So.. you can have 20 poxwalkers, each poxwalker has 2 hits so thats a potentially 40 hits.
Each roll of 6 gives a mortal wound in the hitting phase, each hit of 1 kills a poxwalker. Im no death guard player so i could be wrong, but im sure theres a way to reroll hit rolls of 1 to avoid killing poxwalkers.
What in the living feth happened with this stratagem? For 1 CP, you essentially turn your lowest cannon fodder in to the craziest most stupidest damage dealer in the entire death guard codex, by dealing mortal wounds? for ONE CP?! Who designed this ability! Poxwalkers dont even suffer leadership issues so it doesnt even matter if half of them died to their own hit rolls of 1. and even THEN they still come back from the dead after killing something.
no matter how i look at it i just cant see how this is a fair ability. I could understand if maybe the hit rolls of 6 would then hit with minus -2AP when moving on to the saving phase or something but direct mortal wounds? In the hitting phase? By god at least it could be in the wounding phase but nooo it had to be in the hitting phase where there are MOST rolls. Whats the average amount of 6s you'll get for 40 hits? 10? 7? odds are you can do way worse or the other way around, you can roll exceptionally many Mortal wounds and what ever you send there to tank the dudes or kill the dudes will melt.
It should at least be in the wounding phase and even THEN i would say 2CP. 1CP for 6s in the hitting phase causing direct mortal wounds is so insanely out of this world im not even sure what to say except it looks disgusting. It doesnt at all, fit on such a low ranked cannon fodder unit, as it means no model is ever going to be safe against these fethers when going in to close combat. Lets not forget the dude whos name i forgot, that negates your charges in a 6 inch aura usually hanging around these guys so you cant even destroy them first in CC. Or at least it will be difficult to find that one spot you can stand before piling in outside the 6 inch aura.
If they were given to plague marines id understand it but poxwalkers? Not in a million years. GW must've hit the blunt when making that stratagem.
Maybe im ranting, but ive never jumped to the forums to complain about a stratagem before now. Mutant strain? jesus fething christ, when you pay 1CP you shouldnt get more than D3 or so mortal wounds, thats usually how it works. 1CP never pays for many mortal wounds, then these destroyers of worlds come around and dish out like 8 or more mortal wounds like it was nothing, putting all other factions "mortal wounds" stratagems to shame.
I mean, on average with no rerolls you are getting between 6 and 7 mortal wounds from 20 guys. That’s 3 dead marines.
It’s good but I don’t think it’s this crazy strat you think it is.
You can do that with a couple casts of Smite at range no less.
Pox Walkers are slow and when they’re in combat they can suffer casualties in retaliation. Most of the time a good player will only be in combat with this unit if they want to be there.
JNAProductions wrote: Shoot them before they make it to close combat. They’re not very durable, and are very slow.
It might be overtuned, but this seems pretty over the top a reaction.
Shoot them with what? i play a close combat army. Sure i have ranged weapons but most of those weapons are focused around dealing with heavier units. I find it directly unfair that someone can deal a massive amount of mortal wounds from such a cheap unit.
No other faction simply does that. And then that guy that allows them to hit first in CC meaning i dont even get the first strike to begin with.
There is a 1CP stratagem which lets you reroll all hit rolls for poxwalkers. So, you would reroll everything that isnt a 6 to max out those MWs. Poxwalkers die when you roll an unmodified 1, but thats irrelevant, because for every model poxwalkers kill they get one model back. One poxwalker can, in theory, bring back 2 killed poxwalkers.
Brutus_Apex wrote: I mean, on average with no rerolls you are getting between 6 and 7 mortal wounds from 20 guys. That’s 3 dead marines.
It’s good but I don’t think it’s this crazy strat you think it is.
You can do that with a couple casts of Smite at range no less.
Pox Walkers are slow and when they’re in combat they can suffer casualties in retaliation. Most of the time a good player will only be in combat with this unit if they want to be there.
NO unit does that much smite damage with 1CP, as smite is D3 mortal wounds unless you are lucky and get to deal D6. and even then, you only pay 1CP to reroll.
All these type of strats should probably have a hard cap on the Mortal Wounds you can do (as they did with Wrath of Mars, though a cap of 6 at possibly 1 CP is still strong).
That said, it's not half as broken as the 8th Ed. Death Guard "Grenade"-schtick. That was obnoxious, lol.
There is a 1CP stratagem which lets you reroll all hit rolls for poxwalkers. So, you would reroll everything that isnt a 6 to max out those MWs. Poxwalkers die when you roll an unmodified 1, but thats irrelevant, because for every model poxwalkers kill they get one model back. One poxwalker can, in theory, bring back 2 killed poxwalkers.
THANK YOU. at least someone understands how stupid this is. Ive played around those poxwalkers a couple of times already as i have a few death guard players in my local area, and im not saying i cant deal with it, im not saying i cant win, but im saying, that this stratagem is over powered as F. Because it IS. No 1CP ability should deal THAT much mortal wounds, especially not on such a low ranked unit that can be allowed to strike first by negating charges, from the "gardenhose man" as i call him. Knowing this will happen i DO shoot them when i can.
Seeing a battlewagon or something else toughness 8 just absolutely melting for no god damn reason to trash poxwalkers is close to one of the dumbest things ive ever bore witness to when playing this game. Why is a battlewagon charging in to poxwalkers? Doesnt matter. the point is, Toughness 8 units shouldnt melt to a unit that has strength 3...
There's no way to reroll 1s for poxwalkers. You'll get maybe 6MWs on average, at the cost of around 30pts of poxwalkers and a CP.
Unless those MWs are going into something like Custodes it's not a ridiculously unbalanced trade.
Without the strat poxwalkers are largely doing very little otherwise and the CP drain does bite
Sorry there is a reroll strat that harbingers can use
you complaining about half a dozen mortals is kinda bit over the top when 2 cp double your dakka ammount or 1 cp gain flat +1 to wound stratagems exist.
not saying that ît's not a too good stratagem, or that it is not too strong. Just, there's worse ones out there.
All the mortal wounds inflicted on the Poxwalkers happen after the fight is resolved.
You can't do 40 attacks, take 7 mortals, deal 7 mortals, kill 7 bad guys and grow back to full. Instead, you take the 7 mortals at the end so will always be down models.
There doesn't appear to be a source of re-roll 1s, but Harbingers poxwalkers can re-roll all hits for 1 CP (so you obviously re-roll your 1s~5s and fish for more 6s).
You do need to get all 20 bases into the right range to get all 40 attacks.
But, for 1 CP, an average of 7 mortals but losing 7 poxwalkers is very good as long as you are choosing the right target. 2 CP to boost that to 12 and 12 is also very good.
Without this strat and The Dead Walk Again strat poxwalkers they are probably overpriced at 5pts.
Also, I keep seeing The Dead Walk Again misplayed (roll 7d6 and bring back poxwalkers on 3s). The end of the strat is quite clear that you can only use it on each unit once per battle.
It's a dumb strat, not necessarily because it's overpowered but because it's one of those things your opponent either doesn't care about at all because they have a ranged army, or has no real counter for because they don't. I.e. one of those rock paper scissors promoting mechanics that don't make for fun gameplay on the table.
The DG book is unfortunately full of this sort of stuff. Play a shooting army with predominantly 1D weapons? DG feel gimp, because none of their special stuff does much to you. Play a melee army with predominantly 2D weapons? DG will wipe the floor with you, just because of the power of math.
It's one of the reasons I think it is a sleeper contender for worst designed 9th edition codex. It's certainly more powerful than the DW or SW books that people usually say are the 9th edition duds...but being powerful is different from being well designed. The way they re-did DG to totally stomp certain things while getting totally stomped by other things is not a great way to design a faction.
Not Online!!! wrote: you complaining about half a dozen mortals is kinda bit over the top when 2 cp double your dakka ammount or 1 cp gain flat +1 to wound stratagems exist.
not saying that ît's not a too good stratagem, or that it is not too strong. Just, there's worse ones out there.
really? a +1 damage stratagem is the same as the potential to deal an insane amount of mortal wounds from one of the otherwise weakest units in the codex? You are turning POXWALKERS in to units that can deal with ANYTHING. my +1 damage on a mega nob doesnt make me able to get out of swarm units which i shouldnt be near. Mega Nobs needs to hit high quality units, poxwalkers now dont need to give a damn. Many weak units? Mortal wounds! Toughness 8 monsters like Gorkanauts? Mortal wounds!
More dakka? really is that an ability you consider overpowered on a faction hitting on 5s in general in the shooting phase? There are few units that benefit a lot from getting more dakka. Most of the units benefitting from actually paying 2CP for this stratagem are NOT competitive.
Not Online!!! wrote: you complaining about half a dozen mortals is kinda bit over the top when 2 cp double your dakka ammount or 1 cp gain flat +1 to wound stratagems exist.
not saying that ît's not a too good stratagem, or that it is not too strong. Just, there's worse ones out there.
really? a +1 damage stratagem is the same as the potential to deal an insane amount of mortal wounds from one of the otherwise weakest units in the game? You are turning POXWALKERS in to units that can deal with ANYTHING. my +1 damage on a mega nob doesnt make me able to get out of swarm units which i shouldnt be near. Mega Nobs needs to hit high quality units, poxwalkers now dont need to give a damn.
More dakka? really is that an ability you consider overpowered on a faction hitting on 5s in general? There are few units that benefit a lot from getting more dakka.
You misunderstood, i referenced Votwl and cacophony not the orky strats.
EightFoldPath wrote: All the mortal wounds inflicted on the Poxwalkers happen after the fight is resolved.
You can't do 40 attacks, take 7 mortals, deal 7 mortals, kill 7 bad guys and grow back to full. Instead, you take the 7 mortals at the end so will always be down models.
There doesn't appear to be a source of re-roll 1s, but Harbingers poxwalkers can re-roll all hits for 1 CP (so you obviously re-roll your 1s~5s and fish for more 6s).
You do need to get all 20 bases into the right range to get all 40 attacks.
But, for 1 CP, an average of 7 mortals but losing 7 poxwalkers is very good as long as you are choosing the right target. 2 CP to boost that to 12 and 12 is also very good.
Without this strat and The Dead Walk Again strat poxwalkers they are probably overpriced at 5pts.
Also, I keep seeing The Dead Walk Again misplayed (roll 7d6 and bring back poxwalkers on 3s). The end of the strat is quite clear that you can only use it on each unit once per battle.
you would consider a unit of 5 points over priced when it can hold objectives like a boss by not fleeing from combat? having 2 attacks with strength 3? Try using Grots then. they flee the moment 1 grot dies, they only have strength 2 and i cant even use stratagems on them. 5 points even without Mutant strain isnt bad at all. sure they dont do actions, but they hold the ground well for their price. If grots had the same ability as you did, by even retaining their 1 attack only? id grab 30 grots and charge them at the enemy i wouldnt even blink. Yet you have 2 attacks per model, and no leadership issues at all.
Besides, im not angry that they deal mortal wounds, im mainly angry that they only pay 1CP for it, and that its done in the hitting phase. Im annoyed that the worst and cheapest deathguard unit, is essentially a fething mortal wounds powerhouse that can chew through ANYTHING if they want to. And when coupled with the garden hose man for negating charges?
This unit can deal SO much damage, compared to what you pay for it. Im not even sure how people can sit and defend it like: uh we might lose 7 poxwalkers". yea who gives a gak, you can bring them back again by killing something or by using The dead walk again in the command phase if they survive the round. So the fact someone dies from using mutant strain barely even matters. Sure theres a risk element to it, as you can roll lots of 1s. But you could also roll lots of 6s. ive once taken 14 mortal wounds from this. This happened the first time i had to fight against the new death guard codex. Sure mistakes were made but it doesnt matter.
How you can defend a 5 point model deal MORTAL WOUNDS is just ludacris, especially considered you can bring them back from the dead even if they failed by rolling 1! AND you can hit first with the garden hose man! This is a criminally undercosted stratagem for that utility! it should at least be done in the wounding phase!
This comes off as somebody's first game against Death Guard after playing garage games with start collecting boxes. It seems like you've got no understanding of the rest of the scope of the game.
Poxwalkers are not a damage dealer, even with this stratagem. They are exceptionally slow, and they will never get the chance to initiate a charge unless you let them. They also can't just attack 40 times, they have to actually get models into engagement range. A third to half the squad probably won't be able to attack.
If you're a melee army, just charge them first. You'll attack first, and if you kill most of the squad, then this strat doesn't matter.
If you think this does crazy damage for 1CP, I could point to a dozen other examples that'd blow your socks off. This is extremely tame, and a serious player wouldn't burn a CP on this except in ideal circumstances anyway.
DarkHound wrote: This comes off as somebody's first game against Death Guard after playing garage games with start collecting boxes. It seems like you've got no understanding of the rest of the scope of the game.
Poxwalkers are not a damage dealer, even with this stratagem. They are exceptionally slow, and they will never get the chance to initiate a charge unless you let them. They also can't just attack 40 times, they have to actually get models into engagement range. A third to half the squad probably won't be able to attack.
If you're a melee army, just charge them first. You'll attack first, and if you kill most of the squad, then this strat doesn't matter.
If you think this does crazy damage for 1CP, I could point to a dozen other examples that'd blow your socks off. This is extremely tame, and a serious player wouldn't burn a CP on this except in ideal circumstances anyway.
DO you NOT know what the gardenhose man does? he negates charges and makes YOU hit last. I would barely even care if i could just freely charge in and destroy them. But thats even a lie. No unit should deal 8 mortal wounds for 1CP. they just shouldnt, no matter the situation. It makes them able to deal with even Toughness 8 units which they should have NO right to even deal with.
Sure its a utility stratagem, that doesnt always come in to play. If i shoot them down, thats that. But in those cases where you DO play a close combat faction, maybe khorne, and you lack shooting, then you charge in, and maybe you cant avoid his gardenhose man 6 inch aura? That means you will take those hits in the face, before you can even do anything. You cant even tank those hits with a T8 unit, because they will melt half its hp away as well.
Ive had a couple of games against death guard. as i said, i CAN deal with it, by shooting them its not about that. Its about this being a stupidly OP stratagem on a unit that shouldnt have any ground even hurting toughness 8 models barring wounding on 6s.
There is a 1CP stratagem which lets you reroll all hit rolls for poxwalkers. So, you would reroll everything that isnt a 6 to max out those MWs. Poxwalkers die when you roll an unmodified 1, but thats irrelevant, because for every model poxwalkers kill they get one model back. One poxwalker can, in theory, bring back 2 killed poxwalkers.
THANK YOU. at least someone understands how stupid this is. Ive played around those poxwalkers a couple of times already as i have a few death guard players in my local area, and im not saying i cant deal with it, im not saying i cant win, but im saying, that this stratagem is over powered as F. Because it IS. No 1CP ability should deal THAT much mortal wounds, especially not on such a low ranked unit that can be allowed to strike first by negating charges, from the "gardenhose man" as i call him. Knowing this will happen i DO shoot them when i can.
Seeing a battlewagon or something else toughness 8 just absolutely melting for no god damn reason to trash poxwalkers is close to one of the dumbest things ive ever bore witness to when playing this game. Why is a battlewagon charging in to poxwalkers? Doesnt matter. the point is, Toughness 8 units shouldnt melt to a unit that has strength 3...
Yea, but it isn't really overpowered as F. Deathguard tend to have even less shooting than melee Orks. They have to do damage somewhere.
You're talking about 175 points and 2CP having an overage chance of taking a BW down by 12 out of 16 wounds, which is a base of 135 points.
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Beardedragon wrote: and maybe you cant avoid his gardenhose man 6 inch aura?
Foul Blightspawn and the aura is 3". Plan your movements accordingly.
I'm not sure how 6/7 MWs is 'an insane' amount. That is also best base scenario for the strat and in reality your opponent has to walk into it blind to pull that sort of return off.
The FBS only has a 3" range on his fight last ability and I'm not sure anybody is using him to back up a unit of poxwalkers, much better sat just in front of some deathshroud.
Poxwalkers are great for sitting on an objective and not dying. They can also operate reasonably independently.
This strat is just not strong enough for anybody to build around it to maximise the offensive capability, ie FBS support, running your army as Harbingers and a further CP on the rerolls.
Comparing Poxies to grots is a little disingenuous as orks obviously haven't had the codex power level boost and grots got hit pretty hard at the beginning of 9th.
There is far more broken gak in 40k at the moment...
There is a 1CP stratagem which lets you reroll all hit rolls for poxwalkers. So, you would reroll everything that isnt a 6 to max out those MWs. Poxwalkers die when you roll an unmodified 1, but thats irrelevant, because for every model poxwalkers kill they get one model back. One poxwalker can, in theory, bring back 2 killed poxwalkers.
THANK YOU. at least someone understands how stupid this is. Ive played around those poxwalkers a couple of times already as i have a few death guard players in my local area, and im not saying i cant deal with it, im not saying i cant win, but im saying, that this stratagem is over powered as F. Because it IS. No 1CP ability should deal THAT much mortal wounds, especially not on such a low ranked unit that can be allowed to strike first by negating charges, from the "gardenhose man" as i call him. Knowing this will happen i DO shoot them when i can.
Seeing a battlewagon or something else toughness 8 just absolutely melting for no god damn reason to trash poxwalkers is close to one of the dumbest things ive ever bore witness to when playing this game. Why is a battlewagon charging in to poxwalkers? Doesnt matter. the point is, Toughness 8 units shouldnt melt to a unit that has strength 3...
Yea, but it isn't really overpowered as F. Deathguard tend to have even less shooting than melee Orks. They have to do damage somewhere.
You're talking about 175 points and 2CP having an overage chance of taking a BW down by 12 out of 16 wounds, which is a base of 135 points.
Melee orks tend to advance so they cant use pistols. Most melee ork armies are Ghaz with 90 or so boys with str 5 and 5 Mek gunz. Mek Guns arent meant for Poxwalkers. Death guard isnt winning most tournements by being a trash faction that cant deal damage. They dont NEED poxwalkers to deal 12 mortal wounds for 1CP.
A CP shouldnt be that good on a single unit that it can deal 12 mortal wounds to begin with. If you could deal 12 mortal wounds from a trash unit to a battle wagon? How is that not worth it? retreat the poxwalkers afterwards and let it get shot down.
This isnt a strategy question because there are ways to deal with it. its a question of whether its okay for 1 unit to pay 1 CP to deal 12 or so mortal wounds. I say a massive no. Actually id be semi okay, if it happened in the wounding phase, but not the hitting phase. its stupid, the design is stupid. as someone already pointed out, this stratagem could come in to play, maybe nothing at all if im a shooty faction. OR you could completely face melt me if im using a close combat specialist army. Stratagems shouldnt face melt people like that for 1CP.
It's known to be overtuned. Good news is poxwalkers are very easy to kill.
Stratagems are very unbalanced and don't even try to hide the fact. Some are just better and it is unacceptable. Way she goes - your army probably has an OP stratagem too.
Xenomancers wrote: It's known to be overtuned. Good news is poxwalkers are very easy to kill.
Stratagems are very unbalanced and don't even try to hide the fact. Some are just better and it is unacceptable. Way she goes - your army probably has an OP stratagem too.
sure. Flying headbutt to suicide my burna bomma but at least my unit dies from it. If Mutant strain killed the entire unit i wouldnt care. Most ork stratagems are very situational. We have good stratagems, but none that can deal that much amount of mortal wounds on the go.
He can pay for a relic to get a 6" range, and the aura is slightly different. The relics prevents them from counting as having charged instead.
But yes, you can exactly plan your movement so you're not within 6" of him. The blob of Poxwalkers is 20 models, which takes up a lot of space. Charge it from the side furthest from the Foul Blightspawn and he won't be able to affect you.
Or just don't fight them at all. They've only got a 4" movement. Poxwalkers are just not important compared to other Death Guard units. Play to your own army's strengths and focus on actually winning the mission objectives. Killing stuff is not very important in 9th edition.
You know death guard can take a 60pt biologus and spend a CP on giving him a relic grenade that on average does circa 5MWs, with insane luck it could do 21MWs.
He's character protected and faster than poxwalkers too.
Is that too strong?
DarkHound wrote: He can pay for a relic to get a 6" range, and the aura is slightly different. The relics prevents them from counting as having charged instead.
But yes, you can exactly plan your movement so you're not within 6" of him. The blob of Poxwalkers is 20 models, which takes up a lot of space. Charge it from the side furthest from the Foul Blightspawn and he won't be able to affect you.
Or just don't fight them at all. They've only got a 4" movement. Poxwalkers are just not important compared to other Death Guard units. Play to your own army's strengths and focus on actually winning the mission objectives. Killing stuff is not very important in 9th edition.
you do know that most poxwalkers sit on objective markers right? i NEED to go on the objectives especially if i play Khorne or ghaz Goff Orks. Neither of which have a ton of movement to "flank".
Strategy doesnt matter. Im not here to discuss any of those things. Sure i can just shoot them and it wouldnt matter. But the stratagem is overpowered compared to what you pay for it. It deals potentially too much mortal wounds. there should be a MAX for how many it could deal. the stratagem is badly designed. Strategy was never the discussion because i CAN deal with it. the stratagem remains badly designed still. Thats what i wanted to say.
1CP to deal that much MW is insane. Potentially, should i say, insane.
yukishiro1 wrote: It's a dumb strat, not necessarily because it's overpowered but because it's one of those things your opponent either doesn't care about at all because they have a ranged army, or has no real counter for because they don't. I.e. one of those rock paper scissors promoting mechanics that don't make for fun gameplay on the table.
The DG book is unfortunately full of this sort of stuff. Play a shooting army with predominantly 1D weapons? DG feel gimp, because none of their special stuff does much to you. Play a melee army with predominantly 2D weapons? DG will wipe the floor with you, just because of the power of math.
It's one of the reasons I think it is a sleeper contender for worst designed 9th edition codex. It's certainly more powerful than the DW or SW books that people usually say are the 9th edition duds...but being powerful is different from being well designed. The way they re-did DG to totally stomp certain things while getting totally stomped by other things is not a great way to design a faction.
I think that's an overly simplistic survey of DG. And they don't do well just because they're facing D2 and ignore it.
Beardedragon wrote: Strategy doesnt matter. Im not here to discuss any of those things.
Look man, we're not here to validate your feelings.
You have lots of options for dealing with this stratagem. It isn't actually very good in practice. I'm sorry you got surprised by it. That happens when you're still learning the game.
Beardedragon wrote: A CP shouldnt be that good on a single unit that it can deal 12 mortal wounds to begin with. If you could deal 12 mortal wounds from a trash unit to a battle wagon? How is that not worth it? retreat the poxwalkers afterwards and let it get shot down.
This isnt a strategy question because there are ways to deal with it. its a question of whether its okay for 1 unit to pay 1 CP to deal 12 or so mortal wounds. I say a massive no. Actually id be semi okay, if it happened in the wounding phase, but not the hitting phase. its stupid, the design is stupid. as someone already pointed out, this stratagem could come in to play, maybe nothing at all if im a shooty faction. OR you could completely face melt me if im using a close combat specialist army. Stratagems shouldnt face melt people like that for 1CP.
But it is a strategy question, because to get 40 swings all 20 models need to be in hitting range. This can only happen if you just carelessly plow a BW straight into them. If you instead clip a corner and stay at 0.9" you get your full attacks and they're greatly reduced.
It is also 2CP and an additional 75 point character to get the result outlined here. That means your opponent spent much more than you to wind up not killing a model while also losing 60% of his squad in return.
Daedalus81 wrote: But it is a strategy question, because to get 40 swings all 20 models need to be in hitting range. This can only happen if you just carelessly plow a BW straight into them. If you instead clip a corner and stay at 0.9" you get your full attacks and they're greatly reduced.
This is probably the most generally applicable counter, and it applies to a lot of other situations too. You don't have to push all your models as close as possible to the enemy. You don't even have to move your models in the Pile-In step. You can charge a larger unit with a much smaller one, get your whole unit in engagement range by touching only a couple models, then the opponent will only get a 3" pile-in move to get more in engagement range. It doesn't matter if he fights first if only a few models can actually attack.
In fact, you only pile in when it's your turn to fight. You can charge him with a whole squad of boyz, but only get one boy in engagement range and leave the rest slightly out of range. He'll have to try to pile in toward you and barely get to attack, then when you fight you can pile in the rest of the boyz and krump 'im. If you're playing an assault army, you've got to know these tricks. You can use them against even stronger units, like Terminators, to make them lose half their attacks.
Daedalus81 wrote: But it is a strategy question, because to get 40 swings all 20 models need to be in hitting range. This can only happen if you just carelessly plow a BW straight into them. If you instead clip a corner and stay at 0.9" you get your full attacks and they're greatly reduced.
This is probably the most generally applicable counter, and it applies to a lot of other situations too. You don't have to push all your models as close as possible to the enemy. You don't even have to move your models in the Pile-In step. You can charge a larger unit with a much smaller one, get your whole unit in engagement range by touching only a couple models, then the opponent will only get a 3" pile-in move to get more in engagement range. It doesn't matter if he fights first if only a few models can actually attack.
In fact, you only pile in when it's your turn to fight. You can charge him with a whole squad of boyz, but only get one boy in engagement range and leave the rest slightly out of range. He'll have to try to pile in toward you and barely get to attack, then when you fight you can pile in the rest of the boyz and krump 'im.
if you play a horde faction each model doesnt have a lot of quality attacks on their own. So if you clip the corner, which i do to stay out of the 6inch range thing, i would most likely not have enough models that can reach to kill 20 poxwalkers. That means im guaranteed to be attacked back. It also means, with the gardenhose man + mortal wounds, that im not going to take the point. that one is a bit of a moot point maybe as thats more of a strategy/synegy between the gardenhose man and poxwalkers though.
Regardless, 1CP to deal mortal wounds in the hitting phase is stupid i feel. It should happen in the wounding phase and it would be a lot more fair. I dont even understand why people look at this and says: oh, this is fair, mortal wounds on 6s in the hitting phase when you throw potentially 40 die. Doesnt enough stop and think: hey maybe it would make more sense to be 6s in the wounding phase? To avoid the fact that you can potentially deal an obscene amount of mortal wounds?
I feel like people have lost their minds just because they play around it. Sure you can play around it (some factions have an easier time than others, some are hurt very hard by this), and many factions completely dont care about it. but the stratagem it self is still way better than what it should be. Its potentially just too good i would say for what you pay for, which is the point of my thread. Its also not always possible to clip corners as you know.. movement is a thing and terrain exists in the game. The gardenhose man wouldnt need to cover the rear with his aura just the front and a bit of the sides. Poxwalkers are only on 25mm bases, that doesnt take up a lot of room if you protect an objective.
I feel like people go like: I CAN play around it, so that makes it okay. And maybe thats.. a way to look at it. just because i CAN play around it doesnt mean the stratagem is balanced. I dont feel like it is. I dont feel like its okay for a single unit to be able to do that many Mortal wounds in a hitting phase. Especially not when the garden hose man, who is cheap as hell, can do what he does best. From a "balance between how stratagems works" kind of view, its out of this world, compared to what others get.
Daedalus81 wrote: But it is a strategy question, because to get 40 swings all 20 models need to be in hitting range. This can only happen if you just carelessly plow a BW straight into them. If you instead clip a corner and stay at 0.9" you get your full attacks and they're greatly reduced.
This is probably the most generally applicable counter, and it applies to a lot of other situations too. You don't have to push all your models as close as possible to the enemy. You don't even have to move your models in the Pile-In step. You can charge a larger unit with a much smaller one, get your whole unit in engagement range by touching only a couple models, then the opponent will only get a 3" pile-in move to get more in engagement range. It doesn't matter if he fights first if only a few models can actually attack.
In fact, you only pile in when it's your turn to fight. You can charge him with a whole squad of boyz, but only get one boy in engagement range and leave the rest slightly out of range. He'll have to try to pile in toward you and barely get to attack, then when you fight you can pile in the rest of the boyz and krump 'im.
if you play a horde faction each model doesnt have a lot of quality attacks on their own. So if you clip the corner, which i do to stay out of the 6inch range thing, i would most likely not have enough models that can reach to kill 20 poxwalkers. That means im guaranteed to be attacked back.
Regardless, 1CP to deal mortal wounds in the hitting phase is stupid. It should happen in the wounding phase and it would be a lot more fair. I dont even understand why people look at this and says: oh, this is fair, mortal wounds on 6s in the hitting phase when you throw potentially 40 die. Doesnt enough stop and think: hey maybe it would make more sense to be 6s in the wounding phase? To avoid the fact that you can potentially deal an obscene amount of mortal wounds?
This is insane.
It should just have a max of 3 mortal wounds...like almost every other stratagem of it's kind.
Or like the tyranids one - it should be based on the number of models charging. Not on hit rolls.
It makes no sense to be why some stratagems that deal mortal wounds should cost more or less CP and some have a max limit and some dont...it is just silly and indefensible to have to obvious imbalances.
Daedalus81 wrote: But it is a strategy question, because to get 40 swings all 20 models need to be in hitting range. This can only happen if you just carelessly plow a BW straight into them. If you instead clip a corner and stay at 0.9" you get your full attacks and they're greatly reduced.
This is probably the most generally applicable counter, and it applies to a lot of other situations too. You don't have to push all your models as close as possible to the enemy. You don't even have to move your models in the Pile-In step. You can charge a larger unit with a much smaller one, get your whole unit in engagement range by touching only a couple models, then the opponent will only get a 3" pile-in move to get more in engagement range. It doesn't matter if he fights first if only a few models can actually attack.
In fact, you only pile in when it's your turn to fight. You can charge him with a whole squad of boyz, but only get one boy in engagement range and leave the rest slightly out of range. He'll have to try to pile in toward you and barely get to attack, then when you fight you can pile in the rest of the boyz and krump 'im.
if you play a horde faction each model doesnt have a lot of quality attacks on their own. So if you clip the corner, which i do to stay out of the 6inch range thing, i would most likely not have enough models that can reach to kill 20 poxwalkers. That means im guaranteed to be attacked back.
Regardless, 1CP to deal mortal wounds in the hitting phase is stupid. It should happen in the wounding phase and it would be a lot more fair. I dont even understand why people look at this and says: oh, this is fair, mortal wounds on 6s in the hitting phase when you throw potentially 40 die. Doesnt enough stop and think: hey maybe it would make more sense to be 6s in the wounding phase? To avoid the fact that you can potentially deal an obscene amount of mortal wounds?
This is insane.
It should just have a max of 3 mortal wounds...like almost every other stratagem of it's kind.
Or like the tyranids one - it should be based on the number of models charging. Not on hit rolls.
It makes no sense to be why some stratagems that deal mortal wounds should cost more or less CP and some have a max limit and some dont...it is just silly and indefensible to have to obvious imbalances.
exactly. It should either be maxxed out at a specific number (maybe 5?) or happen in the wounding phase. 1CP is definitely worth 5 mortal wounds. You could say a max of 5 poxwalkers could die then too.
I hope you never play against Mars Mechanicus and someone uses Wrath of Mars. This poxwalker stratagem is childs play compared to others, simply due to how readily applicable the damage output is.
DarkHound wrote: You don't have to push all your models as close as possible to the enemy. You don't even have to move your models in the Pile-In step. You can charge a larger unit with a much smaller one, get your whole unit in engagement range by touching only a couple models, then the opponent will only get a 3" pile-in move to get more in engagement range. It doesn't matter if he fights first if only a few models can actually attack.
In fact, you only pile in when it's your turn to fight. You can charge him with a whole squad of boyz, but only get one boy in engagement range and leave the rest slightly out of range. He'll have to try to pile in toward you and barely get to attack, then when you fight you can pile in the rest of the boyz and krump 'im.
if you play a horde faction each model doesnt have a lot of quality attacks on their own. So if you clip the corner, which i do to stay out of the 6inch range thing, i would most likely not have enough models that can reach to kill 20 poxwalkers. That means im guaranteed to be attacked back. It also means, with the gardenhose man + mortal wounds, that im not going to take the point. that one is a bit of a moot point maybe as thats more of a strategy/synegy between the gardenhose man and poxwalkers though.
No, you misunderstand. You can use the pile-in trick if you're fighting last. Because he will necessarily fight first, he has to make the first pile-in move since 90% of his squad is out of range. Then, when he's closer, and it's your turn to fight, you can pile-in and bring your boyz into engagement range.
The Pile-In and Consolidate rules say you have to end your move closer to the closest enemy model, but it doesn't say you have to move the full 3". You can game this all sorts of different ways to prevent models from getting into engagement range, or to help remove casualties for models that are already in engagement range to mess up the combat.
I feel like people go like: I CAN play around it, so that makes it okay. And maybe thats.. a way to look at it. just because i CAN play around it doesnt mean the stratagem is balanced. I dont feel like it is. I dont feel like its okay for a single unit to be able to do that many Mortal wounds in a hitting phase. Especially not when the garden hose man, who is cheap as hell, can do what he does best. From a "balance between how stratagems works" kind of view, its out of this world, compared to what others get.
The fact that you can play around it is what makes it balanced. It doesn't matter what the ceiling of the effect is, it matters what happens in practice. It's really not even good compared to other 1 CP stratagems. I generally wouldn't spend a CP to do less than an extra 3 wounds anyway. In practice, the Poxwalkers are maybe going to get 10 models in engagement range and that averages 3 mortals. Cool, that's decent.
You want to see an actually strong 1 CP stratagem? AdMech's Wrath of Mars puts out mortals on 6s to wound, but they can use it on good units instead of fodder. It does typically hit the 6 mortals cap for 1 CP.
Thadin wrote: I hope you never play against Mars Mechanicus and someone uses Wrath of Mars. This poxwalker stratagem is childs play compared to others, simply due to how readily applicable the damage output is.
That stratagem was always particularly busted. Funny how basically the exact same stratagem for salamanders was nerfed to max 3 within a month of it's inception. Now several years later the wrath of mars s Finally nerfed but has a max of 6?
I am not saying that all stratagems should be the same. These stratagems ARE the same though - they deal mortal wounds for a unit making an attack. The max should be the same for the same CP expenditure.
It should just have a max of 3 mortal wounds...like almost every other stratagem of it's kind.
Or like the tyranids one - it should be based on the number of models charging. Not on hit rolls.
It makes no sense to be why some stratagems that deal mortal wounds should cost more or less CP and some have a max limit and some dont...it is just silly and indefensible to have to obvious imbalances.
No, because 1) this kills your own models and 2) it can be avoided by limiting the number of models that can reach. With good positioning maybe 8 to 10 pox will reach which averages about 3 MW and kills 3 pox. Avoiding Mephrit Gauss isn't nearly so simple.
It's not as clear cut as "every stratagem should be the same across the entire game." Some factions are better able to utilize certain effects. The game designers can use this to encourage styles of play, offering the effect as a reward. Or they can penalize stratagems with caps to provide only some power, if the effect is easy for a faction to achieve.
The Poxwalkers are an example of this. They're garbage in combat. The effect kills your own models, and is extremely difficult to actually activate effectively. So, there's a reward if you can line up all the circumstances just right. If the effect had a cap of 3, it'd be easy to reach that cap, but it wouldn't change the effect in practice and it would hurt fluffy zombie horde armies that already aren't very good.
It should just have a max of 3 mortal wounds...like almost every other stratagem of it's kind.
Or like the tyranids one - it should be based on the number of models charging. Not on hit rolls.
It makes no sense to be why some stratagems that deal mortal wounds should cost more or less CP and some have a max limit and some dont...it is just silly and indefensible to have to obvious imbalances.
No, because 1) this kills your own models and 2) it can be avoided by limiting the number of models that can reach. With good positioning maybe 8 to 10 pox will reach which averages about 3 MW and kills 3 pox. Avoiding Mephrit Gauss isn't nearly so simple.
Do you get how generous this game is on getting units into CC range? Every model in your unit gets a free 3 inch move after their charge roll and only has to be within an inch of a model within 1 inch of an enemy model. If you are charging - every single model in a 20 man unit should be attacking prodived you didn't roll just the minimum charge distance. In any case it doesn't matter as even with 30 out of 40 attacks you will average more than 3 mortal wounds. True rolls of 1 will deal a mortal to the pox walker but typically a mortal wound is going to remove a model as well (which gives you a pox walker back) and poxy have fnp against the mortal wound automatically (this rule can basically be ignored as a balancing factor as it is an advantage for the pox walkers!).
JNAProductions wrote: Shoot them before they make it to close combat. They’re not very durable, and are very slow.
It might be overtuned, but this seems pretty over the top a reaction.
Shoot them with what? i play a close combat army. Sure i have ranged weapons but most of those weapons are focused around dealing with heavier units. I find it directly unfair that someone can deal a massive amount of mortal wounds from such a cheap unit.
No other faction simply does that. And then that guy that allows them to hit first in CC meaning i dont even get the first strike to begin with.
JNAProductions wrote: Shoot them before they make it to close combat. They’re not very durable, and are very slow.
It might be overtuned, but this seems pretty over the top a reaction.
Shoot them with what? i play a close combat army. Sure i have ranged weapons but most of those weapons are focused around dealing with heavier units. I find it directly unfair that someone can deal a massive amount of mortal wounds from such a cheap unit.
No other faction simply does that. And then that guy that allows them to hit first in CC meaning i dont even get the first strike to begin with.
fulgurite electro priests do it with no CP needed
I think this is assumed in the point cost of their models?
It should just have a max of 3 mortal wounds...like almost every other stratagem of it's kind.
Or like the tyranids one - it should be based on the number of models charging. Not on hit rolls.
It makes no sense to be why some stratagems that deal mortal wounds should cost more or less CP and some have a max limit and some dont...it is just silly and indefensible to have to obvious imbalances.
No, because 1) this kills your own models and 2) it can be avoided by limiting the number of models that can reach. With good positioning maybe 8 to 10 pox will reach which averages about 3 MW and kills 3 pox. Avoiding Mephrit Gauss isn't nearly so simple.
Do you get how generous this game is on getting units into CC range? Every model in your unit gets a free 3 inch move after their charge roll and only has to be within an inch of a model within 1 inch of an enemy model. If you are charging - every single model in a 20 man unit should be attacking prodived you didn't roll just the minimum charge distance. In any case it doesn't matter as even with 30 out of 40 attacks you will average more than 3 mortal wounds. True rolls of 1 will deal a mortal to the pox walker but typically a mortal wound is going to remove a model as well (which gives you a pox walker back) and poxy have fnp against the mortal wound automatically (this rule can basically be ignored as a balancing factor as it is an advantage for the pox walkers!).
Please re-read the rules for the relevant models and stratagems.
Because the mortal wounds are not allocated until the Poxwalker's Fight has resolved, they cannot get pox walkers back from the mortal wounds caused.
DarkHound wrote: It's not as clear cut as "every stratagem should be the same across the entire game." Some factions are better able to utilize certain effects. The game designers can use this to encourage styles of play, offering the effect as a reward. Or they can penalize stratagems with caps to provide only some power, if the effect is easy for a faction to achieve.
The Poxwalkers are an example of this. They're garbage in combat. The effect kills your own models, and is extremely difficult to actually activate effectively. So, there's a reward if you can line up all the circumstances just right. If the effect had a cap of 3, it'd be easy to reach that cap, but it wouldn't change the effect in practice and it would hurt fluffy zombie horde armies that already aren't very good.
Poxwalkers are a garbage unit. Their job is to take up space and they do that really well. They don't pay any kind of points to be good in combat. This stratagem however turns them into one of the most powerful units in the game in certain situations. Mortal wounds are kinda good...you know?
The average number of 6's for 40 rolls is 6.66, not 10 or 12 or so.
And again as has been said, thats IF they are at full strength, don't lose anyone to overwatch, can all make it into combat, etc.
Don't believe me? Go here https://www.wizards.com/dnd/dice/dice.htm and keep rolling 40d6 until you get 12 or more 6's. And every mouseclick represents your once per game turn use of the strat where all the stars have aligned as above. I think you are heavily overestimating its effectiveness.
It should just have a max of 3 mortal wounds...like almost every other stratagem of it's kind.
Or like the tyranids one - it should be based on the number of models charging. Not on hit rolls.
It makes no sense to be why some stratagems that deal mortal wounds should cost more or less CP and some have a max limit and some dont...it is just silly and indefensible to have to obvious imbalances.
No, because 1) this kills your own models and 2) it can be avoided by limiting the number of models that can reach. With good positioning maybe 8 to 10 pox will reach which averages about 3 MW and kills 3 pox. Avoiding Mephrit Gauss isn't nearly so simple.
Do you get how generous this game is on getting units into CC range? Every model in your unit gets a free 3 inch move after their charge roll and only has to be within an inch of a model within 1 inch of an enemy model. If you are charging - every single model in a 20 man unit should be attacking prodived you didn't roll just the minimum charge distance. In any case it doesn't matter as even with 30 out of 40 attacks you will average more than 3 mortal wounds. True rolls of 1 will deal a mortal to the pox walker but typically a mortal wound is going to remove a model as well (which gives you a pox walker back) and poxy have fnp against the mortal wound automatically (this rule can basically be ignored as a balancing factor as it is an advantage for the pox walkers!).
Please re-read the rules for the relevant models and stratagems.
Because the mortal wounds are not allocated until the Poxwalker's Fight has resolved, they cannot get pox walkers back from the mortal wounds caused.
This would only matter if they were starting as a 20 man unit which will almost never be the case and they still get a 6+ FNP for it. Advantage pox walkers.
Xenomancers wrote: Do you get how generous this game is on getting units into CC range? Every model in your unit gets a free 3 inch move after their charge roll and only has to be within an inch of a model within 1 inch of an enemy model. If you are charging - every single model in a 20 man unit should be attacking prodived you didn't roll just the minimum charge distance. In any case it doesn't matter as even with 30 out of 40 attacks you will average more than 3 mortal wounds. True rolls of 1 will deal a mortal to the pox walker but typically a mortal wound is going to remove a model as well (which gives you a pox walker back) and poxy have fnp against the mortal wound automatically (this rule can basically be ignored as a balancing factor as it is an advantage for the pox walkers!).
In no competitive reality are poxwalkers doing the charging. They move 4". It takes them two turns of running just to reach some objectives. They have no advance and charge. They also need to be within 0.5" of a model that is within 0.5". If your front line model is 0.6" away he isn't getting you a second rank.
DarkHound wrote: It's not as clear cut as "every stratagem should be the same across the entire game." Some factions are better able to utilize certain effects. The game designers can use this to encourage styles of play, offering the effect as a reward.
If the effect had a cap of 3, it'd be easy to reach that cap, but it wouldn't change the effect in practice and it would hurt fluffy zombie horde armies that already aren't very good.
Poxwalkers are a garbage unit. Their job is to take up space and they do that really well. They don't pay any kind of points to be good in combat. This stratagem however turns them into one of the most powerful units in the game in certain situations. Mortal wounds are kinda good...you know?
Sure, but it's a reward for Typhus zombie horde armies. That's an army style that's famous in the lore, and the designers want that style to be represented on the tabletop. The Poxwalkers don't pay extra points because that would make them worse for other factions. The stratagem is just good enough to make that play style interesting, but it's clearly worse than other factions. That is good for the game; people who like the lore can play out armies in that style. I wish every lore faction had similar representation.
in a game of WHO IS THE MOST USELESS UNIT, GROTS OR POXWALKERS?!
Its not poxwalkers winning that race, of uselessness. its the Grots. Id gladly trade away my pistol shot for that. If i could get "ressurrection" for grots like poxwalkers has, (both ability and the stratagem) and a stratagem to deal mortal wounds on hit rolls of 6, id never complain about grots being 5 points per model, even though their leadership is 4, and their strength is 2.
Yet Poxwalkers have a ton of stratagems and otherwise things to benefit them. At least they dont run away to morale.
Do Grots make up for it by being able to do actions? not really.
But to get back at the thread, they really should deal mortal wounds in the wounding phase. Someone really smoked a pipe when thinking it made sense to do in the hitting phase.
Orks don't have their codex yet so that argument is moot.
I believe grots can do actions too which is not insignificant in an edition where people are taking servitors with no obsec to do the same
DarkHound wrote: It's not as clear cut as "every stratagem should be the same across the entire game." Some factions are better able to utilize certain effects. The game designers can use this to encourage styles of play, offering the effect as a reward.
If the effect had a cap of 3, it'd be easy to reach that cap, but it wouldn't change the effect in practice and it would hurt fluffy zombie horde armies that already aren't very good.
Poxwalkers are a garbage unit. Their job is to take up space and they do that really well. They don't pay any kind of points to be good in combat. This stratagem however turns them into one of the most powerful units in the game in certain situations. Mortal wounds are kinda good...you know?
Sure, but it's a reward for Typhus zombie horde armies. That's an army style that's famous in the lore, and the designers want that style to be represented on the tabletop. The Poxwalkers don't pay extra points because that would make them worse for other factions. The stratagem is just good enough to make that play style interesting, but it's clearly worse than other factions. That is good for the game; people who like the lore can play out armies in that style. I wish every lore faction had similar representation.
I think it is cool they have the stratagem.
Scarabs have a 1 cp stratagem that kills a 15 point scarab and does 3 mortal wounds max. Also a cool stratagem. Clearly less effective than the pox walker stratagem though - and technically costs more. That is my issue.
Abaddon303 wrote: Orks don't have their codex yet so that argument is moot.
I believe grots can do actions too which is not insignificant in an edition where people are taking servitors with no obsec to do the same
its insignificant when we can use Kommandos for 45 points to do actions and grots are 50 points.
Abaddon303 wrote: Orks don't have their codex yet so that argument is moot.
I believe grots can do actions too which is not insignificant in an edition where people are taking servitors with no obsec to do the same
Poxwalkers can perform their special action if you take a certain secondary objective which why the heck wouldn't you?
DarkHound wrote: It's not as clear cut as "every stratagem should be the same across the entire game." Some factions are better able to utilize certain effects. The game designers can use this to encourage styles of play, offering the effect as a reward.
If the effect had a cap of 3, it'd be easy to reach that cap, but it wouldn't change the effect in practice and it would hurt fluffy zombie horde armies that already aren't very good.
Poxwalkers are a garbage unit. Their job is to take up space and they do that really well. They don't pay any kind of points to be good in combat. This stratagem however turns them into one of the most powerful units in the game in certain situations. Mortal wounds are kinda good...you know?
Sure, but it's a reward for Typhus zombie horde armies. That's an army style that's famous in the lore, and the designers want that style to be represented on the tabletop. The Poxwalkers don't pay extra points because that would make them worse for other factions. The stratagem is just good enough to make that play style interesting, but it's clearly worse than other factions. That is good for the game; people who like the lore can play out armies in that style. I wish every lore faction had similar representation.
I think it is cool they have the stratagem.
Scarabs have a 1 cp stratagem that kills a 15 point scarab and does 3 mortal wounds max. Also a cool stratagem. Clearly less effective than the pox walker stratagem though - and technically costs more. That is my issue.
Yes. the cost versus what you gain from it ratio, is off the scale with that Mutant strain stratagem. There is a massive reward to be reaped from it, and many ways to deal with the negative points (by dying on 1s) if they survive to next round by ressurrecting on killings, and the dead walk again
Abaddon303 wrote: Orks don't have their codex yet so that argument is moot. I believe grots can do actions too which is not insignificant in an edition where people are taking servitors with no obsec to do the same
Poxwalkers can perform their special action if you take a certain secondary objective which why the heck wouldn't you?
Oh right i forgot about that. That just makes them even better. Sure they cant perform other actions, but ive never seen a death guard player having a hard time doing actions (that makes sense for death guard to do). they usually just take 2 units of bare bone plague marines to do that.
Poxwalkers are not useless, they are good units for what they do. insane if they can get mutant strain off. If it was only 6s off wounds, it would be fair, now its not fair.
Beardedragon wrote:in a game of WHO IS THE MOST USELESS UNIT, GROTS OR POXWALKERS?!
Totally besides the point. Grots are overpriced, sure. We knew that when the 9th edition points rolled around. They should cost 3 points. However, they have certain advantages, such as Grot Shields. You can fix their morale with either your Warboss or a Runtherd. And they do hit on 3s for shooting. There are ways to make Grots useful.
DarkHound wrote: Sure, but it's a reward for Typhus zombie horde armies. That's an army style that's famous in the lore, and the designers want that style to be represented on the tabletop. The Poxwalkers don't pay extra points because that would make them worse for other factions. The stratagem is just good enough to make that play style interesting, but it's clearly worse than other factions. That is good for the game; people who like the lore can play out armies in that style. I wish every lore faction had similar representation.
I think it is cool they have the stratagem.
Scarabs have a 1 cp stratagem that kills a 15 point scarab and does 3 mortal wounds max. Also a cool stratagem. Clearly less effective than the pox walker stratagem though - and technically costs more. That is my issue.
That just comes down to the fact that the designers want a zombie horde army to exist, but they don't want a scarab horde army to exist. Still, that's really splitting hairs.
I give up, i really wouldn't worry about it, I very rarely use Mutant Strain, there are better things to spend CP on. It's cute if it comes up.
If this is the most broken thing in 40K you've come across you are very fortunate...
Abaddon303 wrote: I give up, i really wouldn't worry about it, I very rarely use Mutant Strain, there are better things to spend CP on. It's cute if it comes up.
If this is the most broken thing in 40K you've come across you are very fortunate...
Nah - probably between 4-6 mortal wounds for 1 cp is about the best use of CP you can do.
The way I deal with it is I use my Rapid fire stratagem on intercessors and kill the pox walkers before they get a chance to use it. My OP stratagem is better than yours.
Think this is bad? The recent update to AoS zombies made them do a MW on a 6 to hit all. The. Time.
You know, mortal wounds that are caused by the likes of magical lightning, weapons burning with the heat of the sun, spirits reaching through corporeal matter to stop your heart. And zombies! Dragging people down!
It makes me think there is some strange concept about zombie effectiveness that has gone around GW.
1CP should translate to 1-2 mortal wounds on average. More than that and it might be busted, even if it is a niche Stratagem that only comes up 1/100 games, that one game where you deal 9 mortal wounds for 3CP because your opponent arrived as reinforcements within 12" of your flamer unit and on a lower vertical level on the table will give the opponent a bad experience. Downsides such as taking damage or losing mobility goes a way towards helping to pay for a greater effect. 20 pts is roughly equal in value to 1CP.
Poxwalkers are not core, the Stratagem is meant to deal as many mortal wounds to the Poxwalkers as the target. But that is still only 15 pts and 1CP for 3 mortals or 30 pts and 1CP for 6 mortals. Spore Mines pay 10 points for 1 mortal wound. A 15 point Scarab Swarm can suicide for 1CP to deal roughly 2 mortal wounds.
Other overpowered Stratagems existing does not make this Stratagem less overpowered, double shoot and double fight Stratagems are OP, especially when combined with other Stratagems and effects like re-roll hits of 1, +1 to hit and +1 to wound, extra hits on 5s and ignore hit penalties. If everyone had access to the same Stratagems I could see it being fair, if you could expect every list with a glass cannon to have shoot/fight twice and no other Stratagems to combine it with, then it would probably be fine. But access to Cacophony makes or breaks a lot of CSM units. Although I do like Stratagems as a Mark reward as opposed to stats, it's just too aggressively costed and shouldn't work with VotLW.
DarkHound wrote: If the effect had a cap of 3, it'd be easy to reach that cap, but it wouldn't change the effect in practice and it would hurt fluffy zombie horde armies that already aren't very good.
In what way would it not change the effect in practice? If practice is 36 attacks, then that is half the amount of mortal wounds inflicted to the target, that's a massive change. The re-roll Stratagem would still somewhat neat because you get to avoid suffering most of the mortal wounds yourself if you just re-roll 1s.
Your claim that they're just fluffy zombies is out of touch with competitive Death Guard lists, they are everywhere. So "fluffy zombie horde armies" don't need a sudden 1CP 6 mortal wound damage swing and they'd be totally fine if it was just 3 mortal wounds going out and coming in from the Stratagem. Yes, it'd be niche, that's what Stratagems are supposed to be. Allow units to perform extraordinary feats in rare circumstances. If it's something you do all the time then your Stratagem selection is broken. Nobody ever uses the Chaos Boon table because it is weak for its cost and because there are some nobrainer Stratagems to use CP on instead. I would like to see a Chaos Boon once in a while, if GW are going to write dozens of Stratagems for everyone it should at least amount to some flavour and not just pumping out absurd amounts of damage via combos are undercosted mortal wound explosions.
Beardedragon wrote:in a game of WHO IS THE MOST USELESS UNIT, GROTS OR POXWALKERS?!
Totally besides the point. Grots are overpriced, sure. We knew that when the 9th edition points rolled around. They should cost 3 points. However, they have certain advantages, such as Grot Shields. You can fix their morale with either your Warboss or a Runtherd. And they do hit on 3s for shooting. There are ways to make Grots useful.
DarkHound wrote: Sure, but it's a reward for Typhus zombie horde armies. That's an army style that's famous in the lore, and the designers want that style to be represented on the tabletop. The Poxwalkers don't pay extra points because that would make them worse for other factions. The stratagem is just good enough to make that play style interesting, but it's clearly worse than other factions. That is good for the game; people who like the lore can play out armies in that style. I wish every lore faction had similar representation.
I think it is cool they have the stratagem.
Scarabs have a 1 cp stratagem that kills a 15 point scarab and does 3 mortal wounds max. Also a cool stratagem. Clearly less effective than the pox walker stratagem though - and technically costs more. That is my issue.
That just comes down to the fact that the designers want a zombie horde army to exist, but they don't want a scarab horde army to exist. Still, that's really splitting hairs.
they have a ballistic skill of 4 not 3.
A runtherd almost cost as much as an entire unit of grots, literally no one uses them, they suck.
I just don't see it as OP. Competitive lists aren't taking multiple 20 man units of poxies. Even if you do, you're still very unlikely to get a full 20 man unit in to combat and in such a way that they can all fight.
A 100pt unit sacrificing 30pts of models and 1CP to do maybe 6MWs and largely nothing else without further CP expenditure doesn't seem that insane to me.
I'm struggling to find a comparison but a 95pt malignant plaguecaster can chuck out a smite, and plague wind/curse of the leper every turn and comfortably dish out 6 MWs at 12" range.
He's also character protected so arguably more durable, it doesn't cost a CP every turn or kill your own models and his damage output doesn't deteriorate throughout the game...
Abaddon303 wrote: I just don't see it as OP. Competitive lists aren't taking multiple 20 man units of poxies. Even if you do, you're still very unlikely to get a full 20 man unit in to combat and in such a way that they can all fight.
A 100pt unit sacrificing 30pts of models and 1CP to do maybe 6MWs and largely nothing else without further CP expenditure doesn't seem that insane to me.
I'm struggling to find a comparison but a 95pt malignant plaguecaster can chuck out a smite, and plague wind/curse of the leper every turn and comfortably dish out 6 MWs at 12" range.
He's also character protected so arguably more durable, it doesn't cost a CP every turn or kill your own models and his damage output doesn't deteriorate throughout the game...
but its not a stratagem, thats what he does. Hes a psyker and i can deny his casting.
We cant compare non stratagems to stratagems. Mutant Strain has the possibility to deal way too much damage. Even 10 poxwalkers is 20 hits. How many 6s do you think you're gonna average on 20 hits? More than what that 1 CP is worth. 1CP often translates to 3 mortal wounds, and with 20 hits? Id says thats within the realms of possibility. hell even 4 or 5 wouldnt be too too much to ask for.
Because of this you cant even grab an invul save character and throw him in to poxwalkers because they will potentially melt him. They should only deal MW in the wounding phase. I dont understand why people defend this ability even if they dont use it often.
"others have OP stuff too" yes, but that doesnt mean yours is any less OP or unbalanced. It doesnt have to come up often, as the guy above me said, it just needs to happen once that they deal 12 mortal wounds for 1 CP and we'll have a problem. Even if you killed 1 poxwalker for each MW you made, it would still be worth it considering their price of 5 points with ressurrection capabilities.
Abaddon303 wrote: I just don't see it as OP. Competitive lists aren't taking multiple 20 man units of poxies. Even if you do, you're still very unlikely to get a full 20 man unit in to combat and in such a way that they can all fight.
A 100pt unit sacrificing 30pts of models and 1CP to do maybe 6MWs and largely nothing else without further CP expenditure doesn't seem that insane to me.
I'm struggling to find a comparison but a 95pt malignant plaguecaster can chuck out a smite, and plague wind/curse of the leper every turn and comfortably dish out 6 MWs at 12" range.
He's also character protected so arguably more durable, it doesn't cost a CP every turn or kill your own models and his damage output doesn't deteriorate throughout the game...
Smite can be denied and it can roll a 1 even on a super smite. When you are rolling 40 dice - you expect more close to the average. It's also very possible to vastly exceed the average. For example - the first time this was played against me. A unit of 13 pox walkers did 9 mortal wounds to my unit of warriors...I couldn't believe it. It really isn't that crazy to roll 9 6's on on 26 dice though. Results like that should be expected to happen pretty often.
Abaddon303 wrote: I just don't see it as OP. Competitive lists aren't taking multiple 20 man units of poxies. Even if you do, you're still very unlikely to get a full 20 man unit in to combat and in such a way that they can all fight.
A 100pt unit sacrificing 30pts of models and 1CP to do maybe 6MWs and largely nothing else without further CP expenditure doesn't seem that insane to me.
I'm struggling to find a comparison but a 95pt malignant plaguecaster can chuck out a smite, and plague wind/curse of the leper every turn and comfortably dish out 6 MWs at 12" range.
He's also character protected so arguably more durable, it doesn't cost a CP every turn or kill your own models and his damage output doesn't deteriorate throughout the game...
Smite can be denied and it can roll a 1 even on a super smite. When you are rolling 40 dice - you expect more close to the average. It's also very possible to vastly exceed the average. For example - the first time this was played against me. A unit of 13 pox walkers did 9 mortal wounds to my unit of warriors...I couldn't believe it. It really isn't that crazy to roll 9 6's on on 26 dice though. Results like that should be expected to happen pretty often.
If by "pretty often" you mean "One out of every fifty times" then sure.
Lol, i literally just started reading a Goonhammer article and there's a list in there that took 5x 20 poxwalkers so what do I know?
From 20 attacks you'll average 3 or 4 i guess. You'll also do 3 or 4 MWs to yourself. And it's that sort of output you are looking at in general from Mutant Strain. Yeh it's decent. It's not insane.
Diseased Effluents in the DG codex costs 1CP. You pick a DG character in engagement range, he takes a MW and on a 2+ he does 2D3 mortal wounds to the other unit. That's in the command phase too. He still gets to fight later...
Automatically Appended Next Post: There are probably plenty of anecdotes where somebody's thrown 26 dice and rolled 9 1s too...
Automatically Appended Next Post: I consolidated into a unit of 8 Scions on Tuesday night and they killed 4 berzerkers...
DarkHound wrote:Totally besides the point. Grots are overpriced, sure. We knew that when the 9th edition points rolled around. They should cost 3 points. However, they have certain advantages, such as Grot Shields. You can fix their morale with either your Warboss or a Runtherd. And they do hit on 3s for shooting. There are ways to make Grots useful.
they have a ballistic skill of 4 not 3.
A runtherd almost cost as much as an entire unit of grots, literally no one uses them, they suck.
Do you even know what Orks play?
They get +1 to hit when there are 20+ models in the unit. Yes, grots are overpriced. That's what I said. And it's totally tangential to the supposed issue of Poxwalkers. Grots serve an entirely different role, and can function as ablative wounds for units like Lootas and Tankbustas. They are not directly comparable to Poxwalkers just because they cost the same.
Abaddon303 wrote: I just don't see it as OP. Competitive lists aren't taking multiple 20 man units of poxies. Even if you do, you're still very unlikely to get a full 20 man unit in to combat and in such a way that they can all fight.
A 100pt unit sacrificing 30pts of models and 1CP to do maybe 6MWs and largely nothing else without further CP expenditure doesn't seem that insane to me.
I'm struggling to find a comparison but a 95pt malignant plaguecaster can chuck out a smite, and plague wind/curse of the leper every turn and comfortably dish out 6 MWs at 12" range.
He's also character protected so arguably more durable, it doesn't cost a CP every turn or kill your own models and his damage output doesn't deteriorate throughout the game...
Smite can be denied and it can roll a 1 even on a super smite. When you are rolling 40 dice - you expect more close to the average. It's also very possible to vastly exceed the average. For example - the first time this was played against me. A unit of 13 pox walkers did 9 mortal wounds to my unit of warriors...I couldn't believe it. It really isn't that crazy to roll 9 6's on on 26 dice though. Results like that should be expected to happen pretty often.
If by "pretty often" you mean "One out of every fifty times" then sure.
You ever count the number of times you roll dice in a game? Typically a 2k army will have 10-15 units - in a 5 turn game. with each unit typical rolling for some kind of action at lest once a turn. So you'll have a crazy result on at least 1 of those rolls - probably more though. Having rolled so many dice in my life now I have realized anything that can happen will happen and that should be expected.
Abaddon303 wrote: I just don't see it as OP. Competitive lists aren't taking multiple 20 man units of poxies. Even if you do, you're still very unlikely to get a full 20 man unit in to combat and in such a way that they can all fight.
A 100pt unit sacrificing 30pts of models and 1CP to do maybe 6MWs and largely nothing else without further CP expenditure doesn't seem that insane to me.
I'm struggling to find a comparison but a 95pt malignant plaguecaster can chuck out a smite, and plague wind/curse of the leper every turn and comfortably dish out 6 MWs at 12" range.
He's also character protected so arguably more durable, it doesn't cost a CP every turn or kill your own models and his damage output doesn't deteriorate throughout the game...
Smite can be denied and it can roll a 1 even on a super smite. When you are rolling 40 dice - you expect more close to the average. It's also very possible to vastly exceed the average. For example - the first time this was played against me. A unit of 13 pox walkers did 9 mortal wounds to my unit of warriors...I couldn't believe it. It really isn't that crazy to roll 9 6's on on 26 dice though. Results like that should be expected to happen pretty often.
If by "pretty often" you mean "One out of every fifty times" then sure.
You ever count the number of times you roll dice in a game? Typically a 2k army will have 10-15 units - in a 5 turn game. with each unit typical rolling for some kind of action at lest once a turn. So you'll have a crazy result on at least 1 of those rolls - probably more though. Having rolled so many dice in my life now I have realized anything that can happen will happen and that should be expected.
Right... But the Strat is used in the Fight Phase. Once per turn. SOME dice will be screwy, but it could just as easily be "Well darn, I lost 9 Poxwalkers and did 1 MW to you" rather than "Sweet, I did 9 MW and only lost one Poxwalker".
But, if you use it every single turn (both your turn and your opponent's turn) with that squad of 13, from turn one, you'd expect to see nine MW dealt about once every five games.
I mean, if we're going off anecdote, I had a squad of Plague Drones with one guy left (four wounds) take 10 damage from some Lootas. He survived with two wounds left-so clearly, Disgustingly Resilient is bonkers OP!
Same game, I had a Daemon Prince of Nurgle take nine wounds from a Deff Dread-and die. Clearly, DR is basically pointless.
I.... What? Is this really an issue for people? It feels like this is the Austin Powers Steamroller scene. My regular sparring opponent is a DG playe. I've been struck hard by Mutant strain once, and it was when I was unaware of the strat.
Like really? I generally try to not to got the argument about player skill, but feth. It's a unit that moves 4", cannot advance and charge and is squishy to small arms fire (either having only a 6+++ or a 6+/6+++ in cover)
Light Anti-infantry shooting is a counter, active charging is a counter, proper positioning is a counter, meatshielding is a counter. There are several things that any player can do to mitigate poxxies with any practically constructed army. Compare that to say Wrath of Mars, which is far more difficult to mitigate, but maxed at 6 wounds - which is equivalent to the average of a perfect mutant strain strike (Full 20 models all in engagement range).
I mean, it's probably a healthy rules change to do to put a 6MW limit on it, but that's nothing to do with the current viability itself - but more the fact that all MW causing strats should have a hard limit to prevent future rule changes from causing an issue.
As someone who plays a ton of poxmongers using this stratagem and the plague company that allows me to reroll hits I can say for sure that this is not overpowered.
Poxmongers are easy to kill and if you are having problems with them and this stratagem you are most likely not playing your best game to begin with. I have played against a varied roster of armies and most are able to counteract any poxwalkers. I basically consider it a bonus if I get to do some damage using this and there have been entire game where I haven't been able to use this combo(mortal wound and reroll) because the opponent just knew how to play around this.
So it does feel like you played a game where your opponent got you in a "gotcha!" moment. I know it sucks, but now that you know of the capabilities of the poxwalkers you can play around it.
Eldarsif wrote: As someone who plays a ton of poxmongers using this stratagem and the plague company that allows me to reroll hits I can say for sure that this is not overpowered.
Poxmongers are easy to kill and if you are having problems with them and this stratagem you are most likely not playing your best game to begin with. I have played against a varied roster of armies and most are able to counteract any poxwalkers. I basically consider it a bonus if I get to do some damage using this and there have been entire game where I haven't been able to use this combo(mortal wound and reroll) because the opponent just knew how to play around this.
So it does feel like you played a game where your opponent got you in a "gotcha!" moment. I know it sucks, but now that you know of the capabilities of the poxwalkers you can play around it.
what? by that standard you might as well give them a 1cp nuke attack that annihilates anything they touch in close combat, because they are "difficult to get in to combat". you know, except for the fact that they tend to sit on objectives. they dont NEED to move away from them. they dont NEED speed.
Them being able to deal mortal wounds isnt the problem, them dealing mortal wounds in the hitting phase is. No other unit does that for 1CP. you could deal anything from 3 mortal wounds to 25 mortal wounds in a crazy day with 40 rolls. who knows. The damage potential is just too high. Thats why it should be shaved off and be more normalized by being 6s in the wounding phase. at least that wouldnt produce crazy amounts of hits.
A stratagem doesnt have to be a massive problem, to be too god for what its meant to do. Its too good for 1 CP. it doesnt have to be game breaking just because you can play around it, but its still too good for what it does. no unit of 5 point models should deal 8 mortal wounds for 1 CP. Couple this with the gardenhose man and camp on a victory point and close combat armies with little shooting is going to have at least some issues.
Are you telling me its important that Poxwalkers, whos job is to screen out and hold objectives by not suffering morale and can ressurrect and all, needs to be ABLE to deal many mortal wounds? Is their damage so low that this was important? Was the ability to deal mortal wounds on 6s in the hitting phase when you can potentially throw 40 die, a sorely needed thing for a 5 ppm unit? no it wasnt. They were never designed to be hardcore hitters, even as a last ditch effort, but this makes them exactly that.
At least by doing 6s in the wounding phase you put a somewhat cap on the maximum mortal wounds they can deal.
evil_kiwi_60 wrote: The stratagem is so powerful it can be countered by adequately screening a unit.
the stratagem is powerful compared to what one CP is meant to be the equivilent of. And based around THAT, and what you're meant to get from one CP, the damage potential is too high.
Are you an idiot if you charge in to poxwalkers with a gardenhose man making the poxies hit first? of course you are as you are not meant to do that but thats beside the point. The damage potential is too high for this one stratagem. It should be done in the wounding phase.
Giving Poxwalkers a small chance to hit hard is alright and with all the other stratagems you sometimes don't even have the CP for this particular stratagem - especially late game as it takes them time to get anywhere and you've already spent CP on other more important things. Also alright to do it on a hit roll. I don't know every stat for 40k units, but there are a few units in AoS that do the same without using a CP and without the outrage. At some point you just have to admit that you got played, it pissed you off, and now you are trying to get everybody to validate your tantrum.
If you can't deal with poxwalkers easily then you are either playing a very low tier army or badly - maybe both.
what? by that standard you might as well give them a 1cp nuke attack that annihilates anything they touch in close combat, because they are "difficult to get in to combat". you know, except for the fact that they tend to sit on objectives. they dont NEED to move away from them. they dont NEED speed.
Just shoot them before charging them? Even Boyz will probably kill 5 poxwalkers with their sluggas. That's cut their MW output by a quarter.
As soon as they drop to around 10 models it becomes far less efficient to drop a CP on the strat, especially if you are trying to keep your obsec guys on the objective. I have had a lot of situations where I would rather my poxwalkers didn't do much damage because I cared more about keeping them alive.
You can only use the resurrection strat once per squad, and them turning other models to poxwalkers isn't so easy in a game dominated by elite units. Along with them dying to a stiff breeze, attrition is real with them. This is massively exacerbated if you've picked Spread the Sickness so you're losing D3 each turn and needing to keep at least a unit alive until turn 4 in order to score well on that secondary.
It really is as simple as not charging headlong into a full unit of 20, whittle them down first or at least weigh up whether taking that objective is worth the 5/6 MWs you're gonna take in the process. It's a question your opponent is asking you, in the same way you are asking them if it's worth the 1CP and the dead poxwalkers when he only has 10 poxwalkers left stood on that objective.
There are a lot of things in 40k that are incredibly powerful but can be played around, that's what keeps the spike damage balanced. Look at the hand wringing when people first saw the Nightbringer's datasheet. People understand what he does now and play around him. Same with Mortarion to some extent.
It's funny that this stratagem is the one you want to focus on, and not Deathshroud Terminators with a Biologis Putrifier doing the same thing without costing any CP while being a much more difficult to kill unit, not being locked behind a weak plague company and having more frightening melee in general outside of the MW's.
If literally everyone, even non-DG players, is disagreeing with you maybe you need to actually reconsider your opinion and way of looking at and playing the game.
Giving Poxwalkers a small chance to hit hard is alright and with all the other stratagems you sometimes don't even have the CP for this particular stratagem - especially late game as it takes them time to get anywhere and you've already spent CP on other more important things. Also alright to do it on a hit roll. I don't know every stat for 40k units, but there are a few units in AoS that do the same without using a CP and without the outrage. At some point you just have to admit that you got played, it pissed you off, and now you are trying to get everybody to validate your tantrum.
If you can't deal with poxwalkers easily then you are either playing a very low tier army or badly - maybe both.
what? by that standard you might as well give them a 1cp nuke attack that annihilates anything they touch in close combat, because they are "difficult to get in to combat". you know, except for the fact that they tend to sit on objectives. they dont NEED to move away from them. they dont NEED speed.
Calm down and stop the hyperbole.
Hit harder? thats the understatement of the year. Hitting hard would giving them, on a roll of 6, a strength value of +2, -2 AP or something like that. They dont "hit harder" by doing 8 mortal wounds which by passes invul saves and gets distributed evenly among the entire unit. If the idea is they are meant to fight back properly, then mortal wounds werent the way, at least not in the hitting phase. The stratagem would be in line with other mortal wounds abilities if it was done in the wounding phase, but the way it is now, its NOT in line with other stratagems. the negative sides of dying on a 1 is more or elss already negated by other stratagems and their own abilities. theres close to zero risk involved in doing this.
The unit doesnt matter, stratagems still need to be somewhat balanced. This stratagem is not balanced. You give too little for how much you can gain. Just because Grots are terrible you would also not give them a 10 mortal wounds grenade for 1 CP but the unit dies afterwards would you? of course you wouldnt. 1CP shouldnt yield 5+ mortal wounds and if it should it shouldnt have a high chance of doing so.
Stating that poxwalkers with this stratagem are able to hit harder is a major understatement as they can blow through ANYTHING with that stratagem.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Abaddon303 wrote: Just shoot them before charging them? Even Boyz will probably kill 5 poxwalkers with their sluggas. That's cut their MW output by a quarter.
As soon as they drop to around 10 models it becomes far less efficient to drop a CP on the strat, especially if you are trying to keep your obsec guys on the objective. I have had a lot of situations where I would rather my poxwalkers didn't do much damage because I cared more about keeping them alive.
You can only use the resurrection strat once per squad, and them turning other models to poxwalkers isn't so easy in a game dominated by elite units. Along with them dying to a stiff breeze, attrition is real with them. This is massively exacerbated if you've picked Spread the Sickness so you're losing D3 each turn and needing to keep at least a unit alive until turn 4 in order to score well on that secondary.
It really is as simple as not charging headlong into a full unit of 20, whittle them down first or at least weigh up whether taking that objective is worth the 5/6 MWs you're gonna take in the process. It's a question your opponent is asking you, in the same way you are asking them if it's worth the 1CP and the dead poxwalkers when he only has 10 poxwalkers left stood on that objective.
There are a lot of things in 40k that are incredibly powerful but can be played around, that's what keeps the spike damage balanced. Look at the hand wringing when people first saw the Nightbringer's datasheet. People understand what he does now and play around him. Same with Mortarion to some extent.
if you run a goff mob you will mainly be advancing your boys. Boyz cant advance and shoot pistols. most ghaz goff lists run mek gunz with smasha profiles. I dont intend to shoot smasha gunz in to poxwalkers. Sure i will attempt to shoot them with my boys if i can reach with my pistols because they are a threat otherwise. Thats not my way of saying it cant be dealt with because as i said, i dont really give a flying feth about the strategies that can be used against it, because the last time i used a goff ghaz army against poxwalkers they didnt end up becoming problem. Its purely about how one stratagem can turn a bottom feeder unit in to a unit that even a custodian player couldnt protect itself against in CC. such power shouldnt be on such a low tier unit.
By the way, 10 poxwalkers can still yield 20 hits. Thats still a decent amount of mortal wounds for 1CP.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Bosskelot wrote: It's funny that this stratagem is the one you want to focus on, and not Deathshroud Terminators with a Biologis Putrifier doing the same thing without costing any CP while being a much more difficult to kill unit, not being locked behind a weak plague company and having more frightening melee in general outside of the MW's.
If literally everyone, even non-DG players, is disagreeing with you maybe you need to actually reconsider your opinion and way of looking at and playing the game.
no. Im allowed to form my own opinion regardless of whether people agree or not. most DG players i meet openly says that while it doesnt come in to play often, the times it do, it IS a powerful stratagem for what you PAY for, versus what you get.
The stratagem is very powerful, but it is also highly situational. Its not a stratagem you can just use in every instance but you know what? thats what stratagems are meant to be. extra things for your army, not abilities that you auto pick. at least most should be that way. I never said this stratagem wins games nor did i say i was losing games because of it. Im pointing out that while its situational, you gain too much out of this stratagem compared to what you lose. Your damage value sky rockets when using this ability compared to what you should be able to do. Its like Grots suddenly hitting with strength 10, it wouldnt make any sense.
Also i dont complain about that combo because its a strong unit that its being used on, in your example at least. I complain about the stratagem because no stratagem should be used on a tiny poxwalker unit, cost 1 CP and allow them to perform miracles for 1 turn by turning T8 vehicles to dust. Percentage wise, the power increase of poxwalkers is increased like 500%.
Bosskelot wrote: It's funny that this stratagem is the one you want to focus on, and not Deathshroud Terminators with a Biologis Putrifier doing the same thing without costing any CP while being a much more difficult to kill unit, not being locked behind a weak plague company and having more frightening melee in general outside of the MW's.
If literally everyone, even non-DG players, is disagreeing with you maybe you need to actually reconsider your opinion and way of looking at and playing the game.
Exactly this, Death Guard have so many ways to chuck out obscene amounts of MWs that this is a weird hill to die on.
As i said early diseased effluents does 2D3 MWs, the plagueskull relic can potentially do 21MWs! (more likely around 5), a plaguecaster with the wretched relic can do 2xD3 MWs on top of his two powers.
Typhus as a harbingers warlord just chucks out mortals for days
Automatically Appended Next Post: I mean, don't advance your Boyz, shoot with their pistols and kill a bunch of poxwalkers then?
If it was changed to 6s to wound then nobody would use it. It would mean even if everything came together and you got to swing with all 20 poxwalkers you would do about 3 MWs. As soon as you lost a few poxwalkers it would just be so rarely worth the CP...
Anyway I'm done, you're clearly to pissed off to change your mind. Write to GW if you really think it should be changed...
Bosskelot wrote: It's funny that this stratagem is the one you want to focus on, and not Deathshroud Terminators with a Biologis Putrifier doing the same thing without costing any CP while being a much more difficult to kill unit, not being locked behind a weak plague company and having more frightening melee in general outside of the MW's.
If literally everyone, even non-DG players, is disagreeing with you maybe you need to actually reconsider your opinion and way of looking at and playing the game.
Exactly this, Death Guard have so many ways to chuck out obscene amounts of MWs that this is a weird hill to die on. As i said early diseased effluents does 2D3 MWs, the plagueskull relic can potentially do 21MWs! (more likely around 5), a plaguecaster with the wretched relic can do 2xD3 MWs on top of his two powers. Typhus as a harbingers warlord just chucks out mortals for days
So im not allowed to focus on one point? i have to focus on them all? Or rather, i cant focus on a specific issue i think makes sense for me to talk about, because something else is a bigger issue to you? it was never about game breaking stratagems, because this is NOT a game breaking stratagem. But you still gain too much power from this stratagem, compared to what you pay, thats why im making the thread.
Its like when someone makes a news article about racism against white people, then people get angry that they didnt also include black people because they are off worse than white people (its an example, i dont know). Some of those abilities are good but they can be denied by psykers, hell they can even blow themselves up in the process. theres risk to doing that. Theres no risk in running in with 20 poxwalkers and using this 1CP stratagem as you will probably gain way more than you lose. Your other stratagems can negate the died poxwalkers and their own abilities and they are super cheap anyway.
You guys think its fine for a unit that can do 40 hits to make mortal wounds on a 6 for 1 silly CP. I cant get it around my head why you think its balanced but i guess everyone has their reason. even if you can work around it because its an easy unit to kill thats just crazy to suggest being a balanced stratagem. This isnt balanced. because something ELSE is also not balanced, doesnt make this more balanced. dont complain about paying 1 CP to deal 3-5 mortal wounds?, most other factions cant EVEN do that. Hell if i pay anything to deal mortal wounds it sure as F isnt more than 3 i can do. Id kill to have my grots do mortal wounds on hits. Hell the rivet kannons on Kustom boosta blastas can deal mortal wounds on wound rolls but i only hit on 5s to begin with. it will never amount to much.
Orks have flying headbutt, which im assuming will be removed by the next codex. Fly in and suicide your plane and deal 3 flat mortal wounds to anything near 6 inches (if you use a burna bomma). thats 1 CP, and its OP as hell, ive chugged out 25 mortal wounds for 1 CP and my 155 point burna bomma. Those crazy mortal wounds stratagems needs to get toned down.
GW sure does love mortals in the last couple codexes. DE has the dumb flyby strat, DG does mortals with literally almost everything, ad mech has like four or five different MW strats, not even counting auto-explode on your vehicles, as well as mortals on 6s on a bunch of stuff too...it goes on and on.
This thread. . . lol. People get worked up about the craziest things that are not a big deal in the slightest.
Space marine lieutenants are the most broken unit in the game! What were they thinking giving a reroll 1s to wound for ZERO CP! OMG that's the equivalent of dozens of Command Reroll stratagems over the course of the game! So broken!
I literally laughed out loud at people taking this OP seriously
Yes. im not a fan of that much mortal wounds, at least not on weak units. Weak units, low tier fodder, isnt meant to go haywire and deal that much MW. Im okay with end units dealing MW though. You pay a lot for them.
of course everything with reason and balance.
People dont agree with me here, which is weird. people mainly tell me themselves they think the stratagem is not balanced properly for how much damage it deals, even before i say anything. I would assume people on the forum would agree, apparently not.
yukishiro1 wrote: GW sure does love mortals in the last couple codexes. DE has the dumb flyby strat, DG does mortals with literally almost everything, ad mech has like four or five different MW strats, not even counting auto-explode on your vehicles, as well as mortals on 6s on a bunch of stuff too...it goes on and on.
Love it or hate it - it is necessary when you have permanent transhuman, cheap models that can catch a 2+ save, and phase limited damage.
It should just have a max of 3 mortal wounds...like almost every other stratagem of it's kind.
Or like the tyranids one - it should be based on the number of models charging. Not on hit rolls.
It makes no sense to be why some stratagems that deal mortal wounds should cost more or less CP and some have a max limit and some dont...it is just silly and indefensible to have to obvious imbalances.
No, because 1) this kills your own models and 2) it can be avoided by limiting the number of models that can reach. With good positioning maybe 8 to 10 pox will reach which averages about 3 MW and kills 3 pox. Avoiding Mephrit Gauss isn't nearly so simple.
Do you get how generous this game is on getting units into CC range? Every model in your unit gets a free 3 inch move after their charge roll and only has to be within an inch of a model within 1 inch of an enemy model. If you are charging - every single model in a 20 man unit should be attacking prodived you didn't roll just the minimum charge distance. In any case it doesn't matter as even with 30 out of 40 attacks you will average more than 3 mortal wounds. True rolls of 1 will deal a mortal to the pox walker but typically a mortal wound is going to remove a model as well (which gives you a pox walker back) and poxy have fnp against the mortal wound automatically (this rule can basically be ignored as a balancing factor as it is an advantage for the pox walkers!).
Please re-read the rules for the relevant models and stratagems.
Because the mortal wounds are not allocated until the Poxwalker's Fight has resolved, they cannot get pox walkers back from the mortal wounds caused.
Hold up, why not? The mortal wounds are resolved after their normal attacks, not after the "Fight has resolved". Enemy models are still being destroyed by their attacks, so they still trigger the Curse.
I've always felt 40k does a good job of managing mortal wounds (and AP) overall, making MW effects appropriately rare & limited while AP has a decent bell curve going. But I am comparing to AoS where that dynamic is one of the larger issues.
I play as DG, and have used poxwalkers with mutant strain whenever I can. In practise, its not so easy to get all 20 poxwalkers into combat. I am not saying its impossible. But quite often, you string out your poxwalkers because you also want them to cover the objective because they are obsec. If the opponent is smart, he won't hit the dead center of your poxwalker line and let you consolidate the whole squad into him. More often than not, he will hit the edges. And if he does, then you definitely won't get all 20 into combat.
Don't get me wrong, its a great strategem, but there are other scarier strategems out there for 1 CP. This one relies on a unit that moves a paltry 4 inches a turn getting into close combat, AND hitting you on 6s. And this is after you charge him and kill off a certain number already.
Actual dedicated melee units may not really be that scared honestly, because on the charge, they will have killed off so many poxwalkers it probably doesn't matter anymore. Like imagine a squad of 10 drukhari wytchs charging into a squad of 20 poxwalkers. How many poxwalkers are gonna be left after the charge and attack?
NinthMusketeer wrote: I've always felt 40k does a good job of managing mortal wounds (and AP) overall, making MW effects appropriately rare & limited while AP has a decent bell curve going. But I am comparing to AoS where that dynamic is one of the larger issues.
I'll agree with that, but only to an extent - they've got a bad habit of making things MW that should at worst just be a gakton of normal attacks (looking squarely at the Marauder Bomber here, the plane that carpet bombs an entire section of battlefield and somehow is only marginally more deadly than a Guardsman squad because GW decided that it could *only* do MW)
Spoiler:
Once per turn, if the bearer has any heavy bombs remaining, it can drop one of them. Immediately after the bearer has moved, you can select one point on the battlefield the bearer moved across this phase. Roll one D6 for each unit within 6" of that point, subtracting 1 if that model is a CHARACTER (excluding VEHICLE and MONSTER units): on a 4-5, that unit suffers D3 mortal wounds; on a 6, that unit suffers D6 mortal wounds. Each heavy bomb can only be dropped once per battle.
Inferno bomb
Once per turn, if the bearer has any inferno bombs remaining, it can drop one of them. Immediately after the bearer has moved, you can select one point on the battlefield the bearer moved across this phase. Roll one D6 for each unit within 9" of that point, subtracting 1 if that unit is a CHARACTER (excluding VEHICLE and MONSTER units): on a 4+, that unit suffers D3 mortal wounds. Each inferno bomb can only be dropped once per battle.
They are like that with psykers/magic as well; there is an arbitrary line where they only deal MWs when there is no reason a power couldn't inflict X wounds with AP Y and damage Z, or even have its own weapon profile.
vict0988 wrote: 1CP should translate to 1-2 mortal wounds on average. More than that and it might be busted
With Behemoth as Tyranids I can do an average of 5MW for the cost of 1CP when I charge with a unit of 30 Hormagaunts.
Most Tyranid players don't bother. And the existing 'D3 MW for 1CP' stratagems are (rightly) dismissed as worthless.
Mortal Wounds are just not that valuable.
So you don't bother dealing 5MW for 1CP on elite units and tanks that you are planning on killing? I think that's a lie, I think you don't bother dealing 0,5MW for 1CP because you only end up with 3 Hormagaunts within 1" before piling in or you are engaged with a unit that needs to be engaged rather than killed or one that pays very little per wound it has. You could say you don't bother making your Havocs Slaanesh because shooting twice isn't really that good and you'd rather spend your CP to get boons of chaos on your Exalted Champions. Tyranids do have a shoot twice Stratagem, perhaps your estimation of proper Stratagem value is just off by an order of magnitude.
Eldenfirefly wrote: Actual dedicated melee units may not really be that scared honestly, because on the charge, they will have killed off so many poxwalkers it probably doesn't matter anymore. Like imagine a squad of 10 drukhari wytchs charging into a squad of 20 poxwalkers. How many poxwalkers are gonna be left after the charge and attack?
OP has explained his issue is something like Meganobz charging into Poxwalkers and when he charges in he gets within range of a Foul Blightspawn so he strikes last. OP thinks he's going to krump some zombies, thinking striking last is no big deal, Poxwalkers pull a CP-efficient MW Stratagem out their backside and kill a couple of Meganobz and that's a sour experience. It's the problem of Stratagems as a whole boiled down to 1 topic about 1 Stratagem. People get lost in more powerful combinations and the counters and lose sight of the bad game design.
You aren't being smart when you deal 6MW to those Meganobz, your opponent is just being stupid. It's not a skill test, it's a memorization test, it's Warhammer School and OP failed the 40k gotcha test and now he feels bad. Can you memorize all 400 Stratagems in the game? Will you think to ask whether every single unit in your opponent's army has a gotcha Stratagem or a double shoot or mortal wound Stratagem? Can you evaluate on the fly what the value is and whether you should even be concerned? With Scarab Swarms it's probably not a concern unless your Mortarion has 2 wounds left, but with a big brick of Poxwalkers it is a concern for any model paying more than 10 points per wound they have.
The only time I played against DG in 9th I happened to shoot his Poxwalker bricks to death, not because I knew about them being good in melee, but because I happened to play an army where it was convenient. I avoided my opponent's Foul Blightspawn aura by staying 3,1" away and won the game. That doesn't change that doing 6 MW for 1-2CP is dumb. I should probably be putting a tesla unit in every army, because if I get into a situation where I can hit 6 units with my tesla MW bomb Stratagem for 3MW once or twice every game then that'd be pretty good way to spend CP in non-hungry lists.
Xenomancers wrote: Do you get how generous this game is on getting units into CC range? Every model in your unit gets a free 3 inch move after their charge roll and only has to be within an inch of a model within 1 inch of an enemy model.
½" of ½", not 1" of 1". I think it was meant to curb the fight in four ranks thing.
To be fair, i had a game yesterday where i charged my battlewagon at them, and they did 8 mortal wounds to it. surprisingly it survived to turn 3 so it wasnt really a problem. But i saw the potential for how much damage this could actually do so it made me write the thread. Its not that it broke my game or anything, and i knew he could do it. Ive had this done to me when i DIDNT know it and it was.. brutal.
I just find it annoying how insanely efficient this stratagem is, at turning the lowest fodder unit in to god himself for 1 CP.
But you are right, none of the strategy aspects matter. its the idea that 1CP dealing 8 mortal wounds and beyond is stupid.
Edit: i wrote "this unit" but i meant this stratagem
There are more and more strike first and strike last stuff coming out with every new codex. Deathguard has it, Space marines have it, Drukhari has it, and the new Admech has it as well.
These days, if you are not aware that potentially a unit can make you strike last, or another has the potential to strike first. You are potentially putting yourself at a huge disadvantage in melee. Just ask before you charge in if they have any strike first or strike last capability.
Eldenfirefly wrote: There are more and more strike first and strike last stuff coming out with every new codex. Deathguard has it, Space marines have it, Drukhari has it, and the new Admech has it as well.
These days, if you are not aware that potentially a unit can make you strike last, or another has the potential to strike first. You are potentially putting yourself at a huge disadvantage in melee. Just ask before you charge in if they have any strike first or strike last capability.
Presumably when going over your army you will say which of your units can make your opponent strike last, but will you say that your unit can do mortal wounds with a Stratagem? I'd never dream of doing that with my Scarabs, it's so rarely relevant and DG players I am sure will want to protect their genius strategy of using a 1CP Stratagem to deal 6 mortal wounds and will want to hide it unless their opponent asks a question that requires them to reveal it (can you deal mortal wounds with any Strats? Can you increase your Poxwalkers' damage output?)
Eldenfirefly wrote: There are more and more strike first and strike last stuff coming out with every new codex. Deathguard has it, Space marines have it, Drukhari has it, and the new Admech has it as well.
These days, if you are not aware that potentially a unit can make you strike last, or another has the potential to strike first. You are potentially putting yourself at a huge disadvantage in melee. Just ask before you charge in if they have any strike first or strike last capability.
Presumably when going over your army you will say which of your units can make your opponent strike last, but will you say that your unit can do mortal wounds with a Stratagem? I'd never dream of doing that with my Scarabs, it's so rarely relevant and DG players I am sure will want to protect their genius strategy of using a 1CP Stratagem to deal 6 mortal wounds anthd will want to hide it unless their opponent asks a question that requires them to reveal it (can you deal mortal wounds with any Strats? Can you increase your Poxwalkers' damage output?)
Every book has strategems that are good. Some are more "gotcha" than others. It depends on how much a coaching game you are playing. Would you like the DG player to litereally go through every single strategem in his book before you start the game?
This just results in a few mortal wounds. "The dead walk again" strategem is far more "gotcha" if you ask me. For 1 cp, bring back potentially up to 7 poxwalkers, and this is done before we count objectives. This strategem alone can easily result in a 10 point swing in primary VP or more at a crucial moment if you grow back poxwalkers onto an objective that your opponent thought you didn't hold. But hey, again, like I said, how much of the DG book do you need the player to go through with you before the game starts?
The newer 9th ed codex are all getting more and more complicated. Look at Drukhari, look at Admech. I bet even some admech players themselves are gonna be new on what gets buffed or doesn't get buffed when you have Skitari, mechanicus, core to worry about. And this is before we even talk about admech strategems. Oh, you didn't think a squad of 20 rangers could rapid fire 80 shots plus mortal wounds you on 6s? Gotcha! Oh, you didn't know ironstriders could advance a full 6 inches and still shoot at full BS? Now I can see your cowering behind obscuring vehicle that you thought was hidden well enough. Gotcha! Oh you didn't know I had a strategem that could make me ignore all AP 1 and AP 2 and you just fire a whole bunch of AP2 shots at me? Gotcha!
How about Drukhari? Oh, you didn't know my one lone master Succubus had a million attacks and could wipe out a whole unit all by herself? Well, now you do! Gotcha! Oh, you didn't know that on turn 2, power from pain allows me to advance and charge, so now literally all of my infantry charging out of my raiders have like a 20+ inch threat range. Gotcha! Oh, you thought you could fall out of combat? Well, sorry, you can't! Gotcha !
Even space marines has some famous ones. Oh, you didn't know about Transhuman? Now you do, and now you failed to kill that unit you thought would surely die. Gotcha! Oh, you didn't know that my master apocathery could heal wound plus resurrect an entire model, including attack bikes? Well, now you do! You just wasted all of your shooting trying to kill one model which I now bring back. Gotcha!
I am sure there are some situational strategems or abilities that seem like Gotcha! in many books.
This is why I hate strategems, and also all the buff stacking, it creates for situations that are just super gakky.
Perhaps my enjoyment is too fragile, but if I get caught by a particularly bad gotcha it can really ruin the whole game for me.
This is why I hate strategems, and also all the buff stacking, it creates for situations that are just super gakky.
Perhaps my enjoyment is too fragile, but if I get caught by a particularly bad gotcha it can really ruin the whole game for me.
My opinions on players who are trying to hide their "gotchas" tend to be a bit scummy. I try to make clear to all my opponents any stratagems/units that might surprise them before a game starts. I just don't feel good about winning an opponent because I blindsided them because they didn't know an enemy codex by hand beforehand.
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no. Im allowed to form my own opinion regardless of whether people agree or not. most DG players i meet openly says that while it doesnt come in to play often, the times it do, it IS a powerful stratagem for what you PAY for, versus what you get.
The stratagem is very powerful, but it is also highly situational. Its not a stratagem you can just use in every instance but you know what? thats what stratagems are meant to be. extra things for your army, not abilities that you auto pick. at least most should be that way.
It's also a swingy as hell stratagem. There have been time where I couldn't afford the hit reroll of harbinger and ended up losing a good portion of my squad with no mortal wound in sight. The stratagem is also only really good if you have a max block of poxwalkers and loses efficacy quickly when the poxwalkers start dropping like flies to incoming fire.
I mean, getting 8 mortal wounds on a single attack is really good dice rolling or your opponent had Harbingers stratagem which turns the entire combo into a 2CP stratagem(1 for mutant strain and 1 for reroll). Also, with the battlewagon charge did you just ram straight into the blob without softening it up and allowing every single poxwalker to get into striking range? That's just a superbly bad play on your part.
It basically sounds like you just refuse to use Ork shooting and want the game to adjust to your playstyle. Also, the Foul Blightspawn has a small range unless he has a relic to help him. You can, like, not charge the middle of the blob and just expect the game to be handed to you.
How many times do i need to repeat what i wrote? its not a strategy question. It doesnt matter if i can deal with it.
Its a balance issue among stratagems of what you get for 1 CP. the damage output from this 1 stratagem, on the lowest cannon fodder unit is too high.
its a stratagem balance issue, not a gameplay issue. I didnt make this thread because i got fethed over by the stratagem. Its not my first time being against a deathguard player, i know what he can do. I made the thread because i recognize that it can deal obscene amounts of mortal wounds for basically no cost, on a trash unit that isnt meant to have the power to obscenely dish out mortal wounds like theres no tomorrow. Most 1CP stratagems deals a max of around 5 or so mortal wounds. that pales in comparison to this potential mortal wounds stratagem.
So stop pretending im making this thread because im salty about it because i lost a game because of this ability, because i didnt. i recognize, that the mortal wounds potential is too high for the 1CP paid.
When someone says: It basically sounds like you just refuse to use Ork shooting and want the game to adjust to your playstyle. Also, the Foul Blightspawn has a small range unless he has a relic to help him. You can, like, not charge the middle of the blob and just expect the game to be handed to you.
You sounds rude and i wanna say that you should learn to read, because ive already explained it wasnt a stratagy related issue, its a balance issue of how many MW you get for 1CP. Im not making an angry rant over how much this stratagem has destroyed my gaming experience nor how it lost me a battle. Not all threads complaining about a stratagem is related to people being unable to play around it. The reason i talk about shooting for some close combat related armies is, that not all close combat related armies have decent shooting capabilities. Like if you played Khorne daemons for instance. It wasnt the first time meeting this unit nor the stratagem, and i werent caught off guard. It also didnt play any major role at all in this battle i just had. I lost the battle but that was due to my own mistakes and failing to deal with mortarion because i forgot i couldnt reroll in close combat proximity to him.
That my battlewagon took 8 mortal wounds didnt matter, so i once again say, that this was never a question about strategy. Its only a balance question related to whether a stratagem dishes out too many MW for its cost.
please, for the love of god, recognize, that im not making a "how to deal with this stratagem" thread. Its not strategy related.
Not Online!!! wrote: Again, there are much better stratagems out there bearded. For the same or only slightly higher cost which have no disadvantage associated with them.
I will agree that it's gakky design, but so is the whole stratagem system.
i whole heartedly agree with you. There are many worse game changing stratagems out there, I simply chose to focus on this one. I feel like it breaks the design of a unit meant to sit on objectives and screen out things, when they can potentially dish out 8 or so mortal wounds. if they wanted it to have a chance to fight back, they could deal MW on 6s in the wounding phase like most other stratagems of this kind, or just deal -AP on their damage +2 strength or something like it for 1CP as well. But bypassing invul saves on a poxwalker is just wrong, in the hitting phase.
Eldenfirefly wrote: Every book has strategems that are good. Some are more "gotcha" than others. It depends on how much a coaching game you are playing. Would you like the DG player to litereally go through every single strategem in his book before you start the game?
No, that's what I'm saying, the way Stratagems are handed out like candy right now is bad game design because nobody is going to want to read every Stratagem, a few might want every Stratagem an army can use and I use curated Stratagem cards for every army to make that available to my opponents, but not everyone wants even the curated list. I can 100% guarantee I'd be able to gotcha the game designers, they didn't even figure out you could use the mortal wounds with flamers and max shots with flamers Stratagems together. So if the game designers can't even keep track of the Stratagems in one supplement they are in the middle of designing how is one player supposed to keep track of all them? 20-30 basic Stratagems, choose 5 for your army to give it flavour, up to 3 specialist detachments with 2 Stratagems each. Now it becomes easy and fast to get up to speed with your opponent's Stratagems. Worst case scenario there are 11 Stratagems and you already know 5 of them because they are basic Stratagems everyone has access to.
This just results in a few mortal wounds.
One, two, a few, many. Many mortal wounds. Where do you get more mortal wounds than 6? Calling it a few is dishonest, if you want it to be a few then we agree. It should be max 3, so at most it deals a few mortal wounds. We also agree that it is rarely going to be more than 3 anyways, so why not just put a cap on it? Every fight and shoot twice Stratagem should go up by a minimum of 1CP for units with a PL of 6+. How do you make Chaos Boons measure up to kill 200 pts worth of stuff for 2CP? Automatic Daemon Prince transformation for no reinforcement points?
I quite liked strategems at the start of 8th.
The ability to push one dice helped mitigate the swingyness of a single d6, be that a flamer roll, a lascannon damage, or whatever. But it was nothing too major.
There were only a few, and everyone had them. So they were easy to track.
The codexes have really ruined it.
Just to even start to get my head around my own faction's strategems I've had to make a sheet of paper with all the ones that apply to the units in my army; 2/3 of the ones in the book apply to units I don't use.
If I can barely keep track of my own niche-use yet highly swingy strategems, how the hell am I supposed to also learn my opponents? Even if they do go through their best strats at the start I guarantee 90% of those are going in one ear and out the other, and/or I won't understand their true power because I don't understand your army.
Vilehydra wrote: I.... What? Is this really an issue for people? It feels like this is the Austin Powers Steamroller scene. My regular sparring opponent is a DG playe. I've been struck hard by Mutant strain once, and it was when I was unaware of the strat.
Like really? I generally try to not to got the argument about player skill, but feth. It's a unit that moves 4", cannot advance and charge and is squishy to small arms fire (either having only a 6+++ or a 6+/6+++ in cover)
Light Anti-infantry shooting is a counter, active charging is a counter, proper positioning is a counter, meatshielding is a counter. There are several things that any player can do to mitigate poxxies with any practically constructed army. Compare that to say Wrath of Mars, which is far more difficult to mitigate, but maxed at 6 wounds - which is equivalent to the average of a perfect mutant strain strike (Full 20 models all in engagement range).
I mean, it's probably a healthy rules change to do to put a 6MW limit on it, but that's nothing to do with the current viability itself - but more the fact that all MW causing strats should have a hard limit to prevent future rule changes from causing an issue.
This, so much. Exploding poxwalkers can easily be played around, and if you take 40 attacks from them YOU made a misplay and are rightfully punished for it. If you brought 0 shooting you don't really have any right to complain about not being able to solve a problem anyways.
I mostly use the stratagem to blow up terminators and similar hard to kill units, and it usually yields 3-5 MW if I'm lucky. My opponent either try to reduce them first, use stratagems to protect themselves or outmaneuver them.
In comparison, a burna bommer dropping a bomb for 5 MW and then hitting 4 units for another 12 MWanywhere on the board in turn 1 is utterly ridiculous. My flying 'eadbut highscore (with a dakkajet, not even a burna bommer) was 37 mortal wounds on a tau army. Soooo many dead drones.
Vilehydra wrote: I.... What? Is this really an issue for people? It feels like this is the Austin Powers Steamroller scene. My regular sparring opponent is a DG playe. I've been struck hard by Mutant strain once, and it was when I was unaware of the strat.
Like really? I generally try to not to got the argument about player skill, but feth. It's a unit that moves 4", cannot advance and charge and is squishy to small arms fire (either having only a 6+++ or a 6+/6+++ in cover) Light Anti-infantry shooting is a counter, active charging is a counter, proper positioning is a counter, meatshielding is a counter. There are several things that any player can do to mitigate poxxies with any practically constructed army. Compare that to say Wrath of Mars, which is far more difficult to mitigate, but maxed at 6 wounds - which is equivalent to the average of a perfect mutant strain strike (Full 20 models all in engagement range).
I mean, it's probably a healthy rules change to do to put a 6MW limit on it, but that's nothing to do with the current viability itself - but more the fact that all MW causing strats should have a hard limit to prevent future rule changes from causing an issue.
This, so much. Exploding poxwalkers can easily be played around, and if you take 40 attacks from them YOU made a misplay and are rightfully punished for it. If you brought 0 shooting you don't really have any right to complain about not being able to solve a problem anyways.
I mostly use the stratagem to blow up terminators and similar hard to kill units, and it usually yields 3-5 MW if I'm lucky. My opponent either try to reduce them first, use stratagems to protect themselves or outmaneuver them. In comparison, a burna bommer dropping a bomb for 5 MW and then hitting 4 units for another 12 MWanywhere on the board in turn 1 is utterly ridiculous. My flying 'eadbut highscore (with a dakkajet, not even a burna bommer) was 37 mortal wounds on a tau army. Soooo many dead drones.
Yes but one stratagem showering enemies in Mortal wounds doesnt make this one less of an unbalanced stratagem for what you pay.
Flying headbutt is criminally undercosted and probably wont survive in to the next codex. I could make a thread about flying eadbutt if i wanted or other stratagems but i decided to make one for this particularly one. I also dont really have an intention of comparing them to abilities.
You can get way too many mortal wounds from Mutant strain. I recognize there are ways to play around them of obvious reasons, but at the same time, the stratagem can just yield too many potential mortal wounds from a cannon fodder unit, for too low of a cost.
People complain that if it was not 6s on the hitting phase but on the wounding phase, it would be too situational to use. But id say thats exactly how stratagems are meant to work. Not a: every time 10 poxwalkers are within range ill just auto use this ability. The difference between using a stratagem and not using it, shouldnt increase a units combat capabilities by like 500% which this stratagem does. If Poxies attack a T8 unit, they're not meant to do a lot. But in this case, they can actually fairly well trade blows with it. They punch way above their weight class for only 1CP.
1CP for 20 hits where every 6 is a MW, and a 1 kills a poxy, with other stratagems and abilities to ressurect them? thats a very good stratagem, even if it doesnt happen often. Its overpowered in my opinion, but not game breaking because you can play around it. Flying eadbutt can be game breaking because if your enemy dont get turn 1 to shoot down the plane, you WILL gain at least some value out of exploding yourself. It doesnt always make up for the price of the burna bomma, if your enemy is being strategic about their placement though.
But sure, there are worse stratagems out there, like flying eadbutt. But that doesnt mean that Mutant strain dealing a potentially obscene amount of MWs on its own on a low tier 5 ppm model is okay either. Just because something else is worse, doesnt mean i cant focus on this one stratagem.
Beardedragon wrote: How many times do i need to repeat what i wrote? its not a strategy question. It doesnt matter if i can deal with it.
Its a balance issue among stratagems of what you get for 1 CP. the damage output from this 1 stratagem, on the lowest cannon fodder unit is too high.
its a stratagem balance issue, not a gameplay issue. I didnt make this thread because i got fethed over by the stratagem. Its not my first time being against a deathguard player, i know what he can do. I made the thread because i recognize that it can deal obscene amounts of mortal wounds for basically no cost, on a trash unit that isnt meant to have the power to obscenely dish out mortal wounds like theres no tomorrow. Most 1CP stratagems deals a max of around 5 or so mortal wounds. that pales in comparison to this potential mortal wounds stratagem.
So stop pretending im making this thread because im salty about it because i lost a game because of this ability, because i didnt. i recognize, that the mortal wounds potential is too high for the 1CP paid.
that is all.
Sorry, but with all due respect, you can't just claim to be right and repeating the same opinion over and over again doesn't change any of the facts. Intelligence is the ability to adapt to new information and re-evaluating your opinion according to that information.
If you have the ability to easily play around this stratagem on a super-slow unit with no shooting, no save outside of a 6+++, no AP, low S and you instead chose to charge right into the one unit on the board being protected by a once-per-army aura on a separate character, not shoot that unit even once before and allow 20 of them to get into 2" of your models, you just fethed up.
Worst case, instead of charging into the blighspawn's aura you can just stand in front of them and spend 1 CP to kill half the poxwalkers with 10 stikkbombs and sluggas.
Own your mistakes, play better next time, bring a better balanced army.
I honestly think even if you hard limit them to 6 MW just like the current wrath of Mars strategem, its going to be fine, because there aren't that many occassions they will actually do that many. I have played many games, and used that strategem quite a few times (usually just once per game), and I have never had them do over 6 mortal wounds for me.
Wrath of Mars is actually far easier to pull off that max 6 MW. Because that is shooting. So are you now going to cry about wrath of Mars too?
And as one of the above poster mentioned. So, should we put a hard cap on burner bombers exploding for 10 to 20 mortal wounds all over an army? How about void raven bombers too ?
Eldenfirefly wrote: I honestly think even if you hard limit them to 6 MW just like the current wrath of Mars strategem, its going to be fine, because there aren't that many occassions they will actually do that many. I have played many games, and used that strategem quite a few times (usually just once per game), and I have never had them do over 6 wounds for me.
Wrath of Mars is actually far easier to pull off that max 6 MW. Because that is shooting. So are you now going to cry about wrath of Mars too?
I have never played against adeptus Mechanicus. I dont know if theres an FAQ but wahapedia doesnt state that wrath of mars is maxed out at 6. Regardless its 2CP for this stratagem so that already makes it a bigger tax than what poxwalkers get.
Can i not think one ability is over performing without needing to mention EVERY SINGLE OTHER OVER PERFORMING STRATAGEM in the game?. I dont NEED to mention every single over performing stratagem out there, im allowed to focus on one, which i did. So stop mentioning that something else is worse like wrath of mars or flying eadbutt.
Oh you get called funny names at school and consider that bullying? I get kicked every day. What happens to me is worse so you cant complain" is kind of how i see you guys argument. Arguing that a specific stratagem cant be over performing just because something else is over performing more.
Beardedragon wrote: Flying headbutt is criminally undercosted and probably wont survive in to the next codex. You can get way too many mortal wounds from Mutant strain. I recognize there are ways to play around them of obvious reasons, but at the same time, the stratagem can just yield too many potential mortal wounds from a cannon fodder unit, for too low of a cost.
People complain that if it was not 6s on the hitting phase but on the wounding phase, it would be too situational to use. But id say thats exactly how stratagems are meant to work. Not a: every time 10 poxwalkers are within range ill just auto use this ability.
1CP for 20 hits where every 6 is a MW, and a 1 kills a poxy, with other stratagems and abilities to ressurect them? thats a very good stratagem, even if it doesnt happen often.
No, you don't understand what people are saying. The potential doesn't matter because your opponent doesn't just get to decide to deal 6-8 mortal wounds to you. He needs YOUR cooperation to deal that many wounds. Essentially YOU are playing a 0 CP stratagem that doubles the amount of wounds caused by exploding poxwalkers.
If you charge Thrakka into the Nightbringer, he is going to die. It's not the nightbringer at fault here because he is OP, but you because you charged the one thing in the game that can both survive and one-round Thrakka.
Look, if you're completely unwilling to discuss the myriad ways that this strats power can be mitigated by the opponent then I don't think there's much more that can be discussed.
That mindset makes Blight Bombardment OP because I could spend 2CP to drop it on my opponents army and if he doesn't move it will hit about 8 of his units doing on average about 20 MWs...
The question is still that the hill you chose to die on is comparativly one made by a mole instead of an actual hill , which is why people point to other stratagems.
Which is a fair question, we get it , you don't like the fact that a cannonfodder unit that should do nothing more or less can dish out potentially an obscene ammount of MW, which is a position is fine to have, however it's by far a non issue considering that it only really intencivises a use of non elites against a unit of non elites and in such a manner, why shouldn't there be mechanics to punish you from bringing a smashhammer all the time against units not needing one?
Also, it allows for an enticing potential area denial, which is always interesting and good since it facilitates more manouvre and avoidance gameplay, which is something still severly short in 40k.
An analogy that came to my mind is the IG Cyclops demolition charge. For those not familiar with it: it can blow itself up and do 2D6 (blast) 9/-2/d3 BS4+ attacks to every unit within 6'' for 50 points. Theoretically that is hilariously strong for such a cheap unit if you get it within range of a couple of characters who all count as a seperate unit.
Meanwhile it's also extremely easy to counter (bubblewrap units, shooting it before it reaches something valuable, not clustering lots of valuable units in a way that the thingy can get within 6'' of more than one). So I have never actually seen it mentioned as a problem. If you one claims that these things are not a question of tactics, but potential, than it would also be a highly problematic unit. Imagine it getting into group of bunched up, expensive characters...
we're never going to agree. so ill agree to disagree.
You wanna talk about strategies i wanna talk over performing CP for what you pay for. The stratagem over performs compared to what you pay for it.
Flying headbutt also over performs even if there are ways to minimize your losses as well. the potential is too high. Flying headbutt is clearly more crazy in terms of efficiency than Mutant strain, and it can break more games than mutant strain ever will, but its still way too efficient for what you pay.
That is that. If people wanna argue that a low tier unit should be able to break T8 units then thats their deal i guess. Ive never met a DG player in real life that looked at this stratagem and said: this is meh, and cant overperform at all". And i play with someone who attend and do very well in tournements with DG.
I guess theres a difference in how people see balance in this game. Clearly people i meet who do tournements have one opinion, and you guys where some of you do tournements, thinks something different.
Can i not think one ability is over performing without needing to mention EVERY SINGLE OTHER OVER PERFORMING STRATAGEM in the game?. I dont NEED to mention every single over performing stratagem out there, im allowed to focus on one, which i did. So stop mentioning that something else is worse like wrath of mars or flying eadbutt.
Truth be told it just makes you look salty as people have been pointing out. You got owned in one game by not knowing the stratagem and it shows. Your sheer bias is also evident of the fact that you are salty. .
I have actually noticed that the people who get most upset about this stratagem are the ones who are caught in a gotcha moment. Everyone else just really don't care and just play around the unit.
I saw a guy placing 2nd in an Australian GT who played all mostly plague marines and zero pox walkers. So, he obviously didn't use this strategem because he literally played zero pox walkers...
Its not a crutch that DG relies on in order to win. I am not even sure what kind of cap you want. Given the heavy limitations and it being so situational. So, based on that, sure, I can go ahead and say give it a 6 MW cap. Would that make you happy? Not as if I am the one deciding these things anyway.
I think a 100pt unit with 40 str 4 (str 3 but opponent have -1 to T)attacks is already a fair price. It is also 20 wounds on 20 bodies that have a 6+++ that can come back in 2 ways. They are also fearless so you need to kill all of them. Just killing 5-10 won't cause extra casualties.
With the reroll strat they put out more like 10-12 MW and 12 or so normal wounds on a t4 unit.
I don't think 20 of them in a normal list is much of a problem even though their potential is pretty silly.
I have seen a guy at the club run a 100 of them for just 500pts. With the strat for extra movement and the guy that gives + to move as well they aren't as slow as you might think. Shooty armies with lots of dmg 1 low ap shots are fine but the melee armies can really suffer against them when there are 100+ of them screening out 1500pts of characters and terminators. Especially if they go first and can advance up the table forcing the opponent to get bad trades. One unit won't win against a 10 man VV squad but 2 units have rather good odds of doing it for way less points. If he moves around the fight last thing and wipes the first unit the second unit will still kill over half the squad when they charge.
We aren't even talking about Terminus Est poxwalkers here. lol I think if the opening poster saw a Terminus Est army of poxwalkers in action, he would cry so much harder.
Wow... all poxwalkers that can move 7 inches because of a strategem!
Wow... a strategem that can take a killed poxwalker unit and bring it back to life with full unit strength!
Lets conveniently forget that Terminus Est lists forgo all vehicles. And that up till now, we haven't seen any Terminus Est list win touneys quite yet either.
You wanna talk about strategies i wanna talk over performing CP for what you pay for. The stratagem over performs compared to what you pay for it.
It doesn't overperform unless you make playing errors. Stratagems punishing bad plays are perfectly fine.
Do you know which 1 CP stratagem can deal vastly more damage than mutant strains if you make dumb plays? Overwatch.
Flying headbutt also over performs even if there are ways to minimize your losses as well. the potential is too high. Flying headbutt is clearly more crazy in terms of efficiency than Mutant strain, and it can break more games than mutant strain ever will, but its still way too efficient for what you pay.
The difference between the two stratagems is that 'Eadbut is on a unit with fly moving 60" and done in the movement phase.
Strain is on an infantry unit moving 4" and requires you to attack in combat.
That is that. If people wanna argue that a low tier unit should be able to break T8 units then thats their deal i guess.
"Low tier" is something that only exists in your head. 20 poxwalkers are 100 points - that's the price of an ork buggy, a carnifex, a dread and plenty other units that can easily feth up a T8 unit that gets too close.
Not to mention that there are usually no T8 units affected by exploding poxwalkers.
Ive never met a DG player in real life that looked at this stratagem and said: this is meh, and cant overperform at all". And i play with someone who attend and do very well in tournements with DG.
False authority/appeal to authority logical fallacy.
Or, in other words - their opinion is no more valuable than yours. And while this is unpopular in certain parts of the world, opinions can be objectively wrong.
I guess theres a difference in how people see balance in this game. Clearly people i meet who do tournements have one opinion, and you guys where some of you do tournements, thinks something different.
Balance has nothing to do with this. You just want a hard cap on this stratagem so you don't have to worry about interacting with your opponent.
Or maybe you just don't want to admit that you are wrong because you have gone to far down this rabbit's hole and people are now piling on you.
In the end a stratagem which is good when used properly, that allows a lot of counter-play and severely punishes bad plays is about as perfectly balanced as it can be.
The one and only criticism I would accept is that it can be very swingy and thus accidentally decide games when six poxwalkers nuke four terminators.
"The one and only criticism I would accept is that it can be very swingy and thus accidentally decide games when six poxwalkers nuke four terminators."
Lol, watch me roll 12 sixes out of 12 rolls and win the game! If you have that kind of luck, maybe you should reserve it for when you are at a casino. lol
Eldenfirefly wrote: Its not a crutch that DG relies on in order to win. I am not even sure what kind of cap you want. Given the heavy limitations and it being so situational. So, based on that, sure, I can go ahead and say give it a 6 MW cap. Would that make you happy? Not as if I am the one deciding these things anyway.
I don't think I've ever done that many MW with that stratagem to trigger that cap. Best I remember was 5.
And hey, if you hate mortal wounds, have heard of our lord and savior Seven-Fold Blessed Malignant Plaguecaster with Torrent of Torrent of Putrefaction casting Curse of the Leper and Smite?
Xenomancers wrote: Scarabs have a 1 cp stratagem that kills a 15 point scarab and does 3 mortal wounds max. Also a cool stratagem. Clearly less effective than the pox walker stratagem though - and technically costs more. That is my issue.
In terms of points you lose to use it, they're pretty much equivalent - assuming Mutant Strain alone, and the maximum possible number of attacks, we're talking an average of 6-7MW dealt and taken by the Poxwalkers, so they're losing 5-6 Poxwalkers in return. It still works out at roughly 5pts/MW.
Having said that, I don't know the Scarab strat, as I don't have that book, and I noticed it caps at 3MW - how might it do fewer?
NinthMusketeer wrote: It makes me think there is some strange concept about zombie effectiveness that has gone around GW.
Would you liken it, perhaps, to a virus?
+ + +
Just for the silly outrage in this thread, it seems Mutant Strain was worth printing.
Eldenfirefly wrote: "The one and only criticism I would accept is that it can be very swingy and thus accidentally decide games when six poxwalkers nuke four terminators."
Lol, watch me roll 12 sixes out of 12 rolls and win the game! If you have that kind of luck, maybe you should reserve it for when you are at a casino. lol
You clearly never have seen me shoot a SSAG.
Turn 1: 2 shots, 0 hits Turn 2: 11 shots, 7 hits, 0 wounds Turn 3: 50 damage and 20 mortal wounds for that LRBT
Eldenfirefly wrote: "The one and only criticism I would accept is that it can be very swingy and thus accidentally decide games when six poxwalkers nuke four terminators."
Lol, watch me roll 12 sixes out of 12 rolls and win the game! If you have that kind of luck, maybe you should reserve it for when you are at a casino. lol
You clearly never have seen me shoot a SSAG.
Turn 1: 2 shots, 0 hits
Turn 2: 11 shots, 7 hits, 0 wounds
Turn 3: 50 damage and 20 mortal wounds for that LRBT
I can relate! I played a AM player in a game before. One turn his LRBT failed to kill my chaos spawn unit despite firing everything into it. @_@ Then the very next turn, his other LRBT fires into my deathshroud unit and obliterates it in one firing phase! lol.
I should make a thread about how chaos spawn are OP and deathshrouds are crap because of this one incident. lol (I am joking obviously).
I don't think I've ever done that many MW with that stratagem to trigger that cap. Best I remember was 5.
I have managed to get a decent amount of MW(12) on poxwalkers, but only when I run Harbingers, spend 2 CP for the Mutant Reroll combo, and my opponent managed to get in the middle of a fresh poxwalker group so all of them could attack. Basically once or twice in over 30 games. Usually without rerolls I average around 3-5.
Most of the time I'm just so low on CP and can't spend it on Mutant Strain for a Hail Mary.
I am starting to believe that it is the OP's kind of whining is what got cultists hit by multiple nerf bats so that they are in their current sad state. Someone influential at Gamesworkshop got their favourite unit obliterated by a big unit of cultists spamming multiple strategems and went ballistic.
"How can such a low tier unit kill my 250 point insert favourite unit! Cultists need to be nerfed to the ground!!!!"
(Lets not forget that even when they were 5 points each, a unit of 40 cultists cost 200 points... as much as a terminator squad. But hey, it doesn't matter! Cultists are low tier! They are scum! They don't deserve to do anything even when you mass 200 points of them amd stack multiple buffs on them!)
Eldenfirefly wrote: I am starting to believe that it is the OP's kind of whining is what got cultists hit by multiple nerf bats so that they are in their current sad state. Someone influential at Gamesworkshop got their favourite unit obliterated by a big unit of cultists spamming multiple strategems and went ballistic.
"How can such a low tier unit kill my 250 point insert favourite unit! Cultists need to be nerfed to the ground!!!!"
TBF the 30 slaanesh cultist bomb with votwl and tide to get within 12" range is still spicy....
And yes it's the same reasoning, good thing though , since all other Poxwalkers will become useless as they desere since they are clearly not death guard plaguemarine enough, just like cultists are not CSM enough which we can't have...
Eldenfirefly wrote: And as one of the above poster mentioned. So, should we put a hard cap on burner bombers exploding for 10 to 20 mortal wounds all over an army? How about void raven bombers too ?
Yes, obviously you shouldn't deal 3MW for 1CP or 15MW for 1CP and a (possibly damaged) Burna-bommer. Make the Burna-bommer cheaper if it becomes overcosted without access to the Stratagems. Voidraven Bombers getting Stratagem-like damage without using a Stratagem is par for the course when it comes to the new Drukhari codex. It should hit a single unit like it used to for 2-7 MW.
Pyroalchi wrote: An analogy that came to my mind is the IG Cyclops demolition charge. For those not familiar with it: it can blow itself up and do 2D6 (blast) 9/-2/d3 BS4+ attacks to every unit within 6'' for 50 points. Theoretically that is hilariously strong for such a cheap unit if you get it within range of a couple of characters who all count as a seperate unit.
If you could pay 1CP to turn a Chimera into a Cyclops at any time then it'd be OP. If Poxwalkers cost 6 points and simply had this ability then it wouldn't be a problem, some people just don't like how seemingly random units benefit from relatively cheap Stratagems for the effect the Stratagem has. Why should Obliterators but not Demolishers benefit from Cacophony?
Its not a crutch that DG relies on in order to win. I am not even sure what kind of cap you want. Given the heavy limitations and it being so situational. So, based on that, sure, I can go ahead and say give it a 6 MW cap. Would that make you happy? Not as if I am the one deciding these things anyway.
6 would be a meaningless cap, it should be capped at 3 both ways. That's more mortal wounds than Scarabs cause for 1CP and less damage than Scarabs suffer for using the Stratagem. Make it a small niche thing that you will use once in a while when you come up against a unit that pays a lot for its wounds and that you plan on killing instead of a "why not?" Stratagem. "Why not?" Stratagems are underpriced. Other "Why not?" Stratagems include Cacophony, fight twice for Flayed Ones and Rotate Ion Shields.
If you nerf enough "Why not?" Stratagems then we might start seeing some other fluffy Stratagems get used like Boon of Chaos. Of course, any Stratagems that are worse than CP re-roll and such need to be buffed to be at least that good.
So its a question of image then! cultists and poxwalkers are seen as "low tier". So its ok for an "elite" tier unit to cost 120 points and do wonders, but even if you mass 180 points worth of cultists, they have to suck because they are "low tier".
Like, gamesworkshop should just discontinue cultists if that's their line of thinking. Would be much easier. And grots too...
Actually, on "why not" strategems. If you look at the trend of the newer books, GW seem to be trying to make more powerful strategems, and some priced at just 1 cp too. Not less powerful. So, I think you are going to be disappointed. GW wants us to use CP often, and less on rerolls and more on other strategems.
You have to compare 1 CP strategems to the universal reroll strategem. There are many games that are won or lost on a single reroll of a dice. And you can reroll that dice with 1 CP. Every other 1 CP strategem has to be comparable or at least not much worse, else people will just use all of their CP only on rerolls. And if thats the case, then why should GW bother coming out with 4 pages of strategems that people will never ever use.
Can i not think one ability is over performing without needing to mention EVERY SINGLE OTHER OVER PERFORMING STRATAGEM in the game?. I dont NEED to mention every single over performing stratagem out there, im allowed to focus on one, which i did. So stop mentioning that something else is worse like wrath of mars or flying eadbutt.
Truth be told it just makes you look salty as people have been pointing out. You got owned in one game by not knowing the stratagem and it shows. Your sheer bias is also evident of the fact that you are salty. .
I have actually noticed that the people who get most upset about this stratagem are the ones who are caught in a gotcha moment. Everyone else just really don't care and just play around the unit.
yet another one who makes up reasons as to why i made this thread. I already wrote that the fact he used this stratagem had very little impact on why i made this topic or why i lost a game. It just reminded me that it could deal a lot of damage, more than what it was meant to for 1CP.
I can be wrong on whether the stratagem is balanced or not, but i cant be wrong on WHY i decided to make a thread. YOU need to stop pretending that you know why I made a specific thread, because you dont know.
What upsets me isnt the stratagem, nor that people disagree, its that people keep pretending that i made this thread because i got outplayed by this one stratagem (which didnt even happen), and that people constantly wanted to talk about strategies to avoid it, when all i inteded to talk about was whether you should get the amount of MWs that you can get, from 1CP. I accept now that people want to talk stratagies when talking stratagems before saying if they can be too cost efficient or not, but i still disagree on that point. I believe we can talk stratagem cost efficiency without strategies. But thats just me.
so truth be told back to you, you come off as an idiot who pretends he knows stuff about me that he doesnt and calls people salty for having been "outplayed" when that never happened. Pretends that he knows why ive made a specific thread, pretends that he knows that i dont know what happens if i charge in to poxwalkers with a gardenhose man nearby. There WAS no gotcha moment i well knowingly charged a battlewagon in to poxwalkers and fought last, took 8 MWs and that was that. Everything worked out fine, i could move forward and unload my units in the next round after which the poxies died.
So no, i was not taken by surprise by this stratagem, i knew exactly what he would do, and i knew exactly that i would hit last. I took a calculated risk and it still paid off for me because i got the objective the round after. I lost the match, but that was not related to those poxwalkers. The scenario just made me think, that paying 1CP to dealing MW on 6s when you can have that many hits, seemed over the top.
That
IS
that.
The thread was purely made on an efficiency basis for what you pay, contra what you get. There is no other reason except for that one, that i made this thread. So stop pretending that i was somehow "outplayed" by this one stratagem. Sure i was outplayed, thats why i lost. But not by that one stratagem.
Learn to read, as i already wrote that it had close to no impact in my game that i lost. Stop making up your own reasons as to why i made a thread
Sorry, but your abject bias towards this singular unit and stratagem just clearly displays how annoyed you were that you were caught with your pants down. No amount of excuses can hide that. If you had made a general thread about mortal wound abilities/stratagems - like we see in AoS groups on a regular basis - I would maybe buy your arguments, but your hyperfocus on this singular unit that isn't even the high point of the codex just shows that you are quite angry and annoyed that you couldn't play the game how you wanted.
Here is the thing, I get how you feel. I have been taken in by gotcha moments and it is not a fun feeling. So strangely enough, I sympathize with that.
Learn to read, as i already wrote that it had close to no impact in my game that i lost. Stop making up your own reasons as to why i made a thread
Sorry, but your abject bias towards this singular unit and stratagem just clearly displays how annoyed you were that you were caught with your pants down. No amount of excuses can hide that. If you had made a general thread about mortal wound abilities/stratagems - like we see in AoS groups on a regular basis - I would maybe buy your arguments, but your hyperfocus on this singular unit that isn't even the high point of the codex just shows that you are quite angry and annoyed that you couldn't play the game how you wanted.
Here is the thing, I get how you feel. I have been taken in by gotcha moments and it is not a fun feeling. So strangely enough, I sympathize with that.
'
No im annoyed that people keep running in circles as to why ive made a thread.
THE 8 MORTAL WOUNDS DID NOT HAVE AN IMPACT ON THE fething GAME DUDE. I DIDNT LOSE BECAUSE OF IT! and YES im SALTY because people run in circles as to WHY ive made this thread. THATS why im salty. I find the stratagem over performing but right now? thats beside the point because its more fun to trash talk the OP by making up lies as to why he made a thread. I get angry because people cant read, or they can and just chose to make up their own reasons even after having read that the stratagem didnt have an impact anyway. People are apparently clairvoyants in this forum and knows more about what happened in MY game than i do.
its a thread about efficiency for what you pay for. I couldnt play the game the way i wanted? get out of here dude. Everything happened, in that engagement, that i had already accounted for, that i already figured would happen. Everything at that engagement, worked out fine. Yes losing 8 MW sucks but it didnt change anything, didnt even bracket my battlewagon.
I was not taken with my pants down, learn to read, jesus. Stop walking in circles pretending that you guys know why a thread has been made. Do i need to repeat myself or what?
The stratagem did NOT impact my loss of the game, what so ever. Its a thread i made PURELY out of efficiency of what you PAY contra what you GET.
I hope thats the last of it in terms of "why did OP make this thread, i wonder?". Why ive made a thread isnt even related to the thread itself.
Nah. I think mortal wound stratagems that require a more significant investment of resources should have a higher cap of damage that they can put down.
If you're fielding 20 poxwalkers, 20 hellions, 20 skitarii then I as your opponent enjoy an advantage in-game. I get max shots on all blast weapons I lob at that squad. You get one single unit instead of (usually) four units that can all secure different objectives and perform actions. If I hit them with a debuff, or a stratagem, or a power, or in some cases tie them in combat theyre ALL affected.
I'm fine with 1cp buying 4-5MW rather than the usual 2MW you generally get for stuff like "Have any unit in your army within grenade range" or "have any bolt weapon on the board anywhere as a marine player."
In fairness, the comparison to the scarab strat is slightly disingenuous since a unit of scarabs costs 45pts and can continue to get a consistent 2-3 MWs so long as at least one scarab is still alive. They also move 10" so far less situational.
Mutant strain's spike damage falls off dramatically as soon as you start to lose Poxies from the unit.
45pts of poxwalkers is the break point for comparison with scarabs as it will do 3MWs and kill 15pts of its own strength.
I just think neither strat is anywhere near being a problem tbh
Automatically Appended Next Post: Why did you even make the thread if you're not willing to take on board anything anybody has said to you?
We've tried to demonstrate why the strat isn't as strong as it might seem, we've tried to show you how easy it is to mitigate, we've also compared it to other strats and abilities to show there is at least some parity with other stuff in the game.
You've just been completely unwilling to engage and have now been ranting for five pages. Why wouldn't people surmise that your are just salty and blowing off steam?
I really think you should give it up because you're just coming across obnoxious.
Also, LOL@ "Low Tier Unit." This is like when that art of war stream came out with admech and people were moaning that *only* 14 skitarii were able to take out 4 Deathshroud Terminators, and it's like
OK, 14 skitarii...plus 150 points of buffing HQs....plus the army's warlord trait and relic acting on them...plus they spent 4CP....Hmmmmm seems like a lot of investment into that "low tier unit" right there, they probably SHOULD be able to remove as much gak as a 'high tier unit" with similar total costs...
Abaddon303 wrote: In fairness, the comparison to the scarab strat is slightly disingenuous since a unit of scarabs costs 45pts and can continue to get a consistent 2-3 MWs so long as at least one scarab is still alive. They also move 10" so far less situational.
Mutant strain's spike damage falls off dramatically as soon as you start to lose Poxies from the unit.
45pts of poxwalkers is the break point for comparison with scarabs as it will do 3MWs and kill 15pts of its own strength.
I just think neither strat is anywhere near being a problem tbh
How situational a Stratagem is should not massively change how powerful it is. Otherwise, you get the "10 mortal wounds for 1CP once in a blue moon" Stratagem which "isn't unfair because on average it actually only deals 2 mortal wounds because you only use it once every 6 games". Even if a Stratagem is niche it can still be OP. Instead of having 30 Stratagems that come into play once every six games and cause 3MW worth of effect per CP invested you could just have 5 Stratagems you use every game that cause 2MW worth of effect per CP invested.
The vast majority of DG players are using Poxwalkers, increasing their points cost by even 1 would hit them way too hard, but they're a solid unit with an occasionally slightly OP Stratagem. The game would be better if the Stratagem was max 3 MW both ways. I agree with all the posters saying that this is so low on the list that the discussion is barely worth having. At least I learned about a couple of Stratagems today.
What GW does or wants for the game isn't always for the best, they wanted Scouts moved to Elites and given the same points increase as the better, more expensive Primaris units, they wanted faction-specific secondary objectives available in the competitive mission pack, they wanted free always-on faction bonuses via chapter tactics, they want 60+% win rate Drukhari, they nerfed Ogryn instead of Bullgryn, they wanted to errata the rules for characters 3 times I think? I am not exactly sold on GW's design philosophy.
vict0988 wrote: 6 would be a meaningless cap, it should be capped at 3 both ways. That's more mortal wounds than Scarabs cause for 1CP and less damage than Scarabs suffer for using the Stratagem. Make it a small niche thing that you will use once in a while when you come up against a unit that pays a lot for its wounds and that you plan on killing instead of a "why not?" Stratagem. "Why not?" Stratagems are underpriced. Other "Why not?" Stratagems include Cacophony, fight twice for Flayed Ones and Rotate Ion Shields.
If you nerf enough "Why not?" Stratagems then we might start seeing some other fluffy Stratagems get used like Boon of Chaos. Of course, any Stratagems that are worse than CP re-roll and such need to be buffed to be at least that good.
The only thing such a cap would do is reward bad players charging all his models into engagement range of an unwounded blob of poxwalkers that is supported by a character and a relic.
You might as well cap all damage to 3, so a unit of thunder hammer terminators can't kill the rhino I charge into them.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Abaddon303 wrote: Why did you even make the thread if you're not willing to take on board anything anybody has said to you?
We've tried to demonstrate why the strat isn't as strong as it might seem, we've tried to show you how easy it is to mitigate, we've also compared it to other strats and abilities to show there is at least some parity with other stuff in the game.
You've just been completely unwilling to engage and have now been ranting for five pages. Why wouldn't people surmise that your are just salty and blowing off steam?
I really think you should give it up because you're just coming across obnoxious.
I think his last post at least came across in a way that he accepts what we are trying to say, but is still pissed about how people try to imply that he has some underlying motive besides just venting about how he hates poxwalkers.
Abaddon303 wrote: In fairness, the comparison to the scarab strat is slightly disingenuous since a unit of scarabs costs 45pts and can continue to get a consistent 2-3 MWs so long as at least one scarab is still alive. They also move 10" so far less situational.
Mutant strain's spike damage falls off dramatically as soon as you start to lose Poxies from the unit.
45pts of poxwalkers is the break point for comparison with scarabs as it will do 3MWs and kill 15pts of its own strength.
I just think neither strat is anywhere near being a problem tbh
Automatically Appended Next Post: Why did you even make the thread if you're not willing to take on board anything anybody has said to you?
We've tried to demonstrate why the strat isn't as strong as it might seem, we've tried to show you how easy it is to mitigate, we've also compared it to other strats and abilities to show there is at least some parity with other stuff in the game.
You've just been completely unwilling to engage and have now been ranting for five pages. Why wouldn't people surmise that your are just salty and blowing off steam?
I really think you should give it up because you're just coming across obnoxious.
I dont mind having peoples opinion, i mind when people pretend to know why ive made a thread, and apparently KNOWS that i was outplayed despite the fact they werent there.
THAT is what i mind. It also kind of annoyed me people persistently wanted to talk about strategies when i just wanted to talk cost efficiency and value in stratagems, but ive since then found out that apparently many people really want that. So fair game to them. I dont agree though as i feel like one should be able to talk about stratagems alone without strategies as well. But i do hear you on that one.
But people pretending that i was outplayed? that i "messed up"? that they somehow "know things" despite they werent there? They just waste time because its just people trying to demean me with their high moral crap, about how they "pretend to be good guys" when they are just bullies who want to put you down in a "lowkey" fashion. I am a hot head so i sadly pick up on it.
But lets say you play Khorne Daemons. How do you most efficiently deal with poxwalkers near a gardenhose man who is ready to throw mutant strain down? I dont play Khorne Daemons but given their lack of shooting i have no idea how it would happen, except maybe baiting out the charges like you guys said earlier.
Abaddon303 wrote: In fairness, the comparison to the scarab strat is slightly disingenuous since a unit of scarabs costs 45pts and can continue to get a consistent 2-3 MWs so long as at least one scarab is still alive. They also move 10" so far less situational.
Mutant strain's spike damage falls off dramatically as soon as you start to lose Poxies from the unit.
45pts of poxwalkers is the break point for comparison with scarabs as it will do 3MWs and kill 15pts of its own strength.
I just think neither strat is anywhere near being a problem tbh
Automatically Appended Next Post: Why did you even make the thread if you're not willing to take on board anything anybody has said to you?
We've tried to demonstrate why the strat isn't as strong as it might seem, we've tried to show you how easy it is to mitigate, we've also compared it to other strats and abilities to show there is at least some parity with other stuff in the game.
You've just been completely unwilling to engage and have now been ranting for five pages. Why wouldn't people surmise that your are just salty and blowing off steam?
I really think you should give it up because you're just coming across obnoxious.
I dont mind having peoples opinion, i mind when people pretend to know why ive made a thread, and apparently KNOWS that i was outplayed despite the fact they werent there.
THAT is what i mind. It also kind of annoyed me people persistently wanted to talk about strategies when i just wanted to talk cost efficiency and value in stratagems, but ive since then found out that apparently many people really want that. So fair game to them. I dont agree though as i feel like one should be able to talk about stratagems alone without strategies as well. But i do hear you on that one.
But people pretending that i was outplayed? that i "messed up"? that they somehow "know things" despite they werent there? They just waste time because its just people trying to demean me with their high moral crap, about how they "pretend to be good guys" when they are just bullies who want to put you down in a "lowkey" fashion. I am a hot head so i sadly pick up on it.
To be fair, the ol' classic "i lost a game, time to make a dakka thread about it" is always fun to spot out. It's not a lowkey putdown, it's especially funny when you've done one of those in the past yourself. I think mine was about how Tau were so broken and unfair and only meanies played tau in 7th ed, lol.
Abaddon303 wrote: In fairness, the comparison to the scarab strat is slightly disingenuous since a unit of scarabs costs 45pts and can continue to get a consistent 2-3 MWs so long as at least one scarab is still alive. They also move 10" so far less situational.
Mutant strain's spike damage falls off dramatically as soon as you start to lose Poxies from the unit.
45pts of poxwalkers is the break point for comparison with scarabs as it will do 3MWs and kill 15pts of its own strength.
I just think neither strat is anywhere near being a problem tbh
Automatically Appended Next Post: Why did you even make the thread if you're not willing to take on board anything anybody has said to you?
We've tried to demonstrate why the strat isn't as strong as it might seem, we've tried to show you how easy it is to mitigate, we've also compared it to other strats and abilities to show there is at least some parity with other stuff in the game.
You've just been completely unwilling to engage and have now been ranting for five pages. Why wouldn't people surmise that your are just salty and blowing off steam?
I really think you should give it up because you're just coming across obnoxious.
I dont mind having peoples opinion, i mind when people pretend to know why ive made a thread, and apparently KNOWS that i was outplayed despite the fact they werent there.
THAT is what i mind. It also kind of annoyed me people persistently wanted to talk about strategies when i just wanted to talk cost efficiency and value in stratagems, but ive since then found out that apparently many people really want that. So fair game to them. I dont agree though as i feel like one should be able to talk about stratagems alone without strategies as well. But i do hear you on that one.
But people pretending that i was outplayed? that i "messed up"? that they somehow "know things" despite they werent there? They just waste time because its just people trying to demean me with their high moral crap, about how they "pretend to be good guys" when they are just bullies who want to put you down in a "lowkey" fashion. I am a hot head so i sadly pick up on it.
To be fair, the ol' classic "i lost a game, time to make a dakka thread about it" is always fun to spot out. It's not a lowkey putdown, it's especially funny when you've done one of those in the past yourself. I think mine was about how Tau were so broken and unfair and only meanies played tau in 7th ed, lol.
Sure, but mate, i had a great game. It was my first time facing off against the new mortarion and i could have won if i hadnt made some crucial mistakes (which charging poxwalkers werent one of them btw). I was outplayed i guess is the correct term, but i still see, looking back, that i COULD have won. I was not annoyed when i packed my things and left afterwards. The fact that i could have won made me proud. Ive faced poxwalkers like 3 or 4 times since the new codex, thats why i know what they do, how they work with the gardenhose man and all that. baiting a charge out is a strategy i had never thought of (charging him by the edge within the aura, so he must charge first, but can only reach with maybe 4-5 poxies), and ill try that next time.
But i, like everyone else, reflects upon the game afterwards, and thats why i thought to myself: why on earth are poxwalkers even allowed to deal MW on hit rolls of 6, when most others who can do that, do it on the wounding phase? for 1CP? seemed really over the top to me.
Hence the thread. Maybe my opening thread came off stronger than it had to be, because i couldnt get it out of my head that you could potentially take a pisspoor 5ppm model unit and deal 10+ MW. sure, unlikely but still, the ability to do so seemed... crazy.
I understand what people say about strategies, but i still feel like it over performs.
If you want to talk about value of a strategem. How do you properly value a strategem? I mentioned above. The universal reroll strategem is 1 cp. There are entire games that are won or lost because of a single reroll.
So how do you value 1 CP?
Poxwalkers are honestly a crappy melee unit. So 1 CP makes them at least do something in melee. Is that somehow more OP than making an elite unit killing 50% more?
I also find it odd you now want to talk about the value of a strategem when you refuse to even talk about other strategems in comparision (like how you brushed off all talk about how powerful other strategems were).
How do you value a strategem in a void without even comparing it to other strategems?
Eldenfirefly wrote: If you want to talk about value of a strategem. How do you properly value a strategem? I mentioned above. The universal reroll strategem is 1 cp. There are entire games that are won or lost because of a single reroll.
So how do you value 1 CP?
Poxwalkers are honestly a crappy melee unit. So 1 CP makes them at least do something in melee. Is that somehow more OP than making an elite unit killing 50% more?
I also find it odd you now want to talk about the value of a strategem when you refuse to even talk about other strategems in comparision (like how you brushed off all talk about how powerful other strategems were).
How do you value a strategem in a void without even comparing it to other strategems?
i dont mind talking about other stratagems in general, but i didnt want to talk about stratagems in the way you guys wanted to. what you guys did was this: X stratagem is more OP than Mutant strain, ergo, Mutant strain is fine".
that seemed to be a weird way to go about it. Like, if Wrath of mars can deal a max of 6 CP, i wouldnt consider it OP because it cost 2CP, i would if it cost 1CP. but you could deal like 10MW with 1CP for poxwalkers. I cant even imagine how grots would be if you could deal MW on hit rolls of 1 for those. I also dont think Poxwalkers are terrible in general. sure they are bad melee units, but you dont take them for that as far as i understand. you take them to screen out and hold objectives and take the first charge hits.And of course deal mortal wounds from mutant strain (which i still think should happen in the wounding phase).
id say you properly value a stratagem dealing MW by looking at how much mortal wounds other stratagems that can deal MW generally do. If we do that, we can see that mutant strain breaks the scale by a long shot. I mean even Wrath of mars only deals 6MW and cost 2CP. (Is there really a max on 6dmg? doesnt say so on wahapedia).
But ive never faced that ability before, so i could be wrong.
I'm not gonna waste time with OP because the thing he doesn't want to talk about (strategy and tactics) is part of what determines what he *does* want to talk about (cost efficiency of stratagems). You cannot simply talk about one without the other.
Therefore, it's not worth engaging with the OP any further, and I feel like this thread should be shut down.
This is why I hate strategems, and also all the buff stacking, it creates for situations that are just super gakky.
Perhaps my enjoyment is too fragile, but if I get caught by a particularly bad gotcha it can really ruin the whole game for me.
I always inform someone if they're walking into a really bad decision. I played too many counter decks in magic and I haaaaaaaaaate that bs.
The units that can be buffed by something like Wrath of mars have BS 3+, some can be inproved further. Some can get rerolls from just having a character standing near them and making them reroll all 1s, etc. And then some like rangers can be further buffed to double their shooting by yet even more strategems. So now they have double the chances of inflicting mortal wounds. And then wrath of Mars is shooting. Ranger using a Gavanic rifle (their standard), have a range of 30 inches and basic 2 shots.
I am basically saying I can reach out and touch any unit within double tap range and potentially obliterate it. Imagine a unit that can say that any unit within 21 inches is basically dead. Now ordinarily, a ranger unit, even a 20 man ranger unit cannot acomplish something like that.
However, strategems and stuff make it such that it can!
This is very different from a strategem that makes a crappy melee unit do something decent in close combat...
Cultists didn't even have a mortal wound strategem and got hit by the nerf bat so many times... Sigh, why is there this bias against "low tier" units...
What the heck is a low tier unit anyway. A cultist? a poxwalker? a grot? AM infantry?
A basic troop unit? (Looks at a primaris space marine and disagrees).
Jidmah wrote: You might as well cap all damage to 3, so a unit of thunder hammer terminators can't kill the rhino I charge into them.
Thunder hammer damage is already capped at 3, if you re-roll a wound roll for 1CP on a TH Terminator you are not doing more than 3 damage. Ha, gotcha!
No, no. You are not allowed to deal more than 3 damage for the entire unit. Because they overperform when more than one deals damage to the unit I charged in there because I'm an idiot. The rules should protect me from that.
Right ... so 2CP to shoot twice... Obliterators now do double the amount of damage. You seriously think that is just gonna work out to a few wounds? So, yes, cacophony must be OP. Lets nerf CSM even more while we are at it... So just because a strategem isn't about mortal wounds, so it can be OP? (And btw, does this mean I think Cacophony is OP? I don't know, because other factions get to shoot or fight twice too ... so...).
This is why I hate strategems, and also all the buff stacking, it creates for situations that are just super gakky.
Perhaps my enjoyment is too fragile, but if I get caught by a particularly bad gotcha it can really ruin the whole game for me.
I always inform someone if they're walking into a really bad decision. I played too many counter decks in magic and I haaaaaaaaaate that bs.
Same. "Keep in mind that I have a stratagem that makes those poxwalkers cause mortal wounds, and you will be fighting last because of this guy's relic". Opponent responds with curses. Done.
Jidmah wrote: You might as well cap all damage to 3, so a unit of thunder hammer terminators can't kill the rhino I charge into them.
Thunder hammer damage is already capped at 3, if you re-roll a wound roll for 1CP on a TH Terminator you are not doing more than 3 damage. Ha, gotcha!
No, no. You are not allowed to deal more than 3 damage for the entire unit. Because they overperform when more than one deals damage to the unit I charged in there because I'm an idiot. The rules should protect me from that.
Where can I buy units for 1 CP? Do you play open-play or is it a crusade rule
Right ... so 2CP to shoot twice... Obliterators now do double the amount of damage. You seriously think that is just gonna work out to a few wounds? So, yes, cacophony must be OP. Lets nerf CSM even more while we are at it... So just because a strategem isn't about mortal wounds, so it can be OP? (And btw, does this mean I think Cacophony is OP? I don't know, because other factions get to shoot or fight twice too ... so...).
How is Cacophony being OP even a question? I want to nerf shoot/fight twice in every faction. Nerf everything! Nothing would be far above the power curve I suggested if I had my way. Obliterators would be viable in World Eaters detachments after the points drop I'd be able to give them without having to consider them as Assault 12 instead of Assault 6. Even Thousand Sons detachments would be able to include Obliterators, because I think they should get Obliterators just as much as World Eaters.
Everybody would be able to have fun with their toy soldier collections, whether they be brand new Drukhari collections or 3rd era CSM collections.
Jidmah wrote: You might as well cap all damage to 3, so a unit of thunder hammer terminators can't kill the rhino I charge into them.
Thunder hammer damage is already capped at 3, if you re-roll a wound roll for 1CP on a TH Terminator you are not doing more than 3 damage. Ha, gotcha!
No, no. You are not allowed to deal more than 3 damage for the entire unit. Because they overperform when more than one deals damage to the unit I charged in there because I'm an idiot. The rules should protect me from that.
Where can I buy units for 1 CP? Do you play open-play or is it a crusade rule
Right ... so 2CP to shoot twice... Obliterators now do double the amount of damage. You seriously think that is just gonna work out to a few wounds? So, yes, cacophony must be OP. Lets nerf CSM even more while we are at it... So just because a strategem isn't about mortal wounds, so it can be OP? (And btw, does this mean I think Cacophony is OP? I don't know, because other factions get to shoot or fight twice too ... so...).
EC is only OP in a world where almost every army doesn't has the ability to shoot/fight twice.
Part of the problem with a lot of the stratagems is they don't account for any variance in a unit. There is a real difference between using a shoot twice on CSM squad than obliterators. Same thing with the mutant strain. Having it on 10 pox walkers is much less an issue than 20. But the stratagem doesn't account for that in CP, so it is the same if it is one guy or 20. All stratagems should have an increase CP cost based on power level. That would probably balance things better.
Also, in my opinion, one of the biggest problems with stratagems is that you can stack them. Again, shooting twice with obliterators is nice, but when you add +1 to wound, re-rell to hit rolls all together it becomes crazy. I once shot down two storm ravens in one turn with that combination from only the obliterator unit. If a unit could only have one active stratagem on it at at time, I think it would really help tone down some of the really over the top combinations. But some people like those so who knows.
The stratagem is fine honestly. 5 to 6 MW for 1CP is quite a lot, and it's possibly the most wounds per CP spend in the DG codex but it is also the most restricted stratagem outside of the exploding characters ones. It's only usable by a 4" move melee unit that might not even get all models into combat. Other strats might just do 2 to 5 wounds but can be used by faster units or shooting units, In that context I consider it balanced.
xeen wrote: Part of the problem with a lot of the stratagems is they don't account for any variance in a unit. There is a real difference between using a shoot twice on CSM squad than obliterators. Same thing with the mutant strain. Having it on 10 pox walkers is much less an issue than 20. But the stratagem doesn't account for that in CP, so it is the same if it is one guy or 20. All stratagems should have an increase CP cost based on power level. That would probably balance things better.
Also, in my opinion, one of the biggest problems with stratagems is that you can stack them. Again, shooting twice with obliterators is nice, but when you add +1 to wound, re-rell to hit rolls all together it becomes crazy. I once shot down two storm ravens in one turn with that combination from only the obliterator unit. If a unit could only have one active stratagem on it at at time, I think it would really help tone down some of the really over the top combinations. But some people like those so who knows.
Right ... so 2CP to shoot twice... Obliterators now do double the amount of damage. You seriously think that is just gonna work out to a few wounds? So, yes, cacophony must be OP. Lets nerf CSM even more while we are at it... So just because a strategem isn't about mortal wounds, so it can be OP? (And btw, does this mean I think Cacophony is OP? I don't know, because other factions get to shoot or fight twice too ... so...).
yes, remove VotLW and Cacophony from the game. Theyre dumb stratagems carrying the faction. Remove them and make baseline units in the codex function without a wombo combo playstyle.
You also can get 4-5 pox walkers or 1 terminator for 1 CP.
Yea the standard seems to be about 3 wounds for readily usable strats. DE broke that and the Mars one should by all rights be 2 CP.
sorry, how did DE break that? The only strat that you can get over 3 wounds per 1cp is eviscerating flyby vs infantry with >15 hellions.
Haywire Grenade is still 1cp for d3.
I would not say a stratagem that requires you to be able to 1, keep 15+ models in a single unit alive and 2, move them all over a specifically INFANTRY target would qualify as "readily Available". At least, not as 'Readily Available" as a usual MW-granting stratagem that asks you to do things like:
-charge with a unit that already wants to be in melee
-be close enough to throw a grenade with any unit
-be in range with an extremely long-range weapon, OR be in range with any bolt weapon in an army filled with bolt weapons.
All models to survive the walk across the board, at the movement speed of a snail.
All models to make it into range to attack.
Perfectly average dice rolls or better.
2CP if you want the average 12 MWs.
Why would anyone even attempt that?
Its a hail Mary last turn thing to be used.
Realistically you are never going to pull this off, more so against any opponent that has a higher IQ than they have fingers.
If they magically teleported into combat, turn 1 with all models in range, then yes, its a problem.
As it stands, its just not going to happen.
If people think remembering stratagems is hard please never play a TCG. A multiplayer game of commander could easily have 200-250 unique cards that interact in a series of if then chains of effect. Then toss abilities and spells onto the stack and you have to figure out exactly how it all resolves. Then when that game ends everybody pulls out a new deck that probably don't share that many cards with the old set of decks.
In short, learn the game. Ask questions. Don't get gotcha'd.
Canadian 5th wrote: If people think remembering stratagems is hard please never play a TCG. A multiplayer game of commander could easily have 200-250 unique cards that interact in a series of if then chains of effect. Then toss abilities and spells onto the stack and you have to figure out exactly how it all resolves. Then when that game ends everybody pulls out a new deck that probably don't share that many cards with the old set of decks.
In short, learn the game. Ask questions. Don't get gotcha'd.
But the cards in magic are all puplic knowledge and the rules interactions have mostly stayed the same over decades and they use a good keyword system. The amount of completely new rules given out at a time is fairly limited in more competitive games.
Almost all the weirdest rules are on overcosted and overcomplicated cards that are there just for fun. You don't really mind loosing to such cards since everyone know they are subpar and if someone managed to win those crazy cards everyone at the table knows they could have won faster and easier with better cards if they wanted. It wasn't unknown knowledge that decided it really. More than usual I mean since the game is based partly on you not knowing what your opponent have in their deck or hand. 40k is supposed to be "open" knowledge yet the rules are not available to everyone unless they pay a huge sum.
Most TCGs become easier over time to understand with the years since your old knowledge is still useful a decade later. You just need to learn the best new cards with are like 10% of the cards since you went away. The rest stayed the same and there are lot of exact reprints with the same name and ability. In 40k it really isn't much of help to have played previous editions since rules actually change how they work all the time. The ever changing nature of 40k makes it hard to know everything. Most mistakes I see from veteran players are that they misremembered rules from previous editions and rules documents and mix it up with current rules/models with the same name.
The amount of rules in itself isn't the real problem but how they are designed are. I remember thousands off well designed magic cards or even UFS cards years after I played the game. Couldn't tell you the correct name and wording on the current Blood Angels strats because I will mix them up with previous strats and those from other chapters.
Nobody is expected to know every single intricacy of an opponents army, but it's just common sense to ask relevant questions that pertain to how your army operates.
Playing a close combat orientated army? You ask if your opponents army has any fight last, or good overwatch units, or cheeky heroic intervention mechanics. All things that can impact how your gameplan is meant to go.
You don't need a deep dive rundown of all 40 stratagems that they have ffs
Klickor wrote: But the cards in magic are all puplic knowledge and the rules interactions have mostly stayed the same over decades and they use a good keyword system. The amount of completely new rules given out at a time is fairly limited in more competitive games.
Yes, MtG has every card as public knowledge but it isn't hard to find the same info for 40k even if it does get a little grey area from time to time. I'd love for GW to make the physical book a premium product and the rules a nominal fee (like $1.99 or less) no frills PDF.
Also, yes completely new rules in MtG are rare but the complexity of MtG isn't on a card-by-card basis, it's in how a dozen different cards interact on the battlefield. For example, Wandering Fumarole and Sure Strike always making a 4/4 and never a 7/1 because of layering. Chains of Mephistopheles is always a mind bender the first time people see it.
This isn't to say that MtG isn't easy to get into, because for a TCG with as many cards and formats as it has MtG is very accessible, it's just that if you can understand MtG and spend weeks researching a new deck before building and tuning it you can learn the gotcha strats in 40k.
I don't think anyone is saying you can't learn the gotchas in 40k but it's an entirely different kind of game. Magic is all about the card interactions so spending time learning them is almost all that is required for the game. 40k on the other hand already have the immense time requirements of assembling and painting your models and then just the effort of setting up a game and transport your army to it is vastly higher than for doing the same in a card game.
People already complain about the painting part being gatekeeping. Having to spend so much mental capacity just to keep up with the rules is in some form another gatekeeping aspect. You are "supposed" to lose just because you didn't spend extra time learning everything due to bad game design forcing you to do so.
It is a gakky comparison using MtG. The only 40k player at our club that didn't start playing long ago but started in 8th sold off his army a month or so ago and now plays better designed games, including EDH/Commander. He didn't want to study rules for a game that could change at any moment. He had better things to do.
Klickor wrote: I don't think anyone is saying you can't learn the gotchas in 40k but it's an entirely different kind of game. Magic is all about the card interactions so spending time learning them is almost all that is required for the game. 40k on the other hand already have the immense time requirements of assembling and painting your models and then just the effort of setting up a game and transport your army to it is vastly higher than for doing the same in a card game.
People already complain about the painting part being gatekeeping. Having to spend so much mental capacity just to keep up with the rules is in some form another gatekeeping aspect. You are "supposed" to lose just because you didn't spend extra time learning everything due to bad game design forcing you to do so.
It is a gakky comparison using MtG. The only 40k player at our club that didn't start playing long ago but started in 8th sold off his army a month or so ago and now plays better designed games, including EDH/Commander. He didn't want to study rules for a game that could change at any moment. He had better things to do.
If you want to be good at something like 40k you need a certain level of willingness to study the armies in your meta, learn what your own army is supposed to do, and then play more than a game per month. People want to treat 40k as if you should be able to play a game every month or two with whatever random junk you've assembled and have a decent chance at not getting blown out. That's not really how any game works, even MtG requires you to buy the cards you need for your deck(s) and - depending on your format - keep up with rotation and the local meta while learning to pilot your deck.
This isn't to say that MtG isn't easy to get into, because for a TCG with as many cards and formats as it has MtG is very accessible, it's just that if you can understand MtG and spend weeks researching a new deck before building and tuning it you can learn the gotcha strats in 40k.
You just type in best decks for format X, and then either print out the cards or if you play at a store order them from China. The last thing maybe takes a few weeks, but not of research. And when you have the deck you just watch tutorials , and they tell you everything, what and how to play, when to do it, what side deck cards to use against specific match ups.
w40k is horrible comparing to that, because even if you plow through the entire part of the net that tells you to play what you want, even if you find playtesters, and if you copy their lists, it takes months to have the army ready, so even if no nerfs happens in that time, you still can find out that in the video or two you saw, the army was not played serious or was played vs builds that aren't played in the real world or localy. It is very rare for something like a harlequins or GK army lists to exist, DE seem to be the only thing right now that comes with something close to a pre build core list.
the first time you get that gotcha dropped on you, it sucks, especially if they roll well. The next few times though, you learn really quickly how to deal with them.
Spare low strength weapon fire deals with them pretty easily. They're slow, and they really don't have any output other than to get bumped up with some CP.
Drink some concrete my dude, its time to harden up a bit.
Klickor wrote: I don't think anyone is saying you can't learn the gotchas in 40k but it's an entirely different kind of game. Magic is all about the card interactions so spending time learning them is almost all that is required for the game. 40k on the other hand already have the immense time requirements of assembling and painting your models and then just the effort of setting up a game and transport your army to it is vastly higher than for doing the same in a card game.
People already complain about the painting part being gatekeeping. Having to spend so much mental capacity just to keep up with the rules is in some form another gatekeeping aspect. You are "supposed" to lose just because you didn't spend extra time learning everything due to bad game design forcing you to do so.
It is a gakky comparison using MtG. The only 40k player at our club that didn't start playing long ago but started in 8th sold off his army a month or so ago and now plays better designed games, including EDH/Commander. He didn't want to study rules for a game that could change at any moment. He had better things to do.
If you want to be good at something like 40k you need a certain level of willingness to study the armies in your meta, learn what your own army is supposed to do, and then play more than a game per month. People want to treat 40k as if you should be able to play a game every month or two with whatever random junk you've assembled and have a decent chance at not getting blown out. That's not really how any game works, even MtG requires you to buy the cards you need for your deck(s) and - depending on your format - keep up with rotation and the local meta while learning to pilot your deck.
Ofc people treat 40k that way. The game have been designed that way for decades and the game designers probably still do think of it like that. Most of the gotchas aren't even that bad if people didn't turn up with competitive lists.
Like a 3" heroic intervention on a random tactical squad isn't bad but if it is a fully decked out Vanguard Veteran squad you are in for the hurt.
The slamguinius captain that were totally broken and unfair, unfun and the empitome of gotcha for those that haven't seen it before does nothing if you play with any of the stock characters GW sells. If you put the same warlord traits, relics and stratagems on any of the normal characters GW sells it isn't a problem at all. You need to convert one with a TH+SS+JP yourself which is most likely why it survived the testing phase.
We as the player have to study up because the game is so badly designed. There are more complex and competitive games out there that need less studying to avoid gotchas.
I remember when I played Warmachine competitive in early MK2. That game is way more punishing to mistakes than any gotcha in 40k. It also had way more combos that were depending on how and when you activated units and abilities than current 40k. Yet it was quite easy to keep up with the rules and when at the table see what your opponent could do without 40 hidden strats you had to remember. You just picked up their cards and read right on them what they could do.
You could do some insane gak in that game. I once won a game by using my leader to debuff their warjack(a walker like a dreadnought)that was protecting their warcaster/leader and also debuffing said leader. Then use my warjack to shoot a harpoon at their warjack and drag it over to my side leaving a gap in his lines. Then use a special unit to destroy his warjack and out of the remains create a new and better warjack that could perfectly fit in the new gap in his lines. It moved up there and grabbed his leader and threw it so it would be just in reach from my elite melee unit. Since his leader was debuffed from before my melee unit could easily kill him there and end the game. There were some more things going on for me to do that as well but they don't really matter. Despite all those actions and from outside it might have looked like a win out of nowhere, he knew I could do it but hedged on that I wouldn't be able to succeed all those actions. If I failed he would most likely have won on scenario instead. That win is way more complicated than anything you can do in 40k yet it is way easier to see.
If you need to study a lot for 40k then it is the problem with the game, not the expectations of the players
Seabass wrote: the first time you get that gotcha dropped on you, it sucks, especially if they roll well. The next few times though, you learn really quickly how to deal with them.
Spare low strength weapon fire deals with them pretty easily. They're slow, and they really don't have any output other than to get bumped up with some CP.
Drink some concrete my dude, its time to harden up a bit.
True. Only bad moment is when you sit down go through your codex, do the math and it is something like 2.0 IH vs foot csm, and you know you can't adapt. thankfuly This does not happen all the time, and it matters less , if you don't play tournaments
Seabass wrote: the first time you get that gotcha dropped on you, it sucks, especially if they roll well. The next few times though, you learn really quickly how to deal with them.
Spare low strength weapon fire deals with them pretty easily. They're slow, and they really don't have any output other than to get bumped up with some CP.
Drink some concrete my dude, its time to harden up a bit.
True. Only bad moment is when you sit down go through your codex, do the math and it is something like 2.0 IH vs foot csm, and you know you can't adapt. thankfuly This does not happen all the time, and it matters less , if you don't play tournaments
if you get to a point where you know you cant adapt to how you are playing now, try something different. and actually play the game. It helps. I'm not being sarcastic. I've seen some folks playing some pretty unorthodox stuff that is surprisingly good. Sometimes just trying something new and different is enough to give you a different perspective.
Klickor wrote: I don't think anyone is saying you can't learn the gotchas in 40k but it's an entirely different kind of game. Magic is all about the card interactions so spending time learning them is almost all that is required for the game. 40k on the other hand already have the immense time requirements of assembling and painting your models and then just the effort of setting up a game and transport your army to it is vastly higher than for doing the same in a card game.
People already complain about the painting part being gatekeeping. Having to spend so much mental capacity just to keep up with the rules is in some form another gatekeeping aspect. You are "supposed" to lose just because you didn't spend extra time learning everything due to bad game design forcing you to do so.
It is a gakky comparison using MtG. The only 40k player at our club that didn't start playing long ago but started in 8th sold off his army a month or so ago and now plays better designed games, including EDH/Commander. He didn't want to study rules for a game that could change at any moment. He had better things to do.
If you want to be good at something like 40k you need a certain level of willingness to study the armies in your meta, learn what your own army is supposed to do, and then play more than a game per month. People want to treat 40k as if you should be able to play a game every month or two with whatever random junk you've assembled and have a decent chance at not getting blown out. That's not really how any game works, even MtG requires you to buy the cards you need for your deck(s) and - depending on your format - keep up with rotation and the local meta while learning to pilot your deck.
This. Even the simple act of a mulligan will depend on how well you know your own deck.
and, while we're at it, I want to say that people need to take their ego out of it and see if they can learn something from the games they play. It has been my experience that most of the time, despite feeling otherwise initially, once I think back about the game, there is a very real chance there were decisions that I made that could have changed things and significantly changed the game as it played out.
Now, that isn't to say that I would have won. Not at all, it's simply to try to understand that maybe my decisions weren't always the best and I can learn something from that.
After all, this plan is too clever to fail twice, right?
This isn't to say that MtG isn't easy to get into, because for a TCG with as many cards and formats as it has MtG is very accessible, it's just that if you can understand MtG and spend weeks researching a new deck before building and tuning it you can learn the gotcha strats in 40k.
You just type in best decks for format X, and then either print out the cards or if you play at a store order them from China. The last thing maybe takes a few weeks, but not of research. And when you have the deck you just watch tutorials , and they tell you everything, what and how to play, when to do it, what side deck cards to use against specific match ups.
w40k is horrible comparing to that, because even if you plow through the entire part of the net that tells you to play what you want, even if you find playtesters, and if you copy their lists, it takes months to have the army ready, so even if no nerfs happens in that time, you still can find out that in the video or two you saw, the army was not played serious or was played vs builds that aren't played in the real world or localy. It is very rare for something like a harlequins or GK army lists to exist, DE seem to be the only thing right now that comes with something close to a pre build core list.
If you truly think like that then its no surprise that you're not having success with your 40k games lol.
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Seabass wrote: and, while we're at it, I want to say that people need to take their ego out of it and see if they can learn something from the games they play. It has been my experience that most of the time, despite feeling otherwise initially, once I think back about the game, there is a very real chance there were decisions that I made that could have changed things and significantly changed the game as it played out.
Now, that isn't to say that I would have won. Not at all, it's simply to try to understand that maybe my decisions weren't always the best and I can learn something from that.
After all, this plan is too clever to fail twice, right?
most games you lose are because of a mistake you made. Get rid of your "scrub" mentality and stop blaming things other than yourself for your losses.
Mark of an inexperienced player is trying to underplay the effect of luck or skill, because veteran players know how much both really matter.
Also, when it comes to Warhammer, most games you lose are because the opponent had a stronger list and decisions made during the game were not the deciding factor.
NinthMusketeer wrote: Mark of an inexperienced player is trying to underplay the effect of luck or skill, because veteran players know how much both really matter.
Also, when it comes to Warhammer, most games you lose are because the opponent had a stronger list and decisions made during the game were not the deciding factor.
If that were truly the case, the same people wouldn't regularly place so well at large events. The fact that we have a "pro" class of players I think speaks volumes to this. Now, that isn't to say that every army starts on equal footing, some codexes are clearly more difficult to win with, but otherwise, it's likely the decision-making that is getting players through the game.
Yeah, and there are some 8th edition lists that have managed to get top 3 in recent GTs too. 40k 9th edition is a complex game. A good player can take a 8th edition codex list and still pilot it to a good result against all the 9th edition codexes out there.
And if you pit a tournament winning 40k player against a newbie piloting some net Drukhair or Admech list. I would always place my bets on the pro player winning.
Btw, to the OP. I would just like to say also that GW has further raised the bar in the new admech book. So, the trend is definitely towards strategems getting more powerful, not less. Admech has a new strategem in their book that lets their 8 point per model "low tier" Vangard unit do autowounds with radium weapons on hits of 4s with their guns (which by the way, shoot 3 shots per gun). Yup, you heard that right. Poxwalkers doing mortal wounds on hits of 6s in melee? How would you like to see a 20 man Vanguard squad firing 60 shots and autowounding on hits of 4s. This is at least 30 wounds even if they have BS4+ with no rerolls and actually, they have BS3+.
I just watched a battle report on youtube where turn 1, a squad of 20 Admech vanguard used this strategem and shot a full health 20 man necron warrior blob off the table (no chance to reanimate at all). And then turn 2, the same squad teleported across the table to within shooting range of a second necron warrior blob of 20, and used the same strategem and obliterated that squad as well in one shooting round (again no chance to reanime). After seeing that in action, mutant strain seems perfectly fine to me.
Btw, to the OP. I would just like to say also that GW has further raised the bar in the new admech book. So, the trend is definitely towards strategems getting more powerful, not less. Admech has a new strategem in their book that lets their 8 point per model "low tier" Vangard unit do autowounds with radium weapons on hits of 4s with their guns (which by the way, shoot 3 shots per gun). Yup, you heard that right. Poxwalkers doing mortal wounds on hits of 6s in melee? How would you like to see a 20 man Vanguard squad firing 60 shots and autowounding on hits of 4s. This is at least 30 wounds even if they have BS4+ with no rerolls and actually, they have BS3+.
I just watched a battle report on youtube where turn 1, a squad of 20 Admech vanguard used this strategem and shot a full health 20 man necron warrior blob off the table (no chance to reanimate at all). And then turn 2, the same squad teleported across the table to within shooting range of a second necron warrior blob of 20, and used the same strategem and obliterated that squad as well in one shooting round (again no chance to reanime). After seeing that in action, mutant strain seems perfectly fine to me.
See? I was right. There's something in the AdMech book that'll soon take the place of all the "OMG Drukari are OP! discussion/sob sessions.
Everyone is getting some OP trick here in 9th. So it'll all balance out. (well, except for that one randomly chosen faction. They won't get anything. Sucks if you play them....)
JNAProductions wrote: Shoot them before they make it to close combat. They’re not very durable, and are very slow.
It might be overtuned, but this seems pretty over the top a reaction.
Shoot them with what? i play a close combat army. Sure i have ranged weapons but most of those weapons are focused around dealing with heavier units. I find it directly unfair that someone can deal a massive amount of mortal wounds from such a cheap unit.
No other faction simply does that. And then that guy that allows them to hit first in CC meaning i dont even get the first strike to begin with.
Since when is 6 or 7 a 'massive amount of mortal wounds'? That's not exactly an oppressive number even in 40k. In AoS you can get that many out of a single model.
JNAProductions wrote: Shoot them before they make it to close combat. They’re not very durable, and are very slow.
It might be overtuned, but this seems pretty over the top a reaction.
Shoot them with what? i play a close combat army. Sure i have ranged weapons but most of those weapons are focused around dealing with heavier units. I find it directly unfair that someone can deal a massive amount of mortal wounds from such a cheap unit.
No other faction simply does that. And then that guy that allows them to hit first in CC meaning i dont even get the first strike to begin with.
Since when is 6 or 7 a 'massive amount of mortal wounds'? That's not exactly an oppressive number even in 40k. In AoS you can get that many out of a single model.
Now I'm thinking about my Tenebrael Shard with old Sword of Judgement, teleporting into combat with enemy characters and delivering 20+ mortal wounds in addition to normal damage. Didn't even use a command point!
6 mortal wounds is one of the largest numbers of mortal wounds any unit can cause in a phase in all of 40k. Bringing in AOS does nothing, I'm sure it's a gak game, saying 20 mortal wounds is a small thing does not convince me otherwise
NinthMusketeer wrote: Mark of an inexperienced player is trying to underplay the effect of luck or skill, because veteran players know how much both really matter.
Also, when it comes to Warhammer, most games you lose are because the opponent had a stronger list and decisions made during the game were not the deciding factor.
If that were truly the case, the same people wouldn't regularly place so well at large events. The fact that we have a "pro" class of players I think speaks volumes to this. Now, that isn't to say that every army starts on equal footing, some codexes are clearly more difficult to win with, but otherwise, it's likely the decision-making that is getting players through the game.
A great example to support my argument; those players do not show up and get the same placing every time. If it were simply about skill, the most skilled would always be on top followed by the next, and so on.
Speaking AS someone who was in that group back when I played tournaments: It is not uncommon to hit a match where you look at your opponent, look at their list, and know it is evenly matched. Unless one of you screws up, it is going to be down to the dice because you are both coming in so close to each other in potency. No one is denying that such a matchup is taking place atop the corpses of armies you brutalized to get there, but the reality is that dice can be the deciding factor even at the highest level of play. Perhaps even more so, because a skilled player will be better able to pounce on a sudden irregularity of averages and exploit it to the fullest.
For example; I was up against a very skilled opponent and aiming to weaken a specific character with magic before charging in to finish the job. Suddenly I rolled really well on my damage and killed the character outright with the spell, negating the need to charge them. And that was it; that one spot of luck was a domino. I was able to send the charge in to support another of my units, allowing both to come out of the turn uninjured and then go on to beat up other targets and gut the core of my opponents army in a manner that simply would not have been possible had my original spell rolled average. And my opponent had not screwed up either; positioning in a manner to compensate for this occurence would have left openings on another front that I would have been able to exploit regardless of my spell's damage. At no point did either player actually make a mistake.
and given that die can be such a deciding factor, id say that mutant strain should deal mortal wounds in the wounding phase, not the hitting phase to avoid such a large influx of mortal wounds, when 1 CP tends to amount to 3MW, and 2CP amounts to 6.
often.
usually.
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Eldenfirefly wrote: Yeah, and there are some 8th edition lists that have managed to get top 3 in recent GTs too. 40k 9th edition is a complex game. A good player can take a 8th edition codex list and still pilot it to a good result against all the 9th edition codexes out there.
And if you pit a tournament winning 40k player against a newbie piloting some net Drukhair or Admech list. I would always place my bets on the pro player winning.
Btw, to the OP. I would just like to say also that GW has further raised the bar in the new admech book. So, the trend is definitely towards strategems getting more powerful, not less. Admech has a new strategem in their book that lets their 8 point per model "low tier" Vangard unit do autowounds with radium weapons on hits of 4s with their guns (which by the way, shoot 3 shots per gun). Yup, you heard that right. Poxwalkers doing mortal wounds on hits of 6s in melee? How would you like to see a 20 man Vanguard squad firing 60 shots and autowounding on hits of 4s. This is at least 30 wounds even if they have BS4+ with no rerolls and actually, they have BS3+.
I just watched a battle report on youtube where turn 1, a squad of 20 Admech vanguard used this strategem and shot a full health 20 man necron warrior blob off the table (no chance to reanimate at all). And then turn 2, the same squad teleported across the table to within shooting range of a second necron warrior blob of 20, and used the same strategem and obliterated that squad as well in one shooting round (again no chance to reanime). After seeing that in action, mutant strain seems perfectly fine to me.
i dont know any of those stratagems as ive never fought admech before. So im not really sure what im meant to say. So ill stick to this stratagem. It sounds powerful, sure but im more in the department of mortal wounds, not auto wounds. (although auto wounding that many hits on 4s seem very excessive indeed).
vict0988 wrote: 6 mortal wounds is one of the largest numbers of mortal wounds any unit can cause in a phase in all of 40k. Bringing in AOS does nothing, I'm sure it's a gak game, saying 20 mortal wounds is a small thing does not convince me otherwise
What? It's not even anywhere remotely near "one of the largest number".
vict0988 wrote: 6 mortal wounds is one of the largest numbers of mortal wounds any unit can cause in a phase in all of 40k. Bringing in AOS does nothing, I'm sure it's a gak game, saying 20 mortal wounds is a small thing does not convince me otherwise
If this is as powerful as it has been made out to be by some then surely someone could go build lists around it and dominate. That this is probably the first time many people have heard this strat mentioned in any capacity since the book released four or so months ago should tell you everything you need to know.
vict0988 wrote: 6 mortal wounds is one of the largest numbers of mortal wounds any unit can cause in a phase in all of 40k. Bringing in AOS does nothing, I'm sure it's a gak game, saying 20 mortal wounds is a small thing does not convince me otherwise
What? It's not even anywhere remotely near "one of the largest number".
Name 10 units that deal 7 MW in one phase on average.
vict0988 wrote: 6 mortal wounds is one of the largest numbers of mortal wounds any unit can cause in a phase in all of 40k. Bringing in AOS does nothing, I'm sure it's a gak game, saying 20 mortal wounds is a small thing does not convince me otherwise
If this is as powerful as it has been made out to b...
It's 1CP undercosted on a good day, nobody claimed it's a game-ending thing, OP is more concerned with chaff punching above their weight class too cheap, I am more concerned that it could be a gotcha.
It's 1CP undercosted on a good day, nobody claimed it's a game-ending thing, OP is more concerned with chaff punching above their weight class too cheap, I am more concerned that it could be a gotcha.
It's only ever a gotcha once, if that. The weight class the OP references was a scenario where his opponent spent 45 points more and 2 CP to half kill a model. What we're talking about is him effectively losing 65 to 70 points.
vict0988 wrote: 6 mortal wounds is one of the largest numbers of mortal wounds any unit can cause in a phase in all of 40k. Bringing in AOS does nothing, I'm sure it's a gak game, saying 20 mortal wounds is a small thing does not convince me otherwise
If this is as powerful as it has been made out to be by some then surely someone could go build lists around it and dominate. That this is probably the first time many people have heard this strat mentioned in any capacity since the book released four or so months ago should tell you everything you need to know.
I am actually a Harbinger player that runs between 60-80 poxwalkers and my friend is convincing me to go up to 119(I have 105 poxwalkers currently). I am usually middle of the pack at tourneys with the highest placing being third place.
The truth is that I am lucky to even get to use the stratagems(mutant / reroll) in an average game. It's a slight deterrent to the opponent if I have a blob, but even then they are quick to shoot the units off the board when they have the chance. People here tend to forget that Death Guard is a CP hungry army and poxwalkers rarely get the chance to use this unless the opponent blindly charges a poxwalker squad turn 1 or 2. I have also lost an objective because of a bad roll of 1s using this stratagem so it's a hit and miss unless you have the reroll stratagem(which is, btw, part of the sub-faction that most people don't take due to the worst warlord trait in the book).
There is also the fact that if you have half a brain you can bypass the Foul Blightspawn's ability by charging the edges of the poxwalker blob and kill the squad in close combat before they have a chance to react. In fact, the times I have actually managed to use Mutant Strain stratagem properly is when I am allowed to use CP to interrupt the combat sequence(which costs 2 CP) so the entire combo wombo costs 4 CP in total, which is not cheap btw. Also, if you are running a Foul Blightspawn to babysit your 20+ poxwalkers you are running a nearly 300+ point combo that is rather easy to ignore. Hell, if you have more poxwalkers around the FBS you are wasting poxwalkers on a deathstar unit when you could be having them try to take multiple objective points, which means some of them won't get the FBS babysitting them.
Then there is also the fact that you can only use the stratagem once per turn so it's not exactly like you can spam this ability.
vict0988 wrote: 6 mortal wounds is one of the largest numbers of mortal wounds any unit can cause in a phase in all of 40k. Bringing in AOS does nothing, I'm sure it's a gak game, saying 20 mortal wounds is a small thing does not convince me otherwise
What? It's not even anywhere remotely near "one of the largest number".
Name 10 units that deal 7 MW in one phase on average.
You already failed to understand the whole issue if you claim that mutant strain does 6 mortal wounds on average (it doesn't), thus losing any and all credibility to argue this topic.
But sure, here we go:
1. Burna bommer
2. Wretched Malignant plaguecaster
3. PBC, defiler or landraider using putrid detonation
4. Magnus
5. Tesseract Vault or the nightbringer, and any other C'Tan shard with cosmic fire
6. Skyweavers
7. Reavers
8. Rotigus
9. Exalted Lord of Change
10. Ahriman
Bonus: Deathstrike Missile
I didn't even have to look into a single book for those nor did I need to go into FW wonkiness, there are probably many more.
If you ignore the random "in one phase" limitation, you could also include units like KBB which actually average 8 MW if you combine shooting and assault or Typhus who can deal 9 MW on average to marines, more to T3 units.
I am not sure why we are even trying so hard in this thread.
The OP only wants to fixate on this one strategem within a isolated bubble. He wants to say that no other strategem he knows of does so many mortal wounds.
Yet, when we start to look at it within the context of all the other strategems, and all the other codexes as well as how it in practise in real play on tabletop it cannot generate the number of MW he seems to think it can. Then his argument is that he doesn't want to look at other powerful strategems that make Mutant Strain look average. Because he only wants to focus on Mutant Strain within a bubble. Which is in direct contradiction because either you try and compare, then do it properly, or you do not compare at all, in which case then I don't even know what basis the whole conversation is based on.
Its like saying. Strategem XYZ is the most OP thing ever. But I refuse to look at context, or other armies, or strategy, or other strategems. I just want to insist Strategem XYZ is the most OP thing ever.
Let me now claim that I am the fastest runner in the world. I refuse to compare myself to any other runner. But I know I can run 100 meters in 15 seconds and I just absolutely know that that makes me the fastest runner in the world....
Eldenfirefly wrote: I am not sure why we are even trying so hard in this thread.
The OP only wants to fixate on this one strategem within a isolated bubble. He wants to say that no other strategem he knows of does so many mortal wounds.
Yet, when we start to look at it within the context of all the other strategems, and all the other codexes as well as how it in practise in real play on tabletop it cannot generate the number of MW he seems to think it can. Then his argument is that he doesn't want to look at other powerful strategems that make Mutant Strain look average. Because he only wants to focus on Mutant Strain within a bubble. Which is in direct contradiction because either you try and compare, then do it properly, or you do not compare at all, in which case then I don't even know what basis the whole conversation is based on.
Its like saying. Strategem XYZ is the most OP thing ever. But I refuse to look at context, or other armies, or strategy, or other strategems. I just want to insist Strategem XYZ is the most OP thing ever.
Let me now claim that I am the fastest runner in the world. I refuse to compare myself to any other runner. But I know I can run 100 meters in 15 seconds and I just absolutely know that that makes me the fastest runner in the world....
Why do you spread lies?
Where did i say no other stratagem can deal more mortal wounds than Mutant strain? I play orks, ive used flying ead'butt and dealt 16 mortal wounds with that stratagem. That stratagem coupled with a burna bomma dropping bombs over performs quite a lot as well, even though your burna bomma dies in the attempt as well.
I was personally not interested in comparing stratagems to begin with because you guys went the route of: X stratagem is more better and deals more damage than Mutant strain, ergo mutant strain is not a problem. Like somehow having a list of several over performing stratagems means mutant strain couldnt over perform. Saying mutant strain isnt able to overperform because you genuinly dont think it can is one thing, hey its your opinion, but saying its not over performing because something else over performs more doesnt make sense in my book.
However, since then people have pointed out, like Jidmah that many other stratagems can actually do the same things (ish) which makes comparisons important anyway (many mortal wounds for little cost).
I agree that in vast majority of cases mutant strain wont over perform as the poxies will be shot to pieces (again unless you play khorne daemons for instance). And you are right that i was interested in seeing the stratagem mutant strain in a controlled bubble and looking at what amount of mortal wounds it could deal, which seemed too high for 1CP. It also did not follow the "general" 3MW for 1CP, as i see it. Sure if you use it with 3 poxies left your odds of getting value from it lessens quite a lot to the brink of useless, but if you had 10 poxies charging or otherwise suddenly it start looking pretty good.
That one CP and the amount of MW it could deal, was not made redundant in my opinion, because other stratagems over performs as well like flying ead'butt.
That was one side of it, the other side was that a base troop infantry could suddenly strike way above their weightclass which felt out of place for me. I would understand getting +2 strength or -2AP or something on the hit rolls of 6s, but suddenly dealing mortal wounds meant bypassing invul saves as well. It seemed potentially very powerful, yet also very situational against khorne daemons or maybe custodians (as poxies die in numbers).
So it can be a useless stratagem probably in many cases, but in some scenarios it could be very good. In fact maybe even better than just good.
"So it can be a useless stratagem probably in many cases, but in some scenarios it could be very good. In fact maybe even better than just good."
And there is nothing wrong with that. Looks at the 1 cp reroll strategem. The most commonly used strategem by many people.
In most situations, its ok. In some situations, it was a waste of 1 cp, and the player was an idiot to even spend that cp. And in some situations, it won the player the game...
Jidmah wrote: You already failed to understand the whole issue if you claim that mutant strain does 6 mortal wounds on average (it doesn't), thus losing any and all credibility to argue this topic.
>claims mutant strain doesn't do 6 mortal wounds on average >claims putrid detonation on a Plagueburst Crawler does.
You also failed to get the point of 6 mortal wounds being too much for 1CP, I don't mind 10 Poxwalkers dealing 3 MW for 1CP and I understand that doing more than 3 is not average, 6 MW from Poxwalkers is rare and overpowered. What is the benefit of allowing the Stratagem to deal more than 3MW? Saving ink or the rainforest? Maybe just print fewer Stratagems.
YOU claimed 6 mortal wounds was not a big number. I took not big to mean average, big must be referring to a relation between what is big and what is average, so I thought that you must think that doing 6 mortal wounds was an average thing. You failed to provide 10 units that will in average games do 7 mortal wounds on average or that have Stratagems that provide an additional 7 mortal wounds on average, you found 10 units that can in some situations deal 7 mortal wounds. It doesn't cost anything to have a Stratagem, if you shoot and kill a unit of Poxwalkers you have killed 5 point chaff, but if you don't shoot them and a 20-man blob get the drop on you somehow then they suddenly turn way more efficient. If you shoot a unit of Skyweavers you are shooting a unit with a haywire cannon, not a chaff unit. Drukhari Reflexes at 1CP is also a problem because it turns an ostensibly fragile Raider way more durable for just 1CP.
vict0988, you play necrons. I get it. I have a necron army too. You probably think most of the necron strategems were lackluster and you want to lower ALL strattegems to necrons level.
But that is not the direction that GW is going towards. Especially not when you look at what has come out in Drukhari and Admech. They are making strategems stronger, not weaker. This is the trend.
Jidmah wrote: You already failed to understand the whole issue if you claim that mutant strain does 6 mortal wounds on average (it doesn't), thus losing any and all credibility to argue this topic.
>claims mutant strain doesn't do 6 mortal wounds on average
>claims putrid detonation on a Plagueburst Crawler does.
Correct, I pointed out how dumb it is to assume that an opponent plays in a way to maximize the damage done to them and applied that dumb logic to other units and proved you wrong anyways. I'm sorry if you failed to understand that.
You also failed to get the point of 6 mortal wounds being too much for 1CP, I don't mind 10 Poxwalkers dealing 3 MW for 1CP and I understand that doing more than 3 is not average, 6 MW from Poxwalkers is rare and overpowered. What is the benefit of allowing the Stratagem to deal more than 3MW? Saving ink or the rainforest? Maybe just print fewer Stratagems.
The benefit of of allowing the stratagem to deal more than 3 MW is to punish an opponent who made such a stupid move.
It's the same reason why cosmic fire or orbital bombardement have no mortal wound cap. If your opponent clusters his entire army in one blob, they deserve getting hit by 20+ MW.
YOU claimed 6 mortal wounds was not a big number. I took not big to mean average, big must be referring to a relation between what is big and what is average, so I thought that you must think that doing 6 mortal wounds was an average thing.
It might be a language barrier thing, but I don't think this is a sentence.
Your actual statement was "6 mortal wounds is one of the largest numbers of mortal wounds any unit can cause in a phase in all of 40k." which is bullgak when you consider how some psykers can do that many MW with as single cast, AoE effects exist and that most planes with bombs do an average of 5MW by just flying over infantry.
You failed to provide 10 units that will in average games do 7 mortal wounds on average or that have Stratagems that provide an additional 7 mortal wounds on average
you found 10 units that can in some situations deal 7 mortal wounds.
All those units can easily do an average of at least 7 mortal wounds in a single phase, most more, some even vastly more.
And yes, some of them are situational, but not a single one of them is as situational as mutant strain and not a single one requires you to successfully charge your opponent, nor does it require the unit to be a full health.
It doesn't cost anything to have a Stratagem, if you shoot and kill a unit of Poxwalkers you have killed 5 point chaff, but if you don't shoot them and a 20-man blob get the drop on you somehow then they suddenly turn way more efficient.
News flash: A 20 man blob of unwounded 4" moving poxwalkers can't get the drop on you. If this situation ever arises, you let you opponent do this to you.
If you shoot a unit of Skyweavers you are shooting a unit with a haywire cannon, not a chaff unit. Drukhari Reflexes at 1CP is also a problem because it turns an ostensibly fragile Raider way more durable for just 1CP.
So you're saying that poxwalkers are easy to stop while units doing much more mortal wounds aren't? Wow, who would have guessed.
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Not Online!!! wrote: Doesn't change the fact that it is a stupidly swingy stratagem.
Not more swingy than half the other rules in the game. Ever killed a raider and saw how 10 bloodbrides and a succubus died on their way out?
Eldenfirefly wrote: vict0988, you play necrons. I get it. I have a necron army too. You probably think most of the necron strategems were lackluster and you want to lower ALL strattegems to necrons level.
But that is not the direction that GW is going towards. Especially not when you look at what has come out in Drukhari and Admech. They are making strategems stronger, not weaker. This is the trend.
Sorry, but attack the argument, not the person. Even if I share your opinion on mutant strain, implying that everyone arguing against it has an ulterior motive behind it doesn't help the discussion.
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vict0988 wrote: A chaff unit in melee at full health is less common than a long-range tank at 0 wounds within 6" of 4 enemy units. - Jidmah
"I don't like being wrong, so I ignore two full posts of arguments, focus on a niche situation of one out of seventeen cases proving me wrong and post it in childish manner. I'm also not aware of how games against melee armies look like." - vict0988
Not more swingy than half the other rules in the game. Ever killed a raider and saw how 10 bloodbrides and a succubus died on their way out?
Bit of a diffrent angle there.
The stratagem basically is in itself swingy preciscly in a far more annoying manner, it might do nothing, might do way to many MW. ( just bad design personally, random can be fun, but randumb? and this has the potential for randumb...)
Otoh having a raider explode is, well, expected (albeit consdiering stuff like sabotaged armory exist....) assuming a normal match it's expected that a detonation may destroy the contents wholesale if unluky, which was even somewhat consistent with past iterations of explode... This here is just , well , one unit now does MW for no apparant reason but stratagem.
Kinda feels disjointed comparatively if you get thought process.
I'm still waiting for someone to explain how they plan on walking them across the board without them being butchered by shooting.
Then how they plan on getting every single model in to combat.
The unit could do 20 mortal wounds.
If its not going to be able to meet the conditions for it to work, its useless.
Its literally a hail Mary strat when all else fails and if the situation arises.
The benefit of of allowing the stratagem to deal more than 3 MW is to punish an opponent who made such a stupid move.
Thank you for giving a reason. Should other Stratagems be changed to increase the punishment of misplays? 5 mortal wounds to a CHARACTER for 1CP if you get within 1" of a C'tan with at the end of the charge phase. Would that be good game design? How about giving each unit three such Stratagems? Now you have to know which units can go against which units or they will be obliterated for 10 MW for 2CP because they fill two keywords.
Not more swingy than half the other rules in the game. Ever killed a raider and saw how 10 bloodbrides and a succubus died on their way out?
Bit of a diffrent angle there.
The stratagem basically is in itself swingy preciscly in a far more annoying manner, it might do nothing, might do way to many MW. ( just bad design personally, random can be fun, but randumb? and this has the potential for randumb...)
Otoh having a raider explode is, well, expected (albeit consdiering stuff like sabotaged armory exist....) assuming a normal match it's expected that a detonation may destroy the contents wholesale if unluky, which was even somewhat consistent with past iterations of explode... This here is just , well , one unit now does MW for no apparant reason but stratagem.
Kinda feels disjointed comparatively if you get thought process.
That's the whole point of this thread though. It only feels like that if you assume that poxwalkers actually had a way to appear as 20 strong unit somewhere and charge into their preferred target, similar to bloodletters or boyz with da jump/green tide.
They... just don't do that. Either they are sitting on objectives spreading the sickness (killing d3 of themselves in the process) or wobbling at 4"+d6 towards another one. You also can't spam them with impunity, as you have to bring one unit of plague marines or terminators for every unit of poxwalkers you field.
Usually your opponent shoots them with blast weapons they don't need otherwise, as well with excess bolters and other small arms fire - because they are 20 objective secured models, most opponents have an active interest in not having them stuck to whatever durable unit is defending an objective. Due to their T4, 7+/6+++ defensive profile shooting those things at them even makes sense, because what else is an S3-4 weapon going to shoot in a DG army? Terminators? Plague Marines? Daemon Engines?
Normally a melee unit charges and shreds the poxwalkers (18 boyz with no buffs whatsoever kill 20 poxwalkers, 9 scarboyz if Thrakka is nearby)
I guess you could potentially pay 1CP to put them into strategic reserves, but since this is limited to 6" from the board edge in T3 and their only way of making charges more reliable are command re-rolls, why would you do that? You might as well take those 3CP and trigger a bunch of other DG stratagems that do mortal wounds more reliably.
It's also worth noticing that DG's only way to react to things is their smattering of situational 1CP/2CP stratagems - they move very slowly, they don't shoot a lot and have short ranges. So you don't want to spend
So, in order for this stratagem to unfolds its full potential and have the poxwalkers are in combat, almost unwounded and not fighting second, your opponent would have to ignore them for two or more rounds, put something valuable in their way and let them get the charge instead of moving away. Which really means that an opponent willingly let that happen for some reason, no different from simply not moving out of an orbital bombardment.
In actual games it's essentially a fight deterrent against elite units that doubles up as Tzeentch’s Firestorm when you suicide the poxwalkers.
Edit: One more thing - this stratagem actually was added with War of the Spider. It's so "problematic" that people haven't noticed until now.
What is the benefit of allowing the Stratagem to deal more than 3MW? Saving ink or the rainforest? Maybe just print fewer Stratagems.
The benefit of of allowing the stratagem to deal more than 3 MW is to punish an opponent who made such a stupid move.
Thank you for giving a reason. Should other Stratagems be changed to increase the punishment of misplays? 5 mortal wounds to a CHARACTER for 1CP if you get within 1" of a C'tan with at the end of the charge phase. Would that be good game design? How about giving each unit three such Stratagems? Now you have to know which units can go against which units or they will be obliterated for 10 MW for 2CP because they fill two keywords.
1. Fix your quotes.
2. Have you read the nightbringer's datasheet? He does an average of 17+ damage in combat that - unlike mortal wounds - can't be prevented by anything. Should that be limited to 3 damage as well?
3. And yes, DG's stratagems punish you if you, the opponent, create specific situations. That's their thing.
4. You are literally complaining about having to know your opponent's rules
Jidmah wrote: 2. Have you read the nightbringer's datasheet? He does an average of 17+ damage in combat that - unlike mortal wounds - can't be prevented by anything. Should that be limited to 3 damage as well? 3. And yes, DG's stratagems punish you if you, the opponent, create specific situations. That's their thing. 4. You are literally complaining about having to know your opponent's rules
2. That's not a Stratagem used to make a hundred point relatively durable chaff unit hit like a 250 point durable unit for 1CP, it's a 370 point unit that can be killed by 15 Intercessors. 3. Since when did DG become the gotcha/trap army? 4. Yes, having to know 300 Stratagems or lose is bad game design, in my opinion. You already have to know a dozen army wide rules, etc, etc.
You also failed to answer the question, do you want more powerful niche MW Stratagems?
I see. So you are just one of those people who hate all stratagems. Continue on, we have nothing to talk about.
Edit: I realize this might sound like snark, but it's not. Not liking stratagems is something perfectly ok to do, and many dakkanauts have explained why they dislike the idea. I do not agree, but that's just a matter of taste. There is no right or wrong when it comes to taste.
From a competitive viewpoint there is just nothing wrong with mutant strain which is a solid, but not powerful stratagem at best.
vict0988 wrote: 6 mortal wounds is one of the largest numbers of mortal wounds any unit can cause in a phase in all of 40k. Bringing in AOS does nothing, I'm sure it's a gak game, saying 20 mortal wounds is a small thing does not convince me otherwise
Lol, so you think 6 random mortal wounds is a big deal in 40k and expect me to think your opinion about AoS means anything?
You don't even know the game you do play, lol. Why don't you try playing a few games, figuring out how at least 40k works, before you comment on other wargames? It would make you look like less of an idiot.
2. That's not a Stratagem used to make a hundred point relatively durable chaff unit hit like a 250 point durable unit for 1CP, it's a 370 point unit that can be killed by 15 Intercessors.
3. Since when did DG become the gotcha/trap army?
4. Yes, having to know 300 Stratagems or lose is bad game design, in my opinion. You already have to know a dozen army wide rules.
2. The C'Tan is going to make its points much easier back than poxwalker as well as provide some oomph to a Necron force. Poxwalkers at best sit ugly on an objective and hopes that it can maybe munch on some flesh before being mowed off the table.
3. You must be new here. DG had a paltry selection of stratagems in early 8th but even then you had the grenade combo, which is in itself a gotcha moment if you allowed it to happen. Please don't apply what you think personally another person's army should feel like.
4. Then modern 40k is not for you. It is very apparent that this is the way forward for GW and I doubt it is going to change.
Don't pox walkers make their points up by the fact that they are ultra cheap, and allow the DG player to not be forced to take the over costed plague marines. By virtue of their cost, they automaticly pay their codex. If they also do anything else it is just a bonus.
Eldenfirefly wrote: vict0988, you play necrons. I get it. I have a necron army too. You probably think most of the necron strategems were lackluster and you want to lower ALL strattegems to necrons level.
But that is not the direction that GW is going towards. Especially not when you look at what has come out in Drukhari and Admech. They are making strategems stronger, not weaker. This is the trend.
Not the best take. It is way easier to use the Mephrit strat that it is this one.
Now there is the Mars one, which does seem a tad out of line. A full 20 man shooting a non-vehicle can't usually get to 6 and then the remaining shots are S3 AP0.
Warriors are harder to put down and can be +1 to hit all game. Skitarii have once per game doctrinas similar to Protocols. Mars Radium Skitarii don't get much out of Canticles except Shroudpsalm.
It isn't horribly out of whack. I would expect some Admech stuff to get tweaked later on. I'm also sure someone will come along and tell me a better setup, which makes this wrong.
Karol wrote: Don't pox walkers make their points up by the fact that they are ultra cheap, and allow the DG player to not be forced to take the over costed plague marines. By virtue of their cost, they automaticly pay their codex. If they also do anything else it is just a bonus.
No, thats one of the big changes in the 9th edition codex. You need at least one unit of Bubonic astartes per unit of poxwalker or cultists
Not more swingy than half the other rules in the game. Ever killed a raider and saw how 10 bloodbrides and a succubus died on their way out?
Bit of a diffrent angle there.
The stratagem basically is in itself swingy preciscly in a far more annoying manner, it might do nothing, might do way to many MW. ( just bad design personally, random can be fun, but randumb? and this has the potential for randumb...)
Otoh having a raider explode is, well, expected (albeit consdiering stuff like sabotaged armory exist....) assuming a normal match it's expected that a detonation may destroy the contents wholesale if unluky, which was even somewhat consistent with past iterations of explode... This here is just , well , one unit now does MW for no apparant reason but stratagem.
Kinda feels disjointed comparatively if you get thought process.
That's the whole point of this thread though. It only feels like that if you assume that poxwalkers actually had a way to appear as 20 strong unit somewhere and charge into their preferred target, similar to bloodletters or boyz with da jump/green tide.
They... just don't do that. Either they are sitting on objectives spreading the sickness (killing d3 of themselves in the process) or wobbling at 4"+d6 towards another one. You also can't spam them with impunity, as you have to bring one unit of plague marines or terminators for every unit of poxwalkers you field.
Usually your opponent shoots them with blast weapons they don't need otherwise, as well with excess bolters and other small arms fire - because they are 20 objective secured models, most opponents have an active interest in not having them stuck to whatever durable unit is defending an objective. Due to their T4, 7+/6+++ defensive profile shooting those things at them even makes sense, because what else is an S3-4 weapon going to shoot in a DG army? Terminators? Plague Marines? Daemon Engines?
Normally a melee unit charges and shreds the poxwalkers (18 boyz with no buffs whatsoever kill 20 poxwalkers, 9 scarboyz if Thrakka is nearby)
I guess you could potentially pay 1CP to put them into strategic reserves, but since this is limited to 6" from the board edge in T3 and their only way of making charges more reliable are command re-rolls, why would you do that? You might as well take those 3CP and trigger a bunch of other DG stratagems that do mortal wounds more reliably.
It's also worth noticing that DG's only way to react to things is their smattering of situational 1CP/2CP stratagems - they move very slowly, they don't shoot a lot and have short ranges. So you don't want to spend
So, in order for this stratagem to unfolds its full potential and have the poxwalkers are in combat, almost unwounded and not fighting second, your opponent would have to ignore them for two or more rounds, put something valuable in their way and let them get the charge instead of moving away. Which really means that an opponent willingly let that happen for some reason, no different from simply not moving out of an orbital bombardment.
In actual games it's essentially a fight deterrent against elite units that doubles up as Tzeentch’s Firestorm when you suicide the poxwalkers.
Edit: One more thing - this stratagem actually was added with War of the Spider. It's so "problematic" that people haven't noticed until now.
Why do you think i didn't state it was problematic? it's problematic in a terrible bad design way, but that is GW in a nutshell, because GW gonna GW. There's far worse stuff out there which i even brought up.
Otoh, why shouldn't you be able as a DG player to make poxwalker into something worth fielding beyond chaff via units upgrades like it was done in other editions?
Otoh, why shouldn't you be able as a DG player to make poxwalker into something worth fielding beyond chaff via units upgrades like it was done in other editions?
What unit upgrades? Poxwalkers haven't really existed for that long and the reason there aren't upgrades on Poxwalkers is because they are literally mindless zombies that are infected. The stratagem actually reflects rather well the pestilence that grows within them and bursts out to kill enemy troops(or the poxwalker thanks to a very bad and virulent strain).
Interesting note: Poxwalkers are 1 point cheaper from the first codex in 8th compared to the first codex in 9th and even then have received several boosts on top of that. It basically took a lot of boosting to make them viable. Even then they are not exactly meta-shaking units.
Karol wrote: Don't pox walkers make their points up by the fact that they are ultra cheap, and allow the DG player to not be forced to take the over costed plague marines. By virtue of their cost, they automaticly pay their codex. If they also do anything else it is just a bonus.
Jackal90 wrote: I'm still waiting for someone to explain how they plan on walking them across the board without them being butchered by shooting.
Then how they plan on getting every single model in to combat.
Yeah, because demons, orks, khornate CSM, canoptek/melee necrons, black templar/white scar/blood angels/space wolf SM (all of which have signature melee units with next to no shooting), BR repentia/penitent spam sisters, GSC/tyranid melee armies don't exist, eh? All of them bring very little shooting if they focus on melee components, or shooting that is terrible at handling chaff (because, guess what, they planned to handle it with melee) and the fact cheap, easily spammable unit counters all of the above with trivial stratagem is kind of bad rules writing. No army should be punished for doing the one thing is was made for.
And how they will get models in combat? Last time I checked, melee works both ways, and if that was opponents battle plan, they must bring all his models into melee range... Which funnily means opponent models get to do the same at the same time. Funny that.
Jackal90 wrote: I'm still waiting for someone to explain how they plan on walking them across the board without them being butchered by shooting.
Then how they plan on getting every single model in to combat.
Yeah, because demons, orks, khornate CSM, canoptek/melee necrons, black templar/white scar/blood angels/space wolf SM (all of which have signature melee units with next to no shooting), BR repentia/penitent spam sisters, GSC/tyranid melee armies don't exist, eh? All of them bring very little shooting if they focus on melee components, or shooting that is terrible at handling chaff (because, guess what, they planned to handle it with melee) and the fact cheap, easily spammable unit counters all of the above with trivial stratagem is kind of bad rules writing. No army should be punished for doing the one thing is was made for.
And how they will get models in combat? Last time I checked, melee works both ways, and if that was opponents battle plan, they must bring all his models into melee range... Which funnily means opponent models get to do the same at the same time. Funny that.
Just because you have a melee-centric army doesnt mean you shouldnt bring any shooting. And guess what, your melee specialist squads will be hitting the poxwalkers first, lowering their MW output
Not Online!!! wrote: Otoh, why shouldn't you be able as a DG player to make poxwalker into something worth fielding beyond chaff via units upgrades like it was done in other editions?
Why would I want that? Poxwalkers are a very versatile unit are precisely because of their two stratagems. They are good enough to field them, but you don't want to spam or rely too heavily on them because you can use each stratagem only once and CP are limited.
Upgrades only ever work well for things that add damage, mobility or durability. Upgrade also rarely, if ever, provide players with additional choices to make. Most DG stratagems provide flexibility and utility, something that has traditionally never worked well as upgrades that you have to buy before the game.
No upgrade would be as interesting as having mutant strain and the dead walk again.
Otoh, why shouldn't you be able as a DG player to make poxwalker into something worth fielding beyond chaff via units upgrades like it was done in other editions?
What unit upgrades? Poxwalkers haven't really existed for that long and the reason there aren't upgrades on Poxwalkers is because they are literally mindless zombies that are infected. The stratagem actually reflects rather well the pestilence that grows within them and bursts out to kill enemy troops(or the poxwalker thanks to a very bad and virulent strain).
Interesting note: Poxwalkers are 1 point cheaper from the first codex in 8th compared to the first codex in 9th and even then have received several boosts on top of that. It basically took a lot of boosting to make them viable. Even then they are not exactly meta-shaking units.
Considering poxwalkers are just copyrightable name for Plague zombies, yes, there were older editions which allowed you to be dangerous with them
Jackal90 wrote: I'm still waiting for someone to explain how they plan on walking them across the board without them being butchered by shooting.
Then how they plan on getting every single model in to combat.
Yeah, because demons, orks, khornate CSM, canoptek/melee necrons, black templar/white scar/blood angels/space wolf SM (all of which have signature melee units with next to no shooting), BR repentia/penitent spam sisters, GSC/tyranid melee armies don't exist, eh? All of them bring very little shooting if they focus on melee components, or shooting that is terrible at handling chaff (because, guess what, they planned to handle it with melee) and the fact cheap, easily spammable unit counters all of the above with trivial stratagem is kind of bad rules writing. No army should be punished for doing the one thing is was made for.
And how they will get models in combat? Last time I checked, melee works both ways, and if that was opponents battle plan, they must bring all his models into melee range... Which funnily means opponent models get to do the same at the same time. Funny that.
Quite a few of the units you mentioned have shooting even if it is not artillery fire. I mean, ignore shooting units in your armies for your fluffy list but then don't complain that your army can't handle the game in general. I think the only army worth mentioning here is Daemons that does not have any shooting except maybe some Tzeentch stuff(not familiar with Daemons in 40k).
Even then you will still have the initiative if you charge because the rulebook states that you activate charging units before defending units with the interrupt stratagem being the only one allowing an enemy to hit second before the rest of the charging units and that one costs 2 CP. The only time that might not apply is when facing the Foul Blightspawn, but you can play around him so you can still get your first hit and obliterate the poxwalker unit. Even taking down half the poxwalker unit eliminates a good portion of any potential MW.
Also good to remember that a unit can only pile 3 inches to the closest enemy model so you can effectively limit the amount of potential MW by flanking on two fronts the poxwalker squad.
Not Online!!! wrote: Otoh, why shouldn't you be able as a DG player to make poxwalker into something worth fielding beyond chaff via units upgrades like it was done in other editions?
Why would I want that? Poxwalkers are a very versatile unit are precisely because of their two stratagems. They are good enough to field them, but you don't want to spam or rely too heavily on them because you can use each stratagem only once and CP are limited.
Upgrades only ever work well for things that add damage, mobility or durability. Upgrade also rarely, if ever, provide players with additional choices to make. Most DG stratagems provide flexibility and utility, something that has traditionally never worked well as upgrades that you have to buy before the game.
No upgrade would be as interesting as having mutant strain and the dead walk again.
And this is preciscly the reason why i hate stratagems, suddendly half your army isn't equal anymore.
Also lol flexibility to recycle and damage being flexible and not handleable via upgrades. Counter point, you could allow Poxes or plague zombies to recycle more when killing in melee and you could make them more killy via a varying upgrade for specific plague strains...
Otoh, why shouldn't you be able as a DG player to make poxwalker into something worth fielding beyond chaff via units upgrades like it was done in other editions?
What unit upgrades? Poxwalkers haven't really existed for that long and the reason there aren't upgrades on Poxwalkers is because they are literally mindless zombies that are infected. The stratagem actually reflects rather well the pestilence that grows within them and bursts out to kill enemy troops(or the poxwalker thanks to a very bad and virulent strain).
Interesting note: Poxwalkers are 1 point cheaper from the first codex in 8th compared to the first codex in 9th and even then have received several boosts on top of that. It basically took a lot of boosting to make them viable. Even then they are not exactly meta-shaking units.
Considering poxwalkers are just copyrightable name for Plague zombies, yes, there were older editions which allowed you to be dangerous with them
You talking about the ones in Necromunda 1996? Isn't that reaching a bit far and wrong game? There was also just the Typhus version of cultists which btw are still in the game under the name cultists(sans any special Typhus bonuses).
On a fun note, if we could have a deal that this stratagem gets removed and Poxwalkers get 8-9" inch move instead I'd be down for it.
Otoh, why shouldn't you be able as a DG player to make poxwalker into something worth fielding beyond chaff via units upgrades like it was done in other editions?
What unit upgrades? Poxwalkers haven't really existed for that long and the reason there aren't upgrades on Poxwalkers is because they are literally mindless zombies that are infected. The stratagem actually reflects rather well the pestilence that grows within them and bursts out to kill enemy troops(or the poxwalker thanks to a very bad and virulent strain).
Interesting note: Poxwalkers are 1 point cheaper from the first codex in 8th compared to the first codex in 9th and even then have received several boosts on top of that. It basically took a lot of boosting to make them viable. Even then they are not exactly meta-shaking units.
Considering poxwalkers are just copyrightable name for Plague zombies, yes, there were older editions which allowed you to be dangerous with them
You talking about the ones in Necromunda 1996? Isn't that reaching a bit far and wrong game? There was also just the Typhus version of cultists which btw are still in the game under the name cultists(sans any special Typhus bonuses).
On a fun note, if we could have a deal that this stratagem gets removed and Poxwalkers get 8-9" inch move instead I'd be down for it.
Jackal90 wrote: I'm still waiting for someone to explain how they plan on walking them across the board without them being butchered by shooting.
Then how they plan on getting every single model in to combat.
Yeah, because demons, orks, khornate CSM, canoptek/melee necrons, black templar/white scar/blood angels/space wolf SM (all of which have signature melee units with next to no shooting), BR repentia/penitent spam sisters, GSC/tyranid melee armies don't exist, eh? All of them bring very little shooting if they focus on melee components, or shooting that is terrible at handling chaff (because, guess what, they planned to handle it with melee) and the fact cheap, easily spammable unit counters all of the above with trivial stratagem is kind of bad rules writing. No army should be punished for doing the one thing is was made for.
And how they will get models in combat? Last time I checked, melee works both ways, and if that was opponents battle plan, they must bring all his models into melee range... Which funnily means opponent models get to do the same at the same time. Funny that.
Do you even know how close combat works in 9th edition?
All of those units, every. single. one. of. them. are vastly faster than poxwalkers, so they should be getting the charges. Almost all of them wipe out poxwalkers or most of them on the charge, the few that don't leave less than 10 alive. If you get to fight last because of the blightspawn relic (why did you charge into that?) there are still ways to reduce the poxwalkers allowed to hit you, as outlined in this thread. The poxwalkers pile in first and cannot consolidate away from you, then you pile in, meaning you get to hit more models than models that were allowed to hit you. Also outlined in this thread, poxwalkers aren't really durable - throwing grenades and shooting pistols can also significantly reduce their numbers.
Last, but not least, this stratagem doesn't counter melee units in general - it counters durable elite units with low numbers of attacks. You don't spend a CP to kill 3 ork boyz, genestealers.or 2 assault intercessors.
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Not Online!!! wrote: And this is preciscly the reason why i hate stratagems, suddendly half your army isn't equal anymore. Also lol flexibility to recycle and damage being flexible and not handleable via upgrades. Counter point, you could allow Poxes or plague zombies to recycle more when killing in melee and you could make them more killy via a varying upgrade for specific plague strains...
Any upgrade would just be an evaluation of "is this worth the points?" three weeks after the codex is released and then never thought about again. A well designed stratagem needs to be considered every game.
Whether stratagems are good for 40k or is off topic anyways, stratagems are here to stay.
Otoh, why shouldn't you be able as a DG player to make poxwalker into something worth fielding beyond chaff via units upgrades like it was done in other editions?
What unit upgrades? Poxwalkers haven't really existed for that long and the reason there aren't upgrades on Poxwalkers is because they are literally mindless zombies that are infected. The stratagem actually reflects rather well the pestilence that grows within them and bursts out to kill enemy troops(or the poxwalker thanks to a very bad and virulent strain).
Interesting note: Poxwalkers are 1 point cheaper from the first codex in 8th compared to the first codex in 9th and even then have received several boosts on top of that. It basically took a lot of boosting to make them viable. Even then they are not exactly meta-shaking units.
Considering poxwalkers are just copyrightable name for Plague zombies, yes, there were older editions which allowed you to be dangerous with them
You talking about the ones in Necromunda 1996? Isn't that reaching a bit far and wrong game? There was also just the Typhus version of cultists which btw are still in the game under the name cultists(sans any special Typhus bonuses).
On a fun note, if we could have a deal that this stratagem gets removed and Poxwalkers get 8-9" inch move instead I'd be down for it.
Not Online!!! wrote: And this is preciscly the reason why i hate stratagems, suddendly half your army isn't equal anymore.
Also lol flexibility to recycle and damage being flexible and not handleable via upgrades. Counter point, you could allow Poxes or plague zombies to recycle more when killing in melee and you could make them more killy via a varying upgrade for specific plague strains...
Any upgrade would just be an evaluation of "is this worth the points?" three weeks after the codex is released and then never thought about again. A well designed stratagem needs to be considered every game.
Whether stratagems are good for 40k or is off topic anyways, stratagems are here to stay.
Is it really an consideration when you can just decided to Yeet a bunch of termites for exemple?
Not Online!!! wrote: And this is preciscly the reason why i hate stratagems, suddendly half your army isn't equal anymore.
Also lol flexibility to recycle and damage being flexible and not handleable via upgrades. Counter point, you could allow Poxes or plague zombies to recycle more when killing in melee and you could make them more killy via a varying upgrade for specific plague strains...
Any upgrade would just be an evaluation of "is this worth the points?" three weeks after the codex is released and then never thought about again. A well designed stratagem needs to be considered every game.
Whether stratagems are good for 40k or is off topic anyways, stratagems are here to stay.
Is it really an consideration when you can just decided to Yeet a bunch of termites for exemple?
You have to be clearer. Terminators or Termagants? Or are you talking about literal termites? I am honestly wondering.
Karol wrote: Don't pox walkers make their points up by the fact that they are ultra cheap, and allow the DG player to not be forced to take the over costed plague marines. By virtue of their cost, they automaticly pay their codex. If they also do anything else it is just a bonus.
No, thats one of the big changes in the 9th edition codex. You need at least one unit of Bubonic astartes per unit of poxwalker or cultists
Not Online!!! wrote: And this is preciscly the reason why i hate stratagems, suddendly half your army isn't equal anymore. Also lol flexibility to recycle and damage being flexible and not handleable via upgrades. Counter point, you could allow Poxes or plague zombies to recycle more when killing in melee and you could make them more killy via a varying upgrade for specific plague strains...
Any upgrade would just be an evaluation of "is this worth the points?" three weeks after the codex is released and then never thought about again. A well designed stratagem needs to be considered every game.
Whether stratagems are good for 40k or is off topic anyways, stratagems are here to stay.
Is it really an consideration when you can just decided to Yeet a bunch of termites for exemple?
Yes? You kind of need to start moving towards those terminators two turns before you can use that stratagem. It's not like terminators are suddenly going to appear somewhere in front of you out of nowhere.
Also, CP are a very limited and very important resource for DG. If I spend 1 CP to nuke a terminator, I can't blow up a vehicle, fire overwatch, interrupt combat, kill a vehicle, grenade myself out of melee or heal a daemon engine.
Not Online!!! wrote: And this is preciscly the reason why i hate stratagems, suddendly half your army isn't equal anymore.
Also lol flexibility to recycle and damage being flexible and not handleable via upgrades. Counter point, you could allow Poxes or plague zombies to recycle more when killing in melee and you could make them more killy via a varying upgrade for specific plague strains...
Any upgrade would just be an evaluation of "is this worth the points?" three weeks after the codex is released and then never thought about again. A well designed stratagem needs to be considered every game.
Whether stratagems are good for 40k or is off topic anyways, stratagems are here to stay.
Is it really an consideration when you can just decided to Yeet a bunch of termites for exemple?
You have to be clearer. Terminators or Termagants? Or are you talking about literal termites? I am honestly wondering.
So you now kick the goal posts to CC only, but then essentially make a list of everything that can butcher the walkers in combat?
This is great, you are managing to argue both sides of the point.
If your army contains literally 0 shooting then you will be butchered by nearly every army, it is just pure stupidity.
Even if you have only CC units, you can still easily kill the walkers.
Just keep out of the small debuff bubbles from characters around them.
This argument has just got to the point its bordering on stupidity though.
The odds of this situation happening are pretty much 0, and a complete 0 against any player with an IQ above 10.
20 weak models are not difficult to kill.
They must walk across the board, keeping their unit as intact as possible.
If someone let's that walk in to them, its known as stupidity, not an over powered tactic.
At this stage I'm going to claim that bolters are better than lascannons as I could only ever roll 6s.
Odds of it happening are pretty much none, but its the same basis for a point.
