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Post by Joelercoaster on Sept 10, 2014 13:33:42 GMT -6
Hint, the dichotomy is that few assault units are rivaling their shooty equivalents these days, for a number of reasons.
I've been perusing a Nid forum the past few days, because I do that, and I had a quick idea in response to one of the inevitable "How do I make Genestealers good?" threads.
So, in a vacuum, I personally think 'Stealers need relatively few things to at least make them viable (keeping in mind that they're still "just troops").
+Stealth
+Alien Reflexes (No Init penalty for charging in/through terrain)
cost - 10 points
Adjust Biomorphs/upgrades, and the Broodlord would need some tweaks... but as a general unit... probably that's about done.
However. Something I think would (maybe) be interesting to try is a bit more of an overhaul to how cover works in assault.
Step one, if your assault move (by the most direct route possible) takes you through dif terrain, you must subtract 2 from your distance (unless, as current, you have the Move Through Cover USR). - That's right, kids, no more stock Initiative penalty. But really, once you're past that chunk of rocky ground, you've cleared it, and the enemy is just standing in the open same as if those rocks hadn't been there, sooo... boom.
Step two, if the unit being assaulted is (by majority) in or behind terrain ("behind" being classed as within 1" of a blocking wall/fence/item that would give a cover save), then said unit has the choice of *one of the three following options*:
-The attacking unit is set to Initiative 1 for the following assault phase
-The defending unit gains the Counter Attack USR
-The defending unit may Overwatch
So yeah - it makes hugging cover far more tactical in the assault phase. A, you have to actually be in cover to get the substantial benefits. B, those benefits are now varied and work vs different opponents (or based on what you're playing) in different ways. C, it reduces Overwatch, which while kind of fun sometimes is still a new rule that gives the already more powerful shooting phase power in the already underpowered assault phase. But also, it sets the tone of "hey, if we're dug into cover we can set to accept this charge in one of a few helpful ways, that we can decide based on the opponent". Nifty.
Just curious what any other thoughts were.
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Post by Nick P on Sept 10, 2014 15:04:57 GMT -6
I kinda wish they had written that into 7th - it really does make a lot of sense, that a unit stealthily sneaking through terrain to surprise their enemy in combat, would...you know...actually succeed in surprising their opponent and taking them in combat. Sure, they get a few shots off as they realize what's happening, but few are likely to hit home, and the charging unit easily strikes them down with the element of surprise.
ie, there should be a movement penalty as the rules have currently, unless you have move through cover. But initiative should not be changed just because you were in difficult terrain or are charging through difficult terrain...only if your opponent is directly behind a defensive stucture like a wall or fence.
I'm also kind of a fan of just throwing stealers down in groups of 5 to fuck with the opponent, and don't really expect them to do anything. If they do, woohoo, and if they don't, then at least whatever kills them isn't shooting at my other units for a turn!
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Post by Joelercoaster on Sept 11, 2014 8:01:52 GMT -6
I mean, they're a good distraction, because 'Stealers are really actually decent in combat (bordering on good, if you roll enough 6's), but they're not effecient at it. They're just too expensive, and not survivable enough, for something who's sole purpose is to soak fire.
I'd like them to get a touch better (as above), but at the very least they're simply too expensive for their inability to get into combat. Another poster on the "other forum" pointed out the hilarity that, assuming an infinite table (obviously you don't have that, but it points out a basic flaw), the enemy unit can always move backward 6" with no penalty to shooting (basic weapons) and continually mow down the Stealers. Said Stealers have to make up the distance with Run (and eventually Assault) rolls, and I think it took like 6 turns to do so. That wasn't factoring in Fleet, so probably in truth it's closer to 4.
But seriously? Turn 4?
I actually want to math out the "ideal" situation... say 10 'Stealers vs equal points of Fire Warriors. Start the bugs 18" away (Infiltrate), in 5+ cover. Work through the ensuing carnage and see what actually comes of it. We'll even say the FW's are on an important spot and don't want to just shuffle back and fire all day long.
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Post by Nick P on Sept 11, 2014 8:10:31 GMT -6
Good thing the nids codex and 40k rules are probably up for a re-write. HA
#futility #dreambig
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Post by Joelercoaster on Sept 11, 2014 9:01:06 GMT -6
H'okay, so...
10 Stealers (140 pts) infiltrate 18" away, in 5+ cover, from 15 Fire Warriors (135 pts). Stealers have first turn.
Stealers move up 6", run 4", still in 5+ cover (it's like magic). End 8" away from FW.
Fire Warriors Shoot - 6 dead Genestealers (I'll let you work out the math yourself if you like, but I'm rounding in favor of the Stealers here).
Stealers inevitably charge (luckily by now they're out of cover). Overwatch kills 3. 1 Stealer remaining strikes first. Between the maths of standard vs rending, etcs, for Ease of Use, he kills 1.
14 Fire Warriors strike back. Laughably, they cause (nearly exactly) 1 unsaved wound.
Fire Warriors win combat.
Balance.
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Post by Russell on Sept 11, 2014 9:52:52 GMT -6
TL;DR play tau
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Post by Russell on Sept 11, 2014 12:29:30 GMT -6
Also, what would you expect in that situation? Two rounds of shooting from a unit 50% larger. I'm curious what the outcome would be against a points comparable size of daemonettes or TH/SS terminators, or assault marines excluding shooting. In a vacuum, no shit the dudes with the guns are gonna wipe out dudes with no guns.
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Post by jefferestinpeace on Sept 11, 2014 12:45:49 GMT -6
The points system in 40k has always been a "best guess," as evidenced by that one Space Marine codex where you could design your own Chapter with specific traits that was broken as fuck, the Lord of Skulls being 888 points, and Malanthropes being 95. Shit ain't math, it's ballpark, and a huge ballpark at that. You get that full brood of Genestealers into FW w/o shooting (or in Malanthrope range, or with the FW having been Paroxysm'd or Pinned, etc.), and it's a different story altogether. Vacuum arguments are really inaccurate examples of the effectiveness of a unit and as satisfying as it can be to point-for-point scenario stuff, I've NEVER seen that situation actually happen in a game, which actually makes it more moot than saying "I wish..." about Genestealers for the past 8 years.
However, Genestealers are still not worth it unless in the belly of a Hierophant in an Apoc game because this is future war and as much as super soldiers wanna bring their chainsaw sword and kite shield, they're still packing their machine gun rocket launcher. Also, one Dakkafex (150 pts) getting the jump on those same Firewarriors will have them bent over like wow.
In other news, I've been seeing a trend of taking a min brood of Genestealers with a Broodlord to hide your Warlord, since he's Ld 10 and you no longer have to select it from HQ. Reserve that shit and tuck it away, then go nuts with your Flyrants. They're also ObSec, don't need Synapse, provide a psychic die, and can Infiltrate. Seems like a use to me.
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Post by Joelercoaster on Sept 11, 2014 15:11:56 GMT -6
Also, what would you expect in that situation? Two rounds of shooting from a unit 50% larger. I'm curious what the outcome would be against a points comparable size of daemonettes or TH/SS terminators, or assault marines excluding shooting. In a vacuum, no shit the dudes with the guns are gonna wipe out dudes with no guns. It was actually one round of shooting, and then standard overwatch. I even assumed the "basic" 5+ cover for the 'Stealers, until the point where they needed to charge. Without that, they would have been fully wiped out in a single round of rapid-fire pulse rifle goodness. The FW unit is larger because the FW's are 2/3 of the cost of a 'Stealer. Saying "My 300 points of X killed your 50 points of Y, HA!" is pretty sad, so I wanted to compare (roughly) equal points. It would be worth looking at different targets for sure, and I'll probably run some numbers later on various unit types. As far as the vacuum goes... yeah, it's largely daff. Both armies are capable of much more. *But*, this was a simple exercise to, in a small way, address the question of 'Can Genestealers, given near-optimal yet realistic conditions, get into combat and wreak some havoc?' As for Warlords, I was unaware that the HQ restriction was gone... then again, I still haven't bothered to read through the whole of the rulebook. Using a broodlord is cheaper than a Prime... although the Prime does have the ability to jump from unit to unit. Of course, it also eats a Flyrant slot. In some ways I'm lucky I only have the one. |
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Post by jefferestinpeace on Sept 11, 2014 15:17:12 GMT -6
Prime is so garbage I can't believe anyone runs it. Every argument I've seen for falls short of your unfortunately typical competitive builds. I took it once in a game against CJ and anything that when supported by 30 ablative wounds with guns and decent kit that costs over 200 pts and is UNABLE TO HURT A HELBRUTE (not whiffing, but actually in an impossible situation) is fucking trash. I'll take a Broodlord and 5 Stealers over that in any game against Tau.
And in my mind, "optimal" conditions would not be an unsupported run across 18" of loose cover to strike last in combat against an opponent with Rapid Fire S5 weapons who will be moving steadily away from you. Unless you meant optimal for the Firewarriors, then yes, I agree wholeheartedly.
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Post by Russell on Sept 11, 2014 15:56:03 GMT -6
I assure you, I understand that FWs are cheaper than Genestealers.
Also, I'm glad someone is finally stepping up and answering the question "Are genestealers garbage?", and backing it up with some math.
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Post by Joelercoaster on Sept 11, 2014 16:50:30 GMT -6
The Prime is horridly overcosted, and horridly lacking as a combat "beast" with null-access to AP 2. In my mind, the Reaper should be AP2 for (probably) less points, and the Prime should absolutely have access to Crushing Claws (as should the Tyrant).
For clarity, let me describe why I'm counting this as optimal - mind you, obviously this ended horribly for the Genestealers, but that is kind of the point of the exercise... to show that even when given special treatment (without being blatantly stupid about it), the 'Stealers look complete trash.
So - start to finish.
Tyranids have first turn, which means one less round of shooting from the Tau unit by default.
Genestealers are assumed to have infiltrated into "standard" (that's a 5+ these days) cover. Area Terrain... er... I mean... Battlescapes, Fores... er... Twisted Copses... most regular pieces (ruins being the largest exception) will be giving a 5+.
Genestealers are assumed to have moved a full 6", despite being in difficult terrain. They also are assumed to have landed in a second patch of cover at the end of their run move, giving them a 5+ save during the enemy shooting phase (of course, this all could just be seen as being behind the forest, moving up into the forest, and then exiting the next turn to charge, which is probably simpler).
The Fire Warriors do *not* move, because they're on a really, really, really important spot (you know, for the greater good). So instead of backpedaling and making it that much harder for the 'Stealers to get to them, they stand *two inches away* and just shoot. They only manage to wipe out over half of the brood, thanks to that terrain (otherwise, it would have been a clean wipe).
The Genestealers are assumed to completely exit the terrain, in order to not be hindered by it for their charge, which they make because the Tau stood still (and in fairness, would have a pretty easy time making even needing an extra 6" at this point).
Overwatch happens, reducing the Brood to a single 'Stealer. That stealer rears up and kills something, sure... but then the horde of fish-men fwap their fins and inevitably drag him down. Not even tieing them up for their next shooting phase.
So the "optimal scenario"... or "optimal believable scenario", rather, is that you need to kill these fish, and there is "generic piece of terrain" for you to use on the way up. Sure, if the 'Stealers somehow manage to stay completely out of LOS the entire time, they'll only lose the 3 to Overwatch and then likely eat the Tau in assault (it took 14 fish-bodies to kill one 'Stealer. Seriously. 5's to hit is weak). But while that scenario will play out once every blue moon, it's not ... really... possible... on most tables.
Optimal for the Tau only takes 2 markerlights to ignore that cover, once, and then that squad mows them down in one shooting phase. Because SYNERGY. It's cool, though, because Venomthropes give Shrouded, which comes with a false sense of security for NO EXTRA POINTS.
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Post by Joelercoaster on Sept 11, 2014 17:12:28 GMT -6
Separating points to work out DEATHBUGS VS ASSAULTERINES, by popular demand*
Same schtick, this time 10 vs 10 because points.
Stealers hunker into woods turn 1, ending that same 2" or so away.
Marines stand their sniffing their geneseed.
Stealers creep out of terrain and charge. Special maths are special...
20 hits, 10 wounds, 3.3 rends/6.6 regular. 5.5 dead marines. Round up for 'Stealers, because we've been doing this the whole time.
4 Marines strike back
4 hits, 2 wounds, 1.3 or something dead. So 1.
Yeah, we see where this is going.
*but*
Instead of sniffing their geneseed, the assault marines realize that, you know, they're assault marines.
So they shoot - 10 pistols, killing 4. Then charge (using Jump Packs, because they were 2" away).
HoW at I10 kills 3 more.
3 Stealers attack at I6
4 hits, 2 wounds... going to average about 1 kill between rending/regular % stuffs. Ish.
9 remaining assaulterines
9 hits, 4.5 wounds, 3 dead. GG, buggies.
It's also worth clarifying, if this wasn't clear, that Genestealers in assault are, actually, pretty good. Lots of rending attacks do tend to kill things, and they have a hilarious WS (and Initiative, but that matters so much less with the way cover rules work).
The problem with them is the futility of actually getting into an assault.
For effect - who's bad at shooting? Orks.
Equal points of slugga (not shoota) boys is about 23 mans. One round of shooting from this utterly-not-shooting unit will cause... surprisingly only 2.5 deaths. Not gonna lie, I was expecting a bit more. Turns out AP6 actually matters. But still, it leaves a bad taste in ones mouth when the "not shooting" army takes a "not shooting" unit and clears a fourth of your brood.
Main point is that no matter how amazing a unit is in assault, if it can't get to assault, it's a bad unit. It's a S:D, 50 shot Large Blast that can target different units and auto-rolls a 6 on the D table. With a .5" range.
Plus side - large broods of gaunts with devourers tucked inside are boss. So I just take those instead.
PS - I realized halfway through this that I totes counted assaulterines as 14 each (a la regularines). So, that's off. But points are made up anyway.
*by popular demand, I mean Russel said so, and he's more popular than all of you combined. Especially in Korea.
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Post by Nick P on Sept 12, 2014 7:42:45 GMT -6
I think this goes a long way to prove what we already know, which is that the combat phase in this game is mathematically and severely crippled. Its rarely in the chargers favor to charge, given an equal number of points' worth of models. That much is abundantly clear.
But I side with russel and jeff in that these situations will rarely play out - there's a reason the game isn't played at 150 points. You have a whole army on the board, and have to use the units to support each other to maximize efficiency. You'd likely have dakka fexes softening those units up, or termagants charging to eat overwatch first, or exocrines deleting them with plasma. And they'd have riptides shooting your flyrants, marker lights eliminating cover, etc. You can't take two units in a vacuum and say "how good are they".
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