Stormsurge discussion

[Ayatollah_of_Rock_n_Rolla]

 

The main reason I'm labouring this point is because we're talking about a 24" range firing mode on a largely immobile unit that doesn't do anything fancy like ignore invulnerable saves or throw out bonus mortal wounds (as far as we know).

 

 

War of Sigmar claims to have seen the book and that there is a strat allowing you to ignore Inv, so you can get that covered.

 

[quasistellar]

Fire up an anime with over the top mecha combat, and these damage profiles make sense.

 

That's about all I can think of.

 

But then I'll see all the cool beam sabers and energy melee weapons and wonder "why does GW not want Tau to use suits in melee"?  It's incredibly strange that melee combat is a hugely integral part of things like Gundam, but that part of the influence is completely ignored here, and much to the detriment of the game.

[phandaal]

 

 

The main reason I'm labouring this point is because we're talking about a 24" range firing mode on a largely immobile unit that doesn't do anything fancy like ignore invulnerable saves or throw out bonus mortal wounds (as far as we know).

 

 

War of Sigmar claims to have seen the book and that there is a strat allowing you to ignore Inv, so you can get that covered.

 

 

 

Mortal Wounds, Ignore Invulnerable, pretty soon we will have an ability to make FNP saves go away too.

[Scribe]

 

 

The main reason I'm labouring this point is because we're talking about a 24" range firing mode on a largely immobile unit that doesn't do anything fancy like ignore invulnerable saves or throw out bonus mortal wounds (as far as we know).

 

 

War of Sigmar claims to have seen the book and that there is a strat allowing you to ignore Inv, so you can get that covered.

 

 

 

Indeed.

 

in isolation maybe but if you account for a +4" range sub faction and a Stratagem for ignoring Inv you get 2 shoots at 3+ with RR 2+ Dmg12 ignoring inv...and that is not even the best combo you can do with the next book ^^

 

 

http://disq.us/p/2m3dty7

 

I was building necron's earlier today, and to my dismay I have found my eyes are no longer that good in my advancing age.

 

Maybe larger models is the trick.

Edited January 13, 2022 by Scribe

[jaxom]

Necron Doomsday Barge:

 

d6 # of shots, d6 to hit with each shot, d6 to wound with each shot, d6 possible invuln save against the damage, then d6 for amount of damage.

 

Vs

 

Railgun: d6 to hit, d6 to wound then 9 damage+d3. No saves (other than FnP and those work against other damage too so they can be ignored for comparison).

 

The difference is obvious: five gambles vs two. Rerolls, bonuses, blah blah blah...it doesn't matter. The less dice you have to roll to achieve the outcome you want, the more reliable your outcome is. 

 

I'm not sure I agree, because the gamble isn't about the number of rolls made, it's about the statistical likelihood of getting to the reliable point in the process. That's primarily the damage when it comes to the Railgun. Without re-rolls a Doomsday Ark generates 1.0 wounds against a T8 5++ model while a Railgun generates 0.52 wounds. So the Doomsday Ark is reliably doing an average of 3.5 Damage per shot per round, while the Railgun is doing an average of 5.4 damage per shot per two rounds. Over five turns, the Doomsday Ark does an average of 17.5 damage while the Railgun does an average of 13.5 damage (and loss of the Railgun on an 'off' round of shooting would further skew reliability towards the Doomsday Ark).

 

EDIT: depending on the mathematical model, one could argue the Railgun is actually doing 10.5 damage per shot per two rounds, and so would do 21 damage over four rounds compared to 14 Doomsday Ark damage over four rounds while the fifth round would be 52% that the overall comparison would be 31.5 damage vs 21 damage and 48% that the overall comparison would be 21 damage vs 17.5 damage.

Edited January 13, 2022 by jaxom

[MegaVolt87]

I feel sad for Tau players that won't ever get the chance to use these weapons against enemy vehicles. Its like in nature, where predator animals can starve to death because all the prey has been driven off/ killed in an area. 

[Burni]

Just imagine when they finally do the IG codex: Deathstrike - roll a d6. On a 4+ remove all the models from the battlefield including your own.

[Legionary Pallas]

 

 

 

Fire up an anime with over the top mecha combat, and these damage profiles make sense.

That's about all I can think of. ;)

 

 

But then I'll see all the cool beam sabers and energy melee weapons and wonder "why does GW not want Tau to use suits in melee"?  It's incredibly strange that melee combat is a hugely integral part of things like Gundam, but that part of the influence is completely ignored here, and much to the detriment of the game.

I do honestly think GW needs to stop insisting on a no-melee T'au. Excluding an army from several phases of the game will cause it to become much, much harder to balance. Whether melee support comes as more Auxiliary support or new T'au units that represent a begrudging acceptance that hitting things with swords is important, rather than just shooting, I'll be happy.

 

They would remain as a shooting army in their identity, they just need to be able to participate in other phases less pathetically so.

[AenarIT]

I feel sad for Tau players that won't ever get the chance to use these weapons against enemy vehicles. Its like in nature, where predator animals can starve to death because all the prey has been driven off/ killed in an area. 

We don't even need the chance of using them, just having these guns at our disposal feels good ;)

They'll probably be inefficient, or less efficient than optimal boring choices like massed pulse rifles or whatever the new cyclic ion blasters of 9th ed Tau will be, but at least they feel like the big guns they should be.

 

 

[KnightofSigismund]

Have all the people claiming that the sky is falling forgotten about Volcano Lances being Heavy D6 S14 AP-5 3d3 dmg Blast with native hit rerolls vs Titantic and range 80? Or the Harpoon being S16 AP-6 10 dmg + d3 MW with a native hit reroll vs vehicles/monsters? Or invul ignoring AP-4 Shieldbreaker missiles that can ignore Look Out Sir with a strat? All on far more mobile platforms.

 

Scarier or equally scary weapons than the Blast Cannon have existed for a long time so I have a hard time seeing how another faction's Knight sized Lord of War getting a Knight level weapon somehow is the end of all things. As long as they are priced properly, it's not really a problem.

You know, now that you’ve put it that way it’s not so bad.

[Petitioner's City]

 

 

 

 

Fire up an anime with over the top mecha combat, and these damage profiles make sense.

That's about all I can think of. ;)

 

But then I'll see all the cool beam sabers and energy melee weapons and wonder "why does GW not want Tau to use suits in melee"? It's incredibly strange that melee combat is a hugely integral part of things like Gundam, but that part of the influence is completely ignored here, and much to the detriment of the game.

I do honestly think GW needs to stop insisting on a no-melee T'au. Excluding an army from several phases of the game will cause it to become much, much harder to balance. Whether melee support comes as more Auxiliary support or new T'au units that represent a begrudging acceptance that hitting things with swords is important, rather than just shooting, I'll be happy.

 

They would remain as a shooting army in their identity, they just need to be able to participate in other phases less pathetically so.

There is a definite failure to really capitalise on the "empire" aspect of the Tau. It's a real shame the never really developed any of the subject species - a real failure of either will or imagination.

[Plaguecaster]

 

 

 

 

Fire up an anime with over the top mecha combat, and these damage profiles make sense.

That's about all I can think of. ;)

 

But then I'll see all the cool beam sabers and energy melee weapons and wonder "why does GW not want Tau to use suits in melee"? It's incredibly strange that melee combat is a hugely integral part of things like Gundam, but that part of the influence is completely ignored here, and much to the detriment of the game.

I do honestly think GW needs to stop insisting on a no-melee T'au. Excluding an army from several phases of the game will cause it to become much, much harder to balance. Whether melee support comes as more Auxiliary support or new T'au units that represent a begrudging acceptance that hitting things with swords is important, rather than just shooting, I'll be happy.

 

They would remain as a shooting army in their identity, they just need to be able to participate in other phases less pathetically so.

Someone from Gw needs to be tied down to a chair and forced to watch some gundam seasons for a few hours/ days , that'll show them that mechs can wield close combat weapons and quite deadly. Give me a Barbatos style suit that'll put the fear of Melee tau in the hearts of all 40k players Edited January 13, 2022 by Plaguecaster

[chapter master 454]

I will point out that one issue I do see and will give is GW updating their knowledge of what works.

 

The doomsday barge as an example shown has a myriad of D6 rolls which has striking similarity to things like Thermal Cannons of knights and various other "heavy duty tank killers". GW originally thought that D6 was enough damage to take down tanks, the random element being good for balance but in the end no-one used them mainly because unless you could mass them their swingy nature made them unreliable and averages mean those weapons hit mainly damage 3-4 each time meaning you need 3 - 4 of that weapon to actually down the tank, and that's successful shots.

If we were to talk in terms of Lascannons (which are now rapidly becoming more akin to world war 1 anti-tank rifles: kind of do the job but not really), if you need to do 12 damage, you need 4 average lascannon damage rolls to get this down. Now those 4 shots need to get past wounding so as lascannons they get a good life, reliable wounding of such targets so you only need 6 to hit this 4 number (and to note, I am skipping armour saves for sake of sanity and keeping numbers clean, the long and short here is I am giving damage D6 the BENEFIT of the doubt). Now depending on your armour, you could ether need 9 lascannons if you are marines or 12 if you are most other factions.

12 lascannons to reliably one hitter a tank doesn't feel very good. Considering their lore, I would of expected them to be able to do chunks of damage at a time which if all Lascannons get boosted to 3+D3 I could actually see (their floor for damage changes to their high roll average of 4, average goes to 5 and ceiling at 6). Having reliable damage 5 each time is kind of big because another factor to D6 damage is the fact a tank at 2-3 wounds left had a CHANCE of surviving this weapon. Now, we have much broader kill ranges for weapons. Your tanks can't chance themselves in front of lascannons long, and chip damage could very real get you in range of one hit territory.

 

This however is the problem we all call "codex creep" and I would consider that there is a "power creep" element here but also a "feature creep" here. It isn't that things are overall getting stronger in general, I would actually call it more like the weapons that were anti-tank are now catching up and becoming meaningful rather than a wasted option slot. I mean, come on folks lets all be real here: when was the last time you considered Lascannon Centurions? It was always about grav or Heavy bolters if you are I.F..

There is now a balancing act being created here where you need to bring reliable anti-tank. Last time I checked, we used to be able to one hitter tanks back when in 4th with a grot blaster for goodness sake. Even back then the game was more about volume of fire and now we are finally getting some element of lethality to big guns.

Yea, sucks to get a unit hosed off the board but you also have the power to think about positioning and list building.

 

Easy to get scared. But of all factions to say don't deserve some RANGED firepower...Tau ain't it...I mean they barely got by with select pieces of cheese in 8th and only made headlines in 9th because Richard Siegler decided to only use 4% of his power. Seriously...Tau need the love right now...

 

Doesn't stop me laughing about shield drones still (don't care WHAT they are now, 2W before CSM :D).

[Captain Idaho]

 /Snip

 

 

Well this is just it my friend. How can I fix something broken without fixing other stuff broken? It's a tad of a problem really but do two wrongs make a right?

 

 I don't know what game you've been playing, but you've bene able to one shot models...forever.

 

Vehicles could get exploded from one shot (like the infamous missile killing a landraider off a glance in 4th, 5th and 6th), everything else was mostly vulnerable to instant death.

 

And that was before 8th, the king of kill everything in one turn of shooting. Remember ynnari reapers? Or ynnari shinning spears? Or smash captains? Or Knight Castellans? Or Imperial Fist Centurions? Or relic shokk attack guns? Or Raven Guard Centurions? Or whatever else we want to pull from 8ths greatest hits.

Well you're talking about how other editions had rules which destroyed vehicles in one shot.

 

The game isn't balanced with some units and armies having the capacity to delete units and armies off the board whilst other armies have absolutely none whatsoever. Doesn't have to be critical but in practice it just works as power creep.

[spessmarine]

 

 

 

The main reason I'm labouring this point is because we're talking about a 24" range firing mode on a largely immobile unit that doesn't do anything fancy like ignore invulnerable saves or throw out bonus mortal wounds (as far as we know).

 

 

War of Sigmar claims to have seen the book and that there is a strat allowing you to ignore Inv, so you can get that covered.

 

 

 

Mortal Wounds, Ignore Invulnerable, pretty soon we will have an ability to make FNP saves go away too.

 

Soon?

But Drain Life is already a thing. Or did you mean the Tau book in specific, in which case nevermind.

Edited January 13, 2022 by spessmarine

[SkimaskMohawk]

 

/Snip

 

 

Well this is just it my friend. How can I fix something broken without fixing other stuff broken? It's a tad of a problem really but do two wrongs make a right?

 

I don't know what game you've been playing, but you've bene able to one shot models...forever.

 

Vehicles could get exploded from one shot (like the infamous missile killing a landraider off a glance in 4th, 5th and 6th), everything else was mostly vulnerable to instant death.

 

And that was before 8th, the king of kill everything in one turn of shooting. Remember ynnari reapers? Or ynnari shinning spears? Or smash captains? Or Knight Castellans? Or Imperial Fist Centurions? Or relic shokk attack guns? Or Raven Guard Centurions? Or whatever else we want to pull from 8ths greatest hits.

Well you're talking about how other editions had rules which destroyed vehicles in one shot.

 

The game isn't balanced with some units and armies having the capacity to delete units and armies off the board whilst other armies have absolutely none whatsoever. Doesn't have to be critical but in practice it just works as power creep.

Ok, lets talk purely 9th. Harlequins, eradicators, retributors, repentia, zepherym, techno-liquifiers, drazhar, incubi, competitive edge succubus, skitarri vanguard, chicken walkers, freebootaz, speed mob, hive guard, crusher stampede. Add anything else I'm missing.

 

The game has always had the ability to wipe units with other units. Other editions have had it; this edition has it. A new book having the ability to do so isn't breaking any trends. If anything, only the dispersed shot really looks good as it has the rate of fire to actually to more than kill single models.

[jaxom]

Did some quick and dirty math comparing lascannons and railguns vs T8 5++ for kill it one round. Most similar chassis I could find was a Tank Commander. I assumed the Vanquisher could stand in for a lascannon and used the hull upgrade cost for two lascannons rather than one for a total of 3 lascannons per chassis. I did that because the number of lascannon shots, rounding up, to statistically guarantee the kill was nine. This nets 645 points. One would need four Hammerheads, with one railgun per hull, to statistically guarantee the kill. I took the 645 points of tank commander, divided by four and got about 161 points per Hammerhead.

 

Very roughly, if Hammerheads cost about 160 points (including railgun cost) then they are roughly on par for tank kill per point in this scenario (probably over-costed as the three tank commanders have some points tied up in their Orders ability).

 

Extending that to killing Bladeguard Veterans: two Hammerheads are needed to guarantee a kill, but doing so actually guarantees two kills. Two tank commanders are needed for the same.

[Captain Idaho]

 

 

 

/Snip

Well this is just it my friend. How can I fix something broken without fixing other stuff broken? It's a tad of a problem really but do two wrongs make a right?

I don't know what game you've been playing, but you've bene able to one shot models...forever.

 

Vehicles could get exploded from one shot (like the infamous missile killing a landraider off a glance in 4th, 5th and 6th), everything else was mostly vulnerable to instant death.

And that was before 8th, the king of kill everything in one turn of shooting. Remember ynnari reapers? Or ynnari shinning spears? Or smash captains? Or Knight Castellans? Or Imperial Fist Centurions? Or relic shokk attack guns? Or Raven Guard Centurions? Or whatever else we want to pull from 8ths greatest hits.

Well you're talking about how other editions had rules which destroyed vehicles in one shot.

 

The game isn't balanced with some units and armies having the capacity to delete units and armies off the board whilst other armies have absolutely none whatsoever. Doesn't have to be critical but in practice it just works as power creep.

Ok, lets talk purely 9th. Harlequins, eradicators, retributors, repentia, zepherym, techno-liquifiers, drazhar, incubi, competitive edge succubus, skitarri vanguard, chicken walkers, freebootaz, speed mob, hive guard, crusher stampede. Add anything else I'm missing.

 

The game has always had the ability to wipe units with other units. Other editions have had it; this edition has it. A new book having the ability to do so isn't breaking any trends. If anything, only the dispersed shot really looks good as it has the rate of fire to actually to more than kill single models.

You're missing my point completely. I said the game isn't balanced when there are things that can arbitrarily wipe targets out easily whilst some armies can't.

 

The game is caught up in an ever increasing arms race. Should some things be very powerful? Of course! Should everything new get even more powerful than the last and make it a first turn roll off though...?

 

Is the game better off with this kind of play or not?

Edited January 13, 2022 by Captain Idaho

[Tawnis]

I honestly don't think we've seen enough to make a verdict on it. It's easy to see a profile with a bunch of big numbers and start seeing the potential, but AP-2 on Dispersed Shot means armour is still plenty viable to reduce its effects, despite its high strength and damage. The big shots are only 24" and you wanna be standing still to get the rerolls so you can actually hit with the damn thing, so it's threat range is something that can be somewhat mitigated until it dies. Add all that to the fact it will almost certainly get a price increase and I think you'll be paying too much for one big model that will attract every single high damage source on the table and not end up making its points back before it inevitably dies.

 

All we've seen is some big numbers designed to make people's eyes bulge and sell models preemptively, it worked for the Hammerhead after all, there's still points cost and defensive profile to see, as well as a whole other main gun.

I was going to post essentially this. 

 

Yes stuff has for a long time getting absurd for what was once a skirmish game, but that doesn't meant it will actually be competitive until we see the whole codex. 

Edited January 13, 2022 by Tawnis

[SkimaskMohawk]

 

 

 

 

/Snip

Well this is just it my friend. How can I fix something broken without fixing other stuff broken? It's a tad of a problem really but do two wrongs make a right?

I don't know what game you've been playing, but you've bene able to one shot models...forever.

 

Vehicles could get exploded from one shot (like the infamous missile killing a landraider off a glance in 4th, 5th and 6th), everything else was mostly vulnerable to instant death.

And that was before 8th, the king of kill everything in one turn of shooting. Remember ynnari reapers? Or ynnari shinning spears? Or smash captains? Or Knight Castellans? Or Imperial Fist Centurions? Or relic shokk attack guns? Or Raven Guard Centurions? Or whatever else we want to pull from 8ths greatest hits.

Well you're talking about how other editions had rules which destroyed vehicles in one shot.

 

The game isn't balanced with some units and armies having the capacity to delete units and armies off the board whilst other armies have absolutely none whatsoever. Doesn't have to be critical but in practice it just works as power creep.

Ok, lets talk purely 9th. Harlequins, eradicators, retributors, repentia, zepherym, techno-liquifiers, drazhar, incubi, competitive edge succubus, skitarri vanguard, chicken walkers, freebootaz, speed mob, hive guard, crusher stampede. Add anything else I'm missing.

 

The game has always had the ability to wipe units with other units. Other editions have had it; this edition has it. A new book having the ability to do so isn't breaking any trends. If anything, only the dispersed shot really looks good as it has the rate of fire to actually to more than kill single models.

You're missing my point completely. I said the game isn't balanced when there are things that can arbitrarily wipe targets out easily whilst some armies can't.

 

The game is caught up in an ever increasing arms race. Should some things be very powerful? Of course! Should everything new get even more powerful than the last and make it a first turn roll off though...?

 

Is the game better off with this kind of play or not?

Ya I guess I just don't agree with the premise that some armies are getting more of an ability to remove units while other armies lack it. There's like...death guard and maybe necrons that don't have access to really do it reliably (from ranged, they can do it in melee no problem). Everyone else can burst units down. Like pour one out for the demo tank commander who averages more damage than the blast cannon on either profile.

[Captain Idaho]

We don't have to agree that's always a fine option ;)

[Karhedron]

People here seem to raise questions how to balance out the game. Can we at least agree on some things?

 

#1 Powercreep with every new codex is real

#2 New units tend to be pushed to the limit

#3 Said powercreeped units sell well for GW and they do this on purpose.

#4 GW Is not interested in balancing out the units to start with

#5 We will never have a balanced game at the end of an edition. There will always be a real distinct power feel between the first released codex and the last one of the edition.

 

So if you truly are interested in balancing the rules then the only real way to do this is wait for the edition to be done with, line up all the codexes and tweak at that point. I have done the same with my Warhammer Epic collection (Necrons versus Eldar) which I use to play 4th edition with. I played that edition the most by far, with hundreds of battles under my belt with a variety of armies. I sat down from time to time and tried to reflect on certain battles I played a lot (Dark Eldar vs my mate his Necrons) and then started making small tweaks.

1. Yes, I think powercreep is definitely a real thing.

2. Not so much. Look at the Marine Primaris tanks and Speeders. They are pretty poor and I have never seen them fielded. The units being buffed in this discusson are the Hammerhead and Stormsurge, both of which have been around to several years.

3. New rules drive sales but so do new models. I don't expect GW's Q1 sales to be dominated by Hammerheads.

4. I think they try, I just don't think they are very good at it. They are particularly bad at stress-testing.

5. Agreed. The closest we had was the start of 8th edition with the Indices. The trouble was they were not balanced either so even starting from a clean slate is no guarantee of getting it right.

[Malakithe]

Man...I feel sorry for Necrons lol are they even a faction at this point?

[Captain Idaho]

I think Karhedron hits the nail on the head; GW just aren't very good at playtesting or using feedback to amend the game.

 

Years ago we had the problem that squad power fists (the "hidden power fist") was a disproportionately dominant unit build, so GW needed to do something to amend that in the next edition.

 

Many suggestions on this very site were discussed and most people were of the opinion that any single change would help the situation. GW however, adopted ALL the changes at once and killed Power Fists for an edition. (Also, don't tell me GW doesn't listen to this forum as the amount of discussion points here that mysteriously end up implemented or subtly mentioned on WarCom is suspicious... ;) )

 

Don't attribute to malice that which can be attributed to incompetence.

[INKS]

I might be a little crazy, but I want more Knight like options for other armies and this reminds me of one. (I wasn't playing when this first came out). So now give me more options and lets go Knight v Knight like. :)