Dark Angels Index

[m_r_parker]

31 minutes ago, StormLion said:

Am I miss reading or does the Lion not benefit from his own auras? I was re-reading them and RAW it seems like only the units within 6" get the benefit.

 

In other words MWs are going to be how you kill him.

 

Core rules, p38 - "A model with an Aura ability is always within range of its own Aura ability."

[FarFromSam]

37 minutes ago, StormLion said:

Am I miss reading or does the Lion not benefit from his own auras? I was re-reading them and RAW it seems like only the units within 6" get the benefit.

 

In other words MWs are going to be how you kill him.

He is an adeptus astartes model and is within 6 " of himself.   

 

GW has made an art of confusing rules.   So much so that I can't tell what they intend by the phrasing.  

 

Is the 9th ed rule that character's buffs don't buff themselves still a thing?

[StormLion]

56 minutes ago, m_r_parker said:

 

Core rules, p38 - "A model with an Aura ability is always within range of its own Aura ability."

 

48 minutes ago, farfromsam said:

He is an adeptus astartes model and is within 6 " of himself.   

 

GW has made an art of confusing rules.   So much so that I can't tell what they intend by the phrasing.  

 

Is the 9th ed rule that character's buffs don't buff themselves still a thing?

 

I'm glad you're both reading it that way. The thing that gave (gives) me pause is the phrasing "that unit receives..." In other words the units that are within 6 get either aura, not him. 

 

Please note, I hope I am wrong.

[CCE1981]

It has to be FAQd that damage is a minimum of 1.  Otherwise Death Wing Knights and Redemptor Dreadnoughts are immune to Mortal Wounds.  The damage is reduced when the attack is allocated, you just ignore the saving throw step.  If you don’t allocate the Mortal Wounds, the mortal wounds don’t do damage.

[phandaal]

Mortal Wounds do not have a damage characteristic. The "Damage" in "Damage reduction" refers to a specific number that is found on weapon profiles. Mortal Wounds do not have this number - they do not have any stats, in fact.

 

The -1 Damage thing does need an FAQ though, to stop those units from becoming immune to D1 weapons. It will get one. For some reason, GW constantly forgets to include this one very obvious caveat.

[Interrogator Stobz]

6 hours ago, m_r_parker said:

 

If you're basing Redemptor Dreads as being "DWK Killers" because of the combo of Onslaught and Heavy Onslaught Cannon, meh....

You need to both hit and roll a natural 6 on a Wound roll to activate a DW. 12 + 6 shots per turn hitting on a 3+ with a 6 To Wound equates to 2 DW's per shooting phase per Redemptor, at a single Damage per shot. The remainder of the shots are irrelevant, D1 shots will be negated by the Inner Circle rule. So you would need 2 Redemptors both equipped with Heavy and regular Onslaught Cannons focus firing on a DWK unit to statistically do enough damage to kill a single Deathwing Knight...

Cheers for that detail Brother.

What do you see as the biggest MW threat to DWKs so far ?

[Tacitus]

6 hours ago, StormLion said:

Am I miss reading or does the Lion not benefit from his own auras? I was re-reading them and RAW it seems like only the units within 6" get the benefit.

 

In other words MWs are going to be how you kill him.

Core Rules, models are always in range of their own aura - as long as they qualify for their own aura. 

[Cpt. Bannockburn]

7 hours ago, m_r_parker said:

20 * (8/9) * (11/36) = 20 * (22/81)  ~ 5.43 DW's per Redemptor per shooting phase, so 1 Deathwing Knight dead and another wound and a half on another model. Definitely better, but it's still going to take two Redemptors roughly two turns of shooting to wipe out a single 5-man DWK unit with the help of Oath of Moment. 

 

Good point, a squad of DWKs (especially when maxed) does have significantly more wounds than the Lion :-) 

Still, those big gatlings seem to be very reliable on putting MWs on target, and I'll definitely consider putting them on my Redemptor, instead of my go to macro plasma. Especially with losing WftDA.

 

7 hours ago, m_r_parker said:

You got a link to that BatRep? Would like to see how that played out.

 

Sure, but I remembered wrong: It was only 8 of the 10 wounds, and the rest was mopped up by fight on death death company.

https://youtu.be/pG2oYheJbtQ

 

Notably they play the reduced damage as minimum of 1, as is probably intended.

[ValourousHeart]

On 6/13/2023 at 1:58 AM, Cpt. Bannockburn said:

I'm aware that it's a stupid thing to do. So instead of dismissing it like that can you just tell me if I missed something in the core rules or if you think (like me) that this is going to be addressed in the certainly upcoming errata as it happened before?

 

I'm sorry, yes I can tell you that.

 

In the past when I've started the conversation from the other end, it all feel on deaf ears.  They had wanted the rule to work the way they wanted, and read into the rules all sorts of justifications, and circular reasoning to safeguard against any logic argument.  So I'm sorry for taking that annoyance out on you.

 

Ok, here goes... the pattern.  Take a look at any "medic/apothecary" rules and the rules for saving against MW.  Those rules specifically say that the damage is reduced to zero or that the damage is ignored.  GW has been very consistent about that language, zero and ignored.  Every rule that reduces damage to zero or ignores damage 100% of the time explicitly states it.  No guess work required.  There are no assumptions.  It is never implied or inferred.

 

Whenever the rule states -1 damage or 1/2 damage or similar the rule either spoon feeds it to us, or it gets an FAQ to spoon feed it to us, that the damage is never reduced below 1.

 

I know it isn't cut and dry with some other rules, but on this one GW has been very very consistent across editions.

[aura_enchanted]

u can put a talon amster next to a talonmaster for lone operative invincible land speeder cheese

[Cpt. Bannockburn]

The point of these discussions is that RAW it's very stupid. It does not go without saying. It needs to be said on either the data sheet or in a core rule, and defining a robust ruleset as "spoonfeeding" is kind of missing the point.

 

Yes, I agree with you: It should be minimum 1. But it should also be explicitly defined in the rules itself, or this discussion will come up again and again by people I then stop playing against. Otherwise it must be inferred by the very good examples you bring up. They are definitely good, but unfortunately they're also not as super obvious, especially when one takes into account newcomers to the game who don't have the benefit of several editions of how things worked before.

 

In my view it's pretty simple: If you have to read other data sheets to make sense of this one, there's something wrong, especially when it can be solved by the addition of 5 words or a general rule in the core rules.

 

But thank you for explaining your PoV. :) 

Personally I believe there's a huge rush in getting all the indices out, and this is just a lack of proof reading (and maybe playtesting only by people who know how it's intended) and it will be resolved by the very first FAQ / Errata. 

In the meantime, I will play my games as if there's a "to a minimum of 1" added to every instance of this.

[Prot]

On 6/12/2023 at 6:10 PM, Grotsmasha said:

 

I read it as, 1 D6 per wound allocated up to six. So Even if Belial isn't damaged, just targeting him guarantee's reprisal.

 

Strikes of Retribution: Each time a melee attack is allocated to this model, after the attacking model’s unit has finished making its attacks, roll one D6 (to a maximum of six D6 per attacking unit): for each 2+, the attacking unit suffers 1 mortal wound. 

 

I read it as "Each melee attack".  But you see it as each wound allocated? That's fair, I just wanted to make sure that's how you're seeing it.

 

+++++++++++++++++++

 

I'm definitely eyeing up the following:

 

Azrael + Hellbasters (potentially Sternguard ) for 4++ and Sustained hits.

 

Sammael + Ravenwing  Command squad Or even a full sized Outrider squad with ATV attached (now legal).

 

Deathwing Command Squad + Apothecary + Banner + Shields for being an unmovable/ battle shock loving OC blob.

 

Darkshroud. Just looks fun... and annoying.

 

Vengeance. Plasma Storm  looks fun.

 

Dark Talon: Flyers don't really appeal but this Rift cannon ( Blast, Devastating Wounds) D3+1 at S14, -4AP 3D looks like something that can't be ignored. Not to mention passing over something and dropping a stasis bomb that on a 4+ prevents a unit from moving..... that has huge potential. I imagine this includes units like Guilliman, Mort, etc.

 

 

 

 

On the fence:
Talonmaster (even with the dual Talon unshootable gong show)

Belial

Ezekeil

 

Deathwing Knights: They look great, I just foresee wanting the shooting and flexibility from the Deathwing Command squad.

[bigtrouble]

2 hours ago, Prot said:

 

Strikes of Retribution: Each time a melee attack is allocated to this model, after the attacking model’s unit has finished making its attacks, roll one D6 (to a maximum of six D6 per attacking unit): for each 2+, the attacking unit suffers 1 mortal wound. 

 

I read it as "Each melee attack".  But you see it as each wound allocated? That's fair, I just wanted to make sure that's how you're seeing it.

 

 

There’s a step in the core rules referred to as Allocating Attacks that comes before the save throw. The player who’s unit is being attacked allocates successful hit/wound rolls to a specific model. In the same way as previous editions, if a model has already lost wounds, you must allocate attacks to that model first. So it’s successful wounds, not total of the attacks characteristic.

[ValourousHeart]

6 hours ago, Cpt. Bannockburn said:

The point of these discussions is that RAW it's very stupid. It does not go without saying. It needs to be said on either the data sheet or in a core rule, and defining a robust ruleset as "spoonfeeding" is kind of missing the point.

 

Yes, I agree with you: It should be minimum 1. But it should also be explicitly defined in the rules itself, or this discussion will come up again and again by people I then stop playing against. Otherwise it must be inferred by the very good examples you bring up. They are definitely good, but unfortunately they're also not as super obvious, especially when one takes into account newcomers to the game who don't have the benefit of several editions of how things worked before.

 

In my view it's pretty simple: If you have to read other data sheets to make sense of this one, there's something wrong, especially when it can be solved by the addition of 5 words or a general rule in the core rules.

 

But thank you for explaining your PoV. :) 

Personally I believe there's a huge rush in getting all the indices out, and this is just a lack of proof reading (and maybe playtesting only by people who know how it's intended) and it will be resolved by the very first FAQ / Errata. 

In the meantime, I will play my games as if there's a "to a minimum of 1" added to every instance of this.

 

In my experience RAW stands for "Rule as I Want it, Want it, Want it" (said in a mocking children's tantrum, increasing in pitch like a dirt bike.)  So spoon feeding seems the most appropriate way to say it.

 

Take an example from AOS.  A guy at my FLGS plays Cruelboys.  He really likes the Cruelboys regiment of renown because it is better than the same unit from his battle tome.  He want to include that regiment of renown in his Cruelboys list.  The only problem is that the rules explicitly state "to include a regiment of renown you general has to be Order <Grand Alliance> and NOT <Faction A>, then you may include Regiment of Renown <Faction A>.

 

In other words, you can include the Cruelboys Regiment of Renown in any Destruction army that is NOT Cruelboys.  The reason that the Regiment of Renown is better is because they need to compete with the units in your army that benefit from your army rules, which the Regiment of Renown will not.

 

But he wants it the way he wants it, and his logic gymnastics is that the rules for including a Regiment of Renown don't apply when the faction of the main army is the same as the Regiment of Renown.

 

If players are going to willfully misread the rules for Regiments of Renown, how likely do you think that players will belligerently misread any explicit rule set.

[Tacitus]

9 hours ago, bigtrouble said:

There’s a step in the core rules referred to as Allocating Attacks that comes before the save throw. The player who’s unit is being attacked allocates successful hit/wound rolls to a specific model. In the same way as previous editions, if a model has already lost wounds, you must allocate attacks to that model first. So it’s successful wounds, not total of the attacks characteristic.

Yeah this Retribution rule is all kinds of wonky.  If you want to use it, you have to do so either immediately after your currently forced allocation model dies, or right off the bat and pretty much guarantee all attacks this time will be allocated to Belial until he dies or facing an opposing player with Precision who is willing to risk the blowback - it would be better if it was for each melee attack assigned to this model's unit, as opposed to "this model" - as it stands now the calculus is too narrow/limiting. 

[Prot]

I think to be safe I'll just be skipping Belial for a while.

 

In truth there's some very good HQ choices here, and some from the vanilla index as well that would work here.  I'm surprised more people aren't that hyped about it. 

[Tacitus]

13 hours ago, Prot said:

I think to be safe I'll just be skipping Belial for a while.

 

In truth there's some very good HQ choices here, and some from the vanilla index as well that would work here.  I'm surprised more people aren't that hyped about it. 

Probably a good choice, as I looked at the rules again, and you can't CHOOSE to assign attacks to Belial while he has bodyguards.  The only time he can have attacks assigned to him is if he's the last man standing, or if your opponent chooses to through Precision which will almost definitely not be in your best interest.  Unless I'm missing something his bespoke is not incomprehensibly bad/unlikely. 

[Harleqvin]

I have no idea if the immune to small arms fire will get FAQ'd or not. I mean we had two editions of landraiders getting blown up by an overcharged plasmaGUN...

Plus so many other factions have same wording except Bullgryns...

Either way we will find out. I also wonder if they'll do anything about the mutiple ancients in a squad (Ancient in TDA joining Deathwing Command Squad.)

[Harleqvin]

On 6/12/2023 at 10:04 PM, Eilio Tiberius said:

 

So are they going to retcon how Dark Angel battle companies have a company veteran squad?

 

 

The narrative is going that they are accepting Fallen (that aren't chaos,) and that Lion Judges them. So it makes some sense that they seem to have removed them.

edit - whoops. I was meaning to quote respond to the person that said about interrogator-chaplains having been removed... My apologies.

I will say it appears maybe they have been put towards command squad...? as the command squad has the non special models listed as company veterans...

 

On 6/14/2023 at 8:26 AM, Cpt. Bannockburn said:

The point of these discussions is that RAW it's very stupid. It does not go without saying. It needs to be said on either the data sheet or in a core rule, and defining a robust ruleset as "spoonfeeding" is kind of missing the point.

 

Yes, I agree with you: It should be minimum 1. But it should also be explicitly defined in the rules itself, or this discussion will come up again and again by people I then stop playing against. Otherwise it must be inferred by the very good examples you bring up. They are definitely good, but unfortunately they're also not as super obvious, especially when one takes into account newcomers to the game who don't have the benefit of several editions of how things worked before.

 

In my view it's pretty simple: If you have to read other data sheets to make sense of this one, there's something wrong, especially when it can be solved by the addition of 5 words or a general rule in the core rules.

 

But thank you for explaining your PoV. :) 

Personally I believe there's a huge rush in getting all the indices out, and this is just a lack of proof reading (and maybe playtesting only by people who know how it's intended) and it will be resolved by the very first FAQ / Errata. 

In the meantime, I will play my games as if there's a "to a minimum of 1" added to every instance of this.

Another issue is that since the start of 8th ed they have been going AWAY from Read As Intended, and focusing on you do what is written. This being done to reduce Player interpretation. It sometimes happens that they make mistakes still, or there is something that seems very apparent but players say something else (instance being some ork players tried to say quartering tables could be done lengthwise and GW chimed in with no its +.) So it does need to be stated somewhere if that's not what is supposed to be, because otherwise you do what it says in the rules.

Edited June 16, 2023 by Harleqvin

[Tacitus]

20 minutes ago, Harleqvin said:

I have no idea if the immune to small arms fire will get FAQ'd or not. I mean we had two editions of landraiders getting blown up by an overcharged plasmaGUN...

Plus so many other factions have same wording except Bullgryns...

Either way we will find out. I also wonder if they'll do anything about the mutiple ancients in a squad (Ancient in TDA joining Deathwing Command Squad.)

I'm amazed that there isn't :

A) a Terminator Command Squad datasheet - I've still got a box of generic chapter TDA Command Squad on the shelf of the hobby room. 

B) A rule for DA preventing them from taking the TDA ancient. 

[Harleqvin]

On 6/16/2023 at 1:37 AM, Tacitus said:

I'm amazed that there isn't :

A) a Terminator Command Squad datasheet - I've still got a box of generic chapter TDA Command Squad on the shelf of the hobby room. 

B) A rule for DA preventing them from taking the TDA ancient. 

It's possible it got left out...? But yeah. Kinda strange they didn't make a generic TDA command squad, and just have DA not allowed to use it as we have the deathwing one.

Edit - I also see that there isn't even an Apothecary in TDA unit either in the SM Index... So seems weird they'd have the ancient in TDA by itself and no apothecary in TDA either.

Edited June 16, 2023 by Harleqvin

[Tacitus]

1 hour ago, Harleqvin said:

It's possible it got left out...? But yeah. Kinda strange they didn't make a generic TDA command squad, and just have DA not allowed to use it as we have the deathwing one.

Edit - I also see that there isn't even an Apothecary in TDA unit either in the SM Index... So seems weird they'd have the ancient in TDA by itself and no apothecary in TDA either.

I'm pretty sure that TDA Ancient was a one-off special model or something and they're just keeping rules support so people don't get upset  at it going away right after they got it. - and not part of the TDA Command Squad I have. 

[Cpt. Bannockburn]

In any case, it's now cleared up, as expected:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/KBvH5h3oY5QREpmG.pdf

[m_r_parker]

I'm glad this has happened. I'm glad it's done before Leviathan gets it's release. I'm glad it's a universal FAQ / Design Commentary and not specific to certain armies.

 

But, this didn't need to happen at all.

 

I'll even go so far as to understanding that GW wanted the Core Rules to be as "streamline" as possible coming into a new edition. It makes the game appear super easy to get into, thus maximising potential new customers, and dealing with some of the bloat from the previous edition. But I always say "The devil is in the details", and treating rulesets a bit more like legal documents can have some solid benefits. The 'Inner Circle' rule from the Deathwing Knights was a classic example of this; the data sheet didn't mention a minimum Damage value, neither was there a minimum Damage value in the core rules, so basic mathematics will tell you to go from D1 to D0 (and then even to D-1 when applying certain Stratagems). Now we have a clear consensus that Damage can't be modified below 1, but can be changed to 0 if a rule specifies - great! The fact that Devastating Wounds are also affected by damage modifiers, despite the wording used in the Core Rules meaning they shouldn't - absolutely fine with that if that's what should be. 

 

But I will say that despite this being needed, and being grateful for it being available before release, the fact that I have an FAQ for a core product that I don't even own is the first mis-step in the Leviathan / 10th Ed launch in my opinion. Great fix, shouldn't have needed it in the first place though.

Edited June 16, 2023 by m_r_parker
Clarification on Devastating Wounds being affected by damage modifiers.

[FarFromSam]

What is going on in this picture?  Jeez