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 G00fySmiley wrote:
its still said in modern books about painboys being abel to mix and match parts, just read about it in a caiphus cain book i was rereading (just did the whole series so not sure the title but the one on an ice world in a mining area where they discover necrons)

Caves of Ice, by Sandy Mitchell, from 2004.

Man, that book is 17 years old already? Wow.

 Dysartes wrote:

 G00fySmiley wrote:
its still said in modern books about painboys being abel to mix and match parts, just read about it in a caiphus cain book i was rereading (just did the whole series so not sure the title but the one on an ice world in a mining area where they discover necrons)

Caves of Ice, by Sandy Mitchell, from 2004.

Man, that book is 17 years old already? Wow.

jeebus really... 17 years man i am turning into a dinosaur. I want to say there was a mention of it in one of the primarch books about them fighting the same orks they thought they had fought before but bigger and with a few more scars but i need to reread them to find it, might have been the Roboute one but i also may be mixing it up.

As for the above about "people just need to try and make boyz work" TLDR any good player knows now if facing a ork horde. if a 30 man units is on the field kill 6 from each unit, chances are they will then lose ~6 to morale after failing per unit. next turn they kill 6 per unit and you use ~3 to morale. they put very little effort into actually killing 12 orks per unit over 2 turns and get a return of 9 bonus killed per unit and end of turn 2 those 30 man units are now 9 or less man units.

without mob rule or something like the bosspole back where lose D3 orks to auto pass morale ork boy horde is just to easy to counter and trivial amount of shots or attacks for any competitive army list. The only scenario boyz do well is if your opponent goes hard on high str high dmg weapons and for some reason skips any anti infantry. They would then autolose to many armies but hey in that odd anti imperial knight list you could "make them work" but they would not even be as good as a tyranid horde or admech horde infantry list. hell even necron horde would beat out orks in that setup probably.


TLDR of the TLDR orks boyz cannot work because of morale.

 G00fySmiley wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:

 G00fySmiley wrote:
its still said in modern books about painboys being abel to mix and match parts, just read about it in a caiphus cain book i was rereading (just did the whole series so not sure the title but the one on an ice world in a mining area where they discover necrons)

Caves of Ice, by Sandy Mitchell, from 2004.

Man, that book is 17 years old already? Wow.

jeebus really... 17 years man i am turning into a dinosaur. I want to say there was a mention of it in one of the primarch books about them fighting the same orks they thought they had fought before but bigger and with a few more scars but i need to reread them to find it, might have been the Roboute one but i also may be mixing it up.

As for the above about "people just need to try and make boyz work" TLDR any good player knows now if facing a ork horde. if a 30 man units is on the field kill 6 from each unit, chances are they will then lose ~6 to morale after failing per unit. next turn they kill 6 per unit and you use ~3 to morale. they put very little effort into actually killing 12 orks per unit over 2 turns and get a return of 9 bonus killed per unit and end of turn 2 those 30 man units are now 9 or less man units.

without mob rule or something like the bosspole back where lose D3 orks to auto pass morale ork boy horde is just to easy to counter and trivial amount of shots or attacks for any competitive army list. The only scenario boyz do well is if your opponent goes hard on high str high dmg weapons and for some reason skips any anti infantry. They would then autolose to many armies but hey in that odd anti imperial knight list you could "make them work" but they would not even be as good as a tyranid horde or admech horde infantry list. hell even necron horde would beat out orks in that setup probably.


TLDR of the TLDR orks boyz cannot work because of morale.

The morale changes are introduced as a factor to offset hordes and stop morale immune blobs clogging the board. Making boyz immune to morale isn't the answer either. This isn't going to be fixed as long as morale is simply a "more stuff dies" mechanic.

Dudeface wrote:

 G00fySmiley wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:

 G00fySmiley wrote:
its still said in modern books about painboys being abel to mix and match parts, just read about it in a caiphus cain book i was rereading (just did the whole series so not sure the title but the one on an ice world in a mining area where they discover necrons)

Caves of Ice, by Sandy Mitchell, from 2004.

Man, that book is 17 years old already? Wow.

jeebus really... 17 years man i am turning into a dinosaur. I want to say there was a mention of it in one of the primarch books about them fighting the same orks they thought they had fought before but bigger and with a few more scars but i need to reread them to find it, might have been the Roboute one but i also may be mixing it up.

As for the above about "people just need to try and make boyz work" TLDR any good player knows now if facing a ork horde. if a 30 man units is on the field kill 6 from each unit, chances are they will then lose ~6 to morale after failing per unit. next turn they kill 6 per unit and you use ~3 to morale. they put very little effort into actually killing 12 orks per unit over 2 turns and get a return of 9 bonus killed per unit and end of turn 2 those 30 man units are now 9 or less man units.

without mob rule or something like the bosspole back where lose D3 orks to auto pass morale ork boy horde is just to easy to counter and trivial amount of shots or attacks for any competitive army list. The only scenario boyz do well is if your opponent goes hard on high str high dmg weapons and for some reason skips any anti infantry. They would then autolose to many armies but hey in that odd anti imperial knight list you could "make them work" but they would not even be as good as a tyranid horde or admech horde infantry list. hell even necron horde would beat out orks in that setup probably.


TLDR of the TLDR orks boyz cannot work because of morale.

The morale changes are introduced as a factor to offset hordes and stop morale immune blobs clogging the board. Making boyz immune to morale isn't the answer either. This isn't going to be fixed as long as morale is simply a "more stuff dies" mechanic.

I don't necessarily disagree there, but Tyranids as it stands use synapse to be immune to morale, and with ork leadership being what it is along with the lack of a good armor save means morale hurts ork horde more than any other army that can be a horde. The fix does not need to be a flat out immunity, as said the old boss pole mechanic we had before mob rule was added (in 7th?) for lose D3 boyz instead of failing was less punishing. It could maybe be fixed by making ork boyz cheaper so the loss is less of a big deal but i am not sure more bodies is the best solution either as it just clogs the table at a certain point.

between ATSKNF, synapse and high leadership/small unit sizes in most armies it seems morale is basically functioning as a penalty for Orks, GSC, and if run that way Imperial guard, most other factions its a negligible effect that might make them lose a few models during the game but rarely doing much. I for one would also be fine with just doing away with it altogether, no more leaving bodies on the table or thinking back to how many models lost in each unit. something simple like if the unit is at half the starting strength and took a casualty take a leadership test, on a failed test minus 1 WS/BS.

Preventing “morale immune blobs” in 40k is kinda silly, seeing as tyrannids, guard, and orks, are all lore wise based on having those.
I remember the 4th ork dex that promoted just taking more bodies than bullets the enemy had.

 Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote:
Preventing “morale immune blobs” in 40k is kinda silly, seeing as tyrannids, guard, and orks, are all lore wise based on having those.
I remember the 4th ork dex that promoted just taking more bodies than bullets the enemy had.

I would agree usually on orks and Tyranids, not so much for guard unless they are near a Commisar. I have a guard army, what brought me to them were the just human soldiers in space, and human soldiers will often run in unbeatable odds when most their squamates have died (unless thee is a commisar behind them who they knwo will shoot them for looking back)

 G00fySmiley wrote:

 Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote:
Preventing “morale immune blobs” in 40k is kinda silly, seeing as tyrannids, guard, and orks, are all lore wise based on having those.
I remember the 4th ork dex that promoted just taking more bodies than bullets the enemy had.

I would agree usually on orks and Tyranids, not so much for guard unless they are near a Commisar. I have a guard army, what brought me to them were the just human soldiers in space, and human soldiers will often run in unbeatable odds when most their squamates have died (unless thee is a commisar behind them who they knwo will shoot them for looking back)

I mean, I was assuming the involvement of a commissar, but if you read the lore Cadians are honestly kinda insane, they don’t really break much. Then again, cadians so I can’t really speak for a more generic pdf.

There is an important mechanical point to giving horde armies some form of morale immunity, since if a model is easy to kill and on top of that are easy to cause morale effects, then it becomes much easier to "double dip" in damage, becoming less threatening much faster to less damge compared to something like space marines, and this is much more noticible in "elite" horde armies like orks and demons

Back in my day, orks were six points, massively tougher per point than what we have now, and fearless.

 Luke_Prowler wrote:
There is an important mechanical point to giving horde armies some form of morale immunity, since if a model is easy to kill and on top of that are easy to cause morale effects, then it becomes much easier to "double dip" in damage, becoming less threatening much faster to less damge compared to something like space marines, and this is much more noticible in "elite" horde armies like orks and demons

Again though morale being a damage "double dip" is the issue. The point of the morale process is to punish units suffering heavy losses, orks are fluff wise only fearless or whatever rather fluff equivalent is, when they're in large numbers. Them running or performing worse after taking losses makes sense.

Marines in a 5 man unit should also be subject to morale, but it should just be harder to apply to them, in part from unit size and also due to higher leadership.

I'm not all for nids ignoring it either, it should have a different impact on them, maybe alter how well they respond to the synaptic commands or their ability to swarm etc. But they're up there with daemons for those most likely to ignore psychological impact of losses.

Dudeface wrote:

 Luke_Prowler wrote:
There is an important mechanical point to giving horde armies some form of morale immunity, since if a model is easy to kill and on top of that are easy to cause morale effects, then it becomes much easier to "double dip" in damage, becoming less threatening much faster to less damge compared to something like space marines, and this is much more noticible in "elite" horde armies like orks and demons

Again though morale being a damage "double dip" is the issue. The point of the morale process is to punish units suffering heavy losses, orks are fluff wise only fearless or whatever rather fluff equivalent is, when they're in large numbers. Them running or performing worse after taking losses makes sense.

Marines in a 5 man unit should also be subject to morale, but it should just be harder to apply to them, in part from unit size and also due to higher leadership.

I'm not all for nids ignoring it either, it should have a different impact on them, maybe alter how well they respond to the synaptic commands or their ability to swarm etc. But they're up there with daemons for those most likely to ignore psychological impact of losses.

For orks that is how mob rule functioned, orks were not completely immune. Leadership was the same as the number of models in the unit. they were not immune to morale, but you had to kill 15 boyz from a full 30 man unit to force a morale fail on anything but a 1 (they could start failing it at 10 losses on a 6). once the mob is down to less than 10 boyz morale comes into play a lot easier. (this being the old way and what was removed)

 G00fySmiley wrote:
TLDR any good player knows now if facing a ork horde. if a 30 man units is on the field kill 6 from each unit, chances are they will then lose ~6 to morale after failing per unit. next turn they kill 6 per unit and you use ~3 to morale. they put very little effort into actually killing 12 orks per unit over 2 turns and get a return of 9 bonus killed per unit and end of turn 2 those 30 man units are now 9 or less man units.

That's a really awful state for Orks to be in. Shameful.

It's like learning that Death Company and Berzerkers were no longer Fearless. Like wtf.

I’d like the old mob rule tbh, the one where you’re just fearless over 11 orks.

And thats why Morale should not exist in 40k. Everyone should be fearless by fluff or needs to be fearless to function.

And to have a mechanic that basically just punish Tau Firewarriors and Imperial Guard... just remove it.

 Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote:
I’d like the old mob rule tbh, the one where you’re just fearless over 11 orks.

Agree.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Galas wrote:
And thats why Morale should not exist in 40k. Everyone should be fearless by fluff or needs to be fearless to function.

And to have a mechanic that basically just punish Tau Firewarriors and Imperial Guard... just remove it.

Disagree.

 Galas wrote:
And thats why Morale should not exist in 40k. Everyone should be fearless by fluff or needs to be fearless to function.

And to have a mechanic that basically just punish Tau Firewarriors and Imperial Guard... just remove it.

Agreed. Outside of 30K and some fringe cases morale in 40K never was really functional because most armies outright ignored it. (my Daemons in 8th felt like an exception). In 9th nobody ignores it, but only for Orks so far it really has an impact, for others it's nothing to worry about or hardly comes into play due to msu.

No one would suffer from morale as we have it now, but maybe if morale immunity was lowered for everyone (or had it at more of a cost) we could have some more fun effects like falling back d6 inches, not being able to shoot, or something else like that. I wouldn’t mind 7th ed mob rule if marines also had to deal with leadership stuff.

Thats the thing. Marines never have to deal with morale because AND THEY SHALL KNOW NO FEAR.

Thats makes 60% armies of the game not deal with morale.

Demons? No morale.
Tyranids? Synapse so basically no morale unless you are allready losing so double losing (And from theory I really like the gameplay of focusing synapse creatures to weaken the horde but GW never does it justice)
Necrons? No morale
95% of the Chaos Marines roster? No morale because rubrics berzerker plague marines zombies chosen chaos demonic whatever
Eldar and Dark Eldar? Eh no morale because crazy bunch and MSU armies with extremely high leadership and having eldar running for their lives also doesn't feel right

So that leaves orks (And orks affected by morale are bad orks), imperial guard (Blam commisars no morale problems for you) or Tau (bam ethereals no morale problems for you)

Here's my solution to making Ork Boyz Great Again!

Ork Boyz

Unit Size 10-30 models

Base Unit cost 70 Points (10 Models)

Models 11-20: +6 Points each

Models 21-30: +5 Points each

Big Choppa: +5 Points

Big Shoota: +0 Points

Killsaw: +10 Points

Kombi-Rocket: +10 Points

Kombi-Skorcha: +10 Points

Power klaw: +10 Points

Power Stabba: +5 Points

Rokkit Launcha: +5 Points

Adjust Power Levels to match up with the point cost.

Now a mob of 30 boys with Power Klaw and three Big Shootas cost 190 points instead of the insane 310 points under the current cost. They still get shredded by Morale, but they are costed with that fact in mind. The bigger the mob, the less you pay per model.

 Galas wrote:
Thats the thing. Marines never have to deal with morale because AND THEY SHALL KNOW NO FEAR.

Thats makes 60% armies of the game not deal with morale.

Demons? No morale.
Tyranids? Synapse so basically no morale unless you are allready losing so double losing (And from theory I really like the gameplay of focusing synapse creatures to weaken the horde but GW never does it justice)
Necrons? No morale
95% of the Chaos Marines roster? No morale because rubrics berzerker plague marines zombies chosen chaos demonic whatever
Eldar and Dark Eldar? Eh no morale because crazy bunch and MSU armies with extremely high leadership and having eldar running for their lives also doesn't feel right

So that leaves orks (And orks affected by morale are bad orks), imperial guard (Blam commisars no morale problems for you) or Tau (bam ethereals no morale problems for you)

Eldar, DE, Necrons and CSM all had vulnerabilities from Morale rules. Iirc, Daemons just had their own version called Instability.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Galas wrote:
Thats the thing. Marines never have to deal with morale because AND THEY SHALL KNOW NO FEAR.

Thats makes 60% armies of the game not deal with morale.

Demons? No morale.
Tyranids? Synapse so basically no morale unless you are allready losing so double losing (And from theory I really like the gameplay of focusing synapse creatures to weaken the horde but GW never does it justice)
Necrons? No morale
95% of the Chaos Marines roster? No morale because rubrics berzerker plague marines zombies chosen chaos demonic whatever
Eldar and Dark Eldar? Eh no morale because crazy bunch and MSU armies with extremely high leadership and having eldar running for their lives also doesn't feel right

So that leaves orks (And orks affected by morale are bad orks), imperial guard (Blam commisars no morale problems for you) or Tau (bam ethereals no morale problems for you)

Eldar, DE, Necrons and CSM all had vulnerabilities from Morale rules. Iirc, Daemons just had their own version called Instability.

Wasn't Instability just for Leadership tests after losing CC? I may be confusing that with something similar that Vampire Counts had for their Zombies etc, but I want to say that Instability wasn't a 1:1 Morale replacement for them.

^Possibly, but it certainly served a similar function.

 Galas wrote:
And thats why Morale should not exist in 40k. Everyone should be fearless by fluff or needs to be fearless to function.

And to have a mechanic that basically just punish Tau Firewarriors and Imperial Guard... just remove it.

Agreed. When we play 3 person free for all we turn off morale. Boring, unnecessarily punishing to hoard armies, really only in place to wreck T'au and IG which are already in a bad place. Feels like everyone else ignores morale except these armies so we just said f that boring time consuming.

 waefre_1 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Galas wrote:
Thats the thing. Marines never have to deal with morale because AND THEY SHALL KNOW NO FEAR.

Thats makes 60% armies of the game not deal with morale.

Demons? No morale.
Tyranids? Synapse so basically no morale unless you are allready losing so double losing (And from theory I really like the gameplay of focusing synapse creatures to weaken the horde but GW never does it justice)
Necrons? No morale
95% of the Chaos Marines roster? No morale because rubrics berzerker plague marines zombies chosen chaos demonic whatever
Eldar and Dark Eldar? Eh no morale because crazy bunch and MSU armies with extremely high leadership and having eldar running for their lives also doesn't feel right

So that leaves orks (And orks affected by morale are bad orks), imperial guard (Blam commisars no morale problems for you) or Tau (bam ethereals no morale problems for you)

Eldar, DE, Necrons and CSM all had vulnerabilities from Morale rules. Iirc, Daemons just had their own version called Instability.

Wasn't Instability just for Leadership tests after losing CC? I may be confusing that with something similar that Vampire Counts had for their Zombies etc, but I want to say that Instability wasn't a 1:1 Morale replacement for them.

I think you're right, but this list of nigh immune armies shows why having morale rules that can impact everyone is likely a good thing. Being immune to a negative core mechanic shouldn't be standard, it's why fly was so valuable in 8th as well.

 alextroy wrote:
Here's my solution to making Ork Boyz Great Again!

Ork Boyz

Unit Size 10-30 models

Base Unit cost 70 Points (10 Models)

Models 11-20: +6 Points each

Models 21-30: +5 Points each

Big Choppa: +5 Points

Big Shoota: +0 Points

Killsaw: +10 Points

Kombi-Rocket: +10 Points

Kombi-Skorcha: +10 Points

Power klaw: +10 Points

Power Stabba: +5 Points

Rokkit Launcha: +5 Points

Adjust Power Levels to match up with the point cost.

Now a mob of 30 boys with Power Klaw and three Big Shootas cost 190 points instead of the insane 310 points under the current cost. They still get shredded by Morale, but they are costed with that fact in mind. The bigger the mob, the less you pay per model.

That's a massive discount of points, 7ppm for the basic boy is simply not gonna happen, let alone 6ppm or 5ppm ones. I like the concept of making boyz cheaper every 10 models, but they realistically should be designed around the 9-8-7 ppm costs. I'm also against free upgrades, make big shootas better instead, for example with a flat AP-1 at half or even full range.

IMHO best way to fix boyz is to give them a flat fearless mechanic, triggered somehow. Then re-work the troops' role in 40k in order to give troops some unique features that encourage players selecting them. All food for 10th edition, orks rules are done for 9th.

 alextroy wrote:
Here's my solution to making Ork Boyz Great Again!

Ork Boyz

Unit Size 10-30 models

Base Unit cost 70 Points (10 Models)

Models 11-20: +6 Points each

Models 21-30: +5 Points each

Big Choppa: +5 Points

Big Shoota: +0 Points

Killsaw: +10 Points

Kombi-Rocket: +10 Points

Kombi-Skorcha: +10 Points

Power klaw: +10 Points

Power Stabba: +5 Points

Rokkit Launcha: +5 Points

Adjust Power Levels to match up with the point cost.

Now a mob of 30 boys with Power Klaw and three Big Shootas cost 190 points instead of the insane 310 points under the current cost. They still get shredded by Morale, but they are costed with that fact in mind. The bigger the mob, the less you pay per model.

That seems pretty good honestly, but perhaps stop at 6 ppm, don’t go lower. Cheaper boyz reflects the fluff of waagh power drawing more and more boyz to the fray

Agree with addnid and Blackie. While 190 points might be a bit low for 30 wounds, the idea of boyz getting cheaper is a good one - usually any boyz beyond the first 10-12 are just ablative wounds that never get to fight anyways.

 Jidmah wrote:
Agree with addnid and Blackie. While 190 points might be a bit low for 30 wounds, the idea of boyz getting cheaper is a good one - usually any boyz beyond the first 10-12 are just ablative wounds that never get to fight anyways.

Totally agree here. the other thing to remember is that we have 2 ways of getting out of mass casualties, Breakin' Heads and Insane Bravery. The point of the 30-boyz unit is a tarpit to soak fire & move block your opponent while your bigger krumpers get into position. But as stated, boyz are too expensive to fulfil that role, and the strats are really expensive as well considering we spend most of our CP pre-game because most of our strats fall short.

At 30 boys losing 6 to firing (now at 24), spending the 2 CP is a value-add. But at 24 boyz, losing 6 (down to 18), you're spending 2 CP to save 3/d3 boyz, the value proposition isn't there anymore. If Breakin' Heads was 1 CP for <20 boys and 2CP for 20+, then that strat would be really good.

But the better compromise is just making the boyz cost less at higher numbers

 Blackie wrote:
That's a massive discount of points, 7ppm for the basic boy is simply not gonna happen, let alone 6ppm or 5ppm ones. I like the concept of making boyz cheaper every 10 models, but they realistically should be designed around the 9-8-7 ppm costs. I'm also against free upgrades, make big shootas better instead, for example with a flat AP-1 at half or even full range.

If we all agree that Boyz are so overpriced at 9 points a model for 10 models, then making them cost less after the first 10 models doesn't really fix anything. The first 10-12 models need to be appropriately priced for Trukk Boyz.

As for free upgrades, I think every unit should be costed in a way that front loads basic upgrades and the squad leader into the base points of the unit. Only then will the rules both encourage larger units and units that look like 40K units are supposed to look. Nobody is going to shell out 5 points for a Big Shoota, but they just might take a free Big Shoota if they have already paid for it anyway. Such a fundamental change in unit Matched Play cost would change the math on MSU units, especially the one that come barebones. It's like a more nuanced form of Power Level.

I'd be totally fine with the heavy weapon boy with big shoota just being baseline in a unit, and the rokkit being a 5pt upgrade on top of that. We see that free big shootas aren't a huge issue for kannon wagons or buggies, so they shouldn't be an issue for any other unit.