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 JNAProductions wrote:

johnpjones1775 wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

johnpjones1775 wrote:

Breton wrote:

johnpjones1775 wrote:
they do not get 4 ranged attacks. They get 2 I literally looked at the datasheet on the app

Look again: Under Abilities named Target Elimination.

if we’re factoring in abilities JAI’s melee damage blows intercessor shooting damage out of the water.

Why wouldn't you factor in abilities?

abilities are more likely to change significantly from edition to edition. Either way, melee oriented units are like to have rules that boost their melee same as shooting units will likely have abilities that benefit their shooting so it’s likely generally a wash’s

But in the case of JAIs there ability average at least as many MWs as the intercessors’ shooting including their ability, so clearly add in the melee weapons it’s not even close.


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I think in general total damage potential for a unit between their shooting and melee should also be considered. I do think shooting for most melee units typically out damages the melee of shooting units, considering most melee units either get at least 1 solid pistol option like plasma or inferno pistol, while shooting units’ just don’t get enough Deven attacks in melee typically.

That's a very Marine-centric view.
I don't have a single unit where the shooting is better than the melee in a 2k list.

it is, because they’re the default as the most common army. However even in shooting armies, the melee units typically out fight their nearest shooting counterparts.

Look at guard.
Bullgryn fight better than ogryn shoot, and ogryn melee isn’t even that bad, which is good since ogryns need to be in charge range to get the most out of their shooting.

It's a whole network of factors that can't really be fixed unless you change them all at once:
1. Gun ranges are too long (with no hit penalties for distance)
2. Charge distances are too long (max 18" charge on footsloggers is ludicrous)
3. Too many models with too large of bases on too small of a table
4. Bad terrain rules where cover is only a slight benefit
5. Freely shooting through allied and enemy units
6. No rules for facing, flanking, or crossfire
7. Not enough turns in the game for repositioning
8. The need to accomplish randomized secondary objectives in a single round
9. Instantaneous deep strikes and other special movement abilities

 Orkeosaurus wrote:
...9. Instantaneous deep strikes and other special movement abilities

To pick at this a little - how many of those come with downsides? GW hasn't brought back scatter or anything to make it a trade-off of "slow but reliable transports" vs "fast redeploy but you might telefrag your unit into a wall", right?

 Orkeosaurus wrote:
It's a whole network of factors that can't really be fixed unless you change them all at once:
1. Gun ranges are too long (with no hit penalties for distance)
2. Charge distances are too long (max 18" charge on footsloggers is ludicrous)
3. Too many models with too large of bases on too small of a table
4. Bad terrain rules where cover is only a slight benefit
5. Freely shooting through allied and enemy units
6. No rules for facing, flanking, or crossfire
7. Not enough turns in the game for repositioning
8. The need to accomplish randomized secondary objectives in a single round
9. Instantaneous deep strikes and other special movement abilities

There are rules to represent things like crossfire. They’re abilities, it’s just not a core rule.


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Breton wrote:

johnpjones1775 wrote:
abilities are more likely to change significantly from edition to edition. Either way, melee oriented units are like to have rules that boost their melee same as shooting units will likely have abilities that benefit their shooting so it’s likely generally a wash’s

And yet you're overstating the frequency of Advance and Charge while you include it in melee potency.

But in the case of JAIs there ability average at least as many MWs as the intercessors’ shooting including their ability, so clearly add in the melee weapons it’s not even close.

Just off the top of my head melee oriented units with decent shooting
Aggressors
JAIs(two special pistols is pretty good.)
BVG
SG
not sure about the other divergent chapters’ melee focused units.

Now what shooting units can we say also has pretty good melee?
Intercessors, maybe?
Inceptors, maybe? Definitely if we count pistols shooting in combat melee damage.
Can’t think of any others, not eradicators, eliminators, hellblasters or heavy intercessors.

I'd say Aggressors are the shooting unit with good melee. Like Terminators. Both units are considered shooters before they're considered punchers. And no, two special pistols isn't very good- neither is the three you actually max out at. What are BVG? Blade Guard? They're also not good shooters. Neither are the Sanguinary Guard. You make plans around good shooters. You don't make plans around two 3" pistol shots. They have potentially good emergency/last ditch shooting. That's not the same as having good shooting.



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 JNAProductions wrote:
That's a very Marine-centric view.
I don't have a single unit where the shooting is better than the melee in a 2k list.

To be fair Orks are somewhat skew that way - using Marines as a baseline, especially the traditional/fluffy battle company 6-2-2 force, isn't a bad starting spot here. 6 Tacs/equivalents, 2 Assaults/equivalents, 2 Devs covers all the bases - a bunch of supposedly dual purpose Battle line squads, a couple Melee Skew, and a couple Shooting skew "specialty" squads.

Such as:
2x10 Intercessors
2x10 Heavy Intercessors
1x 10 Infiltrators
1x 10 Tactical Squad

1x10 JPAI
1x10 Incursors

2x10 Devs

That this probably isn't a very good army in the first place is something that should maybe be a separate discussion. Still, a fairly standard fluffy list for theoryhammering some basics/principles. The melee here is pretty meh. It’s not bad, but it’s a long way from good. The shooting is also not bad - its gotta be pretty bad to be bad - but its only closer to good because of the quantity of shots not the quality.

I standby my opinion that aggressors are a melee units with above average shooting. Can’t convince me otherwise.
We’ll have to agree to disagree.
As for advance and charge, marines alone have an entire detachment with that as a core part of it, as well as advance and shoot, so there’s no opportunity cost to worry about.
Speed freaks for orks has advance shoot. Guard has advance and shoot strat
Advance and charge or advance and shoot is very common.


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Thinking a bit more I think the prevalence of scout/infiltrate/deep strike/etc.

Small boards. Plenty of movement without those abilities.

Make those abilities rather rare and that will help.

Orkeosaurus list is pretty bang on.

Relegating tactics to special plays like strategems is also part of the problem.

It means your opponent knows it won't always be an issue and they can do risky things without always suffering consequences for it.


The current game uses strategms as little reward systems to make players feel good about pulling off special plays, but it leaves the core rules hollow and really a nothing system.

Imo the 'feelsbad' excuse used a lot is partly to blame. Sometimes the game SHOULD feel bad if you've made a mistake...

 Hellebore wrote:
Orkeosaurus list is pretty bang on.

Relegating tactics to special plays like strategems is also part of the problem.

It means your opponent knows it won't always be an issue and they can do risky things without always suffering consequences for it.


The current game uses strategms as little reward systems to make players feel good about pulling off special plays, but it leaves the core rules hollow and really a nothing system.

Imo the 'feelsbad' excuse used a lot is partly to blame. Sometimes the game SHOULD feel bad if you've made a mistake...

Yes when you screw up or get out played it’s ok for the game to feel bad. It’s gakky to feel bad because you didn’t memorize every unit ability, detachment rule, enhancement, and stratagem in your opponent’s army, and get caught out because of something you had no clue could happen.

johnpjones1775 wrote:

There are rules to represent things like crossfire. They’re abilities, it’s just not a core rule.

There are rules that give bonuses for having multiple units fire at a target but that alone isn't crossfire. Crossfire is a bonus for shooting at a target from different angles which denies the target effective use of cover, and which doesn't function if the shooters are firing from the same direction. I'm pretty sure there is no special rule in the game that works like that although I suppose the cover rules for barricades can still sort of work that way.

If the bonus is only for having multiple units shoot the target that does nothing to incentivize flanking, especially since they can freely shoot through their allies. They can just stack all the units in the same firing lane and claim the same bonus.

 Hellebore wrote:
Relegating tactics to special plays like strategems is also part of the problem.

It means your opponent knows it won't always be an issue and they can do risky things without always suffering consequences for it.

But it's often worse than that: tactics have been relegated to the flavor text of a special rule that doesn't actually require you to use the tactic. For instance I have no doubt that some Space Marine unit has a rule named "Tactical Crossfire" (or whatever) that gives a bonus to hit, but that has nothing to do with firing angles. Likewise overwatch is flavored as the unit being prepared to shoot in advance but no preparation is actually required, you can use it anywhere at any time. There are a bunch of special rules that give units "cover" without the need to move into terrain that provides cover. And so on.

It's frustrating because now I feel like a crazy person for pointing out that these tactics don't really exist, they're just buff spells that reference a real-world tactic in the name. GW removes the rules for vehicle facing. Then they create a character with a special rule named "Attack the Rear Armor!" that gives units a bonus to wound vehicles. But it doesn't actually require that they shoot it from the rear (because there's no facing), that's just the name of the ability. And then if I say you can't attack tanks in the rear armor anymore they say "that's not true, what about this guy's 'Attack the Rear Armor!' power?"

johnpjones1775 wrote:

I standby my opinion that aggressors are a melee units with above average shooting. Can’t convince me otherwise.
We’ll have to agree to disagree.

We can agree to disagree but I'm pretty sure it wasn't Aggressor Melee that blew up the Gladius Bomb by nerfing what two strats, and an enhancement?

Breton wrote:

johnpjones1775 wrote:

I standby my opinion that aggressors are a melee units with above average shooting. Can’t convince me otherwise.
We’ll have to agree to disagree.

We can agree to disagree but I'm pretty sure it wasn't Aggressor Melee that blew up the Gladius Bomb by nerfing what two strats, and an enhancement?

And?
Last game I played with my marines 3 aggressors and a captain took out a Brutalis and boxnaught in melee, without losing a single model. Their melee is significantly better than their shooting.

GW not foreseeing a combo or how strong a specific combo could be and nerfing it doesn’t mean they’re a shooting unit, it just means they’re trash at writing rules.

 Orkeosaurus wrote:

But it's often worse than that: tactics have been relegated to the flavor text of a special rule that doesn't actually require you to use the tactic. For instance I have no doubt that some Space Marine unit has a rule named "Tactical Crossfire" (or whatever) that gives a bonus to hit, but that has nothing to do with firing angles. Likewise overwatch is flavored as the unit being prepared to shoot in advance but no preparation is actually required, you can use it anywhere at any time. There are a bunch of special rules that give units "cover" without the need to move into terrain that provides cover. And so on.

It's frustrating because now I feel like a crazy person for pointing out that these tactics don't really exist, they're just buff spells that reference a real-world tactic in the name. GW removes the rules for vehicle facing. Then they create a character with a special rule named "Attack the Rear Armor!" that gives units a bonus to wound vehicles. But it doesn't actually require that they shoot it from the rear (because there's no facing), that's just the name of the ability. And then if I say you can't attack tanks in the rear armor anymore they say "that's not true, what about this guy's 'Attack the Rear Armor!' power?"

I couldn't agree more.

It also means there's no counterplay. You can't use good manoeuvring because even stratagems that pretend to relate to manoeuvring or positioning have naff-all to do with either. You can't even target the enemy commanders because, unlike Orders, stratagems are just issued directly from God. So even if every enemy HQ has been reduced to red paste, the remaining units can still all be affected by Stratagems with no issues whatsoever.

In fact, the only available counterplay is if you happen to have the Counterplay stratagem available to negate the enemy's stratagem like you're activating a trap card in Yugioh.

I always thought your CP regeneration should stop if your Warlord is no longer on the tabletop.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
I always thought your CP regeneration should stop if your Warlord is no longer on the tabletop.

So you think just because my warlord died I should lose access to strats that have reasonably absolutely nothing to do with him?
Such as who-knows-how-many effects that used to simply be unit abilities?

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
I always thought your CP regeneration should stop if your Warlord is no longer on the tabletop.

For some lists, that could make sense.
A Guard list comprised entirely of the most basic infantry led by an officer, sure. Or maybe a Necron list that's Warrior spam, with a single Noble.

But similar to morale, it won't make sense for most lists.

It's also not a particularly satisfying game experience-currently, my warlord is a GUO. If I lost access to strats if I lost the big boy, I'd instead make my warlord a Poxbringer and leave him in the backfield so he doesn't die.

ccs wrote:

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
I always thought your CP regeneration should stop if your Warlord is no longer on the tabletop.

So you think just because my warlord died I should lose access to strats that have reasonably absolutely nothing to do with him?
Such as who-knows-how-many effects that used to simply be unit abilities?

I would think the more important question is why unit abilities need to be strats?

As opposed to, say, unit abilities.

Eh? I think its largely fine. Could be better. Playing on ruin heavy tables actually work pretty well for blocking LOS and making the insane ranges seem reasonable. I'd like to see more abstracted LOS blocking in the game to make other types of terrain equally usable.

Charges mostly work for what they're going for in the same context. The game has a pretty functional 12" close quarter band right now, where range and melee are well suited to clash and the GW table layouts do a pretty good job of letting things maneuver around terrain to get within that range fairly safely.

I think the one thing that just doesn't quite work is base unit movement and transports. If a unit is out of position, its probably stranded for the whole game and that just doesn't feel great. Transports don't really solve the problem and kind of end up being a tax, which is why the uppy downy solutions are so popular. I'm not sure on the best solution for this, but its definitely the one thing that stands out as not having been ironed out as well as my issues with ranges and charges have.

 vipoid wrote:

ccs wrote:

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
I always thought your CP regeneration should stop if your Warlord is no longer on the tabletop.

So you think just because my warlord died I should lose access to strats that have reasonably absolutely nothing to do with him?
Such as who-knows-how-many effects that used to simply be unit abilities?

I would think the more important question is why unit abilities need to be strats?

As opposed to, say, unit abilities.

Because 40K was "bloated" and had to be dumbed down, and people were not careful what they wished for.

What if the target of the Stratagem had to make a LD test in order to perform the strategem?

It makes Stratagems not quite a guarantee.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
What if the target of the Stratagem had to make a LD test in order to perform the strategem?

It makes Stratagems not quite a guarantee.

That wouldn't solve the issue of "Stratagem that was/should be a unit ability", and seems like it'd run into the old issue of "Ld only matters to some armies" (since it doesn't affect everyone equally, it goes from a game mechanic to a soft nerf to specific codices).

Edit: That said, if we moved from "Stratagems as spells" to "Stratagems as actual stratagems" (eg, Cantabrian Circle, Feigned Retreat, Mad Minute, etc) and had them proc off the Warlord or squad leader's Ld, I'd like it a lot more.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
What if the target of the Stratagem had to make a LD test in order to perform the strategem?

It makes Stratagems not quite a guarantee.

Does that add decisions to the game or just extra dice rolling?

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
What if the target of the Stratagem had to make a LD test in order to perform the strategem?

It makes Stratagems not quite a guarantee.

Does that add decisions to the game or just extra dice rolling?

And how does that work for Nids and Orks?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
To be honest, I figure the best solution is to move a lot of the strats we lost to individual units. Call them 0 CP Strats. You must have at least 1CP to use them, but they still cost 0, and each unit can use them every round/turn.

Build the Strats and abilities around Universal Rules for easy cross faction understanding - like they did with Marines base abilities (ATSKNF, Bolter Drill, etc) in 8th/9th. This ability is Double Tap + Fleshrending. That ability is Impact Hits + Invigoration (whatever Fleshrending and Invigoration happen to be)