Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hello all,

I'm not an incredibly big fan of phosphex because of its innate power. It is now easy to spam, has few drawbacks and is super powerful. The twelve phosphex launcher list is a powergame nightmare and I feel that phosphex has no real downside, unless you're a jet carrying the cluster bombs. I feel that the weapons should have a downside aside from some dangerous terrain tests. Their lore reason for not being used is, of course, the long-term effects are absolutely devastating. But as cool as that is, we have no reason to avoid taking a weapon without drawbacks. Then again, upping the points cost isn't much of a deterrent in the Horus Heresy where you're competing with primarchs, and nerfing their devastating capabilities is also inappropriate. Phosphex should be deadly.

My proposal is this special rule added to all phosphex weapons:

Volatile Weapon: All phosphex weapons have the Gets Hot! special rule, but instead of taking a wound, the model carrying the weapon is treated as being fired upon by the phosphex weapon they carry. Templates scatter without modification by ballistic skill, centered on the firer (in the case of artillery, the gun itself), with your opponent making use of Crawling Death. Allocate wounds from the center of the template, use cover as if the attack had the Barrage rule. This consumes One Use Only weapons. Vehicles get to ignore the roll on a 4+ like normal, but should they fail the vehicle suffers d3 hullpoints instead of the above to represent the deadly cargo in a confined space.

What this accomplishes is that spamming phosphex becomes a progressively more dangerous process. You fire a volley of 12 templates, two of those are probably going to fall on your head. Phosphex weapons are already innately powerful against artillery units due to their excellent AP and poison, ensuring that it's an equal opportunity risk. However, you will notice that there are certain Legions who are famously capable of using phosphex well, specifically the Death Guard. Their Feel No Pain! against Poison and Fleshbane attacks ensures that while they certainly do take some risk, they are less susceptible to it.

The problem isn't Phosphex. It's just as strong as it is shown off as in the fluff. It's typically a 20 point cost locked behind a 95 point minimum HQ.

the problem is the cost of quad mortars in general, but more specifically, the problem is people abusing/spamming it to no end because winning trumps all else apparently. That's not to say I don't use phosphex (I have a list designed around it as as Death Guard Destroyer Company), but it only comes out when I think my opponent could handle it.

 Brennonjw wrote:
The problem isn't Phosphex. It's just as strong as it is shown off as in the fluff. It's typically a 20 point cost locked behind a 95 point minimum HQ.

the problem is the cost of quad mortars in general, but more specifically, the problem is people abusing/spamming it to no end because winning trumps all else apparently. That's not to say I don't use phosphex (I have a list designed around it as as Death Guard Destroyer Company), but it only comes out when I think my opponent could handle it.

If it's good enough people want to spam it then it's too good for points. Therefore problem isn't with the player but the rules.

Either rules or points cost.

Compared with the cost of frag shell quad mortars, the cost of making them pierce power armour is kind of irrelevant.

Personally I'd either increase the cost, or - more likely - make them one use. A destroyer sergeant doesn't carry unlimited phosphex bombs, he carries one or two.

A quad mortar battery having the option to pack one - and only one - salvo of phosphex gives the battery an answer to a big breacher squad largely immune to frag shells without making them able to turn your entire half of the board into dangerous terrain....

Are Quad Mortars OP without phosphex shells?

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
Are Quad Mortars OP without phosphex shells?

Tons of people take them with just fear and shatter. They are as cheap as land speeders harder to kill and put out fire power that's obscene. I think one of the biggest problems is honestly how barrage works it just makes it to easy to score 20+ hits with a quad mortar squadron even on small units. The shatter shells are also disgusting and kill anything that's not a flare shielded Spartan. Phosphex adds a whole new animal at least on medusa phosphex costs them their normal rounds on mortars you still can take shatter and it simply makes them the best tac unit for legions out there.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
Are Quad Mortars OP without phosphex shells?

IMHO, yes. They're thunderfires for 60 points when TFC's were already too good at 100. Yes, this is 30k and everyone is in power armour (excpt mechanicum and solar auxilia, but screw those guys, they're generally in need of a nerfing anyway), but we all know that a trio of wyverns or TFC's usually just remove whatever they were pointed at regardless of saves due to shear volume of wounds. As mentioned above, the fact that you can just buy 4 tank hunting sunder missile launchers for a pittance that coincidentally just happens to also solve that all-power-armour-all-the-time issue against small squads where you can't rely on volume of hits as well as being able to nope anything short of AV15 or similar means that it's good against almost anything. T7 3+ against shooting, while not meaning quite as much in 30k due to the prevalence of heavy/support squads and marksman vets still makes them a rather annoying proposition to remove.

 Drasius wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
Are Quad Mortars OP without phosphex shells?

IMHO, yes. They're thunderfires for 60 points when TFC's were already too good at 100. Yes, this is 30k and everyone is in power armour (excpt mechanicum and solar auxilia, but screw those guys, they're generally in need of a nerfing anyway), but we all know that a trio of wyverns or TFC's usually just remove whatever they were pointed at regardless of saves due to shear volume of wounds. As mentioned above, the fact that you can just buy 4 tank hunting sunder missile launchers for a pittance that coincidentally just happens to also solve that all-power-armour-all-the-time issue against small squads where you can't rely on volume of hits as well as being able to nope anything short of AV15 or similar means that it's good against almost anything. T7 3+ against shooting, while not meaning quite as much in 30k due to the prevalence of heavy/support squads and marksman vets still makes them a rather annoying proposition to remove.

they are discount TFCs that don't come with tech marines, hence the cost. 4 S: 5 AP: 5 templates is good, but even against mechanicum and Solar Auxilia it doesn't ignore saves. The shatter shells (S: 8 sunder) are only AP: 4, so even then it still doesn't get rid of the save issue beyond wasting them firing at Solar Auxilia. It's also worth noting that Sunder shells loose barrage, meaning that you now need LOS, and against LRs/Flare shielded anything, they loose a lot of OOMPH. Additionally, factor in a weakness to CC, generally poor Leadership, and the fact that they take LD checks after loosing just 2 marines, and you notice they are not flawless.

They are solid, but not OP.

Doesn't need to ignore their armour, just means that they're saving only half instead of 2/3rds which is a significant increase. Also means wounding solar auxilia on 2's instead of 3's, which is also nice.

As to the Shatter shells being AP4, I will be having words with one of the gentlemen in the store the next time I see him. Thanks for that.

Against AV14 though, it's still ~30% of all hits are glances though, so you can reasonably expect to put things out of action with a large group.

Yes, they're not great in CC, but good luck getting there unless you're in a spartan, at which point you've usually got higher priority threats to deal with. Their Ld matters little outside of the small handful of things that attack Ld like shriek/terrify/shriekers etc.

For 60 points, they're too good compared to many, many other things in the book, even without phosphex. The last thing we need is even more reasons to invalidate infantry.

Simpler solution: remove phosphex from quad mortars entirely, it should never have been added in the first place. That leaves phosphex on short-range grenades or an expensive and awkward to use flyer, where you get a powerful payoff for setting up a difficult attack. No more spamming ridiculously effective firepower from across the table without even needing LOS.

 Peregrine wrote:
Simpler solution: remove phosphex from quad mortars entirely, it should never have been added in the first place. That leaves phosphex on short-range grenades or an expensive and awkward to use flyer, where you get a powerful payoff for setting up a difficult attack. No more spamming ridiculously effective firepower from across the table without even needing LOS.

and on Medusas ;P

More importantly, the sort of people who spam phosphex probably aren't interested in a houseruled nerf to phosphex. I think it's a pretty good idea personally though.

As an idiot, wouldn't being in a transport counter phosphex?

Granted that severely limits many fun legion armies. Do love me my bricks of 20.

 cormadepanda wrote:
As an idiot, wouldn't being in a transport counter phosphex?

Granted that severely limits many fun legion armies. Do love me my bricks of 20.

The transport may block phosphex but if say 90% or greater of the time mortars will have shatter shells which will mess up any transport you can get your hands on. Mortars are also so hard to kill due to t7 that they are far more likely to out survive your transport and be there to drop hellfire on you afterwards.

Quad mortars just benefit to much from the current barrage ruling + how strong their ammunition options are + just don't cost a lot + take up a non contested slot elites which you get 4 of.

Like unless your row actively prohibits them you should probably take them.

Plus imperialis militia aren't in power armour either.....barring survivors grenadiers, anyway.

I'd agree the problem is mostly one of slot and variant ammo types.

Non-auxilia imperial army is interesting to look at re quad mortars: they occupy a heavy support slot (which you only have three of not four and competes with big guns and tanks) and lack access to phosphex and shatter shells.

are they good? Yes. Are they an automatic choice? No.

They're still worth taking, but nowhere near as broken.

 Kraytirous wrote:
Hello all,

I'm not an incredibly big fan of phosphex because of its innate power. It is now easy to spam, has few drawbacks and is super powerful. The twelve phosphex launcher list is a powergame nightmare and I feel that phosphex has no real downside, unless you're a jet carrying the cluster bombs. I feel that the weapons should have a downside aside from some dangerous terrain tests. Their lore reason for not being used is, of course, the long-term effects are absolutely devastating. But as cool as that is, we have no reason to avoid taking a weapon without drawbacks. Then again, upping the points cost isn't much of a deterrent in the Horus Heresy where you're competing with primarchs, and nerfing their devastating capabilities is also inappropriate. Phosphex should be deadly.

My proposal is this special rule added to all phosphex weapons:

Volatile Weapon: All phosphex weapons have the Gets Hot! special rule, but instead of taking a wound, the model carrying the weapon is treated as being fired upon by the phosphex weapon they carry. Templates scatter without modification by ballistic skill, centered on the firer (in the case of artillery, the gun itself), with your opponent making use of Crawling Death. Allocate wounds from the center of the template, use cover as if the attack had the Barrage rule. This consumes One Use Only weapons. Vehicles get to ignore the roll on a 4+ like normal, but should they fail the vehicle suffers d3 hullpoints instead of the above to represent the deadly cargo in a confined space.

What this accomplishes is that spamming phosphex becomes a progressively more dangerous process. You fire a volley of 12 templates, two of those are probably going to fall on your head. Phosphex weapons are already innately powerful against artillery units due to their excellent AP and poison, ensuring that it's an equal opportunity risk. However, you will notice that there are certain Legions who are famously capable of using phosphex well, specifically the Death Guard. Their Feel No Pain! against Poison and Fleshbane attacks ensures that while they certainly do take some risk, they are less susceptible to it.

I would say just don't play games with people who spam those models? I know it sounds silly, but this has become my go to for dealing with power gamers. I ask what is in the list, and then decide it I want to play against that.

It's not that I don't know how to play against or beat phosphex spamming, it's just that I feel its autoinclude nature in competitive lists is problematic. A friend and I were discussing fun ideas for how to make it a truly risky proposition aside from the fluff.

I really like the concept it looks fluffy and cinematic, while adding a drawback to the immense Power without ruining armies that use it.