8th Edition DW Tactica

[leth]

Watchmasters are a force multiplier for the rest of your army. With the level of firepower in the game now a solo hunting character wont last long.

 

For grav and plasma Pistols the problem is that grav is better than plasma in very very niche situations.  I would always go plasma at this point unless grav gets a price decrease.  

Edited June 17, 2017 by leth

[Ordo Xenos Inquisitor]

Any opinions on Grav Pistols VS Plasma pistols?

 

Also, people are lauding Watchmasters, but you can have a Jump Pack Captain with Combi-weapon + Thunder Hammer as a solo hunting force to be reckoned with for the same point cost. I see people often opting for WM or a rather bare Captain. Why no love for them?

 

Nothing wrong with the Captain imo. He is basically your budget version of the WM. Though I already have Captain Artemis with his weapons. :)

[Anarnii]

Am I reading it right, I can any veteran a combo and chain sword, or bolter and chain sword?

[Ordo Xenos Inquisitor]

Am I reading it right, I can any veteran a combo and chain sword, or bolter and chain sword?

 

Yep. You read it right. :)

[Anarnii]

Best marine troop choice in the game then (finally)?

[Moostick]

It's just that the WM costs 56 more points, but only gives rerolls on one additional number (2) compared to a Captain since we are entirely BS3. Seems kind of eh unless it's a damaged vehicle. Maybe it's just me.

 

Has there been any clarification on overcharged plasma rolls of 1? I see people arguing that:

1) only rolls of virgin 1 blow up

2) rolls of 1 after negative modifiers blow up (and 1s become >1, so no blowing up)

3) all 1s and things that would bring it to negatives blow up, so if you get -2 To Hit, then rolls of 1, 2 and 3 blow up.

 

1 would be the one that makes "sense", or Captains would not give rerolls if we get -1 To Hit and roll a 2. Since 2-1 is 1, the gun blows up with no rerolls. 2 would make me sad. 3 would just be brutal.

[Ordo Xenos Inquisitor]

Yeah, I am leaning towards option 1. The modifiers will just make the target hard to hit, is all. 

[Moostick]

FAQ released. It's 3. Overcharging plasma just got a lot worse.

[Irbis]

Example - Plasmagun has -1 to hit against a flier. However he is within an aura that allows him to re-roll 1s. In this case he would ONLY be allowed to re-roll natural 1s as a result of the ability. However if he decided to overcharge any model that rolled a two would now die because after modifications it became a 1 and this is post re-rolls. Following the re-rolls any natural rolls of one become 0 and thus no longer cause an overheat. 

 

Finally if those plasmaguns get a +1, they can never overheat while still getting to take advantage of their re-rolls.

 

Actually FAQ just confirmed this is not how it works, while your interpretation was largely correct there is no such thing as 0 on a die. 1 is bottom barrier, you can't modify it to show less than that, so if you have -2 to roll you will explode your plasma gun on roll of 1-3. Yes, smoke from Rhino now magically triggers overheat. Though, +1 does seem to magically cool plasma, too.

[leth]

With the availability of hit modifiers and most heavy weapons not being immune having re-roll all is pretty powerful.  3 terminators with assault cannons in a kill team can put out some serious fire power. 

[Ordo Xenos Inquisitor]

FAQ released. It's 3. Overcharging plasma just got a lot worse.

 

Is that so? Hmmm.... guess I'll have to play it safe instead. 

 

 

Ah, what the heck. Imma fire it anyway because I'm sick!

[shandwen]

My issue with the rules (from what I've read them as at least) is that rerolls happen before modifiers. So for instance shooting a solid frag shot at an aircraft when having my watchmaker next to it, if I roll two 3's I don't get to rerolls them and they miss because of the modifier. That's garbage.

[Moostick]

Failed rerolls help low BS horde armies a lot more with this confirmation, so one more thing for us to get pissy about!

 

That's one of the reasons I was iffy about the WM. A 75% increase in cost for a +16% chance at a reroll. WM does have the benefit of preventing overcharged plasmas from killing yourself on 2s though if you fire both types, but not on anything else if you get any additional negative modifiers.

[Irbis]

 

For grav and plasma Pistols the problem is that grav is better than plasma in very very niche situations.  I would always go plasma at this point unless grav gets a price decrease.  

 

May I ask why you feel so? To me, that d3 damage is extremely useful if you go against vehicles or multi wound models, and seeing with new damage table, S5=S7 in a lot of situations, I was thinking about mixing grav and plasma pistols in a squad. Plasma is only better when you have a captain handy and overload it constantly. Hmm.

[LordCommanderSamirus]

Where is this FAQ?  Link?

[Irbis]

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/334840-1st-faqs-are-up/

[Moostick]

After the reveal on how overcharge blows up, I actually would rather have combi-gravs on my Veterans and lace my Vanguards with plasma pistols since they won't have -1 To Hit from firing two pistols.

 

Alas, GW clearly hates Deathwatch.

[SnakeChisler]

Just don't overcharge it if its against a -1 modifier or if it's a combi don't fire both

 

After a couple games this weekend next to nothing got a cover save with the odd infantry unit in a building being the exception, there's a few units get a -1 and I believe smoke on vehicles does it.

 

The sort of stuff grav will do multiple wounds to such as vehicles your needing 5's to wound

Edited June 19, 2017 by SnakeChisler

[Irbis]

Against terminators, bikes, meganobz, ICs, tyranid warriors and the like you're still doing 3+ to 4+ and I kind of like how grav has 1/3 chance of killing W3 models that laugh at overcharged plasma. Though, I need to check math which will come out on top in the end. Hmm.

[leth]

I think with the FAQ that confirmed how plasma works grav now has another role compared to what it did before.  One thing that I had not considered is that it is still wounding on 5s against most vehicles and going to DW wounds is quite helpful.

 

Its a tough call but if you want to do the math all the charts are present on the first page.

[Vel'Cona]

You guys realize you don't HAVE to Overcharge, right?  Plasma is still a solid choice in standard mode, with Overcharge saved as a "worst case scenario" choice.  I mean, if you're trying to whittle down a tank/monster then yes, you'll want Overcharge but in that case might Melta be a better option (with no chance of killing your dudes)?  If nothing else, DW should be played with flexibility at its core, regardless of what you think about it from a purely competitive standpoint.

[Irbis]

You guys realize you don't HAVE to Overcharge, right?  Plasma is still a solid choice in standard mode, with Overcharge saved as a "worst case scenario" choice.  I mean, if you're trying to whittle down a tank/monster then yes, you'll want Overcharge but in that case might Melta be a better option (with no chance of killing your dudes)?  If nothing else, DW should be played with flexibility at its core, regardless of what you think about it from a purely competitive standpoint.

 

Except it's not. Thanks to new damage table, plasma pistol is barely better than SIA bolt pistol against a lot of targets, and it's mostly taken for the ability to kick the things bolts are useless against. You buy them to deal with things SIA won't take, tough multi-wound models, against which you need overcharge by definition. That is the flexibility you want.

 

As for melta being better, ha ha ha (insert more of sad laughter). Let's take melta pistol. 6 inch range makes it useless on deep strike. But let's ignore that. It deals 3.5 wounds (4.5 when you're hugging target which basically never happens). The problem? It costs more than 3 plasma pistols. Which, by the way, deal 6 wounds if you overcharge them completely eclipsing melta and burying its corpse seeing they also work fine on deep strike and have much smaller probability of dealing 0 damage.

 

What about meltagun then, someone might ask. Well, DW vanguards can't take melta gun despite coming from chapters where every assault squad can take some. Maybe they forgot how to do it or something. Anyway, point is, no melta on deep strike for you. Except, oops, I lied - technically, termies can take a meltagun. Too bad it's paired up with terrible, overpriced power fist which you need to take if you want one.

 

And you pretty much don't want to, seeing DW terminators are good precisely because they're one of the few loyalist ones capable of bringing their absurd cost down to reasonable levels by taking all power swords instead of fists. It doesn't even pay to take one melta on them as DW termies can mass assault cannons instead, cheaper, dealing with far larger range of targets, and with greater range. Ditto for veterans - I find frag better (and surely much more versatile) than melta at longer range, so pass there too...

[pufnstuf]

it was mentioned that watchmasters are great with corvus. How does the watchmaster keep up with it to give it rr's and not die himself?

[leth]

it was mentioned that watchmasters are great with corvus. How does the watchmaster keep up with it to give it rr's and not die himself?

 

He can ride in it and then deploy with the kill team.  When he deploys he will be in range to give it his Aura. 

[Mobius0288]

it was mentioned that watchmasters are great with corvus. How does the watchmaster keep up with it to give it rr's and not die himself?

You can throw the Corvus in hover mode or just get lucky on timing as it flies by.