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I was wondering as I was reviewing the rules what tactical benefit does the special rule for Space Marines "And they shall know no fear" as opposed to the much more straightforward Fearless special rule? From my review it seems to me that fearless fits the SM fluff much better than "And they Shall Know no Fear". The SM Rule would assume that Marines can and do fail morale checks after an assault. I ran a test case and a squad of Khorne Berserkers charged a stanbdard Tac Squad and they broke and ran after losing the combat and missing their leadership check. Seems very unSpace Marinelike to me. However it was pointed out in a Beast of War segment that They shall know no fear means that SM cannot be caught in a sweeping advance because they will always regroup. Cool but again why go through the effort of even giving them that ability if you can simply state that a SM is fearless and automatically passes morale checks. It seems to fit the fluff better and keeps things simple. Does anyone have any insights for me?

Thanks.

Fearless is a liability. (Fearless wounds, inability to leave CC until you are dead.)

ATSKNF and Combat Tactics give you all the benefits of not being Fearless (getting out of CC) and none of the negatives (getting swept by the winner).

Combat Tactics / ATSKNF are very much a precision tool.

If it helps, think of it this way. Marines don't 'run away', they tactically retreat. Afterall, staying in hand to hand with Khorne berserkers is a bad idea, but falling back out of CC and then shooting them is an excellent idea.

+10 to pretre. Probably the best way to put it.

Agree. What you really want now isnt fearless, but stubborn. I hope they change that back in 6th. Fearless was never supposed to be a bad thing, and the way they're writing the rules now stuff that would have been fearless in 4th is coming out stubborn. The main effect is to penalize units for being old, since berserkers or demons for instance arent likely to get the stubborn rule bc they never had it in the past, but newer units dont have that weight of the past on them and can be written any way the author wants. AF


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And to answer Stravos question back in the day GW was alot more cautious about who they gave fearless to, because morale checks were a bigger part of the game. ATSKNF was about as close as you could come to getting an all fearless army (with a few exceptions) so it was really good. It reflected a marine's superior morale and training compared to that of, say, guardsmen or orks. Now its different - they have ATSKNF because they always have. It makes them a little bit better from the mroale stand point.

It is great for trolling assault armies. THey do 2 or so casuelities on your tactical squad in the shooting phase? purposely fail your morale check and get out of assault range. It is funny when it happens.

Brother-Thunder wrote:It is great for trolling assault armies. THey do 2 or so casuelities on your tactical squad in the shooting phase? purposely fail your morale check and get out of assault range. It is funny when it happens.

I do not think that word thinks what you think it means.

pretre wrote:

Brother-Thunder wrote:It is great for trolling assault armies. THey do 2 or so casuelities on your tactical squad in the shooting phase? purposely fail your morale check and get out of assault range. It is funny when it happens.

I do not think that word thinks what you think it means.

Yes it does! It means that I get to deploy a free unit of river trolls on the field!

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?prodId=prod750003a&rootCatGameStyle=

ATKNF is a hundred times better, game-wise, than fearless and like ten times better than stubborn.

Fearless prevents you from getting pinned, but you get ground down in assault faster.

Stubborn conveys no advantage over ATSKNF other than not suffering fearless when caught in a sweeping advance.

Meanwhile ATSKNF gives you stubborn, except it also lets you voluntarily fail morale tests and automatically regroup. Morale becomes your bitch. Were I a marine player, I would find ways to abuse this rule every game I played.

Its basically a tactical retreat. Why its not called that I'll never know. Probably more of GW over complicating things.

Ailros:

Uh, you're not making much sense. And They Shall Know No Fear means that you can pass a Morale test and suffer no additional casualties, or fail a Morale test and either Fall Back or get caught in a Sweeping Advance and suffer No Retreat instead of being destroyed.

Stubborn conveys the advantage of never having your Leadership reduced during a Morale test, but the unit will still be wiped out if caught in a Sweeping Advance. The plus side being that it's easier to pass the Morale test, and hence sustain zero extra casualties.

Fearless means you automatically risk extra casualties from No Retreat if you lose a combat, but the unit won't ever run away, and is immune to pinning.

They each have their costs and benefits, although the benefits scale so that Stubborn benefits hordes of lightly armoured models, while Fearless benefits small units of heavily armoured models.

Ailaros wrote:ATKNF is a hundred times better, game-wise, than fearless and like ten times better than stubborn.

Fearless prevents you from getting pinned, but you get ground down in assault faster.

Stubborn conveys no advantage over ATSKNF other than not suffering fearless when caught in a sweeping advance.

Meanwhile ATSKNF gives you stubborn, except it also lets you voluntarily fail morale tests and automatically regroup. Morale becomes your bitch. Were I a marine player, I would find ways to abuse this rule every game I played.

If you have Marneus Calgar, Morale does what you want it to completely. Literally becoming your bitch.

Not that I advise him, he's way overpriced.

Anyone who's had a ATSKNF unit escorted off the board knows that it's not all that it's cracked up to be.

That's true. Something that people usually forget is that And They Shall Know No Fear only affects three things about Regrouping:

1. No Morale test to Regroup.
2. Regroup under 50%
3. Counts as stationary once Regrouped.

It does not allow you to Regroup if the unit is within 6" of the enemy or the unit has a model out of coherency. Too many people try to use Combat Tactics as a free ticket to leave combat when on average your models will move 7" and their models will move 4", and that's under the optimistic assumption that all of your models are closer to your home edge than the enemy models.

There's several ways of dealing with this problem, but they require forethought and tactics, which aren't populaar, so most people write Combat Tactics off.

Something else to consider about Fearless is that it removes a unit's flanks and rear. In 40k 5th edition, a non-vehicle unit's flanks and rear are defined by the unit's relation to its army's home board edge. Charging the flank and rear of a unit makes life difficult for it even if it does manage to Fall Back out of combat because they have to Fall Back through the position of the attacking unit.

Space Marines aren't the only units that can be hounded off the board.

CrazyMez wrote:Its basically a tactical retreat. Why its not called that I'll never know. Probably more of GW over complicating things.

'cause if you fail your moral check yer leggin' it like a little girly

And They Shall Know No Fear has a better ring to it than "Fearless But Not Stupid".

Space marines arent fearless because all space marines are just big old softies who like nothing more then to sit at base doing their nails and gossiping about the cute guy handing out bolters in the armoury

On a more serious not, space marines shouldnt be fearless anyway otherwise a large portion of the space marine army wouldnt be able to break CC and that could be irritating.

Harsh but fair...

Regardless of what the Space Marine's Rule, And they shall know no fear, says, Space Marines CAN know fear. That is why they are not fearless.

I feel ATSKNF and combat tactics is more useful for not getting into assaults in the first place more then getting out of it, i

Combat Tactics / ATSKNF are very much a precision tool.

Right.

Once, I faced a DE Raider spam with my vanilla shooty SM army (Termie heavy).
I used a 6 Termie unit as a bait. What happened was that a Wych unit in a Raider came along,
disembarked and killed 2 Termies via blasters.
My Termies decided to fall back.
The Wyches were then standing in front of my army. Hello Wyches.

Unreal Toast wrote:Space marines arent fearless because all space marines are just big old softies who like nothing more then to sit at base doing their nails and gossiping about the cute guy handing out bolters in the armoury

On a more serious not, space marines shouldnt be fearless anyway otherwise a large portion of the space marine army wouldnt be able to break CC and that could be irritating.

If thats marines, then what are eldar, with their skintight spandex superhero costumes??

ATSKNF is funny when it works.


it is best used in the shooting phase. you fall back so he can't assault you and 9/10 of the time he is in the open waiting to get his face shot off.


even if he is escorting you off the board you can still shoot while running and that might make him break.

Nurglitch wrote:And They Shall Know No Fear has a better ring to it than "Fearless But Not Stupid".

The Templars need to get their heads bashed in with the Codex Astartes!

kenshin620 wrote:

Nurglitch wrote:And They Shall Know No Fear has a better ring to it than "Fearless But Not Stupid".

The Templars need to get their heads bashed in with the Codex Astartes!

This was exactly my first thought. Fearless but not stupid.
Smart Marines know they they should retreat.

As your original post seemed to be more about fluff than gameplay I would say its because Space Marines can have fear...especially from a unit such as Khorne Berserkers like you mentioned. Space Marines have run away in "tactical withdrawals" as they later call them. Which is not awful as it means they might live to fight another day.

Whereas someone like Grey Knights will not falter in their step and will stick through the battle to the bitter end. They may die in the end but they are going to cause as much damage as possible before then. Luckily Grey Knights nearly always cause more wounds than they take...at least in my experience...so Fearless wounds aren't too common in this case.

All Space Wolves run for the hills if they see a Rolled up Newspaper!

General_Chaos wrote:All Space Wolves run for the hills if they see a Rolled up Newspaper!

Dont get to close though! They have Counter Attack and acute senses!

kenshin620 wrote:

General_Chaos wrote:All Space Wolves run for the hills if they see a Rolled up Newspaper!

Dont get to close though! They have Counter Attack and acute senses!

And they reek of booze!

kenshin620 wrote:

Nurglitch wrote:And They Shall Know No Fear has a better ring to it than "Fearless But Not Stupid".

The Templars need to get their heads bashed in with the Codex Astartes!

You're just mad cause we're not a buncha chickens, like the Ultraweenies, Space Wifes, or the Emo Angels.

Fxeni wrote:

kenshin620 wrote:

Nurglitch wrote:And They Shall Know No Fear has a better ring to it than "Fearless But Not Stupid".

The Templars need to get their heads bashed in with the Codex Astartes!

You're just mad cause we're not a buncha chickens, like the Ultraweenies, Space Wifes, or the Emo Angels.

Well as long as you're blindlessly running towards my Melta Range, I dont mind