Chaos Daemon Faction Focus: doubling down on bad design?

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**alextroy**

Breng77 wrote:
Arachnofiend wrote:
I think what Breng means is that against the vast majority of opponents the 2 was a failed to-hit anyways. You have to get at least a 3 on 2d6-drop-highest to expect significant value out of the ability, which isn't great odds.

Right the ability is you roll 2d6 drop the highest, and then you opponents hit rolls of the lower value auto fail.

20/36 times that lower number will be a 1 or a 2 so 55% of the time against most opponents it does absolutely nothing.

You say that like there are not other Abilities that do not do nothing a reasonable percentage of the time.

Cadian's get to reroll 1's if they don't move, so it does nothing if they move and works 16% of the time when they don't. It must be a useless ability.

**Breng77**

You say that as if my original response wasn't made to someone saying it was basically -1 to hit most of the time. Which it isn't. Further the Cadian ability is significantly better. I'm not saying this ability is horrible it just isn't especially powerful which was the original claim. It is a marginal durability buff. Let's put it this way. No one ever called the 4++ in close combat only storm shield OP. This is significantly worse than that.

Also dark angels get the cadian ability and no one is claiming it is broken like this thread claims for this ability. I stand by my assertion it is easily the third best locus of the 4.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

WindstormSCR wrote:
BlaxicanX wrote:
WindstormSCR wrote:
it's just a "haha you": the ability.
I mean, so are saving throws, going by your logic.

What is the difference between "you rolled a 3, your attack misses" and "I rolled a 3, your attack soes nothing"?

Well, to put it in context, at least with other hit penalties several armies have methods of adding to hit rolls as well, so my definition of interaction here is that there is at least something that can be done to mitigate it.

I'm of the opinion that anything that messes with attacks prior to the save roll isn't good design, because it creates several meta twisting problems all to itself. That means giving factions armywide -1 to hit, this thing, and yes, even conceal, nightshroud, and some of the unit abilities in the Craftworlds codex. If every army had equal options for shooting and melee, making 'just shoot them' the answer might be fine. But across the spectrum of factions that is far from the case. 7th had a problem with invulnerables and FnP. 8th is developing a problem with hit modifiers.

Availability of good AP is not even across all factions thus saves must be a problem too.

**Inquisitor Lord Katherine**

That ability is excessively complicated. It's understandable, but I don't see why it couldn't just have been "-1 to hit in CQC."

**Breng77**

Because that would be significantly more powerful than what it currently is. The closest easy fix would be "roll a D6 on a 5+ units within 6" are -1 to hit in the fight phase." If the changling remains unchanged -1 to hit in the fight phase would make brimstone screens a super hard counter to assault armies.

**Arachnofiend**

Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:
That ability is excessively complicated. It's understandable, but I don't see why it couldn't just have been "-1 to hit in CQC."

To be fair, the Tzeentch loci being excessively complicated is quite fluffy.

**Vitali Advenil**

Arachnofiend wrote:
Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:
That ability is excessively complicated. It's understandable, but I don't see why it couldn't just have been "-1 to hit in CQC."

To be fair, the Tzeentch loci being excessively complicated is quite fluffy.

Just double-down and make every strategem require a basic concept of calculus and only work on certain days of the year.

**pm713**

Vitali Advenil wrote:
Arachnofiend wrote:
Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:
That ability is excessively complicated. It's understandable, but I don't see why it couldn't just have been "-1 to hit in CQC."

To be fair, the Tzeentch loci being excessively complicated is quite fluffy.

Just double-down and make every strategem require a basic concept of calculus and only work on certain days of the year.

When planets align.

**Zustiur**

GW just increased my desire to start a slaanesh army.

**tneva82**

BlaxicanX wrote:
WindstormSCR wrote:
it's just a "haha you": the ability.
I mean, so are saving throws, going by your logic.

What is the difference between "you rolled a 3, your attack misses" and "I rolled a 3, your attack soes nothing"?

Well this one is certainly clumber and slowing game down. Which is why I don't like it. GW was sprouting all this nonsense of fastening 8th ed but all knew they would just saddle it with game slowing rerolls by bucketloads and weird bespoken rules(like this) to slow it down. The only real speeding up was turning alpha strike up to 11 that there's often no need to even move models for one army or play past turn 1!

**the_scotsman**

Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:
That ability is excessively complicated. It's understandable, but I don't see why it couldn't just have been "-1 to hit in CQC."

Because the ability was specifically tuned to NOT create a situation where your guys are effectively invincible.

Think about it, the odds of ignoring a 6 to hit are 1/36
the odds of ignoring a 5 to hit are 3/36
a 4, 5/36
a 3, 7/36
The remaining 20/36 results get you the almost always useless 2 and 1 result.

it intentionally scales down in usefulness with other "nyah nyah can't hit me" style abilities, so that you don't see units becoming nigh impossible to hurt like we did with screamer stars last edition.

I don't think this is doubling down on bad design at all, it's certainly a better design than say an invulnerable save.

**Breng77**

Right, it's effectiveness is actually inversely proportional to negative hit modifiers. Having a -1 to hit actually makes it more likely this ability will have no effect. It also effects better melee units more often than marginal ones. Against a model that hits on a 2+ it is often a -1 to hit, against a model that hits on a 5+ it almost never is. So it is good for your tar pit units, but creating a deathstars to beat up weaker units and be invincible is unlikely.

**BoomWolf**

Exactly.
Its by far the worst of the four actually.
Its a marginal difference, at CC only, that works SOME of the time, and only in defensive measures not actually helping you make kills.

The other three gets you into combat quicker (where you want to be), or make you deadlier when you actually get there-and are all far more reliable.

**the_scotsman**

BoomWolf wrote:
Exactly.
Its by far the worst of the four actually.
Its a marginal difference, at CC only, that works SOME of the time, and only in defensive measures not actually helping you make kills.

The other three gets you into combat quicker (where you want to be), or make you deadlier when you actually get there-and are all far more reliable.

It is worth noting that the slaanesh one at least has some Skornergy built into it as well - steeds and seekers of slaanesh get that ability by default, so it's only useful for their footy units and chariots (though it is very nice on the chariots).

The Khorne one is going to be especially nice if daemons get some of their more universal deepstrike capabilities back through stratagems.

**BoomWolf**

You are assuming steeds and seekers do not change.

**andysonic1**

BoomWolf wrote:
You are assuming steeds and seekers do not change.

Everyone is pretty much assuming everything at this point.

**ERJAK**

alextroy wrote:
Breng77 wrote:
Arachnofiend wrote:
I think what Breng means is that against the vast majority of opponents the 2 was a failed to-hit anyways. You have to get at least a 3 on 2d6-drop-highest to expect significant value out of the ability, which isn't great odds.

Right the ability is you roll 2d6 drop the highest, and then you opponents hit rolls of the lower value auto fail.

20/36 times that lower number will be a 1 or a 2 so 55% of the time against most opponents it does absolutely nothing.

You say that like there are not other Abilities that do not do nothing a reasonable percentage of the time.

Cadian's get to reroll 1's if they don't move, so it does nothing if they move and works 16% of the time when they don't. It must be a useless ability.

SoB get to deny on 1D6, which means they can stop 1 out of every 54 smites (when you do stop something with it though it can immediately break the game in you favor but that's neither here nor there)

And as many people have said, it's actually not great and it's about dam time a daemon codex comes out that doesn't completely destroy the game system (demons destroyed 6th and was the last bullet to the head of 7th, destroyed Sigmar, Destroyed WHFB back in the day, etc.)

**fraser1191**

I dunno. If you get a six as a result that's gonna stop a lot of rules that do extra things on 6s to hit

**Lance845**

I think getting anxious about special rules in a vacuum is a waste of everyones time. Each codex has seen units changed, special rules changed, and all kinds of modifications. Worrying about how this will stack with models we haven't seen yet is nonsensical.

Wait for the whole picture. And then when you have a freak out about the codex remember a FAQ and Errata is 2 weeks away.

**BoomWolf**

fraser1191 wrote:
I dunno. If you get a six as a result that's gonna stop a lot of rules that do extra things on 6s to hit

Problem is, you only have 1/36 chance to even get to nullfi 6s, and many of the 6+ triggers don't actually matter when fighting the tzeentch swarm (multiple wounds or increasing AP for example, do nothing against horrors.)

**Arachnofiend**

BoomWolf wrote:
fraser1191 wrote:
I dunno. If you get a six as a result that's gonna stop a lot of rules that do extra things on 6s to hit

Problem is, you only have 1/36 chance to even get to nullfi 6s, and many of the 6+ triggers don't actually matter when fighting the tzeentch swarm (multiple wounds or increasing AP for example, do nothing against horrors.)

Those are to wound triggers. The most common 6+ to hit trigger is stuff like tesla that gives you multiple hits which is very much relevant against horrors.

**BoomWolf**

Right, my bad. Though tesla is not CC, and its CC only.
Still, only 1/36 of getting that result anyway, you are just as likely to get a 1,1 and the effect fizzles, and more likely to get a 1,2/2,2 who usually means nothing at all as well against all but the most elite stuff (who want to avoid your tarpit like the plague anyways)

**Nym**

Arachnofiend wrote:
Those are to wound triggers. The most common 6+ to hit trigger is stuff like tesla that gives you multiple hits which is very much relevant against horrors.

Except Tesla is a ranged ability.

The only thing I can think of that triggers on a 6+ to hit is the Adeptus Mechanicus Dragoons' lance weapon. Maybe Tyranids get some too, I didn't get to read their codex.

**Breng77**

fraser1191 wrote:
I dunno. If you get a six as a result that's gonna stop a lot of rules that do extra things on 6s to hit

As I already pointed out -1 to hit already does this. This does it a highly rare amount of times.

**JNAProductions**

Highly rare? It's nearly a 1/3 chance-11/36 to be exact.

**tneva82**

JNAProductions wrote:
Highly rare? It's nearly a 1/3 chance-11/36 to be exact.

Against what? Chance of rolling 1 or 2 on 2dice is pretty darn high. Units that hit on 4p odds are even worse. 25% chance to get effect.

**BoomWolf**

JNAProductions wrote:
Highly rare? It's nearly a 1/3 chance-11/36 to be exact.

I think you got how this ability works a lot wrong.

You roll two dice and take the LOWEST, not the highest to be effected.

**Tyel**

The odds of blocking a 6 are 1/36. Pretty unlikely.

It will however go off 16/36 against WS 3+ - 4 times in 9, or 45% of the time. So fairly frequently if you have multiple squads.
And 25/36 against WS 2+.

Really I don't like it because horrors are already annoying as chaff and I don't see why they have to be even better at it. I know some people feel they have been nerfed a lot - but they are one of the few units I would like to see disappear from this edition (or be completely re-imagined).

**adamsouza**

JNAProductions wrote:
Highly rare? It's nearly a 1/3 chance-11/36 to be exact.

Roll 2d6 and discard the highest. Ignore the result of the remaining die. You would have to roll 2 6's to ignore rolls of 6.

I believe your math is wrong.

**JNAProductions**

adamsouza wrote:
JNAProductions wrote:
Highly rare? It's nearly a 1/3 chance-11/36 to be exact.

Roll 2d6 and discard the highest. Ignore the result of the remaining die. You would have to roll 2 6's to ignore rolls of 6.

I believe your math is wrong.

Yup. The way I read it, was that you kept BOTH dice.

So that's my bad. The rule is confusing.

**Formosa**

well here is my prediction, no steeds, no mounts etc. unless there is a model for it, that also means that skulltaker will lose mounts (again), all the stupid charts to roll on will remain for some reason OR they will water it all down to 6 relics, 2 warlord traits will be good and total of 6 psy powers will be good, out of 18.

I am just going off the previous codexs here