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Hey all, i'm just wondering if anyone is running into the same problem I'm having. I play a certain friend of mine who always runs Ultramarines or GK/Ultramarines. i set up all the table, the terrain, etc at my house... and I usually like to play around with different lists. Total setup takes around a hour to a hour and a half.

The last game we played.... his first turn with Ultramarines, he took out, a squad of 5 Dark Reapers, and 2 Night Spinners, a squad of 5 harlequin and a couple guardian with a Heavy platform..... I called the game after that...

The game previous to that ... I used deathguard... and I called the game at the end of his second turn... again he started this game first as well.

Is first turn in this game that huge... or are Ultramarines and GK that good?

He also uses Battlescribe putting his lists together. Does this calculate points accurately?

Thanks all... after these last few games i honestly dont see the point playing against his armies anymore.. The setup time.. along with 0 fun of getting my butt kicked doesnt seem worth it.

Welcome to warhammer.

The game Is easy to break.

Fix this by playing with the right type of people.

Sounds like you need some better terrain to block LOS. Without good terrain first/second turn tabling are more likely to happen.

Also it sounds like you and your friend are on different pages about what you want from the game. Talking to him is a requirement or you need to find some more people to play.

 Crimson Devil wrote:
Sounds like you need some better terrain to block LOS. Without good terrain first/second turn tabling are more likely to happen.

Yep. Lets see a pic of your table.

What points are you playing? Do you know the rules for his armies well enough to be confident that he's not cheating?

There are some things that might help.

First you want to make sure you have enough LOS blocking terrain. This can massively effect the first turn, and shooting lists in general.

Second, it's possible his lists are much better than yours. There are a few ways to handle this, imo. For one, talk to him and have a conversation about why you aren't having fun. Honestly i can't imagine he's having a ton of fun either if the games last 2 turns. He might be able to help you put better lists together, or tone down his lists some. If he's not willing to have that conversation, you might want to find other people to play with.

For the most part, having a codex gives you some advantage, but the lists shouldn't be unbeatable, and you should be going first about half the time. I would suggest using the roll of to do first method if you aren't already. Other than that you may need to work on your lists and strategy.

jcd386 wrote:
There are some things that might help.

First you want to make sure you have enough LOS blocking terrain. This can massively effect the first turn, and shooting lists in general.

Second, it's possible his lists are much better than yours. There are a few ways to handle this, imo. For one, talk to him and have a conversation about why you aren't having fun. Honestly i can't imagine he's having a ton of fun either if the games last 2 turns. He might be able to help you put better lists together, or tone down his lists some. If he's not willing to have that conversation, you might want to find other people to play with.

For the most part, having a codex gives you some advantage, but the lists shouldn't be unbeatable, and you should be going first about half the time. I would suggest using the roll of to do first method if you aren't already. Other than that you may need to work on your lists and strategy.

But not too much, because then the IG hides all their artillery out of LoS.

It depends what he's running, what your terrain looks like, and how you're deploying. This may be a particularly bad matchup, first turn -wise.

Guilliman surrounded by a bunch of shooty units is going to absolutely crush most casual lists -- he is extraordinarily powerful. GKs also have pretty solid alpha strike potential -- that's the army's whole thing, really. You can at least blunt the gunline's turn 1 output with LoS blocking terrain, but expect to lose against Guilliman shooting regardless once you show yourself.

Meanwhile, many Eldar units are glass cannons. Dark Reapers and Harlequins in particular. And now that Razorwing Flocks have been nerfed into the ground, you don't have many options for stopping deep strikers from shooting valuable targets. Wave Serpents are probably your best screening option.

Except for very casual games, Harlequins and Dark Reapers should basically always be deployed inside transports for protection. Just in general Eldar infantry is only ever worthwhile if they get to attack before getting attacked, so IMO a Serpent is nearly mandatory for anything that can ride in one. Guardians die like Guardsmen but cost twice as much and only shoot better when inside 12".

For many matchups this is not nearly as big of a problem. Infantry-heavy armies that don't pay 8 points for a GEQ are pretty resilient in the face of most turn 1 attacks. Armies full of light vehicles (Serpents, Razorbacks, flyers, etc.) are also fairly durable unless your opponent has just a ton of anti-tank weaponry. But a Guilliman blob is still going to convincingly outshoot just about anything else outside of tournament-quality lists.

I played a tournament game where on the first turn I wiped two squads of long fangs and put 10 mortal wounds on his stormfang. He won a minor victory based on objectives.

Just because you lost units doesn't mean you lost the game unless you're only ever playing to kill the enemy army entirely, which is dumb.

IGOUGO is the problem and won't ever be fixed.

Warhammer 40000 has always made going first very strong. This edition makes it even stronger.

If someone chooses to deepstrike half his army and manages to destroy several of your units before you get to play, you'll just have to play with a 3/4 of your units.

The game has been much improved with 8th edition, but the fact that one player gets to move, shoot and assault with his whole army while the other one watches will always lead to this kind of things.

The only way to fix that would be to have the players alternate in each phase (player A moves a unit, then player B moves a unit, etc...). 9th edition maybe...

You can also build your list in much a way that you can survive the first turn and still be effective.

I agree with what most people have posted about the Line of Sight Blocking Terrain. There should be something in the middle of the table to at least break the table into shooting lanes. Playing a game where a Land Raiders 48in range can shoot whatever it wants on the table is generally no fun and leads to games where less tactical decisions are being made.

As far as going first always Games Workshop just released new rules covering the first turn mechanic. Now the player who finishes deploying first simply gets +1 to the roll-off to see who gets the first turn.
https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/08/09/new-matched-play-rules-in-chapter-approved-aug-9gw-homepage-post-1/

The best advice I can give is have a conversation with your buddy about what type of games you want to play. If he isnt cool with you saying, "I dont really find playing Guilliman fun", then maybe look around in your community for players who are more casual. Now if you are new to the game and want to play more competitively then it will simply take time to get better. Ask a more experienced Eldar player for help list building or for synergies that you may not have thought of.

Hope this helps!

Well, i'd also advice you to jabe a talk with him about what you expect from the gale, how competitive you want an army you comz up with is and what for. Try mayne to convince him to tweak hos lists so as to jave a more zqual match. Then if he affirms he isn't some hardcore tryhard, proceed to building up terrain with a heavy amount of high terrain and buildings which will reduce lines of sights across the table. If it still doesn't work, you should either plau with somebody else or jump onto another game.

Hope you'll fix it.

There are a number of solutions:

1) Get first turn yourself

2) Use more blocking terrain

3) Play maelstrom

4) Put together a stronger list, or fight cheese with cheese.

What does his list look like?

Next time I have the bored set up I will try and remember to take a picture. I do have a decent amount of terrain but maybe not enough to block complete LOS. Off the top of my head, 4 of the GW buildings, the Armageddon set scenery, a set of pipes, a set of aegis defense line, and a few other small things. Also have a few citadel woods, and well as hand made forrests.. but you can see right through the trees lol.

He does run Guilleman and seems to get a millions rerolls for all of his surrounding units. The last list I brought was def out matched by his. I don't know his army very well as far as rules or points go.. I think he said a regular squad of 5 Primaris marines are 100 points.. which I found hard to believe..

You should be able to place your important elements out of LOS in deployment or it's not a game. It's just who goes first wins.

Plus - don't call games like that - see how it goes first. Losing 500 points a turn is pretty common place in this edition. You can easily retaliate. Though to me - it sounds like you are making errors in deployment. Nightspinners should not ever be visible to the enemy - dark reapers ether - because they can move and shoot.

If you don't have LOS blocking terrain you can just house rule things. ie - "you can't shoot through these woods" - "these windows are actually walls"

Looking at tournament results it's very much who goes first wins. It's a huge problem for the game, and I'm strongly considering going back to warmachine where tactics and skill matter, not random dice rolls, or how many units did I bring.

 GreaterGood? wrote:
Looking at tournament results it's very much who goes first wins. It's a huge problem for the game, and I'm strongly considering going back to warmachine where tactics and skill matter, not random dice rolls, or how many units did I bring.

It's almost like ultra-reliable shooting deepstrike, nerfed cover, and the inability for units that don't explicitly have Reserves to hide in reserves ironically favor alphastrikes even more than before...

You need LOS blocking terrain.

I use either a Fortress of Redemption, or a double-bastion (two bastions glued together, literally) in the centre of the table, plus a few other LOS blockers.

I would also suggest playing to Objectives, where your superior mobility will help. Wave Serpents are extremely good transports this edition, and you still have access to jetbikes. Use them.

I played a casual game this weekend and lost a land raider, troops inside, and had a razorback fully degraded on turn 1. I lost a few special weapons as well.

I think the total cost of what I lost was about 540 points, if you count fractional loss of wounds on a Razorback. I mean, it would be hitting his StormRaven on 6s without moving, so pretty degraded.

Anyway I ended up forcing a concede at the end of my turn 2 (bottom turn 2). Over the course of the game I lost over 1,000 points.

If you give up when your nose gets bloodied, you won't learn. Going second means you'll get punched in the mouth, as it should be.

IGOUGO is not the problem. This is an IGOUGO game. If you don't like that play a different game. GK/Ultramarines aren't dominating anything. Guilliman is good in tournament lists because he provides a buff to all imperium. The best Guilliman list at Bay Area Open used him to amplify Imperial Guard.

Skipping all of the more technical answers (i.e. rules, lists, terrain, etc.) for a moment. The key to any game, particularly one which is easily manipulated/broken as Warhammer 40K, is to find someone who's interested in the same game experience you enjoy. There will never be an enjoyable game if you're trying to write fun/fluffy lists or building cool thematic tables, and the other guy just wants to kick your nuts in and go drink a beer. In my gaming group of maybe 14-16 people I have maybe 4-5 who enjoy thematic, narrative games and are less driven by mathhammer and results. The most enjoyable games are with those guys, because we have a common interest. In short, you may need to find someone new to play with, or if you think there's a skill/list discrepancy - let your opponent know you're not enjoying the game. As far as I'm concerned any game outside of a tournament should be a collaborative effort to have fun rolling some dice.

A lot of this discussion will depend on whether your opponent is an actual friend, or someone who simply plays Warhammer with you. I'd have zero issue with telling any of my actual buddies "Hey man, can we change up the lists? That Guilliman (or whatever) isn't much fun to play against and the games are getting repetitive." etc.

From a technical side of things:

1) More terrain if necessary.
2) Player some of the narrative missions which have delayed army placement, reinforcements, special scenario rules, etc. This breaks up the first-turn advantage (which is obnoxiously strong in 40K in particular).
3) Create custom scenarios that you both agree to try.

I enjoy 8th ed. 40K but I enjoy it as a loose chassis around which to form a fun game in the 40K universe. It's still easily broken and very swingy, and I do think it suffers a lot if you don't take some steps to minimize that stuff.

Ya I think I'm going to pick up more terrain and see how that works. Also research some lists and bring units that can match up a bit better. The frist gasme we played, I brought a more serious list (with the models I have). The eldar list, i was trying to make serious... but I wanted to play test a load of Harlequins... that took up way to many points and made my eldar half awful.

Just ask him to stop using Guilliman and see how it goes. From a casual gaming perspective he is essentially unusable. He is absolutely beatable from a competitive stand point, but if you just want to roll some dice and have some fun Guilliman is not fun... for anyone.

LOS blocking terrain is essential as well and many of the above solutions are good ones (minus the moaning about igougo and first strike), but the simplest solution to your issue involves the removal of Guilliman. You might still lose as his army sounds more competitive then yours in general but you will see a big difference just from that one change.

 Snoopdeville3 wrote:
Hey all, i'm just wondering if anyone is running into the same problem I'm having. I play a certain friend of mine who always runs Ultramarines or GK/Ultramarines. i set up all the table, the terrain, etc at my house... and I usually like to play around with different lists. Total setup takes around a hour to a hour and a half.

The last game we played.... his first turn with Ultramarines, he took out, a squad of 5 Dark Reapers, and 2 Night Spinners, a squad of 5 harlequin and a couple guardian with a Heavy platform..... I called the game after that...

The game previous to that ... I used deathguard... and I called the game at the end of his second turn... again he started this game first as well.

Is first turn in this game that huge... or are Ultramarines and GK that good?

He also uses Battlescribe putting his lists together. Does this calculate points accurately?

Thanks all... after these last few games i honestly dont see the point playing against his armies anymore.. The setup time.. along with 0 fun of getting my butt kicked doesnt seem worth it.

1) what was the lists. GK, smurfs are not inherently over powered but smurfs currently have some of the best ability and characters in the game.
2) how much LOS Blocking terrain. its no fun to play an open field and its your house and your terrain im assuming
3) the game is REALLY swingy it seems he could just be lucky
4) dont use battle scribe as a substitute for the rule book. people make mistakes and things dont always get updated.

Battlescribe is mostly and usually accurate, especially on the points front. If you're not sure his list is accurate, ask to see it and manually work it out.

Another thing is he's using two armies which currently has codexes. While not inherently unbalanced, it does give his army a lot more options than yours (such as free relics, exclusive strategems, warlord traits, etc).

Also Eldar takes a lot more skill to use this edition than the last one and DG has lost some of it's options (that presumably will return when their codex drops in a few weeks). Wait a few weeks for the DG codex to drop and maybe it'll be less lopsided.

That and remember 40k is a dice-based game. I once fought and won against an Avatar of Khaine with one Genestealer, all because the avatar rolled a series of 1's when it really needed anything but a 1. Not saying that would be a common occurance, but freak accidents do occur and you may have just pissed off lady luck for some reason.

1: abuse deep strike to ensure your valuable linchpin units don't die.

2: now that you've less on the table, put the rest behind LOS blocking cover!

3: find yourself a sacrificial lamb that will block off deep strike. Get the cheapest unit you can and konga line it in front of important units (that should be out of Los at this point) in order to stop your enemy from charging them turn one.

I hope this helps you survive alpha strike cheese. I play inquisition grey Knights and scions, and the way I counter turn one alpha striking is by alpha striking most my list through deep strike and keeping the rest out of LOS waiting to shunt or gate forward. I only keep units that are shooting support or objective grabbers on the table turn one.

From what you listed, it doesn't sound like you actually have much terrain at all. You need some big rocks to break up the line of sight.

I would also recommend a house rule that gives multiple layers of cover bonuses. Like Woods give +1 to your save. A ruined building gives +2. And something like a purpose built trenchwork or ADL gives +3.

 Grey Templar wrote:
From what you listed, it doesn't sound like you actually have much terrain at all. You need some big rocks to break up the line of sight.

I would also recommend a house rule that gives multiple layers of cover bonuses. Like Woods give +1 to your save. A ruined building gives +2. And something like a purpose built trenchwork or ADL gives +3.

"My ultramarines are actually imperial fists, hehehegehehcxiggixigcgkv"

 Grey Templar wrote:
From what you listed, it doesn't sound like you actually have much terrain at all. You need some big rocks to break up the line of sight.

I would also recommend a house rule that gives multiple layers of cover bonuses. Like Woods give +1 to your save. A ruined building gives +2. And something like a purpose built trenchwork or ADL gives +3.

Nah - adding cover saves only makes things worse. Then we are back to 7th edition where the AP of your weapon no longer matters. The +1 armor for cover is fine anything more punishes aggression and rewards never leaving your deployment zone. LOS blocking is all you need.