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How do!

Nice and straight forward. For those who’ve been playing 10th, how are you finding Battleshock?

I ask because it looks like Nids have various ways to trigger the test and tinkering with your Ld, so I’m trying to get a sense of whether it’s really worth specking into that.

It can be useful to knock units off of objectives but apart from that I've not really found it to be something that worth focussing on.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
How do!

Nice and straight forward. For those who’ve been playing 10th, how are you finding Battleshock?

I ask because it looks like Nids have various ways to trigger the test and tinkering with your Ld, so I’m trying to get a sense of whether it’s really worth specking into that.

Its still half-cheeked. It doesn't last, so its missing the staying power. A rally test would help - or moving the auto-rally to the END of the player turn. But standard processing pretty much limits it to half of a turn- which means a quarter of the battle round, and then ending. In theory if you can out-of-phase force some tests - Heroic Intervention, etc to trigger the tests after their command phase its got a little more staying power.

It honestly hasn’t come up as often as I was expecting it would so I am still unsure what to think.

It's swung a few close games this past month. Usually affecting my opponents more than me as they suddenly lose OC at some crucial moment.

I like it.

ccs wrote:
It's swung a few close games this past month. Usually affecting my opponents more than me as they suddenly lose OC at some crucial moment.

I like it.

I've been on the receiving end of this, it forces me to have a contingency in place. Also not being able to use statements reduced some opportunities but it hasn't really come up in my games yet.

Its not (yet) had a huge impact in games I've played, though I suspect for some armies the ability to force tests on nearby units will be good (e.g. a melee focussed force shutting down overwatch on a key unit, or preventing that unit buffing itself)

I think perhaps it needs to be a bit stronger, but not strong enough half the armies in the game gain immunity to it in some way

OC Zero is nice though

Some mixed opinions there.

I’m very interested in seeing how the Nid lists turn out, as we seem to have lots of way to spam the tests.

I've played ~20 games of 10th so far and I think on a few occasions it's prevented me from playing a stratagem I wanted to play, but nothing major and maybe once or twice I've lost an objective because of it.

So I'd say Battleshock in it's current form is almost (but not entirely) irrelevant.
Units that aren't on objectives or who don't are about to have a strat played on them are essentially "immune" to it, as in it doesn't do anything.

Personally I'd like for Battleshock to actually do something on units that don't care about OC/Strats; perhaps -1 to hit if you're not shooting the closest target or something similar.
Something that gives me the impression that the unit actually is you know...shaken.

As a nid player it’s great tactic to control the board and get one up on victory points but to be honest most of the time it’s pointless and has seldom led to a victory

Ooo they’re battleshocked… so what?!? Meh 🫤

There’s some good nid units, yet to see some of the new model rules though so not quite finalised my list but tervigon with a mass of gants works well coupled with a hive tyrant and just spam out more nids for them to deal with each turn

Screamer killers are lethal I’ve found and worth every point!!

I’m not inclined to build into battle shock though, it’s there yeah but I’m not building into it.

 MinscS2 wrote:


So I'd say Battleshock in it's current form is almost (but not entirely) irrelevant.
Units that aren't on objectives or who don't are about to have a strat played on them are essentially "immune" to it, as in it doesn't do anything.

This is pretty much how it goes with my forces.
Those units likely to suffer shock? Those are my mainline combat units. If they're holding an objective it's more incidental than intent. I can also very easily play entire games using nothing but command re-rolls/over watch. And those aren't essential to my plans.... so if I can't re-roll a dice for some umit? Eh.

One of the Craftworld Eldar armies I've run has a lot of battleshock tricks, mostly from Forgeworld models. Most of the time it's not very useful, but some times it can be decisive. For example, I played against a Necron army that had a couple of essentially unkillable units, but I was able to wipe one out in a turn by denying it access to strategems. It was also very useful against Chaos Marines, again cutting off access to strategems for Forgefiends and other single models who wouldn't normally have to check for battleshock.

Very few things don't normally take bs. 2 model unit is only one immune. No Single model unit is immune from test due to damage.

I find battleshock too little effect, and not worth the time or mental load it costs. They should remove it or make it more interesting.

Most of the time it is a nothing burger. Sometimes, for some armies, it feels very punishing. Especialy if they are high cost and elite. Vs armies like tyranids, the rules becomes an actualy important one. having part of your army suddenly be wounded at +1, and be at -1 to hit, is powerful, same as losing objectives, being unable to use stratagems etc.

For those not finding it much cop?

Is that because it just doesn’t trigger often enough? Or are you finding ways to comfortably pass you tests? Are your opponents leaning into it when it triggers? Or indeed…any reason you’re just not finding it an issue.

Things get killed in 10th. It is not common for me to see a unit being targeted by a good army and be left alive to take the test. And among armies that are bad, they often don't cause enough damage to actualy cause of test.

When Grey Knights do not run away from combat, I am happy.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
For those not finding it much cop?

Is that because it just doesn’t trigger often enough? Or are you finding ways to comfortably pass you tests? Are your opponents leaning into it when it triggers? Or indeed…any reason you’re just not finding it an issue.

I think it's primarily down to the armies I'm playing against and their composition.

Against Necrons, my luck has always just been bad enough that I get a unit to just over half-strength, at which point the many ways to resurrect models come into play and the work is undone.
Against T'au, my opponent has a fair whack of squishy units like Firewarriors and Kroot in the early game that I mince, then the Battlesuits drop, and things get difficult.
Daemons are the only army I've consistently caused Battleshock against as they're generally quite squishy but by the time the bigger beasties get into combat range, I've lost most of my firepower to general attrition so they've never been shocked.

For me it’s mostly been a minor thing but every now and again it throws a spanner in the works, played a mates chaos marines and he was making good use of strats and then came undone when a key unit or two got battleshocked.

I agree though that if it lasted and there was a rally test would be better. In fact we might try that in our next game and see how it goes.

Another question?

Do you feel your opponents are making good use of it? Are you? Or is it more cropping up as just part and parcel of kicking the snot of your opponent?

It's a passive effect. You can't rely on it to get you wins because it's not guaranteed to trigger and even if it does, it might not necessarily actually mean anything.

Battleshock triggering on a unit of Cultists isn't a big deal because they're bottom of the rung for Strategem use and they have sticky objectives.
Battleshock triggering on a unit of Legionaries would be difficult as their Ld is 6+, and on 2d6 the average roll is 7.

I do want to be clear that I don't think it's a useless mechanic and I have netted some lovely points by forcing enemy units off of objectives with it.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Another question?

Do you feel your opponents are making good use of it? Are you? Or is it more cropping up as just part and parcel of kicking the snot of your opponent?

Mostly just part & parcel on either side.
Once in awhile we'll see a unit that's close to being Below strength targeted by attacks that definitely won't wipe it out but might kill just enough to make it test.

 Gert wrote:
It's a passive effect. You can't rely on it to get you wins because it's not guaranteed to trigger and even if it does, it might not necessarily actually mean anything.

Battleshock triggering on a unit of Cultists isn't a big deal because they're bottom of the rung for Strategem use and they have sticky objectives.
Battleshock triggering on a unit of Legionaries would be difficult as their Ld is 6+, and on 2d6 the average roll is 7.

I do want to be clear that I don't think it's a useless mechanic and I have netted some lovely points by forcing enemy units off of objectives with it.

Note sticky triggers after controlling so if they fail bs no sticky.

So, for stuff like Nids just forcing tests and being able to tinker with your Ld, regardless of unit strength, do you think it’s going to be particularly useful?

I know we can only do mass test forcing once per game, but we seem to have various ways of more target tree testing each turn.

The many types oflictor, unless nerfed, stacks. So two cheap lone operatives, can be handing out +1 to wound, -1 to hit, hiting stuff with multiple MW rolls. It can be devastating to armies with no ways to stop it.

No, it's not worth dedicating your army to.

Andykp wrote:
For me it’s mostly been a minor thing but every now and again it throws a spanner in the works, played a mates chaos marines and he was making good use of strats and then came undone when a key unit or two got battleshocked.

I agree though that if it lasted and there was a rally test would be better. In fact we might try that in our next game and see how it goes.

I don't get this comment. Battle Shock does last until your next Command phase and does have a Rally test, aka making a new Battle Shock test for a unit below Half Starting Strength each of your Command phases.

 Gert wrote:
No, it's not worth dedicating your army to.

But the tyranid player doesn't have to dedicate his army to it. It comes build in. A very resilient, low point costs lone operative with stealth etc could be run even if there was battleshock rules. But there are those rules, the gains from it are substential, are an aura and the tyranid player isn't limited to running 1 of those.

 alextroy wrote:

Andykp wrote:
For me it’s mostly been a minor thing but every now and again it throws a spanner in the works, played a mates chaos marines and he was making good use of strats and then came undone when a key unit or two got battleshocked.

I agree though that if it lasted and there was a rally test would be better. In fact we might try that in our next game and see how it goes.

I don't get this comment. Battle Shock does last until your next Command phase and does have a Rally test, aka making a new Battle Shock test for a unit below Half Starting Strength each of your Command phases.

think its down to why a unit tested, there seems to be a fair few ways to force a battleshock test beyond reducing the unit size, in those cases presumably rallying is automatic as there is then no further need to test