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 catbarf wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 catbarf wrote:
Can't fit 11 models in a Wave Serpent, so it'd have to be a 9-man squad.

Wave Serpents hold 12.

You know, I could have sworn it was 12, but I wasn't quite sure, so I checked GW's website, and they actually say '10 models or 5 Wraithguard and a Warlock'. Sack the intern

But yeah, full squads seem the way to go if you have a character you don't want getting blasted.

Which would be true if the combination of new blast weapon rules and harsher morale penalties didn't make any squad bigger than 5 models a liability. If you have a static buff character for your gun line you'll be protecting it with vehicles or multiple infantry units, if you have an aggressive CQC or combat support character...you won't have an aggressive CQC or combat support character because they're handing your opponent 100+ free points.

The only way you'll see something like a Smash Captain or Primus or Assassin or Solitaire again is if the strategic reserve rules allow them to jump on top of things the turn they come in consistently. Even the new terrain rules won't be enough protection without Look out Sir, thanks to the ridiculous amount of LoS ignoring weapons in the game atm.

Wyldhunt wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
So take a proper 10 strong Banshee unit instead of the minimum?

Can't fit 11 models in a Wave Serpent, so it'd have to be a 9-man squad.

But yeah, I think taking good-sized squads is going to be the go-to strategy for keeping characters alive. Five Banshees aren't difficult to wipe out in the first place, so I'm a little surprised by the idea that this change really is what makes the Autarch vulnerable.

Ah, but if I take more than 5 banshees, I make blast weapons just a bit more effective against me. And as I don't know what my opponent's list will look like ahead of time, buffing up the squad size feels less like a trade-off and more like a gamble.

So you have to make decisions about army composition by weighing the relative risks and rewards of different squad set-ups? Seems like a good system to me if there's not just one obviously correct answer. You can still use terrain to screen your characters from harm, or sacrifice some attacks on your close combat squad to daisy chain back to your character to keep them protected. Again, this may be a trade-off you have to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of. At the moment it's trivially easy to protect characters. Anything that makes that require even a small amount of extra thought is good, IMO.

Now if GW could just hire someone to write the rules in a less clunky fashion I'd be extremely happy. They seem to be heading in the right direction with their attempts to write tighter, less ambiguous rules but it's painfully obvious they don't have anyone in the design studio capable of writing int he style they need to accomplish that.

Has there been any word on how LOS ignoring weapons will interact with Look out sir?

I'm assuming that that LOS ignoring weapons will be able to ignore the requirement for a character to be visible, but in order to target it if it is within 3" of a monster/vehicle/3+ model unit then the character would still need to be the closest unit to the firing model. It seems to be that this offers more protection to characters from LOS ignoring weapons that is the case in 8th.

Back to the rule, it's completely problematic when the character in question is a Sniper-like model (Sanctus, Vindicare models which are literally tied to a unit to operate normally) and when you face LoS ignoring weapons: the latter are completely broken and cause multiple issues to the gameplay, making them the best antivehicle/antinfantry AND anticharacter type of units in the game (they will probably include a "No LoS weapons can't target characters with fewer than 10 wounds unless they are visible to this unit)

The purpose of 9th is to push the fights in closer quarters. Long range no LoS weapons run counter to this, so I would expect harsh cost increases on those.

KurtAngle2 wrote:
Back to the rule, it's completely problematic when the character in question is a Sniper-like model (Sanctus, Vindicare models which are literally tied to a unit to operate normally) and when you face LoS ignoring weapons: the latter are completely broken and cause multiple issues to the gameplay, making them the best antivehicle/antinfantry AND anticharacter type of units in the game (they will probably include a "No LoS weapons can't target characters with fewer than 10 wounds unless they are visible to this unit)

Would be cool - but they keep boosting LOS ignoring artillery...

Possible fix for LOS ignoring artillery:

The shooting unit doesnt need LoS, but it must be possible to draw LoS from a unit from your army.

Effectively the rest of the army can act as spotters.

 Stux wrote:
Possible fix for LOS ignoring artillery:

The shooting unit doesnt need LoS, but it must be possible to draw LoS from a unit from your army.

Effectively the rest of the army can act as spotters.

Sounds good.....but will they do it....

Its also possible that we will be spending 150 or so for a thunderfire or a bailisk squad, and thus less able to take down the enemey with them.

 Stux wrote:
Possible fix for LOS ignoring artillery:

The shooting unit doesnt need LoS, but it must be possible to draw LoS from a unit from your army.

Effectively the rest of the army can act as spotters.

Definitely the smartest idea for no-LoS units which are just cheating platforms, especially the thunderfire cannon and snipers.

ERJAK wrote:
Which would be true if the combination of new blast weapon rules and harsher morale penalties didn't make any squad bigger than 5 models a liability.

Why are you assuming morale will further disincentivize 6-10 model squads, though? GW's explicitly said that the combination of morale and Blast will punish small squads and hordes, and that medium sized units will be the sweet spot.

I think that's further supported by GW saying that Blast weapons will be going up in price- makes it sound like they're balancing around 6-10 being the default target squad size, which if you read into the Blast rules is only a marginal increase in effectiveness over 1-5 models. It's only at 11+ that the real bonus kicks in.

Whether it works out in practice is another matter, but it reads to me like the intent is for a 6-10 model unit to be just a bit more vulnerable to Blast, but more resilient to morale and better able to screen characters. Whereas MSU is going to suffer more to morale and require less attrition to lose screening- pretty big disadvantages just to take 3.5 shots average vs 4 on a D6 Blast weapon.

Before you start making all your squads 5-man squads to avoid the new Blast rules, you should know that a d6 averages 3.5 while the new Blast rule means a d6 Attack weapon averages 4 Hits. That's right folks, 0.5 additional average attacks against 6-10 models as against 1-5.

Yeah, even a D3 blast only averages one more attack against 6-10. And 2DX gets virtually no benefit, and 3DX gets literally no benefit. The only time I think it might worth be taking 5 instead of 6-10 because of blast is if you have really expensive models that are capped at unit sizes of 6 - aggressors, cents, skyweavers, that sort of thing. And even then I'm not sure it's a big enough difference to be worth worrying about. It's the bonus against 11+ that gets really brutal.


That said, artillery was already a problem at the end of 8th, and the changes in 9th we are aware of so far have only made it even stronger. It seems to be headed for a bad place - either overpowered, or extremely costly in points, unless of course there's some limiting factor we're unaware of.

We just need to hope they do a good job with the points increase on Blast weapons. A proper increase, especially for no-LOS Blast weapons, is all we need to keep that issue in check.

 alextroy wrote:
Before you start making all your squads 5-man squads to avoid the new Blast rules, you should know that a d6 averages 3.5 while the new Blast rule means a d6 Attack weapon averages 4 Hits. That's right folks, 0.5 additional average attacks against 6-10 models as against 1-5.

Exactly; it's a 14% increase in hits for most weapons. Whereas the new morale system could cause a pair of 5-model units to sustain more morale losses than a single 10-model unit. It's really jumping to conclusions to think that MSU is going to be the way forward because of Blast- especially considering most weapons aren't Blast, so it's not like you'll be taking that 14% increase from all sources. With Blast weapons getting a price hike to boot, we'll probably see fewer of them around anyways, since they'll only really be worth it against hordes.

GW seems to want those medium-sized squads to be the way forward for a lot of armies. Enough bodies to efficiently screen characters, better slot efficiency, and more resistance to morale than MSU (although whether this is borne out in practice remains to be seen), at the cost of marginally increased vulnerability to a minority of weapons (which are also being made more expensive). That sounds like a pretty good tradeoff to me.