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Hi there,
I've finally crossed the Rubicon and moved into 3rd. I haven't played a single game yet though.
Reading the rules, it seems to me that assault armies are a bit disadvantaged this time :
No more sweeping advance,
Less attacks,
No more Maru Skara for my IIIrd
How are you playing assault armies, if still playing it ? I'm very curious about assault squads for example
They never were the best, but they did work
Nowadays they seem a bit lackluster
Thank you for you attention to this matter !

Basic melee fighters were heavily nerfed. Despoilers are significantly worse, tactical sergeants and assault squads are absolutely destroyed by nerfs, etc.

Chainswords lost wound rerolls in exchange for the new shred (and if a chainsword unit fights something with 2 wounds they're probably flattened regardless), and as you noted they lost sweep and the charge attack, so they're quite likely to be tarpitted by tacticals for the duration of a match. Assault squads were hit worst of all since they lost line in exchange for vanguard that they lack the damage output to actually score.

However.

Elite melee units remain good. Dual lightning claws still give +2A, sparing them a key nerf. Dual lightning claws and hammers on elite units like assault veterans is popular. Dual chainfist contemptors are one of the more dependable ways to kill AV14 now (though they have to cross the board first), but unfortunately the power fist + chainfist build which is what everyone had on their melee dreadnoughts until now has been left largely redundant.

All in all, from a purely performance-based metric, assault took a hit and is now used mainly in the form of a few high-powered elite sweepers. It remains a cool fluff choice however which is what 30k is all about in the end, so don't hesitate to go all in on melee if it's what is cool to you.

 Ashiraya wrote:
....

This hits it pretty much on the head.

What you haven't mentioned though is the new Disengage option. Available only to the loser of a combat, it lets them casually walk away with neither penalty nor counter and do whatever they want in their own turn (which follows immediately after if they were the ones that got charged).

This is a massive hit to the 'basic' melee units who lack the output to cause significant damage - often just barely enough to win combat. Your opponent can then pass their Ld test and just walk away. Although even if they do fail their Ld and rout out of combat, a basic unit like a Tactical Squad is gonna have a voxcaster so can just call up their boss to discard it and, again, you've achieved nothing.
This means combat is only really viable if you can cause massive damage. The damage in and of itself is about the only thing that actually matters.

The best way to get the most out of melee is to lean in to statuses as well. Stack as many sources of individual statuses as you can to get a status, any status, on the enemy unit. Critically this will reduce them all to initiative 1, allowing you to maul the unit before they swing back - amazing for dealing with enemy elite-melee units. A status will also deny or at least reduce them Overwatching you as well.
Best at this is, again, thunderhammers. Swinging at initiative 2 now a thunderhammer equipped squad can wipe an enemy with a status before they even get to react.
Statuses also benefit you in Challenges as they set the enemy to initiative 1. This effectively works out as giving your guy somewhere between a +2 and a +4 in the focus roll, combined with other bonuses that quickly amounts to you auto-winning the focus roll (or at least close to). Which really lets you focus on the powerful gambits and can still beat the snot out of your opponent at your leisure.

So melee definitely works.
but if you're talking about the most basic units like Despoilers or Assault Marines? They're bad. Really bad.
I've had success with basic Terminators though, with thunderhammers they're great, with double claws they're fine. Command Squads (and legion-equivalents) are definitely best.

Disengage is a truly wretched rule. It arguably rewards you for losing combat since if you don't lose you have to either keep fighting the tar pit or take the Routed hit by using Fall Back.

I suppose it's a nice buff to Auxilia and the like but ugh.

Pretty sure even 40k's Fall Back punishes you for not staying in the fight more than that.

It punishes you far more than that. In 40k you cannot then shoot or charge with that unit in the same turn. In 30k you absolutely can, Disengage has no penalty at all so long as you can get clear.

 Ashiraya wrote:
...

I can't disagree with any of that.

I've been too busy to do much to change my 2nd Ed Blood Angels to get them ready for 3rd and it shows. My pair of Assault Squads were the mainstay of my army, and now they just feel like a liability.

I am going to be modifying my list to drop one of them entirely and add a smaller Veteran Assault Squad instead.

Even elite assault units feel hard done by. Lacking Inv saves is a real tough one.

The changes to apothecaries seem to affect assault units more too.

Apothecaries are another change I don't like. Trying to understand what apothecaries even do, starting from their datasheet, was a choose-your-own-adventure like journey. Very messy.

Have been thinking about updating my main force(s) to 3.0 with some of the fancier new assault units, veteran breachers, veteran assault squads etc. As they all seem pretty cool and it's easier to give them a little extra punch with characters (who ofc can also be made cool and thematic) as you aren't so limited by 3 HQs anymore.

As It was my impression from Pro 3.0 voices that one of the rare actually substantive reasons 3.0 is allegedly better is that it's less obviously a 'shooting edition'. I have literally heard this from multiple sources, i am not advocating this opinion just relaying it.

Personally i didn't see it if nothing else because they kept that wretched WS chart and not correctly upgraded it to the ToW/'classic' one, which in one sweep would have blown the game wide open in terms of unit viability, especially as not all ws5 was created equal with some units paying a premium others just getting it for free. I'd also heard very quickly that the Vanguard rule was essentially DoA with no sign of FAQ resuscitation. Now the insights from this thread has thrown up even more issues.

Maybe they meant 3.0 is a movement phase edition haha?

Also i think the reason apothecaries were nerfed is because they were almost auto-take as much of the time it felt like you were just putting your line units at a disadvantage without them. However as per usual its a double (triple? quadruple?) nerf so they are now completely useless as opposed to harder to justify, like dreadnoughts which despite being double nerfed (worse stats, Harder to fit in Lists) are still a decent choice.

I can't really justify calling it a melee edition. 3.0 is a -tank edition- above all. AV14 tanks, mainly.

The Kratos is incredibly dominant, and AV14 is incredibly hard to kill with the vehicle and armourbane reworks. No more getting one hit killed by a melta gun.

The problem with apothecaries is that, RAW, they do not function. Their rules do not make sense.
The rough concept of what they're *supposed* to do is pretty obvious though, but people are left using their own interpretation of 'RAI' to fill in the gaps. And that leads to about 3 different interpretations of how their rules work.
I think their rules are decent now, I'd probably make it a free reaction though rather than a costed one. Their biggest problem IMO is just one-man-per-slot makes them incredibly expensive to take unless you're spamming 5 or 6 to use their special detachment. And since they lost their 'gain the rules of their squad' thing they don't really fit anywhere except Tacticals so spamming 5 or 6 they don't really have anywhere to go.

I think I would agree 30k is less of a shooting edition. Limitations to reactions, nerfs to lascannons, etc make shooting units less powerful. And elite melee is *better* than it was in 2.0 I think.
It's just that melee has aggressively split between the low and high ends of the powerscale.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
As someone that runs a very heavy AV14 list (3 Landraiders and a Volkite Kratos) I wouldn't agree that this is a AV14 edition.

They're expensive and they don't score. If my opponents are smart they can ignore the heavy armour (especially if they bring Shock to status them) and focus on my infantry.

I don't necessarily think there's one clear build that's such a powerhouse this edition.
Transport flyers seem rudely strong though. The ability to appear from anywhere on the boardedge and get a charge with no ability to react or anything is... strong to say the least. But you don't see it much because stormeagles/dreadclaws have historically been gak, extremely expensive, and notoriously hard to build.
sometimes you see a chainfist contemptor in a dreadclaw though and you know you're in for a narrative game

Well, you don't spam -only- AV14. Tacticals are also as strong as ever, if not stronger than ever. The boltgun buff was incredible on them and part of why despoilers are more or less obsolete in comparison.

Volkites on tanks have always been inefficient, volkite needs volume to be good. Try running a melta Kratos with lascannons and you will see why it's the real terror of the meta, and mainly kept rare by people's sense of decency. Stable is a monstrously powerful rule, and Battlesmith keeps statuses in check.

A number of other balance offenders that have slipped through the cracks include the double plasma Contemptor (it outputs about twice the damage of a plasma Deredeo, it's very rude) and, shockingly, an inversion Saturnine Dreadnought (most Saturnine builds are dubious, it's big and expensive, but dual inversions massacre basically anything caught outside a transport with its two AP2 D3 pieplates, making it horribly dangerous to approach with elite melee infantry).

Said elite melee infantry still working is also part of why AV14 is so good, because odds are the transport you're using for them is itself AV14. The Spartan in particular enjoyed a very nice glowup, no longer being prone to blowing up instantly like in 2.0.

Well my point is AV14 alone isn't that strong, I don't think it's meta at all.
Melta Kratos are so strong in large part because the meltacannon is so strong and with the Decurion it can brutally crack back at anything that could realistically hurt it.

But any other AV14? It feels pretty balanced in my experience. Even my local uber casual "you can't kill my AT gun before it kills your tank, that's cheesy strats" player thinks Landraider spam is fine.

If anything I'm seeing fewer landraiders and spartans than I did in 2.0, probably because other options are more viable.

Definitely agree on Tacticals though. For basically every reason conceivable they blow any other basic troop out of the water. It's really quite silly. And it's not like they were the worst choice in 2.0 in the first place!

I think you seriously, seriously underestimate AV14.

Not only because AV14 tanks tend to have AV14 all around (which means they don't instantly implode the moment any infantry unit tougher than a Lasrifle Section touches them in melee), the way dice maths work means that each additional point of AV is much stronger than the previous. A meltagun dishes out twice as much damage to AV13 as it does to AV14. AV14 cannot be harmed by Thunder Hammers in melee (which is huge, as Thunder Hammers are immensely popular) and they have nothing to fear from Autocannons either, a weapon that has otherwise emerged to become the premier heavy weapon of 3.0 after the lascannon nerfs and introduction of damage characteristics.

AV14 is a meta warping stat. It's so powerful that units like dual chainfist contemptors entertain serious consideration -because- it's one of very few reliable ways to crack it. If you don't have a reliable answer in your game plan, AV14 tanks are just going to run wild through your army with nothing able to stop them.

AV14 units running wild inherently assumes that AV14 is incredibly dangerous.

A Landraider has just 6 lascannons at most, that's not an un-ignorable level of firepower.
Nor can they score or deny or do anything useful on the objective front.

It's very much been my experience that a large amount of AV14 is not oppressive. Hell I've run 3 Landraiders in a 2000pt event and everyone had a good time with some tight games.

I definitely agree that AV14 bricks are extremely tough, and quite often literally none of them die.
But I don't think they're the game meta at all.

Well obviously a Land Raider is one thing, it's primarily a transport. It's a threat from its guns but also from the thing it cheerfully transports. Any transport is only as good as what it can protect.

I feel the need to again point to the Kratos. It sounds like your meta may have not realised or may have deliberately chosen to abstain from them, which is probably for the best. You can slot four melta Kratos into a single detachment, which is expensive, but also extremely oppressive to deal with. They deal far too much damage for it to be possible to ignore them, are shockingly mobile due to Stable, and are extremely awful to try to kill without highly specialised units.

Ah yeah I could see why spamming *Kratos* would get oppressive.
I fairly often see one, but I don't think I've ever seen more than that.

But then is that one problem unit, which is strong for multiple reasons beyond 360/AV14, or is it inherently the AV14 part?
I think it's definitely the former.

My volkite Kratos does probably feel like one of the strongest parts of my list, and the volkite is something a lot of people dismiss as being bad. It's probably better than the melta at anything that isn't specifically destroying other heavy armour though.

I do think the armour and heavy transport detachments are weird though.
Spamming 4 Landraiders for the price of 1 seems weirdly, likewise 4 tanks.
All the other detachments come in pairs, which feels decent, I'm not sure why the armour ones come in fours.

Land Raiders (and especially Spartans, you get much more capacity and firepower for your points) are also really really good, it's just a less splashy kind of good since it's fundamentally a support unit rather than a transport.

But Kratos is definitely the main offender, and AV14 is a massive part of that. It would die so, so much faster at AV13!

As for armour, I think it's to compensate for the loss of squadrons that normally allowed tanks to be taken in 3s in a single slot.

Worth noting that on the LR front, the Spartan is *significantly* better than the carrier.

The upgrade to destroyers for the sponsons is frankly insane for tackling tough targets or even vets, as they maintain D2 on the move and have an additional strength pip to give them a 50% chance to crack enemy av14. They also, obviously, can move many more models.

In terms of apothecaries, they're really good. Statuses are crippling to melee units, both in terms of just running away or being forced to fight at I1 and suffering casualties before they can strike. Beyond that, the Medic! reaction is actually really good. Weird as gak, but good.

Basically you declare it after all of the damage from a shooting unit is done, wounds assigned, fails (and FNP) failed, 'extra' wounds dropped, and models are about to be removed.

This means that you can actually wait to see how many models you'll lose, ergo potentially the entire squad, and then declare it to save people. You can even do it with the apothecary 'dead' but not removed yet. It has some funny interactions such as allowing you to take a terminator unit which is entirely wiped out, pop medic, and leave all your 2w terminators on 1w left each (due to d2 weapons) with no one actually dying.

Melee overall is kind of a mixed bag.

Overall, 'normal' melee is much weaker. Despoilers can no longer 'punch up' with any effectiveness via weight of numbers and legion rules (RIP WE despoilers), shooting units basically can't do anything in melee, and melee is significantly less lethal due to the lack of sweep.

In return shooting units can't do anything in melee (so despoilers take less of a beating in melee from tacticals, random sergeants can't challenge your HQ's and power-fist their face in), charges are more reliable with setup moves, and combat is more 'sticky' with pursue, allowing you to *usually* hide in combat with some sneaky positioning.

There are a few big "keys" that should be kept in mind vs previous editions.

Charged vs charging almost never matters unless you have specific legion traits or the rather rare Impact special rule. So it can often be worth it to use your melee units to body-block areas, and you don't lose much / anything if you fail your charge and are in turn charged.

Rhinos are great assault transports. Losing the setup move hurts, but rhinos add a minimum of 7" of movement (moving through difficult terrain vs losing the setup) to an assault unit inside of them, making them insanely good. Land Raiders also massively increase the reach of elite melee units, taking cataphractii from having a minimum 'will make the charge' range of 6" to 15" through difficult terrain, or from 8" to 18" under ideal circumstances.

Unit wise, assault armies are all about command squads (and potentially legion uniques) now. Point for point they beat the pants off of anything in the generic legion list in terms of output and survivability, while not having the crippling reward of Vanguard. It requires an apex sure, but can be supplemented with logistical benefits.

 morganfreeman wrote:

In terms of apothecaries, they're really good. Statuses are crippling to melee units, both in terms of just running away or being forced to fight at I1 and suffering casualties before they can strike.

huh, it's only after you've pointed it out that I've realised Apothecaries emotional support medical equipment triggers in the *morale subphase*, IE during the shooting phase, and not the *recovery subphase* as I had initially thought. This does make them substantially better. If only they had a way to gain Heavy then, as otherwise losing the +1 is not at all worth the 50% chance of a +2 only once!

Beyond that, the Medic! reaction is actually really good. Weird as gak, but good.

Basically you declare it after all of the damage from a shooting unit is done, wounds assigned, fails (and FNP) failed, 'extra' wounds dropped, and models are about to be removed.

This means that you can actually wait to see how many models you'll lose, ergo potentially the entire squad, and then declare it to save people. You can even do it with the apothecary 'dead' but not removed yet. It has some funny interactions such as allowing you to take a terminator unit which is entirely wiped out, pop medic, and leave all your 2w terminators on 1w left each (due to d2 weapons) with no one actually dying.

This is kinda what I mean about how Medic is hot gak, doesn't work as written, and is up for interpretation.
I believe this interpretation, although not uncommon, is the weirdest possible way of playing it and definitely not the intention.

Firstly, strictly RAW;
You declare Medic "in step 9" which is "make saving throws". During this phase you allocate your hits, take your saves, and set the casualties aside in case they want to react/to count casualties for a possible panic check. All of this officially occurring one at a time, so allocate-save-die-allocate-save-die-repeat.
So you could arguably declare this at the *end* of the step, but at that point everyone's already dead.
Speaking of, 'Medic!' doesn't actually trigger until step 11: remove casualties. At this point everyone's *already* been allocated their damage two steps ago, had their wounds removed, and been removed as casualties. At no point does medic say you return retroactively-undead miniatures back to the unit nor how to do so. Which means even if you grant you retroactively undead the minis, RAW they're just chilling out in Hel playing Magick the Gathering with Sai-Tan or whatever it is they do down there.

IMO a much more sensible process to follow that doesn't lead to baulked situations like discarding overkill damage and regenerating entire squads of partially wounded models, is thusly;
Medic ends up functioning much more like a once-per-model damage mitigation save and doesn't have any baulked consequences.
You declare medic after seeing the wounds but before you take the saves (or you could slow roll to declare medic midway through saves if you like, including immediately after failing a save before removing a casualty - but you don't get it retroactively on any casualties already removed).
Each model, as they're allocated a save, then gets their Medic! roll to reduce the damage. If they live, they're back to eating the next shot.
Effectively this just moves the Medic resolution from step 11 (which is just tidying the board up) into step 9 (which is where everything it perports to do actually happens).

Melee overall is kind of a mixed bag.

Overall, 'normal' melee is much weaker. Despoilers can no longer 'punch up' with any effectiveness via weight of numbers and legion rules (RIP WE despoilers), shooting units basically can't do anything in melee, and melee is significantly less lethal due to the lack of sweep.

In return shooting units can't do anything in melee (so despoilers take less of a beating in melee from tacticals, random sergeants can't challenge your HQ's and power-fist their face in), charges are more reliable with setup moves, and combat is more 'sticky' with pursue, allowing you to *usually* hide in combat with some sneaky positioning.

One big problem I've had with Despoilers is that their melee output has been lowered so substantially you're cutting vary close to the variance in dice fighting Tacticals. Just a little bit of good/bad luck on either side and your Despoilers have lost the combat to the Tacticals. Especially if the Tacticals open up with an Overwatch first. also, Tactical's melee hasn't really been nerfed, they lost one attack on the sergeant but overall the margin of difference between Tacticals and Despoilers is *way* closer now than it was before. Tacticals are doing functionally just as much damage as they always were.
Although, as mentioned previously that's often the best case scenario for Despoilers as it prevents the Tacticals from just Disengaging.
Which nicely segues into the next point; I don't know how you can say combat is stickier now lol, it's so much *less* sticky.
Now that Disengage is a thing someone can just walk out of combat without consequence, you're not even allowed to pursue. Combats almost never 'stick' now due to this.

There are a few big "keys" that should be kept in mind vs previous editions.

Charged vs charging almost never matters unless you have specific legion traits or the rather rare Impact special rule. So it can often be worth it to use your melee units to body-block areas, and you don't lose much / anything if you fail your charge and are in turn charged.

Rhinos are great assault transports. Losing the setup move hurts, but rhinos add a minimum of 7" of movement (moving through difficult terrain vs losing the setup) to an assault unit inside of them, making them insanely good. Land Raiders also massively increase the reach of elite melee units, taking cataphractii from having a minimum 'will make the charge' range of 6" to 15" through difficult terrain, or from 8" to 18" under ideal circumstances.

Yeah I was half hyped that Despoiler Rhinos would be really powerful, and half concerned that they would be too powerful, at the turn of the edition. Experience has proved that even with a Rhino rush Despoilers are so depressingly bad it's not worth it.

Being the one to initiate the charge still has a major benefit though - you're the one that gets the shooting phase volley to soften the target first, and importantly put all the status checks down. Bodyblocking areas is definitely a good strategy but you really don't want your opponent to throw a status on you before charging, you want to be the one doing that. Statuses literally make the difference between you wiping your opponent without retaliation and the reverse.
(I think statuses are a bit too dramatic for combat)

Tacticals are doing functionally just as much damage as they always were.

With one important caveat, which is that bayonets were obliterated.

I don't know which GW writer got beaten up by bayonets in 2.0 and decided to wreak bloody vengeance, but if you asked me to list the 2.0 things that I would expect to get a nerf for 3.0, bayonets would not have been on that list.

It only further contributes to the feeling of 3.0 being a melee environment of brutal inequality, where the weak get weaker and the already strong are doing just fine.

True, not that I saw anyone bringing bayonets before mind which is why I didn't mention it.

On one hand I get it though. If bayonets are remained the same as they were, they'd have been better than actual chainswords. Which feels wrong. So I get why they got nerfed, the fact that they do sweet FA now is as much a symptom of other melee weapons also doing sweet FA.

I think Skitarii bayonets give them Impact (initiative) which I think is a cool and thematic bonus for bayonets. Honestly at that point Tacticals would almost certainly be better melee units than Despoilers

I used bayonets! So I definitely felt it.

And yes, you are right, but as you say, that's more an issue with the uncalled-for nerf to chainswords (seriously, who took chainswords for any other reason than "they're free"?) than anything else.

It's one of my biggest issues with 3.0. It nerfs some stuff that deserved it, but some of it was overnerfs (Dreadnoughts didn't need the triple tap), and much of it was nerfs to what was already weak.

I equipped bayonets but never got a chance to use them in anger
Except maybe slicing myself into a tank because they worked better than krak grenades Probably for the best that's not the case anymore

GW triple-tap nerfs is a tale as old as time lmao.
With chainswords I honestly don't think it was even *intended* as a nerf. I think they thought of a cute new rule to replace reroll wounds (because rerolls are verbotten) and just didn't think through how useful the rule would actually be.
GW, especially the SDS, and not-at-all thinking through the implications of rules beyond the page it's written on is also a tale as old as time

I think balance is certainly in a much better place than it was in 2.0 though.

 kirotheavenger wrote:

 morganfreeman wrote:

Beyond that, the Medic! reaction is actually really good. Weird as gak, but good.

Basically you declare it after all of the damage from a shooting unit is done, wounds assigned, fails (and FNP) failed, 'extra' wounds dropped, and models are about to be removed.

This means that you can actually wait to see how many models you'll lose, ergo potentially the entire squad, and then declare it to save people. You can even do it with the apothecary 'dead' but not removed yet. It has some funny interactions such as allowing you to take a terminator unit which is entirely wiped out, pop medic, and leave all your 2w terminators on 1w left each (due to d2 weapons) with no one actually dying.

This is kinda what I mean about how Medic is hot gak, doesn't work as written, and is up for interpretation.
I believe this interpretation, although not uncommon, is the weirdest possible way of playing it and definitely not the intention.

Firstly, strictly RAW;
You declare Medic "in step 9" which is "make saving throws". During this phase you allocate your hits, take your saves, and set the casualties aside in case they want to react/to count casualties for a possible panic check. All of this officially occurring one at a time, so allocate-save-die-allocate-save-die-repeat.
So you could arguably declare this at the *end* of the step, but at that point everyone's already dead.
Speaking of, 'Medic!' doesn't actually trigger until step 11: remove casualties. At this point everyone's *already* been allocated their damage two steps ago, had their wounds removed, and been removed as casualties. At no point does medic say you return retroactively-undead miniatures back to the unit nor how to do so. Which means even if you grant you retroactively undead the minis, RAW they're just chilling out in Hel playing Magick the Gathering with Sai-Tan or whatever it is they do down there.

IMO a much more sensible process to follow that doesn't lead to baulked situations like discarding overkill damage and regenerating entire squads of partially wounded models, is thusly;
Medic ends up functioning much more like a once-per-model damage mitigation save and doesn't have any baulked consequences.
You declare medic after seeing the wounds but before you take the saves (or you could slow roll to declare medic midway through saves if you like, including immediately after failing a save before removing a casualty - but you don't get it retroactively on any casualties already removed).
Each model, as they're allocated a save, then gets their Medic! roll to reduce the damage. If they live, they're back to eating the next shot.
Effectively this just moves the Medic resolution from step 11 (which is just tidying the board up) into step 9 (which is where everything it perports to do actually happens).

 kirotheavenger wrote:


But then is that one problem unit, which is strong for multiple reasons beyond 360/AV14, or is it inherently the AV14 part?
I think it's definitely the former.

Late, but I think it's also worth reminding that AV14 vehicles are very resistant to return fire themselves, since reactions cannot inflict status. This means glances do nothing in reactions and has been upheld by FAQ. S8 weapons cannot hurt AV14 at all in reactions unless they have armourbane.

Basically any weapon that threatens AV14 has Armourbane anyway, that rarely comes up in my experience. I guess it'd be very relevant to Flare Shielded SolAux or Mechanicum though.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Rihgu wrote:

This would make it a terrible reaction. The main value of it is making enemies waste overkill shots. If you're not wasting overkill shots you're just spending resources for fun. Like "hey, I'm gonna lose that whole unit. What if I also lost a reaction point as well?"

It still grants effectively a 4+ FNP, that's decent
Of course Apothecaries aren't amazing, but they're hardly terrible. I'd probably be using them if they weren't so detachment-intensive to run.

Although thematically I can kind of see the raising-the-dead interpretation but mechanically that is absolutely untenable from so many angles.
I just can't see how anyone can see it as reasonable. The way I suggested just works so much more cleanly and inline with how the game actually works.