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

 catbarf wrote:
Yeah so running the numbers on a 10-man squad at Ld8 that sustains four casualties:

Current system- a roll of 5 loses an extra model, a roll of 6 loses two, so average 0.5 additional morale casualties.

New system- 33% chance to fail the morale test and lose a model, then a 17% chance for each of the remaining 5 survivors, for a total average loss of 0.62 casualties.

If they sustain six casualties:

Current system- Lose one model on 3, two on 4, etc. Average loss of 1.67 additional.

New system- 67% chance to fail, then remaining three survivors each have a 33% chance to flee, for a total average loss of 1.33 models.

So... Different from the current system, overall. I'm not sure it's an improvement for anything except really large hordes. It certainly doesn't do what they claimed it would do, which is incentivize medium-sized squads.

Ok my dudes - here we go. Using this table if two 10 mans take 2 casualties each with -3LD vs four 5 mans that take 1 casualty each with -3 LD:

10 mans lose a total of 6.2 -- (four were initial casualties, so 2.2 to morale/attrition)
5 mans lose a total of 7.1 -- (3.1 to morale / attrition)

Over-all I think this is an interesting and good change. In a vacuum. What has me concerned is that I'm not seeing any signs of GW doing things to actually make gameplay faster (and no - the "points increase isn't going to do that no matter how hard you try to argue it). This is another example of a rule that adds steps and MORE dice rolls. So while I feel like it IS better than current morale, 9th is shaping up to be a much slower game at the rate we're going ...

I would like to remind you that thanks to ATSKNF 5men Space Marine units are effectively STILL immune to Morale since they're not failing it at all

Tycho wrote:
Over-all I think this is an interesting and good change. In a vacuum. What has me concerned is that I'm not seeing any signs of GW doing things to actually make gameplay faster (and no - the "points increase isn't going to do that no matter how hard you try to argue it). This is another example of a rule that adds steps and MORE dice rolls. So while I feel like it IS better than current morale, 9th is shaping up to be a much slower game at the rate we're going ...

They did one thing, they limited Overwatch a lot, and it did take time.

Doesn't sound like a big change to me, but my Daemons will be happy.
But I assume GW will, like in every edition so far, keep 70% of the units/ factions in the game immune against morale. I think the only faction where they changed that when moving to 8th were CSM, their Cult units went from morale immunity to normal moral rules - and stayed that way, unlike other factions that got their morale immunity back with their Codex.
I would have liked some kind of modifier if you lost any models against an enemy attack, that way it could have an effect an small units, too. They'd really have to lower all the LD values to make that new morale rule actually come up. Maybe we don't have the whole picture and you get -1Ld when there's an enemy in engagement range for example.

Marines are the first book out, so maybe ATSKNF changes to ignoring the -1 for half strength, or something to do with attrition rather than a flat re-roll.

Of course that means erratas for BA/DA/GK/DW and so on...

KurtAngle2 wrote:
I would like to remind you that thanks to ATSKNF 5men Space Marine units are effectively STILL immune to Morale since they're not failing it at all

Marines know no fear. That is kind of their thing and has been so for all editions I've played in. It's not going to change now.

 catbarf wrote:
Yeah so running the numbers on a 10-man squad at Ld8 that sustains four casualties:

Current system- a roll of 5 loses an extra model, a roll of 6 loses two, so average 0.5 additional morale casualties.

New system- 33% chance to fail the morale test and lose a model, then a 17% chance for each of the remaining 5 survivors, for a total average loss of 0.62 casualties.

If they sustain six casualties:

Current system- Lose one model on 3, two on 4, etc. Average loss of 1.67 additional.

New system- 67% chance to fail, then remaining three survivors each have a 33% chance to flee, for a total average loss of 1.33 models.

So... Different from the current system, overall. I'm not sure it's an improvement for anything except really large hordes. It certainly doesn't do what they claimed it would do, which is incentivize medium-sized squads.

Was going to post this but you beat me too it.
Its strange - because I think the averages are much the same, the outcomes are however more skewed.
So.. you take that unit which took 4 casualties. Before you had 0-0-0-0-1-2.
Now you have 0-0-0-0-(1,2,3,4,5,6),(1,2,3,4,5,6).
And you are potentially going to feel the games when you roll an abnormal number of 1s. (See transport deaths as an example of something in the game right now.)

So tentatively I think this is a buff for hordes and a nerf for elite infantry - but only because it opens the door for the elite infantry player to get unlucky, rather than it being statistically set in stone. (Obviously the horde player could be unlucky too - but they can't just be autowiped like before.)

Really its going to be interesting how they mess with this system. Units that apply a couple of minuses to leadership and then a minus on the attrition roll could be very nasty.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Marines are the first book out, so maybe ATSKNF changes to ignoring the -1 for half strength, or something to do with attrition rather than a flat re-roll.

Of course that means erratas for BA/DA/GK/DW and so on...

I expect the DA grim resolve to simply become immunity to Combat Attrition.

Can the OP please spell "morale" correctly in the thread title? It's spelled correctly for you in the image you posted.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Marines are the first book out. . .

Is there any confirmation of this?

They did one thing, they limited Overwatch a lot, and it did take time.

We don't really know that though. My guess is a lot of armies are going to get strats and/or doctrines/abilities, etc that allow them to ignore/manipulate that. Offhand, I can see Tau, Craftworld Eldar, and Space Marines at a minimum getting things to allow them to significantly bypass it. Could also see 'Crons getting something.

I would like to remind you that thanks to ATSKNF 5men Space Marine units are effectively STILL immune to Morale since they're not failing it at all

Yep. Right now it looks like a VERY "MSU/Marine-Friendly" edition. Let's also not forget that a lot of chapters on top of ATSKNF will also likely continue to get strats to allow them to mitigate morale in some way. In 8th fir example, things have to go REALLY REALLY catastrophically bad for a Ultramarines unit to suffer in any way from morale. We'll have to wait and see I guess.

Honestly, this looks like it took a mechanic that was already mostly ignored, and just made it both substantially more complex and time consuming, and less relevant by dramatically reducing impact.

Yes it gives GW something else they can play with for rules interactions for factions like Night Lords, but not really in any meaningful way given how few casualties morale is already responsible for and this only reduces that further in most cases unless they're going to be stacking some absolutely insane modifiers on both the Ld and Combat Attrition test.

Peak example of GW's worst game design impulses.

EDIT: Looking at it a bit more, it's not quite as totally stupid as I'd initially thought, I can see the additional opportunities it opens for Ld based casualty infliction, but that's only going to matter if GW actually uses it (something they historically have not) and seems to be more powerful with close shave morale tests than total blowouts currently are, which is an odd functionality.

This is good for hordes. You shouldn't *know* how many models will die to morale. This creates a luck aspect to it.

And if you fail a morale check, this is potentially very bad for elite armies.

I like it.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 catbarf wrote:
Yeah so running the numbers on a 10-man squad at Ld8 that sustains four casualties:

Current system- a roll of 5 loses an extra model, a roll of 6 loses two, so average 0.5 additional morale casualties.

New system- 33% chance to fail the morale test and lose a model, then a 17% chance for each of the remaining 5 survivors, for a total average loss of 0.62 casualties.

If they sustain six casualties:

Current system- Lose one model on 3, two on 4, etc. Average loss of 1.67 additional.

New system- 67% chance to fail, then remaining three survivors each have a 33% chance to flee, for a total average loss of 1.33 models.

So... Different from the current system, overall. I'm not sure it's an improvement for anything except really large hordes. It certainly doesn't do what they claimed it would do, which is incentivize medium-sized squads.

Ok my dudes - here we go. Using this table if two 10 mans take 2 casualties each with -3LD vs four 5 mans that take 1 casualty each with -3 LD:

10 mans lose a total of 6.2 -- (four were initial casualties, so 2.2 to morale/attrition)
5 mans lose a total of 7.1 -- (3.1 to morale / attrition)

I'm afraid I don't understand what's going on in those tables at all. What do the 1-5 columns represent?

The negative take though is that this rule does nothing really to discourage MSU.

Okay, more likely to be at half casualties - but also significantly less likely to fail a leadership test if you don't have the bodies to lose in a turn.

Tyel wrote:
The negative take though is that this rule does nothing really to discourage MSU.

Okay, more likely to be at half casualties - but also significantly less likely to fail a leadership test if you don't have the bodies to lose in a turn.

Not providing character protection is a big one.

Like breaking up a 10 man intercessor squad into 2 5 man squads means you don't need many casualties from either to make your chapter master swiss cheese.

tulun wrote:

Tyel wrote:
The negative take though is that this rule does nothing really to discourage MSU.

Okay, more likely to be at half casualties - but also significantly less likely to fail a leadership test if you don't have the bodies to lose in a turn.

Not providing character protection is a big one.

Like breaking up a 10 man intercessor squad into 2 5 man squads means you don't need many casualties from either to make your chapter master swiss cheese.

That requires killing 3 from each squad, so 6 casualties total. Whereas the 10-man needs to take 8 casualties to stop screening. It's not that big of a difference.

I'm not sure if I overvalue it, but this also means that with the summary execution rule of the IG commissars (kill 1 unit for a moral reroll), IG infantry has a 1/6+5/6*1/6 = 30,6% chance to pass morale by roling a 1 regardless of losses at the cost of 1 dude. That... is not thaaaat bad for conscript blobs etc.

KurtAngle2 wrote:
I would like to remind you that thanks to ATSKNF 5men Space Marine units are effectively STILL immune to Morale since they're not failing it at all

Depends on debuffs or how badly you hurt em. There's still a chance - though in the old system there were times you may not want to reroll. In this one you'd always reroll if you failed initially.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 catbarf wrote:


That requires killing 3 from each squad, so 6 casualties total. Whereas the 10-man needs to take 8 casualties to stop screening. It's not that big of a difference.

When you're talking 2W Primaris on cover that extra 33% could be rough.

This could be one of the reasons that cultist price jumped up.

They surely benefit a lot from this.

I just hope that my nid gribblies didn't follow the same price scheme, because they were already immune to morale...

 Daedalus81 wrote:

KurtAngle2 wrote:
I would like to remind you that thanks to ATSKNF 5men Space Marine units are effectively STILL immune to Morale since they're not failing it at all

Depends on debuffs or how badly you hurt em. There's still a chance - though in the old system there were times you may not want to reroll. In this one you'd always reroll if you failed initially.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 catbarf wrote:


That requires killing 3 from each squad, so 6 casualties total. Whereas the 10-man needs to take 8 casualties to stop screening. It's not that big of a difference.

When you're talking 2W Primaris on cover that extra 33% could be rough.

No how much you damage them is irrelevant, ranging from rerolling 5s if you've killed 4 to rerolling 6s (1 in fething 36 rolls so let's not kid ourselves) if you have killed 3, and this in the scenario where the LD is 8.
ATSKNF has to change

 Insectum7 wrote:
Can the OP please spell "morale" correctly in the thread title? It's spelled correctly for you in the image you posted.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Marines are the first book out. . .

Is there any confirmation of this?

I'm with insectum, I thought the codexes they just got are going to be their codexes for most of 9th ed. If not imagine having to buy two codexes within a year for the same faction. I think shadowspear shows that GW is willing to have units float outside of a codex for a while, maybe we'll get an indomitus crusade splat book that houses them until the marines get their 9.5 ed codex? My bet for first book is necrons since they literally got nothing in their PA,

There are new Marine units coming. They're doing their Codex first. Then Necrons. Then, based on what they've said, probably Deathwatch.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Marines are the first book out, so maybe ATSKNF changes to ignoring the -1 for half strength, or something to do with attrition rather than a flat re-roll.

Of course that means erratas for BA/DA/GK/DW and so on...

They did hint on one stream that DW will be one of the early codices out of the gates. I also suspect that DA, BA, and SW will become supplements rather than codices considering the fact that PA more or less normalized those factions with the Space marine codex.

SM getting a codex this early would be insulting to everyone, including SM players.

I actually bet against it. They have other ways of releasing their new datasheets, and they seem to be exploring that instead.

tulun wrote:
SM getting a codex this early would be insulting to everyone, including SM players.

I actually bet against it. They have other ways of releasing their new datasheets, and they seem to be exploring that instead.

Yeah I think this is more likely. The SM book isn't even a year old.

 Insectum7 wrote:

tulun wrote:
SM getting a codex this early would be insulting to everyone, including SM players.

I actually bet against it. They have other ways of releasing their new datasheets, and they seem to be exploring that instead.

Yeah I think this is more likely. The SM book isn't even a year old.

February 2017 was the release of the Stormcast Eternals Battletome that combined Vanguard Chamber, Extremis Chamber, and the 'original' book.
July 2018 was the release of the Stormcast Eternals Battletome that brought in Endless Spells and the Sacrosanct Chamber.

I absolutely do think it's happening for Marines. The supplements can likely remain 'as is'.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

tulun wrote:
SM getting a codex this early would be insulting to everyone, including SM players.

I actually bet against it. They have other ways of releasing their new datasheets, and they seem to be exploring that instead.

Yeah I think this is more likely. The SM book isn't even a year old.

February 2017 was the release of the Stormcast Eternals Battletome that combined Vanguard Chamber, Extremis Chamber, and the 'original' book.
July 2018 was the release of the Stormcast Eternals Battletome that brought in Endless Spells and the Sacrosanct Chamber.

I absolutely do think it's happening for Marines. The supplements can likely remain 'as is'.

One Year and half, compared to what, 11 months of current Marine codex?

tulun wrote:
SM getting a codex this early would be insulting to everyone, including SM players.

I actually bet against it. They have other ways of releasing their new datasheets, and they seem to be exploring that instead.

AoS did an obnoxious set of codexes for each successive release of Stormcast. So it could be just an add-on book.

Edit: Nevermind. Need to read the whole thread first.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

tulun wrote:
SM getting a codex this early would be insulting to everyone, including SM players.

I actually bet against it. They have other ways of releasing their new datasheets, and they seem to be exploring that instead.

AoS did an obnoxious set of codexes for each successive release of Stormcast. So it could be just an add-on book.

Edit: Nevermind. Need to read the whole thread first.

Worth mentioning as well that AoS never actually did a 'set' of them.

We got Extremis Chamber(Dracothian Guard units and the Stormdrake) and then they canned the whole idea of standalone expansion books likely because of the ridiculous amount of complaining people were doing, acting as though you needed both books to play Stormcast...while ignoring that Extremis really was a points heavy force and making a force of them didn't really leave room for the other stuff. Plus the auras didn't really interact.
Vanguard Chamber would have been the next, but they just released an updated Stormcast Eternals book rolling Extremis Chamber in with the Warrior Chamber and Vanguard Chamber upon their release.

2018 then saw the addition of the Sacrosanct Chamber and Endless Spells.