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 Tyran wrote:

 kodos wrote:
this wasn't a thing at the start of 7th either (actually Deathstars were not a thing from 3rd to early 7th)

Deathstars were a thing long before 7th.

of course, they were just never considered a problem until "imperial soup" came up and you could add buffs from multiple factions into one unit

I cannot remember anyone complaining about 4th Edition Marine HQ units being a problem, and the only deathstar in 5th were Ork biker, but nor because of the buff stacking characters but the possibility to abuse wound allocation system

there was a reason characters joining units was not removed from 3rd to 7th but seen as one if the most important changes in addition to removing USRs in 8th (which were also not a big problem until 7th)

The Lone Operator trait is fantastic, it means specialized units like Assassin and Lictors (potentially) can't get shot off the board from far away anymore, which is a massive boon to their utility.

Much prefer this to the previous aura system.

I don't think it's problematic, 1P40k works the same way with not being able to switch units, it's not like a plasma gunner can join a different Tactical Squad after his buddies die. I really hope they get rid of the Command Phase, it can burn in oil. Who wants their leader's ability to not work the turn the leader disembarks from a transport?

The removal of auras is a bad idea, it's very appropriate for one-of commanders, because you don't gain anything from spamming them. All you have to do is get the points remotely right *cough* DPs/Smash Captains *cough* and people will only take one. While with this you have reason to take one for each unit, so Necrons might end up taking an Overlord to babysit each unit of Immortals again which is very unfluffy. Stringing things out to benefit from auras was super silly so I think I might take that back.

 vict0988 wrote:
I don't think it's problematic, 1P40k works the same way with not being able to switch units, it's not like a plasma gunner can join a different Tactical Squad after his buddies die. I really hope they get rid of the Command Phase, it can burn in oil. Who wants their leader's ability to not work the turn the leader disembarks from a transport?

The removal of auras is a bad idea, it's very appropriate for one-of commanders, because you don't gain anything from spamming them. All you have to do is get the points remotely right *cough* DPs/Smash Captains *cough* and people will only take one. While with this you have reason to take one for each unit, so Necrons might end up taking an Overlord to babysit each unit of Immortals again which is very unfluffy. Stringing things out to benefit from auras was super silly so I think I might take that back.

Auras are not removed in total, they're 'reduced in frequency' - i strongly suspect that units like special characters and dedicated characters like chaplains or dark apostles will still have them.

PenitentJake wrote:
I'm neutral on this, but I do have some concerns:

Unit attachment happens at deployment, and if there are rules for voluntary separation from an attached unit during the game, they don't seem to have been mentioned in the article.

I think it's better when characters can join and leave as dictated by the action of the battle.

I'm leaning the same way.

If a character loses his bodyguards, why shouldn't he be able to join another unit of such? Why does he have to just stand around uselessly, waiting for death?

So now, rather than handing out re-rolls to anyone in earshot, your heroes now join a single squad and act as one cohesive unit. It’s an elegant system that helps keep over-buffed super-units at bay.

A BSG quote comes to mind, "All this has happened before, and all of it will happen again."
No complaints here, I vastly preferred characters joining squads over characters walking around with Look Out Sir shenanigans.

Having leaders be restricted on what squads they can be attached to is a bit worrisome. I understand the balance concerns, but with the wide variety of unique models out there, its bound to have a few where you'll be wondering why can't X be a leader of unit Y or Z. I suppose we'll wait and see.

Tsagualsa wrote:

Auras are not removed in total, they're 'reduced in frequency' - i strongly suspect that units like special characters and dedicated characters like chaplains or dark apostles will still have them.

Yeah I'd be very surprised if Chaplains/Dark Apostles lost their Auras, unless it was replaced with a simple army wide improvement mechanism (that doesn't involve any measurement).

It'll be interesting what they do with the number of wounds on bigger character/monster models now that the cap of 9W doesn't matter to qualify for Look Out Sir.

Some of the issues people have with the new leader rules could maybe be solved by upcoming reveals (Of course they may not be)

- People don't like that once a squad is dead the character can not join a new squad. - This could easily be addressed by a stratagem that allows a leader without a squad to join a new one. (I would still limit it so they can't leave though)

- Limits on what squads characters can join
- In this case we only know lieutenants rules. Who is to say that captains/chapter masters can't join any unit? Also Space Marines are pretty unique in that they have so many types of lieutenant so limiting each one makes sense. Gives a good reason for taking different ones.

I think we must see leaders with different armour types able to join other units in some way with the smaller armies (ie DG their lords all have terminator armour apart from the generic ones which aren't true DG units imo).

Basically what I am trying to say is that SMs have such a wide variety of same units in different armour types we will likely see more restrictions for them than other factions, at least at lieutenant level.

I can't wait to add an Inquisitor in Terminator Armor to my all plasma Acolyte squad so their armor save can be a 2+ for the first six wounds for six plasma guns (and a psycannon, naturally).

 kodos wrote:
of course, they were just never considered a problem until "imperial soup" came up and you could add buffs from multiple factions into one unit

I cannot remember anyone complaining about 4th Edition Marine HQ units being a problem, and the only deathstar in 5th were Ork biker, but nor because of the buff stacking characters but the possibility to abuse wound allocation system

there was a reason characters joining units was not removed from 3rd to 7th but seen as one if the most important changes in addition to removing USRs in 8th (which were also not a big problem until 7th)

Wasn't seer council on jetbikes and on foot considered a problem in the past?

That was 7th Edition

I was told it was crazy in the Craftworld Codex and that was 4th ed I think.

Karol wrote:
I was told it was crazy in the Craftworld Codex and that was 4th ed I think.

Seer council was abusive in several editions mostly because you could stack buffs on them like crazy, and on top of that could abuse wound allocation rules to make them even more unkillable. The problem with them, like with e.g. nob bikers, was not so much the unit in itself as the ecosystem they existed in, which just could not handle a unit purposefully made up to exploit the absolutely most extreme edge-cases of specific rules that were mostly sensible for cases that actually arose in non-exploitative play.

Tsagualsa wrote:

Karol wrote:
I was told it was crazy in the Craftworld Codex and that was 4th ed I think.

Seer council was abusive in several editions mostly because you could stack buffs on them like crazy, and on top of that could abuse wound allocation rules to make them even more unkillable. The problem with them, like with e.g. nob bikers, was not so much the unit in itself as the ecosystem they existed in, which just could not handle a unit purposefully made up to exploit the absolutely most extreme edge-cases of specific rules that were mostly sensible for cases that actually arose in non-exploitative play.

This. Where weapons either Nuked you, or plinked a single wound, it didn’t work. Very short version is you just assigned wounds to different models to keep as much of the unit alive as possible.

But. If we add in D2, D3, D D3 etc? Much of that problem begins to resolve itself. Yes you’re largely in control of who gets blatted, but they’re still getting blatted.

I don't know if its the best archival research, but you can see people complaining online about deathstars on Dakkadakka (and elsewhere) from at least mid-5th edition. The term unsurprisingly grew more popular by 7th but it wasn't invented then.

The difference is that in those days a Deathstar was say "10 Terminators and a character". Not the rather unnatural combination of say 2 tricked out Rune Priests, Tigurius and 3 Librarians, Azrael for the invul etc etc.

Its been a long time - but my memory of Seer Council wasn't so much wound allocation but that they had a 4++. Which became a rerollable 4++ with Fortune. Which might not sound that crazy in today's game given every unit rolls dice in a bucket, but that wasn't the case for most things back then. Bit of hot dice and they just don't die. Meanwhile they can win combats and with a bit of luck sweep whole units from the table.

Here's a little throwaway item from today's article that I haven't seen discussed.

The old Look Out, Sir! rule has also been devolved into this new system. Your Leader is kept safe by their Bodyguards, and can usually* be targeted only when everyone else in the squad has breathed their last.

I'm suspecting they have dealt with the issue of characters having different Toughness values than their unit and the issue of them using better Saves to soak wounds by simply having all damage go into the unit without any allocation or saves by the Leader(s). As for the *, I think that has to do with the Precision USR which in some way allows you to allocate select hits into any model of a unit, including Characters.

Thoughts?

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I can't wait to add an Inquisitor in Terminator Armor to my all plasma Acolyte squad so their armor save can be a 2+ for the first six wounds for six plasma guns (and a psycannon, naturally).

Currently it's most likely that an inquisitor in termie armor would be a lone wolf. Nothing in the reveal suggests a unit with a deepstrike capable setup (terminator armor/Jumppack) would be able to join a non-matching squad.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 alextroy wrote:
Here's a little throwaway item from today's article that I haven't seen discussed.

The old Look Out, Sir! rule has also been devolved into this new system. Your Leader is kept safe by their Bodyguards, and can usually* be targeted only when everyone else in the squad has breathed their last.

I'm suspecting they have dealt with the issue of characters having different Toughness values than their unit and the issue of them using better Saves to soak wounds by simply having all damage go into the unit without any allocation or saves by the Leader(s). As for the *, I think that has to do with the Precision USR which in some way allows you to allocate select hits into any model of a unit, including Characters.

Thoughts?

They probably just won't let characters with a different toughness characteristic join different squads.

My main concern, thinking about it more, is how is this going to avoid the 7th edition problem of Deathstars. You could argue we already have that with aura stacking, but this is going to just put all your buffs on one single unit.

Wayniac wrote:
My main concern, thinking about it more, is how is this going to avoid the 7th edition problem of Deathstars. You could argue we already have that with aura stacking, but this is going to just put all your buffs on one single unit.

You're... answering your own question? It's what we already have, except only one unit will be able to stack buffs instead of every unit within 6" of the character blob.

Wayniac wrote:
My main concern, thinking about it more, is how is this going to avoid the 7th edition problem of Deathstars. You could argue we already have that with aura stacking, but this is going to just put all your buffs on one single unit.

I think a few things. There's a limit of only one or two characters max joining a unit. You can have a Lieutenant and Chapter Master join a unit, but you can't add Librarians and Chaplains too.

Only specific characters can join a given unit, so there shouldn't be unexpected combinations that are more powerful than anticipated.

Oath of Moment. Every single army in the most popular faction in the game has its core mechanic designed to hate on Deathstars.

 vict0988 wrote:
The removal of auras is a bad idea, it's very appropriate for one-of commanders, because you don't gain anything from spamming them.

The article literally says that Lion El'Johnson will have an aura, so specific special characters are still likely to have auras but likely a far smaller number than had such effects in 8th and 9th.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I can't wait to add an Inquisitor in Terminator Armor to my all plasma Acolyte squad so their armor save can be a 2+ for the first six wounds for six plasma guns (and a psycannon, naturally).

Given that the article literally says "can be targeted only when everyone else in the squad has breathed their last." I'm having trouble reading that as allowing the leader to be shoved out front as a shield.

 alextroy wrote:
Here's a little throwaway item from today's article that I haven't seen discussed.

The old Look Out, Sir! rule has also been devolved into this new system. Your Leader is kept safe by their Bodyguards, and can usually* be targeted only when everyone else in the squad has breathed their last.

I'm suspecting they have dealt with the issue of characters having different Toughness values than their unit and the issue of them using better Saves to soak wounds by simply having all damage go into the unit without any allocation or saves by the Leader(s). As for the *, I think that has to do with the Precision USR which in some way allows you to allocate select hits into any model of a unit, including Characters.

Thoughts?

A lot of the issues with character wound allocation go away if the player taking damage never gets to choose; either the non-character models always take the damage, or the attacker has Precision and gets to pick. At first blush I don't see how this could be abused by the defender.

Curious what the Redacted units are. Bog standard Intercessors just don't seem like Command Squad worthy. But I guess I'll just paint them as Veterans.

Presumably it's the flamer armed primaris from the trailer (probably called hellfuries, it's referenced in Dark Imperium) and the ranged vet squad we saw in the trailer that had combi-meltas and heavy bolters.

I'd rather there was a choice with auras. Your Lt. gives everyone +1 To Wound within 6", but if he attaches to a squad then the squad gets full re-rolls on To Wound, but the aura goes away.

 Canadian 5th wrote:
The article literally says that Lion El'Johnson will have an aura, so specific special characters are still likely to have auras but likely a far smaller number than had such effects in 8th and 9th.

So tournament armies will have even more mandatory special characters to get the multi-unit wombo combos.

Sounds fantastic.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I'd rather there was a choice with auras. Your Lt. gives everyone +1 To Wound within 6", but if he attaches to a squad then the squad gets full re-rolls on To Wound, but the aura goes away.

Imagine the arguments that will cause when the aura giver is placed so that it's in coherency with a unit and TFG at a tournament tries to use the attached version after already having used the aura version that turn.

So tournament armies will have even more mandatory special characters to get the multi-unit wombo combos.

Sounds fantastic.

If special characters are good they'll be taken, if they aren't they won't be. Whatever is good will be spammed, be that special characters, generic HQs, or something else; that's just how tournament lists work.

Also, why the special character hate? Are you a 3rd edition grognard who misses the days when mostly terrible special characters needed special permission to see the table?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I'd rather there was a choice with auras. Your Lt. gives everyone +1 To Wound within 6", but if he attaches to a squad then the squad gets full re-rolls on To Wound, but the aura goes away.

Do you want the aura version to get Lone Operative too? Your answer will determine which version of the lieutenant is completely useless and never sees play.

alextroy wrote:Here's a little throwaway item from today's article that I haven't seen discussed.

The old Look Out, Sir! rule has also been devolved into this new system. Your Leader is kept safe by their Bodyguards, and can usually* be targeted only when everyone else in the squad has breathed their last.

I'm suspecting they have dealt with the issue of characters having different Toughness values than their unit and the issue of them using better Saves to soak wounds by simply having all damage go into the unit without any allocation or saves by the Leader(s). As for the *, I think that has to do with the Precision USR which in some way allows you to allocate select hits into any model of a unit, including Characters.

Thoughts?

That is my reading as well.

I also noticed this line

A Primaris Lieutenant can shack up with Intercessors or Bladeguard Veterans but leaves Gravis-armoured Aggressors and Heavy Intercessors to his more appropriately equipped colleagues.

This strongly implies that we are getting a gravis Lieutenant at some point as well. I also wonder, if leaders are going to be restriced to units with the same armor type are we going to be getting versions of all the different leaders to fit all the armor types like a captain and lieutenant on bikes or a terminator chaplain?

Also I noticed that none of the units that the Primaris Lieutenant could join are firstborn meaning that the division could be as strong as ever when an earlier article implied otherwise.

either we get a Marine and Primaris version of all armour/unit types, or some units will never be joined by a character

first version would mean more bloat than we already have, 2nd version would mean that units need to be changed to work as stand alone unit (which is not bad but doubt that GW thinks about that)

 Canadian 5th wrote:
Imagine the arguments that will cause when the aura giver is placed so that it's in coherency with a unit and TFG at a tournament tries to use the attached version after already having used the aura version that turn.

Put as simply as I can: Who cares?

Based on these rules, you attach units at the start of the game, and there they stay until the unit they're attached to ceases to be. The situation you've described isn't even likely to occur, and certainly isn't worth spending any effort considering. Moreover, "I can think of a situation where an donkey-cave would cheat" isn't a compelling reason not to do something, or even a valid reason to dismiss an idea.