Warzone Octarius

[vejby]

Oct 19, 2021 13:31:28 GMT No One said:

vejby said:

Where is the source for that?

At the Start of, During and After Deployment
These terms are commonly used in many rules. We wanted to clarify when each of these happens in the mission sequences that appear in mission packs such as Open Hostility, Eternal War etc.

At the Start of Deployment: A rule that happens ‘at the start of deployment’, is resolved at the start of the ‘Declare Transports and Reserves’ step of the sequence. Combat Squads (see Codex: Space Marines) is an example of just such a rule.
During Deployment: A rule that happens ‘during deployment’ can happen any time between the start of the ‘Declare Transports and Reserves’ step and the end of the ‘Deploy Armies’ step. The rule itself will provide further details as to exactly when it is used, but typically if the rule lets you set a unit up in a location that is not on the battlefield, it happens during the ‘Declare Transports and Reserves’ step, otherwise it happens during the ‘Deploy Armies’ step. Teleport Strike and Concealed Positions (see Codex: Space Marines) are examples of just such rules that are resolved at different times; a rule such as Teleport Strike allows a unit to set up in a location that is not on the battlefield, and so is resolved in the ‘Declare Transports and Reserves’ step; a rule like Concealed Positions triggers ‘when you set this unit up’, which happens in the ‘Deploy Armies’ step.
After Deployment: These rules, which also include wordings such as ‘after both sides have deployed’, ‘after both sides have finished deploying’ etc. happen in the ‘Resolve Pre-Battle Abilities’ step. The Lord of Deceit Warlord Trait (see Codex: Space Marines) is an example of just such a rule. After all of these rules have been resolved, the players move onto the ‘Begin the Battle’ step, and the first battle round begins (triggering any rules that are used ‘when the first battle round begins’).

Resolve pre-battle abilities step is step 13, after step 12 determine first turn. And it's after deployment.

Awesome. We are a whole group that has been wondering about this. Thanks.

[mattblowers]

Oct 19, 2021 15:20:07 GMT No One said:

It is in the book: there's a mostly reprint of the BoB stuff, just with some tweaks.

Damn.

Oh well, I've always been a Levi player anyway, at least that's my color scheme and I still played it at least half the time even at tournaments. So not as big a loss for me as for others. Levi is best from any evaluation at this point, I thought Kronos still had a shot until the symbiostorm nerf. I understand the nerf I guess, but why not wait until the new codex drops. At a GT this past weekend a player you would know by name thinks this is a great book and will have him switching to 'nids.

[terminatoruk]

Oct 18, 2021 0:29:03 GMT xtztxtxz said:

Oct 17, 2021 13:15:22 GMT kazetanade said:

Stealers seldom ever get to crash into something that maximizes their value, or if it requires most of the unit to kill, the trade is always downwards - unfortunately our codex is just designed in that way. Just gotta deal with it. However, Stealers have an extremely high level of psychological warfare attached to them, whereas everyone will always underestimate Hormagants. And on a personal basis, running 2x Genestealers has usually been a recipe for disaster, since you lose so much for every body dead, you become too fragile even if you have the better damage output. 

Leviathan's supplement makes both Devilgants and Hormagants a keystone unit that is both expendable and underestimated, and will often push out more damage than people are ready or expecting to deal with. You can be sure that when people see Hormagants + Genestealers, they will go "Focus The Genestealers" and will try to line up a counter-charge or a counter-drop on them and feed them as little value as possible. Those smaller value trades are perfect for Hormagants, who will usually kill slightly less or equal points with these new buffs. They can kill Intercessors, Infiltrators, and the forward pushing units most armies like to throw (1cp for exploding hits, 1cp for -1ap, rerolling hits and Prime's auto wound of 6s will push approximately 12-15 damage through to a Marine unit; it kills Aggressors, almost kills Bladeguards, will slaughter Infils and AdM/Sister units. It will or should just about take out dogs. I think it could possibly kill or challenge weird units like Ssssylth as well. But their secret sauce is that no one will be expecting it until it hits them, and then they will not know how to deal with both a Hormagant and a GS unit behind them, unless they go mass Fliers. 

The problem is T6+, not T7; everything from T6 onwards is 6s to wound, where we'll score somewhat less wounds (expecting only 25 wounds in total), which is cut down pretty bad without ap. 2+ armor is basically the worst thing for us to tackle, since the saves get reduced down to like. 5 or 6 damage pushed through. Ignore AP1-2 is also in a similar boat since we cant get them to ap-3. 

Sorry T7+ was a typo, I did mean T6+.

I agree both units can complement each other well in a 'threat overload' strategy. There will be different sets of targets for both units, as well as potential crossover in Hormas soaking overwatch or tagging units for 'stealers to kill. The only real contention is in which unit gets Relentless Flurry each turn.

Very curious to see if durable Genestealers can be a viable delivery option now:
Take them with Dynamic Camouflage & extended carapaces, plus a Broodlord with Synaptic upgrade
That's -1 to hit, then a 2+/5++/6+++ profile even in combat. In the early game the unit can also benefit from Catalyst / Maleceptor too, and even without those it's far more reliable protection from overwatch.

How many factions out there can ignore cover these days?

Of course another option could be just to run melee Primes / Broodlords alongside cheap hormas, giving them leadership / synapse / buff support plus heavy muscle where needed. BLs in particular will help them crack any trickier targets.

Interested to understand the 2+ in combat part?

Dynamic Camouflage specifically states that it applies against shooting attacks - not sure how the Broodlord's new ability changes that?

With the amount of AP around, you'd be better off going for Enchanced Resistance anyway?

[terminatoruk]

Watched Tactical Tortoise's breakdown of the new rules and analysis - well worth a listen to:

youtu.be/I3SM8aj4LcE

Couple of things I picked up:

- The Zoanthrope's 3D6 psychic test discards a dice of your choice rather than the lowest - very useful and much less likely to perils than if it was discard the lowest

- It looks like you can have 2 adaptive physiologies and still use the 'Alpha Leader beast' 1CP strat to gain a warlord trait due to the army mustering sequencing (might be FAQ'ed)

[No One]

terminatoruk said:

Dynamic Camouflage specifically states that it applies against shooting attacks - not sure how the Broodlord's new ability changes that?

It's been buffed to just 'while receiving the benefit of cover'.

With the amount of AP around, you'd be better off going for Enchanced Resistance anyway?

With the buff I think dynamic camo is just better with BL (though there's something to be said for still having it going 2nd, but that can probably be fixed with terrain). Better AP0, same -1, worse -2 (but not by a huge amount), then better AP-3 and AP-4. So enhanced is just for -2 and full ignores cover (which is actually quite rare).

[terminatoruk]

Oct 20, 2021 1:11:38 GMT No One said:

terminatoruk said:

Dynamic Camouflage specifically states that it applies against shooting attacks - not sure how the Broodlord's new ability changes that?

It's been buffed to just 'while receiving the benefit of cover'.

With the amount of AP around, you'd be better off going for Enchanced Resistance anyway?

With the buff I think dynamic camo is just better with BL (though there's something to be said for still having it going 2nd, but that can probably be fixed with terrain). Better AP0, same -1, worse -2 (but not by a huge amount), then better AP-3 and AP-4. So enhanced is just for -2 and full ignores cover (which is actually quite rare).

Cheers for the reply but reading the text in the Octarius book, Dynamic Camouflage clearly states:

"Each time a ranged attack is allocated to a model in this unit whilst it is receiving the benefits of cover, add an additional 1 to any armour saving throw made against that attack."

I get that it is triggered by 'the benefits of cover' but definitely states 'ranged attacks' so surely can't ever apply to melee attacks (even with the Broodlord's heavy cover benefit) unless I'm missing something?

[No One]

So it does, damn: thought I'd checked for that, but either my memory or eyesight were bad.

[terminatoruk]

No worries - thought I was missing a trick!

Enhanced Resistance, however, gets a benefit from the Broodlord's mastery of shadows though if you are charged - you can get a +1 save for the heavy cover benefit that ignores AP -1 and -2.

Quite helpful for Tyranid Warriors to get a 3+ save in melee and have the potential, especially if they have lash whips, for a unit of assault intercessors or similar to bounce off them and come out somewhat favourably.

[terminatoruk]

Super niche (and sure devilguants and hive guard are way more efficient) but something I thought up that's probably captain obvious be c'est le vie....

If you had 3 warrior units (can be MSU) with the Bioweapon bond Synaptic Link on each, you could use them to buff three Dakafexes to hit on 2's if they ran enhanced senses.

Enhanced Senses actually modifies BS to 3+ (rather than +1 to hit) so the +1 to hit buff from the Warriors would apply to make them hit on 2's.

If you were facing a lot of T3 enemies, 74 shots hitting on 2's and wounding on 2's might be really useful!

I know...fexes...ughh - let's hope there are some serious points reductions for them or that the Codex makes our monsters less laughable - seems this book is squarely geared towards infantry currently.

[No One]

terminatoruk said:

I know...fexes...ughh - let's hope there are some serious points reductions for them or that the Codex makes our monsters less laughable - seems this book is squarely geared towards infantry currently.

It's more an infantry lean than anything else: the synaptic links can be used on anything, infantry often get the most out of it. The exploding 6s strat is anything, infantry again just benefit the most. It's only the rrs WLT that's infantry only, but the obsec and auto explodes are solid boosts to MCs.

The problem is that, with some exceptions (i.e. FW, who definitely gain with this and are still in contention for list building, and exo who loses on symbio change and doesn't have much to gain here) our MCs are meh to garbage. While our infantry is meh to good.

Also for fexes specifically, they're cheap enough that going wide is about the only thing they're good for (they're just still to meh/expensive), but all of the new buffs are single target so very inefficient. What you can do if you're set on using fexes is 2 CP to swap to synaptic augmentation to give a 6" aura of a single hit rr. Not really good for 2 CP, but exists.

[asvic]

Oct 20, 2021 10:42:00 GMT terminatoruk said:

Super niche (and sure devilguants and hive guard are way more efficient) but something I thought up that's probably captain obvious be c'est le vie....

If you had 3 warrior units (can be MSU) with the Bioweapon bond Synaptic Link on each, you could use them to buff three Dakafexes to hit on 2's if they ran enhanced senses.

Enhanced Senses actually modifies BS to 3+ (rather than +1 to hit) so the +1 to hit buff from the Warriors would apply to make them hit on 2's.

If you were facing a lot of T3 enemies, 74 shots hitting on 2's and wounding on 2's might be really useful!

I know...fexes...ughh - let's hope there are some serious points reductions for them or that the Codex makes our monsters less laughable - seems this book is squarely geared towards infantry currently.

Now I think I missed something in octarius rules, because I don't remember anything regarding that you need to buy a link 3 times for it to be used 3 times. If I'm wrong please tell me where I should look then, for now it seems that one warrior squad can buff 3 units in strike force games (if you don't use any other links this round)

[xtztxtxz]

Oct 21, 2021 7:02:42 GMT asvic said:

Oct 20, 2021 10:42:00 GMT terminatoruk said:

Super niche (and sure devilguants and hive guard are way more efficient) but something I thought up that's probably captain obvious be c'est le vie....

If you had 3 warrior units (can be MSU) with the Bioweapon bond Synaptic Link on each, you could use them to buff three Dakafexes to hit on 2's if they ran enhanced senses.

Enhanced Senses actually modifies BS to 3+ (rather than +1 to hit) so the +1 to hit buff from the Warriors would apply to make them hit on 2's.

If you were facing a lot of T3 enemies, 74 shots hitting on 2's and wounding on 2's might be really useful!

I know...fexes...ughh - let's hope there are some serious points reductions for them or that the Codex makes our monsters less laughable - seems this book is squarely geared towards infantry currently.

Now I think I missed something in octarius rules, because I don't remember anything regarding that you need to buy a link 3 times for it to be used 3 times. If I'm wrong please tell me where I should look then, for now it seems that one warrior squad can buff 3 units in strike force games (if you don't use any other links this round)

Each link only affects one unit per round.

"...in your command phase, select one friendly HIVE FLEET unit..."

[Kyokii]

Alright. 30 devgants. 90 shots at +1 to hit, rerolling hits, 6s are 2+ hits, rerolling 1-2 to wound OR 6s to hit auto wound and reroll 1s to wound. Fire twice for 180 shots
What is the math hammer on this nonsense? Admittedly I'm awful at that and various math sites for this stuff lack some of the options like the extra hits or rerolling the 2s.

EDIT I AM DUMB.
can't stack the link buffs.
So, just 4+ rerolling to hit, auto wound on 6s(does that apply to the extra hits or no? I don't think so) reroll 1s to wound.
Less exciting but still great.

Edit edit: exploding 6s is melee only. Nuts to butts. Far less exciting for gants. Hormies will still be Hella fun, though.

[zimko]

the auto wound on 6s is a melee only buff. Just give them +1 to hit, exploding 6s and rerolls to hit.

[bestaltan]

Oct 21, 2021 15:57:27 GMT Kyokii said:

Alright. 30 devgants……..What is the math hammer on this nonsense?.

Pretty simple math. 30 devilgaunts + any non vehicle unit that doesn’t have a 2+/4++ = unit deletion. 👍🏻