Winners and losers in the new edition - Speculation corner

[knife&fork]

With what we know so far, let's take a look at some different BA units. 

 

Losers

 

Speeders

In my book these just took a huge hit with jink forcing snap shots. That jink was vital to their survival since you forced the opponent to use ignore cover shooting or heavy weapons to take them down at range. Not sure why I would ever use one now. 

 

Frag cannon dreads

Ignore cover being changed to -2 cover save might hurt these. The sweet rends that let you threaten any unit dug into cover will now have very little effect. Also no more wound allocation shenanigans to extend your range. I'm considering the TLHF + HF heavy support dread as an alternative if points are tight.

 

I think that all of our psykers are now even more overcosted, but I'll also reserve judgement on that in case we get to keep our old powers or that some of the new ones are extremely useful to our play style. 

 

 

Winners

 

Devastator squads

With BS 2 snap shots (and one BS3) these are looking more attractive. Aggressive deployment with pods are now viable since you'll actually have an alpha strike worth a damn. I'm thinking 4* multi melta with a combi weapon sarge and maybe a few extra bodies.

 

Assault squads

Considering the pace of which you can earn VPs with the new cards fast scoring is going to get a lot better. Not as great as bikes or jetbikes, but those aren't an option for us anyway. Depending on the nuances of the challenge mechanic and wound allocation the ability to take a stormshield on the sarge could save many marines and seriously extend the life of the unit. 

 

 

Who do you think is a loser or winner, and why?

[knife&fork]

I'll add one more thing:

 

Any buff that isn't a psychic power just got a lot better. That cheap inquisitor or munitorium priest is now more likely than ever to finds it's way into any list using allies.

[Ushtarador]

If vehicles will indeed be harder to destroy, I will certainly dust off my Baal preds! BS2 snapshots with the assault cannon makes it awesome vs flyers as well Also, if troops become even more important, I might fit in my old razorbacks as well.

The jink rule would be bad news especially for bikes, attack bikes would suffer quite a lot.

I still don't like tacticals, they don't fit my playstyle at all :/

edit:/ yeah I meant BS2 of course :P

[knife&fork]

Did you mean BS2? Because currently rending doesn't carry over against vehicles. Vehicles will still die just as easily from glances. until the HP system changes there's won't be a huge step up in survivability.

 

Some math just to show how bad psychic powers are now, copied from BolS; 

 

Odds of successfully casting to #dice rolled

Warp Charge 1
1 : 50%
2 : 75%
3 : 87.5%
4 : 94%

Warp Charge 2
1 : 0
2 : 25%
3 : 50%
4 : 69%
5 : 81%
6 : 89%

Warp Charge 3
1 : 0
2 : 0
3 : 12.5%
4 : 31%
5 : 50%
6 : 65%
7 : 77%
8 : 85%

Peril
1 : 0
2 : 2.8% 
3 : 7.4%
4 : 13%
5 : 19.2%
6 : 21%
7 : 31.2%
8 : 36.4%

 

Remember that any of these could also be cancelled by your opponent further lowering your chance of success. I think that GW has made it way too difficult to get any powers off. With equally matched lists in the psychic department the whole phase could easily turn into a big snooze fest where nothing gets through.

 

It's unknown at the time if 40k will have some kind of IF-rule like magic in fantasy does. But from the looks of it the only one who'll get any thing done in the psychic phase are those that can spam ML2 or ML3 psykers on the cheap, or those that can spam expendable ML1 psykers to brute force powers with lots of wrap charge without caring about perils. 

[Shaezus]

Losers? - I had a feeling the frag cannon would be hit somehow but I suppose it could be worse. Now 4+ is still only 6+, which with assault 2 isn't so much of a setback but yes it means the days of just annihilating the unit of your choice are probably going to be less frequent. Things that have 2+ cover tend to need rending hits to kill anyway i.e. wave serpent, soul grinder and there's always the chance of a positive tweak to the frag or furioso in the new codex to make up for things.

 

Winners - With the new scoring mechanics I think drop pods can make a massive impact (no pun intended), now they can get linebreaker and hold objectives. It would even be possible in some cases to drop an empty pod onto an outlying objective after deploying the squad on or near a deployment zone objective. Whilst using rhinos or razorbacks will be more advantageous than before, it's the implications for drop armies that interest me the most; in my case what was in 6th just spare storm bolters after landing, becomes 7 AV12 scoring units on top of the 5 AV 13 and 1 AV 12 units in my force. A lot to deal with.

 

 

[TheHarrower]

Winners

Mephiston w/ Biomancy

The jury is still out on the Psychic phase, but 3 powers from Biomancy plus the primaris sounds awesome on paper!

 

Furioso/DC Dread w/ Blood Talons

Dropping either of these off of a Storm Raven and getting them directly into combat will be awesome if you can string them into another assault via consolidation.

 

Baal Predator

4 BS2 twin-linked shots vs. flyers isn't too shabby.

 

Vindicare Assassin

BS6 vs. fliers? Ouch.

 

Jump Pack Troops

The -2 to charge distance is a nice boon for us. With rerolls, we should get into assault more consistently.

 

Losers

Whirlwind

With the changes to ignores cover, an overcosted unit became even more useless.

[d@n]

Remember there could be completely new powers. Nothing from 6th ed could remsin

[ianj253]

Is there actually any reliable sources on the ap shotssn, ignores cover, or consolidate into another combat discussion? I haven't seen any yet. Granted, I haven't gotten my hands on the newest white dwarf.

 

I think Mephiston lost a lot of offensive power, but may still have his use for psychic defense. It sucks because my main opponent runs daemons flying circus, which will generate 13+ warp charge dice without the additional d6. I can't see any power's getting off against this. 

[jay170788]

@ianj253.

 

I think the player who deny's only gets d6 to deny. You only get the additional die in your turn when casting so you are okay casting problem is he will be denying you on a 4+ due to running fatey I am guessing

[vahouth]

I haven't been able to pay attention to the news regarding the new edition and I don't know how that'll change our beloved BAs playstyle or roster setup.

So, what's really the deal? What's the focus this time?

What are the major changes in comparison to the previous edition?

[Shaezus]

One of the major changes is that if you adhere to the FOC all troop units, including their dedicated transports, become scoring.

 

Does this mean the death company will now be scoring or will the codex rule take precedence? Would be strange to have a scoring death company dread but a non-scoring death company.

[Valerian]

One of the major changes is that if you adhere to the FOC all troop units, including their dedicated transports, become scoring.

 

That's not quite it, Shaezus, in 7e all units are Scoring.  The difference is that all Troops units in Battleforged armies (i.e. those that follow an FOC) are "super-Scoring," meaning that they always outscore opposing units (they can't be Contested, in other words), unless the opposing unit is also a Battleforged Troops unit.

 

Does this mean the death company will now be scoring or will the codex rule take precedence? Would be strange to have a scoring death company dread but a non-scoring death company.

 

I'm sure the exact status of the Death Company will be covered in an updated FAQ on Saturday.

 

V

[Plague Angel]

Well, currently the codex gives Death Company a special rule that says they are never scoring for any reason, no matter what. So 7th won't change that.

 

It just remains to be seen whether that rule will still be around in the next codex.

[Templar1]

Well, currently the codex gives Death Company a special rule that says they are never scoring for any reason, no matter what. So 7th won't change that.

 

It just remains to be seen whether that rule will still be around in the next codex.

 

Since rumor has it that in this edition, all units are scoring but battleforged troops have "priority", I'm willing to bet that this gets FAQ'd so that instead of counting as these scoring troops, they just count as...well...any other non-troop unit for the purposes of scoring. That's just my conjecture though.

 

I mean, it wouldn't make much sense if they were the ONLY unit sitting on a marker and you don't count as having that objective. Raving psychopaths and madmen though they may be, that doesn't seem realistic.

 

Then again, I'm using the word realisitic in a game where you summon demons and hit people with swords when guns are available. >.>;.

[thepowerofwar]

Scoring Drop Pod are going to be the most epic thing I can see so far.  Av 12 and they are deployable right on top of your target for the most par sort of a bad scatter lol.  Also they are usually igrored do to them being hard to kill unless some one wants to waste a dedicated aniti tank shooting at a 35pt unit instead of a tank or a dread.

[Jolemai]

I would speculate that with the apparently changes to tanks, our Razorspam will become stronger.

[ianj253]

@Jay, If you look here it seems 1 player rolls a d6 and each player gets that + the sum of all mastery levels: http://daemons40k.blogspot.com/2014/05/correcting-record-on-psychic-powers.htmld   (First picture).  

[Shaezus]

Land Raider spam is also going to be very tempting...4 landraiders plus a couple of vindicators plus an aegis line with icarus methinks...hmm

[knife&fork]

Not if your group plays with d-weapons. 

 

I think that the real winners are the cheap stuff that normally don't attract melta and other AP1 fire. 

[Shaezus]

Yeah our group has always banned D weapons but maybe that will change now. Razorback spam has never appealed to me before but now it seems good.

[knife&fork]

Has it been confirmed wether or not denying blessing have unlimited range? Anything above 12" is going to spell doom for Mephiston. I'm also interested in how force weapons work, that's going to make a huge difference when facing nids. Currently one of the easiest match ups in the game for us.

Last night I had a game vs all nurgle CSM.

Mephiston charged into combat with a terminator lord and his body guard as well as a unit of plague marines and a sorcerer. That's 1 murder sword, 2 chain fists, 2 power axes, 1 force axe and 1 power fist.

He killed them all with 2 wounds to spare.

I love you biomancy

Now when we are about to part ways I know how all those 'nid players felt

[Nemisor]

does anyone know if they are changing rolling for assault distances? ( i hate that rule)

[Morticon]

I dont want to sound pessimistic, but I would seriously doubt we will see an FAQ before the new codex.

 

Hope....but doubt.

[Jolemai]

Then how exactly are we going to use our Codex? Without an FAQ for the new edition, it will be riddled with inaccuracies.

[knife&fork]

Apparently 'iron arm' is still a WC1 power but always grants +3 S and T while giving 'smash' instead of 'eternal warrior'. 

 

Mephiston might have a place after all!