Anyone using negative leadership stacking successfully?

[templargdt]

So, while the Space Marines aren't Dark Eldar, you can get multiple negative leadership debuffs in the book.

- Angel of Death Warlord Trait (Combine with Black Templars relic to get a massive 9" debuff aura)

- Reivers (3", and no overwatch grenades)

- Banner of the Emperor (6")

It seems like there is some potential there, has anyone had success with this?  Are there other leadership debuffs for SMs out there I'm missing?

[SydonianDragoon404]

The short answer is no. Most armies have a mechanic to either ignore leadership or not care if they lose models because the investment you made to stack leadership debuffs isn't worth what you killed with it. MSU rules the day because you don't have to participant in the morale phase of the game most of the time, which not only helps you keep units alive, but it also saves time and doesn't cost anything.

 

What GW should have done is made additional squad mates for infantry units cheaper than the base cost like Horus Heresy did. 

 

And then there's Dark Eldar, Daemons, and Nids which don't care about the morale phase. 

[Ipsen]

It does cost something. Kill points. Unit elimination missions. First turn priority.

[Panzer]

Better ask Night Lords how it goes for them since that's the only thing they can do other CSM can't. ^^

Hint: not so well. It's neat in casual games but as mentioned above most armies either ignore morale tests anyway or go with MSU so stacking huge LD debuffs is unnecessary since you have to kill models in the unit to trigger the test anyway.

It does cost something. Kill points. Unit elimination missions. First turn priority.

 

All things of rather small interest compared to the benefits of MSU.

[Schlitzaf]

Competitively speaking? MSU is not better than non-MSU. Each has their own place. MSU are basically units to fill tax slots. But that said, even in case of MSU, modifiers still matter. The classic example for me is the 5 man Tactical MSU. You need to lose 3 models before you need to test )in which case you have just under a 3% chance to fail). Adding an additional -1 or -2, makes a 3% to a 10%, or a 25% chance respectively. That might seem small, but when you have 3-4 squads taking a leadership in a single turn. You will see 1-2 failed morale tests, 2-3 breaks.

 

Optimal stacked minus, is around 2ish. While you want to stack more, around 2 means the difference between a squad autopass or needing simply less than a 6, to needing less then a 4 or 5. Take Gaurdsman Squads, they are LD7, losing 3 models, then suffering a -2. Means on a 3+ they lose more guys. More likely losing about 2-3. In 9 man squads that leaves Sargeant, Heavy, and Special. If no sargeant around, you increase the killcount to 3-4. It’s a small number, but it’s an important one, because these in a single phase, remove whole squads from the table.

 

It’s also important, versus armies like Orks. Or units like Chaplains. Sense characters buff auras improve the nearby leadership And normally have better leadership. A -2 turns LD9 into LD7. Making them worse then your sargeant or on par. Orks with Mob rule, who have LD = Squad Size and then share it units within 3”. One of the best methods is split shooting, instead of wiping one boy Squad do 15 to each. So when it comes to take Morale each Squad loses D6 more. Now why this is important, because let us say you do 16 and 14. You’d take the test on the 14, using 16. Saving you two guys. The -2 hits the 16 man Squad. So it’s still a leadership 14 test. Now all this said.

 

I am not saying go running a million reivars, banner and angel of death. (That said I like Angel of Death and would use it as my trait if the helmed buffed it). What I am saying is that it’s an important little trick in your arsenal to try and remove another around 6-8 models each round. But you need to try and get two instances of minus -1. -1 is too little, and mostly only changed autopass to needing 6. -3 is overkill and when you get all -3 stacks the squad is likely dead anyways. Minus -2 from a deep striking Reivar charging and a nearby banner or warlord, means reivars will kill 3-4 marines, and the -2 gives a good chance of wiping the remaining squad.

 

This is espacially important in dynamic objectives, as it could be difference between scoring or not

[Panzer]

Competitively speaking? MSU is not better than non-MSU. Each has their own place. MSU are basically units to fill tax slots. But that said, even in case of MSU, modifiers still matter. The classic example for me is the 5 man Tactical MSU. You need to lose 3 models before you need to test )in which case you have just under a 3% chance to fail). Adding an additional -1 or -2, makes a 3% to a 10%, or a 25% chance respectively. That might seem small, but when you have 3-4 squads taking a leadership in a single turn. You will see 1-2 failed morale tests, 2-3 breaks.

 

Optimal stacked minus, is around 2ish. While you want to stack more, around 2 means the difference between a squad autopass or needing simply less than a 6, to needing less then a 4 or 5. Take Gaurdsman Squads, they are LD7, losing 3 models, then suffering a -2. Means on a 3+ they lose more guys. More likely losing about 2-3. In 9 man squads that leaves Sargeant, Heavy, and Special. If no sargeant around, you increase the killcount to 3-4. It’s a small number, but it’s an important one, because these in a single phase, remove whole squads from the table.

 

It’s also important, versus armies like Orks. Or units like Chaplains. Sense characters buff auras improve the nearby leadership And normally have better leadership. A -2 turns LD9 into LD7. Making them worse then your sargeant or on par. Orks with Mob rule, who have LD = Squad Size and then share it units within 3”. One of the best methods is split shooting, instead of wiping one boy Squad do 15 to each. So when it comes to take Morale each Squad loses D6 more. Now why this is important, because let us say you do 16 and 14. You’d take the test on the 14, using 16. Saving you two guys. The -2 hits the 16 man Squad. So it’s still a leadership 14 test. Now all this said.

 

I am not saying go running a million reivars, banner and angel of death. (That said I like Angel of Death and would use it as my trait if the helmed buffed it). What I am saying is that it’s an important little trick in your arsenal to try and remove another around 6-8 models each round. But you need to try and get two instances of minus -1. -1 is too little, and mostly only changed autopass to needing 6. -3 is overkill and when you get all -3 stacks the squad is likely dead anyways. Minus -2 from a deep striking Reivar charging and a nearby banner or warlord, means reivars will kill 3-4 marines, and the -2 gives a good chance of wiping the remaining squad.

 

This is espacially important in dynamic objectives, as it could be difference between scoring or not

 

That's unfortunately not true.

Literally the only benefits of big units are (aside from faction specific rules like Mob rule):

• less drops (rarely relevant especially with transports)
• the few buffs that affect only a single unit (Slaanesh double shooting, and CSM +1 to wound come to mind)

 

The benefits of MSU are:

• damage mitigation due risk of overkill
• damage mitigation due not having to worry about morale tests
• more tactical options due being able to split them up and go to different targets (also baiting/denied flank during deployment)
• more Sergeants
• at times more special/heavy weapons

 

Competetively MSU really IS superior to big units generally. SOMETIMES big units are superior but those are the exceptions, not the rule.

 

Tactical Squads are a great example for why it's not worth it. Kill 2-3 guys and manage the feat of debuffing the leadership that much (which often requires melee range) and then you still have a tiny chance for them to suffer additional losses (not to mention their re-roll). Except at that point the Tactical squad is barely relevant anymore and shouldn't be worth the extra efford to reduce their LD. Not to mention how unlikely it is to do this whole thing for 3-4 units at the same time to make the unlikely chance of 25% + re-roll happen.

And that goes for basically every Marine unit in the game.

 

For the Guardsmen we face the problem of them actually having LD9 since if they field any relevant number of infantry then usually with a Commissar nearby. So you'd need to not just reduce their LD, you'd also need to reduce the Commissars LD by the same amount plus two as well. And if you manage to do all that and they really would suffer any significant number of additional losses then he can just shoot one of them and re-roll the result.

 

Orks are kinda the last ones it would work against considering their Mob rule. Their Leadership is actually the number of models in the unit or a nearby unit with that rule (or the LD stat in the datasheet if it's higher) so have fun grinding down every 30 Boyz unit in the area first before your LD debuffs will have any relevance. At that point however you already killed so many of them that an additional two lost models shouldn't be relevant at all anymore. Also not to forget their Stratagem to merge two damaged units to up their LD again.

[FlamingDeth]

As an Ork player the only times I've seen leadership matter are when I'm close to being tabled so, uh, good job on the leadership I guess.

[MARK0SIAN]

I’ve never tried lowering leadership deliberately because It’s never seemed like it’s worth the effort, all the armies that should be affected by morale either completely ignore it somehow or it’s effects are inconsequential for them.

 

However reading the responses has raised a question about my understanding of it, is my interpretation of it right below?

 

Say you have a blob of guardsmen and a commissar behind them. The debuffs to leadership would only affect the guard squads leadership unless the commissar was also in range to be debuffed wouldn’t they?

 

This means that even if the guard squad has had their leadership lowered by -3, they’ll still test at leadership 9. The rule seems quite clear that they are using the commissars leadership, they have not had their own leadership increased to 9, they are using his and his leadership is still 9 in that case.

 

What I’m saying is the debuffs cannot subtract from borrowed leadership unless the leader they’re borrowing from has also had his leadership lowered.

 

Is this the correct interpretation? Morale so rarely comes up in games I’ve played that I’ve almost no experience using it.

[Panzer]

That's how I interpret it as well, yeah.

[Schlitzaf]

Panther you literally read none of what I wrote did you? I literally explained why the commissar situation and ork boyz weren’t that big of a deal. I also elaborated on why removing that 1 remaining space marine model matters.

 

Also before we get on MSU = good. MSU = nuetral off not MSU’ing. In fact MSU’ing is honestly bad outside of ultra specific builds tbh.

[Panzer]

Panther you literally read none of what I wrote did you? I literally explained why the commissar situation and ork boyz weren’t that big of a deal. I also elaborated on why removing that 1 remaining space marine model matters.

Also before we get on MSU = good. MSU = nuetral off not MSU’ing. In fact MSU’ing is honestly bad outside of ultra specific builds tbh.

It's Panzer. Also right back at you with the not reading. Also also I explained to you why the Commissar and Ork Boyz situation IS a big deal.

Also also also you are clearly in the minority about MSU so I won't even bother going further explaining it to you here.

 

Anyway it's pointless to discuss this topic with you it seems. You are LITERALLY the only one I've seen who thinks to focus on LD debuffs is not bad and MSU is bad.