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Show Notes
Date: 6-9-17
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Rant Session
Tactics Corner
Rules Lawyer
Completed Commissions
List Review
So gonna see if I can phrase this better this time:
Basically the way the Acts of Faith rule is written doesn’t stop things that don’t have Acts of Faith from using them. It only calls out that the 2+ roll at the start of the turn can only be used on units with AoF(very precise reading but still accurate as far as I and several other players can tell.)
Combine this with Celestines AoF being usable on anything with “adepta sororitas” and the imagifier being able to AoF anything with “order”, some people have interpreted this to mean that both imagifiers and Celestine can use their abilities to allow, for example, Exorcists to fire twice or Immolators to move twice, even though the 2+ roll at the beginning of the turn does not.
Is this the intent of the rule?
So… I was reading the new rules and I’m pretty sure RAW cover saves also improve your invulnerable. I don’t think that is supposed to be that way, can you confirm?
Otherwise those Wraiths, Zoanthropes, or SS Termis in cover aren’t even worth firing at! And those Genestealers…
Second to last line in the Terrain and Cover sidebar, p.181. “(invulnerable saves are not affected.)”
Yep- just missed that! Honestly, that would have been a lame rule to have been missed
It does not improve your invul save.
Question about Plasma and modifiers. You say that with a +1 you cannot over heat, what happens if you have a -1? The rule doesn’t say you overheat on a 1 or less, but do you think that’s what they meant? Otherwise that’d get weird with -1 to hit where you overheat on 2’s, but not 1’s since they’d be 0’s. Figure since you have their ear you may be able to get that clarified. 🙂
With -1 you overheat on a 2 or a 1.
But by that logic then wouldn’t a 1 with a -1 modifier be a zero and not cause an overheat?
Are we sure that when they say a specific value like on a 1 they mean without modifiers?
There seems to be times when they say a flat roll value. Like on a six or 1. Other times they say 6+ and that seems to definitely fit with modifiers.
Good question! I will confirm but we read it as no modifier can lower a roll below 1, although I do not think the book specifies that, clearly.
So by that logic. With a -1 to hit and reroll 1s to hit. Do you reroll on 1 and 2?
There’s a note somewhere that you check for conditional re-rolls like that before applying modifiers.
Yes, there is.
No, you reroll then modify the dice per RAW. So, you reroll a 1 to say, a 2, it drops to a 1, etc.
During the live stream last night (UM v Nids) Reece said that “Right now there are no rules covering what happens to fliers that are unable to make a legal move”. Pablo responded “Go into hover mode to not have to move”. Reece responded “What about vehicles that have no option for hover mode. There are no rules”
The rules are actually there under Minimum Movement. If you can’t move the minimum, you are destroyed. Not being able to place your model in a legal location past the minimum required movement distance would not be not moving the minimum. That’s pretty clear, no?
It is! You are very correct, sir.
Will you guys talk about Tau JSJ and why it was removed? There are a few changes in Tau that I’m not a fan of (e.g. drones), but I understand why they needed to be made and I agree that was probably the best way to make them work.
But Tau suits losing JSJ is the one change I completely disagree with because of how it fundamentally changes how suits operate, and from the 8th ed games I’ve played it really makes all-suit lists non-viable unless you play in a super specific way. (I can explain more if asked but that might quickly turn into an essay study).
Ah, all suit let’s are non-viable? We’ve found those to be extremely good in our experience. Like, very, very good against a wide variety of list types and armies.
Even against assault-focused lists? I’ve played half a dozen games of 8th now, and my local meta has always been very assault heavy even in 7th (it’s even worse now with 8th).
Since most crisis/stealth/ghostkeel weapons are at the 18″ mark, using their weapons means leaving them in assault range. Moving and assaulting a unit 18″ or more away wasn’t actually that hard in 7th and is even easier now in 8th.
What I’m finding now it that all-suit Tau lists just gets tabled against assault-heavy lists, for a few key reasons:
1) No JSJ means you can’t move into gun range and then jump out of assault range. As a result your suits get assaulted virtually every turn. The fly rule is really powerful, but against an assault heavy list I very rarely get to use it. (typically pre-assault shooting takes out the drones, suits go down to power weapons).
2) The universally higher cost of suits means that your army is concentrated in a fewer number of suits, so it’s harder to mitigate losses due to assault.
3) following on from 2, making crisis suits a minimum of 3 hurts a lot, as you can’t lead assault units away in separate directions using monats – basically you’re more likely to lose all of them in one go.
4) The changes to markerlights, (which was kinda necessary), mean they are less useful in lower numbers, so instead of throwing a few around to boost key units to BS 5, the best your suits can hope for is re-rolls of 1, since it’s much harder to get 5+ markerlights on more than one target with just marker drones.
For reference, I’ve played:
– DE coven (with talos/chronos out the wazoo) x2
– BA assault marine spam
– Boyz in trucks
– Nids
– Marine bike spam
I’ve been playing Tau all-suit lists against armies like these for years, and I’ve always been able to manage since even if I couldn’t out-gun my opponent I could at least out-outmaneuver them by using JSJ to jump in and out of cover, leap out of assault range etc.
But playing these same lists in 8th? I’m just getting tabled because I can’t keep my suits out of assault range.
Now, I already know what some of your counter-arguments will be, cause I’ve read plenty already on the likes of DakkaDakka/ATT/3++ etc.
– Uses drones to dodge wounds (Very powerful but now that they can be targeted separately my opponents just shoot them first with something else before assaulting, so unless I can hide them completely (not always possible) my suits still end up taking power weapons to the face.
– Screen the suits with drones (see above)
– Suits move 8″ now and can advance+shoot (handy but being able to move after shooting is more important than moving before shooting (see point #1))
– Suits got more T and W (Honestly this makes a huge difference against “ordinary” units which is great, but against dedicated assault units they actually seem to die faster thanks to all d3/d6 melee weapons).
– Use missile pods (They are awesome now but you can’t realistically expect Tau players to equip their crisis suits with nothing else for the rest of this edition).
In short, I really feel like that 2d6 assault move was integral to making suits work. Not only was it important for their performance, but it also gave them that ultra-mobile hit-and-run feel which made them really fun to play. Now they feel static, boring and a lot less effective.
I see your points but yeah, if you want to go all suits, for now I’d suggest missile pods. If you get close you have to expect to get assaulted. If you want to run fusion and plasma, you need a mixed arms army with screens and distraction units, etc.
What weapons are you using? That sounds like the issue. We’ve found you go missile pods all day for suit lists to stay out of range. Maybe a flamer for overwatch defense on each suit.
The all-missile pod crisis teams are usually fine, I run one of those and maybe a missile commander. Broadsides are fine if I take them. Riptide is good as long as I take only SMS. Otherwise crisis teams, stealth suits, ghostkeels struggle (cause they’re stuck with 18″ weapons). From personal experience the flamers were good vs horde (nids, boyz) but they didn’t make a dent in the marines. Screening with drones was pretty hit-and miss. The BA player just laughed at me as his marines flew over the drones to hit the suits.
And that’s my point, you need to get close to use most crisis weapons and all the stealth/ghostkeel weapons. And in an all-suit army you don’t really have screening units other than drones. JSJ made suits with close range weapons work, which is why I can’t understand why it was removed. I’d be interested to know what the game designers decision making process was.
It sounds like you’re confirming what I’m saying – a pure all-suit list just doesn’t work any more unless you play super-specifically (all missile pods on suits and just don’t take anything with 18″ or shorter range).
Ah, well, YMMV. We found suit lists to be great. Yes, Missile Pods are best but there is always a “best” build when you have options. The idea is to get them all close to one another to make it a fun choice.
I recommend trying to go with a flamer on every unit and running them close to one another. If you hit an assault unit with 6d6 flamer hits from 2 Crisis suit teams in overwatch, that will take the teeth out of most units (including marines). Then you can always fall back from combat and shoot more a you have the Fly keyword.
But hey, your experience is your own. We found suit armies to be incredibly good.
As for JSJ, we honestly haven’t missed it. And if you look at Eldar, you will see that most armies have lost the ability to move multiple times. I do not know why, but I assume it is to speed the game up which I agree, helps things overall.
All-suit lists certainly aren’t bad, played another game yesterday (against footdar) and against non-assault armies I haven’t seen the same issues. It’s really just against dedicated assault lists that they don’t stand much of a chance because they’ve lost a key part of their mobility.
I remember you and Frankie saying in your stream that you didn’t miss JSJ and didn’t think Tau needed it. I have to disagree, it’s made a world of difference to me and a lot of other Tau players (have a read over at ATT). Honestly I feel like that just reflects yours and Frankie’s personal preferences and playstyle when using Tau, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But it just means you may not have built and run Tau suit lists quite the way many others do.
If you get another opportunity to give feedback to GW, I’d appreciate it if you suggest bringing back JSJ. Even if suits had to pay for a support system to get it back, that would make a lot of players (me included) happy.
Suit lists are real good, man. It’s true that losing JSJ hurts- but Fly letting you waltz out of combat at (essentially) no penalty is fantastic, and the changes to suit statlines were a huge buff to all of them.
I mean, you can’t run ALL suits, you need some troops to screen you from assaults and stuff, some Markerlights to make sure your firepower does what it needs to, etc, etc, but suits are still totally a viable list. In fact, I think people are gonna be really surprised when they start to figure out what the “good” battlesuits are this time around…
(Missile Pods are pretty expensive and are no longer an “all-purposes” gun anymore- they’re still good, but you can’t just indiscriminately use them to cut down everything. You need other weapons, and other units.)
No doubt, I fully appreciate how much of a game changer the Fly rule is – but like I said above, from personal experience in 8th it’s not quite as powerful as being able to avoid assault in the first place. And I’m fully aware of the fact that drones and Tau infantry got a huuuge boost in many ways. I’m just kinda bummed that the list I’ve been running for years (think tons of FSE crisis monats) isn’t even possible any more (now that crisis teams are 3 minimum) and the closest 8th ed equivalent just folds like tissue paper without loads of drones and screening units.
8E is a different game than editions before it, both for better and for worse. I mean, if we’re being honest with ourselves, the “lots of Crisis Suits” list wasn’t competitive in 7E, either- so you can’t really say that the army has gotten _worse_, all things considered. The fact that you have to put some other stuff into the army to make it work isn’t that bad of a thing, in my opinion; variety of units is more interesting.
Yeah, good point. Suit armies in 7th were not great after like, the first year of the edition. All you saw was Riptide Wing and Stomrsurges which was dullsville, IMO. As you note, I love the variety.
How are your models dying so fast I wonder? Crisis suits are beefy and in 3 man units basically ignore morale. In our games it was tough to kill them in melee outside of just wrecking ball units.
Ha, I totally disagree about suits not being competitive in 7th. Mass crisis monats couldn’t always out gun my opponents but I could definitely out-outmaneuver them. I did reasonably well with lists like that. FSE monats were borderline unfair, cause I could always keep a few in reserve for stealing objectives on demand, I won a LOT of maelstrom games that way. This is what I mean by me playing Tau very differently to how you do.
As for getting tabled? Most of the people in my area caught on pretty quick to the fact that drones can be targeted independently. They usually get shot up in the shooting phase, so when my suits get charged they take the full force of the hits. As for deaths? Orks it was weight of numbers and Nobs w/ klaws, DE talos those scalpel things. BA had those two-handed chainswords, Etc. Generally I’d lose 1/2-2/3 of the squad/wounds in the first assault. Mostly embedded melee weapons with good AP and multiple damage.
Eh, YMMV. For what it is worth, you never saw Crisis suit armies at top tables in 7th. Only Riptide Wing and Stormsurges. In your experience that may not be true but at the large tournaments, they were simply not seen. Not that that is the end all be all of how to judge a unit, but it is a fairly strong indicator
Like I said, you’re dead right about fly being a powerful rule, but it’s not as powerful as being able to avoid assault in the first place.
Sure, but JSJ is gone, haha. Better to accept what is that lament what is gone, you know? This is the new reality, best to adapt to it, IMO.
Wise words and true, but faction changes aren’t permanent and GW doesn’t always get it right – look at Ork morale. “Mob Rule” is a similar example – it was key to how orks worked as a faction and lots of players were quite rightly upset when it was removed. Removing it was a mistake that crippled certain play styles. Now GW has seen sense and brought it back in 8th edition. So the way I see it why can’t JSJ be the same? GW just has to receive the same feedback from the tau community that they got from the Ork community then. That’s the real reason I keep harping on about this.
But with a view to “moving on” what did you guys do to make suit-lists work and keep them from being assaulted in the first place? Obviously something I’ve missed.
And as for tournaments, I’ll defer to your judgement, although I personally would be surprised to see Tau suit lists do any better this edition, especially given the massive boosts to assault.
Sorry if this has been answered before, but can Deathwatch use their special issue ammo while using combi-weapons?
What is this Dark Eldar Raider army that I hearing about?
Just lots of Raiders with Dark Lances and uits inside to handle infantry. Ravagers too. My goodness, Ravagers are soooo good.
Literally have just ruined people with my Dark Eldar.
Yeah, Drukhari are excellent.
Reece, is seems like there’s no reason to play Craftworld Eldar. Ynnari are so much better because SfD is ten times better than the laughably nerfed and weak Battle Focus.
How did this make it past play testing? An entire faction is useless.
Well, craft world is good for some build types but generally speaking, yes, ynnari is better. I recommend playing ynnari for index eldar. Craft world eldar aren’t worthless, that is certainly a bit of hyperbole, but they’re not as good, I agree.
Keep up the great work, nerds.
Thank you, sir!
Also, Pete foley wrote on twitter saying Sieze can be rerolled using CP. This appears to contradict some people saying you can’t do that, what do you guys think?
RAW he is correct so his response was accurate. I think we may have to wait for an FAQ to see RAI.
Word. The joys of new things!
I know, right? haha
What do you guys think : IF your in an open topped vehicles can the unit inside fire over watch. The way it kind of read it seems like not??? As it specifically state the shooting phase, and the open topped rules seem pretty specific to the shooting phase.
No over-watch from open topped vehicles.
Very sorry if this has been covered… will codices invalidate indices? I’ll gladly play an inferior list of army options… but I’m not interested in needing to buy rules twice… especially for factions I don’t play all that often
Just a quick one now the eldar wraitfighter spirit stones specifically states that anytime it suffers an unsaved wound or mortal wound on a roll of a 6 it ignores the wound. Does that mean deathguards disgusting resilience and bjorns and wulfen special rules mean they only ignore wounds and not both mortal wounds and wounds.
I would suggest that as the latter rules only state wounds are ignored then they don’t ignore mortal wounds yet I see confusion over this on many of the forums and groups I follow.
Had a couple of questions on vertical distances and charging.
When you charge, do you count both horizontal and vertical distance moved?
If a unit on the ground had the FLY keyword, and it was charging a unit on the second floor of a ruin, would it measure both the horizontal and vertical distance, ignore the vertical distance, or measure “diagonally” to determine distance from base to base (the whole “Ignore Terrain it moves across” is listed in the Move Phase section of the rules, not the Charge Phase section)?
Thanks.