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ITC rules i suppose, you never play with 20-strong units or 30-strong, you play with 19 or 29, otherwise your opponents gets bonus points.

Oh... those "Great and clever ways to fix the game" that end just being another small annoyance players end up running around, so they don't do anything.

Spoletta wrote:
ITC rules i suppose, you never play with 20-strong units or 30-strong, you play with 19 or 29, otherwise your opponents gets bonus points.

That is just stupid. Stupid rules like this is why I don't bother going to ITC tournaments.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Galas wrote:
Oh... those "Great and clever ways to fix the game" that end just being another small annoyance players end up running around, so they don't do anything.

Exactly.

 Marmatag wrote:

Tyranids are tough, but they don't have any all-star units like Eldar, Chaos, and Astra Militarum do.

Snuh? No army has anything as good as Genestealers or Exocrines.

Spoletta wrote:
ITC rules i suppose, you never play with 20-strong units or 30-strong, you play with 19 or 29, otherwise your opponents gets bonus points.

Where are all these ITC house rulings?

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ltQMdeDqYRXOhvdYT3dtUSji3AISvZRM8gDlhOXDaF8/edit

ITC rules were nice in 7th when the game was broken without those, but 8th works without external help.

Spoletta wrote:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ltQMdeDqYRXOhvdYT3dtUSji3AISvZRM8gDlhOXDaF8/edit

ITC rules were nice in 7th when the game was broken without those, but 8th works without external help.

GW - "We're going to make a stripped back simpler version of 40k."
FLG - "That sounds sick! We're just going to add several hundred more rules to 'balance' the game."
GW - "What?"
FLG - "What."

Seriously, talk about blanket treatment; some 20+ units are broken thanks to OP moral ignoring rules, let's make taking any unit above 9 models a bad thing; some SH models are OP, let's nerf all SH; we've just 'simplified' all the scenarios so they're quicker and easier to play, let's tack on 10 more rules that people have to remember before the tournament; etc. etc.

Spoletta wrote:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ltQMdeDqYRXOhvdYT3dtUSji3AISvZRM8gDlhOXDaF8/edit

ITC rules were nice in 7th when the game was broken without those, but 8th works without external help.

Well if you count being broken as working...

tneva82 wrote:

Spoletta wrote:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ltQMdeDqYRXOhvdYT3dtUSji3AISvZRM8gDlhOXDaF8/edit

ITC rules were nice in 7th when the game was broken without those, but 8th works without external help.

Well if you count being broken as working...

Care to elaborate?

Dare to claim straight faced 8th ed is not broken? One needs not look further than nearest tournament to see it's still broken piece of junk.

Then top of that the scenarios are lousy encouraging gunline armies coupled with terrain rules that are designed that anything but big boxes are meaningless.

tneva82 wrote:
Dare to claim straight faced 8th ed is not broken? One needs not look further than nearest tournament to see it's still broken piece of junk.

Then top of that the scenarios are lousy encouraging gunline armies coupled with terrain rules that are designed that anything but big boxes are meaningless.

There's still a gap between the effectiveness of shooting and that of CC but it is no where near the gulf that existed in 7th and with each CC army codex that is being released it is getting better (with BA really being the only CC army with a codex that isn't doing well). Tournaments are just showing that Guard are still OP but that doesn't mean the whole of 8th is broken and as we've seen with several of the spammy lists that we had at the launch of 8th, GW is getting on top of OP units and hitting them with nerfs/FAQs/Erratas. Terrain is still a bit meh this edition but at least it isn't the same garbage as 7th where anything with shrouded was basically an auto win.

Actually the ITC rules make the game more balanced. The 19/29 requirement is silly, but the whole concept of the missions is actually really fun.

Progressive kill scoring (your turn, game turn)
Progressive objective scoring (your turn, game turn)
Secondary objectives that you pick, based on what you can achieve vs your opponent

These lead to the more balanced games than you might think.

I mean look at a normal game of 40k, where you have Katherine's wall of 12" 12d6 flamer hits per turn against an assault army. In a normal, non-ITC game, it's decided before you roll any dice. There is no skill, no tactics. But in an ITC game, that opponent could win by using a larger force to hold objectives, and capture secondary position based objectives and actually make a game of it.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:

Tyranids are tough, but they don't have any all-star units like Eldar, Chaos, and Astra Militarum do.

Snuh? No army has anything as good as Genestealers or Exocrines.

Exocrines aren't even viable dude.

 Marmatag wrote:
Actually the ITC rules make the game more balanced. The 19/29 requirement is silly, but the whole concept of the missions is actually really fun.

Progressive kill scoring (your turn, game turn)
Progressive objective scoring (your turn, game turn)
Secondary objectives that you pick, based on what you can achieve vs your opponent

These lead to the more balanced games than you might think.

I mean look at a normal game of 40k, where you have Katherine's wall of 12" 12d6 flamer hits per turn against an assault army. In a normal, non-ITC game, it's decided before you roll any dice. There is no skill, no tactics. But in an ITC game, that opponent could win by using a larger force to hold objectives, and capture secondary position based objectives and actually make a game of it.

Everything you've just said about what makes ITC better is already in the rules for 8th ed.

 mrhappyface wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Actually the ITC rules make the game more balanced. The 19/29 requirement is silly, but the whole concept of the missions is actually really fun.

Progressive kill scoring (your turn, game turn)
Progressive objective scoring (your turn, game turn)
Secondary objectives that you pick, based on what you can achieve vs your opponent

These lead to the more balanced games than you might think.

I mean look at a normal game of 40k, where you have Katherine's wall of 12" 12d6 flamer hits per turn against an assault army. In a normal, non-ITC game, it's decided before you roll any dice. There is no skill, no tactics. But in an ITC game, that opponent could win by using a larger force to hold objectives, and capture secondary position based objectives and actually make a game of it.

Everything you've just said about what makes ITC better is already in the rules for 8th ed.

I don't see any mission that offers progressive scoring without random variance, both your turn and game turn, while also allowing you to select secondary objectives based on your opponent's weaknesses.

Maelstrom gets the closest, but most people don't like playing maelstrom.

Honestly - no joke - give the ITC combined missions a try. They are very fun for competitive AND casual games. I highly recommend them, as highly as i can recommend anything in the 40k universe.

CA missions are quite good, basic missions are bad.

 Marmatag wrote:
I don't see any mission that offers progressive scoring without random variance, both your turn and game turn, while also allowing you to select secondary objectives based on your opponent's weaknesses.

Maelstrom gets the closest, but most people don't like playing maelstrom.

Honestly - no joke - give the ITC combined missions a try. They are very fun for competitive AND casual games. I highly recommend them, as highly as i can recommend anything in the 40k universe.

CA missions have that now.

 Marmatag wrote:
Actually the ITC rules make the game more balanced. The 19/29 requirement is silly, but the whole concept of the missions is actually really fun.

Progressive kill scoring (your turn, game turn)
Progressive objective scoring (your turn, game turn)
Secondary objectives that you pick, based on what you can achieve vs your opponent

These lead to the more balanced games than you might think.

I mean look at a normal game of 40k, where you have Katherine's wall of 12" 12d6 flamer hits per turn against an assault army. In a normal, non-ITC game, it's decided before you roll any dice. There is no skill, no tactics. But in an ITC game, that opponent could win by using a larger force to hold objectives, and capture secondary position based objectives and actually make a game of it.

Excuse me?

First off, there were only 4d6 flamers, because I had 2 flame tanks. I used the vehicles to barricade the passages between buildings, and stationed gun troops in the buildings to shoot from. I staged a counterattack with my jetpack units against his flank, broke through, and picked apart his infantry from there, charging his squads so they wouldn't be able to charge units they really wanted to. I hid my anti-monster troops, and waited until he came close enough for me to destroy his monsters, because my troops wouldn't last a minute before his fusillade of gunfire. It was fun because it was tactical.

No tactics would have been the first game I played, where it amount to "the tyranids goes that way, the imperial guard stands here and shoots, and whoever is more efficient wins." Even so, screening with infantry is a position-based tactic [if a fairly easily understood and implemented one].

We can argue about the tactical depth of gunline vs. mass melee somewhere else, though.


I do agree that all objectives should be scored at the beginning of your turn, though, which would improve the maelstrom missions dramatically. Otherwise, I'm very satisfied with the take-and-hold Eternal War missions. Most of the wargames I've played tend to be scored along the lines of "if the Allies hold the bridge at C-AA-7 on turn 10, it's a Allied victory, otherwise, it's a German Victory". What I really hate about Maelstrom is the random objectives, which makes it less about strategy and more about being able to jump through more hoops.

tneva82 wrote:
Dare to claim straight faced 8th ed is not broken? One needs not look further than nearest tournament to see it's still broken piece of junk.

Then top of that the scenarios are lousy encouraging gunline armies coupled with terrain rules that are designed that anything but big boxes are meaningless.

Actually a nid non-spam army won one of the big tournaments in november. He (or she, I do not know the gender) met all of the armies you described and mannage to nibble on all of them.

Basically you waited to be engaged. Which is a byproduct of missions that lack a variety of scoring methods and progressive scoring in general.

Look i'm not knocking you just saying this is a weak point of 40k without good missions.

Armies like Tyranids are more competitive in an environment where they can have multiple paths to victory. If the only option is "charge city" then yeah, it's pretty easy to beat them. Because assault armies are not great in this edition. But the second i can capture 4 points by simply being present in 4 quadrants, for instance, or by having a decent sized force within your board edge, suddenly you have to take the fight to me to get me out of position. And i can somewhat dictate the engagements.

 Marmatag wrote:
Basically you waited to be engaged. Which is a byproduct of missions that lack a variety of scoring methods and progressive scoring in general.

Look i'm not knocking you just saying this is a weak point of 40k without good missions.

Armies like Tyranids are more competitive in an environment where they can have multiple paths to victory. If the only option is "charge city" then yeah, it's pretty easy to beat them. Because assault armies are not great in this edition. But the second i can capture 4 points by simply being present in 4 quadrants, for instance, or by having a decent sized force within your board edge, suddenly you have to take the fight to me to get me out of position. And i can somewhat dictate the engagements.

I don't believe you for a minute when you say close combat is weak. I have leveraged more value out of charging with my one squad of Seraphim, who don't even have close combat weapons, than literally any other unit in my army, save maybe St.C, not just in this game. Play your cards right and CQC is an insanely powerful tool.

I also don't understand what you're asking. I think the missions are best which allow the game to develop naturally, which is why I hate maelstrom. It's a very artificial attempt to get people to play a certain way. I'm very much partial to the "who controls the board at the end of the game" means of scoring. I don't see why progressive scoring is good, anything good it achieves is equally achieved by end-of-game scoring.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:

Tyranids are tough, but they don't have any all-star units like Eldar, Chaos, and Astra Militarum do.

Snuh? No army has anything as good as Genestealers or Exocrines.

Exocrines aren't even viable dude.

Wait wat. I don't pay attention to internet wisdom on tactics. I thought Exocrines were the be-all-end-all for those "conpetitive" types.

I think they are fine.

But my problem is I like Hive Guard better, a 6 man unit that can ignore LoS and be in cover all game blocked by LoS with Double Shooting (total of 24 shots) with +1 str and on average higher damage.

IDK about others, but thats why i dont play my Exocrine.

Hive Guard are the best antitank in the Tyrannid codex. A Kronos unit of 6 (rerolling 1's to hit), using the shoot twice stategem, kills a Lehman Russ per turn on average (12 wounds versus tough 8, 3+ save). Exocrine only does roughly 8 wounds using the +1 damage strategem.....and the Exocrine has to stick it's head out to shoot.

Barring a super heavy, I don't think that there are many units in the game that kill a Lehman Russ outright at range in one turn, without character buff/psychic support....

Exocrines, Tyranofexes, and Hive Guard do very similar damage, with Tyranofexes being slightly better vs T8, Exocrines being slightly better vs T7, and Hive Guard having slightly more utility vs infantry targets due to the ignores cover and not needing line of sight.

Hive Guard have become the preferred Tyranid anti-tank at tournament tables because it is much harder to protect big monsters from alpha strikes than it is Hive Guard. A Tyranid player running Exocrines who goes second vs Guard or Marines is losing 1-2 Exocrines before they get a chance to do anything. They can be protected using Malenthropes, Venomthropes, with the right Hive Fleet (always in cover with Jorgmunder), and by hiding them out of line of sight, but all of these approaches have major flaws:

Malenthropes are a major points sink; Venomthropes stop buffing monsters once they take causalities; both Malenthropes and Venomthropes have buff range issues. Running Jorgmundr for the cover bonus means you can't get the re-roll ones buff that Hive Fleet Kronos gives. Trying to hide models as large as Exocrines or Tyranofexes out of line of site is difficult on most tables, and even if you succeed, you now have to move them so that they can shoot, which means you lose both the re-roll one's and the double shooting.

Hive Guard on the other hand can sit behind a piece of cover and shoot all game long. They often never have to move and only get shot at by units that ignore line of sight, making it much more difficult to kill them.

This all means that while the big gun bugs can be strong in lists that are built around them, Hive Guard are generally better for adding an anti-tank unit to most Tyranid lists. It is also worth noting that Hive Guard can be armed with shock cannons, a short range gun that generates extra moral wounds vs vehicles, and deep struck using a Tyrannocyte ('nid drop pod) or the Jorgmundr tunnel strat. This works similarly to drop pod melta units-an alpha strike that kills a tank or two, but then the Hive Guard all die.