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 Peregrine wrote:

 Luke_Prowler wrote:
even tau hit marines on a 4+.

Which is only a very small part of it. They hit on a 4+, but they only wound on a 5+ and have nothing to ignore the 5+ armor saves. The marines hit on a 3+, wound on a 3+, only face a 4+ save, and can take power weapons that ignore saves entirely. Then, once the marines win the combat, they're likely to make the Tau fall back and likely to turn that attempt at running into a sweeping advance that wipes out the entire unit. The Tau, should they by some miracle win, have a much smaller chance of forcing the marines to run and can not kill the unit with a sweeping advance. And that's just tactical marines, a shooting unit that is vaguely capable of melee combat. If you're talking about actual assault units the Tau get wiped off the table effortlessly. In fact, the biggest challenge is making sure you don't kill the Tau too quickly since being locked in combat during their shooting phase is the safest place to be.

This of course is the problem with turn 1 charges: on turn 1 a lot of your army simply disappears, most of the assault units are locked in combat during your turn so you can't do anything about them, then on the following turn they charge the rest of your army and repeat the process. The game is effectively over before you get a turn if you don't win the roll to go first and then roll well with your own attacks. Shooting armies (with the exception of a handful of overpowered units) can't do this on a table with a proper amount of terrain.

So your 300pt amazing elites killed a 100pt meltavet squad, big whoop, and you will probably lose a guy from overwatch on top of it.

And then it killed another 100 point unit in exchange for one overwatch loss, then another 100 point unit, and so on. Or maybe this isn't a world in which 100 point melta vet squads are the only unit on the table, and the 300-point assault unit eats a 500 point LRBT squadron. Or maybe this is a world in which scoring objectives matters, and the 300 point unit wipes out the melta vet squad then locks down the nearby objective with a "come within range to score and you die" bubble (using LOS-blocking terrain to avoid being sniped from a distance).

Then of course there's the question of how things work in return. If you want to kill a 100 point assault unit in one turn you're probably going to have to spend something like 300 points to do it. The issue is not melee vs. shooting, it's that killing a unit in a single turn usually requires spending more than that unit's point cost to do it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kojiro wrote:
I think 40k could learn something from games where you cannot (or very rarely) interact meaningfully with your opponent first turn.

IMO this doesn't really help much, since it makes the first turn a wasted turn that isn't very interesting. The way to fix the alpha strike problem is to remove the combos that allow turn 1 charges and play with sufficient terrain to prevent shooting alpha strikes from dominating. If there's a proper amount of terrain on the table even shooting-heavy armies aren't going to do all that much damage unless you make stupid deployment choices. Spots with no LOS are available, and most of the units that are exposed to LOS should be able to get cover saves. The shooting army will have to move up to get clear shots around the terrain if they want to counter your defensive positions, which won't happen until later in the game. But there's still interaction on turn 1 and pressure to care about denying shots instead of being able to sit out in the open without fearing your opponent's 12" threat range.

Your problem is that you're still playing a game where having more of the biggest guns wins the day.
You just stated for yourself the biggest weaknesses of melee units - the safest place for them to be is locked in combat, their biggest danger is ending that combat on their owner's turn.
Use the terrain to your advantage and screen your big guns with cheap units.
Fitting as many big guns in your list as possible is now creating a TWC chew toy list, now you have to balance big guns against tactical blocking.

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:

Any army relying on getting a 1/6 result consistently for its strategy to work will lose 5/6 of the time. Simple math.

As a Cult player, there is a lot you can do too make the it more likely. You get 2 rolls on the warlord table looking to get that 6, the Subterranean assault units (powerful melee units all) get 2 dice each, any unit with a Primus (any primus, I take one in formation and one out of formation to give me two units with this bonus) gets to roll 3. First turn assaults isn't a possibility, it's a fact against GSC, it's only a question of do I get first turn to charge without counter play and what exact units get to charge.

And I've been put off Cult a little bit now, because 80% of my games are decided turn 1. Either they can handle my assault and I actually get a game, or they can't and they loose and they get upset and don't want to play anymore. Game design wise, I prefer my Run and Charge Harlequins. It feels like more of a game, where positioning and a good psychic phase gives my opponent more counter play. Winning turn 1 isn't fun, for the winner or the loser, at least in my opinion.

This sounds like my experience playing vs cult. 2 games played, techinically only 0-1 because we didnt finish the second game in which i was dominating by model count anyway but the store closed. He crushed me when going first, when i did, another story. Great opponent and great guy, but i kinda of loathe the idea of playing them again, atleast anytime soon. There are many problems with the game from a shooting standpoint, but i flat out hate game design that lets any kind of turn 1 charge.

 Orock wrote:
Army lists USED to make you think about what to put into them.

I missed 6th, but 5th wasn't significantly different from 7th in terms of list building complexity or variety of units used. My mech Wolves and DEldar weren't significantly more difficult to build than my Genestealer Cults - but they were both a lot easier to play.

As a typical alpha strike GSC list, what do you do when you plop down for your "competative" game and the other guy brings 5 knights.

Play the way I normally do against shooty low-model-count armies - grind him down in close combat and run circles around him everywhere else. Maybe I alpha strike, if there's a Knight hanging out somewhere and I can take it out quickly, maybe I don't. Either way 5 Knights aren't a hard counter to 140+ Genestealer Cultists. The fact you think they are tells me something about your knowledge of this army and further makes me suspect you've never played with or against it.

You still haven't explained where I get rerolls on my Cult Ambush from either.

Spoiler alert: Spoilering the rest of this reply because it's a long one and nobody wants to read that gak.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
The problem is that the way formations, detachments, and army books are set up even a competent all-comers army is going to be fine against 70-80% of lists, utterly demolish 10-15% of lists because you're approaching squarely out of their blind spot, and get steamrolled without effort by the remaining 10-15% of lists [snip]

I want to see the hard counter for Riptide Wing armies, Gladius freebies and Scatbike Eldar. I honestly don't think there's a hard counter for MSU Morph Genestealer Cults armies either. EWO Tau come quite close, but even they're beatable. It's a tought-ass game - but it's supposed to be a tough-ass game. It's not supposed to be easy.

I don't have the information to discuss the GSC in great depth since I haven't seen them on the table and I don't know their book all that well. From what I have read I'd expect summon-happy Daemons, armies with access to cheap/widespread template weapons, armies with lots of flying targets, Drop Pods, Superheavies, and people who are fast enough to evade melee to present difficulty, but without seeing more games that's a list of where I'd look to find the GSC's counters, not a list of what they are.

"To present difficulty" is not the same as "hard counter", is it? There are plenty of things that cause problems for my GSC, but there's very little that shuts down my army to the extent that I might as well not bother deploying.

Things that make winning difficult are not "hard counters". Winning isn't supposed to be easy.

When 120+ shots a turn are hitting on 6s, wounding on 4s-6s [etc etc]

It's the math-hammer again.

Here's the thing about numerical analysis models; they have to take everything into account to be worth anything. A (trivial) numerical analysis of wounds caused and taken doesn't do that. It ignores so much of the rest of the game that I find it difficult to take it seriously as a tool for army analysis. It's useful for unit selection, sure, but beyond that I think you're stretching it to places where its limitations make it inappropriate. You can't account for the lack of killiness inherent in an army that relies on psychic dice for both shooting and buffing - you can't land monsters unless they're Invisible, because if you do, the monster will die. How are you going to find the dice to shoot my army off the table once you start targetting Warp Spiders, and they start jumping out of range oir LoS? How do you account for stuff that whiffs? In an army with a low model count every whiff hurts - but the model doesn't take account of it. Can't take account of it. Can only give you a picture of how your army will perform on average. Sure, the Eldar will only land, what, 3.3 wounds a turn on average - but what happens if they land 5 on Kairos turn one? How much does it hurt if they only manage to land 1 or 0 wounds in any given turn?

Also can we stop referring to the army as "Scatbike Eldar"? The successful lists are all built around Warp Spiders rather than Scatbikes.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Dismissive 'smallest fiddle' comments aside I'm actually with Martel on this one (for once). How are turn one assaults any different from a heavily optimized gunline wiping most of your army on turn one?

Well for one unless said gunline ignores LOS requirements it's easier to protect your army from shooting than many of the first turn charges. Unless board is something idiotic like open plain.

 BBAP wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
The problem is that the way formations, detachments, and army books are set up even a competent all-comers army is going to be fine against 70-80% of lists, utterly demolish 10-15% of lists because you're approaching squarely out of their blind spot, and get steamrolled without effort by the remaining 10-15% of lists [snip]

I want to see the hard counter for Riptide Wing armies, Gladius freebies and Scatbike Eldar. I honestly don't think there's a hard counter for MSU Morph Genestealer Cults armies either. EWO Tau come quite close, but even they're beatable. It's a tought-ass game - but it's supposed to be a tough-ass game. It's not supposed to be easy.

I suspect the worst-case scenario for a tournament Eldar list is either Guard/SM (barrage weapons for the bikes/Warp Spiders, grav-weapons for the Wraithknight) or a Daemon flying-circus shenanigans list. For Gladius freebies you're either going to need to be playing enough bodies that the pods don't get you or enough S7 to point and laugh at Rhinos/Razorbacks; the quick answer is probably a Warpflame Host, with the added benefit of laughing in the face of grav-weapons with all Sv - models. As to the Riptide Wing you're looking for the traditional Loth/Draigo/Grav-Cents deathstar; it's invisible, packs as many grav-weapons as you want, teleports wherever it needs to be, and if it gets bored with shooting you Draigo's coming in with S7/AP2/ID attacks at I5. Barring that Daemon Prince Invul shenanigans to make it to melee would also do the trick.

Trying to find a hard-counter for MSU GSC I'd look in the Guard book (for cheap-as-dirt flamers, torrent flamers off the Hellhound and variants, and the ability to bubble-wrap anything important in irrelevant bodies) or the Daemons book (summoning for speedbumps, flying witchfires to do killing, and enough psychic dice to swamp the Magi). Yet again I don't have any live experience with them, so this is speculation.

I don't have the information to discuss the GSC in great depth since I haven't seen them on the table and I don't know their book all that well. From what I have read I'd expect summon-happy Daemons, armies with access to cheap/widespread template weapons, armies with lots of flying targets, Drop Pods, Superheavies, and people who are fast enough to evade melee to present difficulty, but without seeing more games that's a list of where I'd look to find the GSC's counters, not a list of what they are.

"To present difficulty" is not the same as "hard counter", is it? There are plenty of things that cause problems for my GSC, but there's very little that shuts down my army to the extent that I might as well not bother deploying.

Things that make winning difficult are not "hard counters". Winning isn't supposed to be easy.

For the third time. I don't know what the hard-counter to the Genestealer Cult book is because I haven't got the playtime with it. All I can tell you from here is where I'd start looking for one.

When 120+ shots a turn are hitting on 6s, wounding on 4s-6s [etc etc]

It's the math-hammer again.

Here's the thing about numerical analysis models; they have to take everything into account to be worth anything. A (trivial) numerical analysis of wounds caused and taken doesn't do that. It ignores so much of the rest of the game that I find it difficult to take it seriously as a tool for army analysis. It's useful for unit selection, sure, but beyond that I think you're stretching it to places where its limitations make it inappropriate. You can't account for the lack of killiness inherent in an army that relies on psychic dice for both shooting and buffing - you can't land monsters unless they're Invisible, because if you do, the monster will die. How are you going to find the dice to shoot my army off the table once you start targetting Warp Spiders, and they start jumping out of range oir LoS? How do you account for stuff that whiffs? In an army with a low model count every whiff hurts - but the model doesn't take account of it. Can't take account of it. Can only give you a picture of how your army will perform on average. Sure, the Eldar will only land, what, 3.3 wounds a turn on average - but what happens if they land 5 on Kairos turn one? How much does it hurt if they only manage to land 1 or 0 wounds in any given turn?

Also can we stop referring to the army as "Scatbike Eldar"? The successful lists are all built around Warp Spiders rather than Scatbikes.

The mathhammer is here because we can sling anecdotal evidence back and forth all night without getting anywhere.

Planning for or designing around edge-case scenarios is pretty meaningless. You can land five wounds on Kairos on turn one. It is physically possible. It is also physically possible to shoot thirty scatterbikes at Kairos for six turns without touching him. Which case do you want to use to argue for how scatterbikes should be designed? Are they broken because they can theoretically remove anything in the game (unless it has a flare shield or is under the effects of Veil of Tears) in a turn? Are they weak because they can theoretically do nothing over the course of an entire game? What did those thirty scatterbikes do to Kairos that three terrified Conscripts in rapid-fire range couldn't theoretically do?

I talk about 'scatterbike Eldar' because I have more play experience of them than of Warp Spiders, because the name is catchier, and because people whine at me more about them. If you'd rather talk about Warp Spiders we can do that too, most of this discussion doesn't change.

Just personal observations here but in theory if you are truely interested in making a take all comers generalist, its actually very difficult. To do it right you actually have to a great deal of what the meta is like and build enough approriate counters or a stragety of how to use what you have to maximize your ability to counter.

Taking a spam list and going mono strat is actually way easier as a list builder and general behind it.

Approriate bubblewrap msu is practically required in any tac list. You have to know which parts of your list is expendable and which are not. You incidentially also have to know the same of your enemy's. Usually this means the best general has to not just play his list well but ideally should know how to play their opponents list as well.

Long story short, i dont have enough experience with playing as gsc to know all their functions but this thread definately makes me want to try it (with proxy models) but very good read so far.

Playing such thing against a variety of lists will help tailor a true tac commander.

Tac doesnt mean fluff nor does it mean mastery of none. It would in fact have to reflect the opposite.
No list is uncounterable.

 Peregrine wrote:
IMO this doesn't really help much, since it makes the first turn a wasted turn that isn't very interesting.

I don't follow. You can still move and reposition, still do some extreme range attacks/interactions and- should the game support it- allocate resources/prepare for upcoming turns. Only in a game where movement isn't necessary and there's nothing to do but inflict casualties does such a turn lack merit. I'm speaking more generally here though, not exclusively of 40k, as alpha strikes are a plague on all games. The core element of any game is interaction with your opponent- something alpha strikes attempt to minimise as much as possible.

tneva82 wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Dismissive 'smallest fiddle' comments aside I'm actually with Martel on this one (for once). How are turn one assaults any different from a heavily optimized gunline wiping most of your army on turn one?

Well for one unless said gunline ignores LOS requirements it's easier to protect your army from shooting than many of the first turn charges. Unless board is something idiotic like open plain.

Generally if you can't see through it or over it terrain is considered "Impassable Terrain" so it has to be travelled around, slowing the charges every bit as much as blocking LOS. On top of that, if you can't draw LOS you can't charge anyway.

 BBAP wrote:

 Orock wrote:
Army lists USED to make you think about what to put into them.

I missed 6th, but 5th wasn't significantly different from 7th in terms of list building complexity or variety of units used. My mech Wolves and DEldar weren't significantly more difficult to build than my Genestealer Cults - but they were both a lot easier to play.

As a typical alpha strike GSC list, what do you do when you plop down for your "competative" game and the other guy brings 5 knights.

Play the way I normally do against shooty low-model-count armies - grind him down in close combat and run circles around him everywhere else. Maybe I alpha strike, if there's a Knight hanging out somewhere and I can take it out quickly, maybe I don't. Either way 5 Knights aren't a hard counter to 140+ Genestealer Cultists. The fact you think they are tells me something about your knowledge of this army and further makes me suspect you've never played with or against it.

You still haven't explained where I get rerolls on my Cult Ambush from either.

Spoiler alert: Spoilering the rest of this reply because it's a long one and nobody wants to read that gak.

Spoiler:

You go on to say you play for beer and pretzels, and competition. Those are two completely different play styles.

I meant literal beer and pretzels during meaningful competition, but you raise a point here. If you want casual, play casual. If you want competitive, accept that will ask certain things of you over and above just turning up on game night. Nothing wrong with either. Plenty wrong with whining.

You say you play for the models, but if all thats left effective is flyrant spam, knight spam, fotm spam, where is your model enjoyment then.

Same place it was when I bought my Wolves in 5th Edition; building, buying, painting and fielding a decent army, then using it to whup people - or getting whupped, figuring out why, and coming back for another shot next week.

You cant tell me you dont enjoy seeing a diverse ork list across the board for example, with fun conversions all around. In the game you profess to prefer, these dont exist, as they are non competative.

If the Ork army looks like gak and is filled with half-assed "conversions" then I'd much rather play a beautifully-painted Riptide Wing spam Tau army every day forever.

Your idea of balanced army building is funny, because you say adjust to the tactics. Tell me, how do you build a balanced army for a tournament where your opponents are as follows: all knights, followed by demon flying circus, followed by heavy ranged tau, then heavy turn one assault oriented GSC, then mabye space marine gladius for fun. All skew lists, you build to stop one or two, the other 3 eat you alive.

Don't build a "skew" list then, whatever the hell that means. Don't spam one unit unless that unit is somehow effective against everything.

And dont use citation needed. That is the fallback I cant think of any good retort

You want me to elaborate? Okay:

Your claim was that diversity is the reason 40k became popular. You failed to specify what "diversity" meant, so I have to assume it was some nebulous assertion about unit and model types. Leaving aside that ambiguity, you made a truth claim that is not supported by any evidence that I can see, and is contravened by the fact people can run events catering to the competitive player and make money doing so. I'd like you to substantiate your claim in light of this.

tl:dr - Citation needed.

My counter-claim is that there are as many reasons to play 40k as there are people who play 40k, and trying to single out any one as The One True Reason is fatuous, especially so if you have no data to substantiate such a claim.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
The problem is that the way formations, detachments, and army books are set up even a competent all-comers army is going to be fine against 70-80% of lists, utterly demolish 10-15% of lists because you're approaching squarely out of their blind spot, and get steamrolled without effort by the remaining 10-15% of lists [snip]

I want to see the hard counter for Riptide Wing armies, Gladius freebies and Scatbike Eldar. I honestly don't think there's a hard counter for MSU Morph Genestealer Cults armies either. EWO Tau come quite close, but even they're beatable. It's a tought-ass game - but it's supposed to be a tough-ass game. It's not supposed to be easy.

I don't have the information to discuss the GSC in great depth since I haven't seen them on the table and I don't know their book all that well. From what I have read I'd expect summon-happy Daemons, armies with access to cheap/widespread template weapons, armies with lots of flying targets, Drop Pods, Superheavies, and people who are fast enough to evade melee to present difficulty, but without seeing more games that's a list of where I'd look to find the GSC's counters, not a list of what they are.

"To present difficulty" is not the same as "hard counter", is it? There are plenty of things that cause problems for my GSC, but there's very little that shuts down my army to the extent that I might as well not bother deploying.

Things that make winning difficult are not "hard counters". Winning isn't supposed to be easy.

When 120+ shots a turn are hitting on 6s, wounding on 4s-6s [etc etc]

It's the math-hammer again.

Here's the thing about numerical analysis models; they have to take everything into account to be worth anything. A (trivial) numerical analysis of wounds caused and taken doesn't do that. It ignores so much of the rest of the game that I find it difficult to take it seriously as a tool for army analysis. It's useful for unit selection, sure, but beyond that I think you're stretching it to places where its limitations make it inappropriate. You can't account for the lack of killiness inherent in an army that relies on psychic dice for both shooting and buffing - you can't land monsters unless they're Invisible, because if you do, the monster will die. How are you going to find the dice to shoot my army off the table once you start targetting Warp Spiders, and they start jumping out of range oir LoS? How do you account for stuff that whiffs? In an army with a low model count every whiff hurts - but the model doesn't take account of it. Can't take account of it. Can only give you a picture of how your army will perform on average. Sure, the Eldar will only land, what, 3.3 wounds a turn on average - but what happens if they land 5 on Kairos turn one? How much does it hurt if they only manage to land 1 or 0 wounds in any given turn?

Also can we stop referring to the army as "Scatbike Eldar"? The successful lists are all built around Warp Spiders rather than Scatbikes.

140 genestealer cultists was not the original complaint, but the 20 genestealer with broodlord formation, and the other formation that gives each MSU 2 dice for their infiltrate attempt. Sorry If I confused you about the reroll, re read what I had wrote and meant to say re roll on the sieze, the infiltrating part wasent rerolled, mearly the chances for favorable outcomes increased with extra dice. And against that all eggs in one basket type of alpha strike list (the kind I am claiming further kills diversity in this game) 5 knights would punish it, as more points are tied up in expensive models than your example.

I dont believe, and this is backed up by "what drew you to start playing tabletop 40k/fantasy" surveys on this and other fan sites, that the majority of people would be happy seeing the same 4 or 5 models for each army every game. Mabye that is adequate for your tastes, but many would disagree. And if you believe there is some other draw to this game that supersedes the cool aspect of the models and concept of them being a playable game, I am all ears. If you would like, I can start another survey in a seperate thread, asking a list of things that possibly drew players to 40k. I think you will find, as cited before, the majority, being at least 51 precent of answers, would answer the cool model range, Not one specific model that made them play alone, but a range of cool combinations, ala diversity.


"If the Ork army looks like gak and is filled with half-assed "conversions" then I'd much rather play a beautifully-painted Riptide Wing spam Tau army every day forever." You dont have to address every point if you dont want. I think you know the chances of the opposite if what you wrote here are far more likely an outcome. You yourself said you collect and model and paint your mineatures as part of your passion. I dont think you would argue people are collecting orks these days to be competative go for the throat, where the army you express here you would rather play against has ....lets say better odds of being the grey legion color scheme.


"Here's the thing about numerical analysis models; they have to take everything into account to be worth anything." Not my point made, but this is false. If you are deciding actions, math plays a huge part in the correct ones. Not every variable has to be taken into account for a "good enough" result. Take for example 4 terminators sitting on a winning objective. You have 3 squads of marines left. One squad absolutley has to stay in range of your own objective, but for the win you have to shoot them off the objective. They are still in range, but just barely. So one shot each. The other 2 squads have a plasma gun each. So you begin your shooting. You check again to discover that one of the terminators had a TH/SS combo, reducing your chances to remove them with plasma. Assuming 48 bolter shots, and 4 plasma shots you get 36 bolter hits and 3 plasma hits or so on average. the bolters should wound 18 times, the plasma 2-3. Assuming you have your opponent take the bolter wounds first, odds say 3 terminators should die, then with the plasma left, and a 5+ odds say the other terminator is still dead. If you DID not realize there was a storm shield, and told him to take the plasma wounds first, he would absorb 2 of the 3 on average, die, and the others still die to bolter rounds, again on average. Either way that is very close, and you would probably divert more attention if possible to that squad, to shoot for better results. Even if you read your enemies list, odds are there will be something in the game you cant anticipate, numerical analysis with incomplete information does not become worthless then, its still gives the best path.

 Orock wrote:
Turn one charges were always a terrible rule. They invalidated many armies right away, really cutting down on the fun variety you could come across.

Now you see things like genestealer cults with MSU units and magus, running formations for 2 dice to go for that 6 on infiltrate, and the broodlord and 20 genestealer group. THEN you also have people allying coteaz in a corner by himself, just for rerolls for turn one steal, or to force a turn one steal reroll. Rolling on strategy for warlord trait to get +1 to sieze. Right away, with a list like this, you eliminate a ton of things. Non tank heavy guard lists get absolutley pooped on. Seen a top of turn one concede after there was only 15 models left on the board TOP OF TURN ONE. You cannot yourself infiltrate any units, so I hope you did not have your own, because you have to stay 18 inches away, where they can be as close as 3. If they deploy their large blob of genestealers first, theres no ROOM left on the board where you can be 18 inches away, sometimes not even in your own deployment zone.

In the past people complained about things like space wolf scouts charging from the enemies deployment zone unable to be stopped. Even space marine gladius strike force can cripple the enemy army when built right, with devastating turn one abilities.

Should games be all but decided on the top of turn one? Because there are games like these where you are guaranteed to lose or win, and its the poorest of poor game design.

Is just another example of GW establishing design limitations, and then ignore them because
1) "LOL we changed our mind"
2) "Well, those models will not sell themselves"
3) "D-hurr... these three rules combined had unintended consequences..."

This design team will run 40k to the ground like what happened to WHFB.

 Orock wrote:
Turn one charges were always a terrible rule. They invalidated many armies right away, really cutting down on the fun variety you could come across.

Now you see things like genestealer cults with MSU units and magus, running formations for 2 dice to go for that 6 on infiltrate, and the broodlord and 20 genestealer group. THEN you also have people allying coteaz in a corner by himself, just for rerolls for turn one steal, or to force a turn one steal reroll. Rolling on strategy for warlord trait to get +1 to sieze. Right away, with a list like this, you eliminate a ton of things. Non tank heavy guard lists get absolutley pooped on. Seen a top of turn one concede after there was only 15 models left on the board TOP OF TURN ONE. You cannot yourself infiltrate any units, so I hope you did not have your own, because you have to stay 18 inches away, where they can be as close as 3. If they deploy their large blob of genestealers first, theres no ROOM left on the board where you can be 18 inches away, sometimes not even in your own deployment zone.

In the past people complained about things like space wolf scouts charging from the enemies deployment zone unable to be stopped. Even space marine gladius strike force can cripple the enemy army when built right, with devastating turn one abilities.

Should games be all but decided on the top of turn one? Because there are games like these where you are guaranteed to lose or win, and its the poorest of poor game design.

Agreed, close combat definitively needs a boost in 7th ed., but turn 1 charge and making super units who basically destroy everything they touch in c.c. like the Wulfen is definitively not the approach to take to solve the problem. It only makes for boring and frustrating gaming experience.

Mr. CyberPunk wrote:

Agreed, close combat definitively needs a boost in 7th ed., but turn 1 charge and making super units who basically destroy everything they touch in c.c. like the Wulfen is definitively not the approach to take to solve the problem. It only makes for boring and frustrating gaming experience.

They have not sense of scale. Shooting either is useless or blows everything out of the table. CC units either are shots to bits or are so fast, or assault after deepstrike, that you cannot really counter anything and you have to hope about the random of the charge roll, or of the DS roll.

Is as if they purportedly design the game to remove as much as player agency as possible. I cannot understand if this is by design and they are just the least fun designer that ever infested a game, or they are genuinely and naively incompetent.

Marmatag wrote:I do find it funny that people are upset with the shooty nature of this game. I mean, when we decided to start playing, it was under the expectation that a game set 40,000 years in the future would be focused very heavily on shooting, not punching.

In terms of the setting, part of the fun of 40k is that armies with weapons strong enough to wipe out planets are still fighting with swords and shields. Chainswords and powerfist are as much a part of it as laser guns and spaceships. Can't speak for the current fluff, but 40k was always more fantasy in space than sci-fi.

In terms of the game itself, assault armies have been historically strong throughout previous editions. 3rd ed. is a particular standout, because the amount of damage a unit could inflict through shooting pales in comparison to the damage that could be done in close combat. Your mileage may vary depending on your local meta and what edition you started playing, but from my point of view the jedi are evil it's odd that the game is now so heavily focused on shooting to the exclusion of traditional assault armies.

Peregrine wrote:
IMO this doesn't really help much, since it makes the first turn a wasted turn that isn't very interesting. The way to fix the alpha strike problem is to remove the combos that allow turn 1 charges and play with sufficient terrain to prevent shooting alpha strikes from dominating. If there's a proper amount of terrain on the table even shooting-heavy armies aren't going to do all that much damage unless you make stupid deployment choices. Spots with no LOS are available, and most of the units that are exposed to LOS should be able to get cover saves. The shooting army will have to move up to get clear shots around the terrain if they want to counter your defensive positions, which won't happen until later in the game. But there's still interaction on turn 1 and pressure to care about denying shots instead of being able to sit out in the open without fearing your opponent's 12" threat range.

There was very little action on turn 1 of a WHFB game, but what players decided to do on that turn often dictated the flow of the entire game. We've been playing quite a bit of 3rd ed. recently and while turn 1 is rarely explosive, it's more about setting up for following turns while using long range support to soften up priority targets. Positioning and allocation of resources are more meaningful when you can't always do stuff. I don't really see the issue in turn 1 not being very interesting if it facilitates the rest of the game being interesting.

I can see where you're coming from with using to terrain to mitigate turn 1 shooting shenanigans. The concern here would be that placing more terrain might be fine down the local games shop, providing there's enough terrain to go around, but what would you do at a tourney where you might not necessarily have a say on the terrain setup?

Well, I'm not in your boat.
The 7th edition is a shooty one. Everybody has agreed on this. Proves are given by Eldar, Tau, and whatnot.
Now we see several capable alpha strike armies that can take on the enemy in turn 1.
I think this brings some new challenges to the game. Be open to deal with it.

Waaaghpower wrote:
So yeah, the 'Coteaz for everyone' thing is a bit obnoxious, but I really don't see anything else here that is new. There've been ways to get first-turn charges since 5th edition. It got *harder* in 6th, but it was always possible. (If nothing else, Stormboyz had an effective 30" threat radius if you had good dice, and that lasted until our 7th-ed codex.)

Not as obnoxious as "Coteaz only for the good human-type guys".


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 Orock wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
This is the smallest fiddle in the world playing for shooting lists in 7th ed. 1st turn charges are necessary when you are losing 1/3 of your list every shooting phase. Plus speed bump units, plus overwatch, plus no sweeping advance, plus failed charges. Yeah assault is just taking over.

You sound like those tau and eldar players that accuse you of being bad because you cant beat their wraithknight with your orks. Just because there are existing problems, does not mean new problems are forgiven because "stuffs boned anyway"

If you can't beat a WK with codex: S9AP2 on bikes, you probably aren't really good.


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 Orock wrote:

but you cant keep reserves, because this is what happens.

6 units assault what you DO have on the field, and table that. Now your turn comes around, you cant roll for reserves, and you are tabled. good game. Sure marines with drop pods can do it, but everyone else takes it in the shorts.

IF he can play Coteaz, you can have a bunch of Drop Pods.

 wuestenfux wrote:
Well, I'm not in your boat.
The 7th edition is a shooty one. Everybody has agreed on this. Proves are given by Eldar, Tau, and whatnot.
Now we see several capable alpha strike armies that can take on the enemy in turn 1.
I think this brings some new challenges to the game. Be open to deal with it.

Est modus in rebus.
There is a volume of fire that makes the game challenging, and THEN a volume of fire that makes the game frustrating for a not-top-tier army, unless you use an army with a resilience so stupid that makes playing against it a frustrating experience.

The same, there can be well designed and risky alpha strikes, OR a game with dumb counters that just force people to shuffle from one dumb combo to another, but in the end, we remain in a situation in which a game is still won or lost at the army building level.

In a well designed game, model placement should have a role in the way you answer to the enemy. BUT with these all-or-nothing formations, combos, and strong skewed list, this is not what happens; strong builds wipe the enemy, unless something as much as hard and skewed is on the table.

Worse, along with randumb, they remove more agency from the players beyond the list making, and make the game even less an interactive experience. Then people get surprised of why gamers switch to Videogames.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 BBAP wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
(brief detour: 'skew' is the concept of taking a single unit, strategy, weapon, or other element that is good enough to deal with almost everything you're going to see, and building narrowly-focused lists around it. Scatterbike/Wraithknight spam, the IK Codex, and the Gladius are all skew lists.).

I don't see a problem with this. Sure, spam for spam's sake is one of the best ways to ensure your army sucks, but what you're describing isn't that. Nothing wrong with building an army around a competent core, is there?

The problem is that the way formations, detachments, and army books are set up even a competent all-comers army is going to be fine against 70-80% of lists, utterly demolish 10-15% of lists because you're approaching squarely out of their blind spot, and get steamrolled without effort by the remaining 10-15% of lists because they happen to have your hard counter in reliable quantity. List-building should be important, but it shouldn't overwrite the rest of the game, and the fact that it can even in a few matchups is a problem.

Cult Ambush and the GSC book in general are the product of a design team that's (intentionally or not) pushing skew lists over generalist lists this edition (with formations/meta-detachments, miniature Codexes with built-in blindspots, and other synergistic benefits for taking lots of duplicates of the same thing).

Define "generalist". The only thing my GSC can't run down are Zooming/ Swooping Flyers, and even against those I have options - none of which include bringing crumby Allies that mess up my RttS cycle and potentially my psychic phase. The army has a very acute focus - close combat - but they're equipped to

I don't have the information to discuss the GSC in great depth since I haven't seen them on the table and I don't know their book all that well. From what I have read I'd expect summon-happy Daemons, armies with access to cheap/widespread template weapons, armies with lots of flying targets, Drop Pods, Superheavies, and people who are fast enough to evade melee to present difficulty, but without seeing more games that's a list of where I'd look to find the GSC's counters, not a list of what they are.

Skew lists can still do fine when plonked down against each other when neither one is hitting the other's blind spot, but when a list that you can't efficiently counter or just don't have the tools to counter shows up on the other side of the table you're going to get casually mangled and there's very little you can do about it. Scatterbikes/Wraithknights are very strong, but plonk a Chaos flying circus down opposite them and they'll get ground away by an army they're fundamentally not equipped to do anything to, no matter how hard they'll crush most opposing lists.

In what way do Scatbike Eldar not have the tools to deal with a Flying Circus? I know there's a more general principle here, but this specific example is a good illustration of what I don't understand about the stuff you're saying. Flying Circus armies have, like, 30 models in them, with perhaps 50-odd wounds. Scatbiker Eldar are pumping out 120+ shots a turn, and they have D weapons. I'm not seeing the "skew" here.

When 120+ shots a turn are hitting on 6s, wounding on 4s-6s (depending on whether you're shooting an FMC or a vehicle, and on what buffs are in place), and have to batter past Jink saves or Daemon Invul shenanigans to do anything they're worth less than you think. As for D-weapons Wraithknights may be good but 295pts for one hit every three turns that has to roll another '6' or risk getting shut down again by save shenanigans is far from an efficient use of them, Wraithguard have to catch said Flyer with their 6" movement and 12" range guns to do anything, and the rest are blast/templates and can't hit flyers.

As for the attacks coming the other way hellchickens get to RFP scatterbikes with almost no chance of failure, and there are plenty of psychic powers capable of slowly grinding down a Wraithknight over six turns of flying around in lazy circles watching it not do anything to you.

I don't think you know what a Scatbike army consists of.

You generally have two farseers, both of which would have guide in this case, and against this particular army might elect to get Perfect Timing and the Divination Guide.

That's combined with 2x10 scatbikes, or 80 rerollable shots.
+ 4x6 scatbikes, or 96 shots, of which 24 may be rerollable.

The toughest target to bring down would be the Heldrake, and against that you get 13 hits,67 rerolls, that's 24 hits total, 4 sixes, 8/3rds make it through the invul, 4 if he jinked but why o why ...

So basically, it's going to take a few more jetbikes to take that one down ... etc.


But.

Assuming you are playing Maelstrom, the Eldar will have at least two days of free Objectives, and I don't see you denying the WraithKnight anything while it goes to destroy your few ground forces.

And then, Mysterious Objectives, of which there are six, sometimes are Skyfire Nexuses.

Find one of them on the map, and your air superiority suddenly is entirely pointless.



Plus, you're rocking a list that sucks balls and is 100% against Eldar only.

Off the top of my head, I can think of 3 solutions to 1rst turn charges - MSU build, mech up, or bubble wrap.

With an MSU build, you limit the amount of damage your opponent can do by spreading your points out. So, you can lose some units turn 1, and still come out swinging. Against assault, this also helps ensure your opponent won't be able to hide from retaliation by staying locked in combat, because whatever they charge will likely get wiped out by the charge.

Meching up forces your opponent to peel your units out of their tracks. If they can't accomplish that with shooting, then they have to assault the tracks. They may kill the track, but that leaves them not locked in combat. If they don't kill the tracks, the tracks can likely just drive away, leaving the assaulting unit in the open and bunched up.

Bubble wrap protects your important units with a layer (or layers) of cheap expendable units whose purpose is to die to protect the important units.

Most codices have access to at least a couple of these solutions. With Allies, everyone has access to all of them.

These 1rst turn charge armies are relatively new, so some people are going to be caught off guard by them for a while. The first time one encounters one, some sour grapes are to be expected. After that, though, forewarned is forearmed. Adjust your lists. Adjust your deployment. It might take a few tries, but if the game system could absorb flyers and superheavies an still function, it can absorb first turn charge builds.

How, in three pages, has nobody mentioned the idea of a counter-assault unit/units? These 1st turn assaults may actually be a blessing for the game as more lists will be come more rounded with counter-asaault units rather than just being completely shooting focussed. Those Honour Guard or Assault Termis that needed a rediculously priced LR to reach assault in decent time before? Now they may have a point. Those Kroot who were always overlooked for MORE GUNS... now can play a roll. Those 'mediocre' Scorpions and Banshees that stayed on the shelf? Dust them off - they may become useful if the meta changes to accomadate the GSC/DC/WE/BL first turn charges.
Plus the aforementioned fortifications playing more of a roll.
You never know... this may bring variety to the guns mounted on guns mounted on guns approach that so many armies take these days.

And if you're Guard... well, poor you :-p (p.s. allies)

Poly Ranger wrote:
How, in three pages, has nobody mentioned the idea of a counter-assault unit/units?

Because the dedicated assault ones are designed by people with the mind of a 9 years old.

The wulfen have rules that basically say: "you outmaneuvered me and assaulted me with a unit with higher initiative? TOO BAD"

Fun that you bring the Howling Banshees into this.

I mean fun, if it wasn't so sad.

 Orock wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
This is the smallest fiddle in the world playing for shooting lists in 7th ed. 1st turn charges are necessary when you are losing 1/3 of your list every shooting phase. Plus speed bump units, plus overwatch, plus no sweeping advance, plus failed charges. Yeah assault is just taking over.

You sound like those tau and eldar players that accuse you of being bad because you cant beat their wraithknight with your orks. Just because there are existing problems, does not mean new problems are forgiven because "stuffs boned anyway"

Well I forgive them. Turn 1 assault is at least a new way to lose.

Haven't played vs GSC but khornate or DC 1-st turn assault is not that great as you can't choose targets. An opponent who knows what you can do will just stick a couple rhinos up front to wreck your assaulters afterwards.

AnomanderRake wrote:I suspect the worst-case scenario for a tournament Eldar list is

That wasn't the deal, Mancuso. Hard counters. Stuff that beats tournament Eldar without the need to play the game. As for "hard counters" relying on psychic powers, it's worth remembering that these armies, Tau, Taudar and Eldar, can also bring a Culexus Assassin.

Spoiler:

I don't have the information to discuss the GSC in great depth since I haven't seen them on the table and I don't know their book all that well. From what I have read I'd expect summon-happy Daemons, armies with access to cheap/widespread template weapons, armies with lots of flying targets, Drop Pods, Superheavies, and people who are fast enough to evade melee to present difficulty, but without seeing more games that's a list of where I'd look to find the GSC's counters, not a list of what they are.

"To present difficulty" is not the same as "hard counter", is it? There are plenty of things that cause problems for my GSC, but there's very little that shuts down my army to the extent that I might as well not bother deploying.

Things that make winning difficult are not "hard counters". Winning isn't supposed to be easy.

Can we all just agree that 40k is an awful mess of a game with zeron attention or care given to balance and functionality and that all sorts of stuff is horrifcally broken?

Yes, igougo alpha strike stuff can suck. Turn 1 charges also *really* suck. This game as a whole is really terrible *as a game*.

 Kaiyanwang wrote:

Poly Ranger wrote:
How, in three pages, has nobody mentioned the idea of a counter-assault unit/units?

Because the dedicated assault ones are designed by people with the mind of a 9 years old.

The wulfen have rules that basically say: "you outmaneuvered me and assaulted me with a unit with higher initiative? TOO BAD"

Fun that you bring the Howling Banshees into this.

I mean fun, if it wasn't so sad.

Wulfen are not Alpha Strike units.
They (luck permitting) give the extra movement to other units. Wulfen themselves never make melee before turn two and rarely make it before turn four.

If they made it turn 1 your opponent drop podded them in on their first turn and you charged them on yours (because why the hell not?).

 Vaktathi wrote:
Can we all just agree that 40k is an awful mess of a game with zeron attention or care given to balance and functionality and that all sorts of stuff is horrifcally broken?

Yes, igougo alpha strike stuff can suck. Turn 1 charges also *really* suck. This game as a whole is really terrible *as a game*.

No, because only a few codexs seem to be "the problem". Perhaps all armys should be squated besides CSM, orcs and D eldar because thats the only time GW can be bothered to write non-op rule sets.

Table wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Can we all just agree that 40k is an awful mess of a game with zeron attention or care given to balance and functionality and that all sorts of stuff is horrifcally broken?

Yes, igougo alpha strike stuff can suck. Turn 1 charges also *really* suck. This game as a whole is really terrible *as a game*.

No, because only a few codexs seem to be "the problem". Perhaps all armys should be squated besides CSM, orcs and D eldar because thats the only time GW can be bothered to write non-op rule sets.

Don't forget Blood Angels.

Table wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Can we all just agree that 40k is an awful mess of a game with zeron attention or care given to balance and functionality and that all sorts of stuff is horrifcally broken?

Yes, igougo alpha strike stuff can suck. Turn 1 charges also *really* suck. This game as a whole is really terrible *as a game*.

No, because only a few codexs seem to be "the problem". Perhaps all armys should be squated besides CSM, orcs and D eldar because thats the only time GW can be bothered to write non-op rule sets.

even within those there are major balance issues, the internal balance of at least the Ork and CSM books are awful

And with the Orks you have the exact opposite issue: Namely that its so underpowered that making a list can be very much an exercise in futility.

 Grand.Master.Raziel wrote:
Off the top of my head, I can think of 3 solutions to 1rst turn charges - MSU build, mech up, or bubble wrap.

With an MSU build, you limit the amount of damage your opponent can do by spreading your points out. So, you can lose some units turn 1, and still come out swinging. Against assault, this also helps ensure your opponent won't be able to hide from retaliation by staying locked in combat, because whatever they charge will likely get wiped out by the charge.

Meching up forces your opponent to peel your units out of their tracks. If they can't accomplish that with shooting, then they have to assault the tracks. They may kill the track, but that leaves them not locked in combat. If they don't kill the tracks, the tracks can likely just drive away, leaving the assaulting unit in the open and bunched up.

Bubble wrap protects your important units with a layer (or layers) of cheap expendable units whose purpose is to die to protect the important units.

Most codices have access to at least a couple of these solutions. With Allies, everyone has access to all of them.

These 1rst turn charge armies are relatively new, so some people are going to be caught off guard by them for a while. The first time one encounters one, some sour grapes are to be expected. After that, though, forewarned is forearmed. Adjust your lists. Adjust your deployment. It might take a few tries, but if the game system could absorb flyers and superheavies an still function, it can absorb first turn charge builds.

Like a Billion times this.


As a side note, some posters have mentioned other types of alpha strikes. As a marine player, I have a hard time being against the potential for first turn charges when I have access to full Drop Pod armies. Both can be completely devastating for an unaware opponent. There is another conversation to be had about limiting alpha striking capability overall, and on the whole I'm inclined to agree with that sentiment. I prefer longer "starts" to my battles. But "longer-start" games are still completely possible, with more terrain, clever reserves, or just like minded players agreeing by certain tenets. By themselves first-turn-charges are not the end of the world, and if they unseat some other annoying armies (like Big-robot Tau or re-rollable-jinking bikers) I'm all for it.

The wheel of warhammer continues to turn.


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 Vaktathi wrote:
Can we all just agree that 40k is an awful mess of a game with zeron attention or care given to balance and functionality and that all sorts of stuff is horrifcally broken?

No.