What is GW going to do to fix the new Astra Militarum codex mess in tournaments they have created?

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**Quickjager**

GhostRecon wrote:
Quickjager wrote:
I'm gonna look at the GK list and see Imperial Monstermash. I already know it, it saddens me.

The GK list

Oh thank god, I haven't been this happy to wrong in a while.

**Torga_DW**

Jidmah wrote:
[2) Any game that can claim to be at least somewhat balanced reached that point through iteration. The chances of getting any given rule "right" the first or second time are pretty low, especially how inaccurate their play testing results seem to be. Even companies with a high level of professionalism in game design like Wizards of the Coast or Fantasy Flight Games tend to have huge screw-ups from time to time.

I just thought i'd single this one out - they're on version 8 *eight* of the game, and they haven't yet attempted iteration. Every edition has been a reboot rather than an iteration. Random changes rather than trying to fix existing problems. This is a choice *they* made. Yes, the game obviously won't be fixed over time because of this.

Jidmah wrote:
I'm also pretty sure they have dropped the "we are not a games company"-thing, just because then new CEO is much less of a than John Kirby was.

I'm not sure of anything. Time will tell. 'Marketing' doesn't mean anything.

**Tyran**

chaos0xomega wrote:
Tyran wrote:
Commissars weren't fine.

They were fine in all cases, with the sole exception of what they did for conscripts. As such, perhaps the problem was in fact conscripts, rather than Commissars.

Commissars made the moral phase basically irrelevant to Guard, that wasn't fine.

Even ignoring conscripts, the idea that Commissars suddenly made guardsmen have better morale than Space Marines is silly.

You're right, that idea is silly, its a shame that so many continue to believe that that is what Commissars actually did. To start with, even with Commissar leadership and excluding the ATSKNF re-roll, IG units have the same probability of failing a morale check as an average marine squad. Once you include the ATSKNF re-roll, Marine probability is much better than guard probability, even with commissars. This is on top of the fact that guardsmen are significantly easier to kill than marines are, which increases the probability that guardsmen will *need* to test morale significantly. But then when you consider what the space marines have access to, rules and ability wise... lets see:

-Ultramarines = Ld 9, so now they have a flat out superior chance of passing morale compared to guardsmen
-Psychic Fortress librarius power = Target unit is flat out immune to morale
-Rites of War Warlord Trait = Units within 6" of the Warlord are flat out immune to morale (i.e. Commissar dialed up to 11)
-Standard of the Emperor Ascendant Relic = Friendly units within 6" autopass morale tests (again, Commissar dialed up to 11)
-Chaplains = Units within 6" use the Chaplains Leadership of 9, so basically any chapter can get a similar buff to Ultramarines (and Ultramarine units become Ld 10), again making their chances of surviving morale much better than guardsmen
-Rhino Primaris = -1 on your morale roll for friendly units within 12", a unit of tac marines under the influence of a chaplain and a rhino primaris is effectively ld 10. Ultramarines are effectively LD11. *with rerolls*.
-Lysander = Imp Fists within 6" get +1 Ld, now they are Ultramarines too. You can stack this with a Chaplain and a Rhino Primaris to make Imp Fists effectively LD11, with rerolls. At the point that becomes relevant, there is a good possibility that the entire squad was whiped and you aren't making a morale test anyway.
-Grimaldus = Black Templars within 6" become ultramarines too (Ld9)
-Ancients = +1 Leadership within 6"
-Cenobyte Servitors = Black Templars within 12" autopass morale
etc
etc
etc

Yeah. I get it, guardsman plus commissar looks better on paper than a basic marine squad sans upgrades (but only on paper, because a rerollable ld 8 on a unit that doesn't suffer many casualties on average is still superior to a one model stop-loss policy on a unit that will likely be taking enough casualties to all but guarantee a morale failure anyway), but thats not an apples to apples comparison. Once you stack all the leadership shenanigans a marine army has access to, its no contest in favor of the marines, especially when you factor in the amount of casualties that marines actually take versus the amount of casualties guardsmen take.

What the [censored] are you talking about? Commissars made IG immune to moral for the cost of one model, ATSKNF is far worse than that.

Sure they were overnerfed, but they weren't fine. They only need to make the execution optional instead of obligatory and it would be fine.

Not really, no. People still wouldn't take it, because there is only a very narrow band of situations in which killing one of your own models to reroll a leadership check is actually worth doing for a guard squad. What your version of Summary Execution provides is essentially a solution to a non-existent problem as far as guard players are concerned, so all what the Commissar really has going for it then is basically +1 leadership, which guard players can get for 25 points less with a standard.

Well, any ideas that doesn't make IG immune to morale?

Also killing guardsmen was far easier in previous editions.

lolwut?

Changes to AP and armor, lack of blast and templates, does it sound familiar?

**Jidmah**

Torga_DW wrote:
Jidmah wrote:
[2) Any game that can claim to be at least somewhat balanced reached that point through iteration. The chances of getting any given rule "right" the first or second time are pretty low, especially how inaccurate their play testing results seem to be. Even companies with a high level of professionalism in game design like Wizards of the Coast or Fantasy Flight Games tend to have huge screw-ups from time to time.

I just thought i'd single this one out - they're on version 8 *eight* of the game, and they haven't yet attempted iteration. Every edition has been a reboot rather than an iteration. Random changes rather than trying to fix existing problems. This is a choice *they* made. Yes, the game obviously won't be fixed over time because of this.

I agree on all the previous editions not being iterations, but full reboots all the time. However, we have already seen some iteration this edition:
- Rule change to prevent all-flyer lists
- Brimstone horror nerf
- Comissar nerf

In addition the announced Chapter Approved is an iteration on the whole rule set, including point values.

Therefore in this edition, unlike in any previous edition, it's actually reasonable to expect more iteration, with one of them maybe making commissars useful again.

**Dionysodorus**

Tyran wrote:

What the [censored] are you talking about? Commissars made IG immune to moral for the cost of one model, ATSKNF is far worse than that.

What you're missing, I think, is that Marines already have this benefit built-in, basically. Absent any modifiers, a 5-man Marine squad with Ld 8 can't lose more than 1 model to morale, and even that's pretty rare. Right? You can't fail the test with only one or two casualties taken. At three casualties, you have a 1/36 chance of failing the test and losing 1 model. At four casualties, you have a 1/9 chance of failing and losing 1 model. And a 5-man Marine squad is fairly comparable to a 10-man Infantry squad. If the Infantry squad takes the same amount of fire, it's quite likely to fail its morale test. This all strikes me as pretty obvious stuff that shouldn't be controversial.

That said, this sort of comparison doesn't mean a whole lot. That Marines have a great deal of "natural" morale resistance via tough bodies and small squad sizes is why they can also have a whole bunch of special rules that make them even harder to shake and it's not overpowered. Nobody is counting on morale to kill tactical squads anyway. This is also why the new Iyanden Attribute isn't overpowered (it's actually one of the weaker ones) whereas the same thing for Valhalla would be fantastic -- a free Commissar is just not that big of a deal for Eldar outside of Guardian blobs, which are far more vulnerable to regular shooting than are Guard units.

People do this really weird thing where they look at special rules in a vacuum and not at what they actually do for the units they benefit. The power of a special rule isn't independent of the other rules it's interacting with. Morale-resistance is a huge deal for swarms because swarms are otherwise very vulnerable to morale. It's not a big deal for elite armies.

**the_scotsman**

Tyran wrote:
chaos0xomega wrote:
Tyran wrote:
Commissars weren't fine.

They were fine in all cases, with the sole exception of what they did for conscripts. As such, perhaps the problem was in fact conscripts, rather than Commissars.

Commissars made the moral phase basically irrelevant to Guard, that wasn't fine.

Even ignoring conscripts, the idea that Commissars suddenly made guardsmen have better morale than Space Marines is silly.

You're right, that idea is silly, its a shame that so many continue to believe that that is what Commissars actually did. To start with, even with Commissar leadership and excluding the ATSKNF re-roll, IG units have the same probability of failing a morale check as an average marine squad. Once you include the ATSKNF re-roll, Marine probability is much better than guard probability, even with commissars. This is on top of the fact that guardsmen are significantly easier to kill than marines are, which increases the probability that guardsmen will *need* to test morale significantly. But then when you consider what the space marines have access to, rules and ability wise... lets see:

-Ultramarines = Ld 9, so now they have a flat out superior chance of passing morale compared to guardsmen
-Psychic Fortress librarius power = Target unit is flat out immune to morale
-Rites of War Warlord Trait = Units within 6" of the Warlord are flat out immune to morale (i.e. Commissar dialed up to 11)
-Standard of the Emperor Ascendant Relic = Friendly units within 6" autopass morale tests (again, Commissar dialed up to 11)
-Chaplains = Units within 6" use the Chaplains Leadership of 9, so basically any chapter can get a similar buff to Ultramarines (and Ultramarine units become Ld 10), again making their chances of surviving morale much better than guardsmen
-Rhino Primaris = -1 on your morale roll for friendly units within 12", a unit of tac marines under the influence of a chaplain and a rhino primaris is effectively ld 10. Ultramarines are effectively LD11. *with rerolls*.
-Lysander = Imp Fists within 6" get +1 Ld, now they are Ultramarines too. You can stack this with a Chaplain and a Rhino Primaris to make Imp Fists effectively LD11, with rerolls. At the point that becomes relevant, there is a good possibility that the entire squad was whiped and you aren't making a morale test anyway.
-Grimaldus = Black Templars within 6" become ultramarines too (Ld9)
-Ancients = +1 Leadership within 6"
-Cenobyte Servitors = Black Templars within 12" autopass morale
etc
etc
etc

Yeah. I get it, guardsman plus commissar looks better on paper than a basic marine squad sans upgrades (but only on paper, because a rerollable ld 8 on a unit that doesn't suffer many casualties on average is still superior to a one model stop-loss policy on a unit that will likely be taking enough casualties to all but guarantee a morale failure anyway), but thats not an apples to apples comparison. Once you stack all the leadership shenanigans a marine army has access to, its no contest in favor of the marines, especially when you factor in the amount of casualties that marines actually take versus the amount of casualties guardsmen take.

What the [censored] are you talking about? Commissars made IG immune to moral for the cost of one model, ATSKNF is far worse than that.

Sure they were overnerfed, but they weren't fine. They only need to make the execution optional instead of obligatory and it would be fine.

Not really, no. People still wouldn't take it, because there is only a very narrow band of situations in which killing one of your own models to reroll a leadership check is actually worth doing for a guard squad. What your version of Summary Execution provides is essentially a solution to a non-existent problem as far as guard players are concerned, so all what the Commissar really has going for it then is basically +1 leadership, which guard players can get for 25 points less with a standard.

Well, any ideas that doesn't make IG immune to morale?

Also killing guardsmen was far easier in previous editions.

lolwut?

Changes to AP and armor, lack of blast and templates, does it sound familiar?

Bare minimum, I would like to see either Summary Execution being an optional rule (so if you roll a 1 or 2, you aren't forced to reroll it to a 5 or 6) or if you think the fluff doesn't support it, just have it trigger automatically when a morale test is failed, and take the re-roll if it's lower than the original roll. That would at least make him not largely pointless to take with regular line troops, where he is simply inferior to the Regimental Standard in his present state, that being a 5-point command squad upgrade.

If I could have my way, I would actually have the rule be "when any Regiment squad fails a morale test, the commissar kills one, and the morale roll is counted as a 1 regardless of the number that was rolled."

This does not make most guard units entirely immune to morale, except for the squads with less than 10 wounds for whom will very rarely matter if they're in the situation where they can fail a LD8 check (3+ casualties) and still take 1 casualty minimum from SE. At best, with a 5-man squad, they take 3 casualties, fail on a 6, and save exactly 1 member with that version of SE, which has a 5/6 chance of happening anyway with current SE.

With that rule, you would be making conscripts slightly less variable, but not increasing their average whole-squad durability by much. For reference, with no commissar, LD5, you kill a 20-man squad with 11 casualties on an average morale roll (11-5+3.5=9.5) and with a commissar with that proposed rule you'd be guaranteed to finish off the squad with 14 casualties (14-8+1 (executed)+1 (roll set to 1) = 8). In a mass casualty, trying to remove the squad type situation, the commissar would save an average of 3 conscripts. Keep in mind the current average hovers around 2 in a mass casualty situation, because he adds 3 to their LD, -1 for the extra casualty from SE. I would argue that given that that is his optimal use case, and he could be replaced by 10 additional conscripts, with board control, obsec and guns, 2 is a little low.

**Jidmah**

"when any Regiment squad fails a morale test, the commissar kills one, and the morale roll is counted as a 1 regardless of the number that was rolled."

I like it, nice and clean rule that actually does what it was intended to do.

**Colonel Cross**

I agree, very clean and appropriate.

**WatcherZero**

Blood and Glory UK official tournament

1st place Ynnari-Eldar soup
2nd place Chaos Soup
3rd place Dark Angels Dreadnoughts

Most played army Chaos soup

Astra Militarum didn't even get a look in

**daedalus**

WatcherZero wrote:
Blood and Glory UK official tournament

1st place Ynnari-Eldar soup
2nd place Chaos Soup
3rd place Dark Angels Dreadnoughts

Most played army Chaos soup

Astra Militarum didn't even get a look in

Do you have the lists somewhere?

Irrelevant to the topic, but I like looking at that stuff.

**ChargerIIC**

daedalus wrote:
WatcherZero wrote:
Blood and Glory UK official tournament

1st place Ynnari-Eldar soup
2nd place Chaos Soup
3rd place Dark Angels Dreadnoughts

Most played army Chaos soup

Astra Militarum didn't even get a look in

Do you have the lists somewhere?

Irrelevant to the topic, but I like looking at that stuff.

This is all I could find:

Over in the 41st Millennium, the winning Warhammer 40,000 list was an Ynnari detachment using largely Craftworlds units commanded capably by Matthew Edmunds. Two full-sized units of Swooping Hawks, two full-sized units of Dark Reapers and two Plasma Obliterators formed the core of the army, backed up with a few small units of Alaitoc Rangers and Drukhari Medusae. Second place was taken by Adam Ryland’s mixed Chaos army, while the third was taken by Sid Sidhu’s Dreadnought-based Dark Angels force. There was a diverse range of armies represented, with Chaos being the most played

Would love to know what was int eh chaos list. Was it the twin primarchs again? Cultist spam? Poxwalkers?

**Burnage**

ChargerIIC wrote:
daedalus wrote:
WatcherZero wrote:
Blood and Glory UK official tournament

1st place Ynnari-Eldar soup
2nd place Chaos Soup
3rd place Dark Angels Dreadnoughts

Most played army Chaos soup

Astra Militarum didn't even get a look in

Do you have the lists somewhere?

Irrelevant to the topic, but I like looking at that stuff.

This is all I could find:

Over in the 41st Millennium, the winning Warhammer 40,000 list was an Ynnari detachment using largely Craftworlds units commanded capably by Matthew Edmunds. Two full-sized units of Swooping Hawks, two full-sized units of Dark Reapers and two Plasma Obliterators formed the core of the army, backed up with a few small units of Alaitoc Rangers and Drukhari Medusae. Second place was taken by Adam Ryland’s mixed Chaos army, while the third was taken by Sid Sidhu’s Dreadnought-based Dark Angels force. There was a diverse range of armies represented, with Chaos being the most played

Would love to know what was int eh chaos list. Was it the twin primarchs again? Cultist spam? Poxwalkers?

I was at Blood and Glory. I don't know if Adam's list specifically included them, but there seemed to be a lot of Magnus and Mortarion floating around on the top tables for the majority of the weekend.

**the_scotsman**

Forget the chaos list, what Dark Angel Dreadnought combination was good enough to hit top tables? Do dark angels even have rules that interact with dreadnoughts somehow? I know they don't have any kind of special dreads, just regular and venerable, so what do you do with DA dreads to beat anything in the Magnus+Morty, Guard Gunline, Eldar Alaitoc sort of range?

**daedalus**

I think DA are some of the few that kept Mortis Dreadnoughts, being the ones that (I believe) originally got them as a "special" thing.

**Marmatag**

The fact that you see DA dreadknoughts this high suggests it wasn't that serious of an event, and probably wasn't played ITC standard.

Darkshroud, Azrael, Dakka Dreadnoughts, with walling conscripts and some razorbacks, and of course the obligatory deep striking imperial guard plasma, as scions or elysians. Also a primaris lieutenant.

That's basically it. They all have a 4++ and are harder to hit with the darkshroud. Azrael twin links their guns, too.

But this list has been very beatable for some time, it fell by the wayside when codexes started dropping.

**Darsath**

the_scotsman wrote:
Forget the chaos list, what Dark Angel Dreadnought combination was good enough to hit top tables? Do dark angels even have rules that interact with dreadnoughts somehow? I know they don't have any kind of special dreads, just regular and venerable, so what do you do with DA dreads to beat anything in the Magnus+Morty, Guard Gunline, Eldar Alaitoc sort of range?

Only thing I can think of is Azrael conferring a re-roll failed hit aura and a 4+ invuln save within 6 inches.

**Unit1126PLL**

"Look, a thing won a tournament that's considered not good."

"Oh, that's not a real tournament!"

"Why not?"

"Because something that's not good won it, obviously."

**Marmatag**

Unit1126PLL wrote:
"Look, a thing won a tournament that's considered not good."

"Oh, that's not a real tournament!"

"Why not?"

"Because something that's not good won it, obviously."

Ynaari have been doing well for some time, and Eldar have been made stronger with the codex. So it's not surprising, and Ynaari are good.

Shouldn't you be writing a story about 3 baneblades?

**Unit1126PLL**

Marmatag wrote:
Shouldn't you be writing a story about 3 baneblades?

I actually wrote about half a page of fluff for my SOB army today to intro it into our local campaign, if you'd like to read it. I can PM you a google docs link that updates as battles are fought, if you wish!

Sadly, I've been playing with them rather than my Baneblades lately in recognition of the regrettable fact that my Baneblades are less welcome, because I accept data that does not conform to my narrative, and change my behavior accordingly, rather than throwing a tantrum.

**the_scotsman**

Unit1126PLL wrote:
Marmatag wrote:
Shouldn't you be writing a story about 3 baneblades?

I actually wrote about half a page of fluff for my SOB army today to intro it into our local campaign, if you'd like to read it. I can PM you a google docs link that updates as battles are fought, if you wish!

Sadly, I've been playing with them rather than my Baneblades lately in recognition of the regrettable fact that my Baneblades are less welcome, because I accept data that does not conform to my narrative, and change my behavior accordingly, rather than throwing a tantrum.

no, you don't understand, he was trying to belittle you for caring about your army's fluff because he doesn't have an actual argument as to why we should only pay attention to selective data that confirms his hypothesis that all Marine units are automatically bad. You're supposed to feel bad, you're doing it wrong.

I'm guessing he wouldn't take the fact that a Chaos Soup list won 2nd to conclude that the tournament was casual. Nor the presence of a Ynnari list at #1.

he can't say it's not a GT, because Blood And Glory had more than enough people playing at it to qualify...

Oh wait, it's not using the ITC house rules! That's why we can reject the data that doesn't conform to our previously selected confusion!

**gungo**

WatcherZero wrote:
Blood and Glory UK official tournament

1st place Ynnari-Eldar soup
2nd place Chaos Soup
3rd place Dark Angels Dreadnoughts

Most played army Chaos soup

Astra Militarum didn't even get a look in

Astra militarum was all over that dark angels list..... furthermore chaos will continue to be broken until FW updates their busted units list aka the maelific lord.... I really don't like how GW punts the ball on FW everytime someone brings up how broken or underpowered a unit is.... My only hope is that GW takes a serious look at fw units in their chapter approved book.

ALSO blood and glory was as large a venue as NOVA... it is not a small venue.

**the_scotsman**

gungo wrote:
WatcherZero wrote:
Blood and Glory UK official tournament

1st place Ynnari-Eldar soup
2nd place Chaos Soup
3rd place Dark Angels Dreadnoughts

Most played army Chaos soup

Astra Militarum didn't even get a look in

Astra militarum was all over that dark angels list..... furthermore chaos will continue to be broken until FW updates their busted units list aka the maelific lord.... I really don't like how GW punts the ball on FW everytime someone brings up how broken or underpowered a unit is.... My only hope is that GW takes a serious look at fw units in their chapter approved book.

ALSO blood and glory was as large a venue as NOVA... it is not a small venue.

Where are you finding this Dark Angels list?

**Xenomancers**

Azreal with 4+ bubble feeding redemptor dreads can do pretty well I think. has a pretty huge close comabt ability too.

Without knowing the list I'd wager it was

Azreal
Techmarine with primarchs wrath
leading
6 redemptor dreads with heavy onslaught loadouts and storm bolters.

Then we probably had a storm raven with full anti tank load-out - maybe towing an ironclad.

**Marmatag**

Unit1126PLL wrote:
Marmatag wrote:
Shouldn't you be writing a story about 3 baneblades?

I actually wrote about half a page of fluff for my SOB army today to intro it into our local campaign, if you'd like to read it. I can PM you a google docs link that updates as battles are fought, if you wish!

Sadly, I've been playing with them rather than my Baneblades lately in recognition of the regrettable fact that my Baneblades are less welcome, because I accept data that does not conform to my narrative, and change my behavior accordingly, rather than throwing a tantrum.

Actually I haven't played competitive in months and have been focusing entirely on narrative. So, i'm up to my eyeballs in fluff. But, if it stands apart and is pretty good, I'd actually like to read it.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

gungo wrote:
WatcherZero wrote:
Blood and Glory UK official tournament

1st place Ynnari-Eldar soup
2nd place Chaos Soup
3rd place Dark Angels Dreadnoughts

Most played army Chaos soup

Astra Militarum didn't even get a look in

Astra militarum was all over that dark angels list..... furthermore chaos will continue to be broken until FW updates their busted units list aka the maelific lord.... I really don't like how GW punts the ball on FW everytime someone brings up how broken or underpowered a unit is.... My only hope is that GW takes a serious look at fw units in their chapter approved book.

ALSO blood and glory was as large a venue as NOVA... it is not a small venue.

AM is all over any imperium winning list. I already posted effectively what the typical competitive DA list is with dreadnoughts. Although it's possible things have changed, i've been doing a lot of painting and casual play lately.

And yeah, FW Malefic Lords are stupid broken, but Chaos lists are still winning without them. Chaos soup is actually incredibly good right now.

**daedalus**

Reviewing the IG panic, wasn't 4 point heavy weapon squad guys among the long list of evils that were going to destroy the game? Because they were so cheap and you could take a bunch?

How do people feel that those same things exist in relentless squads up to 10 with BS 3+ and 3+ saves now?

**Marmatag**

Mortars don't need line of sight, have a huge range, and fire a ton of dice.

**Colonel Cross**

Those are things mortars can do, yes. Although it's random, so no, not always TONS of shots. Sometimes it's just 5. They're BS4+ and only S4. I've fielded them since the days you had to guess their range and, yes, they're the best they've ever been now. But I think they're costed well or nobody would take them. They still haven't done much in any of my games. I would say they're reliably earning their points back. But then again, so does every guardsmen I have with a plasma gun.

**daedalus**

Marmatag wrote:
Mortars don't need line of sight, have a huge range, and fire a ton of dice.

Oh yeah? Man, those ARE some big advantages for mortars.... so did ya read the tempest launcher? 2d6 shots, S4 AP -2 doesn't need LoS.

Sure, you only get 1 for one point cheaper than 3 mortars, but you stand a chance to actually get them in cover, and 1 slightly outperforms 3 mortars. On the bright side, it's "only" 36" firing range.

Spoiler:

Welcome to the new normal.

**Marmatag**

Except it's incredibly difficult to address mortars because they're a bunch of MSU... you have to split fire by gun, so how do you address them without overkill?

And don't tell me it's random as an excuse, the expected outcome of a d6 is 3-4 shots, and you'll have a grip of mortars, so your standard deviation is pretty reliable. You will be firing a ton of shots.

Daedalus as a GK player you should understand how good mortars are, considering around 1000 points in any GK list is a way to field & protect mortar teams.

**Colonel Cross**

Lol your complaint is now how to not Overkill them? Absurd.