Siege of Cthonia thoughts

[Runefyre]

Finally got my copy, gotta say I'm pleasantly surprised by the overall quality of the book. It definitely feels like it was supposed to be released alongside the initial wave of HH 2nd edition given the emphasis on SoH and IF. 

 

After the horrible lore we got in Crusade I wasn't too confident that SoC would be any better, but thankfully I was wrong (for the most part). I love everything they did with the SoH, the True Sons are a super cool concept. The campaign lore is very enjoyable, up until the DA show up, where it immediately picks up where Crusade left off. It reads like someone's fan-fiction power fantasy and just isn't interesting or compelling. 

 

Still haven't had time to full digest the new core missions, but at a glance they seem fine. My group actually has had a great time with the default core missions from the rulebook, but will definitely give these a shot. 

 

The new Zone Mortalis missions look pretty good, definitely an improvement over the awful White Dwarf mission we got. looking forward to giving it a try. 

 

I love and hate the inductii rules, there are very clear winners and losers, and some real head-scratcher decisions. Overall a great addition, I know it's unlikely but there really should be a balance pass for some of them (looks at Blood Angels). 

 

[Yodhrin]

The story is fine, the rules are mostly fine - the usual mix of "oooh pretty noice" and "meh, what we already have is better", but I'm seriously bummed out by this daft new "Reinforcement" mechanic for ZM. ZM is not Space Hulk it's small games of Heresy with some fun rules for fighting at close quarters in dangerous environs. If I want to deploy my whole army at the beginning I should have that choice. If I want to spend my points in accordance with the FOC in a way that suits my tactics or fluff, I shouldn't then be punished for my choices when I get to the tabletop. I loved making interesting, strongly-themed 1K armies for ZM but a lot of them are now pretty useless in actual games because they often use RoWs which require a Delegatus, so those armies ended up with two HQ units so I could also take the HQ I'd actually wanted for that army's theme(or that was required for that RoW). In one case I just sodding well wanted two HQ models because it fit the fluff for the army.

 

I hate "passive aggressive" rules writing - if you don't want players to do something, just take away that option, don't leave it in and then write in a bunch of additional rules that cripple the choice in practice.

[Ripper.McGuirl]

I think "passive aggressive" is a pretty harsh take. I think they clearly had a very specific theme that they were going for, too, and it's not to everyone's tastes. I think they are trying to make it more space hulk-y. It really like the idea of the reinforcement forcing me to make decisions about how and when I'm going to deploy models, and having army lists that are actually maybe bigger than are going to all be able to get on the board, but that gives you kind of "side board" options to decide how to react to the enemy and mission. But as I said before, I get that I'm not the only one who plays these games, so I'm sorry the rules bum you out. Maybe you can just ignore the reinforcement rules and just use the regular reserves rules?
Also, I'm not sure I follow your issue with the characters. The force org has 2 spots for HQs. Needing a delegatus and a fun character is something you have to do in full size games, too, isn't it?
 

[Yodhrin]

1 hour ago, Ripper.McGuirl said:

I think "passive aggressive" is a pretty harsh take. I think they clearly had a very specific theme that they were going for, too, and it's not to everyone's tastes. I think they are trying to make it more space hulk-y. It really like the idea of the reinforcement forcing me to make decisions about how and when I'm going to deploy models, and having army lists that are actually maybe bigger than are going to all be able to get on the board, but that gives you kind of "side board" options to decide how to react to the enemy and mission. But as I said before, I get that I'm not the only one who plays these games, so I'm sorry the rules bum you out. Maybe you can just ignore the reinforcement rules and just use the regular reserves rules?
Also, I'm not sure I follow your issue with the characters. The force org has 2 spots for HQs. Needing a delegatus and a fun character is something you have to do in full size games, too, isn't it?
 

Yes but in full size games I can just put my army on the table.

 

In ZM under the new rules I now have to spend a minimum of 6 reinforcement points just to put my HQs on the table. In several armies I had HQs leading units that aren't retinues which also now have to be paid for separately. My Bitter Iron IH led by a Praevian who survived Isstvan and the necessary Delegatus fluffed as the sergeant of the Destroyer assault unit? Humped. My Siege/Scouring Destroyer Company(Centura) DG with the necessary Siegebreaker(a dread, Centura again) where I spent hours tweaking the points until all the units were multiples of seven for theme? Humped. My RoW-less DA who nonetheless have 2 HQs because the background for the army requires a psyker leader and a Firewing operative and I thought it would be cool to represent the latter with the Pathfinder consularis as he's an uplift rather than a full Marine(a planned conversion from the plastic Cypher in an army of truescale Tortuga minis) who would then lead a Seeker unit? Humped. I don't even think about what it's done to my Mechanicus force.

 

Meanwhile I can throw together a basic, mid, absolutely generic Delegatus+Retinue+Pride Elites-to-Troops list that can all be dumped down by the end of turn one without any problems but has all the theme and interest of a day old Greggs sausage roll.

 

There's no "how and where" decision making here for me, my armies just won't work because while I'm playing with half an army and trying to save up enough points to bring on one additional unit(as I had planned them to be used when building the list), an opponent can show up with pretty much their whole force right at the start and table me before there's any choice to make. In practice, people will just stop building interesting lists for ZM - it'll be troop swarms and Pride lists for breakfast lunch and dinner. If that's the theme they're going for it's not a very good one.

Edited June 2, 2023 by Yodhrin

[Noserenda]

Yeeeah charging a tax based on FOC slot is pretty awful when the same slot can be hundred of points pf difference, and FOC slots themselves are implicitly flexible. Like a troops choice could be a handful of militia or up to 15-20 terminators (Im too lazy to check :P ) 

[Yodhrin]

42 minutes ago, Noserenda said:

Yeeeah charging a tax based on FOC slot is pretty awful when the same slot can be hundred of points pf difference, and FOC slots themselves are implicitly flexible. Like a troops choice could be a handful of militia or up to 15-20 terminators (Im too lazy to check :P ) 

Exactly, and the huge premiums placed on HQs make it worse. If you're not taking a single HQ-warlord with a Retinue - who can all be deployed at the start of the game for just 2 Reinforcement Points - you're shooting yourself in the foot. Taking a second HQ at all that will cost a *minimum* of 4 Reinforcement Points to deploy at any point in the game is just pointless - no benefit they could bring you would outweigh the opportunity cost of the other things you could bring on in their place - which also makes any RoW that requires a second HQ worse, since you likely won't even get the benefit of that 2nd HQ on the table. Any choice that isn't massive chaff-spam or RoW shifting the most powerful units you can into troops slots is simply suboptimal, and not by some modest insignificant amount - with Warlord+Retinue+Pride you can drop 31 terminators all with Line for your initial 6 Reinforcement allotment, points permitting. What fluffy theme list that has to be dripfed onto the table - assuming you would even have enough Reinforcement over the course of the game to deploy them all at all - is going to stand up to that long enough for the later arrivals to matter?

Edited June 2, 2023 by Yodhrin

[bushman101]

The Reinforcement points are an odd thing.

The ZM games I have played, the first 2-3 turns are all movement and little to no action. This is due to navigating bending hallways and closed doors.

In my mind (I haven't played the new ZM rules yet), Renforcement points will cause more units to lag behind. Sure, you can use points to flank and such, but points used to do that means putting less on the board in time.

With all that said, I guessing the format will mean people will bring fewer but larger units (up to the limit allowed by ZM).

[Sparika]

Well, I’m deeply disappointed it's not translated in French. I have all indexes in French and I was expecting a consistant collection… and it’s also a bad news for the future… 

Edited June 2, 2023 by Sparika

[Noserenda]

Its also really odd to be encouraging big squads in ZM when smaller ones are a lot more on theme and less unwieldy on a tight board, though with the bases going up and up boards arent so tight anymore lol

[bushman101]

1 hour ago, Noserenda said:

Its also really odd to be encouraging big squads in ZM when smaller ones are a lot more on theme and less unwieldy on a tight board, though with the bases going up and up boards arent so tight anymore lol

Tangent to this, it seems that ZM is now 'intended' to be played on a 4x4 no matter the point level. The White Dwarf rules had a scaling size by points

Edited June 3, 2023 by bushman101
Spelling

[Yodhrin]

4 hours ago, bushman101 said:

Tangent to this, it seems that ZM is now 'intended' to be played on a 4x4 no matter the point level. The White Dwarf rules had a scaling size by points

I think points are the key thing here TBH. GW want us playing ZM games at 2.5k, or at least they want us to buy 2.5k armies for it - Reinforcement is just a way of curtailing the number of models on the actual table because 5k points of minis on a 4x4(or even a 6x4 with ZM terrain density really) all at once is ridiculous. It just happens to ruin the mode for anyone who's not interested in playing at point levels that high.

 

I really thought GW had begun to learn their lesson about letting people have the lower point value sub-games, but it seems they're not going to be satisfied until everything is "Epic with 40k minis".

[Gorgoff]

Am i seeing it right that you get 4 victory points for killing a HQ unit in the new core rules? The last two second objectives seem to stack. I am mistaken, no?

 

Edit: I missed the whole deployment discussion and hadn't read the new rules yet but I think it sounds interesting. At least I will try how that workes ingame. I guess they want to discourage spamming high power units which easily dominate ZM games, which is true but also kind of fiting for zm that we see terminators rock that game.

But I'll give it a shot.

@Yodhrin

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I really thought GW had begun to learn their lesson about letting people have the lower point value sub-games, but it seems they're not going to be satisfied until everything is "Epic with 40k minis".

I found it strange that they now speak of how many points you have to play and how big tables has be be in the book.

The general vibe is "Do what we say" and not "do what you like". I don't like that at all. 

We play 2000 points games in general for example and 3k games are more an exception. Like a big thing to play huge games like this 

 

Although I understand thst it sucks when armies get invaluated I must say that is always the dabger when playing with fanmade rules. Can't blame GW for thinking about that. ;)

 

And in 1ed you had to split your army in two roughly same sized parts as well in every ZM army which is kind of similar to the new system.  

 

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additional unit(as I had planned them to be used when building the list), an opponent can show up with pretty much their whole force right at the start and table me before 

Hardly possible on a ZM table. 

Edited June 3, 2023 by Gorgoff

[Marshal Rohr]

It might be coming across as heavy handed, but ‘how many points is a normal HH game’ was a question people asked constantly in AoD 1.0. 
 

there is clearly some of the same DNA with the way Necromunda and Titanicus are written which seems to be butting up against the endearing ‘you’re not my dad’ charm we Special Games fans have. 

Edited June 3, 2023 by Marshal Rohr

[Cleon]

For the people who have the book in hand, is there much in the way of recommendations or examples on how to set up ZM terrain?

[Yodhrin]

4 hours ago, Gorgoff said:

Although I understand thst it sucks when armies get invaluated I must say that is always the dabger when playing with fanmade rules. Can't blame GW for thinking about that. ;)

 

You've misunderstood, only one of the *four* armies that are now functionally nonviable use any fan rules, the other three are completely by the book and official, and all were built with the previous official iteration of ZM for 2.0 the WD article. They are all still *technically* legal forces, they're just not actually playable anymore by any reasonable metric.

 

Quote

And in 1ed you had to split your army in two roughly same sized parts as well in every ZM army which is kind of similar to the new system.  

 

Yes but it was an automatic process entirely within your control - you chose what units went in the spearhead and which the reserve, reserved units arrived using the standard rules for deployment and reserves with only a few tweaks. Now individual unit types have a specific reinforcement cost and that cost must be paid regardless of how they are deployed, outflanking costs *extra* reinforcement points on top of that cost, and deep strike for the few units that have it is merely a 1 RP discount on their deployment cost - with only six points to begin with and two RP per turn thereafter, the only "affordable" way to get an HQ on the table is to deploy your Warlord on the table at the start of the game(2RP as opposed to 4RP in all other circumstances) and it's always objectively better to find a way to make a unit Troops(1RP) via a FoC rather than try to bring in multiple Elites or FA(2RP), or HS(3RP). Pairing HQs with anything other than a Retinue is simply inferior, since you have to pay the full RP cost for both units. Taking more than one HQ is strictly inferior because bringing it to the tabletop costs half an army's worth of RP.

 

The old system let you pick the army you wanted, plan how to use it as you wished, and deploy it accordingly - the new system offers the *illusion* of choice with the expanded FOC, but in practice the viable options are strictly curtailed by the Reinforcement system, which only really functions "as intended"(so far as we can guess their intent) for very high point value games where the restriction it provides is intentional. At smaller game sizes - the 1-1.5k ones that have been the standard for ZM anywhere I've played it or seen it played since the inception of the mode in Heresy - it just gives the player a singular choice: build an optimal army from the perspective of RP cost, or lose games to anyone who does.

[bushman101]

3 hours ago, Cleon said:

For the people who have the book in hand, is there much in the way of recommendations or examples on how to set up ZM terrain?

Yeah. There is a 'designer's note' that gives a guide.

For example, for each 12"x12", use up to 2 Barricades. Etc

[SkimaskMohawk]

About passive aggressive rules writing: that's 2nd in a nutshell. The devs had a very clear idea about what they wanted to play against and what should be the focus, and if you try to go against that mould you get punished quite severely.

 

8 hours ago, Gorgoff said:

Am i seeing it right that you get 4 victory points for killing a HQ unit in the new core rules? The last two second objectives seem to stack. I am mistaken, no?

 

You can, and the last two secondaries do stack, but it's hard to leverage both on  HQs. For Break their Ranks, you need to kill the remaining models in a unit to score it, and that unit needs to be an HQ or Elite to get the double points. Which means either a death star of HQs, a command squad, or any other special unit that's placed in the HQ section (like contekar).

 

It really punishes rapier msu though. As if the slot deficiency and attrition secondary didn't already do that enough.

[Valkyrion]

What's the mini on page 89? There's a group of 4 chaos spawn, and 3 are definitely the current plastic kit, but I don't recognise the 3 headed spawn. 

[lansalt]

15 minutes ago, Valkyrion said:

What's the mini on page 89? There's a group of 4 chaos spawn, and 3 are definitely the current plastic kit, but I don't recognise the 3 headed spawn. 

It's the daemon from FW's Sayl the Faithless and Nightmaw, a WHFB/AoS kit.

[Brofist]

I think the whiplash with ZM is how different it is from even the WD they put out. Its basically an entirely different game now

[Marshal Rohr]

Theory: Zone Mortalis may be so different than what we expected because Cities of Death will probably share some similarity with ZM as we used to know it. I don’t have my book on hand but CoD was, iirc, mentioned in the same box out as Zone Mortalis. 

[Ripper.McGuirl]

10 hours ago, Brofist said:

I think the whiplash with ZM is how different it is from even the WD they put out. Its basically an entirely different game now

Yeah this is very true. At first I read it and thought it was basically the same but with more reserve stuff but the reinforcements really change everything. I’m super into that idea though.

I feel like certain legions are going to rise to the top: brutal hand to hand or close range fire legions, legions that can move things to the troop slot, and legions whose LA ability or wargear benefit terminators or veterans so they can run Pride. I’m fine with this. Sneaky raven guard is going to be useful for instance, but may need to work pretty hard to deal with just a flood of world eaters.

There’s a lot of subtle differences that seem intentional that will prevent the exact same things being taken in ZM and frontline games. For instance Headhunter Leviathal gives bonus VPs when you achieve the Slay the Warlord objective, not when you kill the enemy warlord, so it won’t trigger in ZM where it isnt a secondary.

Personally, I want ZM to feel way different to frontline games.

 

[Hfran Morkai]

2 hours ago, Marshal Rohr said:

Theory: Zone Mortalis may be so different than what we expected because Cities of Death will probably share some similarity with ZM as we used to know it. I don’t have my book on hand but CoD was, iirc, mentioned in the same box out as Zone Mortalis. 

 

Wait, did they say Cities of Death was something coming?

 

Because that would be incredible, especially if they re-released the city terrain.

 

I loved the Cities of Death book, sadly my copy is long lost but I enjoyed it so much (Pathfinders rappelling out of a Devilfish for example, off topic I know) I may grab a copy off ebay.

[Ripper.McGuirl]

38 minutes ago, Hfran Morkai said:

 

Wait, did they say Cities of Death was something coming?

 

Because that would be incredible, especially if they re-released the city terrain.

 

I loved the Cities of Death book, sadly my copy is long lost but I enjoyed it so much (Pathfinders rappelling out of a Devilfish for example, off topic I know) I may grab a copy off ebay.

There were City Fight rules in the last edition, I forget what black book they were in. I would not be surprised to see those, the raid missions, or the shadow war missions return in some form.

[Noserenda]

Yeah i think every edition of 30/40k has had some echo of the cityfight rules in it, but its never hit as well as the original 3rd ed book.