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2016/04/01 20:56:37
Subject: Rules Clarification and Army Recommendation for BaC
So today, after a couple of pints at uni I suddenly found myself walking out of a shop with Betrayal at Calth. The drinks probably eased my conscious a bit but I've been dying for ages to get it.
Now I'm reading through the rules and I'm rather stumped on how attacks are carried out. The rest of the rules I'm starting to understand but shoot and melee attacks are just odd. The rules states that you "total the Assault/Shoot value of the unit" and roll hits, and then you roll "dice equal to the target's Armour value". What I don't get is just how this exactly works.
Let's say I have a Terminator with a Combi-Bolter, which has a Shoot value of 4, against 2 Tac Marines, which both have an Armour value of 2. I get lucky and roll 3 hits, 2 of which are allocated to the first Tac Marine. He rolls a single shield and is saved. Are the rest of the hits wasted now as the first one didn't do anything?
If someone could do an "Explain Like I'm 5" walkthrough that would be very much appreciated.
Secondly, I've read the proper HH rules for 40K and the thought of starting my own Legion is very exciting. However, I have no experience with building an HH army, so what Legion would you all recommend for someone new in this particular aspect of the hobby, and any particular playstyles, Rites, etc?
Thanks.
2016/04/01 21:26:00
Subject: Re:Rules Clarification and Army Recommendation for BaC
can't say for the board game rules, but as for the HH aspect of things:
there really are no bad legions, and same goes for most units: there are no bad ones. 30k is a game about fluff and fun rather then competitiveness and cheese.
As for what legion you want: pick whatever legion looks cool to you and has some fluff that you like.
As for building the box: Pride of the Legion is a really mediocre Right of war, and you would be better off with building 2 15-man tactical squads instead of 3 10-man vet. tactical squads.
As for RoWs and playstyles, that's all up to you and how you want your army to look, just remember forr 30k: Fluff > cheese and don't build your list like you would build a 40k list (MSU is really "meh" in 30k. not to mention hard to pull off at times). 1d4chan has a pretty good page on the general overview of the legion list.
I'll never be able to repay CA for making GW realize that The Old World was a cash cow, left to die in a field.
2016/04/01 22:05:27
Subject: Re:Rules Clarification and Army Recommendation for BaC
The burning pits of Hades, also known as Sweden in summer
The first step is to pick a Legion. Now, every Legion can do everything (how well they do it varies, but even World Eaters could and did do artillery gunlines for example) so pick one from aesthetics and lore primarily is my recommendation.
To elaborate on each Legion, in order;
Spoiler:
The Dark Angels are an army that is solid at melee as they get +1 to hit if they have equal WS to the enemy (which is a lot of the time in 30k). They have very snazzy wargear, with powerful melee swords, arcane archaeotech and the like.
The Emperor's Children have access to sonic weapons and strong melee units, as well as their own unique Phoenix power spear. They favour balanced, mobile armies.
The Iron Warriors do not take morale checks from shooting attacks, making them difficult to shift outside of melee, and have access to large amounts of firepower, making them excel at gunlines. Their special units gives them improved heavy support squads and incredibly shooty Terminators.
The White Scars are what you would expect. They are THE best at fast-moving bike armies, as well as jetbikes and the like.
Space Wolves are a bit like their 40k incarnations, except a lot less wolfy mcwolfwolfmurderfangclawwolf.
The Imperial Fists are akin to their dark counterpart the Iron Warriors in some ways. They are strong in challenges and have good 'boots on the ground' due to their improved bolt weapon fire and heavy support squads, and access to elite melee units.
The Night Lords are very strong in melees where they outnumber the foe, encouraging bullying smaller units. They excel at murdering infantry, such as with Volkite-toting Terror squads with PE:infantry or Night Raptors charging in with a flurry of attacks, and are one of very few Legions who can always deepstrike models in Terminator armour should they pick the option (as otherwise Terminators cannot do so). They favour night fighting and melee units, particularly jump infantry, but they risk dissent if their warlord is slain.
Blood Angels are like the bright counterpart of the Night Lords. +1 to wound in melee makes them excel at close combat, and they will no doubt have access to both elite assault units and a very fighty Primarch as their Legion gets its turn in the limelight. Like Night Lords, ump infantry is their favoured unit type.
Iron Hands are the most resilient Legion due to Inviolate Armour and have strong vehicles as well as snazzy wargear, but they are slow and poor in sweeping advances. They excel at tank armies and defensive infantry armies.
The World Eaters are perhaps the most close combat-focused Legion, with access to a range of special melee weapons and units as well as Legion rules that almost exclusively focus on boosting their melee abilities. They excel at large infantry armies with melee weapons, tearing the foe apart in bloody melee; for this reason they have very high damage output but are likely to take high casualties as well.
The Ultramarines are very tactically flexible and have improved command as well as Legion rules rewarding multiple units working together to defeat the enemy, but they are also more vulnerable to losing their commanders. Their special units echo this flexibility, with units such as Terminators and elite Assault Marines with improved shooting, or elite honour guard with boarding shields who improve the morale of nearby Imperial Army allies.
The Death Guard are very difficult to shake with their resilience to Fear and resistance to swamps and sludge. They have access to chemical ammo for their flamers and artillery as well as being the most widespread users of 'forbidden' weapons like phosphex, but they are quite slow. They have access to several types of elite Terminators and favour large blocks of infantry.
The Thousand Sons we cannot yet say for sure. We know they are the most psychic of all Legions and do not do wars of attrition well, but that is all we can say for now.
The Sons of Horus have a similar outnumbering rule to the Night Lords and have improved reserve rules, but they do not benefit as much as others do from taking in allied commanders. They have several elite melee units as well as a special drop pod, encouraging a playstyle where you overwhelm and rush down your enemy on his own field.
The Word Bearers are my favourite Legion. For people familiar with Chaos Space Marines, the Word Bearers are a shining symbol of how beautiful CSM could have been if they had been given love. They have the strongest overall morale of the Legions and improved sweeping advances, but they must take an extra chaplain or centurion in their army. They have access to special ID-causing tainted weapons and can make any independent character a psyker with Burning Lore, and have - aside from special assault marines - access to very powerful daemonically possessed elite infantry and dreadnoughts. Their rules primarily favour infantry.
The Salamanders are similar to Iron Hands at a glance, similarly slow and unshakable, exchanging the resilience (except against heat weapons) for improved morale and flame weapons, unique Storm Shields and special units like very powerful Terminators and specialist infantry with artificer armour and weapons that can be flamer or melta as required.
The Raven Guard play radically differently from other Legions, with all basic infantry getting access to Infiltrate and all Terminators, Bikers and similar getting Furious Charge. They have strong veteran Recon squads and assault squads, as well as special lightning claws and Storm Eagles, but have a limit on how many tanks they can take. Their rules favour infantry, especially jump infantry.
The Alpha Legion are also very different, with trolltastic rules (doubly so if you take Alpharius himself). Their mutable tactics lets them choose special rules to use, they can steal the special units from other Legions and take them in their own army, and with Alpharius they can even bring in their own reserves in place of the enemy's on their own turn!
Aside from each Legion, there are also a number of Rites of War, letting you do all-deep strike armies, all-tank armies and the like, but if you take them they effectively force you to focus on that Rite, so the mass deep strike Rite completely prevents you from taking anything that can't DS, for example.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2016/04/01 22:08:26
Ashiraya wrote: The first step is to pick a Legion. Now, every Legion can do everything (how well they do it varies, but even World Eaters could and did do artillery gunlines for example) so pick one from aesthetics and lore primarily is my recommendation.
To elaborate on each Legion, in order;
Spoiler:
The Dark Angels are an army that is solid at melee as they get +1 to hit if they have equal WS to the enemy (which is a lot of the time in 30k). They have very snazzy wargear, with powerful melee swords, arcane archaeotech and the like.
The Emperor's Children have access to sonic weapons and strong melee units, as well as their own unique Phoenix power spear. They favour balanced, mobile armies.
The Iron Warriors do not take morale checks from shooting attacks, making them difficult to shift outside of melee, and have access to large amounts of firepower, making them excel at gunlines. Their special units gives them improved heavy support squads and incredibly shooty Terminators.
The White Scars are what you would expect. They are THE best at fast-moving bike armies, as well as jetbikes and the like.
Space Wolves are a bit like their 40k incarnations, except a lot less wolfy mcwolfwolfmurderfangclawwolf.
The Imperial Fists are akin to their dark counterpart the Iron Warriors in some ways. They are strong in challenges and have good 'boots on the ground' due to their improved bolt weapon fire and heavy support squads, and access to elite melee units.
The Night Lords are very strong in melees where they outnumber the foe, encouraging bullying smaller units. They excel at murdering infantry, such as with Volkite-toting Terror squads with PE:infantry or Night Raptors charging in with a flurry of attacks, and are one of very few Legions who can always deepstrike models in Terminator armour should they pick the option (as otherwise Terminators cannot do so). They favour night fighting and melee units, particularly jump infantry, but they risk dissent if their warlord is slain.
Blood Angels are like the bright counterpart of the Night Lords. +1 to wound in melee makes them excel at close combat, and they will no doubt have access to both elite assault units and a very fighty Primarch as their Legion gets its turn in the limelight. Like Night Lords, ump infantry is their favoured unit type.
Iron Hands are the most resilient Legion due to Inviolate Armour and have strong vehicles as well as snazzy wargear, but they are slow and poor in sweeping advances. They excel at tank armies and defensive infantry armies.
The World Eaters are perhaps the most close combat-focused Legion, with access to a range of special melee weapons and units as well as Legion rules that almost exclusively focus on boosting their melee abilities. They excel at large infantry armies with melee weapons, tearing the foe apart in bloody melee; for this reason they have very high damage output but are likely to take high casualties as well.
The Ultramarines are very tactically flexible and have improved command as well as Legion rules rewarding multiple units working together to defeat the enemy, but they are also more vulnerable to losing their commanders. Their special units echo this flexibility, with units such as Terminators and elite Assault Marines with improved shooting, or elite honour guard with boarding shields who improve the morale of nearby Imperial Army allies.
The Death Guard are very difficult to shake with their resilience to Fear and resistance to swamps and sludge. They have access to chemical ammo for their flamers and artillery as well as being the most widespread users of 'forbidden' weapons like phosphex, but they are quite slow. They have access to several types of elite Terminators and favour large blocks of infantry.
The Thousand Sons we cannot yet say for sure. We know they are the most psychic of all Legions and do not do wars of attrition well, but that is all we can say for now.
The Sons of Horus have a similar outnumbering rule to the Night Lords and have improved reserve rules, but they do not benefit as much as others do from taking in allied commanders. They have several elite melee units as well as a special drop pod, encouraging a playstyle where you overwhelm and rush down your enemy on his own field.
The Word Bearers are my favourite Legion. For people familiar with Chaos Space Marines, the Word Bearers are a shining symbol of how beautiful CSM could have been if they had been given love. They have the strongest overall morale of the Legions and improved sweeping advances, but they must take an extra chaplain or centurion in their army. They have access to special ID-causing tainted weapons and can make any independent character a psyker with Burning Lore, and have - aside from special assault marines - access to very powerful daemonically possessed elite infantry and dreadnoughts. Their rules primarily favour infantry.
The Salamanders are similar to Iron Hands at a glance, similarly slow and unshakable, exchanging the resilience (except against heat weapons) for improved morale and flame weapons, unique Storm Shields and special units like very powerful Terminators and specialist infantry with artificer armour and weapons that can be flamer or melta as required.
The Raven Guard play radically differently from other Legions, with all basic infantry getting access to Infiltrate and all Terminators, Bikers and similar getting Furious Charge. They have strong veteran Recon squads and assault squads, as well as special lightning claws and Storm Eagles, but have a limit on how many tanks they can take. Their rules favour infantry, especially jump infantry.
The Alpha Legion are also very different, with trolltastic rules (doubly so if you take Alpharius himself). Their mutable tactics lets them choose special rules to use, they can steal the special units from other Legions and take them in their own army, and with Alpharius they can even bring in their own reserves in place of the enemy's on their own turn!
Aside from each Legion, there are also a number of Rites of War, letting you do all-deep strike armies, all-tank armies and the like, but if you take them they effectively force you to focus on that Rite, so the mass deep strike Rite completely prevents you from taking anything that can't DS, for example.
I'd say salamanders are leagues closer to death guard (For the most part, their rules are actually DG -1) Speaking of DG we now reroll all dangerous terrain checks, not just in sludge. We're also regular speed, thank you very much! ...that is unless you take one of our specific rights of war
The burning pits of Hades, also known as Sweden in summer
DG, Salamanders and Iron Hands kind of occupy a similar spot together, but twist that spot in different ways. Which ones are more similar in practice is up for debate.
I did account for the RoW for the DG, since that RoW seems to be - and is, at least here - highly popular.
Valkyrie wrote: Hello all,
Now I'm reading through the rules and I'm rather stumped on how attacks are carried out. The rest of the rules I'm starting to understand but shoot and melee attacks are just odd. The rules states that you "total the Assault/Shoot value of the unit" and roll hits, and then you roll "dice equal to the target's Armour value". What I don't get is just how this exactly works.
Let's say I have a Terminator with a Combi-Bolter, which has a Shoot value of 4, against 2 Tac Marines, which both have an Armour value of 2. I get lucky and roll 3 hits, 2 of which are allocated to the first Tac Marine. He rolls a single shield and is saved. Are the rest of the hits wasted now as the first one didn't do anything?
If someone could do an "Explain Like I'm 5" walkthrough that would be very much appreciated.
Only recently got the game myself and have only played it a couple of times with my nephew but will try to answer you query.
In your example above, all the hits are allocated against the marine your opponent chooses. He rolls two dice for his armour and gets one shield which saves one hit. That means two hits still get through which kills the marine as he only has a stamina of 2.
It is best to think of your hits as a damage pool which is how the rules explain it. Each shield rolled negates one of those hits and therefore reduces the damage pool. What you have left after the defense roll is how many wounds the model takes. If a model is removed and there are still dice in your damge pool, you follow the same procedure for another model in the target unit chosen by your opponent and they make a defense roll for them too and so on.
Hope that makes sense. The rules in question are at the top of page 15 under 'Resolving Attacks'. Once you have played a couple of games it will soon start to make sense and combat will be pretty quick. I found the video playthough on the Games Workshop web page pretty useful for getting a handle on the rules as they cover a lot of the basics.
Steve
2016/04/02 22:00:17
Subject: Rules Clarification and Army Recommendation for BaC
Let's say I have a Terminator with a Combi-Bolter, which has a Shoot value of 4, against 2 Tac Marines, which both have an Armour value of 2. I get lucky and roll 3 hits, 2 of which are allocated to the first Tac Marine. He rolls a single shield and is saved. Are the rest of the hits wasted now as the first one didn't do anything?
If someone could do an "Explain Like I'm 5" walkthrough that would be very much appreciated.
You seem to have accidentally merged step two and step four? You don't allocate hits until after defence is rolled, and you always have one pool of hits for the entire firing unit, not separate ones for each defending model.
In your example:
1. Roll 4 dice, score three hits
2. Opponent chooses one model in the unit as the first defender ("target")
3. Opponent rolls two dice and scores one shield, reducing hits by one
4. You allocate the remaining hits to the target until it is dead or you run out of hits. In this case, you allocate two, which is exactly enough to kill one dude.
If there were more hits in the pool, you would go back to step 2 and choose the next defender, who rolls their defence dice etc.
Also note that critical hits that ignore the defender's armour don't ignore their bonus defence from cover, and cover applies to every model in the defending unit, not just the first.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/04/02 22:01:03
"Three months? I'm going to go crazy …and I'm taking you with me!"
— Vala Mal Doran
2016/04/07 22:48:54
Subject: Rules Clarification and Army Recommendation for BaC
Ok if we can run another example to see if I've got this correctly, as I've read over the book several times and I'm still struggling to understand a great deal of it.
Let's say I have 2 Marines, one armed with a Heavy Bolter. This gives me 8 shots. The target is a unit of 3 Word Bearers.
1. I roll 8 dice and get 6 hits.
2. Opponent chooses the first model to be hit.
3. Opponent rolls 2 dice as per their Armour value. They roll a single shield, so the total number of hits is reduced to 5.
4. With these 5 hits I allocate them to the rest of the unit, sufficient to kill 2 guys and the last hit discarded?
In addition to this I think I've misread the Tactical Point system. It appears that each unit has 2 Tactical Points, but must spend one to activate the unit before it can do anything. By this reasoning a unit may only perform one action per turn in most cases. Is this correct?
The reason I bring this up is due to a playtest I did earlier, playing against myself to get an idea of the rules. I played the first mission, where the objective is to run to safety behind the blast doors, yet I discovered that even if all units only performed Run moves, it is impossible to reach the doors before they sealed. What am I doing wrong?
2016/04/08 00:34:11
Subject: Rules Clarification and Army Recommendation for BaC
Valkyrie wrote: Ok if we can run another example to see if I've got this correctly, as I've read over the book several times and I'm still struggling to understand a great deal of it.
Let's say I have 2 Marines, one armed with a Heavy Bolter. This gives me 8 shots. The target is a unit of 3 Word Bearers.
1. I roll 8 dice and get 6 hits.
2. Opponent chooses the first model to be hit.
3. Opponent rolls 2 dice as per their Armour value. They roll a single shield, so the total number of hits is reduced to 5.
4. With these 5 hits I allocate them to the rest of the unit, sufficient to kill 2 guys and the last hit discarded?
Up to three you're right. Four should go more like this:
4. From the five remaining hits you allocate two to the model your opponent chose, killing it and leaving three hits.
5. Opponent picks another model in the target unit and rolls their defence. Assume he rolls one shield as well, leaving two hits.
6. Those two remaining hits are allocated to the second model chosen, which also dies. As there are no hits remaining, the attack is done.
Valkyrie wrote: In addition to this I think I've misread the Tactical Point system. It appears that each unit has 2 Tactical Points, but must spend one to activate the unit before it can do anything. By this reasoning a unit may only perform one action per turn in most cases. Is this correct?
The reason I bring this up is due to a playtest I did earlier, playing against myself to get an idea of the rules. I played the first mission, where the objective is to run to safety behind the blast doors, yet I discovered that even if all units only performed Run moves, it is impossible to reach the doors before they sealed. What am I doing wrong?
You get two Activations per unit per turn. Each Activation costs a Tactical Point and allows you to perform one of the listed Actions. The actions themselves don't cost additional tactical points.
Sometimes you will Activate a unit, costing a TP, but not perform any of the usual Actions, either because of a scenario special rule or because of interference from the other side. Equally you will sometimes get to perform an Action without Activating first, costing no TP.
"Three months? I'm going to go crazy …and I'm taking you with me!"
— Vala Mal Doran
