Show Notes
4-1-2014
Intro
- Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube! If you would like to be a guest on the show, email Reece at Contact@FrontlineGaming.org
News
- Games Workshop releases some really cool new stuff! Check out their site to check it out. We of course, are taking pre-orders on it!
- Adepticon is almost here!
- Forge World releases some beautiful new Salamanders models, the Pyroclasts.
- Forge World Open Day pics! AWESOME!
- Titan Forge releases a new image of their Dwarf range.
- The Army Painter is having a promotion on their FB page, check it out.
Rumors: The Rumor Section is gathered from the web and is not in any way information we receive from any manufacturer nor is it necessarily accurate. This section of the podcast is intended for entertainment purposes only.
- Rumors of a new Chimera hull vehicle with an ignores cover barrage weapon? Sounds pretty cool if true.
- “Take Aim”: Gives the ordered unit Precision Shot
“Smite At Will”: Gives the ordered unit Split Fire
“First Rank Second Rank”: Ordered unit gains an additional attack with lasguns and hot-shot lasguns
“Forwards for the Emperor” After shooting, ordered unit must run even if they can’t normally
“Move, Move, Move” Ordered unit must run, roll dice and use the highest.
“Suppressive Fire” Ordered unit’s weapons have the pinning rule
- Rumors of a Warlord Titan coming! Sweet!
- Rumors that FW is mkaing a new Close Quarters Riptide suit that will be mobile with close in weaponry.
Rant Session
- Rules changes discussion continued from last episode.
- Methodology.
Tactics Corner
- Discuss Taurox and Scions
Rules Lawyer
List Review
HQ (1) Hive Tyrant (Codename: Harbinger of the Swarm)…230pts 2 Twinlinked Devourers, Wings
(1) Hive Tyrant…2 Twinlinked Devourers, Wings
Elites
(1) Zoanthropes
(1) Zoanthropes…
(2) Venomthropes…
Troops
(1) Tervigon…
(30) Termagants…
(20) Termagants…
(15) Termagants..
Fast Attack
(1) Hive Crone
(1) Hive Crone…
Heavy Support
(1) Mawloc…
(1)Mawloc…
(2)Biovores..
Bastion…
Total….1,850
I DEMAND MORE CONVERSATION ON ALCOHOL.. WTF? I EXPECT THIS
Beer!
Rather than be picky choosy on units, it seems far less risky and far less to keep track of to make minor tweaks to the rules that are easily understood and are even-handed.
For example, if you wanted to help out CSM, you get rid of Champion of Chaos as the rule is silly, not tactical, and leads to ridiculous situations. No big deal. For Tyranids, you change the synapse penalty to be less harsh somehow. Maybe you want to say that no jetbike can go further than 36″ in a turn, battle brothers may not join units from other detachments etc…
But when you start changing unit entries, where do you stop? You’d have to playtest and rebalance the whole game against itself.
Yeah, those small, surgical changes are all that I think are needed to make 6th ed the best edition of the game, yet.
The issue with Chaos morale is a fundamental rules issue, not something that only they suffer from.
Being run down or falling off the board should be last in a chain of possible ways to handle broken units. Failed 25% morale check should cause pinning first, pinned units that fail should run off the board. Failed tests in CC should drop WS and/or I first, subsequent failure or losing by large amounts should cause sweeping advance.
That way you aren’t just fixing CSM but a whole host of elite, costly units (aspect warriors, SoB, storm troopers, immortals, etc) that die like dogs to a poor morale system.
Handing out the rule that breaks the morale system even more is not gonna solve the issues, it just adds another codex that is exempt from the stupid.
Getting run down in assault is a fundamental and good part of the game. ATSKNF keeping SM from getting run down is as often a bad thing as a good as it lets you stay in combat with them through their turn so you can’t be shot. It’s not like Space Marines are going to turn the fight around in the next turn and start winning.
ATSKNF really shines when something like a bike squad fails morale, but suddenly gets to automatically rally, move and charge normally.
Yeah, honestly, most of the time when my CSM squads get run down in combat, I’m thankful… to use Reece’s example, why would I want my unit to keep the Swarmlord protected in my turn from shooting? There’s no question that unit is going to die anyhow, I’d rather just get them out of the way in a timely manner so that I can shoot the Swarmlord with my Obliterators. If my Chaos Marines are in combat, it’s not a good thing, the best thing they can do is die quickly so that I can get back to shooting them… There’s nothing more irritating with ATSKNF than a single marine deciding he’s going to avenge his fallen brethren on your turn, instead of getting out of the way of the guns.
Fair point regarding the specific example of the swarmlord, but I think there’s a flip side to that tactical coin as well. It certainly isn’t a bad thing that the swarmlord can’t go anywhere for a turn or 3 until he chews through that unit.
Is there legitimately a situation where someone is going to sink points into a unit they know is going to run away and then say, “Ya I wanted them to run away like that”. I mean why not just take more shooting units in the first place?
The real question is does GW INTEND for chaos marines to actually be that bad or is this an oversight we can fix simply? and I think the answers are no and yes respectively.
There are times when you want to break out of combat and sacrificing a unit for that can be good. But, with really expensive units it can be just so frustrating.
Ya that’s the key, you don’t want to feed expensive units to tarpit, sorry my rhetorical question was probably poorly phrased.
The codex should encourage you to choose the 4ppm unit to tarpit, die and flee not the 13 ppm one, sorry about that heh.
Yeah, exactly. Chaos could be great with some minor tweaks that I hope we get but they just so rarely ever alter rules on units. They just leave them to suffer.
I like the way flames of war handles assault the best. You keep fighting a assault until one unit is dead or falling back
I’m not saying remove run down. I am saying make it happen more reasonably. And what you are saying is really more of the problem I have with the current system — it benefits small and or crap units and shooting armies — and why an adjustment (by the devs — I am not proposing doing this as a community) would work wonders.
Play any number of other games that work similarly and you will see what I mean. Dust, Infinity — they all have way better morale systems such that 40k looks like an archaic joke.
Yeah, I agree. It is the all or nothing nature of it, and the fact that so many units just ignore it, outright. You have, usually, a small chance of failure but failure is catastrophic.
That is a pretty cogent argument, actually. The morale system is pretty crappy in that it is all or nothing. You either get run down and killed completely or you ignore it. It is frustrating.
Sell me on the Lancer, I can’t see why you’d take one over a Paladin or Errant. It doesn’t have a stubber, so it must charge whatever it shoots at with it’s short ranged gun. Against most things in the game, 4 destroyer attacks isn’t going to kill much more than 3 destroyer attacks, plus it lacks long ranged fire support… I’ll totally buy one for my Imperial Knight army, but I don’t think it’s a better choice in an all comers list.
I absolutely think the un-snipable icons is a far better way to handle buffing CSM units (besides, is nobody else trained in holding a stick? I can see heavy/special weapons requiring special training or equipment, but a stick?). Adding a totally new option and rule which is unlikely to be used elsewhere means that just between tournaments the fundamentals of how my army operates is totally different. The difference between sniping icons or not is by comparison, far smaller of a change. Also, it’s encouraging people to use an option that they already have available.
Plus as a little side effect, with all the really cool paintjobs and miniature conversions I’ve seen for the icon bearers…they could stay on the table until the last casualty removed.
Aesthetically, its an extra positive anyway…fwiw as a miniature game, thats cool.
I like the CC invul save, the shooting attack, speed and the look of it, honestly! I think he is pretty solid.
I definitely like the look, but aside from fighting WK’s and other Knights, what use is it? The CC invulnerable is probably my favorite thing, I just can’t see it as being better than 2 battle cannon shots a turn, haha.
Fair enough. The battle cannon is quite good, so is the Melta Cannon. Eh, we’ll see. Ooh, the lance has concussive, too! Nice! I think I prefer this one.
Yeah, Concussive… which makes the I5 redundant. 😛
If it had a stubber, I’d probably like it a lot more, but since it has to shoot it’s wad at the same thing it charges, it has me concerned about it’s usefulness.
The lancer is also the only knight that stands a chance at shooting down enemy fliers. A little bit of prescience (hey inquisition!) can go a long way to making it decent AA
That is a very good point! I didn’t even consider that but it is very true.
Reece, You said it in your Podcast Why missions are ok to change, they affect everyone and do not show favoritism or bias. but Nerfing the Seercouncil, Nerfing riptides and buffmander and buffing chaos or Ig? that just shows that you are cherry picking things affecting individuals
That’s the whole point, select the units that benefit from an odd confluence of rules that seem to result in ridiculous situations, or units that have some stupidly punitive rule that makes them total crap for no real reason.
I think we all agree we want the most delicate hand with tweaks like this. I think where a lot of us part ways is the idea we can make these changes instead of awaiting a stone tablet from on high to solve our problems.
It wouldn’t have to just be some units, you could go through and give a little boost to all the units that needed it. Only minor changes, only where needed, only when the community agrees.
I think it means the game is more fun for more people, and has more variety.
I just listened to the cast, and as a Chaos Player wanted to weigh in about changing units. The missions are objective based. The only way to ensure you have scoring units in you list is to take troops. If you are going to move forward and run an event with modifications to codexes I would suggest these 2 parameters to the scope of what you are doing,
1: (as per one of your thoughts) We will only adjust 6th ed codexes.
2: We will only modify troops.
2a: The aim is to ensure each primary codex has 2 competitive options for their troops, not including options that are opened up by a separate unit or upgrade within the codex.
This is the big problem as I see it. Every new codex has 2 or three viable troops, and chaos has only one, cultists. I personally believe that there should not be bad units in 40k. I think that any unit that we consider “Bad” is to some extent over-costed. It’s not Magic, where there is draft to consider, and making “bad” serves a roll in different formats. That said, modifying every unit in every codex that fails to pull its weight would be a huge undertaking, and ballenceing all these changes would takes hundreds of hours of play testing to make fair. Who would do that play testing? who’s in charge? etc etc. But troops are dynamic playing peices in nearly every mission in the game.
A dud in the troops category is particularly problematic. First, the troops are iconic, as you pointed out. I would add that they are also the crucial foundation a players decisions about how they want to function strategically. As new players jam games they see match’s that looked like victories slip away because of failing to evaluate their own or their opponents scoring units. Having one of the two scoring units in a codex be unplayable is totally unacceptable. Especially when the dud is the only one that has a shelf ready kit available for sale.
I would suggest the following changes. Chaos marines get fearless for free. Everyone agrees that ATSKNF is pretty much a better version of fearless, and if they don’t they haven’t played enough games. Loyalist marines get a better ‘fearless’ and ‘combat squads’ (both excellent) for one point. This doesn’t move the needle much on their power-level.
Champion of chaos should be as follows: ‘Space marines (of all stripes) must accept challenges from champions of chaos. Chaos Marines that decline challenges from Space Marines are not excluded from battle.’ Way more fluffy, and pretty powerful. Less powerful, I might add, than ‘combat squads’ is when you consider how dynamic a rule it is when playing the mission. Chaos’s chosen warriors should feel scary game-wise, not foolish. Also, being forced to buy Veteran Sergeants should come with a benefit, not a drawback. You have a decision taken away from you, so you should get something in return.
Tyanids need another playable troop. Do that and you have achieved the above goal. The rest of the codexs have 2 troops that show up in competitive environments. I think that if the first modification you made was limited to fixing a specific problem, “not all codexs have enough troops to build varied lists,” rather than updating every bad unit, it might help people sign on to the change.
Noise Marines and Plague Marines are both perfectly viable troops, so CSM have three good scoring units. Fixing basic CSM’s isn’t terribly necessary, though it would be nice to see champion of chaos go bye bye.
Yeah, honestly plague marines are great, zombies are good, cultists are good, noise marines aren’t bad either, but unfortunately require that you have a slaanesh lord (seriously, what do people give these guys in a shooty army?).
I actually find that standard CSM’s are quite good as a resilient scoring unit for their cost, I just don’t ever let them get in combat if I can avoid it. Seriously, that’s all it takes. In an edition of shooty armies, it’s rare that your chaos marines get in combat, and if they do, it’s to something that you would rather shoot at than tar pit.
Yeah, the Lord tax is a bummer. It should be ANY marked HQ unlocks cult troops, IMO.
As for shooting and assaulting it is local I think. We assault a lot at FLG, I do it all the dang time. I assault constantly, especially with my Marines as with ATSKNF, I can predict much more accurately what they will do.
I play a lot more Nids around here… if my CSM’s are in combat, it’s with something I’d rather be shooting or killing with my spawn!
I used to run mine on a Steed with a lightning claw, power fist and sigil with melta bikers carrying an icon of excess. He usually gets killed by something with a bigger johnson in assault, however, so running him with a Brand of Skalathrax usually works out better.
I’ve also run him with a jump pack, combi-melta, meltabombs and the Brand and dropped him with Oblits, which worked surprisingly well.
However, you HAVE to take a Lord to unlock them. That is the annoying bit.
I agree though, that those units are viable but they are also very expensive.
Thanks for the intelligent commentary.
That may be a good idea and a good starting point: fix troops only. As you pointed out, those are critical units that form the backbone of a list. They have to function well or the rest of the list really suffers.
HOTSAUCEMAN1 WITH THE CALLOUT.. BOOOOOOOOOM
Boy is ruthless!
Well I did just place second at a tournament with no losses and 25/30 total points. So yeah, I am ruthless.
Yeah, but wasn’t there only 5 players at the tournament, buddy?
Either way though, congratz on the good showing!
No, there was like 14. This is a different one 😛
Ah OK, my bad. Well done, dude! That is a really good performance.
From what I’m seeing, everyone who is quitting or losing interest in 40k is frustrated with the fact that in order to compete in this game, you have to have one of the top tier builds that can compete with a Seer Council to have a prayer, and the perceptions is there aren’t very many builds that can do it. The fact is, there are quite a number of builds that can at least compete with Seer Councils, but most of them are ridiculous death stars in their own right.
It doesn’t matter to me if you make CSM’s marginally better. I still won’t take them because they’re of no use against the top builds.
At a tournament last month I brought a Be’lakor circus and rolled everybody. The IG player I faced spoke of quitting the game afterward because he had zero chance of beating me. Yet if I hadn’t brought the circus, I might have lost to the other dude who brought a circus because he was pretty good.
Making the game more fun to play by getting rid of the cheeseball combos seems to be fix numero uno.
Yeah. I am seeing this everywhere right now. People are leaving the game because of gross imbalances that make the game less enjoyable to play.
Yep this is what i’m seeing also.
The overlapping of many rules to create killer combos is annoying people and greatly limits the amount of competitive armies at tournaments.
Few competitive army builds = boring, frustrating tournaments.
This is what needs to be fixed.
In regards to CSM doing away with marked lord tax and the auto challenge would go along way.
Yeah, we agree.
The game is still really healthy, but it is annoying folks. All we would have to do as a community is come together and talk about what we wanted, and then agree. It wouldn’t be that difficult, actually.
I was thinking about how to tone down deathstars. What about the following change: “only one independent character may join a given unit.”
It’s not even that strange a rule, don’t put your whole chain of command in one place during a battle.
No it wouldn’t actually.
I’m really excited that you guys and others are finally taking control of this hobby that we have all invested so much time, money and effort into.
It is painfully clear GW will not be helping us evolve their game into a more user- friendly, balanced and therefore fun hobby that we all can enjoy. At least not any time soon.
Whatever you do there will be very vocal haters. Ignore them and forge on regardless.
Good luck.
A close qaurters Riptide? Sounds cool. Maybe it would take advantage of the fact it can fire three weapons a turn.
I can guess it may though have things that make it Agile, Maybe Nova reacter to make it a jump MC? Or extra run distance.
Yeah, something like that. I think it will probably have some really high rate of fire weapons, or melta style weapons or something.
Well Reece it’s a bummer that you’re not going to be playing at Adepticon. Especially since you have a meta-busting army that isn’t going to be revealed till the BSB. Good luck to Team Zero Comp at the the tourney and i’ll be looking forward to the next podcast!
Thanks, Noah!
I think I know what the Meta busting Army is..
Reece, if you do not want this info released to the public…..send me 10,000$ by the end of the night.
You are a ruthless man, Hotsauce! lol
See the key to beating Reece’s army is simple and only requires 3 things
Step one: seize the initiative
Step two: destroy a key unit in your army and his troops will mull about without a purpose
Step three: pass all your armor saves
With these 3 simple steps victory against Reece is all but assured
( results may vary) JK lol
Haha, too true! That was a really good game though, came down to the last roll of the dice!
GTA got on the team through me the same way! I went for an all our Alpha Strike and he seized on me with 9 War Walkers, doh!
Reece, Any news on the date for the Bay Area Open GT?
Not yet. Running an event in the Bay Area is incredibly expensive. Some venues are asking as much as $30K a day! Others with more reasonable rates are booked solid for over a year. We’ve got the entire team working on it but we are struggling to find a combination of the right square footage, price, date and location. I know we will resolve it, but it is turning out to be a lot more difficult than anticipated.
I cannot even begin to image trying to book a venue in the Bay Area for a wargaming event, especially one where you expect a lot of the locals to show but not book rooms. Not envying your task at all.
Yeah, it is pretty rough, honestly. We are definitely struggling a bit on the venue front. We will get it done eventually, but it is not easy to do.
So the big difference between mission changes and specific rules changes is player knowledge. Unless all events make the same tweak (or there is only one tweak made), chances are good people will play rules wrong. Take the CSM thing. IF you give them ATSKNF, and the opposing player is used to playing them without it, and makes game choices based on this fact, then gets stuck in with a unit they expected to run down……It is much easier to make big changes like missions because they impact everyone and so it is more likely that everyone pays attention to it.
Now if it were a whole game errata that everyone accepted it would be ideal.
You guys should try out warmahordes. I just converted all my old rackham confrontation minis (metals not pp plastics) over to use as a hordes force. It’s been great, I haven’t even read the entire rulebook & yet my games seem to be quick & without rules issues. Fluff’s not great, but I don’t have much time to read these days anyway.