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 Meade wrote:
New morale rules... hmm, if done right, they will massively speed up the game, won't frustratingly take an expensive unit out of participating in the game (instead just kill a few models). If done wrong, they will skew army construction in such a way that will favor certain sizes of units like MSU or massive blobs under some sort of umbrella.

In AoS units with a base size of 5 on average have slightly lower bravery than a unit that has a base size of 10. Stormcast eternal liberators for instance have a base unit size of 5 and a bravery of 6. Saurus Warriors come in units of 10, and have a bravery of 10. Both of these are considered basic troop choices. This should be a fine way to balance units with different number of models.

This could really hurt Tyranid hordes, hopefully Synapse will prevent it but I'm not holding my breath.

Breng77 wrote:

 Bulldogging wrote:
I didn't see where they addressed single models with multiple wounds, like Carnifexen for example.

How does AoS handle that?

As it reads they would be immune to morale.

Indeed. And even if you take a Brood of Carnifex, or other big stuff, remember their wounds will likely be going up, and Battleshock/Morale is based on models lost, not wounds suffered. This is why things like Ogres are a horror in AoS - multiple wounds, middling Battleshock, but kicking out pretty reliable multiple damage. That they're expensive in points leading to Smol Army Syndrome, and the resultant horrific outnumbering is the main downside!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Fragile wrote:
This could really hurt Tyranid hordes, hopefully Synapse will prevent it but I'm not holding my breath.

AoS has various ways and means round Battleshock - from Command Ability to let one unit ignore it (and that's a universal ability, rather only certain armies), buffs to your Bravery value from other units/higher numbers in the unit.

Skellingtons for instance....they've got Bravery 10 - so it takes a lot of killing to start worrying them with Battleshock. Nids I imagine will be much the same.

It's interesting that failing the Morale test has you remove X models and not X wounds.

"The mechanics are simple – any units that suffered casualties in a turn must take a Morale test at the end of it. You just roll a dice, add the number of models from the unit that have been slain, and if the number is bigger than the unit’s Leadership, the unit loses the difference in additional models."

 Mezmerro wrote:


On a side not it adds out-of-phase bookkeeping as you now must track the number of casualties each unit sustained during entire turn.

You already do that currently. Now instead of keeping track for each phase, you manage it over the entire turn. Actually a bit easier, IMO. Still a bit of book keeping, but not new book keeping.

 Mezmerro wrote:
I don't see how it does not punish big units without a solid leadership bonuses for numbers -

There is a solid leadership bonus for numbers. Or, at least there is a rule for that in Age of Sigmar... +1 LD for every ten models in the unit, I think.

 Jambles wrote:

 Mezmerro wrote:
I don't see how it does not punish big units without a solid leadership bonuses for numbers -

There is a solid leadership bonus for numbers. Or, at least there is a rule for that in Age of Sigmar... +1 LD for every ten models in the unit, I think.

Well, so far we didn't see any confirmation of it being in 40k.
Anyways +1 for 10 models is not really that solid with a level of focus-firing you can do in 40k compared to more melee-oriented AoS.

I worry that people are taking all these pieces in isolation. One of the key features of the new game is command points.
These will allow rerolls of fluffed charge and morale throws among other things. Then you have unit and hero abilities. I can't imagine that a commissar will not give you some way to affect a morale roll for example.
On top of that you have the psychic phase which will surely work in tandem with these rules.
To use the Msu example there is an ability which all AOS generals have which allows one unit per turn to auto pass morale checks. In an Msu army this power becomes a lot less effective as you can only protect a small fraction of your army.

Sydrian wrote:

 Meade wrote:
New morale rules... hmm, if done right, they will massively speed up the game, won't frustratingly take an expensive unit out of participating in the game (instead just kill a few models). If done wrong, they will skew army construction in such a way that will favor certain sizes of units like MSU or massive blobs under some sort of umbrella.

In AoS units with a base size of 5 on average have slightly lower bravery than a unit that has a base size of 10. Stormcast eternal liberators for instance have a base unit size of 5 and a bravery of 6. Saurus Warriors come in units of 10, and have a bravery of 10. Both of these are considered basic troop choices. This should be a fine way to balance units with different number of models.

Yes but Saurus Warriors, like Chaos Daemons have the Daemon tag. All "Daemons" both Order and Chaos have LD 10. Both Ardboys and Arkanaut company are 10 man basic Troop choices and come with Bravery 6.

 Voodoo_Chile wrote:

Sydrian wrote:

 Meade wrote:
New morale rules... hmm, if done right, they will massively speed up the game, won't frustratingly take an expensive unit out of participating in the game (instead just kill a few models). If done wrong, they will skew army construction in such a way that will favor certain sizes of units like MSU or massive blobs under some sort of umbrella.

In AoS units with a base size of 5 on average have slightly lower bravery than a unit that has a base size of 10. Stormcast eternal liberators for instance have a base unit size of 5 and a bravery of 6. Saurus Warriors come in units of 10, and have a bravery of 10. Both of these are considered basic troop choices. This should be a fine way to balance units with different number of models.

Yes but Saurus Warriors, like Chaos Daemons have the Daemon tag. All "Daemons" both Order and Chaos have LD 10. Both Ardboys and Arkanaut company are 10 man basic Troop choices and come with Bravery 6.

My bad then. I'm fairly new to AoS, and I've only dealt with Stormcast, Tzeentch Daemons, and Seraphon so far.

Units in AoS also have banners to help with bravery. I'm sure 40k will get the same.

The question is, what happens to fearless? Will that still be around? If so, does it just mean you take no extra casualties. What about pinning, fear and the other old ld tests?

As someone who has played Orks, Nids, Guards, Renegade Guards, and large foot-slogging sisters (stupid I know) - the leadership tests make sense.

People complaining that this makes things to "tournament" and "streamlined" should fight a non-mechanized guard army at 2,500 points with hundreds of models.

Move -> Run -> LS Test + Retreat... even if 5 squads do this? That is 3 different periods of movement measuring with 10-30+ models. ESPECIALLY with my renegade guard where I could have 30+ man squads with low LS.

This saves time and makes the game enjoyable for blob-armies... Move once. Break moral? Lose models. HUGE time savers.

Where-as I would expect more elite armies to have special rules for staying in the fight.

I'm not really a huge fan of this morale system. It is very boring. You kill a lot of models, and thus in the morale phase you kill some more models. Oh well.

Fragile wrote:
This could really hurt Tyranid hordes, hopefully Synapse will prevent it but I'm not holding my breath.

Tyranid and Orks are both hurt pretty bad by this morale rule. Given, before the orks would either break and run or possibly kill even more of themselves with mob rule due to failing morale, it is hard to tell which is worse when both are terrible.

Any army with low save + large numbers can get whittled down really quick with this. I would hope too that the Tyranid get some sort of synapse benefit to help with it, and what I would love to see is a return to the old Mob rule of LD=squad size. Since the stat caps have been removed, this would mean a full 30 boy squad that lost 13 guys to shooting one turn would have a Leadership of 17 still would possibly lose less guys as a result. I never understood orks running anyways... so much of their background talks about them laughing when the guy next to them gets blasted away, just means more fighting for them...

Without that.. adding 13 to a D6 roll could mean almost all that 7-12 of the remaining 17 would disappear... If they didn't make it across the table before another round of shooting, they would probably be gone entirely. With the high volume of high STR guns that most other armies have been given to deal with hordes, it doesn't even take a whole army shooting to do this to 2 or 3 units a turn, especially armies built from almost all shooting units.

Lord Kragan wrote:

 Mezmerro wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Wouldn't MSU spam be a bad idea, as there's a greater chance they would be wiped out due to a bad LD roll?

ENtire point of MSU is to lower the impact of your units being eliminated.
Let's see in details:
You have 5-marine fire squad, lost two to shooting, now you need to roll on D6+2 higher than their Ld7. On 1-5 you actually pass the test. On 6+ you lose one model. You cannot roll more that 6 on D6, so no wipe out for them.

And you'd have the same thing going on for a 10-man squad. Lost two to shooting, now you need to roll on d6+2 higher than their LD7. On a 1-5 you actually pass the test. On a 6+ you lose one model. You cannot roll more than 6 on a d6. So no wipe out for them.

IT IS THE SAME.

No it's not same. You lose 5 models, msu lost 5 models and that's it. 10 squad has 66% chance to lose more models including all.

I'm imagining non-synapse Nids will have very low bravery and will compensate by having synapse make them auto pass all bravery tests or something.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
The question is, what happens to fearless? Will that still be around? If so, does it just mean you take no extra casualties. What about pinning, fear and the other old ld tests?

What'd open up some interesting options would be if you got the likes of Pinning(+x) so you make a LD test with the modifier listed. This then opens up the granularity between a battle cannon or other artillery hitting a unit (hit the fething deck!!) and a sniper rifle (go careful lads...)

tneva82 wrote:

Lord Kragan wrote:

 Mezmerro wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Wouldn't MSU spam be a bad idea, as there's a greater chance they would be wiped out due to a bad LD roll?

ENtire point of MSU is to lower the impact of your units being eliminated.
Let's see in details:
You have 5-marine fire squad, lost two to shooting, now you need to roll on D6+2 higher than their Ld7. On 1-5 you actually pass the test. On 6+ you lose one model. You cannot roll more that 6 on D6, so no wipe out for them.

And you'd have the same thing going on for a 10-man squad. Lost two to shooting, now you need to roll on d6+2 higher than their LD7. On a 1-5 you actually pass the test. On a 6+ you lose one model. You cannot roll more than 6 on a d6. So no wipe out for them.

IT IS THE SAME.

No it's not same. You lose 5 models, msu lost 5 models and that's it. 10 squad has 66% chance to lose more models including all.

And those 5-man squads will have to make two separate leadership checks. You're assuming that the opponent will do focus the same effort on two half-size units rather than split attention.

Chikout wrote:
These will allow rerolls of fluffed charge and morale throws among other things. Then you have unit and hero abilities. I can't imagine that a commissar will not give you some way to affect a morale roll for example.

Imagine a 30 model unit. Something Guard, Nids or Orks are waiting yo do with new template-free shooting.
That unit have an Ld of 6 and suffers 12 casualties (easily achieved in one shooting phase). Now it must roll D6+12 over Ld6 (or 9 if it takes +1Ld for every 10 models like the guys above suggest). It would take 7-12 (or 4-9 with Ld bonus), 8.5(6.5)average extra casualties. No matter how much you re-roll they would loose at lest 7(or4) extra models.
Now let's MSU that unit into three 10-model units
Each takes 4 casualties (12 total as before).
Each takes an Ld test on D6+4 against Ld6 (7)
On 1-2(3) it passes the test, then takes up to 4(3) casualties, average 1.6(1)
Multiply it on 3 - 0-12(9), average 5(3).
Boom
MSU takes far less tamage from morale on average from the same ammoutn of firepower, with a slight chance to take slighly more at extreme rolls, offset by a chance tyo take no damage at all. ANd that's if the damage is evenly spread which it would not. In reality one unit would likely be wiped out by shooting alone wasting potential morale damage (and proabbly some shooting damage too), another unit would suffer minor casualties and the thir would not be shot at at all.

tneva82 wrote:

Lord Kragan wrote:

 Mezmerro wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Wouldn't MSU spam be a bad idea, as there's a greater chance they would be wiped out due to a bad LD roll?

ENtire point of MSU is to lower the impact of your units being eliminated.
Let's see in details:
You have 5-marine fire squad, lost two to shooting, now you need to roll on D6+2 higher than their Ld7. On 1-5 you actually pass the test. On 6+ you lose one model. You cannot roll more that 6 on D6, so no wipe out for them.

And you'd have the same thing going on for a 10-man squad. Lost two to shooting, now you need to roll on d6+2 higher than their LD7. On a 1-5 you actually pass the test. On a 6+ you lose one model. You cannot roll more than 6 on a d6. So no wipe out for them.

IT IS THE SAME.

No it's not same. You lose 5 models, msu lost 5 models and that's it. 10 squad has 66% chance to lose more models including all.

So the MSU is wiped then? Because it started with 5 models.

It appears to me this mechanic actually helps charging armies.

currently:
shoot them - they might run away messing up your charge totally.
charge in - fight and who wins ld test

now:
shoot them - hurt them they stay there
charge them - hurt them and you also fight first

You total up the wounds you did from when you shot them and the subsequent charge at the end to see how many additional guys snuff it.

Its kinda like a double punch to dent that check on their ld at the end.

My initial reading of the morale rules leaves me far less certain about the functionality of this ruleset, as it will inherently already require patching in codex books with Ld gimmickry reinforcement for high model count units simply to make them usable. That's a bad sign.

High Ld MSU units almost wont care unless they're mostly dead anyway, Ld will be a potential finisher, but no more. For horde armies, Ld can easily turn 10 or 15 casualties out of a 30 strong unit into an almost total unit wipe.

It also means that stuff like drop pod storm bolters can be used to simply force tests on almost every unit in an opponents army through simple plinking.

Expect to see even fewer horde armies and yet more MSU if there is not significant patching done at the codex level.

Also concerned about vehicle squadrons since they have morale now, nobody wants to lose a Russ tank to a single D6 morae roll just because they had already lost one.

This morale system in 40k feels open to way too much abuse and I can't see this having been properly playtested.

 Latro_ wrote:
It appears to me this mechanic actually helps charging armies.

currently:
shoot them - they might run away messing up your charge totally.
charge in - fight and who wins ld test

now:
shoot them - hurt them they stay there
charge them - hurt them and you also fight first

You total up the wounds you did from when you shot them and the subsequent charge at the end to see how many additional guys snuff it.

Its kinda like a double punch to dent that check on their ld at the end.

Not normally an issue for assault units, but you're still going to need to pull your punches a bit with the shooting to avoid the ever widening chasm of failure you'll get as your opponent removes from the front anticipating the charge.

 Vaktathi wrote:
My initial reading of the morale rules leaves me far less certain about the functionality of this ruleset, as it will inherently already require patching in codex books with Ld gimmickry reinforcement for high model count units simply to make them usable. That's a bad sign.

High Ld MSU units almost wont care unless they're mostly dead anyway, Ld will be a potential finisher, but no more. For horde armies, Ld can easily turn 10 or 15 casualties out of a 30 strong unit into an almost total unit wipe.

It also means that stuff like drop pod storm bolters can be used to simply force tests on almost every unit in an opponents army through simple plinking.

Expect to see even fewer horde armies and yet more MSU if there is not significant patching done at the codex level.

Also concerned about vehicle squadrons since they have morale now, nobody wants to lose a Russ tank to a single D6 morae roll just because they had already lost one.

This morale system in 40k feels open to way too much abuse and I can't see this having been properly playtested.

Yeah, it doesn't look good for hoards. Hopefully they will get something to mitigate that. Maybe Mob Rule will involve morale shenanigans, like in 4th ed.

Didn't it say that vehicles don't have to test for morale?
Just checked - it says single model units don't check, and as vehicles have ld it would seem that they can take morale tests.
However, the ld appears to be pretty high, and vehicle squadrons are small. This means that assuming that LRBT are LD8 like dreads, losing a vehicle will not be enough to kill another tank, as you can't exceed 8 on a D6+1, or even D6+2

 Vaktathi wrote:
Also concerned about vehicle squadrons since they have morale now, nobody wants to lose a Russ tank to a single D6 morae roll just because they had already lost one.

Per these new rules Ld7 grans immunity to morale tests from one lost model, Ld8-from two and so on. So unles Russes have LD6 or lower (unlikely) it won't happen.
At least until something *cough*psykers*cough* lowers their Ld.

Having read the reactions to the new morale rules, my impression is that many who are offended by them have not played AOS and seen them in action. I am just going by what I see as the trend, but if 40k is going to be like AOS, then several other things need to be accounted for. The changes in AOS army building from Warhammer Fantasy army building were drastic. WHFB had a tournament standard of 2000 point armies.These armies could have upwards of 300 or more miniatures. AOS tournament play stands around 2000 to 2500 points. But your points buy you far less. As a result, you have fewer units to activate. If this happens in 40k, then yes, you could totally plaster a unit to make it take a morale test, but every unit would have fired at the one. Now before I get all of the replies of "oh yes you can take a lot of models in AOS", a second factor is that they have under-costed the big monsters. Monsters are the real damage dealers in AOS. Typically, units that you can take in large numbers have low stats, especially armor saves. So a large monster wading into such a unit will kill off so many that it will vaporize the unit in the morale phase. For this reason, large monsters are the target of early shooting (because their effectiveness degrades with damage), and tend to get charged by other large monsters. In this environment, you really are urged towards taking a large monster yourself because they kill more than they cost. Also, armies tend to be homogenous. In the current tournament circuit a lot of the winning armies are mishmashes of several armies thrown together to get the best combination of abilities. In AOS, the rewards for sticking to your army list are just too strong to ignore. Most army lists stick to their book. In 40k units tend to be delivery systems for high power hand to hand characters, or psykers trying to hide behind a shield of troops (OR DOGS). In AOS characters don't join units. They just have abilities that effect units within a certain range. That means if you really want a character dead you can focus fire on him and kill him. So what you will probably see in the new 40k is an army consisting of troops pulled from one book and in a particular formation from that book, 1-2 Monstrous creatures or big tanks, 3-5 units of troops, and 2-3 heroes. The game should take about 1-2 hours. Now I am just describing tournament armies, nothing is stopping you from taking Apocalypse sized armies if you really want to. Even then, your games will be faster. All of this assumes they are using AOS as a model. I can't tell you how much they are taking from AOS. I can tell you that I live in San Diego and talk to the guys from Frontline all the time. Frontline is one of the groups who have been playtesting the rules for 40k. While no one at Frontline has told me anything about 40k, I do know that 1) Those guys are 40k fanatics, hence why they formed their independent tournament circuit, and 2) The whole staff have entirely switched from playing a lot of 40k to playing a hell of a lot of AOS. Now what might that tell you?

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Didn't it say that vehicles don't have to test for morale?

No.
They said it about single-model units.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

Lord Kragan wrote:

 Mezmerro wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Wouldn't MSU spam be a bad idea, as there's a greater chance they would be wiped out due to a bad LD roll?

ENtire point of MSU is to lower the impact of your units being eliminated.
Let's see in details:
You have 5-marine fire squad, lost two to shooting, now you need to roll on D6+2 higher than their Ld7. On 1-5 you actually pass the test. On 6+ you lose one model. You cannot roll more that 6 on D6, so no wipe out for them.

And you'd have the same thing going on for a 10-man squad. Lost two to shooting, now you need to roll on d6+2 higher than their LD7. On a 1-5 you actually pass the test. On a 6+ you lose one model. You cannot roll more than 6 on a d6. So no wipe out for them.

IT IS THE SAME.

No it's not same. You lose 5 models, msu lost 5 models and that's it. 10 squad has 66% chance to lose more models including all.

So the MSU is wiped then? Because it started with 5 models.

The point is that the MSU player has TWO such units. One is wiped out, one is unaffected where as the guy with the 10 man unit has to suffer MORE deaths due to possible LD failure.

 Vaktathi wrote:


Expect to see even fewer horde armies and yet more MSU if there is not significant patching done at the codex level.

Also concerned about vehicle squadrons since they have morale now, nobody wants to lose a Russ tank to a single D6 morae roll just because they had already lost one.

This morale system in 40k feels open to way too much abuse and I can't see this having been properly playtested.

Let's not panic and claim horde armies to be dead just yet considering how this morale system was basically copy pasted from AoS... and AoS has a positive Ld value boost for every 10 models in the unit, as well as plentiful morale buffs being handed out as bubble auras by character/HQ/leader models (heck, thex even directly cited an example for the latter).

Jumping to conclusions is dangerous, especially if we know only a fraction of the rules (that includes more detailed rules for the phases that have already been covered in articles that are there to provide an overview in the first place).

 Azreal13 wrote:

Not normally an issue for assault units, but you're still going to need to pull your punches a bit with the shooting to avoid the ever widening chasm of failure you'll get as your opponent removes from the front anticipating the charge.

Removal of casualties from the front hasn't been confirmed (or rather denied, looking at the hints GW has given and how AoS works) yet. If you mean shooting at an assault target and the controlling player removing models from the front? Yeah, you're right.