Warhammer 40K Tabletop Thread XL: Bloated Rules

[druid91]

I think this is a bad move (shocking I know!). In principle, moving overwatch to be a stratagem is ok, but it really shouldn’t have the only hit on 6s thing in that case. Maybe be at -1 to hit, but when command points are still relatively limited a strategem with a reasonable chance of doing nothing at all isn’t good to use much.

(I similarly have a massive problem with strats that are ‘roll a d6, on a 4+, cancel the psychic power’ or simila, or that give you an attack with a chance to hit. Too high a chance of a feel bad moment from wasting a command point)

This, in short. This amounts to an effective removal of Overwatch from the game, assuming you aren't playing Crusade.

[Cheesegear]

So hey! Overwatch is a stratagem now.

I'm kind of finding it difficult to see how non-Troops, non-Melee Infantry can stay relevant at this point.
More and more I'm convinced that Vehicle- or Monster-based Gunlines are going to hit 9th Ed.'s meta hard - 'cause Triple Repulsors isn't already really, really good.

[Brookshw]

I'm kind of finding it difficult to see how non-Troops, non-Melee Infantry can stay relevant at this point.
More and more I'm convinced that Vehicle- or Monster-based Gunlines are going to hit 9th Ed.'s meta hard - 'cause Triple Repulsors isn't already really, really good.

After selling hordes as a winning strategy they're decreasing their value and pumping vehicles/monsters instead so people have to revisit the armies they just built and buy more? That doesn't sound like GW......

[Cheesegear]

After selling hordes as a winning strategy...

Infantry are still a winning strategy...If they're Troops...Well, if they're good Troops (e.g. Plaguebearers). Objective Secured is still part of the game, and Objectives do, still matter. However, all your killing power looks like it comes from Vehicles.

We'll see how the Mathhammer plays out.
But I still can't get over how good "I can still shoot all my guns in combat." is.

[Forum Explorer]

So hey! Overwatch is a stratagem now.

Thank goodness!

Overwatch being a Strat helps melee.

But I don't think it really helps the core issues melee has.

It is a pretty massive buff for melee. For armies like Tyranids and Orks, a big problem with charging in was that they have basically no way to prevent the enemy from Overwatching. So you'd just get to eat a bunch of extra casualties before you get in combat. And then your opponent would fall back, and you'd get to be shot up again.

I think this is a bad move (shocking I know!). In principle, moving overwatch to be a stratagem is ok, but it really shouldn’t have the only hit on 6s thing in that case. Maybe be at -1 to hit, but when command points are still relatively limited a strategem with a reasonable chance of doing nothing at all isn’t good to use much.

(I similarly have a massive problem with strats that are ‘roll a d6, on a 4+, cancel the psychic power’ or simila, or that give you an attack with a chance to hit. Too high a chance of a feel bad moment from wasting a command point)

I disagree. There are lots of units in the game with really good Overwatch right now. And it only costs 1 CP. Auspex Scan is 2 CP and it is pretty amazing because taking a -1 to hit isn't really that bad when you've got full rerolls going on.

This, in short. This amounts to an effective removal of Overwatch from the game, assuming you aren't playing Crusade.

If that's the case, I'd be happy about that. I don't like Overwatch. I remember when they added it, and at first it was OK. But it wasn't very long until they gave someone Overwatch on 5+ and that faction of Marines immediately became a problem to deal with.

But I do disagree. Now you'll just save Overwatch for big stuff instead of just getting really lucky and having a single Heavy Destroyer obliterate the Sanguinor because you happened to get a 6.

[LansXero]

Infantry are still a winning strategy...If they're Troops...Well, if they're good Troops (e.g. Plaguebearers). Objective Secured is still part of the game, and Objectives do, still matter. However, all your killing power looks like it comes from Vehicles.

We'll see how the Mathhammer plays out.
But I still can't get over how good "I can still shoot all my guns in combat." is.

Fire & Fade got so much better with obscuring though. 'muh melee hur dur' no, eat 20 reaper launcher shots, cant see me because Im 7" behind this 5" flagpole, kys plz. Infantry without the -1 (like Centurions or Dark Reapers) can probably still do some work even in the new edition.

Whats BS is tying a core mechanic into a Crusade bonus. I dont really expect tournaments to allow Crusade stuff, but when you make rewards this important, might as well just bake it in because everyone will just go" Ah yes Crusade. I do the Crusade all the time. I even Crusade many times a day. I know all about the Crusade"

[JNAProductions]

It is a pretty massive buff for melee. For armies like Tyranids and Orks, a big problem with charging in was that they have basically no way to prevent the enemy from Overwatching. So you'd just get to eat a bunch of extra casualties before you get in combat. And then your opponent would fall back, and you'd get to be shot up again.

Is it though? Let's assume you charge T2, and your opponent had first turn, or charge T3 but went first.

You eat two rounds of full-on firepower. Overwatch adds, assuming a general BS of 4+, an extra third or less of shots. (Since you're probably not charging their ENTIRE army.)

I agree it's a buff-I disagree on massive.

[Forum Explorer]

Is it though? Let's assume you charge T2, and your opponent had first turn, or charge T3 but went first.

You eat two rounds of full-on firepower. Overwatch adds, assuming a general BS of 4+, an extra third or less of shots. (Since you're probably not charging their ENTIRE army.)

I agree it's a buff-I disagree on massive.

If I'm running a melee army? By turn 2 I'm probably charging 3 or 4 things. Let's look at my Ork army for example.

Turn 1? I Da Jump a unit of Boyz and charge with them.

Turn 2? I Da Jump another unit of Boyz, the Tellporta stratagem unit comes down, my Stormboyz come down, my Deffkilla Wartrike charges, and if it survived, my first unit of Boyz will charge again.

And with big units I aim to charge pretty much anything I can touch. So yeah, I make 4-5 charges and charge something like 6-8 units. Against an army with good overwatch, I end up taking quite a few casualties. Not as much as they do when they shoot of course, but still significant. And Overwatch is free and there was nothing I could do to stop it. They just got to do that.

[Fable Wright]

Is it though? Let's assume you charge T2, and your opponent had first turn, or charge T3 but went first.

You eat two rounds of full-on firepower. Overwatch adds, assuming a general BS of 4+, an extra third or less of shots. (Since you're probably not charging their ENTIRE army.)

I agree it's a buff-I disagree on massive.

Have you played a melee army?

From the Tyranid perspective, it's massive. If you're melee, you're Kraken or Behemoth. You're getting a T1/T2 charge with Swarmlord. The problem is that overwatch is punishing. You get shot immediately by everything you multicharge, then they fall back, you get shot again by everything, and then you need to take fire from everything you now need to re-charge (barring positioning-dependent hostage taking). Multiple units get multiple shooting phases worth of value for free, and can focus the rest of their guns on the rest of my army.

Hell, Tau just treat Overwatch as their second shooting phase with -1 to hit. It can be pretty brutal.

[JNAProductions]

Have you played a melee army?

From the Tyranid perspective, it's massive. If you're melee, you're Kraken or Behemoth. You're getting a T1/T2 charge with Swarmlord. The problem is that overwatch is punishing. You get shot immediately by everything you multicharge, then they fall back, you get shot again by everything, and then you need to take fire from everything you now need to re-charge (barring positioning-dependent hostage taking). Multiple units get multiple shooting phases worth of value for free, and can focus the rest of their guns on the rest of my army.

Hell, Tau just treat Overwatch as their second shooting phase with -1 to hit. It can be pretty brutal.

I play Nurgle Daemons. So yes.

[LansXero]

Depending on what 'Scaleable' means it will be more or less impactful. However, if deepstrike and such remain 9" away from enemy, the smaller terrain size might make screening easier or the lower model count might make it harder; a tad early to tell.

The bit where ruins give +1 to the one overwatch you'll get however seems to be really important in deciding what to include in the multicharge.

[Forum Explorer]

Depending on what 'Scaleable' means it will be more or less impactful. However, if deepstrike and such remain 9" away from enemy, the smaller terrain size might make screening easier or the lower model count might make it harder; a tad early to tell.

The bit where ruins give +1 to the one overwatch you'll get however seems to be really important in deciding what to include in the multicharge.

They did mention in that article that coming out of strategic reserves can put you straight into engagement range, but they don't talk about the details of that.

[LansXero]

They did mention in that article that coming out of strategic reserves can put you straight into engagement range, but they don't talk about the details of that.

Thats only on their own table edge. So you can counter-gotcha by nerfing yourself on the first turn? Weird interaction but wtv

[Blackhawk748]

So hey! Overwatch is a stratagem now.

Not surprised. Still kinda dumb.

I'm kind of finding it difficult to see how non-Troops, non-Melee Infantry can stay relevant at this point.
More and more I'm convinced that Vehicle- or Monster-based Gunlines are going to hit 9th Ed.'s meta hard - 'cause Triple Repulsors isn't already really, really good.

Im thinking Ork Green Tide supported by KMKs is gonna be right back. No more grits, just tons of Boyz and some meganobz with huge guns at their back. Cuz 200 boys is enough to choke most people.

After selling hordes as a winning strategy they're decreasing their value and pumping vehicles/monsters instead so people have to revisit the armies they just built and buy more? That doesn't sound like GW......

Hordes are fine. Most of the changes do pretty much nothing to actively hurt Hordes. They don't really get buffed either, but they didn't actually need it.

Hell, Tau just treat Overwatch as their second shooting phase with -1 to hit. It can be pretty brutal.

Tau are the exemption that proves the rule. Yes, there are Sub Factions that give you 5+ Overwatch, but most don't get used cuz that's all they do and no one really cared.

Frankly, my Orks only ever cared about Overwatch against Flamers or other Auto Hit weapons cuz otherwise it's a boatload of misses most of the time.

[IthilanorStPete]

With this edition looking to make close combat better, I'm taking a second look at my choice of army, though I'm still abstaining from buying in until 9th comes out and COVID stuff settles down. I was thinking Craftworlds, but I'm starting to like the look of CSM, specifically World Eaters; I didn't realize they had Berzerkers as Troops instead of Elites.

[Renegade Paladin]

Joke answer: Avoid Australia. Or if they are still like they were when I played with them, avoid Finland.


Actual answer: Create a tournament that kicks their playstyle in the nuts repeatedly, but is so fun they can't avoid showing up anyway. Eventually you wear them down. It's not a big win to make them accept that ok this place does things differently. But I'll take the small win.
And yes a friend and me did this IRL. We never like the hardcore tournament mindset so we created our own by copying an example from the US. We leveraged our geographical location so the the comeptitive players wanted to show up and prove that they were better than other places. And then we kept ramming our casual fun tournament style down their throats. It took acouple of years but we got them to grudgingly admit to mellowing out. We woudl literally not announce battlepoints until painting, sportsmanship and Overall had been announced (you wouldn't believe how frustrated they'd get when we rated winning the game on points as the least important thing), we didn't give them ranking lists. We made whacky scenarios where straight up killing wasn't enough. Everything and anything to aggravate the classic powergaming gamer. And they kept showing up, heck there was a whole meta game trying to outfox us. Eventually they started appreciating the fact the tournament was so different from their normal WAAC way.

And then we inspired others to do what we had done.

I did this for a long time. Then people started organizing other events and this winter the players got together and basically demanded we stop doing wacky stuff and go to ITC format or they'd just play elsewhere. Fortunately the new edition is taking that out of their hands since ITC is going to go with the book missions now.

Also, what's with everyone saying Obscured makes ITC style magic boxes? It literally doesn't. The ITC magic box comes about because the ITC rule was that you couldn't see through the first floor of ruins, period, meaning units inside the ruins couldn't be shot. Obscured applies to things that are not in the ruins; things in the terrain can be seen and shot, so it isn't a magic box.

[Forum Explorer]

Also, what's with everyone saying Obscured makes ITC style magic boxes? It literally doesn't. The ITC magic box comes about because the ITC rule was that you couldn't see through the first floor of ruins, period, meaning units inside the ruins couldn't be shot. Obscured applies to things that are not in the ruins; things in the terrain can be seen and shot, so it isn't a magic box.

To expand on this, the 'magic box' referred to a ruin that was fully enclosed. So a unit inside was impossible to see. And yet, if they had an indirect fire weapon, they could shoot out.

Also you could fill the magic box so full of people it was impossible to charge inside the box and you couldn't charge the side of the box since they'd be 1.1 inches away from the edge of the wall. So the unit(s) inside the box would be invincible.

[Cheesegear]

Also, what's with everyone saying Obscured makes ITC style magic boxes?

Nobody said they make ITC magic boxes.
They make 9th Ed. magic boxes.

[LansXero]

I did, as a shorthand for 'areas of terrain you cant interact with' but I see how it was a mistake now.

[Avaris]

Two new updates sneaked out via an article on Sisters of Battle:
- when declaring a charge, your subsequent charge roll has to be sufficient to reach ALL your targetted units, so you can’t declare a charge against a unit in 5” and a unit in 11” and still expect to be able to assault the closer unit if you can’t reach the other
- ‘look out sir’ is a named rule: characters with 9 wounds or less cannot be shot if they are within 3” of another unit, unless they are the closest enemy to the firing unit

[Renegade Paladin]

Assassins rules leaked. They seem to mostly be just a straight up reprint of the White Dwarf index, with Shadow Assignment replacing Operative Requisition Sanctioned. ORS isn't needed anymore because you can include an Assassin in an Imperium Patrol, Battalion, or Brigade without taking up a slot and without disrupting special rules/breaking detachment restrictions. The Vindicare's stealth suit still imposes -2 to hit if the model is in a terrain feature, but modifiers will cap at -1, so... I dunno.

[Fable Wright]

Assassins rules leaked. They seem to mostly be just a straight up reprint of the White Dwarf index, with Shadow Assignment replacing Operative Requisition Sanctioned. ORS isn't needed anymore because you can include an Assassin in an Imperium Patrol, Battalion, or Brigade without taking up a slot and without disrupting special rules/breaking detachment restrictions. The Vindicare's stealth suit still imposes -2 to hit if the model is in a terrain feature, but modifiers will cap at -1, so... I dunno.

I... think it means that even if the model is at +1 to hit, it'll still be at -1 total? Best I can figure, at least.

[Cheesegear]

I did, as a shorthand for 'areas of terrain you cant interact with' but I see how it was a mistake now.

One thing that new Terrain Boxes cause, is that Objectives cannot be placed in open ground, anymore.

Player-placed Objectives are over, which means that each and every Objective has a fixed placement.
But, depending on how players place the Terrain (because that's still a thing), it can mean that placing Terrain around or near an Objective (because remember, 'Obscuring' is the only rule that matters), removes line of sight to the Objective from one or more directions.

If the Objective is placed in the terrain, you would have to move into the Terrain to capture the Objective, which allows opposing models to shoot you (because Cover saves are meaningless vs. any good unit).

[Forum Explorer]

I... think it means that even if the model is at +1 to hit, it'll still be at -1 total? Best I can figure, at least.

There's a couple of other things that are a -2 to hit in recent releases, so I think what it means is that you can't stack different -1 to hit. Like with Eldar. They have three different things that give -1 to hit, but in 9th they won't stack. But if you have an ability that just says you take a -2 to hit, then that will still work the same.

[Cheesegear]

Turns out Know No Fear is a real good source of playmats.
Get 'em while you can. 'Cause it's basically guaranteed that whatever replaces KNF will not be at its price point.

[Turalisj]

The warcry terrain box also works.

[LansXero]

Turns out Know No Fear is a real good source of playmats.
Get 'em while you can. 'Cause it's basically guaranteed that whatever replaces KNF will not be at its price point.

I hope you are wrong. I get that this is an expensive hobby, but the price point of KNF is just perfect. It provides the goal of 'buy it, snap it, play'. First strike doesnt have enough meat and Dark Imperium is both larger and has its cost inflated by the rulebook. Of all the things I hope they learned from 8th, its release product lineup would be at the top of the list.

[Renegade Paladin]

Today's information drip is that there's a terrain keyword (they didn't say which one) that grants -1 to be hit to the units inside of it; it's in the Orks faction focus.

[Brookshw]

Turns out Know No Fear is a real good source of playmats.
Get 'em while you can. 'Cause it's basically guaranteed that whatever replaces KNF will not be at its price point.

Wouldn't be a bad move to make them available for every faction or added them to start collecting, something along those lines.

[Avaris]

Another interesting rules change mentioned in the Death Guard article today: “the player who isn’t taking their turn gets to choose the first non-charging unit to fight with.”