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Kaldor wrote:
It's a cinematic effect, like how in the movies goons run in to be beaten up by the hero one by one. I see no problem with it.

Well, we'll have to disagree on this point, since I hate it when that happens in movies, and find it to not be 'cinematic' at all.

Well, I have yet to get the rulebook for 6th (it's just as well, since I haven't built my army yet) but from what I know, it seems like 6th was designed to target and destroy the 5th ed meta. The only things that were really good in both are Necrons (slightly OP in 6th, IMO, now they're the new GKs) and Valkyries/Vendettas (The best of the Guard codex now can only be hit on 6s!).

However, I approve of the encouragement of playing according to the fluff, as someone who's in the game for the lore over the competition.

I imagine that it would accept the challenge because Tyrants are smart. They understand fear and how to demoralize an enemy...and there's really little that can defeat them in combat so step up to the plate!

RxGhost wrote:I imagine that it would accept the challenge because Tyrants are smart. They understand fear and how to demoralize an enemy...and there's really little that can defeat them in combat so step up to the plate!

That can be accomplished by mobbing him to death and showing how irrelevant their pride and skill is. There's zero need for a Hive Tyrant, who may not understand such concepts, to go that route to accomiplish that goal, and if it thinks that it can't win it's not going to shrink back it's going to call all its friends to help it.

DOOMBREAD wrote:Well, I have yet to get the rulebook for 6th (it's just as well, since I haven't built my army yet) but from what I know, it seems like 6th was designed to target and destroy the 5th ed meta. The only things that were really good in both are Necrons (slightly OP in 6th, IMO, now they're the new GKs) and Valkyries/Vendettas (The best of the Guard codex now can only be hit on 6s!).

However, I approve of the encouragement of playing according to the fluff, as someone who's in the game for the lore over the competition.

It's not really putting fluff/lore over competition, it's emphasizing randomness and Michael-Bay-esque "kirpow-fwoosh-BOOM!" moments, "epic" moments if you will, often forced (and thus, get old very quickly), over anything fluffy, and just wait till you look at the vehicle rules, nothing says fluffy like tanks falling apart after 3 hits that scratch the paint on their armor.

DOOMBREAD wrote:Well, I have yet to get the rulebook for 6th (it's just as well, since I haven't built my army yet) but from what I know, it seems like 6th was designed to target and destroy the 5th ed meta. The only things that were really good in both are Necrons (slightly OP in 6th, IMO, now they're the new GKs) and Valkyries/Vendettas (The best of the Guard codex now can only be hit on 6s!).

However, I approve of the encouragement of playing according to the fluff, as someone who's in the game for the lore over the competition.

The thing is, aside from fighting Necrons, mechanized shooting armies, ie, the armies that were dominant in 5th, still will have all the tools required to be dominant in 6th. Combined with the complete shafting of assault armies, the top dogs of 5th edition really haven't lost too much. It may have been 'designed' to target the 5th edition metagame, but it certainly has done a terrible job of doing it.

Thatguyoverthere wrote:

Vaktathi wrote:On what basis would it accept an individual invitation to personal combat...?It's not like it has a sense of honor, pride, ambition, a need to prove itself, etc.

I always saw it as the relevant Sargent nodding to his men and saying, "Don't worry boys, I got this one." before being chopped to bits.


Maybe in the next Nid dex, tryanid ICs will get the ability to turn down, challenges. Until then it makes a little sense, since creatures like the Deathleaper were designed specifically to terrorize and kill enemy leaders.

Here's a nightmare scenario for you: The next Tyranid codex is written by He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. At which point we learn that Tyra-nehekhar-on-ids also have dynasties, also have a sense of honor, have been in secret alliance with the Legion of the Damned, used absorbed Flame Falcon DNA to produce pyrovores, and were actually created as berserker weapons by Star Gods from a galaxy far, far away from the Milky Way and drifted this way over millions of years after first shredding said Star Gods. Oh, and that the Queen of All Norn Queens once carved its initials on the Emperor's heart, which is the real reason he has been locked up in the Golden Throne.

Vaktathi wrote:

Kaldor wrote:
Huh? Why should a Hive Tyrant be unchallengable?

On what basis would it accept an individual invitation to personal combat...?It's not like it has a sense of honor, pride, ambition, a need to prove itself, etc.

Tell that to the Alien Queen that fought Ripley when she challenged her...

Kaldor wrote:Huh? Why should a Hive Tyrant be unchallengable?

In that specific example Hive Tyrant was challenged to save the rest of the squad and give others time/ slow him down. Too smart for that and can't be covered in shame for avoiding the combat, would kill them by the numbers and proceed.

Alien Queen vs Ripley was personal but above all it was proper target priority, as Ripley with her mother instinct was very dangerous but If there was a squad with grenade launcher, they would be attacked first (going by logic, not hollywood logic). Besides I think Alien Queen was rather dumb compared to Hive Tyrant.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

LordOfTheSloths wrote:

Thatguyoverthere wrote:

Vaktathi wrote:On what basis would it accept an individual invitation to personal combat...?It's not like it has a sense of honor, pride, ambition, a need to prove itself, etc.

I always saw it as the relevant Sargent nodding to his men and saying, "Don't worry boys, I got this one." before being chopped to bits.


Maybe in the next Nid dex, tryanid ICs will get the ability to turn down, challenges. Until then it makes a little sense, since creatures like the Deathleaper were designed specifically to terrorize and kill enemy leaders.

Here's a nightmare scenario for you: The next Tyranid codex is written by He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. At which point we learn that Tyra-nehekhar-on-ids also have dynasties, also have a sense of honor, have been in secret alliance with the Legion of the Damned, used absorbed Flame Falcon DNA to produce pyrovores, and were actually created as berserker weapons by Star Gods from a galaxy far, far away from the Milky Way and drifted this way over millions of years after first shredding said Star Gods. Oh, and that the Queen of All Norn Queens once carved its initials on the Emperor's heart, which is the real reason he has been locked up in the Golden Throne.

I guess nothing similar will happen as indicated by Tyranids having no allies in the book but I still can be wrong...

CT GAMER wrote:

Vaktathi wrote:

Kaldor wrote:
Huh? Why should a Hive Tyrant be unchallengable?

On what basis would it accept an individual invitation to personal combat...?It's not like it has a sense of honor, pride, ambition, a need to prove itself, etc.

Tell that to the Alien Queen that fought Ripley when she challenged her...

As I noted earlier, it's not like the Queen had any drones, or that there was anyone else around but a torn in half robot and a frightened little girl, only one thing posed any sort of threat from the queens point of view and she didn't have much of a choice or any backup, unlike a Hive Tyrant (who is much more aware and even more connected to its always present drones). Not really a comparable thing.

Plumbumbarum wrote:

Kaldor wrote:Huh? Why should a Hive Tyrant be unchallengable?

In that specific example Hive Tyrant was challenged to save the rest of the squad and give others time/ slow him down. Too smart for that and can't be covered in shame for avoiding the combat, would kill them by the numbers and proceed.

In that instance (a lone Tyrant challenged by a squad leader) the Tyrant has no choice. The squad leader steps up to the plate and the rest of the lads add a little covering fire. The Tyrant can't just ignore the guy standing in between it and the rest of the squad.

Kaldor wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:

Kaldor wrote:Huh? Why should a Hive Tyrant be unchallengable?

In that specific example Hive Tyrant was challenged to save the rest of the squad and give others time/ slow him down. Too smart for that and can't be covered in shame for avoiding the combat, would kill them by the numbers and proceed.

In that instance (a lone Tyrant challenged by a squad leader) the Tyrant has no choice. The squad leader steps up to the plate and the rest of the lads add a little covering fire. The Tyrant can't just ignore the guy standing in between it and the rest of the squad.

Assuming the throw would kill the squad leader in the front and the squad (or part of it) if the challenge rule wasn't in effect, he would just go through him and kill the rest (new wound allocation) or they would start jumping on the Tyrant to save the leader, anyway no slowing down effect. If the squad leader tried evasion tricks or sth to gain Tyrant attention and suck up all the attacks, he should fail fluff wise and just die last or in the middle (so again covered by look out sir as the challenge is ignored and he only avoids combat this way).

In this case the rule is artificial and doesn't fit.

Nids should have a special rule for avoiding challenges. They can't accept them, but can instead have several lesser species swarm the guy. So for example of a horde of genestealers charges a squad of terminators with a special character. Rather than a conventional challenge they can "Swamp" the IC and treat several models as a single character for the purposes of a challenge, with all the IC's attacks going against the models dedicated to attack him, while the attacks of the models specifically sent against him are only made against him.

So,
20 Termagaunts
charge
10 Marines
5 Gaunts "swamp" the squad leader
all of the squad leader's attacks go against the gaunts that are swamping him, while all of the gaunts only make attacks against the squad leader.

Plumbumbarum wrote:Assuming the throw would kill the squad leader in the front and the squad (or part of it) if the challenge rule wasn't in effect, he would just go through him and kill the rest (new wound allocation) or they would start jumping on the Tyrant to save the leader, anyway no slowing down effect. If the squad leader tried evasion tricks or sth to gain Tyrant attention and suck up all the attacks, he should fail fluff wise and just die last or in the middle (so again covered by look out sir as the challenge is ignored and he only avoids combat this way).

In this case the rule is artificial and doesn't fit.

Without trying to be rude, I really didn't understand your post. Can you reword it for me?

This thread is grossly off topic. If you want to discuss tyranids in challenges, do it somewhere else?

Please guys / girls, we need to get a grip. If 40k is soooooo bad and GW are soooooooo bad, go off and play warhamchine, hordes, inifnity, magic the gathering or another format of game. As you can see from sales, many people enjoy it. I've payed inhuman amounts of money on this hobby, enough to maybe buy a nice car and more. I know the rules are broken for completetive play, Mat Ward breaks armies, but I wouldn't care diffrently.
We play this game for the thrill to open a new box of minis, for the amazement of a new painted mini that we are so proud of, for the great game we play, for the thrill of winning a game, for desigining our list and thinking 'oh yes, I like it', for the look on an opponents face, for the paint on our hands after a hard day of painting our minis.
We began this hobby for diffrent reasons, but together, we're a community, we are a unit. Okay, GW rips us off, doesn't balance the game, and has tottaly bias lore, but do we care ?
If you started the hobby, your a part of the hobby, you are the hobby, without you, there is no hobby.
Stop complaining about rules, if needs be, homebrew rules, use an older rulebook, but really, without the community, a game is nothing.

...or write the Dakka Core rules

Dread Captain wrote:Please guys / girls, we need to get a grip. If 40k is soooooo bad and GW are soooooooo bad, go off and play warhamchine, hordes, inifnity, magic the gathering or another format of game. As you can see from sales, many people enjoy it. I've payed inhuman amounts of money on this hobby, enough to maybe buy a nice car and more. I know the rules are broken for completetive play, Mat Ward breaks armies, but I wouldn't care diffrently.
We play this game for the thrill to open a new box of minis, for the amazement of a new painted mini that we are so proud of, for the great game we play, for the thrill of winning a game, for desigining our list and thinking 'oh yes, I like it', for the look on an opponents face, for the paint on our hands after a hard day of painting our minis.
We began this hobby for diffrent reasons, but together, we're a community, we are a unit. Okay, GW rips us off, doesn't balance the game, and has tottaly bias lore, but do we care ?
If you started the hobby, your a part of the hobby, you are the hobby, without you, there is no hobby.
Stop complaining about rules, if needs be, homebrew rules, use an older rulebook, but really, without the community, a game is nothing.

You are making a basic mistake of taking your motivation and generalizing it to include the whole community. Which is odd, because you admit others are in it for different reasons, and then just blow off their reasons in favor of yours.

I have the spare time and resources to have two, -maybe- three armies at the 2000 points level. That means I can insulate myself a bit from GW's balancing issues: maybe one or two codices will be borked, but the other will be alright, right? Hey, I can even maybe go fullmetal WAAC and just collect 'safe' armies that lead in sales and get more forgiving treatment.

But that's not the case for many of my friends. And I am entitled to 1-) expect the hobby and GW to be better, since I'm paying for it, and 2-) worry that the present course is locking my friends out of the hobby, giving me less people to play with, less armies to fight against (as the remaining people flock to the top dog factions), and eventually harm my ability to keep playing.

That's what gets me when a certain type of poster goes "Stop whining, shut up or go play something else". I and many others are trying to stay in, give GW money and bring other hobbyists into the fold to make a larger, healthier hobby. Holy crap, how we're trying.

So I said a bunch of pages ago, use custom rules for tournaments... why is that a problem? This is not to say that some of the rulings in 6th aren't unclear, or that some of their design decisions may not have been great.

I'm fairly certain 'Ard Boyz has already always used custom scenarios that are more competitive, an addendum saying 'no allies' shouldn't be too difficult for them.

Also if you don't like how something works, house rule it.

Has an actual broken ally combination reared its head yet?

Or is "Runes of Warding for everyone!" as bad as it gets?

You can easily come up with fluff excuses for a Hive Tyrant to engage your own Warlord 1 on 1. It has even happened twice in fluff. Swarmlord vs Calgar and Kraken Hive Tyrant vs Yriel.

In 40k, enemy commanders are prone to fight one another to make it more cinematic.

Jidmah wrote:Has an actual broken ally combination reared its head yet?

No.
Ever since the community heard about allies and started complaining about broken game balance, I haven't seen a single broken list.

Jidmah wrote:Has an actual broken ally combination reared its head yet?

Or is "Runes of Warding for everyone!" as bad as it gets?

Define broken.

The Eldar/Dark Eldar Harliestar seems fairly obnoxious, between two 2+ save characters (Vect, Phoenix Lord), and Eldrad giving them re-rolls. The number of special rules the unit gets is pretty impressive, and it's super resilient. The phoenix lord can take the hits that might cause instant death, vect can take AP1/2 hits on his invul (and regen wounds he might take with his orbs), the whole thing gets re-rolls to hit everything, can Doom their target, and has both Runes of Warding AND Eldrad as a level 3 psyker for psychic defense.

Grots + Epidemius Daemons looks like it has some potential for abuse. Early lists are doing okay, and there's bound to be some refinement involved. Of course, it's as subject to the whims of chaos as all daemon armies, so that's always a limiting factor.

I'm not sure anything is quite as broken as the non-ally Necron flyer wing yet. This is almost certainly due to the fact that almost no codexes have any skyfire available to them, and so overloading someone's ability to cope with flyers is not all that hard, as Necrons can take a flyer as a dedicated transport. A flyer wing went undefeated over the weekend at the monthly Chicago tournament, piloted by a player who typically does not place in the top for battlepoints (just throwing out that it's not a win to be discounted due to established player skill). I'm sure that as more codexes come out, this list will be weakened, but that does little to help people playing now.

Yeah, but at least the Harlistar can be defeated by maneuvering around it and hitting it from an angle that doesn't hit the Shadow Field/Pheonix Lord first.

And its still Eldar/Dark Eldar. Not exactly scary in the rest of the list.

Kaldor wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:Assuming the throw would kill the squad leader in the front and the squad (or part of it) if the challenge rule wasn't in effect, he would just go through him and kill the rest (new wound allocation) or they would start jumping on the Tyrant to save the leader, anyway no slowing down effect. If the squad leader tried evasion tricks or sth to gain Tyrant attention and suck up all the attacks, he should fail fluff wise and just die last or in the middle (so again covered by look out sir as the challenge is ignored and he only avoids combat this way).

In this case the rule is artificial and doesn't fit.

Without trying to be rude, I really didn't understand your post. Can you reword it for me?

Sure. The situation is

Thatguyoverthere wrote:

For Example:

In a game facing Nids I had a halve strength squad of Vets charge a Hive Tyrant. The Tryants overwatch killed one of the squad, but they made it into combat. The Sargent, challenged the Hive Tyrant and was quickly reduced to a fine red mist, but the squad stuck. The Tyrant wiffed in the next phase and only killed 2 guardsmen, and they stuck around for another turn.

In 5th, the squad would have charged and done nothing, in 6th, the charged valiantly and stood there ground against a towering alien monstrosity, buying their comrades a few precious minutes to get to safety with their lives.

You wrote:

Kaldor wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:

Kaldor wrote:Huh? Why should a Hive Tyrant be unchallengable?

In that specific example Hive Tyrant was challenged to save the rest of the squad and give others time/ slow him down. Too smart for that and can't be covered in shame for avoiding the combat, would kill them by the numbers and proceed.

In that instance (a lone Tyrant challenged by a squad leader) the Tyrant has no choice. The squad leader steps up to the plate and the rest of the lads add a little covering fire. The Tyrant can't just ignore the guy standing in between it and the rest of the squad.

So the squad leader steps up to the plate and the rest of the lads add a little covering fire (which they can't as they're charging and challenges are part of cc - "to issue a challenge, nominate a character in one of your units locked in the combat to be a challenger" - but let's leave it like that)

Tyrant throws its cc dice, let's assume it makes enough wounds to kill a squad leader with entire squad or at least a few troops (as this is what would most likely happen). But, as rules wise it was challenged, it only kills a squad leader and is potentialy slowed down as it has to deal with a whole squad the next turn or loose another turn.

But as fluff wise it does not care about the challenge, it just ignores the squad leader effort to get its attention. If the squad leader steps up the plate, he dies on the way and his man die next in whatever trench they're sitting. If he steps up to the plate and tries evasion with throwing rocks, insults, eye games, distraction, impugning heritage or whatever comes to mind to suck up all the attacks from the Tyrant, it doesn't work and ends with the squad leader looking at his men flying intestines and being chewed in the middle or in the end. Hive Tyrant is a smart efficient killer and main tactician of his army and not John Wayne or a wild hog, the plan to slow it down might be obvious to it and it has no reason to get sucked into duel and loose time, no circle fight of any kind should happen. Hive Tyrant should be able to ignore chalenges, the rule doesn't fit the fluff.

So whatever efforts made to chain Hive Tyrant into a duel it does not want to attend should fail and after refusing the challenge all should end with either normal combat or look out sir!, the former being the challenger is in the range of sharp something and dies and the latter being the challenger tries some cheap tricks and is ignored so just avoiding the combat and his men die first.

Harriticus wrote:You can easily come up with fluff excuses for a Hive Tyrant to engage your own Warlord 1 on 1. It has even happened twice in fluff. Swarmlord vs Calgar and Kraken Hive Tyrant vs Yriel.

In 40k, enemy commanders are prone to fight one another to make it more cinematic.

The Swarmlord might want to get Calgar but should be able to ignore a sergant trying puny tricks to stop it on the way.

The Eldar/Dark Eldar Harliestar seems fairly obnoxious, between two 2+ save characters (Vect, Phoenix Lord), and Eldrad giving them re-rolls. The number of special rules the unit gets is pretty impressive, and it's super resilient. The phoenix lord can take the hits that might cause instant death, vect can take AP1/2 hits on his invul (and regen wounds he might take with his orbs), the whole thing gets re-rolls to hit everything, can Doom their target, and has both Runes of Warding AND Eldrad as a level 3 psyker for psychic defense.

Which can be stopped by snipers, deepstriking, outflanking, or just overall good positioning, not to mention costs an obscene amount of points.

Redbeard wrote:So now you're arguing that we cannot judge the success of an endeavor by whether it meets, or fails to meet, the goals set forth by its creator.

One of the points I've been making this entire time is that we can't objectively judge it.

Plumbumbarum wrote:How many games are deicided by unlucky roll? 1 of 100? 1 of 1000?

All of them.

Vaktathi wrote:The core rules were designed one way with one design mentality... and then immediately the first codex book written by a different author (primarily Ward) went another, very different way, and continued to do so with his other books, with two other authors writing prominent books that didn't fit either of these design philosophies.

Yeah, I think this would be my real gripe here. It's not the imbalance that bothers me per se, so much as the incongruity. I don't hate playing against BA because they're overpowered, I hate playing against them because I feel like I'm playing against someone who is playing a different game than I'm playing. The first time I played against our current BA rules, I really thought the other person was lying to me the entire game every time he said "yes, but blood angels can do that". Turned out he was right...

Sephyr wrote:That's what gets me when a certain type of poster goes "Stop whining, shut up or go play something else". I and many others are trying to stay in, give GW money and bring other hobbyists into the fold to make a larger, healthier hobby. Holy crap, how we're trying.

Ug, whiners with a martyr complex are the worst kind of whiners.

GW only pays attention to people's actions, not hot air being blown around on the internet. If GW makes changes, and you give GW money, you are giving assent to the changes. It doesn't matter your opinions.

Vaktathi wrote:It's not really putting fluff/lore over competition, it's emphasizing randomness and Michael-Bay-esque "kirpow-fwoosh-BOOM!" moments, "epic" moments if you will

lol. This is really the core of it. GW has made the statement that it wants the rules to be written by micael bay, and for players to play as such.

Ailaros wrote:
Yeah, I think this would be my real gripe here. It's not the imbalance that bothers me per se, so much as the incongruity. I don't hate playing against BA because they're overpowered, I hate playing against them because I feel like I'm playing against someone who is playing a different game than I'm playing. The first time I played against our current BA rules, I really thought the other person was lying to me the entire game every time he said "yes, but blood angels can do that". Turned out he was right...

Yeah, that feeling has really been very awkward in the last few years and ultimately the idea that "hey...that's not supposed to be possible" may be more of an issue than the actual imbalances, it's people feeling like they're being run-around, and such rules/abilities have gotten more and more prevalent.

We've had some very radical shifts in design philosophy in the last few years, just the period from 2006 through 2008 you can see at least 3, I'd argue 4 major shifts in the way they design the rules and books, and we're still trying to cycle out of that.

Plumbumbarum wrote:it has no reason to get sucked into duel and loose time, no circle fight of any kind should happen. Hive Tyrant should be able to ignore chalenges, the rule doesn't fit the fluff.

No.

The Hive Tyrant attempts to ignore the squad leader but every step he takes, the squad leader leaps in front of him, blasting him with his lasgun or bolter. The Tyrant attempts to engage the rest of the sqaud, but they are falling back and adding their covering fire to the combat. Eventually the Tyrant realises that he will have to devote some time and effort to destroying the squad leader.

You might say that the Tyrant is capable of destroying the squad leader, and also engaging the rest of the squad.

But this is not fact, it is your own projection of how you want the combat to go. If the squad in question is not attempting to engage the Tyrant as a cohesive whole, the tyrant will have a problem.

With GW's overuse of the word, and with the fact that people just seem to eat it up, I've really come to hate the word 'cinematic.' It's as if people use it as an excuse for anything now.

... anything, such as?