I cant figure out if they strengthened or weakened Melee combat

Nerfed.

-Multi charging is extremely difficult to do, and it nerfs furious charge and rage.
-5+ cover average means more effective shooting
-5+ fnp is a nerf that will effect some things
-Wound allocation is from the front
-Overwatch (not huge but still there, losing a marine or 2 can be a big deal)

Long story short, I kill you easier, and you lose inches when I shoot you.

In addition, while 2d6 may seem like an improvement, it's actually close to 1/3 chance of being worse than the old 6". Which means you can whiff a 4" charge in clear terrain. If you were relying on power weapons and such, your ability to kill terminators has also decreased. About the one thing that has improved is assaulting vehicles that have moved. They can't overwatch and get hit on 3+ regardless of how fast they went.

Ravenous D wrote:Nerfed.

-Multi charging is extremely difficult to do, and it nerfs furious charge and rage.
-5+ cover average means more effective shooting
-5+ fnp is a nerf that will effect some things
-Wound allocation is from the front
-Overwatch (not huge but still there, losing a marine or 2 can be a big deal)

Long story short, I kill you easier, and you lose inches when I shoot you.

Yeah furious charge was nerfed

I'm sorry but rage was Buffed! Rage doesn't send your units careening off after a kiting unit and you can move them as you will, oh and they have +2 on the charge now.
Feel no pain is not denied by power weapons anymore

You forget that 5+ cover is buffed by the fact that everything involves night missions now, so you have a 4+ chance to have +2 cover (that's 3++) at 24", at 36" they can't shoot you, and at 12" it's +1 to cover.

Wound allocation doesn't matter to most assault units. (Nobz and paladins are one of the few that heavily benefited from this)

Overwatch still grants you cover saves! That's interesting as it means that orks still benefit from this, same with Nids with Venomthropes! And of course a unit can only shoot ONCE at a charging unit, double charge an important unit with chaff, and he'll be forced to fire (and if he doesn't, he's locked in combat and cannot shoot another charging unit)

I'd say its about equal really, people only look at the specifics and not the whole picture.

Massively nerfed.

With the combinations of shooting buffs, straight up melee nerfs, and other external factors like the new deployments and such, I really can't think of a reason to play an assault-based army anymore.

ZebioLizard2 wrote:I'm sorry but rage was Buffed! Rage doesn't send your units careening off after a kiting unit and you can move them as you will, oh and they have +2 on the charge now.

I can see people not starting Hormagaunts in synapse range now. It's a good thing now if they fail their instinctive behaviour test. You can still control them, and they get +2 attacks on the charge. In a big enough squad, you won't need to worry too much about breaking either, since they'll need to kill a huge amount to do it. Stick a Venomthrope near them to give them a 5+ cover save all the time, and you have a little nightmare.

Fafnir wrote:Massively nerfed.

With the combinations of shooting buffs, straight up melee nerfs, and other external factors like the new deployments and such, I really can't think of a reason to play an assault-based army anymore.

You'll play an assault army because you like playing assault armies. Assault didn't get gutted, it got brought in line after being blatantly more powerful than shooting since sweeping advance was put into the game to simplify overrunning (barring leaf-blower IG).

Is it perfectly balanced now? I doubt it.
Will shooting be more effective than assault in this edition? Maybe.

However, any case it's just too soon to say. Come back in 3 months and make a new case if you still feel that assault-based armies aren't worth building and we'll discuss it with some perspective.

Talamare wrote:I cant figure out if they strengthened or weakened Melee combat

Yes, or no, whichever is the SKY IS FALLING response.

Let's give the new ruleset some time to sink in... please... before declaring the game has been broken?

Arandmoor wrote:

Fafnir wrote:Massively nerfed.

With the combinations of shooting buffs, straight up melee nerfs, and other external factors like the new deployments and such, I really can't think of a reason to play an assault-based army anymore.

You'll play an assault army because you like playing assault armies. Assault didn't get gutted, it got brought in line after being blatantly more powerful than shooting since sweeping advance was put into the game to simplify overrunning (barring leaf-blower IG).

It's funny, because all the top armies in 5th are shooting armies.

Fafnir wrote:

Arandmoor wrote:

Fafnir wrote:Massively nerfed.

With the combinations of shooting buffs, straight up melee nerfs, and other external factors like the new deployments and such, I really can't think of a reason to play an assault-based army anymore.

You'll play an assault army because you like playing assault armies. Assault didn't get gutted, it got brought in line after being blatantly more powerful than shooting since sweeping advance was put into the game to simplify overrunning (barring leaf-blower IG).

It's funny, because all the top armies in 5th are shooting armies.

Necrons. I'm biased.

But no, to be fair, shooting vehicles and massed template weapons have been strong. below the gimick shooty lists, shooting itself has been below assault in power because of sweeping advance. Unless you had access to massive templates in nigh-impregnable vehicles (which were too survivable in 5th) there generally wasn't much you could do to stop an assault army from running you down if you sacrificed melee power for shooting power.

Nothing the average player was able to figure out at least, and that's with the power of the internet to back him up.

Big templates were broken because vehicles were too difficult to kill in numbers.
Shooting was weak the rest of the time.
A single assault model could overpower any number of shooting models with hilarious results if the shooty unit's player failed a single roll at the wrong time.

Regardless, this is my opinion comming from an army that has, in general, completely lacked the gimicks that made the IG leaf-blower and las/plas spam successful. On top of that, it's too soon to tell how assault armies will fare. The book doesn't come out in NA for another hour *if* you happen to live in an area with a business holding a midnight release party (none here so more like 8-9 hours for me).

IMO, calling assault armies worthless is still 3 months premature.

Well, let's see:

Leafblower
Mechvets
Vendetta spam
Longfang spam
Razorspam
Purifier spam
Ravager/raider spam
Whatever the hell it is that necrons do... spam...

There were plenty of viable assault armies and options in 5th, but with contenders like the above, they were nowhere near the shooty stuff.

Fafnir wrote:Well, let's see:

Leafblower
Mechvets
Vendetta spam
Longfang spam
Razorspam
Purifier spam
Ravager/raider spam
Whatever the hell it is that necrons do... spam...

There were plenty of viable assault armies and options in 5th, but with contenders like the above, they were nowhere near the shooty stuff.

Damn...you beat my edit.

Want me to move it down for continuity?

Oh...and vehicles got the hard nerf in 6th too and are way easier to pop from the looks of things. This knocks your entire list down a few pegs.

-Loki- wrote:

ZebioLizard2 wrote:I'm sorry but rage was Buffed! Rage doesn't send your units careening off after a kiting unit and you can move them as you will, oh and they have +2 on the charge now.

I can see people not starting Hormagaunts in synapse range now. It's a good thing now if they fail their instinctive behaviour test. You can still control them, and they get +2 attacks on the charge. In a big enough squad, you won't need to worry too much about breaking either, since they'll need to kill a huge amount to do it. Stick a Venomthrope near them to give them a 5+ cover save all the time, and you have a little nightmare.

As a Tyranid player, I'm sure GW is gleefully awaiting a chance to beat us with their Next FAQ.

Sasori wrote:

-Loki- wrote:

ZebioLizard2 wrote:I'm sorry but rage was Buffed! Rage doesn't send your units careening off after a kiting unit and you can move them as you will, oh and they have +2 on the charge now.

I can see people not starting Hormagaunts in synapse range now. It's a good thing now if they fail their instinctive behaviour test. You can still control them, and they get +2 attacks on the charge. In a big enough squad, you won't need to worry too much about breaking either, since they'll need to kill a huge amount to do it. Stick a Venomthrope near them to give them a 5+ cover save all the time, and you have a little nightmare.

As a Tyranid player, I'm sure GW is gleefully awaiting a chance to beat us with their Next FAQ.

I think the FAQs are going to be interesting. It's like everything got reset almost.

Sasori wrote:

-Loki- wrote:

ZebioLizard2 wrote:I'm sorry but rage was Buffed! Rage doesn't send your units careening off after a kiting unit and you can move them as you will, oh and they have +2 on the charge now.

I can see people not starting Hormagaunts in synapse range now. It's a good thing now if they fail their instinctive behaviour test. You can still control them, and they get +2 attacks on the charge. In a big enough squad, you won't need to worry too much about breaking either, since they'll need to kill a huge amount to do it. Stick a Venomthrope near them to give them a 5+ cover save all the time, and you have a little nightmare.

As a Tyranid player, I'm sure GW is gleefully awaiting a chance to beat us with their Next FAQ.

To be fair, it's broken right now. There's meant to be a drawback to failing instinctive behaviour. At the moment, it's simply a benefit. My guess is they'll simply add 'and much move towards the closest unit' to the feed behaviour.

But then, there's no real benefit to being inside synapse right now either. Fearless on Tyranids is a drawback, since passing the saves simply doesn't happen.

Wow, what a black and white question. There are perks and negatives to CC. Rage rocks, Furious Charge being lost is really only bad for Marines (most other units with it tended to have higher initiative anyway), power weapons are all over the place and MC (especially the winged variety) are better. I'm running a bunch of winged Princes and GDs...and those certainly aren't ranged based. Go ahead...shoot me needing 6s...you don't have many tanks and I have saves. Along with Kairos for re-rolls. Oops...3 GDs of Khorne, Kairos, DP of Slaanesh, Couple PM units for Icons, Nurglings to fill up troops and round out the rest of 2500 in DPs. Let's dance.

-Loki- wrote:

Sasori wrote:

-Loki- wrote:

ZebioLizard2 wrote:I'm sorry but rage was Buffed! Rage doesn't send your units careening off after a kiting unit and you can move them as you will, oh and they have +2 on the charge now.

I can see people not starting Hormagaunts in synapse range now. It's a good thing now if they fail their instinctive behaviour test. You can still control them, and they get +2 attacks on the charge. In a big enough squad, you won't need to worry too much about breaking either, since they'll need to kill a huge amount to do it. Stick a Venomthrope near them to give them a 5+ cover save all the time, and you have a little nightmare.

As a Tyranid player, I'm sure GW is gleefully awaiting a chance to beat us with their Next FAQ.

To be fair, it's broken right now. There's meant to be a drawback to failing instinctive behaviour. At the moment, it's simply a benefit. My guess is they'll simply add 'and much move towards the closest unit' to the feed behaviour.

But then, there's no real benefit to being inside synapse right now either. Fearless on Tyranids is a drawback, since passing the saves simply doesn't happen.

Well, there are no more No retreat saves. Still, Synapse is still a stupid handicap.

Arandmoor wrote:Oh...and vehicles got the hard nerf in 6th too and are way easier to pop from the looks of things. This knocks your entire list down a few pegs.

I don't have my book to hand, but the changes to glancing make vehicles a bit more resilient. Sure, you can be glanced to death, but since a glancing hit doesn't roll on the table, any vehicle suffering a glancing hit can fire at full effect next turn. Think about how resilient this makes AV14. Throw all the S8 weapons you want at it, it's still going to come at you with all guns blazing. It makes lascannons much more important now.

Kaldor wrote:

Arandmoor wrote:Oh...and vehicles got the hard nerf in 6th too and are way easier to pop from the looks of things. This knocks your entire list down a few pegs.

I don't have my book to hand, but the changes to glancing make vehicles a bit more resilient. Sure, you can be glanced to death, but since a glancing hit doesn't roll on the table, any vehicle suffering a glancing hit can fire at full effect next turn. Think about how resilient this makes AV14. Throw all the S8 weapons you want at it, it's still going to come at you with all guns blazing. It makes lascannons much more important now.

Glad I kept all my lascannons! I don't want to look through the 200+ page tome...Melta still gives 2D6 pen within half range, right? Still the go-to tank killer up close, but LCs are definitely great now. Marines should be happy, guard should be happier-few HW squads should neuter all Rhino-based tanks, Eldar, DE (okay, so would a spit-wad shooter), Tau and Chimeras. Go las or go home. Hey, I think I made the new Guard slogan...now we just need somebody more motivated than me to do a motivational poster for the guard with that phrase.

timetowaste85 wrote:

Kaldor wrote:

Arandmoor wrote:Oh...and vehicles got the hard nerf in 6th too and are way easier to pop from the looks of things. This knocks your entire list down a few pegs.

I don't have my book to hand, but the changes to glancing make vehicles a bit more resilient. Sure, you can be glanced to death, but since a glancing hit doesn't roll on the table, any vehicle suffering a glancing hit can fire at full effect next turn. Think about how resilient this makes AV14. Throw all the S8 weapons you want at it, it's still going to come at you with all guns blazing. It makes lascannons much more important now.

Glad I kept all my lascannons! I don't want to look through the 200+ page tome...Melta still gives 2D6 pen within half range, right? Still the go-to tank killer up close, but LCs are definitely great now. Marines should be happy, guard should be happier-few HW squads should neuter all Rhino-based tanks, Eldar, DE (okay, so would a spit-wad shooter), Tau and Chimeras. Go las or go home. Hey, I think I made the new Guard slogan...now we just need somebody more motivated than me to do a motivational poster for the guard with that phrase.

Melta does indeed give 2D6 Pen within half range.

Kaldor wrote:

Arandmoor wrote:Oh...and vehicles got the hard nerf in 6th too and are way easier to pop from the looks of things. This knocks your entire list down a few pegs.

I don't have my book to hand, but the changes to glancing make vehicles a bit more resilient. Sure, you can be glanced to death, but since a glancing hit doesn't roll on the table, any vehicle suffering a glancing hit can fire at full effect next turn. Think about how resilient this makes AV14. Throw all the S8 weapons you want at it, it's still going to come at you with all guns blazing. It makes lascannons much more important now.

The difference is you now know how much you need to aim at a vehicle to reliably kill it. While before, you could fire your whole army at a tank for 3 turns, only glance it with each weapon, and not do a thing. Now you know how many glances you need to kill it, and you might get lucky on top of that and to it in one hit. I'd say that takes them down a peg.

Kaldor wrote:

Arandmoor wrote:Oh...and vehicles got the hard nerf in 6th too and are way easier to pop from the looks of things. This knocks your entire list down a few pegs.

I don't have my book to hand, but the changes to glancing make vehicles a bit more resilient. Sure, you can be glanced to death, but since a glancing hit doesn't roll on the table, any vehicle suffering a glancing hit can fire at full effect next turn. Think about how resilient this makes AV14. Throw all the S8 weapons you want at it, it's still going to come at you with all guns blazing. It makes lascannons much more important now.

But land raiders were never the problem. It was light vehicles with cheap, powerful guns.

Hull Points place a hard limit to how much fire a vehicle can take before it dies, and if you have an actual anti-tank weapon with low AP to point at the thing you have a much greater chance of taking it out in one shot.

Really, the big nerf was hull points vs. light vehicles with lots of weapons.

Take a las/plas razerback for example: 3 weapons + the ability to move. In a worst case scenario, it took you 5 shots to kill one of them. Now, if it has 3 hull points you kill it in 3 glances. No more stripping off the weapons one-by-one, followed by an immobilized result, followed by finally killing it. That worst-case-scenario improvement does a LOT to fix some of the problems some lists were facing in 5th. Especially where cheap vehicles with no single-main-gun were concerned.

Also, the best case scenario got a lot better. If you're lucky enough to have an AP 1 weapon you explode the bastard on a 4+ if you pen. On top of being able to snap-shot things like multi-meltas.

IMO, the vehicle changes (just these, I get my book tomorrow and then I'll look at the vehicle rules in more depth) make weapons like the missile launcher less desirable (the ML was too good IMO), and bring back the value of the las cannon. Also, autocannons will have surprising value if your opponent is fielding light vehicles because the simple ability to remove Hull Points at a decent rate will be very valuable.

Melee units are holistically stronger IMO

Hammer of Wrath just made many units hit faster/harder

PW dropping to Ap3, just made many of the top tier CC units even better.

Wound allocation and Challenges just made CC heavy IC better

Ability to roll a save for dangerous terrain, also made some CC units more usefull in hopping into combat in and out of cover.

Tarpitting good CC units that can't hurt a walker, doesn't work anymore.

Vehicles are much easier to glance to death in CC.

Some units got better, some got worse, but I'm adding CC units to my lists now due to the new rules, not pulling them out.

timetowaste85 wrote:

Kaldor wrote:

Arandmoor wrote:Oh...and vehicles got the hard nerf in 6th too and are way easier to pop from the looks of things. This knocks your entire list down a few pegs.

I don't have my book to hand, but the changes to glancing make vehicles a bit more resilient. Sure, you can be glanced to death, but since a glancing hit doesn't roll on the table, any vehicle suffering a glancing hit can fire at full effect next turn. Think about how resilient this makes AV14. Throw all the S8 weapons you want at it, it's still going to come at you with all guns blazing. It makes lascannons much more important now.

Glad I kept all my lascannons! I don't want to look through the 200+ page tome...Melta still gives 2D6 pen within half range, right? Still the go-to tank killer up close, but LCs are definitely great now. Marines should be happy, guard should be happier-few HW squads should neuter all Rhino-based tanks, Eldar, DE (okay, so would a spit-wad shooter), Tau and Chimeras. Go las or go home. Hey, I think I made the new Guard slogan...now we just need somebody more motivated than me to do a motivational poster for the guard with that phrase.

Multi-meltas aren't going to be valued for the 2d6, but rather the AP 1.

AP 1 give you a +2 to the damage table roll when you pen a vehicle's armor. That turns the 6 = explode result on the table into a 4+ = explode, and pushes the shaken results off of the table completely!

Arandmoor wrote:

timetowaste85 wrote:

Kaldor wrote:

Arandmoor wrote:Oh...and vehicles got the hard nerf in 6th too and are way easier to pop from the looks of things. This knocks your entire list down a few pegs.

I don't have my book to hand, but the changes to glancing make vehicles a bit more resilient. Sure, you can be glanced to death, but since a glancing hit doesn't roll on the table, any vehicle suffering a glancing hit can fire at full effect next turn. Think about how resilient this makes AV14. Throw all the S8 weapons you want at it, it's still going to come at you with all guns blazing. It makes lascannons much more important now.

Glad I kept all my lascannons! I don't want to look through the 200+ page tome...Melta still gives 2D6 pen within half range, right? Still the go-to tank killer up close, but LCs are definitely great now. Marines should be happy, guard should be happier-few HW squads should neuter all Rhino-based tanks, Eldar, DE (okay, so would a spit-wad shooter), Tau and Chimeras. Go las or go home. Hey, I think I made the new Guard slogan...now we just need somebody more motivated than me to do a motivational poster for the guard with that phrase.

Multi-meltas aren't going to be valued for the 2d6, but rather the AP 1.

AP 1 give you a +2 to the damage table roll when you pen a vehicle's armor. That turns the 6 = explode result on the table into a 4+ = explode, and pushes the shaken results off of the table completely!

So...same as was in 5th. Only differences are that a 3->5 goes from stunned to immobilized and a 2-> is shaken to weapon destroyed. For destructive purposes, it remains unchanged. But missiles and autocannons will have a hard time killing vehicles without glancing to death. Weakened missiles, huh? I was wondering how they were going to stop them being the go-to weapons...

Mechanized lists got a fair bit weaker, but flyers in general might end up dominating (this will really take a fiar bit of time to know for sure), and artillery just got ridiculous with the absurdly harsh limitations placed on special deployment like outflank, scouts, and infiltrate (Webway DE are dead). Ranged infantry got a slew of great buffs in the form of overwatch and the buff to rapid fire, the mobility of most assault armies that rely on transports got utterly neutered (Eldar assault armies are dead), and multi-assaults also got nerfed heavily.
What's more, two of the three deployments are strongly catered to ranged play (if I were playing an assault army, and anvil/hammer deployment were rolled, I'd simply forfeit. I've played games with that exact same style of deployment before was an assault army, it's unwinnable).

timetowaste85 wrote:

Arandmoor wrote:

timetowaste85 wrote:

Kaldor wrote:

Arandmoor wrote:Oh...and vehicles got the hard nerf in 6th too and are way easier to pop from the looks of things. This knocks your entire list down a few pegs.

I don't have my book to hand, but the changes to glancing make vehicles a bit more resilient. Sure, you can be glanced to death, but since a glancing hit doesn't roll on the table, any vehicle suffering a glancing hit can fire at full effect next turn. Think about how resilient this makes AV14. Throw all the S8 weapons you want at it, it's still going to come at you with all guns blazing. It makes lascannons much more important now.

Glad I kept all my lascannons! I don't want to look through the 200+ page tome...Melta still gives 2D6 pen within half range, right? Still the go-to tank killer up close, but LCs are definitely great now. Marines should be happy, guard should be happier-few HW squads should neuter all Rhino-based tanks, Eldar, DE (okay, so would a spit-wad shooter), Tau and Chimeras. Go las or go home. Hey, I think I made the new Guard slogan...now we just need somebody more motivated than me to do a motivational poster for the guard with that phrase.

Multi-meltas aren't going to be valued for the 2d6, but rather the AP 1.

AP 1 give you a +2 to the damage table roll when you pen a vehicle's armor. That turns the 6 = explode result on the table into a 4+ = explode, and pushes the shaken results off of the table completely!

So...same as was in 5th. Only differences are that a 3->5 goes from stunned to immobilized and a 2-> is shaken to weapon destroyed. For destructive purposes, it remains unchanged. But missiles and autocannons will have a hard time killing vehicles without glancing to death. Weakened missiles, huh? I was wondering how they were going to stop them being the go-to weapons...

Yeah...actually, in this case shooting took a slight nerf.

In specific, Krak Missiles are only about half as effective as they were on a penetrating hit because they will kill a vehicle on a 1/6 rather than a 2/6. The wrecked result was removed from the table completely, and is now specifically caused by reducing a vehicles hull points to zero without making it explode with a penetrating hit.

Of course, AP1 and AP2 weapons got buffed in that, the result that previously make a vehicle wreck, will now make it explode.

So far as I can tell, this is a straight nerf to the ML, the battle cannon, and other high strength weapons with AP3. It was a straight buff to weapons like the autocannon that trade AP for rate of fire specifically (and maybe a bit of strength).

Okay, maybe calling it a ML nerf is a bit harsh. Really, it's a redefinition of it's place in the world. In 5th it was nearly the be-all-end-all heavy weapon. Now, it's a dedicated anti-infantry weapon, rolled up with some anti-vehicular punch. Basically, I'm saying that now the frag missile is why you will buy the ML. If you want AV first, you'll look at either the las cannon for the 1/3 chance to make something explode on a pen, or the autocannon to save a few points and strip light vehicle HP. The krak missile just isn't that groovy in this edition. You might as well buy a las cannon if you need the AP3...

Don't forget fliers. Missiles can use the flakk option to shoot them down (although not confirmed how widespread this will be).

Really, when you consider just how important flyers will be in this edition, it's also important to consider the fact that they cannot be touched by assault troops. Considering you can build entire armies around fliers, that's kind of a big deal.

Well when I get my book tomorrow, I can help you out here but till then who knows...

Fafnir wrote:Don't forget fliers. Missiles can use the flakk option to shoot them down (although not confirmed how widespread this will be).

Really, when you consider just how important flyers will be in this edition, it's also important to consider the fact that they cannot be touched by assault troops. Considering you can build entire armies around fliers, that's kind of a big deal.

I haven't read the flyer rules yet. Not until tomorrow.

However, unless vehicles can hold objectives basing your list around flyers could prove detrimental. From what I've heard, objectives are even more important than they were before. Also, if that flyer is, say, carrying a squad that can hold an objective, if has to hover to drop off the squad. While it's hovering it's vulnerable as any skimmer.

At first glance, they've added a LOT of generalship to this edition. Which I like.

Arandmoor wrote:
At first glance, they've added a LOT of generalship to this edition. Which I like.

And it's a shame that they defeated the purpose of a lot of that by adding in a lot of random factors that really didn't need to be random.

Arandmoor wrote:

Fafnir wrote:Don't forget fliers. Missiles can use the flakk option to shoot them down (although not confirmed how widespread this will be).

Really, when you consider just how important flyers will be in this edition, it's also important to consider the fact that they cannot be touched by assault troops. Considering you can build entire armies around fliers, that's kind of a big deal.

I haven't read the flyer rules yet. Not until tomorrow.

However, unless vehicles can hold objectives basing your list around flyers could prove detrimental. From what I've heard, objectives are even more important than they were before. Also, if that flyer is, say, carrying a squad that can hold an objective, if has to hover to drop off the squad. While it's hovering it's vulnerable as any skimmer.

At first glance, they've added a LOT of generalship to this edition. Which I like.

From reading the Flyer rules, I honestly feel like Necrons are going to be taking 2-3 Doomscythes in every list, and some Nightscythes to boost. Fliers are really really good.

-Loki- wrote:

Kaldor wrote:

Arandmoor wrote:Oh...and vehicles got the hard nerf in 6th too and are way easier to pop from the looks of things. This knocks your entire list down a few pegs.

I don't have my book to hand, but the changes to glancing make vehicles a bit more resilient. Sure, you can be glanced to death, but since a glancing hit doesn't roll on the table, any vehicle suffering a glancing hit can fire at full effect next turn. Think about how resilient this makes AV14. Throw all the S8 weapons you want at it, it's still going to come at you with all guns blazing. It makes lascannons much more important now.

The difference is you now know how much you need to aim at a vehicle to reliably kill it. While before, you could fire your whole army at a tank for 3 turns, only glance it with each weapon, and not do a thing. Now you know how many glances you need to kill it, and you might get lucky on top of that and to it in one hit. I'd say that takes them down a peg.

The flipside was that a single glancing hit effectively took a tank out of the game for a turn. Even if you paid for extra armour, even if your opponent rolled a one on the damage chart, as soon as you were glanced you weren't doing any shooting.

Arandmoor wrote:Take a las/plas razerback for example: 3 weapons + the ability to move. In a worst case scenario, it took you 5 shots to kill one of them. Now, if it has 3 hull points you kill it in 3 glances.

While that's true, with five glancing hits it wasn't shooting for five turns. Now with three glancing hits it's still shooting for two turns. That's a marked increase in reliability. Under the old rules you could land a single glancing hit on a tank, and then ignore it until your next shooting phase. Can't do that anymore.

Sasori wrote:

Arandmoor wrote:

Fafnir wrote:Don't forget fliers. Missiles can use the flakk option to shoot them down (although not confirmed how widespread this will be).

Really, when you consider just how important flyers will be in this edition, it's also important to consider the fact that they cannot be touched by assault troops. Considering you can build entire armies around fliers, that's kind of a big deal.

I haven't read the flyer rules yet. Not until tomorrow.

However, unless vehicles can hold objectives basing your list around flyers could prove detrimental. From what I've heard, objectives are even more important than they were before. Also, if that flyer is, say, carrying a squad that can hold an objective, if has to hover to drop off the squad. While it's hovering it's vulnerable as any skimmer.

At first glance, they've added a LOT of generalship to this edition. Which I like.

From reading the Flyer rules, I honestly feel like Necrons are going to be taking 2-3 Doomscythes in every list, and some Nightscythes to boost. Fliers are really really good.

How, exactly, does shooting down a flyer work? I didn't read the flyer rules so I can't even begin to analyze their possible impact.

All I can say, is that your example is 500-700 points just for 4-5 flyers that I'm not sure can hold objectives and only have AV 10. I mean...BS 1 is bad, but it's not that bad.

My first reflexive response is to mention how useful twin-linked anti-tank weapons will be for shooting down flyers, but again, I don't know how shooting down flyers works except for the vague notion that you shoot at them with BS 1...

How does flak work?

Kaldor wrote:

-Loki- wrote:

Kaldor wrote:

Arandmoor wrote:Oh...and vehicles got the hard nerf in 6th too and are way easier to pop from the looks of things. This knocks your entire list down a few pegs.

I don't have my book to hand, but the changes to glancing make vehicles a bit more resilient. Sure, you can be glanced to death, but since a glancing hit doesn't roll on the table, any vehicle suffering a glancing hit can fire at full effect next turn. Think about how resilient this makes AV14. Throw all the S8 weapons you want at it, it's still going to come at you with all guns blazing. It makes lascannons much more important now.

The difference is you now know how much you need to aim at a vehicle to reliably kill it. While before, you could fire your whole army at a tank for 3 turns, only glance it with each weapon, and not do a thing. Now you know how many glances you need to kill it, and you might get lucky on top of that and to it in one hit. I'd say that takes them down a peg.

The flipside was that a single glancing hit effectively took a tank out of the game for a turn. Even if you paid for extra armour, even if your opponent rolled a one on the damage chart, as soon as you were glanced you weren't doing any shooting.

It'll require a change of tactics towards vehicles, to be sure - the whole game will require a rethink on how you play. But the fact that you can look at a tank and know what you need to reliably kill it, the only thing standing in your way is glancing it that many times, is going to make dealing with them a lot easier. They're basically multi wound models with no armour save now, though pretty much immune to small arms and the chance of being killed in a single shot.

Arandmoor wrote:

Sasori wrote:

Arandmoor wrote:

Fafnir wrote:Don't forget fliers. Missiles can use the flakk option to shoot them down (although not confirmed how widespread this will be).

Really, when you consider just how important flyers will be in this edition, it's also important to consider the fact that they cannot be touched by assault troops. Considering you can build entire armies around fliers, that's kind of a big deal.

I haven't read the flyer rules yet. Not until tomorrow.

However, unless vehicles can hold objectives basing your list around flyers could prove detrimental. From what I've heard, objectives are even more important than they were before. Also, if that flyer is, say, carrying a squad that can hold an objective, if has to hover to drop off the squad. While it's hovering it's vulnerable as any skimmer.

At first glance, they've added a LOT of generalship to this edition. Which I like.

From reading the Flyer rules, I honestly feel like Necrons are going to be taking 2-3 Doomscythes in every list, and some Nightscythes to boost. Fliers are really really good.

How, exactly, does shooting down a flyer work? I didn't read the flyer rules so I can't even begin to analyze their possible impact.

All I can say, is that your example is 500-700 points just for 4-5 flyers that I'm not sure can hold objectives and only have AV 10. I mean...BS 1 is bad, but it's not that bad.

My first reflexive response is to mention how useful twin-linked anti-tank weapons will be for shooting down flyers, but again, I don't know how shooting down flyers works except for the vague notion that you shoot at them with BS 1...

How does flak work?

Well, for starters, Flyers come in from Reserve and always start in reserve. They won't be shot down before they get a chance to Alphastrike. Secondly, our Fliers are AV11, not 10, and have 3 Hullpoints.
Zoom works, that units cannot assault flyers, and may only use snapfire, unless they have the Skyfire rule. Template, Blast, and Large blast weapons, also cannot hit them. Fliers do have to move a minimum distance (18) when Zooming. You can also only make a single pivot on the spot, so planning where they come in, and what you want to kill, is crucial.

You can also choose to Evade, which will give you your Jink save, which will give you a 5+ save. It makes your weapons snapfire, but that doesn't affect the Deathray at all. So, you can have your Doomscythes flying around, requiring enemies to snapfire (Hit on a 6) and get a 5+ cover save, all while being able to alphastrike high priority targets with your Deathray.

-Loki- wrote:

Kaldor wrote:

-Loki- wrote:

Kaldor wrote:

Arandmoor wrote:Oh...and vehicles got the hard nerf in 6th too and are way easier to pop from the looks of things. This knocks your entire list down a few pegs.

I don't have my book to hand, but the changes to glancing make vehicles a bit more resilient. Sure, you can be glanced to death, but since a glancing hit doesn't roll on the table, any vehicle suffering a glancing hit can fire at full effect next turn. Think about how resilient this makes AV14. Throw all the S8 weapons you want at it, it's still going to come at you with all guns blazing. It makes lascannons much more important now.

The difference is you now know how much you need to aim at a vehicle to reliably kill it. While before, you could fire your whole army at a tank for 3 turns, only glance it with each weapon, and not do a thing. Now you know how many glances you need to kill it, and you might get lucky on top of that and to it in one hit. I'd say that takes them down a peg.

The flipside was that a single glancing hit effectively took a tank out of the game for a turn. Even if you paid for extra armour, even if your opponent rolled a one on the damage chart, as soon as you were glanced you weren't doing any shooting.

It'll require a change of tactics towards vehicles, to be sure - the whole game will require a rethink on how you play. But the fact that you can look at a tank and know what you need to reliably kill it, the only thing standing in your way is glancing it that many times, is going to make dealing with them a lot easier. They're basically multi wound models with no armour save now, though pretty much immune to small arms and the chance of being killed in a single shot.

I feel it's important to note here that while, yes, the worst case scenarios when shooting at vehicles have been greatly curtailed, they are in no way "weak" in 6th edition. Because glancing hits cannot damage the vehicle beyond taking away a hull point it means that while a dedicated general will be able to more reliably kill an enemy vehicle with concentrated AT fire, it will be easier for the general controlling the target vehicle to recoup the vehicle's investment.

Basically, while there's still a chance your tank gets blown up first-shot first-turn, it's also much harder to stunlock it to death and prevent it from shooting. It's a trade off that benefits both sides IMO.

Melee has always been about comming to grips with the enemy as much as your damage output. IE, THSS termies are currently awesome in cc, and remain so in the new edition. However, even though they are awesome, they must be in close combat to do anything. So while in 5th ed may see 14 close combat phases for a cc unit, really the number will be much, much lower. With shooting though, if there is 7 turns you get 7 shots.

So while 200 points of THSS gets you 10 s8 ap2 attacks at minimum, while 4 las cannon devestators only get you 4 s9 ap2 attacks, the devestators are shooting from turn 1 on. The balance comes from how much shooting the devestators get before the THSS termies can assault. Land raiders are expensive, but increase the total amount of assault phases the THSS termies can get. So does characters like Shrike or Khan, the former with fleet and infiltrate/outflank, the latter with outflank and hit and run. Finally, there is reserve options like deepstriking off a homer to cut down the time spent moving with a calculated risk that the unit will arrive when you need it.

Anyway, the point I am trying to make is that dedicated close combat will always be superior to dedicated shooting ONCE YOU ARE IN CC, partly because of how locking units in CC prevents shooting, partly because there are 2 assault phases per shooting phase, partly because dedicated cc units historically have better access to higher quality attacks than shooting units do.

So 6th is changing how some units can assault, like no assault from outflank apparently, or no seperate fleet roll. This changes the value of certian units, this does nothing for the metric of shooting versus assault across the board. Overwatch is a slight nerf to some CC units charging some shooty units, but 2d6 charge range is a buff to several melee units. A big nerf to shooting is the inability to reserve your entire force without extra special rules. A big nerf to some CC is the ability of your target to break away if they cant hurt you.

All in all, those are METAGAME changes, not assault versus shooting changes. So in the metagame matchup between Wraithlords and Tau firewarriors, the Wraithlord got worse as Tau gained more options (overwatch and can flee if desired) while the Wraithlord only gained 1 inch of distance on average to charge.

However, in the example of beasts, now that they ignore terrain they get a much better base movement to assault with. Prior, in terrain they had up to 6 inches randomly, another random 6 inch move, and then a random 12 inch move. Now they get a guarenteed 12 inch move in terrain followed by a random 12 inch move--thus they are moving more relaibly while also ignoring dangerous terrain--a minimum charge from 4 inches prior to 14 is no small change if you want to get into cc.

TLDR; Assault is still better than Shooting because while it still has opportunity costs, like needing to move into base contact, you still get twice the potential damage in cc thanks to 2 phases of assault per turn, you still preclude enemy shooting when in cc, enemies can be run down and removed all at once in cc by losing a single model, and enemies dont get cover saves in cc. That said, the METAGAME that determines what makes a good unit in CC in each codex will be changing in 6th ed, as some keywords like outflank work differently as a negative while some work positively like Rage.

Arandmoor wrote:I feel it's important to note here that while, yes, the worst case scenarios when shooting at vehicles have been greatly curtailed, they are in no way "weak" in 6th edition. Because glancing hits cannot damage the vehicle beyond taking away a hull point it means that while a dedicated general will be able to more reliably kill an enemy vehicle with concentrated AT fire, it will be easier for the general controlling the target vehicle to recoup the vehicle's investment.

Basically, while there's still a chance your tank gets blown up first-shot first-turn, it's also much harder to stunlock it to death and prevent it from shooting. It's a trade off that benefits both sides IMO.

I feel it's important to note that I never said they're weak in 6th. Just that you now know just how much firepower is needed to kill one, and no chance of it screwing up due to a long series of 1's on a damage table.

They're not weak, but they're going to require different tactics to use and deal with. What they've done is put a hard limit on how many glancing andpenetrating shots they can take regardless of your rolls on the penetrating hits table.

Fafnir wrote:

Arandmoor wrote:
At first glance, they've added a LOT of generalship to this edition. Which I like.

And it's a shame that they defeated the purpose of a lot of that by adding in a lot of random factors that really didn't need to be random.

What, apart from charge distance, have they done that to?

I like the changes to charge distance. It requires more thought than a simple 6" range check, and punishes players who rely on luck.

Kaldor wrote:

Fafnir wrote:

Arandmoor wrote:
At first glance, they've added a LOT of generalship to this edition. Which I like.

And it's a shame that they defeated the purpose of a lot of that by adding in a lot of random factors that really didn't need to be random.

What, apart from charge distance, have they done that to?

I like the changes to charge distance. It requires more thought than a simple 6" range check, and punishes players who rely on luck.

Warlord abilities
Mysterious terrain/objectives
Psychic power generation
Wound allocation (Look Out, Sir!)
Variety of other things, too many to list.

As for charge distance, having it be a flat rate meant that you'd have to be more tactical about setting up your charges. Now it's mostly luck based. Yes, there is some strategy in considering your chances for success or failure on the table, to say that that requires more thought is not true, at least in more interesting circumstances. If you're just marching up the table into a charge, then there's no thought in it either way, but when it comes to optimizing your assaults (or doing the opposite, if you're in the defensive roll), the standardized range can create a game within the game of players trying to outmaneuver one another.

Furthermore, in the case of punishing players who rely on luck, that's exactly not the case. A player has just as much chance to excel because of luck as they do to fail because of it. Punishing players who rely on luck (ie, players who don't develop tactics) would be using a fixed system from previous editions, since there is no luck involved to ride on.

Sasori wrote:

Arandmoor wrote:

Sasori wrote:

Arandmoor wrote:

Fafnir wrote:Don't forget fliers. Missiles can use the flakk option to shoot them down (although not confirmed how widespread this will be).

Really, when you consider just how important flyers will be in this edition, it's also important to consider the fact that they cannot be touched by assault troops. Considering you can build entire armies around fliers, that's kind of a big deal.

I haven't read the flyer rules yet. Not until tomorrow.

However, unless vehicles can hold objectives basing your list around flyers could prove detrimental. From what I've heard, objectives are even more important than they were before. Also, if that flyer is, say, carrying a squad that can hold an objective, if has to hover to drop off the squad. While it's hovering it's vulnerable as any skimmer.

At first glance, they've added a LOT of generalship to this edition. Which I like.

From reading the Flyer rules, I honestly feel like Necrons are going to be taking 2-3 Doomscythes in every list, and some Nightscythes to boost. Fliers are really really good.

How, exactly, does shooting down a flyer work? I didn't read the flyer rules so I can't even begin to analyze their possible impact.

All I can say, is that your example is 500-700 points just for 4-5 flyers that I'm not sure can hold objectives and only have AV 10. I mean...BS 1 is bad, but it's not that bad.

My first reflexive response is to mention how useful twin-linked anti-tank weapons will be for shooting down flyers, but again, I don't know how shooting down flyers works except for the vague notion that you shoot at them with BS 1...

How does flak work?

Well, for starters, Flyers come in from Reserve and always start in reserve. They won't be shot down before they get a chance to Alphastrike. Secondly, our Fliers are AV11, not 10, and have 3 Hullpoints.
Zoom works, that units cannot assault flyers, and may only use snapfire, unless they have the Skyfire rule. Template, Blast, and Large blast weapons, also cannot hit them. Fliers do have to move a minimum distance (18) when Zooming. You can also only make a single pivot on the spot, so planning where they come in, and what you want to kill, is crucial.

You can also choose to Evade, which will give you your Jink save, which will give you a 5+ save. It makes your weapons snapfire, but that doesn't affect the Deathray at all. So, you can have your Doomscythes flying around, requiring enemies to snapfire (Hit on a 6) and get a 5+ cover save, all while being able to alphastrike high priority targets with your Deathray.

So, you get one shot guaranteed. That's good. And yeah...AV11. I've got the damn codex right in front of me too... :(

Okay...lemme see here.

The only real threat we face is a (relatively) lucky shot from an AV weapons because they're immune to vollies of bolter-fire. Like skimmers, however, they'll treat immobilized results as destroyed because if they can't move 18" they die. So, flyers are particularly vulnerable to low AP anti-tank fire. I'm also guessing that the IG Hydra is going to get FAQ'd to be a complete nightmare for flyers in general, but that's just one unit in one army. A flyer's natural predator, in this case, will be AT weapons that can somehow be twin-linked (IG again with Bring It Down...and Salamandar meltaguns and multi-meltas come to mind as well if they're fielding vulkan he'stan...lots of others I'm sure).

Against zoom though, the 18" manditory move is going to make positioning a pain in the ass. I can see lots of "just overshot my target...now what?" moments. And lots of "doom scythe went off the table and refuses to come back in from reserves" action as well. One bad roll and you're out a HS unit for an entire turn. Possibly a very, very important turn depending on the game. That's going to hurt when you could have a Doomsday Ark with AV 11(13) and 3-4 HP on the board instead for half the cost.

Also, especially for necrons, flyers are expensive. Almost prohibitively expensive. If you're packing more than one or two I just don't see how you're going to have enough points for a core strategy-based force to round out the army. Besides which, Doom Scythes are single model units that compete with our very, very sexy heavy support lineup. There is a huge opportunity cost to taking multiple doom scythes at the strategic level.

Just going off the cuff here...

Say you have a Devastator squad that's still at full AT strength (4 lascannons). We'll ignore the signum because I have no idea if that will let one of them shoot at BS 5 (we'll assume 'no').

BS1 means you hit on 6 so 2/3 chance of a hit.
If they hit it's S9 vs AV 11 so glance on 2, pen on 3+.
If you glance, woo.
If you pen (likely) you get +1 to the damage table roll for AP2, and immobilized is as good as dead so you have a 4, 5, 6 chance to kill, and on a 3 you lose the death ray. (actually...does stunned prevent you from moving? It's been a while since I fielded a vehicle)

Lets try it with IG...

Take a squad of Heavy Gunners packing autocannons. Assume they received a Take It Down order from the company commander.

That's 3 autocannons at BS1, twin-linked. So 1 & 5/6 hits.
S7 vs. AV11. We glance on 4, pen on 5, 6. Assume 2 hits we fail with 1 while the other has a 1/3 of taking a HP, and 2/3 taking a HP + rolling on the pen chart.
If we glance...woo!
If we pen we have a 1/6 chance of exploding the thing, 1/6 chance of immobilizing it (effectively wrecks it IIRC), and 1/6 chance of killing the death ray.

Not too bad.

It's going to take some quantity, but these things seem very, very fragile. I honestly don't think zooming will buy you more than a round or two if you're playing a competent general who prepared to take down a flyer unless you can out-play him and gimp his available anti-tank fire before the scythe comes onto the board.

Again...I like it. Adding flyers adds a new dimension to game play. If all your AT is short-range, you're going to have a bad time when they field a flyer, but honestly that's your fault for not planning appropriately.

Do we know any of the skyfire weapons? Are they listed in the back anywhere?
Also, can flyers shoot each other down?

And, can you double-check snap-shots? Are you sure you can use the death ray with a snap shot? IIRC it says you can't snapshot any weapon that ignores BS, and the deathray, if I'm reading it right, doesn't roll to hit.

One thing to note - When flyers are "immobilized," they aren't actually immobilized. They're just stuck moving at the same speed for the rest of the game. They can do everything else just fine.

Also, this discussion is starting to get off topic. Remember, we're not talking about flyers, we're discussing the impact of 6th edition on melee combat. Of course, your brief contemplation of countering fliers just goes to show the options that melee combat is lacking in the face of this new foe.

Fafnir wrote:

Kaldor wrote:

Fafnir wrote:

Arandmoor wrote:
At first glance, they've added a LOT of generalship to this edition. Which I like.

And it's a shame that they defeated the purpose of a lot of that by adding in a lot of random factors that really didn't need to be random.

What, apart from charge distance, have they done that to?

I like the changes to charge distance. It requires more thought than a simple 6" range check, and punishes players who rely on luck.

Warlord abilities
Mysterious terrain/objectives
Psychic power generation
Wound allocation (Look Out, Sir!)
Variety of other things, too many to list.

As for charge distance, having it be a flat rate meant that you'd have to be more tactical about setting up your charges. Now it's mostly luck based. Yes, there is some strategy in considering your chances for success or failure on the table, to say that that requires more thought is not true, at least in more interesting circumstances. If you're just marching up the table into a charge, then there's no thought in it either way, but when it comes to optimizing your assaults (or doing the opposite, if you're in the defensive roll), the standardized range can create a game within the game of players trying to outmaneuver one another.

Furthermore, in the case of punishing players who rely on luck, that's exactly not the case. A player has just as much chance to excel because of luck as they do to fail because of it. Punishing players who rely on luck (ie, players who don't develop tactics) would be using a fixed system from previous editions, since there is no luck involved to ride on.

Luck is a part of the game, however very little you listed relies on luck. Random elements like that add thinking requirements to play that wouldn't otherwise be there. They add unknown factors that make tactical decisions actually have weight, and help shift the deciding factor of "who is going to win?" from the players' army lists and codicies, to how they play the scenario. Which is how it should be. A mechanic based solely on "luck" would be a pre-game orbital bombardment where you could roll to outright remove enemy units wholesale. Mysterious terrain and random psychic powers, OTOH, test your ability to use a variety of tools to your advantage. In those cases, "luck" has very little to do with anything unless you're specifically set up so that one option automatically results in a loss for you because you're completely, mathmatically, imaginatively unable to use it effectively.

In which case, it's your fault anyway because there's no reason you couldn't take whatever it is into account before hand. I mean...it's right there in front of you. It's not like anything that can happen is a total surprise or anything.

Should you win because you math-hammered your army list better? Because you assembled the FOTM list that won the latest GT off of an internet forum? Or because you out-played your opponent and held that objective for one more turn?

The more entropy introduced to the game, the better if you ask me.

The only real threat we face is a (relatively) lucky shot from an AV weapons because they're immune to vollies of bolter-fire. Like skimmers, however, they'll treat immobilized results as destroyed because if they can't move 18" they die. So, flyers are particularly vulnerable to low AP anti-tank fire. I'm also guessing that the IG Hydra is going to get FAQ'd to be a complete nightmare for flyers in general, but that's just one unit in one army. A flyer's natural predator, in this case, will be AT weapons that can somehow be twin-linked (IG again with Bring It Down...and Salamandar meltaguns and multi-meltas come to mind as well if they're fielding vulkan he'stan...lots of others I'm sure).

They do not treat Immobilized results, as destroyed. instead, they are "Vector-locked" which means they must move the same speed for the rest of the game, and cannot evade or move flat out. Keep in mind, that with the new Nightfight rules, that we will gain a bonus to our cover save, depending on the distance we are, from the weapons. As long as it's 12' away, this gives him a +1 to his cover save, if he's more than 24' away, he gains a +2. Shooting down a flier that requires a six to hit, then can make a 4+ or 3+ cover save, is going to be very difficult o do.

gainst zoom though, the 18" manditory move is going to make positioning a pain in the ass. I can see lots of "just overshot my target...now what?" moments. And lots of "doom scythe went off the table and refuses to come back in from reserves" action as well. One bad roll and you're out a HS unit for an entire turn. Possibly a very, very important turn depending on the game. That's going to hurt when you could have a Doomsday Ark with AV 11(13) and 3-4 HP on the board instead for half the cost.

Well, since you can measure at anytime, this shouldn't be a problem.

so, especially for necrons, flyers are expensive. Almost prohibitively expensive. If you're packing more than one or two I just don't see how you're going to have enough points for a core strategy-based force to round out the army. Besides which, Doom Scythes are single model units that compete with our very, very sexy heavy support lineup. There is a huge opportunity cost to taking multiple doom scythes at the strategic level.

The Heavy support slot doesn't really compete with Doomscythes anymore. Monoliths still arn't very good. Spyders are pretty good, but Scarabs really arn't needed anymore. Doomsday Arks got a buff, but they are the same price. The only real competativon is the Annihilation barge, but now the Nightscythe is pretty much a faster Abarge.

BS1 means you hit on 6 so 2/3 chance of a hit.
If they hit it's S9 vs AV 11 so glance on 2, pen on 3+.
If you glance, woo.
If you pen (likely) you get +1 to the damage table roll for AP2, and immobilized is as good as dead so you have a 4, 5, 6 chance to kill, and on a 3 you lose the death ray. (actually...does stunned prevent you from moving? It's been a while since I fielded a vehicle)

Lets try it with IG...

Take a squad of Heavy Gunners packing autocannons. Assume they received a Take It Down order from the company commander.

That's 3 autocannons at BS1, twin-linked. So 1 & 5/6 hits.
S7 vs. AV11. We glance on 4, pen on 5, 6. Assume 2 hits we fail with 1 while the other has a 1/3 of taking a HP, and 2/3 taking a HP + rolling on the pen chart.
If we glance...woo!
If we pen we have a 1/6 chance of exploding the thing, 1/6 chance of immobilizing it (effectively wrecks it IIRC), and 1/6 chance of killing the death ray.

Not too bad.

You have to factor in the Cover save as well, and Immobilization does not kill the flyer, if it's zooming.

And, can you double-check snap-shots? Are you sure you can use the death ray with a snap shot? IIRC it says you can't snapshot any weapon that ignores BS, and the deathray, if I'm reading it right, doesn't roll to hit.

Ah, you're right about that. Just noticed that. a bit of a hit, but not huge.

Fafnir wrote:One thing to note - When flyers are "immobilized," they aren't actually immobilized. They're just stuck moving at the same speed for the rest of the game. They can do everything else just fine.

Also, this discussion is starting to get off topic. Remember, we're not talking about flyers, we're discussing the impact of 6th edition on melee combat. Of course, your brief contemplation of countering fliers just goes to show the options that melee combat is lacking in the face of this new foe.

Well, we can't tell for sure the extent of any "damage" until we explore both sides thoroughly. The fact that people are willing to throw melee under the bus when we have something like flyers that people just don't understand yet tells me that this thread can't come to any sort of conclusion yet.

Like I said in my first post, we need to revisit this conversation in 3 months, minimum. Before that, nobody can say anything with any certainty.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Sasori wrote:
Well, since you can measure at anytime, this shouldn't be a problem.

The best laid schemes Sasori. Best laid schemes.

Arandmoor wrote:
Luck is a part of the game, however very little you listed relies on luck.

The very nature of random elements necessitates that they rely on luck.

Random elements like that add thinking requirements to play that wouldn't otherwise be there. They add unknown factors that make tactical decisions actually have weight, and help shift the deciding factor of "who is going to win?" from the players' army lists and codicies, to how they play the scenario.

Like in Yahtzee, right?

The thing to keep in mind here is that in most cases, the random elements are things that happen as a result of player action, rather than as a trigger for it. It should, ideally, be the other way around.

You can spend all day setting up an incredibly methodical formation of troops to ensure a perfect charge, but at the end of the day, it all comes down to dice rolls. Tactical decisions have less weight because luck can completely invalidate them.

Which is how it should be. A mechanic based solely on "luck" would be a pre-game orbital bombardment where you could roll to outright remove enemy units wholesale. Mysterious terrain and random psychic powers, OTOH, test your ability to use a variety of tools to your advantage. In those cases, "luck" has very little to do with anything unless you're specifically set up so that one option automatically results in a loss for you because you're completely, mathmatically, imaginatively unable to use it effectively.

So, for example that piece of mysterious terrain that causes D3 S3 AP2 wounds to all psykers on the table (effectively a death sentence for any GK sergeant) out of nowhere and you can do nothing about has nothing to do with luck?

Furthermore, random psychic powers could 'test' your ability to use a variety of tools, only if these powers were all equally viable to the units that could use them and had applications in the same situations. But they don't. Roll poorly, and you could end up with a set of powers that do nothing to compliment the characters that are using them, regardless of the skill of the player.

In which case, it's your fault anyway because there's no reason you couldn't take whatever it is into account before hand. I mean...it's right there in front of you. It's not like anything that can happen is a total surprise or anything.

Like Yahtzee, right?

Should you win because you math-hammered your army list better? Because you assembled the FOTM list that won the latest GT off of an internet forum? Or because you out-played your opponent and held that objective for one more turn?

The more entropy introduced to the game, the better if you ask me.

With your logic, Chess would be a more skill based game if random elements were thrown in.
Math hammering a list and math hammering the odds of a successful charge are very similar. The only difference is that with the list construction, you're making a conscious decision based on the elements put before you. The player uses their judgement based on the information provided. That's actually a good thing, as opposed to removing player interaction (ie, thinking out how to properly charge) in favour of a random system.

There's a lot of skill in movement that does not, and is actually removed because of random elements. Instead of being a game where you play the dice, you should play your opponent.

Sasori wrote:The Heavy support slot doesn't really compete with Doomscythes anymore. Monoliths still arn't very good. Spyders are pretty good, but Scarabs really arn't needed anymore. Doomsday Arks got a buff, but they are the same price. The only real competativon is the Annihilation barge, but now the Nightscythe is pretty much a faster Abarge.

I will argue for monoliths until I'm blue in the face because they're a tactical unit with good firepower. IMO, they're only as good as the unit you can bring through their portal. While a cannon might hurt your opponent, a timely Dimensional Corridor can win you the game. Anything that lets you break rules to a significant degree (and I consider placing a unit somewhere it wouldn't otherwise be able to go in a timely fashion "breaking the rules to a significant degree") is valuable. A doom scythe is valuable, no doubt, but so is the ability to contest an objective from out of nowhere.

Are they as good as they were in the old codex? Actually, IMO they were kind of bad in the old codex because of what they did to our phase out number. Now they get to actually do their job. You just have to think a little differently is all.

Scarabs are overpowered under 5th edition rules. Doesn't mean there's no place for them now.

Doomsday Arks are heavy firepower. They can't move if they want to pimp themselves, but so long as they keep their shield running glancing hits can't stop them from firing anymore. They're going to benefit a LOT from the vehicle changes, as well as the standardization of night fighting so long as you remember to pack a solar pulse.

Annihilation barges are just cheap firepower. Again...opportunity cost. At 1750, each doom scythe is 10% of your army.

I will argue for monoliths until I'm blue in the face because they're a tactical unit with good firepower. IMO, they're only as good as the unit you can bring through their portal. While a cannon might hurt your opponent, a timely Dimensional Corridor can win you the game. Anything that lets you break rules to a significant degree (and I consider placing a unit somewhere it wouldn't otherwise be able to go in a timely fashion "breaking the rules to a significant degree") is valuable. A doom scythe is valuable, no doubt, but so is the ability to contest an objective from out of nowhere.

I played with Monoliths a fair bit, as I have two, in 5th, and honestly, they really did not provide that much to my army. They really just aren't that good. They have utility, but it is really limited by how slow it is.

Scarabs are overpowered under 5th edition rules. Doesn't mean there's no place for them now.

I don't know, I think with the ability of Gauss to strip away hullpoints on a 6, you really don't need scarabs anymore. You can take a Veiling unit of a 10 Warriors, with a Voltaic Staff Cryptek, and kill a vehicle every single turn, as well as being able to claim/contest objectives. I think I'm going to prefer to Take Destroyers now, over Scarabs, thanks to the preferred enemy change, as well as the fact that they can function as Anti-tank and Anti-infantry.

Doomsday Arks are heavy firepower. They can't move if they want to pimp themselves, but so long as they keep their shield running glancing hits can't stop them from firing anymore. They're going to benefit a LOT from the vehicle changes, as well as the standardization of night fighting so long as you remember to pack a solar pulse.

For the same cost, I'd rather have a Doomscythe.

Annihilation barges are just cheap firepower. Again...opportunity cost. At 1750, each doom scythe is 10% of your army.

Yes, but now you can Take Night Scythes, which are faster, carries the destructor, and can drop off troops as well, freeing up your heavy support slot.

Sasori wrote:

Scarabs are overpowered under 5th edition rules. Doesn't mean there's no place for them now.

I don't know, I think with the ability of Gauss to strip away hullpoints on a 6, you really don't need scarabs anymore. You can take a Veiling unit of a 10 Warriors, with a Voltaic Staff Cryptek, and kill a vehicle every single turn, as well as being able to claim/contest objectives. I think I'm going to prefer to Take Destroyers now, over Scarabs, thanks to the preferred enemy change, as well as the fact that they can function as Anti-tank and Anti-infantry.

It's worth noting that Scarab's mobility and resiliency make them a god-tier tarpit, possibly the best in the game.

Fafnir wrote:

Arandmoor wrote:
Random elements like that add thinking requirements to play that wouldn't otherwise be there. They add unknown factors that make tactical decisions actually have weight, and help shift the deciding factor of "who is going to win?" from the players' army lists and codicies, to how they play the scenario.

Like in Yahtzee, right?

Never played Yahtzee. Sorry.

Fafnir wrote:
The thing to keep in mind here is that in most cases, the random elements are things that happen as a result of player action, rather than as a trigger for it. It should, ideally, be the other way around.

You can spend all day setting up an incredibly methodical formation of troops to ensure a perfect charge, but at the end of the day, it all comes down to dice rolls. Tactical decisions have less weight because luck can completely invalidate them.

Talking less about setting up a charge, and more about assessing the potential cost/benefit of bringing an additional unknown quantity into play because, in this case, you have the ability to know beforehand all the possible quantities that can be brought into play. That lets you make a semi-informed decision rather than just crossing your fingers and pressing the big, red, mysterious button. (I'm blindly assuming mysterious terrain works the same way as it does in fantasy, so you have to go into it before it activates and eats you).

Fafnir wrote:

Arandmoor wrote:
Which is how it should be. A mechanic based solely on "luck" would be a pre-game orbital bombardment where you could roll to outright remove enemy units wholesale. Mysterious terrain and random psychic powers, OTOH, test your ability to use a variety of tools to your advantage. In those cases, "luck" has very little to do with anything unless you're specifically set up so that one option automatically results in a loss for you because you're completely, mathmatically, imaginatively unable to use it effectively.

So, for example that piece of mysterious terrain that causes D3 S3 AP2 wounds to all psykers on the table (effectively a death sentence for any GK sergeant) out of nowhere and you can do nothing about has nothing to do with luck?

So long as you know the D3 S3 AP2 wounds to all psykers terrain is a possibility in a finite list of possibilities, none of which are unknown, it's effects come down to statistics. Not luck. Simply because you can opt to NOT trigger the possible death-trap in the first place. If there were no way to avoid it, then you would be right, and it would be luck.

The difference is that you get a choice to trigger it on purpose, and to try to prevent your opponent from triggering it in turn.

The key is 'choice'.

Fafnir wrote:
Furthermore, random psychic powers could 'test' your ability to use a variety of tools, only if these powers were all equally viable to the units that could use them and had applications in the same situations. But they don't. Roll poorly, and you could end up with a set of powers that do nothing to compliment the characters that are using them, regardless of the skill of the player.

It's like an IQ test. You get a number of holes, and a block of a random shape. Because all the possible shapes are accounted for with matching holes, the fact that you try to force the square block into the round hole means that it's not luck.

If there was a chance that there was no square hole to put the square block into, then you would be right and it could be attributed to luck. However, you have the ability to look at all the available psychic abilities while you're building your army list. That means all shapes will be there to match to the appropriate holes. It's not the dice's fault you're trying to fit tab A into slot B despite your insistence that you "just got unlucky this time".

Fafnir wrote:

Arandmoor wrote:
In which case, it's your fault anyway because there's no reason you couldn't take whatever it is into account before hand. I mean...it's right there in front of you. It's not like anything that can happen is a total surprise or anything.

Like Yahtzee, right?

Again, never played Yahtzee.

More like losing 40 hands of blackjack in a row. It might seem like luck, but any savvy player will just tell you that you need to count better.

Fafnir wrote:

Arandmoor wrote:
Should you win because you math-hammered your army list better? Because you assembled the FOTM list that won the latest GT off of an internet forum? Or because you out-played your opponent and held that objective for one more turn?

The more entropy introduced to the game, the better if you ask me.

With your logic, Chess would be a more skill based game if random elements were thrown in.
Math hammering a list and math hammering the odds of a successful charge are very similar. The only difference is that with the list construction, you're making a conscious decision based on the elements put before you. The player uses their judgement based on the information provided. That's actually a good thing, as opposed to removing player interaction (ie, thinking out how to properly charge) in favour of a random system.

There's a lot of skill in movement that does not, and is actually removed because of random elements. Instead of being a game where you play the dice, you should play your opponent.

You would be right if by "random elements" I meant "while playing chess, one person is suddenly, and unexpectedly struck by lightning" and that event allowed the other player to claim victory.
However, in the event something like that actually happened, my guess is that any respectable opponent would consider the game a draw at best if not completely voided due to the sudden death of one of the players.

I don't. So you're not.
Warhammer *is* chess with random elements thrown in. However, there is no truly random element in Warhammer because the game is based on a set of rules that don't change in unexpected ways. There's nothing your opponent can do that you cannot prepare for, and there's no "random event" that you have mentioned from the core rules that can affect the battlefield in a way you cannot see coming, and either take advantage of or deny a like chance to your opponent.

If we were playing a game and a patch of terrain that killed psykers popped up, or something that might turn out to be the terrain that killed psykers, and I, playing necrons, tried to trigger it because it will hurt your GKs but not me you could say that the terrain was "limiting your movement".

However, that's just not an apt description of what's actually going on because it's not limiting you in any way, shape, or form. My action is what is limiting you. My choice. My decision to trigger something that might hurt you. Inversely, if the situations were reversed it would be your option to trigger that terrain and hurt me. If my actions become limited in some way, it's because of a decision you made.

Is luck involved at some point? Sure.

Is it all luck? Hell no. Even if both players decide that the terrain just isn't worth triggering, it's still a decision that was made. The act of weighing the possible costs, comparing them to the possible benefits, and then coming to a decision is a skill. Especially with the inclusion of statistical uncertainty.

So yeah...adding the random stuff makes the game better because it gives both sides more to think about and consider. This makes the person running the army more important than the army itself, assuming both armies are put together with roughly the same competency.

Fafnir wrote:Warlord abilities
Mysterious terrain/objectives
Psychic power generation
Wound allocation (Look Out, Sir!)
Variety of other things, too many to list.

Ok, that's a pretty good list but on the flipside, those are all 'bonus' elements. They're not something you pay for, just a little free icing on the cake and your army should be able to function fully without them.

Fafnir wrote:As for charge distance, having it be a flat rate meant that you'd have to be more tactical about setting up your charges.

Ok, but what does "more tactical" mean?

Look, dice and luck are a crucial element of the game. You can set up the greatest charge in the world, with a ten-man Paladin deathstar, complete with attached Librarian, Grandmaster with Rad Grenades and Psychotroke grenades, and theoretically you can still fluff your rolls and be wiped out by a ten man Conscript squad.

Luck is inherent in the system, all we are doing is debating how much impact it should have.

IMO, adding another layer of luck (over the top of the possibility of fluffing your dice in combat) to the mix is a good thing. It encourages players to more carefully consider the way they deploy and allocate their troops. It adds more to the question "is X in assault range of Y" than a simple yes/no answer, and requires you to act accordingly.

Sasori wrote:

-Loki- wrote:

Sasori wrote:

-Loki- wrote:

ZebioLizard2 wrote:I'm sorry but rage was Buffed! Rage doesn't send your units careening off after a kiting unit and you can move them as you will, oh and they have +2 on the charge now.

I can see people not starting Hormagaunts in synapse range now. It's a good thing now if they fail their instinctive behaviour test. You can still control them, and they get +2 attacks on the charge. In a big enough squad, you won't need to worry too much about breaking either, since they'll need to kill a huge amount to do it. Stick a Venomthrope near them to give them a 5+ cover save all the time, and you have a little nightmare.

As a Tyranid player, I'm sure GW is gleefully awaiting a chance to beat us with their Next FAQ.

To be fair, it's broken right now. There's meant to be a drawback to failing instinctive behaviour. At the moment, it's simply a benefit. My guess is they'll simply add 'and much move towards the closest unit' to the feed behaviour.

But then, there's no real benefit to being inside synapse right now either. Fearless on Tyranids is a drawback, since passing the saves simply doesn't happen.

Well, there are no more No retreat saves. Still, Synapse is still a stupid handicap.

Since there are no more "No Retreat!" wounds nowm Synapse just became vastly more important. Hormies getting 2+ Attacks for Rage is great, but what difference does that make if the enemy wipes you out before you can ever assault? And given the buffs to Rapid Fire, and shooting in general, Gaunts will be losing 25% of their unit long before they reach the enemy, hence why Fearless is now so important.

Overall its a mixed bag. While MEQ and GEQ assault units got nerfed, TEQ have became all but invincible in assault against anything but another TEQ unit. As for Nids, I see giving your Hive Tyrants an Armored Shell becoming all but mandatory.

Oh, I'm assuming the psychic powers in the new book are on par with the common spells in fantasy. You know, the ones that start at "I ram my fist down that unit's throat", and end at "Because of his positioning, if I can get this spell off in the next two turns there's a good chance I can crush the hell out of his entire army!"? From the two divination spells I glanced at things look to be on par.

Basically what I'm saying is, when you say "some suck, others are awesome", I think "location, location, location".

I'll see if my assumption is correct some time tomorrow.

Edit: Unity instead of Unit again...Too much game programming in Unity3D for me...

Overall its a mixed bag. While MEQ and GEQ assault units got nerfed, TEQ have became all but invincible in assault against anything but another TEQ unit. As for Nids, I see giving your Hive Tyrants an Armored Shell becoming all but mandatory.

I forsee Hive tyrants taking Biomancy for the potential chance to get a D3 to strength and toughness, and wings to become a flying MC that only is hit on a 6.

ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Yeah furious charge was nerfed

I'm sorry but rage was Buffed! Rage doesn't send your units careening off after a kiting unit and you can move them as you will, oh and they have +2 on the charge now.
Feel no pain is not denied by power weapons anymore

Rage gets nerfed when you multi charge, because you dont get it, and there is a good possibility that you wont actually make contact with the second unit, sure you'll wreck face to that unit you assaulted, but then you're standing there, in the open.

Oh and transports can only move 6 and disembark, sure the guys inside can move 6" afterward but you still cant assault.

Oh and some talbes might only have 6 peices of terrian on them since they got rid of the 25% rule..


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Sasori wrote:
Well, for starters, Flyers come in from Reserve and always start in reserve. They won't be shot down before they get a chance to Alphastrike. Secondly, our Fliers are AV11, not 10, and have 3 Hullpoints.
Zoom works, that units cannot assault flyers, and may only use snapfire, unless they have the Skyfire rule. Template, Blast, and Large blast weapons, also cannot hit them. Fliers do have to move a minimum distance (18) when Zooming. You can also only make a single pivot on the spot, so planning where they come in, and what you want to kill, is crucial.

You can also choose to Evade, which will give you your Jink save, which will give you a 5+ save. It makes your weapons snapfire, but that doesn't affect the Deathray at all. So, you can have your Doomscythes flying around, requiring enemies to snapfire (Hit on a 6) and get a 5+ cover save, all while being able to alphastrike high priority targets with your Deathray.

I did notice that they didnt give nightscythes hover.... how the hell do you get out?

It's a mild nerf if you are a Marine-equivalent. MeQs can eat the incoming overwatch, have power fists choices on almost all squads, access to TH/SS if they want to get serious.

For rest? Colossal nerf.

Fragile CC specialists not making it to combat, getting nuked via overwatch. Rare AP 2 weapons and often none that you can sing before the enemy has decimated your squad. Heck, you only need 1 2+ save in a unit to mess you a qhole unit of AP3 banshees/incubi.

The old adage of "shoot the choppy, chop the shooty" doesn't hold anymore. For khorne's sake, do NOT try to chop the shooty! you'll pay for it in pain.

And nevermind the FAQ for necrons says I can fly up to 36" and disembark guys inside AHAHAHAHAHA.

Terminator equivalents just got a helluva lot tougher in assault. I think LC Termies may start becoming slightly more popular now as a result.

Also don't think LR are worth quite so many points now what with the Sudden danger of a megaton of Glancing killing it insted of just slowing it down.

Necrons are a massive AT player now.

P.S. Ravenous D if you drew your pic then You are awesome. I can only do stickmen. Badly.

I think tougher assult units have been nerfed more then hoard assult units..

terminators vs squad of 20 orks.
having to choose your best save out of Armour or Inv save is quite a big difference when dealing with 80 dice being rolled at you

Sephyr wrote:It's a mild nerf if you are a Marine-equivalent. MeQs can eat the incoming overwatch, have power fists choices on almost all squads, access to TH/SS if they want to get serious.

For rest? Colossal nerf.

Fragile CC specialists not making it to combat, getting nuked via overwatch. Rare AP 2 weapons and often none that you can sing before the enemy has decimated your squad. Heck, you only need 1 2+ save in a unit to mess you a qhole unit of AP3 banshees/incubi.

The old adage of "shoot the choppy, chop the shooty" doesn't hold anymore. For khorne's sake, do NOT try to chop the shooty! you'll pay for it in pain.

I'd say MEq got buffed, to be honest, that one round of BS1 overwatch probably ain't gonna scratch them, what with their good armour save, but even those MEq who didn't previously have the 5th ed fleet distance can now do the fleet distance that 5th ed fleet assault units had. As well as what you said about terminators and their 2+ save.

I think it's time to update the adage to "shoot the xenos, chop the xenos, play the marines"?

Baronyu wrote:

Sephyr wrote:It's a mild nerf if you are a Marine-equivalent. MeQs can eat the incoming overwatch, have power fists choices on almost all squads, access to TH/SS if they want to get serious.

For rest? Colossal nerf.

Fragile CC specialists not making it to combat, getting nuked via overwatch. Rare AP 2 weapons and often none that you can sing before the enemy has decimated your squad. Heck, you only need 1 2+ save in a unit to mess you a qhole unit of AP3 banshees/incubi.

The old adage of "shoot the choppy, chop the shooty" doesn't hold anymore. For khorne's sake, do NOT try to chop the shooty! you'll pay for it in pain.

I'd say MEq got buffed, to be honest, that one round of BS1 overwatch probably ain't gonna scratch them, what with their good armour save, but even those MEq who didn't previously have the 5th ed fleet distance can now do the fleet distance that 5th ed fleet assault units had. As well as what you said about terminators and their 2+ save.

I think it's time to update the adage to "shoot the xenos, chop the xenos, play the marines"?

Huh, I think I heard someone say that exact thing when it came to 4th, and 5th edition..Deja vu.

ZebioLizard2 wrote:

Baronyu wrote:

Sephyr wrote:It's a mild nerf if you are a Marine-equivalent. MeQs can eat the incoming overwatch, have power fists choices on almost all squads, access to TH/SS if they want to get serious.

For rest? Colossal nerf.

Fragile CC specialists not making it to combat, getting nuked via overwatch. Rare AP 2 weapons and often none that you can sing before the enemy has decimated your squad. Heck, you only need 1 2+ save in a unit to mess you a qhole unit of AP3 banshees/incubi.

The old adage of "shoot the choppy, chop the shooty" doesn't hold anymore. For khorne's sake, do NOT try to chop the shooty! you'll pay for it in pain.

I'd say MEq got buffed, to be honest, that one round of BS1 overwatch probably ain't gonna scratch them, what with their good armour save, but even those MEq who didn't previously have the 5th ed fleet distance can now do the fleet distance that 5th ed fleet assault units had. As well as what you said about terminators and their 2+ save.

I think it's time to update the adage to "shoot the xenos, chop the xenos, play the marines"?

Huh, I think I heard someone say that exact thing when it came to 4th, and 5th edition..Deja vu.

I'm guessing you're referring to the 2nd half, because I don't think when going 4th to 5th, they used the 5th ed rules and then changed them to the 5th ed rules... But I was largely being sarcastic... Though, I don't think the whole conspiracy theory that GW hates xenos only happens during edition shift.

Gotta be honest, I used to laugh at people saying GW changes its rules and books to make people dumb the old stuff as conspiracy theories...

...but now I'm getting fitted for my tinfoil hat.

Guess people bought all the DE and nids they were going to, so why not dangle awesomely strong necrons where you can smap flyers and overwatch assaulters all day long in front of them?

Put down those agonizers and boneswords, friends, they'll help you none against articer armor, terminators and sempiternal weaves! Just form up neat lines and trade shots like Napoleonic armies should.

Another note on why assault is nerfed, is overwatch is applied before you roll how far you assault, and models come off the front... so every death puts you further back.

Not to mention normal transports need about 3 turns to pull off a proper assault, with 2 of those turns standing outside the tank.

So...

Ravenous D wrote:Nerfed.

-Multi charging is extremely difficult to do, and it nerfs furious charge and rage.
-5+ cover average means more effective shooting
-5+ fnp is a nerf that will effect some things
-Wound allocation is from the front
-Overwatch (not huge but still there, losing a marine or 2 can be a big deal)

Long story short, I kill you easier, and you lose inches when I shoot you.

... it gets even worse than this. You also have to include...

Focus Fire - This makes it much more likely that you will arrive with a lot fewer models. Unless you airtight bubble wrap you assaulters, your opponent is always just going to declare that they're shooting at the guys who don't have cover.

Precise Shot - anyone armed with a sniper rifle or plasma pistol has a chance to pick out hidden weapon upgrades in the shooting phase. That powerfist sergeant isn't going to even make it into close combat if your opponent really doesn't want them there. Without the ability to reliably hide close combat upgrades in a squad, armies that were only good in close combat because of hidden weapons (guard, ork, CSM, eldar, etc.) are now much, much worse.

Wound Allocation - I know this was in the list, but I had to repeat it. If you put your good assaulting models in the front of the squad, they're going to be picked off by shooting before they arrive, end of. If you put them in the back, then it's going to take them longer to actually get to swing (with large squads, they may not get to swing at all before its too late).

Then, of course, add all of the buffs to shooting, and 6th ed is not going to be a choppy edition...

Your squad with a thunderhammer sergeant goes bounding forward toward the wraithlord....

Then wham, a squad of Eldar Pathfinders opens up.

Guess who takes the AP1, Rending shot to the face????

If I were a Marine player, I'd pack on the sternguard, command squads, and vanguard vets with plasma to take out MC/Daemon Princes with shooting, and leave the thunder hammers and power fists to the Terminators.

Not to mention that orks got a massive nerf, waaaagh just giving a reroll to charge is pretty lame but its the loss of +1 initiative from furious charge that means charging a 50man blob squad is basically a death sentence, especially if they are rocking a few flamers.

And did anyone else notice that "marine tax" (the tax you pay for not playing marines) just got a lot higher?

Sephyr wrote:Gotta be honest, I used to laugh at people saying GW changes its rules and books to make people dumb the old stuff as conspiracy theories...

...but now I'm getting fitted for my tinfoil hat.

Guess people bought all the DE and nids they were going to, so why not dangle awesomely strong necrons where you can smap flyers and overwatch assaulters all day long in front of them?

Put down those agonizers and boneswords, friends, they'll help you none against articer armor, terminators and sempiternal weaves! Just form up neat lines and trade shots like Napoleonic armies should.

Take off the tinfoil.

Here's how this works...

1. GW releases book A for edition X.

2. The internet lets the mathhammer masters pound out the most abusive lists for book A in edition X. The vast majority of the time these lists are NOT the intended use of the rules and instead abuse a gimmick of some sort to an extreme that was intended to be used in moderation. The rest are usually the result of GW penning a codex with the next edition in mind to give players of that codex as much time in the sweet spot as possible once the new edition comes out because they won't be getting a new codex for a while.

3. GW releases edition Y and fixes the abuses that caused the broken lists because...wait for it...they weren't intended to work that way.They were abuses to begin with. Effective tactics that came about due to unintended or unfortunate interpretations of the rules. This new edition also clears up the issues brought about by bridged-edition codicies which can now be played in the edition for which they were written.

4. People who built armies that focused on the abuses from the previous edition suddenly find that their armies don't function.

Which brings us to the majority of the current forums QQ that paints GW as conspiring to steal their money by destroying their army on purpose.

Well, I got news for you. If you're a WAAC player and you build armies that abuse rules to your advantage you're going to universally hate new editions because GW is going to dismantle your abusive armies as a matter of course. It's just how it works. You close loopholes and fix abuses for the overall health of the game in the long run because you want to keep your playerbase.

Want to love new editions? Try to play to the spirit of the rules rather than to always win. Unless you play for tournaments. Then you should just strap yourself in for a bad time and stop whining about it every. single. time. they release a new codex or edition.

As for Napoleonic gunline armies... If you can't figure out a way to get something into melee that's not the game's fault. If there's not enough cover on the board to cover-hop in relative safety across a board you're playing with too much open space. This hasn't changed from 4th edition, much less 5th. Also, blowing up a transport doesn't auto-entangle anymore. You just take a pinning test which isn't automatically the end of the world. Properly utilized transports are still going to be worth their weight in gold to melee troops. Even with HPs.

Arandmoor wrote:
If you're a WAAC player and you build armies that abuse rules to your advantage you're going to universally hate new editions because GW is going to dismantle your abusive armies as a matter of course. It's just how it works.

Yeah, abusive armies! Like the entire Tyranid codex!

Fafnir wrote:

Arandmoor wrote:
If you're a WAAC player and you build armies that abuse rules to your advantage you're going to universally hate new editions because GW is going to dismantle your abusive armies as a matter of course. It's just how it works.

Yeah, abusive armies! Like the entire Tyranid codex!

To be fair, they weren't dismantled by a Rulebook, but by their own codex. Nothing could save them from being Cruddaced.

Arandmoor wrote:
So long as you know the D3 S3 AP2 wounds to all psykers terrain is a possibility in a finite list of possibilities, none of which are unknown, it's effects come down to statistics. Not luck. Simply because you can opt to NOT trigger the possible death-trap in the first place. If there were no way to avoid it, then you would be right, and it would be luck.

The difference is that you get a choice to trigger it on purpose, and to try to prevent your opponent from triggering it in turn.

The key is 'choice'.

Sorry this particular event is down to luck. This happens on a roll of a 9 with a certain mysterious type of terrain. The even cause these hits to ALL PSYKERS ON THE BOARD, not just in the terrain itself. SO essentially there is no choice for me if my opponent decides that he is going to use that mysetrious terrain piece.

DarthOvious wrote:

Arandmoor wrote:
So long as you know the D3 S3 AP2 wounds to all psykers terrain is a possibility in a finite list of possibilities, none of which are unknown, it's effects come down to statistics. Not luck. Simply because you can opt to NOT trigger the possible death-trap in the first place. If there were no way to avoid it, then you would be right, and it would be luck.

The difference is that you get a choice to trigger it on purpose, and to try to prevent your opponent from triggering it in turn.

The key is 'choice'.

Sorry this particular event is down to luck. This happens on a roll of a 9 with a certain mysterious type of terrain. The even cause these hits to ALL PSYKERS ON THE BOARD, not just in the terrain itself. SO essentially there is no choice for me if my opponent decides that he is going to use that mysetrious terrain piece.

Than he took the risk and was rewarded for it if it worked on you, also that piece of terrain is pretty much the least common compared to forests, lakes, and hills. I doubt people will use the Archeotechnical terrain except every few boards.

Depends on what you're engaging really. Against non-vehicle units, generally nerfed as it's more difficult to pull of multiple successful assaults and it's easier to shoot units down. Against vehicles though? Absurdly enough charging at tanks is probably one of the best ways to kill them.

From my experience so far combat requires a bit more patience and tactical thinking. Its not just simply "move 6", run d6" until I am close enough to an enemy to charge."

With 5/6 missions being objectives, armies are going to get close to each other and you are going to want some things that can fight in cc.

ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Than he took the risk and was rewarded for it if it worked on you, also that piece of terrain is pretty much the least common compared to forests, lakes, and hills. I doubt people will use the Archeotechnical terrain except every few boards.

The point is, this is something that is outside my control. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against a random game or games based on luck. I don't mind the 2D6 random charge rule, but that doesn't change the fact that this event is purely based on luck, odds or however you want to see it. That is what I was getting at. This is NOT something I can PLAN for. The fact that you state that HE TOOK the risk and was rewarded for it and not me just clarrifies my point even further. Thank You.

That is what is being argued over in the first place. How do I plan for my opponent rolling a dice roll for a piece of Archeotechnical terrain and comes up with something that does damage to most of my Grey Knights? Let me guess, your answer is for me to not play using Grey Knights.

DarthOvious wrote:

ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Than he took the risk and was rewarded for it if it worked on you, also that piece of terrain is pretty much the least common compared to forests, lakes, and hills. I doubt people will use the Archeotechnical terrain except every few boards.

The point is, this is something that is outside my control. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against a random game or games based on luck. I don't mind the 2D6 random charge rule, but that doesn't change the fact that this event is purely based on luck, odds or however you want to see it. That is what I was getting at. This is NOT something I can PLAN for. The fact that you state that HE TOOK the risk and was rewarded for it and not me just clarrifies my point even further. Thank You.

That is what is being argued over in the first place. How do I plan for my opponent rolling a dice roll for a piece of Archeotechnical terrain and comes up with something that does damage to most of my Grey Knights? Let me guess, your answer is for me to not play using Grey Knights.

Aww you didn't even let me get the snarky answer in.

Due to your Brotherhood of Psykers rule, you only take it against one model regardless per unit. due to the second part of the rule.

"If the unit suffers perils or any other attack that specifically targets psykers, it is resolved against the character, or a random, non character model in the unit if there is none"

You have powerful psykers regardless, what with being able to take a power with each unit with hammerhand. I play thousand sons, so I feel this pain too, so don't think I am just ignoring your army because I can't feel the same thing.

I originally voted for "Close combat being nerfed" (although it really seems too early to say anything. But thinking about the whole thing again, I think melee got stronger; at least if your army has specialized close combat units. Before, when Terminators charged my guardsmen, my sergeants could safely whack at them with power weapons, while the grunts took the hits. Now, specialized melee units make your opponent chose between risking his best fighters to stop the assaulting squad, who will often wipe the floor with them, or have them cowering in the back while his regular troops are getting slaughtered.
The increase in night fighting also helps of course.

In conclusion, it seems like the 6th edition has not really nerfed close combat, it simply added the tactical element that it so desperately needed. Where before, throwing your squads at each other sufficed, now positioning, equipment and target evaluation are key.
Those who truly understand the mechanics will still make it work. And to all those who quit their assaulty armies just because it suddenly became too challenging to do (basically requiring more thought than "herp derp assault"), to you I say: shame on you!

It's different, not really nerfed or buffed...

Power weapons got a boost IMO, FOUR TYPES? You mean my guard can take an AP 2 weapon for 10 stinking points? And it is +1 S? OR I can take a skull bashing +2 maul? Or equip a bunch of them with lances and get a bonus on the charge?

AWESOME SAUCE.

Fafnir wrote:

Arandmoor wrote:
If you're a WAAC player and you build armies that abuse rules to your advantage you're going to universally hate new editions because GW is going to dismantle your abusive armies as a matter of course. It's just how it works.

Yeah, abusive armies! Like the entire Tyranid codex!

Lol, no. No, no. GW just hates 'nids.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

DarthOvious wrote:

ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Than he took the risk and was rewarded for it if it worked on you, also that piece of terrain is pretty much the least common compared to forests, lakes, and hills. I doubt people will use the Archeotechnical terrain except every few boards.

The point is, this is something that is outside my control. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against a random game or games based on luck. I don't mind the 2D6 random charge rule, but that doesn't change the fact that this event is purely based on luck, odds or however you want to see it. That is what I was getting at. This is NOT something I can PLAN for. The fact that you state that HE TOOK the risk and was rewarded for it and not me just clarrifies my point even further. Thank You.

That is what is being argued over in the first place. How do I plan for my opponent rolling a dice roll for a piece of Archeotechnical terrain and comes up with something that does damage to most of my Grey Knights? Let me guess, your answer is for me to not play using Grey Knights.

No, the answer is for you to keep him from triggering the terrain which is, again, a choice.

Arandmoor wrote:

2. The internet lets the mathhammer masters pound out the most abusive lists for book A in edition X. The vast majority of the time these lists are NOT the intended use of the rules and instead abuse a gimmick of some sort to an extreme that was intended to be used in moderation. The rest are usually the result of GW penning a codex with the next edition in mind to give players of that codex as much time in the sweet spot as possible once the new edition comes out because they won't be getting a new codex for a while. .

Most "abuses" are discovered almost instantly tho

Just shows that the testers are bad

Lol, no. No, no. GW just hates 'nids.

Being the only Xenos to update every single edition is really hateful isn't it?

If they didn't hate them, they would never have given them to Crud-face.

To me, the new throws especialy the mysterious everything seem more like adventurous gimmicks than some tactical balance. 2d6 charge is bad, can't get my head around the decision - d6 run was already too much disparity between results imo. Should not end up overly tragic with fleet but is sure to create some needless wtf moments anyway.

On topic, following GW recommendations of d3 terrain pieces for each 2'x2' part of a board, the melee might actualy work.

Btw tyranids from Cruddace codex (which I like btw) is nothing compared to 6th + tyranids codex as far as genestealers are concerned. One could argue they were better in 5th vs 4th but now are worse than in both.

Talamare wrote:

Arandmoor wrote:

2. The internet lets the mathhammer masters pound out the most abusive lists for book A in edition X. The vast majority of the time these lists are NOT the intended use of the rules and instead abuse a gimmick of some sort to an extreme that was intended to be used in moderation. The rest are usually the result of GW penning a codex with the next edition in mind to give players of that codex as much time in the sweet spot as possible once the new edition comes out because they won't be getting a new codex for a while. .

Most "abuses" are discovered almost instantly tho

Just shows that the testers are bad

Either that or they're just not listened to. Having worked in QA, it happens more than one might think. (QA: hey, these reports don't work, and we're getting rounding errors DEV: yeah, we're not gonna fix it, it'd take too much work or we want to look like that).

KGatch113 wrote:

Your squad with a thunderhammer sergeant goes bounding forward toward the wraithlord....

Then wham, a squad of Eldar Pathfinders opens up.

Guess who takes the AP1, Rending shot to the face????

The guy with the 4+ Look Out Sir?

Vaktathi wrote:

Talamare wrote:

Arandmoor wrote:

2. The internet lets the mathhammer masters pound out the most abusive lists for book A in edition X. The vast majority of the time these lists are NOT the intended use of the rules and instead abuse a gimmick of some sort to an extreme that was intended to be used in moderation. The rest are usually the result of GW penning a codex with the next edition in mind to give players of that codex as much time in the sweet spot as possible once the new edition comes out because they won't be getting a new codex for a while. .

Most "abuses" are discovered almost instantly tho

Just shows that the testers are bad

Either that or they're just not listened to. Having worked in QA, it happens more than one might think. (QA: hey, these reports don't work, and we're getting rounding errors DEV: yeah, we're not gonna fix it, it'd take too much work or we want to look like that).

Sorry, youre very right. I shouldnt insult the testers who could have been doing an excellent job

It also could be that they may not exist too GW has cut wayyyyyy back on their playtesting and it may just be the same guys writing it that do all the playtesting. They don't have anyone internally dedicated to that position as far as has ever been revealed, and IIRC they no longer do external testing.

Kaldor wrote:

KGatch113 wrote:

Your squad with a thunderhammer sergeant goes bounding forward toward the wraithlord....

Then wham, a squad of Eldar Pathfinders opens up.

Guess who takes the AP1, Rending shot to the face????

The guy with the 4+ Look Out Sir?

Hidden models went from a 0% chance of being picked out to a 50% chance of being picked out when precise shots come their way. This is a very serious blow to stuff relying on hidden weapons and upgrades.

Take the pathfinder example. 10 guys are likely to put down two precise shots. Filter that through look out, sir, and your sergeant or icon bearer or commissar is still very likely very dead.

Sephyr wrote:It's a mild nerf if you are a Marine-equivalent. MeQs can eat the incoming overwatch, have power fists choices on almost all squads, access to TH/SS if they want to get serious.

For rest? Colossal nerf.

Fragile CC specialists not making it to combat, getting nuked via overwatch. Rare AP 2 weapons and often none that you can sing before the enemy has decimated your squad. Heck, you only need 1 2+ save in a unit to mess you a qhole unit of AP3 banshees/incubi.

The old adage of "shoot the choppy, chop the shooty" doesn't hold anymore. For khorne's sake, do NOT try to chop the shooty! you'll pay for it in pain.

yes, Eldar and DE assault took a massive nerf to the point that they can probably still take a shooty army but if they face a meq assault army they have no chance.
DE shooty is a little overcosted but atleast it is not autolose.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Arandmoor wrote:

Sephyr wrote:Gotta be honest, I used to laugh at people saying GW changes its rules and books to make people dumb the old stuff as conspiracy theories...

...but now I'm getting fitted for my tinfoil hat.

Guess people bought all the DE and nids they were going to, so why not dangle awesomely strong necrons where you can smap flyers and overwatch assaulters all day long in front of them?

Put down those agonizers and boneswords, friends, they'll help you none against articer armor, terminators and sempiternal weaves! Just form up neat lines and trade shots like Napoleonic armies should.

Take off the tinfoil.

Here's how this works...

1. GW releases book A for edition X.

2. The internet lets the mathhammer masters pound out the most abusive lists for book A in edition X. The vast majority of the time these lists are NOT the intended use of the rules and instead abuse a gimmick of some sort to an extreme that was intended to be used in moderation. The rest are usually the result of GW penning a codex with the next edition in mind to give players of that codex as much time in the sweet spot as possible once the new edition comes out because they won't be getting a new codex for a while.

3. GW releases edition Y and fixes the abuses that caused the broken lists because...wait for it...they weren't intended to work that way.They were abuses to begin with. Effective tactics that came about due to unintended or unfortunate interpretations of the rules. This new edition also clears up the issues brought about by bridged-edition codicies which can now be played in the edition for which they were written.

4. People who built armies that focused on the abuses from the previous edition suddenly find that their armies don't function.

Which brings us to the majority of the current forums QQ that paints GW as conspiring to steal their money by destroying their army on purpose.

Well, I got news for you. If you're a WAAC player and you build armies that abuse rules to your advantage you're going to universally hate new editions because GW is going to dismantle your abusive armies as a matter of course. It's just how it works. You close loopholes and fix abuses for the overall health of the game in the long run because you want to keep your playerbase.

Want to love new editions? Try to play to the spirit of the rules rather than to always win. Unless you play for tournaments. Then you should just strap yourself in for a bad time and stop whining about it every. single. time. they release a new codex or edition.

As for Napoleonic gunline armies... If you can't figure out a way to get something into melee that's not the game's fault. If there's not enough cover on the board to cover-hop in relative safety across a board you're playing with too much open space. This hasn't changed from 4th edition, much less 5th. Also, blowing up a transport doesn't auto-entangle anymore. You just take a pinning test which isn't automatically the end of the world. Properly utilized transports are still going to be worth their weight in gold to melee troops. Even with HPs.

DE weren't supposed to be good in assault. They were just abusing the rules? Incubi first came out in 3rd edition when they were 25points. In 5th they were lowered to 22 points but they lost their shooting attack. You were supposed to run or fleet into every assault so who needs to shoot right. Even in 5th they werent that good, they were only really useful against things with 2+ saves or very expensive 3+ saves with max toughness 4. Now they are basically completely useless with ap3. Now they charge in, pretty difficult with the assault range nerf. Now they arew going to charge in to an expensive squad and find either they all have 2+ saves or the sergent has a 2+ save and they bounce off. Clearly they use to be abused as they might do their job of heavy assault.

Vaktathi wrote:

Talamare wrote:

Arandmoor wrote:

2. The internet lets the mathhammer masters pound out the most abusive lists for book A in edition X. The vast majority of the time these lists are NOT the intended use of the rules and instead abuse a gimmick of some sort to an extreme that was intended to be used in moderation. The rest are usually the result of GW penning a codex with the next edition in mind to give players of that codex as much time in the sweet spot as possible once the new edition comes out because they won't be getting a new codex for a while. .

Most "abuses" are discovered almost instantly tho

Just shows that the testers are bad

Either that or they're just not listened to. Having worked in QA, it happens more than one might think. (QA: hey, these reports don't work, and we're getting rounding errors DEV: yeah, we're not gonna fix it, it'd take too much work or we want to look like that).

<shudder>
Working as Intended.

Bane of my existence.

To be fair, I don't think GW has QA testers. They just have the devs, and a few "in the know" beta testers do it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Exergy wrote:
DE weren't supposed to be good in assault. They were just abusing the rules? Incubi first came out in 3rd edition when they were 25points. In 5th they were lowered to 22 points but they lost their shooting attack. You were supposed to run or fleet into every assault so who needs to shoot right. Even in 5th they werent that good, they were only really useful against things with 2+ saves or very expensive 3+ saves with max toughness 4. Now they are basically completely useless with ap3. Now they charge in, pretty difficult with the assault range nerf. Now they arew going to charge in to an expensive squad and find either they all have 2+ saves or the sergent has a 2+ save and they bounce off. Clearly they use to be abused as they might do their job of heavy assault.

You're doing something beyond putting words in my mouth. It's like you didn't even read what I wrote, only I expect a bit more reading comprehension from people who don't even read things.

DE are very good in assault. The abuse was assaulting from a WWP so that their charge target did not get a chance to respond before getting sucked into melee. It's that whole "no chance to respond" that was fixed.

Wytches still tarpit like pros, and incubi still smash. Nothing changed there.

Arandmoor wrote:

Vaktathi wrote:

Talamare wrote:

Arandmoor wrote:

2. The internet lets the mathhammer masters pound out the most abusive lists for book A in edition X. The vast majority of the time these lists are NOT the intended use of the rules and instead abuse a gimmick of some sort to an extreme that was intended to be used in moderation. The rest are usually the result of GW penning a codex with the next edition in mind to give players of that codex as much time in the sweet spot as possible once the new edition comes out because they won't be getting a new codex for a while. .

Most "abuses" are discovered almost instantly tho

Just shows that the testers are bad

Either that or they're just not listened to. Having worked in QA, it happens more than one might think. (QA: hey, these reports don't work, and we're getting rounding errors DEV: yeah, we're not gonna fix it, it'd take too much work or we want to look like that).

<shudder>
Working as Intended.

Bane of my existence.

To be fair, I don't think GW has QA testers. They just have the devs, and a few "in the know" beta testers do it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Exergy wrote:
DE weren't supposed to be good in assault. They were just abusing the rules? Incubi first came out in 3rd edition when they were 25points. In 5th they were lowered to 22 points but they lost their shooting attack. You were supposed to run or fleet into every assault so who needs to shoot right. Even in 5th they werent that good, they were only really useful against things with 2+ saves or very expensive 3+ saves with max toughness 4. Now they are basically completely useless with ap3. Now they charge in, pretty difficult with the assault range nerf. Now they arew going to charge in to an expensive squad and find either they all have 2+ saves or the sergent has a 2+ save and they bounce off. Clearly they use to be abused as they might do their job of heavy assault.

You're doing something beyond putting words in my mouth. It's like you didn't even read what I wrote, only I expect a bit more reading comprehension from people who don't even read things.

DE are very good in assault. The abuse was assaulting from a WWP so that their charge target did not get a chance to respond before getting sucked into melee. It's that whole "no chance to respond" that was fixed.

Wytches still tarpit like pros, and incubi still smash. Nothing changed there.

Whiches are now more of a speed bump than a tarpit, though. Pretty much the only effective use for them is to CC assault termies and other stuff that doesn't shoot.

Incubi smash...if they are attacking scouts, tactical marines without flamers, or small groups of elites that have already been thinned and had key models picked off by shooting from other units. If the enemy has defensive grenades, is in cover, has more than 10 models in the unit or 2+ armor and/or 4+ invulnerable or better, they will whiff far more often than not.

As for your larger point, it might have worked if GW's codex release schedule was a fist faster than a glacier. "The new releases will fix everything because they work with the new paradigm!" is a grand claim, but the truth is one army gets updated per semester, leaving lots of useless models around for years, and sometimes the update doesn't help (*cough*Cruddace*cough*).

Had it been a company with a better record doing the same thing, I wouldn't sweat it. But it's the company that was happy to leave several armies for years without psychic counters, whose logic in some FAQs is mind-boggling, who opened a bit can of power worms with the Allies rule while shutting an entire army out of the party with no little fix to make them equal. But apparently that's good design, because they're totally getting a proper codex in 2015!

Let's look over at a diferent game. One that is also a bit confusing but that has people who apparently actually try.

Infinity's units often have a rule called Hacking, which allows you to immobilize or take over enemy robots, rmeotes and even heavy infantry. One faction, however, is lagging way behind the other in technology and has no hackers at all. Bummer, huh? What an imbalance. Except since their gear is low-tech and offline, the rules say they cannot be hacked either.

See what they did there?

Sephyr wrote:
Whiches are now more of a speed bump than a tarpit, though. Pretty much the only effective use for them is to CC assault termies and other stuff that doesn't shoot.

Incubi smash...if they are attacking scouts, tactical marines without flamers, or small groups of elites that have already been thinned and had key models picked off by shooting from other units. If the enemy has defensive grenades, is in cover, has more than 10 models in the unit or 2+ armor and/or 4+ invulnerable or better, they will whiff far more often than not.

As for your larger point, it might have worked if GW's codex release schedule was a fist faster than a glacier. "The new releases will fix everything because they work with the new paradigm!" is a grand claim, but the truth is one army gets updated per semester, leaving lots of useless models around for years, and sometimes the update doesn't help (*cough*Cruddace*cough*).

Had it been a company with a better record doing the same thing, I wouldn't sweat it. But it's the company that was happy to leave several armies for years without psychic counters, whose logic in some FAQs is mind-boggling, who opened a bit can of power worms with the Allies rule while shutting an entire army out of the party with no little fix to make them equal. But apparently that's good design, because they're totally getting a proper codex in 2015!

Let's look over at a diferent game. One that is also a bit confusing but that has people who apparently actually try.

Infinity's units often have a rule called Hacking, which allows you to immobilize or take over enemy robots, rmeotes and even heavy infantry. One faction, however, is lagging way behind the other in technology and has no hackers at all. Bummer, huh? What an imbalance. Except since their gear is low-tech and offline, the rules say they cannot be hacked either.

See what they did there?

Oh, so the wytchs' CC invuln saves are gone now? An Incubi don't get to strike with S4 AP3 CC attacks on initiative(5) when the rest of the army is S3 in CC? Oh, right. They can't punch termie armor therefore Incubi are useless. I see your logic.

You're wrong. You can't just brainlessly poop a squad of wytches onto the board with no regard to tactics and expect them to win you the game. That's why you're claiming that they are "little more than speed bumps". If you can get them into CC, in force, they are the best tarpit in the game because of their invuln saves, and ability to hide things like an aganizer on the sergeant.

But they can't look sideways at a termie and kill it. Oh no. Woe was me. /sarcasm

Just means you have to think before you assault.

Also, GW's codex release schedule has nothing to do with fixing holes in the main rules. All their crap schedule signifies is that they can't release new army books at any better than a snail's pace. Is it frustrating? Yeah. Still doesn't have anything to do with fixing problems with the base rules.

As for your "example", yeah no. It really makes no sense because there was no downside to the WWPs. Maybe if WWPs had some sort of statline, and if they got shot to death the DE player lost the game allowing DE to assault out of them might make sense.
But that's not how things work.

Your example is just bad. And you're referencing Warmachine/Hordes right?

ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Aww you didn't even let me get the snarky answer in.

Due to your Brotherhood of Psykers rule, you only take it against one model regardless per unit. due to the second part of the rule.

Yes I know that the Justicar takes it for each unit. When he dies my squad will then be LD8 instead of LD9. That still doesn't change the fact that this isn't something I can plan for. Its a random event, one my opponenet who I obviously have no control over can trigger himself when going through terrain.

"If the unit suffers perils or any other attack that specifically targets psykers, it is resolved against the character, or a random, non character model in the unit if there is none"

You have powerful psykers regardless, what with being able to take a power with each unit with hammerhand. I play thousand sons, so I feel this pain too, so don't think I am just ignoring your army because I can't feel the same thing.

That was never what this conversation was about. This was about the fact that this is an event that CAN'T BE PLANED FOR. That is all. I don't really care about the random rules. I'm fine with them. I am only pointing out that this kind of thing does NOT involve generalship skills. I can't not avoid this event if my opponent decides to wander through some terrain in his half of the board and just so happens to roll a 9 on the dice.

I'm not sure what argument you are trying to create here, because it has nothing to do with the fact that this particular random event is something that really can't be mitigated against. I'm not saying I dislike random rules, I'm not saying that I don't like 6th edition or anything. I'm just saying that this is an event that is random and cannot be planned for. Please explain how I plan for this? Do I ask my opponent kindly to not look at Archeotechnical terrain? Do I punch him in the face over the table if he tries to roll for it?

Arandmoor wrote:
No, the answer is for you to keep him from triggering the terrain which is, again, a choice.

You are really grasping at straws here. I have no control over what my opponent does. If he gets first turn, gets to that terrain piece and then uses it then what else can I do?

Telling me to stop him from doing it is NOT AN ANSWER. Like I said above, I don't mind the game having random events. I don't care. If this particular event happens, then it happens. However that doesn't change the fact that this is something outside my control and it is a random event. Telling me to table my opponent in the first turn so he can't use the terrain is just nonsense, especially since my rolls to stop him will also be random, providing I get the chance in the first place. Thats like telling me to invade the racing ground to stop a horse from winning the derby because it is beating the horse I betted on. It's not going to happen.

Random games can be fun, and I like to play some. I like Poker and I like Blackjack. I also like Roulette. I don't really play a lot of these games anymore since I like to keep my money but I have played them and I do think they are fun. All these games come down to odds or even luck. Luck is just something based on odds in the end. What I don't do though is confused where one event is based on odds where another event isn't based on odds. Charging is now based on odds, the terrain effects are now based on odds. So naturally luck will fall into it somewhere along the line. I'm fine with this because I know that the vast majority of games have luck involved in them somewhere down the line.

Wheres the Balanced option? I feel the new assault rules are great and make the game just as fare for non closed combat armies. Now being an Ork player I am a little peeved about loosing my bonus Int. from Furious Charge and having to deal with running into flame throwers. However Tanks became so much easier to get rid of (now that I only need 3 glances on average to wreck one) and with allies I can reduce the number of enemy units before making a charge on them. Not to mention snap shots require a 6 to even hit so I'm not to worried about them. So as I said I feel it has become more balanced.

Arandmoor wrote:

Oh, so the wytchs' CC invuln saves are gone now? An Incubi don't get to strike with S4 AP3 CC attacks on initiative(5) when the rest of the army is S3 in CC? Oh, right. They can't punch termie armor therefore Incubi are useless. I see your logic.

You're wrong. You can't just brainlessly poop a squad of wytches onto the board with no regard to tactics and expect them to win you the game. That's why you're claiming that they are "little more than speed bumps". If you can get them into CC, in force, they are the best tarpit in the game because of their invuln saves, and ability to hide things like an aganizer on the sergeant.

But they can't look sideways at a termie and kill it. Oh no. Woe was me. /sarcasm

Just means you have to think before you assault.

ooo so wyches have a 4++ on t3. Seems to me against most things 3+ on t4 is a lot better than that. Wyches use to get half their damage output from the power weapon and now the power weapon is not so much of an option. why invest 52 points in a t3 1w 6+ model who can be killed so easily or ignored with a 2+ save even easier. The problem is not really terminators, although now DE dont have anything capable of taking down a Teq squad in CC. The problem is teq unit sergents.

Charge a unit of grey hunters with incubi, incubi win. Charge a unit of grey hunters with 1 wolfguard with a 2+ save and the incubi get trashed. They could even be longfangs with a wolfguard. Same thing with Necrons. All it takes is one and no matter how many of DE most powerful assault troop you have they cannot win against even a shooty squad with 1 2+ save champion in it.

A bunch of codexes can put 1 2+ saves in every squad. Even if they cant, there are still ICs. DE dont have a way to take out ICs with 2+ saves in combat anymore. Therefore if we see a shooty gunline with 1 SM captian or libby in artificer armor we cannot assault. Incubi and archons backed up with wyches, lots of them cannot take down a dev squad, a tac squad and 1 sm captain. We cannot kill enough other models to make the captian break and we cannot kill the captain so evnetually he will kill everything we assaulted with.

Charge a unit of grey hunters with incubi, incubi win. Charge a unit of grey hunters with 1 wolfguard with a 2+ save and the incubi get trashed. They could even be longfangs with a wolfguard. Same thing with Necrons. All it takes is one and no matter how many of DE most powerful assault troop you have they cannot win against even a shooty squad with 1 2+ save champion in it.

Take an Incubi with Demiklaves = trashed wolfguard. You can literally do the same thing with your incubi troop leader! What's the issue here?

A bunch of codexes can put 1 2+ saves in every squad. Even if they cant, there are still ICs. DE dont have a way to take out ICs with 2+ saves in combat anymore.

Clasped Demiklaves = AP2

Also, shooting! Lots of AP2 darklances, snipe the model out, maybe even use hellions to yank those IC's out of combat with the never seen used snatchclaw.

And Harlequins with Rending.

ZebioLizard2 wrote:

Charge a unit of grey hunters with incubi, incubi win. Charge a unit of grey hunters with 1 wolfguard with a 2+ save and the incubi get trashed. They could even be longfangs with a wolfguard. Same thing with Necrons. All it takes is one and no matter how many of DE most powerful assault troop you have they cannot win against even a shooty squad with 1 2+ save champion in it.

Take an Incubi with Demiklaves = trashed wolfguard. You can literally do the same thing with your incubi troop leader! What's the issue here?

Yes you can take a Klavex for 70 points and kill a sergeant, but he still has no chance against an IC. You can tool out an archon all you like, but striking last at str4 isnt a great option for them.

Exergy wrote:

ZebioLizard2 wrote:

Charge a unit of grey hunters with incubi, incubi win. Charge a unit of grey hunters with 1 wolfguard with a 2+ save and the incubi get trashed. They could even be longfangs with a wolfguard. Same thing with Necrons. All it takes is one and no matter how many of DE most powerful assault troop you have they cannot win against even a shooty squad with 1 2+ save champion in it.

Take an Incubi with Demiklaves = trashed wolfguard. You can literally do the same thing with your incubi troop leader! What's the issue here?

Yes you can take a Klavex for 70 points and kill a sergeant, but he still has no chance against an IC. You can tool out an archon all you like, but striking last at str4 isnt a great option for them.

True enough at times though he can help with the issue. With Murderous Assault he grants the entire unit + Archon with preferred enemy (IC) due to the passdown rules that allow Preferred enemy to benefit the entire squad that the Klavex is within against the IC in question.

Of course if you really want to hurt IC's, bring Drahzon, with his own 2+ save, AP2, and his ability to break things in challenges, he will put down true hurt if you really need that IC hunting that badly. Alongside lilith, who still has a not power weapon that rips through armour and is a powerful challenger.

ZebioLizard2 wrote:Of course if you really want to hurt IC's, bring Drahzon, with his own 2+ save, AP2, and his ability to break things in challenges, he will put down true hurt if you really need that IC hunting that badly. Alongside lilith, who still has a not power weapon that rips through armour and is a powerful challenger.

Sorry, different direction here, but as a newbie, I still can't say much about other armies... but... How are the other assaulty/hybrid armies doing? Our HQs have been reduced to only having Drahzar and Lelith that could harm 2+ units, even our Vect can't scratch a terminator with his scepter of lawls. Have other armies got their HQ weakened to the point that you're only bringing them on to complete the FoC and use their special rules?

Melee is stronger since you take wounds from the front and can deny your opponent the chance to even strike back. Furthermore challenges strengthen melee. My warboss and his attached 30 boys giving him 6 re-rolls in a man to man challenge is pretty baller.

Getting in melee is harder, don't confuse this with it being nerfed.

Baronyu wrote:

ZebioLizard2 wrote:Of course if you really want to hurt IC's, bring Drahzon, with his own 2+ save, AP2, and his ability to break things in challenges, he will put down true hurt if you really need that IC hunting that badly. Alongside lilith, who still has a not power weapon that rips through armour and is a powerful challenger.

Sorry, different direction here, but as a newbie, I still can't say much about other armies... but... How are the other assaulty/hybrid armies doing? Our HQs have been reduced to only having Drahzar and Lelith that could harm 2+ units, even our Vect can't scratch a terminator with his scepter of lawls. Have other armies got their HQ weakened to the point that you're only bringing them on to complete the FoC and use their special rules?

What other purpose does one bring for an HQ aside from their special rules and ability to fight?

Most other assault hybrid armies are doing okay generally, DE got hit the hardest hough.

ZebioLizard2 wrote:

Baronyu wrote:

ZebioLizard2 wrote:Of course if you really want to hurt IC's, bring Drahzon, with his own 2+ save, AP2, and his ability to break things in challenges, he will put down true hurt if you really need that IC hunting that badly. Alongside lilith, who still has a not power weapon that rips through armour and is a powerful challenger.

Sorry, different direction here, but as a newbie, I still can't say much about other armies... but... How are the other assaulty/hybrid armies doing? Our HQs have been reduced to only having Drahzar and Lelith that could harm 2+ units, even our Vect can't scratch a terminator with his scepter of lawls. Have other armies got their HQ weakened to the point that you're only bringing them on to complete the FoC and use their special rules?

What other purpose does one bring for an HQ aside from their special rules and ability to fight?

Most other assault hybrid armies are doing okay generally, DE got hit the hardest hough.

I thought it was Eldar that was hit hardest

Especially with having no open top/assault vehicles and being dependent on vehicles to deliver their melee

Also Banshee losing their unique i10 to every jump unit

@ZebioLizard2 Ah, cool, thanks. I just wanted to know, that's all.

@Talamare Well, on the vehicle delivery part, DE are the same, we lost WWP, with the exception of hellions and beastmaster, we'd be delivering our melee the same way as Eldar: open top skimmers.

Just curious, how did Banshee lose their hammer of wrath?

I guess Eldar/Dark Eldar are battle brothers because they both got hit hard?

Baronyu wrote:@ZebioLizard2 Ah, cool, thanks. I just wanted to know, that's all.

@Talamare Well, on the vehicle delivery part, DE are the same, we lost WWP, with the exception of hellions and beastmaster, we'd be delivering our melee the same way as Eldar: open top skimmers.

Just curious, how did Banshee lose their hammer of wrath?

I guess Eldar/Dark Eldar are battle brothers because they both got hit hard?

Eldar doesnt have open top transports

Oh I misread, sorry. But what's wrong with banshee?

Baronyu wrote:Oh I misread, sorry. But what's wrong with banshee?

Power Weapon are AP3
Bikes and Jump troops can get i10
Overwatch picks them off (they are kinda of squishy)
Cannot assault out of vehicles, so they either need to run or wait a turn outside the tank and hope they dont get shot out
Movement/Run/Fleet changes, before normal infantry movement/assault was 12", fleet units were 12+1d6" // Now both are 6+2d6"

There are very powerful cc options in Eldar, Harlequins whom are fortuned are less likely to have it counted and far more likely to wipe out an opposing force. A seer council lead by Eldrad in the front (fortuned as always) will stop a very high number of incoming shots and charge in and clear out most things, pw's or no.

2nd test game with Footdar saw a seer council take the majority of an enemy's shooting phase only to watch it do very little since it was funneled through Eldrads 3++ rerollable. He got down to 1 wound and then still was able to lose a warlock or to with look outs. It was rather horrid. I dont see Footdar as weakened on any appreciable level by 6th. Banshees are bad, but harlequins are insane.

Gonna try out DE tonight with my 30 hellions and see how that goes out. With hammer of wrath's I'm expecting lots of angry opponent face.

lazarian wrote:There are very powerful cc options in Eldar, Harlequins whom are fortuned are less likely to have it counted and far more likely to wipe out an opposing force. A seer council lead by Eldrad in the front (fortuned as always) will stop a very high number of incoming shots and charge in and clear out most things, pw's or no.

2nd test game with Footdar saw a seer council take the majority of an enemy's shooting phase only to watch it do very little since it was funneled through Eldrads 3++ rerollable. He got down to 1 wound and then still was able to lose a warlock or to with look outs. It was rather horrid. I dont see Footdar as weakened on any appreciable level by 6th. Banshees are bad, but harlequins are insane.

Gonna try out DE tonight with my 30 hellions and see how that goes out. With hammer of wrath's I'm expecting lots of angry opponent face.

Tell me you're taking a stunclaw or two. And if yes, tell me how it turns out! (I've never seen one used...but they sound rather abusive if used correctly)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Talamare wrote:

ZebioLizard2 wrote:

Baronyu wrote:

ZebioLizard2 wrote:Of course if you really want to hurt IC's, bring Drahzon, with his own 2+ save, AP2, and his ability to break things in challenges, he will put down true hurt if you really need that IC hunting that badly. Alongside lilith, who still has a not power weapon that rips through armour and is a powerful challenger.

Sorry, different direction here, but as a newbie, I still can't say much about other armies... but... How are the other assaulty/hybrid armies doing? Our HQs have been reduced to only having Drahzar and Lelith that could harm 2+ units, even our Vect can't scratch a terminator with his scepter of lawls. Have other armies got their HQ weakened to the point that you're only bringing them on to complete the FoC and use their special rules?

What other purpose does one bring for an HQ aside from their special rules and ability to fight?

Most other assault hybrid armies are doing okay generally, DE got hit the hardest hough.

I thought it was Eldar that was hit hardest

Especially with having no open top/assault vehicles and being dependent on vehicles to deliver their melee

Also Banshee losing their unique i10 to every jump unit

Eldar weren't hit hardest. They're just the oldest melee-centric codex in circulation, so they're going to have the most rules issues and general incompatibilities.

They're in the same boat as Tau. They need a new codex. Orks are in less trouble IMO. Their rules just didn't take as big of a hit (sure the changes to fleet and furious charge hurt but fleet is still an exceptional ability when they do have it, and seriously...the point of initiative wasn't that big of a loss).

I'll put nids in 3rd...but the only reason they're on the list is because they got hit with the cruddace-bat which is kind of like the nerf bat, only larger and more belligerent.

juraigamer wrote:Melee is stronger since you take wounds from the front and can deny your opponent the chance to even strike back. Furthermore challenges strengthen melee. My warboss and his attached 30 boys giving him 6 re-rolls in a man to man challenge is pretty baller.

Getting in melee is harder, don't confuse this with it being nerfed.

You only get the re rolls if there are models in your squad doing nothing.

Weaker, but largely just because shooting is better, I would say. But I don't have the rulebook, so I'm not the best source.

I think MEQ's got a bit of a buff with 2D6 charge range now potentially giving them a fleet-sized threat range. But from my experience, the armies that already got fleet got a bit of the short end of the stick, with potential to get lousy charges when they needed a good charge.Rerolling charges is nice, but there is always that chance of just rolling awfully twice. In 5th ed, worse comes to worse, you had a 7" range at least.

Still, that's really my only large gripe with this edition, everything else isn't that bad, and assault is still viable and important in 40k games.

Arandmoor wrote:
Eldar weren't hit hardest. They're just the oldest melee-centric codex in circulation, so they're going to have the most rules issues and general incompatibilities.

So, Templars are a shooty army now, eh? Guess I didn't get that memo.