8th = buff stacking.

Merry Xmas all!

Im talking about taking a pts efficient unit then layering on Army traits, keyword traits, Auras, Pychics, and strats to buff it to hell and back.

Shoot twice or attack twice (while buffed) in particular seems to be mandatory now.
Its sucking the fun out of the game for me.


Do you think 8th ed is all about buff stacking?

Is that a problem for you?

- Bring 3 scatbike packs, make them Ynnari

- 1CP to make them a windrider host

- 1CP to extend range of Warlock Council to 36"

- 1CP to get +1 to all casts for Farseer and Warlocks

- Jinx, Guide, Protect, Doom, Fortune, Soulburst

- Shoot them all again

- rinse and repeat

2CP a turn for 144 S6 shots a turn with psychics almost a guarantee. 2CP to intercept deep strikes, 2CP for added protection of -1 to hit, 1CP to fire and fade whenever you want, as long as you're packing at least 10CP you're made in the shade.

Assuming you're shooting Mortarion with his -1 to hit buff and a 3+/4++/5+++ and you get jinx and doom and soulburst off but no guide, you're going to do about 13 wounds, enough to take his teeth off and any followup will kill him probably.

Edits: forgot how to math soulbursts now that it's been nerfed half a dozen times. Tells you how often I play Ynnari.

8th is all about stacking auras and stratagems.

After playing the beta Sisters a couple times, its 100% clear they want 8th to be aura/strat stacking. 8.5 will be the same for sure, but hopefully core rules will make it better.

Our entire army is and always has been about stacking buffs. No seriously. We get a new universal buff every game round. How is this a new concept?

TeenageAngst wrote:

Our entire army is and always has been about stacking buffs. No seriously. We get a new universal buff every game round. How is this a new concept?

Unless I'm mistaken, that concept only started in 7th.

What's more - both then and now - a great number of our units get little or no benefit from PfP. Our vehicles don't benefit at all (save for BH vehicles, and even they only get the 6+++), and stuff like Kabalites really don't care about rerolling charge distances or +1 to hit in melee. And unless you're using big units or your opponent is stacking Ld-debuffs, then Ld is usually going to be irrelevant.


However, let's just say that you're entirely correct and that DE is about stacking buffs.

Do you think that that's how DE should play?

I ask because, to me at least, we seem like the sort of faction that should be stacking debuffs on enemy units. We seem like the sort of army that should be using stuff like Jinx and Doom, albeit not as psychic powers. Perhaps we could have a gun that reduces the armour saves of enemies hit by it? That sort of idea, anyway. It seems like we should be mostly about making enemy units weaker, rather than making our own units stronger.

Just to be clear i don't have a problem with the buff stacking concept as a whole just that GW has let it get so out of hand that the required bookkeeping is becoming tedious and slowing the game down.

Painjunky wrote:

Just to be clear i don't have a problem with the buff stacking concept as a whole just that GW has let it get so out of hand that the required bookkeeping is becoming tedious and slowing the game down.

Just in terms of practicality, I've found adding in some counters to help track which units have which buffs (or debuffs) makes things run a lot more smoothly. It's real easy to forget which units had been hit by a PGL otherwise, for instance.

Buff stacking was definitely a thing before 7th. I started playing the army in 5th, and that was the only real way to get a good competitive list: stacking your buffs and leaning on your force multipliers like they owed you rent.

Buff stacking only happened with Allies started happening. IIRC, that was 6th when the allies matrix was introduced.

Yep, 6th we had Beaststars

Max beasts (6-7 Khymeraes and 3-5 RWF), a Shadowseer, The Baron, a Farseer.

It was stupidly good, Farseer power, Shadowseer one, the baron ht and run, 4++/2++ wound shenanigans, cant even be targeted if you get a power off turn 1, oh and every model is armed with Grenades.

I loved a good beaststar. Tabled a GK player at a tournament in Warhammer World using that

A good Baronstar was my JAM when I first started. I got a lot of people who weren't expecting infantry to be able to shred vehicles like that.

The Baron
12 Khymerae
and a farseer with fortune.

that unit still brings a smile to my face

I do agree that stacking stratagems/character auras/psychic powers is very powerful for some armies, but I don't think that defines 8th. I still have been doing fairly well with good old msu tactics, lots of small, fast units still works as well as it always has for DE, though I admit the rule of 3 has been a bit of a hit to my style.

Cool. What does your MSU list look like?

Most recent one I took to a 1500pts tournament this week was 3 units of 5 warriors in venoms, 3 units of 3 reavers, 3 ravagers, 2 units of scourges, 2 archons, a succubus, and 5 incubi in a raider. Not the most competitive list, I only took the incubi because I just got the models and wanted to see how they did, but overall I did fairly well, went 2/1 and ended up in the top 4. I really would have preferred more warrior units in raiders, but that unfortunately is not an option with the rule of three. Saw a fair amount of buff stacking going on at the tournament, but nothing too crazy.

Edit: I'm dumb, I didn't realize the rule of 3 doesn't apply to dedicated transports. I'd definetly run more venoms in the future.

MSU works great for DE (everything works great for DE, we are just super powerful in 8th). I personnally run 4 venoms in my 1500 list, and that has served me well since 7th.

As someone who has played since 3ed, IIRC, there have always been HQ buffs that were thrown around, just through a different mechanic (Independent Characters worked differently, and actually joined squads rather than hiding behind them). Some buffs were indirect (like making certain units Troops) and others were straight rerolls. But my old books are 3000 miles away, so I cant provide proof.

As for your hypothisis about 8th = buff stacking, I must agree. However, we do have SOME way to mitigate it by using AoV to cancel out a double shooting stratigym (something unique to DE).

Overall, I feel that our buffs are less powerful (re-roll 1's, not re-roll everything), but are also more interesting (cant think of anyone else who can increase vehicle toughness). Dont feel that you need to maximize every buff, DE (historically) have won games through proper positioning and baiting, not through brute strength (before 8th anyway)

Yeah, but its not like 8th buffs.

Do you have a character for re-roll hits?
Do you have a character for re-roll wounds?
Do you have a character to buff damage?
Do you have a character to buff defense?
Do you have a character to... You get the idea

I played in a ITC tournament last week, won 2 of my 3 games, table 2 and the 3rd was an fine gentleman player out to deny points (basically to ruin other peoples time, and was cheating).

I was able to re-roll everything, move twice, shoot twice and melee with my Skyweavers to kill 2 knights turn 1

Turn 2 i was able to do the same thing with Shining Spears to kill 3 units of chaff

The amount of buffs in the game atm are insane.

amishprn86 wrote:

Yeah, but its not like 8th buffs.

I was able to re-roll everything, move twice, shoot twice and melee with my Skyweavers to kill 2 knights turn 1

Turn 2 i was able to do the same thing with Shining Spears to kill 3 units of chaff

The amount of buffs in the game atm are insane.

Exactly.

If you can buff, buff, buff, psychic, move twice, shoot twice + good target priority you can cripple your opponent turn 1.

Fun dies.

Just wait till you see GSC..... No overwatch and fihts last, they make 1 of your own units shoot against you (Castellan knights are good at killing your own dudes), they gain +1atk and Str, meaning they can wound everything but titans 3+ (even T8), and they can have over 400 melee attacks with 300 bolter shots. Yeah... they can table most armies on turn 2. IDK why more are not playing them.

What is GSC?

Silverglade wrote:

What is GSC?

Genestealer Cults.

amishprn86 wrote:

Just wait till you see GSC..... No overwatch and fihts last, they make 1 of your own units shoot against you (Castellan knights are good at killing your own dudes), they gain +1atk and Str, meaning they can wound everything but titans 3+ (even T8), and they can have over 400 melee attacks with 300 bolter shots. Yeah... they can table most armies on turn 2. IDK why more are not playing them.

Their big mechanics are unreliable as frak and they're still an Index.

GSC are definitely underrated and probably underplayed but whether they actually wind up good will depend on their Codex.

Burnage wrote:

amishprn86 wrote:

Just wait till you see GSC..... No overwatch and fihts last, they make 1 of your own units shoot against you (Castellan knights are good at killing your own dudes), they gain +1atk and Str, meaning they can wound everything but titans 3+ (even T8), and they can have over 400 melee attacks with 300 bolter shots. Yeah... they can table most armies on turn 2. IDK why more are not playing them.

Their big mechanics are unreliable as frak and they're still an Index.

GSC are definitely underrated and probably underplayed but whether they actually wind up good will depend on their Codex.

I think he's talking about some of their leaked Stratagems.

Soulless Samurai wrote:

Burnage wrote:

amishprn86 wrote:

Just wait till you see GSC..... No overwatch and fihts last, they make 1 of your own units shoot against you (Castellan knights are good at killing your own dudes), they gain +1atk and Str, meaning they can wound everything but titans 3+ (even T8), and they can have over 400 melee attacks with 300 bolter shots. Yeah... they can table most armies on turn 2. IDK why more are not playing them.

Their big mechanics are unreliable as frak and they're still an Index.

GSC are definitely underrated and probably underplayed but whether they actually wind up good will depend on their Codex.

I think he's talking about some of their leaked Stratagems.

Those are their current psychic powers - Mass Hypnosis (no overwatch and fight last), Mind Control (shoot yourself) and Might from Beyond (+1 S and A).

Like I said, underrated and underplayed.