XVIII th edition - Pre-Release Tactica

[GreyCrow]

No.

 

This is not going to be the place where guys like Roboute tell you how to do your lists before we've got the full rulset (timestamp #2017-05-10 #noEditOnDate).

 

This is the place for guys who like the practical and tried out the ruleset and share their preliminary observations on the ruleset and its implication on the tactics.

 

Because yes, even if GW did not give us all the paints, we can still undercoat !

 

___

 

Tested today a simple scenario :

 

Dreadnought : Dual TL Autocannon build (assumed Heavy 2 S7 AP -1 Damage 1, reroll to hit)

 

vs

 

5 Tactical Marines :

Sergeant - Power Fist + Pistol (Melee S8 AP -3 Damage d6) <-- close to Lascannon profile

3 x Regular Marines (bolters following 8th ed profile assuming Rapid Fire X = X shots at max range, 2X shots at half range, no krak grenades for melee)

1 x Heavy Bolter (assumed Heavy 3 S5 AP -1 Damage 1)

 

vs

 

Terrain :

Absolutely flat (aka no cover), deploy 18" away, t1 belongs to Dread

 

___

 

Super interesting little scenario !

 

Few observations off the bat :

 

- 8th is much faster and intuitive : unified S/T rolls with vehicles helps a lot for streamlining

- It's not because you can wound a dread on 5+ that you should. "Everything can wound everything" is true but illurosy. 3 turns of Bolter fire from these 3 dudes (aka 24 shots in Rapid Fire 1 range) with expected statistical results on dice inflicted a total of 1W on the Dread pas armour saves.

- Save modifiers are going to be paramount. You can deny how impactful even -1 are going to be on saves. It is denyfing that your Marines are glorified Fire Warriors with higher Toughness.

        So, even if you believe you're showing off your Marine's balldiameter by standing in the open, you are in fact giving the opponent much chance to hit them. Take cover, because -1 to Sv on 3+ are painful. Just imagine -2, and if you have steeled your soul, try to picture saving your Marine on a 6+.

 

- The game is less statistically preditcitble : We did a test by replacing the Heavy Bolter with a Lascannon (following official Age of W... W40k 8th edition rules as published as of today  AP-3 helps a lot, but d6 damage is a pain given how random it is).

 

___

 

Overall conclusion 1 :

 

* 8th edition will be super enjoyable overall : it removes the bloat, it simplifies the rules. It lures weak minds into thinking "Because rules are simpler, tactics are simpler". You will be wrong for a few games, so have we. Purge this from your strategic mindset.

 

* The game is a tad more random now, yet more predictible. This is a very strange combination very close to stepping on a Daemon World : One step is Stone, the next is Sponge.

What this implies is that the game now is evolving more and more into the search of THE decisive action that is part random part created. It is now easier than ever influencing probabilities into favourable situations, but still be depending on probabilities.

 

Example : rolling 5 4+ saves on Marines after AP -1 feels VERY weird, but when you remember that cover can mitigate this to 3+ or maybe 2+, you now enter the following situations :

 

Either you put your Marines in situations where you strongly (as in more than what's possible today in 7th) influence stats in your favour, Either you put your Marines in sitautions where you are the complete and utter bit... Slaneeshi Cultist slave of stats and randomness.

 

___

 

Closing words :

 

We are going to have a blast, because this 8th ed will make us better generals and tacticians without the shadow of a doubt.

 

___

 

Closing words 2 :

 

For Chaos players, Frankie was right. You WILL enjoy Power Armour this ed.

Edited May 10, 2017 by GreyCrow

[QuarterPounder]

Hey GrewCrow - interesting read! Now that we know a bit more, I'd be curious to see you run something like a Primaris squad, tac squad, and Dreadnaught versus a few squads of Rubrics.

 

... Or a Morkanaught. Or a Knight! Or a Leman Russ....

[GreyCrow]

Could do! Need to find The models for the proxy ;)

 

This new system is quite interesting because :

- You have much more variance than previous éditions

- You have ways to set situations where you are not exposed to The variance

- Formerly bad units in some match ups can now find some uses

 

Overkill is going to have to be a thing though to limit this variance

[Mr. Poe]

Interesting.

 

I hope you're correct but I have a feeling things are going to get really messy in 8th edition. Just looking at some of their latest releases like the Swarmlord and Leviathan, I'm seeing some really overkill units right there. I did the math on the Grav-flux Bombard the other day, it's like 10+ freaking wounds on average every time it shoots. That's pretty crazy for a model that wasn't even know for it's shooting...imagine what Eldar and Tau are going to be packing. It seems to me (and I know it's too early to tell) like they are trying to make every unit scary in it's own way.  

 

People keep talking about bolters shooting at Dreadnoughts to show that Dreads are so tough. I agree with you that it's illusory, but I think its also illusory to think that Dreadnought are going to be any more durable than they were in 7th. Think about this, on 2D6, the odds of you rolling higher than an 8 are 41%. That's two lascannon wounds and bye bye metal box. 

 

Things will be dying a lot in 8th edition and they will be dying very quickly. The game length did get to 1.5 hours just through rules streamlining. What this will do to game play tactics I'm not sure. Certainly players will be looking for that decisive action but the question is, how much will they have to commit to it?

[GreyCrow]

Hey Mr. Poe !

 

You are spot on when you mention that the increased durability is going to be illusory !

 

It's pretty much like GW changed the binary death conditions to a more linear death condition. It's less frustrating, but the effect is similar.

 

Another thing that will really not help with durability is forced deployment. Especially regarding Fast Attack choices which are now extremely vulnerable to small arms (Landspeeders are now T5).

 

For survivability right now, there are 3 factors that will be paramount :

- LOS blockage

- Target Saturation (even more than before since everything can die to everything)

- Systemic army composition

 

#1 and #2 are a bit antithetic as : the more LOS you block, the less target saturation you have. I guess it's going to be a fine balance to find.

 

#3 is about creating an army that makes sense, since avoiding firepower is only going to be possible on very dense terrain. As in more than a collection of units, but stuff that work together and work well.

 

EDIT : Actually, the vehicles ARE going to be more survivable than last edition.

 

Not against dedicated AT weapons with multiple damage per shot, but against single damage high ROF squads like Scatter Lasers.

 

A Rhino now takes 135 Scatter Laser shots, versus 13.5 shots as before Conditions are in the open with no cover or modifiers.

 

A Rhino also takes 40 High Yield Missile Pods shots at 2 damage on average per wound, same conditions as above.

 

It only takes 7.7 Lascannon shots at 3.5 average damage per shot to kill a Rhino, though, versus 5.4 outside of cover and 10.8 in hard cover in 7th.

 

So, in essence, what 8th edition is doing is making the High S low ROF weapons much more viable against larger targets through the multiple damage per wound, versus the Medium S high ROF which were kign last edition.

Edited June 4, 2017 by GreyCrow

[ak-73]

But then you run the numbers for the grav-cannon and it's still too good:

http://www.3plusplus.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/WeaponChart_Heavy-768x222.png

 

Source:

http://www.3plusplus.net/2017/06/space-marine-weapon-options-8th-edition-warhammer-40k/

[GreyCrow]

Thanks for your calculations, but can you help me read what is there ? Is it the avg wound per salvo?

 

Because I have trouble seeing why a Lascan does less on low T models than higher T ^^

 

Even If is capped I mean, It shouldn't be that low. Unless they kept the cap as a multiplier to wound rather than a hard cap

Edited June 5, 2017 by GreyCrow

[Mr. Poe]

Hey Mr. Poe !

 

You are spot on when you mention that the increased durability is going to be illusory !

 

It's pretty much like GW changed the binary death conditions to a more linear death condition. It's less frustrating, but the effect is similar.

 

Another thing that will really not help with durability is forced deployment. Especially regarding Fast Attack choices which are now extremely vulnerable to small arms (Landspeeders are now T5).

 

For survivability right now, there are 3 factors that will be paramount :

- LOS blockage

- Target Saturation (even more than before since everything can die to everything)

- Systemic army composition

 

#1 and #2 are a bit antithetic as : the more LOS you block, the less target saturation you have. I guess it's going to be a fine balance to find.

 

#3 is about creating an army that makes sense, since avoiding firepower is only going to be possible on very dense terrain. As in more than a collection of units, but stuff that work together and work well.

 

EDIT : Actually, the vehicles ARE going to be more survivable than last edition.

 

Not against dedicated AT weapons with multiple damage per shot, but against single damage high ROF squads like Scatter Lasers.

 

A Rhino now takes 135 Scatter Laser shots, versus 13.5 shots as before Conditions are in the open with no cover or modifiers.

 

A Rhino also takes 40 High Yield Missile Pods shots at 2 damage on average per wound, same conditions as above.

 

It only takes 7.7 Lascannon shots at 3.5 average damage per shot to kill a Rhino, though, versus 5.4 outside of cover and 10.8 in hard cover in 7th.

 

So, in essence, what 8th edition is doing is making the High S low ROF weapons much more viable against larger targets through the multiple damage per wound, versus the Medium S high ROF which were kign last edition.

 

I agree. 

 

I guess the point that I was trying to make was that players will bring to the table what they need to bring to achieve a goal. The meta shifts based on the rules of the game. If math says that lascannons are the way to go in 8th edition then players will bring however many lacannons (or lascannon equivalents) to get the job done. The only way to make vehicles more "durable" is to scale the points cost of heavy weapons against the point cost of the vehicles they will be shooting. If it's too easy for players to load up on a specific heavy weapon (see grav and melta in 7th) then the life expectancy of vehicles will go down.

[Ulrin]

Thanks for your calculations, but can you help me read what is there ? Is it the avg wound per salvo?

 

Because I have trouble seeing why a Lascan does less on low T models than higher T ^^

 

Even If is capped I mean, It shouldn't be that low. Unless they kept the cap as a multiplier to wound rather than a hard cap

There's more details in the linked article on how to read it, but it's indeed average wounds caused. Because of that representation, it's not high T vs low T, it's 6+ wounds vs 5- wounds that's affecting the results for LC . With low wound models, the damage is capped. For example against a Primaris, a LC only does 1, or 2 damage. So average damage is (1 + 5*2)/6 = 1.83 for a Primaris, but (1+2+3+4+5+6)/6 = 3.5 for anything 6+ wounds, resulting in the lower results for average wounds done for the Primaris. This makes conceptual sense as well, as overkill is wasting the potential of a weapon with the lack of wound overflow.

Edited June 16, 2017 by Ulrin

[OutlawSixActual]

So i wonder - are autocannon preds with las sponsons going to be a mainstay now? I feel like they have the killy AT with the sponsons, and the predator autocannon, with 4 shots AND 3 damage per wound, is going to be useful against just about anything.

 

Thoughts??

[Mr. Poe]

The Lascannon Vs Autocannon is essentially down to variance. The Lascannon has a higher variance with the potential to cause the highest damage, while the Autocannon has a smaller variance with causing the most consistent damage. Risk vs. reward.

 

This is a trend you can see in a lot of the heavy weapons. See plasma cannons vs. missile launcher. 

[OutlawSixActual]

The Lascannon Vs Autocannon is essentially down to variance. The Lascannon has a higher variance with the potential to cause the highest damage, while the Autocannon has a smaller variance with causing the most consistent damage. Risk vs. reward.

 

This is a trend you can see in a lot of the heavy weapons. See plasma cannons vs. missile launcher. 

 

To be fair though, the predator autocannon is Heavy 2D3, meaning up to 6 shots at 3 damage each.  So the autocannon can max out at 18 wounds vs the twin lascannon's 12!

[GreyCrow]

Depends on the use as well.

 

The -1AP is pretty good for drowning 3+/4+ save under a lot of shots, with T7-.

 

As soon as you're lookign at 2+/3+ save (with cover potential), the lascannon becomes better to reduce the variance on the armor saves.

On thing to factor in is the much great strength capable of putting some serious pressure on T8 ennemies!

 

Poe's point is very valid though, the autocannon is the safer bet with higher number of shots while the autocannons are more secured damage! (except on very armoured targets).

 

It's really 2 different uses, but now both are interesting picks rather than the lascannon just outshining the humble autocannon in the previous ed.

[Mr. Poe]

Depends on the use as well.

 

The -1AP is pretty good for drowning 3+/4+ save under a lot of shots, with T7-.

 

As soon as you're lookign at 2+/3+ save (with cover potential), the lascannon becomes better to reduce the variance on the armor saves.

On thing to factor in is the much great strength capable of putting some serious pressure on T8 ennemies!

 

Poe's point is very valid though, the autocannon is the safer bet with higher number of shots while the autocannons are more secured damage! (except on very armoured targets).

 

It's really 2 different uses, but now both are interesting picks rather than the lascannon just outshining the humble autocannon in the previous ed.

 

This exactly. You actually have a reason to consider taking the Autocannon as opposed to auto taking the Lascannons. I think they did a pretty good job in this regard for most weapons. There were too many no brainer selections in 7th edition..

Edited June 20, 2017 by Mr. Poe

[GreyCrow]

Yes indeed!

 

7th was the time of the game designers just hinting strongly at what you needed to bring to win, especially If It was newer Releases :P

 

Now it's overall a solid selection of units and weapons