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Overwatch is a stratagem.

watch them slap the Blast rules on overwatch, making it hit reliably on larger units

tulun wrote:
Overwatch is a stratagem.

Or unit specific rule. Day1 errata will add those around. Tau likely has plenty

tneva82 wrote:

tulun wrote:
Overwatch is a stratagem.

Or unit specific rule. Day1 errata will add those around. Tau likely has plenty

I mean, that's fine. That army lives on drones and keeping gak out of combat.

But this is unequivocally good. We sucked at overwatch, and now we aren't eating a stream of Overwatches if you fail a charge.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
In fact, with the defensible building keyword, stuff like Flash Gits are now GOOD at overwatch.

Toss em in a building, so they get a 3+ or 2+ save if they've looted a vehicle, have them hole up, and now they overwatch on a 5+, possibly re-rolling 1s from Baddruk.

These changes are very, very nice.

Dunno, they actually specifically mention Tau getting multiple overwatches out of 1cp due to the Greater Good ability so possible nothing outside of that mentioned Crusade rule grants free overwatch.

I'm not sure i like this. On one hand its nice that now when we multi-charge only one can attempt overwatch at all, but it also basically completely shuts off overwatch for a lot of lists because its not that gun heavy, and unless its a stupid high RoF or excessive rules to make it more reliable....overwatch simply isnt reliable enough to spend one of our now-known to be thin CP pool.
Fortunately its before the unit charges so they cant cherry pick the overwatch against a unit that successfully charged to mitigate it a bit.

its funny. They advertised "More cp! Everyone gets more cp now!" in 9th and its actually sounding like its way, way worse. Start with 12cp, most armies will burn half of that in army alterations because so many rules that SHOULD BE BOUGHT are CP based instead, and now even more basic functions are CP costs?

As unbelievable as it sounds, it almost sounds like 40k is going back to melee is better than shooting. Almost, still no comment on transports yet.

Honestly I'm all for this. Good for how I play and I love how it interacts with terrain.
Why I like it: overwatch is one of those things people do because they might do a wound or two but most often doesn't do anything meaningful. So it can be a waste of time. Some factions and some units really have terrific overwatch and its meaningful when they use it but now they will have to make a choice.
I also think the "Hold Steady" and "Set to Defend" rules are interesting and have some push and pull. EG Set up one unit for a really good Overwatch and then set up the other units for the counter punch.
The fact that vehicles/monsters can shoot INTO melee seems to be a counterbalance to overwatch being a stratagem.
I think on the whole this is a good thing for orks. We have the ability to saturate with targets and can force our opponent into decisions they don't want to make.

EDIT: I think the only overwatch rule I was hoping for is to be able to do it from inside an open topped transport but I'm not going to lose sleep over that.

Gorkanauts, dredds, characters, meganobz and buggies are happiest about this

 Vineheart01 wrote:


As unbelievable as it sounds, it almost sounds like 40k is going back to melee is better than shooting. Almost, still no comment on transports yet.

Even if transports will allow us to charge out of them in 9th I don't think melee will be better than shooting. An extra turn of damage output and being able to react to changing threats more easily than CC is just hard to overcome.

oh yeah without a doubt this is a massive boost for orks, the article even mentioned why:
"you can only fire overwatch at one of those several units charging you"

This is great because now Grots can eat overwatch just as good as our vehicles, because nobody is gonna want to fire overwatch at grots now that it costs a cp. If they make the charge, cant even attempt overwatch on the next unit going in.

(this of course is rendered moot if they change how charged are declared back to declaring each charge, then doing overwatch, then charging)

It also severely punishes pure gunline armies, which have been a problem since 6th dropped imo.

I just dont like that it costs cp. Theyve done 0CP strats before, it costing 1cp and cp being so precious i could see a LOT of people (especially orks) not even attempt overwatch once.

Considering how much our overwatch sucked, I'll take the tradeoff.

Also: I will happily use this stratagem on Flash Gits that are holed up in defensible terrain. That 5+ overwatch is looking hot on them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also: indirect buff to Ghaz? Overwatch was one of the places his rule hurt him a bit.

 Vineheart01 wrote:
oh yeah without a doubt this is a massive boost for orks, the article even mentioned why:
"you can only fire overwatch at one of those several units charging you"

This is great because now Grots can eat overwatch just as good as our vehicles, because nobody is gonna want to fire overwatch at grots now that it costs a cp. If they make the charge, cant even attempt overwatch on the next unit going in.
.

It mostly saves few grots then. You charge grots, they make it, same as before. They didn't make it, next unit charges and now they might use stratagem.

*dances on the smoldering ashes of overwatch*

And don't come back!

Don't jump in joy just yet. We don't know which units will get the ability on day1 errata.

Unless it's literally all of them it's still a win. Overwatch was too good but also a giant time waster in many cases, this should alleviate or at least mitigate both those issues.

Now if they add a rule where you can't reroll anything in overwatch I'd be so happy, that's the biggest timewaster of all

Overwatch was non issue except vs certain units and those use this stratagem and still shoot anyway.

For boyz overwatch is pretty much wash. Today however we got another tidbit that might give boyz SOME role. And specifically to counter charge anything that comes to your DZ to hunt your mek guns, SSAG etc. They are in your DZ or close to it, you appear 6" from your table edge there within easy charge range(no minimum...you can even appear INTO melee...).

Doubtful it's going to be enough but at least boyz have some sort of role. Though any other melee unit like meganobz and walkers could do that likely as well.

Yeah, there seems to be things good for melee in 9th. I'm still not seeing the argument for a big blob of boyz though. Nobz, MANZ, deffdreads just seem like a better choice than going to 11+ models and being absolutely obliterated by a random wyvern..

I'm just glad it being a once per phase thing for most armies makes the game go faster. Outside of Tau, I feel bad for the armies that have subfaction traits where they overwatch on 5's to hit, now that it's not only costing them a CP to use, but only for one unit? Talk about a naff change for them. Great for us, but still funny to see how edition changes can swing the pendulum so greatly.

Its possible they may eratta all of those abilities to be free overwatch instead.
Which, unlike their current rules, could potentially be a big deal especially with the terrain perks.

The only person i ever see use the 5+ on overwatch rules is the one non-farsight Tau player i know.

 Grimskul wrote:
I'm just glad it being a once per phase thing for most armies makes the game go faster. Outside of Tau, I feel bad for the armies that have subfaction traits where they overwatch on 5's to hit, now that it's not only costing them a CP to use, but only for one unit? Talk about a naff change for them. Great for us, but still funny to see how edition changes can swing the pendulum so greatly.

Myself would prefer them to change things so that game would scale up better. Not worse. They are touting "40k in every point level" yet making rules so that it works worse and worse except on one specific point level. Good job GW!

Something that might be really interesting too:

"Be careful, though – a savvy enemy might be able to catch you off-guard if you’re in their deployment zone. The Strategic Reserves rule allows a unit to deploy on their own table edge, even if it’s within Engagement Range (1”) of an enemy, and proceed to make attacks as though they charged! This is such a situational rarity that it probably won’t come up very often, but a stunt like that completely bypasses Overwatch to surprise unwary or careless opponents."

I wanna see the full rules for strategic reserves now.

This might mean you can deploy units CLOSER than 9" if you are setting up in your deployment zone...

Those big alpha strike charges all up in our business? Well, eat 10 <NON-ES-CLAN> Nobs that are charging you from 6" away.

Yeh pointed it out aboce. Since flyers are said to come 9" from edge rather than 6" that means you appear 6" from your own table edge. Hello close range charge.

tulun wrote:
Overwatch is a stratagem.

du hure*****, ich tanze auf deinem graaaab

to be fair, overwatch wasnt as terrible in most cases... but hell yes! now pleeeeaaaase with suger on top... make falling back a strategem too!

Won't be as fun if said stratagem allows bypassing 3 pointing. Then all in all this was overall negative to the assault(And game makes even more mockery of GW's "works well in any game size" claim. Would be THE most unscalable edition ever...Actually it already is without any more unscalable stuff being revealed)

Stratagems as a whole limit the scaling.

Too many of them are absolutely broken if they could be used on multiple units, so the bigger the game the more powerful units that DONT demand a stratagem to function at a basic level become.

I just wish they'd axe the stratagem system as a whole.

As good as the overwatch rules are for us, I think it should be a 0cp strat. As others have said, who would even bother using it now?

Could 10 boy mobs have potential as rearguard objective holders or counter chargers? Sitting out of LOS next to a SSAG big mek or some mek guns and just dissuading things from coming too close?

9 choppa boys and a dual choppa nob is what, 80ish points and has respectable CC output for it's points if it manages to get it's counter charge off. It also doesn't get vaporised instantly by having 11 models.

Overwatch has always been free shooting for armies that can already do that in their own turn, it certainly should not be free. If the rumored multi-charges only get off if you reach all targets is real than that alone is a big enough incentive to not charge everything in sight. Overwatch was 90% a timewaster, 5% it mattered for units like Castellans, 5% it was a random gotcha moment like when my warboss killed a Broodlord in overwatch with Dakkax3 and a combi-rockit. 1 a turn for one CP leaves it viable for those 5% edge cases were it actually does something, and lets the rest of us cut the bs. If it were free you would still use it on the 90% cases because if there is only one charge, or only 1 charge left why not use it?

Multi-charges only work if you charge all targets?
The heck did that rumor come from? They havnt said anything far as im aware as to how charges work or even that theyve been tweaked in the first place.

Well it was some speculation I came across more than once on several different places. It has absolutely no real value, but I always thought that sounded reasonable if we assume Overwatch is going to be more limited.

Best news We have had since they started talking. Though many new about this before today, but I didn’t want to believe, it sounded just so good.
And as Jidmah says, don’t come back !!

And I will be even happier if no one ever uses the strat aside from Tau, agresssors and Whatnot. Game slowing useless rule

Doesn’t dark angels have bonuses to overwatch too? There might be some incentive to certain units to use it especially if they can hit on overwatch on a 4 or 5+..