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AoS is ready and been used at a few tournaments.
AoS ITC is nearly ready to rock, just hammering out the contract.
Android TO app actively being developed but, *NO* timeline as of yet.
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Rant Session
Tactics Corner
Traitor’s Hate: wow, Chaos got a huge boost. Did the game need more OP psychic powers?
Rules Lawyer
Interview with the ITC Scottish Open
Completed Commissions
Reecius’ Sylvaneth are nearly done!
List Review
29 thoughts on “Signals from the Frontline #465: Chaos Levels Up!”
At least with the Chaos psychic powers they’re exactly the same as the Space Marine ones so it’s easy to transfer rulings across.
I’m not sure that they should, tho. Phase Form, certainly, but Chaos has nothing remotely like the ability Imperials do to abuse Electrodisplacement or Writhing Worldscape. Without Harnessing WC on 2+ from a Conclave, those become both more difficult and more dangerous to cast, and Chaos doesn’t have either the same ability to cheaply drop in advance Units to swap with or the capability to build TW-class DeathStars.
I think a sorcerer cabal could abuse Electrodisplacement as well as any loyalist deathstar. Re-rolls on every sorcerer may appear mathematically worse (not by as much as you might think) but not having the restrictions on only one model manifesting powers means it is on balance possibly better.
A FMC would be perfect swap material, while swooping it cannot charge but the unit that replaces it can. Chaos certainly have access to FMC.
The problems with deathstars is a problem with army comp. Making the culexus available to every army is addressing the symptoms while ignoring the problem. It doesn’t address the root causes or any of the game mechanics that we all agree are broken.
Here are some other ideas that take on the problem directly.
1) Fix blessings. If psychic blessings were like IG orders the excesses wouldn’t be as available. “A unit can only benefit from 1 blessing a turn.” Count the Grimoir, canticles of the omnissiah, and similar things as a blessing Fixed. No more deathstar problems. No more unkillable units. More player interaction. More fun. Also Faster games.
2) Get rid of battle brothers -> Since the dawn of 7th edition we all knew BB was a bad idea. Make them Allies of convenience.
3) Cap warp dice -> If players can’t get all the powers they want, then deathstars will be mitigated substantially. I play 40K: a miniature wargame. It isn’t “The Psychic phase: A game of Deathstars”, so why don’t we cap it a bit? Capping warp dice makes the game more fun for everyone, and has the side bonus of making games faster.
4) Dump formations, Super Heavies, and drop to 2 detachments at 1500 points. Without the Janky, poorly thought out formations that complicate and disrupt the game mechanics and destroy any semblance of balance, the ability to run fun-killing deathstars is greatly diminished. Yeah, screamer star is still a thing without formations, and you can still deathstar a bit, but the excessive out of control fun-killing stars that we see now wouldn’t be possible. A no-formation, no-Super Heavy 2 detachment game is more fun for everyone except the most hardcore apoc players, and would get games done faster.
There are so many options to fix the broken mechanics that destroy enjoyment of the game for middle tier players. If a dummy like me can rattle off the 4 above off the top of my head, then I’m sure the ITC braintrust can agree on one or more of them, or come up with something even better.
Making the Cullexus available is such a small patch that does a little to address the symptoms while ignoring the problem, it does nothing to lower the barrier for entry, and it isn’t nearly enough.
Some of these only work in combination, tho. Capping Warp Dice without banning the Librarius Conclave just makes it even more powerful, since it can use WC so efficiently.
At 1500 points it has no formations, no super heavies, 2 detachments, a cap of 12 warp charges and anti-deathstar artillery that hit’s any unit exceeding 500 points.
Those restrictions go away or loosen as the game size increases. The goal was to provide scalability to help onboard newer players with a reduced barrier for entry.
Also, as I said, smarter people than me are welcome to refine, and improve on those proposals, or come up with ones of their own. I think we all agree we have a problem, and it’s time to take a shot at fixing it. I don’t think the culexus proposal is much of a fix, though I would vote yest on it if it somehow makes it into the ITC vote. I just think we can be smarter than that.
I agree with some of the stuff there, but I don’t think that Warp Charge dice are the real culprit any more than melee dice or shooting dice are. The issue with psychic powers is one of the powers used and the units they buff, not of the dice used to cast them. The 500pt hard cap on deathstars just means you’re gonna see lots of 499pt units getting spells cast on them, I would expect. However, in the balance I feel like it’s not totally misaimed.
Our own variant cuts things down to a single detachment with no formations allowed; I find that actually gets rid of most of the more problematic abilities, though some small nerfs to Eldar and Daemons were put in place to hold them in check.
RE: Warp Dice
The issue with not capping warp dices is that all of the limitations nerf top tier armies, but Demons (who regularly win GTs) are mostly unaffected by the other nerfs. In 2 detachments they can still spam warp dice, and gunboat fateweaver can run amok and still have plenty of dice for a bunch of summoning.
If you cap their warp dice it means they have to pick between gunboat fateweaver or summoning spam. They can’t have it all. That is so important to any restrictions put in place.
If you think you want to go through and nerf individual powers one by one and arrive at a balance by doing so, then I support that effort too, but an army comp adjustment that doesn’t knock Demons down a peg along with Eldar, Space Marines, and Necrons isn’t really complete.
RE: Deathstar artillery:
1) You are right there will be many more 400 ish point deathstars. On the other hand most 400 ish point deathstars are less problematic than 1,000 point deathstars.
2) I stole that from Texas Wargamescon. I didn’t believe it would work until I saw it. It works remarkably well, try it out.
RE: 1 detachment.
I get the urge to go this way. I’ve seen lots of events go that way. But it really makes it harder for some armies. For instance Orks need more HQ choices than they can get from 1 detachment to run most armies. Another example is Skitarii. It is so incredibly hard to run SKitarii in a single detachment. They need Ad Mech with them. Militarum Tempestus have the same problems.
All that being said, a 1 detachment army comp is much, much superior to the ITC’s we’re all playing apoc army comp.
I played in an Oldhammer Tourney recently. There were 2 lists that were basically identical.
Fateweaver
3 Tzeeche Herals on disc w/ ML 3. One had the Grim. One had the Paradox.
Pink horrors
Pink horrors
Pink horrors
Screamers
Tzeech Demon Prince w/ ML 3, and the Robe that gives it a 3++
That was 22 Warp dice, and 2 units that were usually rocking a 2++ rerollable (The Tzeech Prince was the warlord rolling for +1 Invul).
Against me, gunboat fateweaver was using 4 Witchfires a turn, and they were trying for 2 summonings a turn. I killed all the pinks but couldn’t touch anything else. It wasn’t a fun game (for either player). If warp dice had been capped at 12 it would have been much more fun.
40k is fine as is. Some people hate deathstars and others hate msu and free units/upgrades the fact of the matter is the game is evolving and by trying to scale it back makes no sence at all. Play the game as is, and if you don’t like hyper competitive stuff then maybe tournaments aren’t your place, you can always set up naritive games and house rule things as you see fit. I say bring on all the crazy stuff, makes the game a lot more intersting imo
I think it is silly to call “40K as it is” “Hyper Competitive”. I think what you mean to say is “Pay to Win”.
At any given ITC tournament there are only a handful of people that have invested the money and time to have a meaningful chance to compete. This is because the money required to run a top tier list and chase the meta is greater, and the time required to perfect the stacking of rules and combos, and to learn how other rules and combos stack is out of control.
It is scarcely competitive at all because only a handful of people have a chance, and for most people matchups are destiny, and they can compete only so long as they don’t run into a player that put in more money and time.
I long for a more competitive system where we reduce the barrier for entry so rather than buying my position at the top tables I can earn it based on my skill. That is competition. A measurement of skill. That is not “40K as it is”
What you’ve described there isn’t “pay to win” it’s tabletop wargaming, a game where there is no incentive to buy new minis has no use to a company, Fantasy 8th edition is a good example of how that goes, though that’s less to do with intent on GWs part and more an unexpected consequence of making games larger.
Pay to win and no incentive to buy miniatures are not the only options.
There are plenty of games that sell miniatures to give a variety of options, that you will want to have. That’s not the same as requiring you to own 10k points to maybe be able to put a good 2k army on the table.
There is another way to do it. If we reduce the barrier for entry, there would still be an incentive to chase the meta, and still be a barrier for entry to the top tables, but the costs wouldn’t be so incredibly high.
Imagine an army comp with no formations or Super Heavies. You have way less to buy, because when you adjust your list you do so in smaller increments. You have way, way less rules to learn. 1/2 as much, and that means 1/4 as many combo’s and exploits.
So we are talking about 1/4 as much money, and 1/4 as much time to gain entry to the top tables. More players are able to do so, the outcome of events are more meaningful because there is more competition.
I’m not saying there should be no barrier for entry. No cost associate with success. I’m saying the current price tag is too high.
You’re obviously free to enjoy the game however you please- however, I think you’ll find that most people have become pretty put-off by the power level of the game nowadays and a literal “bring anything you want” tournament has only very limited appeal.
cent star ports all over the board, melting units at will, and it’s perfectly fine and dandy, but somehow a melee deathstar isn’t.
i’m not sure these powers are the greatest thing for the game, but, there are tons of units and rules combinations that *sure* as hell aren’t good for the game. in fact, i voted last go round to not allow assault after worldscape/electro displacement, but at this point, i question the validity of nerfing these abilities without addressing the other problems with 40k.
i don’t like to complain about things without putting forth a solution, but i really don’t know what to do here.
Centstars are the Space Marine players idea manifest. There’s just too many people in love with it.
It’s a bit like the Imperial Knight. A whole book of superheavies that would never have been accepted into the mainstream game if it had been some Xenos expansion.
Well, CSM deathstars do not manifest on 2+ and I wouldn’t call the Warp Talon formation that good because it is a disordered charge and the buggers still lack assault grenades. Meanwhile in the next book, BA gets new datasheets for Assault and Devastators squads… Would it have been that hard to give Warp Talons a new datasheet that gives them assault grenade equivalents…
None of the stuff to make CSM not feel like neglected crap* would be hard. It just requires someone to give a toss. And well I guess for GW that is somehow hard.
*Yeah I know making them blalanced or good would be hard but you don’t actualy have to go that far. Just make it seem like some effort and thought went into it.
At least with the Chaos psychic powers they’re exactly the same as the Space Marine ones so it’s easy to transfer rulings across.
Fair point.
I’m not sure that they should, tho. Phase Form, certainly, but Chaos has nothing remotely like the ability Imperials do to abuse Electrodisplacement or Writhing Worldscape. Without Harnessing WC on 2+ from a Conclave, those become both more difficult and more dangerous to cast, and Chaos doesn’t have either the same ability to cheaply drop in advance Units to swap with or the capability to build TW-class DeathStars.
I think a sorcerer cabal could abuse Electrodisplacement as well as any loyalist deathstar. Re-rolls on every sorcerer may appear mathematically worse (not by as much as you might think) but not having the restrictions on only one model manifesting powers means it is on balance possibly better.
A FMC would be perfect swap material, while swooping it cannot charge but the unit that replaces it can. Chaos certainly have access to FMC.
Khorne Dogs are also another strong target, since they can Scout 12″ and then move 12″ on the first turn to enable a swap-charge.
The problems with deathstars is a problem with army comp. Making the culexus available to every army is addressing the symptoms while ignoring the problem. It doesn’t address the root causes or any of the game mechanics that we all agree are broken.
Here are some other ideas that take on the problem directly.
1) Fix blessings. If psychic blessings were like IG orders the excesses wouldn’t be as available. “A unit can only benefit from 1 blessing a turn.” Count the Grimoir, canticles of the omnissiah, and similar things as a blessing Fixed. No more deathstar problems. No more unkillable units. More player interaction. More fun. Also Faster games.
2) Get rid of battle brothers -> Since the dawn of 7th edition we all knew BB was a bad idea. Make them Allies of convenience.
3) Cap warp dice -> If players can’t get all the powers they want, then deathstars will be mitigated substantially. I play 40K: a miniature wargame. It isn’t “The Psychic phase: A game of Deathstars”, so why don’t we cap it a bit? Capping warp dice makes the game more fun for everyone, and has the side bonus of making games faster.
4) Dump formations, Super Heavies, and drop to 2 detachments at 1500 points. Without the Janky, poorly thought out formations that complicate and disrupt the game mechanics and destroy any semblance of balance, the ability to run fun-killing deathstars is greatly diminished. Yeah, screamer star is still a thing without formations, and you can still deathstar a bit, but the excessive out of control fun-killing stars that we see now wouldn’t be possible. A no-formation, no-Super Heavy 2 detachment game is more fun for everyone except the most hardcore apoc players, and would get games done faster.
There are so many options to fix the broken mechanics that destroy enjoyment of the game for middle tier players. If a dummy like me can rattle off the 4 above off the top of my head, then I’m sure the ITC braintrust can agree on one or more of them, or come up with something even better.
Making the Cullexus available is such a small patch that does a little to address the symptoms while ignoring the problem, it does nothing to lower the barrier for entry, and it isn’t nearly enough.
I would play in that tournament!!
Some of these only work in combination, tho. Capping Warp Dice without banning the Librarius Conclave just makes it even more powerful, since it can use WC so efficiently.
True. I think the best approach is to not rely on a single magic bullet.
I’ve been playing lots of games in this format:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1e-aQqVAb_JitTuZtO4KlsmbgCw5rkdXotBZF-PXHL-I
At 1500 points it has no formations, no super heavies, 2 detachments, a cap of 12 warp charges and anti-deathstar artillery that hit’s any unit exceeding 500 points.
Those restrictions go away or loosen as the game size increases. The goal was to provide scalability to help onboard newer players with a reduced barrier for entry.
Also, as I said, smarter people than me are welcome to refine, and improve on those proposals, or come up with ones of their own. I think we all agree we have a problem, and it’s time to take a shot at fixing it. I don’t think the culexus proposal is much of a fix, though I would vote yest on it if it somehow makes it into the ITC vote. I just think we can be smarter than that.
I agree with some of the stuff there, but I don’t think that Warp Charge dice are the real culprit any more than melee dice or shooting dice are. The issue with psychic powers is one of the powers used and the units they buff, not of the dice used to cast them. The 500pt hard cap on deathstars just means you’re gonna see lots of 499pt units getting spells cast on them, I would expect. However, in the balance I feel like it’s not totally misaimed.
Our own variant cuts things down to a single detachment with no formations allowed; I find that actually gets rid of most of the more problematic abilities, though some small nerfs to Eldar and Daemons were put in place to hold them in check.
Do you have a copy of the restrictions that you use?
RE: Warp Dice
The issue with not capping warp dices is that all of the limitations nerf top tier armies, but Demons (who regularly win GTs) are mostly unaffected by the other nerfs. In 2 detachments they can still spam warp dice, and gunboat fateweaver can run amok and still have plenty of dice for a bunch of summoning.
If you cap their warp dice it means they have to pick between gunboat fateweaver or summoning spam. They can’t have it all. That is so important to any restrictions put in place.
If you think you want to go through and nerf individual powers one by one and arrive at a balance by doing so, then I support that effort too, but an army comp adjustment that doesn’t knock Demons down a peg along with Eldar, Space Marines, and Necrons isn’t really complete.
RE: Deathstar artillery:
1) You are right there will be many more 400 ish point deathstars. On the other hand most 400 ish point deathstars are less problematic than 1,000 point deathstars.
2) I stole that from Texas Wargamescon. I didn’t believe it would work until I saw it. It works remarkably well, try it out.
RE: 1 detachment.
I get the urge to go this way. I’ve seen lots of events go that way. But it really makes it harder for some armies. For instance Orks need more HQ choices than they can get from 1 detachment to run most armies. Another example is Skitarii. It is so incredibly hard to run SKitarii in a single detachment. They need Ad Mech with them. Militarum Tempestus have the same problems.
All that being said, a 1 detachment army comp is much, much superior to the ITC’s we’re all playing apoc army comp.
I played in an Oldhammer Tourney recently. There were 2 lists that were basically identical.
Fateweaver
3 Tzeeche Herals on disc w/ ML 3. One had the Grim. One had the Paradox.
Pink horrors
Pink horrors
Pink horrors
Screamers
Tzeech Demon Prince w/ ML 3, and the Robe that gives it a 3++
That was 22 Warp dice, and 2 units that were usually rocking a 2++ rerollable (The Tzeech Prince was the warlord rolling for +1 Invul).
Against me, gunboat fateweaver was using 4 Witchfires a turn, and they were trying for 2 summonings a turn. I killed all the pinks but couldn’t touch anything else. It wasn’t a fun game (for either player). If warp dice had been capped at 12 it would have been much more fun.
Damn Reece, if this was Oregon Trail you’d have died of dysentery lol
40k is fine as is. Some people hate deathstars and others hate msu and free units/upgrades the fact of the matter is the game is evolving and by trying to scale it back makes no sence at all. Play the game as is, and if you don’t like hyper competitive stuff then maybe tournaments aren’t your place, you can always set up naritive games and house rule things as you see fit. I say bring on all the crazy stuff, makes the game a lot more intersting imo
I think it is silly to call “40K as it is” “Hyper Competitive”. I think what you mean to say is “Pay to Win”.
At any given ITC tournament there are only a handful of people that have invested the money and time to have a meaningful chance to compete. This is because the money required to run a top tier list and chase the meta is greater, and the time required to perfect the stacking of rules and combos, and to learn how other rules and combos stack is out of control.
It is scarcely competitive at all because only a handful of people have a chance, and for most people matchups are destiny, and they can compete only so long as they don’t run into a player that put in more money and time.
I long for a more competitive system where we reduce the barrier for entry so rather than buying my position at the top tables I can earn it based on my skill. That is competition. A measurement of skill. That is not “40K as it is”
What you’ve described there isn’t “pay to win” it’s tabletop wargaming, a game where there is no incentive to buy new minis has no use to a company, Fantasy 8th edition is a good example of how that goes, though that’s less to do with intent on GWs part and more an unexpected consequence of making games larger.
Pay to win and no incentive to buy miniatures are not the only options.
There are plenty of games that sell miniatures to give a variety of options, that you will want to have. That’s not the same as requiring you to own 10k points to maybe be able to put a good 2k army on the table.
There is another way to do it. If we reduce the barrier for entry, there would still be an incentive to chase the meta, and still be a barrier for entry to the top tables, but the costs wouldn’t be so incredibly high.
Imagine an army comp with no formations or Super Heavies. You have way less to buy, because when you adjust your list you do so in smaller increments. You have way, way less rules to learn. 1/2 as much, and that means 1/4 as many combo’s and exploits.
So we are talking about 1/4 as much money, and 1/4 as much time to gain entry to the top tables. More players are able to do so, the outcome of events are more meaningful because there is more competition.
I’m not saying there should be no barrier for entry. No cost associate with success. I’m saying the current price tag is too high.
You’re obviously free to enjoy the game however you please- however, I think you’ll find that most people have become pretty put-off by the power level of the game nowadays and a literal “bring anything you want” tournament has only very limited appeal.
cent star ports all over the board, melting units at will, and it’s perfectly fine and dandy, but somehow a melee deathstar isn’t.
i’m not sure these powers are the greatest thing for the game, but, there are tons of units and rules combinations that *sure* as hell aren’t good for the game. in fact, i voted last go round to not allow assault after worldscape/electro displacement, but at this point, i question the validity of nerfing these abilities without addressing the other problems with 40k.
i don’t like to complain about things without putting forth a solution, but i really don’t know what to do here.
Centstars are the Space Marine players idea manifest. There’s just too many people in love with it.
It’s a bit like the Imperial Knight. A whole book of superheavies that would never have been accepted into the mainstream game if it had been some Xenos expansion.
Well, CSM deathstars do not manifest on 2+ and I wouldn’t call the Warp Talon formation that good because it is a disordered charge and the buggers still lack assault grenades. Meanwhile in the next book, BA gets new datasheets for Assault and Devastators squads… Would it have been that hard to give Warp Talons a new datasheet that gives them assault grenade equivalents…
None of the stuff to make CSM not feel like neglected crap* would be hard. It just requires someone to give a toss. And well I guess for GW that is somehow hard.
*Yeah I know making them blalanced or good would be hard but you don’t actualy have to go that far. Just make it seem like some effort and thought went into it.
LOL – Liam O’Shea – “Irn Bru tastes of pure win” ….!
I’ll need take few cans to the LVO
Lol, that would be awesome!
I would like to see some batreps from Josh Death to see how he uses his harlequins. Are there any around?
Why would he keep evidence of his cheating around lol
You shut your filthy mouth Reece, Irn Bru is awesome! 😉
Hahaha!