In this episode, Frankie and I talk about 6th ed further now that we have had some more games, read the FAQ’s, and had some time to think about it.
Press play to listen to the podcast!
In this episode, Frankie and I talk about 6th ed further now that we have had some more games, read the FAQ’s, and had some time to think about it.
Press play to listen to the podcast!
Sorry, Am I missing something?
I don’t know if this is only me or whatever but I don’t actually see a play button or even any podcast.
*This may be just me as I am a complete idiot sometimes* 🙂
yep no play button on firefox or IE
It didn’t upload properly the first time, sorry for that, guys. It’s fixed now.
Hey! Just listened to the podcast… and I think it’s important to have some perspective on some of the rules that we’ve gotten used to over several editions.
I came to 40K in 3rd edition from Warzone, a defunct sci-fi miniatures game based in the Mutant Chronicles universe. In Warzone, every member of each squad acted and was targeted individually.
When I started playing 3rd edition 40K and my friend told me that I could choose which guy in my squad took each wound, my response was, “that’s so stupid! That means you can protect your special weapons and have all your regular guys die first!”
… and if you think about it, it’s a really stupid rule. It’s just been that way for so long that we take it for granted now. It makes more sense that if you want to protect your special guys by burying them in a squad, they should also be less effective in combat or have to shoot from a longer range.
You pointed out that the new wound allocation system can be gamed pretty heavily, but it makes me cringe when you suggest going back to the old one. The old one was also terrible! The whole concept of having squads become more resilient by diversifying their wargear was completely flawed… and especially hurt armies like tyranids who, with a few minor exceptions, couldn’t diversify their squads at all and couldn’t play wound allocation tricks. Again, we’ve just gotten so used to the system as it was that we might have lost sight of how bad the old rule was.
Bring back the positivity!
I loved Warzone, such a good game! I still have two painted armies here at the store.
I had no problem with the old system, to be honest. It was abstracted and could be abused, but this new one is worse, IMO. I could be knee-jerking here of course, and perhaps with becoming accustomed to it it won’t seem so bad, but I don’t think so. It is a rule meant to make the game cinematic, and balance and such really isn’t taken into account, at least it doesn’t appear that way to me at this point in time.
I think the rule is not fun, and it really, really slows the game down.
However, you are right, staying positive is the smart thing to do, but after the games we’ve played so far, it’s hard to stay positive.
We still gotta try to get in a game of Warzone some time. Maybe after the tourney on Sunday if there is time?
I loved Warzone as well! Still got 4 armies although only two are painted. Dark Legion and Capital! We definitely should bust out 1st ed Warzone and throw down a nostalgic game!
-Jim
I would definitely be down for that! I have the rules on PDF.
I have a whole mess of Mishima troops, and a squad of the Brotherhood. That game was awesome back in the day.
Hell yeah! So fun, fast paced, and simple. I loved it. I played Capitol and Cybertronic.
I’d love to spectate that, I way miss warzone.
I still have a pretty big Bauhaus army, including the Strike Skimmer (but unfortunately no steam walkers, velociraptor lancers or gatling shotgun commandos… those came out at the very end of the game) … and I also still have all of the printed 2nd edition core books and the Bauhaus Codex. Unfortunately I live in Atlanta =(.
The play button isn’t coded in. No play button ><
Yup, no play links for me either.
So here are a few thoughts on what we can do to make it better for tournaments
No mysterious terrain
No Random Objectives
No Fortifications 🙁 (No reasonable way to incorporate a Skyshield or Fortress into tournament play, I guess you could limit it to aegis defense lines and Single Bastions, but that seems like a $$$ tax to play in the event more than a thematic addition to a fighting force.)
You chose your warlord, it goes printed on your list. Same trait for your warlord makes it viable for in depth strategies.
I have 2 ideas for psycic powers:
1. Select from the lists – Rolling powers you cant use and getting shafted with the basic power is game breaking, not balanced and not competitive.
2. Select powers and pay points for them Equal to their spot X Warp charge. Examples:
Crush is 1 on the list so its 1 point, and its Warp charge is 1. 1X1 = 1 its a 1 point spell.
Hallucination is 6 on the list and 2 Warp charges 6X2 = 12. 12 point spell (which still makes this monster of a power under costed. You could take the base powers for free.
Psycher levels and masteries need to be clearly defined and listed in the tournament pack before hand.
There is too much confusion as to what does what at this point. Mark of Tzeentch in Chaos Space Marines? I think that will be a solid discussion for the council to decide. As long as there is clarity, it can be useful.
Mission. I still think the BAO mission is playable, but no one would want to play that 1 mission at every major event. Modify the Kill points to play like the anticipated rules (1 point for every 50 points in the unit killed rounded up) Make sure to mention to the players this should be noted on their army lists to make end of round book keeping even more streamlined. (not that the math is that hard, but some people….)
Those are my first impressions after having played a few games, but I think its a good start.
It’s going to have to be something like that to make it work. We were thinking about using the BAO mission too, but with some of the added secondary objectives, just like we used before.
It is going to be a weird ride as we get all of this figured out!
Wound allocation seems like it still goes faster than 5th edition. You roll all your saves and remove closest models. The only time it bogs down is when you have someone with a different armor save where you have to roll them separately.
And Look Out Sir. But when you are literally rolling saves one at a time, it is ridiculous. Plus, it heavily influences the movement phase. It will slow the game down a lot, IMO.
The podcast didn’t load for some reason, but it’s fixed now. Sorry about that, guys.
all right, here’s an idea for wound allocation-
you must fastroll all wounds at once. Ex- destroyer Lord with 5 deathmarks get hit on their flank by 10 bolters, lets say they score ten wounds.
roll as if each shot kills the target- so, in the placement of the squad, say they are in a line with 2 dmarks, then dlord then 3 dmarks. so 2 black dice for the first 2 dmarks, a red dice for the Dlord, 3 more black dice for the last 3 dmarks, you still have 4 dice in the pool, so 2 more for the first 2. roll them all, pull casualties from the firer. lets say the Dlord fails. IF there are any dmarks left he can look out sir. if all his meatsheilds are killed in this initial simultaneous volley, he must take the wound. after all how many bodies can you pull in front of a simultaneous volley? i think this would be a fast simple way to speed up while adhering to the intent.
this way the front guy has the chance to absorb each first shot only, and the whole squad gets hit, if there are enough wounds to go around. its almost exactly whats in the book.
if the firer has a plasmagun, he can tell you to roll that one first, or last, not third, thats sniping.
i had a similar, but broken moment when the dstriking dlord n dmarks get hit by a small blast, centered on the dlord 3 times- 15 wounds, everyone gets hit. in RAW the dlord takes all 15 hits til he dies, because he’s at the center of the blast(barrage) in my game he look out sir’ed like 4 wounds. how do you pull 4 guys in front of a grenade at your feet.
i feel it shouldve been 3 wounds on everybody, fast rolled, look out sir if anyone survived. simple
what do you think?
i messed up in my first ex- the d lord would take 1 more bolter and the next dmark would as well. we are not pulling that particular model, its just a pool of wounds for the identicals, a separate simultaneous pool for individuals, they hafta be allocated from the firer. in a blob squad it might be a little more complicated to figure out who is getting it, but i think if you have to roll them all at once, it would alleviate shenanigans and speed it up.
I think things like that will have to happen. It is a really weird rule that is trying to make the game more realistic but the game isn’t realistic at all. It is a bit silly.
I think people will adopt little tricks like you describe here to try and speed things up.
Once everyone understands wound allocation it will be much faster.
Because it is not written well in the book people are not getting it.
In the example in the show you have hormagants charging bloodcrushers doing 30 wounds. What would happen then is the bloodcrusher player would roll 30 3+ saves and he would remove the closest models. So let’s say he failed 8 wounds he would pick up the 4 closest models. It is that simple.
You see it is the same if you roll the dice all at once or one at a time. You fail the same number of saves and the closest ones die.
That is what the fast rolling section was about, but in their example they had a model with a different armor save that confused their point.
Now it will take a few moments longer if you have a model with a different armor save than the others, but that is pretty rare.
I agree that with like units the rule works just fine (and I said that in the Podcast) but complex units are going to be a total pain in the rear. And, in assault, the rule is a lot clunkier than in shooting. In assault, if you have a diversified unit, you do roll for each different guy as the defending player so long as everyone is in BtB with the enemy. The rule actually reads as rolling each MODEL’S saves, one at a time until they are dead and you have gone through all models in base contact, then on to the next closest models. The thing is, they don’t define closest to what? Is it model to model, unit to unit? It is a bad rule, poorly written.
It is exactly the same in assault as shooting. You make your saves and remove the closest models. What they are armed with isn’t important, just as long as they have the same armor save.
You still have 5th edition on the brain.
It is but it isn’t due to the fact that what is closest in HtH is different than what is closest in shooting. Even in shooting it’s going to get lame when you have two models close to an enemy unit and one has an important item and people start arguing over which one is actually closer. It will be like trying to determine LoS in some games.
We’ll see though, perhaps I am wrong and it won’t slow things down so much, but I don’t see it. I see movement taking much longer and combat going slower as well.
Look above the line above the picture on page 25 where it says “You can speed this up this process by allocating Wounds in groups”.
So stop rolling you saves one at a time!
I did see that, but that–literally–contradicts the rules for wound allocation! Hahaha, and then you also have the issue of closest. Who is closest to what? If a player WANTS to roll one at a time in order to minimize the chances of a special model dying, they can. It is lame.
I agree that it will speed up with familiarity, but anticipate lots of units that abuse the system with mixed armor and look out sir all over the place. It will be silly, IMO. I could be wrong, I hope I am, but I doubt it.
I’ve found that once you play with the wound allocation a bit, it works fine and plays very quickly. The movement phase is extremely important, but the movement phase has always been extremely important.
The Big Guns Never Tire scenario also isn’t broken at all, since the advantages of taking Heavy Support (more scoring units) and disadvantages of taking Heavy Support (yield points for dying) offset one another. If you have 3 Heavy Support choices and your opponent has 0, they can score 3 more Victory Points than you if they kill all of your Heavy Support, but you have 3 extra scoring units that can capture the d3+2 primary objectives– each of which is worth 3 Victory Points!
Wound allocation with like units works just fine, it is complex units and units with lots of Look out Sir that will make it a total PITA to play with, and people will take exactly those types of units because of the increased durability just as people took complex units in 5th ed for the same reason. It slows the movement phase down a lot, and combined with cover rules, you will have to be ultra anal about placement of models, much more so than in 5th ed or even 4th ed.
I am not trying to be overtly negative, I am just really unhappy with those key rules that unfortunately, are pervasive throughout the entire game.
As for the Big Guns missions, it really isn’t balanced. Yes you can get more scoring units, but lists already plan to have ample scoring units so the benefit is marginalized for most people. The setback is that your opponent can literally score more points than you can, which is a really big detriment. I think in most games it won’t be that big of a deal, but it has the potential to create really big disadvantages in missions before either player has done anything, and that to me is a huge failure in game design. The missions should strive to create a level playing field so that both players have as equal of a chance of winning as possible.
I dunno, man. In my playtesting, I feel like the Big Guns mission, if anything, gives an advantage to players with *more* Heavy Support, especially since it can give you the only scoring vehicles in 6e. It sounds like you guys disagree with that and I can definitely see the other side of the story, but surely if people think that different sides are favored by it, it can’t be *that* unbalanced?
I agree, it isn’t crazy imbalanced at all, but one of those things i think could be better. That is why I put it in the ugly category, sort of not good, but not bad, either.
I think in most games it will be fine, but in certain match-ups it will be a huge liability which makes it not a good choice, IMO. My mind tends to go to those situations where things go really bad as those situations make people not have fun.
Regarding Challenges, it’s important to note that if a unit has multiple characters, *any* character can accept the challenge. For example, if I have Belial in a unit of Deathwing terminators, I can accept a challenge with Belial or the Sergeant. On the flip side of that, if you refuse a challenge, the opponent gets to select which character of those available sits out the fight.
That is a very good point, and thanks for bringing that up.
My issue with it is that it is not going to be or do what it was meant to. It was meant to have epic, heroic single combat, but the game is so stupid right now that the Warboss fighting the Space marine Captain is going to end up in the Space Marine dead nearly every time and very few people will like it or do it. The system will be gamed and not remotely close to what they wanted. If the combat was more equal (ID and EW ensure that it is not) then it would work out more often, but the rules make the combat lopsided and unfair. It is a bad rule in the current rule set.
Challenges were very quickly the target for my brokeness. Drazhar and Incubi just jumped up huge in power, they can abuse wound allocation and challenges becasue of the offset initiative values and the fact that demi-klaives give you the best versatility out there.
Yeah, and the ability to remove characters from play instead of having the epic boss fights the rule was intended to promote.
You guys are stoopid.
Haha, thanks, Rich!
Anytime! I was going to do that Typhus/Epi thing this week! Great minds think alike! It’s hard to pull off at 1500pts though, which is what I want to play at.
Yeah, 1500 will really limit the game breaking combos a lot. But that combo is crazy. I think it won’t be around for lone as the Chaos Dex is on the way, but you never know.
if you don’t have fleet or jump or beast cavalry, yup charges are a bit unpredictable.. I think that’s pretty excellent.
risk management, on the objectives… is easy to do, you can scout with a vehicle ..it explodes no damage, or you do it with a tough unit.. it’s a one in six chance.
also, only troops can get those bonus’s it gives you places to fight over.
there’s more but, I’ve played some and, in general it’s been faster and umm, funner:P
Hey that’s great, I am glad your games have gone faster and are more enjoyable.
I LOL’d a couple of times today picturing a unit of fist-pumping black templar bros watching their Emperor’s Champion get killed.
Hahaha, yeah, it was pretty ridiculous!
I think you guys harp on random charge rolls too much. Random charges exist in 5th ed, and we all know about them, but it was limited to difficult terrain. In my circle we tended to fight in and around terrain for that reason–because of how important needing that random charge is.
Yeah it sucks when you fail a charge to bad dice, BUT assault tends to very much be one sided affairs. Dice don’t balance assaults between dissimilar units like it does with shooting between dissimilar units. Big upsets between Firewarriors and THSS termies, for example, simply don’t happen that often–unless the charge fails.
I personally hate the random charge lengths as it takes skill away from the game. I think saying it is risk management is only partially true, really it just comes down to getting as close as possible to the enemy and hoping you roll well. It is a crap shot, which some people think is fun, I personally do not.
The thing is in 5th you could avoid the random charge with smart play, as you pointed out. That was skill. Choosing to risk charging through terrain was real risk management because there was a choice. Now there is none.
Shooting army it is!
But seriously, you may be right with acclimation to the system, but I see myself really hating it and playing shooting armies as will a lot of people due to increased reliability.
If your army is deployed in terrain, then the choice was to charge randomly or not charge at all. Same with GK with Sanctuary. In 6th, random charges are in regardless of terrain, but like I said most of the time in 5th we seemed to keep near terrain.
Consider that in 5th, without terrain, you have a 100% chance to charge 6 inches. If the unit charging is something meant for CC, then you were obviously charging because your target had almost no chance. IE, THSS termies versus almost anything, almost anything versus tau, ect.
I would wager that if we calculate the odds of the charges we made in 5th at killing the enemy to a man, it would end up at 75% or so–only 25% of the charges we initiate I feel would result in the charging unit getting wiped. Obviously, grots charging THSS termies could happen, but that charge doesnt come up very often. More often it is the other way around, and the odds of the defender winning are almost nil.
Now in 6th, you have a 72% chance to charge 6 inches. That is pretty good odds, considering that when your charge is successful you probably still have a 75% chance to eventually wipe your opponent–snapshot overwatch is not that amazing most of the time versus a close combat unit.
So yeah, a 72% chance to get the charge that, barring a crazy 1 fest, results in you wiping the enemy unit out completely. I would definitely take that! I also appreciate a 27% chance that my shooting unit (that folds in CC) has to not get charged and wiped out by basically anything.
Another benefit of random charge distance is how charges interact with terrain. You need to determine if you would go through terrain with any model before rolling your charge distance. It is a lot harder to cheese assaults now to avoid terrain (and the random charge) like in 5th. In 5th, you could easily game a charge with just a bit of practice so that you were 5 inches away from one model out of terrain, and 6.1 inches away with the rest of the squad, meaning no terrain check, no init penalty, and you pull the defender in to you anyway so you lose zero attacks.
Now, you check with a 12 inch potential charge. If you try and game 11 inches so only the closest model makes it, you will likely fail your charge. At 5ish inches away, you will likely make it but SOMEONE with a 12 inch potential move probably would have to go through terrain, so you would need to roll for terrain.
Yes it can still be gamed, but it is harder to do so, which is an advantage.
Finally, I dont like the term risk management–I know what you mean, but in reality assaults before could be guaranteed to succeed on some metric. You dont lose the game if you fail the charge, but the effect of the charge, like preventing a dreadnaught from shooting, WAS ALWAYS SUCCESSFUL for many units–even if you cant hurt the dread. Now, you have a 72% to completely negate the shooting of a Dread at 6 inches. You still take the dread out of the shooting game, but it is no longer a free and obvious action, as you have a chance to fail unless you are 2 inches away.
You make some really good points, and I see where you are coming from with the 0/1 argument about possibly taking shooting away, etc. There are pros and cons to the random charge argument, no doubt. For example, there is less disparity between units with fleet and units without now, but Jumpers just flat out got a boost, IMO.
I think it’s just going to take some adjustments to get used to, really.
We’ll see how all of this pans out of course, but I think you have made some really good points on the subject that bare consideration.
Don’t forget that Poisoned Weapons always wound on a 4+, unless a lower result would be required. Therefore Typhus wounds T4 models on a 3+, and re-rolls failed rolls.
Nice catch! Wow, that is bananas.
Same as we said on Saturday. For Casual 6th ROCKS for competitive….wow it’s got a LOT of changing to do. big changes are coming. MaNZ are gonna be sweet, the epidemius list is going to wreck face. I think the 6 Flying MC Daemons CSM list will be silly. And the Tau coming back to the tabletop are all good things. Zagstruck is really cool. NOISE MARINES! Hello sir, what’s that we get 30 shots with 10 man units when you charge us and then get to hit you first? Yes Please. OH and our Champ gets the super Flamer. I almost don’t want the CSM codex to change now. There’s so much in it that is just wicked sweet. Another combo I like is the Nid Zoanthropes with Endurance. Oh my GOD is this full of stars. so I get 8 1 lance shots with a unit I can sit in front at t6 S6 with Eternal Warrior? OH and regeneration on a 5 up. Yes Please! Sure its random but at worst you have a deep striking Termi Hunter with Smite. I’ll take that all day long.
Things I notice:
– Challenges……I really don’t want to see 40k Anime Mega super fighter CHALLENGE 3000
of destiny, no word yet on if you press down down-left left + a if your flamers execute a Hadoken. I will enjoy my Lash Prince acting Like Scorpion from Mortal Kombat Though…..GET OVER HERE!
– I actually like the increased tactical movement. If they would have used the charge rules from the leaked codex this would have been amazing.
– Allies Dude is this sweet. I just can’t get over all the awesome there is here.
– Best part about this is, New meta. The game changes the bad taste of the neverending see of Grey and Silver get washed away. Are Grey Knights Still Good? Yeah, Can Orks wreck their face now? Yeah.
– Flyers, New Dakkajets are sweet! and I actually like the concept of a lot of these missions. Though some of them do invalidate the Warlord roll.
Ideas:
– Speed rolling should be allowed for the amount of wounds a set model has. i.e Nobs have two wounds if one nob is closest then you roll wounds two at a time.
– If there is a dispute about who is closer you should roll the total amount of wounds available at the same time.
– Any roll that is not valid for the current game type gets rerolled (i.e. all the warlord traits that require an objective with missions without objectives. Fail GW just Fail)
– I know I’m going to be instituting BAO style missions with these missions as inspiration. The Relic + Emperors will + Purge The Alien seems like a rollicking good time. Capture the flag + King of the Hill + Death Race seems fun.
In short remember it’s a game, and we will find the fun. Until then I’ll be here Rolling my seventeenth save on Typhus Cackling like a madman. 2+ I’m good!
I agree buddy. If you play casually and with like minded players, you are really going to like this edition, but if even a little competitiveness comes out, this rule set is so easily broken it isn’t funny.
IDK guys. The random charge length is so-so, but I think it is almost guaranteed if you are an assault troop. With the re-roll to jump packs, I ran the statistics and it is statistically more likely that your charge length is more than 7′. I think the dedicated assault jump troops are actually buffed. With how invulnerable terminators are in cc, I am coming around to the idea that random charge length may be the only thing that gives some armies a chance against them.
The real problem, as you said, is the wound allocation system. I am painting up my wolf guard termies to lead the GH squads…. 2+ re-rollable with wolf banner against 9/10ths of what you throw at me in the first round of cc? Yes please! Two orders actually. My friend pointed out that you can just challenge the WG. Well… I am ok with declining and not striking in exchange for a 2+ rerollable. Yes please again. More please again. Thirds please.
I like the Palladin and Nob biker example too. So true. So OP so broken.
Yeah, it is going to be stupid. Fleet is absolutely critical to making a reliable assault army, outside of that you are just too random.
I see people taking naked sarges just to take and receive challenges. It is going to be meta gamed to hell, and be stupid.
Termies won’t be that crazy, they will still die to most of the stuff they died to before, they are just tougher to power weapons, really.
Is there any informatoin you can give us concerning the concensus of the big TOs of the nation?
We haven’t talked yet, but we will get the information out there as soon as we have it. I sent you an email too, Dave, about WargamesCon.
Dude, sorry…. my berkeley email account shit the bed. Something is wrong with the server. my new one is djdk1001@google. No worries. I should be up this weekend. Please dont make it weird about WargamesCon. I mean… yes I did carry the team and beat the shit out of everyone, but that can only be expected. I mean, you were playing foot-gaydar, so, I understand. Its not a big deal. =)lol
hahah, you did carry all of us losers on your back!
BIG GUNS NEVER TIRE…. just a note, heavy support grant victory points.. but they ALSO TAKE OBJECTIVES.
I’m at the bottom of the page so the caps are to get a little attention:P
Caps it is, sir! Haha.
I think in the majority of games Big Guns will be totally fine, as will the Scouring. But in some games, they will be a huge liability, possibly game loosing, that is my issue with it.
A couple things I wanted to just say. At around 10:20 you talked about how fast models are moving along with how tedious movement is going to be. My take on this is that they are trying to make the game more cinematic, either you can just walk forward and try to blow your way to the guy you want to kill or you can try to flank them like a squad of any real army would to try to take out their leaders and such. Its just more “real life” because anybody would always want to flank the enemy thats trying to kill them.
Also you talked about units being complex and how it’ll slow things down a great deal. I wanna say that they are promoting using units that are not as diverse and complex. I dont know that if rules say you cant but now I would bring all my models with the same stuff. So a bunch of Nob bikerz with power claws or a lot of Thunderwolves with frost axes and ss.
I agree that they are certainly trying to make the game more cinematic, that is for sure. I think that in the process though, it will slow the game down a lot, particularly in a game where both players are trying to use every trick up their sleeve to win.
And yeah, GW probably is trying to promote homogeneous units, but gamers by their nature will want to take what is best, and that will often by mixed units.
Your wrong. Chess isn’t complex because it isn’t random.
Poker and snap are random. One’s tactical the other isn’t.
Chess and tic-tac-toe are not random. One’s tactical the other isn’t.
Chess is the most difficult because of its complexity. It has huge variation between games.
Randomness in the right degree increases variation and makes you think. Too much and its impossible to think.
My real problem isn’t with this age old debate. Its that you’re looking at the game through 5th tinted glasses. You haven’t tried to think about the game.
You complained about losing a game to a single charge failed . You know charging is nerfed; why make such risky charges. Shoot more. Why not use jump pack or fleet.
You complained about character snipe but only mentioned look out sir in a negative capacity; how nobs and paladins can abuse it.
You complained about big guns never tire, without mentioning that heavies are scoring units. AND that not taking them makes the game harder for most armies. Even a casual look reveals this.
You also take rules in isolation. If CC is nerfed, why are challanges such a big deal? Would a warboss even challange a captain when he’ll end up fighting a 1W sarg.
I have unfairly taken a few snippets from a half hour podcast. for that i apologize, but so much of it is like that.
Everything you’ve said about 6th could be true, but you haven’t convinced me because its like you haven’t done your homework. More games but with an open mind
I’m wrong? Hahaha, not the best way to start a comment if you want meaningful feedback. And it’s “you’re” not “your.”
And the charge losing the game was from 4.5″ away, hardly risky. It wasn’t me playing either, but hey.
I can’t tell if you want to discuss something or if you are just attacking, but either way, please refer to yesterday’s blog post which addresses most of what you bring up.
Thanks.