It’s that time again! Cast your vote and help define your 2016 ITC season.
Big thanks to everyone that helps make this happen: those who play and vote, those who help me to fine tune the questions and pour through the hundreds of rules questions we get.
Click here to cast your vote.
Please note, you MUST submit a valid email address for your vote to be counted.
This poll will run through Thursday, February 25th. Results will be posted Friday, February 26th.
Thank you for participating!
Reecius…. the toe-in-cover question…… Kappa Presented as an actual possible FAQ. You sneaky goon, you.
With that said, I voted yes to it.
It was one of the most commonly requested rules issues brought up to us by a large margin.
I was just breaking balls. =D
Haha, all good!
By yes, I mean I voted for changing it to 25% obscured. I don’t like wraithknights being able to toe-in-cover if my Big Mek Stompa can’t.
We’ll see how it goes, but just judging from all the feedback we get on that one, I don’t think you’re alone.
Alternatively, to make it fair for Stompas, dreadnoughts, and such, the ruling could be that they also benefit from area cover.
What about allowing Come the Apoc allies? So the poor nids can have friends!
I think you will be getting some Broodkin here in the very near future!
That only fixes a minor issue. How is CTA worse then facing 30+ warp spiders across the table? Or DE allied with Eldar? If someone can make a CTA list and live through the penalties, why not. It makes no sense to ban it, it has nothing to do with power levels which is what tournaments are.
CTA allies was voted in, then immediately voted back out with the next poll. People tried it, and it was awful, haha. As much as I liked my opponent in the 2015 LVO, facing an army of nothing but Flyrants and Imperial Knights was less than enjoyable. Plus people seem to always “forget” that rule about not deploying near each other, or the animosity tests.
>People tried it, and it was awful
How? I mean, Flyrants are good and all, but it’s not like Tyranids are taking a lot of top spots these days- and neither are Knights.
People not following the rules is a whole other issue- it’s hardly specific to CtA allies.
As with many things voted on, it’s not necessarily banned because it’s OP, but voted out because it’s not fun to play against.
As much as I like the idea of using CTA allies for flavorful armies, such as Genestealer Cults, it seems that people are more interested in making unfun armies with it.
See, I don’t understand why it’s not fun to play against, either. Is Daemons + Tau somehow more bizarre and unfathomable than Superfriends? Are Necrons + Eldar more improbable than every GK army in the galaxy being accompanied by Sevrin Loth? I just don’t get the complaint at all.
How is it fair for Imperial armies to have 20+ books to build an army from, while Tyranids for example get one? Becuase fluff?
Is a KDK/Tau or Necron/Tau army really any “fluffier” than some comes the apoc alliances?
Doesn’t matter if you don’t get it, it’s been voted on several times and the majority of people don’t like it, it’s as simple as that. The armies that people seem to go for when using CTA are the most abusive parts of two armies, as opposed to anything interesting or fun to play against. It doesn’t matter about it being good, it’s about what creates an enjoyable game for the majority of players.
The most abusive parts of 2 books isn’t as bad (when one of them is nids lol) as the worst pure eldar or DE/Eldar abuse list.
Is Nids + anything really less enjoyable then fighting 30+ warp spiders, or necron decurion or space marine gladius or war convocation or the new werewovles? Mmmmmhmmm. 🙂
>Doesn’t matter if you don’t get it, it’s been voted on several times and the majority of people don’t like it, it’s as simple as that
I’m just trying to understand why people seem to dislike it so. “Shut up and eat what you’re given you little shit” is not exactly conducive to doing that.
But you’re not actually listening to the reasons people give or have given in the past because you disagree with them. Ultimately it doesn’t matter why, enough people have enough reasons to dislike it that it has been repeatedly voted down.
I am listening, you just aren’t being particularly clear with the reasons. You say “because it’s not enjoyable” and I ask WHY it’s not enjoyable and your response to that was “it doesn’t matter if you understand.”
>I am listening, you just aren’t being particularly clear with the reasons. You say “because it’s not enjoyable” and I ask WHY it’s not enjoyable and your response to that was “it doesn’t matter if you understand.”
I think might I know Adam’s position on this, because it’s one I hold as well. If I play a brutal Eldar list, (mass spiders, mass riders, w/e) no one would call the list clever in design. However, I can’t fault the player for technically playing a fluffy list, especially since it is all from a single codex. If I play against a super friends list, centstar, or something of the sort, it feels more clever in design (even if it was netlisted). While the list might not feel “fluffy” or down right “anti-fluffy” like Tau/Demons, I can at least take solace in it’s clever nature.
CTA has a tendency to be neither. Lists in the vein of “5 flying hive tyrants, plus tax, allied with a wraithknight, plus tax, allied with an imperial knight” feel neither fluffy, or clever.
Additionally, when players are in a position where they feel as if player skill or agency has largely been removed from the equation (whether this feeling is valid or not) due to a list match up, people look for the culprit as to what removed the fun that directly results from player agency and skill being a factor. As 40k players, we sometimes have to deal with that being just the current strength of a codex. In those instances, we accept that as something that is part of the game, because the alternative is banning codecies. However, if the reason for the fun being removed is codex cherry picking, made possible by CTA, people are commonly much more ok with simply saying “No, CTA”.
Now believe me, as a Nid player, I feel the call of CTA, and it sucks to not have any choices of allies, but the end result of allowing CTA is just too atrocious for me to support.
Adam, I hope this is an accurate assessment of your stance and ,AP, I hope this helps to understand that stance.
I feel like I should let this go but nah. 🙂
I guess I don’t see why ITC would rule on something that is fluff based, isn’t ITC more about ruling on what is broken/bad wording or is OP?
Plus you can use fluff to explain anything: For example, why would IG ally with Nids? Maybe the IG is a genestealer cult. Why would Eldar ally with nids? Maybe the eldar are on the same planet and the nids and are like “let the bugs rush up and die” and we will sit back out of the way and shoot the real threat first… oh and then the bugs after the game. Why would nids ally with chaos? Maybe the chaos gods have tapped into the hive mind and the nids think the chaos marines (yes I jokingly said chaos marines not cultists) are actually nids? Maybe the nids are part of a hive that was captured and are now bio-engineered weapons of another race. The 40K universe is pretty big so lots of crazy stuff happens. If nids are not allowed ANY allies in competitive play then by logic it stands they should be the strongest codex to make up for it. Since they are not, maybe ITC should adjust their points to make them the strongest codex overall to account for the fact that they have no friends but since that is an even bigger can of worms, just let them have friends. 🙂
Just being devils advocate and a jerk because its fun. 🙂
Voted!
So no review of the Hunter Contingent ruling, even though we’ve had the book for a few months now, been able to thoroughly playtest it, have concrete statistics from LVO about the effectiveness (or lack thereof), and it’s clear that (from Reecius’s article): “Without buff sharing, such as in the ITC, the Hunter Contingent is not better than a Tau CAD.”
https://frontlinegaming.org/2015/12/17/tau-review-part-3-formations-of-the-tau-empire/
And LVO statistics:
http://variancehammer.com/2016/02/19/number-crunching-the-lvo/
But with it… it is obscenely broken.
Plenty of Tau stuff on the vote as it is. …and Tau had some favorable rulings with the last one (though many Tau players overlook that). Would be good to see how the current stuff shakes out to see where balance falls, especially since many of the rules questions currently up for vote affect Tau in one way or another
To be fair it’s likely not obscenely broken if you keep the buff sharing just to one target a turn and only keep buff sharing to units within the detachment.
Although I do laugh at the people claiming this detachment is the bane of Death Stars.
It’s hardly broken. The Hunter Contingent as written was designed to reward diverse armies with numerous small units (something against the meta at the time, which is what GW uses Tau for), which in turn leaves them vulnerable to pretty much everything (killing 4 Pathfinders is almost stupidly easy, and rendering them combat-ineffective is about as easy as looking at them), as normal infantry suffer from poor stats, the army on the whole suffer from middling leadership (and comparatively few ways around it, short of bringing an Ethereal, which creates a risky victory point), and any unit that is combat effective becomes extremely expensive extremely quickly.
The Hunter Contingent is a balancing act: durability or accuracy. More small units means a greater chance of shots getting through, and more Coordinated Firepowers being used, but becomes more vulnerable to basically everything (1st and 2nd turn charges are becoming increasingly common, between formations and bikespam). Go with more survivable units, and you *might* get one Coordinated Firepower off before the friendly forces get overwhelmed by superior numbers, with the slim hope that they’ll make it through melee. Go with Drop heavy forces (Crisis Suits, things like that), and it’ll be hard to get an effective Coordinated Firepower off in the early game, while late game needs more of a focus on killing multiple units.
Plus, taking the Hunter Contingent means no fortifications without a few hundred points tax. GW could have made a mint if they allowed that.
I think the hunter cadre is beastly. you just have to play it like tau did in 5th ed. lots of units screening each other. also ya pathfinders kinda suck, but a drone formation doesn’t. finally you bring a fortification as a detachment from the stronghold assault, no cad needed, though adding a cad with an etheral and a couple of throw away units of kroot isn’t that expensive and you get your fortification.
There are no Detachments in Stronghold Assault. Only individual Fortification Datasheets that can be taken in the Fortification slot of another Detachment.
As someone who has played against buff hunter contingent I can say that it is too much for a lot of armies and allowing another thing like this to the game doesn’t help.
It’s ok when it’s just the fire warriors but add in a stormsurge or riptides and you have guns that are way too good. They stopped the buffmander from joining these units for a reason.
I have too. It’s an army that is overly dependent on a small number of models to maintain effectiveness. You throw something at them that can get inside their lines (Skyhammer Formation immediately comes to mind), and assault, and suddenly unit cohesion immediately breaks. There’s even ways of preventing the torrent of interceptor that might get opened up in response (Allied Blood Angels, with an Angel’s Wing; quite easy to do). With the veritable explosion of White Scars Bikers that are making the runs, Coordinated Firepower is nowhere near the boon people are thinking it to be, because 90% of the time a Tau player simply can’t afford to tie up too much firepower against any one unit.
John it still depends how people play it. Some don’t play it vs one unit and allow outside detachment buffs like dark strider. to join. When many units start split firing it becomes a bit obscene however when limited it’s much easier to handle and is less broken. I’d vote to allow it but with the restrictions of only the cordinated firepower target is buff shared and no outside buff sharing from outside the detachment.
I’d agree to that; any outside character isn’t a part of the detachment anyway, so wouldn’t be able to participate. Realistically, given both the plethora of options available within the detachment, realistically the only outside element that could potentially participate when shooting is Darkstrider, which they’ve already limited anyway.
Yep seems to me like that was GW’s intent TBH (buff sharing and whatnot) if it was even considered. But it’s just too over the top IMO. I mean, it would make Tau a contender at the top tables for sure, if they weren’t already. But I feel like it would just stomp some of the lower-tier codecies. Not that Eldar, SM, Necrons etc don’t already do that, but I’m ok with not having the hunter contingent.
All I want for Christmas is my Ghostkeels to work once per model 🙂
Some of the weaker armies are going to get get stomped regardless. Pushing Tau players towards Pacific Rim as the only ITC-legal build by nerfing everything else is not going to help that 🙁
If anything, it would accelerate it. Hunter Contingent makes it expensive to run anything close to multiple Stormsurges, or makes the player have to build explicitly for running large numbers of Riptides and/or Ghostkeels (and usually at the price of some major compromises elsewhere). Hunter Contingent will basically allow strong combinations outside of that, which will help break up the monochromatic nature of competitive ITC Tau armies.
What favorable rulings?
Nerfed Hunter Contingent
Nerfed Markerlights against Void Shields
Nerfed Piranha Wing
Nerfing Ghostkeel ability
etc…
The only positive ruling was allowing more than 1 stormsurge
Really would’ve liked to have seen votes on allowing Come the Apocalypse allies and Firestream Wing exiting the turn it leaves. Both of these are pretty easy RAW issues that ITC has decided to rule against because… reasons?
Because a lot of people have voiced that they don’t think CTA allies is fun or fluffy. I think that was put up to a vote some time (long time) ago and it got shot down. I mean, I know it’s a tournament, but do you really want to see Grey Knights allied with the ruinous powers?
You can use fluff to explain any type of allies… like DE and Eldar as battle brothers-yah. Is GK and Chaos across the table less fun then facing an eldar list with 30+ warp spiders? Lol.
There is no reason (powerwise) to stop CTA allies.
My nids continue to weep.
Eldar and Dark Eldar may have very different ways of life, but both are concerned on the survival of their species above all else, them being Battle Brothers makes quite a bit of sense. Dark Eldar are not the Chaos equivalent of the Eldar race.
Lol. I think it’s funny ITC voting is to balance/change the rules and people vote on a fluff perspective.
ITC voted on CTA. Several times in fact.
And they’re voting on several things this time that have been voted on in the past as well. What about it?
No they haven’t toe in cover and tau rules are all new. Point limit was raised like 5 years ago and was about raising points not lowering them. None of these questions are repeats from ITC votes from a year ago.
Both the number of detachments question and the tracking listed faction question have been asked in the past, in slightly different forms.
No they haven’t.
The number of detachments have all been raised by 1 each time it came up.
So it was would you like to keep 2 detachments or go three.
I have never seen the trackin question asked before about total points, ever.
I have no objection to revisiting a vote. In fact I think we should revisit many votes to validate that the community having had some more table time to see the effects is still on board. It was just important to acknowledge what did get a vote.
Could you please add a vote on limiting the number of duplicate formations? For example, only 1 of a specific formation, so no spamming aspect hosts.
Actually I would be a fan of this. Stops a lot of spam and I don’t see it limiting any reasonable list
By default, you can only duplicate 1 formation only. Thus, if it isn’t in the polls, then the default rule remains current.
i think what he means is no duplicate formations. Limiting things like 9 squads of warp spiders presumably. Sadly, there are just so many ways to take them that t wouldn’t matter (pale courts, CAD, aspect host formation). I could take 9 squads with zero duplicate detachments
I thought the last vote just opened it to duplicates.
I think we did. Also brings up an interesting question should there be a minimum amount of time that needs to pass before we revoke a rule? Sometimes things take time to shake out.
We did. However if we drop points it would definitely be worth a revisit.
In fact, on major army comp changes like that, it might be worth a revisit regardless. Once people have had sufficient table time their views might have changed.
Even if you’re limited to a single Aspect Host, you can still bring as many as 60 Warp Spiders to the table thanks to the Pale Courts Warhost.
Couldn’t you get another 30 on top of that from having a CAD on the side as well? Points permitting, of course.
Well, you would run out of points before you could field 100 Warp Spiders, but yes, you would have the slots to potentially field ten units of them.
Not familliar with pale courts yet. Would they still all be ws5? Would you have to at least take some other units for variety?
Sorry, meant to say bs5
They wouldn’t be BS5, and the only other unit you’d have to take is a farseer. So its something you’re already going to be taking 😉
And you could slip in 1-3 Vaul’s Wrath Batteries (i.e. D-Cannons) or an Autarch (for reserve shenanigans) as well. Pale Courts are really strong, even without BS5.
Can regular non Chaos knights take legacies of glory?
I think only forgeworld knights that can be taken as lords of war for marines can get them, if at all
Exactly, non-chaos knights typically cannot because they are not part of the Space Marine army, which is where the Legacies of Glory come from.
Really hoping the points for BAO is determined soon, need to figure out what to focus painting and what formations I can try to fit in. I’m def interested to see if people approve of 1500/1650.
Also it seems to me that not all chaos knights are aligned with a god (it is a purchased upgrade) and thus do not have the Daemon rule, would the legacies of ruin apply to all chaos knights or just the ones that align themselves with a god?
Actually you can’t take a legacy if you are aligned to a God because it makes you a daemon of that god. Daemons can’t take legacies.
RAW, you actually can- that’s what the question is about. Vehicles with the Daemonic Possession upgrade are prohibited from taking a Legacy, but Knights do not have Daemonic Possession (even when upgraded to be a Daemon of ______.)
But they DO gain the Daemon special rule, which is forbidden for models to have if they want to take Legacies of Ruin.
Nope. Read again.
Demonic possession is the key wording on legacies of ruin, of which being a demon does not automatically give you.
Daemonic Possession, Daemonic Resiliance or being a Daemon Engine. Because Daemon Engine isn’t defined, it gives a list of Daemon Engines that includes, but is not limited to, the following: Defilers, Maulerfiends, Forgefiends, Heldrakes, Lords of Skulls, Blood Slaughterers, Brass Scorpions, etc.
The only rule all those models have in common is the Daemon rule. The Chaos Knight doesn’t have the Daemon rule until it buys one of the upgrades that makes it a Daemon of X, which then disallows it from buying Legacies.
Hey, arent we going to nerf the tau some more? This is boring.
I just want to clarify, is the Gargantuan Creature cover save question being proposed as a rule change or a FAQ? If it is a rule change to appease the masses then I can’t really argue it, but I definitely would argue the point if it is being put forward as a FAQ.
A rules change.
It’s a rule change – it’s not even a little bit ambiguous in the rules.
I was hoping for a bit more meat to this poll. It seems a little Anemic. The points level itself is only a part of the failure to finish games. Free units, complicated psychic phases, and formations that encourage slow play to win games are part of the problem as well.
Also, the Hellstorm Wraithknight adds a whole new level of absurdity of points costs, and it would have been good to see the community weigh in on it. Last poll we voted on Buzzgob’s Stompa which even with the 530 point discount is still significantly less points efficient when compared to the Skathach Wraithknight. We still have never seen any sort of official feedback on a number of Craftworld problem units and abilities. The only thing we ever voted on were Scatbikes, and that was razor thin:
https://frontlinegaming.org/2015/05/08/itc-2015-mid-season-update-poll-results-are-in/
1/2 of 1% decided that vote. We never voted on 1 Jump for Warp Spiders. We never voted on the Wraithknight’s defacto fleet. We never voted on extending the Aspect host benefits to vehicles.
At the very least we should vote on if the Skathach Wraithknight can take Feel No Pain saves against the Webway shunt wounds.
The votes on tau have been to tone it down a bit. Meanwhile, the Crafworld Codex never got that level of scrutiny, and neither have the Corsairs. If we can vote to reduce the cost of a Stompa by 530 points, we could probably vote to increase the cost of a Wraithknight by 100.
i hope my gaming club goes to a new rules system for our local tournaments if the ITC rules start including points costs changes arbitrarily set by randoms on the internet.
Its too late. Buzzgob’s stompa got a points decrease. It made Orks better, and reportedly LVO better. I know it has had a positive impact in my local meta.
I would suggest you play against it before you freak out too much. Same for the Skathach Wraithknight. Play a few games against it with a few armies, and see how much you enjoy it. It puts out more ignore cover shooting than anything ever in the history of 40K, by basically a factor of 2. See how much you think that should cost less than an Imperial Knight.
I still think Buzzgob’s Stompa was a result of a misinterpretation and bad wording. Back when FW used to actually answer questions they said it was +whatever points over the cost of the stompa, not on top of Buzzgob’s cost, this is because when he was written he would actually improve the stompa (and other walkers) by making it scoring.
Oh well, in either case, I’m 100% against changing unit rules and point values, that’s just my 2 teef.
Pretty much this. Hooking the game’s rules to the whims of the internet more than they already are is a terrible idea, and I’m pretty sure would kill the ITC dead.
There was no confusion over the real price of Buzzgob’s Stompa. Forgeworld was happy to respond with clarifications.
We made a change to it, because Forgeworld’s price was absurd. If we can’t make a change to the Skathach Wraithknight because forgeworld’s price is absurd, we could vote on whether to include it on the Ban list or not.
We used to have that sort of Vote. The exit poll for last year’s LVO we voted basically to Ban the Lynx. We’ve voted to Ban other things in the past.
Or we could just make it only available to armies that are completely from the Eldar Faction like we did for Buzzgob’s Stompa.
I’d rather fix it than Ban if, but if people are going to freak out over fixing it. We do have other options. All of them would make ITC stronger not weaker.
The vote was totally unclear about the intention to lower the point of the Stompa by a ton, it was worded to allow a character to be upgraded as the rules were written in the FW unit entry. If you think the vote was about purposely changing the point values of a unit, you’re deluding yourself.
Then I’m deluded. Because the one and only effect of the vote was to lower the points of Buzzgob’s Stompa by 530 points. I campaigned against it, because I don’t think the answer to incorrectly costed units and abilities is to create more.
That being said. I’ve played the Stompa a number of times. It generally puts out less damage than the Knight Crusader, and costs more. The main advantage of the Stompa is a bit of a survivability boost over the Knight, but I think most Ork players would take the Knight instead if they had a chance. I think I was wrong about it being absurdly undercosted. By the time you put it on the table you are usually paying somewhere around 690 Points, and its not as mobile or Killy as a Wraith Knight. Arguably it is tougher, though.
The Reason I think the Skathach Wraithknight needs to be addressed, is because it puts out more Ignore cover damage than any unit ever in the history of 40K. Almost twice as much.
The Stompa does offer a pretty Tough Imperial knight equivalent. But it isn’t nearly as game altering as the Skathach Wraithknight, or even the ordinary Wraithknight. If You would like a revote on the price of buzzgob’s Stompa, I have no objection. As I said, I voted no to the price decrease, and probably would do so again.
Yeah ban craftworld Eldar and don’t allow them to take any D, wraithknights, warp siders or scatter bikes.
Vote against regular codex entries…
We used to. We just did a whole bunch of times for Tau. The Ghostkiel rules confusion which was roughly as problematic as the Warp Spider Flicker Jump got a vote.
Instead they just made a change to Warp Spiders without any vote.
My longer form opinion on the poll here: http://variancehammer.com/2016/02/23/variance-hammers-take-on-the-itc-2016-q1-poll/
Generally, the questions were pretty reasonable – there’s nothing that made me go “Really guys, come on…”
We voted very similarly and for very similar reasons. Main difference is that I prefer smaller point games and that has more to do with logistics of moving models.
Also I’d like to start a Corsair army and less things to model and paint sounds like a great idea
I’ll admit that, if they do decrease the points a little bit, it will make transporting stuff easier 🙂
Transporting will be easier, armies will be much more affordable, games will end on time… I really see no reason to keep the game at 1850.
I like bigger games better. As far as I’m concerned, that’s all the reason I need.
Good writeup
I have to disagree with your Knights and Legacies of Ruin interpretation as the rule explaining for what can take a Legacy of Ruin explains that no Daemon Engine and vehicle with the Daemonic Possession cannot take a Legacy of Ruin. The problem was that Daemon Engine is not a unit type or a rule so they had to give a list of example which includes things like Defiler and Brass Scorpion. But that list is not only inclusive of the things they list since they ended the example listing with a “…” aka etc. When I look at the Brass Scorpion rules, it has Daemon and no where is it a Daemon Engine in unit type or rules. So I extrapolate from the list that Forgeworld showed of Daemon Engine as a Vehicle with the Daemon rule because thats what the Brass Scorpion is basically. A Chaos Knight is a Vehicle with the Daemon rule and thus would match the etc of the portion of the list purely by association.
When it comes to FW rules, RAW should be as heavily weighted as RAI because FW suffers the same problem as GW when it comes to rules tightness but proactively tries to do things outside of the box which causes even greater rules discrepancies.
I think its not fair a argument when you speak about FW rules to refer to the line right before what can legacies of ruins as a fluff piece when in fact its not even a fluff line, its the preamble to the restriction. They wanted you to understand at a high level how they wanted the legacies to be taken and used.
*When it comes to FW rules, RAW should NOT be as heavily weighted as RAI because FW suffers the same problem as GW when it comes to rules tightness but proactively tries to do things outside of the box which causes even greater rules discrepancies.
“I think its not fair a argument when you speak about FW rules to refer to the line right before what can legacies of ruins as a fluff piece when in fact its not even a fluff line, its the preamble to the restriction.”
I think you misread my intent. When I wrote that I can totally see the argument from a fluff perspective, I meant that personally, if I had a Chaos Knight with the Daemon Knight upgrade, I would say “No, Daemons don’t do Legacies…” and keep it off my list.
But I’m not a competitive player, and I can’t find any real rules support for it.
and not a single question about if space marines can have X that their codex says they can. I feel like there’s some crazy reluctance to let tau be what they are. Even RAW they will never as they stand on their own win a tournament without some meta gaming.
hell to go further, why do you disallow fortification networks? Everything is more powerful now than that, so why disallow it? Likewise with the question of detachments, why bother the armies that it could effect, are already the winning armies “ie marines” since they can gladius./wolf friends and stay in the “3… well 8+ whatever since it’s a sub formation”
I’m really tired of the ITC limitations that really only impact non-imperial armies. there’s not a competitive army hurt by the current rulings you’re trying to limit. Hell, the restriction on the Tau fortifications only restrict tau, and if you remove them, you still don’t give them an edge.
The question finally for ghostkeels is an issue or raw, vs ” I can’t read but I don’t like it” you didn’t even point out it’s only vs shooting attacks vs that unit…”
oh dear sorry if you dedicate 2+ turns to shootings at this average unit, it still doesn’t compare to the double tapping bs grav spam at 12 inches from your deploy edge, with re-rolls to his and wound and whatever else imperials get for free.
I’d like to pose a vote you only get the benefits of a chapter for the chapter your playing regardless of who is grouped with who…. only raw that doesn’t work, and we had a vote already (funnily enough it was also given this ruling pre vote, unlike the current votes)
Every single vote involving Xenos in this ITC format has been biased, regardless of the result, and this is no different.
I thought most of the Tau votes were in favor for the Tau. Except with the hunter thing.
Am I wrong?
shhh… don’t derail the “we are hated” narrative
Most of the VOTES have been, but there have been quite a few non-voted changes to Tau in the past two updates to the FAQ.
Aside from markerlights being shut off by a VSG, what are some others?
Piranhas not being able to leave the turn they enter the table is a big one- there is NO rules support for this view, only a vague “I don’t want it to work that way and some other units with different rules don’t work that way” mumble.
I seem to recall there were a small handful of others as well, but the VSG and Piranhas were the two big ones recently- not being able to shoot Markerlights at the enemy army is kinda a big deal for Tau.
No Every single vote (except 1-3 stormsurges in a unit) has been an nerf
Do you want to see 3 void shield generators on every table????? I dont
Exactly… Dumb if that happens
I am not going to enjoy any game that the opponent has a Void Shield Network Relay (3 Overlapping Void Shield Generators), and if you allow 1 fortification, you allow this as well.
Also, I play Tau. So while I can understand while people are upset with Hunter Contingent rulings, I feel its a completely reasonable interpretation against the shared buffs. Never have I felt there was a nerf to Tau, in fact allowing up to 3 Stormsurges is incredibly powerful.
Finally someone playing Tau that’s reasonable. All this talk about nerf and imperial bias but still you see tau heavily in the meta and doing well. Just because they didn’t win LVO doesn’t mean the rulings that we voted on screwed tau.
Thats why The top tau player was rank 12 at LVO and then next highest was around rank 30? While there were multiple space marine, eldar, and Necron in top 10?
Ban the void shield generator then. Problem solved, and it eliminates a million other headaches.
Problem is you then have to do something about grav spam because VSG is the only answer a lot of armies have to avoid being tabled by that.
Banhammer tends to spiral out of control.
> in fact allowing up to 3 Stormsurges is incredibly powerful.
Yeah, that’s why we’ve seen so many double- and triple-Stormsurge lists at the top tables.
Oh wait.
You mean like how they made vsg completely cripple grav spam lists?
Oh wait that doesn’t support your tin foil theory!
I think there’s some valid points about eldar and imperials not getting the same level of scrutiny as armies like tau and other xenos.
In my opinion theTau are all about synergy, the ghostkeel rule on using countermeasures once per suit works raw and from from a game play perspective. In a world of invisibility (even the itv interpretation) that works against all incomming attack, HCM really only effects 1 enemy unit per turn for 3 turns max, essentially a nifty blind ability. Hardly comparable to mass warp spyders jump out LOS of ability or pyschicly buffed invisible Grav Centurions re rolling everything and teleporting around the table.
What I would really like is for representatives to have the chance to argue a point for on behalf of their faction. To explain to the community who might not have experienced the rule, have misconceptions about how it works or are simply listing to the hype.
Agreed. There’s were a bunch of diagrams made when the Tau book first came out that floated around some of the forums, both for the Coordinated Firepower, and for the Ghostkeels (also for a few other things, but those were to explore potential tactics. No sense sharing those).
Being invulnerable to blasts is pretty huge though.
From one unit per turn for max 3 turns but probably less turns is an opponent can put out multiple threats and they probably should be able to.
well, I guess I’m looking at it selfishly. If I play my Stompa, I basically can’t fire it at ghostkeels the entire game. So yeah, it makes them pretty much invulnerable. I guess I’ll just have to run up and hit it!
With my Daemonkin, I’ve definitely found running up and punching them in the face to be a good solution for Ghostkeels 😀
You do realize….that with a stompa that is now a couple hundred points cheaper, there will be other units that can shoot at the ghost keels and have them blow their Holophotons right? The holophoton is per unit, not per turn. If you only have 1 unit with guns, that’s not your opponent’s fault.
Furthermore, people are probably thinking “oh let’s nerf this because that seems OP” but in reality, the ghost keel is getting a 2+ cover save. In the open. As long as you’re 12″ away from it. So good luck shooting it to death. That’s the message of the Ghostkeel and the number of holophotons that it can use (which to me pretty clearly reads as once per model FYI) really doesn’t change how much damage you’re going to do when you shoot at it. Because the answer is still mostly none.
Lets compare invisibly to HCM, Invisibility lasts for the entire game against every unit that shoots at it and works against CC. Each use of HCM makes 1 single enemy unit snapfire one time. Thats it.
Just a random thought here.
Polling is great to get directions and general feedback.
I do feel that polling is not the best way to go to change rules or ask how players feel about rules.
Few examples:
Every player that is affected negatively by the rule will vote against it, while anyone else will vote for it.
Any rules that would help a specific Faction will be voted off by all the other factions
Basically, everyone will vote for what favors them in the end.
In the end, doing survey for rules will not determine better or more balance gameplay. They will reflect how the majority of players want to modify the game at their advantage.
In the current state of affairs, looking at LVO stats: You will never be able to modify anything that affect space marines players as most of them will vote against it and they are the majority of players. 😉
I would keep surveys for general game questions : Game length, max points, etc…
I would rather have an ITC “council of the wise” that does game balance changes.
My 2 cents
While you’re not wrong in theory, this has not been true in practice. We let eldar have their entire squad of scatbikes for crying out loud! While some votes have gone both to buff or to nerf almost any army involved, the general pattern is not to nerf everything, which is evident because even the most popular faction in the game (I think it’s SM but maybe eldar) represents less than 20 percent of the player base. If what you’re saying was categorically true, you would see votes represented, where nerfs would be passed in a landslide and buffs would never happen because everyone would vote in their own self-interest. That definitely has not happened.
Would you like me to post the links to threads started on forums like dakkadakka? Want me to quote all the people who literally said they voted to nerf tau simply because they do not like Tau? How is that “fair”
Perfectly put. Although I did vote against immobilised phriana coming back. But your right, contentious questions like the ghostkeel counter measures will undoubtedly face bias from non tau players who will down vote it as it’s an advantage to them (the majority) while armies like eldar and space marines are much less likely to be down voted or nerfed due to the sheer number of faction players voting in their interest.
It would be interesting to have voters enter their primary faction, and see what they vote for.
We bash GW for not writing clear rules, and that is sometimes fair. However other times I really think we do this to ourselves. We look at a reasonably clear rule and latch onto one or two words so we can stretch it to say what we want. That is a big reason why these polls have to exist.
The problems come way before the polls are even written.
I actually really agree with this. I just trust a wise council to make decisions that everyone has to adhere to in order to just put everyone on the same page. Sadly this isn’the going to happen because we as a community shape the ITC and that’s the way it has to be or else Frontline would get even more unreasonable hate.
The ITC doesn’t force votes to go a certain way, they also decide what to put on polls based on what PLAYERS want them to put on. If you want change just email them.
Here is some data that supports my point, submitting rule changes to votes is a bad idea since it will not help game balance but only push the gameplay towards already winning factions:
http://variancehammer.com/2016/02/19/number-crunching-the-lvo/
Voted !
It would have been nice to revisit the fact that superheavies that ignore cover are dissallowed… there are entire formations now that trump this for a fraction of the points… you can get grav with ignore cover for White Scars, you can get massive formations of Tau that ignore cover, you can get a basic 65 point librarian that could roll it… stomp is prevelant, and so are other flavors of D weapons both in close combat and at range… why still penalize someone that wants to put all their eggs in one basket and pay massive points for a vehicle to take that legacy of glory? This seems to be one of the worst cases of just not letting people use their models… when you can get a super underpriced Stompa or Wraithknight, why not let people spend their points for a legacy of glory to ignore cover (or on an Imperial vehicle that has it with a large blast?) The game has change a LOT since this ruling was made, I think it should be put back up for revision and a re-vote.
Lol. I agree. One man’s cheese is another man’s cheddar.
The Skathach Wraithknight has more ignore cover firepower than any unit ever in the history of 40K. Almost twice as much. It would be nice if we could rule on it in some way.
That’s what I mean… if things that powerful and underpriced are allowed (and it’s a Forge World unit.. so that means all Forge World units are up for consideration) then why can’t someone pay real points for ‘The Battle of Keylek’ or the Typhon Heavy Siege tank, etc… you even get EXTRA POINTS for stripping hull points from the super heavies, so things are further weighted against them.
There is a big difference between AP4 and AP3. The Deathshroud Cannons are definitely good guns, but they really aren’t anywhere near the shooting potential of something like the Typhon or Stormthing.
It just seems strange that the same way an invisible deathstar or discounted stompa can be a tool in the toolbox, a vehicle with the ability to ignore cover and take out marine bodies or jetbikes in heavy cover can’t be used… there’s not even a RAW vs. RAI debate there, right? I mean it’s just straight up ignoring the fact that it exists.. I wish instead of this ruling, the “ignores cover” rule would be adjusted in the ITC to just be a -x to cover save. Perhaps that could be a question to consider in the next ITC poll?
What about the Knight Acheron, isn’t that thing packing a gigantic apoc flamer that’s AP3?
They’re allowing non-torrent hellstorms with AP2/3
The Knight Acheron isn’t as problematic as the Skathach Wraithknight. It shoots 1 Hellstrorm that wounds on Toughness instead of initiative vs 2 for the Wraith Knight that wound on initiative. It doesn’t have Shred or Rending. It is notably less mobile than the Wraith Knight, and far, far easier to kill.
The Knight Acheron is worse in basically every way than the Skathach Wraithknight.
Marine Centric much?
It is Monofilament (Wounds on initiative and rending) and Shred. There will be plenty of ap 2 hits to go around. I take it you’ve never seen one on the table?
Have a buddy with a Wraithknight show you the double hellstorm variation in a game or 2, and see if you find it as acceptable in game as you do on paper.
I, uh, own a Skathach Wraithknight and have been using it for a couple months now (in both the Deathshroud and Inferno versions.) I’m fully-aware of how good its guns are- and having run units like the Acheron and Malcador Infernus in the past, I can tell you that it quite simply does not measure up.
“Sometimes ignoring saves on some of your units” versus “always ignoring saves on basically everything” is tremendous. Wounding against Initiative is pretty meaningless when you’re already S7.
The Knight Acheron and the Malcador Infernus don’t invalidate Dark Eldar, Orks, and IG codexes completely, as well as many daemon builds. The Skathach Wraithknight does. Armies that rely on Opened top vehicles, low AV transports, or big units of infantry can’t hope to compete.
It is so much harder to kill than a Knight Acheron or a Malcador Infernus. It is more mobile than either of them. I’ve never faced a Malcador Infernus, but I’ve put down my share of Acherons, and it doesn’t even begin to compare to the Skathach Wraithknight.
If you live in a world of power armor where a 3+ is all you see, maybe the Acheron might be worth it. I still doubt it. Lets do the math:
10 Marines under the template. Acheron shoots, wounds on 2’s. 8.30 Marines die. Now the Skathach shoots, wounds on 2’s with Shred and Monfiliment, and gets twice as many hits. 9.07 Marines die. How does it work against Centurions. 4 Cents. The Acheron causes 0.56 wounds. The Wraithknight does 2.59 wounds. How about 30 Ork Boys. The Acheron kills 25. The Wraithknight kills 58.33. Well, there aren’t that many there, but they all die. How does it work on 10 Korne dogs? The Acheron does 5.56 wounds. The Wraithknight does 12.96.
The only target that an Acheron does better damage to are super-high initiative things like Demon Princes. It may “feel” like the Acheron is comparable, but it isn’t.
Am I the only one that feels like the questions are always slanted?
Like the last question.
Chaos Knight do not have the daemon rule. So it’s not RAW. It’s RAI based on the fluff text… They only have the daemon role of they align with a God.
Thanks for the pole. I would say the Toe in cover and small point game changes would greatly increase my attendance at the events. I am looking forward to seeing how this turns out
The TIC rule kills me as a ‘Nid player who fantasizes that one day Hierodules will priced well….
But I voted to remove it for GC. My biggest issue with the ruling was that originally it was applied to all MC, which I felt was a step too far. But for GC only, I’m definitely on board. Especially as GW seems to think GC means T8 or T9 now…
I wanted to see the ‘toe in cover’ rule not apply to FMC’s in Swooping mode. They’re FLYING why do they get to claim a cover save because their toe in near a ruin?
I’ll take it for GMC’s for now (as that’s almost a guarentee, I’m expecting a 75/25 split on that one), but I’d love to see FMC’s revisited for that too.
I voted for the potential reduced point values of armies in future tournaments. I ended up voting on questions that I did not have an informed opinion on (such as relics for chaos knights). Just a suggestion for future polls, you should add a third option on each question for no opinion. I think as it is presented it is like an omnibus bill. Allowing us to cast votes only on questions we have an informed opinion of would leave you with more accurate data. As well it would give you the ability to weigh or prioritize these contentious issues against each other. Have a good one.
FW Rule for “Purchasing Legacies of Ruins”
“[…] Because they are already dominated by a fell being of the Warp whose own desires define their essential character, Daemon Engines (including Defilers, Maulerfiends, Forgefiends, Heldrakes, Lords of Skulls, Blood Slaughterers, Brass Scorpions, ETC) as well as any vehicle with the Daemonic Possession vehicle upgrade or the Daemon Resiliance special rule may not take Legacies of Ruin.”
People are claiming that since a Chaos Knight is not a Daemon Engine when purchasing any of the Daemon Upgrades (Which I will later explained is what I perceive as a correct reading), or equipped with Daemonic Possession or has the Daemon Resilience special rule that it can take a Legacy of Ruin.
The thing is that Daemon Engine is not a Unit Type, nor is it a Special rule. FW had to list examples of what is a Daemon Engine and even left the list open with an etc. The common denominator in that list is that they are all Vehicles and all have the Daemon Special Rule, which a Chaos Knight gains when it purchases the upgrade for Daemon related affiliation.
*People are claiming that since a Chaos Knight is not a Daemon Engine when purchasing any of the Daemon Upgrades (Which I will later explained is what I perceive as a INcorrect reading),
Well, all the daemon engines they list are actually machines with daemons infused into them as part of creating the machine, they cannot exist without a daemon. The Knight however can exist just fine without a daemon, nor is binding a daemon an integral part of the creation of it.
I find it hard to believe that there isn’t a poll for CA on here.
Come the Apocalypse was voted on a while back and it came back that the majority did not want it in the game. I was upset that I couldn’t run my Tau/Tyranid/Skyhammer list.
California will be fine with or without your poll!
Poll didnt have enough Eldar nerfs for vote.
I agree, spider knight belongs on the ban list with my harridan.
At least spider knight’s flamers belong on the ban list. Those things are dumb.
I do not understand how the fortification question is even a question. Multi-part fortifications have been around since the first Aegis line took a Comms Relay; it is totally normal and part of what fortifications are. If a new datasheet has a new multi-part fortification then that is just what that fortification is.
Fortification Networks are like a mini-detachment of fortifications where you pick and choose how many you want of each and then pay the points cost per model chosen. They are nothing like normal fortification datasheets.
Can anyone explain how or why this has caused any confusion at all? Is it that hardly anyone has Stronghold Assault so they are not familiar with how Fortification Networks are different?
It might be the Void Shield Network that is causing the concern. Who knows what dreams may come?
Realistically, most of the issues with fortifications comes squarely from the Void Shield Generator alone; everything else can hae its uses, but is otherwise fairly subdued; the VSG is the fly in the ointment, and distorts all the rule issues around it.
Void Shield Network is clearly a Fortification Network and the whole rules structure for those is different. That seems like a rather tenuous reason to be asking questions about something pretty much completely unrelated except that is sits in a Fortifications slot.
Is the plan to ban existing multi-part fortifications such as the ADL?
The issue I think is more to do with the Tau fortifications that basically are a network but aren’t listed as one.
If I want an Aegis I buy an aegis, if I want an aegis and a bastion then I’d need a second fortification slot. Some of the Tau ones let you take the walls, drone ports, and the Gun port all as a single slot.
If the issue with fortification networks is the networks themselves then it’s best to be consistent and not allow anything that operates in that way.
If the only issue is the Void shield network then I’d say either just ban that one, or cap the number of actual projected shields (to like 3) and call it a day.
I voted to limit it for now just because of the fact that it’s better to be consistent than to limit all but one.
How are Heirodules going to be anything other than complete garbage without the toe-in-cover rule? Those models are already 150 points too expensive. Heirodules are about to take it in the shorts because people don’t like playing against wraithknights and stormsurges.
Clarifying unclear rules is one thing. Changing rules is completely different….it’s a very slippery slope. This is exactly why I voted against nerfing Tau in the last vote. We’ve opened pandora’s box.
=(
Hierodules will be complete crap, absolutely true. But IMHO, that has more to do with their insane point cost, low wounds, low toughness, and marine armor. You actually can hide a Hierodule in a ruin on many boards anyway…
But the stupid WK and SS and others really forced the hand here I think
The vote will kill the heirodule and whatever half ass GC ends up in the next Tyranids codex.
I’m putting together a Battle company as Nids just aren’t bad enough and need the ITC’s assistance is finding the basement below the bottom tier.
I’m sorry GW hates Tyranids. its not the ITC though and hell this change is more likely to help tyranids kill Wraithknights.
Lol, no. Tyranids can’t kill Wraithknights with or without a cover save.
It’s already garbage even with toe in cover. This change has nothing to do with making the Heirodule less competitve. The heirodule needs a major points reduction and some minor buffs.
Honestly, I don’t think you should be putting rules to a vote at all. Regardless of your intent, mass voting is going to lead to a biased result, which kinda defeats the purpose of a vote at all.
Perhaps you should just keep the decision of rules within the TO’s and Judges who run your events. While some may cry bias, I do remember some of your comments about certain armies that you’ve made, it would be more fair to everyone.
just my 2 cents, but people seem to vote pretty altruistically here. I’ve been surprised on a lot of outcomes where a majority of people have voted against their best interests.
I would have liked to see ignores cover changed to a -2 cover save.
Why are we not revoting on the old FAQ rules? It’s a new season, we should be revoting on all the faq questions. Especially with how many changes have taken place over the last year, the game is in a different state. Even presidents have term limits right? Even if no ruling gets changed, the community deserves a chance to reaffirm the rules in place.
If cover is restricted for gargantuan creatures shouldn’t it also be restricted for swooping FMCS?
I think fmc are realistically able to fly behind objects easier and hide better whereas thier model is more open but the actual unit is smaller.
Gmc however are just huge and make no sense they had a foot in a ruin but you can’t see them.
This is my problem with deciding rules based on what “makes sense.” If the reason for the ruling is about size, then why does a Riptide get cover while my Dreadknought or tiny Rhino does not?
We should vote for Dreadnoughts to get ‘toe in cover’ saves. That might make them not shit-teir.
The reason the FMC rule is so stupid is that FMC actually can get a cover save at any time by jinking! So basically you make it so they don’t need to use jink, which is stupid.
But I would have voted against this, as it basically is a straight ‘Nid nerf (Demon princes are the other notable, and they have no issue jinking every turn.)
Right idea, wrong meta.
What we really need to do is push for CTA. It’s ridiculous that it’s not a thing. When were there ever a CTA list smashing tournaments?
riptide/flyrant was very real
Isn’t the trade-off for toe in cove, is that most GMC can only move up to a max of 6″, in the movement phase?
SHW get to double the difficult terrain die move.
Forgive me if I missed a rules update or FAQ.
Yep, except for Mr. Wraithknight who totally ignores that by being Jump.
And ITC campaign to nerf Tau into oblivion continues! Want me to add up all the votes and nerfs you have done versus Tau and compare it to every single other army?
And that Ghostkeel question… lmao… Way to word it. You basically wrote “It is ambiguous, do you want to nerf Tau?”
Sorry, but the rule is NOT ambiguous. It literally says: a MODEL can activate the ability and the UNIT can utilize that ability. NOWHERE does it say every single ghost keel must activate the ability simultaneously in order of the UNIT to utilize the ability. How many other armies have models with single use abilities? If multiple are in the same squad do THOSE ones also have to use the one time use ability simultaneously? NOPE
This is the first year I watched the stream, and I saw nothing but slow play, rules bickering, and all around poor sportsmanship. Is it always like this? Is it ever addressed or do the rules votes take priority? Just curious
Kinda disappointed there is no “Additional comments/considerations” block at the end of the form.
Are the final results of the poll posted somewhere?