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As of today the LOS rule counts Nob Bikers and Bikes and not characters. This means no more LOS shenanigans.
What does this mean for the effectiveness of the Nob Biker and how do Ork players address the change?

Since this means that none of the bikers get to use LOS anymore, I guess this would necessitate always having your Biker Boss in the front fire arc?

Discuss!

This should be in Tactics. Pinging a mod.

Thanks!

 matphat wrote:
As of today the LOS rule counts Nob Bikers and Bikes and not characters. This means no more LOS shenanigans.
What does this mean for the effectiveness of the Nob Biker and how do Ork players address the change?

Since this means that none of the bikers get to use LOS anymore, I guess this would necessitate always having your Biker Boss in the front fire arc?

Discuss!

I guess you read it in the FAQs.
If so, this will not be a significant change since you always want to have the Warboss in front. However, this change would affect precision shots and strikes.

Another aspect of the FAQ is that you can only LOS to the closest model - so no more spreading wounds around, even with a Warboss.

Well, actually, since you don't have the opportunity to LOS wounds at your discretion, having the boss up front is more or less pointless. Now it seems having your Boss and PKs back a rank or two would be best since you want your ablative wound taking to happen without fail.

 matphat wrote:
Well, actually, since you don't have the opportunity to LOS wounds at your discretion, having the boss up front is more or less pointless. Now it seems having your Boss and PKs back a rank or two would be best since you want your ablative wound taking to happen without fail.

And then you get Str8 weapons popping Nobs instead of just dropping a wound on the Warboss.

 matphat wrote:
Well, actually, since you don't have the opportunity to LOS wounds at your discretion, having the boss up front is more or less pointless. Now it seems having your Boss and PKs back a rank or two would be best since you want your ablative wound taking to happen without fail.

agreed, not being able to bleed wounds out over time is a major pain but honestly since I've seen the faces of my enemies when i charged bikers each with wounds spread everywhere... it is for the best WAY too primed to cheat in most games not to mention just simpler. I don't mind cause it was more or less an across the boardwipe of mass character squads other than Terminators which... only 1 wound so who cares? My annoyance is the accepting the challenge special rule.

At least Manz and Biker nobz are now more or less on even footing again.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

rigeld2 wrote:

 matphat wrote:
Well, actually, since you don't have the opportunity to LOS wounds at your discretion, having the boss up front is more or less pointless. Now it seems having your Boss and PKs back a rank or two would be best since you want your ablative wound taking to happen without fail.

And then you get Str8 weapons popping Nobs instead of just dropping a wound on the Warboss.

If they are on foot yes, if on bikes though... try again.

I think it was the only real solution to LOS.
The games I've played with 6 Nob Bikers were just terrible with all the LOS BS.
This will make it better for playing, but it also really hurts the viability of Bikers.

 matphat wrote:
I think it was the only real solution to LOS.
The games I've played with 6 Nob Bikers were just terrible with all the LOS BS.
This will make it better for playing, but it also really hurts the viability of Bikers.

agreed Meganobz are seeming pretty sweet now.

 matphat wrote:
I think it was the only real solution to LOS.
The games I've played with 6 Nob Bikers were just terrible with all the LOS BS.
This will make it better for playing, but it also really hurts the viability of Bikers.

I just don't see that bikers are hurt all that bad. They get the armor, they get the Toughness boost, they get the built in cover saves, they still get the guns, they still have S4 hammer of wraith attacks. The change just tones down their OTT potential and IMO leaves them sitting at a very strong choice instead of abusively broken.

I know I have no plans at all to remove the 7 bikers + bike warboss that I currently run from my list.

Oh, me either. But I am sad they aren't as hard.
I was dreaming of an elite ork army.

Need to play with this new rule. Without spreading out wounds they are going to die too quickly for sure. Also precision shots was really deadly.

Not sure how this now makes mega armour nobs better?

Nobs and wolfguard could be considered an oversight but Paladins? Just trying to make the point that GW have fundamentally changed their rules within months, not just made an error.
Especially LOS which now will mean new players will never know to look for a new rule given in the FAQ.

Wait why did nobz have LOS in the first place?

The reference in the back of the BRB lists all Nobz as inf (ch) which the faq replaced with all nobz being inf, nob bikers being bikes and only the squad leaders as characters.

bikers are still an excellent choice but you will have to be more carefull perhaps use trukks and BW to block line of sight to your nob bikers till you can get the charge

MFletch wrote:
Need to play with this new rule. Without spreading out wounds they are going to die too quickly for sure. Also precision shots was really deadly.

Not sure how this now makes mega armour nobs better?

Nobs and wolfguard could be considered an oversight but Paladins? Just trying to make the point that GW have fundamentally changed their rules within months, not just made an error.
Especially LOS which now will mean new players will never know to look for a new rule given in the FAQ.

Well, obviously they wanted to kill wound allocation, and then accidentally re-enabled it. I really think it's a good thing that GW then goes back to the drawing board, and re-enforces their RAI, even if it means minor inconveniences when taking the rules to a game. It's a good sign that GW is actually trying to clean up their huge mess of rules, maybe even up to the point where you no longer have to see those 10-page fights in YMDC.

As for nob bikers, one thing to keep in mind is that the pain boy still is a character, so you can still prevent him from getting sniped. Second, you decide who the closest model to your warboss is - during your movement phase. If the guy with the big choppa took a wound, pull him back during your next turn, and then have a PK be the closest model to your warboss. You'll have to be more careful with LoS! and torrent of fire still downs your nobz, but well, that's life.

It's much more of a problem for regular nobz, and I'd agree that MANz are probably more attractive now than regular WS5/cybork/FNP nobz. 2+ armor has simply gotten too good to ignore it.

Now I have to agree any other gaming company changing rules in response to their gamers is awesome and praised highly.
It was just a summer waiting for more FAQs, this is really quick and GW need to praised for being a more caring gaming company.

However, they will have play tested LOS for a year and be happy with it.
They must haveonly play tested the new LOS for a couple of months.

In particular the multi wound models needed something to justify their cost.

LOS shenanigans did become a longer and more unfair version of the 5th edition wound allocation: Remember how people praised the new allocation rules for being quicker and fairer.

not a bad change, it was a hassle doing all the LOS rolls anyway. Bikers are still a great unit and still fun to run. We'll see what other changes come about in the meta at the next GT

MFletch wrote:
Now I have to agree any other gaming company changing rules in response to their gamers is awesome and praised highly.
It was just a summer waiting for more FAQs, this is really quick and GW need to praised for being a more caring gaming company.

However, they will have play tested LOS for a year and be happy with it.
They must haveonly play tested the new LOS for a couple of months.

In particular the multi wound models needed something to justify their cost.

LOS shenanigans did become a longer and more unfair version of the 5th edition wound allocation: Remember how people praised the new allocation rules for being quicker and fairer.

I still doubt the play test thing. In an interview with one of the designers (I think it was Kelly) he described the way they play test at GW - basically they are playing campaigns with a third player present as a narrator. While they are probably having a blast while doing so, it probably never occurred to any of them that you basically could spread wounds around on a 4+ just like before.

The other thing is that since they are no longer all characters, they don't all get precision shots.
Previously 1/2 the ork nob bikers shots were percision shots (since, they hit on a 5, and precisioned on a 6) Now all the normal nobs don't have that advantage.

 labmouse42 wrote:
The other thing is that since they are no longer all characters, they don't all get precision shots.
Previously 1/2 the ork nob bikers shots were percision shots (since, they hit on a 5, and precisioned on a 6) Now all the normal nobs don't have that advantage.

This was a problem with nobs, more so in assaults than in shooting. Dragiowings would absolutely abuse this using sniper psycannons and precision force weapon attacks.

What if the nobs are all equidistant from the war boss in front? We would get to allocate then, wouldn't we?

Not sure if this has been covered/addressed etc. Don't have FAQ in front of me and can't remember from reading it... but.. is the painboy still a character if he is on a bike?

I think the painboy is, as he's an upgrade.

As for nob bikes in general, they went from "hideously brokenly overpowered" all the way down to merely "very, very good".

If you needed the wound allocation shenanigans to feel that nob bikers were powerful enough to take, I think it's your point of view that's in disorder here, not the FAQ.

I liked having 6 guys to absorb challenges while warboss krumped personally... and all those precision dakka gun shots...


but yeah, I think the FAQ was needed.

 walker90234 wrote:
What if the nobs are all equidistant from the war boss in front? We would get to allocate then, wouldn't we?

No, it's random who's closest - and that model is closest until the end of that attack.

rigeld2 wrote:

 walker90234 wrote:
What if the nobs are all equidistant from the war boss in front? We would get to allocate then, wouldn't we?

No, it's random who's closest - and that model is closest until the end of that attack.

That model also keeps taking wounds until it dies or you run out of wounds if I remember correctly, so there's no "oh well, I'll put wounds on this one till he takes one, then switch to the next guy."

It killed off regular nobs yes (which of course, I have like 15 of) but I agree that nob bikers are still great, and now that they're not hideously broken like they used to be, I'll start using them even in friendly games once I can get mine built.