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 auticus wrote:
Honestly they just need to get rid of any farce that is a morale system altogether. Putting a rule in that has little to no effect is largely a waste IMO.

We get it GW. Morale "isn't fun".

in my experience, it has an effect, it just doesn't have the effect it used to have of just guaranteed finishing off low model count armies.

The main effect now, in a normal game with no LD shenanigans, is to add a few extra casualties to infantry squads that get shot up.

I expect that as 9th ed codexes are released, we will see abilities that modify the attrition roll.

I played a game of Sisters V Tyranids and honestly the takeaway that sums it all up for me is this: If you liked 8th you'll like 9th and if you don't like 8th you'll probably feel the same about 9th.

I would suggest removing the 'morale' system though. It's just wasting everyones time.

in my experience, it has an effect, it just doesn't have the effect it used to have of just guaranteed finishing off low model count armies.

The main effect now, in a normal game with no LD shenanigans, is to add a few extra casualties to infantry squads that get shot up.

Honestly, not even. The main effect now is that Morale is friendlier to hordes. They don't auto-fail as easily, and they don't lose as many off the bat when they do fail. That seems like the only change at this point.

It feels like the classic GW over-reaction. There was a time when you had multiple levels of things like "fear" and failing a morale test caused a lot of rules to kick in. This slowed the game down and could become un-fun. Rather than find a middle-ground, they've essentially eliminated it.

Morale is supposed to be a way to reduce lethality, not increase it. GW has got it totally backwards for two editions now. If all morale is is another way to kill dudes, there is no reason to have it at all.

Tycho wrote:

in my experience, it has an effect, it just doesn't have the effect it used to have of just guaranteed finishing off low model count armies.

The main effect now, in a normal game with no LD shenanigans, is to add a few extra casualties to infantry squads that get shot up.

Honestly, not even. The main effect now is that Morale is friendlier to hordes. They don't auto-fail as easily, and they don't lose as many off the bat when they do fail. That seems like the only change at this point.

It feels like the classic GW over-reaction. There was a time when you had multiple levels of things like "fear" and failing a morale test caused a lot of rules to kick in. This slowed the game down and could become un-fun. Rather than find a middle-ground, they've essentially eliminated it.

They autofail just as easily. That's actually my main problem with morale as it stands in 9th - it seems like it goes from a hyper-remote chance to a "anything but one" fairly quickly.

Unless you're playing space marines or MSU, in which case it's just never really a thing.

It's also deeply, deeply stupid that a unit of 5 that loses 4 men is less likely to fail a morale check than a unit of 30 that loses 6.

The whole morale system from 8th edition on is a complete mess, a textbook case of not thinking through what you want your system to actually accomplish before implementing it. It adds nothing to the game. If they were convinced that morale lowering lethality "wasn't fun" they should have just removed it entirely, not come up with this stupid half-measure that just makes the game even more lethal in ways that make absolutely no sense.

They autofail just as easily. That's actually my main problem with morale as it stands in 9th - it seems like it goes from a hyper-remote chance to a "anything but one" fairly quickly.

Unless you're playing space marines or MSU, in which case it's just never really a thing.

This is accurate. I said "Auto-Fail" but what I meant was, WHEN they fail, they aren't just deleted off the board automatically since you lose the first model on the "fail" and then roll individually for each other model. Rather than blowing it by a huge number and then auto-removing a huge chunk of models off the bat. From that standpoint, I guess it's better, but it feels kind of like "the same but different". Like nothing was really "solved" or "fixed". Which is the general feeling I'm starting to get as a whole about 9th, but (understatement of the year incoming) it's still stupid early so who knows how it all ends up shaking out. Most of this just doesn't feel like legit "improvements" and more just "well we had to change something".

The two things that were mostly fixed were terrain (if you didn't use ITC rules) and Look Out Sir.

The two things that were mostly fixed were terrain (if you didn't use ITC rules) and Look Out Sir.

Right. Which really didn't require a new edition and could have been handled via CA. While I agree these are good improvements I'm very much left with a "why did we do this?" kind of feel. I figured this would end with myself and my group either really hating it, or (and this was an outside shot) really loving it, so it's kind of weird for us to just be feeling so "meh" about it.

I don't think they hit really any of the metrics they were shooting for (and honestly, without a more drastic change to the core rules, I wasn't expecting them to), but it's not a "bad" rule set either. It's probably just a case of having expected an extreme, getting something that fell really luke warm instead, and now just having to adjust.

Kind of like when you go to a movie that was billed as one type of film, but it turns out to be something else and your initial reaction is negative because of that, but you watch it again a year later w/different expectations and actually enjoy it.

yukishiro1 wrote:
It's also deeply, deeply stupid that a unit of 5 that loses 4 men is less likely to fail a morale check than a unit of 30 that loses 6.

The whole morale system from 8th edition on is a complete mess, a textbook case of not thinking through what you want your system to actually accomplish before implementing it. It adds nothing to the game. If they were convinced that morale lowering lethality "wasn't fun" they should have just removed it entirely, not come up with this stupid half-measure that just makes the game even more lethal in ways that make absolutely no sense.

From a real life logical sense, yes it seems silly. I don't think it is as silly from a balance perspective when negative leadership mods will affect those MSUs more than the big blob. So marines are pretty resolute, but I'll be curious to see what happens when a butcher cannon kills an Eradicator and Haarken is nearby (18") - 25% or so to kill another model or two for having done no other work seems pretty ok to me.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
It's also deeply, deeply stupid that a unit of 5 that loses 4 men is less likely to fail a morale check than a unit of 30 that loses 6.

The whole morale system from 8th edition on is a complete mess, a textbook case of not thinking through what you want your system to actually accomplish before implementing it. It adds nothing to the game. If they were convinced that morale lowering lethality "wasn't fun" they should have just removed it entirely, not come up with this stupid half-measure that just makes the game even more lethal in ways that make absolutely no sense.

From a real life logical sense, yes it seems silly. I don't think it is as silly from a balance perspective when negative leadership mods will affect those MSUs more than the big blob. So marines are pretty resolute, but I'll be curious to see what happens when a butcher cannon kills an Eradicator and Haarken is nearby (18") - 25% or so to kill another model or two for having done no other work seems pretty ok to me.

Leadership mods are either equally (in the case of auras) or more (in the case of targeted) effective against large units as they are against MSUs.

I would much rather face 2 units of 30 ork boyz than 6 units of 10 with my ld-shenanigan eldar army.

the_scotsman wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
It's also deeply, deeply stupid that a unit of 5 that loses 4 men is less likely to fail a morale check than a unit of 30 that loses 6.

The whole morale system from 8th edition on is a complete mess, a textbook case of not thinking through what you want your system to actually accomplish before implementing it. It adds nothing to the game. If they were convinced that morale lowering lethality "wasn't fun" they should have just removed it entirely, not come up with this stupid half-measure that just makes the game even more lethal in ways that make absolutely no sense.

From a real life logical sense, yes it seems silly. I don't think it is as silly from a balance perspective when negative leadership mods will affect those MSUs more than the big blob. So marines are pretty resolute, but I'll be curious to see what happens when a butcher cannon kills an Eradicator and Haarken is nearby (18") - 25% or so to kill another model or two for having done no other work seems pretty ok to me.

Leadership mods are either equally (in the case of auras) or more (in the case of targeted) effective against large units as they are against MSUs.

I would much rather face 2 units of 30 ork boyz than 6 units of 10 with my ld-shenanigan eldar army.

Not sure I follow, but i'm not familiar with the Eldar set up, either.

LD debuffs tend to be mostly aura based. I'll use marines, because Orks have Mob Rule and that just makes the scenario wonky to assess (and unlikely). So two 5 mans and 1 10 man. All have -3 to LD. Kill 3 models from each 5 man. LD5 means fail on 3s. 1 + 33% of the last model for each unit. So, 66% * 2.7 = 1.8 (ignore ATSKNF for the discussion). That means 6 models from the 10 man. That unit was already going to fail on a 3+ so the LD debuff means nothing. If you instead killed 3 models from the 10 man you get the same chance failure as the 5 mans. Factor in how Primaris are harder to kill and morale becomes a painful experience.

LD debuffs seem to be about applying less force and got a greater result. I don't know if they'll actually work this time, but it seems worth a try.

LD debuffs seem to be about applying less force and got a greater result. I don't know if they'll actually work this time, but it seems worth a try.

I mean maybe? Once the actual 9th codexes come out? But still - probably not really? I think the new morale is more forgiving generally than the previous version so idk?

 Daedalus81 wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
It's also deeply, deeply stupid that a unit of 5 that loses 4 men is less likely to fail a morale check than a unit of 30 that loses 6.

The whole morale system from 8th edition on is a complete mess, a textbook case of not thinking through what you want your system to actually accomplish before implementing it. It adds nothing to the game. If they were convinced that morale lowering lethality "wasn't fun" they should have just removed it entirely, not come up with this stupid half-measure that just makes the game even more lethal in ways that make absolutely no sense.

From a real life logical sense, yes it seems silly. I don't think it is as silly from a balance perspective when negative leadership mods will affect those MSUs more than the big blob. So marines are pretty resolute, but I'll be curious to see what happens when a butcher cannon kills an Eradicator and Haarken is nearby (18") - 25% or so to kill another model or two for having done no other work seems pretty ok to me.

Leadership mods are either equally (in the case of auras) or more (in the case of targeted) effective against large units as they are against MSUs.

I would much rather face 2 units of 30 ork boyz than 6 units of 10 with my ld-shenanigan eldar army.

Not sure I follow, but i'm not familiar with the Eldar set up, either.

LD debuffs tend to be mostly aura based. I'll use marines, because Orks have Mob Rule and that just makes the scenario wonky to assess (and unlikely). So two 5 mans and 1 10 man. All have -3 to LD. Kill 3 models from each 5 man. LD5 means fail on 3s. 1 + 33% of the last model for each unit. So, 66% * 2.7 = 1.8 (ignore ATSKNF for the discussion). That means 6 models from the 10 man. That unit was already going to fail on a 3+ so the LD debuff means nothing. If you instead killed 3 models from the 10 man you get the same chance failure as the 5 mans. Factor in how Primaris are harder to kill and morale becomes a painful experience.

LD debuffs seem to be about applying less force and got a greater result. I don't know if they'll actually work this time, but it seems worth a try.

if my opponent fields 10-man marine squads I can kill 5 of them and stick them with a -2ld penalty to cause them to autofail on anything but a 1. With ATSKNF though LD debuffs are largely pointless vs marines, which is the reason morale doesn't work as a mechanic to build your army around because 75%-ish of games you'll play are against some kind of loyalist marine, and they've got about a 30% chance of just autopassing no matter what you do.

I suppose if you really are committed to MSU marines as the example, I can see playing the numbers game vs a ton of 5-man squads where you stack all your aura debuffs up and you get them to like -4, then ping one model off each squad and play the numbers game on the ones that will roll 4, 5, or 6.

But that's only because committing does not work vs marines. They've got their stupid reroll morale with the stupid autopass on a 1 in 9th ed. you have to just try to get whatever you can salvage vs them.

 Tyran wrote:
The two things that were mostly fixed were terrain (if you didn't use ITC rules) and Look Out Sir.

How was terrain fixed? It just seems more annoying to me.

the_scotsman wrote:


if my opponent fields 10-man marine squads I can kill 5 of them and stick them with a -2ld penalty to cause them to autofail on anything but a 1. With ATSKNF though LD debuffs are largely pointless vs marines, which is the reason morale doesn't work as a mechanic to build your army around because 75%-ish of games you'll play are against some kind of loyalist marine, and they've got about a 30% chance of just autopassing no matter what you do.

I suppose if you really are committed to MSU marines as the example, I can see playing the numbers game vs a ton of 5-man squads where you stack all your aura debuffs up and you get them to like -4, then ping one model off each squad and play the numbers game on the ones that will roll 4, 5, or 6.

But that's only because committing does not work vs marines. They've got their stupid reroll morale with the stupid autopass on a 1 in 9th ed. you have to just try to get whatever you can salvage vs them.

I think the silver lining is that even if you get them to a 33% chance of failure that failure hurts a whole lot more when its a W3/W4 model.

If you can build an army around debuffs without gimping yourself it might be fun to see in action.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:


if my opponent fields 10-man marine squads I can kill 5 of them and stick them with a -2ld penalty to cause them to autofail on anything but a 1. With ATSKNF though LD debuffs are largely pointless vs marines, which is the reason morale doesn't work as a mechanic to build your army around because 75%-ish of games you'll play are against some kind of loyalist marine, and they've got about a 30% chance of just autopassing no matter what you do.

I suppose if you really are committed to MSU marines as the example, I can see playing the numbers game vs a ton of 5-man squads where you stack all your aura debuffs up and you get them to like -4, then ping one model off each squad and play the numbers game on the ones that will roll 4, 5, or 6.

But that's only because committing does not work vs marines. They've got their stupid reroll morale with the stupid autopass on a 1 in 9th ed. you have to just try to get whatever you can salvage vs them.

I think the silver lining is that even if you get them to a 33% chance of failure that failure hurts a whole lot more when its a W3/W4 model.

If you can build an army around debuffs without gimping yourself it might be fun to see in action.

That might be a valid excuse if there weren't multiwound armies like Custodes and CSM that don't get the same rule on everything for free for no reason.

Maybe if a new codex comes out and switches out some of the LD debuffs for Attrition Roll debuffs then we might be able to get something going. I would love it if the Death Jester, Phantasm Grenade Launchers, Shards of Light and Terrify all became -1 to Attrition tests with a rule that said they didn't stack, that would probably be enough to make aeldari LD shenanigan armies a thing again, combined with the current proliferation of -ld auras from the various subfaction tactics, relics and Spooky Plane.

pm713 wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
The two things that were mostly fixed were terrain (if you didn't use ITC rules) and Look Out Sir.

How was terrain fixed? It just seems more annoying to me.

Because it exists. The 8th edition rulebook had extremely bare-bones rules for terrain.

pm713 wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
The two things that were mostly fixed were terrain (if you didn't use ITC rules) and Look Out Sir.

How was terrain fixed? It just seems more annoying to me.

Forests are the big thing that I enjoy. They cover so much of the table.

I can be anywhere from within that forest to any of the space behind it and I claim -1 to be hit. Even for weapons that ignore LOS. I can be in a ruins behind that forest and pick up light cover as well.

Beyond that the way models interact with terrain is more clear. There's also terrain to slow movement so defended positions are a thing.

 Tyran wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
The two things that were mostly fixed were terrain (if you didn't use ITC rules) and Look Out Sir.

How was terrain fixed? It just seems more annoying to me.

Because it exists. The 8th edition rulebook had extremely bare-bones rules for terrain.

With GW I'd take the barebone rules over their attempts at fleshing it out.

Honestly the only thing that seems decent about it is the addition of movement penalties for defensive terrain like Daedalus mentioned. Everything else is unhelpful clunk.

pm713 wrote:

 Tyran wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
The two things that were mostly fixed were terrain (if you didn't use ITC rules) and Look Out Sir.

How was terrain fixed? It just seems more annoying to me.

Because it exists. The 8th edition rulebook had extremely bare-bones rules for terrain.

With GW I'd take the barebone rules over their attempts at fleshing it out.

Honestly the only thing that seems decent about it is the addition of movement penalties for defensive terrain like Daedalus mentioned. Everything else is unhelpful clunk.

Then don't play with it?

 GangstaMuffin24 wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 Tyran wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
The two things that were mostly fixed were terrain (if you didn't use ITC rules) and Look Out Sir.

How was terrain fixed? It just seems more annoying to me.

Because it exists. The 8th edition rulebook had extremely bare-bones rules for terrain.

With GW I'd take the barebone rules over their attempts at fleshing it out.

Honestly the only thing that seems decent about it is the addition of movement penalties for defensive terrain like Daedalus mentioned. Everything else is unhelpful clunk.

Then don't play with it?

I probably won't but last I checked I'm allowed to talk about it.

I haven't gotten to play the new edition yet, how are primaris infiltrators with the new missions? I have like the idea of them since they released, but haven't gotten any yet.

The difficulty with infiltrating units is that you have to deploy them before you know whether you're going first or not, which means that if you put them on an objective and then go second they just get shot off the objective T1 and maybe even used as a charge spring-board for your opponent to consolidate their hold of the objective even more strongly than they otherwise would have. Meanwhile since you don't score on T1, there's not really that much of an incentive to place them on that objective anyway.

Cheap infiltrators like nurglings are still awesome because you can use them to move-block to keep people from getting to the objective at all. But infiltrators cost too much for that, which puts them in a little bit of a tricky place IMO.

pm713 wrote:

Honestly the only thing that seems decent about it is the addition of movement penalties for defensive terrain like Daedalus mentioned. Everything else is unhelpful clunk.

Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion man.

pm713 wrote:

 GangstaMuffin24 wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 Tyran wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
The two things that were mostly fixed were terrain (if you didn't use ITC rules) and Look Out Sir.

How was terrain fixed? It just seems more annoying to me.

Because it exists. The 8th edition rulebook had extremely bare-bones rules for terrain.

With GW I'd take the barebone rules over their attempts at fleshing it out.

Honestly the only thing that seems decent about it is the addition of movement penalties for defensive terrain like Daedalus mentioned. Everything else is unhelpful clunk.

Then don't play with it?

I probably won't but last I checked I'm allowed to talk about it.

You're also allowed to be wrong about it. Movement penalties being the best part? You must be high because that's the only part that doesn't matter at all. That's like going to disney land and having your favorite part be that there were a good number of trash cans.

 UncleJetMints wrote:
I haven't gotten to play the new edition yet, how are primaris infiltrators with the new missions? I have like the idea of them since they released, but haven't gotten any yet.

Ive got some friends that are playing them and so far they have been pretty good. Someone else said it best though, they can easily be overextended, and at the end of the day, they are two wound marines with a 3+. Overextended and left out in the wind, and they won't last very long, especially given that the fight in the game is going to quickly develop over those objectives, but if they are used wisely, to reach out and grab the objective and then supported with additional support from the rest of the army, they can give you a very real edge on getting on top of the objectives fast.

That said, they are kind of expensive, so it isn't really a unit you want to just throw away, but they will require (especially if in cover) a concentrated effort to get rid of, and that can be an advantage all of itself.

I run a couple of min units in my space wolves and blood angels because I love the models and the idea of them (incursors) with mines. They are an interesting board control choice that could potentially change the way people are going to move and advance on the objectives. I've only played my Chaos Black Legion and Tyranids in 9th so far, but I have played 7 games now, and I've played against marines for half of them and I can say, i think they have their place, specifically, i can see them really being strong with a rhino with a loaded Tac squad with combi plasma, plasma, and lascannon in the unit moving up behind them on turn one to support them. The incursors can take a bit more of a punch just based on how two wound models vs 1 wound models work, and the tac squad with that kind of firepower can legitimately put out some real damage.

In the handful of games I've played so far, the -2" movement penalties from difficult terrain (ie, craters) has made a HUGE difference. In 8th, they only affected charge ranges (which most people forgot about), but the ability to cut down a third of an infantry squads speed is a massive change. Depending on what you're trying to get to (objective, enemy, cover, etc), if there's a crater in the way suddenly becomes a very real obstacle.

The rest of the terrain stuff is good once you throw out the GW examples and just figure out a standard set of keywords that works for your group.
Like, pretty much any piece of "standard" walled area terrain should have: Light Cover, Heavy Cover, Breachable, Scalable, Defensible, and Defensive Line.
Apply the other keywords where they're obviously applicable. If it's big and has little windows, give it Obscured. If it's completely full of holes, give it Dense Cover. If it's a crater or barbed wire or something, give it Difficult.
To keep Obscured buildings from getting stupid, keep them on the smaller size, and only use the footprint inside the walls to be "within" it.

In general I think we're going to see a lot of bad armies and bad games for the next couple of weeks as people adapt to the new edition and new points. I'm taking literally everything with a grain of salt so far, both good and bad. I'm noticing quite a few battle reports where people are just taking 8th edition armies and trying them in 9th. That's understandable but I think we need to wait until we have more experience with the system to see what works and what doesn't.

I'm not yet convinced GW have got it right with the first turn vs second turn balance, but I think that's likely a fundamental issue of how lethal the game is. Terrain can help somewhat but that's reliant on players having a board that has the "correct" amount and types of terrain on it.