Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

With the eldar release, I see a lot of anti X (mostly infantry) in the list, which entirely bypasses SvsT. I've seen it appear in other armies as well.

It also happens to look very similar to AoS where a unit wounds something on the same value regardless of what it is.

Do you think this rule is becoming more common in armies? Do you think this is a deliberate trend to finally break 40k from SvsT by getting people used to ignoring it?


It's a rule in AoS I never really liked, moving the game into a more abstract gamist direction, rather than the simulationist of S vs T.

It's hard to tell with GW but yeah ultimately I think they want to get away from SvT, and couldn't before because it's a "sacred cow".

Look how they already made people like power level by treating it like points instead; overnight people went from "LoL PL sucks" to "it is what it is" and accepting it.

I think its becoming more common.

I don't know whether its about some long term objective of "breaking" the SvsT relationship though. I think tts about giving GW another lever/dimension to specialise units.

I mean you can't have a light Eldar dedicated anti-infantry squad running around with S3. (See.. banshees being bad in a lot of earlier editions). Now I guess you could make them S7 or something - but that seems weird. Its certainly not any less abstract when lots of clearly "stronger" units aren't anything like that S. Also if they run into tanks or monsters you probably do want them wounding on 6s rather than 5s.

I mean I assume (...) Incubi will get something similar when the DE codex comes out. Because right now S4 into the ever rising amount of T5, T6 infantry feels a bit silly. (Yes you take an Archon and pop a pill for full rerolls, but come on.) But I don't know if all "glass cannon anti-infantry" goes down this route. Plenty of attacks and devastating wounds can sort of qualify too on the grounds you'll chop anything with low armour to bits anyway. (Orks I guess can be annoying here.)

Its the typical cycle of "lets make these units tougher"/"but to compensate lets make these units do more damage."

I think that there are just some weapons you want to fill a specific niche, without bleeding over, so it’s a way to help that out.

 Hellebore wrote:
With the eldar release, I see a lot of anti X (mostly infantry) in the list, which entirely bypasses SvsT. I've seen it appear in other armies as well.

It also happens to look very similar to AoS where a unit wounds something on the same value regardless of what it is.

Do you think this rule is becoming more common in armies? Do you think this is a deliberate trend to finally break 40k from SvsT by getting people used to ignoring it?


It's a rule in AoS I never really liked, moving the game into a more abstract gamist direction, rather than the simulationist of S vs T.

I think it's too soon to tell. Anti-Infantry = Shuriken special ability isn't that big of a leap.

Breton wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:
With the eldar release, I see a lot of anti X (mostly infantry) in the list, which entirely bypasses SvsT. I've seen it appear in other armies as well.

It also happens to look very similar to AoS where a unit wounds something on the same value regardless of what it is.

Do you think this rule is becoming more common in armies? Do you think this is a deliberate trend to finally break 40k from SvsT by getting people used to ignoring it?


It's a rule in AoS I never really liked, moving the game into a more abstract gamist direction, rather than the simulationist of S vs T.

I think it's too soon to tell. Anti-Infantry = Shuriken special ability isn't that big of a leap.

Shurikens have Lethal Hits, I think.
Not Anti-Infantry.

The only shuriken with that ability is Asurmen's when he triggers his once per battle gun-fu magic shooting attack. this attack is actually pretty remarkable because in that one round he can do up to 36 damage in melee, which is more than either loyalist primarch and equal to angron's Sweep. Not as strong, but pretty remarkable none the less.

The shining spears have anti vehicle/monster. Banshees have anti infantry.

Yvraine has anti infantry, neruo disruptors are anti infantry, witchblades anti infantry, eldrad anti character, splinter weapons anti infantry, many DE special melee is anti infantry, haywire cannons antivehicle, visarch anti epic hero.

That's just in the new eldar book.

It seems like a crutch rule to avoid using the core mechanics.

 Hellebore wrote:
The only shuriken with that ability is Asurmen's when he triggers his once per battle gun-fu magic shooting attack. this attack is actually pretty remarkable because in that one round he can do up to 36 damage in melee, which is more than either loyalist primarch and equal to angron's Sweep. Not as strong, but pretty remarkable none the less.

The shining spears have anti vehicle/monster. Banshees have anti infantry.

Yvraine has anti infantry, neruo disruptors are anti infantry, witchblades anti infantry, eldrad anti character, splinter weapons anti infantry, many DE special melee is anti infantry, haywire cannons antivehicle, visarch anti epic hero.

That's just in the new eldar book.

It seems like a crutch rule to avoid using the core mechanics.

I mean they're all USR's so they are the core mechanics as much as they other tables are.


That said, as mentioned above, I don't think it's a crutch, it's just hard to make them fit the image/fluff without... something. What do you add otherwise to make that squishy elf a threat? They’ve been ridiculed for over use of dev wounds already.

Hopefully, this is not the start of a general trend, but knowing GW it likely is.

I like it in the Eldar codex. I helps aspects finally excel in their roles. GW have struggled with making aspects work for a long time, and the core rules just fundamentally don't work for Eldar anymore. And realistically, any other solution would have a lot of undisereable side effects - like the str 7 banshees mentioned here earlier would suddenly be pretty decent against monsters and tanks.

Of course, I'm biased as a massive Eldar fan, but I hope the prolifieration of anti-x stays as something of a racial trait for all sorts of Eldar, as it really helps them do the Eldar thing well without massive stat inflation.Other armies should have it where appropriate, but having this much anti-x should not become the new thing IMHO.

It's partially a symptom of removing core stats that could have been tested on.

Neural disruptors used to have a unique Str vs. Ld (instead of toughness) interaction, using the same but comparing against the leadership stat.

In WHFB there were initiative checks as well.

A lot of the others were to try and emphasise a role now though. Banshees have it because they want them killing elite infantry who could be T6+, but don't want them having high Str blanket which would let them be vehicle killers. I would say a mechanic like 'anti-X doubles str against X targets' but stats are so inflated now (T6 infantry) it may not be enough.

It does have some good interactions though, for representing things like haywire weapons that have smaller chance of damaging infantry but are specialised against vehicles.

I think as everything the issue is they find something decent, and start putting it everywhere. Not to mention that we've now lost things like having specific combi-weapons, they're just generic.

It's a symptom of them constantly trying to streamline the game instead of just going back to a formula that actually worked, or doing something other than d6s (or dropping the scale and doing model by model, 2d6 similar to Warmahordes)

 Hellebore wrote:
With the eldar release, I see a lot of anti X (mostly infantry) in the list, which entirely bypasses SvsT. I've seen it appear in other armies as well.

It also happens to look very similar to AoS where a unit wounds something on the same value regardless of what it is.

Do you think this rule is becoming more common in armies? Do you think this is a deliberate trend to finally break 40k from SvsT by getting people used to ignoring it?


It's a rule in AoS I never really liked, moving the game into a more abstract gamist direction, rather than the simulationist of S vs T.

I don't mind it as another dial they can turn for balance. It's a way to make unit great against infantry without having to give it a high enough strength profile that it can threaten monsters and vehicles as well. So long as it's not overused (and I personally don't think we're there yet) I think it's a good thing to have around.

 Hellebore wrote:
The only shuriken with that ability is Asurmen's when he triggers his once per battle gun-fu magic shooting attack. this attack is actually pretty remarkable because in that one round he can do up to 36 damage in melee, which is more than either loyalist primarch and equal to angron's Sweep. Not as strong, but pretty remarkable none the less.

The shining spears have anti vehicle/monster. Banshees have anti infantry.

Yvraine has anti infantry, neruo disruptors are anti infantry, witchblades anti infantry, eldrad anti character, splinter weapons anti infantry, many DE special melee is anti infantry, haywire cannons antivehicle, visarch anti epic hero.

That's just in the new eldar book.

It seems like a crutch rule to avoid using the core mechanics.

Some of those are even easier. Anti-Infantry = Poison, Anti-Vehicle = EMP

I'm waiting for an "anti-antiX" rule that allows you to ignore or reduce the number of an incoming attack with the Anti-x rule. Would be a GW classic.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
I'm waiting for an "anti-antiX" rule that allows you to ignore or reduce the number of an incoming attack with the Anti-x rule. Would be a GW classic.

That does sound like them.

As long as the supposed tough units/armies are designed properly, and there isn't too much rule stacking it could be okey. But with eldar the second is never true, which means we enter a race where a DG terminator in deed has -1 to D, -1 to hit, FnP, Inv etc Which makes the anti X vs resilient thing fair (stuff can spike any way, again as long as there aren't too many rules over laps). But then it creates the situation that everything that isn't anti X or super resilient is just bad.

This was already a thing with early primaris stuff. 2W on marines was "broken" for like a weak, and then everyone started getting basic weapons doing 2D.Inv stacking became a thing, and all of the sudden MW were the norm and if you couldn't do them you were considered a bad army, in general. As long as GW doesn't drop a new detachment where eldar anti-stuff gets some crazy synergies it should be okey.

Reminds me of the old STR X weapons that always wounded on 4+ but were useless against vehicles.

I agree that this is simply a case of GW using the rule they created to get the effect they want. This weapon/unit is really good against X without making it better against everything.

Are they overusing the rule? That is a question of taste.

So there's a bit of semantics at play.

GW use the term core rules for a wide range of things. I should probably use 'basic' rules, because USRs are 'special' rules that often ignore the basic rules.

The basic rules are roll to hit, roll to wound, roll to save. Dev, lethal, anti all break these basic rules.

If your basic rules can't represent your forces effectively that you need to rely on the special ones to offset them, then your basic rules are lacking. You shouldn't need to break the mechanics to accomplish the task.

Hence my comment on them eventually shifting to the AoS model because there they can control exactly how by making the anti style rule the MAIN rule, so it's not patching anything.

In 40k I could even see them using keywords to modify these, like Vehicles reduce wound rolls by 2 or something. So the default is against infantry and anything else comes with a keyword modifier.

 Hellebore wrote:
So there's a bit of semantics at play.

GW use the term core rules for a wide range of things. I should probably use 'basic' rules, because USRs are 'special' rules that often ignore the basic rules.

The basic rules are roll to hit, roll to wound, roll to save. Dev, lethal, anti all break these basic rules.

If your basic rules can't represent your forces effectively that you need to rely on the special ones to offset them, then your basic rules are lacking. You shouldn't need to break the mechanics to accomplish the task.

I must vigorously disagree with your analysis here. Just because a system has rules that modify the 'basic' rule does not mean the system is fundamentally lacking. You cannot represent everything in a game under a simple mechanic.

You site roll to hit, roll to wound, roll to save as basic rules and all rules that break that modify it as breaking the basic rules. If that is true, then modifiers like AP, Cover, and Heavy all break the basic rule. Invulnerable Saves break the rule-breaking AP rule.

I could be wrong, but going by your definition of a basic rule, I don't there isn't a wargame out that doesn't have basic rules that are lacking. I don't think that is a bad thing.

Modifying roll to hit to wound to save is different to ignoring them entirely. lethal, anti and dev ignore the mechanics. A modifier works within the mechanic, moving it around but not outright ignoring them. Your stats are involved - your models are balanced based on their stats, a rule that ignores your stats negates the value of those stats.

2nd ed managed to do this without every 2nd unit needing an exception to the basic rules to function.

Your exceptions shouldn't be the norm.

You could get similar mechanics with modifiers, but they might get convoluted.

Right now Banshees are getting anti-infantry 3+. You could give them something like “gains +2 to wound vs. targets with the infantry keyword, but not to reduce the roll to better then 3+”. So you could still modify the roll. It’s more verbose, and opens up the stacking modifier can of worms, but works with the system instead of breaking it.

I prefer the simplicity of the anti-x rule vs. this, but there are ways to get the results you want in the system.

Certainly and part of the issue is that they broke the relationship between S and T.

So now a +1S is not the same as +1 to wound and the result is we mostly see +1 to wound as a bonus now, rather than bonus strength for this exact reason.

If banshees had +2 Strength against infantry, then they would still scale their hits against different toughness of infantry, instead of treating T7 custodians and T2 grots the same.


Makes me think they'd just simplify it even further to:

All wound rolls success on a 4+ unless specified otherwise.

They use it heavily in the Eldar codex because a lot of the faction identity is hyper-specialized units that go well into their ideal targets but struggle outside of that.

Wayniac wrote:
It's hard to tell with GW but yeah ultimately I think they want to get away from SvT, and couldn't before because it's a "sacred cow".

Look how they already made people like power level by treating it like points instead; overnight people went from "LoL PL sucks" to "it is what it is" and accepting it.

I mean, they didn’t make me like it, I find it so tiring to try to build an army list without coming up fifty short I’ve not even played in over a year. Previous editions, I’d add an extra raptor or cultist to a unit to use up the shortfall. It’s been made even worse by forcing spawn and obliges to come in twos, and troop taxing Daemons - pretty much all my go-to filler units are off the map.

 lindsay40k wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
It's hard to tell with GW but yeah ultimately I think they want to get away from SvT, and couldn't before because it's a "sacred cow".

Look how they already made people like power level by treating it like points instead; overnight people went from "LoL PL sucks" to "it is what it is" and accepting it.

I mean, they didn’t make me like it, I find it so tiring to try to build an army list without coming up fifty short I’ve not even played in over a year. Previous editions, I’d add an extra raptor or cultist to a unit to use up the shortfall. It’s been made even worse by forcing spawn and obliges to come in twos, and troop taxing Daemons - pretty much all my go-to filler units are off the map.

My go to filler unit is Spindle Drones. 35pts for 4 models.