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 Sarigar wrote:

Nurglitch wrote:
Wait, 9th edition is out already?

Pretty much the entire book (rules, missions, army construction, terrain) were leaked online.

Good to know.

I think based on what I have watched and played that gunlines and hoard armies are going to have a tougher time than before. Personally I never liked playing with or against gunline armies as I feel if you are not going to move around the board with your models in any meaningful way, we might as well play yatzee as we are just rolling dice at one another, but I get it that some people like those armies, and this will hurt that style of play. And I get that people like big units of hoards (I never cared for them just because I hate moving them) and this edition is going to hurt that style of play as well. So if that turns you off to this edition, that is fair.

This makes me worried about how Imperial Guard will fare, because "gunline horde" is pretty much their standard M.O, especially for my Valhallans. I absolutely detest the "ultrakilly glasscannon that kills everything on its first turn and gets wiped out the next turn" the Scions have become with Psychic Awakening and hope Guard players won't be forced to go big on Scions to stand a chance.

IG players are probably going to have to invest money in to bullgryns and similar stuff.

I mean imperial guard are not actually a horde army but a MSU spamming one (Unless you play recruits) so I don't think they'll have much of a problem.

But the "sit on the back with 9 artillery pieces and 150 guards covering them" maybe doesn't nets you many victories. It wasnt in 8th agaisnt any opponent worth is salth of course but even less in 8th. And I'm not sad about that. Is a very boring and unninteractive way of playing. It should be viable but not as oppresive as it has been.

Having played vs Guard with my Craftworlders in a 9th game yesterday, I think they'll be very good at spreading out and controlling the board. I won the game 63-47, but that was mainly down to my opponent choosing substandard secondaries (which is understandable, both our first game). Now that you can move and fire without penalties for vehicles, it really does blow the door wide open for a load of Guard vehicles; his Armoured Sentinels were a pain and he played his Chimeras very aggressively too. I won on points but I only had my 3 characters and a Wave Serpent alive at the end of turn 5 which is a good thing in my opinion; you can't just sit and blast stuff away in your deployment zone. Taking and holding ground is massively important.

EDIT: Also, the sheer amount of indirect fire and blast weapons will make the Guard exceptionally good for denying points too.

Anything that encourages (or forces?) diversity in your list so you can't just stay in your deployment zone with shooty units all game long and never moving a single model (exaggerated) is a win for the game in my book.

I'm going to have my first impression tonight. We will be playing with the officially available stuff only, so core rules.

I'll try go get a new mission in as well if I can convince my peers.

Karol wrote:
IG players are probably going to have to invest money in to bullgryns and similar stuff.

Bullgyrns are super dope, luckily for them.

Did a couple 1000 point games to get rules under our belt.

The low score secondaries make a lot more sense in small games.

The board is claustrophobic.

Melee is quite important and making the right movement is critical.

FLY will still be crucial to have.

Had a hard time clearing room for reserves - coherency makes a lot more sense in the context of smaller tables.

You really need to be aggressive on 4 objective maps.

We played multi-smite and that was great for me - letting me grab utility spells but still have the option for mind bullets.

What about using the old table size? Good idea or not?

Martel732 wrote:
What about using the old table size? Good idea or not?

The size made a significant difference. Maybe against custodes I'd feel less swamped, but I feel like a lot of rule changes hinge on it.

6x4 would otherwise be fine, but competitive games will definitely not go up in size.

What armies did you play Daedalus? You said melee was important, how so? What's your opinion on the terrain rules?

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
What armies did you play Daedalus? You said melee was important, how so? What's your opinion on the terrain rules?

Orks v TSons

Dense was great for general protection.

Because you cant put objectives on terrain we often fought outside of it. Because it was a half table I couldn't say too much else as we didn't have to draw long ranges.

If you want to score you really need to move up. With orks they're on the objective immediately. In one game a trukk with boyz ran up on one side and manz in a BW on the other.

To stop scoring I need to blow the transport and the squads inside and I wasn't going to out-obsec. A BW is a rough tackle at 1k, so I went opposite. He ramshackled the trukk enough to keep it on. The next turn the manz and boyz were out (disembarking w/i 3 makes sense when 40mm were picking up more distance). The trukk ran back to block my reserves.

So with manz in front of a BW that flank was lost and I had to keep him from overrunning my rubrics. On the other side he pushed gretchin up to screen me out of a charge to the boys.

Breaking heads is a sonuva with the new morale and I couldn't yank them off. So I charged with my slightly wounded FF. I totally flubbed my attacks and his PK carved me up.

Melta/Havoc Vindicator performed really admirably.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
What armies did you play Daedalus? You said melee was important, how so? What's your opinion on the terrain rules?

Orks v TSons

Dense was great for general protection.

Because you cant put objectives on terrain we often fought outside of it. Because it was a half table I couldn't say too much else as we didn't have to draw long ranges.

If you want to score you really need to move up. With orks they're on the objective immediately. In one game a trukk with boyz ran up on one side and manz in a BW on the other.

To stop scoring I need to blow the transport and the squads inside and I wasn't going to out-obsec. A BW is a rough tackle at 1k, so I went opposite. He ramshackled the trukk enough to keep it on. The next turn the manz and boyz were out (disembarking w/i 3 makes sense when 40mm were picking up more distance). The trukk ran back to block my reserves.

So with manz in front of a BW that flank was lost and I had to keep him from overrunning my rubrics. On the other side he pushed gretchin up to screen me out of a charge to the boys.

Breaking heads is a sonuva with the new morale and I couldn't yank them off. So I charged with my slightly wounded FF. I totally flubbed my attacks and his PK carved me up.

Melta/Havoc Vindicator performed really admirably.

Mobility sounds very important. I like that. I figured that the new morale mechanics would make units hard to break, that's why I hope they'll move away from it for Night Lords. Good to hear that vindicators are useful again.

Sounds interesting. Looking forward to trying it.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

Mobility sounds very important. I like that. I figured that the new morale mechanics would make units hard to break, that's why I hope they'll move away from it for Night Lords. Good to hear that vindicators are useful again.

Sounds interesting. Looking forward to trying it.

Yea it was good fun. I'm eager to see the other secondaries and tweaks for competitive.

It was very nice to literally not care about kills other than what was in the way of the objectives.

Me: Played a bunch of games in 8th, didn't love it and stopped, but have always followed 40k from afar. I've just watched a few batreps with 9th and read the rules. I play a ton of other wargames FWIW, and just wanted to share some thoughts.

My initial impressions: This seems to be closer to the game GW always wanted for 40K. DYNAMIC. Gunlines aren't as viable but shooting is still very important, although now shooting is about clearing objective areas rather than just tabling your opponent.

Love the coherency rules, I feel a lot of wonk was eliminated there. The terrain rules make way more sense, although still needs a bit more granularity, like being able to see a max of 2-3" in, out or through woods and such.

Some major let downs for me:
- I was hoping some of the mechanics from Apocalypse would cross over, I know that's wishful thinking, but for me Apoc is much more fun, even at small points levels, and is way below it's full potential. Particularly the orders, alternating activation and the damage phase were what I had hoped would influence 9th.

- No volumetric rules for models. I feel this is an industry standard at this point and GW is behind the curve on this for 40K. Think about it, we're saying it's wonky to be able to see through a window to target enemies, but it's ok to shoot through the legs of model in the same way? By the same token, being able to shoot through any unit, friendly or enemy is a bit pedestrian. I'd like to see a "Take a Knee" or "Go to Ground" generic stratagem that allows units to fire through friendly units that would otherwise be blocking. Enemy model volumes should always block IMO.

- See one model and wipe out the entire unit. LOS should be reciprocal - if a unit must draw LOS from each firing model then targeting enemies should be similar in that you can only kill what you can see, or at least have it be mitigated in some way. I'd like to see 40k have a basic ruleset that's kids friendly and an advanced version for hardcore gamers, many of which will be the kids anyways..

Those things aside, I'm exited to try 9th - the CP and detachment list-building changes alone are enough to make the game much more interesting now. Would love to hear your guys' thoughts on the above. Thanks for reading.

Going in for another today --

Well so far combat patrol games seem vwry much like suitable as a stepping stone from Killteam but terrible for balance.

Missions seem like a big step forward especially in layout.

Unfortunately going first tends to equal winning.

The secondary missions are all over the shop in twrms of scores and difficulty, still think these need refining.

Assault will definataly be a thing but shooting is also still important, you're really going to be best of with primary shooting with some fast puncher units to take objectives.

Consensus was the Indomitaous Marine force seems tailor made for these missions bar the assulat intercessors.

Anyone have suggestions on what GW could do to lower the mortality rate? Watched a few youtube videos and it still seems too high. If they want the game to be about objectives and movement, they really need to lower the mortality rate a bit.

 argonak wrote:
Anyone have suggestions on what GW could do to lower the mortality rate? Watched a few youtube videos and it still seems too high. If they want the game to be about objectives and movement, they really need to lower the mortality rate a bit.

Redesign marines as everyone else has had to have their damage output jacked up to conpete with their insanity.

Handing out free AP and additional bonuses like they did killed any concept of the lethality in the game going down not up.

Lowering the amount of shots across the board would most likely help in that regard.

Back in the day we had Rhinos with just a Storm Bolter and maybe a Hunter Seeker Missile, then came the dreaded Wave Serpent that had the fire output of 4 Chimeras (IIRC) in 4th edition and a few editions later we look at "shoot twice if you meet the criteria" units like Aggressors, Repulsors and Eradicator.

I'm mostly naming Marines, but 18 shot Riptides are equally as bad as are other units like that.

The Primaris Problem is responsible for the added weight of fire and hence the added lethality.

There is absolutely no indication GW thinks this is a problem, mind you. Especially when you look at the changes from 8th to 9th. Lethality is up in 9th, not down, and that's surely not because they're too incompetent to know what they're doing.

The game has been getting more lethal for two editions now, consistently. That's not a coincidence. GW likes games where one or both players end up with nothing or almost nothing on the table by the end of the game.

Been playing Patrol games to focus on learning core game mechanics. Fun, one hour games. I am lucky to have a basement gaming table and opponents in my bubble.

My impression continues to be that Terrain is the largest single change from 8th edition, followed by the CP system. Look Out Sir continues to be something I need to check myself on as I play. 8th Edition movement/deployment habits will kill characters! Vehicles moving and not suffering a heavy weapon penalty is also great. Cohency has not come up yet since the small games means we have MSUs.

 argonak wrote:
Anyone have suggestions on what GW could do to lower the mortality rate? Watched a few youtube videos and it still seems too high. If they want the game to be about objectives and movement, they really need to lower the mortality rate a bit.

Points values. Make sure all those units that can shoot high quantity of shots pay for the privilege.

Really, that is the one piece of 9th Edition that is really missing. If they point things out correctly, it will be great. If they miss badly, it will be horrible despite the rules changes.

It always comes back to miscosted units.

Just like 8th, 9th is a really good system when Loyalist Marines are not being used. You actually get interesting games that truly go the full five turns.

I guess we'll just have to see how impactful those marine point increases are in comparison to everything else. A 50% increase for the TFC is great, but that almost feels like the points it should be currently, so really shouldn't it be even higher with the 9th points inflation?

I dunno about that. Miscosted units make the problem worse, but even if you tuned up the value of killing power, you'd still end up with armies that killed and were killed super fast, there's just be fewer models on the table.

That said, with the current mission structure, the more you boost durability, the more you just end up boosting first-turn advantage even higher, something that's already a problem in the new missions. So it's a tough problem to address with the constraints they've put on themselves.

 Bosskelot wrote:
Just like 8th, 9th is a really good system when Loyalist Marines are not being used. You actually get interesting games that truly go the full five turns.

I guess we'll just have to see how impactful those marine point increases are in comparison to everything else. A 50% increase for the TFC is great, but that almost feels like the points it should be currently, so really shouldn't it be even higher with the 9th points inflation?

That is too broad of a statement. I'm sure you would have an enjoyable game against my melee focused Primaris BA. They are not weak by virtue of being Primaris (and they did get really good rules last year), but it is far from the same feeling as going against a gunline that simply deletes a bunch of units each turn.

Shooting output / efficiency is too high across the board imho.

The real answer is that lethality is always going to have to be exceptionally high in a system where morale is just another way to kill dudes, i.e. where morale adds to lethality instead of lowering it, as it ought to.

When your game is decided by standing around on objectives and the only way to stop someone from standing on an objective is to kill them, you're going to end up with either a very lethal or a very boring game. It's either kill everybody, or "see who can get more guys standing within the objective's range while they punch each other ineffectively," and neither of those makes for a great game.

If only you could, like, demoralize the enemy unit so badly that they had to fall back off the objective, leaving you to consolidate on it. I'm sure there's a good term we could come up with to describe this situation...

Yeah but I'm told units falling back isn't "fun" or "exciting" and is "frustrating".

Well there you have it. GW is all-in on the "morale should add to lethality in the game, not reduce it" and as long as that's the case, you're always going to have exceptionally lethal games. Morale (broadly stated, doesn't have to be just fleeing, it could also be debuff mechanics) is the only real way to control lethality in an objective-based game without it devolving into who can get more models onto the objective.