Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
If they gave a valid explanation in the fluff would that make it cease to be a 'gotcha' in that case?

No. It's a "Gotcha" because it's suddenly changing something after it's been chosen as a target.

"I use my S8 guns against your T4 models so I can wound them on 2+."
"HA! Now they're T9! Gotcha!"
"Ok... well I never would have picked them if they were T9 to begin with."

Stratagems should be about leveraging an abstracted strategic resource, not about micro-alterations to unit stats for a specific moment in response to the opponent making a choice they wouldn't have made if not for the strat. The Rapid Ingress rule we saw the other day is that kind of strat that I'd like to see more of, not "Suddenly tougher!".

"Gotcha!" stratagems are completely different from what you are describing here. They are obscure stratagems rarely used which can screw up the opponent's plans without him knowing, since it is hiding among a pile of other stratagems which no one remembers. ("Whoops I can heroically intervene here because it is the third day of the month and your name starts with D!")
This is a clear option for your opponent (if you don't read his 6 stratagems, that's your fault), that you know he has. It has play and counter play. It allows your opponent to react to your actions.
This (like most of the defensive stratagems) is a stratagem which is good for the health of the game.

You never go "I would not pick them if they are T9". You KNOW that they can be T9 and yet you made the choice to attack them. Did you want to make him spend that resource? Are you baiting that stratagem so that he can't use it on your real target? Are you simply betting on a good roll? There is never a "Gotcha!", only clearly presented options.

Agusto wrote:
"Games are not always won or lost at the center of the table. You can play around the edges quite well. " I know, but that was in response to the comment that not all of your opponents shooting would be in range. And still, if you lose the center, you are most likely losing on primaries as well. On the other hand, we don't know if there will even be primary objectives any more. And if we are moving around the edges, I fear what will happen when a unit of Eradicators will come in from reserve and double tab (if the retain that ability ofc) with full rerolls.

But I will take my doom and gloom from the perspective of a Knight player and move that to the Knight tactica section. All I am saying is that Oath of Moment is going to be insanely strong against an army like Imperial Knights, to the point that I struggle to grasp what kind of defensive buffs Knights will receive in order to able to survive. Knights weren't in a strong position during 9th, and I was, as mentioned, carefully optimistic about 10th. But if you take this kind of buff to the most played army in the game, I fail to see how this is going to be a good edition for Knights. If I turn out to be completely wrong about this though, no one will be happier than me and I will eat my proverbial hat!

Rant over...

Your feelings are valid. There's a lot we don't know.

Knights will certainly go up in toughness. They'll have an OC value making objective control more consistent. They'll have their own reactions and army rules.

For whatever Rotate will do you'll at least know beforehand where the shooting is going to go making the guess work of using it or not a lot less dubious.

Spoletta wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
If they gave a valid explanation in the fluff would that make it cease to be a 'gotcha' in that case?

No. It's a "Gotcha" because it's suddenly changing something after it's been chosen as a target.

"I use my S8 guns against your T4 models so I can wound them on 2+."
"HA! Now they're T9! Gotcha!"
"Ok... well I never would have picked them if they were T9 to begin with."

Stratagems should be about leveraging an abstracted strategic resource, not about micro-alterations to unit stats for a specific moment in response to the opponent making a choice they wouldn't have made if not for the strat. The Rapid Ingress rule we saw the other day is that kind of strat that I'd like to see more of, not "Suddenly tougher!".

"Gotcha!" stratagems are completely different from what you are describing here. They are obscure stratagems rarely used which can screw up the opponent's plans without him knowing, since it is hiding among a pile of other stratagems which no one remembers. ("Whoops I can heroically intervene here because it is the third day of the month and your name starts with D!")
This is a clear option for your opponent (if you don't read his 6 stratagems, that's your fault), that you know he has. It has play and counter play. It allows your opponent to react to your actions.
This (like most of the defensive stratagems) is a stratagem which is good for the health of the game.

You never go "I would not pick them if they are T9". You KNOW that they can be T9 and yet you made the choice to attack them. Did you want to make him spend that resource? Are you baiting that stratagem so that he can't use it on your real target? Are you simply betting on a good roll? There is never a "Gotcha!", only clearly presented options.

Even that's sort of a generous definition. I would argue that for something to be a 'gotcha' there has to be a deliberate effort to obscure the rule or to bait you into a position where the rule can be exploited. The rule just being rarely used doesn't seem like enough to me.

That's debatable though. In contrast to what H.B.M.C. described, which definitely ISN'T a gotcha. "I fire my photon torpedos at your starboard side!" "I divert power to my starboard reflector shields to help minimize the damage!' "THAT'S BULLGAK I wouldn't a fired there if there were shields up!" "...How is that my problem?"

The idea that 'My opponent can react to a thing I did' is a gotcha is stupid. I'm very sorry that not every marine H.B.M.C. shoots at just stands there politely with his piece in his hand until H.B.M.C. is done, but the complaint is silly.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Tyel wrote:
I'm sure I'll get used to it, but I feel we are dangerously close to rushing past my "10 is a sensible number of USRs" and we've barely covered 3 datasheets and some detachment rules.

Maybe this is what it feels to get old but my brain rebels at "Sustained Hits mean you land an extra hit when you score a Critical Hit." The meaning of the rule is simple - but I feel that's too many uses of "hit". Especially when the next sentence talks about "Lethal Hits".

Yea the USRs were dizzying at first, but as long as they keep the naming logical then it looks manageable. The deduction on Precision above, if true, means they do appear to follow some logic.

The issue with the old USRs were:

1. A lot of them did were redundant. Fearless was tacked on to about a dozen other USRs by the end of 7th.
2. They interacted with each other in unanticipated ways because some were written as being model specific, and some were written to apply to the entire unit. A lot of 'Hit and Run+Feel No Pain+Fearless+Psychic Powers going on.
3. There were like 15 pages of them. Include some that were, in reality, unit level abilities that did not need to be included in the USRs.

Having a USR that just gives you 2-3 other USRs was my favorite.

 bullyboy wrote:
So you only get one free detachment at the start of the edition. Thanks GW!!
So if you’re a marine player, you’ll have your gladius and like it. Regardless of what sub faction you are. But don’t forget, you’ll get the opportunity to spend way more money to get new ones later!!!
So if every faction only has one detachment until their codex comes out, it’s going to be a very long edition for some armies.

Well thanks for pointing out the obvious we always knew codexes will come and as always those with codex better than index.

Why fret now when we knew it the moment index was announced?



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Agusto wrote:
I will keep these words and reply when 10th drops.
"It does by no means equate to “you will definitely now lose one Knight a turn”. That would be a silly claim."
If it turns out that I am the one that will be in the wrong, I will acknowledge that fact. But as to quote Han Solo: "I have a bad feeling about this"

Ability to take down knight/turn been normal benchmark for a long time anyway.

ERJAK wrote:

The issue with the old USRs were:

1. A lot of them did were redundant. Fearless was tacked on to about a dozen other USRs by the end of 7th.
2. They interacted with each other in unanticipated ways because some were written as being model specific, and some were written to apply to the entire unit. A lot of 'Hit and Run+Feel No Pain+Fearless+Psychic Powers going on.
3. There were like 15 pages of them. Include some that were, in reality, unit level abilities that did not need to be included in the USRs.

Yea I think these will be fine. They just threw bunch of them at us all at once.

So we're definitely seeing interactions with critical hits and wounds. I wonder if critical saves will be a thing?

Someone needs to leak the damn book already.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Is it a gotcha when you can read them in all of 30 seconds?

It's a "Gotcha" because the opponent chooses a target, and you go "HA! Now their armour is better for some inexplicable reason! Gotcha!".

It's the reason why Transhuman Physiology is such a horrible rule.

It's only a gotcha if your opponent has no way of knowing it was possible until you play it, hidden in your hand. Knowing that an opponent has it available, you can possibly draw it out by shooting at specific units, hoping they'll use it then, and once it's been exhausted you can concentrate on your real target.

ERJAK wrote:
Even that's sort of a generous definition. I would argue that for something to be a 'gotcha' there has to be a deliberate effort to obscure the rule or to bait you into a position where the rule can be exploited. The rule just being rarely used doesn't seem like enough to me.

I think its abilities which kick in when you've taken your hand off the model.

So "I can intervene twice as far" or "I can out of sequence shoot units that deepstrike in" would seem good ones. If you had remembered then you may have positioned your models an inch differently such that they didn't come into play.

Its being "got" because if you were playing sportingly they'd almost never come up. "Remember I can do X" "Oh yeah - okay then I'll position slightly differently so you can't without really impacting my go." (Sometimes you might have to eat it because of other things going on - but hopefully this makes sense.)

The new Armour of Contempt isn't obviously a gotcha - because you would just use the ability on another unit if that unit got targeted instead. "Remember I can use armour of contempt" probably doesn't change your decisions beyond remembering any rule in the game. Terminators having a 2+ save isn't a gotcha to someone who forgot/didn't know.

The Termagant Move is arguably more of a Gotcha - because you may move in to say charge them, only for the Termagants to run away. And if you forgot they could do that, you might have done something different with your unit. But equally its not a crime to learn these things. I feel gotchas are talked up more than the reality.

A few random notes relevant to the last two pages.

-The 'gotcha' effect of stratagems was usually referring to players not knowing that a particular stratagem existed, because you can't reasonably know all the stratagems of every army. If you know the enemy can pop Transhuman, that's not a 'gotcha' when they do; it's when you don't know that the enemy can suddenly double their durability until after you've declared your attack that it gets frustrating. Having abilities you can trigger in response to the enemy (or bait out before targeting a different unit) is fun, getting caught out by something you didn't know about because the rules are a Byzantine mess is not fun.

-Picking a single unit per turn to get re-rolls against is probably not going to be anywhere near as much rolling as having virtually every model get RR1s. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think we've seen any RR1 abilities in 10th so far. It's a step in the right direction if re-rolls are limited to powerful, specific abilities rather than a tedious addition to nearly every roll. Also, it might actually be interesting if Marines are the army with the most access to re-rolls; a newbie-friendly force-multiplier ability that fits their elite nature.

-One of the major issues with GW's prior implementations of USRs, in addition to the ones already stated, was that they were often hard to remember and parse. Unintuitive names, USRs that reference other USRs, and creating different abilities instead of just putting numbers to them can make otherwise coherent USR schemes far more annoying than they ought to be. Readability/learnability are more important than the raw number IMO and so far I like what I see.

Overall I have some concerns but these do seem like genuine, competent attempts to rein in the sprawling unnecessary complexity and poor play experience of 9th.

Yeah if they can avoid "nested USRs" this time around, that'd be great.

I just welcome the idea of captains actually swinging their swords again.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
I just welcome the idea of captains actually swinging their swords again.

You mean you didn't prefer them stood at the back yelling at people/vehicles (of varying degrees across 8/9th) to shoot better?

Dudeface wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
I just welcome the idea of captains actually swinging their swords again.

You mean you didn't prefer them stood at the back yelling at people/vehicles (of varying degrees across 8/9th) to shoot better?

???
To be fair, you had options to do both of the above. Not sure why that’s a bad thing.

 Platuan4th wrote:
Having a USR that just gives you 2-3 other USRs was my favorite.

Come play Horus Heresy, we have nested rules for days

I don’t think it’s worth its own thread, but maybe it would be nice to compile a list of 10th edition terminology/Abilities/USRs revealed so far. Not including faction specific rules and abilities, I think this covers everything so far:

Feel no pain X+
Benefit of Cover
Deep Strike (without X+ unfortunately)
Assault
Pistol
Twin-Linked
Critical Hit
Critical Wound
Devastating Wounds
Blast
Ignores Cover
Torrent
Rapid Fire X
Anti-Keyword X+
Sustained Hits X
Lethal Hits
Precision


Core Strategems

- Rapid Ingress


Interesting that Mortal Wounds hasn’t been mentioned yet, maybe they won’t be a thing any more? No sign of “Heavy” as a weapon type yet. Maybe not needed now that BS is adjustable on individual weapons, and what would have been heavy might just get a worse BS than other weapons on the same unit.

Agusto wrote:
"Games are not always won or lost at the center of the table. You can play around the edges quite well. " I know, but that was in response to the comment that not all of your opponents shooting would be in range. And still, if you lose the center, you are most likely losing on primaries as well. On the other hand, we don't know if there will even be primary objectives any more. And if we are moving around the edges, I fear what will happen when a unit of Eradicators will come in from reserve and double tab (if the retain that ability ofc) with full rerolls.

But I will take my doom and gloom from the perspective of a Knight player and move that to the Knight tactica section. All I am saying is that Oath of Moment is going to be insanely strong against an army like Imperial Knights, to the point that I struggle to grasp what kind of defensive buffs Knights will receive in order to able to survive. Knights weren't in a strong position during 9th, and I was, as mentioned, carefully optimistic about 10th. But if you take this kind of buff to the most played army in the game, I fail to see how this is going to be a good edition for Knights. If I turn out to be completely wrong about this though, no one will be happier than me and I will eat my proverbial hat!

Rant over...

Given their stated desire to make tough things tough, it's not impossible that Knights just get an improved Ion Shield - especially in light of Terminators going to a 4++. After all, since there won't be any army-wide stratagems and I can't see making Rotate Shields a Detachment-specific stratagem, giving Knights a 4++ against shooting (or, dare I hope, just a straight 4++) doesn't seem like a stretch.

I know people like to Spongebob it, but since ALL armies will be updated right off, let's wait and see.

They specifically called out that some "unit-specific stratagems" are being put onto the datasheets as unit abilities...

Y'know, like they used to be.

 bullyboy wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
I just welcome the idea of captains actually swinging their swords again.

You mean you didn't prefer them stood at the back yelling at people/vehicles (of varying degrees across 8/9th) to shoot better?

???
To be fair, you had options to do both of the above. Not sure why that’s a bad thing.

You'll certainly be able to do both since there are captains specifically suited for it, but it seems like at least the rules will incentivize using the other ones more readily.

It's going to feel weird for Thousand Sons though. I might be guarding them with Tzaangors instead of Rubrics, but I guess we'll see...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Aash wrote:
Interesting that Mortal Wounds hasn’t been mentioned yet, maybe they won’t be a thing any more? No sign of “Heavy” as a weapon type yet. Maybe not needed now that BS is adjustable on individual weapons, and what would have been heavy might just get a worse BS than other weapons on the same unit.

If I were to make a gakky guess I would say Lethal Wounds will be mortal wounds if the logic carries where Lethal means 'skip the next step'. Maybe.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Someone needs to leak the damn book already.

I'll be impressed if people actually stick to their NDAs this time - and if people can actually be patient for once.

 Dysartes wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Someone needs to leak the damn book already.

I'll be impressed if people actually stick to their NDAs this time - and if people can actually be patient for once.

We want the rules!
We want the rules!
We want the rules!

 Daedalus81 wrote:

If I were to make a gakky guess I would say Lethal Wounds will be mortal wounds if the logic carries where Lethal means 'skip the next step'. Maybe.

I just pray there won't be both Lethal Wounds and Mortal Wounds as separate rules terms in the same edition.

Very keen to see characters leading units again.

 catbarf wrote:
A few random notes relevant to the last two pages.

-The 'gotcha' effect of stratagems was usually referring to players not knowing that a particular stratagem existed, because you can't reasonably know all the stratagems of every army. If you know the enemy can pop Transhuman, that's not a 'gotcha' when they do; it's when you don't know that the enemy can suddenly double their durability until after you've declared your attack that it gets frustrating. Having abilities you can trigger in response to the enemy (or bait out before targeting a different unit) is fun, getting caught out by something you didn't know about because the rules are a Byzantine mess is not fun.

-Picking a single unit per turn to get re-rolls against is probably not going to be anywhere near as much rolling as having virtually every model get RR1s. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think we've seen any RR1 abilities in 10th so far. It's a step in the right direction if re-rolls are limited to powerful, specific abilities rather than a tedious addition to nearly every roll. Also, it might actually be interesting if Marines are the army with the most access to re-rolls; a newbie-friendly force-multiplier ability that fits their elite nature.

-One of the major issues with GW's prior implementations of USRs, in addition to the ones already stated, was that they were often hard to remember and parse. Unintuitive names, USRs that reference other USRs, and creating different abilities instead of just putting numbers to them can make otherwise coherent USR schemes far more annoying than they ought to be. Readability/learnability are more important than the raw number IMO and so far I like what I see.

Overall I have some concerns but these do seem like genuine, competent attempts to rein in the sprawling unnecessary complexity and poor play experience of 9th.

Pretty much feel the same. About the only qualms I have are 'less rerolls, but space marines can pile up infinite rerolls against any one unit, each turn, every turn' and I'm not sure about critical hits branching out into lethal, sustained, precision and whatever else.

The structure of the stratagem is pretty good. The icons are presumably for the shooting and fight phases, respectively, and breaking it up into 'when,' 'target' and 'effect' minimizes some of their terrible rules verbiage. It forces them to parse it into separate sentences, rather than some sort of Gordian writing knot that twists in on itself.

Crazy to see the Terminators straight up ignoring all penalty to hit, and then have them also get +1 to-hit on top of the re-roll for Oath of Moment against that one target you want dead.

Hope the nids from the box doesn't feature any fast or agile units that rely on to-hit penalty to survive, like say, the Lictors

 Skywave wrote:
Crazy to see the Terminators straight up ignoring all penalty to hit, and then have them also get +1 to-hit on top of the re-roll for Oath of Moment against that one target you want dead.

Hope the nids from the box doesn't feature any fast or agile units that rely on to-hit penalty to survive, like say, the Lictors

Or terminators cost so much vs lictor it's not much to cheer. 400 pts terminator vs 80 lictor wouldn't be much to cheer. 3x points to one shot is good. More inefficient, less too lethal

Also toughness is going up, so a lot of things that would be wounding on 3s will be 4s or 5s now. Full rerolls to hit will help on some targets, but by a smaller margin.

Marines basically get an autodelete ability each turn, great gamedesign GW.

 p5freak wrote:
Marines basically get an autodelete ability each turn, great gamedesign GW.

You autodeleted unit in 8-9e as well.

Question is how point efficient it is. 3 vs 1 should be goal. 9e it's been more of 1 to 1 or better...

And since we don't have full rules let alone point costs...

If it takes 2k to shoot 500pts unit in one go that's not instantly problem.

Just to poor a bit more oil in the flames:
I'm fairly certain that the Oath of Moment will have a Detachment Stratagem that says: If unit X dies and was target of Oath of Moment, choose another target. It's the same people that thought that the grudges mechanics of LoV were remotely reasonable after all.

I agree in general though, Stratagems that just make something tougher or more precise are boring and a stupid game mechanic. Also, then they should be unit abilities in the first place. And also they should always come at a tradeoff. Increase your toughness, but next round you can't move. The reaction from Termagants is nice, while you are avoiding being charged, but also you have conceeded area control and limited your reach next turn.

A stratagem should always be an expenditure, it should feel like a commander that is watching the battle unfold is spending a valuable resource on a specific task to change the flow of battle. Like ordering an orbital bombardment, teleporting a unit out of danger or setting of hidden charges. There must always be an external component. It should be falvourful and if possible unique to the forces that employ them.

Nah, that’s gonna be Bobby’s Supreme Commander SR.