Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
I don't want units that are impacted by this mechanic to be unable to participate in the game mind you. Preventing a unit from moving or attacking for a turn is just too much of a death sentence and too harsh of a penalty in 40k. But keeping a given unit from controlling an objective or spiking their damage using stratagems or command-based buffs seems appropriate. Maybe imposing some sort of to-hit penalty to represent the lack of coordination among the affected unit. Or perhaps preventing the impacted unit from targeting/charging units other than the closest unit. Etc.

Something to disrupt the opponent's gameplan without just being another way of removing models.

Given modern 40K's focus on objectives, I think it'd be interesting if morale could force short fall-back moves. Not units panicking and routing off the table until rallied, just being driven back from an untenable position by fire. That provides a tangible gameplay consequence, without neutering the unit entirely or solely affecting their ability to produce damage.

I suppose the best answer I can come up with on the fly would be to have different categories for the units from the bottom of "Cultists" to the top of "Hive Mind" and Battle Shock is modified by your unit classification. More bad things happen the lower down you are.

I also want the penalty to last longer than the end of your turn to the start of theirs.

And I want it to be a viable "build". Whether its Dark Angels, or Night Lords, or whichever Nid fleet etc. I want the battle shock to make it easier for the armies that build into it (and thus probably take less optimized units) to clear out models in combat too.

 Jidmah wrote:
Complaining about this very much feels like artificial outrage for the sole purpose of being angry at GW as a hobby.

It was something that was present when the Tournament Guideline of 2/3/4 was introduced, and it was present when codified into the structure of 9th edition.

Removing one or two lines so as not to give the guidance for scaling the game up from 2k to larger fields of battle seems a pointless thing to have cut from the game.

 vipoid wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Heresyhead here. Tactical Statuses (Stati?) are hella cool.

There are different flavours. They share universal downsides, and each offers a unique impact.

Crucially? They’re inflicted as a weapon trait. Some need the old unsaved wound. Others just need to hit to force the test. They also stack, so you can, if you want, utterly muller a given unit, and reduce it to the combat potency of a kindergarten during nap time when everyone’s got a poorly tummy.

They’re impactful in the game. Slap one on an enemy Combat Monster squad? And it’s suddenly struggling, striking last and forced into Disordered Charges. Oh, and a Statused’d unit can’t control objectives either.

They add an extra level of subtlety when arming your forces. Raw firepower is no longer your sole metric. Sure, you still want your Delete Button weapons. But it’s really widened your options.

Flame Weapons are particularly tasty, as they have Panic (X), where a single unsaved wound can see the enemy unit turn tail and run.

Not a tabletop game but Age of Wonders: Planetfall has some great examples of this if you're looking for inspiration.

Only thing I'd say is that, with no computer to keep track of status effects, it's probably best to keep things as simple as possible (e.g. not have too many effects or limit how many status effects can affect a given unit at any one time), so that you don't end up trying to keep track of 20 different status counters on each unit. .

That’s what the tokens are for. Also, Routed overrules all the others. So the most you’ll have on a unit is 3 at a given time. Whats also nice is you roll to recover from each one separately. So piling them on can pay dividends.

catbarf wrote:
Given modern 40K's focus on objectives, I think it'd be interesting if morale could force short fall-back moves. Not units panicking and routing off the table until rallied, just being driven back from an untenable position by fire. That provides a tangible gameplay consequence, without neutering the unit entirely or solely affecting their ability to produce damage.

I like the general concept, but I worry that it might be hard to implement. Forcing a squad of dark reapers or devastators to back up doesn't really impact them at all unless it also forces them to move out of line of sight of whatever they wanted to shoot at. But forcing a footslogging melee unit to back up like that could keep them from dealing damage for an extra 20% of the game. I'd be open to seeing a pitch though.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Heresyhead here. Tactical Statuses (Stati?) are hella cool.

There are different flavours. They share universal downsides, and each offers a unique impact.

Crucially? They’re inflicted as a weapon trait. Some need the old unsaved wound. Others just need to hit to force the test. They also stack, so you can, if you want, utterly muller a given unit, and reduce it to the combat potency of a kindergarten during nap time when everyone’s got a poorly tummy.

They’re impactful in the game. Slap one on an enemy Combat Monster squad? And it’s suddenly struggling, striking last and forced into Disordered Charges. Oh, and a Statused’d unit can’t control objectives either.

They add an extra level of subtlety when arming your forces. Raw firepower is no longer your sole metric. Sure, you still want your Delete Button weapons. But it’s really widened your options.

Flame Weapons are particularly tasty, as they have Panic (X), where a single unsaved wound can see the enemy unit turn tail and run.

Not a tabletop game but Age of Wonders: Planetfall has some great examples of this if you're looking for inspiration.

Only thing I'd say is that, with no computer to keep track of status effects, it's probably best to keep things as simple as possible (e.g. not have too many effects or limit how many status effects can affect a given unit at any one time), so that you don't end up trying to keep track of 20 different status counters on each unit. .

That’s what the tokens are for. Also, Routed overrules all the others. So the most you’ll have on a unit is 3 at a given time. Whats also nice is you roll to recover from each one separately. So piling them on can pay dividends.

I went and grabbed the warcom article so I could brush up on how these work: https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articles/ainqvvwt/rules-in-the-age-of-darkness-what-are-tactical-statuses/
They sound like decent, discrete debuff effects, but I do find the idea of tracking them a little daunting. If I have to carry around an extra baggy of tokens to track this sort of thing on top of my usual effects (pain tokens, battle focus, etc.), then that feels slightly intimidating. If only because it means I have to go to the trouble of buying or making extra tokens to support it.

But that said, you could argue that we sorta kinda have a version of all those effects and then some in 10th edition. We don't have a no-movement-allowed rule, but we have various effects that inflict "pinning" (usually -2 to move, advance, and charge). We have various to-hit penalty effects. We have various things that prevent strats from being used (Ex: current battleshock), which sounds sorta comparable to Stunned. So if we're basically just turning a lot of existing 10th edition effects into a handful of USRs, that's probably not so bad.

Routed still worries me, but maybe that's just because I played too many editions where having a squad of ork boyz (or whatever) spend the turn running in the wrong direction could effectively prevent them from participating in the fight at all.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

catbarf wrote:
Given modern 40K's focus on objectives, I think it'd be interesting if morale could force short fall-back moves. Not units panicking and routing off the table until rallied, just being driven back from an untenable position by fire. That provides a tangible gameplay consequence, without neutering the unit entirely or solely affecting their ability to produce damage.

I like the general concept, but I worry that it might be hard to implement. Forcing a squad of dark reapers or devastators to back up doesn't really impact them at all

It costs them the HEAVY bonus on their 4+ to hit big guns.

Breton wrote:
I suppose the best answer I can come up with on the fly would be to have different categories for the units from the bottom of "Cultists" to the top of "Hive Mind" and Battle Shock is modified by your unit classification. More bad things happen the lower down you are.

I also want the penalty to last longer than the end of your turn to the start of theirs.

And I want it to be a viable "build". Whether its Dark Angels, or Night Lords, or whichever Nid fleet etc. I want the battle shock to make it easier for the armies that build into it (and thus probably take less optimized units) to clear out models in combat too.

The problem is that it just introduces another penalty for poor armies and by comparison a buff for elite ie marines.

Unless guard and Orks actually need a nerf like this it's just unbalancing the factions and making some even less fun to play.

Breton wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:

catbarf wrote:
Given modern 40K's focus on objectives, I think it'd be interesting if morale could force short fall-back moves. Not units panicking and routing off the table until rallied, just being driven back from an untenable position by fire. That provides a tangible gameplay consequence, without neutering the unit entirely or solely affecting their ability to produce damage.

I like the general concept, but I worry that it might be hard to implement. Forcing a squad of dark reapers or devastators to back up doesn't really impact them at all

It costs them the HEAVY bonus on their 4+ to hit big guns.

Aye, that's what I was thinking when I read that too - you might need to tweak how HEAVY works to cover that, but if you're adding these sort of effects into the game you're talking a new edition anyway.

I would have still preferred it to act like pinning in Bolt Action, but 10th ed's version of morale is still MUCH better than 8th or 9th ed's version of morale where it was just another way to inflict damage.
Being able to neutralize a target without killing it is a good thing. And it's still not as dangerous as BA's pinning; a battleshocked unit can still fight and move, it just can't control objectives. Unless they changed it again and the 10th rules I've been reading are already completely obsolete.

 Dysartes wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
Complaining about this very much feels like artificial outrage for the sole purpose of being angry at GW as a hobby.

It was something that was present when the Tournament Guideline of 2/3/4 was introduced, and it was present when codified into the structure of 9th edition.

Removing one or two lines so as not to give the guidance for scaling the game up from 2k to larger fields of battle seems a pointless thing to have cut from the game.

The rule of 2 was a rather recent addition.

The difference between Incursion and onslaught is that incursion events, leagues and tournaments are fairly common, while onslaught is rarely played against strangers outside of crusades. All game nights run at the GW stores near me play a 1k points due to time constraints.

There was a rather common feedback that tripple of glass cannon or durable units were unfun to play against in such games, hence the reaction from GW. There really is no need to introduce a rule of 4 for onslaught to cater to the few people with deep enough collections to care, just to open up another pay to win arms race.

 Hellebore wrote:

Breton wrote:
I suppose the best answer I can come up with on the fly would be to have different categories for the units from the bottom of "Cultists" to the top of "Hive Mind" and Battle Shock is modified by your unit classification. More bad things happen the lower down you are.

I also want the penalty to last longer than the end of your turn to the start of theirs.

And I want it to be a viable "build". Whether its Dark Angels, or Night Lords, or whichever Nid fleet etc. I want the battle shock to make it easier for the armies that build into it (and thus probably take less optimized units) to clear out models in combat too.

The problem is that it just introduces another penalty for poor armies and by comparison a buff for elite ie marines.

Unless guard and Orks actually need a nerf like this it's just unbalancing the factions and making some even less fun to play.

All 2,000 points armies are still 2,000 points. Having Battle Shock being a playable build strategy doesn't really hamper the "horde" armies like you think. You won't be able to Battleshock as many high model count armies as you can the lower model count ones because you won't get more gimmicks if your opponent has more models and units. The only armies that would be more or less unaffected or affected "negatively" for someone playing Battle Shock would be Nids (Synapse) Guard Armored Company and Daemons (who can heal by passing a check).

Breton wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:

Breton wrote:
I suppose the best answer I can come up with on the fly would be to have different categories for the units from the bottom of "Cultists" to the top of "Hive Mind" and Battle Shock is modified by your unit classification. More bad things happen the lower down you are.

I also want the penalty to last longer than the end of your turn to the start of theirs.

And I want it to be a viable "build". Whether its Dark Angels, or Night Lords, or whichever Nid fleet etc. I want the battle shock to make it easier for the armies that build into it (and thus probably take less optimized units) to clear out models in combat too.

The problem is that it just introduces another penalty for poor armies and by comparison a buff for elite ie marines.

Unless guard and Orks actually need a nerf like this it's just unbalancing the factions and making some even less fun to play.

All 2,000 points armies are still 2,000 points. Having Battle Shock being a playable build strategy doesn't really hamper the "horde" armies like you think. You won't be able to Battleshock as many high model count armies as you can the lower model count ones because you won't get more gimmicks if your opponent has more models and units. The only armies that would be more or less unaffected or affected "negatively" for someone playing Battle Shock would be Nids (Synapse) Guard Armored Company and Daemons (who can heal by passing a check).

I don't think Hellebore was saying "Battleshock shouldn't be viable."
I think they were saying that giving extra penalties to some units would be bad.

Giving extra penalties to some units and bonuses to others is a design lever, and only a problem if you assume that any such changes to rules would not also be accompanied by changes to points costs or other characteristics, which is unreasonable.

 catbarf wrote:
Giving extra penalties to some units and bonuses to others is a design lever, and only a problem if you assume that any such changes to rules would not also be accompanied by changes to points costs or other characteristics, which is unreasonable.

I agree... But I'm not sure I'd trust GW and their Marine favoritism to do it well.

I could easily see them giving Orks, for example, all kinds of morale penalties, even if it wouldn't make tons of sense or be all that fun/balanced.

With the release of HH 3.0, it's abundantly clear that Battle Shock is just an incredibly poor man's version of the the AoD status system. Or I guess that the status system is a version of the Battle Shock system that wasn't designed by lobotomized chimps.

Six of one, half dozen of the other I guess.

It is technically a little harder to track.. But 40k advertises itself as a wargame, and already has so vanishingly few things to actually track (because it's actually a hyper-expensive pay-to-win boardgame) that I don't feel that's much of an argument against it. Worst case scenario you show up with a little plastic baggy of eight bases you wrote half a word on in magic marker, or even just bring a piece of paper and a pen to tear of chits, and you're eliminated all hte burden of knowledge.

I will admit that Panic is incredibly powerful, and would probably 'break' 40k due to the games broadly being much smaller these days in terms of units and such. It's probably too strong in 30k too given the designers went out of their way to give everyone plenty of ways to pre-clear statuses) before your turn starts, and also made sure everyone is more resilient to Panic than the other statuses. But that's also fairly easy to fix as it's just a balance lever, rather than the gaping gangrenous wounds of 'design choices' 40k has been stuck with for over half a decade now.

 Jidmah wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
Complaining about this very much feels like artificial outrage for the sole purpose of being angry at GW as a hobby.

It was something that was present when the Tournament Guideline of 2/3/4 was introduced, and it was present when codified into the structure of 9th edition.

Removing one or two lines so as not to give the guidance for scaling the game up from 2k to larger fields of battle seems a pointless thing to have cut from the game.

The rule of 2 was a rather recent addition.

The difference between Incursion and onslaught is that incursion events, leagues and tournaments are fairly common, while onslaught is rarely played against strangers outside of crusades. All game nights run at the GW stores near me play a 1k points due to time constraints.

There was a rather common feedback that tripple of glass cannon or durable units were unfun to play against in such games, hence the reaction from GW. There really is no need to introduce a rule of 4 for onslaught to cater to the few people with deep enough collections to care, just to open up another pay to win arms race.

Go back and check your material, Jid - it was initially the "Tournament Guideline of 2/3/4" because it scaled - 2 at 1k, 3 at 2k, 4 at 3k, with a note about adding an additional 1 per 1k points. That's how it was written in the tournament guidelines for 8th, and the main rulebook for 9th (I think - not getting out of bed to go find the book after midnight).

Not sure why you seem to think removing the content is a good move, but the rule of 2 was there ever since this sticking plaster was applied to the otherwise barely-structured army builds of the time.

 JNAProductions wrote:

Breton wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:

Breton wrote:
I suppose the best answer I can come up with on the fly would be to have different categories for the units from the bottom of "Cultists" to the top of "Hive Mind" and Battle Shock is modified by your unit classification. More bad things happen the lower down you are.

I also want the penalty to last longer than the end of your turn to the start of theirs.

And I want it to be a viable "build". Whether its Dark Angels, or Night Lords, or whichever Nid fleet etc. I want the battle shock to make it easier for the armies that build into it (and thus probably take less optimized units) to clear out models in combat too.

The problem is that it just introduces another penalty for poor armies and by comparison a buff for elite ie marines.

Unless guard and Orks actually need a nerf like this it's just unbalancing the factions and making some even less fun to play.

All 2,000 points armies are still 2,000 points. Having Battle Shock being a playable build strategy doesn't really hamper the "horde" armies like you think. You won't be able to Battleshock as many high model count armies as you can the lower model count ones because you won't get more gimmicks if your opponent has more models and units. The only armies that would be more or less unaffected or affected "negatively" for someone playing Battle Shock would be Nids (Synapse) Guard Armored Company and Daemons (who can heal by passing a check).

I don't think Hellebore was saying "Battleshock shouldn't be viable."
I think they were saying that giving extra penalties to some units would be bad.

I think they were saying "Waah! Marines." without giving it any thought at all: to which I provided the thought required. Allowing the Nightlords, Dark Angels, Bela'Kor, Howling Banshees, Incubi, Deathleapers to play the Battle Shock "phase" doesn't inherently punish Guard, Orks, Little Bugs and so on. They have so many units they're naturally resistant to the Battleshock game because of the rule of three plus the nature of limited gimmick application no matter the gimmick. 1 Unit of Grots is more susceptible to Battle Shock from 1 Unit of Reivers, but that's not X Points vs X Points.

Breton wrote:
And I want it to be a viable "build". Whether its Dark Angels, or Night Lords, or whichever Nid fleet etc. I want the battle shock to make it easier for the armies that build into it (and thus probably take less optimized units) to clear out models in combat too.

This isn't what was being objected to, if I'm reading it right.

Breton wrote:
I suppose the best answer I can come up with on the fly would be to have different categories for the units from the bottom of "Cultists" to the top of "Hive Mind" and Battle Shock is modified by your unit classification. More bad things happen the lower down you are.

This is.

 morganfreeman wrote:
broadly being much smaller these days in terms of units and such.

I wouldn't say that. 2000 Points can make (almost/sort of depending on characters/leaders) an entire Battle Company. Some recent past editions you couldn't but you could still come close. In second edition, 2,000 points got you ~ four squads. A Tactical, an Assault, a Devastator and a Terminator Maybe a Scout. The game has gotten much larger on the model count, and much smaller on the book keeping.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JNAProductions wrote:

Breton wrote:
And I want it to be a viable "build". Whether its Dark Angels, or Night Lords, or whichever Nid fleet etc. I want the battle shock to make it easier for the armies that build into it (and thus probably take less optimized units) to clear out models in combat too.

This isn't what was being objected to, if I'm reading it right.

Breton wrote:
I suppose the best answer I can come up with on the fly would be to have different categories for the units from the bottom of "Cultists" to the top of "Hive Mind" and Battle Shock is modified by your unit classification. More bad things happen the lower down you are.

This is.

And my point is it still only happens to one-ish unit at a time. And its already got the baseline in there. Synapse already all but auto-passes Battle Shock. Gretchen should fare worse when battleshocked than Orks. Cultists worse than Legionaries than Terminators than Abadon led Terminators.

Breton wrote:
I suppose the best answer I can come up with on the fly would be to have different categories for the units from the bottom of "Cultists" to the top of "Hive Mind" and Battle Shock is modified by your unit classification. More bad things happen the lower down you are.

I don't think I agree with this concept. I'm not sure I want to memorize a bunch of different versions of "battle shocked" for various unit types. Especially if the basic premise of battleshock is that it's just a disruption to the combat effectiveness of a unit. I'm not going to dig my heels in on battleshock just being something like a chance at failing to score, use strats, etc., but I do think it's a pretty simple and universal set of penalties that conveys the general idea of a unit struggling to perform complex actions/tactics due to being thrown off their game.

As always, I'm open to hearing specific pitches though.

I also want the penalty to last longer than the end of your turn to the start of theirs.

And I want it to be a viable "build". Whether its Dark Angels, or Night Lords, or whichever Nid fleet etc. I want the battle shock to make it easier for the armies that build into it (and thus probably take less optimized units) to clear out models in combat too.

Agree with both of these points.

For armies that lean into battle shock (night lords, etc.), I think the easiest way to approach this is to just give them abilities that work in general and then work *better* when the target is battleshocked. Plus a few abilities to help spread around battleshock. That way, you can keep battleshock/morale itself relatively simple and streamlined, but then give flavorful add-ons to the rule for armies who want to lean into it.

So off the top of my head, maybe Night Lords get some generic offense bonus on the charge because "ambush" or whatever, let's say +1 Attacks in melee, but then they get +2 Attacks in melee instead if they're attacking a battle-shocked target.

Or for a more defensive/utility rule, maybe battle shocked units can only target Night Lords units with ranged attacks if they're the closest elligible unit because the NL have the squad twitchy and nervous. Etc. Basically, take the fluffy ideas for battle shock that would be game breaking/annoying if they were the default version of the rule, and make those abilities add-ons that armies who build into battle-shock can inflict on targets.

Breton, you say it only happens to one unit at a time.
Have you faced an army that actually tries battleshocking things as best they can? Because it’s gonna hit a lot more than one unit at a time.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Breton, you say it only happens to one unit at a time.
Have you faced an army that actually tries battleshocking things as best they can? Because it’s gonna hit a lot more than one unit at a time.

As someone who plays Chaos Knights, I find 'Battleshock as army mechanic' to be quite underwhelming.

 BorderCountess wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
Breton, you say it only happens to one unit at a time.
Have you faced an army that actually tries battleshocking things as best they can? Because it’s gonna hit a lot more than one unit at a time.

As someone who plays Chaos Knights, I find 'Battleshock as army mechanic' to be quite underwhelming.

Sure. But a large part of that is that Battleshock itself doesn’t do a ton.

When you can force a half dozen morale tests (with penalties) every single turn… you’re gonna see a lot more than one shocked unit.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Breton, you say it only happens to one unit at a time.
Have you faced an army that actually tries battleshocking things as best they can? Because it’s gonna hit a lot more than one unit at a time.

How does an army - limited by the rule of three if not even more strict limits like Epic Heroes and 1 Stratagem useage per turn - use all those gimmicks on more than a unit or two at a time?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Wyldhunt wrote:

Breton wrote:
I suppose the best answer I can come up with on the fly would be to have different categories for the units from the bottom of "Cultists" to the top of "Hive Mind" and Battle Shock is modified by your unit classification. More bad things happen the lower down you are.

I don't think I agree with this concept. I'm not sure I want to memorize a bunch of different versions of "battle shocked" for various unit types.

I don't know if its better more specific as a stat like Battleshock Level 1/2/3/4/whatever or just a generically applied chart based on Leadership stats. I mean the generic thing is probably faster and easier (If your LD is 5, this happens, if it's 6/7/8 this/this/this happens, etc) but it might cause some issues with units that should be braver but stupid resulting in a "lower" LD.

Breton wrote:

I think they were saying "Waah! Marines." without giving it any thought at all: to which I provided the thought required. Allowing the Nightlords, Dark Angels, Bela'Kor, Howling Banshees, Incubi, Deathleapers to play the Battle Shock "phase" doesn't inherently punish Guard, Orks, Little Bugs and so on. They have so many units they're naturally resistant to the Battleshock game because of the rule of three plus the nature of limited gimmick application no matter the gimmick. 1 Unit of Grots is more susceptible to Battle Shock from 1 Unit of Reivers, but that's not X Points vs X Points.

Your off the top of your head example explicitly put guard at the bottom of a list of negative effects and marines at the top. Changing the existing battleshock to penalise existing armies more than others just makes playing those armies less enjoyable for the sake of variety.

You can balance most rules with points, like T1 ld 10+ sv- guardsmen, doesn't mean you'll actually enjoy playing that army with those rules.

The selective effect of morale in 3-7th editions was one of the bigger issues with it, with the rules ultimately only being there as an additional penality for playing some specific armies and doing nothing for others.

At least the current battleshock has a relatively even effect across armies.

See, I still think morale/leadership being a reflection of "bravery" should generally be the exception; not the rule.

The vast majority of units in 40k (including entire factions) just don't really do fear/panic in the conventional sense. Instead, I see battle shock primarily being a representation of units having their coordination/communication/focus disrupted rather than a representation of whether or not they're peeing their pants. Considered in that light, I think a one-size-fits-all approach to battleshock works just fine.

("One-size-fits-all" here meaning a single general rule that applies to all battleshocked units rather than having to remember unique rules based on various categories.)

 Dysartes wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
Complaining about this very much feels like artificial outrage for the sole purpose of being angry at GW as a hobby.

It was something that was present when the Tournament Guideline of 2/3/4 was introduced, and it was present when codified into the structure of 9th edition.

Removing one or two lines so as not to give the guidance for scaling the game up from 2k to larger fields of battle seems a pointless thing to have cut from the game.

The rule of 2 was a rather recent addition.

The difference between Incursion and onslaught is that incursion events, leagues and tournaments are fairly common, while onslaught is rarely played against strangers outside of crusades. All game nights run at the GW stores near me play a 1k points due to time constraints.

There was a rather common feedback that tripple of glass cannon or durable units were unfun to play against in such games, hence the reaction from GW. There really is no need to introduce a rule of 4 for onslaught to cater to the few people with deep enough collections to care, just to open up another pay to win arms race.

Go back and check your material, Jid - it was initially the "Tournament Guideline of 2/3/4" because it scaled - 2 at 1k, 3 at 2k, 4 at 3k, with a note about adding an additional 1 per 1k points. That's how it was written in the tournament guidelines for 8th, and the main rulebook for 9th (I think - not getting out of bed to go find the book after midnight).

Not sure why you seem to think removing the content is a good move, but the rule of 2 was there ever since this sticking plaster was applied to the otherwise barely-structured army builds of the time.

Well, I'm speaking about 10th edition, the game which was released 2.5 years ago, has more than a hundred thousand games recorded by various data collection services and will most likely come to an end this summer. The rule of 2 only exists in the most recent mission pack for matched play, and does not apply to any game played with another mission pack. Crusade has a different rule of 3 that is also not related to game size.

None of the three matched play mission packs support onslaught. The only non-crusade mission available to onslaught players is "Only War" from the core rules.

So there are no onslaught tournament rules. Anyone who played a single game at 3k in the last two and a half years would have noticed.

TL;DR: Tournament guidelines only make sense for mission types that actually exist.

Breton wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
Breton, you say it only happens to one unit at a time.
Have you faced an army that actually tries battleshocking things as best they can? Because it’s gonna hit a lot more than one unit at a time.

How does an army - limited by the rule of three if not even more strict limits like Epic Heroes and 1 Stratagem useage per turn - use all those gimmicks on more than a unit or two at a time?

You do realize that there's a decent chunk of units that can inflict Battleshock (or at least tests) via shooting, charging, in an AoE, as a targeted ability...

Moreover, if you want a Battleshock build to be viable, you would absolutely have to be able to Shock a good chunk of units. Not everyone has a single 500 point unit to Battleshock.

 catbarf wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:
I don't want units that are impacted by this mechanic to be unable to participate in the game mind you. Preventing a unit from moving or attacking for a turn is just too much of a death sentence and too harsh of a penalty in 40k. But keeping a given unit from controlling an objective or spiking their damage using stratagems or command-based buffs seems appropriate. Maybe imposing some sort of to-hit penalty to represent the lack of coordination among the affected unit. Or perhaps preventing the impacted unit from targeting/charging units other than the closest unit. Etc.

Something to disrupt the opponent's gameplan without just being another way of removing models.

Given modern 40K's focus on objectives, I think it'd be interesting if morale could force short fall-back moves. Not units panicking and routing off the table until rallied, just being driven back from an untenable position by fire. That provides a tangible gameplay consequence, without neutering the unit entirely or solely affecting their ability to produce damage.

That's theoretically what removing their OC accomplishes without having to move as many models.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BorderCountess wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
Breton, you say it only happens to one unit at a time.
Have you faced an army that actually tries battleshocking things as best they can? Because it’s gonna hit a lot more than one unit at a time.

As someone who plays Chaos Knights, I find 'Battleshock as army mechanic' to be quite underwhelming.

I would agree, but that's heavily due to the way Battleshock currently works.

I think one of the challenges around Battleshock is that its much fluffier for scary things to do scary things than it is for them to bookkeep status effects. Night Lords aren't scary because they're got a slightly higher than normal number of skulls on their models. They're scary because they appear in your face and shred you to decorative ribbons. I think when you mix it in with some defensive effects it can add to the overall vibe, but its very easy to try and make psychological effects the focus, when it really needs to be a secondary effect.