Watching alot of battle reports online, and man the alpha strike can be so devastating in most cases. The newest flavor faction Dark Eldar, can have devastating alpha-strikes. Watching someone eliminate so much of the opposing forces just because they went first can be dis-heartening.

Wondering if anyone has any ideas to help mitigate turn one advantage. Im thinking perhaps the defending side could be "dug in" giving them some sort of cover advantage as they would logically be bracing themselves for the enemy alpha-strike. Or giving the opposing side some sort of "counter-strike" advantage, giving some of their units a better chance of hitting on their turn.

bat702 wrote:
Watching alot of battle reports online, and man the alpha strike can be so devastating in most cases. The newest flavor faction Dark Eldar, can have devastating alpha-strikes. Watching someone eliminate so much of the opposing forces just because they went first can be dis-heartening.

Wondering if anyone has any ideas to help mitigate turn one advantage. Im thinking perhaps the defending side could be "dug in" giving them some sort of cover advantage as they would logically be bracing themselves for the enemy alpha-strike. Or giving the opposing side some sort of "counter-strike" advantage, giving some of their units a better chance of hitting on their turn.

Alpha strike is so strong because damage is so high. The game is to lethal, its to easy to remove multiple units off the table each turn.

The solution to that isn't bandaids like 8th editions prepared position or limiting turn 1 movement (and banning deepstrikes). And if you do you run the risk of turning it into Beta strikes being to strong.

The simple and obvious answer is to not make the game this frigging lethal to begin with. Bring down all damage profiles, less damage buffs, less attack buffs ect.

Why are space marines now 2 wounds when they were fine for many editions at 1?
Why do C'tan and Ghazghkull need rules that prevent them from being 1 shot?

The game is to lethal.

 Ordana wrote:

bat702 wrote:
Watching alot of battle reports online, and man the alpha strike can be so devastating in most cases. The newest flavor faction Dark Eldar, can have devastating alpha-strikes. Watching someone eliminate so much of the opposing forces just because they went first can be dis-heartening.

Wondering if anyone has any ideas to help mitigate turn one advantage. Im thinking perhaps the defending side could be "dug in" giving them some sort of cover advantage as they would logically be bracing themselves for the enemy alpha-strike. Or giving the opposing side some sort of "counter-strike" advantage, giving some of their units a better chance of hitting on their turn.

Alpha strike is so strong because damage is so high. The game is to lethal, its to easy to remove multiple units off the table each turn.

The solution to that isn't bandaids like 8th editions prepared position or limiting turn 1 movement (and banning deepstrikes). And if you do you run the risk of turning it into Beta strikes being to strong.

The simple and obvious answer is to not make the game this frigging lethal to begin with. Bring down all damage profiles, less damage buffs, less attack buffs ect.

Why are space marines now 2 wounds when they were fine for many editions at 1?
Why do C'tan and Ghazghkull need rules that prevent them from being 1 shot?

The game is to lethal.

I completely agree with this. Alphastrikes are a problem with the very core of the game, no quick fix can ever resolve this.

The game's been in a constant escalating race. Ultimately I this comes from several factors;
Firstly, GW prefers to buff rather than nerf. People like receiving buffs, they feel good and it makes buying the codex or new models satisfactory. Nerfs feel bad, like GW is anti-fun, and it makes buying the codex or book feel like a punishment. So the game moves ever upwards.
This lethality also allows players to field large, impressive armies without actually bogging things down too much, as it's all gone by the end of turn two.
Further, dealing damage is fun, it makes it feel like you're achieving something.
In 7th edition I would say defence exceeded offence (at least in some cheese builds). There were constant gripes about unkillable smashcaptains and invis-stars.
I have a friend that refuses to play Deathguard because he can't sweep them off the board as easily and he finds it so unfun to shoot and not kill things that he prefers not to play them at all. I'm sure people will have opinions on whether or not his decision is fair, but it's the core reasoning that's very relevant.
9th edition has brought many mechanics to combat this. The new supreme characters have abilities to hard-cap the amount of damage they can take. But now they're also implementing new abilities which counter those other abilities as the arms race continues!

But also IgoUgo is a big problem, I get my entire army to smash into you before you can get any response at all.

I think there's multiple solutions which should be implemented together;
Move away from IgoUgo. Have players activate in smaller groups or even individual units (plus characters) in an alternating activation type system. This will greatly reduce the extent of the damage you can cause before your opponent gets a response.
Secondly, reduce lethality and replace it with pinning/morale effects. This allows you to effect enemy units in a satisfactory way without removing them from the table. And no, the current morale rules of "oh you've lost a lot of models? Lose even more!" don't count and are exactly the opposite of what the game needs.
The game will have to get smaller. The size of army you can currently field at 1000pts might now be 1500pts or even 2000pts. When players can no longer think purely in terms of "delete that unit, now delete that unit", this increases the value of any given unit and increases tactical depth.

Those suggestions aren't something that can be bolted onto 9th, they'd need a 10th edition overhaul that'd probably feel larger than the 7th-8th overhaul. But imo it'd be worth it. Make 40k fun!

Speed, range, and universal application of weaponry are also problems.

In 9th you can hose down your opponent with small arms from the far side of the board, shoot up tanks with anti-infantry weapons, and reposition large distances with no effect on your lethality.

Yeah, I gotta say, the lethality + IGOUGO system is a little hilarious sometimes. It’s SO swingy and tends to end up with one side getting wrecked, just cos they lost the roll off to go first.

I do feel like they went in a cool direction with weapons getting specific dmg, and S/T being simplified, etc, etc. But they need to take that and redo the core of how much dmg stuff does, and the IGOUGO system and change it into some form of alternate activation, even if it was phase based like LoTR tabletop.

It annoys me haha because I love a lot about the game, but there are some big core mechanics that seriously hurt it (IMO!).

 Ordana wrote:

bat702 wrote:
Watching alot of battle reports online, and man the alpha strike can be so devastating in most cases. The newest flavor faction Dark Eldar, can have devastating alpha-strikes. Watching someone eliminate so much of the opposing forces just because they went first can be dis-heartening.

Wondering if anyone has any ideas to help mitigate turn one advantage. Im thinking perhaps the defending side could be "dug in" giving them some sort of cover advantage as they would logically be bracing themselves for the enemy alpha-strike. Or giving the opposing side some sort of "counter-strike" advantage, giving some of their units a better chance of hitting on their turn.

Alpha strike is so strong because damage is so high. The game is to lethal, its to easy to remove multiple units off the table each turn.

The solution to that isn't bandaids like 8th editions prepared position or limiting turn 1 movement (and banning deepstrikes). And if you do you run the risk of turning it into Beta strikes being to strong.

The simple and obvious answer is to not make the game this frigging lethal to begin with. Bring down all damage profiles, less damage buffs, less attack buffs ect.

Why are space marines now 2 wounds when they were fine for many editions at 1?
Why do C'tan and Ghazghkull need rules that prevent them from being 1 shot?

The game is to lethal.

Or go back to some old rules like

Can't kill model you can't see (outside of blast/flamer/ignore los)
Can't kill models outside of your gun range
Cover is not just +1 to saves but some cover (heavy for example) should give a straight invul as well (even if its a 5+ compare to a 3+/4+/5+ in older editions, its still something)

Just those 3 things completely changes the game and the lethality of the game, the fact that a unit of Mortifiers with 36" range can be within range of 1 model by 1mm can now kill off 10 models even if 9 of them are out of range and behind cover is freaking stupid, eveything is all or thing now.

I have not had a game where I lost more than 10% or so of my army in the first turn unless I chose to expose myself. You really, really don't need to be on those objectives right away and there are plenty of tools to keep yourself protected.

But I'd like to watch that game you saw if you had a link handy?

Tell that to the poor Knight army's of 9th. Yes, 1st turn Lethality is FAR too high now. If you have never lost great than 10% of your army in first turn, you haven't played any strong lists. Granted I play Custodes, but even with all my 2/3/4++ saves, I can't keep the majority of my forces alive to turn 3 these days, let alone turn 2.

I hate having a 50/50 chance at losing the game in the first 10 minutes.

I agree.

As someone who plays Slaanesh daemons, it is trivial to get the first charge off for me.

Even if someone hides from me the first turn (already a tall order given the smaller DZs - they can't deploy as deep into it as before and the corners are much closer to the center than in the older larger boards), I can just sit there - after all, we're hidden from each other. Furthermore, they've had to sacrifice so much board space to get out of the ~30" threat range of a KOS that one move won't take them onto objectives, typically - which means they're moving out into the open at least once for my keepers to pounce on before they get to objectives.

If they DO get onto the central objectives, I can just murder them. The damage output of a KOS is RIDICULOUS. It's balanced, I think, but it's a demonstration of how utterly flying rodent gak insane the lethality has gotten where 10 Flat 3 damage attacks with -3 rend is "pretty good I guess".

So yeah, we can spend the entire game hiding from each other, but you've got to come out someday, and that day my Slaanesh will run across the board and tear you in half. Several games now I've played games of chicken, where I can't come out of cover first (or I'll get blown to smithereens) but also where the enemy can't advance/move much (or they'll get absolutely annihilated in melee with ranges exceeding 30" in many cases).

Yep, it's a big problem. I don't know what the quick and easy solution is, or if GW actually wants there to be one. it seems like they're just encouraging more and more and more extreme deadliness. I hope we keep seeing more different forms of durability put into the game with stuff like the ork release and nid release and such, but the way GW adds durability vs the way they add lethality is...jesus.

Take Belakor for example. He's roughly doubling in value most likely, I'd be amazed to see him under 470 points. He's got twice the wounds, and he's gone from a re-rollable 5++ (55%) to -1 to hit, -1 to wound (one of which is ranged-only) 4++, with double the wounds.

that's not exactly double the durability. He's not got character protection anymore and you're noooot hiding that dude, if an opponent wants to sling lascannons at him to deal some damage, they can, from turn 1.

Damage though? 6 Str 7 Ap-5 D3 attacks going to 6 Strength 10 AP-4 D3+d3 attacks that ignore invulns or 12 strength 8 AP-3 D1 attacks in case someone tries to tie you up.

Nothing blocks that. Your best bet to have any chance to survive melee is 2+ armored models wielding storm shields to get yourself a 5+ save, his piercing strikes only manage to kill 3.5 of those guys in a swing (actually, honestly, TH/SS terminators are kind of the ideal weapon to kill him with, they ignore the most of his abilities)

At this point when Sisters get their dex in 2022 they will have RF 5 Bolters with S6, AP 3 D4 damage, and a flat 6 wound sister.

Wee need a thread for "Rediculous power creep predictions and prognostications"

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
At this point when Sisters get their dex in 2022 they will have RF 5 Bolters with S6, AP 3 D4 damage, and a flat 6 wound sister.

Wee need a thread for "Rediculous power creep predictions and prognostications"

No one here has actually predicted anything though? Everyone is talking about things which actually exist today, comparing them to prior iterations that existed in the past.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
At this point when Sisters get their dex in 2022 they will have RF 5 Bolters with S6, AP 3 D4 damage, and a flat 6 wound sister.

Wee need a thread for "Rediculous power creep predictions and prognostications"

Yeah I kind of dread to think of what they will do to stuff like Tyranids monsters who are supposed to be absolute CC nightmares.

We are all playing with terrain to be able to obscure 80%+ of your army turn one right? If your not, you are making the game exceedingly hinged on the turn one roll off. I truly believe terrain set up to be just as important as good army list creation to a fair/competitive game.

The difference between a table with good obscuring and not is night and day for surviving first turn.

I imagine most of the competitive players here are doing it right, but that many casual players are not. And even if you are not playing competitive, I recommend spending the time to do terrain right.

Now, drukhari are different and bear their own discussion imo. Its insane the mobility and damage they put out. The one Drukari player at my store is undefeated every game so far (6~8 games), with not a single game even being somewhat close. Its been a one-sided massacre every game. And hes not even a competitive player haha.

Furthermore, yes, the igougo is frankly a problem. There is just an inherent advantage being able to play the game and progress your board state while harming your opponents before they can do anything. I would be in favor of alternating activations on units, but doubt we will ever see that.

Now, I really dont believe first turn in a normal game is as absolutely integral as most here would seem to believe. With proper terrain placement and positioning, second player should be the first player to actually get to attack, as players one turn they should just be moving out of cover and into position on objectives. Having that objective lead is huge, but they shouldnt have an obscene damage lead. And, the final turn being able to score at end of turn is actually pretty big advantage for going second. Goonhammer data supports this, with their first turn advantage article lending what, I believe a 57% winrate for 1st turn? Thats above average, and a problem as Ive mentioned, but not the 75-80% that some would lead you to believe.

 Ordana wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
At this point when Sisters get their dex in 2022 they will have RF 5 Bolters with S6, AP 3 D4 damage, and a flat 6 wound sister.

Wee need a thread for "Rediculous power creep predictions and prognostications"

Yeah I kind of dread to think of what they will do to stuff like Tyranids monsters who are supposed to be absolute CC nightmares.

Use FW tyranid ones for point of comparison, the Dimacheron for example.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
At this point when Sisters get their dex in 2022 they will have RF 5 Bolters with S6, AP 3 D4 damage, and a flat 6 wound sister.

Wee need a thread for "Rediculous power creep predictions and prognostications"

No one here has actually predicted anything though? Everyone is talking about things which actually exist today, comparing them to prior iterations that existed in the past.

My point was to be able to, I just want to laugh at preditions of silly power creep. It wasn't a remark about stuff I HAD seen, but more wanted to see, because it could get silly.

It sucks as a way to win the game because it is a function of list building and rules imbalances, not actual gameplay.

A good in GW games comparison is with Epic and SM orbital drops. That managed to tread the fine line between being strong and being overpowered in that you got where you wanted to go but needed to be supported or be overwhelmed in any counter-attack. It wasn't a turn one win move (and whats more the opposition would know you were coming turn 1, 2 or 3 because they would see the spaceship approaching so you had to declare in advance...) but part of a multi-turn strategy.

 Ordana wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
At this point when Sisters get their dex in 2022 they will have RF 5 Bolters with S6, AP 3 D4 damage, and a flat 6 wound sister.

Wee need a thread for "Rediculous power creep predictions and prognostications"

Yeah I kind of dread to think of what they will do to stuff like Tyranids monsters who are supposed to be absolute CC nightmares.

Traditionally? Have the fluff in the codex rant and rave about how dangerous they are, and have the rules be... not that.
Fearful mediocrity has been the bane of many a tyranid codex. The exceptions stand out, but 'nids tend to be a mess.

Nids need to be almost Drukari levels of melee to be taken seriously. And they absolutely should be that powerful.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Tell that to the poor Knight army's of 9th. Yes, 1st turn Lethality is FAR too high now. If you have never lost great than 10% of your army in first turn, you haven't played any strong lists. Granted I play Custodes, but even with all my 2/3/4++ saves, I can't keep the majority of my forces alive to turn 3 these days, let alone turn 2.

I hate having a 50/50 chance at losing the game in the first 10 minutes.

I've played custodes multiple times, a sisters list that nearly matched the one that won a tournament this past week, and some marines.

The sister's player absolutely thrashed me by turn three, but by no means did he have the ability to cause excessive turn 1 damage unless I chose to allow it.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
I've played custodes multiple times, a sisters list that nearly matched the one that won a tournament this past week, and some marines.

It's certainly true that not everything in 40k is based on alpha strikes - sisters being an example of an army with very little of it (and potentially even less in 9th with things like the exorcist getting nerfed), and to some extent being an example of the anti-alpha strike glass hammer list where excessive overkill is wasted on a lot of potentially dangerous but not particularly valuable units.

I find the alpha strike problem to be directly related to the speed of an army.

Most players at this point are using pretty good terrain where it is not possible to set up a castle and just shoot dz to dz. This helps a lot.

So where do the alpha strikes come from? Fast armies that can charge on the first turn don't care about terrain. Fast armies like DE can use their raiders to get around terrain and still shoot on turn 1. Turn 1 drop pods filled with devastators from iron hands or space wolves don't care about your terrain.

The game is very lethal in general, but I would say in most games both players still have models left at the end. But if you choose an army with high speed (or options that simulate high speed) the alpha strike problem can be very real.

I think this is an improvement over 8th where just taking long range guns often meant you could get off a great alpha strike. Against a lot of armies in 9th they don't hit very hard on turn 1 anymore due to terrain. But beware going against anyone fast.

 Ordana wrote:

bat702 wrote:
Watching alot of battle reports online, and man the alpha strike can be so devastating in most cases. The newest flavor faction Dark Eldar, can have devastating alpha-strikes. Watching someone eliminate so much of the opposing forces just because they went first can be dis-heartening.

Wondering if anyone has any ideas to help mitigate turn one advantage. Im thinking perhaps the defending side could be "dug in" giving them some sort of cover advantage as they would logically be bracing themselves for the enemy alpha-strike. Or giving the opposing side some sort of "counter-strike" advantage, giving some of their units a better chance of hitting on their turn.

Alpha strike is so strong because damage is so high. The game is to lethal, its to easy to remove multiple units off the table each turn.

The solution to that isn't bandaids like 8th editions prepared position or limiting turn 1 movement (and banning deepstrikes). And if you do you run the risk of turning it into Beta strikes being to strong.

The simple and obvious answer is to not make the game this frigging lethal to begin with. Bring down all damage profiles, less damage buffs, less attack buffs ect.

Why are space marines now 2 wounds when they were fine for many editions at 1?
Why do C'tan and Ghazghkull need rules that prevent them from being 1 shot?

The game is to lethal.

Bad arguement - marines were not "fine" at 1 wound lol.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Ordana wrote:

bat702 wrote:
Watching alot of battle reports online, and man the alpha strike can be so devastating in most cases. The newest flavor faction Dark Eldar, can have devastating alpha-strikes. Watching someone eliminate so much of the opposing forces just because they went first can be dis-heartening.

Wondering if anyone has any ideas to help mitigate turn one advantage. Im thinking perhaps the defending side could be "dug in" giving them some sort of cover advantage as they would logically be bracing themselves for the enemy alpha-strike. Or giving the opposing side some sort of "counter-strike" advantage, giving some of their units a better chance of hitting on their turn.

Alpha strike is so strong because damage is so high. The game is to lethal, its to easy to remove multiple units off the table each turn.

The solution to that isn't bandaids like 8th editions prepared position or limiting turn 1 movement (and banning deepstrikes). And if you do you run the risk of turning it into Beta strikes being to strong.

The simple and obvious answer is to not make the game this frigging lethal to begin with. Bring down all damage profiles, less damage buffs, less attack buffs ect.

Why are space marines now 2 wounds when they were fine for many editions at 1?
Why do C'tan and Ghazghkull need rules that prevent them from being 1 shot?

The game is to lethal.

Bad arguement - marines were not "fine" at 1 wound lol.

so your saying marines have not been good at any point from Rogue Trader until 9th edition?
A bold statement but then I wouldn't expect anything less from you.

Custodes used to be able to Alpha strike, until we forgot how, in the great Forgetting. Almost like how we forgot how to use Bolter Discipline, and Shock assault, and They shall know no fear. We should just let the IF guard the damned palace.

 Xenomancers wrote:

Bad arguement - marines were not "fine" at 1 wound lol.

They were fine.

Add more terrain. ITC should not be the goal you strive for in terrain setup. You need large terrain pieces, you need things that can slow down units. You need things that benefit the defender.

Most of these games are played on a board with like 1-2 LOS blocking pieces and ruins. That is the issue.

I really have not found more terrain helps against speed. More terrain helps against slow armies and castles.

Continuously increasing unit and weapon lethality with each codex update, IGOUGO instead of alternating activations, standard weapons being able to shoot over halfway across the table (ex. 30" bolt rifles), and decreased board sizes. It's no surprise that first turn advantage is huge in this game.

RandomHeretic wrote:
I really have not found more terrain helps against speed. More terrain helps against slow armies and castles.

Entirely depends on the opponent. If it is the DE DT list and they're going to bee-line to your DZ then you need to reduce your footprint. If they're just going mid there should be enough to keep them from getting too many good angles.

 Gnarlly wrote:
Continuously increasing unit and weapon lethality with each codex update, IGOUGO instead of alternating activations, standard weapons being able to shoot over halfway across the table (ex. 30" bolt rifles), and decreased board sizes. It's no surprise that first turn advantage is huge in this game.

Ding ding ding we have a winner! Trash core rules are the cause of Alpha Strikes being so effective. Remember how we had that one strat last edition that gave your army cover? Any game designer for another game would've laughed at you for creating such a bandaid. Proof GW doesn't understand their own game when they create "fixes".

It's a big problem and it will probably lead to a stat reset in 10th ed. You can't inflate unit and weapon stats forever with a D6 system and a statblock ranging from 1-10.

The only core rules there are IGOUGO and decreased board sizes, the latter of which has the least impact on the prevalence of alpha strikes.

If guns were 12-18" with 24+ being a rarity and movement was 6-12" with advance + shoot/charge being a rarity we'd see a lot less alpha strikes than if we raised the board size.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

RandomHeretic wrote:
I really have not found more terrain helps against speed. More terrain helps against slow armies and castles.

Entirely depends on the opponent. If it is the DE DT list and they're going to bee-line to your DZ then you need to reduce your footprint. If they're just going mid there should be enough to keep them from getting too many good angles.

That is one sort of threat DE pose. But you can also get boats full of trueborn with the 18" blasters out of their obsession where they can go crazy distances and still get range to hit you pretty hard. And like I mentioned above things like drop pods don't really care how much terrain you have. Or a lot of kraken Tyranid lists, slaanesh demon lists, etc. that are charging you turn 1.

More terrain is a bit of a trope. Lots of people use the WTC standard. Even when that is not the case the average game I play or watch often has between 12 and 18 pieces of good line of sight blocking terrain. That is great unless you are against speed. Fast armies that get the first turn can still put out a devastating alpha strike.

 Gnarlly wrote:
...standard weapons being able to shoot over halfway across the table (ex. 30" bolt rifles), and decreased board sizes.

When will we see 40k Crossfire!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossfire_(miniatures_game)

Quite funny, I have somewhat the same and the opposite experience... terrain does prevent shooting alpha strikes, but it really enables melee alphastrikes.
All that obscuring terrain makes it that much easier for fast melee units to close in, surround, box in and kill the shooting army.
If you dont have obscuring terrain - yes, then you have a problem if you play on planet bowling ball.
But so far every time, no matter how far back I deployed, if I used screens or not - I always got trounced by SW because - well, TWC are fast, durable and are basically tactical nukes. Drop pods just ignore terrain. Anything else that deep strikes ignores terrain as well.
Classic shooting does not seem to be the meta, at least in my circles, anymore because everyone is so scared of getting shot of the table that the pendulum swings right round back.
Its a blowout in either way because one mistake in movement/ability to draw LOS means death.
Yes, lethality needs to go down. But that wont happen this edition because the tone is set and there is no going back without fething over armies that come after the realisation has set in.

It's the natural consequence of speed increasing, lethality increasing, range staying the same, and the board size decreasing. Terrain fixes things against static gunlines, but not against much else.

But GW doesn't seem to think this is a problem. If you look at AOS, GW's other big game and its newer one, alpha strikes are *wildly* more powerful than in 40k, and the "balance" is that the player who gets alphaed then has a 55% chance to get two turns in a row. This means most games are over by T3, and many games are over by the middle of T2.

9th edition so far has been all about lethality creep, so it's hard to see anything changing on this front. I've predicted for a while now that the selling line for 10th will be a full stat reset (and that the same people who cheered stat inflation in 9th as genius will be cheering the reset in 10th as genius too).

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Custodes used to be able to Alpha strike, until we forgot how, in the great Forgetting. Almost like how we forgot how to use Bolter Discipline, and Shock assault, and They shall know no fear. We should just let the IF guard the damned palace.

Custodies were honestly just a bad idea to bring into the regular 40k gameplay. They pigeonholed the majority or elite imperial units just by bringing them in. Now - are they expected to have every special rule marines have plus their own special abilities? It was just a bad idea. Custodians in game now just function in the same areas that marines do - sharing many units...but the custodian ones just have to be better?

 Thairne wrote:

Classic shooting does not seem to be the meta, at least in my circles, anymore because everyone is so scared of getting shot of the table that the pendulum swings right round back.
Its a blowout in either way because one mistake in movement/ability to draw LOS means death.
Yes, lethality needs to go down. But that wont happen this edition because the tone is set and there is no going back without fething over armies that come after the realisation has set in.

twc at least can't go up stairs and have problems with terrain. If the table has enough LoS blockers, there is no way of stopping a skimmer heavy army like harlequins or DE from charging what ever they want. But I think that alfa strike and first turn adventage is just how w40k is, will be and probably always was.

 Xenomancers wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Custodes used to be able to Alpha strike, until we forgot how, in the great Forgetting. Almost like how we forgot how to use Bolter Discipline, and Shock assault, and They shall know no fear. We should just let the IF guard the damned palace.

Custodies were honestly just a bad idea to bring into the regular 40k gameplay. They pigeonholed the majority or elite imperial units just by bringing them in. Now - are they expected to have every special rule marines have plus their own special abilities? It was just a bad idea. Custodians in game now just function in the same areas that marines do - sharing many units...but the custodian ones just have to be better?

What the hell are you even talking about? For one, why do marines have to be the best at everything in the imperium? And second, custodes are not, and don't have to be marines+, they are quite different in their lore and quite different in their playstyle.
I'm sorry that this is off topic, but I can't stand these baseless, hyperbolic posts.

 Thairne wrote:

Yes, lethality needs to go down. But that wont happen this edition because the tone is set and there is no going back without fething over armies that come after the realisation has set in.

It was set in 8th, though. Lethality was already a problem, 9th tweaked the core rules and then (as usual) the codex releases doubled down on the existing problem.

RandomHeretic wrote:

That is one sort of threat DE pose. But you can also get boats full of trueborn with the 18" blasters out of their obsession where they can go crazy distances and still get range to hit you pretty hard. And like I mentioned above things like drop pods don't really care how much terrain you have. Or a lot of kraken Tyranid lists, slaanesh demon lists, etc. that are charging you turn 1.

More terrain is a bit of a trope. Lots of people use the WTC standard. Even when that is not the case the average game I play or watch often has between 12 and 18 pieces of good line of sight blocking terrain. That is great unless you are against speed. Fast armies that get the first turn can still put out a devastating alpha strike.

Flayed Skull? Yea. Black Heart has it better though, I think. They can advance and charge turn 1. Snares, trophies, and prow. 235 points and a couple CP for the whole package. A couple of blaster shots on top of a couple lances isn't going to break anything open without some bad luck though.

Aethersails should probably not allow charging and Prow should probably cap MW like other armies.

All that said this requires the boat to be out in the open turn 1. If they don't go first I know which boat I might pop first. And this is a zoomed in picture of the alpha strike situation.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

yukishiro1 wrote:
But GW doesn't seem to think this is a problem. If you look at AOS, GW's other big game and its newer one, alpha strikes are *wildly* more powerful than in 40k, and the "balance" is that the player who gets alphaed then has a 55% chance to get two turns in a row. This means most games are over by T3, and many games are over by the middle of T2.

Is there a source for this claim? I don't play AoS so I have nothing to go by.

I'll say it again.


Lethality in 9th is in general lower than in 8th outside meele over compensation and multimelta bonanza.

The removal of easy to access rerrolls of all to hit and to wound and some of the more absurd wombo combos of 8th lowered the offensive output of most armies with proper 9th books.

Do Death Guard really feel that much more lethal? Do Necrons feel extremely lethal? Do space marines outside melta spam and some meele heavy builds feel more letal than 8th parking lots with full rerrolls of everything?

The most lethal armies are right now Drukhari (Yeah we all know why), Sisters of Battle (They were bananas in 8th and are just the same in 9th), Harlequines (Another 8th army favoured by 9th missions and tables) and Adeptus Mechanicus with some PA builds spamming mortals with electrorpiests, mars full rerrolls, etc...

Terrain seems to be a significant mitigating factor; second would be the ability to premeasure to mitigate turn 1 assault as much as possible. I finished a 5 round event this weekend with Craftworlds and lost a single unit on turn 1 in just one game. It was fairly difficult on both sides to get turn 1 kills.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
But GW doesn't seem to think this is a problem. If you look at AOS, GW's other big game and its newer one, alpha strikes are *wildly* more powerful than in 40k, and the "balance" is that the player who gets alphaed then has a 55% chance to get two turns in a row. This means most games are over by T3, and many games are over by the middle of T2.

Is there a source for this claim? I don't play AoS so I have nothing to go by.

Uh...the core rules for the game?

You know something?

I actually think everything having slightly inflated stats is a good thing.

I think having marines at W2, necrons at W1 with very strong res prots and sisters being cheap W1 low T good sv, Orks at T5 sv6+, nids as a high toughness high wounds low sv army, death guard at W2 -1 to damage, daemons and harlequins with invulns, eldar and drukhari with hit modifiers, and GSC and Guard with super overwhelmingly good cheap numbers is a better baseline place for the game to be than having basically 2 types of unit: GEQ and MEQ that you might want to shoot.

A lot of the problem of early editions and 8th was that you had

-cheapo infantry unit
-elite infantry unit
-medium vehicle
Almost identical in MASSIVE abundance, and then a couple weirdos with unusual statlines and abilities that bucked the trend, but a TON of units that just followed the trend.

That obviously leads to certain weapons being automatically the best to bring in a tac list, and other potential statlines being just totally ignored because everybody needs an antitank weapon and everybody needs that antitank weapon to be a strength value between 8 and 9, good ap, and good damage.

toughness, wounds, and save, have always just kind of gone up at the same time with very little exception, and therefore weapon profiles have just done the same thing. Ther'es no need for a high strength low AP high damage weapon - every hard target has a good sv. theres little use for a low strength high AP weapon when almost everything with good armor has good toughness.

Could we use a toning down in the damage department in general? Yes. Is accomplishing that toning down by introducing new and unusual defenses into the game a bad thing? No, I think its the best way to go tbh.

Going back to where a sister a necron, a marine, and a heavy aspect warrior have almost exactly the same statline as each other would be bad for the game. Explore the space.

yukishiro1 wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
But GW doesn't seem to think this is a problem. If you look at AOS, GW's other big game and its newer one, alpha strikes are *wildly* more powerful than in 40k, and the "balance" is that the player who gets alphaed then has a 55% chance to get two turns in a row. This means most games are over by T3, and many games are over by the middle of T2.

Is there a source for this claim? I don't play AoS so I have nothing to go by.

Uh...the core rules for the game?

Yea, but like data?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Galas wrote:
I'll say it again.


Lethality in 9th is in general lower than in 8th outside meele over compensation and multimelta bonanza.

The removal of easy to access rerrolls of all to hit and to wound and some of the more absurd wombo combos of 8th lowered the offensive output of most armies with proper 9th books.

Do Death Guard really feel that much more lethal? Do Necrons feel extremely lethal? Do space marines outside melta spam and some meele heavy builds feel more letal than 8th parking lots with full rerrolls of everything?

The most lethal armies are right now Drukhari (Yeah we all know why), Sisters of Battle (They were bananas in 8th and are just the same in 9th), Harlequines (Another 8th army favoured by 9th missions and tables) and Adeptus Mechanicus with some PA builds spamming mortals with electrorpiests, mars full rerrolls, etc...

This and this some more. One thing I notice most when playing Sisters and Custodes are all the god damn rerolls. Though I am sure Sisters will retain those and lose elsewhere.

I guess I'm not sure what data you're asking for. Data to support what? That AOS armies have a lot of alpha strike potential? Or that most games are effectively over by T3?

I'm not saying anything remotely controversial here. Anyone who plays AOS knows it's a game that tends to be over quickly unless both armies are very defensive in nature, that it's not at all unusual for games to effectively be over by the middle of T2, and that most games will be effectively over in terms of determining a victor by the end of T3.

I will chime in my opinion from experience again - terrain is the quickest & fairest fix for dealing with lethality in the game, including but not limited to alpha strikes.

99% of batreps online play on boards that resemble example #2 in BRB (which even GW notes it's not suitable for matched play games).

In my experience (as I always argue for boards resembling example #1 & 3), terrain placement denies anywhere from 40~50% of alpha strike lethality due to lack of room to place units in napoleon-esque stand off.

I agree with everyone saying terrain fixes this. I've yet to lose more than a few scarabs or warriors to turn 1 shooting and charges, maybe half a doom stalker if they focus fire. Compared to 8th where it felt like who ever went first had a huge advantage.

Most boards I see people play on are too empty, with just a couple obscuring pieces in the center, maybe an obstacle or barricade in a DZ. Dense terrain with difficult ground helps fix that which obscuring can't.

well the problem with terrain preventing alpha strikes then is that it enables beta strikes.
T1 often means that large parts of, if not everything, is out of LOS. That means all you can do is move up and position yourselves on the objectives to actually score next turn. This then means that the player that goes second gets his version of an alpha strike because in all essence HE has the first shooting thurn of any merit.
Its the classic game of chicken - he who pokes out get charged/shot first and therefore loses a good chunk of his army. It pretty much is forced by the mission design and the "take and hold"-style gamepleay. You can be safe or you can score. And if you try to score, the opponent has the opportunity to strike.

That's what turns 9th into the trading game it is. Essentially everything in the game (with a tiny handful of exceptions) dies immediately upon being targeted, so that turns the game into a series of trades. I put out my unit to destroy yours, you respond by destroying mine, then I destroy the unit that destroyed mine, etc.

To get away from the trading paradigm lethality would have to be lowered enough that moving into somewhere you can be attacked wasn't an instant death sentence for 95% of the units in the game.

Yeah. Just look to my post about anecdotes with terrain.

I have a >30" charge range with a unit with 10 Flat 3 damage attacks at -3 rend that hits on 2s and wounds on 2s (against marines) and rerolls 1s to wound, with access to rerolls ones to hit.

Having that movement means I have control of the game, because I will charge you if you get too close even if there's 1e300 terrain pieces on the board. In fact, more terrain helps my alpha because I can use it to position my charges so that I can't even be beta struck (using terrain divides where Shooting armies can hit but does not impede melee armies much).

yukishiro1 wrote:
That's what turns 9th into the trading game it is. Essentially everything in the game (with a tiny handful of exceptions) dies immediately upon being targeted, so that turns the game into a series of trades. I put out my unit to destroy yours, you respond by destroying mine, then I destroy the unit that destroyed mine, etc.

To get away from the trading paradigm lethality would have to be lowered enough that moving into somewhere you can be attacked wasn't an instant death sentence for 95% of the units in the game.

Yes, you will make trades, but if you plan carefully you can position to hurt them badly and then also present them with several no win choices on what to shoot. It doesn't always work - especially if they're sisters and they can power through by just dumping cherubs.

It is a flaw of IGOUGO, but not a flaw that is devoid of interaction.


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 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I have a >30" charge range with a unit with 10 Flat 3 damage attacks at -3 rend that hits on 2s and wounds on 2s (against marines) and rerolls 1s to wound, with access to rerolls ones to hit.

To what unit do you refer?

 Daedalus81 wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I have a >30" charge range with a unit with 10 Flat 3 damage attacks at -3 rend that hits on 2s and wounds on 2s (against marines) and rerolls 1s to wound, with access to rerolls ones to hit.

To what unit do you refer?

Isn't that the witch succub, I could be wrong though.

In general all the armies with skimmers, that lets them ignore terrain, benefit a lot more from terrain, then a regular army

Oh look another problem that wouldn't be nearly as bad with a different turn structure.

The lethality is fine. The problem is that there is no way to react to it / your opponents maneuvering.

Karol wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:


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 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I have a >30" charge range with a unit with 10 Flat 3 damage attacks at -3 rend that hits on 2s and wounds on 2s (against marines) and rerolls 1s to wound, with access to rerolls ones to hit.

To what unit do you refer?

Isn't that the witch succub, I could be wrong though.

In general all the armies with skimmers, that lets them ignore terrain, benefit a lot more from terrain, then a regular army

I think it's the Keeper of Secrets

Yes, because in a world of my opponent moves his unit from the other side of the table killing my only counter unit, or some important linch pin in the army structure with no way to stop it without automaticly losing the game by not scoring primaris, would be so much different.

The problem seems to be the size of the game GW wants people to play it at, while at the same time playing something like 500pts games is not possible for a ton of factions.

Karol wrote:

Isn't that the witch succub, I could be wrong though.

In general all the armies with skimmers, that lets them ignore terrain, benefit a lot more from terrain, then a regular army

No 30" charge there unless you're letting her sit in the boat until the next turn, but then it really isn't 30".

 Thairne wrote:
well the problem with terrain preventing alpha strikes then is that it enables beta strikes.
T1 often means that large parts of, if not everything, is out of LOS. That means all you can do is move up and position yourselves on the objectives to actually score next turn. This then means that the player that goes second gets his version of an alpha strike because in all essence HE has the first shooting thurn of any merit.
Its the classic game of chicken - he who pokes out get charged/shot first and therefore loses a good chunk of his army. It pretty much is forced by the mission design and the "take and hold"-style gamepleay. You can be safe or you can score. And if you try to score, the opponent has the opportunity to strike.

Well beta strikes are only a problem if the player going first went all-in, leaving their units exposed.

Just as you say, top of turn 1 in terrain dense set up is about securing strategic positions that forces player 2 to think about how deep they can go in, how hard they need to attack, and where to focus that offensive.

In a typical 6x4 board with medium sized terrain at each 2x2 square, unless you put a good amount of units into reserve, you generally have about min. 20-30% of army exposed (also because youre setting up for rush when its your turn), and additional ~10% able to be exposed during their movement phase.


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 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Yeah. Just look to my post about anecdotes with terrain.

I have a >30" charge range with a unit with 10 Flat 3 damage attacks at -3 rend that hits on 2s and wounds on 2s (against marines) and rerolls 1s to wound, with access to rerolls ones to hit.

Having that movement means I have control of the game, because I will charge you if you get too close even if there's 1e300 terrain pieces on the board. In fact, more terrain helps my alpha because I can use it to position my charges so that I can't even be beta struck (using terrain divides where Shooting armies can hit but does not impede melee armies much).

And yes, dedicated melee units should definitely benefit from terrain as you describe. Melee units shouldn't require extra movement + move twice + roll 3d6 and pick highest for advance + charge after advance + reroll charge + pile in consolidate 6" for it to viable.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
But GW doesn't seem to think this is a problem. If you look at AOS, GW's other big game and its newer one, alpha strikes are *wildly* more powerful than in 40k, and the "balance" is that the player who gets alphaed then has a 55% chance to get two turns in a row. This means most games are over by T3, and many games are over by the middle of T2.

Is there a source for this claim? I don't play AoS so I have nothing to go by.

Uh...the core rules for the game?

Yea, but like data?

At the end of each Battleround, there is a roll-off for who has the choice of going first or second in the next battle round. If you went first in the previous round, you win if the dice roll is tied. This can often, about under 50% of the time, result in the player who went second in the battleround being able to have two turns in a row.

It's a... polarizing mechanic, let's say. It worked well with the initial design for AoS when it was still a lot of melee. But since then, alpha-strike power, and shooting and magic strength of certain armies have skyrocketed, some armies winning just off a dice roll now.

I don't have the sources on hand right now, but most games of AoS are ended on the first turn of second round, or the first turn of third round, depending on which type of army gets a Double-Turn and when. It's been recognized by GW, and they think the mechanic is good for some reason. It had it's place, but just like with 40k, the lethality and viability of reliably applying that lethality has ramped up far too much.

Coming from other games, the issue is less the lethality of attacks and more the easy application of those attacks.

Warmachine has high lethality and buffability, but heavy controls on that lethality via short range, being able to block attacks with your other units etc.

Infinity has extremely high lethality and range, but a huge portion of the game is dictated by total or partial cover and the way that you use your troops via positioning etc.

Malifaux has high lethality and stackable buffs etc, but is controlled via its LoS and short range much like warmachine.

In 40k, everything has long range and can use TLoS to hit you anywhere on the board unless you use very specific terrain to stop that (and notably not GW's own terrain). Terrain is limited to a small penalty to hit rather than a huge impact and is often purely area based, so flanking cover etc is less impactful. You can use troops to screen against melee, but not against shooting in a meaningful way, meaning that those Lascannons can always target the heavy tank and the blast weapons can target the fragile artillery and theres nothing you can do about it.

There are not many meaningful ways to control how you take damage in 40k - at least there weren't when I last played and it looks like its still the same.

People arguing for defensive buffs - this can mitigate some of the problem short term, but long term its the same "does what I take counter what you take" problem that 40k is infamous for. Forcing players to use their models correctly is a better solution with long term viability for the game.

If I was to propose a solution off the top of my head, its would be;
A) Mitigate the perfect targeting issue by either removing TLoS, hugely improving cover, letting intervening models screen for your valuable ones, or something similar.
B) Add player agency requirement to attacking by limiting the range of weapons (and probably movement, buff auras etc) or imposing a distance hit modifier etc.

 Dakkamite wrote:
Coming from other games, the issue is less the lethality of attacks and more the easy application of those attacks.

Warmachine has high lethality and buffability, but heavy controls on that lethality via short range, being able to block attacks with your other units etc.

Infinity has extremely high lethality and range, but a huge portion of the game is dictated by total or partial cover and the way that you use your troops via positioning etc.

Malifaux has high lethality and stackable buffs etc, but is controlled via its LoS and short range much like warmachine.

In 40k, everything has long range and can use TLoS to hit you anywhere on the board unless you use very specific terrain to stop that (and notably not GW's own terrain). Terrain is limited to a small penalty to hit rather than a huge impact and is often purely area based, so flanking cover etc is less impactful. You can use troops to screen against melee, but not against shooting in a meaningful way, meaning that those Lascannons can always target the heavy tank and the blast weapons can target the fragile artillery and theres nothing you can do about it.

There are not many meaningful ways to control how you take damage in 40k - at least there weren't when I last played and it looks like its still the same.

People arguing for defensive buffs - this can mitigate some of the problem short term, but long term its the same "does what I take counter what you take" problem that 40k is infamous for. Forcing players to use their models correctly is a better solution with long term viability for the game.

If I was to propose a solution off the top of my head, its would be;
A) Mitigate the perfect targeting issue by either removing TLoS, hugely improving cover, letting intervening models screen for your valuable ones, or something similar.
B) Add player agency requirement to attacking by limiting the range of weapons (and probably movement, buff auras etc) or imposing a distance hit modifier etc.

I think you're missing a crucial understanding of terrain changes.

A swiss cheese GW building is now capable of fully blocking line of sight.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
...I think you're missing a crucial understanding of terrain changes.

A swiss cheese GW building is now capable of fully blocking line of sight.

Oh, is 40k now played on Infinity-dense tables with units that can't pop up anywhere on the table they like and fire at full effectiveness? Does terrain somehow mitigate all the perfect-accuracy indirect fire that doesn't require line of sight? Do units not get 30+" charge threat ranges now?

I do miss the old Prepared Positions general stratagem you could use to mitigate an Alpha Strike.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Dakkamite wrote:
Coming from other games, the issue is less the lethality of attacks and more the easy application of those attacks.

Warmachine has high lethality and buffability, but heavy controls on that lethality via short range, being able to block attacks with your other units etc.

Infinity has extremely high lethality and range, but a huge portion of the game is dictated by total or partial cover and the way that you use your troops via positioning etc.

Malifaux has high lethality and stackable buffs etc, but is controlled via its LoS and short range much like warmachine.

In 40k, everything has long range and can use TLoS to hit you anywhere on the board unless you use very specific terrain to stop that (and notably not GW's own terrain). Terrain is limited to a small penalty to hit rather than a huge impact and is often purely area based, so flanking cover etc is less impactful. You can use troops to screen against melee, but not against shooting in a meaningful way, meaning that those Lascannons can always target the heavy tank and the blast weapons can target the fragile artillery and theres nothing you can do about it.

There are not many meaningful ways to control how you take damage in 40k - at least there weren't when I last played and it looks like its still the same.

People arguing for defensive buffs - this can mitigate some of the problem short term, but long term its the same "does what I take counter what you take" problem that 40k is infamous for. Forcing players to use their models correctly is a better solution with long term viability for the game.

If I was to propose a solution off the top of my head, its would be;
A) Mitigate the perfect targeting issue by either removing TLoS, hugely improving cover, letting intervening models screen for your valuable ones, or something similar.
B) Add player agency requirement to attacking by limiting the range of weapons (and probably movement, buff auras etc) or imposing a distance hit modifier etc.

I think you're missing a crucial understanding of terrain changes.

A swiss cheese GW building is now capable of fully blocking line of sight.

Probably, I'm just returning after playing back in 6th. Used to house-rule that change great to see it more applicable. Still a lot to be desired in the rules but at least their official terrain is much more playable!

Jarms48 wrote:
I do miss the old Prepared Positions general stratagem you could use to mitigate an Alpha Strike.

That was fething laughable and admitting they suck at writing rules via sticking with the terrible outdated turn system.

I've not had a massive amount of games in 9th, and not yet at a proper full tourney. And the terrain sets we play with tend to favour a decent amount of LOS blocking stuff.

In most of the games there hasn't been massive Alpha strikes. Usually the opponent or myself will push one unit or two into purposefully vulnerable positions on objectives or to threaten key units. Then defensive buffs will be placed on those units, or they'll just be exceptionally tanky to begin with. After that it becomes a case of exchanging and maneuvering units, not quite like chess but still satisfying.

And usually by the end of turn five one or both of us will indeed have very few units. Sometimes as few as one or two. But the one with less units isn't always loosing on objectives.

In all honestly 40K is as, if not more; interesting than it's ever been for me and my friend group.

 the_scotsman wrote:
You know something?

I actually think everything having slightly inflated stats is a good thing.

I think having marines at W2, necrons at W1 with very strong res prots and sisters being cheap W1 low T good sv, Orks at T5 sv6+, nids as a high toughness high wounds low sv army, death guard at W2 -1 to damage, daemons and harlequins with invulns, eldar and drukhari with hit modifiers, and GSC and Guard with super overwhelmingly good cheap numbers is a better baseline place for the game to be than having basically 2 types of unit: GEQ and MEQ that you might want to shoot.

A lot of the problem of early editions and 8th was that you had

-cheapo infantry unit
-elite infantry unit
-medium vehicle
Almost identical in MASSIVE abundance, and then a couple weirdos with unusual statlines and abilities that bucked the trend, but a TON of units that just followed the trend.

...

Going back to where a sister a necron, a marine, and a heavy aspect warrior have almost exactly the same statline as each other would be bad for the game. Explore the space.

I dunno, the more you "explore the space" the more you create rock-paper-scissors dynamics, and that means shifting more focus towards list-building and away from actually playing the game. This doesn't actually end up promoting TAC lists, it promotes lists that can skew in certain very particular ways.

There are real advantages to having a system where the difference between models is less about base stats and more about special rules and how you use your models tactically. It makes it easier to balance, it reduces complexity and makes the game friendlier to newer players, it reduces the types of skew you have to plan for, it promotes actual TAC lists, etc.

One change that I don't see mentioned that's increased lethality in the game is that in the older editions of the game, entire units had to select a single target to shoot at.

Wanted your lascannon in your tac squad to shoot at a tank? You could, but your tac squad couldn't select another target to shoot at with their bolters.

So it's not just that raw weapon stats have increased, it's that each turn, you're able to maximize each weapon being fired.

But yeah, lethality has bloated over the editions. To give you an idea, if you pick two shooty squads/vehicles/whatever in this edition, they have about the same ranged firepower as most 1500 point armies in 3rd/4th/5th.

Altima wrote:
But yeah, lethality has bloated over the editions. To give you an idea, if you pick two shooty squads/vehicles/whatever in this edition, they have about the same ranged firepower as most 1500 point armies in 3rd/4th/5th.

The infamously overkill 'leafblower' list of 5th edition had the following alpha strike - at 2500pts:
-One manticore (indirect fire, large blast)
-One unit of psykers (large blast)
-One unit of two medusa tanks (small blasts)
-Scattered autocannon and multilasers

In an edition where the defender deployed second and 4+ cover was standard.

Played another game last night against Ad Mech. Even with two fliers and indirect fire, my opponent still did not destroy one of my Craftworld units on turn one. Using defensive stratagems like Celestial Shield and Lightning Fast Reflexes reduced enough damage against the units that could shoot was enough. Terrain plays a critical part in first turn shooting.

If one is getting large portions of their army removed on turn 1 simply by not going first, then I highly recommend reviewing terrain type and placement first, followed by actual model deployment. You don't win games in deployment, but can certainly lose games in deployment.

Karol wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:


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 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I have a >30" charge range with a unit with 10 Flat 3 damage attacks at -3 rend that hits on 2s and wounds on 2s (against marines) and rerolls 1s to wound, with access to rerolls ones to hit.

To what unit do you refer?

Isn't that the witch succub, I could be wrong though.

In general all the armies with skimmers, that lets them ignore terrain, benefit a lot more from terrain, then a regular army

haha, what? no. Succubus does not have 30" charge threat lol.

With a transport it does. Same as harlis. On the smaller board specially, you can't really stop either army from charging what ever they want, unless there is no LoS blocking terrain on it.

KOS maximum charge range with all possible buffs is:

19" movement with Celerity of Slaanesh + Realm Racer buff

26" after advancing with Realm Racer buff

39" after charging with Realm Racer buff.

That means if everything goes well (a tall order, I know, which is why I dropped it down to 30" to account for average dice rolls) your unit can be within 40" of movement of my KOS and I can go poke you in the eye. 37" without WLT. 33" with a basic KOS with nothing.

With average rolls but same buffs its:
19"
23.5"
31.5" - meaning a unit within 32.5" is in danger on average rolls if I got Realm Racer and have the CoS warlord trait. 29.5" without the WLT, and 25.5" with a basic KoS with nothing.

EDIT:
Total KOS profile is:
WS 2+
6 attacks at Strength 8, AP-3, 3 flat damage
4 attacks at Strength 6, AP-3, 3 flat damage
- reroll 1s to wound in combat phase

Access to (via stratagems and/or wargear options)
6 Str 6 AP-2 2 flat damage shooting attacks at 6" that can be fired into ongoing combat
"Fight Again" via friendly psychic power (in the friendly turn, but there are at least 2 mechanisms in Slaanesh to prevent fallback)
2 psychic power casts, including a fair few that can do mortal wounds (including smite).

The increased lethality is a combination of so many things it's hard to know where to start.

Boards are smaller, leaving less space to deploy in to get out of range of attacks. Rate of fire is very high compared to previous editions. Split fire is available to all units. Ranges have massively increased. Movement has massively increased. Rerolls have been introduced to the game. Stratagems allow increased lethality.

As an example of how much things have changed since 3rd edition:

https://ttgamingdiary.wordpress.com/2018/10/04/an-interview-with-gav-thorpe/

About halfway down the page Gav Thorpe talks about the Wraithlord and how it was so scary because it could kill 2 Space Marines a turn with it's fists. 2! That's the baseline the game used to be at. You also had trade-offs for moving which reduced range or completely prevented you shooting. All movements was restricted to 6" for infantry or 12" for bikes/jump infantry. Now we have units routinely able to charge from one deployment zone to the other.

Nothing short of a root-and-branch rewrite of the rules will solve this but GW don't seem to be interested in seriously reducing lethality so I don't think it'll ever happen.

They did a poll over on TGA a while ago for AOS on how much stuff should be left on the board at the end of a game, and, incredibly to me, most people seem to like the current levels of lethality in that game, which is even higher than in 40k. I think the most popular answer was that 10-25% of all the models on the board should be left at the end of a game. So it's not clear to me there is even an issue for most people, much less for GW.

The game's scoring right now is also 100% dependent on super high lethality. If you can't kill almost anything standing on any objective in one turn, scoring starts to degenerate into who can pack more bodies onto objectives for longer, which is not entertaining gameplay. To have a lower lethality game, you need ways to get control of objectives from opponents that don't just involve outnumbering - a real morale system, for example, that could force your opponent to move off an objective because they're fleeing, or mechanics that would grant control of the objective not just based on bodies but on who won the most recent combat, etc.

yukishiro1 wrote:
They did a poll over on TGA a while ago for AOS on how much stuff should be left on the board at the end of a game, and, incredibly to me, most people seem to like the current levels of lethality in that game, which is even higher than in 40k. I think the most popular answer was that 10-25% of all the models on the board should be left at the end of a game. So it's not clear to me there is even an issue for most people, much less for GW.

That kind of lethality is fine for the theme of 40k. The problem is that there's no counter play against the opponent.

yukishiro1 wrote:
They did a poll over on TGA a while ago for AOS on how much stuff should be left on the board at the end of a game, and, incredibly to me, most people seem to like the current levels of lethality in that game, which is even higher than in 40k. I think the most popular answer was that 10-25% of all the models on the board should be left at the end of a game. So it's not clear to me there is even an issue for most people, much less for GW.
.

Worth noting that in AOS it is much harder for things to get shot off and that combined with the alternating combat system means that you get to use your cool units in most games(yes, this is a generalisation). Part of the issue in 40k is having your cool units blown off the table in an uninteractive manner

That was AOS years ago, now AOS is very similar to 40k - actually worse in many ways, since terrain does nothing and there is even more mobility. AOS is now significantly more front-loaded than 40k, and the top lists are more ranged-focused as well, amazingly.

Well a range list if it gets double turn would have a huge adventage. I mean people can imagine what would happen, if they ended up moving first and then something like harlequins or the new DE got two turns back to back. There is a good chance there would be nothing to play with on their 2ed turn.

Karol wrote:
Well a range list if it gets double turn would have a huge adventage. I mean people can imagine what would happen, if they ended up moving first and then something like harlequins or the new DE got two turns back to back. There is a good chance there would be nothing to play with on their 2ed turn.

Its the same the other way around. top T1 Harlequins run up, charge the opponents front screens. button T1 the units that charged get killed. Top T2 the rest gets killed before they can charge in the space made by the first wave. Game effectively over before Harlequins get their second turn.

With low lethality the concept of the double turn could be fine. with high lethality and every top army having access to teleports or summoning it appears to be utterly horrible from the, admitted little, of AoS I have seen in the last ~6 months.

Front screen? I mean, I guess some armies have those. From personal expiriance I know that what ever the harlequin player goes first or second, it doesn't matter much, because he will nuke my dudes off the table. And my only choice is what ever I want to try to get on one objective to at least try to score primary, or is the game done on turn 2. Specially now as I found out, that bases count for model being painted too.

I see a few fixes to this problem from my point of view

1. the second turn player can get something along 5 victory points for free

2.Bigger board size to prevent 1st turn charges and possibly avoid being pummeled by weapons that have short range and really shouldnt be firing on the first turn.

3.Some sort of cover bonus for the 2nd player, like light cover also giving you -1 to hit, and heavy cover giving you a +1 save bonus, maybe even giving every 2nd turn player's army a minimum of light cover

bat702 wrote:
I see a few fixes to this problem from my point of view

1. the second turn player can get something along 5 victory points for free

2.Bigger board size to prevent 1st turn charges and possibly avoid being pummeled by weapons that have short range and really shouldnt be firing on the first turn.

3.Some sort of cover bonus for the 2nd player, like light cover also giving you -1 to hit, and heavy cover giving you a +1 save bonus, maybe even giving every 2nd turn player's army a minimum of light cover

bigger boards don't do anything in 9th since if you deploy way back you can't reach mid field objectives in time and you auto lose anyway.

and we had a cover bonus for CP in 8th. Didn't do gak then, won't do gak now. And it doesn't even do much/anything against T1 charges or transports full of fusion pistols.

The best way to fix the problem is to address the source rather then apply bandaid on top of bandaid.
They already changed weapons outside of a codex in 9th. Nothing stops them from doing it again. CA 2021, full rework of all weapon profiles, could be a thing if GW wanted to.

bigger boards don't do anything in 9th since if you deploy way back you can't reach mid field objectives in time and you auto lose anyway.

If you have skimmer transports that ignore terrain and lots of jetbikes, you can claim objectives even if the terrain is dense. specially if you have a 20"+ range of movment per turn.

What if casualties were removed at the end of the round after each player had gone instead of immediately? Or some sort of split where infantry were removed immediately but vehicles/MC's were allowed to continue until they expired? Probably have to have an exception for close combat.

It would create a whole new slew of problems/contradictions and would result in a strange level of gaming the system, but it would somewhat solve the alpha strike issue in that people would get to use their toys for at least one round to retaliate.

Karol wrote:
With a transport it does. Same as harlis. On the smaller board specially, you can't really stop either army from charging what ever they want, unless there is no LoS blocking terrain on it.

I mean, you can't *now* but the game used to be built specifically to prevent first turn charges, apart from a deployment blunder or insane risk Dark Eldar shenanigans involving raiders at the very edge of deployment zones. Game required 24"+ between units if deployed in LOS and 18"+ if deployed outside LOS. Average charging threat range was 12"-18", or 24" for a fleet army if they had leaping or a 12" movement, rolled perfectly, and didn't have any terrain to slow them down, which was near impossible.

So, really, first turn charges aren't really the fault of the game board but of GW's direct actions. We can only assume that they want to allow this behavior, given how permissive it is over older editions.

Personally, I think CC should be lethal--and should be the most lethal part of the game. But I don't think it should be easy to get into close combat, certainly not on turn 1 or coming in off of reserves. There's no counterplay involved and creates a feeling of helplessness.

Altima wrote:
What if casualties were removed at the end of the round after each player had gone instead of immediately? Or some sort of split where infantry were removed immediately but vehicles/MC's were allowed to continue until they expired? Probably have to have an exception for close combat.

It would create a whole new slew of problems/contradictions and would result in a strange level of gaming the system, but it would somewhat solve the alpha strike issue in that people would get to use their toys for at least one round to retaliate.

Ive been wanting to try a game of 40k with Epics casualty rules for a while now. Unfortunately covid meant that idea has been on the shelf for a while.

yukishiro1 wrote:
That was AOS years ago, now AOS is very similar to 40k - actually worse in many ways, since terrain does nothing and there is even more mobility. AOS is now significantly more front-loaded than 40k, and the top lists are more ranged-focused as well, amazingly.

That's not particularly amazing. Ranged weapons were very curtailed in early AoS armies. Poor hit rolls, low damage, short ranges, etc, with only a few exceptions. Recently they've let ranged armies go nuts.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Oh, is 40k now played on Infinity-dense tables with units that can't pop up anywhere on the table they like and fire at full effectiveness?

Yes, if you want it that dense.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Does terrain somehow mitigate all the perfect-accuracy indirect fire that doesn't require line of sight?

Yes, you can claim benefits of cover for non LOs shots. No cover save bonus weapons do ignore benefit of cover, however.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Do units not get 30+" charge threat ranges now?

Dangerous terrain incurs -2" when moving through it. Scalable/unstable position also forces net reduction in movement as you also need to account for verticle movements when moving thru such terrain.

Voss wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
That was AOS years ago, now AOS is very similar to 40k - actually worse in many ways, since terrain does nothing and there is even more mobility. AOS is now significantly more front-loaded than 40k, and the top lists are more ranged-focused as well, amazingly.

That's not particularly amazing. Ranged weapons were very curtailed in early AoS armies. Poor hit rolls, low damage, short ranges, etc, with only a few exceptions. Recently they've let ranged armies go nuts.

More ranged focus than 40k. Which is quite the amazing development given the history of the two games, and shows how off the rails AOS has gone recently.

And arguably how off the rails 40k has become as well.

 Ordana wrote:

Altima wrote:
What if casualties were removed at the end of the round after each player had gone instead of immediately? Or some sort of split where infantry were removed immediately but vehicles/MC's were allowed to continue until they expired? Probably have to have an exception for close combat.

It would create a whole new slew of problems/contradictions and would result in a strange level of gaming the system, but it would somewhat solve the alpha strike issue in that people would get to use their toys for at least one round to retaliate.

Ive been wanting to try a game of 40k with Epics casualty rules for a while now. Unfortunately covid meant that idea has been on the shelf for a while.

Apocalypse has a similar system and, external balance aside, the core rules are at least not as pathetic as regular 40k.

Yeah the apoc system is 110% better and this is a solved problem in that game. (Through many ways, not just damage resolution).

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Yeah the apoc system is 110% better and this is a solved problem in that game. (Through many ways, not just damage resolution).

Execpt the fact that no one really cares for that garbage specialist game, only thing its good for is being is being a theory simplifying 40k and makeing a damage phase is gonna solve anything. Super shooty armies are still gonna dominate, and melee/mixed list is still gonna be more passive the first round and still eat a damage phase. And basicly suffer just the same. However if armies and lists were more or less identical i defently see it working in terms of balance and getting rid of 2nd turn hangover.

You know, I have played 4 games of Apoc - once as Slaanesh Daemons, twice as Imperial Guard, once as CWE, and I have not found that shooting armies dominate.

In fact, the best of my armies in Apoc is my Slaanesh Daemons so far, as the rest tensed to be indecisive tit-for-tat battles where there was very little "nuking" of units going on. Which is part of why Apoc is so fun.

My Slaanesh achieved decisive action where my other units didn't because they were melee, meaning they got board control very quickly (considering you can literally double move without losing any effectiveness, while shooting units cannot even fire after double moving).

The damage phase is not the only way to shut down alpha strikes. It is one way, but there are a LOT of other mechanics to do so as well. I can go into detail if you want but Apoc is far more than "40k but damage is at the end of the battle round".

yukishiro1 wrote:

Voss wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
That was AOS years ago, now AOS is very similar to 40k - actually worse in many ways, since terrain does nothing and there is even more mobility. AOS is now significantly more front-loaded than 40k, and the top lists are more ranged-focused as well, amazingly.

That's not particularly amazing. Ranged weapons were very curtailed in early AoS armies. Poor hit rolls, low damage, short ranges, etc, with only a few exceptions. Recently they've let ranged armies go nuts.

More ranged focus than 40k. Which is quite the amazing development given the history of the two games, and shows how off the rails AOS has gone recently.

Up until they redid the Slaanesh and DoK book I would have disagreed...but both of those armies saw massive nerfs to their melee options to the point that they are totally dependent on their (buffed) shooting shooting units so...yeah.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
You know, I have played 4 games of Apoc - once as Slaanesh Daemons, twice as Imperial Guard, once as CWE, and I have not found that shooting armies dominate.

In fact, the best of my armies in Apoc is my Slaanesh Daemons so far, as the rest tensed to be indecisive tit-for-tat battles where there was very little "nuking" of units going on. Which is part of why Apoc is so fun.

My Slaanesh achieved decisive action where my other units didn't because they were melee, meaning they got board control very quickly (considering you can literally double move without losing any effectiveness, while shooting units cannot even fire after double moving).

The damage phase is not the only way to shut down alpha strikes. It is one way, but there are a LOT of other mechanics to do so as well. I can go into detail if you want but Apoc is far more than "40k but damage is at the end of the battle round".

Fair enough, i thought it was damage resolution you only focussed on, because so many picks exactly just that. But with double moves ofc the playing field starts to even out. Now personally i havent tried it (i tried playing with damage resolution phase in 8th since some people wanted to give it a go in 40k, and they quickly didnt care for it ), only seen some introductionary games and maybe 2 batreps of the apocalypse game.

Regarldess GW makes it seem harder than it needs to be. Their balance team like Stu and the others got their head severly up their behinds, it really boggels me how often they make some obscure rule that is 200% aimed at fixing X problem, but does NOTHING whatsoever (meanwhile they FAQ nerf the factions that are allready biting the dust).