Frankie continues to hone his Dark Harliestar list and Reece continues to experiment with Ork builds in this 1500pt book mission game. Caution! We rant a little bit about some of the ways you can exploit wound allocation and how it is not fun. We also ask your guys’ opinions on these types of lists.
Why do you guys play with a whole bunch of dice (joking). You only need 2 dice to play this game and a scatter dice. WTG GW…….. I just don’t see how they didn’t miss this either…… Don’t they have people in their R&D that try and break these rules. Or do they just sit around smoking something giggling and drinking tea. I don’t get it either.
ttfn
Me either. 1 month of play testing in a Beta would have fixed all of this. So dumb to not do that.
Yeah, don’t take these type of lists to casual games unless your opponent wants to play against them. They are just not fun for the casual gamer (though I don’t mind if you use them on me 😉 ) I wouldn’t use my necron-scythe list in casual play unless you agree and I feel that your armies have at least some way to deal with them.
BTW, at the Golden Throne, you’re going to see some competitive armies. I’ll be there with my balanced necron army (with some flyers) and Kevin may perhaps bring his necron scythe army as well. So don’t worry that the deathstar armies will walk all over the competition there.
I was thinking the same thing. If we don’t, others will and we’ll get creamed. If we do, we will probably cream so poor guys who aren’t ready for it. Kind of sucks. You guys will be able to handle it, but I don’t think many others will.
So for Frankie’s Hit and Run, did you roll three 1’s or something?
I think you should take these to the tournament to set a precedence. GW says they’ll have an FAQ for the rulebook out before the end of the summer (40 days) so make some noise and see if they address it 🙂 With FW updating theirs 3 times in one month and GW having them for each army at launch, I feel like anything is possible now. 🙂
Yeah, I think we are going to take them, we’ll just feel dirty about it! I hope GW FAQs the dumb ass LoS! rules, those make playing Nob Bikers and such a joke. Too easy.
We’ll see what happens, but I just can’t see them changing a rule like that. I hope they do, but that is a fundamental change.
I don’t see them changing it, but I could see them clarifying with a subcategory of characters. Here’s hoping. And as much as I want you to make a stink about Deathstars, I REALLY wanna see the MIGHTY FOOTDAR at a big event, too 🙂 You have many more tools in your belt now and I’d like to see you take first with them. 😀
I think you have way too much faith in GW. Faq’s have always in my opinion a way to fix 40k. They just for whatever wisdom they have do not apply it to the level that it needs to be. Each month they should have a PDF FAQ and a wd FAQ. It is not that hard they just make a casual game and don’t care about the game breaking rules it is just that simple.
With the number of other companies that have their finger in the pie now, they can’t afford to slack off like they used to. I think we’re gonna see something new this go around.
Cheers chaps, since it’s my first wall of crap i’ll just start by saying that i enjoy your batreps, articles and podcast, it has saved me by that many hours at work. This is a good thing.
Anyway.. to the wall!
Some things are fucked up, like the 2+ coversave blobsquad with a runepriest etc, the dark footharliedragonkickdoomstarwhatevername..unit..sword.., but i also think there are some real ways of handling such units, and many of those “hard as hell” things are based on manouvering with 2+ save characters for shenanegans and great coversaves, etc.
When expecting bullcrap like this, people will bring mobile units and stuff that ignores cover, such as the wonderful flamer and the F***tarded whirlwind etc, i just think we have to realise the power of manouvering here, shooting the crap outta that unit (consider also that this is aprox 800p? of a deathstar we are talking about) is not that impossible when you expect similiar things. Meta is meta.
Even when bringing a 3-pointed star like in this batrep(karandras, eldrad and vect), they all have weaknesses, karandras “only” have coversave and normal 2+, eldrad 3+ inv, vect only needs to fail once etc, noone is eternal warrior, with positioning you can atleast pick wich character you are shooting at and either put a dent in them or kill harlies/get reallocated as a result, but every trick to get a wound in still have to be used.
Yeah they are still tard-hard, but they are only dangerous in close combat and not really fast with eldrad around either, they can atleast be dealt with using smart shooting or challenges. (Do note that i never.. ever.. call this an easy kill ;).
The only real problem i personally have with this is the bizarre amount of time you will spend doing nothing to the unit, as happened with your boys there Reece.
A unit as hard as it was in 5th takes about 10 times as long to resolve wound allocation on now.
It’s units like this that will beat 5th edition outta us tho, they will force a meta change, this in combo with flyers bring the new game.
Soo.. eeh.. i bet i had a point in there, i hope you find it..
Cheers and good night from Sweden.
Hey Jochen,
Yeah, I think you are right. We played a game tonight with a Biker army against the Dark Harliestar ass kicker unit, and the regular SM Bike army won with superior positioning and maneuver.
It was a tough fight, but like you said, it can be done. I think it will just take time to see how to do it.
Speed and positional fire really are HUGE in this edition. I have a 1500pt Ork list I am pretty sure I am sticking with now, and it has all of those elements.
Thanks for the input!
Reece
The solution is simple.. I know you might gag a little bit, but you’re going to have to consider it.
You’re going to have to start comping events so people lose points for taking lists like this.
Ie. Losing pts for investing more than 350 pts in a single unit. Losing pts for taking more than 3 flyers. Losing pts for taking more than 3 of the exact same unit.
You could also force percentages into the FOC. If you want people to take balanced lists because it is inherently more fun.. This could do it.
Just spitballing here, these may not be the best restrictions/comp ideas, but you get the idea.
Something to consider.. Would love feedback. These are the types of things you should be discussing with TO’s. Not changing core rules (no matter how much the suck). Just limit peoples ability to abuse them.
FoC percentages is kind of stupid. It barely works in fantasy, but because things like warboss make nobs troops, the FoC percents don’t work. Also, some armies cant field certain slots making %’s hard.
As I stated, I don’t know the best way to comp events. Just that comp is the best way to keep people from abusing rules.
The only issue with comp, is that players still game the system to gain the most advantage. I have yet to see a comp system that works. I feel that it is best to stick with the rules in the book so as to keep the playing field level for all comers, but we have a pretty crazy situation here.
The issue though, is that no comp system does what it is meant to do. When you consider that EVERY army in the game is designed to be different, no set of rules works for everyone equally. What you would have to do would be to go in and write a comp system for each codex.
That is possible, but people hate that.
Honestly, that just sounds like laziness to me. You’d really rather change a core game mechanic, than simply not allow a few things?
How efffing hard would it be to say. “You can’t take more than 3 flyers, you can’t have a single unit that costs more than 500 pts.”
Seriously. There goes 100% of all the cheese lists everyone is worrying about. How exactly is that unfair to anyone?
In the above match that Reese has, and let’s take away the dark elder from the mix.
200+ point hairlines, karandas, and eldrad smush that together and it’ s a deathstar. It is not a single unit.
You look at what they have contributed to the community and i must say if it so easy and apparently your not lazy then get a soap box and fix this rule set. Instead of saying everyone else is lazy.
You can call us here a lot of thing, not all of them good, hahaha, but lazy is absolutely not one of them. We seriously work our asses off (we all average 60 hours a week between the shop and other jobs) so I don’t really appreciate that.
What it is is a difference in philosophies. We don’t think comp works, and I have been to and ran more tournaments than 99% of the gamers out there, so I feel really confident in expressing that opinion. You are free to disagree of course, but in my experience when you open the Pandora’s box called comp, it gets really difficult to find where to draw the line and say enough is enough.
I would rather spend my time finding ways to beat these types of lists within the scope of the rules than outright ban them. As I have stated, I think in time the ways to defeat these types of lists will become evident, we’re just worried that if we take them to the first events, we’ll really upset folks who aren’t ready for it and they may lose their enjoyment of going to tournaments which only hurts the community.
In that case, I highly suggest you stop complaining about those types of lists.
All I am saying is this: if you think those types of lists fundamentally hurt the game, which you seem to imply in your videos, then you have options which WILL work, are easy to implement, and don’t change the core rules one iota.
Otherwise, you should do as you suggest; stop trying to figure out how to fix the rules, and start trying to figure out how to beat 8 flyers and rerollable 2++’s.
No reason to get your feather’s ruffled. It always makes me laugh how quickly people get mad and defensive online. And, as you can see from our bar reps, we do show how to beat these units. I complain about the bad rules to allow this kind of BS because they are bad. Objectively bad. No good designer should allow tbis type of rule into a game, it flat out isn’t fun.
And the funny thing is you seem to be getting mad for us altering, in a very minor way, some of the rules and yet you suggest comp, which is the same thing. Comp is altering the rules.
We’re both saying the same thing: the game, as is, is flawed. We think altering some of the rules makes it better while still allowing people to take what they want, you say leave the rules alone but restrict what people can take. Same, same but different. I believe on a philosophical level that rules should be enabling, not restrictive. People should be free to make choices. Rules should limit those choices as little as possible. This, we oppose comp. And, as I have said many times, I have NEVER seen a comp system that does what it’s meant to do. Ever.
I won’t pay my money to play in any comped events. It doesn’t work because it can always be gamed.
Sigh.. Y’all aren’t even thinking. What is there to “game,” about restricting you to 3 flyers and putting a limit on unit size to 500 pts? Seriously. Cause that’s all I’m proposing. Give me one example of how to “game,” that and I’ll shut up.
Seriously, people. Are you even considering what I’m saying? You just see the word “comp,” and fucking knee jerk nonsense out of your mouths like brainless zombies.
Call them “insanity limits”. How about that? Reecius gumming up Warlord traits is technically “comp,” as he is changing the composition of the rules. Noone gives a damn about that because it makes “sense.” These insanity limits could very well make sense just as well if you actually stop and think for two seconds.
Show me how to “game,” this and I’ll shutup.
How about Feast of Blades using “insanity limits,” to nuke double force org charts at 2k.
Will you not be attending FoB because of that? Will you be using double force org at 2k?
How about you Reecius? What do you think about double force org? Seem awfully quite..
Honestly, we haven’t even tried the double FOC yet. Been playing smaller games to get the rules down, and we’re gong to be running all of our events at 1500 at first as the game is so much slower.
However, we are running a FoB qualifying event, so we will start gearing up to 2K in prep for that. I don’t have a problem with double FOC in theory, does it seem OP, hell yeah it does, but it applies to everyone so again, it’s game breaking equally….mostly. Some armies certainly benefit from it more than others.
Here’s another: No special characters may be taken from allied armies.
This is the type of simple comp I’m talking about. Not fluffbunny totally change the scoring system BS.. Just very simple army limitations that effect everyone equally.
.. and get rid of a whole lot of stupid ridiculous armies
Tell me why this wouldn’t work.
Basically because its dumb.
I had a woodshop teacher once that had one rule, “Dont Be Stupid.”
Applies here 100%
Go write your own game.
I want to charge beasts out of webway portals. Can you change that rule while you are at it also?
I don’t suggest changing any core rules. Just putting limits on insanity.
“Dont be stupid”? Really? Put your internet d**k back in your pants and stop waving it around.
Comp is arbitrary and stupid. All dicks aside, unless you really want to compare for some reason. The idea is in the dumb category. Especially as some sort of “solution” to deathstar units as a “problem.”
Frontline awesomely is demonstrating that these units dont require comp. Comp istelf IS broken, not the armies, lists, builds, units, etc.
Dumb x3
I am curious, does fortune effect only the eldar unit? It says so specifically in the eldar codex that it effects only eldar units. You could throw a 2++ guy in there, but he couldn’t reroll it.
Once he joins the units, he becomes Eldar.
Incorrect. This is going to be a TO’s call until its FAQ’d. Joining a beast unit does not make you a beast, joining an eldar unit does not make you an eldar. It shares rules, it doesn’t change armies. I maintain fortune doesn’t work on the DE models.
I hope this becomes the ruling. It would stop many of the shenanigans with Eldar, right away.
I say you run the evil lists in tournaments, tournaments have always had rules exploited and cheese overload *cough Grey Knights cough* but being a casual gamer I hate playing against stuff that is simply too good. For tournaments, go for it.
I’d like to see somebody come up with SOME ridiculous Tyranid list, since I see great lists for most armies already (nids excluded)….
Nids are HOT this edition! I know a lot of folks don’t feel that way, but in our test games we’re loving the bugs! I think they are gong to really surprise some people.
And yeah, I feel like if we don’t bring the cheese to a tournament, we’ll just get cheesed. I just feel badly for the guys coming who aren’t prepared for it.
Chances are the crazy units will be there whether you take them or not. You might as well just bring ’em and kick ass with a smile. Not sure where I read it… could have been either here or on Whiskey40k, but one of the ideas was to just allocate wounds so that you have to remove models when possible aka no spreading wounds past one grunt at a time with LoS. That is a huge change though and would probably not speed up game play which you guys have demonstrated is a problem in mixed assaults.
Yeah, quite a few folks have suggested that same thing, and it makes sense. Honestly I liked the Pancake edition’s rule where units couldn’t have more than one wounded model in it at the end of any phase. So simple and straight forward!
We probably will bring the heat.
Haha, it would be funny if after all this fretting we get our asses kicked! haha
Take the most brutal list to the tournament you can. It’ll suck for a lot of people there and TO’s will see and think “hey this is shit we have to do something about this”. Make your point really obvious.
Yeah, we actually joked about sending a kid with one of these lists just to see how well they did, not knowing the game barely at all.
For the orks have you thought of buying the 50pt wall and sticking 3 squads of lootas of 10 behind ? (10 so they can go to ground). Any shooting against them they drop to the ground for 2+ cover. Doesnt hurt them too much.
That is a really good idea, actually. Plus, you can grab a quad gun to help out with Flyers.
In my 1500 list I actually don;t have any ranged shooting to speak of, nothing over 18″, anyway.
I will try that Loota combo out, though, sounds good.
Its too early to comp anything. Comp as solution to deathstar units is LOLfest. In just these short 21 days you have discovered this unit, killed it many times, and come up with strategy/tactics/tools to defeat it. This is the new game. Player comp in any game system has always been nothing but Lame. Lazyness to not comp? LOLfest x infinity. Is entirely possible that GW forgot a word and we are doing it all wrong, OR that they wanted it this way. Go make your own game and play it if you need to rewrite this one so badly.
Keep up the hard work Team ZERO Comp. This is the cutting edge of 6e 40k right here. Please dont ruin it!
We agree. Comp is a last resort, because it straight up doesn’t work. I have NEVER seen a comp system that does what it was intended to do. All it does is shift power, and the players that make good lists still do, they are just different.
Like you said, the unit is not unbeatable, we keep killing it, it just isn’t fun to do! hahaha!
I think in time people will learn how to get around it, we are finding strategies for it, it just takes time and can be frustrating in the process.
Thanks for the support, glad you are liking it!
It’s funny, because the same thing can be said for changing rules. People just build lists that suit those new rules instead.
I agree, its basically the same thing: trying to fix a flawed system. I just take offense that you say no comp system will ever work. Esp when you give ZERO examples to counter my suggestion. Just baseless “It won’t work”. Keep in mind this would be nothing like “comp,” you’ve experienced in prior tourneys.
I’m not getting defensive at all. Discussion is inherently good. Just keep that in mind.
Is it too early to say anything definitvely needs changing? (Rules, missions, limits, etc)? Probably, yes. Is it a good idea to have some ideas in place in the case that changes are needed? Yeah, probably.
As it stands, it looks like a bunch of flyers will be arriving soon for every army. So we prolly don’t need a limit on flyers as everyone will be able counter with their own.
As far as deathstars go.. I like FoB’s qualifier fix, where area control is scored based on points worth of scoring, not units. This forces you to take big troop units, leaving less and less room for deathstars ajd other cheese, and more opportunity to take a balanced list. Elegant fix for sure.
It seemed like you were getting defensive, it’s hard to catch inflection and such online as you miss out on tone of voice, body language and such. Plus, I got a little offended when you said we were being lazy. That is one of the few things that really pisses me off, I pride myself on my work ethic.
As for comp, I understand what you are saying. But, this is an ooooooooooolllllddd argument that we have discussed over, and over, and over again. I just didn’t feel the need to go into it as I assumed people were familiar with it.
Essentially any system can be gamed. Any system where armies are different intentionally and has as many options as 40K does will result in some combos that are more powerful than others. It’s inevitable and gamers who like looking for the best combos will find them and use them.
If it comes to that we’ll consider it but I will say without any hesitation that our entire team HATES comp on a fundamental level (that’s why we’re called Team Zero Comp after all) as we feel that people should be able to take what they want so long as it’s legal. We are definitely and openly biased on the topic. We feel it’s not out place to tell people what they can and can’t bring.
Will we go to a comped event? Yeah, and we will play within the limits of that system, we just don’t think it’s as fun.
Wait – how is this list legal? He needs 3 troop choices, 1 for allies and 2 base. I see one, two if harlies are a troop.
Nvm, jet bikes.
1 Kabalite warrior in venom 2 units of jetbikes
Okay, so as to your questions – the tournament thing; I would stop playing 40k before bringing a list like this to a tournament. I’m sure Frankie is a skilled player, but that list takes no skill to win with. Neither of you had fun in that game, imagine doing it 8 times in a row against people who don’t expect it. Congrats, you won a tournament, and now the better half of the competitive players in the country hate you. What’s more important? Also, to get around the death stars, try deep striking heavy shooting squads. For my part, I’m taking 20 warriors and a veiltek in my NOVA open list to get around the sides of death stars and ignore the tank in the front.
We felt somewhat the same way, not as strongly as you, but just kind of a general unease about taking something so crazy.My Ork list, honestly, I think is better. Nob Bikers are so stupid good and take so little skill to play I almost feel like it isn’t challenging enough to be engaging.
Deep strikers do work, particularly templates. We tried a game with Vulkan flame units in a pod, that did work on the Harlies AND the Nob Bikers. It was pretty impressive. Not enough to destroy them, but definitely gave them a bloody noes.
Now, to incorporate that into a regular list! haha
This lack of skill nonsense is nonsense. Its just that plain black and white. Nonsense. I doubt Frankie (who is an awesome player, I have personally faced on the tabletop) would agree in the least.
There is really NO skill involved in where to deploy and move that unit so that it doesnt get shot around or out maneuvered? Even harder in a BAOGT or NOVA mission format? Forcing your opponent to deal with it rather than snipe the tiny troop units etc? Really? Wow. Lets see that batrep with random kid that doesnt even know how to play. I bet good money it doesnt work out to a no skill situation.
On the Topic of Re-rolls,
Maybe just change Fortune (or that Necron Cryptec re-roll) to allow you to only re-roll the -FIRST- failed Save per Turn (or Shooting/Assault Phase) per model?
So a Fortuned Vect, or other 2+/2++ guy, can cheat fate once but not all the time.
With saves that you have to roll one-by-one its easy to claim this “one re-roll per model” before moving onto the next model after suffering a casualty.
Only trouble would be keeping track of who used their re-roll and who did not.
A small price to pay when the other option is a deathstar of with near invincible units.
Just a thought.
Yeah, not a bad compromise. I feel like this was such a massive oversight that could have so easily been fixed. Why in the blazes they included this in the game, I have no idea. It straight up isn’t fun.
The game is fun in general, we still love it, but some of the core mechanics are pretty lame.
I have been pondering getting back into 40K for over a year now but decided to wait when the rumors for 6th started, seeing this Wound Allocation mess is really discouraging.
The models scream “Buy me!”, but some of the rules say “Haha, i am going to ruin your fun!”.
But In regards to limiting the number of re-rolls, i guess its worth a test run, see how complicated it gets.
Most of the time you are forced to do your saves one-by-one against wounds, closest to closest, so its easy enough to put down a marker or such next to the foremost model indicating that he used his “re-roll”, on the next failed save he is removed anyway along with his counter and the next model in line has to take saves and, gets the Fortune re-roll.
It might just get complicated if you have lots of “Look out Sir!”s and the model that take the bullet fail their save, then pass on re-roll, potentially leaving some random guy in the rear with a used up re-roll.
Maybe a tiny skirmish could shed some light on it.
We don’t at all want to discourage people from playing 6th, but at the same time, we aren’t going to lie about what it’s like now.
Yeah, give those rules a run through and let us know what you find. Might be a good way to play.
Can’t atm, i stopped at like 3rd? 4th? Don’t have guys to play and test it with.
Ah, bummer.
I believe the rules for “focus fire” are the key to undermining the Dark Harliestar(DH). You’ve got to be close enough to see which is the part that makes it tough. When you take saves you always use the best save available (pg 19 BRB). So a unit firing at the DH could declare that they are going to “focus fire 3+ cover saves” since the uber characters are using a 2+ rerollable (the key here being a 2+) wounds can only be taken on models using a 3+ cover save or worse. Granted the unit is still super survivable with 3+/4+ rerollable cover saves but not near as nasty as all of the shots going into a 2+ rerollable until the character dies.
That is when/where the finesse of keeping up a 2+ cover save matters most.
The entire unit has stealth and shrouding which means they all have the same cover save unless some of them are in cover and others aren’t.
I was looking through the Phoenix lords in the dex and I dont understand why they took Karandras. Am I missing something? I see Asurman with a 4++ and -1 enemy attack, Fuegen with MC attacks at Initiative. All have 2+ saves and fearless. Any way a great report as usual and I look forward to some more soon.
Hey Alarum, a lot of the Phoenix Lords are great choices, but Karandras has 7 strength 8 AP2 attacks on the charge, so he allows them to take on things like Paladins and beat them down. He adds serious punch to the unit. Fuegan would be a good one too, though.
Psst. Don;t look now, but your miniatures are not painted. Shame on you.
haha, got us!
This was awesome guys. I just faced this and hot tabled with my irks so I’m down for ways to counter death stars. I think you should do counter death star vidz cuz they are too crazy