Easter Balance Patch

https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/lBLlqvrttJVgyfhC.pdf

Some highlights:

- All Power-Armoured models (SM, CSM, SoB etc.) reduce the AP of all incoming attacks by 1.

- The Bodyguard rule in all its forms now just gives LoS regardless of the bodyguard unit's size. So it can't create awkward situations where a character is protected by a hidden bodyguard. Also, it now gives zero protection from sniper fire.

- Indirect fire weapons get -1 to hit if they can't see their target. IG get an exception.

- Starweaver is now 95pts (still insane compared to the Venom, lol), while the Voidweaver is now 130pts.

- Tau Broadsides lost Core.

- No additional nerfs to Drukhari but also no un-nerfing, and no tweaks to let us mix warlord traits with Harlequins the way Eldar can.


Might be other stuff of note but these were the main things I saw at first glance.

Voidweavers go from 90 to 130 points. Most playtested edition ever yeah? We know the playtesters aren't idiots so we have to assume they told GW that Voidweavers were broken as hell. If one were cynical, one might almost believe that GW chose to allow such an obviously broken unit in order to shift more models. Even now, rather than reducing the number of models in the unit, they have increased the points cost. So you can still field (ie buy) 9 of them.

If the codex dropped with those points cost for Stars and Voids I'd have been nothing but *stoked* that the unit size of Voids are now 1-3. I'd have laughed about doubling the cost of Voids over their 8th edition counterparts, but getting 1-9 on the table has opened a TON of list possibilities. And the 9th Voids are significantly more dangerous.
I'm excited to get Harlies on the table this weekend.
Felt like a huge AHole with the raw codex points.

Good changes to be honest. Power Armour armies need the help, as did Guard, and it definitely felt like Harlies were playing at about a 400 point advantage.

Soulless Samurai wrote:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/lBLlqvrttJVgyfhC.pdf

Some highlights:

- Indirect fire weapons get -1 to hit if they can't see their target. IG get an exception.

This is not exactly correct and the difference is important. You worsen the Ballistic skill of the unit by one. This means Tau without marker lights shoot Indirect at BS 5, if across dense they now need 6's to hit. If they ignore modifiers still hit on 5's because the characteristic changing is not a hit modifier. Also the target gets +1 to armor saves.

Also, Imperial Guard, if all units are of the same regiment, auto-wound on natural 6s to hit.. which seems pretty nasty. I think that it will put the 8th ed codex up to snuff, but I hope that they rescind this when the proper codex drops, as I would hope that they would have found ways to make them competitive without something as broad as this.

It'd be pretty neat and thematic if Dark Technomancers worked with liquifier guns, but instead of only wounding your models sometimes, it wounded them all the time.

Wrack_Enthusiast wrote:

It'd be pretty neat and thematic if Dark Technomancers worked with liquifier guns, but instead of only wounding your models sometimes, it wounded them all the time.

'Hah! I'll fire my own blood at them!'

[2 minutes later.]

'Oh no! I fired my own blood at them! I needed that...'

So I played my first game against Salamanders, using the same list before the patch.
Damn i got tabled on T4. This +1 save is a real thing! Unfortunately, I think all the Wychcult part got hitted (except for Succubi), and they remains here just for utilites. I'm going to try just a single unit of Bloodbrides, full kitted, maybe with ToS/PreciseKillers, but I feel that you will definitely max out (again) Incubi, Coven of Twelves is good, and DarkLances. A lot of them. I can see a future of Redemptors, Dreadnoughts, Terminators etc, so D6+3 and Ap-4 seems good.

And OldSchool came back guys: playing on primaries never ben so important right now.

PS: I wonder if....Disintegrators maybe?

Cerve wrote:

So I played my first game against Salamanders, using the same list before the patch.
Damn i got tabled on T4. This +1 save is a real thing! Unfortunately, I think all the Wychcult part got hitted (except for Succubi), and they remains here just for utilites. I'm going to try just a single unit of Bloodbrides, full kitted, maybe with ToS/PreciseKillers, but I feel that you will definitely max out (again) Incubi, Coven of Twelves is good, and DarkLances. A lot of them. I can see a future of Redemptors, Dreadnoughts, Terminators etc, so D6+3 and Ap-4 seems good.

And OldSchool came back guys: playing on primaries never ben so important right now.

PS: I wonder if....Disintegrators maybe?

I can't help but think Covens are going to be in an even better spot for us now. Wrack damage output will suffer a bit, but virtually everyone is bringing a lot more mid-strength, high AP weaponry and that's the kind of stuff Covens units love being the targets of.

Burnage wrote:

Cerve wrote:

So I played my first game against Salamanders, using the same list before the patch.
Damn i got tabled on T4. This +1 save is a real thing! Unfortunately, I think all the Wychcult part got hitted (except for Succubi), and they remains here just for utilites. I'm going to try just a single unit of Bloodbrides, full kitted, maybe with ToS/PreciseKillers, but I feel that you will definitely max out (again) Incubi, Coven of Twelves is good, and DarkLances. A lot of them. I can see a future of Redemptors, Dreadnoughts, Terminators etc, so D6+3 and Ap-4 seems good.

And OldSchool came back guys: playing on primaries never ben so important right now.

PS: I wonder if....Disintegrators maybe?

I can't help but think Covens are going to be in an even better spot for us now. Wrack damage output will suffer a bit, but virtually everyone is bringing a lot more mid-strength, high AP weaponry and that's the kind of stuff Covens units love being the targets of.

I guess so, heavy Covens or Raider spam. DarkLance still good, Grotesques still good, Wracks are fine for their costs, Incubi are in. Succubus, Drazhar still good. We just need to play carefully against SM now, I lost yesterday only because I understimate their saves. It's way more difficult to trade off (I don't wanna think about let's say Paladins or Blightlords, nor Deathwing) so the mission game it's more important than ever. Toying with To The Last too can be interesting.

Basically, playing vs SM right now feels a bit Custode-ish. You're not sure to being able to kill them anymore overall.
You are able to land single huge strike tho, you can select and kill off some single units but the army itself feels more toght.
We need to be more chirurgic. Yes, skillcap got higher now.

Hellions and Reaver Jetbikes (eviscerating flyby, clustercaltrops), ... Voidraven with dark sythes and voidbomb and razorwings with disintegrator cannons and then leadership shenanigans with every phantasm grenade launcher we can pack in a list my also be a way to deal with Marines as pgls are our most spammable Mortal Wound delivery service

Archon_91 wrote:

Hellions and Reaver Jetbikes (eviscerating flyby, clustercaltrops), ... Voidraven with dark sythes and voidbomb and razorwings with disintegrator cannons and then leadership shenanigans with every phantasm grenade launcher we can pack in a list my also be a way to deal with Marines as pgls are our most spammable Mortal Wound delivery service

So maybe pick poison tongue and gruzzly trophies?

Quick question: Does a PGL cause 1 MW for EVERY hit? So 3 max?

I believe that's how it works ... it does read "each time a unit is hit" so it they are hit three times I would imagine that it's three rolls to cause a Mortal wound

CptMetal wrote:

Archon_91 wrote:

Hellions and Reaver Jetbikes (eviscerating flyby, clustercaltrops), ... Voidraven with dark sythes and voidbomb and razorwings with disintegrator cannons and then leadership shenanigans with every phantasm grenade launcher we can pack in a list my also be a way to deal with Marines as pgls are our most spammable Mortal Wound delivery service

So maybe pick poison tongue and gruzzly trophies?

Quick question: Does a PGL cause 1 MW for EVERY hit? So 3 max?

Yes, 1x hit, so max 3.

But I've never find myself lucky with them. An Ynnari build maybe, with the help of some Eldar Ld's debuffs.

We can stack -1 for the losses due to poison weaponry from poison tongue. -1 from trophies. -1 from being close to that special coven.

Blast rules mean those nearly always make 3 attacks. Many Marines have leadership 8 due to a Sergent, that's only leadership 5 left.

Should be doable as a modern version of the Freak show.

I think there might be a bit of terminological confusion in this thread - be careful not to mix up Leadership modifiers with Combat Attrition Test modifiers. They're not the same thing.

The Morale phase effectively has two phases:

The first is a Morale Test - 1d6 + [number of casualties]. If this is higher than the unit's Leadership, 1 model flees and the unit must then take a Combat Attrition Test.

Combat Attrition Test - Roll 1d6 for each remaining model in the unit, subtracting 1 if the unit is below half strength. For each roll of 1 (including modifiers), one additional model in the unit flees.

Thus, Grizzly Trophies and other Leadership modifiers affect the Morale Test, making it more likely that at least one model will flee, whilst also improving the effectiveness of PGLs and other Ld-based attacks or abilities against the unit.

In contrast, Poison Tongue affects the Combat Attrition Test - increasing the chances that more models will flee, *IF* the initial Morale Test is failed. But these abilities do not make units more likely to fail the Morale Test in the first place, nor do they benefit Ld-based weapons like the PGL.

It is also important to keep these distinctions in mind because some units/armies will ignore one type of modifier but not the other. Relevant to this discussion, Space Marines ignore all Combat Attrition Test modifiers, so sadly Poison Tongue (and other such) has no effect on them.

Anyone else laughing at all the Custodes doom and gloom?

Makes me think of the "First Time, huh" meme. ROFL.

From a Competitive point of view, still not sure how to take this. I think Marines still wont make top tables (I could easily be wrong), and the slight hit to Tau and CWE are nice.

Pretty funny how our army got +1AP to deal with Power Armor (our designed target), just for them to get -1AP.

From a Competitive Tech point of view, my lists are pivoting from a Wrack Carpet strategy to a Dark Technomancer strategy (built around castling up and scoring as many points as possible). Our killy units are not killy enough to kill most things, so better off just focusing on what we still do well: reasonably speedy while existing in locations.

Uh, talking about Ld bomb builds: What about the 'They shall know no fear' rule?
I just cant remember it exactly, but I think, it has something to do with Morale...

Zenotaph wrote:

Uh, talking about Ld bomb builds: What about the 'They shall know no fear' rule?
I just cant remember it exactly, but I think, it has something to do with Morale...

Space Marines ignore all Combat Attrition Test modifiers.

Back in the day, we had the Freakshow builds that centered around a Coven Army of Renown. Could easily get units to be at -4 LD, then cause them to run away (litterally run away, due to different leadership/morale mechanics).

I guess you could do something with Phantasm spam, getting a bunch of MWs out thru your Sgts PGL. But IDK now Competitive that would be (although it could certainly work in a Semi-comp environment).

So far my experience in Comp remains that the top factions remain firmly on top. But it would be nice if Salies/Marines would start to creep back up and knock down some of our problem match-ups.

I would love to see mass Eradicators making Harpie lists unplayable XD