Warhammer 40K Tabletop Thread XL: Bloated Rules

[Lord Torath]

NEW EDITION ANNOUNCED.

Well...****.

Next Thread title, right here!

[Mystic Muse]

Next Thread title, right here!

I'm all for it. It made me laugh anyway.

[Dragonus45]

Next Thread title, right here!

It perfectly sums up the experience of buying some sisters and a core book to get back into the game on my lunch break, sitting down, and reading the edition got announced while I was out.

[LansXero]

So other than a venomcrawler, word bearers, the enrapturess and masters of posession, what else boosts summoning rolls?

Just realized summoning in Crusade has no restrictions, so want to throw lords of change at people on top of endleslly free splitting pink horrors.

[Blackhawk748]

So other than a venomcrawler, word bearers, the enrapturess and masters of posession, what else boosts summoning rolls?

Just realized summoning in Crusade has no restrictions, so want to throw lords of change at people on top of endleslly free splitting pink horrors.

Wait... Crusade doesn't have the normal rules on Summoning?

[LansXero]

Wait... Crusade doesn't have the normal rules on Summoning?

nope, so that means you can drown the enemy in pink horrors until they hate you. Sure, summons cant level up, but if the enemy levels up they just feed you CP and all the free rerolls or whatever wont account for having to deal with endlessly splitting piles of wounds and having to face a list with twice the points value :D

[Cheesegear]

Just realized summoning in Crusade has no restrictions...

Because it's a Narrative system. In the same way that Narrative/Open was broken last edition, too.

Competitive players will play Matched Play, because they're poopy-heads who like 'rules' and 'fairness'.
Narrative/Open is much less concerned with rules, and much more concerned with how much beer you can drink, and so competitive players wont play in that sandbox...Right?

Competitive players neither drink beer, or eat pretzels.

[Renegade Paladin]

Competitive players neither drink beer, or eat pretzels.

My experience at GTs here in the United States says otherwise. Never been to one without a cash bar.

[LansXero]

Because it's a Narrative system.

As a DM of over 15 years, thats pretty offensive. Now of course I know you mean no harm, but equating Narrative with 'we dont care enough to not rule out this obviously broken and abusable interaction' is crap, there is nothing inherently narrative to endless free points flooding a table. A few of the Crusade ideas are tight, but it feels pretty vanilla for the most part.

Competitive players neither drink beer, or eat pretzels.

Wonder whats that with the pretzels. They are bland and salty. So many better things to go with beer. Myself, Im a wine and cheese/crackers kind of guy, but then we've also had 4vs4 barbecue weekends and our weekly ritual was roasted chicken with rivers of soda.

[Cheesegear]

My experience at GTs here in the United States says otherwise.

Same, but in Australia.

As a DM of over 15 years, thats pretty offensive. Now of course I know you mean no harm, but equating Narrative with 'we dont care enough to not rule out this obviously broken and abusable interaction' is crap...

Of course it is. That's the joke.
Narrative doesn't need rules, because it's supposed to be fun.
If you need rules, you must not be having fun.

[Blackhawk748]

Of course it is. That's the joke.
Narrative doesn't need rules, because it's supposed to be fun.
If you need rules, you must not be having fun.

I am still shocked that game designers seem to think this way. Like, Rules Light is fine, but for god's sake just copy and paste the Summoning restrictions. Word Bearer Cultists is a legit Narrative army to want to play and letting them just go nuts summoning crap is a bad idea.

Leads to people being accidentally broken. Like Iyanden players.

[LansXero]

This is what I got so far, going into mission 1:

Patrol Detachment 0CP (Chaos - Chaos Space Marines) [24 PL, 3CP, 480pts]

Legion: Word Bearers

HQ
Master of Possession [5 PL, 95pts]: Cursed Earth, Incursion, Mark of Tzeentch, Reader of Fate, Warlord
Sorcerer [5 PL, 130pts]: Death Hex, Force sword, Mark of Tzeentch, Prescience, The Malefic Tome, Thunder hammer, Warptime

Troops
Chaos Cultists [3 PL, 60pts]: Mark of Nurgle
. 9x Chaos Cultist w/ Autogun: 9x Autogun
. Cultist Champion: Autogun

Elites
Greater Possessed [4 PL, 65pts]
. Greater Possessed: Mark of Slaanesh

Heavy Support
Venomcrawler [7 PL, 130pts]: Mark of Nurgle

Total: [24 PL, 3CP, 480pts]

So T1 I try to bring in 3 Daemon Princes (Sorcerer, MoP, Incursion) and the G.Possessed brings an Enrapturess, then its 6x units of Pink Horrors every turn afterwards. Even on a mediocre roll of 8 thats 20x6 pinks plopping somewhere. Wonder if Rule of 3 applies to summons. Whatever they kill just splits into blues then into brimstones so good luck with objectives. The enrapturess and the G Possessed can bring... slaanesh stuff I guess?

[Cheesegear]

25 PL of Narrative Fun

Much Narrative.
Very Summon.
Wow.

It's very clear to me that this army list is structured around a theme, and has a narrative playstyle. I particularly like the inclusion of the cheapest, single Troops option, and yet two HQs, because they are Cultists, which fit the theme of the list.
I can't see anything wrong with it. Carry on.

[LansXero]

Its two old Calth failures, thrown aside by their own legion, the ragged fools they dregged from the latest backwater ****hole they rested at, their pet Venomcrawler who carries them on his back, and the former Seargeant of their unit now devolved into a beastly thing. Cut off from the larger legion, they've gone all-in into their warp servitude, serving as little more than willing conduits to facilitate breaches into the materium by the hordes of daemons they can perpetually hear screaming just to the left of reality. Even their 'flock', such as it is, holds no value to them; should they blow up in on of the endless pointless battles of this war-ravaged universe, just as many equally worthless mortals will soon take their place (at the cost of 2CPs).

[Blackhawk748]

Much Narrative.
Very Summon.
Wow.

It's very clear to me that this army list is structured around a theme, and has a narrative playstyle. I particularly like the inclusion of the cheapest, single Troops option, and yet two HQs, because they are Cultists, which fit the theme of the list.
I can't see anything wrong with it. Carry on.

Cutting through that Austrailian grade sarcasm with my trusty machete, you aren't even wrong. That list is totally something the Word Bearers would do.

Ok, maybe they'd have another squad or two of Cultists, but them just trying to drown a world in Daemons? Ya, read a novel where they do that. Totally legit.

Just like Iyanden.

[Avaris]

Really what 40k needs is to take a leaf out of AoS’s book, where summoning is restricted through different routes dependent on army, and the ability to summon stuff is factored into points values. Reinforcement points is an inelegant bolt on to the rules that could be massively improved on. Sure, it works, but one of the appeals of summoning flavorfully is the not quite knowing what you can get, which is undermined by having to plan for it through reinforcement points. Ideally, the army Lans is suggesting for Crusade would also work in the same way in other games, with the possibility of overwhelming hordes, but with that being much less certain than at present.

[Gwynchan'rGwyll]

Leaked custom Necron dynasty rules let you give EVERY UNIT ObSec, and also get a free 6" move before the first turn.

Honestly not sure why I would play anything else, other than losing special characters.

[LansXero]

Leaked custom Necron dynasty rules let you give EVERY UNIT ObSec, and also get a free 6" move before the first turn.

Honestly not sure why I would play anything else, other than losing special characters.

Because top of turn scoring means there is no 'I run, take it and score'; whatever you send still has to stay there during your oponent's turn, ObSec or not.

In more important news, ATVs come in units and can be revived by apothecaries :D

[Gwynchan'rGwyll]

10 Shieldguard or 6-9 Wraiths can survive an entire enemy turn, if not two! Used to be useless because neither were Obsec, and Shieldguard couldn't get up the board. With these abilities though? And both also fitting the elite-infantry meta? Maybe viable.

Edit: Plus there are other buffing units and abilities that can buff both of their survivability.

[LansXero]

10 Shieldguard or 6-9 Wraiths can survive an entire enemy turn, if not two! Used to be useless because neither were Obsec, and Shieldguard couldn't get up the board. With these abilities though? And both also fitting the elite-infantry meta? Maybe viable.

Edit: Plus there are other buffing units and abilities that can buff both of their survivability.

-> Elite infantry meta is here! Im sure the enemy wont be tooled up to kill... my elite infantry.

Yes, Im sure that wll be the case indeed.

[Cheesegear]

10 Shieldguard or 6-9 Wraiths can survive an entire enemy turn, if not two! Used to be useless because neither were Obsec...

No idea what you're talking about.
Wraiths were the best or second-best unit in the 8th Ed. Codex, depending on whether you were Eternal War or Maelstrom.
Turn 1 Wraith-charge onto an Objective for the 'Get into your opponent's DZ and steal their ****.' VP was amazing. In fact, you might say it's one of the only tactics in the Codex that made Necrons worth playing at all, and the fact that the Codex was "Wraiths, Destroyers and nothing." was why the Codex was struggling for all of 8th Ed. And Psychic Awakening was meaningless, 'cause I guess GW already knew that they were going to invalidate 8th Ed. Necrons pretty quickly.
(That didn't stop GW selling Pariah to Necron players, despite it having almost nothing in it... Ho. Ly. ****. *)

The only thing Wraiths couldn't handle were extreme ends of the meta:
Poxwalkers/Plaguebearers and Leman Russes/Repulsors. Anything between those, died against Wraiths.

"You don't need ObSec if your opponent isn't on the Objective."
This phrase parses true for all high-tier Melee units.


*Turns out, all the...'Flavour', I guess, missing from Beyond the Veil for the Pariah Nexus, is found in Pariah. In a Chapter, aptly named 'Beyond the Veil'. Still, Pariah is an Inquisition book. Szeras is just in it.

[Cheesegear]

While everyone was pooping their pants over Orks getting Top 2 in a NSW tournament last weekend...Same weekend, on North Island, NZ, GT, with 10 more players than NSW:

8. Custodes
7. Sororitas
6. Iron Hands
5. Drukhari (Very 8th Ed. list)
4. Sororitas
3. Chaos Daemons (Khorne / Tzeentch)
2. Iron Hands
1. Custodes

...That's more like it. Elite Infantry that are hard to kill are really good.

Custodes in 9th Ed., are Grey Knights in 5th Ed. The new gatekeepers.

[Avaris]

While everyone was pooping their pants over Orks getting Top 2 in a NSW tournament last weekend...Same weekend, on North Island, NZ, GT, with 10 more players than NSW:

8. Custodes
7. Sororitas
6. Iron Hands
5. Drukhari (Very 8th Ed. list)
4. Sororitas
3. Chaos Daemons (Khorne / Tzeentch)
2. Iron Hands
1. Custodes

...That's more like it. Elite Infantry that are hard to kill are really good.

Custodes in 9th Ed., are Grey Knights in 5th Ed. The new gatekeepers.

Also on the same weekend, Iron Halo had:
1 White Scars
2 Black Templars
3 Custodes
4 Chaos
5 Harlequins
6 Salamanders
7 Custodes
8 Blood Angels
9 Imperium Soup
10 AdMech

So backing up the elite infantry meta. Though looking at the WS list that won, it’s going to be heavily affected by the new Marine Codex, given it uses Impulsors and Scouts, which are both reportedly less viable now.

Goonhammer has been crunching meta data to give a list of factions by win rate:


The column ‘40kS rank’ uses data from the 40kstats app, whereas the ITCB column is ITC battle reporter. The first is only from actual tournaments, the second includes practice games etc, so “we can think of 40kstats’ GT data as the “Playoffs” data to the ITC Battles app’s “Regular Season” data, where the former has a smaller sample size and higher quality play and the latter has a much broader range of play styles and a much larger sample size.“

[Gwynchan'rGwyll]

-> Elite infantry meta is here! Im sure the enemy wont be tooled up to kill... my elite infantry.

Yes, Im sure that wll be the case indeed.

2W 3+/4++ with Reanimation Protocols. 3W 4+/3++ with Reanimation Protocols. The enemy needs to bring 2D weapons with high volume of shots to get past the invulns.

But mostly this is about playing defensively to minimize the opponent's target-based objectives, to force them to take Slay the Warlord: a list with no Psykers, no TITANIC, only 3-4 Vehicles (or 2-3 if one has 11+ wounds), only 2-3 characters. Our only weak spot spot then is Thin The Ranks, where using elite hard-to-kill infantry (multi-wound check, high-save check, invulnerables check, RP check) will reduce the efficiency of the 1VP/10 models calculation.

Though I stand corrected re: wraiths usefulness last edition, I never managed to buy enough of them to get good use out of them myself (3 wraiths isn't enough to drive an enemy off their objective!), the Lychguard w/ shields point stands.

Edit: Ah sweet let's see how Necrons are doing! They're the new hotness right? Oh, 3rd last.

[Avaris]

Edit: Ah sweet let's see how Necrons are doing! They're the new hotness right? Oh, 3rd last.

Tbf, there haven’t been any tournaments with the new Necron codex yet. They weren’t the hotness off Indomitus, they might be now!

[LansXero]

2W 3+/4++ with Reanimation Protocols. 3W 4+/3++ with Reanimation Protocols. The enemy needs to bring 2D weapons with high volume of shots to get past the invulns.

Maybe, but I found that once you start stacking up the bs, its all volume of 1s. Its why Guardians going up hurts so bad, and why you see so much AP0 in current craftworlds lists; anything dies to enough shurikens, since you cant avoid 1s forever.

But mostly this is about playing defensively to minimize the opponent's target-based objectives,

Primaries are 1, 2, more than enemy. That means Objectives 3-4 barely matter so long as you can keep the enemy out of both unless you suck at secondaries, and objectives 5-6 dont matter at all, unless you just wanna win harder. So you've got to both mantain backfield presence AND zoom your ObSec units across the field into the loving embrace of Bladeguard Veterans with a gazillion attacks or even Intercessors who have a surprising number of them and are just as ObSec as you.

force them to take Slay the Warlord: a list with no Psykers, no TITANIC, only 3-4 Vehicles (or 2-3 if one has 11+ wounds), only 2-3 characters. Our only weak spot spot then is Thin The Ranks, where using elite hard-to-kill infantry (multi-wound check, high-save check, invulnerables check, RP check) will reduce the efficiency of the 1VP/10 models calculation.

Linebreaker is trivial if you zoom in to use your new ObSec, specially considering necron speed. Same with scramblers. Not sure if Psychic Interrogation or Pierce the veil would be easier, but then, Attrition doesnt seem that impossible either considering how hard Marines themselves are to kill.

[Cheesegear]

the second includes practice games etc, so “we can think of 40kstats’ GT data as the “Playoffs” data to the ITC Battles app’s “Regular Season” data

No we can't.
Because the table has no n-values, only percentages.

If [Mid-to-Low Tier Faction] is played by a skilled player and/or against unskilled players, and they play 10 games and win 6, that'll be a 60% win-rate. Fantastic. No-one else touch that Faction for the rest of the edition, and we can keep Orks on top.
If [High-Tier Faction] is played by unskilled player and/or against very skilled players, or with a poor army, and they play 10 games and lose all of them, Deathwatch end up on the bottom despite them being just as good - if not better - than Sororitas.

Second, and I can't stress this enough. Match-ups matter. I can play Orks. As long as my opponent is a potato, my win percentage goes up.
That table is garbage and tells me nothing.
I'll say it again and again. The winner of a tournament doesn't matter. The Top 3, of a tournament, don't matter. For high-level play, you need to look at the Top 8, and for very large GTs, I strongly advocate for analysing the entire Top 16.

Finally, ITC tournaments have no quality control.
I remember Renegade Paladin saying that pretty much all you had to do was put your tournament on the list, and boom, it was registered. 10 guys in someone's shed with no TO is equally as valid as a 300-player GT.
...You may find that's why every 'tournament' is commented on. Because the vast majority of them don't matter.

[Renegade Paladin]

Yeah, little RTTs can be registered to the ITC, get on the calendar, and count for the ladder, but a six or eight person tournament is worth very few points. You could go win five of those and still not have the points total of someone who won a major and did nothing else all year.

[LansXero]

Yeah, little RTTs can be registered to the ITC, get on the calendar, and count for the ladder, but a six or eight person tournament is worth very few points. You could go win five of those and still not have the points total of someone who won a major and did nothing else all year.

GTs are 32 people min. though so still not super big or anything.

That said, local meta can certainly skew trends, same as bandwagon jumpers trying the new hotness or a gimick list and getting a rude awakening by going 1-4 due to netlisting into a top cut not being a thing that happens.

[Cheesegear]

Yeah, little RTTs can be registered to the ITC, get on the calendar, and count for the ladder, but a six or eight person tournament is worth very few points. You could go win five of those and still not have the points total of someone who won a major and did nothing else all year.

Essentially you've proven my point.
If the lower-points 'tournaments' aren't worth going to, it is more likely to be filled with Cassie Scrubs (sister to Simpson Whales). This means that their statistics are going to be all over the place. Furthermore, it means some hero can come in with a bottom-tier army and demolish the competition with a mid-tier army, and then say they won a tournament with a mid-tier army and pad the stats, because Major/GT players can go to RTs, too.