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With the latest changes to ATSKNF Marines are in a more awkward place for morale shenanigans.

GW will likely remove some of the leadership mods and move them to attrition where marines benefit, but until then do you think you'll attempt to make mods a regular course for punishing marines?

At present they're going to take a lot of big beefy units where running hurts the most. Two Eradicators killed with a -2 mod gives a 33% chance for a model to run. If they took a unit of 5 or 6 then I wouldn't complain about the small chance to off more models, too.

What mods can you reliably stack that you think would make for an effective showing?

 Daedalus81 wrote:
With the latest changes to ATSKNF Marines are in a more awkward place for morale shenanigans.

GW will likely remove some of the leadership mods and move them to attrition where marines benefit, but until then do you think you'll attempt to make mods a regular course for punishing marines?

At present they're going to take a lot of big beefy units where running hurts the most. Two Eradicators killed with a -2 mod gives a 33% chance for a model to run. If they took a unit of 5 or 6 then I wouldn't complain about the small chance to off more models, too.

What mods can you reliably stack that you think would make for an effective showing?

Reivers, Reiver LT, etc. Many of the things that used to have some sort of Fear/Terror aspect back when we had psychology. I'm guessing - based on the Goonhammer article where it says "ignore combat attrition modifiers" that means they just take morale tests on their base/modified Leadership without adding X for X number of models destroyed. The only modifier on Attrition checks is basically a -1 if they're under half as far as I know. So you'd have to kill the two Eradicators, then you'd have to what, have the opponent roll a 6 or a 7 depending on if the Sgt/MM guy is Ld 8 or 9? Of course this is never happening to Erads, if two are dead and the last guy has Ld7, he takes the morale check and rolls a 6 to fail, he flees, there's none left to Attrition.... I suppose if they 10 man some Intercessors you plaster 5, then you're at what 4+ on a D6? If you get 6 of them, then it's a 3+ to have 1 flee, and the remaining three flee on a 2 or less.so maybe one more flees. I mean there's a way to do that, stacking Leadership modifiers to hit the Morale check early and often, but it's not probably not going to fare well vs Nids, and Boys as almost a hard counter. As UM thinking about running a few lists with Grandpapa Smurf, I'll be Ld 9, and still rerolling, while ignoring some sort of modifier being potentially poorly paraphrased. Both of the two armies that should have Ld/Morale as an achilles heel have a special rule making Ld laughably irrelevant. I mean technically if you can light up a 30 mob of boys, and kill 16, they're probably broken without insane courage, but that's only another 5 or so models, with no lost turn.

Morale/Ld has rarely a strong part of the game (outside of Break/Pursue/Destroyed in Close Combat) but it's rarely been weaker than it is now.

Breton wrote:
I mean technically if you can light up a 30 mob of boys, and kill 16, they're probably broken without insane courage, but that's only another 5 or so models, with no lost turn.

That "only" 5 sounds quite significant actually. It means +33% dead models in addition to those ones already killed by firepower, +40 points of stuff gone in addition to damage caused that was already resolved.

A full mob with a nob's weapon is 250 points and I've always thought that in a balanced game units should only get 50% of their points back in a single turn of shooting at most with average rolls, which means that 500 points of SM should be able to kill 30 orks. In real life it takes much much less. Unfortunately.

So when killing 5 or so more models just by morale seems a small benefit I can see we're looking to very high levels of power creep, not something that should be ok.

Good. Every army should worry about the morale phase to some extent. Marine players included.

Breton wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
With the latest changes to ATSKNF Marines are in a more awkward place for morale shenanigans.

GW will likely remove some of the leadership mods and move them to attrition where marines benefit, but until then do you think you'll attempt to make mods a regular course for punishing marines?

At present they're going to take a lot of big beefy units where running hurts the most. Two Eradicators killed with a -2 mod gives a 33% chance for a model to run. If they took a unit of 5 or 6 then I wouldn't complain about the small chance to off more models, too.

What mods can you reliably stack that you think would make for an effective showing?

Reivers, Reiver LT, etc. Many of the things that used to have some sort of Fear/Terror aspect back when we had psychology. I'm guessing - based on the Goonhammer article where it says "ignore combat attrition modifiers" that means they just take morale tests on their base/modified Leadership without adding X for X number of models destroyed. The only modifier on Attrition checks is basically a -1 if they're under half as far as I know. So you'd have to kill the two Eradicators, then you'd have to what, have the opponent roll a 6 or a 7 depending on if the Sgt/MM guy is Ld 8 or 9? Of course this is never happening to Erads, if two are dead and the last guy has Ld7, he takes the morale check and rolls a 6 to fail, he flees, there's none left to Attrition.... I suppose if they 10 man some Intercessors you plaster 5, then you're at what 4+ on a D6? If you get 6 of them, then it's a 3+ to have 1 flee, and the remaining three flee on a 2 or less.so maybe one more flees. I mean there's a way to do that, stacking Leadership modifiers to hit the Morale check early and often, but it's not probably not going to fare well vs Nids, and Boys as almost a hard counter. As UM thinking about running a few lists with Grandpapa Smurf, I'll be Ld 9, and still rerolling, while ignoring some sort of modifier being potentially poorly paraphrased. Both of the two armies that should have Ld/Morale as an achilles heel have a special rule making Ld laughably irrelevant. I mean technically if you can light up a 30 mob of boys, and kill 16, they're probably broken without insane courage, but that's only another 5 or so models, with no lost turn.

Morale/Ld has rarely a strong part of the game (outside of Break/Pursue/Destroyed in Close Combat) but it's rarely been weaker than it is now.

Incorrect. Attrition modifiers are for attrition not morale tests.

Eradicators are LD 7/8.

Breton wrote:
. I'm guessing - based on the Goonhammer article where it says "ignore combat attrition modifiers" that means they just take morale tests on their base/modified Leadership without adding X for X number of models destroyed. The only modifier on Attrition checks is basically a -1 if they're under half as far as I know. .

Uuh no. Ignore attrition modifiers means just that. Attrition modifiers. Not leadership modifieis. If those were ignored marines could not run as can't roll over 8 on d6.

It means if you fail ld test you lose additional modifiers on 1 alone(until gw introduces yet another exception). Atm only 1 attrition modifier exists(unless there's something on marine/necron codex, likely yes) but with new codexes starting to roll out you can bet there will be more

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Breton wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
With the latest changes to ATSKNF Marines are in a more awkward place for morale shenanigans.

GW will likely remove some of the leadership mods and move them to attrition where marines benefit, but until then do you think you'll attempt to make mods a regular course for punishing marines?

At present they're going to take a lot of big beefy units where running hurts the most. Two Eradicators killed with a -2 mod gives a 33% chance for a model to run. If they took a unit of 5 or 6 then I wouldn't complain about the small chance to off more models, too.

What mods can you reliably stack that you think would make for an effective showing?

Reivers, Reiver LT, etc. Many of the things that used to have some sort of Fear/Terror aspect back when we had psychology. I'm guessing - based on the Goonhammer article where it says "ignore combat attrition modifiers" that means they just take morale tests on their base/modified Leadership without adding X for X number of models destroyed. The only modifier on Attrition checks is basically a -1 if they're under half as far as I know. So you'd have to kill the two Eradicators, then you'd have to what, have the opponent roll a 6 or a 7 depending on if the Sgt/MM guy is Ld 8 or 9? Of course this is never happening to Erads, if two are dead and the last guy has Ld7, he takes the morale check and rolls a 6 to fail, he flees, there's none left to Attrition.... I suppose if they 10 man some Intercessors you plaster 5, then you're at what 4+ on a D6? If you get 6 of them, then it's a 3+ to have 1 flee, and the remaining three flee on a 2 or less.so maybe one more flees. I mean there's a way to do that, stacking Leadership modifiers to hit the Morale check early and often, but it's not probably not going to fare well vs Nids, and Boys as almost a hard counter. As UM thinking about running a few lists with Grandpapa Smurf, I'll be Ld 9, and still rerolling, while ignoring some sort of modifier being potentially poorly paraphrased. Both of the two armies that should have Ld/Morale as an achilles heel have a special rule making Ld laughably irrelevant. I mean technically if you can light up a 30 mob of boys, and kill 16, they're probably broken without insane courage, but that's only another 5 or so models, with no lost turn.

Morale/Ld has rarely a strong part of the game (outside of Break/Pursue/Destroyed in Close Combat) but it's rarely been weaker than it is now.

Incorrect. Attrition modifiers are for attrition not morale tests.

Eradicators are LD 7/8.

My Erads are LD 8/9 - and thus why I used the 8.

I'm guessing - based on the Goonhammer article where it says "ignore combat attrition modifiers" that means they just take morale tests on their base/modified Leadership without adding X for X number of models destroyed.

Sure it could be Attrition and not morale, but ATSKNF has traditionally been morale based and no modifier Morale checks is more in keeping with that tradition (I think it was even a thing in a previous edition), plus Attrition tests will pretty much by definition occur less often than morale tests making this even more forgettable/irrelevant.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

tneva82 wrote:
. If those were ignored marines could not run as can't roll over 8 on d6.

Sigh. That's true. Depressing.

You do know that Eradicators can now run up to 6 models in a unit? Just in case you don't want to have to to use all your Heavy Support slots on three units.

Then again, we might actually see Space Marines use Combat Squads

So a 1/6 chance of losing one Eradicator after you already killed two, assuming they've been combat squadded and you did not target the Sergeant's squad, and they don't have any Leadership buffs from any source?

That's... Not very impactful.

Anything that makes morale more relevant in the game is good in my book. ATSKNF seems a bit weaker to me and I hope after all codizes are released there's very little that ignores morale/ attrition straight away and a lot for Eldar, Night Lords and Nurgle to make morale actually important.

 JNAProductions wrote:
So a 1/6 chance of losing one Eradicator after you already killed two, assuming they've been combat squadded and you did not target the Sergeant's squad, and they don't have any Leadership buffs from any source?

That's... Not very impactful.

33% at -2

The post specifically references stacking modifiers and what people think viable modifiers might be that could make it even more likely.

This isn't 33% to lose an easy to kill 15 point model, either.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
So a 1/6 chance of losing one Eradicator after you already killed two, assuming they've been combat squadded and you did not target the Sergeant's squad, and they don't have any Leadership buffs from any source?

That's... Not very impactful.

33% at -2

The post specifically references stacking modifiers and what people think viable modifiers might be that could make it even more likely.

This isn't 33% to lose an easy to kill 15 point model, either.

Do you have to EQUAL their Leadership, or EXCEED it?

Because 7-2=5, 1d6>5 only happens 1/6 times.

You add 1 for killing the model, of course.

Dark Creed Drukhari may have a shot. 5 Incubi and 5 Wracks in a Raider. That would be -2 Ld from the two Coven units, needing equal or greater on the morale test with the Incubi rules. Grisly trophies on the Raider give another small chance for an additional casualty. Killing the enemy warlord yields another -1 Ld and turn 5 Power from Pain an additional -1 Ld.

It could get interesting allying in a Hemlock casting Horrify.

The opponent still only needs 2 CP to auto pass the test if you were to try this with any game-changing expectation.

It is exceed... but ATSKNF no longer does anything for the initial morale check, only attrition. So anything that negatively affects Leadership (for example, Night Lords) suddenly makes that chance jump.
If you ask me, a 1/6 chance isn't anything to sniff at for a faction that's supposed to know no fear. They absolutely should be less affected by morale than most other factions - it's just that before, they were almost practically immune to it.

 Super Ready wrote:
It is exceed... but ATSKNF no longer does anything for the initial morale check, only attrition. So anything that negatively affects Leadership (for example, Night Lords) suddenly makes that chance jump.
If you ask me, a 1/6 chance isn't anything to sniff at for a faction that's supposed to know no fear. They absolutely should be less affected by morale than most other factions - it's just that before, they were almost practically immune to it.

Too many factions already are, and Marines will continue to be if the predictions of MSU to dodge BLAST continue. They just won't have enough models in a unit to be able to lose enough AND fail an attrition test.

Morale itself needs to be more impactful similar to what it was in previous editions that resulted in lost turns.

Moving ATSKNF to attrition is a bad move because an iconic rule is now an afterthought that's just unlikely to come up that often. Shaken -> Broken was a better mechanic for that. They lost something for failing the first test, but they had to fail two to outright break.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Do you have to EQUAL their Leadership, or EXCEED it?

Because 7-2=5, 1d6>5 only happens 1/6 times.

Apologies - I wasn't being clear. Let's use a more concrete example.

Haarken provides an 18" -1LD bubble - pretty easy to apply. Night Lords give -1 (stackable up to -3) w/i 6". WL Trait roll an extra dice for morale and drop the lowers.

So a NL TH smash captain kills two (Haarken is nearby). LD is 6 (ld mods). Roll +2 (deaths) results : 3,4,5,6,7,8 - 7 and 8 fail or 33%. Now consider the roll two and pick highest - the results will lean towards more like a 50/50.

And then consider the abilities that are 'for every model killed it counts as two towards morale' or 'when the unit fails morale one additional model flees'.









Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Oaka wrote:
The opponent still only needs 2 CP to auto pass the test if you were to try this with any game-changing expectation.

Do take note that Insane Bravery is once per game now.

 alextroy wrote:
You do know that Eradicators can now run up to 6 models in a unit? Just in case you don't want to have to to use all your Heavy Support slots on three units.

Then again, we might actually see Space Marines use Combat Squads

They're already taking at max 5 man squads anyway. When will that EVER be used?

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
They're already taking at max 5 man squads anyway. When will that EVER be used?

Well, you'd take 6 and immediately (and always) CS them. There's no reason to keep them as 6 man units. This all assumes you want to take more than 9 total or if you want more slots free in heavy.

How many points is Haarken and a Smashlord?

How easy are they to take out, such as with Eliminators?

Yes, Marines CAN take morale. It’s just unlikely to be impactful.

Keep in mind the 'morale penalty' units in both books (Reivers and Flayed Ones) are now -2 to leadership. I'd expect that to be the new standard.

Not sure on the wording and if you can stack them, but I'd expect dark eldar, harlequins, slaanesh things, tyranids and those night guys to have similar toys (be it spells or auras or whatever).

Yeah, that's my view on it too. The Night Lords / Haarken example is just that, an example, but usually a faction that uses fear in its tactics has multiple sources of it available - whether that's as unit abilities, stratagems or otherwise.

Voss wrote:
Keep in mind the 'morale penalty' units in both books (Reivers and Flayed Ones) are now -2 to leadership. I'd expect that to be the new standard.

Not sure on the wording and if you can stack them, but I'd expect dark eldar, harlequins, slaanesh things, tyranids and those night guys to have similar toys (be it spells or auras or whatever).

If the Night Lords legion trait goes to -2 to leadership the possible boost to making enemies run isn't what excites me, it's the increase on what Prey On The Weak will work on in cc, especially if gw gives The Legions back their +1 to leadership we had in every previous edition I've played (since 3rd). Making stuff run easier would just be icing on the cake.

 JNAProductions wrote:
How many points is Haarken and a Smashlord?

How easy are they to take out, such as with Eliminators?

Yes, Marines CAN take morale. It’s just unlikely to be impactful.

250ish? These are just abilities I could recall from memory. I know there's some double out morale and an extra model flees abilities out there, but these were what I could pull off the top of my head. Other people can fill in what they recall and think about whether or not it's viable in list making.

A big problem with morale shenanigans was it just didn't work well on marines. But with the American tables pushing something like 60% Astartes and Eradicators sticking around it's a potentially worthwhile thought *if* it doesn't cripple a list and it can be made to work without a lot of hassle. There will also be more than Eradicators to consider. Pushing Intercessors off the table could become easier.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
How many points is Haarken and a Smashlord?

How easy are they to take out, such as with Eliminators?

Yes, Marines CAN take morale. It’s just unlikely to be impactful.

250ish? These are just abilities I could recall from memory. I know there's some double out morale and an extra model flees abilities out there, but these were what I could pull off the top of my head. Other people can fill in what they recall and think about whether or not it's viable in list making.

A big problem with morale shenanigans was it just didn't work well on marines. But with the American tables pushing something like 60% Astartes and Eradicators sticking around it's a potentially worthwhile thought *if* it doesn't cripple a list and it can be made to work without a lot of hassle. There will also be more than Eradicators to consider. Pushing Intercessors off the table could become easier.

Morale shenanigans worked better against loyalists with the old system. A butcher cannon Hellforged Contemptor split firing into two ten man squads of intercessors could reliably pop a dude per squad, making them L6. A ten man squad of combi-plasma terminators dropped within rapid fire range then splits fire into each loyalist squad, overcharging with Prey On The Weak: 10 shots hitting on 2s wounding on 2s: 10×.83=8.3×.83=6.944 wounds, loyalists save on 6s: 6.944×.83=5.787. That's six dead per squad with the butcher cannon kills, so one runs if the loyalist player rolls a one on their morale check, with an 83% chance of losing more and a 50% chance of losing the entire squad. ATSKNF helps, but you could always reroll a 4 into a 6. And I didn't even use my legion trait or Flay Them Alive.

Edit: Fixed the leadership check. Whoops.

Not sure the math is right? Though I suppose it doesn't matter too much.

4 * .833 * .833 * .5 = 1.4 Primaris per Butcher Cannon
5 * .833 * .833 * .833 = 2.9 Primaris per split of the Terminators

LD6 with a likely +4 to the roll. So a 1 and a 2 (33%) pass with a reroll (55%). So one unit will pass and one will not losing 1 to 4 models -- an average of 2.5 or 1.25 per unit. Extrapolate against 3 units under the new system since the fail rate without reroll was 33%. One passes and two fail. Two models flee. 10 more rolls total with failures only on 1s = 1.67. An average of 3.7 or 1.23 per unit.

If you indeed drop their LD to 0 in 8th you'd have a better overall outcome, but that is somewhat rare to do with transhuman kicking around.

The broader point is being capable of doing this more surgically. That setup you mention costs 515 points.

With the same Contemptor (who may go BS3) putting the mods on and a NL unit smacking them - say 10 Talons. That's a -3 mod with a +4. So LD5 and fails all but a 1. Not much less in points, but a more decisive result. And you could go in with fewer models if you opted to use Flay.

There are other scary morale abilities out there. I can't recall which have the 2-for-1 though. Flesh Tearers is one.

I'll just point out that Attrition modifiers already exist, in the -1 for below half strength.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Not sure the math is right? Though I suppose it doesn't matter too much.

4 * .833 * .833 * .5 = 1.4 Primaris per Butcher Cannon
5 * .833 * .833 * .833 = 2.9 Primaris per split of the Terminators

LD6 with a likely +4 to the roll. So a 1 and a 2 (33%) pass with a reroll (55%). So one unit will pass and one will not losing 1 to 4 models -- an average of 2.5 or 1.25 per unit. Extrapolate against 3 units under the new system since the fail rate without reroll was 33%. One passes and two fail. Two models flee. 10 more rolls total with failures only on 1s = 1.67. An average of 3.7 or 1.23 per unit.

If you indeed drop their LD to 0 in 8th you'd have a better overall outcome, but that is somewhat rare to do with transhuman kicking around.

The broader point is being capable of doing this more surgically. That setup you mention costs 515 points.

With the same Contemptor (who may go BS3) putting the mods on and a NL unit smacking them - say 10 Talons. That's a -3 mod with a +4. So LD5 and fails all but a 1. Not much less in points, but a more decisive result. And you could go in with fewer models if you opted to use Flay.

There are other scary morale abilities out there. I can't recall which have the 2-for-1 though. Flesh Tearers is one.

10 terminators rapid firing, splitting fire, Daed. That's 10 shots per loyalist squad not 5. You're right though, it's expensive. If I was sending in 10 warp talons I'd just give them Prey On The Weak, that would do the job by itself with the trait.

Edit: I also stuck in the wrong value for the saves. Fixed that, sorry.

The point is the same setup now would give you one loyalist running unless you rolled a 1 with each remaining member of the squad fleeing only on a roll of 1 because of the new ATSKNF rule. In the old system you're guaranteed one runner per squad, with a far higher probability of more, even with the old ATSKNF. Making loyalists run was easier in 8th.

 greyknight12 wrote:
I'll just point out that Attrition modifiers already exist, in the -1 for below half strength.

We know, but I'd say most of us are at least somewhat dissatisfied with the current morale mechanics. It just doesn't affect much. Outside of a few psychic powers and so forth they could squat the Ld stat like they did Initiaitive and few people would notice.

For my part I'd like to see them bring back locked-fight-lose-morale-possible pursuit and break-falling back-rallying, checks every x% not once per turn, and the Shaken/Broken mechanic. I'd like to see them borrow the Charge Reaction from WHFB so you can voluntarily do a one turn fall back if you're charged and really don't want to fight (with the potential to be wiped out if they can charge far enough to catch while/after you fall back) The last time they had really good morale was I think 5th? 6th? About the only change I'd make there would be to allow under half or whatever it was units to rally if there's a character nearby (and Make Sergeants/Chosen/squad leaders characters)

It's important to note that 9th edition is progressively getting more hostile toward the MSU style.

First we had LoS rules which punished small units.
Now we have a new RP rule which is countered by big units.
We also have a unit which shoots once for each enemy unit.
Grenades and bombardment effects are getting progressively more deathly toward small units.

I'm seeing a trend.