kombatwombat

Skimask raises some good points - since reactions are a no brainer with no downside attached, it’s straightforward to build a list that will just annihilate reserves without a significant cost. It’s entirely realistic to have to eat shooting from three units during your own turn even without using reserves. For a combat army, that may mean your opponent does more shooting in your turn than you do - and there’s no trade off in terms of combat reactions. I think the borrowing forward concept is a winner. If you react, that unit can’t activate in the corresponding phase on their turn. Return fire? Give up your own shooting phase. Withdraw? That unit can’t move next turn. Hold the line? No counter charging for you. When I proposed it earlier someone countered that it would be a bookkeeping nightmare. I don’t think so? You’re probably reacting with 2-3 units per turn. You currently have to keep track of units that rapid fired and can’t charge, units that rallied and have to snap shoot, vehicles that moved at cruising speed and only fire one weapon at full BS etc. Is it such a burden to add remembering that a unit reacted?

I’m also in the camp of ‘reactions should be a tactical move with a cost attached’ rather than ‘a mindless buff where the question is which, not if’. I think the system would be much more interesting and palatable to more players with a small number of changes in an errata. - Return Fire is declared before To Hit rolls are made, and executed after resolving the active unit’s shooting. - Interceptor requires an Augury Scanner to be used, and does cost a reaction allotment. - A unit may only make one reaction per player turn. I think those are relatively uncontroversial, so the one that won’t be popular for fans of reactions in their current full, perhaps grotesque glory: - A unit that uses a reaction may not take any action in the same phase on their following turn, except to Regroup. For example, a unit that uses the Evade reaction in their opponent’s turn may not shoot in their own subsequent Shooting Phase, but may move and charge as normal. Note that the Charge Sub-Phase is considered distinct from the Fight Sub-Phase for this rule.

I think limiting any given unit to making one reaction per turn, rather than per phase, is a very sensible limit. It doesn’t make reactions any less powerful, but it does stop say a 10-man Siege Tyrant squad firing 80 missiles in a turn. Also, GW’s decision to errata the Return Fire reaction to trigger before the active unit rolls to hit was, umm, bold.

Isn’t the Lion awake and moving around (in realspace no less) as of the end of Warzone Fenris? Surely that has to make him the strongest competitor, along with Russ who hasn’t been ‘on-camera’ but has the largest fan following and has the grey ship at the Gathering Storm speculation. Ferrus is shown in Master of Mankind in everything but name at the head of the Legion of the Damned/Imperial Daemons. That would be a simple enough means of bringing him back to the setting, with a true centrepiece model to boot.

The article definitely sounds like ‘we read the Goonhammer article and are now in damage control’. Bet the meeting on Monday morning was entertaining. When the iOS App is debugged a little I’m keen to give the free version a crack. I do find the subscription model very anti-customer so I won’t be buying in. I don’t think that was a mistake on GW’s part though - I think it was a calculated move after being very closely analysed by the financial and marketing teams to find the point that gouged the most cash out of the marketplace. Which is odd, since I’d thought the rise of social media had somewhat quashed the anti-customer approach to business.

I... agree entirely with Ishagu. Come the Apocalypse Allies indeed :P When IH were first released I was firmly in the ‘wait and see’ camp. The results are coming thick and fast though, and they all point to IH being overtuned. I think we’re fast approaching being able to say ‘IH need some fixes to bring them into line with the other Marine Supplements’. The standout issues seem to be: - the Ironstone, which is best fixed IMO by making it one-use-only for a phase, or otherwise making it a targeted ability at one unit, rather than an aura - the half damage stratagem for Dreadnoughts, which I wouldn’t want to see banned for Relic units; instead, I think it should be akin to Rotate Ion Shields - 1CP, 2CP for Contemptor and Deredeo keywords, 3CP for Leviathan keyword - a pure IH list will run out of CP fast burning that on a Levi - rerolling 1s to hit on moving heavy weapons, particularly flyers with +1 to hit; best solution there IMO is to errata the Doctrine bonus to be move and shoot heavy weapons without penalty, reroll 1s to hit with heavy weapons if the unit did not move (so you can benefit from one of the bonuses at a time, but not both) - psychic powers, which I’m not sure about, so maybe some warp charge increases? I think that’d be enough, personally.

When GW teased AP modifiers during the lead up to 8th this is where I hoped they were going with Invulnerable Saves. Effectively they’d be counter-modifiers to AP; so, if you have a 3+ Armour Save and an Invul of +1, against an AP-2 weapon you’d end up with a 4+ save (3 + (-2 + 1)), a 5+ against an AP-3 weapon and your full 3+ save against AP-1 and AP0 weaponry. What Invulnerable value to give would be similar to how AP transitioned from 7th to 8th Ed: 5+ Invul becomes Inv +1, 4+ becomes +2 and 3+ or better becomes +3. There are a couple of Daemon and Harlequin units that might need a bit of a rethink of their Save strategy but overall I think this would have been a nice mechanic.

A different colour plume and cape works well for me, but that’s because every single infantry model has a cape and plume. The plumes and capes are red, with the Captains/Hetaeron/Wardens purple.

Easily. You realise that for the last... I want to say seven editions since they lost their 2D6 3+ save Terminators have been terrible? You want to kill Terminators, massed fire of any kind. Just force them to roll saves, they will eventually get caught by a bad roll that just obliterates them. Anything with lots of shots and AP-1 - which are extremely common - is an effective anti-Terminator weapon. Autocannons are the absolute bane of Storm Shield Terminators, with multiple shots, just enough AP to force them to use their Inv save but no more, and 2 damage killing a model with every failed save. You’re not going to throw away CP by rerolling saves against 8 autocannon shots when elsewhere on the board someone’s just about to fire a Meltagun into your Warlord. Terminators only seem tough when people think that powerful weapons like Melta are effective anti-Terminator weapons, when really what you want is a Heavy Bolter. Hell, a Sicaran Punisher nearly kills an entire Storm Shield Terminator Squad in one go! — Edit: sorry, forgot they had two wounds. It kills half of the squad. Really? You’re fine that a Storm Shielded Terminator can shrug off a direct hit from a Volcano Cannon, but a flimsy Ork Trukk’s fuel tank exploding kills him?

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Mortal Wounds are an 8th Edition answer to a 7th Edition problem. Even without MWs, invisible rerollable 2+/2++/2+++ deathstars simply don’t exist in 8th Ed. Almost nothing rerolls saves of any kind, 3++ units don’t really have better than a 6+++ and nothing I know of has a 2+, 3++ and better than 5+++ without some crazy edge-case shenanigans from souping up. And Invisibility is gone (though some Eldar shenanigans get close to it). People posit that we need the nightlight of MWs to protect us from the invisible deathstar boogeyman hiding under the bed, but GW took that particular boogeyman out behind the shed and beat it to death with a baseball bat. Personally I think the game would be far better off it MWs were so rare they didn’t even have a name - just very rare special rules like Titans exploding not allowing saves of any kind. MWs certainly cause balance issues, and that’s a problem. But they also undermine fun by bypassing player agency, and that’s just unforgivable.

Frater Commissar Ibram Gaunt did this mock-up on photoshop: http://i.imgur.com/8uIzGfe.jpg ...and suddenly, he looks fantastic. I think I might use a Warden helmet instead of a normal Custodes one, and I might see if I can turn his left hand to be resting on a sheathed Misericordia, but overall this is what I was driving at.

That’s roughly how I’m leaning; every Custodian currently serving or having served as a Companion gets a purple plume and cape, and the Wardens helmet. Then I think I’ll fluff it as Shield Captains have served with the Companions even if they aren’t currently.

Because I like the rest of the model. I like the detailed armour, I like the tilting shield, I like the spear, I like the raven. Even after taking out all the detail I’m thinking to he still stands out as the blingiest guy in the blingiest army.

Hi all, I’m currently painting some Custodes up for a 30k league and have a question about the Companions. I’m planning on marking out the Companions with a purple helmet plume. This will obviously apply to Hetaeron Guard Valdor, and I’ll add some purple to my Telemon. The question relates to Shield Captains. Are they all Companions, or only some of them? Or have they served some time as Companions before moving on?

https://imgur.com/a/mLvKm This is the photoshopped version. I like it a lot - the lowered profile makes a massive difference, though I do like the original spear. I’d still swap the head and do something about the fur and right hand though.