Hey everyone, Reecius here from Frontline Gaming to discuss some of the new Space marine psychic powers from the Angels of Death supplement on our Twitch Channel!
Wow, there are some really crazy psychic powers in the new book! I have to say, I do love the new book for all the variety and cool builds it offers the Space Marine player, but on reading the new psychic powers, I was scratching my head a bit. They read pretty gnarly on the power scale. However, we wanted to play test them before drawing too harsh of a judgement, so we slapped a nasty Deathstar on the table, picked some of the craziest powers and had at it.
My opponent, Frankie, piloted the Deathstar. I, Reecius, piloted a Necorn list that used the Retribution Phalanx to recycle units and hopefully continue to throw up screens to contain the cray cray Deathstar.
Before I continue, I do want to state some caveats. For one, this was our first go of it! So, we were learning as we played. Second, I goofed a bit with my Crons. I didn’t put my Overlord on the table that recycled the Scarabs and Warriors for fear we would get caught in assault turn 1. So, I reserved him and that was not a wise move. My plan was to keep recycling in the throw away units to use as meat shields, or in this case, robot shields, but that didn’t pan out. Oh well, lesson learned! Had it worked, I may have been able to slow Frankie down a bit.
So, on to the point! Frankie’s Wolfstar proceeded to use Electrodisplacement to move his Wolfstar from center board, to the very corner of the board I had bubble wrapped myself into by piggy-backing off of a unit that jumped out of a Drop Pod, and then assaulted me….turn 1, from roughly 40″ from his starting point. I literally placed myself as far away from his as I possibly could, haha. However, my bubble wrap tactic worked, and he ate some Scarabs, nothing more.
Next turn, he peels a few Libbys off to drive into key positions on the table to act as mobile teleport locations for Electrodisplacement. He then eats the second tasty layer of my bubble wrap. My reserves come on on the other side of the table from his Deathstar (these are tried and true anti-Deathstar tactics, by the by) thinking they’d be safe to go after objectives for a few turns while he munched on my bait units and then re-positioned himself. Ha! Boy was I wrong. Being a table length away from your opponent don’t mean nuthin now, playa!
The Next turn, he splits his star into two mini stars, and one Teleports over to replace a Libby (I tried to kill both, but lacked the firepower) and then assaulted my reserves, killing them, again from more than half the table away. The other half of his star killed the last of my bait units in my corner of the board. Next turn, he conga lines the two stars back together into one, joins the stray Libby to the very tippy tip of it, and then teleports–literally–models strung out all the way from one corner of the board to the opposite corner of the board where my Tomb blades had come in to try and score an objective, and assaulted them, lol. He crossed the table diagonally to assault me! Comedy gold.
Last turn, I had some Scarabs trying to kill a lone Thunderwolf, but his Deathstar then teleported across the table again (this time only about 30″ away, haha) directly in to combat and essentially wiped me. Oh, and the Thunderwolf he replaced? Went right back onto an objective his Libby had been on, haha. As his Deathstar had reroll saves most of the game, I didn’t do any damage of note to him. It was pretty bonkers. He assaulted 3 of the 4 corners of the table in 4 turns, wiping out multiple units a turn.
Oh, and meanwhile buildings and terrain pieces were flying all over the table due to Shifting Worldscape, hahaha, just because.
It was a rough day, to put it lightly. However, it was also my first outing against these new powers and as such, it is always the toughest experience. I am sure with time and experience you could learn to mitigate some of it. That said, these powers are pretty gnarly. What have you all experienced with them? My gut reaction is that these are way too disruptive for tournament play. I could see them being a hoot in a casual game where the idea of a building full of dudes flies across the table being funny, or teleporting one unit out of combat onto an objective and being replaced with a powerful melee unit sounding fun. In organized play though, these powers may create an unenjoyable play experience to the point where we may want to ask ourselves if we want to use them, or modify them, etc. Moving your Bastion forward, full of guys, who then assault out of it, what fun!!! Right?
It’s still early days, so we want to play test it more, but the first outing with it was brutal. The next ITC vote is not until June, so we have time to feel it out a bit, but my instincts are telling me folks are not going to be overly receptive to some of these powers. Have you all played them yet? Do you think they are all hype, or really crappy for organized play? If you haven’t, you should and let us know how it went for you.
We have a bet going too, by the way, if you think you can come on our Twitch Channel (out store is located in downtown San Diego, CA) and beat Frankie with his Flying Deathstar, we’ll give you $100! That should be fun and provide some excellent testing and feedback.
Next week, we’ll be using the Phase Form power on a Super Heavy, allowing it to ignore LoS and Cover…lol! That’ll be a hoot, I’m sure. Tune in to our Twitch Chanel at 5:30pm PST to see how it goes!
Please run the Death Star against some fully mechanized (battle co.) and some null deployment armies (Skyhammer). The Death Star has no shooting, so assaulting rhinos turn 1 shouldn’t be the end of the world. A screen blob should also help minimize first turn damage.
If you want to repeat the mistakes you made with the Tau codex and pre-emptively Nerf these powers, I also have a suggestion for displacement.
You can easily tone down displacement by transferring any limits (no assaulting out of drop pods) from the targeted unit to the Libby’s unit. This would prevent you from assaulting after swapping places with a unit from a drop pod and would give the defense a chance to react. Essentially displacement becomes gate without scatter. Note that this wouldn’t prevent you from assault if you swapped places with a unit already in combat or with a unit that had permission to charge that turn. Nerfing the power in this manner would probably lead to more people using Skyhammer or Ravenguard to get around this restriction, but that at least is more of a point investment than a servitor in a drop pod.
think you might be ignoring all the haywire stuff that is in those new trees
Ha ya…the haywire beam and nova will just wreck absolute havoc on a mech army.
Hey DooDoo, thanks for sharing your thoughts. However, a few counter points.
1.) The point wasn’t to show the new powers against some kind of hard counter list, the point was to show them against a normal tournament list.
2.) I did use screening tactics, I made a mistake with not putting the recycle Overlord on the table. Lesson learned.
3.) You are promoting make rules changes while simultaneously warning against making rules changes =)
4.) I don’t think we made a mistake with Tau Coordinated Firepower at all. I think it was the right call to make. It would have been nice to play test it some more but the vote was looming, we didn’t have the luxory of time. Now, we do, and as we’ve said numerous times in the stream and the article, we’re encouraging people to test it for themselves.
5.) As an avid Skyhammer/Ravenguard player, I can tell you emphatically they would do jack shit vs. a Deathstar. I don’t say that to be mean, but having played them a lot, they are good for killing non assault units. Anything that is actually good in assault kicks their butts. They struggle to kill Necrons at times, haha.
My favorite part about posts like this is when they call the *interpretation* of coordinated firepower a mistake, when they’re actually in the minority of players who read it the other way. And before people claim that everyone was just out to get Tau, explain the vote to allow multiple Stormsurges or the ruling that allows units of multiple Ghostkeels to pop their mini invis multiple times. I’ve been impressed with how permissive the ITC community has been with the votes, but I sure see a lot of sour grapes when it comes to how Coordinated Firepower went down – the poster child of Reece’s and Frankie’s tyranny!!!…..oh wait
As a pretty experienced Battle Company player I would say that if all my Rhinos Die on turn one to a un-killable Deathstar. I am probably going to lose haha. Granted you can do some tricks and have the Callexus near the rhinos to make them easier to kill. But still the Deathstar hits like a truck and is very resilient with and without the powers.
haha, *lose all transports turn 1* Well, that’s not good.
Has this ever happened or is this just theory-crafting? I wasn’t aware the world’s greatest 40k player (TM) had ever lost a game 😉
Haha just theory but most of the time the vehicles win the games.
Yeah, wehn playing Frankie’s Battle Company I always try to take out the Rhinos first, as without his mobility Battle Company is actually not that tough to deal with.
I agree with Doodoo, starting the discussion of changing a rule before the rule is even a week old is a big fat mistake. This mistake was made with Tau, let’s not repeat it.
Give it a couple month or two; if it’s an issue and SM librarians are dominating the tourney scene, then we can react. Personally, I don’t think it will be that big of an issue.
Changing rules is a slippery slope and much different than clarifying unclear rules via FAQ, we should move slowly.
That looked rough. I am sure that most armies are going to struggle with it. I would like to try to best it right after the Broadside Bash. Seemed like Frankie just wanted to make Eldar Jet Bikes angry that he was moving faster than they can.
Come play against it, budy!
I’ll be there in 2 weeks!
See you then, buddy!
Welp, think I’ll pack up my battlesuit army and go sit in the corner of why bother.
Tau at least have interceptor to try and stop the pod…but yeah, they struggle with Deathstars in general, Deathstars this fast are just going to ruin Tau unless you have Stormsurges and you get them 6’s on the Stomp table.
Getting forced into a particular build (stormsurges) and boiling the game down to intercepting any pods/units before they can switch out for the deathstar, stopping a flying piece of terrain that can be assaulted out of and then rolling 6’s on stomps vs a deathstar.
No problemo!
Btw, if yous are putting this marine issue up to vote in June, would yous consider tagging on a vote on whether named space marine forgeworld characters can join formations like the Gladius? For example, a Raptors Battle company having the option of replacing the captain with Lias Issodon, in the same way, a crimson fists Gladius can replace the captain with pedro. I can’t imagine anyone would have an issue with it, bar maybe Libarius conclaves getting the option of Loth .
Hey Bryan, yeah, we can look at that issue.
Tau being shoehorned into a single build is a tad annoying, but I have seen people using OSCs to good effect! I have always wanted to make an infantry Tau army for fun, but never got around to it.
The sad part is ITC is some of the reasons tau got shoe horned. Nerfing the speeder formation before it barely got treated and same with the combined fire… Neither of these abilities are close to overpowered and they didn’t even get a chance.
What’s funny sorta is that combined fire can be an option for tau to deal with this “omg overpowered deathstar”
Combined fire won;t do jack squat vs. a true Deathstar unless it’s packing D weapons. Reroll 3++ or 2++ along with possibly Invis or +1 toughness can take, literally, hundreds of wounds with little to no effect.
And again, I honestly do not agree with the assessment that nerfing Coordinated Firepower limits builds. The best units in the book are Riptides and Stormsurges. They’d still be the best units in the book with Coordinated Firepower. You’d see the same lists, just with absurd firepower, haha.
I agree though, that the Piranha Formation vote for no was saddening. I felt that them coming on full power was fine power wise. =/
Thanks that would be great!
Reece… you’re not beholden to the players to do whatever they dictate to you. If you think a formation or rule is fine, you’re wholly within your rights to just leave it as-is and not put it up for a vote. In fact, I would argue that if you’re going to try and make ITC continue to be successful, you HAVE to exercise this prerogative most of the time- democracy, unbound by any other limitations, is just a tyranny of the majority; that’s why all democracies have checks on their own power and the ITC should be the same. Use your judgement in deciding what should and shouldn’t be voted on and what needs to be addressed.
“Btw, if yous are putting this marine issue up to vote in June, would yous consider tagging on a vote on whether named space marine forgeworld characters can join formations like the Gladius? For example, a Raptors Battle company having the option of replacing the captain with Lias Issodon, in the same way, a crimson fists Gladius can replace the captain with pedro. I can’t imagine anyone would have an issue with it, bar maybe Libarius conclaves getting the option of Loth”
I’ve been wanting this forever! I regularly email forgeworld about it for an update to Badab Wars. However Pedro can not replace the captain in a CF battle company. He is a chapter master.
Last I heard from FW, was an update was coming, but who knows what decade they are thinking!
Ah cool, picked one IC character out at random, I see he would fall under strike force command now.
They were supposed to provide a comprehensive FAQ December of 2014, lol!
Well FW themselves say that it is allowed if it is the same role and uses their chapter tactics.
They have but not in an official capacity. They also pretty much say do whatever you want =)
I’d like to see some of this but it gets into the weeds quite a bit.
I like your suggestion to add the forgeworld characters into the marine formations, however Lias Issodon is a chaper master, and would have to be taken as part of the Strike force command Detachment not just the captain of a battle company. As is the case for Pedro. However if you do for one you must do for all, Loth should be able to be taken as part of a Red Scorpions libby conclave, as the president for named Liberian HQ’s has been set by allowing Tiggy in the Conclave.
The terrain mover at least has some decent restrictions on it. Dense boards and proper troop placement can lock that one down. Electrodisplacement is just…
Yeah, it’s pretty crazy.
Yeah we were more worried about the Terrain one than we needed to be. The Electrodisplacement is nutz.
Yeah, moving terrain is awesome, but moving 24 inches guaranteed in the psychic phase is actually awesomer.
I have no interest in playing games with these psychic powers. I love playing competitive and I love play casual, but most of all I like playing tight tactical games. These powers almost completely override so many of the core rules of the game, that its like playing with cheat codes. I wish GW had a guy who really cares, overseeing the rules content because stuff like this is very hard to work around especially in casual games.
Yeah, I wonder what the heck brought these powers into publication? If they did playtest them, it wasn’t with serious armies.
Is that power usable on vehicles, or is it only units?
It is any friendly unit; the archtypical example of it would be swapping a Drop Pod for something else.
Not a drop pod as it is non vehicle units only – but the dudes who get out of the pod would be the archetypal target
I gotta get that psychic deck. And some Librarians.
I didn’t watch the stream and I couldn’t find it in the article, but did Frankie generate powers like normal or did he just pick them?
He picked the best ones and Reece looked like he gave up before the match started. I really want to see these new powers against another top tier army, particularly one that also has a culexus.
I’d be interested to see them trying to generating them like normal. But I did just find Frankie’s list so him having double electro and a worldscape isn’t out of the realm of possibilities.
if the point is to playtest the new psychic powers then why wouldn’t the new psychic powers be used?
I rolled what powers I would have gotten during turn 3 and I would have easily rolled the same powers I picked.
I certainly didn’t give up, I thought my list had a decent chance, I made some mistakes though and my reserves were bad. And that is my tournament Necron list which you can see played in bat reps vs. Other tournament armies by players that have never played necrons before and it does well.
And yes, we picked powers because the point was showing the new powers. No, I did not take a Culexus because shutting down the powers in a game meant to show then off would defeat the purpose. We will in future games. This was just an into a test.
I get why you picked the powers and am not faulting you for doing it. In most practice games we tend to “normalize” powers as well. All I’m curious is to see if these powers can be rolled up normally. Now Frankie’s list has a lot of rolls and will most likely get the powers he needs, but you are talking to a guy who has taken 5 farseers in a council and not rolled up fortune in two different GTs 😛
That was a response to DooDoo, elphilo, sorry if it came across harsh.
Yeah, when we test stuff, we do just that: test them! There’s no point to immediately putting them into a situation where an extreme list can counter some of their strengths. We will of course try that out, later, but out of the gates it would provide for a silly situation to test something.
And yes, lol, those situations where you don’t roll the power you want absolutely do happen! But, statistically, it is the exception to the rule.
Frankie picked, for the game. He then rolled to see what he would have had, and the results were almost identical for how many of the electro-displacements he had.
Yeah I figured that would happen. Was just curious is all!
As I said in chat, it wasn’t as though you were playing a push-over list, either. Necrons are pretty resilient and these powers just flat out smacked them off the table. Felt like you should’ve had a discretionary warning on this battle-report, because what I watched felt wrong.
^ This
That is my actually tournament Necorn list which performs well. My strategy was sound, I just biffed some key rolls and goofed not putting the recycle Overlord on the table.
But yeah, i got corn-holed, lol.
Funny how there is concern that it creates an unfair setting or takes the fun out of a competitive game. Have you looked at what wins the major GT’s? It isn’t the 3 troops choices, 2 hq, and some elite/heavy. It is whatever broken combo can be built from multiple riptides (FW flying AP3 torrent flaming riptides included) and wraithknight with farseer bike support (also able to move across table in one turn) that wants to roll invisibility to make the knight nigh unkillable. Or it is a demon army with 30 psychic dice, fate Weaver and demon Knight with cursed earth and books/abilities to have a 2++/4++ re-roll save and summon elite choices while you laugh. Or a harlequin list which also assaults across the board first turn and does huge negative modifiers to leadership to sweep or run armies off the table.
How about we not knee jerk and stop nerfing things. That death star would die so quickly to a culexus and a vindicator squadron. Tau with interceptor could usually take out the threat before displacement could happen meaning he is foot slogging anyway. Demons with summoning are usually flying (unassailable) or don’t really care you kill 1 or 2 squads while they’ve moved off of objectives. MSU and null deploying armies will fare much better and super heavies will still ignored them mostly. If you hadn’t nerfed D weapon shooting you wouldn’t see so many wolf deathstars anyway. Let the game go back to unmodified and see who wins. My guess is Eldar and Tau stay on top, demons a close 3rd, and space marines fall somewhere after even with their 600 point psychic deathstar with 10 dice (which other armies just giggle at).
The Deathstar would die to a Culexus and a Vindicator squadron…surely you cannot be serious? They still have ablative wounds and a 3++, stock. Which means they bounce wounds off to wound caddies, and then stop 2/3’s of the damage, then subsequently kill the Culexus and the Vindicators.
If you are in the San Diego area, PLEASE come in and prove me wrong, I would be astounded to see Vindicators do anything to a true Deathstar, even with zero psychic buffs.
Unmodified 40k, “real” 40k is basically AoS. There are no point limits, no force org charts, etc. It’s a total free for all. You can’t say change no rules unless you accept that style of play.
Keep in mind in ITC (and most places) you can just pod in and hide the disembarked unit behind LOS blocking terrain – meaning Tau won’t be able to intercept and kill it.
It’s also why when writing that style list frankie was playing I liked having a unit of 5 obligatory scouts to infiltrate, move, and then swap with. Slightly further away (though it doesn’t matter, charge is still negligible) then the pod but provides an alternative that isn’t vulnerable to interceptor to swap with.
It’s a nasty new army and I’m not sure Tau are more than a theory-craft answer that won’t play out in reality.
That’s I guess more of a reply to Nate then Reece but those are ma thoughts!
I think he is serious, and don’t call him Shirley.
Oh If I was to get a dollar for every time I read a sentence containing cynicism & sarcasm about the current deathstars…I’d…have…money I guess.
Crazy, crazy power dome…
I watched that batrep.. and wow, that was pretty f***ing stupid. All of the, “B..b.b.but it’s WC3!” baloney is nonsense when someone can roll deep with a libby conclave. If you guys ban the powers, would you simply force a re-roll on Electrodisplacement/Worldscape or remove those schools as options?
As a poster above said, I think just not allowing assault would do a lot.
You think so? If a super Deathstar teleports in front of your army and you can’t move around it, does it matter if they then assault you the next turn? They’re still going to be invincible to your attacks (baring stomps) for a turn. It might slow them down, but that’s about it.
Well, That’s true, speaking from a purely selfish point of view as a daemon player it would make an ENORMOUS difference. If they got right in my face and stood there I could get all my flyers in the air and bubble wrap my screamers and pink horrors with seekers until turn 4-5 at least. If he can assault, then I’m tabled turn 1 due to daemonic instability.
Most armies though, you’re right. They go AH! kill a few things and then get wrecked the next turn anyway.
Of course it matters. You can move/Turbo Boost away, debuff them, get some shooting in, fly FMCs, throw/summon tarpits, etc.
There’s a big difference between a unit moving 36″ (12″ move + teleport) and charging more than 40″.
And for the non-elder players in the room like imperial guard or literally anything else… You will not get away from that star.
I do think that would solve a lot of the issue with Frankie’s thunder dome. A shooty army would still be able to abuse the teleport power, which is a big deal don’t get me wrong. But taking an extra turn to be able to assault actually makes all of the difference in the world. The game only has so many turns. And even though a list like this is essentially unkillable (at least the main deathstar) and can kill everything, making it take 10 turns instead of 5 is a giant difference.
I don’t think it would make the games fun – it would just make the games winnable by the other army. Possibly.
Another solution could just be an alteration of the mission packet. Intentionally put deathstars at a disadvantage in the ITC so that again….maybe you can’t kill the deathstar. Maybe it curb-stomps you. But having a way to win the game is what’s important at the tournament level I think. If I see an army and think “OK I have to play differently to win but I can still win” that’s ok. Thinking “there is literally nothing I can do to win this game” is not. And as much as I love an assault army, this iteration of it might be too close to the latter.
Yeah, fair. I think most people view the ITC missions as favoring MSU as is, but for next season we could straight up rewrite the missions from the ground up.
These new powers are stoopid .
This was possibly the worst batrep I’ve ever seen in a minis game.
We aim to please!
At least it was memorable.
What I am really hearing is that the Librarius Conclave is the real problem, which it is.
I forgot to add that I whole heartily agree that some of the new powers are over the top (phase form the just better perfect timing) and the switch place power is insane and probably needs to be nerfed. I would like to counter the idea that being able to charge readily on the first or second turn is bad for 40k. The game has been slanted toward shooting for a while (I am told). In fact assault players have generally been reduced to constructing death stars as one of the few viable assault based strategies. So strategies like skyhammer and kill team (as well as deathstars) bring a needed counter to high quantity middle to high strength shooting.
Finally another way to fix the switcheroo power is to make it all models have to be wholly within 6″ of the Libby (it would be really hard to fit Frankie’s star wholly within 6″).
The issue though, is that even not allowing assaults after switching, the Deathstar is still in position to cream you the next turn while having insane levels of defense. I don’t think it changes that much. Being about to out-maneuver deathstars is one of the best ways to counter them. This power takes that strategy away.
I didn’t realize it wasn’t wholly within 6″ haha. I made sure all the models were completely within 6″.
But what happens then? Do you leave them behind? Does the power not go off? Do they Die?
I vote leave them behind, lol. Good luck assaulting.
Yeah I realized via math (once I ran the numbers) that a 6″ radius circle has over 100 sq” of real estate, so limiting within 6″ would not be as effective as I thought.
And if the Librarian’s on a bike, you get another 24″sq off the length of the Base.
I agree with Venkarel. While the powers are nuts and quite possibly a huge problem, the Conclave is really what enables them. It in essence grants the absurd number of HQ slots necessary to get all of the powers, and then also allows you an almost virtual guarantee on casting the powers.
Here is an interesting item brought to my attention recently, find me a way to take a Librarian outside of a conclave in the “new” formations/detachments. Outside of a CAD/Ally there is literally no way to take just one librarian.
That’s actually true for many types of HQs, though.
The two excluded from the Gladius were Techmarine and Librarian (the others are available through at minimum the strike force command). The anvil strike force allows you to take a single Techmarine. I cannot find a formation that allows you to take 1 librarian My point with all this is to indicate that GW obviously wants us to use the conclave and not single librarians (for money? they think it is balanced? fluff?).
Can you get a chaplain in the command? I know there’s a formation for him, but…
The Chapter Master (in ITC anyways) can’t be taken at all, and SW have a lot of trouble getting many of their HQs.
Yeah you can get a Chaplain and the Chapter Master through Strike Force Command. You can get the CM even in ITC, they limit it to Captain (no CM) in the Battle Demi-Company.
If it didn’t go all the way to Harnessing on 2+, it would be significantly less of a deal. The DA/SW versions aren’t nearly as problematic.
We did a test game with conclave vs conclave, and we decided that each conclave would have a geo Libby that knew shifting worldscape.
The power got used once. I used it to drag some devastators in some ruins up into no man’s land so I could pepper them with small arms. Other than that, displacement and veil of time were the all-stars. (He did have null zone, but I held all my dice to deny it.)
All in all though, I have to repeat an age old sentiment: If some of these get toned down, then we need to also point the nerf gun at wraithknights, warp spiders, wind riders, etcetcetc.
I haven’t seen anything that limits the displacement to your own units.
However, there is no description of how do you swap a 50 man blob for one librarian for example? Do they act like they’re deep striking? Which guardsman does the librarian replace?
The whole process of moving your opponent’s army during your turn is idiotic in my opinion. No one enjoyed lash of submissions in 5th edition for the same reason. Few people want their opponent’s grubby hands on their models and receiving directions from your opponent about how he wants them moved is a huge time sink.
This further adds to the inability to finish games on time. Now you get to move models in every possible phase of the game. The only way that games will come to a “natural” conclusion is if you table your opponent.
Unfortunately Electrodisplacement is a blessing so can only target friendly units.
The slippery slope argument is a fallacy. The debate isn’t about x,y, or z, but about these specific powers.
Thank you for sharing your experiences, though.
I played this at a tounament already. Without the conclave. The swaping power was fun and didn’t always work.. I swaped and failed a 4 inch charge. Then lost the game to the return shooting.
Shooting armies are king now. Warp spider, Scat Bikes , Gavstar, Gladios formations all rule with shooting. his power makes combat more then a after thought in list building.
Shooting in this game is way to powerful as it is. Having people have to worry about assult is a good thing. Almost every army has combat units that never see the table.
This power changes that a lot. I am tired of facing 100 shot plus eldar list and Grav list that slaughter combat based armies wholesale. Time for the scale to go the other way.
Tau doesn’t have to worry so much with al the interceptor they have. You would not have a lone servatior live past it.
Also getting first turn vs that deathstar with a lot of the shooting armies out thier will weaken it a lot.
Shooting is armies abuse powers all the time. Giving units re-rolls that where never ment to have it. Now assult armies have a power that will allow then to get in to assult.. Seams fair to me.
Assault armies are winning the majority of GTs, these days, just FYI. What unit did you use that got shot to death? Not a true deathstar, I imagine?
As stated, in a more normal list, without crazy combos, these powers are a bit more reasonable. However, we’re looking at the situation where someone optimizes for it.
Tau could shoot the lone Servitor but the Deathstar just runs at them normally. Deathstars are Tau’s worst match-ups, typically. Again, unless you can stomp them out with Surges, you typically are getting creamed even without teleporting.
First turn shooting can soften up the star, you are right, there.
Try this with a real deathstar, it isn’t fair in the slightest. Watch the video on Twitch, actually, that will help clarify things.
The way that assault can work in this meta is due to geometric durability compared to linear shots. If you improve your assault army linearly with more assault units, the shooting will beat it, you’re right. If you find a way to get re-rolls then your toughness goes up geometrically.
And all those layers are necessary because of the high quality, high quantity of shooting available to every (almost) major army in the game.
Well, shooting is straight up better without combos. There’s basically nothing in the game that can unsupported run across the board and kill the same points of jetbikes. Possibly khorne hounds and surprise, they’re the only msu assault list.
From what I hear (before my time) marines used to utilize their vehicles to get across the board to charge (back when you could charge out of a stationary Rhino). I agree about msu assault and the unsupported run across the board (I do not think dogs could do it).
It also seems like GW is in escalation mode with 40k in that they are continuing to increase the power level. Nerfing certain aspects of the game (ranged D) only accomplishes making other things stronger (Death Stars). If people really don’t like where the game is headed, why not just play 5th edition without grey Knights? Isn’t that basically what you’re hoping to achieve anyway?
The change to ranged d really only affects superheavies, not so much deathstars. The stomp changes do have some affect on them, tho.
We might be using mongooses to exterminate an exploding snake population leading to an over population of mongooses, but most of us are happier with the mongooses.
To make it less abstract, the whole argument “Something else will just dominate the meta!” in response to suggested changes is not the end of the story. Yes, something else will rise, but if the game is less absurd I’m quite willing to live with that new meta.
Yeah, something will always dominate the meta, true. But, as you said, I’d rather deal with Warp Spiders any day of the week than flying deathstars, lol.
They both totally suck…
Seriously, at least it feels like a really fun tactical game trying to trap warp spiders all game. the wolfstar just runs right up the middle and murders you.
Yeah, exactly, while you can do nothing to hurt it =/
seriously, you need something that is ignore cover, ignore invul, AP2 and strength 10 and can do 10 wounds to the unit, at least, a turn.
A gun like that doesn’t exist and really shouldn’t.
It’s not like a screamerstar either where chances are there will be one turn a game where the grimoire fails and you gotta go nuts or you can alpha strike them before they get it off. The wolf star just starts out that durable.
ITC nerfing D weapons makes deathstars stronger is kind of a null point now. Aelong just won at Adepticon with a super friends death star and they allowed full D weapons and double LOWs.
Cheated a win 😉
I played a game using war conclave with librarius conclave and while it was silly it didn’t seem any more so than some of the current top lists. I was able to assault with my knight turn 1 after he shot off 3 units with ignore cover and LoS. Then assaulted and killed a 4th. My opponent then focused down my librarians and quickly turned the game back to normal.
Point being yes these powers are crazy but the sky has fallen before and we were able to get through it. Honestly I look forward to a massive meta shift as if we keep nerfing every new powerful thing then the current leaders will always be the leaders. The worst abuser of the new powers is the superfriends powerdome list Frankie just played, which was already a top contender at multiple GTs and now just became vastly more powerful.
If it wasn’t for the superfriends list I would wholeheartedly welcome these new powers as a fun way to shake up the meta.
Good points, Deviousdonut. But there ARE Superfriends Deathstars out there and we do need to consider them because as we’ve seen time after time, that is where the meta will go if it is “best.” It’s not people teleporting assault marines into combat, it’s Thunderstars, you know?
We’re going to continue to play test of course, we have till June to make a final decision as a community.
As for the shifting meta, I see you point, but the meta is not stagnant, even toning down the craziest stuff in the game. It is always shifting, so I don’t think there is any need to worry about it stagnating. For that to occur there would have to be no new material introduced.
How is killing 3 units you cannot see and charging a fourth on turn one not a big deal?
Oh yeah, wait, lol, I misread that. A Knight assaulting turn 1 after killing 3 units out LoS and in cover is certainly a big deal, haha.
He focused down and killed the conclave, lol, but you still had a knight in his deployment zone and had killed 4 units before he had rolled a dice!!!!
Everyone know that when you opponent doesn’t get to roll any dice and picks up 4 units, your opponent is having all the fun in the world!
Like when you play vs a full drop pod army ?
I’ll take droppods all day over a 1st turn charging knight or an invisible, rerolling saves wolfstar 1st Turn multi-charge
How did the knight charge turn one? Did your opponent move his models too close?
Can’t electrodisplace a vehicle.
Ignoring line of sight and cover though are pretty brutal on a knight.
I think he moved a piece of terrain with the Knight inside it.
I called this about a week ago!
http://i.imgur.com/mJXKKHU.png
I’m Nostradamus! 😀
Will I ever find true love, NostraFluger?!?! =)
Yes, but it will be rugby.
Hahaha, well played, sir!
http://i.imgur.com/IEknqA9.jpg
Pretty sure GW hates all of us and is trying to kill their own product.
Nah. I think if there’s a design vision for the game at all, it’s “move product.”
Put out stuff that encourages people to play bigger games and buy more models. Publish formations that flatly don’t fit into <2k games. Put out stuff that makes people go "I gotta buy that, right now", either because it's really powerful, because GW's marketing it as limited run, or whatever.
AoS has the same guiding star; it's a little easier to get into for newbies since you don't *need* hundreds of dollars' worth of stuff to play it, but the designers' goal is that you'll also never feel like you have everything you want for your faction. You can always buy more. More StarDragonwhatevers, more Ground Marines, more somethings.
Back when GW started doing supplements everyone kvetched about 40k armies getting the DLC model. This feels more like an attempt to adapt something like Clash of Clans; not that its free to play, but that the goal is to make players into continuous revenue streams.
The new marine psyker armies will be top tier. I don’t think the game will turn into 5th Ed grey Knights. But I do believe some sort of wolf army will be right there with eldar, Gladius, tau, Deamons Ect
I could be wrong but only time will tell
Remember when eldar came out! Omg omg scatter bikes nerf nerf nerf. Come to find out that yes scatter bikes are good, but hey aren’t the scariest shit around.
Eldar have forced everyone to get WAY more durable though. You know if you play in a tournament, you’ll be hit by 30-40 strength 6 shots a turn PLUS the rest of the army. That’s consideration number 1 when building a list. Before that, flyrants were the nastiest mid strength shooting. Now they’re even worse at tournaments because people bring the durability to deal with eldar and then happen to crump flyrants along the way.
Dude, Scatterbikes have invalidated a huge percentage of units from competitive and semi-competitive play as well as things like entire Dark Eldar army.
Scatterbikes have been meta-defining, though. People have figured out ways to kill or mitigate them, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t completely rearranged competitive play, and pushed certain factions out of the meta entirely.
They’re the new benchmark. If your army cannot stand up to 30+ S6 shots/turn plus whatever else the army brought, it’s not competitive, simple as that. Just like in 6e, if you couldn’t win going second vs. 5 wave serpents, you weren’t competitive, simple as that.
The thing I’m curious about is how willing a Deathstar player would be to try to roll that particular power instead of say, Invisibility, and how often he would end up actually having the power because he prioritised enough to get it.
Note that I don’t have an opinion about whether it should be modified or not, as I unfortunately don’t get enough matches in nowadays to form one, (nor do I know the US meta well enough to have a valuable one anyway!) I’m just genuinely curious about that aspect.
With “rolling” I mean getting the power while generating psychic-powers before the match.
Well invisibility allows you to survive a turn in the open. the switch power lets you skip that urn in the open entirely! So I think they would definitely throw everything at it.
Yeah, that’s true.
I was just thinking that the rest of that table (Primaris included) is quite underwhelming compared to other tables where the Deathstar-piloting player would often be rolling, so the risk of ending with a bag of “meh” powers until you manage to fish that one is greater than usual.
Not such a big deal though, if he does get that power (fairly likely with 6-7 rolls), things do look downhill from there, but it did come to mind.
If it were just three ML2 psykers rolling to try and get it, I think it would be a lot less scary- you’re a long ways from guaranteed to get either Displacement or Worldscape and none of the others are nearly as game-breaking (as they don’t enable T1 assaults.)
However, Space Marines have two very good ways to guarantee or near-guarantee a power: Sevrin Loth and Tigurius. Tiggy is a 75% chance to get a particular power by himself, presuming you don’t care about anything else; Loth is guaranteed to get whatever three powers you want from a single discipline (though he can’t be part of a Conclave.) Between the two of them, an army can easily make itself reliant on particular powers simply by virtue of knowing it will have them.
Just want to point out that Loth can only generate powers from Biomancy, Telepathy and Telekinesis. Not saying that he is not good, just pointing out he cannot get the new powers.
Not true. Angels specifically says that SM psykers can generate powers from these new disciplines IN ADDITION to the ones listed in their datasheet. Otherwise, no one would be able to use them.
Good point, no need to yell. It means it is more a problem than I thought.
@abusepuppy. Just checked sevrin loth’s rules man. Ya I’m sure you can argue that he can ‘roll’ on the new powers but his rule specifically says the following: Loth may select (rather than randomly roll) three psychic powers from one of the following Psychic disciplines: biomancy, telepathy, telekinesis. So ya he’d have to roll. But you could bring him to get your biomancy buffs or your invis and then have a conclave to try and roll for the other stuff.
> but his rule specifically says the following: Loth may select (rather than randomly roll) three psychic powers from one of the following Psychic disciplines: biomancy, telepathy, telekinesis. So ya he’d have to roll
I don’t think I’d agree. The text says that psykers can generate powers from the new disciplines in addition to their current ones; you essentially add the four new disciplines to the list that is normally on their datasheet. Loth’s datasheet says he can choose (not roll) powers from any of the following three disciplines… and now the Angels of Death book amends four additional disciplines onto that list. There’s no reason other than optimism to expect that he would generate powers differently from those tables as opposed to all of the other tables.
I think the important wording is ‘following 3’ and when its any of those 3 he gets to choose not roll. if its different disciplines I’d argue he’s have to roll. Here’s another question I guess. Do you think he’s allowed to generate powers from the demonology disciplines? If so I assume you believe he gets to pick there too? I think you have a valid point with Tigurius being a nasty way to increase your chances of getting these powers, but I think its a stretch to say Loth doesn’t have to roll.
Since this Death Star has no shooting, would spamming dscythe wraith guard be a counter?
Since they can never roll a 6 on the D chart, not really. The death star would just take the hits on their 2++.
The death star does have shooting, both psychic and actual bolter/grenade items.
Stomps are your best bet, or a bunch of D shots (like Wraith Guard) or large D blasts. You’d have to be able to clear the chafe (little wolves) first, though. A Smart Deathstar player will put the characters out front to tank the flakk fire and then LoS! the scary stuff to the little wolves, thereby keeping the star fully functional as long as possible.
How about void dreamers using the power that places them back in reserve.
That would be super good for Corsairs if they get the power off.
“If” being a pretty big limitation, however, since you can bet that the Marine player is gonna pitch all of their Denial dice at it and Void Dreamers aren’t nearly as strong of casters as Farseers are. It also presumes that the Dreamer is alive to cast it, which might be difficult if the Marine player is going first.
Wowwww this got more flak than the rules reform idea. You sure know how to push peoples buttons I guess, Reece lol. These powers are whacky though. Get that shit out of here. Nobody in my group thinks these add to the game constructively. If everyone played the same army I could see how these would be fun, but we dont and I wouldn’t want to. Risk is a better game for that.
Its a Real shame these new powers aren’t available for chaos space marines…
CSM badly needed a new assault delivery mechanism… Not that it can field super potent deathstars but still would of been useful.
What I find crazy is to why they felt the need to increase the power of one of the strongest factions out there.
Oddly enough, I would be ok with CSM having access to both of these powers. That is simply because their shooting is very lack luster. Their staying power is laughable. Everything is majorly overpriced.
As a CSM power, I would have thought this was pretty cool. Because there, it would be risky and provide a Role that the Army is sadly lacking in. But giving it to the Librarius Conclave is just ludicrous.
“What I find crazy is to why they felt the need to increase the power of one of the strongest factions out there.”
Its because GW doesn’t care about game balance.
GW is, like, totally the most nihilistic company out there, man.
Nihilists. Fuck. I mean, say what you will about Privateer Press, at least that’s a game design ethos. 😉
There is a local tournament goiNH on this weekend. I sadly won’t be attending cause I know a quarter of ghetto people going are bring deathstars similar to Frankie’s.
I will most likely be talking about break from 40k f I really a while and put my tau on the shelf till something get done about these new powers. I think it pretty ridiculous that the itc Hsu evenallowed players to use them until the next poll comes around. You guys think th he SM playerror are going to ignore these powers till something is done? Ridiculous.
And here is the catch 22:
Since space marines players are the vast majority of the ITC player base, do you really think they will vote against the powers?
I can already predict the poll result.
Just to add: IMHO, some things should not be put for voting.
You cannot attain game balance by allowing the players (with their own interest in mind) to self regulate themselves, humans don’t work that way
Actually the poles are pretty good. We thought people would nerf scat bikes, they didn’t! We gave the orks the cheap stompa!
I don’t blame the itc for the powers. It’s not their fault the GW doesn’t want to balance the game. But if I do expect the itc to do so.
What they should do it say “hey guys these powers are out of control. For now we are going to band them until late we have fully reviewed their potential”.
That way other armies aren’t forced to suffer by playing against his crap till the next polls come around. It’s just commoney sense people.
Space marine player. I would vote to address this in a hot second because i care about the game and competitive environment. Don’t assume people vote selfishly only to up their position
I’m non psychic white scars and space wolf star player and I would also vote to nerf the switcheroo power in a heartbeat just straight up bad for the game.
Spokane tournament this weekend will be allowing these powers. Being such a large tournament we should get a good idea on how these powers effect the meta. I look forward to running in to the death star Frankie ran. I know someone will run it.
I will be running the new powers as well. Just with two caster’s. Should be fun.
Good luck Chancy and please let us know how it goes.
Also, if the actual concern is what the death star can do after teleporting, limiting all Allies to Allies of Convenience instead of Battle Brothers, would reduce the power of combos, impact of the powers, and general unpleasantness people have with death stars. Also, it would solve the “Which Faction is this Unit” problem very elegantly.
This
Or simply doing it for Psyker powers would have the same effect without affecting riding in transports
+1. or at the very least forcing players to only one ally as a battle brother. would be nicer…
These powers are silly guys. I get it.. people don’t like nerfs but we gladly nerf some stuff already so that argument is a bit tired. Nerfing WILL happen it’s how we play WH40k competitively.. literally none of you play competitive “true” 40k and you wouldn’t want to. I guess until June I will be running a culexus and mean mugging every damn Space Marine player haha.
Currently we have a discussion regarding what to do with these new powers to the ETC.
Could you give me a answer to what happens if you roll the Geokineses power that lets you move terrain – And then use it to move a piece of impasable terrain ontop of the Relic?:D
Personally I am afraid that the guys writing these rules, really dosn’t play all that much 40k:P
Best Regards
Hey Andreas, we’d be very interested in hearing how the ETC handles these.
These powers are crazy, but luckily i dont play with the ITC nerf to Corsairs using Reckless Abandon on overwatch, so gl first turn charging me when i jump away after shooting you
yeah… the corsair “nerf” didn’t affect what you are talking about at all.
Jump wherever you want after shooting which you still can do according to ITC.
remember, what they are talking about is;
1) your units are wherever
2) His drop pod comes down by your units
3) He swaps position of the uber deathstar with the unit that drop podded right next to your units through the use of psychic power made easy to cast by the conclave.
4) He doesn’t shoot you with the deathstars bolt pistols (why would he) preventing you from running away if there wasn’t a “nerf”
5) He multi charges and kills a crapton of stuff and you have no answer but to die.
6) next turn he does it again when the next pods come down
The ITC banned Reckless Abandon from Overwatch. So, yes, it does effect things for Corsairs.
Technically they banned it just for jetbikes, “Eldar Corsair Jetbikes may not use their Reckless Abandon special rule as a part of Overwatch.”
You seem to think about Eldar warp spiders, which Corsairs do not have. I talk about moving 6+d6″ after shooting overwatch, which makes it hard for the Death Star to assault.
If you have a place to go since you have to go away from the star.
1. Bring a minimised Raven Guard Decurion plus Coteaz to gun for first turn
2. Bring 3 Manticores with a Psykana Division to twin-link them
3. Invite a few Engineers to allow your Manticores to fire a couple of missiles each turn
4. Fire ze missiles!
5. Snipe out casters
6. Laugh
7. Wake up
8. Cry
…and how will that do in a multi round tournament? remember, this isn’t a one off game against your buds in the basement. It is about the health of the tournament environment
I’m not a fan of anything that so easily “breaks” mechanics of the game by casually tossing all the rules for it aside. This does it with movement and, in turn, affects such elements as board control, line of sight, screening, zones of control, and does away with the weaknesses that some powerful units have as a tradeoff for their power in one area.
Adding an extra “run and assault” ability is one thing, but a 24″ move and assault is stupid. There is no counter (that most armies have access to…. yes I know that you can say “well, if army X uses unit Y that nobody typically wants to use because it sucks against everything else then….”), no interactivity, and no fun. This isn’t even getting to ignoring LoS rules while simultaneously ignoring Cover rules!
This needs to be addressed for the health of the game. We’ve known GW has jumped the shark from a competitive point for a long time. It’s like the person you talk to at a party that at first seems kinda cool, but after a couple minutes you start to realize they are crazy, and then after a few more you start thinking “how the hell can I get away from this person.”
As mentioned, part of the problem, as mentioned, is that the Librarius conclave makes it so easy to cast the powers. This breaks another element of the game; The investment required to get a power off vs the risk of perils as well as the chance of countering. with the conclave you have more dice available to get off more powers for fewer dice while having less chance of being denied (because you are getting more successes at 2+).
…but it isn’t really just the “conclave” that is the issue. It is the ally matrix and the ability to superfriends. Honestly, what would happen if all battle brothers were treated as allies of convenience JUST FOR PURPOSES of psychic powers? The worst case scenario is you could still electroteleport a unit of Mono Space Wolves TWC. This would still be scary, but now you can’t do it with a Conclave meaning more dice invested and significantly less chance of success. The unit wouldn’t be invisible since SW don’t have access to Telepathy. You also couldn’t have it with any units other than SW limiting shenanigans of other Combos. In all other units and combos, you now limit the abilily to uber buff a tailored combo of mixed chapters (or eldar/DE for that matter)
This seems to me to be better than addressing just these powers since it does nothing for “what will GW do without playtesting next”
So options could include;
1) Do nothing: Increases Rock/Paper/Scissors aspect and overall power level of the game… perhaps to the point that turns people off
2) Address/ban power trees: This could work in ways such as “no moving of terrain,” “power X is banned, reroll,” “no assaulting after moving via psychic power,” or “all powers from tree X not available.” This addresses the current offenders but doesn’t address issues of Conclave breaking the Psychic Phase for no tax. It’s like curing the symptom but not the disease. What does GW put out next week that we have to address? Now, if the community likes the conclave overall, but just finds moving terrain and breaking movement distasteful, then this is fine.
3) Address the conclave: Eliminate it, nerf it’s abilities, if played with other marines require it to be of the same chapter as a second chapter that is at least 925pts strong (prevents piggybacking caused by just saying “largest faction”), require it to be broken up like some of the new Chaos formations in the Black Legion book. this works if we want to keep the trees and powers in the game, but limit the ability to cast powers with impunity
4) Address allies chart for powers: As mentioned above. Limits the ability to make super units and still allows the powers in the game while toning down the power level of what they can be cast upon. Also limits effectiveness of other powers such as invis, ignores cover, etc
5) Address allies chart PERIOD: By making all Battle Brothers into Allies of Convenience this eliminates all superfriends issues. At the same time it does away with cross army transportation options and less abusive combos of ICs and units
Options 3, 4, and 5 address future releases in advance and prevent future argument every time a new supplement comes out. It also stops the frog boiling currently occurring.
My opinion is either option 3 or 4. Solid long term solutions that aren’t as limiting as 5. Will have to see what the community wants. That being said, I’m sure there are plenty who will say they want no changes. More power to them, but arguments of “specific army loadout XXX can maybe have a chance” just lead to a more lopsided game which is not healthy in the long term (my opinion only)
I like the idea of reducing all battle brothers to allies of convenience status. It solves pretty much every deathstar issue without tweaking the game too much. Can we put that idea up for a vote in June?
+1
I’m running a tournament where we are trying to address this issue by keeping the detachments at 3, but they all have to be from the same source. That includes marine chapters. So it’s an attempt to allow people to still build a unique army from various formations, but to move away from the IC soup.
The best success I’ve found in our area’s local tournament scene was to make all Battle Brothers, Allies of Convenience. There were no armies that we could tell that NEED this to be playable, and it drastically reduced the number of lists like the “superfiends”, which was quickly cannibalizing our local scene and destroying any hope of onboarding new players to the hobby… it was quite an epidemic, honestly.
I really don’t like the idea of adjusting the wording of rules to make them imply something different, and in fact would not be opposed to the aforementioned concept of just re-rolling that power in a certain setting.
Sure, you can still build a gigantic deathstar of Chapter Masters from the same faction and teleport them around, but to do so, you would have to be playing without detachment limits, which in most cases is another fine modification to the format.
In regards to detachment limits, I don’t think you should have a cap on the overall number, rather the inability to duplicate a detachment type (remember, that all formations on their own ARE detachments, so that means none of the same formation – except taking two Demi-Companies, but that is only because the rules in the codex describing how a Battle Company is composed, hints at addressing this).
Also, missions are really a big part too in leveling the playing field. In fact, a lot of the tactical objective cards (the supremacy ones for SM for example) can further balance things..
I don’t think it’s about “stopping deathstars” (or whatever else becomes the Boogey Man when/if those are neutered) but rather about applying some over-arching limitations such as detachment and ally chart guidelines/changes.
Going back to just CADs is another solution without having to change the powers themselves.
If you can only take two librarians that get no bonus to cast their powers and taking those librarians prohibits you from taking chapter masters/wolf lords that would certainly dampen the effectiveness of the psychic phase.
Ad Mech would be quite sad if their two halves no longer worked as battle Bros. Fine if you want to stop them from using SM drop pods but leave the poor skittari alone.
@Blight1: I’d also add Inquisitors to the list of things that can act as Bros. Not the retinues or anything, just the Inquisitors themselves.
I agree with changing all battle brothers to allies of convenience, or at the least making it so psychic powers only effect battle brothers as if they were allies of convenience. that would keep the flavor and awesomeness of bringing battle bros but not ruin the game the way super friends is starting to.
I have some thoughts on the Psychic powers that were tested and previous ones. The issues I see aren’t the psychic powers but the other core rules like battle brothers. But that is another issue another post
1) Invisibility – I think limiting invisibility to you pick which benefit you get when casting. Either 6’s to hit in CC or only snap shoot at it. (that is an idea I have been toying with)
2) Electrodisplacement – the psykers unit model count must be less than or equal to the unit it is swapping places with.
Even without the Space Wolves portion you can take a few Chapter Masters and more Librarians. Cast Hammerhand and now you have strength 7 power axes and strength 10 fists. Battle Brothers are not the issue.
Battle brothers does make the whole thing a lot more efficient though and having to use a bike squad as ablative wounds instead of the cheap-ass wolves pumps up the cost.
I’m on board with bigpig’s overall point. I think we’ve had enough experience with 7th edition to have an educated opinion on battle brothers. As fun as it’s to stick guardsmen or skitarrii into drop pods, it adds nothing to the game. It doesn’t make those armies competitive in the world of mega-death stars, storm surges or riptide-wing.
Battle brothers and multi-source armies should in theory make diverse armies, but you end up seeing the same shit every game. Oh you brought the Hunter’s Eye? What a surprise.
Frankie needs to find a way to put a ministorum priest in that unit!
Haha where there is a will there is a way.
Easiest solution to this problem is simply to not allow the new psychic powers introduced with Angels of Death (Geokinesis, etc…). Maintains status quo, and really doesn’t change much else (plus the other Space Marine detachments, etc… get to stay).
We went through this exact same level of BS powers with End Times magic, and no one was upset about them being universally banned from competitive play.
We’re debating how we want to do this for our tournament next month, so I’m hoping to see some feedback from other events over the next few weeks, but honestly right now I think we’re not going to allow the new disciplines.
I’m pretty sure (after seeing all the “sky is falling” moments we have over the past two editions) that GW doesn’t playtest and balance their rules using top tier tournament lists like mega deathstars… and that’s good because if they did, the game would probably be horrible for casual play lol!
In casual play (and in the BRB) it basically says, in so many words, “…this game is fun when you’re not being a jerk to your opponent… do what you want to make fun games happen…” It’s not natively a fine-tuned, competitive system – and GW has openly admitted that.
So, to most players that want to swap out a Librarian in danger, with Lysander to stop an advancing MC, this is a really awesome thing, and I’m glad it’s in the book. The same for moving a forest in front of your opponent to make his charge more difficult!
We have to keep in mind that it is the tournament community, not GW, that is applying these rules in a cut-throat, competitive setting… and for that, things like the ITC FAQ are all we have to help us. We shouldn’t be bashing GW for creating such rules, or adding them to the supplement, because it’s we as tournament players that are actually taking the game out of its designated context and building tournaments around it where everyone tries to “game the system” and make the most crazy powerful lists, throwing “fluff” to the wind…
As competitive tournament players, we sort of give up the notion that every game will be fun and a good close match (and if you disagree, you’re just lying to yourself lol.. more than ever now, you’ll get that ‘bad matchup’ somewhere along your travels… I’m sure you know what I mean) and we understand that everyone is going to use the best of the best, always, and look for loop-holes (that’s what happens in competitive games, of any sort)… so the onus really falls on the tournament community to come up with alternate rules/modifications/FAQs for competitive play.
The default answer of “GW is writing rules for funsies, don’t be a dick” doesn’t hold water for me anymore. I’ve been playing more casually this year, mostly in the context of a campaign. The amount of time it takes to make an army list that will be “fun” is just silly. Even when you think you took some garbage units that you’d never take to a tournament you find yourself in doubt whether the army is fair to your opponent.
It should not take that much work to plan a game and unravel the layers of thoughtless rules. It seems to me that it would be easier to write a clean set of rules and if players want to add their own spice of moving terrain or teleporting they are free to do that.
These new powers don’t even have any basis in the fluff if we want to go down that rabbit hole. Psykers are treated with fear and distrust because they can easily become a portal for daemons. Now they’re just going “force unleashed” and teleporting around the place and moving mountains?
Agreed. Ever since 6th dropped, I’ve actually been finding it harder and harder to play casually. My local group has edged more toward competitive Builds because when we try to get casual low-key Games, they almost always end up being the least balanced matchups we see. I’ve never had a tournament Game as bad as some of those “casuals”.
And therein lies the problem with GW’s rules design philosophy- casual gamers are the ones best served by good rules writing and tight design, and yet in attempting to cater to them GW does the exact opposite.
Basically, the less they actually do their jobs, the more we have to do it for them, and the simplest way to do that is just to give up on all the stuff that they did a shit job with.
40k fluff players are so much like people in abusive relationships. Everything would be just fine if you only just treated all treated GW right and not do any of the million things that will make the game instantly slap you in the face.
At this point I don’t see how these power will make it any worse. Yes they are completly bonkers but so is the meta as it stands. Unless you go all the way to something like Puppy’s Oldhammer idea I don’t see how limiting a few single things like these powers will fix anything. If anything Marine players could rightly complain that they get no access to the tools they need to catch up to Eldar, which these powers could be argued are.
No this is way worse than nonsense death stars/etc. In fact is compounds the problem of death stars by letting them hop around the map assaulting constantly especially on turn one.
Right now I’m for an all-out ban on the two movement powers.
I’d buy this if the game wasn’t already in such a messed up state. But at this point it seems like complaining that the new color of the car sucks. While it’s on fire.
If Imperials get to jump in our faces and point-blank assault like it’s no big deal on turn one, I take it the ITC is going to let Corsairs have their overwatch RA move back so they can defend against it?
As I wrote above the deathstar described isnt horrible. Bubble wrap and null deploy would hinder it greatly. A culexus would negate it and probably kill at least a few of the librarians necessary for it to work.
Marines seem to hardly ever win a GT and if they do I venture to guess it has more to do with spamming obsec units and not so much tactics or even battle profiency. If you really want to clean up the scene require that any detachment can only be used as part of its parent formation. Duplicatint the broken detachments with little tax is where I see the biggest problem. A conclave is pretty damn expensive when a demi-company is also required. Same for company of the great wolf, etc. With that said Necrons will still havw a fantastic decurion but you won’t see the 40 warp spiders on the field now right?
These powers are random and unlike telepathy seem to have very few usefuls with maybe two that are great. Let’s not just hack at the game without playing it first.
Did you watch the battle report? Reece basically played about as well as is humanly possible against a deathstar and just got stomped (with a good list mind you)
I’d actually disagree that he played that well. He admits he made a couple of probably critical mistakes. His dice were cold. I also question the wisdom of null deploying in that situation. That being said I wasn’t there.
I’m not sure I read this right but did you guys say this deathstar can even teleport out of combat? I really hope I misread that, even tar pitting attempts would be pointless .
Just a suggestion: if it is really this broken maybe have similar lists fight each other round one in large events so the finals won’t have too many similar lists and players are less likely to fight the same type of army multiple rounds? What’s your thoughts Frankie/Reece? I remember reading Frankie kept having to fight Spyder spam with wraiths and scars in a bunch of rounds at Adepticon and the finals.