BlaxicanX wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:
Mathematically, of course it will. Meaningfully? Not so much. Scoring two wounds is 200% more effective than no wounds! but makes no functional difference to the efficacy of the deathstar.

Multiple units pouring fire into a Death Star is going to do more than "2 wounds" compared to a single unit firing at BS1. With many of these types of units, wittling them down with sustained fire is the only way to bring them down. Allowing them to "hide" in combat for most of the game is going to nullify the one thing that can really counter them.

Besides, even if it was "just 2 wounds", 2 wounds could be the difference between a dead GUO and a GUO massacring another squad.

GW clearly either is not aware or does not care that they exist, but they are at least something that can be voluntarily withheld from the game by the player.

If we're going to use casual play as a metric here, then there's no point in having this conversation. There is no such thing as imbalance in casual 40K. Assault units are perfectly useful and balanced in casual 40K. You can voluntarily withhold a Death Star in casual play, you can also voluntarily not consolidate into combat, or turbo-boost onto objectives turn 5, or use data-slates, or spam doom-scythes, or play gunlines, or use any other number of broken mechanics, in casual 40K.

I don't care about casual 40K. I'm talking about competitive 40K, where balance actually matters and you can't just house-rule away things that you don't like about the game like death-stars or melee units pin-balling around the table with consolidation rules.

When discussing "balance", you need to consider the broken mechanics. You can't just hand-wave them away.

So I re-iterate, there are many units that are either very fast or are very durable and the only way to kill them is to whittle them down over multiple turns of shooting. When dealing with those units, yes, there is a world of difference in effectiveness between focusing them down with shooting, and a single unit getting to snap-fire at them before getting crushed under their assaulting boot.

 azreal13 wrote:
I've lost Greater Daemons and Princes to Overwatch.

I've assaulted a squad of flamers with seekers and taken zero casualties.

No one cares about anecdotes.

 Mantle wrote:
I was thinking about the unbound list nonsense where people are planning on bringing X amount of riptides and all unit being scoring and had an idea.
What if an unbound list was like the WHF percentages say x% in HQ X% in troops and then X% used on elites fast attack and heavy support! that way people are still taking troops for scoring but could use the last of their points in specialising there force to have more heavy support, fast attack or elites than a usual force.
People could build those iron warrior forces that they have always wanted to play without some WAAC guy pulling out 20 riptides.

 Lockark wrote:

 BlaxicanX wrote:
You're hitting on 6's.

Honestly, I wonder what sort of horrifically bad dice-rolling luck people have had against overwatch to think that it's anymore than a minor nuisance.

Double-tapping firewarriors are going to kill 3 charging guardsmen on average in overwatch. GUARDSMEN. They don't even get a save. We're not talking about space marines or something, just regular old guardsmen.

I wouldn't bank on overwatch to do gak against anything unless I had a Tau gunline set-up with markerlights to maximize support-fire shenanigans. Otherwise it's borderline useless.

As someone who played a very assault heavy Ork list in 5th, and stopped playing orks in 6th i will tell you the reason my army dosen't work any more.

Removeing casualties from the front.

If your spreading your orks out to their full 2" spaceing to defend from blast weapons, by shooting off the 1st rank of of orks, you effectivly lost 3" of movement from your last movement phase.
(The 1" ork base plus the 2" spaceing.)

Now if your running green tide the problem is even worse, since due to space when deploying you have to make your ranks shorter for space. If you end up rolling "Hammer and Anvil" deployment you bassicly are forced to have only 5 orks per "rank" in the hoard.

So by killing 10 orks, i lose 6" of movement from my hoard. All assault based armies suffer from this lose of movement to some degree or the other, but I think orks are the example of it at it's worse.

Bassicly 6th ed wound allocation punishes you for playing a assault army, and rewards people for playing shooting armies. Stuff like Overwatch on it's own isn't the problem, it's that over watch is takeing the problems with 6th ed wound allocation and makeing them WORSE.

6th then also felt content to take away the few tricks assault armies had to keep competive with shooting armies in 5th, like assaulting out of outflanks and a few other minor details. 6th ed killed the assault army.

 Slayer le boucher wrote:
Sooo...basically ennemy can shoot 2 or 3 times per turn, for oly one CC per turn if we follow your opinion?...,

...it would be more of an incitive to NOT consolidate towards ennemy units.

I dunno if you noticed that CC units and armies has much more trouble then straitgh shooting units/armies, why?,

 Lansirill wrote:
Honestly, requiring troops to score doesn't seem to be resulting in people taking significant number of troops

 Kwosge wrote:


Shooting is almost stupidly OP in 6e and then you factor in all the CC nerfs that wen't along with it, it makes playing CC units un-enjoyable. It absolutely amazes me that players have the gall to say that the ability to consolidate into a new CC is game braking or OP.

What game are you playing that CC consolidation would be OP because it's not 40k. It's a d6 consolidation. Spread out your units.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Kwosge wrote:


Shooting is almost stupidly OP in 6e and then you factor in all the CC nerfs that wen't along with it, it makes playing CC units un-enjoyable. It absolutely amazes me that players have the gall to say that the ability to consolidate into a new CC is game braking or OP.

Because I remember playing games where I had one effective shooting phase? Because I remember playing games where the game was effectively over on turn 2 or 3 once my assault units got stuck in and I could just consolidate up a line without a care in the world?

What game are you playing that CC consolidation would be OP because it's not 40k. It's a d6 consolidation. Spread out your units.

This was the refrain then. It's not always possible, especially if you're playing a horde army.

CC consolidation is tremendously powerful. You lock your opponent's ability to move, shoot, and use abilities and choose their own assaults, and can potentially have one unit wipe another unit every single assault phase.

It was removed for a very good reason. With the hilarious deathstars that now exist and the speed units have now relative to what they had in 3E and 4E it'd be even worse.

 StarTrotter wrote:
That said, good gosh the deathstars. There really needs to be a rule to pull them back (and can we get some edits on vehicle damage? I'm sorry but I always found it silly my barely made the charge to the front of a tank blew it up from behind)

 -Loki- wrote:

 StarTrotter wrote:
That said, good gosh the deathstars. There really needs to be a rule to pull them back (and can we get some edits on vehicle damage? I'm sorry but I always found it silly my barely made the charge to the front of a tank blew it up from behind)

You didn't blow it up from behind. The idea behind infantry always striking rear armour is they find weak points - open hatches, viewing slits, gun barrels, etc to throw their krak grenades into. So they strike the rear armour, which is always a 40k vehicles weakest value.

 creeping-deth87 wrote:
I find myself agreeing with everything that Vaktathi has said about the advantages of assault. Close combat is absolutely the most deadly thing in 40K. The inability to move or shoot, no cover saves, duking it out during BOTH player turns, and the utter lethality of sweeping advances are all amazing perks for assault units. It's for these reasons that I feel that assault SHOULD be difficult to conduct, because the rewards are so great. I've always felt it should be a way to finish off a squad after softening it up with shooting, because that makes a lot of sense to me.

This is not to say I have no sympathy for the plight of assault armies. I believe the pendulum swung too far in 6th edition, but I still think assault is something which should be difficult for the reasons mentioned above.

 jspyd3rx wrote:
Seriously think about it, without the nerd rage. Noob comes into the store and has a mix match of models. Though they all equal 1k. Bam! He can play without having to worry about getting a full 2k force. Which admit it, can be very intimidating when entering the hobby. Unbound lists seem to be meant for lower point games. To allow new comers into the hobby a way to play from the get go. I think everything will be alright

 Blacksails wrote:
If someone is daunted by the fact that they need an HQ and two troops for a legal army, maybe tabletop gaming isn't for them.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:
If someone is daunted by the fact that they need an HQ and two troops for a legal army, maybe tabletop gaming isn't for them.

But let's be honest, who is playing games with only the mandatory HQ and troops? That's what, a 500 point game, when most people play 1500-2000 points? Realistically you need the mandatory minimums and a few other units. The unbound rule would seem to remove this obstacle and allow you to play those three formerly-mandatory units and then throw in some stuff from the rest of your collection to meet the normal point limits. It definitely removes a barrier to entry for new players, the problem is that it does so in a way that encourages overpowered lists for everyone else.

 gigasnail wrote:
They really should have pushed the killteams rules for that.

 Blacksails wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:
If someone is daunted by the fact that they need an HQ and two troops for a legal army, maybe tabletop gaming isn't for them.

But let's be honest, who is playing games with only the mandatory HQ and troops? That's what, a 500 point game, when most people play 1500-2000 points? Realistically you need the mandatory minimums and a few other units. The unbound rule would seem to remove this obstacle and allow you to play those three formerly-mandatory units and then throw in some stuff from the rest of your collection to meet the normal point limits. It definitely removes a barrier to entry for new players, the problem is that it does so in a way that encourages overpowered lists for everyone else.

Right, but going off the example I was responding to, if a player bought 1000pts of 40k without doing any research to ensure that 1000pts contained the minimum HQ and troops, that's not the game's fault. I'd also hardly call that a barrier to entry any more than GW's pricing model is regardless of what selections are mandatory and what aren't.

Regardless, Unbound is hardly the solution to anything.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 gigasnail wrote:
They really should have pushed the killteams rules for that.

Also this.

That would be a solid way to introduce people in a cheap, effective manner that rules out some of the more lesser balanced issues of the game.

 Blacksails wrote:
Right, but going off the example I was responding to, if a player bought 1000pts of 40k without doing any research to ensure that 1000pts contained the minimum HQ and troops, that's not the game's fault. I'd also hardly call that a barrier to entry any more than GW's pricing model is regardless of what selections are mandatory and what aren't.

 Blacksails wrote:

 gigasnail wrote:
They really should have pushed the killteams rules for that.

Also this.

That would be a solid way to introduce people in a cheap, effective manner that rules out some of the more lesser balanced issues of the game.

 GrimDork wrote:
Yeah I dunno how the box art translates into the finished piece, but those look pretty neat

 Peregrine wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:
Right, but going off the example I was responding to, if a player bought 1000pts of 40k without doing any research to ensure that 1000pts contained the minimum HQ and troops, that's not the game's fault. I'd also hardly call that a barrier to entry any more than GW's pricing model is regardless of what selections are mandatory and what aren't.

But that's not what I said. The newbie has the minimum troops and HQ, they just don't have enough other stuff to play a single-codex army at 1500-2000 points. Let's say the newbie gets a tactical squad, and then gets some cheap stuff from a friend who is cleaning out their unused stuff: another tactical squad, a captain, a crisis suit, a LRBT, a couple squads of starter set orks, etc. They can use the two tactical squads and the captain to make a legal army, but it won't be enough points to play a real game with anyone and so there's no point in showing up to 40k night until they buy a lot more space marine stuff. And of course none of the other stuff makes a complete 1500-2000 point army either. With an unbound army. on the other hand, they can take the whole pile of stuff at once and have 1500-2000 points, even if it's a very poorly optimized 1500-2000 points. Now instead of being stuck with a useless 500 point "army" until they invest another $500 they can start playing right away.

 Peregrine wrote:
Let's say the newbie gets a tactical squad, and then gets some cheap stuff from a friend who is cleaning out their unused stuff: another tactical squad, a captain, a crisis suit, a LRBT, a couple squads of starter set orks, etc. They can use the two tactical squads and the captain to make a legal army, but it won't be enough points to play a real game with anyone and so there's no point in showing up to 40k night until they buy a lot more space marine stuff.

You can't just show up to 40k night and expect to find someone interested in playing it, since they've probably brought their standard army to play a normal 1500-2000 point game.

 Sidstyler wrote:
Yeah, I refuse to believe someone spent money on 1,000 points worth of models, and not only never bought the requisite troops and HQ choices, but is now so daunted by the thought of spending another $50-70 to get them that the hobby is now ruined for them.

if the prospect of building a "traditional" army is intimidating then how is building an army of $85-$140 robots any different? Or $60 tanks? Or $80 flyers?

If you want something noob-friendly that lets you play with whatever you have, then putting Kill Team back into the core rules would have been a more logical choice. All you have to do is paint one, maybe two squads of guys and you can start playing games of 40k even if you're missing units.

Do we know if unbound really lets you play literally anything, like a giant blob of crap from half a dozen different books? I was under the assumption you still used a parent codex and maybe a supplement or allies like normal, but just didn't have an FOC to obey.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Sidstyler wrote:
Yeah, I refuse to believe someone spent money on 1,000 points worth of models, and not only never bought the requisite troops and HQ choices, but is now so daunted by the thought of spending another $50-70 to get them that the hobby is now ruined for them.

Sigh. Would you please read my post before commenting on it?

 insaniak wrote:
Two tactical squads and a captain is plenty of stuff to get in a game for a beginner without bogging them down in special rules.

But even ignoring that, yes, if you buy a whole bunch of unrelated stuff you don't wind up with a playable army. Just liek if I buy a whole bunch of assorted car parts off eBay, I probably won't wind up with a functional car. I'm not really seeing a problem that needs fixing there.

If someone has a 1500 point army with them, it's not difficult for them to throw together 500 points from what they have to give the new guy a go. I've done that before, on occasion.

 Sidstyler wrote:
I finished typing mine after you posted yours. Sorry.

 Peregrine wrote:
Sure, for one teaching game. Now how many "captain and tactical squads" games do you think the newbie is going to get when they keep coming back every week with the same models? A stripped-down teaching game is fine for a player's first game, but there's a long period where the new player knows the rules and wants to play real games but doesn't necessarily have a full single-codex army.

The problem is that's often how new players get into the game. Someone they know sells them a bunch of random stuff they aren't using anymore in exchange for beer money, they start the game and someone they know says "hey, I remember that, want my old models", etc. Even just being able to use both halves of the two-player starter set at once is a big help.

Yes, but that assumes that they want to play a 500 point game. If I've brought my tank-heavy IG to play a normal game then I don't have any interest in playing a 500 point game with whatever random guardsmen I can scavenge out of my boxes. The newbie is either going to have a full army available (which unbound makes a lot easier), or they're going to sit and watch while I play someone else.