Getting 7th Edition Tournament-Ready

[MM3791]

I think maelfic is mostly fine as is, no one is scared of lesser daemons. The fear comes mostly from the possession spell that might be used to summon 100 bloodthirsters, but even a ML3 only has a 50% to get that spell. Last edition FMC were the bread and butter of the Daemon army, but now they have to wait a whole turn to land then assault.

The buff to Invisibility and nerf to FMC means that we might actually see more Keepers of Secrets in the meta, as last ed Bloodthirsters were the obvious combat choice for players. Biomancy also received a nice buff, and I think internal balance amongst the greater daemons is more competitive within the Daemon codex now more then ever.

The new rules have only been out for a week, I'd like to at least see some games played before any changes are put into place.

[Chase]

Speaking personally (and to the wall, I suppose, but what the hell, why not?), I would rather see conjurations capped to a points value or banned outright, than an all-psykers nerf.

I get this and used to agree with this sort of thing.  It's a simpler fix and doesn't "mess" with any of the rules except to outright exclude them.

In my experience people do not react well to having their options completely taken away.

I am not opposed to limiting the total amount of points people can summon, but to "fix things" something clearly has to be done about Invis too.

[Chase]

Limiting total dice any psyker can use when attempting to manifest a power to Mastery Level (ML) +1

One thing I really like about this idea is that the percentages of success seem to be more or less right where *I think* they should be.  It also provides a built in fail-safe in the case that everyone has missed something crazy.

Play devil's advocate and create examples of what may happen when this solution is applied to the weaker psychic armies.  What units go from being "good enough" to "not good enough."  Basically, show me why we shouldn't use this.

[AstartesXXVI]

Well, off the top of my head, there are a few things.

Last edition you re-rolled if you got a power beyond your master level, but in this edition that isn't the case.The main reason is that many of the tables include ML2 and ML3 powers, which is just going to end up causing people to roll powers they can't even realistically cast. So you will need to further alter the core game to deal with that (I guess it would be you are only able to roll powers you could possibly cast with the ML+1 ruling).

Generally, you need 4's to succeed on psychic tests and 6s to deny them. Any Mastery Level 1 powers don't take much of a hit; you only need one 4+ to get the power off and rolling two dice is fairly safe and will probably be common because of extra warp charges.

The ML2 and up powers suffer more. To reliably cast a spell with 2 Warp Charges (some of which are popular, like Prescience), your ML1 psyker can still try but needs to pass on both dice. I don't know strict percentages on this, but if each die has a 50% change of being a failure, it seems pretty unlikely. Adding the third die adds some insurance, but not much.

The ML3 powers really take a hit. Only the most heavily upgraded psykers can even attempt them, and with 4 dice and needing 4+ on three of them, they are unlikely to even work a decent amount of the time. These powers also were previously balanced out by the risk of more dice meaning more perils, so there will be less Perils of the Warp instances as well.

Also, probably a huge amount of Warp Charge will be pointlessly wasted every turn. Even in an army with one ML1 psyker, it is potentially a pool of 7 Warp Charge, which he can only use 2 of.

Finally...this doesn't really resolve the (perceived) problem, as the Conjuration to make new Heralds with awesome wargear options for free is only Mastery Level 1 and can be cast pretty easily by any Joe Schmoe anyway. So you would just end up with a table full of AP2-toting Heralds with Greater Gift rolls making them beefier upon being born. This is probably worse than the million Bloodthirster problem because each of these guys is a psyker in their own right a lot of the time, and can also be represented by a slightly different standard model (which, as far as your concerned, means a player could technically buy a ton more "Heralds" with ease - 10 to a box, prime a different color, "the blue ones are heralds", and voila...). And because it's ML1, you can attempt this power very safely, as you can't perils on 1 die.

[andalucien]

If you limit it to ML+1 dice thrown, that is kinda like banning level 3 spells from being cast at all.

If my army has only level 2 psykers, i'm going to have a 1 in 8 chance of casting any level 3 spell I may have rolled, prior to the dispel attempt.  No one will ever do this. 

If I have a level 3 psyker, and throw 4 dice at it, I have a 5/16 (less than 1/3) chance of success.  Same thing really.  No one will just throw away all their dice like that.

If I have a level 4 psyker (not many of these in the game) I have about a 40% chance of casting a level 3 spell.  Maybe not a TOTAL waste of time I suppose, but really I'm probably better off just casting 3 level 1 spells.

[rdeane]

For the point where you will have powers you cant cast, you could simply make it so that you can reroll powers that are greater than your ML if so desired.

Chase, if you think that ML + 1 is too low, due to the warp charge pool etc, even going to ML + 2 would still really help with the overall balance. It would also ensure that even armies with only 1 ML2/ 2 ML1 psykers will be able to utilise all of their warp charge dice almost every turn.

We should all also remember that this is a new edition and that we are now able to counter psychic powers that we could never counter in the past. All psykers are weaker in comparison to 6th edition and inherently a single librarian facing off against a horde of psychic daemons or grey knights will be much weaker than before.

[keithb]

Another possible solution is that dice generated can only be used by the unit/model that generated them, Then have a separate pool for the d6 dice that are generated can be used by anyone.

Then if you try to stack an absurd amount of Dice, many will be stuck on units/models that didn't roll the right powers.



Also, don't ban come of the apoc allies.  There isn't that much more allowed than before, and give it a chance to see if it is broken.

[andalucien]

I've seen this ML+1 thing thrown around a bit on the interwebs... i think it underscores that playtesting is probably a key part of deciding what rules to use for an event that people are going to pay for.

[Goblin]

Play devil's advocate and create examples of what may happen when this solution is applied to the weaker psychic armies.  What units go from being "good enough" to "not good enough."  Basically, show me why we shouldn't use this.

zoanthropes take a real nasty hit, since old warp blast (their only possible offensive capability, a wc2 spell) was balanced around being nearly an auto-cast, but also having to roll to hit. with these casting rules, they're basically only useful as a synapse bubble. they have to drain a die from somewhere else and then end up with a 1/3 chance to actually land a hit (since they have to successfully cast first, then roll to hit). i suspect this will be similarly the case with a lot of witchfire spells, where the old balancing was around rolling to hit, more than rolling to cast (though i don't know any other specific examples as i'm not really familiar with much outside nids ).

[keithb]

The solution I have suggested was directly from Warhammer Fantasy 7th edition.  It seemed to work really well for the most part.

[keithb]

Play devil's advocate and create examples of what may happen when this solution is applied to the weaker psychic armies.  What units go from being "good enough" to "not good enough."  Basically, show me why we shouldn't use this.

zoanthropes take a real nasty hit, since old warp blast (their only possible offensive capability, a wc2 spell) was balanced around being nearly an auto-cast, but also having to roll to hit. with these casting rules, they're basically only useful as a synapse bubble. they have to drain a die from somewhere else and then end up with a 1/3 chance to actually land a hit (since they have to successfully cast first, then roll to hit). i suspect this will be similarly the case with a lot of witchfire spells, where the old balancing was around rolling to hit, more than rolling to cast (though i don't know any other specific examples as i'm not really familiar with much outside nids ).

Nids seem pretty screwed right now.  Sadly, I don't think any "global" changes should take them into consideration.  Nids need a new codex basically.

[andalucien]

Play devil's advocate and create examples of what may happen when this solution is applied to the weaker psychic armies.  What units go from being "good enough" to "not good enough."  Basically, show me why we shouldn't use this.

zoanthropes take a real nasty hit, since old warp blast (their only possible offensive capability, a wc2 spell) was balanced around being nearly an auto-cast, but also having to roll to hit. with these casting rules, they're basically only useful as a synapse bubble. they have to drain a die from somewhere else and then end up with a 1/3 chance to actually land a hit (since they have to successfully cast first, then roll to hit). i suspect this will be similarly the case with a lot of witchfire spells, where the old balancing was around rolling to hit, more than rolling to cast (though i don't know any other specific examples as i'm not really familiar with much outside nids ).

Nids seem pretty screwed right now.  Sadly, I don't think any "global" changes should take them into consideration.  Nids need a new codex basically.

Soo.... read the nid FAQ... did I miss the part where they updated Shadow in the Warp to do something in 7th edition?

[Goblin]

Nids seem pretty screwed right now.  Sadly, I don't think any "global" changes should take them into consideration.  Nids need a new codex basically.

nids are mostly fine, the only one of their powers they really cared about before was catalyst (the other stuff is cool, but by no means the core of the army) and with the new rules, they'll just pool extra dice into it (2-3 depending on how bad you want it). the flying monster changes don't really hurt them (you basically only came down to finish off units anyway, assault wasn't their primary use). the only thing that really hurts is the new smash rules, since they don't have any other natural way to kill heavy tanks (unless you count gargantuans, which are 'officially' in the game now). disclaimer, that should probably go with most of the posts here: this is my opinion having played exactly zero 7th ed games.

Soo.... read the nid FAQ... did I miss the part where they updated Shadow in the Warp to do something in 7th edition?

no, it doesn't really do anything. all it does is make perils worse and potentially make certain units more susceptible to morale tests.

[keithb]

so, their psychic phase got worse.
Other armies psychic phase got better,
Shadows now does less.
Nids already weren't doing well.
Nids still can't ally with any except in 'come the apoc'
Fliers now take an extra turn to be able to assault to finish units off.
Taking a Jink save now means that you can only shoot snapshots.
Vector strikes now do less to ground targets.
One of their powers got nerfed, as did one of their unique items.

Where exactly are they 'fine'?

If you mean they can play a fun game against someone who purposely doesn't bring the best list, they yes, they are fine.

[MM3791]

Nids still can't ally with any except in 'come the apoc'

Incorrect, Nids (like everyone else in 7th) can ally with themselves. That means 3 flyrants and 4 exocrines. Also everything can score now.