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Barbachop wrote: Lawrence giving the 10 man seer council a run out vs iron warriors on TT today for those with a sub. Keen to see how that works out, however I have purposely hidden my bank card from myself as I really really shouldnt buy any more models before playing this accursed game...
TT also heavily prefaced their game with a good few minutes discussion on 9th, making the point that we haven't seen the codices yet and suggesting that they had at least in some form, and this makes a heavily positive change to army composition/gameplay
++ Auxiliary Support Detachment -1CP (Aeldari – Craftworlds) ++
+ HQ +
Jain Zar
Too many eggs in one basket if you ask me.
Hello blast weapons.
I feel like people need to crunch the numbers a bit more on blasts, because they're not as scary as people are saying. Maxing shots only gives them more chances to hit and wound, and unless they're stacking other supporting options, or CP into the mix the weapon in question is only averaging a few more wounds.
Like I'm sure everyone else is I'm keen to get some first hand experience. I can see the wisdom of a lot of popular competitive streamers/commentators advocating MSU, however as a new 40k player with a small army that includes 20 newly painted guardians, I want to put them on the table to see for myself. Blast weapons in our codex and in others have paid a heavy premium (Thunderfire cannon nearly doubled) so if an opponent wants to throw costly weapons and a 3+ invuln buffed unit then fair enough. The only thing is that if I'm buffing a blob with protect/ shield then I have little left for wraith blades or spears.
Maybe it's an oversimplification, but if an army is used to competing with small msu units to trade objectives with, then they are poorly optimised to shift a powerful firebase, so assuming you're not neglecting everything else on the board your opponents is gona have to change up his strategy.
As a new player who bought his first 6 or 7 boxes of models based off of optimal 8e wisdom, I've learned a lesson about meta shift quickly, but that was coming at some point I guess.
I feel like a lot of the 9th ed meta predictions were based of 8th ed points as GW hadn't finalized the points at the time. In theory they have sound pointa, but in practice I don't think blast weapons will be as prevelant as they've said if only because of the restrictivs nature of points costs. Too many eggs in on basket to load up on blasts.
Barbachop wrote: Like I'm sure everyone else is I'm keen to get some first hand experience. I can see the wisdom of a lot of popular competitive streamers/commentators advocating MSU, however as a new 40k player with a small army that includes 20 newly painted guardians, I want to put them on the table to see for myself. Blast weapons in our codex and in others have paid a heavy premium (Thunderfire cannon nearly doubled) so if an opponent wants to throw costly weapons and a 3+ invuln buffed unit then fair enough. The only thing is that if I'm buffing a blob with protect/ shield then I have little left for wraith blades or spears.
Maybe it's an oversimplification, but if an army is used to competing with small msu units to trade objectives with, then they are poorly optimised to shift a powerful firebase, so assuming you're not neglecting everything else on the board your opponents is gona have to change up his strategy.
As a new player who bought his first 6 or 7 boxes of models based off of optimal 8e wisdom, I've learned a lesson about meta shift quickly, but that was coming at some point I guess.
A guardian bomb will still work well, they're a little expensive but when you're just running the one big blob with buffs they're pretty tanky as you say.
I think its the value blast will give against a full conclave thats the concern glooping an extra avenger or wotnot is say 12-15 splattering another jetseer is 50 or so
"AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED."
In theory, I'm hoping blasts would go after a powered up Warlock Conclave. At 10 models, it's 3 shot minimums. Those are weapons not going after the units scoring the points. That is its purpose, in my mind.
Now that the Wind Rider Host will no longer be allowed for tourneys, I need to review some strategies, but the core of the Conclave idea would still be intact. I'm not sure how this impacts other armies (loss of specialist detachments).
No earth shattering, thought provoking quote. I'm just someone who was introduced to 40K in the late 80's and it's become a lifelong hobby.
Sarigar wrote: In theory, I'm hoping blasts would go after a powered up Warlock Conclave. At 10 models, it's 3 shot minimums. Those are weapons not going after the units scoring the points. That is its purpose, in my mind.
Now that the Wind Rider Host will no longer be allowed for tourneys, I need to review some strategies, but the core of the Conclave idea would still be intact. I'm not sure how this impacts other armies (loss of specialist detachments).
Where is the specialist detachment thing? I'm on my phone and didn't spot it when skimming the leak.
Automatically Appended Next Post: So I'm going to do a littlw number crunching tonight, what are some blast weapons we're seeing being real boogeyman out of the gate? I know the Wyvern is one, and maybe the Doomweaver, any others?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Found the specialist detachment clause:
So those will be narrative/casual matched play exclusive I guess.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2020/07/17 22:21:07
Does that rule mean that the Faction keyword must be the same between all of your detachments to be Battle forged (thus disallowing soup to retain being Battle forged) or only that the units within each detachment sure the same common keyword?
Leo_the_Rat wrote: Does that rule mean that the Faction keyword must be the same between all of your detachments to be Battle forged (thus disallowing soup to retain being Battle forged) or only that the units within each detachment sure the same common keyword?
You cannot mix Craftworld with Drukhari or Harlequins within a single detachment. You can have a Craftworld detachment and a Harlequin detachment in a battle forged army.
Sarigar wrote: In theory, I'm hoping blasts would go after a powered up Warlock Conclave. At 10 models, it's 3 shot minimums. Those are weapons not going after the units scoring the points. That is its purpose, in my mind.
Now that the Wind Rider Host will no longer be allowed for tourneys, I need to review some strategies, but the core of the Conclave idea would still be intact. I'm not sure how this impacts other armies (loss of specialist detachments).
Where is the specialist detachment thing? I'm on my phone and didn't spot it when skimming the leak.
Automatically Appended Next Post: So I'm going to do a littlw number crunching tonight, what are some blast weapons we're seeing being real boogeyman out of the gate? I know the Wyvern is one, and maybe the Doomweaver, any others?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Found the specialist detachment clause:
So those will be narrative/casual matched play exclusive I guess.
While I don't think we will see three Thunderfire Cannons in an army, one in an army would not be unreasonable to expect. Lots of folks bought that model when the Marine codex was released.
Did plasma weapons get the blast Rule? I recently faced a Leman Russ Commander variant whose shooting was vicious when stratagems were included (I don't own or play Imperial Guard).
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/07/18 00:27:52
No earth shattering, thought provoking quote. I'm just someone who was introduced to 40K in the late 80's and it's become a lifelong hobby.
So I'm going to do a littlw number crunching tonight, what are some blast weapons we're seeing being real boogeyman out of the gate? I know the Wyvern is one, and maybe the Doomweaver, any others?
Some strange entries on this blast list, most notably bolt sniper rifles. Eliminators still going to see play, even with a modest points hike. From a fluff point of view I want to see the sniper round that is blowing up units of 20 charging orcs...
On a plus note our plasma grenades will do work
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/07/18 01:05:03
The first thing worth noting that unless a weapon was D3, it's average number of shots was the same or higher than the minimum of 3 (2D3's average is 4 shots, D6 is average 3 shots, ect), which means that against 5-10 model units the average damage we can expect is the same, excluding the rare times we're being shot at by a single D3 weapon (illustrated by the random Devastator).
The second was that the numbers weren't exactly devastating the to squads. Even Guardians standing in the open with no buff only lost 5 models at most, and even then they'd hardly suffer under the new morale rules, unlike old editions.
Now yes, there are ways to buff this shooting further, but just on a raw points comparison and thus didn't get into the weeds on all the re-rolls and double shooting and other buffs we could stack both ways because we could be here all day, and then we have to look at points and CP investments for those things as well.
So long story short: blasts aren't bad, but I don't think it's the death of the horde, and in some cases I'd argue the horde is better because it takes more rounds of shooting to kill it off on average.
Some quick averages: D6 with no minimum averages 3.5. D6 with min 3 averages 4 (sum of 3,3,3,4,5,6 divided by 6), 14% more hits on average. So as noted, only 0.5 average extra hits. D3, obviously, goes from average of 2 to average of 3 (50% output increase)
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/07/18 04:57:22
Verthane wrote: Some quick averages: D6 with no minimum averages 3.5. D6 with min 3 averages 4 (sum of 3,3,3,4,5,6 divided by 6), 14% more hits on average. So as noted, only 0.5 average extra hits. D3, obviously, goes from average of 2 to average of 3 (50% output increase)
It has a higher floor, yes, but on average it doesn't change the average number of wounds we'd actually see so 5-10 man units are kind of the same thing statistically against anything that isn't D3. It just doesn't drop below 3 shots min if our opponent gets unlucky.
It now has Striking Scorpions, Shining Spears, and both flavors of Wraithblades (since the Swords have the same statline as Wraithguard, but are WAY more expensive, I just did them and didn't do my mathhammer run multiple times).
EDIT: And now that I've re-read what you were saying again, yes, it does average slightly higher, but it's not enough to really swing things in a significant manner. In most cases it's -maybe- 1 extra wound that gets through. Not enough to really throw the whole idea of 10 man units or 20 man Guardian blobs out of the pram over.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/07/18 05:30:09
Sarigar wrote: Thank you for the spreadsheet. It helps put some things in perspective.
I will be interested to see how players react to blast weapons as it pertains to list building.
Happy to share my findings!
The meta shaking out will be interesting to.watch for sure.
Hordes may not die to blast, but building massive bomb units of expensive models is likely dead since you need to be spread out so.much and running all your eggs in one basket. So green tide may survive since it can run the numbers with multiple units but a single Possessed bomb buffed to the gills is likely not going to see play in the form anymore.
It feels, at least to me, that spreading the buffs put so you only give 1, maybe 2, to each unit seems like the best use pf those buffs. Between that and the fact that units have to survive more than blast weapons, running more bodies over the current logic of just running 5 man units feels like the better approach. Every buff gets more bang out of it, and the units are less likely to go down to any one unit shooting at them meaning more has to be invested (via character support, additional units shooting and/or CP) to take the units outmof the game.
Plus we're just not Primaris, so we can't rely on small units soaking large amounts of damage like they can.
Barbachop wrote: Not sure about quicken myself. He did one tap the demon prince in a combat with jinx and 10 witch striking warlocks. I think they actually misread the rule as Lawrence explains it as flat 3 damage when I understood it as 10d3+20 damage, wounding anything on 2s. Jinx offsets the lack of ap somewhat.
I watched the report. It was mentioned they misplayed Witchstrike, but it made no difference with all the failed saves.
The report somewhat showcased the idea of the big Warlock Conclave purpose. It became an immediate threat and drew a good amount t of firepower away from the parts of the army that was scoring points. I think the Conclave can be further optimized, but served its purpose well.
No earth shattering, thought provoking quote. I'm just someone who was introduced to 40K in the late 80's and it's become a lifelong hobby.
Barbachop wrote: Not sure about quicken myself. He did one tap the demon prince in a combat with jinx and 10 witch striking warlocks. I think they actually misread the rule as Lawrence explains it as flat 3 damage when I understood it as 10d3+20 damage, wounding anything on 2s. Jinx offsets the lack of ap somewhat.
I watched the report. It was mentioned they misplayed Witchstrike, but it made no difference with all the failed saves.
The report somewhat showcased the idea of the big Warlock Conclave purpose. It became an immediate threat and drew a good amount t of firepower away from the parts of the army that was scoring points. I think the Conclave can be further optimized, but served its purpose well.
Assuming you're still getting jinx/quicken/protect from other warlocks I still wonder whether the points would be better spend on 9-man shining spears unit, much cheaper than the warlocks, with protect just as durable, and better in combat now that witch strike has been FAQ'd to only affect one warlock.
ClockworkZion wrote: I feel like a lot of the 9th ed meta predictions were based of 8th ed points as GW hadn't finalized the points at the time. In theory they have sound pointa, but in practice I don't think blast weapons will be as prevelant as they've said if only because of the restrictivs nature of points costs. Too many eggs in on basket to load up on blasts.
Not really. Most armis don't really go out of their way to choose blast weapons, weapons they bring just have blast now. The bigger downfall of blast is the fact that it's worthless for multiple D6 and D3 shot profiles (ala the conflag exorcist's 3D6 shots) unless you go over 10. Up to 10 models will feel coherency more than they'll feel blast.
ClockworkZion wrote: I feel like a lot of the 9th ed meta predictions were based of 8th ed points as GW hadn't finalized the points at the time. In theory they have sound pointa, but in practice I don't think blast weapons will be as prevelant as they've said if only because of the restrictivs nature of points costs. Too many eggs in on basket to load up on blasts.
Not really. Most armis don't really go out of their way to choose blast weapons, weapons they bring just have blast now. The bigger downfall of blast is the fact that it's worthless for multiple D6 and D3 shot profiles (ala the conflag exorcist's 3D6 shots) unless you go over 10. Up to 10 models will feel coherency more than they'll feel blast.
They'll only feel it more if you're trying to string the unit out, something that doesn't benefit Craftworlds as much since all of our buffs either come from strats or psychic powers.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/07/18 13:55:06
Barbachop wrote: Not sure about quicken myself. He did one tap the demon prince in a combat with jinx and 10 witch striking warlocks. I think they actually misread the rule as Lawrence explains it as flat 3 damage when I understood it as 10d3+20 damage, wounding anything on 2s. Jinx offsets the lack of ap somewhat.
I watched the report. It was mentioned they misplayed Witchstrike, but it made no difference with all the failed saves.
The report somewhat showcased the idea of the big Warlock Conclave purpose. It became an immediate threat and drew a good amount t of firepower away from the parts of the army that was scoring points. I think the Conclave can be further optimized, but served its purpose well.
Assuming you're still getting jinx/quicken/protect from other warlocks I still wonder whether the points would be better spend on 9-man shining spears unit, much cheaper than the warlocks, with protect just as durable, and better in combat now that witch strike has been FAQ'd to only affect one warlock.
Shining Spears are wave 2. Spend lots of resources trying to whittle down the Conclave, then have a Shining Spear unit hit to further challenge target priority. If an opponent is trying to deal with these elements, that is less that can go after the units that actually will win me the game. The real challenge is to ensure to not get the Conclave compromised on turn 1. If I don't get first turn, it is about maximizing things like Phantasm, range and LOS. Then, it's important to have the Farseer get a +1 to casting and the Warlock Conclave getting a +3 to cast. The Farseer can also take Seer of Shifting Vector, effectively providing two rerolls per psychic phase, and opening up a CP reroll for the Warlock Conclave should they need it. You can position the Conclave in such a way to get a single model out of Deny the Witch range, if at all possible. This is the unit you'd want to spend CP to auto pass morale with.
The Conclave will end up with a 3++/5+++, even in assault which is extremely durable. With stratagems and some other psychic upgrades, it is effectively a deathstar for 9th edition; these work very well within the construct of progressive missions. I played a lot of these style missions in 6th edition using this method and it worked very well. Edition is different, but the concept remains the same.
I'm hoping to get in some games today or tomorrow to play it as that will really help me better understand 9th edition nuances.
No earth shattering, thought provoking quote. I'm just someone who was introduced to 40K in the late 80's and it's become a lifelong hobby.
It seems like objectives are so important that you need to build "sub detachments" designed to take and hold one objective.
I'm getting a lot of mileage out of 10 Wraithblades with ghost axes and shields. The only time the have every dropped bellow half strength was against salamander terminators.
Due to defenders choosing who fights first, the terminators got to swing first and then double-fought.
I paid 2 CP to keep the last guy on the board, who died in my opponent's turn, then my dire avengers gunned the whole unit down.
My detachments are
1. A wraithlord and my farseer (home base objective)
2. Specialist detachment spiritseer with 10 Wraithblades
3. Asurmen and 30 Dire Avengers
4. 9 Shining Spears
I have a unit of 10 Dark Reapers that hang back and provide fire support.
The wraithlord is a great body guard. A unit of 5 wraithblades seems great untill you realize they don't provide "look out sir" after 3 losses. The wraithlord saves the farseer until death.
Sounds like a solid, competitive list. Do you find you have to put a lot of resources into your Dark Reapers - are they starting on the board? Played any armies that are putting pressure on your backfield? Are you bringing anything in in the webway/reserve?
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/07/18 20:22:35
Sounds like a solid, competitive list. Do you find you have to put a lot of resources into your Dark Reapers - are they starting on the board? Played any armies that are putting pressure on your backfield? Are you bringing anything in in the webway/reserve?
I've been playing against myself on TTS. I was focusing on the Eldar list so I ran it against
Adrax Agatone
Librarian
3x Flame Aggressors
All in a Repulsor
10 THSS Terminators on foot
3x 5 Intercessors with bolt rifles
2x Impulsors
Redemptor
Thunderfire Cannon
The first game I used powerlevel instead of using points for the marines... big mistake. I ended up playing 2400 of Salamanders vs 2000 Eldar.
Basically, the impulors sat on objectives with 4++. Everything else aggressively pushed into the Eldar.
Usually the salamanders were ahead 10 to 15 on the primary but the Eldar either tied it up or pull slightly ahead by turn 5.
The biggest changes were the cap at -1 to hit combined with vehicles moving and shooting with no penalties.
Also, my shining spears wanted to fall back and shoot a couple of times but couldn't.
The dark reapers were on the table often. They hid turn 1 so only indirect fire could hit them.
Being in a unit of 10, by my read of the rules, means automatic 12 shots from thunderfires as they shoot 4d3 shots. Greater than 5 models means the minimum per roll is 3.
Also, tempest launchers were not great against Intercessors but seem like they'd be AWESOME vs hordes with doom.
There is a belief among some players that the blast rule applies per weapon rather than per die. So that the thunderfires would roll 4d3 and if the total is less than 3 then it becomes 3. In other words as far as thuderfires are concerned unless they shoot at a unit of 11+ they just roll as normal.
9000 pts 
6000 pts 
)
