Because Everyone keeps bringing it up: The # of Lasgun Shots Needed to Kill One Knight

[MARK0SIAN]

30 minutes ago, jaxom said:

Change the Toughness values. This thread has already entered into altering enough of 40k that it's a different system; go whole hog.

Well you’d think altering the toughness would’ve been a no brainer. They removed the cap of 10 for stats in 8th edition then did absolutely nothing with it. Such a missed opportunity!

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

3 hours ago, MARK0SIAN said:

Well you’d think altering the toughness would’ve been a no brainer. They removed the cap of 10 for stats in 8th edition then did absolutely nothing with it. Such a missed opportunity!

They’ve already raised the T cap, I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw T10 in 10th 

[MARK0SIAN]

38 minutes ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

They’ve already raised the T cap, I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw T10 in 10th 

They’ve only raised it within the confines of what was possible in 7th edition. They seem highly resistant to raising it further given they’ve had nearly 6 years and it’s pretty much the only thing that’s been immune to the creep.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

29 minutes ago, MARK0SIAN said:

They’ve only raised it within the confines of what was possible in 7th edition. They seem highly resistant to raising it further given they’ve had nearly 6 years and it’s pretty much the only thing that’s been immune to the creep.

New edition coming anything is possible.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

Scrimmaging my BA vs my guard.

 

stormstrike missile did 3 wounds to my baneblade

hurrican bolters did 2 wounds to my baneblade

seems to make total sense right?

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

And lasguns  made the difference in killing the storm raven in T2

Edited January 30, 2023 by Inquisitor_Lensoven

[MegaVolt87]

If the current anything wounds anything is ok, then it should be fine to take anything that is not a walker or infantry. Where are the unit transports and MBT types then in lists? It's because there is more value and survivability in taking the equivalent pts value in infantry and walkers instead. We have seen the infantry and walkers meta for two straight editions in 8-9th. Yet people still have their heads in the sand with these design problems that are interlinked. 

[jaxom]

3 hours ago, MegaVolt87 said:

It's because there is more value and survivability in taking the equivalent pts value in infantry and walkers instead. We have seen the infantry and walkers meta for two straight editions in 8-9th. Yet people still have their heads in the sand with these design problems that are interlinked.

I think it's only a portion of it, and probably the lesser portion. 8th edition's hard translation rules neutered ordinance weapons. 8th made vehicles more survivable, but in application gave them no way out of melee unless they could fly; it doesn't matter if they're alive if they can't fire the big guns. Then highly efficient knights and soup meant any tournament list had to be able to kill one to two knights a turn. There was the period of Imperial Fist pre-nerf, kill everything with weight of fire and damage 3. 9th edition helped a little with Big Guns Never Tire, but the resurgence of needing ObSec still favors infantry. We'll see if Arks of Omen really sees big changes; the Iron Hands vehicle list is making the rounds in theorycrafting and even Sisters of Battle Castigator spam.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

I just love the diametrically opposed arguments to support this method.

 

on one hand

”it takes too many low S  AP0 D1 shots to kill an MBT/knight/etc. or make a difference.”

on the other hand

”this is necessary because if your AT is killed you can still damage MBTs/knights/etc. and still be competitive.”

 

one cannot be true if the other is. The fact people are trying to use both at the same time proves there’s no logical defense of this mechanic.

 

Half of T? No wounds. It’s simple, and rules like born soldiers should also follow that mechanic.

Edited January 31, 2023 by Inquisitor_Lensoven

[The Unseen]

That isn't the argument, nice strawman you built though. The ability for weak attacks to still potentially damage big targets is more targeted at preventing degenerate play patterns. Back in the old days of AV values, an all knight army was NOT competitive, it basically couldn't hold objectives at all. But playing against it with a Tac (Take all comers) army was completely miserable, since they focused your Anti-tank down early if they could, and then you stood on objectives and slowly died to a couple knights, often winning the game on pts even if you were almost tabled and hadn't rolled dice to attack in several turns. It was awful, even though you often "won" the game. But it didn't feel like you won anything, and the knight player got to play up the power fantasy of giant stompy robots but then lost. So neither player was overly pleased with the result.

 

From a competitive standpoint, players will adjust to whatever they need to do to win. For casual players, entire armies at this point are what would be called skew lists. (Knights of both flavors, Custodes, Some Nid builds, etc) So if you want those kinds of armies to be allowed, and 40k list building has become less and less restrictive over time not more, letting weak attacks hurt them is absolutely necessary from a casual perspective.

 

The other side of the argument is that weak stuff hurting big stuff is not strong enough that it makes the big stuff bad. Nobody is losing tanks en masse to chip damage from small arms fire, so quite bitching about it. Its purely there to smooth out a little variance and makes the little guns not literally useless in skew matchups, that doesn't mean that killing tanks with lasguns is effective or efficient.

Edited January 31, 2023 by The Unseen

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

1 hour ago, The Unseen said:

That isn't the argument, nice strawman you built though. The ability for weak attacks to still potentially damage big targets is more targeted at preventing degenerate play patterns. Back in the old days of AV values, an all knight army was NOT competitive, it basically couldn't hold objectives at all. But playing against it with a Tac (Take all comers) army was completely miserable, since they focused your Anti-tank down early if they could, and then you stood on objectives and slowly died to a couple knights, often winning the game on pts even if you were almost tabled and hadn't rolled dice to attack in several turns. It was awful, even though you often "won" the game. But it didn't feel like you won anything, and the knight player got to play up the power fantasy of giant stompy robots but then lost. So neither player was overly pleased with the result.

 

From a competitive standpoint, players will adjust to whatever they need to do to win. For casual players, entire armies at this point are what would be called skew lists. (Knights of both flavors, Custodes, Some Nid builds, etc) So if you want those kinds of armies to be allowed, and 40k list building has become less and less restrictive over time not more, letting weak attacks hurt them is absolutely necessary from a casual perspective.

 

The other side of the argument is that weak stuff hurting big stuff is not strong enough that it makes the big stuff bad. Nobody is losing tanks en masse to chip damage from small arms fire, so quite bitching about it. Its purely there to smooth out a little variance and makes the little guns not literally useless in skew matchups, that doesn't mean that killing tanks with lasguns is effective or efficient.

Again if OP’s argument is true bolters being able to damage knights is 100% irrelevant because your bolters will never make a difference. You either won’t have the marines, or you won’t have enough turns, so in the end the result is the same. Only difference is you may knock off a few wounds in the process.

 

if it doesn’t make a difference then why even have the mechanic in the first place?

 

but again the issue isn’t if massed las or boltgun is regularly killing tanks on their own.

like I said a hurricane bolter did nearly as much damage to a baneblade as a dedicated AT missile, causing roughly 40% of the wounds caused to it that turn. Combined with AT or other special/hvy weapons that’s enough to make a difference between a T2 and a T3 death which can have a major effect on the game over all. Even at 25% of wounds per turn that’s a massive difference.

 

and just like I said my lasguns did 2 wounds to the stormraven and made the difference in killing it that turn. Without those two wounds happening it would have survived another turn and thus killed it.

Edited January 31, 2023 by Inquisitor_Lensoven

[DesuVult]

How many time does chip damage auto-wounding have to be nerfed into the dirt in order to be considered bad design?

Edited February 1, 2023 by DesuVult

[jaxom]

Chill, frater, chill.

[MegaVolt87]

31 minutes ago, DesuVult said:

How many time does chip damage auto-wounding have to be nerfed into the dirt in order to be considered bad design?

 

GW keep putting lipstick on this pig to try to make it a good mechanic, it's not. There is nothing wrong with being outplayed or a list that hits a wall/ hard counter. It's a choice to take a skew list, a TAC list, insufficient AT weapons, a sparse terrain table, a super heavy/ elite low count army in a game about objectives. Chip dmg rewards the thoughtless player and punishes the prepared one. This is an expensive hobby, why play tanks in a meta that rewards infantry and walkers ? Far too much of a safety net in 40k and this what we have now. It's a chance based game that has swung far too far in the odds of being successful vs a more neutral stance of success and failure- it's ok when things fail, GW has forgotten this. 

Edited February 1, 2023 by MegaVolt87

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

How hard is it to take large numbers of medium and high S weapons to prevent knights or tank companies from alpha striking it all?

 

is it really that hard to bring a large number of S5+ in a 2000pt game?

[Jorin Helm-splitter]

1 hour ago, DesuVult said:

How many time does chip damage auto-wounding have to be nerfed into the dirt in order to be considered bad design?

 

Have they nerfed auto-wounding? I mean weapons that can auto wound have been around since 8th, and I can't really think of one that has been nerfed. Granted I do view mortal wounds as a different category. 

 

35 minutes ago, MegaVolt87 said:

 

GW keep putting lipstick on this pig to try to make it a good mechanic, it's not. There is nothing wrong with being outplayed or a list that hits a wall/ hard counter. It's a choice to take a skew list, a TAC list, insufficient AT weapons, a sparse terrain table, a super heavy/ elite low count army in a game about objectives. Chip dmg rewards the thoughtless player and punishes the prepared one. This is an expensive hobby, why play tanks in a meta that rewards infantry and walkers ? Far too much of a safety net in 40k and this what we have now. It's a chance based game that has swung far too far in the odds of being successful vs a more neutral stance of success and failure- it's ok when things fail, GW has forgotten this. 

 

If you compare a dreadnought to a predator, they have the same toughness and save. Dreads do have extra damage mitigation through other abilities, but it doesn't really do anything to stop them from being hurt by a lasgun. Getting rid of chip damage would benefit dreads just as much as tanks without other changes, and dreads would remain the superior choice. In order for tanks to see play you need more changes than that. For what its worth I do think all tanks should have the -1 dmg ability I know plagueburst crawlers have it and they are pretty good. 

 

The point people are trying to make is that chip damage isn't going to be enough to change the results if they didn't take enough AT. The only way knights should lose to a bunch of guardsman without AT is if the knight army didn't take high volume options, and that should be fine by your logic.

 

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

1 hour ago, Jorin Helm-splitter said:

 

Have they nerfed auto-wounding? I mean weapons that can auto wound have been around since 8th, and I can't really think of one that has been nerfed. Granted I do view mortal wounds as a different category. 

 

 

If you compare a dreadnought to a predator, they have the same toughness and save. Dreads do have extra damage mitigation through other abilities, but it doesn't really do anything to stop them from being hurt by a lasgun. Getting rid of chip damage would benefit dreads just as much as tanks without other changes, and dreads would remain the superior choice. In order for tanks to see play you need more changes than that. For what its worth I do think all tanks should have the -1 dmg ability I know plagueburst crawlers have it and they are pretty good. 

 

The point people are trying to make is that chip damage isn't going to be enough to change the results if they didn't take enough AT. The only way knights should lose to a bunch of guardsman without AT is if the knight army didn't take high volume options, and that should be fine by your logic.

 

No chip damage won’t kill/destroy the big tough targets but it certainly can make the difference when used with AT weapons if you got a few bad rolls with them.

[DesuVult]

3 hours ago, Jorin Helm-splitter said:

 

Have they nerfed auto-wounding? I mean weapons that can auto wound have been around since 8th, and I can't really think of one that has been nerfed. Granted I do view mortal wounds as a different category. 

 

Drukhari, AdMech, Votann twice.

[MoshJason]

11 hours ago, MegaVolt87 said:

GW keep putting lipstick on this pig to try to make it a good mechanic, it's not. There is nothing wrong with being outplayed or a list that hits a wall/ hard counter. It's a choice to take a skew list, a TAC list, insufficient AT weapons, a sparse terrain table, a super heavy/ elite low count army in a game about objectives. Chip dmg rewards the thoughtless player and punishes the prepared one. This is an expensive hobby, why play tanks in a meta that rewards infantry and walkers ? Far too much of a safety net in 40k and this what we have now. It's a chance based game that has swung far too far in the odds of being successful vs a more neutral stance of success and failure- it's ok when things fail, GW has forgotten this. 

 

I think everyone is getting my argument slightly wrong. Chip damage is in the game not to make Lasguns/Bolters kill Tanks/Superheavies. It's in the game to make you feel like you are still *playing* the game, and are still doing *something*

 

I get it - some people want the game to be more simulationist - and some people want the game to be more of a space fantasy. 7th edition was both more a Simulationist Game and More of a Space Fantasy game, and the changes that happened to 8th-9th editions have reduced both feelings, and this is one of the big ones where both sides on that butt heads - in the Space Fantasy Game, of course you can get a lucky shot and damage the Death Star. In the simulationist game, it's more like, "Yes, but actually No, here's why-" and I think both are valid, but in this case, i think it's important to note that Chip Damage isn't in the game for either of them, or the competitive player, but for the new player. 

 

In game design, we use a term called "Negative Play Experience" sometimes called a NoPE. NoPEs are whenever you are playing a game, and something just... sucks. These are important for all players, but also way more important to avoid for *new* players - if your new player experiences a NoPE in their first game, they are just simply not going to play again. If your a veteran player who's deep in the game, you might just go, well that sucked, maybe I'll do "X" next time.

 

Personally, I bought a game called Star Wars Imperial Assault - it wasn't super expensive, but at the time I was making 7$ an hour part time. My first game went ok, I played as the Imperials and played more like a DM than a player, and I liked it. My second game, where I played as the Rebels started off great - I played as Sexy Lady Han Solo and then turn one got utterly and totally defeated. Just... didn't get to play, really. My team got butchered by the player playing Imperials right out of the gate, and it was miserable - we couldn't *do* anything. It was such a Negative Play Experience, I decided I'd never play that game again, and still haven't.

 

I think a lot of people think that James Workshop is designing his game for the Ultra-Competitive Players, and I think that's fine - but that he isn't just thinking about them - there's a lot of different types of people who play this game, and it has to cater to all of them. Magic the Gathering has written a few things on this: https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Player_type#Types

 

But a lot of the players out are more casual, are beginners, or simply haven't had the time or cash to update their armies. I have a friend, let's call him Timmy, and he just had his first baby about a year ago. Between getting ready for the baby, then dealing with a screaming infant who's growing quickly into a toddler, he hasn't had the time or energy to keep up with all the rule changes and codex drops - there seems like there's a new one each month. He doesn't know what the current meta is or what he should be taking to counter a Leagues of Votann list. His army should be able to be played with minimal "Gotcha's!" and "You can't hurt me's!". He played Imperial Guard back in 7th edition, with AEgis Defense lines and a legion of infantry - simply because that's what we had at the time. When he could, he would upgrade and get a tank or an artillery piece to slot in, but it was a slow progression - most people aren't dropping 100's of dollars at a time on the hobby, especially since you still have to build and paint these guys - so changing your list so you can hurt 3x Flyrants and a Barbed Heirodule (Which is the most common list we'd end up playing against, thanks Spike) when you are just starting out is a pretty hard thing to do

 

Adding in the "this can always wound on a six" doesn't mean you'll kill a Knight with Lasguns - again, it takes something like 300 lasguns to kill a single knight. And yeah, you can put orders on the Guardsmen - and some of that helps, but with Take Aim! you are still needing 180ish Lasguns, and to get 2 shots per lasgun you need to be in 12" as opposed to FRSR getting 3 shots at 24", and are only getting 9 (long range) 19 (short range) shots from your Infantry Squad and not 27. And yeah, Cadians are going to have .1666 more shots than that (approx 35 shots on average instead of 30 because of Exploding Sixes), but that more or less means that Cadians shouldn't be getting Take Aim against a knight, since more shots means more exploding sixes.

 

Also the +1 Strength from Ursula Creed doesn't help them - since it's str 4 vs T8, and that doesn't reduce the roll of a 6 needed to wound.  And yes, one squad can get autowounds on a 5, and yes that drastically increases performance on that one squad - with Take Aim! and 5's autowound, they're likely to actually put a few damage on the knight but unlikely to do more than 5 wounds, with 20 shots only having an approximate 25% chance to land 5 or more wounds, and that's really not that crazy, since Sisters of Battle have a Stratagem that does up to 6 MW and does so easily, on a squad that is about the same amount of points. Does it feel great when a 5-Woman Sister squad drops 6 MW on my knight? No, not really, but also no worse than Psyker's Smiting it.

 

I will stop here - because I could probably write a thesis on the topic of dice rolls in 40k and Balance in Casual vs Competitive, and how the Fantasy of the Game and the Mechanics of the Game go together or clash and why (i think) the designers have made the choices that they have, but...

 

TL/DR: Chip Damage isn't really for Competitive Play, and is instead for New Players to not feel lost or defeated, and in Competitive Play (outside of specific Strategems) you should never be firing Lasguns/Bolters at things like Knights and should instead be using them to take out enemy objective holders, unless you are desperate.

 

 

Lasguns with Take Aim! as opposed to First Rank, Second Rank

 

Edited February 1, 2023 by MoshJason

[Arikel]

1 hour ago, MoshJason said:

 

 

TL/DR: Chip Damage isn't really for Competitive Play, and is instead for New Players to not feel lost or defeated, and in Competitive Play (outside of specific Strategems) you should never be firing Lasguns/Bolters at things like Knights and should instead be using them to take out enemy objective holders, unless you are desperate.

 

 

 

Edited February 1, 2023 by Arikel
With respect to this, it is why i suggested that basic troop squads be given alternate methods to dealing with heavy targets apart from their basic weaponry, such as krak grenades and access to some 1-shot antitank/monsters like rockets and meltabombs.

[Marshal Valkenhayn]

Funnily enough, most squads do have crack grenades, or some version of it. Or a meltabomb strat they can use if they charge into melee. This is a good way to potentially knock off 1-3 wounds from a vehicle as foot slogging troups. But you'll also shoot your lasguns, and likely do more damage with them than that one grenade.

 

'Chip damage is for new players' is a fluff piece argument. If Timmy has a new baby and not a lot of time, you should probably be playing smaller point games that don't include an abundance of T8 vehicles. And while GW does have quite a bit of time and effort put into non competitive fans, that is mostly through narrative reenactment missions and Crusade. It has nothing to do with everything damages everything. Also, while the concept of NoPE does exist, you are comparing apples to oranges. Yes you want to design a game to be accessible, intuitive, and fun. Yes you want first player experiences to be positive and avoid having a game that can trap players into no win situations out of the gate. No, that does not mean that little bitty guns need to be able to hurt great big tanks. It means that if your new player walks in with little bitty guns you do not bring tanks against them, and after a learner game you explain the concept of anti-tank and help them figure out how to approach it. Further, you design all armies to have access to ways to deal with tanks so that nobody who falls in love with a faction is stuck in a no win situation.

 

But to set game theory aside, your own math, OP, shows that S3 weapons do an unfortunately high amount of damage to knights. It's enough to be kind of plinky and annoying without auto wounding, but with auto wounding it's an affective way to bring down a wounded heavy using a modest investment of lightly armed troups. Personally I'm not bringing up fluff or lore, because that's been in the toilet for a while now. But paint by numbers this needs adjusting.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

2 hours ago, MoshJason said:

 

I think everyone is getting my argument slightly wrong. Chip damage is in the game not to make Lasguns/Bolters kill Tanks/Superheavies. It's in the game to make you feel like you are still *playing* the game, and are still doing *something*

 

I get it - some people want the game to be more simulationist - and some people want the game to be more of a space fantasy. 7th edition was both more a Simulationist Game and More of a Space Fantasy game, and the changes that happened to 8th-9th editions have reduced both feelings, and this is one of the big ones where both sides on that butt heads - in the Space Fantasy Game, of course you can get a lucky shot and damage the Death Star. In the simulationist game, it's more like, "Yes, but actually No, here's why-" and I think both are valid, but in this case, i think it's important to note that Chip Damage isn't in the game for either of them, or the competitive player, but for the new player. 

 

In game design, we use a term called "Negative Play Experience" sometimes called a NoPE. NoPEs are whenever you are playing a game, and something just... sucks. These are important for all players, but also way more important to avoid for *new* players - if your new player experiences a NoPE in their first game, they are just simply not going to play again. If your a veteran player who's deep in the game, you might just go, well that sucked, maybe I'll do "X" next time.

 

Personally, I bought a game called Star Wars Imperial Assault - it wasn't super expensive, but at the time I was making 7$ an hour part time. My first game went ok, I played as the Imperials and played more like a DM than a player, and I liked it. My second game, where I played as the Rebels started off great - I played as Sexy Lady Han Solo and then turn one got utterly and totally defeated. Just... didn't get to play, really. My team got butchered by the player playing Imperials right out of the gate, and it was miserable - we couldn't *do* anything. It was such a Negative Play Experience, I decided I'd never play that game again, and still haven't.

 

I think a lot of people think that James Workshop is designing his game for the Ultra-Competitive Players, and I think that's fine - but that he isn't just thinking about them - there's a lot of different types of people who play this game, and it has to cater to all of them. Magic the Gathering has written a few things on this: https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Player_type#Types

 

But a lot of the players out are more casual, are beginners, or simply haven't had the time or cash to update their armies. I have a friend, let's call him Timmy, and he just had his first baby about a year ago. Between getting ready for the baby, then dealing with a screaming infant who's growing quickly into a toddler, he hasn't had the time or energy to keep up with all the rule changes and codex drops - there seems like there's a new one each month. He doesn't know what the current meta is or what he should be taking to counter a Leagues of Votann list. His army should be able to be played with minimal "Gotcha's!" and "You can't hurt me's!". He played Imperial Guard back in 7th edition, with AEgis Defense lines and a legion of infantry - simply because that's what we had at the time. When he could, he would upgrade and get a tank or an artillery piece to slot in, but it was a slow progression - most people aren't dropping 100's of dollars at a time on the hobby, especially since you still have to build and paint these guys - so changing your list so you can hurt 3x Flyrants and a Barbed Heirodule (Which is the most common list we'd end up playing against, thanks Spike) when you are just starting out is a pretty hard thing to do

 

Adding in the "this can always wound on a six" doesn't mean you'll kill a Knight with Lasguns - again, it takes something like 300 lasguns to kill a single knight. And yeah, you can put orders on the Guardsmen - and some of that helps, but with Take Aim! you are still needing 180ish Lasguns, and to get 2 shots per lasgun you need to be in 12" as opposed to FRSR getting 3 shots at 24", and are only getting 9 (long range) 19 (short range) shots from your Infantry Squad and not 27. And yeah, Cadians are going to have .1666 more shots than that (approx 35 shots on average instead of 30 because of Exploding Sixes), but that more or less means that Cadians shouldn't be getting Take Aim against a knight, since more shots means more exploding sixes.

 

Also the +1 Strength from Ursula Creed doesn't help them - since it's str 4 vs T8, and that doesn't reduce the roll of a 6 needed to wound.  And yes, one squad can get autowounds on a 5, and yes that drastically increases performance on that one squad - with Take Aim! and 5's autowound, they're likely to actually put a few damage on the knight but unlikely to do more than 5 wounds, with 20 shots only having an approximate 25% chance to land 5 or more wounds, and that's really not that crazy, since Sisters of Battle have a Stratagem that does up to 6 MW and does so easily, on a squad that is about the same amount of points. Does it feel great when a 5-Woman Sister squad drops 6 MW on my knight? No, not really, but also no worse than Psyker's Smiting it.

 

I will stop here - because I could probably write a thesis on the topic of dice rolls in 40k and Balance in Casual vs Competitive, and how the Fantasy of the Game and the Mechanics of the Game go together or clash and why (i think) the designers have made the choices that they have, but...

 

TL/DR: Chip Damage isn't really for Competitive Play, and is instead for New Players to not feel lost or defeated, and in Competitive Play (outside of specific Strategems) you should never be firing Lasguns/Bolters at things like Knights and should instead be using them to take out enemy objective holders, unless you are desperate.

 

 

Lasguns with Take Aim! as opposed to First Rank, Second Rank

 

If the mechanic does nothing but provide occasional feel bad moments when a heavy vehicle is destroyed by small arms, then there’s no reason for the mechanic to exist.

 

My armies don’t even typically have much dedicated AT and it’s never been a problem for me where it gets immediately destroyed.

1 hour ago, Arikel said:

 

Most imperial squads im aware of have access to krak grenades already.

 

edit

just realized guard don’t. I feel like i remember them getting them in the past, did that change?

Edited February 1, 2023 by Inquisitor_Lensoven

[Jorin Helm-splitter]

11 hours ago, DesuVult said:

Drukhari, AdMech, Votann twice.

 

That makes sense three fractions that have been hit with a ton of nerfs. I only played against admech flyer spam that was miserable lol.

 

I do wonder how long it will take GW to nerf overcharged Las cells.

[MoshJason]

3 hours ago, Marshal Valkenhayn said:

But to set game theory aside, your own math, OP, shows that S3 weapons do an unfortunately high amount of damage to knights. It's enough to be kind of plinky and annoying without auto wounding, but with auto wounding it's an affective way to bring down a wounded heavy using a modest investment of lightly armed troups. Personally I'm not bringing up fluff or lore, because that's been in the toilet for a while now. But paint by numbers this needs adjusting.

Wait - how is that unfortunately high? The math shows that you are very unlikely to do anything but chip the paint.

 

Meanwhile, a dedicated anti-tank weapon deals significantly more damage to the Knight?

 

Also, Krak Grenades and Meltabombs are good in theory, and in 7th edition they worked - the issue is now to use a Krak Grenade you have to be in 6" and get one shot - so while they are more effective than any basic weapon vs a Knight - they are also a hail mary that does little damage. I would not be opposed to these options getting better - if my Krak Grenades were better (right now a Krak Grenade is still 33% likely to fail on throw, fail on wound 66% of time, and get saved 50% of the time, which means you have approx 10% chance to wound a Knight with a Krak Grenade at 6" away - so while this is a cool option, and it's def a "That Sisters Squad is dead" lol moment for a hail mary. If they did d6 damage or melta damage instead of d3, I think I'd be more willing to do that)

 

I play both Knights and Non-Knights, and I can tell you that from my perspective Knights feel about where *they* should feel, durability wise to me as a game designer. They both play into the Fantasy of being a Giant Robot without making a player going against an entire army of them go - oh, my anti-infantry units might as well not be here, since I have prepared for a take all comers list.

 

3 hours ago, Marshal Valkenhayn said:

Chip damage is for new players' is a fluff piece argument. If Timmy has a new baby and not a lot of time, you should probably be playing smaller point games that don't include an abundance of T8 vehicles. And while GW does have quite a bit of time and effort put into non competitive fans, that is mostly through narrative reenactment missions and Crusade. It has nothing to do with everything damages everything. Also, while the concept of NoPE does exist, you are comparing apples to oranges. Yes you want to design a game to be accessible, intuitive, and fun. Yes you want first player experiences to be positive and avoid having a game that can trap players into no win situations out of the gate. No, that does not mean that little bitty guns need to be able to hurt great big tanks. It means that if your new player walks in with little bitty guns you do not bring tanks against them, and after a learner game you explain the concept of anti-tank and help them figure out how to approach it. Further, you design all armies to have access to ways to deal with tanks so that nobody who falls in love with a faction is stuck in a no win situation.

 

The core idea of 40k is that any one can bring their army vs any army. Knights aren't restricted - so a new player might pick up knights vs a new player who picks up any other faction. I understand you are a dedicated enough fan that you are on Bolter and Chainsword, but I guarantee you a large portion of the player base isn't - most players likely have an army that they play against their friends in someone's basement or for pickup games at the Local Gamestore. Games Workshop needs to make the game accessible for players like you, and players like them. Otherwise, you end up with the issue they ran into 7th Edition - There were tournament players who loved the DeathStars and Funky Tricks you could pull off, but casual play almost died off. My area went almost exclusively to Warmachine or Xwing, and the 40k matches more or less dried up. It wasn't until 8th edition that people got back in, and a few people in my group got back in exclusively for the "Oh, I can actually hurt things again" reason, myself included.

 

Edited February 1, 2023 by MoshJason

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

1 hour ago, MoshJason said:

Wait - how is that unfortunately high? The math shows that you are very unlikely to do anything but chip the paint.

 

Meanwhile, a dedicated anti-tank weapon deals significantly more damage to the Knight?

 

Also, Krak Grenades and Meltabombs are good in theory, and in 7th edition they worked - the issue is now to use a Krak Grenade you have to be in 6" and get one shot - so while they are more effective than any basic weapon vs a Knight - they are also a hail mary that does little damage. I would not be opposed to these options getting better - if my Krak Grenades were better (right now a Krak Grenade is still 33% likely to fail on throw, fail on wound 66% of time, and get saved 50% of the time, which means you have approx 10% chance to wound a Knight with a Krak Grenade at 6" away - so while this is a cool option, and it's def a "That Sisters Squad is dead" lol moment for a hail mary. If they did d6 damage or melta damage instead of d3, I think I'd be more willing to do that)

 

I play both Knights and Non-Knights, and I can tell you that from my perspective Knights feel about where *they* should feel, durability wise to me as a game designer. They both play into the Fantasy of being a Giant Robot without making a player going against an entire army of them go - oh, my anti-infantry units might as well not be here, since I have prepared for a take all comers list.

 

 

The core idea of 40k is that any one can bring their army vs any army. Knights aren't restricted - so a new player might pick up knights vs a new player who picks up any other faction. I understand you are a dedicated enough fan that you are on Bolter and Chainsword, but I guarantee you a large portion of the player base isn't - most players likely have an army that they play against their friends in someone's basement or for pickup games at the Local Gamestore. Games Workshop needs to make the game accessible for players like you, and players like them. Otherwise, you end up with the issue they ran into 7th Edition - There were tournament players who loved the DeathStars and Funky Tricks you could pull off, but casual play almost died off. My area went almost exclusively to Warmachine or Xwing, and the 40k matches more or less dried up. It wasn't until 8th edition that people got back in, and a few people in my group got back in exclusively for the "Oh, I can actually hurt things again" reason, myself included.

 

Pretty sure each model gets a krak grenade, and getting within 6” of a massive vehicle isn’t hard considering how easy it is to get across the table right now.

 

 

do you think new players are total morons?

they may not know a multimelta is better at killing vehicles than a lascannons, but I’ve never met a new player who thought they could bring an army of only bolters or lasguns or equivalents and be successful…even the younger ones.

Edited February 1, 2023 by Inquisitor_Lensoven