We've had plenty of Theory-hammer, but I am curious about people's real-game experience with the new rules. I had a Patrol battle last night with the brand new download and the various drip feeds of rules. We played five turns in about 90 minutes, referring to rules as we went and I'm sure we got lots wrong - lots of death as well.
So far, the new terrain rules and the changes to vehicle shooting are the biggest changes for me. We caught ourselves a few times drawing LOS through Obscuring Terrain. Dense terrain with the -1 to hit was also impactful. I caught myself moving a unit onto a shipping container - no cover up there! Vehicles not having a penalty to move and shoot was liberating, as was shooting in close combat with a Taurox Gatling Cannon.
Coherency didn't come up for us as we had fairly small units - we'll try some larger squads for our next game.
There have been a lot of 9th edition battle reports with current point values on Youtube. People are still early on, making lots of tactical and strategic mistakes. Lots of people not playing to their secondaries, or screwing up the new Look Out Sir and getting characters killed.
Of the 4 or 5 ~2000pt games I've seen, the moment-to-moment gameplay is largely the same. Weird gimmicky model placement is gone (for now). No more conga-lines for buffs, no more characters standing out in the open. People are actually putting their models in terrain because it actually does stuff now. That's all tactical stuff that people are just going to get used to in a month or two.
The really interesting thing is how larger strategies are going to shake out. How do you build lists to maximize scoring in your metagame? How will the general metagame of the edition develop?
I played a single game with the first new Mission using 1800 points (in 8th Edition points) armies.
Purposefully played GSC vs. Guard with some larger units, to see how it goes.
A) Coherency wasn't as much of an issue as expected. Sure, you don't string out as much, but since you're planning for it as you move, it wasn't so harsh. Also the board is smaller.
B) Blast is BRUTAL!!! It's partly in the armies we played, but all those Leman Russes throwing around max shots, or even as little as, say, Plasma Sentinels getting 3 shots if they shoot at 6+ model-units just cranks up the firepower alot. Definitely going small units in 9th even harder than I thought (unless the Meta completely flips on Blast weapons, which I doubt, because many of these weapons are still useful without blast).
C) Screening Characters was surprisingly tricky. Sure, your characters will be within 3" of a tank or two, or another unit as you finish your movement, but you also want to spread out some (the Primary of all the Eternal War missions is holding several objectives) and if your opponent is clever killing the right tank or infantry unit (hello Blast again), it's surprisingly easy to suddenly have the odd character be outside of 3" of a screening unit while your opponent still has guns left.
D) The "Secondaries" in the book are pretty bad IMO. Some are super-easy and able to be maxed out in a turn or two. Others need you to achieve pretty hard things (like holding more than your opponent) every single round of hte game, or you're immediately down some points you cannot possibly recover. Some weirdly just give you a max of 6 or 9 points or so, thus you couldn't possibly ever get the 15 points you probably want from each secondary. I hope the GT Mission pack has more and better secondaries (if those missions use the same mechanic).
I can see attrition being easy 15 VP for some factions (not automatic though, can be counterplayed), but which other secondaries did you find easy? They seem all quite challenging.
Spoletta wrote: I can see attrition being easy 15 VP for some factions (not automatic though, can be counterplayed), but which other secondaries did you find easy? They seem all quite challenging.
Bring it Down and/or Titan Slayers seemed comparatively easy (or at least a lot easier, than the "kill hordes" equivalent) if you end up facing it (or harder to get around).
While We Stand, We Fight is super-easy, if you build for it (e.g. Marine MSU Impulsor List, where your three most expensive models (not units!) are characters, same for an Eldar MSU list with some Spears, Nightspinner and the three most expensive are a Farseer, a Shadowseer or some such).
The new "Recon" is also achievable (though it might be a trap, if you spread out too much).
None are "super-automatic", but compared to things like First Strike or Warlord Kill or so, which max out below 10, or tricky stuff like Investigate Site, which requires the centre to be free of enemies in your command phase (i.e. before you do your movement, shooting, etc.. for every turn of the game, they seem a lot more achievable.
Spoletta wrote: I can see attrition being easy 15 VP for some factions (not automatic though, can be counterplayed), but which other secondaries did you find easy? They seem all quite challenging.
Bring it Down and/or Titan Slayers seemed comparatively easy (or at least a lot easier, than the "kill hordes" equivalent) if you end up facing it (or harder to get around).
While We Stand, We Fight is super-easy, if you build for it (e.g. Marine MSU Impulsor List, where your three most expensive models (not units!) are characters, same for an Eldar MSU list with some Spears, Nightspinner and the three most expensive are a Farseer, a Shadowseer or some such).
The new "Recon" is also achievable (though it might be a trap, if you spread out too much).
None are "super-automatic", but compared to things like First Strike or Warlord Kill or so, which max out below 10, or tricky stuff like Investigate Site, which requires the centre to be free of enemies in your command phase (i.e. before you do your movement, shooting, etc.. for every turn of the game, they seem a lot more achievable.
Bring it down and Titan slayer are indeed automatic against the right enemy, but they are there to avoid skewed lists I guess.
While we Stand, We Fight is super easy but you have to take your 3 most expensive models out of the game, which is a dangerous choice.
It's, literally and figuratively, pointless to do testing without the new point values, at least for anything beyond a general feel for how the game plays. Things like mission objectives we won't be able to get a real feel for until we know what our forces actually look like. The fact that Titan Slayer is relatively easy won't matter much if knights are 1200pts now.
ERJAK wrote: It's, literally and figuratively, pointless to do testing without the new point values, at least for anything beyond a general feel for how the game plays. Things like mission objectives we won't be able to get a real feel for until we know what our forces actually look like. The fact that Titan Slayer is relatively easy won't matter much if knights are 1200pts now.
Well it does as it means that we have 2 codex's that are going tk be utterly unplayable.
Though apparently GW thinks Knights are better in 9th so probably going to be screwed.
Regarding 8th Ed muscle-memory, both my opponent and I found ourselves caught out by the Look Out Sir mechanics. Sitting behind three Aggressors is not quite as safe as it was before. A couple of "Oh crap!" moments. This will take some getting used to.
Game felt very similar against Iron Hands; all my stuff died and I only killed 3 units. Main difference was the secondaries. My list wasn’t designed well for the new ones while he got lots of points from just killing things.
That space marine list is terrifying. Not because I think it's particularly GOOD but because it's made up almost entirely of units that are rumored to be amongst the largest point increases in the codex(impulsors, invictors, aggressors, etc) and it's STILL not as big of an increase as the GSC and Sisters lists they played earlier were.
That space marine list is terrifying. Not because I think it's particularly GOOD but because it's made up almost entirely of units that are rumored to be amongst the largest point increases in the codex(impulsors, invictors, aggressors, etc) and it's STILL not as big of an increase as the GSC and Sisters lists they played earlier were.
Not seen it yet
I was watching the SoB vs GSC yesterday, and if I recall correctly the Sisters 2'000pt list was roughly a 1'750 in 8th. Felt sorry for the poor Cult, they haven't come out well from the changes thus far.
Having a codex ment to work with mechanics, that got nerfed or made illegal, and ment for a different edition always ends bad. I know from personal expiriance.
I wish they are going to get a codex or a really big 9th errata/faq, or a good WD Index.
That space marine list is terrifying. Not because I think it's particularly GOOD but because it's made up almost entirely of units that are rumored to be amongst the largest point increases in the codex(impulsors, invictors, aggressors, etc) and it's STILL not as big of an increase as the GSC and Sisters lists they played earlier were.
Not seen it yet
I was watching the SoB vs GSC yesterday, and if I recall correctly the Sisters 2'000pt list was roughly a 1'750 in 8th. Felt sorry for the poor Cult, they haven't come out well from the changes thus far.
Sisters was 1693, the GSC list was closer to 1750.
NVM to all that, the marine V necron battle doesn't use the new points.
Thanks for posting links to the battle reports out there! Here is some Canadian Content from the MiniWargaming team with their first "9th Edition" battle report between Space Wolves and Tyranids.
They are using 8th edition points and using some assumptions regarding rules, but it shows a good overview of how 9th will be different including the Detachments and CP system. Without spoiling the result, the players do say that they did not engineer their lists to be hyper-competitive. Key things that are brought are: the new terrain rules, coherency, transports (disembarking wholly within) and the VP system.
Any chance of a brief summary, reveal of the surprise ending? I can't watch videos, my internet is essentially dial-up.
Dang dude.
Orc player is down considerably (30 or so points), but makes a turn 4/5 comeback to clinch it.
Initially, it seemed like his secondaries would be the downfall. Scoring on primaries was hotly contested.
Thanks for the summary! Sounds promising, and it looks like more games will be nail biters and just because someone establishes an early lead the game isn’t a write off and come-backs are possible! Exciting!
That space marine list is terrifying. Not because I think it's particularly GOOD but because it's made up almost entirely of units that are rumored to be amongst the largest point increases in the codex(impulsors, invictors, aggressors, etc) and it's STILL not as big of an increase as the GSC and Sisters lists they played earlier were.
Not seen it yet
I was watching the SoB vs GSC yesterday, and if I recall correctly the Sisters 2'000pt list was roughly a 1'750 in 8th. Felt sorry for the poor Cult, they haven't come out well from the changes thus far.
Do you have a link to that? I've been looking for it on their channel and with some searchfu and all I'm seeing vs Sisters are Death Guard from a week ago?
Any chance of a brief summary, reveal of the surprise ending? I can't watch videos, my internet is essentially dial-up.
Dang dude.
Orc player is down considerably (30 or so points), but makes a turn 4/5 comeback to clinch it.
Initially, it seemed like his secondaries would be the downfall. Scoring on primaries was hotly contested.
Thanks for the summary! Sounds promising, and it looks like more games will be nail biters and just because someone establishes an early lead the game isn’t a write off and come-backs are possible! Exciting!
FWIW, the missions were designed to create the ability for nailbiter finishes and tense comebacks - things like the primary capping contribute to this. Glad to see the comment!
Any chance of a brief summary, reveal of the surprise ending? I can't watch videos, my internet is essentially dial-up.
Dang dude.
Orc player is down considerably (30 or so points), but makes a turn 4/5 comeback to clinch it.
Initially, it seemed like his secondaries would be the downfall. Scoring on primaries was hotly contested.
Thanks for the summary! Sounds promising, and it looks like more games will be nail biters and just because someone establishes an early lead the game isn’t a write off and come-backs are possible! Exciting!
FWIW, the missions were designed to create the ability for nailbiter finishes and tense comebacks - things like the primary capping contribute to this. Glad to see the comment!
???
They didn't seem so to me. Almost any progressive-scoring mission has the problem of being able to accumulate an insurmountable early lead where there's not enough points on the table to turn the game in the later turns, making them irrelevant. It's fundamentally at odds with the principle behind progressive scoring, which is to incentiveize early game aggression, increase the importance of holding a position as opposed to taking it in the last turn, and emphasize the importance of movement and position in the early game by moving points further forward in the game.
If it's possible to overturn a strong lead in the last turn, then it basically turns into an end-of-game scoring mission where what you do before the last turn position and scoring wise might as well not matter.
Any chance of a brief summary, reveal of the surprise ending? I can't watch videos, my internet is essentially dial-up.
Dang dude.
Orc player is down considerably (30 or so points), but makes a turn 4/5 comeback to clinch it.
Initially, it seemed like his secondaries would be the downfall. Scoring on primaries was hotly contested.
Thanks for the summary! Sounds promising, and it looks like more games will be nail biters and just because someone establishes an early lead the game isn’t a write off and come-backs are possible! Exciting!
FWIW, the missions were designed to create the ability for nailbiter finishes and tense comebacks - things like the primary capping contribute to this. Glad to see the comment!
???
They didn't seem so to me. Almost any progressive-scoring mission has the problem of being able to accumulate an insurmountable early lead where there's not enough points on the table to turn the game in the later turns, making them irrelevant. It's fundamentally at odds with the principle behind progressive scoring, which is to incentiveize early game aggression, increase the importance of holding a position as opposed to taking it in the last turn, and emphasize the importance of movement and position in the early game by moving points further forward in the game.
If it's possible to overturn a strong lead in the last turn, then it basically turns into an end-of-game scoring mission where what you do before the last turn position and scoring wise might as well not matter.
It's more the ability to catch up then the ability to overturn. Both players still have a cap on how many they can earn from each objective. One of the big flaws in most progressive mission design is, in fact, the absence of a point cap on criteria. Without the cap, games get out of reach well before they end, reducing scoring tension and creating a greater incidence of concessions at the Turn 3 or so point. IN this format, you incentivize early aggression for a lead, but it isn't the *only* way, expanding the variety of ways in which you can win a game, and thus expanding the variety of lists which constitute viability toward success.
That might have been the intention, and maybe it's partly using old points and partly the battle reps all being people rushing to bring out content but some of the secondarys seem to be almost auto discarded by a number of players and a number are automatically 15 points that doesnt sound like it is improving viability it seems like they just aren't well balanced against each other.
At the moment it kinda seems like their is a lot of impression of choice but that people doing well seem to have a number of secondarys incommon seems to say they may just have missed the mark on balance a tad.
So far the worst offender for broken seems to be kill.my 3 Chaplin dreadnaughts, because LoLs we spacemarines and we shall know No unfavourable rules.
Ice_can wrote: That might have been the intention, and maybe it's partly using old points and partly the battle reps all being people rushing to bring out content but some of the secondarys seem to be almost auto discarded by a number of players and a number are automatically 15 points that doesnt sound like it is improving viability it seems like they just aren't well balanced against each other.
At the moment it kinda seems like their is a lot of impression of choice but that people doing well seem to have a number of secondarys incommon seems to say they may just have missed the mark on balance a tad.
So far the worst offender for broken seems to be kill.my 3 Chaplin dreadnaughts, because LoLs we spacemarines and we shall know No unfavourable rules.
If you're taking 3 chap dreads you have no other HQs unless you spend CP and possibly additional points on troops.
In any case those low score secondaries can be for someone who is playing a denial game and needs something that is more directly score-able. We'll get a better sense for the secondary layout with Chapter Approved though.
Ice_can wrote: That might have been the intention, and maybe it's partly using old points and partly the battle reps all being people rushing to bring out content but some of the secondarys seem to be almost auto discarded by a number of players and a number are automatically 15 points that doesnt sound like it is improving viability it seems like they just aren't well balanced against each other.
At the moment it kinda seems like their is a lot of impression of choice but that people doing well seem to have a number of secondarys incommon seems to say they may just have missed the mark on balance a tad.
So far the worst offender for broken seems to be kill.my 3 Chaplin dreadnaughts, because LoLs we spacemarines and we shall know No unfavourable rules.
If you're taking 3 chap dreads you have no other HQs unless you spend CP and possibly additional points on troops.
In any case those low score secondaries can be for someone who is playing a denial game and needs something that is more directly score-able. We'll get a better sense for the secondary layout with Chapter Approved though.
2CP's and 1 Marine Troops units isn't exactly a bad trade for an automatic 15VP though especially if your trying to run smaller units of obsec anyway.
Ice_can wrote: That might have been the intention, and maybe it's partly using old points and partly the battle reps all being people rushing to bring out content but some of the secondarys seem to be almost auto discarded by a number of players and a number are automatically 15 points that doesnt sound like it is improving viability it seems like they just aren't well balanced against each other.
At the moment it kinda seems like their is a lot of impression of choice but that people doing well seem to have a number of secondarys incommon seems to say they may just have missed the mark on balance a tad.
So far the worst offender for broken seems to be kill.my 3 Chaplin dreadnaughts, because LoLs we spacemarines and we shall know No unfavourable rules.
Seems to be playing out according to intention in many batreps I'm watching.
Ice_can wrote: That might have been the intention, and maybe it's partly using old points and partly the battle reps all being people rushing to bring out content but some of the secondarys seem to be almost auto discarded by a number of players and a number are automatically 15 points that doesnt sound like it is improving viability it seems like they just aren't well balanced against each other.
At the moment it kinda seems like their is a lot of impression of choice but that people doing well seem to have a number of secondarys incommon seems to say they may just have missed the mark on balance a tad.
So far the worst offender for broken seems to be kill.my 3 Chaplin dreadnaughts, because LoLs we spacemarines and we shall know No unfavourable rules.
Seems to be playing out according to intention in many batreps I'm watching.
Impossible to loose plsying marines yeah great news for anyone not interested in playing marines.
Turn 1 advantage seems too high. ITC finally ironed this out after years of trying and created a ruleset where going second was actually arguably even superior. But progressive scoring and deploying before you know who's going first removes all the advantages of going second, and replaces them with nothing I can see except an advantage on kill more if you choose it and with knowing what score you have to beat on your last turn (both of which you had anyway under the old system), but those don't seem nearly enough to erode the advantage of getting onto the objectives first.
I am hopeful the tournament missions will be better structured to balance first and second turn, but I'm also not sure what the thinking was on the eternal war pack as to why first-turn advantage wasn't flagged as an issue.
I am always open to the possibility that I am just not very good at the game and smarter people than me can demonstrate that the first turn advantage isn't as large as it has been in my games, but so far I haven't seen it done.
I would think any army able to bully their opponent off of objectives would have the advantage when going second. Most of the primary objectives require you to hold the objective during your Command phase and cannot be scored on Turn 1.
So while the player going first can jump on them, if the second player has an army that can assault those units and push them off the objective, they actually have the advantage, right?
Exactly, the first players get initiative, but the second player gets more information before it has to make a decision. The first player has to move on to objectives first and weather the opponent to score. The second player also has a huge advantage for reserves. They get to pick where they reinforce, or whether they bring in those reinforcements at all, based on their opponent's gameplan.
Bear in mind, the leaks we've seen are actually missing a couple pages detailing the new guidelines for the AMOUNT of terrain to be used (pgs 266-269). Given how much everything else has mirrored the ITC rules, that will probably give enough terrain to blunt an enemy's alpha strike.
The new terrain rules heavily favor going second imo. If you deploy conservatively the person who goes first might have nothing to shoot while you're behind terrain; then your turn comes around, put a toe into the terrain and you can shoot at the stuff they moved forward.
Especially given that there's no way to reliably go first, building for alpha strikes looks really bad in 9th.
alextroy wrote: I would think any army able to bully their opponent off of objectives would have the advantage when going second. Most of the primary objectives require you to hold the objective during your Command phase and cannot be scored on Turn 1.
So while the player going first can jump on them, if the second player has an army that can assault those units and push them off the objective, they actually have the advantage, right?
No. Because the scoring is all at the beginning of your command phase, not at the end of the battle round.
If all scoring happened at the end of the battle round instead of the beginning of the player who is scoring's turn, it would indeed encourage going second. As is, there is virtually no advantage to going second that I can see, except for being able to manage the kill more secondary. Even the hold more secondary is, oddly, resolved at the end of your turn, not the end of the battle round, so going second doesn't help that one either - it actually hurts it, since the player going first gets it pretty much automatically on T1 if they want it.
The issue isn't alpha strike, you win these missions by holding, not by killing. Having the first chance to get onto the objectives is a huge advantage when scoring isn't at the end of the battle round.
Edit: Reserves is the one thing where you arguably do have an advantage, since you get the final chance to deploy. But if you're waiting until T3 to deploy, you're not scoring anything with those models until T4, so that's leaving things awfully late. You also have to decide whether to reserve before you know whether you're going first, so if you reserve a significant portion of your forces and go second, you're facing an even greater uphill struggle to overcome the initial advantage the player going first gets by getting onto the objectives first.
alextroy wrote: I would think any army able to bully their opponent off of objectives would have the advantage when going second. Most of the primary objectives require you to hold the objective during your Command phase and cannot be scored on Turn 1.
So while the player going first can jump on them, if the second player has an army that can assault those units and push them off the objective, they actually have the advantage, right?
No. Because the scoring is all at the beginning of your command phase, not at the end of the battle round.
If all scoring happened at the end of the battle round instead of the beginning of the player who is scoring's turn, it would indeed encourage going second. As is, there is virtually no advantage to going second that I can see, except for being able to manage the kill more secondary. Even the hold more secondary is, oddly, resolved at the end of your turn, not the end of the battle round, so going second doesn't help that one either - it actually hurts it, since the player going first gets it pretty much automatically on T1 if they want it.
The point isn't that the second player can score objectives without retaliation. You are correct, the second player cannot move on to objectives and immediately score them. Alextroy's point, however, is that the first player has to make their units vulnerable by moving up and getting on the objective first.
Imagine, for example, the first player moves up to a center field objective. That player won't have the movement to cross no-man's land and assault their opponent. However, by moving to the middle, the first player is now in assault range of the second player.
Or another example, since you don't know who is going first until after deployment, both armies will deploy largely out of LoS. The first player needs to move into LoS to begin scoring. That means the second player the first opportunity to shoot at them out of cover.
All of that would matter in a game about killing. But these missions are all about holding, not killing. Going first with progressive scoring gives two massive advantages. You not only get onto the objectives first - which means you can screen out your opponent's ability to contest them unless they can assault you off - you also have a huge advantage at the bottom of the game, because you score your last set of points before the other guy - which means that once you've scored, you can throw everything at stopping the other player from scoring, with no need to continue to hold. This doesn't even have to be T5 - you can very conceivably max out your primary by the start of T4 - or only need one back-field objective to do it, which is almost the same thing - and then be able to play complete offense during the whole last two turns of the game, just focusing on denying your opponent.
I've played two games so far, and the game I went first was effectively over once we rolled to see who went first. There was literally no possible way for him to win. Part of this was that we rolled the mission with the central objective, and that one is even more "go first wins" than the others - I don't think you could create a mission with greater first turn advantage if you tried - but I don't see how he could have won on any of the other missions either.
The second game, where I went second, was closer, but only because my list was so much better at playing the missions than his.
All that said, I am working on the assumption that these are not the missions used for tournament play, so while I'm not sure why they seem so tilted to going first, I'm not going to care very much if they're not very competitive as long as there are competitive alternatives.
yukishiro1 wrote: Going first with progressive scoring gives two massive advantages. You not only get onto the objectives first - which means you can screen out your opponent's ability to contest them unless they can assault you off - you also have a huge advantage at the bottom of the game, because you score your last set of points before the other guy - which means that once you've scored, you can throw everything at stopping the other player from scoring, with no need to continue to hold. This doesn't even have to be T5 - you can very conceivably max out your primary by the start of T4 - or only need one back-field objective to do it, which is almost the same thing - and then be able to play complete offense during the whole last two turns of the game, just focusing on denying your opponent.
To your first point, you have the advantage of being on the objective first, but the disadvantage of being exposed in the midfield. The amount that is an advantage is extremely match-up dependent, though certain armies like hordes would consistently utilize it. To your second point, it's technically true that you can max out your primary on turn 4, but that situations where that occurs are already a blow-out game in your favour. In reality, that's going to happen very rarely between two even lists.
I've played two games so far, and the game I went first was effectively over once we rolled to see who went first. There was literally no possible way for him to win. Part of this was that we rolled the mission with the central objective, and that one is even more "go first wins" than the others - I don't think you could create a mission with greater first turn advantage if you tried - but I don't see how he could have won on any of the other missions either.
I mean, that just seems like poor play in list building and strategy. I assume you mean No Man's Land, which has the secondary for scoring the center objective. That objective is worth the points equal to the Battle Round number, so the first round is worth 1 point and the last round is worth 5. The only way to score the maximum 15 points for that secondary is to hold it uninterrupted the entire game.
And that's just a secondary, the opponent doesn't have to take that mission or even care about the central objective at all. They can focus on controlling 3 other objectives, and take secondaries that don't engage with the middle of the board like Linebreaker, Domination, Repair Teleport Homer, etc..
Have you played any games? The point is it isn't a blow-out, it's just what happens when you go first with a decent list that's good at holding stuff.
The mission with the central objective has huge first-turn advantage, and it's got nothing to do with that bad secondary, which you have to choose before you know who goes first, BTW, so if you do take it, not going after the center isn't an option. I took it, but only because I was taking the power combo with psychic ritual (which I don't think is very good except on this mission).
The basic problem with it is that whoever is in the center - and the player who goes first has the option to be that person - can easily threaten all the objectives on the board, but if you aren't in the center, you can threaten only the center unless you have huge mobility in your army. This makes it much easier for the person in the middle to hold more, and then you can combo off that with secondaries to create a situation where if your opponent isn't capable of shifting you off the center by the end of T3, you basically just win.
Terrible list match-ups or terrible rolling aside, I struggle to see how anyone reliably wins this mission going second unless they play T'au, and if they can, it's just because T'au win the mission as soon as it is rolled.
Again obviously maybe I'm just a moron and haven't spotted something. One game isn't enough to draw solid conclusions from. But the game was downright dire.
yukishiro1 wrote: Have you played any games? The point is it isn't a blow-out, it's just what happens when you go first with a decent list that's good at holding stuff.
You're saying a player who goes first and is "good at holding objectives" will typically score 45 primary points at the start of turn 4? If you're consistently holding more objectives than your opponent for every round of every game, then you owe it to yourself to rampage through the tournament scene. It is simply not the case that the player who goes first automatically holds more than their opponent for the rest of the game.
The mission with the central objective has huge first-turn advantage, and it's got nothing to do with that bad secondary, which you have to choose before you know who goes first, BTW, so if you do take it, not going after the center isn't an option. I took it, but only because I was taking the power combo with psychic ritual (which I don't think is very good except on this mission).
The basic problem with it is that whoever is in the center - and the player who goes first has the option to be that person - can easily threaten all the objectives on the board, but if you aren't in the center, you can threaten only the center unless you have huge mobility in your army. This makes it much easier for the person in the middle to hold more, and then you can combo off that with secondaries to create a situation where if your opponent isn't capable of shifting you off the center by the end of T3, you basically just win.
If we want to analyze that match in particular we'd need to know a little more info about the armies involved, the secondaries chosen, and the set-up terrain. I can't believe that pushing the opponent off an objective is outright impossible, unless the match-up is very skewed.
By the time you choose secondaries, you know the mission and your opponent's list. You should be able to identify "if he takes an objective and sits on it, I'm going to have a hard time pushing him off." In the case, you shouldn't take any missions that say 'hold a particular objective' because you can't be sure you will.
What were you guys playing such that your opponent had no hope of interacting with your gameplan?
No, read what I actually said please. I said they will frequently end up at T4 either maxed or close to it, which is essentially the same thing as unless you are tabled, holding a single objective isn't tough. Going first means you're strongly favored to do 15 points on T1. If you then just manage to hold more one of the next two turns, you're in a strong position to 5 points from maxed. It looks to me like the player who goes second is typically going to be looking at a ~10 point deficit on the primary going into your T4, which is difficult to overcome unless you table your opponent that turn.
I don't think theorycrafting this further is going to be a productive use of time. Go play some games and come back and see if you don't find that going first is a very strong advantage with the current missions. I hope very much your experience is different from mine.
Had a small game with a friend last night using the released 9 th ed rules booklet and a handful of the leaked larger book, just to get a taste of of it.
Our experience is pretty positive really. The biggest thing for us was overwatch being restricted to stratagem.
It gave me the option to use it where I needed it, but gave my buddy playing slaanesh daemons and actual chance to play the game. For the first time in ages, he managed to get into combat without being wiped away by overwatching flamers.
It made for a better play experience for him and for me and through this change alone, made for a much closer and (for us) enjoyable game.
If you score at the start of the turn, doesn't that then mean that in the final turn of the game the player going second has no chance to recover, as nothing they do will affect the outcome of the objectives that have been scored?
I just got my first game of 9th in [SW v. SM [RG] @1500]. Here are my insights:
The 5" vertical engagement range was really awkward to use, especially because it's so much larger than the models themselves. It made it really easy to make charges to targets, and made having the high ground a liability more than a benefit. If you have multiple units vertical in a building, one guy charging the bottom unit engages effectively the entire vertical tower without trying any harder. More on that later. -- Big negative.
Overwatch for a stratagem is a waste of time; if it costs a stratagem, it should hit on natural BS. -- eh. basically amounts to "removed overwatch" which is like fine. Net neutral.
The CP/turn was reasonably nice. I used it to effectively get Transhuman Physiology all game. I'm increasingly of the opinion that maybe the starting allocation should be lowered and the amount per turn increased. -- Net Positive.
The terrain rules in general are a mess. Things being infinitely-high columns of providing their effect is A: awkward and B: makes having high ground and setting up in buildings really just a thing not to do, since you can't actually use the height to see over things and for some reason defending the top of an object or a window or a doorway is an active liability in close quarters. We had a lot of terrain of different types and really put it through it's paces, and weren't really satisfied and just found it to be too abstracted and too much of a mess. -- Net negative.
Reduced fight range. This made stringing out our units to hold objective and fight units actually take models out of the fight, so I'd say it's a net positive. It is a little awkward that engagement range is so long but after that it's so short. -- net positive.
We didn't use the horde/blast rules, we were basically all MSU, so we didn't end up with an issue there. -- unknown
We were both Marines and MSU, so Morale is still essentially meaningless. -- negative or unknown
We didn't wind up with any vehicles in close quarters combat. -- unknown.
One thing to note was how much better the game was with fewer points. We played on a regular table, but the opening up of space to play the game in and for units to maneuver and act and have to cover with fewer units really did make the game feel a lot better. I look forward to the cost of units generally going up.
Each player scores at the start of their turn. It's a big shift from ITC where it was by battle round. It means both players can conceivably score hold more in the same battle round.
It does mean that on T5, only the player who goes first can do anything to impact the primary, which means they can go all out to stop whatever scoring the player going second has set up, without having to worry about leaving stuff exposed.
They didn't seem so to me. Almost any progressive-scoring mission has the problem of being able to accumulate an insurmountable early lead where there's not enough points on the table to turn the game in the later turns, making them irrelevant. It's fundamentally at odds with the principle behind progressive scoring, which is to incentiveize early game aggression, increase the importance of holding a position as opposed to taking it in the last turn, and emphasize the importance of movement and position in the early game by moving points further forward in the game.
If it's possible to overturn a strong lead in the last turn, then it basically turns into an end-of-game scoring mission where what you do before the last turn position and scoring wise might as well not matter.
It's more the ability to catch up then the ability to overturn. Both players still have a cap on how many they can earn from each objective. One of the big flaws in most progressive mission design is, in fact, the absence of a point cap on criteria. Without the cap, games get out of reach well before they end, reducing scoring tension and creating a greater incidence of concessions at the Turn 3 or so point. IN this format, you incentivize early aggression for a lead, but it isn't the *only* way, expanding the variety of ways in which you can win a game, and thus expanding the variety of lists which constitute viability toward success.
A maximum points gain per turn doesn't help, because if effectively stymies any comeback potential to the same degree it "limits a lead", if not more.
Scoring at the beginning of the turn is also a net wash, because it also limits running away with the score.... but it also makes coming back that much harder since you need to be starting your comeback even earlier to make up the difference.
All in all, it shifts the importance even further forward in the game and further increases the power of early aggression and decreases the importance of late turns.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
yukishiro1 wrote: Each player scores at the start of their turn. It's a big shift from ITC where it was by battle round. It means both players can conceivably score hold more in the same battle round.
It does mean that on T5, only the player who goes first can do anything to impact the primary, which means they can go all out to stop whatever scoring the player going second has set up, without having to worry about leaving stuff exposed.
That seems like a real edge case. If I scored hold more at the start of my turn, I would have to willfully abandon an objective for you to score hold more
It's not, really. You can leave one guy on each of your objectives and throw everything else at them to get them off theirs, which they can't do back to you because it's too late.
It works out to a significant advantage on T1 and on T5 on the primary for the person who goes first. Seeing as that's now 40% of the game...a significant advantage on 40% of the game is, well, significant.
yukishiro1 wrote: It's not, really. You can leave one guy on each of your objectives and throw everything else at them to get them off theirs, which they can't do back to you because it's too late.
It works out to a significant advantage on T1 and on T5 on the primary for the person who goes first. Seeing as that's now 40% of the game...a significant advantage on 40% of the game is, well, significant.
Aircraft? Flyers?
The Tabletop Titans guys did #6, which has the rule that lets you hold the objective even if you move off, which really favored Custodes. Dropping bikes onto four objectives turn 1 set the tone for sure. Not all missions are like this and likely the tournament missions will be different as well. I probably wouldn't have bothered with the telemon.
Even if you lose turn 1 if you're able to take it back you need only 3 turns to max it out. I imagine some people might think they need to push it all back immediately, but driving towards one half of the board will even you out and puts your opponent at only 5 points of advantage. A scoring of 10/15/10/10 gets you maxed - or even 5/10/15/15.
If the opponent makes a hard drive and they don't get a strong alpha strike in then the counter punch can set your primaries up pretty well.
I did enjoy the CA19 setup stuff, but I'm willing to give this a go. The secondaries seem to have put Ishagu into hiding.
H.B.M.C. wrote: If you score at the start of the turn, doesn't that then mean that in the final turn of the game the player going second has no chance to recover, as nothing they do will affect the outcome of the objectives that have been scored?
It's sort of a symmetrical effect. The second player can interfere with the first player's objectives on turn 1, which the first player can't reciprocate until turn 2. Then on turn 5, the first player can interfere with the second player's scoring for turn 5, but the second player can't reciprocate. The amount this matters is going to depend a lot on the match-up and strategy. As Yukishiro1 points out, taking the objective first can screen out armies ill-suited to retake them. Some assault oriented armies will have a huge advantage pushing off enemies now in range in the center of the board. Some shooting armies may not have the firepower to dislodge the objective, and will fall behind on tempo.
While neither player can score primaries from their actions on the 5th turn, it is an important time to finish secondaries. Many secondaries score on end of turn and end of game (and sometimes both), so the player going second also cannot be stopped from scoring them.
Martel732 wrote: He probably doesn't want to admit the ITC influence.
If GW wanted to reunite the ITC players and the CA players, they needed to compromise between the two formats, not just select one and discard the other.
In this, I think that they made a really good work. The new missions have all the main features of both CA and ITC missions.
The seconday mission system is good when you tier it much more toward objective control, integrate it with the action system and make it so that the killing missions are only applicable against skew lists.
At the same time they kept the scoring at the start of the turn from CA, removed any possible reward for killing (being tabled is again fine) and kept a good array of different mission conditions and deployments.
You have agency in selecting your objectives based on the situation, which was the best feature of ITC. You have to act under non-standardized conditions, so you can't come into the game with a full plan, which was the best feature of CA19.
I didn't get a game in yet, but I'm fairly optimist that they managed to create a mission packet which is better than both previous ones.
One thing to remember at this stage is most people aren't using the updated points for 9th edition (I think the Tabletop Tactics guys did in their games) and from what I've seen most people haven't really adjusted their armies for the new edition. We'll likely see quite a few tactical errors in the first few weeks as people get their heads around the missions, scoring and what types of armies work best so it will be difficult to draw a full picture at the moment.
Martel732 wrote: He probably doesn't want to admit the ITC influence.
If GW wanted to reunite the ITC players and the CA players, they needed to compromise between the two formats, not just select one and discard the other.
In this, I think that they made a really good work. The new missions have all the main features of both CA and ITC missions.
The seconday mission system is good when you tier it much more toward objective control, integrate it with the action system and make it so that the killing missions are only applicable against skew lists.
At the same time they kept the scoring at the start of the turn from CA, removed any possible reward for killing (being tabled is again fine) and kept a good array of different mission conditions and deployments.
You have agency in selecting your objectives based on the situation, which was the best feature of ITC.
You have to act under non-standardized conditions, so you can't come into the game with a full plan, which was the best feature of CA19.
I didn't get a game in yet, but I'm fairly optimist that they managed to create a mission packet which is better than both previous ones.
Slipspace wrote: One thing to remember at this stage is most people aren't using the updated points for 9th edition (I think the Tabletop Tactics guys did in their games) and from what I've seen most people haven't really adjusted their armies for the new edition. We'll likely see quite a few tactical errors in the first few weeks as people get their heads around the missions, scoring and what types of armies work best so it will be difficult to draw a full picture at the moment.
Slipspace wrote: One thing to remember at this stage is most people aren't using the updated points for 9th edition (I think the Tabletop Tactics guys did in their games) and from what I've seen most people haven't really adjusted their armies for the new edition. We'll likely see quite a few tactical errors in the first few weeks as people get their heads around the missions, scoring and what types of armies work best so it will be difficult to draw a full picture at the moment.
I made a f***ton of errors, yeah. Most of it from terrain and what terrain did.
Also, I forgot to count end of game scoring when we adjourned, thus depriving me of a point [though in my defense, my opponent said there wasn't any more scoring after the beginning of my turn]
Also, a made a bunch of tactical errors, but that's probably because I hadn't played in a while and was also playing in the general mindset of the old CA and ITC missions.
Can you be a bit more specific on what BA players are trying to rebuild? I had a mild interest in them right before the 9th announcement so I'm curious to know why they seem to be kicking and screaming.
Mixzremixzd wrote: Can you be a bit more specific on what BA players are trying to rebuild? I had a mild interest in them right before the 9th announcement so I'm curious to know why they seem to be kicking and screaming.
It's Martel. To him, they're always kicking and screaming.
That said, my experience yesterday says to me that I think BA and other aggressive assault-oriented marine armies should be very happy in the upcoming edition.
The Box-style lists of all melee jump guys flat out don't work in 9th. Since many BA players went out and bought and painted like 40 DC and 25 SG after Box's ITC victories, there is a lot of kicking and screaming over how 9th works.
Also note that all aura in indomitus are by model, not by unit. That's the future, and BA conga lines of doom literally don't function in that future.
Mixzremixzd wrote: Can you be a bit more specific on what BA players are trying to rebuild? I had a mild interest in them right before the 9th announcement so I'm curious to know why they seem to be kicking and screaming.
I'm guessing basically because of the heavy nerfs to tripointing and multicharges.
9th ed will be a shootier game than 8th ed ITC, unless point changes heavily favor melee units over shooty units.
And the vehicles shooting in CC. The Box list relied heavily on giving ground vehicles love taps to turn them off.
Old BA players like me remember mech BA and combined arms BA so we were far more reluctant to buy into the late 8th BA meta so heavily. BA are 90% codex compliant, yet many BA players are claiming they will only buy jump pack units and so won't buy the new primaris stuff.
Mixzremixzd wrote: Can you be a bit more specific on what BA players are trying to rebuild? I had a mild interest in them right before the 9th announcement so I'm curious to know why they seem to be kicking and screaming.
I'm guessing basically because of the heavy nerfs to tripointing and multicharges.
9th ed will be a shootier game than 8th ed ITC, unless point changes heavily favor melee units over shooty units.
I got the opposite impression from the game I played. We both queued up shooting armies, and I at least came to the conclusion that even more so than 8th, close quarters is where it's going to be won.
The terrain changes are a big deal for CQC units, I think, more than vehicles being able to shoot in melee. It's super easy to tag units, and large structures are basically "if I get into the structure, the entire structure is now in melee with me". Forests giving a -1 to hit is another good thing for melee troops.
And vehicles being able to shoot in melee is really like a booby prize that doesn't do anything, since only the vehicle will be able to engage the unit it's in combat with and it can only engage the unit it's in combat with, and can't use blast weapons.... so most vehicle anti-infantry.
It's actually very powerful against lists like BA. The secondary guns on a russ can kill a lot of DC. On a direct fire variant, it can cripple the squad.
Meele was allready understimated in 8th, when the most competitive armies were all short range shooting ones and meele based ones.
Those shooting castles that gak on the back were not really top-competitive since... nearly all of the edition.
And 9th killed a ton of those "tricks" that made meele work in top tables but also added a ton of more "fair" stuff that benefits them. People will just need to adapt.
I mean, this past sunday I ran a breacher heavy list with stealth suits and crisis farsight bomb tau army agaisnt a 100 guardsmen full artillery list (With double shooting 3 damage basilisk, 2 manticores, pask, 3 tank commanders with relic battle cannon, etc...) on ITC, and when the Imperial Guard player saw that I was CHARGING him he just like, mentally broke, started playing extremely defensive and basically gave me a free win.
It takes discipline to play normally in the face of charges. The best way to short circuit DC forlorn fury rush is to deploy normally, don't box yourself in, take your losses, wipe the DC, and then move on with the game.
Melee was gak in 8th. Tripoint was godly, as it turned off all shooting with minimal counter play.
Martel732 wrote: The Box-style lists of all melee jump guys flat out don't work in 9th. Since many BA players went out and bought and painted like 40 DC and 25 SG after Box's ITC victories, there is a lot of kicking and screaming over how 9th works.
Also note that all aura in indomitus are by model, not by unit. That's the future, and BA conga lines of doom literally don't function in that future.
They're all "models in [keyword] unit if those units are within X inches of [aurabot]", so they're not actually by model, but by unit.
H.B.M.C. wrote: If you score at the start of the turn, doesn't that then mean that in the final turn of the game the player going second has no chance to recover, as nothing they do will affect the outcome of the objectives that have been scored?
It's sort of a symmetrical effect. The second player can interfere with the first player's objectives on turn 1, which the first player can't reciprocate until turn 2. Then on turn 5, the first player can interfere with the second player's scoring for turn 5, but the second player can't reciprocate. The amount this matters is going to depend a lot on the match-up and strategy. As Yukishiro1 points out, taking the objective first can screen out armies ill-suited to retake them. Some assault oriented armies will have a huge advantage pushing off enemies now in range in the center of the board. Some shooting armies may not have the firepower to dislodge the objective, and will fall behind on tempo.
While neither player can score primaries from their actions on the 5th turn, it is an important time to finish secondaries. Many secondaries score on end of turn and end of game (and sometimes both), so the player going second also cannot be stopped from scoring them.
But this isn't really symmetrical at all, because when player 2 does it, they still have to worry about how their actions with impact their own score for the whole rest of the game. Meanwhile player 1 gets to mess with player 2's objectives on T5 without having to worry about how that will impact their own scoring, because there is no further scoring at the end of the game.
It's true player 2 gets a minor advantage for stuff that scores the end of turn, but I don't think this is enough to overcome the structural advantage player 1 gets on the primaries.
Something I’ve been catching myself on and have seen YouTube players also note is the change to how the reroll strat works. The Chaplain 3+ Litanies are not such a sure thing, for example, and you can’t roll out of a vehicle explosion. Subtle but meaningful and it will likely take me some time to get out of the 8th edition habit.
Vehicle explosions are going to be a huge deal (for everyone except space marines, lol, but that's pretty much a given isn't it?). If you castle vehicles that to D6 wounds near auras, you are just leaving it to chance whether this ends up being that one game in 12 or 18 or 36 (depending whether your aura characters have 4, 5 or 6 wounds) where that explosion just kills your aura character.
Unless, of course, you have a shield that gives you a 4+++ to mortal wounds.
yukishiro1 wrote: Vehicle explosions are going to be a huge deal (for everyone except space marines, lol, but that's pretty much a given isn't it?). If you castle vehicles that to D6 wounds near auras, you are just leaving it to chance whether this ends up being that one game in 12 or 18 or 36 (depending whether your aura characters have 4, 5 or 6 wounds) where that explosion just kills your aura character.
Unless, of course, you have a shield that gives you a 4+++ to mortal wounds.
Funny, that.
Yes. I think its going to be odd - because its not predictable. So for one off games, you probably just laugh about it when it happens.
But if you are running a 6 game tournament, the odds of a game where three vehicles blowup and kill half your army starts to go up. Venom Spam lists risk throwing mortal wounds all over the place.
Overwatch change is desirable - but was really hoping for something like "flamers can always fire overwatch". Kind of feel like they are deadweight now.
Oh well, roll on points reveals.
Slipspace wrote: One thing to remember at this stage is most people aren't using the updated points for 9th edition (I think the Tabletop Tactics guys did in their games) and from what I've seen most people haven't really adjusted their armies for the new edition. We'll likely see quite a few tactical errors in the first few weeks as people get their heads around the missions, scoring and what types of armies work best so it will be difficult to draw a full picture at the moment.
TT did not. I think everyone has 8th ed points.
Maybe watching those pre-9th-ed games is a waste of time, isn't it?
The 5" vertical engagement range was really awkward to use, especially because it's so much larger than the models themselves. It made it really easy to make charges to targets, and made having the high ground a liability more than a benefit. If you have multiple units vertical in a building, one guy charging the bottom unit engages effectively the entire vertical tower without trying any harder. More on that later. -- Big negative.
Overwatch for a stratagem is a waste of time; if it costs a stratagem, it should hit on natural BS. -- eh. basically amounts to "removed overwatch" which is like fine. Net neutral.
The CP/turn was reasonably nice. I used it to effectively get Transhuman Physiology all game. I'm increasingly of the opinion that maybe the starting allocation should be lowered and the amount per turn increased. -- Net Positive.
The terrain rules in general are a mess. Things being infinitely-high columns of providing their effect is A: awkward and B: makes having high ground and setting up in buildings really just a thing not to do, since you can't actually use the height to see over things and for some reason defending the top of an object or a window or a doorway is an active liability in close quarters. We had a lot of terrain of different types and really put it through it's paces, and weren't really satisfied and just found it to be too abstracted and too much of a mess. -- Net negative.
Reduced fight range. This made stringing out our units to hold objective and fight units actually take models out of the fight, so I'd say it's a net positive. It is a little awkward that engagement range is so long but after that it's so short. -- net positive.
We didn't use the horde/blast rules, we were basically all MSU, so we didn't end up with an issue there. -- unknown
We were both Marines and MSU, so Morale is still essentially meaningless. -- negative or unknown
We didn't wind up with any vehicles in close quarters combat. -- unknown.
One thing to note was how much better the game was with fewer points. We played on a regular table, but the opening up of space to play the game in and for units to maneuver and act and have to cover with fewer units really did make the game feel a lot better. I look forward to the cost of units generally going up.
Terrain is what stopped me from trying to play until I have the book. I can't believe that terrain rules were not "core" rules; they totally should be. The fact that they aren't meant that if I wanted to play, I'd have to either use the leak files (which are a disorganized mess) or try to track down all of the terrain details spread out over dozens of Warcom articles.
I was surprise vertical engagement wasn't 3". Typically, 3"= one story. I also though 5 was too much, but it should stop short of the 3rd story of a structure.
If Obscuring and the other trait being infinitely tall are a super issue, I would suggest assigning those traits sparingly. If I recall the exact wording, the 5" height for one of the traits and 3" for the other do not automatically mean the trait must be applied to terrain of that height, only that the terrain must have that height in order to receive that trait.
I can't wait to have ALL of the terrain rules in front of me, in order.
The 5" vertical engagement range was really awkward to use, especially because it's so much larger than the models themselves. It made it really easy to make charges to targets, and made having the high ground a liability more than a benefit. If you have multiple units vertical in a building, one guy charging the bottom unit engages effectively the entire vertical tower without trying any harder. More on that later. -- Big negative.
Overwatch for a stratagem is a waste of time; if it costs a stratagem, it should hit on natural BS. -- eh. basically amounts to "removed overwatch" which is like fine. Net neutral.
The CP/turn was reasonably nice. I used it to effectively get Transhuman Physiology all game. I'm increasingly of the opinion that maybe the starting allocation should be lowered and the amount per turn increased. -- Net Positive.
The terrain rules in general are a mess. Things being infinitely-high columns of providing their effect is A: awkward and B: makes having high ground and setting up in buildings really just a thing not to do, since you can't actually use the height to see over things and for some reason defending the top of an object or a window or a doorway is an active liability in close quarters. We had a lot of terrain of different types and really put it through it's paces, and weren't really satisfied and just found it to be too abstracted and too much of a mess. -- Net negative.
Reduced fight range. This made stringing out our units to hold objective and fight units actually take models out of the fight, so I'd say it's a net positive. It is a little awkward that engagement range is so long but after that it's so short. -- net positive.
We didn't use the horde/blast rules, we were basically all MSU, so we didn't end up with an issue there. -- unknown
We were both Marines and MSU, so Morale is still essentially meaningless. -- negative or unknown
We didn't wind up with any vehicles in close quarters combat. -- unknown.
One thing to note was how much better the game was with fewer points. We played on a regular table, but the opening up of space to play the game in and for units to maneuver and act and have to cover with fewer units really did make the game feel a lot better. I look forward to the cost of units generally going up.
Terrain is what stopped me from trying to play until I have the book. I can't believe that terrain rules were not "core" rules; they totally should be. The fact that they aren't meant that if I wanted to play, I'd have to either use the leak files (which are a disorganized mess) or try to track down all of the terrain details spread out over dozens of Warcom articles.
I was surprise vertical engagement wasn't 3". Typically, 3"= one story. I also though 5 was too much, but it should stop short of the 3rd story of a structure.
If Obscuring and the other trait being infinitely tall are a super issue, I would suggest assigning those traits sparingly. If I recall the exact wording, the 5" height for one of the traits and 3" for the other do not automatically mean the trait must be applied to terrain of that height, only that the terrain must have that height in order to receive that trait.
I can't wait to have ALL of the terrain rules in front of me, in order.
Obscuring means that it's an infinitely tall column on LOS-blocking if it's more than 5" tall, and nothing if it isn't
Dense Cover means that it's an infinitely tall column of -1 to hit at range if it's more than 3" tall, and nothing if it isn't
5", heck, even 3" vertical engagement range is too much. One unit standing on the ground floor and engaging units on the second floor is really awkward.
Since you can fight up floors and stacking up in a tower is bad since it makes you easy to charge/lock, and terrain effects are now either "in the terrain" or "this thing is an infinitely tall column of X for any LoS passing through it", there's no benefit to elevation, and an active detriment to occupying higher floors.
How exactly do people define "melee army" here? It does seem like trying to charge straight into the enemy's deployment zone is bad, but camping in your deployment zone with artillery also seems bad. All the batreps and playtester discussions I've seen indicate that midrangey stuff that contests the center of the board is what you want in 9th - fast melee units should be pretty capable of disrupting plays if that's the case.
5", heck, even 3" vertical engagement range is too much. One unit standing on the ground floor and engaging units on the second floor is really awkward.
Since you can fight up floors and stacking up in a tower is bad since it makes you easy to charge/lock, and terrain effects are now either "in the terrain" or "this thing is an infinitely tall column of X for any LoS passing through it", there's no benefit to elevation, and an active detriment to occupying higher floors.
Playing it, it felt like a total mess.
If it wasn't 5" we'd be back to where we were previously. Sitting on the second floor gets your protection from being charged *if* you bother to occupy the first floor as well. Height can be an advantage for LOS, but will not always be. You might be IN the terrain, but true LOS doesn't stop being applicable.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Arachnofiend wrote: How exactly do people define "melee army" here? It does seem like trying to charge straight into the enemy's deployment zone is bad, but camping in your deployment zone with artillery also seems bad. All the batreps and playtester discussions I've seen indicate that midrangey stuff that contests the center of the board is what you want in 9th - fast melee units should be pretty capable of disrupting plays if that's the case.
Yes that's the case. Previously when missions focused more on killing melee's only goal was to get to the other side and do as much damage as possible, which obviously didn't always work. Now with people being forced to the middle you'll see denial armies like Death Guard absolutely trounce gun lines who don't have the power to remove models fast enough.
Slipspace wrote: One thing to remember at this stage is most people aren't using the updated points for 9th edition (I think the Tabletop Tactics guys did in their games) and from what I've seen most people haven't really adjusted their armies for the new edition. We'll likely see quite a few tactical errors in the first few weeks as people get their heads around the missions, scoring and what types of armies work best so it will be difficult to draw a full picture at the moment.
TT did not. I think everyone has 8th ed points.
Maybe watching those pre-9th-ed games is a waste of time, isn't it?
Tabletop tactics did one game with 9th ed points, GSC vs SoB.
Galas wrote: Meele was allready understimated in 8th, when the most competitive armies were all short range shooting ones and meele based ones.
Those shooting castles that gak on the back were not really top-competitive since... nearly all of the edition.
And 9th killed a ton of those "tricks" that made meele work in top tables but also added a ton of more "fair" stuff that benefits them. People will just need to adapt.
I mean, this past sunday I ran a breacher heavy list with stealth suits and crisis farsight bomb tau army agaisnt a 100 guardsmen full artillery list (With double shooting 3 damage basilisk, 2 manticores, pask, 3 tank commanders with relic battle cannon, etc...) on ITC, and when the Imperial Guard player saw that I was CHARGING him he just like, mentally broke, started playing extremely defensive and basically gave me a free win.
100% this.
Love tapping, tripointing, multi charges... that is not what melee is. Those were some neat tricks that acted as crutches during 8th to make melee work.
9th blasted those away, but at the same time improved on all those things that make melee good.
If the basic premises of melee are doing well, you don't need those crutches.
Melee will always have the upped hand in an objective based game, simply because you can shoot a target off of a point, but you can't move on it in the same turn. Melee can remove you from a point and take it for you at the same time.
You can't make melee work as well as shooting when the only purpose is to kill the opponent. Shooting will always have the advantage when it comes to killing. If you try to make it so that melee is better than shooting at killing, you have to make it OP. Striking a good balance where melee and shooting are well balanced in a kill only scenario, is almost impossible.
9th gives each of them a different purpose. Shooting is good at taking out priority targets, melee is good at taking the objectives.
I watched the first two battreps on GMG and it looked... definitely like 40k. At first glance the shoot/melee balance seemed good on the new tiny table size but maneuvering is all but gone as there's barely any clear ground left after deployment.
The one really irritating thing is how long attack resolution still takes, sometimes for barely any effect. Ork player makes 40 shots, with two different re-roll mechanics interwoven with exploding 6s for probably near 100 dice rolls in total, just for hits. Repeat for wounds. Final tally after what must be 5 minutes straight of rolling dice for just that one unit's shooting... Marine has to make 7 saves and fails 1, taking one wound off a Primaris. Now repeat this 10-15 times every turn. For each side.
5", heck, even 3" vertical engagement range is too much. One unit standing on the ground floor and engaging units on the second floor is really awkward.
Since you can fight up floors and stacking up in a tower is bad since it makes you easy to charge/lock, and terrain effects are now either "in the terrain" or "this thing is an infinitely tall column of X for any LoS passing through it", there's no benefit to elevation, and an active detriment to occupying higher floors.
Playing it, it felt like a total mess.
If it wasn't 5" we'd be back to where we were previously. Sitting on the second floor gets your protection from being charged *if* you bother to occupy the first floor as well. Height can be an advantage for LOS, but will not always be. You might be IN the terrain, but true LOS doesn't stop being applicable.
Honestly, I think where we were was good. Defending higher floors should be generally easy to outright unassailable, because you try fighting melee through a third story window from the first floor. Even if you have a ladder, you can't really fight melee on a latter or while scaling a wall, you need your hands for that.
The only "issue" was that certain large vehicles that were taller than a rifleman couldn't engage objects at the height of their melee weapons, which is a problem that should have been solved on the model's end.
5", heck, even 3" vertical engagement range is too much. One unit standing on the ground floor and engaging units on the second floor is really awkward.
Since you can fight up floors and stacking up in a tower is bad since it makes you easy to charge/lock, and terrain effects are now either "in the terrain" or "this thing is an infinitely tall column of X for any LoS passing through it", there's no benefit to elevation, and an active detriment to occupying higher floors.
Playing it, it felt like a total mess.
If it wasn't 5" we'd be back to where we were previously. Sitting on the second floor gets your protection from being charged *if* you bother to occupy the first floor as well. Height can be an advantage for LOS, but will not always be. You might be IN the terrain, but true LOS doesn't stop being applicable.
Honestly, I think where we were was good. Defending higher floors should be generally easy to outright unassailable, because you try fighting melee through a third story window from the first floor. Even if you have a ladder, you can't really fight melee on a latter or while scaling a wall, you need your hands for that.
The only "issue" was that certain large vehicles that were taller than a rifleman couldn't engage objects at the height of their melee weapons, which is a problem that should have been solved on the model's end.
The issue was covering an entire floor meant you were immune to assault. Which is unfun to many players.
This is a simple solution to that problem.
5" feels a bit generous for regular infantry and about right for the monsters, but at the very least it simplifies fight in the vertical direction which was a pile of gak in the 8th.
Even pilling-in is less of an issue now, the 8th edition could end in weird rule freezes when trying to pile-in around nearest enemy model above or below you. Now he is likely in the engagement range and you can shadow punch your way out of the deadlock.
5", heck, even 3" vertical engagement range is too much. One unit standing on the ground floor and engaging units on the second floor is really awkward.
Since you can fight up floors and stacking up in a tower is bad since it makes you easy to charge/lock, and terrain effects are now either "in the terrain" or "this thing is an infinitely tall column of X for any LoS passing through it", there's no benefit to elevation, and an active detriment to occupying higher floors.
Playing it, it felt like a total mess.
If it wasn't 5" we'd be back to where we were previously. Sitting on the second floor gets your protection from being charged *if* you bother to occupy the first floor as well. Height can be an advantage for LOS, but will not always be. You might be IN the terrain, but true LOS doesn't stop being applicable.
Honestly, I think where we were was good. Defending higher floors should be generally easy to outright unassailable, because you try fighting melee through a third story window from the first floor. Even if you have a ladder, you can't really fight melee on a latter or while scaling a wall, you need your hands for that.
The only "issue" was that certain large vehicles that were taller than a rifleman couldn't engage objects at the height of their melee weapons, which is a problem that should have been solved on the model's end.
The issue was covering an entire floor meant you were immune to assault. Which is unfun to many players.
This is a simple solution to that problem.
Realism isn't an argument, this is 40k.
That's a false statement. It has to have some grounding in something relatable. This is why the fallback rule is awful as well.
I'd argue heavily that for many people that realism *IS* an argument and that without some grounding in intuitive rules that the game falls apart for many people.
If you like super abstraction, good for you. Not everyone enjoys that though.
auticus wrote: I'd argue heavily that for many people that realism *IS* an argument and that without some grounding in intuitive rules that the game falls apart for many people.
If you like super abstraction, good for you. Not everyone enjoys that though.
Yeah, forgot how grounded and realistic 40k is. I totally relate to the daemonculaba, hrud, and using gimp suit lobotomy patients as a steering wheel.
auticus wrote: I'd argue heavily that for many people that realism *IS* an argument and that without some grounding in intuitive rules that the game falls apart for many people.
If you like super abstraction, good for you. Not everyone enjoys that though.
there is a time and place for reaslism within the rules. Terrain isn't one of them. 40k has always been a game where terrain rules had to cover every possibility that players may model.
IMO the very best terrain systems 40k has ever had were the ones that were the most flexible and the most variable. You can either do that with a system that has tons of rules, allowing you to customize your terrain extremely hard, or it can be really really basic and abstracted, like the terrain system in apoc, allowing everything from an upturned carboard box to a GW ruin to work just as well.
8th was a super generic, confusing terrain system that had tons of tiny weird exploits that forced players to try and reach their fat fingers into tiny buildings to carefuly maneuver their expensive ass miniatures into optimized locations, and which somehow simultaneously made terrain not feel like it was even on the board 95% of the time.
The other 5% of the time, your opponent found some way to use terrain to make themselves weirdly invulnerable due to an exploit.
That's the very definition of a bad terrain system. 9th is a massive improvement in a "towards more customizability" direction.
I don't have an opinion of 9th edition since I have not played it. 8th edition's terrain rules were one reason I didnt play 8th edition.
If a terrain system is not intuitive it creates bad play experiences. Like thinking "gee if I'm behind this big concrete wall I should get some kind of bonus for being in cover." Thats the type of realism I'm describing.
Not the "sorry, but one of your team mates thumb is sticking out from behind the wall so all of your team can be shot now because we can see Bob's thumb."
The problem with the missions is that it's too easy for the person who goes first to get onto the objectives and that structural advantage produces a strong first-turn bias, something that has been a scourge of 40k for a very long time.
Ironically, ITC *finally* managed to get rid of first-turn bias in the 2020 pack. But GW seems to have brought it back, with a vengeance.
yukishiro1 wrote: The problem with the missions is that it's too easy for the person who goes first to get onto the objectives and that structural advantage produces a strong first-turn bias, something that has been a scourge of 40k for a very long time.
Ironically, ITC *finally* managed to get rid of first-turn bias in the 2020 pack. But GW seems to have brought it back, with a vengeance.
I don' think so. It is pretty easy to score 10 points on primary. Only #6 is harder (2+ and 3+), but there are more objectives.
Hold 1 = 5
Hold 2+ = 10
Home More = 15
If your opponent picks up Hold More and you can't muster holding just TWO objectives after getting the benefit of a more precise response to their moves then that would merit a strong review of the lists or strategy at play.
If you go 15/10 and can then limit from getting Hold More then you only have 5 points to claw back. This is not a blow out.
yukishiro1 wrote: The problem with the missions is that it's too easy for the person who goes first to get onto the objectives and that structural advantage produces a strong first-turn bias, something that has been a scourge of 40k for a very long time.
Ironically, ITC *finally* managed to get rid of first-turn bias in the 2020 pack. But GW seems to have brought it back, with a vengeance.
I don' think so. It is pretty easy to score 10 points on primary. Only #6 is harder (2+ and 3+), but there are more objectives.
Hold 1 = 5
Hold 2+ = 10
Home More = 15
If your opponent picks up Hold More and you can't muster holding just TWO objectives after getting the benefit of a more precise response to their moves then that would merit a strong review of the lists or strategy at play.
If you go 15/10 and can then limit from getting Hold More then you only have 5 points to claw back. This is not a blow out.
Bingo - people overlook how quickly you can get points back, and the fact someone who grabs that early lead is going to cap out at 45. If you just hold 2 (as you say) in most missions, and never once hold "more," you still will get 40. I think seeing the large point values leads to an impression that you're down by a lot more than you actually are.
Bingo - people overlook how quickly you can get points back, and the fact someone who grabs that early lead is going to cap out at 45. If you just hold 2 (as you say) in most missions, and never once hold "more," you still will get 40. I think seeing the large point values leads to an impression that you're down by a lot more than you actually are.
To be fair I'm speculating. I hope to get games in this weekend.
There is going to be different dynamics between the missions with 4, 5, and 6 objectives.
If there's 4 then hold more becomes a pretty tough proposition as the forces will be more concentrated. I can see strong denial armies making this work in their favor.
With 5 objectives I can see hold more being easier for the aggressive army where there is only a 12" stretch between objectives 2 and 3.
In the 6 objective missions I can see melee armies leaning towards holding these objectives:
And ranged on these and reserves making a push up the deployment:
Terrain will play a big part as to which objectives will be favorable as well. Lots to think about.
3 of the 6 missions either have only 4 objectives, or 6 but require you to hold 2 to get 5 and 3 to get 10. So on half the maps, if someone is getting hold more, you aren't getting more than 5 points on the primary per turn. It literally is not possible to hold 2 (or 3 on that mission) each turn if your opponent is holding more on these maps. If your opponent is getting 15, you're getting 5.
A fourth mission is set up to favor going first more than any of the others (the one with the central objective). That means that 2/3s of the missions have a strong first-turn bias built into the primary scoring.
The first and fifth mission in the pack - Retrieval and Scorched Earth - are the best. They are both well-balanced, without any strong first-turn advantage.
TangoTwoBravo wrote: Something I’ve been catching myself on and have seen YouTube players also note is the change to how the reroll strat works. The Chaplain 3+ Litanies are not such a sure thing, for example, and you can’t roll out of a vehicle explosion. Subtle but meaningful and it will likely take me some time to get out of the 8th edition habit.
Oh feth... explosions... my dredd mob army, all packed together even on 8th Ed bigger boards... didn’t think about that... Noooooooooooooo !!!!!!
yukishiro1 wrote: 3 of the 6 missions either have only 4 objectives, or 6 but require you to hold 2 to get 5 and 3 to get 10. So on half the maps, if someone is getting hold more, you aren't getting more than 5 points on the primary per turn. It literally is not possible to hold 2 (or 3 on that mission) each turn if your opponent is holding more on these maps. If your opponent is getting 15, you're getting 5.
A fourth mission is set up to favor going first more than any of the others (the one with the central objective). That means that 2/3s of the missions have a strong first-turn bias built into the primary scoring.
The first and fifth mission in the pack - Retrieval and Scorched Earth - are the best. They are both well-balanced, without any strong first-turn advantage.
There is one with 5. There interesting thing about that one is that it doesn't allow any models into no man's land before turn 1.
Two have four and the remaining three have 6. Of the three with 6 only mission #6 does 2/3/hold more. And in that mission you are not required to keep models on the objective. It seems like it'd be easy enough to settle to either side. The distances are great enough that the opponent can't competently hold them all. And if they expose themselves or go too thin the two top objectives are pretty close to the board edge for reserves to grab.
Of course these are still not the "proper" missions. Hopefully we see some of those this weekend.
Well, so we have the free core rules of the new ed.
But we are still lacking the rule book and particularly the terrain rules and the pt costs of the units.
So when you watch a 9th-ed battle report, what are the things you are primarily looking at?
Right now without points it's a challange, but consistent secondary picks and also just picking up on small ordeing changes as some of them have some impactful changes when at first read it seems trivial.
Karol wrote: This has me very worried about elite armies. But who knows maybe they will be some sort of catch up mechanics in different codex in 9th.
Right now, it looks like almost everything is benefiting elite armies moderately to strongly. The major nerfs so far almost exclusively hit horde armies, and hit fairly hard from max damage blasts against horde units and rank fighting be reduced to 2 ranks for 32mm and 25mm bases.
The new detach system punishes fielding larger forces and incentivises fielding a smaller number of more capable units, and horde armies are losing up to like 8CP while elite armies are gaining like up to 5CP.
Cover was already drastically stronger for MEQ+ units versus GEQ-, and the new terrain rules further benefit elite units.
ITC type secondaries also favor elite armies, which yield fewer to the enemy and require the enemy to take more difficult secindaries to achieve full [and thus equal] score on them. And hold/holdmore kill/killmore scoring also benefits elite armies since they're not at as much of a disadvantage by not being able to attack every point simultaneously and have a much easier time of kill more since they have less to give and are harder to kill.
The points we've got a glimpse of so far also seem to favor elite units with horde units getting a proportionally larger price hike.
The only real downside might be non-blast tanks firing in melee, since a lascannon fired in melee cooking a intercessor is marginally worthwhile maybe while a lascannons cooking a boy is less so, but like the whole vehicles shooting in melee thing is a small deal and I would classify as a booby prize rather than a meaningful buff.
wuestenfux wrote: Well, so we have the free core rules of the new ed.
But we are still lacking the rule book and particularly the terrain rules and the pt costs of the units.
So when you watch a 9th-ed battle report, what are the things you are primarily looking at?
We have terrain. Efficacy won't be part of the picture. I don't worry if X beat Y. I'm most interested in decision making opportunities, which is why I thoroughly enjoy Tabletop Titans as they talk about their choices.
The new detach system punishes fielding larger forces and incentivises fielding a smaller number of more capable units, and horde armies are losing up to like 8CP while elite armies are gaining like up to 5CP.
Orks are not forced into multiple battalions or a brigade and can still get enough CP to feed more elite units. Just by way of preventing CP rerolls on the SSAG the Orks probably have about the same CP.
Cover was already drastically stronger for MEQ+ units versus GEQ-, and the new terrain rules further benefit elite units.
There are now fewer safe places to hide, which is dangerous for elite units.
ITC type secondaries also favor elite armies, which yield fewer to the enemy and require the enemy to take more difficult secindaries to achieve full [and thus equal] score on them. And hold/holdmore kill/killmore scoring also benefits elite armies since they're not at as much of a disadvantage by not being able to attack every point simultaneously and have a much easier time of kill more since they have less to give and are harder to kill.
Kill more worked well when everyone had to take 3x5 scouts or 3x10 grots. Now we're not forced into those units and hordes are far and away not easy to grab for kill more. Killing 20 out of 30 boyz won't guarantee you a wipe now.
The points we've got a glimpse of so far also seem to favor elite units with horde units getting a proportionally larger price hike.
And blast weapon platforms getting an even larger hike so far.
I’ve watched every 9th Ed battle report I have been able to find. It’s hard to get a solid grasp of it because everyone is still using their old terrain. I think this edition is going to need people to dip back into making lots of new terrain to make this work. One thing I know I don’t like is the touching terrain thing. I understand the idea but it looks goofy especially on larger terrain pieces were you just touch the back of the terrain and then magically can shoot through it. You should at least need to move completely into the terrain piece.
SirGrotzalot wrote: I’ve watched every 9th Ed battle report I have been able to find. It’s hard to get a solid grasp of it because everyone is still using their old terrain. I think this edition is going to need people to dip back into making lots of new terrain to make this work. One thing I know I don’t like is the touching terrain thing. I understand the idea but it looks goofy especially on larger terrain pieces were you just touch the back of the terrain and then magically can shoot through it. You should at least need to move completely into the terrain piece.
The terrain doesn't go away. TLOS doesn't cease to be a thing - the terrain will still physically block sight. What people choose to use for that type of terrain will govern how that game flows. GW terrain? We'll tons of windows. Monolithic solid L-blocks? You won't see much.
First let me say I only got two small games in, but I have watched like 8 9th edition battle reports on YouTube. Two, I also am the kind of person who has been playing since 2nd edition and I loved 8th. That said I think 9th is the best rule set GW has ever produced. Reasons:
- Detachments; Second best improvement in my opinion. You are no longer pigeon holed into having to play a battalion just to get to 8 CP. And, sorry guard players, cheap armies can no longer get 18+ command points in a 2000 point game. I also like that it costs CP if you want to not play troops. I have a list right now that is all daemon engines just because I think it would be cool to play it like a dark mechanicus army. However I do need to pay 3CP for the privileged of bring 6 heavy support and no troops. I think that is a really fair trade-off, and I think 9th is going to open up a lot of different style lists because you don't have to bring a battalion. Also, In 8th I would have gotten 4CP with this list. Also, even though I play Thousand Sons, good riddance to the supreme command.
- Terrain; The best improvement in my opinion. You could have a board filled with ruins and buildings and forest in 8th edition, and due to true line of sight with windows etc., it was like playing on a board with no terrain at all. In 8th, the best games always had a large LOS blocking piece of terrain in the middle that forced armies to have to do some kind of movement to get LOS to shoot etc. But other than that, and maybe a few guys in a ruin getting +1 save, it felt like terrain was meaningless. Now, it feels like terrain is part of the game. I watched a Winters battle report where they played with basically all jungle terrain with a few small rock pillars. In 8th that would be equivalent to playing on an open board for the most part. In 9th, the dense cover had a clear effect on shooting in the game. That is just one example, and if you go though YouTube you will see the effect the new Terrain rules have on the game.
- Smaller board: You can see the effect in battle reports and feel it playing. It makes the game faster and really helps melee armies. Gun lines are going to have a hard time in most games.
- All the other changes: I have liked every rule change, both watching games and playing. The overwatch change is great, just for the fact that there is not a silly number of "my captain fires his bolt pistol" overwatch eliminating what were 90% of the time wasted dice rolls. I don't feel like the coherency rules or the engagement range changes are all that dramatic, but I never really daisy chained units, or tr-pointed, and don't really use big squads so maybe I am off there.
- The missions: love them. They reward aggressive play, maneuvering and moving, planning how you are going to hold an objective, where, etc. I love the secondaries, it lets you get some control over how you play to score in that fashion (I play aggressive and in your face so I can tailor my secondaries around that). The idea that the kill secondaries are going to reward gun lines who can just ignore the primaries is just flat wrong. Go and watch 9th games on YouTube and the winner between an aggressive mobile force and a gun line type force is almost always the mobile force. The fact that all the scoring has a points cap was a brilliant move which really helps balance any skew toward scoring, and you really need to score multiple ways.
I think based on what I have watched and played that gunlines and hoard armies are going to have a tougher time than before. Personally I never liked playing with or against gunline armies as I feel if you are not going to move around the board with your models in any meaningful way, we might as well play yatzee as we are just rolling dice at one another, but I get it that some people like those armies, and this will hurt that style of play. And I get that people like big units of hoards (I never cared for them just because I hate moving them) and this edition is going to hurt that style of play as well. So if that turns you off to this edition, that is fair.
In my opinion, the only way that 9th could get really crappy is if they really screw up the points. Blast is good. Shooting vehicles are much much better, as are other units that use heavy weapons that are not infantry. Some things are not better. Monsters or vehicles that don't shoot (like Lord of Change) basically didn't gain anything from the new Big Guns rule and hopefully their points will reflect that. Non-LOS shooting is really really effective in this edition (well it has always been but more so now) due to ignoring the much more prevalent obscuring and dense rules, and really need to be pointed as such. So if GW gets the points down in at lest a not completely F-ed up way, I think 9th is going to be great.
Obviously more games in time will tell, but right now, I can't wait to play more. I hate COVID
Galas wrote: Does non-LOS shooting ignore the -1 for dense cover? i don't think it does.
Yea I saw that to that even though it can shoot units it can't see, it would still suffer from dense. However, i don't think it is 100% clear and an FAQ to make it so (hopefully applying the -1) is needed
Here's a thing I've noticed lately that needs to change for 9th and that's that a lot of people build boards so that the vast majority of terrain is in the deployment zones and the middle is one big piece in the center with a huge shooting gallery on either side.
With being IN terrain often being less useful than being BEHIND terrain, the center of the board should be seeing quite bit more coverage than it does in a lot of the games I've seen.
I do the opposite. My terrain gets focused just outside of the deployment zones and there's a centrepiece but the deployment zones themselves have very little and what there is is small.
Both the center of the board and the deployments zones should have good terrain, to both have terrain matter in the game and be able to hide in your deloyment zone agaisntt alpha strike.
SirGrotzalot wrote: I’ve watched every 9th Ed battle report I have been able to find. It’s hard to get a solid grasp of it because everyone is still using their old terrain. I think this edition is going to need people to dip back into making lots of new terrain to make this work. One thing I know I don’t like is the touching terrain thing. I understand the idea but it looks goofy especially on larger terrain pieces were you just touch the back of the terrain and then magically can shoot through it. You should at least need to move completely into the terrain piece.
People are surprisingly bad at reading.
Obscured says you a unit is 'seen and targeted normally' while inside it. Normal targeting requires LoS. Walls do not disapear just because you walked into a piece of terrain.
Likely a combination of bad reading, wishful thinking and memories of the old area terrain that did work like that. Except those rules specifically said that LoS should be ignored.
Which Obscured in 9th does not.
I think based on what I have watched and played that gunlines and hoard armies are going to have a tougher time than before. Personally I never liked playing with or against gunline armies as I feel if you are not going to move around the board with your models in any meaningful way, we might as well play yatzee as we are just rolling dice at one another, but I get it that some people like those armies, and this will hurt that style of play. And I get that people like big units of hoards (I never cared for them just because I hate moving them) and this edition is going to hurt that style of play as well. So if that turns you off to this edition, that is fair.
This makes me worried about how Imperial Guard will fare, because "gunline horde" is pretty much their standard M.O, especially for my Valhallans. I absolutely detest the "ultrakilly glasscannon that kills everything on its first turn and gets wiped out the next turn" the Scions have become with Psychic Awakening and hope Guard players won't be forced to go big on Scions to stand a chance.
I mean imperial guard are not actually a horde army but a MSU spamming one (Unless you play recruits) so I don't think they'll have much of a problem.
But the "sit on the back with 9 artillery pieces and 150 guards covering them" maybe doesn't nets you many victories. It wasnt in 8th agaisnt any opponent worth is salth of course but even less in 8th. And I'm not sad about that. Is a very boring and unninteractive way of playing. It should be viable but not as oppresive as it has been.
Having played vs Guard with my Craftworlders in a 9th game yesterday, I think they'll be very good at spreading out and controlling the board. I won the game 63-47, but that was mainly down to my opponent choosing substandard secondaries (which is understandable, both our first game). Now that you can move and fire without penalties for vehicles, it really does blow the door wide open for a load of Guard vehicles; his Armoured Sentinels were a pain and he played his Chimeras very aggressively too. I won on points but I only had my 3 characters and a Wave Serpent alive at the end of turn 5 which is a good thing in my opinion; you can't just sit and blast stuff away in your deployment zone. Taking and holding ground is massively important.
EDIT: Also, the sheer amount of indirect fire and blast weapons will make the Guard exceptionally good for denying points too.
Anything that encourages (or forces?) diversity in your list so you can't just stay in your deployment zone with shooty units all game long and never moving a single model (exaggerated) is a win for the game in my book.
I'm going to have my first impression tonight. We will be playing with the officially available stuff only, so core rules.
I'll try go get a new mission in as well if I can convince my peers.
Gadzilla666 wrote: What armies did you play Daedalus? You said melee was important, how so? What's your opinion on the terrain rules?
Orks v TSons
Dense was great for general protection.
Because you cant put objectives on terrain we often fought outside of it. Because it was a half table I couldn't say too much else as we didn't have to draw long ranges.
If you want to score you really need to move up. With orks they're on the objective immediately. In one game a trukk with boyz ran up on one side and manz in a BW on the other.
To stop scoring I need to blow the transport and the squads inside and I wasn't going to out-obsec. A BW is a rough tackle at 1k, so I went opposite. He ramshackled the trukk enough to keep it on. The next turn the manz and boyz were out (disembarking w/i 3 makes sense when 40mm were picking up more distance). The trukk ran back to block my reserves.
So with manz in front of a BW that flank was lost and I had to keep him from overrunning my rubrics. On the other side he pushed gretchin up to screen me out of a charge to the boys.
Breaking heads is a sonuva with the new morale and I couldn't yank them off. So I charged with my slightly wounded FF. I totally flubbed my attacks and his PK carved me up.
Melta/Havoc Vindicator performed really admirably.
Gadzilla666 wrote: What armies did you play Daedalus? You said melee was important, how so? What's your opinion on the terrain rules?
Orks v TSons
Dense was great for general protection.
Because you cant put objectives on terrain we often fought outside of it. Because it was a half table I couldn't say too much else as we didn't have to draw long ranges.
If you want to score you really need to move up. With orks they're on the objective immediately. In one game a trukk with boyz ran up on one side and manz in a BW on the other.
To stop scoring I need to blow the transport and the squads inside and I wasn't going to out-obsec. A BW is a rough tackle at 1k, so I went opposite. He ramshackled the trukk enough to keep it on. The next turn the manz and boyz were out (disembarking w/i 3 makes sense when 40mm were picking up more distance). The trukk ran back to block my reserves.
So with manz in front of a BW that flank was lost and I had to keep him from overrunning my rubrics. On the other side he pushed gretchin up to screen me out of a charge to the boys.
Breaking heads is a sonuva with the new morale and I couldn't yank them off. So I charged with my slightly wounded FF. I totally flubbed my attacks and his PK carved me up.
Melta/Havoc Vindicator performed really admirably.
Mobility sounds very important. I like that. I figured that the new morale mechanics would make units hard to break, that's why I hope they'll move away from it for Night Lords. Good to hear that vindicators are useful again.
Mobility sounds very important. I like that. I figured that the new morale mechanics would make units hard to break, that's why I hope they'll move away from it for Night Lords. Good to hear that vindicators are useful again.
Sounds interesting. Looking forward to trying it.
Yea it was good fun. I'm eager to see the other secondaries and tweaks for competitive.
It was very nice to literally not care about kills other than what was in the way of the objectives.
Me: Played a bunch of games in 8th, didn't love it and stopped, but have always followed 40k from afar. I've just watched a few batreps with 9th and read the rules. I play a ton of other wargames FWIW, and just wanted to share some thoughts.
My initial impressions: This seems to be closer to the game GW always wanted for 40K. DYNAMIC. Gunlines aren't as viable but shooting is still very important, although now shooting is about clearing objective areas rather than just tabling your opponent.
Love the coherency rules, I feel a lot of wonk was eliminated there. The terrain rules make way more sense, although still needs a bit more granularity, like being able to see a max of 2-3" in, out or through woods and such.
Some major let downs for me:
- I was hoping some of the mechanics from Apocalypse would cross over, I know that's wishful thinking, but for me Apoc is much more fun, even at small points levels, and is way below it's full potential. Particularly the orders, alternating activation and the damage phase were what I had hoped would influence 9th.
- No volumetric rules for models. I feel this is an industry standard at this point and GW is behind the curve on this for 40K. Think about it, we're saying it's wonky to be able to see through a window to target enemies, but it's ok to shoot through the legs of model in the same way? By the same token, being able to shoot through any unit, friendly or enemy is a bit pedestrian. I'd like to see a "Take a Knee" or "Go to Ground" generic stratagem that allows units to fire through friendly units that would otherwise be blocking. Enemy model volumes should always block IMO.
- See one model and wipe out the entire unit. LOS should be reciprocal - if a unit must draw LOS from each firing model then targeting enemies should be similar in that you can only kill what you can see, or at least have it be mitigated in some way. I'd like to see 40k have a basic ruleset that's kids friendly and an advanced version for hardcore gamers, many of which will be the kids anyways..
Those things aside, I'm exited to try 9th - the CP and detachment list-building changes alone are enough to make the game much more interesting now. Would love to hear your guys' thoughts on the above. Thanks for reading.
Well so far combat patrol games seem vwry much like suitable as a stepping stone from Killteam but terrible for balance.
Missions seem like a big step forward especially in layout.
Unfortunately going first tends to equal winning.
The secondary missions are all over the shop in twrms of scores and difficulty, still think these need refining.
Assault will definataly be a thing but shooting is also still important, you're really going to be best of with primary shooting with some fast puncher units to take objectives.
Consensus was the Indomitaous Marine force seems tailor made for these missions bar the assulat intercessors.
Anyone have suggestions on what GW could do to lower the mortality rate? Watched a few youtube videos and it still seems too high. If they want the game to be about objectives and movement, they really need to lower the mortality rate a bit.
argonak wrote: Anyone have suggestions on what GW could do to lower the mortality rate? Watched a few youtube videos and it still seems too high. If they want the game to be about objectives and movement, they really need to lower the mortality rate a bit.
Redesign marines as everyone else has had to have their damage output jacked up to conpete with their insanity.
Handing out free AP and additional bonuses like they did killed any concept of the lethality in the game going down not up.
Lowering the amount of shots across the board would most likely help in that regard.
Back in the day we had Rhinos with just a Storm Bolter and maybe a Hunter Seeker Missile, then came the dreaded Wave Serpent that had the fire output of 4 Chimeras (IIRC) in 4th edition and a few editions later we look at "shoot twice if you meet the criteria" units like Aggressors, Repulsors and Eradicator.
I'm mostly naming Marines, but 18 shot Riptides are equally as bad as are other units like that.
The Primaris Problem is responsible for the added weight of fire and hence the added lethality.
There is absolutely no indication GW thinks this is a problem, mind you. Especially when you look at the changes from 8th to 9th. Lethality is up in 9th, not down, and that's surely not because they're too incompetent to know what they're doing.
The game has been getting more lethal for two editions now, consistently. That's not a coincidence. GW likes games where one or both players end up with nothing or almost nothing on the table by the end of the game.
Been playing Patrol games to focus on learning core game mechanics. Fun, one hour games. I am lucky to have a basement gaming table and opponents in my bubble.
My impression continues to be that Terrain is the largest single change from 8th edition, followed by the CP system. Look Out Sir continues to be something I need to check myself on as I play. 8th Edition movement/deployment habits will kill characters! Vehicles moving and not suffering a heavy weapon penalty is also great. Cohency has not come up yet since the small games means we have MSUs.
argonak wrote: Anyone have suggestions on what GW could do to lower the mortality rate? Watched a few youtube videos and it still seems too high. If they want the game to be about objectives and movement, they really need to lower the mortality rate a bit.
Points values. Make sure all those units that can shoot high quantity of shots pay for the privilege.
Really, that is the one piece of 9th Edition that is really missing. If they point things out correctly, it will be great. If they miss badly, it will be horrible despite the rules changes.
Just like 8th, 9th is a really good system when Loyalist Marines are not being used. You actually get interesting games that truly go the full five turns.
I guess we'll just have to see how impactful those marine point increases are in comparison to everything else. A 50% increase for the TFC is great, but that almost feels like the points it should be currently, so really shouldn't it be even higher with the 9th points inflation?
I dunno about that. Miscosted units make the problem worse, but even if you tuned up the value of killing power, you'd still end up with armies that killed and were killed super fast, there's just be fewer models on the table.
That said, with the current mission structure, the more you boost durability, the more you just end up boosting first-turn advantage even higher, something that's already a problem in the new missions. So it's a tough problem to address with the constraints they've put on themselves.
Bosskelot wrote: Just like 8th, 9th is a really good system when Loyalist Marines are not being used. You actually get interesting games that truly go the full five turns.
I guess we'll just have to see how impactful those marine point increases are in comparison to everything else. A 50% increase for the TFC is great, but that almost feels like the points it should be currently, so really shouldn't it be even higher with the 9th points inflation?
That is too broad of a statement. I'm sure you would have an enjoyable game against my melee focused Primaris BA. They are not weak by virtue of being Primaris (and they did get really good rules last year), but it is far from the same feeling as going against a gunline that simply deletes a bunch of units each turn.
Shooting output / efficiency is too high across the board imho.
The real answer is that lethality is always going to have to be exceptionally high in a system where morale is just another way to kill dudes, i.e. where morale adds to lethality instead of lowering it, as it ought to.
When your game is decided by standing around on objectives and the only way to stop someone from standing on an objective is to kill them, you're going to end up with either a very lethal or a very boring game. It's either kill everybody, or "see who can get more guys standing within the objective's range while they punch each other ineffectively," and neither of those makes for a great game.
If only you could, like, demoralize the enemy unit so badly that they had to fall back off the objective, leaving you to consolidate on it. I'm sure there's a good term we could come up with to describe this situation...
Well there you have it. GW is all-in on the "morale should add to lethality in the game, not reduce it" and as long as that's the case, you're always going to have exceptionally lethal games. Morale (broadly stated, doesn't have to be just fleeing, it could also be debuff mechanics) is the only real way to control lethality in an objective-based game without it devolving into who can get more models onto the objective.
Well obviously you would have to rework the whole morale system to make it work.
But the point is there's an obvious way to reduce lethality in the game, but GW shown absolutely no interest in it. The pattern in their development has been very clearly away from morale-based low lethality gameplay towards high-lethality gameplay where morale is just another way to kill dudes.
I know fluff =/= crunch, but isn't part of the fantasy of 40k two (or more) massive forces clashing and each side suffering casualties from insanely overpowered weapons every faction has?
Does anyone feel good when they have more than 1/2 their army left and their opponent is all but tabled? I know I feel like something went wrong when that happens.
GangstaMuffin24 wrote: I know fluff =/= crunch, but isn't part of the fantasy of 40k two (or more) massive forces clashing and each side suffering casualties from insanely overpowered weapons every faction has?
Does anyone feel good when they have more than 1/2 their army left and their opponent is all but tabled? I know I feel like something went wrong when that happens.
Look at professional sports. The only variable is team strategy and player skill and yet we get blowouts constantly. Even two teams that are evenly matched in terms of skill, current record, and playstyle can play a game where somebody gets blown out. That's life.
I played a 1600 point game tonight VS a good friend. We wanted to test an elite army vs a horde army, so i played:
I played, we staged a game of super-elite vs super horde. I took 30 Hormogaunts, 30 Termagants, 30 Gargoyles, 20 genestealers, 7 ripper swarms, 9 Tyranid warriors, a trygon prime, tervigon, hive tyrant and brood lord.
he had a telemon dreadnought, 6 bikes, a shield captain on bike, and a banner bearer and 6 custodes dudes.
I got ahead on scenario very quickly, and he had a really bad round of shooting, so the Tyranids ended pulling ahead on scenario pretty quickly. The downside is that if he would have been able to stay up on a couple of the objectives, I think he wins hands down, because when the game ended (i was about to score really far ahead on my next command phase) I had a tervigon with 2 wounds left, the trygon had 2 wounds left, and the broodlord was about to get eaten by the shield captain. So I literally didn't have anything else that could threaten him, I just got so far ahead on the scenario so quickly that he couldn't kill enough bodies.
It was a surprisingly close game, despite the fact that there was a significant difference in the actual score of the game, because I was, just frankly, out of steam. I had nothing left but a bunch of Str. 4 shots vs his custodes, and I was beginning to lose ground to his better models. It played a tough game but at the end of the game, I pulled it out. If this were 8th edition, where the game would likely go to around 6 or maybe even 7, I lose that game hands down with no question.
I will say, I have played 4 1600 point games with my Tyranids in 9th now (mostly just using the previewed mission in the free rules) and it feels like there really is something to playing a massive horde. Even Astartes have had trouble getting rid of all of the bodies and keeping control of objectives without getting overrun. I'm not saying that its the new tournament standard or that it breaks the game or anything, but it really is a breath of fresh air to play an army of all little nids with a few big nids and have it feel like i have a pretty decent shot of winning and I'm on roughly equal footing, namely based on the new terrain rules and the shorter table, but also the limited overwatch.
So far, while 9th is obviously a pretty shooty edition, I dont feel like the gulf between shooting and melee is anywhere near as big as it was before, and I've been having a really good time playing all the little bugs! I hope you guys are having fun with it as well.
argonak wrote: Anyone have suggestions on what GW could do to lower the mortality rate? Watched a few youtube videos and it still seems too high. If they want the game to be about objectives and movement, they really need to lower the mortality rate a bit.
Was not a fan of wide spread mortal wounds when introduced in 8th. Felt like it was too easy to get access to and lists became built around dealing as many as possible. I am fine with the rest of the killiness, just give me a chance to roll for save!
argonak wrote: Anyone have suggestions on what GW could do to lower the mortality rate? Watched a few youtube videos and it still seems too high. If they want the game to be about objectives and movement, they really need to lower the mortality rate a bit.
Easily, lower the threat ranges of everything. Also make it so you can't move, shoot, and assault all in the same turn. I think the issue is that units can do anything whenever they want and can reach most of the board. And ditch the stratagems.
TheAmazinGreat wrote: Was not a fan of wide spread mortal wounds when introduced in 8th. Felt like it was too easy to get access to and lists became built around dealing as many as possible. I am fine with the rest of the killiness, just give me a chance to roll for save!
Sadly Mortal Wounds have become the "break in case of laziness" approach to GW's special rules. It's certainly not as pronounced in 40K as it is in AoS, where everything and his dog causes MW, but their "bespoke" rule style has certainly led to them abdicating a lot of creativity in favour of just causing more Mortal Wounds.
Seabass wrote: I played a 1600 point game tonight VS a good friend. We wanted to test an elite army vs a horde army, so i played:
I played, we staged a game of super-elite vs super horde. I took 30 Hormogaunts, 30 Termagants, 30 Gargoyles, 20 genestealers, 7 ripper swarms, 9 Tyranid warriors, a trygon prime, tervigon, hive tyrant and brood lord.
he had a telemon dreadnought, 6 bikes, a shield captain on bike, and a banner bearer and 6 custodes dudes.
I got ahead on scenario very quickly, and he had a really bad round of shooting, so the Tyranids ended pulling ahead on scenario pretty quickly. The downside is that if he would have been able to stay up on a couple of the objectives, I think he wins hands down, because when the game ended (i was about to score really far ahead on my next command phase) I had a tervigon with 2 wounds left, the trygon had 2 wounds left, and the broodlord was about to get eaten by the shield captain. So I literally didn't have anything else that could threaten him, I just got so far ahead on the scenario so quickly that he couldn't kill enough bodies.
It was a surprisingly close game, despite the fact that there was a significant difference in the actual score of the game, because I was, just frankly, out of steam. I had nothing left but a bunch of Str. 4 shots vs his custodes, and I was beginning to lose ground to his better models. It played a tough game but at the end of the game, I pulled it out. If this were 8th edition, where the game would likely go to around 6 or maybe even 7, I lose that game hands down with no question.
I will say, I have played 4 1600 point games with my Tyranids in 9th now (mostly just using the previewed mission in the free rules) and it feels like there really is something to playing a massive horde. Even Astartes have had trouble getting rid of all of the bodies and keeping control of objectives without getting overrun. I'm not saying that its the new tournament standard or that it breaks the game or anything, but it really is a breath of fresh air to play an army of all little nids with a few big nids and have it feel like i have a pretty decent shot of winning and I'm on roughly equal footing, namely based on the new terrain rules and the shorter table, but also the limited overwatch.
So far, while 9th is obviously a pretty shooty edition, I dont feel like the gulf between shooting and melee is anywhere near as big as it was before, and I've been having a really good time playing all the little bugs! I hope you guys are having fun with it as well.
I've noticed my target priority is way different. I'm shooting grots on an objective rather than boyz or other more serious units. When I shoot the grots I'm pretty much forced to go harder than I ever would. He lets them hang out by themselves now (with nearby redundancy) and it's just that much harder to make sure they go away with the new morale rules. Grots are crazy good holding objectives and not even a TFC can yank them off in a turn.
Our movements changed a ton as well. I had a Daemon Prince on an objective near ~20 boyz. Instead of him trying to take it back he ignored the DP and went straight to a different objective. Killing or locking up the DP held absolutely no value to him at that point.
As games limp on with limited units it becomes important to note than you can score 10 points with 1 objective when they hold none. I can really see people holding onto 10 man cultists until late game and using their obsec to cover objectives while not being as easily removed as before.
I'll write up more about the last game after I get some more work done.
jamshaman wrote: Me: Played a bunch of games in 8th, didn't love it and stopped, but have always followed 40k from afar. I've just watched a few batreps with 9th and read the rules. I play a ton of other wargames FWIW, and just wanted to share some thoughts.
My initial impressions: This seems to be closer to the game GW always wanted for 40K. DYNAMIC. Gunlines aren't as viable but shooting is still very important, although now shooting is about clearing objective areas rather than just tabling your opponent.
Love the coherency rules, I feel a lot of wonk was eliminated there. The terrain rules make way more sense, although still needs a bit more granularity, like being able to see a max of 2-3" in, out or through woods and such.
Some major let downs for me:
- I was hoping some of the mechanics from Apocalypse would cross over, I know that's wishful thinking, but for me Apoc is much more fun, even at small points levels, and is way below it's full potential. Particularly the orders, alternating activation and the damage phase were what I had hoped would influence 9th.
- No volumetric rules for models. I feel this is an industry standard at this point and GW is behind the curve on this for 40K. Think about it, we're saying it's wonky to be able to see through a window to target enemies, but it's ok to shoot through the legs of model in the same way? By the same token, being able to shoot through any unit, friendly or enemy is a bit pedestrian. I'd like to see a "Take a Knee" or "Go to Ground" generic stratagem that allows units to fire through friendly units that would otherwise be blocking. Enemy model volumes should always block IMO.
- See one model and wipe out the entire unit. LOS should be reciprocal - if a unit must draw LOS from each firing model then targeting enemies should be similar in that you can only kill what you can see, or at least have it be mitigated in some way. I'd like to see 40k have a basic ruleset that's kids friendly and an advanced version for hardcore gamers, many of which will be the kids anyways..
Those things aside, I'm exited to try 9th - the CP and detachment list-building changes alone are enough to make the game much more interesting now. Would love to hear your guys' thoughts on the above. Thanks for reading.
Having been in much the same boat, i enjoyed 8th as a template for playing epic scale with halved ranges, but other than that i wasn't a big fan. either. after playing since 3rd all this talk of "hey they are fixing problem X or Y" it makes me bang my head on the wall because they already fixed all that stuff in previous editions...and then went and mucked it all up again by redesigning the entire game. now they have to look back at what they did previously and try to shoehorn those things into the new rules set.
As somebody who still actively plays 5th editions-things that were fixed that people complained about in 8th-
-hordes VS elites-no problem there they both can win. did a game 2 weeks ago against a horde necron player (using the 7th ed necron codex in 5th so he had all the optional units) with close to 100 models on the table facing a khorn chaos force with 34
it was a close and brutal game
-reduced shooting lethality-yep had that fixed to. much fewer shots, much fewer re-rolls (outside things like twin linked weapons or a chaplain attached to a CC unit)much less damage and wounds.
-length of gameplay and objectives-yep fixed. turn 5 with random rolls for 6 or 7 where winning on objectives didn't matter till the very end. so even being behind on body count you could still pull off a tactical win.
-Terrain interaction-fixed as well. moving through terrain had a direct effect, cover had a direct effect (although i still use trees as a 5+ cover -4th ed version-instead of 4+ like ruins, it makes more sense). back in 3rd they had the 6" rule-if you were back more than 6 you could not shoot out or see the unit to shoot in. being behind it acted as area terrain so you could not see through it, this is all before they went to TLOS though.
-Assault armies getting into assault-yep fixed. assault armies still worked very well. game i played yesterday my marines were assault heavy VS an elite giant bug army. most things were in close combat by turn 3. granted i got murderised by the trygon prime, but that's. what they do.
-seeing models-yep fixed-banner poles, wings, sword points, long gun barrels on infantry-none of that mattered, can't see the body of the model-can't shoot the squad, shooting into CC has never been allowed but shooting past them (or betwen the legs of something big) at things you could see provided cover tot he target unit because you had to aim over the swirling melee.
Not everything was perfect by any means, things like overwatch, snap fire and grenade throwing were really good rules that work very well with 5th edition core rules.
Unlike you however i am not excited about 9th at all. i have no desire to play it. i have a gaming group at my FLGS where i can play 5th, epic with 8th ed rules, DUST 1947, warmachine, victory at sea, heavy gear, classic battletech, B5 wars, monster apocalypse, and battlefleet gothic. all systems that i have armies for.
I know to many 40K is the one and only game they play, and given it's cost i understand that. fortunately i am not in a situation that locks me into that position.
Ah I miss playing warmachine, sadly moved to a different area so not as easy to get games. If you wanted to talk about lethality, that game had lethality through the roof. To the point where you could lose the game turn one by having your caster out of place. Bloody fun game system though.
GangstaMuffin24 wrote: I know fluff =/= crunch, but isn't part of the fantasy of 40k two (or more) massive forces clashing and each side suffering casualties from insanely overpowered weapons every faction has?
Does anyone feel good when they have more than 1/2 their army left and their opponent is all but tabled? I know I feel like something went wrong when that happens.
I feel like what went wrong is that they lost their whole army.
Games are more interesting if 90% of them don't end in one side or the other being tabled.
Lethality has been too high in 40k since the launch of 8th, and it's only gotten worse.
Based on the way the game plays, nobody would be left in the fluff because all the special characters die in at least half the games they feature in, if not more.
To me, quite a significant portion of the armies should be dead by the turn limit.
Because, while it's not fun for your cool unit to get blown up right away, it also sucks to not be blowings things up. I feel like most of the most-hated units over the course of 8th were the ones that were hardest to kill - Eldar Flyers and Knights with big invulns come to mind.
And there's other effects with lower lethality, like objectives become much harder to trade, movement becomes more restricted (not removing screens ect.). There's plenty you'd have to change about the game if you up durability a bunch.
What I've seen of 9th is that it's maybe just a bit killier than it would need to be, but probably not much.
A thing I really like so far is hard-to-max scoring.
Secondaries are great, but I really disliked the idea you need to plan around maxing them. I think having risky but higher-value secondaries combined with lower value, synergistic "win more" options (like points for killing), is the way to go.
They could probably use some balancing but they seem like a step in the right direction.
I do think scoring should be either end-of-round or end of turn, not start of turn. Primaries still not happening on the first turn.
I've noticed my target priority is way different. I'm shooting grots on an objective rather than boyz or other more serious units. When I shoot the grots I'm pretty much forced to go harder than I ever would. He lets them hang out by themselves now (with nearby redundancy) and it's just that much harder to make sure they go away with the new morale rules. Grots are crazy good holding objectives and not even a TFC can yank them off in a turn.
Our movements changed a ton as well. I had a Daemon Prince on an objective near ~20 boyz. Instead of him trying to take it back he ignored the DP and went straight to a different objective. Killing or locking up the DP held absolutely no value to him at that point.
As games limp on with limited units it becomes important to note than you can score 10 points with 1 objective when they hold none. I can really see people holding onto 10 man cultists until late game and using their obsec to cover objectives while not being as easily removed as before.
I'll write up more about the last game after I get some more work done.
Yeah for sure, target priority is very different, and one thing that has become very clear to me is that as a Tyranid player, I tend to play very aggressively. Every one of my opponents haven't really wanted to really dart out there and grab objectives, and it seems like this version of the game really wants to reward players for playing a lot more aggressively than they used too. That isn't to say that they should be hamfisted and stupid, of course, but that is to say that sitting back and making the perfect gun-line likely isn't going to get you the end result you want out of the game. I have also realized, just like you said, that movement is so incredibly important because when you find someone on an objective you don't want to deal with (like a telamon dreadnought), then just don't stay there. Go grab another objective, because this game feels like a race for points, and there really aren't any significant benefits to killing your opponent's stuff anymore, other than to remove an obstacle in your way or maybe pick up a few points on a secondary, and if its a monster or vehicle, tagging them might not do the good you want it too, so I guess sometimes discretion really is the better part of valor?
The more I play 9th edition, the more I am coming around to the idea that, until we see the points values of models, the most important stat, or at least the second or so most important stat in this game is movement. I can also say that going first, especially with the changes to the terrain, isn't as crucial as it once was, so long as you have a plan to clear off objectives and push your opponent off of them to let you score. Of course, to do that, you need firepower and mobility, and that points right back to that movement stat. I about choked when I saw assault marines had gone to 17ppm in the leaked points values, but the ability to fly over the terrain, and get to those objectives fast is really a very critical ability it feels, and I think i can understand why they are pricey. I also think transports are likely that way too (and we have seen the impulsor go up to 100 ppm or thereabouts) and I really think its good game design to want players to get their troops in transports and get them up the table. (On that note, I really think models like Rhinos, Tactical Squads, Razorbacks, Chimeras, etc have a place in the game again.)
Overall, the decision making tree feels completely different, and games really do feel a lot more dynamic now.
I do want to offer that the CP change is great and I am 100% behind it. Having 12cp for my Tyranid army is incredible, and I don't have to take 750 points in HQ characters to do so. I was able to use a wide variety of stratagems, and when the game ended, I still had 3cp left at the top of turn 5 (and would have had 4) meaning that there was literally no stratagem that I could not have played. I haven't been able to field that many troops with good stratagem support in a long time and it really does benefit the Tyranid player quite a bit given how hungry the army is for CP.
I'm really enjoying 9th edition so far. Ill be testing some games with my space wolves next!
Spoletta wrote: From the battle reports that I have seen until now, all games got to turn 5 without anyone getting tabled.
Sure, you end with 2 or 3 mangled units on the field, but that is fine. Seems to me that the lethality is correctly tuned.
This is the experience for me so far as well. It's just popular for people to repeat the same things ad nauseum.
Points may disrupt that a bit. I get the sense that it is a rising tide "lifting" all boats, but where the marines get a hole punched in their yacht.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
rbstr wrote: A thing I really like so far is hard-to-max scoring.
Secondaries are great, but I really disliked the idea you need to plan around maxing them. I think having risky but higher-value secondaries combined with lower value, synergistic "win more" options (like points for killing), is the way to go.
They could probably use some balancing but they seem like a step in the right direction.
I do think scoring should be either end-of-round or end of turn, not start of turn. Primaries still not happening on the first turn.
Start of turn gives time for a response both ways instead of an unpreventable suicide charge.
In my last game we did combat patrol mission #3. We both took the secondary from the mission. It is deceptively hard to achieve - especially with the reduced unit counts. It is not something I would take again unless I was an army with a cheap, but durable flyer.
Look at professional sports. The only variable is team strategy and player skill and yet we get blowouts constantly. Even two teams that are evenly matched in terms of skill, current record, and playstyle can play a game where somebody gets blown out. That's life.
yeah, but that is because people make HUGE money on gambling, specialy online. And on top of just being gambling it is a great way to make illegal money legal. In Poland this led to stuff which goes against any law of probability, as we have countless cassinos and horse races that went bankrupt, which should not be possible.
GW seems to like people to live through similar stuff you see in mobile game. New tank, hero or unit comes out for a game it either dunks on the meta or is cosmetic so no one cares. There are almost never fixs done to older stuff, for sure not to really old stuff, and all content is spread as thin as bulgarian paper.
That is why GW is fully okey with on side having months of total domination from castellans or Inari making the game unfun to majority of players, while at the same time they drop something like codex SW, and tell people play with it.
Spoletta wrote: From the battle reports that I have seen until now, all games got to turn 5 without anyone getting tabled.
Sure, you end with 2 or 3 mangled units on the field, but that is fine. Seems to me that the lethality is correctly tuned.
This is the experience for me so far as well. It's just popular for people to repeat the same things ad nauseum.
Points may disrupt that a bit. I get the sense that it is a rising tide "lifting" all boats, but where the marines get a hole punched in their yacht.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
rbstr wrote: A thing I really like so far is hard-to-max scoring.
Secondaries are great, but I really disliked the idea you need to plan around maxing them. I think having risky but higher-value secondaries combined with lower value, synergistic "win more" options (like points for killing), is the way to go.
They could probably use some balancing but they seem like a step in the right direction.
I do think scoring should be either end-of-round or end of turn, not start of turn. Primaries still not happening on the first turn.
Start of turn gives time for a response both ways instead of an unpreventable suicide charge.
In my last game we did combat patrol mission #3. We both took the secondary from the mission. It is deceptively hard to achieve - especially with the reduced unit counts. It is not something I would take again unless I was an army with a cheap, but durable flyer.
Dont the mission specifically call out excluding aircraft? More to The point, think pretty much every mission that requires you to hold or be in some specific location excludes aircraft
Dont the mission specifically call out excluding aircraft? More to The point, think pretty much every mission that requires you to hold or be in some specific location excludes aircraft
Look at professional sports. The only variable is team strategy and player skill and yet we get blowouts constantly. Even two teams that are evenly matched in terms of skill, current record, and playstyle can play a game where somebody gets blown out. That's life.
yeah, but that is because people make HUGE money on gambling, specialy online. And on top of just being gambling it is a great way to make illegal money legal. In Poland this led to stuff which goes against any law of probability, as we have countless cassinos and horse races that went bankrupt, which should not be possible.
GW seems to like people to live through similar stuff you see in mobile game. New tank, hero or unit comes out for a game it either dunks on the meta or is cosmetic so no one cares. There are almost never fixs done to older stuff, for sure not to really old stuff, and all content is spread as thin as bulgarian paper.
That is why GW is fully okey with on side having months of total domination from castellans or Inari making the game unfun to majority of players, while at the same time they drop something like codex SW, and tell people play with it.
Plenty of old and very old models have received a lot of love during 8th, even resin ones, so I don't see your point.
Karol wrote:Is anyone getting the feeling that the 5th turn of the player going second doesn't impact the game that much?
Spoletta 789699 10863179 wrote:
Plenty of old and very old models have received a lot of love during 8th, even resin ones, so I don't see your point.
.
And plenty didn't or were updated at the end of the edition, so people didn't get much time to play with them, or even at all. What did the IH player, that quit the game after a year of bad rules and no fun, get from the fact that for a month or two they were really good, when he was no longer playing the game?
GW doesn't seem to care much about what ever something is good or bad. They have their schedul and they follow it. They seem to have problems durning transition when they make rules for two editions. And in 8th the IH rules are super OP, specialy when combined with FW models GW does not account for when puting out rules, but in 9th being able to over watch on a 5+ is a what we call here a stepmothers wedding gift. If GW cared about balance they wouldn't be reacting to stuff, as slow as they do. They do care about the sales of stuff, and good for them, because their job is in the end to sell people stuff related to table top gaming.
Depends on your secondaries.
which means that if your opponent counters you turn 2-3, your not going to be achiving much on the 4th and 5th, specialy for slower armies.
From my experience with 9th so far, lethality is certainly nowhere near as bad as 8th. The terrain does make an appreciable difference but your target priority and how VP's are scored forces you into going after "sub-optimal" targets for your guns, or spending CP on something you really don't want to but sort of have to.
I've played 3 games of 9th so far (2-1 go me) and aside from some small niggling issues it's overall a big improvement on 8th across the board. In fact I'd say this is what GW probably envisioned 8th to be like but didn't execute on it properly.
Karol wrote: GW seems to like people to live through similar stuff you see in mobile game. New tank, hero or unit comes out for a game it either dunks on the meta or is cosmetic so no one cares.
I never understood this argument. Wouldn't it be more profitable for GW to just make every unit meta shaking or at least good and viable? There are so many releases that are okay or weak from a rules perspective, that the most logical explanation for me personally is: Outside of some outliers, they don't care and we get what we get.
And you need to give the company a possibility to win. Your "cosmetic" releases are the ones done right. Good model, servicable rules. Diminishing their value by saying "they are cosmetic and nobody cares" is unfair.
Karol wrote: There are almost never fixs done to older stuff, for sure not to really old stuff, and all content is spread as thin as bulgarian paper.
That is why GW is fully okey with on side having months of total domination from castellans or Inari making the game unfun to majority of players, while at the same time they drop something like codex SW, and tell people play with it.
But that is not what was happening in 8th edition. Some examples from the top of my head:
- The 2nd Marine codex had buffs across the board for the whole range. Some rules / chapters get definitely more mileage out of old marines than out of Primaris and as far as I'm concerned, old marines are perfectly viable.
- Castellan, Ynnari and Iron Hands have been ruled in within months. If this happened during any other edition? Tough luck, they will keep their rules as is until the next edition drops. Pray to god that the core rules change enough to take away from their power or you have to wait even longer.
- Unless you are a tournament player, a simple "can you use something else? I don't want to play against XY" is helping most people in such a situation.
- I don't get what you mean with paper thin? Regular marines for sure had some books to buy to have rules for their new models (what a tragic fate ), but others could get away with Index -> Codex -> Psychic awakening for the whole edition, couldn't they? I wouldn't call that spread thin personally.
I'm happy to continue that discussion in a PM if you are interested, as most of it is not strictly topic related.
Spoletta 789699 10863179 wrote: Plenty of old and very old models have received a lot of love during 8th, even resin ones, so I don't see your point.
.
And plenty didn't or were updated at the end of the edition, so people didn't get much time to play with them, or even at all. What did the IH player, that quit the game after a year of bad rules and no fun, get from the fact that for a month or two they were really good, when he was no longer playing the game?
GW doesn't seem to care much about what ever something is good or bad. They have their schedul and they follow it. They seem to have problems durning transition when they make rules for two editions. And in 8th the IH rules are super OP, specialy when combined with FW models GW does not account for when puting out rules, but in 9th being able to over watch on a 5+ is a what we call here a stepmothers wedding gift. If GW cared about balance they wouldn't be reacting to stuff, as slow as they do. They do care about the sales of stuff, and good for them, because their job is in the end to sell people stuff related to table top gaming.
Depends on your secondaries.
which means that if your opponent counters you turn 2-3, your not going to be achiving much on the 4th and 5th, specialy for slower armies.
Same for new models. Some received love, some didn't. There isn't a particular push of GW toward new models. How much love did reavers receive? Also, some models received it earlier in the edition, some later in the edition. It's random.
If they do evil stuff at random then it is even worse.
And I really don't think that Inari being new and having OP rules for a long time, or Castellans being new and having OP rules for a long time is a not planed thing.
Same with Vigilus and later 2.0 marine codex making primaris very good. If someone hasn't seen or played with classic marines, if they just based their knowladge on a codex or the big rulebook, they could think that primaris are marines.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
I never understood this argument. Wouldn't it be more profitable for GW to just make every unit meta shaking or at least good and viable? There are so many releases that are okay or weak from a rules perspective, that the most logical explanation for me personally is: Outside of some outliers, they don't care and we get what we get.
And you need to give the company a possibility to win. Your "cosmetic" releases are the ones done right. Good model, servicable rules. Diminishing their value by saying "they are cosmetic and nobody cares" is unfair.
I don't think they are good enough writers to write everything good to begin with. But I guess it also has to do with stuff like production cost, space they have in their warehouses, secondary market etc. I mean if they said that primaris for example are just up scaled marines, and buffed the rules accordingly, then a lot of people would never bothered to buy the new model.
There is also small stuff like wanting to make more money. I mean there is no reason, if someone goals were to produce a game, to have bucket load of pages of art people can see on your site, instead of having the PA books inside the marine codex. But I am no economist, I can only speculate or imagine stuff.
The only thing I know is that having 2 years of a really bad rule set, that was never fixed till the end of 8th ed, and which may now be bad in 9th for all I know, is not a good thing for me. Maybe for people that can army hope, play multiple games or to who the army cost is irrelevant it is not. I envy those people a lot.
- Castellan, Ynnari and Iron Hands have been ruled in within months. If this happened during any other edition? Tough luck, they will keep their rules as is until the next edition drops. Pray to god that the core rules change enough to take away from their power or you have to wait even longer.
Ynari were good till their codex WDed, and after that the models were still used as eldar and still okey. They stoped being good, from eldar players perspective, after IH came out and started to beat everything eldar had. the castellans dominated the meta for like 9 months. To me those are huge lenghts of time. Maybe because the only edition I ever played was 8th.
I know that the similiar argument, 8th is good, because 7th was worse, argument doesn't work at all for me. I really don't care that maybe in 4th or 5th ed some armies was OP for 24 months, and that only that is considered a long time, by people that remember that.
- Unless you are a tournament player, a simple "can you use something else? I don't want to play against XY" is helping most people in such a situation.
yes, in places where people buy more then models for one 2000pts army, and where people are okey with buying bad stuff. that doesn't mean everyone here had a super optimised to the point army. But If I told lets say an eldar player I don't want to play with flyers, then we would have to play 1k pts games.
- I don't get what you mean with paper thin? Regular marines for sure had some books to buy to have rules for their new models (what a tragic fate ), but others could get away with Index -> Codex -> Psychic awakening for the whole edition, couldn't they? I wouldn't call that spread thin personally.
hard to translate. It means bulgarian toilet paper that is so bad made that one sheet turns in to 3 if you try to take it from the roll. Schools love to buy those, because they are cheaper.
What I ment that spreading rules over 2-3 rules is a stupid thing to do. And not just for loyalist marines, from what I remember csm had their stuff spread over like 4-5 books too.
GangstaMuffin24 wrote: I know fluff =/= crunch, but isn't part of the fantasy of 40k two (or more) massive forces clashing and each side suffering casualties from insanely overpowered weapons every faction has?
Does anyone feel good when they have more than 1/2 their army left and their opponent is all but tabled? I know I feel like something went wrong when that happens.
Its in the nature of the game, being able to attack your opponents ability to attack you and the IGUO system.
As you lose models you become less able to retaliate so all other things being equal you do less damage back and this snowballs.
alternate activation would lessen the chance of this happening since it would be more back and forth but if one side starts to do better then the other it will still snowball the same way.
Its not like a game of football where me scoring has no real impact on your ability to score.
GangstaMuffin24 wrote: I know fluff =/= crunch, but isn't part of the fantasy of 40k two (or more) massive forces clashing and each side suffering casualties from insanely overpowered weapons every faction has?
Does anyone feel good when they have more than 1/2 their army left and their opponent is all but tabled? I know I feel like something went wrong when that happens.
I feel like what went wrong is that they lost their whole army.
Games are more interesting if 90% of them don't end in one side or the other being tabled.
Lethality has been too high in 40k since the launch of 8th, and it's only gotten worse.
Based on the way the game plays, nobody would be left in the fluff because all the special characters die in at least half the games they feature in, if not more.
Even at 5th ed levels of lethality, this would be true. Tau or Eldar can shoot an entire chapter off the table in an afternoon. 40K's scaling has never made any sense for marines.
Played a ton of games over the weekend. My group played 850 on Saturday and 1850 on Sunday. Everyone got around 4 games in on Saturday and 2 or 3 in on Sunday.
Impressions so far - It's not faster. Once you've gotten to the point where you aren't looking up rules or reminding yourself what "that" terrain piece does, it plays about the same, or ever so slightly longer than 8th. The morale phase occasionally pushed the time out just slightly longer in some games. If you had a few large squads that needed to roll for attrition, or you just had a brutal turn where everyone was rolling, that could add just a little bit of length, but not an extreme amount. So over-all, not faster by any means, but not nearly as slow as I had feared it would be.
I think the missions are a big step back. The way a lot of them are structured, if you go first and you get a tough squad onto two objectives turn 1, and hold through turn 2, it becomes almost impossible for the opponent to catch up. This gets even worse in the larger size games because big armies can screen out reinforcements due to the smaller board size. Guard were tough, and Cult of Duplicity turns out to be worth its weight in gold this edition. I actually not only used my Scarab Terminators, they turned out to be MVPs. But, like I said, the missions need some reworking or it will be another edition where we don't use the GW missions. While GW has done a decent job of preventing Alpha Strike, going first is arguably even more powerful than it was previously, so that's a issue. If you are going second, you will need both speed, AND the ability to hit super hard or you're probably toast. The secondaries rarely make up for not getting the turn 1 jump.
We also felt the game played better at the smaller size. It prevented armies from screening out reinforcements and just felt better and cleaner. At the larger size, it started to get a little hinky. Like it wasn't meant for a game that size. Probably we just need to play more games of it, but it just didn't feel "right".
TL;DR:
1. As usual, not nearly as fast as GW said it would be, but not nearly as slow as I feared it would be
2. New morale can add some length to the game but 5 man Ultramarine units are no longer essentially immune to it either
3. GSC may need a significant rewrite as they just had too much trouble "functioning" under these rules and build restrictions
4. Game felt MUCH better at 850 than it did at 1850 - not sure why
5. GO FIRST!!!
EDIT:
Forgot to mention the biggest thing we ran into - Rhino Rush is back with a vengeance. At times it felt like 3rd edition all over again. I do not look forward to seeing Assault Intercessors in Impulsors. That's gonna be ugly ...
Martel732 wrote: Once again, how did GW's "playtesters" miss this first turn phenomenon?
I might not be such a big problem. If both players deploy defensively then the player going first will probably not do much damage. But by grabbing midfield objectives he might expose himself and be suspectible of easy t1 charges from even foot sloggers.
We will see when we have played more games and adjusted to the new rules
Perhaps don't jump to conclusions based on one or two posts with minimal experience?
It may prove to be the case, but let's see. This isn't something that is categorically provable at this point.
Yeah, I want to stress these are just early opinions. I do think it's going to prove to be a problem, but honestly, if it is, it's a pretty easy fix. They're basically using old Adepticon scoring. The community moved away from this years ago for the reasons I posted above. If it turns out my first impressions are correct, it can be fixed with a three sentence FAQ simply changing when the objectives are scored.
So over-all, that's a pretty simple potential fix and I'm not too worried about it yet. I also think some armies are going to be really good at going second. Death Company Assault INtercessors in Impulsors are going to be able to kick a lot of things off of objectives so they may not be hurt as bad as say, my Death Guard would be by going second. It will take some time to really shake out, but I don't think it's a game-breaking issue. It could be fixed quickly and easily. The good news is that it really does seem like they fixed the Alpha Strike issue.
Martel732 wrote: Once again, how did GW's "playtesters" miss this first turn phenomenon?
I might not be such a big problem. If both players deploy defensively then the player going first will probably not do much damage. But by grabbing midfield objectives he might expose himself and be suspectible of easy t1 charges from even foot sloggers.
We will see when we have played more games and adjusted to the new rules
With the amount of flying units, hence ignoring terrain and the need to jump on objectives that first turn advantage is huge, unless your filling the table with obscuring terrain, you can be possitioned to score while throwing the first punch, slower armies relying on LoS shooting may struggle but plenty of lists can still drop quite the damage output turn 1 and still hold or atleast be poised to storm the objectives with the upper hand turn 2.
Going second in the GWBRB missions is distinctly lacking in upaide currently.
Martel732 wrote: Once again, how did GW's "playtesters" miss this first turn phenomenon?
Because the advantage is being overstated. Your opponent isn't holding all the objectives strongly and you need to be flexible enough to deal with that.
There's also the question of the tournament mission format.
In the tabletop titans games they've been playing, there's definitely some first turn advantage but there also looks to be a last turn advantage too due to when objectives score. I'll hold off judging it for a month, but I suspect once people adjust it'll be an issue, but not a massive one.
Because the advantage is being overstated. Your opponent isn't holding all the objectives strongly and you need to be flexible enough to deal with that.
What we found was that it was army dependent. That's probably going to be the key. 10 Rubrics backed by Exalted Sorcerers and/or DPs and a 5 man Scarab squad was proving tough to shift. Especially on those occasions when the objective was in defensible terrain. Going first, I could drop that combo on 2-3 objectives on my first turn and a lot of armies struggled to deal with that.
We had heard some reviews where they stated placing "blocking" terrain in between objectives helped, but if you have something like Tsons that can bounce around at will, it was very hard to shift them depending on what I was facing. Given that this edition is unkind to light infantry, and the build restrictions make it hard for GSC to use their characters in the same way, they had a rough go of it. On the other hand, Marine armies with strong flyers and Aggressors/Intercessors loaded up in transports didn't struggle nearly as much when going second.
GangstaMuffin24 wrote: I know fluff =/= crunch, but isn't part of the fantasy of 40k two (or more) massive forces clashing and each side suffering casualties from insanely overpowered weapons every faction has?
Does anyone feel good when they have more than 1/2 their army left and their opponent is all but tabled? I know I feel like something went wrong when that happens.
Its in the nature of the game, being able to attack your opponents ability to attack you and the IGUO system.
As you lose models you become less able to retaliate so all other things being equal you do less damage back and this snowballs.
alternate activation would lessen the chance of this happening since it would be more back and forth but if one side starts to do better then the other it will still snowball the same way.
Its not like a game of football where me scoring has no real impact on your ability to score.
I understand what you're saying. I'm not saying that I don't understand how that can happen or that I even see it happen often. I was speaking specifically to the 'lethality' of units in the game.
Because the advantage is being overstated. Your opponent isn't holding all the objectives strongly and you need to be flexible enough to deal with that.
What we found was that it was army dependent. That's probably going to be the key. 10 Rubrics backed by Exalted Sorcerers and/or DPs and a 5 man Scarab squad was proving tough to shift. Especially on those occasions when the objective was in defensible terrain. Going first, I could drop that combo on 2-3 objectives on my first turn and a lot of armies struggled to deal with that.
We had heard some reviews where they stated placing "blocking" terrain in between objectives helped, but if you have something like Tsons that can bounce around at will, it was very hard to shift them depending on what I was facing. Given that this edition is unkind to light infantry, and the build restrictions make it hard for GSC to use their characters in the same way, they had a rough go of it. On the other hand, Marine armies with strong flyers and Aggressors/Intercessors loaded up in transports didn't struggle nearly as much when going second.
Objectives cannot be in Defensible terrain, or actually in any terrain.
Spoletta wrote: Makes a lot of difference if it is near, or is inside it.
If it is near, I will just walk some obsec cheap bodies to the objective and negate it.
Appart from the fact your dudes have to survive the turn in the open to score, yes you can prevent your opponent scoring for a turn but it's still not really stopping them if they have obsec in range either as they're more likely to survive multiplw turns than your mooks in the open.
I tried out 9th Ed with a buddy yesterday. I ran Tyranids (Kraken), he ran Imperial Fists. We rolled No Man's Land for the mission. We played unoptimized lists with a variety of units to try to get a feel for general changes to the game.
He got the first turn, and bunkered up in his deployment zone with his main force while a Storm Eagle flew into my backfield.
I rushed onto the objectives and blew up the Storm Eagle with shooting, and from there the outcome was pretty much determined. His army was all cozy up in his fort (he brought an Aegis Defense Line), but with me holding three out of the four objectives there was just no way to catch up. His cover bonus stacking made his infantry units nigh-impossible to kill, but they were also holed up and unable to push forward.
I don't think this is necessarily going to be a first-turn-I-win sort of game. The player who goes second has their whole army to work with for killing whatever's grabbed objectives, and obsec will definitely help too. Both players have the same amount of delay between when they can get on a point and when they actually score.
One thing is for certain, though- an army that doesn't push early is going to lose. Slow-moving aura blobs are going to lose. Static gunlines are going to lose. Simple as that. You can still use deep strike to grab objectives, and strategic reserves provide a lot more options for late-game objective-grabbing, but since they can be screened out by whoever gets to the objective first, an army that starts with nothing fast on the board is going to have a harder time playing to the mission.
I think we're going to see more balanced list composition going forward, designed around winning objectives rather than just killing- fast units are useful for getting to objectives quickly and then screening out DS, and large units of infantry being both more durable against morale damage and easier to hide from LOS makes an obsec objective-hugger more difficult to shift. You can try spamming Heavy Support, but focusing on firepower at the expense of mobility is now a real trade-off.
Oh, and terrain also matters much more now. We played with a mixture of short obscuring trees (can see through, but shoot at -1), buildings, and tall LOS-blocking forests. The terrain rules aren't explicit about it but seem to imply that vehicles and monsters can't enter forests, which is a bit of a head-scratcher, but otherwise the limitations on shooting made maneuver much more important, especially as it relates to the objectives.
Edit: Oh yeah, I really noticed that the comparative lack of Overwatch makes melee more useful as a generalist tool. I couldn't trap anything in melee, but once I baited out Overwatch then I was free to throw small units of Termagants or Rippers into strong shooting units to shut them down for a turn. The feeling of shooting getting to double-dip against melee has been greatly diminished. I'm still not convinced that melee specialists are really going to work better than under 8th, but charging shooting units doesn't feel quite so suicidal. I expect that to revert once GW starts handing out free Overwatch to anyone and everyone, as they are sure to do.
Tycho wrote: Forgot to mention the biggest thing we ran into - Rhino Rush is back with a vengeance. At times it felt like 3rd edition all over again. I do not look forward to seeing Assault Intercessors in Impulsors. That's gonna be ugly ...
Can this be elaborated on? I've seen this mentioned a few times now and I'd like to know what's up.
Had 4 test-games this weekend, and I thoroughly enjoyed them all.
I consider basically every change from 8th to be a step in the right direction, and there was nothing added that I dislike, quite the opposite in fact.
One thing they should've added however is a rule that prevent units from charging anything in the opponents deployment zone on turn one if the owning player goes first.
First-turn-charges was stupid in 8th and they'll be equally stupid in 9th.
Tycho wrote: Forgot to mention the biggest thing we ran into - Rhino Rush is back with a vengeance. At times it felt like 3rd edition all over again. I do not look forward to seeing Assault Intercessors in Impulsors. That's gonna be ugly ...
Can this be elaborated on? I've seen this mentioned a few times now and I'd like to know what's up.
Also I have a ton of Rhinos.
I genuinely doubt it's going to be rhino rush per say as you can't disembark after moving while you can with impulsor spam.
The missions realy push you to get obsec on objectives turn 1-3 hard as you score at the start of your turn before you move.
Meaning turn 1 is often an odd rush of possitioni ng and threat removal to start your runaway victory.
Tycho wrote: Forgot to mention the biggest thing we ran into - Rhino Rush is back with a vengeance. At times it felt like 3rd edition all over again. I do not look forward to seeing Assault Intercessors in Impulsors. That's gonna be ugly ...
Can this be elaborated on? I've seen this mentioned a few times now and I'd like to know what's up.
Also I have a ton of Rhinos.
I've been running a double combi-melta & havoc rhino. I wouldn't have spent the points on those upgrades before, because if it got tagged they're useless and a rhino that wants to move gives a penalty to the havoc. Now if someone wants to change me they'll take a couple melta plus a handful of bolter shots to the face.
Shooting into combat doesn't happen often, but the psychology of how you use units does.
Couple that with getting on objectives. If you go first and hop on top with a rhino it is that much harder to get you off the objective immediately.
catbarf wrote: I tried out 9th Ed with a buddy yesterday. I ran Tyranids (Kraken), he ran Imperial Fists. We rolled No Man's Land for the mission. We played unoptimized lists with a variety of units to try to get a feel for general changes to the game.
It sounds like your buddy was playing specifically the kind of list that isn't supposed to work any more in 9th; good to hear he lost big time with it, we've been taking it at face value that static shooting isn't good anymore but I hadn't seen any batreps that had actually tried it yet.
Tycho wrote: Forgot to mention the biggest thing we ran into - Rhino Rush is back with a vengeance. At times it felt like 3rd edition all over again. I do not look forward to seeing Assault Intercessors in Impulsors. That's gonna be ugly ...
Can this be elaborated on? I've seen this mentioned a few times now and I'd like to know what's up.
Also I have a ton of Rhinos.
I've been running a double combi-melta & havoc rhino. I wouldn't have spent the points on those upgrades before, because if it got tagged they're useless and a rhino that wants to move gives a penalty to the havoc. Now if someone wants to change me they'll take a couple melta plus a handful of bolter shots to the face.
Shooting into combat doesn't happen often, but the psychology of how you use units does.
Couple that with getting on objectives. If you go first and hop on top with a rhino it is that much harder to get you off the objective immediately.
I'm confused. Are you using the Melta too shoot out of the Rhino and into combat or something? Is that a thing?
Insectum7 wrote: I'm confused. Are you using the Melta too shoot out of the Rhino and into combat or something? Is that a thing?
Not shooting into combat much, but previously taking a rhino with guns was kind of dumb. A rhino wants to be closer to the enemy. If you get close and tagged you wasted points on guns. Now you don't have to worry as much. Now if something that wants to charge has to worry about two melta shots and combi-bolters the next turn.
Couple that with getting on objectives soon and transports seem to become a lot more fun.
Can this be elaborated on? I've seen this mentioned a few times now and I'd like to know what's up.
Also I have a ton of Rhinos.
The others have summed it up quite nicely. Also, it doesn't have to be a Rhino. Anything that can deliver troops upfield quickly on turn 1 is going to be critical. Impulsors became MVPS in the larger games we played, and even the Dune Rider mechanicus transport was great. The key is running onto those objectives FAST. Like I said, Alpha Strike is harder, but claiming 2 or 3 objectives on your first player turn, and then having a unit in your opponent's face to disrupt right away on that same turn is going to be really hard to beat the way these missions are currently being scored.
Can this be elaborated on? I've seen this mentioned a few times now and I'd like to know what's up.
Also I have a ton of Rhinos.
The others have summed it up quite nicely. Also, it doesn't have to be a Rhino. Anything that can deliver troops upfield quickly on turn 1 is going to be critical. Impulsors became MVPS in the larger games we played, and even the Dune Rider mechanicus transport was great. The key is running onto those objectives FAST. Like I said, Alpha Strike is harder, but claiming 2 or 3 objectives on your first player turn, and then having a unit in your opponent's face to disrupt right away on that same turn is going to be really hard to beat the way these missions are currently being scored.
Righto. Thanks all!
I'm looking forward to bringing my Pods in for objectives, too. They've got the sweet 1st turn drop option.
Spoletta wrote: Considering the new playstyle, it makes sense that the impulsors got quite the hike. They are really good now.
Considering the new playstyle, it makes sense that the impulsors got quite the hike. They are really good now.
Yep. Primaris units in Impulsors were a stand-out in our test games over the weekend. I dread facing a bunch of those loaded w/assault Intercessors and a Chaplain ...
Of course, ty. And naturally the Pods mentioned in my previous post.
Hmmmmm ... pods to me are similar to Vindicators. They were so bad for so long I sort of forgot they existed. But to your point, I actually could see the right squad delivered at the right time via drop pod as a pretty could good precaution for when you are forced to go second, and it would still be a really good thing to have if you are going first ... also, I have lots of drop pods ....
Of course, ty. And naturally the Pods mentioned in my previous post.
Hmmmmm ... pods to me are similar to Vindicators. They were so bad for so long I sort of forgot they existed. But to your point, I actually could see the right squad delivered at the right time via drop pod as a pretty could good precaution for when you are forced to go second, and it would still be a really good thing to have if you are going first ... also, I have lots of drop pods ....
At the moment they have some really nice things going for them.
1: They can drop on the first turn.
2: You can reserve units without spending CP.
3: Stratagems like Forewarning and Auspex Scan only work against the Pods, not the models coming out of them.
Imo they're a good tool to have in your back pocket. Using obscuring terrain to drop units into a protected position while they focus fire on choice targets is going to be a good maneuver, I think. I'm looking forward to trying that out in combination with Reserved Dreadnoughts to serve up some pinpoint supporting fire.
Drop pods aren't nearly as problematic as impulsors in 9th's mission design. Drop pods are only good if you go first; if you go second they don't get you onto objectives because of the DS restrictions.
Impulsors, meanwhile, will get you 6 ob-sec primaris onto any objective outside the opponent's deployment zone T1, and you're going first, will also allow you to block off the objective with a model that has a massive footprint and a -2 to be charged.
I think this game is a good example of how 9th differs from 8th. The mission is the most important thing, get caught up on killing your opponent at the expense of the mission and you'll have a tough time.
Yeah but weird seeing it - one side utterly wiped off the board but winning by a fair margin
It's gonna get weird for a while. That's all I can say. We noticed this and other odd things that seemed to be magnified the more points we played. Obviously didn't play nearly enough games over the weekend to make any kind of definitive statement, but based on the 7/8 I did play, 9th actually feels a lot better at much smaller levels.
850 felt MUCH better than 1850 (keeping in mind this was 8th ed points to try and represent the estimated 1000 and 2000 point levels of 9th).
If you take a bad list, pick bad secondaries for it, and then play badly with it, you're going to lose, whether it's 8th or 9th. Not mean to be an attack on the guy - it's a new edition, probably his first game, and a lot of people learn by doing - just stating facts. It doesn't illustrate anything other than that playing badly loses you games.
The issue with going first is it makes it too easy to take control of the primary. That guy went first and only moved onto a single objective. He literally lost the game in his first movement phase.
yukishiro1 wrote: If you take a bad list, pick bad secondaries for it, and then play badly with it, you're going to lose, whether it's 8th or 9th. Not mean to be an attack on the guy - it's a new edition, probably his first game, and a lot of people learn by doing - just stating facts. It doesn't illustrate anything other than that playing badly loses you games.
The issue with going first is it makes it too easy to take control of the primary. That guy went first and only moved onto a single objective. He literally lost the game in his first movement phase.
The demonstration was that his army was not built well to accomplish any other secondaries. Nor could he be very mobile, because he had so few models and needed those rerolls.
It could wind up being he has more secondary choices in the tournament pack, but he's still going to struggle getting across the table. It ITC he would have wiped the floor as he scored Kill & Kill More while the Eldar's ability to kill anything at all dropped pretty sharply.
yukishiro1 wrote: If you take a bad list, pick bad secondaries for it, and then play badly with it, you're going to lose, whether it's 8th or 9th. Not mean to be an attack on the guy - it's a new edition, probably his first game, and a lot of people learn by doing - just stating facts. It doesn't illustrate anything other than that playing badly loses you games.
The issue with going first is it makes it too easy to take control of the primary. That guy went first and only moved onto a single objective. He literally lost the game in his first movement phase.
He could have maxed his secondaries and he would still have lost. He should have dropped the inceptors much more aggressively into the opponent area to start reclaiming some points. They would have been assaulted and killed by the characters, but he would have stopped the pyschic ritual.
catbarf wrote: Edit: Oh yeah, I really noticed that the comparative lack of Overwatch makes melee more useful as a generalist tool. I couldn't trap anything in melee, but once I baited out Overwatch then I was free to throw small units of Termagants or Rippers into strong shooting units to shut them down for a turn. The feeling of shooting getting to double-dip against melee has been greatly diminished. I'm still not convinced that melee specialists are really going to work better than under 8th, but charging shooting units doesn't feel quite so suicidal. I expect that to revert once GW starts handing out free Overwatch to anyone and everyone, as they are sure to do.
I'd echo this.
I also think the loss of being able to shoot after fallback on flyers is significant. Yes some models can shoot while engaged with Big Guns etc - but having to shoot what you are engaged with (potentially with a penalty) or fly off to position where you want but give up your shooting phase is a blow.
Not sure if this is something that will be meta'd out as people learn new lists - but it makes assault feel like a useful tool, rather than often a way just to lose a load of blokes to overwatch, do very little, and then watch the enemy buzz off without consequence.
I wonder if changing it so the player going second scores the primary on turn 5 at the end of his go, rather than the beginning, might help balance it better?
At the moment the player who goes first gets the opportunity to move into position and establish board control. If they're durable enough they can get a big advantage.
But if the player going second has a hail mary opportunity on turn five to clear and stand on as many objectives as possible it could help counter the going first advantage. Or it could be worthless or it could be overpowered, but I'd be interested to play a few games to try it out.
played a set of games tonight with my Black Legion with the new points values vs ultramarines.
IMHO, raptors are WAY better than they get credit. that smaller table, plus warptime means that when you deliver, you will be able to stop things from getting to where they need to go. Tarpitting has value now, I was able to get on top (since i went first) of a repulsor loaded with intercessors, and I was able to stop them from running onto the objective. It was a bit suicidal, but they did do some casualties before dying out completely on his second turn. By that point, it was uphill for him, because he needed to kick me off of two objectives and he had some really tough decisions to make about where to dedicate his firepower. Like he always does, he clawed back from being behind the ball on it, but it wasn't easy for him.
In the second game, I went second (we rotate back and forth when testing) with the same lists, and while he was on top of two objectives on top of one, I was able to clear one of them off, with some supporting fire from my Havocs, I was able to clean up the impulsor and the 6 man unit inside.
CSM squads in rhinos were good for me. In fact, id wager that there are going to be several units that probably weren't looked at favorably and now they are going to be seeing a little bit of table time. I know for me, raptors were really surprising. All of that mobility was really powerful on a table with good terrain.
One thing that I am going to have to get used too is how finicky deep strike can be on a table that is so much smaller. My obliterators really wanted to come on the table in a few spots, but the spacing was just a bit too tight, and I didn't register how small the table was, or how easily you can screen out deepstrikers with the smaller table.
2 more games, 2 more losses to add to the pile, but no game ended in tabling, and no game ended with one person just dramatically blowing away their opponent on points. I will offer that my opponent is a better player than I am, so the outcome wasn't surprising, but certainly, they were fun games to play.
Most importantly, at no point did I feel like I just was completely outclassed, or didn't have a chance, even with my army made of units that are commonly considered "poor". Now, I was outplayed by my opponent, but our games are typically close and we both acknowledged that there were things I could have done differently that could have shifted the game in any given direction.
9th edition is shaping up really nicely. So far I am having a LOT of fun with it, and i hope you all are too!
Seabass wrote: I went second (we rotate back and forth when testing) with the same lists
Hah! I insist on going second to measure the "first turn impact". Have you guys ever tried switching armies?
One thing that I am going to have to get used too is how finicky deep strike can be on a table that is so much smaller.
For sure. Reserves have been especially hard to use in a fashion that I'd like. What happens is the fight on the objectives is so intense I have little room to free up fire power to make a hole. That's likely why jump units feel so strong - they can at least get when you need to go.
we both acknowledged that there were things I could have done differently that could have shifted the game in any given direction.
We always debrief each other at the end, too. Win or lose if you can't walk away without acknowledging what you could do better then you've done it wrong.
This time with the updated points. First off, I need to amend an earlier statement - somewhere on Dakka (maybe this thread, I don't recall) I said something like "Morale phase can take longer but at least 5 man UM squads are no longer essentially immune to it". Ooops. Suffice it to say we played it wrong. They are still immune and the Morale phase is still pretty pointless. It's just friendlier to hordes now.
This time around I played my Death Guard and my Mechanicus. Mechanicus are going to be TOUGH in this edition. They can do everything the edition demands of them and they can do it easily. A Manipulus in my backfield supporting 1 or 2 Destroyer squads essentially meant that, on the new table sizes, if I could see it, I could hit it. Hard.
Kept a Rust Stalker squad in reserve in case anything went after that using reserves or deepstrike and my other units went after objectives. Our units are still paper thin, but we have a lot of them, and we're one of the few armies that can reliably shoot someone off an objective from a distance while another unit runs up to claim that objective. Also, the strat for the Archeopter Fulisave - the Seismic Bomb, that's pretty clutch this edition. If we stick with 9th (we're still debating on holding off to see how the dust settles), I can see myself getting a second one.
For my Death Guard - Essentially ran the same battle plan as my Tsons. Only it was PMs in Rhinos since DG can't "teleport" like Rubrics can. Ran two seperate squads to objectives in Rhinos and camped on them. Brought Plague Bearers in turn 2. Used "Raise the Banners" for a secondary. Pretty strong.
Over all 9th still feels weird at bigger sizes and we can't, as a group figure out why. The missions need some edits to how they're scored and the secondaries, while sometimes fun, don't really help all that much if you end up going second against an army that can claim and hold objectives quickly. Next time we play, we're going to try 9th ed rules using some ITC missions and some of our favorites from the 2019 CA to see if that helps. We're not quite "sold" on it.
I think, to me, it maybe feels too much like 8th but with changes that were made to simply make changes. They don't really address a lot of the issues 8th had, and the points adjustment was, well, typical GW I suppose. Actually, that sums a lot of this up really well so far. Classic GW as in "Some cool ideas here but sloppy execution".
It's not bad per say, and it's certainly WAY better than the complete train wreck I expected (happy to have been wrong on that), but it also misses the mark in a lot of places they were trying to fix but seemingly didn't. Meh. Maybe when the real 9th ed codexes come out.
Honestly they just need to get rid of any farce that is a morale system altogether. Putting a rule in that has little to no effect is largely a waste IMO.
auticus wrote: Honestly they just need to get rid of any farce that is a morale system altogether. Putting a rule in that has little to no effect is largely a waste IMO.
We get it GW. Morale "isn't fun".
in my experience, it has an effect, it just doesn't have the effect it used to have of just guaranteed finishing off low model count armies.
The main effect now, in a normal game with no LD shenanigans, is to add a few extra casualties to infantry squads that get shot up.
I played a game of Sisters V Tyranids and honestly the takeaway that sums it all up for me is this: If you liked 8th you'll like 9th and if you don't like 8th you'll probably feel the same about 9th.
I would suggest removing the 'morale' system though. It's just wasting everyones time.
in my experience, it has an effect, it just doesn't have the effect it used to have of just guaranteed finishing off low model count armies.
The main effect now, in a normal game with no LD shenanigans, is to add a few extra casualties to infantry squads that get shot up.
Honestly, not even. The main effect now is that Morale is friendlier to hordes. They don't auto-fail as easily, and they don't lose as many off the bat when they do fail. That seems like the only change at this point.
It feels like the classic GW over-reaction. There was a time when you had multiple levels of things like "fear" and failing a morale test caused a lot of rules to kick in. This slowed the game down and could become un-fun. Rather than find a middle-ground, they've essentially eliminated it.
Morale is supposed to be a way to reduce lethality, not increase it. GW has got it totally backwards for two editions now. If all morale is is another way to kill dudes, there is no reason to have it at all.
in my experience, it has an effect, it just doesn't have the effect it used to have of just guaranteed finishing off low model count armies.
The main effect now, in a normal game with no LD shenanigans, is to add a few extra casualties to infantry squads that get shot up.
Honestly, not even. The main effect now is that Morale is friendlier to hordes. They don't auto-fail as easily, and they don't lose as many off the bat when they do fail. That seems like the only change at this point.
It feels like the classic GW over-reaction. There was a time when you had multiple levels of things like "fear" and failing a morale test caused a lot of rules to kick in. This slowed the game down and could become un-fun. Rather than find a middle-ground, they've essentially eliminated it.
They autofail just as easily. That's actually my main problem with morale as it stands in 9th - it seems like it goes from a hyper-remote chance to a "anything but one" fairly quickly.
Unless you're playing space marines or MSU, in which case it's just never really a thing.
It's also deeply, deeply stupid that a unit of 5 that loses 4 men is less likely to fail a morale check than a unit of 30 that loses 6.
The whole morale system from 8th edition on is a complete mess, a textbook case of not thinking through what you want your system to actually accomplish before implementing it. It adds nothing to the game. If they were convinced that morale lowering lethality "wasn't fun" they should have just removed it entirely, not come up with this stupid half-measure that just makes the game even more lethal in ways that make absolutely no sense.
They autofail just as easily. That's actually my main problem with morale as it stands in 9th - it seems like it goes from a hyper-remote chance to a "anything but one" fairly quickly.
Unless you're playing space marines or MSU, in which case it's just never really a thing.
This is accurate. I said "Auto-Fail" but what I meant was, WHEN they fail, they aren't just deleted off the board automatically since you lose the first model on the "fail" and then roll individually for each other model. Rather than blowing it by a huge number and then auto-removing a huge chunk of models off the bat. From that standpoint, I guess it's better, but it feels kind of like "the same but different". Like nothing was really "solved" or "fixed". Which is the general feeling I'm starting to get as a whole about 9th, but (understatement of the year incoming) it's still stupid early so who knows how it all ends up shaking out. Most of this just doesn't feel like legit "improvements" and more just "well we had to change something".
The two things that were mostly fixed were terrain (if you didn't use ITC rules) and Look Out Sir.
Right. Which really didn't require a new edition and could have been handled via CA. While I agree these are good improvements I'm very much left with a "why did we do this?" kind of feel. I figured this would end with myself and my group either really hating it, or (and this was an outside shot) really loving it, so it's kind of weird for us to just be feeling so "meh" about it.
I don't think they hit really any of the metrics they were shooting for (and honestly, without a more drastic change to the core rules, I wasn't expecting them to), but it's not a "bad" rule set either. It's probably just a case of having expected an extreme, getting something that fell really luke warm instead, and now just having to adjust.
Kind of like when you go to a movie that was billed as one type of film, but it turns out to be something else and your initial reaction is negative because of that, but you watch it again a year later w/different expectations and actually enjoy it.
yukishiro1 wrote: It's also deeply, deeply stupid that a unit of 5 that loses 4 men is less likely to fail a morale check than a unit of 30 that loses 6.
The whole morale system from 8th edition on is a complete mess, a textbook case of not thinking through what you want your system to actually accomplish before implementing it. It adds nothing to the game. If they were convinced that morale lowering lethality "wasn't fun" they should have just removed it entirely, not come up with this stupid half-measure that just makes the game even more lethal in ways that make absolutely no sense.
From a real life logical sense, yes it seems silly. I don't think it is as silly from a balance perspective when negative leadership mods will affect those MSUs more than the big blob. So marines are pretty resolute, but I'll be curious to see what happens when a butcher cannon kills an Eradicator and Haarken is nearby (18") - 25% or so to kill another model or two for having done no other work seems pretty ok to me.
yukishiro1 wrote: It's also deeply, deeply stupid that a unit of 5 that loses 4 men is less likely to fail a morale check than a unit of 30 that loses 6.
The whole morale system from 8th edition on is a complete mess, a textbook case of not thinking through what you want your system to actually accomplish before implementing it. It adds nothing to the game. If they were convinced that morale lowering lethality "wasn't fun" they should have just removed it entirely, not come up with this stupid half-measure that just makes the game even more lethal in ways that make absolutely no sense.
From a real life logical sense, yes it seems silly. I don't think it is as silly from a balance perspective when negative leadership mods will affect those MSUs more than the big blob. So marines are pretty resolute, but I'll be curious to see what happens when a butcher cannon kills an Eradicator and Haarken is nearby (18") - 25% or so to kill another model or two for having done no other work seems pretty ok to me.
Leadership mods are either equally (in the case of auras) or more (in the case of targeted) effective against large units as they are against MSUs.
I would much rather face 2 units of 30 ork boyz than 6 units of 10 with my ld-shenanigan eldar army.
yukishiro1 wrote: It's also deeply, deeply stupid that a unit of 5 that loses 4 men is less likely to fail a morale check than a unit of 30 that loses 6.
The whole morale system from 8th edition on is a complete mess, a textbook case of not thinking through what you want your system to actually accomplish before implementing it. It adds nothing to the game. If they were convinced that morale lowering lethality "wasn't fun" they should have just removed it entirely, not come up with this stupid half-measure that just makes the game even more lethal in ways that make absolutely no sense.
From a real life logical sense, yes it seems silly. I don't think it is as silly from a balance perspective when negative leadership mods will affect those MSUs more than the big blob. So marines are pretty resolute, but I'll be curious to see what happens when a butcher cannon kills an Eradicator and Haarken is nearby (18") - 25% or so to kill another model or two for having done no other work seems pretty ok to me.
Leadership mods are either equally (in the case of auras) or more (in the case of targeted) effective against large units as they are against MSUs.
I would much rather face 2 units of 30 ork boyz than 6 units of 10 with my ld-shenanigan eldar army.
Not sure I follow, but i'm not familiar with the Eldar set up, either.
LD debuffs tend to be mostly aura based. I'll use marines, because Orks have Mob Rule and that just makes the scenario wonky to assess (and unlikely). So two 5 mans and 1 10 man. All have -3 to LD. Kill 3 models from each 5 man. LD5 means fail on 3s. 1 + 33% of the last model for each unit. So, 66% * 2.7 = 1.8 (ignore ATSKNF for the discussion). That means 6 models from the 10 man. That unit was already going to fail on a 3+ so the LD debuff means nothing. If you instead killed 3 models from the 10 man you get the same chance failure as the 5 mans. Factor in how Primaris are harder to kill and morale becomes a painful experience.
LD debuffs seem to be about applying less force and got a greater result. I don't know if they'll actually work this time, but it seems worth a try.
LD debuffs seem to be about applying less force and got a greater result. I don't know if they'll actually work this time, but it seems worth a try.
I mean maybe? Once the actual 9th codexes come out? But still - probably not really? I think the new morale is more forgiving generally than the previous version so idk?
yukishiro1 wrote: It's also deeply, deeply stupid that a unit of 5 that loses 4 men is less likely to fail a morale check than a unit of 30 that loses 6.
The whole morale system from 8th edition on is a complete mess, a textbook case of not thinking through what you want your system to actually accomplish before implementing it. It adds nothing to the game. If they were convinced that morale lowering lethality "wasn't fun" they should have just removed it entirely, not come up with this stupid half-measure that just makes the game even more lethal in ways that make absolutely no sense.
From a real life logical sense, yes it seems silly. I don't think it is as silly from a balance perspective when negative leadership mods will affect those MSUs more than the big blob. So marines are pretty resolute, but I'll be curious to see what happens when a butcher cannon kills an Eradicator and Haarken is nearby (18") - 25% or so to kill another model or two for having done no other work seems pretty ok to me.
Leadership mods are either equally (in the case of auras) or more (in the case of targeted) effective against large units as they are against MSUs.
I would much rather face 2 units of 30 ork boyz than 6 units of 10 with my ld-shenanigan eldar army.
Not sure I follow, but i'm not familiar with the Eldar set up, either.
LD debuffs tend to be mostly aura based. I'll use marines, because Orks have Mob Rule and that just makes the scenario wonky to assess (and unlikely). So two 5 mans and 1 10 man. All have -3 to LD. Kill 3 models from each 5 man. LD5 means fail on 3s. 1 + 33% of the last model for each unit. So, 66% * 2.7 = 1.8 (ignore ATSKNF for the discussion). That means 6 models from the 10 man. That unit was already going to fail on a 3+ so the LD debuff means nothing. If you instead killed 3 models from the 10 man you get the same chance failure as the 5 mans. Factor in how Primaris are harder to kill and morale becomes a painful experience.
LD debuffs seem to be about applying less force and got a greater result. I don't know if they'll actually work this time, but it seems worth a try.
if my opponent fields 10-man marine squads I can kill 5 of them and stick them with a -2ld penalty to cause them to autofail on anything but a 1. With ATSKNF though LD debuffs are largely pointless vs marines, which is the reason morale doesn't work as a mechanic to build your army around because 75%-ish of games you'll play are against some kind of loyalist marine, and they've got about a 30% chance of just autopassing no matter what you do.
I suppose if you really are committed to MSU marines as the example, I can see playing the numbers game vs a ton of 5-man squads where you stack all your aura debuffs up and you get them to like -4, then ping one model off each squad and play the numbers game on the ones that will roll 4, 5, or 6.
But that's only because committing does not work vs marines. They've got their stupid reroll morale with the stupid autopass on a 1 in 9th ed. you have to just try to get whatever you can salvage vs them.
if my opponent fields 10-man marine squads I can kill 5 of them and stick them with a -2ld penalty to cause them to autofail on anything but a 1. With ATSKNF though LD debuffs are largely pointless vs marines, which is the reason morale doesn't work as a mechanic to build your army around because 75%-ish of games you'll play are against some kind of loyalist marine, and they've got about a 30% chance of just autopassing no matter what you do.
I suppose if you really are committed to MSU marines as the example, I can see playing the numbers game vs a ton of 5-man squads where you stack all your aura debuffs up and you get them to like -4, then ping one model off each squad and play the numbers game on the ones that will roll 4, 5, or 6.
But that's only because committing does not work vs marines. They've got their stupid reroll morale with the stupid autopass on a 1 in 9th ed. you have to just try to get whatever you can salvage vs them.
I think the silver lining is that even if you get them to a 33% chance of failure that failure hurts a whole lot more when its a W3/W4 model.
If you can build an army around debuffs without gimping yourself it might be fun to see in action.
if my opponent fields 10-man marine squads I can kill 5 of them and stick them with a -2ld penalty to cause them to autofail on anything but a 1. With ATSKNF though LD debuffs are largely pointless vs marines, which is the reason morale doesn't work as a mechanic to build your army around because 75%-ish of games you'll play are against some kind of loyalist marine, and they've got about a 30% chance of just autopassing no matter what you do.
I suppose if you really are committed to MSU marines as the example, I can see playing the numbers game vs a ton of 5-man squads where you stack all your aura debuffs up and you get them to like -4, then ping one model off each squad and play the numbers game on the ones that will roll 4, 5, or 6.
But that's only because committing does not work vs marines. They've got their stupid reroll morale with the stupid autopass on a 1 in 9th ed. you have to just try to get whatever you can salvage vs them.
I think the silver lining is that even if you get them to a 33% chance of failure that failure hurts a whole lot more when its a W3/W4 model.
If you can build an army around debuffs without gimping yourself it might be fun to see in action.
That might be a valid excuse if there weren't multiwound armies like Custodes and CSM that don't get the same rule on everything for free for no reason.
Maybe if a new codex comes out and switches out some of the LD debuffs for Attrition Roll debuffs then we might be able to get something going. I would love it if the Death Jester, Phantasm Grenade Launchers, Shards of Light and Terrify all became -1 to Attrition tests with a rule that said they didn't stack, that would probably be enough to make aeldari LD shenanigan armies a thing again, combined with the current proliferation of -ld auras from the various subfaction tactics, relics and Spooky Plane.
Tyran wrote: The two things that were mostly fixed were terrain (if you didn't use ITC rules) and Look Out Sir.
How was terrain fixed? It just seems more annoying to me.
Forests are the big thing that I enjoy. They cover so much of the table.
I can be anywhere from within that forest to any of the space behind it and I claim -1 to be hit. Even for weapons that ignore LOS. I can be in a ruins behind that forest and pick up light cover as well.
Beyond that the way models interact with terrain is more clear. There's also terrain to slow movement so defended positions are a thing.
Tyran wrote: The two things that were mostly fixed were terrain (if you didn't use ITC rules) and Look Out Sir.
How was terrain fixed? It just seems more annoying to me.
Because it exists. The 8th edition rulebook had extremely bare-bones rules for terrain.
With GW I'd take the barebone rules over their attempts at fleshing it out.
Honestly the only thing that seems decent about it is the addition of movement penalties for defensive terrain like Daedalus mentioned. Everything else is unhelpful clunk.
Tyran wrote: The two things that were mostly fixed were terrain (if you didn't use ITC rules) and Look Out Sir.
How was terrain fixed? It just seems more annoying to me.
Because it exists. The 8th edition rulebook had extremely bare-bones rules for terrain.
With GW I'd take the barebone rules over their attempts at fleshing it out.
Honestly the only thing that seems decent about it is the addition of movement penalties for defensive terrain like Daedalus mentioned. Everything else is unhelpful clunk.
Tyran wrote: The two things that were mostly fixed were terrain (if you didn't use ITC rules) and Look Out Sir.
How was terrain fixed? It just seems more annoying to me.
Because it exists. The 8th edition rulebook had extremely bare-bones rules for terrain.
With GW I'd take the barebone rules over their attempts at fleshing it out.
Honestly the only thing that seems decent about it is the addition of movement penalties for defensive terrain like Daedalus mentioned. Everything else is unhelpful clunk.
Then don't play with it?
I probably won't but last I checked I'm allowed to talk about it.
I haven't gotten to play the new edition yet, how are primaris infiltrators with the new missions? I have like the idea of them since they released, but haven't gotten any yet.
The difficulty with infiltrating units is that you have to deploy them before you know whether you're going first or not, which means that if you put them on an objective and then go second they just get shot off the objective T1 and maybe even used as a charge spring-board for your opponent to consolidate their hold of the objective even more strongly than they otherwise would have. Meanwhile since you don't score on T1, there's not really that much of an incentive to place them on that objective anyway.
Cheap infiltrators like nurglings are still awesome because you can use them to move-block to keep people from getting to the objective at all. But infiltrators cost too much for that, which puts them in a little bit of a tricky place IMO.
Honestly the only thing that seems decent about it is the addition of movement penalties for defensive terrain like Daedalus mentioned. Everything else is unhelpful clunk.
Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion man.
Tyran wrote: The two things that were mostly fixed were terrain (if you didn't use ITC rules) and Look Out Sir.
How was terrain fixed? It just seems more annoying to me.
Because it exists. The 8th edition rulebook had extremely bare-bones rules for terrain.
With GW I'd take the barebone rules over their attempts at fleshing it out.
Honestly the only thing that seems decent about it is the addition of movement penalties for defensive terrain like Daedalus mentioned. Everything else is unhelpful clunk.
Then don't play with it?
I probably won't but last I checked I'm allowed to talk about it.
You're also allowed to be wrong about it. Movement penalties being the best part? You must be high because that's the only part that doesn't matter at all. That's like going to disney land and having your favorite part be that there were a good number of trash cans.
UncleJetMints wrote: I haven't gotten to play the new edition yet, how are primaris infiltrators with the new missions? I have like the idea of them since they released, but haven't gotten any yet.
Ive got some friends that are playing them and so far they have been pretty good. Someone else said it best though, they can easily be overextended, and at the end of the day, they are two wound marines with a 3+. Overextended and left out in the wind, and they won't last very long, especially given that the fight in the game is going to quickly develop over those objectives, but if they are used wisely, to reach out and grab the objective and then supported with additional support from the rest of the army, they can give you a very real edge on getting on top of the objectives fast.
That said, they are kind of expensive, so it isn't really a unit you want to just throw away, but they will require (especially if in cover) a concentrated effort to get rid of, and that can be an advantage all of itself.
I run a couple of min units in my space wolves and blood angels because I love the models and the idea of them (incursors) with mines. They are an interesting board control choice that could potentially change the way people are going to move and advance on the objectives. I've only played my Chaos Black Legion and Tyranids in 9th so far, but I have played 7 games now, and I've played against marines for half of them and I can say, i think they have their place, specifically, i can see them really being strong with a rhino with a loaded Tac squad with combi plasma, plasma, and lascannon in the unit moving up behind them on turn one to support them. The incursors can take a bit more of a punch just based on how two wound models vs 1 wound models work, and the tac squad with that kind of firepower can legitimately put out some real damage.
In the handful of games I've played so far, the -2" movement penalties from difficult terrain (ie, craters) has made a HUGE difference. In 8th, they only affected charge ranges (which most people forgot about), but the ability to cut down a third of an infantry squads speed is a massive change. Depending on what you're trying to get to (objective, enemy, cover, etc), if there's a crater in the way suddenly becomes a very real obstacle.
The rest of the terrain stuff is good once you throw out the GW examples and just figure out a standard set of keywords that works for your group.
Like, pretty much any piece of "standard" walled area terrain should have: Light Cover, Heavy Cover, Breachable, Scalable, Defensible, and Defensive Line.
Apply the other keywords where they're obviously applicable. If it's big and has little windows, give it Obscured. If it's completely full of holes, give it Dense Cover. If it's a crater or barbed wire or something, give it Difficult.
To keep Obscured buildings from getting stupid, keep them on the smaller size, and only use the footprint inside the walls to be "within" it.
In general I think we're going to see a lot of bad armies and bad games for the next couple of weeks as people adapt to the new edition and new points. I'm taking literally everything with a grain of salt so far, both good and bad. I'm noticing quite a few battle reports where people are just taking 8th edition armies and trying them in 9th. That's understandable but I think we need to wait until we have more experience with the system to see what works and what doesn't.
I'm not yet convinced GW have got it right with the first turn vs second turn balance, but I think that's likely a fundamental issue of how lethal the game is. Terrain can help somewhat but that's reliant on players having a board that has the "correct" amount and types of terrain on it.
UncleJetMints wrote: I haven't gotten to play the new edition yet, how are primaris infiltrators with the new missions? I have like the idea of them since they released, but haven't gotten any yet.
OOO...one thing I forgot to mention, With the new table size, things arent s far away, and the back of the deployment zone doesn't go as far back, meaning that deep striking on the table can sometimes be a bit of a challenge, especially if the turn before you didn't open the hole you thought you were going to. I've played a few games where I have struggled to get my obliterators into position because I didn't think or just haven't adjusted to how much that small difference in table size really does make an impact.
So, that is to say, that the infiltrator's 12" bubble of no deep strike is potentially really strong for armies that want to use the deep striking rule a lot. Sometimes, because of terrain and table size, it can be difficult for regular deep strike, a 12" bubble is way worse to work around.
Slipspace wrote: In general I think we're going to see a lot of bad armies and bad games for the next couple of weeks as people adapt to the new edition and new points. I'm taking literally everything with a grain of salt so far, both good and bad. I'm noticing quite a few battle reports where people are just taking 8th edition armies and trying them in 9th. That's understandable but I think we need to wait until we have more experience with the system to see what works and what doesn't.
I'm not yet convinced GW have got it right with the first turn vs second turn balance, but I think that's likely a fundamental issue of how lethal the game is. Terrain can help somewhat but that's reliant on players having a board that has the "correct" amount and types of terrain on it.
At least now we have an official meter of sort. It doesn't tell you all, because I can put 16 barrels on the table and that would be fine, but luckily the rulebook includes some examples of tables, so they cleared the intention other than giving the hard number.
That said, we are going to have to clear a lot of bad habits. For example, I have seen a lot of battle reports which put a big ruin in the middle of the table, which used to be useful in 8th. Now that ruin is completely useless in 9th, but becomes extremely effective if it is an industrial building.
Slipspace wrote: In general I think we're going to see a lot of bad armies and bad games for the next couple of weeks as people adapt to the new edition and new points. I'm taking literally everything with a grain of salt so far, both good and bad. I'm noticing quite a few battle reports where people are just taking 8th edition armies and trying them in 9th. That's understandable but I think we need to wait until we have more experience with the system to see what works and what doesn't.
I'm not yet convinced GW have got it right with the first turn vs second turn balance, but I think that's likely a fundamental issue of how lethal the game is. Terrain can help somewhat but that's reliant on players having a board that has the "correct" amount and types of terrain on it.
I'm not sure that getting the first turn represents as much of an advantage as some have said. In the games of 9th I've played so far (4 now), going first gives an advantage in being able to grab objectives, but at the same time, a disadvantage in bringing firepower to bear due to terrain. I've won two games now by deploying conservatively, letting my opponent take the first turn and come closer to me without being able to shoot much, and then blasting them with all my shooting and assaulting onto the objectives. It feels to me like there is a real tradeoff now- but as you point out, this is very terrain-dependent.
Also very list-dependent, because I'm starting to realize the utility of melee in 9th. Shooting-only armies have a hard time regaining the initiative if they lose it, since they can shoot enemies off an objective but not actually seize it unless it's still clear on their next turn. Melee-capable armies can shoot to wear down enemy objective-grabbers, then charge to finish them off in melee, simultaneously clearing the objective and taking it. For this reason, I can see shooting armies desperately wanting the first turn so that they can be the first onto an objective, while melee armies are better-suited to counterattacking.
Grain of salt because you're right, this is all very new.
McGibs wrote: In the handful of games I've played so far, the -2" movement penalties from difficult terrain (ie, craters) has made a HUGE difference. In 8th, they only affected charge ranges (which most people forgot about), but the ability to cut down a third of an infantry squads speed is a massive change. Depending on what you're trying to get to (objective, enemy, cover, etc), if there's a crater in the way suddenly becomes a very real obstacle.
The rest of the terrain stuff is good once you throw out the GW examples and just figure out a standard set of keywords that works for your group.
Like, pretty much any piece of "standard" walled area terrain should have: Light Cover, Heavy Cover, Breachable, Scalable, Defensible, and Defensive Line.
Apply the other keywords where they're obviously applicable. If it's big and has little windows, give it Obscured. If it's completely full of holes, give it Dense Cover. If it's a crater or barbed wire or something, give it Difficult.
To keep Obscured buildings from getting stupid, keep them on the smaller size, and only use the footprint inside the walls to be "within" it.
Quoted for truth. Especially for those of us with slower forces (footslogging plague marines say hello) a -2" can be absolutely brutal in the midgame crunch and I've often felt it hard in 8th while charging through craters or other pieces of broken ground. Glad to have more of that around the place. Dense will happen less often than the blanket -1 Cities of Death offered from obscuration, but I'll take it if that means more people will actually start to use their terrain in interesting ways (which you already could in 8th, but since they were optional rules... *sigh*).
Slipspace wrote: In general I think we're going to see a lot of bad armies and bad games for the next couple of weeks as people adapt to the new edition and new points. I'm taking literally everything with a grain of salt so far, both good and bad. I'm noticing quite a few battle reports where people are just taking 8th edition armies and trying them in 9th. That's understandable but I think we need to wait until we have more experience with the system to see what works and what doesn't.
I'm not yet convinced GW have got it right with the first turn vs second turn balance, but I think that's likely a fundamental issue of how lethal the game is. Terrain can help somewhat but that's reliant on players having a board that has the "correct" amount and types of terrain on it.
I'm not sure that getting the first turn represents as much of an advantage as some have said. In the games of 9th I've played so far (4 now), going first gives an advantage in being able to grab objectives, but at the same time, a disadvantage in bringing firepower to bear due to terrain. I've won two games now by deploying conservatively, letting my opponent take the first turn and come closer to me without being able to shoot much, and then blasting them with all my shooting and assaulting onto the objectives. It feels to me like there is a real tradeoff now- but as you point out, this is very terrain-dependent.
Also very list-dependent, because I'm starting to realize the utility of melee in 9th. Shooting-only armies have a hard time regaining the initiative if they lose it, since they can shoot enemies off an objective but not actually seize it unless it's still clear on their next turn. Melee-capable armies can shoot to wear down enemy objective-grabbers, then charge to finish them off in melee, simultaneously clearing the objective and taking it. For this reason, I can see shooting armies desperately wanting the first turn so that they can be the first onto an objective, while melee armies are better-suited to counterattacking.
Grain of salt because you're right, this is all very new.
I agree with everything you have said. I was actually thinking about your post and mentally reviewing the games I've watched and played, and I 100% agree. The armies i have seen do best *so far* have been armies that are a bit more rounded and feature mobility as a key function of the army. Armies that I have seen do poorly are monophase armies. All shooting, all melee, all <insert skew here> have been struggling the most because there always seems to be one thing in the game, be it terrain, objective placement, secondaries, or something else that tends to get the best of them and limit their ability.
I also think, and again, I am no "40k master" that having some kind of repulsing or melee element to help your army gain back tempo in the game. will be incredibly important. I think that having one or two good melee elements will be criticaly, or at least, they have been so far, important to being able to grab and hold those objectives as you move through the game.
Unit1126PLL wrote: That sucks for armies that ARE all one-phase armies. GW! Give us the tools, please!
A daemons player.
Take a battalion of CSM with some havocs to shore up the firepower need? I have a relatively large Khorne demon army and I'm going to soup it in with a world eaters army so I can get some firepower I need for some long-range hitting strength. (and Kharn, because, Kharn. if I need to say more you need to read more )
I'm not sure that getting the first turn represents as much of an advantage as some have said. In the games of 9th I've played so far (4 now), going first gives an advantage in being able to grab objectives, but at the same time, a disadvantage in bringing firepower to bear due to terrain. I've won two games now by deploying conservatively, letting my opponent take the first turn and come closer to me without being able to shoot much, and then blasting them with all my shooting and assaulting onto the objectives. It feels to me like there is a real tradeoff now- but as you point out, this is very terrain-dependent.
Also very list-dependent, because I'm starting to realize the utility of melee in 9th. Shooting-only armies have a hard time regaining the initiative if they lose it, since they can shoot enemies off an objective but not actually seize it unless it's still clear on their next turn. Melee-capable armies can shoot to wear down enemy objective-grabbers, then charge to finish them off in melee, simultaneously clearing the objective and taking it. For this reason, I can see shooting armies desperately wanting the first turn so that they can be the first onto an objective, while melee armies are better-suited to counterattacking.
So, I really don't think it is over-stated. I do think they have (hopefully) fixed the traditional "Alpha Strike" problem, but going first is going to be really really strong. In my group's first session, everyone came with lists they thought might be decent for 9th (so essentially came to it with the mindset of throwing 8th out the window and starting over). After the first session two things became clear. Going first is key and fast units are incredibly important regardless of whether you go first or not.
An army built to go first, claim 2 objectives strongly and possibly a 3rd objective at least tenuously right on their first turn, combined with properly picked secondaries becomes incredibly difficult to beat. If that same army goes second, they still have the tools needed to at least challenge for those objectives, but they need to be aware that, if the opponent gets all three of those objectives, holds at least two of them through turn 2, and hits one or two secondaries, it becomes really really hard to come back from that. That's really it. You just need to last 2 turns in a lot of cases. Then you can get darn near tabled but still win. The scoring used here is similar to the kind of scoring Adepticon used years ago and has since moved away from. I think the missions are fine, but the secondaries need looked at and the way these are scored probably needs reconsidered.
Planning on setting up a "counter strike, I go SECOND" style army? Enjoy playing the game in hard mode. The smaller table size combined with the fact that the points increases didn't really have an appreciable effect on game size means that, while you may think you have a shorter distance for your reserves and deep-striking units to go, there can often be a very limited choice of deployment. You then HAVE to be able to remove a unit in one go and claim it because once you get behind on points it kind of snowballs. There are really only one or two strong secondaries IMO and they most benefit the person who grabs the objectives FIRST. Combine this with things like Phobos units that can dictate where you're able to come in, and things like Marine armies with the "Auspex Scan" strat and your job becomes even harder if you're going second.
I agree that a lot of the battle reports I've seen online involve people bringing bad lists for the new missions. I saw one the other day where a guy basically brought two weirdly small sized units of Poxwalkers and a giant block of foot slogging Plague Marines. He got crushed. Foot slogging anything is probably going to be a tough go, but foot slogging DG is frequently going to be auto-lose IMO. Ironically, I think DG are set up well to be really strong this edition. Put the PMs in Rhinos, claim those objectives and ring them with summoned Plague Bearers. So to your point, I have seen a lot reports using armies that aren't well suited to the new edition, but even when I HAVE seen armies that look good (so far) for 9th, the pattern of "He who first completes his Rhino Rush FIRST wins" is definitely legitmately emerging. I'm not saying it's auto lose if you go second, but it's become a lot harder than it used to be IMO.
Admittedly I haven't played a ton of games myself (about 11 I think?) but across three sessions with us talking a ton in between, the definite pattern is that if you go first, you have a pretty huge advantage. So much so, that I really think the first thing that gets changes in the first major FAQ for 9th is going to be how the missions get scored.
Unit1126PLL wrote: That sucks for armies that ARE all one-phase armies. GW! Give us the tools, please!
A daemons player.
Daemons have mobility, psychic and close combat. They're hardly a one-phase army in the same way a castled-up Tau army is, for example. I think mobility will be very important in 9th and can see some Daemon armies possibly doing OK. Plaguebearer spam might still be good, just for its sheer resilience and Slaanesh's ability to move quickly and engage enemy units in close combat while grabbing objectives with other units could make them useable. All conjecture at this point, though.
Daemons have mobility, psychic and close combat. They're hardly a one-phase army in the same way a castled-up Tau army is, for example. I think mobility will be very important in 9th and can see some Daemon armies possibly doing OK. Plaguebearer spam might still be good, just for its sheer resilience and Slaanesh's ability to move quickly and engage enemy units in close combat while grabbing objectives with other units could make them useable. All conjecture at this point, though.
So far, my Death Guard have had a lot of success using PMs in Rhinos to quickly get objectives, then having characters summon Plague Bearers around the claimed objectives. It's pretty strong. Playing again on Sunday (our group isn't LOVING 9th so far but we ARE having fun testing new play styles against it) and we've set up a team game.
I'm bringing Khorne and Nurgle Demons, and my friend is bringing mostly Slaanesh. Our theory is that we should be able to use his speed to claim things, then ring them with my Nurgle demons for a tough outer shell, while using Khorne Demons to disrupt the opponent. Who of course will be a double battalion with one player bringing Ultra Marines and the other bringing Iron Hands. I have my doubts but the THEORY is STRONG imo.
I don't think Demons are as bad off as they appear. Will report back with results ...
I think you've hit the nail on the head if you have been playing long enough to remember some of the oddball obsec spam lists and things from back in the days. Addapting to 9th and identifying going 1st as a huge advantage is easy.
Going first with an 8th edition list doesnt feel OP as your not maximising the opportunity to take a huge lead and dictate your enemies options for turn 1.
They either put everything into getting you off the obejectives and claiming them giving you 2 turns to neuter them or the try to counter punch at which point you VP lead becomes unassailable very quickly,Turn 3-4 often.
Daemons have mobility, psychic and close combat. They're hardly a one-phase army in the same way a castled-up Tau army is, for example. I think mobility will be very important in 9th and can see some Daemon armies possibly doing OK. Plaguebearer spam might still be good, just for its sheer resilience and Slaanesh's ability to move quickly and engage enemy units in close combat while grabbing objectives with other units could make them useable. All conjecture at this point, though.
So far, my Death Guard have had a lot of success using PMs in Rhinos to quickly get objectives, then having characters summon Plague Bearers around the claimed objectives. It's pretty strong. Playing again on Sunday (our group isn't LOVING 9th so far but we ARE having fun testing new play styles against it) and we've set up a team game.
I'm bringing Khorne and Nurgle Demons, and my friend is bringing mostly Slaanesh. Our theory is that we should be able to use his speed to claim things, then ring them with my Nurgle demons for a tough outer shell, while using Khorne Demons to disrupt the opponent. Who of course will be a double battalion with one player bringing Ultra Marines and the other bringing Iron Hands. I have my doubts but the THEORY is STRONG imo.
I don't think Demons are as bad off as they appear. Will report back with results ...
You'd be summoning in turn 3 if the character is a rhino. Do you have some sort of speedier character out of a transport for that?
Personally I think 9th is great. The objectives and the way they are scored do the thing that a LOT of people were clamoring for in 8th, making maneuvering matter. I have said this several times on this forum already but gun lines are in trouble. Anyone who thinks that they can bring a big castle, sit in the back and shoot and win is going to be mistaken. In order to win in 9th you need to be trying to engage the objectives from turn 1. You can't simply ignore them until like turn 3 or 4 like in 8th. You need to be fighting to take or clear the objectives right out of the gate.
And as was mentioned earlier in this thread, I believe all of the "melee is dead in 9th" to be exaggerated. Shooting armies are going to need at least one or two melee-ish units to take objectives. Unless your shooting is so crazy good and the Terrain allows you to see every enemy on every objective, having your whole army sit back and shoot will not be effective. This also gives a reason for transports to exist. I think 9th will see a lot more Rhinos, Chimeras, etc. especially now that they can move and shoot without penalty, or shoot into combat if engaged. I think IG mechanized infantry is an actual viable list now, if not the better way to play IG. I was thinking of putting cultist units in Rhinos and using them similar to an IG mech force for grabbing objectives early.
Overall I have been liking the game. My only fear (which was stated by the TTT guys) is the missions being similar enough that they start to get stale, but I think GW will introduce more missions, and more secondaries which will really help.
in my experience, it has an effect, it just doesn't have the effect it used to have of just guaranteed finishing off low model count armies.
The main effect now, in a normal game with no LD shenanigans, is to add a few extra casualties to infantry squads that get shot up.
Honestly, not even. The main effect now is that Morale is friendlier to hordes. They don't auto-fail as easily, and they don't lose as many off the bat when they do fail. That seems like the only change at this point.
It feels like the classic GW over-reaction. There was a time when you had multiple levels of things like "fear" and failing a morale test caused a lot of rules to kick in. This slowed the game down and could become un-fun. Rather than find a middle-ground, they've essentially eliminated it.
They autofail just as easily. That's actually my main problem with morale as it stands in 9th - it seems like it goes from a hyper-remote chance to a "anything but one" fairly quickly.
Unless you're playing space marines or MSU, in which case it's just never really a thing.
technically, they no longer auto fail at all, now there's always a minimum 1/6 chance of passing a check.
Unit1126PLL wrote: That sucks for armies that ARE all one-phase armies. GW! Give us the tools, please!
A daemons player.
Daemons have mobility, psychic and close combat. They're hardly a one-phase army in the same way a castled-up Tau army is, for example. I think mobility will be very important in 9th and can see some Daemon armies possibly doing OK. Plaguebearer spam might still be good, just for its sheer resilience and Slaanesh's ability to move quickly and engage enemy units in close combat while grabbing objectives with other units could make them useable. All conjecture at this point, though.
An immobile tau castle indicates a bad player, not the inability for tau to move at all.
The key part of the tau castle is how effectively it can position itself midboard and blast everything while atop the objectives.
Also the tau are the best race in an opponents charge phase XD
Eldarain wrote: Anyone expect to see Army specific secondaries? Have they brought up that possibility?
They will come in the 9th edition codex's it's specifically called out in the GT missions. Unfortunately it looks like having a 9th edition codex will be an automatic victory against 8th edition codex's though.
Daemons psychic is unreliable - they have exactly as many psychic buffs as Imperial Guard do. No smite changes, only one power chart to select from (per detachment at least), etc.
Daemons have mobility, but so do Tau, so I dun get it.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Daemons psychic is unreliable - they have exactly as many psychic buffs as Imperial Guard do. No smite changes, only one power chart to select from (per detachment at least), etc.
Daemons have mobility, but so do Tau, so I dun get it.
Demons have fantastic psychic if you lean into it.
But you play a slaanesh army, so you're lacking the triple changers that make the psychic shenanigans work.
The nice thing about new morale is that failure means a lot less.
In my last game, I lost 11/20 plague marines in a single phase (took a harlequin death star to the face). In 8th edition that would have led to an additional 6 models running away on average. I lost two.
You'd be summoning in turn 3 if the character is a rhino. Do you have some sort of speedier character out of a transport for that?
Winged DP for the win. Have also tried a game where my only HQs were a Winged DP and cheap as chips Chaos Lord who's only job is to run, hide and summon. It was kind of funny to play TBH.
You'd be summoning in turn 3 if the character is a rhino. Do you have some sort of speedier character out of a transport for that?
Winged DP for the win. Have also tried a game where my only HQs were a Winged DP and cheap as chips Chaos Lord who's only job is to run, hide and summon. It was kind of funny to play TBH.
I used to toy with summons. Took a Fluxmaster in an aux. Summoned Horrors with Thousand Sons. Brought a Mutalith. S5 Horrors with 60 shots.
I might try it again since Horrors can get their Flickering or Gateway to go off now.
My FLGS was open for gaming today (lots of protocols), so I was able to arrange a 1500 game against an opponent outside of my house. For some reason I had bought the 6/7th Ed starter set at the sunset of 8th Ed, so I used them as my core. So it was my non-Primaris Dark Angels against Drukhari. We played Four Pillars and we took two common Secondaries (Siphon and Attrition) to help prevent our brains from melting and one unique to each (I took the table quarters one).
I won the roll and went first, but the Obscuring Terrain meant that my fire was only able to target his Flyers. His movement out from behind cover and resulting fire was devastating against my Devastators...My Deathwing assault was, however, charged by every CP I could squeeze out of my list and tore a huge hole out of his army (surrounding transports - you can only use the emergency disembarkation once in a phase). I built an early lead on Primary Objective points and by the fourth turn it was clear that the Dark Angels held the field (but minus a bunch of dudes...)
Impressions: Terrain is still the biggest single single change. Terrain that looks like terrain (no magic boxes) means something now. Army building and CPs is also a big change. Both of us were both helped and hindered by this. I really wanted four HQs, but I knew my list needed CPs so I went with a single Battalion. Transport rules were a big deal (wholly within 3"). Not being able to reroll "Explodes" was meaningful to both of us! Going first seems to be a benefit, but this must be accompanied by moving into no-mans land aggressively as opposed to just shooting from your deployment zone.
Its early, but I am certainly seeing this Edition as a positive step forward from 8th without abandoning the accessibility of that edition. I hope that we can run with the GW missions for a while to determine how they work.
p.s. I realized two hours before the match that my Drop Pod was not really up to snuff for Battle Ready. I got it there, but not before getting Khorne Red on my white T-Shirt (which was from our last FLGS club champs). I took this as a good omen.
I just finished a 2k game with a buddy. He played templars, and I played Black Legion and a battalion of Khorne Demons.
My list was
Abbadon
Chaos Lord, the mark of Khorne, Zaal, plasma pistol
3 CSM squads:
10 man, leader with power axe, 2 plasma guns, bolters
5 man, leader with the power axe, plasma gun
5 man, leader with a maul, plasma gun
2 squads of Khorne berserkers:
9 berserkers, powerfist on the leader, 4 chain axes, 5 chain swords
10 berserkers, powerfist on the leader, 5/5 chain axes and chainswords
2 Rhino
Exalted Blootthirster of insensate rage
Exalted Wrath of Khorne bloodthirster
3 units of bloodletters
15 bloodletters
14 bloodletters
10 bloodletters
His list was an absolute boatload of rhinos and templars with chain swords. He took Helbrecht and the champion, and a unit of veterans with lightning claws.
The game was an absolute bloodbath. the end of the game ended with him outscoring me 7 to 6 (played a basic mission from the core free rules) as I failed to kill just a few basic templars with 8 chain axe attacks!
Point is this: The transports were really important, obviously, but more shocking was just how good basic marines were. Having bodies you could throw at objectives and the ability to ferry them up relatively quickly was definitely powerful. We all already knew this, so no new news there.
What struck me as being pretty cool was after the game was over, and we were going through and talking about the things we did well and didn't do well, we both identified several critical points in the game where a decision was made that could have fundamentally changed the game and every one of those decisions revolved around terrain and their placement relative to the objectives.
Going first wasn't a huge advantage for either one of us, and the more games I play, the more I am becoming convinced that going first isn't the immense advantage that it is being touted to be. Going first can be great if you are shooting up the table, but with good terrain on the table, long-range firepower had some kill zones, but it couldn't dominate the table. Defensive terrain, obscuring terrain and dense terrain all made extremely significant differences to the game. For once, I was able to deliver not one, but BOTH bloodthirsters to the battle and the insensate rage killed Helbrect and the Champion in one turn of combat!
I know I am probably just repeating things that everyone has already heard a million times already, but I am having a blast with this new edition and love the fact that it feels like I have a much wider range of models to choose from to construct my army list and it feels like I have a chance.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Daemons psychic is unreliable - they have exactly as many psychic buffs as Imperial Guard do. No smite changes, only one power chart to select from (per detachment at least), etc.
Daemons have mobility, but so do Tau, so I dun get it.
tbh I think Slaanesh daemons may actually be pretty brutal in 9th with good use of obscuring and dense terrain. the new morale system is extremely good for armies that didn't have good sources of fearless and didn't see large point hikes on their light infantry, I think you'll be surprised by how much more durable your stuff feels. And "always fight first' went from an ability that rarely matters to an ability that makes you an absolute nightmare to try to fight with melee units.
I don't think you'll win by just taking 100% melee units and just sprinting straight at the enemy, but IMO slaanesh daemons are very interesting in the new terrain system, mission structure, and point costs. Heck, I'm even Soul Grinder-curious now that they move and shoot and shoot into melee (though tbf that is with looking at them in Tzeentch where they get a 4++ and distract from shooting my chicken. I have no clue if they'd be usable in mono-Slaanesh)
Slipspace wrote: In general I think we're going to see a lot of bad armies and bad games for the next couple of weeks as people adapt to the new edition and new points. I'm taking literally everything with a grain of salt so far, both good and bad. I'm noticing quite a few battle reports where people are just taking 8th edition armies and trying them in 9th. That's understandable but I think we need to wait until we have more experience with the system to see what works and what doesn't.
I'm not yet convinced GW have got it right with the first turn vs second turn balance, but I think that's likely a fundamental issue of how lethal the game is. Terrain can help somewhat but that's reliant on players having a board that has the "correct" amount and types of terrain on it.
I'm not sure that getting the first turn represents as much of an advantage as some have said. In the games of 9th I've played so far (4 now), going first gives an advantage in being able to grab objectives, but at the same time, a disadvantage in bringing firepower to bear due to terrain. I've won two games now by deploying conservatively, letting my opponent take the first turn and come closer to me without being able to shoot much, and then blasting them with all my shooting and assaulting onto the objectives. It feels to me like there is a real tradeoff now- but as you point out, this is very terrain-dependent.
Also very list-dependent, because I'm starting to realize the utility of melee in 9th. Shooting-only armies have a hard time regaining the initiative if they lose it, since they can shoot enemies off an objective but not actually seize it unless it's still clear on their next turn. Melee-capable armies can shoot to wear down enemy objective-grabbers, then charge to finish them off in melee, simultaneously clearing the objective and taking it. For this reason, I can see shooting armies desperately wanting the first turn so that they can be the first onto an objective, while melee armies are better-suited to counterattacking.
Grain of salt because you're right, this is all very new.
This has broadly been the experience of nearly all playtesters once they reach enough reps to entirely change their army design approach. It will be very hard to draw firm conclusions about first turn advantage until the "meta" changes from building ITC-facing / 8th-ed-facing armies to building armies they feel confident can win whether they go first or second for the substantial changes in the new edition and a set of missions that bear no more than aesthetic similarity to ITC/NOVA missions in their conceptualization (esp. WRT secondaries). Given the fact GW has clearly taken inspiration and feedback from the competitive community, seeing people adjust to and "beat" the missions will be the sensible approach to seeing them continue to evolve over time; GW has also shown via CA / etc. a willingness to make changes to parts of the game that prove out - beyond mere theorycraft - to be "Wrong" in one way or another. Certainly my own list decisions and concepts have changed dramatically, and the games I'm doing best in use lists that would fall flat on their face in 8th.
So we tried that demons vs marines game I mentioned earlier. It ... was not pretty. lol The first game we (the demons) went second and got crushed, but honestly, I'm used to using demons as a summoned force to support Chaos marines, so on top of going second, I and my partner pretty much did everything wrong. Everything. So we threw that game out the window and played again.
Rather than roll-off, we just decided to go second again to see if we could fix our mistakes. As a reminder, the opposing team was Ultras/Iron Hands, and our army was Slaanesh, Nurgle and Khorne demons. We lost the second game too, but honestly, most of it was still lack of experience with the army. I think I can see room for Slaaneshi demons to be pretty strong this edition (in the hands of someone who isn't terrible with them). We felt like we had the most trouble finding a decent home for the Khorne stuff, but over-all, the second game was pretty close, and again, I think if a few die rolls had gone differently, and if we had had just a bit more experience with the army, it could have been different, so that's a good sign I think.
Edit:
Just wanted to add - I also got to watch my buddies play "Creations of Bile vs Black Legion". Wow. IMO they really nailed the Creations of Bile strats. Seems like they're all, not just good, but good RIGHT WHEN YOU NEED THEM TO BE. I feel like whomever designed those was in rare form that day. Provided the rules for them remain relatively unchanged in 9th, I feel like that army is going to be real contender once folks figure out the optimal list. Looked fun as hell to play too. I feel like they finally got Bile "right".
Bloodthirster of Unfettered Fury 240 (Exalted -1CP, Hellfire-Wrought Armor. Relic: Armor of Scorn)
Bloodthirster of Unfettered Fury 240 (Exalted -1CP, Blood-Blessed. Relic -1CP: G'rmakht The Destroyer)
Bloodletters x30 240 with Instrument 10 and Icon 15 (Banner of Blood -1CP, Deep strike -2CP)
Flesh Hounds x20 360
Furies MoK x5 45
Bloodcrushers x5 225 with Icon 10
Bloodcrushers x5 225 with Icon 10
Soul Grinder MoK 190
Soul Grinder MoK 190
Start the game with 7CP. furies hide on the backfield objective if there is one, Grinders move up to sit on midfield objectives, everything else charges the enemy. You've got 2x Fight Twice strats in you, 3 if you're really thrifty with your 1cp per command phase.
Blunt. Bloody. Puts a ton of pressure on your opponent to castle up and allow you to control the board.
secondary thought for pure DoK is to do a battalion with exactly 20-man letter squads, spending 2cp each to give them banner of blood+deep strike them, since at exactly 8pl it only costs you 1cp. You're betting on greatly limited overwatch to allow them to stay just above the 20-model threshold the turn they charge in.
), but others could get away with Index -> Codex -> Psychic awakening for the whole edition, couldn't they? I wouldn't call that spread thin personally.
