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I am fully persuaded that the proliferation of -1 hit is/will be a major issue in regard to game balance. It's a huge thing in a d6-based game, and it has been implemented very poorly.
This rule alone is quickly forcing the game to focus almost exclusively on short-range engagements, which is not bad per se, but certainly it severely limits gameplay and is a pain for a good part of shooty armies.

The -1 hit should have been kept as an ultra-rare bonus, and certainly neither army wide nor stackable. Currently we've hit the bottom with the recent nonsense of C:Craftworlds - it does not help that out of 5 CW, 3 are poor/situational, 1 is half-ok, and the last is...Alaitoc. But even when it's just a plain -1 it's very concerning, as it screws BS 4+ armies, still hits hard all the rest, and severely limits tactical choices.

Now in a theoretical tournament/event environment things *should* be balanced by the fact that the -1 hit bonus is useless against some close-combat armies. But in fact it is still useful 90% of the time, because pure close-combat is rare. Above all - and this is a paradox really - this rule badly screws 1v1 casual play, because *anybody* who has access to -1 hit will take it whenever he knows he'll face a shooty army. And yes, while even factions like AM or Tau in theory can focus on close-combat and short-range builds, but that's far from common and most players out there have an 'average' collection which reflects the style of their army. And now a huge part of those armies is effectively being cut out of the game.

I play AdMech and I am extremely pissed off by a codex that only offers 2 viable FW options, and 1 (Mars) would not even be so if it wasn't for Cawl (who should have been *nerfed* by CA, not improved). Taking Stygies is a no-brainer 90% of my games, and it's sad. I also have some AM, but all my long-range units are quickly disappearing from the field as in many cases they are just worthless.

I think GW did a huge mistake here. And it's already too late to fix it now.

 feral_80 wrote:
I am fully persuaded that the proliferation of -1 hit is/will be a major issue in regard to game balance. It's a huge thing in a d6-based game, and it has been implemented very poorly.
This rule alone is quickly forcing the game to focus almost exclusively on short-range engagements, which is not bad per se, but certainly it severely limits gameplay and is a pain for a good part of shooty armies.

The -1 hit should have been kept as an ultra-rare bonus, and certainly neither army wide nor stackable. Currently we've hit the bottom with the recent nonsense of C:Craftworlds - it does not help that out of 5 CW, 3 are poor/situational, 1 is half-ok, and the last is...Alaitoc. But even when it's just a plain -1 it's very concerning, as it screws BS 4+ armies, still hits hard all the rest, and severely limits tactical choices.

Now in a theoretical tournament/event environment things *should* be balanced by the fact that the -1 hit bonus is useless against some close-combat armies. But in fact it is still useful 90% of the time, because pure close-combat is rare. Above all - and this is a paradox really - this rule badly screws 1v1 casual play, because *anybody* who has access to -1 hit will take it whenever he knows he'll face a shooty army. And yes, while even factions like AM or Tau in theory can focus on close-combat and short-range builds, but that's far from common and most players out there have an 'average' collection which reflects the style of their army. And now a huge part of those armies is effectively being cut out of the game.

I play AdMech and I am extremely pissed off by a codex that only offers 2 viable FW options, and 1 (Mars) would not even be so if it wasn't for Cawl (who should have been *nerfed* by CA, not improved). Taking Stygies is a no-brainer 90% of my games, and it's sad. I also have some AM, but all my long-range units are quickly disappearing from the field as in many cases they are just worthless.

I think GW did a huge mistake here. And it's already too late to fix it now.

I disagree with the notion that -1 to hit is a bad thing. Stacking is bad, but if -1 to hit forces armies to include some close range/close combat units rather than playing gunline I think that is a good thing. Based on the new missions it is clear GW wants armies to engage with each other at close range. I do agree that it is often the best choice for a faction, which is really the problem (other than Ultra marines and Mars because special characters).

As for casual play, if people are "trait tailoring" I would argue that what you are playing is anything but casual. As for AM or Tau, those armies can bring elements that are close range while still having longer range units. I think that for the Marine factions (CSM, Marines) who don't have it army wide you will have targets. So admech and Aeldari are the only factions with army wide -1 (AM doesn't have it, nor do nids, though they can take an HQ to get bubbles of -1). Dark Angels and BA don't have the trait (DA if nothing changes can take a unit that gives the buff). So if as more books come out they don't all get -1 to hit, it will create an environment where not having options is a bad thing, which will be good for the game.

Trait tailoring vs casual game is a no argument. Trait tailoring is only normal when planning your list - what's the point in agreeing on a game with a friend and not taking into consideration what you are probably facing? Hell, it's actually part of the fun when you design a list (which, NB, still has to be balanced and can perfectly be friendly; it's just good to have a concept in mind when you design it).

Forcing armies to take close-combat and close-range units, and generally focusing on mobility, is certainly a good thing. Making half of the models in an average collection pretty much useless is not, however. If I'm making a good part of your army useless because you cannot mathematically hit me, it simply means GW is not adopting the correct way of addressing an issue.

Daedalus81 wrote:

macexor wrote:
Unless I'm counting something wrong or don't see all the options, it's as follows;

1) 10 man Assault Squad costs 160pts and gets 21 attacks
2) 10 man Vanguard Veteran Squad costs 180pts and gets 41 attacks

It's not really a "preference" choice. Unless you're in a dire need of a Fast Attack slot, the Veterans are just better. Since their Sergeant has 1 more attack, he's also a much better platform for some special weapons. And there's that +1 Ld thing. All that just for 20pts.

Huh? Is that just a math mistake on the VV? How are you getting 4 attacks each?

2 base +1 chainsword = 30 +1 for champ = 31

VV are Elite
Assault are FA

10 VV with CS = 160 or 5.2 points per attack.
10 AM are 130 or 6.2 points per attack.

I feel l ike you'd be wasting VV on chainswords though.

VV can take 2 chainswords, so each one gets 4 attacks. I see no point in taking either of them without jump packs. VV jump packs cost 2 points each, AM 3 points each. Don't really know why theirs is more expensive.

So for VV it's 4.4 points/attacks and for AM 7.6 points/attack.

 Arachnofiend wrote:
You're missing the mission rules, which give another -1 to hit if you're outside of 18". So -3 to hit on the hemlocks and the concealed dark reapers.

That makes sense.
So basically, you were fighting one of the best Craftworlds list, on a mission that will never be played in any tournament, with what exactly?

I would expect that you were playing a gunline and that's what made you consider this "outside of 18" ", which seems rather unlikely for a Hemlock - even 12" is impossible in most cases unless you obliterate what you target.

In other words, against an anti-gunline army, on an anti-gunline mission, your gunline was handed its ass. Makes sense to me.

Unlike 6th and 7th ed Craftworlds, this Alaitoc fad seems a lot more like a nemesis than a combo.

Slayer,
If you want to argue VV/ASM and the definitions of worthless and corner case, we should start a dedicated thread. We're really pushing others off topic, and most people seem to agree already.

For the OT, yeah, stacking -3 is brutal. I hope you weren't Tau? Not that SM would fare reasonably there.

 feral_80 wrote:
Trait tailoring vs casual game is a no argument. Trait tailoring is only normal when planning your list - what's the point in agreeing on a game with a friend and not taking into consideration what you are probably facing? Hell, it's actually part of the fun when you design a list (which, NB, still has to be balanced and can perfectly be friendly; it's just good to have a concept in mind when you design it).

Forcing armies to take close-combat and close-range units, and generally focusing on mobility, is certainly a good thing. Making half of the models in an average collection pretty much useless is not, however. If I'm making a good part of your army useless because you cannot mathematically hit me, it simply means GW is not adopting the correct way of addressing an issue.

You assume you are allowed to know your opponent's faction ahead of time. Bad assumption.

 feral_80 wrote:
Trait tailoring vs casual game is a no argument. Trait tailoring is only normal when planning your list - what's the point in agreeing on a game with a friend and not taking into consideration what you are probably facing? Hell, it's actually part of the fun when you design a list (which, NB, still has to be balanced and can perfectly be friendly; it's just good to have a concept in mind when you design it).

Forcing armies to take close-combat and close-range units, and generally focusing on mobility, is certainly a good thing. Making half of the models in an average collection pretty much useless is not, however. If I'm making a good part of your army useless because you cannot mathematically hit me, it simply means GW is not adopting the correct way of addressing an issue.

Because I have my Salamanders/Imperial Fists/World Eaters/etc Painted up and themed as that chapter and always use them with the corresponding trait instead of choosing the one most likely to give me a leg up on my opponent? -1 to hit in no way makes half the models in an average collection useless. That is an over statement of how good it is. You only see it that way because you trait tailor, so everyone you play against knowing you play gunline takes -1 to hit. If instead you played people with varied traits sometimes your units that are not great against -1 to hit would be great against other factions. Part of the fun when you design a list/pick a faction is choosing something that you think makes an effective list in all circumstances, not in choosing the hard counter to your expected opponent. List/Trait tailoring makes for poor games overall, and results in people taking unbalanced armies.

Again the issue is stacking, without stacking there is no occasion where units cannot hit you mathematically. Without -1 to hit, Artillery are super powerful with no real bad match-up in the game. If you want to give up range and make shooting out of LOS targets always -1 to hit regardless of opposing army we can talk about -1 to hit army traits being horrible for the game.

Bharring wrote:
Slayer,
If you want to argue VV/ASM and the definitions of worthless and corner case, we should start a dedicated thread. We're really pushing others off topic, and most people seem to agree already.

For the OT, yeah, stacking -3 is brutal. I hope you weren't Tau? Not that SM would fare reasonably there.

Want me to make it or yourself?

You seem much more invested in that discussion. I'm fairly content in my impression that there's consensus that there are corner cases, but usually VV are better than ASM

I'm just trying to declutter this thread, as "Are the -1-to-hit outside 12 inches traits OP" is a very interesting topic, and I'm hoping to see more posts to further refine my understanding.

morgoth wrote:

 Arachnofiend wrote:
So fun story: yesterday I rolled the night fighting maelstrom mission against an Alaitoc army. Dealing with -3 to hit on all of his most important units, you can imagine how that one turned out.

Penalties to hit should not stack, ever.

There must be a misunderstanding here.

You can get -1 outside of 12" for being Alaitoc, no problem.
You can get -1 for being a Flyer or a Shadow Specter or an advancing bike, that makes sense. -2 for an Alaitoc Flyer outside of 12" still seems ok.
You can get -1 for being in Conceal, which also makes sense, so -2 outside of 12" for any Alaitoc unit, or -3 outside of 12" for an Alaitoc Flyer within 3" of a Warlock or Spiritseer.

So he likely had that one blob within Conceal range that would be hit on -2 outside of 12" and -1 inside of 12", totally vulnerable to assault and dependent on not failing to cast and not being denied one single power that can't be cast twice.

Make that Maelstrom and suddenly, that one "hard to kill" blob really doesn't make much difference since it can't hold that many objectives.

At least that's how I read those rules.

I'm not saying it's not really good, but I don't think it's a no contest and I don't believe there's such a thing as "-3 to hit on all of his most important units"

Conceal affects a single unit.

Spoletta wrote:


Conceal affects a single unit.

Thanks, that was my impression but I was in too much of a hurry when I checked the Index.

All the more reason why Arachnofiend described an impossible situation I guess.

Because I have my Salamanders/Imperial Fists/World Eaters/etc Painted up and themed as that chapter and always use them with the corresponding trait instead of choosing the one most likely to give me a leg up on my opponent? -1 to hit in no way makes half the models in an average collection useless. That is an over statement of how good it is. You only see it that way because you trait tailor, so everyone you play against knowing you play gunline takes -1 to hit. If instead you played people with varied traits sometimes your units that are not great against -1 to hit would be great against other factions. Part of the fun when you design a list/pick a faction is choosing something that you think makes an effective list in all circumstances, not in choosing the hard counter to your expected opponent. List/Trait tailoring makes for poor games overall, and results in people taking unbalanced armies.

Again the issue is stacking, without stacking there is no occasion where units cannot hit you mathematically. Without -1 to hit, Artillery are super powerful with no real bad match-up in the game. If you want to give up range and make shooting out of LOS targets always -1 to hit regardless of opposing army we can talk about -1 to hit army traits being horrible for the game.

So are we playing the same game anyway? Because where I play, it'a pretty NORMAL to agree on a casual match with a friend, and obviously since I know the guy since years I know his army and know what to expext. And vice versa. And in that case, list-tailoring is only normal, although you obviously try to surprise your opponent with something unexpected. And that indeed IS part of the fun. If you only play against random opponents in a super-competitive tournament-like environment then I am really sorry for you, but that is not the only way, and not nearly the most funny either. So stop considering the kind of game I refer to as something exceptional.

The point about being mathematically unable to hit was a *slight* overstatement. Since stacking is becoming more and more common, it is not that of an overstatement anyway. If you have an army that on average hits at 4+, it quickly becomes close to reality: even against a simple -1 hit a degraded vehicle or a moving heavy weapon start to hit on 6+, and yes, that *is* mathematically screwed. And even at 5+, when 25% to 50% of an average shooty army struggles to land hits, they *are* mathematically screwed, like it or not. And God forbid you were playing Orks and fielded some lootas or similar.

And I say this from the perspective of one who hates static gameplay and gunlines. Even when I (rarely) play AM, I always focus on mobility as I hate sitting and throwing dice. Yet, I consider it very unfair that some people have bought and painted long-range units, and now suddenly the meta has made those units unworthy in most cases. -1 hit IS both limiting the game and ruininig the fun because effectively it dictates tactical options and provides a mathematical advantage that has little to do with skills.

Long range shooting is the most dominant thing in the game right now, hardly sidelined.

 feral_80 wrote:

Because I have my Salamanders/Imperial Fists/World Eaters/etc Painted up and themed as that chapter and always use them with the corresponding trait instead of choosing the one most likely to give me a leg up on my opponent? -1 to hit in no way makes half the models in an average collection useless. That is an over statement of how good it is. You only see it that way because you trait tailor, so everyone you play against knowing you play gunline takes -1 to hit. If instead you played people with varied traits sometimes your units that are not great against -1 to hit would be great against other factions. Part of the fun when you design a list/pick a faction is choosing something that you think makes an effective list in all circumstances, not in choosing the hard counter to your expected opponent. List/Trait tailoring makes for poor games overall, and results in people taking unbalanced armies.

Again the issue is stacking, without stacking there is no occasion where units cannot hit you mathematically. Without -1 to hit, Artillery are super powerful with no real bad match-up in the game. If you want to give up range and make shooting out of LOS targets always -1 to hit regardless of opposing army we can talk about -1 to hit army traits being horrible for the game.

So are we playing the same game anyway? Because where I play, it'a pretty NORMAL to agree on a casual match with a friend, and obviously since I know the guy since years I know his army and know what to expext. And vice versa. And in that case, list-tailoring is only normal, although you obviously try to surprise your opponent with something unexpected. And that indeed IS part of the fun. If you only play against random opponents in a super-competitive tournament-like environment then I am really sorry for you, but that is not the only way, and not nearly the most funny either. So stop considering the kind of game I refer to as something exceptional.

The point about being mathematically unable to hit was a *slight* overstatement. Since stacking is becoming more and more common, it is not that of an overstatement anyway. If you have an army that on average hits at 4+, it quickly becomes close to reality: even against a simple -1 hit a degraded vehicle or a moving heavy weapon start to hit on 6+, and yes, that *is* mathematically screwed. And even at 5+, when 25% to 50% of an average shooty army struggles to land hits, they *are* mathematically screwed, like it or not. And God forbid you were playing Orks and fielded some lootas or similar.

And I say this from the perspective of one who hates static gameplay and gunlines. Even when I (rarely) play AM, I always focus on mobility as I hate sitting and throwing dice. Yet, I consider it very unfair that some people have bought and painted long-range units, and now suddenly the meta has made those units unworthy in most cases. -1 hit IS both limiting the game and ruininig the fun because effectively it dictates tactical options and provides a mathematical advantage that has little to do with skills.

I could say the same about all the effects in the game that halve the movement of a unit, or reduce assault distance. Why isn't there a 13 page thread about this?
-1 to hit traits are fine and intended to offer protection from long range shooting. Play against something that wants to smash your face and you'll have no trait. Play Ultramarines against a shooting list and you'll have no trait.
I really don't see the issue with these kind of traits. they are intended to improve the meta by making sure that if a kind of build becomes too common, then the players can react by taking a more fitting trait.
Right now long range shooting is dominant, so the -1 to hit traits get picked more. Working as intended.
Yes, an Aeldari list tailored against shooting will have a -2 on some units, or even a -3. This means that if you build your list around the concept of long range shooting you need to include some support for situations like these.
If you want to tailor against your friend list, then that is fine as long as he knows this and you play a fitting scenario. It's not a mistery that in this game you can efficenctly tailor your list against a known list, the -1 trait isn't even the worst offender in this.

Yeah, the game is terribly affected by effects that halve the movement of units army-wide. I'm so surprised there is no 13-page thread about this.
Your concept of 'relevant comparison' is far beyond my understanding. I won't repeat myself about the rest.

 feral_80 wrote:
Yeah, the game is terribly affected by effects that halve the movement of units army-wide. I'm so surprised there is no 13-page thread about this.
Your concept of 'relevant comparison' is far beyond my understanding. I won't repeat myself about the rest.

You took the bait perfectly, thanks

Yeah, nice try I'm overwhelmed by the weight of your adamantine arguments.

 feral_80 wrote:
Yeah, nice try I'm overwhelmed by the weight of your adamantine arguments.

Ok, i'll try to explain where my argument is.

In this game melee and shooting have the same weight by design, that is something that is universally understood. Depending on the edition the meta skews this balance in one direction or the other, but the weight they carry in the game is always shared 50/50. Easy proof of this is that there are around the same number of melee specialists (or short ranged specialsts) and ranged specialists models in the game.
I presented you an equivalent case to the one you presented, where some widely available stratagems/powers/rules can make some melee units useless, and asked why you didn't think that those were a problem. Your answer was perfect "Your concept of 'relevant comparison' is far beyond my understanding", meaning that for you something that threatens shooting is on a completely different level than something that threatens melee, which makes it obvious that your reading of the game is skewed by the actual (and quickly transient) state of the meta.
-1 to hit traits are bad for the game only in the light of the actual meta, because they hit a greater number of units than intended, while math wise they are balanced. Here is a simple mathematical demonstration that they are balanced with other traits:

Against 4+ a -1 causes a reduction in firepower of 2/6. If we assume that a list has a 50% of lists invested in units that shoot above 12" range (which is the intended ratio), then this means that your lists suffered a -1/6 in output.
The tipical trait that ignores wounds on 6+, does more than that (because it effects Mortal wounds).

So to sum it up, the trait is correctly balanced with other traits, but is made unbalanced by the current meta.
Suggesting changes to a rule to offest something that is caused by meta is bad game design.

We should instead discuss changes that move the game more towards it's intended balance of 50/50.

Your argument does not stand for the simple reason that - I repeat that part - your comparison is not reasonable.

The reason is not that I 'do not care' or I am not sensible to the needs of a close-combat army. There is currently absolutely *no* way to severely impact charge ranges or move distances *army-wide*. There is the occasional weapon, stratagem, or spell, that can do so to one single unit at a time. If any faction had the ability to do so on an army-wide scale, affecting all enemy units, just like the -1 hit does in the case of SM, CSM, CWE, AdMech, (Tyranids) sub-factions, I'd certainly be just as concerned - also because I *do* often play assault armies.

But the fact is, this is not the status of the game at the moment, simply put. So, your comparison is irrelevant. The current tendency is to severely limit long-range firepower army-wide, that's the only fact.

The fact is that long range firepower is currently dominating. If you were correct that wouldn't be true.

Is it? It was. I am not so sure at the moment - it might be a bit too early to state that.
And in any case, why give only certain armies a brutal advantage over long-range? If long-range was an overall problem, then it would be only fair to give all armies a way to mitigate it. Grey Knights are people too - and even the dreaded AM, after all. Not sure why some armies with excellent firepower (Marines, CSM and esp. the latest Tyranids and Eldar) can screw enemy fire, but others that also are good at shooting cannot.

 feral_80 wrote:
I am fully persuaded that the proliferation of -1 hit is/will be a major issue in regard to game balance. It's a huge thing in a d6-based game, and it has been implemented very poorly.
This rule alone is quickly forcing the game to focus almost exclusively on short-range engagements, which is not bad per se, but certainly it severely limits gameplay and is a pain for a good part of shooty armies.

The -1 hit should have been kept as an ultra-rare bonus, and certainly neither army wide nor stackable. Currently we've hit the bottom with the recent nonsense of C:Craftworlds - it does not help that out of 5 CW, 3 are poor/situational, 1 is half-ok, and the last is...Alaitoc. But even when it's just a plain -1 it's very concerning, as it screws BS 4+ armies, still hits hard all the rest, and severely limits tactical choices.

Ah how ironic this is when <8th ed people were clamouring for return of to hit modifiers

I think that depended on the very wrong and extremely confused belief that 2nd edition was anywhere near balanced and/or funny

 feral_80 wrote:
I think that depended on the very wrong and extremely confused belief that 2nd edition was anywhere near balanced and/or funny

Well it was more balanced and better than 7th ed for sure.

I rather like the to hit penalties, to be honest, gives armies a fighting chance against AM. Stacked to hit penalties tilt things, but are much harder to achieve and are not army wide. Tyrandis can get a -3 to hit on one unit and -2 to hit on... some rather poor quality choices.

Eldar can put -2 to hit on their planes and on another selected unit a turn via Conceal. They can situationally get a -3 on 1 unit at a time, sometimes.

Marine and CSM are mostly just -1, though they might have something to get a -2 somewhere, not armies I really play.

Majority of units are -1 in both cases and there are ways to work around it (kill the thing granting the -1 for Nids or get close for Eldar).

Why should some armies not to have access to this? Same reason some armies don't get access to reroll auras and some armies don't get access to multishot LoS ignoring guns and some armies don't get a way to regain command points. Armies are different with different strengths and weaknesses.

Grey Knights being weak hardly means that -1 to hit is a massive problem, it just means grey knights are weak as a mono build army. Although there have been high placing lists with solid grey knights components in tournaments (souped with guard).

My primary army for about 20 years has been Dark Eldar, they don't have a codex and have massive issues, they are weaker than Grey Knights, but I don't think everything should be dragged down to that level or that we should be given everyone else's special rules (even though most of what used to make us unique are now generic to everyone).

I am not saying that all armies should have the same abilities. What I am saying is that if somebody argues that long-rage shooting is a game-wide issue, than *all* armies should be given ways to mitigate it. Not only a few.

Otherwise, you only end up creating more imbalance, not reducing it.

And by the way, just to clarify, some (surprisingly eh?) rather popular Eldar Alaitoc builds regularly get -2 hit on a lot of units that they tend to spam, not just on flyers: planes, Spiders, Rangers, advancing Wave serpents, (nerfed) Spectres. This can amount to pretty much half of their stuff on the field. Units that <fly> can situationally get to -3 (stratagem) or -4 (add Conceal), or two different units can get -3 this way. Totally not abusive.

Whether or not -1 to hit is game breakingly good, it certainly is the best trait available. This is poor internal balance. In absence of faction tied special characters such as Cawl and Guilliman, the -1 to hit trait just surpasses all other traits. Either it should be nerfed, or the other traits should be made better.

I absolutely agree. As said, as an AdMech player I'm pissed of by the internal balance of my codex. I'd rather give away both Cawl and Stygies' trait in exchange for 5 balanced and viable FWs. It would be good if most players of other factions in similar conditions felt the same, but I have the impression that abusing the best thing around is just the most common attitude.