The Broadsides would probably be changed to this new catagory and there were many people who were opposed to LV status for them... though they still seem to see use in games I play!

LV isn't the "kiss of death" that many seem to think it is.

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I don't think that's an issue.  A suitable name ("Big" is too generic/broad/confusing) along with an explanation of what kind of unit qualifies should handle that pretty easily.

Doesnt seem a huge amount of support for it anyway

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Neal

I really think this is better solved in army design. Either by a special rule or not allowing the problematic unit types in one formation.

Not sure what you mean by this, Mephiston...

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What do you mean by this, Meph?  You've referenced it several times, but I don't understand how it's connected to this concept.

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Neal

One of the stated issues is having 'bigger' units in a formation of 'little' infantry. Fix - don't allow the big guys in a formation with the little guys.

So if Crisis suits were deemed to be 'big' don't allow fire warrior's in their cadre or 'suits in a fire warrior cadre.

If you need to mix them ('nids) add a special rule to accommodate as required.

For me sticking to the rules as we have them now and working on more lists is the priority. I can live with the bits that aren't perfect, none of them break the game.

This the part I don't grasp.  I think we're talking about different "issues" with the idea.

What does separating them into different formations have to do with "infantry move + AT vulnerability"?  A homogeneous formation has no impact on either.  How is that a fix?

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Neal

True, I've been seeing this as "but they are so big they should be affected by AT" as the main complaint.

The current fix is to then make the big ones LV.

Then the complaint becomes "but then the big ones can't go in terrain like they used too". So a new rule needs to be created to allow INF to be hit by AT, but move like INF.

I go back to my initial statement that its a rule that IMHO is not needed, and will cause more grief than its worth.

As a radical thought, this debate largely stems from the idea that Tyranid Warriors should be able to be targetted when surrounded by gaunts. The aforementioned "Shoot the big ones!" concept. Counter to this, some people don't like the idea of them being susceptable to AT fire.

How about we go down Ginger's path and give certain nids a "Shoot the big ones!" special rule:


"Shoot the big ones!"

Experienced adversaries of the Tyranids have learned through experience that the most effective tactic is often to shoot directly at the larger Tyranids rather than the closer, more numerous hordes of critters. To represent this, when applying hits to a Tyranid swarm, the shooter may choose to force the Tyranid player to apply the first hits to the units with the "Shoot the big ones!" rule rather than the closest units. Other than this, the normal hit allocation rules apply; each unit can only be hit once until all others in range have been hit first.


This would allow the wariors etc to remain infantry, but still able to be targetted out of the throng. This is pretty leftfield, I realise...

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Epic: Hive Development Thread

Nice idea.... The question is whether Chroma intended "shoot the big ones" to mean "shoot the big ones with (our) big guns."


But you're right... the problem/ingenious idea behind the LV designation is that it buys three design changes for the price of one.

One problem specific to the Tau was revealed when it was decided to make Broadsides LVs.  We had to restat them to single-model-per-base (went from 2x rail shots to 1x) *and* rebuild the formation (went from 4x stands to 6x, cost a bit of AT but improved AP).  

Right now, the 'assumed' formation of Crisis suits is 4 stands of 3 (+ drones).  If we went to LV status on the Crisis and kept the suit count the same, that would push the formation to 12 stands.  Go ahead, try to break *that* without disrupt weapons.  Following the Broadside idea, a Crisis formation could be 6 suits.

The real challenge becomes how would we arm the individual Crisis suits?  Right now, they are armed with a mix of weapons that gives the team at least one weapon effective at each range bracket (45cm, 30cm, and 15cm).  Each suit carries one of those weapons.  Do we step away from the design concept that Crisis suits are the Jacks of All Trades, and declare each suit to be armed with Plasma Rifle and Missile Pod, or do we have 3-6 different Crisis suits for WYSIWYG?

For the 'Nids, that's a simpler decision, and I think Oblits are in the 'Nid boat (not sure since I haven't faced Oblits).

Sometimes, you really do need to use army-specific special rules, even in a list that has a lot of them already.

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That's primarily a "modelling issue"... the Tyranid rules specify that, despite the unit being a Light Vehicle, it's still modelled with 1-3 models of the appropriate type to a stand, with the stats assuming two models, because it's supposed to be representing "heavy infantry"... the same type of effect could be used with Tau LVs/heavy infantry.

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"Big/Agile" is essentrially the opposite of Mounted for Light Vehicles.
Mounted makes Infanty move like Vehicles and changes their basing rules (Infantry 3-7 models per stand, Mounted Infantry 2-3 models per  stand).
"Big/Agile" would make Light Vehicles move like Infantry and would change their basing rules too (Light Vehicles one model per stand, "Big" Infantry/"Agile" Light Vehicle 1-3 models per stand).

It is a natural special ability. One which was missing from the beginning and fits a hole in concept for Epic units.

The name of this special ability depends if it would be intended to be added to Infantry (then Big would fit, Big = vulnerable to AT-fire)or Light Vehicles (then Agile would fit, Agile = moves like Infantry).

As we see both Tau and Tyranids would benefit from this new special ability. My understanding is that if a special rule is shared by more than one army then it could easily a special ability which belongs to the core rules.

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exactly, why not have one general rule instead of several special rules per army that all say the same thing

Infantry vulnerable to AT fire is the mirror rule to LV that is missing in the core rules.

The Tyranids are going to use some sort of rule and it appears that Tau could as well. That means a general rule really needs to be decided on unless you want each army list having it's own variant.