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 Nitro Zeus wrote:
Ok so 3.5 going up to 4 average hits on 6-10 units isn’t so relevant. I think you’re missing the point that firing one Wyvern or Mortar or equivalent at an 11-30 unit, is almost the equivalent of firing two Wyverns at that unit. What does that change? Well, regardless of anything else - people are going to run min sized squads instead of full size just to avoid this, it’s completely detrimental to your own effectiveness for no gain

Firing one Wyvern at 10 boyz vs 30 boyz is 3.2 more dead models. Not even double. Two Wyverns shooting 30 Orks should average 15 dead Boyz, but runs 240 points to kill 90 points of Boyz.

The MSU arguement is a crock as well because you're building to avoid an increase of .5 attacks on 10 man units, and the enemy isn't even doubling their wounds in a case where they literally double their number of attacks (Wyverns average 12 shots, at full shooting they get 24 shots). Plus you're opening yourself up to being easier to kill from other weapons, making your own buffs less efficient, and for what exactly? To prevent 3.2 extra wounds on average from Wyvern?

"MSU is the only way people will build because of blasts!" is a kneejerk arguement with no math supporting it. Table Top Tactics were the ones who sent me off on this little rabbit hole of actually checking because they called the Wyvern a horde killer. Specifically that it'd wreck hordes. But it doesn't really. Sure you might get lucky and roll hot, or dump a bunch of CP and points into it to make it into a horde killer, but that doesn't make the tank a horde killer.

I want you to go back and look at that image I posted again. Those blue squares are the deadliest blast weapon aimed at models ranging from Guardians to Wraithblades to Ork Boyz and Grots. Now look at every green and red square on that image as well. That's every single time it was out performed. Green was a unit of unbuffed Devastators with Plasma Cannons (actually a bit frightening based on how devastating 4 Plasma Cannons shooting an unprotected target can be) and red was bolters, bolt rifles, and lasguns.

I also have text in bold you can see easier on the original spreadsheet, where it shows everytime a unit lost at least half of it's models.

Only time a blast weapon did it was against an MSU unit of 5 models.

And while people love to argue that you can do this buff, or use that strat to make the shooting better, they're forgetting that you can do a lot to make a unit harder to kill and it all becomes a wash in the end.

The only reason people keep saying blasts are anti-horde is because they see that 2D6, or even 4D6 profile and they register all the attacks the model gets, but fail to account for the fact the model still needs to hit, to wound, and then the defenders still get saves.

And that's not bringing modifiers into the mix.

I welcome anyone who doesn't believe me to sit down and crunch some actual numbers that show blasts are the deadly horde killers they say they are. I'll even toss in a combat calculator link to help you, because I've at least done the work and have evidence showing that it's not as bad as claimed.


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 Amishprn86 wrote:
Yeah, no one cares about shooting sub 10mans, its 11+ that you should math out. You did Boys, but they are T4, show us T3 then we can talk.

You mean, like Guardians, who are T3, with a 5+ save and are the first four units listed at 10 and 20 man sizes on that list with and without their 4++ strat?

If you're going to move goalposts, maybe you should see where you're standing on the field first.

Heck, the spreadsheet started as a way to math out if MSU really helped Craftworlds or not, so most of the entries on it are T3. Not to mention I even threw in Grots who are T2.

EDIT: I will actually make one correction: Thunderfire Cannons are listed as killing more than half of 10 man Boyz and Grots units. That was an error. The spreadsheet has been fixed to reflect that now.

The blast is surely NOT going to make me run my bugs in smaller squads.

If something does it, it will be the new terrain rules, but blasts? Who cares about those.

Now, if you were planning to run 10 men intercessors squads to benefit from your sweet sweet stratagems and better get into aura, then blasts will probably make you think twice about it.

Spoletta wrote:
The blast is surely NOT going to make me run my bugs in smaller squads.

If something does it, it will be the new terrain rules, but blasts? Who cares about those.

Now, if you were planning to run 10 men intercessors squads to benefit from your sweet sweet stratagems and better get into aura, then blasts will probably make you think twice about it.

Honestly I doubt blasts will change people's minds that much about MSU for buffs.

Coherency and points costs will probably be the key factors there.

Terrain may not block line of sight in every circumstance, for anyone who didn't play Nova or ITC stuff they'll be seeing a buff to their army from the new rules.

 Amishprn86 wrote:
Yeah, no one cares about shooting sub 10mans, its 11+ that you should math out. You did Boys, but they are T4, show us T3 then we can talk.

First line Guardians T3 and 5+ save...

 Nitro Zeus wrote:
Ok so 3.5 going up to 4 average hits on 6-10 units isn’t so relevant. I think you’re missing the point that firing one Wyvern or Mortar or equivalent at an 11-30 unit, is almost the equivalent of firing two Wyverns at that unit. What does that change? Well, regardless of anything else - people are going to run min sized squads instead of full size just to avoid this, it’s completely detrimental to your own effectiveness for no gain

A 9th edition wyvern at max shots is worse at killing hordes than the punisher who was available to AM for all of 8th edition.

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:
Yeah, no one cares about shooting sub 10mans, its 11+ that you should math out. You did Boys, but they are T4, show us T3 then we can talk.

First line Guardians T3 and 5+ save...

I over looked it, it kills 7.1, so why talk about Dire Avengers? You wont shoot Dire with there are 20 guardians.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Spoletta wrote:
The blast is surely NOT going to make me run my bugs in smaller squads.

If something does it, it will be the new terrain rules, but blasts? Who cares about those.

Now, if you were planning to run 10 men intercessors squads to benefit from your sweet sweet stratagems and better get into aura, then blasts will probably make you think twice about it.

Honestly I doubt blasts will change people's minds that much about MSU for buffs.

Coherency and points costs will probably be the key factors there.

Terrain may not block line of sight in every circumstance, for anyone who didn't play Nova or ITC stuff they'll be seeing a buff to their army from the new rules.

Terrain is going to have a larger impact then most people think. Dense cover will be common enough that most of you army will be unseen, or have a -1 to hit them. Not to mention the way objectives work now, you will have to move toward the opposing army no matter what. Which wouldn't be that much of a problem, just add flamers and overwatch, except overwatch is limited to 1 unit per turn, and turns every flamer into an overpriced POS.


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 Amishprn86 wrote:

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:
Yeah, no one cares about shooting sub 10mans, its 11+ that you should math out. You did Boys, but they are T4, show us T3 then we can talk.

First line Guardians T3 and 5+ save...

I over looked it, it kills 7.1, so why talk about Dire Avengers? You wont shoot Dire with there are 20 guardians.

Points...

Hey Clockwork, I’m very open to being swayed here because I’d prefer to run max size Termagant units personally. Can you elaborate exactly what advantages that brings to offset the additional blast susceptibility?


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 Jidmah wrote:

 Nitro Zeus wrote:
Ok so 3.5 going up to 4 average hits on 6-10 units isn’t so relevant. I think you’re missing the point that firing one Wyvern or Mortar or equivalent at an 11-30 unit, is almost the equivalent of firing two Wyverns at that unit. What does that change? Well, regardless of anything else - people are going to run min sized squads instead of full size just to avoid this, it’s completely detrimental to your own effectiveness for no gain

A 9th edition wyvern at max shots is worse at killing hordes than the punisher who was available to AM for all of 8th edition.

Mathammerfail right there. The Punisher has better DAMAGE output than the Wyvern. The Wyvern can sit at the back of the table, out of Line of Sight. The tank commander barely outranges a Carnifex and pretty much has to commit to being spotted by your entire army to even get its first shot off. No, Punishers are not 'better' at all, they are different units.

And it's irrelevant anyway. People WILL be taking Wyverns, so why would I open myself up to extra damage is the real question?

30 termagants have the advantage of being enough to string between 2 different points, even with the new coherency rules. You also have the usual obvious advantages of it (stratagems, buffs and such).

Also, if you go with a Battalion, you have only 6 troop slots, so you can't really play them in 3x10 and still have enough numbers. In a brigade this could be less of a problem.

These are all marginal benefits, but blasts are also just a marginal drawback, so if you were using them in 8th, you will probably use them in 9th.

Also, that Wyvern will be at the back of the table... which means about 6" inches behind the punisher? The tables are shorter now. And when my lictor gets on that wyvern, he is not getting OWed this time (and the wyveren can't do anything in engagement range).
How many wyverns do we expect to find? They are an heavy support, which is a really crowded spot for guards, especially now that they can't just spam tank commanders in an SCD.

I'll try and put the math into an 8th context.

Blast D3 increases firepower by 50% against units with 6+ models. For BS3 units this would be like letting them re-roll failed hits against units with 6+ models. For BS4 units it's like hitting automatically.

Blast D6 increases firepower by 14% against units with 6+ models and a further 50% against units with 11+ models for a total of 71% more firepower against units with 11+ models compared to 1-4 models. For BS3 units this would be roughly equivalent to re-rolling 1s to wound for 6+ models and additionally re-rolling failed hits against 11+ models. For BS4 units it's like re-rolling wound rolls of 1 and hitting automatically for 6+ and 11+ models respectively.

Listing out the number of extra models are killed obfuscates things IMO, any unit that kills more than 25% of its cost at long-range ignoring LOS is really damn scary. Just like mortars weren't huge killers in 8th but still dominated the tournament scene because they were versatile and safe. A single FRFSRF Guardsman can put out a mortar's worth of shots and taking more Guardsmen and Company Commanders was generally avoided in favour of taking 3x3 mortars before mortars got their price increase.

"MSU is the only way people will build because of blasts!" is a kneejerk arguement with no math supporting it. Table Top Tactics were the ones who sent me off on this little rabbit hole of actually checking because they called the Wyvern a horde killer. Specifically that it'd wreck hordes. But it doesn't really. Sure you might get lucky and roll hot, or dump a bunch of CP and points into it to make it into a horde killer, but that doesn't make the tank a horde killer.

It's not really kneejerk, giving your opponent free Chapter Master + Lieutenant buffs seems like a bad idea. Just like people generally avoided big squads in 8th because of a small morale and CP advantage they will avoid big squads in 9th because of a chance of giving blasts free bonus damage on them. Maybe the morale changes will outweigh the blast changes, but add all the other anti-horde changes of 9th and hordes are on really rocky ground, best case scenario for hordes is that they'll be just weak enough that nobody bothers with blasts and so they won't ever get caught out by it. The Punisher is going to be absolutely amazing because it can shoot in melee, but LOS-ignoring shooting will most likely be great with the new terrain rules. Comparing models directly with vastly different costs is silly unless the cheaper one is better and you want to show the more expensive option is overpriced. The free extra damage from the bigger blast weapons also cannot be entirely ignored, while Basilisks might still be best used against vehicles, if they ever end up shooting at a big squad they will do so much more effectively than previously, as a Necron player I'm cautiously interested in big squads of Warriors, but most blast weapons that aren't too hot against Ork Boyz will be relatively effective against Warriors because of their better save, I think a chronometron Cryptek will be a must if I am to make big Warrior units work to avoid getting hammered by Basilisks and plasma cannons which will now be between 50 and 70% stronger until the Warrior unit gets low.

Spoletta wrote:
Also, that Wyvern will be at the back of the table... which means about 6" inches behind the punisher? The tables are shorter now. And when my lictor gets on that wyvern, he is not getting OWed this time (and the wyveren can't do anything in engagement range).
How many wyverns do we expect to find? They are an heavy support, which is a really crowded spot for guards, especially now that they can't just spam tank commanders in an SCD.

Guard vehicles don't crowd slots because they can be taken in trios in a single slot. Tank Commanders are HQ.

I know that tank commanders are HQ, and that's the biggest issue. HQ slots are now a luxury. All that firepower that was previously covered by TCs, must now be covered by something else, and Wyverns don't cover the same role.


The fact that they can squadron vehicles is indeed nice, but I still doubt that an AM list will sport more than one wyvern.

Spoletta wrote:
30 termagants have the advantage of being enough to string between 2 different points, even with the new coherency rules. You also have the usual obvious advantages of it (stratagems, buffs and such).

Also, if you go with a Battalion, you have only 6 troop slots, so you can't really play them in 3x10 and still have enough numbers. In a brigade this could be less of a problem.

These are all marginal benefits, but blasts are also just a marginal drawback, so if you were using them in 8th, you will probably use them in 9th.

Well assuming I have the slots, the first difference seems marginal if I can just go to three points by squadding them into 3 different squads. Seems like not taking twice as many hits from certain units dedicated to the role, would be ideal here?

Spoletta wrote:
Also, that Wyvern will be at the back of the table... which means about 6" inches behind the punisher? The tables are shorter now. And when my lictor gets on that wyvern, he is not getting OWed this time (and the wyveren can't do anything in engagement range).
How many wyverns do we expect to find? They are an heavy support, which is a really crowded spot for guards, especially now that they can't just spam tank commanders in an SCD.

The wyvern will be hidden from shooting and dug in with screens and terrain, as well as further back on the board. Much harder to deal with for most horde armies, definitely so for Tyranids, far more than the Tank Commander who I can just blank out with some hidden Hive Guard of my own.

I don't think Guard will bring Wyverns.

As far as I can see they are optimal against boyz blobs (44-50% return prebuffs/debuffs depending on if the HB can fire) and will tend to drop off against everything else - because the target is cheaper (like gaunts), more resilient for their points, or doesn't run in hordes.
(Actually 11+ Genestealers would be even better - offering a 66% return.)

By the time you are down to shooting 5-10 man units of Intercessors however your pre-buff/debuff/heavy bolter return is about 13%-16%. Which I don't think is viable. Ignoring LOS shooting is always good etc - but using 405 points to maybe kill 2 intercessors - worse if they are in cover or something? Seems bad.

If Orks were as meta relevant as Marines it might be interesting, but they aren't and almost certainly never will be.

 Nitro Zeus wrote:
Hey Clockwork, I’m very open to being swayed here because I’d prefer to run max size Termagant units personally. Can you elaborate exactly what advantages that brings to offset the additional blast susceptibility?


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 Jidmah wrote:

 Nitro Zeus wrote:
Ok so 3.5 going up to 4 average hits on 6-10 units isn’t so relevant. I think you’re missing the point that firing one Wyvern or Mortar or equivalent at an 11-30 unit, is almost the equivalent of firing two Wyverns at that unit. What does that change? Well, regardless of anything else - people are going to run min sized squads instead of full size just to avoid this, it’s completely detrimental to your own effectiveness for no gain

A 9th edition wyvern at max shots is worse at killing hordes than the punisher who was available to AM for all of 8th edition.

Mathammerfail right there. The Punisher has better DAMAGE output than the Wyvern. The Wyvern can sit at the back of the table, out of Line of Sight. The tank commander barely outranges a Carnifex and pretty much has to commit to being spotted by your entire army to even get its first shot off. No, Punishers are not 'better' at all, they are different units.

I was talking about a bare ass punisher LRBT in the heavy support role, with no buffs whatsoever. When you compare wyverns to punisher tank commanders, it's not even a competition anymore.
The whole point is that hordes didn't disappear when there were much better weapons to kill them were around. A weapons with less killing power and more utility will not change that, especially when hordes now take less casualties from morale.

Sure but you guys aren’t answering the only real question- if I have room to take 3x10 Termagants, would I not be foolish to take 1x30?

For the same reasons you did in 8th.

Because keeping multiple 10 termagants units in synapse is harder than keeping a 30 bug one.
Because you can catalyst only one.
Because you can acid blood only one.
And so on...

Also, because there is now a secondary which punishes MSU.

Good answer thanks Spoletta. Clockwork mentioned being more susceptible to certain weapons while MSU, what did that mean?

 Nitro Zeus wrote:
Good answer thanks Spoletta. Clockwork mentioned being more susceptible to certain weapons while MSU, what did that mean?

AT weaponry, granted that only really is an issue if you use units that use the TAC setup, but for those squads AT weaponry has a higher chance at scoring a Value kill-
Another one, are Havocs, their squishyness comes from the 5 man and only 1 ablative wound in it.

 Nitro Zeus wrote:
Good answer thanks Spoletta. Clockwork mentioned being more susceptible to certain weapons while MSU, what did that mean?

'eadbutting burna bommers would be one.

 Amishprn86 wrote:

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:
Yeah, no one cares about shooting sub 10mans, its 11+ that you should math out. You did Boys, but they are T4, show us T3 then we can talk.

First line Guardians T3 and 5+ save...

I over looked it, it kills 7.1, so why talk about Dire Avengers? You wont shoot Dire with there are 20 guardians.

Because the Dire Avengers are typically the more popular of the two to take as a troops choice and onenof the big debates for a while was unit sizes so I did my best to crunch numbers which lead to the amusing discovery that Dire Avengers are more susceptible to blasts (at least from Wyverns) as an MSU.


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 Nitro Zeus wrote:
Hey Clockwork, I’m very open to being swayed here because I’d prefer to run max size Termagant units personally. Can you elaborate exactly what advantages that brings to offset the additional blast susceptibility?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jidmah wrote:

 Nitro Zeus wrote:
Ok so 3.5 going up to 4 average hits on 6-10 units isn’t so relevant. I think you’re missing the point that firing one Wyvern or Mortar or equivalent at an 11-30 unit, is almost the equivalent of firing two Wyverns at that unit. What does that change? Well, regardless of anything else - people are going to run min sized squads instead of full size just to avoid this, it’s completely detrimental to your own effectiveness for no gain

A 9th edition wyvern at max shots is worse at killing hordes than the punisher who was available to AM for all of 8th edition.

Mathammerfail right there. The Punisher has better DAMAGE output than the Wyvern. The Wyvern can sit at the back of the table, out of Line of Sight. The tank commander barely outranges a Carnifex and pretty much has to commit to being spotted by your entire army to even get its first shot off. No, Punishers are not 'better' at all, they are different units.

And it's irrelevant anyway. People WILL be taking Wyverns, so why would I open myself up to extra damage is the real question?

In the case of Nids, it'd be the same reason Craftworlds would want to take full sized units: a lot.of buffs come from psychic powers or strats. Not as much is aura based like a Marine army, so to get the most out of those rules you want to go big.


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 vict0988 wrote:
I'll try and put the math into an 8th context.

Blast D3 increases firepower by 50% against units with 6+ models. For BS3 units this would be like letting them re-roll failed hits against units with 6+ models. For BS4 units it's like hitting automatically.

Blast D6 increases firepower by 14% against units with 6+ models and a further 50% against units with 11+ models for a total of 71% more firepower against units with 11+ models compared to 1-4 models. For BS3 units this would be roughly equivalent to re-rolling 1s to wound for 6+ models and additionally re-rolling failed hits against 11+ models. For BS4 units it's like re-rolling wound rolls of 1 and hitting automatically for 6+ and 11+ models respectively.

Listing out the number of extra models are killed obfuscates things IMO, any unit that kills more than 25% of its cost at long-range ignoring LOS is really damn scary. Just like mortars weren't huge killers in 8th but still dominated the tournament scene because they were versatile and safe. A single FRFSRF Guardsman can put out a mortar's worth of shots and taking more Guardsmen and Company Commanders was generally avoided in favour of taking 3x3 mortars before mortars got their price increase.

"MSU is the only way people will build because of blasts!" is a kneejerk arguement with no math supporting it. Table Top Tactics were the ones who sent me off on this little rabbit hole of actually checking because they called the Wyvern a horde killer. Specifically that it'd wreck hordes. But it doesn't really. Sure you might get lucky and roll hot, or dump a bunch of CP and points into it to make it into a horde killer, but that doesn't make the tank a horde killer.

It's not really kneejerk, giving your opponent free Chapter Master + Lieutenant buffs seems like a bad idea. Just like people generally avoided big squads in 8th because of a small morale and CP advantage they will avoid big squads in 9th because of a chance of giving blasts free bonus damage on them. Maybe the morale changes will outweigh the blast changes, but add all the other anti-horde changes of 9th and hordes are on really rocky ground, best case scenario for hordes is that they'll be just weak enough that nobody bothers with blasts and so they won't ever get caught out by it. The Punisher is going to be absolutely amazing because it can shoot in melee, but LOS-ignoring shooting will most likely be great with the new terrain rules. Comparing models directly with vastly different costs is silly unless the cheaper one is better and you want to show the more expensive option is overpriced. The free extra damage from the bigger blast weapons also cannot be entirely ignored, while Basilisks might still be best used against vehicles, if they ever end up shooting at a big squad they will do so much more effectively than previously, as a Necron player I'm cautiously interested in big squads of Warriors, but most blast weapons that aren't too hot against Ork Boyz will be relatively effective against Warriors because of their better save, I think a chronometron Cryptek will be a must if I am to make big Warrior units work to avoid getting hammered by Basilisks and plasma cannons which will now be between 50 and 70% stronger until the Warrior unit gets low.

The reason I looked at models killed was because the increased number of attacks doesn't result in the same percentage in increased models killed. Look at the Wyvern, at 11+ models it has double the attacks of it's average, but when you look at how many wounds get through the number isn't doubled.

Anyone can argue that we see a massive number of attacks, and they're not wrong, but it oversells the actual impact of the weapon when actually fired at a target.

As for the free Captaina and LT rerolls, if you're so afraid of your opponent being that tiny bit more efficient that you run MSU, congrats, you've bought into a build that opens you up to be more easilly wiped out. MSU horde units are incredibly squishy as their intended durability is from their body counts. Additionally, if you want to the same number of bodies that turns into an.issue of needing to spend CP to run more detachments. You can run 180 Boyz in a Battalion if you horde, but it'd take three battalions to do the same as MSUs.

 ClockworkZion wrote:


Because people apparently didn't look at the link I posted that showed an actual breakdown of actual blast weapons aimed at (mainly Craftworlds) units of various sizes, as well as Plasma Cannon Devastators and some more common basic weapons here we go:

I looked at it. Very interesting. I'm curious about your methodology here. For example with the 10 Guard vs regular Guardians I've got 20 shots -> 10 hits -> 5 wounds -> 3.33 failed saves/kills

 Jidmah wrote:

 Nitro Zeus wrote:
Ok so 3.5 going up to 4 average hits on 6-10 units isn’t so relevant. I think you’re missing the point that firing one Wyvern or Mortar or equivalent at an 11-30 unit, is almost the equivalent of firing two Wyverns at that unit. What does that change? Well, regardless of anything else - people are going to run min sized squads instead of full size just to avoid this, it’s completely detrimental to your own effectiveness for no gain

A 9th edition wyvern at max shots is worse at killing hordes than the punisher who was available to AM for all of 8th edition.

This might actually be true now that vigilus is being cycled out.

Ok now so assuming I’m running Tyranids, and I know
I’m not gonna be casting Catalyst or any other buffs on a unit of TERMAGANTS (something I’ve never once had to do in a decade of playing Nids), it’s pretty safe to say that all the criticism is intact right - I’d be silly to run 30 man squads now and give up free hits right? It’s a shame because I enjoy the big termagant blob but I cannot see it being worth giving my opponent effectively a free Wyvern, and yeah I know both the local guard players here are excited for theirs in 9th

A wyverns comes out to 135 and shooting at termagants takes out 8,8 of them for 135 points. One more with the heavy bolter. 13,78 points per tgant kill.

A punisher comes out at 180 and in doubleshoot takes out 11 and one with the heavy bolter. 15 per tgant kill.

The wyvern is actually slightly better, assuming that the heavy bolter gets to shoot.

Obviously the wyvern output drops terrificantly as soon as the target is 10 or less models, while the punisher always works.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Nitro Zeus wrote:
Ok now so assuming I’m running Tyranids, and I know
I’m not gonna be casting Catalyst or any other buffs on a unit of TERMAGANTS (something I’ve never once had to do in a decade of playing Nids), it’s pretty safe to say that all the criticism is intact right - I’d be silly to run 30 man squads now and give up free hits right? It’s a shame because I enjoy the big termagant blob but I cannot see it being worth giving my opponent effectively a free Wyvern, and yeah I know both the local guard players here are excited for theirs in 9th

You never did in 8th, but in 9th a 5+++ tgant unit on a point is a really good asset.

The wyvern can shoot at characters hiding behind cover, outside of 3" from a unit. (Edit: I really should re-read the character rules, I I realise that I am not 100% on this). That is a pretty good advantage, although not really on the topic of hordes.

I see "barrage" style attacks being pretty nice this edition, an Guard are well suited to use them. The heavy support section of my lists are dropping expensive Russes and picking up artillery.

LoS ignoring fire is gonna be AMAZING in 9th and I can’t take anyone seriously who is saying a punisher is as good as a Wyvern. Are they factoring in that you’ll probably get one turn of shooting out of the punisher and 5 out of the Wyvern, with a MUCH higher selection of targets too?

Personally I'm looking at Manticores, now that the 4 shot limit is only 1 missed turn max. They are not really horde killers though. I would probably just use massed lasgun fire for hordes, like I always have.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
You can't call it a "horde" mechanic if it's not applicable to "horde" units. What we have is a "blast" mechanic that targets units based on size, not type.

Making up a narrative about hordes being targeted (something I'm blaming Table Top Titans for having a hand in, as well as Front Line Gaming as neither seems to actually looked at how effective blasts -actually- are and instead knee jerked because "look at how many shots a Wyvern has!!!11!one!!!") doesn't really address anything. All it's doing is peddling a fake narrative about hordes being unfairly targetted by a weapon that is the least effective against them.

Stu Black mentioned as part of the initial intro that it's something they looked at to simulate the effect of blast weapons on large units without penalizing smaller ones. That's where the whole "narrative" started coming from. The talk about them affecting units based on size.

There's no weapons that are penalizing multiple small units. Just "hordes" that are 6+ models. Continually shouting about how "IT'S A BLAST MECHANIC YOU CAN'T CALL IT A HORDE MECHANIC IF IT DOESN"T APPLY TO HORDES!" is nonsense, given that any 6-10 model unit is getting hit by at least one step of a blast weapon.

Because people apparently didn't look at the link I posted that showed an actual breakdown of actual blast weapons aimed at (mainly Craftworlds) units of various sizes, as well as Plasma Cannon Devastators and some more common basic weapons here we go:

Because Mathhammer isn't actually playing the game. If I want to play Spreadsheethammer, I'll fire up Excel instead of busting out dice.

Now please note how many blast weapons actually managed to kill even -half- of a unit. That's right. The Wyvern killed 3.11/5 Dire Avengers who were taking their worst save and not soaking any wounds on the Exarch or standing in any kind of cover or with any kind of protection.

The math doesn't support the narrative that blast weapons are going to be regularly wiping out hordes unless you start pouring a large amount of CP, support buffs, psychic powers, or just using a lot of them to shoot at hordes.

The blast weapon is not an anti-horde weapon in the way people have been presenting it as, and it's clear they haven't actually checked their assumptions once.

Let me help: At 6-10 models D6 averages 4 attacks. That's the thing you'll most need to be aware of if you want to crunch your own numbers.

Cool, so now factor in the morale and attrition.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
The reason I looked at models killed was because the increased number of attacks doesn't result in the same percentage in increased models killed. Look at the Wyvern, at 11+ models it has double the attacks of it's average, but when you look at how many wounds get through the number isn't doubled.

Anyone can argue that we see a massive number of attacks, and they're not wrong, but it oversells the actual impact of the weapon when actually fired at a target.

As for the free Captaina and LT rerolls, if you're so afraid of your opponent being that tiny bit more efficient that you run MSU, congrats, you've bought into a build that opens you up to be more easilly wiped out. MSU horde units are incredibly squishy as their intended durability is from their body counts. Additionally, if you want to the same number of bodies that turns into an.issue of needing to spend CP to run more detachments. You can run 180 Boyz in a Battalion if you horde, but it'd take three battalions to do the same as MSUs.

Shots fired increase by 71%, hits inflicted increase by 71%, wounds inflicted increase by 71%, unsaved wounds inflicted increase by 71%, number of models removed increase by 71%. The number of shots fired is increased by the same proportion the number of models removed are.

When you put it into raw numbers it sounds unimpressive, because generally, models can kill about 20% of their value, when you add 70% to that it's still only 34%, on a 125 pt model 14% is 18 pts. So even a massive boost of 70% more hits looks unimpressive, which IMO it shouldn't be. Imagine in any other game where you increase damage by 70% against a given type of target, that is huge.

MSU hordes aren't any more squishy than regular hordes, whether you have 3x10 Boys or 1x30 it's the same math, except when blasts come into play and you get shafted if you play big units in 9th. Orks might still play big units because that type of unit is heavily supported by the Ork Codex rules, but we'll see whether anything but Boyz, Warriors and Daemons will be run in big units competitively. You don't need to run more than 60 troops, just run vehicles and shooting units, it's a vehicle/shooting edition.

 Slowroll wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:


Because people apparently didn't look at the link I posted that showed an actual breakdown of actual blast weapons aimed at (mainly Craftworlds) units of various sizes, as well as Plasma Cannon Devastators and some more common basic weapons here we go:

I looked at it. Very interesting. I'm curious about your methodology here. For example with the 10 Guard vs regular Guardians I've got 20 shots -> 10 hits -> 5 wounds -> 3.33 failed saves/kills

I was using a combat calculator to smooth out any math errors I'd make.


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 Nitro Zeus wrote:
Ok now so assuming I’m running Tyranids, and I know
I’m not gonna be casting Catalyst or any other buffs on a unit of TERMAGANTS (something I’ve never once had to do in a decade of playing Nids), it’s pretty safe to say that all the criticism is intact right - I’d be silly to run 30 man squads now and give up free hits right? It’s a shame because I enjoy the big termagant blob but I cannot see it being worth giving my opponent effectively a free Wyvern, and yeah I know both the local guard players here are excited for theirs in 9th

I mean you give up free hits just bringing models to the game, why fuss about this?


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 Nitro Zeus wrote:
LoS ignoring fire is gonna be AMAZING in 9th and I can’t take anyone seriously who is saying a punisher is as good as a Wyvern. Are they factoring in that you’ll probably get one turn of shooting out of the punisher and 5 out of the Wyvern, with a MUCH higher selection of targets too?

Good luck getting 5 full turns of shooting out of the Wyvern in a game with smaller table sizes. There's less room to run and hide.


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 Kanluwen wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
You can't call it a "horde" mechanic if it's not applicable to "horde" units. What we have is a "blast" mechanic that targets units based on size, not type.

Making up a narrative about hordes being targeted (something I'm blaming Table Top Titans for having a hand in, as well as Front Line Gaming as neither seems to actually looked at how effective blasts -actually- are and instead knee jerked because "look at how many shots a Wyvern has!!!11!one!!!") doesn't really address anything. All it's doing is peddling a fake narrative about hordes being unfairly targetted by a weapon that is the least effective against them.

Stu Black mentioned as part of the initial intro that it's something they looked at to simulate the effect of blast weapons on large units without penalizing smaller ones. That's where the whole "narrative" started coming from. The talk about them affecting units based on size.

There's no weapons that are penalizing multiple small units. Just "hordes" that are 6+ models. Continually shouting about how "IT'S A BLAST MECHANIC YOU CAN'T CALL IT A HORDE MECHANIC IF IT DOESN"T APPLY TO HORDES!" is nonsense, given that any 6-10 model unit is getting hit by at least one step of a blast weapon.

Because people apparently didn't look at the link I posted that showed an actual breakdown of actual blast weapons aimed at (mainly Craftworlds) units of various sizes, as well as Plasma Cannon Devastators and some more common basic weapons here we go:

Because Mathhammer isn't actually playing the game. If I want to play Spreadsheethammer, I'll fire up Excel instead of busting out dice.

Now please note how many blast weapons actually managed to kill even -half- of a unit. That's right. The Wyvern killed 3.11/5 Dire Avengers who were taking their worst save and not soaking any wounds on the Exarch or standing in any kind of cover or with any kind of protection.

The math doesn't support the narrative that blast weapons are going to be regularly wiping out hordes unless you start pouring a large amount of CP, support buffs, psychic powers, or just using a lot of them to shoot at hordes.

The blast weapon is not an anti-horde weapon in the way people have been presenting it as, and it's clear they haven't actually checked their assumptions once.

Let me help: At 6-10 models D6 averages 4 attacks. That's the thing you'll most need to be aware of if you want to crunch your own numbers.

Cool, so now factor in the morale and attrition.

So Stu Black said it was based on unit size and everyone assumed that means it was based on hordes? I think my guess that they're trying to emulate the blast templates is more correct than the way people have talked about it being a horde killer.

And while you scoff at mathhammer, it gives us a clearer picture of how we can expect things to work in real life rather than assuming that since a Wyvern gets 24 shots that 24 wounds will be successfully dealt 100% of the time.

As for Morale, assuming they fail, 1 + 1/6th. Far less damning to a horde than old editions.


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 vict0988 wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
The reason I looked at models killed was because the increased number of attacks doesn't result in the same percentage in increased models killed. Look at the Wyvern, at 11+ models it has double the attacks of it's average, but when you look at how many wounds get through the number isn't doubled.

Anyone can argue that we see a massive number of attacks, and they're not wrong, but it oversells the actual impact of the weapon when actually fired at a target.

As for the free Captaina and LT rerolls, if you're so afraid of your opponent being that tiny bit more efficient that you run MSU, congrats, you've bought into a build that opens you up to be more easilly wiped out. MSU horde units are incredibly squishy as their intended durability is from their body counts. Additionally, if you want to the same number of bodies that turns into an.issue of needing to spend CP to run more detachments. You can run 180 Boyz in a Battalion if you horde, but it'd take three battalions to do the same as MSUs.

Shots fired increase by 71%, hits inflicted increase by 71%, wounds inflicted increase by 71%, unsaved wounds inflicted increase by 71%, number of models removed increase by 71%. The number of shots fired is increased by the same proportion the number of models removed are.

When you put it into raw numbers it sounds unimpressive, because generally, models can kill about 20% of their value, when you add 70% to that it's still only 34%, on a 125 pt model 14% is 18 pts. So even a massive boost of 70% more hits looks unimpressive, which IMO it shouldn't be. Imagine in any other game where you increase damage by 70% against a given type of target, that is huge.

MSU hordes aren't any more squishy than regular hordes, whether you have 3x10 Boys or 1x30 it's the same math, except when blasts come into play and you get shafted if you play big units in 9th. Orks might still play big units because that type of unit is heavily supported by the Ork Codex rules, but we'll see whether anything but Boyz, Warriors and Daemons will be run in big units competitively. You don't need to run more than 60 troops, just run vehicles and shooting units, it's a vehicle/shooting edition.

It's not even a 70% flat boost though. A lot of the math bounces up and down based on the target it's aimed at, and honestly I just feel like some people are inflating "one or two more models" into "EVERYTHING IS DEAD" and that's misleading as heck.

Problem is that 3x10 boys are easier to remove off the table that 3x30. So if you want 180 boyz to ensure you can park large groups of Orks on a point, best way to do it is take a single detachment and run 6x30. If you run 3 Battalions to run MSU then say goodbye to 6CP.