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 AtoMaki wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
Does it matter that his datasheet lists a powerfist and powersword and what you have on the table is TH/LC? Not significantly.

I would say this is pretty disappointing. I assume when my Special Snowflake Badass faces off with another Special Snowflake Badass then something special and badass happens, not just a generic exchange of generic blows that can be perfectly replicated with Cookie Cutters too. Extra points if my Special Snowflake Badass faces off with a Cookie Cutter and gets his butt handed to him because neither his specialness nor his badassitude matters in any shape or form.

I’m an old school gamer from a grittier time, where we reveled in the tiny distractions between options. I get that.

GW has moved on.

But if someone wants to fudge the little things so his badass looks like he wants him to, and there is not a huge mental disconnect with WYSWYG, I’m OK with his models deviating from the cookie cutter NMNR options.

I’m not thrilled about the loss of options. I think it was not at an unreasonable level. Obviously GW wants it simpler.

Breton wrote:
Given the Range/Rapid Fire interaction? Probably. The chances that thing won't get Rapid Fire is pretty slim.

On the flipside, the OC numbers look like they might still be too low - it loses to 5 Cadian Shock Troops. Armiger OC should (probably) be floating around somewhere around 20 at that point they're tying against 10 of What-Used-To-Be-Troops-with-OC2 each - Tacticals, Berserkers, Sisters, Guardsmen and so on - and adjust that based on what skewing "Full Armiger" can and can't do against prototypical Guard/Ork/Nids or Marine/Khorne/etc armies.

What's kind of scary is Chaos is allowed to double up on the RFBC. So either it will be a ton of points or totally brutal.

I think the low-ish OC makes sense. Knights appear to be reasonably killy. Points will be what matters now.

 AtoMaki wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
Does it matter that his datasheet lists a powerfist and powersword and what you have on the table is TH/LC? Not significantly.

I would say this is pretty disappointing. I assume when my Special Snowflake Badass faces off with another Special Snowflake Badass then something special and badass happens, not just a generic exchange of generic blows that can be perfectly replicated with Cookie Cutters too. Extra points if my Special Snowflake Badass faces off with a Cookie Cutter and gets his butt handed to him because neither his specialness nor his badassitude matters in any shape or form.

Is this... ironic? I have to ask, because I've never seen 'special snowflake' used as anything as anything other than derogatory. Its been quite a while for 'badass' to be anything but tongue in cheek either.

Voss wrote:

 AtoMaki wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
Does it matter that his datasheet lists a powerfist and powersword and what you have on the table is TH/LC? Not significantly.

I would say this is pretty disappointing. I assume when my Special Snowflake Badass faces off with another Special Snowflake Badass then something special and badass happens, not just a generic exchange of generic blows that can be perfectly replicated with Cookie Cutters too. Extra points if my Special Snowflake Badass faces off with a Cookie Cutter and gets his butt handed to him because neither his specialness nor his badassitude matters in any shape or form.

Is this... ironic?

Kind of. I'm not saying the expectations are justified (this is a completely different can of worms), only that they are not fulfilled.

 AtoMaki wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
why is it that I do not care as much that each model I have in battletech has the correct loadout on the model when compared to the mech sheet and why do I not just apply this mentality to my 40k army

I tie the difference to the compared price tag and detail on my Battletech and 40k models. I do remember when Battletech tried to go 40k with Dark Age and have premium-priced but high(ish)-detail models that - surprise surprise - had the rules to match their loadout.

Dark Age was NOT an attempt to take Btech the 40k route.
It turned it into a collectible minis game in the MageKnight/HeroClix style. Each mech having multiple variations was simply ideal for the format...

But if you seriously want a model of some specific mech varient for regular Btech? Then Ironwind miniatures very likely has you covered. They produce an insane amount of variants - all in metal - these days.

So with the lily brain things and the drone snow being tokens they're leaning into the visual game aids thing more.

Dudeface wrote:
So with the lily brain things and the drone snow being tokens they're leaning into the visual game aids thing more.

It makes a lot of sense, remembering all the stuff was a huge mental load, and in cases like Drones, or Ammo/Oiler grots, some Inquisition Henchmen etc. the body was not that important anyway and it was more or less just a carrier for an ability anyway. Everything that moves away from micro-managing single models is a positive development.

Tsagualsa wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
So with the lily brain things and the drone snow being tokens they're leaning into the visual game aids thing more.

It makes a lot of sense, remembering all the stuff was a huge mental load, and in cases like Drones, or Ammo/Oiler grots, some Inquisition Henchmen etc. the body was not that important anyway and it was more or less just a carrier for an ability anyway. Everything that moves away from micro-managing single models is a positive development.

yeah, those type of rules are much better when the scale of the game is smaller

 Nevelon wrote:
GW has moved on.

But they haven't though, not in any consistent manner. Some weapons have been consolidated, some weapons have been consolidated within units that still have tons of different options, and others have no consolidation at all.

I've been saying for years that the only consistent thing about GW is their inconsistency, and it remains true with 10th.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/05/19/warhammer-40000-faction-focus-tau-empire-2/

Ooh look! Tau! Shiny!

Breton wrote:

On the flipside, the OC numbers look like they might still be too low - it loses to 5 Cadian Shock Troops. Armiger OC should (probably) be floating around somewhere around 20 at that point they're tying against 10 of What-Used-To-Be-Troops-with-OC2 each

No, that would be horrible.
We are no longer in the land of objective secured, where if you put half millimiter of your troop on a point you make all those terminators controlling it very sad.
You now have to count the actual models of the unit on the point.
A troop has 20 OC only if all 10 models of it are on the point.
An armiger gets its full OC by simply putting a toe near the objective.

Given this very important difference, I believe that OC 8 (4 models of troop on the point) is actually fairly reasonable.

Not that I play Tau (just against them); but does anybody else feel like Tau got shafted with this Guided/Unguided army rule?

If I'm reading it correct it's like it almost always penalizes them to split-fire.

 Lord Clinto wrote:
Not that I play Tau (just against them); but does anybody else feel like Tau got shafted with this Guided/Unguided army rule?

Not really in my opinion, but it does disincentivize big crisis units since split fire is a bad idea. But you no longer need to shoot with something else first or manage tokens.

Innately ignoring cover is useful and +1BS is capable of stacking with Heavy.

Also it frees up the need for markerlights if you want since any unit can 'buddy' - just without ignore cover.

 Lord Clinto wrote:
Not that I play Tau (just against them); but does anybody else feel like Tau got shafted with this Guided/Unguided army rule?

Yes. They effectively have to horse trade which half of their army gets effective shooting from turn to turn.
If they're guided and stationary, they can be amazing. Otherwise they're just ok.

Its notable that MSU spam to bolster your shooting will really help initially, but as you lose units, your shooting effectiveness goes down. You can even get stuck in situations where your big guns have to move and be unguided to shoot at worthwhile targets.

If I'm reading it correct it's like it almost always penalizes them to split-fire.

For the guided units, yeah. Secondary targets degrades to ork level shooting. Its basically amounts to 'just don't.' (Except with flamers)
That turn's designated observers are equally mediocre against everything.

Kroot are way more useful in the system, though it will be kind of funny to have kroot hounds calling out targets.

It promotes a more even army structure over big globs of battlesuits.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
it will be kind of funny to have kroot hounds calling out targets.

No. Re-read the simplified but not simple preview.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Kroot are way more useful in the system, though it will be kind of funny to have kroot hounds calling out targets.

Assuming they don't have special rules saying they can't do that. Going by the fluff, only the vespid should be able to, and only because their squad leaders get the fancy hat (which links them into the tau command channels).

Edit: yeah, I think EightFoldPath is correct. Kroothounds can't guide, because having no guns, they're never eligible to shoot.

It promotes a more even army structure over big globs of battlesuits.

In a vacuum where everything but the rules we've seen are the same as now, sure.
But I suspect there are unintended consequences that lead to very wonky army optimization.

Even if you are correct, I don't want to be the one telling people with big battlesuit armies that they're playing it wrong, and half their units need to be worse so the rest of the army can shine a little brighter.

EightFoldPath wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
it will be kind of funny to have kroot hounds calling out targets.

No. Re-read the simplified but not simple preview.

Oh, right. They need to be able to shoot. Ah well. At least regular kroot ( unless they have a rule exception ).

Voss wrote:
In a vacuum where everything but the rules we've seen are the same as now, sure.
But I suspect there are unintended consequences that lead to very wonky army optimization.

Even if you are correct, I don't want to be the one telling people with big battlesuit armies that they're playing it wrong, and half their units need to be worse so the rest of the army can shine a little brighter.

Oh definitely way too early to tell. Just a musing of a possibility. It'd be nice to see more 'combined arms' from Tau.

EightFoldPath wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
it will be kind of funny to have kroot hounds calling out targets.

No. Re-read the simplified but not simple preview.

Units without ranged weapons are eligible to shoot as long as they didn't fall back or advance.

 Lord Clinto wrote:
Not that I play Tau (just against them); but does anybody else feel like Tau got shafted with this Guided/Unguided army rule?

If I'm reading it correct it's like it almost always penalizes them to split-fire.

I don't think it is as weak as I first thought when reading it. And after adjusting army lists to fit the rule, Tau players may find it is quite strong. The Hammerhead Railgun and the Stormsurge Pulse Blast Cannon can both hit targets on 2s under these new rules while ignoring cover, that sounds ok. Both The Greater Good and Kauyon have no range restrictions at all in their rules, that is significant once you start playing on a table.

A lot will depend on points, and what happens with:
- Are Commanders Leaders or Lone Operatives?
- If they are Leaders do they only attach to Crisis suits?
- Can everyone who can take a markerlight currently take one?
- Can everyone who can take a marker drone currently take one?
- I'm assuming Strike, Breacher and Pathfinder squads remain at min 10, but if they went down to min 5 again this would add more spice.
- I'm also assuming drone squads don't exist otherwise you'd have some drones as tokens and some as models on the same table.

And one way to think of it is a Tau army might want to have 4 x 350 point death star units and 8 x 75 point trash units (with guns of some kind). The job of the death stars will be to DELETE one target per turn. A big knight/super heavy tank/greater daemon. A land raider with death star 1 followed by the Terminators inside with death star 2.

You'll probably want your Guided (BS3) death stars to be a mix of anti-tank and anti-elite while your Observer/Nothing (BS4) trash bring all the anti-horde. So you would build accordingly. A Crisis squad wouldn't want Burst/CIB/Fusion it would probably want CIB/Plasma/Fusion for killing a variety of elite targets or double Plasma or Fusion with the other mixed in for killing tanks. if Cyclic Ion Blasters get the Hazardous rule they probably get dropped anyway on Crisis squads.

If for some reason you desparately want to split fire a death star, then your choice is Guided (BS3/BS5) or Observer/Nothing (BS4). Depending on if you are 50/50 split firing or say 70/30 then the choice makes itself to me.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Spoletta wrote:

EightFoldPath wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
it will be kind of funny to have kroot hounds calling out targets.

No. Re-read the simplified but not simple preview.

Units without ranged weapons are eligible to shoot as long as they didn't fall back or advance.

Yes, a very good point, the definition of eligible to shoot seems to have changed from 9th to 10th. Observer Kroot Hounds back on the menu it seems.

Also, as far as I can tell being in engagement range doesn't have any impact on being eligible to shoot, being Guided or an Observer.

Pointer hunting hounds are a thing IRL..

EightFoldPath wrote:

Yes, a very good point, the definition of eligible to shoot seems to have changed from 9th to 10th. Observer Kroot Hounds back on the menu it seems.

Also, as far as I can tell being in engagement range doesn't have any impact on being eligible to shoot, being Guided or an Observer.

Only vehicles, monsters and models with pistols are eligibile to shoot in ER.

Spoletta wrote:

EightFoldPath wrote:

Yes, a very good point, the definition of eligible to shoot seems to have changed from 9th to 10th. Observer Kroot Hounds back on the menu it seems.

Also, as far as I can tell being in engagement range doesn't have any impact on being eligible to shoot, being Guided or an Observer.

Only vehicles, monsters and models with pistols are eligibile to shoot in ER.

Battlesuits were also eligible to do so in 9th, hoping they keep that in.

Also hoping they try to reduce the Tau archetype of "must be terrible at melee". Not asking for excellent CC units, but a bit of a boost so they could hold their own against Guard for example, would be helpful

Spoletta wrote:

EightFoldPath wrote:

Yes, a very good point, the definition of eligible to shoot seems to have changed from 9th to 10th. Observer Kroot Hounds back on the menu it seems.

Also, as far as I can tell being in engagement range doesn't have any impact on being eligible to shoot, being Guided or an Observer.

Only vehicles, monsters and models with pistols are eligibile to shoot in ER.

Right again! I accept some blame, but I am also blaming that on the formatting of their rules. Why start the Shooting Phase rules with an explanation of what an eligible to shoot unit is with two conditions that mustn't apply, then add a third condition to what isn't eligible on the next page in another section!

EightFoldPath wrote:
Right again! I accept some blame, but I am also blaming that on the formatting of their rules. Why start the Shooting Phase rules with an explanation of what an eligible to shoot unit is with two conditions that mustn't apply, then add a third condition to what isn't eligible on the next page in another section!

It makes sense to be there as it only comes up when a unit is engaged in melee. Hence the rule is in that section.

I can't believe all this whining about the new For the Greater Good Rule. Unless you routinely brought 3 markerlights per unit in your army, you were not able to get the BS bonus for all your units. Now half your units (even more if you bring Pathfinders) can get improved BS and Ignores Cover while the other half fire as normal. Nothing bad here and we avoid all the laborious Actions and Hit rolls of prior editions. Just declare Guided Unit, Observer Unit, and Spotted Unit then get on with the dakka.

I quite like the FtGG rule, seems like a clever way to encourage list diversity now that there is no FOC.

I don't much care for the drones only counting as markers, but would need to see it in practice to really now if I like it or not.

I like the Strategem previewed though, seems very characterful for a unit of fire warriors to escape into their transport when charged.

I can imagine a devilsfish advancing on the enemy, the fire warriors disembark and open fire, and when counter-charged they fall back into the transport. Seems to be exactly how I imagine Tau would fight and something the rules have always struggled to represent.

I'll be curious to see how they do crisis suits, and if they get some form of JSJ back, especially since we've already seen reaction moves are a thing (Termagants).

Aash wrote:
I can imagine a devilsfish advancing on the enemy, the fire warriors disembark and open fire, and when counter-charged they fall back into the transport. Seems to be exactly how I imagine Tau would fight and something the rules have always struggled to represent.

I'll be curious to see how they do crisis suits, and if they get some form of JSJ back, especially since we've already seen reaction moves are a thing (Termagants).

Works great with the transport update, too. Fly up, hop out and both those units are observers.

Given elves playing 2CP for their JSJ I can't imagine it will come standard.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Aash wrote:
I can imagine a devilsfish advancing on the enemy, the fire warriors disembark and open fire, and when counter-charged they fall back into the transport. Seems to be exactly how I imagine Tau would fight and something the rules have always struggled to represent.

I'll be curious to see how they do crisis suits, and if they get some form of JSJ back, especially since we've already seen reaction moves are a thing (Termagants).

Works great with the transport update, too. Fly up, hop out and both those units are observers.

Given elves playing 2CP for their JSJ I can't imagine it will come standard.

This ^

Or the transport acts as the Observer to the unit that disembarked.

Spoletta wrote:

Breton wrote:

On the flipside, the OC numbers look like they might still be too low - it loses to 5 Cadian Shock Troops. Armiger OC should (probably) be floating around somewhere around 20 at that point they're tying against 10 of What-Used-To-Be-Troops-with-OC2 each

No, that would be horrible.
We are no longer in the land of objective secured, where if you put half millimiter of your troop on a point you make all those terminators controlling it very sad.
You now have to count the actual models of the unit on the point.
A troop has 20 OC only if all 10 models of it are on the point.
An armiger gets its full OC by simply putting a toe near the objective.

Given this very important difference, I believe that OC 8 (4 models of troop on the point) is actually fairly reasonable.

We still don't have BLAST templates back so (usually) no reason not to stack up. Plus the infantry player can move more models in, the Armiger doesn't get more OC for moving the other toe into range. OC should probably be balanced from at least two different directions - Ground Up (i.e. the OC specialist units previously known or thought of as "Troops" get X per model type stuff) and top-down (i.e. an entire 2K point army should end up with about YZ OC in total)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Canadian 5th wrote:

EightFoldPath wrote:
Right again! I accept some blame, but I am also blaming that on the formatting of their rules. Why start the Shooting Phase rules with an explanation of what an eligible to shoot unit is with two conditions that mustn't apply, then add a third condition to what isn't eligible on the next page in another section!

It makes sense to be there as it only comes up when a unit is engaged in melee. Hence the rule is in that section.

This may be a case where that part of the rule should have been printed in both sections.