My gripe with mortal wounds

[Marshal_von_Speer]

Hi everyone!

 

I don't want this to come off as a rant but the longer the more the whole mortal wounds thing is sucking the fun out of the game for me. No it's not just because I'm a Templar that can't stand psykers. It's just that I don't like the whole mechanic and mainly it's prevalence in the psychic phase. It's just a too easy and cost effective way to deal severe damage.

 

The first time I heard about mortal wounds it already made me sceptical. A mechanic that flat out ignores the whole pts balance and stat mechanic seemed wrong to me. After many battles fought in 8th ed my opinion hasn't changed. In contrary: I feel confirmed that the implementation of mortal wounds was a bad idea.

 

The whole reasoning behind this mechanic was to be able to stop "Deathstars" respectively to handle models with (high) invuln saves. The easy way to do so would in my opinion have been to just globaly limit invulns to 4++ and only in certain exeptions allow 3++ (i.e. for one turn be it as one use trait or psychic power). Instead GW decided to implement mortal wounds that ignore all saves (and in most senses don't depend on WS/BS and or S/T).

 

Now that alone isn't whats troubling me. I can live with sniper rifles dealing an additional mortal wound on a 6+. I find that thematic and after all the shooter needs to hit an wound first. I also don't mind certain stratagems allowing armies to deal mortal wounds since it requires the expense of valuable command points (given the stratagem is adequatly priced) combined with some dice rolling (for example Hellfire Shells).

 

My main gripe is with the high accessability of mortal wounds in the psychic phase. In case of smite you simply need to roll two dice and on a 5+ (afaik thats around 83% probability) the target unit needs to remove D3 wounds/models. No matter how much said model/unit costs pointswise or how good or bad it's stats are.

 

Now that's only smite. There's a myriad of other psychic powers that are even more powerful (for example "Executioner" or "Infernal Gaze").

 

As far as I know theres no other more reliable and cost effective way to deal damage to your enemy. Especially since in certain cases the rolls can be improved with warlord traits, relics or stratagems. And don't forget the handy reroll for one cp.

 

So the only way to have a chance to avoid this is to have psykers on your own, which puts armies with no psykers at a severe disadvantage. As a quick and rather extreme example my last game as Black Templars vs thousand sons: The psychic phase was just him throwing dice and me removing models, turn after turn for 6 rounds! All I could hold against the rain of smites and mortal wounds was a lousy one use only stratagem. How on earth is this supposed to be fun?

 

On the other hand I also don't enjoy being the one dishing out the smites. Even though I still hold a grudge against Tau from previous editions, it felt cheap outright killing Battlesuits with two simple dice rolls (IG Primaris Psykers).

 

 

 

So am I just a bad sports or what do you think about this? And do you have any suggestions how to not lose the fun with this?

 

 

Cheers MvS

 

Edit: Spelling and Paragraphs

[Interrogator Stobz]

I feel the same, although I have access to good Psykers I’m not a fan of using them. I totally agree about the total ignoring of points spent on the targets, the MW mechanism ruins that balance.

But I do accept that not bringing my gun to a gun fight is my own fault.

What really bugs me is that I cannot target the budget Characters that are causing me pain until I kill the masses of screening trash.

On the fun thing; life is painful, suffering is optional.

[Panzer]

The main problem is that Mortal wounds as mechanic are mostly designed as counter to invul saves which in turn gets countered by FnP-like abilities however it seems like GW forgot about it and strated to use it everywhere as easy "X does lots of damage" instead of at least trying to give spells and such a proper strength and AP stat. Probably because giving all the spells and other abilities those stats would be harder to balance or whatever.

If GW would give only few specific things Mortal wounds as means to deal damage, things that are actually meant to counter invul saves, and everything else proper strength and AP stats then it would be much less of a problem.

It's mostly for Marines a problem because Marine armies with their high-ish defenses and low amount of wounds are the prime target for Mortal wounds. A unit of 15 Cultists laughs about a Smites because they would've lost those models against basically any other source of damage anyway. A unit of 5 Marines gets hurt by that same Smite a LOT because the unit is much smaller and was relying on their armour to survive.

 

Funnily enough they changed T'au Seeker Missiles, the army with almost no sources for Mortal wounds, from dealing Mortal wounds in the Index to being S8 AP-2 D1d6 which made them statistically better as anti-tank weapon tho lol

 

tl;dr there is nothing inherently wrong with Mortal wounds, however there is too much of it in the game and especially Marines suffer a lot from it

 

 

 

That being said, you say that the TSons player was throwing smites at your Black Templars for 6 turns. That means the game overall wasn't too terribly onesided despite that. Also TSons are supposed to dominate the psychic phase most games anyway, even if you have psykers to defend against them. That's kinda their thing after all. ^^

[Brother Captain Ed]

Mortal wounds are an 8th Edition solution to a 7th Edition problem.

 

I wish they'd dial them back.

[MARK0SIAN]

Mortal wounds are an 8th Edition solution to a 7th Edition problem.

 

I wish they'd dial them back.

Well said. I agree, 8th edition just does not have the kind of unkillable Deathstars with rerolling 2+ invulnerable saves followed by rerolling 3+ FNP saves wandering around. 8th edition also has multi-damage weapons which makes the FNP saves that do exist far less potent than they used to be.

 

Mortal wounds should be far less common than they are and shouldn’t be used as a lazy way to make certain weapons more potent or given to easy psychic powers.

 

The other problem I have with them, particularly their prevalence in the psychic phase, is that armies that are good at generating mortal wounds (and other psychic powers) don’t pay for it.

 

Yes they pay the points cost associated with that unit but if an army is good at the psychic phase/generating mortal wounds, they don’t pay for it with weaknesses in other areas of the game. For example, if an army is generally very good at shooting, they usually underperform in Close combat or vice versa. There is no counterbalance like that mechanism for armies that are great in the psychic phase or great at generating mortal wounds.

[kombatwombat]

Mortal wounds are an 8th Edition solution to a 7th Edition problem.

My sentiments exactly. (I think I’ve even posted those exact words here before.)

 

The bogeyman of the T5 2++/3+++ rerollable invisible superhero tanking everything for a huge deathstar was a legitimate issue in 7th that Mortal Wounds are designed to counter. But 8th has a moratorium on any invul save better than 3++ (except for the Dark Eldar ‘once you fail it it’s gone’), no FNP better than 4+++ (which is exceedingly rare) and with the release of the Thousand Sons Codex a ban on anything rerolling saves. Coupled with the change to how Characters work and the issue simply doesn’t exist any more, but they kept Mortal Wounds as a counter.

 

Mortal Wounds completely subvert the idea that Toughness, Armour and Invulnerable Saves have any value attached to them, but units still pay through the nose for them. I know of no unit in 8th with such defences as to justify the existence of Mortal Wounds.

 

Far worse is that Mortal Wounds as a mechanic are deliberately anti-fun. The reason is player agency - the idea that you have some control over what is happening to your models. Even if you have to roll boxcars to save your model from an incoming attack, you get the joy of hope; the suspense of watching the dice roll hoping for a 6 or a double 6 or something gives you a chance to feel like you’re involved in the process. Mortal Wounds take that away from you, and you’re relegated to being a spectator of your own army. After you’ve exhausted your psychic defences, your opponent’s psychic phase just becomes ‘ok, I’m going to go grab a drink, you just remove my models while I’m away.’ The balance issues around Mortal Wounds are annoying, but taking away from the other player’s fun is unforgivable.

 

It’s not just the psychic phase, either. My Cataphracti Captain can deflect a direct hit from a Volcano Cannon, but a  ramshackle Trukk exploding near him cuts through all of his defences effortlessly? Yeah, you can right off with that, sunshine. I could see Mortal Wounds being on things like the primary weapons of a Titan - nothing short of a Void Shield is going to save you from a Belicosa pointed your way - but that they’re on things like blight grenades and charging jump troops is just farcical.

 

If Mortal Wounds were a way to represent the devastation of a terrifyingly powerful weapon designed to down a Titan or one or two psychic powers to counter particular units then they’d be a nice addition to the game. But as every psychic power and every other unit’s gimmick they take away from the game rather than adding to it.

[Finkmilkana]

While I on one hand agree that MW are badly implemented and very painful especially for marines, I on the other hand do believe a (widespread) way of dealing with invulns is necessary. While GW did crack down most 2+ invulns (a few still exist), there are quite a few armies that do run around with lots and lots of 3++. Some way of dealing MW (or stuff like nullzone) simply is the only cost efficient way in the game to deal with these (especially if they are combined with 2+ armor). Now I believe there would be a lot more elegant ways for GW to approach this ( like giving some weapons an AP value again invulns, giving MW a strength value, or giving more factions (expensive) ways to ignore invulns).

But with the current state of the game and assuming GW won’t change fundamentals, widespread MW are a necessary evil. That they counter marines with their lack of cheap bodies is just a sad side effect. And probably easier to rectify by buffing marines than by changing every faction.

[MARK0SIAN]

While I on one hand agree that MW are badly implemented and very painful especially for marines, I on the other hand do believe a (widespread) way of dealing with invulns is necessary. While GW did crack down most 2+ invulns (a few still exist), there are quite a few armies that do run around with lots and lots of 3++. Some way of dealing MW (or stuff like nullzone) simply is the only cost efficient way in the game to deal with these (especially if they are combined with 2+ armor). Now I believe there would be a lot more elegant ways for GW to approach this ( like giving some weapons an AP value again invulns, giving MW a strength value, or giving more factions (expensive) ways to ignore invulns).

But with the current state of the game and assuming GW won’t change fundamentals, widespread MW are a necessary evil. That they counter marines with their lack of cheap bodies is just a sad side effect. And probably easier to rectify by buffing marines than by changing every faction.

I would disagree that there needs to be a widespread counter to invulnerable saves. There should be counters to them yes, but those counters shouldn’t be so easily accessible as mortal wounds are. Invulnerable saves are meant to be formidable, giving every army an easy and cheap way to counter them makes them worthless.

 

Now if you’re arguing that there needs to be an easy way to counter invulnerable saves because the game has too many invulnerable saves then I’m more inclined to agree there, but the answer to that is give out less invulnerable saves. For example, army wide invulnerable saves shouldn’t be a thing outside of really elite forces like Custodes who pay a lot for them. Daemon armies and similar forces though should just have a regular save like everyone else.

 

The other thing with mortal wounds is that I’m totally against the principle that any rule/ability/weapon should leave the other player as simply a spectator to the match with no involvement in what’s going on. Currently, especially in the psychic phase, mortal wounds are just something that ‘happens to’ a player, they’ve got no influence, no involvement, no participation whatsoever in what’s going on.

 

If, for example, a player could literally leave the room for a whole phase of the game, get a drink and come back at the end and the result would be exactly the same as if he’d stayed in the room and watched what was going on then that is terrible for the game and that’s where we are with mortal wounds and indeed the whole psychic phase for a lot of armies unless they have access to a lot of FNP saves.

[Finkmilkana]

Yes, I meant the latter. I’m very much not a fan of MW. If there would be few invuln saves around, it would be fine. But once you have stuff like whole armies of wulfen with 3++, 5+++ and -1 to hit or infantry hordes with a single knight with 3++, or 2++ Elektro priests, and loads of vehicles/infatry with a 4++, MW become a necessary evil.

 

Already now, having an invuln (even if it’s only 4+) is almost a requirement for elite units to be good since they completely counter stuff like plasma. If mass MW would not be at least something you have to feasibly ‘expect’ to run into, invuln heavy armies would dominate even more than they do now. And normal marines would be even worse in comparison.

[kombatwombat]

While I on one hand agree that MW are badly implemented and very painful especially for marines, I on the other hand do believe a (widespread) way of dealing with invulns is necessary. While GW did crack down most 2+ invulns (a few still exist), there are quite a few armies that do run around with lots and lots of 3++. Some way of dealing MW (or stuff like nullzone) simply is the only cost efficient way in the game to deal with these (especially if they are combined with 2+ armor). Now I believe there would be a lot more elegant ways for GW to approach this ( like giving some weapons an AP value again invulns, giving MW a strength value, or giving more factions (expensive) ways to ignore invulns).

But with the current state of the game and assuming GW won’t change fundamentals, widespread MW are a necessary evil. That they counter marines with their lack of cheap bodies is just a sad side effect. And probably easier to rectify by buffing marines than by changing every faction.

The thing is though, by far and away the most common way to get a 2+/3++ (and to my knowledge, the only way to get such in a multi-model unit) is with Storm Shield Terminators. And SS Terminators are so far down the pecking order of ‘dangerous units’ as to be irrelevant from a game design point of view.

 

Mortal Wounds are a necessary counter to a problem that simply doesn’t exist. I’d be astounded if you could name a unit that is so efficient in terms of defence that MWs are a necessary counter-tactic. Remember that many armies (such as my own Custodes and Black Templars) have no ready access to Mortal Wounds. That they are not helpless against any army pretty clearly tells that there is no requirement for Mortal Wounds to exist in this game.

[WarriorFish]

I agree it's also a bit of a problem with the psychic phase, as aside from being an entire phase of the game not everyone can access (and those that can have degrees of ownership, too, to further create divides) it's where a lot of MWs come from. How many players only remove models during psychic phases? Feels like insult to injury and even less fun for it

 

I think there's an element of creep at play with regards to how many things can generate MWs now which doesn't help. I don't think they'd feel anywhere near as bad if they weren't so common, so I agree it's proliferation that's the real problem. It's also another boon to horde armies in 8th, and 8th is already pretty kind to them so it'd be nice if there was more of a balance.

 

 

At least I can say almost all of my MWs are from people blowing up my vehicles Perhaps Chapter Approved will have something to say about it, as unlikely as that may be?

[chapter master 454]

Perhaps the issue is more with that the others power are rarely better than those that deal mortal wounds because they are so flat and generic. Mortal wounds in their own right are a neat and healthy mechanic, a method of bypassing harder targets but should be less effective against mass targets. While it may be a solution to an issue of the former edition, it does have merit in that it does help counteract (or supposed to) defences. I personally find it bad design that the FNP can ignore these wounds in the first place as the idea of mortal wounds is "No saves". It is an attack that would end you regardless of how much bio-engineered silliness you have with the lethal dosages of painkillers you have running through you body, your head just got blown off or your brain fried. You are dead.

 

There needs to be serious tweaking to how mortal wounds work as their purpose is armour busters, not "get 1 wound, get one free!". To be honest, you need to overhaul EVERYTHING that is psychic related imo because all the powers are flat because I LOVED the psychic powers of 7th, some of them were really awesome but then we all look at invisibility and people say it was a bad idea. No, it was freaking awesome because some of those powers were just so varied. You went with the pyro-tree and your psyker felt like a pyrokinetic maniac, you went with the earthbender tree and you were hyucking terrain around. That is awesome.

 

8th edition suffers from things being homogenised, everything is the same really with a different coat of paint. Even Eldar's powers don't feel good, they don't feel like they are twisting fate that much anymore because what their powers do we see elsewhere. The psychic phase needs to the phase where the weird and odd happens, things that are directly in contradiction to game mechanics. Mortal wounds from snipers is fine but in the psychic phase I want to see some really odd stuff: Moving enemy units, creating new terrain features, moving terrain, causing mayhem with powers that leave areas of fire, powers that make you have to see if your units can keep their calm. I am just trying to come up with stuff on the fly here but each army's psychic phase really should be a moment of wonder and unique identity, not a measure of "oh, you only get 2 mortal wound powers? I have 4 plus I get to have re-rolls on this. My other army only has 3 mortal wounds but can give me cover, -1 to being hit and even move twice". So flat, boring and outright uninspired...

 

I went on a big tangent...take it as you will

[MARK0SIAN]

Perhaps the issue is more with that the others power are rarely better than those that deal mortal wounds because they are so flat and generic. Mortal wounds in their own right are a neat and healthy mechanic, a method of bypassing harder targets but should be less effective against mass targets. While it may be a solution to an issue of the former edition, it does have merit in that it does help counteract (or supposed to) defences. I personally find it bad design that the FNP can ignore these wounds in the first place as the idea of mortal wounds is "No saves". It is an attack that would end you regardless of how much bio-engineered silliness you have with the lethal dosages of painkillers you have running through you body, your head just got blown off or your brain fried. You are dead.

 

There needs to be serious tweaking to how mortal wounds work as their purpose is armour busters, not "get 1 wound, get one free!". To be honest, you need to overhaul EVERYTHING that is psychic related imo because all the powers are flat because I LOVED the psychic powers of 7th, some of them were really awesome but then we all look at invisibility and people say it was a bad idea. No, it was freaking awesome because some of those powers were just so varied. You went with the pyro-tree and your psyker felt like a pyrokinetic maniac, you went with the earthbender tree and you were hyucking terrain around. That is awesome.

 

8th edition suffers from things being homogenised, everything is the same really with a different coat of paint. Even Eldar's powers don't feel good, they don't feel like they are twisting fate that much anymore because what their powers do we see elsewhere. The psychic phase needs to the phase where the weird and odd happens, things that are directly in contradiction to game mechanics. Mortal wounds from snipers is fine but in the psychic phase I want to see some really odd stuff: Moving enemy units, creating new terrain features, moving terrain, causing mayhem with powers that leave areas of fire, powers that make you have to see if your units can keep their calm. I am just trying to come up with stuff on the fly here but each army's psychic phase really should be a moment of wonder and unique identity, not a measure of "oh, you only get 2 mortal wound powers? I have 4 plus I get to have re-rolls on this. My other army only has 3 mortal wounds but can give me cover, -1 to being hit and even move twice". So flat, boring and outright uninspired...

 

I went on a big tangent...take it as you will

The psychic phase does not need making even more powerful in an edition where several armies are mere spectators to the entire phase.

 

I would also disagree that you should just be able to bypass harder targets. Normally those harder targets have invested a lot of points to make them hard to kill. Just being able to bypass that with a cheap model casting an unbelievably cheap power is simply not balanced. Hard targets do need a counter but that counter should require a similar investment in terms of points and definitely shouldnt be as easy to perform as roll a 5 on 2D6.

[Khornestar]

I guess this isn’t a terribly meaningful comment, but as long as they aren’t being spammed I have no problem with mortal wounds. I didn’t like psykers having to roll to manifest a stupid/pathetic shooting power that can then still miss. To me, smite very well represents the potency of psykers on the battlefield.

 

But then, malefic lord spam was stupid, as is smite spam in its other forms. I’m a bit out of touch right now; didn’t they implement a rule that makes it harder to cast multiple smites?

 

As for the points investment, I do agree that it shouldn’t be easy to kill superheavies or whatever, but 500 points of multiple models vs 500 points of one model should be able to do something. That’s like, 2 or 3 smites for CSM.

[Closet Skeleton]

But then, malefic lord spam was stupid, as is smite spam in its other forms. I’m a bit out of touch right now; didn’t they implement a rule that makes it harder to cast multiple smites?

 

 

Thousand Sons can ignore it. In practice they generally don't because actually spamming Aspiring Sorcerers is far from competitive and they have tons of better powers but apparently some players find it hard to deal with.

 

Mortal wounds are a bit too effective against small model count marines but on the other hand so is pretty much everything. Psychic heavy armies should dominate against armies with no psychic defense, just like tank armies should be good against armies with no anti-tank. Even from a narrative perspective why is your army not allying with the Culexus temple or the Sisters of Silence when it goes up against a sorcerer cabal.

 

Mortal Wounds are a necessary counter to a problem that simply doesn’t exist. I’d be astounded if you could name a unit that is so efficient in terms of defence that MWs are a necessary counter-tactic.

 

 

Wraiths. That was easy.

[MARK0SIAN]

 

 

But then, malefic lord spam was stupid, as is smite spam in its other forms. I’m a bit out of touch right now; didn’t they implement a rule that makes it harder to cast multiple smites?

 

Thousand Sons can ignore it. In practice they generally don't because actually spamming Aspiring Sorcerers is far from competitive and they have tons of better powers but apparently some players find it hard to deal with.

 

Mortal wounds are a bit too effective against small model count marines but on the other hand so is pretty much everything. Psychic heavy armies should dominate against armies with no psychic defense, just like tank armies should be good against armies with no anti-tank. Even from a narrative perspective why is your army not allying with the Culexus temple or the Sisters of Silence when it goes up against a sorcerer cabal?

Why they don’t ally with those forces is because of the absolute mess that GW have made of allying in those types of force.

 

Psychic armies should only dominate non psychic armies in the psychic phase, not overall otherwise there’s 7 main armies that may as well just go home.

 

Comparing it to tanks against people without anti-tank is not a fair analogy because every army has some form of anti-tank, if you didn’t bring any that’s your choice. However not every army has psychic defences or powers so there is no element of choice.

[Panzer]

 

Psychic armies should only dominate non psychic armies in the psychic phase, not overall otherwise there’s 7 main armies that may as well just go home.

 

 

I disagree there. Psychic armies should be able to dominate any army that's not just as focussed around the psychic phase or else there would be no point in playing a psychic army in the first place. That's like saying a melee army shouldn't dominate in the melee phase or a gunline army shouldn't dominate in the shooting phase.

And about the "may as well just go home" ... please, I can play just fine with my T'au and I get dominated in the psychic phase by literally any army that takes even just a single psyker.

[Charlo]

A discussion we've had before, but one that keeps on being relevant.

 

MWs are too prevalent and with armour modifiers also being a thing it really punishes elite armies.

 

I'm a big believer that while the Psychic phase is better than 7th (I suppose...) the fact that 99% of the Witchfires are just mortal wound engines is, not great game design or particularly interesting.

[MARK0SIAN]

 

 

Psychic armies should only dominate non psychic armies in the psychic phase, not overall otherwise there’s 7 main armies that may as well just go home.

 

 

I disagree there. Psychic armies should be able to dominate any army that's not just as focussed around the psychic phase or else there would be no point in playing a psychic army in the first place. That's like saying a melee army shouldn't dominate in the melee phase or a gunline army shouldn't dominate in the shooting phase.

And about the "may as well just go home" ... please, I can play just fine with my T'au and I get dominated in the psychic phase by literally any army that takes even just a single psyker.

Sorry, maybe I’m reading you wrong but it sounds like you’re agreeing with me. I said psychic armies SHOULD dominate non-psychic armies in the psychic phase. I was arguing that they shouldn’t just blanket dominate a non-psychic army for the whole match which was the argument in the post I was replying to.

 

That was where my reference to going home came in, that if a psychic army dominated the whole match against a non-psychic one then they just wouldn’t be able to compete.

[kombatwombat]

Wraiths. That was easy.

Wraiths are tough, sure, but not so tough as to require Mortal Wounds to exist. My Custodes and Templars have almost no way to put our Mortal Wounds, and yet I don’t auto-lose to an army with Wraiths, so MWs must not be a necessary counter. Hell, Wraiths had the same stats in 7th Ed before MWs existed and weren’t a problem then. Any multi-damage weapon that relies more on volume of fire than AP is an effective tool against Wraiths.

[BlackTriton]

Multi damage weapon that have volume of fire is its own problem though.

These weapon are literally the most efficient in the game.

There are so much multi damage that if you have less than 4 wound you might as well have 1.

Unless you are tanking mw, ironically.

[Closet Skeleton]

Sorry, maybe I’m reading you wrong but it sounds like you’re agreeing with me. I said psychic armies SHOULD dominate non-psychic armies in the psychic phase. I was arguing that they shouldn’t just blanket dominate a non-psychic army for the whole match which was the argument in the post I was replying to.

 

That was where my reference to going home came in, that if a psychic army dominated the whole match against a non-psychic one then they just wouldn’t be able to compete.

 

 

Guard shooting does that against me no matter what army I face, Psychic powers are a lot easier to counter than basilisks. Fighting an army you can't win against sucks but psychic powers and mortal wound spam just aren't the nastiest example in the game right now. With Black Templars I can at least throw a rhino with armour of contempt in front of smite spam to buy time for a turn, that doesn't work against basilisks.

 

I don't buy the idea that an army can dominate in a phase and not win the game, that's literally how optimization works. An army built to completely dominate a phase tend to crush their opponents unless they run into their counter (Alaitoc for gunlines, Hive Fleet Kronos for shooting armies, dark eldar wyche spam or indirect fire spam for movement focused armies, catachans for assault armies).

[MARK0SIAN]

 

 

Sorry, maybe I’m reading you wrong but it sounds like you’re agreeing with me. I said psychic armies SHOULD dominate non-psychic armies in the psychic phase. I was arguing that they shouldn’t just blanket dominate a non-psychic army for the whole match which was the argument in the post I was replying to.

 

That was where my reference to going home came in, that if a psychic army dominated the whole match against a non-psychic one then they just wouldn’t be able to compete.

 

Guard shooting does that against me no matter what army I face, Psychic powers are a lot easier to counter than basilisks. Fighting an army you can't win against sucks but psychic powers and mortal wound spam just aren't the nastiest example in the game right now. With Black Templars I can at least throw a rhino with armour of contempt in front of smite spam to buy time for a turn, that doesn't work against basilisks.

 

I don't buy the idea that an army can dominate in a phase and not win the game, that's literally how optimization works. An army built to completely dominate a phase tend to crush their opponents unless they run into their counter (Alaitoc for gunlines, Hive Fleet Kronos for shooting armies, dark eldar wyche spam or indirect fire spam for movement focused armies, catachans for assault armies).

But if you subscribe to the idea that if an army can dominate a phase it should win the match, how can the game possibly be balanced if only some armies have access to a specific phase? The only conclusion is that armies with no psykers can never win against psyker armies. Therefore, for several armies, its pointless putting them on the table.

 

Personally I don’t subscribe to that idea. The whole point of asymmetrical balance is that different armies are good at different parts of the game and those armies should have an even chance of winning, assuming the skill of the players is at a similar level. Now I admit we are nowhere near that now but surely that should be the goal we are working towards.

[Brother Captain Ed]

I like mortal wounds as a mechanic. As the scope of our battles expands, it makes sense that invulnerable saves should, sometimes, be a little less invulnerable. The problem is the insane ubiquitousness of them.

 

Vehicle explodes. Mortal wounds.

Any psychic mind bullet. Mortal wounds.

Generic weapons here, common special abilities there, stratagems all over the place. Mortal wounds.

 

It's too much. And it's unnecessary since defense stacking has been largely removed. Smite should not deal mortal wounds. Reasonable AP wounds, sure. But not instant damage. Same for explosions. There are lots of things that should deal mortal wounds. The Emperor's Sword. C'tan shenanigans. Certain psychic powers. Mortarion's aura of deathy-ness. Relic options like the Banebolts of Erexia. Some superheavy weaponry.

 

But the sheer routine nature of "Oh that's a d3 mortal wounds" is too much. They should be much rarer, imho.

[Panzer]

I think the most stupid case of random Mortal wounds I've found is this editions impact rule of chariots.

Instead of having x amount of autohits at strength Y you now have to roll for each model in range a d6 and on a 6 it deals a Mortal wound. It's not just weaker it's also a completely unnecessary change ... plus it looks weird having chariots drifting into the enemy just to get more models into range lol