New edition and new units. How will they affect Ultras?

[Ishagu]

Fly keyword no longer lets you shoot after leaving melee. Our Chapter Tactic just became a lot more relevant.

Is that confirmed? That's a big change to the game!

[Toxichobbit]

 

Fly keyword no longer lets you shoot after leaving melee. Our Chapter Tactic just became a lot more relevant.

Is that confirmed? That's a big change to the game!

 

Yup. confirmed here.

 

"The largest challenge for the T’au Empire in the new edition is the change to the Fly keyword. It no longer offers units the ability to Fall Back and shoot, which means you need to put extra effort into screening enemy charges and preventing your critical shooting units from being engaged in combat. "

[Ishagu]

That is actually a substantial change I did not expect, and yes - it does give Ultras a comparative boost.

[Toxichobbit]

Yeah, it came out of the blue didn't it. I never really heard anyone complaining about Fly (plenty about Aeldar flyers, but that was a different issue), so I didn't think it was on their radar. It's an interesting change for sure. I think some armies are going to be hit quite hard by it.

[Paulinus]

Play tested a few rules last night in a friendly game. We used as many of the new rules that we could incorporate.

 

A few things.

 

CP generation for Ultramarines is pretty good. Guaranteed two CP a turn with Scryers gaze and the base 1 you get.

 

I outflanked Calgar with a unit of aggressors and some victrix Guard. Arriving turn 2, tactical doctrine, double shots with rerolls to hit was sick. I can’t see how they don’t increase the cost of Aggressors going forward.

 

Table size made the game feel much more condensed.

 

Blast rules never really came into effect as both sides had MSU. Vehicles shooting into melee made me pause on what to charge and try to tie up. admec chicken walkers with las cannons were scary to charge assuming you don’t kill them. Same for charging a an onager with a neutron laser. You think twice about wanting to try and tie those things up.

 

Overwatch strat is tricky. Not worth the 2CP unless you have a unit really tooled up for overwatch. I can see Salamaders and our Agressors using it assuming someone is foolish enough to charge those units. With our Tau like strat I can see a much more tactical game and placement to take advantage of overwatch.

 

Can’t wait to see more rules.

[Paulinus]

Yeah, it came out of the blue didn't it. I never really heard anyone complaining about Fly (plenty about Aeldar flyers, but that was a different issue), so I didn't think it was on their radar. It's an interesting change for sure. I think some armies are going to be hit quite hard by it.

Eldar, anything with jump packs. Other marine lists with repulsors, impulsors. Tau, Necron vehicles, destroyers, etc etc.

[Kallas]

Yeah, it came out of the blue didn't it. I never really heard anyone complaining about Fly (plenty about Aeldar flyers, but that was a different issue), so I didn't think it was on their radar. It's an interesting change for sure. I think some armies are going to be hit quite hard by it.

 

Nah, FLY has been pretty much definitively The Best rule to have for the whole of 8th Edition.

[Paulinus]

I’m wrapping my head around the new leadership and morale rules. So less punishing for large units now compared to what it is now. But now a slightly worse situation for MSU.

 

Seems our chapter trait helps deal with that better than most.

 

Not a huge advantage but still.

[Toxichobbit]

It's situationally less punishing to large units, but also situationally more punishing. in 8th, the casualties you do in the morale phase depended on how much damage you did to the enemies Ld (casualties + Ld modifiers). In 9th how much damage you do in the morale phase inversely depends on how many casualties you cause, plus how unlucky the opponent is.

 

Less punishing: Lots of casualties in 8th and you are going to suffer a large amount of extra casualties to morale. Lost of casualties in 9th and it's diminishing returns, because the more you kill the less models there are that need to be rolled for.

 

More punishing: A few casualties in 8th would have resulted in very little to no extra casualties in the morale phase. Where as very little casualties in 9th will result in more extra casualties as there's more of a squad left alive to roll.

 

Obviously there will be outliers, because it's a lot more random than it was. You might cause just 1 or 2 casualties to a horde unit and the opponent roll no 6s, so they come out unscathed. or you might kill 3/4 of a horde unit which on average might net you one extra casualty in the morale phase, only for the opponent to roll all 6s and loose the unit. I actually prefer this to the way 8th worked. The randomness removes the "calculation" option of doing enough casualties to a unit to know what the morale results will be. Now you have to gamble - do you wipe the unit out, or do you hedge your bets and spread the damage out to cause morale damage over multiple units hoping that the morale phase will render some of the combat ineffective?

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Morale in eighth is a joke. For example one Ork boi surives... you spend two cp to auto pass morale then some more to bring back all thirty. Necrons you have to delete an entire unit to make sure they go away for good... most armies cannot delete six destroyers unless your opponent makes a serious mistake and let’s them get hit by some serious melee - then they melt away.

 

Like I said is a joke you can’t talk around it, no amount of smoke and mirrors can change that fact. Attrition seems not enough to address the issue plus it’s potentially more punishing for elite armies. I’ll give it a go but really wanted something more painful and consistent.

Edited June 27, 2020 by Black Blow Fly

[Toxichobbit]

Morale will always be a joke when the majority of armies are either all MSU (so rarely care about morale) or have one of the many abilities (army wide rules or stratagems) that make them immune, which GW likes to hand out like candy. it also craps all over factions like Night Lords who rely on doing extra casualties to the enemy through morale. The new morale system is IMO better on paper, but in reality it doesn't matter how good the morale system is if most factions just don't interact with it.

[Paulinus]

The new Lord of War rules to include them in your list does not bode well for Guilliman unless he gets something to mitigate that.

 

3 CP is expensive.

[Toxichobbit]

Have we seen the bigger detachments yet - Battalion and Brigade? I honestly can't remember what's been shown at this point. Anyway, if we haven't it's possible that a Brigade includes a LoW slot, which would solve the Guilliman issue.

 

I'm going to say something that's probably really unpopular here, but I actually like LoW having a large CP cost. I don't really want to see them outside of really lbig games (including Knights, but that's not really feasible now that they're an independent faction). The caveat of course is that if LoW are going to cost a chunk of points plus a significant amount of CP, they need to be worth it. I think in a lot of cases at the moment, including Guilliman, that they aren't. So while I'd like to see them be more expensive to field in terms of both points/power and CP, I also want to see them buffed to reflect that. Basically, I'd love them to be rarer but more powerful.

 

I don't know how feasible that is though, as there's two factions of LoW running around being used in all sized games. They're going to be less rare than other LoW but equally powerful. That'd be a tricky one to balance. We don't really need the Castellan problem coming back.
 

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

You get the 3 cp refunded so it’s a wash for us.

[Toxichobbit]

I thought the CP refund was tied to the Warlord? So if you had Guilliman as the Warlord you'd be getting the CP back for the Super-Heavy Auxiliary Detachment, but still paying for the detachment(s) that includes the rest of the army. Or vice versa if Guilliman isn't the Warlord.

[Paulinus]

Yeah. But I like your point about a Brigade det maybe having a LOW slot. But that makes it very hard to fill out an effective brigade at 2000pts especially if the points go up.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

That’s a good point about being the Warlord... not sure if that’s the case.

[Cruor Vault]

Guilliman being the warlord doesn't refund the CP cost for the Super Heavy Auxiliary detachment.  That's only for Patrol/Battalion/Brigade detachments (and presumably Knight Super Heavy Detachments).

 

Bringing Guilliman (barring more rules drops) will cost -3CP for the Super Heavy Auxilliary -3CP for a Battalion (most likely detachment) +3CP for Guilliman's Inherent CP bonus for being the Warlord for a net of -3 CP.

 

Bringing Calgar gets you -3CP for a Battalion + 3CP refund for Warlord in Battalion + 2CP for Calgar's inherent CP bonus for a net of +2 CP.

 

As it stands Guilliman is a 5CP loss compared to Calgar.  Things were already tilted in Calgar's favor, I imagine something is going to change in the day one FAQs to make Guilliman playable again.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

[Captain Idaho]

I'm sure it'll be fine. Guilliman will be moved to HQ or have some FAQ rule.

[emperorpants]

Well, I highly doubt that a brigade will be any different than it is in 8th. Every other detachment has been exactly the same as it had been in 8th. For this reason it's VERY doubtful that a brigade will have a LOW slot.

 

The only hope for Guilliman is if he's moved to an hq slot or gets some other special rule, which is certainly possible, and I'm hopeful that this will happen. Honestly it better, or he is going to be totally unplayable.

 

If Guilliman is left as is.....well...hes honestly going to be even worse than feared. 3cp cost in addition to a points increase on a 350 point model? An aura that is replicated by something that is much cheaper points wise and gets you 5 extra cp? I won't list all of Guillimans disadvantages, but there are many. If he doesn't get something to mitigate this he might honestly be one of the worst and most inefficient units in the game. There will literally be no reason to take him over other models and he will simply be a handicap you'd only take if you wanted to activly disadvantage your army. This will be the case at pretty much any point value.

 

That said, I have to believe that gw would notice this. They have to be aware of how bad this would make Guilliman and I can't believe they would want him to be this bad. So my fingers are crossed that they move him to a hq slot or do something similar like Idaho said. I could certainly see them doing this to make sure Guilliman isn't relegated to the shelf.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Did you see the comment from FLG ?

[emperorpants]

Did you see the comment from FLG ?

No, what did it say?

 

Edit: just scrolled up and noticed it. Lol.

 

So does this possibly mean new detachments? What were they saying that in reference to?

Edited June 27, 2020 by emperorpants

[Captain Idaho]

Likely amended ones.

[Ishagu]

If he's restricted to a Brigade in order to be viable then the unit is useless in 99% of games.

 

With the cost hikes of units an Ultramarine Brigade won't be viable in a 2k game. I can't really run one now without making a list that I hate because it spams MSU cheap units and nothing else.

 

Unless he's moved to a HQ slot or his datasheet is completely changed then unfortunately he's not a viable unit at all. Alternatively there could be another new type of detachment but I'm not holding my breath.

 

The Guilliman unit actually needs a significant rule update. His aura can be replicated cheaply and at larger ranges, and his combat prowess can be equaled by cheaper units. On top of this is the fact that shielding him is now much more difficult. If he remains unchanged then his cost should be dropped to 150 points due to the significant CP loss and the fact I still need to run two additional characters in an army that will be 20% smaller than it currently is.

Edited June 27, 2020 by Ishagu