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Recently, there seems to be more and more rules where a character has to make some kind of test or be removed from the game.

I for one think it's completely silly. It pretty much bypasses your entire statline and pins everything down on one roll. The problem is that you have to pay for the other rules/wargear in points so an attack that is simply "get a 5+, lose model" seems particularly uncanny. Also, the chance of these rolls succeeding is higher than an actual attack. For example, to hit, wound and kill a captain with a krak missile (assuming BS4 shooting), it'd be (2/3)*(5/6)*(1/2) which comes out to 27% chance. A toughness test or initiative test would have a 33% chance of succeeding.
Another issue is that it completely bypasses Eternal Warrior which characters usually pay a hefty premium for.

So, what's your view on it? Like it? Dislike it?

Eternal Warrior is overused anyway. I haven't seen many of these apart from the Grey Knights and Gift of Chaos.

Durza wrote:Eternal Warrior is overused anyway. I haven't seen many of these apart from the Grey Knights and Gift of Chaos.

The Orks can do it with SAG,

But yea it is weird that you pay a premium for EW so as not to be insta gibbed but can still be insta gibbed.

For a few things it makes sense for. Certain weapons and effects are particularly destructive and offer no realistic - in keeping with the lore - way to save the model.

I can't think of a weapon in WH40k's playing field which would be so powerful as to deserve it, though. At least not ones which wouldn't destroy the battlefield. Real-life particle guns, for example, would destroy any infantry model - and likely every WH40k-scale vehicle - but would also destroy every model on the field, the field itself, and the entire planet the field of battle was on. The resulting explosion may very well destroy every nearby moon - however, I am uncertain about neighbouring planets.

Being sufficiently far beyond the event horizon of a sufficiently massive black hole would do it as well, however the event horizon of such a singularity would be the size of the star that made it, and as such would not be capable of targeting a specific model on the WH40k field, and would, like the above example, be more suitable for BFG than WH40k due to its larger scale of destruction. Smaller ones - say the size of a person or squad - have a far lesser size at which they work, but correspondingly have far less gravitational pull, to the point where a gentle hug would cause more damage.

I'm not certain about why the Shokk Attack Gun has a result which has such an effect - with a 1/36 chance of such a result occuring - but I seem to recall it being due to causing a tear in reality into the Warp. In 40k terms, I might see this causing removal from the table as opposed to a high strength low AP hit, perhaps with a toughness test if wounded and unkilled, however there are characters who have ventured into the Warp alone and survived. I'm probably not remembering the SAG explanation correctly.

But removal from the table seems to be a way to bypass invulnerable saves and Eternal Warrior, and I don't know why they're adding in damage rules which negate survivability rules more and more.

Just be glad you didn't play back in the RT/2nd edition days. Vortex grenades wiped out armies...

Remove from play means remove from play. I think the whole system of 40K needs an overhaul for balance personally, but I also think that some abilities and weapons shouldn't leave any survivors. If you get a melta bomb strapped to your chest (I know this is a bad example since you cannot do this to troops) you are pretty much removed from game play.

I think the problem is character sniping. People use remove from play to snipe out and kill characters, and since war hammer might as well be called hero hammer, this can turn the tide for a game pretty quick.

terranarc wrote:Recently, there seems to be more and more rules where a character has to make some kind of test or be removed from the game.

I for one think it's completely silly. It pretty much bypasses your entire statline and pins everything down on one roll. The problem is that you have to pay for the other rules/wargear in points so an attack that is simply "get a 5+, lose model" seems particularly uncanny. Also, the chance of these rolls succeeding is higher than an actual attack. For example, to hit, wound and kill a captain with a krak missile (assuming BS4 shooting), it'd be (2/3)*(5/6)*(1/2) which comes out to 27% chance. A toughness test or initiative test would have a 33% chance of succeeding.
Another issue is that it completely bypasses Eternal Warrior which characters usually pay a hefty premium for.

So, what's your view on it? Like it? Dislike it?

Yes it's silly, there was a very conscious effort up until recently to keep that sort of thing out of the game, and virtually nothing is balanced around it, making it very abuseable. It's a symptom of the profusion of Eternal Warrior overriding Instant Death! So we've got abilities to override special rules which exempt a model from another rule now. It doesn't help that there's little one can do to mitigate these effects as most of the time all that's required to get off the power is an Ld10 psychic test that fails only about 8% of the time, especially for armies that don't have any psychic defense at all (most of them).

Even in Fantasy where there's a lot more to mitigate with, such abilities are seen as dominating.

It was one thing for the SAG where there's only a miniscule chance of it happening and a large chance of mishap, it's another when it's an Ld10 psychic test that can pick models out of a unit.

Ah, my SAG has removed my mek from play more often than another player.

I haven't noticed this being so much of an issue really. I just don't see it.

Vaktathi wrote:

terranarc wrote:Recently, there seems to be more and more rules where a character has to make some kind of test or be removed from the game.

I for one think it's completely silly. It pretty much bypasses your entire statline and pins everything down on one roll. The problem is that you have to pay for the other rules/wargear in points so an attack that is simply "get a 5+, lose model" seems particularly uncanny. Also, the chance of these rolls succeeding is higher than an actual attack. For example, to hit, wound and kill a captain with a krak missile (assuming BS4 shooting), it'd be (2/3)*(5/6)*(1/2) which comes out to 27% chance. A toughness test or initiative test would have a 33% chance of succeeding.
Another issue is that it completely bypasses Eternal Warrior which characters usually pay a hefty premium for.

So, what's your view on it? Like it? Dislike it?

Yes it's silly, there was a very conscious effort up until recently to keep that sort of thing out of the game, and virtually nothing is balanced around it, making it very abuseable. It's a symptom of the profusion of Eternal Warrior overriding Instant Death! So we've got abilities to override special rules which exempt a model from another rule now. It doesn't help that there's little one can do to mitigate these effects as most of the time all that's required to get off the power is an Ld10 psychic test that fails only about 8% of the time, especially for armies that don't have any psychic defense at all (most of them).

Even in Fantasy where there's a lot more to mitigate with, such abilities are seen as dominating.

It was one thing for the SAG where there's only a miniscule chance of it happening and a large chance of mishap, it's another when it's an Ld10 psychic test that can pick models out of a unit.

I think someone - not myself - mentioned this over in the Eternal Warrior thread, but I'll repeat it here. ^_^

We're seeing growing numbers of "removes from play" rules to compensate for the abundance of "eternal warrior" rules, which in turn was to compensate for the growing number of weapons being used which can inflict the "instant death" rule, which in turn was to compensate for the growing number of vehicles in the game, which in turn is due to 5th edition vehicle rules making them be so preferable for some reason.

I'm sure we could trace this back to 4th edition and earlier, if anyone's got the memory for it.

I dunno, it just seems odd. How do you think they'll compensate for the "removes from play" special rule? Maybe a rule which allows a model to use its invulnerable save against all effects which would affect the model in question, with the option to decline that ability at will? Maybe they'll compensate for that by adding more models which specifically bypass invulnerable saves?

Edit: I know why it seemed familiar! It reminded me of the end of the season 10 Simpsons episode called Bart the Mother. Specifically, this conversation:

Skinner: Well, I was wrong; the lizards are a godsend.
Lisa: But isn't that a bit short-sighted? What happens when we're overrun by lizards?
Skinner: No problem. We simply release wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes. They'll wipe out the lizards.
Lisa: But aren't the snakes even worse?
Skinner: Yes, but we're prepared for that. We've lined up a fabulous type of gorilla that thrives on snake meat.
Lisa: But then we're stuck with gorillas!
Skinner: No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.

Just like a unit with a weapon that can cause Instant Death, you need to be careful around units with something that can remove models from play. Shoot the hell out of them, attack them with 1 wound models that would eat it anyway, play keep away from them, and so on.

kronk wrote:Just like a unit with a weapon that can cause Instant Death, you need to be careful around units with something that can remove models from play. Shoot the hell out of them, attack them with 1 wound models that would eat it anyway, play keep away from them, and so on.

Wow... Dude, that's just wrong. The best way to play this game is to just run your army at your opponent's army, roll a bunch of dice, and depending on whether the almighty Dice Gods have shined their countenance down upon you or not, either head to your preferred WH40k forum to QQ about how overpowered/underpowered your opponent's/own army is, or head to the same forum to brag about how you totally pwned that person.

That's why the standard tournament mission involves killing as many opposing units as possible, rather than outmaneuvering your opponent and making difficult tactical and strategic decisions.

Honestly, where's all this stuff about playing smart and using your brain - :: points to my collarbone :: - coming from?

Ah. The Ork Mentality. Yes, that is exactly how I play them.

I'm a bit more careful with my Crimson Fists though. The Rynn's World massacre didn't leave us with many reserves. So we have to be careful with what we have left...

I run orks and laugh when people use things like heroic sacrifice, jaws, or even vortex grenades. "Oh no! You removed 1-5 models from play without an armor save! What ever will I do!!"

However, when my SAG finally get double sixes AND doesn't scatter onto my own forces(1 out of 8 games played with it so far) I get excited, for I usually aim it at death stars. People then start rattling off about cheese and unfairness, so I reply with a battlewagon that gently caresses their models into oblivion.

-cgmckenzie

It's not that big of a deal. I can think of like, what, 2 things that actually do it and none of them actually are fielded enough to make any amount of a dent in my morale.