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Martel732 wrote:
If that happens. GW has a hardon for charging huge amounts for AP.

I thought AP got thrown around like candy and eveyrone and everything had -3AP so power armor is useless, what happened?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Hordes being king is so 3 year ago thing.

Well then GW making these changes makes perfect sense. They're always in a rush to fix problems that were solved years ago.

They solved the issue of hordes being dominant.
They still didn't fix that fixed number of shot medium weapons where generalist wepaons that did everything better than the tools supposed to counter specific units.

Blast weapons have never really worked in 8th period, this atleast makes something other than Guard actually having potential to make some of these weapons viable.

That Hordes are in need of a buff to counter some of these changes is apparently coming according to playtesters, the balance has probably shifted but your shouting that the sky is falling when we know GW are being deliberately slow and counting on the Reactions to add to the hype.

Dudeface wrote:
They won't be unusable, they'll just die faster to blast weapons. I've got about 6k of chaos models and it dawned on me the only blast weapons I own in likelihood are frag grenades and soulburner petards, I'm sure other players are the same and not everyone has 15 leman russ sat at home ready to waste shots on cheap hordes.

Yes.

Really its a cyclic meta.

If blast->Hordes, you won't see hordes, which means you won't see blast weapons, which means you can see hordes.

Which is sort of where we are now. I think every faction can list tailor to wipe loads of Boyz off the table. But I think Ork tournament success (however limited under the Marine domination) was rooted in the fact people were tailoring more to kill Marines, Knights, Eldar Flyer spam etc - which prefers different tools.

The issue is whether blast weapons will be competitive anyway, and are then extra competitive versus hordes. Which is hard to say without points.

Because okay, a Leman Russ shooting 11+ Orks twice with a battle cannon before any buffs/debuffs/protections would on average get 7 shots, 3.5 hits, 2.911 kills.
Now it would be 5 kills. Which seems like a big points increase - but in the grand scheme of things doesn't necessarily add up to all that. Especially if Orks were to remain the same, but Russ went up 15% for example.

On the smaller scale, going from 3, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6 from 1-6 when shooting 6-10 models is a buff - but the average is only nudging up to 4 from 3.5. Greater reliability is good, but it can easily be taken account for with a slight points increase.

I think my concern is more that it might prove an annoying fiddly rule if you have to count up what's in an enemy unit every time you shoot at it. (In a world where people get annoyed by rerolls, this seems much more tedious.)
Like a lot of things - I think rules can be cool if each player has one such weapon and so its a special case. It may be decidedly less fun for say Guard players who can bring dozens of them.

I’m surprised they’re not buffing hordes like crazy, considering they’re the most expensive armies to buy

tneva82 wrote:
They were already fairly weak in 8th. When 60 boyz dead in single turn isn't even particularly hard archievement they hardly were problem to begin with...

Anybody who thinks hordes are problem in balance has not been playing 40k for long time. Hordes being king is so 3 year ago thing.

And people might not have but they will get them. Just as GW planned.

OooooOOooOo the nefarious GW strikes again! It's a good thing we're not jumping to conclusions.

People bitched all the time about random shot weapons. Maybe we can just appreciate the design space this opens for the moment and wait for more rules? Naaaah.


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nemesis464 wrote:
I’m surprised they’re not buffing hordes like crazy, considering they’re the most expensive armies to buy

Because a good system sells just as well, if not better, than a skewed one and conspiracy theories are bs. Also, they raised the prices on their kits to compensate for smaller armies, but then they gave us free digital copies with codexes.

DarkHound wrote:Ah, they clarified on the stream that the rule makes EACH D6 rolled for a blast weapon count as a die-roll of 3 on squads of 6-10. Which means to get a D3 result, the D6 rolls of 1 and 2 count as 3, so results in 2 attacks minimum. So still a little weird, but consistent.

Honestly, the improvement for the average hits against 6-10 models is ~14% for a D6. It's not a huge improvement to expected damage, just consistency. The jump at 11 is a 58% improvement, but the vast majority of units are either taken at 10 models or 30. For hordes, you just accept that blasts deal lots of damage and the breakpoint isn't so jarring.

I trust nothing they say on the stream that is directly contradicted by the rules posted on Warhammer Community. This is a perfect example. Just like the day they talked about vehicles and monsters having a -1 to Hit when firing at units within Engagement range, but forgot to mention that counts only for Heavy weapons.

The rule is very clear. Blast attacks against 6-10 models get a minimum of 3 attacks. Doesn't matter if your weapon is d3, d6, 2d6, or any other variable attack number.

 alextroy wrote:

DarkHound wrote:Ah, they clarified on the stream that the rule makes EACH D6 rolled for a blast weapon count as a die-roll of 3 on squads of 6-10. Which means to get a D3 result, the D6 rolls of 1 and 2 count as 3, so results in 2 attacks minimum. So still a little weird, but consistent.

Honestly, the improvement for the average hits against 6-10 models is ~14% for a D6. It's not a huge improvement to expected damage, just consistency. The jump at 11 is a 58% improvement, but the vast majority of units are either taken at 10 models or 30. For hordes, you just accept that blasts deal lots of damage and the breakpoint isn't so jarring.

I trust nothing they say on the stream that is directly contradicted by the rules posted on Warhammer Community. This is a perfect example. Just like the day they talked about vehicles and monsters having a -1 to Hit when firing at units within Engagement range, but forgot to mention that counts only for Heavy weapons.

The rule is very clear. Blast attacks against 6-10 models get a minimum of 3 attacks. Doesn't matter if your weapon is d3, d6, 2d6, or any other variable attack number.

Yeah unless they errata day 0 or pulp the books and try again, that isn't what the rule says.

Still, Zero Day Errata isn't unprecedented and not surprising.

the_scotsman wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
If that happens. GW has a hardon for charging huge amounts for AP.

I thought AP got thrown around like candy and eveyrone and everything had -3AP so power armor is useless, what happened?

I don't know if you're just making a jab, but both can be correct. GW undervalues that first point of AP, and often uses AP as a go-to solution for balancing, so armies like Marines have both AP-1 across the board and an army-wide buff to get an extra point of AP. A 3+ save becomes mediocre when literally the entire enemy army is AP-2 or better.

At the same time, GW dramatically overvalues AP-3 and up, where there is both less benefit to increasing AP (going from 3+ to 5+ save is statistically more impactful than going from 5+ to no save) and a greater likelihood that the difference will be negated by an invuln save. Against a vehicle with a 3+ save, going from AP-2 to AP-4 only nets you a 50% increase in power, and if they have a 5++ then the extra AP is wasted altogether.

The combination of factors leads to a meta where AP-2 is the sweet spot and all over the place, but higher-AP weapons tend to be both more expensive and only marginally better against tanks, at the cost of all multirole capability. So you spam multishot AP-2 weapons and you're good against everything.

If vehicles had 2+ saves rather than 3+ (with fewer wounds to compensate), and invulns were rare to nonexistent, it would be a very different story.

the_scotsman wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
If that happens. GW has a hardon for charging huge amounts for AP.

I thought AP got thrown around like candy and eveyrone and everything had -3AP so power armor is useless, what happened?

It is thrown around like candy in the wrong places. Marine troops can easily get -2 and -3 on cheap weapons. The weapons that actually pay for their AP get really shafted.


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 catbarf wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
If that happens. GW has a hardon for charging huge amounts for AP.

I thought AP got thrown around like candy and eveyrone and everything had -3AP so power armor is useless, what happened?

I don't know if you're just making a jab, but both can be correct. GW undervalues that first point of AP, and often uses AP as a go-to solution for balancing, so armies like Marines have both AP-1 across the board and an army-wide buff to get an extra point of AP. A 3+ save becomes mediocre when literally the entire enemy army is AP-2 or better.

At the same time, GW dramatically overvalues AP-3 and up, where there is both less benefit to increasing AP (going from 3+ to 5+ save is statistically more impactful than going from 5+ to no save) and a greater likelihood that the difference will be negated by an invuln save. Against a vehicle with a 3+ save, going from AP-2 to AP-4 only nets you a 50% increase in power, and if they have a 5++ then the extra AP is wasted altogether.

The combination of factors leads to a meta where AP-2 is the sweet spot and all over the place, but higher-AP weapons tend to be both more expensive and only marginally better against tanks, at the cost of all multirole capability. So you spam multishot AP-2 weapons and you're good against everything.

If vehicles had 2+ saves rather than 3+ (with fewer wounds to compensate), and invulns were rare to nonexistent, it would be a very different story.

This ^^^^^^^. The devil is in the math details. AP -1 is the most important jump unless you are firiing at 2+ in cover.

Feels like people have some horrifically short memories here. Early 8th was defined by impossible to kill hordes of brimstones and other tiny models that were just there to take up space - it took some pretty unreasonable points changes and extra rules to get to the marine meta. 8th at its core favored hordes and GW had to push their thumb down on the scale real hard to make it otherwise. I think if this change had been announced before the marine codex people would be praising it.

 Arachnofiend wrote:
Feels like people have some horrifically short memories here. Early 8th was defined by impossible to kill hordes of brimstones and other tiny models that were just there to take up space - it took some pretty unreasonable points changes and extra rules to get to the marine meta. 8th at its core favored hordes and GW had to push their thumb down on the scale real hard to make it otherwise. I think if this change had been announced before the marine codex people would be praising it.

I think a lot of the posters here never faced 240 conscripts or 180 guardsmen consistently enough to get it burned into their brain. If you fill the board with LoS blocking terrain like so many suggest, cheap models can still be very problematic for many marine builds.

Brimstones, Poxwalkers and Conscripts were all issues in 2017 - but I think they were pretty much toast after then. Sure this is because of nerfs - but Guilliman+whatever was a problem *until it got nerfed* too.

Eldar/Ynnari were dominating by the end of the year and the Castellan dominated from Mid 2018.

I'm not convinced the period between the Castellan nerf and the new Marine Codex was especially favourable towards hordes, even if some armies with horde characteristics had some success.

 BaconCatBug wrote:


Still, Zero Day Errata isn't unprecedented and not surprising.

if I remember correctly the SW codex got an errate, before people could buy it at the stores.

Because a good system sells just as well, if not better, than a skewed one and conspiracy theories are bs. Also, they raised the prices on their kits to compensate for smaller armies, but then they gave us free digital copies with codexes.

Lmao it’s not a conspiracy theory to say GW write rules as a way to influence sales, it’s been this way since I started in 4th ed. .

 BaconCatBug wrote:

 alextroy wrote:
The rule is very clear. Blast attacks against 6-10 models get a minimum of 3 attacks. Doesn't matter if your weapon is d3, d6, 2d6, or any other variable attack number.

Yeah unless they errata day 0 or pulp the books and try again, that isn't what the rule says.

Still, Zero Day Errata isn't unprecedented and not surprising.

I'm confused. What part of "If a Blast weapon targets a unit that has between 6 and 10 models, it always makes a minimum of 3 attacks" do you think I have wrong when I say a Blast weapon that does 2d6 attacks get a minimum of 3 attacks?

 alextroy wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:

 alextroy wrote:
The rule is very clear. Blast attacks against 6-10 models get a minimum of 3 attacks. Doesn't matter if your weapon is d3, d6, 2d6, or any other variable attack number.

Yeah unless they errata day 0 or pulp the books and try again, that isn't what the rule says.

Still, Zero Day Errata isn't unprecedented and not surprising.

I'm confused. What part of "If a Blast weapon targets a unit that has between 6 and 10 models, it always makes a minimum of 3 attacks" do you think I have wrong when I say a Blast weapon that does 2d6 attacks get a minimum of 3 attacks?

Sorry, I was agreeing with you! When I said "that isn't what the rule says" i was referring to the minimum 3 per dice claim.

Time to issue an errata to my post!

Yeah, [you are correct]. [U]nless they errata day 0 or pulp the books and try again, [then the minimum of 3 per dice "interpretation" is not correct].

Still, Zero Day Errata isn't unprecedented and not surprising.

nemesis464 wrote:

Because a good system sells just as well, if not better, than a skewed one and conspiracy theories are bs. Also, they raised the prices on their kits to compensate for smaller armies, but then they gave us free digital copies with codexes.

Lmao it’s not a conspiracy theory to say GW write rules as a way to influence sales, it’s been this way since I started in 4th ed. .

Yes, it is, when your own internal logic for why something is being pushed doesn't pass the sniff test.

 BaconCatBug wrote:

 alextroy wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:

 alextroy wrote:
The rule is very clear. Blast attacks against 6-10 models get a minimum of 3 attacks. Doesn't matter if your weapon is d3, d6, 2d6, or any other variable attack number.

Yeah unless they errata day 0 or pulp the books and try again, that isn't what the rule says.

Still, Zero Day Errata isn't unprecedented and not surprising.

I'm confused. What part of "If a Blast weapon targets a unit that has between 6 and 10 models, it always makes a minimum of 3 attacks" do you think I have wrong when I say a Blast weapon that does 2d6 attacks get a minimum of 3 attacks?

Sorry, I was agreeing with you! When I said "that isn't what the rule says" i was referring to the minimum 3 per dice claim.

Time to issue an errata to my post!

Yeah, [you are correct]. [U]nless they errata day 0 or pulp the books and try again, [then the minimum of 3 per dice "interpretation" is not correct].

Still, Zero Day Errata isn't unprecedented and not surprising.

Got you. That does explain why I was confused.

They have indicated there will be Day 1 FAQ documents for all the codexes to cover rules that no longer work like they did in 8th edition. For example, they indicated that POTMS will do something in 9th Edition now that all vehicles get to ignore -1 Hit from moving when firing Heavy weapons.

Whilst I generally agree with the points raised about the previewed blast rule being a bit arbitrary in the sudden jump to max shots and the wonky way it will be applied to various weapons with xD3 shots vs xD6 shots, does anyone really think this is going to break the game? I can't really see anyone trading in aggressors for whirlwinds or punisher tank commanders for wyverns, and I'm assuming horde players won't be too put out if super heavy weapons are focussing on gaunts rather than monsters due to it still being incredibly points inefficient?

Insularum wrote:
Whilst I generally agree with the points raised about the previewed blast rule being a bit arbitrary in the sudden jump to max shots and the wonky way it will be applied to various weapons with xD3 shots vs xD6 shots, does anyone really think this is going to break the game? I can't really see anyone trading in aggressors for whirlwinds or punisher tank commanders for wyverns, and I'm assuming horde players won't be too put out if super heavy weapons are focussing on gaunts rather than monsters due to it still being incredibly points inefficient?

It probably doesn't break the game. Against 6-10 man squads the new rules grants a very tiny advantage since 66% of the times there would be no advantage at all, and in the other 33% is actually a gain of 1-2 shots that have to hit, wound and bypass saves. Blast weapons will also probably get a price hike, not the flat one that everything is getting, but a more significant one because GW guys clearly think that they have improved those guns. Anti tank/heavy infantry blast weapons are not going to target 6+ man squads anyway most of the times, because there aren't many of those units that must be large squads to do good.

Hordes would probably get a more serious hit than the blast rule by the new mechanics in list buildings as the first advantage in bringing lots of cheap bodies is tipycally to get more CPs, especially those armies that can have enough option to choose not to play hordes style, like orks.

I don't think it will really break the game, but depending on what else will be changed, it makes some bigger units less attractive (Conscripts, bigger Boys units etc.).

On the other side there are a variety of weapons in other codizes that suddenly become a lot more attractive. You mentioned that nobody will switch a Punisher LR for a Whirlwind because of that, but look at the IG Missile launcher now... The frag missile now has guaranteed 3 shots against 6+ models and 6 against 11+ thus suddenly becoming better than the heavy bolter against 11+ T3 6+ (Conscripts, Cultists) or T4 6+ (boyz) and also closes the gap to the heavy bolter against 6+ models. So the much debated versatility of the missile launcher might (!) actually be worth it now (at least with the IG pricetag).
The same might (!) be the case for the grenade launcher and the now more expensive mortar.

I personally think the second part is a good thing, as it might make the usual special/heavy weapons choices less dominant. On the other hand as some who likes to paint and collect infantry and thus was always eyeing to include some conscript blobs I'm a bit saddened how much punishment they might get. And I feel for hoardy Ork and Nid-players. But I try to stay optimistic as we haven't even seen half of the new rules.

 Blackie wrote:

Insularum wrote:
Whilst I generally agree with the points raised about the previewed blast rule being a bit arbitrary in the sudden jump to max shots and the wonky way it will be applied to various weapons with xD3 shots vs xD6 shots, does anyone really think this is going to break the game? I can't really see anyone trading in aggressors for whirlwinds or punisher tank commanders for wyverns, and I'm assuming horde players won't be too put out if super heavy weapons are focussing on gaunts rather than monsters due to it still being incredibly points inefficient?

It probably doesn't break the game. Against 6-10 man squads the new rules grants a very tiny advantage since 66% of the times there would be no advantage at all, and in the other 33% is actually a gain of 1-2 shots that have to hit, wound and bypass saves. Blast weapons will also probably get a price hike, not the flat one that everything is getting, but a more significant one because GW guys clearly think that they have improved those guns. Anti tank/heavy infantry blast weapons are not going to target 6+ man squads anyway most of the times, because there aren't many of those units that must be large squads to do good.

Hordes would probably get a more serious hit than the blast rule by the new mechanics in list buildings as the first advantage in bringing lots of cheap bodies is tipycally to get more CPs, especially those armies that can have enough option to choose not to play hordes style, like orks.

Yep, I agree that other mechanical changes like list CP are probably going to have much more impact. As far as blast weapons go, I expect that bullets will still outperform blasts, as there has been nothing to indicate that units that throw buckets of dice are going to change, so they can continue to enjoy max shots against all target profiles all the time.

 Pyroalchi wrote:
I don't think it will really break the game, but depending on what else will be changed, it makes some bigger units less attractive (Conscripts, bigger Boys units etc.).

On the other side there are a variety of weapons in other codizes that suddenly become a lot more attractive. You mentioned that nobody will switch a Punisher LR for a Whirlwind because of that, but look at the IG Missile launcher now... The frag missile now has guaranteed 3 shots against 6+ models and 6 against 11+ thus suddenly becoming better than the heavy bolter against 11+ T3 6+ (Conscripts, Cultists) or T4 6+ (boyz) and also closes the gap to the heavy bolter against 6+ models. So the much debated versatility of the missile launcher might (!) actually be worth it now (at least with the IG pricetag).
The same might (!) be the case for the grenade launcher and the now more expensive mortar.

I personally think the second part is a good thing, as it might make the usual special/heavy weapons choices less dominant. On the other hand as some who likes to paint and collect infantry and thus was always eyeing to include some conscript blobs I'm a bit saddened how much punishment they might get. And I feel for hoardy Ork and Nid-players. But I try to stay optimistic as we haven't even seen half of the new rules.

The problem is many of the wepaons likely to get the blast keyword were not exactly stand out performers at the undercosted side of competitive.
While some models will needs points increases GW has said every blast weapon is going up in points and that's going to leave a lot of them sadly still in the "that's HOW MANY points?" Category.

Average unit size will increase in 9th. Being limited in the amount of squads you can field due to the new detachment system hinders the MSU style quite a bit.

Also, if I know GW, the new morale rules will harm MSU. I wouldn't put it past them that you get a -1 Ld for every unit lost.

Gameplay wise would make a lot of sense.

Punish horsed with blasts (they are often protected from morale).

Punish MSU with morale.

I would like it.


They like to learn from their other games, and in KT you get a -1 for every model killed/injured...

I just wish they'd learn from a good game like their own Lord of the Rings.

The terrain rules / cover rules are simple and intuitive, the AOE/blast rules are simple and intuitive, the scatter rules are simple and intuitive...

Spoletta wrote:
Average unit size will increase in 9th. Being limited in the amount of squads you can field due to the new detachment system hinders the MSU style quite a bit.

Also, if I know GW, the new morale rules will harm MSU. I wouldn't put it past them that you get a -1 Ld for every unit lost.

Hrm, there's lots of armies that can do MSU well within a single detachment even now if they want to (in fact, often the trouble in 8E is effectively utilizing building a second detachment to get additional CP), and morale rules in every edition thus far have typically been favorable to MSU's over hordes. We'll have to wait and see how the rules look, but historically GW's morale rules have strongly incentivized small elite squads and there's more than enough slots in a current Battalion detachment for many MSU if additional CP's aren't a concern.

 Pyroalchi wrote:


On the other side there are a variety of weapons in other codizes that suddenly become a lot more attractive. You mentioned that nobody will switch a Punisher LR for a Whirlwind because of that, but look at the IG Missile launcher now... The frag missile now has guaranteed 3 shots against 6+ models and 6 against 11+ thus suddenly becoming better than the heavy bolter against 11+ T3 6+ (Conscripts, Cultists) or T4 6+ (boyz) and also closes the gap to the heavy bolter against 6+ models. So the much debated versatility of the missile launcher might (!) actually be worth it now (at least with the IG pricetag).

While the ML vs HB comparison is interesting in a relative sense, at the same time the Heavy Bolter isn't actually all that great an anti-horde weapon to begin with either, and it's the dedicated anti-infantry option. The Grenade Launcher however is going to have much more value I think, though if there aren't significant changes to the rules in other ways, I suspect we may not see horde units enough to make the difference.

The armies I have are Renegades (played as GSC / Guard) & Nids. I'm generally fond of lots of little dudes.

Unless the cover rules are absolutely insane, or Hordes get some serious buffs to counteract this, I'll probably just sit this edition out. Really no point in playing a game where vehicles cannot be bogged down AND they flatten hordes to paste.

Insularum wrote:
Whilst I generally agree with the points raised about the previewed blast rule being a bit arbitrary in the sudden jump to max shots and the wonky way it will be applied to various weapons with xD3 shots vs xD6 shots, does anyone really think this is going to break the game? I can't really see anyone trading in aggressors for whirlwinds or punisher tank commanders for wyverns, and I'm assuming horde players won't be too put out if super heavy weapons are focussing on gaunts rather than monsters due to it still being incredibly points inefficient?

Personally I don't think Blast will break the game on its own, but I question the necessity of a nerf to large units in the first place, especially if horde models are going up in points as the preview for Cultists (going from 4 to 6) seemed to imply.

If that's carried through with other troops, we're going to see light infantry go up in cost and Blast serving as a disincentive to take larger units. Since the cover rules that have been revealed show that terrain will continue to favor heavy infantry over light infantry, and shutting down tanks by tagging them is gone, I don't see what role light infantry will have other than slot-fillers.

Wish they would rule that a model can't get hit/targeted more than once per blast. You could then make blast weapons something like 3d6 attacks, but if the group you shoot at has only 5 guys (only roll 5 attacks), you'll lose a lot of potential attacks, vs. against say a group with 20 models.

Would make shooting blast weapons at groups more desirable, and make them less effective than singular shot high-damage weapons (i.e., using HE rounds vs. AT rounds in the case of Battlecannon vs. Vanquisher cannons).

 Stormonu wrote:
Wish they would rule that a model can't get hit/targeted more than once per blast. You could then make blast weapons something like 3d6 attacks, but if the group you shoot at has only 5 guys (only roll 5 attacks), you'll lose a lot of potential attacks, vs. against say a group with 20 models.

Would make shooting blast weapons at groups more desirable, and make them less effective than singular shot high-damage weapons (i.e., using HE rounds vs. AT rounds in the case of Battlecannon vs. Vanquisher cannons).

I thought the same.

My proposal for Blast weapons would be:
Blast X: Fires one shot per model in the target unit to a maximum of X. When firing this weapon at a unit with 11 or more models, double the number of shots.

Fire a Blast 3 weapon at a 1 model unit? 1 Shot.
Fire a Blast 3 weapon at a 4 model unit? 3 Shots.
Fire a Blast 3 weapon at a 20 model unit? 6 shots.

Not only does it remove the stupidity of random shot values, it allows blasts to always be effective against hoards. Weapons with a random value would become a number of shots equal to the average, rounding up or down on a case by case basis (e.g. D6 becomes 3 or 4, 2D6 becomes 7, etc.)