Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

WindstormSCR wrote:
I wouldn't be sad to see mortal wounds changed into "you still get your invuln save" since the mechanics that made obscene invulnerables a thing are now dead and gone.

I would. You already get Feel No Pain style saves. Storm Shields, Iron Halos, and Rosarious, would make Mortal Wounds irrelevant, to the very armies they are needed against.

 adamsouza wrote:

WindstormSCR wrote:
I wouldn't be sad to see mortal wounds changed into "you still get your invuln save" since the mechanics that made obscene invulnerables a thing are now dead and gone.

I would. You already get Feel No Pain style saves. Storm Shields, Iron Halos, and Rosarious, would make Mortal Wounds irrelevant, to the very armies they are needed against.

the problem is all of those units cost a huge number of points, have comparatively few wounds per model, and so any mortal wounds present a massive counter to them, to the degree that since the start of 8th in a very active community I have watched the slow disappearance of these types of models

It's an adjustment to the meta. Mortal wounds are paper to the rock that was mostly unkillable units.

 adamsouza wrote:
I would. You already get Feel No Pain style saves. Storm Shields, Iron Halos, and Rosarious, would make Mortal Wounds irrelevant, to the very armies they are needed against.

...and the best those things together are going to give you is a 3++/6+++ with no rerolls on a 5W T4 model. In an era of multi-damage weapons where characters can be targeted directly in combat and can’t tank for their squads.

You’re afraid of a 7th Ed boogeyman. GW took that particular boogeyman out behind the garden shed and put a .50 cal billet in the back of its head, and good riddance. It’s time for us all to grow up and move on. We don’t need the Mortal Wound nightlight to protect us from the 2++/3+++ rerollable monster under the bed anymore.

 auticus wrote:
You don't have to remove inv saves. Inv saves have been in the game for literally decades. Mortal wounds are a couple of years old starting with AOS and months old in 40k. The game functioned fine without mortal wounds all this time.

Invulnerable saves are broken by design and always were, especially in ther imperial and chaotic incarnations (4+ invul for Eldar never did much).

Captain Smash fether anyone?
Draigo tanking for everybody?
Rerollable 2++ ?

All those stem from the fact that an invul save is absolute.
Even FnP, which are a major design problem, had counters - I don't think they have anymore so they're just like invul saves now.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

kombatwombat wrote:
Punishing people who play Custodes or Storm Shield Terminators in 8th because of the problems of 7th is the act of a petulant child. Don’t bring 7th ed’s baggage into 8th.

Wow. poor GW rules team.
They must be so sad that you called them a petulant child.

 adamsouza wrote:
It's an adjustment to the meta. Mortal wounds are paper to the rock that was mostly unkillable units.

Problem is there is no rock in 8th paper is needed. It just makes already bad elite units even worse. There's NO NEED for mortal wounds. It's hordes that needs toughness nerf rather than elite.

Or at least if mortal wounds remain there needs to be true anti-horde weapons available which currently are totally lacking.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

morgoth wrote:
Captain Smashfucker anyone?
Draigo tanking for everybody?
Rerollable 2++ ?

Now remind me how you make those in 8th ed?

We ARE talking about 8th ed since it's about mortal wounds which is 8th ed only thing right? You aren't by any chance trying to use 7th ed units which don't exists any more to justify 8th ed rules are you?

 adamsouza wrote:
It's an adjustment to the meta. Mortal wounds are paper to the rock that was mostly unkillable units.

Very true.

Unfortunately, that does little for the people who want to play Mr. Unkillable and his deathstar friends.

I think that overall, the game is in a much better state with regards to rock/paper/scissors mechanics, even if that means that "hero armies" just aren't that great.

I personally don't play them, always found them very frustrating to play against, even if you win, and for some reason, those Marine players often managed to save 2 or 3 times more 3++ or 2+ than they should mathematically have by rolling them one by one.
That made for a very annoying game tbh.

I have the impression that FnP was the biggest problem of 7th ed, and might be one of the top contenders for 8th ed too.
It often ends up as a complementary invul, which is one invul too many on those who already have one.

morgoth wrote:
Unfortunately, that does little for the people who want to play Mr. Unkillable and his deathstar friends.

Which people conveniently forget don't exists. Unless you count hordes seeing there's no real paper to rock that is cheap wounds. THOSE are the ones hard to kill for their points.

Name tough character, he's easier to take down point to point than chaos cultist.

"Unkillable models". Mortarion? Magnus? HAH! What is?

morgoth wrote:

Captain Smash fether anyone?
Draigo tanking for everybody?
Rerollable 2++ ?

*Simpsons hippie voice* Sounds like, somebody’s livin’ in the past. Contemporiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiize, man!

Seriously though, Mortal Wounds are an 8th Edition answer to a 7th Edition problem. If either unkillable units or Mortal Wounds are going to exist; they have to exist in the same edition to balance each other. Unfortunately, Mortal Wounds didn’t exist when they were needed (7th), and do exist when they’re not (8th), so both editions suffer.

Even FnP, which are a major design problem, had counters - I don't think they have anymore so they're just like invul saves now.

Totally agree with you here. The double-Strength ignoring FNP was helpful.

Wow. poor GW rules team.
They must be so sad that you called them a petulant child.

Given that I’m something of a GW apologist, that wasn’t directed at the GW team...

tneva82 wrote:

morgoth wrote:
Unfortunately, that does little for the people who want to play Mr. Unkillable and his deathstar friends.

Which people conveniently forget don't exists. Unless you count hordes seeing there's no real paper to rock that is cheap wounds. THOSE are the ones hard to kill for their points.

Name tough character, he's easier to take down point to point than chaos cultist.

"Unkillable models". Mortarion? Magnus? HAH! What is?

Essentially your argument is that since there's a horde problem, there's no reason to address the potential elite problem.

Makes a ton of sense to me.

I think it’s just about empirically proven that 8th does not have an elite problem. It has the opposite - it’s struggletown out there for elites this edition.

kombatwombat wrote:
I think it’s just about empirically proven that 8th does not have an elite problem. It has the opposite - it’s struggletown out there for elites this edition.

What I'm hinting at is that 8th edition has no problem with elites because they made the smart design decision to make invulns and FnP balanced instead of overpowered.

Apparently, they did not expect hordes to be a problem and thus did not include a solution to them in the game.

After all, that's a honest mistake for a game that hasn't had a horde problem in ... how long exactly?

Not really.
Multiple LOW lists are a thing, and "small elites" like terminators are better than ever.
It's just that hordes are actually a thing now so you can't see it.

A slight improvement in horde slaying capacity (improving the guns that shoot more against large units and adding more such guns for example, more ways to hammer LD attacks for another) would quickly shift things towards elites, as there are some VERY good elites out there.

This is obviously purely anecdotal and I'm still a touch salty, but my local GW is still reeling from a GK army.

In the lead-up to xmas we've all signed up for a league, and our choices are already locked-in, so there's no chance to change. I've got a decent Sisters list - St.Smashastine and seraphim, plus exorcists and a few other bits here and there - did fairly well against a nasty EC list in the first game.

Unfortunately, we're on the verge of having the whole league collapse because of a GK army which seems to be unstoppable. I don't know their codex well enough to say exactly what they've got, but there's the Stormraven with 48 bolter shots a turn, and a whole boatload of teleporting grey knights with flamer-type weapons. Even with the Sisters' D6 Deny the Witch, there's nothing I can do against the sheer weight of mortal wounds - assuming every unit deep strikes in, as it usually does, there's about 5D3-6 mortal wounds coming in straight away, plus the monstrous shooting phase and the Grey Knight's famous stabbing.

I played them last night (and I'm still a bit miffed!) and I've never felt quite so much like a spectator in a game of 40k - half the force was gone by the end of GK turn two, Celestine had died once, and by the end of turn three all my anti-vehicle equipment, including a dread, the exorcist, and a retributor squad was toast.

I know 40k has never been a game about perfect balance, but absent of taking Sisters of Silence or Culexuses (Culexi?) there's nothing i can see to deal with this force, and there's certainly no chance anyone is going to have a chance at unseating the GK in the league, which rather makes the whole thing a bit pointless. I obviously like playing the game, but if I'd known the league was a foregone conclusion I wouldn't have gone to the bother of signing up.

tl;dr debuff smites pls

The only issue I have with smite is that Elite armies already suffer enough due to Malestrom and the new to wound charts that Smite only punishes them further.

Check his list and if he plays tight.

AFAIK, most GK only do 1 mortal wound per smite. Unless you are a daemon.

Also, flamer weapon has 8 inch range, you teleport to 9 away, no way he hits these flamer on the drop.

Given that GK are currently perhaps the weakest of the actual codcies, gk of all being unstoppable seems off.
I often find these anecdotal reports of things being op directly caused by people playing wrong, at time VERY wrong.

jbeil wrote:.Unfortunately, we're on the verge of having the whole league collapse because of a GK army which seems to be unstoppable. I don't know their codex well enough to say exactly what they've got, but there's the Stormraven with 48 bolter shots a turn, and a whole boatload of teleporting grey knights with flamer-type weapons. Even with the Sisters' D6 Deny the Witch, there's nothing I can do against the sheer weight of mortal wounds - assuming every unit deep strikes in, as it usually does, there's about 5D3-6 mortal wounds coming in straight away, plus the monstrous shooting phase and the Grey Knight's famous stabbing.

It sounds like your dreaded opponent might be cheating a bit. Almost nothing in the GK army can do a full D3-D6 Mortal Wound Smite; they have a depowered version of Smite that only does 1 MW. Flamer-type weapons aside from the one carried by the Dreadknight have an 8” range, so if they Deep Strike they should never be able to shoot you with them the turn they arrive.

AaronWilson wrote:The only issue I have with smite is that Elite armies already suffer enough due to Malestrom and the new to wound charts that Smite only punishes them further.

...and the new AP system, and the new Morale system, and multi-damage weaponry, and templates being able to hit small numbers of models multiple times... yeah, it’s not a great environment for elites at the moment.

I also wonder about his 48 shot raven. Assuming he has it maximized for dakka he gets 12 shots from his twin assault cannons, 24 shots from his hurricane bolters, if within 12", and 6 shots from his twin heavy bolters (12 S6 AP -1 D1 + 24 S4 AP0 D1 +6 S5 AP-1 D1). It also costs a decent chunk of points, 313.
It sounds like he made have made a few mistakes- he still has to place half of his units on the board and can't put everything into deep strike mode.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Tyel wrote:
Smite is fine, cheap psykers are not.

Smite should not be available at a points cost where you can smite Ork Boys, expect to kill only 10 points worth a cast, and consider that a perfectly reasonable return on your points.

I think naked mind-bullet Smiters should be a minimum of 70 points. I'd prefer if most psykers could cast 2 powers, had a reasonable amount of gear and stats so they could operate in other phases of the game, but cost 120+ points. If you want to spam that then you are going to have a very small army with it.

What statline do you mean by naked? Do you mean WS4+ BS4+ S 3 T3 etc etc. like a trained guardsmen? Or WS5+ BS5+ S3 T3 etc etc. like an untrained human? Or T4 Str4 like a Librarian? How many wounds? 4 like a Primaris Psyker or 6 like a Primaris Librarian?

Because if you think paying 70 points is worth it on making a naked Guardsman be able to cast smite (and have like, 2 or 3 more wounds), then you're bonkers.

The thread has moved on a bit - but why?

Casting smite on naked marines gets you about 21 points worth of damage. On a 70 point model that is a 30% return. This is fine.
And it just gets better if those marines are blinged out in any way. Or I am targeting something other than a rhino with a higher points/wound ratio.

At 46 points I am getting a 45% return on naked marines. This is top tier worthy. And again - it gets even better against many options.

At 46 points I can smite 6 point Ork Boys - which should be terrible - and still get a 21.7% return. Not amazing - but still better than most "suboptimal" situations.

 Insectum7 wrote:
Nahh, I disagree. I like that Mortal Wounds are in the game to help out against inv. saves. Having buffed out, nigh unkillable models is bad for the game, imo. Mortal Wounds are a great equalizer in that regard.

Except that there are units which have abilities who also work against smite, and others dont. Some even get those for free, others cant get them at all. Like disgustingly resilient, or catalyst. Its gets even worse when a model with an inv. sv. has access to a FNP ability and can smite.

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
I also wonder about his 48 shot raven. Assuming he has it maximized for dakka he gets 12 shots from his twin assault cannons, 24 shots from his hurricane bolters, if within 12", and 6 shots from his twin heavy bolters (12 S6 AP -1 D1 + 24 S4 AP0 D1 +6 S5 AP-1 D1). It also costs a decent chunk of points, 313.
It sounds like he made have made a few mistakes- he still has to place half of his units on the board and can't put everything into deep strike mode.

We do play by power rating rather than points, so I'm not sure if that affects the deep striking rules - if someone can point to a page number for the bits they think he might have wrong I'd certainly be grateful!

Could it be that he's still using the INDEX rather than CODEX: GREY KNIGHTS? This chap is a GW employee so I doubt he'd be deliberately cheating or anything.

jbeil wrote:

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
I also wonder about his 48 shot raven. Assuming he has it maximized for dakka he gets 12 shots from his twin assault cannons, 24 shots from his hurricane bolters, if within 12", and 6 shots from his twin heavy bolters (12 S6 AP -1 D1 + 24 S4 AP0 D1 +6 S5 AP-1 D1). It also costs a decent chunk of points, 313.
It sounds like he made have made a few mistakes- he still has to place half of his units on the board and can't put everything into deep strike mode.

We do play by power rating rather than points, so I'm not sure if that affects the deep striking rules - if someone can point to a page number for the bits they think he might have wrong I'd certainly be grateful!

Could it be that he's still using the INDEX rather than CODEX: GREY KNIGHTS? This chap is a GW employee so I doubt he'd be deliberately cheating or anything.

If you are not playing matched play then it is possible to deepstrike your entire army. Otherwise P215 has the Tactical Reserves rules for matched play which restrict it to half your units. As for playing index rather than codex GK, that is kind of cheating (especially for an employee) as the Codex rules replace those in the index. That said even then I though GK were limited with smite effectiveness in the index.

It's under the match play rules p215. Just because he's a GW employee doesn't mean that he knows all the rules. In fact he may have so many different versions of the rules in his head that he misremembers which rules are the correct set.
It could also be that you are playing with different play rules from each other. He may be using open play while you are expecting match play.

I had no intention of even implying that he was cheating so I'm sorry if I left that impression.

You may also want to check any scenerio's deployment rules if you are using the books scenerio. IIRC if you go 1st and he does not have any troops on the board by the end of your turn then you win automatically (some one else will have to say if this is correct or not and where that rule comes from but I'm pretty sure that it's right).

Tyel wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Tyel wrote:
Smite is fine, cheap psykers are not.

Smite should not be available at a points cost where you can smite Ork Boys, expect to kill only 10 points worth a cast, and consider that a perfectly reasonable return on your points.

I think naked mind-bullet Smiters should be a minimum of 70 points. I'd prefer if most psykers could cast 2 powers, had a reasonable amount of gear and stats so they could operate in other phases of the game, but cost 120+ points. If you want to spam that then you are going to have a very small army with it.

What statline do you mean by naked? Do you mean WS4+ BS4+ S 3 T3 etc etc. like a trained guardsmen? Or WS5+ BS5+ S3 T3 etc etc. like an untrained human? Or T4 Str4 like a Librarian? How many wounds? 4 like a Primaris Psyker or 6 like a Primaris Librarian?

Because if you think paying 70 points is worth it on making a naked Guardsman be able to cast smite (and have like, 2 or 3 more wounds), then you're bonkers.

The thread has moved on a bit - but why?

Casting smite on naked marines gets you about 21 points worth of damage. On a 70 point model that is a 30% return. This is fine.
And it just gets better if those marines are blinged out in any way. Or I am targeting something other than a rhino with a higher points/wound ratio.

At 46 points I am getting a 45% return on naked marines. This is top tier worthy. And again - it gets even better against many options.

At 46 points I can smite 6 point Ork Boys - which should be terrible - and still get a 21.7% return. Not amazing - but still better than most "suboptimal" situations.

This. Smite and the other "smite-like" powers are so good that they get at least mediocre performance against their worst targets. And then when they are hitting their favorite target, elite units that paid for a lot of defenses but not many wounds, they earn their points back in record time. Like if you take a hundred point marine Libby, who isn't a very efficient psyker since he pays for a cool weapon and marine stats and junk, and he rolls up on a termie squad, an average smite and psychic scourge immediately covers his point investment. If you get multiple turns of casting (likely since yknow...character,) or god forbid a critical smite, he's getting ridiculous return on his points. Like the kind of return that 7e riptides would be envious of. If something is going to be a hard counter, it should have a situation where it sucks in return. And smite school powers are always at least decent in every situation. Like magic's color hosers such as flashfires that completely obliterates white. The drawback is that it does absolutely nothing to anyone else. That's a good example of a decently designed hard counter.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
I like smite as it is for the most part, and a lot of this could be fixed by " elite " units' costs being tuned for the reality of 8th ed.

I think this is a rare circumstance where point fixing won't work.
I don't believe the points can actually correctly reconcile elite high defense units and reliable defense bypassing mortal wounds in the same game. If you decrease the cost of the elites to the point where they aren't giving up massive point swings every time a mortal wound comes their way, then when they run across an enemy without a good amount of mortal wounds, the unit will be grossly overpowered.

The only way I can think of to balance MW's as a common game mechanic is to remove all toughness and save values, and just give everything a wound count to reflect its durability. (Which I don't want because I like the game system differentiating between tough things and things with damage mitigation.)

Smite is fine as is. It is incredibly short ranged and can only hurt units that are closest which emphasizes movement strategy. The problem is cheap (<70 point) psykers that can be spammed with Supreme Command Detachments and the like. Also, I'm firmly in the "Mortal Wounds are Necessary" camp.

". If you decrease the cost of the elites to the point where they aren't giving up massive point swings every time a mortal wound comes their way, then when they run across an enemy without a good amount of mortal wounds, the unit will be grossly overpowered. "

Just take mortal wounds into account when costing them to make the problem more manageable. Yes, an 11 pt tac marine is still more vulnerable than an Ork boy, but is better off than a 13 pt tac marines.

kombatwombat wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
1) don't have valuable units as the closest thing and within 18", either by being out of range or screening as discussed.
2) Use your own psykers, which provide effectively a 4++ against Smite
3) Use models who provide other defenses against psychic powers (culexus, SoS, etc)
4) Use Stratagems that provide defenses against psychic powers or Smite (Armor of Contempt for instance)

1) So, in other words, don’t play with an elite assault army.
2) So, in other words, don’t play with an army that doesn’t or can’t use psykers. And if you can take psykers, in order to have a reasonable defence against Smite, make sure you take several of them. If the problem unit’s only solution is to take the problem unit yourself (psykers), something fundamental has gone wrong with the rules.
3) So, in other words, don’t play with the faction you want to play, play with the faction that is actually capable of dealing with the problem.
4) So, in other words, don’t play with an army that doesn’t have anti-psyker stratagems that specifically apply to them and CP to spare. That Armour of Contempt isn’t going to help Terminators.
5) So, in other words, don’t play with an army that isn’t Guard.

Seriously though, what exactly do expect something like Black Templars or a Necron army to do about Smite, or even Mortal Wounds in general? Templars at least have their Deny the Witch Stratagem... for a CP they get a 50/50 chance to deny one Smite per turn. Not exactly helpful if your opponent can bring more than one Smite or can cast multiple powers.

v0iddrgn wrote:
Smite is fine as is. It is incredibly short ranged and can only hurt units that are closest which emphasizes movement strategy. The problem is cheap (<70 point) psykers that can be spammed with Supreme Command Detachments and the like. Also, I'm firmly in the "Mortal Wounds are Necessary" camp.

They absolutely are not necessary. The things that needed them vanished with the edition change. There's no way to balance a bunch of defense-bypassing mechanics with units that pay for good defenses. Either the mortal wounds will shelf those units (which is where we are now) or those units will get reduced to paying so little for their defenses that dealing with them efficiently without mortal wounds will be next to impossible.

There's also the enjoyment factor in that people don't like removing models with no rolls. People didn't like old strength D. People didn't like 6 stomps. People want to roll something before their model dies, even if it's an unlikely 6+ or something. That's part of why people would go to ground last edition even when it wasn't wise. They wanted to roll something before removing models.

Another factor in the smite debate and the presence of invulnerable saves: people keep defending invuln saves, saying they're weaker than they were in the past, and characterizing smite as solving a problem that doesn't exist. By and large though, characters have more wounds than they did in 7th edition, so while the invuln save may be worse, it still takes more oomph to chip a character away. As is, smite is an important tool, and while it doesn't allow for counterplay in every situation, it's not a sledgehammer either (well, except for in a couple situations on undercosted psykers.)

You can play all elite and have it work well, but it is countered by hordes and smite spam.

Space Marine players keep complaining they don't have cheap screens, but guess what, thete are other armies can't field all elites and remain competitive against Space Marines, so they field what works.

Playing Tyranids, I need huge hordes of bodies to tie up Marine forces, and I need the Mortal Wounds to chew through their defenses in any meaningful way.

3+ saves are just as good as 3++ when most of the attacks coming their way are AP -. Those 4++ saves make a mockery out of claws and jaws larger than the model making the save.