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I have seen a lot of people almost totally discount the morale phase. This is a huge mistake.

I have been playing AoS for about a year now, and play Skaven, the Morale phase can be the most devastating phase of the game for some armies.

If your unfamiliar Skaven are basically the Guardsman of the Fantasy World. Terrible everything, run a LOT.

So when I see people say stuff like "killing 20 T4 models take a lot of fire power" they are looking at it the wrong way.

Take Necrons for example. I have yet to see any way for them to mitigate their morale losses, yet people keep complaining about how strong their RP are. Your not tyring to kill 20 models your trying to kill 13-14 models. Necron Warriors have a LD of 10 so for every 1 killed over 10 it counts as 2 lost from the squad. So, 13 ends up being 16 then add at least 1 because of die the die roll so a total of 17 MINIMUM when you kill 13 models, 14 ups that by 2 to 19. So if you kill 14 and they roll a 2 or more on a d6 they lose the entire squad.

TL;DR: Morale is an important phase and is how your going to defeat some armies. Necrons is an example of this.

Well said! Concentrating your fire and knowing the threshold that can really break units in the morale phase will be crucial in this edition when trying to bring down certain blocks of infantry.

Kind of. The big difference between the morale phase in AoS and the morale phase in 40k is that units in AoS are a whole lot larger; just took a look through the General's Handbook for units that can be twenty models or larger and stopped counting at fifty, while in 40k units of more than ten models are few and far between. Marines stop at ten, Guard stop at ten unless it's a Conscript block, Eldar stop at ten except for Guardians, Necrons stop at ten except for Warriors...

So morale is a relevant part of breaking big units that are hard to deal with without it, but you may run across games where it's just unimportant. (The army I used in my first test games of 8th had all of one unit vulnerable to morale, everything else was vehicles, single characters, or a Deathwatch Kill-Team with a Terminator in it.)

You can just spend 2 command points to auto pass a units morale test so any critical morale checks probably won't happen

 CrownAxe wrote:
You can just spend 2 command points to auto pass a units morale test so any critical morale checks probably won't happen

But its a good tactic to get your opponent to spent his command points

 MasterOfGaunts wrote:

But its a good tactic to get your opponent to spent his command points

Sure. I mean, given the choice between doing a little damage to two big units and a lot of damage to one, I'm going to do a lot of damage to one to make the morale check harder and force the 2 CP. But the OP is suggesting that morale is an important part of dealing with Necron Warrior blobs, and that's crazy talk. Killing 19 of a 20-Necron blob is a massive failure. Your opponent spends 2 CP, then 15 of them stand back up by the end of his movement phase.

CrownAxe wrote:You can just spend 2 command points to auto pass a units morale test so any critical morale checks probably won't happen

Since most armies are not going to be able to afford that for long, your going to drain their CP fast especially if they use a re-roll.

AnomanderRake wrote:Marines stop at ten, Guard stop at ten unless it's a Conscript block, Eldar stop at ten except for Guardians, Necrons stop at ten except for Warriors...

So morale is a relevant part of breaking big units that are hard to deal with without it, but you may run across games where it's just unimportant. (The army I used in my first test games of 8th had all of one unit vulnerable to morale, everything else was vehicles, single characters, or a Deathwatch Kill-Team with a Terminator in it.)

Even with smaller units(not SM). Guardsman only have leadership of 7 with their SGT I believe, and rely heavily on Commissars and Captains to keep them in line. Killing 7 guardsman on an unsupported unit means a 3+ will wipe the unit, so the key there is take out the HQ choices. Necrons are in a similar position Kill 8 and a 4+ is a total loss with a 3+ leaving only 1 guy, which you don't ever want to do. CSM are in a Similar Position as Necrons except with worse leadership. A 10 man Squad of CSM losing 8 means 2+ and its a total loss. Kill the Synapse creatures and your opponents Gaunts and Gants will flee in terror from like 5 wounds.


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Dionysodorus wrote:

 MasterOfGaunts wrote:

But its a good tactic to get your opponent to spent his command points

Sure. I mean, given the choice between doing a little damage to two big units and a lot of damage to one, I'm going to do a lot of damage to one to make the morale check harder and force the 2 CP. But the OP is suggesting that morale is an important part of dealing with Necron Warrior blobs, and that's crazy talk. Killing 19 of a 20-Necron blob is a massive failure. Your opponent spends 2 CP, then 10 of them stand back up by the end of his movement phase.

Fixed that for you. The only way for them to do that is blow their once per game abilities on their on their first/second turn. If you do that on the first or second turn they would probably have used up all their CP in the first 2 turns.

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:

Dionysodorus wrote:

 MasterOfGaunts wrote:

But its a good tactic to get your opponent to spent his command points

Sure. I mean, given the choice between doing a little damage to two big units and a lot of damage to one, I'm going to do a lot of damage to one to make the morale check harder and force the 2 CP. But the OP is suggesting that morale is an important part of dealing with Necron Warrior blobs, and that's crazy talk. Killing 19 of a 20-Necron blob is a massive failure. Your opponent spends 2 CP, then 10 of them stand back up by the end of his movement phase.

Fixed that for you. The only way for them to do that is blow their once per game abilities on their on their first/second turn. If you do that on the first or second turn they would probably have used up all their CP in the first 2 turns.

No, they don't need a Resurrection Orb for that. Ghost Arks give RP re-rolls every turn, for Warriors. And then any Cryptek gives them RP on a 4+ rather than a 5+. So it's going to be pretty common that someone running a 20-Necron blob will expect for 3/4 of anything you kill to stand back up. Regardless why wouldn't you use your once-per-game Resurrection Orb to get 5 dudes back? You're not really expecting to have a better use for it.

Anyway, this is just nutty. You still sound like you're saying that it's fine if you only manage to kill almost all of a Warrior blob for the first two turns, because the Necron player will have to use a total of 4 CP to keep them going. I mean, from the Necron player's perspective there is basically nothing he'd rather you be doing. 2 CP are giving him almost 200 points' worth of stuff, net. As the person playing against the Necron player, in that case I would gladly spend 2 CP myself if it would prevent him from spending any CP to auto-pass the morale check.

How much do those units cost and what are thier stats?

The Ghost Ark is fairly weak for 170 pts, it's a bad transport (somehow a vehicle that does not have a roof of any kind did not get open-topped) so you're basically paying 170 pts just for the RP boost. The cryptek on the other hand is the best HQ Necrons get, especially if you spend a few points more for Orikan to boost the 5++ vs shooting to 5++ period.

This does depend on how much CP your opponent can accrue. Guardsmen can comfortably reach 9CP in as little as 750pts, I can't imagine Necrons reaching anywhere near that for the same value. Maybe 6CP if they scrimped together two battalions.

The larger a match gets the less essential CP becomes because:
1) You can only use CP once per phase.
2) Most armies, even the elite ones, are comfortably reaching enough CP so that forcing your opponent to spend it isn't a worthwhile endeavour.

I think that this is good advice and points to a big difference from prior editions. I will pay more attention to maximizing returns in this phase and guarding against losses from morale first of a!l.

Arachnofiend wrote:
The Ghost Ark is fairly weak for 170 pts, it's a bad transport (somehow a vehicle that does not have a roof of any kind did not get open-topped) so you're basically paying 170 pts just for the RP boost. The cryptek on the other hand is the best HQ Necrons get, especially if you spend a few points more for Orikan to boost the 5++ vs shooting to 5++ period.

The Ghost Ark is better off then the Cryptek which only has 4 wounds and T 4. 1 squad of scout snipers will kill him in 1 turn. The ghost ark takes a bit more fire power to bring it down due to Quantum Shielding.

If I was a necron player i would bring the Ghost Ark per 3 squads of Warriors. 10 in, 20 on either side. It gives a better chance at RP going off and is way more sturdy.


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 Humble Guardsman wrote:
This does depend on how much CP your opponent can accrue. Guardsmen can comfortably reach 9CP in as little as 750pts, I can't imagine Necrons reaching anywhere near that for the same value. Maybe 6CP if they scrimped together two battalions.

The larger a match gets the less essential CP becomes because:
1) You can only use CP once per phase.
2) Most armies, even the elite ones, are comfortably reaching enough CP so that forcing your opponent to spend it isn't a worthwhile endeavour.

Yes well once per phase is the key there if you can do 13-14 wounds to 2 different units he will be forced to pick which lives. And the other one will be below half strength or he's spending 1/4 of his armies points on support units that only affect RP at which point you pick those things off.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Kind of. The big difference between the morale phase in AoS and the morale phase in 40k is that units in AoS are a whole lot large

Not if you play Stormcasts! My average is 3.5 models per unit.

ERJAK wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Kind of. The big difference between the morale phase in AoS and the morale phase in 40k is that units in AoS are a whole lot large

Not if you play Stormcasts! My average is 3.5 models per unit.

Oh yeah. And you have the 24" ignore-morale bubble, so you doubly give no f***s about morale with Stormcasts.

Yes well Primas Marines are going to be the Stormcast of 40k. Super small squad sizes high leadership rerolls for morale

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:
Yes well Primas Marines are going to be the Stormcast of 40k. Super small squad sizes high leadership rerolls for morale

I may have to check again, but I'm pretty sure they have regular Marine ld. They just have more wounds base than regular Marines.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:
Yes well Primas Marines are going to be the Stormcast of 40k. Super small squad sizes high leadership rerolls for morale

I may have to check again, but I'm pretty sure they have regular Marine ld. They just have more wounds base than regular Marines.

They do but with 2 wounds they have to take 2x the damage to get the same effect on LD.

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:
Yes well Primas Marines are going to be the Stormcast of 40k. Super small squad sizes high leadership rerolls for morale

I may have to check again, but I'm pretty sure they have regular Marine ld. They just have more wounds base than regular Marines.

They do but with 2 wounds they have to take 2x the damage to get the same effect on LD.

And any models lost to morale are worth twice as many wounds

I play night lords so was thinking of units that offer leadership and morale debuffs for the whole terror fluff deal. So far I'm thinking raptors, Belakor, and spawn. The Leviathan's butcher cannon array is a -2 LD to any unit suffering a wound. Belakor debuffs -1 LD in a 12" bubble so a unit on each side of either spawn or raptors (+1 to morale rolls with Raptors and -1 to LD with Spawn when in 1" of enemies). Soften the enemy up with the Leviathon and charge both units in. -4 LD to units is nothing to sneeze at. Give the raptors an icon of despair and it is -5 LD to enemies in melee if supported with Belakor and hit by the Leviathon.
Any other Chaos units that would help me out?

Only DG stuff you cant benefit from. Which is probably why they took raptors away from DG ypu would get a -7 to Leadership total which means doing 1 wound in combat would send most units running.

Edit: Given your army though an Apostle would synergize well, or a Chaos Lord.

On a side note.

Dark Eldar Fear Bomb just got a whole lot better this edition (at first glance).

Armour of Misery -2 L bubble
Archangel of Pain one shot additional -2 L bubble and unsaveable wounds for every point failed.
Phantasm Grenade launcher, forcing another test against leadership causing unsaveable wounds for points failed.

The Kabalittes shoot a different squad to force a morale test as well.

Then they have to take morale tests for casualties and with the negative leadership modifiers, that's going to hurt.

Even without allies, this is going to be super spooky this edition!

I want to point out hat since Battleshock is at the end of the turn, it's important to use both shooting and melee to i flict casualties for most armies. Some like Guard and Tau can bring enough guns to force large numbers of wounds via shooting but most armies will need to shoot and punch their way to victory.

Thankfully since you can shoot anything and still charge that has gotten easier to do too.


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 Otto Weston wrote:
On a side note.

Dark Eldar Fear Bomb just got a whole lot better this edition (at first glance).

Armour of Misery -2 L bubble
Archangel of Pain one shot additional -2 L bubble and unsaveable wounds for every point failed.
Phantasm Grenade launcher, forcing another test against leadership causing unsaveable wounds for points failed.

The Kabalittes shoot a different squad to force a morale test as well.

Then they have to take morale tests for casualties and with the negative leadership modifiers, that's going to hurt.

Even without allies, this is going to be super spooky this edition!

Just watch out for stuff like Cenobyte Servitors which allow units to auto-pass morale tests.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
I want to point out hat since Battleshock is at the end of the turn, it's important to use both shooting and melee to i flict casualties for most armies. Some like Guard and Tau can bring enough guns to force large numbers of wounds via shooting but most armies will need to shoot and punch their way to victory.

Thankfully since you can shoot anything and still charge that has gotten easier to do too.

That is a very good point even 1 or 2 wounds can be the difference of a unit having 5 models or being wiped out at the end of the turn.

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
I play night lords so was thinking of units that offer leadership and morale debuffs for the whole terror fluff deal. So far I'm thinking raptors, Belakor, and spawn. The Leviathan's butcher cannon array is a -2 LD to any unit suffering a wound. Belakor debuffs -1 LD in a 12" bubble so a unit on each side of either spawn or raptors (+1 to morale rolls with Raptors and -1 to LD with Spawn when in 1" of enemies). Soften the enemy up with the Leviathon and charge both units in. -4 LD to units is nothing to sneeze at. Give the raptors an icon of despair and it is -5 LD to enemies in melee if supported with Belakor and hit by the Leviathon.
Any other Chaos units that would help me out?

Chaos Furies. They move 12 and they have a 12" bubble that when a Unit fails a morale test on a 4+ they lose an additional model from the unit. They cost 12 ppm and must be aligned to one of the 4, but you get the benefits of that alignment.

Downside is they are metal models so you might want to convert instead. Also they are only 1 wound and a 6+ save

BomBomHotdog wrote:

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
I play night lords so was thinking of units that offer leadership and morale debuffs for the whole terror fluff deal. So far I'm thinking raptors, Belakor, and spawn. The Leviathan's butcher cannon array is a -2 LD to any unit suffering a wound. Belakor debuffs -1 LD in a 12" bubble so a unit on each side of either spawn or raptors (+1 to morale rolls with Raptors and -1 to LD with Spawn when in 1" of enemies). Soften the enemy up with the Leviathon and charge both units in. -4 LD to units is nothing to sneeze at. Give the raptors an icon of despair and it is -5 LD to enemies in melee if supported with Belakor and hit by the Leviathon.
Any other Chaos units that would help me out?

Chaos Furies. They move 12 and they have a 12" bubble that when a Unit fails a morale test on a 4+ they lose an additional model from the unit. They cost 12 ppm and must be aligned to one of the 4, but you get the benefits of that alignment.

Downside is they are metal models so you might want to convert instead. Also they are only 1 wound and a 6+ save

I was looking a furies (and actually was looking into alternative models for them--mantic and gamezone both do decent counts as) but they don't really seem to do anything other than hang out and maybe pick off an extra victiim if lucky. They would get a 4++ if aligned with Tzeentch, but really who would shoot at them anyways? They just cost too much for their utility.

It feels like some armies are catered towards lowering Ld while others can take units to protect their Ld, or even raise it.

Nice checks and balances really since none of the options are free.

It definitly seems that way. Rubrics eem to be an exception though, they arent fearless and have kinda low LD for an elite unit.