27 thoughts on “Signals from the Frontline #426”

1. Ban the heretic!

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   1. lol

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2. I’ve been listening to your objections to the new Psychic powers. I generally agree with them, but they also highlight another change that would greatly improve the ITC.

   Super-Heavy Vehicles, and Gargantuan Creatures should not be able to benefit from blessings, or other bonuses like the Grimoire.

   That one little change would greatly improve the fun of the game, and decrease the feel badsies for mid to lower level players.

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   1. Start talking to people about that change, see if the idea gains traction.

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      1. As much as I’d like to claim that idea as my own, it wasn’t. People have been bugging me with that specific request since we started prepping for LVO 2015. I’ve sure you’ve heard it before. It’s got to be one of the top 5 requests I get from people every time we run an ITC event.

         It sucks to play against an Invisible WraithKnight or a Grimoired Chaos Knight. I’d be really surprised if a majority don’t agree with that. It went into the Post Event survey for Flying Monkey GT. I’ll let you know the results once they are in.

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         1. I’ve heard this idea before as well.

            An even bigger problem though is blessings on death stars, there’s just not much that anyone can reasonably think to do about it.

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      2. Why does it need to gain traction? I’m sure a 2++ knight is hated by a lot of people. It is so easy to put something to vote, is there a limit to the number of questions asked each poll?

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3. I don’t think the new powers are so nutso that the entire 4 disciplines need to be thrown out.
   -veil is good, already exists for eldar, and is really just an alternate to invis. (Except that synergy with veil requires you to already have decent saves like storm shields. Veiling some tac marines of of cover ain’t gonna do jack.) The Libby school in general is pretty nice. Banning this would essentially be banning 6 decent powers just to knock out veil. Also since it’s just another deathstar power, banning it and not banning fortune or invis seems kind of odd.

   -Shift is actually pretty easy to play around. Did a batrep on dakka and my opponent was careless, leaving a unit entirely in a small terrain piece instead of hanging a guy off the back, so I was able to pull that unit up, but then the power never got used again, and it wouldn’t have the first time had he not made that mistake. We had roughly 2 pieces in every 2×2 board area, usually a big and a small, and we just couldn’t find a lot of reasons to cast the power.

   The rest of the geo school (barring phase form, which is good,) is freaking awful. Chasm is wc2, it’s statistically hard to cause even a single wound with, and many units in the game, like entire necron decurions and every monstrous creature are flat out immune to it. /facepalm
   The school is seriously like pyromancy bad with 1 good power and 1 situationally good one.

   -fulmination is pretty hot overall. Give PA libbies a storm shield save, a primaris that is 2 heavy bolters, and the big one being electrodisplacement. That one is a little cray cray when put on a deathstar with pods or scouts sneaking on to the board to be displaced. Much better than shift and cheaper to cast. You can tell the upper players from the lower on the net right now because the lower players are whining about shift, the upper ones are pointing at ESD.

   -technomancy is meh. Subvert machine has an extra die roll-off after casting and denial where the power can still just do nothing, and the power literally does nothing if say…the opponent doesn’t bring a vehicle. (Which are less than ideal in current 40k anyway.) Even in a game with 14 vehicles on both sides combined, this school did all of 3 glancing hits all game with both of us using it. (I also managed to get subvert off and actually win the roll-off once! …and shot a heavy bolter doing no wounds…yay!)

   So the big powers are just veil, ESD, and phase form, with shift a tier lower and a giant asterix next to it. Not so sure about banning 4 entire disciplines just to nuke those. And again, invis is REALLY GOOD, so is fortune, so is grimoire of true names, so is fateweaver, so are wraithknights, so are warp spiders, so are windriders, etc etc etc. It seems to me there are bigger fish to fry, so to speak.

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   1. Good points, Mike. That was my suggestion just for an easy solution. Clean, neat, easy. No muss, no fuss.

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   2. Just for clarification, did you use those powers in conjunction with a Conclave or just natural? It seems the Conclave really pumps up the already borderline powers because of the ability to bypass the issue of randomness and decreasing the chance of denying.

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      1. Couple games with shift had conclave. Even then I found it lackluster. ESD was done in and out of a conclave. Awesome in both. Only got veil in the games with conclave. Got several of the mid range powers with and without conclave.

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4. If death stars are getting too powerful why not consider bringing back full ranged D and allowing the Tau hunter contingent to play RAW. Twin-linked, ignores cover, bs 6 d-shots should hopefully encourage people to not dump 1850 points into one unit.

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   1. That’s a baby with the bathwater situation, though. Full strength ranged D makes a lot of armies no fun to play, like Knights or any high value single models.

      Full strength Coordinated Firpower doesn’t defeat deathstars, actually. It is only marginally better against them.

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      1. Also full strength D doesn’t really do much to most death stars, not unless you’re abnormally lucky at rolling 6s.

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         1. Yeah, true. Even the blasts aren’t that good against them unless you get crazy lucky. Stomps are really the only solution…again, assuming you can roll a 6.

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5. I really think we oughtta look at tossing some bones around to the have-nots.

   I don’t think there are many people who would freak out if BA actually got ws/bs 4 scouts, a4 dreadnought, 35 point terminators, and vanguard with cheaper power weapons.

   It seems kind of silly to stay solely focused on the top tables and top combos in the top armies when there are plenty of people with the mediocre armies that ARE competitive players, they just didn’t buy the right army for this point in time. Some of them don’t go to events because they don’t want to just show up to be a midday snack for a wraithknight that can beat their 1850 list with one hand tied behind its back.

   If we really want the competitive game to grow, we should be hoisting up some of the bottom armies, even if it’s just temporary until they get an update from GW. Get some of those chaos marine, AM, and BA players to believe that they can actually hold a candle to some other armies and maybe they’ll actually show up to play.

   Specifically on the BA changes: There’s no harm in throwing it up on a vote right? If you think it will pass, then by all rights it SHOULD be on there, because that would obviously be what the majority wants.

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   1. Start talking to people about those changes. If people are receptive to the idea it will gain traction. You have till June, so lots of time.

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      1. Heh, unfortunately posting on here is the limit of my influence. I’m not in a place with any big names or events, so I doubt you’ll hear about this from anyone other than me. Thanks for the nod though!

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         1. Yeah, no worries. I hope with these rumored campaign books, BA will get some updated data slates like Wolves did in Curse of the Wulfen.

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            1. GW didn’t bother fixing SW Dreads or Wolf Scouts in CotW; it’s entirely likely they’ll miss something just as big when they do get around to BA.

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6. Haven’t had the chance to listen yet (my phone doesn’t like Twitch), but I thought I’d point this out. Shifting Worldscape cannot target buildings because buildings are considered vehicles when being determined if they’re a viable target by psychic powers.

   From the BRB pp110: When determining if a building can be targeted by a shooting attack or PSYCHIC POWER, … …, treat the building AS A VEHICLE unless specifically stated otherwise…

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   1. Skyshield then?

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7. I’m definitely feeling the new campaign formation books. Use the OG rules and buff them with formations is so much better than rewriting a whole codex. If they keep doing campaign books, I really hope they get back around to CSM. Night Lords, IW, Emperor Children, anything non Khorne MSU would make me so happy and I feel in the future it could finally happen if they keep releasing campaign books this way. I’m also at work so have to wait a bit before listening to this cast.

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   1. What about Dark Eldar though Dbiesto? There’s just so much in their codex that’s complete garbage in the meta that a few formations won’t be enough. Not unless they were insanely good. LOTS of free points or something.

      That and their codex suffers from being boring and uninspired. Archons are crappy and worthless in every way for instance.

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      1. I completely agree. I’m really hoping they do something to balance every army but as of right now it looks like Space Marines(all factions) Eldar, and Daemons probably in that order with the new release.

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8. Reece, Frankie – You can’t flat out ban the new Marine powers.

   I fully support the removal of Geomancy because altering terrain in a competitive, time restricted setting is entirely impractical.

   That being said, the other powers help out greatly against some of the existing, crazy and overpowered units available to Eldar for example.

   Having played against 4 – 6 units of Warp Spiders and Wraith Knights in my recent games, I really do need the extra mobility and ignoring of line of sight to even have q chance of interacting with some of these units.

   Warp Spider spam has been dominating EVERY competitive environment with or without nerfs to their ability, especially when they are coupled with other overpowered units.

   Perhaps I don’t want to play MSU spam or fast moving deathstars, in which case those powers actually give my army a chance.

   Yes, Orks will suffer… But guess what, they already do. Eldar certainly don’t struggle against any of the armies. Even with the new powers it doesn’t raise Marines above them, but it might force them to rethink warp Spider and Jetbike spam!

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9. Hey everyone!
   Just thought i would put my two-cents into the new powers. I’ve played competitively for a while now and i have played with these new powers.

   Librarius Discipline;
   -The only power people will complain about here is veil of time. Everything else is pretty standard, and Null zone adds a much needed reduction to certain armies/units. Veil is a warp charge two- so not certain unless a lot of dice AND lib conclave- which according to ITC you can only get off 2-3 powers anyways. Veil is really good, yes, but eldar already has this- and honestly its not as disgusting as some people are saying. HOWEVER; i do agree it makes ss deathstars even more nasty… just not enough to ban the psychic power.
   –Suggested fix; Easy. re-roll rule is already in place, Any 2+ can only be rerolled successfully on a 4+.

   Technomany Discipline;
   -No one is complaining about this even though it targets already the weakest part of any army- vehicles. lots of haywire with three blessings for vehicles is really really nice. Looks like GW was trying to fix vehicles with this set of powers!
   –Suggested fix; dont

   Fulmination Discipline
   -Magnetokineses and Electrodisplacement; No other powers in this set are super-great. Magnetokineses is really interesting. Move 18″. Thats cool and all but the unit cannot charge the same turn it moved using this power. Its actually really balanced and reminds me a lot of the other power in the book from the discipline no one uses (so much so i wont bother to even look at my book). The difference is its an ok power in an ok discipline rather than an ok power in a horrible discipline. This is clearly meant to give mobility to large squads- and not bad honestly. Electrodisplacement however; this is a rather sick power that allows for fast, and easy movement across the board. People will complain about this power (and some have already). BUT you need a unit near the enemy to get this power effectively off. If you face this all you really need to do is target the smaller weaker units to prevent the deathstar from moving around the table. It relies on weak units to transport the heavy units. Tau will laugh at this power- as drop pods will disembark units into interceptor fire galore (it happened to me) and be unable to use the power. Most other armies will have a major problem with his however, as you require either interceptor OR assassin to prevent the drop pod- turn 1 charge.
   –Fix; ITC could easily (and should!) add a rule that states “units transported by this power cannot charge in the same turn” OR “This power cannot be cast on an unit that just came in from deep-strike or reserve in the same turn”. Both of these rules limit the FIRST TURN charge ability of these. I personally like the second rule more, but i think both are very usable and VERY valid without gimping the entire discipline

   Geokinesis
   -People are talking about Phase Form and Shifting Worldscape. Phase form is essentially a better version of the white scar item that gives a unit ignore cover. ITC already has a great ruleset that limits super heavies from gaining ignore cover if it has certain things. I think a lot of people are complaining about this power when most armies already have something similar in either war gear or relic options. Shifting Worldscape is hilarious! move terrain with someone on it to a new location!? hahaha! thats so great! I can see this being more trouble to T.O.s than players. Before getting to fix it part, the easy way to reduce the headaches for T.O.s is have replacing terrain to rightful location tied with battlepoints. If the player doesnt- reduce battlepoints. It should be obvious to players if terrain is messed up.
   –FIX IT!; Phase Form; Cannot be cast on units with same restrictions as ITC superheavies (larger than 7″ blast AP 3 or better). Other than that i think its pretty fair in the scheme of things. Shifting Worldscape; Units on terrain being transported MUST take a dangerous terrain check (even if it has move through cover). No armor saves for this check (although invul saves may be taken). Vehicles cannot be transported this way. Impassible terrain cannot be moved.

   Last thoughts;
   Most of the powers complained about are 2-3 warp charges. If you take a lib conclave than you have a great chance to cast the powers… but only 2-3 (depending on tiggy, as severin loth CANNOT be in a lib conclave or get this powers as of right now). only being able to cast two of these powers isnt horribly broken. If you try to cast without lib conclave you will probably perils OR get just enough through to squeak out the spell… and then have the enemy throw is dice to dispell.

   Its also likely, judging by the books coming out, that this is just the progressive climb of power levels. I would suspect in another month or two to see a new book for non-imperial army with questionably great rules as well (we saw it with necrons, then eldar, then space marines, then tau).

   I used this powers against a net tau list and still got my but kicked (i played a drop pod and assault heavy list), so i would hold off on ‘THROWING THE BAN-HAMMER’ until you see if it really changes who’s on the top boards. Also think about is this a game-killer or a game-changer. Seems to me most armies have a hard counter to at least one or two powers people are complaining about… just they dont bring them because they arent great in pre-power meta.

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