Impact of the FAQ - in actual battles

So I am interested in everyone's actual experience with how the FAQ has impacted your games.

For myself, I have thus far played only 1 game post FAQ. I took my standard set-up to see how it did - played vs nids. I still crushed them.

Some things I noticed - I really had to think about when and what I spent my CP on. I am not sure how I feel about that... blowing through huge amounts all at once seems bad for the game, but I don't like how restrictive it felt. May just take some getting used to.

Charges with Talos were now a good deal more difficult to do. I am so used to being able to float them over terrain an models... They still destroyed once they made their charge

AoV - I hardly ever used it before hand due to the high cost. With only 1 CP regen (Per battle round feels to restrictive to me - maybe per player turn?) and 4 cp and being able to fail.... I just don't see I can justify it. To me, that strat is now dead

My opponent ran no Flyrants, and basically had no changes to his list from the FAQ at all.

I should be getting another battle in tomorrow - Myself as De/CWE with Tau Allies vs IG - so will see how that goes.

But what have you all seen from your own games? Not theory hammer - and how are we going to adapt?

I haven't had a game with my Dark Eldar yet but prepared positions is all kinds of good on space marines. Flayed skull kabal stuff is getting a nice little boost

Well, i did a large 2v2 game the other night.

Due to my friend playing CWE and we went against 2 non-comp SM players i did not take my DE and instead took Sisters of Battle to make the game a bit more fun.

It had 0 effect on my CWE friend (he purposely took 1/2 army in DSing and many Fly units, he was a lot of aspect units and as Biel-Tan).


For my SoB it had 0 effect as well, and i had Celestine/Seraphim (30 Seraphim)


What did matter HUGELY was the new stratagem, always counted in cover (even vehicles) is very strong. I had 7 vehicles and they are just Rhino profiles, they lasted almost all game.

Faitherun wrote:

Some things I noticed - I really had to think about when and what I spent my CP on. I am not sure how I feel about that... blowing through huge amounts all at once seems bad for the game, but I don't like how restrictive it felt.

For what it's worth, this is what it was like playing any Kabal other than Black Heart.

Soulless Samurai wrote:

Faitherun wrote:

Some things I noticed - I really had to think about when and what I spent my CP on. I am not sure how I feel about that... blowing through huge amounts all at once seems bad for the game, but I don't like how restrictive it felt.

For what it's worth, this is what it was like playing any Kabal other than Black Heart.

I get that - and I tend to run very heavily mechanized - so 6+ fnp on my boats is something I liked. Getting all the other black heart stuff was just icing. Now, I am not so sure....

Faitherun wrote:

Soulless Samurai wrote:

Faitherun wrote:

Some things I noticed - I really had to think about when and what I spent my CP on. I am not sure how I feel about that... blowing through huge amounts all at once seems bad for the game, but I don't like how restrictive it felt.

For what it's worth, this is what it was like playing any Kabal other than Black Heart.

I get that - and I tend to run very heavily mechanized - so 6+ fnp on my boats is something I liked. Getting all the other black heart stuff was just icing. Now, I am not so sure....

The 6+ FNP is still here. You just get less icing. However I found the ignore cover rule of the flayed skull really useful to counter the new Prepared Position stratagem.

Idk about Dark Eldar but I took Harlequins for a spin with it and my god were they awful.

TeenageAngst wrote:

Idk about Dark Eldar but I took Harlequins for a spin with it and my god were they awful.

But how did you feel about Harlequins before?

The loss of the ability to ignore models when charging, while significant to Harlequins, I wouldn't think is game changing for them. But I don't play them enough to judge.

TeenageAngst wrote:

Idk about Dark Eldar but I took Harlequins for a spin with it and my god were they awful.

Any chance you could elaborate on this?

Soulless Samurai wrote:

TeenageAngst wrote:

Idk about Dark Eldar but I took Harlequins for a spin with it and my god were they awful.

Any chance you could elaborate on this?

I assume he is talking about them no longer being able to use flip belts outside of the movement phase. So now you can't jump over enemies while you assault or consolidate. Pretty harsh for ninja clowns to lose their ninja tricks.

withershadow wrote:

Soulless Samurai wrote:

TeenageAngst wrote:

Idk about Dark Eldar but I took Harlequins for a spin with it and my god were they awful.

Any chance you could elaborate on this?

I assume he is talking about them no longer being able to use flip belts outside of the movement phase. So now you can't jump over enemies while you assault or consolidate. Pretty harsh for ninja clowns to lose their ninja tricks.

Which makes screens way more effective against them. Killing chaff units is normally overkill for Harlequins, so their best bet was to just jump over them. Not any more.

Haywire Skyweavers are probably the only Harlequin unit you're going to see much of competitively for a while.

Burnage wrote:

withershadow wrote:

Soulless Samurai wrote:

TeenageAngst wrote:

Idk about Dark Eldar but I took Harlequins for a spin with it and my god were they awful.

Any chance you could elaborate on this?

I assume he is talking about them no longer being able to use flip belts outside of the movement phase. So now you can't jump over enemies while you assault or consolidate. Pretty harsh for ninja clowns to lose their ninja tricks.

Which makes screens way more effective against them. Killing chaff units is normally overkill for Harlequins, so their best bet was to just jump over them. Not any more.

Haywire Skyweavers are probably the only Harlequin unit you're going to see much of competitively for a while.

NOOOO, 1 Shadowseer and a Solitaire too.......

I have a large Quins army, and i play it mostly (by far the most games with it in 8th) and it really does suck, no one players Troupes, and GW just nerfed them out of principle rather than actually understanding how they play and what makes them... them.

Yeah there's not much to elaborate on other than them sucking in combat now. Hang on, I seem to remember something... maybe it's my boomer mind playing tricks on me but didn't at the beginning of 8th GW say that the reason universal rules were axed is so that they didn't have to throw the baby out with the bath water for every rules update? Didn't they say that the entire purpose of giving us 10,000 different definitions of the rule Explodes! was because if a rule was broken for just one unit they could fix that without having it affect others? And now two similar rules with entirely different intentions, one specific to an army meant to be extremely maneuverable and one general for all armies, are both hit with the same watered down nerf intentionally. Really activates the old almonds there. It gets the noggin joggin'. I'm gonna have to ask Cruddace or Foley at the next event if they're operating on some trans-dimensional space wizard algorithm of rules design, or if all the fumes from the Finecast molds made them forget the entire premise of their own design philosophy.

TeenageAngst wrote:

…….. I'm gonna have to ask Cruddace or Foley at the next event if they're operating on some trans-dimensional space wizard algorithm of rules design, or if all the fumes from the Finecast molds made them forget the entire premise of their own design philosophy.

Okay. now that's just plain funny

I've played maybe 5 games since the FAQ, haven't used AoV once despite running predominantly Black Heart but also haven't noticed a significant drop in power. Noticed it's harder to position my Talos optimally (but I've been weening them out of my lists for a while now) but they generally blitz their way though things anyway. Still remain undefeated since the codex dropped, never ran the same list twice and the only units and obsessions I haven't used are Beasts, Obsidian Rose and Dark Creed. I've found I don't really go for the Labrythine Cunning anymore, preferring a Hatred Eternal Warlord instead so the CP regen isn't as big an issue. If I were to soup in some Craftworlds I'd probably take a Saim-Hann Autarch as warlord but it's much less appealing now or even needed.

That said, I haven't touched my Harlequins since the FAQ after seeing how much of a handicap the FLY change has put on my friends BA.

Since the last FAQ, i have played 6 games with a mix of flayed skull, obsidian rose and PoF, sometimes two of them or the three together. This are my impressions:

Like amishprn86 said, the new stratagem y very good, and I have noticed that people start to have it on its minds when build a list. That make the flayed skull a must for me.

Since i don't play the kabal of the black heart and a archon with labyrinthine cunning and writ of the living muse, my archons have more presence in the game, i don't feel the obligation to keep my LoW on the rearguard to be able to gain CP.In my last game I played a LoW with Famed Savagery and djinn blade. After kill just one character and use the souls trap, none have the guts to approach to a guy with 9A F6 Fp-3 D3.

After the nerf to FLY, the Talos are a little worst and the screens are a little pain on ass. I should be the onle one who still was playing DL on his ravager, now i'm forced to include more dissis and shots anti infantry on my list to clean the screens.

Only played 2 games of DE post FAQ. One against Marines, one against Necrons. Both at 1000 pts. TBH I was expecting more from the enemy side with the point reduction, but it doesnt seem that it has affected much. Both were landslide victories, more because of their under-powered codices than my tactical brilliance.

Have not noticed change to Fly charging (I run Grots predominately, not Taloi/Reavers). Have started using other Warlord traits other than Labyrinthine Cunning though (liking Eternal Hatred + Relic Huskblade).

Necrons are a lot better now, for sure a solid mid tier, IMO better than pure nids (pure nids was the perfect example of mid tier, but no longer IMO, they are low mid tier now thanks to GSC).

With a couple of their best vehicles going down 30+ points and other vesicles going down 15-20pts, no need for warriors (just take Immortals), Destroyers and that they can DS and move/tp/redeploy very easily, they are not a body army anymore but elite/vehicle one with MSU's.

Tho, necrons still struggle at 1k, they really need to be played at 1500+