Instant death

[Brom MKIV]

I've been musing on instant death lately. There's both pros and cons to its existence but lately I've been wondering if it shouldn't be removed from double strength or at least limited to s10. What's your thoughts and how would this impact the game?

[SyNidus]

Instant death needs to be kept. There are so many multi-wound high Toughness models that are causing so much trouble, it'd be nice to be able to ensure you can take them out without wasting too many turns on it. As it stands, Necrons do that already, and instant-death barely has an effect on it.

[shortysl]

I don't personally think that it happens often enough to warrant considering it's removal. It's hardly a game-breaking mechanic, and in a universe where an ordinary human can survive a 19.5mm explosive round going off within his body, I think it's fair to say that double-strength is always going to be catastrophic enough to kill a creature outright.

[Brom MKIV]

I wasn't thinking of eliminating ID, more of what the game would be like without the blanket double strength ID.

 

For example: what if ID was limited only to force weaponry, inherent ID such as huskblades or boneswords etc, S10 and str D? (the double strength clause would only come into play vs t6+ with s10).

 

Literally nothing changes for MCs, bikes, TWC, wraiths, eternal warriors etc. Basically the 'good stuff'.

 

Were really only looking at a buff to toughness 3-4 characters and units of multi wound models, all of which reside in the trashbin currently.  i.e. paladins, all crappy nid warrior/ravener/biovore variants and so on units, nobz and flash gitz, non nurgle marked oblits/mutis, certain DoC units and broadsides.. 

 

Now out of the above the vast majority are crap and one of the main reasons is the abundance of instant death. People are always discussing toning down the number of special weapons, handing out eternal warrior or equivalent immunity or other 'fixes' to these units. This would be a simple across the board targetted fix to toughness 4 and below. 

[Reclusiarch Darius]

I wasn't thinking of eliminating ID, more of what the game would be like without the blanket double strength ID.

 

For example: what if ID was limited only to force weaponry, inherent ID such as huskblades or boneswords etc, S10 and str D? (the double strength clause would only come into play vs t6+ with s10).

 

Literally nothing changes for MCs, bikes, TWC, wraiths, eternal warriors etc. Basically the 'good stuff'.

 

Were really only looking at a buff to toughness 3-4 characters and units of multi wound models, all of which reside in the trashbin currently.  i.e. paladins, all crappy nid warrior/ravener/biovore variants and so on units, nobz and flash gitz, non nurgle marked oblits/mutis, certain DoC units and broadsides.. 

 

Now out of the above the vast majority are crap and one of the main reasons is the abundance of instant death. People are always discussing toning down the number of special weapons, handing out eternal warrior or equivalent immunity or other 'fixes' to these units. This would be a simple across the board targetted fix to toughness 4 and below. 

 

You've got the horse and cart around the wrong way. 

 

The reason double Strength 'Instant Death' is almost entirely pointless is due to GW buffing the statlines of some armies, and not doing the same to others. MC's being mostly T6 is for a good reason, they're huge monsters that won't go down to a single lascannon or even railgun to the face. But Thunderwolves and Wraiths being T5 (amoungst other offenders) is patently absurd. It makes anything other than 'Force' weapons or S10 garbage against them, as both have strong saves and multiple wounds to get them through massed attacks. 

 

GW needs to stop creating abominations that can shrug off krak missiles and lascannon like its nothing. That's the real issue, the Toughness creep amoungst multi-wound (and its not even uniform). Ogryns are an example of good design; their armour save is meh, but they have T5 and 3 wounds apiece. Thus, you can empty bolters or pulse rifles into them, and achieve kills, but quality firepower is wasted on them. Wraiths are flat out retarded strong, 3+ invul makes both massed fire and quality high Strength equally bad. And that's before Decurion gives them a freaking 4+ Reanimation roll in their special snowflake formation. 

 

We should feel lucky. By some colossal happy accident, someone typo'd 'Force' into the gatling psilencer. Granted, it's not perfect by any means (S4 AP- is...mystifying), but it generates a lot of hits and combined with the heavy psycannon you're shooting at them as well, you're bound to cause some failed saves by weight of fire. Plus of course, Dreadknights are I think the only MC's armed with 'Force' weapons, at S10 AP2 no less (so your shooting fails, you can still close the deal in melee).