If you haven't heard gw are now doing beta rules! And they're pretty interesting. Go to the article on Gw website to see full potential rule changes but basically from what i got from the article they want us to try out:
1. Smite nerf. Every time you cast smite it costs 1 more to smite.
2. Character nerf. You can target characters even if there is another character in front of them.
These seem to be issues talked a lot on dakka dakka so what do you guys think of them and the other stuff?
1) Magnus will still nuke people from orbit with his gigantic smite and cause people to cry about him. Lists with six spiritseers will still buff the crap out of their armies and cause people to cry about them. Pink Horrors, Thousand Sons, Grey Knights, Wyrdvane squads and Warlocks have just lost any and all hope of relevance with this rule. If there is a problem with smite, this does nothing at all to fix it.
2) This is a positive step, though only halfway there. If the whole point of the character rule is to have them get lost amongst other targets, why in the flippity flip can units you can't see block targeting??? It is good to have less things that can block characters though, and it's double good to be able to split your fire between multiple characters if you get them the closest. A squad of five platoon commanders limiting you to killing a max of 1 per shooting attack because of the way the rules were worded was beyond silly.
Im fine with both changes. Id prefer if characters could be targeted if they were the closest visible target, I get they dont want people playing LoS shennanigans with rhinos to snipe characters, but I think thats a vastlt more overblown issue than the sillyness of some putz behind a wall preventing you from picking out 12ft tall Robute Guilliman
I think how effective they will be will largely depend on how often the feedback about them is used/how often they become actual rules. If they continually get tested and discarded, people will stop using them. If they frequently become adopted people will use them.
As for both rules they put out I like them both in general
1.) IS a good attempt though I hope some armies like GK are exempted or get "real" smite back as a result of the change, otherwise it is a big nerf to psyker heavy armies with already nerfed smite.
2.) Is needed it prevents all character armies largely determining enemy targets.
The smite change is really kind of some balls for GK and TS who have weak versions anyway. They should change the name of their spells to 'not-smite' or something; I doubt anyone was thinking that them doing 1MW through a psychic test was groundbreaking, especially since TS pay a bit of points for their unit leaders and can't manifest other powers anyway.
I'm on board with characters not being able to hide characters.
I'm on board with the character changes, staggering spammed characters is currently pretty broken.
I'm ok with the smite changes, except that the smite spam somewhat unfairly hits grey knights hardest, who already have a pretty tame smite. I think if it were limited to 'big boy' smites, (see spammed wierdboyz, malefic lord, sanctioned psykers, etc), it would be fine.
Also, the psyker changes as written say that you can only attempt a spell once per turn, rather than once per psyker per turn. So, if you had a spell on 2 guys, and failed to cast it on the first, you couldn't try with the second. I don't think that's very fair.
I'm still ok with one successful spell per turn, but you should be able to try as many times as you like/can.
lolman1c wrote: If you haven't heard gw are now doing beta rules! And they're pretty interesting. Go to the article on Gw website to see full potential rule changes but basically from what i got from the article they want us to try out:
1. Smite nerf. Every time you cast smite it costs 1 more to smite.
2. Character nerf. You can target characters even if there is another character in front of them.
These seem to be issues talked a lot on dakka dakka so what do you guys think of them and the other stuff?
Kap'n Krump wrote: I'm on board with the character changes, staggering spammed characters is currently pretty broken.
I'm ok with the smite changes, except that the smite spam somewhat unfairly hits grey knights hardest, who already have a pretty tame smite. I think if it were limited to 'big boy' smites, (see spammed wierdboyz, malefic lord, sanctioned psykers, etc), it would be fine.
Also, the psyker changes as written say that you can only attempt a spell once per turn, rather than once per psyker per turn. So, if you had a spell on 2 guys, and failed to cast it on the first, you couldn't try with the second. I don't think that's very fair.
I'm still ok with one successful spell per turn, but you should be able to try as many times as you like/can.
That's...exactly how it's worded now? You can tell because it's the exact same sentence from "current psychic focus" printed again.
those of you with concerns regarding the impact of smite on armies like Grey Knights and TSons - have you emailed the FAQ line to express your concern? I think that's the most important step.
Farseer_V2 wrote: those of you with concerns regarding the impact of smite on armies like Grey Knights and TSons - have you emailed the FAQ line to express your concern? I think that's the most important step.
Complaining is easier though! I've already fired off 6 separate emails to them already.
the_scotsman wrote: 1) Magnus will still nuke people from orbit with his gigantic smite and cause people to cry about him. Lists with six spiritseers will still buff the crap out of their armies and cause people to cry about them. Pink Horrors, Thousand Sons, Grey Knights, Wyrdvane squads and Warlocks have just lost any and all hope of relevance with this rule. If there is a problem with smite, this does nothing at all to fix it.
2) This is a positive step, though only halfway there. If the whole point of the character rule is to have them get lost amongst other targets, why in the flippity flip can units you can't see block targeting??? It is good to have less things that can block characters though, and it's double good to be able to split your fire between multiple characters if you get them the closest. A squad of five platoon commanders limiting you to killing a max of 1 per shooting attack because of the way the rules were worded was beyond silly.
On both accounts I can answer for you.
1) I think you missed the point. If someone brings 6 spiritseers to buff their army.. occasionally tossing smite.. that is totally OK that is the intent. If someone is bringing them to simply dump mortal wounds out, that is not the intent and this rule is effective in making it more difficult to do that.
2) The exact reason for them not doing this as you hope they do.. is so that YOU can't block line of sight on your turn with your own models to snipe characters. For example... I have my farseer sitting behind some rangers. You roll up and park a rhino so that your your squad of hellblasters has full line of sight of my character but can't see the rangers anymore and take him out.
I like the character rule. I am okay with the smite change, all-though I would have preferred to limit full-smite to psykers of more than 60-70 points per model. I don't think that smite coming from 100-point psykers are a balance issue, nor the mini-smite coming from cheaper psyker models.
That being said, the point of beta-rules are not to like them, but to evaluate them.
As a smite spamming guard player I'm fine with both changes! It's a bit more thematic to have 2-3 psykers rather than the 12+ I've been running at tournaments haha. This works fine, but I think it would have been cleverer just to up the points of primaris psykers, weirdboyz, inquisitors etc. There's nothing wrong with a powerful mechanic provided it's suitably pricy and forces you to make compromises elsewhere...
lolman1c wrote: If you haven't heard gw are now doing beta rules! And they're pretty interesting. Go to the article on Gw website to see full potential rule changes but basically from what i got from the article they want us to try out: 1. Smite nerf. Every time you cast smite it costs 1 more to smite. 2. Character nerf. You can target characters even if there is another character in front of them.
These seem to be issues talked a lot on dakka dakka so what do you guys think of them and the other stuff?
Farseer_V2 wrote: those of you with concerns regarding the impact of smite on armies like Grey Knights and TSons - have you emailed the FAQ line to express your concern? I think that's the most important step.
agreed. GKs ant TSons IIRC already have some variation on their smite thus it'd be easy to grant them an excemption
I think the real question here isn't; "are these specific rules changes what 8th Edition needs?" but instead; "is the process that GW are proposing to follow to integrate their changes what 8th Edition needs?". The answer for me, to the latter question is a resounding yes.
Finally they are listening to the player base. Finally they are updating their books quickly and based on feedback. They'll never get all the rules and points' adjustments perfect every time, but at least they are committed to correcting their mistakes.
It's great news this, for me. The best news of 8th so far, in fact,
niv-mizzet wrote: Maybe they should make the mini smites either a different power or make the increasing difficulty not apply as much or at all to them?
I like the smite change. It helps address smitespam while still keeping smite relevant.
The character targeting change is a corner case. There are only a few situations in which a character can successfully run interference for another one and keep out of LOS.
ChargerIIC wrote: I like the smite change. It helps address smitespam while still keeping smite relevant.
The character targeting change is a corner case. There are only a few situations in which a character can successfully run interference for another one and keep out of LOS.
It was that one abuse case with the cluxes as they said in the post.
i honestly cant imagine too many situations where else it could possibly be abused. but at least its knocking out that absolutely annoying tactic.
Also people really didn't like it when they had a big unit ready to shoot, and they were down to two enemy characters, and they were only allowed to hit the first one despite it being horrible overkill.
Yass, now this is some excellent progress. Both changes seem good to me, with the caveat that GK and TS should get their baby-Smites without the penalty. Hope they do more of these.
Crowdsource power: can we send enough requests in that email about them proposing more cover rules, like "intervening terrain grants +1 cover" and such?
Nightlord1987 wrote: All these bandaid fixes apply to Matched Play only anyway. GW has been encouraging Narrative and Open Play all of 8th edition. Nothing to balance!
So maybe smite spammers should expand their ideas of game play.
I disagree, the ones who want to play Matched Play were people with weaker armies who don't want easily abusable rules. Open Play has easily abused rules which is why I personally stay away from it.
This does nothing but punish weaker armies as far as I can tell. Except for IG Primaris spam.
lolman1c wrote: If you haven't heard gw are now doing beta rules! And they're pretty interesting. Go to the article on Gw website to see full potential rule changes but basically from what i got from the article they want us to try out:
1. Smite nerf. Every time you cast smite it costs 1 more to smite.
2. Character nerf. You can target characters even if there is another character in front of them.
These seem to be issues talked a lot on dakka dakka so what do you guys think of them and the other stuff?
I like the sound of the character nerf. As IG I normally have between 6-15 characters running around per game and we would often run into really stupid scenarios where my commissar couldn't be shot because technically my company commander was 2" closer and out of line of sight.
I still think characters should be able to be targeted normally if they're too far from friendly units, like say more than 6" from any friendly units that could potentially be shot at, but it's at least a start.
1 - Ok though inelegant, Given this would like to see them go through the other powers to ensure usability across the board, for now it hurts less to have a dud or 2 when you have Smite as a backup.
2- The Culexus issue fixed I guess. I'm not a fan of the current or Beta character targeting rules but this is an improvement.
lolman1c wrote: If you haven't heard gw are now doing beta rules! And they're pretty interesting. Go to the article on Gw website to see full potential rule changes but basically from what i got from the article they want us to try out:
1. Smite nerf. Every time you cast smite it costs 1 more to smite.
2. Character nerf. You can target characters even if there is another character in front of them.
These seem to be issues talked a lot on dakka dakka so what do you guys think of them and the other stuff?
Pretty awful. They need to stick to a clean ruleset, not throw 'beta changes' out at random in addition to twice a year scheduled alterations and CA paid alterations.
In specific the smite nerf is pretty awful, and completely the wrong way to go about it. If real smite is a problem, restriction the number of librarians, warlocks, or whatever. Don't make basic abilities even more unworkable for the armies that require them.
The character thing seems to be a problem because of a specific model's super special snowflake rule. Don't mess with character targetting for a third (fourth?) time in a few months in vain attempt to hammer out every wrinkle caused by abandoning consistent USRs.
Nightlord1987 wrote: All these bandaid fixes apply to Matched Play only anyway. GW has been encouraging Narrative and Open Play all of 8th edition. Nothing to balance!
So maybe smite spammers should expand their ideas of game play.
Sorry, no. Narrative and open is more unbalanced and more open to abusing the ruleset. Smite spammers aren't a problem in the other play modes because there are far, far more effective ways of abusing the psychic phase.
The unbalance of narrative/open WAS my point. Psycho power and smite away just like you'd imagine your army to be played. You're playing cheesy lists but don't want a cheesy environment? I'm sure everyone is gonna claim not to be that type of gamer, but if if your army playstyle got nerfed, it's probably because the majority of gamers abused something to gain an advantage. Cheap fearless troops. Horde killing flyers. Smite spam psykers.
In the next few months, whatever new net list starts winning in tournaments will tell GW what needs to be neutered. If you really want to protect the game, play different lists.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also, this new edition is trying to push NEW models, NEW factions, NEW missions. If someone power games and buys the latest trend, that changes a few months later that's kinda the whole point.
I think the process is a good one, as is being open about the road map to it and thinking behind it.
Smite spam? personally would just allow all powers to be used more than once per turn (not the same one more than once on a unit though) and lift the cost of casters accordingly.
the "rule of one" stuff is one of the few bits of the game that doesn't scale well up or down
The rule about characters is 100% needed. Play against an all assassins list. In the current version of the rules, you will only ever be shooting at a Culexus, assuming you can shoot at anyone at all.
It is gross. The character spam lists are made inordinately strong by virtue of the character targeting restrictions. Sorry i have 10 characters behind my culexus. You have to shoot through it first. Oh sorry i have 1 character out of line of sight but closer to you. You can only shoot at him, but you can't see him, tee hee. So yeah, my 1 commander is in ruins, but my other 11 can see you. And you can't shoot them. Sorry.
it's dumb. the current character rules are beyond dumb.
Nightlord1987 wrote: The unbalance of narrative/open WAS my point. Psycho power and smite away just like you'd imagine your army to be played. You're playing cheesy lists but don't want a cheesy environment? I'm sure everyone is gonna claim not to be that type of gamer, but if if your army playstyle got nerfed, it's probably because the majority of gamers abused something to gain an advantage. Cheap fearless troops. Horde killing flyers. Smite spam psykers.
In the next few months, whatever new net list starts winning in tournaments will tell GW what needs to be neutered. If you really want to protect the game, play different lists.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also, this new edition is trying to push NEW models, NEW factions, NEW missions. If someone power games and buys the latest trend, that changes a few months later that's kinda the whole point.
You heard it here first - anyone complaining because their expensive GK and Tson units pay for a version of smite that is now all but unusable, they're probably a closet dirty power gamer hiding 18 primaris psyker models sewn into the inside of their trenchcoat.
I don't disagree with the sentiment that you should take a variety of stuff to avoid balance weirdness, but god damn dude this rule is a huge kick in the pants for armies that are already in the bottom of the barrel and does next to nothing to hurt the armies that are currently the strongest.
Nightlord1987 wrote: The unbalance of narrative/open WAS my point. Psycho power and smite away just like you'd imagine your army to be played. You're playing cheesy lists but don't want a cheesy environment? I'm sure everyone is gonna claim not to be that type of gamer, but if if your army playstyle got nerfed, it's probably because the majority of gamers abused something to gain an advantage. Cheap fearless troops. Horde killing flyers. Smite spam psykers.
In the next few months, whatever new net list starts winning in tournaments will tell GW what needs to be neutered. If you really want to protect the game, play different lists.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also, this new edition is trying to push NEW models, NEW factions, NEW missions. If someone power games and buys the latest trend, that changes a few months later that's kinda the whole point.
You heard it here first - anyone complaining because their expensive GK and Tson units pay for a version of smite that is now all but unusable, they're probably a closet dirty power gamer hiding 18 primaris psyker models sewn into the inside of their trenchcoat.
I don't know about GK or Tsons, but my Ulthwe army is useless. Warlocks were already crap with a 9" range single mortal wound version of Smite, but now this? I may as well shelve all 20 of them.
Also, this new edition is trying to push NEW models, NEW factions, NEW missions. If someone power games and buys the latest trend, that changes a few months later that's kinda the whole point.
Which is why they're not making much in the way of new models and the 'new factions' consists of breaking an old faction into a separate book with a handful of releases. And the few new models they do make are pretty naff. And the missions are largely recycled from older editions.
Yep, GW is really pushing the 'new.'
The new Psychic focus does indeed have a problem with snowflake smites, but in general it is a good change. I suggest that all the ones that feel that they have a problem with this rule, do exactly what GW told us to do and send a mail to the dedicated address. At this point we know 100% that they are listening to the community and probably scouring this same forum and many others, so plug in to this new system and send them the feedback. After so many years they are finally listening to it!
Also, try to be constructive with your feedback, i suspect that "This rule sucks" is the kind of message that gets filtered before being forwarded to the designers.
Jaxler wrote: My grey Knights didn’t need the nerf =\
What are gray knights? I know they have a codex but, marines only come in red, green or blue. Gray is not a GW approved color, please update your paint scheme to match 8th approved color options.
Nightlord1987 wrote: The unbalance of narrative/open WAS my point. Psycho power and smite away just like you'd imagine your army to be played. You're playing cheesy lists but don't want a cheesy environment? I'm sure everyone is gonna claim not to be that type of gamer, but if if your army playstyle got nerfed, it's probably because the majority of gamers abused something to gain an advantage. Cheap fearless troops. Horde killing flyers. Smite spam psykers.
In the next few months, whatever new net list starts winning in tournaments will tell GW what needs to be neutered. If you really want to protect the game, play different lists.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also, this new edition is trying to push NEW models, NEW factions, NEW missions. If someone power games and buys the latest trend, that changes a few months later that's kinda the whole point.
You heard it here first - anyone complaining because their expensive GK and Tson units pay for a version of smite that is now all but unusable, they're probably a closet dirty power gamer hiding 18 primaris psyker models sewn into the inside of their trenchcoat.
I don't know about GK or Tsons, but my Ulthwe army is useless. Warlocks were already crap with a 9" range single mortal wound version of Smite, but now this? I may as well shelve all 20 of them.
Or maybe try some games with this new rules, with an open mind, write what you think about this new rule and how it impacts your games, put it nicenly written and give it as feedback to GW?
I don't know. I assume is more work than just complaining on the internet about how this "Beta rules" that GW has released literally asking for community feedback are gonna destroy your army.
Also, this new edition is trying to push NEW models, NEW factions, NEW missions. If someone power games and buys the latest trend, that changes a few months later that's kinda the whole point.
Which is why they're not making much in the way of new models and the 'new factions' consists of breaking an old faction into a separate book with a handful of releases. And the few new models they do make are pretty naff. And the missions are largely recycled from older editions.
Yep, GW is really pushing the 'new.'
Yeah, I mean...for all of 8th so far they've had 2 major releases in 5-6 months? And those weren't terribly huge releases if you keep in mind just how much of it was repeated content. Ignoring all the easy to builds and "buy 2 out of a 5 man squad pls' releases, Primaris got...4 infantry boxes a handful of clampacks and 2 vehicles DG got 3? Infantry boxes a handfull of clampacks, 2 vehicles and Mortarion. Those are a decent number of kits but not really killing themselves, yunno?
2) The exact reason for them not doing this as you hope they do.. is so that YOU can't block line of sight on your turn with your own models to snipe characters. For example... I have my farseer sitting behind some rangers. You roll up and park a rhino so that your your squad of hellblasters has full line of sight of my character but can't see the rangers anymore and take him out.
Yeah, why should tactical movement to create shooting opportunities be a thing in a tabletop wargame? /sarcasm
- I'd be in favour of the Smite nerf . . . if they hadn't just tacked on huge point increases to several psykers.
It seems like it would have made a lot more sense to implement this nerf instead of increasing their points.
- On the one hand, I really don't mind the character nerf. On the other hand, it appears to fix very little. Frankly, I'd be far more interested in seeing a fix for characters the size of small buildings being able to hide behind conscripts.
They keep fiddling with the character targetting rules, but I think the whole 'closest' thing is a mistake. It would be clearer and make more sense if the characters were untargettable if they were within X inches* of a friendly unit.
Grey Knights are in a bad spot, but honestly, they just need a complete rebuild at this point. It's no use complaining about them in the context of this nerf, because they're so far gone that it's not really worth it anyway.
I like the smite change, seems sensible. I do wish they would let us cast other powers more than once though so we didn't always have to rely on smite.
Character targeting is an improvement at least but not a complete fix. I'd rather take a sensible approach to how it would be in a "real" scenario and have more units with the bodyguard rule or even add a rule where anyone can be bodyguard to a character.
Nemesis234 wrote: I like the smite change, seems sensible. I do wish they would let us cast other powers more than once though so we didn't always have to rely on smite.
Character targeting is an improvement at least but not a complete fix. I'd rather take a sensible approach to how it would be in a "real" scenario and have more units with the bodyguard rule or even add a rule where anyone can be bodyguard to a character.
That was called "Look out Sir". It died in a fire and there was much rejoice.
Nemesis234 wrote: I like the smite change, seems sensible. I do wish they would let us cast other powers more than once though so we didn't always have to rely on smite.
Character targeting is an improvement at least but not a complete fix. I'd rather take a sensible approach to how it would be in a "real" scenario and have more units with the bodyguard rule or even add a rule where anyone can be bodyguard to a character.
That was called "Look out Sir". It died in a fire and there was much rejoice.
But now characters are separate from units and you can allocate wounds to any model in a unit, I think it will work far better second time round.
It might work if all the wounds the character would have taken were treated like mortal wounds on the unit that is guarding him. Since characters tend to attract heavy fire power the guarding unit will soon disappear this way.
I love the idea that they are having mass beta testing. It would help prevent certain individuals from absolutely destroying an army just because they don't like them. *cough* Tau Index *cough* Mass beta testing would also help prevent those individuals from being blamed if it was completely out of their control. If this went live without any input, I can imagine TS players and GK players would be much more justifiably angry if this was just plopped on their lap without having any say.
Nightlord1987 wrote: The unbalance of narrative/open WAS my point. Psycho power and smite away just like you'd imagine your army to be played. You're playing cheesy lists but don't want a cheesy environment? I'm sure everyone is gonna claim not to be that type of gamer, but if if your army playstyle got nerfed, it's probably because the majority of gamers abused something to gain an advantage. Cheap fearless troops. Horde killing flyers. Smite spam psykers.
In the next few months, whatever new net list starts winning in tournaments will tell GW what needs to be neutered. If you really want to protect the game, play different lists.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also, this new edition is trying to push NEW models, NEW factions, NEW missions. If someone power games and buys the latest trend, that changes a few months later that's kinda the whole point.
You heard it here first - anyone complaining because their expensive GK and Tson units pay for a version of smite that is now all but unusable, they're probably a closet dirty power gamer hiding 18 primaris psyker models sewn into the inside of their trenchcoat.
I don't know about GK or Tsons, but my Ulthwe army is useless. Warlocks were already crap with a 9" range single mortal wound version of Smite, but now this? I may as well shelve all 20 of them.
Or maybe try some games with this new rules, with an open mind, write what you think about this new rule and how it impacts your games, put it nicenly written and give it as feedback to GW?
I don't know. I assume is more work than just complaining on the internet about how this "Beta rules" that GW has released literally asking for community feedback are gonna destroy your army.
But complaining is much easier, and more fun.
Though to be fair, my comment was meant to be taken as a joke. I don't actually have 20 Warlocks. Yet.
The Smite rule is okay - but feels like a hammer to crack a nut. As people have said this significantly effects mini-smiters (who are typically bad anyway) and while I wouldn't mind never seeing another horror again I can sympathise with GK and Tsons.
My maths may be off - but on regular smites this is the difference - so casting 2 smites now produces only 91.47% the damage you would have got previously:
So if you were the sort of army where you typically cast 2-3 smites a turn this isn't the end of the world.
Really I think if Primaris Psykers had just got a 20-30 points increase (and those stupid 15 point things were completely changed or removed from the game) smite spam would have largely disappeared from the game.
I still have an issue with the character targetin rules, immunity should still only occur if you are within 6" of a unit, as it stand now (to use a mates example) you can't shoot guilliman who is 6" in front of you because you have some scouts 5" behind you, the "within 6" rule needs to be added.
Smite change though seems to go too far against mini smite, but I don't have an issue with it simply because it's a test rule and people just need to tell gw it should only apply to normal smite, not mini smite, also as the above said, get rid of primaris psykers and mini horrors and smite spam should go down.
Nemesis234 wrote: I like the smite change, seems sensible. I do wish they would let us cast other powers more than once though so we didn't always have to rely on smite.
Character targeting is an improvement at least but not a complete fix. I'd rather take a sensible approach to how it would be in a "real" scenario and have more units with the bodyguard rule or even add a rule where anyone can be bodyguard to a character.
That was called "Look out Sir". It died in a fire and there was much rejoice.
But now characters are separate from units and you can allocate wounds to any model in a unit, I think it will work far better second time round.
Torrent of Fire also used to be a thing.
I prefer a scaleback of the 7e LOS, with the caveat that it's automatic (and mandatory for those that like to complain about 30ks "muh tank ICs"), restricted models within 3" or so, and you can only allocate LOS to non-character models. Better to be able to theoretically snipe out a character with positioning, as opposed to the character going "neener-neener, you cannot shoot me because there's a Drone in a nearby building."
If smite wasn't an issue, why was everyone expecting Chapter Approved to "fix" it.
My big gripe is that everyone seems to play theory hammer and hypothetical hammer here. Everyone's Big Bad Meta monster fears are what caused these Nerfs in the first place. I've never even seen a Malefic Lord at my gaming club. When they got axed, everyone said : Well what about primaris psykers? (Also a unit I've never seen spammed). Most of the questions on YMDC are just hypothetical and rarely come up on an actual table, but those topics blow up.
But back to the main topic. Daemons is an easy fix. Just give tzeentch a +1 on tests or like a reroll strategem. Or the paradox relic thing. Or just accept the role of Horrors. Thousand Sons will get more psychic powers to Divvy up amongst the sorcerers. And they're rolling 2 dice anyway same as Grey Knights.
Grey knights should have the option to smite or "activate force" or something. And I've said it before but any mono Grey knights, ksons, and tzeentch daemons has a big handicap already. Let's not act like smite makes or breaks it for them. Remember, they're taking data from TOURNAMENTS. Where breaking the game wins.
Really I think if Primaris Psykers had just got a 20-30 points increase (and those stupid 15 point things were completely changed or removed from the game) smite spam would have largely disappeared from the game.
I disagree - if Smite is all anyone complains about with the IG psykers, then it's Smite that should be changed (especially since it's clearly a problem for other armies as well).
My big gripe is that everyone seems to play theory hammer and hypothetical hammer here. Everyone's Big Bad Meta monster fears are what caused these Nerfs in the first place. I've never even seen a Malefic Lord at my gaming club. When they got axed, everyone said : Well what about primaris psykers? (Also a unit I've never seen spammed). Most of the questions on YMDC are just hypothetical and rarely come up on an actual table, but those topics blow up.
Yeah, there seems to be a general idea that the best "fix" is to make IG psykers completely garbage for their cost and/or delete them altogether. Apparently this will improve balance somehow.
Really I think if Primaris Psykers had just got a 20-30 points increase (and those stupid 15 point things were completely changed or removed from the game) smite spam would have largely disappeared from the game.
I disagree - if Smite is all anyone complains about with the IG psykers, then it's Smite that should be changed (especially since it's clearly a problem for other armies as well).
My big gripe is that everyone seems to play theory hammer and hypothetical hammer here. Everyone's Big Bad Meta monster fears are what caused these Nerfs in the first place. I've never even seen a Malefic Lord at my gaming club. When they got axed, everyone said : Well what about primaris psykers? (Also a unit I've never seen spammed). Most of the questions on YMDC are just hypothetical and rarely come up on an actual table, but those topics blow up.
Yeah, there seems to be a general idea that the best "fix" is to make IG psykers completely garbage for their cost and/or delete them altogether. Apparently this will improve balance somehow.
When every unit is underpowered, no unit is underpowered.
Nightlord1987 wrote: If smite wasn't an issue, why was everyone expecting Chapter Approved to "fix" it.
Because players that don't use Psykers cry about anything that can wound their 2+/3++/5+++ models without divine intervention.
Also, I've yet to be at the table and faced a Tau or Necron player that didn't complain every Psychic phase.
Personally, I'd be fine with the increased difficulty of recasting powers in the same psychic phase IF the rule of 1 was gone, and I could cast something other than Smite, and all the Psyker units that cast on a single D6 were changed to cast on 2d6, like everyone else.
Admittedly, the 1d6 casters may need their points cost adjusted.
I know people keep focusing on Maelific Lords and Primaris Psykers, but think about the Tyranids. It's pretty common to field multiple psykers for Tyranids. Even Blood Angles have better things to be casting than Smite over and over.
adamsouza wrote: I know people keep focusing on Maelific Lords and Primaris Psykers, but think about the Tyranids. It's pretty common to field multiple psykers for Tyranids. Even Blood Angles have better things to be casting than Smite over and over.
I do think that the limit of 1 of each psychic power per phase is rather silly. It seems like a poor excuse to just not bother balancing the powers in the first place.
More than that though, it means that psychic powers really don't scale well. Once you have enough psychic levels to cast all your powers, there's literally nothing you can do with additional psykers except for casting Smite over and over.
For example, let's say that I have a 1000pt army with 6 psychic levels in one form or other. I can cast the following powers:
Basically, as soon as you exceed 7 levels of Psyker, you're basically forced to spam Smite - since there's literally nothing else you can do with your casters (unless you're Eldar and have about 18 powers ).
I do think that the limit of 1 of each psychic power per phase is rather silly. It seems like a poor excuse to just not bother balancing the powers in the first place.
I agree. Instead this '-1 to cast a duplicate power' should just apply to all powers, and the powers should be balanced based on that.
Nightlord1987 wrote: If smite wasn't an issue, why was everyone expecting Chapter Approved to "fix" it.
Because players that don't use Psykers cry about anything that can wound their 2+/3++/5+++ models without divine intervention.
Also, I've yet to be at the table and faced a Tau or Necron player that didn't complain every Psychic phase.
Personally, I'd be fine with the increased difficulty of recasting powers in the same psychic phase IF the rule of 1 was gone, and I could cast something other than Smite, and all the Psyker units that cast on a single D6 were changed to cast on 2d6, like everyone else.
Admittedly, the 1d6 casters may need their points cost adjusted.
I know people keep focusing on Maelific Lords and Primaris Psykers, but think about the Tyranids. It's pretty common to field multiple psykers for Tyranids. Even Blood Angles have better things to be casting than Smite over and over.
Which players? I was complaining about a bad mechic that doesn't scale, mortal wounds, smite wouldn't be a problem if it was still str4 ap-4 d3/d6 hits, right now its ignore all saves and wounds anything and everything on a 4+, that's bad design however you look at it.
adamsouza wrote: I know people keep focusing on Maelific Lords and Primaris Psykers, but think about the Tyranids. It's pretty common to field multiple psykers for Tyranids. Even Blood Angles have better things to be casting than Smite over and over.
I do think that the limit of 1 of each psychic power per phase is rather silly. It seems like a poor excuse to just not bother balancing the powers in the first place.
More than that though, it means that psychic powers really don't scale well. Once you have enough psychic levels to cast all your powers, there's literally nothing you can do with additional psykers except for casting Smite over and over.
For example, let's say that I have a 1000pt army with 6 psychic levels in one form or other. I can cast the following powers:
Basically, as soon as you exceed 7 levels of Psyker, you're basically forced to spam Smite - since there's literally nothing else you can do with your casters (unless you're Eldar and have about 18 powers ).
Yes but if you don't limit powers you have things like entire ork armies assaulting turn 1, and largely not caring about the -1 to
Cast.
The only issue with the rule of 1 might be it
Is on attempts not successes. The issue is
Gw made entire armies psykers, this never should have been a thing. And for sure the few cases
It might make sense just giving those armies normal smite with the -1 to cast is fine, you just pick which units use the power.
Marmatag wrote: The rule about characters is 100% needed. Play against an all assassins list. In the current version of the rules, you will only ever be shooting at a Culexus, assuming you can shoot at anyone at all.
It is gross. The character spam lists are made inordinately strong by virtue of the character targeting restrictions. Sorry i have 10 characters behind my culexus. You have to shoot through it first. Oh sorry i have 1 character out of line of sight but closer to you. You can only shoot at him, but you can't see him, tee hee. So yeah, my 1 commander is in ruins, but my other 11 can see you. And you can't shoot them. Sorry.
it's dumb. the current character rules are beyond dumb.
I had a discussion the other day about a similar but different topic - vengeance weapon platforms only being able to target the nearest enemy unit and that they become a waste of points once that unit is locked in combat. I suggested that "viable" needs to become a part of 8th's vernacular. When the nearest target isn't able to be the target then the next viable target must be chosen. I was talking about weapon platforms but it would make a big difference to characters as well.
The new Psychic focus does indeed have a problem with snowflake smites, but in general it is a good change.
I suggest that all the ones that feel that they have a problem with this rule, do exactly what GW told us to do and send a mail to the dedicated address. At this point we know 100% that they are listening to the community and probably scouring this same forum and many others, so plug in to this new system and send them the feedback. After so many years they are finally listening to it!
Also, try to be constructive with your feedback, i suspect that "This rule sucks" is the kind of message that gets filtered before being forwarded to the designers.
Already sent in a mail detailing how this new rule makes the Aspiring Sorcerer a complete liability to his unit. They're probably already aware by now with how much criticism they've gotten for the new rule but more fuel for the fire can't hurt.
Tyel wrote: Character rule is good. ...I wouldn't mind never seeing another horror again.
I'll just say this right now: this change will not stop people taking Brimstone Horrors, it will just put another nail in the coffin for Pink Horrors (Blues are already completely dead). No one takes Brimstones for Smite since their version was nerfed. They take them for the 3pt 4++ body. A 1/3 to kill a Brim to deal a single Mortal Wound in the Psychic Phase was just a little something extra that you could maybe do, but too weak and unreliable to actually care about when taking the unit.
Yes but if you don't limit powers you have things like entire ork armies assaulting turn 1, and largely not caring about the -1 to
Cast.
But that's the whole point - if casting a power multiple times is enough to break the game, then that power is badly-designed to begin with.
This isn't true, it is like saying Magnus should be able to be taken multiple times and if it breaks the game he is poorly designed. It is possible to design things to be balanced assuming they are a limited resource. The game would be far more balanced if everything in it were more limited.
Card Games normally have limitations in card. In hearthstone you can have two copies of any kind of card, but just one copy of each legendary. So yes, the "If it can't be spammed without breaking the game it is bad", isn't true.
I'm too in the camp of "Powers should be impactfull and limited".
Slight imbalances within the game are what create a fun game. The biggest issue 8th edition really has is that these imbalances are not put in check. Due to the freedom of army creation, you can take pretty much anything as much as you want. This causes units that were intended to be that slight imbalance in your list to end up being practically your whole list.
I don't know what the best solution would be but there needs to be a set of checks and balances in place to prevent spamming the most cost-effective units. That creates a stagnant play environment and reduces the creativity of lists.
Hoodwink wrote: Slight imbalances within the game are what create a fun game. The biggest issue 8th edition really has is that these imbalances are not put in check. Due to the freedom of army creation, you can take pretty much anything as much as you want. This causes units that were intended to be that slight imbalance in your list to end up being practically your whole list.
I don't know what the best solution would be but there needs to be a set of checks and balances in place to prevent spamming the most cost-effective units. That creates a stagnant play environment and reduces the creativity of lists.
Not just imbalances but the lack of depth in the game that makes it easier to have a "spam this" solution to every problem. You don't need anti tank weapons, anti horde weapons, armor penetrating weapons, cover bypassing weapons, general purpose weapons, blast weapons, etc in a list when we are all Necrons now. It's a race to the bottom for the unit that can absorb the most wounds with the most bodies, has the most attacks, pays the least points for that volume of attack and wound absorption, and generally what has the most cost effective force multiplayer to skyrocket the effectiveness of those buckets of dice you will be rolling.
I don't see any reason why it can't be on a power-by-power basis. Hell, I can think of a spell in AoS that is so potentially powerful that it's limited to one use only in Open and Narrative play too, rather than just Matched Platy (Glimpse the Future from the Lore of Fate).
If Games Workshop specified in the Power itself if it could be cast multiple times by different Psykers in the same phase, we could have the best of both worlds. I doubt they'd do that this far into the design process though, as it'd require a bit of errata (might be something left for Chapter Approved 2018).
Could just have 'lesser' and 'greater' powers within a discipline. Limit Greater powers to once a turn, and then let Lesser ones be cast with the current smite restrictions.
NenkotaMoon wrote: Increase the points of it to make it useless so while it is still broken, at least you cant afford it. That's balance.
Completely disagree with this. The sole function of psykers is as support elements for your army and they are costed accordingly for their roles relative to their armies. They are not costed with spammed Smite in mind. Therefore the solution cannot be to simply increase all psykers points values because you make them far too expensive for their primary purpose.
I really like the Smite nerf and they way they have implemented it is just how I thought it should be done. This encourages taking them for their primary purpose and taking more than 9 in a single army (other than Eldar) is pointless. At that point your 6 primary powers and 3 Smites brings you to 7+ to cast Smite. I think 9 psykers is enough!
The only thing I think needs to change to is ensure mini Smite like Grey Knights do not suffer this nerf as their version is already fine and doesn't need the extra nerf.
The biggest problem is, this beta change and even the Rule of One feels like a band-aid over the fact that GW didn't (and won't) properly balance powers. Dark Angels just got a power that lets you reduce the WS/BS of a unit permanently by 1. Could you imagine if that was able to be cast more than once per phase? Even with a penalty, you could shut down entire units if you got it off twice in the same turn; it would be ridiculous. Even without that, it just takes like 3 turns and you can make anything 7+ BS and not able to shoot at all (power should really have had an "This effect does not stack" clause). Smite is a problem because it can be spammed, and mortal wounds are too good (which GW should have realized due to how prevalent mortal wounds are in AOS and how devastating they are there). The obvious answer is to restrict it being spammed. The fact this is just hiding the fact that the psychic power rules are fairly lame and that armies that do the mini-smite are hit by this isn't relevant, because GW is listening IMHO too much to tournament players and reacting too much to what they do. While yes, a competitive game provides the best balance for casual play as well, there is a line where the company is basically endlessly chasing the whims of people who don't give a damn about anything other than maximizing efficiency no matter what, and you end up in a vicious circle where GW will just continually patch the game as people find ways to abuse it, and as a result there is friendly fire casualties because they are just chasing the tournament meta trying to fix the imbalances.
The underlying issue is that people are going to try and abuse whatever they can to maximize their chance of winning; this is why you constantly see this circle where tournament players (because let's not pretend it's anyone else) will find something cheap and good, spam the gak out of it, GW sees it, nerfs it, tournament players find something else to abuse. But nothing can really fix that short of hard limits and balanced rules, neither of which 40k has. That cycle has gone on for years (in more than just GW games, although GW games are particularly bad for it) and will go on forever.
All rules systems, sports included, have strategies and tactics built around rules gaps/loopholes. It's not an exclusively GW, 40K or tournament players problem. It's simply how winning tactics develop.
Most sports have a rules council that adapts on the fly to tactics perceived to be not what's in the interest of the sport. They publish updates to the rules to prevent these, and lo and behold new tactics arise.
GW committing to a rules update cycle brings them more in line with this style of doing things - adapting and changing to remove tactics seen as 'abusive' or contrary to what the game should be. It's positive however you look at it... until the point where they've realised they can gouge everyone for rules updates in book form. :-/ I really wish they'd gone to a Living Rulebook format - online, PDF, updated as they go. But they wanna make a buck and I get that.
Yes but if you don't limit powers you have things like entire ork armies assaulting turn 1, and largely not caring about the -1 to
Cast.
But that's the whole point - if casting a power multiple times is enough to break the game, then that power is badly-designed to begin with.
So your complaint is that a rule that is designed to be used once per turn is broken when used multiple times per turn? Just when I thought the Dakka Complain Train couldn't have any more ridiculous stops. Obviously the current psychic list was designed with powers being used once per turn and if they weren't they wouldn't be as strong.
Back to reality, I think that applying this fix to all powers would be a cool yet clumsy change. There's a few powers that are too strong to used multiple times and may need to be toned down but I like the idea. As a DG player these changes don't seem to hurt me in any way and address a few nasty opportunities for abuse in the current ruleset so I'm down. I hope they see the pain this would cause to Grey Knights and Thousand Sons though and have a sensible way to compensate.
So there is a current strain of thought here that the smite nerf hurts armies with destructor smite (which I agree with). I think the correct course of action is provide that feedback in a well reasoned email to the email address they specifically set up for this. I don't really understand the vitriol here when GW specifically asked for play testing and feedback on these rules, they haven't said they're going to be permanent additions.
I think if you feel strongly about these changes and play test them and can show the negative impact they'll take this in to account.
Also regarding the idea that psychic powers that if cast multiple times per phase is proof that the game isn't balanced - that's laughable, the balance is in the limitation. Oh no - the power they specifically designed the system to prevent you from casting very strong abilities multiple times is working as intended! Broken!
Inner balance problems aside (eldar warlocks walking with sign "leave hope anyone taketh me"), these balance changes are sensible on the whole and are a second nice meta change after flyers to better armies all around.
Farseer_V2 wrote: So there is a current strain of thought here that the smite nerf hurts armies with destructor smite (which I agree with). I think the correct course of action is provide that feedback in a well reasoned email to the email address they specifically set up for this. I don't really understand the vitriol here when GW specifically asked for play testing and feedback on these rules, they haven't said they're going to be permanent additions.
I think if you feel strongly about these changes and play test them and can show the negative impact they'll take this in to account.
Also regarding the idea that psychic powers that if cast multiple times per phase is proof that the game isn't balanced - that's laughable, the balance is in the limitation. Oh no - the power they specifically designed the system to prevent you from casting very strong abilities multiple times is working as intended! Broken!
The vitriol seems like part of the landscape where these matters come up stemming, I suspect, in part from the fans caring more about the game than some of the people working on it and the situation where GW in particular seems to have a lasting hold on people even though they seem to have ceased enjoying the companies products long ago.
In this case the vitriol could have some validity if these proposals are taken as more evidence of GW's lack of real desire to fix things, just more "balance wash" to shut us up until 9th becomes the game we really asked for. One might hope the upside of a lacklustre, middle of the road ruleset would be the capability to balance within it. This firefighting with petrol approach leaves one wondering as to the leadership within the dev team and what their priorities really are.
Ix_Tab wrote: The vitriol seems like part of the landscape where these matters come up stemming, I suspect, in part from the fans caring more about the game than some of the people working on it and the situation where GW in particular seems to have a lasting hold on people even though they seem to have ceased enjoying the companies products long ago.
In this case the vitriol could have some validity if these proposals are taken as more evidence of GW's lack of real desire to fix things, just more "balance wash" to shut us up until 9th becomes the game we really asked for. One might hope the upside of a lacklustre, middle of the road ruleset would be the capability to balance within it. This firefighting with petrol approach leaves one wondering as to the leadership within the dev team and what their priorities really are.
I think there is a perception there that is very likely untrue and that is that the people who work for GW, particularly the design and studio team don't care about the game. I think that there's a strong expectation that the game be perfect as opposed to being willing to participate in making it better. Also there's some strong salt there in the idea that a 9th edition is even near the horizon or that the current rule set is some form of 'tide over' until that time - I think they released a new edition to attempt to breathe life into the game ad are working to make it a better product. I can understand frustration with GW - I worked for them for about 8 years and dealt with some of the worst parts of the business however I think that right now you've got 2 paths. You can either attempt to help make the game better by contributing and providing feedback or you can continue to complain but never offer GW your legitimate feedback.
Indeed. You can no longer accuse GW of not listening. So if you want to be heard feed back politely. If you don't feed back and only vent on forums then it's but wasted air. By all means discuss here but if you think something matters then let GW know.
Xenomancers wrote: If they are about to release beta rules....WTF rules are we using now lol.
Think of it more like the public beta of the next major patch, which is really what it is.
Video game companies often do the same thing, and if they don't then it's likely tested privately instead.
Farseer_V2 wrote: So there is a current strain of thought here that the smite nerf hurts armies with destructor smite (which I agree with). I think the correct course of action is provide that feedback in a well reasoned email to the email address they specifically set up for this. I don't really understand the vitriol here when GW specifically asked for play testing and feedback on these rules, they haven't said they're going to be permanent additions.
I think if you feel strongly about these changes and play test them and can show the negative impact they'll take this in to account.
Also regarding the idea that psychic powers that if cast multiple times per phase is proof that the game isn't balanced - that's laughable, the balance is in the limitation. Oh no - the power they specifically designed the system to prevent you from casting very strong abilities multiple times is working as intended! Broken!
The vitriol seems like part of the landscape where these matters come up stemming, I suspect, in part from the fans caring more about the game than some of the people working on it and the situation where GW in particular seems to have a lasting hold on people even though they seem to have ceased enjoying the companies products long ago. In this case the vitriol could have some validity if these proposals are taken as more evidence of GW's lack of real desire to fix things, just more "balance wash" to shut us up until 9th becomes the game we really asked for. One might hope the upside of a lacklustre, middle of the road ruleset would be the capability to balance within it. This firefighting with petrol approach leaves one wondering as to the leadership within the dev team and what their priorities really are.
I think it's more a combination of:
A) After 20 years, you'd think they'd finally get balance right and understand what goes into proper game balance.
B) They continue to kind of... miss the mark. yes, it's good that they are fixing things (or taking the steps to fix things) but they continually show that they aren't capable of understanding why something is good/bad. Their changes seem like they are well-intentioned, but once you look past that you kind of have this "What the...?" moment where you realize what they changed didn't address the actual reason there was a problem and introduced other bugs.
In general, I find that the kind of people who feel motivated to create games are often very creative, but not usually that good at math, or anticipating what will happen when people min/max builds.
adamsouza wrote: In general, I find that the kind of people who feel motivated to create games are often very creative, but not usually that good at math, or anticipating what will happen when people min/max builds.
Okay... So hire people who ARE good at math. This isn't a one-man basement project, this is a massive company.
adamsouza wrote: In general, I find that the kind of people who feel motivated to create games are often very creative, but not usually that good at math, or anticipating what will happen when people min/max builds.
Okay... So hire people who ARE good at math. This isn't a one-man basement project, this is a massive company.
That's exactly why people get mad at some of the ridiculousness that GW has produced. Because despite being a massive company, somehow we nerds on our computers can come up with better rules.
adamsouza wrote: In general, I find that the kind of people who feel motivated to create games are often very creative, but not usually that good at math, or anticipating what will happen when people min/max builds.
Okay... So hire people who ARE good at math. This isn't a one-man basement project, this is a massive company.
Those people are too busy working their better-paying jobs in STEM fields, playing 40K on weekends, and complaining about the game mechanics on the internet
Because players that don't use Psykers cry about anything that can wound their 2+/3++/5+++ models without divine intervention.
You know there's these things called GUNS that most armies field that kill toughest model in the game far more cost effectively than any gun can kill hordes?
But yeah some people are too lazy to figure out simple math to beat tough models and just want "delete everything" button.
adamsouza wrote: In general, I find that the kind of people who feel motivated to create games are often very creative, but not usually that good at math, or anticipating what will happen when people min/max builds.
Okay... So hire people who ARE good at math. This isn't a one-man basement project, this is a massive company.
That's exactly why people get mad at some of the ridiculousness that GW has produced. Because despite being a massive company, somehow we nerds on our computers can come up with better rules.
That's a bit unfair. All these so called "Better rules" are not tested by tens of thousands of people. 99,9% of those proposed rules would prove to be a disaster if actually tested massively.
I also don't understand all the complaints on the game balance. 8th edition is IMHO balanced right now, far more than many other games that are claimed as balanced by GW haters.
Look at Warmachine/hordes, i've played the MK2 of that game for years, and it is often brought out as an example of a balanced game, when everyone who played it knows that it wasn't. 70% of lists were autoincludes in that game! The difference between a competitive list and a fluffy list was so big that there was no reason at all to play! 8th edition is in a far far better place than that!
Smite change is horrible. FIx smite spam by increasing costs of the psykers. If this goes through Tsons and GK's are even worse than they are now. Tsons at least have a incoming codex that could in theory bypass the nerf or soften it, but GK players are boned until the next codex or CA.
But what worries me most is the new psychic focus rules. Terrible. Psychic phase has already been nerfed in matched play and any more of a nerf and its going to make the phase to weak.
Table wrote: Smite change is horrible. FIx smite spam by increasing costs of the psykers. If this goes through Tsons and GK's are even worse than they are now. Tsons at least have a incoming codex that could in theory bypass the nerf or soften it, but GK players are boned until the next codex or CA.
One fix could be the Eldar Way, IE giving GK and TS such a preposterous number of powers that they don't want to cast smite. Give Grey Knights the Space Marine list in addition to their own, and let Thousand Sons keep the CSM list while getting a new one of our own.
Of course you'd also have to change Aspiring Sorcerers to be real psykers with an additional power known rather than them solely being smite batteries as it is now.
Table wrote: Smite change is horrible. FIx smite spam by increasing costs of the psykers. If this goes through Tsons and GK's are even worse than they are now. Tsons at least have a incoming codex that could in theory bypass the nerf or soften it, but GK players are boned until the next codex or CA.
One fix could be the Eldar Way, IE giving GK and TS such a preposterous number of powers that they don't want to cast smite. Give Grey Knights the Space Marine list in addition to their own, and let Thousand Sons keep the CSM list while getting a new one of our own.
Of course you'd also have to change Aspiring Sorcerers to be real psykers with an additional power known rather than them solely being smite batteries as it is now.
I wish we could start getting powers akin to 7th and earlier offensive powers. Like doombolt. No reason we cant have powers that mimic gun damage.
Table wrote: Smite change is horrible. FIx smite spam by increasing costs of the psykers. If this goes through Tsons and GK's are even worse than they are now. Tsons at least have a incoming codex that could in theory bypass the nerf or soften it, but GK players are boned until the next codex or CA.
But what worries me most is the new psychic focus rules. Terrible. Psychic phase has already been nerfed in matched play and any more of a nerf and its going to make the phase to weak.
How can you say, to fix smite spam increasing the cost of the psyker, when what you do to that is punish people that uses psykers as supports units.
Smite IS the problem. Cheap psykers are fone as long as they dont have full smite or smite is adressed.
Gk suck ass, with or without this change. And TS will have rules to help them with this, im sure. All those to cast bonuses will come in handy to spam smite.
I fully agree. Smite is generally the problem, not the cost of the psyker.
I also think, that the suggested idea of getting rid of the “rule of 1” rule, is a bad one for a couple of reasons.
1. There are powers in each discipline that everyone would love to spam, but would be incredibly bad for the game. Aliatoc unit + 3x conceal = -4 to hit for a 105 point cost… How about 3 Astropaths giving something +3 to their save rolls. Dark Angels spamming their de-buff that lasts the entire game. Etc etc. Doing this would require a whole lot of power rework.
2. There would then be an argument for “well, we can cast powers more than once, why can’t we use stratagems more than once as well? As, in battle, you’d often have several units following one strategy, rather than just a single unit.” This then leads to insane ideas like advance 3 max units of Shining Spears. Quicken all 3 units. Charge all 3 units. Or like having an entire Tyranid/Ork army charging first turn.
As for the TSons and GKs issue, I think Arachnofiend has a good idea. Rather than re-working their current powers, allow them to also access the powers of their “parent” armies, in a display of their “psychic prowess and knowledge”. In this instance, I would leave their versions of smite as they are.
Aspiring Sorcerers will need a slight change though, in order to allow you to play a Thousand Sons list and still cast powers.
That's exactly why people get mad at some of the ridiculousness that GW has produced. Because despite being a massive company, somehow we nerds on our computers can come up with better rules.
This is absolutely not the case. Most people are completely deluded about how hard game design actually is. GW design team might be far from perfect, yet they are certainly way better at the game design than vast majority of the players. Most rules in the proposed rules section are terrible. It is just that people's house rules are not exposed to the extensive scrutiny of thousands or even millions of players so there is less chance that the flaws will be noticed and pointed out. In our local tournaments organisers often tried to 'fix' perceived balance issues with various house rules, often ending up causing even worse balance issues.
If the game was perfectly balanced it wouldn't be fun. If you want balance everyone play the same army. Or just don't play but roll a dice, highest wins, save yourself a couple hours.
"I like the beta rules changes, but for one detail to the smite rule: it adversely affects units like Thousand Sons aspiring sorcerors, grey knights, wyrdvane psyker squads and other units with reduced-power smites.
If you do use those units, which in the case of Pink Horrors, Aspiring Sorcerors and Grey Knights you have no choice if you play that army, you would never use the reduced power version of their smite.
For instance, let's say I play Thousand Sons and I have a battalion detachment with Ahriman and two Sorcerors. Since their smites deal more damage, I will always try with them first, then I get to my rubric squad. They'd need to roll an 8 - a 44% chance - to get a single mortal wound, and they have a 6% chance of getting a perils of the warp and causing the squad to take 2D3 mortal wounds instantly. Not a bet I'd take!
I think the new rule needs to simply be released alongside an errata changing "smite with different name" powers to be their own thing. For example:
For example, change the Warlock datasheet to read:
"The warlock has access to the Destructor power
Destructor: ML5. The closest enemy unit within 9" suffers a single mortal wound. If this model's unit consists of 4-6 models, the closest enemy unit instead suffers D3 mortal wounds. If this model's unit consists of 7-10 models, the closest enemy unit instead suffers D6 mortal wounds. In Matched Play, the Psychic Focus rule does not apply to attempts to cast Destructor."
and so on for Cleansing Flame, Flickering Fires, Telepathic Assault, etc.This would enable all the benefits of the new beta rule at trimming down lists with half a dozen primaris psykers, but also give a reason to take the competing units that are passed up (i.e. wyrdvane psykers) because basic smite is so much better than what they can do."
Thoughts? It's a bit wordier than I'd like, and I considered cutting out the section with the Aspiring sorceror, but I felt like framing it up in an example displaying the impact on the kind of casual play GW encourages might be helpful, because I'm sure they receive many suggestions from people who (at least they suspect) want the change to be made so they can make some kind of cheesy spam list. I wanted to show what it would do to just a basic battalion of thousand sons with a few sorcerors and a few rubric squads.
That's exactly why people get mad at some of the ridiculousness that GW has produced. Because despite being a massive company, somehow we nerds on our computers can come up with better rules.
This is absolutely not the case. Most people are completely deluded about how hard game design actually is. GW design team might be far from perfect, yet they are certainly way better at the game design than vast majority of the players. Most rules in the proposed rules section are terrible. It is just that people's house rules are not exposed to the extensive scrutiny of thousands or even millions of players so there is less chance that the flaws will be noticed and pointed out. In our local tournaments organisers often tried to 'fix' perceived balance issues with various house rules, often ending up causing even worse balance issues.
This.
Vast majority of vocal complaining comes from people with biased views and lack of broad vision, even though the problem they see could very well be a real one. It will be interesting to see in, say, six months time how many of us armchair designers have actually mailed GW their thoughts and managed to argue in good faith well enough that they might choose to act on that. With GW currently willing to go and try to balance things, it might even work, but I'll bet the people in charge of the feedback are going to brutally discard a lot of it since some players will inevitably try to push "my faction X is not better than factions Y and Z, please make it uber" ideas there.
Again I think the issue is GW has ideas to balance, but without them having actual game designers (which they have repeatedly stated even on Twitch that they don't use game design theory or math/formulas), it makes it hard for them to get it right. So what you end up with is them adding a fix to a problem that doesn't affect the biggest offenders (you see this one a TON with their changes; the stuff it's made to fix doesn't care about it, while everyone else suffers), and introduces more bugs.
I'm a software developer by trade and I see this kinda stuff almost every day with some people I work with. They don't really get the underlying problem, so rather than put in the effort to actually fix it right, they do a band-aid quick fix that looks on the surface like it fixes the issue, but has more problems because they didn't fix it properly.
"I like the beta rules changes, but for one detail to the smite rule: it adversely affects units like Thousand Sons aspiring sorcerors, grey knights, wyrdvane psyker squads and other units with reduced-power smites.
If you do use those units, which in the case of Pink Horrors, Aspiring Sorcerors and Grey Knights you have no choice if you play that army, you would never use the reduced power version of their smite.
For instance, let's say I play Thousand Sons and I have a battalion detachment with Ahriman and two Sorcerors. Since their smites deal more damage, I will always try with them first, then I get to my rubric squad. They'd need to roll an 8 - a 44% chance - to get a single mortal wound, and they have a 6% chance of getting a perils of the warp and causing the squad to take 2D3 mortal wounds instantly. Not a bet I'd take!
I think the new rule needs to simply be released alongside an errata changing "smite with different name" powers to be their own thing. For example:
For example, change the Warlock datasheet to read:
"The warlock has access to the Destructor power
Destructor: ML5. The closest enemy unit within 9" suffers a single mortal wound. If this model's unit consists of 4-6 models, the closest enemy unit instead suffers D3 mortal wounds. If this model's unit consists of 7-10 models, the closest enemy unit instead suffers D6 mortal wounds. In Matched Play, the Psychic Focus rule does not apply to attempts to cast Destructor."
and so on for Cleansing Flame, Flickering Fires, Telepathic Assault, etc.This would enable all the benefits of the new beta rule at trimming down lists with half a dozen primaris psykers, but also give a reason to take the competing units that are passed up (i.e. wyrdvane psykers) because basic smite is so much better than what they can do."
Thoughts? It's a bit wordier than I'd like, and I considered cutting out the section with the Aspiring sorceror, but I felt like framing it up in an example displaying the impact on the kind of casual play GW encourages might be helpful, because I'm sure they receive many suggestions from people who (at least they suspect) want the change to be made so they can make some kind of cheesy spam list. I wanted to show what it would do to just a basic battalion of thousand sons with a few sorcerors and a few rubric squads.
Im still not understanding why all psychic offense in 8th MUST deal mortal wounds. Id like to have some variety in offense.
I doubt seriously either of these rules will make it past beta. To many negative interactions with balance. And honestly, perhaps its due to my local meta, but ive yet to have to play a smite spam list. What is a FAR bigger problem is the massive advantage with going first and alpha strike builds. Having your Imperial Knight destroyed before you get to take a game turn in kinda rank.
Nemesis234 wrote: If the game was perfectly balanced it wouldn't be fun. If you want balance everyone play the same army. Or just don't play but roll a dice, highest wins, save yourself a couple hours.
This is completely wrong in every way. A balanced game doesn't come down to a coin toss to determine the winner (unless the game is actually betting on a coin toss), as a balanced game will most likely have multiple viable strategies to use against any given scenario. It is an unbalanced game where you end up effectively flipping a coin to determine the winner, where the coin flip is replaced by bringing army X against army Y when army X is unnamed henchman #392 and army Y is The Hulk, on Venom, in an Iron Man suit, swinging Thor holding Mjolnir.
2) The exact reason for them not doing this as you hope they do.. is so that YOU can't block line of sight on your turn with your own models to snipe characters. For example... I have my farseer sitting behind some rangers. You roll up and park a rhino so that your your squad of hellblasters has full line of sight of my character but can't see the rangers anymore and take him out.
Yeah, why should tactical movement to create shooting opportunities be a thing in a tabletop wargame? /sarcasm
Right its super tactical to park artillery out of line of sight so that you can just snipe out any character you want then because no unit is visibile to them? /sarcasm
Seriously, though, there are alot of cases that just aren't being thought of when people think about how this rule plays out. Is the character rule perfect? NO. Is it better than AOS where you can just snipe characters any time you want? YES (especially given that 40k is wayyyy more punishing)
"I like the beta rules changes, but for one detail to the smite rule: it adversely affects units like Thousand Sons aspiring sorcerors, grey knights, wyrdvane psyker squads and other units with reduced-power smites.
If you do use those units, which in the case of Pink Horrors, Aspiring Sorcerors and Grey Knights you have no choice if you play that army, you would never use the reduced power version of their smite.
For instance, let's say I play Thousand Sons and I have a battalion detachment with Ahriman and two Sorcerors. Since their smites deal more damage, I will always try with them first, then I get to my rubric squad. They'd need to roll an 8 - a 44% chance - to get a single mortal wound, and they have a 6% chance of getting a perils of the warp and causing the squad to take 2D3 mortal wounds instantly. Not a bet I'd take!
I think the new rule needs to simply be released alongside an errata changing "smite with different name" powers to be their own thing. For example:
For example, change the Warlock datasheet to read:
"The warlock has access to the Destructor power
Destructor: ML5. The closest enemy unit within 9" suffers a single mortal wound. If this model's unit consists of 4-6 models, the closest enemy unit instead suffers D3 mortal wounds. If this model's unit consists of 7-10 models, the closest enemy unit instead suffers D6 mortal wounds. In Matched Play, the Psychic Focus rule does not apply to attempts to cast Destructor."
and so on for Cleansing Flame, Flickering Fires, Telepathic Assault, etc.This would enable all the benefits of the new beta rule at trimming down lists with half a dozen primaris psykers, but also give a reason to take the competing units that are passed up (i.e. wyrdvane psykers) because basic smite is so much better than what they can do."
Thoughts? It's a bit wordier than I'd like, and I considered cutting out the section with the Aspiring sorceror, but I felt like framing it up in an example displaying the impact on the kind of casual play GW encourages might be helpful, because I'm sure they receive many suggestions from people who (at least they suspect) want the change to be made so they can make some kind of cheesy spam list. I wanted to show what it would do to just a basic battalion of thousand sons with a few sorcerors and a few rubric squads.
I think the easier fix is just to remove all rules nerfing smite for these armies. With the -1 change they aren't really needed. This frees up your other psykers to cast other powers while your base squads cast smite. Now if you are running 6 squads of say pink horrors they probably aren't all going to get to cast the power, but 6 squads casting 1 damage smite is likely worse than say 4 casting regular smite. You could also get lucky and get an 11 on your final casting. I think doing this adds more decision making about which squad is in position to be your first choice for smite etc.
There is still this divide between what GWs intentions are and how they perceive how someone will make a list for the game, and what we do in the competitive scene with those rules.
I think its pretty obvious that the intent is 2-3 buffing characters.. atleast 1 psycher but maybe none at all. and filling out the rest of the force in some kind of near battalion format. Some troops, a few elites, heavy attack etc.
If everyone played a battalion the games rules suddenly work a little nicer because these edge case abuses just can't be done.
2) The exact reason for them not doing this as you hope they do.. is so that YOU can't block line of sight on your turn with your own models to snipe characters. For example... I have my farseer sitting behind some rangers. You roll up and park a rhino so that your your squad of hellblasters has full line of sight of my character but can't see the rangers anymore and take him out.
Yeah, why should tactical movement to create shooting opportunities be a thing in a tabletop wargame? /sarcasm
Right its super tactical to park artillery out of line of sight so that you can just snipe out any character you want then because no unit is visibile to them? /sarcasm
Seriously, though, there are alot of cases that just aren't being thought of when people think about how this rule plays out. Is the character rule perfect? NO. Is it better than AOS where you can just snipe characters any time you want? YES (especially given that 40k is wayyyy more punishing)
So have it in the rule that characters cannot be targeted by indirect fire if they are within X inches of a friendly (to them) unit. Problem solved and it doesn't mean that your unit refuses to shoot the only enemy it can see because there is a lone grot hiding behind a fortified wall slightly nearer to them.
"I like the beta rules changes, but for one detail to the smite rule: it adversely affects units like Thousand Sons aspiring sorcerors, grey knights, wyrdvane psyker squads and other units with reduced-power smites.
If you do use those units, which in the case of Pink Horrors, Aspiring Sorcerors and Grey Knights you have no choice if you play that army, you would never use the reduced power version of their smite.
For instance, let's say I play Thousand Sons and I have a battalion detachment with Ahriman and two Sorcerors. Since their smites deal more damage, I will always try with them first, then I get to my rubric squad. They'd need to roll an 8 - a 44% chance - to get a single mortal wound, and they have a 6% chance of getting a perils of the warp and causing the squad to take 2D3 mortal wounds instantly. Not a bet I'd take!
I think the new rule needs to simply be released alongside an errata changing "smite with different name" powers to be their own thing. For example:
For example, change the Warlock datasheet to read:
"The warlock has access to the Destructor power
Destructor: ML5. The closest enemy unit within 9" suffers a single mortal wound. If this model's unit consists of 4-6 models, the closest enemy unit instead suffers D3 mortal wounds. If this model's unit consists of 7-10 models, the closest enemy unit instead suffers D6 mortal wounds. In Matched Play, the Psychic Focus rule does not apply to attempts to cast Destructor."
and so on for Cleansing Flame, Flickering Fires, Telepathic Assault, etc.This would enable all the benefits of the new beta rule at trimming down lists with half a dozen primaris psykers, but also give a reason to take the competing units that are passed up (i.e. wyrdvane psykers) because basic smite is so much better than what they can do."
Thoughts? It's a bit wordier than I'd like, and I considered cutting out the section with the Aspiring sorceror, but I felt like framing it up in an example displaying the impact on the kind of casual play GW encourages might be helpful, because I'm sure they receive many suggestions from people who (at least they suspect) want the change to be made so they can make some kind of cheesy spam list. I wanted to show what it would do to just a basic battalion of thousand sons with a few sorcerors and a few rubric squads.
I agree with this, it would have been easier for them to just give 'weak smite' a different name from the very beginning. and i also agree that it should be exempt from the smite -1.
I think the easier fix is just to remove all rules nerfing smite for these armies. With the -1 change they aren't really needed. This frees up your other psykers to cast other powers while your base squads cast smite. Now if you are running 6 squads of say pink horrors they probably aren't all going to get to cast the power, but 6 squads casting 1 damage smite is likely worse than say 4 casting regular smite. You could also get lucky and get an 11 on your final casting. I think doing this adds more decision making about which squad is in position to be your first choice for smite etc.
While an easier change. I think ti would prove to be too powerful. Even tho you only get a few good smites off. Considering you also have a command reroll. PLus units that have bonuses to casting, or rerolls, or strategems to boost powers etc. You can use your extremely cheap brimstones to cast 1-3 smites with pretty good odds, then have a buffed psycher cast another, then say magnus. Just an example. But main point is simply the fact that your extremely CHEAP unit now has access to do more damage then their price tag.
"I like the beta rules changes, but for one detail to the smite rule: it adversely affects units like Thousand Sons aspiring sorcerors, grey knights, wyrdvane psyker squads and other units with reduced-power smites.
If you do use those units, which in the case of Pink Horrors, Aspiring Sorcerors and Grey Knights you have no choice if you play that army, you would never use the reduced power version of their smite.
For instance, let's say I play Thousand Sons and I have a battalion detachment with Ahriman and two Sorcerors. Since their smites deal more damage, I will always try with them first, then I get to my rubric squad. They'd need to roll an 8 - a 44% chance - to get a single mortal wound, and they have a 6% chance of getting a perils of the warp and causing the squad to take 2D3 mortal wounds instantly. Not a bet I'd take!
I think the new rule needs to simply be released alongside an errata changing "smite with different name" powers to be their own thing. For example:
For example, change the Warlock datasheet to read:
"The warlock has access to the Destructor power
Destructor: ML5. The closest enemy unit within 9" suffers a single mortal wound. If this model's unit consists of 4-6 models, the closest enemy unit instead suffers D3 mortal wounds. If this model's unit consists of 7-10 models, the closest enemy unit instead suffers D6 mortal wounds. In Matched Play, the Psychic Focus rule does not apply to attempts to cast Destructor."
and so on for Cleansing Flame, Flickering Fires, Telepathic Assault, etc.This would enable all the benefits of the new beta rule at trimming down lists with half a dozen primaris psykers, but also give a reason to take the competing units that are passed up (i.e. wyrdvane psykers) because basic smite is so much better than what they can do."
Thoughts? It's a bit wordier than I'd like, and I considered cutting out the section with the Aspiring sorceror, but I felt like framing it up in an example displaying the impact on the kind of casual play GW encourages might be helpful, because I'm sure they receive many suggestions from people who (at least they suspect) want the change to be made so they can make some kind of cheesy spam list. I wanted to show what it would do to just a basic battalion of thousand sons with a few sorcerors and a few rubric squads.
I think the easier fix is just to remove all rules nerfing smite for these armies. With the -1 change they aren't really needed. This frees up your other psykers to cast other powers while your base squads cast smite. Now if you are running 6 squads of say pink horrors they probably aren't all going to get to cast the power, but 6 squads casting 1 damage smite is likely worse than say 4 casting regular smite. You could also get lucky and get an 11 on your final casting. I think doing this adds more decision making about which squad is in position to be your first choice for smite etc.
But, when it comes to most of these armies, Smite is almost always the spell you want to be casting on your biggest dudes, and remember by that sixth cast of 1-damage smite you've got nearly equivalent odds of the cast succeeding and getting a perils of the warp (you'd need an 11 to cast)
Also remember that my "other psykers" (all my HQs if I play Tzeentch daemons) have exactly three spells between them to choose from, one of which is essentially Smite but at WC9. Yeah...that's...awesome...no, I think I'd rather cast regular smite with that HQ?
If I field one single lord of change, he can have the entire roster of tzeentch powers and cast them all by himself, leaving all my heralds, daemon princes, other lords of change, and horror squads with Smite.
"I like the beta rules changes, but for one detail to the smite rule: it adversely affects units like Thousand Sons aspiring sorcerors, grey knights, wyrdvane psyker squads and other units with reduced-power smites.
If you do use those units, which in the case of Pink Horrors, Aspiring Sorcerors and Grey Knights you have no choice if you play that army, you would never use the reduced power version of their smite.
For instance, let's say I play Thousand Sons and I have a battalion detachment with Ahriman and two Sorcerors. Since their smites deal more damage, I will always try with them first, then I get to my rubric squad. They'd need to roll an 8 - a 44% chance - to get a single mortal wound, and they have a 6% chance of getting a perils of the warp and causing the squad to take 2D3 mortal wounds instantly. Not a bet I'd take!
I think the new rule needs to simply be released alongside an errata changing "smite with different name" powers to be their own thing. For example:
For example, change the Warlock datasheet to read:
"The warlock has access to the Destructor power
Destructor: ML5. The closest enemy unit within 9" suffers a single mortal wound. If this model's unit consists of 4-6 models, the closest enemy unit instead suffers D3 mortal wounds. If this model's unit consists of 7-10 models, the closest enemy unit instead suffers D6 mortal wounds. In Matched Play, the Psychic Focus rule does not apply to attempts to cast Destructor."
and so on for Cleansing Flame, Flickering Fires, Telepathic Assault, etc.This would enable all the benefits of the new beta rule at trimming down lists with half a dozen primaris psykers, but also give a reason to take the competing units that are passed up (i.e. wyrdvane psykers) because basic smite is so much better than what they can do."
Thoughts? It's a bit wordier than I'd like, and I considered cutting out the section with the Aspiring sorceror, but I felt like framing it up in an example displaying the impact on the kind of casual play GW encourages might be helpful, because I'm sure they receive many suggestions from people who (at least they suspect) want the change to be made so they can make some kind of cheesy spam list. I wanted to show what it would do to just a basic battalion of thousand sons with a few sorcerors and a few rubric squads.
I agree with this, it would have been easier for them to just give 'weak smite' a different name from the very beginning. and i also agree that it should be exempt from the smite -1.
I think the easier fix is just to remove all rules nerfing smite for these armies. With the -1 change they aren't really needed. This frees up your other psykers to cast other powers while your base squads cast smite. Now if you are running 6 squads of say pink horrors they probably aren't all going to get to cast the power, but 6 squads casting 1 damage smite is likely worse than say 4 casting regular smite. You could also get lucky and get an 11 on your final casting. I think doing this adds more decision making about which squad is in position to be your first choice for smite etc.
While an easier change. I think ti would prove to be too powerful. Even tho you only get a few good smites off. Considering you also have a command reroll. PLus units that have bonuses to casting, or rerolls, or strategems to boost powers etc. You can use your extremely cheap brimstones to cast 1-3 smites with pretty good odds, then have a buffed psycher cast another, then say magnus. Just an example. But main point is simply the fact that your extremely CHEAP unit now has access to do more damage then their price tag.
And there we go. The problem we keep coming back to is the COST of the smiter, not smite itself.
TIL "first cast 1/3 odds, second cast 1/6 odds, if you have more horror squads than 2 you're out of luck" is "pretty good odds".
Keep in mind here that pound for pound a completely unbuffed 10 conscripts deals more damage with their lasguns to terminators than brimstones do with their 1/6 power smite.
Can anyone who thinks "Smite" is the problem rather than "cheap Psykers" explain why?
Smite is just like shooting but with some slightly different rules. Its like saying "drop plasma is the problem, not the fact its cheap".
Paying 45/46 points for a full-fat smite is top tier to the point of breaking the meta. If all such psykers were increased to 70-80 points they would go from "auto-take, good against everyone" to "effective against high points/wound models have to plan a bit to avoid chaff."
Tyel wrote: Can anyone who thinks "Smite" is the problem rather than "cheap Psykers" explain why?
Smite is just like shooting but with some slightly different rules. Its like saying "drop plasma is the problem, not the fact its cheap".
Paying 45/46 points for a full-fat smite is top tier to the point of breaking the meta. If all such psykers were increased to 70-80 points they would go from "auto-take, good against everyone" to "effective against high points/wound models have to plan a bit to avoid chaff."
You could definitely do it either way. I think after a nerf to Spiritseers and Primaris psykers you'd be 90% of the way there. My suggestion is primarily based on "if you want to do it this way, then you should at least be exempting those that need exemption from the blanket rule".
I would be perfectly happy to see the spiritseer and primaris psyker go to 70points instead.
the beta rules idea is a fine, and a good thing, but if we are talking about if the current set of beta rules are good, the smite nerf is a kick in the balls to a lot of armies.
Horrors are pure garbo now, T sons and G knights got rocked in the nuts because of this.
I think the easier fix is just to remove all rules nerfing smite for these armies. With the -1 change they aren't really needed. This frees up your other psykers to cast other powers while your base squads cast smite. Now if you are running 6 squads of say pink horrors they probably aren't all going to get to cast the power, but 6 squads casting 1 damage smite is likely worse than say 4 casting regular smite. You could also get lucky and get an 11 on your final casting. I think doing this adds more decision making about which squad is in position to be your first choice for smite etc.
While an easier change. I think ti would prove to be too powerful. Even tho you only get a few good smites off. Considering you also have a command reroll. PLus units that have bonuses to casting, or rerolls, or strategems to boost powers etc. You can use your extremely cheap brimstones to cast 1-3 smites with pretty good odds, then have a buffed psycher cast another, then say magnus. Just an example. But main point is simply the fact that your extremely CHEAP unit now has access to do more damage then their price tag.
So your brims (which need fixing even beyond smite) could cast smite 3 times (the third at WC7 which is a little better than 50-50), which other buffed psyker you using? Because he needs an 8 to cast, then magnus needs a 9 (which for him is a 7), so while not impossible you are talking about spending what 600 points to do this? Better hope you don't fail any of these, or get shut down because the -1 still happens.
I think the easier fix is just to remove all rules nerfing smite for these armies. With the -1 change they aren't really needed. This frees up your other psykers to cast other powers while your base squads cast smite. Now if you are running 6 squads of say pink horrors they probably aren't all going to get to cast the power, but 6 squads casting 1 damage smite is likely worse than say 4 casting regular smite. You could also get lucky and get an 11 on your final casting. I think doing this adds more decision making about which squad is in position to be your first choice for smite etc.
While an easier change. I think ti would prove to be too powerful. Even tho you only get a few good smites off. Considering you also have a command reroll. PLus units that have bonuses to casting, or rerolls, or strategems to boost powers etc. You can use your extremely cheap brimstones to cast 1-3 smites with pretty good odds, then have a buffed psycher cast another, then say magnus. Just an example. But main point is simply the fact that your extremely CHEAP unit now has access to do more damage then their price tag.
So your brims (which need fixing even beyond smite) could cast smite 3 times (the third at WC7 which is a little better than 50-50), which other buffed psyker you using? Because he needs an 8 to cast, then magnus needs a 9 (which for him is a 7), so while not impossible you are talking about spending what 600 points to do this? Better hope you don't fail any of these, or get shut down because the -1 still happens.
Horrors cast on a single D6, and you can't roll a 7 on a D6.
Tyel wrote: Can anyone who thinks "Smite" is the problem rather than "cheap Psykers" explain why?
Smite is just like shooting but with some slightly different rules. Its like saying "drop plasma is the problem, not the fact its cheap".
Paying 45/46 points for a full-fat smite is top tier to the point of breaking the meta. If all such psykers were increased to 70-80 points they would go from "auto-take, good against everyone" to "effective against high points/wound models have to plan a bit to avoid chaff."
You could definitely do it either way. I think after a nerf to Spiritseers and Primaris psykers you'd be 90% of the way there. My suggestion is primarily based on "if you want to do it this way, then you should at least be exempting those that need exemption from the blanket rule".
I would be perfectly happy to see the spiritseer and primaris psyker go to 70points instead.
Smite is also a problem because it's accessible to every psyker. Some psykers could be cheap buffers, but they have to be expensive to account for their smite capabilities.
I would prefer if spiritseers got a weaker smite rather than a higher point cost, because I want to use them as buffers, not as MW spammers.
Smite was supposed to be the fallback power you use when you don't have anything else to cast, not a go-to power.
My ideal fix would be to have a different casting value for each psyker, instead of a flat 5+ for everyone. That way you can fine tune the average number of wounds a given psyker puts out, without having to use a bazillion special rules to nerf them. That way smite still scales pretty well with game size, and you can easily design pskyers that are good at casting standard powers, but suck at smiting.
Mortal Wounds should be a very small pool of reliable damage to deal with very well protected targets or kill off wounded units. It's not great that some armies suffer because of that change, but it means these armies were designed with wrong mindset from the start.
Why should every attacking psychic power work with mortal wounds in some way at all? Add some regular powers like auto-hits with decent AP.
"I like the beta rules changes, but for one detail to the smite rule: it adversely affects units like Thousand Sons aspiring sorcerors, grey knights, wyrdvane psyker squads and other units with reduced-power smites.
If you do use those units, which in the case of Pink Horrors, Aspiring Sorcerors and Grey Knights you have no choice if you play that army, you would never use the reduced power version of their smite.
For instance, let's say I play Thousand Sons and I have a battalion detachment with Ahriman and two Sorcerors. Since their smites deal more damage, I will always try with them first, then I get to my rubric squad. They'd need to roll an 8 - a 44% chance - to get a single mortal wound, and they have a 6% chance of getting a perils of the warp and causing the squad to take 2D3 mortal wounds instantly. Not a bet I'd take!
I think the new rule needs to simply be released alongside an errata changing "smite with different name" powers to be their own thing. For example:
For example, change the Warlock datasheet to read:
"The warlock has access to the Destructor power
Destructor: ML5. The closest enemy unit within 9" suffers a single mortal wound. If this model's unit consists of 4-6 models, the closest enemy unit instead suffers D3 mortal wounds. If this model's unit consists of 7-10 models, the closest enemy unit instead suffers D6 mortal wounds. In Matched Play, the Psychic Focus rule does not apply to attempts to cast Destructor."
and so on for Cleansing Flame, Flickering Fires, Telepathic Assault, etc.This would enable all the benefits of the new beta rule at trimming down lists with half a dozen primaris psykers, but also give a reason to take the competing units that are passed up (i.e. wyrdvane psykers) because basic smite is so much better than what they can do."
Thoughts? It's a bit wordier than I'd like, and I considered cutting out the section with the Aspiring sorceror, but I felt like framing it up in an example displaying the impact on the kind of casual play GW encourages might be helpful, because I'm sure they receive many suggestions from people who (at least they suspect) want the change to be made so they can make some kind of cheesy spam list. I wanted to show what it would do to just a basic battalion of thousand sons with a few sorcerors and a few rubric squads.
I think the easier fix is just to remove all rules nerfing smite for these armies. With the -1 change they aren't really needed. This frees up your other psykers to cast other powers while your base squads cast smite. Now if you are running 6 squads of say pink horrors they probably aren't all going to get to cast the power, but 6 squads casting 1 damage smite is likely worse than say 4 casting regular smite. You could also get lucky and get an 11 on your final casting. I think doing this adds more decision making about which squad is in position to be your first choice for smite etc.
But, when it comes to most of these armies, Smite is almost always the spell you want to be casting on your biggest dudes, and remember by that sixth cast of 1-damage smite you've got nearly equivalent odds of the cast succeeding and getting a perils of the warp (you'd need an 11 to cast)
Also remember that my "other psykers" (all my HQs if I play Tzeentch daemons) have exactly three spells between them to choose from, one of which is essentially Smite but at WC9. Yeah...that's...awesome...no, I think I'd rather cast regular smite with that HQ?
If I field one single lord of change, he can have the entire roster of tzeentch powers and cast them all by himself, leaving all my heralds, daemon princes, other lords of change, and horror squads with Smite.
You know until you get a codex with 6 powers, like everyone else, we should not be balancing the game around indices because they won't be the norm going forward. If your other powers suck that is a problem with those powers not with the ability to cast smite. As for casting on an 11, sure you likely won't do it unless it is important., but you won't be casting 1 damage smite, you'll be casting regular smite which was my point. If smite is the power you want your big dudes casting that is a problem with the balance of your other powers because smite should not be the best choice of all of your possible powers.
Part of the issue with all of this is that regular base squads should never have been made into psykers, it has never functioned well in the game. In the end I would rather see all those squads get real smite, because it means less dice rolls getting made for little to no effect.
I think the easier fix is just to remove all rules nerfing smite for these armies. With the -1 change they aren't really needed. This frees up your other psykers to cast other powers while your base squads cast smite. Now if you are running 6 squads of say pink horrors they probably aren't all going to get to cast the power, but 6 squads casting 1 damage smite is likely worse than say 4 casting regular smite. You could also get lucky and get an 11 on your final casting. I think doing this adds more decision making about which squad is in position to be your first choice for smite etc.
While an easier change. I think ti would prove to be too powerful. Even tho you only get a few good smites off. Considering you also have a command reroll. PLus units that have bonuses to casting, or rerolls, or strategems to boost powers etc. You can use your extremely cheap brimstones to cast 1-3 smites with pretty good odds, then have a buffed psycher cast another, then say magnus. Just an example. But main point is simply the fact that your extremely CHEAP unit now has access to do more damage then their price tag.
So your brims (which need fixing even beyond smite) could cast smite 3 times (the third at WC7 which is a little better than 50-50), which other buffed psyker you using? Because he needs an 8 to cast, then magnus needs a 9 (which for him is a 7), so while not impossible you are talking about spending what 600 points to do this? Better hope you don't fail any of these, or get shut down because the -1 still happens.
Horrors cast on a single D6, and you can't roll a 7 on a D6.
Again not if they just changed every unit to have normal smite rules.
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Tyel wrote: Can anyone who thinks "Smite" is the problem rather than "cheap Psykers" explain why?
Smite is just like shooting but with some slightly different rules. Its like saying "drop plasma is the problem, not the fact its cheap".
Paying 45/46 points for a full-fat smite is top tier to the point of breaking the meta. If all such psykers were increased to 70-80 points they would go from "auto-take, good against everyone" to "effective against high points/wound models have to plan a bit to avoid chaff."
The issue with smite is that cheap psykers have it so you could fix it by removing it as the default option for those units. The problem with blanket increases is that it punishes those units if they serve a purpose other than smite.
I think the easier fix is just to remove all rules nerfing smite for these armies. With the -1 change they aren't really needed. This frees up your other psykers to cast other powers while your base squads cast smite. Now if you are running 6 squads of say pink horrors they probably aren't all going to get to cast the power, but 6 squads casting 1 damage smite is likely worse than say 4 casting regular smite. You could also get lucky and get an 11 on your final casting. I think doing this adds more decision making about which squad is in position to be your first choice for smite etc.
While an easier change. I think ti would prove to be too powerful. Even tho you only get a few good smites off. Considering you also have a command reroll. PLus units that have bonuses to casting, or rerolls, or strategems to boost powers etc. You can use your extremely cheap brimstones to cast 1-3 smites with pretty good odds, then have a buffed psycher cast another, then say magnus. Just an example. But main point is simply the fact that your extremely CHEAP unit now has access to do more damage then their price tag.
So your brims (which need fixing even beyond smite) could cast smite 3 times (the third at WC7 which is a little better than 50-50), which other buffed psyker you using? Because he needs an 8 to cast, then magnus needs a 9 (which for him is a 7), so while not impossible you are talking about spending what 600 points to do this? Better hope you don't fail any of these, or get shut down because the -1 still happens.
Horrors cast on a single D6, and you can't roll a 7 on a D6.
Again not if they just changed every unit to have normal smite rules.
Ah sorry, I thought with your original suggestion you only meant to change 1 mortal wound back to D3. Looking back though it should have been obvious that you meant to drop the D6 thing too.
I really do wish a sizeable chunk of the cry-babies on Dakka would just remove GW from their lives. They will literally complain about everything, anything, all the time. Go away.
Tyel wrote: Can anyone who thinks "Smite" is the problem rather than "cheap Psykers" explain why?
Smite is just like shooting but with some slightly different rules. Its like saying "drop plasma is the problem, not the fact its cheap".
Paying 45/46 points for a full-fat smite is top tier to the point of breaking the meta. If all such psykers were increased to 70-80 points they would go from "auto-take, good against everyone" to "effective against high points/wound models have to plan a bit to avoid chaff."
Because you are only valuing those cheap psykers as Smite Batteries and nothing else, when they can be totally fuctional as cheap support psykers. Thats why cheap spykers shouldn't have full smite, or have smite adressed in other ways like this "beta rule":
I think the easier fix is just to remove all rules nerfing smite for these armies. With the -1 change they aren't really needed. This frees up your other psykers to cast other powers while your base squads cast smite. Now if you are running 6 squads of say pink horrors they probably aren't all going to get to cast the power, but 6 squads casting 1 damage smite is likely worse than say 4 casting regular smite. You could also get lucky and get an 11 on your final casting. I think doing this adds more decision making about which squad is in position to be your first choice for smite etc.
While an easier change. I think ti would prove to be too powerful. Even tho you only get a few good smites off. Considering you also have a command reroll. PLus units that have bonuses to casting, or rerolls, or strategems to boost powers etc. You can use your extremely cheap brimstones to cast 1-3 smites with pretty good odds, then have a buffed psycher cast another, then say magnus. Just an example. But main point is simply the fact that your extremely CHEAP unit now has access to do more damage then their price tag.
So your brims (which need fixing even beyond smite) could cast smite 3 times (the third at WC7 which is a little better than 50-50), which other buffed psyker you using? Because he needs an 8 to cast, then magnus needs a 9 (which for him is a 7), so while not impossible you are talking about spending what 600 points to do this? Better hope you don't fail any of these, or get shut down because the -1 still happens.
You do know they cast on a single D6, right? Even for tzeentch, getting a 7 on a single die is tricky. Under the new rule, only two squads of horrors in the entire army could attempt smite.
If your suggestion is to just give them full power smite, that would work fine, just like exempting mini-smites would be fine, or leaving them alone and points adjusting the few real offenders would be fine.
My overall point is that as written the current beta rule is a poor fix. If you're arguing that it wouldn't be a bad fix if they made some other adjustments to it...then we agree?
I think the easier fix is just to remove all rules nerfing smite for these armies. With the -1 change they aren't really needed. This frees up your other psykers to cast other powers while your base squads cast smite. Now if you are running 6 squads of say pink horrors they probably aren't all going to get to cast the power, but 6 squads casting 1 damage smite is likely worse than say 4 casting regular smite. You could also get lucky and get an 11 on your final casting. I think doing this adds more decision making about which squad is in position to be your first choice for smite etc.
While an easier change. I think ti would prove to be too powerful. Even tho you only get a few good smites off. Considering you also have a command reroll. PLus units that have bonuses to casting, or rerolls, or strategems to boost powers etc. You can use your extremely cheap brimstones to cast 1-3 smites with pretty good odds, then have a buffed psycher cast another, then say magnus. Just an example. But main point is simply the fact that your extremely CHEAP unit now has access to do more damage then their price tag.
So your brims (which need fixing even beyond smite) could cast smite 3 times (the third at WC7 which is a little better than 50-50), which other buffed psyker you using? Because he needs an 8 to cast, then magnus needs a 9 (which for him is a 7), so while not impossible you are talking about spending what 600 points to do this? Better hope you don't fail any of these, or get shut down because the -1 still happens.
You do know they cast on a single D6, right? Even for tzeentch, getting a 7 on a single die is tricky. Under the new rule, only two squads of horrors in the entire army could attempt smite.
As I pointed out to another poster, if your remove all the rules nerfing smite they don't cast on 1D6 anymore. They would cast normal smite just like every other psyker.
My issue with the beta rules is two fold, first they are driven by abuse in the match play way to play but the changes are coming down the pipe for all. Second, the smite adjustment does not address the real issue, which is mortal wounds are very powerful and while uncommon in the indexes are now far too common.
So, to answer the OPs question: Character rules should have been a two fold adjustment, first characters should be able to be targets if the closest viable (no units out of LoS or in HtH stopping me from shooting the dude in the open) and the adjustment they proposed.
And a smite nerf that keeps psychic heavy forces viable: "Smite has a warp charge of 5. If manifested, the closest visible enemy unit within 18" of the psyker suffers d3 wounds with D1 and AP-2. If the result of the psychic test was more than 10, the target suffers d3 mortal wounds."
This allows any force to attempt psychic damage output from repeated telekinetic effects, which are effective against unarmored troops, but for heavy armor or invul saves will still stop the majority of the damage. Except on those rare occasions when the damage is just super and then the rare and exceptional mortal wound that cannot be stopped happens.
This also makes psykers with the +(x) to the psychic test even more powerful as they will have greater potential to get the rarer mortal wounds.
I understand why smite spamming armies would be upset about this change, but if this becomes a permanent rule it would not stop me from starting up a TSON army.
I don't think people understand just how powerful MWs are. The wounds can’t be saved against, and spamming 10+ MW a round is just insane. We have a local Tzeentch player who steamrolls her opponents half the time, and its a one trick pony. Hell, I picked up some assassins just for the purpose of countering her spam. I won’t shed a tear over someone having their easy mode button taken away, but if you can bring up some reasonable other ideas they should be entertained.
Between that and the fact the casters who can only roll a single D6 do have the benefit of not being able to trigger perils of the warp? So what if your troops can only cast it twice instead of the 5-6 times you are hoping for. Cast it twice before your characters who roll two dice cast. You still can pull off 3-4 smites in a turn. This change will force you to rely on more than just smiting everything into the ground. I think this makes a lot of sense, and I am looking forward to seeing what the play testing results show.
Karthicus wrote: I understand why smite spamming armies would be upset about this change, but if this becomes a permanent rule it would not stop me from starting up a TSON army.
I don't think people understand just how powerful MWs are. The wounds can’t be saved against, and spamming 10+ MW a round is just insane. We have a local Tzeentch player who steamrolls her opponents half the time, and its a one trick pony. Hell, I picked up some assassins just for the purpose of countering her spam. I won’t shed a tear over someone having their easy mode button taken away, but if you can bring up some reasonable other ideas they should be entertained.
Between that and the fact the casters who can only roll a single D6 do have the benefit of not being able to trigger perils of the warp? So what if your troops can only cast it twice instead of the 5-6 times you are hoping for. Cast it twice before your characters who roll two dice cast. You still can pull off 3-4 smites in a turn. This change will force you to rely on more than just smiting everything into the ground. I think this makes a lot of sense, and I am looking forward to seeing what the play testing results show.
You know how many mortal wounds you cause if you cast Smite with horrors 6 times as you describe?
2.
1/3 chance base of one single mortal wound. which, again, as I've said, works out to less damage, at a shorter range, less reliably, than the basic autoguns/lasguns/shootas of comparably cheap shooty infantry, even against optimal targets for MWs like Terminators. Just because you have to roll more dice and get a save does not mean a thing does less damage to you. 10+ mortal wounds per turn? That's insane! You could almost kill a RHINO with that awesome firepower! And it's an enormous 18" range and ONLY has the drawback of having to target the closest target to the firer and has a 6% chance of causing mortal wounds to you every time you fire it.
I cant help but feel like the people bitching and moaning about MWs are the type that view weapons like the Leman Russ Vanquisher as just fine/possibly overpowered. "WOW! It's like a melta gun that shoots ACROSS THE TABLE? that's SO GOOD!"
I swear a lot of the stories I hear about smite spam are either from masters of tactical engagement or sub par players.
From my personal experience, an experienced player will shield their valuable models and concentrate their fire on the offending Psykers. You can absolutely force your opponent through the positioning of your models to use smite on your less valuable models.
If you choose to take no expendable units, then it's a risk you took while army building that didn't pay off in that matchup.
If your problem is with mortal wounds as a concept you are likely S.O.L.
Superheavies didn't go anywhere.
Flyers didn't go anywhere.
Formations/Detachments didn't go anywhere.
Mortal Wounds are likely to stay as well.
What do folks think of changing Smite to have major/minor (or renaming the lesser version as mentioned before) versions of the power. Minor does the same damage, but is only regular wounds*, major does Mortal Wounds but follows the beta rules on increasing difficulty. Some units can only cast minor (the current mini-smite characters), others can choose which (most characters).
*GK gets a special rule that when the target is a Daemon their Minor smite causes MW.
Xenomancers wrote: If they are about to release beta rules....WTF rules are we using now lol.
Think of it more like the public beta of the next major patch, which is really what it is.
Video game companies often do the same thing, and if they don't then it's likely tested privately instead.
That's a pretty good point. Normally video game companies release reasoning for each change they make in a patch so you can get an idea of what they are doing.
Xenomancers wrote: If they are about to release beta rules....WTF rules are we using now lol.
Think of it more like the public beta of the next major patch, which is really what it is. Video game companies often do the same thing, and if they don't then it's likely tested privately instead.
That's a pretty good point. Normally video game companies release reasoning for each change they make in a patch so you can get an idea of what they are doing.
I have no idea what videogame companies you are talking about. All the games I play just release a patch into the sea of piranhas they call a "community", and then that patch is ripped apart and simultaneously both too much and too little to fix the problem while not addressing other problems that aren't problems at all, obviously. They sometimes include Patch Notes which explain what changed, but never why.
They don't touch "reasoning" with a 10-foot pole, for obvious reasons.
Karthicus wrote: I understand why smite spamming armies would be upset about this change, but if this becomes a permanent rule it would not stop me from starting up a TSON army.
I don't think people understand just how powerful MWs are. The wounds can’t be saved against, and spamming 10+ MW a round is just insane. We have a local Tzeentch player who steamrolls her opponents half the time, and its a one trick pony. Hell, I picked up some assassins just for the purpose of countering her spam. I won’t shed a tear over someone having their easy mode button taken away, but if you can bring up some reasonable other ideas they should be entertained.
Between that and the fact the casters who can only roll a single D6 do have the benefit of not being able to trigger perils of the warp? So what if your troops can only cast it twice instead of the 5-6 times you are hoping for. Cast it twice before your characters who roll two dice cast. You still can pull off 3-4 smites in a turn. This change will force you to rely on more than just smiting everything into the ground. I think this makes a lot of sense, and I am looking forward to seeing what the play testing results show.
You know how many mortal wounds you cause if you cast Smite with horrors 6 times as you describe?
2.
1/3 chance base of one single mortal wound. which, again, as I've said, works out to less damage, at a shorter range, less reliably, than the basic autoguns/lasguns/shootas of comparably cheap shooty infantry, even against optimal targets for MWs like Terminators. Just because you have to roll more dice and get a save does not mean a thing does less damage to you. 10+ mortal wounds per turn? That's insane! You could almost kill a RHINO with that awesome firepower! And it's an enormous 18" range and ONLY has the drawback of having to target the closest target to the firer and has a 6% chance of causing mortal wounds to you every time you fire it.
I cant help but feel like the people bitching and moaning about MWs are the type that view weapons like the Leman Russ Vanquisher as just fine/possibly overpowered. "WOW! It's like a melta gun that shoots ACROSS THE TABLE? that's SO GOOD!"
Yes, I am well aware of the fact the beta rules would limit your spam list to only 2 smite attempts from D6 casters. Good.
Oh man! It's so unfair that you only get to do 2 MW per turn instead of 10+... GW how could you?!?! /Sarcasm
The amount of hyperbole you are throwing out is astonishing. My example is enough firepower to take out any dedicated transport, dread, or stormtalon/hawk. That's pretty potent dude. On top of that you can throw it at units that are locked up in melee?
adamsouza wrote:I swear a lot of the stories I hear about smite spam are either from masters of tactical engagement or sub par players.
From my personal experience, an experienced player will shield their valuable models and concentrate their fire on the offending Psykers. You can absolutely force your opponent through the positioning of your models to use smite on your less valuable models.
If you choose to take no expendable units, then it's a risk you took while army building that didn't pay off in that matchup.
If your problem is with mortal wounds as a concept you are likely S.O.L.
Superheavies didn't go anywhere.
Flyers didn't go anywhere.
Formations/Detachments didn't go anywhere.
Mortal Wounds are likely to stay as well.
You can blame this on sub par players all you want, but the fact that GW is currently trying to have some changes play tested should speak to the fact perhaps it's a little unbalanced.
I have no problem with MW in the game, or as a concept. In fact I think its a cool mechanic to have in the game. I agree that you need to adjust your tactics, and be mindful to shield units from things like Smite, but that doesn't take away how powerful it is, and how quickly it can dominate a game.
I think this was a really good starting point. Let the testing play out and see what happens once they have collected that information. Perhaps GW will make some tweaks or include some changes for GK and TSON armies.
If my opponent does 10 wounds to me in a phase, I thank my lucky stars that either their dice were cold, mine were hot, or they brought an awful awful army.
I don't think I have ever suffered 10 wounds in a phase and been like "wow, that feels OP, how do you beat this army?"
Well... my opponents typically do about 10-15 mortal wounds to me in return. And then on top of that the rest of their army also contributes another 20 or so.
And those are lists where we are restraining ourselves and not being tfg.
In a list where you are following "the meta" and have a bunch of cheap blob units, 30-40 wounds infliicted on you is pretty minor.
If you are not running "the meta", 30-40 wounds can and does take you down below 50% in a turn.
Whether that is good or bad of course is subjective.
auticus wrote: Well... my opponents typically do about 10-15 mortal wounds to me in return. And then on top of that the rest of their army also contributes another 20 or so.
And those are lists where we are restraining ourselves and not being tfg.
In a list where you are following "the meta" and have a bunch of cheap blob units, 30-40 wounds infliicted on you is pretty minor.
If you are not running "the meta", 30-40 wounds can and does take you down below 50% in a turn.
Whether that is good or bad of course is subjective.
You know, I see posts like this, and I'm like "Yeah, 30-40 wounds is about right for an army" and then I get told that it is hard for even the most competitive armies to one-shot a superheavy and damn near impossible for everyone else.
I think the dissonance on this forum is staggering.
ANYWAYS - 30-40 wounds is about right for an entire army, in my opinion. If 10 comes from mortal wounds, and 20 or so comes from regular wounds, that's fairly sensible - about as sensible as 30 or 40 coming from shooting, or assault.
GW changing something generally only has a tangential bearing on whether or not it is currently imbalanced (see: Actually seen dominating tournaments or in other competitive lists) and a much MUCH more direct correlation with whatever marine players are currently whining about.
It's pretty rich that I'm being accused of building a "Smite Spam" army when I didn't - I built a tzeentch army with dozen different units in it, and when 8th dropped GW just decided "LOL, all your units now do only one thing, enjoy the fun new psychic phase!"
And now they're demolishing the one thing that they still do. Well, at least now little timmy's dreadnought won't die to the psychic output of a whole 2000 point army, that was clearly broken.
auticus wrote: Well... my opponents typically do about 10-15 mortal wounds to me in return. And then on top of that the rest of their army also contributes another 20 or so.
And those are lists where we are restraining ourselves and not being tfg.
In a list where you are following "the meta" and have a bunch of cheap blob units, 30-40 wounds infliicted on you is pretty minor.
If you are not running "the meta", 30-40 wounds can and does take you down below 50% in a turn.
Whether that is good or bad of course is subjective.
You know, I see posts like this, and I'm like "Yeah, 30-40 wounds is about right for an army" and then I get told that it is hard for even the most competitive armies to one-shot a superheavy and damn near impossible for everyone else.
I think the dissonance on this forum is staggering.
ANYWAYS - 30-40 wounds is about right for an entire army, in my opinion. If 10 comes from mortal wounds, and 20 or so comes from regular wounds, that's fairly sensible - about as sensible as 30 or 40 coming from shooting, or assault.
If 30-40 unsaved wounds (regardless of target) is the norm any elite army is perpetually doomed. 30-40 guardsman = 120-160 points, Orks =180-240 points. 15-20 Terminators = 600-800 points. Expected deaths should at some level be based around points not wounds.
auticus wrote: Well... my opponents typically do about 10-15 mortal wounds to me in return. And then on top of that the rest of their army also contributes another 20 or so.
And those are lists where we are restraining ourselves and not being tfg.
In a list where you are following "the meta" and have a bunch of cheap blob units, 30-40 wounds infliicted on you is pretty minor.
If you are not running "the meta", 30-40 wounds can and does take you down below 50% in a turn.
Whether that is good or bad of course is subjective.
You know, I see posts like this, and I'm like "Yeah, 30-40 wounds is about right for an army" and then I get told that it is hard for even the most competitive armies to one-shot a superheavy and damn near impossible for everyone else.
I think the dissonance on this forum is staggering.
ANYWAYS - 30-40 wounds is about right for an entire army, in my opinion. If 10 comes from mortal wounds, and 20 or so comes from regular wounds, that's fairly sensible - about as sensible as 30 or 40 coming from shooting, or assault.
If 30-40 unsaved wounds (regardless of target) is the norm any elite army is perpetually doomed. 30-40 guardsman = 120-160 points, Orks =180-240 points. 15-20 Terminators = 600-800 points. Expected deaths should at some level be based around points not wounds.
I agree that it should be based on points, and to some extent it is; a horde Guard army might suffer 120 wounds in a game, and Terminators might suffer 15-25.
I was just taking 30-40 as an average based on my experience with all armies in the game. I have played against conscripts and killed ~60 in a turn, and I have played against Imperial Knights and been lucky to do 12 wounds. So it does vary. I was just saying 30-40 wouldn't surprise me.
The character rules in 8th are still a gak show honestly.
I'm just patiently waiting for the return of the allied detachment. You can have 1 allied detachment, etc, and it has to be <this> with <these restrictions>.
Karthicus wrote: I understand why smite spamming armies would be upset about this change, but if this becomes a permanent rule it would not stop me from starting up a TSON army.
I don't think people understand just how powerful MWs are. The wounds can’t be saved against, and spamming 10+ MW a round is just insane. We have a local Tzeentch player who steamrolls her opponents half the time, and its a one trick pony. Hell, I picked up some assassins just for the purpose of countering her spam. I won’t shed a tear over someone having their easy mode button taken away, but if you can bring up some reasonable other ideas they should be entertained.
Between that and the fact the casters who can only roll a single D6 do have the benefit of not being able to trigger perils of the warp? So what if your troops can only cast it twice instead of the 5-6 times you are hoping for. Cast it twice before your characters who roll two dice cast. You still can pull off 3-4 smites in a turn. This change will force you to rely on more than just smiting everything into the ground. I think this makes a lot of sense, and I am looking forward to seeing what the play testing results show.
You know how many mortal wounds you cause if you cast Smite with horrors 6 times as you describe?
2.
1/3 chance base of one single mortal wound. which, again, as I've said, works out to less damage, at a shorter range, less reliably, than the basic autoguns/lasguns/shootas of comparably cheap shooty infantry, even against optimal targets for MWs like Terminators. Just because you have to roll more dice and get a save does not mean a thing does less damage to you. 10+ mortal wounds per turn? That's insane! You could almost kill a RHINO with that awesome firepower! And it's an enormous 18" range and ONLY has the drawback of having to target the closest target to the firer and has a 6% chance of causing mortal wounds to you every time you fire it.
I cant help but feel like the people bitching and moaning about MWs are the type that view weapons like the Leman Russ Vanquisher as just fine/possibly overpowered. "WOW! It's like a melta gun that shoots ACROSS THE TABLE? that's SO GOOD!"
Yes, I am well aware of the fact the beta rules would limit your spam list to only 2 smite attempts from D6 casters. Good.
Oh man! It's so unfair that you only get to do 2 MW per turn instead of 10+... GW how could you?!?! /Sarcasm
The amount of hyperbole you are throwing out is astonishing. My example is enough firepower to take out any dedicated transport, dread, or stormtalon/hawk. That's pretty potent dude. On top of that you can throw it at units that are locked up in melee?
adamsouza wrote:I swear a lot of the stories I hear about smite spam are either from masters of tactical engagement or sub par players.
From my personal experience, an experienced player will shield their valuable models and concentrate their fire on the offending Psykers. You can absolutely force your opponent through the positioning of your models to use smite on your less valuable models.
If you choose to take no expendable units, then it's a risk you took while army building that didn't pay off in that matchup.
If your problem is with mortal wounds as a concept you are likely S.O.L.
Superheavies didn't go anywhere.
Flyers didn't go anywhere.
Formations/Detachments didn't go anywhere.
Mortal Wounds are likely to stay as well.
You can blame this on sub par players all you want, but the fact that GW is currently trying to have some changes play tested should speak to the fact perhaps it's a little unbalanced.
I have no problem with MW in the game, or as a concept. In fact I think its a cool mechanic to have in the game. I agree that you need to adjust your tactics, and be mindful to shield units from things like Smite, but that doesn't take away how powerful it is, and how quickly it can dominate a game.
I think this was a really good starting point. Let the testing play out and see what happens once they have collected that information. Perhaps GW will make some tweaks or include some changes for GK and TSON armies.
Chill out man.
It's clear from this thread that a lot of people are unhappy with these "fixes" and GWs overall lack of effort with current rules writing.
8th edition is fairly new and it's already collapsing under its own weight of ill conceived rules.
7th was a mess but at least it took some time to get there. People are concerend that 8th will end up in worse shape than 7th and at the current rate, their nightmare secanrio looks to be coming true.
You have TWO powers in addition to smite that you can throw out mortal wounds with. The entire point is to encourage people to use the other powers out there. That's exactly what this does.
To all the daemons players, wait for the codex. *shrug
Marmatag wrote: The character rules in 8th are still a gak show honestly.
I'm just patiently waiting for the return of the allied detachment. You can have 1 allied detachment, etc, and it has to be <this> with <these restrictions>.
You have TWO powers in addition to smite that you can throw out mortal wounds with. The entire point is to encourage people to use the other powers out there. That's exactly what this does.
To all the daemons players, wait for the codex. *shrug
Except the new psychic focus rules attached to the smite nerf works against what you are telling psyker based armies to do.
Karthicus wrote: I understand why smite spamming armies would be upset about this change, but if this becomes a permanent rule it would not stop me from starting up a TSON army.
I don't think people understand just how powerful MWs are. The wounds can’t be saved against, and spamming 10+ MW a round is just insane. We have a local Tzeentch player who steamrolls her opponents half the time, and its a one trick pony. Hell, I picked up some assassins just for the purpose of countering her spam. I won’t shed a tear over someone having their easy mode button taken away, but if you can bring up some reasonable other ideas they should be entertained.
Between that and the fact the casters who can only roll a single D6 do have the benefit of not being able to trigger perils of the warp? So what if your troops can only cast it twice instead of the 5-6 times you are hoping for. Cast it twice before your characters who roll two dice cast. You still can pull off 3-4 smites in a turn. This change will force you to rely on more than just smiting everything into the ground. I think this makes a lot of sense, and I am looking forward to seeing what the play testing results show.
You know how many mortal wounds you cause if you cast Smite with horrors 6 times as you describe?
2.
1/3 chance base of one single mortal wound. which, again, as I've said, works out to less damage, at a shorter range, less reliably, than the basic autoguns/lasguns/shootas of comparably cheap shooty infantry, even against optimal targets for MWs like Terminators. Just because you have to roll more dice and get a save does not mean a thing does less damage to you. 10+ mortal wounds per turn? That's insane! You could almost kill a RHINO with that awesome firepower! And it's an enormous 18" range and ONLY has the drawback of having to target the closest target to the firer and has a 6% chance of causing mortal wounds to you every time you fire it.
I cant help but feel like the people bitching and moaning about MWs are the type that view weapons like the Leman Russ Vanquisher as just fine/possibly overpowered. "WOW! It's like a melta gun that shoots ACROSS THE TABLE? that's SO GOOD!"
Yes, I am well aware of the fact the beta rules would limit your spam list to only 2 smite attempts from D6 casters. Good.
Oh man! It's so unfair that you only get to do 2 MW per turn instead of 10+... GW how could you?!?! /Sarcasm
The amount of hyperbole you are throwing out is astonishing. My example is enough firepower to take out any dedicated transport, dread, or stormtalon/hawk. That's pretty potent dude. On top of that you can throw it at units that are locked up in melee?
adamsouza wrote:I swear a lot of the stories I hear about smite spam are either from masters of tactical engagement or sub par players.
From my personal experience, an experienced player will shield their valuable models and concentrate their fire on the offending Psykers. You can absolutely force your opponent through the positioning of your models to use smite on your less valuable models.
If you choose to take no expendable units, then it's a risk you took while army building that didn't pay off in that matchup.
If your problem is with mortal wounds as a concept you are likely S.O.L.
Superheavies didn't go anywhere.
Flyers didn't go anywhere.
Formations/Detachments didn't go anywhere.
Mortal Wounds are likely to stay as well.
You can blame this on sub par players all you want, but the fact that GW is currently trying to have some changes play tested should speak to the fact perhaps it's a little unbalanced.
I have no problem with MW in the game, or as a concept. In fact I think its a cool mechanic to have in the game. I agree that you need to adjust your tactics, and be mindful to shield units from things like Smite, but that doesn't take away how powerful it is, and how quickly it can dominate a game.
I think this was a really good starting point. Let the testing play out and see what happens once they have collected that information. Perhaps GW will make some tweaks or include some changes for GK and TSON armies.
Honestly I am not making a dig at you or trying to throw shade. But your postings come off as a player that has little invested in the psychic phase and has been on the wrong side of a games with a psyker heavy force. I have two armies. Tsons and NIghtlords. My NL's have almost zero psykers while my Tsons are psyker heavy. I can tell you right now that my NL list is FAR stronger than my magnus smite "spam". Abusing the morale phase is the next big problem. Mark my words.
Marmatag wrote: The character rules in 8th are still a gak show honestly.
I'm just patiently waiting for the return of the allied detachment. You can have 1 allied detachment, etc, and it has to be <this> with <these restrictions>.
But... b-but... most playtested edition evar...
A few play tests vs absolutely denied by the higher ups is still the most play tested edition
The least you can do is give them props for trying. even if its not what you want.
Marmatag wrote: The character rules in 8th are still a gak show honestly.
I'm just patiently waiting for the return of the allied detachment. You can have 1 allied detachment, etc, and it has to be <this> with <these restrictions>.
But... b-but... most playtested edition evar...
A few play tests vs absolutely denied by the higher ups is still the most play tested edition
The least you can do is give them props for trying. even if its not what you want.
I guess the question is, after how long do you stop give them props for trying, and expect them to actually figure it out? This is what makes it so frustrating. A company of GW's size and stature should have no problem employing actual game designers with a solid background in, you know, what it takes to be a game designer. Instead, their designers seem to have little skill but a lot of "passion", yet seemingly are not actually capable of performing their jobs in an adequate capacity. It is very good that they are "trying" but they've been "trying" for over 20 years, and still miss the mark. Where do you draw the line?
Marmatag wrote: The character rules in 8th are still a gak show honestly.
I'm just patiently waiting for the return of the allied detachment. You can have 1 allied detachment, etc, and it has to be <this> with <these restrictions>.
But... b-but... most playtested edition evar...
A few play tests vs absolutely denied by the higher ups is still the most play tested edition
The least you can do is give them props for trying. even if its not what you want.
I guess the question is, after how long do you stop give them props for trying, and expect them to actually figure it out? This is what makes it so frustrating. A company of GW's size and stature should have no problem employing actual game designers with a solid background in, you know, what it takes to be a game designer. Instead, their designers seem to have little skill but a lot of "passion", yet seemingly are not actually capable of performing their jobs in an adequate capacity. It is very good that they are "trying" but they've been "trying" for over 20 years, and still miss the mark. Where do you draw the line?
Check out the James M Hewitt AMA
It really didn't matter back then as to how good the game was. and basically all the problems we have as gamers is entirely the fault of upper management and the bean counters. and ultimately it wont matter now ether. those bean counters are still there. all we can hope for is that they dont redo 8th. by doing so it gives RND the time to actually do playtesting taking in data and try and adjust things over time till the game gets better.
Under different leadership the emphasis will be different. I would say they're making very positive steps. Committing to a patch schedule, like a software company would do, is smart. It's a game, so it should follow similar cycles anyway.
That said, they should really playtest their rules with cheese in mind. A list with 18 assassins is unfun to play against as anything i've ever had the misfortune of running into, and it's because of the way targeting works. It's a list that designed to feth you by exploiting beer and pretzels rules.
Characters should only be exempt from targeting if there is another model within 6" that is not a character. Boom. Fixed. Oh i see you have 3 assassins 1 millimeter behind a Culexus. That doesn't matter. Thanks for trying.
Marmatag wrote: Under different leadership the emphasis will be different. I would say they're making very positive steps. Committing to a patch schedule, like a software company would do, is smart. It's a game, so it should follow similar cycles anyway.
That said, they should really playtest their rules with cheese in mind. A list with 18 assassins is unfun to play against as anything i've ever had the misfortune of running into, and it's because of the way targeting works. It's a list that designed to feth you by exploiting beer and pretzels rules.
Characters should only be exempt from targeting if there is another model within 6" that is not a character. Boom. Fixed. Oh i see you have 3 assassins 1 millimeter behind a Culexus. That doesn't matter. Thanks for trying.
Well they kinda did
it seems they have taken in "some" of the tourny data and adjusted the rules to help fix some issues. one thing you can say about tourny players they really know how to propagate cheese. (this is not an insult people that are try harding hard with a prize at the end will damn well try pretty hard to gain every advantage as possible meaning its really easy for RND to figure out what parts are causing the problem)
also wasnt that 18 ass list pretty old? its entirely possible any changes wont be immediate.
Marmatag wrote: Under different leadership the emphasis will be different. I would say they're making very positive steps. Committing to a patch schedule, like a software company would do, is smart. It's a game, so it should follow similar cycles anyway.
That said, they should really playtest their rules with cheese in mind. A list with 18 assassins is unfun to play against as anything i've ever had the misfortune of running into, and it's because of the way targeting works. It's a list that designed to feth you by exploiting beer and pretzels rules.
Characters should only be exempt from targeting if there is another model within 6" that is not a character. Boom. Fixed. Oh i see you have 3 assassins 1 millimeter behind a Culexus. That doesn't matter. Thanks for trying.
Well they kinda did
it seems they have taken in "some" of the tourny data and adjusted the rules to help fix some issues. one thing you can say about tourny players they really know how to propagate cheese. (this is not an insult people that are try harding hard with a prize at the end will damn well try pretty hard to gain every advantage as possible meaning its really easy for RND to figure out what parts are causing the problem)
also wasnt that 18 ass list pretty old? its entirely possible any changes wont be immediate.
Marmatag wrote: The character rules in 8th are still a gak show honestly.
I'm just patiently waiting for the return of the allied detachment. You can have 1 allied detachment, etc, and it has to be <this> with <these restrictions>.
But... b-but... most playtested edition evar...
Well GW has certainly played more games with these beta rules than the critics have.
Marmatag wrote: The character rules in 8th are still a gak show honestly.
I'm just patiently waiting for the return of the allied detachment. You can have 1 allied detachment, etc, and it has to be <this> with <these restrictions>.
But... b-but... most playtested edition evar...
Well GW has certainly played more games with these beta rules than the critics have.
Tyel wrote: Can anyone who thinks "Smite" is the problem rather than "cheap Psykers" explain why?
Smite is just like shooting but with some slightly different rules. Its like saying "drop plasma is the problem, not the fact its cheap".
Plasma doesn't ignore defences other side pays points for. Smite does. Smite doesn't care is it shooting at cultist or land raider. Plasma gun does. This makes smite way too efficient at elite killing(elite being already laughing stock of 8th ed) thus basically invalidating entire armies and driving 40k even more to cheap hordes and screens which would be dominating playstyle even WITHOUT mortal wounds. With mortal wounds elite units are a joke compared to cheap hordes.
Marmatag wrote: The character rules in 8th are still a gak show honestly.
I'm just patiently waiting for the return of the allied detachment. You can have 1 allied detachment, etc, and it has to be <this> with <these restrictions>.
But... b-but... most playtested edition evar...
Well GW has certainly played more games with these beta rules than the critics have.
Critics likely have played more than the handful GW designers have playtested these rules. And unlike GW testers critiques can actually read english and think logically so they can spot blindingly obvious faults like assault weapons that do not actually do anything that GW designers are still unable to fix. And critics aren't the one who have job of making rules that sell models. That meanwhile is GW's whole principle and balance can go to hell. GW doesn't CARE about balanced rules. They don't WANT them. They want to sell models in heavy handed ways like invalidating FW resin in favour of plastic in not even subtle cash grabbing style.
Xenomancers wrote: If they are about to release beta rules....WTF rules are we using now lol.
Think of it more like the public beta of the next major patch, which is really what it is.
Video game companies often do the same thing, and if they don't then it's likely tested privately instead.
That's a pretty good point. Normally video game companies release reasoning for each change they make in a patch so you can get an idea of what they are doing.
I have no idea what videogame companies you are talking about. All the games I play just release a patch into the sea of piranhas they call a "community", and then that patch is ripped apart and simultaneously both too much and too little to fix the problem while not addressing other problems that aren't problems at all, obviously. They sometimes include Patch Notes which explain what changed, but never why.
They don't touch "reasoning" with a 10-foot pole, for obvious reasons.
League of Legends give designer notes with there patches, as well as World of Warcraft. The designer notes explain why they made the changes / what they plan to achieve with them.
Marmatag wrote: The character rules in 8th are still a gak show honestly.
I'm just patiently waiting for the return of the allied detachment. You can have 1 allied detachment, etc, and it has to be <this> with <these restrictions>.
But... b-but... most playtested edition evar...
A few play tests vs absolutely denied by the higher ups is still the most play tested edition
The least you can do is give them props for trying. even if its not what you want.
I guess the question is, after how long do you stop give them props for trying, and expect them to actually figure it out? This is what makes it so frustrating. A company of GW's size and stature should have no problem employing actual game designers with a solid background in, you know, what it takes to be a game designer. Instead, their designers seem to have little skill but a lot of "passion", yet seemingly are not actually capable of performing their jobs in an adequate capacity. It is very good that they are "trying" but they've been "trying" for over 20 years, and still miss the mark. Where do you draw the line?
You draw the line wherever YOU want to. What you shouldn't do, is just continuously bleat on and complain because things aren't the way you think they should be. Draw the line, leave, and GW can continue to go from strength to strength. (As it has been doing) GW are never going to be perfectly balanced. The company doesn't want this, the vast majority of it's customer don't want this. Get over it.
Hollow wrote: You draw the line wherever YOU want to. What you shouldn't do, is just continuously bleat on and complain because things aren't the way you think they should be. Draw the line, leave, and GW can continue to go from strength to strength. (As it has been doing) GW are never going to be perfectly balanced. The company doesn't want this, the vast majority of it's customer don't want this. Get over it.
Seeing perfect balance is impossibility yes that's obvious. However I would wager majority of customers would actually want REASONABLY balanced rules. Nobody gets hurt by rules being reasonably balanced(and logical. Who wants to arque ages how rule is supposed to be played when rules don't actually give definite answer one way or another?) rather than money driven deliberate unbalances coupled with poor math ability created unbalance.
Balanced game helps EVERY player. Unbalanced helps nobody.
A balanced game helps everyone, to bad the quest for balance is akin to the one for Utopia. Everyone agrees it would be better if we found it, No one agrees where to even start looking or improving, everyone agrees the work to get there is huge.
To answer the original question: yes
It gives the community time to check rule. There is (as we were promised when 8trh was announced) an email adress to contacxt them with concerns. There is no need currently for a GK /TS player to play with the new nerfed smite unless a tourney/event/opponent (and then TFG) demands it.
If you wanna test and it doesn't work a breeaks your army please tell GW. They might actually react and change the rule or change your armies rules.
I'm fine with GW proposing potentially imbalanced rules as 'Beta' ideas, to be tested and get feedback. That's all fine. In fact, that's quite good!
My problem with the set of Beta rules offered is that it shows that these 'Beta' rules didn't even get the proper Alpha testing they need before being released to the public. If they are releasing rules without considering how that would effect two entire factions (TSons and Grey Knights) on top of the partial 'Tzeentch' faction and a bunch of other more minor issues, it shows that they either don't think of those factions as worth considering, or that they just didn't think this through at all. I don't want to play my Grey Knights as a tiny ally faction with a half dozen units, I want to be able to play it as an army, but I can't.
Earth127 wrote: A balanced game helps everyone, to bad the quest for balance is akin to the one for Utopia. Everyone agrees it would be better if we found it, No one agrees where to even start looking or improving, everyone agrees the work to get there is huge.
There is definitely lots of arguments about which units are OP and which are not, and what their point costs should be.
But if you look at the Eldar codex for instance, pretty much everyone agrees that Dark Reapers, flyers, or Shining Spears are top tier, while other aspect warriors and phoenix lords are much weaker. The main problem is to know how much these units should be adjusted to achieve a good internal balance.
With 3 updates a year (two major FAQs + CA), GW definitely has the tools to try and fine tune things. They could very well do a small point adjustment of each codex' outliers (so for Eldar the units I mentioned above), see where that brings them, then adjust again accordingly. They'll never reach a point where everyone is happy and feel the game is balanced, but when netlists will contain more than half a dozen units from a codex as large as the CWE codex, we'll be one step closer to decent balance.
GW has a history of swinging a huge nerf hammer instead of trying to nudge things a little bit at a time (like we eventually saw with conscripts, or with malefic lords), but it looks like they want to switch to more subtle changes, which imho is the only way to balance a game with as many units as 40K. It's just impossible to get it right on the first try.
But they did lower Cawl's point cost in CA, which was already wreaking AM's internal balance
fresus wrote: GW has a history of swinging a huge nerf hammer instead of trying to nudge things a little bit at a time (like we eventually saw with conscripts, or with malefic lords), but it looks like they want to switch to more subtle changes, which imho is the only way to balance a game with as many units as 40K. It's just impossible to get it right on the first try.
But they did lower Cawl's point cost in CA, which was already wreaking AM's internal balance
Problem here being you are assuming they are trying to balance and aren't just changing things around in the same swingy "this time unit X is broken, next we nerf them to oblivion and make unit Y the next hotness" they have been doing either by incompetence or by design last 30 years.
fresus wrote: GW has a history of swinging a huge nerf hammer instead of trying to nudge things a little bit at a time (like we eventually saw with conscripts, or with malefic lords), but it looks like they want to switch to more subtle changes, which imho is the only way to balance a game with as many units as 40K. It's just impossible to get it right on the first try.
But they did lower Cawl's point cost in CA, which was already wreaking AM's internal balance
Problem here being you are assuming they are trying to balance and aren't just changing things around in the same swingy "this time unit X is broken, next we nerf them to oblivion and make unit Y the next hotness" they have been doing either by incompetence or by design last 30 years.
Which is the correct assumption, as can be surmised from insider sources like James Hewitt's AMA at Reddit few days ago. The current trend in the company is that the developers are gaining a bit more say in the matters, whereas the moneychasing cha-cha-cha that reigned few years ago is receding following management shake-ups.
The thing is, the Nerf Hammer Swing method is by far the best way to "balance" a commercial game system, and dare I say it - the most fun.
Having a changing metagame over time is what stops these things becoming stale, and what makes people think "man I need to go spend my money on that new model/subscription/moba character/loot box/whatever"
We don't really want actual balance. We want dynamic balance.
The problem is that the changes are too fast at the moment, but they have already started to slow down.
I am pretty certain "incompetence" or rather lack of several factors led to the screw job that is/was warhammer balance.
I can to certain extent understand Gw screwing up the balance by not considering it top priority (we're a models company not a games' company. In the AMA hewitt mentions diminishing returns (they are a big factor) and the need to prevent big homogenization. How they had prioritzie rule of cool/ feel over balance (part of me agrees with GW here it is more important specifically for them).
Perception of imbalance is also a problem. People will believe something is massively imbalanced and even if you fix to be balanced the perception won't change and people will keep on complaining. Also skill is an issue, if the more skilled players gravitate towards certain lists those are going to look better evne if they aren't by sheer virue of who is palying them.
Silentz wrote: The thing is, the Nerf Hammer Swing method is by far the best way to "balance" a commercial game system, and dare I say it - the most fun.
Having a changing metagame over time is what stops these things becoming stale, and what makes people think "man I need to go spend my money on that new model/subscription/moba character/loot box/whatever"
We don't really want actual balance. We want dynamic balance.
The problem is that the changes are too fast at the moment, but they have already started to slow down.
Yup, changing frequently is actually pretty good because if it becomes apparent that problems will get fixed most (not all) people will be more inclined to build a balanced list and get good with that list rather than trying to chase a meta, spend a bunch of money and time only to have the new hotness nerfed quickly.
Silentz wrote: The thing is, the Nerf Hammer Swing method is by far the best way to "balance" a commercial game system, and dare I say it - the most fun.
Having a changing metagame over time is what stops these things becoming stale, and what makes people think "man I need to go spend my money on that new model/subscription/moba character/loot box/whatever"
We don't really want actual balance. We want dynamic balance.
The problem is that the changes are too fast at the moment, but they have already started to slow down.
Yup, changing frequently is actually pretty good because if it becomes apparent that problems will get fixed most (not all) people will be more inclined to build a balanced list and get good with that list rather than trying to chase a meta, spend a bunch of money and time only to have the new hotness nerfed quickly.
Except we don't see that. We DO see people chasing the meta and just moving onto the next OP hotness. If this was true, we would see more balanced lists at tournaments. Instead, when something is nerfed it's just the next best thing that gets spammed.
I would argue you will see more balanced lists in tournaments over time if GW is consistent. What you may not see is those lists winning tournaments, because someone who has the resources will always be able to chase. I'm not really convinced though that we have seen a ton of chasing going on based on any nerfs. Nothing Big has happened since the maelific lord nerf, the Conscript nerfs don't cause much change really in the models needed. I am talking about the average tournament player though, not necessarily your GT winner.
fresus wrote: GW has a history of swinging a huge nerf hammer instead of trying to nudge things a little bit at a time (like we eventually saw with conscripts, or with malefic lords), but it looks like they want to switch to more subtle changes, which imho is the only way to balance a game with as many units as 40K. It's just impossible to get it right on the first try.
But they did lower Cawl's point cost in CA, which was already wreaking AM's internal balance
Problem here being you are assuming they are trying to balance and aren't just changing things around in the same swingy "this time unit X is broken, next we nerf them to oblivion and make unit Y the next hotness" they have been doing either by incompetence or by design last 30 years.
Which is the correct assumption, as can be surmised from insider sources like James Hewitt's AMA at Reddit few days ago. The current trend in the company is that the developers are gaining a bit more say in the matters, whereas the moneychasing cha-cha-cha that reigned few years ago is receding following management shake-ups.
Or is that smoke and mirror? So far GW hasn't showed ACTUAL improvement. Stuff like chapter approved released just this month was blatant marketing tool rather than genuine attempt to balance the game. It isn't even SUBTLE about being all about cash.
fresus wrote: GW has a history of swinging a huge nerf hammer instead of trying to nudge things a little bit at a time (like we eventually saw with conscripts, or with malefic lords), but it looks like they want to switch to more subtle changes, which imho is the only way to balance a game with as many units as 40K. It's just impossible to get it right on the first try.
But they did lower Cawl's point cost in CA, which was already wreaking AM's internal balance
Problem here being you are assuming they are trying to balance and aren't just changing things around in the same swingy "this time unit X is broken, next we nerf them to oblivion and make unit Y the next hotness" they have been doing either by incompetence or by design last 30 years.
Which is the correct assumption, as can be surmised from insider sources like James Hewitt's AMA at Reddit few days ago. The current trend in the company is that the developers are gaining a bit more say in the matters, whereas the moneychasing cha-cha-cha that reigned few years ago is receding following management shake-ups.
Or is that smoke and mirror? So far GW hasn't showed ACTUAL improvement. Stuff like chapter approved released just this month was blatant marketing tool rather than genuine attempt to balance the game. It isn't even SUBTLE about being all about cash.
This is definitely an opinion, while not exactly what I was hoping for it did address some balance issues, and delivered a decent amount of content.
Xenomancers wrote: If they are about to release beta rules....WTF rules are we using now lol.
Think of it more like the public beta of the next major patch, which is really what it is.
Video game companies often do the same thing, and if they don't then it's likely tested privately instead.
That's a pretty good point. Normally video game companies release reasoning for each change they make in a patch so you can get an idea of what they are doing.
I have no idea what videogame companies you are talking about. All the games I play just release a patch into the sea of piranhas they call a "community", and then that patch is ripped apart and simultaneously both too much and too little to fix the problem while not addressing other problems that aren't problems at all, obviously. They sometimes include Patch Notes which explain what changed, but never why.
They don't touch "reasoning" with a 10-foot pole, for obvious reasons.
League of Legends give designer notes with there patches, as well as World of Warcraft. The designer notes explain why they made the changes / what they plan to achieve with them.
About the character change: "This rule means that characters can no longer be used to block characters, meaning Culexus Assassins are more likely to be used as the horrifying psyker-hunters they were always meant to be and not as elaborate human (or posthuman) shields." Neat, cool explanation. The other change was just an errata (less than 10 wounds to less than 10 wounds characteristic).
About the Smite change: "Meanwhile, this proposed change to Smite means that the power is still a great way to dish out mortal wounds, but one that you’ll only be able to cast (easily) a few times in a turn. Using multiple psykers is still a great way to go, but rather than relying on a single trick, you’ll benefit from using a wider pool of psychic powers to secure victory in your games."
That's essentially the same level of commitment to explaining changes that I've seen from most video game patch notes.
It's clear from this thread that a lot of people are unhappy with these "fixes" and GWs overall lack of effort with current rules writing.
8th edition is fairly new and it's already collapsing under its own weight of ill conceived rules.
7th was a mess but at least it took some time to get there. People are concerend that 8th will end up in worse shape than 7th and at the current rate, their nightmare secanrio looks to be coming true.
I'm very chill man. I have better things to do than to rage on forums, and I assume that to be the case for most of us.
I disagree with your notion that 8th is failing. The fact that the content is selling so fast would tell me otherwise. The GW site has a constant list of items that are out of stock, you can't find half the bits you want on the second hand shops, and my local game shops have had a hard time keeping a good amount of product on the shelf. I understand that people are concerned, but lets be honest here. There is always going to be a small percentage of people that are unhappy with a change in rules. Let's not turn that into the sky falling.
Honestly I am not making a dig at you or trying to throw shade. But your postings come off as a player that has little invested in the psychic phase and has been on the wrong side of a games with a psyker heavy force. I have two armies. Tsons and NIghtlords. My NL's have almost zero psykers while my Tsons are psyker heavy. I can tell you right now that my NL list is FAR stronger than my magnus smite "spam". Abusing the morale phase is the next big problem. Mark my words.
You would be 100% correct. My first army is Black Templar, and I have been on the business end of multiple games against smite spam. That being said, I am sure there are stronger lists out there, and I have been on the business end of worse beatings than what the spam horde did to me. Doesn't take away how powerful a smite spam list is.
Critics likely have played more than the handful GW designers have playtested these rules. And unlike GW testers critiques can actually read english and think logically so they can spot blindingly obvious faults like assault weapons that do not actually do anything that GW designers are still unable to fix. And critics aren't the one who have job of making rules that sell models. That meanwhile is GW's whole principle and balance can go to hell. GW doesn't CARE about balanced rules. They don't WANT them. They want to sell models in heavy handed ways like invalidating FW resin in favour of plastic in not even subtle cash grabbing style.
The Beta rules came out 4 days ago. The timeline doesn't support your "logic".
Your desperate need for GW to be an evil empire is unfortunate. I do wonder why anyone who believes what you do about GW would continues to support them. Maybe you're one of those people who enjoy being unhappy.
[quote=Pancakey 746710 9749248 null
Chill out man.
It's clear from this thread that a lot of people are unhappy with these "fixes" and GWs overall lack of effort with current rules writing.
8th edition is fairly new and it's already collapsing under its own weight of ill conceived rules.
7th was a mess but at least it took some time to get there. People are concerend that 8th will end up in worse shape than 7th and at the current rate, their nightmare secanrio looks to be coming true.
I find this laughable, the notion that 7th took some time to get to being a mess. 6th was a mess, 7th built itself on top of that mess. 8th is significantly better than 7th ever was, and the rapid release of codices and rules changes while it can be off putting at times means that (in theory) no book wallows in the bottom tier for years at a time, and hopefully no book reigns supreme for years at a time.
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