Sir Heckington wrote:
This just in:
Buffer SM units seem to have forgot their guns!

Single boltgun shot have been ignored for the scale of the game.
Same for devastator squads, they have no bolter, only special weapons most of the time.

Spoletta wrote:

 Sir Heckington wrote:
This just in:
Buffer SM units seem to have forgot their guns!

Single boltgun shot have been ignored for the scale of the game.
Same for devastator squads, they have no bolter, only special weapons most of the time.

However the same doesn't apply to single pulse shots, as Tau HQs still have their weapons.

 Sir Heckington wrote:

Spoletta wrote:

 Sir Heckington wrote:
This just in:
Buffer SM units seem to have forgot their guns!

Single boltgun shot have been ignored for the scale of the game.
Same for devastator squads, they have no bolter, only special weapons most of the time.

However the same doesn't apply to single pulse shots, as Tau HQs still have their weapons.

A T'au without a gun is naked and they didn't want the game to be rated 18+.

A booster or SB is too small scale but a sword slash is fine? Hmmmmm

If the sword slash is on a character it represents multiple slashes.

Rimember that everything that has an attack, is something that can potentially wipe a squad.
The odd ones out are indeed the T'au character guns.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

the_scotsman wrote:
hm.... I'll have to see some of this stuff in action.

If Sniper truly doesn't grant the abiltiy to target characters even if they're not the closest, and almost all charcters are 1W, then how do you avoid having your characters blown out of the water in Apoc, I wonder?

a couple things you can tease together I've found so far:

Rules we don't yet know:

-Terror Troops (Death Jester)
-Infiltrators
-Supercharge
-Inferno (though I'm fairly sure it'll be auto-hit)
-Anti-Air
-Supersonic

Things we have learned:

-Deep strike is still 9" away (From the preview they placed deep striking units quite close, so I wasn't quite sure)
-Fall Back is still a thing, since Hellions have a rule that references it. If you start the turn in melee, you still have to Fall Back - unclear how that interacts with the new orders system.

We also know that the cover rule has been likely been replaced with the obscuration rule and that everything that has a -1 to be hit now has stealth.

TL/DR....

But I’ve noticed that single character, notably Vargard Obyron is, one his own, far, far less Killy than a unit of Lychguard with Warscythes.

Less attacks, and the attacks are less potent.

Which I guess as ‘one dude against five dudes’ does make a narrative sense?

So with the movement trays, does that bode well for the existence/relevance of terrain in apoc?

I'm glad that every model ever made is covered, but it's also plainly obvious that stats and points were assigned by throwing darts at a wall.

Plague Marines cannot be taken in the proper unit sizes... who the heck takes a squad of 10? Nurgle is sad.

 Crablezworth wrote:
So with the movement trays, does that bode well for the existence/relevance of terrain in apoc?

As long as the rules don’t forbid you from being within an inch of terrain features like Fantasy did. There’s also nothing stopping you from playing without the trays, so far the rules only say you have to maintain half inch unit coherence, which is still easy to do with conga lines.

One benefit of the tray is that for like $25 you can get 5 x 5 units of Intercessors if you buy the 5 man Dark Imperium squad and third party MDF trays. Just stick one Intercessor on each tray and you’re good, because each one will still have the same table space and rules as a full unit of models.



Where are people seeing the Forgeworld units? I downloaded the ork sheets and don’t see em

 zend wrote:
So
Where are people seeing the Forgeworld units? I downloaded the ork sheets and don’t see em

There's a separate FW section further down the page

 xttz wrote:

 zend wrote:
So
Where are people seeing the Forgeworld units? I downloaded the ork sheets and don’t see em

There's a separate FW section further down the page

Or you download everything in the zip file but eitherway FW are in a seperate file.

 Crablezworth wrote:
So with the movement trays, does that bode well for the existence/relevance of terrain in apoc?

Here's an interesting tidbit from the Burna-Bommer sheet

Burna Bombs: After this unit makes a Move action, select one enemy unit it moved over whilst
making that Move action. Roll three D6, subtracting 1 from each result if that unit is a Character
and adding 1 to each result if that unit is garrisoning a Defensible Terrain feature; for each result of
4+ place one blast marker next to that unit.

 xttz wrote:

 zend wrote:
So
Where are people seeing the Forgeworld units? I downloaded the ork sheets and don’t see em

There's a separate FW section further down the page

Ah, on mobile you have to filter to show it.

Edit: Haha, they made it so you can’t load the Kustom Stompa with nothing but more Dakka like in 8th edition.. You have to swap the Lifta Droppa for the Deffkannon. They also goofed, one page says it’s 40 power, the other says 38.

I have no idea why they decided to keep all the re-rolls. Apoc needs to be fast and re-rolls is one of the key reasons that 40k is so slow now.

Should be just +1 to relevant roll, as you're using D12s now so its the same thing except much faster.

I like how Striking scorpions are 16 power rating, but 10 wraithguard are only 14 and 10 intercessors only 12.

Hierophant Bio-titan: 95 PL, 8 wounds.
Warhound Titan: 60 PL, 12 wounds.
Reaver Battle Titan: 100 PL, 24 wounds.



What even, GW?

 Kirasu wrote:
I have no idea why they decided to keep all the re-rolls. Apoc needs to be fast and re-rolls is one of the key reasons that 40k is so slow now.

Should be just +1 to relevant roll, as you're using D12s now so its the same thing except much faster.

I like how Striking scorpions are 16 power rating, but 10 wraithguard are only 14 and 10 intercessors only 12.

I'm guessing it's due to some rules interactions or value we haven't seen yet as I've noticed a buch of keywords that seem to have meaning in the game that we haven't seen yet.
Wraithguard are also 15 for 10 not 14 that's wraithblades who don't have deepstrike infiltration or shadowstrike special rules.

Spoletta wrote:
Reading over tyranids i have to say that i find them a bit plain.
Tyranids are a faction with lot of weird rules, and in apoc that does not translate well.
They are surely functional, but they lose a bit of flavour. What is really cool is that the few quirks left are now quite cinematic due to the apoc rules. The toxic effect now don't have a change of inflicting a mortal wound, they have a chance of asphixiating a whole squad. Same for acid blood.
They also consolidated together a lot of different options, for example the warriors have "bio melee weapons", whatever weapon you give them. This in a way is fine, since i won't have to change loadouts between 40K and Apoc.

I believe this will come across more with the asset cards.

topaxygouroun i wrote:
Hierophant Bio-titan: 95 PL, 8 wounds.
Warhound Titan: 60 PL, 12 wounds.
Reaver Battle Titan: 100 PL, 24 wounds.


What even, GW?

Warhounds and Reavers have a 5+ save, Hierophants have a 3+ save. Nearly all the time these will be on a D6, so Imperial titans will shed wounds much faster than the bug. Reavers also have to pay extra PL for most other weapon options, and can cost up to 154.

I'm most curious to see what the Tyrand command assets will offer too. It will almost certainly allow for some form of Ignore Damage or regeneration, hopefully it can be used on the Hierophant.

Edit: I've had a look around other factions and 3+ saves are really rare in Apoc. Generally they're only on 1-2 wound count named characters like Gulliman or Valoris. If there are any easily accessible abilities to re-roll saves that Hierophant is gonna be hard to put down.

The only other 3+ i found are deathwing knights.

So what the hell is an Ork kart in the GW pdf??

 Jadenim wrote:
So what the hell is an Ork kart in the GW pdf??

They're the looted vehicle rules from the last Chapter Approved. Karts are chimera/rhino equivalents, wagons are looted russes / predators, a battle fortress is a looted baneblade / shadowsword.

Edit: they need to fix the PL values for those a bit. Wagons are 3 PL like a Kart (Russes are around 10), Battlefortresses show 8PL/12PL depending which page you look at (Baneblades are 25-28).

What's the expected PL this is played at?

Do we know anything about what the detachment requirements look like?

Imperial Guard have a datasheet for Schaeffer's Last Chancers! That's a nice unexpected callback.

 Formerly Wu wrote:
Imperial Guard have a datasheet for Schaeffer's Last Chancers! That's a nice unexpected callback.

They even thought about the bsf units, unaligned and Heretic Astartes have the datasheets for the badies.

 LunarSol wrote:
What's the expected PL this is played at?

Do we know anything about what the detachment requirements look like?

It doesn't map across 100% but if this works down to 100 to 150 thats pretty close to a current 40k 2k list

I'm guessing here, but if you play 2v2 games then 2000 points = 100 Power Level for each player.

So in a 2v2 game it would be 4000 points per side or 200 PL.

Wouldn't the intention for armies to be larger than 2000 pt equivalents?

2000 is more in the apocalypse range than in the standard 40k range. The standard 1750 game is already pushing it.

The PL look to be about equivalent with the ones from the original game, so at 100 PL having 3 detachments will be the average. With 3 detachments you can have a quick fun game, about equivalent to a 1000 point game (10-11 units).

 LunarSol wrote:
Wouldn't the intention for armies to be larger than 2000 pt equivalents?

Depends on what your trying to achieve, really but if this scales down to 150-200 ish easily I can see it being preferred by some over the monotony of waiting fro your opponent to finish their 200 model spam list movement phase after you've finished the coffee I just had time to walk to the coffee shop for and walk back having finished said coffee. While carrying my second coffee for thwir upcoming 1/2 hour shooting phase of all the lasguns.

 LunarSol wrote:
Wouldn't the intention for armies to be larger than 2000 pt equivalents?

Very much so. I reckon with these rules you could double a 2000pt / 100PL game to 4000pt / 200PL and still finish quicker than in 40k.

I got a bit excited when I saw all of the Forge World data sheets. That soon passed when I realised that the Ad Mech section doesn’t contain all of Forge World’s gorgeous Mechanicum range.

A new Eliminator weapon option confirmed!

Just occurred to me... will there be a place for Forgeworld in Apocalypse?

I hope so, would be a shame otherwise ! So many great model are just made for it !

The phrase "Light Dark Angels" needs to happen more often. For a moment I thought it referred to the trai- er, non-Fallen DA, but then I realized it was a unit keyword.

Now that's interesting - Spindle Drones appear in the Apoc listings - the tri walker alien machines from the Blackstone Fortress Game


Is - is - is GW going to give us a heavy metal 80s War of the Worlds Xenos faction?!

 techsoldaten wrote:
Just occurred to me... will there be a place for Forgeworld in Apocalypse?

How is this a question at this point? Datasheets for near every model Forgeworld ever made have already been published.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Overread wrote:
Now that's interesting - Spindle Drones appear in the Apoc listings - the tri walker alien machines from the Blackstone Fortress Game


Is - is - is GW going to give us a heavy metal 80s War of the Worlds Xenos faction?!

Er, everything GW puts out in self-contained games has 40k/AoS rules.

Jump pack techmarine?

Seriously though. What is up with the bolter profiles?!

Heavy Bolter wounds on the same roll as normal Bolters and only has one attack. If rapid fire doubles shots like 40k then Heavy Bolter has LESS shots than a Bolter. Storm Bolters and Hurricane Bolters have the same amount of shots. Reiver Heavy pistol has a better to wound than HEAVY BOLTERS! Why are Bolter Rifles better than Special Issue bolters, and as good as plasma not overcharged?! Why are bolters 7+ acrross the line while lasguns are 8+ especially considering that Bolter Rifles are 5+?!?!?!?!?! The Macro Plasma Incinerator has a 5+ SAP! Why do we have the same weapons with different stats? Terminator Storm Bolters have x2 attack while vehicle SBs have 1 attack.

I fail to understand some of the logic behind these stats. Bolt Rifles have to be a typo right?

I see they’re continuing the transports that can’t transport Primaris nonsense in this game too. Why can’t a Mastodon transport Primaris marines exactly?

 MonkeyBallistic wrote:
Why can’t a Mastodon transport Primaris marines exactly?

The Mastadon uses micro USB adapters and Primaris use Lightning adapters?

Can anyone figure out why custodes at max size get more expensive then the equivalent amount of smaller squads? Also with storm shields it says +1 power to equip, that doesnt seem right to improve to 3+ so maybe +1 power per custode or per each grouping (+1 @ 3 +2 @ 5 +3 @ 10)?

So we get all the looted vehicles, and index units like chaos lords on demonic steeds.......

but I can't use my warboss in mega armor. siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh

Sounds about par for the course when it comes to GW.

edit: And I guess I'll have to count my Plague marines with plasma guns as bolters? otherwise I can't even use them. What a weird set of rules. So much for 'use your entire collection'

Grave33 wrote:
Can anyone figure out why custodes at max size get more expensive then the equivalent amount of smaller squads?

That's true for a lot of units (but not all). I don't really understand it myself, because a lot of the units don't actually benefit from being bigger- they advance in a linear fashion (every five models gets X shots & wounds, 2X shots &wounds or whatever). So a big unit can survive more, but ends up with penalties from critical damage, while 2 small units have to be damaged separately and losing one doesn't penalize the other.



@Aldran- keep in mind there will be more small arms than heavy weapons. Often a unit has 1 heavy (or special) and 4 small arms, so the comparable wound roll is covering weight of fire. So a guard infantry squad has _8_ lasguns producing 2 attacks at 8+/10+ and _1_ heavy bolter at 7+/9+. That's where the disparity comes from. Same with marines 9 bolters and 1 HB end up in favor of the bolters, because really, they should.

Aldran wrote:
Seriously though. What is up with the bolter profiles?!

Heavy Bolter wounds on the same roll as normal Bolters and only has one attack. If rapid fire doubles shots like 40k then Heavy Bolter has LESS shots than a Bolter. Storm Bolters and Hurricane Bolters have the same amount of shots. Reiver Heavy pistol has a better to wound than HEAVY BOLTERS! Why are Bolter Rifles better than Special Issue bolters, and as good as plasma not overcharged?! Why are bolters 7+ acrross the line while lasguns are 8+ especially considering that Bolter Rifles are 5+?!?!?!?!?! The Macro Plasma Incinerator has a 5+ SAP! Why do we have the same weapons with different stats? Terminator Storm Bolters have x2 attack while vehicle SBs have 1 attack.

I fail to understand some of the logic behind these stats. Bolt Rifles have to be a typo right?

Special weapons add attacks, so a single heavy bolter shot is equivalent to a whole 5 man squad of shooting.

Voss wrote:

Grave33 wrote:
Can anyone figure out why custodes at max size get more expensive then the equivalent amount of smaller squads?

That's true for a lot of units (but not all). I don't really understand it myself, because a lot of the units don't actually benefit from being bigger- they advance in a linear fashion (every five models gets X shots & wounds, 2X shots &wounds or whatever). So a big unit can survive more, but ends up with penalties from critical damage, while 2 small units have to be damaged separately and losing one doesn't penalize the other.



@Aldran- keep in mind there will be more small arms than heavy weapons. Often a unit has 1 heavy (or special) and 4 small arms, so the comparable wound roll is covering weight of fire. So a guard infantry squad has _8_ lasguns producing 2 attacks at 8+/10+ and _1_ heavy bolter at 7+/9+. That's where the disparity comes from. Same with marines 9 bolters and 1 HB end up in favor of the bolters, because really, they should.

Can you tell me what ones you've seen that get more expensive. Worst I can find is unit staying at the same ratio. Even terminator custodes get cheaper as your squad size increases.

Cynista wrote:
Why on earth is the Canoptek Tomb Stalker power level 12 when the Sentinel (which is better) is power level 8?

Welcome to the Games Workshop™ HHHobby.

 Don Savik wrote:
So we get all the looted vehicles, and index units like chaos lords on demonic steeds.......

but I can't use my warboss in mega armor. siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh

Sounds about par for the course when it comes to GW.

edit: And I guess I'll have to count my Plague marines with plasma guns as bolters? otherwise I can't even use them. What a weird set of rules. So much for 'use your entire collection'

Are you sure there's no megaboss? I've noticed some hq"'s have options hidden on the regular versions datasheet. So for example there's no terminator captain, you need to look at the captain sheet and buy the terminator armor there as an upgrade.

 Don Savik wrote:
but I can't use my warboss in mega armor. siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh

Sounds about par for the course when it comes to GW.

Well GW don't make a Warboss in Mega-Armour mini, so...

 xttz wrote:

 Jadenim wrote:
So what the hell is an Ork kart in the GW pdf??

They're the looted vehicle rules from the last Chapter Approved. Karts are chimera/rhino equivalents, wagons are looted russes / predators, a battle fortress is a looted baneblade / shadowsword.

Edit: they need to fix the PL values for those a bit. Wagons are 3 PL like a Kart (Russes are around 10), Battlefortresses show 8PL/12PL depending which page you look at (Baneblades are 25-28).

PL might be off, but it's worth noting that the LRBT has better weapons, better BS and can shoot twice with Grinding Advance. The Ork Wagon is a little better in melee, but still pretty bad at it.

I'm glad they included the CA looted vehicles for the Orks.

It is unfortunate that some (but not all) of the Index units were missing. As has been said, no Mega Armored Warboss is a bummer. This seems like the kind of format where it wouldn't be too difficult to come up with homebrew rules and get them approved by our opponent though.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Don Savik wrote:
but I can't use my warboss in mega armor. siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh

Sounds about par for the course when it comes to GW.

Well GW don't make a Warboss in Mega-Armour mini, so...

Yet the Khan got his bike back and they don't make that model! Infact all the index only space marine characters on bikes are back in apoc. However, all the index only chaos space marine characters on bikes are gone. Consistency yet again at it's finest.

Grave33 wrote:

Voss wrote:

Grave33 wrote:
Can anyone figure out why custodes at max size get more expensive then the equivalent amount of smaller squads?

That's true for a lot of units (but not all). I don't really understand it myself, because a lot of the units don't actually benefit from being bigger- they advance in a linear fashion (every five models gets X shots & wounds, 2X shots &wounds or whatever). So a big unit can survive more, but ends up with penalties from critical damage, while 2 small units have to be damaged separately and losing one doesn't penalize the other.



@Aldran- keep in mind there will be more small arms than heavy weapons. Often a unit has 1 heavy (or special) and 4 small arms, so the comparable wound roll is covering weight of fire. So a guard infantry squad has _8_ lasguns producing 2 attacks at 8+/10+ and _1_ heavy bolter at 7+/9+. That's where the disparity comes from. Same with marines 9 bolters and 1 HB end up in favor of the bolters, because really, they should.

Can you tell me what ones you've seen that get more expensive. Worst I can find is unit staying at the same ratio. Even terminator custodes get cheaper as your squad size increases.

Eh? Its pretty common (edit: yes, I'm abbreviating PL for Power Level rather than Power Rating- not fixing it)
SM Tactical Squad: 4 PL for 5, 9 PL for 10, plus one more for a heavy weapon.
Centurion Assault Squad: 9 PL for 3, 22(!) for 6.

Howling Banshees: 5 for 5, 12 PL for 10
Striking Scorpions: 7 PL for 5, 16 PL for 10
Guardian Defenders 3 PL for 10, 8 PL for 20 (almost triple)
Rangers 5 for 5, 12 PL for 10.
Dark Reapers 5 for 5, 12 PL for 10
(Fire Dragons and wraith guard go down though...)

Chaos:
Possessed, 4 PL for 5, 11 PL for 10, 16 PL for 15, 21 PL for 20 (first 5 cost 4, second five cost 7, next two groups of 5 cost 5... what?)
Chaos Cultists 2 PL for 10, 6 PL for 20, 9 PL for 30, 12 PL for 40 (So you can have 40 or 60 (6x10) for the same PL
Chaos Marines are unlike Imperial marines, and are 4 PL per 5.
Chaos Bikers are just 8 PL for 3, or 10 PL for 6- quite a reduction, but then 15 PL for 9

Necron Warriors. 6 PL for 10, 14 PL for 20
(Though Necrons also have a bunch that go down- deathmarks, praetorians, flayed ones, wraiths among others)

There are presumably a lot more examples, that was just from a quick scan of a few PDFs.
Yeah, its... really weird. Others do go up in step, but I can't find a rationale or common thread, because it affects really basic units and elite units. There are similar vehicles that are wildly different in cost. The two primaris tanks, for example

This looks like an unfinished draft of army lists with wildly different standards used for different units, or even the same unit at different sizes. This is terrible even for GW.

These need another pass by release day, because this just ain't right.

Voss wrote:
This looks like an unfinished draft of army lists which with wildly different standards used for different units, or even the same unit at different sizes.

Sounds about right. It's pretty disappointing to see something with so much potential turn into a half-finished mess just to rush it out by an arbitrary deadline. Or at least I'm hoping that's the explanation, and GW isn't so laughably terrible at math that they didn't realize how bad some of these rules are...

Well I was looking forward to digging out ALL the 40k models for this. Now that I've seen the data sheets I think it's a hard pass. It does look like they are trying to nail the coffin closed on small marines though.

I think part of this is due to the dynamic of how units take wounds. When you increase a unit to two wounds, you are not just doubling the amount of damage they take, but almost quadrupling it when you consider how many blast markers you have to inflict to have a good chance of closing the deal on killing it. We also don't know what all the command assets will do - I expect Imperium will be able to reinforce their units or reduce the effects of critical damage much more easily than Chaos.

The card decks are probably going to have a major effect on the game, so I suspect the power levels may be influenced by the unique effects each Army can drop on their units to buff them.

Was excited but after seeing the datasheets I think I'm gonna pass. There some real head scratchers when it comes to the stats on a lot of units. Expecting Apocalypse games to be balanced is a fool's errand but I at least expected whoever wrote the rules to have done some basic math and playtesting.

Is that different to regular 40K in any way? A lot of units suck, some are good. Some factions are worse than others.

Hmm the Aquilon Terminator's Lastrum Stormbolters wound on a 9+, when Primaris Bolters wound on a 6+.

The more I look at Apoc, the less I want anything to do with it.

 Peregrine wrote:

Voss wrote:
This looks like an unfinished draft of army lists which with wildly different standards used for different units, or even the same unit at different sizes.

Sounds about right. It's pretty disappointing to see something with so much potential turn into a half-finished mess just to rush it out by an arbitrary deadline. Or at least I'm hoping that's the explanation, and GW isn't so laughably terrible at math that they didn't realize how bad some of these rules are...

So, you never played the game, you don't know the full rules, but from a quick read of a part of them you already decided that you could do a better work at designing them.

I'm going to define this as "Going full dakka".

cody.d. wrote:
Is that different to regular 40K in any way? A lot of units suck, some are good. Some factions are worse than others.

Apoc seems to be on a magnitude greater though. It honestly seems like they had a different person work on converting each faction from regular 40K over to Apoc and none of them coordinated with each other and no one reviewed the final product. There too many instances of what are functionally similar weapons or units with wildy varying stats.

Take the Leman Russ weapons for example.

There's seemingly no rhyme or reason to these stats. They feel so random and don't reflect their counterparts in regular 40K. I'm still trying to figure out what the point of the Twin Lascannon is when the Vanquisher Battle Cannon is just a flat upgrade compared to it.

 LunarSol wrote:
What's the expected PL this is played at?

Do we know anything about what the detachment requirements look like?

Some of the detachments are shown in the video, starting around 1:55.

 Kirasu wrote:


Yet the Khan got his bike back and they don't make that model! Infact all the index only space marine characters on bikes are back in apoc. However, all the index only chaos space marine characters on bikes are gone. Consistency yet again at it's finest.

You can get a Sorcerer and a Chaos Lord on a bike, it's included as an option on their datasheets.

Voss wrote:

Grave33 wrote:
Can anyone figure out why custodes at max size get more expensive then the equivalent amount of smaller squads?

That's true for a lot of units (but not all). I don't really understand it myself, because a lot of the units don't actually benefit from being bigger- they advance in a linear fashion (every five models gets X shots & wounds, 2X shots &wounds or whatever). So a big unit can survive more, but ends up with penalties from critical damage, while 2 small units have to be damaged separately and losing one doesn't penalize the other.



@Aldran- keep in mind there will be more small arms than heavy weapons. Often a unit has 1 heavy (or special) and 4 small arms, so the comparable wound roll is covering weight of fire. So a guard infantry squad has _8_ lasguns producing 2 attacks at 8+/10+ and _1_ heavy bolter at 7+/9+. That's where the disparity comes from. Same with marines 9 bolters and 1 HB end up in favor of the bolters, because really, they should.

Units in apoc benefit more from being bigger than going MSU.

Take tyranid warriors for example.
If you deploy a min 3 model squad, it will degrade after 1 wound and be removed at the next wound.
If you deploy the max squad, there will be no degradation until the third wound, and will keep all the bases on the table (useful for objectives and screening) until you remove the last sixth wound. I will also keep all my heavy weapons until the last wound and half my light weapons until the last wound.

Termagants are 10 for 20 for 4 and 30 for 7. That is normal, because at 30 they unlock a new rule (reroll wounds of 1), and since you don't remove models in apoc, they keep that rule until the last termagant is alive.

Add to this that focus firing in apoc is many times a bad idea compared to 40K.

 Guardsmanwaffle wrote:

cody.d. wrote:
Is that different to regular 40K in any way? A lot of units suck, some are good. Some factions are worse than others.

Apoc seems to be on a magnitude greater though. It honestly seems like they had a different person work on converting each faction from regular 40K over to Apoc and none of them coordinated with each other and no one reviewed the final product. There too many instances of what are functionally similar weapons or units with wildy varying stats.

Take the Leman Russ weapons for example.

Spoiler:

There's seemingly no rhyme or reason to these stats. They feel so random and don't reflect their counterparts in regular 40K. I'm still trying to figure out what the point of the Twin Lascannon is when the Vanquisher Battle Cannon is just a flat upgrade compared to it.

Mind you I'm trying to give apoc the benifit of the doubt atm, as we don't yet know all the rules. But yes, some statlines are odd. Especially when it's a set of possible weapons on one model like an Ork Battlewagon or Guard Leman Russ. The changing of strength vs tougness to SAP and SAT would change how weapons of different capabilities are represented. Throw in the change of wounds, armour and AP. It's all very new. I'm not sure if apoc was ever meant to be taken seriously in the past, all the wacky shenanigans that were possible. But perhaps we still need the dust to settle on this edition of it? See how everything falls into place and compares?

Though if someone wanted to compare equivalents for people that would be pretty cool.

Aldran wrote:
Seriously though. What is up with the bolter profiles?!

Heavy Bolter wounds on the same roll as normal Bolters and only has one attack. If rapid fire doubles shots like 40k then Heavy Bolter has LESS shots than a Bolter. Storm Bolters and Hurricane Bolters have the same amount of shots. Reiver Heavy pistol has a better to wound than HEAVY BOLTERS! Why are Bolter Rifles better than Special Issue bolters, and as good as plasma not overcharged?! Why are bolters 7+ acrross the line while lasguns are 8+ especially considering that Bolter Rifles are 5+?!?!?!?!?! The Macro Plasma Incinerator has a 5+ SAP! Why do we have the same weapons with different stats? Terminator Storm Bolters have x2 attack while vehicle SBs have 1 attack.

I fail to understand some of the logic behind these stats. Bolt Rifles have to be a typo right?

Some of this is probably due to unit having 1 weapon of X while multiples of Y. Vehicle has 1 storm bolter. Terminator squad has 5.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Guardsmanwaffle wrote:
There's seemingly no rhyme or reason to these stats. They feel so random and don't reflect their counterparts in regular 40K. I'm still trying to figure out what the point of the Twin Lascannon is when the Vanquisher Battle Cannon is just a flat upgrade compared to it.

And same isn't true in 40k? In 40k battle cannon is flat out better upgrade over vanquisher cannon.

GW doesn't do balanced games. Whopedoo. Big surprise...not.

I just skimmed through the ork datasheets and planes have a melee attack now. Not familiar with epic, but I thought it was noteworthy....also the mek workshop does not suck as much as in 40k, given this is close to impossible

Waaaghbert wrote:
I just skimmed through the ork datasheets and planes have a melee attack now. Not familiar with epic, but I thought it was noteworthy....also the mek workshop does not suck as much as in 40k, given this is close to impossible

Yup, I'm thinking I may actually need to buy one now. I'm not apposed to a reason to do so.

In the fluff isn't the Leman Russ Annihilator (twin lascannon variant) supposed to be worse than the Leman Russ Vanquisher? I thought it was something they started producing because of not being able to produce more Vanquisher Cannons. In a points game that could be represented by having the Annihilator be worth less than the Vanquisher, but in a Power Level game they might end up being the same, even though one is better.

 Dakka Flakka Flame wrote:
In the fluff isn't the Leman Russ Annihilator (twin lascannon variant) supposed to be worse than the Leman Russ Vanquisher? I thought it was something they started producing because of not being able to produce more Vanquisher Cannons. In a points game that could be represented by having the Annihilator be worth less than the Vanquisher, but in a Power Level game they might end up being the same, even though one is better.

It was made due to a shortage of Vanquisher turrets but no mention of it being less effective. Regardless fluff =/= crunch. There's enough room in their rule set to differentiate the two weapons without making one out right inferior.

Marauder destroyer with 8 missile seem fun.

New case is on latest preview, it looks larger and it states it twice the size of the crusade case, but it doesn't look like it stores twice as much. Looks 1/3 larger to my eyes, anyone have nay insite?

 VictorVonTzeentch wrote:
Hmm the Aquilon Terminator's Lastrum Stormbolters wound on a 9+, when Primaris Bolters wound on a 6+.

The more I look at Apoc, the less I want anything to do with it.

I t baffles me how people are reacting to this.
It’s a completely separate set of rules that we haven’t seen fully yet.

Looking at those unit profiles in particular though, the Lastrum Stormbolters are listed as Heavy, while the Primaris Bolters are small arms. This could limit their target choice or have any number of consequences that we haven’t seen yet.

It does seem to be heavily based on a blend of the Epic rule sets, (so generally I’m happy with what I see). Small arms in Epic Armageddon could only be used when in an Assault as a firefight weapon, rather than being able to shoot normally in the shooting phase.

Let’s wait and see

tneva82 wrote:

 Guardsmanwaffle wrote:
There's seemingly no rhyme or reason to these stats. They feel so random and don't reflect their counterparts in regular 40K. I'm still trying to figure out what the point of the Twin Lascannon is when the Vanquisher Battle Cannon is just a flat upgrade compared to it.

And same isn't true in 40k? In 40k battle cannon is flat out better upgrade over vanquisher cannon.

GW doesn't do balanced games. Whopedoo. Big surprise...not.

The Vanquisher to be fair is cheaper and at least does something different from the regular battle cannon even though 90% of the time the battle cannon is better. Its not the balance that’s getting me though, it’s the inconsistency. The Executioner plasma cannon is the exact same as a regular plasma cannon. Why does a conqueror battle cannon have such a different profile compared to a regular battle cannon when it’s essentially the same weapon? Why does a twin auto cannon have the same number of attacks as a single shot anti tank weapon. All that for just the weapon options for a single unit. I don’t even wanna know what the comparison is like when you start comparing different units.

 Guardsmanwaffle wrote:

 Dakka Flakka Flame wrote:
In the fluff isn't the Leman Russ Annihilator (twin lascannon variant) supposed to be worse than the Leman Russ Vanquisher? I thought it was something they started producing because of not being able to produce more Vanquisher Cannons. In a points game that could be represented by having the Annihilator be worth less than the Vanquisher, but in a Power Level game they might end up being the same, even though one is better.

It was made due to a shortage of Vanquisher turrets but no mention of it being less effective. Regardless fluff =/= crunch. There's enough room in their rule set to differentiate the two weapons without making one out right inferior.

Yeah, having them be different but not having one be substantially worse would have been better.

tc63 wrote:

 VictorVonTzeentch wrote:
Hmm the Aquilon Terminator's Lastrum Stormbolters wound on a 9+, when Primaris Bolters wound on a 6+.

The more I look at Apoc, the less I want anything to do with it.

I t baffles me how people are reacting to this.
It’s a completely separate set of rules that we haven’t seen fully yet.

Looking at those unit profiles in particular though, the Lastrum Stormbolters are listed as Heavy, while the Primaris Bolters are small arms. This could limit their target choice or have any number of consequences that we haven’t seen yet.

It does seem to be heavily based on a blend of the Epic rule sets, (so generally I’m happy with what I see). Small arms in Epic Armageddon could only be used when in an Assault as a firefight weapon, rather than being able to shoot normally in the shooting phase.

Let’s wait and see

One thing I noticed was that an IG Autocannon is Heavy 48" A1 SAP 8+ SAT 8+. Ork Deffgunz are Small Arms 48" Ax4 SAP 7+ SAT 7+. At first glance I thought they made Deffgunz far superior to Autocannons, but thinking about it I'm guessing that for Heavy weapons each weapon gets a roll while for Small Arms you only get one roll for the whole unit.

That's just a guess though.

 Peregrine wrote:

Voss wrote:
This looks like an unfinished draft of army lists which with wildly different standards used for different units, or even the same unit at different sizes.

Sounds about right. It's pretty disappointing to see something with so much potential turn into a half-finished mess just to rush it out by an arbitrary deadline. Or at least I'm hoping that's the explanation, and GW isn't so laughably terrible at math that they didn't realize how bad some of these rules are...

Deep down we all knew it would be like this, didn't we?

@Dakka Flakka Flame,

I should think this is it, yes. Small arms will be an abstraction for the whole unit. So you would only get one load of deff gunz attacks while you’d get one for each autocannon in a heavy weapons squad.

Voss wrote:

This looks like an unfinished draft of army lists with wildly different standards used for different units, or even the same unit at different sizes. This is terrible even for GW.

These need another pass by release day, because this just ain't right.

Spoletta wrote:

So, you never played the game, you don't know the full rules, but from a quick read of a part of them you already decided that you could do a better work at designing them.

I'm going to define this as "Going full dakka".

Oh god yes.

What if Cultists aren't costing extra for the additional 10 (3PL), but rather have a discount on the initial 10? Why? Well looking at the currently known rules some MSU infantry is incredibly vulnerable to morale. A W2 Ld4 Sv10+ unit taking a single blast marker could well be wiped out by it after a morale check. So perhaps they made the minimum-sized unit cost 2PL instead of 3PL (their 40k value) to take that into account?

Necron Warriors on the other hand are much less vulnerable to morale; you need at least 3 blast markers on them to have even a small chance of failing. We also don't know their armywide traits & abilities yet. Reanimation Protocols may well be much more effective on a unit of 20 than a unit of 10.

While I have no doubt there are some errors (I've seen a couple of 2-page datasheets with different PL on each page) some of these stats could be entirely intentional based on actually using the full rules. Rules we haven't seen yet.

^This.

And i already explained why in many cases big units are much better than MSU in Apoc, so surprise surprise GW for once did the right thing and made bigger units cost more.


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By the way, i found some errors in the nids datasheets too.

10 gargs have 1 attack
20 gargs have 2 attacks
30 gargs have 6 attacks

It is obvious that they were 2/4/6 by comparing with termagants, i will write a mail to them.

 Guardsmanwaffle wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 Guardsmanwaffle wrote:
There's seemingly no rhyme or reason to these stats. They feel so random and don't reflect their counterparts in regular 40K. I'm still trying to figure out what the point of the Twin Lascannon is when the Vanquisher Battle Cannon is just a flat upgrade compared to it.

And same isn't true in 40k? In 40k battle cannon is flat out better upgrade over vanquisher cannon.

GW doesn't do balanced games. Whopedoo. Big surprise...not.

The Vanquisher to be fair is cheaper and at least does something different from the regular battle cannon even though 90% of the time the battle cannon is better. Its not the balance that’s getting me though, it’s the inconsistency. The Executioner plasma cannon is the exact same as a regular plasma cannon. Why does a conqueror battle cannon have such a different profile compared to a regular battle cannon when it’s essentially the same weapon? Why does a twin auto cannon have the same number of attacks as a single shot anti tank weapon. All that for just the weapon options for a single unit. I don’t even wanna know what the comparison is like when you start comparing different units.

The Executioner is definitely the oddest on the list, I really think it should at least have 2 shots, maybe even 3.

Conqueror battle cannons should be weaker than standard battle cannons, that is their whole shtick- Conquerors have less firepower than the standard Russ, but more mobility. In previous editions the CBC was S7 AP4 small blast Heavy, then S8 AP3 small blast Heavy, vs S8 AP3 large blast Ordnance (a straight upgrade against both infantry and tanks vs even the improved version of the Conqueror). Having 2 shots vs 1 is a bit weird, but then the Conqueror profile is notably weaker- someone will have to do the maths on which is better with both shots taken into account. Obviously there is also the range difference directly carried over from 40k.

As expected, no rules for my Ordinatus.

Sad machine bleeps :(

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
As expected, no rules for my Ordinatus.

Sad machine bleeps :(

Email FW and tell them you'd love to buy an Ordinatus to play Apoc with but it doesn't have any rules yet

As someone that’s never played epic, it’ll take some time for me to get my head around some of the rules – especially how wounding/damage works out. I’m so use to removing a model at a time. It just feels weird seeing something like a multi-melta struggling to wound an infantry unit, when in 40k it basically just removes a model lol.

I’m with most of the people on here though – from the bits I’ve looked over, I do have more questions than answers (which may, or may not get answered with the full ruleset and cards) but I feel like this is meant to be completely separate to 40k in terms of “ability”, whilst we are all kind of instantly just comparing it to the game we know and love (well, mostly ). For example, Shadow Spectres for Craftworlds had a flamer profile for their weapons or a multi-shot option. Now they just have 1 attack and I don’t understand why. Likewise, with all flamer weapons, just a single attack.

The amount of USRs we’re getting in additional to unit special rules is also a little concerning, but, that is more apprehension than anything else currently.

I always imagine Apoc as being the home of all the big big models and a reason to use them, but, if the scale is set to match similar levels to what 40k is currently, then, I just feel like games are going to be over super quick or that it’ll just be like playing a normal game of 40k, just with different rules…. Which then makes me feel, “well why not just play a normal game instead then?”

Time will tell I guess.



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Also, is it me, or is there no difference between Brimstone Horrors, Blue Horrors and Pink Horrors now?

And, why oh why couldn’t then upload the datasheets in a logical order?

IG vets only have 1 attack, when infantry squad has 2. Typo?

Final point, in terms of power level, my 2000-point Tzeentch list went from 107 in 40k, to 121 in Apoc. For Apoc to work, I feel like the amount on the table has to be significantly higher than the current 2k points equivalent expectation. I’d personally expect at least 200PL per person.

Apologies, if its already been mentioned, but the space wolf sheet contains data for a primaris rhino, with twin plasma guns and some sort of orbital uplink weapon.
Looks like I may be going into the loft for my unbuilt rhinos this weekend.

Edit: ignore me, It's the Warhammer world model, I misread the primaris transport section

Some interesting math-hammer regarding the Titan / Hierophant stats a couple pages back. For reference:
Ork Stompa 8W, 6+ Sv, 49PL
Nid Hierophant 8W, 3+ Sv, 95PL
Reaver Titan 24W, 5+ Sv, 100-154PL

Assuming average rolling:
You need 10 large blast markers to kill a Stompa (8.3 wounds inflicted after 6+ save on a D6).
You need 35 large blast markers to kill a Heirophant (inflicting 7.6 wounds after 3+ save on a D6)
You need 37 large blast markers to kill a Reaver (36 after void shield rule, inflicting 23.8 wounds after 5+ save on a D6)

Void shields don't seem particularly effective compared to the older rules for them, and other than the Warhound it seems that they have the same rule across all the different classes of titan.

One little thing of note though is that the rules appear to allow Warlords to have mixed carapace weapons, wonder if this is deliberate or a mistake, as recent 30k\40k rules and Titanicus only allow pairs of weapons.

I also notice that the Vulcan Mega Bolter is listed as a twin Vulcan mega bolter, unlike any of the other carapace weapons, but the twin Vulcans replace a single apocalypse launcher, so you end up with 4 mega-bolters!

I really am excited to get a game or two of this under my belt, despite my biggest bit of Dakka being sans rules (can probably mash some together though. Essentially pick a hull (Baneblade is approximate equivalent), and use the weapon rules for the Warlord Titan's Belicosa Volcano Cannon, on account that's what this is.

Fancy shielding? Yeah I won't worry about that! What's important is that I can blast stuff!

Interested to see how well the 'minimum' size of Epicolypse Games relates to the 'maximum' size of 40k. And by that, I mean in purely practical terms, and I'll leave that delineation to the individual

And man, I am sooooo trying to resist restarting a Knight army to go with it! I'd be the Terror of Firepower!

Spoletta wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

Voss wrote:
This looks like an unfinished draft of army lists which with wildly different standards used for different units, or even the same unit at different sizes.

Sounds about right. It's pretty disappointing to see something with so much potential turn into a half-finished mess just to rush it out by an arbitrary deadline. Or at least I'm hoping that's the explanation, and GW isn't so laughably terrible at math that they didn't realize how bad some of these rules are...

So, you never played the game, you don't know the full rules, but from a quick read of a part of them you already decided that you could do a better work at designing them.

I'm going to define this as "Going full dakka".

We know how shooting, wounds, saves and morale work- they aren't complex or a massive departure from how other GW games work. I'm not sure what mysteries you think await. But 60 cultists in MSU form are better than 40 cultists in a block. More firepower, more wounds, less vulnerable to morale. Simultaneously, 6 chaos bikers for 10 rather than 2x3 for 16 is significantly better, simply because the discount is huge,

That there are problems with the points is mathematically obvious, and they err in both directions.

Voss wrote:

Spoletta wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

Voss wrote:
This looks like an unfinished draft of army lists which with wildly different standards used for different units, or even the same unit at different sizes.

Sounds about right. It's pretty disappointing to see something with so much potential turn into a half-finished mess just to rush it out by an arbitrary deadline. Or at least I'm hoping that's the explanation, and GW isn't so laughably terrible at math that they didn't realize how bad some of these rules are...

So, you never played the game, you don't know the full rules, but from a quick read of a part of them you already decided that you could do a better work at designing them.

I'm going to define this as "Going full dakka".

We know how shooting, wounds, saves and morale work- they aren't complex or a massive departure from how other GW games work. I'm not sure what mysteries you think await. But 60 cultists in MSU form are better than 40 cultists in a block. More firepower, more wounds, less vulnerable to morale. Simultaneously, 6 chaos bikers for 10 rather than 2x3 for 16 is significantly better, simply because the discount is huge,

That there are problems with the points is mathematically obvious, and they err in both directions.

You have been already proven wrong in the previous posts about that.

MSU in apoc is a bad bad idea (mathammer wise). That's why i told you not to jump to conclusions. Apoc is not 40K, you cannot judge apoc with the same meter as 40K and then say "It doesn't work, GW sucks!"

Like anyone will be regularly playing this in a year’s time anyway. It’s another box shifter - “YOU NEED BIG ARMIES BUY STUFF: THE GAME”.

Salty, I know, but I can’t imagine this will have an active playerbase beyond occasional get togethers. May limit GW’s effort level somewhat.

Having said that and as broke as I am I can see me preordering the Cadian box...

Kdash wrote:
I’m so use to removing a model at a time. It just feels weird seeing something like a multi-melta struggling to wound an infantry unit, when in 40k it basically just removes a model lol.

This was difficult for me too when I started looking, but I think this kind of issue explains some of the weapon stats that seem odd at first: as infantry units have a wound characteristic lower than the number of models, it is reasonable to represent a multiple-shot or blast weapon either with a very high SAP or multiple attacks - after all, even a single wound inflicted in apocalypse is now effectively killing multiple models, so blast weapons should always have relatively SAP even when they are relatively low-strength weapons in 40k. On the other hand, I wonder how they decide between increase the SAP of a weapon or instead increasing the number of attacks? Perhaps different people made the decision on different datasheets, hence some inconsistencies. Alternatively, I wonder if attacks can be split between multiple targets? That might explain some differences in the stats too, depending on whether or not it is realistic for the weapons to split attacks.

 Guardsmanwaffle wrote:

cody.d. wrote:
Is that different to regular 40K in any way? A lot of units suck, some are good. Some factions are worse than others.

Apoc seems to be on a magnitude greater though. It honestly seems like they had a different person work on converting each faction from regular 40K over to Apoc and none of them coordinated with each other and no one reviewed the final product. There too many instances of what are functionally similar weapons or units with wildy varying stats.

Take the Leman Russ weapons for example.

Spoiler:

There's seemingly no rhyme or reason to these stats. They feel so random and don't reflect their counterparts in regular 40K. I'm still trying to figure out what the point of the Twin Lascannon is when the Vanquisher Battle Cannon is just a flat upgrade compared to it.

Well, to be fair you are comparing the forgeworld-variant LR annihilator to the standard russ. And you might not be taking into account that the Demolisher Cannon and Punisher Gatling options add +1PL.

They had an option to either make the stats of the specific twin lascannon equipped on the LR annihilator different from every other twin lascannon in the game, or give it a full 1PL discount for a single point of SAT and a range differential that probably won't matter anyway. I can see why they'd just keep it consistent and consider that a wash.

As for the rest of the turret options list, the big standouts in terms of damage are the ones you pay more for, and the rest are all on a pretty average curve, besides the Executioner, which you can't really honestly compute without knowing what "supercharge" actually does. The demolisher and punisher do seem like a steal for just +1PL, but 24" vs 36/48 range will probably actually matter a lot more in huge table apoc games.

I guess battlecannon seems a little weak compared to Exterminator Autocannon?

An observation of mine, based solely on the Necron Tomb Blades.

In 40k, the Particle Beamers aren't especially great. Multiple shots, high S, but no AP. Not terribly, but compare poorly to the other weapon options (Tesla and Gauss Blasters).

In Epicopalypse? GIMME THOSE PARTICLE BEAMERS! See....

Gauss Blasters - 24" range, Attacks x 2, SAP6+ SAT 8+, Rapid Fire
Tesla Carbines - 24" range, Attacks x 4, SAP7+, SAT9+

Particle Beamers? 24" range, Attacks x 3 SAP5+, SAT 8+

I mean....you just would, wouldn't you? Reliably more shots than Gauss, and a far more reliable SAP. And just better than Tesla, despite losing out 1 shot.

Wonder if there are any other 'also rans' in 40k which come into their own in Epicopalypse?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
An observation of mine, based solely on the Necron Tomb Blades.

In 40k, the Particle Beamers aren't especially great. Multiple shots, high S, but no AP. Not terribly, but compare poorly to the other weapon options (Tesla and Gauss Blasters).

In Epicopalypse? GIMME THOSE PARTICLE BEAMERS! See....

Gauss Blasters - 24" range, Attacks x 2, SAP6+ SAT 8+, Rapid Fire
Tesla Carbines - 24" range, Attacks x 4, SAP7+, SAT9+

Particle Beamers? 24" range, Attacks x 3 SAP5+, SAT 8+

I mean....you just would, wouldn't you? Reliably more shots than Gauss, and a far more reliable SAP. And just better than Tesla, despite losing out 1 shot.

Wonder if there are any other 'also rans' in 40k which come into their own in Epicopalypse?

I had the same reaction. I really don't understand how they calcultate SAP values but i think they value the Strength (in 40k) a lot. And thing that bypass it like Splinter rifle have excellent SAP (5+ for Kabalite warriors). AP is almost not taken into account (Gauss Blaster Immortals havingthe same SAP as Firewarriors). Of course Intercessors ignore all of this because reasons.

Destroyers seems to get the short end of the stick with a whooping 3A (SAP5+) for 9 models for 22PL. I think they are designed to take the Heavy Gauss Cannon, because i don't see anyone not taking them in the squad.

Voss wrote:

Spoletta wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

Voss wrote:
This looks like an unfinished draft of army lists which with wildly different standards used for different units, or even the same unit at different sizes.

Sounds about right. It's pretty disappointing to see something with so much potential turn into a half-finished mess just to rush it out by an arbitrary deadline. Or at least I'm hoping that's the explanation, and GW isn't so laughably terrible at math that they didn't realize how bad some of these rules are...

So, you never played the game, you don't know the full rules, but from a quick read of a part of them you already decided that you could do a better work at designing them.

I'm going to define this as "Going full dakka".

We know how shooting, wounds, saves and morale work- they aren't complex or a massive departure from how other GW games work. I'm not sure what mysteries you think await. But 60 cultists in MSU form are better than 40 cultists in a block. More firepower, more wounds, less vulnerable to morale. Simultaneously, 6 chaos bikers for 10 rather than 2x3 for 16 is significantly better, simply because the discount is huge,

That there are problems with the points is mathematically obvious, and they err in both directions.

Uhhh.... I mean, the math for wounding is so completely different in apoc I don't see how you could be right here.

If I take 60 cultists in MSU, they will almost always fail a save when presented with a small blast marker (SV10+). They are then instantly critically wounded when they do so, and have a 50-50 chance of running away entirely.

If I take a 40-block, my firepower at them is effectively halved by the damage system of small blast/large blast, because the difference is only 1/6th of a chance to wound, and a morale failure only does 1 additional damage as opposed to wiping the unit. I need to get four wounds on them to critically damage, which would be 8 successful wounds. In order to reduce the firepower of 40 cultists down to 20 reliably I need to hit them 6 or 7 times (to be safe), If I hit 60 MSU'd cultists 6 times I wound 5 of those squads on average and 2.5 run away.

And do you think maybe, just maybe there could be some kind of signature cultist-based resurrect a squad ability on one of those stratagem cards that might also increase the value of a large cultist blob?

As to bikers, though, they have the opposite problem. Any 5+ save unit you will most certainly want to be dropping large blasts on in order to get them to fail a single save, and moving from a 3-man squad to a 6-man adds the additional 1/6 chance of a morale failure after your first wound, and nothing else. Maybe having it at just +2PL is too much for that small risk, I would expect to see something more like 8/12/15 maybe, but then the third tier would seem like something of a no-brainer, since you'd get two wounds before crit damage.

Ah- I'll admit I wasn't paying attention to the cultists stats- I was using marines (and aspect Warriors)as the norm- 1 wound, better save, less morale concern, because you're better off converting to a large blast to make a kill likely.

The down side I see of larger units is it actually rewards focus fire, where MSU punishes it, while to little fire can easily do nothing.

Depends on the unit. Focus fire against big marine squads is good. Focus firing against big gaunts squad is bad.

If i shoot at 3x10 hormagaunt squads, i can easily inflict a wound and maybe route all 3 of them (low save, even on d12). In any case all 3 will be at half wound and crippled. If i shoot the same amount of fire at a 30 horms squad, i will inflict 2 wounds. No degradation.

So no, focus firing big chaff units is a bad idea. It is more efficient to whittle them down over multiple turns (if you can afford that choice).

Also, morale can only inflict a single wound per turn, so if the target has low morale, it is more efficient to tackle many units instead of going full auto on a single one.

MSU units also take more overall damage from AOE effects like Nurgle's Rot than a single large unit of the same size.

Spoletta wrote:
Depends on the unit. Focus fire against big marine squads is good. Focus firing against big gaunts squad is bad.

If i shoot at 3x10 hormagaunt squads, i can easily inflict a wound and maybe route all 3 of them (low save, even on d12). In any case all 3 will be at half wound and crippled. If i shoot the same amount of fire at a 30 horms squad, i will inflict 2 wounds. No degradation.

So no, focus firing big chaff units is a bad idea. It is more efficient to whittle them down over multiple turns (if you can afford that choice).

Also, morale can only inflict a single wound per turn, so if the target has low morale, it is more efficient to tackle many units instead of going full auto on a single one.

So, you would expect in a system where that is the case, that heavily armored (low sv) elite units would get discounts for higher unit sizes, and lightly armored high-sv units who really benefit from the large blast/small blast system at high unit sizes would...pay....more?

And that this is not necessarily a contradiction?




Automatically Appended Next Post:

Voss wrote:
Ah- I'll admit I wasn't paying attention to the cultists stats- I was using marines (and aspect Warriors)as the norm- 1 wound, better save, less morale concern, because you're better off converting to a large blast to make a kill likely.

The down side I see of larger units is it actually rewards focus fire, where MSU punishes it, while to little fire can easily do nothing.

I'm not saying this is always the case, but with every immediate negative reaction so far I've heard to the unit statlines...this is the case. Hell, I DID IT when looking at Deathwatch Intercessors vs Regular Intercessors - I just noticed that DW intercessors have worse anti tank and went "WTF, stoopid dumb GW can't even make a balance, how is this just a copy error or two people working on the same thing different - what dumdums!"

and then five seconds later I realized that for simplicities sake, special issue ammo is represented by lower SAT and higher range across the board. Which again, in apoc I'm reasonably certain that range is going to be a more highly valuable stat than it is in base 40k given the size of the boards and the number of different target options you'll have on the table.

To be extra clear here: I'm not arguing that the game is balanced. I'm arguing that an assumption of imbalance before a complete understanding of the game's mechanics is a bit of well poisoning, and the default position here is that we've got a bit of "Shrodinger's Game Balance" on our hands.

How is character targeting going to work? how is the mechanics of combat going to work? It seems reasonable to assume that Overwatch is not a thing in this gamemode given that all Ignore Overwatch abilities are gone. Are we going to get Age of Sigmar's blanket ability to attack with shooting weapons in melee combat? We know Fall Back will exist in some form but don't know what it entails. We know Charging is now a doubled move rather than a random 2d6 roll, that would seem to hugely impact certain units like Assault Marines. How about Deep Strike and its effects on charging or shooting?

What we know at this point is basically: how to resolve damage and morale, and how to move. EVERYTHING else is conjecture or just hinted at in the previews.

Tyranid Faction Focus
https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/06/25/apocalypse-faction-focus-tyranid-hive-fleetsgw-homepage-post-4/

Adrenal glands asset looks fun with 9" move Genestealers.

This is what i'm saying.

We cannot just say "We know how the basic mechanic works so we can deem that GW has failed with those profiles" when there are a lot of implications in those rules that we have yet to grasp, like the differences between MSU and big squads.

4 Months from now there will be a meaning in comparing stats, but for now let's just roll with it.

the_scotsman wrote:


It seems reasonable to assume that Overwatch is not a thing in this gamemode given that all Ignore Overwatch abilities are gone. Are we going to get Age of Sigmar's blanket ability to attack with shooting weapons in melee combat?

Whatshername mentioned something in the video about a charged unit still getting to fire their ranged weapons but at -1 to hit? The whole alternating activation + orders thing makes overwatch redundant - it's up to you to activate the right detachments to shoot up the enemies that intend to charge before they gets their chance to move. If you fail to do so, they'll rush you and hand you your butt on a platter, just the way it's supposed to be.

Spoletta wrote:
Depends on the unit. Focus fire against big marine squads is good. Focus firing against big gaunts squad is bad.

If i shoot at 3x10 hormagaunt squads, i can easily inflict a wound and maybe route all 3 of them (low save, even on d12). In any case all 3 will be at half wound and crippled. If i shoot the same amount of fire at a 30 horms squad, i will inflict 2 wounds. No degradation.

So no, focus firing big chaff units is a bad idea. It is more efficient to whittle them down over multiple turns (if you can afford that choice).

Also, morale can only inflict a single wound per turn, so if the target has low morale, it is more efficient to tackle many units instead of going full auto on a single one.

See, the problem I have is things like aspect warriors, where there are two primary stat blocks- the 6+ saves and 8+ saves (and warp spiders and shining spears). But amongst the three units each that use 6+ or 8+, some pay a tax for a 10 squad (banshees, scorpions, reapers) while the others get a discount (avengers, dragons, hawks). That makes no sense to me.

Especially given their abilities- scorpions have a lot of attacks, but they're all 50/50 to wound against their preferred targets, while dragons are nigh certain to wound theirs (2+, rerollable against heavy). Yet its cheaper to 10 man the dragons, while scorpions pay a fair bit extra. Given both are leadership 6 with a 6+ save, it just leaves me baffled.

Interesting to note the sheets include the characters from the forthcoming Combat Arena/BSF Escalation expansion but not the Ambull

Voss wrote:

Spoletta wrote:
Depends on the unit. Focus fire against big marine squads is good. Focus firing against big gaunts squad is bad.

If i shoot at 3x10 hormagaunt squads, i can easily inflict a wound and maybe route all 3 of them (low save, even on d12). In any case all 3 will be at half wound and crippled. If i shoot the same amount of fire at a 30 horms squad, i will inflict 2 wounds. No degradation.

So no, focus firing big chaff units is a bad idea. It is more efficient to whittle them down over multiple turns (if you can afford that choice).

Also, morale can only inflict a single wound per turn, so if the target has low morale, it is more efficient to tackle many units instead of going full auto on a single one.

See, the problem I have is things like aspect warriors, where there are two primary stat blocks- the 6+ saves and 8+ saves (and warp spiders and shining spears). But amongst the three units each that use 6+ or 8+, some pay a tax for a 10 squad (banshees, scorpions, reapers) while the others get a discount (avengers, dragons, hawks). That makes no sense to me.

Especially given their abilities- scorpions have a lot of attacks, but they're all 50/50 to wound against their preferred targets, while dragons are nigh certain to wound theirs (2+, refillable against heavy). Yet its cheaper to 10 man the dragons, while scorpions pay a fair bit extra. Given both are leadership 6 with a 6+ save, it just leaves me baffled.

This is indeed a situation that i fail to understand. For all the cases like this in the nid datasheets i can easily find an explanation, but here there is either a typo or some kind of rule at work that we don't know.

Snugiraffe wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:


It seems reasonable to assume that Overwatch is not a thing in this gamemode given that all Ignore Overwatch abilities are gone. Are we going to get Age of Sigmar's blanket ability to attack with shooting weapons in melee combat?

Whatshername mentioned something in the video about a charged unit still getting to fire their ranged weapons but at -1 to hit? The whole alternating activation + orders thing makes overwatch redundant - it's up to you to activate the right detachments to shoot up the enemies that intend to charge before they gets their chance to move. If you fail to do so, they'll rush you and hand you your butt on a platter, just the way it's supposed to be.

Ah, that's true. I rewatched that section, must have missed it the first time because I FEAR JAZZ! I FEAR THE LACK OF RULES!

so that makes sense. The alternating activations mean that even if you activate your ranged units first and shoot up the unit that will charge you, all that changes is you don't suffer the negative to-hit modifier - the unit still gets to charge and hit you at full power. I guess all that's left is what happens when you activate a detachment that has some of its units in combat, some of its units out of combat...what does it do?

in Age of Sigmar, units in combat may fire their ranged weapons in close combat but only at units within combat distance of them (1" in 40k, would be 3" in aos). Characters can also be targeted freely but at a -1 to hit if they're within 3" of a friendly unit. Perhaps Apocalypse adds an extra -1 to both of those rules to account for the extra power ranged weapons have in 40k compared to AOS, where they tend to be shorter range, less plentiful and less powerful on average.

But it definitely makes sense they'd replace Overwatch for Apoc. it's a massive timesink, and replacing it with the unit still getting to shoot but at a penalty rather than the unit getting EXTRA shooting on top of their usual shooting as a bonus for getting charged at...I like that a lot. the feeling of "my army is locked down and useless now, welp, better pack up" is gone while also not feeling like shooters have every advantage in the world.

I didn't see anyone else bring this up, but Inquisition gets a new Unit type:

Inquisitorial Retinue

Essentially lets you combine Acolytes, Jokaero, and Daemonhost into a single combined unit. I am not sure why you would do that, though, as it appears you lose the Jokaero's "inconceivable customization," the Daemonhost's "Daemonic Power," and the Acolytes' "Loyal Servant" abilities when you do this, as they are not listed on the Inquisitorial Retinue datasheet.

I'm wondering if this is an oversight, because there's really no reason to bring a Retinue instead of the individual units that I can see. Maybe there's something in the core rules that covers adding one unit to another unit?

However, this does give me hope that there's something coming for standard 40K to allow something similar to the Inquisitorial Retinue.

As a custodes player and comparing stat by stat, I am super disappointed. Particularly in Vertus Praetors which literally shoot better than they fight in combat, and have a bunch of other baffling design choices attached.

Doing a point for point comparison between custodes units and other units leads me to going "Custodes have almost no damage output huh?"

 xttz wrote:
Some interesting math-hammer regarding the Titan / Hierophant stats a couple pages back. For reference:
Ork Stompa 8W, 6+ Sv, 49PL
Nid Hierophant 8W, 3+ Sv, 95PL
Reaver Titan 24W, 5+ Sv, 100-154PL

Assuming average rolling:
You need 10 large blast markers to kill a Stompa (8.3 wounds inflicted after 6+ save on a D6).
You need 35 large blast markers to kill a Heirophant (inflicting 7.6 wounds after 3+ save on a D6)
You need 37 large blast markers to kill a Reaver (36 after void shield rule, inflicting 23.8 wounds after 5+ save on a D6)

So the Stompa is still overpriced by half, as is tradition.

Do we have any rules leaks yet? Like any of the USR for weapons?

stratigo wrote:
As a custodes player and comparing stat by stat, I am super disappointed. Particularly in Vertus Praetors which literally shoot better than they fight in combat, and have a bunch of other baffling design choices attached.

Doing a point for point comparison between custodes units and other units leads me to going "Custodes have almost no damage output huh?"

Comparing Custodes to a basic Dreadnought (Same power level unit, so I figured it'd make a decent comparison) custodes have:

-Worse firepower at 24"
-Slightly better firepower at 12" (Owing to their Ballistic Skill, which makes up for the fact that the Dreadnought basically gets a free storm bolter)
-Slightly better melee (again, owing to the 2+WS mostly, but also the fact that the custodes' multiplicative weapon makes them immune to Critical Damage while the dreadnought gets 1 attack instead of 2 when damaged)
-Solidly better Save (6+ vs 4+).

We don't know whether there's any penalty for the Heavy weapon type as there is in 40k, but absent any penalty for that, Custodes seem pretty on-par with at least one identical power level unit there. Vertus Praetors definitely seem to have bonkers firepower compared to their melee, since they EACH get a hurricane bolter giving them 8 shots at 12" and then only 2 melee attacks...

stratigo wrote:
As a custodes player and comparing stat by stat, I am super disappointed. Particularly in Vertus Praetors which literally shoot better than they fight in combat, and have a bunch of other baffling design choices attached.

Doing a point for point comparison between custodes units and other units leads me to going "Custodes have almost no damage output huh?"

They surely need to use both the ranged and melee profiles to shine. Time will tell if in apoc that will be possible or not.
They are also extremely tanky, so clearly for the same power level you cannot expect the same offensive stats of an Aeldari.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 xttz wrote:
Some interesting math-hammer regarding the Titan / Hierophant stats a couple pages back. For reference:
Ork Stompa 8W, 6+ Sv, 49PL
Nid Hierophant 8W, 3+ Sv, 95PL
Reaver Titan 24W, 5+ Sv, 100-154PL

Assuming average rolling:
You need 10 large blast markers to kill a Stompa (8.3 wounds inflicted after 6+ save on a D6).
You need 35 large blast markers to kill a Heirophant (inflicting 7.6 wounds after 3+ save on a D6)
You need 37 large blast markers to kill a Reaver (36 after void shield rule, inflicting 23.8 wounds after 5+ save on a D6)

So the Stompa is still overpriced by half, as is tradition.

I wouldn't go that far yet. We don't know enough to look at these in a vacuum. There are meks who can repair, and other factors we just don't know about yet. I am not saying it will all even out in the end, just that we don't know enough to come to any conclusions.

the_scotsman wrote:

stratigo wrote:
As a custodes player and comparing stat by stat, I am super disappointed. Particularly in Vertus Praetors which literally shoot better than they fight in combat, and have a bunch of other baffling design choices attached.

Doing a point for point comparison between custodes units and other units leads me to going "Custodes have almost no damage output huh?"

Comparing Custodes to a basic Dreadnought (Same power level unit, so I figured it'd make a decent comparison) custodes have:

-Worse firepower at 24"
-Slightly better firepower at 12" (Owing to their Ballistic Skill, which makes up for the fact that the Dreadnought basically gets a free storm bolter)
-Slightly better melee (again, owing to the 2+WS mostly, but also the fact that the custodes' multiplicative weapon makes them immune to Critical Damage while the dreadnought gets 1 attack instead of 2 when damaged)
-Solidly better Save (6+ vs 4+).

We don't know whether there's any penalty for the Heavy weapon type as there is in 40k, but absent any penalty for that, Custodes seem pretty on-par with at least one identical power level unit there. Vertus Praetors definitely seem to have bonkers firepower compared to their melee, since they EACH get a hurricane bolter giving them 8 shots at 12" and then only 2 melee attacks...

If they really have an hurricane bolter each, i am counting 12 shots at 12" for 2 melee attacks. We still don't know what rapid fire does though, it could just be a +1 to wound or to hit at half range.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 xttz wrote:
Some interesting math-hammer regarding the Titan / Hierophant stats a couple pages back. For reference:
Ork Stompa 8W, 6+ Sv, 49PL
Nid Hierophant 8W, 3+ Sv, 95PL
Reaver Titan 24W, 5+ Sv, 100-154PL

Assuming average rolling:
You need 10 large blast markers to kill a Stompa (8.3 wounds inflicted after 6+ save on a D6).
You need 35 large blast markers to kill a Heirophant (inflicting 7.6 wounds after 3+ save on a D6)
You need 37 large blast markers to kill a Reaver (36 after void shield rule, inflicting 23.8 wounds after 5+ save on a D6)

So the Stompa is still overpriced by half, as is tradition.

Nah not by half. It has a self-repair special rule not included above, more dakka than a Hierophant and defensively is pretty comparable to the Warhound Titan (60PL, 14 large blasts to kill). It seems to be in a decent place, subject to learning further rules.

Voss wrote:


We know how shooting, wounds, saves and morale work- they aren't complex or a massive departure from how other GW games work. I'm not sure what mysteries you think await. But 60 cultists in MSU form are better than 40 cultists in a block. More firepower, more wounds, less vulnerable to morale. Simultaneously, 6 chaos bikers for 10 rather than 2x3 for 16 is significantly better, simply because the discount is huge,

That there are problems with the points is mathematically obvious, and they err in both directions.

You mean 15 for 3x3 bikes.

It really depends on how critical damage is assessed. It it half wounds rounding up or rounding down?

At 3 wounds rounding down would give a 3x3 squad of bikes an advantage over both other setups.

1x3 dies pretty easily.
2x3 is critically damaged at the same rate that 1x3 is killed.
3x3 is potentially never critically damaged.

You could spend 30 PL for 3 sets of 2x3 or 2 sets of 3x3 - both of them provide you the same number of models. So, really it seems the 1x3 might be overcosted and could exist that way to prevent cheaply filling detachments.

It's really too difficult to say until we have all the rules and have played the game, so people should refrain from trying to lord over this at the moment.

I'm looking at Tacticals vs Plague Marines right now. PM are significantly cheaper at larger units sizes, have the same shooting, more than double the melee output, a 6+ FNP, for just -1" move.

Domandi wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 xttz wrote:
Some interesting math-hammer regarding the Titan / Hierophant stats a couple pages back. For reference:
Ork Stompa 8W, 6+ Sv, 49PL
Nid Hierophant 8W, 3+ Sv, 95PL
Reaver Titan 24W, 5+ Sv, 100-154PL

Assuming average rolling:
You need 10 large blast markers to kill a Stompa (8.3 wounds inflicted after 6+ save on a D6).
You need 35 large blast markers to kill a Heirophant (inflicting 7.6 wounds after 3+ save on a D6)
You need 37 large blast markers to kill a Reaver (36 after void shield rule, inflicting 23.8 wounds after 5+ save on a D6)

So the Stompa is still overpriced by half, as is tradition.

I wouldn't go that far yet. We don't know enough to look at these in a vacuum. There are meks who can repair, and other factors we just don't know about yet. I am not saying it will all even out in the end, just that we don't know enough to come to any conclusions.

Comparing the Stompa and Warhound with the laser destroyer/vulcan mega-bolter option (The best approximation I can find to the Stompa's loadout) the warhound deals:

2.77 to tanks (Laser destroyer)
3.75 to infantry (vulcan bolter)
.887 in melee (assuming vs tanks)
and takes 18 blasts to destroy. It's also got a guaranteed auto-repair, rerolls its own morale tests, has what's almost certainly a detrimental explodes rule due to the fact it's almost all shooting at long range meaning itll be behind your lines, and 24" of movement.

Stompa (with extra supa-rokkits, to get it closer to the warhound in cost) costs 9PL less, and deals

2.5 blasts to tanks from the Supa-Rokkits (one-use, but thanks to apoc wounding rules these are guaranteed to happen)
1.332 blasts to tanks from the deffkannon
2.8333 to infantry from the big shootas and super gatler
4.44 in melee assuming vs tanks (slightly less vs infantry, but a simialr number)
it takes 10 blasts to destroy, grants everything around it reroll morale, and has a 50% chance to auto-repair. also transports 20 models.

Seems like if you assume given 36" of movement the stompa will get to melee something turn 2, and turn 1 you make up for the deficit with the supa-rokkits, the warhound and stompa look pretty comparable. I'd chalk most of the difference in their price up to the extra durability on the warhound, though it's tough to calculate the "value" of the 20 transport slots and the reroll morale bubble.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
It really depends on how critical damage is assessed. It it half wounds rounding up or rounding down?

I believe the video said 'lost over half wounds', so in effect only units with 3 or more can be critically damaged.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
I'm looking at Tacticals vs Plague Marines right now. PM are significantly cheaper at larger units sizes, have the same shooting, more than double the melee output, a 6+ FNP, for just -1" move.

Can you think of anything that might make a 10-man tactical squad somewhat more durable after taking the first hit of damage than a 10-man plague marine squad?

Maybe some kind of reroll to that 1/3 chance that the plague marines run away after the first damage marker is applied that we know all Space Marines get from their rules preview?

I'm sure that the reason why tactical squads and chaos space marine squads have different costs at 10-man squad size for even THE EXACT SAME weapons and melee capabilities has nothing to do with that rule, and the only reason they have different costs is because GW are the stupidest stupidheads. We couldn't possibly be conjecting based on incomplete information.

Did Dark Eldar get nothing in this?

Nvs wrote:
Did Dark Eldar get nothing in this?

In what sense? They got rules like everyone else did.

Nvs wrote:
Did Dark Eldar get nothing in this?

They didn't get a box. Their preview is Sunday though.

Custodes didn't get a box.
Genestealer Cult didn't get a box.
Dark Angels, Blood Angels, and Space Wolves didn't get boxes.
Daemons didn't get a box.
Death Guard and Thousand Sons didn't get boxes.
Sisters of Battle didn't get a box--but I don't think anyone really expected them to.

the_scotsman wrote:

stratigo wrote:
As a custodes player and comparing stat by stat, I am super disappointed. Particularly in Vertus Praetors which literally shoot better than they fight in combat, and have a bunch of other baffling design choices attached.

Doing a point for point comparison between custodes units and other units leads me to going "Custodes have almost no damage output huh?"

Comparing Custodes to a basic Dreadnought (Same power level unit, so I figured it'd make a decent comparison) custodes have:

-Worse firepower at 24"
-Slightly better firepower at 12" (Owing to their Ballistic Skill, which makes up for the fact that the Dreadnought basically gets a free storm bolter)
-Slightly better melee (again, owing to the 2+WS mostly, but also the fact that the custodes' multiplicative weapon makes them immune to Critical Damage while the dreadnought gets 1 attack instead of 2 when damaged)
-Solidly better Save (6+ vs 4+).

We don't know whether there's any penalty for the Heavy weapon type as there is in 40k, but absent any penalty for that, Custodes seem pretty on-par with at least one identical power level unit there. Vertus Praetors definitely seem to have bonkers firepower compared to their melee, since they EACH get a hurricane bolter giving them 8 shots at 12" and then only 2 melee attacks...

A dreadnought is also a heavy unit, which will be important. Anti light weapons are more common with higher rates of fire, even in apoc

I’m comparing cussed toads to other infantry that fulfill a similar role, like zerkers. But my biggest gripe is the bikes which are just weird to me

the_scotsman wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
I'm looking at Tacticals vs Plague Marines right now. PM are significantly cheaper at larger units sizes, have the same shooting, more than double the melee output, a 6+ FNP, for just -1" move.

Can you think of anything that might make a 10-man tactical squad somewhat more durable after taking the first hit of damage than a 10-man plague marine squad?

Maybe some kind of reroll to that 1/3 chance that the plague marines run away after the first damage marker is applied that we know all Space Marines get from their rules preview?

I'm sure that the reason why tactical squads and chaos space marine squads have different costs at 10-man squad size for even THE EXACT SAME weapons and melee capabilities has nothing to do with that rule, and the only reason they have different costs is because GW are the stupidest stupidheads. We couldn't possibly be conjecting based on incomplete information.

GW is a big boy, doesn't need any edgelords water carrying for them. You discounting one example doesn't change the general impression that the stats and points were assigned using their tried and tested dartboard method. But if you want a challenge, feel free to explain how one extra shoota is worth +1PL on ork vehicles. I'm probably complaining based on incomplete information and there's an Ork strategem that gives shootas the Destroyer USR for a turn.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
I'm looking at Tacticals vs Plague Marines right now. PM are significantly cheaper at larger units sizes, have the same shooting, more than double the melee output, a 6+ FNP, for just -1" move.

Can you think of anything that might make a 10-man tactical squad somewhat more durable after taking the first hit of damage than a 10-man plague marine squad?

Maybe some kind of reroll to that 1/3 chance that the plague marines run away after the first damage marker is applied that we know all Space Marines get from their rules preview?

I'm sure that the reason why tactical squads and chaos space marine squads have different costs at 10-man squad size for even THE EXACT SAME weapons and melee capabilities has nothing to do with that rule, and the only reason they have different costs is because GW are the stupidest stupidheads. We couldn't possibly be conjecting based on incomplete information.

GW is a big boy, doesn't need any edgelords water carrying for them. You discounting one example doesn't change the general impression that the stats and points were assigned using their tried and tested dartboard method. But if you want a challenge, feel free to explain how one extra shoota is worth +1PL on ork vehicles. I'm probably complaining based on incomplete information and there's an Ork strategem that gives shootas the Destroyer USR for a turn.

Nah, they seemed to do that for pretty much every vehicle that can have a rando extra gun, if they didn't just totally leave it off. See Leman Russes paying +1PL for a heavy stubber/storm bolter. They're probably not worth it, and you can definitely find stuff like "look, for the same 1PL I can have a Big Shoota on my battlewagon or I can have a lobba which has barrage and more range for the same price!"

G-G-G-G-G-G-GOT EM!

*youtube airhorn sound effect*

APOCALYPSE BALANCE DEBUNKED!!

It is worth pointing out though - do we know what the ork USR's are going to be? In base 40k, they've got dakka dakka dakka, 'ere we go, and mob rule. 1 shot at the big shoota statline definitely seems pretty crappy, and they're free for a lot of other units. My guess is it'll just be an option that's not super worth it.

And heck, maybe there is something that makes the apoc game mode totally DOA. Maybe it uses Age of Sigmar character targeting rules and killing the warlord of a detachment causes the whole rest of the detachment to rout at the end of the turn, leading to a game mode where it only ever makes sense to target characters with everything and Knight Crusaders turn their gatling guns on little farseers to evaporate whole armored columns all at once.

That'd be dumb.

That could happen, given that the Sniper rule we've been shown doesn't actually give explicit permission to target characters even if they're not the closest, giving some credence to the theory that characters will at least be somewhat targetable, and they said in the eldar article that detachments where the warlord dies are at risk of routing.

When's the intelligent time to pass that judgement?

is it BEFORE we get that rule?

the_scotsman wrote:

Snugiraffe wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:


It seems reasonable to assume that Overwatch is not a thing in this gamemode given that all Ignore Overwatch abilities are gone. Are we going to get Age of Sigmar's blanket ability to attack with shooting weapons in melee combat?

Whatshername mentioned something in the video about a charged unit still getting to fire their ranged weapons but at -1 to hit? The whole alternating activation + orders thing makes overwatch redundant - it's up to you to activate the right detachments to shoot up the enemies that intend to charge before they gets their chance to move. If you fail to do so, they'll rush you and hand you your butt on a platter, just the way it's supposed to be.

Ah, that's true. I rewatched that section, must have missed it the first time because I FEAR JAZZ! I FEAR THE LACK OF RULES!

so that makes sense. The alternating activations mean that even if you activate your ranged units first and shoot up the unit that will charge you, all that changes is you don't suffer the negative to-hit modifier - the unit still gets to charge and hit you at full power. I guess all that's left is what happens when you activate a detachment that has some of its units in combat, some of its units out of combat...what does it do?

in Age of Sigmar, units in combat may fire their ranged weapons in close combat but only at units within combat distance of them (1" in 40k, would be 3" in aos). Characters can also be targeted freely but at a -1 to hit if they're within 3" of a friendly unit. Perhaps Apocalypse adds an extra -1 to both of those rules to account for the extra power ranged weapons have in 40k compared to AOS, where they tend to be shorter range, less plentiful and less powerful on average.

But it definitely makes sense they'd replace Overwatch for Apoc. it's a massive timesink, and replacing it with the unit still getting to shoot but at a penalty rather than the unit getting EXTRA shooting on top of their usual shooting as a bonus for getting charged at...I like that a lot. the feeling of "my army is locked down and useless now, welp, better pack up" is gone while also not feeling like shooters have every advantage in the world.

Fight is close combat, not shoot or a general 'attack' - so they are stuck in base to base, and melee at a penalty with no shooting at all. Don't just stand there when the enemy is right in front of you, brandishing chainswords! Strategically advance in a retrograde fashion!

Hmmm, 4 pages over night and all have the word, "Compare" in it.......every other post is a complaint about GW, (the gold standard in forums).......meanwhile, I just got my Tau Orca based painted and I am devising a way to spend $200 without my wife killing me. :-)

the_scotsman wrote:

It is worth pointing out though - do we know what the ork USR's are going to be? In base 40k, they've got dakka dakka dakka, 'ere we go, and mob rule. 1 shot at the big shoota statline definitely seems pretty crappy, and they're free for a lot of other units. My guess is it'll just be an option that's not super worth it.

That was in the faction focus. Every 6 to hit with any sort of attack gives an extra attack (non-recursive). Simple and sweet.

And if I'm reading it right, 30 shoota boys throw out 16 dice for some unholy reason.

I feel like Admech, once again, has been really gutted.
I like the rule to reroll saves of 1 and the new Robot protocols.

HOWEVER.
90% of the rules are gone in comparison to about 50% of other factions.
Skitarii have no special weapons.
Vanguards arent better than rangers in melee.

Cawl and Manipulus lost tentacles
Manipulus is suddenly worse in melee than enginseer and a dominus
Servitors stay at their LD4
Repairing is on a 4+ that is not even buffed with servitors
Priests cant repair biological units anymore.
Phorphor serpenta, a little assault 1 gun, is now suddenly heavy?
Some Weapon options are all pretty useless, as you can only take others if you want it to be worse at any stat

 Da-Rock wrote:
Hmmm, 4 pages over night and all have the word, "Compare" in it.......every other post is a complaint about GW, (the gold standard in forums).......meanwhile, I just got my Tau Orca based painted and I am devising a way to spend $200 without my wife killing me. :-)

You should post a picture of that thing.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

It is worth pointing out though - do we know what the ork USR's are going to be? In base 40k, they've got dakka dakka dakka, 'ere we go, and mob rule. 1 shot at the big shoota statline definitely seems pretty crappy, and they're free for a lot of other units. My guess is it'll just be an option that's not super worth it.

That was in the faction focus. Every 6 to hit with any sort of attack gives an extra attack (non-recursive). Simple and sweet.

And if I'm reading it right, 30 shoota boys throw out 16 dice for some unholy reason.

Yep. They drop from 12 to 8 melee attacks going from slugga and choppa to shootas and close combat weapons, but jump from 8 shots to 16 when they go from 20 models to 30. There is a slight surcharge on the 30 ork unit, and an additional cost for shootas (but just +1, regardless of the number of models), but big shootas and rokkits seem to be free.
So a 30 strong unit should have 16 shoota attacks and 3 big shoota (or rokkit) attacks for 14 PR.

Weirdly, Stormboys have much worse weapons (as user, no A multiplier), but slightly higher base attacks.

 0XFallen wrote:
I feel like Admech, once again, has been really gutted.
I like the rule to reroll saves of 1 and the new Robot protocols.

HOWEVER.
90% of the rules are gone in comparison to about 50% of other factions.
Skitarii have no special weapons.
Vanguards arent better than rangers in melee.

Cawl and Manipulus lost tentacles
Manipulus is suddenly worse in melee than enginseer and a dominus
Servitors stay at their LD4
Repairing is on a 4+ that is not even buffed with servitors
Priests cant repair biological units anymore.
Phorphor serpenta, a little assault 1 gun, is now suddenly heavy?
Some Weapon options are all pretty useless, as you can only take others if you want it to be worse at any stat

This is a really odd post. Some of the AdMech datasheets have so many special rules there literally isn't room to fit anymore on the page. ALL factions lost special weapons; Marines, IG vets, GSC Neophytes, Storm Guardians, etc. If Skitarii got to keep theirs it would be very strange. Rules like marginally better repairing or bonus extra melee attacks in 40k simply don't matter at this scale. It's the same reason why single characters from most other factions can't make shooting attacks (yet several AdMech ones still can!).

There's a lot of words here to basically say "why didn't AdMech get special treatment?", even though they kinda did.

 xttz wrote:

 0XFallen wrote:
I feel like Admech, once again, has been really gutted.
I like the rule to reroll saves of 1 and the new Robot protocols.

HOWEVER.
90% of the rules are gone in comparison to about 50% of other factions.
Skitarii have no special weapons.
Vanguards arent better than rangers in melee.

Cawl and Manipulus lost tentacles
Manipulus is suddenly worse in melee than enginseer and a dominus
Servitors stay at their LD4
Repairing is on a 4+ that is not even buffed with servitors
Priests cant repair biological units anymore.
Phorphor serpenta, a little assault 1 gun, is now suddenly heavy?
Some Weapon options are all pretty useless, as you can only take others if you want it to be worse at any stat

This is a really odd post. Some of the AdMech datasheets have so many special rules there literally isn't room to fit anymore on the page. ALL factions lost special weapons; Marines, IG vets, GSC Neophytes, Storm Guardians, etc. If Skitarii got to keep theirs it would be very strange. Rules like marginally better repairing or bonus extra melee attacks in 40k simply don't matter at this scale. It's the same reason why single characters from most other factions can't make shooting attacks (yet several AdMech ones still can!).

There's a lot of words here to basically say "why didn't AdMech get special treatment?", even though they kinda did.

Not really, Cawl literally wields a neutronlaser.
Last time I checked Guardsmen can still weild special weapons.
Most special rules didnt really get drafted, but they got included into the wound mechanic.
Also a lot of other inconsistencies I mentioned.

 Guardsmanwaffle wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 Guardsmanwaffle wrote:
There's seemingly no rhyme or reason to these stats. They feel so random and don't reflect their counterparts in regular 40K. I'm still trying to figure out what the point of the Twin Lascannon is when the Vanquisher Battle Cannon is just a flat upgrade compared to it.

And same isn't true in 40k? In 40k battle cannon is flat out better upgrade over vanquisher cannon.

GW doesn't do balanced games. Whopedoo. Big surprise...not.

The Vanquisher to be fair is cheaper and at least does something different from the regular battle cannon even though 90% of the time the battle cannon is better. Its not the balance that’s getting me though, it’s the inconsistency. The Executioner plasma cannon is the exact same as a regular plasma cannon. Why does a conqueror battle cannon have such a different profile compared to a regular battle cannon when it’s essentially the same weapon? Why does a twin auto cannon have the same number of attacks as a single shot anti tank weapon. All that for just the weapon options for a single unit. I don’t even wanna know what the comparison is like when you start comparing different units.

Vanquisher does different...what? Better AT? Nope. Battle cannon is better vs it too. There's basically no target you WANT vanquisher cannon when you have battle cannon available. It's like having lower SAT in apoc. Sure it's DIFFERENT but it's still inferior. Just like vanquisher cannon in 40k. It just plain sucks for points vs both infantry AND AT.

 solkan wrote:

changemod wrote:
Except minis that large aren’t really ideal for huge scale gameplay. Even if you do push all the tables in the store together, you end up with long narrow battlefield syndrome. Fighting over an unnaturally elongated strip of land because of you made it a sensible shape you wouldn’t be able to reach the centre of the table.

In truth, making 28mm scale epic (a self sufficient game) rather than traditional Apocalpse (a niche playstyle expected to not see much use) is basically a marketing attempt. A hope that some people will buy more minis so that they have a big enough army for apocalypse.

But those same objections have been true of Imperial Guard artillery, fliers, and probably most of the super heavy vehicles. To a certain extent, 40k out grew a reasonable scale for what they’re putting in the game a few editions ago.

This is very true. To illustrate: my local GW recently moved to a new store location... 2 doors down the same street. I started playing in the tail end of 4th edition, and one of the vehicles in my Imperial Guard army (the Basilisk) has been able to hit a table on the new store from the old store for every edition I've played. I once played an Apocalypse game where I nearly reached the end of my tape measure firing the Basilisk (and blew up a Chaos Predator belonging to a player I had not otherwise interacted with for the entire game so far), but that was about 6'. There is still 14' left of range for the venerable Earthshaker!

 Kanluwen wrote:

Nvs wrote:
Did Dark Eldar get nothing in this?

They didn't get a box. Their preview is Sunday though.

Custodes didn't get a box.
Genestealer Cult didn't get a box.
Dark Angels, Blood Angels, and Space Wolves didn't get boxes.
Daemons didn't get a box.
Death Guard and Thousand Sons didn't get boxes.
Sisters of Battle didn't get a box--but I don't think anyone really expected them to.

GSC got a pretty nice Brood Brothers tank set. Just no upgrade sprues, but I'm sure I can make do with some spare heads from existing kits.

I know it’s veey early days, and all we have are data sheets, but what’s the consensus so far? Apocalypse looking good or bad?

 Tiberius501 wrote:
I know it’s veey early days, and all we have are data sheets, but what’s the consensus so far? Apocalypse looking good or bad?

It's definitely an improvement on previous editions. The core rules overhaul of alternate activation, delayed damage, and generally trimming away lots of minutiae from regular 40k make it a realistic prospect to arrange games without requiring full days or weekends. My local club is already talking about playing a campaign with it rather than the traditional once-per-year big game.

If GW continue to support Apoc with FAQ / errata / unit datasheet updates to fix some of the oddities I think it definitely looks promising.

 Guardsmanwaffle wrote:

cody.d. wrote:
Is that different to regular 40K in any way? A lot of units suck, some are good. Some factions are worse than others.

Apoc seems to be on a magnitude greater though. It honestly seems like they had a different person work on converting each faction from regular 40K over to Apoc and none of them coordinated with each other and no one reviewed the final product. There too many instances of what are functionally similar weapons or units with wildy varying stats.

Take the Leman Russ weapons for example.

Spoiler:

There's seemingly no rhyme or reason to these stats. They feel so random and don't reflect their counterparts in regular 40K. I'm still trying to figure out what the point of the Twin Lascannon is when the Vanquisher Battle Cannon is just a flat upgrade compared to it.

Isn't one of them a turret weapon while the other is sponsor?

Know what pisses me off the most?

Vertus praetors come in 3/5/10 unit sizes. They sell them in boxes of 3. Literaly EVERY other bike unit in the game goes up by 3/6/9. fething what?

stratigo wrote:
Know what pisses me off the most?

Vertus praetors come in 3/5/10 unit sizes. They sell them in boxes of 3. Literaly EVERY other bike unit in the game goes up by 3/6/9. fething what?

Just deploy 9 then!

As this is essentially 28mm epic with undersized tables, your individual models are irrelevant so long as you convey you're a size class 3 custodes bike unit.

stratigo wrote:
Know what pisses me off the most?

Vertus praetors come in 3/5/10 unit sizes. They sell them in boxes of 3. Literaly EVERY other bike unit in the game goes up by 3/6/9. fething what?

DA Ravenwing Black Knight bikes got the same treatment, they come in boxes of 3 and have a unit size of 3/5/10.

stratigo wrote:
Know what pisses me off the most?

Vertus praetors come in 3/5/10 unit sizes. They sell them in boxes of 3. Literaly EVERY other bike unit in the game goes up by 3/6/9. fething what?

That’s probably a typo. Is there an indication of where to send complaints/errata/FAQ requests yet, or does it all just go to the community address?

 solkan wrote:

stratigo wrote:
Know what pisses me off the most?

Vertus praetors come in 3/5/10 unit sizes. They sell them in boxes of 3. Literaly EVERY other bike unit in the game goes up by 3/6/9. fething what?

That’s probably a typo. Is there an indication of where to send complaints/errata/FAQ requests yet, or does it all just go to the community address?

It isn't a typo at all, All custodes stuff come in 3/5/10. But wardens and guard come in boxes of 5, so it makes sense, while Termies and vertus come in 3, making it awkward. I suspect the idea they came upon is that "Well everyone would have made a guy into a shield captain" which... while true, everyone made 3 guys into shield captains, and if you REALLY wanted to do it this way, 3/5/8 would be more rational. It offends my sense of proportionality. But also it offends my wallet


Automatically Appended Next Post:
now having just read the custodes faction focus, it does seem like there IS a typo for allarus termies, in that they should have 3+ saves. The characters do, but the regular ones don't.

 xttz wrote:

 Tiberius501 wrote:
I know it’s veey early days, and all we have are data sheets, but what’s the consensus so far? Apocalypse looking good or bad?

It's definitely an improvement on previous editions. The core rules overhaul of alternate activation, delayed damage, and generally trimming away lots of minutiae from regular 40k make it a realistic prospect to arrange games without requiring full days or weekends. My local club is already talking about playing a campaign with it rather than the traditional once-per-year big game.

If GW continue to support Apoc with FAQ / errata / unit datasheet updates to fix some of the oddities I think it definitely looks promising.

I'm a little afraid that it is not as fluid as they tell.
Attack are still done with 3 successive rolls, with a lot of rerolls alerady available for every step, and feel no pain is still here too. You throw less dice but that's it. And to compensate there more multi wound units to keep track of and much more token on the board.
Movement is where you gain a lot with movement trays, but i fear that movement trays will not be the best way to deploy, especially for chaff units.
You don't have a psychic phase, but an order phase which will definitely takes time too.
I don't think it will necessary be a problem for "small" Apo, but the huge battle ?
I definitively want to test it and i am quite pleased by some aspects of it, but i'm sad they did'nt decided to fuse attack and wound roll on the same characteristic and have way less rerolls and more modifier which are faster. With D12 think it would have been sufficient.

I have two local stores in my area.

So in talking with both owners, not one single person has preordered this here. I'm actually surprised by this.

 Togusa wrote:
I have two local stores in my area.

So in talking with both owners, not one single person has preordered this here. I'm actually surprised by this.

The preorders don’t go up until Saturday.

 ImAGeek wrote:

 Togusa wrote:
I have two local stores in my area.

So in talking with both owners, not one single person has preordered this here. I'm actually surprised by this.

The preorders don’t go up until Saturday.

I understand that. Our stores start lists for people who wish to preorder something as soon as it is announced. Usually by this time they have several dozen names on that list for GW products. For the first time, it's three days until preorder and not one person has expressed any interest here. Which is surprising.

Adeptus custodes faction focus;

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/06/26/apocalypse-faction-focus-talons-of-the-emperorgw-homepage-post-4/

They really have a great armour save, i'm definately looking forward to add these into my imperium army.

Shaelinith wrote:

 xttz wrote:

 Tiberius501 wrote:
I know it’s veey early days, and all we have are data sheets, but what’s the consensus so far? Apocalypse looking good or bad?

It's definitely an improvement on previous editions. The core rules overhaul of alternate activation, delayed damage, and generally trimming away lots of minutiae from regular 40k make it a realistic prospect to arrange games without requiring full days or weekends. My local club is already talking about playing a campaign with it rather than the traditional once-per-year big game.

If GW continue to support Apoc with FAQ / errata / unit datasheet updates to fix some of the oddities I think it definitely looks promising.

I'm a little afraid that it is not as fluid as they tell.
Attack are still done with 3 successive rolls, with a lot of rerolls alerady available for every step, and feel no pain is still here too. You throw less dice but that's it. And to compensate there more multi wound units to keep track of and much more token on the board.
Movement is where you gain a lot with movement trays, but i fear that movement trays will not be the best way to deploy, especially for chaff units.
You don't have a psychic phase, but an order phase which will definitely takes time too.
I don't think it will necessary be a problem for "small" Apo, but the huge battle ?
I definitively want to test it and i am quite pleased by some aspects of it, but i'm sad they did'nt decided to fuse attack and wound roll on the same characteristic and have way less rerolls and more modifier which are faster. With D12 think it would have been sufficient.

Attacks are done with 2 rolls, hit and wound. And they're done with much less dice than before; my full unit of Genestealers now rolls 8 attacks instead of 80. Tyranids at least don't seem to get many re-rolls, not sure how others will play out yet. Still, I'd rather be re-rolling from 8 original dice than from 80.
Saves & FNP are done in the damage phase using the combined blast markers inflicted during the turn. In theory this should be quicker, especially when a lot of units will never get a saving throw at all thanks to 7+ saves on a D6.
Psychic powers have effectively become like 40k stratagems (like command assets). However as you have a limited number of cards then in theory less time should be spent on command assets than 40k stratagems / psychic powers.

Honestly I think the biggest new drain on time will be the thinking time, deciding which detachments to activate and when. When an opponent can make an immediate counter, thinking carefully about activation order will be something players need to learn.

tneva82 wrote:

 Guardsmanwaffle wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 Guardsmanwaffle wrote:
There's seemingly no rhyme or reason to these stats. They feel so random and don't reflect their counterparts in regular 40K. I'm still trying to figure out what the point of the Twin Lascannon is when the Vanquisher Battle Cannon is just a flat upgrade compared to it.

And same isn't true in 40k? In 40k battle cannon is flat out better upgrade over vanquisher cannon.

GW doesn't do balanced games. Whopedoo. Big surprise...not.

The Vanquisher to be fair is cheaper and at least does something different from the regular battle cannon even though 90% of the time the battle cannon is better. Its not the balance that’s getting me though, it’s the inconsistency. The Executioner plasma cannon is the exact same as a regular plasma cannon. Why does a conqueror battle cannon have such a different profile compared to a regular battle cannon when it’s essentially the same weapon? Why does a twin auto cannon have the same number of attacks as a single shot anti tank weapon. All that for just the weapon options for a single unit. I don’t even wanna know what the comparison is like when you start comparing different units.

Vanquisher does different...what? Better AT? Nope. Battle cannon is better vs it too. There's basically no target you WANT vanquisher cannon when you have battle cannon available. It's like having lower SAT in apoc. Sure it's DIFFERENT but it's still inferior. Just like vanquisher cannon in 40k. It just plain sucks for points vs both infantry AND AT.

Huh? The apoc battle cannon is 1 attack, 6+/6+
The apoc vanquisher is 2 attacks, 10+/4+. Its a massively better anti tank weapon.

The standard battle cannon is suddenly the last thing you want on a Russ in Apoc, except maybe an Executioner cannon. 1 shot generalist is significantly worse than double shot specialist, especially since some of those 'specialist' weapons aren't bad against the other target type.

 Spreelock wrote:
Adeptus custodes faction focus;

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/06/26/apocalypse-faction-focus-talons-of-the-emperorgw-homepage-post-4/

They really have a great armour save, i'm definately looking forward to add these into my imperium army.

"as well as the Sisters of Silence who make up the other HALF"

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA

one kit, no Troops - are they even in the current Custodes codex? Or are they still a single entry jammed into index imperium 2 with the rest of the Minor Imperial Faction Whoopsiedoodles?

Meanwhile everyone with a raging marineboner and everyone who's even heard of 40k competitive play in the past 6 months has picked up a Golden Bananaboyz army for the sheer novelty of being able to buy a 2000pt army for half the usual cost and paint it out of a single coat of sprayprimer.

the_scotsman wrote:
Or are they still a single entry jammed into index imperium 2 with the rest of the Minor Imperial Faction Whoopsiedoodles?

Pretty sure it's three entries, because as we all know the most efficient way to represent a weapon swap is with a whole new datasheet.

 Geifer wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
Or are they still a single entry jammed into index imperium 2 with the rest of the Minor Imperial Faction Whoopsiedoodles?

Pretty sure it's three entries, because as we all know the most efficient way to represent a weapon swap is with a whole new datasheet.

Hey, I mean in the preview they show off what...I'm going to say almost certainly...is going to be their only ability card twice. And then they go

LOOK AT THIS AWESOME WEAPON THEY HAVE, IT'S GOT A STATLINE

PUT THEM IN A RHINO PCHOOO MIND BLOWN

That's how good the command asset is. You couldn't begin to comprehend its awesomeness if they only posted it once.

On that note, I've been critical of how 8th ed moved some inherent unit abilities to stratagems, depriving units of abilities that by all rights they should be able to always use. Seeing that Sisters of Silence are only psychic nulls when their commander tells them to is a new low. Just out of interest I'd like to hear the responsible designer(s) explain the thinking behind that.

 xttz wrote:

Attacks are done with 2 rolls, hit and wound. And they're done with much less dice than before; my full unit of Genestealers now rolls 8 attacks instead of 80. Tyranids at least don't seem to get many re-rolls, not sure how others will play out yet. Still, I'd rather be re-rolling from 8 original dice than from 80.
Saves & FNP are done in the damage phase using the combined blast markers inflicted during the turn. In theory this should be quicker, especially when a lot of units will never get a saving throw at all thanks to 7+ saves on a D6.
Psychic powers have effectively become like 40k stratagems (like command assets). However as you have a limited number of cards then in theory less time should be spent on command assets than 40k stratagems / psychic powers.

Honestly I think the biggest new drain on time will be the thinking time, deciding which detachments to activate and when. When an opponent can make an immediate counter, thinking carefully about activation order will be something players need to learn.

The fact that the save roll is delayed at the end of the turn doesn't change the face that it is a roll
But fair enough, some units won't have any save.

Do we know why going from 10 boys to 20 adds 4 PL but going 20 boys to 30 adds 5? Only reason I can see is that +1 A on the profile.

mhalko1 wrote:
Do we know why going from 10 boys to 20 adds 4 PL but going 20 boys to 30 adds 5? Only reason I can see is that +1 A on the profile.

Well yeah, 30 have more attacks than 20+10

mhalko1 wrote:
Do we know why going from 10 boys to 20 adds 4 PL but going 20 boys to 30 adds 5? Only reason I can see is that +1 A on the profile.

The Orks' bonus attack at 20+ unit size is baked into the base profile of the 30 boyz mob.

And light infantry inherently gains more by being higher wounds, lower unit count. Basically any unit who would rather be forcing their opponent to stack up big blasts on them to strip away all their wounds than allowing the enemy to spread their firepower into small blasts (that will still likely land) is going to be paying more to up their unit size.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Geifer wrote:
That's how good the command asset is. You couldn't begin to comprehend its awesomeness if they only posted it once.

On that note, I've been critical of how 8th ed moved some inherent unit abilities to stratagems, depriving units of abilities that by all rights they should be able to always use. Seeing that Sisters of Silence are only psychic nulls when their commander tells them to is a new low. Just out of interest I'd like to hear the responsible designer(s) explain the thinking behind that.

TBF sisters of silence also have a psychic abomination ability on their profile, which prevents units within 6" from casting powers outright and makes them immune.

The stratagem just lets them do it to literally any psyker anywhere on the table.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

mhalko1 wrote:
Do we know why going from 10 boys to 20 adds 4 PL but going 20 boys to 30 adds 5? Only reason I can see is that +1 A on the profile.

Well yeah, 30 have more attacks than 20+10

Generally speaking, the system really seems to be charging based on attack volume first and foremost.

The biggest concern I think I have so far is with the new turn system, how are factions/units typically seen as "glass cannons" supposed to function?

.5" unit coherency helps somewhat, but I can't help but feel the fact that it is literally impossible to remove a unit before the next turn takes the "gunline behind an elcheapo screen" problem that 8th has to a whole new level.

I can't see anything in the rules yet that would make a deathball of longrange guns surrounded by a sea of ultra-cheap bodies assailable by an assault based force. If i'm playing something like a horde of daemons, where guns and even units with Fly are very very few and far between, the opposing army is going to be taking casualties like stripping the layers from an onion, while they will be able to pick out basically any of my units to attack. No matter what, that unit of Conscripts is going to survive until the end of the turn. Doesn't matter if your unit of 12 Harlequins dumps 24 dice of attacks on them and gives them 16 blast markers, you'll need to wait a turn to hit one layer of guardsmen. Then another turn to hit another layer of guardsmen. Then another to finally hit a tank.

Maybe the answer is just "there is no good way to solve this problem', and it certainly would still exist using current 40k rules for apoc. I just hope there's something I'm missing that makes that situation slightly better, as "the armies are so big that nothing can maneuver and everything just meatslaps on everything else until the game is bogged down into a joyless slog of action resolution" is my experience with every apoc game I've ever played.

In apoc they want to avoid one side picking up all their models before they use them that 40k does

the_scotsman wrote:
The biggest concern I think I have so far is with the new turn system, how are factions/units typically seen as "glass cannons" supposed to function?

.5" unit coherency helps somewhat, but I can't help but feel the fact that it is literally impossible to remove a unit before the next turn takes the "gunline behind an elcheapo screen" problem that 8th has to a whole new level.

I can't see anything in the rules yet that would make a deathball of longrange guns surrounded by a sea of ultra-cheap bodies assailable by an assault based force. If i'm playing something like a horde of daemons, where guns and even units with Fly are very very few and far between, the opposing army is going to be taking casualties like stripping the layers from an onion, while they will be able to pick out basically any of my units to attack. No matter what, that unit of Conscripts is going to survive until the end of the turn. Doesn't matter if your unit of 12 Harlequins dumps 24 dice of attacks on them and gives them 16 blast markers, you'll need to wait a turn to hit one layer of guardsmen. Then another turn to hit another layer of guardsmen. Then another to finally hit a tank.

Maybe the answer is just "there is no good way to solve this problem', and it certainly would still exist using current 40k rules for apoc. I just hope there's something I'm missing that makes that situation slightly better, as "the armies are so big that nothing can maneuver and everything just meatslaps on everything else until the game is bogged down into a joyless slog of action resolution" is my experience with every apoc game I've ever played.

Screens are much easier to clear in apoc. A single bolt shot can take out an entire infantry squad with a decent chance. In apoc if you screen, you do it with elite pieces, not with chaff. Chaff clears board space too fast.

A single intercessor squad out of rapid fire has 1/3 chance to inflict a wound on an infantry squad, and a 10% chance to outright remove it. Not the mention that there are a lot of methods to inflict area damage.

Lol actually i think that AM goes from having the best screens in 40K to the worst screens in Apoc. They REALLY pay for having a cap of 10 models on the infantry squads.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh wait... they have conscripts, those do work.

the_scotsman wrote:

mhalko1 wrote:
Do we know why going from 10 boys to 20 adds 4 PL but going 20 boys to 30 adds 5? Only reason I can see is that +1 A on the profile.

The Orks' bonus attack at 20+ unit size is baked into the base profile of the 30 boyz mob.

And light infantry inherently gains more by being higher wounds, lower unit count. Basically any unit who would rather be forcing their opponent to stack up big blasts on them to strip away all their wounds than allowing the enemy to spread their firepower into small blasts (that will still likely land) is going to be paying more to up their unit size.

Mob Rule is also represent by having Ld go up as the squad size increases. At Ld7 you need multiple blast markers to fail a morale check, so it's quite useful.

I've a hard time seeing for which game size this game is tuned/thought for.

Are we talking 10.000pts+ games or more 3-4000?

Some big guys stats are also REALLY strange. like comparing the Reaver to the Hierophant. Sameish point cost, the first one is at 24 Wounds with Void Shield and Apocalypse weapons, the second one is at 8 (eight) Wounds without any of that.

"Killing" a screen with one shot doesn't help much if it doesn't die until the end of the turn, after it has done it's job of keeping you from charging the units behind it.

Berthier wrote:
I've a hard time seeing for which game size this game is tuned/thought for.

Are we talking 10.000pts+ games or more 3-4000?

Some big guys stats are also REALLY strange. like comparing the Reaver to the Hierophant. Sameish point cost, the first one is at 24 Wounds with Void Shield and Apocalypse weapons, the second one is at 8 (eight) Wounds without any of that.

The saves are quite different from 40k that's why.

 Peregrine wrote:
"Killing" a screen with one shot doesn't help much if it doesn't die until the end of the turn, after it has done it's job of keeping you from charging the units behind it.

That is true in 40K, and only if you play alpha strike lists.
The fact that in apoc you cannot remove your enemy before it strikes back, already puts alpha strike lists at a disadvantage.
Turn 2 will probably be where the game is at, so if i can just shoot away your screen with little effort in turn 1...

Not to mention that screening many things is impossible, we have double move here, so anything fast and flying will just ignore your screens and charge turn 1.

Berthier wrote:
I've a hard time seeing for which game size this game is tuned/thought for.

Are we talking 10.000pts+ games or more 3-4000?

Some big guys stats are also REALLY strange. like comparing the Reaver to the Hierophant. Sameish point cost, the first one is at 24 Wounds with Void Shield and Apocalypse weapons, the second one is at 8 (eight) Wounds without any of that.

Don't discount the 3+ save, saw the math over on bolter and they are pretty similar in terms of staying power. Also reaver weapons up the cost a decent amount

Berthier wrote:
I've a hard time seeing for which game size this game is tuned/thought for.

Are we talking 10.000pts+ games or more 3-4000?

Yes

Berthier wrote:
Some big guys stats are also REALLY strange. like comparing the Reaver to the Hierophant. Sameish point cost, the first one is at 24 Wounds with Void Shield and Apocalypse weapons, the second one is at 8 (eight) Wounds without any of that.

Check this out:

 xttz wrote:
Some interesting math-hammer regarding the Titan / Hierophant stats a couple pages back. For reference:
Ork Stompa 8W, 6+ Sv, 49PL
Nid Hierophant 8W, 3+ Sv, 95PL
Reaver Titan 24W, 5+ Sv, 100-154PL

Assuming average rolling:
You need 10 large blast markers to kill a Stompa (8.3 wounds inflicted after 6+ save on a D6).
You need 35 large blast markers to kill a Heirophant (inflicting 7.6 wounds after 3+ save on a D6)
You need 37 large blast markers to kill a Reaver (36 after void shield rule, inflicting 23.8 wounds after 5+ save on a D6)

Spoletta wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
"Killing" a screen with one shot doesn't help much if it doesn't die until the end of the turn, after it has done it's job of keeping you from charging the units behind it.

That is true in 40K, and only if you play alpha strike lists.
The fact that in apoc you cannot remove your enemy before it strikes back, already puts alpha strike lists at a disadvantage.
Turn 2 will probably be where the game is at, so if i can just shoot away your screen with little effort in turn 1...

Not to mention that screening many things is impossible, we have double move here, so anything fast and flying will just ignore your screens and charge turn 1.

lets pretend I play some kind of zany weird faction that almost only has melee options, let's call them "Daemons" for a purely theoretical name.

how do I thin out chaff screens before committing, even if I am running an almost totally non-glass cannon alpha strike list?

also what's to stop people from blocking fly by just corner-castling? can't get thru a screen if there's nowhere to land.

I really don't think Apocalypse is a game designed for codex "pure" armies.

the_scotsman wrote:

Spoletta wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
"Killing" a screen with one shot doesn't help much if it doesn't die until the end of the turn, after it has done it's job of keeping you from charging the units behind it.

That is true in 40K, and only if you play alpha strike lists.
The fact that in apoc you cannot remove your enemy before it strikes back, already puts alpha strike lists at a disadvantage.
Turn 2 will probably be where the game is at, so if i can just shoot away your screen with little effort in turn 1...

Not to mention that screening many things is impossible, we have double move here, so anything fast and flying will just ignore your screens and charge turn 1.

lets pretend I play some kind of zany weird faction that almost only has melee options, let's call them "Daemons" for a purely theoretical name.

how do I thin out chaff screens before committing, even if I am running an almost totally non-glass cannon alpha strike list?

also what's to stop people from blocking fly by just corner-castling? can't get thru a screen if there's nowhere to land.

If someone corner castles then he is usually forfeiting the mission, which makes for an easy game.

the_scotsman wrote:

Spoletta wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
"Killing" a screen with one shot doesn't help much if it doesn't die until the end of the turn, after it has done it's job of keeping you from charging the units behind it.

That is true in 40K, and only if you play alpha strike lists.
The fact that in apoc you cannot remove your enemy before it strikes back, already puts alpha strike lists at a disadvantage.
Turn 2 will probably be where the game is at, so if i can just shoot away your screen with little effort in turn 1...

Not to mention that screening many things is impossible, we have double move here, so anything fast and flying will just ignore your screens and charge turn 1.

lets pretend I play some kind of zany weird faction that almost only has melee options, let's call them "Daemons" for a purely theoretical name.

how do I thin out chaff screens before committing, even if I am running an almost totally non-glass cannon alpha strike list?

also what's to stop people from blocking fly by just corner-castling? can't get thru a screen if there's nowhere to land.

Just commit and accept you'll take some damage?

There is also a couple of abilities and units previewed so far that could really hurt castling armies- the Deathstrike missile and the Deathguard command card come to mind. If Daemons have access to some abilities like those, they may make castling up sufficiently costly to negate the advantage.

The Death Guard have some particularly nasty psychic powers of their own to unleash, such as Plague Wind, which causes havoc to densely packed enemy formations.

I would be surprised if Daemons didn't get some similar powers.

the_scotsman wrote:
lets pretend I play some kind of zany weird faction that almost only has melee options, let's call them "Daemons" for a purely theoretical name.

No. Let's call them "Legiones Daemonica" instead.

No, no Doobie. It would be:

Legiones™ Daemonica™.

stratigo wrote:

 solkan wrote:

stratigo wrote:
Know what pisses me off the most?

Vertus praetors come in 3/5/10 unit sizes. They sell them in boxes of 3. Literaly EVERY other bike unit in the game goes up by 3/6/9. fething what?

That’s probably a typo. Is there an indication of where to send complaints/errata/FAQ requests yet, or does it all just go to the community address?

It isn't a typo at all, All custodes stuff come in 3/5/10. But wardens and guard come in boxes of 5, so it makes sense, while Termies and vertus come in 3, making it awkward. I suspect the idea they came upon is that "Well everyone would have made a guy into a shield captain" which... while true, everyone made 3 guys into shield captains, and if you REALLY wanted to do it this way, 3/5/8 would be more rational. It offends my sense of proportionality. But also it offends my wallet


Automatically Appended Next Post:
now having just read the custodes faction focus, it does seem like there IS a typo for allarus termies, in that they should have 3+ saves. The characters do, but the regular ones don't.

Or wait for it...it is actually typo due to copy&paste like with obliterators in new codex which was just copy&paste from old codex. The fact it's on everything makes it MORE likely to be mistake than deliberate rather than less.

Anyway as individual models dont' really matter no big deal anyway especially with movement trays. Have 9 bikes, play them as 10, done.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Voss wrote:

Huh? The apoc battle cannon is 1 attack, 6+/6+
The apoc vanquisher is 2 attacks, 10+/4+. Its a massively better anti tank weapon.

The standard battle cannon is suddenly the last thing you want on a Russ in Apoc, except maybe an Executioner cannon. 1 shot generalist is significantly worse than double shot specialist, especially since some of those 'specialist' weapons aren't bad against the other target type.

I'm talking about 40k. Person was saying "one weapon in apoc is just flat out inferior than another weapon in apoc". I pointed out same is also true in 40k where battle cannon is flat out upgrade in every way over vanquisher being superior even against armoured foes. So battle cannon is flat out upgrade over vanquisher cannon. Just like vanquisher is flat out upgrade over twin lascannon turret in apoc.

This is GW game. That's to be expected. That complain about apoc stats is rather silly when it's true in every GW game. It would be note worthy if it WASN'T the case. Not that it is.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
BTW why is it that titan shields are NEVER appropriate in 40k as they are in fluff and how they have worked like decades? Remove one blast marker? Really? Reaver and warlord have identical shields? Really? Where's the idea of firing tons of weaker shots to overload the shields before hitting with few big punches to take down the titan?

By the way, am i correct in my understanding that tanks and monsters now care about leadership? So i can take out a leman russ with a single small blast on it followed by a 7+ on the armor and a 5+ on ld?

Spoletta wrote:
By the way, am i correct in my understanding that tanks and monsters now care about leadership? So i can take out a leman russ with a single small blast on it followed by a 7+ on the armor and a 5+ on ld?

Ha! You're right. If the LRBT fails its save on the small blast marker and then rolls a 5+ on its morale check, it's gone. Also, if you pile on more blast markers and the tank actually makes its saves even against a large and a small, for example, a 4+ on morale will damage it.

It works the other way around, doesn't it? Morale test for the markers on it. Then resolve damage.

Otherwise you're always making morale tests against no markers, and morale damage wouldn't be resolved until the following round

Voss wrote:
It works the other way around, doesn't it? Morale test for the markers on it. Then resolve damage.

Otherwise you're always making morale tests against no markers, and morale damage wouldn't be resolved until the following round

In the video, they roll saves and apply damage before moving on to morale checks. There's also no mention anywhere of blast markers being removed... But they must be removed at some point, surely? Or did I miss it?

Have the prices of the movement trays been leaked yet?

 Alex_H wrote:
Have the prices of the movement trays been leaked yet?

£25

32,5 euros for 18 trays (small). Not cheap but not even usual GW level.

At the store I normally use it would cost £28.80 for 18 small MDF trays. They'll be selling the GW set after discount for £20, so I'm happy with that.

 xttz wrote:
At the store I normally use it would cost £28.80 for 18 small MDF trays. They'll be selling the GW set after discount for £20, so I'm happy with that.

Yeah the GW trays are honestly solidly cheaper than all the alternatives I can easily find online. I'm mildly impressed - every once in a while they come out with some random doodad that is reasonably priced.

Removed - BrookM

T'au Faction Focus up:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/06/27/apocalypse-faction-focus-tau-empiregw-homepage-post-4/

Hm, so that resolves the question of whether Age of Sigmar "shoot while in melee" is accompanying the evident removal of overwatch - it is not. Also, firing into melee appears to be similarly not a thing (I really hope there's an exception for some of the sillier instances, like "but sir, we can't fire on that warlord titan, we might hit our friend the grots!")

It really seems like, at the scale of the game, you should be able to use at least small arms fire against an opponent in base contact. But I guess their melee stats could just take that into account too.

the_scotsman wrote:
Hm, so that resolves the question of whether Age of Sigmar "shoot while in melee" is accompanying the evident removal of overwatch - it is not. Also, firing into melee appears to be similarly not a thing (I really hope there's an exception for some of the sillier instances, like "but sir, we can't fire on that warlord titan, we might hit our friend the grots!")

Just took another look at the video. Seems to me that units that get charged before it was their turn don't get to shoot. Instead they're allowed to use melee weapons for a fight action and, if they were on Aimed Fire orders, they suffer a to-hit penalty (that's what I got mixed before).
My guess is that units whose detachment has an Advance or Charge order but who got caught by enemies who moved before them can use their own move to fall back (perhaps without getting to shoot or with a penalty?).

But yeah, hopefully titanic units will always be eligible targets, no matter what. I'd even advocate firing into melee of any kind and just dishing out any blast markers to all parties involved. Hey, it's Apocalypse! Just kill them all and let the Emperor sort them

Yeah I'd totally expect super-heavy / titanic units to have exceptions like they have previously.

More generally, not being able to shoot when charged adds to the value of choosing activation order carefully. If there wasn't a drawback here then player decisions would matter less.

Doesn't Apoc have a alternate activation? if so then being able to mess a shooting unit up with melee is good design as it makes chosing which unit you activate and when and where you move it important

Alternative activation by detachment, but no casualty removal until damage is resolved at the end of the turn, so for example you can't clear a screen and charge stuff behind it in one turn.

pgmason wrote:
Alternative activation by detachment, but no casualty removal until damage is resolved at the end of the turn, so for example you can't clear a screen and charge stuff behind it in one turn.

Could be, however, that charging said screen and landing enough blast markers to wipe it in the damage phase keeps your melee-focused units safe from being targeted by the rest of the opponent's army until the damage phase has been resolved. The chaff dies in the damage phase and, if you get initiative the following turn, you're then free to charge the juicier targets next.

Snugiraffe wrote:

pgmason wrote:
Alternative activation by detachment, but no casualty removal until damage is resolved at the end of the turn, so for example you can't clear a screen and charge stuff behind it in one turn.

Could be, however, that charging said screen and landing enough blast markers to wipe it in the damage phase keeps your melee-focused units safe from being targeted by the rest of the opponent's army until the damage phase has been resolved. The chaff dies in the damage phase and, if you get initiative the following turn, you're then free to charge the juicier targets next.

Unless it is tau, cause apparently GW can't help but give Tau the "feth everyone not playing shooting armies" rules every game system

Hoping for a stratagem that lets you apply damage immediately. Only once per round, and perhaps if you’ve done twice as much damage or more to destroy it (Overkill? Wipe Them Out? Annihilate?)

stratigo wrote:

Snugiraffe wrote:

pgmason wrote:
Alternative activation by detachment, but no casualty removal until damage is resolved at the end of the turn, so for example you can't clear a screen and charge stuff behind it in one turn.

Could be, however, that charging said screen and landing enough blast markers to wipe it in the damage phase keeps your melee-focused units safe from being targeted by the rest of the opponent's army until the damage phase has been resolved. The chaff dies in the damage phase and, if you get initiative the following turn, you're then free to charge the juicier targets next.

Unless it is tau, cause apparently GW can't help but give Tau the "feth everyone not playing shooting armies" rules every game system

You do understand how the T'au work as an army right?

It's like saying, "cause apparently GW can't help but give Demons the "F every Tau player" rules every game system

I just wish they would have thought outside the box a bit more to speed up the game. When using D12s they could have simply multiplied the fractions for hit / wound to come up with a SINGLE D12 roll required and then made “reroll 1s” into +1 to the D12. Pretty much the exact same result but 3x less rolls.

Oh well, maybe next edition.

 Kirasu wrote:
I just wish they would have thought outside the box a bit more to speed up the game. When using D12s they could have simply multiplied the fractions for hit / wound to come up with a SINGLE D12 roll required and then made “reroll 1s” into +1 to the D12. Pretty much the exact same result but 3x less rolls.

Oh well, maybe next edition.

Having multiple rolls allows more design space for various modifiers, so there is a difference between say a +1 to hit vs reroll 1s to hit vs bonuses to wound. People already complain that so many special abilities 40k are just +/- 1 to hit, reroll 1s, or deal mortal wounds with different names.

 Da-Rock wrote:

stratigo wrote:

Snugiraffe wrote:

pgmason wrote:
Alternative activation by detachment, but no casualty removal until damage is resolved at the end of the turn, so for example you can't clear a screen and charge stuff behind it in one turn.

Could be, however, that charging said screen and landing enough blast markers to wipe it in the damage phase keeps your melee-focused units safe from being targeted by the rest of the opponent's army until the damage phase has been resolved. The chaff dies in the damage phase and, if you get initiative the following turn, you're then free to charge the juicier targets next.

Unless it is tau, cause apparently GW can't help but give Tau the "feth everyone not playing shooting armies" rules every game system

You do understand how the T'au work as an army right?

It's like saying, "cause apparently GW can't help but give Demons the "F every Tau player" rules every game system

Demons into tau is a real REAL bad matchup for demons. Shooting is, generally, easier in this game and a lot of armies that go shooting are weak on melee. Tau are the only ones that get to really feth over melee armies especially. The competitive tau is, indeed, actively the least fun army to play against in the game. Way worse than any ynnari cheese or guard plus castellan. It just shoots and refuses to let you shoot it. And that all sort of sucks to play against. I'm tired of GW's way of making tau is to go "Well you should do more gunlines. And more gunlines. And then just no sell all the damage you take". You don't have to design tau to be just a boring as gak gunline. Tau aren't even thematically supposed to play like they're straight from WW1, but man do they ever. So, yeah, no I'm not gonna be happy that GW's thing seems to be "Yeah, just ignore being charged and shoot. It's not like you care if you're in combat or not."

Any word on what the minimum recommended power rating is for an apocalypse game? I'd guess a minimum of 200 or 300 PR but I really have no idea.

Also wondering how lenient army selection is going to be. Will it be as 40K or will it be like 8th with an ally sheet? Am pretty curious.

 slave.entity wrote:
Any word on what the minimum recommended power rating is for an apocalypse game? I'd guess a minimum of 200 or 300 PR but I really have no idea.

My buddies 2000pt list came out to around 88pl in apocalypse based on the datasheets. so I'm thinking 150-200 is probably a good start.

Recommended PL is also going to depend a lot on how much space you have to play with. Fitting 2-300PL of marines onto a 6x4 table is going to be easier than 2-300PL of Orks or Tyranids.

balmong7 wrote:

 slave.entity wrote:
Any word on what the minimum recommended power rating is for an apocalypse game? I'd guess a minimum of 200 or 300 PR but I really have no idea.

My buddies 2000pt list came out to around 88pl in apocalypse based on the datasheets. so I'm thinking 150-200 is probably a good start.

I just picked an old 2000-pt list from my (insanely huge collection of) lists and it adds up to 107 power rating. It comprises three detachments (battalion, outrider, aux. super-heavy). To actually use it an apoc game, I'd likely add around 20 more PR to bump up the infantry units from their minimum size (who wants a 1-wound unit?).
I'm guessing it would actually make for an entertaining and quick game, don't think it would feel too small, really. I'm so itching to try out something like it, just to see what a "small" apoc game would be like.
Maybe I'll be able to get in some solopocalypse (aka sadhammer) this weekend...

I suspect 100 will be common for a lot of folks, up to 150. Your collection starts to get unwieldy if you start adding units too far beyond this, so that'll be a more limited set of players.

stratigo wrote:
I suspect 100 will be common for a lot of folks, up to 150. Your collection starts to get unwieldy if you start adding units too far beyond this, so that'll be a more limited set of players.

I think you'll find entirely the opposite, anyone thats been collecting an army for more than a couple years will easily have more than 3000pts worth of models.

 Imateria wrote:

stratigo wrote:
I suspect 100 will be common for a lot of folks, up to 150. Your collection starts to get unwieldy if you start adding units too far beyond this, so that'll be a more limited set of players.

I think you'll find entirely the opposite, anyone thats been collecting an army for more than a couple years will easily have more than 3000pts worth of models.

A lot of people don't have a coherent 5000 points of any one faction they can throw together. Even more simply don't have the space to transport too vast an army.

stratigo wrote:

 Imateria wrote:

stratigo wrote:
I suspect 100 will be common for a lot of folks, up to 150. Your collection starts to get unwieldy if you start adding units too far beyond this, so that'll be a more limited set of players.

I think you'll find entirely the opposite, anyone thats been collecting an army for more than a couple years will easily have more than 3000pts worth of models.

A lot of people don't have a coherent 5000 points of any one faction they can throw together. Even more simply don't have the space to transport too vast an army.

Or simply don't have access to a 96x48 table.

Harlequin faction focus :
https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/06/28/apocalypse-faction-focus-harlequinsgw-homepage-post-4/

The profiles are beastly!
I can't wait to read the reaction of the “movie marines should be tabletop marines” when they read about the fluff-accurate Harlequin!

Jesus Harlequins are absurd...

Yeah, 6+ (or 5+) save that's always on d12, and -1 to hit and a save booster...

This isn't a 'glass cannon' army anymore. Its shockingly durable. Though statistics will catch up to the small number of wounds eventually.

Dont forget the Shadowseer -1 to be wounded on top of that.

Yeah, harlies seem pretty powerful. -1 to hit, -1 to wound with a shadowseer nearby, 6+sv always on a D12 that you can bump up to a 4+sv with a stratagem, and they demolish stuff in melee while effectively flying? pretty nuts. Harlequin Troupes near a Troupe master might be one of the best ways to concentrate enough punch into one unit to effectively down titanic enemies with melee rather than shooting (Which I definitely am thinking is the principal way people will need to take them out)

Harlequins do seem expensive, but....damn do they look good compared to some other similar units. Take a look at them alongside Striking Scorpions: Harlequins cost 1 point more at 5 models, 1 point less at 10 models. Harlequins move 2" more, always roll saves on D6s, have perma -1 to hit (compared to Scorps who have a trait they definitely don't benefit from), casually dish out double the attacks at better to wound rolls vs infantry and MUCH better vs tanks. And the scorpions get Infiltrators and Deep Strike.

Now, admittedly we do not know what Infiltrators does, I believe we know that Deep Strike is the same as base 40k distance-wise, but critically we don't know if you get to move or act after deep strike at all, as you do in 40k. It certainly seems like 40k's Charge phase is replaced by the Assault order which lets you move twice then Fight.

So maybe infiltrators is a ginormous game changer, and maybe at the end of the day you just aren't likely to need a million attacks to kill most targets in melee, and at the end of the day you've got a 1W unit that costs 8 power level that will be fairly vulnerable to basic anti-infantry fire. And I am just grabbing one random unit with a similar role and statline to compare, but I think it does highlight a potential balance concern - Harlequins look like supremely potent damage dealers.

The harlies make me more than a little disappointed in my Custodes. Like they have more attacks and easier damage. They’re even better at shooting

Harlequins might be the unit that benefits the most from the removal of toughness.

stratigo wrote:

 Imateria wrote:

stratigo wrote:
I suspect 100 will be common for a lot of folks, up to 150. Your collection starts to get unwieldy if you start adding units too far beyond this, so that'll be a more limited set of players.

I think you'll find entirely the opposite, anyone thats been collecting an army for more than a couple years will easily have more than 3000pts worth of models.

A lot of people don't have a coherent 5000 points of any one faction they can throw together. Even more simply don't have the space to transport too vast an army.

And even the people who do have 5000pts don't necessarily have an effective 5000pts. If half of that is basic stuff from starter boxes, how well will they do against someone who brings a dedicated Apoc army with Titans and such?

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

stratigo wrote:

 Imateria wrote:

stratigo wrote:
I suspect 100 will be common for a lot of folks, up to 150. Your collection starts to get unwieldy if you start adding units too far beyond this, so that'll be a more limited set of players.

I think you'll find entirely the opposite, anyone thats been collecting an army for more than a couple years will easily have more than 3000pts worth of models.

A lot of people don't have a coherent 5000 points of any one faction they can throw together. Even more simply don't have the space to transport too vast an army.

And even the people who do have 5000pts don't necessarily have an effective 5000pts. If half of that is basic stuff from starter boxes, how well will they do against someone who brings a dedicated Apoc army with Titans and such?

Depends how many of them are Harlequins

stratigo wrote:
The harlies make me more than a little disappointed in my Custodes. Like they have more attacks and easier damage. They’re even better at shooting

Well sure, except that they're not better at shooting. Custodes' guns are double the range and rapid fire. And harlies have a 41.6% chance of taking a wound off a small blast, while custodes have a 25% chance, and start with two wounds.

The 8x attacks is really what seems like a crazy thing in a game like apoc, where that allows you to chew right through stuff like tanks or knights. And since that's never...really been something Harlequins have been supposed to excel at, it seems a little out of line. That makes them four times as good at harming tanks as a Thunder Hammer equipped Terminator assault squad, which....uhhhh....

I get that you need new ways to balance units in apocalypse, and a terminator assault squad is much more durable having double the wounds and having less chance of failure at a large blast than harlequins do vs a small blast and they cost just 1 more power level...but 4x more offense in melee is a LOT in a game where the cap for the damage you can deal is much, much higher than in standard 40k.

I do think their durability is being overestimated considering the structure you're likely to see Harlequins in. Since they're the only troop option, you can pretty much only put them in Battalions, meaning you'll always have 3 harlequin squads at a time to target (at least, if they want the -1 to hit trait). So the best way to kill them it seems would be to put a small blast on each one, and if they close to melee, sac smaller squads that cost less than 8PL and trade blows - your little cheapo cultists or whatever will take 8 billion blasts and die, while dealing 1 blast or so to the harlequins, trading up heavily if they manage to deal just one wound.

The more I look at the datasheets the more I think GW is either lazy as and wrote the entire game in an evening or has absolutely no clue how to do math. Even comparing extremely similar units like the LRBT variants, where the only difference is the stat line of the gun, it's nonsense. Why does the vanquisher cannon, the dedicated anti-tank gun, have barely weaker anti-infantry firepower than the "do everything ok" battle cannon? And why is my poor Valdor, a LoW with a titan-scale gun, outgunned by that vanquisher even without counting the LRBT's shoot twice rule (which will almost always apply)? Has nobody at GW ever looked at statistics 101 and figured out how to calculate the average outcome of dice?

the_scotsman wrote:

stratigo wrote:
The harlies make me more than a little disappointed in my Custodes. Like they have more attacks and easier damage. They’re even better at shooting

Well sure, except that they're not better at shooting. Custodes' guns are double the range and rapid fire. And harlies have a 41.6% chance of taking a wound off a small blast, while custodes have a 25% chance, and start with two wounds.

The 8x attacks is really what seems like a crazy thing in a game like apoc, where that allows you to chew right through stuff like tanks or knights. And since that's never...really been something Harlequins have been supposed to excel at, it seems a little out of line. That makes them four times as good at harming tanks as a Thunder Hammer equipped Terminator assault squad, which....uhhhh....

I get that you need new ways to balance units in apocalypse, and a terminator assault squad is much more durable having double the wounds and having less chance of failure at a large blast than harlequins do vs a small blast and they cost just 1 more power level...but 4x more offense in melee is a LOT in a game where the cap for the damage you can deal is much, much higher than in standard 40k.

I do think their durability is being overestimated considering the structure you're likely to see Harlequins in. Since they're the only troop option, you can pretty much only put them in Battalions, meaning you'll always have 3 harlequin squads at a time to target (at least, if they want the -1 to hit trait). So the best way to kill them it seems would be to put a small blast on each one, and if they close to melee, sac smaller squads that cost less than 8PL and trade blows - your little cheapo cultists or whatever will take 8 billion blasts and die, while dealing 1 blast or so to the harlequins, trading up heavily if they manage to deal just one wound.

Now do that math for two wounds. Since, uh, 41 percent isn't super likely to kill a harley unit, ya know. And two wounds they ignore just as efficiently. And then they scale FAR superior with their buff they revealed and their army trick. I don't since many 5 man squads running about really. On the opposite, the custodes scale better with MSU, with their buff giver being a plus one attack per unit aura.

Also my shield captains each a solitaire's lunch in 40k and I am annoyed that is now the opposite.

In the case of Harlies, there's also (perplexingly) morale to consider - so they can easily get their saves off but then die by failing two morale rolls in a row?

And I'm not so sure putting 6 large blast markers on a Reaver Titan is going to be much of a game changer. That's only 4 or 5 damage. Questors are in trouble, though.

abyrn wrote:
Harlequins might be the unit that benefits the most from the removal of toughness.

Thing is, for other units, in theory toughness and armor are worked into the Apoc saving throw. In the Harlies case, it just became super good, and got a special rule dropped on top.
For a lot of other units, high toughness (Death Guard) or invulnerable saves (Farseers, Warlocks, Genestealers), just got completely scrubbed out in the conversion. And DG got their 'ignore damage' rule downgraded to boot (though there may be good mathematical reasons for that, at least).

Peregrine wrote:The more I look at the datasheets the more I think GW is either lazy as and wrote the entire game in an evening or has absolutely no clue how to do math. Even comparing extremely similar units like the LRBT variants, where the only difference is the stat line of the gun, it's nonsense. Why does the vanquisher cannon, the dedicated anti-tank gun, have barely weaker anti-infantry firepower than the "do everything ok" battle cannon? And why is my poor Valdor, a LoW with a titan-scale gun, outgunned by that vanquisher even without counting the LRBT's shoot twice rule (which will almost always apply)? Has nobody at GW ever looked at statistics 101 and figured out how to calculate the average outcome of dice?

This really does seem to be a problem, and it isn't even particularly rare. I've noticed a lot of options that are 1 A at 7+, followed by an option that's 2 A but 8+. An 8.33% chance difference pales in comparison to having multiple dice.
Or obvious things like the 'choice' between heavy bolters and missile launchers. So many units have this as a decision, and missiles are 100% of the time always the correct answer. +12" and 7+ vs 9+, with...no downside. If you've got an option for other weapons, you might choose them instead, but there is zero reason to bring a heavy bolter if you have a choice about it. Ever.

And its further complicated by units that have completely flipped, either role or which weapons are actually good. Even in little ways, its annoying or will involve people proxying or altering models- Take the Necron Praetorians. In 40k, void blades and PCs give bonus attacks in close combat. In Apoc, for no reason whatsoever, Rods of the Covenant are the bonus CC attacks option. Particle casters are...short ranged anti-infantry gun fighters for... reasons.

Maybe its to get people to buy new kits, or maybe its just a messy set of data sheets that weren't done very well.

stratigo wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

stratigo wrote:
The harlies make me more than a little disappointed in my Custodes. Like they have more attacks and easier damage. They’re even better at shooting

Well sure, except that they're not better at shooting. Custodes' guns are double the range and rapid fire. And harlies have a 41.6% chance of taking a wound off a small blast, while custodes have a 25% chance, and start with two wounds.

The 8x attacks is really what seems like a crazy thing in a game like apoc, where that allows you to chew right through stuff like tanks or knights. And since that's never...really been something Harlequins have been supposed to excel at, it seems a little out of line. That makes them four times as good at harming tanks as a Thunder Hammer equipped Terminator assault squad, which....uhhhh....

I get that you need new ways to balance units in apocalypse, and a terminator assault squad is much more durable having double the wounds and having less chance of failure at a large blast than harlequins do vs a small blast and they cost just 1 more power level...but 4x more offense in melee is a LOT in a game where the cap for the damage you can deal is much, much higher than in standard 40k.

I do think their durability is being overestimated considering the structure you're likely to see Harlequins in. Since they're the only troop option, you can pretty much only put them in Battalions, meaning you'll always have 3 harlequin squads at a time to target (at least, if they want the -1 to hit trait). So the best way to kill them it seems would be to put a small blast on each one, and if they close to melee, sac smaller squads that cost less than 8PL and trade blows - your little cheapo cultists or whatever will take 8 billion blasts and die, while dealing 1 blast or so to the harlequins, trading up heavily if they manage to deal just one wound.

Now do that math for two wounds. Since, uh, 41 percent isn't super likely to kill a harley unit, ya know. And two wounds they ignore just as efficiently. And then they scale FAR superior with their buff they revealed and their army trick. I don't since many 5 man squads running about really. On the opposite, the custodes scale better with MSU, with their buff giver being a plus one attack per unit aura.

Also my shield captains each a solitaire's lunch in 40k and I am annoyed that is now the opposite.

Yeah, at two wounds the harlequins cost 2x as much as the custodes. I HOPE a 15PL unit is better than a 7pl unit. Unless you mean "Do the math for me just blatantly playing into the hands of their ability" which seems...dumb...if your opponent is running a 5-man harlequins squad at you, deal 1 wound splat to it and stop. Or deal many wound splats to it and kill it with Morale+saves if it simply must die. If your opponent is running Harlequin troupes, they're probably in a Battalion detachment with 3 squads - the best way to handle them is to shoot them up for 1 wound splat and switch to a different target.

If you don't see 5-man troupes running around, you don't see them using transports as their only transport can only take 1 min squad. So maybe the meta will be 10man squads of harlequins but that is a pretty gigantic expense for what is likely to be absurd overkill. A battalion detachment with 3x10 harlequins a troupe master and a shadowseer costs more than 2 imperial knights in apoc, and only slightly more than 1 knight in 40k. It's tough to say though without knowing how transports actually function in apoc whether skyweavers will be worthwhile investments.

It's true, in a melee duel in 40k, a 114-point custode captain deals about 2.5 damage vs the 2.1 damage dealt by the 98-point solitaire, and the custode captain has 1 more wound so he's likely to win unless the Harlequin player uses some command points. In Apoc, the 8pl Solitaire has about a 50% chance of killing the 6pl shield captain with his normal damage output, and the shield captain only about a 20% chance of killing the Solitaire at the same time (assuming -1 to hit but not assuming -1 . The shield captain has gone from costing 16% more to 25% less than the solitaire. A 41% shift in cost resulted in a 49% shift in advantage, and the Solitaire's detrimental Path of Damnation ability has gone from an inability to take warlord traits in 40k to an inability to become the warlord. Which, in apocalypse, translates to if you kill the rest of the Solitaire's detachment, leaving him actually "Solitary"....he immediately runs away. Which far from being annoyed at I find kind of hilarious.

It seems like the biggest complaint about custodes is that their shooting is so lopsided versus their melee, which is the opposite in 40k. I definitely get that and feel pretty much the same - I'd have given them 2x melee attacks and not rapid fire shooting weapons. But looking at the units versus each other, it honestly doesn't seem all that imbalanced considering.

Yeah, maybe the datasheets are bit messy, I noticed that tau have a different profiles at pulse rifles (when comparing strike team and cadre fireblade). Also daemon princes have different Power level value from different factions.

I'm really curious what the “Inferno” rule is going to be but I wouldn't be surprised if they waited until the Sororitas faction focus to tell us about it, since literally every battlefield role can be equipped with an inferno weapon (for a total of… oh wait, just 4 different weapons lol)
I hope the rule is very good. I suspect it might just be “Can shoot in melee” though.

 Spreelock wrote:
Yeah, maybe the datasheets are bit messy, I noticed that tau have a different profiles at pulse rifles (when comparing strike team and cadre fireblade). Also daemon princes have different Power level value from different factions.

That first one is definitely on purpose. There are many instances of the same named weapon having different stats when there is a more numerous unit using it.A unit where the base size is 10 vs a unit with the base size 5 is going to have a more powerful version of the weapon with the same name.

Dunno about the two daemon princes. It seems like the Daemons bonus is actually better than the CSM bonus, which is the only reason I'd think they'd be different.


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 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
I'm really curious what the “Inferno” rule is going to be but I wouldn't be surprised if they waited until the Sororitas faction focus to tell us about it, since literally every battlefield role can be equipped with an inferno weapon (for a total of… oh wait, just 4 different weapons lol)
I hope the rule is very good. I suspect it might just be “Can shoot in melee” though.

My money is on "Do not make a hit roll, hits automatically."

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
I'm really curious what the “Inferno” rule is going to be but I wouldn't be surprised if they waited until the Sororitas faction focus to tell us about it, since literally every battlefield role can be equipped with an inferno weapon (for a total of… oh wait, just 4 different weapons lol)
I hope the rule is very good. I suspect it might just be “Can shoot in melee” though.

It'll be 'this weapon hits automatically'...

If so it's going to be strong. Not OP but strong.

stratigo wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

stratigo wrote:
The harlies make me more than a little disappointed in my Custodes. Like they have more attacks and easier damage. They’re even better at shooting

Well sure, except that they're not better at shooting. Custodes' guns are double the range and rapid fire. And harlies have a 41.6% chance of taking a wound off a small blast, while custodes have a 25% chance, and start with two wounds.

The 8x attacks is really what seems like a crazy thing in a game like apoc, where that allows you to chew right through stuff like tanks or knights. And since that's never...really been something Harlequins have been supposed to excel at, it seems a little out of line. That makes them four times as good at harming tanks as a Thunder Hammer equipped Terminator assault squad, which....uhhhh....

I get that you need new ways to balance units in apocalypse, and a terminator assault squad is much more durable having double the wounds and having less chance of failure at a large blast than harlequins do vs a small blast and they cost just 1 more power level...but 4x more offense in melee is a LOT in a game where the cap for the damage you can deal is much, much higher than in standard 40k.

I do think their durability is being overestimated considering the structure you're likely to see Harlequins in. Since they're the only troop option, you can pretty much only put them in Battalions, meaning you'll always have 3 harlequin squads at a time to target (at least, if they want the -1 to hit trait). So the best way to kill them it seems would be to put a small blast on each one, and if they close to melee, sac smaller squads that cost less than 8PL and trade blows - your little cheapo cultists or whatever will take 8 billion blasts and die, while dealing 1 blast or so to the harlequins, trading up heavily if they manage to deal just one wound.

Now do that math for two wounds. Since, uh, 41 percent isn't super likely to kill a harley unit, ya know. And two wounds they ignore just as efficiently. And then they scale FAR superior with their buff they revealed and their army trick. I don't since many 5 man squads running about really. On the opposite, the custodes scale better with MSU, with their buff giver being a plus one attack per unit aura.

Also my shield captains each a solitaire's lunch in 40k and I am annoyed that is now the opposite.

They are 18 points for 2 infantry wounds... Seriously, even if you dump 4 large blasts on them to be sure that they are deady dead, it will be SO worth it. For the same amount of points AM can deploy twelve times that amount of wounds.

the_scotsman wrote:

That first one is definitely on purpose. There are many instances of the same named weapon having different stats when there is a more numerous unit using it.A unit where the base size is 10 vs a unit with the base size 5 is going to have a more powerful version of the weapon with the same name.

Dunno about the two daemon princes. It seems like the Daemons bonus is actually better than the CSM bonus, which is the only reason I'd think they'd be different.

There are more odd things, for example space wolves; their Wolf guard datasheet has Power level 5, "unit include 5models" but their profile has two lines (5 models and 10).

 Peregrine wrote:
The more I look at the datasheets the more I think GW is either lazy as and wrote the entire game in an evening or has absolutely no clue how to do math.

Why not both? I've had this feeling with a lot of recent publications (Forbidden Power, GHB2019, literally the entire Necromunda range...)

Actual scene inside GW studio:

Jervis Johnson *slips a 10 pound bill in an intern's pocket*
"Here, kid, have 20 pages of new scenarios for me by lunch."

Has there been a price hike on the Baneblade?

On Amazon it jumped from $140 to $160.

Lucky I got mine last week