Warhammer 40K Tabletop Thread XLII: The Dice Make Fools of Us All

[Blackhawk748]

This is why I have more sympathy for DE players than Ad Mech. The current DE lists ruling the tournaments all look like fairly diverse lists that any casual DE player could realistically field (Raiders being the iconic unit of the faction). If they get nerfed into oblivion that sucks for the casual players. Compared to the Ad Mech lists which spams a handful of units.

Ad Mech are kinda in the "Spam like 5 units" group too because they have a very limited Codex and its usually quite obvious which unit in slot is the best. And its not by a little generally.

Doesn't help that when they started in 7th they were two Codexes with a grand total of...6 Units? Each and so HAD to spam, so that mentality for list building hasn't changed.

In any event, they dropped the points on Kastellan Robots for... some reason? I thought they were priced fine, but ok GW, lets just mess this up again.

[LeSwordfish]

Remember how Wraith was asking who even plays 30k any more? Well, I do! Or, I did this weekend, playing the Imperial Fists I painted over the summer. Turns out, I've still got it, because I/we won all four games I played, mostly by dropping Cataphractii terminators out of a Caestus assault ram and charging things. I miss old!40k a lot, really, and am hoping to play more 30k soon- especially Zone Mortalis, which was tremendous fun.

I didn't take many pictures, but those I did (including a family photo of all my Imperial Fists so far) is at my Instagram.

[Dragonus45]

Remember how Wraith was asking who even plays 30k any more? Well, I do! Or, I did this weekend, playing the Imperial Fists I painted over the summer. Turns out, I've still got it, because I/we won all four games I played, mostly by dropping Cataphractii terminators out of a Caestus assault ram and charging things. I miss old!40k a lot, really, and am hoping to play more 30k soon- especially Zone Mortalis, which was tremendous fun.

I didn't take many pictures, but those I did (including a family photo of all my Imperial Fists so far) is at my Instagram.

The big think keeping me away from 30k, other then costs, is the lack of non space marine options.

[Wraith]

Remember how Wraith was asking who even plays 30k any more? Well, I do! Or, I did this weekend, playing the Imperial Fists I painted over the summer. Turns out, I've still got it, because I/we won all four games I played, mostly by dropping Cataphractii terminators out of a Caestus assault ram and charging things. I miss old!40k a lot, really, and am hoping to play more 30k soon- especially Zone Mortalis, which was tremendous fun.

Clearly you are a statistical anomaly, and thus can safely be discounted from the final results.

Still, I'm happy for you. I have fond memories of 7th edition, it was the last one that I played semi-regularly, and as much as I grouse about it 30k likely scratches an itch we didn't know that we had.

[9mm]

a couple of my local club decided they'd go back to playing 4ed, and have been having a blast by all reports.

I've basically just stuck to ignoring 40k entirely and focused on AoS.

[Destro_Yersul]

a couple of my local club decided they'd go back to playing 4ed, and have been having a blast by all reports.

I've basically just stuck to ignoring 40k entirely and focused on AoS.

Understandable. 4th was basically perfect.

[Cheesegear]

Understandable. 4th was basically perfect.

That's...
That's a statement you made.

[LeSwordfish]

There's a lot of stuff to like about 8th/9th but I'm finding i enjoy how much is tied to the models on the table in HH/7th, without needing to keep track of stratagems and three different sets of subfaction rules, and everyone's aura.

That said, helping teach other people the game is really showing up how much more complex it is than 9th - yes, you pile in a few models at a time in initiative order, and a powerfist makes you init 1 unless you're a dreadnought, etc etc. HH hasn't been updated in the past fuve years IIRC and there's definitely things they could learn from newer editions that would smooth it out - rumors are that they'll be updating the rules to a new edition before too long, possibly next summer.

Basically, my ability to love this game is predicated on a certain amount of system mastery, and it's hard to begrudge people who want to be able to enjoy a game even before they know it by heart.

[The Patterner]

There's a lot of stuff to like about 8th/9th but I'm finding i enjoy how much is tied to the models on the table in HH/7th, without needing to keep track of stratagems and three different sets of subfaction rules, and everyone's aura.

That said, helping teach other people the game is really showing up how much more complex it is than 9th - yes, you pile in a few models at a time in initiative order, and a powerfist makes you init 1 unless you're a dreadnought, etc etc. HH hasn't been updated in the past fuve years IIRC and there's definitely things they could learn from newer editions that would smooth it out - rumors are that they'll be updating the rules to a new edition before too long, possibly next summer.

Basically, my ability to love this game is predicated on a certain amount of system mastery, and it's hard to begrudge people who want to be able to enjoy a game even before they know it by heart.

As someone who recently went back to playing 6th ed fantasy I agree. Yeah, there were things that are complicated there aswell, but overall everything makes sense. You can kinda figure out how the rule should work by applying common sense.

6th ed fantasy: Can a chariot travel through dense woods - Probably not. Let's look at the rules. No it can't. Unless it's a flying chariot and then it can skip over the wood but not enter it.

9th ed 40k: Can a chariot travel trough dense woods - No, unless it has the keyword fly, unless it has the keyword fly but also is grounded, if so it must roll a die and on a 1 it crashes, unless you re-roll the die which you can/can't do depending on auras and stratagems, and if you can't re-roll and rolled a 1, then you crash. Maybe, let's look at some of my splat books to be sure...

Before someone comments on my 9th ed rule being wrong.

I don't care.

[Misery Esquire]

Understandable. 4th was basically perfect.

What we need is a 4b edition or something. I wonder what to call it.

And a WHFB 6b. (Although I'd want some stuff from 5. And a few particular pieces of 7/8 (Step Up seems reasonable. Loss of ASF/ASL and Guess Range do not.))

And at that point my niche would be engaged and I'd buy things again! Oh, sure, they'd lose chunks of their their massive wave of new 8e and AoS players, but they... Only outnumber us grumpy old players by, what? A factor (possibly magnitude) of three or four? Hardly worth mentioning.

[Eldan]

I just don't ever want to see a version of Warhammer fantasy again where the enemy doesn't get to strike back if you wipe out the frontline. Because I play a horde army and strongly dislike hero/elitehammer.

Also, magic needs an overhaul. Disconnecting number of magic dice from number of wizards was a good decision as far as I'm concerned, since it allowed you to use magic without spending all your hero points on wizards. Shame they then completely screwed up by making all the spells overpowered in 8th.

[9mm]

Also, magic needs an overhaul. Disconnecting number of magic dice from number of wizards was a good decision as far as I'm concerned, since it allowed you to use magic without spending all your hero points on wizards.

sometime I'd love to experiment with magic dice pools in AoS just to see how it would work, but how that would play in spell dom would probably be tricky.

Shame they then completely screwed up by making all the spells overpowered in 8th.

and the best model in my current army is a spell.

[LeSwordfish]

9th ed 40k: Can a chariot travel trough dense woods - No, unless it has the keyword fly, unless it has the keyword fly but also is grounded, if so it must roll a die and on a 1 it crashes, unless you re-roll the die which you can/can't do depending on auras and stratagems, and if you can't re-roll and rolled a 1, then you crash. Maybe, let's look at some of my splat books to be sure...

Interesting that you'd say this, because this kind of web of exceptions was something I noticed with HH/7th - the specific example was a walker charging through cover, where we had to look up what cover did, what Move Through Cover did, whether walkers had move through cover, etc etc. Would you agree that a key difference in the rules is that 9th expects you to consider things more abstractly? That it feels less about the physicality of the models and more about more abstract layers of stratagems, auras, and the like?

[The Patterner]

Interesting that you'd say this, because this kind of web of exceptions was something I noticed with HH/7th - the specific example was a walker charging through cover, where we had to look up what cover did, what Move Through Cover did, whether walkers had move through cover, etc etc. Would you agree that a key difference in the rules is that 9th expects you to consider things more abstractly? That it feels less about the physicality of the models and more about more abstract layers of stratagems, auras, and the like?

That's pretty spot on yes.

In your example it's obvious from the physicality of walkers that they are closer to infantry than tanks, so it makes sense to look up their rules for moving through cover. While stratagems, auras and the like make the game more abstract and at times counter-intuitive.

[lord_khaine]

a couple of my local club decided they'd go back to playing 4ed, and have been having a blast by all reports.

I can follow them on that choice.
personally i do have fond memories of 4ed. It certainly seemed a lot less of a mess than what some of the more recent editions have been.
At least. Im having trouble comming up with any meaningfully positive rule changes. And thats outside of adding primarchs..

Oh wait.. 4ed was the rhino spam edition?
Well. Could still be worse.

[hamishspence]

I thought 3e was the rhino spam edition?

Back then, prior to the Trial Assault Rules - you could assault out of any moving vehicle - and you could make multiple assaults with the same unit in the same assault phase, as long as you wiped out the fought unit each time, and "sweeping advanced" into the next one. EDIT: (You only got to fight one assault per turn though).

Blood Angels, with their extra-speedy Rhinos, and hard-hitting assaulters, did very well in 3e, I'm told.

[Blackhawk748]

4e was the one where you could, theoretically, charge through your opponents entire army in one turn if you could consolidate into them after each combat.

Also Morale was pretty nuts IIRC

[hamishspence]

4e was the one where you could, theoretically, charge through your opponents entire army in one turn if you could consolidate into them after each combat.

On rereading 3e, it appears that, like 4e, you can't fight more than one assault in the same turn even if you Sweeping Advance.

"The move may be used to contact enemy units and lock them in combat, but the consolidating unit must maintain unit coherency and does not count as charging when combat is worked out next turn"

"If several close combats are being fought in close proximity, a unit which consolidates into a new close combat does not count as engaged until the next Assault phase and is effectively ignored".

4e Consolidate move is 3" (or 1d6" if this took place after annihilating the opponent in the Assault phase)

Sweeping Advance
"Advancing units must move the full distance rolled, in the same direction and towards and through the enemy if they outpace them. If this brings them into contact with fresh enemy they move directly into base contact, effectively assaulting the enemy and beginning another close combat.

No further combat is fought during the turn that the advance is made; combat is, instead, fought in the following turn. The advancing unit is considered to have launched an assault that turn, and receives the normal +1 attack bonus)."

3e Advance is 2d6".


So, in both 3e and 4e, a unit can win, and move into another unit - but they have to wait till the next turn to do the actual fighting.

And in 3e, you can Sweeping Advance 2d6" into the enemy unit - whereas in 4e you need to Sweeping Advance 3" or 1d6". In 3e, you count as Charging, for an extra attack. In 4e, you don't.

[Blackhawk748]

On rereading 3e, it appears that, like 4e, you can't fight more than one assault in the same turn even if you Sweeping Advance.

Huh. I am very much misremembering that.

[Renegade Paladin]

I would like to state for the record that stratagems that bring back destroyed units not costing anything besides the command points in Crusade is ridiculous. I had to kill the same squad of Hormagaunts three times over the course of the game.

On the other hand, 2+ save Leman Russes are pretty great. My Gatekeeper tank commander actually survived the game on one wound, when with the old 3+ save he'd have died second or third turn.

[Cheesegear]

I would like to state for the record that stratagems that bring back destroyed units not costing anything besides the command points in Crusade

I think LansXero made his group cry proving that Crusade was broken.

[snowblizz]

So, in both 3e and 4e, a unit can win, and move into another unit - but they have to wait till the next turn to do the actual fighting.

And in 3e, you can Sweeping Advance 2d6" into the enemy unit - whereas in 4e you need to Sweeping Advance 3" or 1d6". In 3e, you count as Charging, for an extra attack. In 4e, you don't.

The main criticism as I recall it was that assault units could affect 2 units per turn, shoot one, assault another. And then preferably wiping the unit it assaulted and get to safety of combat with a third unit.

Of course the opposite thought is that well shooting units had turns of activity that the closecombat units weren't effective in. By and large assaulting units weren't as extensively equipped in stats and bling.

Took until the latter round of 3rd ed codices to get stuff that just blew through armies easy.

[Renegade Paladin]

The main criticism as I recall it was that assault units could affect 2 units per turn, shoot one, assault another. And then preferably wiping the unit it assaulted and get to safety of combat with a third unit.

Yeah, but you can do that now.

[druid91]

Huh. Book of Outcasts definitely threw Necromunda for a loop. Divination discipline Wyrds are absolutely nuts.

[Wraith]

I think someone at Games Workshop is actively writing love-letters to Cheesegear.

"Fafnir" is a stupid Space Wolf-esque name, but just look at that guy. He's covered in IF iconography, including a (presumably) detachable Storm Shield, and he's dual-wielding power axes. This may be the most manly Space Marine ever devised - he even looks a bit like a young Chuck Norris.

[Grim Portent]

I think someone at Games Workshop is actively writing love-letters to Cheesegear.

"Fafnir" is a stupid Space Wolf-esque name, but just look at that guy. He's covered in IF iconography, including a (presumably) detachable Storm Shield, and he's dual-wielding power axes. This may be the most manly Space Marine ever devised - he even looks a bit like a young Chuck Norris.

Given that he seems to have been one of Sigismund's comrades, being named after a germanic mythical figure seems rather appropriate to me. A bit on the nose, but it's not like the majority of characters among the Space Marines aren't named in reference to some mythical or historical figure.

[Wraith]

Given that he seems to have been one of Sigismund's comrades, being named after a germanic mythical figure seems rather appropriate to me. A bit on the nose, but it's not like the majority of characters among the Space Marines aren't named in reference to some mythical or historical figure.

True, however Fafnir is a real-world name from Norse legend - it's very much a Space Wolf name, in the sense that he comes from Space Norway whereas Sigismund comes from Terra.

It would be like a Space Wolf being given a name like Ezekiel - it's not bad or wrong, just traditionally something more fitting for the Blood Angels or Dark Angels. I just happen to think that Space Wolves are a bit daft in general, so my bias doesn't help, but fortunately his mini is winning me over and he seems alright

[Cheesegear]

I think someone at Games Workshop is actively writing love-letters to Cheesegear.

"Fafnir" is a stupid Space Wolf-esque name...

Fafnir Rann has been part of the fluff for a while. I was going to make an Executioners squad way back in the days of the Badab War (6th Ed., I think?), but I didn't like the colour scheme.

Also Fafnir is an OG from Inwit - which is a snow planet. Then again, Inwit is a culture of a cross between Native Americans and Native Canadians. So no, I don't know where the name comes from.

This may be the most manly Space Marine ever devised...

I'll have to see it in person. The Shield looks...Off. But from the front he looks near-perfect. He might just be one of my favourite (stock) models, because he looks near exactly what I think he looks like from the books. Alexis Polux and Sigismund look great...Sure. But they don't really look like more than any other suitably kit-bashed Praetor.

Spoiler

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The model is definitely more ornate than the artwork. And I don't like the artwork. So that's good.
(Dear GW, sometimes, the art is bad. Don't feel obligated to follow it)

But it's not so overloaded with bulls* that I don't believe that the model even...Works (Dark Angels, I'm looking at you).

It's well...

It's a model I want. 'Nuff said. GW had to sneak one in at the end of 2021, right? They'd get one right, eventually, right? Statistically they'd have to?
...Then again, the model wont be released until February, 2022 at the earliest. So 2021 is a total wash.

[Wraith]

Also Fafnir is an OG from Inwit - which is a snow planet. Then again, Inwit is a culture of a cross between Native Americans and Native Canadians. So no, I don't know where the name comes from.

Inwit is, I think, a play on the word Inuit - a group people indigenous to Greenland and Canada, occasionally and incorrectly referred to as Eskimos.

So he's from Space Canada, but has the name of a Norse hero. It kind of works if you know Fafnir's backstory about being adopted by the Raan tribe, AND the story about how about how Leif Eriksson was supposed to have 'discovered' Newfoundland in the 10th Century. Fafnir is a viking child raised by Inuits, just like in the movie, which is why he has the silly name but still fits in. Kind of. But that's pretty damn convoluted even by GW standards, so it's probably coincidence.

But it's not so overloaded with bulls* that I don't believe that the model even...Works (Dark Angels, I'm looking at you).

I adore the Dark Angels' Companions, but then, they're supposed to be a very different aesthetic to the Imperial Fists. I think that Fafnir is the sort of model that someone can point at and go, "That is an Imperial Fist" and not just "that is a space marine with IF logos stamped onto it", and that sort of thing elevates the whole range, for me.

[Cheesegear]

Inwit is, I think, a play on the word Inuit...

I think you're wrong and that's obviously not what it is. Obviously.

I adore the Dark Angels' Companions, but then, they're supposed to be a very different aesthetic to the Imperial Fists.

...Might possibly be why I think the Dark Angels have the worst aesthetic out of all the Legions. Followed fairly closely by any time a Space Wolf puts a literal animal pelt on their armour. The Grey Slayers don't do that! Why are Grey Slayers non-stupid?

(As always, double points if your model has a cape and Jump Pack, and triple points if that cape is a pelt.)

I think that Fafnir is the sort of model that someone can point at and go, "That is an Imperial Fist" and not just "that is a space marine with IF logos stamped onto it"

That's why I had to cut up Tor Garadon...So many things wrong with that model.