Hey guys I don't want to come across as a complainer, but I got tabled before my first turn and it just seems like something is going wrong. All I did was drive 20 minutes, set up for 30 or whatever, and then he got 1st turn and killed everything with a charge I couldn't stop.


I used my Eldar, we played 1250 points.
Jason's list was something very like this:

Maelific Lord
Maelific Lord
Edit: not MLords sorry, Chaos Lord and Apostle
10 Chaos Culties
10 Chaos Culties
13 Korn Beserkers with Chainswor and Chainaxe, plus a Sergeant with Power fist
13 Korn Beserkers with Chainswor and Chainaxe, plus a Sergeant with Power fist
13 Korn Beserkers with Chainswor and Chainaxe, plus a Sergeant with Power fist
3 Obliterators

Front line assault, big guns never tire.
So I guess you can see how it went already, the lords and culties started on the table and the korns went to reserve with that Alpha strategem. Then they came out 9" away and moved up 6 so they can charge everything in my army. The oblitorators put just 8 damage on the wave serpent because I had serpent stones, and then the beserkers charged.
Not just the guardians but declared the charge on everyone behind them, and did a 3' charge and killed everthing then consolidated and piled in and killed everything else with a second attack. The wave serpent died last but then it was gg.

it left me feeling like I am not very good at 40k but I dunno. 3 inch charges are not hard to make.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
ps Jason didn't enjoy it very much. he did for the first part when he was rolling D and killing, but didnt enjoy actually winning like that.
Just sayin

I am confused. How did he deepstike 9" away and then move 6"?

yeah he brought a tourney list. One of the top two basic list types.

Had same experience vs IG. It wasn't complete tabling but it would be turn 2.

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/729779.page

Happened some time ago. Now scions are a bit more expensive but it can still happen as they're not THAT much more expensive.

Yep, that's what Alpha Legion Khorne Berzerkers can do. I guess being a frenzied, bloodthirsty brute doesn't hinder your ability to sneak up on just about anyone.

Khorne commandoes.

Anywayz, keep in mind that this trick is only so devastating if he gets 1-st turn. You can only counter it with cheap bauble wrap or your own mass deepstrikers. So, you basically need ig allies to spam conscripts.

If those were actually 'Malefic Lords', the ones from the Forgeworld Index, then it shouldn't have been possible, as I believe a CSM HQ is needed for most detachments, in order for the detachment to be fully Alpha Legion and thus use the Forward Operatives stratagem.

Yet, I do recognize it is a powerful tactic.

I guess the best thing to do is in the future is spread your units out more, so that each Berserker squad can only attack one thing at a time. Also put squishier and/or more valuable units behind [like, 5 or more inches behind] expendable or tough units so that they can deal with the Berserkers afterwards.

Maybe try out some Wraithguard with those special flamers? They'd punish the Berserkers for getting too close.

Malefic lord is Renegades and Heretic not CSM i thought.

Can you use cheap Malefic lords (30ppm) instead of the cheapest hq for csm (76+ppm)?

Well, he played wrong. When he charged, he can´t attack the units, which he consolidated in, even with the special rule of the berserkers. After a charge you can only hit the units you declared a charge against.

 Lord_Valorion wrote:
Well, he played wrong. When he charged, he can´t attack the units, which he consolidated in, even with the special rule of the berserkers. After a charge you can only hit the units you declared a charge against.

You can declare a multicharge, and if you can get within 1" of any of your targets the charge is successful and you'll be able to consolidate/attack any of your targets. That's probably how he destroyed a first unit, then used consolidate + pile in to move within 1" of a second and attack it. As long as he declared a charge against both units it's valid.

You got chumped. He brought an illegal version of a top tier tournament list. With no CSM HQ there's no way for his zerkers to have access to stratagems.

I'd really like too know how he moved after arriving from deepstrike and still charged. There's apsychic power that does that, but do Malefic have it?

There are some things really iffy about the game you're describing.

Earth127 wrote:
I'd really like too know how he moved after arriving from deepstrike and still charged. There's apsychic power that does that, but do Malefic have it?

There are some things really iffy about the game you're describing.

Alpha legion strategem, which is identical to ravenguard strategem. It allows to deploy a unit anywhere not closer than 9" from the opponent before the game starts.

Earth127 wrote:
I'd really like too know how he moved after arriving from deepstrike and still charged. There's apsychic power that does that, but do Malefic have it?

There are some things really iffy about the game you're describing.

What the Zerkers did was infiltrate, not deep strike; Alpha Legion have a stratagem that lets you place a unit 9" away before the first turn begins, which means that when your turn starts you can move as normal. It's an incredibly powerful ability, though with the downside of leaving your models out to dry if you get second turn.

Nevertheless, without a pure CSM detachment he should not have been able to use the stratagem. The Malefic Lord HQ's make it a Chaos detachment, which means no stratagems.

Is the stratagem allowed to be used 3 times just because it's outside of normal "phases?"

I would have assumed that the intent would be for it to be only used once.

Hmm I tought that stratagem didn't let you move, well it just became a lot more powerfull.

Your friend is a dink for playing that kind of cheese outside of a tourny. Give them a smack.

 Purifier wrote:
Is the stratagem allowed to be used 3 times just because it's outside of normal "phases?"

I would have assumed that the intent would be for it to be only used once.

You can, yes. Have to pay for each use individually, of course.

 vaklor4 wrote:
Your friend is a dink for playing that kind of cheese outside of a tourny. Give them a smack.

Pretty sure this is band at most tournaments so he would also be a dink there.

Unless you missed an HQ option it's not a legal 'Alpha Legion' list: taking Malefic Lords makes the detachment ineligible for Legion Tactics as they're non-Legion keyword. So as written he should not have been able to use the Alpha Legion Stratagem.

And iirc the discussion properly in regards to the timing of the stratagem with the stratagem he has to set them up BEFORE you guys have determined who gets first turn with the trade off that they don't count as having conducted a 'deep strike' as they arrived outside of the turn structure. But I could be wrong - this Stratagem (shared with Raven Guard for SM) is still one that GW hasn't clarified effectively yet.

Still, other than that this is one of the flavors of Chaos list that have been in the top 10 of recent tourneys next to Imperial Soup lists.

Apart from the fact that your opponent list is illegal and surely not suited for casual play even if corrected, you also are at fault for what happened. You probably didn't know how forward operatives works and how zerkers work.

Zerkers cannot hurt anything that is further than 12" at the start of the charge phase, so you just put a line of troops on the edge of your deployment and everything else further than 9" from there. This way you will lose your troops, but you will have a chance to fight back.

To those saying its illegal... It depends on the way he arranged his detachments....

If one of his units was in an auxiliary support detachment, that would be a pure legion detachment, and therefore unlock the required strategems.

secretForge wrote:
To those saying its illegal... It depends on the way he arranged his detachments....

If one of his units was in an auxiliary support detachment, that would be a pure legion detachment, and therefore unlock the required strategems.

No, this doesn't work -- you may want to reread the rules for unlocking the stratagems.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
But anyway, as others have said this is a very cheesy sort of list and you should really just refuse to play it. The Alpha Legion stratagem is a bizarre mechanic that takes the existing first turn advantage and cranks it up to 11.

secretForge wrote:
To those saying its illegal... It depends on the way he arranged his detachments....

If one of his units was in an auxiliary support detachment, that would be a pure legion detachment, and therefore unlock the required strategems.

The Stratagem itself only works on 'Alpha Legion Infantry' so all three squads would need to be Alpha Legion in order to have been eligible for the stratagem. And as Dionysodorus pointed out - Auxiliary Support detachments don't unlock stratagems.

Yep, that's filthy strong.

Remember also - Eldar are incredibly weak right now. I can't think of an army I could take which could cope with that at the moment (and I own models to run basically anything). At 1250 you don't even have much to sacrifice or hide behind.

That being said, this is why I don't play spammy tournament lists like that - where's the fun in that?

Your opponent's list is illegal and he potentially assaulted illegally too, and you apparently deployed poorly. It's hardly surprising that you got an extreme result out of it.

fake news

When playing a game it should be fun for both sides, at least that's how I see it.

I had to make an edit, it was the chaos lord and apostle, not Maelfic lords.
The game wasn't long enough for the HQ choice to really be a factor if you know what I mean.

Spoletta wrote:

Zerkers cannot hurt anything that is further than 12" at the start of the charge phase, so you just put a line of troops on the edge of your deployment and everything else further than 9" from there. This way you will lose your troops, but you will have a chance to fight back.

that sounds like a good tip thanks but I don't really know what to do with it in a game like this Front Line Assault deployment. Same as with Dawn of war, I just don't know where the space is supposed to be and those are common maps?

Interesting. I was also under the impression you could use the infiltrate-stratagem only once.

Inversely, if you can use stratagems multiple times before the actual game ("outside a phase"), couldn't counter it by re-rolling the seize initiative roll for as long as you have command points?

Wonderwolf wrote:
Interesting. I was also under the impression you could use the infiltrate-stratagem only once.

Inversely, if you can use stratagems multiple times before the actual game ("outside a phase"), couldn't counter it by re-rolling the seize initiative roll for as long as you have command points?

Sadly, a die can only be re-rolled once, regardless of the source of the re-roll.

What Spoletta said - use cheap Guardian units to bubblewrap your force and space out units to provide support to one another whilst not offering an easy charge range.

Not much to add, but don't Ynari have a decent counter as well? In any case, in 8th bubblewrap is not really optional. You need to wrap. A basic "Two Trygon tunnel" assault would have wreaked you pretty bad as well, and that is in no way "cheesy".

The BEST bubble wrap troop unit for is Corsairs, take 2x5 units.

The reason why is they have a really strong pistol, 1 D6 roll (can re-roll with CP) counts for the total shots of all models, of if you roll a 5, thats 25 shots with 5 guys. Also its only 50pts compare to Eldar units.

The Best cheap unit is FA DE Khymerae's (20pts for 1 unit of 2 take 2x2 thats 40pts)

With that said, the codex is in soon and we might want guardians instead.


Also the Fliers are literally the best Anti-charge turn 1 against "Non-Fly" units as they must stay away from the flyer and can not charge it.

Here is a good example using 2 fliers and 2 units of Khymerae's (instead of the Khymerae's if could be a Guardian unit, it can be anything you want)

Wonderwolf wrote:
Interesting. I was also under the impression you could use the infiltrate-stratagem only once.

There's nothing in the CSM Codex that prohibits using Forward Operatives multiple times. The Stratagem is triggered at the beginning of the first battle round but before the first turn.

Reading the BRB rules on Stratagems, it says you can use the same Stratagem multiple times during the course of a battle. (BTW The thing I am not seeing in the BRB is a restriction on using more than one stratagem per phase - did I get that wrong?)

Honestly, while this story sounds sick, it could have gone the other way. Deploying MEQ 9 inches away from Eldar is rarely a good idea. If the OP got first turn, it might have gone entirely the other way.

 techsoldaten wrote:

Wonderwolf wrote:
Interesting. I was also under the impression you could use the infiltrate-stratagem only once.

There's nothing in the CSM Codex that prohibits using Forward Operatives multiple times. The Stratagem is triggered at the beginning of the first battle round but before the first turn.

Reading the BRB rules on Stratagems, it says you can use the same Stratagem multiple times during the course of a battle. (BTW The thing I am not seeing in the BRB is a restriction on using more than one stratagem per phase - did I get that wrong?)

Honestly, while this story sounds sick, it could have gone the other way. Deploying MEQ 9 inches away from Eldar is rarely a good idea. If the OP got first turn, it might have gone entirely the other way.

Page 215, "Matched Play Mission Rules" (so narrative and open ignore this)

Strategic Discipline: The same stratagem cannot be used be the same players more than once during any single phase. "This does no affect Stratagems that are not used during a phase, such as those used before the battle begains, or at the end of a battle round"

What is the wording on CSM stratagem? B.c there is a limit if it is during a phase.

To the OP: You are playing a small game. Small games are really susceptible to one side steam rolling over the other. I suggest playing a large game (1500-2000) and playing with more expendable troops units that can be used to bubble wrap your more important units during the first turn of the game.

 Amishprn86 wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:

Wonderwolf wrote:
Interesting. I was also under the impression you could use the infiltrate-stratagem only once.

There's nothing in the CSM Codex that prohibits using Forward Operatives multiple times. The Stratagem is triggered at the beginning of the first battle round but before the first turn.

Reading the BRB rules on Stratagems, it says you can use the same Stratagem multiple times during the course of a battle. (BTW The thing I am not seeing in the BRB is a restriction on using more than one stratagem per phase - did I get that wrong?)

Honestly, while this story sounds sick, it could have gone the other way. Deploying MEQ 9 inches away from Eldar is rarely a good idea. If the OP got first turn, it might have gone entirely the other way.

Page 215, "Matched Play Mission Rules" (so narrative and open ignore this)

Strategic Discipline: The same stratagem cannot be used be the same players more than once during any single phase. "This does no affect Stratagems that are not used during a phase, such as those used before the battle begains, or at the end of a battle round"

What is the wording on CSM stratagem? B.c there is a limit if it is during a phase.

It is before the game begins. Its exactly the same as the Ravenguard one (and the one the Ad Mech got, and the Tallarn one).

You can spam it because it is before the beginning of the game.

Wonderwolf wrote:
Interesting. I was also under the impression you could use the infiltrate-stratagem only once.

Inversely, if you can use stratagems multiple times before the actual game ("outside a phase"), couldn't counter it by re-rolling the seize initiative roll for as long as you have command points?

Re-roll rule prevents that. Can't re-roll a dice more than once.

On top of that literally EVERY tournament ruleset prevents the re-roll being used before the game.

So why isn't anyone asking how WORLD EATER units are getting to use ALPHA LEGION stratagems?




I know Berserkers aren't exclusively World Eaters, but maybe they should be for this reason.
Likewise, I think it is pretty messed up to use a Stratagem more than once just because of a loop hole in wording. The intent is clearly to only use each strategem once before your opponent gets a player turn.

-

This happened all the time in 2nd. Everything old is new again.

 Galef wrote:
So why isn't anyone asking how WORLD EATER units are getting to use ALPHA LEGION stratagems?




I know Berserkers aren't exclusively World Eaters, but maybe they should be for this reason.
Likewise, I think it is pretty messed up to use a Stratagem more than once just because of a loop hole in wording. The intent is clearly to only use each strategem once before your opponent gets a player turn.

-

...
That is not 'clearly the intent'. You're pulling 'intent' out of thin air, and 'intent' that contradicts the explicit rules. Nothing even IMPLIES that pregame strategems are supposed to be one-use-only. It's not a 'loop hole'.

When the rule says a thing can only be used 'once per phase', the intent is pretty clear it can only be used once.
The real thing that should be questioned is whether stratagems can be used outside of a phase at all.
Clearly some stratagems have to be used outside of phases due to what they actually do, but in these cases we still need to apply some common sense.

Normally stratagems can only be used once, so why would this change in situations where they are used out of phase?

-

 Galef wrote:
So why isn't anyone asking how WORLD EATER units are getting to use ALPHA LEGION stratagems?




I know Berserkers aren't exclusively World Eaters, but maybe they should be for this reason.
Likewise, I think it is pretty messed up to use a Stratagem more than once just because of a loop hole in wording. The intent is clearly to only use each strategem once before your opponent gets a player turn.

-

Berzerkers can be found in just about every undivided Legion or Renegade chapter. They go where they can spill the most blood and collect the most skulls. They don't really care if they are fighting with the Alpha Legion, the Black Legion or the World Eaters.

Also, GW very clearly intends for you to infiltrate mroe than one unit at the beginning of the game:

"One of the most exciting new features of the Raven Guard is their unique Stratagem, Strike From the Shadows. You’ll want to pack as many command points as you can into your list to take full advantage of this, allowing you to hold units back at the start of the game and deploy them anywhere more than 9″ away from the enemy just before the game begins."

Martel732 wrote:
This happened all the time in 2nd. Everything old is new again.

Where is the randomly move deadly counters phase? Nothing like a couple roving Warp Voids to keep people on their toes!

So basically, until GW clearly states that the Raven Guard and Alpha legion infiltrating stratagems cannot be used to move units and/or charge with them, I won't be playing against any RG or AL armies....great!
I already have Guard on my 'do not play against' list. Looks like I won't be playing in tourneys at all this edition.
It's just not a fun game if lists exist that can immediately table the opponent or render the majority of their units impotent before they can react.

-

 Galef wrote:
So basically, until GW clearly states that the Raven Guard and Alpha legion infiltrating stratagems cannot be used to move units and/or charge with them, I won't be playing against any RG or AL armies....great!
I already have Guard on my 'do not play against' list. Looks like I won't be playing in tourneys at all this edition.
It's just not a fun game if lists exist that can immediately table the opponent or render the majority of their units impotent before they can react.

-

This tactic was literally the only reason my Khorne Bezerkers were able to engage and help neuter an Imperial Guard's shooting for a critical 2 turns.

 Galef wrote:
So basically, until GW clearly states that the Raven Guard and Alpha legion infiltrating stratagems cannot be used to move units and/or charge with them, I won't be playing against any RG or AL armies....great!
I already have Guard on my 'do not play against' list. Looks like I won't be playing in tourneys at all this edition.
It's just not a fun game if lists exist that can immediately table the opponent or render the majority of their units impotent before they can react.

-

Just about every army can alpha strike and basically neuter their opponents. Its the biggest problem the edition has right now.

 Galef wrote:
So basically, until GW clearly states that the Raven Guard and Alpha legion infiltrating stratagems cannot be used to move units and/or charge with them, I won't be playing against any RG or AL armies....great!
I already have Guard on my 'do not play against' list. Looks like I won't be playing in tourneys at all this edition.
It's just not a fun game if lists exist that can immediately table the opponent or render the majority of their units impotent before they can react.

-

Or... Just take screening units and scouts...

Scouts are too expensive to be effective screening units.

What is the wording on the stratagem?

It's been said once in this thread, but I'm going to re-iterate it again;

You can use the infiltration strategem multiple times during deployment, because the game hasn't begun yet - you're not limited to the "1 per phase" rule.

Second, infiltration deployments must be placed on the board before determining who goes first or second - this means that you can deploy 9" away and hope to get the first turn, allowing you to move and make an almost guaranteed charge; but it comes with a risk - if your opponent gets the first turn, they're going to gun down/charge your infiltrating units.

I haven't faced CSM doing this yet, and it does sound super brutal - but it has counters, such as seizing the first turn, or simply bubblewrapping your units with disposable ones (which you should be doing REGARDLESS, as Deep Striking and one-rounding squads is a fact of life this edition).

Chill yall.

Edit: Also, OP; games are over round 1 or 2 this edition, the alpha strikes are seriously brutal. It's just how 8th edition is shaking out so far; terrain rules and the like aren't adequate enough to counter this... you need bubblewrapping, and even then - if you face a gunline list (AM, etc), you damn better hope you get the first turn and can blow up as many of his shooty units as possible.

I'm not a fan of this new editions emphasis on alpha strikes, but what can you do?

I've had to scoop top of one with Eldar lists before; it's a problem of how the Eldar are written (it doesn't matter how good of a gun you give a T3/5+/1W body if he dies the instant he gets sneezed on) as much as it is a problem of how the core rules work.

I don't have an issue with units being able to drop in 9" on the first turn and charge. It still comes down to a 2d6 roll.
It's being able to close that gap by moving first that bothers me.

8th edition was supposed to reduce the amount of ridiculously game breaking combos you could do, not come up with all new ways to circumvent your opponent even getting a turn.

It looks like I won't be playing 8th at all until more armies get Codices.

 Galef wrote:
So basically, until GW clearly states that the Raven Guard and Alpha legion infiltrating stratagems cannot be used to move units and/or charge with them, I won't be playing against any RG or AL armies....great!
I already have Guard on my 'do not play against' list. Looks like I won't be playing in tourneys at all this edition.
It's just not a fun game if lists exist that can immediately table the opponent or render the majority of their units impotent before they can react.

-

That would be silly. You opponent is leaving MEQ in front of your army. If he doesn't get first turn, you get to mow him down. Any Obliterators arriving the next turn would not have a screen.

It's risky.

fe40k wrote:
It's been said once in this thread, but I'm going to re-iterate it again;

You can use the infiltration strategem multiple times during deployment, because the game hasn't begun yet - you're not limited to the "1 per phase" rule.

Second, infiltration deployments must be placed on the board before determining who goes first or second - this means that you can deploy 9" away and hope to get the first turn, allowing you to move and make an almost guaranteed charge; but it comes with a risk - if your opponent gets the first turn, they're going to gun down/charge your infiltrating units.

I haven't faced CSM doing this yet, and it does sound super brutal - but it has counters, such as seizing the first turn, or simply bubblewrapping your units with disposable ones (which you should be doing REGARDLESS, as Deep Striking and one-rounding squads is a fact of life this edition).

Chill yall.

Edit: Also, OP; games are over round 1 or 2 this edition, the alpha strikes are seriously brutal. It's just how 8th edition is shaking out so far; terrain rules and the like aren't adequate enough to counter this... you need bubblewrapping, and even then - if you face a gunline list (AM, etc), you damn better hope you get the first turn and can blow up as many of his shooty units as possible.

I'm not a fan of this new editions emphasis on alpha strikes, but what can you do?

I just wanted to wording on the stratagem...........

 Amishprn86 wrote:
I just wanted to wording on the stratagem...........

Forward Operatives
Use this Stratagem when you can set up an ALPHA LEGION INFANTRY unit during deployment. You can set up the unit in concealment instead of placing it on the battlefield. At the beginning of the first battle round but before the first turn begins, the unit emerges from its hiding place - set it up anywhere on the battlefield that is more than 9" away from any enemy models.

"At the beginning of the first battle round but before the first turn begins"

So it's not before the game begins, the game has just started...

Also, is not "At the beginning of the first battle round" the start of the phase?

*edit*
I'm reading this as "first thing you do after play begins, before anything else"

 Amishprn86 wrote:
The BEST bubble wrap troop unit for is Corsairs, take 2x5 units.

Alternatively, Shadow Spectres are the best non-Guardian/Wave Serpent thing in Craftworld Eldar, and they would love for you to charge them.

 techsoldaten wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:
I just wanted to wording on the stratagem...........

Forward Operatives
Use this Stratagem when you can set up an ALPHA LEGION INFANTRY unit during deployment. You can set up the unit in concealment instead of placing it on the battlefield. At the beginning of the first battle round but before the first turn begins, the unit emerges from its hiding place - set it up anywhere on the battlefield that is more than 9" away from any enemy models.

It says "before the 1st battle round" so this clearly is within the rules to use it as many times as you want, due to rule for match play on pg 215.

This is why i wanted the wording, this is 100% clear and legal.

SWEET! b.c i have a large Khorne army XD aka lots of Zerkers, now i need to buy the codex i guess lol

Looks like when cadia fell, Alpha Legion stole CREED's TACTICAL GENIUS.

 Amishprn86 wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:
I just wanted to wording on the stratagem...........

Forward Operatives
Use this Stratagem when you can set up an ALPHA LEGION INFANTRY unit during deployment. You can set up the unit in concealment instead of placing it on the battlefield. At the beginning of the first battle round but before the first turn begins, the unit emerges from its hiding place - set it up anywhere on the battlefield that is more than 9" away from any enemy models.

It says "before the 1st battle round" so this clearly is within the rules to use it as many times as you want, due to rule for match play on pg 215.

This is why i wanted the wording, this is 100% clear and legal.

SWEET! b.c i have a large Khorne army XD aka lots of Zerkers, now i need to buy the codex i guess lol

Correction, it says "At the beginning..." not "Before..."

*edit*
Although from what was quoted above about what GW said, it does imply that the meant for it to work as was played. It's odd that they didn't word it like that on the Stratagem.

Wonderwolf wrote:
Interesting. I was also under the impression you could use the infiltrate-stratagem only once.

Inversely, if you can use stratagems multiple times before the actual game ("outside a phase"), couldn't counter it by re-rolling the seize initiative roll for as long as you have command points?

There is a seperate rule in the book that says that any dice can only be re-rolled once. So that would seem to trump the repeated use of stratagems. The Infiltration stratagem can indeed be used multiple times, and only costs 1CP each. If you get first turn, it's a real winner (as the OP has seen).

He did use a very competitive list, against Eldar who are among the weakest of armies right now. There wasn't really much OP could do about it.

how does this make the game better than 7th? they just traded off shenanigans.

I guess the solution is that everyone needs conscripts.

Both this one and the ravenguard one should be changed like scouts were, to be 9" away from the enemy deployment zone rather than enemy models. In my opinion, you should never be able to start in someone else's deployment zone, before the first turn. Not that it would really do anything about this shenanigan I guess. Maybe these should both be changed to just deepstrikeing?

 Purifier wrote:
Is the stratagem allowed to be used 3 times just because it's outside of normal "phases?"

I would have assumed that the intent would be for it to be only used once.

Have you read the rulebook? The exact same rule that limits stratagems to once per phase has an exception in the rule for stratagems used outside of normal phases. Like there is literally an entire extra sentence specifically contradicting the intent to only be used once.

fe40k wrote:

Second, infiltration deployments must be placed on the board before determining who goes first or second - this means that you can deploy 9" away and hope to get the first turn, allowing you to move and make an almost guaranteed charge; but it comes with a risk - if your opponent gets the first turn, they're going to gun down/charge your infiltrating units.

Can someone double check that, because AFAIK the berserkers are placed before the firs turn but after finding out who is going first.
That is a big deal because when we chatted after the game my opponent (Jason) said he was relaxed about the risk of going 2 because he would just put them somewhere safer. We use lots of terrain so it wouldn't have been too far back anyway.

Here is the text

FORWARD OPERATIVES
Alpha Legion Stratagem
Use this Stratagem when you can set up an ALPHA
LEGION INFANTRY unit during deployment. You can
set up the unit in concealment instead of placing it on the
battlefield. At the beginning of the first battle round but
before the first turn begins, the unit emerges from its hiding
place – set it up anywhere on the battlefield that is more
than 9" away from any enemy models.

fe40k wrote:
I haven't faced CSM doing this yet, and it does sound super brutal - but it has counters, such as seizing the first turn, or simply bubblewrapping your units with disposable ones (which you should be doing REGARDLESS, as Deep Striking and one-rounding squads is a fact of life this edition).

in case you don't know, the berserkers have a rule so they 'attack again' after fighting. "Blood for the Blood God: This unit can fight twice in each Fight phase, instead of only once."
This means they can kill the Bubblewrap with a big pile of dice -- and then they consolidate 3" and then they pile in 3" and try kill whatever was 'protected' by the bubble wrap.

Combo that with starting so close and you can see the problem doesn't seem to have the usual solutions.

NickMcMahon wrote:

fe40k wrote:
I haven't faced CSM doing this yet, and it does sound super brutal - but it has counters, such as seizing the first turn, or simply bubblewrapping your units with disposable ones (which you should be doing REGARDLESS, as Deep Striking and one-rounding squads is a fact of life this edition).

in case you don't know, the berserkers have a rule so they 'attack again' after fighting. "Blood for the Blood God: This unit can fight twice in each Fight phase, instead of only once."
This means they can kill the Bubblewrap with a big pile of dice -- and then they consolidate 3" and then they pile in 3" and try kill whatever was 'protected' by the bubble wrap.

Combo that with starting so close and you can see the problem doesn't seem to have the usual solutions.

Even with their second (potentially 3rd by stratagem) attack phase, they can't fight anything they didn't charge. And they can only charge things within 12". There is something of a limitation there, although it rarely feels like one.

edit: wrote 9 instead of 12 for some reason.

NickMcMahon wrote:

fe40k wrote:

Second, infiltration deployments must be placed on the board before determining who goes first or second - this means that you can deploy 9" away and hope to get the first turn, allowing you to move and make an almost guaranteed charge; but it comes with a risk - if your opponent gets the first turn, they're going to gun down/charge your infiltrating units.

Can someone double check that, because AFAIK the berserkers are placed before the firs turn but after finding out who is going first.
That is a big deal because when we chatted after the game my opponent (Jason) said he was relaxed about the risk of going 2 because he would just put them somewhere safer. We use lots of terrain so it wouldn't have been too far back anyway.

Here is the text

FORWARD OPERATIVES
Alpha Legion Stratagem
Use this Stratagem when you can set up an ALPHA
LEGION INFANTRY unit during deployment. You can
set up the unit in concealment instead of placing it on the
battlefield. At the beginning of the first battle round but
before the first turn begins, the unit emerges from its hiding
place – set it up anywhere on the battlefield that is more
than 9" away from any enemy models.

Oh, I had always read the rule as meaning they were placed before it was decided who goes first... but I don't know why I thought that, I'm sure it was just the general opinion that was given on the chaos forums/tactica. Don't know if it was due to some sort of faw or something. Reading that, it does say beginning of first battle round, which would be after you roll for first turn.

True but he just declared the charge on everything including the back guys, and sucked up a bit of extra overwatch. Small price to pay.
Deployment was 'Front line assault' so there's not much space. Dawn of War would be even worse.

I Guess I could drop all large bases like vehicles and just put 1 line of guys on my front, and everyone else at the back of the board touching my edge but that sounds like nerfing the army vs all other opponents in the mad hope of not dying until the Chaos player's second turn

I predict this will be something that'll be fixed in a Chapter Approved.

But yeah, make sure your friend doesn't play that list against you if he wants to keep playing friendly games. That crap should be reserved for tournaments where it belongs. I understand if he wanted to test it, but he should have explained what he was planning to do from the getgo. That would have changed your deployment strategy significantly and might have saved you from a complete tabling... at least you would have gotten some shots back and would have been tabled turn 2 instead

 argonak wrote:
Even with their second (potentially 3rd by stratagem) attack phase, they can't fight anything they didn't charge. And they can only charge things within 12". There is something of a limitation there, although it rarely feels like one.

edit: wrote 9 instead of 12 for some reason.

When they're 3" from the nearest enemy that 12" range includes everyone that they can consolidate into.

 Amishprn86 wrote:

Also the Fliers are literally the best Anti-charge turn 1 against "Non-Fly" units as they must stay away from the flyer and can not charge it.

Thanks, that's a interesting tip I hadn't thought of before - will have to break out the Nightwings and give it some thought.

Rangers could also be a potential counter to this strategy, it would be back and forth, but they could push the berzerkers out even further if they deploy first.

Something with its own infiltrate or scout move might also be a good counter if it can hit the table first, since that will force them to drop further away. Or deploy along the short edges so you can have a 24" deployment zone.

If you're deploying along the long edges (the most common deployment) your deployment zone is only 12" deep, so if they're dropping 3" away you've only got a 3" "safe zone" in the back, and that isn't much unless you do something to push their drop further out.

OP should have just gone and bought some ice cream.

 Arkaine wrote:

 Purifier wrote:
Is the stratagem allowed to be used 3 times just because it's outside of normal "phases?"

I would have assumed that the intent would be for it to be only used once.

Have you read the rulebook? The exact same rule that limits stratagems to once per phase has an exception in the rule for stratagems used outside of normal phases. Like there is literally an entire extra sentence specifically contradicting the intent to only be used once.

Why are you being so stupidly confrontational?

 Huron black heart wrote:
When playing a game it should be fun for both sides, at least that's how I see it.

As a potential new player looking in...this is the stuff that kinda concerns me about the game. I play wargames for fun and at this point it's not likely I'd ever do tournaments or at least nothing beyond something that's being put on by the local shop. So as a casual player I'm ok with losing as long as I'm having a good time. Of course I want to win too but not at the expense of creating stupid lists that aren't fun to play with the only goal being overpowered and taking advantage of rules just to beat my opponent. But being tabled round one or even round two would not be fun IMO. I don't like the idea that the game is so unbalanced that something like that is even possible outside a match between a really good player and a really bad player. As a new player...I expect to get ripped apart on the table. But that should be due to my ability as a player...not because my opponents army is just insanely powerful and unstoppable. All I know is if someone pulled something like that on me...I probably just wouldn't ever play them again. Unless I knew ahead of time and agreed to the list...pulling a stunt like that just shows the other players character or lack there of and not something I would want to be part of.

*** I didn't read past page one when I posted this...perhaps things are better clarified in later posts making what happened not such a dick move. But again...from what I've read...it just seems gakky to bring a top tier tournament list to a casual game unless both parties agree. ***

What am I missing here? Doesn't the Chaos player's strategy rely heavily on an alpha strike? And an alpha strike that depends on T4, 3+ models that are relatively easy to kill, meaning it's an all or nothing gambit?

Take some Rangers. Put them out in front of your army to force the Berskers to deploy far away.

Take Dark Reapers, or almost any unit with guns, and blast the Berserkers off the table on turn 1.

Take Howling Banshees, who always strike first and are ideal for mopping up Berserker units that have been thinned out by your fire.

I fail to see how the the Chaos player's strategy is anything more than a 'gotcha!' that will work once against a given opponent and then never again. It's still a decent battle plan since it places 40 Berserkers in the enemy's face, but you should only ever suffer one first turn loss.

Nubster wrote:

 Huron black heart wrote:
When playing a game it should be fun for both sides, at least that's how I see it.

As a potential new player looking in...this is the stuff that kinda concerns me about the game. I play wargames for fun and at this point it's not likely I'd ever do tournaments or at least nothing beyond something that's being put on by the local shop. So as a casual player I'm ok with losing as long as I'm having a good time. Of course I want to win too but not at the expense of creating stupid lists that aren't fun to play with the only goal being overpowered and taking advantage of rules just to beat my opponent. But being tabled round one or even round two would not be fun IMO. I don't like the idea that the game is so unbalanced that something like that is even possible outside a match between a really good player and a really bad player. As a new player...I expect to get ripped apart on the table. But that should be due to my ability as a player...not because my opponents army is just insanely powerful and unstoppable. All I know is if someone pulled something like that on me...I probably just wouldn't ever play them again. Unless I knew ahead of time and agreed to the list...pulling a stunt like that just shows the other players character or lack there of and not something I would want to be part of.

*** I didn't read past page one when I posted this...perhaps things are better clarified in later posts making what happened not such a dick move. But again...from what I've read...it just seems gakky to bring a top tier tournament list to a casual game unless both parties agree. ***

Don't be concerned, this is not most games.

The people who do this are not necessarily even bad people. There's just a spectacle to it happening, you learn and you become a better player.

Can't tell you the number of times I have tabled someone / been tabled by a dirty trick. Would not love the game the way I do if it did not happen.

Like, there's no possibility of this happening in checkers, but the fact the game is more fair than 40k does not factor into my decision whether or not to play it. I haven't played checkers since I was in junior high.

 Saber wrote:
What am I missing here? Doesn't the Chaos player's strategy rely heavily on an alpha strike? And an alpha strike that depends on T4, 3+ models that are relatively easy to kill, meaning it's an all or nothing gambit?

Take some Rangers. Put them out in front of your army to force the Berskers to deploy far away.

Take Dark Reapers, or almost any unit with guns, and blast the Berserkers off the table on turn 1.

Take Howling Banshees, who always strike first and are ideal for mopping up Berserker units that have been thinned out by your fire.

I fail to see how the the Chaos player's strategy is anything more than a 'gotcha!' that will work once against a given opponent and then never again. It's still a decent battle plan since it places 40 Berserkers in the enemy's face, but you should only ever suffer one first turn loss.

These are not great suggestions.

Rangers are complete garbage and you really can't afford to take even one squad in a 1250 point TAC list in order to maybe stop one possible kind of alpha strike. They also deploy simultaneous with units using the Alpha Legion stratagem; I'm not sure what the sequencing rules are for this but there's going to be about a 50/50 chance that they don't help, or at least that you only get to deploy 1 squad effectively. One squad is also probably not enough. At larger points totals a Chaos player doing something like this is also likely to bring a small squad of Nurglings which prevent the Rangers from deploying. The Chaos player could also bring a Sorcerer to cast Warptime on one unit, which makes screening much harder.

The whole point of this is that if the Chaos player gets turn 1 you don't have a chance to shoot them before they charge you. If you go first then the Berserkers will be deployed somewhere less convenient for you. Dark Reapers are also very vulnerable to Obliterators.

Howling Banshees are also complete garbage. Their strike first rule isn't doing anything for you at all if they charge, and it only helps you when they get charged if multiple enemy units charged Banshees. They also just don't do much damage to T4.

And this is why everyone that can brings Conscripts.


Something to keep in mind is that battleshock occurs after the end of the fight phase, which means you can still effectively deny his second fight phase if he doesn't wipe the unit out. If you''re careful with casualty removal, he has to consolidate towards the closest model, and one surviving Conscript [or Guardian, or other cheap chaff model], can suck in the entire squad of bezerkers to save the guys behind him.

If you can't bring squads in "big enough not to die" sizes, there are two ways around it, either intermingling your squads or arranging multiple ranks of chaff units. Either way, he ends up being unable to kill his way to the back where your big guns are, and if your big guns are big enough, you can wipe out his guys.



It also helps to reserve a bunch of MEQ units, and deep-strike them on at your first turn and use them to mow down the enemy troops.

Nubster wrote:

 Huron black heart wrote:
When playing a game it should be fun for both sides, at least that's how I see it.

As a potential new player looking in...this is the stuff that kinda concerns me about the game. I play wargames for fun and at this point it's not likely I'd ever do tournaments or at least nothing beyond something that's being put on by the local shop. So as a casual player I'm ok with losing as long as I'm having a good time. Of course I want to win too but not at the expense of creating stupid lists that aren't fun to play with the only goal being overpowered and taking advantage of rules just to beat my opponent. But being tabled round one or even round two would not be fun IMO. I don't like the idea that the game is so unbalanced that something like that is even possible outside a match between a really good player and a really bad player. As a new player...I expect to get ripped apart on the table. But that should be due to my ability as a player...not because my opponents army is just insanely powerful and unstoppable. All I know is if someone pulled something like that on me...I probably just wouldn't ever play them again. Unless I knew ahead of time and agreed to the list...pulling a stunt like that just shows the other players character or lack there of and not something I would want to be part of.

*** I didn't read past page one when I posted this...perhaps things are better clarified in later posts making what happened not such a dick move. But again...from what I've read...it just seems gakky to bring a top tier tournament list to a casual game unless both parties agree. ***

But it really isn't. One legal list is the same as another legal list. GW fandom is the only fandom that tries to demonize following the rules.

Largely because GW games wherein the GW fandom lies are full of horrible balance, so the expectation of a large number of people is that 2000 points vs 2000 points will be balanced, and so they make the mistake of collecting what units they think are cool... and then find out that tournament lists are all about sweet min/maxing and that their list that looked cool and that they have emotional attachment to is garbage because GW takes list-building as a "skill" and cranks it to 11 by creating obvious under and overcost units that min/maxers can easily identify and exploit.

Compounded by the fact that casual environments SHOULD be where you can play cool armies that are not tournament tier, but people will show up and say "its legal, i'm only ever going to play min/max lists everywhere, and you either need to git gud or go away"

I can play a lot of other games where the disparity is not nearly as bad, and people's expectations of what points are supposed to represent are vastly different than reality in GW games.

Busted units in other games get banned or patched. Not this one.

Lost track here. Just to clarify. This list wasn't even legal to start with?

Just going back to the first few posts, the idea of an infiltrating Khorne Berserker sounds ridiculous at first - but when you think about it, writing a believable story about such a character could lead to something almost maddeningly awesome.

I suppose the Alpha Legion are still Astartes and it's always been stated that most of the Traitor Legions are still Astartes first and foremost. Maybe the Alphas can somehow suppress the blood rage or they are able to refine it into something terrifying. After all, if Khorne's warriors could only charge into battle and never use any other tactics, how long would they last?

In other news - sad to hear that people are still breaking the game and still playing with stupid min-max lists. It's still the tournament players who are breaking this game for the people who just want to enjoy it.

Martel732 wrote:
Busted units in other games get banned or patched. Not this one.

Because it's not as big of a problem as some make it out to be.

1) You can get first turn.
2) You can seize initiative
3) This particular list has used half it's CP.
4) Charging requires 9", which is a little better than 1 in 4. Less than one unit will make it in on average without burning the remaining CP - even then not likely all of them.
5) Charges declare on several units means several units of overwatch.
6) It's a huge telegraph that can be seen a mile away by just looking at their list and is mitigated by good deployment.

Wonderwolf wrote:
Interesting. I was also under the impression you could use the infiltrate-stratagem only once.

Inversely, if you can use stratagems multiple times before the actual game ("outside a phase"), couldn't counter it by re-rolling the seize initiative roll for as long as you have command points?

You use them during deployment right? Deployment is a phase. There's no way in hell you can use that more than once. I'm challenging that all freaking day.

On that note, I also call into question his list. I do not believe that is a legal list and i also do not believe he's set up properly to be Alpha Legion.

Finally, this is a nasty list.

But, you really NEED to position your units to properly screen. I run SM scouts in my GK list so i can absolutely make sure I screen properly against all armies. I had a game recently, in an ITC sanctioned event, where a Tau player couldn't deep strike in range to shoot anything meaningful with his commanders. I lost scouts and all my screening units, but it was a real game after that.

And I mean every game is a learning experience.

I would say against this list, as Eldar, there are tools in your kit and strategies here that you could employ to possibly win. I played a guy in a tournament recently and tabled him without losing a single model. We talked lists afterwords, probably one of the most gracious people in defeat i've ever seen. Talk to this guy and understand his strategy, and what's he's using, and how it works. If you take away his deep strike, all you really need to do is kill marines and deal with psykers. Can you kill MEQ? I would hope so.

 Purifier wrote:

 Arkaine wrote:

 Purifier wrote:
Is the stratagem allowed to be used 3 times just because it's outside of normal "phases?"

I would have assumed that the intent would be for it to be only used once.

Have you read the rulebook? The exact same rule that limits stratagems to once per phase has an exception in the rule for stratagems used outside of normal phases. Like there is literally an entire extra sentence specifically contradicting the intent to only be used once.

Why are you being so stupidly confrontational?

Don't worry. Just ignore it. Yes, at first glance you very much could have assumed that. With this being a new edition, there's some weird little things to a few of the rules, it trips a lot of people up. Stratagems used "before" the first phase may be used as long as you have the CP to do so. Beyond that time, it's limited to one stratagem of each type per phase.

Ex.) You may use forward operatives 3x during deployment
You may not reroll dice in your shooting phase more than once, with the reroll stratagem.

 Marmatag wrote:


You use them during deployment right? Deployment is a phase. There's no way in hell you can use that more than once. I'm challenging that all freaking day.

Much as I want you to be right, I can't find anything supporting the notion that deployment is a phase. Only phases I can find listed in the book are the ones listed in the core rules at page 176: Movement, Psychic, Shooting, Charge, Fight, Morale.

Meanwhile, page 215, "Strategic Discipline" specifically says that the "Strategem cannot be used more than once per phase" rule doesn't apply to Stratagems that are not used during a phase, such as those used "before the battle begins" or "at the end of a battle round".

I also notice that the terminology changes: "...army shoots in the Shooting phase" versus "Use this Stratagem during deployment".

 daedalus wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:


You use them during deployment right? Deployment is a phase. There's no way in hell you can use that more than once. I'm challenging that all freaking day.

Much as I want you to be right, I can't find anything supporting the notion that deployment is a phase. Only phases I can find listed in the book are the ones listed in the core rules at page 176: Movement, Psychic, Shooting, Charge, Fight, Morale.

Meanwhile, page 215, "Strategic Discipline" specifically says that the "Strategem cannot be used more than once per phase" rule doesn't apply to Stratagems that are not used during a phase, such as those used "before the battle begins" or "at the end of a battle round".

I also notice that the terminology changes: "...army shoots in the Shooting phase" versus "Use this Stratagem during deployment".

Yeh, the rule specifically mentions being able to use multiple stratagems "before the battle begins" as not counting as a phase. Unfortunate but true.

The quicker GW FAQ's this, the better. Those stratagems are WAY too powerful to only cost 1CP and be able to be used more than once per deployment.

 Galef wrote:
The quicker GW FAQ's this, the better. Those stratagems are WAY too powerful to only cost 1CP and be able to be used more than once per deployment.

You shouldn't worry about it, you've already clutched your pearls and claimed you wont be playing 8th anyway.

 Galef wrote:
The quicker GW FAQ's this, the better. Those stratagems are WAY too powerful to only cost 1CP and be able to be used more than once per deployment.

I am more worried about 3 baneblade lists, conscript spam, and other game breaking mechanics. The clear counter to this is go first or don't use reserves.

 Hollow wrote:

 Galef wrote:
The quicker GW FAQ's this, the better. Those stratagems are WAY too powerful to only cost 1CP and be able to be used more than once per deployment.

You shouldn't worry about it, you've already clutched your pearls and claimed you wont be playing 8th anyway.

Slight clarification: I won't be playing competitively in 8th edition if these kinds of rock-paper-scissors, win on the first turn shenanigans exist
Casual games will be fine as you can discuss fair play with your opponent. Tourneys are subject to TO restrictions (or lack thereof) only.

Unfortunately, many players only get games at local tourneys. I have seen too many players outright quite over the last few editions because of cut-throat WAAC lists
8th was supposed to fix this, but appears to be creating its own issues.

I still think 8th is the best edition so far, I just don't have time to waste putting my models down to be immediately removed. We buy these expensive models to use them for more than 1-2 turns before packing up.

-

I mean, this isn't the first edition that's had an auto-win gimmick you could employ....

 daedalus wrote:
I mean, this isn't the first edition that's had an auto-win gimmick you could employ....

Sure. The Raven Guard stratagem is especially frustrating though because its main effect is to make first turn advantage an even bigger deal than it already was. Like, the effectiveness of first turn shooting was already something people were uneasy about and then we got this where you can gamble 1 CP that you get first turn, and then if you do you get to put your Berzerkers down at 9" before moving and charging. That's pretty much the whole point of the stratagem -- no one is using it to infiltrate Havocs into ruins somewhere. It just seems like a really poorly thought-out mechanic, and it doesn't strike me as unreasonable to be pretty annoyed about it.

It's a mechanic completely neutered by conscripts, too.

I mean, yeah. Proper list building and play can neutralize a great deal of the effectiveness of this. Don't see the complaints. It's competitive, but it's not WAAC.

Audustum wrote:
I mean, yeah. Proper list building and play can neutralize a great deal of the effectiveness of this. Don't see the complaints. It's competitive, but it's not WAAC.

People make bad lists. Most lists are bad. People get upset when their bad lists lose. I suppose it makes sense if you're just trying to casually smash toy soldiers together. However, if you are making the conscious effort to acknowledge you're casual, you should probably also make an effort to acknowledge you're probably going to lose a lot.

Which shouldn't matter.

Because you're playing casually.

Which is fine.

 Purifier wrote:

 Arkaine wrote:

 Purifier wrote:
Is the stratagem allowed to be used 3 times just because it's outside of normal "phases?"

I would have assumed that the intent would be for it to be only used once.

Have you read the rulebook? The exact same rule that limits stratagems to once per phase has an exception in the rule for stratagems used outside of normal phases. Like there is literally an entire extra sentence specifically contradicting the intent to only be used once.

Why are you being so stupidly confrontational?

I'm not, I asked a simple question because many on this forum don't even own the rulebook and it would clarify whether you've glanced at it yet or are operating off of secondhand information.

Why do you read everything as being confrontational? Calm down.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Cephalobeard wrote:
Don't worry. Just ignore it. Yes, at first glance you very much could have assumed that

I don't see how. It was asked whether you can use a stratagem multiple times simply because it's being used out of phase. Well, here's what the book says about out of phase stratagems.

Strategic Discipline pg215
The same Stratagem cannot be used by the same player more than once during any single phase. This does not affect Stratagems that are not used during a phase, such as those used "before the battle begins" or "at the end of a battle round".

Some of us don't play an army with suitably expendable units, nor do we want to.
Imperials have Conscripts, Chaos have Cultists

Eldar, by their very nature, do not nor should not have expendable units. By I guess I'll have to field MSU Kabalites just to not get Alpha struck off the table. This, however creates an issue with deployment drops, increasing the chances of going second.
So you have to make a choice whether to get Alpha struck by melee infiltrators, or gunlines with better shooting than you....great.

Being able to infiltrate with 1 unit is fine as it shifts the balance away from gunlines, which I am all in favor of. But being able to do this with half of your army is too far in the other direction.
While I am a huge advocate for the pregame discussion, I also think you shouldn't have to. The game should ideally be balanced so that a casual game and a tourney game feel close to the same thing.

I guess time will tell once more Codices are out, but the initial "all armies are balanced" has thoroughly gone out the window. At least Chaos gets a time to shine, I guess
Hopefully the Eldar codex brings them up closer to the middle without going overboard. I'd like to have a playable army that "could" win a few games in a tourney, but I don't want the same level as 6th/7th. I want opponents to see my army and think "Oh, cool, Eldar. This will be a fun/challenging/rewarding game" NOT: "Oh, Eldar, you're TFG" or "Oh, Eldar, you must like losing"

-

 Arkaine wrote:

 Purifier wrote:

 Arkaine wrote:

 Purifier wrote:
Is the stratagem allowed to be used 3 times just because it's outside of normal "phases?"

I would have assumed that the intent would be for it to be only used once.

Have you read the rulebook? The exact same rule that limits stratagems to once per phase has an exception in the rule for stratagems used outside of normal phases. Like there is literally an entire extra sentence specifically contradicting the intent to only be used once.

Why are you being so stupidly confrontational?

I'm not, I asked a simple question because many on this forum don't even own the rulebook and it would clarify whether you've glanced at it yet or are operating off of secondhand information.

Why do you read everything as being confrontational? Calm down.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Cephalobeard wrote:
Don't worry. Just ignore it. Yes, at first glance you very much could have assumed that

I don't see how. It was asked whether you can use a stratagem multiple times simply because it's being used out of phase. Well, here's what the book says about out of phase stratagems.

Strategic Discipline pg215
The same Stratagem cannot be used by the same player more than once during any single phase. This does not affect Stratagems that are not used during a phase, such as those used "before the battle begins" or "at the end of a battle round".

Yes, yes. You immediately understand rules. I get it.

People get confused. People make mistakes. People read things incorrectly. All of these things can be expected to happen, even if it doesn't happen for you.

Martel732 wrote:
It's a mechanic completely neutered by conscripts, too.

This is probably what GW thought too. "It's fine, it's not overpowered, I mean... everyone can just field some conscripts to counter it, right?".

Certainly sounds like GW. Totally forgetting that there are armies out there that -aren't- Space Marines and Guard.

 Cephalobeard wrote:
People get confused. People make mistakes. People read things incorrectly. All of these things can be expected to happen, even if it doesn't happen for you.

No I'm more than aware that can happen, we have the YMDC board after all. I'm merely surprised it can happen within the same rule that the person quoted as evidence preventing it from being the case. I assumed if one had read the first sentence they might also have read the second. Not a stretch of the imagination, I'm sure. Hence inquiring minds would wonder whether the person is in possession of a rulebook at all or operating off of secondhand information sources that apparently aren't presenting a complete picture.

Understanding is the first step towards acceptance.

 Arkaine wrote:

 Cephalobeard wrote:
People get confused. People make mistakes. People read things incorrectly. All of these things can be expected to happen, even if it doesn't happen for you.

No I'm more than aware that can happen, we have the YMDC board after all. I'm merely surprised it can happen within the same rule that the person quoted as evidence preventing it from being the case. I assumed if one had read the first sentence they might also have read the second. Not a stretch of the imagination, I'm sure. Hence inquiring minds would wonder whether the person is in possession of a rulebook at all or operating off of secondhand information sources that apparently aren't presenting a complete picture.

Understanding is the first step towards acceptance.

I genuinely don't understand what your problem is. You're actively passive aggressive with people when commenting, and seem to think that doing so under the guise of intelligence or "helping" makes that an acceptable course of action. If people keep calling you out on it, you should consider self reflection instead of blaming everyone else for how they're taking your actions.

Rule #1.

Niiru wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
It's a mechanic completely neutered by conscripts, too.

This is probably what GW thought too. "It's fine, it's not overpowered, I mean... everyone can just field some conscripts to counter it, right?".

Certainly sounds like GW. Totally forgetting that there are armies out there that -aren't- Space Marines and Guard.

I don't think that's what GW was thinking. I think they were going with... "So Guard players have been complaining for ages about sucking. Let's compile a list of the seventy-five things wrong with Guard and fix all of them at the same time."

The end result was Codex: Astra Militarum and the miasma of terror that surrounds it.

 Galef wrote:
Some of use don't play an army with suitably expendable units, nor do we want to.
Imperials have Conscripts, Chaos have Cultists

Eldar, by their very nature, do not nor should not have expendable units. By I guess I'll have to field MSU Kabalites just to not get Alpha struck off the table. This, however creates an issue with deployment drops, increasing the chances of going second.
So you have to make a choice whether to get Alpha struck by melee infiltrators, or gunlines with better shooting than you....great.

Being able to infiltrate with 1 unit is fine as it shifts the balance away from gunlines, which I am all in favor of. But being able to do this with half of your army is too far in the other direction.
While I am a huge advocate for the pregame discussion, I also think you shouldn't have to. The game should ideally be balanced so that a casual game and a tourney game feel close to the same thing.

I guess time will tell once more Codices are out, but the initial "all armies are balanced" has thoroughly gone out the window. At least Chaos gets a time to shine, I guess
Hopefully the Eldar codex brings them up closer to the middle without going overboard. I'd like to have a playable army that "could" win a few games in a tourney, but I don't want the same level as 6th/7th. I want opponents to see my army and think "Oh, cool, Eldar. This will be a fun/challenging/rewarding game" NOT: "Oh, Eldar, you're TFG" or "Oh, Eldar, you must like losing"

-

Building a TAC list means accounting for first turn deepstrikes and melee charges. Which either means positioning or bubblewrap. Either way your going to have some potential sacrificial units.

 Cephalobeard wrote:

 Arkaine wrote:

 Cephalobeard wrote:
People get confused. People make mistakes. People read things incorrectly. All of these things can be expected to happen, even if it doesn't happen for you.

No I'm more than aware that can happen, we have the YMDC board after all. I'm merely surprised it can happen within the same rule that the person quoted as evidence preventing it from being the case. I assumed if one had read the first sentence they might also have read the second. Not a stretch of the imagination, I'm sure. Hence inquiring minds would wonder whether the person is in possession of a rulebook at all or operating off of secondhand information sources that apparently aren't presenting a complete picture.

Understanding is the first step towards acceptance.

I genuinely don't understand what your problem is. You're actively passive aggressive with people when commenting, and seem to think that doing so under the guise of intelligence or "helping" makes that an acceptable course of action. If people keep calling you out on it, you should consider self reflection instead of blaming everyone else for how they're taking your actions.

Rule #1.

I'm nothing of the sort... you are injecting quite a lot of emotion into what I state. You might be passive aggressive and project your tendencies onto other but I merely logical and matter of fact. Ever heard of a Vulcan? It's like that. But if we're discussing rule #1, please don't come here and tell me what I think, feel, and believe when you can't see my face, hear my tone, or recognize that I'm merely a fan of clarity and understanding. I am quite used to identifying loopholes, errors, possible crash points, and tackling such matters as a programmer by trade. It may give my writing a mechanical feel to it and strike a semblance to a heartless machine but that's purely your perception and not the truth of the matter.

So please refrain from "calling me out" on my behavior when you are simply misjudging it as something that it isn't.

 Galef wrote:
Some of use don't play an army with suitably expendable units, nor do we want to.
Imperials have Conscripts, Chaos have Cultists

I completely agree. When I make a list, I like to choose units that have a purpose other than "they're just there to die"
To me, that feels like a waste of points.

You could have assumed that except, as pointed out, the sentence that says one stratagem per phase is immediately followed by a sentence that says you can go nuts with start of game stratagems and it's been repeated in a faq document.

So, I have a question based on earlier posts- Does the Alpha/raven player have to place his units before or after the roll for 1st turn? I'm just starting to play the game and am not all that familiar with the nomenclature.

 Scott-S6 wrote:
You could have assumed that except, as pointed out, the sentence that says one stratagem per phase is immediately followed by a sentence that says you can go nuts with start of game stratagems and it's been repeated in a faq document.

Which is an issue I could live with *IF* the particular stratagems in question were more than 1CP to use. Something that powerful and, more importantly, REPEATABLE needs to be worth at least 2, if not 3CPs.
I just do not think these stratagems, while cool in concept, were very well thought out.

GW seems to have a track record for creating rules that are cool for their intended purpose, but break as soon as anyone competent uses the rule with units that don't really do that in the fluff. Alpha Legion infiltrating Berserkers, for example.

-

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
So, I have a question based on earlier posts- Does the Alpha/raven player have to place his units before or after the roll for 1st turn? I'm just starting to play the game and am not all that familiar with the nomenclature.

The mission rules list the order of events. Deployment happens first, stratagem is used here, then the roll for first turn happens. The units are deployed at the start of the 1st battle round which is right before the 1st turn of the 1st player is taken. So you do know who is going first before you place them on the table.

 Galef wrote:

 Scott-S6 wrote:
You could have assumed that except, as pointed out, the sentence that says one stratagem per phase is immediately followed by a sentence that says you can go nuts with start of game stratagems and it's been repeated in a faq document.

Which is an issue I could live with *IF* the particular stratagems in question was more than 1CP. Something that powerful and, more importantly, REPEATABLE needs to be worth at least 2, if not 3CPs.
I just do not think these stratagems, while cool in concept, were very well thought out.

-

Absolutely and that is a very different issue.

 Galef wrote:

 Scott-S6 wrote:
You could have assumed that except, as pointed out, the sentence that says one stratagem per phase is immediately followed by a sentence that says you can go nuts with start of game stratagems and it's been repeated in a faq document.

Which is an issue I could live with *IF* the particular stratagems in question were more than 1CP to use. Something that powerful and, more importantly, REPEATABLE needs to be worth at least 2, if not 3CPs.
I just do not think these stratagems, while cool in concept, were very well thought out.

GW seems to have a track record for creating rules that are cool for their intended purpose, but break as soon as anyone competent uses the rule with units that don't really do that in the fluff. Alpha Legion infiltrating Berserkers, for example.

-

Keep in mind it's like giving the unit Infiltrate. This was a common rule in 7th and there were ways to grant it to even Berzerkers. Heck you could infiltrate an entire Rhino and other stuff with it using a warlord trait. All they did this edition was force you to pay something to make use of that ability. Some armies had infiltrators that could be used for free, resulting in army lists where the entire army started on your side of the board. Infiltrating devastators into a high piece of center terrain was popular.

 Lance845 wrote:

 Galef wrote:
Some of use don't play an army with suitably expendable units, nor do we want to.
Imperials have Conscripts, Chaos have Cultists

Eldar, by their very nature, do not nor should not have expendable units. By I guess I'll have to field MSU Kabalites just to not get Alpha struck off the table. This, however creates an issue with deployment drops, increasing the chances of going second.
So you have to make a choice whether to get Alpha struck by melee infiltrators, or gunlines with better shooting than you....great.

Being able to infiltrate with 1 unit is fine as it shifts the balance away from gunlines, which I am all in favor of. But being able to do this with half of your army is too far in the other direction.
While I am a huge advocate for the pregame discussion, I also think you shouldn't have to. The game should ideally be balanced so that a casual game and a tourney game feel close to the same thing.

I guess time will tell once more Codices are out, but the initial "all armies are balanced" has thoroughly gone out the window. At least Chaos gets a time to shine, I guess
Hopefully the Eldar codex brings them up closer to the middle without going overboard. I'd like to have a playable army that "could" win a few games in a tourney, but I don't want the same level as 6th/7th. I want opponents to see my army and think "Oh, cool, Eldar. This will be a fun/challenging/rewarding game" NOT: "Oh, Eldar, you're TFG" or "Oh, Eldar, you must like losing"

-

Building a TAC list means accounting for first turn deepstrikes and melee charges. Which either means positioning or bubblewrap. Either way your going to have some potential sacrificial units.

Eldar do not have bubblewrap units. They certainly have nothing in the same league as conscripts or cultists. Considering this has become the edition of guaranteed deepstriking alpha strikes, this is just poor design on GW's part.

 Arkaine wrote:

 Galef wrote:

 Scott-S6 wrote:
You could have assumed that except, as pointed out, the sentence that says one stratagem per phase is immediately followed by a sentence that says you can go nuts with start of game stratagems and it's been repeated in a faq document.

Which is an issue I could live with *IF* the particular stratagems in question were more than 1CP to use. Something that powerful and, more importantly, REPEATABLE needs to be worth at least 2, if not 3CPs.
I just do not think these stratagems, while cool in concept, were very well thought out.

GW seems to have a track record for creating rules that are cool for their intended purpose, but break as soon as anyone competent uses the rule with units that don't really do that in the fluff. Alpha Legion infiltrating Berserkers, for example.

-

Keep in mind it's like giving the unit Infiltrate. This was a common rule in 7th and there were ways to grant it to even Berzerkers. Heck you could infiltrate an entire Rhino and other stuff with it using a warlord trait. All they did this edition was force you to pay something to make use of that ability. Some armies had infiltrators that could be used for free, resulting in army lists where the entire army started on your side of the board. Infiltrating devastators into a high piece of center terrain was popular.

IIRC the old-style infiltrate rule had a much harsher distance requirement. Something like 18" if any enemy unit could draw LoS to you, right?

 Galef wrote:
Some of us don't play an army with suitably expendable units, nor do we want to.
Imperials have Conscripts, Chaos have Cultists

Eldar, by their very nature, do not nor should not have expendable units. By I guess I'll have to field MSU Kabalites just to not get Alpha struck off the table. This, however creates an issue with deployment drops, increasing the chances of going second.
So you have to make a choice whether to get Alpha struck by melee infiltrators, or gunlines with better shooting than you....great.

Being able to infiltrate with 1 unit is fine as it shifts the balance away from gunlines, which I am all in favor of. But being able to do this with half of your army is too far in the other direction.
While I am a huge advocate for the pregame discussion, I also think you shouldn't have to. The game should ideally be balanced so that a casual game and a tourney game feel close to the same thing.

I guess time will tell once more Codices are out, but the initial "all armies are balanced" has thoroughly gone out the window. At least Chaos gets a time to shine, I guess
Hopefully the Eldar codex brings them up closer to the middle without going overboard. I'd like to have a playable army that "could" win a few games in a tourney, but I don't want the same level as 6th/7th. I want opponents to see my army and think "Oh, cool, Eldar. This will be a fun/challenging/rewarding game" NOT: "Oh, Eldar, you're TFG" or "Oh, Eldar, you must like losing"

-

Imperial is not a codex. Marines have the same problem as Eldar.

Dionysodorus wrote:
IIRC the old-style infiltrate rule had a much harsher distance requirement. Something like 18" if any enemy unit could draw LoS to you, right?

For most infiltrators. Some like the genestealers could get even closer. But last edition also didn't allow charging out of deep strike so a lot of things have changed to allow for more close combat opportunities as 40k was far too much about gunlines shooting things off the board in relative safety.

Daedalus81 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Busted units in other games get banned or patched. Not this one.

Because it's not as big of a problem as some make it out to be.

1) You can get first turn.
2) You can seize initiative
3) This particular list has used half it's CP.
4) Charging requires 9", which is a little better than 1 in 4. Less than one unit will make it in on average without burning the remaining CP - even then not likely all of them.
5) Charges declare on several units means several units of overwatch.
6) It's a huge telegraph that can be seen a mile away by just looking at their list and is mitigated by good deployment.

It's a 3" charge. The advance deployment isn't a reserve deployment, it happens before the movement phase. So the Berserkers can move their full 6" normally, and then make their charge. Can't fail at 3".

 Arkaine wrote:

 Galef wrote:

 Scott-S6 wrote:
You could have assumed that except, as pointed out, the sentence that says one stratagem per phase is immediately followed by a sentence that says you can go nuts with start of game stratagems and it's been repeated in a faq document.

Which is an issue I could live with *IF* the particular stratagems in question were more than 1CP to use. Something that powerful and, more importantly, REPEATABLE needs to be worth at least 2, if not 3CPs.
I just do not think these stratagems, while cool in concept, were very well thought out.

GW seems to have a track record for creating rules that are cool for their intended purpose, but break as soon as anyone competent uses the rule with units that don't really do that in the fluff. Alpha Legion infiltrating Berserkers, for example.

-

Keep in mind it's like giving the unit Infiltrate. This was a common rule in 7th and there were ways to grant it to even Berzerkers. Heck you could infiltrate an entire Rhino and other stuff with it using a warlord trait. All they did this edition was force you to pay something to make use of that ability. Some armies had infiltrators that could be used for free, resulting in army lists where the entire army started on your side of the board. Infiltrating devastators into a high piece of center terrain was popular.

Infiltrate has been in the for a very long time, this is nothing new at all..... Honestly 5th Ed was the meanest for it, you could Infiltrate > Move > Run (with fleet) > Charge.

Edit: My 5th Nids list was
2 HQ Tervigons (before the kit, yeah for conversions!)
9 Hive Guard
45 Genestealers (infiltrate > move >run > charge)
20 Gargoyles

If i broke you 5 Rhinos i won the game if not i lost

 Fafnir wrote:

It's a 3" charge. The advance deployment isn't a reserve deployment, it happens before the movement phase. So the Berserkers can move their full 6" normally, and then make their charge. Can't fail at 3".

Since you have to be outside 3", you can fail on a 2" charge. Bring rerolls!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Amishprn86 wrote:
Infiltrate has been in the for a very long time, this is nothing new at all..... Honestly 5th Ed was the meanest for it, you could Infiltrate > Move > Run (with fleet) > Charge.

Which is pretty much how it works now too. Guess we're back to 5th edition infiltrate except it costs you 1 CP each.

Infiltrate in the prior 2 editions also specifically disallowed assaulting in the first turn, so it can hardly be compared to the RG/AL stratagems. You also could not get anywhere near as close as 3" for the assault roll.

Martel732 wrote:

Imperial is not a codex. Marines have the same problem as Eldar.

I get what you are saying, I really do, but at the end of the day, you are making the choice to be a "Marine purest" and not taking a detachment with Conscripts + Commissar.
Eldar don't even have that choice. Our best option is Dark Eldar Kabalites or Khymerea, both options cost more than twice a Conscript and are subject to Morale

-

Martel732 wrote:

 Galef wrote:
Some of us don't play an army with suitably expendable units, nor do we want to.
Imperials have Conscripts, Chaos have Cultists

Eldar, by their very nature, do not nor should not have expendable units. By I guess I'll have to field MSU Kabalites just to not get Alpha struck off the table. This, however creates an issue with deployment drops, increasing the chances of going second.
So you have to make a choice whether to get Alpha struck by melee infiltrators, or gunlines with better shooting than you....great.

Being able to infiltrate with 1 unit is fine as it shifts the balance away from gunlines, which I am all in favor of. But being able to do this with half of your army is too far in the other direction.
While I am a huge advocate for the pregame discussion, I also think you shouldn't have to. The game should ideally be balanced so that a casual game and a tourney game feel close to the same thing.

I guess time will tell once more Codices are out, but the initial "all armies are balanced" has thoroughly gone out the window. At least Chaos gets a time to shine, I guess
Hopefully the Eldar codex brings them up closer to the middle without going overboard. I'd like to have a playable army that "could" win a few games in a tourney, but I don't want the same level as 6th/7th. I want opponents to see my army and think "Oh, cool, Eldar. This will be a fun/challenging/rewarding game" NOT: "Oh, Eldar, you're TFG" or "Oh, Eldar, you must like losing"

-

Imperial is not a codex. Marines have the same problem as Eldar.

Marines can easily get conscripts, without losing any special rules, and in fact gaining rules/abilities in the process. Imperial may not be a codex, but it might as well be.

The closest thing Eldar had to conscripts was Razorwing flocks, which required using up a detachment and paying a fairly useless HQ tax. And even then, it wasn't as good as conscripts are. Then GW nerfed razorwings into the ground, so they are no longer even usable at all. Now, Eldar have... kabalites, I guess, but once the codex drops using kabalites will mean a loss of traits. And they're still not actually any good as bubblewrap. (edit: it's a good job they're not any good really, otherwise GW would just nerf them too. Or buff conscripts. Again.)

 Galef wrote:
Infiltrate in the prior 2 editions also specifically disallowed assaulting, so it can hardly be compared to the RG/AL stratagems

Martel732 wrote:

Imperial is not a codex. Marines have the same problem as Eldar.

I get what you are saying, I really do, but at the end of the day, you are making the choice to be a "Marine purest" and not taking a detachment with Conscripts + Commissar.
Eldar don't even have that choice. Our best option is Dark Eldar Kabalites or Khymerea, both options cost more than twice a Conscript and are subject to Morale

-

There's no way I'm spending that kind of jack when 9th ed could get rid of allies.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Niiru wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 Galef wrote:
Some of us don't play an army with suitably expendable units, nor do we want to.
Imperials have Conscripts, Chaos have Cultists

Eldar, by their very nature, do not nor should not have expendable units. By I guess I'll have to field MSU Kabalites just to not get Alpha struck off the table. This, however creates an issue with deployment drops, increasing the chances of going second.
So you have to make a choice whether to get Alpha struck by melee infiltrators, or gunlines with better shooting than you....great.

Being able to infiltrate with 1 unit is fine as it shifts the balance away from gunlines, which I am all in favor of. But being able to do this with half of your army is too far in the other direction.
While I am a huge advocate for the pregame discussion, I also think you shouldn't have to. The game should ideally be balanced so that a casual game and a tourney game feel close to the same thing.

I guess time will tell once more Codices are out, but the initial "all armies are balanced" has thoroughly gone out the window. At least Chaos gets a time to shine, I guess
Hopefully the Eldar codex brings them up closer to the middle without going overboard. I'd like to have a playable army that "could" win a few games in a tourney, but I don't want the same level as 6th/7th. I want opponents to see my army and think "Oh, cool, Eldar. This will be a fun/challenging/rewarding game" NOT: "Oh, Eldar, you're TFG" or "Oh, Eldar, you must like losing"

-

Imperial is not a codex. Marines have the same problem as Eldar.

Marines can easily get conscripts, without losing any special rules, and in fact gaining rules/abilities in the process. Imperial may not be a codex, but it might as well be.

The closest thing Eldar had to conscripts was Razorwing flocks, which required using up a detachment and paying a fairly useless HQ tax. And even then, it wasn't as good as conscripts are. Then GW nerfed razorwings into the ground, so they are no longer even usable at all. Now, Eldar have... kabalites, I guess, but once the codex drops using kabalites will mean a loss of traits. And they're still not actually any good as bubblewrap. (edit: it's a good job they're not any good really, otherwise GW would just nerf them too. Or buff conscripts. Again.)

It isn't a codex because of collection habits. Just as Dark Eldar/Eldar weren't a single codex despite being battle bros for two editions.

I mean, I think it's absolutely reasonable to want to play a pure Marine army, and therefore reasonable for someone playing a pure Marine army to complain that they also lack good screening units in an edition where screening units are basically a necessity. I'm not sure there's much point in arguing about whether Eldar have it worse because they don't even have the option of playing in a way that someone shouldn't be forced to play in the first place. Though it probably is worth noting that at least GW seems to have designed a solution for Marines -- use Guardsmen -- regardless of whether you like that in this edition there's not really much of a distinction between different factions that all still share a keyword. The lack of efficient screens is pretty undeniably a design flaw in a lot of the xenos army lists in a way that it isn't with Imperium or Chaos, where you can at worst say that having to bring a unit from a different subfaction is a design choice you don't like.

At least Eldar can cower in Wave Serpents and be somewhat effective. BA have NOTHING. AT the very least, Mechdar makes hellblaster and plasma spam look SILLY.

 Galef wrote:
Infiltrate in the prior 2 editions also specifically disallowed assaulting in the first turn, so it can hardly be compared to the RG/AL stratagems. You also could not get anywhere near as close as 3" for the assault roll.

And yet as I pointed out here:

 Arkaine wrote:

Dionysodorus wrote:
IIRC the old-style infiltrate rule had a much harsher distance requirement. Something like 18" if any enemy unit could draw LoS to you, right?

For most infiltrators. Some like the genestealers could get even closer. But last edition also didn't allow charging out of deep strike so a lot of things have changed to allow for more close combat opportunities as 40k was far too much about gunlines shooting things off the board in relative safety.

...that's a common New Edition thing. We can't keep holding this edition to the standards of previous ones. It's a fact of life now that close combat is relevant and the even more prior editions allowed move and charge out of infiltration with the definite possibility of 3" charges. Simply because the previous two did not doesn't mean much when it's been like that for several editions beyond the most recent.

I liken it to what D&D did. They started with basic rules for 1st and 2nd edition, moved over to ultra complicated analytical rules for 3rd, then backed off a bit for 4th and finally scrapped it all and went back to basic rules for 5th. 40k has taken a similar path because trying to balance a machine with hundreds of moving parts that constantly keep changing specs is no easy task.

I think part of the issue is this:

I've said for a long time that in 8th, screening units are completely necessary.

I also think that it's an engineered design flaw (both in fluff and in rules) that certain armies don't have screens.

While in prior editions that could be played around, in 8th that really can't. It goes from a "design flaw" to a crippling weakness which is very very very very very very difficult to compensate for.

Not sure if that's intended but it's what we've got.

Space Marines didn't have screening units in the old editions either when Berzerkers and Tyrannids could sprint up the field and eat your face. What they had were Rhinos. Start your marines in transports like the lore suggests. Transports for everyone!

Too pricey, really. And they don't have the necessary footprint to screen. Deep strikers will have their way.

Which is my main issue with 8th. 7th was a complicated mess, but 8th simplified everything with the Indexes.
The Codices are complicating things again, making certain armies have access to powerful combos that other armies don't have yet, or may never have.

Otherwise, I like this edition. I am just jaded from 7th and afraid we are heading in the same direction very soon, just with different armies "on top"

-

Dionysodorus wrote:
I mean, I think it's absolutely reasonable to want to play a pure Marine army, and therefore reasonable for someone playing a pure Marine army to complain that they also lack good screening units in an edition where screening units are basically a necessity. I'm not sure there's much point in arguing about whether Eldar have it worse because they don't even have the option of playing in a way that someone shouldn't be forced to play in the first place. Though it probably is worth noting that at least GW seems to have designed a solution for Marines -- use Guardsmen -- regardless of whether you like that in this edition there's not really much of a distinction between different factions that all still share a keyword. The lack of efficient screens is pretty undeniably a design flaw in a lot of the xenos army lists in a way that it isn't with Imperium or Chaos, where you can at worst say that having to bring a unit from a different subfaction is a design choice you don't like.

I agree with this, but Marines do have an option of running a pure marine army, they can run tactical squads and/or scouts, who do their jobs pretty well. They're just not as good at bubblewrap as conscripts, because they're expensive elite units. Also it seems a lot of Marine players on here dislike tactical squads, because they are jack of all trades... even though that is what tactical squads have always been designed to be. So for those players, they can field conscripts.

Eldar equivalents to tactical squads are (I guess) Dire Avengers... Tacs are stronger, tougher, better save, longer range weapon... and 5 points cheaper per model. In order to get cheaper, it would have to be basic guardians... who are just awful. Sure, they can work as bubblewrap, but they can't fight back at all and are easier to kill than units in the same points bracket (way easier to kill than conscripts, who cost half as much), and so are essentially a -huge- tax in a list, especially small lists like in the OP.

Marine players seem to hate scouts and tacs, but most xenos players would love to have a unit that strong for that price.

Tactical squads and scouts both suck balls.

If you had access to them, you still wouldn't use them. Because they are awful.

Quit repeating nonsense. Tac marines have always been failures, going back to 2nd ed. They were briefly usable in 3rd before the starcannon but them back in the garbage bin.

Tacs are NOT jack of all trades. They have NO trades. That's the problem.

Martel732 wrote:
Tactical squads and scouts both suck balls.

If you had access to them, you still wouldn't use them. Because they are awful.

Quit repeating nonsense. Tac marines have always been failures, going back to 2nd ed. They were briefly usable in 3rd before the starcannon but them back in the garbage bin.

I'm not saying they aren't awful. I'm saying they're better than dire avengers and guardians.

Just shows how truly awful Eldar troops are!

How the mighty have fallen. I'd have killed for DA in 6th/7th. Bladestorm was the only functional troop mechanic vs MCs outside of grav cannons in vanilla squads. Maybe splinter.

Martel732 wrote:
How the mighty have fallen. I'd have killed for DA in 6th/7th. Bladestorm was the only functional troop mechanic vs MCs outside of grav cannons in vanilla squads. Maybe splinter.

Oh yeh, guardians were always crummy but dire avengers were (for troops) fairly decent. Fragile, but could put out some damage with bladestorm. They got nerfed -hard-. Hopefully they'll be dropping by at least 5 points per model in the codex, but as there wasn't any errata changes for them in the index it's not looking hopeful.


I do hope chapter approved changes the alpha legion stratagem to one use only. Or increases it to 3CP. It really is very good. And this is a stratagem that I hope Eldar get access to, as it would (I assume) be how GW give eldar access to webway portals again. Even though I expect to get the stratagem, I'd still prefer it to be nerfed.

I won't even get into the humiliation of "genetically modified supermen in power armor are only viable with hordes of riff-raff as screening units"

Martel732 wrote:
I won't even get into the humiliation of "genetically modified supermen in power armor are only viable with hordes of riff-raff as screening units"

Lol, true. It's about the same as "The most powerful band of psychics, in an ancient race of extremely powerful psychic Elves, are outmatched by the basic bog-standard human psykers that are basically treated as car batteries".

The Alpha Strike concept could be neutered by switching to alternating activations.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I think part of the issue is this:

I've said for a long time that in 8th, screening units are completely necessary.

I also think that it's an engineered design flaw (both in fluff and in rules) that certain armies don't have screens.

While in prior editions that could be played around, in 8th that really can't. It goes from a "design flaw" to a crippling weakness which is very very very very very very difficult to compensate for.

Not sure if that's intended but it's what we've got.

I mean, like, every army has access to screening units. Chaos Marines have cultists and Loyal Marines have Guardsmen. GW has given every army the ability to cover its flaws through taking an allied detachment.

Don't like GK's lack of anti-tank, run a Detachment of Leman Russes. Don't like how Sisters of Battle lack flyers? Run a detachment of Vultures. Don't like how Genestealers don't have big monstrous creatures? Run a detachment of Carnifexes.

Of all the armies in the game, Tau, Orks and Necrons are the only ones who lack ways to ally with other armies. Every other army has at least one other army it can borrow models from.

A basic scout squad is 55 points. Taking 2 squads costs 110 points and is easily enough to screen the rest of the army from any first turn deepstrikers and charges. Hell, I even drew a diagram for Martel (seriously buddy, stop whining about stuff that's actually fine). Scouts are also a very useful unit in games where screens are not needed, able to tie up things with first turn charges or grab remote maelstrom objectives. Having screening units is absolutely necessary in this edition, and it really doesn't take a lot of effort to blunt first turn charges/deep strikes.

Ushtarador wrote:
A basic scout squad is 55 points. Taking 2 squads costs 110 points and is easily enough to screen the rest of the 1890pts from any first turn deepstrikers and charges. Hell, I even drew a diagram for Martel (seriously buddy, stop whining about stuff that's actually fine). Scouts are also a very useful unit in games where screens are not needed, able to tie up things with first turn charges or grab remote maelstrom objectives. Having screening units is absolutely necessary in this edition, and it really doesn't take a lot of effort to blunt first turn charges/deep strikes.

Yeah. If I recall, doing the numbers with a friend, we determined that the basic effectiveness of scouts firing bolters was roughly equal to same number of points of scions firing. It's about a 5% difference in outcome for equal number of shots fired. Which is still to say that scions are probably too cheap still, because deep strike and more plasma on top of that, not to mention now exploding 6s, but base effectiveness is NOT that far removed from something that's was just considered "way too good" to something that apparently "sucks balls".

Not to kill my own point, but Flyers make good first turn infiltrate/deepstrike unit blockers. Eldar have good options there. Just place a Hemlock on each flank of your deployment with everything behind them.
Berserkers cannot assault flyers, but will have to set up outside 9" of them anyway. If all your other units are a few inches behind those Flyers, it will be impossible for Berserkers to assault anything.

Scouts are a terrible screening unit. They cost way too much.

Step 1.) Take 1-2 units of whatever the cheapest unit you have access to is. Bonus if it infiltrates.

Step 2.) Spread them out, at maximum unit coherencey across the border of your deployment zone

20 Models on 32mm bases can stretch across the table and screen for your entire army.

Works with SM Scouts, Eldar Guardians, Necron Warriors, Termagants, etc...

Daedalus81 wrote:
Because it's not as big of a problem as some make it out to be.

1) You can get first turn.
2) You can seize initiative
3) This particular list has used half it's CP.
4) Charging requires 9", which is a little better than 1 in 4. Less than one unit will make it in on average without burning the remaining CP - even then not likely all of them.
5) Charges declare on several units means several units of overwatch.
6) It's a huge telegraph that can be seen a mile away by just looking at their list and is mitigated by good deployment.

1) & 2) "Going 1st" as a defence means you concede half your games, then have to actually fight for a win the other half of the time - if you're really good you might get a 40% win rate.
3) CPs well spent if it delivers a brutal blow, given the OPs description I would wager they had some CPs left by the games end.
4) Deploy 9.1" away, move 6" to 3.1" then need to land a charge within 1" (needs a 3), so it's a 35 in 36 success rate before rerolls. This stratagem is not deepstrike.
5) Most players still favour min sized squads to max out specialist weapons or fill out detachments with less tax, charging two units is generally 10 MEQ or 20 GEQ so not too big a deal for a maxed out 'zerker squad. The benefits of massive damage output and slingshotting a massive amount of assault troops outweighs a bit of overwatch.
6) There is no subtlety here, but without conscripts exactly what do you call good deployment? Speed bumps like scouts don't work, not because they are weak units but because their footprint is so small and the 'zerkers can be placed anywhere 9" away - they can simply deploy to the side of a speed bump so only a complete wrap around blob unit will work. Likewise, the chaos player has easy access to powers like warptime, combo this extra free move with your almost guaranteed move/charge/consolidate and even spreading out your units has limited effect.

The only answers I can think of for facing this tactic is to take something even cheesier - can anyone make a reasonable suggestion for TAC play (not necessarily playing for the win but to at least avoid a steam rolling of a defeat)?

*edit, or sacrifice all of your troops to simulate conscripts - however completely non-viable in non-horde armies as your troops are not cheap and your elites are so pricey that you have no fat to cut.

I think Martel's point (and correct me if wrong) is that Scouts will only work in the first turn before they die. Since you can choose what turn deepstrikers come it, you can hold them unit turn 2 and wipe out the Scouts on turn 1.
Even if that isn't his point, it is a concern I share no matter what unit you use. Only Conscripts, Cultist and Gaunts are cheap enough to spam enough units for multiple turn screening.

 Galef wrote:
I think Martel's point (and correct me if wrong) is that Scouts will only work in the first turn before they die. Since you can choose what turn deepstrikers come it, you can hold them unit turn 2 and wipe out the Scouts on turn 1.
Even if that isn't his point, it is a concern I share no matter what unit you use. Only Conscripts, Cultist and Gaunts are cheap enough to spam enough units for multiple turn screening.

Not everyone get's hoards.

Marines and Eldar are Elite by nature. They don't get to better than humans and outnumber them.

Martel732 wrote:
Scouts are a terrible screening unit. They cost way too much

I mean, here's the thing: you don't NEED conscripts. They're a brick wall. They're overkill. They work great at what they do, because they are overkill. What you need, at least within the context of this specific thread, is a speed bump. They're fine for that. I use about 120 points worth of Infantry squad as my screen. They're not a brick wall, but they keep the gak off me that I need to not be on me.

 Galef wrote:
I think Martel's point (and correct me if wrong) is that Scouts will only work in the first turn before they die. Since you can choose what turn deepstrikers come it, you can hold them unit turn 2 and wipe out the Scouts on turn 1.
Even if that isn't his point, it is a concern I share no matter what unit you use. Only Conscripts, Cultist and Gaunts are cheap enough to spam enough units for multiple turn screening.

At the least it gives you an entire turn where a good portion of their force is not on the table (assuming they have a significant investement in deep striking units), which is a notable benefit. Also, if they invest firepower to eliminate scouts it means that your actual damage dealers receive less fire. Finally, if they remove the scouts you usually can move Razorbacks/bikes/other mobile units into position instead to get another turn of screening.

 adamsouza wrote:
Step 1.) Take 1-2 units of whatever the cheapest unit you have access to is. Bonus if it infiltrates.

Step 2.) Spread them out, at maximum unit coherencey across the border of your deployment zone

20 Models on 32mm bases can stretch across the table and screen for your entire army.

Works with SM Scouts, Eldar Guardians, Necron Warriors, Termagants, etc...

Thats all well and good, but...

For the price of 10 guardians, you could get 30 conscripts.

Same Toughness 3
Same save of 5+
Worse BS (but loads more shots, so it works out better)
Slightly weaker gun, but longer range, so again works out better.

So basically for the same cost, you get almost triple the return with conscripts than you do with guardians.

People here all know you can bubblewrap to protect from infiltrators, that's not the problem. The problem is that unless you play Imperium, you have to spend a large percentage of your limited points pool on units to protect yourself. Which leaves you with a lot less to spend on actual units that can do damage to your enemy. Meanwhile, Imperium players can spend a small amount to protect themselves, with units that can also deal damage, and so are getting a double return on an investment that is already giving them triple the return compared to other armies. It adds up incredibly quickly.

War Walkers get a pre game scout move

Rangers get a pregame deployment IIRC

Aeldari domt have conscripts but they have ways to push out the zone an infiltration or deep strike unit can use.

You do have to learn these things can happen and bring lists that combat them.

I've quickly made myself a bunch of 9 inch sticks from bamboo skewers so you can quickly calculate deepstrike prevention bubbles and work out where I can deepstrike my own stuff. Works very well.

Guard can now practically deepstrike tanks now!

Guard shouldn't be used as the basis for anything balanced though is the thing. yeah scouts aren't great but don't even mention guard. This game would actually be fairly well balanced if guard did not exist. FW stuff is still problematic here and there but by in large you'd have a playable game without guard.

 Silentz wrote:
War Walkers get a pre game scout move

Rangers get a pregame deployment IIRC

Aeldari domt have conscripts but they have ways to push out the zone an infiltration or deep strike unit can use.

You do have to learn these things can happen and bring lists that combat them.

I've quickly made myself a bunch of 9 inch sticks from bamboo skewers so you can quickly calculate deepstrike prevention bubbles and work out where I can deepstrike my own stuff. Works very well.

Guard can now practically deepstrike tanks now!

Yeh, rangers can deploy anywhere outside of 9" before the first round, same infiltration as the stratagem. They are -obscenely- expensive though, and are pretty much only good for their cover saves. Their shooting is terrible for their points. 100 points for 5 models.

War walkers need to be kept right at the back. Putting them on the front lines as the most expensive bubblewrap in the universe is a bad idea, as they will just get destroyed turn 1 and that's a quarter of your army's points gone.

 adamsouza wrote:

 Galef wrote:
I think Martel's point (and correct me if wrong) is that Scouts will only work in the first turn before they die. Since you can choose what turn deepstrikers come it, you can hold them unit turn 2 and wipe out the Scouts on turn 1.
Even if that isn't his point, it is a concern I share no matter what unit you use. Only Conscripts, Cultist and Gaunts are cheap enough to spam enough units for multiple turn screening.

Not everyone get's hoards.

Marines and Eldar are Elite by nature. They don't get to better than humans and outnumber them.

I dont Consider SM elite at all..... Off SM armies (BA, GK, SW, DW, DA are elite), when you can take 85 SM's with vehicles, 18 Heavy Weapons and 12 special weapons with still 2 HQ's, i dont think thats elite.

 Silentz wrote:
War Walkers get a pre game scout move

Rangers get a pregame deployment IIRC

Aeldari domt have conscripts but they have ways to push out the zone an infiltration or deep strike unit can use.

You do have to learn these things can happen and bring lists that combat them.

I've quickly made myself a bunch of 9 inch sticks from bamboo skewers so you can quickly calculate deepstrike prevention bubbles and work out where I can deepstrike my own stuff. Works very well.

Guard can now practically deepstrike tanks now!

Both Rangers and War Walkers deploy/activate simultaneously with Raven Guard type deployment. It's not clear that they can actually push infiltrators away, depending on how you handle the sequencing. Regardless, both are extremely expensive for this purpose -- it's not like a squad of Berzerkers are unhappy that they only got to eat a 100 point unit of Rangers before getting another 9" of movement towards the rest of the army. Like, you'd happily throw a unit of Berzerkers into a 30-man Conscript squad if you were guaranteed to kill them all and take no casualties, and that's basically what's going on here.

Really I think the only actually-good answer to something like this for Eldar is bringing flyers and then hiding everything else way back in your deployment zone.

The infiltrate stratagems of alpha legion and raven guard are completely gamebreaking. It is not just Bezerkers, agressors are pretty broken when infiltrating, and so is everything with flamers. But jump-troops are probably the most broken, as they can move and assault over a defensive screen and into the backfield.

But the real nightmare lies in future codices: What happens when Orcs get a Blood-axe infiltrate stratagem alpha legion style? 120 Boyz deploying 9 inches away, they can then move + shoot and then charge? All for 4 CP's?

And remember:

1) You can use the stratagem as many times as you are willing to spend CPs.

2) The infiltrating units can move + shoot + charge in their first turn. You can move 6", shoot flamers, and then charge the remaining 3" distance.

3) You roll to seize before the infiltrating units are deployed, so you know who will go first when deploying.

4) Bezerkers can consolidate three inches and then pile in three more inches. You need at least six+ inches of empty space between your screen and your backfield.

5) You can charge through a screening unit if it is spaced out into unit coherency (2" base-to-base). In order to screen against an assault the screening models needs to be spaced closer than 32 mm (against marines) or 25 mm (against most of everything else)

Ushtarador wrote:
A basic scout squad is 55 points. Taking 2 squads costs 110 points and is easily enough to screen the rest of the army from any first turn deepstrikers and charges. Hell, I even drew a diagram for Martel (seriously buddy, stop whining about stuff that's actually fine). Scouts are also a very useful unit in games where screens are not needed, able to tie up things with first turn charges or grab remote maelstrom objectives. Having screening units is absolutely necessary in this edition, and it really doesn't take a lot of effort to blunt first turn charges/deep strikes.

There is a problem here - warptime & icon of wrath give a reliable 20" threat range (6"+6"+8"), meaning that the infiltrating bezerkers could deploy at all three of the gaps in your defensive line, walk past the speedbumps and threaten all but the table edge itself

I imagine that Orks' might use Deep Strike as opposed to Infiltrate, given the Great Waagh Supplement.

Tyranids will definitely have it too.

Niiru wrote:

Thats all well and good, but....
For the price of 10 guardians, you could get 30 conscripts

Except you can't field conscripts in a Eldar force. Work with what you have.

Insularum wrote:

Ushtarador wrote:
A basic scout squad is 55 points. Taking 2 squads costs 110 points and is easily enough to screen the rest of the army from any first turn deepstrikers and charges. Hell, I even drew a diagram for Martel (seriously buddy, stop whining about stuff that's actually fine). Scouts are also a very useful unit in games where screens are not needed, able to tie up things with first turn charges or grab remote maelstrom objectives. Having screening units is absolutely necessary in this edition, and it really doesn't take a lot of effort to blunt first turn charges/deep strikes.

There is a problem here - warptime & icon of wrath give a reliable 20" threat range (6"+6"+8"), meaning that the infiltrating bezerkers could deploy at all three of the gaps in your defensive line, walk past the speedbumps and threaten all but the table edge itself

Warptime can only be used on 1 unit of zerkers though, which makes this a lot more tractable (also it will be hard to get into casting range for unit C). As a marine player you probably also have some characters in your backline that can countercharge to clean up the berzerkers, they aren't immune to morale after all. Also, if the chaos player doesn't go first his whole plan falls apart anyway, which makes this type of lists a lot less appealing in a tournament setting.

Just to be clear, these are definitely tournament-level tactics and discussions, where players should expect to face things like this. I wouldn't expect my opponent to bring such an army to a friendly game against a player that doesn't know how to handle this tactic.

Ushtarador wrote:

Insularum wrote:

Ushtarador wrote:
A basic scout squad is 55 points. Taking 2 squads costs 110 points and is easily enough to screen the rest of the army from any first turn deepstrikers and charges. Hell, I even drew a diagram for Martel (seriously buddy, stop whining about stuff that's actually fine). Scouts are also a very useful unit in games where screens are not needed, able to tie up things with first turn charges or grab remote maelstrom objectives. Having screening units is absolutely necessary in this edition, and it really doesn't take a lot of effort to blunt first turn charges/deep strikes.

There is a problem here - warptime & icon of wrath give a reliable 20" threat range (6"+6"+8"), meaning that the infiltrating bezerkers could deploy at all three of the gaps in your defensive line, walk past the speedbumps and threaten all but the table edge itself

Warptime can only be used on 1 unit of zerkers though, which makes this a lot more tractable (also it will be hard to get into casting range for unit C). As a marine player you probably also have some characters in your backline that can countercharge to clean up the berzerkers, they aren't immune to morale after all. Also, if the chaos player doesn't go first his whole plan falls apart anyway, which makes this type of lists a lot less appealing in a tournament setting.

Just to be clear, these are definitely tournament-level tactics and discussions, where players should expect to face things like this. I wouldn't expect my opponent to bring such an army to a friendly game against a player that doesn't know how to handle this tactic.

I don't know if this is a tournament level tactic. It's too dependent on whose going first, the Alpha Legion player could lose all his inflitrators before getting to move. It would be impossible to table most lists this way, and it's not like Berzerkers are completely unstoppable.

Maybe if the rest of the army was Obliterators, Terminators and other things that can deep strike. Maybe.

 techsoldaten wrote:

I don't know if this is a tournament level tactic. It's too dependent on whose going first, the Alpha Legion player could lose all his inflitrators before getting to move. It would be impossible to table most lists this way, and it's not like Berzerkers are completely unstoppable.

Maybe if the rest of the army was Obliterators, Terminators and other things that can deep strike. Maybe.

The alpha legion player knows if he will go first when deploying the infiltrating units. If he has first turn he sets them up nine inches away from enemy lines and proceeds to win the game. If he goes second, he sets them up out of line of sight, or somewhere in cover. He has all the board to choose from.

The rest of the army cannot be deepstrikers. Only half you army can be deployed into reserves.

Donno, when the alpha isn't first, he CAN deploy further away in safety, but then can he actually win without a turn one charge in an army so clearly built around it?
It's a coin toss of sorts.

Beyond that, if you fall to a hard counter, you are screwed. I can't see this army doing well against my tzeentch forces.
Even if you avoid the horror chaff, you get stuck with all is dust severely reducing your damage output.
When I'll actually have codcies, it would only get more in my favor.

If you asked them about this problem, Games Workshop's response would probably either be silence or "you need more impassable terrain, buy it here!"

 Cream Tea wrote:
If you asked them about this problem, Games Workshop's response would probably either be silence or "you need more impassable terrain, buy it here!"

Honestly.... you do tho, You should be playing with a lot of terrain. It highly helps.

 BoomWolf wrote:
Donno, when the alpha isn't first, he CAN deploy further away in safety, but then can he actually win without a turn one charge in an army so clearly built around it?
It's a coin toss of sorts.

Beyond that, if you fall to a hard counter, you are screwed. I can't see this army doing well against my tzeentch forces.
Even if you avoid the horror chaff, you get stuck with all is dust severely reducing your damage output.
When I'll actually have codcies, it would only get more in my favor.

Yes, exactly. The fact you can deploy further away is actually a disadvantage, it means their effectiveness is diminished at the same time your opponent gets to bring the full force of their army to bear. I can't see this working in a tournament where your opponent is probably set up with appropriate screening units on top of that.

I get the restriction on deep striking units, but this could only work at the tournament level if there were some "hammers" coming in from reserve to balance the potential for things to go wrong. Maybe the infiltrators are really just distraction units that set the table for combi-plasma Terminators, Obliterators, maybe even Warp Talons. That way, first turn is a nice-to-have, not a have-to-have.

 Amishprn86 wrote:

 Cream Tea wrote:
If you asked them about this problem, Games Workshop's response would probably either be silence or "you need more impassable terrain, buy it here!"

Honestly.... you do tho, You should be playing with a lot of terrain. It highly helps.

Agreed, it helps a lot.

I would like a game that worked with sparse terrain and with massive amounts of terrain. Not all combat in the 41st millennium should be in hive cities.

I have a related question.
I used to play SW and I use them exclusively, would Fenrisian Wolves be a good bubble-wrap unit against something like this even though they don't have shooting?

 Arkaine wrote:

 Galef wrote:
Infiltrate in the prior 2 editions also specifically disallowed assaulting in the first turn, so it can hardly be compared to the RG/AL stratagems. You also could not get anywhere near as close as 3" for the assault roll.

And yet as I pointed out here:

 Arkaine wrote:

Dionysodorus wrote:
IIRC the old-style infiltrate rule had a much harsher distance requirement. Something like 18" if any enemy unit could draw LoS to you, right?

For most infiltrators. Some like the genestealers could get even closer. But last edition also didn't allow charging out of deep strike so a lot of things have changed to allow for more close combat opportunities as 40k was far too much about gunlines shooting things off the board in relative safety.

...that's a common New Edition thing. We can't keep holding this edition to the standards of previous ones. It's a fact of life now that close combat is relevant and the even more prior editions allowed move and charge out of infiltration with the definite possibility of 3" charges. Simply because the previous two did not doesn't mean much when it's been like that for several editions beyond the most recent.

I liken it to what D&D did. They started with basic rules for 1st and 2nd edition, moved over to ultra complicated analytical rules for 3rd, then backed off a bit for 4th and finally scrapped it all and went back to basic rules for 5th. 40k has taken a similar path because trying to balance a machine with hundreds of moving parts that constantly keep changing specs is no easy task.

With the difference being fifth ed d and d is an improvement over ad and d. Tho I still use ad and d books. Eighth ed forty k is not better than second ed given some simple tweaks and army comp restrictions that straight eighth is lacking...

 Cream Tea wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:

 Cream Tea wrote:
If you asked them about this problem, Games Workshop's response would probably either be silence or "you need more impassable terrain, buy it here!"

Honestly.... you do tho, You should be playing with a lot of terrain. It highly helps.

Agreed, it helps a lot.

I would like a game that worked with sparse terrain and with massive amounts of terrain. Not all combat in the 41st millennium should be in hive cities.

Agree

kaotkbliss wrote:
I have a related question.
I used to play SW and I use them exclusively, would Fenrisian Wolves be a good bubble-wrap unit against something like this even though they don't have shooting?

Yes, being 9pts each, this is fine.

I got tabled in a doubles tourney before my first turn last weekend...

 Amishprn86 wrote:

Yes, being 9pts each, this is fine.

Thank you

NickMcMahon wrote:

Not just the guardians but declared the charge on everyone behind them, and did a 3' charge and killed everthing then consolidated and piled in and killed everything else with a second attack. The wave serpent died last but then it was gg.

Consolidation happens at the end of the fight phase, after all attacks are resolved. It doesn't matter whether you've previously declared a charge against the unit consolidated into. It also doesn't matter how many times the player gets to nominate the unit to attack. The sub-phase is sequential. You don't go back to attacking if you have consolidated. The rules are quite clear.

 otherone wrote:

NickMcMahon wrote:

Not just the guardians but declared the charge on everyone behind them, and did a 3' charge and killed everthing then consolidated and piled in and killed everything else with a second attack. The wave serpent died last but then it was gg.

Consolidation happens at the end of the fight phase, after all attacks are resolved. It doesn't matter whether you've previously declared a charge against the unit consolidated into. It also doesn't matter how many times the player gets to nominate the unit to attack. The sub-phase is sequential. You don't go back to attacking if you have consolidated. The rules are quite clear.

Nope. That's not how it works. You follow steps 2-6, which includes consolidation, then that unit has done everything and you pick a new unit. If you can nominate a unit twice, then that unit follows steps 2-6 again, including piling in and consolidation.

Waaaghpower wrote:

 otherone wrote:

NickMcMahon wrote:

Not just the guardians but declared the charge on everyone behind them, and did a 3' charge and killed everthing then consolidated and piled in and killed everything else with a second attack. The wave serpent died last but then it was gg.

Consolidation happens at the end of the fight phase, after all attacks are resolved. It doesn't matter whether you've previously declared a charge against the unit consolidated into. It also doesn't matter how many times the player gets to nominate the unit to attack. The sub-phase is sequential. You don't go back to attacking if you have consolidated. The rules are quite clear.

Nope. That's not how it works. You follow steps 2-6, which includes consolidation, then that unit has done everything and you pick a new unit. If you can nominate a unit twice, then that unit follows steps 2-6 again, including piling in and consolidation.

This, Faq quote

Q: If a unit has an ability that allows it to fight twice in the
Fight phase (e.g. Berzerkers), at what point during the Fight phase do they fight for the second time?
A: Treat each time the unit is able to fight as a separate unit selected to fight for all purposes.

So you treat them as a new unit, hence starting over on the Fight Phase Chart.

Yup, step 2-6 x2. I had a game against this with my nids, Dawn of War deployment. Tried to screen, didn't have enough space, and maybe I underestimated the huge amount of ground Berzerkers can cover. They can also use Warp Time on the same unit that has Forward Operatives, to really ensure that Berzerkers start their charge 1" away. In this game I was able to pull off a Starcraft 'base-trade' and get a draw, thanks to a lot of my list was in reserves.

Charge move, 2 pile ins and 2 consolidates. Really hard to screen off in Dawn of War. I'm considering spreading out in the extreme if I have to fight this again, then again nids need to be clustered to work so it's a lose -lose situation for me.

But I'm rather tabled in two turns by Berzerkers than by Tau Commander spam. Not that I need to chose, when I can have both.

pismakron wrote:

4) Bezerkers can consolidate three inches and then pile in three more inches. You need at least six+ inches of empty space between your screen and your backfield.

Pile In moves are only taken by units that can fight. Units not within 1" of the enemy can't fight. A standard base is just under an inch across. Unless they teleported past your screening unit, they won't be eligible to fight if your other units are ~3.5 inches away from the screening unit.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

pismakron wrote:

4) Bezerkers can consolidate three inches and then pile in three more inches. You need at least six+ inches of empty space between your screen and your backfield.

Pile In moves are only taken by units that can fight. Units not within 1" of the enemy can't fight. A standard base is just under an inch across. Unless they teleported past your screening unit, they won't be eligible to fight if your other units are ~3.5 inches away from the screening unit.

"Any unit that charged or has models within 1" of an enemy unit can be chosen to fight in the Fight phase."

If they charged, they get to pile in.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

pismakron wrote:

4) Bezerkers can consolidate three inches and then pile in three more inches. You need at least six+ inches of empty space between your screen and your backfield.

Pile In moves are only taken by units that can fight. Units not within 1" of the enemy can't fight. A standard base is just under an inch across. Unless they teleported past your screening unit, they won't be eligible to fight if your other units are ~3.5 inches away from the screening unit.

If you charged in the charge phase then you get to pile in and consolidate in the fight phase. Even if the charged unit has already been destroyed by prior combat.

In the above example the Bezerkers will move, shoot and then charge the screen, moving their bases as close to the back field as possible. Then the first pile-in + fight happens, and this will often be enough to delete the screen completely, especially if we are talking about multiple units of Bezerkers (or Boyz or Genestealers for that matter). In the consolidate phase the Bezerkers move 3" towards the closest enemy model. In the next fight phase (zerkers get two) the attackers will pile in another 3" towards the enemy, , and if you declared a charge against whatever you stumbled into, you get to fight it. Screening against this in a 12" deep deployment zone is very difficult, and almost impossible if you bring vehicles. Vehicles that are engaged in their own deployment zone will often not be able to fall back either.

pismakron wrote:

Then the first pile-in + fight happens, and this will often be enough to delete the screen completely, especially if we are talking about multiple units of Bezerkers (or Boyz or Genestealers for that matter). In the consolidate phase the Bezerkers move 3" towards the closest enemy model. In the next fight phase (zerkers get two)...

If I'm not very mistaken, when choosing a unit to fight you can only pick units that are within 1" of an enemy unit. Therefore, if the berserkers wipe out their first target and can't get within 1" of another unit with the consolidation move, you can't pick the berserkers to fight again.

Ushtarador wrote:

pismakron wrote:

Then the first pile-in + fight happens, and this will often be enough to delete the screen completely, especially if we are talking about multiple units of Bezerkers (or Boyz or Genestealers for that matter). In the consolidate phase the Bezerkers move 3" towards the closest enemy model. In the next fight phase (zerkers get two)...

If I'm not very mistaken, when choosing a unit to fight you can only pick units that are within 1" of an enemy unit. Therefore, if the berserkers wipe out their first target and can't get within 1" of another unit with the consolidation move, you can't pick the berserkers to fight again.

It is pick a unit that is within 1'' of an enemy unit or that has charged that turn. So, chargers get some help in case the unit they charged does some funky wound allocation business.

That said, it would be easier to buffer against this sort of tactic if the Reinforcements rule that disallowed movement to mid turn deployers worked for these before turn deployers....

 DarknessEternal wrote:

pismakron wrote:

4) Bezerkers can consolidate three inches and then pile in three more inches. You need at least six+ inches of empty space between your screen and your backfield.

Pile In moves are only taken by units that can fight. Units not within 1" of the enemy can't fight. A standard base is just under an inch across. Unless they teleported past your screening unit, they won't be eligible to fight if your other units are ~3.5 inches away from the screening unit.

Not actually so. You can pile in if you can fight, or if you charged.

Goobi2 wrote:

That said, it would be easier to buffer against this sort of tactic if the Reinforcements rule that disallowed movement to mid turn deployers worked for these before turn deployers....

The thing is, if the infiltrating units arrived "as having moved" the stratagem would go from "gamebreakingly OP" to "only barely useful". Another way of nerfing the infiltrate stratagems would be to limit
them to one unit only.

Otherwise I look forward to Orks getting an infiltrate stratagem, so I can deploy a hundred of my Boyz in my opponents deployment zone, whenever I get first turn.

 Galef wrote:
Some of us don't play an army with suitably expendable units, nor do we want to.

Every army has suitable units to effectively weaken first-turn-shenigans applied with strike from the shadows / forward operatives!
You not wanting to field those units is hardly the games/rules fault...

 Galef wrote:
I think Martel's point (and correct me if wrong) is that Scouts will only work in the first turn before they die. Since you can choose what turn deepstrikers come it, you can hold them unit turn 2 and wipe out the Scouts on turn 1.

And guess what: "only work in the first turn" is all you need to counter strike from the shadows / forward operatives because, you know, these stratagems only work on the first turn themselvesl!

They might not last to block "classical" deep strikers on later turns but those -by your own words- are no issue on their own because

 Galef wrote:
I don't have an issue with units being able to drop in 9" on the first turn and charge. It still comes down to a 2d6 roll.

So what is exactly your point?

highwind01 wrote:

Every army has suitable units to effectively weaken first-turn-shenigans applied with strike from the shadows / forward operatives!

No they don't. In fact I think no army has suitable units to screen against those broken stratagems.

How do you propose to screen against 40 Bezerkers or raptors that can move, shoot and advance on their first turn, if you roll Dawn of War deployment?

The berzerkerz get to pile in if they charged, but charging units can only make attacks against units they declared a charge against that turn.

This stops berzerkerz from butchering one unit, consolidating and piling Into another and attacking it if it was not declared as a target of the charge during the charge phase- if they charged that turn.

Also the list looks skeptical in terms of being battleforged with two troops and 3 elites and a heavy support. Fairly certain that not possible would take a patrol Detachment and 2 aux detachments to fit all of that and don't think you get 3 detachments at 1250 pts unless you agreed to that.

blaktoof wrote:
The berzerkerz get to pile in if they charged, but charging units can only make attacks against units they declared a charge against that turn.

This stops berzerkerz from butchering one unit, consolidating and piling Into another and attacking it if it was not declared as a target of the charge during the charge phase- if they charged that turn.

Also the list looks skeptical in terms of being battleforged with two troops and 3 elites and a heavy support. Fairly certain that not possible would take a patrol Detachment and 2 aux detachments to fit all of that and don't think you get 3 detachments at 1250 pts unless you agreed to that.

But if they're sensible they'll declare charges against everything they might be able to consolidate into unless they've got particularly good overwatch.

 Scott-S6 wrote:

blaktoof wrote:
The berzerkerz get to pile in if they charged, but charging units can only make attacks against units they declared a charge against that turn.

This stops berzerkerz from butchering one unit, consolidating and piling Into another and attacking it if it was not declared as a target of the charge during the charge phase- if they charged that turn.

Also the list looks skeptical in terms of being battleforged with two troops and 3 elites and a heavy support. Fairly certain that not possible would take a patrol Detachment and 2 aux detachments to fit all of that and don't think you get 3 detachments at 1250 pts unless you agreed to that.

But if they're sensible they'll declare charges against everything they might be able to consolidate into unless they've got particularly good overwatch.

You can’t declare charges at anything further than 12 inches away.

 argonak wrote:

 Scott-S6 wrote:

blaktoof wrote:
The berzerkerz get to pile in if they charged, but charging units can only make attacks against units they declared a charge against that turn.

This stops berzerkerz from butchering one unit, consolidating and piling Into another and attacking it if it was not declared as a target of the charge during the charge phase- if they charged that turn.

Also the list looks skeptical in terms of being battleforged with two troops and 3 elites and a heavy support. Fairly certain that not possible would take a patrol Detachment and 2 aux detachments to fit all of that and don't think you get 3 detachments at 1250 pts unless you agreed to that.

But if they're sensible they'll declare charges against everything they might be able to consolidate into unless they've got particularly good overwatch.

You can’t declare charges at anything further than 12 inches away.

So? You infiltrate nine inches away from his screen, move six inches towards it, shoot, and then declare charges against anything within 12 inches. And then you just have to pray for a charge roll of 3 or more. It can be done.

You can also infiltrate with jump-infantry, move over his screen, and then start the charge from behind his screen.

pismakron wrote:

highwind01 wrote:

Every army has suitable units to effectively weaken first-turn-shenigans applied with strike from the shadows / forward operatives!

No they don't. In fact I think no army has suitable units to screen against those broken stratagems.

How do you propose to screen against 40 Bezerkers or raptors that can move, shoot and advance on their first turn, if you roll Dawn of War deployment?

For starters, every army with cheap chaff units can easily put up a roadblock, that list is so dependant on getting to charge T1 on your important stuff, that if it can't, it falls flat.
So, if you have anyhting 8PPM or lower, you can put a roadblock at the very least. some armies can put roadblocks better than others.
Daemons are kings of it, but AM, orks, renegades and DG all got really good chaff units, yannari can do "kill my chaff if you dare" shenanigans, and even tau can pull off a decent roadblock (because gun drones)

Second, anyone that can have a decent airforce-zerkers CANT TOUCH FLYERS. said fliers can block roads with thier bases (as unfluffy as it gets, but it works ingame.)

Third, if you are stronger then they are in CC and just slow-you can probably outdo them, by virtue of not paying for speed. termies for example can take a zerker assault to the face without getting killed too easy, and then punch back hard.

You say no army has a suitable screen, I say no army DOESN'T have an answer. said answer may not be your "go to" units, but its there if you want it.

In 5th edition you could have things in reserved, even all your models. They came onto the table from your table half, the long end. But they could not pass within 2" of an oponent.

Now in 5th before the first turn things with infiltrate, like kroot mercanaries can infiltrate. I think this picture illustraits the need to deploy with care. The white scars player is the one looking up rules with the judge in the background.

http://i50.tinypic.com/2re4m4m.jpg

In your situation deploy with care. If you see what your opponent is doing, alpha legion berserkers, put up some chaff that keeps him from deploying 9" from your important stuff.

 Niiai wrote:
In 5th edition you could have things in reserved, even all your models. They came onto the table from your table half, the long end. But they could not pass within 2" of an oponent.

Now in 5th before the first turn things with infiltrate, like kroot mercanaries can infiltrate. I think this picture illustraits the need to deploy with care. The white scars player is the one looking up rules with the judge in the background.

http://i50.tinypic.com/2re4m4m.jpg

In your situation deploy with care. If you see what your opponent is doing, alpha legion berserkers, put up some chaff that keeps him from deploying 9" from your important stuff.

I remember this tourney, dude was sooooo salty. The kroot player was brilliant though, measured exactly perfect spacing to prevent him entering the game lol.

Wonderwolf wrote:
Interesting. I was also under the impression you could use the infiltrate-stratagem only once.

Inversely, if you can use stratagems multiple times before the actual game ("outside a phase"), couldn't counter it by re-rolling the seize initiative roll for as long as you have command points?

No, because you cant reroll a reroll.

*edit* whoops, thought that was on this page, not page one

Grey Knights do not have chaff units. It would mean having to go Imperial Soup to do so and considering all the bad feelings expressed in this forum about soup armies...

A first turn tabling shouldn't really be possible; thats just bad design.

I understand the "get gud" mentality, but 8th seems extremely imbalanced. Even watching various battle reports often the game ends by turn 3 with one player being basically tabled or conceding; seems like they took the base game of warhammer and just imbalanced it further.

Kinda wish they'd take a step back to older editions and take what worked and ditch what didn't.

I like the idea of the first turn table to be honest. I've had games where I've shown up, looked at the opponent's army list, and then said "Yeah, you win. No, seriously, this one is yours. Here's my list. You up for another one with different lists?"

I don't see the shame in conceding to an opponent that's obviously going to win.

 daedalus wrote:
I like the idea of the first turn table to be honest. I've had games where I've shown up, looked at the opponent's army list, and then said "Yeah, you win. No, seriously, this one is yours. Here's my list. You up for another one with different lists?"

I don't see the shame in conceding to an opponent that's obviously going to win.

That takes the fun out of it though, your list shouldn't decide the outcome; you should be able to play whatever and at least have a chance. Don't get me wrong, 5th had its issues (Grey Knights being overtuned for example), but nearly all my games lasted to turn 5-7, and even people who were almost tabled could win off objectives. Hell, I saw people playing 4th edition Tau win against the newest armies at the end of 5th; the game wasn't perfect, but it was fun, and the games were intense.

8th seems like objectives are secondary to destroying everything because everything is so strong. Also, I don't understand why they changed the AP system (the old one was extremely easy to understand), deep strike rules, etc.

I get they were trying to take more luck out of the game from bad scatters, etc. but a lot of those things made the game more cinematic and fun. Now its "I got first turn, PEWPEWKILLZHALFYERARMYPEW!" I'm not saying 8th doesn't have its good parts, but it does feel like a giant leap backward for the sake of trying to simplify a game thats always been complex. Its like taking the game Dark Souls and taking all the difficulty outta it.

Well, I've said on surely too many time that I've felt like 5th got it most right out of any edition I've played, but the biggest thing going against 6th and 7th was that everything was candyland. Too much was random back then, and there were too many things to have to remember rules for. It was cumbersome, but unfortunately, they knee-jerked rather than pulling away carefully. Maybe 9th will be perfect. Who knows.

And yes, in 5th, objectives mattered more. The uncomfortable corollary to that is that more games ended in an epic (not really) tie. Hooray!

And, honestly, to respond to what you actually said: I have played this game for many years. I've curb stomped people pretty hard. I've had even harder curb stompings on myself than I think I've ever dealt out. I've also had some amazingly narrow games. Of all of those outcomes, I'd really rather the last one. Hence, I have no problem telling someone that they win, and asking if we can work out lists again, and I've had no problem offering to let someone rethink their list after we've exchanged if I think it's going to be a crushing victory for me.

 daedalus wrote:
Well, I've said on surely too many time that I've felt like 5th got it most right out of any edition I've played, but the biggest thing going against 6th and 7th was that everything was candyland. Too much was random back then, and there were too many things to have to remember rules for. It was cumbersome, but unfortunately, they knee-jerked rather than pulling away carefully. Maybe 9th will be perfect. Who knows.

And yes, in 5th, objectives mattered more. The uncomfortable corollary to that is that more games ended in an epic (not really) tie. Hooray!

And, honestly, to respond to what you actually said: I have played this game for many years. I've curb stomped people pretty hard. I've had even harder curb stompings on myself than I think I've ever dealt out. I've also had some amazingly narrow games. Of all of those outcomes, I'd really rather the last one. Hence, I have no problem telling someone that they win, and asking if we can work out lists again, and I've had no problem offering to let someone rethink their list after we've exchanged if I think it's going to be a crushing victory for me.

Good attitude I suppose, and I can see we have similar views. yes, ties were pretty standard in 5th, at least two games a round during tourneys would end in ties lol. Hopefully they can iron out the wrinkles; I still love the models, and the lore and everything are better than pretty much every wargame i've tried since.

 Zid wrote:
you should be able to play whatever and at least have a chance.

No, you really shouldn't.

War isn't equal opportunity. If your army composition is plain bad, you should lose.
If you know what you are facing and still fail to bring an appropriate response, you should lose.

I can't run an army entirely of kroot and vespids "because I want to". it wont work, it CANT work, because it lacks so many essentials.
I can't pull off a list of just more and more rhinos and bolter boys.
An assault-only list with no transports/special deployment and just foot slugging also isn't realistic.
An army list has some essential things it must have, otherwise it falls flat even in casual setting.

And having a way to respond to fast point-blank elites attacking you IS essential, because its a thing that exist and is highly effective-and therefor popular.
If you fail to plan to the most commonly used tactics, than you have no business winning a match against someone who prepared such tactics.
Especially when these tactics only really work because people fail to plan for them, as they are SO easy to counter.

Every army has hard counters to it, and even if your list fails to bring a counter-some careful planning and correct positioning can and WILL put a spanner into the plan and give you are the very LEAST a fair fighting chance.

Here's a basic hint, if you know your opponent is planning to infiltrate zerkers (and tis rather obvious when he does), deploy your important dudes exactly 9" from the corner to completely nullfy two directions of attack, and put your least important stuff up to 18" away in each direction to create a "no infiltrate bubble" and by that you got no more than 2-3 units in total that are within threat range of his cheese. if he does it anyway, your edge units took a beating, but now his zerkers are out in the open to be mulched by the rest of your forces-if he didn't, he just sank half his army into zerkers who didnt do their trick.
Either way, you prevented the worst case scenario, and are now dealing with foot slugging zerkers. nasty if they hit you, but not particularly fast or durable.

Honestly, if you fail to plan-you plan to fail.

 BoomWolf wrote:

 Zid wrote:
you should be able to play whatever and at least have a chance.

No, you really shouldn't.

War isn't equal opportunity. If your army composition is plain bad, you should lose.
If you know what you are facing and still fail to bring an appropriate response, you should lose.

I can't run an army entirely of kroot and vespids "because I want to". it wont work, it CANT work, because it lacks so many essentials.
I can't pull off a list of just more and more rhinos and bolter boys.
An assault-only list with no transports/special deployment and just foot slugging also isn't realistic.
An army list has some essential things it must have, otherwise it falls flat even in casual setting.

And having a way to respond to fast point-blank elites attacking you IS essential, because its a thing that exist and is highly effective-and therefor popular.
If you fail to plan to the most commonly used tactics, than you have no business winning a match against someone who prepared such tactics.
Especially when these tactics only really work because people fail to plan for them, as they are SO easy to counter.

Every army has hard counters to it, and even if your list fails to bring a counter-some careful planning and correct positioning can and WILL put a spanner into the plan and give you are the very LEAST a fair fighting chance.

Here's a basic hint, if you know your opponent is planning to infiltrate zerkers (and tis rather obvious when he does), deploy your important dudes exactly 9" from the corner to completely nullfy two directions of attack, and put your least important stuff up to 18" away in each direction to create a "no infiltrate bubble" and by that you got no more than 2-3 units in total that are within threat range of his cheese. if he does it anyway, your edge units took a beating, but now his zerkers are out in the open to be mulched by the rest of your forces-if he didn't, he just sank half his army into zerkers who didnt do their trick.
Either way, you prevented the worst case scenario, and are now dealing with foot slugging zerkers. nasty if they hit you, but not particularly fast or durable.

Honestly, if you fail to plan-you plan to fail.

Theres the "get gud" mentality. Look, I know what war is, I know its not fair, etc. etc. (I'm actually active duty military)

However, my point stands that tactics aren't as important as killing power in 8th, plain and simple. Read over any of the various batter reports, even from top players like Reece, and the game is boiled down to who killed what faster. Many people attack this game like its a business; efficiency trumps all.

Yeah, some armies have hard counters to it, much like many other competitive games (magic, warmachine, etc.) and you cannot possibly plan for everything ever.

However, it is a game, and point for point, some armies completely win without you even having a chance. Sweet, thats realistic, but seriously, this is a game. Why would someone spend $500 on an army just to get tabled turn one? My point was that this basically never happened during 5th or even the bit of 6th I played; even if your army was built properly and you played a newb, he'd at least get 3 turns and learn something. Objectives and strategic placement mattered much more as well.

I'll never argue that a bad list or bad plays can win or lose you the game. You should plan for vehicles, fliers, infantry, etc. But tabling shouldn't be your primary means to win a game about "war", because objectives are what war is all about.

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
Grey Knights do not have chaff units. It would mean having to go Imperial Soup to do so and considering all the bad feelings expressed in this forum about soup armies...

Better to have some random shmucks on the internet raise their noses at you for bringing an 'Astra Militarum' army (when you have a majority of points in GK and a GK warlord) than to eat 20-30 overcharged plasma shots turn 1 because you didn't have screening.

Just remember, your GK murder all the guardsmen post battle anyway, so it's still a GK victory

 BoomWolf wrote:



For starters, every army with cheap chaff units can easily put up a roadblock, that list is so dependant on getting to charge T1 on your important stuff, that if it can't, it falls flat.
So, if you have anyhting 8PPM or lower, you can put a roadblock at the very least. some armies can put roadblocks better than others.
Daemons are kings of it, but AM, orks, renegades and DG all got really good chaff units, yannari can do "kill my chaff if you dare" shenanigans, and even tau can pull off a decent roadblock (because gun drones)

That is simply not true. 40 khorne Bezerkers will kill 50 boyz on the charge, consolidate 3", pile in 3", and then gets to fight again, killing 50 more boyz or whatever they were screening. And what if he had brought 50 raptors that can simply fly across the chaff? Or a combination? In some deployments you only have a 12" deep deployment zone, so how will you screen against it?

I say that it can't be done, and that these stratagems are broken win-buttons that needs to be nerfed.

 argonak wrote:

 Scott-S6 wrote:

blaktoof wrote:
The berzerkerz get to pile in if they charged, but charging units can only make attacks against units they declared a charge against that turn.

This stops berzerkerz from butchering one unit, consolidating and piling Into another and attacking it if it was not declared as a target of the charge during the charge phase- if they charged that turn.

Also the list looks skeptical in terms of being battleforged with two troops and 3 elites and a heavy support. Fairly certain that not possible would take a patrol Detachment and 2 aux detachments to fit all of that and don't think you get 3 detachments at 1250 pts unless you agreed to that.

But if they're sensible they'll declare charges against everything they might be able to consolidate into unless they've got particularly good overwatch.

You can’t declare charges at anything further than 12 inches away.

When you're 3" away from your primary target declaring a charge against everything you might want to consolidate into is no problem.

That is simply not true. 40 khorne Bezerkers will kill 50 boyz on the charge, consolidate 3", pile in 3", and then gets to fight again, killing 50 more boyz or whatever they were screening. And what if he had brought 50 raptors that can simply fly across the chaff? Or a combination? In some deployments you only have a 12" deep deployment zone, so how will you screen against it?

I say that it can't be done, and that these stratagems are broken win-buttons that needs to be nerfed.

Okay, so they kill that first 30 boy screen and consolidate into the next one. Then you spend 2 cp and kill 30 or so of their berserkers with the next 30 boy squad.

Or, you just take 2 squads of grots and bubble wrap your whole army in them for what, 200 points? If they're stupid enough to pile into the boys again, all you have to do is counterattack them.

If he brought 50 raptors then bubble wrap your important stuff in 2 layers of grots.

Seriously the amount of whining I'm this thread is unbelievable. Turn 1 charges are a thing this edition. Learn to play against them or prepare to lose. A lot.

It's Screenhammer 40K. That's why marines are inferior to Chaos marines atm.

LOL @ "Screenhammer 40k"

The internet for a million years:
"I want infantry to be relevant again! Too many big things! Too much eliteism! Too much deathstars!"

Later that century...

"OMG There's too much infantry! Every army has to bring cheap bodies now! How are we supposed to play the game? These cheap bodies are too good how do I deathstar?"

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
LOL @ "Screenhammer 40k"

The internet for a million years:
"I want infantry to be relevant again! Too many big things! Too much eliteism! Too much deathstars!"

Later that century...

"OMG There's too much infantry! Every army has to bring cheap bodies now! How are we supposed to play the game? These cheap bodies are too good how do I deathstar?"

Well one could hope for the golden middle where unless you have access to dirt cheap screen units to die you are screwed. Good luck armies without access to those natively or by alliance.

tneva82 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
LOL @ "Screenhammer 40k"

The internet for a million years:
"I want infantry to be relevant again! Too many big things! Too much eliteism! Too much deathstars!"

Later that century...

"OMG There's too much infantry! Every army has to bring cheap bodies now! How are we supposed to play the game? These cheap bodies are too good how do I deathstar?"

Well one could hope for the golden middle where unless you have access to dirt cheap screen units to die you are screwed. Good luck armies without access to those natively or by alliance.

Every single army has access to units that are capable of screening. Eldar have razorwing flocks and rangers, necrons have scarabs, Tau have kroot hounds, drones, and pathfinders, Orks have grots and Boyz.

And if you want to be a pure army?

What do Eldar have without going DEldar? What do Grey Knights have, in their Codex? Harlequins?

 JNAProductions wrote:
And if you want to be a pure army?

What do Eldar have without going DEldar? What do Grey Knights have, in their Codex? Harlequins?

If you want to be a pure army then you're handicapping yourself on purpose. It's not the rules fault if you don't take advantage of the things available to you.

Don't say you don't have the option because you do. You're choosing not to take it.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

"I want infantry to be relevant again! Too many big things! Too much eliteism! Too much deathstars!"

Later that century...

"OMG There's too much infantry! Every army has to bring cheap bodies now! How are we supposed to play the game? These cheap bodies are too good how do I deathstar?"

Pretty much.

Just because you can, bring all heavies or elites, doesn't make it a good idea.

Tanniith wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
And if you want to be a pure army?

What do Eldar have without going DEldar? What do Grey Knights have, in their Codex? Harlequins?

If you want to be a pure army then you're handicapping yourself on purpose. It's not the rules fault if you don't take advantage of the things available to you.

Don't say you don't have the option because you do. You're choosing not to take it.

So in other words, Grey Knights aren't a real army? What about pure Eldar? Both have their own codexes-why should I need more than one faction book?

 JNAProductions wrote:

Tanniith wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
And if you want to be a pure army?

What do Eldar have without going DEldar? What do Grey Knights have, in their Codex? Harlequins?

If you want to be a pure army then you're handicapping yourself on purpose. It's not the rules fault if you don't take advantage of the things available to you.

Don't say you don't have the option because you do. You're choosing not to take it.

So in other words, Grey Knights aren't a real army? What about pure Eldar? Both have their own codexes-why should I need more than one faction book?

Stop being obtuse. If you play Grey Knights you have plenty of options from other codices to take screen units, same with Eldar. Eldar actually have really good screen units in their rangers, but that's beside the point.

My point is, regardless of what army you play, you have access* to screen units. If you choose to handicap yourself and not take them that's your choice, but don't complain when you get tabled by a completely avoidable and foreseeable tactic.

*Having access does not necessarily mean in the same codex. It means you are able to make a battle forged army, filling in your main army's weakness with Allie's if need be.

Another user in this thread put it perfectly. If you're recognizing a weakness in your list and purposefully not fixing it, you're playing casually. Which is fine. This also means you're probably going to lose a lot to min/maxed lists which you should expect because again, you're playing a casual list against a top tier tournament list. Which is also fine.

I don't mind infantry having a use. I mind a 40 pt unit completely turning off my 250 pt unit without even firing a shot.

Martel732 wrote:
I don't mind infantry having a use. I mind a 40 pt unit completely turning off my 250 pt unit without even firing a shot.

I don't mind infantry. I mind 85pt infantry that far surpass my 120pt sorcerer while sporting natural invisibility, an insanely good gun, and a psyker nerfing aura. While being a character so I can't actually target it.

I don't mind infantry at all. I kind of mind 90pt infantry with 72" sniper rifles that ignore character rules, cover, and invulnerable saves and are guaranteed to wound on 2+ while having a 2+ BS. While also dealing D3 wounds per shot and sporting natural always-on camo on top of being untargetable because it's a bloody character.

Like... why do we even have Sorcerers and Chaos Lords? These things are way better.

I mean has anyone actually looked at the Eversor rules? For 70pts it's superior in every way to my own melee Lords or Champions while being cheaper too. More attacks, more wounds, more movement, more rules, a suicide vest, the same 4++ invuln, reroll charges, a free Power Sword while I have to pay for mine, a better pistol at no charge that rerolls wounds, and a Melta Bomb just because.

Chaos lords buff the shooting. I agree, non-cheapo psykers are dumb.

 JNAProductions wrote:

So in other words, Grey Knights aren't a real army? What about pure Eldar? Both have their own codexes-why should I need more than one faction book?

I won't speak for Eldar, but Grey Knights? No, they're not really a real army. Not till you add Inquisiton and maybe even some Storm Tro...err, "Scions". Maybe assassins also.

It starts looking like a real army at that point. At least, the army that it looked like from 3rd to 6th.

Martel732 wrote:
I don't mind infantry having a use. I mind a 40 pt unit completely turning off my 250 pt unit without even firing a shot.

Because your 250 point unit could be an 80 point unit if you stopped trying to deathstar.

An example only. Naked assault marines aren't worth using at all, not while vanguards exist. So then you are up to 90 with NO equipment.

Bottom line, death star or not, power armor melee is extremely inefficient and not worthwhile.

 daedalus wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

So in other words, Grey Knights aren't a real army? What about pure Eldar? Both have their own codexes-why should I need more than one faction book?

I won't speak for Eldar, but Grey Knights? No, they're not really a real army. Not till you add Inquisiton and maybe even some Storm Tro...err, "Scions". Maybe assassins also.

It starts looking like a real army at that point. At least, the army that it looked like from 3rd to 6th.

Maybe they want to represent a GK force that just finished killing off all of their allies and got caught up in battle before they could con some new rubes to do their heavy lifting for them? I mean, they probably have a higher kill count against 'friendlies' than they do against demons at this point.

Sure and they can do that. They just shouldn't be surprised when their fluffy narrative list gets it's teeth kicked in by a min/maxed tournament list.

If Grey Knights aren't a real army, then they shouldn't have a codex. They do have a codex, so presumably GW expects them to be a legitimate, stand-alone army.

 Arachnofiend wrote:
If Grey Knights aren't a real army, then they shouldn't have a codex. They do have a codex, so presumably GW expects them to be a legitimate, stand-alone army.

Am I to point out that for a duration, ASSASSINS had a codex?

Codex=/=stand alone competitive army.

Gk can stand on thier own as a casual/friendly army, but expecting a high specialized counter force (counter daemons in this case) to also be TAC viable is silly.
Just like expecting assassins to be stand alone viable.

 Arachnofiend wrote:
If Grey Knights aren't a real army, then they shouldn't have a codex. They do have a codex, so presumably GW expects them to be a legitimate, stand-alone army.

Sorry bud, but your teamkilling Mary Sues are best played as auxiliaries in a competitive environment. You can't reasonably expect an army designed to screw over a single type of opponent (Demons) to also be balanced against Xenos/other Imperium. Whether you think your increased ability vs demons is worth sucking vs everything else is a separate matter.

At least you're not as bad as the Deathwatch, where even winning a casual game is an uphill fight. Don't even have any anti xenos abilities to justify being terrible at everything.

Martel732 wrote:
An example only. Naked assault marines aren't worth using at all, not while vanguards exist. So then you are up to 90 with NO equipment.

Bottom line, death star or not, power armor melee is extremely inefficient and not worthwhile.

Could your list kill 110 marines?

Because if not, then that's a power-armored melee list that just beat yours. (Naked ASM + HQs is like ~110, since you can get 125 naked ASM without HQs)

That's an interesting question. MY list? No. But I've not claimed my list to be any kind of paragon of anything.

Bobby G asscannon party could.
Various IG lists yes.
Some Tyranid lists I've seen, yes.
Don't laugh, but Drukhari would have a solid shot.
Orks, probably.

16 ppm for a dude with two S4 AP 0 melee swing is just super weak in 8th ed. It just is. You can come up with hypotheticals, but I don't see a place in the meta for these kinds of units atm.

Martel732 wrote:
That's an interesting question. MY list? No. But I've not claimed my list to be any kind of paragon of anything.

Bobby G asscannon party could.
Various IG lists yes.
Some Tyranid lists I've seen, yes.
Don't laugh, but Drukhari would have a solid shot.
Orks, probably.

16 ppm for a dude with two S4 AP 0 melee swing is just super weak in 8th ed. It just is. You can come up with hypotheticals, but I don't see a place in the meta for these kinds of units atm.

I'm just trying to illustrate to you that perhaps your 250 point BA units are not the be-all end-all of power armour assault.

In fact, I hear 'zerkers are doing quite well.

 Arachnofiend wrote:
If Grey Knights aren't a real army, then they shouldn't have a codex. They do have a codex, so presumably GW expects them to be a legitimate, stand-alone army.

You're right! Just like Assassins. And Inquisition. And Knights. And Sisters of Silence.

GW totally expected those to be "legitimate, stand alone" armies, right? Or, they're pretty clearly, between the various forms of allies rules getting more and more permissive, expecting you to just dip into all of the imperium for whatever it is that your army needs.

It hasn't been 5th edition for a while now. Stop playing like it is.

 BoomWolf wrote:

 Arachnofiend wrote:
If Grey Knights aren't a real army, then they shouldn't have a codex. They do have a codex, so presumably GW expects them to be a legitimate, stand-alone army.

Am I to point out that for a duration, ASSASSINS had a codex?

Codex=/=stand alone competitive army.

Gk can stand on thier own as a casual/friendly army, but expecting a high specialized counter force (counter daemons in this case) to also be TAC viable is silly.
Just like expecting assassins to be stand alone viable.

I'm not sure I'm in agreement with your idea that Assassins can't be stand alone viable. The assassins this edition range from 70pts to 90pts possessing 4++ invulns and better stats/abilities than most HQs in the game. They're CHEAPER and MORE POWERFUL than a Chaos Lord and the only benefit the lord gets over them is his reroll aura, which they don't need since they reroll things innately. One even possesses a bloody Melta Bomb!! Bye bye tanks.

I think if you stick an army of Culexus assassins up front as the screeners, the enemy can only shoot at them using BS 6+. Every other unit in the army is untargetable due to Character rules in the shooting phase. So your invisible army marches forward while supported by invulnerable-save-ignoring Vindicares that snipe all your characters until the Eversor force gets into CQC range where it is undoubtedly the most cost effective close combat unit in the game, even possessing individual suicide vests that will mortal wound to death the remaining forces they engage, all for 70pts each.

I think a pure assassin list is totally doable. They just wouldn't have any stratagems. Yet. (prays for Officio Assassinorum codex)

 Arkaine wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:

 Arachnofiend wrote:
If Grey Knights aren't a real army, then they shouldn't have a codex. They do have a codex, so presumably GW expects them to be a legitimate, stand-alone army.

Am I to point out that for a duration, ASSASSINS had a codex?

Codex=/=stand alone competitive army.

Gk can stand on thier own as a casual/friendly army, but expecting a high specialized counter force (counter daemons in this case) to also be TAC viable is silly.
Just like expecting assassins to be stand alone viable.

I'm not sure I'm in agreement with your idea that Assassins can't be stand alone viable. The assassins this edition range from 70pts to 90pts possessing 4++ invulns and better stats/abilities than most HQs in the game. They're CHEAPER and MORE POWERFUL than a Chaos Lord and the only benefit the lord gets over them is his reroll aura, which they don't need since they reroll things innately. One even possesses a bloody Melta Bomb!! Bye bye tanks.

I think if you stick an army of Culexus assassins up front as the screeners, the enemy can only shoot at them using BS 6+. Every other unit in the army is untargetable due to Character rules in the shooting phase. So your invisible army marches forward while supported by invulnerable-save-ignoring Vindicares that snipe all your characters until the Eversor force gets into CQC range where it is undoubtedly the most cost effective close combat unit in the game, even possessing individual suicide vests that will mortal wound to death the remaining forces they engage, all for 70pts each.

I think a pure assassin list is totally doable. They just wouldn't have any stratagems. Yet. (prays for Officio Assassinorum codex)

So, uh, your army, who are the HQ's? Or are you just bringing 3 assassins and have 0 CP?

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
That's an interesting question. MY list? No. But I've not claimed my list to be any kind of paragon of anything.

Bobby G asscannon party could.
Various IG lists yes.
Some Tyranid lists I've seen, yes.
Don't laugh, but Drukhari would have a solid shot.
Orks, probably.

16 ppm for a dude with two S4 AP 0 melee swing is just super weak in 8th ed. It just is. You can come up with hypotheticals, but I don't see a place in the meta for these kinds of units atm.

I'm just trying to illustrate to you that perhaps your 250 point BA units are not the be-all end-all of power armour assault.

In fact, I hear 'zerkers are doing quite well.

My lord. I was just throwing that number out there as a worst case to clearly demonstrate my point. Death guard exists, you know. To hit a DG unit hard enough in melee, you have to pack in some pretty costly gear to at least SOME of the squads. The whole thing just balloons out of control quickly and then you realize you can just shoot everything forget melee. The fact that DG and screens exist, sometimes in the same list, REALLY makes melee hard to do. We change the 250 pt squad to a 130 pt squad, and still have identical problems with screens. The 250 pt squad is obviously a poor idea in 8th.

 Arkaine wrote:

I'm not sure I'm in agreement with your idea that Assassins can't be stand alone viable. The assassins this edition range from 70pts to 90pts possessing 4++ invulns and better stats/abilities than most HQs in the game. They're CHEAPER and MORE POWERFUL than a Chaos Lord and the only benefit the lord gets over them is his reroll aura, which they don't need since they reroll things innately. One even possesses a bloody Melta Bomb!! Bye bye tanks.

In previous editions when they were a standalone codex, they lacked an HQ. They still lack an HQ in the index, which is, as far as I can tell, literally the only limiting factor in being a stand-alone detachment that's not a auxiliary.

Martel732 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
That's an interesting question. MY list? No. But I've not claimed my list to be any kind of paragon of anything.

Bobby G asscannon party could.
Various IG lists yes.
Some Tyranid lists I've seen, yes.
Don't laugh, but Drukhari would have a solid shot.
Orks, probably.

16 ppm for a dude with two S4 AP 0 melee swing is just super weak in 8th ed. It just is. You can come up with hypotheticals, but I don't see a place in the meta for these kinds of units atm.

I'm just trying to illustrate to you that perhaps your 250 point BA units are not the be-all end-all of power armour assault.

In fact, I hear 'zerkers are doing quite well.

My lord. I was just throwing that number out there as a worst case to clearly demonstrate my point. Death guard exists, you know. To hit a DG unit hard enough in melee, you have to pack in some pretty costly gear to at least SOME of the squads. The whole thing just balloons out of control quickly and then you realize you can just shoot everything forget melee. The fact that DG and screens exist, sometimes in the same list, REALLY makes melee hard to do. We change the 250 pt squad to a 130 pt squad, and still have identical problems with screens. The 250 pt squad is obviously a poor idea in 8th.

Wait so you're saying that sometimes you have to bring different tools for different jobs and TAC has been dead since 5th ended?

Wow good catch, welcome to 8th.

Also... no, you don't have the problem with screens, because 260 points of 130 point units is way better than the 250 point unit. Because you can bring twice as much. I can do the math if you want.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
That's an interesting question. MY list? No. But I've not claimed my list to be any kind of paragon of anything.

Bobby G asscannon party could.
Various IG lists yes.
Some Tyranid lists I've seen, yes.
Don't laugh, but Drukhari would have a solid shot.
Orks, probably.

16 ppm for a dude with two S4 AP 0 melee swing is just super weak in 8th ed. It just is. You can come up with hypotheticals, but I don't see a place in the meta for these kinds of units atm.

I'm just trying to illustrate to you that perhaps your 250 point BA units are not the be-all end-all of power armour assault.

In fact, I hear 'zerkers are doing quite well.

My five man unit zerkers, 106 points with powerfist champ, were punching out grandmaster dreadknights in one fight phase (going twice in that fight phase). Zerkers are the best melee unit in the game.

40 pts screens stop 130 pts units cold. Trading 40 pts for 130 pts will lose you the game really fast.

"ait so you're saying that sometimes you have to bring different tools for different jobs and TAC has been dead since 5th ended?"

I'm saying melee power armor lists can't afford the tools in 8th and simultaneously have enough bodies to get the tools where they need to be. Berserkers might be an exception to this, but even they suffer mobility problems.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 andysonic1 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
That's an interesting question. MY list? No. But I've not claimed my list to be any kind of paragon of anything.

Bobby G asscannon party could.
Various IG lists yes.
Some Tyranid lists I've seen, yes.
Don't laugh, but Drukhari would have a solid shot.
Orks, probably.

16 ppm for a dude with two S4 AP 0 melee swing is just super weak in 8th ed. It just is. You can come up with hypotheticals, but I don't see a place in the meta for these kinds of units atm.

I'm just trying to illustrate to you that perhaps your 250 point BA units are not the be-all end-all of power armour assault.

In fact, I hear 'zerkers are doing quite well.

My five man unit zerkers, 106 points with powerfist champ, were punching out grandmaster dreadknights in one fight phase (going twice in that fight phase). Zerkers are the best melee unit in the game.

But how good are they on the absolute scale of all units? And again, this is only one specific power armor melee unit. They do not help the overall meta strategy.

Martel732 wrote:
40 pts screens stop 130 pts units cold. Trading 40 pts for 130 pts will lose you the game really fast.

"ait so you're saying that sometimes you have to bring different tools for different jobs and TAC has been dead since 5th ended?"

I'm saying melee power armor lists can't afford the tools in 8th and simultaneously have enough bodies to get the tools where they need to be. Berserkers might be an exception to this, but even they suffer mobility problems.

So "except for the power-armoured units that can melee (berzerkers), power armoured units can't melee.

Also, berzerkers aren't flawless I WIN buttons."

Good post, 10/10.