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Can someone explain why the Tervigon is suddenly this problem unit?

I don't know. It was thrown out there as THE thing.

It isn't it is just the most durable possible unit someone could come up with. Because it has basically every conceivable durability buff this edition short of an invulnerable save.

 necrontyrOG wrote:
Looks like GW is addressing Smite spam:

Yay. It's encouraging to see that the GW rules team is astute enough to see that there's an issue, although I wish they'd just go ahead and admit they slipped up when they made every other thing mortal wounds when it should've been just like Titan explosions and junk like that.

Breng77 wrote:
It isn't it is just the most durable possible unit someone could come up with. Because it has basically every conceivable durability buff this edition short of an invulnerable save.

This forum is such a joke sometimes.

There are plenty of units more durable and survivable than a Tervigon. Without even trying i can tell you Mortarian is more survivable.

Anything "character" with <9 wounds is more survivable, too.

Maybe not quite as tough, but SW dreads with storm shields are obnoxious for sure.

 Gene St. Ealer wrote:

 niv-mizzet wrote:

 Gene St. Ealer wrote:
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.)

Except you aren't taking into account that multi-damage weapons are all over the place. Characters in 8th, once they're targetable, drop like chumps compared to last edition. Even G man, the upper end of protected characters, drops like a rock as soon as you start pumping lascannons into him.

As we keep saying, the days of amazing defense monsters with eternal warrior taking 1 wound from everything while using look out sir to a cheap unit to give them amazing staying power are over. If you are having a problem with tough units with good defenses, you aren't bringing enough multi damage weapons. Smite and other MW sources aren't necessary in the least.

They're just a mechanic that was terribly designed in what I consider to be an otherwise ok edition that can't be balanced by points, because either your army is ok against MW's, or your army has to be reduced in cost so much to be ok against MW's that it's overpowered against everything else.

I mean imagone trying to point cost necrons if all eldar attacks ignored their reanimation, saves, and quantum shielding. You can't. Either they're going to be underpowered against eldar and ok against others, or you reduce their cost to make them ok against eldar and they're absolutely ridic against everyone else.

You can't just blow past the "once they're targetable" caveat; that's a big deal. In fact, with the new rules on targeting characters, these elite units get even more defense. The play and counterplay involving positioning is actually one of the more nuanced aspects of 8th, and smite is definitely a part of that. As long as those restrictions are in place, I think it remains a tool in the meta that some armies need to make use of.

You can blow past that caveat, because literally everyone has access to characters and can make use of it. The argument was that MW's were needed for guys that were near invincible, and my stance is that those guys don't exist anymore. And for like the 80h time, I'm not talking about smites specifically, but MW's. Several of those can come from snipers and powers that can target.

 Marmatag wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
It isn't it is just the most durable possible unit someone could come up with. Because it has basically every conceivable durability buff this edition short of an invulnerable save.

This forum is such a joke sometimes.

There are plenty of units more durable and survivable than a Tervigon. Without even trying i can tell you Mortarian is more survivable.

Anything "character" with <9 wounds is more survivable, too.

Mortarian is not more durable than the tervigon with all those buffs. Characters are against shooting, but not statistically and provide no case for mortal wounds.

Moosatronic Warrior wrote:
I thought this thread might be interesting as I am in the same position as the OP; not seeing the problem.

Unfortunately no one in this thread has provided any evidence to show that smite spam is an issue. It's all anecdotes about bad match ups or waffley theory hammer what ifs.

If you want to demonstrate that smite spam is a problem (post chapter approved) you need to post tournament results that show smite spam armies dominating. That is the closest you will get to some objective fact about it.

Failing that you could post a list that spams smite so that everyone can look at it and go "OMG my army could never beat that!".


I would also like to add that Sprirtseers are the best smite spammers in the game right now but, despite using them extensively, I almost never cast smite with them.

Have you not seen recent tourney results? Chaos armies with malefic lords (now thankfully nerfed) and decimators have performed exceptionally well. Combined with the fact that they have a good screen unit, which is a requirement to be a top tier army right now, and it becomes pretty obvious why GT players call chaos the top army in the game. A recent 100 man GT I was judging at in October had the upper tables covered in mortal wound mechanics. And again, it's not just smite. Several of the smite-like powers can target whatever they want.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Marmatag wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
It isn't it is just the most durable possible unit someone could come up with. Because it has basically every conceivable durability buff this edition short of an invulnerable save.

This forum is such a joke sometimes.

There are plenty of units more durable and survivable than a Tervigon. Without even trying i can tell you Mortarian is more survivable.

Anything "character" with <9 wounds is more survivable, too.

Hidden character status is not the same thing as actually being durable.
Shots into the nightmare units from 7e were shrugged off and wasted.
Shots reducing a character's protectors are still killing enemies. See the difference?

And I don't see how character protection is even relevant in this discussion of whether smite and other MW's are needed in the game.

A Smite nerf for Matched Play where people deliberately stack the deck with as much Smite-causing stuff as they can seems potentially useful.

If you opponents are playing these lists in casual games... just have a chat. You don't need a Smite nerf to agree a social contract to make "don't be a douchebag" lists.

The huge problem with that is the other side of the fence, which is "you're being a douche bag for trying to tell me how to play the game when how I'm playing the game is perfectly valid and legal within the confines of how the game designer wrote the game".

 auticus wrote:
The huge problem with that is the other side of the fence, which is "you're being a douche bag for trying to tell me how to play the game when how I'm playing the game is perfectly valid and legal within the confines of how the game designer wrote the game".

Not really, the point of the game is for both players to have fun. If your valid legal list is routinely no fun for me to play against, I won't and if you ask me why not I'll be happy to tell you why (politely). There is no problem with refusing to play a game that you won't enjoy, or asking for someone to consider playing something else so that you both have a good time.

 JohnnyHell wrote:
A Smite nerf for Matched Play where people deliberately stack the deck with as much Smite-causing stuff as they can seems potentially useful.

If you opponents are playing these lists in casual games... just have a chat. You don't need a Smite nerf to agree a social contract to make "don't be a douchebag" lists.

A quick browse of any Internet forum including this one should make it obvious that that doesn't work. There are people who thought 7e riptides, wraithknights, and formations weren't overpowered. A lot of people are just talking from their joe's-garage-group viewpoint and experiences when the experiences you get from actual large GT's is vastly different and gives you a much better view on what's really happening in the game.

For example a lot of people don't know that a berserker unit that kills your front line chaff in one go can possibly move up to FIFTEEN inches after the combat (9 without using CP,) and use that to tie up a massive part of your army. A lot of people last edition didn't know that tanks could crush units until a few plucky souls (cough) used the tactic at some top GT tables and word started to spread about a rule that had been sitting in the core rulebook unnoticed for a couple years.

People who just don't have exposure to the real competitive game are always going to have some "weird" opinions on competitive aspects. And that means they're going to have some very different opinions on where the line for being a douchebag actually is.
It is much preferable in all cases to just have the game mechanics fixed to where it isn't "easy" to be that guy.

How are they moving 15 exactly? I kind of want to know this.

Martel732 wrote:
How are they moving 15 exactly? I kind of want to know this.

Pile in + consolidate 3 times, it is pretty tough to get quite that far, but they can move a lot.

Martel732 wrote:
How are they moving 15 exactly? I kind of want to know this.

Charge frontline guys. Something cheap like some marine scouts. Slaughter them. Consolidate 3" towards the backline units. Because they charged this turn, they are always eligible to be activated in the fight phase regardless of if an enemy is nearby. Activate again using berserker ability. Pile in 3, fight no one, consolidate 3. Use stratagem to fight again. Pile in 3, fight no one, consolidate 3. If they did not have a secondary layer of screen unit to stop it, you are now cuddling with their backfield predators/razorbacks/devastators. (Who DO get to hit you, but honestly, that's not going to do much.)

Breng77 wrote:

 auticus wrote:
The huge problem with that is the other side of the fence, which is "you're being a douche bag for trying to tell me how to play the game when how I'm playing the game is perfectly valid and legal within the confines of how the game designer wrote the game".

Not really, the point of the game is for both players to have fun. If your valid legal list is routinely no fun for me to play against, I won't and if you ask me why not I'll be happy to tell you why (politely). There is no problem with refusing to play a game that you won't enjoy, or asking for someone to consider playing something else so that you both have a good time.

But this doesn't come from me or you being a "douchebag". It comes from you and I having two different approaches to the game and the inability to reconcile the other person's approach. Which I find nothing wrong with for the same reason that some people love baseball but I can't stand it but I love football and others can't stand that.

I don't find anythiing wrong with realizing that joe powergamer has no place at my table because I'm not interested in powergaming 40k. That doesn't make Joe Powergamer a douchebag though.

 auticus wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

 auticus wrote:
The huge problem with that is the other side of the fence, which is "you're being a douche bag for trying to tell me how to play the game when how I'm playing the game is perfectly valid and legal within the confines of how the game designer wrote the game".

Not really, the point of the game is for both players to have fun. If your valid legal list is routinely no fun for me to play against, I won't and if you ask me why not I'll be happy to tell you why (politely). There is no problem with refusing to play a game that you won't enjoy, or asking for someone to consider playing something else so that you both have a good time.

But this doesn't come from me or you being a "douchebag". It comes from you and I having two different approaches to the game and the inability to reconcile the other person's approach. Which I find nothing wrong with for the same reason that some people love baseball but I can't stand it but I love football and others can't stand that.

I don't find anythiing wrong with realizing that joe powergamer has no place at my table because I'm not interested in powergaming 40k. That doesn't make Joe Powergamer a douchebag though.

That is right, so long as he doesn't complain when people don't want to play him, that he has a "legal list" and should be allowed to use it.

Grey Knights- if they weren't eunuchs before they will be now, unless they get an exception from the new smite rule above.

The Smite rule plus the rule of one together is overkill.

You spam smite because can't currently multicast your other powers.

They should drop the rule of one and just roll with +1 difficulty casting for multiple castings of the same power.

Also, anything like Pink Horrors, and Wyrdvane Psykers casting on a single d6 are screwed.

 niv-mizzet wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
How are they moving 15 exactly? I kind of want to know this.

Charge frontline guys. Something cheap like some marine scouts. Slaughter them. Consolidate 3" towards the backline units. Because they charged this turn, they are always eligible to be activated in the fight phase regardless of if an enemy is nearby. Activate again using berserker ability. Pile in 3, fight no one, consolidate 3. Use stratagem to fight again. Pile in 3, fight no one, consolidate 3. If they did not have a secondary layer of screen unit to stop it, you are now cuddling with their backfield predators/razorbacks/devastators. (Who DO get to hit you, but honestly, that's not going to do much.)

That's all well and good. IF you declared a charge to all those units and they got to shoot overwatch at you.

Daedalus81 wrote:

 niv-mizzet wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
How are they moving 15 exactly? I kind of want to know this.

Charge frontline guys. Something cheap like some marine scouts. Slaughter them. Consolidate 3" towards the backline units. Because they charged this turn, they are always eligible to be activated in the fight phase regardless of if an enemy is nearby. Activate again using berserker ability. Pile in 3, fight no one, consolidate 3. Use stratagem to fight again. Pile in 3, fight no one, consolidate 3. If they did not have a secondary layer of screen unit to stop it, you are now cuddling with their backfield predators/razorbacks/devastators. (Who DO get to hit you, but honestly, that's not going to do much.)

That's all well and good. IF you declared a charge to all those units and they got to shoot overwatch at you.

Incorrect. You don't need to declare and get overwatched to engage a unit, you just can't attack it that turn, and then they are either stuck or have to fall back and not shoot. For backline heavy hitters like hellblasters and many tanks, this is a very powerful tactic.

RIP Grey Knights lol

 necrontyrOG wrote:
Looks like GW is addressing Smite spam:

So much for the Thousand Sons, you will be missed (at least for me, I had planned to work on this army slowly, now, screw it). If there was an option to swap out Smite for another power this wouldn't be so bad, but now, you'll simply never make a psychic check with an Aspiring Sorcerer.

I guess he's a deny at least.

Hilariously, its bad for tsons but great for Magnus. Smite spam was a solid way of dealing with him, he can only deny so many and MW bypass his insane invulnerable rolls.

Magnus is also the example of a character that you do need MW to deal with, once he gets his 3++ rerolling 1s up. Not sure any of the others really qualify though.

Here's my take:

Psykers cheaper than say 60-70 ppm don't get full smite. They get baby smite. Brimstones get baby smite that allows invuln saves.
No casting after advancing.
Make snipers in more armies more affordable.

That would be better than this "fix", imo.

Martel732 wrote:
Here's my take:

Psykers cheaper than say 60-70 ppm don't get full smite. They get baby smite. Brimstones get baby smite that allows invuln saves.
No casting after advancing.
Make snipers in more armies more affordable.

That would be better than this "fix", imo.

Send that to GW then. Let them know.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
For the most part cheaper = better. I don't know why anyone would keep denying this at this point. The ability to take up table space in this game is invaluable.

cheaper is better for the same unit, but worse units should be cheaper, yes?

Or are you saying that there should be no price differences between units regardless of relative power?

If the two units contribute the same to the battle while one has a bunch of things that make it "better" but that don't actually help it to contribute and it costs more because of that then which one delivers more for the points?

I mean, if you could choose between a Russ and a more expensive Russ that gets more attacks in CC which one are you going to take?

It gets a little weird when you read this thread and the beta rule thread back to back.

 Scott-S6 wrote:


If the two units contribute the same to the battle while one has a bunch of things that make it "better" but that don't actually help it to contribute and it costs more because of that then which one delivers more for the points?

I mean, if you could choose between a Russ and a more expensive Russ that gets more attacks in CC which one are you going to take?

This is the fundamental weakness of Tactical Marines and, by extension, every Space Marine infantry unit.