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Razerous wrote:
My thoughts, pure and utter conjecture but;

- Allies are refined (i.e. Your primary detachment cannot join/embark/buff/debuff your secondary detachment)

- Nid/Deldar/Necron - some interesting additions to their psychic phase, perhaps -1 to all power rolls when used vs a Deldar army.

- Challenges refined (somehow)

- LOS changed/removed or limited.

- Infantry Movement and/or wound allocation amended to support Infantry Movement.

It has been rumored that Allies can embark on allies transports. No word about buffing/sharing USRs, though.

No word about it at all. Just d6 Warp Charges to deny, plus any Mastery Level coming from allies. Why did you exclude Tau and SoB?

No word on LoS or challenges

Wound allocation still comes from nearest models. Wounds are allocated by weapon type (resolve ones with shorter ranges first)

Actually, excess wounds spill over in challenges now, not clear if that is actual damage to the unit or just for purposes of combat res, but it is confirmed from WDW

 azreal13 wrote:
Actually, excess wounds spill over in challenges now, not clear if that is actual damage to the unit or just for purposes of combat res, but it is confirmed from WDW

. Yeah I'm curious on this one myself. I'd much rather it just be for combat resolution, but I'm betting in the minority for that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Hammernator wrote:
Noticed this in the new promo vid.
Seems like it says that both armies have to be chosen using the same method. So no unbound vs battle forged.
Unless the omitted word is 'not' instead of 'to'.

Boy I hope you're right. I'd be so happy.

 Lobukia wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:
Actually, excess wounds spill over in challenges now, not clear if that is actual damage to the unit or just for purposes of combat res, but it is confirmed from WDW

. Yeah I'm curious on this one myself. I'd much rather it just be for combat resolution, but I'm betting in the minority for that.

I'd be fine with that. I just have a sneaking suspicion based on their "watch out for Bloodthirsters" comment that it won't work that way.

Someone mentioned that GW was now encouraging broken lists I feel their current mentality is:

"Long live Taudar/screamerstar/whatever-is-next-in-store-for-us-tortured-Casuals"

"But no FW. We're still not letting them out of our dungeon."

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Lobukia wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:
Actually, excess wounds spill over in challenges now, not clear if that is actual damage to the unit or just for purposes of combat res, but it is confirmed from WDW

. Yeah I'm curious on this one myself. I'd much rather it just be for combat resolution, but I'm betting in the minority for that.

I'd be fine with that. I just have a sneaking suspicion based on their "watch out for Bloodthirsters" comment that it won't work that way.

It always felt really "gamey" to make a BT or hive tyrant chump a round of combat on some mook sergeant. This would ensure they fulfill their potential in cc for the points you pay.

 tetrisphreak wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Lobukia wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:
Actually, excess wounds spill over in challenges now, not clear if that is actual damage to the unit or just for purposes of combat res, but it is confirmed from WDW

. Yeah I'm curious on this one myself. I'd much rather it just be for combat resolution, but I'm betting in the minority for that.

I'd be fine with that. I just have a sneaking suspicion based on their "watch out for Bloodthirsters" comment that it won't work that way.

It always felt really "gamey" to make a BT or hive tyrant chump a round of combat on some mook sergeant. This would ensure they fulfill their potential in cc for the points you pay.

Exactly.
This dude:

should not have to stop inflicting mass carnage just because one of these guys:

threw a glove at him.

 Mij'aan wrote:
If the latest army is better than the previously released army, chances are you're going to buy said army...

What happened with Tyranids 6th edition though?

It's simple, the problem is, rather than trying to balance units and then writing the fluff for the stuff, they write the fluff and then write rules for the army. This is the reason Unbound will be such a minefield; you can't reliable give that much freedom in a game with such poor internal and external balance

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

 tetrisphreak wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Lobukia wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:
Actually, excess wounds spill over in challenges now, not clear if that is actual damage to the unit or just for purposes of combat res, but it is confirmed from WDW

. Yeah I'm curious on this one myself. I'd much rather it just be for combat resolution, but I'm betting in the minority for that.

I'd be fine with that. I just have a sneaking suspicion based on their "watch out for Bloodthirsters" comment that it won't work that way.

It always felt really "gamey" to make a BT or hive tyrant chump a round of combat on some mook sergeant. This would ensure they fulfill their potential in cc for the points you pay.

Exactly.
This dude:

Spoiler:

should not have to stop inflicting mass carnage just because one of these guys:

Spoiler:

threw a glove at him.

Maybe it's to represent the extra time it takes the BT to compose himself from all the laughing?

 Lobukia wrote:

 Hammernator wrote:
Noticed this in the new promo vid.
Seems like it says that both armies have to be chosen using the same method. So no unbound vs battle forged.
Unless the omitted word is 'not' instead of 'to'.

Boy I hope you're right. I'd be so happy.

It was confirmed some time ago that the sentence in question has a 'not' in it.

Dang. Looks like Perpetually Suicidal Chaos Champions only decent usage has finally ended... Now his sacrifice is extra...noble...

I actually like that the excess wound from the challenge spill over. I just hope that the rabble not involved in the challenge can hit back as well.

I'm getting pissed off that my big blob of cultist cant take down a single character, since the cult leader has to declare a challenge (stupid un-chaosy rule), he always get slaughtered while the 20 cultist do nothing , which make me lose the combat badly and the 20 cultist flee.

That, or excess wounds will just count as extra combat resolution, and instead of losing by -1 you instead lose by -4, or more, depending on the character/rolls/etc.

About Unbound...

I realize what is said in the latest WD. But I want to remind everyone what was printed in the previous WD. On pp16-17 Jes writes about Unbound lists:

"...take whatever you want...throw the FOC out the window (while still adhering to unit sizes and heeding the relationships described by the all-new allies matrix)"

There is a rumor that 'Come Apoc' allies will act like 'Desperate Allies'... but either way, this does but something of a restraint on some of these Unbound lists.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

 tetrisphreak wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Lobukia wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:
Actually, excess wounds spill over in challenges now, not clear if that is actual damage to the unit or just for purposes of combat res, but it is confirmed from WDW

. Yeah I'm curious on this one myself. I'd much rather it just be for combat resolution, but I'm betting in the minority for that.

I'd be fine with that. I just have a sneaking suspicion based on their "watch out for Bloodthirsters" comment that it won't work that way.

It always felt really "gamey" to make a BT or hive tyrant chump a round of combat on some mook sergeant. This would ensure they fulfill their potential in cc for the points you pay.

Exactly.
This dude:

Spoiler:

should not have to stop inflicting mass carnage just because one of these guys:

Spoiler:

threw a glove at him.

Agreed, but the solution isn't that sarg has to fight it alone and get butchered. Why on earth are sarg's two options fight it alone or do nothing? Makes no sense.

Should be simple enough to have a system that lets cc big baddies do their thing but doesn't make every sarg and squad character worthless in points and stupid in demeanor.

It all really depends on how the refuse mechanic works now.

Honestly, there's no reason for challenges to have anywhere near the significance they do. The 40k universe is not the WHFB universe, and most races don't have enough respect for their enemies to justify any penalty for refusing a challenge, if it is offered at all.

exactly, for example Tyranids dont care about honor, as the example of the eldar avatar challenging a Hive Tyrant only to be crushed by a brood of carnifex shows. At worst, the rule for refusing a challenge should be minus 1 to combat resolution, to show that the cowardly act of the leader affect the morale of the troopers.

coredump wrote:

About Unbound...

I realize what is said in the latest WD. But I want to remind everyone what was printed in the previous WD. On pp16-17 Jes writes about Unbound lists:

"...take whatever you want...throw the FOC out the window (while still adhering to unit sizes and heeding the relationships described by the all-new allies matrix)"

There is a rumor that 'Come Apoc' allies will act like 'Desperate Allies'... but either way, this does but something of a restraint on some of these Unbound lists.

Fair enough, but you must remember that GW gamer designers have repeatedly shown a lack of understanding of their own rules. So anything in WD should be considered a rumor with about a 60% accuracy rate.

 streetsamurai wrote:
exactly, for example Tyranids dont care about honor, as the example of the eldar avatar challenging a Hive Tyrant only to be crushed by a brood of carnifex shows. At worst, the rule for refusing a challenge should be minus 1 to combat resolution, to show that the cowardly act of the leader affect the morale of the troopers.

Why should it be about honor? It's about leaders meeting face to face for a showdown. Tyranid's see their leaders, and raise them a bonesword.

Each sides 'Champions' meeting on the battle field 1-2-1 is pretty much the standard.

If it was only -1 LD, then there really would be no point in the rule o.0

 Nem wrote:
If it was only -1 LD, then there really would be no point in the rule o.0

That would imply that there was a gameplay-related point behind that rule when it was designed in the first place.

Which is something I'm not sure of. The only reason I can think of is to provide a tool for everyone to clear up that annoying hidden special equipment. But considering that was the edition that introduced precision strikes/shots as a general rule, it makes me think that challenges became going overboard with the idea, bringing a lot of unfortunate consequences alongside due to mechanics being universal and affecting much more than wound allocation.

An argument may be made that other effects were intentional (hard to argue otherwise tbh), but to me it seems that they did more damage than improvement.

I left this thread 2 weeks go hoping it would go away. But no, there's a promo video telling me exactly what I don't want to hear:

WE'RE REINVENTING THE RULES YOU ALREADY DON'T UNDERSTAND! -primarily because we don't support our products in a timely or well-thought out fashion.-

The game designers want people to fight challenges. That's why they implemented the rule. That's why someone refusing a challenge will always suffer a heavy penalty like not being able to fight at all. I highly doubt that this will change.

 Jidmah wrote:
The game designers want people to fight challenges.

A simple question: why on earth would they want it considering that not all factions are built around such idea? In fact, even from "narrative" point of view it makes little (even less than from gameplay standpoint, actually) sense.

I'm sure they can spin the "Narrative" on this particular rule quite well while not addressing the outliers you pointed out.

Simple answer would be: because they want you to play this way. Regardless of logic or the diversity of factions involved.

 azreal13 wrote:
Except 40K pretty much defies all but the most twisted and contorted definitions of what constitutes a "beer and pretzels" game.

Which brings back to the question of who, outside of themselves, are GW making the game for?

Exactly. I'm not sure the people who are claiming 40K is good because it's a beer and pretzels game really know what that means.

 Steve steveson wrote:
I really want the people saying "balance is possible with open gaming and narrative play" to show games that manage it, as I can't think of any. Cirtanly non that reach the diversity and scale of 40k. Yes 40k could be more balanced, but the more open you get, the more rules interactions you get, the more room for broken combinations. And the more open the choices the more rules interact, the more likely there is to be problems.

I genuinely can't understand how 40K is more narrative than any other game. It doesn't mean anything.

As for balanced and "narrative" games; I'd say that Malifaux and Flames Of War are better than GW in every way.

Malifaux seems to have pretty decent internal/external balance, with a decent mix of craziness, plenty of story line and a reasonable chance of victory. I've played in 2 Tournaments so far and almost all of the games have been pretty close. There was even one where my master and henchment were being ragdolled by a giant teddy bear and somehow I still won the game on points. It's a very small scale game though, with a few characters per side (I think my 40ss crew runs to 9 minis).

Flames Of War seems pretty balanced; equivalent points armies usually stand a reasonable chance, and the rules allow some advantages to an infantry army against a tank army (making them defenders). Most of the balance issues I've encountered have been down to not bringing suitable options like not bringing any AA weapons when your opponent has aircraft, or not bringing any A/T guns when your opponent fields a tank army. I've never played a game where I didn't feel I had a chance of winning somehow. It's a lot more complex than 40K rules wise though, but it's all very clear so you don't need to refer to the rules often.
I've had plenty narrative games too, where the victory has come down to a single die roll. In one large game we got to the last turn with the enemy holding more objectives, and I had a unit of paras within charging range of contesting one to make it a draw. I charged, did quite well but ultimately failed, to the cheering of the victors.

Whereas in 40K, I've got a pretty casual mostly infantry IG army (PCS, 2 infantry squads, HWT team [Lascannon, HB, Missile Launcher], Ogryns, Squats, 2 Chimeras, 2 Russes, 2 Sentinels), and of my latest games I've done alright against a casual Marines army, but have been regularly tabled by everything else. Including a turn 2 victory by a Tau force with a riptide. Every deploying Marbo with a successful demo charge taking out a unit or something had no effect. The only reason I wasn't wiped out in turn 1 was because he ran out of dice. I'll still play it by my personal objectives have moved from "maybe I can win this" to "maybe I can hold out or 4 turns, or at least take out that ___ at the same time". I've no interest in spamming up my army to make winning possible. Whereas with the other 2 games I rarely see any game as a foregone conclusion at the deployment stage.

 streetsamurai wrote:
I actually like that the excess wound from the challenge spill over. I just hope that the rabble not involved in the challenge can hit back as well.

I'm getting pissed off that my big blob of cultist cant take down a single character, since the cult leader has to declare a challenge (stupid un-chaosy rule), he always get slaughtered while the 20 cultist do nothing , which make me lose the combat badly and the 20 cultist flee.

I understand why you want that, but if people in the challenge can kill people outside the challenge, and people outside the challenge can kill people inside of it… does the challenge effectively do anything ?

 Barrogh wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
The game designers want people to fight challenges.

A simple question: why on earth would they want it considering that not all factions are built around such idea? In fact, even from "narrative" point of view it makes little (even less than from gameplay standpoint, actually) sense.

Indeed, why would my Guard Sergeant accept a challenge from a Greater Daemon or Mephiston or whatever, when the only conclusion is that he's going to get annihilated. Or why would a Necron, Tau or Tyranid accept a challenge?

I can see it making some sense for Chaos and Orks and Dark Eldar, but the rest it just seems like they are trying to force more of a storyline at the expense of, well, everything else.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 streetsamurai wrote:
I actually like that the excess wound from the challenge spill over. I just hope that the rabble not involved in the challenge can hit back as well.

I'm getting pissed off that my big blob of cultist cant take down a single character, since the cult leader has to declare a challenge (stupid un-chaosy rule), he always get slaughtered while the 20 cultist do nothing , which make me lose the combat badly and the 20 cultist flee.

I understand why you want that, but if people in the challenge can kill people outside the challenge, and people outside the challenge can kill people inside of it… does the challenge effectively do anything ?

It could resolve first. But does the challenge actually add anything to the game other than another round to deal with?

 Barrogh wrote:

 Nem wrote:
If it was only -1 LD, then there really would be no point in the rule o.0

That would imply that there was a gameplay-related point behind that rule when it was designed in the first place.

Which is something I'm not sure of. The only reason I can think of is to provide a tool for everyone to clear up that annoying hidden special equipment. But considering that was the edition that introduced precision strikes/shots as a general rule, it makes me think that challenges became going overboard with the idea, bringing a lot of unfortunate consequences alongside due to mechanics being universal and affecting much more than wound allocation.

An argument may be made that other effects were intentional (hard to argue otherwise tbh), but to me it seems that they did more damage than improvement.

Some armies (like Tyranids) have single model (Most of the time...) Unit's which can be specialized in CC, while precision strikes help, single models don't get -that- many attacks in CC, it can take them 3 turns to wipe out rest of a unit if the unit ignores combat res or SA's (Which is the majority of the represented armies), by that time your Hive Tyrants may even be dead from force/power weapons or weight of hits from the unit (I mean.. 4 wounds... just 4 wounds...). Many characters have extra layers of defense themselves, I wouldn't them easy kills even with Challenges, most of the time I'm hoping a Smash wound goes through - And all that is after you've spent time getting shot in the face, ran around the board to catch up just to get there.

Without challenges, the effectiveness of these units against units with other characters are very limited - It also works in favor of CC based armies where a Character is in a unit - Basically it's something that gives CC characters the upper hand.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Wounds spilling over, is probably in response to the fact uber CC machines were forced into 2 or more rounds of combat from being challenged. While you could say 'sacrifice is a strategic choice' If you know you had no chance it's just a mechanic which slows the character down. Challenges arn't meant to be at the detriment to Mr Uber, hence the change.

Obviously I believe there is a game related point.

A different possibility would be to change wound allocation in CC so attackers allocate wounds, but that still doesn't help single model unit's much.

 Barrogh wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
The game designers want people to fight challenges.

A simple question: why on earth would they want it considering that not all factions are built around such idea? In fact, even from "narrative" point of view it makes little (even less than from gameplay standpoint, actually) sense.

In the fluff (Codex and BL) :

Orks are more than happy to fight challenges, show them who's boss and all that.
Astartes are more than happy to fight in challenges.
Dark Elder are more than happy to fight in challenges.
Eldar are more than happy to fight in challenges.
Sororitas are more than happy to fight in challenges.
Astra Millitarium are either happy to do so or don't want to be seen to be refusing.

The only ones that are not are:
'Nids - they don't really see the point except maybe the SC Hive Tyrant?
Tau - Its close combat - not something they seek out - although Farsight would be up for it.

So IMO most factions it would make perfect sense and like Skaven in WFB you make a rule for those that don't....................