Warhammer 40K Tabletop Thread XLI: Secondary Opinions

[LansXero]

you know how I've said for years in this thread that if you can be alpha striked off the board turn 1 you deployed like an idiot? Same applies to AoS.

Really? Illuminate me as to how do you deploy against Double-shooting Vanguard raptors with Longstrikes who teleport anywhere during the Hero phase, have 30" range and get to shoot during that phase AND during their regular shooting phase? Do remember AoS' LoS is just -1 to be hit, which does not really that much against BS2 RR1s shooting that also does mortal wounds :v.

Or same thing, vs a 24" range teleport-your-entire army Soulscream Bridge powered by Hallowheart with +5 to cast on average. Try and counter it rolling 15 on 2 d6s, good luck. Then take 60 2/2 shots to the face.

To be clear, Im not saying its impossible. Im saying it takes more than just 'dont deploy like an idiot'. Also, its not about being entirely wiped out, its about surgically removing combo enablers and high value pieces. The other guy has to bet super hard on winning initiative so double turns sort of even it out, but getting to play twice with a gutted list isn't that great.

[LeSwordfish]

Warhammer in the US and the UK together makes up about 66% of sales, with the rest of the world being the other 33%. Two-thirds dead, is "mostly dead" and waiting for a miracle.

Australia is ~6%. Small enough, that whatever happens there could just be an outlier whenever the "real" game restarts in 2021/22.

Paying attention to anywhere else would require reading something other than English, and who has time for that? /s

Worth noting that GW sales are skyrocketing in the UK at the moment - June-August sales were up 25% from the previous year, though I'm not certain if that's worldwide or in the UK. (It's hard to calculate anything before that, since GW was closed due to the UK lockdown). I very much doubt that kind of growth can go on indefinitely - for me personally I now have an entire AOS and 40k army neither of which has seen the table, so don't have as much reason to keep buying - but even if the game is pretty dead, the company and the hobby are not.

(but people only buy things because they're good in the game... )

[Cheesegear]

(Off the top of my head, each character is tied to a Summoned unit, you can either bring the summoned unit in near the character if the character does X

If you're paying points for a unit, and you're not getting it during the game, either the rule is bad, or 'Summoning' isn't worth it.

or play a CP to have the summoned unit come in when the character dies.

If the Character doesn't die, have I wasted my points?
If my Character never died, then I had Points in Reinforcements for nothing. Those points could've been used on the table. Summoning doesn't sound like it's worth it.
I'd just rather my Character not be dead, and my points on the table, to be honest.

Something like that, a bit more fun, and the "each character is bonded to a summoned unit"

If you're paying points for it, it should be on the table reliably.
If your opponent can stop you from doing the thing, then it's not a good choice.

A good rule doesn't punish the controlling player. A good choice is something your opponent can't really stop you from doing.


If there's a chance you can fail at it, most people wont choose it. If most people don't choose it, most games, it's a wasted rule.

[Renegade Paladin]

Meanwhile, back in reality, Goonhammer review of the DG codex. I haven’t read it in detail yet, but at a glance this seems to be the most positive I’ve seen them about a codex. So I would be interested in knowing what is so ‘trash’ about it from other perspectives, given it is so different.

Really, they got Don Hooson on staff? I get the guy's a good player, but he's also a straight up jerk.

It's similar to how Shadow Assignment works. Before the battle begins, replace an Assassin in your list with a different Assassin.
Sounds great!
...Hang on. I don't have another Assassin?
...Hang on. You want me to buy all four Assassins?
Yeah. That's not gonna work. Just take the Assassin that's good against everything, every game, and save your CPs.

This is why I bought the Execution Force board game when it was on last chance to buy. It cost $3 less than just buying every Assassin at the time, and had cultists, Chaos Marines, and a board game in the bargain.

Edit: And since then they've raised prices on the Vindicare, Culexus, and Eversor (curiously not the Callidus, though the model's out of stock) making the price differential $15.

[LeSwordfish]

If you're paying points for a unit, and you're not getting it during the game, either the rule is bad, or 'Summoning' isn't worth it.



If the Character doesn't die, have I wasted my points?
If my Character never died, then I had Points in Reinforcements for nothing. Those points could've been used on the table. Summoning doesn't sound like it's worth it.
I'd just rather my Character not be dead, and my points on the table, to be honest.



If you're paying points for it, it should be on the table reliably.
If your opponent can stop you from doing the thing, then it's not a good choice.

A good rule doesn't punish the controlling player. A good choice is something your opponent can't really stop you from doing.


If there's a chance you can fail at it, most people wont choose it. If most people don't choose it, most games, it's a wasted rule.

You've split my suggestion into two ideas and objected to each individually here. My suggestion is that the basic rule is "A character linked to a unit can deploy that unit within 12" at the end of their movement phase or whatever" AND a stratagem that says "if a character linked to a unit dies, pay 1CP to immediately deploy that unit within 12".

[Squark]

When you realise that 2- and 3-Damage weapons wont work against Death Guard, there's going to be massive fallout. It's almost game-breaking, and makes them better than Custodes in certain ways - especially their Terminators.

Terminators? Definitely. I'm a little less sure about Plague Marines, because while being stupid hard to kill is always great, Special weapons are now Champion+1/5 models, so at least 60% of the unit is stuck with Maya*-poop for guns.
*I just adopted a new dog, and am still in the "Will find any reason to talk about my dog no matter what the subject is" phase.

But in most cases you aren't going to be taking more than 2 Characters anyway, and one of them should be a Psyker. So I don't know what the problem is.

This just feels much harder on new players or people who are terrified of perils. Competitively, it's no big deal, but it just makes things harder on some people for minimal benefit. Although, on closer inspection of leaked images, it looks like Demon Princes do not have the Lord of the Death Guard keyword (Can't be sure, but why else would infernal jealousy call the two out separately), so Death Guard still have some choices when choosing HQs.

It's not. Because it's GW.
They don't want you using Cultists so give them a nerf.
They do - mostly - want you using Poxwalkers.

... Why? Shouldn't every DG player have plenty of them already? If anything, I'd think GW would want to sell DG player cultists since they were so irrelevant I only just found out that Death Guard had access to them already. *googles* Okay, I guess maybe they were used, and I just never saw them in my limited edposure to 8e after Kill Team got me back into the game.

Absolutely, but they shouldn't be good at it, they shouldn't no-sell elite units at it.

But Joe Guardsman, the terrified sole survivor of his unit, should? 5 Easy-to-build Termagaunts should?

I'm not trying to strawman here. But Obsec is the reason why needing to take troops doesn't completely suck. A troops choice without obsec isn't worth the paper it's printed on.

[LansXero]

Terminators? Definitely. I'm a little less sure about Plague Marines, because while being stupid hard to kill is always great, Special weapons are now Champion+1/5 models, so at least 60% of the unit is stuck with Maya*-poop for guns.

Also capped from 20 to 10 :D

This just feels much harder on new players

Go search GW's site for a Malignant Plaguecaster :D

Competitively, it's no big deal

It totally is, Cheese is just more casual than people here assume.

Although, on closer inspection of leaked images, it looks like Demon Princes do not have the Lord of the Death Guard keyword

Yes they do, but they also got nerfed in move speed and weapon loadout.

As for Cultists becoming useless, they can still go up to 30 models so there might be some niche use for them here and there. But overall its this weird trend of reducing factions to monobuilds or close to, for the sake of 'streamlining' for people who are too dumb to not get confused by options. ObSec is a huge deal but you can clearly see it spelled out: Use Poxwalkers or Plague Marines.

Speaking of which! DG Combat Patrol is the first Combat Patrol that CANT be played as a legal detachment out of the box :D. 30 poxwalkers cant go into one unit, and you cant field more units because you only have 1 unit of Core Infantry (7 Plague Marines). So you take an already iffy value box and toss 10 models out. Awesome.

[Squark]

Also capped from 20 to 10 :D

On the one hand, why? On the other hand, MSU edition, so who cares?

Go search GW's site for a Malignant Plaguecaster :D

He goes up for pre-order this weekend... in a box of 3 HQs >.> (Chosen of Montarion)

It totally is, Cheese is just more casual than people here assume... ...Yes they do, but they also got nerfed in move speed and weapon loadout.

Confused here.
GW limits you to one Chaos Lord/detachment + maybe 1 Demon Prince/detachment?
CG says you shouldn't need more than one.
Are you saying they do?

Speaking of which! DG Combat Patrol is the first Combat Patrol that CANT be played as a legal detachment out of the box :D. 30 poxwalkers cant go into one unit, and you cant field more units because you only have 1 unit of Core Infantry (7 Plague Marines). So you take an already iffy value box and toss 10 models out. Awesome.

I mean, the Deathwatch Combat Patrol is the only one that can build a legal combat patrol using every unit in the box; Space wolves have to throw out the Reivers or the second unit of Intercessors (Granted, the choice here is very obvious), but that leaves you 50 points/a couple PL short unless you run a very awkward 7 man Intercessor unit. The Blood Angels box just doesn't fit at all.

Don't get me wrong, it's the worst box yet. But only the Blood Angels one is actually good*, so Combat Patrol box #4 being junk was not hard to anticipate.

*I guess you might he able to make the SW box okay by using leftover scopes to convert the reivers into Incursors. But anything with Reivers/Hounds of Morkai is inherently bad.

[LeSwordfish]

But Joe Guardsman, the terrified sole survivor of his unit, should? 5 Easy-to-build Termagaunts should?

I'm not trying to strawman here. But Obsec is the reason why needing to take troops doesn't completely suck. A troops choice without obsec isn't worth the paper it's printed on.

Honestly, I don't think they should either. Or, given that those codices don't have other, so much better troop choices, maybe something conditional, but "how come joe guardsman holds the objective against a space marine captain" has been a good question since the rule was first written: i'm very happy to see a ruleset where we might be giving some nuance to that.

[JNAProductions]

Honestly, I don't think they should either. Or, given that those codices don't have other, so much better troop choices, maybe something conditional, but "how come joe guardsman holds the objective against a space marine captain" has been a good question since the rule was first written: i'm very happy to see a ruleset where we might be giving some nuance to that.

ObSec [X]
A model with this rule counts as X models for the purposes of holding objectives.

[Avaris]

Speaking of which! DG Combat Patrol is the first Combat Patrol that CANT be played as a legal detachment out of the box :D. 30 poxwalkers cant go into one unit, and you cant field more units because you only have 1 unit of Core Infantry (7 Plague Marines). So you take an already iffy value box and toss 10 models out. Awesome.

Well, that's truly ridiculous! I already wasn't especially impressed with that box, now it's even worse! For some reason, I'd assumed the PW could be in units of 30...

[LansXero]

Honestly, I don't think they should either. Or, given that those codices don't have other, so much better troop choices, maybe something conditional, but "how come joe guardsman holds the objective against a space marine captain" has been a good question since the rule was first written: i'm very happy to see a ruleset where we might be giving some nuance to that.

Because you dont want troops to become useless tax, because you wanted combined arms aproachs instead of goodstuff.rosz for everyone.

On the one hand, why? On the other hand, MSU edition, so who cares?

More slots / special weapon required now, and if something could / should soak blast shots, DG troops would be it. memes dont win games; you'll find plenty of lists who've topped tournaments running against 'conventional wisdom'.

Confused here.
GW limits you to one Chaos Lord/detachment + maybe 1 Demon Prince/detachment?
CG says you shouldn't need more than one.
Are you saying they do?

Im saying that they'd probably want at least one of each, as the aura is sort of important. But cant have both in the same detachment, as both are Lords of the Deathguard, so its DP + psyker OR Lord + psyker, and if you want the other HQ go make yet another detachment and fill it with more fatmarines because your other two choices are sort of trash anyways. So that also eats into available points.

[Squark]

More slots / special weapon required now, and if something could / should soak blast shots, DG troops would be it. memes dont win games; you'll find plenty of lists who've topped tournaments running against 'conventional wisdom'.

Fair, but I still don't see why you 20 is better than 2x10. You get a 2nd champion, you have about the same amount of ablative meat boils protecting your important guns, you can be in 2 places, and Overcharged Macro-plasma doesn't get a guaranteed 6 attacks.

Im saying that they'd probably want at least one of each, as the aura is sort of important. But cant have both in the same detachment, as both are Lords of the Deathguard, so its DP + psyker OR Lord + psyker, and if you want the other HQ go make yet another detachment and fill it with more fatmarines because your other two choices are sort of trash anyways. So that also eats into available points.

You're sure that Daemon Princes have the Lord of the Deathguard keyword (not just ability)? I mean, if you have the codex already, I believe you, but it's weird that Infernal Jealousy seperates LotDG and Daemon Princes into two separate lines, when just the first already limits you to one LotDG.

Edit: here's the imave I'm refering to.

[Forum Explorer]

... and they say the writers for 1d4chan are overtly positive casuals. At least they do it for free xD.

As for the rest of the changes, list building restrictions akin to the old relic rules make the game harder and harder to grasp for newcomers. They are actively agressive because the more specific and 'flavorful' they get, the more they put a barrier on what you HAVE to buy before being to put it down.

On the whole though, the faction while getting some durability buffs lost a lot of uniqueness. Its units are still expensive (PBC just got upcosted last week) and they still play like softer-hitting marines. Flails losing their splash damage in favor of an stratagem so they can do the same thing is a horrible trend that started with the changes to overwatch and worrying going forward.

Overall, while people may take upgrades here and there and spin a positive tone on it, the end result is that this codex, like Necrons before it, exists in a world where Marines/9 is real, and out of the gate it fails to keep up and compete. Therefore, parity is still far away, you're just still as mildly relevant as before (no, DG is not dominating right now) but you no longer have the 'codex will fix it' placebo to look forward to.

Marines are OP and broken, I agree. I do not agree that you should aim to make everything as broken and OP as them. Nerf the worst offenders in the Space Marine codex (which they've started to do), and bring them down to a level comparable to Necrons.

Cause Necron models can compete with Space Marines. They are more hampered by Space Marines having access to better Secondaries and a few OP things (like Apothecaries) than their models being worse. Which brings us to Death Guard:

There units got some buffs like +1 A (but lost Hateful Assualt, so really, Hateful Assault is just always on. Strictly speaking a buff, just not as big of one). While seeing a lot of restrictions put on. But lets look at victory conditions IE Secondaries because we already know Death Guard are good at holding objectives.

Fleeing Vectors: If an enemy unit fails a morale test after taking a casualty from a plague weapon score 3 VP. Awful. Yeah, you've got the fancy new stratagem to slap a -4 down on a unit's morale, but this still isn't very reliable and it takes up your kill secondary. There is still too many things that just get to be fearless.

Despoiled Ground: End of game scoring, so it feels like a gamble. However it scores well and easily. Are you in each deployment zone? 4 VP. Are you in three table quarters? 4 VP, 6 VP if you are in all four. Do you hold more than half of the objectives? 4 VP (okay, that one could be hard). Is every objective in contagaion range? 4 VP. The last you just need to be within 12 inches of every objective with nearly any model. So long as you don't get basically tabled you should be able to easily get 10 VP, with 14 VP being pretty achievable as well. You do need to have a bunch of models alive at the end of the game, so that's can be a problem if your opponent is too killy, but you are also Death Guard, and are supposed to be really durable.

Spread the Sickness: Contaminate an objective by taking an action (Poxwalker can do this). Take either D3 Mortal Wounds, or do it on a 4+. You get 3 VP for every objective contaminated by the end of the game. You can only perform this action if there are no enemy units (excluding aircraft) within 3 of the objective. This one you have to both build for, have a good mission for it, and your opponent needs to be someone who can't easily deny it. Which is quite the trifecta. Not to say it won't ever happen, but I think this is weaker than just taking deploy scramblers.

So overall? They've got 1 decent one, 1 maybe sometimes one, and 1 that isn't very good at all. Compared to Oath of Moment and 'Kill the warlord in melee' that Space Marines and Blood Angels have, I'd say Death Guard lose out in their secondaries. So I expect them to still be weaker than Space Marines for that reason alone.

[Cheesegear]

It totally is, Cheese is just more casual than people here assume.

Wrong. I'm the worst person in the world.

Speaking of which! DG Combat Patrol is the first Combat Patrol that CANT be played as a legal detachment out of the box :D. 30 poxwalkers cant go into one unit, and you cant field more units because you only have 1 unit of Core Infantry (7 Plague Marines).

Is that a rule?
What does the Core Keyword have to do with anything?
I mean, "You can't have more non-Core units in your army than Core units." certainly sounds like a rule. But I've literally never noticed that it is one. It's just never come up.

EDIT: It's specifically a Death Guard rule. Alright then.

[Blackhawk748]

So I just went on the GW Webstore and took a look at Ork guns as a buddy was looking at weird pricing and I discovered that Mek guns are 50 bucks. For one gun.

That is $250 for a full unit. (If memory serves its 5 Mek guns max, but I could be wrong)

That is utterly, completely, mind numbingly, insane. I can buy an entire army for Kings of War (as a matter of fact, I can buy nearly two 2k points armies) for the cost of one maxed out unit.

Good lord I am happy I converted all of mine and used WHFB Goblins for crew.

[snowblizz]

So I just went on the GW Webstore and took a look at Ork guns as a buddy was looking at weird pricing and I discovered that Mek guns are 50 bucks. For one gun.

That is $250 for a full unit. (If memory serves its 5 Mek guns max, but I could be wrong)

That is utterly, completely, mind numbingly, insane. I can buy an entire army for Kings of War (as a matter of fact, I can buy nearly two 2k points armies) for the cost of one maxed out unit.

Good lord I am happy I converted all of mine and used WHFB Goblins for crew.

The more GW changes, the more things stay the same.

[Drasius]

So I just went on the GW Webstore and took a look at Ork guns as a buddy was looking at weird pricing and I discovered that Mek guns are 50 bucks. For one gun.

That is $250 for a full unit. (If memory serves its 5 Mek guns max, but I could be wrong)

That is utterly, completely, mind numbingly, insane. I can buy an entire army for Kings of War (as a matter of fact, I can buy nearly two 2k points armies) for the cost of one maxed out unit.

Good lord I am happy I converted all of mine and used WHFB Goblins for crew.

If you're complaining about the price of an ork kit, then it's time for a Kunnin' Konvershun. Just put in at least a minimal amount of effort, unlike most ork conversion jobs I seem to see lately.

[Blackhawk748]

If you're complaining about the price of an ork kit, then it's time for a Kunnin' Konvershun. Just put in at least a minimal amount of effort, unlike most ork conversion jobs I seem to see lately.

My Mek Guns are Tau Ion Guns from their tank that a buddy had leftover. I flipped them upside down, blocked the hole off with green stuff, and turned the little fin things into skis.

My Kannons are literally just Dwarf Rune Cannons which were cheaper at the time.

So I have mine already, I am just in shock as to how expensive running a "Meta" Ork list would be. Like, my god.

[Renegade Paladin]

My Mek Guns are Tau Ion Guns from their tank that a buddy had leftover. I flipped them upside down, blocked the hole off with green stuff, and turned the little fin things into skis.

My Kannons are literally just Dwarf Rune Cannons which were cheaper at the time.

So I have mine already, I am just in shock as to how expensive running a "Meta" Ork list would be. Like, my god.

At least that's more effort that the beer koozies standing in for Mek Guns that were used at that one GT in Florida a couple of months ago. That was hilariously awful.

[LansXero]

At least that's more effort that the beer koozies standing in for Mek Guns that were used at that one GT in Florida a couple of months ago. That was hilariously awful.

The ones for the guy who didnt pack them and was thousands of miles away and provided ample photographic proof that he indeed owned them? Who then made them overnight from donated scraps? Oh yes, so awful

[JNAProductions]

The ones for the guy who didnt pack them and was thousands of miles away and provided ample photographic proof that he indeed owned them? Who then made them overnight from donated scraps? Oh yes, so awful

If you didn't know that, it'd seem pretty awful. It's a good lesson to not assume the worst of situations.

And I think Mek Guns actually max at six.

[Blackhawk748]

If you didn't know that, it'd seem pretty awful. It's a good lesson to not assume the worst of situations.

And I think Mek Guns actually max at six.

Oh god that's even worse. And Meganobs are 63 for 3, but at least they eat up a decent number of points. Actually, I'm gonna just slap together the price on a "Meta" Ork list. No I'm not gonna calculate points I'm just gonna eyeball it.

15 Mek Guns (don't care if they max at 6 I'm going with this math)- $300 $750
9 Meganobs- $189
Gazghkull- $65
60 Boys- $216
6 Buggies- $300

Not sure if that's enough buggies, or if this is even enough points, but I heard Buggies are good now, so they go in. Total price? $1520. The Boyz and the Mek Guns have probably the worst Points to Money conversion and I am super glad that most of my Boyz are Warpath Marauders. They cost like... half as much. And look great.

So what have we learned? This is really expensive. Like, wow.

[Aresneo]

Oh god that's even worse. And Meganobs are 63 for 3, but at least they eat up a decent number of points. Actually, I'm gonna just slap together the price on a "Meta" Ork list. No I'm not gonna calculate points I'm just gonna eyeball it.

15 Mek Guns (don't care if they max at 6 I'm going with this math)- $300
9 Meganobs- $189
Gazghkull- $65
60 Boys- $216
6 Buggies- $300

Not sure if that's enough buggies, or if this is even enough points, but I heard Buggies are good now, so they go in. Total price? $1070. The Boyz and the Mek Guns have probably the worst Points to Money conversion and I am super glad that most of my Boyz are Warpath Marauders. They cost like... half as much. And look great.

So what have we learned? This is really expensive. Like, wow.

Where are you finding $20 Mek Gunz? 15 of them should be $750.

[Blackhawk748]

Where are you finding $20 Mek Gunz? 15 of them should be $750.

Wait... I'm an idiot. I was still thinking of 6. Oh god it's worse...