Upon Wings of Fire new ruling from GW

[dakkamasta]

Glad they cleared this up. It gives us a good niche between Forlorn Fury and UWoF to maintain our jump pack alpha strike potential.

 

As for people complaining about allies - They mixed faction 40k style started way back in 6th. This isn't anything new and it's quite clear GW wants to encourage it as it makes sense from a business perspective because it encourages people to dip into armies that they otherwise would never have touched. If you hate soup that much, discuss with your opponents to play mono-codex games. As for tournaments, well you're going to a tournament for competitive play so it's a bit silly to complain there.

 

I for one love mixing. I've always loved mixing my BA and Guard even back in 7th because it makes the marines feel more special when there are a bunch of lowly guardsmen on the front line. Similarly I play Black Legion so mixed Chaos is my thing. It upsets me to see people constantly saying that soup lists are only played by WAAC players that don't care about fun because I thoroughly enjoy bringing a fluffy, mixed Imperium/Chaos force.

 

 

Interceptor squads being used more? That's hilarious.

So now instead of multiple units being able to drop in to threaten using Descent of Angels on the one that doesn't get shot to hell with forewarning, with the cost being their jump packs, now I'm limited too a single unit that must start the game deployed (leaving them open to getting shot by LoS ignoring units), still has to purchase those jump packs but also have to spend an additional CP, is somehow still vulnerable to auspex scan/forewarning, and won't have any character support.
Forgive me if I'm not overly escatic here.
It's better than "none at all" but it's a far cry from what we were playing with.

Also, "losing units before you get to use them" while not touching long range alpha strikes is absolutely infuriating.

 

I get what you're saying here, but you have to factor in that you're bringing a single unit down turn 1 in a game where the opponent most likely cannot, and you can still bring the rest turn 2. They still need to address gunlines such as Guard but it will get sorted.

 

I think a perfect solution, on top of the deep strike rules, would be to reintroduce a rule like night fighting:

 

Fog of War: In matched play, all units shooting at an enemy unit that is further than 12" away suffers a -1 to their hit rolls for the entire first turn. This is not cumulative with other hit roll modifiers."

 

This would really hurt long range gunlines from doing maximum damage in the first turn, whilst not breaking the game as it wouldn't stack with other modifiers such as Alaitoc, Raven Guard, Alpha Legion etc. It also encourages fast moving units to get up close and personal. 

[Silverson]

It will certainly be interesting to see how other blood angel players make use of this, I saw someone say about forlorn fury a unit of death company and uwof a character to get that off turn one, will we use uwof to drop in a big squad of sanguinary guard unsupported? Do then have enough punch without character support?

 

Would love to hear what others are planning to do with the rule given how it stands.

[Kappel]

We now, exclusively, have the option to reliantly throw two captain smashhammers into the opponent, turn 1. Combine that with a potential charge from a Librarian, and if you play dirty also use Celestine (Sorry about that one) - and you are looking at a hefty alfa strike that will disrupt a gunline. Turn two you throw in the usual suspects with DC and Lemartes. This strategy is vulnerable to chaff. But maybe chaff will be less now, after beta rules. And you Can always change things on the fly, and use UWOF on DC instead and keep captain in DS.

[Karhedron]

will we use uwof to drop in a big squad of sanguinary guard unsupported? Do then have enough punch without character support?

It depends entirely on the target. Against a regular MEQ squad they would do fine, if you want to take on tougher targets, you will start to struggle more. One option is to UWOF to get the SG into combat with something T1 and then drop the characters in for support on T2 (possibly with DoA to make sure they get into combat).

 

I think the idea of FF and UWOF for Lemartes and the DC is a good combo. Although it costs more CPs than how we do it currently, we will have more CPs to spend so it probably works out OK. Also, I suspect that people will take fewer screening units so we may end up being able to make better use of them.

 

Time will tell.

[Panzer]

Glad they cleared this up. It gives us a good niche between Forlorn Fury and UWoF to maintain our jump pack alpha strike potential.

 

As for people complaining about allies - They mixed faction 40k style started way back in 6th. This isn't anything new and it's quite clear GW wants to encourage it as it makes sense from a business perspective because it encourages people to dip into armies that they otherwise would never have touched. If you hate soup that much, discuss with your opponents to play mono-codex games. As for tournaments, well you're going to a tournament for competitive play so it's a bit silly to complain there.

 

I for one love mixing. I've always loved mixing my BA and Guard even back in 7th because it makes the marines feel more special when there are a bunch of lowly guardsmen on the front line. Similarly I play Black Legion so mixed Chaos is my thing. It upsets me to see people constantly saying that soup lists are only played by WAAC players that don't care about fun because I thoroughly enjoy bringing a fluffy, mixed Imperium/Chaos force.

I don't think people dislike soups in general. People just dislike the cherry picking nature of soups in competetive matches. People who feel strongly about their faction want to see wins with that faction, not with that faction + the good stuff from another faction.

 

 

I think a perfect solution, on top of the deep strike rules, would be to reintroduce a rule like night fighting:

 

Fog of War: In matched play, all units shooting at an enemy unit that is further than 12" away suffers a -1 to their hit rolls for the entire first turn. This is not cumulative with other hit roll modifiers."

Yeah I thought about that and would like that. Maybe even increase the range tho since at 12" it would just double-punish close-mid ranged armies who usually rely on deep strikes.

[Brother Crimson]

I like the 1st turn fog of war idea. If they want the first turn to be less about alpha strike and more about position it would be a way to do it.

 

Now, does it mean some factions will get the edge out of this rule ?

 

Maybe, I can see TS getting lots of smites be better, and it’s not that bad considering they struggle.

 

Dark reapers and any unit that ignores malus will also be quite good with this rule.

[dakkamasta]

Yea maybe it should be 18-24" if a rule like that would be implemented. Probably 18" would be the sweet spot because it means regardless of deployment type you will suffer the modifier if you're shooting from your deployment zone into the opponent's deployment zone.

 

Also if it's 18" it still gives armies like Alpha Legion and Raven Guard a use for their trait on the 1st turn (I don't think they should stack as that would be ridiculous), since they keep the buff between 12"-18".

 

I'm actually going to write an email to GW with this suggestion as I genuinely think that a 1st turn hit modifier paired with a tweak of the reserve rules would be a really effective way in solving the alpha strike dilemma.

 

That and make Grey Knights exempt from the reserve rule because their whole codex is built around a 1st turn strike. Maybe Deathwing too. I honestly think BA don't need exemption due to the stratagems we have and access to more support units like predators, devs, hellblasters etc. Grey Knights on the other hand are nothing without their alpha strike, it's pretty much the only way to play them.

[Panzer]

Just make sure to mention that it shouldn't stack with already existing to-hit modifiers. ^^

Nobody wants to face armies with a -2 to-hit army-wide for the first turn lol

[Panzer]

Honestly GK don't need an exception. With Interceptors they already have a unit that can basically do Upon Wings of Fire once per unit per game for no CP and then an additional unit with Gate of Inifinity. So in tournaments they can turn 1 "deep strike" up to 4 units and in non-tournament games as many as they have points for Interceptors+1. I mean it's still "just" a Storm Bolter alpha strike but that's all they have without the beta rule as well so it's the same thing just with a specific unit now. ^^

[Kappel]

Wasn't there a simple -1 to hit, if you where shooting at stuff more than half your range away, in one of the older editions? It's a pretty elegant way of mitigating the unbalance between getting first turn or going second, I think. 

[Panzer]

That would be pretty awkward with Rapid fire weapons tho. The difference between rapid fire range and above rapid fire range would be HUGE lol Same goes for Melta.

[dakkamasta]

Hmm fair point about the Grey Knights, but again we can back up our deep strike with solid long range shooting. GK can too but no where near as effective. They also can't get a deep strike charge off as easy as we can due to the 3D6 charge stratagem (brain fart, can't remember what it's called). GoI can also fail to cast or be denied. UWoF cannot. It's also because it's always been their 'shtick' as well. We have more flexibility in our playstyles. Still undecided either way on that one. For the record I'm not a GK player but a good friend of mine is and I wouldn't like to see his army crippled.

 

As for rapid fire weapons, it's rare they are in rapid fire range on T1 anyway unless they're really fast like Venoms in which case they're designed to get that initial volley off. Weapons like meltas are very hard to get in range T1 especially with the reserves restriction so again it shouldn't be too much of an issue.

 

I did send that email to GW by the way, I specifically mentioned that it shouldn't stack with FACTION hit modifiers. The reason I think it should stack with other modifiers is because when it comes to units that either have an innate -1 to hit (Venoms, Starweavers, Dragoons etc.) or units that provide a -1 bubble (Malanthrope, Darkshroud) or flyers, these modifiers are factored into the price of the unit. You're paying for that modifier so not getting it on turn one could be a bit unfair. Especially because it will turn T1 into the 'shoot the flyer' phase, since on every other turn it will be more efficient to shoot everything else. Some of these units can already stack modifiers anyway so it's not like we havn't seen it before.

 

Thoughts?

[Semirhagge]

Can a lot of the problems we have just stem back to the fact that melee is in a poor position regardless of the deepstrike changes? It seems to be that there are far too many armies that can just leave combat with ZERO downsides. I know there have been threads before concerning this. But I am not too sure what we need to write to GW to get possible fixes in later FAQs/Chapter Approved. Marine points reductions or statline changes seem to be a dangerous place to make the change but I can't really see how to do anything without a complete fight phase overhaul.

[SM1981]

 

 

 

 

 

 

the sky didnt fall after all

...that is the problem...as Sons of Sanguinius WE ARE THE SKYFALL!

Quoted for truth

 

TBH tho, blood angels are equally known for their jump pack assaults AND for their mechanized assaults.

Also their Terminator assaults. Actually any kind of assault as long as we can get in the opponents face fast enough and look awesome doing so. :D

And nipple armour... We have a well deserved rep for loving that nipple armour.

[Paladin777]

It was totally one of the selling points to me! I made sure my captains both had it!