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Dionysodorus wrote:
IIRC the old-style infiltrate rule had a much harsher distance requirement. Something like 18" if any enemy unit could draw LoS to you, right?

For most infiltrators. Some like the genestealers could get even closer. But last edition also didn't allow charging out of deep strike so a lot of things have changed to allow for more close combat opportunities as 40k was far too much about gunlines shooting things off the board in relative safety.

Daedalus81 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Busted units in other games get banned or patched. Not this one.

Because it's not as big of a problem as some make it out to be.

1) You can get first turn.
2) You can seize initiative
3) This particular list has used half it's CP.
4) Charging requires 9", which is a little better than 1 in 4. Less than one unit will make it in on average without burning the remaining CP - even then not likely all of them.
5) Charges declare on several units means several units of overwatch.
6) It's a huge telegraph that can be seen a mile away by just looking at their list and is mitigated by good deployment.

It's a 3" charge. The advance deployment isn't a reserve deployment, it happens before the movement phase. So the Berserkers can move their full 6" normally, and then make their charge. Can't fail at 3".

 Arkaine wrote:

 Galef wrote:

 Scott-S6 wrote:
You could have assumed that except, as pointed out, the sentence that says one stratagem per phase is immediately followed by a sentence that says you can go nuts with start of game stratagems and it's been repeated in a faq document.

Which is an issue I could live with *IF* the particular stratagems in question were more than 1CP to use. Something that powerful and, more importantly, REPEATABLE needs to be worth at least 2, if not 3CPs.
I just do not think these stratagems, while cool in concept, were very well thought out.

GW seems to have a track record for creating rules that are cool for their intended purpose, but break as soon as anyone competent uses the rule with units that don't really do that in the fluff. Alpha Legion infiltrating Berserkers, for example.

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Keep in mind it's like giving the unit Infiltrate. This was a common rule in 7th and there were ways to grant it to even Berzerkers. Heck you could infiltrate an entire Rhino and other stuff with it using a warlord trait. All they did this edition was force you to pay something to make use of that ability. Some armies had infiltrators that could be used for free, resulting in army lists where the entire army started on your side of the board. Infiltrating devastators into a high piece of center terrain was popular.

Infiltrate has been in the for a very long time, this is nothing new at all..... Honestly 5th Ed was the meanest for it, you could Infiltrate > Move > Run (with fleet) > Charge.

Edit: My 5th Nids list was
2 HQ Tervigons (before the kit, yeah for conversions!)
9 Hive Guard
45 Genestealers (infiltrate > move >run > charge)
20 Gargoyles

If i broke you 5 Rhinos i won the game if not i lost

 Fafnir wrote:

It's a 3" charge. The advance deployment isn't a reserve deployment, it happens before the movement phase. So the Berserkers can move their full 6" normally, and then make their charge. Can't fail at 3".

Since you have to be outside 3", you can fail on a 2" charge. Bring rerolls!


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 Amishprn86 wrote:
Infiltrate has been in the for a very long time, this is nothing new at all..... Honestly 5th Ed was the meanest for it, you could Infiltrate > Move > Run (with fleet) > Charge.

Which is pretty much how it works now too. Guess we're back to 5th edition infiltrate except it costs you 1 CP each.

Infiltrate in the prior 2 editions also specifically disallowed assaulting in the first turn, so it can hardly be compared to the RG/AL stratagems. You also could not get anywhere near as close as 3" for the assault roll.

Martel732 wrote:

Imperial is not a codex. Marines have the same problem as Eldar.

I get what you are saying, I really do, but at the end of the day, you are making the choice to be a "Marine purest" and not taking a detachment with Conscripts + Commissar.
Eldar don't even have that choice. Our best option is Dark Eldar Kabalites or Khymerea, both options cost more than twice a Conscript and are subject to Morale

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Martel732 wrote:

 Galef wrote:
Some of us don't play an army with suitably expendable units, nor do we want to.
Imperials have Conscripts, Chaos have Cultists

Eldar, by their very nature, do not nor should not have expendable units. By I guess I'll have to field MSU Kabalites just to not get Alpha struck off the table. This, however creates an issue with deployment drops, increasing the chances of going second.
So you have to make a choice whether to get Alpha struck by melee infiltrators, or gunlines with better shooting than you....great.

Being able to infiltrate with 1 unit is fine as it shifts the balance away from gunlines, which I am all in favor of. But being able to do this with half of your army is too far in the other direction.
While I am a huge advocate for the pregame discussion, I also think you shouldn't have to. The game should ideally be balanced so that a casual game and a tourney game feel close to the same thing.

I guess time will tell once more Codices are out, but the initial "all armies are balanced" has thoroughly gone out the window. At least Chaos gets a time to shine, I guess
Hopefully the Eldar codex brings them up closer to the middle without going overboard. I'd like to have a playable army that "could" win a few games in a tourney, but I don't want the same level as 6th/7th. I want opponents to see my army and think "Oh, cool, Eldar. This will be a fun/challenging/rewarding game" NOT: "Oh, Eldar, you're TFG" or "Oh, Eldar, you must like losing"

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Imperial is not a codex. Marines have the same problem as Eldar.

Marines can easily get conscripts, without losing any special rules, and in fact gaining rules/abilities in the process. Imperial may not be a codex, but it might as well be.

The closest thing Eldar had to conscripts was Razorwing flocks, which required using up a detachment and paying a fairly useless HQ tax. And even then, it wasn't as good as conscripts are. Then GW nerfed razorwings into the ground, so they are no longer even usable at all. Now, Eldar have... kabalites, I guess, but once the codex drops using kabalites will mean a loss of traits. And they're still not actually any good as bubblewrap. (edit: it's a good job they're not any good really, otherwise GW would just nerf them too. Or buff conscripts. Again.)

 Galef wrote:
Infiltrate in the prior 2 editions also specifically disallowed assaulting, so it can hardly be compared to the RG/AL stratagems

Martel732 wrote:

Imperial is not a codex. Marines have the same problem as Eldar.

I get what you are saying, I really do, but at the end of the day, you are making the choice to be a "Marine purest" and not taking a detachment with Conscripts + Commissar.
Eldar don't even have that choice. Our best option is Dark Eldar Kabalites or Khymerea, both options cost more than twice a Conscript and are subject to Morale

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There's no way I'm spending that kind of jack when 9th ed could get rid of allies.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Niiru wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 Galef wrote:
Some of us don't play an army with suitably expendable units, nor do we want to.
Imperials have Conscripts, Chaos have Cultists

Eldar, by their very nature, do not nor should not have expendable units. By I guess I'll have to field MSU Kabalites just to not get Alpha struck off the table. This, however creates an issue with deployment drops, increasing the chances of going second.
So you have to make a choice whether to get Alpha struck by melee infiltrators, or gunlines with better shooting than you....great.

Being able to infiltrate with 1 unit is fine as it shifts the balance away from gunlines, which I am all in favor of. But being able to do this with half of your army is too far in the other direction.
While I am a huge advocate for the pregame discussion, I also think you shouldn't have to. The game should ideally be balanced so that a casual game and a tourney game feel close to the same thing.

I guess time will tell once more Codices are out, but the initial "all armies are balanced" has thoroughly gone out the window. At least Chaos gets a time to shine, I guess
Hopefully the Eldar codex brings them up closer to the middle without going overboard. I'd like to have a playable army that "could" win a few games in a tourney, but I don't want the same level as 6th/7th. I want opponents to see my army and think "Oh, cool, Eldar. This will be a fun/challenging/rewarding game" NOT: "Oh, Eldar, you're TFG" or "Oh, Eldar, you must like losing"

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Imperial is not a codex. Marines have the same problem as Eldar.

Marines can easily get conscripts, without losing any special rules, and in fact gaining rules/abilities in the process. Imperial may not be a codex, but it might as well be.

The closest thing Eldar had to conscripts was Razorwing flocks, which required using up a detachment and paying a fairly useless HQ tax. And even then, it wasn't as good as conscripts are. Then GW nerfed razorwings into the ground, so they are no longer even usable at all. Now, Eldar have... kabalites, I guess, but once the codex drops using kabalites will mean a loss of traits. And they're still not actually any good as bubblewrap. (edit: it's a good job they're not any good really, otherwise GW would just nerf them too. Or buff conscripts. Again.)

It isn't a codex because of collection habits. Just as Dark Eldar/Eldar weren't a single codex despite being battle bros for two editions.

I mean, I think it's absolutely reasonable to want to play a pure Marine army, and therefore reasonable for someone playing a pure Marine army to complain that they also lack good screening units in an edition where screening units are basically a necessity. I'm not sure there's much point in arguing about whether Eldar have it worse because they don't even have the option of playing in a way that someone shouldn't be forced to play in the first place. Though it probably is worth noting that at least GW seems to have designed a solution for Marines -- use Guardsmen -- regardless of whether you like that in this edition there's not really much of a distinction between different factions that all still share a keyword. The lack of efficient screens is pretty undeniably a design flaw in a lot of the xenos army lists in a way that it isn't with Imperium or Chaos, where you can at worst say that having to bring a unit from a different subfaction is a design choice you don't like.

At least Eldar can cower in Wave Serpents and be somewhat effective. BA have NOTHING. AT the very least, Mechdar makes hellblaster and plasma spam look SILLY.

 Galef wrote:
Infiltrate in the prior 2 editions also specifically disallowed assaulting in the first turn, so it can hardly be compared to the RG/AL stratagems. You also could not get anywhere near as close as 3" for the assault roll.

And yet as I pointed out here:

 Arkaine wrote:

Dionysodorus wrote:
IIRC the old-style infiltrate rule had a much harsher distance requirement. Something like 18" if any enemy unit could draw LoS to you, right?

For most infiltrators. Some like the genestealers could get even closer. But last edition also didn't allow charging out of deep strike so a lot of things have changed to allow for more close combat opportunities as 40k was far too much about gunlines shooting things off the board in relative safety.

...that's a common New Edition thing. We can't keep holding this edition to the standards of previous ones. It's a fact of life now that close combat is relevant and the even more prior editions allowed move and charge out of infiltration with the definite possibility of 3" charges. Simply because the previous two did not doesn't mean much when it's been like that for several editions beyond the most recent.

I liken it to what D&D did. They started with basic rules for 1st and 2nd edition, moved over to ultra complicated analytical rules for 3rd, then backed off a bit for 4th and finally scrapped it all and went back to basic rules for 5th. 40k has taken a similar path because trying to balance a machine with hundreds of moving parts that constantly keep changing specs is no easy task.

I think part of the issue is this:

I've said for a long time that in 8th, screening units are completely necessary.

I also think that it's an engineered design flaw (both in fluff and in rules) that certain armies don't have screens.

While in prior editions that could be played around, in 8th that really can't. It goes from a "design flaw" to a crippling weakness which is very very very very very very difficult to compensate for.

Not sure if that's intended but it's what we've got.

Space Marines didn't have screening units in the old editions either when Berzerkers and Tyrannids could sprint up the field and eat your face. What they had were Rhinos. Start your marines in transports like the lore suggests. Transports for everyone!

Too pricey, really. And they don't have the necessary footprint to screen. Deep strikers will have their way.

Which is my main issue with 8th. 7th was a complicated mess, but 8th simplified everything with the Indexes.
The Codices are complicating things again, making certain armies have access to powerful combos that other armies don't have yet, or may never have.

Otherwise, I like this edition. I am just jaded from 7th and afraid we are heading in the same direction very soon, just with different armies "on top"

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Dionysodorus wrote:
I mean, I think it's absolutely reasonable to want to play a pure Marine army, and therefore reasonable for someone playing a pure Marine army to complain that they also lack good screening units in an edition where screening units are basically a necessity. I'm not sure there's much point in arguing about whether Eldar have it worse because they don't even have the option of playing in a way that someone shouldn't be forced to play in the first place. Though it probably is worth noting that at least GW seems to have designed a solution for Marines -- use Guardsmen -- regardless of whether you like that in this edition there's not really much of a distinction between different factions that all still share a keyword. The lack of efficient screens is pretty undeniably a design flaw in a lot of the xenos army lists in a way that it isn't with Imperium or Chaos, where you can at worst say that having to bring a unit from a different subfaction is a design choice you don't like.

I agree with this, but Marines do have an option of running a pure marine army, they can run tactical squads and/or scouts, who do their jobs pretty well. They're just not as good at bubblewrap as conscripts, because they're expensive elite units. Also it seems a lot of Marine players on here dislike tactical squads, because they are jack of all trades... even though that is what tactical squads have always been designed to be. So for those players, they can field conscripts.

Eldar equivalents to tactical squads are (I guess) Dire Avengers... Tacs are stronger, tougher, better save, longer range weapon... and 5 points cheaper per model. In order to get cheaper, it would have to be basic guardians... who are just awful. Sure, they can work as bubblewrap, but they can't fight back at all and are easier to kill than units in the same points bracket (way easier to kill than conscripts, who cost half as much), and so are essentially a -huge- tax in a list, especially small lists like in the OP.

Marine players seem to hate scouts and tacs, but most xenos players would love to have a unit that strong for that price.

Tactical squads and scouts both suck balls.

If you had access to them, you still wouldn't use them. Because they are awful.

Quit repeating nonsense. Tac marines have always been failures, going back to 2nd ed. They were briefly usable in 3rd before the starcannon but them back in the garbage bin.

Tacs are NOT jack of all trades. They have NO trades. That's the problem.

Martel732 wrote:
Tactical squads and scouts both suck balls.

If you had access to them, you still wouldn't use them. Because they are awful.

Quit repeating nonsense. Tac marines have always been failures, going back to 2nd ed. They were briefly usable in 3rd before the starcannon but them back in the garbage bin.

I'm not saying they aren't awful. I'm saying they're better than dire avengers and guardians.

Just shows how truly awful Eldar troops are!

How the mighty have fallen. I'd have killed for DA in 6th/7th. Bladestorm was the only functional troop mechanic vs MCs outside of grav cannons in vanilla squads. Maybe splinter.

Martel732 wrote:
How the mighty have fallen. I'd have killed for DA in 6th/7th. Bladestorm was the only functional troop mechanic vs MCs outside of grav cannons in vanilla squads. Maybe splinter.

Oh yeh, guardians were always crummy but dire avengers were (for troops) fairly decent. Fragile, but could put out some damage with bladestorm. They got nerfed -hard-. Hopefully they'll be dropping by at least 5 points per model in the codex, but as there wasn't any errata changes for them in the index it's not looking hopeful.


I do hope chapter approved changes the alpha legion stratagem to one use only. Or increases it to 3CP. It really is very good. And this is a stratagem that I hope Eldar get access to, as it would (I assume) be how GW give eldar access to webway portals again. Even though I expect to get the stratagem, I'd still prefer it to be nerfed.

I won't even get into the humiliation of "genetically modified supermen in power armor are only viable with hordes of riff-raff as screening units"

Martel732 wrote:
I won't even get into the humiliation of "genetically modified supermen in power armor are only viable with hordes of riff-raff as screening units"

Lol, true. It's about the same as "The most powerful band of psychics, in an ancient race of extremely powerful psychic Elves, are outmatched by the basic bog-standard human psykers that are basically treated as car batteries".

The Alpha Strike concept could be neutered by switching to alternating activations.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I think part of the issue is this:

I've said for a long time that in 8th, screening units are completely necessary.

I also think that it's an engineered design flaw (both in fluff and in rules) that certain armies don't have screens.

While in prior editions that could be played around, in 8th that really can't. It goes from a "design flaw" to a crippling weakness which is very very very very very very difficult to compensate for.

Not sure if that's intended but it's what we've got.

I mean, like, every army has access to screening units. Chaos Marines have cultists and Loyal Marines have Guardsmen. GW has given every army the ability to cover its flaws through taking an allied detachment.

Don't like GK's lack of anti-tank, run a Detachment of Leman Russes. Don't like how Sisters of Battle lack flyers? Run a detachment of Vultures. Don't like how Genestealers don't have big monstrous creatures? Run a detachment of Carnifexes.

Of all the armies in the game, Tau, Orks and Necrons are the only ones who lack ways to ally with other armies. Every other army has at least one other army it can borrow models from.

A basic scout squad is 55 points. Taking 2 squads costs 110 points and is easily enough to screen the rest of the army from any first turn deepstrikers and charges. Hell, I even drew a diagram for Martel (seriously buddy, stop whining about stuff that's actually fine). Scouts are also a very useful unit in games where screens are not needed, able to tie up things with first turn charges or grab remote maelstrom objectives. Having screening units is absolutely necessary in this edition, and it really doesn't take a lot of effort to blunt first turn charges/deep strikes.

Ushtarador wrote:
A basic scout squad is 55 points. Taking 2 squads costs 110 points and is easily enough to screen the rest of the 1890pts from any first turn deepstrikers and charges. Hell, I even drew a diagram for Martel (seriously buddy, stop whining about stuff that's actually fine). Scouts are also a very useful unit in games where screens are not needed, able to tie up things with first turn charges or grab remote maelstrom objectives. Having screening units is absolutely necessary in this edition, and it really doesn't take a lot of effort to blunt first turn charges/deep strikes.

Yeah. If I recall, doing the numbers with a friend, we determined that the basic effectiveness of scouts firing bolters was roughly equal to same number of points of scions firing. It's about a 5% difference in outcome for equal number of shots fired. Which is still to say that scions are probably too cheap still, because deep strike and more plasma on top of that, not to mention now exploding 6s, but base effectiveness is NOT that far removed from something that's was just considered "way too good" to something that apparently "sucks balls".

Not to kill my own point, but Flyers make good first turn infiltrate/deepstrike unit blockers. Eldar have good options there. Just place a Hemlock on each flank of your deployment with everything behind them.
Berserkers cannot assault flyers, but will have to set up outside 9" of them anyway. If all your other units are a few inches behind those Flyers, it will be impossible for Berserkers to assault anything.

Scouts are a terrible screening unit. They cost way too much.

Step 1.) Take 1-2 units of whatever the cheapest unit you have access to is. Bonus if it infiltrates.

Step 2.) Spread them out, at maximum unit coherencey across the border of your deployment zone

20 Models on 32mm bases can stretch across the table and screen for your entire army.

Works with SM Scouts, Eldar Guardians, Necron Warriors, Termagants, etc...

Daedalus81 wrote:
Because it's not as big of a problem as some make it out to be.

1) You can get first turn.
2) You can seize initiative
3) This particular list has used half it's CP.
4) Charging requires 9", which is a little better than 1 in 4. Less than one unit will make it in on average without burning the remaining CP - even then not likely all of them.
5) Charges declare on several units means several units of overwatch.
6) It's a huge telegraph that can be seen a mile away by just looking at their list and is mitigated by good deployment.

1) & 2) "Going 1st" as a defence means you concede half your games, then have to actually fight for a win the other half of the time - if you're really good you might get a 40% win rate.
3) CPs well spent if it delivers a brutal blow, given the OPs description I would wager they had some CPs left by the games end.
4) Deploy 9.1" away, move 6" to 3.1" then need to land a charge within 1" (needs a 3), so it's a 35 in 36 success rate before rerolls. This stratagem is not deepstrike.
5) Most players still favour min sized squads to max out specialist weapons or fill out detachments with less tax, charging two units is generally 10 MEQ or 20 GEQ so not too big a deal for a maxed out 'zerker squad. The benefits of massive damage output and slingshotting a massive amount of assault troops outweighs a bit of overwatch.
6) There is no subtlety here, but without conscripts exactly what do you call good deployment? Speed bumps like scouts don't work, not because they are weak units but because their footprint is so small and the 'zerkers can be placed anywhere 9" away - they can simply deploy to the side of a speed bump so only a complete wrap around blob unit will work. Likewise, the chaos player has easy access to powers like warptime, combo this extra free move with your almost guaranteed move/charge/consolidate and even spreading out your units has limited effect.

The only answers I can think of for facing this tactic is to take something even cheesier - can anyone make a reasonable suggestion for TAC play (not necessarily playing for the win but to at least avoid a steam rolling of a defeat)?

*edit, or sacrifice all of your troops to simulate conscripts - however completely non-viable in non-horde armies as your troops are not cheap and your elites are so pricey that you have no fat to cut.

I think Martel's point (and correct me if wrong) is that Scouts will only work in the first turn before they die. Since you can choose what turn deepstrikers come it, you can hold them unit turn 2 and wipe out the Scouts on turn 1.
Even if that isn't his point, it is a concern I share no matter what unit you use. Only Conscripts, Cultist and Gaunts are cheap enough to spam enough units for multiple turn screening.

 Galef wrote:
I think Martel's point (and correct me if wrong) is that Scouts will only work in the first turn before they die. Since you can choose what turn deepstrikers come it, you can hold them unit turn 2 and wipe out the Scouts on turn 1.
Even if that isn't his point, it is a concern I share no matter what unit you use. Only Conscripts, Cultist and Gaunts are cheap enough to spam enough units for multiple turn screening.

Not everyone get's hoards.

Marines and Eldar are Elite by nature. They don't get to better than humans and outnumber them.