8e - Strategems and Command Points

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/05/14/new-warhammer-40000-stratagems-may14gw-homepage-post-4/

Really like the look of this mechanic, will be interesting to see what Strategems are available to Dark Eldar.

I'm not sure that I understand exactly what the counter-offensive stratagem does. Does it allow you to charge with one of your units after an enemy unit has charged and fought a separate unit? Or is charging separate from the fight phase, which would mean that you can only use it to move a unit 3" to get into fighting range with an enemy unit that just charged and fought another unit?

All units that charged attack first, throughout all the battlefield (no longer resolving individual combats). This stratagem allows you to inmediately attack with a unit that has not charged, after at least one enemy charging unit has made its attacks.

I love this new mechanic, it makes the game more tactical.

My opponent charges 4 units of termagaunts into 4 separate units of wyches.

Normally, he hits me first in all combats because he charged into all of them this turn. But I use the counter offensive strategem so that one of my units can hit his first, hopefully saving some of them

It's used to protect key units when your opponent makes army wide charges

I read the article twice but maybe my comprehension sucks and I didn't notice it, are command points finite or do they replenish every turn? I didn't see where this was addressed.

Overall I like the concept but if they aren't finite I think it reduces their importance.

Edit: This line here:

Quote :

Or maybe you want to keep ahold of them to make sure you make that vital charge next turn?"

seems to be saying that they are finite.

CurstAlchemist wrote:

I read the article twice but maybe my comprehension sucks and I didn't notice it, are command points finite or do they replenish every turn? I didn't see where this was addressed.

Overall I like the concept but if they aren't finite I think it reduces their importance.

Edit: This line here: "Or maybe you want to keep ahold of them to make sure you make that vital charge next turn?", might infer that they aren't infinite.

Not at all. I think that will makes those stratagems more valuable.
You will have to choose wisely on which action to spend them. Interesting thing is uniqe options for fractions and how many those gems you can achive in a single game. Without taking an apoc-like army as was described previosly.

"I charge your Striking Scorpions with my Assault Marines!"

"NOT SO FAST, KAIBA! You've activated my trap card: counter attack! I can strike first now in the combat phase!"

"Oh I'm not done yet, Yugi, for I can spend three command points and sacrifice my Assault Marines to summon the BLUE EYES WHITE DRAGON!"

40k everyone.

Devilogical wrote:

CurstAlchemist wrote:

I read the article twice but maybe my comprehension sucks and I didn't notice it, are command points finite or do they replenish every turn? I didn't see where this was addressed.

Overall I like the concept but if they aren't finite I think it reduces their importance.

Edit: This line here: "Or maybe you want to keep ahold of them to make sure you make that vital charge next turn?", might infer that they aren't infinite.

Not at all. I think that will makes those stratagems more valuable.
You will have to choose wisely on which action to spend them. Interesting thing is uniqe options for fractions and how many those gems you can achive in a single game. Without taking an apoc-like army as was described previosly.

What I was trying to say is, if they aren't a limited resource then their importance is reduced.

TeenageAngst wrote:

"I charge your Striking Scorpions with my Assault Marines!"

"NOT SO FAST, KAIBA! You've activated my trap card: counter attack! I can strike first now in the combat phase!"

"Oh I'm not done yet, Yugi, for I can spend three command points and sacrifice my Assault Marines to summon the BLUE EYES WHITE DRAGON!"

40k everyone.

This isn't actually completely new when you think about it. There have been characters that had one use per game abilities such as bombardment, or forcing it to be night for one turn that have existed in the game previous. This is just an expansion of that concept when you get down to it.

CurstAlchemist wrote:

I read the article twice but maybe my comprehension sucks and I didn't notice it, are command points finite or do they replenish every turn? I didn't see where this was addressed.

Overall I like the concept but if they aren't finite I think it reduces their importance.

Edit: This line here:

Quote :

Or maybe you want to keep ahold of them to make sure you make that vital charge next turn?"

seems to be saying that they are finite.

I don't think it was mentioned in the article at all, but they did make it very clear in the original Q&A stream that CP are finite.

TeenageAngst wrote:

"I charge your Striking Scorpions with my Assault Marines!"

"NOT SO FAST, KAIBA! You've activated my trap card: counter attack! I can strike first now in the combat phase!"

"Oh I'm not done yet, Yugi, for I can spend three command points and sacrifice my Assault Marines to summon the BLUE EYES WHITE DRAGON!"

40k everyone.

Always the negative one

But you know both sides having points I guess doesnt matter, or the fact that we already have tricks in 40k, like to stop overwatch hitting your main units, by charging throw away ones.


Over all, I think tey are fine, having 3-10 over 5 turns will make the game more interesting and might even help balance the game, sense we havent seen the full rules yet, its hard to tell.

Imateria wrote:

CurstAlchemist wrote:

I read the article twice but maybe my comprehension sucks and I didn't notice it, are command points finite or do they replenish every turn? I didn't see where this was addressed.

Overall I like the concept but if they aren't finite I think it reduces their importance.

Edit: This line here:

Quote :

Or maybe you want to keep ahold of them to make sure you make that vital charge next turn?"

seems to be saying that they are finite.

I don't think it was mentioned in the article at all, but they did make it very clear in the original Q&A stream that CP are finite.

Thanks, it would be nice if they put a little more effort into these. If the information has already been released that they are a finite resource then it wouldn't have been much of a problem and only a few seconds to have added a sentence clearly stating this for those who might have missed this information else where.

TeenageAngst wrote:

"I charge your Striking Scorpions with my Assault Marines!"

"NOT SO FAST, KAIBA! You've activated my trap card: counter attack! I can strike first now in the combat phase!"

"Oh I'm not done yet, Yugi, for I can spend three command points and sacrifice my Assault Marines to summon the BLUE EYES WHITE DRAGON!"

40k everyone.

To be fair this sounds like a significant improvement in tactical options and mindgames to the last - being generous - edition and a half.

I like the idea of scenario specific stratagems. That could really help with making distinct battlefield roles for the attacker and defender - and make a lot of scenarios more accessible to standard, balanced lists. Maybe the 'Unending Assault' scenario would normally allow a player to recycle Troops, with an optional stratagem to recycle other units too?

With a standard CAD giving 3 Command Points, and 3 base, I'd imagine we're looking at 6-9 CP per game.

Here's hoping we a) get some cool army specific stratagems, but b) don't find we suddenly have to pay CP to access army special rules!

Dark Eldar command points are going to tie into power from pain somehow because they'd be stupid to squander that opportunity. Also power from pain might be entirely relegated to something we spend command points on.

I must say I like the concept of command points. Being able to reroll a critical dice roll
could be useful in many situation, like rerolling a bad solitaire blitz range!

Actually if we (doubtful) keep a 2+ invuln shadowfield then that reroll is really strong for us.

I expect the shadowfield to do something like ignore rend on our 5+ save or something else awful. But we'll see.

I don't see why we wouldn't keep the shade field as it is. It's an essentially unique item and a single reroll isn't game breaking when the archon has to go it alone now

TeenageAngst wrote:

Dark Eldar command points are going to tie into power from pain somehow because they'd be stupid to squander that opportunity. Also power from pain might be entirely relegated to something we spend command points on.

They mentioned that Eldar are keeping some form of Battle Focus, so hopefully we maintain a base PFP, with Stratagem modifiers.

I don't see a problem with the shadow field staying the same because mortal wounds are a thing. Every psyker deals them, and heck even striking scorpions deal them. I expect even more on the way.

I quite like this concept. Its a decent evolution of Warlord Traits, and I can definitely see Power From Pain working into a speciailist DE list of Strategems.