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That's how it worked in editions past, and because of it you only rarely saw power fists, as people simply attacked them before they could swing.

And that's why it won't work now, because if you give you squad leader or any other model in the unit some form of avdanced weapon, then they'll go down first.

Right now, Dreadnought charges marines, who have prepared for this by having a powerfist sergeant. With this rule, Dreadnought player realises this, throws all the Dreadnought's attacks at the sergeant, kills him, and the marines can now only throw krak grenades at it and hope for a string of 6s.

It'd make powerfists and thunder hammers in units one of the worst choices ever, because they wouldn't be doing their job as walker deterrants, or to deal with anything nasty like MCs that come close. If a wraithlord charged you, you wouldn't even be able to use grenades against it, and your S4 regular attacks wouldn't be able to harm it, it'd just dump all its attacks on the powerfist and proceed to eat your squad.

As for random troops sacrificing themselves... why is that silly? If you have one chance of killing something, why would you NOT sacrifice yourself for it? If you were facing an enemy holed up in a building, and your only hope was someone with a flamethrower, you would make damn sure he gets there unscathed, or you're all dead anyway.

If you can't do anything against an enemy, then you make sure that what can do something survives to be able to do it, it's simple tactics and perfectly plausible.

Remove Eternal Warrior. ID doesn't have to be completely removed, but should be scaled back (considering nowadays every army has like half a dozen things that cause ID).

Avatar 720 wrote:

And that's why it won't work now, because if you give you squad leader or any other model in the unit some form of avdanced weapon, then they'll go down first.

Right now, Dreadnought charges marines, who have prepared for this by having a powerfist sergeant. With this rule, Dreadnought player realises this, throws all the Dreadnought's attacks at the sergeant, kills him, and the marines can now only throw krak grenades at it and hope for a string of 6s.

It'd make powerfists and thunder hammers in units one of the worst choices ever, because they wouldn't be doing their job as walker deterrants, or to deal with anything nasty like MCs that come close. If a wraithlord charged you, you wouldn't even be able to use grenades against it, and your S4 regular attacks wouldn't be able to harm it, it'd just dump all its attacks on the powerfist and proceed to eat your squad.

As for random troops sacrificing themselves... why is that silly? If you have one chance of killing something, why would you NOT sacrifice yourself for it? If you were facing an enemy holed up in a building, and your only hope was someone with a flamethrower, you would make damn sure he gets there unscathed, or you're all dead anyway.

If you can't do anything against an enemy, then you make sure that what can do something survives to be able to do it, it's simple tactics and perfectly plausible.

I simply dislike how every marine squad that I run into is basically a 10-wound power fist. Really, with the rules as they are, there is zero downside to putting them in every unit. It's supposed to be a trade off, you hit like a train, but you have to risk getting hit first... only not really. Because you have 9 spuds there to soak wounds before you have to sweat. I know if I were piloting a walker, I would target the dude with the weapon that could hurt me.

And I mean really, I think the heavy and special weapon that the squad can take is plenty of a walker deterrent. Meltaguns and Lascannons/Missile Launchers kill walkers and MCs just fine. Do basic troop squads really need no-brainer ways to down these things in both the assault and shooting phases? And yes, that's the point of a Wraithlord, toughness 8 and immunity to str 4 attacks. Which might be troubling if it had some way to be faster than deploying 12" onto the table and then walking at you. It's not going to pop out of a drop pod or a webway portal, or show up via outflanking, or pop out of a transport. You've got ample opportunity to shoot it. If it gets there, I honestly think it deserves to kill a squad.

The simple turth is that Thunder Hammers and Power Fists HAVE no downside. That is the issue. There is zero reason that a power weapons is better than a Power Fist. At all. Generally models with power weapons are either ICs or models that couldn't otherwise be equipped with something else that ignores saves. Power Fists and Thunder Hammers are the best weapons available because the people equipped with them can magically be the last ones allocated any wounds.

And as for your flame thrower example, I would counter that the enemy would be trying their absolute hardest to kill the flame thrower. It's not like they're hard to spot, there's a big bulky back-pack, and the enemy knows EXACTLY what it's capable of. You might be trying your hardest to keep that guy alive, but that doesn't mean that someone wouldn't aim at him and purposefully shoot him.

Personally I would create a division:

Instant Death: this removes a model from play if it takes an unsaved wound.

Massive Damage: this occurs when S>=2T. If a model suffers an unsaved wound that causes Massive Damage it must roll under it's starting Wounds value. If the test is failed then the model suffers Instant Death.

Eternal Warrior: models with this rule don't suffer Massive Damage.

Effects:
1) Multi-wound units become slightly more resilient.
2) Exotic death weaponry like Wraithcannons etc are not stifled by EW.
3) Daemons vs FW completely changes, but the Daemon Codex needs an overhaul anyway (could change FW to inflict Massive Damage).
4) More expensive characters typically have more Wounds, so become more survivable relatively speaking.

Panzerboy: That makes sense, if EVERY army was a marine army.

Switch to orks: Low BS - so you're gambling when you throw in your rokkits, Low armor, so your PK WILL die. So you take those 30 wounds to tie up the walker.

I agree with the d3 wounds idea (perhaps d6 for particularly potent weapons).
Also, you could just simply increase the amount of retinues available for characters.
I'm really hoping 6th edition actually addresses the problem well; the multiple tiers for EW seems like it may work.

the_ferrett wrote:Panzerboy: That makes sense, if EVERY army was a marine army.

I'm simply curious, but would this change (ICs and MC, or everybody, being able to allocate against separate models in assault) really significantly affect many other armies? Orks is the only army that I can think of off-hand, and generally they have big enough units to keep their Nobs out of base to base with the enemy. Outside of that I can't think of very many armies that would suffer unduly at this. Just running down the list:

Tyranids: Can't really see how it would affect this army at all, they hide nothing in units.
Guard: I don't see it mattering much here, as guard tend to be allergic to CC (in general), and thus don't bother equipping many things with specialist CC stuff.
Orks: Nobz in Boyz units. Pretty sure they would be able to side-step the worst of it by keeping their nobz in the middle of units and letting them attack from 2" without getting into base to base.
Tau: Pretty much the same deal as with Guard, only there's not really any CC gear to take in the first place.
Eldar: Exarchs could be targeted, it is true, but they have improved armor saves over their units for a reason.
Dark Eldar: Same deal as with Eldar, but in general DE assaults that I've seen tend to go one way or the other very quickly just in general, I doubt targeted attacks would change this significantly.
Necrons: Doesn't apply at all. You're either attacking identical dudes or already-targetable ICs.

Outside of that is pretty much just a bunch of Marine books that love hiding power fists inside of 10-man squads, the un-removeable str. 8 swings being one of the chief complaints about Instant Death and the vulnerability of ICs and such. If hidden power fists became much less prevalent then I think that in general CC Instant death would be limited to big things like Walkers and MCs, Force Weapons and the like, which rightly should be able to inflict it as such.

As for shooting... well, ICs can hide in units. And if people are complaining about how they don't like removing whole multi-wound models because they got shot with a demolisher cannon, well.... get over it? That's what Demolisher Cannons do. It's what they have always done, and likely what they will always continue to do. They're tank cannons that fire huge siege shells. Loganwing, Thunderwolf Cav, and Nob Biker units should have to fear something, and I personally don't see what's so bad about having 2 tanks in the entire game sporting this gun. A gun that, for it's size and tank slot-usage, is rather short ranged and not really all that impressive compared to other options except when targeting the aforementioned types of units.

the un-removeable str. 8 swings being one of the chief complaints about Instant Death and the vulnerability of ICs and such.

"Independant Characters may only be attacked by other Independant Characters in Close Combat, as long as the squad the character is joined to has 3 or more members left alive - Any fewer than 2, and we assume that the attackers simply overrun the defenders; however, if the number of attacking models is equal to or less than the number of defending models (even if only 2 or fewer remain) not including the character, we assume that the remaining members can reliably slow or halt the advance of the meagre enemy upon the character.

Walkers and Monsterous Creatures count as 3 models for the purposes of deciding whether they can strike an Independant Character in a unit."

How would that be? Two 10-man squads facing off would have to chew through 8 models to get a swing at the opposing character, which is a feat that only dedicated close combat units and strong weapons can reliably accomplish before they can be whittled down themselves.

It means that whilst powerfists can kill 2-3 enemies per combat phase, they have to wait for the next combat round to take advntage of it, giving the enemy squad time to counter-attack.

Khorne Berzerkers, Genestealers and Terminators can still be deadly, but 10-man tacticals with a hidden PF are not as deadly by far.

Avatar 720 wrote:

the un-removeable str. 8 swings being one of the chief complaints about Instant Death and the vulnerability of ICs and such.

"Independant Characters may only be attacked by other Independant Characters in Close Combat, as long as the squad the character is joined to has 3 or more members left alive - Any fewer than 2, and we assume that the attackers simply overrun the defenders; however, if the number of attacking models is equal to or less than the number of defending models (even if only 2 or fewer remain) not including the character, we assume that the remaining members can reliably slow or halt the advance of the meagre enemy upon the character.

Walkers and Monsterous Creatures count as 3 models for the purposes of deciding whether they can strike an Independant Character in a unit."

How would that be? Two 10-man squads facing off would have to chew through 8 models to get a swing at the opposing character, which is a feat that only dedicated close combat units and strong weapons can reliably accomplish before they can be whittled down themselves.

It means that whilst powerfists can kill 2-3 enemies per combat phase, they have to wait for the next combat round to take advntage of it, giving the enemy squad time to counter-attack.

Khorne Berzerkers, Genestealers and Terminators can still be deadly, but 10-man tacticals with a hidden PF are not as deadly by far.

I'm not making the claim that hidden powerfists inside of 10 man units make them into unstoppable melee meat grinders. Of course genestealers, berzerkers, and terminators are effective units, I'm not trying to claim otherwise.

However, for the points invested I personally feel that hidden powerfist offer too much melee ability to a squad so far as it's ability to deal with MCs Walkers, and ICs, and ICs in particular due to many of them being vulnerable to being removed by a single str 8 powerfist punch. Powerfists should be able to do this, however I feel that because of the rules and how they presently work, they do it with little to no risk due to unit leaders being untargetable. It should be a risk that you take, swing at Int. order with your power weapon at str. 4, or take your lumps and, if you survive, get to hit really big with str. 8. Powerfists were high-risk, high-reward in the past, and I think it's wrong that the risk has been removed from the equation.

Also, as far as I can tell from the Independent Characters section, ICs are separate, target-able units while they are in combat.

Avatar 720 wrote:

the un-removeable str. 8 swings being one of the chief complaints about Instant Death and the vulnerability of ICs and such.

"Independant Characters may only be attacked by other Independant Characters in Close Combat, as long as the squad the character is joined to has 3 or more members left alive - Any fewer than 2, and we assume that the attackers simply overrun the defenders; however, if the number of attacking models is equal to or less than the number of defending models (even if only 2 or fewer remain) not including the character, we assume that the remaining members can reliably slow or halt the advance of the meagre enemy upon the character.

Walkers and Monsterous Creatures count as 3 models for the purposes of deciding whether they can strike an Independant Character in a unit."

Did I miss something? Where did this come from?

Panzerboy26 wrote:
However, for the points invested I personally feel that hidden powerfist offer too much melee ability to a squad so far as it's ability to deal with MCs Walkers, and ICs, and ICs in particular due to many of them being vulnerable to being removed by a single str 8 powerfist punch. Powerfists should be able to do this, however I feel that because of the rules and how they presently work, they do it with little to no risk due to unit leaders being untargetable. It should be a risk that you take, swing at Int. order with your power weapon at str. 4, or take your lumps and, if you survive, get to hit really big with str. 8. Powerfists were high-risk, high-reward in the past, and I think it's wrong that the risk has been removed from the equation.

You do realize that you pay through your nose for a fist though, right? You get one less attack and it's around 15 points more expensive than a power weapon. Templars still get "cheap" power fists, as in 5 points more than a PW, but since we don't have sergeants we're paying for one power fist attack per turn. Besides, versus dedicated CC units having one guy strike last can make a lot of difference if by having a power weapon you'd strike before the enemy.

Panzerboy26 wrote:

Avatar 720 wrote:

the un-removeable str. 8 swings being one of the chief complaints about Instant Death and the vulnerability of ICs and such.

"Independant Characters may only be attacked by other Independant Characters in Close Combat, as long as the squad the character is joined to has 3 or more members left alive - Any fewer than 2, and we assume that the attackers simply overrun the defenders; however, if the number of attacking models is equal to or less than the number of defending models (even if only 2 or fewer remain) not including the character, we assume that the remaining members can reliably slow or halt the advance of the meagre enemy upon the character.

Walkers and Monsterous Creatures count as 3 models for the purposes of deciding whether they can strike an Independant Character in a unit."

How would that be? Two 10-man squads facing off would have to chew through 8 models to get a swing at the opposing character, which is a feat that only dedicated close combat units and strong weapons can reliably accomplish before they can be whittled down themselves.

It means that whilst powerfists can kill 2-3 enemies per combat phase, they have to wait for the next combat round to take advntage of it, giving the enemy squad time to counter-attack.

Khorne Berzerkers, Genestealers and Terminators can still be deadly, but 10-man tacticals with a hidden PF are not as deadly by far.

I'm not making the claim that hidden powerfists inside of 10 man units make them into unstoppable melee meat grinders. Of course genestealers, berzerkers, and terminators are effective units, I'm not trying to claim otherwise.

However, for the points invested I personally feel that hidden powerfist offer too much melee ability to a squad so far as it's ability to deal with MCs Walkers, and ICs, and ICs in particular due to many of them being vulnerable to being removed by a single str 8 powerfist punch. Powerfists should be able to do this, however I feel that because of the rules and how they presently work, they do it with little to no risk due to unit leaders being untargetable. It should be a risk that you take, swing at Int. order with your power weapon at str. 4, or take your lumps and, if you survive, get to hit really big with str. 8. Powerfists were high-risk, high-reward in the past, and I think it's wrong that the risk has been removed from the equation.

Also, as far as I can tell from the Independent Characters section, ICs are separate, target-able units while they are in combat.

You missed the point of my post, it was a suggestion to make ICs less vulnerable in combat (this is the proposed rules forum, and I did put "How would that be?" as the opening part of the sentence afterwards).

deathholydeath wrote:

Avatar 720 wrote:

the un-removeable str. 8 swings being one of the chief complaints about Instant Death and the vulnerability of ICs and such.

See above quote.

Did I miss something? Where did this come from?

Yes you did, you missed the "How would that be?" bit just after the quote you posted. It came from my brain as it proposed a rule in the Proposed Rules forum.

I'm sorry it didn't have "PROPOSED RULE!" duct taped to it, but I assumed that the question I posed right after the rule would be enough of an indicator.

Panzerboy26 wrote:
The simple turth is that Thunder Hammers and Power Fists HAVE no downside. That is the issue. There is zero reason that a power weapons is better than a Power Fist. At all. Generally models with power weapons are either ICs or models that couldn't otherwise be equipped with something else that ignores saves. Power Fists and Thunder Hammers are the best weapons available because the people equipped with them can magically be the last ones allocated any wounds.

Grey Knights, Blood Angels, Tyranid Warriors, and, to a lesser extent, Eldar (well, banshees) all beg to differ. All of these things have a much better time of killing stuff before it gets to hit back. When I'm playing my GK, I laugh at squads with powerfists. Power fists are also more expensive than power weapons.

As far as the OP goes, marines that take krak missiles to the face are dead. That's just how it works. If anything, getting shot should be more deadly, and EW should be removed.

Also, master of ordinance, while I get that you're clearly strongly opinionated about the topic, that's probably uncalled for.

Avatar 720 wrote:

Yes you did, you missed the "How would that be?" bit just after the quote you posted. It came from my brain as it proposed a rule in the Proposed Rules forum.

I'm sorry it didn't have "PROPOSED RULE!" duct taped to it, but I assumed that the question I posed right after the rule would be enough of an indicator.

"How would that be?" sounded more like a rhetorical question aimed at panzerboy referencing what you put quotation marks around (As in, how would that be given that X is the case.)
Generally, using quotation marks means you are quoting something. There's no need to get snappy, I just read the statement a different way.

daedalus wrote:Grey Knights, Blood Angels, Tyranid Warriors, and, to a lesser extent, Eldar (well, banshees) all beg to differ. All of these things have a much better time of killing stuff before it gets to hit back. When I'm playing my GK, I laugh at squads with powerfists. Power fists are also more expensive than power weapons.

I don't think that is the issue. Let's take the mentioned banshees. When you kill 3 models the unit's strength reduces by some degree but it's ability to deal with walkers, IC and MC is still is close to previous one.
When you kill 3 tacticals you still have the same ability to bone most of the mentioned units.
Tyranid warriors can deal with those but they all can so their power reduces in a linear way. It's not all or nothing like with the power fist. And that "nothing" most of the time is what makes hidden power fists feel inadequate.

Hidden Powerfists?
How can you miss a space marine with a huge throbing hand.
Not hidden, you can see it perfectly...run away. simple

deathholydeath wrote:

Avatar 720 wrote:

Yes you did, you missed the "How would that be?" bit just after the quote you posted. It came from my brain as it proposed a rule in the Proposed Rules forum.

I'm sorry it didn't have "PROPOSED RULE!" duct taped to it, but I assumed that the question I posed right after the rule would be enough of an indicator.

"How would that be?" sounded more like a rhetorical question aimed at panzerboy referencing what you put quotation marks around (As in, how would that be given that X is the case.)
Generally, using quotation marks means you are quoting something. There's no need to get snappy, I just read the statement a different way.

Honestly, reading the sentence after the question would help too, since I also said "Two 10-man squads facing off would have to chew through 8 models to get a swing at the opposing character..."

Generally, 'would' refers to something that comes from a hypothetical situation when used in practice; if it was a rule that actually existed, the word 'would' would be omitted from the sentence in order to turn it from something hypothetical into something that is factual.

I was quoting something using the marks, I was quoting myself and the rule I was proposing, note the lack of any references to any codices or rulebook pages.

This, however, is becoming increasingly off-topic.

On the topic of ID and EW: keep them.

Yes, instant death may be a pain for the hidden powerfist and whatnot, but seriously, it's a simple tactics question.
Your HQ is a single unit worth a lot of points, but that's an investment.
Some HQ's are super tough monsters, and they can run off on their own. Others are less durable, and should be put with units. This is not only a normal occurrence on battlefields (name a commander who did not go into battle without a retinue of some sort), but also common sense. As well, here's the main question I must ask you.

This "unremovable str. 8 pf" is a model, in a nilla tac marine squad, that has cost you at least 43 points. 43 points for two-three I1 Str 8 hits. 2 is probably the more standard equivalent.
Against a normal T4 opponent, assuming no saves, and assuming a WS of 4 on both parties, that powerfist unit has an overall 41.6666% chance to cause a single wound. That is roughly one wound every 2.5 combats. Against WS 3 that rises to 55.555% but that's still one wound every 2 combats.
That's not an OP or underhanded thing. Especially given the I1. Yes, it may be a 10 wound powerfist, but at 2 dead per turn (counting all leadership rolls saved on the parts of the space marines), they would lose 4-5 men before that power-fist got a single wound. At an average of 17 points per marine lost, that's 85 points for one wound with a PF (68 against a ws3).
if you do send in your HQ in this situation, you are gambling. Will I break the squad, or will they break me? It is a simple tactical decision. If it is continuously a problem, then don't take the gamble, don't throw your hq into combat without assistance.

When it comes to ranged ID attacks, this is common sense. If you're worried about an expensive HQ getting killed, either keep him safe (cover or w/some form of retinue) or prepare to see him/her killed. There should never be a time when an HQ isn't threatened by powerful fire. If you're worried about it, develop tactics to deal with it, don't throw out the system.

Now, for EW. Yes, it's a pain. That being said, all it really does is give mostly marines an immunity from ID. However that doesn't suddenly make them ungodly. Name a marine unit with a toughness or initiative higher than 6. Even with eternal warrior, it is not hard to kill off a marine with EW. Arguably, they are much easier to kill than MCs that run in other armies (of which marines have none). And if you do a point-cost to benefit analysis, you will see that given their stats, they are roughly equivalent to the costs of MCs and other such HQs across the board.

If you don't like the rule, that's fine. Statistically, though, the ID and EW rules are not that unfounded. People may, overall, have a negative response to them, but it's not like they are mathematically unsound.
I like them because, as mentioned above, they let you focus on squad tactics. And because HQs shouldn't be superpowered beasts.

Anyway, that's my two cents

Avatar 720 wrote:
You missed the point of my post, it was a suggestion to make ICs less vulnerable in combat (this is the proposed rules forum, and I did put "How would that be?" as the opening part of the sentence afterwards).

I apologize for misinterpreting your post. Thank you for clarifying your intent.

That rule could go some way to shielding ICs from Hidden Power Fists, it is true. However, it would accomplish this by taking things further down the rabbit hole in that it simply allows ICs to hide as well, which is what I think we should try and get away from. I still think that everything being targetable by what it is engaged with is the way to go here.

AlmightyWalrus wrote:

You do realize that you pay through your nose for a fist though, right? You get one less attack and it's around 15 points more expensive than a power weapon. Templars still get "cheap" power fists, as in 5 points more than a PW, but since we don't have sergeants we're paying for one power fist attack per turn. Besides, versus dedicated CC units having one guy strike last can make a lot of difference if by having a power weapon you'd strike before the enemy.

Yes, I do realize that Power Fists are about 5 to 10 points more expensive than they used to be, and that they have been dinged by no longer being able to gain an extra attack via having a 2nd CCW or Pistol. This is, I believe, GW's acknowledgement that Powerfists were going to become powerful when the risk of them being killed before they swung was removed almost entirely. Currently, I do openly admit that hidden powerfists have little to no effect on squad vs squad melees, there's generally enough attacks and wounds flying around that it tends not to matter all that much. Where I object to the 'hidden powerfist' is in the case of Walkers, MCs, and most pertinent to this thread and it's topic of Instant Death, ICs. Power Fists are an order of magnitude more deadly against such units simply by virtue of being able to easily affect the first two, and in most cases turn the third into a pasty smear with a single hit. Walkers and MCs charging into a 10 Man Tactical Squad generally have to spend 2-3 turns worth of attacks (in general) to kill their way to the powerfist, all the while being punched by it. I really think the utility gained vs the three types of models is disproportionate for the points paid.

I mean really, yes they are more expensive, and yes they don't get many attacks, but I ask this: Does this stop players from taking them in their Tactical Squads? Not in the least from what I have seen. In fact it seems almost like a bargain.

daedalus wrote:
Grey Knights, Blood Angels, Tyranid Warriors, and, to a lesser extent, Eldar (well, banshees) all beg to differ. All of these things have a much better time of killing stuff before it gets to hit back. When I'm playing my GK, I laugh at squads with powerfists. Power fists are also more expensive than power weapons.

Well, firstly, Tyranids HAVE no equivalent to a Power fist or Thunderhammer to place on their Warriors. Also, they have no unit leaders upon which they could hide such things. So, the point about Warriors is doubly moot.

For Blood Angels, yes, in their jump-pack equipped Assault Squads being supported by Sang Priests, agreed, there is less incentive to take a Power Fist, as a Power Weapon becomes str 5 with 4 attacks while on the charge... and it is also a unit geared towards aggressive troop shredding. Power Fists gain less (but not nothing) by being included is such squads, and so for the points Power Weapons remain a viable alternative thanks tot he points saved. However, plain-jane Blood Angel Tactical Squads gain plenty from doing it, and I see Blood Angel players who field tactical squads (not many, admittedly), still rock out the Power fist on their Sergeants.

For Grey Knights? Well, they are simply another ball of wax all together. Their units are nothing like tactical squads, since every models has a power (force) weapon to begin with. They automatically have less reason to take power fists simply because they have Instant Death vs ICs, MCs, and mutli-wound models covered via their Force Weapons. Daemon hammers included are pretty much just for tank/dread killing.

First on PFs
Most competitive lists I see throughout these forums avoid PFs on tac squads, as meltas are more efficient at tank popping and infantry popping, overall.
Second, as was mentioned above, the tyranids have a different form of equivalence. Monstrous Creatures. No marine that I know of is more than toughness 4-5, nor strength 4-5. Really a strength of 6 is required to seriously threaten MCs (like a trygon, pour example).
Third, as people have been trying to tell you, if you see a pf and don't like it, send real cc to deal with it. A tac squad with pf will get destroyed by dedicated cc (not to mention that pretty pf only gets to hit every 2-2.5 turns!). If it is really an issue, then someone is making bad tactical decisions putting their units in harm's way like that, or, at least, should know the gamble. And really, that pf is going to take out only certain HQs anyway. Necron lords, nothing. ANy warboss, nothing. Daemon prince? nope. Hive tyrant? Nope.
It'll kill marine HQs, yes. And it will kill IG and Eldar HQs. And some dark eldar.
But the other HQs getting popped by these PFs are, in general, too tough to die from them. If they are capable of dying from them, they probably aren't meant to be 'rambo-ing' across the board taking out units left and right. Would you send cato sicarius across the board (or a libby, or a chaplain) by their lonseome to take out a tac squad w/hidden powerfist? hell no.
And for walkers the hidden powerfist is the only thing that can do anything, and it only has a chance to do something every 2-2.5 turns. A walker should end up winning that battle anyway.

Force weapons are up to debate, if you want. I mean, many people sling about the term "cheese" when regarding grey knights. On the whole, though FW are rather rare in other armies. In nilla rines, you only see them on libbys anyway (and with T4, that's still a tough order killing a T6 or higher). So they may be a little powerful, but normally they were rare (and in most armies ARE rare) enough to not pose a serious problem.

Hashbeth wrote:
Third, as people have been trying to tell you, if you see a pf and don't like it, send real cc to deal with it. A tac squad with pf will get destroyed by dedicated cc (not to mention that pretty pf only gets to hit every 2-2.5 turns!). If it is really an issue, then someone is making bad tactical decisions putting their units in harm's way like that, or, at least, should know the gamble. And really, that pf is going to take out only certain HQs anyway. Necron lords, nothing. ANy warboss, nothing. Daemon prince? nope. Hive tyrant? Nope.
It'll kill marine HQs, yes. And it will kill IG and Eldar HQs. And some dark eldar.

I gather what people have been trying to tell me. I personally have no trouble dealing with power-fists, mostly because I don't run Walkers or MCs, and my ICs are generally more for support than combat (Farseers, Eldrad, etc). These are the models that I feel suffer unduly against hidden power fists.

A Wraithlord can't really reasonably expect to charge into a unit of 10 Tact Marines and kill it before dying itself, because of that hidden power fist. I think that this is wrong. The same goes for a non-Blood Talon dreadnought, if it charges a 10 man unit with a power fist, it's likely going to stomp a few marines before being taken apart by that power fist. TMCs have a slightly better time of it due to a higher number of attacks and wounds, but in general they can't count on being able to trash a basic troop squad and coming out the other end relatively intact the way that more dedicated assault units can.

More on the instant death thing, I really think that plenty of ICs out there fear power fists, and rightly so, because they are capable of one-shotting them while being un-targetable in response. Again, Power Fists were once high-risk, high reward weapons, they are this no-longer. I feel that this is a mistake design-wise, as it lets basic troop squads of various marines threaten ICs with instant death and Walkers and MCs with very good answers for Armor values and high toughness. These are all very expensive models that have a hard enough time surviving the shooting phase, that the can be checked with so little effort in the assault phase I feel is a tad unfair.

Hashbeth wrote:
And really, that pf is going to take out only certain HQs anyway. Necron lords, nothing. ANy warboss, nothing. Daemon prince? nope. Hive tyrant? Nope.
It'll kill marine HQs, yes. And it will kill IG and Eldar HQs. And some dark eldar.
But the other HQs getting popped by these PFs are, in general, too tough to die from them. If they are capable of dying from them, they probably aren't meant to be 'rambo-ing' across the board taking out units left and right. Would you send cato sicarius across the board (or a libby, or a chaplain) by their lonseome to take out a tac squad w/hidden powerfist? hell no.

Powerfists threaten a sizable amount of the IC pool available to 40k players with Instan death. They include:

The vast majority of Marine, both Chaos and Loyalist, HQ selections, minus a few odds and ends like Lysander, Daemon Princes, Drago, Mephiston and the like. Remember, despite being a single bullet-point here, this is 7 Codices worth of HQ choices.
All of the Tau HQ choices.
All of the Imperial Guard HQ choices. (Not 100 percent sure, dunno if Medallion Crimson and stuff like are still around, haven't fought guard in ages)
Non-Phoenix Lord Eldar and Dark Eldar HQ choices.

And as far as 'Ramboing' across the table, they don't have to do that in order to get punched in the face with a Power Fist, as unless they have taken an actual Retinue (rare in my experience), they they are a separate unit for the purposes of targeting close combat attacks. So, even if they charge in with a unit, that power fist can still lay them out him right in the middle of the combat.

Hashbeth wrote:
Force weapons are up to debate, if you want. I mean, many people sling about the term "cheese" when regarding grey knights. On the whole, though FW are rather rare in other armies. In nilla rines, you only see them on libbys anyway (and with T4, that's still a tough order killing a T6 or higher). So they may be a little powerful, but normally they were rare (and in most armies ARE rare) enough to not pose a serious problem.

Force Weapons I have no problem with in general. The mechanic is solid. Now, whether giving them to every HQ, Elites, Troops, Fast Attack, and Heavy Support unit of an entire Army was a wise direction to take the game in or not? That's a different story altogether.

What I will say in response is, again, a T4 IC shouldn't really be going into single combat in the first place, imo.

As for a wraithlord, it's not so cut and dry. If only the marines only have the PF, then that wraithlord should beat the unit in close combat, anyway. Assuming 2 losses per turn, the marines are just as likely to be beaten in close combat and retreat than kill the Wraithlord. At T8, 3W, the wraithlord should, in most cases, outperform the entire tac squad if it charges. In fact, it should outperform the tac squad enough to make it retreat, as it should be twice as successful as the tac squad. For every 3 wounds (i.e. a dead wraithlord) there should be 6 dead in the tac squad. That's 102 points (assuming no charge and the tac squad doesn't break) which isn't an unreasonable point exchange for the wraithlord (that's not counting the WL shooting phase before attacking). So yeah, that seems pretty balanced to me. And if its not as cc oriented, it should be shooting them to death anyway, instead of charging in.

Against an AV12 target w/ws4, that power fist will only successfully glance or pen 25% of the time (that's 4 turns).
Against a dreadnought, it will get 4 kills before a single glance/pen. In fact, it has a 5.5% chance to pen and destroy that dreadnought (up to roughly 10% if you get the stun first). That's 1 kill every 10 turns. The dread should kill 1 marine per turn. By the final turn, that's either only one marine left (153 points, almost 50 points more than the dread) or all marines gone. How is this unfair?
In fact, it shows that the hidden pf really only prevents a lone t4 hq from charging in.

Statistically, I don't see a problem.

Just wanted to say that assuming 2 kills per round is a lot from 2A model that has to hit, wound and not be bogged by wraithright.
Besides, the whole point of this thread is that even after those incredible lucky 2 kills per round TEQ squad has *exactly* the same ability to deal with another wraithlord or walker and IC and there is almost nothing to counter that. Other than wiping out the whole squad..

I feel like double strength against toughness is a good way to go. Otherwise it just wouldn't make sense. And I feel like eternal warrior is spread around enough to make it useful, but not abuse it. Maybe there should be an instant death rule that can apply to certain weapons? I don't know.

I think the best solution is in one of the rumors for 6th edition, where an independent character can choose to direct attacks at each model it's in base to base contact with. It makes you think twice before using that "hidden" powerfist you have.

I love it, if my opponents Farseer keeps Dooming my Terminators, ill blast him with a Lascannon, he then has a 50/50 chance to save him, or he dies .... forever .... poof

@macok
For that issue on the wraithlord, it is an abstraction dealing with toughness (as a pf has a 50% chance to wound a wraithlord assuming a hit, and a wraithlord has an 83.33% chance to kill a marine on hit. So I abstracted that to two attacks to 1 (statistically its essentially the same, though the wording and scenario may not be 100% accurate, which is mea culpa)

In that case, again that one wriathlord has wiped out 6 marines to the 1 wraithlord. In a tac squad, that's a 102 points (assuming all the wraithlord has done is run into the squads. That's not too bad a trade, overall.

Again, double strength does not seem overpowered, and mathematically it balances to points pretty well. Even in cases of hidden pks/pfs.
The idea that an IC can hit units in base contact with it is cool, but even so, the rule's not overpowered.

Maybe just make it so that "Inflicts Instant Death" is part of the weapon's profile, instead of just having a universal "<2*S = ID" rule?

It makes sense that an ordnance large blast vaporizes things that are underneath it, but I feel like a power fist wouldn't necessarily outright kill everything that it touched.

I also agree that Eternal Warrior is maybe a little bit too prolific.

Also Feel no Pain is a bit prolific as well. but not on topic

Instant death rule is fine, EW isn't in my opinion.

I think if an IC is in a squad the attacks dealt to the IC can be placed on any model in the squad provided they pass a leadership/initiative check.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Sorry, EW might even be fine too, but not on huge 250+ point beefcake characters that take 3 rounds of dedicated shooting/cc to kill unless YOU yourself have a 250+ point beefcake.

Mephiston, Draigo, Ghazkgul, logan, abbadon ALL DIAF!

I hate that you can have 250 neverdies, and yet at the other end of the scale a 145 ranged character HAS to go and CC if you want the squad to CC.