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 VladimirHerzog wrote:

ccs wrote:


Right up until it does impact a game....

Our Knight player discovered this in our big Imperial vs Tau game yesterday.
On the Tau turn one of his big Knights (Paladin?) Held an objective in no-mans land. We sent several Piranhas after it, one making it onto the objective, all within range for their Drone Harresment ability.
Several tests later & guess who was Battleshocked?
Then we hammered it down to just below 1/2 wounds.
Scored us a secondary as we took an enemy held objective.
On his turn? He needs to test for being below 1/2. He & his teammates decide the CP will be better spent elsewhere & he declares that's OK as he's got this.
Turned out that he did not have it & that 1 Piranha remained in control of the objective.
Of course that poor heroic Piranha soon died horriblely.....

so Battleshock is fine because in one game, your opponent misplayed, got punished for it and lost one round of primary on one objective?

As I've already said, I'm not overly impressed with the BS rule. And i can imagine a few improvements.
(Wich as house rules I don't feel are worth discussing with you lot as I know none of you are in my games. They'll be discussed, just with people who matter)

But it's not bad rule as is - so as far as GW rules goes thats about as close to fine as we'll ever get. And it at least it effects everyone, unlike the fear/terror/etc ldr tests of previous editions where most armies were able to easily deal with or even just outright ignore straight from thier codex.

As for our Knight player mis-playing?
He didn't.
He & his team simply had to make a meaningfull choice of how to spend thier only CP that round.
(Don't I keep hearing about how there should be meaningful choices in this game?) And since he had decent odds of passing the test....
Besides, they used that CP well later on.
It's just humorous when someone declares "I got this" & then the dice tells them "Nope.".

I am not sure I would call a situation, where someone stopping your stratagem that has to be used or the army just falls apart, one where there is a "meaningful choice made.
This especialy hurts elite armies, because if a unit that has to be misted, doesn't it more or less is a gg for the game. And the new tyranids generate A LOT of tests per turn, including ones that can't be stopped with the insane bravery stratagem.

I think I’m just gonna have to suck it and see.

Nids do have lots of trigger points for it. And I’m not seeing anything which says “only one test per turn”.

For instance, if a Haruspex wipes out a unit in HTH, all enemy units in 6” must test for Battleshock. That’s…a pretty big bubble, Spesh if I’m fielding, as I plan to do, three of the gribbly nightmares. I can cover a fair old chunk of the board.

Add in Shadow In The Warp, a couple of Neurolictors and other such “yeah you just sort of besmirch your Pantaloons”, and I have a pretty decent chance of causing mass disruption for a turn or two.

Will I learn how to turn that to best advantage? Hopefully!

Personally I would like Battle Shock better if it auto cleared after your Command Phase. Then, it might impact the game in a more meaningful way. Imo, as it stands now it's fairly passive and useless.

Insane Bravery is now Once Per Game.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Nk2f50GmwNJyHJ5R.pdf

How does that change opinions? If at all of course.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Insane Bravery is now Once Per Game.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Nk2f50GmwNJyHJ5R.pdf

How does that change opinions? If at all of course.

I'd say it makes things like the neurolictor MUCH more attractive, also, I'm gonna have to get my Neurotyrant painted up.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Insane Bravery is now Once Per Game.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Nk2f50GmwNJyHJ5R.pdf

How does that change opinions? If at all of course.

Not only that, it must be declared before rolling instead of afterwards
very massive change

Choosing to pass, rather than choosing to ignore a failure is indeed tricky when you’ve only one bite at the cherry.

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Insane Bravery is now Once Per Game.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Nk2f50GmwNJyHJ5R.pdf

How does that change opinions? If at all of course.

Not only that, it must be declared before rolling instead of afterwards
very massive change

It's a big change, and an improvement. I have no idea why they insist on keeping it as a strat, though. At this point it could comfortably be removed.

The Leadership check for Battleshock is the only standard roll you can’t re-roll with the Command Re-roll Stratagem. Instead it gets its own special stratagem.

And removes bit of risk. Without it tournament tryhards would complain when game lost on battleshock. Dice game lost due to dice roll shock horror

tneva82 wrote:
And removes bit of risk. Without it tournament tryhards would complain when game lost on battleshock. Dice game lost due to dice roll shock horror

its not tournament tryhards that complain about that kind of stuff lol, it's the casual that are unable to plan accordingly or adapt to a possible failed battleshock

I've only played a handful of games so far, so not exactly a huge dataset I'm drawing on here, but I find it to be... ehh? It doesn't really come up lots, if I'm honest, but perhaps that's just because me and my friends aren't doing it right.

I have to admit, I'm a little disappointed that Battleshock didn't reflect more of the old morale rules. Even though it was really annoying, it did feel very cinematic when units broke and ran!

Even if it meant a unit that failed its test took a penalty to shoot or had to withdraw towards the nearest cover or something, that would have given Battleshock some really nice flavour for me. As it stands, it's just not something I consider much.

To be honest the biggest issue with Battle-shock seems to be my oponnent and I keep forgetting to roll for it.

It is definitely working against a built in bias of morale never mattering to the point we are conditioned to forget about it.

BattleShock has been clutch for Objective control in a bunch of our games.And stopping units being able to Overwatch or otherwise react. Kinda fun!

I forget it exists half the time. There’s not enough command points for it to come up that often.

Played a mission where we had the card with sticky objectives so didn’t bother with Shadow in the Warp because would still control objectives.

With no intention of insulting anyone, I’m wondering if this might be one of those things it takes people a while to properly appreciate.

For instance, if you were relying on it shutting off Sticky Objectives and find it doesn’t do that, that can colour your overall view.

But as noted, switching off Stratagems and that can be potentially game winning, if you persevere enough to know how to reliably turn that on when needed then it may become a go-to tactic.

Pardon my ignorance again, but are we sure it doesn’t turn off Sticky Objectives? Only I’ve seen conflicting opinions on that.

Certainly I’d imagine I wouldn’t need much to take such a Sticky Objective, as I need only make the Stickying Unit OC 0, and slap any old guff within scoring distance?

Yeah, we are sure. "Sticky" is usually worded as "remains under your control until...", so unless you match the conditions for unsticky-ing it (usually holding the objective at a certain point in time). Battleshocking any amount of units on the marker literally has no impact whatsoever, if there is a unit left on the marker to begin with.

Taking away objectives from battleshocked units is not a viable tactic due to timing. You move into objective range during your movement phase and then force the shock on them. During their next command phase they recover just in time to get take away the objective from your old guff and sticky it again.
The only time (in my experience) when control of an objective is decided by battleshock is when you charge onto an objective marker, fail to kill enough defenders to control an objective and they then roll badly on their battleshock test. You can't exactly plan for that.

Yeah, people finding Battleshock bad isnt a "skill issue" it's just the result of GW's poor implementation of it.

In theory, it could be a strong mechanic, until you look at the timings and the absolutely stupid autoclear.

At least they realised there was a problem with it with the last dataslate when they reworked insane bravery to make BS a little bit more pertinent

 Jidmah wrote:
You can't exactly plan for that.

That's the crux of it. There are times when Battleshock can be a huge advantage and swing the game. But it's very rare and there's no way to plan for it. You generally don't want to leave units half dead as killing them outright is vastly better, so Battleshock is kind of the consolation prize. Then you can't even predict which ones will fail and most armies can't interact meaningfully with that Ld roll. If a roll really is vital you have the Insane Bravery strat to make sure you pass it.

I've had most of my army fail Battleshock against 'Nids and all it did was switch off Armour of Contempt for one turn on my Terminators. I still had one or two units to hold the necessary objectives and for the rest of my army it was business as usual. You have so many fewer CPs now that turning off strats is less of a penalty than it would have been in 9th. Now that the various "free strat" abilities only work on Battle Tactics, Battleshock is even less impactful.

And to people arguing that an army focused on battleshocking your opponent would be toxic, no it wouldn't, battleshocking is inherently less impactful than just killing your units.

I would even argue that the issue with battle shock is that there is to little skill involved. It's just a random thing that happens, like the mission where objective randomly shock units for a MW on a roll of 6.

It's cute when it happens, but in reality neither player changes their tactics because of it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Slipspace wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
You can't exactly plan for that.

That's the crux of it. There are times when Battleshock can be a huge advantage and swing the game. But it's very rare and there's no way to plan for it. You generally don't want to leave units half dead as killing them outright is vastly better, so Battleshock is kind of the consolation prize. Then you can't even predict which ones will fail and most armies can't interact meaningfully with that Ld roll. If a roll really is vital you have the Insane Bravery strat to make sure you pass it.

I've had most of my army fail Battleshock against 'Nids and all it did was switch off Armour of Contempt for one turn on my Terminators. I still had one or two units to hold the necessary objectives and for the rest of my army it was business as usual. You have so many fewer CPs now that turning off strats is less of a penalty than it would have been in 9th. Now that the various "free strat" abilities only work on Battle Tactics, Battleshock is even less impactful.

Absolutely agree, perfectly matches my experience.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
And to people arguing that an army focused on battleshocking your opponent would be toxic, no it wouldn't, battleshocking is inherently less impactful than just killing your units.

I wonder what those people think of the new DG detachment rules - which are both way worse debuffs than battleshock, and literally toxic

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Insane Bravery is now Once Per Game.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Nk2f50GmwNJyHJ5R.pdf

How does that change opinions? If at all of course.

It doesn't because Its still only around for roughly half a player turn, let alone a full battle round, and even when it is there, it does very little.

No "offensive" actions - Moving towards, shooting outside X", etc
No auto clear, or only autoclear after a significant time period.

There should be multiple play styles that all have advantages and drawbacks -

Lightning Strike (Fast Movers comparatively low on durability - Speeders, Jumpers etc)
Inexcorable Plodders (Slow, comparatively durable that probably have a one-use relocation ability to not be totally hosed on maneuverability - Terminators, Gravis, Medium Suits, Big Bugs)
Combined Arms (some of each)
Frenzied Chargers (Wolves, World Eaters)
Psychic
and so on - most of us know the archetypes.

Morale Games with Battleshock should absolutely be one of those styles, good for some Aeldari, Night Lords, Alpha Legion, Raven Guard etc So instead of some other gimmick like a host of speeders, or hordes of Terminators they'd just lock down units in Battleshock somehow.

Another game last night, managed to battle shock of a few of their units, and one or two of mine suffered it.

to zero net effect, none were holding an objective, or doing so alone, and none were in a position to benefit from a strategem

did get to use some nice tokens though, so there is that.

however I do see the value in trying to force it on specific units both during the battle shock part of the command phase and after since it then lasts until their next such phase - potentially quite useful for denying strategem buffs, e.g. the ork "ard as nails" one

requires a way to cause such tests on specific units though.

I suspect this is something that will start to be more powerful as the edition progresses and various interactions develop

I just had 2 games in a row where Battleshock felt way better than leadership tests that came before.
I used insane bravery both games and it felt like a good decision.

Battleshock can't ever be a relevant mechanic if whenever it might be an issue you can choose to just auto-pass.

 catbarf wrote:
Battleshock can't ever be a relevant mechanic if whenever it might be an issue you can choose to just auto-pass.

Once per game?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 catbarf wrote:
Battleshock can't ever be a relevant mechanic if whenever it might be an issue you can choose to just auto-pass.

Once per game?

Yep. I was initially pretty excited by the new morale system because I was glad to see debuffs and not just lose-more-models, but it's becoming clear from play that it's way too conservative in its effects to matter, let alone to be something an army can base its game plan around. So far it has been my experience that 'once per game' is an optimistic assessment of how often it's important enough to be worth burning a CP to avoid.

Battleshock is typically just a side effect of mostly, but not completely, killing enemy units, and even then it's a crapshoot whether the enemy will fail the test, and even then I've found it's pretty common to have no effect because that unit wasn't on an objective or receiving strats anyways. So basically the flowchart looks like this:
1. You've got to kill at least half a unit, but not wipe out the whole thing.
2. They have to fail their Battleshock test (and also not just choose to auto-pass).
3. They have to be in a situation where that actually matters.

You put these conditions together and then it's once in a blue moon where a unit suffers from Battleshock and it has a tangible impact on the game, and then it's automatically gone after one turn anyways. Even as a Tyranids player I can force the whole enemy army to test, maybe a third of them will fail, and of those it's pretty common that none will be in an ideal position to contest objectives or receive strats anyways. Better units tend to have better morale so the units where it's most likely to be relevant are also the least likely to fail.

If GW wants Battleshock to be a relevant, core mechanic, it needs to be provoked more often, last longer, have effects that are less situational, have no way (not even once-per-game) you can simply choose not to participate, or some combination thereof. As it stands I don't feel it's any more relevant or impactful than it was in 8th-9th, and HH2.0 makes morale a much more significant part of the gameplay.

 catbarf wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 catbarf wrote:
Battleshock can't ever be a relevant mechanic if whenever it might be an issue you can choose to just auto-pass.

Once per game?

Yep. I was initially pretty excited by the new morale system because I was glad to see debuffs and not just lose-more-models, but it's becoming clear from play that it's way too conservative in its effects to matter, let alone to be something an army can base its game plan around. So far it has been my experience that 'once per game' is an optimistic assessment of how often it's important enough to be worth burning a CP to avoid.

Battleshock is typically just a side effect of mostly, but not completely, killing enemy units, and even then it's a crapshoot whether the enemy will fail the test, and even then I've found it's pretty common to have no effect because that unit wasn't on an objective or receiving strats anyways. So basically the flowchart looks like this:
1. You've got to kill at least half a unit, but not wipe out the whole thing.
2. They have to fail their Battleshock test (and also not just choose to auto-pass).
3. They have to be in a situation where that actually matters.

You put these conditions together and then it's once in a blue moon where a unit suffers from Battleshock and it has a tangible impact on the game, and then it's automatically gone after one turn anyways. Even as a Tyranids player I can force the whole enemy army to test, maybe a third of them will fail, and of those it's pretty common that none will be in an ideal position to contest objectives or receive strats anyways. Better units tend to have better morale so the units where it's most likely to be relevant are also the least likely to fail.

If GW wants Battleshock to be a relevant, core mechanic, it needs to be provoked more often, last longer, have effects that are less situational, have no way (not even once-per-game) you can simply choose not to participate, or some combination thereof. As it stands I don't feel it's any more relevant or impactful than it was in 8th-9th, and HH2.0 makes morale a much more significant part of the gameplay.

Take it from a Night Lords player: Catbarf speaks the truth.

 Jidmah wrote:
I would even argue that the issue with battle shock is that there is to little skill involved. It's just a random thing that happens

I do agree with you in a general sense regarding battleshock tests from being below half strength being randumb, but:
- using the Tyranid Shadow in the Warp at the right time does involve some skill, as I've seen it used at the wrong time enough now.
- using battleshock abilities does involve a little skill, but it doesn't come up often enough and it suffers from the same issue the MW-spawm-archetype did in past editions, you need a critical mass of battleshock abilities before it becomes worthwhile building into lists.