Heroic intervention?

[beastoftanagra]

General question/topic discussion I’d be interested in getting opinions on.

I have never had a game (yet) where heroic intervention came up at all. Not for me, not for my opponent. Reading the rule, I’m honestly not sure when it would come up for me in a productive way. However, possibly because it has never come up, I’m not sure I even really understand the rule.

Has anyone else found heroic intervention useful? How and when does it come up in a way you find helpful or damaging? What are the thoughts of the more experienced player?

Thanks

[piersonsmuppet]

It's mainly only useful on combat Characters with bases <2" that can survive the charger's attacks or have fight last. Since Parox lost fight last and the BL/Prime can't really survive heavy hitters, it doesn't do much for us.

A Hydra list recently won a GT using army-wide HI to prevent objective stealing.

[zimko]

It often comes up around objectives, especially when a non-character unit such as Custodes is able to do it. If the unit that can heroic is powerful enough, then it means I can't steal the objective they are on just by moving one of my weak units onto it. I will need to engage that unit. Knights are also effective users of Heroic Intervention since it means I need to stay at least 3 inches away from their big knights or risk giving them free attacks on my turn.

Space wolves are also able to heroic with most of their army, and often 6 inches. The 6 inch heroics are very effective tools.

[No One]

Also (not relevant for us) for bringing in effects, particularly stuff like fights last. Essentially will often act as a 3" 'no go zone' where you can't go near whatever unit because either you'll get whacked for free (non combat), you won't have enough damage to kill the charge target and the HI'ing unit, or more rarely to avoid being based.

[hivefleetkerrigan]

You can also use it against a very damaged unit to try to free up one of your shooting threats. I've used it as GSC if my neophytes were charged and tagged by a unit of 2 marines.

[turtletyrant]

Also an important note on Heroic intervention, you do not need to have charged an enemy unit, for their characters to be eligeble to HI.. they can heroicly intervene in your charge phase regardless of your chrages and movements if they are within 3" (or 6").. a detail i didn't know as a new player a year ago, until someone wiped me out with this..

[zimko]

Another weird quirk about HI is that a unit can choose to make a HI move and NOT end that move in engagement range of an enemy unit. The only stipulation for HI is that you move closer and that you started within 3 or 6 inches. This can be used on units to get more models onto an objective without risking combat.

[niiai]

It comes up when beefy characters are around, longer heroic interven, fight last effects, Votan berserkers, space wolves in general and wulfen in particular. Or all of the above, as is the case for SW.

[purestrain]

Do what I do and HI with venomthropes, on a 3+ they take a mortal and you get to fight first hahaha it's so much fun

[piersonsmuppet]

Oct 1, 2022 0:46:20 GMT purestrain said:

Do what I do and HI with venomthropes, on a 3+ they take a mortal and you get to fight first hahaha it's so much fun

What fleet do you play with the HI adaptation? Hydra seems the tastiest for HI with our infantry.

Edit: might even be a method of getting some useful MW's out of the fleet power for Hydra.

[purestrain]

Oct 1, 2022 1:07:13 GMT piersonsmuppet said:

Oct 1, 2022 0:46:20 GMT purestrain said:

Do what I do and HI with venomthropes, on a 3+ they take a mortal and you get to fight first hahaha it's so much fun

What fleet do you play with the HI adaptation? Hydra seems the tastiest for HI with our infantry.

Edit: might even be a method of getting some useful MW's out of the fleet power for Hydra.

Mostly Hydra, but I tried it in a kraken list and its somewhat useful for when you dont make combat and they try to make a move on you.

[wcgnidz]

Heroic intervention is a very good rule. However.

Usually there's like some etiquette regarding the rule that causes the rule to come up less. Because the rule is rare/janky, if you have a unit that can heroically intervene, you often mention it. And it may not be "hey this unit can heroic" but it may be "by the way this model is a character".

It's something reminded enough that the rule in most instances has very little play because if you're due to be worried about it, your opponent has PROBABLY warned you. So you simply stay out of the designated range of heroic intervention and then it is irrelevant.

NOW. There are instances where this isn't the case exactly. Like, space wolves for example. They may tell you "hey by the way my entire army can heroically intervene". They often beyond that won't(and shouldn't) hold your hand on the rule. They warned you that's their chapter tactic. If you position badly and then get heroic'd and then have unit's deleted- that's sort of on you.

One of the biggest tactical uses of heroic intervention is objective snatching/guarding.

For example, if you're in the center of an objective marker with a model that can heroically intervene, unless there isn't a clear path to the enemy, the objective marker is small enough that any unit with a heroic intervention of 3" can tag any enemies that attempt to steal that objective. Oh you want to use your cheap obsec to flip this objective my broodlord is on? Are you SURE?! And the thing is, even if you don't make use of heroic intervention in those scenario's, they impact the enemy's decision making. They may avoid trying to flip an objective if you can heroic their unit trying to do so. And THAT alone has value even without rolling a single attack. It's a deterrent.

As was mentioned earlier, you're also not required to engage with heroic moves. That can mean you move onto an objective you didn't have. Or, even planning for your following turn, move forward to give you an extra 0.1-3" extra move in a specific direction(oh man this enemy unit is 12" away and I only move 9, but they put me in a position I can heroic so I moved 3" on their turn closer to what I want to get to).

Movement wins games. This isn't the combat micro-movement edition we've seen other past iterations of the game. But if you're unprepared to deal with an enemy able to capitalize a micro-movement, you might lose because of it.

For example, I wasn't aware kroot have a heroic intervention stratagem with tau. I moved up a flying tyrant intending to delete a unit. BECAUSE I WAS UNAWARE of the kroot heroic stratagem, I placed him badly. The opponent heroic'd my tyrant. Which prevented me from using the overrun stratagem when the tyrant wiped his intended target, and then cost me my reaper of obliterax flying tyrant turn 1 of a moderately important game in a tournament.

Now, could my opponent have warned me pre-game that kroot can heroic? Sure. But frankly? I didn't ask them if any units besides characters can heroic. And often, it's not your opponent's job to rattle off their entire codex of stratagems. The instance above? It was 100% not malicious. It was a little feelbads for me, but I know for a fact my opponent wasn't like trying to bait me with this move. They honestly seemed to forget they could even do this, but then cracked open their codex and went "hrmmmmmmmm".



TL/DR: heroic intervention is a good mechanic that doesn't get used as much as it could be because most people play the game with integrity and err on over-warning their opponent it exists. And by warning them excessively they often deny themselves use of the rule(similar to auspex scan, you can warn/remind your opponent but past a certain point you're taking your own special rules that you absolutely pay points for, and throw them out the window in the name of being a nice guy).

[trashcan01]

About reminding the opponents about Heroic Intervention, what I do is that I remind them only once during the game if I see that it is an total oversight from their side. At that time I point to each character on the table. I say to my opponent that, from now on it is his job to keep track his movement and that I will use any further opportunities to Intervene.

That usually does the trick.
In case of completely new players I remind them once per turn.

I don't play competitive, but I would expect my competitive opponents to know the basic rules and I would capitalize on their mistakes as much as I can. I see no issues with that.