Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 DarkHound wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Pff - on top of all of this you can even seize the initiative which should ultimately be removed from the game at this point IMO.

The existence of seizing the initiative is extremely important for the game. It forces the player going first to consider giving up an optimal first turn due to the risk of being blown out. For a single game, it can make sense to accept the possibility and maximize turn 1, and a poor player will accidentally do this. However, in a tournament or series, it's very likely the initiative will get seized at some point, so you always have to prepare for it.

LOS blocking terrain as a metric for balancing the game just stagnates the game play IMO. The end result of this is very little combat because who wants to peak their head around the corner and get blasted by a whole army when you can just hide and pick around the corners.

That's what objective scoring is for. Strong LoS terrain rules make the movement phase more important, and that phase is probably the most skill-testing part of the game. Otherwise the game devolves into rolling dice back and forth until somebody loses, and the only skill test is target selection, which is very straight forward.

Not in an Attacker/Defender setting, that's why tournaments are considering removing it altogether

 DarkHound wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Pff - on top of all of this you can even seize the initiative which should ultimately be removed from the game at this point IMO.

The existence of seizing the initiative is extremely important for the game. It forces the player going first to consider giving up an optimal first turn due to the risk of being blown out. For a single game, it can make sense to accept the possibility and maximize turn 1, and a poor player will accidentally do this. However, in a tournament or series, it's very likely the initiative will get seized at some point, so you always have to prepare for it.

While I like the idea of Seizing in concept, the problem with Seizing, to me at least, is that the considerations are minimal or nonexistent in many if not most cases, you either set up like you're going first or going second, the mechanics of the game and nature of terrain rules/commonly available terrain largely make anything else pointless or there's simply is no middle ground to attempt far too often. Thus, when you actually do get seized on, it's basically "welp, I'm boned". That's not to say there's *never* considerations to be made, but, at least in my own experience, they're not common enough to really be relevant to preserve that mechanic in 8E.

If the alpha strikeyness were toned down a couple levels, and the game was less attritionally oriented and had better terrain mechanics or had reactive abilities, I'd like the mechanic a whole lot more, but as is, it's usually just handing a win to the other player. The last time I seized on someone (an unfortunate Chaos player), I blew half their army off the table turn 1 and there really wasn't anything they could have done about it short of basically deploying to go second and left a bunch of stuff off the board, which they would have had they actually planned to go second, but otherwise there wasn't much they could have done differently at deployment, and if you're gonna deploy as if you're going second, you might as well actually just go second much of the time. And if there's predetermined roles, Seizing messes with that entire concept.

It's one of those mechanics that works very well in a larger meta-sense, but abysmally on a tactical, individual game level, kinda like armies with a 50% win rate where they either table opponents or get tabled where it looks balanced in the larger picture but any individual game is going to hugely swing-ey.

 Ishagu wrote:
I agree.

I feel a lot of people who have issues with the social aspect would be better suited to put their time in a video game. One with no communication between players, preferably.

You miss the point of what social interaction is. Social interaction isn't something that should be a core of a game. It should come naturally from it, NOT in spite of the game itself.

I'm going to push this idea again as it seems people may have skipped past it:

Hunkered Down:

Any model or unit which hasn't moved, activated a psychic power, shot, advanced, charged, or fought in the assault phase of the previous turn has -1 to hit and +1 to their armor save as if they are in cover. These bonus stack with other abilities or rules that grant them.

-----

The wording could use another pass, but the idea is to allow any unit that hasn't taken an action in the last turn to hunker down and become more survivable. This would provide a defensive buff to the player moving second, but the player moving first could choose not to activate a unit if they desired to do so.

This would also come into play later in a game where an objective holding unit may be better off not taking a shot because having that extra layer of defense and staying on the objective is a more favorable option.

This rule slightly favors player 2, but allows both players options.

 Canadian 5th wrote:
I'm going to push this idea again as it seems people may have skipped past it:

Hunkered Down:

Any model or unit which hasn't moved, activated a psychic power, shot, advanced, charged, or fought in the assault phase of the previous turn has -1 to hit and +1 to their armor save as if they are in cover. These bonus stack with other abilities or rules that grant them.

-----

The wording could use another pass, but the idea is to allow any unit that hasn't taken an action in the last turn to hunker down and become more survivable. This would provide a defensive buff to the player moving second, but the player moving first could choose not to activate a unit if they desired to do so.

This would also come into play later in a game where an objective holding unit may be better off not taking a shot because having that extra layer of defense and staying on the objective is a more favorable option.

This rule slightly favors player 2, but allows both players options.

Wouldn’t this lead to more static games where movement is less important?

I’m previous edition rapid fire required a unit to remain stationary in order to fire twice and this often lead to models not moving at all and the game turning into static gun lines in my experience. the 2nd ed overwatch mechanic had a similar effect.

 DarkHound wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Pff - on top of all of this you can even seize the initiative which should ultimately be removed from the game at this point IMO.

The existence of seizing the initiative is extremely important for the game. It forces the player going first to consider giving up an optimal first turn due to the risk of being blown out. For a single game, it can make sense to accept the possibility and maximize turn 1, and a poor player will accidentally do this. However, in a tournament or series, it's very likely the initiative will get seized at some point, so you always have to prepare for it.

If your goal is a game decided by skill and tactics, there can hardly be a worst way to determine who goes first than Seize The Initiative. The player who wins the roll to go first either setup to take advantage of his initiative or he set up to mitigate the possibility of a 1 in 6 chance of getting seized on. Either way, he is forced into making a bad choice. He has a 1 in 6 chance of being screwed by the die, or a 5 in 6 chance of having let a good opportunity to be in a better position in the game go away. That's not skill at work, that's luck.

It would be more skill based if Player A set up, Player B setup, and then Player a rolled a die 1-3 he goes for and 4-6 Player B goes first. At least then both players have to deploy not knowing if they will go first.

I really actually liked the way the game handled deployment pre-5E. Players would take turns deploying individual units and then roll *after* to see who went first. That worked a lot better in such respects, and made for much more interesting and tactical deployment. Deploying everything at once and then getting the rug pulled out from under you...doesn't feel quite as fun

 alextroy wrote:

 DarkHound wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Pff - on top of all of this you can even seize the initiative which should ultimately be removed from the game at this point IMO.

The existence of seizing the initiative is extremely important for the game. It forces the player going first to consider giving up an optimal first turn due to the risk of being blown out. For a single game, it can make sense to accept the possibility and maximize turn 1, and a poor player will accidentally do this. However, in a tournament or series, it's very likely the initiative will get seized at some point, so you always have to prepare for it.

If your goal is a game decided by skill and tactics, there can hardly be a worst way to determine who goes first than Seize The Initiative. The player who wins the roll to go first either setup to take advantage of his initiative or he set up to mitigate the possibility of a 1 in 6 chance of getting seized on. Either way, he is forced into making a bad choice. He has a 1 in 6 chance of being screwed by the die, or a 5 in 6 chance of having let a good opportunity to be in a better position in the game go away. That's not skill at work, that's luck.

It would be more skill based if Player A set up, Player B setup, and then Player a rolled a die 1-3 he goes for and 4-6 Player B goes first. At least then both players have to deploy not knowing if they will go first.

Last year i took my Pure quins to an ITC tournament, 2 wins good scores with quins, playing on top table for (depending on score, 1st through 4th). last game it was a TERRIBLE mission (bonus), terrain setup and deployment, it was literally everything perfect for him. But i knew i was going first and i had to set up to go first for a chance to win, or i had to set up to go second and have a large uphill battle (moreso than normal for quins). He ing seized on me. I played out turn 1 then just to him he gets max points and stopped. So stupid b.c i had a chance if he didn't seize, otherwise i had almost 0.

I hate seize so much.

Aash wrote:

 Canadian 5th wrote:
I'm going to push this idea again as it seems people may have skipped past it:

Hunkered Down:

Any model or unit which hasn't moved, activated a psychic power, shot, advanced, charged, or fought in the assault phase of the previous turn has -1 to hit and +1 to their armor save as if they are in cover. These bonus stack with other abilities or rules that grant them.

-----

The wording could use another pass, but the idea is to allow any unit that hasn't taken an action in the last turn to hunker down and become more survivable. This would provide a defensive buff to the player moving second, but the player moving first could choose not to activate a unit if they desired to do so.

This would also come into play later in a game where an objective holding unit may be better off not taking a shot because having that extra layer of defense and staying on the objective is a more favorable option.

This rule slightly favors player 2, but allows both players options.

Wouldn’t this lead to more static games where movement is less important?

I’m previous edition rapid fire required a unit to remain stationary in order to fire twice and this often lead to models not moving at all and the game turning into static gun lines in my experience. the 2nd ed overwatch mechanic had a similar effect.

It's actually worse as you now have alitoc rangers on objectives that are -3 to hit with a +3 5+ Sv.

Ravenguard scouts at -2 to hit and +2, 4+ Sv

Good luck chewing through 2+ armour with-2/-3 to hit without the reroll anything benifit only given to some lists, charge them you say oh wait the rule didn't state a range limit.

Ice_can wrote:
It's actually worse as you now have alitoc rangers on objectives that are -3 to hit with a +3 5+ Sv.

Ravenguard scouts at -2 to hit and +2, 4+ Sv

Good luck chewing through 2+ armour with-2/-3 to hit without the reroll anything benifit only given to some lists, charge them you say oh wait the rule didn't state a range limit.

So the enemy gets a really tough objective-camper that literally cannot move, shoot, assault, or do anything except sit on the objective without compromising its durability. Big deal. Hit it with flamers, charge it, get a bigger unit of Troops in to take the objective anyways, or ignore it and kill the rest of their army.

I'd say this is only a problem if you expect static long-ranged firepower to be able to deal with any threat. Having a few more things that static gunlines can't deal with sounds good to me.

So, as a counterpoint to this problem. What's the tankiest list you can possibly build? Spam ork grots with a fearless aura and FNP? Maybe an invul to add extra protection? Perhaps something from deathguard or would it be the kitted out death watch units with all their nonsense?

cody.d. wrote:
So, as a counterpoint to this problem. What's the tankiest list you can possibly build? Spam ork grots with a fearless aura and FNP? Maybe an invul to add extra protection? Perhaps something from deathguard or would it be the kitted out death watch units with all their nonsense?

2 Bats, 1 Patrol

2 Malanthropes
3 Neurothropes
372 Termagants

Traits 6++ and 4+++ when being hurt via overwatch. Rush up and charge everything.
Malanthropes makes you -1 to be hit, a Neurothrope can give out a 5+++

PS, this is a joke fyi lol

cody.d. wrote:
So, as a counterpoint to this problem. What's the tankiest list you can possibly build? Spam ork grots with a fearless aura and FNP? Maybe an invul to add extra protection? Perhaps something from deathguard or would it be the kitted out death watch units with all their nonsense?

If you can get -2 to hit on a large portion of your army most gunlines will have a really hard time with it. Mechanized Eldar with Alaitoc/Star Engines, for instance.

alextroy wrote:If your goal is a game decided by skill and tactics, there can hardly be a worst way to determine who goes first than Seize The Initiative. The player who wins the roll to go first either setup to take advantage of his initiative or he set up to mitigate the possibility of a 1 in 6 chance of getting seized on. Either way, he is forced into making a bad choice. He has a 1 in 6 chance of being screwed by the die, or a 5 in 6 chance of having let a good opportunity to be in a better position in the game go away. That's not skill at work, that's luck.

It would be more skill based if Player A set up, Player B setup, and then Player a rolled a die 1-3 he goes for and 4-6 Player B goes first. At least then both players have to deploy not knowing if they will go first.

It's not an all-or-nothing affair, and that risk management is a skill testing element. For example, the first player can deploy his forward units in cover rather than at the deployment edge. The player elects to give up a few inches of movement in exchange for mitigating the risk of getting seized. For contrast, if they were going second, they'd deploy further behind LoS blocking terrain and lose more movement in order to be less vulnerable. Both players are working from an expectation of what's going to happen and can form a coherent battle plan which manages their risk.

I don't think rolling off after deployment is wrong or worse, but it opens up a whole other host of problems and still does not solve the alpha-strike issue. You end up in a weird prisoner's dilemma. If we assume two options (deploying aggressively: max offense/min defense; or conservatively, min offense/max defense) then it breaks down like this.

If both are conservative, the second player has an advantage as the first leaves cover to move to objectives.
If only the first player is conservative, then the second player is at an even bigger advantage.
If only the first player is aggressive, then the advantage is nullified.
If both players are aggressive, the first player has an advantage.

So deploying aggressive gets you an advantage or ties in 3 of the 4 states. Being conservative gets you an advantage in one outcome, ties in one, and loses 2. So as a general principle, you should deploy aggressively and bank on either going first or scaring your opponent into deploying conservatively. Obviously there's a lot more nuance and consideration on the tabletop, but my point is you still need some mechanic like Seize the Initiative to break up the dilemma.

Vaktathi wrote:While I like the idea of Seizing in concept, the problem with Seizing, to me at least, is that the considerations are minimal or nonexistent in many if not most cases, you either set up like you're going first or going second, the mechanics of the game and nature of terrain rules/commonly available terrain largely make anything else pointless or there's simply is no middle ground to attempt far too often. Thus, when you actually do get seized on, it's basically "welp, I'm boned". That's not to say there's *never* considerations to be made, but, at least in my own experience, they're not common enough to really be relevant to preserve that mechanic in 8E.

The conundrum here is what you mean by "you always deploy to go first". If "deploy to go first" includes considerations like putting units in cover just in case you get seized, then it's a tautology. Otherwise I just disagree with your assessment that there's no middle ground in deployment.

That being said, I agree that Seize as an all-or-nothing function feels pretty bad in an individual game. To mitigate this, you could reduce Seize to activating half your units, for example. Obviously you can game the mechanic to leverage more than half your army's worth of points, but there's still a trade-off. The cheap units you ignore are often the objective holding infantry or other support who lose a turn of movement.

Amishprn86 wrote:Last year i took my Pure quins to an ITC tournament, 2 wins good scores with quins, playing on top table for (depending on score, 1st through 4th). last game it was a TERRIBLE mission (bonus), terrain setup and deployment, it was literally everything perfect for him. He ing seized on me.

That's rough man, but hey, at least according to the ITC 2020 rules you're allowed to adjust and define the terrain before the match start. It seems that if the terrain was that skewed, it was the tournament org's fault.

 catbarf wrote:

Ice_can wrote:
It's actually worse as you now have alitoc rangers on objectives that are -3 to hit with a +3 5+ Sv.

Ravenguard scouts at -2 to hit and +2, 4+ Sv

Good luck chewing through 2+ armour with-2/-3 to hit without the reroll anything benifit only given to some lists, charge them you say oh wait the rule didn't state a range limit.

So the enemy gets a really tough objective-camper that literally cannot move, shoot, assault, or do anything except sit on the objective without compromising its durability. Big deal. Hit it with flamers, charge it, get a bigger unit of Troops in to take the objective anyways, or ignore it and kill the rest of their army.

I'd say this is only a problem if you expect static long-ranged firepower to be able to deal with any threat. Having a few more things that static gunlines can't deal with sounds good to me.

Except the way you wrote the rule it applies even in the assualt phase, so it's not a counter to anything it's countrr everything.

Additionally when you can make units unchargeable through model placement allowing armies to create units that are immune to anything but psychic powers rather breaks all the armies without psychers.

Additionally marines won't care as they can reroll everything anyway, armies without rerolls by the truckload get screwed even harder.

 Vaktathi wrote:
I really actually liked the way the game handled deployment pre-5E. Players would take turns deploying individual units and then roll *after* to see who went first. That worked a lot better in such respects, and made for much more interesting and tactical deployment. Deploying everything at once and then getting the rug pulled out from under you...doesn't feel quite as fun

Yes this-i still prefer a separate roll for set-up and one for first turn. that way when set-up is done neither player knows who is going first. it removes the need for a seize roll. it also totally changes the way players approach deployment

Many games do this- battletech, DUST etc... although they also roll initiative every turn to add an additional element.


I think GW threw away many good mechanics in various edition changes that made the game far better than it is now for the sake of "something new/different" 8th is so far removed from 3rd-7th (where they were back compatible) that is effectively a completely different game.

I think full deploy, full counterdeploy, first player to deploy plays first is probably optimal for games.

The alternative deployment really empowered the first turn player a lot, but it was interesting when having fewer drops guaranteed a first turn, since it meant that you also had to think about how many drops you would have.

It would have been interesting, if all armies were build around having the same number of units.

When people start bringing tansports just to reduce their number of drops while other units/armies became unplayable because they had too many drops, you know the system is borked.

IMO the system in the current eternal war missions is as close to perfect as it gets.

Attacker deploys first, defender second. After having the whole picture, the attacker then gets to decide whether he has first turn, and if he does, the defender can seize.
Going first still has the huge advantage of being able to take out your opponent's the most dangerous unit(s) while getting guaranteed use out of your glass cannons.

You can always deploy under the assumption that your opponent might seize the initiative, it's not a gamble unless you make it one.

It will be interesting to see how ITC develops without seize.

My suspicion is that it will generally be popular. Good players will continue to build lists that "work" as either the attacker, or defender. While bad players will just hope they are the attacker, deploy as far forward as possible, and be spared the "I can't believe my opponent seized, that's a stupid rule", as if there is nothing they could do about it. (I know certain weaker factions really need to go first to have a chance - but playing a weaker faction is, to a degree, your choice.)

Be interesting to see how it warps list building though. It will likely boost armies that can comfortably backline to deny the attacker a meaningful first turn - but also have the speed/range to get in and contest the centre. Although arguably ITC already favoured such lists.

Which just carries on the trend. ITC is more precise than regular 40k. The skill involved in decision making is therefore more obvious to an observer. But this will also increase the issue that some lists are good, and some are bad, because of these rules.

I think the point about how IG suffer disproportionately due to ITC rules is a good one. I agree they suffer from giving up kill more and kill objectives really easily. This isn't usually a feature in CA19 missions - so I'd be sceptical whether guard should be "buffed" as a result of this weakness. Which creates a certain dissonance to the game.

Over by turn 2 - 3 and still takes as long if not longer to play than a full 6 turn game of yesteryear

So weird that zero of the people who responded to my 'suggestion' post on how to rebalance first turn recognised the rules I suggested as just being the current rules for ITC, the tournament model that most 40k competitive games are played with.

In ITC it's generally slightly preferable to go second. So what I'm saying is, if you don't like turn one being too powerful, try playing some ITC Warhammer 40k ...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Here it is again btw: "What about if you had a system where the player who had to go second got to select the deployment, and the side of the board they deployed on, and got to see their opponent's complete deployment before they laid a single unit down, to give them lots of LoS blocking and cover and to set ranges? And what about if, on top of that, we made it so that a big part of the scoring for the batle-turn happened at the end of their turn, so their ability to score points for holding more objectives for example, gave the second player an advantage?

How does that all sound?"

It will be interesting to see how ITC develops without seize.

My money is on "different but the same".

As for the question in the OP -

Most of our local games are pretty much over by the end of turn 2. There's almost always still a chance for the "losing" player to pull off a miracle in turn 3, but that almost always involves them needing to perform a series of highly unlikely events, so generally, yeah, basically over turn 2, literally over turn 3 more often than not.

EDIT: I should add for the sake of context that my meta is what most here would classify as "semi-competitive".

I mean, outside of tournaments with super-optimized alpha-strike lists, no. But most people are going to talk about tournament play when they think of turn-one or turn-two victories.

 alextroy wrote:
If your goal is a game decided by skill and tactics...

...why play Warhammer 40k?

At the top level when both players play good factions and have good build armies, and a skew match up doesn't happen, w40k seems to be skill and tactics based. with a non small dose of random.

The problem is, how often , when two people play, their armies are on the same level. And I feel, because I have absolutly no data on this, that it maybe the case, that such situations are as common outside of top tables of tournaments.

everyone has horror stories to tell, or heard one. But lets face it sometimes your friend starts an IH army based around intercessors, it is bad for 2 years, and then one day it suddenly becomes the spine breaker of w40k and your friend turns in to an evil WAAC player. It is hard to expect that you suddenly going to step up and buy enough new stuff to have fair games against him, and it really unfair to expect that someone who had a not so good time for 2 years, is now suppose to gimp his army list, because it suddenly became good. Or worse make him buy bad stuff, so you have a chance to play.

 Vaktathi wrote:
I really actually liked the way the game handled deployment pre-5E. Players would take turns deploying individual units and then roll *after* to see who went first. That worked a lot better in such respects, and made for much more interesting and tactical deployment. Deploying everything at once and then getting the rug pulled out from under you...doesn't feel quite as fun

This is almost what AOS is - except the person who finishes first gets to choose. With the caveat that there are battalions (which cost points and have restrictions) which can reduce your drop count, meaning deployment can be part of your strategy. It is greatly preferable to 40ks approach.

Karol wrote:
At the top level when both players play good factions and have good build armies, and a skew match up doesn't happen, w40k seems to be skill and tactics based. with a non small dose of random.

The problem is, how often , when two people play, their armies are on the same level. And I feel, because I have absolutly no data on this, that it maybe the case, that such situations are as common outside of top tables of tournaments.

everyone has horror stories to tell, or heard one. But lets face it sometimes your friend starts an IH army based around intercessors, it is bad for 2 years, and then one day it suddenly becomes the spine breaker of w40k and your friend turns in to an evil WAAC player. It is hard to expect that you suddenly going to step up and buy enough new stuff to have fair games against him, and it really unfair to expect that someone who had a not so good time for 2 years, is now suppose to gimp his army list, because it suddenly became good. Or worse make him buy bad stuff, so you have a chance to play.

My feeling is the opposite. In general, at top tier play you get far more one-sided games due to the exponential increase in damage in the most optimised lists. At less competitive levels the reliability of armies is generally lowered giving space for reactive and adaptive play.

Karol wrote:
At the top level when both players play good factions and have good build armies, and a skew match up doesn't happen, w40k seems to be skill and tactics based. with a non small dose of random.

The problem is, how often , when two people play, their armies are on the same level. And I feel, because I have absolutly no data on this, that it maybe the case, that such situations are as common outside of top tables of tournaments.

everyone has horror stories to tell, or heard one. But lets face it sometimes your friend starts an IH army based around intercessors, it is bad for 2 years, and then one day it suddenly becomes the spine breaker of w40k and your friend turns in to an evil WAAC player. It is hard to expect that you suddenly going to step up and buy enough new stuff to have fair games against him, and it really unfair to expect that someone who had a not so good time for 2 years, is now suppose to gimp his army list, because it suddenly became good. Or worse make him buy bad stuff, so you have a chance to play.

Actually on that last bit. there are people in our group that are perfectly able to break anything GW puts out and we do play it from time to time understanding it is a one off proxy list to see how bad/broken it is. rather it be the 7th ed jakero/deathcult assassin list , an all bike custodus list in 8th or a harlequin flying circus in 8th. then we stop playing those lists because they are dumb and not fun gameplay for the group. Now when people play the game seriously and do this kind of thing without warning they quickly find they have no people to play with at our FLGS.

Having played since 3rd in this format i can tell you it isn't the players. i had some regular opponents who were very skilled players with powerful lists, it still wasn't as one sided "alpha strike you off the table" by turn 2. it is the game mechanics, or should i say poor design of the mechanics.joining army specific lore to command points and stratagem bloat. it is a repeat of the problem with 7th and formations. If you are super focused on just the competition side then you probably want to do the super alpha strike that 8th has become. however if you want a good game with epic fights and victory being elusive until the end of the game you are probably looking more at previous editions or 30K ..

Oh I don't claim that games on top tables can't end as brutal tabling turn 2-3. Specialy if both armies are build for alfa strike. What I mean by more balance in top tier tournaments and players with good armies, is stuff like player X started his alfa strike went off. he won. But if his opponent went first, the reverse would happen. Now to some this maybe not be fun. But it sure beats out, two players and one knowing that they are not going to win against their opponent no matter if they go first or second . I still remember a game from a year ago, when my opponent almost tabled me turn 3, I quit on my third turn. Only for both of us to suddenly notice that he forgot to deploy 400pts of reserve, and me suddenly going from 23:0 to 19:5. Which back then was my highest win in a game of w40k.

When I think of unbalance I think about something like that. One dude gets to play pre nerf IH, he bought 2 years prior, and his opponent is playing IG, he also bought two years prior. And I think we agree that for the IG player, there wasn't much in sense of a game to play.

I am not a high end tournament player, I am not even a bad tournament player. But the differences between armies and list power in the middle and at the bottom of the w40k armies are huge. I always had a good chuckle about eldar players losing their minds over IH having a 6 % or 7%, better win ratio then the best eldar this edition. where at the same time there are armies that don't have a 50% win ratio in w40k, and we can't assume that those armies were all piloted by bad players, playing bad list on purpose.

now what ever w40k should have certain mechanics or not, I don't really have a strong point of view. Maybe some armies should be alfa strike. Should everything be super killy and alfa strike centered? probably not, but I am neither a game designer, nor is my expiriance in depth enough to judge that. I can say what I don't like about my army, or the armies I play against, and the xp of people playing those armies. And that is more or less it.

Aash wrote:
Wouldn’t this lead to more static games where movement is less important?

I doubt it because to gain the benefit you have to forfeit any other action that unit may have taken for that defense buff. A unit that is covered by this rule has to already be in position and can't deliver any offense.

I’m previous edition rapid fire required a unit to remain stationary in order to fire twice and this often lead to models not moving at all and the game turning into static gun lines in my experience. the 2nd ed overwatch mechanic had a similar effect.

I think there is a difference between staying still to shoot and staying still to get a defensive buff. Your offensive units must move or you can't kill anything.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Ice_can wrote:
Except the way you wrote the rule it applies even in the assualt phase, so it's not a counter to anything it's countrr everything.

Additionally when you can make units unchargeable through model placement allowing armies to create units that are immune to anything but psychic powers rather breaks all the armies without psychers.

Additionally marines won't care as they can reroll everything anyway, armies without rerolls by the truckload get screwed even harder.

He didn't write the rule, I did. Try to at least get the basics right before going off on a rant.

As for the rest, if your unit is getting this buff it literally isn't doing anything else. It is literally an objective holding blob that may as well only have toughness, wounds, and a save on its profile. If you can't overpower something that can, at best, fire overwatch in response to being charged, you probably deserve to lose.

Plus, the buff only applies to the first round of assault as your units once engaged must fight. So you may need to send in a unit to flush out a hunkered unit but this again serves to create a more dynamic game.

Every time I see these discussions pop up... I get the feeling that most o the respondents don’t understand the term “casual” beyond it’s opposition to “tournament”.

Most of my games in 8th have been determined by turn 4. The only exceptions to this were my decimation by Harlies (wherein I had never played against them and was woefully underprepared) and when I was told I would be playing Blood Angels, only to play a Primaris army with cherry picked Blood Angels face stompers.

Yes, my view of the game is diametrically opposed to the majority of posters I see on these boards.