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Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

JakeSiren wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

It's just melee overwatch that costs a strategem. How often does Overwatch help things again? Specially when you are using Strategems that are far better and more worthwhile?

Well yeah, it's this "melee overwatch" that has been called out as costing a Command Point.

Unlike normal Overwatch though, this applies to every fricking model touching the unit that is falling back. And unlike normal Overwatch, it generates Mortal Wounds.
You lot have talked about having to tritip, wrap, yaddayaddayadda just to ensure that you get a unit into combat. Now you get aversion of Overwatch, generating Mortal Wounds, that is based upon being within combat range of the unit in question...and it "does nothing"? It's "not a big deal"? It's "too expensive" for a single Command Point?!

I get that melee has problems. This right here? This ain't a problem.

This "Melee overwatch" is only useful for hoard units. Elite melee units such as Thunder Calvary can expect to generate, what, 1 mortal wound? Where as if they were given an equivalent of overwatch (full attacks hitting on 6's) would cause more damage.

You are right that Melee has problems. I can't count the number of times that I've charged a full heath 8 wound Chaos Daemon Character into a gunline unit and had it obliterated due to overwatch. It puts me in a position where I can literally do nothing to hurt the enemy. That's not fun. And there is nothing I can do about it because the rest of my army has been blown off the board in the proceeding turns. And before you tell me to deep strike units, that doesn't work either. I've had 30 man blood letter units come down, get blown apart by auspex scan and overwatch, and had 3 models make it into combat! 3 models doesn't do squat and gets wiped out by the proceeding return attacks.

If "Melee overwatch" deserves to be a strategem, then so should regular overwatch. Although, to be honest, I would prefer the concept of overwatch to disappear.

Honestly Overwatch is overall fine until you're hitting on BS4+, which should be extremely rare, and if you have a bunch of rerolls.

Overwatch is free attacks and another way to penalize a melee army. A full squad of Agressors for example, puts out 114 shots on average. Without any rerolls, that's 19 hits. Against T3 Daemons with a 5++, that results in a significant reduction of the charging force. Or against Characters, with some lucky / unlucky rolling, can easily result in 8 unsaved wounds, thus killing them.

So no, Overwatch is not overall fine.

And if terrain is actually better and more infantry is on the table, tanks with flamers, Knights with flamer, and guys with flamers. GL charging.

JakeSiren wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

JakeSiren wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

It's just melee overwatch that costs a strategem. How often does Overwatch help things again? Specially when you are using Strategems that are far better and more worthwhile?

Well yeah, it's this "melee overwatch" that has been called out as costing a Command Point.

Unlike normal Overwatch though, this applies to every fricking model touching the unit that is falling back. And unlike normal Overwatch, it generates Mortal Wounds.
You lot have talked about having to tritip, wrap, yaddayaddayadda just to ensure that you get a unit into combat. Now you get aversion of Overwatch, generating Mortal Wounds, that is based upon being within combat range of the unit in question...and it "does nothing"? It's "not a big deal"? It's "too expensive" for a single Command Point?!

I get that melee has problems. This right here? This ain't a problem.

This "Melee overwatch" is only useful for hoard units. Elite melee units such as Thunder Calvary can expect to generate, what, 1 mortal wound? Where as if they were given an equivalent of overwatch (full attacks hitting on 6's) would cause more damage.

You are right that Melee has problems. I can't count the number of times that I've charged a full heath 8 wound Chaos Daemon Character into a gunline unit and had it obliterated due to overwatch. It puts me in a position where I can literally do nothing to hurt the enemy. That's not fun. And there is nothing I can do about it because the rest of my army has been blown off the board in the proceeding turns. And before you tell me to deep strike units, that doesn't work either. I've had 30 man blood letter units come down, get blown apart by auspex scan and overwatch, and had 3 models make it into combat! 3 models doesn't do squat and gets wiped out by the proceeding return attacks.

If "Melee overwatch" deserves to be a strategem, then so should regular overwatch. Although, to be honest, I would prefer the concept of overwatch to disappear.

Honestly Overwatch is overall fine until you're hitting on BS4+, which should be extremely rare, and if you have a bunch of rerolls.

Overwatch is free attacks and another way to penalize a melee army. A full squad of Agressors for example, puts out 114 shots on average. Without any rerolls, that's 19 hits. Against T3 Daemons with a 5++, that results in a significant reduction of the charging force. Or against Characters, with some lucky / unlucky rolling, can easily result in 8 unsaved wounds, thus killing them.

So no, Overwatch is not overall fine.

That's an extreme fringe case though, and I'm not sure how you got 114 shots...

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

JakeSiren wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

JakeSiren wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

It's just melee overwatch that costs a strategem. How often does Overwatch help things again? Specially when you are using Strategems that are far better and more worthwhile?

Well yeah, it's this "melee overwatch" that has been called out as costing a Command Point.

Unlike normal Overwatch though, this applies to every fricking model touching the unit that is falling back. And unlike normal Overwatch, it generates Mortal Wounds.
You lot have talked about having to tritip, wrap, yaddayaddayadda just to ensure that you get a unit into combat. Now you get aversion of Overwatch, generating Mortal Wounds, that is based upon being within combat range of the unit in question...and it "does nothing"? It's "not a big deal"? It's "too expensive" for a single Command Point?!

I get that melee has problems. This right here? This ain't a problem.

This "Melee overwatch" is only useful for hoard units. Elite melee units such as Thunder Calvary can expect to generate, what, 1 mortal wound? Where as if they were given an equivalent of overwatch (full attacks hitting on 6's) would cause more damage.

You are right that Melee has problems. I can't count the number of times that I've charged a full heath 8 wound Chaos Daemon Character into a gunline unit and had it obliterated due to overwatch. It puts me in a position where I can literally do nothing to hurt the enemy. That's not fun. And there is nothing I can do about it because the rest of my army has been blown off the board in the proceeding turns. And before you tell me to deep strike units, that doesn't work either. I've had 30 man blood letter units come down, get blown apart by auspex scan and overwatch, and had 3 models make it into combat! 3 models doesn't do squat and gets wiped out by the proceeding return attacks.

If "Melee overwatch" deserves to be a strategem, then so should regular overwatch. Although, to be honest, I would prefer the concept of overwatch to disappear.

Honestly Overwatch is overall fine until you're hitting on BS4+, which should be extremely rare, and if you have a bunch of rerolls.

Overwatch is free attacks and another way to penalize a melee army. A full squad of Agressors for example, puts out 114 shots on average. Without any rerolls, that's 19 hits. Against T3 Daemons with a 5++, that results in a significant reduction of the charging force. Or against Characters, with some lucky / unlucky rolling, can easily result in 8 unsaved wounds, thus killing them.

So no, Overwatch is not overall fine.

That's an extreme fringe case though, and I'm not sure how you got 114 shots...

6 Aggressors with auto boltstorm gauntlets / fragstorm grenade launchers. Getting to shoot twice. So Each one has 6 shots, plus d6 (average of 3.5 shots). So 2 x 6 x (6 + 3.5) is 114.

Necron Tesla Immortals also do similar damage. 20 shots, ~4 hits, which turn into 12 hits at S5.

Even if we talk about less extreme cases such as a 10 man squad of Intercessors, that's, 20 shots and ~4 hits without re-rolls. It results in chipping models / wounds off a unit every time you charge. Which means, a) the charging unit is less effective, and b) the shooting army has to do less damage in subsequent phases / turns to obliterate the unit, and c) it's entirely possible to die before you can get into combat because of overwatch.

Melee doesn't get any benefits like this. They don't even get the benefit like they had in 7th where, if you don't kill the enemy unit, you could be sure that you would still be fighting them in their turn (even with tri-pointing you have to be careful about the morale phase). Now with fallback and fly you are lucky if you get more than 1 round of combat in.

 Amishprn86 wrote:
And if terrain is actually better and more infantry is on the table, tanks with flamers, Knights with flamer, and guys with flamers. GL charging.

Also, the units that will benefit the most from this stratagem are also the most vulnerable to flamers and blast weapons, based on what's been revealed so far.

It's not like it'll really be a problem if it can be safely ignored, but if this is GW's answer to Fall Back, we're in trouble.

 catbarf wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:
And if terrain is actually better and more infantry is on the table, tanks with flamers, Knights with flamer, and guys with flamers. GL charging.

Also, the units that will benefit the most from this stratagem are also the most vulnerable to flamers and blast weapons, based on what's been revealed so far.

It's not like it'll really be a problem if it can be safely ignored, but if this is GW's answer to Fall Back, we're in trouble.

Yeah i hope there is a penalty or something else for fallback.

 Amishprn86 wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:
And if terrain is actually better and more infantry is on the table, tanks with flamers, Knights with flamer, and guys with flamers. GL charging.

Also, the units that will benefit the most from this stratagem are also the most vulnerable to flamers and blast weapons, based on what's been revealed so far.

It's not like it'll really be a problem if it can be safely ignored, but if this is GW's answer to Fall Back, we're in trouble.

Yeah i hope there is a penalty or something else for fallback.

Something more meaningful than the current "can't shoot" for the unit that fell back.

Math time.

The first column is number of models. Next is the odds of doing at least 1 MW, then 2, then 3, etc. Rounding as math indicates, so 46.5% becomes 47%, 46.4 becomes 46.

Squad.....1 MW.....2 MW.....3 MW.....4 MW.....5 MW.....6 MW
1................17%
2................31%.......3%
3................42%.......7%........0%
4................52%......13%......2%........0%
5................60%......20%......4%.......0%..........0%
6................67%......26%......6%.......1%..........0%.........0%
7................72%.......33%.....10%.....2%.........0%..........0%
8................77%.......40%.....13%.....3%.........0%.........0%
9................81%......46%......18%.....5%.........1%.........0%
10..............84%......52%......22%.....7%.........2%........0%

15..............94%......74%......47%.....23%.......9%.......3%

20..............97%......87%......67%.....43%.......23%.....10%

25..............99%......94%.....81%......62%.......41%.....23%

30..............100%....97%....90%.......76%.......58%.....38%

Yeah those odds are lame


Automatically Appended Next Post:

JakeSiren wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

JakeSiren wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

JakeSiren wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

It's just melee overwatch that costs a strategem. How often does Overwatch help things again? Specially when you are using Strategems that are far better and more worthwhile?

Well yeah, it's this "melee overwatch" that has been called out as costing a Command Point.

Unlike normal Overwatch though, this applies to every fricking model touching the unit that is falling back. And unlike normal Overwatch, it generates Mortal Wounds.
You lot have talked about having to tritip, wrap, yaddayaddayadda just to ensure that you get a unit into combat. Now you get aversion of Overwatch, generating Mortal Wounds, that is based upon being within combat range of the unit in question...and it "does nothing"? It's "not a big deal"? It's "too expensive" for a single Command Point?!

I get that melee has problems. This right here? This ain't a problem.

This "Melee overwatch" is only useful for hoard units. Elite melee units such as Thunder Calvary can expect to generate, what, 1 mortal wound? Where as if they were given an equivalent of overwatch (full attacks hitting on 6's) would cause more damage.

You are right that Melee has problems. I can't count the number of times that I've charged a full heath 8 wound Chaos Daemon Character into a gunline unit and had it obliterated due to overwatch. It puts me in a position where I can literally do nothing to hurt the enemy. That's not fun. And there is nothing I can do about it because the rest of my army has been blown off the board in the proceeding turns. And before you tell me to deep strike units, that doesn't work either. I've had 30 man blood letter units come down, get blown apart by auspex scan and overwatch, and had 3 models make it into combat! 3 models doesn't do squat and gets wiped out by the proceeding return attacks.

If "Melee overwatch" deserves to be a strategem, then so should regular overwatch. Although, to be honest, I would prefer the concept of overwatch to disappear.

Honestly Overwatch is overall fine until you're hitting on BS4+, which should be extremely rare, and if you have a bunch of rerolls.

Overwatch is free attacks and another way to penalize a melee army. A full squad of Agressors for example, puts out 114 shots on average. Without any rerolls, that's 19 hits. Against T3 Daemons with a 5++, that results in a significant reduction of the charging force. Or against Characters, with some lucky / unlucky rolling, can easily result in 8 unsaved wounds, thus killing them.

So no, Overwatch is not overall fine.

That's an extreme fringe case though, and I'm not sure how you got 114 shots...

6 Aggressors with auto boltstorm gauntlets / fragstorm grenade launchers. Getting to shoot twice. So Each one has 6 shots, plus d6 (average of 3.5 shots). So 2 x 6 x (6 + 3.5) is 114.

Necron Tesla Immortals also do similar damage. 20 shots, ~4 hits, which turn into 12 hits at S5.

Even if we talk about less extreme cases such as a 10 man squad of Intercessors, that's, 20 shots and ~4 hits without re-rolls. It results in chipping models / wounds off a unit every time you charge. Which means, a) the charging unit is less effective, and b) the shooting army has to do less damage in subsequent phases / turns to obliterate the unit, and c) it's entirely possible to die before you can get into combat because of overwatch.

Melee doesn't get any benefits like this. They don't even get the benefit like they had in 7th where, if you don't kill the enemy unit, you could be sure that you would still be fighting them in their turn (even with tri-pointing you have to be careful about the morale phase). Now with fallback and fly you are lucky if you get more than 1 round of combat in.

I mean those hits still need to wound and get through a save for the most part. I don't disagree melee needs more, but Overwatch hasn't been the problem with it, but merely the icing on the cake. Let's figure out that flavor of cake before just eating the frosting.

Or just say, 1 in every 6 will do 1MW, then instantly you know how lame it is.

My Troupes will have not even a full chance to deal 1 MW, then you have Custodes, wtf are they hoping for with this stratagem.

We need something else besides this, this is for hordes and no one else.

1CP that looks like it should garner about 2 or 3 Mortal Wounds ... for most armies .... sounds pretty normal for the investment of a single CP

. . . and that's just a peek behind the curtain. I'd suggest lay off the righteous indignation and let things continue to play out.


Would you prefer a universal rule that worked like Overwatch? Base Attacks need to hit on a "6" then roll to wound, then a roll to save? ... and increased your game by another half hour?

To have a coin flip of doing 2 MW you need 10 models. And at that point, why not tripoint them?

Edit: The big thing is is that this doesn't address melee's issues. Doing damage once you make it in with a sizable chunk of models isn't the issue.

You should tri-point them.

The point is it's cheap, it's more dependable (no toughness, no armor) than overwatch (except in extreme cases like Aggressors) ... and it's more than there was yesterday.

... ans most importantly it's not all there is that boosting melee armies. The terrain rules alone are going to make a quantum change in the game play.

There's enough anger and angst in the real world right now. How about as a community we chill with each other about our toy soldiers getting new rules until we see more of the big picture.

Inquisitor Dracos wrote:



Would you prefer a universal rule that worked like Overwatch? Base Attacks need to hit on a "6" then roll to wound, then a roll to save? ... and increased your game by another half hour?

If OW is a USR then that should be a USR too. So yes. It also ends up being better for elite armies but stays the say for hordes, over all it is better than this worthless stratagem.

Most elites are 3-5 attacks each, 5 guys with 4 attacks is 20, then you have re-rolls.

But i'd rather both just go away and melee only works in your turn like shooting, limited fall backs to a stratagem, so much more fun and faster games, OW and melee OW takes up so much time.

Inquisitor Dracos wrote:
1CP that looks like it should garner about 2 or 3 Mortal Wounds ... for most armies .... sounds pretty normal for the investment of a single CP

. . . and that's just a peek behind the curtain. I'd suggest lay off the righteous indignation and let things continue to play out.


Would you prefer a universal rule that worked like Overwatch? Base Attacks need to hit on a "6" then roll to wound, then a roll to save? ... and increased your game by another half hour?

"Most armies" um no. Also you have to actually guarantee you have those units in range for the Strat to work.

If you have like 30 guys in a unit, it might be worth while. Otherwise, I'm just going to treat it like I do for every other ability that triggers a mortal wound on a 6. Ignore it, unless it's free.

They should have just made it a USR. The unit gets melee overwatch against a unit trying to fall back.

Or better yet, bring back sweeping advance. Both units roll off, if the unit trying to fall back rolls higher, they successfully flee. If the chasing unit rolls higher, the fleeing unit gets cut down and destroyed. This roll can also take you into melee with another unit within distance rolled.

The idea of getting cut down and destroyed doesn't scale. I roll badly for my max unit of Custodes and your tiny unit of Gretchin run them down?

It'd be better that if you try to fall back and get caught, you cannot be selected to fight in the following Fight Phase until the unit you fell back from has fought.

 Kanluwen wrote:

Cool, so Charging costs a stratagem too. Sounds fair to me!

Fall Back has a penalty. It's not my problem that you chose to bumrush into the middle of a screen with all melee.

No, charging already HAS a penalty, in fact more than one. You typically need to cross half the table or invest CPs to deep strike, and then you need to succed a 9'' roll charge. When things shoot they don't roll to see if they can fire or not, let alone spend 1 CP just to fire the unit's guns. Shooting and melee should be equal valid, or very close at least. Falling back and overwatch are tools that favor shooting, which is already way more effective than melee even without those mechanics.

Besides you can decide to shoot at something that is behind a screen, you cannot assault the same unit before removing the screen first.

About the stratagem, I wouldn't consider it a big deal even if instead of dealing some mortal wounds it completely destroys the unit that falls back. It's in fact how things should be in the core book, and still in favor for the gunlines rather than the assault oriented armies.

 Blackie wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

Cool, so Charging costs a stratagem too. Sounds fair to me!

Fall Back has a penalty. It's not my problem that you chose to bumrush into the middle of a screen with all melee.

No, charging already HAS a penalty, in fact more than one. You typically need to cross half the table or invest CPs to deep strike, and then you need to succed a 9'' roll charge. When things shoot they don't roll to see if they can fire or not, let alone spend 1 CP just to fire the unit's guns. Shooting and melee should be equal valid, or very close at least. Falling back and overwatch are tools that favor shooting, which is already way more effective than melee even without those mechanics.

Besides you can decide to shoot at something that is behind a screen, you cannot assault the same unit before removing the screen first.

About the stratagem, I wouldn't consider it a big deal even if instead of dealing some mortal wounds it completely destroys the unit that falls back. It's in fact how things should be in the core book, and still in favor for the gunlines rather than the assault oriented armies.

Just deleting units like entire 300 points custodes units etc because they don't have enough attacks to kill of 20 cultists, grots, (insert cheap screen here) you think is balance?
5 guardians killing a dreadnaught because it simply lacks the number of attacks to kill a 10 model unit in a single round of combat.

D6 is the problem here, once again. Its bad at 16,7%, and would be too good at 33.3%. Rolling a D12 would offer 8.3% steps. A 10+ would be a 25% chance. But, i know, its 40k, and the holy D6 cant be touched, its always gonna be D6.

 Therion wrote:

 greyknight12 wrote:
Yeah. I was really hoping for a more comprehensive reduction in falling back/penalty. For better or worse, players figured out Tri-pointing/wrapping which has kept melee sort of alive and masked the extent of the problem and made up for a bad core mechanic. I guarantee the rules writers didn’t intend for wrapping to be a mechanic or tactic. And unfortunately, being able to exploit that is now a “skill test” rather than a bug in the game to be fixed.

Wrapping/hostages is gone in 9th, you can just fall back through models. So there’s that. The only drawback that I know of is that fly units aren’t able to shoot after falling back anymore. Nobody is. Except with special rules, like Ultramarines, or all of Admech basically (Engine War). And as far as Ultramarines are concerned they won’t be legal more than a couple months anyway.

Where did they say that ? Guess I missed it. Makes sense though, and as a guy with « melee » armies, though I have used hostaging a lot, I never liked doing it so...

Inquisitor Dracos wrote:
1CP that looks like it should garner about 2 or 3 Mortal Wounds ... for most armies .... sounds pretty normal for the investment of a single CP

. . . and that's just a peek behind the curtain. I'd suggest lay off the righteous indignation and let things continue to play out.


Would you prefer a universal rule that worked like Overwatch? Base Attacks need to hit on a "6" then roll to wound, then a roll to save? ... and increased your game by another half hour?

I don't think that stuff that makes ones army better would in the case of people playing melee or melee heavy armies make them unhappy. I don't think a tau player or IH player is unhappy that he gets an overwatch phase, which when or if it happens lenghtens the game too. And it is free too, you don't have to pay 1CP to overwatch with one unit, you can overwatch with as many units got charged.

Of course we could just make it so that for every 5 models in a unit overwatch causes a MW, just like the flee stratagem could be the same way. no rolling, just pay 1CP and plink some damage on a unit. would save time. But I think that GW thinks that longer games make people feel better about them. And they are partialy right about it. Longer games when armies are balanced against each other are more fun. Problems start when the armies are not balanced against each other.

Ice_can wrote:

Just deleting units like entire 300 points custodes units etc because they don't have enough attacks to kill of 20 cultists, grots, (insert cheap screen here) you think is balance?
5 guardians killing a dreadnaught because it simply lacks the number of attacks to kill a 10 model unit in a single round of combat.

It's extremely hard to assault a unit of custodes with 20 cultists or grots. They die with no effort in the process. Assaulting a dread with 5 guardsmen is also theoryhammer. None of these examples are actually real. Seriously, have you ever been assaulted by gretchins?

But even if your examples were real, those cultists, grots, guardsmen can't definitely do gak to custodes or a dread, they're only a tarpit. It's exactly how I'd love the fall back mechanis, you either let your shooty units locked in combat or you sacrifice it in order to delete the assault enemy unit with other stuff of yours. It's a tactical decision: your unit is locked but safe for now and maybe free in a future turn or you decide to sacrifice it because the assault enemy unit is a threat that must be dealt with as soon as possible.

Most of the times even this mechanic would still be in favor of the gunline army as sacrificing a screen in not a big deal, the assault oriented unit is way more expensive, even if it is a cheap one. 30 orks are 210+ points, if you sacrifice a razorback or a dread that are locked in order to delete the greenskins it's still a win win for the imperium army.

I think the mythical mob of 40 grots killing some jetbike custodes that tried to disengage is going to happen in some game at some time, but in general it is going to be a more mythical thing.

What we are going to see though is stuff like. 5 on 3 intercessors, or 10 orcs or IG vs 3-4 intercessors fights that end up with marines having to move away from what ever reason, and there being a risk that a unit of 3-4, turns in to a unit of 2-3.

All in all it is a new, not free thing that is suppose to help melee, that we didn't have in the game yet.

 Blackie wrote:

Ice_can wrote:

Just deleting units like entire 300 points custodes units etc because they don't have enough attacks to kill of 20 cultists, grots, (insert cheap screen here) you think is balance?
5 guardians killing a dreadnaught because it simply lacks the number of attacks to kill a 10 model unit in a single round of combat.

It's extremely hard to assault a unit of custodes with 20 cultists or grots. They die with no effort in the process. Assaulting a dread with 5 guardsmen is also theoryhammer. None of these examples are actually real. Seriously, have you ever been assaulted by gretchins?

But even if your examples were real, those cultists, grots, guardsmen can't definitely do gak to custodes or a dread, they're only a tarpit. It's exactly how I'd love the fall back mechanis, you either let your shooty units locked in combat or you sacrifice it in order to delete the assault enemy unit with other stuff of yours. It's a tactical decision: your unit is locked but safe for now and maybe free in a future turn or you decide to sacrifice it because the assault enemy unit is a threat that must be dealt with as soon as possible.

Most of the times even this mechanic would still be in favor of the gunline army as sacrificing a screen in not a big deal, the assault oriented unit is way more expensive, even if it is a cheap one. 30 orks are 210+ points, if you sacrifice a razorback or a dread that are locked in order to delete the greenskins it's still a win win for the imperium army.

Those are what's left after having been assualted by those units

The Gretchen ate the overwatch for a charictor, * also should say guard, dreadnaught got assualted by the infantry squad as 40 points vrs a dreadnaughts shooting was a nobrainer for him

Tarpitting was removed as it just turns the game into a drawn out bogged down mess. It reduces everything to an ineffectual slapfight.

Is no one going to talk about how this is one of seven generic stratagems that will be available to everyone?

True, this one won't help everybody every time. But then, neither does spending 2CP to interrupt. You wouldn't use that strat for a unit of 10 Guardsmen, would you? So then don't use this stratagem with your Custodes. I'm sure there will be other generic strats that will be better suited to the Golden Boys.

I see this as a "Hail Mary" strat. It's not designed to stop people from falling back, or to be a perfect counterpoint to Overwatch. It's designed so a player can throw a CP at a last attempt to stop that crucial model from falling back and taking an objective. It's designed so that your Grots have a chance to cause some damage to a tank before it falls back (assuming the player doesn't want to stay and shoot - we don't know the full rules for that yet). It's designed to help balance hordes getting hit with a disproportionate points increase and a new weapon type designed to kill them.

Is it rubbish? Maybe. But in a game where you will be generating at least one CP per turn, if you're going to get a free (as in, without fear of enemy reprisal) shot at plinking a wound or two off something and you have the CP to spare, then why not?

 Cheex wrote:
Is it rubbish? Maybe.

It is definitely rubbish, and the issue people have with it is that it doesn't address the underlying problems with assault that exist in 8th. A statistically insignificant amount of MWs that cost you a CP to bring into play does not solve the fact that assault units get one turn to make their dent before they are blasted off the table by a screening unit that just waltzed away from combat.

The other issue is that it makes it clear that GW doesn't understand their own game. If they acknowledge that assault has issues and this is their solution, then that does not bode well for the remainder of the game's revisions.

You know the phrase it's better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than open it and remove all doubt, well GW went and removed all doubt when they said this:

"That will certainly hurt if activated on a unit of 30 Ork Boyz!"

... because anyone with half a braincell, even the "GW can do no wrong" white knights among us, know that an Ork boy unit at the end of combat doesn't have 30 models, and never has.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Cheex wrote:
Is it rubbish? Maybe.

It is definitely rubbish, and the issue people have with it is that it doesn't address the underlying problems with assault that exist in 8th. A statistically insignificant amount of MWs that cost you a CP to bring into play does not solve the fact that assault units get one turn to make their dent before they are blasted off the table by a screening unit that just waltzed away from combat.

The other issue is that it makes it clear that GW doesn't understand their own game. If they acknowledge that assault has issues and this is their solution, then that does not bode well for the remainder of the game's revisions.

You know the phrase it's better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than open it and remove all doubt, well GW went and removed all doubt when they said this:

"That will certainly hurt if activated on a unit of 30 Ork Boyz!"

... because anyone with half a braincell, even the "GW can do no wrong" white knights among us, know that an Ork boy unit at the end of combat doesn't have 30 models, and never has.

There isn’t one top tier player who tries to make a dent in one turn in combat, because it always leads to what you said, the assault unit getting destroyed in return. You don’t win games convincingly by trading units. In fact, if wrapping/hostages still existed in 9th, most competitive players would gladly just take 100 mortal wounds on their unit that tries to fall back, just so they can remove it and then shoot the assault unit into pieces.

The only way to play assault in 8th has been to charge with your special combat weapons turned off, moving the unit in a line to some objective, going within 1” of the enemy with only one model, and then consolidating around one model to wrap it. Then, during enemy turn, put weapons back on, wipe them, next. This is nearly impossible in 9th because you can fall back through models even if you don’t fly, so assault is pretty much dead, regardless of this stratagem doing 3 mw or 100 mw.

Inquisitor Dracos wrote:


Would you prefer a universal rule that worked like Overwatch? Base Attacks need to hit on a "6" then roll to wound, then a roll to save? ... and increased your game by another half hour?

No, I'd prefer them to fix close combat properly by rewarding players for slogging though all the firepower to get there without then having to watch their target waltz out of combat while they get obliterated by a single unit's shooting. We haven't seen all the rules so we can't say for sure where this fits in the overall balance of shooting vs close combat but what we can say is this stratagem is mediocre at best and a worrying sign if GW genuinely thinks this is some sort of genuine deterrent to falling back in general. I can see it being useful when you just fail to kill that enemy character and you can spend a CP to deal that last wound or two but as a general penalty for units falling back this is a terrible solution. The more I think about it the more I like the idea of this strat just being a default rule for anyone falling back. It doesn't fix the problem but it'd be a start.

 Cheex wrote:
Is no one going to talk about how this is one of seven generic stratagems that will be available to everyone?

True, this one won't help everybody every time. But then, neither does spending 2CP to interrupt. You wouldn't use that strat for a unit of 10 Guardsmen, would you? So then don't use this stratagem with your Custodes. I'm sure there will be other generic strats that will be better suited to the Golden Boys.

I see this as a "Hail Mary" strat. It's not designed to stop people from falling back, or to be a perfect counterpoint to Overwatch. It's designed so a player can throw a CP at a last attempt to stop that crucial model from falling back and taking an objective. It's designed so that your Grots have a chance to cause some damage to a tank before it falls back (assuming the player doesn't want to stay and shoot - we don't know the full rules for that yet). It's designed to help balance hordes getting hit with a disproportionate points increase and a new weapon type designed to kill them.

Is it rubbish? Maybe. But in a game where you will be generating at least one CP per turn, if you're going to get a free (as in, without fear of enemy reprisal) shot at plinking a wound or two off something and you have the CP to spare, then why not?

If melee and shooting were properly balanced, minor strategies given to either side would be OK; just little nudges.

Now, the core rule balancing of melee and shooting is off, so these minor nudges, while welcome, feel insuficient and make us think GW does not understand the game well enough.

Also, I think it is a bad mistake to strip down the game to a very simplistic form like in 8-9th, then add back depth with "special rules" and stratagems. It makes it wonky, imbalanced due to some factions having newer "special rules", and honestly most of the times just feels gamey.