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 Vaktathi wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:
The bs1 is so blast/template can target the unit?

I would imagine so. This would in fact be the traditional way to deal with something you can't see. Can't see it? just blast the whole area. That's exactly how I'd imagine most battlefield commanders would deal with something like that.

Even without the change wyverns and other blast weapons that can re-roll to hit could theoretically target something nearby and hope for a scatter onto the models in question. The only restriction is you cant target them.

 Reecius wrote:

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:
Sorry, but what sort of tournament costs 10 grand to run? Seems like a vast exaggeration to me.

The total risk for the LVO 2014 was about $50,000 when we calculated everything. 2015 Is significantly more than that. The first BAO, with no hotel rooms, borrowed terrain, etc. was about $10K. We had quotes for venues in the Bay Area that cost over $10K a DAY to rent. That doesn't even include the other commitments you have, that is just the room rental. It costs a lot more than most people think.

As for some of the ideas here, I agree with a lot of them.

GW isn't allowing unbound in their tournament which I think says a lot.

I think a baseline that everyone can agree to for tournaments as below would be pretty easy:

No unbound
1 Primary detachment
1 Other detachment (ally or formation)
Tournament missions (as we have always done)

That resolves a lot of the craziness of 7th ed. From there you can stick to the book if you want. I think some further limitations will make events more fun for everyone, though. For us we are 99% likely to do the following:

Limit the 2+ reroll save to 2+/4+ as we have been doing
Limit the psychic phase in some way. We're looking at a lot of options.
Limit invisibility in some way. It's flat out too good.
Limit summoning in some way. The psychic phase changes may fix it, but it as is is both too powerful and takes too dang long to play.
Limit certain Lords of War if we decide to allow them. I like LoW personally and enjoy having them. The changes to D weapons were positive, IMO, but some models that can remove multiple units form play at a time are a bit much like the Sonic Lance Rev, Tranny C'Tan, Hellhammer, etc. I think those could very easily kill the fun for other players.

That is as we see it here, the main issues to address.

Good to see people discussing it!

Dear sweet jesus Reece. I love you man and I know GT's are expensive to run but you don't feel like this is over the top?

Let's start with the force org restrictions. If you're going to limit it to 2 sources you need allow double force org. Since it's an actual rule for the way things work and you'd be destroying legal armies from last edition that are still legal this edition it seems silly to not go this route. And that doesn't even touch on the fact that Combined Arms and Ally only restrictions massively favor the armies with BB's.

-The 2++ reroll being dominant is gone. Basic mission design (i.e. not including KP's in every mission) will eliminate this. Everything scoring and Objective Secured troops and transports mean this that Seer Council is done. Especially under double force org.
-Why would you limit the psychic phase? It actually hurts slowing down Eldar to limit it. 20 powers will only cast 5 level 1 powers with anything like the consistency of 6th but with an massively increased risk and with them being deniable. Do you know how many points that costs? I could get that many powers in 6th for 265pts (Coteaz & Tiggy). That would cost even GK's 712pts now (assuming double force org, more for single force org) or Daemons 776pts. To cast 5 level 1 powers like back in 6th. Could I feasibly cast more? Sure. On average am I likely to? Nope. Even if I roll 2 dice each I'm only looking at 7.5 powers a turn on level 1 spells. And I think you're missing Redbeard's point. People pay for psychic powers like people pay for the shooting phase. So why limit one and not the other? Basically it's a bias against the new system and edition.
-Inivisibility is fine. We've already discussed how the seer council is dead. And now I can stop it. Unless you limit dice..
-Summoning is fine. See above.
-On LoW I'm on the fence. The Hellstorm templates are nasty but I also like the idea of LoW now. But I'm all for saying no on this one if people like it.

Couldn't we play 7th edition? Not a blend of 5th and 6th? Just my thoughts.

Reecius wrote:One creative solution I heard was to allow Unbound but to screen the lists for a more laid back style event. So, if it is a thematic unbound list, cool, if not, no. That could work although you will almost certainly run into issues when you reject a list someone else thinks is fluffy and you do not.

For us, it is easier to simply say no. An army of all named Characters or something could be a lot of fun but not in the context of flying to an event to have fair games. I think unbound is great in a club where players come to the table expecting the same thing.

Fairy nuff. I guess if you limit to one CAD then the difference between unbound /battleforged becomes much lower - as NOVA correctly says, there is very little real difference between the two otherwise.

When I said limit the psychic phase, I meant limiting the extremes of it. I think the psychic phase works great on it's own, but when you abuse the mechanics of it to max out warp charge it gets stupid. Fantasy caps magic does for just that reason and I am actually surprised that GW didn't do it with 40K.
Try a game against a 40 WP list, it is nutty. You have to keep track of so much stuff each turn it gets confusing as hell and it takes ages.

How many armies can 'abuse' the psychic phase? Tzeentch Daemons and Grey Knights, which have always been presented as psyker heavy armies both on the table and in the fluff. Anything other than those armies is capped at around 15 warp charges. Is it that bad that the armies presented as the supreme psykers actually do well in the psychic phase - especially if, sans summoning, a Tzeentch army would need ~40 WC to put out a decent 'shooting' phase with Flickering Fire? (and that less powerful, more risky and more easily dispelled than last edition?). A 20 WC army (~700pts of Tzeentch Horrors and Heralds) will on average manage to cast 2 WC3 powers and suffer one perils per psychic phase. That doesn't seem broken to me by any stretch....

I'm planning to run a daemon summoning army this weekend, I'll see how I go. I doubt it will be much slower than my Tau gunline.
I haven't played fantasy in many years... is the cap on power dice in the rulebook or in tournaments, and what is the cap usually set at?

As for keeping track of who is playing slow, that is REALLY difficult to do in 40K. On paper it sounds easy, but in effect it is super hard to do as there is no objective way to measure it without using chess clocks or something like that. People are often not aware that they play slowly, and when it happens there's no way to turn back the clock.

Perhaps it is more difficult for an event as large as yours. At the smaller (~32 player) tournaments we tend to have here, we have flags showing what turn number you're on so the TO can see across the hall how people are going; and if players aren't progressing smoothly (eg, finishing turn 2 towards the 1 hr mark out of 2.5) the TO starts keeping track of specific people.

Reecius wrote:@Red Beard
Well, that is an odd argument, don't you think? You simultaneously say that the overpowered shooting phase is a problem, but then use it as an example of why we should not limit the psychic phase. Doesn't that seem like an at least slightly hypocritical argument?

Isn't that what you just did before? Use an example of the shooting phase that you don't limit, as a reason why we should limit the psychic phase?
It is the same thing that sucks about [...] Tau blast weapons that can't miss, and ignore armor and cover. It causes one player to not participate in what is happening.
You can limit half the psychic powers by using LOS blocking terrain, or even just craters to hamper summoning, if you consider LOS blocking terrain to limit shooting.
Considering that there are natively armies that have absolutely no participation in the psychic phase anyway (Tau, Dark Eldar, Necrons) it doesn't seem like a game-breakingly 'ruining the fun' deal to me that an army with 1-2 mastery levels can be blocked by the two deliberately psyker heavy armies.
If you're worried about a ~6 WC army being shut down by a ~30 WC army, then may I suggest a limit in the number of dice used to dispel (eg, X times the number of dice/successes rolled by the opponent).

 Reecius wrote:
An army of all named Characters or something could be a lot of fun but not in the context of flying to an event to have fair games.

You're right, but I think if you are going to fly to an event with a list that is so unlikely to win (or even be competitive most of the time) then that's your choice to make, we don't need to ban a whole section of the game just to protect people from themselves.

 Reecius wrote:
Because in that instance you end up with 6 Riptides and 6 Wraithknight lists. I don't think most players want to see that on the table.

But why not? The battle-forged scoring bonus is going to make that a rather suicidal list. Without any support elements those MCs aren't all that great, and with such a huge disadvantage in scoring objectives they're probably not going to do well. I think the panic over these lists is more of a reflex "one Riptide is bad, what if people bring nothing but Riptides" response, not a serious analysis of the situation that has discovered a game-breaking balance problem. And I certainly don't think that they're going to be any scarier than going up against a good battle-forged tournament list. So at this point the question becomes "should we ban unbound armies to satisfy the people who reflexively decided that they're overpowered and refuse to think about it anymore".

 Reecius wrote:
And if you think OS Wave Serpents are bad (which I agree) imagine having access to twice as many. It's silly.

Are there really that many lists that run out of FOC slots for Wave Serpents before they run out of points to bring them? I guess an unlimited number of FOC slots might let you take them as transports for cheaper troops units instead of having to resort to more expensive units from other slots, but I can't imagine lists bringing twice as many. And that's assuming you also ban allies/formations/etc and restrict it to a single FOC, without that restriction there's no way you're doubling your transport count just because you remove the FOC limits.

 Redbeard wrote:
You're looking at this through the lens of past editions. The psychic phase is now a thing. Some armies may not be able to win the psychic phase and that's alright. Daemons cannot win the shooting phase, with only a handful of models that traditionally shoot. Tau may never win the assault phase.

But there are three issues here:

1) There are no codices that can't participate in the other three phases. Some of them aren't so great at all three phases, but at least they have something. With the psychic phase, on the other hand, there are entire codices that have literally no chance of participating. Tau, Necrons and DE can never do more than their laughably ineffective D6 deny dice.

2) There's no real middle ground. With the other phases you have a whole range between "not very good at it" and "best in the game at it". Even most melee-focused armies can still bring some shooting, and an "average" army has a balanced amount of it. Meanwhile the best shooting armies aren't complete out of proportion to everyone else (and if/when they get there it's considered a major balance issue that needs to be fixed). That doesn't happen with the psychic phase. An army with no psykers doesn't participate at all (at least in any meaningful way), while an army with a librarian as an HQ or a similar small psychic element can only hope to do anything against similar low/no-psyker armies. Then on the other end of the scale you have armies with effectively unlimited warp charge that cast whatever they want and shut down everything their opponent tries to cast. And there's no middle ground between the two, either you're average/weak at it, or you dominate the phase so much that there's no point in your opponent even being there for it.

3) There's no denial. With the other three phases if you have an ability you get to use it. Units always get to move, guns always get to shoot, and assault units always get to charge (or move into position to set up a charge). Things that deny those actions are extremely rare, and so you can always count on being able to use your army even if it doesn't always produce the best possible results. The psychic phase is the exact opposite, if you run into a psychic-heavy army you might as well not even attempt to cast or deny powers. Anything you invested in psykers is just wasted points, and the best thing you can do with them is put them out in front of the unit so they absorb a wound or two that would otherwise go to a more useful model (like a guardsman with a lasgun).

The combination of these three factors produces an all-or-nothing environment where you either don't participate in the psychic phase at all and don't even consider bringing psyker units, or you bring an army that dominates the psychic phase and laughs at your opponent's attempts to participate. Until/unless you limit the the mass-psyker armies you might as well remove librarians/IG psyker squads/etc from the codex.

 Reecius wrote:


@Leth

Last edition, we found the 2+ reroll save within 3 days of the edition dropping. We decided to wait and see how it would pan out and ended up seeing it become entrenched. It became MUCH more difficult to change that rule after players got used to using it and didn't want to change. I wish we would have trusted our instincts and took action immediately, then.

Now, we see another similar situation and don't want to sit on our hands until we're neck deep in another problem that kills the fun for a lot of players, watching more and more players quit 40K, because that is what is happening. Every month, we lost players to other games with more balanced rules.

I would rather make a mistake being overly conservative now, and then change it back later than let something in now and then see it become normal when we could have easily changed it and made the game more fun for more people in the early stages.

While I agree that the 2+ re-roll was a problem, as you saw at your event, changing it to 2+/4+ didnt change the fact that the army won. The problem was never the 2+ re-roll/death star 40k the problem was in the missions. Once you change and resolve the missions I think a lot of the problems are solved without changing the core rules of the game.

 Leth wrote:
While I agree that the 2+ re-roll was a problem, as you saw at your event, changing it to 2+/4+ didnt change the fact that the army won. The problem was never the 2+ re-roll/death star 40k the problem was in the missions. Once you change and resolve the missions I think a lot of the problems are solved without changing the core rules of the game.

Except even if the 2++ army doesn't win the whole tournament it's still incredibly frustrating to play against, to the point that I'd probably just concede defeat and go get lunch instead of even bothering to deploy my army against it. That alone is a problem that needs to be fixed. If nerfing it to a 2+/4+ doesn't fix it then nerf the save even more.

I'd like to emphasise two ideas from earlier in the thread, because I thought they were pretty good.

1. Invisibility. Enemies that target the unit are BS1. State that this set modifier always comes last, and cannot be modified in any way (including things like Marker Lights). Enemies that hit the unit in CC need 6's. This is different than being WS1, which would just make enemies hit on 5s most of the time (except for models like Kharn, whose WS is never taken into account when he hits).

2. Warp Charge. Each Faction of your army has its own WC pool, that only that Faction may draw from. This could be even further restricted by limiting it to Detachments.
Perhaps to boost the power of the non-Psyker armies, you could give a Detachment with no Psykers its own d6 WC to DtW. For example, a Tau Primary CAD would get the same d6 the opponent rolled that Psychic Phase, as normal; and its Necron Allied Detachment would also get a d6 for DtW.

 Reecius wrote:

Limit the 2+ reroll save to 2+/4+ as we have been doing

2++ invo rerolls against shooting attacks are going to be less commonplace and less of a problem now, but 2++ cover rerolls against shooting attacks, 2+ armor rerolls in close combat, and 2++ invo rerolls in CC are now a dime a dozen thanks to shrouded Tzeentch deamons, adding Yarrik and priests to space marine units, nemesis force staffs + priests, and sanctuary + priests. IMO 7th ed needs your house rule of 2+ 4 more than 6th ed did.

 Reecius wrote:

Limit the psychic phase in some way. We're looking at a lot of options.
Limit summoning in some way. The psychic phase changes may fix it, but it as is is both too powerful and takes too dang long to play.
When I said limit the psychic phase, I meant limiting the extremes of it. I think the psychic phase works great on it's own, but when you abuse the mechanics of it to max out warp charge it gets stupid. Fantasy caps magic does for just that reason and I am actually surprised that GW didn't do it with 40K.
I think a limit on Conjurations is likely, too, as well as a limit to psyker spam armies that can totally shut down the psychic phase of other armies.

I don't think conjuration is broken nor do I think full blown deamon factory is competitive, but only time and playtesting can tell. For now it's time to agree to disagree, wait for more playtesting, and keep an open mind.

The +1 power/dispel dice per mastery level is a terribly written rule and broken mechanic. My 2 cents.
Dispel pool can not be under 1/2 of the power dice. 36 power dice=minimum dispel pool is 18.
Dispel pool can not double the power dice. 9 power dice = maximum 18 power dispel dice.
Add to perils result #1 "If the leadership test is passed 1/2 of all remaining power and dispel dice are immediately lost."
I think that should be sufficient to balance out the 30 psyker level lists with the guy that only brings a single lvl3 psyker.

Summoned deamons should follow the allies matrix instead of being counted as part of it's summoning unit's CAD. Come the APOC allies should keep objectives to themselves and contest both players for it. That would kill 2 birds with 1 stone dealing both with Eldar deamon summoning lists and discouraging 99% of players from taking come the apoc allies.

 Reecius wrote:

Limit invisibility in some way. It's flat out too good.

I'm with the previously suggested WS1 BS1 combination and would add blasts become BS0.

 Reecius wrote:

Because in that instance you end up with 6 Riptides and 6 Wraithknight lists. I don't think most players want to see that on the table.
And if you think OS Wave Serpents are bad (which I agree) imagine having access to twice as many. It's silly.

6 riptides took a serious hit with 7th ed and IMO is longer OP. 6 wraith knights is way to expensive to be competitive. Wave serpents are also not going to be a problem because the maximum # that can fit into a 1,750 is 8 +40 dire avengers which can be done with the 2 extra troop slots from an allied detachment. I think the real problems are going to be inexpensive units that are really good like 6 annihilation barges (540 points) or 6 soul grinders (840 to 900 points depending on the mark).

The big problems with double CAD come from spamming HS and FA options, which can be solved by altering big guns and scouring. After 2 HS/FA are completely destroyed ie both halves of a combat squad and/or the squad + dedicated transport then any future HS/FA become worth 2 VP per unit destroyed. After 4 units are completely destroyed then any future HS/FA become worth 3 VP per unit. That would add a serious level of risk to spamming a HS/FA option in 1 out of 3 missions.

 Reecius wrote:

One creative solution I heard was to allow Unbound but to screen the lists for a more laid back style event

I say try unbound for beerhammer, and all it takes is 1 simple house rule to keep the cholesterol level of unbound lists under control. Players roll off before deployment, whoever wins decides if they want to play their own army or use their opponent's army. A player can build Frankenstein's monster, but would then suffer a 50/50 chance that the monster would turn on him.

 Reecius wrote:

I would rather make a mistake being overly conservative now, and then change it back later than let something in now and then see it become normal when we could have easily changed it and made the game more fun for more people in the early stages.
Last edition, we found the 2+ reroll save within 3 days of the edition dropping. We decided to wait and see how it would pan out and ended up seeing it become entrenched. It became MUCH more difficult to change that rule after players got used to using it and didn't want to change. I wish we would have trusted our instincts and took action immediately, then.
not a single TO I have talked to has said they were ever considering 2 primary detachments.

I would rather be over conservative says the man placing $50,000 worth of risk to host the LVO. Every other TO that you are talking to is thinking with the same financial risk in mind. You guys are by your nature a cautious group (or timid depending on perspective) when it comes to gambling with your livelihood. The only thing you're going to get from other TOs is the same thing your gut is telling you, and that is what the most cautious options are. The only way to convince you or other TOs to take a risk (Like when you allowed forge world into the BAO) is when sufficient playtesting overcomes your instincts and/or the mainstream advice from other TOs.

Leth wrote:The problem is that for many of those armies they are still investing points into everything and statistically only half of those points are going to have returns assuming no denies.

You always get to shoot, and it is almost always fixed, either BS 1 for snap shots, or your bs.

That's not true. It might sound good, but in practice, if your opponent has the same sort of numerical edge in shooting that 40-2 WC represents, you don't get to shoot. Your shooting stuff is dead. If you went first, you got to shoot once, otherwise, you didn't.

Reecius wrote:@Red Beard

Well, that is an odd argument, don't you think? You simultaneously say that the overpowered shooting phase is a problem, but then use it as an example of why we should not limit the psychic phase. Doesn't that seem like an at least slightly hypocritical argument?

How's that hypocritical? I think you're using the wrong word there. The idea that you're looking to nerf a phase when that phase isn't even the most problematic in the game - no hypocrisy there. Perhaps I'm not being clear enough. I'm not saying you should nerf anything - in fact, the opposite, I'm saying you explicitly shouldn't nerf anything. BUT, if you were to go nerfing a phase, the psychic phase isn't the one I'd choose to start with.

But, we do limit the shooting phase. We use a LOT of LoS blocking terrain at our events to force the game to be about maneuver. It just isn't as obvious of a change.

How many assault armies were in the top-ten in your last event? Was this "limit" even noticed?

But there are three issues here:

1) There are no codices that can't participate in the other three phases. Some of them aren't so great at all three phases, but at least they have something. With the psychic phase, on the other hand, there are entire codices that have literally no chance of participating. Tau, Necrons and DE can never do more than their laughably ineffective D6 deny dice.

2) There's no real middle ground. With the other phases you have a whole range between "not very good at it" and "best in the game at it". Even most melee-focused armies can still bring some shooting, and an "average" army has a balanced amount of it. Meanwhile the best shooting armies aren't complete out of proportion to everyone else (and if/when they get there it's considered a major balance issue that needs to be fixed). That doesn't happen with the psychic phase. An army with no psykers doesn't participate at all (at least in any meaningful way), while an army with a librarian as an HQ or a similar small psychic element can only hope to do anything against similar low/no-psyker armies. Then on the other end of the scale you have armies with effectively unlimited warp charge that cast whatever they want and shut down everything their opponent tries to cast. And there's no middle ground between the two, either you're average/weak at it, or you dominate the phase so much that there's no point in your opponent even being there for it.

3) There's no denial. With the other three phases if you have an ability you get to use it. Units always get to move, guns always get to shoot, and assault units always get to charge (or move into position to set up a charge). Things that deny those actions are extremely rare, and so you can always count on being able to use your army even if it doesn't always produce the best possible results. The psychic phase is the exact opposite, if you run into a psychic-heavy army you might as well not even attempt to cast or deny powers. Anything you invested in psykers is just wasted points, and the best thing you can do with them is put them out in front of the unit so they absorb a wound or two that would otherwise go to a more useful model (like a guardsman with a lasgun).

The combination of these three factors produces an all-or-nothing environment where you either don't participate in the psychic phase at all and don't even consider bringing psyker units, or you bring an army that dominates the psychic phase and laughs at your opponent's attempts to participate. Until/unless you limit the the mass-psyker armies you might as well remove librarians/IG psyker squads/etc from the codex.

#1 is largely untrue, many Daemon armies don't participate at all in the shooting phase beyond rolling warpstorm now that Witchfires don't occur during that phase, so you are looking at largely the equivalent of D6 dice being rolled. Sure there are some units that you could take, but you could also take allies to every codex to allow participation in the psychic phase.

#2 also false the phases range from terrible ( or not participating) to super OP, just like the psychic phase. An army with 2 Warp Charges borders on terrible with the new system, an army with say 12-18 is middle of the road powerful, and 40 might be super OP. Same as any other phase.

#3 Also false to a degree, if you have an ability you get to roll dice for it no matter what, that does not always make its use meaningful. If I run into an Imperial Knight army with and I have a bunch of bolters and Krak grenades, I have paid for abilities that I can roll for but have no meaningful use. In fact casting a psychic power on 6 dice against 40 has arguably more meaningful effect (because there is a chance something will happen, like I roll 6 successes, and you don't roll six 6s on 40 dice) vs my Bolters having no chance to do anything. It is no different. Furthermore, it also means you always as an opponent have a chance (no matter how unlikely) to counter your opponent, vs the inability for some armies to do that against shooting or assault.


In general having played some games now the psychic phase needs no real limiting IMO at the moment. If it did I think I prefer some of the other suggestions such as ( you never get less than 50% your opponents pool in dispel dice, or twice as many dispel dice as they have power dice). Perils happens often, powers fail often, and get shut down not infrequently.

I think people are really discounting how frequent perils will be in this edition. We were screwing around trying to get WC3 spells to go off with 6 dice. Perils went off (on 6's only) about 15-20% of the time. This is a dramatic change.

Also, where was all this outrage in 5th when people would take Eldrad and make it extremely dangerous to cast psychic powers? Wasn't that OP in that one model could shut down all of your psychic powers?

Honestly other than the potential abuse of extreme summoning disparity once people figure that out, and I don't know that there IS an extreme abuse possible, I don't think the psychic phase is all that big a deal.

It's poorly designed compared to how it SHOULD have been designed, which is why there's so much discussion about it, and why there are a half dozen easily made suggestions for how to improve it that people readily rally behind (b/c they are patently better, even at a first swag).

But as soon as you start getting through diverse playtesting with invisibility and others, most of the powers - even the ones made much better - aren't that big a deal compared to other broken things we've seen in 40k going back 25 or so years.

I do think it bears look at whether Summoning intensive armies are or aren't unreasonable to deal with from both a time and fun perspective. I think they have some weaknesses in terms of pursuing mission in a lot of situations, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be eval'ed pretty closely.

Same time, that eval may yield a conclusion of "well they aren't a big deal." But given there is no "true" way to play 40k anymore by GW's own design, there are going to be rules changes or tweaks or exclusions in every single even pick-up game played, and we all know they aren't perfect rules designers. The point to be drawn from that is - those who are swearing up and down that summoning and psy phase are perfectly fine and that they can't possibly wrong are as inexperienced and unproven in the claim as those who are swearing the psychic phase is just the worst thing ever and unplayable without changes.

Game's been out less than 2 weeks. So far I've felt the psychic phase leaves a ton to be desired from a design and smooth mechanics point of view. That said, I haven't yet seen it being game-breaking or unplayable. There's a difference. If you want a game that has near-flawless mechanics design, play Malifaux. If you want a game with thousands of peers who play it almost anywhere you go and a huge, rich, decades-old background story development and sweet models and an enormous community of both tournament-minded and pick-up-game-minded players ... well, you really should still be playing 40k regardless of their continued implementation of poorly-stresstested new rules ideas.

Also, if you stop talking about the psychic phase for a moment, the game is pretty substantially improved on a lot of levels. The scoring change alone instantly destroyed Jetbike seer councils and other units, which were invincible already (so why do we care that they are a different form of invincible anyway?), rendering those armies no longer capable of playing and completing missions in the fashion they did. Implementation of modified Maelstrom or the Asymmetrical Mission Catalog further boofs that sorta stuff, and largely does the same for dealing with summoning spam.

Long story short, the focus probably should start on how armies are constructed to minimize craziness and/or at least give people clear expectations ... I'm sure we'll all figure out if anything is too absurd sooner than later, and I will give some serious support to Reece in saying if anything truly is just awful, it's better to deal with it now than in a year.

But I don't know there's anything that needs dealing with yet.

Hey Mike. Quick question re two source. Are you going to consider Stronghold Assault (ie fortifications) as a 'source' or will any fortifications just be part of that detachment, so to speak?

Also along those lines, I thought I'd point out to all that there is a difference between a two source list and a two detachment list, even without the inclusion of fortifications and LoW. A single source Combined Arms detachment can only contain units drawn from one codex. A regular CAD can draw from multiple codexes, as long as they are all from the same faction. So a CSM Primary detachment can (by RAW) contain units from any CSM supplement, limited only by the Force Org chart. Or the Tau/Farsight issue someone mentioned a page or so back.

That would be hilarious! Iron Hand Dreads, Salamander assault squads w/flamers, Imperial Fist Devastators, White Scar Commander, Tiggy, all without allies....

Don't have my book on me though so I'm not 100% that holds up but it's something I have to check at home now

 Reecius wrote:
@RedBeard

A lot of folks are making that counter-argument. However, I don't think it holds water.

For one, if I have more shooting than you, that doesn't mean almost all of my shots hit and none of yours do. However, if I have 40+ WC and you have 2, I will get almost all of the powers I want off, and you will get none. See the difference? It really isn't the same comparison. It negates the phase for one player. It is the same thing that sucks about 2+ reroll saves, or Tau blast weapons that can't miss, and ignore armor and cover. It causes one player to not participate in what is happening.

That is not fun.

So if someone brings a single ML2 Psyker to a game or tournament they should expect to have close to the same impact on the Psychic phase as a player that brought enough Psykers to hit 40 WC? I'd suggest that if you bring a single Librarian (or whatever) to a game that you get what you deserve. If you've only brought a single ML2 Psyker to a game you're really not 'participating' in the psychic phase anyway with your one (maybe two) spell that you'll be able to cast with your available power dice.

It is almost exactly like facing a flyer-heavy army with no AA. Or a tank-heavy army with no anti-tank. Some games you'll play a non-psychic army and you'll get to cast your one or two spells that you have enough WC to muster. Sometimes you'll fight Daemons or Eldar and not get a single cast off. That's the game. I think the Tau comparisons are spot on personally. They don't get to 'participate' in the assault phase do they? Should we nerf all assault even more so that they don't feel left out? Should everyone get a trophy?

If you start limiting things that you don't like, you can't just stop there. You have to take a look at the whole game and tone down the other abuses.

 Reecius wrote:
We're talking about a lot of creative ways to try to tone down the extremes while still letting players have fun with their army and not feel limited. It is not easy to do.

The new editing is barely a week old, I think some time should be allowed so see what the extremes are before making ill-advised changes.

 Hulksmash wrote:
That would be hilarious! Iron Hand Dreads, Salamander assault squads w/flamers, Imperial Fist Devastators, White Scar Commander, Tiggy, all without allies....

Don't have my book on me though so I'm not 100% that holds up but it's something I have to check at home now

I think the SM FAQ basically makes some of that impossible, but I think Don's logic holds up accurately that separate supplements can no longer be directly allied to as we know, but can now be included within. That's actually kinda neat.

Also, the rule I think we're all looking at now (and look, I don't have any formal rulings yet, though we're all pretty close to trying to work together on this stuff) is 2 detachments ... so rather than being source-centric, it would just be oriented toward following the BRB descriptions and regs about what a detachment is.

Thanks Mike, appreciate the response.

Hulk:
Based on their example detachments on pages 120 and 122, Restrictions, All units chosen must have the same Faction (or have no Faction).

From Factions on page 118:
In the case of codex supplements, the Faction of all the units described in that publication is the same as the codexs it is a supplement of.

To prevent it would be fairly simple, just make sure that you list (and advertise!) Restrictions as single source, ie codex or supplement, plus fortifications and/or Lords of War (if allowing either/both).

Well I said I'd have to look into it

As for the ruling you're looking at I'm ok with it. Glad to see 2 combined arms being considered as i think it helps the game a lot more than hurts it.

I assume you guys going to go through Stronghold Assault and nominate what's legal and what isn't? Because now that fortifications are only there it's something that'll need to be clarified.

 Hulksmash wrote:
Well I said I'd have to look into it

As for the ruling you're looking at I'm ok with it. Glad to see 2 combined arms being considered as i think it helps the game a lot more than hurts it.

I assume you guys going to go through Stronghold Assault and nominate what's legal and what isn't? Because now that fortifications are only there it's something that'll need to be clarified.

Yeah - I think all / most TOs are on the same page about how to build armies, how there's a need to clarify terrain rules, etc. etc. I think like the community at large, there's a wide range of opinions on changing rules like psy powers and such, so I think those types of changes are likely to end up being TO specific or slower to develop. Long and short, the "well we just need to figure out how you can actually use gak" rules are the ones that will be very shortly publicized and released and decided upon and all that by varying folks. Not sure of course.

Sounds good. Some of us need to build our unique snowflake of an army for Nova and the more time the better

I still like the idea of allowing all armies to ally with themselves, instead of going with 2 combined arms detachments.

Double FOC has always been restricted to high point levels to keep away spam of cheap effective units (or at least, to limit it to the 6 troops slots available or the like).

Allying with yourself allows for 3 HQ and 8 troops slots versus 4 HQ and 12 troops slots with two detachments.

Hulk showed the numbers for 12 scoring psybacks with psykers inside for around 800 points (plus HQ costs which bring it closer to 1K) a few pages back. I can just see the pendulum swinging all the way back towards the parking lots of 5th edition... plus, running out of time to actually get games in with all those cheap units.

Allying with yourself seems like an elegant, easy solution that also fixes the issues with the armies that are invalidated otherwise (like Farsight), unless I'm missing something...

 Redbeard wrote:

How many assault armies were in the top-ten in your last event? Was this "limit" even noticed?

Ironically, assault armies have been dominating the last few tournaments, both the LVO and Adepticon. Other than the occasional White Scars army (ok, 1 White Scars army), you're seeing in the Top 10 beaststars, seer councils and FMC daemons mainly.

Actually, it isn't even the Assault armies that are dominating. What is really dominating the tournament scene are the mobile armies.

 RiTides wrote:
I still like the idea of allowing all armies to ally with themselves, instead of going with 2 combined arms detachments.

Double FOC has always been restricted to high point levels to keep away spam of cheap effective units (or at least, to limit it to the 6 troops slots available or the like).

Allying with yourself allows for 3 HQ and 8 troops slots versus 4 HQ and 12 troops slots with two detachments.

Hulk showed the numbers for 12 scoring psybacks with psykers inside for around 800 points (plus HQ costs which bring it closer to 1K) a few pages back. I can just see the pendulum swinging all the way back towards the parking lots of 5th edition... plus, running out of time to actually get games in with all those cheap units.

Allying with yourself seems like an elegant, easy solution that also fixes the issues with the armies that are invalidated otherwise (like Farsight), unless I'm missing something...

I'm all for this. I'd prefer 1 ally (even if it's allying with yourself) or formation over 2 CAD's.

MVB, are you going to allow self-allying at NOVA?

@LValx

If there are two CAD's then there is no need for Self Allying.

@Ritides

And if the pendulum shifts to parking lots (it won't, they aren't good enough) then it's still more fun than deathstar hammer. At least stuff is blowing up since the drawback to parking lots before was you had to make them explode and you could glance/pen a rhino 500 times and never kill it. Now it only takes 3 successful glance/pens at most.

The most undercosted units like psyback acolyte squads and annihilation barges are already able to reach saturation. Barges took a hit on the Jink rule and on the fact that people in 7th should be bringing more AP2/AP1 ranged weapons for vehicles. 36 TL-St6 AP4 psyback shots hasn't broken the game yet and won't in the future. It's a lot of scoring but it's flimsy scoring.

Honest question to those that are against basically 1 more HQ, 4 more troops, and 2 more of each other slot. What armies are you guys worried about showing up?

yeah, everyone calling for across the baord nerfs to the already nerfed psychic phase is totally out of whack...


maybe I think its unfair that you can "stack" as many shooting guys as you want, 300+ shooting attacks a turn is "unfair"

instead, each unit should generate one shooting charge, that gives you a dice to roll, and on a 4+ you get to shoot, 1-3, no shooting for you. after that, still roll to hit.

oh, and we are capping it at 12, because "fairness", and marker lights, well be back rolls, are a "crutch buffs" thats unfair, you only get max 12 rolls for those now too, and your opponent gets d6 dice to dispell your RP or marker light rolls.

think that is rediculous?
hey, thats how horrors have to shoot... thats how gk's entire army has to buff itself...

seriously... there is nothing in the p phase beyond invisability that needs fixing

fix 2++'s, fix invis, agree to us a pts limit, and how many detachments (two CADS or one CAD + allied, or allow ally with self all seem fine)


but do NOT nerf an already nerfed P phase just because its new, and you dont understand how BAD it just made all our pyskers that are not Uber buffed eldrads or belakors...

make specific nerfs to guys like eldrad/belakor if you feel those specific guys are too OP for 40k in a 40k where we have D weapons, apoc blasts, WS spam, flyer spam, wraithstar and super heavies in the BRB and on the table at tournaments.

 Hulksmash wrote:
@LValx

If there are two CAD's then there is no need for Self Allying.

@Ritides

And if the pendulum shifts to parking lots (it won't, they aren't good enough) then it's still more fun than deathstar hammer. At least stuff is blowing up since the drawback to parking lots before was you had to make them explode and you could glance/pen a rhino 500 times and never kill it. Now it only takes 3 successful glance/pens at most.

The most undercosted units like psyback acolyte squads and annihilation barges are already able to reach saturation. Barges took a hit on the Jink rule and on the fact that people in 7th should be bringing more AP2/AP1 ranged weapons for vehicles. 36 TL-St6 AP4 psyback shots hasn't broken the game yet and won't in the future. It's a lot of scoring but it's flimsy scoring.

Honest question to those that are against basically 1 more HQ, 4 more troops, and 2 more of each other slot. What armies are you guys worried about showing up?

2 CADS would be great, but I figured it unlikely to be allowed.

 Hulksmash wrote:
@LValx

If there are two CAD's then there is no need for Self Allying.

...

Honest question to those that are against basically 1 more HQ, 4 more troops, and 2 more of each other slot. What armies are you guys worried about showing up?

Snipping this quote out since I think these two parts address the same thing.

I'm not the expert on this, but it just seems too wide open to me. A quick check of the 40k army list forum for eldar found this list focused on objective securing:

 FlingitNow wrote:
CAD1 Primary

Autarch: Jetbike, Mantle, fusiongun, laser lance, Shard, banshee mask 190

6 Jetbikes: 2 Cannons 122
6 Jetbikes: 2 Cannons 122
6 Jetbikes: 2 Cannons 122
6 Jetbikes: 2 Cannons 122
3 Jetbikes 51
3 Jetbikes 51

3 War Walkers: 6 Bright Lances 210
3 War Walkers: 6 Bright Lances 210
Wraithknight 240

CAD 2

Autarch: jetbike, banshee mask, laser lance, scorpion chainsword 103

3 Jetbikes 51
3 Jetbikes 51
3 Jetbikes 51
3 Jetbikes 51
3 Jetbikes 51
3 Jetbikes 51

No objective is safe the non-mantle 'tarch joins a 6 man unit and plows into soft targets should I need a CC kill. Knight and Walkers kill armour and possibly MCs dependent on that turns Objective. The Solitarch and Knight go for CC too. What do you think?

Maybe it will fall easily to other things, but armies that can take cheap objective secured units will vastly benefit from being able to take 12.

I.e., to make this list more extreme, just take 12 units of 3 jetbikes each (51 points apiece). That has used up 600 points of your 1850 point army. Let's say it's another 250 for two farseers with toys to lead them.

Now you have another 1000 points to spend on whatever else you'd like from all the other slots... it just seems like too much to me. Dropping the point level doesn't even help really, because you still have all the slots available for a 1500 point game.

That's a cute list but it wouldn't likely stand up over the course of an event. And it'd be fun to play with and against. You're opponent gets to kill things (your 3 man squads) and you get to make zoom noises and fly around the table.

Is it nice to have that many scoring units? Sure. But it'll suffer against mech and flyer builds. And not going second. And reserve rolls.

So the question is are you against that list because it wouldn't be fun to play against or because you feel like it has an inherent advantage in game play? Because the first one I get. I don't agree since I'm a bike nut but I get it. The second one just isn't that solid. A nice blend will be needed.

 Green is Best! wrote:
I think people are really discounting how frequent perils will be in this edition. We were screwing around trying to get WC3 spells to go off with 6 dice. Perils went off (on 6's only) about 15-20% of the time. This is a dramatic change.

On 6d6, the chance success for WC3 is 65.62%; chance of Perils is 26.32%. Pretty high. On 8d6, which is what I'd roll to have a better chance of success (85.54%), the rate of Perils is now 39.52%! Yikes!

Also, where was all this outrage in 5th when people would take Eldrad and make it extremely dangerous to cast psychic powers? Wasn't that OP in that one model could shut down all of your psychic powers?

This is definitely true. As I was a newbie GK player, my brother would ALWAYS take Rues of Warding. It was very frustrating. I was glad to see that change in the new Eldar book.

 jy2 wrote:

 Redbeard wrote:

How many assault armies were in the top-ten in your last event? Was this "limit" even noticed?

Ironically, assault armies have been dominating the last few tournaments, both the LVO and Adepticon. Other than the occasional White Scars army (ok, 1 White Scars army), you're seeing in the Top 10 beaststars, seer councils and FMC daemons mainly.

Actually, it isn't even the Assault armies that are dominating. What is really dominating the tournament scene are the mobile armies.

That's a fair analysis. I guess I consider a deathstar army to be a different archetype than what I'd call a traditional assault army. The ones I'm thinking about are things like World Eaters, or Green Tide or Stealer Shock or Descent of Angels type lists - an entire approach to the game that worked throughout much of 5th ed, and then disappeared as GW nerfed the hell out of assault. Deathstars can still pull off assaults, but not much else, and I'm sure someone complained about how easy it was to get FMCs into combat, because they're a casualty of the 7th update as well.