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 GangstaMuffin24 wrote:
I know fluff =/= crunch, but isn't part of the fantasy of 40k two (or more) massive forces clashing and each side suffering casualties from insanely overpowered weapons every faction has?

Does anyone feel good when they have more than 1/2 their army left and their opponent is all but tabled? I know I feel like something went wrong when that happens.

Its in the nature of the game, being able to attack your opponents ability to attack you and the IGUO system.

As you lose models you become less able to retaliate so all other things being equal you do less damage back and this snowballs.

alternate activation would lessen the chance of this happening since it would be more back and forth but if one side starts to do better then the other it will still snowball the same way.

Its not like a game of football where me scoring has no real impact on your ability to score.

yukishiro1 wrote:

 GangstaMuffin24 wrote:
I know fluff =/= crunch, but isn't part of the fantasy of 40k two (or more) massive forces clashing and each side suffering casualties from insanely overpowered weapons every faction has?

Does anyone feel good when they have more than 1/2 their army left and their opponent is all but tabled? I know I feel like something went wrong when that happens.

I feel like what went wrong is that they lost their whole army.

Games are more interesting if 90% of them don't end in one side or the other being tabled.

Lethality has been too high in 40k since the launch of 8th, and it's only gotten worse.

Based on the way the game plays, nobody would be left in the fluff because all the special characters die in at least half the games they feature in, if not more.

Even at 5th ed levels of lethality, this would be true. Tau or Eldar can shoot an entire chapter off the table in an afternoon. 40K's scaling has never made any sense for marines.

Played a ton of games over the weekend. My group played 850 on Saturday and 1850 on Sunday. Everyone got around 4 games in on Saturday and 2 or 3 in on Sunday.

Impressions so far - It's not faster. Once you've gotten to the point where you aren't looking up rules or reminding yourself what "that" terrain piece does, it plays about the same, or ever so slightly longer than 8th. The morale phase occasionally pushed the time out just slightly longer in some games. If you had a few large squads that needed to roll for attrition, or you just had a brutal turn where everyone was rolling, that could add just a little bit of length, but not an extreme amount. So over-all, not faster by any means, but not nearly as slow as I had feared it would be.

I think the missions are a big step back. The way a lot of them are structured, if you go first and you get a tough squad onto two objectives turn 1, and hold through turn 2, it becomes almost impossible for the opponent to catch up. This gets even worse in the larger size games because big armies can screen out reinforcements due to the smaller board size. Guard were tough, and Cult of Duplicity turns out to be worth its weight in gold this edition. I actually not only used my Scarab Terminators, they turned out to be MVPs. But, like I said, the missions need some reworking or it will be another edition where we don't use the GW missions. While GW has done a decent job of preventing Alpha Strike, going first is arguably even more powerful than it was previously, so that's a issue. If you are going second, you will need both speed, AND the ability to hit super hard or you're probably toast. The secondaries rarely make up for not getting the turn 1 jump.

We also felt the game played better at the smaller size. It prevented armies from screening out reinforcements and just felt better and cleaner. At the larger size, it started to get a little hinky. Like it wasn't meant for a game that size. Probably we just need to play more games of it, but it just didn't feel "right".


TL;DR:

1. As usual, not nearly as fast as GW said it would be, but not nearly as slow as I feared it would be
2. New morale can add some length to the game but 5 man Ultramarine units are no longer essentially immune to it either
3. GSC may need a significant rewrite as they just had too much trouble "functioning" under these rules and build restrictions
4. Game felt MUCH better at 850 than it did at 1850 - not sure why
5. GO FIRST!!!

EDIT:

Forgot to mention the biggest thing we ran into - Rhino Rush is back with a vengeance. At times it felt like 3rd edition all over again. I do not look forward to seeing Assault Intercessors in Impulsors. That's gonna be ugly ...

Once again, how did GW's "playtesters" miss this first turn phenomenon?

Martel732 wrote:
Once again, how did GW's "playtesters" miss this first turn phenomenon?

Perhaps don't jump to conclusions based on one or two posts with minimal experience?

It may prove to be the case, but let's see. This isn't something that is categorically provable at this point.

Umbros wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Once again, how did GW's "playtesters" miss this first turn phenomenon?

Perhaps don't jump to conclusions based on one or two posts with minimal experience?

It may prove to be the case, but let's see. This isn't something that is categorically provable at this point.

This isn't the only place I'm hearing this from.

Martel732 wrote:
Once again, how did GW's "playtesters" miss this first turn phenomenon?

I might not be such a big problem. If both players deploy defensively then the player going first will probably not do much damage. But by grabbing midfield objectives he might expose himself and be suspectible of easy t1 charges from even foot sloggers.
We will see when we have played more games and adjusted to the new rules

Perhaps don't jump to conclusions based on one or two posts with minimal experience?

It may prove to be the case, but let's see. This isn't something that is categorically provable at this point.

Yeah, I want to stress these are just early opinions. I do think it's going to prove to be a problem, but honestly, if it is, it's a pretty easy fix. They're basically using old Adepticon scoring. The community moved away from this years ago for the reasons I posted above. If it turns out my first impressions are correct, it can be fixed with a three sentence FAQ simply changing when the objectives are scored.

So over-all, that's a pretty simple potential fix and I'm not too worried about it yet. I also think some armies are going to be really good at going second. Death Company Assault INtercessors in Impulsors are going to be able to kick a lot of things off of objectives so they may not be hurt as bad as say, my Death Guard would be by going second. It will take some time to really shake out, but I don't think it's a game-breaking issue. It could be fixed quickly and easily. The good news is that it really does seem like they fixed the Alpha Strike issue.

Ragnar69 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Once again, how did GW's "playtesters" miss this first turn phenomenon?

I might not be such a big problem. If both players deploy defensively then the player going first will probably not do much damage. But by grabbing midfield objectives he might expose himself and be suspectible of easy t1 charges from even foot sloggers.
We will see when we have played more games and adjusted to the new rules

With the amount of flying units, hence ignoring terrain and the need to jump on objectives that first turn advantage is huge, unless your filling the table with obscuring terrain, you can be possitioned to score while throwing the first punch, slower armies relying on LoS shooting may struggle but plenty of lists can still drop quite the damage output turn 1 and still hold or atleast be poised to storm the objectives with the upper hand turn 2.

Going second in the GW BRB missions is distinctly lacking in upaide currently.

Martel732 wrote:
Once again, how did GW's "playtesters" miss this first turn phenomenon?

Because the advantage is being overstated. Your opponent isn't holding all the objectives strongly and you need to be flexible enough to deal with that.

There's also the question of the tournament mission format.

Doesn't sound like it, honestly. Sounds like GW has undone all the progress ITC made on this topic.

Martel732 wrote:
Doesn't sound like it, honestly. Sounds like GW has undone all the progress ITC made on this topic.

I think CA19 did more than ITC did and ITC picked up that section. We'll have the "proper" missions soon enough.

In the tabletop titans games they've been playing, there's definitely some first turn advantage but there also looks to be a last turn advantage too due to when objectives score. I'll hold off judging it for a month, but I suspect once people adjust it'll be an issue, but not a massive one.

Because the advantage is being overstated. Your opponent isn't holding all the objectives strongly and you need to be flexible enough to deal with that.

What we found was that it was army dependent. That's probably going to be the key. 10 Rubrics backed by Exalted Sorcerers and/or DPs and a 5 man Scarab squad was proving tough to shift. Especially on those occasions when the objective was in defensible terrain. Going first, I could drop that combo on 2-3 objectives on my first turn and a lot of armies struggled to deal with that.

We had heard some reviews where they stated placing "blocking" terrain in between objectives helped, but if you have something like Tsons that can bounce around at will, it was very hard to shift them depending on what I was facing. Given that this edition is unkind to light infantry, and the build restrictions make it hard for GSC to use their characters in the same way, they had a rough go of it. On the other hand, Marine armies with strong flyers and Aggressors/Intercessors loaded up in transports didn't struggle nearly as much when going second.

 Ordana wrote:

 GangstaMuffin24 wrote:
I know fluff =/= crunch, but isn't part of the fantasy of 40k two (or more) massive forces clashing and each side suffering casualties from insanely overpowered weapons every faction has?

Does anyone feel good when they have more than 1/2 their army left and their opponent is all but tabled? I know I feel like something went wrong when that happens.

Its in the nature of the game, being able to attack your opponents ability to attack you and the IGUO system.

As you lose models you become less able to retaliate so all other things being equal you do less damage back and this snowballs.

alternate activation would lessen the chance of this happening since it would be more back and forth but if one side starts to do better then the other it will still snowball the same way.

Its not like a game of football where me scoring has no real impact on your ability to score.

I understand what you're saying. I'm not saying that I don't understand how that can happen or that I even see it happen often. I was speaking specifically to the 'lethality' of units in the game.

Tycho wrote:

Because the advantage is being overstated. Your opponent isn't holding all the objectives strongly and you need to be flexible enough to deal with that.

What we found was that it was army dependent. That's probably going to be the key. 10 Rubrics backed by Exalted Sorcerers and/or DPs and a 5 man Scarab squad was proving tough to shift. Especially on those occasions when the objective was in defensible terrain. Going first, I could drop that combo on 2-3 objectives on my first turn and a lot of armies struggled to deal with that.

We had heard some reviews where they stated placing "blocking" terrain in between objectives helped, but if you have something like Tsons that can bounce around at will, it was very hard to shift them depending on what I was facing. Given that this edition is unkind to light infantry, and the build restrictions make it hard for GSC to use their characters in the same way, they had a rough go of it. On the other hand, Marine armies with strong flyers and Aggressors/Intercessors loaded up in transports didn't struggle nearly as much when going second.

Objectives cannot be in Defensible terrain, or actually in any terrain.

While that is true it's easy enough to control and objective from surrounding terrain especially with the new smaller board sizes.

Makes a lot of difference if it is near, or is inside it.

If it is near, I will just walk some obsec cheap bodies to the objective and negate it.

Spoletta wrote:
Makes a lot of difference if it is near, or is inside it.

If it is near, I will just walk some obsec cheap bodies to the objective and negate it.

Appart from the fact your dudes have to survive the turn in the open to score, yes you can prevent your opponent scoring for a turn but it's still not really stopping them if they have obsec in range either as they're more likely to survive multiplw turns than your mooks in the open.

I tried out 9th Ed with a buddy yesterday. I ran Tyranids (Kraken), he ran Imperial Fists. We rolled No Man's Land for the mission. We played unoptimized lists with a variety of units to try to get a feel for general changes to the game.

He got the first turn, and bunkered up in his deployment zone with his main force while a Storm Eagle flew into my backfield.

I rushed onto the objectives and blew up the Storm Eagle with shooting, and from there the outcome was pretty much determined. His army was all cozy up in his fort (he brought an Aegis Defense Line), but with me holding three out of the four objectives there was just no way to catch up. His cover bonus stacking made his infantry units nigh-impossible to kill, but they were also holed up and unable to push forward.

I don't think this is necessarily going to be a first-turn-I-win sort of game. The player who goes second has their whole army to work with for killing whatever's grabbed objectives, and obsec will definitely help too. Both players have the same amount of delay between when they can get on a point and when they actually score.

One thing is for certain, though- an army that doesn't push early is going to lose. Slow-moving aura blobs are going to lose. Static gunlines are going to lose. Simple as that. You can still use deep strike to grab objectives, and strategic reserves provide a lot more options for late-game objective-grabbing, but since they can be screened out by whoever gets to the objective first, an army that starts with nothing fast on the board is going to have a harder time playing to the mission.

I think we're going to see more balanced list composition going forward, designed around winning objectives rather than just killing- fast units are useful for getting to objectives quickly and then screening out DS, and large units of infantry being both more durable against morale damage and easier to hide from LOS makes an obsec objective-hugger more difficult to shift. You can try spamming Heavy Support, but focusing on firepower at the expense of mobility is now a real trade-off.

Oh, and terrain also matters much more now. We played with a mixture of short obscuring trees (can see through, but shoot at -1), buildings, and tall LOS-blocking forests. The terrain rules aren't explicit about it but seem to imply that vehicles and monsters can't enter forests, which is a bit of a head-scratcher, but otherwise the limitations on shooting made maneuver much more important, especially as it relates to the objectives.

Edit: Oh yeah, I really noticed that the comparative lack of Overwatch makes melee more useful as a generalist tool. I couldn't trap anything in melee, but once I baited out Overwatch then I was free to throw small units of Termagants or Rippers into strong shooting units to shut them down for a turn. The feeling of shooting getting to double-dip against melee has been greatly diminished. I'm still not convinced that melee specialists are really going to work better than under 8th, but charging shooting units doesn't feel quite so suicidal. I expect that to revert once GW starts handing out free Overwatch to anyone and everyone, as they are sure to do.

Objectives cannot be in Defensible terrain, or actually in any terrain.

I know. We started experimenting. lol

I should have said that. My bad.

Tycho wrote:
Forgot to mention the biggest thing we ran into - Rhino Rush is back with a vengeance. At times it felt like 3rd edition all over again. I do not look forward to seeing Assault Intercessors in Impulsors. That's gonna be ugly ...

Can this be elaborated on? I've seen this mentioned a few times now and I'd like to know what's up.

Also I have a ton of Rhinos.

Had 4 test-games this weekend, and I thoroughly enjoyed them all.

I consider basically every change from 8th to be a step in the right direction, and there was nothing added that I dislike, quite the opposite in fact.

One thing they should've added however is a rule that prevent units from charging anything in the opponents deployment zone on turn one if the owning player goes first.

First-turn-charges was stupid in 8th and they'll be equally stupid in 9th.

 Insectum7 wrote:

Tycho wrote:
Forgot to mention the biggest thing we ran into - Rhino Rush is back with a vengeance. At times it felt like 3rd edition all over again. I do not look forward to seeing Assault Intercessors in Impulsors. That's gonna be ugly ...

Can this be elaborated on? I've seen this mentioned a few times now and I'd like to know what's up.

Also I have a ton of Rhinos.

I genuinely doubt it's going to be rhino rush per say as you can't disembark after moving while you can with impulsor spam.

The missions realy push you to get obsec on objectives turn 1-3 hard as you score at the start of your turn before you move.

Meaning turn 1 is often an odd rush of possitioni ng and threat removal to start your runaway victory.

 Insectum7 wrote:

Tycho wrote:
Forgot to mention the biggest thing we ran into - Rhino Rush is back with a vengeance. At times it felt like 3rd edition all over again. I do not look forward to seeing Assault Intercessors in Impulsors. That's gonna be ugly ...

Can this be elaborated on? I've seen this mentioned a few times now and I'd like to know what's up.

Also I have a ton of Rhinos.

I've been running a double combi-melta & havoc rhino. I wouldn't have spent the points on those upgrades before, because if it got tagged they're useless and a rhino that wants to move gives a penalty to the havoc. Now if someone wants to change me they'll take a couple melta plus a handful of bolter shots to the face.

Shooting into combat doesn't happen often, but the psychology of how you use units does.

Couple that with getting on objectives. If you go first and hop on top with a rhino it is that much harder to get you off the objective immediately.

 catbarf wrote:
I tried out 9th Ed with a buddy yesterday. I ran Tyranids (Kraken), he ran Imperial Fists. We rolled No Man's Land for the mission. We played unoptimized lists with a variety of units to try to get a feel for general changes to the game.

It sounds like your buddy was playing specifically the kind of list that isn't supposed to work any more in 9th; good to hear he lost big time with it, we've been taking it at face value that static shooting isn't good anymore but I hadn't seen any batreps that had actually tried it yet.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

Tycho wrote:
Forgot to mention the biggest thing we ran into - Rhino Rush is back with a vengeance. At times it felt like 3rd edition all over again. I do not look forward to seeing Assault Intercessors in Impulsors. That's gonna be ugly ...

Can this be elaborated on? I've seen this mentioned a few times now and I'd like to know what's up.

Also I have a ton of Rhinos.

I've been running a double combi-melta & havoc rhino. I wouldn't have spent the points on those upgrades before, because if it got tagged they're useless and a rhino that wants to move gives a penalty to the havoc. Now if someone wants to change me they'll take a couple melta plus a handful of bolter shots to the face.

Shooting into combat doesn't happen often, but the psychology of how you use units does.

Couple that with getting on objectives. If you go first and hop on top with a rhino it is that much harder to get you off the objective immediately.

I'm confused. Are you using the Melta too shoot out of the Rhino and into combat or something? Is that a thing?

It's a heretic thing he's using the combi melta the rhino has to shoot into combat with the unit that charges the rhino.

As vehicals and monsters can fire at units in CC with them now.

Ice_can wrote:
It's a heretic thing he's using the combi melta the rhino has to shoot into combat with the unit that charges the rhino.

As vehicals and monsters can fire at units in CC with them now.

Ahhh, right. I forgot they had that option. I was thinking he was running a Havoc Squad and then a 5-man CSM squad with combi-meltas. Brain fart.

 Insectum7 wrote:
I'm confused. Are you using the Melta too shoot out of the Rhino and into combat or something? Is that a thing?

Not shooting into combat much, but previously taking a rhino with guns was kind of dumb. A rhino wants to be closer to the enemy. If you get close and tagged you wasted points on guns. Now you don't have to worry as much. Now if something that wants to charge has to worry about two melta shots and combi-bolters the next turn.

Couple that with getting on objectives soon and transports seem to become a lot more fun.