40k Overwatch rules

[grantix89]

Hi all,

So I am new to BoLS but I thought I would ask you all a question.

I have played 40k through many editions (although kind of skipped 5th as life got in the way) and as such I often forget the overwatch rule.

No I am tempted to ignore it altgother as personally it seems to make assault units more playable and me and my friend have had far better and more balanced battles by ignoring it, me using space marines and him using a variety of grey knights, blood angels and ravenwing.

What do you guys think? I just feel overwatch seems to nerf a lot of assault units and makes armies to focussed on shooting.

Your thoughts would be most welcome.

[Wolfshade]

Hello and welcome aboard.

I still continue to use mostly assault orientated armies. What it does do, is focus you to think hard about whether or not it is worth assaulting a unit.
Fortunatley my mate who plays IG with blobs, seems unable to roll 6s...

[Mr Mystery]

Don't drop it.

Despite reports, it's not game breaking!

[Calam]

I agree, it's not game breaking and I'd say use it to see.
I've only seen it be devastating twice.
First was a unit of Assault marines that charged my 10 man strong Wraithgaurd unit that was armed with d-scythes (I rolled 25 hits for their wall of death).
Second was in a planetstrike game, I think it was 4 tau units that got to open up on the remnants of my ork mob that had 12 left when they declared the charge, poor orks I never even to to roll the dice to see if they would have made the charge.

Most of the time the unit you're charging doesn't even score a hit.

[grantix89]

Thanks for the input. Just for your information I haven't dropped it because of anything I have seen or heard on the olde interwebs (mainly because I only really started playing again in the past year or so so probably missed all the flak when overwatch rules came out).

I will have a think about it. I just think shooting armies have enough advantages in this rule system and because it is a relatively minor rule that doesn't affect anything else in the game I feel dropping it is beneficial compared to keeping it.

Again thanks for the input.

[grantix89]

I do however agree its not game breaking. Just feels ever so slightly more balanced to me.

[Wolfshade]

You start to do cunning things, like charge walkers into squads first so that they take all the overwatch fire, hopefully, the majority (if not all) of the squad cannot damage it, then assult with foot troops. As enemy squad is already engaged it cannot over watch at the squad it can injure

[Defenestratus]

Its pretty easy to mitigate. Assault with a single model "unit" first. If they don't overwatch that unit, then they can't shoot at the other units assaulting the unit since they're already in combat.

[Mr Mystery]

Though I expect that to be tidied up in future.

In Warhammer, all charges are declared, and then your opponent chooses his reactions.

Reckon we might see that in 40k 7th Ed

[Arkhan Land]

crazy crazy idea but maybe elites army choices can use old school overwatch, do nothing in friendly turn, shoot at full BS during opponent's, after charges have been declared but before targets react