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JackMann
Aug 11, 2010

Secure. Contain. Protect.
Fallen Rib
I really like the new Desperate Breakout strat. It gives the trapped player some good options while still incentivizing tripoints (just costing your enemy 2 CP is good, with the added bonus of maybe costing them a couple of models). Adds just that little bit more tactical depth to the game.

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The Bee
Nov 25, 2012

Making his way to the ring . . .
from Deep in the Jungle . . .

The Big Monkey!

xtothez posted:

When a unit failed a morale check and had to flee, both units in combat had to roll D6 and add their Initiative stat. If the retreating unit won they got away, if they lost the roll the whole unit got wiped out and the attackers consolidated.

As more and more factions become effectively immune to morale, it rarely came up as you only left combat if you could fail a morale check.

The whole unit wiping out seems kind of lame, but keeping the unit locked for another round of combat sounds fun to me!

If I was making that rule, I'd have you do the fall back first, and then your opponent can roll to Press the Advantage. If your roll is higher, you succeed and get away safely. If your roll is lower, your opponent gets to follow and re-establish melee. Maybe it could be d6+movement, so faster units can overtake or evade slower units, or d6+leadership, reflecting your unit's discipline making the difference between a disorganized mob breaking in panic or an organized, tactical retreat.

It also makes the direction you flee in important. If you fall back towards your own army, a bad roll-off can bring your opponent closer to your forces. If you instead try to break forward, you might end up running out of the frying pan and into the fire.

JollyBoyJohn
Feb 13, 2019

For Real!
I'm interested in collecting a second army to go along with my blood angels since I'm going to be playing more of 9th than any other now that I have my own place and my buddy who lives close by is big into it

I want an army that ticks a few boxes, mostly as a good accompaniment to the my blood angels, so preferably more shooty, with bigger blobs of units and something that will look thematically striking next to my angels of sanguinius. So I don't really wanna go Tyranids because they seem quite similar in terms of play-style and I don't really wanna go Tau because the models look similar enough to marine stuff that it isn't quite what I'm after

I thought Orks would be a good choice but my buddy plays orks, Imperial Guard look cool but I don't love the idea of lots of vehicles, I really just want a cool side army that looks like a proper evil force

Are Demons playable as a shooting army? They have the kind of cool evil models I'm looking for. I have no idea where to start really but that Bloodthirster model looks amazing and I love the idea of an army that I could also swing into AoS relatively easily with. Really the playing aspect isn't *that* important since I really enjoy the modelling side more, Demons just seems a confusing army to collect without getting a Codex and really reading up on things

Inspector_666
Oct 7, 2003

benny with the good hair
AdMech make for a good gunline, but you will need vehicles and Dark Mech is still not really a thing in 40k if you're looking to make it a Chaos army.

That said, you could very easily make it thematically Chaos and just play em as straight-up AdMech.

Spanish Manlove
Aug 31, 2008

HAILGAYSATAN

I wish this was a mod for Red Dead Redemption 2

ThoraxTheImpaler
Aug 13, 2014

CONDESCENDING
ASSHOLE

JollyBoyJohn posted:

I'm interested in collecting a second army to go along with my blood angels since I'm going to be playing more of 9th than any other now that I have my own place and my buddy who lives close by is big into it

I want an army that ticks a few boxes, mostly as a good accompaniment to the my blood angels, so preferably more shooty, with bigger blobs of units and something that will look thematically striking next to my angels of sanguinius. So I don't really wanna go Tyranids because they seem quite similar in terms of play-style and I don't really wanna go Tau because the models look similar enough to marine stuff that it isn't quite what I'm after

Can't go wrong with Imperial Guard

notaspy
Mar 22, 2009

Quick question:

Are FW catapratii (of all ilks) resin or plastic?

ThoraxTheImpaler
Aug 13, 2014

CONDESCENDING
ASSHOLE

notaspy posted:

Quick question:

Are FW catapratii (of all ilks) resin or plastic?

All forgeworld models are resin. The Cataphractii terminators sold by GW are plastic.

Kitchner
Nov 9, 2012

IT CAN'T BE BARGAINED WITH.
IT CAN'T BE REASONED WITH.
IT DOESN'T FEEL PITY, OR REMORSE, OR FEAR.
AND IT ABSOLUTELY WILL NOT STOP, EVER, UNTIL YOU ADMIT YOU'RE WRONG ABOUT WARHAMMER
Clapping Larry

The Bee posted:

The whole unit wiping out seems kind of lame, but keeping the unit locked for another round of combat sounds fun to me!

If I was making that rule, I'd have you do the fall back first, and then your opponent can roll to Press the Advantage. If your roll is higher, you succeed and get away safely. If your roll is lower, your opponent gets to follow and re-establish melee. Maybe it could be d6+movement, so faster units can overtake or evade slower units, or d6+leadership, reflecting your unit's discipline making the difference between a disorganized mob breaking in panic or an organized, tactical retreat.

It also makes the direction you flee in important. If you fall back towards your own army, a bad roll-off can bring your opponent closer to your forces. If you instead try to break forward, you might end up running out of the frying pan and into the fire.

Have to say this smacks of the old mechanic where if you failed a morale check you fled from combat, and the opponent could roll to see if they chase you down, which they nearly always did, because you moved 6" and the overage roll on 2D6 will be 7+ and much easier as 6+.

I think it's better the way it is because it allows you to give a sort of follow on ability to specific units and armies that represent fast reacting units, while giving you a chance to escape most melee situations.

Lizard Combatant
Sep 29, 2010

I have some notes.

I said come in! posted:

What colors did you use for your saddle and bags? Those look really great! Your paint job is so much better than mine and inspires me to do better.

That's just contrast snakebite leather over the wraith bone primer, it's wonderful stuff. But here I was just thinking how much I liked the dark old leather colour you went with, much more realistic.

Giant Ethicist
Jun 9, 2013

Looks like she got on a loaf of bread instead of a bus again...
Crosspost from the painting thread: I've been expanding my plague marine kill team (painted, because I have to be a special snowflake, in pre-Mortarion Dusk Raider legion colors), and going back to mostly acrylics after 6 months communing with Contrasts is not as bad as I thought it might be.



I'm also sort of realizing that Crusade just might (finally) help turn Kill Team into the "first stepping stone to 40K" entry point GW always hoped it would be. My 100 points of death guard for KT was just too far from a 1500-point force to really bother expanding, but to make a 25 power level Crusade force I'll just need a second squad of plague marines and an HQ choice, the latter of which the Space Marine Heroes 3 paint set just gave me.

Giant Ethicist fucked around with this message at 00:43 on Jun 22, 2020

Strobe
Jun 30, 2014
GW BRAINWORMS CREW
For a second I thought you were talking about Conquest magazine, but from context I think you mean Crusade.

Booley
Apr 25, 2010
I CAN BARELY MAKE IT A WEEK WITHOUT ACTING LIKE AN ASSHOLE
Grimey Drawer

Kitchner posted:

Have to say this smacks of the old mechanic where if you failed a morale check you fled from combat, and the opponent could roll to see if they chase you down, which they nearly always did, because you moved 6" and the overage roll on 2D6 will be 7+ and much easier as 6+.

I think it's better the way it is because it allows you to give a sort of follow on ability to specific units and armies that represent fast reacting units, while giving you a chance to escape most melee situations.

Sweeping advance was d6 + initiative, not trying to beat 6" on 2d6.

JBP
Feb 16, 2017

You've got to know, to understand,
Baby, take me by my hand,
I'll lead you to the promised land.
My favourite mechanic playing 30k is sweeping advance. It's one I always kind of forget about due to playing so much 8th even though my EC are basically built around getting that occasional sweet sweep.

Giant Ethicist
Jun 9, 2013

Looks like she got on a loaf of bread instead of a bus again...

Strobe posted:

For a second I thought you were talking about Conquest magazine, but from context I think you mean Crusade.

Just so, I hadn't had my coffee yet, plus I'm an idiot.

tangy yet delightful
Sep 13, 2005



Giant Ethicist posted:

Crosspost from the painting thread: I've been expanding my plague marine kill team (painted, because I have to be a special snowflake, in pre-Mortarion Dusk Raider legion colors), and going back to mostly acrylics after 6 months communing with Contrasts is not as bad as I thought it might be.



I'm also sort of realizing that Crusade just might (finally) help turn Kill Team into the "first stepping stone to 40K" entry point GW always hoped it would be. My 100 points of death guard for KT was just too far from a 1500-point force to really bother expanding, but to make a 25 power level Crusade force I'll just need a second squad of plague marines and an HQ choice, the latter of which the Space Marine Heroes 3 paint set just gave me.

I really like your color scheme.

Hedningen
May 4, 2013

Enough sideburns to last a lifetime.


God help me, I’m starting up 40k again after agreeing to split the new box set with a friend. Still had some boxes of necrons in my basement, so testing out the scheme + basic conversions needed.

Still need to highlight and work on some shading evenness, but I think this is an okay “grimy necron” color scheme.

jng2058
Jul 17, 2010

We have the tools, we have the talent!





The Bee posted:

That's about how I remembered it. Chaos is in a similar boat, but without a Chaos Primaris to fall back on, right? Do the cult troops (Berserkers, Noise Marines, Plague Marines, Rubrics) make appealing troop choices, or does Chaos just nab enough Cultists to fill detachment slots and focus on other parts of the force org chart instead?

Pretty much. As far as the cult Marines, it depends on which ones.

Berzerkers are nasty because they get a rule that lets them fight a second time in the Fight phase. The number of attacks then can put out is pretty impressive.

Noise Marines get a Slaanesh strat called Endless Cacophony that lets them fire twice in the shooting phase. The number of shots they can put out is pretty impressive.

Plague Marines are still tough as hell, and are probably about to get better with the new Psychic Awakening book coming out.

Rubric Marines...are a unit that also exists. Look, they can't all be winners. :sigh:

But yes, there are a lot of Chaos lists that are a bunch of Cultists, a mix of daemon engines, some big or little daemons, with a couple of HQ Chaos Lords or Sorcerers being the only Chaos Marines in the Chaos Marine army.

jng2058 fucked around with this message at 01:26 on Jun 22, 2020

Kitchner
Nov 9, 2012

IT CAN'T BE BARGAINED WITH.
IT CAN'T BE REASONED WITH.
IT DOESN'T FEEL PITY, OR REMORSE, OR FEAR.
AND IT ABSOLUTELY WILL NOT STOP, EVER, UNTIL YOU ADMIT YOU'RE WRONG ABOUT WARHAMMER
Clapping Larry

JBP posted:

My favourite mechanic playing 30k is sweeping advance. It's one I always kind of forget about due to playing so much 8th even though my EC are basically built around getting that occasional sweet sweep.

It's a mechanic I always hated in both 40K and Fantasy, it just gave too much power to combat and smacked big units in the face with ridiculous scenarios where like 50 dudes would run away because someone killed 10 of them, and then after they run the 5 man squad which was now down to 3 men would kill them all immediately (yeah I know the unit "scatters" and runs away it's not actually killing them all) due to a fairly hard to fail roll. What was worse in 40K is I think ATSKNF or some similar rule for marines made them immune, so half the player base didnt see what the problem was because it never happened to them.

Fantasy fixed it by making it pretty easy to make large units of infantry Stubborn (ignoring penalties to leadership) and getting rid of the daft thing where only the front rank or two could fight and that's where the casualties came from. I mostly ignored it in 5th because my Guard infantry were either guardsmen in a big blob with a Commissar (stubborn with a re-roll on Ld I think) and the Conscripts were totally disposable and had Send In The Next Wave! so it didn't really matter if they died.

I can't say I miss it in 40K, but I'm with the idea of certain units being so exceptionally fast/magical/whatever that the enemy can't effectively fall back because they are able to pursue them regardless of things like a tactical retreat with incoming fire.

Schadenboner
Aug 15, 2011

by Shine
I just learned that Rogue Trader had a "last swing at their backsides" rule:



Neat, eh?

The Bee
Nov 25, 2012

Making his way to the ring . . .
from Deep in the Jungle . . .

The Big Monkey!
I'm really torn. Melee units have so many more hoops to deal with ranged units than the reverse. They need to:

Cross the board without being shot to pieces, which depending on the unit's speed and your faction's transport / deep strike capabilities can keep anywhere from 1 to 3 rounds.
Successfully make the charge, because the melee range of engagement is completely random.
Survive Overwatch, if your opponent opts to leverage it.
Get as many models into engagement range as possible.
Work through the usual Hit-Wound-Save triad.
Survive your opponent's counter-strike.

And after all of that, your opponent can just walk away from combat and let anything remaining from your unit get shot to pieces.

Meanwhile, to deal with a melee unit, a ranged unit needs to do the following:

Draw a straight line of a consistent range to at least one model of your opponent's unit, start blasting.

Anything that can equalize that, even by just the slightest bit, would be appreciated. A last swat at the backsides? A melee overwatch equivalent? A rush-in to counter the fall-back? Anything to make falling back less of a no brainer and more of an impactful choice.

Strobe
Jun 30, 2014
GW BRAINWORMS CREW

The Bee posted:

I'm really torn. Melee units have so many more hoops to deal with ranged units than the reverse. They need to:

Cross the board without being shot to pieces, which depending on the unit's speed and your faction's transport / deep strike capabilities can keep anywhere from 1 to 3 rounds.
Successfully make the charge, because the melee range of engagement is completely random.
Survive Overwatch, if your opponent opts to leverage it.
Get as many models into engagement range as possible.
Work through the usual Hit-Wound-Save triad.
Survive your opponent's counter-strike.

And after all of that, your opponent can just walk away from combat and let anything remaining from your unit get shot to pieces.

Meanwhile, to deal with a melee unit, a ranged unit needs to do the following:

Draw a straight line of a consistent range to at least one model of your opponent's unit, start blasting.

Anything that can equalize that, even by just the slightest bit, would be appreciated. A last swat at the backsides? A melee overwatch equivalent? A rush-in to counter the fall-back? Anything to make falling back less of a no brainer and more of an impactful choice.

How many games of 8th have you actually played? Melee units of multiple factions are extremely good to the extent that Marine melee units are the memeiest things in the edition and at least two of the major Chaos list lynchpins are both nigh-exclusively melee threats.

EDIT: because I was too busy being condescending to actually make my point: melee is not in some metaphorical gutter, and it does not need to be lifted out of it. All of the 9th edition changes are good as far as making the skill disparity required smaller, but wringing hands over what else needs to happen is ridiculously premature or founded in a fundamental misunderstanding of what's actually good right now.

Kitchner
Nov 9, 2012

IT CAN'T BE BARGAINED WITH.
IT CAN'T BE REASONED WITH.
IT DOESN'T FEEL PITY, OR REMORSE, OR FEAR.
AND IT ABSOLUTELY WILL NOT STOP, EVER, UNTIL YOU ADMIT YOU'RE WRONG ABOUT WARHAMMER
Clapping Larry

The Bee posted:

Anything that can equalize that, even by just the slightest bit, would be appreciated. A last swat at the backsides? A melee overwatch equivalent? A rush-in to counter the fall-back? Anything to make falling back less of a no brainer and more of an impactful choice.

This is massively over simplifying it though and points costs should theoretically account for any difficulty.

What good is telling me "All you need to do is shoot me, I need to do all this stuff!" when I'm a squad of ten guardsmen shooting at ten intercessor assault marines? What if my army wants to keep my distance from you but the objectives I need to secure to win are in the middle, something that doesn't bother you at all? What about the fact an intercessor can make two attacks at 30" away but when an assault intercessor arrives in combat they make 3 or 4 each in the turn they charge? What about the fact that units in close combat are immune from shooting, but no shooting unit is immune from close combat (or shouldn't be, gently caress ruins combat rules in 8th).

Sure if I'm playing a shooting army and you're playing a melee one my game is "simpler" in terms of what I need to do mechanically, but it's a complex array of factors, before you consider target priorities and stratagem use.

Melee wasn't generally as great as shooting in 8th primarily because shooting was overpowered and everything got leaf lowered off the table, but if you'll not basically any shooting unit that couldn't survive such firepower was also pretty rubbish. Melee units that could get into combat effectively were still really strong. All that "effort" you out into positioning your models gives melee units lots of tricks they can pull, shooting units just shoot things.

If you break it down on the level of "look at all the stuff I have to do, surely it should be more powerful?" then why would you ever play a shooting army unless you're too stupid to understand how to run a combat army? All that stuff is hard-ER than most shooting armies, and arguably always the most complex part of warhammer rules, but for experienced players they get it and could do it.

The best balance in my view is where if the shooting army doesn't prioritise its targets correctly, doesn't being the right tools, and/or gets unlucky an assault army will get into combat and start mining them up. That shouldn't be "game over" though, the shooting army should be able to have a chance to pull back and reform and fight back, with shooting. Then you stop people from just casting up and playing dull tau riptide style armies by having objectives they actually have to move around a bit for, and make sure those armies have mobile units that aren't trash.

So far from what we can see melee has got some buffs, and some nerfs. Shooting has got some nerfs, but no real buffs as far as I can see. I think that's probably about right but I don't think we can just look at how and why melee is and always will be more complicated than shooting and declare it needs to be better than shooting.

Kitchner fucked around with this message at 02:27 on Jun 22, 2020

The Bee
Nov 25, 2012

Making his way to the ring . . .
from Deep in the Jungle . . .

The Big Monkey!

Kitchner posted:

This is massively over simplifying it though and points costs should theoretically account for any difficulty.

What good is telling me "All you need to do is shoot me, I need to do all this stuff!" when I'm a squad of ten guardsmen shooting at ten intercessor assault marines? What if my army wants to keep my distance from you but the objectives I need to secure to win are in the middle, something that doesn't bother you at all? What about the fact an intercessor can make two attacks at 30" away but when an assault intercessor arrives in combat they make 3 or 4 each in the turn they charge? What about the fact that units in close combat are immune from shooting, but no shooting unit is immune from close combat (or shouldn't be, gently caress ruins combat rules in 8th).

Sure if I'm playing a shooting army and you're playing a melee one my game is "simpler" in terms of what I need to do mechanically, but it's a complex array of factors, before you consider target priorities and stratagem use.

Melee wasn't generally as great as shooting in 8th primarily because shooting was overpowered and everything got leaf lowered off the table, but if you'll not basically any shooting unit that couldn't survive such firepower was also pretty rubbish. Melee units that could get into combat effectively were still really strong. All that "effort" you out into positioning your models gives melee units lots of tricks they can pull, shooting units just shoot things.

If you break it down on the level of "look at all the stuff I have to do, surely it should be more powerful?" then why would you ever play a shooting army unless you're too stupid to understand how to run a combat army? All that stuff is hard-ER than most shooting armies, and arguably always the most complex part of warhammer rules, but for experienced players they get it and could do it.

The best balance in my view is where if the shooting army doesn't prioritise its targets correctly, doesn't being the right tools, and/or gets unlucky an assault army will get into combat and start mining them up. That shouldn't be "game over" though, the shooting army should be able to have a chance to pull back and reform and fight back, with shooting. Then you stop people from just casting up and playing dull tau riptide style armies by having objectives they actually have to move around a bit for, and make sure those armies have mobile units that aren't trash.

So far from what we can see melee has got some buffs, and some nerfs. Shooting has got some nerfs, but no real buffs as far as I can see. I think that's probably about right but I don't think we can just look at how and why melee is and always will be more complicated than shooting and declare it needs to be better than shooting.

Shooting did get the fire into combat buff, the blast weapon buff, and vehicle and monster units no longer getting -1 to moving and shooting heavy weapons. Those are some pretty decent buffs too, even if they definitely aren't as good at the no-overwatch and melee turn order change buffs. The end of permanent tri-pointing is also nice, even if its very much a tradeoff.

I'm not saying melee should be more powerful just because melee's more complicated. If anything, I'm loving the fact that these changes cut down on some of the more overcomplicated parts of melee. The fact that the best ways to run a combat phase are also not how you'd intuitively interpret the combat rules kind of sucks!

I like your idea of the ideal balance. I don't want melee to end the game once it actually survives to the end of the board, because that'd make shooting armies feel just as frustrated as melee armies feel getting blown off the board without a chance to act. I'd honestly rather have every engagement in 40k become less lethal overall. A melee unit should get chipped away at while it climbs up the board. Then a ranged unit should get chipped away at when the melee unit charges in for a smacking. Getting away from the melee unit should take time and effort, during which the melee unit holds the advantage, just like the melee unit getting to the ranged unit should take time and effort, during which the ranged unit holds the advantage. But at no point should your entire unit be obliterated without you having a say in what's going on.

That said, yeah. I know I'm half oversimplying, half pipe dreaming here.

The Bee fucked around with this message at 03:43 on Jun 22, 2020

Revelation 2-13
May 13, 2010

Pillbug
Losing models/units/games to morale is one of the least fun mechanics in the game imo. They should just remove the phase and stat and related abilities/psychic powers/weapons. The whole shebang doesn’t really add anything other than some tiny horror/terror narrative aspects and marines know no fear motto, neither which are really that important. It would save a time too. I’d miss commissars, but they could probably have some other role instead. I also think sweeping advance was one of the top 10 worst and dumbest mechanics that 40k ever had.

The Bee
Nov 25, 2012

Making his way to the ring . . .
from Deep in the Jungle . . .

The Big Monkey!

Revelation 2-13 posted:

Losing models/units/games to morale is one of the least fun mechanics in the game imo. They should just remove the phase and stat and related abilities/psychic powers/weapons. The whole shebang doesn’t really add anything other than some tiny horror/terror narrative aspects and marines know no fear motto, neither which are really that important. It would save a time too. I’d miss commissars, but they could probably have some other role instead. I also think sweeping advance was one of the top 10 worst and dumbest mechanics that 40k ever had.

Yeah, it hosed my friend up when we played our first game of 8th, he had one Ork survive a massive attack from my Termagants . . . and then instead of get to pull a dramatic turnaround with Unstoppable Green Tide, he just kinda had to sadly flick it off the table because of morale. I'm sure there could be uses for a morale stat, perhaps with some kind of order mechanic, but having it just zap units off the table is a drag.

DrDraxium
Dec 2, 2002




Plz state the nature of the medical emergency

I said come in! posted:

I like my evil horsey.


Another great paint job, good work.

Fun fact: they are actually designed around greyhounds as opposed to horses, and you can really see it if you look closely.

I said come in! posted:

Yep! I do believe they are!

For the next two horseys, I am going to paint them in more sub assemblies. I actually made my work harder on this one, because I assembled the whole thing and then started painted. Not a good idea. I thought if I just did the horse, and then the skitaari second, I would be fine, don't do it like this. Paint the first half, then the second half, then the head, and then glue them all together. Much easier.

Sub-assemblies are a god send, it seems like it would be more work initially, but the amount of difficulty I have with most mini's if I don't paint them in sub-assemblies sort of outweights any time savings you might have made by putting it all together at once.

The Bee posted:

Yeah, it hosed my friend up when we played our first game of 8th, he had one Ork survive a massive attack from my Termagants . . . and then instead of get to pull a dramatic turnaround with Unstoppable Green Tide, he just kinda had to sadly flick it off the table because of morale. I'm sure there could be uses for a morale stat, perhaps with some kind of order mechanic, but having it just zap units off the table is a drag.

It seems like this is a hangover from the old hardcore combat simulation days. Which as the years go by seems to be less and less the driving force behind the gameplay mechanics. Which whilst morale is obviously part of combat in real life, it doesn't translate to an interesting or fun tabletop mechanic.

The Bee
Nov 25, 2012

Making his way to the ring . . .
from Deep in the Jungle . . .

The Big Monkey!

DrDraxium posted:

It seems like this is a hangover from the old hardcore combat simulation days. Which as the years go by seems to be less and less the driving force behind the gameplay mechanics. Which whilst morale is obviously part of combat in real life, it doesn't translate to an interesting or fun tabletop mechanic.

Honestly, I don't think it helps that morale tends to be a Lose Harder stat, rather than something with positive or tactical benefit. Like, yeah, it sucks losing models because your units have low leadership. But what else could low leadership do? I know I just mentioned an order mechanic, but thinking on it further, could you imagine wasting a stratagem because your units lack leadership, are low on morale, and say "gently caress this" instead of doing something that could save them?

If there was a way to prevent morale from going down despite suffering losses, or good morale that gave bonuses, or more ways of interacting with morale than just killing dudes, that'd be one thing. But it really has just been the Lose Harder stat, doomed to be either ignored via unit size or ignored via ability just like its earlier ed counterparts.

What kind of design space could lead to a more impactful morale stat?

ro5s
Dec 27, 2012

A happy little mouse!

Traditional Games > Warhammer 40,000: I was too busy being condescending to actually make my point

thegodofchuck
May 13, 2006

You'll be godlike
Purchasing question for anyone in the US - I'm wanting to make a decently large sized purchase (around $1500 retail, mostly all of the codexes, since I bought basically none during 8th, plus a couple other things) of GW stuff, and I'm hoping to find a retailer who will go beyond the 15% discount for a big order and is reliable. If anyone knows of one (I remember hearing now and again about some, but don't recall the names), please let me know (can PM if you want). Thanks!

DrDraxium
Dec 2, 2002




Plz state the nature of the medical emergency

The Bee posted:

Honestly, I don't think it helps that morale tends to be a Lose Harder stat, rather than something with positive or tactical benefit. Like, yeah, it sucks losing models because your units have low leadership. But what else could low leadership do? I know I just mentioned an order mechanic, but thinking on it further, could you imagine wasting a stratagem because your units lack leadership, are low on morale, and say "gently caress this" instead of doing something that could save them?

If there was a way to prevent morale from going down despite suffering losses, or good morale that gave bonuses, or more ways of interacting with morale than just killing dudes, that'd be one thing. But it really has just been the Lose Harder stat, doomed to be either ignored via unit size or ignored via ability just like its earlier ed counterparts.

What kind of design space could lead to a more impactful morale stat?

I feel like maybe it would be almost like a separate resource, certain psychic powers work better against units with low leadership.

EDIT: Like, have certain spells induce fleeing or fear based reactions. Maybe? Just spit-ballin' here.

DrDraxium fucked around with this message at 10:39 on Jun 22, 2020

Giant Isopod
Jan 30, 2010

Bathynomus giganteus
Yams Fan

The Bee posted:

What kind of design space could lead to a more impactful morale stat?

Decoupling leadership from morale would also help with a couple weird cases like necron warriors having the same leadership as a primarch because that's the only way to represent not fleeing in battle

JackMann
Aug 11, 2010

Secure. Contain. Protect.
Fallen Rib
It seemed to me in 8th that melee units had to jump through more hoops, but ranged units were pretty screwed once they got pinned down.

The 9th changes seem to be making it easier to get into melee while giving gunlines more options to deal with it.

xtothez
Jan 4, 2004


College Slice
The biggest issue with current falling back rules for isnt so much that the target can get away, it's that melee units get stuck out in the open and are easily shot up before getting to act again.

I think moving Fall Back to the charge or fight phase would help a lot without making one side overly strong.

Kitchner
Nov 9, 2012

IT CAN'T BE BARGAINED WITH.
IT CAN'T BE REASONED WITH.
IT DOESN'T FEEL PITY, OR REMORSE, OR FEAR.
AND IT ABSOLUTELY WILL NOT STOP, EVER, UNTIL YOU ADMIT YOU'RE WRONG ABOUT WARHAMMER
Clapping Larry

The Bee posted:

Shooting did get the fire into combat buff, the blast weapon buff, and vehicle and monster units no longer getting -1 to moving and shooting heavy weapons. Those are some pretty decent buffs too, even if they definitely aren't as good at the no-overwatch and melee turn order change buffs. The end of permanent tri-pointing is also nice, even if its very much a tradeoff.


I did forget about some of those, but I guess I see that all as buffs to vehicles rather than shooting in general.

Like if you look at a lot of the great shooting units in 8th, all those things didn't really factor in for one reason or another. Vehicles that couldn't deal with movement penalties, getting assaulted (either themselves or by the army having good cheap screens), the lack of LoS blocking terrain, or the fact blast weapons were a bit naff (like Catachan Leman Russes firing twice and re-rolling number of shots or basilisks being Non-LoS rolling twice and picking the highest) weren't seen a whole bunch.

I guess having a wider range of competitive shooting choices may making shooting stronger overall, but I think what's more likely is optimal units will be the most common in competitive lists and you just don't feel as handicapped if you really want to take your Vindicator Demolisher or whatever.

Regarding Morale talk, I really would love the morale mechanic to strike a balance between important enough that it's a factor and units/mechanics that interact with morale (e.g. Reivers, Commissars, psychic powers that instill terror etc) feel useful and important. On the other hand, you don't want it to be so powerful the game becomes Warhammer 40K: 2 Spooky 4 Me edition.

Maybe they need to drop this idea of morale meaning you fall back and run away, and change it to a debuff. If you fail a morale check you're at -1 to hit and wound all attacks, and the unit can't move except to fall back until you pass a morale check.

Something that means being able to force or make likely units fail morale checks (and protect against it) feels useful, but not so useful that you just need to spam it across the board in every situation.

The Bee
Nov 25, 2012

Making his way to the ring . . .
from Deep in the Jungle . . .

The Big Monkey!

xtothez posted:

The biggest issue with current falling back rules for isnt so much that the target can get away, it's that melee units get stuck out in the open and are easily shot up before getting to act again.

I think moving Fall Back to the charge or fight phase would help a lot without making one side overly strong.

On the surface that seems like it'd help a lot. In practice, though, it'd make melee units near-impossible to retaliate against. They could just charge again next turn. The reason why my suggestion was a roll-off was because, assuming the units in question were evenly balanced, you'd have a 50/50 shot of getting out of melee for any given fight you were in, making melee stickier but not insurmountable.

Also this is making me think even more about leadership as an alternate resource. Imagine if you could shoot into melee, but at the risk of tagging your own units on a 1. A high BS, high LD unit might think that's worth the risk. Now imagine that, if either the shooting unit or the target allied unit has low enough LD, that goes from "hit your own units on a 1" to "hit your own units on a miss." Sure, your Lootaz can gun down the Astartes gitz locked in battle with their Choppa Boyz, but they'll probably kill as many Choppaz in the process. Especially if each 1 triggers Akkad Akkad Akkad or something.

That might be a bit powerful as a constant effect. But as a stratagem? I'd consider throwing down for it.

Then Morale could put debuffs on units and possibly even lower their leadership, and that opens interesting design space. Your Guardsmen and Fire Warriors might start the game like well oiled machines, Falling Back efficiently and smartly targeting into melee. Then as the battlefield turns, they start getting desperate, opening fire in a panicked rush, fleeing out of melee instead of withdrawing, and perhaps even losing models of you let their morale get to a piss poor state.

Then make it so morale doesn't just go down, down, down. Being outnumbered or outgunned may reduce morale. But surviving and killing the terrifying thing can boost it back up. So does a nearby unit interacting with an objective. Its a lot easier to hold the line when you know you're holding the lines for Jenkins to make it across allied lines than it is to just go on a random bug hunt. Every inch he gets closer is another few seconds you've brought your squad before morale flags.

And, yes, absolutely make this a design space for fear, mind, and sonic based weaponry or powers to interact very directly with morale, or for huge monsters like Carnifexes and Bloodthirsters to get an Intimidating Charge rule.

The Bee fucked around with this message at 14:01 on Jun 22, 2020

darnon
Nov 8, 2009

thegodofchuck posted:

Purchasing question for anyone in the US - I'm wanting to make a decently large sized purchase (around $1500 retail, mostly all of the codexes, since I bought basically none during 8th, plus a couple other things) of GW stuff, and I'm hoping to find a retailer who will go beyond the 15% discount for a big order and is reliable. If anyone knows of one (I remember hearing now and again about some, but don't recall the names), please let me know (can PM if you want). Thanks!

I think Discount Games Inc might similar to how they have an extra discount for WMH over $100. You'd have to e-mail them to check.

ZachAttack
Mar 17, 2009

Malevolent Hatform
Nap Ghost

thegodofchuck posted:

Purchasing question for anyone in the US - I'm wanting to make a decently large sized purchase (around $1500 retail, mostly all of the codexes, since I bought basically none during 8th, plus a couple other things) of GW stuff, and I'm hoping to find a retailer who will go beyond the 15% discount for a big order and is reliable. If anyone knows of one (I remember hearing now and again about some, but don't recall the names), please let me know (can PM if you want). Thanks!

Check out ministomp, flat rate 10bux for shipping but you make up with it with a much better discount %.

head58
Apr 1, 2013

darnon posted:

I think Discount Games Inc might similar to how they have an extra discount for WMH over $100. You'd have to e-mail them to check.

They do, yes. And have great service. Just make sure you’re looking at discountgamesinc.com and not just Discount Games.

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Dawgstar
Jul 15, 2017

So do I want the next book with the Inquisition stuff and Ephrael Stern if I'm playing Sisters?

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