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Smite spam is really an issue for elite armies that need to get in close to do some work. I also play Tau and smite really isn't too much of an issue at all. Even for my fusion commanders, likely weren't surviving long anyway and you can bring drones to screen as well. Tau generally still shoot across the table, like a lot of the necron as well. So are you really afraid of having some mortal wounds go on your necron warriors if screening with them? It's not like they can't bring those models back?

Tau are in a good spot vs smite spam.
Orks can bring enough bodies , smite spam not an issue.
Necron, if you were going to try and blindly run wraiths up the field, smite spam will hurt.

So yes if you blindly run the old 3++ units up the field, smite spam is designed to destroy you. Welcome to the new rock paper scissors.

As far as I can see smite spam (especially at 4-5 psykers) is only a problem if you need to close and rely on high toughness or saves. So if you want to play an army that has to be within 18" and can't take screens then it will wreck you, but you built an extremely narrow army, all such armies have pretty hard counters. Outrange them, screen them, deny them.

If you are taking an all Ork Biker army or Grey Knight Dreadknight spam or similar then yes, it's a huge problem, but in those cases you are also spamming, so spam vs spam one beats the other. Somteims you are taking multiples of very similar units, which is becoming too specialised so again, bad matchups against the answer to your build are to be expected.

Playing Nids, DE, Craftworld Eldar and Tau against smite spam it's not been the psykers that have caused me issues, but the other units. I can maneuver around or outrange the psykers its the artillery that hurts.

So how well do you expect Smite Spam to work on some flyers, like Thunderbolts or Vultures? I'm wondering if a series of strafing runs should be my answer to any of this I come across.

M.

Drager wrote:
As far as I can see smite spam (especially at 4-5 psykers) is only a problem if you need to close and rely on high toughness or saves. So if you want to play an army that has to be within 18" and can't take screens then it will wreck you, but you built an extremely narrow army, all such armies have pretty hard counters. Outrange them, screen them, deny them.

If you are taking an all Ork Biker army or Grey Knight Dreadknight spam or similar then yes, it's a huge problem, but in those cases you are also spamming, so spam vs spam one beats the other. Somteims you are taking multiples of very similar units, which is becoming too specialised so again, bad matchups against the answer to your build are to be expected.

Playing Nids, DE, Craftworld Eldar and Tau against smite spam it's not been the psykers that have caused me issues, but the other units. I can maneuver around or outrange the psykers its the artillery that hurts.

It's not just spam. Take a GK battalion with 3 Strikes. They're gonna get equally mulched. Takes Custodes anything. Mulched.

Anyway, GW Community just said that Malefic Lords are going up to 80 PPM so I think that kind of shows there was a problem.

Audustum wrote:

Drager wrote:
As far as I can see smite spam (especially at 4-5 psykers) is only a problem if you need to close and rely on high toughness or saves. So if you want to play an army that has to be within 18" and can't take screens then it will wreck you, but you built an extremely narrow army, all such armies have pretty hard counters. Outrange them, screen them, deny them.

If you are taking an all Ork Biker army or Grey Knight Dreadknight spam or similar then yes, it's a huge problem, but in those cases you are also spamming, so spam vs spam one beats the other. Somteims you are taking multiples of very similar units, which is becoming too specialised so again, bad matchups against the answer to your build are to be expected.

Playing Nids, DE, Craftworld Eldar and Tau against smite spam it's not been the psykers that have caused me issues, but the other units. I can maneuver around or outrange the psykers its the artillery that hurts.

It's not just spam. Take a GK battalion with 3 Strikes. They're gonna get equally mulched. Takes Custodes anything. Mulched.

Anyway, GW Community just said that Malefic Lords are going up to 80 PPM so I think that kind of shows there was a problem.

It shows that Malefic Lords (and hopefully Primaris Psykers) are a problem. With that kind of nerf, I'm thinking the odds on smite being nerfed go down. Thankfully, GW is seeing that you don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Well sure if cheap units with full smite cease to exist then sure, smite spam won't really be a thing. If your 10 Malefic lords cost 800 points instead of 400.

Audustum wrote:
It's not just spam. Take a GK battalion with 3 Strikes. They're gonna get equally mulched. Takes Custodes anything. Mulched.

Anyway, GW Community just said that Malefic Lords are going up to 80 PPM so I think that kind of shows there was a problem.

Mono-custodes is a niche, focused army. They have good matchups and bad matchups due to lack of tools and depth. To be competitive they need support and, honestly, I think that is how it should be.

Grey Knights with 3 strikes and nothing else? That's what, 500 points? Sure it'll get destroyed, but, again, there should be an army around them. Dreadnoughts, Stormravens, maybe some other stuff from Imperium. They are not terrible at dealing with smites, they have access to a fair amount of Deny and, again, can outrange and outmanoeuvre the psykers pretty effectively. Just strikes is spam, it's fluffy spam, but still spam.

I've not played against more than 5 psykers mind and I'm not saying that there is no problem with Malefic lords/primaris psykers, but I don't think the problem is with smite.

80 points for the Malefic Lord, lol. I wonder where the Primaris Psyker will end. 65 points?

But it is truly wonderful that FW units get the Chapter Approved treatment.

You see guys? Smite Spam was fine. Thats why people should "git gud" and GW isn't nerfing it.

Audustum wrote:
You keep repeating that artillery gets to shoot longer, but that doesn't matter. It's why I said do the math. It takes a frightening amount of firepower to wipe the Custodes squad.

In a vacuum, yes. But there are a lot of other factors at play. It is a whole lot more difficult to bring those psykers to bear, especially if you want them to live to do it again, than to just start blasting from turn 1. That difference does matter.

You'll definitely get stuff in range and done in that time.

Hrm, The 1850pts IG army I ran last weekend will do 13-14 wounds to a 3++ Custodes unit each turn from across the board from only the Russ and Manticore units, not including the FA tanks or infantry or psykers or stratagems or anything else. That's 4 Custodes and change each turn, almost a full squad, without needing any Mortal Wounds...or indeed half the army.

(For reference, the list was using Catachan doctrines, 3 HQ officers, 3 Astropaths, 6 infantry squads with autocannons and grenade launchers, 2 Tank Commanders with BC/LC/HB's, 2 HS LRBT's with 3x HB, 2x Manticore, 3x Hellhounds)

Not so with Smite Spam. 6 Primaris has decent odds of wiping the whole squad in a single turn.

6 Primaris Psykers will average 10 wounds, or 3 dead Custodes. Painful to be sure, but not a whole squad (possible but would require well above average luck) and those Primaris psykers are much more difficult to use relative to the other options in the IG arsenal.

And you're going to have to get in range of them to hit targets of value. Elite armies are not usually great shooters.

This is true, though if theyre running a smite spam blob, you do have maneuver options as the smite blob will probably concentrate in one area.

The problem with Custodes is that they aren't really an army, they're a single footslogging infantry unit with a couple of expensive copy-pasted SM units (which are even more expensive with Custodes stats/abilities). They lack too many tools and features.

You cant even run them as a Battleforged army without units from other factions. If your army is basically all Custodes, well, you should expect that it will have weaknesses, just as an all Russ IG army would, or a Knight army, or anything else that has a small count of units and little variety in unit type. It's a special niche build, and those will always have exploitable weaknesses and its hard to balance that without making them nigh invincible, particularly multiwound heavy infantry (which we have seen in the past).

Much the same can be applied to Grey Knights, and its part of why they have so many issues right now. The last time they were really powerful was when they could play wound allocation gimmicks with Paladins and had cheap Henchmen chaff with undercosted psybolt ammo stuck to everything that could take an assault cannon or autocannon. That said, GK also have issues with really bad stratagems and overcosting, I'm still flabbergasted their Terminators went up in price. I'm all for them getting some extra help like bonuses to or additional deny the witch rolls.

 MagicJuggler wrote:

 Primark G wrote:
Smite is a good game mechanic in that you can wound enemy units that would otherwise be untouchable.

You know what else is a good mechanic?

Not making units unhittable or untargetable in the first place.

Nah then characters are pure garbage and unplayable. I know some people hate on death stars but lets not get carried away ok?

pismakron wrote:
80 points for the Malefic Lord, lol. I wonder where the Primaris Psyker will end. 65 points?

Let's not get ahead of ourselves. Spiritseers are still 45 points and get a 4++. An Inquisitor is 55.

Smite is fine the way it is.

That a relatively expensive Psyker may on average slay a single 2W model is perfectly fine, especially when said model is not necessarily elite infantry.

Smite is balanced because it slays 2 conscripts like it slays 1 Terminator.

On average, that's still not many points when comparing with the cost of the psyker and the likelihood of casting the power, the range limit and the inherent limitations (no targeting).

I can see how one would be salty after making a total elite army and then facing off against the cheapest of smites (Brimstones is it?), but that's not a problem of Smite, more a problem of Brimstone and / or cheap psykers.

It's also fair that an elite elite army would have some downsides, as armies are meant to be balanced.

If you're only running the elite (terminator / bikes) of the elite (space marines), it makes sense that you may be too 1337 for your own good.

Overall, I think invulnerable saves made the game a lot worse before the introduction of standardized mortal wounds.

On average, 50 points of AP-3 shooting generally does as much damage as a smite every turn, it can target whatever and generally does not have an 18" range limit.

So overall... it's not like Smite looks like a major problem by itself.

No one said smite is a problem, the problem is cheap psyker spam.

morgoth wrote:
Smite is balanced because it slays 2 conscripts like it slays 1 Terminator.

That's exactly the problem...Other side spends tons of points for defence he doesn't get to use. Resulting in meta shifting toward cheap horde from elites WHO ALREADY are soft for their points. It's not like there's unit that is too tough for it's point by having great stats. Basically the tougher your stats the EASIER you are generally to remove for your points. Conscripts, cultists etc THAT'S the actually tough ones for their points.

tneva82 wrote:

morgoth wrote:
Smite is balanced because it slays 2 conscripts like it slays 1 Terminator.

That's exactly the problem...Other side spends tons of points for defence he doesn't get to use. Resulting in meta shifting toward cheap horde from elites WHO ALREADY are soft for their points. It's not like there's unit that is too tough for it's point by having great stats. Basically the tougher your stats the EASIER you are generally to remove for your points. Conscripts, cultists etc THAT'S the actually tough ones for their points.

Have you ever received a charge from a unit of 20 or more boyz with a unit of cultist? Have you ever received a charge from such a unit of boyz with a unit of terminators? Which one did better?

Hint: the terminators are not the ones losing 20+ models before moral kicks in.

You do get to use the defenses you are paying for, just not against the few models that are able to smite if you stand closest to them. Drive a rhino in their face and let them smite that.

tneva82 wrote:

morgoth wrote:
Smite is balanced because it slays 2 conscripts like it slays 1 Terminator.

That's exactly the problem...Other side spends tons of points for defence he doesn't get to use. Resulting in meta shifting toward cheap horde from elites WHO ALREADY are soft for their points. It's not like there's unit that is too tough for it's point by having great stats. Basically the tougher your stats the EASIER you are generally to remove for your points. Conscripts, cultists etc THAT'S the actually tough ones for their points.

Depends on what tools you are using. Against something like custodes many lists I build can only deal with them through careful use of smite kiting and I still lose a bunch of units. Against conscripts and cultists, I can remove 100+ a turn, they are soft as butter. This is probably because I play nids and my tools are just good against screens like that. Against custodes I have smite and my 1 unit of stealers. Making smite unable to kill these threats switches it so that custodes are now a pretty hard counter to my army instead of smite spam being a pretty hard counter to them, that's not better, just different.

An entire squad of devilguants will do 3 wounds to Custodes and then get butchered. A unit of max stealers with a broodlord supporting does 7 wounds. Our big guns don't fare that much better, needing 8 rounds of dedicated shooting from a hive tyrant to kill a single squad. My Neurothropes and Tyrants, however will be able to deal with the threat, through smite. I don't think storm shield spam should be viable, to be honest, we had enough of that with deathstars last edition.

Smite in general was never a big problem for elite armies. Malefic Lords and Primaris Psykers was, because with those you could smite eight times a turn for not that many points.

tneva82 wrote:

morgoth wrote:
Smite is balanced because it slays 2 conscripts like it slays 1 Terminator.

That's exactly the problem...Other side spends tons of points for defence he doesn't get to use. Resulting in meta shifting toward cheap horde from elites WHO ALREADY are soft for their points. It's not like there's unit that is too tough for it's point by having great stats. Basically the tougher your stats the EASIER you are generally to remove for your points. Conscripts, cultists etc THAT'S the actually tough ones for their points.

Gee, it's almost as if there are counters to certain units!

The problem is elite units already suffer well enough in the current meta.

They suffer well in the current meta for the same reason Land Raiders and Leman Russes suffer...

I see lists with 3 Predators that have 4 lascannons each, next to 3 attack bikes with multi-meltas and behind a few meltagun-armed squads.

And I have seen that very same player complain that tanks died too quickly and hordes are OP in 8th.

Smite (and Mortal Wounds) in general appear to be intended as a readily and widely available counter to the strengths of elite armies. It’s fine for an army to have a hard counter - sometimes your Riptide Wing just happens to run into a Grav Spam (talking 7th Ed here). The idea is that you can build a very strong army type, but if that army type meets its key weakness it’s doomed. This is normal Rock-Paper-Scissors.

I think one of the big reasons why people are getting so salty is because everything in 8th Ed counters elite armies (particularly elite assault armies). Horde screens, morale, multi-damage weapons, the new AP system, the loss of templates, objective scoring, everything stacks the odds against elite armies. Then on top of that you hand out like candy a system that natively subverts everything that elite armies are good at, while at the same time still being effective against non-elite armies.

In this sense, mortal wounds / Smite are not like Grav in 7th. Grav was a hard counter against the strongest units - Monstrous Creatures - while being relatively ineffective against horde units. Instead, mortal wounds are analogous to a 7th Ed plasma gun with a special rule that it killed 5 extra models for every 10 models in the unit. Such a weapon would be reasonably effective against elite armies, but devastating against Tyranids/Orks/Guard. So you have a weapon, readily available to everyone and easily spammed, that is at least reasonably effective against the strongest armies, and yet devastating against the weakest armies? Surely that was never going to be a good idea.

On top of that kicking the guy who’s down, you have the fact that mortal wounds are by their very nature just patently anti-fun. One of the big concepts in game design is player agency - that is, that the guy on the receiving end of the attacks gets some way to interact. You could statistically boil down the 40k shooting phase to ‘ok, please remove 9D3 of your models now.’ Does that sound like fun? No? That’s because you have no ability to interact with the situation. It’s a lot more fun to roll 30 dice and hope for a pile of sixes than to just remove 25 models, even though they’re statistically the same. The hope, the anticipation while the dice are rolling, these are what make the game fun, rather than just a mathematical exercise. Mortal wounds subvert that fun by utterly denying the defending player any agency to interact with what’s happening.

So you have a system, readily available to everyone and easily spammed, that is effective against everyone but obscenely powerful against the weakest armies, that actively shuts down the elements of fun in this game, and they’re unpopular? Quelle surprise.

kombatwombat wrote:
I think one of the big reasons why people are getting so salty is because everything in 8th Ed counters elite armies (particularly elite assault armies). Horde screens, morale, multi-damage weapons, the new AP system, the loss of templates, objective scoring, everything stacks the odds against elite armies. Then on top of that you hand out like candy a system that natively subverts everything that elite armies are good at, while at the same time still being effective against non-elite armies.

Because spending 35+ points on one psyker that has a 60% chance of passing a spell that kills a total of two models (before FnP) is effective against non-elite armies - maybe even horde.... right.

I don't think you understand this: it's perfectly fine if your Terminator gets killed in one phase by another model that costs about the same price.

In most cases, that model can at most kill two gaunts or conscripts and would be shredded by anything in any other phase.

At least in 8th, elite is playable, whereas horde was unplayable in 7th.


I think it's totally unfair to compare the madness that was Grav with the mild anti-elite that is Smite.

Also, smite absolutely has player agency. To think that they just pick a unit and go "boop, wounds gone" is overly simplistic. Presumably, a psyker gas a given movement distance, meaning you know it's capabilities for where it can move. Once you know that, it is fairly easy to protect a crucial unit with a less crucial one.

kombatwombat wrote:

On top of that kicking the guy who’s down, you have the fact that mortal wounds are by their very nature just patently anti-fun. One of the big concepts in game design is player agency - that is, that the guy on the receiving end of the attacks gets some way to interact.

While I get the sentiment here, and partly agree, there is agency on the part of the player being smited. There is Deny The Witch (if applicable) and the fact that Smite targets the closest possible unit, not just anything. Knowing the movement capabilities of the psykers and setting up battlefield positioning gives you a lot of defense against Smite being effective. If someone wants to run an ultra elite army of nothing but expensive heavy infantry with no tools to manipulate that effectively, they're going to have problems, just as if you ran an army of nothing but Russ tanks or all Dreadnoughts or the like.

 Vaktathi wrote:

kombatwombat wrote:

On top of that kicking the guy who’s down, you have the fact that mortal wounds are by their very nature just patently anti-fun. One of the big concepts in game design is player agency - that is, that the guy on the receiving end of the attacks gets some way to interact.

While I get the sentiment here, and partly agree, there is agency on the part of the player being smited. There is Deny The Witch (if applicable) and the fact that Smite targets the closest possible unit, not just anything. Knowing the movement capabilities of the psykers and setting up battlefield positioning gives you a lot of defense against Smite being effective. If someone wants to run an ultra elite army of nothing but expensive heavy infantry with no tools to manipulate that effectively, they're going to have problems, just as if you ran an army of nothing but Russ tanks or all Dreadnoughts or the like.

Its to bad we cant play against each other. If we could i would bring 14 primaris psykers in a 2k game, and then you would show me how you deny the witch and make me smite what you want, not what i want.

p5freak wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

kombatwombat wrote:

On top of that kicking the guy who’s down, you have the fact that mortal wounds are by their very nature just patently anti-fun. One of the big concepts in game design is player agency - that is, that the guy on the receiving end of the attacks gets some way to interact.

While I get the sentiment here, and partly agree, there is agency on the part of the player being smited. There is Deny The Witch (if applicable) and the fact that Smite targets the closest possible unit, not just anything. Knowing the movement capabilities of the psykers and setting up battlefield positioning gives you a lot of defense against Smite being effective. If someone wants to run an ultra elite army of nothing but expensive heavy infantry with no tools to manipulate that effectively, they're going to have problems, just as if you ran an army of nothing but Russ tanks or all Dreadnoughts or the like.

Its to bad we cant play against each other. If we could i would bring 14 primaris psykers in a 2k game, and then you would show me how you deny the witch and make me smite what you want, not what i want.

I'd be happy to, alas we appear to live on opposite sides of two continents and an ocean Mein Deutsch ist nicht mehr so gut, Ich kann nur ein bisschen sprechen jezt.

That said, if you wanted to take the Smite-Spam 14 Primaris Psyker army against the IG list I posted earlier in the thread (the latest army I've used thus far in 8E), I would feel pretty confident facing the wall of Smiting 6"mv infantry characters. The psykers are going to have to advance across the field to me, I've got 60 dudes there you'll have to chew through first before you can get to anything juicy (that's the part where I control what you can Smite since you have to Smite the closest unit and those IG psykers lack any real mobility, they're basic footslogging infantry), and I can concentrate on and engage your support and screening assets while the core of your killing power tries to slog across the table and through the infantry screen before it can do anything useful, and I'm still getting to attempt 3 DtW rolls for anything that does get close to boot.

If you're trying to make a Custodes army with 20 dudes and a couple dreads and a Land Raider work, well, ok, yes the Smite-spam list is going to eat it alive and you probably won't have much of an answer, but I'm sorry to say that such an army is going to have big problems against lots of things just as much as it does Smite, it will find itself just as frustrated by any heavy gunline or an Eldar jetbike and skimmer list that it can't get to grips with and lots of other things. That's part of the problem of being an ultra-elite low model count army with little variation in unit type and limited actions and board control.

I'd be happy to play against that army. My imperial armies bring Greyfax and a Culexus. The Culexus will kill or injure one per turn while nerfing all the others to the point where Greyfax will shut them down. So if she shuts down two smites and the culexus kills 1, that's 11 left. If they all smite the same Baneblade and have 0 failures otherwise, it lives with 2 wounds left. Then the Culexus kills another, leaving 10, which finish off one Baneblade. If I've deployed correctly, I should be able to keep the Baneblades far enough apart that the smite-blob cannot hit more than one in a turn. So on and so forth (9 psykers (11 alive, 2 shut down by GF + Culexus aura) on turn 3, doing 18 wounds to a Baneblade, leaving it with 8. Then 8 psykers, killing the second Baneblade on turn 4. Then 7 psykers leaving the last Baneblade on 10 wounds on turn 5, and if the game goes on till turn 6, then the third Baneblade finally dies.

So if my army does nothing to keep the psykers more than 18" away, and I am using the Culexus like an idiot and not making sure it is the closest model to your smite blob, or using Greyfax like an idiot and not keeping it within 24", or not clearing out units 18" away so that the big tanks and their other allies can shoot the psykers, and not shooting Katerina Greyfax at the psykers at all, then you can kill 3 baneblades by turn 6. *waves tiny flag*.

If you spread your smite-blob out, OTOH, then I can just stay out of range of a good portion and stack a flank. I'll also have fewer drops than you, so whatever poor 1440 points left of your army is will get absolutely annihilated by the Baneblade's shooting.

I don’t think it is completely accurate to assume the defending player can simply prevent the Smite spam from chewing their units. With 18” and 6” move, that is a significant radius of effect.

Unless you are playing a Soup or Horde army, you are not necessarily going to have the tools to effectively deal with that.

I don’t think it’s right that a combination of cheap points and efficacy can lead to such a meta warping. To my experience a model typically on average kills half its points worth in a given turn that it is effective, ie shooting or Melee. For cheap psykers using Smite the ratio is about 1:1 depending on what is hit. Assuming Terminators or tougher. Could be Wraithguard or any other pricey unit that wants to get close to be effective.

If you don’t have cheap fodder to feed the monster that is the Smite spam, within your Codex, Index (not factoring in Soup armies) then that is an issue. You shouldn’t be forced to play units outside of your core army, ie space marines with imperial guard infantry. If the meta forces this then the something is too powerful.

As an Eldar player, the cheapes I can field is Guardians, and even they are 8pts each. My main Troops are 12pts each with Rangers and Dire Avengers. That starts to hurt..

Now that Malefic Lords have been fixed in points that will solve that one. Just need The remaining culprits sorted, which we may well see in Chapter Approved.

"If you don't have cheap fodder smite beats you" is the same thing as saying "if you don't have enough anti-tank, tanks beat you" or "if you have no melee defense, melee beats you."

It's part of the game, deal with it. And before you say "every faction has access to anti-tank or melee defense but not cheap infantry" - well, Inquisition has no melee defense or anti-tank. Astra Telepathica has none of the above. Grey Knights have no real anti-tank either.

Certain factions have certain weaknesses (deliberately so) and these weaknesses are engineered into their design. Not having access to that sort of thing is fine.