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Btw, Techsoldaton, based on the marine leak, a infantry lascannon only cost 15 points, its a pretty big buff to your lascannon spam list.
I am not sure if that kind of list would survive 9th ed though, because it seems like 8th ed is about pushing into the mid board and holding the objectives there.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also, its based on the Marine points leak right? It is possible CSM might be 1 point cheaper... One can only hope at this point.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/07/10 12:15:21
There's no guarantee that tacs and CSM will cost the same. Even from an economic perspective, GW wants to move those new CSM models and they want to squat non-primaris marines.
about point increas...did you understand 9th will be a completely different edition? they want faster play, less models on table , something like was 4ht 5th edition, forget the 8th and focus on the completely different game 9th will be, farewell 150 cultists list that made you play ,if you are lucky ,3 rounds, farewell 180 orks farewell 90/120 Pb's.
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lindsay40k wrote:With the multiple changes to charges, Baleful Icon is looking interesting, especially in conjunction with Flamer-heavy units
If you want to charge a flame predator, Spartan / HH Land Raider with Flamers, flame Defiler, you really can’t reliably do it from over 9”
Not a bad synergy when the DA’s casting an invuln on said units
Changes to Overwatch irk me.
Those flame units would reliably kill a few models coming in on the charge. Now they have to pay CP for the opportunity.
I get the benefit of Baleful Icon and Illusory Supplication, just seems like we lost one of the reasons to take flamers.
Yeah, that’s why I only mentioned vehicles and left Flamer chosen off the list. A bunch of shooty fighty vehicles with 5++, Flamers, and a -2 to be charged might well be a formidable midfield castle, and they don’t always necessarily need to overwatch to get to use their flames - but they are more likely to have the opportunity to do so
blackmage wrote: about point increas...did you understand 9th will be a completely different edition? they want faster play, less models on table , something like was 4ht 5th edition, forget the 8th and focus on the completely different game 9th will be, farewell 150 cultists list that made you play ,if you are lucky ,3 rounds, farewell 180 orks farewell 90/120 Pb's.
you can believe that, but what we've seen sofar that statement is not true, and further, considering how much content get's carried over, including vigilus and PA and supplements aswell as dexes for most factions, i say your assumptions are too optimistic.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Eldenfirefly wrote: Btw, Techsoldaton, based on the marine leak, a infantry lascannon only cost 15 points, its a pretty big buff to your lascannon spam list.
I am not sure if that kind of list would survive 9th ed though, because it seems like 8th ed is about pushing into the mid board and holding the objectives there.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also, its based on the Marine points leak right? It is possible CSM might be 1 point cheaper... One can only hope at this point.
i don't see gw pricing CSM tacs at the price of scouts, which are incidentally 1 pts cheaper in said leak.
Idk, but i still am not really happy about it.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/07/10 13:42:14
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/766717.page A Mostly Renegades and Heretics blog.
GW:"Space marines got too many options to balance, therefore we decided to legends HH units." Players: "why?!? Now we finally got decent plastic kits and you cut them?" Chaos marines players: "Since when are Daemonengines 30k models and why do i have NO droppods now?" GW" MONEY.... erm i meant TOO MANY OPTIONS (to resell your army to you again by disalowing former units)! Do you want specific tyranid fighiting Primaris? Even a new sabotage lieutnant!" Chaos players: Guess i stop playing or go to HH.
Based on the Space Marine leak, Terminators were 23ppm and combi-bolters were 3ppm. Is there a case for Terminators being a cost-effective shooting unit with moderate melee ability for us in 9th?
Possibly. CSM can have relatively cheap terminators. And I think terminators got a boost in 9th ed. We shall have to see. I personally think I won't be using troops much other than the minimum required for the detachment I am running.
If I really want to fight the midboard, I will plan on using CSM elites like our cult troops, or possessed or terminators. Normal CSM troops just won't get it anymore. Will probably have those behind the elites or in the backlines performing actions.
I will throw this out here though. Since infantry lascannons only cost 15 points. a Havoc squad for 4 lascannons have gone down quite abit. Even if Havocs have seen a points increase, I think a Lascannon Havocs squad overall still saw a points reduction because I am quite sure Havocs didn't go up by 10 points per model. (more likely Havocs will be 15 points per model). So, a lascannon Havoc squad will only cost 135 points.
I am thinking a black legion army with Abaddon as the centre of the army, havocs for long range, and mass terminators to fight for the midboard, minimum troop CSM at the back performing actions sounds ok. 30 terminators should be quite hard to shift off the midboard. One interesting thing about this is that Black legion terminators can advance and still shoot their combi bolters, and Abbadon will increase their accuracy. So, a black legion terminator core supported by Abaddon can move up the board deceptively fast if they wish while still being able to shoot quite well. And Abaddon will be a boss in the midst of such a steel core of terminators. And its extremely fluffy too for black legion.
And I will really look more closely at melta guns now. At 10 points, putting them on a bike squad makes them very interesting against vehicles. Because bikes can zoom up the board, around the sides of obscuring terrain and hit the vehicles from the sides as they are hiding behind obscuring terrain. And at 10 points per meltagun, even if the bike squads get killed, its not going to be a big loss. And while they are on the board, they will threaten vehicles, and also can go for uncontested or purely defended objectives.
I just realised that a battalion in 9th ed can have up to 6 elite units. That's a lot!
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2020/07/11 07:24:21
blackmage wrote: about point increas...did you understand 9th will be a completely different edition? they want faster play, less models on table , something like was 4ht 5th edition, forget the 8th and focus on the completely different game 9th will be, farewell 150 cultists list that made you play ,if you are lucky ,3 rounds, farewell 180 orks farewell 90/120 Pb's.
you can believe that, but what we've seen sofar that statement is not true, and further, considering how much content get's carried over, including vigilus and PA and supplements aswell as dexes for most factions, i say your assumptions are too optimistic.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Eldenfirefly wrote: Btw, Techsoldaton, based on the marine leak, a infantry lascannon only cost 15 points, its a pretty big buff to your lascannon spam list.
I am not sure if that kind of list would survive 9th ed though, because it seems like 8th ed is about pushing into the mid board and holding the objectives there.
Automatically Appended Next Post: we will see, im pretty sure, we are alreday testing with new rules Also, its based on the Marine points leak right? It is possible CSM might be 1 point cheaper... One can only hope at this point.
i don't see gw pricing CSM tacs at the price of scouts, which are incidentally 1 pts cheaper in said leak.
Idk, but i still am not really happy about it.
we will see but im prettu sure what i m talking about. If a cultist cost 6 points how can you ever believe you can play the same amount of them? with veichles improving why play 3000 cultists?
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2020/07/10 20:34:22
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Way to Miss the point blackmage, which was that cultists are going to suck and csm even worse.
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GW:"Space marines got too many options to balance, therefore we decided to legends HH units." Players: "why?!? Now we finally got decent plastic kits and you cut them?" Chaos marines players: "Since when are Daemonengines 30k models and why do i have NO droppods now?" GW" MONEY.... erm i meant TOO MANY OPTIONS (to resell your army to you again by disalowing former units)! Do you want specific tyranid fighiting Primaris? Even a new sabotage lieutnant!" Chaos players: Guess i stop playing or go to HH.
Not Online!!! wrote: Way to Miss the point blackmage, which was that cultists are going to suck and csm even worse.
way to miss im saying 9th edition will be NOT the horde edition , that's what i meant, what sucks and what not is hard to predict right now
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/07/10 22:07:46
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It’s been stated that points values in general are going up, you can’t judge the viability of a unit’s new points price by the old context. They’re making it easier to pick smaller games and balance cheaper units, and if you want an 8ed 2k scale game then just play like a 2.5 or 3k game
I remember when various horde units cost like 3ppm and wargear options cost a half point. Much prefer larger round numbers where a single point tweak won’t make something unviable or broken
Eldenfirefly wrote:Btw, Techsoldaton, based on the marine leak, a infantry lascannon only cost 15 points, its a pretty big buff to your lascannon spam list.
I am not sure if that kind of list would survive 9th ed though, because it seems like 8th ed is about pushing into the mid board and holding the objectives there.
Thanks for the heads up. That would be cost 230 points less than what I'm paying now - big difference!
lindsay40k wrote:Yeah, that’s why I only mentioned vehicles and left Flamer chosen off the list. A bunch of shooty fighty vehicles with 5++, Flamers, and a -2 to be charged might well be a formidable midfield castle, and they don’t always necessarily need to overwatch to get to use their flames - but they are more likely to have the opportunity to do so
And fluffy to boot. I get the sense flamer tanks are going to be a thing in 9th edition.
Eldenfirefly wrote:I am thinking a black legion army with Abaddon as the centre of the army, havocs for long range, and mass terminators to fight for the midboard, minimum troop CSM at the back performing actions sounds ok. 30 terminators should be quite hard to shift off the midboard. One interesting thing about this is that Black legion terminators can advance and still shoot their combi bolters, and Abbadon will increase their accuracy. So, a black legion terminator core supported by Abaddon can move up the board deceptively fast if they wish while still being able to shoot quite well. And Abaddon will be a boss in the midst of such a steel core of terminators. And its extremely fluffy too for black legion.
And I will really look more closely at melta guns now. At 10 points, putting them on a bike squad makes them very interesting against vehicles. Because bikes can zoom up the board, around the sides of obscuring terrain and hit the vehicles from the sides as they are hiding behind obscuring terrain. And at 10 points per meltagun, even if the bike squads get killed, its not going to be a big loss. And while they are on the board, they will threaten vehicles, and also can go for uncontested or purely defended objectives.
Where are you getting the points from? I'm playing catch up.
Might be a good idea to think about Raptors. With Secondaries, initial placement might be more important than higher T.
Starting to notice there are a lot of snipers. Concerned about Abaddon v 3 Vindicare lists, which I keep reading about.
Not Online!!! wrote:Way to Miss the point blackmage, which was that cultists are going to suck and csm even worse.
Not all CSM are going to suck. Games will be more strategic.
Black Legion have some advantages going into 9th. World Killers allows us to deny Objectives, Tip of the Spear will be important for non-CL deep strikers, Council of Traitors lets us improve HQs (which is important b/c of change to Supreme Command Detachment.) Trophies of Slaughter will now mess up units that charge your Warlord based on the need to keep unit coherency. If you place your HQ properly, you could kill half a unit through attrition. Haarken might actually be useful.
Black Legion could almost just play the Secondaries and win games. Might not destroy a lot or have many models left at the end, but they can deny an opponent in a lot of ways.
World Eaters will have it hard, but I think there's a place for a mechanized list with MSU in flamer Rhinos. Need to see the points.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/07/11 00:42:10
I am just wondering if the counter meta is to have less vehicles since many lists will be geared up for vehicle killing. Hence, my suggestion to go bikes, terminators, elites and havocs, and csm in an Abby army. So, we present zero vehicles as a sort of counter meta list.
I am looking at a batallion and like what tabletop titans said, the problem is running out of slots. There are only 3 heavy slots and 3 havoc squads are cheap. Fast attack can be bikes. So that leave the 6 elite slots. (It does not matter what we fill in the 3 normal slots as CSM or cultists aren't gonna be fantastic no matter what).
Our bread and butter is likely to be our elite slots. we can go ham with 6 of those slots. This assumes we go with only one batallion so that we maximise our CP. Having tons of CP is going to be a big change for us.
Techsoldaton, have you seen those leaf blower ad mech lists? Honestly, I think even lascannon spam will have problems against those lists. Ad mech is super shooty. And the issue with lascannon spam is that it wants to hang back and shoot for the first two turns. 9th edition is about objectives.
I saw a game on tabletop titans of ad mech vs Harlequens. The ad mech were brutal in their shooting turn 1. But surprisingly, they lost the game due to objectives. And this was despite pushing up the board and taking a center middle objective. It was kind of an eye opener because despite terrible rolling at the start for the Harlequen player and devastating shooting from Ad mech on turn 1, the Harlequen player still managed to turn it around and win on objectves
BTW, we can put a chosen squad decked out in plasma guns or melta guns into strategic reserve and "deep strike" them in on turn 2 or turn 3. 6 melta gun shots or 12 plasma guns shots into the face of any unit is going to hurt. Its a lot cheaper than deep striking in a tricked out plasma gun termi squad. The termi squads are better placed going all combi bolters, clearing infantry and contesting the midfield.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/07/11 03:52:42
Can any of you Black Legion players shed some light on how you go about running them? I'm piqued by the concept of a BL list that just takes a smorgasbord of stuff from the army book.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/07/11 03:53:50
Everyone is still feeling their way around because of all the changes in 9th edition. I do feel that black legion focus less on daemon engines and more on elite bodies though. If you want to do daemon engine, better served going iron warriors.
Digressing from Black Legion for a second, I'm wondering if Night Lords best tactic would be denying objectives. With our buffs for deep striking units we could clear off anything holding an objective pretty well. Warp talons with the right strategems (Vicious Descent works great) can tear through most troops pretty easily, as can raptors, and since they have the fly keyword they can move to other targets pretty quickly after gutting the first. Combi-plasma terminators with "Prey On The Weak" can burn down pretty much anything that isn't a LOW comfortably, especially if you drop a Chaos Lord in with them. Put them on an objective and they're pretty hard to dig out with "In Midnight Clad" on them. Go for secondaries that concentrate on killing and add some heavy hitters that my opponent can't ignore (fw dreads, tanks) and I think I may have a plan. Just need to know points costs to see if it's feasible.
Gadzilla666 wrote: Digressing from Black Legion for a second, I'm wondering if Night Lords best tactic would be denying objectives. With our buffs for deep striking units we could clear off anything holding an objective pretty well. Warp talons with the right strategems (Vicious Descent works great) can tear through most troops pretty easily, as can raptors, and since they have the fly keyword they can move to other targets pretty quickly after gutting the first. Combi-plasma terminators with "Prey On The Weak" can burn down pretty much anything that isn't a LOW comfortably, especially if you drop a Chaos Lord in with them. Put them on an objective and they're pretty hard to dig out with "In Midnight Clad" on them. Go for secondaries that concentrate on killing and add some heavy hitters that my opponent can't ignore (fw dreads, tanks) and I think I may have a plan. Just need to know points costs to see if it's feasible.
Go for it by all means. Then share with us. I will note one thing though, 9th ed is about midfield objectives. And because you count holding your objectives at the start of your turn. This means that you need to hold an objective through your opponents turn. It isn't enough to charge in and clear your opponent off the objective. After that, you need to hold on to it. Everything hits hard in 9th ed (they already do in 8th ed). So, clearing an objective is only the first part of the problem. Its holding it until the start of your next turn that is the challenge.
So, my initial gut feel is that raptors and warptalons are still marine stats and armor. In the world of 40k today, with primaris on the field, marine stats don't really have that much holding power, so to speak.
Gadzilla666 wrote: Digressing from Black Legion for a second, I'm wondering if Night Lords best tactic would be denying objectives. With our buffs for deep striking units we could clear off anything holding an objective pretty well. Warp talons with the right strategems (Vicious Descent works great) can tear through most troops pretty easily, as can raptors, and since they have the fly keyword they can move to other targets pretty quickly after gutting the first. Combi-plasma terminators with "Prey On The Weak" can burn down pretty much anything that isn't a LOW comfortably, especially if you drop a Chaos Lord in with them. Put them on an objective and they're pretty hard to dig out with "In Midnight Clad" on them. Go for secondaries that concentrate on killing and add some heavy hitters that my opponent can't ignore (fw dreads, tanks) and I think I may have a plan. Just need to know points costs to see if it's feasible.
Go for it by all means. Then share with us. I will note one thing though, 9th ed is about midfield objectives. And because you count holding your objectives at the start of your turn. This means that you need to hold an objective through your opponents turn. It isn't enough to charge in and clear your opponent off the objective. After that, you need to hold on to it. Everything hits hard in 9th ed (they already do in 8th ed). So, clearing an objective is only the first part of the problem. Its holding it until the start of your next turn that is the challenge.
So, my initial gut feel is that raptors and warptalons are still marine stats and armor. In the world of 40k today, with primaris on the field, marine stats don't really have that much holding power, so to speak.
I've considered that, but it's worth a try. Do you have you have any ideas for the Eighth Legion? And I did mention terminators as well.
What about Spawn? Seems like one of our best points to wound options without an enormous footprint and won't trigger Blast.
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By the way, I saw mention of flamer tanks. Does CSM even have such a thing as a flamer tank? Or are you guys talking about forgeworld ?
From what I know, our predators nor Land raiders can't have a flamer sponson loadout. And I won't exactly consider a Rhino with a combi flamer as a flamer tank... lol
Eldenfirefly wrote: By the way, I saw mention of flamer tanks. Does CSM even have such a thing as a flamer tank? Or are you guys talking about forgeworld ?
From what I know, our predators nor Land raiders can't have a flamer sponson loadout. And I won't exactly consider a Rhino with a combi flamer as a flamer tank... lol
Forgeworld, yeah. The Hellforged Predator can take flamers.
I think we just won't be able to match what imperium brings to the table in terms of flame tanks. Sisters of battle, Astra Militarium and Blood angels all have strong flamer tanks. I bet what's in Forgeworld will be overcosted,
I am trying to think of what makes CSM distinct from marines. We have units like Demon princes, Oliberators, Daemon Engines and Lord Discordants, possessed, cult troops and warp talons. We also have different psychic spells. So, that's our difference from normal marines (leaving aside we don't have primaris). Oh, and our Havocs are arguably slightly better than Devastators.
Other than that, everything we have, from predator tanks to hellbrutes, Marines also have, and they arguably have better. At the most, we go for cheap. (in the rare case like the combi bolter terminator squad with chain axe). So, we either bank on what marines simply do not have, so daemon engines theme. or if we are going for cheap, we need to have more units and models than they do, because our units will be inferior.
This kind of goes against the logic of spending too many points on characters. Because if all the points we saved from getting cheaper but inferior troops are then spent on expensive characters... I am not sure if the trade off will be a good one because our characters will then have to do over time to make up for our inferior units. Either that, or we will have to spam command points just to raise them to an equal performance as equivalent marine units.
We don't know what daemon engines are going to be costed, and even in 8th ed, its not like daemon engine lists were a super strong list. So, while its super fluffy, I think until we see the points for it, we can't draw much conclusions yet.
Based on the marine leaks, we already have a good idea what our CSM equivalent will be costed like. So, then its about seeing how we can pull out good performances from units which pound for pound , are likely to be inferior than their loyalist counterparts.
I remember one tabletop titans video talking about how s very competitive marine list had 60 assault intercessors flooding the mid board as a core component. They said they matched it up against the shootiest filth they could field and it still did great because it just wasn't possible to kill off so many intercessors. And it didn't matter how many you killed, if at the end of the day, they dominated the midboard and won on objectives.
So, this made me wonder how we can do that. Our bikes are inferior to loyalist bikes (like white scars or dark angles or primaris bikes) and not as mobile as eldar bikes. Our terminators are cheaper but not as hardy as storm shield equipped termis or grey knight terminators. So, we have to acknowledge they are cheaper but weaker and play on that. So we can field more of them. Along this train of thought, I am actually wondering if going character lite so that we can maximise the points on units might be a way to overwelm the opponent in bodies. Note that I am not suggesting going horde. 30 terminators is not a horde. 60 possesseed is not a horde either, but both are going to be able to contest and try and dominate the mid field.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2020/07/11 09:16:59
Not Online!!! wrote: Way to Miss the point blackmage, which was that cultists are going to suck and csm even worse.
way to miss im saying 9th edition will be NOT the horde edition , that's what i meant, what sucks and what not is hard to predict right now
Irrelevant contexutalised with marine pts, even assuming we get away with a blue eye and our CSM units just get to 13ppm it looks bad in regards to our troop units.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Eldarain wrote: What about Spawn? Seems like one of our best points to wound options without an enormous footprint and won't trigger Blast.
Depends on spawn pricing.
At 25 pts they got worth it, the equiv assuming the general 10-20% hike would be at most 30 pts for one. So long that is the case, spawn will remain relatively worht it.
The question is though, who wants them over say Raptors or Talons or bikers.
I guess if people want to field a brigade they'd make good fillers, and nice little distraction models but beyond that i don't know.
Granted they don't suffer from coherency as much.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/07/11 10:23:17
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/766717.page A Mostly Renegades and Heretics blog.
GW:"Space marines got too many options to balance, therefore we decided to legends HH units." Players: "why?!? Now we finally got decent plastic kits and you cut them?" Chaos marines players: "Since when are Daemonengines 30k models and why do i have NO droppods now?" GW" MONEY.... erm i meant TOO MANY OPTIONS (to resell your army to you again by disalowing former units)! Do you want specific tyranid fighiting Primaris? Even a new sabotage lieutnant!" Chaos players: Guess i stop playing or go to HH.
Eldenfirefly wrote: I think we just won't be able to match what imperium brings to the table in terms of flame tanks. Sisters of battle, Astra Militarium and Blood angels all have strong flamer tanks. I bet what's in Forgeworld will be overcosted,
Perhaps, but the basic hellforged predator chassis is currently the same points as the standard predator, the difference will come down to the price on the weapons, which should be the same as loyalists. It also has some advantages depending on how much it changes in the new fw books: it gets D3 extra attacks on the charge, Machine Malifica means it can regain wounds in cc, and finally it is an elites choice instead of heavy support, a battalion gives more elites slots than heavy support so that would leave the heavy support slots open.
This assumes most rules go unchanged, which we don't know yet. I wonder if Machine Malifica will survive the fw reboot.
With all of the changes going on with cover, I wonder how this will affect the Iron Warrior's legion trait of ignoring cover. Having them just flat ignore it outright would be OP, but I think that they should have at least some edge in this category.
So, I have been watching quite a few 9th ed games on tabletop titans and tabletop tactics (both are great channels). The smaller tables and the main mission really do affect shooty armies. You simply can't just sit there in a castle and shoot.
Let me give one example. One game of necrons vs AM that I watched. The AM had units deployed literally at the edge of the table. He can't deploy them any further back than he did.
Yet, by turn 2, necrons units were in his lines. And by turn 3, some of his key tank commanders were stuck and wrapped in combat. And this was despite him having an amazing 1st turn where he shot 3 doomsday arks off the board, effectively destroying all of the Necron anti tank capability.
The other thing is missions. The primary mission that doesn't change no mater what secondaries you pick, is about holding objectives, and holding more objectives. And those primary missions are worth 45 points maxed. Midboard objectives are the most fiercely contested. As a shooty army, if you stay back in a shooty castle, you will get very little (if any) of the primary mission points.
You could shoot your opponent off the board from your shooty castle, but if that happens by turn 4, or 5, you have already lost the game. Because your opponent could have racked up 30 to 45 primary mission points while you got 0 to 10 even by the time you shot him to pieces. And these primary mission points start accruing from turn 2 onwards. Theoratically, all your opponent needs is 3 good turns (turn 2,3,4) of dominating the objectives, and he would have maxed the 45 points. Meanwhile, say you shoot him off the table on turn 5. Its too late for you to then charge forward and flood into those objectives because you only score them at the start of your turn. In fact, let's say you shoot your opponent off the board on turn 4 (which is no trifle feat). AND you flood into the objectives on turn 4. You will still only then score one round of primary objectives at the start of your turn 5. (and that's just 15 points).
So, shooty armies cannot aim to only sit back and shoot. You will not win 9th edition games like that. Even shooty armies will need to have units that can go forward and contest/dominate objectives. The guard player I watched had tons of chimera tanks filled with guardsmen in them, plus hellhounds too and these would charge forward to try and take objectives.
The thing is, once you start to do all those things, your shooty army automatically becomes less deadly shooting wise. Still good, but just not leafblower type of good anymore. Because the kind of stuff that can move forward and take objectives are not shooty stuff. And btw, a bunch of ten guardsmen cannot hold an objective till the start of your next turn, they are simply too fragile. You need a combination of maybe a tank plus a bunch of guardsmen to do the trick. And when you consider the points, then having a hellhound plus 10 guardsmen on an objective or a Chimera plus ten guardsmen is no longer as cheap as having just ten guardsmen sitting on an objective.
In another game I watched, Admech player was doing super good shooting and pushed to the centre objective with like half his army plus robots. The opposing harlequin player had been hurt by the shooting and knew he simply couldn't outshoot admech. So he concentrated on playing objectives. He let the admech player have the center objective, but used his speed and mobility to circle behind and attack the rear objectives that were lightly defended. In the end, the Harlequin player won. This was against an obviously shootier army that even managed to take the middle objective. (In hindsight, the admech player admitted he pushed too much of his army into the centre and left his rear too lightly defended).
When I first saw the rules I thought nothing seemed to have changed much, and this was going to be a shooty edition. But the primary mission objectives worth 45 points and the smaller table board means everyone is clashing and fighting over midboard objectives by turn 2.
Its a very big change. An army could lose all of his heaviest guns on turn 1, and still have a very close game concentrating on playing objectives. On the other hand, if you had an army that is minimum troops but filled with shooty stuff that just want to stand still and shoot, you are likely to lose even if you shot most of your opponent's army off the table by turn 4 or 5.
Huh. Sounds like ObSec troops are not at all a tax, but an important flag-planting element. I like that, hope Heretacs get parity with Cultists in terms of utility.
I saw another game where a black legion player was forced to send his Lord Discordant backwards to his own lines because a bunch of warp spiders had successfully killed the CSM on it and taken over the objective. He simply couldn't risk having the eldar player potentially keep on racking up those victory points every turn from holding that objective. And the only thing that was beefy and fast enough to make it back to his own lines was his Lord Discordant.
It tells you something about how important holding objectives is when a player is willing to send one of his best CSM characters moving backwards just to save his own objective from being taken over by the opponent. And yes, after that, he fully intended for the Lord Discordant to then sit on his own rear objective for the rest of the game if he couldn't send anyone else back. That's how important holding objectives is in 9th Edition.
I love this entire edition so far. It almost seems like it was designed specifically to screw with gunlines which I have always despised playing against.
I am thinking about Transports with Venomcrawlers helping on counter punches for center objectives.