Thursday 5 July 2012


6th Edition

My first impressions of 6th ed were very positive. I love the allies rules and was very excited about the other changes. However, I played my first game of 6th last night, and I have my doubts!

Now, what follows are my first impressions having played one game – so more or less entirely irrelevant. I need to play a heap more games before I come to a conclusion. A lot of what I’m about to say comes from needing to rethink tried and tested strategies and ways of doing things and I guess that’s what I’m finding frustrating. Now you can argue that that’s all part of the fun of a new edition, and you would be right, but some stuff is just irritating, and makes very little sense.

Here’s 2 things.

First I wanted to bring my Tri Raven list, but I can’t any more. The ravens and their contents must start in reserve. Because I don’t have anything other than the stuff in the Ravens, I can’t comply with the only 50% in reserve rule, so the list just doesn’t work. What’s wrong with being able to keep more than 50% of your force in reserve!

Second (and this is the biggie) I found wound allocation really irritating. Allegedly it stops the wound allocation abuse in 5th. Now I never found that terribly annoying to be honest. Yes Nobs and Paladins were irritating, but that was about it – the way you could allocate wounds on single wound models was mildly annoying, but no big deal. As I read the rules in 6th, it’s open to far more abuse!

Now this may be because I’m doing it wrong, and if you think I am please let me know, but the big problem I see is in units with different armour saves.

As I read the rules in assault, if there is more than one model in base to base with the attackers, the defender gets to choose who he allocates the wounds to first. If there are different armour saves on those models he can allocate all the wounds on the model with the different armour save. The attacker rolls all the dice one after another until that model is dead before moving on to another model. The problem it seems to me is that if there is one model with a tough armour save then all the wounds can be “wasted” on that model before doing anything else.

Last night my buddy had wolf guard terminators in packs of grey hunters. I assaulted them with a BA assault squad, doing about 7 wounds. He rolls them one after another on the terminator and only if he rolls a 1 does he move on to the grey hunters…..how annoying is that?

Worse,  imagine a biker command squad with a captain in artificer armour. If you allocate all the wounds to the captain he has a 2+ and then a 5+ against everything that isn’t AP2. I’m no math whiz but isn’t that something like 30 wounds before he’s dead, given he has 3 wounds?  Even when the power fists swing he has a 4++ and then a 5+ FNP. Remember he’s T5 now so unless there is something swinging at S10, he will not be insta killed - so he gets all his wounds and his FNP. So it needs something like 10 or so AP2 wounds before he’s dead, so 20+ power fist attacks! A whole squad of power fist terminators! And let’s not forget that once he’s down to his last wound  he can “look out sir” that last AP2 wound to his buddy with the storm shield!

You might say “a ha, but I can challenge him with a sergeant and take him out the combat”, well yes, but if I refuse the challenge, while that takes out his attacks, I can still allocate wounds to him.

If this is right biker command squads are insanely hard. I suspect you could do similar things with Nob bikers – but I don’t know the rules for orks as well.

Please, please tell me I’m getting this wrong, cause if I’m not, this is way, way worse than Paladin wound allocation shenanigans.

EYIG

6 comments:

  1. i also had my first game last night and came away with the same thoughts. it gets worse though, because of the 'look out sir' rule. this means that even when you fail to save that wound on the captain/sergeant/nob, you can just attempt to move it to another model of your choice. 4+ for squad leaders, 2+ for IC's. this is stupidly overpowered, and as you say, makes high toughness, low armour save models excessively valuable. additionally of course, it takes for ever to to roll 20 dice one at a time.

    regarding the challenge mechanic though, you are not quite correct. if you refuse a challenge, you get moved to the back of the unit, so you cannot have wounds allocated on you, since it is models in base contact first.

    As far as nob bikers are concerned, you are quite right. since bikes now increase natural toughness, nobs are T5 and Warbosses are T6. just imagine a unit of 10, with two Warbosses. all hits get allocated on the bosses, who are at the front. any that are failed get shunted onto a biker of your choice (2 wounds, so you have to fail 10 2+ saves with FNP before one nob dies) and the Warbosses take any S10 hits on the chin without flinching. oh and the smoke they produce gives them all a 4+ cover save at all time. ridiculous.

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  2. As far as shooting is concerned, the mixed armour rules just make it a little harder to kill the unit.
    I think an example best explains it:
    I have a unit of Grey Hunters that take 5 wounds. The closest models are 2 Grey Hunters, a Wolf Guard Terminator and then the rest of the squad. With mixed armour I would allocate 2 saves to the 2 closest Grey Hunters and then immediately roll them.
    If 1 died, I would then keep allocating single wounds to the other Grey Hunter until he died before moving on to the Wolf Guard Terminator with whatever wounds are left.

    In combat though...it's much more abusable.
    In combat I can keep allocating wounds to the Wolf Guard Terminator until he dies as long as he is in B2B with a model attacking him at that Initiative step. Pretty scary tbh, especially if your Wolf Guard is Arjac. :D

    Look out sir: In shooting it looks like you can look out sir even if you fail the save, but the model it is allocated to wont get a save from it.
    In combat, you do look out sir BEFORE rolling saves...

    Hope that was clear...it's clear in my head, but typing it out makes me feel like I'm forgetting something. :S

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  3. Atreides - not sure you do put the character that refuses a challenge to the rear of the assault. page 64 second column under"refusing a challenge". Says nothing about putting the model to the rear of the assault. It waffles on about "slinking away", but nothing says you put them at the back. Have I missed it - is it somewhere else?

    Also, dont thnk you can fail the save on the character, and then LOS. It happens when a wound is allocated, and allocation on characters in units with a mixed armour save happens before the save is taken. So, as I read it you need to decide whether to LOS, before the character takes the save. Confusingly, where there are no mixed armour saves, allocation happens after saves are taken so there the LOS roll is taken after saves.....! What a stupid system!

    EYIG

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  4. Overlord - Agreed on the wound allocation, but not so sure on the look out sir. Page 16 says "when a wound (or unsaved wound) is allocated to one of your modles". Key word is allocated. Look at page 15 under mixed saves. You allocate wounds before you take the saves. So the character must LOS before the save is taken. Presumably the model who takes the wound can then take a save against it.

    Really good article that clears most of it up here. http://www.3plusplus.net/2012/07/back-to-basics-removing-models-from.html

    EYIG

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  5. Seems that in Mixed Save units, due to the way allocation is handled, LOS in the shooting phase is done before rolling saves (as you allocated wounds THEN roll saves), whereas with a normal unit it is done AFTER saves (due to the fact that you roll saves THEN allocate wounds).

    I had it a little bit confused...too many new rules and having played games of 40k since 2nd edition don't mix. :D

    Thanks for pointing that out ETIG.

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  6. Regarding characters going to the back of the unit, that is the mechanism in WFB.
    In 40k the character just forfeits it's ability to attack.

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