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I thought GW were aiming to reduce to the lethality and amount of games decided in the first few turns?

So many reports I’m seeing coming on from tournaments and friendly games is that games are still being decided on turn 2 or 3, and certain armies feel way more ‘lethal’ than before.

Wasn’t the intention to cut down on the mass reroll spam, yet it seems like only some Codexes got the memo (surprise surprise Space Marines still reroll by the bucketload).

All point system issues aside, I’ve got to say I’m disappointed by the early feedback coming from the edition. I was hoping for a return of games that go the full 5 turns rather than people mutually agreeing to call it after just 3.

For some armies the damage efficiency went WAY down. While others stayed more or less the same or got slightly nerfed, but got a lot cheaper.

Play vs DG and you are going to have 5 full turns of playing. If you start vs knights, and the building have windows, the game could be over turn 1, if they start. In general same old w40k, as we had before.

this was marketing speech and advertising, we don't know if it ever was a design goal and we also don't know how strictly this was enforced during design process if it was a goal

but like Bill Gates advertising that the new Internet Explorer will be faster and better than the last one

*record zip*

Question your sources.

People online lie. Some make disliking a game their entire personality because reasons and will absolutely lie for reasons best known entirely to themself.

Cite your sources. Link them if at all possible.

Because whilst I challenge the claim, I myself have no such links or citations to counter. But….I’m not the one making the claim, am I?

GW aren't competent enough to make a game play the way they intend it to.

they may have made "things" less dangerous, but then they took away upgrade costs so you have more "things" overall

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
*record zip*

Question your sources.

People online lie. Some make disliking a game their entire personality because reasons and will absolutely lie for reasons best known entirely to themself.

Cite your sources. Link them if at all possible.

Because whilst I challenge the claim, I myself have no such links or citations to counter. But….I’m not the one making the claim, am I?

Warhammer 40k Studio Manager Stuart Black, when interviewed by Wargamer, that only they were concious that 9th ed was very leathal , like GW representatives said that every sesonal patch too, but that the decision to lower the damage potential of armies in 10th was based on GW wanting to give space for more different ways to play the game.

here is what mr Black had to said about their desing choices in 9th and 10th, in the interview.

“A lethal game rewards certain play styles, strategies or techniques. For example, a key part of previous editions was the concept of trading – a unit moves onto an objective to score it, then the opponent kills it and takes the objective with a unit that then dies, and so on back and forth.”

“There is nothing wrong with this dynamic, but I think it is better if there are other ways to play. It is also more fun if your models get to be on the table for longer!”

That is one example. On the pre release patches and other GW materials the focus on "less deadly" was put focus on too. Now I am not saying people should trust GW, but I can imagine that if someone hears the company say something they could expect it to happen. They just weren't ready for the caviat not mentioned, by anyone at GW. That they plan to do the change to only some armies.

How much mech are people taking? The rules seem to have really shifted towards mech now.

 Trickstick wrote:
How much mech are people taking? The rules seem to have really shifted towards mech now.

Other than whatever adjustments I need to make pts wise, I'm not changing my forces/play styles.
So pretty much the same as before.
●My SWs will remain a drop pod based force with Landspeeder support,
●My Grot force will still be Grot Tanks, Mega-Tanks, Kanz, MkGunz, etc (all the grot vehicle stuff + trucks & a Wazbomb)
●my DA will continue to be rhino/Razorback/dread supported 1st born. Sometimes with a Predator or Whirlwind.
●my Necrons - well really whatever I'm in the mood to play with that day.
●my Knights.....
Etc etc etc.

Other people? (Shrugs)

What I've never done is foolishly expected to see few if any vehicles & thus leave my AT at home.

How many of these games are Marines, Eldar, Knights or TS?

If you have a game between two of weaker factions, separated by a bunch of LOS-blocking L-shaped ruins, then stuff generally isn't dying immediately. Or at least not unless you just sprint them into each other, so every unit is shooting/charging turn 2.

Tyel wrote:
...separated by a bunch of LOS-blocking L-shaped ruins...

Or even some hills or sealed buildings. L-shaped ruins everywhere are so boring, terrain needs some variety.

Wouldn’t surprise me if critical hit mechanics are a major source of blame.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
GW aren't competent enough to make a game play the way they intend it to.

GW don't even play the game the way its written.

Tyel wrote:
How many of these games are Marines, Eldar, Knights or TS?

If you have a game between two of weaker factions, separated by a bunch of LOS-blocking L-shaped ruins, then stuff generally isn't dying immediately. Or at least not unless you just sprint them into each other, so every unit is shooting/charging turn 2.

Now eldar, knights and especialy 1ksons aren't the most popular armies in the world, but if in order to have a chance to play with a lower then mid tier army is to not play against marines, then we have a problem. And the new players have a gigantic problem, especialy at the start of an edition.

 Trickstick wrote:
L-shaped ruins everywhere are so boring, terrain needs some variety.

And less symmetry.

The immediate thing that stuck out to me looking at 10e rules and convinced me that touching it wouldn't be worth the bother was noticing all of the focus on critical damages now. Not only do you have your usual source of mortal wounds, but now even basic infantry gets in on the action such as with Marine terminators or the ilk. They also did not seem to reduce dice volume at all, so yeah no gak this wargame is still a mess of lethality.

All local games have been definitely much less lethal overall.

Our eldar players are doing similar if not more damage BUT that is a hell of a outlier. Marines aswell can do crazy stuff but its mostly vs the OoM target.


I do agree GW have lowered lethality in general, what doesn't help is players already (without main mission packs out for scoring asap) just looking at the highest damage combos and proclaiming the sky is falling.

 Trickstick wrote:
How much mech are people taking? The rules seem to have really shifted towards mech now.

That's more likely to be a faction-by-faction basis. Obviously Knights won't be taking any more mech. But I could easily see Sisters taking more to a lot more. Same with Custodes - the only multi-use weapons they have higher than S9 on a non-character are the Landraiders and Contemptor fists. GSC have more options than that, so it'd depend on what you mean by Mech vs Mining Laser bikes, and such.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Wyzilla wrote:
The immediate thing that stuck out to me looking at 10e rules and convinced me that touching it wouldn't be worth the bother was noticing all of the focus on critical damages now. Not only do you have your usual source of mortal wounds, but now even basic infantry gets in on the action such as with Marine terminators or the ilk. They also did not seem to reduce dice volume at all, so yeah no gak this wargame is still a mess of lethality.

What usual source of mortals are you referring to? I thought the usual source was psychics, and they're mostly gone now - most of the mortals I see are from 10e's version of Rending or 10e's version of Impact hits.

This is an honest question, different people think differently, so I'm curious what you thought was the source of Mortals previous that I could have missed.

Breton wrote:

What usual source of mortals are you referring to? I thought the usual source was psychics, and they're mostly gone now - most of the mortals I see are from 10e's version of Rending or 10e's version of Impact hits.

This is an honest question, different people think differently, so I'm curious what you thought was the source of Mortals previous that I could have missed.

Devastating wounds. Especially combined with anti-X is what he's most likely refering. There are some dirty combo's for that. But so far seems there's 2 major outliers.

Eldar. They got high damage devastating wound weapons and ability to quarantee them. 1 per turn bare minimum and that's with lousy dice roll. It won't last forever but 2 turns to delete 2 big targets is far from unexpected. And pretty darn cheap platform.

Thousand son. Not many targets they can't just auto-delete. 10 terminators can with just their bolters average 17 damage to T12 target without invulnerable save. Sure that eats lots of regenerative resources and at least requires dice rolling so there's chance of failure there. Add to that guy that will be insanely hard if you don't have right tools(MW spam being primary one, other is spamming -2 dam1 or 3 shots. Any attempt to take it down with stuff like lascannons, dark lances, rail guns, gladiator lancers etc is exercise in futility...Consider that 2 rail cannons literally cannot harm him without rolling 6 to wound if he so chooses...)

3rd one is marines who excel at deleting single targets so if opponent relies on 1-2 key units he can get crippled hard and fast.

If units are being deleted by the one turn firepower of another unit the game is too lethal for me (barring edge cases)

I can now take the following in a 1,000pts Tyfanid force:

Old One Eye,
2 Carnifexes 2 sets of Brainleech Devoureres
2 Carnifexes 2 sets of Monstrous Scything Talons.
1 Carnifex 2 sets of Monstrous Scything Talons
Tyrannofex Acid Spray

I think that is quite durable, lowest Toughness is 9. Feels a bit cheeky, but the new way to make forces really opens up what players can do.


Mortal wounds seem to be where a lot of the lethality lies. I think Drukhari can do an awful lot of damage to vehicles with their Haywire blasters, each can do 6 mortal wounds maximum, stick 4 of them in a unit of Scourges and that is potential for 24 mortal wounds against vehicles. Not even Knights can stand up to that level of punishment.

Tyel wrote:
How many of these games are Marines, Eldar, Knights or TS?

If you have a game between two of weaker factions, separated by a bunch of LOS-blocking L-shaped ruins, then stuff generally isn't dying immediately. Or at least not unless you just sprint them into each other, so every unit is shooting/charging turn 2.

Yea of the games I've played some can be tough to manage all the stuff on the table and others are very quick.

GW did all the work to make it less lethal, but some of these armies wind up being a bit nutty with the extra rules. Thousand Sons end up being combo-wombo. Towering makes it hard to hide from the big guns. Eldar have their BS and Marines have their rerolls. If you cut those factions the game would probably play as intended and the sentiments of things being "weak" would actually be baseline.

 stonehorse wrote:
I can now take the following in a 1,000pts Tyfanid force:

Old One Eye,
2 Carnifexes 2 sets of Brainleech Devoureres
2 Carnifexes 2 sets of Monstrous Scything Talons.
1 Carnifex 2 sets of Monstrous Scything Talons
Tyrannofex Acid Spray

I think that is quite durable, lowest Toughness is 9. Feels a bit cheeky, but the new way to make forces really opens up what players can do.


Mortal wounds seem to be where a lot of the lethality lies. I think Drukhari can do an awful lot of damage to vehicles with their Haywire blasters, each can do 6 mortal wounds maximum, stick 4 of them in a unit of Scourges and that is potential for 24 mortal wounds against vehicles. Not even Knights can stand up to that level of punishment.

It is fun to create new and different themes of lists - and that does look like a fun one. Best of all it's still got it's drawbacks too. Your highest OC is likely to be 9 - and then only if you attach Old One Eye to a 2 model Carnifex Brood your total OC is 23 - and strangely for all those Big Bugs, you'll run into some difficulty vs T12 - only Old One Eye has a weapon profile with a S over 9. Conversely Blistering Assault will get OOE racing around the table tout de suite. And you'll absolutely eviscerate MEQ/TEQ..

Breton wrote:

 stonehorse wrote:
I can now take the following in a 1,000pts Tyfanid force:

Old One Eye,
2 Carnifexes 2 sets of Brainleech Devoureres
2 Carnifexes 2 sets of Monstrous Scything Talons.
1 Carnifex 2 sets of Monstrous Scything Talons
Tyrannofex Acid Spray

I think that is quite durable, lowest Toughness is 9. Feels a bit cheeky, but the new way to make forces really opens up what players can do.


Mortal wounds seem to be where a lot of the lethality lies. I think Drukhari can do an awful lot of damage to vehicles with their Haywire blasters, each can do 6 mortal wounds maximum, stick 4 of them in a unit of Scourges and that is potential for 24 mortal wounds against vehicles. Not even Knights can stand up to that level of punishment.

It is fun to create new and different themes of lists - and that does look like a fun one. Best of all it's still got it's drawbacks too. Your highest OC is likely to be 9 - and then only if you attach Old One Eye to a 2 model Carnifex Brood your total OC is 23 - and strangely for all those Big Bugs, you'll run into some difficulty vs T12 - only Old One Eye has a weapon profile with a S over 9. Conversely Blistering Assault will get OOE racing around the table tout de suite. And you'll absolutely eviscerate MEQ/TEQ..

That and I think it has no Synapse, so will be at the mercy of Battleshock.

It isn't a list that is going to fare well against a more experienced player, but against someone who doesn't know what to do and panics when they see so many big Nids it may get a chance to win.

Just realised, I have 35 points spare, so can add in a brood of Rippers, who's job will be to sit back and camp on objectives.

 stonehorse wrote:

Breton wrote:

 stonehorse wrote:
I can now take the following in a 1,000pts Tyfanid force:

Old One Eye,
2 Carnifexes 2 sets of Brainleech Devoureres
2 Carnifexes 2 sets of Monstrous Scything Talons.
1 Carnifex 2 sets of Monstrous Scything Talons
Tyrannofex Acid Spray

I think that is quite durable, lowest Toughness is 9. Feels a bit cheeky, but the new way to make forces really opens up what players can do.


Mortal wounds seem to be where a lot of the lethality lies. I think Drukhari can do an awful lot of damage to vehicles with their Haywire blasters, each can do 6 mortal wounds maximum, stick 4 of them in a unit of Scourges and that is potential for 24 mortal wounds against vehicles. Not even Knights can stand up to that level of punishment.

It is fun to create new and different themes of lists - and that does look like a fun one. Best of all it's still got it's drawbacks too. Your highest OC is likely to be 9 - and then only if you attach Old One Eye to a 2 model Carnifex Brood your total OC is 23 - and strangely for all those Big Bugs, you'll run into some difficulty vs T12 - only Old One Eye has a weapon profile with a S over 9. Conversely Blistering Assault will get OOE racing around the table tout de suite. And you'll absolutely eviscerate MEQ/TEQ..

That and I think it has no Synapse, so will be at the mercy of Battleshock.

It isn't a list that is going to fare well against a more experienced player, but against someone who doesn't know what to do and panics when they see so many big Nids it may get a chance to win.

Just realised, I have 35 points spare, so can add in a brood of Rippers, who's job will be to sit back and camp on objectives.

Oh, I get it, Synapse the KEYWORD across the bottom is what gives Synapse, not Synapse the Faction ability? That seems wrong. Especially since Shadow in the Warp works the way we're used to seeing - the ability is listed as an ability. I even thought to check that, but I saw SYNAPSE as a Faction ability, and thought that meant Carnifex and OOE were synapse creatures now. Even as I'm looking at it, it still feels like I'm reading it wrong, and the Faction Ability Synapse is what puts you in Synapse range. They should have named it something different like Hive Mind - if you have the Hive Mind Faction ability, and are near a Synapse keyword model yadda yadda.

There are several issues with why the new edition is just as lethal and, in some cases, more lethal.

I think the most egregious is; no meaningful army composition restrictions.

I believe what we have currently is the 10th edition sandbox. Bring whatever you want. Play whatever you want. The honeymoon will come to an end. At which point, I firmly believe we will see 'required' books for Organized Play / GT play.

 oni wrote:

I think the most egregious is; no meaningful army composition restrictions.
I believe what we have currently is the 10th edition sandbox. Bring whatever you want. Play whatever you want. The honeymoon will come to an end. At which point, I firmly believe we will see 'required' books for Organized Play / GT play.

There are some. Mostly centered around the Character Can Join Units X, Y, and Z. Some based on the new S/T stat range, a little based on the way OC works now. On the flip side of your point - without the FOC list forcing "balanced" lists caveat emptor is fully in play. Someone pointed out they could fit 7 Big bugs in a 1000 point Nid list(Old One Eye, 5 Carnifex, and a Tyrranofex I think which probably ended up being 4 Units). But they had almost nothing S10 or above, 23 or so OC in the entire army, and no synpase for passing battleshock. It might be a good list, it might not be - but even if it is a good list, its got some pretty big holes to cover. It's easy to see the temptation of 10 Smash Captain lists, but I doubt they'd play well as they wouldn't get Lone Operative/LookOut Sir without units which would make 10 smash captains too expensive. I just made a list that would have even satisfied the old Detachment/FOC system - 6 characters would have been 4HQ, 1 LOW, 1 Elite, it would have had 3 Troops, 2 more elite, and a HS. Its got more than 50 bodies plus characters. Its just a rough draft - I need to replace at least the Eradicators with something more Anti-Tank. Maybe the BGV with something more Anti-TEQ/GravisEQ. There are more threat ranges and stat bands to account for now. I suspect most skew lists have much more risk involved in them now. I'd guess the "safest" skew right now is Green Tide or Little Bugs, but they still have to account for all those stat bands lest they have to spend all day beating on a T12 2+ vehicle/monster.

nemesis464 wrote:

All point system issues aside, I’ve got to say I’m disappointed by the early feedback coming from the edition. I was hoping for a return of games that go the full 5 turns rather than people mutually agreeing to call it after just 3.

Same here, I was really enjoying all the promises marketing was making on WarCom when they announced the edition. Too bad they underdelivered

Seems to me that *most* stuff is less lethal, but there's a couple outliers.

I think it's likely we'll be seeing some nerfing of a few units or abilities pretty soon.

 The Red Hobbit wrote:

nemesis464 wrote:

All point system issues aside, I’ve got to say I’m disappointed by the early feedback coming from the edition. I was hoping for a return of games that go the full 5 turns rather than people mutually agreeing to call it after just 3.

Same here, I was really enjoying all the promises marketing was making on WarCom when they announced the edition. Too bad they underdelivered

I wouldn't say wait for the codexes, but I would say wait for things to settle down. Right now its the wild wild west out there. People are going to be tempted into bad lists because there's no FOC system. Even the ones that don't may have not adjusted to the new breaking points on the Stat bands. After several years of dumping Heavy Bolters and Grav cannons into T5 W3 Aggressors T6 W3 Aggressors are going to be a change up, same with 4++ regular terminators combined with lowered AP on a lot of weapons. Used to be you could smack them around with some Plasma and get them on a 5+/5++ either way. And all that is before you add on a new statband in the T11-12 range for the heavy vehicles and such. Its going to take a while for the Take-All-Comers lists to figure out how many of each threat range weapons they need for a balanced list.