My gripe with mortal wounds

[kombatwombat]

I think MWs should be the sole preserve of Lords of War, along with one or two Psychic Powers and a handful of Relics. Things that are generally rare and difficult to get. Every time a vehicle explodes or a squad of Inceptors charge I’m left thinking ‘why did we ever leave 7th Edition?!’

[Closet Skeleton]

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.

 

 

There's always going to be armies that can't deal with certain other armies, doesn't matter how balanced the asymmetries are. If a melee army with no anti-tank weapons has to rush a bunker line then it shouldn't have a chance. I'm not that bothered if Thousand Sons psyker spam can wipe out low wound count elite armies because that's about the only advantage TS have. If the one guy you play regularly with has an army that's a forgone conclusion against you then that sucks but its also a much wider problem then any one mechanic.

 

The stuff psychic powers can do isn't unique with stratagems, chapter tactics and data sheet rules doing a lot of the same stuff if not often better. Necron Elimination protocols or Vengeance for Cadia are a lot less fathing about than Guide and Doom.

 

 

I think MWs should be the sole preserve of Lords of War, along with one or two Psychic Powers and a handful of Relics. Things that are generally rare and difficult to get. Every time a vehicle explodes or a squad of Inceptors charge I’m left thinking ‘why did we ever leave 7th Edition?!’

 

The advantage of mortal wounds is that its reliable. Against some targets hammer of wrath at S4 AP- amounts to the same as 6+ mortal wounds. Having an ability that rarely triggers on a 6+ and then has to make extra rolls to see if it does any damage just slows the game down, when a vehicle explodes on a 6 you now know something is going to happen, in earlier editions it was often meaningless. Compared to sniper rifles those Skitari guns that deal 2 damage on a 6 to wound that have to be saved against separately are just busywork most of the time.

 

If Daemon Shell or Implant attack weren't mortal wounds they wouldn't be worth CP.

 

Seeing more and more mortal wound abilities across new codexes get samey and unexciting after a while but when you're actually playing the game then knowing straight up what a stratagem, power or ability is going to or at least probably do just allows for more tactical play.

[Panzer]

 

 

I think MWs should be the sole preserve of Lords of War, along with one or two Psychic Powers and a handful of Relics. Things that are generally rare and difficult to get. Every time a vehicle explodes or a squad of Inceptors charge I’m left thinking ‘why did we ever leave 7th Edition?!’

 

The advantage of mortal wounds is that its reliable. Against some targets hammer of wrath at S4 AP- amounts to the same as 6+ mortal wounds. Having an ability that rarely triggers on a 6+ and then has to make extra rolls to see if it does any damage just slows the game down, when a vehicle explodes on a 6 you now know something is going to happen, in earlier editions it was often meaningless.

 

 

That's why such an ability wouldn't just trigger on a 6+ but instead it would trigger always and hit the target automatically. The to-wound roll and save rolls is what would determine whether it has any effect, not any trigger-roll.

[Closet Skeleton]

 

That's why such an ability wouldn't just trigger on a 6+ but instead it would trigger always and hit the target automatically. The to-wound roll and save rolls is what would determine whether it has any effect, not any trigger-roll.

 

 

If vehicles did 1d6 S3 AP- hits automatically every time they died that would end up crazy pretty quick.

[Panzer]

 

 

That's why such an ability wouldn't just trigger on a 6+ but instead it would trigger always and hit the target automatically. The to-wound roll and save rolls is what would determine whether it has any effect, not any trigger-roll.

 

 

If vehicles did 1d6 S3 AP- hits automatically every time they died that would end up crazy pretty quick.

 

 

I'd be fine with that. Tho I mostly meant hammer of wrath and didn't think much about exploding vehicles to be fair. ^^

[MARK0SIAN]

 

 

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.

 

There's always going to be armies that can't deal with certain other armies, doesn't matter how balanced the asymmetries are. If a melee army with no anti-tank weapons has to rush a bunker line then it shouldn't have a chance. I'm not that bothered if Thousand Sons psyker spam can wipe out low wound count elite armies because that's about the only advantage TS have. If the one guy you play regularly with has an army that's a forgone conclusion against you then that sucks but its also a much wider problem then any one mechanic.

 

The stuff psychic powers can do isn't unique with stratagems, chapter tactics and data sheet rules doing a lot of the same stuff if not often better. Necron Elimination protocols or Vengeance for Cadia are a lot less fathing about than Guide and Doom.

True, there will be always be an army that is simply kryptonite to your own one but you’re talking in far more general terms. You’re saying that any psyker army should be kryptonite to any non-psyker army and that’s just taking that way too far.

 

And a huge part of my problem with that principle is the fact that the psychic phase is not available to all the armies. I’m not arguing it should be but in your example, that melee army will have access to some anti-tank weapons. Them not having a chance is because of the list itself, not because they simply do not have the tools to compete, which is the problem with the psychic phase.

 

A melee army should try to play to their advantages and get into combat and if they can do that against a shooty army then they should win. A shooty army will try to keep them away and blow them off the board and if they can avoid combat then they should win. I’m fine with that as a principle. It’s the principle that, if I can take part in a phase but you can’t, I should automatically win. The non-psyker army has no way to try and play the game on their terms when it comes to that.

 

Dominating a single phase in a game with 4 phases (where armies are asymmetrically balances to be good at different phases) should not mean an auto win for any army.

[Warhead01]

I don't really find an issue with Mortal wounds.  so far for all of this edition I have been looking through my index for my good list. I finally found it. My last index list has loads and load of mortal wound generation. 2 models can cast smite. 2 more models shooting has a random chance to inflict mortal wounds, 1 in shooting and 1 in close combat 6 more model dropping bombs, 4 of those on a 4+ and 2 on a 5+. 
I admit it's cheesy to just make the other player take wound or pick up models.  But in a way I think it's balanced( the mechanic not my list.) against other weapons plinking off invulnerable saves.  In a lot of ways this list was made because of who I play against and how they play.  Obviously it hurts the elite small model count army, like Marines, more than the large model count armies and I am doubtful it would have been very good against Knights. 

[Marshal_von_Speer]

If mortal wounds really were meant to counter high invuln "Deathstars" then why are they so prevalent with psychic powers? A fair amount of armies entirely lacks any form of psychic capabilites and for example smite targets the closest enemy unit. So even if you fielded a Deathstar in 7th ed's sense you could easily avoid it.

 

I'm not denying that psyker themed armies like Thousand Sons, Grey Knights (and to an extent Eldar) should dominate the psychic phase. But they can do so without dealing x amount of autodamage every turn. They should just stick with the general gameplay mechanics and deal x amount of hits, damage y, to every model in the target unit if casted successfully (make it 1D3 or 1D6 if the target has the , or whatever keyword).

 

There's a whole lot of other different sources of mortal wounds which I find silly, but at least you have to pay (CPs that is) and roll for them, which makes them less ubiquitous.

 

On top of that the whole mortal wounds mechanic speeds up the game in a negative way due to adding to the already high general damage output in 8th ed which regularly leads to games lasting no more than 3-4 turns.

 

 

[Commander Dawnstar]

If mortal wounds really were meant to counter high invuln "Deathstars" then why are they so prevalent with psychic powers?

 

I think the (thoroughly unhelpful) answer to this question is quite simply that 8th draws on a lot of ideas from Age of Sigmar and the same is true of magic in AoS.

[Ficinus]

 

 

If mortal wounds really were meant to counter high invuln "Deathstars" then why are they so prevalent with psychic powers?

I think the (thoroughly unhelpful) answer to this question is quite simply that 8th draws on a lot of ideas from Age of Sigmar and the same is true of magic in AoS.

While it's true that AoS magic deals mortal wounds, there are lots of sources of mortal wounds in AoS besides magic, namely that many units generate mortal wounds on sixes to hit/wound. In 8th ed 40k, I feel like the only sources of mortal wounds are magic, exploding vehicles, and a few special characters (like Mortarion). Maybe that's just my experience, though.

[Finkmilkana]

While it's true that AoS magic deals mortal wounds, there are lots of sources of mortal wounds in AoS besides magic, namely that many units generate mortal wounds on sixes to hit/wound. In 8th ed 40k, I feel like the only sources of mortal wounds are magic, exploding vehicles, and a few special characters (like Mortarion). Maybe that's just my experience, though.

There are actually quite a few of these units in 40k too (spore launchers, Elektro priests, termite drills, the knights warlord trait, relics etc). It’s just that marine don’t have many (besides stratagems).

[Panzer]

AoS is also mostly melee and games mostly involve running towards eachother and then smack faces around until the game ends according to my experience so it's not very comparable to 40k imo. ^^

[Commander Dawnstar]

While obviously the game around them is different, I made the comparison between 8th Edition's Psychic Phase and AoS' spells and casting system because I feel it's pretty apparent how the latter influenced the design of the former and led to the prevalence of Mortal Wounds in 8th's Psychic Powers. The ubiquitous Smite reflects all Wizards in AoS having access to Mystic Bolt for example.

 

I wasn't looking to start a discussion about how the two games use Mortal Wounds differently, merely giving my personal opinion on why so many of 8th's Psychic Powers deal Mortal Wounds.

[spessmarine]

mortals are too common, basically anytime something needs to be special or something it gets a rule along the lines of "mortal on a 6+"

from railguns to inceptor charges and so on

psyker tree is all mortals too, the other issue is it intrinsically is best against high points/wound units, resulting in the entire idea working against elite models

 

d3 mortals, you might remove 3 guardsmen or a 120+ point Centurion, the entire mortal wounds concept screws over stuff like Centurions in all cases

[Montford]

Well, I for one have no objection to mortal wounds. It provides a mechanism to apply some damage to units/ models which would otherwise be nigh-undamagable.

[spessmarine]

Well, I for one have no objection to mortal wounds. It provides a mechanism to apply some damage to units/ models which would otherwise be nigh-undamagable.

 

Given invulns lose reroll and are capped at 3++, FnP stacking is stomped out, higher Sv suffer under the new AP system, not really feeling this complaint about "nigh-undamagable".

Some stuff is supposed to be extremely tanky and not shot off the table turn one. Character rules are probably a larger issue in that regard.

[Finkmilkana]

d3 mortals, you might remove 3 guardsmen or a 120+ point Centurion, the entire mortal wounds concept screws over stuff like Centurions in all cases

So might a melta to the face, with the only difference being that that would only kill 1 guardsmen. The problem here is that centurions have pitifully few wounds for 120 points and entirely rely on their 2+ save that is not worth much with all the -ap in the current game. Hell, even 2 guardsmen with plasma have a better chance to kill him than a single smite and cost far less than a single psyker.

 

The main gripe I personally have with MW is that it is at the same time the “anti tough guy weapon” (ignoring invuln saves) and an “anti group weapon” (wounds spill over). This means that MEQ (who are tough guys that operate in groups) get hit double compared to anyone else. It would be better for the game if those two properties were on different weapons (say for example MW ignore defenses, but blast weapons spill over).

[Panzer]

 

d3 mortals, you might remove 3 guardsmen or a 120+ point Centurion, the entire mortal wounds concept screws over stuff like Centurions in all cases

So might a melta to the face, with the only difference being that that would only kill 1 guardsmen.

 

 

Also that a Melta would have to hit, wound, pass saves and has only half the range of a smite lol

[Slasher956]

Just to put it out there... Craftworlds can do Mortal wounds in most phases (4 out of 6)

 

Movement - Swooping hawks grenade packs

Shooting - Ranger Long Rifles, Waver Serpent Sheilds

Psychic - Smite, Executioner

charge - 

Melee - Dire Swords

Moral - 

 

Out of these .... the melee are the hardest to do, as you have to get there then hit then roll a 6 to wound.  Next hardest is actually the psychic due to the range (18") 

 

The other thing is most psychic mortal wounds are normally against the closest target so you can 'funnel' them towards either chaff units OR units with enough wounds or regen to tank them.

[Panzer]

The other thing is most psychic mortal wounds are normally against the closest target so you can 'funnel' them towards either chaff units OR units with enough wounds or regen to tank them.

While that's true, especially Marines can barely utilise that aside from sacrifcing a Rhino since they simply don't have cheap screens to throw infront of enemy psyker. Armies like CSM and AM have much less problems with Smite due cheap Cultists and Guardsmen who soak up Smite for days without it hurting the armys performance.

[Marshal_von_Speer]

 

 

d3 mortals, you might remove 3 guardsmen or a 120+ point Centurion, the entire mortal wounds concept screws over stuff like Centurions in all cases

So might a melta to the face, with the only difference being that that would only kill 1 guardsmen.

 

 

Also that a Melta would have to hit, wound, pass saves and has only half the range of a smite lol

 

 

And the points costs are factored in (pts balance is a different problem though).

 

 

 

Just to put it out there... Craftworlds can do Mortal wounds in most phases (4 out of 6)

 

Movement - Swooping hawks grenade packs

Shooting - Ranger Long Rifles, Waver Serpent Sheilds

Psychic - Smite, Executioner

charge - 

Melee - Dire Swords

Moral - 

 

Out of these .... the melee are the hardest to do, as you have to get there then hit then roll a 6 to wound.  Next hardest is actually the psychic due to the range (18") 

 

The other thing is most psychic mortal wounds are normally against the closest target so you can 'funnel' them towards either chaff units OR units with enough wounds or regen to tank them.

 

I disagree. I rarely see psykers having issues to find a target for ther psychic powers or smite in particular. Especially in objective driven games, where you can't allow yourself to just sit back and/or hide. I personally find smite the easyiest and most reliable way of dealing damage.

[Finkmilkana]

Also that a Melta would have to hit, wound, pass saves and has only half the range of a smite lol

And the smite has to manifest, not be denied and have the centurion be stupid enough to be the closest model.

Assuming the melta came from a BS3 model (without any rerolls) a single melta shot (outside of melta range) has a 0.24% chance to kill a centurion, while a smite (without anyone trying to deny it!) also only has a 0.31% chance. If the melta is in melta range (hard to do, true, but it’s also hard to get a centurion to be the closest model) it has a 0.32% chance. Same when the melta has reroll to hits instead. And a melta is usually far cheaper than smite.

Centurions with their current stats are just bad no matter how you look at it. And by extension the same is true for marines that don’t ally. 8th is simply from its very foundation build on the idea that you have cheap throwaway screens, be it to counter psychic powers, soak meele charges or simply to hold objectives.

[MARK0SIAN]

Just to put it out there... Craftworlds can do Mortal wounds in most phases (4 out of 6)

 

Movement - Swooping hawks grenade packs

Shooting - Ranger Long Rifles, Waver Serpent Sheilds

Psychic - Smite, Executioner

charge -

Melee - Dire Swords

Moral -

 

Out of these .... the melee are the hardest to do, as you have to get there then hit then roll a 6 to wound. Next hardest is actually the psychic due to the range (18")

 

The other thing is most psychic mortal wounds are normally against the closest target so you can 'funnel' them towards either chaff units OR units with enough wounds or regen to tank them.

I wouldn’t worry, CA will no doubt buff Eldar so they can do mortal wounds in all 6 phases ;)

[Finkmilkana]

To be fair, marines can also do MW in 4 phases. It’s just that most of them are very limited and don’t really impact the game that much.

[UnkyHamHam]

To be fair, marines can also do MW in 4 phases. It’s just that most of them are very limited and don’t really impact the game that much.

I think 5 phases. Inceptors, Centurions, Ironclads, and Land Raiders can cause them in the charge phase I believe.