2018 Big FAQ - how will it affect your list?

Iron Father Ferrum · April 17, 2018

If your army, even Templars, have zero long range shooting that is incapable of clearing out a wedge of empty space in a corner, then I strongly suggest you invest in a TFC or Whirlwind or Predator. Most units that clog up drop zones in the backfield are small, long range support units like Devs or armored vehicles. Kill one or two of those and suddenly you've opened up a drop zone.

Honestly, it's not that hard. Next time you play a game, actually consider what units the enemy tends to deploy in the backfield and consider how they're spaced. If you're surgical in your own counter-battery fire, you should be able to create a pocket. Take my Iron Hands for example. My backfield units tend to be two TFCs, a Hunter, and often with a Laserback in reserve waiting for an opportunity to move up. That's a lot of firepower, but it's also a lot of individual models that rely on being well spaced to shut down deep strikers rather than a swarm of bodies that my opponent can dictate how to remove to keep those drop zones clogged. If you can clean up just one, maybe two of those backfield units, guess what? Problem solved. Indirect fire can do it. Long range anti tank guns can do it. Hell, take a Storm Talon or two because they can be used for both anti infantry and antitank and are fast enough to get good lanes on models are trying to hide or take cover.

There is no tactic that cannot be countered, no advantage that cannot be nullified. Sometimes you just have to be inventive.

redmapa · April 17, 2018

Thanks for the input, I dont play BT to build a gunline and this FAQ sure as hell doesnt do me any favors. Why bother going through all those hoops so my mediocre units can put a dent somewhere? Because they sure as hell wont be killing anything and that still doesnt answer the problem of being shelled from turn 1 as I have no deep strike units to tie them up or enough bodies to weather any form of firepower, that discourages me from taking assault elements in any shape or form.

I used Alpha Strikes to survive, how do I survive now that the enemy has 2 turns of free shooting? I dont, thats the answer. If I have to build a god damn gunline to survive then why bother playing a melee centric force? Im sick of trying and getting shut down, when does the next FAQ come out? 6 months from now, probably more, so I guess I'll just suck it the :cuss up and keep losing all my games with a smile.

Panzer · April 17, 2018

To be honest, if you try to play any Marine army as melee centric force and ignore most of the ranged support available then it's kinda your own fault if you keep losing.

The Codex doesn't give us access to so many ranged units for no reason. Marines, even Black Templars, were always an army that relies on both, shooting and melee, to get the job done and normally with a bigger focus on shooting. Even Blood Angels and Space Wolves can't ignore their shooty units and expect to win most of their games and they're clearly more melee focussed than Black Templars.

Now I'm not saying you're playing your army wrong. You can play your army the way you want. But if you decide to play it that way then you have to expect to always fight an uphill battle. You have the options. If you don't use them then it's on you.

(that being said, Marines ARE a bit on the weaker side currently. However what I just said does still count even if Marines weren't already struggling).

MeltaRange · April 17, 2018

Well said, Panzer!

Personally, I've giving Bikes and especially Attack Bikes a second look with these changes. Those could fit a BT theme, maybe give them some knightly heraldry :) I'm hoping with their speed I can get a large amounts of shots (and even some special weapons) into mid field to do some clearing/hold ground. They can be given chainswords and so also sport 2A each. Not amazing, but they could be useful with a re-roll to charge to get locked up with someone.

redmapa · April 17, 2018

Right then, i will build a god damn gunline that might as well not have chapter tactics and pray its better other gunline armies as my two assault units get torn. Im still waiting to see the positive of this situation or should I just be happy to get pooped on? 3 razorbacks is clearly not enough and inceptors are expensive, what else should a gunline have?.

Im glad we agree that this FAQ put any chance of assault being relevant in the :cussing ground.

Melete · April 17, 2018

It really comes down to what you enjoy more: playing to your army's strengths, or playing your army in the style you'd like to play your army. If you prefer to play BT as a pure assault army when that Chapter's current strengths are more oriented towards shooting Crusader Squads and Crusader Helm Captains/Chapter Masters with some counter-assault ability, go for it.

d36williams · April 17, 2018

Overall I'm pleased. Space Marines are better today than they were 2 days ago. My list has long been based around long range shooting and midgame deep striking, with scout and tactical screens, so other than not spamming Devestors, everything that transpired helps my army. Particular shout out to Armonium Cherub can use the Hellfire & Flakk missile stratagem.

Epic nerfs to all the best armies (or eradication as in the case of Pox Walkers, I almost feel bad for that one) bring Marines up quite a bit.

I'm resigned to shelving my Terminators for a long time though.

i think if you play using ITC rules (as I often do, living in US) Marines may have come out ahead of IG, as IG can still take 9-12 Leman Russes but those vehicles will struggle with Ruins, and I have power fists all over the list. The 13 point marine is still not pointed very well but its less of a burden since hyper efficient units are no longer as strong (can't take 7). With the limit on Spamming Devestators, I think Tactical Marines + long range weapons got better, and so did Razorbacks (a very spamable Transport)

Sword Brother Adelard · April 17, 2018

To be fair Redmapa, I feel all your pain and agree with a lot of things you say, but Razorbacks are not limited to three. So we can spam them all we like!

One thing I am looking forward to however is not having to face an army with 5 Leman Russes again!

Wargamer · April 17, 2018

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the Leman Russ datasheet let you include up to three tanks? If so, a Guard player can bring nine Leman Russ without running afoul of the new unit restriction.

MARK0SIAN · April 17, 2018

Technically you could still face 12 Leman Russ tanks without them breaking the rules. 3 in each unit makes 9 plus they could also include 3 tank commanders.

To be fair though, limiting a guard regiment to just three tanks would’ve been massive overkill and not at all lore friendly. Tanks are the guard thing after all :)

redmapa · April 17, 2018

You are correct, which is why I think Marine gunlines sucks. The actual max number of Leman Russes is 13, its 3 Commanders, 3 squads of 3 and Pask which is a bit more than 2000pts if Im not mistaken and its not a really good army but a nice core for an IG gunline can easily be 3 Manticores and some Leman Russes or Basilisks and you can have 6 platforms for 600-800pts and they dont need Line of Sight and hit like the Emperor's fury.

Panzer · April 17, 2018

I'll have to disappoint you then. Leman Russ have the Vehicle Squadron rule which combines multiple Leman Russ into a single unit which then act as seperate units after deployment.

So AM player can still have up to 9 Leman Russ in their army. Did I mention that they have 4 different Datasheets of Leman Russ even? All with that rule? So that means they can actually have up to 36 Leman Russ of different variants in their army despite the rule of 3 limit. ^^

Ebon Hand · April 17, 2018

The Fire Raptor nerf is a load of bull:cuss. A 90 pt hike from the current price, and a 30 pt hike from it's original price? How is that remotely fair when Dark Eldar can take 2 Razorwings which benefit from army tactics for the price of the BASE cost of a single Fire Raptor? All just because one guy took 3 Fire Raptors to a tournament with Guilliman (who was nerfed) and ended up losing anyway to Dark Reapers (who also took a nerf).

It takes a lot to disappoint me, but this really stings when Space Marines aren't doing well in the grand scheme of things.

The reserves change is just strait up bad for the game imo. It penalizes a bunch of units who pay points for the ability to deepstrike just to nerf the real problem units which deepstrike via strategem.

It's an inelegant solution at best. It won't even stop alpha strikes, it will just change which armies can do them.

Make sure to give feedback on these beta rules and points changes. They are sucking the fun out of the game for some people much more than alpha strikes did.

Gw rules team email: 40kfaq@gwplc.com

Sword Brother Adelard · April 17, 2018

Ah fudge.

Deathwalker · April 17, 2018

But it's not fair you can drop your anti armour DS against that on T1.....................................

And face overwatch

.......... and fail to connect with a charge

.......... Or connect with only your character or his infantry support leaving one of them with their butt in the breeze......

LOL

Happy-inquisitor · April 17, 2018

I think by now a pattern is appearing that players should take heed of - if a Forge World unit is undercosted and starts getting spammed in the top lists at tournaments the nerf hammer will swing extra-hard. It was the turn of the Fire Raptor this time round. Honestly the points for that in Chapter Approved were inexplicable and everyone immediately spotted that it was undercosted so anyone surprised at that being fixed is really not paying attention.

Agreed that pure Custodes / GK lists do not seem to gain much from the CP changes. Are GW assuming that everyone will just take a cheap AM detachment, I get the feeling that if they were looking around the upper tables at Adepticon that might have seemed like a sound assumption.

Firepower · April 17, 2018

Hoo boy...well, this is indeed a problem for a lot of Templars, myself included. That said, there's a risk of turning this thread into yet another "But Templars!" rant, which is something that gets under a lot of peoples' skin (again, myself included). To be brief then, the main/most common way to play Templars as they used to be (Templars Classic, if you like) involved turn 1 screening and distraction units like Terminators and Drop Podded Dreadnoughts, or Reivers for my less orthodox brothers. Without those screening units on Turn 1, it all falls apart, and we're left with very limited list choices that don't play to our fluff or our 'strengths,' little as they are already. A lot of us don't even have bolter marines in any real numbers because this is our preferred style, and yet practically every new rule change (editions and errata alike) has been a blow.

Moving on from Chapter specific griping, it seems that the trend with these erratas is fundamentally flawed, in that it punishes many to limit the cheese of the few. The Assault Cannon price hike hurt a lot of units like the Talon and the LRC, with the intent of simply nerfing Razor spam and to a lesser extent Ravens. Actually I'm not sure if the blow to Ravens was intentional or not, given that they were singled out with the flyers must be on the board or whatever rule as well. Smite spam by many armies cripples the GK. Deep Strike alphas by some powerful tournie armies hurts weaker armies that used it as a crutch. That cheese is spotted most prominently in tournaments, and by nerfing them in broad strokes with rules like these, they hurt casual players or armies trying to catch up with cheesy armies.

On a personal level, this drives me crazy. There's an eerie trend in GW nerfing units just as I finish painting them. :tongue.:

Ebon Hand · April 17, 2018

I'm not surprised it took a nerf, my issue is that they nerfed it into Oblivion! At the original pre CA base cost of 250, it was already marginal, and now they put it at 280.

That's a hike from 358 to 448 for the CA cost, or 418 to 448 for the original cost. It makes no sense! They seem to be just throwing out points costs they pull from thin air! They could have simply made it a relic to hamper it being spammed. In trying to nerf it for tournament play they utterly screwed it in casual play. I know I'm not the only one incensed by this.

Shuul · April 17, 2018

Oh cool, so they removed the only thing that got me into Iron Hands and that was GW's own selling point for them!

https://imgur.com/a/6Byxn

Ebon Hand · April 17, 2018

You didn't hear? Apparently you were slowing down the game so much no one ever finished a game against you. *sarcasm

Some of these changes were poorly thought out and it needs to be made known.

For what it's worth, we non-tourney players can just choose to disregard the changes or implement our own until they come to their senses.

Wargamer · April 17, 2018

Shuul, I feel you. My advice is to see if your opponents will let you use a 5+ Unyielding Ancients save instead when playing Iron Hands. That won't exactly break the game, but it'll still keep their signature unit status.

ERJAK · April 18, 2018

While it's true that no tactic cannot be countered, you have to look at the cost of your counter AND how your opponent might be able to counter your counter. So you poke a hole in the screen turn one...woooo. Just rebuild it turn two, you have to land before your shooting phase anyway so I can pin you so far away from anything useful it won't matter that you killed some guys T1. Meanwhile I'm establishing board control, up 2 turns worth of objective points, and most of the army you had on the table has been thoroughly bombarded. Oh, also your TFCs are dead to MY small deepstriking units since I got to drop before you, and mine are shooting units. I left the hunter though, so few people bother playing those it'd be like killing a unicorn.

Iron Father Ferrum · April 18, 2018

Errr, first of all I wasn't talking about poking holes in screen, I was talking about clearing a drop zone in the enemy back field to get to their squishy support stuff. If you're running melee-oriented units, then the fact that the enemy is running at you is actually a GOOD thing for you, isn't it?

Second, we can "what if" this back and forth all day and night. All I can is suggest list building and tabletop tactics that might help. It's up to you to actually try them and see if any of them work.

Tokugawa · April 18, 2018

After FAQ, I ordered 3 boxes of skitarii(will use as guardsmen CP farmer).

SillyDreadnought · April 18, 2018

My sergeant chronus list will never see a tournament now because of the new 0-3 unit restriction.

I basically don't want to do that list anymore because of this change. Why piss that money away on that many tanks if I can't use them? I mean, sure, I can play it at my club or GW store, but if I want to take it to an event I basically can't play it.

All because I had the gall to take more than 3 Predator tanks.

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2018 Big FAQ - how will it affect your list?

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