Late turn charges and ongoing combats.

[Brother Raul]

Hail Brothers and Sisters,

                                              Hope you are all well. Have noticed a thing with 11th worth starting a discussion over,  not sure I like it, and starting to set up around it.

 

The whole thing is how the interactions of taking turns activating ongoing combats. Get it wrong and you will cop 2 rounds of fighting back to back.

 

Basically when you charge something later game you surrender activation for ongoing combats.

 

Its been a big deal in a couple of my games with SG and Hammernators copping it badly.

 

I've started paying for the fights first enhancement again as that can flip the order (Sanguinor less worth it).

 

It means charging with SG either very early (when DC have also charged) or late when Hammernators also have.

 

Its especially usefull for ongoing combats where if you charged that turn you surrender the activation of ongoing combat. Can work well with Knights and Green tide where you might not get through that unit in 1 go.

 

I am not happy with the dynamic as it stands. It rewards tarpitting and favours certain disposition, factions and builds (greentide strength).

 

Frustrsiting as the game has never been about alternstive activations until now, and only on this one point. Really doesn't help an army that always wants to be charging.....LAG and RCO.

 

We rely on counter attacks on objectives for take and hold as well as constant charging in RCO so there's no real way around it strategically (you will have to play ultra conservative to get these match ups perfect and thats not going to force your opponent into hard decisions).

 

It's a huge pain when 8 boys come back and Ghaz smacks you twice in 2 turns. Knights on hammernators twice too (triggered it by charging a 1 wound rhino with scouts).

 

Certainly have to try and get the rythm right and doubt it will change anytime soon, but as it stands its basically a free interupt in my opinion.

 

Would love to hear what everyone else thinks? Tactics for dealing with it ect.

Edited 12 hours ago by Brother Raul
Spelling.

[Tawnis]

In the matches I have had with it so far, it certainly has it's issues, but I do slightly prefer it to the 10th edition.

 

First off, in 10th, your opponent went first in ongoing combats anyway, so that doesn't really feel like a change at all, it just seems like it because of how the structure of the phase has changed into 11th. 

 

Basically, what is SUPPOSED to happen, is that this is the niche that fights first is supposed to fill, want to make sure that your unit always fights first in ongoing combat, toss a Fights First unit in there. They don't cost that many points now as a result of them being more niche... however, there is a problem with that and it's what I don't like about using them in 11th. 

 

If your opponent has an ongoing combat with a key unit and charges another key unit, while charging a throw away unit into one of your fights first units, you're toast on every front. They fight first into your charged key unit as it's their turn, you MUST then activate your fights first unit to go next, taking out their sacrificial unit, then they activate first again in ongoing and hit your other key unit. 

Fights First was a massive problem in 10th because it made units not want to charge each other. While it does help solve a problem in 11th, it creates a lot more complexity in the charge phase on what exactly you want to charge where, and the fact that it can sometimes actually be a liability is pretty painful. 

[jaxom]

3 hours ago, Tawnis said:

They fight first into your charged key unit as it's their turn, you MUST then activate your fights first unit to go next, taking out their sacrificial unit,

Maybe I missed something in the rules, why does your unit have to attack the sacrificial unit instead of the threat unit?

[Tawnis]

1 hour ago, jaxom said:

Maybe I missed something in the rules, why does your unit have to attack the sacrificial unit instead of the threat unit?

Because of the way alternating combat works:

In the example above, they activate their good unit first and attack into your unit they want to kill. Then, because you have a fights first unit, you MUST activate it and fight next. If this then kills the little chaff unit, they now have no more units to activate in the fight first step and move on to the ongoing combat step as the next person in the turn order. 

[jaxom]

Let's see if I've got this right:

1. My unit A (w/Fights First) charges opponent's unit B and then attacks unit B in the Fight phase. Unit B survives. My turn resolves and opponent's turn start.
2. Movement phase: unit B does not fall 
3. Opponent charges their unit C into my unit A (unit C now has Fights First until the end of the turn).
4. Fight phase: Unit C (w/Fights First and belonging to the player whose turn it is) activates first and is eligible for Normal Fight. Unit C has one eligible unit to choose as a target for its attacks, unit A.
5. Unit C attacks unit A. Unit A survives.
6. Unit A (w/Fights First) activates and is eligible for Normal Fight.

It's the next part I don't understand: why does unit A have to target unit C? As far as I understand it, Normal Fight leads to Making Attacks (04) which leads to Select Targets (04.02) - While Fighting. Targets must be engaged with the model that has the weapon. Unit B (the threat to unit A) is still engaged with unit A when unit A activates. So why not attack unit C to reduce the threat before unit C activates?

[Tawnis]

41 minutes ago, jaxom said:

It's the next part I don't understand: why does unit A have to target unit C? As far as I understand it, Normal Fight leads to Making Attacks (04) which leads to Select Targets (04.02) - While Fighting. Targets must be engaged with the model that has the weapon. Unit B (the threat to unit A) is still engaged with unit A when unit A activates. So why not attack unit C to reduce the threat before unit C activates?

It does not have to target unit C, I was referring to separate combats.

 

Essentially, it's just that because you MUST attack with your fights first unit first, it can be used against you to throw off the back and forth, forcing you to make a suboptimal choice. Normally, on your opponent's turn, you get to go first in ongoing combat because they probably charged something, not so often with fights first. 

Here's a very similar example with less units than my previous one. It's your opponent's turn. Your unit A is in combat with their unit B and will likely kill it if you get to attack first. Now your opponent could choose not to charge anything to ensure they fight first, but that can be a big disadvantage. So, instead they charge unit C into your unit D that has fights first. 

Unit C fights first and does considerable damage to unit D, but does not kill it. Unit D then MUST fight next because it has fights first, and does minor damage to unit C.  Then, it's their activation again and their unit B gets to fight fight into your unit A before you can activate it. This enable them to fight first in both combats, using your own fights first ability against you.