Aza'Gorod wrote:

 Sasori wrote:
I've watched a few batreps now, and with the smaller tablesize and how important control of the Midfield objectives are, I gotta say I am not much down on Gauss Reapers as I was before.

It could very well become a strat to sit on an objective with a blob and a Royal Warden, it may not be that easy to shift, especially if RP is really changing for the better.

I'm really hopeful we have some way to teleport the gauss reaper guys within the 7inchs for rapid fire or maybe via a nightscythe

Asymmetric wrote:
Some speculation:

I'd keep an eye on the Nihilakh dynasty reclaim the lost empire stratagem + Lychguard in 9th. If 9th edition does boil down to marching into the centre of the board and holding objectives as the primary means to victory, swarming it with 10 man squads of sword and board lychguard and doubling down with reclaim the lost empire with a new improved re-animation protocols could be very hard for any army to shift. In non-ITC 8th events this combination was already strong for objective camping.

Asymmetric wrote:
Some speculation:

I'd keep an eye on the Nihilakh dynasty reclaim the lost empire stratagem + Lychguard in 9th. If 9th edition does boil down to marching into the centre of the board and holding objectives as the primary means to victory, swarming it with 10 man squads of sword and board lychguard and doubling down with reclaim the lost empire with a new improved re-animation protocols could be very hard for any army to shift. In non-ITC 8th events this combination was already strong for objective camping.

From what we’ve seen of the leaked mission rules (which is a lot)... this isn’t going to be the case. Same max points from the primary objectives as secondary. A lot easier to max out the kill-point secondaries (giving 30 points out of 90). Plus being killy is the best form of defence: it prevents your opponent from being able to score on their turn.

 p5freak wrote:
If blast weapon units will get a big point increase, the DDA will be hit hard. Problem is, its not an anti horde unit, its anti vehicle. I have a feeling it might be 200 pts. in 9th.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Aza'Gorod wrote:

 Sasori wrote:
I've watched a few batreps now, and with the smaller tablesize and how important control of the Midfield objectives are, I gotta say I am not much down on Gauss Reapers as I was before.

It could very well become a strat to sit on an objective with a blob and a Royal Warden, it may not be that easy to shift, especially if RP is really changing for the better.

I'm really hopeful we have some way to teleport the gauss reaper guys within the 7inchs for rapid fire or maybe via a nightscythe

Put them in a ghost ark, use the deceiver to reploy it 12.1" away from the enemy, disembark them, move them, and you are in rapid fire range. They can even charge, because only the ghost ark is affected by grand illusion.

Asymmetric wrote:
Some speculation:

I'd keep an eye on the Nihilakh dynasty reclaim the lost empire stratagem + Lychguard in 9th. If 9th edition does boil down to marching into the centre of the board and holding objectives as the primary means to victory, swarming it with 10 man squads of sword and board lychguard and doubling down with reclaim the lost empire with a new improved re-animation protocols could be very hard for any army to shift. In non-ITC 8th events this combination was already strong for objective camping.

weaver9 wrote:

Asymmetric wrote:
Some speculation:

I'd keep an eye on the Nihilakh dynasty reclaim the lost empire stratagem + Lychguard in 9th. If 9th edition does boil down to marching into the centre of the board and holding objectives as the primary means to victory, swarming it with 10 man squads of sword and board lychguard and doubling down with reclaim the lost empire with a new improved re-animation protocols could be very hard for any army to shift. In non-ITC 8th events this combination was already strong for objective camping.

Lychgaurd? Why not wraiths? Yummy 2++

IanVanCheese wrote:

 Aza'Gorod wrote:
I'm curious as to the damage calculations for the new scarabs vs the old ones, does anyone know if someone had done that?

Quick math

6 old scarabs vs tactical marine = 24 attacks, 12 hits, 4 wounds,
6 new scarabs vs tactical marine = 24 attacks, 12 hits, 5.33 wounds

6 old scarabs vs T6 and above = 24 attacks, 12 hits, 4 wounds
6 new scarabs vs T6 and above = 24 attacks, 12 hits, 3.66 wounds

Better vs T5 and below, slightly worse vs T6 and higher.

JNA, your maths is slightly off. You're giving new scarabs auto wound on 5s, it' on 6s. So it would be 18 hits total, of which 3 auto wound, not 6.

Basically better against anything except stuff they wound on 6s, since they could only ever wound on 5s at worst before and the auto wound on 6s to hit doesn't quite offset this. Overall it's a decent buff though.

 JNAProductions wrote:


That's my bad! I knew it was on a 6 too, I just goofed.

 Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll wrote:

Asymmetric wrote:
Some speculation:

I'd keep an eye on the Nihilakh dynasty reclaim the lost empire stratagem + Lychguard in 9th. If 9th edition does boil down to marching into the centre of the board and holding objectives as the primary means to victory, swarming it with 10 man squads of sword and board lychguard and doubling down with reclaim the lost empire with a new improved re-animation protocols could be very hard for any army to shift. In non-ITC 8th events this combination was already strong for objective camping.

From what we’ve seen of the leaked mission rules (which is a lot)... this isn’t going to be the case. Same max points from the primary objectives as secondary. A lot easier to max out the kill-point secondaries (giving 30 points out of 90). Plus being killy is the best form of defence: it prevents your opponent from being able to score on their turn.

 Arachnofiend wrote:

 Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll wrote:

Asymmetric wrote:
Some speculation:

I'd keep an eye on the Nihilakh dynasty reclaim the lost empire stratagem + Lychguard in 9th. If 9th edition does boil down to marching into the centre of the board and holding objectives as the primary means to victory, swarming it with 10 man squads of sword and board lychguard and doubling down with reclaim the lost empire with a new improved re-animation protocols could be very hard for any army to shift. In non-ITC 8th events this combination was already strong for objective camping.

From what we’ve seen of the leaked mission rules (which is a lot)... this isn’t going to be the case. Same max points from the primary objectives as secondary. A lot easier to max out the kill-point secondaries (giving 30 points out of 90). Plus being killy is the best form of defence: it prevents your opponent from being able to score on their turn.

The problem is that the kill units secondaries are designed to punish skew lists - other than Attrition (which itself requires your opponent to bring more small units than you) you are going to run out of stuff to kill before you max out that objective unless the other player brought a lot of that particular thing. The opponent needs to bring five characters for maxing Assassinate to even be possible, two titans for Titan Slayer, etc. I think maxing your secondaries is a pie in the sky scenario.

punisher357 wrote:

 p5freak wrote:
If blast weapon units will get a big point increase, the DDA will be hit hard. Problem is, its not an anti horde unit, its anti vehicle. I have a feeling it might be 200 pts. in 9th.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Aza'Gorod wrote:

 Sasori wrote:
I've watched a few batreps now, and with the smaller tablesize and how important control of the Midfield objectives are, I gotta say I am not much down on Gauss Reapers as I was before.

It could very well become a strat to sit on an objective with a blob and a Royal Warden, it may not be that easy to shift, especially if RP is really changing for the better.

I'm really hopeful we have some way to teleport the gauss reaper guys within the 7inchs for rapid fire or maybe via a nightscythe

Put them in a ghost ark, use the deceiver to reploy it 12.1" away from the enemy, disembark them, move them, and you are in rapid fire range. They can even charge, because only the ghost ark is affected by grand illusion.

"For rules purposes, units that are embarked on a transport model that has made a normal move, advanced, fallen back, or remained stationary also count as having made the same kind of move that turn."

I'm betting you won't be able to do that with the new rules.

 Mixzremixzd wrote:
Hmmm interestingly Necrons have never really been a character heavy army but with regards to the Royal Warden + Gauss Reaper warriors camping in the centre of the board, I'm wondering if our character usage may go up compared to 8th.

Right now it seems like Overlord/Imotekh + Cryptek + Royal Warden + Lord is the basic format.

Would running 2 Royal Wardens make any sense? Or even 2 Overlords seeing as how their MWBD and Aura abilities are no longer restricted to Infantry iirc (One to camp at the back with DDA and the other with the bulk of the army)? That may push us to 5 characters in the HQ slot which is the max for a battalion without even factoring in the Skorpekh and or Lokhust destroyer lords. Necrons may well turn into a GSC esque army in regards to the mileage/necessity of their characters if my musings are correct.

Shaelinith wrote:

 Mixzremixzd wrote:
Hmmm interestingly Necrons have never really been a character heavy army but with regards to the Royal Warden + Gauss Reaper warriors camping in the centre of the board, I'm wondering if our character usage may go up compared to 8th.

Right now it seems like Overlord/Imotekh + Cryptek + Royal Warden + Lord is the basic format.

Would running 2 Royal Wardens make any sense? Or even 2 Overlords seeing as how their MWBD and Aura abilities are no longer restricted to Infantry iirc (One to camp at the back with DDA and the other with the bulk of the army)? That may push us to 5 characters in the HQ slot which is the max for a battalion without even factoring in the Skorpekh and or Lokhust destroyer lords. Necrons may well turn into a GSC esque army in regards to the mileage/necessity of their characters if my musings are correct.

It is of course too soon to say but i doubt it. Our characters tends to be on the expensive side, usually without a lot of punch combat wise (compared to marines for example). Their buffs are good but not incredible and having more than 3 will cost us CP.
Our damage heavy units are already not cheap either, and 4 HQ will cost something like 350-400 pts, too much imho.
The only way i can see it happen is if mixed dynasties are a thing. Even then we could play double patrol with 2 characters.

 Draco765 wrote:

punisher357 wrote:

 p5freak wrote:
If blast weapon units will get a big point increase, the DDA will be hit hard. Problem is, its not an anti horde unit, its anti vehicle. I have a feeling it might be 200 pts. in 9th.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Aza'Gorod wrote:

 Sasori wrote:
I've watched a few batreps now, and with the smaller tablesize and how important control of the Midfield objectives are, I gotta say I am not much down on Gauss Reapers as I was before.

It could very well become a strat to sit on an objective with a blob and a Royal Warden, it may not be that easy to shift, especially if RP is really changing for the better.

I'm really hopeful we have some way to teleport the gauss reaper guys within the 7inchs for rapid fire or maybe via a nightscythe

Put them in a ghost ark, use the deceiver to reploy it 12.1" away from the enemy, disembark them, move them, and you are in rapid fire range. They can even charge, because only the ghost ark is affected by grand illusion.

"For rules purposes, units that are embarked on a transport model that has made a normal move, advanced, fallen back, or remained stationary also count as having made the same kind of move that turn."

I'm betting you won't be able to do that with the new rules.

None of those are what the Deceiver does. He just Redeploys the unit and applies his limitation to that Unit. The Embarked unit is just along for the ride.

 p5freak wrote:
If blast weapon units will get a big point increase, the DDA will be hit hard. Problem is, its not an anti horde unit, its anti vehicle. I have a feeling it might be 200 pts. in 9th.

IanVanCheese wrote:
Scattered notes and thoughts on that 9th ed game I mentioned above:

Close game but managed to squeak out the win (10/9). It was against imperial Fists, full infantry list. 2 x 3 Suppressors, 4 Inceptors, 3 x 5 Intercessors, Captain, Lt, 2 x 3 Eliminators.

He went first and smoked my DDA, god damn Imperial Fists ruin our tanks. Immortals did work, but very squishy as we know. Scarabs were heroic, made a darting move up to finish off a wounded Lt.

Stalker was good, smoked two suppressors in shooting with heat ray, then an inceptor in charge phase. It also exploded, doing a ton of MWs. It'd already made it's points by then anyway though, very happy with it as distraction carinfex/damage dealer.

Overlord changes are good (played with new MWBD + aura, but current wargear - also played new scarab rules). He still meh in combat, killed some intercessors but got wrecked by captain.

Overall, very happy with my first game of 9th, it looks a lot like 8th on paper, but it played very differently. EVen playing Only War, the super simple mission, it was all about board control.

Also, minimum board size for 1000pts is like a shoebox. Very cosy. Didn't get to use my VOD, no need and no space.

In summary. Scarabs rule, Heat Ray Stalker impressed me and new terrain rules vastly change the game. Subtle changes were interesting. Opposing player getting to swing first in no charger combat etc. Positive we will have missed some new stuff, but yeah, bring on 9th and our new codex.

 iGuy91 wrote:

IanVanCheese wrote:
Scattered notes and thoughts on that 9th ed game I mentioned above:

Close game but managed to squeak out the win (10/9). It was against imperial Fists, full infantry list. 2 x 3 Suppressors, 4 Inceptors, 3 x 5 Intercessors, Captain, Lt, 2 x 3 Eliminators.

He went first and smoked my DDA, god damn Imperial Fists ruin our tanks. Immortals did work, but very squishy as we know. Scarabs were heroic, made a darting move up to finish off a wounded Lt.

Stalker was good, smoked two suppressors in shooting with heat ray, then an inceptor in charge phase. It also exploded, doing a ton of MWs. It'd already made it's points by then anyway though, very happy with it as distraction carinfex/damage dealer.

Overlord changes are good (played with new MWBD + aura, but current wargear - also played new scarab rules). He still meh in combat, killed some intercessors but got wrecked by captain.

Overall, very happy with my first game of 9th, it looks a lot like 8th on paper, but it played very differently. EVen playing Only War, the super simple mission, it was all about board control.

Also, minimum board size for 1000pts is like a shoebox. Very cosy. Didn't get to use my VOD, no need and no space.

In summary. Scarabs rule, Heat Ray Stalker impressed me and new terrain rules vastly change the game. Subtle changes were interesting. Opposing player getting to swing first in no charger combat etc. Positive we will have missed some new stuff, but yeah, bring on 9th and our new codex.

You know...i'm actually not surprised the Stalker is much improved, and the Heat Ray was a good go-to with the smaller board size. That, and the Stalker as a Vehicle ignores the move and shoot penalty as a vehicle...I may need to reconsider bringing mine again when 9th drops

Eyjio wrote:

 Sasori wrote:
Why are you not a fan of the Plasmacyte? Assuming in the regular Dex the Destroyers are 3-6, it seems really good. The buff can be extremely relevant, getting to strength 8 on the reap blade. Worst case, it can take something like a Lascannon shot if needed to keep the rest of the unit alive. yeah, the 1 in 6 chance to kill a destroyer isn't amazing, but if RP is improved it may not be that huge.

I've also revised my opinion of the Plasmancer as well. My main concern is it seems like our HQ slot going to be super competitive now.

You know, I was going off gut instinct to justify it, as the potential to kill off a 40 point model seemed insane, but you're right. Turns out, there are actually quite a few potential uses for the damn thing. I'm working off the (very tenuous) rumours that they do cap at 3 units per model, that they cost ~40 points each and the plasmacyte is an additional 15, bringing the squad to 135 points; a bit less than 7 intercessors in the new rules. So, here's some facts I found interesting:

-Other than a few cases, the reap-sword outperforms the threshers in almost all situations. If we have the option in the codex to arm all with swords, it's usually the right way to go.
-Those cases aren't always trivial; one of them is T4 W1/2 any save, no inv, where threshers are always just a little better.
-With infusing, S8 makes a huge difference against T4, making the reap-blade superior, and S6 threshers are better vs T5 W1/2 as you might expect from the +1S.
-T3 is also much weaker to the threshers after infusion; GEQ get mulched, as you'd anticipate, expecting to take over 10 casualties from a full strength attack vs 6 uninfused.
-Surprising one: against T5 or lower units, infusing and losing 1 destroyer still on average gives you 95% of the damage output as not infusing; i.e. infusing if you reach combat with full model count is almost always the best decision
-Unfortunately, vs high T models, infusing is extremely swingy: losing 1 thresher model (the ideal) reduces you to on average ~85% of your strength if you hadn't infused; if a model doesn't die, you're about 55% stronger.
-Because rerolling 1's to wound is multiplicative, the Skorptekh lord helps most vs multiwound models where the damage output really matters. Not shocking, but means between the blast gun, claw and reroll aura, it's a surprisingly well rounded unit for any match up.
-Slightly interesting aside: against many units in the game, D2 vs D3 is a lot bigger of a disparity than it looks, which manifests here also. VS a character with 5/6 wounds, D2 needs to hit an extra time, and VS W3 units, it's the same. As a fair amount of melee units have W3, you really want to keep the sword guy alive.

So, my intuition is completely wrong. Despite how it seems, the plasmacyte seems exceptionally useful; it will either eat a high damage shot for the unit, in which case that's 15 points spent to save 40 - a great trade, or it buffs the unit immensely in combat, and the backfire isn't as extreme as it looks. These guys are massive damage dealers and move very quickly. The downside is obvious - against other melee units, they really need the charge, and no inv is a huge disadvantage because they will just melt. Still, I'm glad I did the analysis, I don't feel like much of this was particularly obvious at all!

torblind wrote:
It's pretty clear what you mean, but it's not clear cut is it? You'd need to explicitly address thid situation in the deceiver's ability, as it's not listed among those things that prevent a transport from unloading and have them charge.

If you deceivered a Monolith or night scythe, would you not allow it to bring in a unit that could charge?

If you deceiver forward Zahndrekh, he can't charge, but would you not allow Obyron to ghost mantle a unit of lychguard to to him that then can charge?

There's all kinds of transportation mechanisms that open up with the deceiver. Unless it's explicitly mentioned that a transport can't unload with charge allowed, it's certainly open for discussion