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yukishiro1 wrote:

Spoletta wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
Sigh. They recognized the problems, but the solutions are all over the place, and some of them are straight-up terrible. Forcing the player who "wins" the roll-off to go first is silly, and does very little to address first-turn advantage.

Similarly, they recognized there's a problem with Abhor...but the "solution" is mind-bogglingly bad, and falls flat on its face at doing what they are saying prompted the change - namely, that the secondary punishes GK and TSons too much. But all they did is lower the points for killing characters from 5 to 3! You still get 2 points for each psychic unit killed. You'll still easily max it against GK and Tsons. It makes the secondary less punishing against lists with only psychic characters...but it's still a kick in the teeth to GK and Tsons.

The while we stand rule change - and specifically the bit that lets you split a unit after nominating it, and then the opponent has to destroy *both* halves - is another stupid change that is just a stealth buff to space marines, as you can now take a big unit, combat squad it, and still use half while hiding the other half to get the points. Even worse for custodes, who can split up a 10-man terminator unit and then just hold back 1 or 2 to get the points while using the rest of the unit with no worries about it being destroyed.


You really have to wonder about GW sometimes. Even when they recognize an issue, the "solution" if as often as not a real head-scratcher.

You may want to read that objective again. WWSWF is based on MODELS, not UNITS. No one cares if you split the unit, the FAQ regards the case where the MODEL splits.

Also, the solution to first turn advantage isn't in the roll decision, but in the fact that finally the second player gets to play a turn 5!

You may want to read the objective again. They changed it in the FAQ. It's now units, not models.

I stand corrected. It is a much bigger change than I thought then.

What factions can abuse something like this?

-Guardsman- wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
I've been banging that horn since 9th came out

I think you're mixing metaphors.

Spoletta wrote:

What factions can abuse something like this?

Space marines, mainly (big surprise there!). Custodes too, though it costs them CP. Orks can sorta do it with buggies I guess, in that you could bring 3 in a unit of one and then try to hide one of them while not worrying about the other two, though I'm not sure that's as strong. Eldar weapon platforms, but those are limited to 3 per pre-game unit, and to get high enough points to be a while we stand they'd need to be D-cannons, so I'm not sure that's viable, though the fact that the D-cannon ignores LOS does make it an interesting option if you really engineered the list for it I guess?

Ironically, I think the reason they did it was to try to avoid a different kind of abuse, where people used while we stand with lowish value characters they then hid, by deliberately engineering their list not to have anything worth many points. But in true GW form, they screwed it up and opened a new kind of abuse. The weird thing is they saw the issue enough to put in a caveat that drones don't count, so why they couldn't also see the issue with other unit splitting, I don't know.

Spoletta wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:

I stand corrected. It is a much bigger change than I thought then.

What factions can abuse something like this?

Custodes probably. Extra juicy when picking a unit of Allarus terminators and then split them up.

About the Abhor the Witch, the change definitely makes it better for Nids. Many synapse creatures also happened to be characters and psykers and a threat of double dip from Assasinate/Bring it down and Abhor the Witch was quite limiting during the list building.

Yeah, the abhor change mainly helps character-psyker heavy lists; it means you can realistically take 3 psyker characters without being so tempting for your opponent that the whole game turns into "can he kill my psykers or not?" It's much better for eldar or chaos soup or nids than it is for GK and TS.

Tycho wrote:

Nobody runs pure TS because it's garbage. But if you actually did, it'd still give up well over 15 with the new values.

I run pure Tsons. Garbage is probably too weak a description.

There's at least two pure TS at my local shop.

Spoletta wrote:


What factions can abuse something like this?

I think that this might be good for Guard as well. I may have to double check some things, but I believe this would allow things like Leman Russes to be taken in squadrons, and that squad would be the target for While We Stand, We Fight. Then on the table they are deployed and act separately, so all the Russes in a squadron would have to be destroyed to score the objective.

I suppose I could be wrong about this though.

There's at least two pure TS at my local shop.

Thinking about it - it's not actually true that I run pure Tsons anymore. It is all Tzeentch and mostly Tsons, but the demons that I used to summon, have slowly morphed into an ever increasing patrol detachment of Tzeentch demons from the actual demons book. I find this much more competitive than my legtitmately all Tsons list which was really struggling.

How do your players do?

 bullyboy wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 bullyboy wrote:
addressed the apothecary and ATV....finally

I mean...like two months for sweeping FAQs. Seems pretty timely to me.

so you're saying that the Space Marine Codex was released in November?

Close enough. Not like things were bumpin' on the tournament scene during a pandemic.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

yukishiro1 wrote:
Sigh. They recognized the problems, but the solutions are all over the place, and some of them are straight-up terrible. Forcing the player who "wins" the roll-off to go first is silly, and does very little to address first-turn advantage.

I doubt it will move the needle much, but it might change deployment game theory a bit especially now that player 2 scores at the end of the game. There's more here than just a quick comment will reveal.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

yukishiro1 wrote:
Also, and I realize some people will consider this griping...it really annoys me when GW does something like raise the points on eradicators - a unit that was transparently overpowered - without acknowledging what a mistake they made in the first place, and that everyone telling them it was a mistake was right and they were wrong. It just feels dishonest. Is it too much to ask for a little bit of a mea culpa and admission that they pointed them too aggressively and some sort of commitment to being more careful in future?

Surely 5 points doesn't "fix" them in your mind. I have not followed any tournaments since the holidays, but before then marines weren't running roughshod over everyone with mass eradicators. This is like a 30 to 45 point nerf at most that doesn't reduce the number of eradicators on the field.

ERJAK wrote:
Turn 5 the player going second scores at the end of their TURN not their command phase now.

I don't understand why this isn't the case for each player every turn.

But you already didn't know if you were going first or second when you deployed, so I don't see how restricting choice will really change that. It seems more like an admission that they aren't able to willing to get it to 50/50, so they'll try to limit the damage by not allowing the flip "winner" to choose the better option.

They said it removes "analysis paralysis," but that's basically another way of saying it removes tactics and thought.

The scoring stuff is more interesting, but it isn't a great vote of confidence in their own system that they're taking away the ability to choose to give your opponent the first turn.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

ERJAK wrote:
Turn 5 the player going second scores at the end of their TURN not their command phase now.

I don't understand why this isn't the case for each player every turn.

The player going second would win almost every time...

yukishiro1 wrote:

 tauist wrote:
Why would they apologise for trying to improve the game? I'm confused..

Because they spent the last 6 months telling everyone it was fine (first turn advantage) and that they just need to learn2play (see Brandt on these very forums for an example). Or because they came out with new kits with units priced in transparently ridiculous ways (eradicators) and then ignored everyone for 6 months telling them the units were hugely mispointed.

That isn't GW making those claims. Eradicators are strong, but didn't dominate. Maybe things would look different without a pandemic - I don't know. How many points should they be if they're hugely mispointed?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

ERJAK wrote:
Turn 5 the player going second scores at the end of their TURN not their command phase now.

I don't understand why this isn't the case for each player every turn.

to allow for counterplay. If i score at the end of my turn, i only need to take the objective, not hold it.

yukishiro1 wrote:
But you already didn't know if you were going first or second when you deployed, so I don't see how restricting choice will really change that. It seems more like an admission that they aren't able to willing to get it to 50/50, so they'll try to limit the damage by not allowing the flip "winner" to choose the better option.

They said it removes "analysis paralysis," but that's basically another way of saying it removes tactics and thought.

The scoring stuff is more interesting, but it isn't a great vote of confidence in their own system that they're taking away the ability to choose to give your opponent the first turn.

The game theory in me makes me think deploying for a second turn is the best option. I might be forced to go first so I would need to be faster in some fashion to make up for that.

Umbros wrote:
The player going second would win almost every time...

This was never the case in previous editions, why would it be in 9th?

But you could already be forced to go first.

The only thing that changes is if one player clearly sets up to go first and the other clearly set up to go second, there's still a 50% chance of it going the other way, whereas before both players would probably choose the same thing.

H.B.M.C. wrote:

Umbros wrote:
The player going second would win almost every time...

This was never the case in previous editions, why would it be in 9th?

Especially since, in many cases in previous editions you only had to score right at the end and the second player still wasn’t predominantly winning ...

 Daedalus81 wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:

 tauist wrote:
Why would they apologise for trying to improve the game? I'm confused..

Because they spent the last 6 months telling everyone it was fine (first turn advantage) and that they just need to learn2play (see Brandt on these very forums for an example). Or because they came out with new kits with units priced in transparently ridiculous ways (eradicators) and then ignored everyone for 6 months telling them the units were hugely mispointed.

That isn't GW making those claims. Eradicators are strong, but didn't dominate. Maybe things would look different without a pandemic - I don't know. How many points should they be if they're hugely mispointed?

Wasn't GW making what claims? About first turn advantage not being a thing and it just being a L2P issue? No, that was very much GW itself. Brandt is a GW employee. And they also ran one of those silly metawatch articles and then teed Nanavati up with a question about first-turn advantage clearly designed for him to knock it down and tell people it wasn't a thing.

On eradicators, it wasn't exactly my lone opinion that they were egregiously mispointed (or, more precisely, that the fire twice rule was very poorly thought out and the result was very problematic). I don't know if the current nerf will be enough or not, we'll see I suppose. I wouldn't have nerfed their points, I would have just removed the shoot twice if you're shooting at the same target rule and left it at that.

Ah, gotcha. I never bothered to read those articles. I could say your take on it being a set up is cynical, but I wouldn't doubt Nanavanti actually holds those thoughts.

Planning to get a Defiler for my Thousand Sons, delighted to see Twin-Lascannons are now just 10pts!

 Valkyrie wrote:
Planning to get a Defiler for my Thousand Sons, delighted to see Twin-Lascannons are now just 10pts!

Be aware that may be a typo. The twin lascannon upgrade is 30pts on the normal CSM Defiler.

yukishiro1 wrote:

-Guardsman- wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
I've been banging that horn since 9th came out

I think you're mixing metaphors.

Spoletta wrote:

What factions can abuse something like this?

Space marines, mainly (big surprise there!). Custodes too, though it costs them CP. Orks can sorta do it with buggies I guess, in that you could bring 3 in a unit of one and then try to hide one of them while not worrying about the other two, though I'm not sure that's as strong. <...>

Bold mine.

Orks can do it with Deffdreads. Buggies aren't squadrons; they're one unit always (never buy more than one per...it's bad).

EDIT - My bad..P82. It's not on their datasheet (shows how much I focus on speed freak models sorry)

Bitharne wrote:

Bold mine.

Orks can do it with Deffdreads. Buggies aren't squadrons; they're one unit always (never buy more than one per...it's bad).

I haven't touched my Ork codex in a while but I'm pretty sure Buggies can do the vehicle squadron thing too. How else could people bring 18 to a tournament?

I haven't been on dakka in a good long while and after having looked through this thread I remember why. Cheers guys.

Regardless, I came to see what people's initial reactions were and to chuck in my own two cents on the changes and that's what I'll do.

Firstly, I think it's really important to properly consider that with this round of FAQs they have reviewed every single model in the game, along with the usual changing a handful of the core rules and FAQing other specific interaction problems. For nothing. When they usually charge you at least 20 quid for it (which I always hated). I think that's a pretty great thing for the rules team to have done especially in covid times.

Anyway, it's great to see that it seems like they've actually really listened to the online reaction and feelings of 9th edition. Many of the FAQs throughout 8th were to steer the game a different way out of the blue or to get rid of really bad exploitations. It definitely feels like they've listened a lot more than they have in the past- the online community has been talking about especially the first turn and power of the roll off, and yes while that metawatch article seemed like they were covering their asses, it's great to see the changes be so seemingly considered without needing to majorly change the games fundamentals - though of course I'll have to playtest it to form my proper opinion (great one covid cheers )

On that, the change to the reroll as well as the change to the end of the game seem like a good step in the right direction, not too drastic as well as not currently feeling like too little. Again, after however many weeks of lockdown I am excited to try it out. Interested to see how the numbers work out as well as the subtle changes in list design that come with it.

Secondaries... WWSWF seems weird but bring it down and abhor is great to see- those blasting about TS and GK still giving away max points- I think now at the point where you've given max points you are no longer in any position to win the game. 2 characters and 5 units or 3 characters and 3 units that are all psykers screams an L. Would be nice if assassinate wouldn't double dip though.
This update almost to me feels like GW testing the waters of what to end up having in the next mission pack with hopefully a set of some better action based secondaries that encourage exploratory list building rather than kill secondaries providing preventative list building. Excited for the next round of GT missions.
The points, also, (aside from of course a few errors and woes- poor tau), seem mostly nicely justified and fair. The cheeky preview at upcoming dexes is alot of fun too.

Overall, a pretty great first update imo. Step in the right direction and room for the game to grow even more this year.

Anyway hope you lot are as excited to get models on the table again and try out some new rules even if it has to be after however many weeks in lockdown.

Keep it respectful.
Cheers

 Castozor wrote:

Bitharne wrote:

Bold mine.

Orks can do it with Deffdreads. Buggies aren't squadrons; they're one unit always (never buy more than one per...it's bad).

I haven't touched my Ork codex in a while but I'm pretty sure Buggies can do the vehicle squadron thing too. How else could people bring 18 to a tournament?

Go to a 3k tournament? Buggiest are 100 points each (on average)

Deffdreads have the "Dread Mob" rule which splits them after deployment. None of the buggies have that rule; nor do killakans.

EDIT - Aw...I don't use Speed Freak stuff them that much. Speed Mob rule noted points to Pate 82 that gives them this rule. My appologies

also glad I learned this I might source some more buggies I like to annoy my friends who hate them

beast_gts wrote:
The 2021 MUNITORUM FIELD MANUAL is a free download

This leads me to believe that the 2021 Chapter Approved will be released in December.

Amusing to note that Helbrutes don't have Missile Launchers listed at all.

Not Online!!! wrote:
DG vs CSM

CSM PM are 18 ppm

And more funny, DG cultists 5ppm poxwalkers 5ppm CSM cultists .... 6ppm.

For what is in essence the same fething unit...


Atleast it's free but something ain't right.

One is 2w, one is 1w

 l0k1 wrote:
Amusing to note that Helbrutes don't have Missile Launchers listed at all.

That means they pay no points for them.

Rihgu wrote:

 l0k1 wrote:
Amusing to note that Helbrutes don't have Missile Launchers listed at all.

That means they pay no points for them.

I must have misinterpreted it then. Thanks!