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Lots of the Tau guns have this like the pulse carbine, I was just curious on how effectively this works ( I believe it prevents units from moving?)

It's useless until it's amazing. It's amazing until it's useless.

That's not even hyperbole. If someone's entire army is Ld 10 across the board (Necrons), then it's terrible. If they're all Fearless (Tyranids) it's terrible. If they're impossible to pin (Ravenwing/White Scars), it's terrible. If they're entirely mechanized (... everyone?) it's terrible.

But, when it's not one of those things, it can suddenly become amazing. If they're Ld8 and you're forcing multiple tests per turn to force a fail, it's fantastic! If they're Tau, it's fantastic! If they're basic Orks, it's fantastic (just for extra kills if they pass their Mob test).

Pinning a unit causes a LOT of problems for them. They can't move next turn to go somewhere better, and their shooting potential plummets. Pinning a unit is about as effective as scoring a Penetrating Hit with a Stunning result (can't move, snap-shots only), and think of just how effective THAT is.

Yeah, I miss pining at -1 ls on my barrage weapons

I won a game against space wolves for no other reason than pinning from pulse carbines. But boy was he rolling badly lol.
He'd get pinned, then move up a little bit, then fail a leadership check then come back and get pinned again XD...it was hilarious.

Depends on what you fight often

Bikers/Nids/Deathwing termies/Daemons it's nearly useless.

It's mostly useless, since marines and nids make up a huge portion of players and they're immune to it, same does with fear (unless my marine friend was lying again)

Marines are certainly not immune to it. Take that free vehicle thing...isn't that full of basic marine units that are not fearless?

Marines can go to ground actually, ATSKNF doesn't protect against Pinning so it's has it's merits against Marines.

Of course that's against regular Marines. Mechanized lists or Fearless or Bikes won't be taking Pinning tests anytime soon.

Now Fear, that's a useless rule. Only army that suffers from it is Orks and like eck they'll charge your Fear causing units with Boyz when they can dakka it to death with Lootas, Mek Gunz and others.

as an ork player, i hate it.
Because even if i dont get pinned, i probably failed the ld test and had to take a mob rule test and that probably killed a couple boyz.

 cosmicsoybean wrote:
It's mostly useless, since marines and nids make up a huge portion of players and they're immune to it, same does with fear (unless my marine friend was lying again)

ATSKNF is really powerful and make fear useless. They still test for pinning though but have good leadership stats.

I don't get this talk about bikes being immune to pinning. Can somebody please enlighten me?

In the section on the bike unit type it specifies that they cannot be pinned.

Oh my god... I've never noticed that XD

I just played a guy who recently came back and thought pinning my CSMs would be awesome. Until he sees LD 9 and Fearless Helcult Cultists.

According to GW it is super overpowered hence why it was removed from Snipers and Barrage weapons.

GW always getting their priorities straight.

Pinning is effective in the late game, when you are trying to defend the objective you are claiming.

There are units with high Leadership values, but also, there are marker lights that can deny certain amount of Ld points.

Pinning and Fear are rules that would be great if multiple entire armies out there didn't simply ignore them. Fear in particular needs a complete reworking.

As mentioned it really depends on what army you're playing.
Against some opponents you'll be really happy you can temporary lock down a unit, other times it's of no use.

D

In short, pinning is a nice tool to have-and even against LD10 opponents you don't want to forget it (they WILL fail 1/9 times, so if you force enough checks...), but not something you can base a strategy around, as fearless is a thing, and many units that can be pinned-can also be simply erased.

Best tau pinners are them random drones that jump off tanks. most because nobody is going to waste a turn shooting them.

Come to think of it, were you to base your army around Leadership antics (such as Harlequins) then Pinning can be made even better. Shadowseers can cause easy wounds and mitigate shots fired at them quite handily, particulary when backed up by other Freakshow elements.

Had fun once as Tyranids, pinning a GK terminator unit for two turns, using SitW for the leadership debuff and the LAN (biovores)...

I think the overall problem is to make effective use of it, you really have to allocate too many resources to something that is highly situational. It's best treated as a pleasant bonus when it comes into play.

Pinning is actually great against Astartes.

 Frozocrone wrote:
Come to think of it, were you to base your army around Leadership antics (such as Harlequins) then Pinning can be made even better. Shadowseers can cause easy wounds and mitigate shots fired at them quite handily, particulary when backed up by other Freakshow elements.

True, but quins and DE has more effective uses of moral brakedown combos than pinning, such as forcing retreats in a direction of their choosing via death jesters.

Well it's pretty effective. Very few of the bits and limbs and stuff I pin on my models ever break, and even when they do, it's easier than ever to glue it back in the same position.

Oh. That kind of pinning. That's going to vary widely based on the army you face. I would imagine if someone ran a low LD horde army it could be pretty effective and disruptive. But I wouldn't be shocked if several armies could be built to ignore pinning completely.

Also remember that a unit pinned or GTG doesn't fire Overwatch.

And can be assualted at iniative without grenades

I find its good vs marines. It's why I love my blast masters. Generally if I'm causing a pinning test I've also caused you to take a panic check and that generally means I could potentially make you fail one of those tests

Also don't forget that a pinned unit does not recover from pinning until the *end* of their next turn (unless they have ATSKNF in which case they automatically recover at the start of their turn). That means when that units turn comes around, it isn't moving, it has to snap-shot, it can't run and it can't charge.

Fear exists simply to further validate marine awesomness. Pinning would be great only I can't remember the last time I saw a weapon that had the rule. Probably too good against marines. Trend. Someone probably went hey lets give them atsknp.. ah hell lets just get rid of pinning.