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Karol wrote:
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.

Ok, but my point remains that taking units purely due to Battleshock shenanigans is a bad idea. If units have those rules then great but people shouldn't be taking them because of those rules.

 Gert wrote:

Karol wrote:
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.

Ok, but my point remains that taking units purely due to Battleshock shenanigans is a bad idea. If units have those rules then great but people shouldn't be taking them because of those rules.

quite, the best unit for battleshock causing is one that can delete half the target unit and cause it that way, the rest is gravy

 Gert wrote:

Karol wrote:
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.

Ok, but my point remains that taking units purely due to Battleshock shenanigans is a bad idea. If units have those rules then great but people shouldn't be taking them because of those rules.

Why not? People choose other units based on their rules all the time. Ok, usually they're choosing based on good to OP rules.... and you or I might not be overly impressed by the shock rules. But if that's what inspires the other guy? Well, good luck with their evil plan.

ccs wrote:
Why not? People choose other units based on their rules all the time. Ok, usually they're choosing based on good to OP rules.... and you or I might not be overly impressed by the shock rules. But if that's what inspires the other guy? Well, good luck with their evil plan.

Because this is specifically advice on whether Battleshock is something that can be played with or if it's more passive. As it's not something that triggers very often in my experience, I do not believe it to be worthwhile specifically bringing a list that will focus on causing it to trigger on enemy units.
Hence I advised that if a unit has a rule that utilises Battleshock then great but it should not be the primary concern when selecting units.

leopard wrote:

 Gert wrote:

Karol wrote:
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.

Ok, but my point remains that taking units purely due to Battleshock shenanigans is a bad idea. If units have those rules then great but people shouldn't be taking them because of those rules.

quite, the best unit for battleshock causing is one that can delete half the target unit and cause it that way, the rest is gravy

That doesn't give chance to negate stratagem just as you need it. Won 3 games already with that.

 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.

Its too short. You're most likely to BS someone after shooting/fighting - especially since that's where most of the added checks are taken - then it automatically ends at the beginning of your turn. You're only really preventing a few strats. If Auto-Rally happened at the end of your turn, and BS had a few of the more historical rules like not being able to move towards the enemy, etc. or Failing a BS test while BS'ed gets nasty = broken etc. Then it would likely be a viable play style. As it is now, the effect isn't durable enough - its over too soon.

Battleshock NEEDS to not autoclear itself at the start of the turn, and the "autopass stratagem" needsto be gone, right now it just doesn't have any impact

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
Battleshock NEEDS to not autoclear itself at the start of the turn, and the "autopass stratagem" needsto be gone, right now it just doesn't have any impact

While I'm inclined to agree, I suspect GW if they went that way would also provide a lot more ways to escape the restrictions, e.g. Marines getting back the ability to always re-roll it, various other factions having ways to do similar or outright ignore it.

however making Battleshock "sticky" would certainly mean it matters more - especially with only a single strategem to auto clear it (limiting how much of the army can be rallied), would also mean low LD armies actually fall apart a lot faster once they take damage.

I would however provide a few alternative ways to clear it, e.g. a fallback move, random distance, and then no shooting or assaulting = Battleshock is cleared, or willingly moving out of a set range of enemy units (18"?), or perhaps getting to a point the unit in question cannot see any enemy units. But things that require the player wishing to clear it without having to roll to take some other action

On the auto-clear, if I’m reading it right the test isn’t to see if you clear battleshock, but if you continue besmirching your pantaloons, yes?

If so, definitely something I’d need to keep in mind if I do go down Spooky Noodles with my Nids. Nice to mass trigger it early, but will then need to factor in keeping my opponent testing every turn regardless, potentially allowing me to force multiple checks from Spooky, or to use the “BOO! You test now” on units which otherwise wouldn’t be testing in their own turn.

Hmm. It does feel like there’s something there. If I can force my opponent to have to worry about losing OC, or access to stratagems, there’s definitely some mileage there.

I suspect the finesse will be in using it to turn off my opponent where I want to be scoring.

But as said, it’s never going to be a straight replacement for kicking your teeth out.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also will need to keep my opponent’s mission parameters in mind, as making it difficult or impossible for them to contest, let alone control, very specific objectives are very specific times seems potentially powerful.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
On the auto-clear, if I’m reading it right the test isn’t to see if you clear battleshock, but if you continue besmirching your pantaloons, yes?

If so, definitely something I’d need to keep in mind if I do go down Spooky Noodles with my Nids. Nice to mass trigger it early, but will then need to factor in keeping my opponent testing every turn regardless, potentially allowing me to force multiple checks from Spooky, or to use the “BOO! You test now” on units which otherwise wouldn’t be testing in their own turn.

Hmm. It does feel like there’s something there. If I can force my opponent to have to worry about losing OC, or access to stratagems, there’s definitely some mileage there.

I suspect the finesse will be in using it to turn off my opponent where I want to be scoring.

But as said, it’s never going to be a straight replacement for kicking your teeth out.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also will need to keep my opponent’s mission parameters in mind, as making it difficult or impossible for them to contest, let alone control, very specific objectives are very specific times seems potentially powerful.

comes down to needing to consider it when building a force and making sure they small, cheap, disposable units for objective grabbing either have backup or you consider the leadership stat slightly more than usual - which to be honest is no bad thing

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
Battleshock NEEDS to not autoclear itself at the start of the turn, and the "autopass stratagem" needsto be gone, right now it just doesn't have any impact

You remember autopass doesn't apply to any force bs test rule?

It needs more "oomph". Maybe that lies in the "doesn't auto clear" mentioned above, maybe something like, "cannot use faction, detachment, or unit abilities" so that a unit not on an objective doesn't just shrug and continue as previously.

If I’m right in thinking, Battleshock is something you test for all the time you’re under half strength.

So you can pass/fail/fail/pass over four turns, with the initial pass only lasting that turn?

leopard wrote:

 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

This.

Rather than keep testing if at half strength just assume still battle shocked until rallied. Would make units/attacks that cause it more potent. Maybe too potent? Doubt it but maybe.

Battleshock has had barely any impact during my games so far. The problems are many, IMO.

1. The auto-pass strat mitigates it too much.

2. It's too random, so you can't rely on it happening as the player inflicting it.

3. The effects are usually quite weak. Unless you get it on a unit that absolutely needs a strat that phase or the only unit on an objective, it just doesn't do enough.

If GW wants to make BS worth it, at a bare minimum they need to remove the auto-pass strat. I'd also force any units that were previously Battleshocked, for any reason, to have to test in their next Command phase, so all the abilities that inflict it outside of the normal <50% rules can have a last effect. MAybe it could even turn off all abilities and faction/detachment rules for the affected unit.

 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.

First, it doesn't trigger that often. Usually the enemy will finish off a unit if they're below half strength. Second, it's easy to pass because a lot of my squads have access to 5+ leadership. Third, it doesn't last very long when it does trigger. Fourth, it doesn't have much impact even when it does trigger. 1 out of every 100 games, a unit will lose objective control because of being battleshocked and it will swing a game, but in the other 99 games it will be a minor nuisance at most.

 Gert wrote:

ccs wrote:
Why not? People choose other units based on their rules all the time. Ok, usually they're choosing based on good to OP rules.... and you or I might not be overly impressed by the shock rules. But if that's what inspires the other guy? Well, good luck with their evil plan.

Because this is specifically advice on whether Battleshock is something that can be played with or if it's more passive. As it's not something that triggers very often in my experience, I do not believe it to be worthwhile specifically bringing a list that will focus on causing it to trigger on enemy units.
Hence I advised that if a unit has a rule that utilises Battleshock then great but it should not be the primary concern when selecting units.

In general yes, but for tyranids it triggers often enough. And a very cheap lone operative with high survivability, well against non eldar, that can trigger a lot of beneficial rules is not a problem to fit in to an army. Two cost less then 200pts and have a cumulative effect as their special rules trigger of any battle shock not only ones they cause.

Slipspace wrote:
Battleshock has had barely any impact during my games so far. The problems are many, IMO.

1. The auto-pass strat mitigates it too much.

2. It's too random, so you can't rely on it happening as the player inflicting it.

3. The effects are usually quite weak. Unless you get it on a unit that absolutely needs a strat that phase or the only unit on an objective, it just doesn't do enough.

If GW wants to make BS worth it, at a bare minimum they need to remove the auto-pass strat. I'd also force any units that were previously Battleshocked, for any reason, to have to test in their next Command phase, so all the abilities that inflict it outside of the normal <50% rules can have a last effect. MAybe it could even turn off all abilities and faction/detachment rules for the affected unit.

I don't think the auto-pass is all that potent - because Battleshock isn't that potent. The auto-rally is far worse than one unit auto-passing.

And Battleshock isn't that strong. If they were unable to shoot or move closer to enemy units in addition to not being able to use Strats it would be just about right. They don't get chased down into nonexistence, but they also can't engage offensively. They probably should auto-rally but only at the end of the controlling player's turn, that way you get a turn and a half of work out of battle shock which is close enough to a full battle round - and it actually disrupts the controlling player's turn. That's the important part. Battleshock is currently not disruptive to the controlling player.

tneva82 wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
Battleshock NEEDS to not autoclear itself at the start of the turn, and the "autopass stratagem" needsto be gone, right now it just doesn't have any impact

You remember autopass doesn't apply to any force bs test rule?

Yes, but if battleshock became sticky like i suggested, it would.

And even withoit my change, usually its 1-2 units that are even gonna need to roll at all, being able to decide AFTER failing if you actually need that unit to not be battleshocked completely neuteurs the mechanic IMO


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Breton wrote:
]

I don't think the auto-pass is all that potent - because Battleshock isn't that potent. The auto-rally is far worse than one unit auto-passing.

Its BECAUSE battleshock isnt that potent that the strat should be removed. The one time your opponent will fail battleshock in a way that would swing thr game, they can just chose for it not to happen

I've had a lot of success with it with my Chaos daemons, who are rather uniquely placed to enjoy both taking BS tests and inflicting it upon the opponent through various ways.

Whilst in the shadow of chaos, a failed BS is a nice D3 mortals and the -1 base to LD checks is very very nice and has really helped me, as has Skullcannons and even bloodcrushers forcing BS checks on the charge and denying opponent key stratagems, ESPECIALLY a Necron player who spent half the game being unable to use any CP in my turn or potentially even in theirs due to overwatch causing battleshock tests/ trying to shoot the changling

Battle shock does too little, is too unreliable and is too easy to get rid off to actually impact games.

To be fair, not being able to fall back, use a stratagem or score is a fairly powerful debuff, but there are too many units which it doesn't affect.
If an opponent ever has to roll a battle shock test, there is a decent chance that they will just pass it, and when they don't, battle shock still needs to be relevant to a unit. That predator sitting in a corner is not going to care about battle shock ever, because you weren't going to use stratagems on it, nor will it ever be on an objective or near combat.
If you manage to battle shock someone on your turn, it usually amounts to that unit not being able to use stratagems in the fight phase - if your opponent did not plan to do that anyways, it has absolutely no impact.

You cannot reliably make an enemy unit fail a test, so when you really want a unit to not use a stratagem on their turn, to not fall back or to not score, even with a negative modifier or two, most units can still easily pass the test and use a stratagem when they don't. All units that force tests get neutered by auto-removing battle shock during the next command phase, units that reduce leadership do nothing unless you kill half the enemy unit beforehand. Which means that it's not a mechanic worth playing around, so it just happens like an environmental effect.

Last, it's to easy to get rid off. That lone loota cowering behind a wall after his mob was blown away, three out of five times will just shake off battle shock during its next command phase and act as if nothing happened and capture an objective while blasting away some marine's head. The only way to reasonably expect that loota to be neutered is by shooting it dead, which is not what the mechanic was trying to archive.

IMHO, there are three ways to fix battle shock:
1) Make it matter to every unit - deactivate abilities, make units pinned and/or suppressed, disallow advancing and make them count as having fallen back when they make a normal move. Battleshock should be a real PITA for everyone who gets it. A player should never, ever be indifferent to his unit being battle shocked.
2) Make it more reliable. Maybe impose additional modifiers if a unit dropped from full health to below half strength in one turn. Impose a negative modifier if the unit was battle shocked last turn or locked in combat. Or maybe make units roll for it more often.
3) Make it harder to get rid of. If you are battle shocked, getting rid of it should absolutely require a leadership test to shake it off. Return insane heroism to its old incarnation of costing 2CP, before the roll. Any faction specific stratagem for 1 CP should only be able to ignore one aspect of battle shock, but never just unshake them.

Pick any two.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
Battleshock NEEDS to not autoclear itself at the start of the turn, and the "autopass stratagem" needsto be gone, right now it just doesn't have any impact

I agree that getting rid of the auto-clear every turn would be great, however, I don't think we need to get rid of the autopass stratagem. CP is a lot more sparse this edition and I rarely have excess CP lying around so if I have to choose between spending it on insane bravery or holding onto it for something else that is a good tactical decision to keep imo.

 Jidmah wrote:
Battle shock does too little, is too unreliable and is too easy to get rid off to actually impact games.

Spoiler:

To be fair, not being able to fall back, use a stratagem or score is a fairly powerful debuff, but there are too many units which it doesn't affect.
If an opponent ever has to roll a battle shock test, there is a decent chance that they will just pass it, and when they don't, battle shock still needs to be relevant to a unit. That predator sitting in a corner is not going to care about battle shock ever, because you weren't going to use stratagems on it, nor will it ever be on an objective or near combat.
If you manage to battle shock someone on your turn, it usually amounts to that unit not being able to use stratagems in the fight phase - if your opponent did not plan to do that anyways, it has absolutely no impact.

You cannot reliably make an enemy unit fail a test, so when you really want a unit to not use a stratagem on their turn, to not fall back or to not score, even with a negative modifier or two, most units can still easily pass the test and use a stratagem when they don't. All units that force tests get neutered by auto-removing battle shock during the next command phase, units that reduce leadership do nothing unless you kill half the enemy unit beforehand. Which means that it's not a mechanic worth playing around, so it just happens like an environmental effect.

Last, it's to easy to get rid off. That lone loota cowering behind a wall after his mob was blown away, three out of five times will just shake off battle shock during its next command phase and act as if nothing happened and capture an objective while blasting away some marine's head. The only way to reasonably expect that loota to be neutered is by shooting it dead, which is not what the mechanic was trying to archive.

IMHO, there are three ways to fix battle shock:
1) Make it matter to every unit - deactivate abilities, make units pinned and/or suppressed, disallow advancing and make them count as having fallen back when they make a normal move. Battleshock should be a real PITA for everyone who gets it. A player should never, ever be indifferent to his unit being battle shocked.
2) Make it more reliable. Maybe impose additional modifiers if a unit dropped from full health to below half strength in one turn. Impose a negative modifier if the unit was battle shocked last turn or locked in combat. Or maybe make units roll for it more often.
3) Make it harder to get rid of. If you are battle shocked, getting rid of it should absolutely require a leadership test to shake it off. Return insane heroism to its old incarnation of costing 2CP, before the roll. Any faction specific stratagem for 1 CP should only be able to ignore one aspect of battle shock, but never just unshake them.

Pick any two.

Right up until it does impact a game....

Our Knight player discovered this in our big Imperial vs Tau game yesterday.
On the Tau turn one of his big Knights (Paladin?) Held an objective in no-mans land. We sent several Piranhas after it, one making it onto the objective, all within range for their Drone Harresment ability.
Several tests later & guess who was Battleshocked?
Then we hammered it down to just below 1/2 wounds.
Scored us a secondary as we took an enemy held objective.
On his turn? He needs to test for being below 1/2. He & his teammates decide the CP will be better spent elsewhere & he declares that's OK as he's got this.
Turned out that he did not have it & that 1 Piranha remained in control of the objective.
Of course that poor heroic Piranha soon died horriblely.....

ccs wrote:


Right up until it does impact a game....

Our Knight player discovered this in our big Imperial vs Tau game yesterday.
On the Tau turn one of his big Knights (Paladin?) Held an objective in no-mans land. We sent several Piranhas after it, one making it onto the objective, all within range for their Drone Harresment ability.
Several tests later & guess who was Battleshocked?
Then we hammered it down to just below 1/2 wounds.
Scored us a secondary as we took an enemy held objective.
On his turn? He needs to test for being below 1/2. He & his teammates decide the CP will be better spent elsewhere & he declares that's OK as he's got this.
Turned out that he did not have it & that 1 Piranha remained in control of the objective.
Of course that poor heroic Piranha soon died horriblely.....

so Battleshock is fine because in one game, your opponent misplayed, got punished for it and lost one round of primary on one objective?

Apologies if it feels like I’m flogging a dead horse with my questions.

But across your experience of Battle Shock in 10th, have any of your opponents been running lists which “weaponised” it, as Nids threaten to do come their Codex?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Apologies if it feels like I’m flogging a dead horse with my questions.

But across your experience of Battle Shock in 10th, have any of your opponents been running lists which “weaponised” it, as Nids threaten to do come their Codex?

Not deliberately, no. Nids focus on it naturally, as do Daemons and Chaos Knights. There are even some synergies in those armies with BS and failed BS but I've never seen anyone really try to capitalise on it. Sometimes you get an incidental benefit because you took a unit that gets a bonus against units suffering from BS, but that's not usually the reason you took the unit in the first place.

At the risk of flogging my own dead horse, BS is just too inconsistent to plan for and too easy to mitigate at crucial moments using the 1CP strat. Many units that cause BS have to get close to do it and many of the more powerful units in the game are shooting based so they are usually able to be kept away from any BS threats.

Although one does need to remember that the strat only works in your battle-shock sub-phase.

You cannot use it for any additional battle-shock tests.

 Tyran wrote:
Although one does need to remember that the strat only works in your battle-shock sub-phase.

You cannot use it for any additional battle-shock tests.

True. But because BS goes away automatically in your command phase, the out-of-phase abilities only ever turn off OC for secondaries or turn off strats for the rest of the turn. That's not nothing, but it's much lower impact than failing in your own Command Phase.

At the very least, Tyranid Shadow in the Warp happens before the battle-shock step so you cannot use the strat against it (and it also means that units that are below half-strength test twice).

ccs wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
Battle shock does too little, is too unreliable and is too easy to get rid off to actually impact games.

Spoiler:

To be fair, not being able to fall back, use a stratagem or score is a fairly powerful debuff, but there are too many units which it doesn't affect.
If an opponent ever has to roll a battle shock test, there is a decent chance that they will just pass it, and when they don't, battle shock still needs to be relevant to a unit. That predator sitting in a corner is not going to care about battle shock ever, because you weren't going to use stratagems on it, nor will it ever be on an objective or near combat.
If you manage to battle shock someone on your turn, it usually amounts to that unit not being able to use stratagems in the fight phase - if your opponent did not plan to do that anyways, it has absolutely no impact.

You cannot reliably make an enemy unit fail a test, so when you really want a unit to not use a stratagem on their turn, to not fall back or to not score, even with a negative modifier or two, most units can still easily pass the test and use a stratagem when they don't. All units that force tests get neutered by auto-removing battle shock during the next command phase, units that reduce leadership do nothing unless you kill half the enemy unit beforehand. Which means that it's not a mechanic worth playing around, so it just happens like an environmental effect.

Last, it's to easy to get rid off. That lone loota cowering behind a wall after his mob was blown away, three out of five times will just shake off battle shock during its next command phase and act as if nothing happened and capture an objective while blasting away some marine's head. The only way to reasonably expect that loota to be neutered is by shooting it dead, which is not what the mechanic was trying to archive.

IMHO, there are three ways to fix battle shock:
1) Make it matter to every unit - deactivate abilities, make units pinned and/or suppressed, disallow advancing and make them count as having fallen back when they make a normal move. Battleshock should be a real PITA for everyone who gets it. A player should never, ever be indifferent to his unit being battle shocked.
2) Make it more reliable. Maybe impose additional modifiers if a unit dropped from full health to below half strength in one turn. Impose a negative modifier if the unit was battle shocked last turn or locked in combat. Or maybe make units roll for it more often.
3) Make it harder to get rid of. If you are battle shocked, getting rid of it should absolutely require a leadership test to shake it off. Return insane heroism to its old incarnation of costing 2CP, before the roll. Any faction specific stratagem for 1 CP should only be able to ignore one aspect of battle shock, but never just unshake them.

Pick any two.

Right up until it does impact a game....

Our Knight player discovered this in our big Imperial vs Tau game yesterday.
On the Tau turn one of his big Knights (Paladin?) Held an objective in no-mans land. We sent several Piranhas after it, one making it onto the objective, all within range for their Drone Harresment ability.
Several tests later & guess who was Battleshocked?
Then we hammered it down to just below 1/2 wounds.
Scored us a secondary as we took an enemy held objective.
On his turn? He needs to test for being below 1/2. He & his teammates decide the CP will be better spent elsewhere & he declares that's OK as he's got this.
Turned out that he did not have it & that 1 Piranha remained in control of the objective.
Of course that poor heroic Piranha soon died horriblely.....

Yes, and I once rolled 60 hits with a unit of 20 shootas.
Battle shock needs to matter in ever. single. game. Irrespective of what army is facing what other army. Otherwise it's not a well designed mechanic.
You being able to recount the one time battle shock did something so clearly is more evidence of how much of a failure it is, and not evidence of it actually working. You also have to admit that quite a few stars aligned in order for that to happen.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Apologies if it feels like I’m flogging a dead horse with my questions.

But across your experience of Battle Shock in 10th, have any of your opponents been running lists which “weaponised” it, as Nids threaten to do come their Codex?

I tried to make DG list work with the enhancement which deals mortals to battle shocked units and have a pair of blightbringers reduce leadership while PBC and daemon princes force battleshock tests. I'm sure it mostly failed due to DG being abysmally bad, but I also couldn't make single one of my opponent's CSM units fail their checks.