Prot's Take on BIG Changes for Deathwatch in 8th Edition

[Vel'Cona]

Which i hope they are wrong, GW isn't going to ignore how cumbersome the current Psi-phase is.

 

Nor how much it dominates the competitive meta in exploitative builds.

[Irbis]

So, Prot, still think movement in 8th works similarly to SW?

The over cost of our stuff is something that if you're honest as a playtester, has to be addressed in 8th. As someone who has both Ultra's and DW rolling, there's just no way I could say with a straight face that DW were ever priced appropriately. And I've been "Playtesting" that aspect of Deathwatch since they came out. I could have given them that info for free a long time ago.... wait a second... I did on their Facebook page (no responses of course!)

I was thinking about that aspect today and frankly, even if 8th is the most playtested version of 40K, I wonder how much of that time went to small side faction with pretty new rules, especially given recent FAQ. Sure, there might be ways to mitigate lack of time (say, make all SM units really modular, like making generic unit of 5 termies that combined with SW rules makes "Wolf Guard" or with DW ones "Terminator Veterans" and playtest the generic 'base' unit) but at this point I just expect Kelly and Cruddace to say out of spite "duh, these black clowns have really new book, these rules are fine, what do you mean the players hate them? they are waac whiners, they should play some characterful fluffy army like eldar instead, ungrateful clods" or some variant of the above...

[SnakeChisler]

The Psychic phase is light years better than previous editions

 

The problem with getting rid of it is the dependance some armies have on it. We also have the driving narrative of an unstable warp and chaos busting forth.

 

Match play wise it needs trimming I'm amazed at how much quicker our games have been over the last couple of weeks with nearly no psychic ( been running SOS with the Deathwatch)

 

The whole psychic powers thing needs to be rebalanced phase form on a Knight is crazy as is veil of time on units with storm Shields & there will be few tears shed when invisibility goes as for summoning it's way too easy

 

If we're loosing templates wonder what vortex is going to look like?

[Vel'Cona]

I was thinking about that aspect today and frankly, even if 8th is the most playtested version of 40K, I wonder how much of that time went to small side faction with pretty new rules, especially given recent FAQ. Sure, there might be ways to mitigate lack of time (say, make all SM units really modular, like making generic unit of 5 termies that combined with SW rules makes "Wolf Guard" or with DW ones "Terminator Veterans" and playtest the generic 'base' unit) but at this point I just expect Kelly and Cruddace to say out of spite "duh, these black clowns have really new book, these rules are fine, what do you mean the players hate them? they are waac whiners, they should play some characterful fluffy army like eldar instead, ungrateful clods" or some variant of the above...

While I'm not expecting any specific attention from GW's dev team, I think the overall ruleset shift toward buffing melee elites (Terminators, Vanguard Veterans) and balancing vehicles alone will do quite a bit of good for DW. Special attention isn't necessarily needed to get this faction on the table; just a bit of shifting in the base unit rules, streamlining mixed units and adjusting the inflated points costs will be enough. Since we can expect all factions to be affected by this (by necessity, GW needs to re-write every unit entry individually) I think it's safe to assume DW will come out on the other end better, rather than worse. Now, whether this makes the faction strong enough to compete with whoever comes out on top in 8th (and it's impossible to know that now) is anyone's guess. :)

[Irbis]

So, just wanted to say, psychic powers phase also seems to be lifted from 5th edition wholesale, complete with book specific powers, and has, again, nothing in common with SW

While I'm not expecting any specific attention from GW's dev team, I think the overall ruleset shift toward buffing melee elites (Terminators, Vanguard Veterans) and balancing vehicles alone will do quite a bit of good for DW. Special attention isn't necessarily needed to get this faction on the table; just a bit of shifting in the base unit rules, streamlining mixed units and adjusting the inflated points costs will be enough. Since we can expect all factions to be affected by this (by necessity, GW needs to re-write every unit entry individually) I think it's safe to assume DW will come out on the other end better, rather than worse. Now, whether this makes the faction strong enough to compete with whoever comes out on top in 8th (and it's impossible to know that now) is anyone's guess.

Will it? DW is, first and foremost, shooty army. Seeing our basic gun disallows assaults, and terrible pricing of melee weapon on veterans (which might change, of course, but I wouldn't hold my breath) I'd say melee focus is big potential nerf on what little usability DW still has. Granted, points cost might change all of that, but seeing DW has really nothing that can act as dedicated elite melee unit, like say ballerina wolves/wolfwolves of SW, or emo bikers/termoemos of DA, I don't see how melee focus helps us, even with some point cuts...

[Prot]

So, just wanted to say, psychic powers phase also seems to be lifted from 5th edition wholesale, complete with book specific powers, and has, again, nothing in common with SW

Could you please give this up? I haven't taken the bait yet, and I'm not going to start now. I never, ever said "8th is Shadow Wars". I said elements of Shadow Wars are definitely within 8th. We've established that as a clear fact.

You need to move along or it's going to be a very long 8th edition. Please and thanks.

Actually what this entire thread is about is how the factual changes (as many facts as we can reasonably get at this time) are helping Deathwatch be the army we want it to be.

To me on the surface the Psychic Phase is appearing weaker than before. But still substantial. Deathwatch never really had a big stake in that game so I actually believe this is a huge boon for DW. Right now you take one psyker to a game and it's largely doing nothing against anything remotely toting psyker heavy lists. But with the changes it seems having 1 psyker might still really have an effect... especially for defensive means.

If you take a simple test to deny, and the caster can't stack his dice to make it harder to deny, that means there has to be built in mechanics that make some Psykers harder to cancel? But as it is explained to us, a test is based on 2 dice, and so is a denial. I think that sounds great for DW.

[Vel'Cona]

The Mortal Wounds thing is bad for DW though, very bad.  Ignoring ALL saves will cripple our mixed Kill Teams that use "tank" models to soak dangerous hits on Invul saves.  Since Mortal Wounds drive right over that, soaking wounds will be even more challenging than before.  I feel bad for everyone that has been setting up Storm Shield-equipped models for this purpose . . .

[Prot]

The Mortal Wounds thing is bad for DW though, very bad.  Ignoring ALL saves will cripple our mixed Kill Teams that use "tank" models to soak dangerous hits on Invul saves.  Since Mortal Wounds drive right over that, soaking wounds will be even more challenging than before.  I feel bad for everyone that has been setting up Storm Shield-equipped models for this purpose . . .

 

Ah very good point. BUT how hard is denial? Right now if someone gets 'scream' off against my Deathwatch (for example) I really can't do anything about it because it's just too hard for an ML1 or ML2 psyker to do anything about a 3-4 dice passed power.... but if I have a decent chance at canceling all that means for me is I keep getting to find an excuse to use my crappy DW librarian. lol

 

But yea, that is a real concern because we don't have chaff to put in front of our good stuff.

[Moostick]

It sounds like offensive psykers got a buff. Psychic powers are now likely one of the few things that can bypass all saves and ensure things die. I can see people shifting them from utility to offensive psykers strike units.

 

Deathwatch has never been psyker heavy, so this can be bad for us. Logically, it makes sense that a shield can't block a psychic attack, but still kind of sucks.

 

The positive is that it seems like you can't snipe targets and it's simply whoever is nearest (hopefully this translates to all powers), and hopefully they limit the multi-target abilities. We've established that multi-wound hits only ever affect one target, so hopefully there's a limit to psychic powers that target groups while ignoring all saves.

[Prot]

Looking back at what the actual topic was designed for... we now have more facts. I tried to make most of the list based on little facts we had, and some I had to guess at because we simply didn't have enough info. Let's see what seems to be holding true:

 

2. No more Templates.

 

 

 

 

 

- So I think the worst problem we had with Fragcannons is having them set up at the front of a squad and basically die from retaliatory fire. Templates being gone from the game is a boon for Deathwatch. I personally won't miss them from my lists, just based on being able to put my frag cannons at the back of the squad!

 

 

(Note: I'm assuming closest models still die first in 8th) This means our Frag Cannons may actually live longer! I can't tell you how much I won't miss strategically placing 2 Frag cannons, a normal dude, and a shield dude. If it has far less importance, I'm all for that. So I think 'no templates' is a positive for Deathwatch.

 

 

 

3. He who charges goes first!

 

 

 

- Well I guess this helps the stinky Orks Xenos more than us, but still it's a plus... if we can load bikes up with Axes (I often sprinkled them in my bikes) and have Heavy Hammers swinging away... heck I'll take that. (I hope heavy hammers are still a thing!)

 

 

4. Cost re-balancing.

 

 

 

- Yup. Still probably one of our biggest factors in making us more usable again.

 

 

5. Rewarding the 'Pure" anti Xenos player:

 

 

 

 

- I know people have said "BSSF" is done because there's no more formations.... but I still like to think that if you follow a 'pure' Deathwatch army then there's a chance you get enough 'strategic' rewards, or points that it starts to equate to a BSSF.

 

No Scatter Dice makes this even more important.
 

 

6. Armour Modifying and Terminators:

 

 

 

 

- Well I don't know what to think about this one anymore. I love my terminators but I really don't think 2 wounds is what I was hoping for here. They claim there are more survivability factors in Terminators, but they won't tell us what that means. So I'm not sure anymore.
 

 

 

7. Vehicle 'Wounds' and Damaged Performance:

 

 

 

 

- We've always suffered penalties from damaged vehicles in one way or another, this same mentality being applied to Surges, Riptides, Flyrants etc, is all good for us.

 

 

8. Sustained fire + Damage Values:

 

 

- Since posting this we now have it confirmed that sustained fire does not replace a flamer. It's very similar though... it's a D6 value instead for a flamer for example. But "Damage" values are introduced here and I still think that's a positive for us. Since posting this it's been confirmed a Lascannon does D6 wounds on an unsaved hit. This is good for us. Maybe Missiles will get similar treatment?

 

 

9.The Psychic Phase:

 

 

 

- With what little we knew about the psychic phase at the time of posting this, the one thing I did mention was 'hopefully taking a lone psyker will mean more'. That part appears to be true considering how Denial works in 8th vs. 7th. Same with passing a power (we don't need warp batteries).

 

But beyond that... I don't know what to say. We've just been exposed to a piece of the rule and "Smite" would be a very costly (if spammable) power if used against Deathwatch. We have no chaff units. Will one psyker in defense make a difference even at 24"? I don't know.

 

 

Still more big news to come. Tomorrow is scenarios I believe. And I for one am very happy they kept Maelstrom in the game. I very much enjoyed that aspect of 7th.

[Vel'Cona]

While Formations may be out, there's nothing saying that "Battalions" (AoS) aren't in.  I'd expect DW to get some kind representing Kill Teams, though it's far too early to guess.

 

One interesting point is that we may have to actually "buy-in" with points just to use Kill Teams, assuming the Battalion concept from AoS is reflected in 40k.

[Irbis]

3. He who charges goes first!

- Well I guess this helps the stinky Orks Xenos more than us, but still it's a plus... if we can load bikes up with Axes (I often sprinkled them in my bikes) and have Heavy Hammers swinging away... heck I'll take that. (I hope heavy hammers are still a thing!)

You are assuming 'unwieldy' doesn't translate to AoS 'always strikes last' or at best 'strike at the same time'. There must be some drawback to fists and hammers or no one will ever pick any other melee weapon, especially with sudden proliferation of high T coupled with 3+ saves.

While Formations may be out, there's nothing saying that "Battalions" (AoS) aren't in. I'd expect DW to get some kind representing Kill Teams, though it's far too early to guess.

One interesting point is that we may have to actually "buy-in" with points just to use Kill Teams, assuming the Battalion concept from AoS is reflected in 40k.

Yeah, there are rumours you can take a 'formation' inside a FOC, for a price, but if there is an army it won't work for well, it's DW. Imagine taking kill team consisting of 5 veterans, librarian and terminator - even if such a formation was free, it will cost us 3 FOC slots, including one really limited one, HQ slot, and one hard to come by, elite slot. 2 such kill teams and you're out.

On flip side, though, it means mandatory HQ unit can now be inside of a kill team, getting its bonuses, and DW might be the only army to have their ICs in squads, if 'no more attaching of characters to units' rumour is true (and if kill teams work like they did), so it's one more reason why DW won't get them back

[Prot]

That's true... I'm assuming that Unwieldy isn't a thing. That would stink. I just miss the old days before challenges, etc, that your really cool looking HQ dudes could carry a hammer and look the part. I miss that look.

[robofish7591]

This is just an idea, but what if the various killteams are actual units instead of formations in 8th?  What do you all think?  It could be interesting considering that units are supposed to get different abilities and what not.

[Prot]

This is just an idea, but what if the various killteams are actual units instead of formations in 8th?  What do you all think?  It could be interesting considering that units are supposed to get different abilities and what not.

 

I like that. A very cool idea and it would fit.

[Silas7]

The Mortal Wounds thing is bad for DW though, very bad.  Ignoring ALL saves will cripple our mixed Kill Teams that use "tank" models to soak dangerous hits on Invul saves.  Since Mortal Wounds drive right over that, soaking wounds will be even more challenging than before.  I feel bad for everyone that has been setting up Storm Shield-equipped models for this purpose . . .

I dunno storm shields might protect against mortal wounds like AoS warriors of chaos' runic shields do.

[Silas7]

 

3. He who charges goes first!

- Well I guess this helps the stinky Orks Xenos more than us, but still it's a plus... if we can load bikes up with Axes (I often sprinkled them in my bikes) and have Heavy Hammers swinging away... heck I'll take that. (I hope heavy hammers are still a thing!)

 

You are assuming 'unwieldy' doesn't translate to AoS 'always strikes last' or at best 'strike at the same time'. There must be some drawback to fists and hammers or no one will ever pick any other melee weapon, especially with sudden proliferation of high T coupled with 3+ saves.

 

While Formations may be out, there's nothing saying that "Battalions" (AoS) aren't in.  I'd expect DW to get some kind representing Kill Teams, though it's far too early to guess.

 

One interesting point is that we may have to actually "buy-in" with points just to use Kill Teams, assuming the Battalion concept from AoS is reflected in 40k.

 

Yeah, there are rumours you can take a 'formation' inside a FOC, for a price, but if there is an army it won't work for well, it's DW. Imagine taking kill team consisting of 5 veterans, librarian and terminator - even if such a formation was free, it will cost us 3 FOC slots, including one really limited one, HQ slot, and one hard to come by, elite slot. 2 such kill teams and you're out.

 

@ the embolden

Isn't that fluffy for DW though?

[Ordo Xenos Inquisitor]

While Formations may be out, there's nothing saying that "Battalions" (AoS) aren't in.  I'd expect DW to get some kind representing Kill Teams, though it's far too early to guess.

 

One interesting point is that we may have to actually "buy-in" with points just to use Kill Teams, assuming the Battalion concept from AoS is reflected in 40k.

 

That is what worries me when employing the Deathwatch. Unless they reorganize the Kill Teams and turn them into units rather than formations instead. That way, the Black Spear Strike Force, Strategium Command Team and Watch Company would be our "warscroll batallions"

[Irbis]

8th edition shooting phase:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/04/30/new-40k-shooting-phase-apr30gw-homepage-post-4/

First big nerf to DW - pistols? What pistols?

[Moostick]

Another reason why Sternguard are better than Veterans for the sane price.

 

Looks like this increases the usefulness of Lascannons compared to my initial thought. Will have to see how much AP ignores cover though.

[Irbis]

Looks like this increases the usefulness of Lascannons compared to my initial thought. Will have to see how much AP ignores cover though.

 

Well, unless they bring back 1+ saves, looks like Terminators gain no bonus from cover, while things like bikers/MEQ/vehicles gain slight bonus bringing them to 2+ save.

 

If they do bring 1+ (or 0+ even) heavy ruin cover might give really nice save against even -3 weapons. Hmm.

[Prot]

Well....
 

You also can’t shoot if there is an enemy with 1″ of you. The exception to this rule is pistols. Models with these hand-held firearms can shoot at the closest enemy target in the Shooting phase, even if they themselves are locked in combat! This is going to make characters with pistols  incredibly deadly up-close.

 

Why hello there Grav Pistol Vanguard in CC! I have no idea if it will be valid or not. Also since swapping a Bolter is a thing, you never know how our lists may change. 

[Black Cohort]

8th edition shooting phase:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/04/30/new-40k-shooting-phase-apr30gw-homepage-post-4/

First big nerf to DW - pistols? What pistols?

Unless DW get pistols in 8th.

[Moostick]

Ugh, this just increases my anxiety to build new models. Overall I feel this latest reveal is the most detrimental to the current DW. They're going to have to upgrade our unique weapons or our arsenal choice will change entirely.

 

If they don't change specialist weapons, I'm going to have to change all my dual LC Vanguards. Heavy weapons are viable in infantry squads now, so this decreases the importance of FC and IHB's assault profiles; they might no longer be worth the points compared to regular SM heavies. Hope GW release 8th soon and not actually the rumoured June date as I will postpone constructing my army entirely now.

[mjrwaud]

Well... something else to complicate matters: 

New "ultra" marines in 8th ed. (seemingly available to all chapters).