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Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think they're a pretty recent addition, correct? I first encountered this rule against Chaos Knights (can't re-roll hits, wounds or damage against a certain model; I think it's a warlord trait). And I just learned that the Leagues of Votann land fortress has a rule where you can't re-roll wounds and damage against it. Are there others? Is this part of a trend in newer codexes?

Not a fan, to be honest. Being denied any re-rolls just "feels bad" to me.

.

counterpoint. the game would be a lot better if no rerolls were allowed. A lot of the balance issues come from auras allowing rerolls to hit or wound, removing the mechanic in general outside maybe 1 reroll from CP per phase imo would be positive for the game.

Agreed. Also less rerolls the faster games go.

 G00fySmiley wrote:
counterpoint. the game would be a lot better if no rerolls were allowed. A lot of the balance issues come from auras allowing rerolls to hit or wound, removing the mechanic in general outside maybe 1 reroll from CP per phase imo would be positive for the game.

Once again, AoS is ahead of the curve, hasn't gotten rid of all the re-rolls yet, but they are slowly being stamped out of existence.

The less re-rolling in a game? The better the game.

Yeah, gotta agree with all the responses so far. Rerolls are trash and need to go.

I think Death Guard were the first codex with anti re-rolls rules (on a single model/in an aura).

I do think a move away from re-rolls in a new edition would be a good idea.

But it would be GW levels of stupidity to try to do away with them by slathering late edition codexes with anti re-roll rules.

-Guardsman- wrote:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think they're a pretty recent addition, correct? I first encountered this rule against Chaos Knights (can't re-roll hits, wounds or damage against a certain model; I think it's a warlord trait). And I just learned that the Leagues of Votann land fortress has a rule where you can't re-roll wounds and damage against it. Are there others? Is this part of a trend in newer codexes?

Not a fan, to be honest. Being denied any re-rolls just "feels bad" to me.

I recall them being rare in 8th edition books, but they have exploded since Armour of Contempt was released in a dataslate. Now an entire faction has the rule, not just select units or sub-factions.

And I agree, a rule trumping other people's rules is a feel bad rule. It is also rather hard to balance (great against this army, useless against that one).

 alextroy wrote:

-Guardsman- wrote:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think they're a pretty recent addition, correct? I first encountered this rule against Chaos Knights (can't re-roll hits, wounds or damage against a certain model; I think it's a warlord trait). And I just learned that the Leagues of Votann land fortress has a rule where you can't re-roll wounds and damage against it. Are there others? Is this part of a trend in newer codexes?

Not a fan, to be honest. Being denied any re-rolls just "feels bad" to me.

I recall them being rare in 8th edition books, but they have exploded since Armour of Contempt was released in a dataslate. Now an entire faction has the rule, not just select units or sub-factions.

And I agree, a rule trumping other people's rules is a feel bad rule. It is also rather hard to balance (great against this army, useless against that one).

This. It's like when you play the "ignores cover" subfaction against the "counts as being in cover" subfaction. If you were excited to use rule X in your game, then it's kind of a bummer when you realize that not only will you not get to use that rule, but you've effectively put yourself at a disadvantage for not investing in a different option. Ex: My farseer took the Doom psychic power that lets me reroll to-wound rolls. You're playing a faction that prevents me from re-rolling to-wound rolls. My farseer is functionally down a power.

Am I crazy, or are rules that cancel out other rules becoming more common in general? I mostly noticed it with daemons with their unmodifiable saves (so I can't use something like the Jinx psychic power to interact with it) and whatever rule it is that prevents you from modifying the stats of their attacks. I feel like we've seen a lot of options that ignore cover and to-hit penalties. There are a few rules that reduce Damage to 1 functionally negating your investment in weapons with a higher Damage stat. Squats ignore my already rarely used movement-hindering options. Etc.

It makes me think about stacking to-hit penalties/bonuses. Those had issues, for sure, but they also made it feel like all of your investments were being factored in. If your opponent was -3 to-hit and you were +2 to-hit, then at least your +2 still impacted the opponent's to-hit roll. Whereas some of the more recent rules kind of do the opposite and just say, "You don't get to use the thing you invested in."

The next step will be adding re-rolls, that work even against units that prevent re-rolls.

This edition is out of control.

 Nevelon wrote:
The next step will be adding re-rolls, that work even against units that prevent re-rolls.

This edition is out of control.

Here: https://www.weregeek.com/2008/03/
Have a comic from 2008.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
The next step will be adding re-rolls, that work even against units that prevent re-rolls.

This edition is out of control.

Here: https://www.weregeek.com/2008/03/
Have a comic from 2008.

2008? Heh.

In exception based rule sets, there is always going to be some of it. It just feels like we’ve gone off the rails at this point. IMHO etc.

Iron Warriors have an army wide no re-roll wounds. Also ignore cover, which is awesome when you charge into heavy cover with accursed weapons.

Re-rolls should really only be on a few characters or as a Relic/WL trait. To-hit modifiers should be rarer as well. HItting on 2+ with re-roll 1s might as well just be auto hits at that point.

I think rerolls are fine. I don't think TONS of reroll sources are fine. For example, I think the rework of Chapter Masters having their full reroll a one unit ability compared to before is much better design.

There's also the problem of a bunch of HQs not offering anything other than rerolls, which is boring design. The hard cap of +/-1 to hit and wound didn't help this either.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Wyldhunt wrote:

 alextroy wrote:

-Guardsman- wrote:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think they're a pretty recent addition, correct? I first encountered this rule against Chaos Knights (can't re-roll hits, wounds or damage against a certain model; I think it's a warlord trait). And I just learned that the Leagues of Votann land fortress has a rule where you can't re-roll wounds and damage against it. Are there others? Is this part of a trend in newer codexes?

Not a fan, to be honest. Being denied any re-rolls just "feels bad" to me.

I recall them being rare in 8th edition books, but they have exploded since Armour of Contempt was released in a dataslate. Now an entire faction has the rule, not just select units or sub-factions.

And I agree, a rule trumping other people's rules is a feel bad rule. It is also rather hard to balance (great against this army, useless against that one).

This. It's like when you play the "ignores cover" subfaction against the "counts as being in cover" subfaction. If you were excited to use rule X in your game, then it's kind of a bummer when you realize that not only will you not get to use that rule, but you've effectively put yourself at a disadvantage for not investing in a different option. Ex: My farseer took the Doom psychic power that lets me reroll to-wound rolls. You're playing a faction that prevents me from re-rolling to-wound rolls. My farseer is functionally down a power.

And that's why modifiers should be used a lot more, and GW shouldn't have created caps on hitting and wounding. Instead of just outright ignoring cover, make it so Imperial Fists reduce the effectiveness of the modifier by one. So Raven Guard in cover will still get SOME sorta benefit, but Imperial Fists aren't just left twiddling their thumbs.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Am I crazy, or are rules that cancel out other rules becoming more common in general? I mostly noticed it with daemons with their unmodifiable saves (so I can't use something like the Jinx psychic power to interact with it)

Jinx modifies characteristic right? That actually works....


Automatically Appended Next Post:

EviscerationPlague wrote:
And that's why modifiers should be used a lot more, and GW shouldn't have created caps on hitting and wounding. Instead of just outright ignoring cover, make it so Imperial Fists reduce the effectiveness of the modifier by one. So Raven Guard in cover will still get SOME sorta benefit, but Imperial Fists aren't just left twiddling their thumbs.

Yes unhittable units are so much fun Didn't players just love it when they couldn't hit enemy at all...

That has been proven to be so much trouble especially with d6 system. Hell even now unless you have full rerolls -1 to hit is big deal. Especially if you aren't hitting on 3+ normally.

tneva82 wrote:

Jinx modifies characteristic right? That actually works....

Probably doesn't

Jinx worsens the Sv characteristic, which doesn't exist on a Daemon datasheet. They have a DSv characteristic, which isn't mentioned in Jinx.

 alextroy wrote:

-Guardsman- wrote:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think they're a pretty recent addition, correct? I first encountered this rule against Chaos Knights (can't re-roll hits, wounds or damage against a certain model; I think it's a warlord trait). And I just learned that the Leagues of Votann land fortress has a rule where you can't re-roll wounds and damage against it. Are there others? Is this part of a trend in newer codexes?

Not a fan, to be honest. Being denied any re-rolls just "feels bad" to me.

I recall them being rare in 8th edition books, but they have exploded since Armour of Contempt was released in a dataslate. Now an entire faction has the rule, not just select units or sub-factions.

And I agree, a rule trumping other people's rules is a feel bad rule. It is also rather hard to balance (great against this army, useless against that one).

It's especially bad when t ignores wound re-rolls, IMO. Wound re-rolls are relatively rare so the overall impact is pretty small. But when they do show up they're quite often as faction/sub-faction rules, as with Plague Weapons in DG or the DW chapter tactic. In those cases it's just annoying and bad design to be told you're playing the "wrong" army and some of your core rules no longer work.

To be fair, DG -1 damage is just as toxic, negating plenty of units like Repentia or entire army rules like White Scars

Sunny Side Up wrote:
To be fair, DG -1 damage is just as toxic, negating plenty of units like Repentia or entire army rules like White Scars

I agree. Between -1D and Stench Vats, DG basically shuts down my entire BA army. And their Contagions effectively give them +1 to wound all the time in combat too, just for added salt in the wound!

tneva82 wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Am I crazy, or are rules that cancel out other rules becoming more common in general? I mostly noticed it with daemons with their unmodifiable saves (so I can't use something like the Jinx psychic power to interact with it)

Jinx modifies characteristic right? That actually works....


Automatically Appended Next Post:

EviscerationPlague wrote:
And that's why modifiers should be used a lot more, and GW shouldn't have created caps on hitting and wounding. Instead of just outright ignoring cover, make it so Imperial Fists reduce the effectiveness of the modifier by one. So Raven Guard in cover will still get SOME sorta benefit, but Imperial Fists aren't just left twiddling their thumbs.

Yes unhittable units are so much fun Didn't players just love it when they couldn't hit enemy at all...

That has been proven to be so much trouble especially with d6 system. Hell even now unless you have full rerolls -1 to hit is big deal. Especially if you aren't hitting on 3+ normally.

That's the fault of less natural ways to obtain a +1 to hit, not the fault of stacking negative modifiers. We already got the 6 always hits, so it wasn't even necessary to do a cap.

Also fliers in 6th/7th were only able to be hit on 6s and weren't a problem.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

That's the fault of less natural ways to obtain a +1 to hit, not the fault of stacking negative modifiers. We already got the 6 always hits, so it wasn't even necessary to do a cap.

Also fliers in 6th/7th were only able to be hit on 6s and weren't a problem.

I'm going to be a pain in the butt and nitpick this.

As I recall, fliers were absolutely an issue in 6th/7th. Partly because many factions didn't have decent anti-air options. Partly because many of those anti-air options were only really useful if you happened to face fliers; so you had to gamble on how many points to invest on weaponry that might not have a target. And fishing for 6s to hit ("snap shooting" as 7th called it) resulted in a lot of dice rolling and frustration for not a lot of impact. I feel like you've actually given a really good example of how frustrating only hitting on 6+ can be. Even if you can't make a target literally unhittable via to-hit penalties this edition, armies that consistently make you only hit on 6s would probably be a pain to play against.

Also, while part of me likes the idea of balancing out stackable to-hit penalties with stackable to-hit bonuses, you risk creating the opposite problem. If everyone can reliably get a +2 to-hit and to-hit penalties remain only about as common as they are now, then there will be plenty of times you'd be seeing guardsmen hitting on 2+, Orks hitting on a 3+, and so forth. Which seems like it would have some undesirable consequences.

What about going back to stackable to-hit mods, but instead of adding a lot of to-hit bonuses (and rerolls), we just emphasize counterplay options that negate to-hit penalties? So a fast, stealthy unit belonging to the "uses camouflage" subfaction has a -3 to being hit. My attacking units are within 18" (ignore 1), are cross-firing/flanking the target (ignore another 1), and I pointed the spotlight from my transport at them (ignore a third 1), so it's a wash, and I hit on my normal BS. If the target unit was only a -1 to being hit, then I'd still only hit on my normal BS because the spotlight, crossfire, etc. aren't bonuses but instead just ways of ignoring to-hit penalties.

Slipspace wrote:

Sunny Side Up wrote:
To be fair, DG -1 damage is just as toxic, negating plenty of units like Repentia or entire army rules like White Scars

I agree. Between -1D and Stench Vats, DG basically shuts down my entire BA army. And their Contagions effectively give them +1 to wound all the time in combat too, just for added salt in the wound!

almost like DG is an anti-melee army

 Wyldhunt wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

That's the fault of less natural ways to obtain a +1 to hit, not the fault of stacking negative modifiers. We already got the 6 always hits, so it wasn't even necessary to do a cap.

Also fliers in 6th/7th were only able to be hit on 6s and weren't a problem.

I'm going to be a pain in the butt and nitpick this.

As I recall, fliers were absolutely an issue in 6th/7th. Partly because many factions didn't have decent anti-air options.

Until they did as more codices got released. Maybe 2 codices didn't have proper AA (CSM not having anything besides using their own Heldrakes for example).

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

That's the fault of less natural ways to obtain a +1 to hit, not the fault of stacking negative modifiers. We already got the 6 always hits, so it wasn't even necessary to do a cap.

Also fliers in 6th/7th were only able to be hit on 6s and weren't a problem.

I'm going to be a pain in the butt and nitpick this.

As I recall, fliers were absolutely an issue in 6th/7th. Partly because many factions didn't have decent anti-air options.

Until they did as more codices got released. Maybe 2 codices didn't have proper AA (CSM not having anything besides using their own Heldrakes for example).

Even after new books came out, your options tended to be something like:
A. Spam shots at them until something sticks. (Annoying because fishing for 6s; which was my main point.)
B. Buy this new anti-air model GW released to give you an answer to the flyer problem they created. (Because you're annoyed by fishing for 6s.)
C. Just accept that the enemy has a flyer that you can't meaningfully interact with. Maybe you'll get around to shooting at them once you've dealt with the ground targets.

Any thoughts on the rest of my post?

 Wyldhunt wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

That's the fault of less natural ways to obtain a +1 to hit, not the fault of stacking negative modifiers. We already got the 6 always hits, so it wasn't even necessary to do a cap.

Also fliers in 6th/7th were only able to be hit on 6s and weren't a problem.

I'm going to be a pain in the butt and nitpick this.

As I recall, fliers were absolutely an issue in 6th/7th. Partly because many factions didn't have decent anti-air options.

Until they did as more codices got released. Maybe 2 codices didn't have proper AA (CSM not having anything besides using their own Heldrakes for example).

Even after new books came out, your options tended to be something like:
A. Spam shots at them until something sticks. (Annoying because fishing for 6s; which was my main point.)
B. Buy this new anti-air model GW released to give you an answer to the flyer problem they created. (Because you're annoyed by fishing for 6s.)
C. Just accept that the enemy has a flyer that you can't meaningfully interact with. Maybe you'll get around to shooting at them once you've dealt with the ground targets.

Any thoughts on the rest of my post?

The rest of the post will have thoughts during my lunch, but let's not pretend that aircraft was a problem compared to deathstars, which WERE on the ground and were miraculously a 6 to hit. Invisibility is a whole other topic though and a power that's better off in the grave due to how THAT interacted with the game.

“This was worse” doesn’t mean another problem didn’t exist.

 JNAProductions wrote:
“This was worse” doesn’t mean another problem didn’t exist.

Only if it's a problem to begin with. Since almost all new codices got options (and reasonable ones too) for AA, the point is moot. Meanwhile Invisibility doesn't HAVE a counter a relies completely on multiple Psykers rolling on a table unless you have a better one that just selects powers. That was the epitome of randumb and broken at the same time.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

The rest of the post will have thoughts during my lunch, but let's not pretend that aircraft was a problem compared to deathstars, which WERE on the ground and were miraculously a 6 to hit. Invisibility is a whole other topic though and a power that's better off in the grave due to how THAT interacted with the game.

I... don't think anyone was talking about deathstars or invisibility? But both were bad for the same reason only hitting flyers on a 6+ was bad: it makes things frustratingly durable with limited opportunities for counter play. And that's the point I was trying to make in the first place; that technically being able to hit things on a 6+ regardless of modifiers doesn't prevent fishing for 6s from being a frustrating experience.

(Also, I feel like like flyers switching from only-hit-on-6s to just being -1 to-hit is a sign that releasing new books with new anti-air options didn't really fix the flyer problem.)

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
“This was worse” doesn’t mean another problem didn’t exist.

Only if it's a problem to begin with. Since almost all new codices got options (and reasonable ones too) for AA, the point is moot. Meanwhile Invisibility doesn't HAVE a counter a relies completely on multiple Psykers rolling on a table unless you have a better one that just selects powers. That was the epitome of randumb and broken at the same time.

What did CSM and Daemons do?

There were your own fliers that could Vector Strike, Flakk Missiles (which sucked), and… what else?

No reroll to wound army wide is terrible design (and I play Iron Warriors). Let’s say you’re Deathwatch playing Iron Warriors. Both parts of your chapter tactic don’t work at all. That’s pretty sucky.
A better way to go would be to prohibit the use of the reroll stratagem, but not inherent RR to wound such as Lts, Deathwatch trait, Doom etc. of course, it might not be as good at that point. The issue basically arose because of armour of contempt, erasing core rules to reduce AP on certain factions. And armour of contempt only came about because of GW crazy AP escalation. So yeah, it’s safe to say that the edition is just a little out of control because GW doesn’t want true balance and just can’t help itself from performing codex creep.
If it did that, why would it need to sell you another book later down the line?