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There are of cries of "OP" for the new Invis, that it essentially makes things invulnerable. I just don't see it. It sure does make things more durable, but not really more so than the previous incarnation. I'm not really interested in a discussion of "OP or not" but rather "old vs new." Lets look at how they compare. In 6th the usefulness of invis scales with the base cover save the model has. No save gets a 4+, a 6+ goes to 3+, and any better goes to a 2+. The most useful stat to compare, I think, is the amount that incoming damage is reduced. For example, going from no cover save to a 4+ decreases incoming damage by a factor of 1/2. This is true regardless of different strengths, toughness's, feel no pain etc. If you go from no cover to 4+ your incoming damage is halved as long as there is no ignore cover involved. So here's a table of how each base cover save is effected under old invis

Old Invis Base Cvr w/ Invis Reduction factor None 4+ 1/2 6+ 3+ 2/5 5+ 2+ 1/4 4+ 2+ 1/3 3+ 2+ 1/2

So we see that the most common base cover saves of 5+ and 4+ getting their incoming damage reduced to 1/4 and 1/3 of what it would be without invis. The new invis' effectiveness does not scale with base cover as before, but rather with the BS of the model. So we do the same, this time looking at reduction of incoming damage vs BS of the unit firing.

New Invis To Hit w/ Invis Reduction factor 6+ 6+ 1/1 5+ 6+ 1/2 4+ 6+ 1/3 3+ 6+ 1/4 2+ 6+ 1/5

Now we see the most common BS of 3 and 4 have the unit they are shooting reduce their incoming damage by 1/3 and 1/4 of what it would be without invis. Without further considerations, the old and new are practically the same. There are some other differences that are definitely worth looking at.

Firstly, the old version could be made useless by 'Ignores Cover' special rule. The only to really have access to 'Ignores Cover' in spades is Tau through expending two marker light points. However, they can spend the same two points to increase BS by 2 so this appears to be a wash for Tau but a buff against other 'Ignores Cover' weapons.

Another big change is that the new version does not allow the unit to be directly targeted by blast, template, or any other weapon that cannot be snapshot. This is obviously a buff against those type of weapons.

Melee is another consideration. The old version would decrease an attacking units WS to 1. Most often this sees the invis'd unit going from being hit on 4's, to being hit on 5's (a factor of 2/3 incoming damage) and from being hit on 3's to being hit on 5's (a factor of 1/2) or no change if already being hit on 5's. Additionally, the unit offensively goes from hitting on 4's or 5's to hitting on 3's. So a smaller durability increase than when being shot at and a offense boost as well. With the new version we go from being hit on 3's, 4's, and 5's to being hit on 6's which will cut incoming damage to 1/4, 1/3, 1/2 respectively of what it is without invis. So the reduction in damage in cc is more in line with that of being shot at in trade for the old offensive boost. This seems mostly like a wash to me as well.

Lastly, you must consider how psychic powers have changed which is a doozy as it has changed a lot. So far, to me, it seems that the biggest change is powers are no longer as reliable, or to make them as reliable you must invest more resources into them. It takes more psyker mastery levels to cast now with a WC2 power generally taking 5+ dice to have a good chance (more than a single psyker contributes to your pool) and the risk of perils is much higher than in 6th for WC2 powers. Blessings can be denied as well but it is fairly unlikely when throwing 5 or more dice unless the denier has a huge pool of warp dice.

So did Invis really get that much stronger? It can no longer be hit by blasts and ignores 'Ignores Cover' (excluding Tau) but in exchange it is harder to cast and threatens perils more frequently. I realize this synergizes with the rerollable 2+ deathstars to give absurd durability, but those units were already considered 'invincible' and most people didn't using shooting as a way to get rid of them. Other deathstars benefit by pretty much the same increase in durability as the last version. So in light of all this, what is it that makes the new Invis so much more "broken" than last edition? So far, I think its more or less the same.

One thing to consider is that units with already good Armor/Invulnerable saves will benefit from Invisibility considerably more than they would have in the previous edition, because they are not replacing an already good save with one that is only marginally better.

For example, going from 3+ to 6+ to hit, then followed by a 3+ Armor save is better than 3+ to hit and a 2+ cover save alone against anything AP 4 or worse. In the first case, you'll see a 75% reduction in damage, while the second only results in a 50% damage reduction.

So units like Jetseer Councils and Paladin-stars benefit hugely from invisibility against weight-of-fire tactics.

 Xca|iber wrote:
One thing to consider is that units with already good Armor/Invulnerable saves will benefit from Invisibility considerably more than they would have in the previous edition, because they are not replacing an already good save with one that is only marginally better.

For example, going from 3+ to 6+ to hit, then followed by a 3+ Armor save is better than 3+ to hit and a 2+ cover save alone against anything AP 4 or worse. In the first case, you'll see a 75% reduction in damage, while the second only results in a 50% damage reduction.

So units like Jetseer Councils and Paladin-stars benefit hugely from invisibility against weight-of-fire tactics.

Very true, this is something to consider. Alas I don't think it really changes the comparison to me. Its true that a decent armor save changes the value of invis, but this was true before. A 3+ save will benefit a lot more from the new invis against ap4+ than they used to, but ap3- isn't that hard for most armies to come by so I don't see this as a big buff on the whole because it depends on the situation.

Jetseer councils could reroll their already good saves anyway couldn't they? Were they not already incredibly to being shot up by bolters and the like? Seems like casting the new invis on such a unit is just a waste, making a very durable unit laughably durable when the tactics to beat them don't usually include shooting them up. Similar story with paladins, pouring weak shots into them rarely did the trick anyway.

There are many scenarios like you mentioned where you can point out specific situations in which one is better, but its a two way street. For example, a flyer no longer benefits at all from invis, or if its an ork shooting at that 3+ armor with their BS2. I think, on the whole, the new invis isn't much if at all stronger than before, certainly not as broken as some are saying. But as you point out, the usefulness will increase in some situations, while decreasing in others.

It's the whole, "no, you can't shoot me AT ALL now, because those really good weapons you have can't snap fire" that makes the biggest difference.

Oh, and now, where invis never used to help at all in CC, suddenly, I'm basically immune to close combat, because you need 6's to hit there too.

I wrote a big long post about how the OP is comparing them completely wrong. Then my browser lost it. Here's the short version;

1. You're comparing a to-hit roll with potential coversaves. The two are completely different.

2. Snap-shots to hit stacks with any saves the model has. The old Inivis simply improved (potentially) the save of the model. Consider terminators being shot with boltguns. The old invisibility did nothing for them, the new decreases wounds by a full 3/4. It also stacks with any save re-rolling the model has. Invisibility + fortune + a 2+ save, is just plain silly.

3. Melee - you're comparing the change the power provides, not the difference between the versions. Previously, the unit could expect to be hit on 5's. Now they get hit on 6's. That's halving the amount of damage the unit receives right there.

4. Changes to psychic phase - are you comparing the psychic phase, or the psychic power?

5. Almost entirely missed the lack of blast weapons shooting at them. This is HUGE. As someone who plays the Seer-coucil, I feared Ignore cover Ap2 blasts from Riptides the most. Not anymore. Orbital bombartments? non-issue now. Common removal units are completely worthless. Wyverns, Thunderfires, half of the IG codex, etc all can't do a single thing to whatever has this cast on them.

Finally, you made a point about it being a wash for Tau, because they can use markerlights to improve their BS. It'll take 12 markerlights to get those two to make the shooting B3. Then another 12 to ignore any coversave the unit may have. Even then, what are Tau going to shoot that's actually worrying? No riptide blasts, no solid shot hammerheads. I'd be happy to have a Tau player waste that many markerlights on such a unit.

Basically, there's three facets of the power. Snap-shots, no blasts, and 6's in combat. There's an arguement to be made that any of these, individually, is worth being a WC2 power.

So in summary; your method of comparison is flawed, the new power is significantly better, and I hope you're not any type of scientist or statistician.

The complete denial of template and blast weapons is a massive benefit, in my opinion!

I dunno, being impervious to all but two D-strength weapons in the game (Necron superheavy pylon and Tau heavy railguns) is a massive boost to superheavies.

My wife's phantom titans are essentially god-mode on auto-pilot against other superheavies.

Belly wrote:
I wrote a big long post about how the OP is comparing them completely wrong. Then my browser lost it. Here's the short version;

1. You're comparing a to-hit roll with potential coversaves. The two are completely different.

What I went to great lengths to say is that I'm comparing the reduction in incoming damage effected by Invis. It is a legit comparison.

2. Snap-shots to hit stacks with any saves the model has. The old Inivis simply improved (potentially) the save of the model. Consider terminators being shot with boltguns. The old invisibility did nothing for them, the new decreases wounds by a full 3/4. It also stacks with any save re-rolling the model has. Invisibility + fortune + a 2+ save, is just plain silly.

I addressed these in my previous post. Yes if you pick out a specific scenario like boltguns vs termis the power is stronger, but as I pointed out its weaker in other situations, like when orks are shooting guard or for an FMC. On the whole your point here doesn't change that on average its power level hasn't gone up.

3. Melee - you're comparing the change the power provides, not the difference between the versions. Previously, the unit could expect to be hit on 5's. Now they get hit on 6's. That's halving the amount of damage the unit receives right there.

But as I said, you've given up the benefit to your offense strikes that came about in the old version dues to WS1. Its a wash.

4. Changes to psychic phase - are you comparing the psychic phase, or the psychic power?

I'm comparing 6th edition Invis to 7th edition Invis. Taking into account the way psychic powers are handled in general is a must when comparing between additions. Many powers did and should have their bonuses increased to compensate for being harder to cast so that the net usefulness stays approximately the same.

5. Almost entirely missed the lack of blast weapons shooting at them. This is HUGE. As someone who plays the Seer-coucil, I feared Ignore cover Ap2 blasts from Riptides the most. Not anymore. Orbital bombartments? non-issue now. Common removal units are completely worthless. Wyverns, Thunderfires, half of the IG codex, etc all can't do a single thing to whatever has this cast on them.

Not at all, I had clearly stated this was a true buff in the OP. I didn't feel there was any need to elaborate further because I didn't think anyone would argue that fact. There aren't that many large blasts with Ignores Cover ap2 so again I don't think this affects the power level of Invis on average. Once again, you can pick out certain situations but that doesn't necessarily mean that overall the power is much better, just different. Also, as was mentioned above, seer-council was so durable before that shooting them off the board wasn't a good tactic before, and it remains a bad tactic now, no change. IG can do a great deal of things vs Invis. For one, they can use the tried and true method of throwing lasguns at it. BS3 isn't hurt any worse by the new invis as by the old invis. Snap shotting increases the value of TL as low BS receives the most improvement from it. Anything with twin-linking still hits 30.6% of the time. The sky hasn't fallen, IG will be perfectly fine.

Finally, you made a point about it being a wash for Tau, because they can use markerlights to improve their BS. It'll take 12 markerlights to get those two to make the shooting B3. Then another 12 to ignore any coversave the unit may have. Even then, what are Tau going to shoot that's actually worrying? No riptide blasts, no solid shot hammerheads. I'd be happy to have a Tau player waste that many markerlights on such a unit.

Without the cover save being boosted its much less necessary for them to have both Ignores Cover and increased ballistic skill. As far as to what they're gonna shoot that is worrying, it depends on the target. Tau have many guns for many situations. Additionally, its not as if those blasts and templates just can't be shot period, just not at the unit that has invisibility. Its nothing new that you have to adapt to what your opponent is doing to make the best use of your weapons.

Basically, there's three facets of the power. Snap-shots, no blasts, and 6's in combat. There's an arguement to be made that any of these, individually, is worth being a WC2 power.

That's only two facets as snap-shots includes no blasts. If there was a WC2 power that was only getting hit by 6's in close combat everyone would be making fun of GW for making hilariously useless powers.

So in summary; your method of comparison is flawed, the new power is significantly better, and I hope you're not any type of scientist or statistician.

As a matter of fact I am both and do quite well at it . Don't worry though, as such, I'm always open to discussion of my methods and accustomed to fallacious and unnecessarily rude points from people that are very confident in themselves. Your points of contention are ill-founded and do not support your conclusion at all. The power is not significantly better. It received a buff in immunity to blasts and templates, is better in some situations and worse in others, traded offensive boost in cc for more defense, and a nerf in reliability and difficulty to cast.

Would not things like the Doom Scythe's death ray and Jaws of the World Wolf ignore invisibility entirely as you draw you line on the ground and do not target the units with them?

Edit:
To provide some anecdotes on the new invisibility. I tried to shoot an invisible Wraithknight the other day with about 600p of stuff and did one wound on it. If anything it sure makes durable stuff really durable.

Ratflinger wrote:
Would not things like the Doom Scythe's death ray and Jaws of the World Wolf ignore invisibility entirely as you draw you line on the ground and do not target the units with them?

Edit:
To provide some anecdotes on the new invisibility. I tried to shoot an invisible Wraithknight the other day with about 600p of stuff and did one wound on it. If anything it sure makes durable stuff really durable.

JotWW doesn't exist anymore, but Death Ray would be interesting

1) Ignore cover is not only common, but tends to show up on already powerful and popular units units. Waveserpents, Helldrakes, and Sternguard were already the top choices in their respective codex.
2) BS 4 is the most common statline and BS 2 is only for orks.
3) Ap 2/3 weapons that aren't blasts/templates are very uncommon and rarely cost effective.

Bottom line, invisibility got more powerful in the majority of circumstances. Maybe your guardsmen going to ground are worse against ork shooting, but that is a cornercase situation. In most situations you are looking at 4x the durability plus saves and complete immunity to many of the most lethal weapons.

scimitar wrote:
1) Ignore cover is not only common, but tends to show up on already powerful and popular units units. Waveserpents, Helldrakes, and Sternguard were already the top choices in their respective codex.

True, but Ignores Cover is part of the reason they are powerful and popular. Maybe having a defense such as the new Invis is good to give something to work against such units. Additionally, I think Ignores Cover is far from common. There are only about 0-2 good sources of it in each army. The fact that Ignores Cover no longer makes Invis completely useless just shifts the power around, it doesn't make Invis more powerful. Now people will go to twin-linking etc. to land those hits instead of Ignore Cover.

2) BS 4 is the most common statline and BS 2 is only for orks. '

 Kain wrote:
I dunno, being impervious to all but two D-strength weapons in the game (Necron superheavy pylon and Tau heavy railguns) is a massive boost to superheavies.

My wife's phantom titans are essentially god-mode on auto-pilot against other superheavies.

And the Gaze of Mork on a Big Mek Stompa.

I for one faced an invisible Baneblade in a 5,000pts apocalypse game yesterday.

Fortunately said Baneblade wasted all its firepower in a futile attempt to kill my CCB Surferlord.

Waaaghpower wrote:

 Kain wrote:
I dunno, being impervious to all but two D-strength weapons in the game (Necron superheavy pylon and Tau heavy railguns) is a massive boost to superheavies.

My wife's phantom titans are essentially god-mode on auto-pilot against other superheavies.

And the Gaze of Mork on a Big Mek Stompa.

I can totally see it being a game change for super heavies. I hadn't thought of D weapons as I have never had the occasion to really play with/against any. Its worth noting however that under the new D weapon rules cover can be taken 5 out of 6 times, so the old invis would also been quite potent under the new rules, although not to the degree as the new.

JubbJubbz wrote:

Waaaghpower wrote:

 Kain wrote:
I dunno, being impervious to all but two D-strength weapons in the game (Necron superheavy pylon and Tau heavy railguns) is a massive boost to superheavies.

My wife's phantom titans are essentially god-mode on auto-pilot against other superheavies.

And the Gaze of Mork on a Big Mek Stompa.

I can totally see it being a game change for super heavies. I hadn't thought of D weapons as I have never had the occasion to really play with/against any. Its worth noting however that under the new D weapon rules cover can be taken 5 out of 6 times, so the old invis would also been quite potent under the new rules, although not to the degree as the new.

The old invisible didn't make you outright impervious to these D-weapons.

Nor could it have been combined with Be'lakor's own stealthed and shrouded to make him impervious to shooting with what amounts to a 2++ rerollabe. Or with a grimoire he can have an actual 2++, which combined with invisibility makes fighting him pointless as there's no one unit in the game that can kill him within six turns.

And old invisibility would have been hit by the new warp charge mechanic just like the new one since it was also warp charge 2.

 Kain wrote:

Nor could it have been combined with Be'lakor's own stealthed and shrouded to make him impervious to shooting with what amounts to a 2++ rerollabe. Or with a grimoire he can have an actual 2++, which combined with invisibility makes fighting him pointless as there's no one unit in the game that can kill him within six turns.

This falls into the same category as some other examples such as seer-star for me. Yes you can make Be'lakor exceedingly durable by casting invis on him, combined with his innate shrouded, and a grimoire. But why? He'd be practically invincible and going to do squat the entire game because his whole purpose is to fly around casting powers on others. He can't do much otherwise especially now that it is almost entirely impractical to go from flying to assault. You have 400 or so points wrapped up in a unit that can't be killed but won't do anything all game. You've spent all his warp dice plus some casting that WC2 power.

One thing I think people who are getting all worked up over how "op" invis is (and its slightly OP for some armys that can guarantee rolling it, or if you dont limit attempts to cast at one per unit)


is that every single psychic tree has at least one, if not more, beams, novas, focused witchfires, that get to ignore the roll to hit.


as well, each codex has access to one super heavy which can auto hit with stomp and thunderblitz.

as the OP shows, its quite situational, the guys with BS 5 get hurt really bad by invis, orks laugh at it.

JubbJubbz wrote:

 Kain wrote:

Nor could it have been combined with Be'lakor's own stealthed and shrouded to make him impervious to shooting with what amounts to a 2++ rerollabe. Or with a grimoire he can have an actual 2++, which combined with invisibility makes fighting him pointless as there's no one unit in the game that can kill him within six turns.

This falls into the same category as some other examples such as seer-star for me. Yes you can make Be'lakor exceedingly durable by casting invis on him, combined with his innate shrouded, and a grimoire. But why? He'd be practically invincible and going to do squat the entire game because his whole purpose is to fly around casting powers on others. He can't do much otherwise especially now that it is almost entirely impractical to go from flying to assault. You have 400 or so points wrapped up in a unit that can't be killed but won't do anything all game. You've spent all his warp dice plus some casting that WC2 power.

Who the hell swoops with him?

He's got the Blade of Shadows, go in there and chop some melon-fethers up.

I think what should be said about Invisibility, is that in some situations, the old is better. But the majority of situations, the new is better. The only armies I can think of I would rather have the old for, is Orks. And even then, I think i'd prefer the 6's to hit in combat. Maybe Necrons with Tesla? Even then, the target armies would be getting any armoursave against them, so i'd still prefer to only be hit on 6's.

The point that has been almost completely missed by the OP is that 6's to hit stacking with any existing save, is better than a improved. It just is, you may be able to point out a few individual scenarios where the old is going to be better. Then I could point out 5 where the new is better.

There may be only 2-3 ignore cover options for each army. But they are the highly common things that are must-takes in common competitive armies. Wave Serpents, Wyverns, Riptides, Grav-Centurions with Tiggy, etc. New Invis is a PERFECT counter to those.

Bolters against Terminators is a contrived example to illustrate a point. I assumed you had missed it entirely. I could name many, many other common examples of this. Situations where the old is better than the new can be described thusly.

The shooter has a low BS.
The target has little to no existing coversaves
The Ap of the weapon is low enough to ignore the target armour.
The Weapon is not Ignore cover
The shooter is ready snap-shooting
The weapon is not a blast/template weapon

But if the situation doesn't fit 1-2 of those criteria, the new is better.

IG throwing Lasguns at a problem to make it go away? That's great. Ask a IG player about the last time they needed Guardsmen to kill something with Lasguns. Twin-linking may offset the snap-shotting, but then they still need to contend with an armour/coversave ontop of their 30.6% chance to hit.

Really the point here is that there's been many, many threads about how Invisibility is the new hotness. I have not seen a single thread complaining "OMG Invisibility NERFED". The closest is this thread, which in a roundabout way is saying that under special snowflake circumstances, the two are comparable, if you ignore the bit about blast weapons.