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Post by autoxidation on Jul 31, 2020 15:37:17 GMT
In many ways, 9th appears to be shaping up by winning solely via holding objectives. Even if the majority of your army gets wiped in the process, as long as you are gaining points by capturing these and denying your opponent them, you can win.
What do you think our most durable units for this are?
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Post by phenatix on Jul 31, 2020 15:41:14 GMT
Leviathan Zoanthropes are by far one of the most efficient options for purely tanking. Leviathan Warriors with Enhanced Resistances are also good, but you might want to save your Adaptive Physiologies for Dermic Symbiosis on Exorines or something.
Other good options are Ripper Swarms, or Termagants if you are worried about multi-damage weapons targeting you. Termagants also provide many objective secured bodies, rather than just wounds (as all the other options are multiwound).
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Post by acehilator on Jul 31, 2020 16:21:19 GMT
Ripper Swarms are terrible at tanking damage. Low toughness, low armor save and multiwound is the worst of all worlds, and they are not infantry. While swarms can move though ruins finally, they cannot use most actions. Ripper effectivness has gone down a lot in 9E. Taking one or maybe two units for Engage at all fronts and generally being a nuisance is ok, but for the third (and following) troop slots I'd much prefer anything else.
Zoans are the best tanks, but very low damage output and no Obsec.
Warriors are better damage output, but worse survivability and Obsec.
Gants also with the lowest damage output and lowest tankyness, but greatest amount of models and Obsec.
I feel with the crazy anti-infantry firepower any random assortment of Tau, Admech, Guard and Primaris army can put out, Termagants suffer most, not only because of blast weapons. I think minimum units are great for holding objectives from out of LoS, but for the objectives out in the open you want Zoans or Warriors.
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Post by phenatix on Jul 31, 2020 17:03:56 GMT
Ripper Swarms are terrible at tanking damage. Low toughness, low armor save and multiwound is the worst of all worlds, and they are not infantry. While swarms can move though ruins finally, they cannot use most actions. Ripper effectivness has gone down a lot in 9E. Taking one or maybe two units for Engage at all fronts and generally being a nuisance is ok, but for the third (and following) troop slots I'd much prefer anything else. Zoans are the best tanks, but very low damage output and no Obsec. Warriors are better damage output, but worse survivability and Obsec. Gants also with the lowest damage output and lowest tankyness, but greatest amount of models and Obsec. I feel with the crazy anti-infantry firepower any random assortment of Tau, Admech, Guard and Primaris army can put out, Termagants suffer most, not only because of blast weapons. I think minimum units are great for holding objectives from out of LoS, but for the objectives out in the open you want Zoans or Warriors. Zoans very low damage output? They can spam out a lot of MW per turn, as there is no restriction on casting Smite. |
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Post by acehilator on Jul 31, 2020 17:23:00 GMT
That's not going to last.
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Post by phenatix on Aug 1, 2020 11:26:47 GMT
That's not going to last. I just don't understand this mindset. As quoted from the core rules: With the exception of Smite, you cannot attempt to manifest the same Psychic power more than once in the same battle round, even with different Psyker units. Smite has a warp charge value of 5. Add 1 to the warp charge value of this psychic power for each other attempt that has been made to manifest this power by a unit form your army in this phase, whether that attempt was successful or not. Emphasis mine. This is a new edition. If GW wanted no multiple Smites from 1 unit, they already had the wording in the FAQ from 8th. They could easily have carried that over. So we have all of that, and the fact that they already released the first wave of FAQs covering every army and saw no reason to say anything about this, anywhere. |
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Post by gorsameth on Aug 1, 2020 12:03:33 GMT
That's not going to last. I just don't understand this mindset. As quoted from the core rules: With the exception of Smite, you cannot attempt to manifest the same Psychic power more than once in the same battle round, even with different Psyker units. Smite has a warp charge value of 5. Add 1 to the warp charge value of this psychic power for each other attempt that has been made to manifest this power by a unit form your army in this phase, whether that attempt was successful or not. Emphasis mine. This is a new edition. If GW wanted no multiple Smites from 1 unit, they already had the wording in the FAQ from 8th. They could easily have carried that over. So we have all of that, and the fact that they already released the first wave of FAQs covering every army and saw no reason to say anything about this, anywhere. Stuff like Magnus doing a potential 8d6 mortal wounds per turn is one of those things that makes people question if this rule will stay in. |
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Post by acehilator on Aug 1, 2020 13:27:37 GMT
It's just the usual incompetence. GK and TS are missing their Brotherhood of Psykers/Sorcerors rule too. GW couldn't be bothered to put the fixes from the "Big FAQs" into the 9E core rules.
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Post by phenatix on Aug 1, 2020 14:21:35 GMT
I just don't understand this mindset. As quoted from the core rules: Emphasis mine. This is a new edition. If GW wanted no multiple Smites from 1 unit, they already had the wording in the FAQ from 8th. They could easily have carried that over. So we have all of that, and the fact that they already released the first wave of FAQs covering every army and saw no reason to say anything about this, anywhere. Stuff like Magnus doing a potential 8d6 mortal wounds per turn is one of those things that makes people question if this rule will stay in. That is absolutely not an issue. See below:  Magnus | AVG MW: 3.684, MED MW: 4.0 6 Zoan | AVG MW: 4.292, MED MW: 5.0 This is a dice game. If variance bothers you, well, it's a dice game. I am not super familiar with Thousand Sons, so I only see that Magnus can cast 3 powers. Let's just say he can do 4 regardless:  Compare that to 2x6 Zoanthropes:  If there are some other bonuses Magnus gets besides rerolling 1s on his tests, please let me know and I can check how that improves things. For the low price of 905 points, you could have 3x6 Zoanthropes + Neurothrope. Ignoring the Neurothrope's own powers, here are the Zoanthropes' Smite MW output:  Getting 0.0205 MW/point is not game-breakingly efficient. |
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Post by gorsameth on Aug 1, 2020 14:43:42 GMT
His smites do a base D6 Mortals, 2d6 on an 11+.
re-roll 1's on psychic tests.
He gets a +2 to cast at full wounds and a 1CP stratgem for another +2 to cast if in 6" of 2 other psykers, so +4 to cast.
3 casts base and +1 for a 1CP stratagem.
So 4 casts of d6 (or 2d6 on 11+) Mortals with a +4 to cast and re-roll 1's.
Edit: woops the +2 cast stratagem is only for 1 test so that takes it down a bit.
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Post by phenatix on Aug 1, 2020 15:15:29 GMT
His smites do a base D6 Mortals, 2d6 on an 11+. re-roll 1's on psychic tests. He gets a +2 to cast at full wounds and a 1CP stratgem for another +2 to cast if in 6" of 2 other psykers, so +4 to cast. 3 casts base and +1 for a 1CP stratagem. So 4 casts of d6 (or 2d6 on 11+) Mortals with a +4 to cast and re-roll 1's. Edit: woops the +2 cast stratagem is only for 1 test so that takes it down a bit. That improves him quite a bit:  This does not use the additional +2 cast stratagem. So, he's getting: D6 Smite MW, 2D6 Smite MW on 11+ Reroll 1's on Psychic Tests Psychic Test + 2 at 10-18 Wounds, +1 at 5-9 Wounds Quite strong, he would be dealing 0.0398 MW/points, extremely efficient. I have mixed feelings on this. On one hand, he's supposed to be a Primarch that ascended to more than a Greater Daemon... That's pretty powerful. Still I don't see how a single unit being broken (not sure that Magnus would be, you still can't target with Smite) means the core rule should be changed rather than the problem unit changed. They could easily double his points, bump his wounds up to 30, give him +2 attacks, let him cast 1 more power, and he'd still be a lot better than any unit many factions have access to. |
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Post by acehilator on Aug 1, 2020 16:02:04 GMT
Looking at efficiency only through points of the casting unit is too small a scope. Targets (wiping Terminators = yay, wiping Termagants = nay), survivability, mobility and detachment slots also need to be considered. You are mathhammering too hard here.
From a game design standpoint, limiting Smites forces you to use other psychic powers, which is a good thing.
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Post by phenatix on Aug 1, 2020 16:25:33 GMT
Looking at efficiency only through points of the casting unit is too small a scope. Targets (wiping Terminators = yay, wiping Termagants = nay), survivability, mobility and detachment slots also need to be considered. You are mathhammering too hard here. From a game design standpoint, limiting Smites forces you to use other psychic powers, which is a good thing. I think the efficiency in dealing damage is very high on the list of important factors re: balance. Smite already doesn't let you select targets, but its existence does provide a downside to hyper elite armies: you don't want every MW the opponent spits out to be on your high points/wound models. The basic cost units in WH40k are points. Normalizing most things with respect to how many points they cost makes sense. Range/Maneuverability allows you to effect greater area on the board. Detachment/Slots are another cost, this is true, but nowhere near as harsh as points. The Rule of 3 already limits the effect you see from units competing in the same slot. |
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Post by swarm492 on Aug 1, 2020 17:23:49 GMT
The core rule is fine, it works well with 90% or more of units that can cast smite. If the rule breaks because of a unit or 2, like magnus. Change the unit, not the rule. That would be the smart thing to do.
Multicasting smite makes zoans worth a damn.
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Post by Iryan on Aug 1, 2020 17:33:06 GMT
Whether it would be fair or balanced is irrelevant as to whether or not GW will FAQ it. It used to be different, and there is a decent chance that GW forgot to account for that mid-year-FAQ as part of their regular rules, rather than consciously omitting it.
At the moment, it is hard to be sure. I would love to know for certain, as that would finally make zoanthropes good again. (Though I still wish that the unit scaled more linearly, rather than just suddenly getting 3x as powerful when you add a fourth model...)
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