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@Martel too bad the devil is in the details then. Broad strokes are meaningless considering how few there actually are on the canvas titles "Our Understanding of 9th Edition".

It has to be tiring being so negative all the time and jumping conclusions without stop. Maybe it's time to take a break already.

It's hard to be anything but negative with GW involved.

If the rumor that tripoint is gone is true, then maybe they got a clue and changed some other stuff around.

Martel732 wrote:
It's hard to be anything but negative with GW involved.

If the rumor that tripoint is gone is true, then maybe they got a clue and changed some other stuff around.

Even if the Tripoint is gone we haven't seen the rules for combat or falling back. Nor have we gotten the terrain density rules, the terrain special rules or anything else actually involving the process of removing any models off the table.

One change, a rumores on at that, is not enough to damn an edition.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
So someone on the Warhammer Competetive subreddit did some math and it looks like the strat may be better than if we had a melee Overwatch: https://www.reddit.com/r/WarhammerCompetitive/comments/gx3fl8/mathhammer_cut_them_down/

Copy and paste doesn't work on the app, but basically in most cases the MWs do more actual damage than melee Overwatch would.

For ONE squad though. This Strat is not going to punish people for falling back and it's silly to think otherwise.

Karol wrote:
You know I would like if GW just came out and said, we don't want mass shoting in AoS and mass melee armies in w40k. You can try to do it, but you are doing it at your own risk, so be warned.

People would be unhappy, but after some time, the calls for making melee good again would stop. Also the danger of GW ever making a realy good melee army, which would have to be game breaking to beat shoting armies, becomes much lower.

I just don't like that smoke in the eye stuff GW sometimes with their stuff how they are going to make X great, and one edition later it is clearly not even good.

This is very much not what the rules designers want. GW loves melee.


Also, like, I don't actually get why people are so down on melee. It works really well already. It wins games. They had to nerf, repeatedly, combat centurions because they were winning games TOO HARD. Is it because it takes more setup for the payoff than shooting? I like that about melee.

I've always felt the people down on melee just... uh... not the best at the game. Melee's fine. Not every melee unit works, but not every shooting unit works either.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
So someone on the Warhammer Competetive subreddit did some math and it looks like the strat may be better than if we had a melee Overwatch: https://www.reddit.com/r/WarhammerCompetitive/comments/gx3fl8/mathhammer_cut_them_down/

Copy and paste doesn't work on the app, but basically in most cases the MWs do more actual damage than melee Overwatch would.

For ONE squad though. This Strat is not going to punish people for falling back and it's silly to think otherwise.

For one squad as far as we know. Look, we know next to nothing about how melee and falling back works. Maybe judging an entire chunk of the game on a single strat and how it might interact with the game as a whole is kind of silly.

stratigo wrote:

Karol wrote:
You know I would like if GW just came out and said, we don't want mass shoting in AoS and mass melee armies in w40k. You can try to do it, but you are doing it at your own risk, so be warned.

People would be unhappy, but after some time, the calls for making melee good again would stop. Also the danger of GW ever making a realy good melee army, which would have to be game breaking to beat shoting armies, becomes much lower.

I just don't like that smoke in the eye stuff GW sometimes with their stuff how they are going to make X great, and one edition later it is clearly not even good.

This is very much not what the rules designers want. GW loves melee.


Also, like, I don't actually get why people are so down on melee. It works really well already. It wins games. They had to nerf, repeatedly, combat centurions because they were winning games TOO HARD. Is it because it takes more setup for the payoff than shooting? I like that about melee.

I've always felt the people down on melee just... uh... not the best at the game. Melee's fine. Not every melee unit works, but not every shooting unit works either.

I don't want to play codex: tripoint. I odn't see how those centurions were getting anything done honestly. Unless they were tripointing too. GW claims to love melee, but their rule show otherwise.

Assault Centurions are, with hurricane Bolters and Flamers, 13 PPW at T5 and 2+.

They also have S10 Thunder Hammers with no hit penalties and 3 attacks each.

They're also cripplingly slow. So take away their one glaring weakness, and yes, they're OP.

But overall, melee is systemically weaker than shooting without being much more powerful in the details, barring some outlier units.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
So someone on the Warhammer Competetive subreddit did some math and it looks like the strat may be better than if we had a melee Overwatch: https://www.reddit.com/r/WarhammerCompetitive/comments/gx3fl8/mathhammer_cut_them_down/

Copy and paste doesn't work on the app, but basically in most cases the MWs do more actual damage than melee Overwatch would.

For ONE squad though. This Strat is not going to punish people for falling back and it's silly to think otherwise.

For one squad as far as we know. Look, we know next to nothing about how melee and falling back works. Maybe judging an entire chunk of the game on a single strat and how it might interact with the game as a whole is kind of silly.

It's STILL a wasted command point on maybe 1-2 Mortal Wounds. Not even knowing mechanics it's still trash and you know it.

Also, the odds of doing 6 MW from a squad of 30 is (in addition to improbable) only actually 38%. You do have better than 50/50 odds of doing 5, and very reliably do at least 3.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Assault Centurions are, with hurricane Bolters and Flamers, 13 PPW at T5 and 2+.

They also have S10 Thunder Hammers with no hit penalties and 3 attacks each.

They're also cripplingly slow. So take away their one glaring weakness, and yes, they're OP.

But overall, melee is systemically weaker than shooting without being much more powerful in the details, barring some outlier units.

And most of those units are run as "bombs". Like the Possessed Bomb.

I'll be honest, if melee is somehow worse than 8th I'm going to be pretty dang annoyed myself. I'm building a Black Templar army for the sake of having fun melee engagements on the table. Heck, after that I want to do a World Eaters army so I can run it with the Chaos Reaver I still need to get off my backside and build. If melee is sunk I'm going to be pretty damn pissed.

But right now I don't see melee going that way. Only because I don't have enough information to really jump on the "let's all be angry" bandwagon.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
So someone on the Warhammer Competetive subreddit did some math and it looks like the strat may be better than if we had a melee Overwatch: https://www.reddit.com/r/WarhammerCompetitive/comments/gx3fl8/mathhammer_cut_them_down/

Copy and paste doesn't work on the app, but basically in most cases the MWs do more actual damage than melee Overwatch would.

For ONE squad though. This Strat is not going to punish people for falling back and it's silly to think otherwise.

For one squad as far as we know. Look, we know next to nothing about how melee and falling back works. Maybe judging an entire chunk of the game on a single strat and how it might interact with the game as a whole is kind of silly.

It's STILL a wasted command point on maybe 1-2 Mortal Wounds. Not even knowing mechanics it's still trash and you know it.

Mathhammer shows it hits harder than a melee over watch would for anything that isn't a multi-attack character:

30x Ork Boys:
Cut them Down: 30*(1/6)=5 Mortal wounds
Melee Overwatch: 30*3*(1/6)*(3/6)*(2/6)= 2.5 Wounds

10x Tactical Marines
Cut them Down: 10*(1/6)= 1.6 MW
Melee Overwatch= 10*(1/6)*(3/6)*(2/6)= 0.27 Wounds

SM Captain with ThunderHammer:
Cut them down: 1*(1/6)= .16 MW
Melee Overwatch: 4*(1/6)*(5/6)*(5/6)*3= 1.38 Damage

Look, I'm not saying it's the best thing since sliced bread, I'm just saying it's not as bad as it seems in a vacuum when compared to the alternative.

I fully believe tri pointing is gone. I had this conversation with my brother over a year ago regarding the lack of tank shock and how silly it is for vehicles and monsters to be locked in place by infantry. We both came to the conclusion that the cleanest way to fix the issue was to simply let models flee through models so long as they had adequate movement to end outside of melee range. The old tank shock rules were a nightmare across multiple editions and iterations. You can't come up with a clean way to move the other guys models around without having some serious gamesmanship issues. So for 8th they removed tank shock entirely, which was a massive shortcoming as we all found out week one when a leman russ could be pined in an ally by 1 or 2 cultists.

Allowing tanks to shoot into melee and or move through enemy models to escape fixes the shortcomings of tanks but definitely adds yet more hurdles for melee.

This is why I also believe the rumor that overwatch is gone and good riddance. Horrible mechanic and a huge time sink. The game already abstracts continuous fire, it's why you get to shoot in your turn at static targets. The reason for adding in overwatch was to mitigate melee getting two activations per battle round in previous editions, problem is in those editions models couldn't fall back. So it was never going to be fair allowing models to fall back AND overwatch. Rinse repeat.

If both overwatch and moving models out from trapped positions is a thing in 9th, and disallowing flying models from free flee and shoot bonus is a thing then I am more excited for 9th. That strat still sucks, but I can live with garbage optional strats so long as core rules work. I'd wager overwatch will be a universal strat as well if it is removed as standard.

The only things I am still not thrilled with so far are the shrinking table standard (especially when models and bases continue to grow) and the leaked points shift. Because if chaf can't tarpit anymore and a unit can theoretically fall back through a screen onto an objective then the cultist price hike percentage is even more egregious. Tinfoil hat instinct makes me hope/think cultists may be a corner case since the only models are from a soon to be 2 edition (technically 3) old starter and never got a real kit. Maybe renegade guard will appear and be more effective and appropriately priced? But this is all speculation.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
@Zion, it isn't better then melee overwatch for two resons your ignoring willfully.

1. It costs CP
2. Strats are limited to single use only per phase

Melee overwatch would cost nothing and could trigger across multiple units per phase. So the damage difference is not only minimal, it's irrelevant.

 Red Corsair wrote:

@Zion, it isn't better then melee overwatch for two resons your ignoring willfully.

1. It costs CP
2. Strats are limited to single use only per phase

Melee overwatch would cost nothing and could trigger across multiple units per phase. So the damage difference is not only minimal, it's irrelevant.

It costs CP, but honestly I'm willing to bet Overwatch may be bumped into the stratagem category as well. Some armies (like Tau) will just be more efficient with that CP expenditure than others.

And strats in 8th edition are limited to one time use per phase, but we don't know what 9th has in store for us. I'm not claiming it's a definite thing, but if they make Overwatch cost CP we could see a shift to some strats being able to be used multiple times, while others may now have a "once per phase" clause added in.

I do not see Overwatch going anywhere. It is too baked into some armies like Tau.

What if the stratagem is in addition to a full of melee overwatch?

Hope for the best prepare for the worst.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Red Corsair wrote:

@Zion, it isn't better then melee overwatch for two resons your ignoring willfully.

1. It costs CP
2. Strats are limited to single use only per phase

Melee overwatch would cost nothing and could trigger across multiple units per phase. So the damage difference is not only minimal, it's irrelevant.

It costs CP, but honestly I'm willing to bet Overwatch may be bumped into the stratagem category as well. Some armies (like Tau) will just be more efficient with that CP expenditure than others.

And strats in 8th edition are limited to one time use per phase, but we don't know what 9th has in store for us. I'm not claiming it's a definite thing, but if they make Overwatch cost CP we could see a shift to some strats being able to be used multiple times, while others may now have a "once per phase" clause added in.

Which is something I and others have already considered. That doesn't suddenly make it good. A kick in your balls doesn't suddenly make a kick in your teeth pleasant.

If a strat is garbage, why on earth would it be good to suddenly use multiple times?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Tygre wrote:
I do not see Overwatch going anywhere. It is too baked into some armies like Tau.

What if the stratagem is in addition to a full of melee overwatch?

Hope for the best prepare for the worst.

Tau were introduced in 3rd when overwatch wasn't a thing anymore and managed on just fine until 6th when overwatch reappeared. Overwatch made more sense when units could be locked in assault. It should have vanished in 8th when fall back was introduced. I not only believe it will go away, I hope it does. It is the single most feels bad mechanic in the game besides mortal wounds. Not only is it a massive time sink that wrecks the flow of the charge phase, but it punished the player that is already facing the most adversity and the only solutions GW has come up with are by making specific units broken enough to overcome it's effects. Tau will be fine, especially with modifiers locking up at -1.

The strat is better than a melee Overwatch is on everything but a character. You can call it trash in reference to 8th edition, but honestly in reference to 9th it's nothing more than a question mark.

And Tau being able to unlock Overwatch with multiple units for 1CP would be a neat trick if Overwatch was a strat.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Tygre wrote:
I do not see Overwatch going anywhere. It is too baked into some armies like Tau.

What if the stratagem is in addition to a full of melee overwatch?

Hope for the best prepare for the worst.

Tau were introduced in 3rd when overwatch wasn't a thing anymore and managed on just fine until 6th when overwatch reappeared. Overwatch made more sense when units could be locked in assault. It should have vanished in 8th when fall back was introduced. I not only believe it will go away, I hope it does. It is the single most feels bad mechanic in the game besides mortal wounds. Not only is it a massive time sink that wrecks the flow of the charge phase, but it punished the player that is already facing the most adversity and the only solutions GW has come up with are by making specific units broken enough to overcome it's effects. Tau will be fine, especially with modifiers locking up at -1.

Overwatch represented a real life tactic and was great in second edition IFF playing the game the way that it was intended, I.e. not trying to break it... err, be competitive.

It was not introduced in sixth... where did you get that idea?

 jeff white wrote:
Overwatch represented a real life tactic and was great in second edition IFF playing the game the way that it was intended, I.e. not trying to break it... err, be competitive.

It was not introduced in sixth... where did you get that idea?

It was. 2nd's mechanic was an interesting choice to be made especially on terrain dense boards. 6th's was just free bullets with no decision making involved.

GW shows that it isn’t even aware of its own history when it ignores obvious successes like the way that overwatch worked in second edition, the way that blast templates more realistically represented the power of some weapons to drive units from cover perhaps into overwatch, and other such synergies. Instead they seem to just do what marketing tells them to do, fill the rest with adolescent ahistorical idiocy, then toss the mess to the lapdog yes men so called play testers for the fake authenticity that is the figurative lipstick on the pig.

stratigo wrote:

Karol wrote:
You know I would like if GW just came out and said, we don't want mass shoting in AoS and mass melee armies in w40k. You can try to do it, but you are doing it at your own risk, so be warned.

People would be unhappy, but after some time, the calls for making melee good again would stop. Also the danger of GW ever making a realy good melee army, which would have to be game breaking to beat shoting armies, becomes much lower.

I just don't like that smoke in the eye stuff GW sometimes with their stuff how they are going to make X great, and one edition later it is clearly not even good.

This is very much not what the rules designers want. GW loves melee.


Also, like, I don't actually get why people are so down on melee. It works really well already. It wins games. They had to nerf, repeatedly, combat centurions because they were winning games TOO HARD. Is it because it takes more setup for the payoff than shooting? I like that about melee.

I've always felt the people down on melee just... uh... not the best at the game. Melee's fine. Not every melee unit works, but not every shooting unit works either.

See you are looking at it from the rare perspective of a good melee unit with good synergies. Starting a unit of centurions or aggresors parked right in fron of the opponents army with great shoting, great melee is good. But look at this from another perspective, imagine you were taxed for melee options on every model in your army, but your army had no centurion like units, melee synergies or tricks like RG had. It is not that there were no good melee units in 8th ed, even too good. The problem is that GW prices any melee options as if it was a shoting option. And we know very well that most units don't get in to melee on turn 1, at full strenght, and fight in every phase or even more often.

if you compare the number of shoting options that work, then those that don't work are mostly options that just have a replacment in form of other more rule or point efficient unit. For melee units it is often the case that they do not have a replacment, and to be efficient enought o be considered, they would have to be 50% cheaper. 5 bolter space marines are better then 5 bolt pistol ones with chainswords. I mean it says a lot about the game when one of the best melee units in the game, and probably most often used, is a shoting msu unit that has an option to take a veteran sgt with a relic thunder hammer.

 jeff white wrote:
GW shows that it isn’t even aware of its own history when it ignores obvious successes like the way that overwatch worked in second edition, the way that blast templates more realistically represented the power of some weapons to drive units from cover perhaps into overwatch, and other such synergies. Instead they seem to just do what marketing tells them to do, fill the rest with adolescent ahistorical idiocy, then toss the mess to the lapdog yes men so called play testers for the fake authenticity that is the figurative lipstick on the pig.

You're ignoring real history if you think blast templates worked without causing arguements all the damn time. From how they were scattering to how many models where hit there were always issues.

GW doesn't just do what marketing tells them and has been listening to community feedback for a while now. Not all feedback is valid though and any designer is going to have to sift through the feedback they hear and figure out what the real issue is. Sometimes there are more complex under-workings that cause those feel bad moments than what are immediately obvious.

It is better to have a working weapon that causes argument. Then supposed anti horde and anti personal weapons like flamers being horrible against the things they are suppose to counter.

same goes for anti tank weapons, that are bad at anti tank.

horrible melee upgrades, that feel like down grades sometimes.

And similar stuff. Arguments come and go, but bad weapons just don't get used. How many flamers did people see being used in 8th ed?

Karol wrote:
It is better to have a working weapon that causes argument. Then supposed anti horde and anti personal weapons like flamers being horrible against the things they are suppose to counter.

same goes for anti tank weapons, that are bad at anti tank.

horrible melee upgrades, that feel like down grades sometimes.

And similar stuff. Arguments come and go, but bad weapons just don't get used. How many flamers did people see being used in 8th ed?

Arguements slow games down, create "feel bads" and there were too many ways to fudge it in your favor (one of the most popular was rolling away from where you had the template so you could fudge the angle more favorably).

Templates needed to go for the good of the game. Now that's not to say they nailed making those weapons feel like the less like the blasts of old (I really feel like to-hit rolls of natural 1 should be rolled against the nearest unit to the one you've shot at regardless of which side it's on for example) but getting rid of templates was a good start.

Anti-tank weapons suffer because of how wounding works in this edition. Honestly the anti-tank weapons need a boost, or at the very least maybe anything that doesn't have the right keyword shooting monsters and vehicles suffers -1 to their wound roll or something.

Melee weapons are decent. It's melee itself that's lackluster in 8th.

And flamers are popular with some armies, if nothing else, but to act as charge repellant.

I don't think that something that has a chance to do maybe 3-4 hits with str 4 is repelling anything. not vs msu primaris, and not vs the more elite melee units and specialy not since GW started giving out ways to negate overwatch like candy to everyone. Flamer based weapons on their own turn are even worse, not only do they put your own units at risk of being charged or double taped, but they random number of shots means they aren't more efficient , then a bolter from fired from safety.

And if feels bad was a reason to change stuff, then GW has a strange way of doing it. Losing blasts, because of potential feels bad , is incomperable to feeling bad after GW decided to nerf your DA, because IH are too strong.

I would rather have arguments and even potential cheating, but working stuff, Then not working stuff, and there for no arguments over it. Plus we still get rare examples of old blast weapons like the IG mortars, or marine cannons that create or created very feels bad moments in 8th ed.

Blast templates were fine, and they served a very important role in making opponents think twice before bunching all their models up. Opponents who caused a fuss playing with them werent opponents worth playing against.

You're forgetting that not everyone who has flamers has bolters.

Besides, IH, IF and other armies who were camping in Devastator Doctrines were creating plenty of feel bads, hence why it got changed.

And as someone who was playing back during those times of arugement, cheating (accidental or not) and the like, feck templates.

9th has changes to weapons coming. I, for one, hoping we get some insight into how those work pretty soon.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Blast templates were fine, and they served a very important role in making opponents think twice before bunching all their models up. Opponents who caused a fuss playing with them werent opponents worth playing against.

They also slowed the game down if you played a horde army because you had to spend time carefully spreading your models out.

40k has never been a simulation type wargame, and that sort of thing was pushing it to be something it's not. Nor should it try to be a simulation type game.

I think blasts and templates were worth it. There is always something to argue over in 40K. Don't run from it.

Martel732 wrote:
I think blasts and templates were worth it. There is always something to argue over in 40K. Don't run from it.

Purposefully keeping a mechanic that slows the game down and promotes arguments is bad design. Deciding it's a good thing because rules arguements will always exist, is an even worse take.

I've been playing this game long enough to be nostalgic for old editions, sure, but I'm not blinded by it.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I think blasts and templates were worth it. There is always something to argue over in 40K. Don't run from it.

Purposefully keeping a mechanic that slows the game down and promotes arguments is bad design. Deciding it's a good thing because rules arguements will always exist, is an even worse take.

I've been playing this game long enough to be nostalgic for old editions, sure, but I'm not blinded by it.

We need a hedge against bunching up.