State of the Union (Heresy)

[Astartes Consul]

If I'm not mistaken only "line" units can score, and these units ain't too many (basically tacticals, assault, breachers)

Though a fair few RoW give other units the Line type from what I’ve seen?

[SkimaskMohawk]

You know, is it fine to ever play the game without trying to win? I always struggle with the first reaction to a ruleset being how to find the best combination possible, and consign everything else to the bin/dusty shelf. That's just disappointing, and actually takes the fun out of playing for anyone not actually approaching a game as a zero sum game/exploit all opportunities thing.

 

You directed this pretty broadly,  so I'll just give you my personal take. It's a wargame where one person wins and one person loses; that's the end goal of every game. But, I personally like game systems where a player is allowed creativity in getting to that win (something about the journey and not the destination). 5th edition 40k let you mostly take stuff you wanted and if you were good enough at the game, you had a fair shot; Heresy 1st edition mostly had that, but needed some tweaks to really get there. What it had instead were a lot of mechanical interactions and soft synergy that let you make "off-meta" units  work creatively, and that's the thing I really like. Finding mechanical interactions, seeing how they work, and how they change units excites me and keeps me coming back for more. Using math to test the potential of an idea is part of that.

 

So when I said I didn't rate outriders a page or two ago, I'm not saying they should never be taken. I just look at their points, see what they were being propositioned for (high impact shooting, but actually a alpha-strike trade piece) and think "eh, that's really boring and there's probably something else that functions similarly, but has more juice to the rules". 

 

When I asked what the point of taking heavy supports over predators, again that doesn't mean don't ever take heavy supports. Again, I look at their points and their similar roles and think "eh HSS have to stand there and shoot (most of the time); that's really boring. A predator has a lot more interesting potential on the board due to the mobility and split-fire". 

 

When I look at Deep Strike Assault and say it's really strong, it's because it is. It's low risk, widespread, with high reward. People are going to have to interact with it a lot, regardless if it's taken competitively; any assault marine unit gives access, and there's quite a few in the game. And something I know from 5th edition is that people hated being charged out of deepstrike by vanguard veterans. They're not going to like getting Deepstrike charged multiple games in a row, and eventually they'll tech up against it, probably with augury scanners (the most accessible choice). Then you have to deal with augury scanners if you want to keep on deepstrike assaulting (regardless if you enjoy doing it, or you think its thematic, or just think it's strong and like winning) and on and on it goes. 

 

But all this is in service to playing the game, with the goal to be victorious at the end. Cool moments and "narrative" are organically made via gameplay, so my lists aren't designed around anything other than having an interesting army/units that can win.

 

Anyone have details on scoring in 2.0 and table setup? Easy to get wrapped up in theorycrafting without knowing what is in store for objectives.

 

 

If I'm not mistaken only "line" units can score, and these units ain't too many (basically tacticals, assault, breachers)

 

Ya as suxdavide said, only line units score. Most Troops are line, but being moved to Troops via a rite or anything else doesn't give you scoring any more. 

 

Same caveats of 1750-3500 for recommended game size, and they say you can modify the missions to suit your needs for larger or smaller games. Just get everyone to agree on it.

 

Table is suggested to be 25% terrain, with a good mix of LOS/movement blockers and traditional area terrain and low cover. Their example is 5-6 pieces of 12"x12" and 3-6 of smaller pieces (6"x6", burnt out vehicles, shipping crates, stacks of barrels, etc...).

 

Deployment Zones....I'm going to be honest; Clash of Lines, Ambush and Vanguard Strike are still as terrible as before. Do yourself a favour and stick to the other 3. Or just cut Ambush, for the love of my sanity.

 

Still the same method of roll off for deployment zones, roll of for deploy 1st/choose to go first. Still sieze on a 6+

 

Games still last 5-7 turns (mission depending), with the same 3+ to go to 6, 4+ to go to 7.

 

First blood, slay the warlord, attrition, last man standing, line breaker, and price of failure are secondaries.

 

Objectives still get placed and scored the same way. They've made it clear that you can't score while embarked. Vehicles cannot contest objectives any more, but speeders and dreads aren't  vehicles, so I guess its just for spamming pods and rhinos. Only scoring units can contest objective "zones" that are areas of  the table rather than objective markers. Not every mission uses objectives.

 

Mission 1 is blood feud. Lasts 6 turns, is basically kill points (no objectives). Pick a unit type in secret, get VPs for each unit of that type that's killed. Reveal at the end of the game. Secondaries are Warlord, Price of Failure and Last Man Standing. Imo, terrible mission. Very spoilery.

 

Mission 2 is onslaught. This has its own deployment order that's basically 4th edition's method of alternating deployment in this order: Fortifications, LOW+Primarchs, Heavy Support, Troops, Elites, HQs, Fast Attack. Lasts 6 turns, is kill points for the first turn with 1, 5vp objective per deployment zone after that. Secondaries are Warlord, Price of Failure, Attrition.

 

Mission  3 is shatter strike. Lasts 5 turns, rolls over to 6 on a 4+. You score for being in the enemy DZ; 2 for scoring, 1 for denial (no objectives). Secondaries are Warlord, Price of Failure, Attrition.

 

Mission 4 is dominion. Lasts 5 turns, rolls over to 6 on a 4+. 5 objectives in no man's land; score 1vp at the start of your turn for every objective you control. Secondaries are Warlord, Attrition and Price of failure. They're worth d3 in this mission rather than 1.

 

Mission 5 is tide of carnage. Lasts 5 turns. Score VPs at the end of the game for controlling objective zones (3 for your DZ, 5 for no man's land, 7 for enemy DZ). As mentioned earlier, only Scoring matters for scoring or contesting objective zones, but non-flyer vehicles count as scoring in this mission. Secondaries are Warlord, Last Man Standing, and Price of failure.

 

Mission 6 is war of lies. Lasts 6 turns. 5 objectives, one has to be in the center; they're worth a variable amount at the end of the game; 1-2 0vp, 3-4 1vp, 5-6 3vp. Also kill points. Secondaries are Warlord and Price of failure. No night fighting. Another terrible mission, as it's super spoilery.

 

Whew. Basically they have the framework for making your own missions, but their own missions are kind of hit and miss. Nothing beats Crusade from 5th edition.   

[Cadmus Tyro]

Has anyone seen the assault squad entry?

[Unknown Legionnaire]

Has anyone seen the assault squad entry?

 

 

Assault Squads supposedly start at 145 pts. now, but that might well change in the finished product.

Combat Shields for everyone dropped in price.

Still one special weapon (power weapon, hand flamer, plasma pistol, etc.) for one in five models.

Twin Lightning Claws exclusive to the sergeant.

Sergeant can still take Artificer, Power Fist, Thunder Hammer, etc.

NO Melta Bombs !!!

Unit can't take an Augury Scanner ... 

And, they are a 'Line' unit, and thus scoring.

[jaxom]

If one of the rumors about advanced reactions is true then deepstrikers who charge can get shot twice; once coming in and then over watch.

[SkimaskMohawk]

Has anyone seen the assault squad entry?

145 for the base 10, 12 ppm after. Still scoring, still troops. M7, ld7 (ld8 on leader) like all marines now. Jump pack let's them go 12" and use that value to influence charging, also gives hammer of wrath as something that's always on.

 

Can take combat shields for 2ppm.

 

1/5 models can pick from the list of alternative melee weapons (power weapons, chanarble Sabre, heavy chain) /pistols (plasma, hand flamer, volkite).

 

Seargent gets standard seargent weapon options. He can take artificer.

 

Unlike despoilers, they do not have heart or spite of the Legion. The despoilers also have the pistol list separated from the melee list for the 1/5 swap.

 

The squad cannot access melta bombs at all. Not even on the seargent (also unlike despoilers).

 

Squad seems cheep and pretty good at fighting, but there's some obvious design choices on limiting their gear so they can't go too hard on the deepstrike assault.

 

@jaxom a deepstriking unit can get shot at as many times as there are units with augury scanners + as many reaction points you want to spend on intercept + Overwatch. It can be much more than two instances lol.

Edited April 5, 2022 by SkimaskMohawk

[Petitioner's City]

 

You know, is it fine to ever play the game without trying to win? I always struggle with the first reaction to a ruleset being how to find the best combination possible, and consign everything else to the bin/dusty shelf. That's just disappointing, and actually takes the fun out of playing for anyone not actually approaching a game as a zero sum game/exploit all opportunities thing.

 

You directed this pretty broadly,  so I'll just give you my personal take. It's a wargame where one person wins and one person loses; that's the end goal of every game. But, I personally like game systems where a player is allowed creativity in getting to that win (something about the journey and not the destination). 5th edition 40k let you mostly take stuff you wanted and if you were good enough at the game, you had a fair shot; Heresy 1st edition mostly had that, but needed some tweaks to really get there. What it had instead were a lot of mechanical interactions and soft synergy that let you make "off-meta" units  work creatively, and that's the thing I really like. Finding mechanical interactions, seeing how they work, and how they change units excites me and keeps me coming back for more. Using math to test the potential of an idea is part of that.

 

[...] 

But all this is in service to playing the game, with the goal to be victorious at the end. Cool moments and "narrative" are organically made via gameplay, so my lists aren't designed around anything other than having an interesting army/units that can win.

 

 

I would say "a wargame where one person wins and one person loses" doesn't need to be the "end goal" - for me, that's rather the consequences of the game, but not the goal (and ties are fine too ). Instead, one can just play to play, not to win. But I get this is what interests you (and it was visible in your view on Sigismund, for example, last week). That's ok - but it can have the consequence of pushing away someone not in that mindset, as it does feel much closer to a zero sum game or "game of exploits", just as playing with someone just perhaps chasing non-competitive play may push you away too. That's ok. It's great to hear more of the reasoning as "looking for more multipurpose ways to play" - but it aligns with "stronger" too, which you admit also.

 

I did notice this lovely wee box - which itself is open-ended - in the Core Rules (p.154) but I think I often gravitate towards in my playing instincts 

 

 

I know it reads in "any" way, so I understand if you feel it validates what you are saying, but for me, it more means - playing and being creative is the goal, not winning or losing.

 

I also do like this statement from the end of Warwick's intro to Taros; while that was a fully "historical" book, I also do find that to be part of the charm for me of heresy, not really a "goal" of "win".

 

 

Anyway thank you for your thoughts and kindly explaining.

 

 

Has anyone seen the assault squad entry?

 

The whole book is online!

Edited April 5, 2022 by Petitioner's City

[Brofist]

There is no more overwatch, so you can either burn a reaction to do it or eat the charge. Also you can only react once with a unit.

 

One thing about objectives you guys might have missed- there are now objective zones. This is how we all played on some of the missions with different zones of control, but they are now explicitly called out. So you can get your heart of the legion working when in those areas during certain missions.

 

As for outriders, if they don't get 2w they should be a bit cheaper to make them on par with the points per wound you get with a jetbikes (or make their weapon options paired rather than twin linked). Also there's the old FW tax for hit & run for a few units despite no changes to that rule.

[Slips]

Just a reminder that combat shields are now a flat 6++ instead of being a 5++ in CC only; and boarding shields are also a flat 5++

[Hfran Morkai]

Quite surprised there's no access to Meltabombs on the Assault Squad, even if it's just the Sargeant but again may have changed for the final release.

 

On the plus side, cheaper squads sounds good and not being tempted to buy Bombs (because you can't) and less likely to pick up Combat Shields.

 

I still don't know whether to go read the stuff myself or just wait for the book(s) where stuff is finalised.

[Slips]

Feel free to read over the leaks to get a more generalized grasp of where things are headed without having to piece info together piecemeal yourself

 

But, at the same time, dont get it anywhere into your head that this is going to be what launches and be unwilling to change your opinion or ideas on how things work.

Its disappointing that I'm already seeing some people do that in the 30k community (not necessarily here).

[SkimaskMohawk]

@petitioners you can have multiple reasons to play a game, but that doesn't change the goal of the game.

 

I could do a sport like soccer/football for the exercise, or to see my friends, or to develop my skills. But none of that changes the goal of soccer; to score more points than your opponents and win.

 

Your reason for playing might influence how much you value the end goal, but not what the goal is.

 

That being said, winning doesn't always mean the same thing; winning a pickup game using one of the missions, is very different from winning as loyalists in an isstvan 3 campaign. But the goal is still to win in games of Warhammer.

 

@slips there's definitely a lot that can change to the full release, but there's a lot that won't. If you particularly hate dreads and speeders getting toughness, don't bet on that reverting. Same with reactions.

Edited April 5, 2022 by SkimaskMohawk

[The Scorpion]

Victory yes, but not any price.

[Cadmus Tyro]

 

Has anyone seen the assault squad entry?

145 for the base 10, 12 ppm after. Still scoring, still troops. M7, ld7 (ld8 on leader) like all marines now. Jump pack let's them go 12" and use that value to influence charging, also gives hammer of wrath as something that's always on.

Can take combat shields for 2ppm.

1/5 models can pick from the list of alternative melee weapons (power weapons, chanarble Sabre, heavy chain) /pistols (plasma, hand flamer, volkite).

Seargent gets standard seargent weapon options. He can take artificer.

Unlike despoilers, they do not have heart or spite of the Legion. The despoilers also have the pistol list separated from the melee list for the 1/5 swap.

The squad cannot access melta bombs at all. Not even on the seargent (also unlike despoilers).

Squad seems cheep and pretty good at fighting, but there's some obvious design choices on limiting their gear so they can't go too hard on the deepstrike assault.

@jaxom a deepstriking unit can get shot at as many times as there are units with augury scanners + as many reaction points you want to spend on intercept + Overwatch. It can be much more than two instances lol.

Thanks for that, interesting they kept the “line” rule, that invalidates one of the main benefits outlined in the “crimson path” RoW, I’m sure we will see some changes from the original traitors playtest doc.

 

Cadmus

[Unknown Legionnaire]

I never play to win.

 

I play a game (with friends or foreigners) to have a good time, for sportmanship, and to tell a compelling story in the Age of Darkness. There.

 

And that is exactly why the potential (and I carefuly and consciously say 'potential' because it hasn't been released in its final form) power creep, the 'need' for certain elements in a list, as well as the game potentially moving more towards 40k in terms of how games turn out, has me worried, nothing more, nothing less. And I think that's fair. 

[Brofist]

I don't know man, I've been listhammering for a week straight and there aren't really any auto include options. Certainly there are some outliers for balance, but there are way less trap choices here. Our league has already gotten in ~5 games with the new rules, though admittedly we mostly play Zone Mortalis.

[Slips]

Apparently a Release version of the core rules is making the rounds/has been leaked, do not post it here please and thank you.

 

You may talk about the changes and whats inside freely, however.

[Unknown Legionnaire]

Release version:

 

- Description of Pistol type weapons states that they can charge after having fired in the shooting phase (as it used to be).

- Diagramm on opposite page and at the end of the book states the opposite (which seems to be an error of course).

 

That's some oversight.

[Slips]

Apparently might just be a non-watermarked version of the current core rules since there are still some placeholder stuff and things missing.

[lansalt]

This new file still has a lot of missing art, so I doubt this is the final release. I think somebody just cleanup a bit the phase 3 file.

[Unknown Legionnaire]

Apparently might just be a non-watermarked version of the current core rules since there are still some placeholder stuff and things missing.

 

Yes, might just be the same document as the playtest leaks, just with the watermarks removed.

 

Would be really odd otherwise.

[Excessus]

Not gonna beleive anything until I have the book in my hand...possibly not even then...

[Spagunk]

 

Apparently might just be a non-watermarked version of the current core rules since there are still some placeholder stuff and things missing.

 

Yes, might just be the same document as the playtest leaks, just with the watermarks removed.

 

Would be really odd otherwise.

 

If it's the one I am thinking of, I believe it's the same as the stage 3 one with watermarks and back end tracing/metadata removed to prevent tracking. It also doesn't have the password either so it should be the same as the one already out there.

[Iron Hands Fanatic]

I'm thinking about how Iron Hands moritats can take 2 graviton pistols to kick out 12 haywire shots a turn with chainfire 

 

suspect haywire may be added to the melta & gets hot provision of the rule where you roll to hit one at a time and stop after a 1

[Yodhrin]

 

You know, is it fine to ever play the game without trying to win? I always struggle with the first reaction to a ruleset being how to find the best combination possible, and consign everything else to the bin/dusty shelf. That's just disappointing, and actually takes the fun out of playing for anyone not actually approaching a game as a zero sum game/exploit all opportunities thing.

 

When I look at Deep Strike Assault and say it's really strong, it's because it is. It's low risk, widespread, with high reward. People are going to have to interact with it a lot, regardless if it's taken competitively; any assault marine unit gives access, and there's quite a few in the game. And something I know from 5th edition is that people hated being charged out of deepstrike by vanguard veterans. They're not going to like getting Deepstrike charged multiple games in a row, and eventually they'll tech up against it, probably with augury scanners (the most accessible choice). Then you have to deal with augury scanners if you want to keep on deepstrike assaulting (regardless if you enjoy doing it, or you think its thematic, or just think it's strong and like winning) and on and on it goes.

 

See, that sounds very interesting to me. It's not a case of "deployment doesn't matter" as some have suggested, but rather that deployment is now something of a game in and of itself, where everyone plonking down their minis on the board is just the opening move and carefully using your reactions at the right time and place will be vital. Sure, you can just grab the drop RoW and ride 'em down like Major Kong...so long as your opponent doesn't have the scanners or a Master of Signals. So you have to think about maybe putting an advanced force on the ground to try and "clear the LZ", and your opponent has to respond to that by say having some fast elements to supplement their gunline. Or you can pattern your drop deployment to put your units in cover, or use tough linebreaker units that can handle the reaction fire and keep on kickin', or sequence your drops so hard hitting but disposable units come in closer and force your opponent to choose between neutralising that threat or dealing with your main force.

 

Deep strikes, infiltrators, scout moves, outflanking - they all seem much more viable and varied to me now, whereas before unless you had some really powerful trickshot RoW or Legion gimmick, most people seemed to use pretty much all the alternative deployment types as delivery systems for throwaway suicide units or a quick objective grab and not much else, and most of the time they just used pods. Now there's a lot more scope for back & forth, and it encourages people to build varied forces that anticipate potential counterplays to their main tactical plan.