On poison e splinter weapons.

Since the shift from 7th to 8th edition I started noticing strong opinions against poison and splinter weaponry in general, with particular hatred toward our trusted kabalite warriors.
In 7th edition people would sacrifice their firstborn son rather than removing a single squad of our favorite troops, now every three threads two mention how splinter weapons are useless and underpowered and kabalite are less desirable than STDs.
In my limited mind I don't see the change in efficiency, if not an increase against vehicles.

Am I missing something?
Debate.

To my mind, the main problem is with the meta. We're seeing armies with dozens, even hundreds, of cheap models and poison weaponry is utterly atrocious at dealing with them. It takes 135 splinter shots to remove a unit of 30 Conscripts. That's nearly 500 points of Kabalite Warriors in rapid fire range to remove a 90 point unit of Conscripts.

I think most splinter weaponry is fine, and would be in a great spot if it was one of many valid tools in our arsenal. Unfortunately, it's the only valid anti-infantry tool that we have, which is why it's feeling lackluster to many.

With the changes to Strength and Toughness in this edition, 4+ to wound everything organic isn't quite as big a draw as it might have been. We're paying a huge premium for that when literally every weapon in the game wounds everything else on 6+ at worst; the current meta for huge hordes of low Toughness units (cough Conscripts cough) is also worsening this, as we're firing the equivalent of Lasguns at them. If we could effectively take, say, Shredders against them, then poison would feel less "crap" and more "good, but avoid in this situation".

Splinter Cannons being overpriced is also a negative against them. Many of us would argue that they cost too much even on Venoms, but they definitely do on Scourges and Kabalites - it's literally cheaper, and produces the same firepower, to just buy more bodies with the points you'd spend on the Cannons. Combine that with Cannons, like all poison weaponry, being unable to effectively deal with large mobs and it makes them feel very weak.

Mostly, I think, the complaints aren't about poison weaponry so much as the other elements which our list is lacking (which The Letter has gone into detail about). Splinter rifles are going to suck when they're the only weapon that a 30 point Reaver gets. Splinter weapons are going to suck when we don't have any auras that can buff their hit or wound rolls. Etc., etc.

When our book drops and all splinter weapons do an extra mortal wound on a roll of a "6", people will start taking them again.

Skulnbonz wrote:

When our book drops and all splinter weapons do an extra mortal wound on a roll of a "6", people will start taking them again.

There is no "again" here... it's not like we have a choice

Mppqlmd wrote:

Skulnbonz wrote:

When our book drops and all splinter weapons do an extra mortal wound on a roll of a "6", people will start taking them again.

There is no "again" here... it's not like we have a choice

(cough)spearheaddetachment(cough)

Sure, you can shoot dissies/reaper gun at conscripts, if you like wasting your time.
But people are still playing Splinter weaponry a lot, simply because it's the most common gun in the army, and it is fielded by a unit that has excellent value. I don't think poison will change, nor do i think it needs to. My opinion is exactly what Count said : wait for the meta to shift away from conscripts, and more towards primaris/death guard. You'll understand how awesome poison is.

So, poison is not bad per se, spliner cannons are undeniably overpriced, but its a meta problem.

So your argument for splinter weaponry is to wait until our opponents get bored with the armies they are playing?
really?

I understand how awesome poison can be... situationally. But in an unideal situation (parking lots, conscript spam, etc) they blow chunks.

The OP asked why people are down on splinter weapons?
Because you need to wait for your opponent to change his army before they are decent, that's why.

Skulnbonz wrote:

you need to wait for your opponent to change his army before they are decent

Wouldn't it be equivalent to say dark lances of lascannons are crap because they can't deal with conscript spam?

(To be clear, I'm playing devils advocate because I really like poison weapons and constructive debate.)

The difference is that dark lances aren't supposed to deal with hordes of light infantry - splinter weapons are.

It's not about "your opponent getting bored", it's about meta changing with codices releases. Splinter weaponry is not bad (like, for example, the Liquefier gun), it's off-meta. The current meta resolves around 2 units that are tragically underpriced (and thus badly designed) : brimstones and conscripts.
But that meta is going to change, because of 2 things : 1, the conscript got nerfed (yes, they did) in the upcoming codex. 2, amongst the 2 next codices are Nids. Nids have been bad for the last 2-3 editions, and GW knows very well that the Nids community is dying, so they have no choice, they have to make Nids a powerhouse in this edition.
The other powerhouse that GW is trying to promote is Deathguard. Both of Nids and DG are hard-countered by poison.

So it's not about poison being bad, it's about poison being designed to counter a meta that isn't yet in application. That's why i always say that DE are a "Meta-reactive" army : they can never be meta, but they can position themselves as huge counters to the meta army. And i believe that we will shift towards that kind of meta with the Nids and IG releases.

Yes, meta changes, but splinter weapons will not be good against vehicles, 3+5++ (I/E the deathguard you think they are good against) models, Hordes, etc etc.

You have to realize that the enemies you think they are great against will be firing back at them. They get a turn as well, and when they shoot, we die. When we shoot, we pick off one, maybe two tops. If they are in double tap range, that means they are in charge range.
Tell me again how good warriors fare against death Guard?

That being said... I agree poison weaponry has it's place. On every infantry model is not it.
Lower the price, let reavers take splinter cannons (assault 6, 5 points each ala cloud dancers last edition) and use them as a precise weapon, not a spray and pray one.

But, this is just my opinion.

Skulnbonz wrote:

Tell me again how good warriors fare against death Guard?

Considering that you get nearly three Kabalites for the price of a single Plague Marine, pretty well?

Burnage wrote:

Skulnbonz wrote:

Tell me again how good warriors fare against death Guard?

Considering that you get nearly three Kabalites for the price of a single Plague Marine, pretty well?

Except it takes more than twice that many (~6.5) to actually shoot that Plague Marine to death. And that assumes you're in rapid fire range and that the opponent doesn't have any other buffs (which he almost certainly will have).

Splinter weaponry is excellent against T5, 3+, 5++. It basically becomes a pulse riffle shooting with  BS 3+. For 7pts.

Quote :

You have to realize that the enemies you think they are great against will be firing back at them.

Nope. Before you shoot, you're out of range. After you shoot, they are dead. It's called focus fire.
My everyday list consists of Gunboats crowded with splinter weaponry. And it's wrecking Deathguard butts all day long.

Quote :

They get a turn as well, and when they shoot, we die.

Also nope. Raiders are sturdier than ever this edition.

In my opinion, 2 things are going to happen to boost Splinter weaponry. First : the popularity drop of conscripts, and the release of Nidzilla. Second, i expect Splinter Racks to come back in our codex (i don't expect anything else regarding poison weapons).


Now concerning "what poison is supposed to do", i agree, poison being a tool to counter beasts, but being unable to kill a meek human, is ridiculous. But gamewise, it's a very solid weapon that is just completly off-meta for the moment.

Logan Frost wrote:

Since the shift from 7th to 8th edition I started noticing strong opinions against poison and splinter weaponry in general, with particular hatred toward our trusted kabalite warriors.
In 7th edition people would sacrifice their firstborn son rather than removing a single squad of our favorite troops, now every three threads two mention how splinter weapons are useless and underpowered and kabalite are less desirable than STDs.
In my limited mind I don't see the change in efficiency, if not an increase against vehicles.

Am I missing something?
Debate.

We have two issues here, the concept of Splinter weapons and their implementations.

Splinter Concept

Splinter weapons sacrifice effectiveness against T3 models to become stronger against everything T5 and above. In practice, Splinter Fire was awesome against T6 as it was superior to Bolters and even Pulse Rifles. Furthermore, MCs had less wounds which made single damage weapons that much more effective.

But now a Bolter wounds T6 on a 5+, which is not a significant downgrade as it used to be. In return, T3 became a lot more spammable and durable as GEQs actually get their saves.

In comparison, Bolters only wound T8 and above on a 6, while Pulse Rifles wound on a 6 on T10 targets. And against both of these targets we are better off with Lances anyway.

Splinter Implementation

The big loser in this editions are the Venoms. Screw Kabalites and everything else, it all just was a tax for a 65pts unit that had 12 poison shots over 36".

Now, you pay 95pts for the same unit that has half the effective range. Kabalites were good because they were a reasonable tax and could add to the firepower of the Venom at 24".

Conclusion

Splinter fire was never that great. In 7th, MEQ was the most important target and we traded effectiveness against one niche target (GEQ) in favour of another niche target (MCs). And the weakness of Splinter was easily overcome because we could spam so much poison. Many of these things have changed.

And in terms of Kabalite Warriors, I don't think they are really good troops. They are okay, but they need a (expensive) transport to survive and they lack in terms of wargear. A single Blaster and the occassional Lance just doesn't cut it. As a specialist army we should have access to at least 2 Blasters and 2 Lances along with other wargear.

TL;DR

Takeaway:
- Splinter weapons had few weaknesses because T3 spam was not a thing
- Splinter weapons were good MC killers because they had less wounds
- Splinter Cannons have their effective range lowered by half
- The Venom is not a viable AI unit anymore

I'm surprised nobody stated the real nerf of the splinter weaponry. It's not the change in the toughness vs strenght chart. Neither is the low cost of lasguns. The real problem is that in 7th edition, splinter weaponry were AP5 and in 8th edition, they have the penetrating power of a plum pudding.

Just like every botler equivalent ? The only smallfire arm that has AP is the Gauss flayer, and it has it to compensate the loss of its old special rule.

5+ saves were buffed in 8th edition, but not only against us. AP5 was translated into AP- for everyone.


We can agree that the Splinter cannon is a catastrophical joke.

Count Adhemar wrote:

Burnage wrote:

Skulnbonz wrote:

Tell me again how good warriors fare against death Guard?

Considering that you get nearly three Kabalites for the price of a single Plague Marine, pretty well?

Except it takes more than twice that many (~6.5) to actually shoot that Plague Marine to death. And that assumes you're in rapid fire range and that the opponent doesn't have any other buffs (which he almost certainly will have).

It also takes two Plague Marines in rapid fire range to shoot a single Kabalite to death in a single turn on average. I'm having trouble seeing it as an obviously bad match up.

OK, new conversation seed:
Would a guardsman be worth 7pts if he had better BS, better WS, a bunch of special rules, but no grenades?
If yes splinter rifles could be considered lasgun equivalents in price but exponentially better.
Splinter rifles used to be S4 if I recall correctly, but that was a long time ago.
In that optic splinter rifles could be considered a very good weapon.
Are we considering the new ruleset in it's totality or are we biased by past editions?

Splinter weaponry seems fine. We just need a decent flamer, whether it's the shredder or not, it has to be a decent anti infantry, str 4-5, 2d6 auto hits.

Or reduce splinter cannons cost by a lot, but with how variable our splinter weapons are, we'd end up just destroying any high toughness army.

Mppqlmd wrote:

Quote :

They get a turn as well, and when they shoot, we die.

Also nope. Raiders are sturdier than ever this edition.

Woah Woah woah... apples to apples here please. If you want to start adding in 115 point transports, then we need to take that into consideration when totaling value.

What does a raider have to do with splinter weapons?

re-read what The Strange Dark One wrote... he nailed it.

Quote :

Woah Woah woah... apples to apples here please.

You're the one repeating the old "We are a glass hammer without the hammer" cliché. I'm only reminding you that considering the defensive value of kabalites is pointless, because noone plays footslogging kabalites.

Now here is a synchronic comparison of bolter and SR.
- Bolter => Splinter rifle : +0.16 wound-chance against T5-T7 non vehicles. -0.16 wound-chance against T3 non-vehicle and T5-T7 vehicles. +0.32 wound-chance against T8+ non-vehicles.

If you consider the price difference between a bolter and a splinter riffle, then i'd say either the bolter is utter crap, or the SR is at least decent.

Quote :

Would a guardsman be worth 7pts if he had better BS, better WS, a bunch of special rules, but no grenades?

The problem is that with that logic, the guardsman is the only viable infantry in the game. Which is kinda true, because it's so confusingly broken. But you can't judge the value of every unit in the game by the standards of the most broken unit. Unless you want to jump to the following conclusion : go play the IG.

Logan Frost wrote:

Since the shift from 7th to 8th edition I started noticing strong opinions against poison and splinter weaponry in general, with particular hatred toward our trusted kabalite warriors.
In 7th edition people would sacrifice their firstborn son rather than removing a single squad of our favorite troops, now every three threads two mention how splinter weapons are useless and underpowered and kabalite are less desirable than STDs.
In my limited mind I don't see the change in efficiency, if not an increase against vehicles.

Am I missing something?
Debate.

I started DE in 5th since then and still today i HATE our splinter weapons.... i hate poison, i'd rather have a bolter.

They never did much for more at all, they are only good against Nids and Daemons and then i'd rather have Dis Cannons b.c what poison works on, they have multi-wounds and in 8th wounding on 5's but ignoring armor and doing 2d is better than wounding on 4's but they get the 3+ save.

I've made large topic about this before and even a large detail topic about it at the end of 7th.

Everyone that i knew/read that like them, only liked them b.c Kabals where good in 3rd, nothing after that other than Venoms for mass range Poison but not Kabals. We just take Kabals b.c they are cheap and Wyches are bad.