Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

The scenario:
My 11 inner circle knights with a BSB charge a unit of five zombies. Because they are MY inner circle knights, they do a total of one wound (from a horse attack). The zombies do a wound in return, because these are also MY armor saves. The combat result is: I have a charge, a rank, a banner, a BSB and a wound. The Zombies forgot their zombanner back at the crypt. Combat resolution means the remaining four zombies will crumble.

Now, clearly, I have won the combat and am able to reform. Also clearly, I cannot overrun due to the new (stupid) FAQ. Does this indicate that my knights must reform as though the crumbling zombies were still there in their way? Or do you pick up the zombies first and then the knights may reform freely, even turning into the space where the zombies used to be? Am I still in b2b with four about-to-crumble zombies and therefore can't reduce the number of models in b2b or move any characters out of b2b?

You make a reform after removing the Zombies.

I don't have my rulebook on me, but it probably depends on when the Unstable crumble happens. I'm inclined to say that it probably happens before the reform, but if both events happen in some kind-of "combat resolution" phase then the question arises of which takes precedence. Or is this cut-and-dry and I just don't know it?

They actually covered this more or less with the "what happens when unit I am fighting disapears outside of the combat phase" question (eg magic takes them out, ect) and that situation allows a reform. I fail to see why the same standard would apply.

I think that ruling is going to be reversed at some point. It makes Zombie torpedos and Furies stupidly good (and mind you I am a Daemon player).

 Phazael wrote:
They actually covered this more or less with the "what happens when unit I am fighting disapears outside of the combat phase" question (eg magic takes them out, ect) and that situation allows a reform. I fail to see why the same standard would apply.

I think that ruling is going to be reversed at some point. It makes Zombie torpedos and Furies stupidly good (and mind you I am a Daemon player).

This.

I can run a thin units in front of my hex wraiths, and now you can't over run into them. Guess what that means?
It just became super easy to slip over your unit and into the backfield.
A vampire cav/flying list just got super powerful, using direwolves as my troops to block over-runs and charges.

-Matt

Every time GW close a door they open a window

So, what does this mean exactly? You want a unit that's big enough that it will survive the enemy unit's attacks but then be guaranteed to crumble due to Unstable... that seems awfully specific, to the point where it may be hard to find the proper size...

Five Fire Wolves (or Furies) in a conga line will do exactly that against most ranked units. Most regiments get three models in base and three support, so we are talking 10 attacks in most worst case scenarios. Assume hits on 3s and wounds on 3s in most cases, and you average killing four models. The last one crumbles to static alone. Its pretty easy to do, actually. Its stupidly easy with Slaves and Furies, since all you need to do is ensure they lose while outside the general's LD bubble and both units cost 60 or less.

Ahhh, I guess I didn't think about single-file units (even though you guys have been saying that this whole thread) and how they reduce the number of attacks suffered.

That's still 60pts lost to stop a block for one round and that's assuming you can get to it and set up perfect and don't get shot/spelled in between. If you're trying to stop a block it's because it's a powerful block. It would be stupid to throw away 60pts to stop garbage. So if you try and stop a chosenstar, guttstar, or many killy blocks, you're still going to get destroyed completely on turn 1.

Many armies can already do this a lot better with redirectors. Ogres can have 1 model of Sabertusks for 21 points that moves 8. I'd take that over 60pts of Zombies that move 4. I think just about all Unstable forces can't flee from charges as they are ITP or otherwise prevented, so they can't lol you all over the battlefield like every other army--and they're often too slow to do it anyway.

This is basically the Unstable redirector. It makes Unstable not as bad, but you know, it's still pretty damn bad. Instead of being able to flee, they just die and prevent you from carrying on. But they still die...

Except Zombies can be raised for free at a distance. So they can cost nothing, give up no victory points, and still delay the enemy.

If you rez them, sure. But they don't do it on their own. A redirector is a redirector without having to cast a spell that could miscast, get dispelled or otherwise take power dice away from a more useful endeavor. I don't know VC well and maybe you got nothing better to do than rez zombos forever, but that's an issue with VC then and not this rule.

DukeRustfield wrote:
If you rez them, sure. But they don't do it on their own. A redirector is a redirector without having to cast a spell that could miscast, get dispelled or otherwise take power dice away from a more useful endeavor. I don't know VC well and maybe you got nothing better to do than rez zombos forever, but that's an issue with VC then and not this rule.

Any other redirector you have 2 choices.
Reform, or over-run.
Vampires give you only 1 choice. Reform.

Vampires can be the big winners in this new rule.
The problem with running hex wraiths has been, for 30 points you get a T3 6+ armor save ASL guy who's ethereal. That's awesome against everything except a hero with ANY magic weapon.
So now I run dire wolves along side. If you've got a hero in the unit, I block the charge, and give you 50 points. Then on my turn, I march through your unit, doing 10 S5 magical flaming hits that do not allow armor, and I'm out of your charge arc. And that's all I needed. Now that I'm out of arc, I'll be able to keep moving through your units doing 10 S5 no save hits a turn.
Run 2 units of those Hex Wraiths (who vanguard, just like the 50 point speed bump does) and it's pretty easy to take a whole army apart.
I don't know what most people run in your area, but most armies really don't like taking 20 S5 no save hits a turn.

-Matt

Units of 25-30 and slaves in blocks of 20-25 are now pretty awesome.

BronzeJon wrote:
Units of 25-30 and slaves in blocks of 20-25 are now pretty awesome.

Yeah, it actually makes ratling guns good again and warpfire throwers awesome.

-Matt

HawaiiMatt wrote:

The problem with running hex wraiths has been, for 30 points you get a T3 6+ armor save ASL guy who's ethereal.

I don't know what most people run in your area, but most armies really don't like taking 20 S5 no save hits a turn.

You can always find a situation that is tailor-made to every rule/FAQ. If you perfectly get in that situation, sure it works great. As soon as your target engages anything, you can't do that. Presumably this combat is happening somewhere. They can't reform into the wraiths easily but they can just engage a secondary target. Even if they couldn't reach you with charge overrun you could have done that. But you're taking a risk by having 300pts of ethereals. You had mentioned using spells as counters, I think in this thread. A simple magic missile is a counter to T3 W1 hexwraiths. Or just about any spell that does wounds. And that's fine, ethereals are a big risk big reward unit, but simple signature magic missiles can beat it down pretty hard.

DukeRustfield wrote:

HawaiiMatt wrote:

The problem with running hex wraiths has been, for 30 points you get a T3 6+ armor save ASL guy who's ethereal.

I don't know what most people run in your area, but most armies really don't like taking 20 S5 no save hits a turn.

You can always find a situation that is tailor-made to every rule/FAQ. If you perfectly get in that situation, sure it works great. As soon as your target engages anything, you can't do that. Presumably this combat is happening somewhere. They can't reform into the wraiths easily but they can just engage a secondary target. Even if they couldn't reach you with charge overrun you could have done that. But you're taking a risk by having 300pts of ethereals. You had mentioned using spells as counters, I think in this thread. A simple magic missile is a counter to T3 W1 hexwraiths. Or just about any spell that does wounds. And that's fine, ethereals are a big risk big reward unit, but simple signature magic missiles can beat it down pretty hard.

Magic Missiles aren't great counters to ethereals. D6 hits is going to kill a few, but in units of 10, they can shrug the hits and pick up a few replacements from Invoke.
I've been running 10 hex wraiths since they came out and it's never a magic missile that takes them out, it's magical melee attacks. Magical melee attacks double down on them, you take the kills from the actual attack, then you take it again in combat res.

I'll post up the ethereal hammer list in the army section.

-Matt

Many attacks aren't merely D6. Those that are are so cheap that you might as well go for the extended version because you have a greater chance of failing with a natural 1,2 than not reaching power of 2 dice. You only get 1 wound with invocation, you will never win that fight. In any case, the whole point is it's cost-effective. If you throw 2 dice and do 7 hits about 4 of which wound. That's 120pts. Or 60pts per die. That's an unbelievable bargain. Extend that out to, say, 10 dice, and in theory you would kill 600pts, or basically table someone. So it's obviously a good exchange. The best you can do is heal 30pts per 1 die with a 33% chance of failure (invocation). Or 15pts per 1 die if you throw 2 dice, with a really small chance of failure/miscast.

Not all lists will have shooty spells, but if you have them, it is extremely cost-effective to shoot hexwraiths. And there's almost nothing you want more than them trying to heal them as they will lose that magic fight.

Life, Shadow, Death don't get magic missiles at all.
Heavens gets it, but only at D6 hits.
Beast gets 2D6, but S2.
Fire is a problem, not because of fireball, but because of flaming sword.
Metal is a joke, you're only wounding on a 6.
Light is also a problem, the lore attribute makes the 2 magic missiles a problem.
So out of 8 basis lores, 2 lores are an issue.
Lore of Fire has it's damage output hamstrung once an opponent is in combat.

If Invoke targeted a single unit, that would be a fair comparison. But it doesn't. It bubbles. So you aren't just healing back Wraiths, you're also catching whatever unit the caster is in, along with recovering a lost wound (not model) within 12".

Finally, magic missiling 10 hex wraiths and killing 4 doesn't earn you any points. If they can get into the safety of close combat, they will slowly recover. As long as a single wraith survives, you get nothing. I very quickly learned that 10 hex wraiths are more than twice as good as 5. They can take the magic missile, and still hold out for a very long time in combat.

-Matt

I don't know the value of debating mock situations since this is now mathhammer ++. But the whole point was these guys were moving through to avoid magic weapons. If they could just CC, they would. If they got a magic weapon, just about any hero will cause excessive wounds. And I didn't read invoke at the time, but its short range means if you remaining moves through you will almost certainly be out of range of the hexwraiths. If you're not out of range, whatever you attacked is in range to charge your spellcaster. Which defeats the whole purpose of this thread and mock scenario, which is to use some throwaway undead to prevent an overrun charge.

I'm sure all this could happen, but it seems unlikely to happen perfectly like this. I think the Ethereal tax is relatively balanced--I personally don't think they are great buys.

Likewise, about half the armies in the game have their own spell lists. I didn't check them all but like 6+ half some form of very cheap magic missile or DD. Only TK didn't that I saw.

DukeRustfield wrote:
I don't know the value of debating mock situations since this is now mathhammer ++. But the whole point was these guys were moving through to avoid magic weapons. If they could just CC, they would. If they got a magic weapon, just about any hero will cause excessive wounds. And I didn't read invoke at the time, but its short range means if you remaining moves through you will almost certainly be out of range of the hexwraiths. If you're not out of range, whatever you attacked is in range to charge your spellcaster. Which defeats the whole purpose of this thread and mock scenario, which is to use some throwaway undead to prevent an overrun charge.

I'm sure all this could happen, but it seems unlikely to happen perfectly like this. I think the Ethereal tax is relatively balanced--I personally don't think they are great buys.

Likewise, about half the armies in the game have their own spell lists. I didn't check them all but like 6+ half some form of very cheap magic missile or DD. Only TK didn't that I saw.

Keep the wraiths in range of the casters is easy. Vampires with barded steeds, leading black knights are an excellent choice. Normal vampires are bringing back 2-3 black knights per casting, and a vampire lord is bringing back 2-5 knights.
Other lores having a magic missile isn't a huge issue. Not a lot of them have it as the default spell, and most of them can't scale up to do more hits.
Black Knights + Hexwraiths have always been good. With the black knights hitting the front, characters can't make way to hit the hexwraiths.
The new FAQ just helps with this process as the dire wolves block charges/over-runs that would prevent the hex wraiths from slipping into the backfield.
Mathhammer ++ supports what I see when running Hex Wraiths and mobile vampires. I've actually done it, which is why I didn't need to "look up" how invoke works.

Vampires don't have a lot of units that work well together. If you throw any unit into a combat that is tied up with one of your core choices, you risk wiffing and having both crumble.
Black Knights, wraiths and crypt horrors are pretty much the 3 exceptions. They are durable enough that they don't give up a lot of combat res.


-Matt

Okay, VC are now unstoppable and will never lose a battle again. When this comes to pass you can say you're right and this FAQ should be revisited.

DukeRustfield wrote:
Okay, VC are now unstoppable and will never lose a battle again. When this comes to pass you can say you're right and this FAQ should be revisited.

Yeah, cause that was the outlandish claim I made.

-Matt

Duke have some self-respect. You made some good points, just because they got refuted doesn't mean you have to dive off the deep end like that.

And you don't need to resurrect a dead thread which was already nonsense. But no, it certainly wasn't refuted. And yes, he did make those outlandish claims. Which is why I am patiently waiting for the unbeatable VC blockers-in-range-rezzers-with-in-range-hexraiths-with-no-counters to dominate the universe.

No claims were made that they were unstoppable or unbeatable, just very strong. You made those claims in a classic logical fallacy