Getting 7th Edition Tournament-Ready

[Benjamin]

Invisibility in real life wouldn't prevent flamethrowers and large munition blasts from damaging you either, but it does in 40k. So let's stop with the fluff justifications, because it goes both ways and ultimately goes nowhere.

From a purely math perspective, Invisibility is grossly potent. It functions like a malediction that affects your opponent's entire army, while being difficult to dispel because it's a blessing. Then imagine the durability of the new Deathstars that can only be hit on 6s, whether being shot at or in close combat. This shouldn't be rocket science. This is the go-to mechanic to start mercilessly abusing until someone stops it.

[Chase]

It got nerfed for this first event.

We decided that we'd take SOME caution with Invis instead of asking people to abuse it / potentially ruin the experience some players have.

We think the vast majority of people will be happy with the change.

[Benjamin]

Yup, I just read the Doubles tournament posting, rolling Invisibility back to 6th Edition for the event. I think that's fine for now, until we get a handle on it.

Two alternate ideas for the future that have bounced around.

Invisibility could be changed to "Enemies targeting a unit with Invisibility are treated as having BS1 and WS1." Clean, simple, we get the point while cleaning up some strange loopholes that arise from Snap Shots.

Invisibility could remain the same, just bumped to a Mastery Level 3.

[Chase]

Sam was talking about the WS and BS 1 thing.  He had what seemed like a good reason not to do that at the time, but I forget what it was.

I don't think we considered bumping it up to ML 3.

Edit:  I sort of like bumping it to ML 3.

[robpro]

I also never heard of Arnold Schwarzenegger complaining about an invisible predator thingy either.

I haven't either. I heard he was in a movie where something like that happened, though.

[andalucien]

I don't think ML3 would be an effective fix.  An army that is built around getting invisibility off on a 1000 point unit will still get it off.

[Benjamin]

I don't think ML3 would be an effective fix.  An army that is built around getting invisibility off on a 1000 point unit will still get it off.

This is true. But we didn't want the idea to be "Mastery Level OVER 9000!" I mean, there's a certain degree to which we'd basically make it so difficult to cast that we may as well not even allow it as written in the rulebook. The concept of ML3 is a baby step. If somebody were to build their whole army to pull this off, well, what can you do? It's not the first nor sadly will it be the last time.

[andalucien]

I don't think ML3 would be an effective fix.  An army that is built around getting invisibility off on a 1000 point unit will still get it off.

This is true. But we didn't want the idea to be "Mastery Level OVER 9000!" I mean, there's a certain degree to which we'd basically make it so difficult to cast that we may as well not even allow it as written in the rulebook. The concept of ML3 is a baby step. If somebody were to build their whole army to pull this off, well, what can you do? It's not the first nor sadly will it be the last time.

Definitely true. 
My take is, I think the spell is so powerful that even if you made it level 4, someone who was really trying to win might well build a whole army around casting it, and would therefore consistently be able to do so, and you'd end up with the same sort of deathstar-centric game that we know pretty well after the tail end of 6th.  So rather than making it harder to cast, making the spell DO less might be a more effective change if that's what we want to avoid.

I fully endorse the idea of baby steps tho - even just leaving it how it is and seeing what happens to give a better perspective on what might be needed.

[Benjamin]

Yup, the approach for now is baby steps. Invisibility is clearly a problem, so that's a good place to start.

Summoning Daemons, we'll definitely need to see if that's really a problem, or just too much worry.

And is that it? I mean, those are the only two significant problems I've been hearing about 7th. I may not be listening in the right places, but on the whole, reviews seem positive.

[Ian Mulligan]

Out of curiosity, if summoning units which in turn summon more units is one of the problems with the psychic stuff, why not make it so summoned units cannot generate more summoned units? It prevents the terrifying exponential growth with no side effects hitting less exploitable disciplines.

[Benjamin]

That would seem to be the common sense solution, if one is needed. (And it probably will be needed.)

[andalucien]

Prediction: Much of the malefic tree will need to be adjusted beyond the "recursive summoning".   It's just too much flexibility and too much extra bookkeeping to be anything other than annoying in a timed environment.   We already had daemon players taking 15 mins or so to roll and record all their gifts powers at the beginning of the game.   Now we add the ability for NEW units with their own gifts and powers to be added in the middle of the game (a LOT of them).

The herald summoning power..
1. Decide what God herald you want
2. Decide on what balance of powers or gifts
3. Decide which trees of powers you want
4. Roll on the powers and record it somewhere
5. Roll on the gifts and also write it down
6. From that point on both players will need to remember which of the heralds is which and which powers and gifts they each have.

Now imagine doing that a few times and building up a stack of generated heralds on top of all the cards or whatever you're hopefully already using for the daemons that were actually in your army list originally.  We've never had anything like that before.  Maybe it'll be ok but seems problematic to me.

[Benjamin]

If for no other reason than time constraints, I agree.

[MM3791]

I don't think ML3 would be an effective fix.  An army that is built around getting invisibility off on a 1000 point unit will still get it off.

A 1000 point deathstar can still only ever be in one place at one time. MSU(multiple small units) will still win the game since they can cover more ground, thus capture more objectives.

[Benjamin]

A 1000 point deathstar can still only ever be in one place at one time. MSU(multiple small units) will still win the game since they can cover more ground, thus capture more objectives.

Still? They didn't do well in 6th Edition at all.