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Yesterday game. Netted 5vp, deniea 5vp, denied 3 overwatch candinates which made doing secondary safer and put one of my units into danger of unable to come back if killed.

In tonight's game my opponent had a unit of Nurglings, just inside no-mans land (and thus his shadow of chaos) that just wouldn't die thanks to passing BS tests. The damned things kept healing & regenerating bases. This allowed them to tar pit one of my units far longer than math said they should....

Unleashed shadow and the nasty flamer unit at his home got terrified allowing gargoyles to steal opponents home objective. Also couple other units limiting overwatch options.

ccs wrote:
In tonight's game my opponent had a unit of Nurglings, just inside no-mans land (and thus his shadow of chaos) that just wouldn't die thanks to passing BS tests. The damned things kept healing & regenerating bases. This allowed them to tar pit one of my units far longer than math said they should....

thats not battleshock tho, its Shadow of Chaos.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

tneva82 wrote:
Yesterday game. Netted 5vp, deniea 5vp, denied 3 overwatch candinates which made doing secondary safer and put one of my units into danger of unable to come back if killed.

Nids are one of the very few factions that can reliably force battleshock on units with a timing that allows them to lose primaries. And of course, when you're forcing a test on an opponent's whole army, failing one of them is more likely to occur.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

ccs wrote:
In tonight's game my opponent had a unit of Nurglings, just inside no-mans land (and thus his shadow of chaos) that just wouldn't die thanks to passing BS tests. The damned things kept healing & regenerating bases. This allowed them to tar pit one of my units far longer than math said they should....

thats not battleshock tho, its Shadow of Chaos.

A technicality that makes no difference.
True, it's the Shadow of Chaos rule that allows thier healing/regeneration.
But in order to use that part of the rule they must pass a Battleshock test.
Had they not been rolling BS nothing would've happened....

So yes, it was Battleshock that was affecting that portion of the game.

ccs wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

ccs wrote:
In tonight's game my opponent had a unit of Nurglings, just inside no-mans land (and thus his shadow of chaos) that just wouldn't die thanks to passing BS tests. The damned things kept healing & regenerating bases. This allowed them to tar pit one of my units far longer than math said they should....

thats not battleshock tho, its Shadow of Chaos.

A technicality that makes no difference.
True, it's the Shadow of Chaos rule that allows thier healing/regeneration.
But in order to use that part of the rule they must pass a Battleshock test.
Had they not been rolling BS nothing would've happened....

So yes, it was Battleshock that was affecting that portion of the game.

No, because regular BS doesn't heal your units.... Its litterally a matchup dependent situation that happened. Shadow of chaos could be rolled on an x+ and achieve the same result. Just because some factions have things that key off BS or have ways to trigger it at the correct moment doesn't mean the mechanic as a whole if anything close to good.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

ccs wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

ccs wrote:
In tonight's game my opponent had a unit of Nurglings, just inside no-mans land (and thus his shadow of chaos) that just wouldn't die thanks to passing BS tests. The damned things kept healing & regenerating bases. This allowed them to tar pit one of my units far longer than math said they should....

thats not battleshock tho, its Shadow of Chaos.

A technicality that makes no difference.
True, it's the Shadow of Chaos rule that allows thier healing/regeneration.
But in order to use that part of the rule they must pass a Battleshock test.
Had they not been rolling BS nothing would've happened....

So yes, it was Battleshock that was affecting that portion of the game.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
No, because regular BS doesn't heal your units....

Your reading comprehension seems low today. I already said that. Glance up & re-read the part I put in red.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
Its litterally a matchup dependent situation that happened.

And?

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
Shadow of chaos could be rolled on an x+ and achieve the same result.

It could. But in the reality we're in? That part of Shadows keys off of passing BS rolls

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
Just because some factions have things that key off BS or have ways to trigger it at the correct moment doesn't mean the mechanic as a whole if anything close to good.

It does make it better for some factions though.
And you want BS to be better? More relevant? More interesting? Well, forces having affects that key off of it is one way to get that.

I think the point is more that if you have to layer tons of extra rules onto Battleshock in order to make it relevant, then the base mechanic isn't doing a whole lot.

 catbarf wrote:
I think the point is more that if you have to layer tons of extra rules onto Battleshock in order to make it relevant, then the base mechanic isn't doing a whole lot.

That was the point i was going for

well its also like "Critical Hits" and "Critical Wounds" which also on their own do essentially nothing, but then have further rules pegged to them making some of the interactions a bit clearer, if a tad illogical occasionally

I think Battleshock is similar, except its 1, rarer and 2, actually has some direct impact. It seems written specifically as a mechanic to allow for other interactions.

had another game last night, a couple of units got battle shocked, to no real game impact though

I still think its better though than either having nothing or having a mechanic that removes models and then invariably sees a whole slew of special rules for some factions to mitigate it

I've found it to be situationally impactful, but generally nothing to be concerned about. caveat that i've not had a game versus nids where they lean into the mechanic.

units are generally alive, or dead, so battleshock tests are quite rare, and even when failed, they only have a few minor effects.

Situationally though, if you can leverage them, they are quite potent.

as an example: Tau (me) versus eldar.

My opponent had moved a wraithguard brick into a ruin. obviously he was going to use phantasm to withdraw if (when) i moved a unit to get into range and LOS on them.
I moved 2 piranhas within 12, prompting no overwatch. then moved my crisis team to shoot them (with plasma)

at the end of my movement phase, the piranhas forced a couple of battleshock tests, the wraithguard failed, and the crisis team deleted them since they could not use phantasm, or lightning fast reactions

leopard wrote:
well its also like "Critical Hits" and "Critical Wounds" which also on their own do essentially nothing, but then have further rules pegged to them making some of the interactions a bit clearer, if a tad illogical occasionally

Critical Hits/Wounds are just terminology, providing a definition for what it means when you roll a 6 and providing a hook for other rules to modify that threshold or interact with it.

They don't require you to make a bunch of extra rolls to typically do nothing.

And they aren't purporting to be something as fundamental to wargaming as a morale/friction mechanic.

leopard wrote:
I still think its better though than either having nothing or having a mechanic that removes models and then invariably sees a whole slew of special rules for some factions to mitigate it

There are many options besides 'nothing', 'how 40K previously did it', and 'how 40K does it now'.

 catbarf wrote:

leopard wrote:
well its also like "Critical Hits" and "Critical Wounds" which also on their own do essentially nothing, but then have further rules pegged to them making some of the interactions a bit clearer, if a tad illogical occasionally

Critical Hits/Wounds are just terminology, providing a definition for what it means when you roll a 6 and providing a hook for other rules to modify that threshold or interact with it.

They don't require you to make a bunch of extra rolls to typically do nothing.

And they aren't purporting to be something as fundamental to wargaming as a morale/friction mechanic.

thats essentially my point, is a definition that other rules can hook into

leopard wrote:
I still think its better though than either having nothing or having a mechanic that removes models and then invariably sees a whole slew of special rules for some factions to mitigate it

There are many options besides 'nothing', 'how 40K previously did it', and 'how 40K does it now'.

I know, I have played quite a few different games that handle morale in a wide range of ways, virtually all of them better. my point was GW tend to either have morale do basically nothing, or provide ways for favoured armies to totally or largely ignore it

As a Sisters player, Rejoice the Fallen is one of my favourite strats; I haven't played 10th yet, but I just know I'm gonna get battled shocked and prevented from playing it more than once.