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 Runic wrote:
Losses entirely mitigated against a list capable of tabling an army on turn 1 with shooting is a fantasy.

Only if you don't put enough terrain on the table. Stop playing games on empty tables and shooting alpha strikes do very little damage. Only IG barrage weapons can ignore LOS, and IG artillery spam is suicidally weak against anything fast enough to get around the LOS-blocking cover and annihilate the fragile artillery tanks.


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 Insectum7 wrote:
But that doesn't mean those "certain MCs" aren't a small percentage of actual MC's.

They are a huge percentage of actual MCs, because the powerful MCs are the ones that see use. It doesn't matter if some random tyranid MC is weak, few people are going to use it. Riptides, on the other hand, are commonly spammed.

Nor does their resilience automatically make them unbalanced rather than asymmetrical.

It really does. Riptide durability is not a powerful advantage offset by a disadvantage (possibly including a high point cost) as a design concept, it's the result of MCs being better than walkers in virtually every situation. The Riptide is fast, it can JSJ, it has amazing shooting for its point cost, and it has amazing durability for its point cost. Even charging it in melee isn't an answer, as its high mobility allows it to avoid combat and the MC unit type makes it reasonably competent in melee (especially compared to everything else in the Tau army). The Riptide is just too good for its point cost, period.

First turn charges have as much right to exist as Drop Pods.

Drop pods, as they are now, should not exist either. At minimum they need to lose the ability to come in on turn 1 and be forced to deal with reserve rolls just like most other deep striking units.

And since you can put units in reserve, start them in vehicles, or bubble wrap your units, you're automatically capable interacting with them as a strategy.

You can't put your whole army in reserve because then you automatically lose the game. So all these things come down to "you can choose which of your units are automatically destroyed before you get a turn", not any meaningful interaction or ability to prevent the alpha strike.

Slow play in tournaments is rarely awarded with high-standings, and "points" tend to be better scored with immediate kills, rather than an attrition grind. Horde strategies tend to work best in the long game, and tournaments actively discourage long games.

I don't think you understand tournaments then. Kill points are only a small part of the game, one that most people argue for minimizing. If I'm playing a horde army I can play quickly in the early turns to secure the objectives I need, then slow play the rest of the game so that it ends before you have a chance to counter my objective claims. And because everyone knows that horde armies take a lot of time to play the judge is probably not going to believe you when you complain that I'm stalling.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Runic wrote:
Losses entirely mitigated against a list capable of tabling an army on turn 1 with shooting is a fantasy.

Only if you don't put enough terrain on the table. Stop playing games on empty tables and shooting alpha strikes do very little damage. Only IG barrage weapons can ignore LOS, and IG artillery spam is suicidally weak against anything fast enough to get around the LOS-blocking cover and annihilate the fragile artillery tanks.

And what exactly do you consider "enough?"

I'd really like to see you completely eliminate losses against a list which includes say, a buffmander command squad, 2 stormsurges, a riptidewing and then some without using null deployment. A core of a common tournament list. Asfar as I'm concerned it would require a table which has enough LOSblock to conceal a complete army, and even then the 48 smart missiles (which ignore LOS, and Cover) from the Riptidewing would do some damage.

So yeah, goes in the fantasy category afaik.

Yes, some damage, not that much damage, really.

 Bobthehero wrote:
Yes, some damage, not that much damage, really.

Yeah. On a table that completely LOSblocks an entire army. The imaginary kind. Anything less and you're getting hit by Markerlights and other weaponry aswell. The weaponry that makes up the remaining 80% of that cores firepower.

I personally highly disagree that first turn charges are bad. I use them and am often hit by them. This is really only a problem for niche army lists which build their force to min max one style of play, If you take CAD you're not good at fighting anything but you often don't have any real weakness either.

I think 7th did a good job at mitigating 4 and 5th editions first round death round issue of heavy guns and tanks. With extra cover saves, stealth for first turn and many more ways to infiltrate, outflank and deepstrike, going first for my group of friends. And the introduction to Fortifications is a huge and happily accepted improvement and addition.

That being said, I play as Guard and Tyrands (with some GSC and Chaos) as of late and I have yet to see any lists in our gaming community be broken more than Decurian and Tau/Eldar. In fact the only complaints I've seen about first turn charges was from my buddy Necron player was annoyed that I was able to tie up his immortals for two turns with jump marines. Saying that it was cheesy.

Admittedly, I cannot vouch for everyone, but our group has no issues other than the usual, Necron, Tau and Eldar abusive lists and the only one complaining are the Necron Tau and Eldar lists which are now no longer guarateed an easy win. I'm curious to hear what you guys have been bumping into and what tactics and strategies you guys have tried to change with the now more common first turn charges.

Matt.Kingsley wrote:EDIT weird double post

You did nothing wrong. It's a Dakka thing from time to time. Next time you see a double post, just leave it. Dakka will auto correct it. When you delete or change the "double post" it will erase both posts just like what happened to you just now or when ever you posted it I mean.

 Runic wrote:
And what exactly do you consider "enough?"

Multiple large pieces of LOS-blocking terrain across the middle of the table is the most important thing. There should be gaps in the wall, of course, but at least half of the opposing deployment zone should either be out of LOS entirely or out of LOS from most of the table and in cover against the rest.

I'd really like to see you completely eliminate losses against a list which includes say, a buffmander command squad, 2 stormsurges, a riptidewing and then some without using null deployment. A core of a common tournament list. Asfar as I'm concerned it would require a table which has enough LOSblock to conceal a complete army, and even then the 48 smart missiles (which ignore LOS, and Cover) from the Riptidewing would do some damage.

You're not going to eliminate it completely, but you can certainly reduce it to a few casualties here and there. Most of your army will be out of LOS entirely, and the markerlight units aren't guaranteed to have LOS to the units the primary shooting units have LOS to. And even when some of a unit is visible only those visible models can be removed as casualties. If half a unit is out of LOS then the few models that are visible get overkilled, but the unit remains a viable threat. So the most likely outcome is that the Tau player gets some damage in, but you probably don't lose any complete units unless the dice hate you. That's far different from the situation with first turn charges, where multiple entire units are dead as soon as the game begins.

And I notice your example is MC-heavy Tau, a list exploiting a unit that virtually everyone agrees is way too cheap and a formation that virtually everyone agrees is one of the best examples of why formations are bad. If this army succeeds in overcoming the terrain factor it has more to do with balance issues involving specific units than core rule issues involving first-turn shooting. If the Riptide and Stormsurge are given appropriate point costs this list is a lot less impressive.

 Peregrine wrote:
And I notice your example is MC-heavy Tau, a list exploiting a unit that virtually everyone agrees is way too cheap and a formation that virtually everyone agrees is one of the best examples of why formations are bad. If this army succeeds in overcoming the terrain factor it has more to do with balance issues involving specific units than core rule issues involving first-turn shooting. If the Riptide and Stormsurge are given appropriate point costs this list is a lot less impressive.

I don't think I've ever seen a table where the deployment zone of the opposing player is completely LOSblocked. Not saying it can't be done, but I've never ever seen or played on one in practice.

However currently (in practice, again) a core you meet on a regular basis in competitive play, or just competitive matches. As I mentioned before, I don't deal in the should've/could've. Only how things actually are in reality matters to me. I don't know how often you play and in what kind of enviroment, but perhaps this makes the difference.

In practice you get to play (if you can call it that...) lists like these often in more competitive environments, and while usually tables have decent amounts of terrain, the kind where an army like that doesn't severely dent the opponents army if they go first (aside from the strategies that counter it to some degree such as full Drop Pod armies) are somewhat non-existent. In bigger tournaments it escalates due to amounts of terrain sometimes being lacking. Eldar can make it almost equally bad by spamming Scatter Lasers, some D-shots here and there as basically their whole Codex is underpriced. A fully scouting White Scars Gladius Strike Force bristling with Grav can make for a nasty alphastrike aswell, altough it is not of the same caliber as the two former. That armys strength lies elsewhere. All of them are, however, prevalent armies you meet all the time.

And this is why "tournaments with large amounts of players should have "enough" terrain" doesn't help, as in reality this is rarely the case. It's a nice thought but that's all it is. In practice things are how they are, and in that I find the few first turn charging builds are the best medicine available against a meta that was dominant with just spamming powerful and mobile ranged units.

Most critique I have heard from players who play these one trick pony ranged steroid lists who have 0 preparation for blocking charges, managing their reserves and the like. Go figure huh.

 Runic wrote:
I don't think I've ever seen a table where the deployment zone of the opposing player is completely LOSblocked. Not saying it can't be done, but I've never ever seen or played on one in practice.

That's not what I said. I said ~50% of the deployment zone is LOS blocked or at least severely LOS restricted. You don't get to put your units wherever you want and be immune to damage, but there's plenty of space to hide out of LOS if you need to avoid a first-turn alpha strike.

However currently (in practice, again) a core you meet on a regular basis in competitive play, or just competitive matches. As I mentioned before, I don't deal in the should've/could've. Only how things actually are in reality matters to me. I don't know how often you play and in what kind of enviroment, but perhaps this makes the difference.

Ok, fine, you only play in competitive tournaments that can't afford enough terrain to make proper tables. That's your depressing reality. But that doesn't mean your experience is the most important one. Most games can have sufficient terrain, and I don't think many people are saying "no, we'd better only use one small piece of terrain in the center of the table because that's what a major tournament does".

And this is why "tournaments with large amounts of players should have "enough" terrain" doesn't help, as in reality this is rarely the case. It's a nice thought but that's all it is. In practice things are how they are, and in that I find the few first turn charging builds are the best medicine available against a meta that was dominant with just spamming powerful and mobile ranged units.

IOW, "balance the whole game for the minority of games that are played in big tournaments with no terrain, even if it means creating a miserable experience for everyone else". This is terrible game design.

Most critique I have heard from players who play these one trick pony ranged steroid lists who have 0 preparation for blocking charges, managing their reserves and the like. Go figure huh.

That's not it at all. The problem is that the best and most interesting option for avoiding charges, taking mobile units and outmaneuvering your opponent, becomes impossible when you're getting charged before you get a turn. The only thing you can have any control over is exactly which units you're going to lose before you get a turn. If you deploy perfectly and use every tool you have available you might only have your least important units removed from the table without being able to do anything about it. That is not fun.

And please stop suggesting reserves as a counter. You can't put your whole army in reserve anymore without automatically losing, so you can't hide from an alpha strike. Your opponent can just kill whatever you leave on the table, and if you don't throw away enough of your points as suicide fodder for the alpha strike you automatically lose at the end of the turn. Until we go back to the 5th edition rules for reserves this is not a viable answer.

My view of this thread:

Some folks: ZOMG first turn charges that destroy a significant portion of an army are terribad and unfair!

Other folks: Yea, but first turn enemy army decimation before the opponent can react, that many armies can and have been able to accomplish at range for months or years now, is also bad, how is doing it in assault any worse?

Some folks: Assaulting turn one before the opponent moves isn't fun and makes things one dimensional.

Other folks: Again, how is doing that exact same thing in the shooting phase to the same effect any different?

Some folks: Use terrain! You can mitigate losses to shooting by using more/proper terrain. You can't stop first turn charges!

Other folks: You can't put an entire army in or behind cover on any reasonably normal terrain setup such that you can survive the kinds of alpha strikes/firepower many of the worst offenders of that kind of firepower output can dish out. You're going to lose a chunk of your army, often a significant chunk. Short of them whiffing the majority of their shots you just have to take it on the chin.

Some folks: Then null deploy!

Other Folks: Then bubble wrap!

Some folks: That won't work!

Other folks: Neither will that!


Consensus: The rules need a long overdue overhaul that, in theory, is coming. In the mean time have fun with your army and play to have fun. If you're not having fun, don't play the person who is keeping you from having fun.

Take it easy,

-Red__Thirst-

For me the funniest thing in this thread is people using arguments that speak as much against them as it does for them.


In response to someone saying shooting lists can win turn 1 in the same way assault can:

Not everyone is a vindictive jackwad that will make the game as unpleasant as possible to the others"

Well... the exact same thing is applicable to people who run assault-based armies. Not everyone who charges turn one brought the best list in the world and will wreck you turn 1.

 Peregrine wrote:
That's not what I said. I said ~50% of the deployment zone is LOS blocked or at least severely LOS restricted. You don't get to put your units wherever you want and be immune to damage, but there's plenty of space to hide out of LOS if you need to avoid a first-turn alpha strike.

True, you said that.

Ok, fine, you only play in competitive tournaments that can't afford enough terrain to make proper tables. That's your depressing reality. But that doesn't mean your experience is the most important one. Most games can have sufficient terrain, and I don't think many people are saying "no, we'd better only use one small piece of terrain in the center of the table because that's what a major tournament does".

Untrue, it's just more common than uncommon that larger tournaments (globally) don't have vast amounts of terrain on the tables. I rarely participate in massive ones, and I play outside tournaments aswell. We're talking in the context of first turn tabling, which, factually, means competitive lists. Most of these you will find in tournaments, and the larger the tournament, usually the more competitive the roster. But sure, in a random match outside of a tournament it's very possible to have more than enough terrain on the table to help against shooting alpha strikes of abovementioned caliber and have them do almost no damage. That's the first turn ofcourse, if you're hidden and unable to do serious damage back, you will feel the wrath of anchored dual Stormsurges on turn 2, which hurts more than the fusillade on turn 1. Hiding also doesn't score objectives which are usually required in all but the crappiest of scenarios/rulesets, meaning you will most likely have a bad time by just hiding. Going on the defensive will most likely also have you lose the scenario Kill Points if they are used, and the abovementioned Tau list doesn't leak that many of those.

Just out of interest, how many games have you played against such a Tau list for example, and what type of army were you using? I'd appreciate if you don't skip this question as it's an answer in itself. That Tau core is concretical, and common. Anyone can field it outside of a tournament unless somehow banned by houseruling.

IOW, "balance the whole game for the minority of games that are played in big tournaments with no terrain, even if it means creating a miserable experience for everyone else". This is terrible game design.

I dont think anyone does none of the above. It just happens that people take note of what is being played in large tournaments, and those list designs leak into normal matches, outside tournaments aswell. 40K is a terribly designed game if you're objective about it. And it's quite obvious the factors in it's design don't include tournament play, nor do they seem to include friendly balanced matches either. As pretty much everybody who knows anything is aware.

Communities across the globe have been criticizing the overpowered shooting for years now. It doesn't stem from nothing. In the context of how the game currently is, getting charged on turn one is infact, a remedy against them. It's not the best remedy (that would be a well balanced game as a whole) but for now it's the best we got in practice. Maybe one day the utopia will become reality and 40K will be balanced so these thoughts and ideas of "how things should be" will not be in vain. Sure it will.

And please stop suggesting reserves as a counter. You can't put your whole army in reserve anymore without automatically losing.

Actually there are some formations and builds that allow for a null deployment and arrive on turn one. This, and your earlier sentence where you stated that only Imperial Guard artillery ignores LOS leads me to doubt how well you are up-to-date in the game knowledge department. Ad hominem I know, but just saying. Also "use reserves" doesn't mean "null deploy completely."

But really. You're free to think that powerful first turn charging is worse than powerful first turn shooting. I disagree and as has already been indicated, so do others. I think it's fine that there's now a need to do something more than just spam powerful guns in a list.
It seems to me you deal a lot on the ideological side of things. But even if you find the first turn charging builds annoying/dumb/gamebreaking... in practice, and in reality, these armies exist. They're out there, and unless you play rarely/pick your opponents you will have to deal with them. Ergo I see no point in "how things should be" - it doesn't change this.

I surely prefer charges turn one than shooting phases with 150+ shots at b3/4/5 or psychic phases with 30+ dice. I hate full shooting armies of full psykers armies, if you're scared of being charged turn one drop some units that don't do any other things than hiding and shoot and bring some close combat units to deal with those scary enemies that want to charge you as soon as possible. 40k is a lot of fun as soon as the games are balanced so when you play keep it in mind, it's a game not a sport and the final result doesn't count. Bringing lists that can't be defeated (or very unliklely) isn't fun for both players, if the game is compromised turn 2 i wouldn't have fun, even if i'd be winner.

 Blackie wrote:
I surely prefer charges turn one than shooting phases with 150+ shots at b3/4/5 or psychic phases with 30+ dice. I hate full shooting armies of full psykers armies, if you're scared of being charged turn one drop some units that don't do any other things than hiding and shoot and bring some close combat units to deal with those scary enemies that want to charge you as soon as possible. 40k is a lot of fun as soon as the games are balanced so when you play keep it in mind, it's a game not a sport and the final result doesn't count. Bringing lists that can't be defeated (or very unliklely) isn't fun for both players, if the game is compromised turn 2 i wouldn't have fun, even if i'd be winner.

"it's a game not a sport and the final result doesn't count. "

I am not sure I completely understood this.

 Blackie wrote:
if you're scared of being charged turn one drop some units that don't do any other things than hiding and shoot and bring some close combat units to deal with those scary enemies that want to charge you as soon as possible.

IOW, don't play IG or Tau. You know, armies that don't have close combat units.

 Kaiyanwang wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
I surely prefer charges turn one than shooting phases with 150+ shots at b3/4/5 or psychic phases with 30+ dice. I hate full shooting armies of full psykers armies, if you're scared of being charged turn one drop some units that don't do any other things than hiding and shoot and bring some close combat units to deal with those scary enemies that want to charge you as soon as possible. 40k is a lot of fun as soon as the games are balanced so when you play keep it in mind, it's a game not a sport and the final result doesn't count. Bringing lists that can't be defeated (or very unliklely) isn't fun for both players, if the game is compromised turn 2 i wouldn't have fun, even if i'd be winner.

"it's a game not a sport and the final result doesn't count. "

I am not sure I completely understood this.

If the game is balanced till the end but i lose i had fun, if i table the opponent turn 2 or oblitrate 70% of his army i didn't have fun even if i won.


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 Peregrine wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
if you're scared of being charged turn one drop some units that don't do any other things than hiding and shoot and bring some close combat units to deal with those scary enemies that want to charge you as soon as possible.

IOW, don't play IG or Tau. You know, armies that don't have close combat units.

I'm sure they can deal with turn one assault in some way, maybe blobs of fearless guardsmen? or 3-4 tau vehicles or kroot blobs to block those assaults? But they're two armies that i don't like at all so i don't know about them and honestly fighting an army that does nothing else than staying in the corner and shoot (maybe hiding in the assalut phase) is the thing i hate most in 40k. I mean the style and the concept of those armies, where's the fun in playing them?

 Blackie wrote:
I'm sure they can deal with turn one assault in some way, maybe blobs of fearless guardsmen? or 3-4 tau vehicles or kroot blobs to block those assaults?

Fearless blobs are expensive and don't solve the problem of "lose a bunch of stuff before you get a turn", and Tau vehicles are even more expensive. You're talking about 300+ points of stuff instantly dying as soon as the game begins, with no possible way to prevent it. And that's the best-case scenario. You can potentially lose a lot more than that if they can force a gap through your meatshields.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
I'm sure they can deal with turn one assault in some way, maybe blobs of fearless guardsmen? or 3-4 tau vehicles or kroot blobs to block those assaults?

Fearless blobs are expensive and don't solve the problem of "lose a bunch of stuff before you get a turn", and Tau vehicles are even more expensive. You're talking about 300+ points of stuff instantly dying as soon as the game begins, with no possible way to prevent it. And that's the best-case scenario. You can potentially lose a lot more than that if they can force a gap through your meatshields.

Okay, I'll bite. How do you prevent "lose a bunch of stuff before you get a turn" in a shooty meta. Stuff like that always happens and it's just part of a turn-by-turn games.
Are you telling me your solution to shooting is "stay out of LOS", but you're somehow unable to do that against melee armies? 2D6+12" move averages 19". That's not a lot of wiggle room to go around obstacles in order to get in LoS and charging distance.

This whole arguments against assaulting basically boils down to "I can't set up my units wherever I want and this bothers me". Congratulations, you are now in the position assault armies have been in for a long time; the one where you actually have to put some thought into where you put your stuff instead of just slapping them wherever they have the most line of sight across the table.

DaPino wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
I'm sure they can deal with turn one assault in some way, maybe blobs of fearless guardsmen? or 3-4 tau vehicles or kroot blobs to block those assaults?

Fearless blobs are expensive and don't solve the problem of "lose a bunch of stuff before you get a turn", and Tau vehicles are even more expensive. You're talking about 300+ points of stuff instantly dying as soon as the game begins, with no possible way to prevent it. And that's the best-case scenario. You can potentially lose a lot more than that if they can force a gap through your meatshields.

Okay, I'll bite. How do you prevent "lose a bunch of stuff before you get a turn" in a shooty meta. Stuff like that always happens and it's just part of a turn-by-turn games.
Are you telling me your solution to shooting is "stay out of LOS", but you're somehow unable to do that against melee armies? 2D6+12" move averages 19". That's not a lot of wiggle room to go around obstacles in order to get in LoS and charging distance.

This whole arguments against assaulting basically boils down to "I can't set up my units wherever I want and this bothers me". Congratulations, you are now in the position assault armies have been in for a long time; the one where you actually have to put some thought into where you put your stuff instead of just slapping them wherever they have the most line of sight across the table.

I have to agree with you there. 300+ points dead on turn one?! You must be fighting Tau. Oh, you're using Genestealer Cults?! Awesome something new and fitting with the aesthetic of 40k.

 Vaktathi wrote:
and the "leafblower" thing was a 5E incarnation that came about in 2500pt 'Ard Boyz events, mainly where one player on a popular blog got first turn every single game and won one year with a heavy alpha strike list

4E was *very* friendly for the Eldar in tournament placement.

5th Edition was dominated by GK, Eldar wasn't top 3

again, hence the exception, but the edition was more a rotating circus of imperial armies in general on top, 2008 was SM's, 2009 was IG and SW's, 2010 and 2011 was GK's and to a lesser extent BA's, with Necrons moving in on top spot in the last few months up to 6E.

Thanks for taking the time to write an articulate post with a lot of information.
As I said and you confirmed, Eldar really weren't top dog for any of these editions as I remembered.

I understand that owners of terrible codices would resent an army being top 5 most of the time and even getting top 1 now and then, but hey, go hate on space marines kthx.


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Lord Kragan wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Your comparison is meaningless. We are talking about using invis models with invuln saves to tarpit real cc units, not terminators. The output of a tarpit is largely unimportant.

Oh yeah, 9 wounds on T4 3+/4++ WITHOUT FEARLESS models is an uber-tarpit. Specially cheap and cost effective. And good and totally reliable. Just be careful you don't lose that ld test you're going to make every single round. And my comparison isn't meaningless since he said they WRECK FACE. Not that they are a tarpit, but a hammer to crush the enemy.

And this is from a veteran player's comments:

My experience was that it still took relatively mistake-free play to actually win games regularly - one bad decision or mistake could easily cause even the competitive builds of the day to fold, and quickly.

Yeah, marine competitive builds have always done that too, haven't... they?

From my limited observation, Eldar has always been very tricky.

The IoM and Space Marines have always been more "in-your-face" I believe, making them less afraid of many potential mistakes.


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 kronk wrote:

morgoth wrote:

In my opinion, if your army doesn't get more than 25% of tournament victories, it's not really top tier.

Sweet! I win 1 out of 4 games I play! I'm fething top tier! Like a wedding cake!

I don't think you can win a tournament with just one game... but hey. whatever


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 Runic wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Runic wrote:
Nah, no periods, just your subjective view. They aren't any worse than first turn tabling by shooting asfar as I'm concerned.

Shooting alpha strikes are highly overstated, unless you don't bother putting sufficient terrain on the table.

There's enough Ignores Cover or just plain volume of fire on the top tier lists that normal amounts of terrain hardly make a difference.

Ofcourse in a perfect world one can fill their terrain to look like a scenic shot out of a movie, but in reality tournaments don't usually have this luxury as there are quite a bit of tables to set up.

I deal in the reality, not the utopia.

You're supposed to have LOS-blocking terrain on a proper table.


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 Runic wrote:

Lord Kragan wrote:
Of course, you're the one that is taking all the models out while he just removes his dead pieces.

Like honestly... I'm... I'm all out of feths to be honest. This thread is a lost cause, isn't it?

Not sure what you're trying to say exactly, but I guess you consider it okay to have people shot off the table on turn one, but for some reason having them melee'd off the table on turn one is somehow worse? Or?

Actually, the best shooty lists can at most take 30% of your force down on the first turn, if there is no real terrain.
But you don't know yet what is going to happen on T2 and T3 (earliest tabling in general).

I think Assault is different, because T1 assault, you lose 30% of your force, and you know that T2 = assault and lose another 30%, etc.

If you can't dodge a T1 assault, you cant dodge any assault, and the electro displacement mechanic makes every assault almost guaranteed and undodgeable.

WIth shooting, as your numbers dwindle, cover per unit increases, and shooting fears assault.
Invisible Assault Blob fears nothing but air, none of which can seriously damage it afaik - maybe we're slated for a return of the flyrants - although I'm expecting enough psy powers to completely annihilate them.

DaPino wrote:
How do you prevent "lose a bunch of stuff before you get a turn" in a shooty meta.

By using sufficient terrain, as I keep saying. If there is sufficient LOS-blocking terrain on the table LOS between deployment zones will be severely limited and a shooting army (other than IG barrage spam, which is not a good list overall) will have to spend a turn or two moving out of its deployment zone to get good shots, or wait for you to move out and come to them. If your opponent's whole army is firing focused shots into your key units on turn 1 and inflicting lots of damage it's a pretty strong hint that you didn't put enough terrain on the table. The more likely outcome, with sufficient terrain, is that your opponent's guns either can't get clear shots at all or have to split fire across multiple targets and you survive the turn with some wounds taken but most of your units still at effective strength.

Are you telling me your solution to shooting is "stay out of LOS", but you're somehow unable to do that against melee armies? 2D6+12" move averages 19". That's not a lot of wiggle room to go around obstacles in order to get in LoS and charging distance.

Err, what? You do realize that the context of this thread is an army that starts the game by infiltrating within 3" of the units they're going to charge, right? And that other turn-1 charge armies can deep strike to set up the charge? The whole point of why it's a problem is that terrain doesn't matter.

This whole arguments against assaulting basically boils down to "I can't set up my units wherever I want and this bothers me".

No, it's "it doesn't matter where you set up, you're losing hundreds of points of stuff before you get a turn and your only choice is which units to sacrifice". Conventional assault units are fine, you have to deploy to avoid them but you have a chance to react to them and potentially escape the charge. Assault units that get guaranteed charges on turn 1 no matter where you deploy are not fine.

I'm thinking people confuse "shooting has been responsible for most of the damage lately" with "shooting is the strongest in 40K".

Assault in 40K is by far the strongest force, it can even deal with taking losses, it can delete entire units, unless they're spehs mehreens of course, it deals vastly more damage per point, etc.

Also, I'm not really worried by GSC, they have one turn of free assault, that's cool.

What worries me is Electro Displacement and every-turn guaranteed charge anywhere on the map, thanks to one fethed up psy power and the always overpowered drop pod which lands anywhere safely for 35 points.


When the best possible strategy comes down to : just include fearless AM blobs in your army, I fear the game is going downhill.

morgoth wrote:


You're supposed to have LOS-blocking terrain on a proper table.

No one said the opposite.

morgoth wrote:

Actually, the best shooty lists can at most take 30% of your force down on the first turn, if there is no real terrain.
But you don't know yet what is going to happen on T2 and T3 (earliest tabling in general).

Actually, depending on the army you are using among other countless factors, the best shooty lists can take more than 30% of your force down.

morgoth wrote:
I think Assault is different, because T1 assault, you lose 30% of your force, and you know that T2 = assault and lose another 30%, etc.

Aside from the part where a competitive Tau list for example, shoots harder on T2 than on T1 because Stormsurges. And any dakka list just keeps shooting unless you damage them back. The same as with melee.

Atleast I can agree on one thing, and that's GSC not being anything compared to an electrodisplacing Invisible Feel No Pain 4++ wolfstar.

Dunno, pointless conversation in a way. GSC, World Eaters and other builds that charge you on turn one are in the game. The end. Find ways to deal with it. Just like you have to do with double Stormsurges + Riptidewings and deathstars.

That's the reality of the matter.

"I understand that owners of terrible codices would resent an army being top 5 most of the time and even getting top 1 now and then, but hey, go hate on space marines kthx."

Except vanilla marines have only been on the top recently. They were never a truly strong list until 6/7th. And the beginning of 3rd. They were outright unplayable in 2nd.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
I'm sure they can deal with turn one assault in some way, maybe blobs of fearless guardsmen? or 3-4 tau vehicles or kroot blobs to block those assaults?

Fearless blobs are expensive and don't solve the problem of "lose a bunch of stuff before you get a turn", and Tau vehicles are even more expensive. You're talking about 300+ points of stuff instantly dying as soon as the game begins, with no possible way to prevent it. And that's the best-case scenario. You can potentially lose a lot more than that if they can force a gap through your meatshields.

Turn one of your immortal Riptides into an eternal tarpit. You've got Riptides to spare because they are undercosted.

 Peregrine wrote:

DaPino wrote:
How do you prevent "lose a bunch of stuff before you get a turn" in a shooty meta.

By using sufficient terrain, as I keep saying. If there is sufficient LOS-blocking terrain on the table LOS between deployment zones will be severely limited and a shooting army (other than IG barrage spam, which is not a good list overall) will have to spend a turn or two moving out of its deployment zone to get good shots, or wait for you to move out and come to them. If your opponent's whole army is firing focused shots into your key units on turn 1 and inflicting lots of damage it's a pretty strong hint that you didn't put enough terrain on the table. The more likely outcome, with sufficient terrain, is that your opponent's guns either can't get clear shots at all or have to split fire across multiple targets and you survive the turn with some wounds taken but most of your units still at effective strength.

Unless you're saying that you can put your entire army behind LoS-blocking terrain, you will still end up losing stuff before your first turn. Then you are also "losing hundreds of points of stuff before you get a turn and your only choice is which units to sacrifice".

Are you telling me your solution to shooting is "stay out of LOS", but you're somehow unable to do that against melee armies? 2D6+12" move averages 19". That's not a lot of wiggle room to go around obstacles in order to get in LoS and charging distance.

Err, what? You do realize that the context of this thread is an army that starts the game by infiltrating within 3" of the units they're going to charge, right? And that other turn-1 charge armies can deep strike to set up the charge? The whole point of why it's a problem is that terrain doesn't matter.

I thought we were also still talking about the Khorne thing, I lost track a couple of pages ago.
With that said and done, yes I could bring 13 MSU Subterranean Uprising formations and probably feth up people royally but I probably can cook up a shooting army that equally feths people over.
This brings us back to "not everyone is a scumbag".

This whole arguments against assaulting basically boils down to "I can't set up my units wherever I want and this bothers me".

No, it's "it doesn't matter where you set up, you're losing hundreds of points of stuff before you get a turn and your only choice is which units to sacrifice". Conventional assault units are fine, you have to deploy to avoid them but you have a chance to react to them and potentially escape the charge. Assault units that get guaranteed charges on turn 1 no matter where you deploy are not fine.

DaPino wrote:
[
Which I can kind of agree to but then again drop pods have been a thing for how long now? They allow a shooting unit to be wherever it wants and alpha-strike whatever unit it wants no matter where they deploy. You cannot deploy to avoid a drop pod either (again, unless you have a unusually large amount of terrain) and yet I don't see anyone complaining about that.

Drop Pods are broken but we've come to accept them.

However, their main effect was to obliterate tanks T1, which was easily prevented with light bubble wrapping.

The meta will certainly recover from this but right now, several tournaments had to simply remove that combo from existence, which sort of speaks to its non-competitive nature.

morgoth wrote:

DaPino wrote:
[
Which I can kind of agree to but then again drop pods have been a thing for how long now? They allow a shooting unit to be wherever it wants and alpha-strike whatever unit it wants no matter where they deploy. You cannot deploy to avoid a drop pod either (again, unless you have a unusually large amount of terrain) and yet I don't see anyone complaining about that.

Drop Pods are broken but we've come to accept them.

However, their main effect was to obliterate tanks T1, which was easily prevented with light bubble wrapping.

The meta will certainly recover from this but right now, several tournaments had to simply remove that combo from existence, which sort of speaks to its non-competitive nature.

Drop pods are actually overrated. Even the dreaded skyhammer is completely foiled by..... the Rhino. Or the Chimera. Xeno lists get greedy and maximize firepower at all costs leaving themselves open to alpha strike. If BA can beat skyhammer, broken-ass Tau and Eldar can, too.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
I'm sure they can deal with turn one assault in some way, maybe blobs of fearless guardsmen? or 3-4 tau vehicles or kroot blobs to block those assaults?

Fearless blobs are expensive and don't solve the problem of "lose a bunch of stuff before you get a turn", and Tau vehicles are even more expensive. You're talking about 300+ points of stuff instantly dying as soon as the game begins, with no possible way to prevent it. And that's the best-case scenario. You can potentially lose a lot more than that if they can force a gap through your meatshields.

Yes you'll lose 300+ points of stuff turn one but the rest of your army, the best shooting units, can easily evaporate 300+ points of genestealers in your first turn. If i face space marines, eldars or tau i would be prepared to lose 300+ points turn one because of their overpowered shooting phase. Losing 300-400 points for a 1850 army doesn't seem to me a big deal, for 2/3 of the armies is what they get everytime if they go second. If there's an army that is extremely scary to these overpowered shooting lists i don't see the problem, only a few players play with genestealers and i'm sure every army can deal with them. Maybe they will not be top armies in 40k anymore if they change their broken list but with tau, IG, space marines and eldars you can surely defeat an army that charges turn 1 if you're prepared to deal with it, use expendables units, terrain, flamers, reserves... If you go to a tournament you shouldn't care, how many genestealer cult armies are you going to fight against? probably not even a single one. The point is some players only take the same broken list ant they're upset that now there's a hard counter for them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:


No, it's "it doesn't matter where you set up, you're losing hundreds of points of stuff before you get a turn and your only choice is which units to sacrifice". Conventional assault units are fine, you have to deploy to avoid them but you have a chance to react to them and potentially escape the charge. Assault units that get guaranteed charges on turn 1 no matter where you deploy are not fine.

Again, it's the standard scenario for many players to lose even a third of their army (and probably the best units as they're targeted first) turn one if they play against some only-shooting lists. No matter how much you're going MSU or using terrain, with my orks and dark eldars i can lose even half the army against some opponents, even if i take competitive lists. Stop playing with 5 riptides and a stormsurge or with 15 tanks if IG and you won't automatically lose turn one when you face the cult. They don't seem to me one of the most competitive armies in 40k, just a hard counter for some lists but far from being overpowered. Eldar, tau and space marines are overpowered, not those genestealers. And i'm not a fan of the cult nor i play them, so i have no interest in defending them, as i hate how they look.

morgoth wrote:


I understand that owners of terrible codices would resent an army being top 5 most of the time and even getting top 1 now and then, but hey, go hate on space marines kthx.

I've hated on Space Marines of all stripes plenty through the years as I'm sure other posters here will remember , and I *have* and Eldar army, about 5000pts worth in fact, including two superheavies, but I gotta call it like I sees it with Eldar, they've been probably the single most well treated army, when taken as a whole, throughout the lifespan of the game in terms of power level with only one edition where they werent top tier competitive.

 Vaktathi wrote:

morgoth wrote:


I understand that owners of terrible codices would resent an army being top 5 most of the time and even getting top 1 now and then, but hey, go hate on space marines kthx.

I've hated on Space Marines of all stripes plenty through the years as I'm sure other posters here will remember , and I *have* and Eldar army, about 5000pts worth in fact, including two superheavies, but I gotta call it like I sees it with Eldar, they've been probably the single most well treated army, when taken as a whole, throughout the lifespan of the game in terms of power level with only one edition where they werent top tier competitive.

The only time they weren't updated either! But yeah it's been one thing or another, Exarchs, Sunspam/Ulthwe/ALTIOC , Skimmerspam, 5th edition not top tier but not bot tier either, 6th edition wraith/serpent spam, then 7th S Scatbikes.