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 Crimson Devil wrote:
As A Blood Angel Player I have no problem with the beta rules.

As a grey knights player, I'm mortified. They basically took us out back and shot us in the head.

I think it's a positive change as someone who'll be affected by the rules (my destroyers will have to come in on turn 2 from now on), though I'm worried that it might make static gunlines too strong without first turn aggression keeping them in check. We'll have to see if Guard and Tau light up the leaderboards.

 Jaxler wrote:

Avragecommisar wrote:

 bullyboy wrote:
No, unless 1st turn gunline Alpha is also addressed in some way.

Los blocking terrain works for that.

So you can hide your entire army behind terrain? how about 1/2 of it?

Are you not deep striking? You only need to totally hide some right. Perhaps grab some cover for the others. I get what you're saying but where I play rarely does someone lose half or more of their army to turn 1 shooting. But it may be different for you.

Solves nothing. The only way to truly deal with alpha strikes is to fundamentally change the game from IGOUGO to Alternating activations. But that’s probably too much. Either way, this is a poor badly thought out solution. Instead target specific units that abuse this and address gun lines. Bye GK!

Avragecommisar wrote:

 bullyboy wrote:
No, unless 1st turn gunline Alpha is also addressed in some way.

Los blocking terrain works for that.

Manticore and Basilisk say Hi!

VoidSempai wrote:

Avragecommisar wrote:

 bullyboy wrote:
No, unless 1st turn gunline Alpha is also addressed in some way.

Los blocking terrain works for that.

Manticore and Basilisk say Hi!

As does anything that can see even half of one model in your squad. There is no LOS blocking terrain that can cover everything.

Nope, and I don't really think there's a need to "wait and see" on a rule that is so obviously unbalanced.


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Avragecommisar wrote:

 bullyboy wrote:
No, unless 1st turn gunline Alpha is also addressed in some way.

Los blocking terrain works for that.

This comment makes zero sense given how LoS works in this edition. Unless it was a flying unit, any piece of terrain large and solid enough to block LoS would also effecrively remove the unit from the game for several turns while they maneuvered around it.

JFC the whining. Melee worked fine in previous editions when you couldn't charge out of deep strike at all. Now you can, but it isn't enough because you can't deploy directly into melee on turn 1 and turn the game into a CCG.

 Peregrine wrote:
JFC the whining. Melee worked fine in previous editions when you couldn't charge out of deep strike at all. Now you can, but it isn't enough because you can't deploy directly into melee on turn 1 and turn the game into a CCG.

Please, do regale me with tales of melee working fine in 7th Ed.

Let's be real guys, this nerf (or some iteration of it) is the first step to reducing alpha strike. Will it need something more later? Maybe. But for now it's a step in the right direction.

Also, anybody complaining about gunline dominance just needs more terrain. Y'all should be fighting in dense urban environments, or dense jungle, or canyons or anything that involves LOS blocking terrain every 6" of board.

 Kopy wrote:
I know, we should wait and see how the meta evolves with the new changes.

But I'm just curious what people think about it at first glance or after they already discussed it elsewhere.

Of course there are people who are in between yes and no, those who would change DS to xyz. But that's not an option right now as our feedback to GW mostly revolves around keeping it or not.

Only if they also nerf turn 1 shooting.


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Dandelion wrote:
Let's be real guys, this nerf (or some iteration of it) is the first step to reducing alpha strike. Will it need something more later? Maybe. But for now it's a step in the right direction.

Also, anybody complaining about gunline dominance just needs more terrain. Y'all should be fighting in dense urban environments, or dense jungle, or canyons or anything that involves LOS blocking terrain every 6" of board.

What about "that guy" who throws a tantrum accusing you of cheating him of victory, because he can only win if his 20 dark reapers can see your whole army turn 1 ?

Gunlines were not competitive before this change, seriously go look at any big even results and find me a static gunline.

Spoiler: You will find only Dark Reapers, and guess what happened to them and to Eldar in general?

Let's not assume that AM got out of this unscathed, because they didn't, they lost their top builds as much as everyone else. Spamming artillery with infantry screening is NOT an AM top build. Spamming artillery with infantry screening AND complement it with a mobile element, be it scions drops or some Blood Angels, THAT is the AM top build, and guess what happened to that?

Sure, they still have some nice lists, and could be the top faction now, but it's too early to tell.

Dandelion wrote:
Let's be real guys, this nerf (or some iteration of it) is the first step to reducing alpha strike. Will it need something more later? Maybe. But for now it's a step in the right direction.

Also, anybody complaining about gunline dominance just needs more terrain. Y'all should be fighting in dense urban environments, or dense jungle, or canyons or anything that involves LOS blocking terrain every 6" of board.

This change hurts less the units that were problem than units that weren't problem.

And 8th ed made sure LOS blocking is bloody hard. Not all can make pretty terrain and say GW's own ruins have all those windows etc making LOS blocking useless with them.

ohmehgerd, the 'more terrain' argument again?

Those who say 'relax, it's targetting the shooting DS alphastrike' - no it's not. That could have been done quite neatly; 'any unit that DS's in turn one suffers -1 modifiers to hit and wound in the shooting phase.'

Let's say for simplicity that there are three stratagies: Gunline, Deepstrike Guns and Deepstrike Melee. A proposed change nerfs the third (weakest of the three), nerfs half the second (Reapers are happy DS'ing into their own zone on turn 1), while leaving the first, already dominant, strategy, untouched. How can that be a good call?

The proposed change, crucially, hits weak units and armies the hardest. Stronger rosters can accomodate with, you guessed it, more guns. Weaker rosters or units don't have the same flexibility. So not only does the proposal highly reward more guns-in-a-row, it punishes not-guns-in-a-row.

And Spoletta: AM have the valk, the only transport in the game that can reliably deliver CC units into melee turn 1. My heart does not weep for my AM brethren... The change also disproportionately boosts 'movemovemove!' orders - you can have your deepstrike denial utterly sown up for turn 2 as a guard player. bare bones infantry squads zooming up the board to form a denial bubble reaching into the opponent's half of the board (whilst now generating more CPs) will become very common now.

It is a terrible idea, in short, that seems to be supported by vets, because earlier editions had the same kind of rule. But 8th is a very diferent beast.

 grouchoben wrote:
ohmehgerd, the 'more terrain' argument again?

Those who say 'relax, it's targetting the shooting DS alphastrike' - no it's not. That could have been done quite neatly; 'any unit that DS's in turn one suffers -1 modifiers to hit and wound in the shooting phase.'

Let's say for simplicity that there are three stratagies: Gunline, Deepstrike Guns and Deepstrike Melee. A proposed change nerfs the last two, leaving the first, already dominant, strategy, untouched. How can that be a good call?

The proposed change, crucially, hits weak units and armies the hardest. Stronger rosters can accomodate with, you guessed it, more guns. Weaker rosters or units don't have the same flexibility. So not only does the proposal highly reward more guns-in-a-row, it punishes not-guns-in-a-row.

And Spoletta: AM have the valk, the only transport in the game that can reliably deliver CC units into melee turn 1. My heart does not weep for my AM brethren...

Top of that deep strike gun didn't get hit nearly as much as deep strike melee. Yes T2 arrival is bit of a bummer but then again that was time to time tactical choice already...And while say IG is hurt bit by T2 arrival the enemy often gets hurt MORE so it actually helps them.

At least Valk is struggling to get useful h2h units inside. Makes that bit more bearable.

Rather ironic. I'm just about getting my orks 8th ed playable stage and they get hit by nerfbat while my IG got big boost GW REALLY wants me to play IG eh?

You have to stop the arms race somewhere and this seems a good start. They can nerf gun lines as it becomes necessary.

Tyel wrote:
You have to stop the arms race somewhere and this seems a good start. They can nerf gun lines as it becomes necessary.

If they want to start with one and fix other later they started with wrong one...And even this fix would have been better off putting in line the offending units which were minority of units this affects.

 meleti wrote:

 Galas wrote:
I love how the deepstrike change is just only seen as something for CC armies.

Like if the strongest armies that use deepstrike as their best tool werent actually shooting armies!

It's definitely both. That guy dropping 9 (or 18!) Obliterators won't be too happy about this either.

You mean those Obliterators with the 24" gun that can sit for one more turn as necessary?

This literally only hits Scion drops and that's it. And they're cheap enough you don't care!

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 meleti wrote:

 Galas wrote:
I love how the deepstrike change is just only seen as something for CC armies.

Like if the strongest armies that use deepstrike as their best tool werent actually shooting armies!

It's definitely both. That guy dropping 9 (or 18!) Obliterators won't be too happy about this either.

You mean those Obliterators with the 24" gun that can sit for one more turn as necessary?

This literally only hits Scion drops and that's it. And they're cheap enough you don't care!

Yeah, Oblits are still great units. My point was that Oblits were a very powerful deep striking shooting unit, not that Oblits were totally unplayable or anything like that.

It does hit the Oblits though, because any time you've got a serious portion of your list like 9 Oblits stuck in reserves for a turn, that's a lot of your points that many games you'd rather deploy turn 1 and get an extra turn of shooting from.

Apart from my Gk crying on the shelf, this hits the most cc armies as they won’t be able to charge turn one.
Shooty deep strikes are still viable because of the gun they are using (anyone using melta deep strikes anymore?) , the only downside is that you want always be in range to rapid fire that juicy unit with you plasma .
Also is anyone that scared of turn one charges from deep strike( even alpha legion berserkers)?

I think this will be interesting to see how it plays out, and I believe it has to be played out so we can see how it fares and report the results to GW. Also, if it ends up being horribly imbalanced I believe tourneys will skip the rule as it is a beta rule after all. It is literally something GW is testing to see if it is viable or not.

Anything that brings Power Level to matched play can go soak their fat head.

What if we keep the new DS rules and instead make it so that Drop Pods and Tyrannocytes have the ability to DS outside your deployment zone turn 1. Would suddenly make the units fill a stronger niche and perhaps even be worth their points.

 Nighttail wrote:
What if we keep the new DS rules and instead make it so that Drop Pods and Tyrannocytes have the ability to DS outside your deployment zone turn 1. Would suddenly make the units fill a stronger niche and perhaps even be worth their points.

That would make sense but there would be still the problem for certain armies who really relie on that deep strike
Then again until it is play tested it’s probably early to condemn this beta rule

I voted no. In principle I agree with the idea of minimising the first turn charge. However this solution on its own just empowers first turn shooting. Which was already a bigger issue than the first turn charge. I've advocated for a while that they should not make all deep strike within 9", but instead offer different distances (with drop pods being the closest). By default I'd go with 18". There already are many advantages to being able to deploy reactively (and stay safe off the board).

If the deep strike rules came with some kind of anti-shooting rule, like nightfight or acid rain (-1 to hit in the first turn from shooting) then maybe I'd be ok with it.

I should say that with my TS and Primaris I'm rarely deep striking and charging anyway, so it isn't a huge negative for me.

- I am kind of OK with limiting DS for the player going first. But not for the player going second. Having to withstand two shooting phases without any interaction whatsoever means an assault army can just pack up and concede when losing first turn roll.

- 50% reserves limits based on value (but points, not PL!) makes a lot of sense. I never liked filling up slots with dummy units just to fullfill an abstract rule. Now address the same thing when it comes to detachments and CPs maybe?


In past editions first turn assault was a mythical achievement very hard to pull off. But in those times, you would not lose 50% of your army every shooting phase.
Today this is the case, unless you somehow mitigate it by getting parts of the army into CC.
If vehicle rules wouldn't suck, if terrain and cover actually did something, if LOS rules were better, if the general damage output of guns wasn't as high as it is, I would LOVE to get rid of all that deep strike and have proper advancing assault armys again.
As it stands, deep strike is a crutch we need, because all the other rules are so messed up. And that's not getting addressed of course, instead they kick out the crutch and let all the already crippled armys collapse.

Deep Strike is still too strong for cost, or more precisely, it's competition is too expensive. The average deepstriker, ranged or melee, pays about 3 points for the ability. By comparison, an otherwise unarmed Rhino or Drop Pod costs 70 points, and doesn't offer as much protection.

Deep Strike needs to go up in cost, and transports need to come down.

I would also kind of like to see mass-assault armies just sort of die. Gunline armies are at least mostly fun to play against. But it floats some people's boat, and it is something different every once in a while.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:
Deep Strike is still too strong for cost, or more precisely, it's competition is too expensive. The average deepstriker, ranged or melee, pays about 3 points for the ability. By comparison, an otherwise unarmed Rhino or Drop Pod costs 70 points, and doesn't offer as much protection.

Deep Strike needs to go up in cost, and transports need to come down.

I would also kind of like to see mass-assault armies just sort of die. Gunline armies are at least mostly fun to play against. But it floats some people's boat, and it is something different every once in a while.

I agree with the first part. But melee is far more fun to play than shooting. Because both players actually get to interact in a melee.

CassianSol wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:
Deep Strike is still too strong for cost, or more precisely, it's competition is too expensive. The average deepstriker, ranged or melee, pays about 3 points for the ability. By comparison, an otherwise unarmed Rhino or Drop Pod costs 70 points, and doesn't offer as much protection.

Deep Strike needs to go up in cost, and transports need to come down.

I would also kind of like to see mass-assault armies just sort of die. Gunline armies are at least mostly fun to play against. But it floats some people's boat, and it is something different every once in a while.

I agree with the first part. But melee is far more fun to play than shooting. Because both players actually get to interact in a melee.

Really? That's pretty much the exact opposite. With shooting, movement and position is actually a relevant consideration, setting fire lanes to cover and drive the enemy away from key positions, finding lines of sight, and taking cover. Melee units ignore just about everything, and their only real sense of interactivity and control is moving away from them; and since they're fast you can't outrun them, so you either kill them or you die.

It's undeniable that being the one charging is fun because it's hilariously good to shut off 400 points of tanks with a 150 point jump squad that moved 24" on turn 1, but it is kind of stupid.

The "interaction" is a lie, because the one declaring the charge won't charge a unit he cant neuter first and can kill him if he doesn't neuter it, so it's really just a dog-and-pony show.


Assault is a useful tactical tool; because it's highly disruptive and effective [and powerful melee units can deter the harassers], but lists where the entire plan basically boils down to "go that way, kill them all" are exceptionally boring to face. There's no real interactivity, just making a show of rolling the die to see if your guardsman/sister/space marine/skitarii/tank/etc. that aren't actually going to do anything relevant by counterattacking.

With 8th ed terrain rules 2 shooting armies though basically just stand up and shoot and roll dice.