Intractable?

[Burn_the_Heretic]

Hi all

 

I'm a long time vacationer from GW (I left when the big price hike and finecast move happened - I now play Malifaux) and have decided to come back with the release of Dark Vengeance. Before I left I had a dream of a DW army and have 4 terminator squads. I'm going to expand into general Dark Angels and have a question now I'm fully committing and will be here often: what's all this about Intractable? I never played with Dark Angels before and see a lot of people talking about it. Anyone care to help an initiate out? I never heard of the rule and would like to know why there is such a debate about it.

[Bryan Blaire]

It was a (rather dumb - my personal opinion) rule for the Dark Angels army that originally forced a 1-in-6 chance of any given Dark Angels character, unit or vehicle to not be able to move if an enemy model was within line of sight, within 24 inches and in range of a weapon in the unit. It also caused them to become stubborn, which at that time pretty much had the rules that Fearless does now (<- wow, just editing this, realized it used to say "Fearless does not", which absolutely wasn't what I meant - stoopid autocorrect). In other words, you could end up stuck for a turn or two shooting at an enemy vehicle you have no chance of destroying if it simply drives within 24 inches of a tactical squad that was trying to cross an open field without any cover and then you'd stand there and let the enemy pour fire into your unit and never fall back no matter how many squad members you lost. Rather than highlight the strategic and tactical brilliance of the Legion, it was decided to highlight that the Dark Angels will allow their tenacity to "overcome their better judgement" (that's actually a quote from the rule).

 

This was later changed to a test due to forced morale checks, but I never got to play in that time period due to university.

 

Personally, while I wouldn't mind seeing the Dark Angels units getting the new "Stubborn" USR, I don't ever want to see them return to a situation where my units will forgo proper tactics because their better judgement has been destroyed, and I don't want all the units to become Fearless.

 

Edit: Although, thinking about some of the recent decision making skills exhibited by the Lion in the Black Library Horus Heresy series, poor or easily overcome judgement may actually be the correct thing to highlight for the Dark Angels, perhaps that, instead of the strategic and tactical brilliance is actually what the Lion's gene-sons inherited from him. In that light, perhaps that rule isn't as poor for the army as I feel it was.

[Burn_the_Heretic]

Thanks! That does seem rather irritating. I expect it annoyed some people in tournaments or games when opponents would take advantage of it.

[Bryan Blaire]

I don't know that it was ever really reliable enough for an opponent to plan it into their tactics (although I had a friend that really tried), it was always more annoying for me as a player to not be able to do what I wanted when there was really no reason to stay out of cover and fire when there was cover four inches away.

[Cypher 102]

Actually intractable was later changed so that if a non-fearless Dark Angel squad failed a morale test for being shot at they would not fall back. Instead they could not move in their next movement or assault phase but they could still shoot. This rule was most directly responsible for the Dark Angels being labeled as the "shooty marine army".

[FerociousBeast]

I've always thought the second version of Intractable was excellent. We'll probably just get stubborn plus the occasional fearless in the new dex, though. Unfortunately.

[Bryan Blaire]

I'm just trying to figure out why "unfortunately"? How is being shot at and failing a morale check, then not being able to move or assault, only shoot, rather than simply not taking/auto-passing the morale test and being able to shoot, move and assault, more reflective of the Dark Angel nature? Still seems to me like a reflection of "overcoming good judgment to take potentially poor action", which would be reflective of the current portrayal of the Lion. Advancing under fire, refusing to give up and let your casualties take the fight out of you and still close range to beat face is much more reflective of stubborn-ness and tenacity than being a ding-dong and firing from a potentially poor firing position and staying rooted in place because you lost some men is. The first is "We're still going in there to throw down, no matter the odds!" The second is "We've lost some men! Keep firing boys, but we can't go anywhere, we're losing men to enemy fire!" The first is tactically unsound to some extent, but heroic and shows the sheer grit of the Dark Angels, the second is poor judgement and potentially cowardly.

 

I will admit to not having my BGB with me now to check the exact wording of Stubborn, but IIRC it's a nullification of morale check on some level.

[Cypher 102]

Back then our characters and Deathwing were stubborn not fearless. The stubborn meant they automatically passed morale tests but not pinning tests. They could also not voluntarily fall back from close combat.

 

All Dark Angels except Deathwing and Ravenwing were Intractable. If they failed morale test for being shot at they stood their ground and fired back. No movement or assault.

 

Now if my memory serves me right back then And They Shall Know No Fear only let your squad attempt to regroup if they were below half strength. You still had to take morale checks to regroup and you counted as having already moved when you passed. When you moved you could only fire rapid fire weapons once at twelve inches.

 

Yes, intractable seems stupid for 6th. But back then it was quite the benefit over falling back maybe to never regroup. Even if you did your squad was pretty much ineffective for a turn anyways. This was also around the time of the infamous rhino rush so armies were either rushing across the board to get to assault or forming gunlines. Again Dark Angels got a benefit for making a gunline so that's what a lot of us did with them.

 

Ahhh. . . memories. 40K's come a long way and mostly for the better!

[Bryan Blaire]

Yeah, I remember the old Stubborn at the beginning of 3rd, but I never got to play with the "revised" Intractable, as I already said (university commitments), only the "randomly mess with your army" version (I have the 3rd Edition mini-dex sitting on my coffee table as a reference for this discussion). The revised version does sound better for the 3rd Edition rules, but I was specifically referring to the current rules concerning the "Unfortunately" question. As you said, now Intractable seems like it would actually be worse than the new Stubborn USR, so I don't think it's unfortunate that we'll likely see a lot of Stubborn with a smattering of Fearless. To me, this seems something of a benefit, not anything to bemoan for the memory of an old rule that wouldn't have good application now.

 

The old Stubborn is similar to the new Fearless, the new Stubborn is more beneficial than the old Intractable would be. This is one of the coming along for the better situations, I think.

[xnickbaranx]

One of my most memorable moments of the first incarnation of Intractable was playing one of the old Breakthrough Missions - Blitz probably. I was an inch from the crossing the line into the objective "zone" I needed to get into but there was a nearby enemy unit so my squad refused to advance, choosing to fire instead, losing me the game. I cursed my luck and I laughed it off because that's just how things go sometimes. Still, in retrospect...

 

Dark Angel Trooper says, "Hey, if our line of men only move 6 feet forward we will win the day! We'll even be in cover!"

 

Dark Angel Sergeant retorts, "NO! Wait, I can see the enemy. We will hold our ground in the wide open. Victory be damned.. FIRE!!!"

 

So silly.

[FerociousBeast]

I'm just trying to figure out why "unfortunately"?

1) Intractable is a unique rule, fearless and stubborn are USRs.

2) The rank and file will never get fearless, they'll get stubborn. And with stubborn, units are still quite capable of falling back and surrendering objectives and positions to the enemy. With intractable, once a Dark Angel got there, he stayed there.

[MadDoc]

1) Intractable is a unique and poor rule, fearless and stubborn are better USRs.

2) The rank and file will never get fearless, they'll get stubborn. And with stubborn, units are still quite capable of falling back and surrendering objectives and positions to the enemy. With intractable, once a Dark Angel got there, he stayed there even when it wasn't smart to do so.

There ya go, I fixed those for you... :D

[Augustus]

The second incarnation of Intractable was decent in my opinion.

 

I usually upgraded my sergeants to Deathwing but on the chance he died it was nice to see my devastators still firing.

 

The first incarnation was dumb. Seemed like a lame push of a Black Rage theme. Blood Angels go forward, Dark Angels stay put. I usually ignored it with friends.

[Chaplain Lucifer]

First version of Intractable was a mess. I lost count of how many times that roll of 1 on a D6 foiled my plans. The revised intractable rule was a blessing when compared to that.

[elphilo]

I feel there is a lot of people in this thread saying Intractable is a terrible rule because DA are tactical geniuses because our primarch was. I just wanted to restate what Bryan said earlier, which I'm starting to think why Intractable (at least the second incarnation) would be an excellent fit for us.

 

Edit: Although, thinking about some of the recent decision making skills exhibited by the Lion in the Black Library Horus Heresy series, poor or easily overcome judgement may actually be the correct thing to highlight for the Dark Angels, perhaps that, instead of the strategic and tactical brilliance is actually what the Lion's gene-sons inherited from him. In that light, perhaps that rule isn't as poor for the army as I feel it was.

 

 

I mean the Lion snapped Nemiel's neck because he refused to break the Council of Nikaea. You can't tell me that the Lion used his tactical genius when he did that. He made a snap decision, because Nemiel angered him for not following his orders. If the paranoia displayed by the Lion is in our gene seed (the truth about the Fallen coming out) then I think we can get his rash and emotional decision making as well.

 

[Interrogator-Chaplain Ezra]

I sometimes throw the intractable bit into my gaming. In one case, in an Apoc game, I kept Azrael standing on a stairwell alone to face off against a slightly reduced unit of Ork bikers. When they'd been cut down, he stood his ground against Ghazzie and his ladz.

 

No prices for guessing how that went.