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 Galas wrote:

 Happyjew wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

 Nightlord1987 wrote:
The unbalance of narrative/open WAS my point. Psycho power and smite away just like you'd imagine your army to be played. You're playing cheesy lists but don't want a cheesy environment? I'm sure everyone is gonna claim not to be that type of gamer, but if if your army playstyle got nerfed, it's probably because the majority of gamers abused something to gain an advantage. Cheap fearless troops. Horde killing flyers. Smite spam psykers.

In the next few months, whatever new net list starts winning in tournaments will tell GW what needs to be neutered. If you really want to protect the game, play different lists.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, this new edition is trying to push NEW models, NEW factions, NEW missions. If someone power games and buys the latest trend, that changes a few months later that's kinda the whole point.

You heard it here first - anyone complaining because their expensive GK and Tson units pay for a version of smite that is now all but unusable, they're probably a closet dirty power gamer hiding 18 primaris psyker models sewn into the inside of their trenchcoat.

I don't know about GK or Tsons, but my Ulthwe army is useless. Warlocks were already crap with a 9" range single mortal wound version of Smite, but now this? I may as well shelve all 20 of them.

Or maybe try some games with this new rules, with an open mind, write what you think about this new rule and how it impacts your games, put it nicenly written and give it as feedback to GW?

I don't know. I assume is more work than just complaining on the internet about how this "Beta rules" that GW has released literally asking for community feedback are gonna destroy your army.

But complaining is much easier, and more fun.

Though to be fair, my comment was meant to be taken as a joke. I don't actually have 20 Warlocks. Yet.

Goes to show just how lazy smite and "YOU CANT TARGET ME" rules are.

Even the beta "fixes" are terrible.

Please GW, take a deep breath and put you big boy pants back on.

Character rule is good.

The Smite rule is okay - but feels like a hammer to crack a nut. As people have said this significantly effects mini-smiters (who are typically bad anyway) and while I wouldn't mind never seeing another horror again I can sympathise with GK and Tsons.

My maths may be off - but on regular smites this is the difference - so casting 2 smites now produces only 91.47% the damage you would have got previously:

1
0.914728682
0.826873385
0.736434109
0.651162791
0.573643411

So if you were the sort of army where you typically cast 2-3 smites a turn this isn't the end of the world.

Really I think if Primaris Psykers had just got a 20-30 points increase (and those stupid 15 point things were completely changed or removed from the game) smite spam would have largely disappeared from the game.

I still have an issue with the character targetin rules, immunity should still only occur if you are within 6" of a unit, as it stand now (to use a mates example) you can't shoot guilliman who is 6" in front of you because you have some scouts 5" behind you, the "within 6" rule needs to be added.

Smite change though seems to go too far against mini smite, but I don't have an issue with it simply because it's a test rule and people just need to tell gw it should only apply to normal smite, not mini smite, also as the above said, get rid of primaris psykers and mini horrors and smite spam should go down.

Nemesis234 wrote:

Spoletta wrote:

Nemesis234 wrote:
I like the smite change, seems sensible. I do wish they would let us cast other powers more than once though so we didn't always have to rely on smite.

Character targeting is an improvement at least but not a complete fix. I'd rather take a sensible approach to how it would be in a "real" scenario and have more units with the bodyguard rule or even add a rule where anyone can be bodyguard to a character.

That was called "Look out Sir". It died in a fire and there was much rejoice.

But now characters are separate from units and you can allocate wounds to any model in a unit, I think it will work far better second time round.

Torrent of Fire also used to be a thing.

I prefer a scaleback of the 7e LOS, with the caveat that it's automatic (and mandatory for those that like to complain about 30ks "muh tank ICs"), restricted models within 3" or so, and you can only allocate LOS to non-character models. Better to be able to theoretically snipe out a character with positioning, as opposed to the character going "neener-neener, you cannot shoot me because there's a Drone in a nearby building."

If smite wasn't an issue, why was everyone expecting Chapter Approved to "fix" it.

My big gripe is that everyone seems to play theory hammer and hypothetical hammer here. Everyone's Big Bad Meta monster fears are what caused these Nerfs in the first place. I've never even seen a Malefic Lord at my gaming club. When they got axed, everyone said : Well what about primaris psykers? (Also a unit I've never seen spammed). Most of the questions on YMDC are just hypothetical and rarely come up on an actual table, but those topics blow up.

But back to the main topic. Daemons is an easy fix. Just give tzeentch a +1 on tests or like a reroll strategem. Or the paradox relic thing. Or just accept the role of Horrors. Thousand Sons will get more psychic powers to Divvy up amongst the sorcerers. And they're rolling 2 dice anyway same as Grey Knights.

Grey knights should have the option to smite or "activate force" or something. And I've said it before but any mono Grey knights, ksons, and tzeentch daemons has a big handicap already. Let's not act like smite makes or breaks it for them. Remember, they're taking data from TOURNAMENTS. Where breaking the game wins.

Tyel wrote:

Really I think if Primaris Psykers had just got a 20-30 points increase (and those stupid 15 point things were completely changed or removed from the game) smite spam would have largely disappeared from the game.

I disagree - if Smite is all anyone complains about with the IG psykers, then it's Smite that should be changed (especially since it's clearly a problem for other armies as well).

 Nightlord1987 wrote:

My big gripe is that everyone seems to play theory hammer and hypothetical hammer here. Everyone's Big Bad Meta monster fears are what caused these Nerfs in the first place. I've never even seen a Malefic Lord at my gaming club. When they got axed, everyone said : Well what about primaris psykers? (Also a unit I've never seen spammed). Most of the questions on YMDC are just hypothetical and rarely come up on an actual table, but those topics blow up.

Yeah, there seems to be a general idea that the best "fix" is to make IG psykers completely garbage for their cost and/or delete them altogether. Apparently this will improve balance somehow.

Increase the points of it to make it useless so while it is still broken, at least you cant afford it. That's balance.

 vipoid wrote:

Tyel wrote:

Really I think if Primaris Psykers had just got a 20-30 points increase (and those stupid 15 point things were completely changed or removed from the game) smite spam would have largely disappeared from the game.

I disagree - if Smite is all anyone complains about with the IG psykers, then it's Smite that should be changed (especially since it's clearly a problem for other armies as well).

 Nightlord1987 wrote:

My big gripe is that everyone seems to play theory hammer and hypothetical hammer here. Everyone's Big Bad Meta monster fears are what caused these Nerfs in the first place. I've never even seen a Malefic Lord at my gaming club. When they got axed, everyone said : Well what about primaris psykers? (Also a unit I've never seen spammed). Most of the questions on YMDC are just hypothetical and rarely come up on an actual table, but those topics blow up.

Yeah, there seems to be a general idea that the best "fix" is to make IG psykers completely garbage for their cost and/or delete them altogether. Apparently this will improve balance somehow.

When every unit is underpowered, no unit is underpowered.

 Nightlord1987 wrote:
If smite wasn't an issue, why was everyone expecting Chapter Approved to "fix" it.

Because players that don't use Psykers cry about anything that can wound their 2+/3++/5+++ models without divine intervention.

Also, I've yet to be at the table and faced a Tau or Necron player that didn't complain every Psychic phase.

Personally, I'd be fine with the increased difficulty of recasting powers in the same psychic phase IF the rule of 1 was gone, and I could cast something other than Smite, and all the Psyker units that cast on a single D6 were changed to cast on 2d6, like everyone else.

Admittedly, the 1d6 casters may need their points cost adjusted.

I know people keep focusing on Maelific Lords and Primaris Psykers, but think about the Tyranids. It's pretty common to field multiple psykers for Tyranids. Even Blood Angles have better things to be casting than Smite over and over.

 adamsouza wrote:
I know people keep focusing on Maelific Lords and Primaris Psykers, but think about the Tyranids. It's pretty common to field multiple psykers for Tyranids. Even Blood Angles have better things to be casting than Smite over and over.

I do think that the limit of 1 of each psychic power per phase is rather silly. It seems like a poor excuse to just not bother balancing the powers in the first place.


More than that though, it means that psychic powers really don't scale well. Once you have enough psychic levels to cast all your powers, there's literally nothing you can do with additional psykers except for casting Smite over and over.

For example, let's say that I have a 1000pt army with 6 psychic levels in one form or other. I can cast the following powers:

1) Terrifying Visions (/Smite)
2) Gaze of the Emperor (/Smite)
3) Nightshroud (/Smite)
4) Psychic Barrier (/Smite)
5) Mental Fortitude (/Smite)
6) Psychic Maelstrom (/Smite)

Now let's say I up the army to 2000pts and add an additional 6 levels of psyker. What can they cast?

7) Smite.
8) Smite.
9) Smite.
10) Smite.
11) Smite.
12) Smite.

Basically, as soon as you exceed 7 levels of Psyker, you're basically forced to spam Smite - since there's literally nothing else you can do with your casters (unless you're Eldar and have about 18 powers ).

 vipoid wrote:


I do think that the limit of 1 of each psychic power per phase is rather silly. It seems like a poor excuse to just not bother balancing the powers in the first place.

I agree. Instead this '-1 to cast a duplicate power' should just apply to all powers, and the powers should be balanced based on that.

 adamsouza wrote:

 Nightlord1987 wrote:
If smite wasn't an issue, why was everyone expecting Chapter Approved to "fix" it.

Because players that don't use Psykers cry about anything that can wound their 2+/3++/5+++ models without divine intervention.

Also, I've yet to be at the table and faced a Tau or Necron player that didn't complain every Psychic phase.

Personally, I'd be fine with the increased difficulty of recasting powers in the same psychic phase IF the rule of 1 was gone, and I could cast something other than Smite, and all the Psyker units that cast on a single D6 were changed to cast on 2d6, like everyone else.

Admittedly, the 1d6 casters may need their points cost adjusted.

I know people keep focusing on Maelific Lords and Primaris Psykers, but think about the Tyranids. It's pretty common to field multiple psykers for Tyranids. Even Blood Angles have better things to be casting than Smite over and over.

Which players? I was complaining about a bad mechic that doesn't scale, mortal wounds, smite wouldn't be a problem if it was still str4 ap-4 d3/d6 hits, right now its ignore all saves and wounds anything and everything on a 4+, that's bad design however you look at it.

 vipoid wrote:

 adamsouza wrote:
I know people keep focusing on Maelific Lords and Primaris Psykers, but think about the Tyranids. It's pretty common to field multiple psykers for Tyranids. Even Blood Angles have better things to be casting than Smite over and over.

I do think that the limit of 1 of each psychic power per phase is rather silly. It seems like a poor excuse to just not bother balancing the powers in the first place.


More than that though, it means that psychic powers really don't scale well. Once you have enough psychic levels to cast all your powers, there's literally nothing you can do with additional psykers except for casting Smite over and over.

For example, let's say that I have a 1000pt army with 6 psychic levels in one form or other. I can cast the following powers:

1) Terrifying Visions (/Smite)
2) Gaze of the Emperor (/Smite)
3) Nightshroud (/Smite)
4) Psychic Barrier (/Smite)
5) Mental Fortitude (/Smite)
6) Psychic Maelstrom (/Smite)

Now let's say I up the army to 2000pts and add an additional 6 levels of psyker. What can they cast?

7) Smite.
8) Smite.
9) Smite.
10) Smite.
11) Smite.
12) Smite.

Basically, as soon as you exceed 7 levels of Psyker, you're basically forced to spam Smite - since there's literally nothing else you can do with your casters (unless you're Eldar and have about 18 powers ).

Yes but if you don't limit powers you have things like entire ork armies assaulting turn 1, and largely not caring about the -1 to
Cast.

The only issue with the rule of 1 might be it
Is on attempts not successes. The issue is
Gw made entire armies psykers, this never should have been a thing. And for sure the few cases
It might make sense just giving those armies normal smite with the -1 to cast is fine, you just pick which units use the power.

 Marmatag wrote:
The rule about characters is 100% needed. Play against an all assassins list. In the current version of the rules, you will only ever be shooting at a Culexus, assuming you can shoot at anyone at all.

It is gross. The character spam lists are made inordinately strong by virtue of the character targeting restrictions. Sorry i have 10 characters behind my culexus. You have to shoot through it first. Oh sorry i have 1 character out of line of sight but closer to you. You can only shoot at him, but you can't see him, tee hee. So yeah, my 1 commander is in ruins, but my other 11 can see you. And you can't shoot them. Sorry.

it's dumb. the current character rules are beyond dumb.

I had a discussion the other day about a similar but different topic - vengeance weapon platforms only being able to target the nearest enemy unit and that they become a waste of points once that unit is locked in combat. I suggested that "viable" needs to become a part of 8th's vernacular. When the nearest target isn't able to be the target then the next viable target must be chosen. I was talking about weapon platforms but it would make a big difference to characters as well.

Spoletta wrote:
I like both rules.

The new Psychic focus does indeed have a problem with snowflake smites, but in general it is a good change.
I suggest that all the ones that feel that they have a problem with this rule, do exactly what GW told us to do and send a mail to the dedicated address. At this point we know 100% that they are listening to the community and probably scouring this same forum and many others, so plug in to this new system and send them the feedback. After so many years they are finally listening to it!

Also, try to be constructive with your feedback, i suspect that "This rule sucks" is the kind of message that gets filtered before being forwarded to the designers.

Already sent in a mail detailing how this new rule makes the Aspiring Sorcerer a complete liability to his unit. They're probably already aware by now with how much criticism they've gotten for the new rule but more fuel for the fire can't hurt.

Breng77 wrote:

Yes but if you don't limit powers you have things like entire ork armies assaulting turn 1, and largely not caring about the -1 to
Cast.

But that's the whole point - if casting a power multiple times is enough to break the game, then that power is badly-designed to begin with.

Tyel wrote:
Character rule is good.
...I wouldn't mind never seeing another horror again.

I'll just say this right now: this change will not stop people taking Brimstone Horrors, it will just put another nail in the coffin for Pink Horrors (Blues are already completely dead).
No one takes Brimstones for Smite since their version was nerfed. They take them for the 3pt 4++ body.
A 1/3 to kill a Brim to deal a single Mortal Wound in the Psychic Phase was just a little something extra that you could maybe do, but too weak and unreliable to actually care about when taking the unit.

 vipoid wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

Yes but if you don't limit powers you have things like entire ork armies assaulting turn 1, and largely not caring about the -1 to
Cast.

But that's the whole point - if casting a power multiple times is enough to break the game, then that power is badly-designed to begin with.

I'd rather have powerful spells you can only cast once than gakky spells that you can spam. Warptime is fun, why do you want to kill warptime?

I just view this as more proof gw is lying about the play testing.

It was bad enough playing a beta game but now it seems we are playing the alpha build.

 vipoid wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

Yes but if you don't limit powers you have things like entire ork armies assaulting turn 1, and largely not caring about the -1 to
Cast.

But that's the whole point - if casting a power multiple times is enough to break the game, then that power is badly-designed to begin with.

This isn't true, it is like saying Magnus should be able to be taken multiple times and if it breaks the game he is poorly designed. It is possible to design things to be balanced assuming they are a limited resource. The game would be far more balanced if everything in it were more limited.

Card Games normally have limitations in card. In hearthstone you can have two copies of any kind of card, but just one copy of each legendary. So yes, the "If it can't be spammed without breaking the game it is bad", isn't true.

I'm too in the camp of "Powers should be impactfull and limited".

Slight imbalances within the game are what create a fun game. The biggest issue 8th edition really has is that these imbalances are not put in check. Due to the freedom of army creation, you can take pretty much anything as much as you want. This causes units that were intended to be that slight imbalance in your list to end up being practically your whole list.

I don't know what the best solution would be but there needs to be a set of checks and balances in place to prevent spamming the most cost-effective units. That creates a stagnant play environment and reduces the creativity of lists.

Hoodwink wrote:
Slight imbalances within the game are what create a fun game. The biggest issue 8th edition really has is that these imbalances are not put in check. Due to the freedom of army creation, you can take pretty much anything as much as you want. This causes units that were intended to be that slight imbalance in your list to end up being practically your whole list.

I don't know what the best solution would be but there needs to be a set of checks and balances in place to prevent spamming the most cost-effective units. That creates a stagnant play environment and reduces the creativity of lists.

Not just imbalances but the lack of depth in the game that makes it easier to have a "spam this" solution to every problem. You don't need anti tank weapons, anti horde weapons, armor penetrating weapons, cover bypassing weapons, general purpose weapons, blast weapons, etc in a list when we are all Necrons now. It's a race to the bottom for the unit that can absorb the most wounds with the most bodies, has the most attacks, pays the least points for that volume of attack and wound absorption, and generally what has the most cost effective force multiplayer to skyrocket the effectiveness of those buckets of dice you will be rolling.

I don't see any reason why it can't be on a power-by-power basis. Hell, I can think of a spell in AoS that is so potentially powerful that it's limited to one use only in Open and Narrative play too, rather than just Matched Platy (Glimpse the Future from the Lore of Fate).

If Games Workshop specified in the Power itself if it could be cast multiple times by different Psykers in the same phase, we could have the best of both worlds. I doubt they'd do that this far into the design process though, as it'd require a bit of errata (might be something left for Chapter Approved 2018).

Could just have 'lesser' and 'greater' powers within a discipline. Limit Greater powers to once a turn, and then let Lesser ones be cast with the current smite restrictions.

 NenkotaMoon wrote:
Increase the points of it to make it useless so while it is still broken, at least you cant afford it. That's balance.

Completely disagree with this. The sole function of psykers is as support elements for your army and they are costed accordingly for their roles relative to their armies. They are not costed with spammed Smite in mind. Therefore the solution cannot be to simply increase all psykers points values because you make them far too expensive for their primary purpose.

I really like the Smite nerf and they way they have implemented it is just how I thought it should be done. This encourages taking them for their primary purpose and taking more than 9 in a single army (other than Eldar) is pointless. At that point your 6 primary powers and 3 Smites brings you to 7+ to cast Smite. I think 9 psykers is enough!

The only thing I think needs to change to is ensure mini Smite like Grey Knights do not suffer this nerf as their version is already fine and doesn't need the extra nerf.

The biggest problem is, this beta change and even the Rule of One feels like a band-aid over the fact that GW didn't (and won't) properly balance powers. Dark Angels just got a power that lets you reduce the WS/BS of a unit permanently by 1. Could you imagine if that was able to be cast more than once per phase? Even with a penalty, you could shut down entire units if you got it off twice in the same turn; it would be ridiculous. Even without that, it just takes like 3 turns and you can make anything 7+ BS and not able to shoot at all (power should really have had an "This effect does not stack" clause). Smite is a problem because it can be spammed, and mortal wounds are too good (which GW should have realized due to how prevalent mortal wounds are in AOS and how devastating they are there). The obvious answer is to restrict it being spammed. The fact this is just hiding the fact that the psychic power rules are fairly lame and that armies that do the mini-smite are hit by this isn't relevant, because GW is listening IMHO too much to tournament players and reacting too much to what they do. While yes, a competitive game provides the best balance for casual play as well, there is a line where the company is basically endlessly chasing the whims of people who don't give a damn about anything other than maximizing efficiency no matter what, and you end up in a vicious circle where GW will just continually patch the game as people find ways to abuse it, and as a result there is friendly fire casualties because they are just chasing the tournament meta trying to fix the imbalances.

The underlying issue is that people are going to try and abuse whatever they can to maximize their chance of winning; this is why you constantly see this circle where tournament players (because let's not pretend it's anyone else) will find something cheap and good, spam the gak out of it, GW sees it, nerfs it, tournament players find something else to abuse. But nothing can really fix that short of hard limits and balanced rules, neither of which 40k has. That cycle has gone on for years (in more than just GW games, although GW games are particularly bad for it) and will go on forever.

All rules systems, sports included, have strategies and tactics built around rules gaps/loopholes. It's not an exclusively GW, 40K or tournament players problem. It's simply how winning tactics develop.

Most sports have a rules council that adapts on the fly to tactics perceived to be not what's in the interest of the sport. They publish updates to the rules to prevent these, and lo and behold new tactics arise.

GW committing to a rules update cycle brings them more in line with this style of doing things - adapting and changing to remove tactics seen as 'abusive' or contrary to what the game should be. It's positive however you look at it... until the point where they've realised they can gouge everyone for rules updates in book form. :-/ I really wish they'd gone to a Living Rulebook format - online, PDF, updated as they go. But they wanna make a buck and I get that.

But wanting that buck was what made people leave last time and led to ten years of decline.

They just got customers back and less than six months in they are already nickle and dimming us over a clearly untested rule set.