Any drawback at all to The Red Thirst?

[ShinyRhino]

I picked up the Blood Angels codex over the weekend, as part of my intelligence gathering initiative (I buy every new codex that comes out, so I know all their rules, and hence how to cope with them).

In looking at the backstory and fluff, it seems like the Red Thirst rule doesn't match the fluff whatsoever. In the stories, the Red Thirst causes the Blood Angels to lust for close combat, and charge headlong into it.

The actual rule, however, does no such thing. It replaces ATSKNF with Fearless and Furious Charge. Whoopity do!

Is there ANY drawback to actually rolling a 1 onyour Red Thirst checks? I can't see one.

[gettothegone]

Do you choose if you lose ATSKNF? Or is it replaced on a dice roll kinda thing?

[kharnflakes]

Do you choose if you lose ATSKNF? Or is it replaced on a dice roll kinda thing?

at the start of the game you roll a d6 for each non vehicle unit and on 1 (or a 1-3 if your running astaroth) the unit loses atsknf and gains fearless and furious charge special rules.

 

and know there is no drawback to the red thirst except they take no retreat wounds if they lose close combat and cant fall back from combat which means they can be tar pitted something a fast moving army dosent want they want to hit a combat kill everything in 1 turn and move on

[ShinyRhino]

Do you choose if you lose ATSKNF? Or is it replaced on a dice roll kinda thing?

at the start of the game you roll a d6 for each non vehicle unit and on 1 (or a 1-3 if your running astaroth) the unit loses atsknf and gains fearless and furious charge special rules.

 

and know there is no drawback to the red thirst except they take no retreat wounds if they lose close combat and cant fall back from combat which means they can be tar pitted something a fast moving army dosent want they want to hit a combat kill everything in 1 turn and move on

 

Ah, didn't think of the tarpit deal.

[JamesI]

Fearless is great some of the time, and sucks some of the time. That's the drawback to the red thirst.

[thade]

In my opinion, the drawback to Red Thirst is that it only happens on a one out of six chance. =P

[Jackelope King]

Fearless is a giant, screaming, double-edged sword that's just waiting to mess you up. Blood Angels already suffer a bit compared to other marines with the lack of Combat Tactics, and accidentally becoming Fearless just makes them that much more vulnerable to being tarpitted.

 

The red thirst is much better overall than when I used Blood Angels last in 3rd Edition, where you had a 1 in 6 chance of a squad running blindly towards an enemy unit, but Fearless ain't a picnic anymore either, between No Retreat! rules and the way tarpitting can work. Much better to get your Furious Charge and Feel No Pain from your Sanguinary Priests.

 

I'd almost always prefer having And They Shall Know No Fear, and with my Codex Marines, I'm reluctant to give up Combat Tactics. I like being able to bail on combat, regroup, and shoot my enemies to death.

[chapter master 454]

I would agree, there is no drawback to it. I think if it was 'if an enemy comes within 12" of the unit then they must take a leadership test, if failed then they must move towards and charge the enemy unit counting as having furious charge for the turn'. Would of FAR more fluffy and made them alot more assaulty!

[Warprat]

A big non-direct disadvantage is that Land Raiders are dedicated. Along with that, standard LRs and Drop Pods have a limit of ten. So, after rolling your Red Thirst roll, you just can't throw the affected squad into the LR, as you could with a Heavy (in Codex Marines). And you can't add a Sanguary Priest to a full squad in Rhino, Drop Pod or standard LR. So your forced to short load them, if you want to dedicate Sanguary Priests after the roll. That means non-optimized Tacs and jump packless Assaults of 9 men. It also means giving up the ability to Combat Squad.

 

To get around this, you are almost locked into using jump packs on your Sanguary Priests, but then they cost more, and cannot be loaded into dedicated transports. It also locks you into using Assaults or walking squads (and walking is too slow).

 

So, while you could beef up potentially every squad with Astorath and Sanguary Priests, you would pretty much have to go entirely with jump packs. And doing that, of course, exposes you to deep strike, and reserve rolls. Which are not too bad with the reduced scatter and reserve re-roll.

 

The added strenght and initiative only work when charging, so that influences your play style, (fast and dirty.) But the feel no pain is a god send and works all the time (or as long as your Sanguary Priest lives.)

 

 

In short, your forced to play Blood Angels style, if you want to make Red Thirst work for you. And you will give up a lot of other things. Which is a good thing...

 

Warprat ;)

[chapter master 454]

Thing is: it isn't a problem. yes it ocassionally makes the sanguinary priest less buff but to be honest who takes him just for the FNP aura. And land raiders being able to get 35 points sliced off for assault squads is actually quite a nice buff. More raider goodness with more points to spend on GOOD units (like assault marines!)

[Captain Idaho]

I said the following on 40Konline and it covers everything I have to say on the Red Thirst.

 

The Red Thirst doesn't have to be an advantage on the table top for the Emperor's sake! Whilst I put an example here that everyone ignored:

 

The main disadvantage of the Red Thirst is that is not guaranteed. This doesn't sound like a disadvantage until you consider that players build lists to minimise variables. So a player that builds a Blood Angels list will take Sanguinary Priests to guarantee Furious Charge for their assault units.

 

So disadvantage of the Red Thirst rule is indirect, in that players want the advantage it gives all the time, and to get this players need to build lists that use Sanguinary Priests, which of course increases costs of the army and in turn reduces army size.

 

Another disadvantage is a player will be encouraged to launch assaults with Furious Charge, therefore tailor their lists to maximise this special rule. Which means the Blood Angels army will be a great assault army but have less options.

 

The hard part for players is to reign themselves in when considering the excellent assault options they have, taking armies that are more well rounded.

 

I think players should stop looking at 40K in such black and white terms, as there are plenty of different balancing factors in games that are not written directly in the rule book.

 

It isn't neccessary to have it as a weakness. It's just a nod to the fluff, as long as the Codex is balanced (and it is) then it doesn't matter if it is an example.

 

As an example, consider the Ultramarines. They are the best at logistics (which is where war is really won) and have the greatest pool of resources of any Chapter yet there isn't a single rule to represent this in the game. It doesn't matter!

[Warprat]

Thing is: it isn't a problem. yes it ocassionally makes the sanguinary priest less buff but to be honest who takes him just for the FNP aura. And land raiders being able to get 35 points sliced off for assault squads is actually quite a nice buff. More raider goodness with more points to spend on GOOD units (like assault marines!)

 

But your still giving up jump packs to get the cheap LR, that's not that great a deal. The special weapon tradeoff vs. the priest is however a steal, for what it gives you. And you can always take a combi-melta on the priest to compensate if necessary. Thing is though, it starts to lock you into an assaulting play style.

 

I think a, perhaps, more interesting option would be to make a dual assault/shooty list that would place priests based on red thirst rolls.

[Marlow]

I think a, perhaps, more interesting option would be to make a dual assault/shooty list that would place priests based on red thirst rolls.

However you roll Red Thirst after deployment. You would then have to spend turns moving them around and they may not be able to get to the others units easily.

 

As to the question itself I think the only disadvantage is the randomness of it. I expect a lot of players will take Astorath. I know I will if I ever play my marines as Blood Angels.

 

If you like Combat Tactics play with Vulkan and the Ultramarine Codex. If you want decent Assault Marines play Blood angels. Fearless is only a disadvantage if you are loosing combat. I would much prefer my Devestators to be Fearless than worry about them running away after getting hit by a blast. I chased my opponents Devs off the table the other week because they rolled an 11 for the morale test.

[Warprat]

I think a, perhaps, more interesting option would be to make a dual assault/shooty list that would place priests based on red thirst rolls.

However you roll Red Thirst after deployment. You would then have to spend turns moving them around and they may not be able to get to the others units easily.

 

As to the question itself I think the only disadvantage is the randomness of it. I expect a lot of players will take Astorath. I know I will if I ever play my marines as Blood Angels.

 

If you like Combat Tactics play with Vulkan and the Ultramarine Codex. If you want decent Assault Marines play Blood angels. Fearless is only a disadvantage if you are loosing combat. I would much prefer my Devestators to be Fearless than worry about them running away after getting hit by a blast. I chased my opponents Devs off the table the other week because they rolled an 11 for the morale test.

 

Good point about priests "after deployment". So that is mostly closed to easy exploitation...

 

 

I actually think an interesting shooty option would be Devestators/Sternguard w/priest in Drop Pod. Add in a Drop Podded Dreadnought and you have 3 pods for a double Drop Pod assault. Makes the Devestators much more flexable, and both more hardy. Then, perhaps, add in a couple Rhino borne Assault squads, one backed by a Priest.

 

I also like the idea of a 10 man Tactical Termie squad backed by a priest. Extremly tough and shooty.

 

 

But, I'm wierd...

 

Warprat ;)

[thade]

One weakness that your heavy weapons team which rolls Red Thirst won't run away and has no chance of ever rallying with ATSKNF and using their heavy weapons on whatever assaulted them.

[Giga]

Well, I dunno about you, but FEARLESS can and often is a disadvantage.

 

Just think of CSM cult troops, especially berzerkers. The great thing about them is that you can shoot the bejesus out of them AND assault them in the same turn, without ever having to worry about them running away from you.

 

In addition, you can easily tarpit fearless units by assaulting them with stuff like dreadnoughts, lysander, etc.

 

The cool thing with fighting against fearless is that you not only don't have to worry about them losing combat to th/ss terminators and automatically running away, but the termies become even more effective because the enemy suffers no retreat! wounds in addition to the wounds you inflicted on them the regular way.

[Ookami_81]

Fearless is what allows us to destroy 30 Orks mobz ! :D

 

It's a very good trait for assault marines used to fix units, playing vanilla I always add a chaplain to them just to have that and the re-rolls.

I will be glad to have furious charge with it !

 

But I wouldn't want to have that for anything else, shooting is much too important ! So, on random basis, it's not that good... Like all what seems nice in the BA codex, IMHO. All shiny neaty at first look, a excellent fast-ranting generator, but on a second thought, I don't think it's a good (in the "über excellent" sense ) codex: too expensive units, rules that makes you play a certain style even if it's not a good one facing your everyday ennemy.

 

Flexibility. That what's make vanilla marines the best ones IMHO. BA are good to kill Meq or Tau, shooty armies in fact, it's a more specialised codex, just like SW.

[Race Bannon]

Captain Idaho and I should go bowling :cuss That is exactly what I would have said.

[Captain Idaho]

Captain Idaho and I should go bowling ;) That is exactly what I would have said.

 

:D

[River Black]

Although there is no disadvantage to the rule its self I think a balance is reach by the ommission of COMBAT TACTICS. Im surprised n oone has mentioned that yet in this thread as it is a powerful rule that I find myself wanting from time to time in the game. More so than the red thirst its self.