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Since GW seems to just give everyone immunity to the rules of their own game, why don't they just eliminate Morale/Battleshock from the game. To me, it's inclusion is as about as necessary as the vehicle damage table, and every army is going to get immunity to the battleshock losses due to casualties anyways. I say, good riddance.

Or, we could wait and see how GW fixes it so that Morale matters. They already "fixed" Conscripts by making Commissars not really benefit them.
Ork and Nids have always been fairly resistant/immune to Morale. It fits their fluff and honestly is the only way to field large units as they are meant to.

However, you can remove Synapse creatures to make Nids no longer immune.
No other army is "immune" to morale. Marine get a reroll, which makes sense and Guard and Eldar have to choose a trait to get minimize casualties (but will still suffer at least 1).

Good players will find ways to use Morale against their opponent. If it is too hard for you to do the same, try other tactics.

-

I made a necron blob poof while rocking an 11 LD!

Urgh, just reread my first post. Overall, I'm not opposed to morale rules - they have a big impact in games like Bolt Action and several other TT games I've played.

But not really in GW's games. Prior to 8th, armies were given essentially Fearlessness wily-nilly or other methods to ignore or negate morale effects. In the base rules, 8th Morale effects were certainly more punishing, but then GW went and made just about everyone immune to the effects again.

At this point, I think GW just should drop morale rules for their games because they clearly don't fit the narrative they are attempting to play out on people's battlefields. It's not even morale anymore, but just an extra round of shooting or melee for attackers at this point. GW won't fix it, they'll just continue to make it more and more irrelevant, so I feel they ought to drop it out of the game altogether at this point.

Ive actually been proposing for a long time that synapse should give units the unmodified leadership of the nearest synapse creature. It would make all the nid units leadership 10 instead of flat immune.

 Stormonu wrote:
Urgh, just reread my first post. Overall, I'm not opposed to morale rules - they have a big impact in games like Bolt Action and several other TT games I've played.

But not really in GW's games. Prior to 8th, armies were given essentially Fearlessness wily-nilly or other methods to ignore or negate morale effects. In the base rules, 8th Morale effects were certainly more punishing, but then GW went and made just about everyone immune to the effects again.

At this point, I think GW just should drop morale rules for their games because they clearly don't fit the narrative they are attempting to play out on people's battlefields. It's not even morale anymore, but just an extra round of shooting or melee for attackers at this point. GW won't fix it, they'll just continue to make it more and more irrelevant, so I feel they ought to drop it out of the game altogether at this point.

Morale has, for a long time, existed only to hurt certain armies. There was a point where it arguably shouldn’t have been in the main rules because there were so many ways to completely circumvent it for certain armies, and only a select few would actually use that rules section in a game. When 8e came out, I hoped for an end to that, but it seems like GW insists on keeping “situationally ignores morale” in the toolbox of every army.

 Lance845 wrote:
Ive actually been proposing for a long time that synapse should give units the unmodified leadership of the nearest synapse creature. It would make all the nid units leadership 10 instead of flat immune.

I feel like this is a good "fix" for Nids. It makes them require high casualties for models to flee, but models would still possibly flee. Although I'd add that units within 6" of at least 2 Synapse Creatures should be a re-roll for Morale as well.

The new synapse rules basically do make it a nonelement - The radius is so huge, and penalties for losing it are so negligible, that I'm not sure why anyone should care anymore.

The problem of the assertion that "Make morale matter to everyone", is that... it shouldn't.

Morale as a mechanic has always existed to punish horde armies with cowardly grunts.

Should morale matter to Grey Knights, to Adeptus Custodes? To Eldars? No, it shouldn't.

Morale as a mechanic has his place to punish horde armies, that by virtue of being horde have other benefits that low model count elite armies don't have.

 Galas wrote:
The problem of the assertion that "Make morale matter to everyone", is that... it shouldn't.

Morale as a mechanic has always existed to punish horde armies with cowardly grunts.

Should morale matter to Grey Knights, to Adeptus Custodes? To Eldars? No, it shouldn't.

Morale as a mechanic has his place to punish horde armies, that by virtue of being horde have other benefits that low model count elite armies don't have.

Putting it bluntly, this is the same argument that has existed over the years with regards to the various casualty methods.

What you're looking at with the "Morale test" is not necessarily just "Suchandsuch runs away!". It can represent anything from a bunch of cowardly grunts running in terror to people attempting to pull their friends out of the combat zone, or even just fighters falling over from exhaustion during the combat.

 gnome_idea_what wrote:

 Stormonu wrote:
Urgh, just reread my first post. Overall, I'm not opposed to morale rules - they have a big impact in games like Bolt Action and several other TT games I've played.

But not really in GW's games. Prior to 8th, armies were given essentially Fearlessness wily-nilly or other methods to ignore or negate morale effects. In the base rules, 8th Morale effects were certainly more punishing, but then GW went and made just about everyone immune to the effects again.

At this point, I think GW just should drop morale rules for their games because they clearly don't fit the narrative they are attempting to play out on people's battlefields. It's not even morale anymore, but just an extra round of shooting or melee for attackers at this point. GW won't fix it, they'll just continue to make it more and more irrelevant, so I feel they ought to drop it out of the game altogether at this point.

Morale has, for a long time, existed only to hurt certain armies. There was a point where it arguably shouldn’t have been in the main rules because there were so many ways to completely circumvent it for certain armies, and only a select few would actually use that rules section in a game. When 8e came out, I hoped for an end to that, but it seems like GW insists on keeping “situationally ignores morale” in the toolbox of every army.

Check 30k. Morale there plays notably bigger role. Makes marines want to pay for banner to reroll failed morale checks least they lose big expensive squad to being run down in close combat. Even Custodians likewise though there it's bit ickier decision as they lose that sweet spear(do have at least power weapon as replacement but still downgrade on killyness on very small army as it is).

GW can't help but hand out those immunities out like a candy. Game benefits lot if those are less and more of reducer rather than immunity. Flat out fearless should be very rare.

 Lance845 wrote:
Ive actually been proposing for a long time that synapse should give units the unmodified leadership of the nearest synapse creature. It would make all the nid units leadership 10 instead of flat immune.

Even with a flat leadership of 10 a group of 30 hormagaunts would be wiped out by taking about 17 casualties. That would take a LOT of rebalancing to fix.

I think it would be more constructive to propose a solid fix to the morale system, rather than just complaining that it does not work.

And btw: Orks are definitely not immune to morale.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Galas wrote:
The problem of the assertion that "Make morale matter to everyone", is that... it shouldn't.

Morale as a mechanic has always existed to punish horde armies with cowardly grunts.

Should morale matter to Grey Knights, to Adeptus Custodes? To Eldars? No, it shouldn't.

Morale as a mechanic has his place to punish horde armies, that by virtue of being horde have other benefits that low model count elite armies don't have.

Putting it bluntly, this is the same argument that has existed over the years with regards to the various casualty methods.

What you're looking at with the "Morale test" is not necessarily just "Suchandsuch runs away!". It can represent anything from a bunch of cowardly grunts running in terror to people attempting to pull their friends out of the combat zone, or even just fighters falling over from exhaustion during the combat.

But that still makes sense given the fluff:
A Conscript who's been forced to march for days? Super likely to run away in terror, super likely to give up and try and pull out their friends, super likely to pass out from exhaustion or just give up from hopelessness.
A trained Space Marine? Pretty unlikely to run away, unless his entire squad has been massacred and there's no other option, or in the service of protecting his brother-in-arm's gene-seed. Organ implants keep them from passing out for days, so exhaustion is far less likely to be a problem.
An Ork Boy surrounded by thirty of his best buds? Extremely unlikely to run away, try and get his friend out of combat, or pass out. After all, he's got the WAAAGH! running through him like a shot of adrenaline straight in his heart, enemies to chop up, and no reason to back down.
A Tyranid, being controlled by synaptic impulses? They don't even get the choice to run away, and their lack of self-preservation will mean that they don't just fight until their body can't handle the stress, they'll fight until their body literally falls to pieces from being unable to stay together.


The problem with morale is that it's fluffy, but doesn't work due to how lopsided the battlefields are. So many factions have fluffy, fun reasons that make them resistant to fear. It makes total sense that Tyranids wouldn't care, Orks would only get nervous once they're down to a handful of boys, Space Marines would have training that would let them resist all but the worst of situations, etc, but the general immunity to Leadership attacks makes certain builds untenable in a TAC army. Night Lords getting up to a -3 Leadership penalty would be super cool, if half your potential opponents couldn't ignore it, but instead we get a situation where half your opponents will be hit with a viable, interesting mechanic, while the other half just get to laugh and shrug it off.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Galas wrote:
The problem of the assertion that "Make morale matter to everyone", is that... it shouldn't.

Morale as a mechanic has always existed to punish horde armies with cowardly grunts.

Should morale matter to Grey Knights, to Adeptus Custodes? To Eldars? No, it shouldn't.

Morale as a mechanic has his place to punish horde armies, that by virtue of being horde have other benefits that low model count elite armies don't have.

Putting it bluntly, this is the same argument that has existed over the years with regards to the various casualty methods.

What you're looking at with the "Morale test" is not necessarily just "Suchandsuch runs away!". It can represent anything from a bunch of cowardly grunts running in terror to people attempting to pull their friends out of the combat zone, or even just fighters falling over from exhaustion during the combat.

With the new morale system yes, you are right. Thats what applys to Daemons for example. They don't run, they just disappear.

To be honest what I said applied more to the old morale system.

Conscripts were the only disgusting outlier in the morale phase. Everything else is reasonably balanced.

Orks don't have morale immunity, if you shave down 2 blobs they're taking losses.

If you kill synapse creatures, Tyranids start losing guys like crazy to morale, not to mention they fall back to IB and are massively less effective for their points.

Conscripts and Guard should never have been as strong as they were against morale. It made literally 0 sense.

I've actually been pretty happy with morale this edition. Now that conscripts are fixed, there isn't a ton of stuff that completely ignores morale, and the things that do usually have some sort of trade-off. I'm probably missing some huge ones, but off the top of my head...

*Orks can certainly lose bodies to morale, just not when there's tons of them or a warboss around. This makes smaller units coming out of transports more susceptible to morale but gives a much needed and long asked for buff to large footslogging mobs.

*Tyranids have synapse, but killing off the leader beasts leaves the little gribblies ripe for morale shenanigans. This is how it has always been. The codex is giving synapse a range boost, but that's something 'nid players have been asking for for a while now. 18" is a big aura, but a 12" aura (with redundancy for when your opponent kills a synapse unit here and there) basically forces your whole army to clump up in one spot.

* Summary Execution is a non-issue now.

*Necrons have a high leadership, but this makes their larger units more susceptible to morale. Which makes for some interesting trade-offs. My number one method of clearing out warrior blobs is to kill enough of them to finish the rest off with morale (or force my opponent to bleed command points to keep them around for a turn).

*Iron Warriors have a warlord trait that grants a small bubble of it, but this means you're using arguably the worst legion tactics, gave up another warlord trait to have this one, and have have to keep anyone affected by the aura clumped up around your warlord to benefit from it. Seems reasonable.

* Eldar just got a chapter tactic that basically gives us the old version of summary execution. This is fine in my book as our units tend to have smaller unit sizes and are pricey enough for it to not really be an issue. Plus, you're giving up arguably better chapter tactics to get it (like the -1 to hit over 12" from Alaitoc).

*Eldar also have the Avatar, who is expensive and fits a pretty specific army style, and the Will of Asuryan power, which means you aren't taking some of our more proactive and arguably more powerful powers instead.

*High leadership armies in general (marines, various eldar, etc.) don't have as much raw baked-in morale protection, but they also usually don't need it. Sure, it makes taking a larger unit instead of a smaller one a bit tougher of a decision, but that's actually a fun decision to make. Do I take a 10 man dark reaper squad so that I can buff them all at once with Guide, or do I split them up into small squads to resist morale? Do I add to my kill point total by keeping these tactical marines together so I can use a single command point to raven guard them closer during deployment, or do I combat squad them to give my opponent more targets and basically immunize them against morale?

While I do hate GW swiftly removing major core rules (I think this is a poor way to develop the game) I do like this version of Morale better than the oft-ignored older versions. It's simple and occasionally knocks out a spare model or two.

I would have vastly prefered exceptionally rare abilities to ignore it (leaving it to say Necrons and Nids as a big army-wide boon etc.)

I would say no to removing Morale...

Seeing as how Guardmen armies still can rely upon a Lord Commissar's aura Ld9 to help them over the line... You can lose up to 3 models before you need a dice roll, and on a 10 man stormtrooper squad it's not that bad, especially if you lose 4-6 men, thats still only a 1-3 roll with a Commissar around...

However, if that Commissar is taken out, then you are really in trouble as the Sergeant's Ld7 is tested when you lose more than 1 model...

Slayer6 wrote:
I would say no to removing Morale...

Seeing as how Guardmen armies still can rely upon a Lord Commissar's aura Ld9 to help them over the line... You can lose up to 3 models before you need a dice roll, and on a 10 man stormtrooper squad it's not that bad, especially if you lose 4-6 men, thats still only a 1-3 roll with a Commissar around...

However, if that Commissar is taken out, then you are really in trouble as the Sergeant's Ld7 is tested when you lose more than 1 model...

Vox caster got a nerf, though, since it doesn't let you use LD across it anymore.

M.

 Infantryman wrote:


Vox caster got a nerf, though, since it doesn't let you use LD across it anymore.

M.

I move them as big group - without a Vox because of that. A Lord Commissar with 2 Primes who have a Command Rod each, with 4 squads with 1 model within 6" more than satisfies the bubble requirements.

Slayer6 wrote:

 Infantryman wrote:


Vox caster got a nerf, though, since it doesn't let you use LD across it anymore.

M.

I move them as big group - without a Vox because of that. A Lord Commissar with 2 Primes who have a Command Rod each, with 4 squads with 1 model within 6" more than satisfies the bubble requirements.

That's not the same thing as a Lord Commissar or Commissar.

That's three HQs babysitting 4 squads.

 Kanluwen wrote:

Slayer6 wrote:

 Infantryman wrote:


Vox caster got a nerf, though, since it doesn't let you use LD across it anymore.

M.

I move them as big group - without a Vox because of that. A Lord Commissar with 2 Primes who have a Command Rod each, with 4 squads with 1 model within 6" more than satisfies the bubble requirements.

That's not the same thing as a Lord Commissar or Commissar.

That's three HQs babysitting 4 squads.

I wasn't trying to change the topic, yes I acknowledge it's not the most feasible setup, but since I run a lot of Battalion Detachments often with Laurels and Tyberius' Auto Reliquary it seems to work. If an objective needs a Troops choice on it later, I'll drop it on the board later - alone.

For now I was illustrating how all it takes is the simple removal of the Lord Commissar via snipers etc, to completely disrupt the force and make it far more susceptible to enemy fire via morale.

There's a risk vs reward problem.
AoS has many units that gain a bonus when the unit size is over a certain number. Large units are vulnerable to battleshock, but get more powerful in exchange.
40K doesn't have that many similar rules (or the unit is immune to morale, like poxwalkers). It's somewhat the case with stratagems/psychic powers that buff a single unit, but that's about it.
Going MSU is safer and gives you more CP, it's often the best choice.

Morale the way they have it is pretty dumb.

As fresus said, it encourages MSU so that you can virtually ignore the entire mechanic, and you're also encouraged to MSU to get more CP, never mind the fact that many squads get free veteran squad leaders, and running MSU gets you more of those guys.

The way it is set up currently you can build with it in mind so that it doesn't do anything to you. If you don't build with it in mind, you can be horribly punished. All it does is soft-lock large squads to only morale immune units.

Needs a complete overhaul. I can't think of any way to salvage the current mechanic.

I can think of a way. Discount added models and make full unit upgrades a flat cost.

Lets pretend for the sake of argument that assualt marines currently cost 100 points for 5 and to add jump packs is 5 points per model. Can add up to 5 marines for 20 pts per model.

Instead a unit of assault marines cost 100 and adding jump packs to the whole unit costs 25. Each addition model is 15 ppm.

Now you are basically saving 50 points by adding 5 more marines to the unit with jump packs. The flat cost of the upgrade essentially makes them free for each additional model and each additional model is cheaper then buying a new unit.

You can have msu or you can have point efficency.

Lance845 wrote:I can think of a way. Discount added models and make full unit upgrades a flat cost.

Lets pretend for the sake of argument that assualt marines currently cost 100 points for 5 and to add jump packs is 5 points per model. Can add up to 5 marines for 20 pts per model.

Instead a unit of assault marines cost 100 and adding jump packs to the whole unit costs 25. Each addition model is 15 ppm.

Now you are basically saving 50 points by adding 5 more marines to the unit with jump packs. The flat cost of the upgrade essentially makes them free for each additional model and each additional model is cheaper then buying a new unit.

You can have msu or you can have point efficency.

Yeah and that exists for some units in the game, in seventh ed HH, but just fix morale.

niv-mizzet wrote:Morale the way they have it is pretty dumb.

As fresus said, it encourages MSU so that you can virtually ignore the entire mechanic, and you're also encouraged to MSU to get more CP, never mind the fact that many squads get free veteran squad leaders, and running MSU gets you more of those guys.

The way it is set up currently you can build with it in mind so that it doesn't do anything to you. If you don't build with it in mind, you can be horribly punished. All it does is soft-lock large squads to only morale immune units.

Needs a complete overhaul. I can't think of any way to salvage the current mechanic.

Yeah the system is pretty quick to apply and that's good, just make it apply to MSU. If you have two MSU units standing next to each other, they take less damage than a single big unit would. So make all casualties that happen within 9" count for morale. If people are dying all around, it shouldn't matter if they're from another squad. If a tank blows up nearby, or a HQ character dies, that should have an effect. That should cause +2, or even +3 if it's like a burning super heavy flyer falling out of the sky onto their heads.

 Galef wrote:
Or, we could wait and see how GW fixes it so that Morale matters. They already "fixed" Conscripts by making Commissars not really benefit them.
Ork and Nids have always been fairly resistant/immune to Morale. It fits their fluff and honestly is the only way to field large units as they are meant to.

However, you can remove Synapse creatures to make Nids no longer immune.
No other army is "immune" to morale. Marine get a reroll, which makes sense and Guard and Eldar have to choose a trait to get minimize casualties (but will still suffer at least 1).

Good players will find ways to use Morale against their opponent. If it is too hard for you to do the same, try other tactics.

-

What the f are you smoking. Did you and i play the same edition of 40k last year? Mob rule was catastrophic.

 doktor_g wrote:

 Galef wrote:
Or, we could wait and see how GW fixes it so that Morale matters. They already "fixed" Conscripts by making Commissars not really benefit them.
Ork and Nids have always been fairly resistant/immune to Morale. It fits their fluff and honestly is the only way to field large units as they are meant to.

However, you can remove Synapse creatures to make Nids no longer immune.
No other army is "immune" to morale. Marine get a reroll, which makes sense and Guard and Eldar have to choose a trait to get minimize casualties (but will still suffer at least 1).

Good players will find ways to use Morale against their opponent. If it is too hard for you to do the same, try other tactics.

-

What the f are you smoking. Did you and i play the same edition of 40k last year? Mob rule was catastrophic.

It was horribly designed (jfc so many rolls just to see if one GD ork dies) but it did actually make them pretty resistant to morale. You had to knock them below 10, KO any characters, and not be in melee with them to actually make them have normal morale rules, or in other words by the time they treated morale normally, they were already neutered. For my prissy little red weaklings in power armor (aka BA,) the way to beat orks was to pounce on each unit hard one at a time and try to sweep them. It worked fine with the old mob rule where I'd win combat by like 20 and also bring them below 10 so they needed a hard 2 to not get run over, but as soon as they got the 7e book that stopped working so well.

 niv-mizzet wrote:

 doktor_g wrote:

 Galef wrote:
Or, we could wait and see how GW fixes it so that Morale matters. They already "fixed" Conscripts by making Commissars not really benefit them.
Ork and Nids have always been fairly resistant/immune to Morale. It fits their fluff and honestly is the only way to field large units as they are meant to.

However, you can remove Synapse creatures to make Nids no longer immune.
No other army is "immune" to morale. Marine get a reroll, which makes sense and Guard and Eldar have to choose a trait to get minimize casualties (but will still suffer at least 1).

Good players will find ways to use Morale against their opponent. If it is too hard for you to do the same, try other tactics.

-

What the f are you smoking. Did you and i play the same edition of 40k last year? Mob rule was catastrophic.

It was horribly designed (jfc so many rolls just to see if one GD ork dies) but it did actually make them pretty resistant to morale. You had to knock them below 10, KO any characters, and not be in melee with them to actually make them have normal morale rules, or in other words by the time they treated morale normally, they were already neutered. For my prissy little red weaklings in power armor (aka BA,) the way to beat orks was to pounce on each unit hard one at a time and try to sweep them. It worked fine with the old mob rule where I'd win combat by like 20 and also bring them below 10 so they needed a hard 2 to not get run over, but as soon as they got the 7e book that stopped working so well.

From your perspective it may have been useful, but from the perspective of someone trying to build an ork army 7e mob rule meant that anything without a character attached that wasn’t a blob of about 20 or more would run away at the first sign of trouble, making low of units like Lootas and kommandos (they coukdn’t infiltrate and charge in 7e) ludicrously vulnerable due to terrible Ld and a migitator that hurt as much as if not more than it helped.