I fear nothing!

[Fueldrop]

... and neither does anyone else.

Psychological warfare has always been a massive part of real-world conflict. Fear and morale are a major issue.

However, on the tabletop it's a different story. virtually every 'dex these days has massive leadership, fearless, or another special rule that makes the majority immune to such things.

This really limits tactics as it means a terror based army is virtually worthless. Most warriors on the battlefield are flat out immune to even supernatural terror, and those that aren't have other ways of making such things irrelevant (Guard have orders, commissars and priests, smurfs have ATSKNF, ect.) or at worst are packing massive leadership scores army-wide.

Am I the only one who thinks this is a problem?

[Djbz]

I agree completely, morale and "terror tactics" should be more powerful.


Although the wording on the Chapter Banner's rules in the new Space Marine Codex is interesting....

[Charon]

I was always thinking ATSKNF and Fearless should have drawbacks. I mean:

Space Marine Chapter Master: "Foul scum of Chaos! I challenge you to an honorable fight to death!"
Chaos Cultist Champion: "Yes, of course. Although there is nothing honorable in this fight and I would rather hide in the back to let my subordinates gun you down as you step in front of your men I totally accept your fair challenge!"

Chaos Lord: "Puny Servant of a false god. I am Kekarotnas, Slayer of Worlds, Ensaver of Billions and Doom of the Iron Hands. I was at Istvaan when your pitiful Primarch died. I enjoyed watching hundreds of your kin screaming in agony in their last hours renouncing their false beliefs in the rotting corpse you call your Emperor. Step forward Slave of a corrupt empire and face me!"

Space Marine Chapter Master: "Well... erm... I... I curse you foul spawn! Never should I fight with one of your taited kind in honerable combat. This would be... erm... oh yes... this would be a stain on my honor. I refuse your challenge!"

Chaos Lord: "Seriously? You just challenged a frak civillian with a rusty knife 2 minutes ago. His fould bllod is still on your Thunder Hammer. What the frak is up with you? Come on now and fight"

Space Marine Chapter Master: "No! There is nothing that forces me to defend my honor and the honor of my chapter. You can sit there and talk all day, I go and hide behind my boys now."

Totally like in the books....

[Deathmage]

This would also serve as a way to make chaos less Spikey Marines, as well as Dark Eldar relavant

[Fueldrop]

I was always thinking ATSKNF and Fearless should have drawbacks. I mean:

Space Marine Chapter Master: "Foul scum of Chaos! I challenge you to an honorable fight to death!"
Chaos Cultist Champion: "Yes, of course. Although there is nothing honorable in this fight and I would rather hide in the back to let my subordinates gun you down as you step in front of your men I totally accept your fair challenge!"

Chaos Lord: "Puny Servant of a false god. I am Kekarotnas, Slayer of Worlds, Ensaver of Billions and Doom of the Iron Hands. I was at Istvaan when your pitiful Primarch died. I enjoyed watching hundreds of your kin screaming in agony in their last hours renouncing their false beliefs in the rotting corpse you call your Emperor. Step forward Slave of a corrupt empire and face me!"

Space Marine Chapter Master: "Well... erm... I... I curse you foul spawn! Never should I fight with one of your taited kind in honerable combat. This would be... erm... oh yes... this would be a stain on my honor. I refuse your challenge!"

Chaos Lord: "Seriously? You just challenged a frak civillian with a rusty knife 2 minutes ago. His fould bllod is still on your Thunder Hammer. What the frak is up with you? Come on now and fight"

Space Marine Chapter Master: "No! There is nothing that forces me to defend my honor and the honor of my chapter. You can sit there and talk all day, I go and hide behind my boys now."

Totally like in the books....

Sounds about right. and of course the Hive Tyrant will accept your challenge because shuddup!

Then again sometimes you'll find an opponent who's awesome. For instance my Striking Scorpions once charged a conscript squad, I challenged the Commissar with them, and he refused the challenge and hid like a little girl. Then the squad lost combat and failed their leadership check. My opponent decided not to use Summary Execution on the grounds that killing men for running away on the turn the commissar just ran away would be hypocritical as hell. and hilarious to boot, but that's neither here nor there.

[Mr Mystery]

As a Warhammer player, I feel your pain here.

40k has improved a bit with the reintroduction of Fear, but I think it just needs something a little extra.

And I do mean little. For instance, I dunno about you but I find Carnifex utterly terrifying. Far more so than a Dreadnought, arguably their closest technological equivalent. Not only are they hideously tough, but, y'know, its 20' of roaring gribble slashing muscle wrapped in chitin....and it's just eaten three of your mates, having first ripped open your formally sweet ride. No matter what you do, you can't slow it down. Sarge shot it in the eye....right in the eye....and that just pissed off, so it ate him. And Ginger, and Tommy.

But the scare factor just doesn't kick in.

Easy solution. When in HTH with a Dreadnought or a Monstrous Creature, all wounds it causes in HTH are doubled for the purposes of combat resolution.

Their relatively low number of attacks stops it being 'autobreak' and it still leaves a role for Ld boosters elsewhere. But it adds to their role, opening them up as more reliable/competent line breakers.

Downside could be they become too efficient due to sweeping advances, but that can be tracked by preventing the MC doing that, instead encouraging them to be committed to HTH with a second unit which has no such restriction.

[daboarder]

you're ****ting me right?

FEAR? the rules almost every faction completely ignores?

FFS that basically sums up everything you know about 40k right there

[Fueldrop]

Who is actually vulnerable to fear and morale?

Imperial guard... if they don't have a commissar or priest nearby.
Dark Eldar... until power from pain gives fearless.
Eldar... Provided they don't get any psyker abilities to deal with it (likely) and aren't running wraith-everything (no promises) or aspect shrines (good luck).
Orks... in small numbers (I think. Rules may have changed since I last fought orks)
Chaos... provided they don't have the right icon or a nearby lord.

Beyond that everyone is either stubborn (DA), ATSKNF (all space marine variants), Leadership 10 ('Crons), Fearless in bubbles ('nids)... you get the picture.

It's been like this since forever, and it's why several powers and units are fairly useless.
For instance: the Hemlock Wraithfighter. It's a level 2 psyker with 2 D-scythe weapons, which makes it very nasty. However, its stated purpose is as a terror weapon... which it flat out cannot do, since no-one can be frightened! Luckily twin Strength D blasts is enough to make it worth the points despite being unable to do its listed job, but that's not exactly a recommendation of good design, is it?

[Fueldrop]

I believe in solving problems. So let's get solving.

Firstly, let's do something a little bit fancy: All Morale checks caused by shooting against a unit in area cover terrain (Ruins, Forests, ect) are now pinning tests. All pinning tests against a unit in area terrain are made at a -1 modifier (because let's face it, if you're already in cover it's much more tempting to go to ground than if you're out in the open). Since ATSKNF does nothing against pinning tests, this encourages space marines to be an in-your-face kinda army rather than a hide-in-the-forest-like-the-prissy-Eldar army. However, all rally checks made in area cover terrain are made at +1 because the enemy seem a bit less scary now that there's a good solid wall between you and them.

Secondly: If you're forced to make a leadership check due to casualties from shooting, the check is made at a -1 penalty for each unit after the first that's shooting at the testing unit and successfully inflicts a wound. Losing a quarter of your squad is bad enough, but getting shot from all sides makes it all manner of worse.

Thirdly: On the turn you're charged by a fear causing unit you roll twice and take the worse result. ATSKNF means you roll normally in this turn, and are immune on subsequent turns.

Thoughts?

[Lord Manton]

I think adding more rules to an already bloated system is a bad move. Why not just clean things up with the current rules. ATSKNF shouldn't ignore fear. Space marines aren't fearless (they're not maniacs hell-bent on murder, that's chaos) instead they should just rally automatically after failing a leadership test. This means that when a Carnifex charges a squad of Marines there is a chance they will be spooked, but if they run they can use their psycho-conditioning to marshal their fear and get back into the fight.

The proliferation of fearless and like abilities throughout the armies is the problem, not the Fear mechanic itself, but at the risk of contradicting myself, I would say Terror should be introduced, much like in Fantasy. Sure, a daemon should cause fear. But a Hive Tyrant that's "20' of roaring gribble smashing muscle" is a damn sight scarier than a lowly daemon.

This means that fearless troops can still run around with relative impunity, but when the truly horrific creatures that paralyse a regular man/woman with pants-ruining terror come along, there is nothing but the strongest resolve to help. A regular commissar would flee from this, a Lord Commissar or a Chaplain, however would be able to galvanise their troops' resolve and stand a chance, though if they fail the consequences should be dire. Either they flee or their WS drops as they give up all hope.

It was easier two editions ago when fear didn't exist at all. We didn't worry about it not having an effect on the game because it wasn't in the game

[Tomgar]

Totally agree, ATSKNF and Fearless are so ubiquitous that they've rendered fear into nothing more than a useless points tax that you have to pay for models who happen to have the rule.

Fearless should be *much* rarer and ATSKNF should be totally overhauled too. As a Dark Eldar player, it's kind of annoying that whole swathes of wargear are made totally pointless because of ATSKNF being on half the armies in the game. I'd happily see that rule just straight up removed from the game tbh, I find it incredibly OP. Like, how is it fair that my 10 man Tactical Squad gets butchered down to 3 men by my buddy's Orks, only for me to run, auto-rally and waste half his Boyz mob with the flamer he didn't manage to kill?

My favourite part of playing Horus Heresy is that morale actually matters and it's glorious. It feels like 40k as it should be.

[Desert Rat]

I believe that pinning weapons should ignore fear, atsknf. Not having fear and being cautious are two different things. Combined arms forces would work better together this way. E.g. IG snipers kill a few marines, force them to hunker down a second (snipers should be a minus one to leadership) so the ogryn can as salt them and get bonuses to the assault. Ordinance, mortars and snipers would then have more affect overall instead of just killing units.

[Halollet]

I'm with lord Manton, I really like the idea of terror being added. It acting just like fear with penalties to checks while Atsknf reduces those penalties and fearless has a bonus to the check.

Nids would love their MCs to cause terror and the hive tyrant's indescribable horror ability would be amazing! One of my flyrants has the maw claws so it has mouths instead of claws. And it has to eat to gain bonuses so can you imagine fighting something that's looking at your while one of its arms devourers one of your comrades alive? I'm sorry, but that's a leadership check for something even on a spacemarine.

[Fueldrop]

I recently noticed something: ATSKNF does absolutely nothing against pinning.

This'd be great... if it weren't for the fact that most sources of pinning have vanished. Sniper? Not pinning. Actually, flipping through the BRB I only found psyker powers and one warlord trait with pinning. Not exactly wide spread.

[Alaric]

Id just invent some modifiers. Easier than inventing whole new rules. An example: less than half Squad means morale checks at minus whatever.

There are existing ways to modify leaderships to be beneficial to fear using armies but people rarely take them.

[Charon]

There are existing ways to modify leaderships to be beneficial to fear using armies but people rarely take them.

Because it does not matter.
I can reduce a space marines ld by -7 (so he sticks with ld 1) and he still is immune to fear and will regroup automatically/can't be routed.