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yakface wrote:

Roadkill Zombie wrote:Ok, here's the deal about wether or not Dark Eldar count as Eldar.

That's why their powers work on them. They ARE eldar, just with a different alignment.

This is not true.

Eldar are Eldar and Dark Eldar are Dark Eldar. So if the rules refer to an Eldar unit, that would mean regular old Craftworld Eldar.

Yup. The most prominent and obvious example is Vect. Who has the special rules, "Preferred Enemy: Eldar", and "Preferred Enemy: Dark Eldar".

RiTides wrote:Can the characters pass wounds off using LOS after failing their 2++ save? If so, I think I'm starting to get it...

No, the way Look Out Sir works changes depending on whether the unit has the same save or whether it has mixed saves.

If it has the same save, you just roll all the wounds together to see which are saved and which are unsaved and then begin applying the unsaved wounds to particular models (starting with the first guy), when you go to allocate a wound to a character, at this point you can use Look Out Sir to pass the wound off, but it is still an unsaved wound that will be going onto somebody else.

In the case of MIXED saves, which is most of the time with specialty units that have ICs attached, you have to allocate the wounds to models FIRST and then roll saves. So in this case LOS is used to pass the wound off BEFORE saves are taken.

What makes things really strong is that even if the IC just has a 2+ re-rollable regular armor save, he can take all the standard wounds himself and pass off any wounds that would ignore his armor save onto pleebs using LOS.

RiTides wrote:Can the characters pass wounds off using LOS after failing their 2++ save? If so, I think I'm starting to get it...

What are you asking here?

You can always attempt using LoS (provided you meet the req)... but, you'd lose the shadow field.

Is that what you're asking?

Edited: Ninja'ed by Yak...

Red Corsair wrote:
I feel like you guys are getting the responses you are because you keep claiming that you reports are meant to inform whats broken, but I almost feel it is condescending, I think we all realize the implications of the rules 6th brought and in general are trying to find reasonable solutions. Ranting on whats obviously broken to no end just gets tired after a while. I think there are many, much more annoying lists out there and I think it just takes a little faith in the community to bring lists they enjoy playing. If in 6 months to a year the meta is all the same silly trash then I would say you have a leg to stand on but for feths sake its not been a single month.

I'm not going to speak for the OP, but in the video it's repeatedly emphasized that these combos aren't unbeatable but they make the game unpleasant to play. Seriously, if you shoot at a unit with a re-rollable 2+ out front and your opponent is rolling saves one at a time, that's annoying. When you consider how much of the game is focused on volume of fire you could be sitting their watching someone roll 20 or 30 individual saves. It's a double whammy of units that are really hard to stop and just really annoying to play against.

It's not ragequit time, but there's no way the "heroic" wound allocation rules are good for the game.

To all of you saying I'm wrong about Eldar being Eldar and Dark Eldar being Eldar as well, remember, that rule for casting only on Eldar was from a 4th edition codex. And that bit in the Dark Eldar codex about preferred enemy for Vect was a 5th edition codex. Both of those codexes were written for a different game set ( as GW blatantly pointed out at the beginning of every FAQ).

6th edition is all about the fluff. Now some of the fluff DOES equal rules.

Having said that, what I did say in my post is a fluff way of explaining why Eldar can cast Eldar only spells on Dark Eldar if Dark Eldar are taken as allies.

But the bottom line is in the actual rule in the book. Under the heading for Battle Brothers it clearly states that "Battle Brothers are treated as `friendly units` from ALL points of view.

That means, yes, you can cast Eldar only on Dark Eldar units because they are still Eldar, by both race and fluff.

Battle Brothers are still units from different codices. From a rules perspective, Eldar and Dark Eldar are two different things.

We're getting off topic, here, though.

Amerikon wrote:

Red Corsair wrote:
I feel like you guys are getting the responses you are because you keep claiming that you reports are meant to inform whats broken, but I almost feel it is condescending, I think we all realize the implications of the rules 6th brought and in general are trying to find reasonable solutions. Ranting on whats obviously broken to no end just gets tired after a while. I think there are many, much more annoying lists out there and I think it just takes a little faith in the community to bring lists they enjoy playing. If in 6 months to a year the meta is all the same silly trash then I would say you have a leg to stand on but for feths sake its not been a single month.

I'm not going to speak for the OP, but in the video it's repeatedly emphasized that these combos aren't unbeatable but they make the game unpleasant to play. Seriously, if you shoot at a unit with a re-rollable 2+ out front and your opponent is rolling saves one at a time, that's annoying. When you consider how much of the game is focused on volume of fire you could be sitting their watching someone roll 20 or 30 individual saves. It's a double whammy of units that are really hard to stop and just really annoying to play against.

It's not ragequit time, but there's no way the "heroic" wound allocation rules are good for the game.

Please reread my post, I know it's very KILLable and I agree the rule sucks, thats not my point. The video just highlights someones gripe, a very obvious gripe might I add. I don't think very many people need to have someone tell them rerolling 20 individual rolls sucks. It's as if they feel like restating that it is a poor rule repeatedly is going to change it somehow. It's not, so either pick up a new game or move on. Otherwise you can keep bitching about the status quo but don't expect people to tolerate it indefinitely.

Amerikon wrote:

Red Corsair wrote:
I feel like you guys are getting the responses you are because you keep claiming that you reports are meant to inform whats broken, but I almost feel it is condescending, I think we all realize the implications of the rules 6th brought and in general are trying to find reasonable solutions. Ranting on whats obviously broken to no end just gets tired after a while. I think there are many, much more annoying lists out there and I think it just takes a little faith in the community to bring lists they enjoy playing. If in 6 months to a year the meta is all the same silly trash then I would say you have a leg to stand on but for feths sake its not been a single month.

I'm not going to speak for the OP, but in the video it's repeatedly emphasized that these combos aren't unbeatable but they make the game unpleasant to play. Seriously, if you shoot at a unit with a re-rollable 2+ out front and your opponent is rolling saves one at a time, that's annoying. When you consider how much of the game is focused on volume of fire you could be sitting their watching someone roll 20 or 30 individual saves. It's a double whammy of units that are really hard to stop and just really annoying to play against.

It's not ragequit time, but there's no way the "heroic" wound allocation rules are good for the game.

I think its too soon to make that judgment.

If this type of deathstar is sufficiently unbeatable that it becomes the most common approach for tourney armies then it will make for very annoying games.

If this type of Deathstar is actually a knee jerk reaction to new rules which people will learn to deal with then it will stop showing up at competitions and the games will be less annoying.

I very much think it will be the second option.

In 5th there were alot of deathstar units that mostly required large amounts of S8 AP2 to bring down, If your list didnt have enough you probably lost. This, combined with the mech heavy meta, lead to S8 spam in most lists.
This new type of deathstar abuses the fact that the direction of attacks is now very important. The way to counter this is to also take advantage of directional attacks. To me this means that there is a much wider variety of ways to counter this type of unit than the ubiquitous S8 spam of 5th and different armies will tackle them in different ways.
In other words; you counter this unit in the movement phase not the shooting phase, which makes the game more interesting. If the advantage goes to the player who is able to make best use of the movment phase then it looks less good for the guy who spent half his points on one unit moving at infantry speed.

yakface wrote:

RiTides wrote:Can the characters pass wounds off using LOS after failing their 2++ save? If so, I think I'm starting to get it...

No, the way Look Out Sir works changes depending on whether the unit has the same save or whether it has mixed saves.

If it has the same save, you just roll all the wounds together to see which are saved and which are unsaved and then begin applying the unsaved wounds to particular models (starting with the first guy), when you go to allocate a wound to a character, at this point you can use Look Out Sir to pass the wound off, but it is still an unsaved wound that will be going onto somebody else.

In the case of MIXED saves, which is most of the time with specialty units that have ICs attached, you have to allocate the wounds to models FIRST and then roll saves. So in this case LOS is used to pass the wound off BEFORE saves are taken.

What makes things really strong is that even if the IC just has a 2+ re-rollable regular armor save, he can take all the standard wounds himself and pass off any wounds that would ignore his armor save onto pleebs using LOS.

Thanks, yak!! That clears it up perfectly for me. Weird the way the order of when to take a LOS roll is changed by whether or not the unit has all the same saves, but I get it now

I'm confused, why would you get to take all those saves on one guy? If your unit is is mob by a bunch of boys it stands to reason that some of them would be in combat with other models. At most your IC would be in contact with what 6 or 7 boys. I thought you had to allocate wounds based on closest to closest. I don't see how you could allocate all 30 boyz wounds on your IC if half the boys are on the other side of the mosh pit from your IC. Some of them would have to go on your other models.

Wounds are allocated for each I step against a model in BtB with an attacker striking at that I step. Once the first model is dead wounds go to another model in BtB. If all the Orks go at I2 then any model in BtB with one ork can take all the wound.

If the attacking unit has a sarge with an unweildy weapon or an IC with higher I their attacks can only be assigned to models in BtB so it is possible to position these models to hit Harlies. Not that I would expect many units to take this unit in HtH. I think its in CC when wound allocation is silliest, and seems odd given the ‘Associative and Disassociative’ rules comments at the GW open day.

wowsmash wrote:I'm confused, why would you get to take all those saves on one guy? If your unit is is mob by a bunch of boys it stands to reason that some of them would be in combat with other models. At most your IC would be in contact with what 6 or 7 boys. I thought you had to allocate wounds based on closest to closest. I don't see how you could allocate all 30 boyz wounds on your IC if half the boys are on the other side of the mosh pit from your IC. Some of them would have to go on your other models.

Alright, here's why "tanking" works in 40K 6th edition:

With wound allocation, you assign wounds to the closest models in shooting and CC. A model that gets allocated a wound must continue to receive them until it is dead, so once you pick your 'tank' to start taking wounds he's the man.

In close combat since many models are base to base, the defending player picks from amongst all eligible models where to put his wounds. This is only limited by the initiative step at which a model is fighting. Therefore if at Initiative 3 you have 8 ork boyz in base to base with harlies, and one with the archon, all the wounds caused vs the unit can be taken on the archon until he dies...with a re-rollable 2++ that is just probably not going to happen.

A quick FAQ on the re-roll save gimmicks like fateweaver and eldar/fortune that limits that specific combination really takes a lot of the 'tank' problems away. They FAQ'd that Blood Angels blood chalices only effect BA models, so i'm hoping GW will see the same needs to be done for Eldar/Fortune and Fateweaver.

@Red Corsair

I understand where you are coming from, but I have a lot of trouble masking my emotion, I am a really straight forward person.

And it isn't quite so simple as just give it up and move on for us.

We do this for a living, we own a game store, run tournaments and put food on the table through gaming, and 40K is our main revenue generator. For us, the impact of a crappy rule set has a LOT more impact than it does for a casual gamer.

And I don't know how many tournaments you have been a part of or run, but trying to run a national level tournament for 5th ed will be about as popular as a fart in an elevator. hahaha, not many people would come and we'd lose a very large amount of money.

Pathfinder is a terrible example because it is not a community driven choice to play D&D 3.5, it is a professionally produced product with constant support by a legitimate game company. That is not at all the same thing.

I am not trying to attack you here, so I hope I don't come across that way. I do understand that people don't want to see negativity, but the way the rules are right now, the game is not as fun to play as it could be and we are pointing that out. Just as you have the right to not watch these if you don't like them, we have the right to create them how we wish. I am doing my damnedest to see the silver lining, and the Golden Throne Tournament will go a long way to proving or disproving a lot of our theories, but I honestly feel that we will see competitive play dominated by these crazy, not so fun lists.

Being primarily a tournament player, that makes me unhappy. Balanced lists will still work when expertly played, but it is a harder prospect than it was.

One of the things Tastey Taste mentioned that I think is a good idea, is that the need for Gaming Events to have both a competitive and Casual event will be paramount.

@Thread

Thanks for clarifying a lot of the rules questions! Beat me to it.

Hey man no need to pull punches with me, I am the exact same way which is why I was hoping you wouldn't take my comments to seem spiteful or as a personal attack (it's tricky on the net at times). I didn't really expect you to run a 5th event as much as I was taking a different approach to try and slap you guys outta the 5th edition days. I know it's hard, and I have played like you since 2nd so trust me, but with each edition it is easiest to take a small break from playing competitively to clear your mind. This way you can approach the next edition without having tainted vision from the previous edition.

Like I said, the rules were poorly designed IMO as well. Any system that takes 2-3 games to find a loophole was not only poorly written, but obviously not play tested with any real regard for the consumer. But we do need to move on if we are to continue playing this game. The best way is to adapt, and form battle plans like others have suggested.

I think my brother said it best during a discussion we recently had. He commented on how GW will changed the 10-15% of the game that we as players all wanted to be changed, and generally makes it better. But then for no reason at all decides to tear up another 30-50% of well written rules to change simply for the sake of, well, change. I think this is what hurts them even in their codex design. Unfortunately, we hard core gamers (and trust me I play the game weekly and would daily if possible) who are competitive also have to swallow this bitter mouth-full.

Again I agree with your sentiment, I am even OK with your griping to an extent. I just feel that after a while you guys not only beat that dead horse, but shot it, burned it and dismembered it in the front yard, ha ha . So we as your gaming sites supporters were merely trying to pull you boys out of your proverbial funk. Sometimes spending more time with the most competitive players isn't better, it's worse, as you all despair and avalanche your feelings in one polar position.

As for those death-stars, I feel they are no worse then draigowing was in 5th. Heck, make them literally Custodes in 7th and unkillable, the solution to any death-star is the same. Out maneuver, period. It doesn't matter if it was slightly easier in 5th, it was still silly to try and shoot them off the table.

Also why hasn't any one brought a mech list from the old meta against those death-stars, I guarantee you tank shock rapes the harlie star, not through morale but by changing it's positioning so shooting is easier. I feel like those D-star on D-star games are like watching two children in a sand box rawr at eachother while smashing their dinosaurs together.

Any way, again I am not trying to pick on you and hope you take this as light hearted as it is intended. Keep up the great work, awesome paintjobs and remember, it's always easier to give up and complain then adapt.

Corsair

No hard feelings here, either. You make some excellent points and I think you are right that we have beat that dead horse to a pulp.

I think you are right in that when you are surrounded by your friends all who hold the same opinion and you feed off of each other it only makes it worse.

Some of the guys on our team (all of whom are super competitive) really like 6th, though, so it really is a matter of perspective.

Funny you mention busting out some of the old Mech Lists because I was just planning to do that with my old Shooty Wolves. They will be just as good, if not better this edition than they were. I just don't like playing the army that much, it gets boring. We have been playing with our Dinosaurs, I mean D-Stars haha, because it is the new, hot thing. Same reason we're playing the Air Force, it is a change of pace. We played those Mech lists to death last edition.

But, you are right that it is easier to wail and cry about something than to nut up and make the most of it. I keep finding myself focusing on the negative aspects of what we have despite the fact that there really is a lot of positive. And who knows, maybe an FAQ will help fix some of the most crazy abusive wound allocation nonsense.

Like you said though, so much of this was unnecessary change and so much of it could have been easily fixed with a play test. GW just refuses to pull their head out of the sand and acknowledge that their player base could help them make a better game, and it is so annoying.

Anyway, as always, the input is appreciated and trust me, no hard feelings on this end at all. We appreciate the support and the honest criticisms.

RiTides wrote:Can the characters pass wounds off using LOS after failing their 2++ save? If so, I think I'm starting to get it...

Opponent allocates precision shot wounds to models
Opponent tells you which wounds from the wound pool to allocate first (high strength group, low AP group, etc)
Owning player must allocate wounds to closest models first per BRB
Look Out Sir opportunity happens when a wound is allocated, before save is made if possible

+ + + +

In the case of a multi-character blob, when first wound comes in, you roll to LoS, if success, the save is made on a new model, repeat...

In the case of a tanking Independent Character with 2++ / 3++ save due to some effect plus his gear, and asked to allocate an Insti-kill AP1 wound, you LoS on 2+ to another model if failed, take a test on 3+ with reroll if he has 3++

+ + + +

All,

There are plenty of counters for all of this. The worry of deathstars and perceived 'abuse' of wound allocation is interesting to discuss, but not really an issue for many folks. The wound allocation isn't broken, it's just different... it is working as designed.... It may not be what we wanted it to be, or what it used to be, but the system works... all be it slower in some cases than what it used to, I agree. Those taking lots of characters with look out sir will have to consider whether they can get their games done in time if they play such things in timed events too...

Generally speaking, some perceive the wound allocation rules as containing a potential to be abused... abused is relative. It's a rule in the new system. However, if counters exist, it is just new tactics to consider. The game is amidst a large overhaul. New BRB and mass faq release, was round 1. The first new codices on the horizon, FW updating all of their books, and a next round of FAQs is likely by end of summer, etc... public playtesting and vetting of the new system is underway. It would be unreasonable to think that the designers are not listening and taking in what they can for consideration of future faq / erratta.

A. If you are worried about the average or common gamer running into this... Then, in friendly games, said individual can always opt to say - good game bud, "I concede to that list before you set up - no need to get your figs out - got anything else?" Said gamer of course doesn't even need to play against Mr. Harlie-star either... Problem solved.... if it's a friendly game, it should be just that - friendly.

B. If a tournament, and sportsmanship, composition scores, and army balance scores, courteous general, etc... are all being scored, then players will penalize those doing these things that are not welcomed in that atmosphere, and they won't win the event as a result, even if they win the mission in each round... non issue for the organizer as he has put in measures to offset pin heads that would try to ruin his event and empowered the players to encourage others to adhere to the spirit of the event. Problem solved...

C. That leaves the tournaments where there are no composition scores, no sportsmanship scores, no army balance requirements... etc... If you opt to play in that climate, then there is some onus on the player to be aware of what they are getting themselves into. Ignorance doesn't hold up in the court of law for a reason... This is a cut-throat competition, where anything goes... OK, be ready for that or suffer. Doesn't mean you have to play a deathstar... doesn't mean you have to cave to them either... The deathstars rerolling saves units allocating one wound at a time are not insurmountable. The fact that they built that into their list means they intend to use the unit - avoid it. If it's bikes, place objectives in ruins on level 3+ they can't get to it. If it's a slow foot unit, place objectives far from each other at board extremes and use your manouverability to take out his scoring units. Learn how to use flyers, drop pods, flamers, spells, etc... to counter elements of these units as well as outflanking them to do damage from a side they are not planning on taking damage from... the list goes on. The units are only a problem if you let the opponent use them as they designed them. They are tricks. They are not auto-win buttons by any stretch. The meta just changes in how you deal with them. If you have opted to play in the climate where these types of units are OK, then you do so at your own risk and should include them into your meta when building. Example: Play some games with enfeebling units and watch your enemy run off the table or attack their own units for a turn... Psykers with Fear the Dark, Hallucinagen, etc... IG psyker squads, allied psykers... it can get nasty. 6th has expanded the game so much that investing heavily in a single high point deathstar could just as easily be your undoing.

The next round of FAQs are not out yet. They may cause a further shake up and errata or faq further which causes new meta.

In the end, it's not really a big deal.... the sky is not falling on all things 40K. Tournaments and their organizers can control their environments if desired with penalties and composition. Players in friendly games can opt to play or not to play opponents. Wound allocation maximizing lists can be countered when you build your own list.

Ironically, in the vid / batrep in this report... the bikes didn't have to allow the Harliquins blob to even charge them.... They wanted to see what happened. So they let them charge the orks... not a wise tactical decision on the orks part anyway.... They were on bikes and had full mobility to marginalize the harli unit and make it effectively neutered. Tactically, the bikes would have been better served going for the troops units on bikes after eliminating the walkers and staying away from the harliquins. They could have pelted them from afar, positioned better so the harliquins were between the boyz on one side and the bikes in the backfield... There were also no flyers in the game which add a whole new dynamic to ground based deathstars and their relative effectiveness...

It's just a new game, with new rules and new opportunities that folks have to get used to.

Cheers,

Very invigorating thread.

To answer your question Reece and Frankie, take the lists. It is a competitive tourney, if you are going to shape a living tournament format, you need to find the stinky turds that GW didn't clean up about their game, so that you can gently shape your tourney missions to compensate.

The problem with GWs rules release model is that their games don't get healthy until about 18 months AFTER an edition comes out. I think this is a good time to look at the 'story so far' with 8th edition fantasy. When 8th edition came out, the casual players were exicted with new tricks and fun times, but the competitive players who enjoyed dissecting games started finding 'bugs'. Suddenly, massive 80+ model units appeared, and people were finding out that going all in on an okkams mindrazor was an instant win. The competitive game devolved into massive deathstars and unbreakable core tarpits clumsily sliding around the table. But then 5 or 6 army books came out. Mournfang cavalry appeared and were the silver bullet to the formerly unbreakable horde of models. Monstrous infantry and cavalry kept appearing over and over, and while the big blocks and deathstars still had game, people needed something to counter these new units popping up in every book. So people actually starting fielding the one thing that units like mournfang or demigryph knights can't handle, heavy cavalry 1+ saves. If you listen to warhammer podcasts, and talk to warhammer focused players, they all say that 8th edition is very healthy.

40K codecies are going to start emerging. Flyer answers will arrive with each book, excellent 2+ save characters will arrive with each book, and new answers to these characters will arise with each book. The health of the game will dramatically improve every time one of the offenders gets a book replacement. For example...

Will this trick even work if fortune ceases to exist?
Will the biker nobs be as resilient when the fact that they aren't all characters gets clarified?

Also, I know you guys have seen this play out multiple times. I've only been theory-crafting my own death-stars, but I'd like to bring a little bit of perspective to this discussion you had.

Eldrad 210
Karandras 215
Vect 240
10x harlies with kisses and a shadowseer 250

total 915

The unit was charged by a boy unit with a nob. Assuming big shootas, 240 points?

The boy unit had zero independant characters in it, and costs 26% of the unit charged. I understand the complaint about watching a person re-roll 30 saves. But, would you have felt any better if one or two harlies died, and then you were destroyed? That troop choice was built to shoot and to win assaults against other troop choices.

Another point I will make. As much as you disliked that mechanic in action. It did require a minimum of 700 points to field. And that unit didn't beat you. The ork list you played didn't have enough long ranged firepower to threaten eldar jetbikes in the last turns. Had you killed a measely 6 jetbikes you win. The matchup was bad to be sure, but many different list types would have been able to really make that reliance on a single 700+ point entity a bad deal.

This game will get healthy after around 4 books come out, give it 8-10 months. In the interim, Do NOT expect to beat a 700-900 point unit, unless you are using a 700-900 point unit. I don't know why we should be expecting that? Ignore it, or put the double warboss biker unit together.

And I'll end with a noob question... isn't that all flyer necron list just incredibly easy to hard counter? How many denial units does it have? How many 2+ cover save models can it kill in the 4 game turns it will be on the board? I haven't played against it, and I doubt I ever will, it seems even more gimmicky than your deathstar lists.

Thanks so much for sharing this. I don't have time to find the edges of 6th edition right now, so I'm getting it through you guys

If Fortune goes away, the harlistar is dead. no question. It'll be shot up over time as it moves to engage w/out it.

I don't see Nobs not being charactors. I think that "C" going away in the BRB is a pipe dream for people not realizing that would allocation shenanigans were not intended to be removed but oddly enough is still very much gear dependant.

As for the hard counter comment, sure, there could be some pretty obvious hard counter lists to the flying circus but the problem so far in list delving is that what's proven to neutralize fliers isn't working well against the deathstar, swarm, or heavy psychic power lists. Your theory of 8 months sounds spot on however. After enough successful lists have made it through a tournament ringer, we'll all get a better picture of what a true all-comers list might be like or how many fliers is "optimal" in a flyers' list. We'll get a better picture of whether a psychic test and die roll of '6' is enough psychic defence.

What I think the thread is trying to get across is that there is alot of HOPING going on that you don't need Quad guns, 1-2 of your own flyers, eldar or space wolf allies for psy defence, and a deathstar of your own to be competitive. If I've gotten anything from these videos it is to search thoroughly for an all-comers list that can do just about everything above average or be stuck playing a list that's a one trick pony (with a laser strapped to it's head and goes by the name of Chuck Norris).

Balance and mobility is the key to victory.

Shep wrote:
And I'll end with a noob question... isn't that all flyer necron list just incredibly easy to hard counter? How many denial units does it have? How many 2+ cover save models can it kill in the 4 game turns it will be on the board? I haven't played against it, and I doubt I ever will, it seems even more gimmicky than your deathstar lists.

Thanks so much for sharing this. I don't have time to find the edges of 6th edition right now, so I'm getting it through you guys

There's pros and cons to pure Necron Airforce. It doesn't handle Deathstars very well, but it has high mobility, which can be crucial for objective games. It's hard to deal with because there's not enough anti-air other than bias IG list. A list focuses purely on anti-air will perform poorly against other lists. Necron Airforce performs poorly against horde armies. While it is gimicky, it will blow away most mech lists.

A less gimicky and more competitive Necron list will half as many flyers, and harder to deal with units such as Wraiths, Scarabs, and Spyders.

Overall, everything you said about 40k becoming healthy again after new codex releases is welcoming news.

Shep wrote:
The problem with GWs rules release model is that their games don't get healthy until about 18 months AFTER an edition comes out. I think this is a good time to look at the 'story so far' with 8th edition fantasy. When 8th edition came out, the casual players were exicted with new tricks and fun times, but the competitive players who enjoyed dissecting games started finding 'bugs'. Suddenly, massive 80+ model units appeared, and people were finding out that going all in on an okkams mindrazor was an instant win. The competitive game devolved into massive deathstars and unbreakable core tarpits clumsily sliding around the table. But then 5 or 6 army books came out. Mournfang cavalry appeared and were the silver bullet to the formerly unbreakable horde of models. Monstrous infantry and cavalry kept appearing over and over, and while the big blocks and deathstars still had game, people needed something to counter these new units popping up in every book. So people actually starting fielding the one thing that units like mournfang or demigryph knights can't handle, heavy cavalry 1+ saves. If you listen to warhammer podcasts, and talk to warhammer focused players, they all say that 8th edition is very healthy.

40K codecies are going to start emerging. Flyer answers will arrive with each book, excellent 2+ save characters will arrive with each book, and new answers to these characters will arise with each book. The health of the game will dramatically improve every time one of the offenders gets a book replacement. For example...

Agree 100%. The same thing happened at the beginning of 5th. Nob Bikers were running all over everything until SM and IG came out.

@Shep

You know I respect your opinion a great deal, and I think that your comparison to Fantasy is most likely a very good one.

They are clearly copying the Fantasy formula and I think it is not at all unreasonable to see a lot of this stuff going away with Codecis to come (in fact, we EXPECT a lot of it to).

My annoyance at the Boyz getting owned by a Deathstar was not at the fact that they lost (and it was only a few of them left at that point, not the full thing but still more points than the boyz) but the fact that the rules allow this kind of nonsense to occur in the first place. That was my real concern, it wasn't fun in any way, and took ages to boot! haha

We're finding the flyer armies are really nasty, and not much fun to play against if you don't have the tools but that movement and board control make it pretty easy to counter them. If you have lots of models, speed or both, you can dictate where the Flyers go. You find situations where you can win without actually doing any damage.

And no worries! Despite our grumbling about rules we think could have been better, we as a group are more invigorated to play the game than we have been in a long time. Allies was a stroke of genius and we're having a blast with crazy army builds.

@Painen and Thread

I want to say again, we are not trying to say that these or any Deathstars are "the unit," people keep thinking that is the point. It isn't, the point is to show the game mechanics and some of the crazier combos. We kill the Deathstars in the videos all the time.

As for Fortune going away and killing the unit? It hurts it, but it doesn't change the fact that the reroll 2+ save is here to stay, and all the crap you can do with it via Tanking wounds, etc.

Some of the core game mechanics (psychic powers, terrain, army powers, etc.) allow you to get a 2+ reroll. The principle remains and isn't going anywhere. That is very, very annoying.

I agree though, that I'll believe the Characters being changed for LoS! when I see it. Not saying it won't happen, but changing a core game mechanic in an FAQ is pretty crazy.

Nob Bikers are crazy, better than they were, but again, not unbeatable. DE and Nids gak on them! haha, they are just a very, very good tool.

Armies that have a lot of tools are best. Deathstars are one such tool, but not the end all, be all of them. They are just crazy good!

Its kinda funny, the game is loose and jacked up now, but I kinda like the deathstar as one type of playstyle, and MSU as another reasonable counter.

If people had been watching your other batreps, they might have noticed that Frankie's deathstar army has a losing record. It has lost to almost every army that had more troops than it had. And lost to a nid deathstar army as well.

A SUPER simple straightforward ungimmicky bike list just surrounded and dissected the death star for a convincing win. I can imagine that a bikes + stormtalon list would have just made it much worse.

As Reece said, wait for the balanced army versus balanced army batreps come out. Those armies are good enough to have no glaring weaknesses between flyer spam and deathstar armies. They might lose some games to those archetypes, but it won't be so wildly swingy and lopsided.

@Reece I just wanted you to acknowledge that your expectation of doing anything at all against a high initiative 700+ cost unit was a little out of alignment. However, your statement about it being a lame game-event is absolutely spot-on.

everyone should acknowledge that this happened, and I think you should have filmed him doing it. Just to see how long it took.

The orks charged, some of them died to karandras and vect, in very easy to resolve ways, the challenge was resolved swiftly and then Reece picked up probably around 60 dice. Those 60ish dice became 30ish hits, then those 30ish hits became 20ish wounds. Then he had to sit and watch Frankie pick up two dice at a time (he could have been a dick and done it one roll at a time) 20 times in a row, and at the end of that 20th pair, say "nope, no wounds" Whether or not that mechanic is balanced by cost or not has no bearing on how unfun of a tabletop gaming moment it was for him.

I wonder if it was as unfun as, let me pick a random example, losing a game of capture and control when an entire army of space wolves shot at a vendetta and failed to wreck it on the final turn of a tourney game on table one...

My point is that miraculously unkillable vehicles was something that made me loathe 5th edition (unless it was allowing me to beat Reece) and thats gone now

Shep wrote:My point is that miraculously unkillable vehicles was something that made me loathe 5th edition (unless it was allowing me to beat Reece) and thats gone now

Except if they're flyers and then they're even harder to kill then before.

@Yak

Haha, so true! I anticpate Flyers will tone down a bit as we get more used to them, but for now, a Flyer heavy list takes movement, patience and playing to objectives to counter.

@Shep

You said it. The Deathstars fail as often as not, and there are a lot of ways to counter them. The same as in 5th ed. The difference now is that they are even better, which makes them even less enjoyable to face by players who don't know how to handle them.

That bike army beat the dark harliestar again in a rematch, and again, did it through movement and smart play. However, we ran it against the Sons of AnOrky twice and it got smashed. It couldn't punch through the Orks fast enough, they were on the Marines too quickly and combat was devastating. The bikers handle slow Deathstars, but the fast ones were too much for them. We're mixing in some allies to see if that will shore up the weaknesses.

I think what a "balanced" army will be now, is not what a lot of folks think it will be. For example, I still don't see a "fluffy" marine army standing up to a tooled list. Last edition a very good player could do it, but this edition with the power levels increased, not so much.

We have been playing everyday and these power builds just roll up and smoke normal lists like they're a joke. As we have shown, only smart play and sticking to the missions gets around this.

A balanced list this edition will have lots of scoring options (often cheap, throw away type units) the ability to contain or fight a deathstar, the ability to fight or contain flyers, and a hammer unit of their own, or MSU firepower.

At this point in time I see that as the safest bet to a take all comers list in 6th ed.

I am really excited for the upcoming Golden Throne tournament to put a lot of these theories to the test outside of our gaming group. We are bringing the heat with our lists and all of us have some sort of Deathstar. It will be interesting to see if they hold up or if others have found ways to circumvent them. Only time will tell.

As for vehicles, hahaha, I remember all too well not being able to destroy that damned Vendetta! That was pretty funny, actually. 6th made vehicles better, IMO. Better from a balance perspective is what I mean. They die more consistently, but are more reliable until destroyed. I think it was a good compromise.

I remember there was one experiment on peoples perception of others. It involved leaving a wallet on the ground and seeing how many people would just take the money. The goal was to compare the % of people who thought they would take the money versus the number who actually did. Don't remember the exact numbers but about 70% of people polled thought that everyone would take the money. In reality I believe it was 20-30% at most.

It is interesting how we talk about the fact that it would not be fun to play against, nor would we enjoy playing it, yet we assume everyone else would(with the same information that it is not fun) and so we are bringing it to counter them.

As you said you make your living from people enjoying the game. Also it is possible to break any system, that is just how it is. I have yet to see any game that cant really be broken short of true randomness. There are just too many combinations that can occur. So I guess the question is should the focus be on how to break the game or how to enjoy it? If it is assumed that the majority are not WAAC but just competitive. Can we also assume that they will be bringing lists that are still fun to play or will the need to win turn 40k into a soccer(football) match(with the same amount of fake crying)

Personally I agree with the take all comers mentality, those are both fun for you, and exciting for your opponent. Tournaments for me are there for the competition that's true, but still I get more out of seeing new armies, paint schemes and the exchange of ideas.

Great report, always interesting to see skilled players in action. As to your question on exploiting that I saw on the website, everyone has the opportunity to exploit any system however the only thing that keeps a system running and functional is when people don't. Something to think about I guess

How many times have people in the financial sector/government gotten away with things that were "Within the rules"

I don't understand how you're getting every wound on to the characters. Some of those wounds are going to have to go on Harlequins and can't be LOS'd.


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Shep wrote: Frankie's deathstar army has a losing record. It has lost to almost every army that had more troops than it had.

Also, this. How much do you really need to complain about something that doesn't actually win?

Eldrad with 10 harlequins by themselves can be pretty formidable ye?

Leth wrote:I remember there was one experiment on peoples perception of others. It involved leaving a wallet on the ground and seeing how many people would just take the money. The goal was to compare the % of people who thought they would take the money versus the number who actually did. Don't remember the exact numbers but about 70% of people polled thought that everyone would take the money. In reality I believe it was 20-30% at most.

It is interesting how we talk about the fact that it would not be fun to play against, nor would we enjoy playing it, yet we assume everyone else would(with the same information that it is not fun) and so we are bringing it to counter them.

As you said you make your living from people enjoying the game. Also it is possible to break any system, that is just how it is. I have yet to see any game that cant really be broken short of true randomness. There are just too many combinations that can occur. So I guess the question is should the focus be on how to break the game or how to enjoy it? If it is assumed that the majority are not WAAC but just competitive. Can we also assume that they will be bringing lists that are still fun to play or will the need to win turn 40k into a soccer(football) match(with the same amount of fake crying)

Personally I agree with the take all comers mentality, those are both fun for you, and exciting for your opponent. Tournaments for me are there for the competition that's true, but still I get more out of seeing new armies, paint schemes and the exchange of ideas.

Great report, always interesting to see skilled players in action. As to your question on exploiting that I saw on the website, everyone has the opportunity to exploit any system however the only thing that keeps a system running and functional is when people don't. Something to think about I guess

How many times have people in the financial sector/government gotten away with things that were "Within the rules"

DarknessEternal wrote:I don't understand how you're getting every wound on to the characters. Some of those wounds are going to have to go on Harlequins and can't be LOS'd.


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Shep wrote: Frankie's deathstar army has a losing record. It has lost to almost every army that had more troops than it had.

Also, this. How much do you really need to complain about something that doesn't actually win?

Sigh.

Once again, people are missing the whole point of the videos. We are not, nor have we ever, said these armies/units/combos are unbeatable or the best, or whatever. People are making that assumption.

What we are saying is that the rules that allow this are bad. Straight up, no question, bad. And, as I have said many, many times, I like a lot more about 6th then i don't like but some of the core game mecahnics are flawed, IMO (random charges, wound allocation, and LoS!). I am having a lot of fun playing 6th, a ton actually, but those rules make the game less enjoyable than it could have been.

And, as you state you don't understand how the rule works, you really aren't in a position to critique it! hahaha, I would think that would be a given, but hey.

I am writing an article on close combat because apparently, a lot of folks don't get it yet, which is understandable because it is seriously illogical and poorly conceived. But here's a summary on how a single model can tank a large number of hits: In assault, since it is impossible to determine who is "closest" to whom, the defending player can choose any model in B2B at a certain initiative step to take EVERY SINGLE wound until he dies if his save is different than the rest of his squad. If said model has the ability to reroll his saves, and his save is good (2+), he becomes an ultra tank. The annoying thing about it is that it takes ages to resolve, and then nothing happens! haha We have had situations where we roll upwards of 100 dice, to have absolutely no wounds as a result. It is not fun.

In essence, you have a single guy taking every hit in a huge combat, which is beyond dumb. For an edition that bills itself as cinematic, this is a big failure in that regard. Two units charging into one another, Braveheart style, and somehow the dude in Terminator armor jumps around getting in the way of every attack in the entire combat while his buddies go unscathed just flat out doesn't make sense.

From a tactical perspective, it means that any weapons that don't punch the armor of the tanking unit, will largely be lost, leaving the rest of your boyz to do their work. Keep your eye on BoLS, I have an article that goes into a lot greater depth on the subject coming up this Wedensday that also explains ways to get around it.

In short: we're not complaining about the unit, we beat it regularly, we're complaining about the rules that allow it to happen.

@Leth

That is a really good point, and I think tournament data would support your theory. Most people bring to tournaments what they have, with only a very small percentage bringing the latest, greatest net list. Also, the best players almost always use lists they themselves developed over time and experience. The whole notion of buying an army and winning with it based on its power alone is largely a myth.

The point Yakface and I were trying to make is that due to the new rules, if you bring an army like this to a tournament, particularly early in 6th ed when people don't know what's going on, it is likely going to result in you smashing them, and them not having a very fun time. That sucks.

I really do believe the best players will win with balanced lists, but that it is harder than ever to overcome the power differential that the extreme list has. For example, if you were playing against the Dark Harliestar and you didn't have barrage weapons, lots of scoring units (or were playing them in KP), psyker defense, etc. you really don't stand much of a chance. However, if you have some of those tools and know how to use them, you can win, for sure, and it can actually be a really fun game. For example, if I were playing Draigowing last edition, I wouldn't even bother shooting at them unless I actually had the firepower to deal them a killing blow. I would just play around them, killing support units and playing to the mission.

A lot of players don't do that, though, and will feel really discouraged in the face of these types of units. Now that they are even better than they were, I think the problem will only be exacerbated.

Either way, we are playing in the upcoming Throne of Skullz GT which will put a lot of this theory to the test, so that will be really interesting.

But anyway, I liked your post, that was a nice analog to what we're doing here. And glad you enjoyed the bat rep!


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@SonsofVulkan

Yes, big time! I squad of Harlies with a Fortuneseer is brutal, they don't even need all of the other characters.