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Breng77 wrote:
Like every edition of 40k, the importance of movement will be dictated by terrain. If you have a good amount of LOS blocking terrain, it will matter if not then it won't.

As for remove the closest model, it is a terrible mechanic because it amounts to screwing over assault armies. 8th isn't perfect but I think the wound mechanics are the cleanest they have been since I started playing. No more musical wounds, but also no more remove the closest model costing you inches of movement. Spacing out will have different meaning, you won't need to do it to avoid blasts, but you will for chaining buffs, or pulling units into combat.

You also still have flanking against characters. It is different, and I think if you play with little terrain it will get stale. But that was always the case.

There were plenty of other factors at work that made assault armies non-viable (barring stacking defensive buffs, or using it for "secondary sweeps" once shooting was done); these ultimately stemmed from 5th edition removing the ability to consolidate into new assaults. Hence the original "bubblewrap" debate. Add in Disordered Charge, randomized charge distances, and many "assault armies" having incomplete toolboxes/support to actually make assault work, or Lanchester's Laws of military equations.

You want to "fix assault", you give assault armies the tools to get into assault, you revise the rules to make suppression actually viable, you make Overwatch a conscious decision rather than a "free round" of shooting (aka "hi Dark Angels"), or anything else rather than replacing "elementary firefight tactics 101" with "battle of the blob".

 MagicJuggler wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
Like every edition of 40k, the importance of movement will be dictated by terrain. If you have a good amount of LOS blocking terrain, it will matter if not then it won't.

As for remove the closest model, it is a terrible mechanic because it amounts to screwing over assault armies. 8th isn't perfect but I think the wound mechanics are the cleanest they have been since I started playing. No more musical wounds, but also no more remove the closest model costing you inches of movement. Spacing out will have different meaning, you won't need to do it to avoid blasts, but you will for chaining buffs, or pulling units into combat.

You also still have flanking against characters. It is different, and I think if you play with little terrain it will get stale. But that was always the case.

There were plenty of other factors at work that made assault armies non-viable (barring stacking defensive buffs, or using it for "secondary sweeps" once shooting was done); these ultimately stemmed from 5th edition removing the ability to consolidate into new assaults. Hence the original "bubblewrap" debate. Add in Disordered Charge, randomized charge distances, and many "assault armies" having incomplete toolboxes/support to actually make assault work, or Lanchester's Laws of military equations.

You want to "fix assault", you give assault armies the tools to get into assault, you revise the rules to make suppression actually viable, you make Overwatch a conscious decision rather than a "free round" of shooting (aka "hi Dark Angels"), or anything else rather than replacing "elementary firefight tactics 101" with "battle of the blob".

The largest blow to assault the last 2 editions was overwatch + remove from the front. It essentially made every charge longer, and every unit slower. Remove the closest model to me was a rule which often lead to trying to determine the difference of a mm to see which model needed to take the wound. I understand the desire to want that "sniping" ability in the game, but as often as not it just meant important stuff hid in the middle of units making it less effective. If you eliminate overwatch it is slightly better, but still not a really enjoyable mechanic.

 auticus wrote:
Like I said in a different response a few pages ago... I'm not saying "i can't counter alpha strike" I'm asking "is the movement phase pretty much a non issue now with some minor importance"?

No, though the notion that 40k was ever a deep strategy game seems to be an underlying problem for this thread. It's a bucket dice rolling game with really cool models, and hopefully just enough strategy to keep it interesting.

Nah. I never had the train of thought that 40k was a deep strategy game. It has never been. The strategy always revolved around building the better list and hedging statistics in your favor.

However there was at least some weight in the movement phase years ago.

You will still find a lot of opportunities for the movement phase to be crucial. Yes the universal availability of more than 9" deployments has changed this game in a massive way. You are still doing these deployments during your movement phase and there is still strategy involved in manouvering your troops to optimal positions to benefit from or mitigate these deployments.

I am yet to play a game with my first game being this saturday against a friend. I know that the tendency initially will be to rush together into combat as quickly as possible but I expect over time depth of strategy will come to the fore. I don't think you will be as dissapointed in the long run as your posts suggest you are now.

Auticus, what army/armies do you play?

 auticus wrote:
Nah. I never had the train of thought that 40k was a deep strategy game. It has never been. The strategy always revolved around building the better list and hedging statistics in your favor.

However there was at least some weight in the movement phase years ago.

This.

I have played every edition of 40K (I still have my old Rogue Trader book tucked away somewhere) and there never was a halcyon age when manoeuvring was king.

Various strategies have come and gone and I have seen them all. Rhino rush, Fish of Fury, Blood Rodeo, Thunderwolf-stars, drop pod spam. I have fought or fielded most of them and they all had one thing in common. They involved using the mechanics of the movement phase to gain advantage or to set up an advantage for future turns.

In every case I saw players who regarded those tactics as cheesy or power-gaming that went against the spirit of the game. I saw other players who saw them as legitimate tactics designed to represent an army's style of play.

8th edition is a new kettle of fish and it will take a little while for everything to settle down. The change from 7th to 8th is bigger than anything since the change from 2nd to 3rd. People will evolve new tactics with the system and I can guarantee some people will see them as cheesy while others argue that this is how the game is supposed to be played.

One thing I am sure of though is that the movement phase will continue to remain just as important as it was in previous editions. Some armies will want to rush into combat, some will want to gunline and some will want to shoot-and-skoot.

Change is inevitable and 8th edition will undoubtedly force players to change their playstyle. But arguing that tactical manoeuvring was better in the good old days or has somehow been eliminated in 8th is just the usual sky-falling complaints that accompany every new edition.

Whenever issues like this come up the first question that should be asked is always "are any of these people good enough at the game to know one way or another?"

I'm certainly not(yet) and the amount of arrogance you'd have to have to truly believe that at this point, when the game isn't even fully out yet, that you've gained enough mastery of the game to know for sure that the movement phase is completely irrelevent, is approaching Kanye West level.

 auticus wrote:
Nah. I never had the train of thought that 40k was a deep strategy game. It has never been. The strategy always revolved around building the better list and hedging statistics in your favor.

However there was at least some weight in the movement phase years ago.

If that's the case, I think you'll find player skill matters as much in this edition as any, in every phase. With the added benefit of increased variety in the list building.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Karhedron wrote:
I have played every edition of 40K (I still have my old Rogue Trader book tucked away somewhere) and there never was a halcyon age when manoeuvring was king.

Various strategies have come and gone and I have seen them all. Rhino rush, Fish of Fury, Blood Rodeo, Thunderwolf-stars, drop pod spam. I have fought or fielded most of them and they all had one thing in common. They involved using the mechanics of the movement phase to gain advantage or to set up an advantage for future turns.

In every case I saw players who regarded those tactics as cheesy or power-gaming that went against the spirit of the game. I saw other players who saw them as legitimate tactics designed to represent an army's style of play.

8th edition is a new kettle of fish and it will take a little while for everything to settle down. The change from 7th to 8th is bigger than anything since the change from 2nd to 3rd. People will evolve new tactics with the system and I can guarantee some people will see them as cheesy while others argue that this is how the game is supposed to be played.

One thing I am sure of though is that the movement phase will continue to remain just as important as it was in previous editions. Some armies will want to rush into combat, some will want to gunline and some will want to shoot-and-skoot.

Change is inevitable and 8th edition will undoubtedly force players to change their playstyle. But arguing that tactical manoeuvring was better in the good old days or has somehow been eliminated in 8th is just the usual sky-falling complaints that accompany every new edition.

This.

 MagicJuggler wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
Like every edition of 40k, the importance of movement will be dictated by terrain. If you have a good amount of LOS blocking terrain, it will matter if not then it won't.

As for remove the closest model, it is a terrible mechanic because it amounts to screwing over assault armies. 8th isn't perfect but I think the wound mechanics are the cleanest they have been since I started playing. No more musical wounds, but also no more remove the closest model costing you inches of movement. Spacing out will have different meaning, you won't need to do it to avoid blasts, but you will for chaining buffs, or pulling units into combat.

You also still have flanking against characters. It is different, and I think if you play with little terrain it will get stale. But that was always the case.

There were plenty of other factors at work that made assault armies non-viable (barring stacking defensive buffs, or using it for "secondary sweeps" once shooting was done); these ultimately stemmed from 5th edition removing the ability to consolidate into new assaults. Hence the original "bubblewrap" debate. Add in Disordered Charge, randomized charge distances, and many "assault armies" having incomplete toolboxes/support to actually make assault work, or Lanchester's Laws of military equations.

You want to "fix assault", you give assault armies the tools to get into assault, you revise the rules to make suppression actually viable, you make Overwatch a conscious decision rather than a "free round" of shooting (aka "hi Dark Angels"), or anything else rather than replacing "elementary firefight tactics 101" with "battle of the blob".

I guess one big aspect is that the amount of shooting available nowadays is on very different levels compared to the stuff that was available in 3rd/4th edition and even in 5th. Back then iron warriors army with 9 obliterators, basilisk, defiler, two predators and five las/plas squad was about as shooty as it got. Now I've seen 8th edition lists which have 9 basilisks as a starter. Not to say about the grey knights or guard in 5th or tau/eldar armies in 6th/7th (though I don't have so much experience on those as I stopped playing 40k soon after the 7th edition was released).

 Nithaniel wrote:
You will still find a lot of opportunities for the movement phase to be crucial. Yes the universal availability of more than 9" deployments has changed this game in a massive way. You are still doing these deployments during your movement phase and there is still strategy involved in manouvering your troops to optimal positions to benefit from or mitigate these deployments.

I am yet to play a game with my first game being this saturday against a friend. I know that the tendency initially will be to rush together into combat as quickly as possible but I expect over time depth of strategy will come to the fore. I don't think you will be as dissapointed in the long run as your posts suggest you are now.

Auticus, what army/armies do you play?

Thousand Sons
Guard (looks like I'm going to have to bring back my leafblower guard for this edition)
Death Guard
Fallen
Eldar Iyanden
Necrons

If that's the case, I think you'll find player skill matters as much in this edition as any, in every phase

I wasn't arguing against that (player skill) or even wondering about that. From my community it appears that most games are going to feature armies that just land 9" in front of you and charge. I know how to counter that, since I had to learn how to do that in the last edition where this was a thing (4th?), and in AOS this is a thing.

I have played every edition of 40K (I still have my old Rogue Trader book tucked away somewhere) and there never was a halcyon age when manoeuvring was king.

You're right, 40k has never been that and I hope I did not give the impression that I thought that. However, there was more weight in the movement phase before you could dump off your whole army 9" away from the enemy and charge. I don't find that particularly engaging. To me thats a step away from not worrying about using models and just putting two spreadsheets together and rolling dice and removing hit points from units on paper.

I was around for the change from 2nd to 3rd and you're right, it is a big change. Its not the change part that bothers me.

The style of army appears to be either rush into combat and max your dice out, or gunline leafblower and max your dice out. My collection is over twenty years old so I have plenty of models to do that with, but my own personal question is is this something that I'll enjoy? I kind of wish I hadn't discovered wargaming until 2010 lol.

I think the notion that the game will revolve around armies dumping 9" away is wrong, though you will certainly see people playing with the new toy.

Some obvious additions to movement strategy:

-Setting up "shoot one unit, charge another" combos, in order to tie up vehicles/etc.

-Positioning for Pile In and Consolidate in order to pull or not pull surrounding units.

-Positioning in order to counter the previous.

-Positioning for Fall Back, both attackers and defenders.

-Characters.

These are all important, tactical, and new (at least compared to 7th). Opinions are certainly free, and you are entitled to yours. But there are some pretty strong counterpoints.

 auticus wrote:


I wasn't arguing against that (player skill) or even wondering about that. From my community it appears that most games are going to feature armies that just land 9" in front of you and charge. I know how to counter that, since I had to learn how to do that in the last edition where this was a thing (4th?), and in AOS this is a thing.

I'm still really curious how this is happening given that - at best - 50% of your units can start the game in any form of reserve. How exactly is it that you're facing entire armies that are landing 9" that are still legal lists? To be clear I'm not trying to be confrontational - this is an honest question, what are you seeing in army composition that is allowing your opponent to put his entire army within 9" from jump street?

 auticus wrote:
The style of army appears to be either rush into combat and max your dice out, or gunline leafblower and max your dice out. My collection is over twenty years old so I have plenty of models to do that with, but my own personal question is is this something that I'll enjoy? I kind of wish I hadn't discovered wargaming until 2010 lol.

We will have to wait and see but my hunch is there is a lot of room between static gunlines and combat rush. First and foremost, charging into combat no longer guarantees the safety of the attacker. Units can disengage from assault (assuming they survive) and pull back leaving the attackers somewhat exposed either to return fire or to counter-charge. Even on its own, I think that means we will see combats that ebb and flow as both sides seek to reinforce a particular combat. Manoeuvring will be about how to best position units for mutual support.

Many armies have the option to include some hitty CC units of their own. Even IG (not noted for their close combat prowess) can include an Imperial Knight which will act as a great leveller. Sure those Khorne Bezerkers would love to charge your gunline but that Knight can blow one squad back into the Warp with its firepower and then charge another. In your next turn, it will be free to disengage from combat, rinse and repeat thanks to the Super Heavy Walker rule.

I actually think that mono-build armies will struggle against several common counters. Deep Striking (as was) is another example. You might want to teleport in a unit of XXX and assault that Marine Devastator squad but they are being babysat by a Dreadnought (who is also doing some decent shooting himself). If you teleport in and fail to roll a 9+ to charge, those Devastators will shoot you in their turn while their Dreadbuddy wanders over to crack some heads.

I haven't played yet so this is all just theoryhammer at the moment but I think there will be several builds between gun-line and combat-rush that will be very viable. Just based on the durability of transports, Razorback-spam and Serpent-spam look very strong on paper for both Marines and Eldar. These armies will move about trying to maximise their firepower. Against gun-line armies, they can roll forwards and disgorge the infantry into the heart of the enemy. Against CC armies, they will keep shooting and scooting while trying to stay out of charge range. If they get charged, the infantry in side will pile out, shoot the attackers and then assault them if necessary while the transports pull back. There are relatively few units strong enough to tear down a Wave Serpent in one round of assault (and those that can should be given a wide berth).

Plus of course there will be objectives to take, it isn't always about tabling your opponent's list.

xmbk wrote:
I think the notion that the game will revolve around armies dumping 9" away is wrong, though you will certainly see people playing with the new toy.

Some obvious additions to movement strategy:

-Setting up "shoot one unit, charge another" combos, in order to tie up vehicles/etc.

-Positioning for Pile In and Consolidate in order to pull or not pull surrounding units.

-Positioning in order to counter the previous.

-Characters.

These are all important, tactical, and new (at least compared to 7th). Opinions are certainly free, and you are entitled to yours. But there are some pretty strong counterpoints.

I largely agree with this. I think at the start of the edition we will see a lot of drop and charge armies, but as counters to this become common (and they are already becoming well known), it will start to go away as a main strategy and instead become part of a comprehensive plan. So dropping in a squad to try and charge, but more to tie of a key unit than to wipe out the opposing army. IT is just too easy to counter it as the main army plan.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Farseer_V2 wrote:

 auticus wrote:


I wasn't arguing against that (player skill) or even wondering about that. From my community it appears that most games are going to feature armies that just land 9" in front of you and charge. I know how to counter that, since I had to learn how to do that in the last edition where this was a thing (4th?), and in AOS this is a thing.

I'm still really curious how this is happening given that - at best - 50% of your units can start the game in any form of reserve. How exactly is it that you're facing entire armies that are landing 9" that are still legal lists? To be clear I'm not trying to be confrontational - this is an honest question, what are you seeing in army composition that is allowing your opponent to put his entire army within 9" from jump street?

He sees imperial armies doing things like taking single acolyte units for 8 points, to be the on board units. So you take 8 units for 64 points and put everything else in deepstrike. Which works until your opponent goes first and tables you turn 1.

Farseer_V2 wrote:

 auticus wrote:


I wasn't arguing against that (player skill) or even wondering about that. From my community it appears that most games are going to feature armies that just land 9" in front of you and charge. I know how to counter that, since I had to learn how to do that in the last edition where this was a thing (4th?), and in AOS this is a thing.

I'm still really curious how this is happening given that - at best - 50% of your units can start the game in any form of reserve. How exactly is it that you're facing entire armies that are landing 9" that are still legal lists? To be clear I'm not trying to be confrontational - this is an honest question, what are you seeing in army composition that is allowing your opponent to put his entire army within 9" from jump street?

Half your UNITS is the key.

I can take eight units.

Unit 1 - 4 min size trash costing say 300 points.
Unit 5-8 - my real army costing 1700 points that deep strikes and assaults.

For example.

Now its not the entire army. Its just the vast majority of the army.

Had it been half points then that'd make a difference.

 auticus wrote:


Half your UNITS is the key.

I can take eight units.

Unit 1 - 4 min size trash costing say 300 points.
Unit 5-8 - my real army costing 1700 points that deep strikes and assaults.

For example.

Now its not the entire army. Its just the vast majority of the army.

Had it been half points then that'd make a difference.

Wouldn't you put yourself in a fairly precarious position that if you did not go first you might be entirely removed from the table before your alpha strike kicked off? I'm not saying you are wrong I just feel like you have adopted a view point (movement doesn't matter in 8th because armies can land 9" away from you) and are not willing to acknowledge that you may have misread the meta and/or that alpha strike combat armies have some significant mitigating factors that preclude them from simply being the best possible option at all times.

I just feel like it is too easy to control and thereby eliminate the effectiveness of an alpha deep strike army for it to truly be the primary form of list building.

If you use a decent amount of terrain like we do that means LOS is blocked from across the table to a lot, which means its virtually impossible to get your trash units entirely removed in one turn since a lot of it can be hidden.

Additionally it would require your opponent to either have a lot of weaponry that can reach across the table and wipe out units enmasse or have deepstrike assault themselves to get to them.

None of my armies have that range except for a few weapons, and certainly not enough to kill the entire min set up in one turn, so at least against me you wouldn't have to worry about that.

If half your points instead of half your units could be on the table, there are different ways to abuse it. Push it too much and 1/6th of the games you'll be tabled before you get a turn, without a meaningful payoff.

Farseer_V2 wrote:

 auticus wrote:


Half your UNITS is the key.

I can take eight units.

Unit 1 - 4 min size trash costing say 300 points.
Unit 5-8 - my real army costing 1700 points that deep strikes and assaults.

For example.

Now its not the entire army. Its just the vast majority of the army.

Had it been half points then that'd make a difference.

Wouldn't you put yourself in a fairly precarious position that if you did not go first you might be entirely removed from the table before your alpha strike kicked off? I'm not saying you are wrong I just feel like you have adopted a view point (movement doesn't matter in 8th because armies can land 9" away from you) and are not willing to acknowledge that you may have misread the meta and/or that alpha strike combat armies have some significant mitigating factors that preclude them from simply being the best possible option at all times.

I just feel like it is too easy to control and thereby eliminate the effectiveness of an alpha deep strike army for it to truly be the primary form of list building.

It really depends on terrain.

Based on a thread a day or two ago, my group plays with very littler terrain. 4 large structures, about the size of a Land Raider at most, and maybe 6 small walls. As I said there, if there's a spot in your deployment zone it's completely impossible to target without indirect fire from their deployment zone, you may have too much terrain. But other people use lots of terrain, and say that if it's possible to shoot from one deployment zone to the other without artillery, you have to little terrain.

In the former case, bringing 4 small cheap acolyte squads is a recipe for disaster. In the latter case, it will be almost impossible to dislodge all of them in 1 turn.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

Farseer_V2 wrote:

 auticus wrote:


Half your UNITS is the key.

I can take eight units.

Unit 1 - 4 min size trash costing say 300 points.
Unit 5-8 - my real army costing 1700 points that deep strikes and assaults.

For example.

Now its not the entire army. Its just the vast majority of the army.

Had it been half points then that'd make a difference.

Wouldn't you put yourself in a fairly precarious position that if you did not go first you might be entirely removed from the table before your alpha strike kicked off? I'm not saying you are wrong I just feel like you have adopted a view point (movement doesn't matter in 8th because armies can land 9" away from you) and are not willing to acknowledge that you may have misread the meta and/or that alpha strike combat armies have some significant mitigating factors that preclude them from simply being the best possible option at all times.

I just feel like it is too easy to control and thereby eliminate the effectiveness of an alpha deep strike army for it to truly be the primary form of list building.

It really depends on terrain.

Based on a thread a day or two ago, my group plays with very littler terrain. 4 large structures, about the size of a Land Raider at most, and maybe 6 small walls. As I said there, if there's a spot in your deployment zone it's completely impossible to target without indirect fire from their deployment zone, you may have too much terrain. But other people use lots of terrain, and say that if it's possible to shoot from one deployment zone to the other without artillery, you have to little terrain.

In the former case, bringing 4 small cheap acolyte squads is a recipe for disaster. In the latter case, it will be almost impossible to dislodge all of them in 1 turn.

I disagree with your terrain assessment. If there is at least not one spot in your deployment zone out of LOS from the enemy deployment zone you have too little terrain. If it is possible to hide 50+% of your army in said spots (baring very small armies) you have too much terrain. I think it should be impossible to kill the opposing force with never leaving your own deployment zone. Now there should be no terrain that disallows shooting from all angles but your opponents board edge, but for small units I think the ability to hide out of LOS is completely a fair expectation.

Our terrain generation is random. Otherwise the assault players will load it down and the shooty players will insist on there being like four small pieces lol.

Games vary from plains to cityscapes to jungles. Some games you'll have line of sight to most things. Other games line of sight will not be guaranteed.