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If you haven't heard gw are now doing beta rules! And they're pretty interesting. Go to the article on Gw website to see full potential rule changes but basically from what i got from the article they want us to try out:
1. Smite nerf. Every time you cast smite it costs 1 more to smite.
2. Character nerf. You can target characters even if there is another character in front of them.

These seem to be issues talked a lot on dakka dakka so what do you guys think of them and the other stuff?


Full article here: https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/12/15/the-future-of-faqs-and-chapter-approved-dec-15gw-homepage-post-2/

1) Magnus will still nuke people from orbit with his gigantic smite and cause people to cry about him. Lists with six spiritseers will still buff the crap out of their armies and cause people to cry about them. Pink Horrors, Thousand Sons, Grey Knights, Wyrdvane squads and Warlocks have just lost any and all hope of relevance with this rule. If there is a problem with smite, this does nothing at all to fix it.

2) This is a positive step, though only halfway there. If the whole point of the character rule is to have them get lost amongst other targets, why in the flippity flip can units you can't see block targeting??? It is good to have less things that can block characters though, and it's double good to be able to split your fire between multiple characters if you get them the closest. A squad of five platoon commanders limiting you to killing a max of 1 per shooting attack because of the way the rules were worded was beyond silly.

Im fine with both changes. Id prefer if characters could be targeted if they were the closest visible target, I get they dont want people playing LoS shennanigans with rhinos to snipe characters, but I think thats a vastlt more overblown issue than the sillyness of some putz behind a wall preventing you from picking out 12ft tall Robute Guilliman

I think how effective they will be will largely depend on how often the feedback about them is used/how often they become actual rules. If they continually get tested and discarded, people will stop using them. If they frequently become adopted people will use them.

As for both rules they put out I like them both in general

1.) IS a good attempt though I hope some armies like GK are exempted or get "real" smite back as a result of the change, otherwise it is a big nerf to psyker heavy armies with already nerfed smite.

2.) Is needed it prevents all character armies largely determining enemy targets.

Right off the bat I can say I like the idea but way to nerf Grey Knight Smite even harder with that potebtial change.

The smite change is really kind of some balls for GK and TS who have weak versions anyway. They should change the name of their spells to 'not-smite' or something; I doubt anyone was thinking that them doing 1MW through a psychic test was groundbreaking, especially since TS pay a bit of points for their unit leaders and can't manifest other powers anyway.

I'm on board with characters not being able to hide characters.

I'm on board with the character changes, staggering spammed characters is currently pretty broken.

I'm ok with the smite changes, except that the smite spam somewhat unfairly hits grey knights hardest, who already have a pretty tame smite. I think if it were limited to 'big boy' smites, (see spammed wierdboyz, malefic lord, sanctioned psykers, etc), it would be fine.

Also, the psyker changes as written say that you can only attempt a spell once per turn, rather than once per psyker per turn. So, if you had a spell on 2 guys, and failed to cast it on the first, you couldn't try with the second. I don't think that's very fair.

I'm still ok with one successful spell per turn, but you should be able to try as many times as you like/can.

 lolman1c wrote:
If you haven't heard gw are now doing beta rules! And they're pretty interesting. Go to the article on Gw website to see full potential rule changes but basically from what i got from the article they want us to try out:
1. Smite nerf. Every time you cast smite it costs 1 more to smite.
2. Character nerf. You can target characters even if there is another character in front of them.

These seem to be issues talked a lot on dakka dakka so what do you guys think of them and the other stuff?


Full article here: https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/12/15/the-future-of-faqs-and-chapter-approved-dec-15gw-homepage-post-2/

I'm confused, i thought 8th was a beta test.

so they are doing a beta test of a beta test?


I am good with both rules changes.

 Kap'n Krump wrote:
I'm on board with the character changes, staggering spammed characters is currently pretty broken.

I'm ok with the smite changes, except that the smite spam somewhat unfairly hits grey knights hardest, who already have a pretty tame smite. I think if it were limited to 'big boy' smites, (see spammed wierdboyz, malefic lord, sanctioned psykers, etc), it would be fine.

Also, the psyker changes as written say that you can only attempt a spell once per turn, rather than once per psyker per turn. So, if you had a spell on 2 guys, and failed to cast it on the first, you couldn't try with the second. I don't think that's very fair.

I'm still ok with one successful spell per turn, but you should be able to try as many times as you like/can.

That's...exactly how it's worded now? You can tell because it's the exact same sentence from "current psychic focus" printed again.

BETA Characters rule is great, BETA Smite sucks though

I'm all for it. Both of those changes are needed bad IMO. But thats because I can't stand the spamming of mortal wounds right now. Its too easy-mode.

those of you with concerns regarding the impact of smite on armies like Grey Knights and TSons - have you emailed the FAQ line to express your concern? I think that's the most important step.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
those of you with concerns regarding the impact of smite on armies like Grey Knights and TSons - have you emailed the FAQ line to express your concern? I think that's the most important step.

Complaining is easier though! I've already fired off 6 separate emails to them already.

the_scotsman wrote:
1) Magnus will still nuke people from orbit with his gigantic smite and cause people to cry about him. Lists with six spiritseers will still buff the crap out of their armies and cause people to cry about them. Pink Horrors, Thousand Sons, Grey Knights, Wyrdvane squads and Warlocks have just lost any and all hope of relevance with this rule. If there is a problem with smite, this does nothing at all to fix it.

2) This is a positive step, though only halfway there. If the whole point of the character rule is to have them get lost amongst other targets, why in the flippity flip can units you can't see block targeting??? It is good to have less things that can block characters though, and it's double good to be able to split your fire between multiple characters if you get them the closest. A squad of five platoon commanders limiting you to killing a max of 1 per shooting attack because of the way the rules were worded was beyond silly.

On both accounts I can answer for you.

1) I think you missed the point. If someone brings 6 spiritseers to buff their army.. occasionally tossing smite.. that is totally OK that is the intent. If someone is bringing them to simply dump mortal wounds out, that is not the intent and this rule is effective in making it more difficult to do that.

2) The exact reason for them not doing this as you hope they do.. is so that YOU can't block line of sight on your turn with your own models to snipe characters. For example... I have my farseer sitting behind some rangers. You roll up and park a rhino so that your your squad of hellblasters has full line of sight of my character but can't see the rangers anymore and take him out.

I like the character rule. I am okay with the smite change, all-though I would have preferred to limit full-smite to psykers of more than 60-70 points per model. I don't think that smite coming from 100-point psykers are a balance issue, nor the mini-smite coming from cheaper psyker models.

That being said, the point of beta-rules are not to like them, but to evaluate them.

As a smite spamming guard player I'm fine with both changes! It's a bit more thematic to have 2-3 psykers rather than the 12+ I've been running at tournaments haha. This works fine, but I think it would have been cleverer just to up the points of primaris psykers, weirdboyz, inquisitors etc. There's nothing wrong with a powerful mechanic provided it's suitably pricy and forces you to make compromises elsewhere...

clownshoes wrote:

 lolman1c wrote:
If you haven't heard gw are now doing beta rules! And they're pretty interesting. Go to the article on Gw website to see full potential rule changes but basically from what i got from the article they want us to try out:
1. Smite nerf. Every time you cast smite it costs 1 more to smite.
2. Character nerf. You can target characters even if there is another character in front of them.

These seem to be issues talked a lot on dakka dakka so what do you guys think of them and the other stuff?


Full article here: https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/12/15/the-future-of-faqs-and-chapter-approved-dec-15gw-homepage-post-2/

I'm confused, i thought 8th was a beta test.

so they are doing a beta test of a beta test?


I am good with both rules changes.

Naa AoS was the beta

40k was version 1,

CA was the DLC

these Beta rules are the PTR.

im down with both changes.

My grey Knights didn’t need the nerf =\

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
those of you with concerns regarding the impact of smite on armies like Grey Knights and TSons - have you emailed the FAQ line to express your concern? I think that's the most important step.

agreed. GKs ant TSons IIRC already have some variation on their smite thus it'd be easy to grant them an excemption

I think the real question here isn't; "are these specific rules changes what 8th Edition needs?" but instead; "is the process that GW are proposing to follow to integrate their changes what 8th Edition needs?". The answer for me, to the latter question is a resounding yes.

Finally they are listening to the player base. Finally they are updating their books quickly and based on feedback. They'll never get all the rules and points' adjustments perfect every time, but at least they are committed to correcting their mistakes.

It's great news this, for me. The best news of 8th so far, in fact,

Maybe they should make the mini smites either a different power or make the increasing difficulty not apply as much or at all to them?

Me: You can't make Grey Knights any shittier while pretending to mean well.
GW: Hold my FAQ, watch this

 niv-mizzet wrote:
Maybe they should make the mini smites either a different power or make the increasing difficulty not apply as much or at all to them?

What if they made it full smite instead?

It wouldn't really help, even if you gave TS and GK full smite before this beta nerf. They still would only be below-average.

I like the smite change. It helps address smitespam while still keeping smite relevant.

The character targeting change is a corner case. There are only a few situations in which a character can successfully run interference for another one and keep out of LOS.

 ChargerIIC wrote:
I like the smite change. It helps address smitespam while still keeping smite relevant.

The character targeting change is a corner case. There are only a few situations in which a character can successfully run interference for another one and keep out of LOS.

It was that one abuse case with the cluxes as they said in the post.

i honestly cant imagine too many situations where else it could possibly be abused. but at least its knocking out that absolutely annoying tactic.

(i really hate clux)

Also people really didn't like it when they had a big unit ready to shoot, and they were down to two enemy characters, and they were only allowed to hit the first one despite it being horrible overkill.

If the Smite rule goes ahead then Malefic Lords just got their second kick in the nadgers in a short period of time.

Not that you probably see many nowadays considering the massive leap in ppm.

Yass, now this is some excellent progress. Both changes seem good to me, with the caveat that GK and TS should get their baby-Smites without the penalty. Hope they do more of these.

Crowdsource power: can we send enough requests in that email about them proposing more cover rules, like "intervening terrain grants +1 cover" and such?

 NoiseMarine with Tinnitus wrote:
If the Smite rule goes ahead then Malefic Lords just got their second kick in the nadgers in a short period of time.

Not that you probably see many nowadays considering the massive leap in ppm.

my conscripts dont care