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The title is rather hyperbolic, but seriously-- Lash of Submission is probably the most overrated thing in the game at present. Fortunately, if you can see through the hype, Lash really isn't very good at all.

What's strong in 5th Edition? Mech. Despite also being overrated, mechanized units and vehicles are still very good with the improved transport rules and vehicle damage tables. Many strong armies field several mechanized units or go completely mech. Such armies are extremely resilient to Lash, as their units cannot be Lashed while safe inside their transports. If a transport is indeed destroyed, the unit inside is likely going to die regardless, as the enemy can bring all his anti-infantry weapons to bear on the unfortunate squad; such weapons would otherwise be useless against a fully mechanized force. Lash doesn't add much in this situation. Later in the game, as transports get taken out and more units dismount, Lash becomes more valuable; however, it still can't push a unit in a transport off an objective, prevent a skimmer from boosting up to contest, or move a vehicle out of cover. In other words, Lash isn't good against a great deal of units on the battlefield. Though it's certainly powerful against the rest, these units are becoming less common and other weapons and options can also deal with them.

So why do people use Lash? Two reasons. First, it's a good counter to certain gimmicky "uber" units, as well as quite powerful against nonmechanized or semi-mech armies. Second, lash makes a great decoy, even against mechanized armies; its vastly overblown reputation causes even an otherwise savvy opponent to misallocate resources in hopes of taking out the Lash. Further, it is in the best interest of players that use Lash to contribute to that reputation, as it increases the power of their decoy unit. The more you fear Lash, the more likely you'll be distracted by it and make incorrect decisions, so people who use Lash are, if they are behaving rationally, quite likely to promote it as much as possible.

The counters are simple. First, be mech. Second, ignore the Lash. Sure, Lash might get your guys into position to eat plasma from an Obliterator Cult and die; but those guys would die anyway. If you're out of your transport, you're basically already dead; I consider my Tactical units to be "killed" the moment their transports eat it. Focus on the real threats, and avoid the Lash decoy. If you're really having trouble, consider incorporating psychic defenses into your list, but remember-- Lash is nowhere near as good as its reputation would indicate.

By alot of accounts the most popular army going to the 'ard boyz finals is dual lash CSM and x9 oblits. 9 lascannons do a pretty good job of Un-mechanizing an enemy army....

Ignoring Lash is probably the biggest mistake you can make. Even if you are fully mechanized, all the Chaos player has to do is blow up the vehicles and then the Lash becomes dangerous again. You need to have some sort of psychic defense, hunt the sorcerer, or make sure you constantly block his LOS.

Also, if the sorcerer/prince can survive to the end game, the lash becomes critical in objective grabbing/contesting.

And for shaky anecdotal evidence, every game I have played with Lash, the lash is really only useful one or two times throughout the game, but those times are always critical/game breaking.

whitedragon wrote:Also, if the sorcerer/prince can survive to the end game, the lash becomes critical in objective grabbing/contesting.

And for shaky anecdotal evidence, every game I have played with Lash, the lash is really only useful one or two times throughout the game, but those times are always critical/game breaking.

This.

Lashing people up for templates < Cheese-grating bikes into terrain so they can't turbo-boost and have to take dangerous terrain tests < moving units into/out of assault range <<<< Throwing a dismounted troop unit off an objective at the bottom of Turn 5+.

To be honest, the view that 'if my unit is out of it's transport, it's dead' is very silly unless you play IG. (it makes a tiny bit of sense for SM too, if you're heavy on tac squads) Most armies need to get their troops out of their transports to get some use out of them. Take Mechdar (largely viewed as worth taking to a tournament). Wave serpents have no firing points. So, if you're going to melta that Land Raider into oblivion with Fire Dragons, you have to get out of your transport. Ooops, they're dead! (okay, Fire Dragons are a bad example. Imagine it with Bladestorming DAs instead) Take Orks, who mech up only to get a turn or two of 12" movement before assaulting. Take Sisters, whose strength lies in Acts of Faith while in Rapid-fire Bolter range. Take tau, who can only mech up some of their units, and still get out of their transports to shoot.

The only army that can viably stay in their transports the whole game is Mechvet IG, so it's silly to say that meching up is a hard counter to lash. Yeah, it makes your life better, especially in the early turns, but it still causes you problems. Even if the enemy only kills one tac squad that fell out of their rhino, maybe he lashed them into assault range of some Berzerkers, who then got an extra 6" charge and d6" of consolidation towards your lines.

Lash causes problems for any list, plain and simple, and not every list has access to counters. Sure, Imperials can all carry psychic hoods, but what about poor Necrons? their psychic defense is 'pray'. Same with Tau.

Lash ain't trash.

The power of lash is not the psychic power.

It is the ability of the psychic power to make your footsloggers move towards a a flying monstrous creature. It essentially gives it fleet of foot, with the added bonus of lining up for flamers moving out of cover etc.

Basically the main theme behind dual lash lists is that LoS is the best power that a daemon prince can take, and DPs rock socks.

It's not the players that rely on lash you should be afraid of.
It's the players that rely on the army to win, but uses lash as a means to an end.
___________
Saying that everybody is mech is too much of a sweeping comment as a rationale to Lash being trash.

People to get out of their rides.
Not all armies have access to vehicles, or even points efficient ones.

Not everyone spends the cash needed to rehaul their lists, and can still be competitive without succuming to GW's mech fanboy fever.

My 7 Cents.

I have to agree that lash is a very effective power. It is one of the few powers in the game that allow you to manuever your opponents troops. With my old SM army I always took an inquisitor so I could have a calidus assassin and get to move some unit of my opponent's pre-game and get some las cannon shots off at it.

With lash, you can potentially use this power 6 times a game. 12 if going dual-lash. You can also use it to move your own troops up as mentioned by previous posters.

Many people have problems against lash. I don't. You may think that it is difficult to beat because it's big, and it's scary, and you know you should just shoot at it but you can't. You let your fear control you instead of just ignoring them and winning the game despite their marginal effects.
The only reason you lose to lash it because you let yourself. Open your eyes, sheeple.

Fetterkey wrote:<snip>

Well done for catching up. People have been saying that lash isnt as good in a heavy mech environment for months now. The smart CSM players have been changing thier lists to accomodate this.

gardeth wrote:By alot of accounts the most popular army going to the 'ard boyz finals is dual lash CSM and x9 oblits. 9 lascannons do a pretty good job of Un-mechanizing an enemy army....

a) 'Ard Boyz is unrepresentative of standard play
b) The good part of that army is the oblits, not the lash.

whitedragon wrote:Ignoring Lash is probably the biggest mistake you can make. Even if you are fully mechanized, all the Chaos player has to do is blow up the vehicles and then the Lash becomes dangerous again. You need to have some sort of psychic defense, hunt the sorcerer, or make sure you constantly block his LOS.

No you don't. You need to stop him from blowing up your vehicles.

Gornall wrote:Lashing people up for templates < Cheese-grating bikes into terrain so they can't turbo-boost and have to take dangerous terrain tests < moving units into/out of assault range <<<< Throwing a dismounted troop unit off an objective at the bottom of Turn 5+.

Hence, you should claim objectives with mounted troops, or just go second.

Orkestra wrote:Lash causes problems for any list, plain and simple, and not every list has access to counters. Sure, Imperials can all carry psychic hoods, but what about poor Necrons? their psychic defense is 'pray'.

Necrons are awful. They are probably the least competitive Codex.

The Revelator wrote:Basically the main theme behind dual lash lists is that LoS is the best power that a daemon prince can take, and DPs rock socks.

Nope. Warp Time is much better.

ph34r wrote:The only reason you lose to lash it because you let yourself. Open your eyes, sheeple.

Sanctjud wrote:It's not the players that rely on lash you should be afraid of.
It's the players that rely on the army to win, but uses lash as a means to an end.

I have little issue with Lash - and I play Tyranids.
That said, it is a great power.
Writing it off will cost you games at best, tournements at worst.

Obviously, you should know what Lash does and plan around it. However, in terms of target priority, Lash Princes are strictly below Obliterators and the like. Many people don't seem to realize that, which is what this post is for.

Fetterkey wrote:

Gornall wrote:Lashing people up for templates < Cheese-grating bikes into terrain so they can't turbo-boost and have to take dangerous terrain tests < moving units into/out of assault range <<<< Throwing a dismounted troop unit off an objective at the bottom of Turn 5+.

Hence, you should claim objectives with mounted troops, or just go second.

That works great in theory, as long as you can actually take transports and they don't get blown out from under you (I'm assuming that the Lash player knows how important popping transports is), and/or you win the roll to choose whether you go first or second.

Don't get me wrong, I think it is far from an IWIN button, and I also think that Warptime is as good if not better than Lash in a lot of situations. However, in the hands of skilled player Lash is a very useful tool that can swing battles when used correctly.

Lash is useful; however, its actual capabilities are massively overrated.

Fetterkey wrote:Lash is useful; however, its actual capabilities are massively overrated.

I agree. Discounting it completely is just asking for trouble, just the same as overprioritizing it in your target priority.

Yeah. Like I said in the first post, I used a lot of hyperbole. Lash isn't trash; Possessed or Chaos Spawn are trash. It's merely extremely overrated. And you shouldn't ignore lash completely; you should just deal with more important elements of the army first. Lash, by and large, isn't the main threat, unless you're dealing with a very poor army, in which case you should be fine.

I wouldn't say Possessed or Spawn are trash.
They may be overcosted, but they are functional units.

100% mech is good, but not everone plays it.
So lash punishs less than full mech.

If you go full mech, it's only a cheapish power not used, there will prob. some kind of transport or tank that blows up for it to be used.

Seriously, it only needs to be used ONCE to be worth it.

You need to stop him from blowing up your vehicles.

How? By taking his dice away?

You can use terrain, you can pop smoke, you can use reserves. But the opponent can use those same things to get the drop on those transports.

I don't think it's overrated, it punishes anything outside of tanks badly.

My 7 Cents.

Fetterkey wrote:

gardeth wrote:
By alot of accounts the most popular army going to the 'ard boyz finals is dual lash CSM and x9 oblits. 9 lascannons do a pretty good job of Un-mechanizing an enemy army....

a) 'Ard Boyz is unrepresentative of standard play

How you can say that? What is your basis? Have you ever plaeyd in the Ard Boyz?

G

2,500 point games are abnormal. Army lists greatly differ at the 2,500 point level and armies are possible that would not be viable in lower points games. 'Ard Boyz scenarios are also abnormal, and provide significant alterations to the core gameplay. Hence, 'Ard Boyz is significantly abnormal and unrepresentative of standard play.

Similarly, the units allowed in the Adepticon Gladiator are radically different. Normal games don't allow Forge World units or super-heavy tanks. Hence, the Adepticon Gladiator is unrepresentative of standard play.

First, I'd like know why a power that's good in a 2500pt no-holds barred tournament would be less good when it's just as easily taken at 1850. If somebody could break that film down for me, that'd be great.

Second, I'm not sure what the point of this thread is. there is still very little reason not to take lash if you're taking princes. Warptime is good, but against most opponents you dont' really need to improve a DP's combat power. Lash still allows more tactical options than any other psychic power in the game, and for a cheap price. It also has amazing synergy with oblits, which is another top five unit in the codex. An upgrade on a good unit that makes another good unit better? It may be over rated but it's still enormously good and game breaking.

Also, a fully mechanized army is going to have a lot less long range shooting, meaning a DP is going to survive a lot longer.

Finally, how exactly is a player supposed to stop their opponent from blowing up their vehicles? Prayer? Asking nicely?

Polonius wrote:First, I'd like know why a power that's good in a 2500pt no-holds barred tournament would be less good when it's just as easily taken at 1850. If somebody could break that film down for me, that'd be great.

As I already said, Lash isn't the good part of that army. In any case, the results from that tournament have little to no bearing on standard play.

Polonius wrote:Second, I'm not sure what the point of this thread is. there is still very little reason not to take lash if you're taking princes.

Lash is a fancy psychological trick that has some in-game power. I personally think other Princes can be better.

Polonius wrote:It may be over rated but it's still enormously good and game breaking.

Nope. It's decent, but not even a mandatory upgrade in competitive play, much less a game breaking one.

Polonius wrote:Also, a fully mechanized army is going to have a lot less long range shooting, meaning a DP is going to survive a lot longer.

I'm not sure what lead you to this conclusion.

Polonius wrote:Finally, how exactly is a player supposed to stop their opponent from blowing up their vehicles? Prayer? Asking nicely?

Focusing on the units that actually kill your tanks instead of Lash Princes? Using cover? Maneuvering? These things aren't exactly revolutionary or unique elements of the game.

"2,500 point games are abnormal. Army lists greatly differ at the 2,500 point level and armies are possible that would not be viable in lower points games. 'Ard Boyz scenarios are also abnormal, and provide significant alterations to the core gameplay. Hence, 'Ard Boyz is significantly abnormal and unrepresentative of standard play."

Its not really true and even moreso now that only troops count as scoring units. I think you will find that players that have reached the finals have the same percentage of troops at 1850 as compared to 2500. The FOC itself keeps this in check... for example, you cannot field four heavy support choices.


"Similarly, the units allowed in the Adepticon Gladiator are radically different. Normal games don't allow Forge World units or super-heavy tanks. Hence, the Adepticon Gladiator is unrepresentative of standard play."

Why do you even bring that up in this discussion. It has NOTHING to do with the Ard Boyz.

G

Green Blow Fly wrote:
"2,500 point games are abnormal. Army lists greatly differ at the 2,500 point level and armies are possible that would not be viable in lower points games. 'Ard Boyz scenarios are also abnormal, and provide significant alterations to the core gameplay. Hence, 'Ard Boyz is significantly abnormal and unrepresentative of standard play."

Its not really true and even moreso now that only troops count as scoring units. I think you will find that players that have reached the finals have the same percentage of troops at 1850 as compared to 2500. The FOC itself keeps this in check... for example, you cannot field four heavy support choices.

If you can't see why playing in a game with radically different points limits and objectives is radically different from normal play, I don't really know what to say.

Green Blow Fly wrote:"Similarly, the units allowed in the Adepticon Gladiator are radically different. Normal games don't allow Forge World units or super-heavy tanks. Hence, the Adepticon Gladiator is unrepresentative of standard play."

Why do you even bring that up in this discussion. It has NOTHING to do with the Ard Boyz.

G

It's an example of an analogous situation. Both the 'Ard Boyz and the Adepticon Gladiator are tournaments that use nonstandard rules and are unrepresentative of standard play.

Anyone who plays in the current GT circuit will be very familiar with multiple objective missions. You are making a mountain out of the proverbial molehill.

G

Fetterkey wrote:

Polonius wrote:First, I'd like know why a power that's good in a 2500pt no-holds barred tournament would be less good when it's just as easily taken at 1850. If somebody could break that film down for me, that'd be great.

As I already said, Lash isn't the good part of that army. In any case, the results from that tournament have little to no bearing on standard play.

How is that different from any other results? I'm not a big of fan of buying theory based on a few data points, but that's still no reason to eliminate the only evidence we have.

Polonius wrote:Second, I'm not sure what the point of this thread is. there is still very little reason not to take lash if you're taking princes.

Lash is a fancy psychological trick that has some in-game power. I personally think other Princes can be better.

So, the point of this thread is to tell us that you think other princes are better than lash prince. Done and done.

Polonius wrote:It may be over rated but it's still enormously good and game breaking.

Nope. It's decent, but not even a mandatory upgrade in competitive play, much less a game breaking one.

I don't' mean game breaking in the meta game sense, but rather the "Hey I just lashed your 5 guys off the objective and into charge range of my prince" style of game breaking.

Polonius wrote:Also, a fully mechanized army is going to have a lot less long range shooting, meaning a DP is going to survive a lot longer.

I'm not sure what lead you to this conclusion.

Basic math. The more points spent of transports, the fewer spend on guns. Outside of IG, most mech armies can only shoot a few weapons out of the old hatches, and that means what guns there are won't be shooting if they're staying buttoned up.

Polonius wrote:Finally, how exactly is a player supposed to stop their opponent from blowing up their vehicles? Prayer? Asking nicely?

Focusing on the units that actually kill your tanks instead of Lash Princes? Using cover? Maneuvering? These things aren't exactly revolutionary or unique elements of the game.

That's going to be harder. In my experience, the weakness to the Lash prince isn't the inability to do anything useful, it's that four wounds at T5 with a 3+5/++ isn't as durable as you'd hope. It's easier to kill that with most weapons than it is to kill Oblits with a 2+/5++ that are invariably in cover.

Yes, certain mech builds aren't going to fear the lash prince much. If i'm rocking three vendettas, those princes are going down by turn 2 or 3.

Green Blow Fly wrote:Anyone who plays in the current GT circuit will be very familiar with multiple objective missions. You are making a mountain out of the proverbial molehill.

G

Nope.

I laugh as I read this.

1. 'Ard boyz has no bearing on "standard" gaming - anyone thats takes a 1500 point list and adds 1000 points to it will lose. You can pull of some amazing things with 2500 points to work with, and you cannot equate what is good at 2500 to what is good at 1750.

2. Anyone who thinks "lash is trash" has either never played a serious lash list run by a good player or is just delusional. Lash is beast. It is probably the best all comers build running right now. If you kill the princes early, your army will be tattered because you ocused too much attention on them early and allowed the rest of the army to do work. I you DON'T kill them early, the oblits and support will have all of your units out o their transports and they will be lashed. It is a hard list to beat, plain and simple.

All of this theory hammer is really amusing. "I would keep im from destroying my vehicles through movement, cover, placement, blah blah" - isn't that what everyone does every game? How often does it really work? You seem to forget that your opponent is simultaneously working to deny you that ability.

You don't have to like it, but a well run dual lash list is hard to beat. The new incarnations using Abbey are similarly wicked. It is a potent power that can win games.

Inigo Montoya wrote:You don't have to like it, but a well run dual lash list is hard to beat. The new incarnations using Abbey are similarly wicked. It is a potent power that can win games.

Sure, it's hard to beat-- but not thanks to the Lash!

Fetterkey wrote:

Inigo Montoya wrote:You don't have to like it, but a well run dual lash list is hard to beat. The new incarnations using Abbey are similarly wicked. It is a potent power that can win games.

Sure, it's hard to beat-- but not thanks to the Lash!

It is a lot easier to beat without Lash.