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To me, whether the group people call "shooting armies" are better than what people call "assault armies" is not actually important. The very idea that of there only being two kinds of lists, and them needing to be just as good as each other is too simplistic for what might be one of the most complicated games out there.

To me, the following things are actually important when it comes to this game (roughly in order of importance):

1. The game should be fun.
2. All factions should be roughly equivalent in power.
3. List building should be a very important part of the tactical process.
4. All faction's intended build types should be reasonably effective.
5. All units should be worth taking in some kind of list.

To me, the new deepstrike changes were due to a change being needed in the game due to #1 for the following reasons:

1) Being able to hold the majority of your army off the table, whether it was a shooty or assaulty unit, makes going first or second somewhat meaningless and that isn't fun.
1a) Going second against an army with significant deep-strike abilities means all you get to do to defend against it is your deployment, and that's not fun.
1b) Going first against an army with deep-strike gives you one turn to position, but there may not be anything of value to kill.
2) Being forced to defend against deep-striking lists by taking large numbers of bubble-wrap units in every single list is boring, makes all lists look very similar, and is not fun.

To sum things up, deep-striking a large portion of your army on turn one allows for little to no counter play on your opponent's part, and that doesn't make for a fun game. Every good army has to take a lot of bubble wrap, and many units and army builds are rendered useless due to their inability to defend against it.

All of these things being fixed are more important than shooting armies being better or assault armies being worse than they were previously. I would much rather have a shooting oriented game that is enjoyable, than an assault dominated one that is not.

Currently, the role of deep-strike is to have 1-2 units show up later in the game at an important time to mess things up. That might not be as immediately exciting when you compare it to how things were, but it is still fun (look at how the current DS is still better than previous edition's versions), and allows for some counter-play.

To move on to #2 (All factions should be roughly equivalent in power), I would argue that the FAQ changes overall (namely the removal of 3+ of the same unit and fixing things like poxwalkers) have helped move us in this direction. With the exception of GK (whose poorly designed army is based off of the un-fun deep-strike concept and suffering from the fact that marine and terminator profiles are overpriced), I think we can safely say that the FAQ overall helped even out the competitiveness of the factions. It might have moved some books up and other books down, but i think in general we are closer to the middle. I can only see this as a positive thing. Even if there was only one good build per codex, if they were all similarly likely to win games then that would be an unprecedented level of balance success, independent of whether or not every type (shooty, assaulty, etc) of list stood the same chance. Obviously this means that some armies need to be buffed, and i would agree, but not at the cost of the game being fun, so GW needs to find non-deepstrike spam ways to make those armies better.

Number #3 (List building should be a very important part of the tactical process) is a bit of a counter point to the next two points (4. All faction's intended build types should be reasonably effective, and 5. All units should be worth taking in some kind of list).

I think that it is okay for there to be a meta, and i also think it is okay form certain list ideas not to be very good if they violate rule #1. For example, if an army build can hold everything of value in reserve and then blow you away on the first turn no matter how you deploy, how you set up terrain, or what mission you are playing, and is generally not fun to play against, then it doesn't deserve to exist. On the flip side, just because I want to make an army made completely out of scout marines, doesn't mean that GW owes it to me make that a competitive list. To me, the game is healthiest when the best way to win is for most players to aim for a take all comers lists with a variety of units that fulfill different roles, rather than just spam the same unit over and over, or to abuse a game mechanic. Things like the 0-3 limitation help this, and i think the deep-strike changes do as well. I think it is perfectly fine if there are no good mostly deep-strike armies if it makes the game more fun, and there are other builds that are available. And in the case of the current GK, the overall fun of the game trumps them having a decent build (in the short term, anyway. Obviously I think GK should be tinkered with to get on the level of other books).

That being said, I think with #4 (All faction's intended build types should be reasonably effective) is important as well. If GW makes Black Templars the "Assaulty Marines" but then doesn't make them any good at assault (or much else for that matter), then that seems like a problem to me. GK being the "show up and mess you up while being durable and smitey" army should be a viable strategy as well, and so on through every faction. Doing anything else almost seems like false advertising. Complaints like "I want assaulty Tau" seem less legitimate (or at least low priority) to me, since it doesn't seem clear that GW intends for them to be that way. But in the end, the game in general being fun is more important than your army being able to play to all of it's builds, so it is GW's difficult task to figure out a way to make the armies both good and fun to play with / against. I feel like the current changes do make the game more fun to play, and hope that GW will do more to make bad units and army builds better moving forward.

#5 (All units should be worth taking in some kind of list) is mostly just the dream. Ideally, each unit is decent at something, and could see a place in a type of list that could win a game against another competitive list. But this can't come at the cost of the game being fun, and it isn't as important as #2-4.

Hopefully any of that made sense, but in the end i think nerfing super deep-strike armies for the good of the game is totally worth it, and this FAQ is a good step in moving the game towards a better place of balance. The first thing they have to do is remove the things that make the game not fun to play, and only then can they go about tweaking armies and units to make things closer to a perfect balanced state. If the result of this FAQ is that shooting armies make the game not fun, then i hope they do something about that too. I have heard some plausible solutions such as everything counts as moving on turn one, and others. However, I think between proper missions, terrain, and army composition, we actually won't see as many classic "gunline" dominating the meta as much as some have suggested. Mobility is still doing to be very important in most game types, and fast assault units will still definitely have a place in the game.

jdc366, thanks for a phenomenal post. It deserves his own thread for all to see the magnificence of it.

I know people will arguee "Baaah, fun is subjetive!". But actually , most developers look for un-fun mechanics, and those are the first ones they want and try to correct.

jcd386 wrote:
To me, whether the group people call "shooting armies" are better than what people call "assault armies" is not actually important. The very idea that of there only being two kinds of lists, and them needing to be just as good as each other is too simplistic for what might be one of the most complicated games out there.

To me, the following things are actually important when it comes to this game (roughly in order of importance):

1. The game should be fun.
2. All factions should be roughly equivalent in power.
3. List building should be a very important part of the tactical process.
4. All faction's intended build types should be reasonably effective.
5. All units should be worth taking in some kind of list.

To me, the new deepstrike changes were due to a change being needed in the game due to #1 for the following reasons:

1) Being able to hold the majority of your army off the table, whether it was a shooty or assaulty unit, makes going first or second somewhat meaningless and that isn't fun.
1a) Going second against an army with significant deep-strike abilities means all you get to do to defend against it is your deployment, and that's not fun.
1b) Going first against an army with deep-strike gives you one turn to position, but there may not be anything of value to kill.
2) Being forced to defend against deep-striking lists by taking large numbers of bubble-wrap units in every single list is boring, makes all lists look very similar, and is not fun.

To sum things up, deep-striking a large portion of your army on turn one allows for little to no counter play on your opponent's part, and that doesn't make for a fun game. Every good army has to take a lot of bubble wrap, and many units and army builds are rendered useless due to their inability to defend against it.

All of these things being fixed are more important than shooting armies being better or assault armies being worse than they were previously. I would much rather have a shooting oriented game that is enjoyable, than an assault dominated one that is not.

Currently, the role of deep-strike is to have 1-2 units show up later in the game at an important time to mess things up. That might not be as immediately exciting when you compare it to how things were, but it is still fun (look at how the current DS is still better than previous edition's versions), and allows for some counter-play.

To move on to #2 (All factions should be roughly equivalent in power), I would argue that the FAQ changes overall (namely the removal of 3+ of the same unit and fixing things like poxwalkers) have helped move us in this direction. With the exception of GK (whose poorly designed army is based off of the un-fun deep-strike concept and suffering from the fact that marine and terminator profiles are overpriced), I think we can safely say that the FAQ overall helped even out the competitiveness of the factions. It might have moved some books up and other books down, but i think in general we are closer to the middle. I can only see this as a positive thing. Even if there was only one good build per codex, if they were all similarly likely to win games then that would be an unprecedented level of balance success, independent of whether or not every type (shooty, assaulty, etc) of list stood the same chance. Obviously this means that some armies need to be buffed, and i would agree, but not at the cost of the game being fun, so GW needs to find non-deepstrike spam ways to make those armies better.

Number #3 (List building should be a very important part of the tactical process) is a bit of a counter point to the next two points (4. All faction's intended build types should be reasonably effective, and 5. All units should be worth taking in some kind of list).

I think that it is okay for there to be a meta, and i also think it is okay form certain list ideas not to be very good if they violate rule #1. For example, if an army build can hold everything of value in reserve and then blow you away on the first turn no matter how you deploy, how you set up terrain, or what mission you are playing, and is generally not fun to play against, then it doesn't deserve to exist. On the flip side, just because I want to make an army made completely out of scout marines, doesn't mean that GW owes it to me make that a competitive list. To me, the game is healthiest when the best way to win is for most players to aim for a take all comers lists with a variety of units that fulfill different roles, rather than just spam the same unit over and over, or to abuse a game mechanic. Things like the 0-3 limitation help this, and i think the deep-strike changes do as well. I think it is perfectly fine if there are no good mostly deep-strike armies if it makes the game more fun, and there are other builds that are available. And in the case of the current GK, the overall fun of the game trumps them having a decent build (in the short term, anyway. Obviously I think GK should be tinkered with to get on the level of other books).

That being said, I think with #4 (All faction's intended build types should be reasonably effective) is important as well. If GW makes Black Templars the "Assaulty Marines" but then doesn't make them any good at assault (or much else for that matter), then that seems like a problem to me. GK being the "show up and mess you up while being durable and smitey" army should be a viable strategy as well, and so on through every faction. Doing anything else almost seems like false advertising. Complaints like "I want assaulty Tau" seem less legitimate (or at least low priority) to me, since it doesn't seem clear that GW intends for them to be that way. But in the end, the game in general being fun is more important than your army being able to play to all of it's builds, so it is GW's difficult task to figure out a way to make the armies both good and fun to play with / against. I feel like the current changes do make the game more fun to play, and hope that GW will do more to make bad units and army builds better moving forward.

#5 (All units should be worth taking in some kind of list) is mostly just the dream. Ideally, each unit is decent at something, and could see a place in a type of list that could win a game against another competitive list. But this can't come at the cost of the game being fun, and it isn't as important as #2-4.

Hopefully any of that made sense, but in the end i think nerfing super deep-strike armies for the good of the game is totally worth it, and this FAQ is a good step in moving the game towards a better place of balance. The first thing they have to do is remove the things that make the game not fun to play, and only then can they go about tweaking armies and units to make things closer to a perfect balanced state. If the result of this FAQ is that shooting armies make the game not fun, then i hope they do something about that too. I have heard some plausible solutions such as everything counts as moving on turn one, and others. However, I think between proper missions, terrain, and army composition, we actually won't see as many classic "gunline" dominating the meta as much as some have suggested. Mobility is still doing to be very important in most game types, and fast assault units will still definitely have a place in the game.

All of these things being fixed are more important than shooting armies being better or assault armies being worse than they were previously. I would much rather have a shooting oriented game that is enjoyable, than an assault dominated one that is not.

You don't find melee-centric armies fun, because your opponent gets to actually use their models and play the game (you have to react to it). Guess what - as a melee-faction, I have to react to shooting armies, or I straight lose.

How does shooting counter melee armies? Screens.
How does melee armies counter shooting? Deep striking.

It's not fun losing all my models to shooting - there's no movement, tactics, or strategy; it's just point-and-click, and maybe rolling some dice.

I play Orks. I'm not allowed to shoot, either by GW's standards, or by the communities. I'm not allowed to have durable units - the only thing I've got is numbers. And frankly, having to slog all the way across the board to try and punch something, only to have it fall back and delete me with no penalties; is frankly absurd - this change gives shooting factions even MORE power, when they were ALREADY problematic by design.

And now, those screens have even MORE time to get into better positions; meaning it's that much further I have to go before I can attack something I actually want to (giving you yet another round of death dealing).

If the only way for meele to counter shooting is by having 60% of his army charge you turn one, then we have a very big problem at hand.

And that negates the fact that theres a ton of armies that aren't only meele or only shooting but a mix of both. Or even the fact that a ton of shooting armies based their strenght in deepstriking.

Stop making the deepstriking beta-rule as something that only affects meele.

fe40k wrote:
You don't find melee-centric armies fun, because your opponent gets to actually use their models and play the game (you have to react to it). Guess what - as a melee-faction, I have to react to shooting armies, or I straight lose.

I don't think the statement was intended to imply that shooting games are fun and assault games aren't. He could just as easily have written "I would much rather have an assault oriented game that is enjoyable, than an shooting dominated one that is not," or more simply "I would rather have a game that is enjoyable than one that is not." The point is to make the game fun first, and let that shape the style of game it is.

fe40k wrote:
I play Orks... This change gives shooting factions even MORE power, when they were ALREADY problematic by design.

No, I think you've got that the wrong way around. The shooting armies are fine - it's Orks, as a faction, that are "problematic by design". A slow, fragile and totally melee-centric army like the Orks can't really be fun in a game like 40k. They need a re-design that focuses on their other elements with a better balance of shooting and melee, and tones down the absurdity of just swamping the opponent with 180+ Boyz as their only effective build.

Deep striking in turn one was only one half of the problem.
The other still is that there are too many units out there which can deep strike close to the enemy (>9'' away).
This is aggravated by the use of strategems.

 kadeton wrote:

fe40k wrote:
I play Orks... This change gives shooting factions even MORE power, when they were ALREADY problematic by design.

No, I think you've got that the wrong way around. The shooting armies are fine - it's Orks, as a faction, that are "problematic by design". A slow, fragile and totally melee-centric army like the Orks can't really be fun in a game like 40k. They need a re-design that focuses on their other elements with a better balance of shooting and melee, and tones down the absurdity of just swamping the opponent with 180+ Boyz as their only effective build.

You mean like introducing units with a primary purpose of shooting? Kind of like: Lootas, Burnas, Mek Gunz, Big Gunz, Killa Kanz, Morkanauts, gorkanautz, Stompa, Flash Gitz, Big Shoota Boyz, Tank Bustas, Gun Wagonz, Battlewagonz, Deff Koptas, Dakka Jetz, Burna Bommas, Blitza Bommas, Wazbom Blastajet, Warbikerz, Skorcha buggies, Buggies, Big Trakz.

We have a plethora of shooty units, most of which are either entirely focused on shooting or heavily focused on shooting. Talk to any player on here who isn't an ork player and they will likely start complaining that Ork shooting can't be good because then they would be better or as good as their army. There is nothing wrong with a melee centric army, in fact it adds to the flavor of the game dramatically, the problem I see is the handful of Gunline Players who complain that their precious gun lines shouldn't have to worry about CC or have to factor in strategies beyond target priority. Not that long ago I remember reading a post here on dakkadakka where someone said that melee should be completely removed from the game, apparently the idea of using a battle axe in the 41st millennia was just over the top unbelievable for him. Daemons possessing people with psychic powers, a God emperor sitting on a golden toilet and Terminator style robots appearing under our feet while Giant space bugs invade from space is fine, you just can't use an axe.

Gunline players complained about alpha deep striking armies, completely forgetting the reason we have alpha deep striking armies is because Gunlines literally get to use the majority of their gunline in an alpha strike EVERY GAME. Someone posted here as well that the recent big tournament that most of the deep striking armies used SHOOTING deep striking forces not Melee oriented deep strikers. But this doesn't matter, we can't simply solve that by limiting deep striking units, we have to nerf CC armies across the board, because that is what is needed right? *End Rant*

Maybe you should make a more balanced list that doesn't involve 50% of the list in reserves?

I think the whole point of the new TacRes rule is for you to use deep strike as a tactical manuever and not as "HAH I HAVE HALF MY ARMY IN YOUR FACE!! EAT PLASMA DOUBLE TAP!!!!"

They did limit deepstrike, they made it so you can't drop in near the enemy till turn 2, it just nerfed CC armies in the process since they were over reliant on deepstrike to get their units where they need to go. GW should probably take a look at transports again to make them more viable or at the very least cheaper for people to run, should help with getting units where they need to be and keeping important units alive for an extra turn or two.

I do admit some of the points costs and rules for Orks need to be addressed (for the better).
The main viable strategy is the minimum 3x30 boyz with supporting characters with force fields (creeping doom).
Heck, just getting a new vehicle that could hold 30 (32?) models would stop some of the grumbling as long as it did not cost a fortune in points (and blowing it up would not cost more in boyz that just hoofing it).
I found I had to lean heavily on assault cannons to have a hope of surviving the inevitable blob of boyz grabbing my guys, which gives me less points for lascannons if the sneaky git fits in a battlewagon.

The changes to deep strike still do not change the need for "bubble-wrap" that shooty armies need to pay tax on.
Yes, it does give at least a turn to unload rather than not at all for some squads that normally got eaten by the turn 1 deep strike.
The remaining army on the board still gets to make use of cover (you play with terrain right?) BUT yeah Orks have trouble hiding 30 boyz behind a tree.

I agree that any element of the game that lets you destroy units before the player can even move them or take any kind of action (where cover will not even factor-in) needed to be addressed.

All of this would be greatly mitigated if GW could see fit to go to unit activation... I keep looking at this issue as the root cause of all the other complaints and issues we have had with reserves.
We could at least get down to the business of arguing what "unit" has too much capability in one activation to be "fair".

 gbghg wrote:
They did limit deepstrike, they made it so you can't drop in near the enemy till turn 2, it just nerfed CC armies in the process since they were over reliant on deepstrike to get their units where they need to go. GW should probably take a look at transports again to make them more viable or at the very least cheaper for people to run, should help with getting units where they need to be and keeping important units alive for an extra turn or two.

This really hits on something I've been thinking about for a long time, improving transports dramatically so that cc armies don't need to rely on deep strike so much.

Yes lowering transport cost is a good start. But I think the real revolution in list building would come if you allowed disembarkation at the END of the movement phase. I think this would transform cc armies overnight. Currently disembarking before movement is just a clunky awkward non-starter for cc armies.

In fact, I think I'll start a new thread about it in proposed rules lol.

I'm kind of anticipating people saying it won't work because of flyers extreme movement characteristic, they would basically guarantee mass turn 1 charges. It would still work, but you basically restrict the rule to any vehicles with the supersonic rule, or with a move characteristic greater than 20", something along those lines.

So to resume, shooty armies ruining enemy units turn 1 is good, but deepstriking 50% max of your army is bad ? Are we using different maths here ?
Obviously losing units isn't fun for both. Overprotecting gunlines won't make it fun IMO as well.

I started a blood angels list. I also have a grey knights army. Both have in common the use of deepstriking. See what problem i'm running into ? It's not about losing units anymore, it's about having armies that won't be even viable thanks to that faq. If i can't make impact turn 1, why should i play those armies ? I have to change chapters because people don't like getting into cc ? Do we need a good old 7th edition with bikes spam again ?

Blood angels and grey knights are barely played in tournaments, and they aren't winning. So deepstrike isn't the problem.
Tyranids wins are due to op units spam, like always, which issue was poorly addressed in this faq.

Gunlines had and still have protections against DS, screens, 9" range, stratagems.

Last argument, considering this faq goes officially live. If i play a DS army with let's say 40% of units in reserve (not that abusive, and IS fun to play to me at least), and i get the 2nd turn. It will be 100% of my foe's army against 60% of mine TWICE. How is that fair, balanced and fun ?

Again DS isn't the problem, or you would see way more red/grey armies in tournaments.

rixazur wrote:
So to resume, shooty armies ruining enemy units turn 1 is good, but deepstriking 50% max of your army is bad ? Are we using different maths here ?
Obviously losing units isn't fun for both. Overprotecting gunlines won't make it fun IMO as well.

Strawman. Ignores powerful shooting elements that use deepstrike

I started a blood angels list. I also have a grey knights army. Both have in common the use of deepstriking. See what problem i'm running into ? It's not about losing units anymore, it's about having armies that won't be even viable thanks to that faq. If i can't make impact turn 1, why should i play those armies ? I have to change chapters because people don't like getting into cc ? Do we need a good old 7th edition with bikes spam again ?

Jury is still out on using abilities like GOI turn 1. Common sense points to allowing it.

Blood angels and grey knights are barely played in tournaments, and they aren't winning. So deepstrike isn't the problem.

Irrelevant. All armies used deepstrike. These armies performed poorly for other reasons. BA actually has admirable qualities that got it to top tables.

Tyranids wins are due to op units spam, like always, which issue was poorly addressed in this faq.

Are we reading the same FAQ?

Gunlines had and still have protections against DS, screens, 9" range, stratagems.

Some of them did. None of them could effectively guard against shooting deepstrikes that shot past the screen.

Last argument, considering this faq goes officially live. If i play a DS army with let's say 40% of units in reserve (not that abusive, and IS fun to play to me at least), and i get the 2nd turn. It will be 100% of my foe's army against 60% of mine TWICE. How is that fair, balanced and fun ?

Potentially yes since you're placing a scissors versus their paper and can effectively turn off parts of their army since they are by definition a gun line.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

rixazur wrote:
So to resume, shooty armies ruining enemy units turn 1 is good, but deepstriking 50% max of your army is bad ? Are we using different maths here ?
Obviously losing units isn't fun for both. Overprotecting gunlines won't make it fun IMO as well.

Strawman. Ignores powerful shooting elements that use deepstrike

I started a blood angels list. I also have a grey knights army. Both have in common the use of deepstriking. See what problem i'm running into ? It's not about losing units anymore, it's about having armies that won't be even viable thanks to that faq. If i can't make impact turn 1, why should i play those armies ? I have to change chapters because people don't like getting into cc ? Do we need a good old 7th edition with bikes spam again ?

Jury is still out on using abilities like GOI turn 1. Common sense points to allowing it.

Blood angels and grey knights are barely played in tournaments, and they aren't winning. So deepstrike isn't the problem.

Irrelevant. All armies used deepstrike. These armies performed poorly for other reasons. BA actually has admirable qualities that got it to top tables.

Tyranids wins are due to op units spam, like always, which issue was poorly addressed in this faq.

Are we reading the same FAQ?

Gunlines had and still have protections against DS, screens, 9" range, stratagems.

Some of them did. None of them could effectively guard against shooting deepstrikes that shot past the screen.

Last argument, considering this faq goes officially live. If i play a DS army with let's say 40% of units in reserve (not that abusive, and IS fun to play to me at least), and i get the 2nd turn. It will be 100% of my foe's army against 60% of mine TWICE. How is that fair, balanced and fun ?

Potentially yes since you're placing a scissors versus their paper and can effectively turn off parts of their army since they are by definition a gun line.

I really don't think you're giving the full implications of the FAQ their due. You seem to feel everything will be fine. Again, I think BA, which was scraping and clawing to secure a spot on the competitive scene will take a serious hit from this, and GK, well this is just kicking them while they're down lol.

rixazur wrote:
So to resume, shooty armies ruining enemy units turn 1 is good, but deepstriking 50% max of your army is bad ? Are we using different maths here ?
Obviously losing units isn't fun for both. Overprotecting gunlines won't make it fun IMO as well.

I started a blood angels list. I also have a grey knights army. Both have in common the use of deepstriking. See what problem i'm running into ? It's not about losing units anymore, it's about having armies that won't be even viable thanks to that faq. If i can't make impact turn 1, why should i play those armies ? I have to change chapters because people don't like getting into cc ? Do we need a good old 7th edition with bikes spam again ?

Blood angels and grey knights are barely played in tournaments, and they aren't winning. So deepstrike isn't the problem.
Tyranids wins are due to op units spam, like always, which issue was poorly addressed in this faq.

Gunlines had and still have protections against DS, screens, 9" range, stratagems.

Last argument, considering this faq goes officially live. If i play a DS army with let's say 40% of units in reserve (not that abusive, and IS fun to play to me at least), and i get the 2nd turn. It will be 100% of my foe's army against 60% of mine TWICE. How is that fair, balanced and fun ?

Again DS isn't the problem, or you would see way more red/grey armies in tournaments.

Shooty armies deep striking 50% of the army equipped with plasmagun equivalents are ruining the game.

Not sure how many people have tried the new beta rules but had my first game with them last night. Nids vs. Thousand Sons.

I actually rather liked the new limitations on deepstriking. Rather than each of us dumping the rest of our armies onto the tablet T1, being forced to wait til turn 2 ensured that there were two interest spikes in the game and a far more interesting setup for counterplay. The game felt far more dynamic and didn't feel like it had resolved itself by the end of round 2.

Interestingly enough, I decimated my friend's list previously when I could deepstrike near his lines on T1. Target saturation was too much for his list and tying up just a few units led to a massive imbalance. This game felt far more fair and he pulled out a solid victory that was exciting and fun to play to the end.

 peteralmo wrote:


I really don't think you're giving the full implications of the FAQ their due. You seem to feel everything will be fine. Again, I think BA, which was scraping and clawing to secure a spot on the competitive scene will take a serious hit from this, and GK, well this is just kicking them while they're down lol.

I'm stepping cautiously. I'm certain there will be issues.

I would say anyone discounting it before playing 10 games is not giving it a proper shake. GK could see some relief from the meta requirements of the past and increased CP. They're not going to take top tables until some other tweaks, but I don't think they're out entirely. (Depends on the GOI interpretation)

I have decided to actually play with it a couple of times before passing judgement.

I've played long enough to realize what I think is going to go down in my head, even with all the mathhammering in the world, it generally doesn't always go down that way. I could end up being surprised at how it changes the game.

SemperMortis wrote:

 kadeton wrote:
A slow, fragile and totally melee-centric army like the Orks can't really be fun in a game like 40k. They need a re-design that focuses on their other elements with a better balance of shooting and melee, and tones down the absurdity of just swamping the opponent with 180+ Boyz as their only effective build.

You mean like introducing units with a primary purpose of shooting? Kind of like: Lootas, Burnas, Mek Gunz, Big Gunz, Killa Kanz, Morkanauts, gorkanautz, Stompa, Flash Gitz, Big Shoota Boyz, Tank Bustas, Gun Wagonz, Battlewagonz, Deff Koptas, Dakka Jetz, Burna Bommas, Blitza Bommas, Wazbom Blastajet, Warbikerz, Skorcha buggies, Buggies, Big Trakz.

Yeah, those are things that exist... but out of everything on that list, only Tankbustaz, Mek/Big Gunz and mmmmaybe Dakkajets aren't complete garbage and actively detrimental to your list (as an alternative to taking more Boyz). Making those units actually worth their points, while reducing how hilariously overpowered a basic unit of Boyz is in melee, would essentially fix the Orks' gameplay problems.

etb342 wrote:
Not sure how many people have tried the new beta rules but had my first game with them last night. Nids vs. Thousand Sons.

I actually rather liked the new limitations on deepstriking. Rather than each of us dumping the rest of our armies onto the tablet T1, being forced to wait til turn 2 ensured that there were two interest spikes in the game and a far more interesting setup for counterplay. The game felt far more dynamic and didn't feel like it had resolved itself by the end of round 2.

Interestingly enough, I decimated my friend's list previously when I could deepstrike near his lines on T1. Target saturation was too much for his list and tying up just a few units led to a massive imbalance. This game felt far more fair and he pulled out a solid victory that was exciting and fun to play to the end.

Don't you dare actually suggest that one should try something before passing judgement on it!

You will be told that those changes are obvious and you don't need to test them, because 2+2=4 or something like that! (Spoiler: It has been proven on this forum that every time such arguments are made, they are proven wrong 90% of the times within a month).

I wonder if it will lead to more reactive (and thus interesting) play during deployment. If your opponent starts reserving deepstrike units, or has lots of melee units deployed which will take a turn to close, or you can see a place to hide from his big guns with half your army, you put stuff in deepstrike reserve (it's almost always optional during deployment). If they put down a gunline, you might want to keep everything on the field to avoid being defeated in 2 halves....

One alternative that springs to mid as a counteridea; what if everybody could keep any number of units in reserve (except immobile ones) and they could all march on from your table edge on any turn (or use deepstrike abilities as normal), and we only check for defeat by having no units on the field from turn 3 onwards. Everyone can avoid shooting alphastrike (or deepstrike melee alpha strike) from the player with turn 1, nobody has to have half their army destroyed before deepstrike reserves arrive, BUT - hide off the table too long and your opponent controls it (and it then massively ahead in VPs typically)...

The main complaint I'm getting from my group is that if they have to deepstrike turn 2 then it will be turn 3 or later before they can get to my back line tanks and artillery. Whereas they were enjoying getting there turn 2 and locking a big chunk of my list in my deployment zone for most of the game. They want to ignore this rule as its in beta currently, but hey if I lose the vote in my group then at least nothing changes.

 gbghg wrote:
They did limit deepstrike, they made it so you can't drop in near the enemy till turn 2, it just nerfed CC armies in the process since they were over reliant on deepstrike to get their units where they need to go. GW should probably take a look at transports again to make them more viable or at the very least cheaper for people to run, should help with getting units where they need to be and keeping important units alive for an extra turn or two.

Unfortunately both Tyranid transports are deep Strike oriented. Honestly I had thought about repainting to jormungundir pre-FAQ because I thought it sounded cool and fluffy to have all these tunnel things coming up everywhere like tremors. Now I think I will just push over 200 fearless gants with FNP and untargetable characters at people with hiveguard out of LOS because that's what it will take to weather the storm of shooting in my area.

 Lion of Caliban wrote:
The main complaint I'm getting from my group is that if they have to deepstrike turn 2 then it will be turn 3 or later before they can get to my back line tanks and artillery. Whereas they were enjoying getting there turn 2 and locking a big chunk of my list in my deployment zone for most of the game. They want to ignore this rule as its in beta currently, but hey if I lose the vote in my group then at least nothing changes.

If they ignore this rule, their feedback will be worth feth all and they'll be completely unprepared and behind the curve when it goes live.

The biggest problem is Sly Marbo doesn't have an exception to the beta rules.

CDShaddock wrote:

 gbghg wrote:
They did limit deepstrike, they made it so you can't drop in near the enemy till turn 2, it just nerfed CC armies in the process since they were over reliant on deepstrike to get their units where they need to go. GW should probably take a look at transports again to make them more viable or at the very least cheaper for people to run, should help with getting units where they need to be and keeping important units alive for an extra turn or two.

Unfortunately both Tyranid transports are deep Strike oriented. Honestly I had thought about repainting to jormungundir pre-FAQ because I thought it sounded cool and fluffy to have all these tunnel things coming up everywhere like tremors. Now I think I will just push over 200 fearless gants with FNP and untargetable characters at people with hiveguard out of LOS because that's what it will take to weather the storm of shooting in my area.

Tyranids will be one of the few armies that can guarantee turn 1 charges without deep strike.

I feel like you can just hide behind sight blocking terrain for the first turn and then only be exposed to faster moving shoota elements on the second turn. So half your army should be able to stick on the board if defensive enough.

Plagueuu Marines have always been difficult to wheedle out of cover in any edition, so if they make up half your army and the other half is the deep striking Khorne death machines you could be OK.

 Imateria wrote:

CDShaddock wrote:

 gbghg wrote:
They did limit deepstrike, they made it so you can't drop in near the enemy till turn 2, it just nerfed CC armies in the process since they were over reliant on deepstrike to get their units where they need to go. GW should probably take a look at transports again to make them more viable or at the very least cheaper for people to run, should help with getting units where they need to be and keeping important units alive for an extra turn or two.

Unfortunately both Tyranid transports are deep Strike oriented. Honestly I had thought about repainting to jormungundir pre-FAQ because I thought it sounded cool and fluffy to have all these tunnel things coming up everywhere like tremors. Now I think I will just push over 200 fearless gants with FNP and untargetable characters at people with hiveguard out of LOS because that's what it will take to weather the storm of shooting in my area.

Tyranids will be one of the few armies that can guarantee turn 1 charges without deep strike.

You may be able to with Kraken. Not so much with any of the others. Best bet is to just build pure fearless horde and dominate space until that gets adjusted because of complaints By shooting alpha armies showing the math that they don't have enough bullets to clear the bodies before the game ends on turn 3

fe40k wrote:

jcd386 wrote:
To me, whether the group people call "shooting armies" are better than what people call "assault armies" is not actually important. The very idea that of there only being two kinds of lists, and them needing to be just as good as each other is too simplistic for what might be one of the most complicated games out there.

To me, the following things are actually important when it comes to this game (roughly in order of importance):

1. The game should be fun.
2. All factions should be roughly equivalent in power.
3. List building should be a very important part of the tactical process.
4. All faction's intended build types should be reasonably effective.
5. All units should be worth taking in some kind of list.

To me, the new deepstrike changes were due to a change being needed in the game due to #1 for the following reasons:

1) Being able to hold the majority of your army off the table, whether it was a shooty or assaulty unit, makes going first or second somewhat meaningless and that isn't fun.
1a) Going second against an army with significant deep-strike abilities means all you get to do to defend against it is your deployment, and that's not fun.
1b) Going first against an army with deep-strike gives you one turn to position, but there may not be anything of value to kill.
2) Being forced to defend against deep-striking lists by taking large numbers of bubble-wrap units in every single list is boring, makes all lists look very similar, and is not fun.

To sum things up, deep-striking a large portion of your army on turn one allows for little to no counter play on your opponent's part, and that doesn't make for a fun game. Every good army has to take a lot of bubble wrap, and many units and army builds are rendered useless due to their inability to defend against it.

All of these things being fixed are more important than shooting armies being better or assault armies being worse than they were previously. I would much rather have a shooting oriented game that is enjoyable, than an assault dominated one that is not.

Currently, the role of deep-strike is to have 1-2 units show up later in the game at an important time to mess things up. That might not be as immediately exciting when you compare it to how things were, but it is still fun (look at how the current DS is still better than previous edition's versions), and allows for some counter-play.

To move on to #2 (All factions should be roughly equivalent in power), I would argue that the FAQ changes overall (namely the removal of 3+ of the same unit and fixing things like poxwalkers) have helped move us in this direction. With the exception of GK (whose poorly designed army is based off of the un-fun deep-strike concept and suffering from the fact that marine and terminator profiles are overpriced), I think we can safely say that the FAQ overall helped even out the competitiveness of the factions. It might have moved some books up and other books down, but i think in general we are closer to the middle. I can only see this as a positive thing. Even if there was only one good build per codex, if they were all similarly likely to win games then that would be an unprecedented level of balance success, independent of whether or not every type (shooty, assaulty, etc) of list stood the same chance. Obviously this means that some armies need to be buffed, and i would agree, but not at the cost of the game being fun, so GW needs to find non-deepstrike spam ways to make those armies better.

Number #3 (List building should be a very important part of the tactical process) is a bit of a counter point to the next two points (4. All faction's intended build types should be reasonably effective, and 5. All units should be worth taking in some kind of list).

I think that it is okay for there to be a meta, and i also think it is okay form certain list ideas not to be very good if they violate rule #1. For example, if an army build can hold everything of value in reserve and then blow you away on the first turn no matter how you deploy, how you set up terrain, or what mission you are playing, and is generally not fun to play against, then it doesn't deserve to exist. On the flip side, just because I want to make an army made completely out of scout marines, doesn't mean that GW owes it to me make that a competitive list. To me, the game is healthiest when the best way to win is for most players to aim for a take all comers lists with a variety of units that fulfill different roles, rather than just spam the same unit over and over, or to abuse a game mechanic. Things like the 0-3 limitation help this, and i think the deep-strike changes do as well. I think it is perfectly fine if there are no good mostly deep-strike armies if it makes the game more fun, and there are other builds that are available. And in the case of the current GK, the overall fun of the game trumps them having a decent build (in the short term, anyway. Obviously I think GK should be tinkered with to get on the level of other books).

That being said, I think with #4 (All faction's intended build types should be reasonably effective) is important as well. If GW makes Black Templars the "Assaulty Marines" but then doesn't make them any good at assault (or much else for that matter), then that seems like a problem to me. GK being the "show up and mess you up while being durable and smitey" army should be a viable strategy as well, and so on through every faction. Doing anything else almost seems like false advertising. Complaints like "I want assaulty Tau" seem less legitimate (or at least low priority) to me, since it doesn't seem clear that GW intends for them to be that way. But in the end, the game in general being fun is more important than your army being able to play to all of it's builds, so it is GW's difficult task to figure out a way to make the armies both good and fun to play with / against. I feel like the current changes do make the game more fun to play, and hope that GW will do more to make bad units and army builds better moving forward.

#5 (All units should be worth taking in some kind of list) is mostly just the dream. Ideally, each unit is decent at something, and could see a place in a type of list that could win a game against another competitive list. But this can't come at the cost of the game being fun, and it isn't as important as #2-4.

Hopefully any of that made sense, but in the end i think nerfing super deep-strike armies for the good of the game is totally worth it, and this FAQ is a good step in moving the game towards a better place of balance. The first thing they have to do is remove the things that make the game not fun to play, and only then can they go about tweaking armies and units to make things closer to a perfect balanced state. If the result of this FAQ is that shooting armies make the game not fun, then i hope they do something about that too. I have heard some plausible solutions such as everything counts as moving on turn one, and others. However, I think between proper missions, terrain, and army composition, we actually won't see as many classic "gunline" dominating the meta as much as some have suggested. Mobility is still doing to be very important in most game types, and fast assault units will still definitely have a place in the game.

All of these things being fixed are more important than shooting armies being better or assault armies being worse than they were previously. I would much rather have a shooting oriented game that is enjoyable, than an assault dominated one that is not.

You don't find melee-centric armies fun, because your opponent gets to actually use their models and play the game (you have to react to it). Guess what - as a melee-faction, I have to react to shooting armies, or I straight lose.

How does shooting counter melee armies? Screens.
How does melee armies counter shooting? Deep striking.

It's not fun losing all my models to shooting - there's no movement, tactics, or strategy; it's just point-and-click, and maybe rolling some dice.

I play Orks. I'm not allowed to shoot, either by GW's standards, or by the communities. I'm not allowed to have durable units - the only thing I've got is numbers. And frankly, having to slog all the way across the board to try and punch something, only to have it fall back and delete me with no penalties; is frankly absurd - this change gives shooting factions even MORE power, when they were ALREADY problematic by design.

And now, those screens have even MORE time to get into better positions; meaning it's that much further I have to go before I can attack something I actually want to (giving you yet another round of death dealing).

I play mono Khorne Daemons list, I make orks shooting look plentiful, compared to the fact I can only run 3 units of shooting in a 1000-2000 point list. The rest of the list has NO RANGED WEAPONS (BTW if your wondering bout bloodthirsters, i use the D-axe ones. Cause other ones can't deal with hordes as well), 300 points of shooting. That's it.

Galas wrote:If the only way for meele to counter shooting is by having 60% of his army charge you turn one, then we have a very big problem at hand.

And that negates the fact that theres a ton of armies that aren't only meele or only shooting but a mix of both. Or even the fact that a ton of shooting armies based their strenght in deepstriking.

Stop making the deepstriking beta-rule as something that only affects meele.

The problem is that this rule effects deep strike melee more disproportionately than shooting deep strike. In fact Scion plasma/Obliterator bombs are still there, they just have to chill for a turn. But guess what that means for them, they get to go for more targets because the screening units that were protecting those targets are now dead

kadeton wrote:

fe40k wrote:
You don't find melee-centric armies fun, because your opponent gets to actually use their models and play the game (you have to react to it). Guess what - as a melee-faction, I have to react to shooting armies, or I straight lose.

I don't think the statement was intended to imply that shooting games are fun and assault games aren't. He could just as easily have written "I would much rather have an assault oriented game that is enjoyable, than an shooting dominated one that is not," or more simply "I would rather have a game that is enjoyable than one that is not." The point is to make the game fun first, and let that shape the style of game it is.

fe40k wrote:
I play Orks... This change gives shooting factions even MORE power, when they were ALREADY problematic by design.

No, I think you've got that the wrong way around. The shooting armies are fine - it's Orks, as a faction, that are "problematic by design". A slow, fragile and totally melee-centric army like the Orks can't really be fun in a game like 40k. They need a re-design that focuses on their other elements with a better balance of shooting and melee, and tones down the absurdity of just swamping the opponent with 180+ Boyz as their only effective build.

Again, I run Khorne daemons. A 7/8th army what is ONLY melee, at least orks have guns. And were even more slow and fragile than orks, at only T3 for grunts and T4 for calvary, trust me. Orks have it good compared to us

peteralmo wrote:

 gbghg wrote:
They did limit deepstrike, they made it so you can't drop in near the enemy till turn 2, it just nerfed CC armies in the process since they were over reliant on deepstrike to get their units where they need to go. GW should probably take a look at transports again to make them more viable or at the very least cheaper for people to run, should help with getting units where they need to be and keeping important units alive for an extra turn or two.

This really hits on something I've been thinking about for a long time, improving transports dramatically so that cc armies don't need to rely on deep strike so much.

Yes lowering transport cost is a good start. But I think the real revolution in list building would come if you allowed disembarkation at the END of the movement phase. I think this would transform cc armies overnight. Currently disembarking before movement is just a clunky awkward non-starter for cc armies.

In fact, I think I'll start a new thread about it in proposed rules lol.

I'm kind of anticipating people saying it won't work because of flyers extreme movement characteristic, they would basically guarantee mass turn 1 charges. It would still work, but you basically restrict the rule to any vehicles with the supersonic rule, or with a move characteristic greater than 20", something along those lines.

This wouldn't work for daemons. At all, we have no transports. At all. No daemons army has any transport that they can use, and we can't even use allies transports

A.T. wrote:
So... balance out your opponent not being able to shoot at the half of the army you have in reserve, by not allowing them to shoot at the half you don't have in reserve?

That doesn't seem practical. Unless you mean nightfighting style 'restrict'.

This. Unless you're playing on a mostly bald table, then there will be cover to hide behind. And you should refuse to play on a mostly bald table.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Make matched play use the Night Fight rules. There, all but 1 of your units is now -3 to hit. Hurts Gunlines, buffs assault and close range firefight armies and lowers first turn alpha strike.

At my FLAGS, for tournament and league games we rolls a d6. On a 1 it's first turn Night Fight, on a 6 it's 6th turn Night Fight. 2-5 means no Night Fight. So this addresses the problem but only "solves" it 1/6 the time. I wouldn't be too keen on the idea of playing EVERY GAME with turn 1 Night Fight rules. I'd flat out refuse games with any Tau player.