Hey everyone, Adam here from TFG Radio! Today our group is bringing you info on the new “split” rule from the Pink Horror unit entry, along with a video.
This article is a combined effort from the TFG Crew.
The new Pink Horrors have provided yet another pivot moment for 40K. Where do we go from here?
The new “Split” rule allows all Pink Horrors killed in a phase to spawn 2 Blue Horrors. They create a new unit, and must be placed within 6 inches of the Pink Horror unit. When these Blue Horrors die, each one spawns a Brimstone Horror, following the same placement rules. If a rule would require these models to be removed (with the exception of Daemonic Instability), they still get to use the Split Rule, but must be placed wholly within 6 inches of the last pink horror that was killed.
We even created a video with how the rule would work out:
A few important notes:
It clearly says within 6 inches, and well, GW has clarified that if they mean “wholly within”, they will say “wholly within”, so the first Blue Horror spawned needs to be placed within 6 inches of the parent Pink Horrors, but you can then daisy-chain the rest as far as you’d like so long as you maintain coherency. This means that Blue Horrors can suddenly appear a good deal away from their parents, allowing them to easily contest or grab objectives or block charges.
These units spawn at the end of a PHASE, not turn, so if you shoot at Pink Horrors, the spawned Blue Horrors can stop you from charging in the assault phase as they are a separate unit and thus cannot be a legal target for a charge, and you could have never shot them to be able to make them a legal target, so charge blocking for the win. Daisy chain, objective grabbing for the win too.
Blue Horrors and Brimstone Horrors are psykers, so you are generating more dice each time. If you shoot a Pink (who generates 1), and get a few blues, you know have 2 dice generated instead of 1 next turn. If the Blue Horrors get shot, and not wiped out, and create Brimstone Horrors you now have 3 dice when you originally had 3. Extrapolate that out across a formation with 9 units of Pink Horrors and you now have epic levels of Psychic Dice.
So, the problem is that as it is written now, Pink Horrors are about 150 free points. You spend 90 to get 240 or so back. Just fulfilling a basic CAD with these Pink Horrors means that you are now playing 300 points above your opponent, more or less. If you dedicate to the farm, you can easily end up playing 600-1000 points over your opponent. Coupled with the fact that almost nothing stops this from happening outside of assault, Pink Horrors are in this form the most dominant troop choice in the game. Their ability to control and contest as well as survive hails of fire through Split by just creating more units, many, if not all, armies will struggle against them.
To compound the problem more, the Loci of Creation, an upgrade to Heralds of Tzeentch, doubles this. This means that one Pink Horror is now 4 Blue Horrors. That’s just insane. A unit of 20 Pink Horrors will spawn 80 Blue Horrors before it dies. That is more summoning than even Conclave can manage easily, all with no rolls of any kind required and with almost no means of stopping it outside of Daemonic Instability.
The question is thus: What do we do about this?
On one hand, we can leave it all alone. Pink Horrors are not exactly Bloodthirsters, and who has all these damn models, anyway? Obviously, playing by RAW is typically ideal as GW makes the game, not the ITC, and the less we mess with the game, the easier it is for any person, regardless of format preference, is prepared for the rule and how it is applied. Chaos needs a win anyway, so at least it is not Eldar/SM getting all the love. This will make the meta shift from shooting to fighty, which helps out weaker builds.
The downside to this is that Pink Horrors are not worthless; in fact, they are already one of the stronger troop choices. They have a 5++ rerolling 1 save that can easily go to 4++ in a formation or 3++ with the Grimoire. They generate psychic dice, and with Split, they are suddenly generating more psychic dice. They can be Objective Secured easily, and even if the Blue Horrors are not, you can use the Blue Horrors as effective charge and movement blockers to frustrate and stymie an opponent.
On the other, we can ban Split entirely. This solves a lot of issues from Split, and suddenly, we don’t all have to see 80 Pink Horrors on the table and 160 (or 240) Blue Horrors.
Of course, the downside here is making large changes to an army, not to mention that Pink Horrors lost access to Malefic daemonology, so you are just making them worse. Also, for those who read the rule and went out and bought 8 boxes of them, that sucks for them.
We could always split the middle and ban the Loci of Creation. This allows Split to stay (still intense), but not with the insanity of the Loci.
The downside to this is even without the Loci of Creation the unit is massively imbalancing to the game with the Split rule left otherwise intact. As shown in the video a single unit of 20 Pink Horrors =1 Herald is intensely problematic and spawns a lot of models, even without the Loci.
We could also houserule that Instant Death attacks ignore Split, so putting S6 into Pinkies or S4 against Blues will solve the problem easy enough.
This option has the most upside, as there is a lot of Str6 weapons in the game. This will really hurt Space Marines and their equivalents as the current Meta doesn’t support a ton of Str 6 shooting for them. Eldar get a great way to deal with them in Scatter Lasers, which are already good, and we all know how much help Eldar needs to be competitive.
We could make Split dependent upon a dice roll like many things in this game already are. “At the end of the phase roll a single die for any unit of Pink Horrors now subject to the Split rule, on a 5+ the Rule goes off normally, any other result and Tzeentch has frowned upon you and the Rule is not enacted”.
This is in keeping with the spirit of the game as a game dependent upon die rolls for great things to happen. It allows people to still use their toys but without the huge hampering that gets thrown into the mix by allowing the split rule to be used in full.
Another option could be to have the new unit take an instability test at the end of each player turn, including the turn it was created. This is similar to the rules for the Khorne Daemonkin artifact Kor’lath, Axe of Ruin. That rule states that, when the lord dies, a Bloodthirster appears. The downside is that, at the end of every game turn, it must take an instability test. This could result, due to a leadership of 7, in the unit not even staying on the field after appearing.
Hopefully this article, and video, we put together gives you an idea of how the rule works, along with possible solutions for the rule in case you feel it should be toned down.
As always, share your thoughts in the comments section! And remember, Frontline Gaming sells Games Workshop product at up to 25% off, every day. You can also pick up some cheap models in our Second Hand Shop. Some of these gems are quite rare, sometimes they’re fully painted!
So I don’t have access to the book yet but I read that the split rule is not actually a rule on the pink horror sheet but on the blue horrors.
What if we used that fact as a guide on how to go forward? That your list has to have blue horrors and brims in order to use the split rule? And additionally you can only split to add back in the models the list already had (eg you took 10 blues you can only have 10 blues active at any given time)? Still powerful, still free models, but not something any ole summoning deathstar can take advantage of and there’s a natural limit in place and a price of addmission.
Also I am concerned that unlike other rules Split does not give guidance on what to do if the models are unavailable? Like do you ignore it, do you give up a kill point? Significant oversight considering how hard it is to acquire them at the moment.
The actual rule mentions pinks becoming blues. It is a similar rule from Age of Sigmar. The reason you don’t see that army dominating is that you have to actually pay for the units you summon or are created.
Interesting I hadn’t heard that about the rule. I can’t wait to get my digital copy at midnight on the 3rd!
Pink Horrors have the split rule as well.
Typically Reece and the crew are more restrained with respect to nerfing things than they appear to be in this case. I’m basing this on their comments and tone in the last podcast. I assume the sense of urgency is due to LVO being just two months away. Just to say it, I’m coming to LVO from across the country, I don’t play daemons, and I’d have no problem if this was legal for LVO.
I know it’s not what the FLG team wants to hear, but I propose we do nothing until people have a chance to get the rules and play with it. I’m just naturally opposed to nerfing rules before most people have a chance to experience them.
Just my two cents…
Thanks for sharing your opinions! Yeah, time is short, unfortunately.
And please remember, this is a video from TFG Radio, not FLG. The opinions expressed within it are theirs, not necessarily ours.
their’s ..? I thought you were an English major.
Well, guess you thought wrong! =P
No, I was, just made a mistake.
People from FLG has certainly been sharing negative opinions on this, though.
I… I hate to think this will sway anything, and I hope it doesn’t. I know it’s not your intent.
Hmmm :/ grammar Nazis… 😀 😀 😀
Normally I would agree but after see it firsthand, although in a vacuum, has softened my normal stance of letting it out in the wild first. I, personally, don’t think the rule should be banned but perhaps modified so it’s not as soul crushing.
We actually plan to film a battle report (with proxies) soon
It is an Op Ed piece. Meaning an Opinion is something that comes as part of the deal. Also this wasn’t written as an FLG official.
I am also in favor of waiting as much as possible, the LVO timing is an issue. I personally want the ITC team, or LVO judges, to make a temporary ruling and then allow the wider community to come to a consensus given time to play it.
I like that idea SaltyJohn. I think a temporary ruling is perfect with a final vote on the next major ITC vote (after the one behind schedule).
You are seriously advocating for nerfing these horrors so harshly before the Fenris book is even released to the public? Before anyone gets a chance to even try them out?
A shaky, emotional, unproven, and knee-jerk position at best.
If I may elaborate, I think that if Pink Horrors can no longer access the daemonology tree, they don’t get any better than they used to be, rather their role is more restricted to a quirky yet fun rule that you have to admit, is totally unique in the game and completely changes the landscape of the board in a transformatively disruptive way. I like it. It gives tzeentch a more unique play style and challenges opponents to come up with new ways to play around it that doesn’t fall within the instinctual and one dimensional “I shoot you, I chop you, you die” paradigm that 40k is in right now.
To clarify, loosing the ability to summon, incursion, possess, or use cursed earth is a big deal. Horrors used to be the most flexible troop choice in the game, being able to conjure whatever tool is needed for the job. For example, if you managed to get cursed earth, the aura cast from a large unit spread out is enough to buff your whole army or pinpoint deep strike reinforcements. The ability to morph into a greater daemon, or summon another Tzeentch herald with paradox staff (for more guranteed summoning), or herald of nurgle with doomsday bell (for army-wide -1 LD for the opponent) could be decisive. Now you have to rely on fateweaver and the like to cast these powers, and he should be spending his warp charge on offense. Horrors can only really multiply now. They’re still useless in shooting and combat, and the prospect of more psychic dice is diminishing returns. Seriously, how often do you see daemon players spending warp charge to use horrors for witchfires? They’re just not that effective compared to the big cats like Fateweaver or a daemon prince.
In short, the split shoehorns horrors into objective campers and warp dice farms. They’re very good at this, but opponents will find ways to deal with it, such as ignoring them completely, or focusing down one unit at a time, multi-assaulting newly created units, and making them die from daemonic instability. Kill point missions are a huge disadvantage to them.
Besides, who has the models? Who would come to a tournament just to troll with hundreds of horrors? I don’t think this is a big issue at all, far less disruptive than SM battle company, free AM wargear, warp spiders and scatpacks. We all got over those. This is one of the most characterful rules to make a comeback in 40k. Tzeentch changes the destructive force of violence against horrors into a creative one. I think it’s awesome. Yes it changes the meta, yes change is a good thing. Half of the fun of this game is coming up with new combos and learning how to defeat them. Is it too much to ask tournament players for an open mind when it comes to new rules?
Even without daemonic, you can still use the daemonic incursion formation, and people will run that.
The pink horror entry replaces the one in the daemon book. As a result, if you have, for example, a summoning conclave you can easily summon pink horror units that then multiply into blue and brimstone.
It’s easy to get pink horrors and people will make conversions for blues and brimstones as most tournaments allows conversions and some even allow proxies.
For the record, I don’t think it should be banned but I also don’t think it should be used RAW
There is a paragraph in the article that actually addresses many of your points.
“On one hand, we can leave it all alone. Pink Horrors are not exactly Bloodthirsters, and who has all these damn models, anyway? Obviously, playing by RAW is typically ideal as GW makes the game, not the ITC, and the less we mess with the game, the easier it is for any person, regardless of format preference, is prepared for the rule and how it is applied. Chaos needs a win anyway, so at least it is not Eldar/SM getting all the love. This will make the meta shift from shooting to fighty, which helps out weaker builds.”
It isn’t completely advocating for any one solution or even a solution at all, as the above mentions.
The last line also pretty clearly states we aren’t saying it must be changed.
“Hopefully this article, and video, we put together gives you an idea of how the rule works, along with possible solutions for the rule in case you feel it should be toned down.”
For the record, I strongly believe that ITC should refrain from entertaining the nerfing of any single unit entry, and instead focus on abusive USR’s, and adjusting missions like they have, like invisibility and the 2++ re-roll. Historically, the votes have backed me up in this position.
Perhaps ‘The Horror’ will necessitate introducing more kill-point missions.
I also believe that it is highly irresponsible on the part of the editors to publish opinion pieces like this before the book is released to the public. Your opinion is welcome, but the timing isn’t.
Unfortunately I control neither the timing of the next vote, nor the LVO, nor the release schedule for GW. If only such omnipotent control were in my hands…
>Before anyone gets a chance to even try them out?
Hey, have you ever tried shoving your hand into a meat grinder? Or drinking bleach? How do you KNOW that you wouldn’t like those things, if you’ve never tried them, huh? Don’t just assume your knee-jerk reaction to them seeming unpleasant is right, give them a chance and try them out for a few months before deciding!
Your analogy is weak. Whereas we all know that sticking your hand into a meat grinder or guzzling bleach would cause massive bodily harm, placing two plastic models down on a table, after removing one, is actually kind of fun. Unless, of course, the prospect of playing a game by the rules as intended makes you stick your hand in a meat grinder, drink bleach, or abuse some puppies, in which case I sincerely suggest you seek the services of a therapist.
You “know” which things are fun and which things are not only because you are doing exactly what you argue against- making predictions about the world (and about the game) without having tested them first. Not everything requires testing- if we know the rules of the game, we can make predictions about how changes to those rules will affect the game and how it plays.
No one needs needs testing to understand that changing a gun from Str 3 to Str 7 will make it better at killing tanks. No one needs testing to understand that making a unit T3 instead of T5 makes it easier to kill. And we really shouldn’t need testing to figure out that making every model in a unit turn into three or four models is going to be profoundly broken. The most basic of logic shows us what will happen, and players with any amount of experience in the game can think of myriad ways to abuse the Split rule that will create highly negative gameplay experiences.
But yes, let’s stick our hand into that meat grinder _just in case_ it turns out to be fun and enjoyable. After all, you never know.
Go ahead, stick your hand into the meat grinder. I certainly won’t, and I don’t believe you’ll actually do it either, because as human beings we learn from our errors, and we know exactly what the outcome of that action will be. Human limbs being amputated by industrial machinery has been tested many times. Pink Horrors splitting hasn’t been tested, at least since 2nd edition (Codex Chaos, published 1996, pg 59, to be exact – shows how long I’ve played this game as I have it in front of me) and there weren’t many complaints about it back then.
A design must be tested in order for it to pass or fail. This is how we build bridges, buildings, cities, circumnavigate the globe, invent the internet, and go to the moon. We have to be willing to take a risk on something for progress to happen. In the closed mechanical system that is 40k, similar risks must be taken for the game to move forward. There is a mathematical formula for how Str 3 is worse than Str 7, but you fail to lay down the logical formula for how ‘The Horror’ will break the game, especially in light of other disruptive changes such as free point battle companies, scatbikes, wraithknights, and the like. Precisely, you can’t, because we haven’t tested it in a competitive environment yet, and thus can’t predict it, unlike how the outcome of putting your hand into the meat grinder, drinking bleach, or abusing puppies and going to therapy, will likewise in turn ruin your hand, kill you, land you in jail, or give a vent for repressed emotions.
Should we not give this rule a chance to pass or fail the test for at least a few weeks before jumping to conclusions? You seem to advocate shutting it down before it even gets the chance to be played out, indeed, before it’s even published to the masses.
‘Fun’ is a subjective emotion, not an objective fact like how Str 3 is worse than Str 7. Indeed, I get to say what is fun for me. Fun, for me, is playing this rule as is, because I trust in Phil Kelly as the highly successful architect of the game that has provided me with countless hours of fun, not all these armchair rules designers here. Fun, for me, is adapting to this rule in order to push the game to new possibilities if I’m using The Horror, or, if I’m facing them, inventing or learning ways to overcome them as an opponent.
Alright, then, let’s use numbers since you seem to believe numbers: Pink Horrors are, point-for-point, the hardest troop to kill in the game. Hands down. No other model even comes close, in fact I’m not sure even comes within a factor of ten of them.
The trivially simple rules abuses of Split have already been spelled out elsewhere in the thread- and again, those are not up for debate or argument, those are the simple outcomes of the rule as it is worded. I think it’s pretty hard to argue that most of those tactics with them aren’t highly abusive.
I’m not saying that we must ban all Pink Horrors from the game immediately- I’m saying that it is pretty trivially easy to determine how they are going to play out in practice and the negative play experiences this will likely cause for most opponents. What, exactly, that means for the meta is up for debate but the actual rule itself and what it does are pretty easy to see.
There is a cost to waiting, just as there is a cost to acting now. TOs and players will both pay that cost, whatever we decide. People keep comparing it to Battle Company and War Convocation, but even from a strictly mathematical perspective (i.e. “how many free points are you getting”) the comparison doesn’t even come close. Not all broken rules are equally broken.
This line of thought is also known as the “You have to try AOS because a decade of wargaming exeperience did not teach you the basics of game design” logic.
Just to be clear, you’re the same guy that said the following when a discussion was had about Tau changes, right?
“2+ rerolls, Invisibility, and GC cover saves were nerfed because they were having a significant effects on the meta and were given a significant amount of time and testing to see how they played out. The changes to Tau’s rules- and they were straight up changes with no RAW precedent at at all- were preemptively implemented with chance to see how they performed or indeed any real testing at all.”
So for Tau we should extensively test things before making rulings, but for other armies we should apply our logic and nerf things before the codex is even out? Seems rather inconsistent and hypocritical to me.
Horrors may end up being too strong, or maybe people will figure out not to shoot them here and there to let them split a lot and wait until they can wipe out the whole unit in close combat through instability. Doesn’t take dedicated melee units to wipe these squads in combat because a lot of their durability disappears when they aren’t getting a cover save.
What if we just modify it so that the split models count as disembarking from a destroyed transport, such that any unit that shot at the Pink Horrors can also charge the Blue Horrors or the Brimstone Horrors?
If still necessary, add a rule that if the originator unit is fully destroyed in a single phase, no split occurs?
Our guys are looking into a bunch of possible ways to mitigate it without banning it. Thanks for the ideas!
Another thought I had was just keeping them as part of the same Unit. Models would still proliferate, but WC wouldn’t, it would be more difficult to daisy-chain them out, they wouldn’t cause Shooting/Assault Phase headaches, and it would be easier to finish them off with Instability.
This is a solid idea! Still gives you all the free models with none of the things people are worried about.
I believe it will be a good meta changing, but not is such a deep way, as many want do believe. How much “free” points a SM Battle Company gives with all the doutrines beneficts and transports (there are lists with 8 rhinos7Drop pods (240pts), or the War Convocation free upgrades, besides the abuse of Tau formations.
This is a way to put CSM in a competitive way, since nobody will play in a competitive tournaments, with 9 squads os 20 pink horrors. But there are several units, that can put a blast and wype a entire unit, the problem is that nobody plays nowadays with vindicators, Fire Prisms…
Awaiting for the book to come and some true love with Orks and Dark Eldar, so that all the 40k factions will be competitive
+1 to this.
Why are we not addressing free stuff for war con or battle companies while we are at it?
It’s a bit frustrating to see that people want to nerf things while the book is not even out yet!
I agree on those other points to s certain extent. The devil is in the details here though. Those lists come with the free models up front. There has always been resistance to free models that show up “randomly” in the middle of a game. That was the crux of the resistance to Daemon summoning farms. That is the crux to the resistance to this as well. Upfront free units that I know about will be in my opponents list seems more fair.
It is definitely based on the emotion people attach to their experience with the game, but that is also how most people make their decisions for votes anyway.
Why not simply ask GW for clarifications ?
If we think it’s an issue so much, they will react to it. They are pretty quick with answers these days.
That would be ideal. I am sure people have reached out via private channels as I know people have reached out via the FB pages.
*coughcoughtyranidscoughcough*
Several reasons. For one, two minimum units of Pink Horrors (i.e. the very least you can take in most detachments) generate as many “free” points as a an entire Battle Company does on their own. That’s the _minimum_ you will ever see- and most people will take more units, or larger units, or have the Loci present and will thus generate significantly more free points. If Battle Company is bad for the game when it gets 350 free points, why would you think that Horrors generating 600, 900, or 1200 free points are fine and shouldn’t be changed?
Second, wiping out a whole unit doesn’t actually wipe them out. With their 5++ save, even your super mega Vindicator blast is still gonna leave a significant chunk of the unit alive- and even if you DO kill them all, they still spawn the unit of Blue Horrors.
And finally, if you’re hoping to see Orks/DE become competitive, further ramping up the power level of the game (as this will do) isn’t going to help any. You want the opposite effect, not a further escalation of the arms race.
Disallowing Split if a unit has been completely removed seems like a fairly reasonable solution. It doesn’t take away anyone’s new toys, it disincentives people from spamming small horror units just to farm warp charge, and most importantly, adds a level of counterplay for the opposing player.
Random thought, but why not make the split horrors have to spawn wholly within 6″? Now I know GW said that if that was what they intended they’d write it that way, but honestly why would that stop you from simply ruling it like that? It would still permit the split rule which is both very strong and very fluffy while curbing the worst excesses much better than simply banning the loci. Also no ban = more fun.
At the same time, it would give players the opportunity to adjust to it – this ruling could be amended later in if split still proves too strong or split could be allowed completely if the meta considers horrors not that big of a deal.
Final thought: KDK would get so many blood tithe points from a horror farm :-p
While that mitigates a few of the problems, it doesn’t solve most of the big ones (multiplying warp charges, impossibility of removing the unit in less than 2-3 turns, charge/movement blocking.)
What a mess. On a moderate scale split could have been a fun rule but GW has allowed it to scale exponentially into fun-wrecking nonsense.
The nerf idea of making them like old Crons, no split if the unit is wiped could bring some sanity here. As well as being able to assault the blues/brims that pop out. Otherwise pinks will throw up screens of spawn to make themselves 100% safe from assault whenever they lose models to shooting, and the shooting unit will just have to stand there doing nothing in the assault phase. It should be like disembarking.
One other smaller point that I think is worth mentioning is that Pinks are going to intentionally throw too many warp charge dice (because why not when they have 67 dice) in order to lose a model to perils and spawn a 2-model blue unit. That’s a big deal when it’s repeated several times each turn.
That creates a LOT of free-floating units that require attention to kill (and they will just turn into a 2-model Brimstone unit if you do kill them). And let’s face it, battles with this stuff will go 3-4 turns in a time-limited tournament setting. There just aren’t the turns to get through this volume of stuff.
I’d like to see the daemon player just have the option to pay X amount of points into a “split pool,” that do not have to be in a detachment, and have the option to use models from that pool anytime the split rule could trigger. As a neat point, it would be up to the daemon player if he wanted to use split at any particular moment and how much he wanted to use, so he could wait to use it until you target a unit in an important board position for example.
Thats actually how summoning works in Age of Sigmar and is probably why you don’t see pink horrors dominating AoS tournaments
I am assuming, as do many at TFG Radio, that this is a sign that in 8th ed summoned units will need to be purchased like they have to be in AoS. That would be a most welcome change.
8th Edition will make Summoning take from your point total.
8th Edition will disallow Battle Brothers from joining units so no one can make deathstars anymore.
8th Edition will remove Strength D from the game.
8th Edition will force all Eldar players to pay their opponents $500 before a match, as renumeration for past atrocities.
8th Edition will remove the shooting phase.
8th Edition is made entirely of puppies.
8th Edition is love. We have always been at war with Eastasia.
LOL!
the new standard game size is 1984 points
Instant Death cancelling is a neat idea. So is paying for the created units. Adding more dice rolls is very thematic but too slow for competitive play.
Another idea: add splitting models to the same existing unit. Very simple, still incredibly good, and maybe not game breaking?
+1 to this. Simple change, easy to implement.
Adding them to an existing unit means your 10-wound obsec unit becomes a 50-wound one. Not joining the unit at the very least means losing obsec.
+ 1
I think the “Split” rule needs to be really toned down, if not altogether eliminated. Pink Horrors on their own are already a go-to troop choice and the lack of a points cost increase for “free-things” is just too crazy. If you were to keep the “Split” rule I would propose the following changes:
Fixes:
“Split – created” units must be placed wholly within 6″
“Split – created” units can be assaulted if the “parent” unit was the target of the shooting attack. (like disembarked troops from a destroyed transport)
“Split – created” Blue Horrors and Brimstone Horrors are non-scoring units
“Split – created” Blue and Brim Horrors do not generate Warp Charge Dice
Instant Death nullifies Split
Even with all of those huge nerfs to “Split”, it’s still a good, free ability.
My question is….where can we buy blue horror and brimstone horror models anyway? If nobody is allowed to buy them, their rules are effectively moot.
The Silver Tower game. I am 99.9% certain you will see them released in some form in December, January at the latest. Probably the models from the ST box but packaged together, maybe with a unit of Pink Horrors, or separately. Won’t matter, they’ll be available soon I am sure of that.
I don’t understand why people feel that Horrors can no longer use Malefic. The BRB clearly states that “unless otherwise stated” they get Daemonology. When they put that a Farseer can use Santic in the new book I believe they did so to distinguish that he can’t use Malefic. But that they don’t need to do that for Daemons because the BRB already states that they can’t use Santic. Them not putting Malefic in their entry is not “otherwise stating” in my opinion. Am I missing something?
Neither Farseers nor Pink Horrors have Maelific Daemonology listed on their datasheets. Why would you believe that one of them can use it, but the other can’t?
The BRB states that all psykers can use Daemonology: Malefic unless told otherwise, i.e. Eldar codex says they can’t use it, GK’s are told they can’t use Malefic, etc. The datasheet for pink horrors doesn’t say they can’t use Malefic therefore, due to the rules for Malefic, pink horrors can use it.
The fact that the unit entry itself lays out what powers they are allowed to generate, not having daemonology on that list would very much count as, “unless otherwise stated.”
That line is only there for models that existed before daemonology was a thing.
The fact that a unit entry has a list of tables the model is allowed to generate powers on, not having demonology listed would very much count as, “unless otherwise stated.”
The Eldar codex doesn’t say they can’t use Maelific Daemonology.
Leave them as they are.
Man, I don’t think anyone wants to see the top tables at the LVO dominated by tons of grey plastic horrors.
Didn’t we already have this discussion when summoning was introduced? Are we seeing Horror-spam at the toptables yet? No? Well then.
I am firmly in the “dear Emperor no” camp on this – not because I think it is inherently unbeatable but because it will be an absolute fun sponge.
Are we seeing summoning at the top tables – absolutely yes. Take that and add a hundreds of points of free stuff and does it get much stronger – obviously yes. Will anyone ever get past turn 3 – shouldn’t think so in which case the horrors are effectively unkillable.
In a game with no time limits and which goes to a natural conclusion there may be ways to deal with this nonsense. In a tournament setting there is no chance of that happening and as described above nobody is wiping these out fast because of the specific way the rule works.
It is absolutely no good just hoping nobody would be that much of a jerk – if it is permitted and it is an obvious game-winning strategy of course they will.
In my opinion it is way to early to be talking about changing rules. Pink horrors have lost daemonology, and split only happens when you try and kill them. Lets play the RAW for a while first. The book is not even out yet…
“As long as you never kill your opponent’s models, then it doesn’t matter! How often would you even need to shoot or assault ObSec units sitting on objectives, anyways?”
Take this with a grain of salt, man.
You’re incredibly toxic.
Bad ideas deserve to be called out as bad ideas.
So do bad community members, then.
Seems like a valid idea to ignore them for a few turns in many scenarios.
Sure, you don’t have to always kill them immediately, but as they are in fact troops (and will have either ObSec or Corruption in almost all lists), you can’t really afford to ignore them the whole game- and if you don’t get started on shooting/assaulting them until turn 3 or 4, that just makes your job harder, since you still have the issue of needing a minimum of three phases to kill any one unit of Horrors.
I’m just hoping that somebody here brings them and then the next tournament I shall run the 200 strong green tide just to try and mess with them. You can’t spawn if there is nowhere left to spawn. And since the tide wont plan to shoot then when it wipes out units and consolidates it will be difficult for the horrors to split. This incentivizes hordes I think. Of course that depends on how many people do it but if multiple people in gaming groups decide to do it then people will have to be prepared for it which seems like bringing more models to attack with but we shall see.
I don’t think it will be as bad as people fear once they start adjusting how to fight them. Move a unit up, then charge them. Don’t even shoot those few pistols to let them create a new unit to block the charge with. Even a regular 5 man tactical squad is likely to wipe these units of brimstone horrors in one combat since the average of 4 inflicted wounds causes a negative 8 to leadership (thanks to them being 2 wound models) for demonic instability.
I think the key will just be people adjusting their tactics in how to deal with them. Don’t shoot at them here and there. It doesn’t take dedicated melee units to take these on in close combat and wipe the whole unit without the chance of splitting.
I’m the middle table guy.
I’m the one who is not on the top tables, the one FLG always talks about.
This reaction seems crazy. Sure, this seems good. Very good.
I mean this genuinely, guys, but as someone who already has to fight IMPERIAL KNIGHTS WITH TAU RIPTIDE ALLIES, Tons-of-free-point-battle-company, unkillable bark-bark star, double knight double stealth shrouded warconvocation, multiple wraith knight, multiple warp spider… etc. this seems like poor form.
You allow all of these blatantly degenerate (Excuse the wording, It’s the same as cheese.) play styles or army lists (debatable in varying power level) already. Why are you going to only sever the heads of new ones?
You’re screaming into a void of other people screaming.
Here’s my suggestion:
Have someone play this on a friday night fight.
Show what it can do.
Then, after giving people an actual judgable format of what you’re asking them, ask them.
I’m with you there. Played against an all Knight list at the tail end of 6th edition and came out of it with a “well this game is fundementaly broken now” and it has only gotten worse since. How is this any worse for an average army than a bark star or scatter bikes? You can’t win. So yeah what else is new?
Do some playtesting first.
Well, hey, look at it this way, what’s the one thing 40K players like more than playing 40K? Drama about 40K! This new GW is giving us so much of what we want they shouldn’t pass up an opportunity to let us moan, that’d just be rude. 😛
I must agree with Cephalobeard. Games must be played and I believe that nobody will face a 600pts of free units. Probably the best idea is to pick for instance Cyle Thompson Flying Monkey list or Alan Brajamovic LVO list and make a truly experiment.
This rule wont be meta changing, probably is a rule regarding the evolution to 8th Edition, something that we at this stage cannot fully see.
D Strengh weapons, grav guns, reanimation protocols, free points, free re-rolls, abusive formations for the points, deathstars, all that came in the recent years, and I want a competitive game for all the codex. I want to pick a army, that I like, buy models and can go to play and feel that i have the chance to go competitive. Nowadays, that’s not possible. The people invest their army, not in the armies that they would like to have, but in the armies/formations that are competitive. How much time, didn’t appear a Blood Angels competitive army in tournaments?
The game is changing and for me, what is important is balance at the end, for all of us that spend hours in a game/lore that we all love.
Personally, i thought the Instant-Death rule was probably the best way to ensure the rule exists without a full-knock out. It will mean you wont see too many brimstone horrors (which is okay, nobody even has the models yet), but blue horrors will be semi-frequent.
Its again a meta-buster. I think the most minor of changes are the best to overpowered units or broken things.
Great article! I am personally hoping ITC nerfs Split with an Instant Death amendment*, but I think all the suggestions from TFG’s article would work well.
* I play Eldar
I get that this rule could be disruptive. but how is this different than gladius? How is it different than war con? as a dark Angels player I take advantage of 14 free vehicles for minimum 490 free points in transports(it goes up of course when I convert rhinos to razorbacks).
I can see how the pink>blue>brimstone creates some board control, but it doesn’t sound like the split units are obsec. It definitely keeps the psychic batteries up,l and could potentially ncreasw them. But are they an offensive threat? Can all of these cast flickering fire? Are they going to end up essentially giving every unit around them fnp?
>but how is this different than gladius? How is it different than war con?
To put it simply: Gladius and War Convocation, while they get a bunch of free points, still follow the normal rules of the game. The free transports Gladius has can be destroyed (and otherwise interacted with) in the same way as any other unit in the game and follow all of the usual rules, and ditto War Convocation’s free upgrades.
Horrors created via the Split rule do not. They allow you to not merely create bunches of new “free” units, but units that disrupt the usual systems of play- as noted in the article, it is almost trivial to use the spawned Horrors to daisy-chain out and grab an objective or block off an enemy’s movement/charging (which, incidentally, is a strong counter to the “it’s fine just kill them in assault” argument a lot of folks are making.) It’s also worth remembering that the Split rule triples the effectiveness of not only units taken as troops, but also those summoned through conjuration spells- both for Chaos Daemons and for other armies as well.
And yet, you were upset with the vote stopping Tau piranhas from creating hundreds of free points every turn of the game without further testing. Not like they couldn’t block movements and charges with their faster movement after all. Your bias is showing.
I say keep it as is, but for the end of phase spawning change new unit to same unit.
Now the rule works, but isn’t a horrible mess.
To be honest the amount of free stuff some armies can get now us stupid anyway.
TOs should set a free points limit, to cover formation bonuses, summoning etc.
No! We cannot allow the new free points!
Only battle company can have tons of free points and be devoid of all fun to play against! /s
So I am going to throw in my two cents even if it isn’t a popular one with the majority replying.
Leave it as is unless it proves too much in actual games. These are incredibly weak models. Also the daisy chaining thing is illegal same thing as scarab farm. We all know it. This is just a unit that is resistant to shooting. Kill them in melee. Even tau can do it. Either DInstability them or make sure there’s no room within 6 of the last model. Not that hard to do.
My 2 cents :
1. Keep the split rule but skip brimstones. Pink splits to blue and that’s it
2. Add instant death stops split.
3. Keep new unit “wholly within” 6 inches. No daisy chaining.
I’d like to argue for leaving them as they are. Here are my reasons:
– summoning is gone unless they got the one on change.
– the play style for the unit has fundamentally changed, and I feel we need to look at things as a whole, rather than isolation like the video above does.
You can no longer sit back and farm other PH to generate dice and block up the back field. For them to split, they have to be in range of shooting and/or assault, the last place anyone who uses pink horrors wants them to be. Any decent volume of dice will cull the unit, sure it will be replaced, but by a weaker more venerable unit. In CC demonic instability will finish off the remained of the unit very easily, even with the incursion reroll. If you don’t finish them in the shooting phase, you can multi assault in the assault phase.
The key point is that they will have to move, anything that encourages movement for static units, and thus makes the game more dynamic.
– as someone who plays both ad mech and demons, the free points is true, but all points are not created equally. I don’t think free blue horrors are equal to free rerolls vs armour, hatred and fearless, or free upgrades on a knight.
– It’s fluffy and fun like the Tzeench warp storm table. Little gremlins popping up all over the place is hilarious.
Only thing I’d change in the unit must be wholly within 6”
cheers all,
I don’t buy the “it’s not fun” argument, there is a ton of stuff in the current game that isn’t fun. It’s not like the people who abuse this rule would be playing a fun and fluffy army otherwise. The premise of that whole argument only works if suddenly people who were taking fun armies now decided that Pink Horrors are what was in the way of them running WAAC nonsense.
I will back up my stated opinion on that one.
I have no intention of setting aside a whole bunch of time to go to a tournament if what I am going to face is someone spending 2.5 hours just getting models out of their vast array of boxes and putting them down on the table. Then the game ends on turn 2 or 3 by which time it is almost mathematically impossible for me to have cleared any of their troops off any objectives.
Almost unlimited model counts – combining Split with Summoning – and time limits simply do not mix.
Also no one seems to be mentioning this but it seems that if you wipe out a unit of pink horrors the blue horror unit is immediately created. So don’t have to wait till the end of the phase if you wipe out the unit.
Huh, that’s an interesting point
I don’t think this is correct. Blue horrors are only created if all are removed at the same time via some rule. Simply removing casualties one at a time due to shooting is not the same thing.
My reading is that if you completely destroy a unit in the shooting phase then it is physically impossible to place new any blue horrors within 6″ of that unit since it is no longer there. If it’s not there then you simply can’t place the new blue horrors and the rule would fizzle.
If that’s the case then the Split rule becomes slightly less powerful as wiping the entire squad would prevent it from splitting. Now, that’s no easy to do as a Pink Horror squad going to ground in ruins gets a 3+ cover save rerolling 1s.
The rule specifically says that if the last pink horror would be removed to first place the new unit of blue horrors and then remove the pink.
The rule says that if the unit is wiped out by anything other than Daemonic Instability that you immediately place the new unit within 6″ of the last model to be removed. So if you wipe out the original unit the new unit immediately appears and if you only kill a few they show up at the end of the phase.
This is different from what this article is telling us and I think part of that is that they didn’t even have the book when they wrote it.(based on a comment they made above about awaiting their copy)
Also this business about Daisy chaining is misleading. Of course it isn’t played this way. It even says all models within 6″ at the bottom.
We had the actual rule. We said so in the video which I am doubting you watched the more you comment.
GW have put up a FAQ about this:
https://www.warhammer-community.com/2016/12/03/wrath-of-magnus-faq/
Still pretty crazy but not all that happened in that video would be allowed.
And they knew that when they made it.
Actually. The video has 2 flaws.
1. The split models are daisy chained
2. There are 2 firing phases. Where in reality, blue horrors would of appeared at the end of the shooting phase. Allowing for the space marines to charge and wipe them due to deamonic instability.
I was implying they knew they were not playing it right when they made the video but the video works well as a scare tactic to sway people.
No one really thought GW had any intention of allowing daisy chains and even the split rule itself prevented it.
Either they intentionally did so to support their stance or are very bad at any grasp of tactics.
How about neither? We made the video before the FAQ came out, even posted the video before. Second, we also cover the idea of shooting then assaulting in the second part of the video. In the first phase we are just showing how the rule worked, as written prior to the FAQ. The second and third portions of the video walk through ways to handle the unit, including how the Blue Horrors can be used to block off potential charges.
Actually we did not. The FAQ did not even exist when the video was posted to YouTube. Checking dates on a calendar is hard. I know.
The rule itself always had the part about all models being within 6. It’s at the bottom.
Also the immediately comes in was right there too.
Your entire video was based off of a flawed understanding of the rule and a willingness to assume the worst despite similar cases being ruled the opposite way(ie scarabs). Did you even have the full rules when you made it or just Reece’s preview. Other comments made here point to the later. It was a rushed reaction and it appears to have an intention to influence an upcoming vote.
I’ve got the Rule right in front of me. The bit requiring the entire Unit to be placed within 6″ only applies if the whole Unit of Pinks is wiped. If the Unit is only partially damaged and you’re creating a new Unit of Blues at the end of the Phase, all you need is a sliver of one Base to be within 6″ of one of the surviving Pinks, and the Units are within 6″ of each other, satisfying the condition.
You keep getting the rule wrong. As WestRider points out.
http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2016/12/40k-wrath-magnus-faq.html
The solution I prefer:
Any spawned Blues or Brimstone horrors are part of the unit that spawned it, and placed immediately (instead of at the end of the phase).
As more horrors are split, the stats of the unit decline as new types of horrors become a majority, but because they are in the same unit you can charge the same unit you shot at with ease, and, they don’t generate more warp charges.
Because they are placed immediately, any wounds leftover from killing the pinks carry over to the blues, and brimstone respectively.
We’d still be making pinks the absolute cheapest wounds in the game, because each pink is essentially 4 wounds. We are still power creeping for the “Scatbikes exist”, and “Gladius is a thing” crowd, but the bigger problems are all solved.
I prefer to play it and see some results… but my instinct is that will be a problem and your solution works well
I’m surprised so many pages were written about this without mentioning (that I saw) the biggest argument against it-
It
is
slow
AF
All that spawning, generating powers, keeping units apart, is a huge bookkeeping nightmare and a physical impediment to the game in many cases (was this horror part of group A or E?).
I’m actually OK with the rule from a fluff perspective, and would be willing to try it out (or let others try it out) in a competitive sense. I’m not sure I’m willing to play a 2 turn LVO round dominated by bookkeeping and other nonsense.
Anyone else think this is just going to be a massive time sink? Or am I overestimating the impact?
Generally speaking the community seems to be fine with “slow” lists. Personally I am not, but when people are winning while playing games that barely reach turn 4 and they’re allowed to stand for Tournament purposes well…
I personally think there should be a “If the game does not complete a full 4 turns both players receive a loss for this round.” rule in competitive play. If you’re worried about somebody tanking a slow play on purpose then you can add the caveat that both players will then play each other again the next round, giving players multiple reasons to complete their games. Keeping in mind that 4 turns is by no means a “complete” game, the standard seems lax enough, but strict enough to keep some of the more dubious slow players in line.
Play the rule as it says and stop the constant psycho analyzing every thing GW releases before it makes a showing at a few tourneys and identifies an unbeatable pattern.
FFS.
Just enforce WYSIWYG and don’t let people recycle models that died.
It’s not the disaster it is depicted as.