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I've always felt 40k does a good job of managing mortal wounds (and AP) overall, making MW effects appropriately rare & limited while AP has a decent bell curve going. But I am comparing to AoS where that dynamic is one of the larger issues.

I play as DG, and have used poxwalkers with mutant strain whenever I can. In practise, its not so easy to get all 20 poxwalkers into combat. I am not saying its impossible. But quite often, you string out your poxwalkers because you also want them to cover the objective because they are obsec. If the opponent is smart, he won't hit the dead center of your poxwalker line and let you consolidate the whole squad into him. More often than not, he will hit the edges. And if he does, then you definitely won't get all 20 into combat.

Don't get me wrong, its a great strategem, but there are other scarier strategems out there for 1 CP. This one relies on a unit that moves a paltry 4 inches a turn getting into close combat, AND hitting you on 6s. And this is after you charge him and kill off a certain number already.

Actual dedicated melee units may not really be that scared honestly, because on the charge, they will have killed off so many poxwalkers it probably doesn't matter anymore. Like imagine a squad of 10 drukhari wytchs charging into a squad of 20 poxwalkers. How many poxwalkers are gonna be left after the charge and attack?

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I've always felt 40k does a good job of managing mortal wounds (and AP) overall, making MW effects appropriately rare & limited while AP has a decent bell curve going. But I am comparing to AoS where that dynamic is one of the larger issues.

I'll agree with that, but only to an extent - they've got a bad habit of making things MW that should at worst just be a gakton of normal attacks (looking squarely at the Marauder Bomber here, the plane that carpet bombs an entire section of battlefield and somehow is only marginally more deadly than a Guardsman squad because GW decided that it could *only* do MW)

They are like that with psykers/magic as well; there is an arbitrary line where they only deal MWs when there is no reason a power couldn't inflict X wounds with AP Y and damage Z, or even have its own weapon profile.

 catbarf wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:
1CP should translate to 1-2 mortal wounds on average. More than that and it might be busted

With Behemoth as Tyranids I can do an average of 5MW for the cost of 1CP when I charge with a unit of 30 Hormagaunts.

Most Tyranid players don't bother. And the existing 'D3 MW for 1CP' stratagems are (rightly) dismissed as worthless.

Mortal Wounds are just not that valuable.

So you don't bother dealing 5MW for 1CP on elite units and tanks that you are planning on killing? I think that's a lie, I think you don't bother dealing 0,5MW for 1CP because you only end up with 3 Hormagaunts within 1" before piling in or you are engaged with a unit that needs to be engaged rather than killed or one that pays very little per wound it has. You could say you don't bother making your Havocs Slaanesh because shooting twice isn't really that good and you'd rather spend your CP to get boons of chaos on your Exalted Champions. Tyranids do have a shoot twice Stratagem, perhaps your estimation of proper Stratagem value is just off by an order of magnitude.

Eldenfirefly wrote:
Actual dedicated melee units may not really be that scared honestly, because on the charge, they will have killed off so many poxwalkers it probably doesn't matter anymore. Like imagine a squad of 10 drukhari wytchs charging into a squad of 20 poxwalkers. How many poxwalkers are gonna be left after the charge and attack?

OP has explained his issue is something like Meganobz charging into Poxwalkers and when he charges in he gets within range of a Foul Blightspawn so he strikes last. OP thinks he's going to krump some zombies, thinking striking last is no big deal, Poxwalkers pull a CP-efficient MW Stratagem out their backside and kill a couple of Meganobz and that's a sour experience. It's the problem of Stratagems as a whole boiled down to 1 topic about 1 Stratagem. People get lost in more powerful combinations and the counters and lose sight of the bad game design.

You aren't being smart when you deal 6MW to those Meganobz, your opponent is just being stupid. It's not a skill test, it's a memorization test, it's Warhammer School and OP failed the 40k gotcha test and now he feels bad. Can you memorize all 400 Stratagems in the game? Will you think to ask whether every single unit in your opponent's army has a gotcha Stratagem or a double shoot or mortal wound Stratagem? Can you evaluate on the fly what the value is and whether you should even be concerned? With Scarab Swarms it's probably not a concern unless your Mortarion has 2 wounds left, but with a big brick of Poxwalkers it is a concern for any model paying more than 10 points per wound they have.

The only time I played against DG in 9th I happened to shoot his Poxwalker bricks to death, not because I knew about them being good in melee, but because I happened to play an army where it was convenient. I avoided my opponent's Foul Blightspawn aura by staying 3,1" away and won the game. That doesn't change that doing 6 MW for 1-2CP is dumb. I should probably be putting a tesla unit in every army, because if I get into a situation where I can hit 6 units with my tesla MW bomb Stratagem for 3MW once or twice every game then that'd be pretty good way to spend CP in non-hungry lists.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Do you get how generous this game is on getting units into CC range? Every model in your unit gets a free 3 inch move after their charge roll and only has to be within an inch of a model within 1 inch of an enemy model.

½" of ½", not 1" of 1". I think it was meant to curb the fight in four ranks thing.

To be fair, i had a game yesterday where i charged my battlewagon at them, and they did 8 mortal wounds to it. surprisingly it survived to turn 3 so it wasnt really a problem. But i saw the potential for how much damage this could actually do so it made me write the thread. Its not that it broke my game or anything, and i knew he could do it. Ive had this done to me when i DIDNT know it and it was.. brutal.


I just find it annoying how insanely efficient this stratagem is, at turning the lowest fodder unit in to god himself for 1 CP.

But you are right, none of the strategy aspects matter. its the idea that 1CP dealing 8 mortal wounds and beyond is stupid.

Edit: i wrote "this unit" but i meant this stratagem

There are more and more strike first and strike last stuff coming out with every new codex. Deathguard has it, Space marines have it, Drukhari has it, and the new Admech has it as well.

These days, if you are not aware that potentially a unit can make you strike last, or another has the potential to strike first. You are potentially putting yourself at a huge disadvantage in melee. Just ask before you charge in if they have any strike first or strike last capability.

Eldenfirefly wrote:
There are more and more strike first and strike last stuff coming out with every new codex. Deathguard has it, Space marines have it, Drukhari has it, and the new Admech has it as well.

These days, if you are not aware that potentially a unit can make you strike last, or another has the potential to strike first. You are potentially putting yourself at a huge disadvantage in melee. Just ask before you charge in if they have any strike first or strike last capability.

Presumably when going over your army you will say which of your units can make your opponent strike last, but will you say that your unit can do mortal wounds with a Stratagem? I'd never dream of doing that with my Scarabs, it's so rarely relevant and DG players I am sure will want to protect their genius strategy of using a 1CP Stratagem to deal 6 mortal wounds and will want to hide it unless their opponent asks a question that requires them to reveal it (can you deal mortal wounds with any Strats? Can you increase your Poxwalkers' damage output?)

Eldenfirefly wrote:
There are more and more strike first and strike last stuff coming out with every new codex...

If only we had some kind of number to describe which units went before which other units...we could call it "Initiative"...

 vict0988 wrote:

Eldenfirefly wrote:
There are more and more strike first and strike last stuff coming out with every new codex. Deathguard has it, Space marines have it, Drukhari has it, and the new Admech has it as well.

These days, if you are not aware that potentially a unit can make you strike last, or another has the potential to strike first. You are potentially putting yourself at a huge disadvantage in melee. Just ask before you charge in if they have any strike first or strike last capability.

Presumably when going over your army you will say which of your units can make your opponent strike last, but will you say that your unit can do mortal wounds with a Stratagem? I'd never dream of doing that with my Scarabs, it's so rarely relevant and DG players I am sure will want to protect their genius strategy of using a 1CP Stratagem to deal 6 mortal wounds anthd will want to hide it unless their opponent asks a question that requires them to reveal it (can you deal mortal wounds with any Strats? Can you increase your Poxwalkers' damage output?)

Every book has strategems that are good. Some are more "gotcha" than others. It depends on how much a coaching game you are playing. Would you like the DG player to litereally go through every single strategem in his book before you start the game?

This just results in a few mortal wounds. "The dead walk again" strategem is far more "gotcha" if you ask me. For 1 cp, bring back potentially up to 7 poxwalkers, and this is done before we count objectives. This strategem alone can easily result in a 10 point swing in primary VP or more at a crucial moment if you grow back poxwalkers onto an objective that your opponent thought you didn't hold. But hey, again, like I said, how much of the DG book do you need the player to go through with you before the game starts?

The newer 9th ed codex are all getting more and more complicated. Look at Drukhari, look at Admech. I bet even some admech players themselves are gonna be new on what gets buffed or doesn't get buffed when you have Skitari, mechanicus, core to worry about. And this is before we even talk about admech strategems. Oh, you didn't think a squad of 20 rangers could rapid fire 80 shots plus mortal wounds you on 6s? Gotcha! Oh, you didn't know ironstriders could advance a full 6 inches and still shoot at full BS? Now I can see your cowering behind obscuring vehicle that you thought was hidden well enough. Gotcha! Oh you didn't know I had a strategem that could make me ignore all AP 1 and AP 2 and you just fire a whole bunch of AP2 shots at me? Gotcha!

How about Drukhari? Oh, you didn't know my one lone master Succubus had a million attacks and could wipe out a whole unit all by herself? Well, now you do! Gotcha! Oh, you didn't know that on turn 2, power from pain allows me to advance and charge, so now literally all of my infantry charging out of my raiders have like a 20+ inch threat range. Gotcha! Oh, you thought you could fall out of combat? Well, sorry, you can't! Gotcha !

Even space marines has some famous ones. Oh, you didn't know about Transhuman? Now you do, and now you failed to kill that unit you thought would surely die. Gotcha! Oh, you didn't know that my master apocathery could heal wound plus resurrect an entire model, including attack bikes? Well, now you do! You just wasted all of your shooting trying to kill one model which I now bring back. Gotcha!

I am sure there are some situational strategems or abilities that seem like Gotcha! in many books.

Eldenfirefly wrote:
...Gotcha!...

This is why I hate strategems, and also all the buff stacking, it creates for situations that are just super gakky.
Perhaps my enjoyment is too fragile, but if I get caught by a particularly bad gotcha it can really ruin the whole game for me.

 kirotheavenger wrote:

Eldenfirefly wrote:
...Gotcha!...

This is why I hate strategems, and also all the buff stacking, it creates for situations that are just super gakky.
Perhaps my enjoyment is too fragile, but if I get caught by a particularly bad gotcha it can really ruin the whole game for me.

My opinions on players who are trying to hide their "gotchas" tend to be a bit scummy. I try to make clear to all my opponents any stratagems/units that might surprise them before a game starts. I just don't feel good about winning an opponent because I blindsided them because they didn't know an enemy codex by hand beforehand.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

no. Im allowed to form my own opinion regardless of whether people agree or not. most DG players i meet openly says that while it doesnt come in to play often, the times it do, it IS a powerful stratagem for what you PAY for, versus what you get.

The stratagem is very powerful, but it is also highly situational. Its not a stratagem you can just use in every instance but you know what? thats what stratagems are meant to be. extra things for your army, not abilities that you auto pick. at least most should be that way.

It's also a swingy as hell stratagem. There have been time where I couldn't afford the hit reroll of harbinger and ended up losing a good portion of my squad with no mortal wound in sight. The stratagem is also only really good if you have a max block of poxwalkers and loses efficacy quickly when the poxwalkers start dropping like flies to incoming fire.

I mean, getting 8 mortal wounds on a single attack is really good dice rolling or your opponent had Harbingers stratagem which turns the entire combo into a 2CP stratagem(1 for mutant strain and 1 for reroll). Also, with the battlewagon charge did you just ram straight into the blob without softening it up and allowing every single poxwalker to get into striking range? That's just a superbly bad play on your part.

It basically sounds like you just refuse to use Ork shooting and want the game to adjust to your playstyle. Also, the Foul Blightspawn has a small range unless he has a relic to help him. You can, like, not charge the middle of the blob and just expect the game to be handed to you.

How many times do i need to repeat what i wrote? its not a strategy question. It doesnt matter if i can deal with it.

Its a balance issue among stratagems of what you get for 1 CP. the damage output from this 1 stratagem, on the lowest cannon fodder unit is too high.

its a stratagem balance issue, not a gameplay issue. I didnt make this thread because i got fethed over by the stratagem. Its not my first time being against a deathguard player, i know what he can do. I made the thread because i recognize that it can deal obscene amounts of mortal wounds for basically no cost, on a trash unit that isnt meant to have the power to obscenely dish out mortal wounds like theres no tomorrow. Most 1CP stratagems deals a max of around 5 or so mortal wounds. that pales in comparison to this potential mortal wounds stratagem.

So stop pretending im making this thread because im salty about it because i lost a game because of this ability, because i didnt. i recognize, that the mortal wounds potential is too high for the 1CP paid.

that is all.

Again, there are much better stratagems out there bearded. For the same or only slightly higher cost which have no disadvantage associated with them.

I will agree that it's gakky design, but so is the whole stratagem system.

When someone says:
It basically sounds like you just refuse to use Ork shooting and want the game to adjust to your playstyle. Also, the Foul Blightspawn has a small range unless he has a relic to help him. You can, like, not charge the middle of the blob and just expect the game to be handed to you.

You sounds rude and i wanna say that you should learn to read, because ive already explained it wasnt a stratagy related issue, its a balance issue of how many MW you get for 1CP. Im not making an angry rant over how much this stratagem has destroyed my gaming experience nor how it lost me a battle. Not all threads complaining about a stratagem is related to people being unable to play around it. The reason i talk about shooting for some close combat related armies is, that not all close combat related armies have decent shooting capabilities. Like if you played Khorne daemons for instance. It wasnt the first time meeting this unit nor the stratagem, and i werent caught off guard. It also didnt play any major role at all in this battle i just had. I lost the battle but that was due to my own mistakes and failing to deal with mortarion because i forgot i couldnt reroll in close combat proximity to him.

That my battlewagon took 8 mortal wounds didnt matter, so i once again say, that this was never a question about strategy. Its only a balance question related to whether a stratagem dishes out too many MW for its cost.

please, for the love of god, recognize, that im not making a "how to deal with this stratagem" thread. Its not strategy related.

Not Online!!! wrote:
Again, there are much better stratagems out there bearded. For the same or only slightly higher cost which have no disadvantage associated with them.

I will agree that it's gakky design, but so is the whole stratagem system.

i whole heartedly agree with you. There are many worse game changing stratagems out there, I simply chose to focus on this one. I feel like it breaks the design of a unit meant to sit on objectives and screen out things, when they can potentially dish out 8 or so mortal wounds. if they wanted it to have a chance to fight back, they could deal MW on 6s in the wounding phase like most other stratagems of this kind, or just deal -AP on their damage +2 strength or something like it for 1CP as well. But bypassing invul saves on a poxwalker is just wrong, in the hitting phase.

Eldenfirefly wrote:
Every book has strategems that are good. Some are more "gotcha" than others. It depends on how much a coaching game you are playing. Would you like the DG player to litereally go through every single strategem in his book before you start the game?

No, that's what I'm saying, the way Stratagems are handed out like candy right now is bad game design because nobody is going to want to read every Stratagem, a few might want every Stratagem an army can use and I use curated Stratagem cards for every army to make that available to my opponents, but not everyone wants even the curated list. I can 100% guarantee I'd be able to gotcha the game designers, they didn't even figure out you could use the mortal wounds with flamers and max shots with flamers Stratagems together. So if the game designers can't even keep track of the Stratagems in one supplement they are in the middle of designing how is one player supposed to keep track of all them? 20-30 basic Stratagems, choose 5 for your army to give it flavour, up to 3 specialist detachments with 2 Stratagems each. Now it becomes easy and fast to get up to speed with your opponent's Stratagems. Worst case scenario there are 11 Stratagems and you already know 5 of them because they are basic Stratagems everyone has access to.

This just results in a few mortal wounds.

One, two, a few, many. Many mortal wounds. Where do you get more mortal wounds than 6? Calling it a few is dishonest, if you want it to be a few then we agree. It should be max 3, so at most it deals a few mortal wounds. We also agree that it is rarely going to be more than 3 anyways, so why not just put a cap on it? Every fight and shoot twice Stratagem should go up by a minimum of 1CP for units with a PL of 6+. How do you make Chaos Boons measure up to kill 200 pts worth of stuff for 2CP? Automatic Daemon Prince transformation for no reinforcement points?

I quite liked strategems at the start of 8th.
The ability to push one dice helped mitigate the swingyness of a single d6, be that a flamer roll, a lascannon damage, or whatever. But it was nothing too major.
There were only a few, and everyone had them. So they were easy to track.

The codexes have really ruined it.
Just to even start to get my head around my own faction's strategems I've had to make a sheet of paper with all the ones that apply to the units in my army; 2/3 of the ones in the book apply to units I don't use.
If I can barely keep track of my own niche-use yet highly swingy strategems, how the hell am I supposed to also learn my opponents? Even if they do go through their best strats at the start I guarantee 90% of those are going in one ear and out the other, and/or I won't understand their true power because I don't understand your army.

Vilehydra wrote:
I.... What? Is this really an issue for people? It feels like this is the Austin Powers Steamroller scene. My regular sparring opponent is a DG playe. I've been struck hard by Mutant strain once, and it was when I was unaware of the strat.

Like really? I generally try to not to got the argument about player skill, but feth. It's a unit that moves 4", cannot advance and charge and is squishy to small arms fire (either having only a 6+++ or a 6+/6+++ in cover)
Light Anti-infantry shooting is a counter, active charging is a counter, proper positioning is a counter, meatshielding is a counter. There are several things that any player can do to mitigate poxxies with any practically constructed army. Compare that to say Wrath of Mars, which is far more difficult to mitigate, but maxed at 6 wounds - which is equivalent to the average of a perfect mutant strain strike (Full 20 models all in engagement range).

I mean, it's probably a healthy rules change to do to put a 6MW limit on it, but that's nothing to do with the current viability itself - but more the fact that all MW causing strats should have a hard limit to prevent future rule changes from causing an issue.

This, so much. Exploding poxwalkers can easily be played around, and if you take 40 attacks from them YOU made a misplay and are rightfully punished for it. If you brought 0 shooting you don't really have any right to complain about not being able to solve a problem anyways.

I mostly use the stratagem to blow up terminators and similar hard to kill units, and it usually yields 3-5 MW if I'm lucky. My opponent either try to reduce them first, use stratagems to protect themselves or outmaneuver them.
In comparison, a burna bommer dropping a bomb for 5 MW and then hitting 4 units for another 12 MW anywhere on the board in turn 1 is utterly ridiculous. My flying 'eadbut highscore (with a dakkajet, not even a burna bommer) was 37 mortal wounds on a tau army. Soooo many dead drones.

 Jidmah wrote:

Vilehydra wrote:
I.... What? Is this really an issue for people? It feels like this is the Austin Powers Steamroller scene. My regular sparring opponent is a DG playe. I've been struck hard by Mutant strain once, and it was when I was unaware of the strat.

Like really? I generally try to not to got the argument about player skill, but feth. It's a unit that moves 4", cannot advance and charge and is squishy to small arms fire (either having only a 6+++ or a 6+/6+++ in cover)
Light Anti-infantry shooting is a counter, active charging is a counter, proper positioning is a counter, meatshielding is a counter. There are several things that any player can do to mitigate poxxies with any practically constructed army. Compare that to say Wrath of Mars, which is far more difficult to mitigate, but maxed at 6 wounds - which is equivalent to the average of a perfect mutant strain strike (Full 20 models all in engagement range).

I mean, it's probably a healthy rules change to do to put a 6MW limit on it, but that's nothing to do with the current viability itself - but more the fact that all MW causing strats should have a hard limit to prevent future rule changes from causing an issue.

This, so much. Exploding poxwalkers can easily be played around, and if you take 40 attacks from them YOU made a misplay and are rightfully punished for it. If you brought 0 shooting you don't really have any right to complain about not being able to solve a problem anyways.

I mostly use the stratagem to blow up terminators and similar hard to kill units, and it usually yields 3-5 MW if I'm lucky. My opponent either try to reduce them first, use stratagems to protect themselves or outmaneuver them.
In comparison, a burna bommer dropping a bomb for 5 MW and then hitting 4 units for another 12 MW anywhere on the board in turn 1 is utterly ridiculous. My flying 'eadbut highscore (with a dakkajet, not even a burna bommer) was 37 mortal wounds on a tau army. Soooo many dead drones.

Yes but one stratagem showering enemies in Mortal wounds doesnt make this one less of an unbalanced stratagem for what you pay.

Flying headbutt is criminally undercosted and probably wont survive in to the next codex. I could make a thread about flying eadbutt if i wanted or other stratagems but i decided to make one for this particularly one. I also dont really have an intention of comparing them to abilities.

You can get way too many mortal wounds from Mutant strain. I recognize there are ways to play around them of obvious reasons, but at the same time, the stratagem can just yield too many potential mortal wounds from a cannon fodder unit, for too low of a cost.

People complain that if it was not 6s on the hitting phase but on the wounding phase, it would be too situational to use. But id say thats exactly how stratagems are meant to work. Not a: every time 10 poxwalkers are within range ill just auto use this ability. The difference between using a stratagem and not using it, shouldnt increase a units combat capabilities by like 500% which this stratagem does. If Poxies attack a T8 unit, they're not meant to do a lot. But in this case, they can actually fairly well trade blows with it. They punch way above their weight class for only 1CP.

1CP for 20 hits where every 6 is a MW, and a 1 kills a poxy, with other stratagems and abilities to ressurect them? thats a very good stratagem, even if it doesnt happen often. Its overpowered in my opinion, but not game breaking because you can play around it. Flying eadbutt can be game breaking because if your enemy dont get turn 1 to shoot down the plane, you WILL gain at least some value out of exploding yourself. It doesnt always make up for the price of the burna bomma, if your enemy is being strategic about their placement though.

But sure, there are worse stratagems out there, like flying eadbutt. But that doesnt mean that Mutant strain dealing a potentially obscene amount of MWs on its own on a low tier 5 ppm model is okay either. Just because something else is worse, doesnt mean i cant focus on this one stratagem.

Beardedragon wrote:
How many times do i need to repeat what i wrote? its not a strategy question. It doesnt matter if i can deal with it.

Its a balance issue among stratagems of what you get for 1 CP. the damage output from this 1 stratagem, on the lowest cannon fodder unit is too high.

its a stratagem balance issue, not a gameplay issue. I didnt make this thread because i got fethed over by the stratagem. Its not my first time being against a deathguard player, i know what he can do. I made the thread because i recognize that it can deal obscene amounts of mortal wounds for basically no cost, on a trash unit that isnt meant to have the power to obscenely dish out mortal wounds like theres no tomorrow. Most 1CP stratagems deals a max of around 5 or so mortal wounds. that pales in comparison to this potential mortal wounds stratagem.

So stop pretending im making this thread because im salty about it because i lost a game because of this ability, because i didnt. i recognize, that the mortal wounds potential is too high for the 1CP paid.

that is all.

Sorry, but with all due respect, you can't just claim to be right and repeating the same opinion over and over again doesn't change any of the facts. Intelligence is the ability to adapt to new information and re-evaluating your opinion according to that information.
If you have the ability to easily play around this stratagem on a super-slow unit with no shooting, no save outside of a 6+++, no AP, low S and you instead chose to charge right into the one unit on the board being protected by a once-per-army aura on a separate character, not shoot that unit even once before and allow 20 of them to get into 2" of your models, you just fethed up.
Worst case, instead of charging into the blighspawn's aura you can just stand in front of them and spend 1 CP to kill half the poxwalkers with 10 stikkbombs and sluggas.

Own your mistakes, play better next time, bring a better balanced army.

I honestly think even if you hard limit them to 6 MW just like the current wrath of Mars strategem, its going to be fine, because there aren't that many occassions they will actually do that many. I have played many games, and used that strategem quite a few times (usually just once per game), and I have never had them do over 6 mortal wounds for me.

Wrath of Mars is actually far easier to pull off that max 6 MW. Because that is shooting. So are you now going to cry about wrath of Mars too?

And as one of the above poster mentioned. So, should we put a hard cap on burner bombers exploding for 10 to 20 mortal wounds all over an army? How about void raven bombers too ?

Eldenfirefly wrote:
I honestly think even if you hard limit them to 6 MW just like the current wrath of Mars strategem, its going to be fine, because there aren't that many occassions they will actually do that many. I have played many games, and used that strategem quite a few times (usually just once per game), and I have never had them do over 6 wounds for me.

Wrath of Mars is actually far easier to pull off that max 6 MW. Because that is shooting. So are you now going to cry about wrath of Mars too?

I have never played against adeptus Mechanicus. I dont know if theres an FAQ but wahapedia doesnt state that wrath of mars is maxed out at 6. Regardless its 2CP for this stratagem so that already makes it a bigger tax than what poxwalkers get.


Can i not think one ability is over performing without needing to mention EVERY SINGLE OTHER OVER PERFORMING STRATAGEM in the game?. I dont NEED to mention every single over performing stratagem out there, im allowed to focus on one, which i did. So stop mentioning that something else is worse like wrath of mars or flying eadbutt.

Oh you get called funny names at school and consider that bullying? I get kicked every day. What happens to me is worse so you cant complain" is kind of how i see you guys argument. Arguing that a specific stratagem cant be over performing just because something else is over performing more.

That makes no sense.

Beardedragon wrote:
Flying headbutt is criminally undercosted and probably wont survive in to the next codex. You can get way too many mortal wounds from Mutant strain. I recognize there are ways to play around them of obvious reasons, but at the same time, the stratagem can just yield too many potential mortal wounds from a cannon fodder unit, for too low of a cost.

People complain that if it was not 6s on the hitting phase but on the wounding phase, it would be too situational to use. But id say thats exactly how stratagems are meant to work. Not a: every time 10 poxwalkers are within range ill just auto use this ability.

1CP for 20 hits where every 6 is a MW, and a 1 kills a poxy, with other stratagems and abilities to ressurect them? thats a very good stratagem, even if it doesnt happen often.

No, you don't understand what people are saying. The potential doesn't matter because your opponent doesn't just get to decide to deal 6-8 mortal wounds to you. He needs YOUR cooperation to deal that many wounds. Essentially YOU are playing a 0 CP stratagem that doubles the amount of wounds caused by exploding poxwalkers.

If you charge Thrakka into the Nightbringer, he is going to die. It's not the nightbringer at fault here because he is OP, but you because you charged the one thing in the game that can both survive and one-round Thrakka.

Look, if you're completely unwilling to discuss the myriad ways that this strats power can be mitigated by the opponent then I don't think there's much more that can be discussed.
That mindset makes Blight Bombardment OP because I could spend 2CP to drop it on my opponents army and if he doesn't move it will hit about 8 of his units doing on average about 20 MWs...

The question is still that the hill you chose to die on is comparativly one made by a mole instead of an actual hill , which is why people point to other stratagems.

Which is a fair question, we get it , you don't like the fact that a cannonfodder unit that should do nothing more or less can dish out potentially an obscene ammount of MW, which is a position is fine to have, however it's by far a non issue considering that it only really intencivises a use of non elites against a unit of non elites and in such a manner, why shouldn't there be mechanics to punish you from bringing a smashhammer all the time against units not needing one?
Also, it allows for an enticing potential area denial, which is always interesting and good since it facilitates more manouvre and avoidance gameplay, which is something still severly short in 40k.

Besides, this whole thing about a low tier unit. 20 poxwalkers cost 100 points. You kind of expect a 100 point unit to do something right?

Let me take 100 points of wytches and charge them into you. Its only 100 points...

5 berserkers are only 90 points. Let me charge 5 world eater zerkers into you and spend 1 CP for stoke the nails plus I fight twice ...

An analogy that came to my mind is the IG Cyclops demolition charge. For those not familiar with it: it can blow itself up and do 2D6 (blast) 9/-2/d3 BS4+ attacks to every unit within 6'' for 50 points. Theoretically that is hilariously strong for such a cheap unit if you get it within range of a couple of characters who all count as a seperate unit.

Meanwhile it's also extremely easy to counter (bubblewrap units, shooting it before it reaches something valuable, not clustering lots of valuable units in a way that the thingy can get within 6'' of more than one). So I have never actually seen it mentioned as a problem. If you one claims that these things are not a question of tactics, but potential, than it would also be a highly problematic unit. Imagine it getting into group of bunched up, expensive characters...

we're never going to agree. so ill agree to disagree.

You wanna talk about strategies i wanna talk over performing CP for what you pay for. The stratagem over performs compared to what you pay for it.

Flying headbutt also over performs even if there are ways to minimize your losses as well. the potential is too high. Flying headbutt is clearly more crazy in terms of efficiency than Mutant strain, and it can break more games than mutant strain ever will, but its still way too efficient for what you pay.


That is that. If people wanna argue that a low tier unit should be able to break T8 units then thats their deal i guess. Ive never met a DG player in real life that looked at this stratagem and said: this is meh, and cant overperform at all". And i play with someone who attend and do very well in tournements with DG.


I guess theres a difference in how people see balance in this game. Clearly people i meet who do tournements have one opinion, and you guys where some of you do tournements, thinks something different.

Beardedragon wrote:

Can i not think one ability is over performing without needing to mention EVERY SINGLE OTHER OVER PERFORMING STRATAGEM in the game?. I dont NEED to mention every single over performing stratagem out there, im allowed to focus on one, which i did. So stop mentioning that something else is worse like wrath of mars or flying eadbutt.

Truth be told it just makes you look salty as people have been pointing out. You got owned in one game by not knowing the stratagem and it shows. Your sheer bias is also evident of the fact that you are salty. .

I have actually noticed that the people who get most upset about this stratagem are the ones who are caught in a gotcha moment. Everyone else just really don't care and just play around the unit.

I saw a guy placing 2nd in an Australian GT who played all mostly plague marines and zero pox walkers. So, he obviously didn't use this strategem because he literally played zero pox walkers...

Its not a crutch that DG relies on in order to win. I am not even sure what kind of cap you want. Given the heavy limitations and it being so situational. So, based on that, sure, I can go ahead and say give it a 6 MW cap. Would that make you happy? Not as if I am the one deciding these things anyway.