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It also shuts down some strategums as they are conditional on the target of the stratageum having done a certain action this turn.
Also a number of strategums in the marine codex's require multiples of a certain unit which if you can provent bwing used, allows you a turn to kill one of the units so the strategum can never be played.

For dark eldar it probably isn't game breaking add in ynarri soulburst and it can lead to some super broken combos. Like a CC unit charging for potentially 4 rounds of unanswered CC yeah thats going to be fun to play against.

I see the DE Vect strategem as being powerful, and certainly shifting the meta, but that happens with every release. Others in the thread have pointed out 3 major builds that rely on a key strategem going off at the right time. I think BA are hit hardest by this. CWE have plenty of ways to try to win the game after being denied, so it hurts but isn't an auto lose. Poxwalkers get hurt hard, but there are several other Chaos builds that are strong, so they can avoid being crippled at the list building stage. BA rely on the 3d6 charge and don't really have another competitive build to move into.

I don't think we will be able to tell if this pushes BA out of competition until we have more details on the codex. Considering how glass hammery DE are and the alpha/beta strike nature of the game, I can see them being a very rock/paper/scissors faction. For example, IG and Tyranids don't care if you can shut down a strategem, they care about your ability to clear screens, kill tanks, and absorb/block deepstriking Genestealers/Flying Hive Tyrants.

I agree with others upthread that the big impact of this is going to be determined by how effectively DE can be splashed into other armies. Right now it looks like CWE can add a cheap patrol to gain access to the Vect strategem. If that is how it plays out, BA are going to suffer and the other factions who can't ignore it are going to have to adjust because it will be in every elf army on the table. If the full codex or FAQ somehow limits splashing DE for the strategem, it won't be so bad. Any reason Vectstrat can't be used against Vectstrat? I'm amused by the thought of two elf soup players countering each other with it.

Ironically, I think min patrol DE to get the strategem would be the most fluff supported power gamer cheese move in the game: after all, a handful of Dark Eldar showing up in the middle of someone else's battle, shooting some stuff up, then taking off is very thematic and fluff appropriate.

Opponent: "Ah, your shooting took Guilliman's last wound. Let's see if he gets back up... A 3. Well let me spend a cp to reroll that die."

Me: *evil laugh*

This is going to be so much fun

Dionysodorus wrote:
The major impact on tournament list-building is that with only 3 detachments it is very hard to include both Dark Eldar and Craftworld or Harlequin or Ynnari detachments, since you're pushed so hard to bring DE in Patrols. I don't actually have a problem with this, philosophically, but I can't imagine that that's intended

Why not? Single Codex armies desperately need something over cherrypick brigade. Soups already have enough advantages as it is.

Purifying Tempest wrote:
And now that circles all the way back to the Agents of Vect - people don't like it because it hasn't been done. Flat out negating a Stratagem via a stratagem is just... foreign, and many people are going to react poorly to it without any real critical thought. Because shutting down Endless Cacophony on turn 1 off of Deep Striking Obliterators may enable the opponent to strike back and make the game go past turn 2-3 or something. Or, more pointedly, it directly screws with the plan and people freak out when the plan doesn't go according to plan.

Yup, hopefully now the list building will involve more thought than just spamming whatever broken combo of unit and stratagem people can find over and over, including some planning for the event previously autoplay stuff doesn't work. Hopefully Deathwatch, Inquisition, and (maybe) Harlequins (aka elite, finesse armies) will get something similar.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
I think there are plenty of people who'll make the counter argument of why allow Dark Eldar to do it when I can't?

Because the army is designed that way? What next, Tau players asking for ban of psychic phase since rulebook doesn't explicitly state armies with psykers can use it?

That said, increasing the limit somehow for pure DE army only (no DE soups) is a reasonable compromise.

I think people is overestimating the fact that with a 2-5 the enemy gets the CP back. You don't get extra points if you have CP at the end of the game, they are a resource, useless if you can't use it to win.

If you negate for 1-2 turn that CRITICAL stratagem to your opponent, and by that they lose, does it matter they have 5 CP at the end and you 0? They have lost.

You need only to negate the stratagem that makes poxwalkers intargeteable once to win agaisnt a Poxwalker farm list, for example, unless you have VERY bad luck and roll very badly and don't kill them. The same with a BA bomb and Upon Wings of Fire.

Ice_can wrote:

For dark eldar it probably isn't game breaking add in ynarri soulburst and it can lead to some super broken combos. Like a CC unit charging for potentially 4 rounds of unanswered CC yeah thats going to be fun to play against.

I don't follow. The only "fight again" rule for DE that I'm aware of is Drazhar's special rule, and he can't be Ynnari. Plus, Agents of Vect doesn't really interact with a unit's ability to swing in combat unless we're talking about Counter Attack or something. What am I missing?


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 Galas wrote:
I think people is overestimating the fact that with a 2-5 the enemy gets the CP back. You don't get extra points if you have CP at the end of the game, they are a resource, useless if you can't use it to win.

If you negate for 1-2 turn that CRITICAL stratagem to your opponent, and by that they lose, does it matter they have 5 CP at the end and you 0? They have lost.

You need only to negate the stratagem that makes poxwalkers intargeteable once to win agaisnt a Poxwalker farm list, for example, unless you have VERY bad luck and roll very badly and don't kill them. The same with a BA bomb and Upon Wings of Fire.

I feel like it's reasonable to mess with your opponent's stratagems here and there at a great cost to your own CP pool. If your opponent auto-loses for having their clutch stratagem shut down once, I don't think it's unreasonable to consider that a flaw in your opponent's list.

 Galas wrote:
I think people is overestimating the fact that with a 2-5 the enemy gets the CP back. You don't get extra points if you have CP at the end of the game, they are a resource, useless if you can't use it to win.

If you negate for 1-2 turn that CRITICAL stratagem to your opponent, and by that they lose, does it matter they have 5 CP at the end and you 0? They have lost.

You need only to negate the stratagem that makes poxwalkers intargeteable once to win agaisnt a Poxwalker farm list, for example, unless you have VERY bad luck and roll very badly and don't kill them. The same with a BA bomb and Upon Wings of Fire.

Again:

Stop making bad lists that rely on a stratagem firing to win the game.

Or just realize that you MAY have to do something SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT when facing Drukhari armies and Aeldari armies that splash in Drukhari raiding parties.

You literally can see it coming.

Again, god forbid we have to include our opponents in figuring out how to win the game. I think this is a nice departure from "put X, Y, and Z down... I win to go first, want to concede now?" format that we're turning the game into.

Yeah, if your whole army relies on a single one-time use of a stratagem to win, I think you're doing it wrong.

 Insectum7 wrote:
Yeah, if your whole army relies on a single one-time use of a stratagem to win, I think you're doing it wrong.

Poxwalker farm is hard countered by this. A variation of it got 2nd at Adepticon?
So it was doing something right.

I'm not one of the people that play that kind of one-trick pony lists, and I'm not saying this Vect stratagem is bad for the game or meta for that.

I'm just acknowledging how powerfull is this stratagem agaisnt that kind of lists. Lists that aren't unpopular in tournament top rankings.

Witchs have a fight twice strategum plus soulburst. And their throwing out 41 attacks from 10 models thats 3 rounds of 41 attacks that I dont get to do anything against.

 Ordana wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Yeah, if your whole army relies on a single one-time use of a stratagem to win, I think you're doing it wrong.

Poxwalker farm is hard countered by this. A variation of it got 2nd at Adepticon?
So it was doing something right.

That same list had it's poxwalkers wiped by fire raptors turn 1 and still won. His list wasn't built exclusively around pox walkers.

There are lots of other situations where it can be a big deal. It won't come up every game but it will sometimes come up in a major way, even against pretty normal lists and even just to cancel a 1 CP stratagem.

For example, a psyker suffers a Perils that would kill him and then inflict MWs on a bunch of nearby stuff. Ordinarily this is not a big deal, since you use the re-roll stratagem such that you almost certainly avoid it, but Agents of Vect can negate that, in which case that 3 CP is getting you something several times better than an Orbital Bombardment.

Likewise the "Explodes" rule rarely comes up because you can just re-roll the 6, but suddenly your opponent's vehicles are 6 times more likely to do d3 MWs to everything within 6" of them when they die. This is often a big chunk of the army!

Classic overreaction. I like it, and I don't play DE.

 Wolf_in_Human_Shape wrote:
Classic overreaction. I like it, and I don't play DE.

It's exactly what Vect would want.

 Ordana wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Yeah, if your whole army relies on a single one-time use of a stratagem to win, I think you're doing it wrong.

Poxwalker farm is hard countered by this. A variation of it got 2nd at Adepticon?
So it was doing something right.

Debatable. Some things that win tournaments aren't necessarily good for the game.

HuskyWarhammer wrote:

 Wolf_in_Human_Shape wrote:
Classic overreaction. I like it, and I don't play DE.

It's exactly what Vect would want.

Egads... letting the terrorists win.

Meh. It messes with my poxwalker list, but screw it... I'll trade 3 cp for my 1 cp, and they still have a chance to roll a 1.

If anything it means I can't spam the dead walk again, or cloud of flies as much. I don't see this being game breaking, and we haven't seen all the restrictions yet

bananathug wrote:
And that d3 mortal wounds to all psychers w/in 12" strat for 2cp...

As if grey knights weren't bad enough (my templars would kill for this strat)

3 cp is a significant investment to keep your opponent from using a strat. If it didn't go off on a 2+ it wouldn't be powerful enough and at 2 cp w/ a 4+ I don' think it would cost enough to keep it from being used more than 1-2 times per battle.

Most armies show up with 8-12 CP. Usually want to spend 4-5 cps on your own army so with 8 cps the 3 cp strat is only getting used twice while the 2cp one could be used 4 times...

Hell a calidus assassin adds +1 cp to a strat spent in the first round on a 4+ and that's the whole reason I run one in my army. Those first turn strats are super important to a lot of armies. This strat is way more powerful than that.

DE are going to be good (RIP my vanilla marines)

All DE Haemonculus had that ability by default in the index for 0 cp, and you could use it once per Haemonculus. No one took them.

It's not a good stratagem.

blaktoof wrote:

bananathug wrote:
And that d3 mortal wounds to all psychers w/in 12" strat for 2cp...

As if grey knights weren't bad enough (my templars would kill for this strat)

3 cp is a significant investment to keep your opponent from using a strat. If it didn't go off on a 2+ it wouldn't be powerful enough and at 2 cp w/ a 4+ I don' think it would cost enough to keep it from being used more than 1-2 times per battle.

Most armies show up with 8-12 CP. Usually want to spend 4-5 cps on your own army so with 8 cps the 3 cp strat is only getting used twice while the 2cp one could be used 4 times...

Hell a calidus assassin adds +1 cp to a strat spent in the first round on a 4+ and that's the whole reason I run one in my army. Those first turn strats are super important to a lot of armies. This strat is way more powerful than that.

DE are going to be good (RIP my vanilla marines)

All DE Haemonculus had that ability by default in the index for 0 cp, and you could use it once per Haemonculus. No one took them.

It's not a good stratagem.

It's an okay but situational stratagem. Having a 50/50 shot at at putting 2 wounds on units that are right next to you provided they have a semi-rare keyword (psyker) isn't something I'm going to build a list around, but it might be nice to help finish off the librarian that charged your haemonculus.


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Ice_can wrote:
Witchs have a fight twice strategum plus soulburst. And their throwing out 41 attacks from 10 models thats 3 rounds of 41 attacks that I dont get to do anything against.

Ah, I see. I'm still not overly concerned about that, though I'm open to changing my mind if people start wiping the floor with ynnari wyches.

Wyches are 1 attack base (unless they upped it) with 1 extra attack from their standard weapons. So to get up to 41 attacks out of 10 models, you're probably looking at investing in +1 Attack drugs and the +1 Attack on the charge obsession. Which means that they're strength 3 instead of 4 or 5. If you charged that turn, it means that you're probably soul bursting as a result of killing a unit (if you were already in combat in the psychic phase, you didn't charge that turn). So you have to kill off a full unit on the charge to get 41 attacks twice. Potentially very scary, but also requires you spend CP, put a lot of resources into bonus attacks, and not get overwatched/punched back hard enough to dramatically reduce your killing power.

Just for my own curiosity, 41 wych attacks hitting on 3s (assuming no succubus or PFP buff) turns into...
about 27 hits which turns into...
versus guardsmen: 13 or 14 wounds which turns into about 9 dead guardsmen. Pretty decent for their points. You're not unlikely to soulburst against a min-sized squad. Especially if you use the stratagem to fight again.
versus marines: 9 wounds which turns into about 3 dead marines. Still not bad, but nothing to write home about. You probably won't soul burst unless you're finishing off a straggler unit, and then you'll only kill about 3 marines in whatever squad you soul bursted into .

Obviously these numbers will jump up with some sort of buffs present and jump down as any unit you stab (that wasn't already locked in combat) will have had a chance to take away a wych or two in overwatch. (Because you have to declare them a target of your charge to attack them.)

Yes but some stratagems affect army composition. Such as the chapter master stratagem. It wouldn't make sense to deny this and change an opponents list.

Unless I missed something vital I doubt Wyches are going to get obsessions if they are Ynnari.

I am just amazed that people are fearing wyches. A close combat unit that actually has to get into combat, survive shooting with a 6++ save, and then charge and weather overwatch, only to hit on 3+ with str 3 attacks.

Hell, they are Toughness 3 models so they aren't exactly going to survive a whole lot.

I mean, wyches are looking better than before, but they have been utter gak up until now. At best they are decent with the improvements, but they aren't exactly giving me confidence in their abilities.

The whole stratagems system is ending up to be silly.

"My army doesnt work without this one stratagem!"

What a game it has become!

Wyches have indeed gained a 2nd attack according the the Warhammer 40k facebook page. They touted it as one of the 5 improved units, mentioning that in addition to the stuff mentioned in the Wyche Cult article they gained +1A.

I doubt Ynnari units will get Obsessions though - Craftorld Ynnari don't.

Its nice to know that people are so bad that not using a single strategem makes them auto-lose

I kid, I kid...... (or do I?)

Seriously people, we rarely see Dark Eldar players as it is, so lets let them have their fun counterspell nonsense. I find even with a wide variety of strategems most people just burn their CP on rerolls anyways so it usually doesn't matter.

And tournament play is also like ....less than 5% of actual warhammer play. And do you think these top players would bring lists soley based around fighting DE players that use this strategem? I doubt it. I really doubt this strategem changes anything.

Its 3 freaking CP to use it xeno, this is just pointless complaining at this point, if it was 2+ to cancel it without refunding their poitns I could understand, but its not.

 Eldarsif wrote:
Unless I missed something vital I doubt Wyches are going to get obsessions if they are Ynnari.

I am just amazed that people are fearing wyches. A close combat unit that actually has to get into combat, survive shooting with a 6++ save, and then charge and weather overwatch, only to hit on 3+ with str 3 attacks.

Hell, they are Toughness 3 models so they aren't exactly going to survive a whole lot.

I mean, wyches are looking better than before, but they have been utter gak up until now. At best they are decent with the improvements, but they aren't exactly giving me confidence in their abilities.

If I'm not mistaken, having a single Ynnari detachment lets you make any other aeldari (other than exceptions like coven units) gain the Ynnari keyword. It's just that Yvraine, the Yncarne, and the Visarch don't have any craftworld, masque, or kabal/coven/cult keywords themselves. So you take a small ynnari detachment alongside a pure drukhari or craftworld detachment, and you can suddenly have units with both Strength From Death and cult stratagems/traits/relics. You just lose PFP for doing so.

I agree with your post on the whole though. I think wyches are probably solid now, but all of these buffs are on top of a unit that has generally been considered subpar thus far. I think people can make a pretty scary wych force, but I don't think they can make one that would be considered "OP."

HuskyWarhammer wrote:

Ix_Tab wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
No kidding - orbital bombardment just went from bad to unplayable vs dark eldar. It's okay - Ravengaurd can still infiltrate most their army.

If orbital bombardment is bad why would you ever spend 3cp to have the chance to cancel it, usually without cp cost to the opponent? This comment seems bizarre.

Xeno is known for being fairly...melodramatic...in his/her evaluation of the game.

sarcasm and humor appear lost on you.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Yeah, if your whole army relies on a single one-time use of a stratagem to win, I think you're doing it wrong.

You were doing it right before. Now any kind of strategey that relies on an in game strategem is void.

mhalko1 wrote:
Yes but some stratagems affect army composition. Such as the chapter master stratagem. It wouldn't make sense to deny this and change an opponents list.

You mean the Chapter Master Strategem nobody uses because just a few more points gives you a character with the same benefit plus probably what is another neat rule?

It isn't even the proliferation of Chapter Master characters either. It just isn't worth that many CP.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

mhalko1 wrote:
Yes but some stratagems affect army composition. Such as the chapter master stratagem. It wouldn't make sense to deny this and change an opponents list.

You mean the Chapter Master Strategem nobody uses because just a few more points gives you a character with the same benefit plus probably what is another neat rule?

It isn't even the proliferation of Chapter Master characters either. It just isn't worth that many CP.

You could use Death Visions of Sanguinius as your example instead. I sure hope you're not going to argue no one uses that.