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 Nevelon wrote:
It might take a little longer, but shouldn’t be excessive.

Granted, if you took enough of them it could be worth it to have each individual model target every non-mounted unit on the other side of the table. But that’s an extreme case.

Its unfortunate that they didn't get the 'choose one unit hit by these attacks' restriction some other abilities have.
Swamping an entire army is a bit much.

Voss wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
It might take a little longer, but shouldn’t be excessive.

Granted, if you took enough of them it could be worth it to have each individual model target every non-mounted unit on the other side of the table. But that’s an extreme case.

Its unfortunate that they didn't get the 'choose one unit hit by these attacks' restriction some other abilities have.
Swamping an entire army is a bit much.

Not going to argue, you are right.

Unless something needs the firepower to just murder things I feel a lot of games, especially at the start are going to be “These 2 shoot that squad, this one shoots those other guys, another guy shoots your dudes over there, and the last guy tries to slow down those flankers”

The ability to just slow your opponent from getting where he needs to be on time is worth investing in all the irritating dice rolling. Heck, for 50 points it’s almost worth it to just forgo the damage to hand out 5x -2 movement tokens to your opponent. Of course, the damage is also nothing to snear at. Adding a unit of these guys is feeling a lot like a no brainer.

 Nevelon wrote:

Voss wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
It might take a little longer, but shouldn’t be excessive.

Granted, if you took enough of them it could be worth it to have each individual model target every non-mounted unit on the other side of the table. But that’s an extreme case.

Its unfortunate that they didn't get the 'choose one unit hit by these attacks' restriction some other abilities have.
Swamping an entire army is a bit much.

Not going to argue, you are right.

Unless something needs the firepower to just murder things I feel a lot of games, especially at the start are going to be “These 2 shoot that squad, this one shoots those other guys, another guy shoots your dudes over there, and the last guy tries to slow down those flankers”

The ability to just slow your opponent from getting where he needs to be on time is worth investing in all the irritating dice rolling. Heck, for 50 points it’s almost worth it to just forgo the damage to hand out 5x -2 movement tokens to your opponent. Of course, the damage is also nothing to snear at. Adding a unit of these guys is feeling a lot like a no brainer.

Something to note is that they have D6 shots with BS4+ each, which leads to an average 1.75 hits on a unit, but has a substantial risk of not hitting anything if you shoot an enemy with just one gaunt, but this is somewhat mitigated by additional attacks via [Blast] if they shoot a larger blobs.

Tsagualsa wrote:


Something to note is that they have D6 shots with BS4+ each, which leads to an average 1.75 hits on a unit, but has a substantial risk of not hitting anything if you shoot an enemy with just one gaunt, but this is somewhat mitigated by additional attacks via [Blast] if they shoot a larger blobs.

They are heavy, so if they can stand still hit on 3+.

Personally, I think going 2-2-1 with a 5 man squad is the way to play it safe. Probably get 3 units tagged, but you might miss the last one if the dice gods are fickle.

Battlefield situation obviously will make a huge difference in targeting.

 Nevelon wrote:

Tsagualsa wrote:


Something to note is that they have D6 shots with BS4+ each, which leads to an average 1.75 hits on a unit, but has a substantial risk of not hitting anything if you shoot an enemy with just one gaunt, but this is somewhat mitigated by additional attacks via [Blast] if they shoot a larger blobs.

They are heavy, so if they can stand still hit on 3+.

Personally, I think going 2-2-1 with a 5 man squad is the way to play it safe. Probably get 3 units tagged, but you might miss the last one if the dice gods are fickle.

Battlefield situation obviously will make a huge difference in targeting.

Eh, if you move it works out to a 1/6 chance per Barbgaunt to not hit anything, if you stay still that goes down to 8,4%, and in practice in the first turns you're mostly going to shoot at units at starting strenght, which is going to get you +1 or +2 shots. You'd be pretty safe in splitting it five ways, 2/2/1 is getting you safe hits on the first two and a above-90%-chance to hit with the last.

 Nevelon wrote:

Tsagualsa wrote:


Something to note is that they have D6 shots with BS4+ each, which leads to an average 1.75 hits on a unit, but has a substantial risk of not hitting anything if you shoot an enemy with just one gaunt, but this is somewhat mitigated by additional attacks via [Blast] if they shoot a larger blobs.

They are heavy, so if they can stand still hit on 3+.

Personally, I think going 2-2-1 with a 5 man squad is the way to play it safe. Probably get 3 units tagged, but you might miss the last one if the dice gods are fickle.

Battlefield situation obviously will make a huge difference in targeting.

That's provided you rely on a single unit, and given that they're cheap, why would you? Team up two units and you can circumvent split fire restrictions somewhat. Spread the first unit's fire out as much as range and LOS allow, and then use the second squad to cover any units you missed.

If you get lucky, you don't have to over-commit with the first unit. If you don't, you have the necessary backup to rectify the situation.

So our part of Leviathan is 815 (should be less as there are only 2 Ripper bases), and SM have 980 points. No wonder that in battle reports they added some Termas to Nids.

 Geifer wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:

Tsagualsa wrote:


Something to note is that they have D6 shots with BS4+ each, which leads to an average 1.75 hits on a unit, but has a substantial risk of not hitting anything if you shoot an enemy with just one gaunt, but this is somewhat mitigated by additional attacks via [Blast] if they shoot a larger blobs.

They are heavy, so if they can stand still hit on 3+.

Personally, I think going 2-2-1 with a 5 man squad is the way to play it safe. Probably get 3 units tagged, but you might miss the last one if the dice gods are fickle.

Battlefield situation obviously will make a huge difference in targeting.

That's provided you rely on a single unit, and given that they're cheap, why would you? Team up two units and you can circumvent split fire restrictions somewhat. Spread the first unit's fire out as much as range and LOS allow, and then use the second squad to cover any units you missed.

If you get lucky, you don't have to over-commit with the first unit. If you don't, you have the necessary backup to rectify the situation.

Pretty much this.

They’re definitely a useful unit, as when you concentrate fire they’re not exactly a slouch, so we’re not tied to them just being useful for slowing down an infantry advance.

 Shadow Walker wrote:
So our part of Leviathan is 815 (should be less as there are only 2 Ripper bases), and SM have 980 points. No wonder that in battle reports they added some Termas to Nids.

Wonder how many points just for the combat patrols for these factions will be. They kind of need to be the same.

 NAVARRO wrote:

 Shadow Walker wrote:
So our part of Leviathan is 815 (should be less as there are only 2 Ripper bases), and SM have 980 points. No wonder that in battle reports they added some Termas to Nids.

Wonder how many points just for the combat patrols for these factions will be. They kind of need to be the same.

They already said that they use their 'Amazing game design skills and tricks' (real quote) and additional rules to even out the Combat Patrols, because they wont be points-equal

 NAVARRO wrote:

 Shadow Walker wrote:
So our part of Leviathan is 815 (should be less as there are only 2 Ripper bases), and SM have 980 points. No wonder that in battle reports they added some Termas to Nids.

Wonder how many points just for the combat patrols for these factions will be. They kind of need to be the same.

485 (again should be less because just 2 Ripper bases) for us, and 480 for SM.

Well technically rules are different to normal so points should be different as well.

How well succeed is another thing but then again gw games are never balanced. One reason being fixation on points. Bad if you want true balance.

(funnily enough CP is path you would need to take if you want actual balance)

NAVARRO wrote:

 Shadow Walker wrote:
So our part of Leviathan is 815 (should be less as there are only 2 Ripper bases), and SM have 980 points. No wonder that in battle reports they added some Termas to Nids.

Wonder how many points just for the combat patrols for these factions will be. They kind of need to be the same.

Tsagualsa wrote:

They already said that they use their 'Amazing game design skills and tricks' (real quote) and additional rules to even out the Combat Patrols, because they wont be points-equal

I watched the combat patrol that they put on Warhammer plus. The Nids could basically keep bringing Gaunts back. Looked like a fun mechanic tbh.

Coming from AoS, the free-splitting-fire seems worse on paper than it functions in reality. On the tabletop the vast majority of the time this is used to any significant extent is to put soft-counter or shorter-range guns at a different target. I think it is silly if a squad of marines can't manage to shoot bolters one place and the plasma another.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Coming from AoS, the free-splitting-fire seems worse on paper than it functions in reality. On the tabletop the vast majority of the time this is used to any significant extent is to put soft-counter or shorter-range guns at a different target. I think it is silly if a squad of marines can't manage to shoot bolters one place and the plasma another.

It's probably a lesser issue than people make it out to be, expect some abusable edge cases like split-firing Barbgaunts that can hamper whole armies with almost guaranteed success, but it's also a missed opportunity to differentiate troops and armies by having that rely on some sort of morale or command-control check, like it sometimes did in past editions.

I do agree a 'command check' to split fire would be fantastic, add greatly to the narrative feel for little effort, and be a trivial addition of complexity.

Random thought - Warriors should have Grenades keyword having Flesh Hooks in the kit. Also Lictor/Deathleaper.

 Shadow Walker wrote:
Random thought - Warriors should have Grenades keyword having Flesh Hooks in the kit. Also Lictor/Deathleaper.

Had a flashback to 3/4th edition. Why would they need it?

But I could see it. Other armies have access to the grenade strat for free MWs. I could see flesh hooks being used to let nids have access to that. The whole name thing would throw a lot of people off though.

Regarding the Heavy and regular Venom Cannons.

At the moment the only improvement in the Heavy version is that it gains a point of Damage. (Ignore BS as that is from the bearer.)

I’m hoping that at minimum it’s mean to be be a fixed A 3.

And it would seem we don’t get to do the equivalent of Tank Shock. Is that somehow a trade-off for there being fewer Anti-Monster weapons?

No tank shock, no grenades, no smoke.

It's not as if there is a brand new monster getting released with smoke coming out of its vents... nah, must be my imagination.

 Souleater wrote:
Regarding the Heavy and regular Venom Cannons.

They're both terrible weapons. Left behind in the anti-tank arms race, D3 shots now, and the difference between the regular and heavy is minimal.

"Casino Cannons" is what they are now - a real roll of the dice to see if they'll actually ever do anything.

Good verses mid size units of mid-to-elite quality enemies, thanks to the blast keyword. Shoot a 10-man squad that d3 goes to d3+2.

The warrior venom cannon is fine, good at killing Marines.

But yeah the heavy version is bad... But free.

Definitely don't rely on them for anti-tank.

We are not on the cover of the standalone rulebook. I was counting on some nice art with our bugs but instead we have standard SM vs CSM nonsense.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I do agree a 'command check' to split fire would be fantastic, add greatly to the narrative feel for little effort, and be a trivial addition of complexity.

simpler system, "primary target", hit as normal, "secondary target", -1 to hit

firing player nominates which is which, your focus is on one thing, but can freely aim for others

I wrote to GW about both Leviathan and upcoming CP giving an illegal unit of Ripper Swarms, and suggested that the Unit Composition should be changed to 2-6 instead current 3-6. We will see if they do.

Monkey paw, they change it to 2-4

Scenes when they bring out a ripper box, with 6 of them in it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
So which kits aside from the recent Parasite of Mortex do we think are “safe” from update?

 General Kroll wrote:

So which kits aside from the recent Parasite of Mortex do we think are “safe” from update?

I would be really surprised if Zoanthropes/Venomthropes, Maleceptor/Toxicrene, Exocrine/Haruspex, Hive Guard/Tyrant Guard, Harpy/Hive Crone, Tyrannocyte/Sporocyst get new models. I also think that Tyrannofex/Tervigon will be safe even if the latter has old style Termas.

 Shadow Walker wrote:

 General Kroll wrote:

So which kits aside from the recent Parasite of Mortex do we think are “safe” from update?

I would be really surprised if Zoanthropes/Venomthropes, Maleceptor/Toxicrene, Exocrine/Haruspex, Hive Guard/Tyrant Guard, Harpy/Hive Crone, Tyrannocyte/Sporocyst get new models. I also think that Tyrannofex/Tervigon will be safe even if the latter has old style Termas.

I think the big kits will stay as they are and they will add a few more to those. On the medium small size minis nothing is safe IMO.