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 MrMoustaffa wrote:
Look say what you want about perigrine, but think. If you had spent that much cash on FW drills only to be drastically changed, you would be pissed too.

I have:

1. A full Deathguard army.
2. A full World Eater army.
3. A full Lost & The Damned army.
4. A full Inquisitorial army (not GKs or Sisters).


People always tell me to 'counts as', so frankly some rules changing on a unit is nothing in comparison to having whole armies invalidated or, in two cases there, simply removed from the game.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
People always tell me to 'counts as', so frankly some rules changing on a unit is nothing in comparison to having whole armies invalidated or, in two cases there, simply removed from the game.

I don't see why there's some kind of either-or thing here. Changing drills to remove the ability to use them as troops and invalidate an entire army in the process is bad game design, just like invalidating those other armies is bad game design. The fact that one is bad doesn't in any way mean that the other isn't.

 Bobthehero wrote:
I am kinda fethed till Christmas, as my only troops choice right now are 2 squads of 6 Engineers, extremely squishy, so I use the Drill to keep the men alive till the Grenadiers take out a few
enemies then the Engineers come and blow the survivors.

Oh well, STR 10 AP 1 Melta large blast, still a pretty darn good chance to destroy something.

Oh, sorry. Its also now S8 instead of S10, but still AP1 and Melta, but now its only a 3" small blast too.

It gained a 4+ invulnerable save against damage inflicted while its making a ram attack, though.

Wow, all that and a price increase? Ouch. Glad I only bought one for my Krieg army.

On the subject of Krieg, are they planning to update the Vraks army lists? I certainly hope they don't expect me to piece together the rules for a Krieg Army from several different IA books.

As far as I'm concerned, the IA1 2nd ed book lists a Hades Drill for 'Imperial' armies, not a Krieg army. I'll continue to play using the Vraks Krieg list and rules until they either FAQ it or update those specific lists.

 yakface wrote:
Oh, sorry. Its also now S8 instead of S10, but still AP1 and Melta, but now its only a 3" small blast too.

It gained a 4+ invulnerable save against damage inflicted while its making a ram attack, though.

So is there anything about the drill that hasn't been crippled? Even the "most hated unit ever" dread pods weren't nerfed this badly...

 Cruentus wrote:
Wow, all that and a price increase? Ouch. Glad I only bought one for my Krieg army.

On the subject of Krieg, are they planning to update the Vraks army lists? I certainly hope they don't expect me to piece together the rules for a Krieg Army from several different IA books.

As far as I'm concerned, the IA1 2nd ed book lists a Hades Drill for 'Imperial' armies, not a Krieg army. I'll continue to play using the Vraks Krieg list and rules until they either FAQ it or update those specific lists.

The last cost for the drill was 50 points on its own. A base vet squad cost 70 points.

Now its 100 points for the Drill and 10 guys base.

Sure you can't pimp out the vet squad the way you could before, but the overall cost has gone down for the Drill.

And yes, the rules are for both Krieg and standard codex IG forces (they have a description for both army lists).


----


I don't understand how you cay you're somehow 'not going to use these rules'...who are you going to find to play with who's going to be totally okay with you using now outdated rules for a unit that was totally and completely undercosted for what it does? Who would sign up to play against that?

The Hades now has appropriate rules and points values for what it is, as opposed to something that was ridiculously amazing. I mean, if a Drill attack was that utterly devastating, every single IG regiment in the galaxy would be running those things as the ultimate terror weapon.

It was a clearly broken unit, and anyone who based any army around it knew that. So you had to know that at some point they would go out of their way to fix the problem. That's always, always the risk you take when you make an army that is super heavily lopsided on one particular aspect or unit.

 yakface wrote:
The Hades now has appropriate rules and points values for what it is, as opposed to something that was ridiculously amazing. I mean, if a Drill attack was that utterly devastating, every single IG regiment in the galaxy would be running those things as the ultimate terror weapon.

I think the new rules sound like ("sound like", mind you, I won't order my copy of the book until after xmas) they're trying to normalize the relationship between the Hades and the squad it carries. Before, it used to be the drill was the overwhelmingly important part of that pairing, and the extra guys (Krieg Engineers or Veterans, were just a minor extra for the immensely powerful and cheap drill, whereas now, the drill is mostly a tool to get the engineers into position (which I think it should be).

I would not mind seeing them do more underground vehicles, like the Termite, Mole and Hellbore. The latter especially would be a lark, being the equivalent of a whole bastion suddenly popping up.

You mentionned veterans on more than one occasion, but what about engineers?

 Jadenim wrote:
@MeanGreenStompa

OT I know, but I thought open topped vehicles still counted as assault vehicles?

Yes, but overwatch has a profoundly unpleasant effect on lightly armoured units and vehicles dying to glancing hullpoint murder far more easily now. You have about half the chance you did before to get your raider/battlewagon/trukk/venom over the table now and you're looking at losing a significant number of your unit before you even connect in combat. So my battlewagon rush and wycheraider armies got punted.

 Bobthehero wrote:
You mentionned veterans on more than one occasion, but what about engineers?

I think those are for the Death Korps profile found in the vehicle entry.

I'm hoping my copy will show up sometime this week. Today, even. That'd be nice.

 Cruentus wrote:
Wow, all that and a price increase? Ouch. Glad I only bought one for my Krieg army.

On the subject of Krieg, are they planning to update the Vraks army lists? I certainly hope they don't expect me to piece together the rules for a Krieg Army from several different IA books.

As far as I'm concerned, the IA1 2nd ed book lists a Hades Drill for 'Imperial' armies, not a Krieg army. I'll continue to play using the Vraks Krieg list and rules until they either FAQ it or update those specific lists.

Ohhhh...
So, since they never actually scrapped the 'blood axe' list from Ere We Go, published in the 80s, and just released an 'ork' codex, I can still use a warboss with BS 5 as I have a blood axe army?

 yakface wrote:
I don't understand how you cay you're somehow 'not going to use these rules'...who are you going to find to play with who's going to be totally okay with you using now outdated rules for a unit that was totally and completely undercosted for what it does? Who would sign up to play against that?

It's not very complicated. You say "FW invalidated my army, so you either let me use the old rules and have a functioning army, or we don't play". If people aren't ok with me using the army I spent a ton of time and effort building, that's fine, I'll just find someone else to play. Or just find another game to play until they fix the problem.

The Hades now has appropriate rules and points values for what it is, as opposed to something that was ridiculously amazing. I mean, if a Drill attack was that utterly devastating, every single IG regiment in the galaxy would be running those things as the ultimate terror weapon.

The problem isn't the rules and point values, it's that you can no longer use them with scoring veteran squads, which means all of the troops in my army are suddenly no longer legal. And to add insult to injury the new version of the unit can't take the same upgrade options, so I can't even keep the same models and just accept that they aren't scoring. If they'd simply doubled the point cost of the drill I would have had no problem with it.

It was a clearly broken unit, and anyone who based any army around it knew that.

It was only broken if you ignore the drawbacks and only look at the times when it does something awesome. Sadly people who do that seem to whine loud enough to get it changed.

 Agamemnon2 wrote:
I think the new rules sound like ("sound like", mind you, I won't order my copy of the book until after xmas) they're trying to normalize the relationship between the Hades and the squad it carries. Before, it used to be the drill was the overwhelmingly important part of that pairing, and the extra guys (Krieg Engineers or Veterans, were just a minor extra for the immensely powerful and cheap drill, whereas now, the drill is mostly a tool to get the engineers into position (which I think it should be).

Have you ever played with/against them, or are you just guessing based on the rules? Because you've got that backwards.

Under the old rules the veteran squad was the most important part, and the drill's attack was a nice (if really inconsistent) bonus for using such a risky method of deploying your troops. At least half the time the drill would scatter away uselessly and leave the veteran squad to do all of the killing, and you could do stuff like drill up under/near an objective, clear it with overwhelming plasma/melta/demo charge firepower from the veteran squad, and then claim it with your scoring unit. And that's how it usually worked in my experience, the pie plate was nice when it worked, but most of the damage was done by the plasma vets suddenly appearing in rapid fire range. And, more importantly, it was something different (and a lot more fun) than the same old Chimera/Vendetta spam that was the only other way of using veterans.

The current rules completely reverse that. The squad is garbage since it has crippled options, a much higher mishap chance, and is no longer scoring, so now the cheap pie plate is the main appeal of the unit and the infantry squad is just a nice bonus that occasionally might do something. Now instead of putting your troops behind the drills and making an aggressive all-or-nothing attack you put the troops in Chimeras, drop some pie plates, and don't really care what happens to the infantry. And that's just boring.

It's just a general reality

If your army/list gets cheaper or gets more powerful rules the general response is 'Yay, that's cool'

If they get more expensive, or your rules get worse the general response is 'Oh no, my life is ruined, I hate them, they're a bad company'

It's just human nature

It's the same with wishlisting; nobody wishes their army to get worse, the lists just pile up with 'make my stuff better', 'give my army one of the cool units somebody else army has'

That's not true at all. I would have been ok with them increasing the point cost a bit, since I could still play the same army even if it would be slightly less effective at winning. What I'm not ok with is the fact that my army is no longer legal.

And? So? But? Therefore?

Why are you acting as if this is something outlandish? I’ve had more than four of my armies invalidated by Codex changes (one was removed from the game entirely!). So your drills go in different slots now. You’ll survive.

@MeanGreenStompa

Ah, fair point, I misunderstood your first post.

On topic I sympathise with Peregrine; I personally wouldn't have a problem house ruling that you could use standard vet squads, but I can see that it's an awkward situation. I just wish GW and associates wouldn't swing rules quite so wildly.

 Peregrine wrote:
Have you ever played with/against them, or are you just guessing based on the rules? Because you've got that backwards.

Of course I've played with them, do you really think I'd be commenting if I hadn't? What kind of cretin do you take me for? Every time I've seen the Hades used, the initial blast did all the work, then the Engineer squad popped up either in a location already cleared of enemies and spent the next few turns slowly repositioning, or being eradicated by enemy fire.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

 Cruentus wrote:
Wow, all that and a price increase? Ouch. Glad I only bought one for my Krieg army.

On the subject of Krieg, are they planning to update the Vraks army lists? I certainly hope they don't expect me to piece together the rules for a Krieg Army from several different IA books.

As far as I'm concerned, the IA1 2nd ed book lists a Hades Drill for 'Imperial' armies, not a Krieg army. I'll continue to play using the Vraks Krieg list and rules until they either FAQ it or update those specific lists.

Ohhhh...
So, since they never actually scrapped the 'blood axe' list from Ere We Go, published in the 80s, and just released an 'ork' codex, I can still use a warboss with BS 5 as I have a blood axe army?

Sure you can, as soon as you can find those rules on GW or FWs site as the most current rules. The Krieg list on the FW site is still the most current update of the Vraks list, and has not been updated to include the info in IA1 v2. Its as valid as any other 5th ed codex while awaiting the 6th ed update.

And if you wouldn't want to play against a Krieg list with one drill, I don't know what to say.

And of course you must have missed where I said I'm still waiting for that update or faq to bring the Vraks list up to current. I'm not buying IA1 v2 for one unit.

Edit: oh, and I'd love to play a game against a well modeled Blood Axe army, complete with BS5 warboss. Sure would beat facing the same old warboss, or Ghaz, in every battle. Much as I'd think people would enjoy playing against a Krieg army, rather than the same tired old chimera/vendetta/valkyrie (speaking of undercosted units) army.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Why are you acting as if this is something outlandish? I’ve had more than four of my armies invalidated by Codex changes (one was removed from the game entirely!). So your drills go in different slots now. You’ll survive.

Once again, how exactly does invalidating one army justify invalidating another? You might have a point if I claimed that what they did to your armies was a good idea, but I didn't.

 Agamemnon2 wrote:
Of course I've played with them, do you really think I'd be commenting if I hadn't? What kind of cretin do you take me for? Every time I've seen the Hades used, the initial blast did all the work, then the Engineer squad popped up either in a location already cleared of enemies and spent the next few turns slowly repositioning, or being eradicated by enemy fire.

Sorry to get it wrong in this case, but in my experience a lot of people who complained about Hades drills had never actually played against them and just saw STR 10 AP 1 and immediately assumed it must be overpowered.

Also, it sounds like you played the DKoK version, while my army was codex IG. I admit that the DKoK engineers are pretty bad and you take that unit just for the cheap pie plate, but that's more of a flaw with the DKoK list having weak infantry that isn't good for much besides dying. If you instead used a codex list with real veteran squads the drill's firepower was a nice bonus while the veteran squad did huge amounts of damage. That means the solution was to make DKoK engineers a viable unit on their own, not to bring the codex version down to the DKoK version's level. Now both units are worthless for anything but the cheap pie plate.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Cruentus wrote:
Edit: oh, and I'd love to play a game against a well modeled Blood Axe army, complete with BS5 warboss. Sure would beat facing the same old warboss, or Ghaz, in every battle. Much as I'd think people would enjoy playing against a Krieg army, rather than the same tired old chimera/vendetta/valkyrie (speaking of undercosted units) army.

TBH I think this is the biggest problem. I won more games using (proxied) Chimera/Vendetta spam, but the drill list was just more fun. Now that's no longer an option, and even if I buy Chimeras or Vendettas to play a standard mech vet list it's just more of the same old spam.

 Peregrine wrote:
Sorry to get it wrong in this case, but in my experience a lot of people who complained about Hades drills had never actually played against them and just saw STR 10 AP 1 and immediately assumed it must be overpowered.

That tends to happen with anything FW releases.

The Drill's a 50% for me, the last game it removed 2 hull points of a landraider, the Engineers finished it off with demo charges and melta bombs.

I'm sorry, Peregrine, but there isn't a lot of sympathy I can offer. GW regularly messes around with lists, and sometimes it screws up your army. I learned from this-- don't spam: it isn't worth it, unless you're in a hypercompetitive environment.
For the record list of armies (that I can remember) that have been discontinued (with proxies next to them in parentheses, asterisks for ones that are kind of functional still)

armies:
squats (guard and/or marines, probably, rumored Demiurg)*
lost and the damned (CSM and IG, or various FW lists)*
gaunt's ghosts (and other IG regimental rules, such as the catachan and cadian army lists-- veteran rules)*
IG armored companies (FW replaced this with kried armored company)*
kroot mercs (rumored release, otherwise SOL or orks/nids, maybe?)
arbites (IG carapace armor)*
witch hunters/daemon hunters (lots of missing options, most replaceable w/ them plus IG or WH & DH)*
salamanders army (mostly w/ the Salamanders character, though not a great representation)*
chaos legions (all can technically work with the new chaos codex, but are missing special rules, except Iron Warriors, which requires an IG ally to use a basilisk)*
eldar craftworlds (all can be used in the new codex easily enough*
except for the Ulthwe Strike force, which can't use a webway portal unless you count it as a bastardized and weird DE army... which sucks, 'cause that was the one I played)
tyranid mycetic assault list (tyranids)*
flesh tearers (incorporated into Blood angels)*
white scars (marine bike captain comes close)*
Red Corsairs (CSM or FW huron)*
imperial fists (again, w/ that termie captain or a master of the forge)*
13th company (space wolf upgrades)*
feral orks (this one is really thoroughly odd... while orks w/ bikes are the most obvious, running them as catachan IG is probably closer to their old rules/stats, except for no T4)*
speed freeks (regular orks, which even mostly works if you didn't have a bajillion bike and nob squads)*

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
And? So? But? Therefore?

Why are you acting as if this is something outlandish? I’ve had more than four of my armies invalidated by Codex changes (one was removed from the game entirely!). So your drills go in different slots now. You’ll survive.

That's it folks, the world is officially ending on the 21t! HBMC, is telling someone to just get over it!

Hrm, the hades got overnerfed methinks, the fact that the follow-up squad is lost makes it way too risky to be a functional part of an army as an attack vector. I'm fine with the nerf to the blast, whatever, but given that any attack on a vehicle has a greater than 50% chance (in some cases in excess of a 70% chance if you're talking AV14) to mishap and muck up not only the drill but the following unit is excessive.

Had they just left it at the nerf to the blast I think everyone would have been happy, but with the current changes it makes the drill way too risky as an attack vector and too expensive simply as a deep strike enabler if you're not going to try and hit an enemy unit with it. This is especially painful for DKoK Engineer units that are hideously overpriced and have nowhere near the threat value vets bring.


And lets be honest, there is such a thing as over-correction, and this would not be the first time GW/FW has done so.

Oh well. FW will just release a fourth iteration of the unit when they get to IAV6E2, I bet. :-/ They're the George Lucas of statblocks, compelled to tinker with them constantly.

Speaking of changes, did they do anything to the Tauros and Venator?

 Vaktathi wrote:
Hrm, the hades got overnerfed methinks...

Undoubtedly. GW (and by extension FW) are nothing if not experts at over-balancing things.

 BrookM wrote:
Speaking of changes, did they do anything to the Tauros and Venator?

The only difference I can tell about the Tauros squadron from IAA 2nd edition is that they removed the option to take a Homing Beacon and added Hull Points to the entry (2).


----


And back to the Hades, my whole point was that from the very beginning this thing was supposed to be battlefield support equipment that has an interesting application when applied to combat. Unfortunately, the rules were written way OTT for this role and then combined with an insane points cost (and yes, I've played games against them and see them do nothing sometimes, but that doesn't change the fact that they were amazing for the points).

So has the new rules made basing an army around the Hades not really viable? I would say that's definitely true, but it never should have been. I'm sorry that some people went out and bought a bunch of these models because of how amazingly nasty they were and based their entire army around it, but this is the exact same issue everyone who makes their army incredibly lopsided towards a unit that is clearly out of balance at the time in a constantly evolving game. While in most situations it takes a whole codex cycle or new rules edition to mix things up this way, in the case of Forgeworld they actually can and do adjust their rules with each new appropriate release, so ti really shouldn't be a surprise.

The Hades is still a perfectly useable unit for the points cost in a role closer to what it should be based on the fluff, but yes, it is no longer something you create your entire army strategy against, as it never should have been.

But surely you either change its cost to reflect its abilities, or change its abilities to reflect its cost. They appear to have upped its cost because of how dangerous it is... and then made it less dangerous as well.