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stratigo wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
Yeah, a lot of blast weapons are not going to be issues since they got demolished so hard with the points changes that even if they were to get their max shots every turn, the % they increased in cost means they'll basically be breaking even at best compared to the number of them you'd ordinarily have.

I think certain horde-y units like Ork Boyz, Guardsmen and Lesser Daemons will be OK since they received points changes in line with the general average of like 15% cost increase. It's a rare army I own that didn't go up to at least about 2250 points. They won't be able to punch at their weight class but they will be able to score at their weight class, and new morale really is quite handy, that's been evident in all my games so far.

The super-crazy points hike'd squads like guardians, fire warriors, kabalites, cultists, etc, I definitely do not think you'll see those in any kind of lists. but the gigantic points hikes on most blast stuff means you won't see tons of actual dedicated antiinfantry blast weapons on the field until the next round of points.

I think demons are going to rely 100 percent of monster mash of greater demons to try and win.

I think you're wrong, and a lot of daemon troops look truly obnoxious with the new morale rules and their relatively low point hikes.

One of the biggest struggles daemons always had was their mandatory troops just not accomplishing anything, and now nearly every mission benefits you having dedicated units who just sit out of LOS or in -1 to hit terrain somewhere and do nothing except maybe perform an action every turn.

@ spoletta: sorry, I missed that you already mentioned it.

@ jidmah: I mentioned it as example for a blast weapon that did neither increase much in price nor is it wasted on boys. Also while the LRBT Punisher is great it costs much more, has half the range needs LoS and S5 is worse than S4 reroll wounds against boys

 Pyroalchi wrote:
@ jidmah: I mentioned it as example for a blast weapon that did neither increase much in price nor is it wasted on boys. Also while the LRBT Punisher is great it costs much more, has half the range needs LoS and S5 is worse than S4 reroll wounds against boys

Punisher LRBT is 165, kills 11.11 boyz on average, 14.85 points per boy killed
Wyvern is 120, kills 7.5 boyz on average, 16 points per boy killed

Unless the unit falls below 11 models, then the punisher still wipes them and the wyvern drops 4.375 killed boyz.

While the wyvern is definitely worth bringing now when it wasn't before, it's by no means the end of hordes. Which is the same for pretty much all blast weapons. From the games I've played so far, the biggest impact blast has on the game is that powerful d3 weapons are getting the full number of shots against units of 6+.

 Jidmah wrote:

 Pyroalchi wrote:
@ jidmah: I mentioned it as example for a blast weapon that did neither increase much in price nor is it wasted on boys. Also while the LRBT Punisher is great it costs much more, has half the range needs LoS and S5 is worse than S4 reroll wounds against boys

Punisher LRBT is 165, kills 11.11 boyz on average, 14.85 points per boy killed
Wyvern is 120, kills 7.5 boyz on average, 16 points per boy killed

Unless the unit falls below 11 models, then the punisher still wipes them and the wyvern drops 4.375 killed boyz.

While the wyvern is definitely worth bringing now when it wasn't before, it's by no means the end of hordes. Which is the same for pretty much all blast weapons. From the games I've played so far, the biggest impact blast has on the game is that powerful d3 weapons are getting the full number of shots against units of 6+.

I can confirm this. The most impactful blast weapons have felt is certain antitank weapons getting real sexy against larger MEQ/TEQ type squads. I chalk most if it up to a lot of the strange, arbitrary points changes that render a lot of dedicated anti-infantry blasts just unusable.

So functionally, blast amounts to a lot of math assumptions that GW thought sounded cool, but didn't really double check to see if it worked out the way they thought?

They still work in a way. Those same weapons were really terrible against hordes in 8th. Now they can at least contribute a bit.

Voss wrote:
So functionally, blast amounts to a lot of math assumptions that GW thought sounded cool, but didn't really double check to see if it worked out the way they thought?

I mean, yeah, if you give a unit a fairly heavily conditional 30% firepower boost vs a certain type of target, but then you hike it's price by 50% always, and its competitor (lets call it an "aggressor" for the sake of argument, just an arbitrary name) gets a 20% cost increase by contrast, you should always take the competitor unit.

I.did a buch of math for Craftworlds over on Reddit and Discord. (Thread here for anyoje who is curious: https://www.reddit.com/r/WarhammerCompetitive/comments/htu09a/blasthammer_blast_mathammer/) that started to get carried away as the discussion continued to progress (I ended up adding some Orks amd non blast weapons as well).

For those who want the number crunching: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1uSQOcXYIyX7xh1Bzpf2zQRZSrvpOaI2rpcG2JN6hH1o/edit?usp=sharing

My summary for those who don't want to read a spreadsheet is this: blasts aren't a horde killer on their own, and anyone who says they are might as well sell you ocean front property on Arizona.

Blasts are great for softening up uninjured units, or finishing off MSUs if you're using Wyverns (turns out that 12 shots on average will wipe an MSU of Dire Avengers), but even the most devastating blast weapon averages maybe a quarter of the unit at best. Unita like Devastators who can use multiple blast weapons at the same time while hitting at their best profile, but come at the same cost as a tank, and are far leas durable making it a.trade off to use them with how 9th's cover system works.

The optimal use of blast weapons seems to.be to soften a horde before hitting it with massed infantry fire (for example using a Thunderfire followed by Intercessors rapid firing) to kill the horde.

Digging into it deeper, I feel points are what may kill some.specific horde builds as even a weedy Grot mob is now 150 points for 30 meaning that just dumping a large number of bodies (say...6 mobs of Grots which runs 900 points for 180 bodies) isn't the effecfice strategy it was. Hordes need to.be chosen with a purpose in mind instead of spammed. Armies with horde units will need to rely on more than just body count to be effective under the new points.

And I get it, I mean a fullsized Crsuader squad is now 290 before upgrades for 10 T4 1W 3+ saves, and 10 more bodies with 4+ saves. Not exactly appealing to take in large numbers these days.

So the impact of blasts has been oversold a fair bit, but hordes have taken some sacks to likely and curb some of their strengths when it comes to 9th's Primary mission structure.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
The optimal use of blast weapons seems to.be to soften a horde before hitting it with massed infantry fire (for example using a Thunderfire followed by Intercessors rapid firing) to kill the horde.

So the impact of blasts has been oversold a fair bit, but hordes have taken some sacks to likely and curb some of their strengths when it comes to 9th's Primary mission structure.

So blasts affect the game they way reality works. Troops in the open.

I figured blasts would hurt Elite armies more then horde armies. Since it makes anything that adds shots to weapons will make everything die faster. Not just cheap things.

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
The optimal use of blast weapons seems to.be to soften a horde before hitting it with massed infantry fire (for example using a Thunderfire followed by Intercessors rapid firing) to kill the horde.

So the impact of blasts has been oversold a fair bit, but hordes have taken some sacks to likely and curb some of their strengths when it comes to 9th's Primary mission structure.

So blasts affect the game they way reality works. Troops in the open.

I figured blasts would hurt Elite armies more then horde armies. Since it makes anything that adds shots to weapons will make everything die faster. Not just cheap things.

Blast weapons average lower numbers the smaller the unit gets meaning they don't exactly mash elite MSU builds. That said, D3 blast weapons stay firing at their strongest mode for longer making a unit of Devsatators with Plasma Cannons one of the most flexible units in the game.

 Jidmah wrote:
Punisher LRBT is 165, kills 11.11 boyz on average, 14.85 points per boy killed
Wyvern is 120, kills 7.5 boyz on average, 16 points per boy killed

Punisher is minimum 180, with hull bolter. Wyvern is 135. Of course you get some bolter/flamer shots, although the wyvern would likely be hidden out of LOS.

 ClockworkZion wrote:


So the impact of blasts has been oversold a fair bit, but hordes have taken some sacks to likely and curb some of their strengths when it comes to 9th's Primary mission structure.

Part of the issue is consistency. On average these weapons did X, but there was always the chance they could roll low.

But I think in the end Blast weapons *generally* got big enough point increases to offset the losses to a lot of popular horde units (like boys went up way less than a lot of blast units).

As you stated, what has really hurt a lot of horde armies is that horde units with few exceptions got MASSIVE point increases. Grots and cultists being perfect examples.

And going to the 6th model just seems like a stupid idea, with a lot of d3 weaponary not getting as much point increases at all.. and in some cases points DECREASES.

Blast is going to do nothing to the game except stop people taking 6 man and 11 man units, on most weapons it's actually a nerf because it means you can't shoot them when touched.

Coherency is the big nerf to hordes, along with point hikes for the very cheap stuff.

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
The optimal use of blast weapons seems to.be to soften a horde before hitting it with massed infantry fire (for example using a Thunderfire followed by Intercessors rapid firing) to kill the horde.

So the impact of blasts has been oversold a fair bit, but hordes have taken some sacks to likely and curb some of their strengths when it comes to 9th's Primary mission structure.

So blasts affect the game they way reality works. Troops in the open.

I figured blasts would hurt Elite armies more then horde armies. Since it makes anything that adds shots to weapons will make everything die faster. Not just cheap things.

Nothing about blasts interacts with 'in the open' or what FOC slot they're in.

Elite armies tend to have smaller unit sizes- blast doesn't add any number of shots to small units. Horde armies tend to have larger minimums and (had, sometimes have) reasons to go bigger

yukishiro1 wrote:
Blast is going to do nothing to the game except stop people taking 6 man and 11 man units, on most weapons it's actually a nerf because it means you can't shoot them when touched.

Coherency is the big nerf to hordes, along with point hikes for the very cheap stuff.

Engagement range too. From a long charge, you might be lucky to get 10 models in engagement range. Those 10 models better damn well hit hard.

tulun wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:


So the impact of blasts has been oversold a fair bit, but hordes have taken some sacks to likely and curb some of their strengths when it comes to 9th's Primary mission structure.

Part of the issue is consistency. On average these weapons did X, but there was always the chance they could roll low.

But I think in the end Blast weapons *generally* got big enough point increases to offset the losses to a lot of popular horde units (like boys went up way less than a lot of blast units).

As you stated, what has really hurt a lot of horde armies is that horde units with few exceptions got MASSIVE point increases. Grots and cultists being perfect examples.

And going to the 6th model just seems like a stupid idea, with a lot of d3 weaponary not getting as much point increases at all.. and in some cases points DECREASES.

The problem with all of the point changes is that they're essentially random. You can say "blast weapons will do little because they got gigantic point hikes that more than compensate for their increased firepower" while looking at whirlwinds, TFCs, IG mortars, Nightspinners and some others, but then there's units like wyverns and exorcists that didn't change much at all.

You can say "hordes suck because cheap units got huge point hikes" but then there's stuff like lesser daemons, ork boyz, and Guardsmen that got point increases cleaving close to the average and who will benefit greatly from new morale and new missions.

At this moment the bonkers point changes make evaluating 9th extremely hard as a whole, because we have no way of knowing how much GW thinks things are worth. A guardsman is worth 5. A guardian, who gets slightly better movement and slightly better firepower, is worth 10? Point values seem like they were assigned utterly at random.


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tulun wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
Blast is going to do nothing to the game except stop people taking 6 man and 11 man units, on most weapons it's actually a nerf because it means you can't shoot them when touched.

Coherency is the big nerf to hordes, along with point hikes for the very cheap stuff.

Engagement range too. From a long charge, you might be lucky to get 10 models in engagement range. Those 10 models better damn well hit hard.

The only change to who gets to fight is instead of "within 1" of a model within 1" it's now "Within 1/2" of a model within 1"

The actual in-game effect of this is mostly just to remove the huge mechanical advantage of being on a 25mm base vs being on any other size base, because 25mm is like 0.98 inches. This allowed units with 25mm bases to have THREE rows of melee combatants fighting, while units on any other base size got two rows.

People seem to be assuming for some reason that only models within engagement range fight. This is not true.

1/2" of 1/2", actually. 1" is Engagement range.

 Trickstick wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
Punisher LRBT is 165, kills 11.11 boyz on average, 14.85 points per boy killed
Wyvern is 120, kills 7.5 boyz on average, 16 points per boy killed

Punisher is minimum 180, with hull bolter. Wyvern is 135. Of course you get some bolter/flamer shots, although the wyvern would likely be hidden out of LOS.

Same is true for the wyvern, so I left the bolters out the equation.

Yeah, engagement range is a big nerf too. I was kinda grouping it under coherency generally because the two work together to seriously bone melee units of more than 10ish models.

Tyranid Horde / Running 60 stealers with 120 gaunts seemed pretty bad. Tried a game with 3x20 Stealers and was not happy with that.

I guess its back to trying shooty heavy bugs for events, and swarm for casual

The way of the bug

Mass stealers has been bad for a while, they simply bleed too many points.

One unit is fine. Going all in on 20x3 is a recipe for disaster.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

yukishiro1 wrote:
Blast is going to do nothing to the game except stop people taking 6 man and 11 man units, on most weapons it's actually a nerf because it means you can't shoot them when touched.

Coherency is the big nerf to hordes, along with point hikes for the very cheap stuff.

6 man units are perfectly fine, and I plan to deploy my warriors like that since at 6 they get a second heavy weapon.

The opponent doesn't get to max his d3 shots against you with all his weapons because you have 6 models, he has to resolve them one by one and as soon as you lose a model he is now shooting normally. The difference between 5 and 6 models is usually in the range of one more hit suffered.

yukishiro1 wrote:
Coherency is the big nerf to hordes, along with point hikes for the very cheap stuff.

I'd argue only if your horde build was trying to make a squid out of some characters and a bunch of conga lines. Having played a game it's not hard to stay in coherecy, just slapping things in two ranks solves it pretty quick, which is the maximum amount of ranks you can fight in while in melee so it works out well to just run the unit basically like that anyways.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

tulun wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
Blast is going to do nothing to the game except stop people taking 6 man and 11 man units, on most weapons it's actually a nerf because it means you can't shoot them when touched.

Coherency is the big nerf to hordes, along with point hikes for the very cheap stuff.

Engagement range too. From a long charge, you might be lucky to get 10 models in engagement range. Those 10 models better damn well hit hard.

Eh, only on the 25mm stuff. For 32mm stuff the amount you can get into melee is unchanged. Which gives Ork players less reasons to hem and haw about if they should rebase to the modern bases or not.


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 JNAProductions wrote:
1/2" of 1/2", actually. 1" is Engagement range.

Basically it lets units with bigger bases still get into melee range in two ranks, while preventing units on 25mm bases from fighting in three ranks. I'd still like to see horde units get bonus attacks for certain thresholds to represent the press of bodies, but that is likely asking too much of 40k right now.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JNAProductions wrote:
1/2" of 1/2", actually. 1" is Engagement range.

Basically it lets units with bigger bases still get into melee range in two ranks, while preventing units on 25mm bases from fighting in three ranks. I'd still like to see horde units get bonus attacks for certain thresholds to represent the press of bodies, but that is likely asking too much of 40k right now.

It might be slightly controversial... but I'd like to see AoS's horde discount come to 40k for SELECT horde units. A little bonus like that might help mildly.

You'd have to buy the full amount, but you'd get a slight points discount for taking them, giving you a reason to go above the 11-20 range. I'm sure it would require some work to apply it correctly to the variety of horde units.

Infantry squads for example, wouldn't get it, but Conscript squads would, meaning if you brought them in a large horde, you'd get a discount and get them cheaper than IS.

 Carnikang wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JNAProductions wrote:
1/2" of 1/2", actually. 1" is Engagement range.

Basically it lets units with bigger bases still get into melee range in two ranks, while preventing units on 25mm bases from fighting in three ranks. I'd still like to see horde units get bonus attacks for certain thresholds to represent the press of bodies, but that is likely asking too much of 40k right now.

It might be slightly controversial... but I'd like to see AoS's horde discount come to 40k for SELECT horde units. A little bonus like that might help mildly.

You'd have to buy the full amount, but you'd get a slight points discount for taking them, giving you a reason to go above the 11-20 range. I'm sure it would require some work to apply it correctly to the variety of horde units.

Infantry squads for example, wouldn't get it, but Conscript squads would, meaning if you brought them in a large horde, you'd get a discount and get them cheaper than IS.

Well, that kind of makes sense when every model beyond 12-15 is just an additional wound.

 Carnikang wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JNAProductions wrote:
1/2" of 1/2", actually. 1" is Engagement range.

Basically it lets units with bigger bases still get into melee range in two ranks, while preventing units on 25mm bases from fighting in three ranks. I'd still like to see horde units get bonus attacks for certain thresholds to represent the press of bodies, but that is likely asking too much of 40k right now.

It might be slightly controversial... but I'd like to see AoS's horde discount come to 40k for SELECT horde units. A little bonus like that might help mildly.

You'd have to buy the full amount, but you'd get a slight points discount for taking them, giving you a reason to go above the 11-20 range. I'm sure it would require some work to apply it correctly to the variety of horde units.

Infantry squads for example, wouldn't get it, but Conscript squads would, meaning if you brought them in a large horde, you'd get a discount and get them cheaper than IS.

Yeah, a small points break here or there for massive units would be nice.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jidmah wrote:
Well, that kind of makes sense when every model beyond 12-15 is just an additional wound.

In a melee unit, yes. In a unit with guns, that's an extra gun -and- an extra wound.

 Carnikang wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JNAProductions wrote:
1/2" of 1/2", actually. 1" is Engagement range.

Basically it lets units with bigger bases still get into melee range in two ranks, while preventing units on 25mm bases from fighting in three ranks. I'd still like to see horde units get bonus attacks for certain thresholds to represent the press of bodies, but that is likely asking too much of 40k right now.

It might be slightly controversial... but I'd like to see AoS's horde discount come to 40k for SELECT horde units. A little bonus like that might help mildly.

You'd have to buy the full amount, but you'd get a slight points discount for taking them, giving you a reason to go above the 11-20 range. I'm sure it would require some work to apply it correctly to the variety of horde units.

Infantry squads for example, wouldn't get it, but Conscript squads would, meaning if you brought them in a large horde, you'd get a discount and get them cheaper than IS.

Of course infantry squads wouldn't get it. They can only have exactly 10 models (or 9, I suppose, with the heavy weapon)

the_scotsman wrote:
...or 9, I suppose, with the heavy weapon...

Which is an interesting way to limit certain secondaries by 10%.

I like the concept of horde armies, but the way they work in the game is boring and disheartening. I'd rather see a horde work like it has the same number of models as an elite army, but recycle destroyed units back into play.

the_scotsman wrote:

 Carnikang wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JNAProductions wrote:
1/2" of 1/2", actually. 1" is Engagement range.

Basically it lets units with bigger bases still get into melee range in two ranks, while preventing units on 25mm bases from fighting in three ranks. I'd still like to see horde units get bonus attacks for certain thresholds to represent the press of bodies, but that is likely asking too much of 40k right now.

It might be slightly controversial... but I'd like to see AoS's horde discount come to 40k for SELECT horde units. A little bonus like that might help mildly.

You'd have to buy the full amount, but you'd get a slight points discount for taking them, giving you a reason to go above the 11-20 range. I'm sure it would require some work to apply it correctly to the variety of horde units.

Infantry squads for example, wouldn't get it, but Conscript squads would, meaning if you brought them in a large horde, you'd get a discount and get them cheaper than IS.

Of course infantry squads wouldn't get it. They can only have exactly 10 models (or 9, I suppose, with the heavy weapon)

It was more of a comparison that Conscripts would essentially be less than 5 points when taken in full squads. I know IS can't go over their normal size...

The stupidest thing about the whole "Horde" concept is that there's a fix that would have been ridiculously easy.

Keywords.
For units that are meant to be run as Hordes(Horma/Termagants, Ripper Swarms, Cultists, Conscripts, Necron Warriors apparently are shaping up to be that)...the "Horde" keyword could have been added.

Weapons could have had a rule that they interact differently firing at a "Horde" keyworded unit.