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So I am quite excited for 8th edition, and yet there is only one thing that severely irks me.

Leadership.

I personally think the current one is pretty much fine, but this new one has a severe issue.

For those who don't know it has been said the new leadership will be
taken casualties + D6 - leadership = models lost (If negative then act as though it were zero)

Ok let's take two scernarios

5 man terminator squad suffers 3 casualties

3 + d6 - 9 = total lost marines

At most nine - nine, meaning zero loses.

60% loss and yet they stand fast, very well they are termies.

Now we look at a 50 man conscript force.

Equal percentage loss puts us at 30 models.

30 +d6 - 9 (you did put a commissar*?)

Same leadership, same percent, and yet the conscripts lose upwards of 25 models.

This is quite a severe buff to small man squads (and lone monstrous creatures 1 model means that they won't be taking moral), and penalty to large squads.

And it doesn't even make sense, you lose models over leadership and so the rest just -poof- are dead.

* How are Commissars going to work in this new system? Will they kill one and thus prevent all causalities, in which case they have no reason not to shoot. I honestly don't know.

If you have a read of AoS rules, generally you get a +1 for every 10models in the unit, still doesn't all the deaths, but helps.

Also in AoS there are numerous abilities that can counter out the need to roll

Who knows the commissar may just need to kill 1 duder to counter out a test, or he may kill off D6

I am typically a big fan of morale rules in wargaming as they are a very important part of real world battles.

However, 40K has basically made it so easy to avoid for so much stuff, that I feel it is wasted space to even bother.

I don't think I will mind the way Leadership works in 8th so long as it applies to more than 25% of the factions in a meaningful way, and it doesn't completely bog the game down with a bunch of fiddly rules.

no point in nit picking a mechanic whe you don't actually know all the rules yet.

Not sure your example holds up. I don't recall what conscripts cost, but I would argue that it is probably a lot harder to kill 30 of them in one phase than 3 terminators. Furthermore as others have said we have no idea what things like commisars will do. If they didn't have stubborn now, combat for those conscripts would likely look like.

Lose 30 models, fail LD unless snake eyes, get swept and lose the other 20 models.

We also have no conformation about how LD will work, maybe it still works the way it used to.

Models don´t retreat anymore but crumble to dust? I like to play Undead in 9th Age but not in 40K. It seems to me that GW doesn´t want my money.

Well, it represents units having people break and run in a unit. Not just the entire unit running.

@Youn:
I prefer the all or nothing approach. They either keep valiantly fighting or decide to run for their lives. This "evaporation" solution to a failed break test is just not my cup of tea.

 Strg Alt wrote:
@Youn:
I prefer the all or nothing approach. They either keep valiantly fighting or decide to run for their lives. This "evaporation" solution to a failed break test is just not my cup of tea.

All or nothing sucks.
It also has a negative effect on how people make their army lists.

Either units must be fearless or they are made so small that morale will never come up as they just die. As one bad morale check roll and the unit is gone (or useless until it rallies)

With this new system decent sized units are more likely to be taken (even when not fearless) because they won't all run away at some light casualties.

@Jbz´:
The all or nothing approach to morale has been a staple of Warhammer Fantasy and 40k. Why do they want to get rid of this mechanic all of a sudden? Well, they don´t want fleeing units on the board anymore. It is evident that this is some aspect of the dreaded dumbing down of the main rules.

How do you think that ATSKNF will work?

 Traditio wrote:
How do you think that ATSKNF will work?

assuming it remains in game, and isn't simply removed or merge with fearless, roll 2d6, take lowest.sounds about right to me. it won't make marines IMMUNE to fear but it'll make them more RESISTANT then say, guardsmen

Breng77 wrote:
Not sure your example holds up. I don't recall what conscripts cost, but I would argue that it is probably a lot harder to kill 30 of them in one phase than 3 terminators. Furthermore as others have said we have no idea what things like commisars will do. If they didn't have stubborn now, combat for those conscripts would likely look like.

Lose 30 models, fail LD unless snake eyes, get swept and lose the other 20 models.

We also have no conformation about how LD will work, maybe it still works the way it used to.

Not really, It's pretty easy to 100s of Conscripts with Large Blasts, usually the act is "Count how many are under the blast, that's how many die."

While on the other hand I've seen games in which Terminators absorb what seems like 100 wounds; (and then games in which they take 5 wounds and are all dead.)

 Talamare wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
Not sure your example holds up. I don't recall what conscripts cost, but I would argue that it is probably a lot harder to kill 30 of them in one phase than 3 terminators. Furthermore as others have said we have no idea what things like commisars will do. If they didn't have stubborn now, combat for those conscripts would likely look like.

Lose 30 models, fail LD unless snake eyes, get swept and lose the other 20 models.

We also have no conformation about how LD will work, maybe it still works the way it used to.

Not really, It's pretty easy to 100s of Conscripts with Large Blasts, usually the act is "Count how many are under the blast, that's how many die."

While on the other hand I've seen games in which Terminators absorb what seems like 100 wounds; (and then games in which they take 5 wounds and are all dead.)

templates are going bye bye though

 Strg Alt wrote:
@Jbz´:
The all or nothing approach to morale has been a staple of Warhammer Fantasy and 40k. Why do they want to get rid of this mechanic all of a sudden? Well, they don´t want fleeing units on the board anymore. It is evident that this is some aspect of the dreaded dumbing down of the main rules.

Sorry but I have to disagree. All or nothing is a horrid setup as you more often simply lost a unit rather then fell back, unless you were a Space Marine. Morale/Leadership in the current state is basically useless. Most armies ignore the vast majority of the effects that depend on Morale or have high enough LD to not care. As for the fleeing units you can now disengage from combat in the Movement phase with out having to worry about the whole unit getting taken out. I hope that the enemy unit get a chance at free shots as a result, even if it comes at a negative to hit.

@Traditio:
My educated guess would be like this:
ATSKNF would help Space Marines to circumvent the rather unpleasant consequences of a failed break test. The other/lesser factions will adhere by the rules as usual with some exceptions (e.g. Tyranid Hive Mind). The effect of ATSKNF in question will be profound and not minor in any kind of way. GW store managers all around the globe will praise this virtuous trait vigorously in order to sell Space Marines to the next unwary wargamer generation.

CommanderRednaxela wrote:
So I am quite excited for 8th edition, and yet there is only one thing that severely irks me.

Leadership.

I personally think the current one is pretty much fine, but this new one has a severe issue.

For those who don't know it has been said the new leadership will be
taken casualties + D6 - leadership = models lost (If negative then act as though it were zero)

Ok let's take two scernarios

5 man terminator squad suffers 3 casualties

3 + d6 - 9 = total lost marines

At most nine - nine, meaning zero loses.

60% loss and yet they stand fast, very well they are termies.

Now we look at a 50 man conscript force.

Equal percentage loss puts us at 30 models.

30 +d6 - 9 (you did put a commissar*?)

Same leadership, same percent, and yet the conscripts lose upwards of 25 models.

This is quite a severe buff to small man squads (and lone monstrous creatures 1 model means that they won't be taking moral), and penalty to large squads.

And it doesn't even make sense, you lose models over leadership and so the rest just -poof- are dead.

* How are Commissars going to work in this new system? Will they kill one and thus prevent all causalities, in which case they have no reason not to shoot. I honestly don't know.

Working as intended. It keeps games with huge model counts from going insanely long and forces horde armies to invest in keeping their dudes around with buffs to leadership.

side note: this is not an apples to apples comparison. The guardsmen lost 30 freakin wounds and the terminators lost 4 that's a potentially HUGE difference in investment.

Remember, with everything wounding everything a 50 man guard squad is SCARY. Sigmar is actually having a little bit of a horde problem atm with just how good large units can be.

 Strg Alt wrote:
@Jbz´:
The all or nothing approach to morale has been a staple of Warhammer Fantasy and 40k. Why do they want to get rid of this mechanic all of a sudden? Well, they don´t want fleeing units on the board anymore. It is evident that this is some aspect of the dreaded dumbing down of the main rules.

Because it's a bad mechanic. Just because it's bee around for a while doesn't mean a bad mechanic should be kept in the game

Regarding the example given in the first post, I would say there is a huge difference between seeing 3 men ahead of you get killed and seeing 30 killed. Would make perfect sense to me that those guys wanna run.

As far as actual rules, balance etc, we do not know the full rules. So this thread and all others like it are at best a guess. There is no need to be upset that your Guard army will be made super terrible by 8th, it won't.

Relax, everything will be fine.

Spartacus wrote:
Regarding the example given in the first post, I would say there is a huge difference between seeing 3 men ahead of you get killed and seeing 30 killed. Would make perfect sense to me that those guys wanna run.

As far as actual rules, balance etc, we do not know the full rules. So this thread and all others like it are at best a guess. There is no need to be upset that your Guard army will be made super terrible by 8th, it won't.

Relax, everything will be fine.

Tho there is a SIGNIFICANT fear when you see someone wearing the same IMMORTALITY ARMOR as you get shot by a single Lasgun and be killed as you raise your arm to double check your high quality Cadia armor to find a label saying "Made in Catachan"

Now that we know we have the option to fall back from cc I'd say the extreme loss holds up. Your 50 conscripts why are you in cc? And if someone kills over 50% of your men in cc and you stay in that cc? Its a nurf to sand trapping an deathstar with 50 wounds to plow through. It's a dynamic nerf though because it gives incentive not to do that rather than not allowing you to do it.