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Challenges might be a good idea in theory, but from my experience they just make the game less realistic, and make high initiative races WAAAY better. I'm an ork player so this might just be for orks (though it seems like it could be a bigger issue). It makes high point options seem dangerous on a low initiative model, especially power klaws/fists. If you go into combat with a power klaw/fist and face anyone with a. Higher initiative, then you get killed before you can strike by their AP weapon that is 10 points less. This makes taking people to eat challenges almost mandatory for slow models, which does not seem to fit the intention of the rule...

For challenges to be broadly unbalancing melee would have to be effective in the first place.

That said the rules designers' attempts to make the whole thing more 'cinematic' seem to tend towards giving the 'heroes' tools to beat on the 'faceless hordes' in a 'dramatic' way, almost any cinematic from any of the video games presents Orks as big slow lumbering monsters flailing wildly with attacks that would paste their opponent while said opponent dances around hacking them to pieces slowly.

From a broader perspective you've hit on the fundamental nature of the Orks here; Orks are supposed to be insanely terrifying if they get a chance to get to where they get to attack you with their insane volume of cheap attacks with short-ranged guns and melee weapons, their counter is playing to get them out of the way before they can attack by outshooting them or attacking at a higher Initiative. If you remove the Orks' major weakness you might as well start asking why the Tau have no good close combat units, or why the Eldar are all T3, or why the Space Marines are all so expensive; every army has their weak point, and the Orks' is getting hit before they can hit back.

(If it makes you feel any better the Orks in WHFB have been dealing with the exact same crap for much longer than the Orks in 40k with I3 Heroes/I4 Lords getting eaten alive before their Initiative step by everything that's not a Lizardman, and they seem to manage just fine playing around it)

Off topic, but compared to orks, space marines are way underpriced at 14 points each


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It's not a shortcoming, it's an advantage

What models are these that are one-shot killing your nobs without being unwieldy?

If you say "captain with burning blade," then sure, those are stupid.

Dark Eldar with ID weapons, fast models with tons of offense and no defense

I think that the current challenge system at least needs clarifications. For example, multiple combats. When i have a mob of boyz multicharging 2 targets, how can a sarge that's fighting boyz 15' away from the nob challenge him out. And how can any of them run that fast to instantly appear in b2b.

And i also think that the "no attack if you decline" is a bit ott. What i'd do is that if you decline, you get -1 attack and the challenger gets +1 attack. Leadership stuff can remain the same.

Had to go up against a daemon prince and a GUO with baleswords yesterday. Couldn't kill either in CC without throwing a fully tooled up 6 nob biker unit + war boss at one and they only got it down to 1 wound before getting ID'd. Challenge or no, initiative is a pain but with the amount of power klaws you can cram into an ork list, it wouldn't really be fair to just let them swing.

 Waaagh 18 wrote:
Off topic, but compared to orks, space marines are way underpriced at 14 points each

Let's just say there's a reason why Ork Boyz are generally seen as one of the strongest Troops Choices in the game while Tactical Marines are meh-average at best and leave it at that.

Tacticals are definitely just as good as 2 ork boyz, one rapid shot from a bolter kills one ork!
2 shots, 1 and 1/3 hit, .66 wound - ork probably dead

 Waaagh 18 wrote:
Tacticals are definitely just as good as 2 ork boyz, one rapid shot from a bolter kills one ork!
2 shots, 1 and 1/3 hit, .66 wound - ork probably dead

One Marine is 2.5 Boyz, not 2, and they also benefit from cover, as well as the law of big numbers making their average shooting and (cover) saves much more reliable than that of the Tactical Marine.

well first off, chalanges do prefer high ini armies ALOT.

the thing about the orks is, that they werent always these sluggish slow dumps... i still remember the ini 8 warboss with 6 attacks on the charge and only allowing armour saves of 4+ an higher...

on topic at challanges per se, i gotta say that they DO provide an interesting tactical layer for the game, but they should be restricted to certain distances like a 3" bubble so that you could outmeneuver certain situations...

or just give an ld malus for declining a chalange or a malus to the combat result, but not letting an character attack at all nearly breaks some armies...

Its part of the strategy and tactics.
Fighting against DE or Nurgle Deamons with ID weapons? Well - that's kinda their thing. There are not many other armies that will reliably kill your nobs or warbosses with equivalent characters before they swing. Decline the challenge. If you are fed up of not being abke to strike then make sure there is a challenge sponge character in there to take the challenge instead (say... a mek). For my BA I often run an assault squad with priest and libby. I either leave the sarge bare or give him a power sword because it is HIM that will be accepting the challenges. Plan around it, it's part of the game.

If your bar for "challenges are OP" is "my Ork Nobz can't fight two Daemon MCs in close combat" something has gone horribly wrong.

That's not the bar at all. The bar is that any model in an enemy unit can take out the nob before it gets to strike if it has enough attacks. Nobs are pretty much useless every time an IC is in the enemy unit...

 Waaagh 18 wrote:
That's not the bar at all. The bar is that any model in an enemy unit can take out the nob before it gets to strike if it has enough attacks. Nobs are pretty much useless every time an IC is in the enemy unit...

...If your bar for 'challenges are OP' is 'my sergeants can't fight enemy beatstick HQs' something has gone horribly wrong.

It's just that they should be able to avoid a challenge somehow


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And with the overkill now, there is absolutely no reason not to kill the sergeant in a challenge first

So challenges favour higher I armies.

Will the next thread be about how shooting favours higher BS armies?

What are you complaining about? I play choas space marine and they must issue and accept all challenges when ever possible.

I can waste 30 pts to give a Chump a power weapon. Oh but which one? The slow axe? The weak sword? Or a mual that is only good at killing t-shirt saves? I can also waste more points on a plasma pistol. Worst still is that the chump is easy to kill! 1 wound with 3+ armor save.


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Even worse is having my hq waste his attacks on your 2 wound boss.

I know. Challenges just severely weaken several armies.

With my Marines, the Sarge may get a wound in against a nob, but then gets splatted.

With my Exarch spam army, most of the Exarchs get splatted. The only one with a decent chance is when I spend about 50 points on a Scorpion exarch, and he still loses most of the time. Heck, many of our HQs will lose to nobs.

Challenges are a bit off, but Orks can benefit a lot from challenges. If I could hide my melee Exarchs or sarges, that would help a lot.

honestly, i find my nobs do pretty well in challenges. Tactical marine sgt with one or two attacks? Yeah, my nob will probably survive that. A SM captain? Yeah, my mek (or painboy, if i'm getting desperate) will accept that, then my nob will smash his face in, followed by 19-29 other boys (depending on if they were wagon boys). Or, my nob will decline if alone, and the captain still gets 19-29 x 2 to 4 hits anyways. (depending on if sluggas, if charging, whatnot.)

I expect sgt level characters to be about on par with other sgt level characters (with the exception of like, tau and guard). If my nob is taking a challenge from an IC, he's meat shielding someone else (like a warboss in MA who can't take ap2 hitts), or something is horribly wrong.

I've actually lost more SM HQs than I care to admit to PK nobz. 2 wounds on initiative is more likely than not for a CM with Burning Blade, but a power sword captain ain't pulling that off. Relic Blades and better usually do the job, but can fail. PFs and Hammers do the job, but not before the PK. And if the nob swings the PK, anything short of Shield Eternal frequently gonna die.

So yes, SM HQs have a moderate edge over Ork Nobs with PKs.

I feel your pain. I play Orks as well, and I despise challenges. Simply put, challenges aren't FUN.

Challenges would be FUN in my mind if you have two heroic models in a unit, and they get to square off, roll the dice, and beat each other to a pulp in an epic fight that leaves the "grunts" out of it. Who's going to win? The Captain or the Warboss? The Commissar or the Necron Lord? Awesome fight!

But no. Challenges are NOT that.

Challenges are a mechanic by which one powerful character gets to nullify the power of an other character. It's a not a game by which both combatants fight, both take some damage, and one comes out the winner.

It's a RIGGED game of "Rock / Paper / Scissor". Now tell me, how much fun would it be to play Rock / Paper / Scissor, if both you and your opponent knew ahead of time which you were going to throw? It would be pointless wouldn't it? Well, that's how 90% of Challenges work.

If you've got a Hive Tyrant, of COURSE you're going to Challenge my Ork Nob. You've got Rock and you know I've got Scissor. You know that your Hive Tyrant can squash my Nob with no difficulty. My Nob has no choice but to either a) live and be useless, or b) die. How is that fun?

If you have a high-initiative character who can potentially kill a threat at a low initiative, then you Challenge. It's that simple. The mechanics of how the Challenge works means that armies like Orks don't get to USE our special characters at all! Why should I bother buying a Power Klaw for my Nob? If he gets challenged he'll just die, or I'll have to refuse the challenge and not use it. Everything in the game goes before him, so it's not like I have any choice in the matter.

Balance or no, that's just not FUN. Why should one army get to actually USE their special characters (guys which high initiatives that can stomp face, like Deamons, Hive Tyrants, Eldar) while for other armies it's just pointless to waste points on your characters?

It's BAD GAME DESIGN. You can talk about balance, blah blah blah, and yeah maybe it is "balanced" in some situations. But most of the time, it's not.

Challenges didn't exist before 6th Edition, and special characters still had tons of ways to kill each other in close combat, and close combat was more FUN in those editions. That's my 2 cents on it.

I hate Challenges.

I don't find challenges to be too much of a problem for my Orks, to be honest.

It's entirely fair that my boss nobz can't beat enemy HQs that cost three times as many points.

I don't tool my warboss up for challenges as I feel he is more useful as a support character for the squad, but I could certainly do so if I wanted to. There's not a lot that could ignore a re-rollable 2+ armour save AND beat him on initiative AND avoid getting instagibbed in response, at least not without costing a hell of a lot more.

orks are actually fairly average in challenges.

Nobs will generally beat any unit champion who doesn't insta-gib him, by virtue of having 2 wounds - i usually only take 1. and the greatest thing about powerklaw nobs is that if the enemy fluffs it and only does 1 wound, you get 4 attacks back with a powerklaw. That'll generally kill any infantry guys. particularly fun if it's a farseer or a marine character. it's excellent if it's a special character.

Any Independent character will and should murder a nob with a klaw, because the nob is less than 50 points and the captain or similar is more like 100.

A veteran sergeant with a power sword, by comparison, is a closer analogue in points to a nob, and on average will charge, swing four times, hit twice, wound once....and discover that nobz have two wounds each. Then be punched in the face. He can kill the nob before he can strike but the odds are substantially against him unless he's taken some unusual weapons.

Models that can reliably cause two wounds off their own attacks are rarer and are mostly army generals or elite-ish assault units (a bezerker champion could do it, I think). Even the crowd control ish units aren't that great; Dark Eldar can't spam poison 2+ weapons on unit champions anymore. Even a scorpion exarch with a scorpion's claw - one of the scariest unit champions out there - has an average damage per turn of one-and-a-large-bit wounds per turn.

The point of the rule is - as I understand it - to prevent the old "hidden power fist" by allowing characters to ignore the 'stunt doubles' - look back a couple of editions and find an aspiring champion or veteran sergeant who didn't take a power fist, because they couldn't be picked out, so why not? Which in turn made independant characters who could be picked out nothing but power fist instant death bait, which in turn led to the ridiculous prevalance of eternal warrior-granting rules and items.

I have to disagree, maybe it's just my bad luck but orks tend to wreck my DA in challenges. A standard sergeant stands next to no chance as he can only swing 1-2 times, 3 if he's a veteran with 2 weapons. With my luck he gets no wounds, then turned into a gooey pulp. If my sergeants have power weapons it's usually swords, which are useless against orks.

Kick things up a notch to company masters, (90 points without any weapons yet), I have 4 attacks if he has a sword and pistol. Mild chance I'll kill you in one go. Here I'd probably have a power fist, but that means we both lose the challenge.... I squash you with my fist, you squash me with your claw.

Kick things up another notch, Belial at 190 points. Yes, I'll wreck you, I have a MC fleshbane sword, 3 attacks with it. But for me to have that guaranteed "I kill you before you move" thing I need to buy a 190 point character. My only other model that stands a chance is a deathwing knight, but their whole purpose is that they're designed to be pure melee gods, and nothing wants to fight them.

Hey just to let you know i recommended putting your warboss in a squad of boyz with a nob so when you get challenged just throw the nob at the challenger instead! warboss will be fine may lose the nob but at least your warboss is still kicking!

 zombiekila707 wrote:
Hey just to let you know i recommended putting your warboss in a squad of boyz with a nob so when you get challenged just throw the nob at the challenger instead! warboss will be fine may lose the nob but at least your warboss is still kicking!

for what? so the character who killed my nob can kill my warbos in the next assault phase?

locarno24 wrote:

A veteran sergeant with a power sword, by comparison, is a closer analogue in points to a nob

more likely just a vet seargent... the power sword is kinda useless, since a nob cant get a better save than 6+

a powerclaw nob costs 46 points and is the backbone of every mob. without him the unit cant deal with MEQ's, termies, T8 models and some vehicles and will fail its moralechecks.

your 24 point seargent has a 50% chance of significantly cripple a 220 point unit... and vet seargents arent generally famous for their CC skills.

and dont get me started on beeing able to get challenged by a wraithlord -.-



like i said before, challenges are a cool idea, but their execution is just plain dumb... remember 6th edition? and how a single character could shield himself via challenges? well atleast that got fixed... seems we have to wait for the 8th edition, till declining a challenge gives you mali for attacks or a negetive impact for the combat results... or i dont know? maybe only IC should be able to issue challenge?

I always had (A seemingly unpopular opinion) the idea that Warbosses, due to their sheer size and strength should be able to wield their PK at initiative, to at least be able to beat out much weaker models. Especially considering just how poor Wargear options that the Warboss has.

Yes, he has Mega Armor. But if he is going into a challenge, then I can bet that 90% of the time, that 2+ won't mean gak. He will often die before he gets to swing in most challenges.

I know a lot of people argue that the Orks are 'bullies' and should only target weaker dudes. But that goes against everything Orks stand for. Which is to prove they are the strongest and the baddest. And attacking a much weaker victim doesn't prove either of those things. A Warboss WANTS to crush a Librarian, a Captain, or a Chapter Master. He wants to crush the enemies moral by definitively showing he is a bigger, stronger, better force of nature than your leader was...

*shrug* I dunno. Challenges haven't been too big an issue with me now that we get cheap, slotless Meks. They can eat the challenges for me all day long. :p