range) is pretty worrying.

I just think that there are other ways to represent Squats being slow and stubborn than doing it via their movement, and that those other ways don't require as many convolutions to fix as a 10cm movement does.

could it be represented buy a ruling similar to orks waaarh

i.e. squat brotherhoods & artillery get +1 on marshal, over watch, sustain actions but -1 on double actions & -2 on march actions while still keeping the 15cm move(10 on arty) (hopefully avoiding all the engaging & withdrawing problems associated with 10cm moves, but still limiting their tactical foot movement)

and keep the half and round up BM ruling suggested buy nealhunt (i think)

so hopefully they act as slightly tougher more BM resilient but less flexible IG infantry (which sits quite well fluff wise with me)

PAR

[caveat] Not a squat player, or a particular fan of Squats in general.[/caveat]

10cm movement is nice and fluffy, but I'm not sure it's worth the hassle. Perhaps the Necron direction of disallowing marching might work?

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