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Hello dakka,

While getting to know the new chaos codex, I see that several units have the fear special rule, either directly or because of the demon rule. How good is this ability? I'm only familiar with the SM codex, which it is useless against. What about other armies?

Fear would be useful against guard, tau, eldar, dark eldar. You dont really use the ability so much as just benefit from it when you face an army that suffers from a low LDR value.

 sennacherib wrote:
Fear would be useful against guard, tau, eldar, dark eldar. You dont really use the ability so much as just benefit from it when you face an army that suffers from a low LDR value.

Yeah but all it does is make you WS 1... when most of the targets that it will work against, are already less than half your WS anyways, or low enough that it doesn't matter.

Had some guardsmen fail it once against a daemon prince, and they still beat the thing to death with their lasguns.

On top of that, most things it would work against are things your opponent would rather just die so he can shoot you.

Except for whenever it does manage to screw over a CC powerhouse on rare occasions, I wouldn't see it being that handy. There may be something to the rule that I'm not noticing though. For example, it could really screw over a nob unit.

Considering 90 percent of played armies have a rule called "And they shall know no fear" not very useful.

It's one of those "nice to have" things. Don't rely on it whatever you do, just consider it a bonus when it works.
I remember back when Fear and Terror used to cause morale tests... man, do I miss that. [/old man hat]

Not very. A similar rule has already been in existance since 2006 in the Eldar Codex with the Howling Banshees War Shout. Nice to have, but not particularly memorable.

It's built-in to Daemons. I wouldn't pay extra for it (Icon of Nurgle), but it's certainly worth remembering if you're playing against an army affected by it.

If an enemy unit does fail it, even WS2 Tzeentch daemons get to hit them on 3s, and most daemons and other Fear-causing models get to hit on a 3+, and be hit in return on a 5+. That can substantially swing the combat res in a given round of combat.

Given the profusion of models (especially assault-oriented models) with fearless, ATSKNF, or a great leadership check? It's not useful at all. it's funny when it happens, but don't count on it ever happening to anything important.

I've found it to be more or less as useful as pinning or soulfire. (aka, not very)

thanks guys, good to know

It doesn't seem to have much of a point to me, as already stated above. It just seems silly. It's one of those things that makes you wonder why they included it. Like the writer didn't understand what game he was making rules for. Like if he made a special weapon for a character that has an effect like "Any model with better than a 2+ save is instead reduced to 2+"

I guess it's nice that you have a little less to worry when it comes to return strikes, if it goes off. But it's one of those things where you know they looked at it and said. "Hey, we just gave it a new rule, lets boost the points to compensate."

 Savageconvoy wrote:
But it's one of those things where you know they looked at it and said. "Hey, we just gave it a new rule, lets boost the points to compensate."

Except they haven't, really. The entire Daemons codex just got the ability for free, when almost no other army got it at all... it stands to reason it wouldn't be that powerful an ability.

I kinda forgot about Daemons. Never seen anyone play them.

It's still kind of odd that itdoesn't seem really useful outside a few select scenarios.

and now I'm thinking about how it will affect armies like Tau and Eldar when they get updated. I'm hoping they didn't intend to make low Ld, like Tau, suffer more.

Fear is next to useless. When I mean next, I'm talking about fear and useless hugging each other in a close embrace.

In warhammer fantasy is has a purpose. In the grim dark of 40,000 -- noone is impressed by something as puny as 'fear'

 sennacherib wrote:
Fear would be useful against guard, tau, eldar, dark eldar. You dont really use the ability so much as just benefit from it when you face an army that suffers from a low LDR value.

Eldar have low leadership? This is news to me.

Fear would be really cool if you combine it with powers or special rules that lower your opponent's LD

 sennacherib wrote:
Fear would be useful against guard, tau, eldar, dark eldar. You dont really use the ability so much as just benefit from it when you face an army that suffers from a low LDR value.

Dark eldar have low leadership? This is news to me.

... Well ok, our beasts and grotesques do have bad ld, but you'd hardly see either being run without a higher ld model...

I always forget to have my opponent take his fear test when my MC get into CC. It's not completely useless but I would never pay for it even if it was only 1 point. It is helpful for my WS3 MC like Carnifex and Tervigons but not something I tend to count on.

 Farseer Mael Dannan wrote:

 sennacherib wrote:
Fear would be useful against guard, tau, eldar, dark eldar. You dont really use the ability so much as just benefit from it when you face an army that suffers from a low LDR value.

Eldar have low leadership? This is news to me.

Having 8 on the Troops, with the upgrade squad leaders still only 8, and 9 on Elites, with upgrade squad leaders still only 9, is on the low end (overall) in this game. If the Warlocks and Exarchs got another point they'd be basically average.

It would be nice if GW could find away to make all of these morale test abilities, traits, and wargear a little more effective without tearing the heart out of other things like ATSKNF. So much useless stuff that has some nice potential. Other than breaking up Ld and morale tests into further categories like what was done in the pancake pdf (which has the potential of creating an over complication of the system), I don't really know how you could do it.

It would be nice if they stopped buffing ATSKNF beyond OP.

I believe all monstrous creatures recieved it as a free upgrade too. I've seen it in action with a c'tan shard and some spyders, but i wasn't at all impressed.

That said: Leadership 10 is the highest possible leadership within the context of 40k. It is definately not 'average'. Sadly however it is found on a 'lot' of units too, further diluting their utility so much that a recent trend towards leadership checks that i've noticed is to roll them on 3d6 as opposed to the standard 2d6, presumably for the purpose of making them more generally than situationally useful.

It would be nice if GW could find away to make all of these morale test abilities, traits, and wargear a little more effective without tearing the heart out of other things like ATSKNF.

Negative modifiers to Leadership tests would do it. It makes it possible to reliably break a unit, and while ATSKNF units do get to automatically regroup, they'll do so further away (if not off the board or into the jaws of your waiting troops, that is).

I thought we were going to see more of this after the BA psychic power Fear of the Darkness - sadly, it now looks like I was wrong.

Yeah, as others have said this rule is next to useless, especially in the tournament scene due to the preponderance of marines and ATSKNF.

And its mostly useless against Orks, thanks to the mob rule. Id say, VERY situational

its about as useful as Soul Blaze, by which I mean it takes more time out of your day to remember the rule and test for it than it would ever be worth. Just useless rules for rules sake.

 Exergy wrote:
its about as useful as Soul Blaze, by which I mean it takes more time out of your day to remember the rule and test for it than it would ever be worth. Just useless rules for rules sake.

Soul blaze might've been worthwhile had it been stackable.

Or had a decent AP value, Or did more hits, etc. (re: soulblazes' suck-itude)

I guess they can't all be the 'Smash' or 'Relentless' USRs eh?

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 Exergy wrote:
its about as useful as Soul Blaze, by which I mean it takes more time out of your day to remember the rule and test for it than it would ever be worth. Just useless rules for rules sake.

Soul blaze might've been worthwhile had it been stackable.

fear might have been useful if it was automatic or if it worked on ATSKNF

Units fear is effective on.

GK henchmen: Leadership 8 on all GK henchmen. Especially useful on crusaders & DCA. Less useful if they are with a leadership 10 inquisitor, but not useless as inquisitors are stubborn but lack fearless or ATSKNF.

Orks: As long as the unit is small enough that mob rule doesn't give them fearless orks are susceptible to fear and suffer really low leadership of 7.

Tyranids. Anything that's not a synapse creature or MC that's out of synapse is susceptible to fear, and unless they are genestealers they have very low leadership.

CSM have a mix of fearless and not fearless units, but tend to have high leadership as long as they purchased votlw.

IG & Tau: Fear works great on them, but does it really matter if they pee their pants before whatever horrible thing that causes fear eats their face?

Eldar & Dark Eldar: Everything is LD8/LD9. Fear can be a problem for them

SOB: Tend to be leadership 8 & susceptible to fear.

Necrons: Leadership 10 & susceptible to fear. 1/18 chance of failing is better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

Does seem a bit of a soft ability. I don't see why Typhus' warlord ability is fear. Seems like you'd be better off taking another cheaper HQ to roll for the ability...