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 Gene St. Ealer wrote:

 Shadow Walker wrote:
Neurotyrant article https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/05/15/unleash-the-shadow-in-the-warp-with-the-neurotyrant/

That was classic war-com. Write an underwhelming AF article about the new unit. Watch it turn out to have some very potent psychic attack that they just left off. Or maybe it will be the second coming of the Maleceptor, who debuted with some of the worst rules that GW has ever written back in 7th

I'd hope so. That's a lot of rules space on its datacard for two highly situational abilities, one of which is once per game, and the other doesn't matter unless the units in question get mauled down past half-strength AND you aren't otherwise supporting that attack with synapse creatures.

It better have a honking good mind-laser and some rider effects.

Voss wrote:

 Gene St. Ealer wrote:

 Shadow Walker wrote:
Neurotyrant article https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/05/15/unleash-the-shadow-in-the-warp-with-the-neurotyrant/

That was classic war-com. Write an underwhelming AF article about the new unit. Watch it turn out to have some very potent psychic attack that they just left off. Or maybe it will be the second coming of the Maleceptor, who debuted with some of the worst rules that GW has ever written back in 7th

I'd hope so. That's a lot of rules space on its datacard for two highly situational abilities, one of which is once per game, and the other doesn't matter unless the units in question get mauled down past half-strength AND you aren't otherwise supporting that attack with synapse creatures.

It better have a honking good mind-laser and some rider effects.

Well we saw it burn out the Librarian rather effortlessly in the trailer, so i guess it got at least some sort of psychic pulse, possibly with Devastating Wounds or something that bypasses saves.

Voss wrote:

I'd hope so. That's a lot of rules space on its datacard for two highly situational abilities, one of which is once per game, and the other doesn't matter unless the units in question get mauled down past half-strength AND you aren't otherwise supporting that attack with synapse creatures.

It better have a honking good mind-laser and some rider effects.

Being in synapse range is going to link to a bunch of other Tyranids abilities beyond just morale. We've already seen the Endless Multitude strat which restores twice as many models to units in synapse; this means you can fling hormagaunts further forwards and still replace any that fall.

But I'm sure it'll have a good mind laser too.

 xttz wrote:

Voss wrote:

I'd hope so. That's a lot of rules space on its datacard for two highly situational abilities, one of which is once per game, and the other doesn't matter unless the units in question get mauled down past half-strength AND you aren't otherwise supporting that attack with synapse creatures.

It better have a honking good mind-laser and some rider effects.

Being in synapse range is going to link to a bunch of other Tyranids abilities beyond just morale. We've already seen the Endless Multitude strat which restores twice as many models to units in synapse; this means you can fling hormagaunts further forwards and still replace any that fall.

But I'm sure it'll have a good mind laser too.

You could also use it to turn a unit of Neurogaunts into Synapse nodes, and get another 6'' out of it. If you e.g. want to have a suicide/chaff wave of gaunts that still are under synapse influence, for example.

I'm curious as to what'll make it different from a Neurothrope, though it won't surprise me if this is taking over the 'standalone psychic HQ' role and Neurothropes are getting relegated to a more minor character that attaches to Zoanthropes.

Voss wrote:

 Gene St. Ealer wrote:

 Shadow Walker wrote:
Neurotyrant article https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/05/15/unleash-the-shadow-in-the-warp-with-the-neurotyrant/

That was classic war-com. Write an underwhelming AF article about the new unit. Watch it turn out to have some very potent psychic attack that they just left off. Or maybe it will be the second coming of the Maleceptor, who debuted with some of the worst rules that GW has ever written back in 7th

I'd hope so. That's a lot of rules space on its datacard for two highly situational abilities, one of which is once per game, and the other doesn't matter unless the units in question get mauled down past half-strength AND you aren't otherwise supporting that attack with synapse creatures.

It better have a honking good mind-laser and some rider effects.

Reddit was peeing themselves over how good this thing was, earlier. Still haven't read the article, myself.

 catbarf wrote:
I'm curious as to what'll make it different from a Neurothrope, though it won't surprise me if this is taking over the 'standalone psychic HQ' role and Neurothropes are getting relegated to a more minor character that attaches to Zoanthropes.

I'm fully expecting the Neurothrope to just be a 'sergeant' model or upgrade inside a Zoanthrope brood, rather than a standalone character. That way we don't end up with undersized Zoanthrope units from a single box of models.

Calling it now : many immunities to battleshock tests will pop up when Codexes release

Oh no. They won’t be immunities…just re-rolls…modifiers…anti-modifiers, etc. but not actual immunity ?

Siegfriedfr wrote:
Calling it now : many immunities to battleshock tests will pop up when Codexes release

I kinda doubt it.

While moral mechanics in 8th and 9th were pretty awful, GW has shown a lot of restraint in immunity to moral mechanics since 7th edition. Large-scale immunity to mechanics seems to be one of the few problems they "get" from 7th edition. What I think we're likely to see is martial resistance. ATSKNF giving immunity to the "you might lose the entire squad when retreating" portion of battleshock would be a great way to bridge the OG rule with the current system. Or something where failing a test reduces a marine unit's total OC down to 1, but never zero.

I base this feeling primarily on the fact that Tyranid Synapse doesn't grant immunity to battleshock. So if one of the OG and most widely known examples of "you don't care about moral" is going to be effected by moral... I don't see many other things being unaffected.

I have to agree. Too many changes have been made to Leadership for me to imagine there will be very many if any instances of units immune to Battleshock.

Leadership Values are Worst

Historically Leadership resistant factions have no rules to improve their Leadership

Faction Historically immune to Leadership are no longer immune

It will be a welcome change to have Leadership be a meaningful part of the game for all factions. I hate it when a faction just ignores a section of the rules to their advantage.

Siegfriedfr wrote:
Calling it now : many immunities to battleshock tests will pop up when Codexes release

There isn't any need for it.

Morale immunities happened in the first place because GW decided players thought routing units were 'unfun.'
8th and 9th just replaced that with the lose more mechanic, which really pummeled larger units and multiwound models.

Battleshock, on the other hand, doesn't affect a unit's ability to move, shoot and fight at all, just control objectives and get metagame buffs (they still benefits from leaders bonuses & etc). Since the units can still do stuff, and are only impacted on the strategic level, there isn't the push for immunity.

I don't think they removed routing because it was "unfun". I think they removed it because it was rules and time consuming. The Fallback and Regrouping rules took off 2 pages of the 6th Edition Rulebook. There was no space for that sort of rule in the 12 page 8th Edition rules, where morale is maybe 1/6 a page.

The Battleshock Morale rules sound like a much better rule that reduces lethality while impact unit efficiency.

At the same time, there are some things that really should be "Fearless".

I just don't see an Avatar suffering from "battle shock".

Battle-shock doesn't represent fear, and I can't think of any things that should be immune to "temporary disorganization."

The Leadership characteristic isn't just shorthand for "bravery" anymore, it's a combination of, like, leadership, bravery, initiative, awareness, the ringing in your ears, standing up after you've been knocked down on your ass and remembering which direction you were pointing in, etc.

It's a much more interesting and comprehensive abstraction for the contingencies of warfare than the old Ld paradigm was, but the actual name of the characteristic is sort of vestigial now.

Yeah, which is why I didn't bring up Daemons, with which Battleshock could represent instability of the warp.

But there should be some things that simply do not care, that are above it all. The Avatar seems like a prime candidate.

If we are taking that road, an Avatar shouldn't be able to fall back and probably wouldn't even care about some arbitrary objectives when there is stuff to kill.

I could see rather than fearless some "mindless/rage/insanity" USR that gives immunity to battleshock but also come with some quite heavy negatives to balance that immunity to represent stuff that doesn't care about morality nor cohesion, but also doesn't care about much else beyond killing and thus cannot control objectives nor fall back.

In fact I expect spore mines to be that.

Mindless things are another good example of a unit that should be immune to battleshock (they're not so much above it, as beneath it!).

Combined with the new OC stat, it gives you a lot of flexibility. Imagine if Ripper and Scarab Swarms could really come in big swarm (sprue-limited unit choices be damned!) and were completely fearless... but also OC0.

So they couldn't hold objectives, but they're extremely tenacious and have to be dealt with to avoid being overrun.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
At the same time, there are some things that really should be "Fearless".

I just don't see an Avatar suffering from "battle shock".

I'm thinking of it less as fear and more like confusion / cohesion / friction / uncontrolled rage.

Like necron warriors aren't scared of anything, but if things start going off plan they won't be as effective at doing what they were supposed to do.

Same with a sarge that provides situational awareness - without it the squad wouldn't be as effective.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Mindless things are another good example of a unit that should be immune to battleshock (they're not so much above it, as beneath it!).

Combined with the new OC stat, it gives you a lot of flexibility. Imagine if Ripper and Scarab Swarms could really come in big swarm (sprue-limited unit choices be damned!) and were completely fearless... but also OC0.

So they couldn't hold objectives, but they're extremely tenacious and have to be dealt with to avoid being overrun.

I like that idea, honestly.

Yeah. Given what Battleshock does (can't hold objectives or use stratagems) I don't think anything should be immune.

Obviously some models should be harder to shock-GMan, Greater Daemons, Avatars, so on and so forth-but I don't think there's any model who can work perfectly in every situation with no error.

Edit: An OC 0 but fearless unit wouldn't actually matter much unless they had some killer Stratagem support.

You could trade out OC for extra wounds or some mechanic. Worth exploring at some point, perhaps.

I could see something like The Deceiver, tzeench character or a harlequin solitaire being a whole lot of mean but 0 OC. They are nasty in a fight, but have 0 bothers to give about what the rest of the galaxy thinks is important on this battlefield. Literally playing a different game then the rest, with their own goals and plans.

 morganfreeman wrote:
While moral mechanics in 8th and 9th were pretty awful, GW has shown a lot of restraint in immunity to moral mechanics since 7th edition. Large-scale immunity to mechanics seems to be one of the few problems they "get" from 7th edition. What I think we're likely to see is martial resistance. ATSKNF giving immunity to the "you might lose the entire squad when retreating" portion of battleshock would be a great way to bridge the OG rule with the current system. Or something where failing a test reduces a marine unit's total OC down to 1, but never zero.

I base this feeling primarily on the fact that Tyranid Synapse doesn't grant immunity to battleshock. So if one of the OG and most widely known examples of "you don't care about moral" is going to be effected by moral... I don't see many other things being unaffected.

I assure you, none of the editions you quoted had mechanics regarding the morals of your army - that's too high-falutin' a concept for GW's designers to try to implement, especially in a game with the likes of CSM/Daemons/Necrons/Orks, whose moral compass would be very tricky for your average person to understand and/or get behind.

Well, maybe not the Orks, thinking about it.

Whilst not course we’re yet to play and thus put it into practical, Battleshock is really appealing to me.

Whilst it’s no longer deadly (at least, I don’t think we’ve seen anything thus far where Battleshock inflicts casualties?) it’s very disruptive, and something to perhaps be applied strategically.

Not being able to fall back is the least of concerns I’d say. Not being able to score (look I’m not going to make that joke. But here I am, confirming its existence) or benefit from Stratagems feels really useful, and potentially game winning.

Now we’ve seen a few ways of triggering it (kicking their head in, Shadow in the Warp, Rad Bombardment) but, outside of Synapse and the Brain Bug dropping enemy Ld for Shadow, few ways of interfering with those tests.

Call me Captain Obvious, but I reckon learning how to maximise Battleshock is gonna be a significant string to the bow of a competent player.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
At the same time, there are some things that really should be "Fearless".

I just don't see an Avatar suffering from "battle shock".

While I agree with you, sometimes certain aspects of the lore should be fudged in order to make a more balanced and fun game.

Honestly, nothing in the game should be immune to a mechanic. Mess with it, sure. But even something as simple as making your warlord or a lord of war fearless would be a bit unfair--after all your going to get less use out of that playing a farseer or archon than you would with something like a kitted up smurf captain or Angron.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Yeah. Given what Battleshock does (can't hold objectives or use stratagems) I don't think anything should be immune.

Obviously some models should be harder to shock-GMan, Greater Daemons, Avatars, so on and so forth-but I don't think there's any model who can work perfectly in every situation with no error.

Edit: An OC 0 but fearless unit wouldn't actually matter much unless they had some killer Stratagem support.

However, a new detachment will mean new stratagems, so that's not a precedent to set.
That's how you end up with broken things later in the edition cycle.

So Dimachaeron and Malanthrope are going to Last Chance to Buy. Could it mean their plastics with the codex release?

 alextroy wrote:
I don't think they removed routing because it was "unfun". I think they removed it because it was rules and time consuming. The Fallback and Regrouping rules took off 2 pages of the 6th Edition Rulebook. There was no space for that sort of rule in the 12 page 8th Edition rules, where morale is maybe 1/6 a page.

The Battleshock Morale rules sound like a much better rule that reduces lethality while impact unit efficiency.

I think it was because falling back and losing control of your unit was considered unfun, and having to then regain control meant massive lost opportunity and time in a game where there are few turns. Way back in 2nd edition, games lasted only 4 turns, so if a unit fell back, it would spend the next turn rallying, in a best case scenario. That is a huge chunk of time that the unit is effectively disabled. If it did not rally and regroup, you might as well have written off the unit as it would have no time left to do anything.

Even if it makes sense from a rules or background perspective, I think GW concluded that removing player agency in that way made things unfun.

 Shadow Walker wrote:
So Dimachaeron and Malanthrope are going to Last Chance to Buy. Could it mean their plastics with the codex release?

Probably not, the malanthrope predates venomthropes & the modern haruspex iirc which it historically shared roles with in game/fluff. The Dima might be an indicator that there's a knight size melee gribble on the way.

Dudeface wrote:

 Shadow Walker wrote:
So Dimachaeron and Malanthrope are going to Last Chance to Buy. Could it mean their plastics with the codex release?

Probably not, the malanthrope predates venomthropes & the modern haruspex iirc which it historically shared roles with in game/fluff. The Dima might be an indicator that there's a knight size melee gribble on the way.

The Dimachaeron suffers from having one of the dumbest concepts in the entire game, and that concept not even being very visible in the model at all. I strongly suspect it only exists because the sculptor fell in love with one specific movie scene and wanted to have something like it in 40k. That being said, some sort of uber-Lictor glass cannon character slayer would be nice, but it need not be the Dimachaeron.