Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

It's fun occasionally but it's a lot less interesting after a few games.

40K is boring as hell after playing Box's list on the virtual tabletop.

1) Do BA have mass tripoints by turn two?
2) Does the opponent have any counter assault or psychic?

If yes to 1 and no to 2, the game is over.

Seems like CSM don't even have this kind of crutch to fall back on. And tripointing is 100% a crutch. I'll take apoc any day.

Sounds like that list needs to be toned down in an errata? Wait a few months

Martel732 wrote:
I've read the rules set. I'd rather play that, honestly. But lack of interest is a bitch.

Idk, maybe try it out on TTS? Certainly seems like it'd be much easier to try out on that platform, since models basically don't have to be moved individually and terrain is much simplified.

It's definitely got its issues - particularly units on the really really extreme low end of the cost spectrum - units that cost 1PL (or increments of 1PL like 30-man gretchin squads) tend to be brokenly good because they still take 1 shot to kill and can still roll 1 attack die. Hilariously, kroot-only is one of the most broken apocalypse armies, just kroot and krootox and your opponent stands no chance.

the_scotsman wrote:


The fact that a basic marine elite unit now puts out EIGHTEEN shots, the equivalent of an entire full squad of marines or two squads of dedicated anti-infantry devastator marines in previous editions, and people pretend that that's OK and it's not even some exceptional, amazing thing now just kind of highlights the problem. A squad of intercessors sitting 30" away from their target can pretty casually put down "20 man ork boyz squad in melee" levels of dice with a stratagem. Of course everything smaller than a W2 3+ model feels like a cultist. Of course a 2,000 point list of most factions features 50+ infantry models just jammed onto the table in the hopes of getting to turn 3-4.

There's so much truth in this statement it hurts. Have an exalt!

CSM struggle to feel like they should because everything is now based around the Primaris statline, to the point that anything that isn't T4 W2 is basically fodder. That's not necessarily a huge problem for, say, Kabalites or Orks, but it's a big problem for the supposedly elite units from non-SM factions like Aspect Warriors or Chaos Space Marines. The number of shots and rerolls, particularly from SM, is ridiculous now, which turns every profile into the same thing beyond a certain point. The best way to kill planes, for example, isn't to take them down with highly accurate heavy weapons or AA guns. No, it's to hose them down with 100+ bolter shots that re-roll everything, and probably stack some extra MW on top for good measure.

Slipspace wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:


The fact that a basic marine elite unit now puts out EIGHTEEN shots, the equivalent of an entire full squad of marines or two squads of dedicated anti-infantry devastator marines in previous editions, and people pretend that that's OK and it's not even some exceptional, amazing thing now just kind of highlights the problem. A squad of intercessors sitting 30" away from their target can pretty casually put down "20 man ork boyz squad in melee" levels of dice with a stratagem. Of course everything smaller than a W2 3+ model feels like a cultist. Of course a 2,000 point list of most factions features 50+ infantry models just jammed onto the table in the hopes of getting to turn 3-4.

There's so much truth in this statement it hurts. Have an exalt!

CSM struggle to feel like they should because everything is now based around the Primaris statline, to the point that anything that isn't T4 W2 is basically fodder. That's not necessarily a huge problem for, say, Kabalites or Orks, but it's a big problem for the supposedly elite units from non-SM factions like Aspect Warriors or Chaos Space Marines. The number of shots and rerolls, particularly from SM, is ridiculous now, which turns every profile into the same thing beyond a certain point. The best way to kill planes, for example, isn't to take them down with highly accurate heavy weapons or AA guns. No, it's to hose them down with 100+ bolter shots that re-roll everything, and probably stack some extra MW on top for good measure.

Say what you want about the old morale rules, but I think this is a case where they show their purpose. You didn't need a billion shots to remove a unit from the game (permanently or just temporarily) when taking a few casualties could force a unit to lose a turn. Good morale rules are a way to deal with cheap troops that doesn't require loads of shots. 8th went for the loads of shots, which in addition to being good at removing hordes, is also good at removing lots of other things, especially when coupled with the new Wound table. Now loads of shots winds up being good at killing MCs and Tanks as well, which just wasn't even a thing in prior editions save for Necrons and their auto-glancing Gauss.

 Ishagu wrote:
Basically Chaos players want complete parity with the loyalists with their strong units, and they also want to keep all their unique units like Cultists, and the ability to ally without sacrificing faction rules.

Until this happens, there will be sour faces all across the planet.

It's not about Chaos Primaris, it's about faction power. Never mind that Chaos Lists are stronger than most.

As a chaos player I don't want what loyalists have, I don't care for doctrines. if they make an equivalent then no allies is a fair sacrifice to access them.

I don't care about cultists, I'd rather see a renegades and heretics book so they can be done properly.

But what doesn't make sense is that a word bearers rhino has no bonus for being word bearers, but an iron hands rhino gets a fnp just for existing. Taking allies from another codex is useful, of course, but "ally another codex" isn't a good answer to a faction not working stand alone.

Chaos marines specifically are currently (again) just back to being a none threatening speed bump in comparison. It's telling chaos marines are going to have had a codex, a revised codex, a full campaign book and sections in 2 psychic awakening books and they still can't get it right.

People playing chaos space marines don't want loyalist OP units, they just want parity on the basics such as legion traits applying to vehicles, legion traits that actually do something useful (looking at you again word bearers), maybe something to represent how much more experienced a chaos marine is to a newly crafted intercessor.

it is unendingly hilarious to me that you can take an army of

Chaos Lord
Chaos Sorceror

Chaos space marines
Chaos terminators
Chaos Havocs

Chaos Land Raider
Chaos predator
Chaos Rhinos
Chaos Vindicator

and then an identical loyalist army, which costs the exact same points except for exactly 1 point for each chaos space marine, following the exact same faction restrictions. In terms of army-wide rules, the chaos army gets

-Reroll morale on infantry
-6s to hit in melee generate an extra attack vs Imperium models

and the loyalist army gets

-reroll morale on everything
-6+ FNP on everything
-Reroll 1s on heavy weapons
-Heavy weapons move and shoot
-AP-1 on all heavy weapons
-Everything overwatches on 5+

Lol why are you telling porkies?

What rules do I get if I make an Alpha Legion list with the PA supplement? Do I just re roll morale?

And I love how you jump to an Iron Hands list lol

 Ishagu wrote:
Lol why are you telling porkies?

What rules do I get if I make an Alpha Legion list? Do I just re roll morale?

Yeah amazingly, incredibly, if you declare your army a different subfaction, you get...DIFFERENT RULES WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?

My argument here is, maybe, for a miniature game, you know one where the rules are supposed to be based on the miniatures, taking an identical collection and being able to swing the combat effectiveness by 30-40% by declaring them a different subfaction isn't, maybe, "optimal peak rules performance"

You compare an army and yet omit it's rules? Don't tell porkies.

 Ishagu wrote:
You compare an army and yet omit it's rules? Don't tell porkies.

So...the fact that I chose a different subfaction than you'd prefer to compare counts as a lie now?

I'm comparing Word Bearers to Iron Hands. How much power differential do you get if you take an absolutely identical miniatures collection, and you go from the worst subfaction to the best?

I'm no mathmagician here, but it seems like, if it's that big a difference, that's not great for what's supposed to be a miniatures game.

"And I love how you jump to an Iron Hands list lol"

Why compare to anything but the best? For a while there, all loyalists were iron hands regardless of paint job.

Are they the best now? Remains to be seen. They were nerfed just prior to the lockdown.

 Ishagu wrote:
Are they the best now? Remains to be seen. They were nerfed just prior to the lockdown.

This is my favorite good faith debate tactic: The Jingle Your Keys and Yell "Look Behind You!"

 Ishagu wrote:
Are they the best now? Remains to be seen. They were nerfed just prior to the lockdown.

Then why complain about someone "going to Iron Hands"?

They are still strong and have the most rules, I would say.

I think Raven Guard are a better Chapter now.

My point was that a comparison was made between one army with special rules omitted, and one that had them all. It was an argument built on false pretenses.

Ishagu wrote:@Gadzilla

Perhaps. When I read any of the lore it seems to me that most Chaos factions are raving Cultists and a few chaos Astartes amongst them. Perhaps GW is taking the faction in this direction.

I'm sorry, I guess I need to reread all the Night Lords novels, I don't seem to remember the hordes of cultists in them.

Ishagu wrote:Basically Chaos players want complete parity with the loyalists with their strong units, and they also want to keep all their unique units like Cultists, and the ability to ally without sacrificing faction rules.

Until this happens, there will be sour faces all across the planet.

It's not about Chaos Primaris, it's about faction power. Never mind that Chaos Lists are stronger than most.

No one is saying that but you. We want our astartes troops to actually behave like astartes so we don't need cultists. We want to play our legions without allies and still be good. Csm aren't supposed to be a horde army. They're supposed to be elite. If I want to play hordes I'll play my R&H.

the_scotsman wrote:
it is unendingly hilarious to me that you can take an army of

Chaos Lord
Chaos Sorceror

Chaos space marines
Chaos terminators
Chaos Havocs

Chaos Land Raider
Chaos predator
Chaos Rhinos
Chaos Vindicator

and then an identical loyalist army, which costs the exact same points except for exactly 1 point for each chaos space marine, following the exact same faction restrictions. In terms of army-wide rules, the chaos army gets

-Reroll morale on infantry

and the loyalist army gets

-reroll morale on everything
-6+ FNP on everything
-Reroll 1s on heavy weapons
-Heavy weapons move and shoot
-AP-1 on all heavy weapons
-Everything overwatches on 5+

You forgot Death to the false Emperor to be fair, which is actually quite useful against half of the armies in the game, but I agree with your point.
And if we leave matched play one would have to account for daemonic ritual, which would affect the Word bearers' abilities quite a lot.
Both of these rules are limited in their use of course, unlike an army-wide -1 AP, which helps against anyone but Harlies and Daemons.

 Ishagu wrote:
They are still strong and have the most rules, I would say.

I think Raven Guard are a better Chapter now.

My point was that a comparison was made between one army with special rules omitted, and one that had them all. It was an argument built on false pretenses.

Yeah, except, I wasn't. The subfaction choice for the Chaos collection was Word Bearers, whose chapter tactic is Infantry and Dreadnoughts Reroll Morale Tests.

The same rule that space marines get just for showing up, not even having chosen a chapter tactic yet.

There was no rule here omitted, CSM just don't get reroll morale by default. I omitted rules like Bolter Discipline, Shock Assault, etc that other armies might not get, because in this comparison we were looking at the impact of subfaction choice on an identical collection of space marine models.

Which is kind of odd to me - it's a miniatures game, after all. Why leave such a massive percentage of combat effectiveness up to your choice of fictional sub-faction, rather than up to the miniatures chosen by either player?

And if you picked Black Templars as a point of comparison?

They re roll charges.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
it is unendingly hilarious to me that you can take an army of

Chaos Lord
Chaos Sorceror

Chaos space marines
Chaos terminators
Chaos Havocs

Chaos Land Raider
Chaos predator
Chaos Rhinos
Chaos Vindicator

and then an identical loyalist army, which costs the exact same points except for exactly 1 point for each chaos space marine, following the exact same faction restrictions. In terms of army-wide rules, the chaos army gets

-Reroll morale on infantry

and the loyalist army gets

-reroll morale on everything
-6+ FNP on everything
-Reroll 1s on heavy weapons
-Heavy weapons move and shoot
-AP-1 on all heavy weapons
-Everything overwatches on 5+

You forgot Death to the false Emperor to be fair, which is actually quite useful against half of the armies in the game, but I agree with your point.
And if we leave matched play one would have to account for daemonic ritual, which would affect the Word bearers' abilities quite a lot.
Both of these rules are limited in their use of course, unlike an army-wide -1 AP, which helps against anyone but Harlies and Daemons.

Fair. Edited to include DTFE, I did forget that one.

Daemonic Ritual is irrelevant in this comparison because we are comparing two identical miniature collections. Could even be the very same miniature collection, and the rules difference between choosing to declare them one subfaction or another.

Just by declaring the IH subfaction, the land raider alone increases in power enough to double its overall combat effectiveness versus the identical Chaos Land Raider it's up against.

 Ishagu wrote:
And if you picked Black Templars as a point of comparison?

They re roll charges.

And get bonus AP. And reroll morale. And can take multiple Warlord traits. And have far easier access to full rerolls to-hit and reroll 1s to-wound. And their vehicles get their Tactic too, meaning Impulsors can more reliably tie up your non-FLY shooting units.

And Chaos get nothing?

No Bolter rules? No Veterans? No great rules for Legions like Alpha Legion or Night Lords?

 Ishagu wrote:
And if you picked Black Templars as a point of comparison?

They re roll charges.

And reroll morale.
And get -1AP on various weapons throughout the game
and get to automatically wound on a 6 to hit starting turn 3

Don't tell porkies

but overall, I do agree with you - it's super weird that tying that much in-game power to something other than the miniatures you choose is very strange. I'm glad you also agree.

Why would we do that, though?

Okay, let's compare 30 Black Templar Intercessors to 50 Alpha Legion CSM.
We will assume they are entirely unsupported, and start within 24" of each other. But we will give the Intercessors T1. We will also ignore morale.

After three turns, there are 18.5 Intercessors (314.5 points) left.

There are 26.91 CSM (296.01) left.

This is without any support (which favors the SM, since they can easily get better rerolls), without Morale (which hits CSM harder than SM in general, and actual CSM way harder than Intercessors), without cover (favoring those who have AP on their weapons over those without), Alpha Legion (the best CSM) versus Black Templars (who have no shooting bonus form their Chapter Tactic), and assuming they start within 24", when Intercessors have no reason to deploy that far forward.

Also, the original points values were 510 (SM) against 550 (CSM).

What about being in more places at once, having more bodies on an objective?

Come now.

 Ishagu wrote:
What about being in more places at once, having more bodies on an objective?

Come now.

When 137+510 (HQs plus Troops) of Space Marines can wipe out over 300 points of CSM in one go, that advantage goes away REAL QUICK.

And that's with AP-1 Bolt Rifles. It gets WORSE Turn Two. Or if you buy any upgrades for your CSM, like heavy or special weapons, or god forbid you run something like CHOSEN.

 JNAProductions wrote:
After three turns, there are 18.5 Intercessors (314.5 points) left.
There are 26.91 CSM (296.01) left.

That is surprisingly respectable given that the Intercessors got the first turn and faced no multi-damage weapons.