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So majority minor effects that require the player to hem and haw at length about ordering them before the game can start. Lovely.

Yeah, I'm amazingly underwhelmed. I suspected it a bit with the first one they showed off, but really.

This has more fiddle in it than a 'Devil Went Down to Georgia' competition.

 Stormonu wrote:
*sigh* here we go with the plethora of "Fight first" rules that will start showing up in every codex.

Whats your definition of plethora?

 Tiberius501 wrote:
Wow, hail the king you shall! He seems pretty beastly. Concerned about T7 and surviving with movement 8”, but 26 wounds (counting the floaty thingos) and I would assume a 4++ and living metal.

So are the menhirs a single unit with him or just nearby and acting as bodyguards? I thought they had pretty much got rid of mixed units?

 Crazyterran wrote:
The current supplements are fine, no? Will probably get FAQs once the new codex comes out to update weapons, who knows what else the might go over.

Yes. Just like current codexes are fine. Doesn't mean gw doesn't press print money button and do new ones

We don't know, but they have the same relevant stat lines (T7, 3+) so could be a 3 model unit. Considering they're shown under the stat block for the King himself I'd err on mixed unit you can assign wounds to first instead of having to make a 'look out sir' kind of roll

I suspect there will be ways of messing with the order of these. The silent King has an ability allowing you to swap out your protocol that should activate that turn for the protocol you didn't select at the start of the game for example.

Necronmaniac05 wrote:
I suspect there will be ways of messing with the order of these. The silent King has an ability allowing you to swap out your protocol that should activate that turn for the protocol you didn't select at the start of the game for example.

Maybe a strat.
But I doubt much else given that is an ability reserved for the faction figurehead.

I’m really interested in what Rites of Reanimation is going to be. I’m a little sad that living metal wasn’t buffed to healing d3 but whatcha gonna do.

Ancient Dynasties of the Necrons on Warhammer Community:

Some of that is more honest than I expected:
Nihilakh: the matched play dynasty.

Those custom examples don't impress me. Not sure why they chose these two to show off.

Sneaking into various photographs:
Death Company Assault Intercessor (think we've seen them before)

Eldar guardians. Not sure when I last saw these guys.

Voss wrote:
Some of that is more honest than I expected:
Nihilakh: the matched play dynasty.

Those custom examples don't impress me. Not sure why they chose these two to show off.

Sneaking into various photographs:
Death Company Assault Intercessor (think we've seen them before)

Eldar guardians. Not sure when I last saw these guys.

The Immovable Phalanx is bad, but I like the Invaders. Depending on the other half that you can choose it may be pretty good.

Loosing one full protocol does not seem like a bad trade off if the custom dynasty traits are good enough.

Immovable Phalanx and the Eternal Guardian protocol, for example, would make infantry very durable against any T1 alpha strike.

Invaders is a great rule set for vehicle spam lists.

That said, the base dynasties are good and many have locked character support like the Silent King and Imhotekh which is a big trade off.

Invaders puzzles me for just helping one specific unit type do completely opposing things in a single very specific situation.
Are vehicles in combat that much a problem? (its been a long time since I've seen real 'vehicle heavy' armies)

Hmm, protocols seem kinda... meh? I mean, they’re extra free rules so I’m not complaining about that. It’s more just, they seem like a lot of hassle and book keeping for just some simple extras. Am I looking at them wrong? Maybe they’re more game changing than I think.

Objective Secured on your entire army? Boss!

Ignore AP-1 … while in your own deployment zone? Oof.

But I think it has potential...

Yeah not holding out high hopes of having a durability dynasty option if those horribly limited options are meant to cover that niche.

I'm broadly underwhelmed by the protocols. They seem very situational and swingy with lots of opportunity for them to be completely useless if you mess up your ordering. A far cry from the relatively simple (and much much less situational) +1 AP for certain weapons plus super doctrine that marines got. We can't even choose the order pre finding out who goes first which really shows why protocols are such a problem. If it was necrons v marines and you are doing your pre game stuff it sort of goes:

Marine player: Ok, turn 1 i have devastator doctrine active so i can really focus on my heavy weapons squads while moving my assault and rapid fire weapons into position and advancing my assault troops, turn 2 i can then let rip with my assault and rapid fire guns and T3 my assault troops should either be in combat already or in charge range. I can slot my super doctrine in wherever.

Necron player: Well, Eternal Guardian would be great turn 1 if i go second but useless if i go first but we haven;t rolled for that yet. Conversely, if i go first Raging Storm for +1 move stacked with my will be done might be good for dashing up and seizing some objectives but if i go second they might already have units camped on them so its pointless, i'd might be better with Avenging stars to try and blast them off it... and so on.

The point is, the necron player is having to consider all kinds of things like what do they want to do with their units, what might their opponent do with theirs, are they going to go first or second, when do they think their 'super protocol' would be best used (this is particularly tricky for some of them, like undying legion). The space marine player doesn't really have to think at all. A flat +1 ap is always useful whatever turn and they synergise well with what units carrying the weapons are likely to be doing on each turn 0 i.e. heavy weapons are more likely to be in range to shoot turn 1 without moving, rapid fire and assault same on turn 2 and assault units same on turn 3 and you don't have to think about what turn to put what bonus on or anything and their effectiveness is not affected by anything your opponent may or may not do.

Protocols seem like a total waste of time. You spend a bunch of time agonizing over and writing down an order for stuff that, with a few minor exceptions that are hard to time (fall back and still shoot, for example), have very meh effects.

 Jidmah wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Umbros wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
I think it's good overall to take this slow with the rule. Honestly DG DR is OP as feth. So this had even more potential to be OP. They should basically give DG the same rule if they are to come out at the same time.

I've heard that DR is being replaced with -1 to wound...

That is probably more broken to be honest. WAY too good.

The DG tactics thread has already mathhammered it to be a downgrade in almost every case, especially against mortal wounds.

Well there is an issue already with an army wide trait that is as good or better than -1 to wound in almost every case. The reason -1 to wound armywide can be worse though is for t8 vehicals and t5 vs str 4 guns...You can be functionally invulnerable if things need 6's to wound you. Theres nothing to stop a deathstar DG unit from getting a 5+ FNP another way and it really starts to get stupid.

yukishiro1 wrote:
Protocols seem like a total waste of time. You spend a bunch of time agonizing over and writing down an order for stuff that, with a few minor exceptions that are hard to time (fall back and still shoot, for example), have very meh effects.

I’m more concerned about my opponents agonising over that stuff. I can be fairly reasonable about it and then proceed to forget I even have protocols five or six times across the course of the game, an opponent might take a really infuriating length of time to pick them out.

By the end of 8th edition I managed to remember to use my warlord trait and Dynastic code a solid 'Most of the time'.

I also remembered to use strategems... sometimes... if I wrote them down on my army list beside the units that I would want to use them on.

I'm sure these new protocols will be no problemo.

So the real question is: which of these Protocols are good enough to not want multiple detachments of different Dynasties?

Command Protocols are perhaps the worst rules I've ever seen as a faction's major force multiplier. What on earth were GW thinking setting such a staggering amount of restrictions for such little payoff?

I'm not even going to bother with them at all. I'll simply make a custom Dynasty with the traits I like and not worry about jumping through half a dozen different hoops to get marginal gains.

For sudden storm...do actions and still shoot...does this mean you can advance and shoot? That is frankly incredible.

And where white scars have that trait every turn. Necrons can advance and shoot first turn.

Second turn they can ignore cover or have -1 AP on a 6 (FOR ALL THEIR GUNS)

Then have +1 str or -1 AP in melee.

These are pretty dang good rules if you really think about it.

You also have the defensive trait you can always start in if you want (pretty awesome if you have an advantaged position).

pretty comparable to marine doctrines (though the super doctrine ability is a lot better than having 2 codes active at once). We have no idea if super doctrines are sticking anyways.

Cynista wrote:
Command Protocols are perhaps the worst rules I've ever seen as a faction's major force multiplier. What on earth were GW thinking setting such a staggering amount of restrictions for such little payoff?

I'm not even going to bother with them at all. I'll simply make a custom Dynasty with the traits I like and not worry about jumping through half a dozen different hoops to get marginal gains.

I'm really not sure either. Some of the protocols are really good, like Sudden storm, but the amount of the hoops you have to jump through for the payoff is really odd.

Unless Doctrines and other future army-wide rules are going to have similar restrictions, it seems pretty annoying. It's a cool concept, but really seems to have failed in execution.

That being said, you can still get protocols with a custom dynasty, you just won't get the two directives that a core dynasty would grant on a single protocol.

I think Protocols are bad. Its nice because its an upgrade versus *nothing* - but if this is the equivalent mono-faction rule to Marines and Sisters, it seems clearly weaker.

But wait and see I guess.

Tyel wrote:
I think Protocols are bad. Its nice because its an upgrade versus *nothing* - but if this is the equivalent mono-faction rule to Marines and Sisters, it seems clearly weaker.

But wait and see I guess.

No incentive to really go mono-dynasty when you can actually get the best dynasty for each unit's purpose

 Sasori wrote:

Cynista wrote:
Command Protocols are perhaps the worst rules I've ever seen as a faction's major force multiplier. What on earth were GW thinking setting such a staggering amount of restrictions for such little payoff?

I'm not even going to bother with them at all. I'll simply make a custom Dynasty with the traits I like and not worry about jumping through half a dozen different hoops to get marginal gains.

I'm really not sure either. Some of the protocols are really good, like Sudden storm, but the amount of the hoops you have to jump through for the payoff is really odd.

Unless Doctrines and other future army-wide rules are going to have similar restrictions, it seems pretty annoying. It's a cool concept, but really seems to have failed in execution.

Not going to lie, even if they are weaker than other factions, I don't want to see other factions saddled with similar restrictions. The complexity vs smooth gameplay cost is just too high. Game rules just don't need to be nested IF/THEN loops. They need to be fun.

Tyel wrote:
I think Protocols are bad. Its nice because its an upgrade versus *nothing* - but if this is the equivalent mono-faction rule to Marines and Sisters, it seems clearly weaker.

But wait and see I guess.

It's definitely the "super doctrine" equivalent.

One thing I will say is that new rules seem to be highly tactical and in the hands of a skilled player might be very competitive. Does not seem like an auto-pilot type army which also means it is unforgiving.

 buddha wrote:

Tyel wrote:
I think Protocols are bad. Its nice because its an upgrade versus *nothing* - but if this is the equivalent mono-faction rule to Marines and Sisters, it seems clearly weaker.

But wait and see I guess.

It's definitely the "super doctrine" equivalent.

One thing I will say is that new rules seem to be highly tactical and in the hands of a skilled player might be very competitive. Does not seem like an auto-pilot type army which also means it is unforgiving.

No, “Git gud” isn’t a valid Defense of minor benefits that require a ton of unnecessary hoop jumping and tracking.