Community Survey

[themortalgod]

 

 

....want terminators to be the best they can (not just for TS) and adore rubrics....

Yes, i think a good simple change might be to add an extra +1d6 when taking a save like terminators had in u think 2nd edition.

 

Terminators with 2d6 pick the highest would be much more survivable and if you gave that to "All is Dust" it would make Rubrics and SOT much better.

 

 

Not gonna happen. Rolling 2d6 for each wound would mean you'd have to roll each wound seperately. Have fun rolling saves after getting shot by something like Aggressors or a bunch  of T'au Strike Teams with a nearby Fireblade. GW just recently changed it so FnP like rules don't stack to speed up the game even just a little bit ... a 2d6 change would be the exact opposite of what they're trying to do. ^^

 

 

Could easily accomplish effectively the same thing by giving them a re-rollable save. Though, personally, I feel that the biggest problem terminators face is that they have very poor firepower to pts investment ratio and thus lack the punch to be worth their cost. This is why custodes do so much better, they can acquire high volume of fire despite having relatively few high cost models. 

 

Our terminators are better than most thanks to 2 heavy weapons per 5 and more powerful bolter shells but it is still an expensive cost for the firepower it brings. Compare to say the firepower an Aggressor brings, it just doesn't compare. 

[themortalgod]

There could be reasons for "No Takers" such as preference why folks voted how they did.  Some folks may never take Spawn because they just don't like they way they look.  I wont buy a model if I don't like it,  A lot of people talk about Obliterators and I can see that they are useful but I just don't like the models and have never fielded them and do not plan to.

 

I personally think the defiler looks silly (don't want to start a debate on this, I realize that anyone could say that about anything in this universe and what I think looks cool others may think is silly, also this is just my aesthetic preference) and do not plan on ever buying  one, though I can see it has utility on the battlefield and fans of the unit that will take it.  I have thought about running a defiler and I would proxy something my opponent would think is acceptable if I did.

Arch I too have long hoped for an extra wound on the All is Dusters.

 

I agree, the current chaos spawn models are just horrifically ugly models. (And not in a cool way like they should be) I often wish I had bought a few of the old metal ones back when they were in production, those spawn looked more badass compared to the current ones that just look goofy. 

 

I also agree that the Defiler model just isn't up to snuff. I remember when it first came out I thought it was awesome but the model just doesn't cut it anymore. Personally, I adore forgefiends but they are pretty sub-par for their pts. :( 

[Sonoftherubric21]

themortalgod, not so sure about aggressors.  They have ludicrous amounts of low AP firepower....good for thinning hordes, but our terminators have the ap-2, soul reaper which has a very wide target range it can effect, and of course Hellfyres.  Then again; I think they are relatively cheap for what they do and the number of shots they have is ludicrous, given its a "hordes" edition. Ours have the advantage of being able to grind quite alot off the table through weight of AP-2 wounds. 

 

My main issue with Scarab Occult is that they overlap so consistently with Rubricae that its really a "pick one or the other" scenario. EITHER you take Rubricae as troops, with all the bonuses that entails, OR you take Scarab Occult.  Both are weak to D2 guns, both have a roughly equivocal number of shots and point costs all inclusive, but they also fall into the same wheelhouse for gun effect and they make each other totally redundant. 

 

I actually think Scarab occult are in the top 3 terminator choices for the edition most certainly. Its a shooting edition....we just so happen to have shooting terminators.  (added bonus the Mutalith actually has some pretty fantastic effects on our termies FWIW, Mileage may vary of course, but wounding Land Raiders and Knights with ap-3 attacks on a 4+ is hilarious) 

It would be nice to see "all is dust" reworked somehow, but I will gladly take a points drop.  (I truly do expect we will see some measure of change for Power Armor and Terminators at some point this edition, given the overall weakness of both types of armor....and thus half the armies in the 40k game are automatically on the lower end of the totem pole....... 

 

Funny enough I have seen some "horde power armor" lists do some REAL work, unfortunately we cannot do that due to our expense.  

 

As for Forgefiends; In the Thousand Sons I quite like them, toss a Prescience down, or a flickering fire (or both if need be) and watch the thing grind tanks for damage, or units for shot amount.  For the 177 you pay (I don't take the plasma face) I quite like it, I add it to a firebase with a Predator, and a Helbrute with missile/plasma and they form a solid grouping of quality shots. Ap-1 is a bother, but I have had the Forgefiend deal significant damage to many tanks and units over the course of a game.  Point them at primaris and watch as the squad vanishes. when every failed save is a model removed it adds up substantially with 8 shots a turn.  Could be a pittance cheaper but I think for what we get its fairly decent. 

[Panzer]

themortalgod, not so sure about aggressors.  They have ludicrous amounts of low AP firepower....good for thinning hordes, but our terminators have the ap-2, soul reaper which has a very wide target range it can effect, and of course Hellfyres.  Then again; I think they are relatively cheap for what they do and the number of shots they have is ludicrous, given its a "hordes" edition. Ours have the advantage of being able to grind quite alot off the table through weight of AP-2 wounds. 

 

My main issue with Scarab Occult is that they overlap so consistently with Rubricae that its really a "pick one or the other" scenario. EITHER you take Rubricae as troops, with all the bonuses that entails, OR you take Scarab Occult.  Both are weak to D2 guns, both have a roughly equivocal number of shots and point costs all inclusive, but they also fall into the same wheelhouse for gun effect and they make each other totally redundant. 

 

I actually think Scarab occult are in the top 3 terminator choices for the edition most certainly. Its a shooting edition....we just so happen to have shooting terminators.  (added bonus the Mutalith actually has some pretty fantastic effects on our termies FWIW, Mileage may vary of course, but wounding Land Raiders and Knights with ap-3 attacks on a 4+ is hilarious) 

 

 

He's right about Aggressors. It's just S4 AP0, but if you don't move you shoot twice and the amount of shots in a unit of 6 is enough to whittle down even tanks. Just look at Raven Guard who regularly bring big Aggressor units with a Captain with their SftS Stratagem for a mean alpha strike. However they aren't as durable as generic Terminators, not to speak of Scarab Occult Terminators.

The lacking damage output is one of the reasons why Terminators are so bad. I think their lack of durability is the bigger reason tho.

 

I agree that they're too similar to Rubrics tho. However that's a problem any Space Marine army has with their infantry.

[Heliomanes]

I regularily use a big, 10 man Scarab Occult unit with all the trimmings. With the changes to deep strike, they got an indirect buff as opposed to many similar units, since we can deploy them on the table and then Black Crystal them where they will do the most damage and be the greatest distraction. With the Glamour of Tzeentch power (-1 to hit) they get pretty survivable, as it unlike the Alpha Legion / Raven Guard traits works within 12' and in assault. Last match they took down a dreadnought, Tyberos the Red Wake and a 5 man squad of Reivers on overwatch alone, after Black Crystalling in and removing a 6 man unit of Aggressors.

Gotta agree though, you either go for them or for the Rubricae.

[WarriorFish]

Which is disappointing, and likely a prime motivator for the survey. Do we know if it has been sent to GW?

[Kite Senet]

I haven't really had much of a chance to play my Scarabs since I usually avoid playing my not-fully-painted models, but analyzing their datasheet I too find them very similar to Rubricae. The primary differences I see (and feel free to respond if you think I'm in error or have missed something important) are:

• SOTs are substantially more resilient to morale losses (smaller units, higher leadership), but I (personally) haven't really had morale issues with Rubricae anyway.
• Rubrics can spam warpflamers (but it's not practical due to cost).
• Scarabs can carry a little bit of extra heavy weaponry in the Hellfyre missles.
• A simple Missile/SRC 5-man Scarab unit costs 238, while a 10-man Rubric squad with SRC costs 220, making the Rubrics a bit more affordable.
• SOTs can do that deep strike thing, but deep strike's nerf hurts that horribly and Rubrics could DMC anyway.
• The biggest difference: Scarabs get 2 attacks and melee weapons to work with...but their power swords primarily cut through heavy armor (they only differ from Rubric fisticuffs by AP-3), and provide little melee benefit against many armies, so even this difference shrinks down to nearly nothing in many circumstances.

It'd be nice if the two units were differentiated a bit more; perhaps give the SOTs a bit more melee might and/or an All is Dust that triggers on damage characteristics of 1, 2, or D2?

 

Edit: Fixed points costs. Accidentally gave a sword and a boltgun and a force stave to the SOT Sorcerer, I think. Thanks Quixus!

[Quixus]

• A simple Missile/SRC 5-man Scarab unit costs 242, while a 10-man Rubric squad with SRC costs 220, making the Rubrics a bit more affordable.

It's 238 or 239 points depending on whether you give the Aspiring Sorcerer an inferno combi bolter or a power sword. So the gap can be even smaller.

5 * model cost + force staff + 4 * inferno combi-bolter + 4 * power sword + hellfyre missile rack + Soulreaper cannon= 238

or

5 * model cost + force staff + 3 * inferno combi-bolter + 5 * power sword + hellfyre missile rack + Soulreaper cannon= 239

 

It'd be nice if the two units were differentiated a bit more; perhaps give the SOTs a bit more melee might and/or an All is Dust that triggers on damage characteristics of 1, 2, or D2?

That is a really interesting idea.

[Skerr]

It sounds like the folks that like defilers have a viable role for them in their army that is effecient in their meta.

[Paladin777]

I like SOT’s but I would say that they are far more vulnerable to multi-damage weaponry than regular rubric marines. Those types of weapons often have enough AP to reduce both to using invulnerable saves, or at least nearly, and each unsaved wound is twice as painful on the terminators than the marines.

 

That being said, there is definitely a place for the 5man termie squad that can drop, delete a trouble unit (like devastators), then keep moving.

[Heliomanes]

That point makes them work better in a list with other multi wound models, Paladin777 - you'll get target saturation. I'm using mine with Magnus, 3 daemon princes and a leviathan, for instance. If I weren't, then I think rubricae would work better.

[Archaeinox]

I'm just curious as to why psychic powers were not mentioned at all.

 

Doombolt is terribly expensive. Temportal needs to return models. The entire fluff section mentions multiple times that Rubrics can be brought back.

 

I'm just saying, because the discussion of powers is just as valid as the discussion over the increase of unit utility.

[Paladin777]

^This on all counts! Firestorm should also be WC 6.

I also think that BoM should have been restricted to DP’s and Magnus, but characters on discs should have been left alone. Not sure if that last one was by design or oversight. As it is now, I’ll never take it in a list as the disc is plain more valuable to me than possibly getting some random buffs.

[Raven1]

I think sometimes the rules writers look at potential and balance bases on potential and not what is statistically likely to happen.

 

All of dust needs to be re-written and temporal manipulation should absolutely bring back models.

[Paladin777]

‘Potential’ is why I think firestorm should be wc 6 despite dealing on average the same number of wounds as infernal gaze at 5. 7 is just too high!

[Kite Senet]

I think, in addition to considering "potential" events, they also have an eye to the frequency at which an event occurs. There's some interesting theory to be had regarding this sort of statistical matter; if I recall correctly Nassim Taleb has studied the impact of these sorts of rare-but-huge events, calling them "Black Swan" events, but I haven't read his work to comment usefully on it.

 

All I can speculate is that perhaps they fear that with a buff major use of Firestorm would cause it to be used constantly by Asp Sorcs, making the rare massive 7-9 wound firestorms show up actually pretty frequently per game. After all, you will often only need one massive, devastating turn-1 Firestorm to win the game. But the one-spell-per-turn rule really seems to have scuppered that gimmick before it could have even become a problem.

[BoomWolf]

That's silly though, because the statistical probability of actually pulling off a turn-one 9MW firestorm is literally about one-in-a-million, without calculating the fail chance to even cast it.

 

So even if everyone would take firestorm every game, and cast firestorm every single turn, even if you play every day, three times and every game is a mirror match against someone doing the same thing for yet years-the odds of you actually SEEING it happen at any point (let alone turn 1), even once, is STILL less than 0.1%

 

9 MW on a firestorm is so statistically irrelevant it can be forgotten.

 

Heck, looking at a single-cast, do you know the odds of getting 5 or more MW? 0.89%. without calculating cast fail chance. even that is practically ignorable

 

Firestorm at 6 would be questionable, borderline useless. at 7 is just absurd.

[Quixus]

That's silly though, because the statistical probability of actually pulling off a turn-one 9MW firestorm is literally about one-in-a-million, without calculating the fail chance to even cast it.

The chance is actually less than one in ten million. 1/6⁹. So you do not get the Pratchett bonus.

[Heliomanes]

A damaging psychic power that is good against large units also wouldn't go amiss. We have plenty of ways to spam smite and smite equivalents, but few tools to take down hordes. This makes us very Rock-paper-scissors. A good spell could mitigate some of that.

[Archaeinox]

For what it's worth, and to play the other side of my arguments, GW *DOES* expect folks to play open war. Which is to say, no restriction on using powers. 

 

So, in the context of, say, 3 aspiring sorcerers and 3 scarab occult sorcerers using firestorm once each in an open war game.... Yeah, I'd say WC: 7 is just fine. 

 

Lol, no one would ever consider letting a TS player have no Rule of One.

 

FS should have been like the DG power. 6 for each model.

[Kite Senet]

Yes, that is essentially the situation I was describing, Arch.

 

It is rather missing the point to describe what would happen under the current rule-of-one, since I already mentioned that that rule has pre-emptively solved the concern I was describing. The purpose of my post was specifically to draw attention also, when theorycrafting, to the frequency at which these potentially massive-reward events occur--that more than just the probability of one individual event being a game-breaking event must be considered, but also how many times that event occurs.

 

That said, I ran the numbers on this, and even with a 21-psyker spam list (the most I could fit in 2k pts) and given a whole three turns to hit 7-9 wounds with a speculated warp charge 5 Firestorm, the probability of a devastating 7-9 Firestorm occurring in a game is still less than 0.5%, which is (in my book at least) uncommon enough to not justify actually attempting the type of gimmick I had originally speculated might be a concern. (I did also ignore the first-casting-fail reroll of the Tzaangor Shamans my list spammed, but ignoring casting probability altogether yields only a 0.59% chance of a 7-9 Firestorm, so it can't be causing too much error.)

[Raven1]

It's that extreme outliers, collectively play vastly larger roles than regular occurrences. Psychic powers are based on the idea that a 9-MW firestorm is likely to happen as opposed to that if it even if it passes you are likely to do 1-2 MW.