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Is it just me or do does anyone think the hero buffs are too much and make the games a little too hero focused. Don't get me wrong, I am all for units around a hero unit getting a morale boost and all but when the buffs giving rerolls here and there.

It creates these games where people just keep all their units clumped up together around the hero and sometimes mass snipers trying to snipe the hero.

Use more cover and better scenarios, it isn't that hard to fix. When both players have to stretch their forces around to get objectives and the table makes it impossible to simply sit there and shoot, it's fine.

I agree that named characters should be toned down a notch to not include so many autoincludes, but captains and lords and commanders... those are pretty fun.

I'm sure there are imbalanced HQ's out there who buff a bit too much for what they cost, but in general (no pun intended) I like where HQ's are this edition. Previously something like a chaos lord was just hurled forward to get as many kills as possible, now they have some value as an actual leader and can buff gun line units as well as shorter ranged units. I like the buffing role they've taken

Coming from lotr I was surprised that most characters in 40K were usually 50 shades of beatsticks with the "buffmander" being the exception and not the rule. I like that this has changed in 8th were generals are actual leaders.

I agree though that snipers are pretty bad, there should be ways to take out characters. It's easier than in 7th, but still quite hard to kill characters that stay behind.
Also, if the trend of the Nurgle herolds continues with 2 auras on cheap models it could become a problem.

It depends on the hero: some of them give overpowered buffs, some useless ones, many other are pretty balanced and fun to play for their cost.

I'm more disappointed with the size of the new heroes, they're huge as hell. Even those ones that shouldn't be that big: take celestine or the ynnead, they have the shape of a standard sister and space elf but GW sculpted them in a pose that makes them big centerpiece models. I hate this politics more than overpowered rules

Snipers to kill characters are not a thing, the majority of them are very lacklsuster. Some armies don't even have snipers in their roster. I play Orks, Drukhari and Space wolves and the only snipers I could get are a single dark eldar dude with the sniper rifle and wolf scouts. I've never even considered taking those options in my games. I'd really hate super effective snipers to be honest.

 Snake Tortoise wrote:
I'm sure there are imbalanced HQ's out there who buff a bit too much for what they cost, but in general (no pun intended) I like where HQ's are this edition. Previously something like a chaos lord was just hurled forward to get as many kills as possible, now they have some value as an actual leader and can buff gun line units as well as shorter ranged units. I like the buffing role they've taken

When 8th launched I was really pleased to see that some hqs had reroll 1s to hit auras, and certainly nothing more than that (looking at eldar, orks and tyranids). Giving them buff auras without overdoing it meant more focus on general troops, I thought. I really liked this change.

I was quite disappointed to learn of the existence and ease of access to the chapter master/primaris lieutenant combo (my two sm opponents actually field dark angels with azrael and ultramarines with guilliman. I learned about sm getting all the rerolls the hard way).

These overlapping super auras definitely promote clumping up. I don't mind leaving my autarch's reroll 1 aura, but I wouldn't just step out of a full reroll aura. So yeah, I like the system, but definitely agree that the aura system would've been better with moderation.

The buffs should be something other than just rerolls though. Those slows down game so much that as it is 8th ed turn tends to take MORE time than 7th ed. Games just last less turns as so much is wiped out in 1-2 turns.

Rerolls to everything isn't nice. 40 dice to hit, rerolls. Rolls to wound, reroll. That was 1 gun. Next!

Too much rerolls. GW get inventive with the buffs! That way it's a) less boring b) faster to play. Wasn't 8th ed supposed to be FASTER to play? Preferably by not just making games 1-2 mega long turns.

The fact that the buffs are there aren't too much of a problem for me, the wide scale of the buffs effects and the fact that certain factions have characters with better buffs that grant so much more whilst others have to accept generic ones irks me somewhat.

For example, a bad buff is the crisis commander gets a one turn shtick where units near him can advance and fire without penalty (Which is ok but most weapons on these guys are assault anyway and there's a system that negates the penalty anyway) or every unit in 6 inches can reroll hits, but only if they stay still, which is pretty meh.

Standard characters are usually you reroll a 1 on a hit, to wound or you have a leadership bubble, which is nice and balanced.

Special characters take it too far by having too many buffs or buffs that defeat specific limiters in the rules, such as gulliman granting flat rerolls to hit and wound for ultramarines, plus rerolls of 1 to hit and wound for imperium or Cawl that allows you to reroll any hit dice, and this includes being able to reroll ones that should fail due to rerolls.

Abbadon actually doing something besides being a near useless beat stick is actually pretty good.

But I believe there can be a bit much on some characters.

Generally I'm not a fan of auras or buff bubbles, probably one of my largest dislikes in current 40K.

I don't see it as a problem at all. It's one of these design elements that everyone is going to have to accept and get their heads around for this edition.

It depends.

I actually think hero buffs are a fairly good mechanic, as it helps heroes like Canonesses stay relevant compared to Celestine (different buff aura).

But then you compare their buff aura (re-roll 1s vs +1 to Shield of Faith, and +1 free Act of Faith) and you're like "welp, back to Celestine being better again".

But enough bellyaching about Canonesses. Essentially, yes, I don't have a problem with the mechanic but there are some ridiculously OP buffs out there from some characters (FRFSRF comes to mind; it's about the only thing that makes an all-lasgun squad offensively viable).

 Sherrypie wrote:
Use more cover and better scenarios, it isn't that hard to fix. When both players have to stretch their forces around to get objectives and the table makes it impossible to simply sit there and shoot, it's fine.

I agree that named characters should be toned down a notch to not include so many autoincludes, but captains and lords and commanders... those are pretty fun.

Eternal war missions need to die a fiery death. Whoever thought it was a good idea to just have two players deploy everything then sit back and shoot.....yeesh.

I like to have squads of marines taking objetives with a liutenaut or a chaplain and for those low level heroes to give their men some buff instead of not doing anything. 8th has made most characters relevant one way or another.
Has others have said, castlibg up is a recipe for losing in ITC and maesltrom misions.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I

But enough bellyaching about Canonesses. Essentially, yes, I don't have a problem with the mechanic but there are some ridiculously OP buffs out there from some characters (FRFSRF comes to mind; it's about the only thing that makes an all-lasgun squad offensively viable).

A "OP" buff that makes a unit "viable".

....Errr?

 MinscS2 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I

But enough bellyaching about Canonesses. Essentially, yes, I don't have a problem with the mechanic but there are some ridiculously OP buffs out there from some characters (FRFSRF comes to mind; it's about the only thing that makes an all-lasgun squad offensively viable).

A "OP" buff that makes a unit "viable".

....Errr?

Nice cherry picking.

"offensively viable" is a qualified way of saying "viable."

Imperial Guard Infantry Squads with no upgrades are perfectly, 100% viable. They're excellent units even if you have a Lord Commissar and a Psyker as your HQ, because they're fantastic screens for their price. They also become "offensively viable" when you put FRFSRF on them, meaning they're actually passably good at offence. If you can't see why a unit that is supremely durable (point for point, not model for model) also being fairly good offensively is a bit too good, then I don't know what to tell you.

Relax, no need to get so defensive.
I just found what you said funny.

I'd have preferred to see buffs work more like orders (with leader types able to issue X orders per turn, to a restricted range of targets), and to have a limit set for the number of buffs a single unit can receive, as opposed to the, "everyone within X gets re-rolls" type mechanic we have now.

Personally I like it a lot better than the days when a hero was an overpriced melee unit taken as a tax to run a detachment.

DCannon4Life wrote:
I'd have preferred to see buffs work more like orders (with leader types able to issue X orders per turn, to a restricted range of targets), and to have a limit set for the number of buffs a single unit can receive, as opposed to the, "everyone within X gets re-rolls" type mechanic we have now.

This. HQ units could have a "Leader: X" keyword, where X is a number which is the number of orders they may give in a game turn. Then you can have Orders: Infantry, Vehicle, Monster etc. which indicates the units that the model can give orders to.

Then you make sure you have a wide selection of orders which are functionally different at a rules level and feel different to use. Re-rolling 1s vs re-roll all misses are functionally different at a rules level but feel basically the same to the player (and if you're hitting/wounding/saving on a 2+ they are functionally identical). Instead have things like "Suppressing Fire" which sacrifices the potential to do damage to a unit but instead makes the target be unable to fire overwatch unless it can pass a leadership test (with modifiers applied for number of hits rolled and whether those hits come from Heavy weapons). You can also have orders which can only be given to certain types of units, such as orders which can only be given to tanks (allowing them to perform a good old tank shock) or infantry or units with jump packs etc. Also have orders which can be activated in the opponents turn, such as allowing one of your units to make a move after the opponent has finished moving. So now your pool of orders is a valuable resource not just in your turn and you have to weigh up the benefits of using them in your turn or your opponents.

Stuff like that.

 Sherrypie wrote:

I agree that named characters should be toned down a notch to not include so many autoincludes, but captains and lords and commanders... those are pretty fun.

The big advantage of named characters being strong is that it forces a degree of diversity in a list. Since by definition you can only take one of them, you can't generally build your entire army based around the buff they provide and that promotes diversity of roles better than prior editions that had a tendency of making a super efficient 500-700 point module and spamming it 3-4 times.

Well, I think that all these strategems are much too much.
Armies could exist and could be played without them.
This would tone down the alpha strike lists and take the sting a bit out of the games.

I wish the buffs were more varied in application. It feels like everybody can reroll 1s to hit. AOS does a very good job of providing variety in these things, so it is strange that 40k doesn't. Actually AOS has produced far better and more thematic rulesets for armies. Maggotkin is one of their best designed armies - internally balanced, a unique playstyle and a style that fits the fluff. 40k could learn a lot from it.

I would prefer if 40k was more limited in its buffs. Whether it is changed so that they only affect 1 unit, or units wholly within x inches.

CassianSol wrote:

I wish the buffs were more varied in application. It feels like everybody can reroll 1s to hit. AOS does a very good job of providing variety in these things, so it is strange that 40k doesn't. Actually AOS has produced far better and more thematic rulesets for armies.

Yes over time. But remember what mess AoS was in when it was first released? For 40k GW has released a good half of its codices, and done so at a rather breakneck pace. One could wish for a higher level of quality, but imagine the outrage if GW only did four codices a year?

But yes, they rely too much on rerolls, mortal wounds, invulnerable saves and other such crutches.

Some buff bubbles are mandatory. Synapse is mandatory. My army crumbles in seconds without synapse. I would literally lose every game without it.

Instead of rerolling 1s the game would be faster with a flat +1 to hit.

 Marmatag wrote:
Some buff bubbles are mandatory. Synapse is mandatory. My army crumbles in seconds without synapse. I would literally lose every game without it.

Instead of rerolling 1s the game would be faster with a flat +1 to hit.

Faster, sure, but even more all-or-nothing tabling fest as that would be a major increase in offence unless they would also be much rarer. I personally like rerolling ones as it is a buff, no doubt, but not that huge. I also like modifiers preventing some broader rerolls from working, as that also means that the rerolls aren't that hugely effective outside some sillier combinations.

Then again, I don't personally desire the game to go much faster than it currently does and would rather see standard tournament list sizes reduced than rules turned to more killy if time seems to be a problem.

In general, I like HQs offering buffs. It's strategic, especially in objective games. You have to decide where to place them.

Some armies overdo it. I played against a Dark Angels army recently, where there were 3 HQs, a banner, and stratagems being used together to turn a few squads of tacticals into a slaughter machine. They were rerolling everything and I felt like it was too much.

That example doesn't represent HQs as a whole. Overall, buffs are a good thing.