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-1 to hit army traits are pretty busted. I think they should just be mass removed from the game and replaced with something else. I'm not saying there are not other busted army traits...but -1 to hit for what ends up being most of your army completely overshadows other options. If not for 2 special characters (Cawl and Guilliman [these guys are even more busted than -1 army traits]) Every armies best faction would be -1 to hit that had access to it (obviosuly these heros need fixing too.)

-1 to hit is so obviously and statistically better than all the other defensive traits. 6+ stackable or non stackable FNP? always count in cover? Am I missing another? Not even remotely close in power level. Again - I'm not ignoring other OP army traits - the top 3 AM traits are a little too good. Kraken is a little OTT for nids. I just think they could be fixed differently. -1 to hit army traits should just be flat out replaced or at the very least (should not stack with other -1 to hits) really though - just remove them and replace with something else.

It's really just sad we have to go through all this nonsense to play the game we love. I could write a balanced rule set for this game in a day. Literally a day. It's just so obvious to me that they aren't trying.

How many auto-hitting long range weapons are there?
Genuine question, I do agree that the trait is very strong, I just do wonder if it's a no-brainer.
Say, all the marines are either AL or RG? Or such variety is going to disappear?

This said, this is for sure another "core", base design problem. A -1 has not the same effect on BS 3+ compared to BS 5+.

This is just the result of the same very amateurish design that gave us non-functional tanks (without hotfixes like the double shooting) when BS 3+ is not present, or under-used flamers (unless mounted on specific platforms and/or with longer range than the usual).

 Xenomancers wrote:
It's really just sad we have to go through all this nonsense to play the game we love. I could write a balanced rule set for this game in a day. Literally a day. It's just so obvious to me that they aren't trying.

Then why haven't you? Fan rules, if good, are accepted. Just look at ITC and how they structure their rules and missions in an attempt to support diverse army lists. These rules are accepted because they work.

As for your main concern about -1 to hit from range army traits: I don't see the problem. It's powerful, but the other army traits are powerful if used properly as well. My +1A World Eaters don't give a fudge about -1 to hit from range because I'm attempting to lodge a Chainaxe in your face. Iron Warriors basically don't care either since you can't stack it up as much against them. There is a current balance of giving everyone something powerful if used correctly that they are trying to do, it doesn't always work but in general it's something you need to play around. You can't be all shooting and you can't be all melee, you need to balance your list to be prepared for opponents with a random assortment of traits.

The -1 to hit traits I think are going to be the most enduring balance issues of 8E.

There are ways to work around or power through it for some armies, but not all, especially in casual/TAC lists.

They especially shouldnt apply to things like tanks or monsters, for Alaitoc this really felt like a concept pulled off one iconic niche unit (Pathfinders) and applied to the whole army without really any thought applied.

We'll see how it shakes out, but I think they were a big mistake (same with the Catachan rerolls too).

 Kaiyanwang wrote:
How many auto-hitting long range weapons are there?
Genuine question, I do agree that the trait is very strong, I just do wonder if it's a no-brainer.
Say, all the marines are either AL or RG? Or such variety is going to disappear?

This said, this is for sure another "core", base design problem. A -1 has not the same effect on BS 3+ compared to BS 5+.

This is just the result of the same very amateurish design that gave us non-functional tanks (without hotfixes like the double shooting) when BS 3+ is not present, or under-used flamers (unless mounted on specific platforms and/or with longer range than the usual).

There are lots of ways get get serious shooting at 2+ to hit - though it's expensive. 2+ to hit doesn't care too much about -1 to hit but it gets progressively worse down the line. So if you have a -2 to hit - you are effectively invisible from bs4+ (I think we know how this will turn out). More auto hitting would go a long way but I think the real problem is -1 to hit going to any unit in an army for free.

Jormunger is substantially better because it never goes away.

Every army can be shooting within 12" on turn 1 if they feel like it.

-1 to hit is not unbalanced, it is a good balancing factor to turn 1 alpha strike armies. The issue is Stacking to hit bonuses beyond -1. Further the fact that several of the -1 to hit armies also get the best army specific stratagems (CSM and Marines at least both get the infiltrate stratagem.) is an issue with faction balance.

 andysonic1 wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
It's really just sad we have to go through all this nonsense to play the game we love. I could write a balanced rule set for this game in a day. Literally a day. It's just so obvious to me that they aren't trying.

Then why haven't you? Fan rules, if good, are accepted. Just look at ITC and how they structure their rules and missions in an attempt to support diverse army lists. These rules are accepted because they work.

As for your main concern about -1 to hit from range army traits: I don't see the problem. It's powerful, but the other army traits are powerful if used properly as well. My +1A World Eaters don't give a fudge about -1 to hit from range because I'm attempting to lodge a Chainaxe in your face. Iron Warriors basically don't care either since you can't stack it up as much against them. There is a current balance of giving everyone something powerful if used correctly that they are trying to do, it doesn't always work but in general it's something you need to play around. You can't be all shooting and you can't be all melee, you need to balance your list to be prepared for opponents with a random assortment of traits.

True - it doesn't work in melle. Melle is pretty much garbage teir again this edition though. The only units with viable melle are units that have a gimic to get into CC turn 1 - bezerkers are a rare exception because they have an outlandish number of attacks however - really are only viable because they can get auto turn 1 charges via warptime and having sneaky deployment.

Assuming every trait is being used properly -1 to hit is just better what other traits can offer.


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 DarknessEternal wrote:
Jormunger is substantially better because it never goes away.

Every army can be shooting within 12" on turn 1 if they feel like it.

Jorm trait is pretty bad - because I could just be in cover anyways to get the same benefit. Plus nids want to advance every turn anyways - which turns the trait off. Play wise this is one of the worst traits (they just have some of the best strategems so it keeps them in the mix)

I don't think this is actually true. I agree that there's a problem but I don't think the problem is that -1 to hit is just so much more powerful than any other trait. I'll explain:

First, 6+ FNP is giving you a lot of the same benefit. -1 to hit is better when it works, but it's not that much better, and of course the FNP also applies to shooting from inside 12", CC, and mortal wounds. There are lots of units that would prefer the 6+ FNP. Deep strikers, for example, or close-range units in transports. Jormugandr's always-in-cover trait is even more effective, for most units without invulnerable saves, and would be competitive with -1 to hit if it didn't turn off when you advance or charge. It's true that -1 to hit is especially punishing for BS4+, but it's also probably a good thing that there's a way to counter Guard gunlines, which are otherwise extremely efficient.

Second, there are strong offensive traits too. The Salamanders trait is nuts and there are clearly units that would prefer it to the Raven Guard trait. The only reason you don't see more of it is that Guilliman's buff is better. You mention Kraken, which is another great offensive trait and which many Tyranid units would prefer to having -1 to hit. The Chaos Renegades trait would be very strong for several armies.

I think there are three underlying problems that make the -1 to hit traits look too good.

1) Lots of other traits are just bad. There are clearly tiers of traits, and GW doesn't seem to have paid much attention to this when giving out other goodies either. I'm most familiar with Eldar, where it's just immediately obvious that you want either Alatoic or Ulthwe for everything. Iyanden is almost strictly worse than Ulthwe for most real units. Biel-Tan and Saim-Hann apply to only a few units and aren't even very strong effects. I don't think the answer is to make everything as bad as Iyanden (for Eldar, I mean -- obviously there are armies that would love a free Commissar in every unit).

2) These traits often come with the best other goodies. Raven Guard, Alpha Legion, and Stygies get infiltrate stratagems, which is especially strong for Chaos.

3) Alatoic in particular is such a no-brainer over Ulthwe because the trait can benefit things that already get -1 to hit. This is also part of the appeal of Stygies (with dragoons). This is especially silly when it comes to Hemlocks -- Alatoic bumps them up to -2 to hit, while Ulthwe does literally nothing for them because Ulthwe's FNP doesn't stack with Spirit Stones. With the huge nerf to Shadow Spectres in CA, the main problems here are just the flyers and Rangers (which are only a reasonable Troops choice in Alatoic armies for this reason).

Breng77 wrote:
-1 to hit is not unbalanced, it is a good balancing factor to turn 1 alpha strike armies. The issue is Stacking to hit bonuses beyond -1. Further the fact that several of the -1 to hit armies also get the best army specific stratagems (CSM and Marines at least both get the infiltrate stratagem.) is an issue with faction balance.

Stacking is the main problem for 3+ armies - but 4+ armies are pretty boned by the 5+ to hit.

 Xenomancers wrote:
It's really just sad we have to go through all this nonsense to play the game we love. I could write a balanced rule set for this game in a day. Literally a day. It's just so obvious to me that they aren't trying.

Hyperbole, seriously, can we avoid it? It colors the entire tenor of the discussion going forward. Maybe you can, maybe you can't, making the statement invites a challenge to it which causes the discussion to digress into other unrelated topics, like your typing speed.

You feel that the -1 to hit outside of 12" trait is unbalanced and poorly implemented. Great. That's a valid discussion point, let's unpack that, not your hypothetical and completely unfounded claim at being able to write amazingly balanced game rules inside of a 24 hour period.

I don't currently have a problem with it, I do feel it's one of the better army traits (but only because the current meta is heavily slanted towards shooting), but I think it only seems overpowered by comparison to other traits that are not as generally applicable. However, against many armies, this ability will have little to no effect.
- Smite spam - who cares that you're -1 to hit at range?
- Assault - again, who cares?
- Immobile Gunline - is specifically the army style this was put in to counter, it's doing it's job, great.
- Fast Attack Gunline - only cares about half the time because they can get inside of 12" and fire their weapons if they want.
- Air Force - also doesn't care because they can negate the range effect.
- Super-Heavies - again, should be getting inside of 12" unless you're playing AM Super-Heavies, in which case, refer to immobile gunline.
- Hordes - again, don't care, will get inside 12".

I mean I can go on, but basically this is only a problem for armies that insist on sitting on their butts at max range.

A more cogent discussion would involve the army traits that don't get used and what could be done to make them more generally effective. For example, Word Bearers get to re-roll morale checks, outside of Cultists, who cares? How is this useful in a CSM army with high LD already?

-1 to hit armies are the new paper in the game of 'Rock, Paper, Scissors' that is 40k 8th edition.

A static parking lot/gunline (rock) army will be at a massive disadvantage.

A deepstrike/infiltrate/in your face turn 1 army (scissors) will not care much.

Spartacus wrote:
-1 to hit armies are the new paper in the game of 'Rock, Paper, Scissors' that is 40k 8th edition.

A static parking lot/gunline (rock) army will be at a massive disadvantage.

A deepstrike/infiltrate/in your face turn 1 army (scissors) will not care much.

Very well said.

-1 to hit is what makes Melee armies playable by indirectly making gun line armies less effective. What is important is giving as many armies access to the trait as possible.
I'll agree that right now it's a bit unbalanced because only 4 armies can do this army-wide (Marines, CSM, Eldar and Guard?)
Once more armies has access to the -1 to hit trait, or possible better traits, it won't seem so obvious.
Without this trait, gun line armies would reign supreme and we'd be in yet another edition in which melee armies are shelved.

Don't get me wrong, shooting armies are still better, but by giving those armies -1 to hit, it shifts the balance just enough to allow more melee centered lists to be playable.

-

 Galef wrote:
I'll agree that right now it's a bit unbalanced because only 2 armies can do this army-wide (Eldar and Guard?) and another two can put it on some of their units (SM/CSM).

Fixed for you, my pedantry knows no bounds.

Admech has this trait as well (stygies) which also comes with the infiltration stratagem like the CSM AL And SM RG.

I actually have to pick a forge world to play for some Mechanicus in the future too, as I may move into that army, not sure.

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
It's really just sad we have to go through all this nonsense to play the game we love. I could write a balanced rule set for this game in a day. Literally a day. It's just so obvious to me that they aren't trying.

Hyperbole, seriously, can we avoid it? It colors the entire tenor of the discussion going forward. Maybe you can, maybe you can't, making the statement invites a challenge to it which causes the discussion to digress into other unrelated topics, like your typing speed.

You feel that the -1 to hit outside of 12" trait is unbalanced and poorly implemented. Great. That's a valid discussion point, let's unpack that, not your hypothetical and completely unfounded claim at being able to write amazingly balanced game rules inside of a 24 hour period.

I don't currently have a problem with it, I do feel it's one of the better army traits (but only because the current meta is heavily slanted towards shooting), but I think it only seems overpowered by comparison to other traits that are not as generally applicable. However, against many armies, this ability will have little to no effect.
- Smite spam - who cares that you're -1 to hit at range?
- Assault - again, who cares?
- Immobile Gunline - is specifically the army style this was put in to counter, it's doing it's job, great.
- Fast Attack Gunline - only cares about half the time because they can get inside of 12" and fire their weapons if they want.
- Air Force - also doesn't care because they can negate the range effect.
- Super-Heavies - again, should be getting inside of 12" unless you're playing AM Super-Heavies, in which case, refer to immobile gunline.
- Hordes - again, don't care, will get inside 12".

I mean I can go on, but basically this is only a problem for armies that insist on sitting on their butts at max range.

A more cogent discussion would involve the army traits that don't get used and what could be done to make them more generally effective. For example, Word Bearers get to re-roll morale checks, outside of Cultists, who cares? How is this useful in a CSM army with high LD already?

Don't sell yourself short - I think you could do a better job than GW at writing this complete ruleset in a 24 hour period too.

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:

 Galef wrote:
I'll agree that right now it's a bit unbalanced because only 2 armies can do this army-wide (Eldar and Guard?) and another two can put it on some of their units (SM/CSM).

Fixed for you, my pedantry knows no bounds.

Fair enough, although it is entirely possible to make competitive lists with both SM and CSM in which every unit gets the -1 to hit trait. Ergo, 4 armies exist in which the entire list would be -1 to hit for the opponent.

The only thing I would concede might be too strong is being able to stack -1s. However, I would also argue that being able to do so (and the existence of Dark Reapers) is probably the only thing keeping Eldar "competitive". I haven't see a single Eldar list without Alaitoc Flyers and Dark Reapers placing in any tourney results.

-

Actually Imperial Guard has no -1 to hit rule. Only SM, CSM, Admech and Craftworld have it.

Eh there needs to be some protection against shooting armies. I mean it's off the chain how good shooting and gunlines are in this edition, in general. When the Tau codex drops, and commanders are duking on everyone, that -1 to hit at 12" won't matter, because #deepstrike

 Galef wrote:

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:

 Galef wrote:
I'll agree that right now it's a bit unbalanced because only 2 armies can do this army-wide (Eldar and Guard?) and another two can put it on some of their units (SM/CSM).

Fixed for you, my pedantry knows no bounds.

Fair enough, although it is entirely possible to make competitive lists with both SM and CSM in which every unit gets the -1 to hit trait. Ergo, 4 armies exist in which the entire list would be -1 to hit for the opponent.

-

Yeah - no question about it ether - Space marines and Admech would have this as their go to trait if not for the presence of Cawl an Guilliman/Azreal (who offer more through having amazing auras).

I think it's more a weakness of the D6 system than something specific to toHit rolls. I understand why the original WH40k went with D6s, they the one dice type gamers have sacks of, but it creates this very narrow band in which you can boost stats before they become broken.

Take -1 toHit on a guardsman (BS 4+). Give him a single bonus and he's still fine. Stack another -1 to hit and he's nearly incapable of missing.

Reverse it. Give him +1 to hit and he still gets work done (effect 5+). Stack 2 of them (like an armywide -1 to hit rolls stacked on a flyer's native -1 to hit rolls) and suddenly he can't be relied on to hit anything (effective 6+ )

It gets just as bad on wound rolls. Add +1 or -1 and you are still within a decent band of effectivenss. Do +2 or -2 and a lot of units become either capable of only wounding on 6 or capable of effectively wounding anything they want.

It won't happen in this edition, but either bonuses need to not stack (causing a riot) or they need to move to different dice (causing a riot). This is assuming they haven't just resigned themselves to having the problem, which given how many times they've advertised 2+ BS and 2+ Wound rolls in community articles, might be the case. It's the politically least painful move for them.

 Marmatag wrote:
Eh there needs to be some protection against shooting armies. I mean it's off the chain how good shooting and gunlines are in this edition, in general. When the Tau codex drops, and commanders are duking on everyone, that -1 to hit at 12" won't matter, because #deepstrike

NM - this gonna work great because drones and character targeting

Honestly, the fact that this trait is the "go-to" for armies that have it says more about how "busted" shooting armies are rather than the trait itself.

 Marmatag wrote:
Eh there needs to be some protection against shooting armies. I mean it's off the chain how good shooting and gunlines are in this edition, in general. When the Tau codex drops, and commanders are duking on everyone, that -1 to hit at 12" won't matter, because #deepstrike

It is entirely possible that T'au end up getting an attribute or WL trait that flat out ignores -1 to hit modifiers, meaning armies that choose the -1 to hit trait end up not having a trait at all.

-

I really like the Open War Cards, the Toxic Rain card. On the first turn of the battle, everyone has -1 to hit. It really hurts alpha strike.

I know "But meele alpha strike!" meele alpha strike is extremely easy to play agaisn't just with deployment and totally unreliable.

While I can see it being really annoying in a tournament setting...if the army list is nothing filthy, it's a pretty reasonable trait. It does suck for non-shooty armies or armies with poor ballistic skill.

I do think, as mentioned it is entirely dependent on the type of army you encounter. It does encourage something like a gunline guard army to reconsider taking additional units. I actually like that. It forces some more thought when constructing armies.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Galef wrote:

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:

 Galef wrote:
I'll agree that right now it's a bit unbalanced because only 2 armies can do this army-wide (Eldar and Guard?) and another two can put it on some of their units (SM/CSM).

Fixed for you, my pedantry knows no bounds.

Fair enough, although it is entirely possible to make competitive lists with both SM and CSM in which every unit gets the -1 to hit trait. Ergo, 4 armies exist in which the entire list would be -1 to hit for the opponent.

-

Yeah - no question about it ether - Space marines and Admech would have this as their go to trait if not for the presence of Cawl an Guilliman/Azreal (who offer more through having amazing auras).

I'm actually not sure about that.

My possible Mechanicus force is looking a Lucius, for the neato deepstrike stratagem and the ignoring -1 save guns (mostly for fluff reasons); Mars, and not for Cawl but rather two uses of Canticles of the Omnissiah (imagine if Guard could double their orders for free and cast 2 on the same unit...); Stygies (because frankly -1 to hit outside of 12" is hilariously good)... well really all of them. I have a reason for liking each one. Even Graia I like because of the stratagem to 50/50 deny an enemy psy power. That seems funny.

 Galef wrote:
Honestly, the fact that this trait is the "go-to" for armies that have it says more about how "busted" shooting armies are rather than the trait itself.

 Marmatag wrote:
Eh there needs to be some protection against shooting armies. I mean it's off the chain how good shooting and gunlines are in this edition, in general. When the Tau codex drops, and commanders are duking on everyone, that -1 to hit at 12" won't matter, because #deepstrike

It is entirely possible that T'au end up getting an attribute or WL trait that flat out ignores -1 to hit modifiers, meaning armies that choose the -1 to hit trait end up not having a trait at all.

-

Man I hope they get that - would be great for the meta - also would be great for tau.


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 Galas wrote:
I really like the Open War Cards, the Toxic Rain card. On the first turn of the battle, everyone has -1 to hit. It really hurts alpha strike.

I know "But meele alpha strike!" meele alpha strike is extremely easy to play agaisn't just with deployment and totally unreliable.

Well open war is narrative. So you can just cast defensive buffs everywhere anyways - Imagine an eldar dark reaper gun line with aliatoc trait with that card - plus conceal on everything. Literally invunerable to shooting and hits everything on 3+ reroll ones . forgive me my mind just automatically goes to the most broken stuff - I actually played a narrative game this weekend and it was a blast for my greyknights.

 Xenomancers wrote:
I don't think deep striking commanders is even going to be viable with forewarned - plus they wont be getting within 12 of anything that opponents don't want them to be.

I'm not sure that the presence of a single stratagem costing 2CP invalidates an entire mechanic, again, it depends on what's deep striking and a number of other factors, it is by no means a binary result.

By that logic Dark Reapers invalidate Flyers entirely, which I hardly think is the case.

At a guess, they figured if you care about the attack you'll have re-roll to hits, and since the IoM and Chaos get those like it was half off on a fire sale they are probably right. Also they figured that people would do math and see abilities like disgustingly resilient are way better, silly GW on that one though.

A BS 3+ (and let's face it almost all of the game is 3+) unit shooting generally has a 66% chance to hit, but is reduced to 50%. With reroll misses, it drops from 88% to 75%. That's about a 15% reduction in damage taken. Compare it to a 5+ FnP (a straight 33% reduction in damage taken) and you can see it's pretty weaksauce. Even at a 4+, it's 50% to 37% (26% reduction in incoming damage) without rerolls and 75% to 56% (25% reduction in incoming damage), neither of which achieve the levels of defense provided by disgustingly resilient.

I doubt you'll find many people on these board arguing that disgustingly resilient is OP, so it doesn't make much sense to argue an ability that is mathematically inferior, and can be bypassed by positioning is OP ethier.

The problem is one of psychology, you will miss more shots due to the -1 to hit than people will make DR rolls. The monkey brain thinks more is more powerful, despite the fact that missed shots would still have to roll to wound and have to fail an armor save. So it seems more efficacious in the minds of players, despite being inferior mathematically.

So heres what am picking up from the responses. -1 to hit everywhere is good for the game because it helps assault armies?

Does it really though? Are gun line armies going to build less like gunlines because of the existence of -1 to hit? Does it help melle armies survive if they use it themselves? Nah I don't think so. Melle armies work best when they hit turn 1 and don't benift from the -1 to hit at all practically. Melles issues are obvious. Guns are better than swords - it's just the way things are.


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 TwinPoleTheory wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
I don't think deep striking commanders is even going to be viable with forewarned - plus they wont be getting within 12 of anything that opponents don't want them to be.

I'm not sure that the presence of a single stratagem costing 2CP invalidates an entire mechanic, again, it depends on what's deep striking and a number of other factors, it is by no means a binary result.

By that logic Dark Reapers invalidate Flyers entirely, which I hardly think is the case.

Well actually i think I done goofed on this. A commander is going to have drones with him and you wont be able to target the commander.