Huzzah Hobbies RTT - September

Hey all!

The RTT @ huzzah hobbies this month will be run by Matt S and Phil!

Please see their blogs here for all the relevant details

http://tsarith.blogspot.com/2014/09/huzzah-hobbies-rtt-928.html

http://www.elphilo.com/2014/09/huzzah-hobbies-40k-rtt-928.html

Huzzah 40k RTT 8-17 - 1850k NOVA OPEN format -

Good evening east-coasters

The last RTT before the NOVA OPEN is running this sunday at Huzzah Hobbies 8-17.


Please arrive between 10am and 10:45. Round 1 will start at 11am. No need to sign up though it is preferred. You can call the store at  703-466-0460 or visit their website www.huzzahhobbies.com for location / number. We have room for about 30 people, so come one come all!

1850pts.

We are following the NOVA open missions / FAQ's this month. So that means Single CAD, and only two sources for your units (so no INQ/ SW/ SM nonsense). Please do note though that every stronghold assault model is allowed, (which is a slight difference from NOVA), so feel free to bring whatever, just please no networked building / systems. If you show up with two bastions or two void shields I'm going to tell you to re-write your list.

Costs are $15 and include lunch! All the rest of the money is rolled back into prize support.

Anyone with questions please just reply to this post.


Yes I know I copied and pasted my last blog post. It's been a busy month.

Also a reminder for the NOVA OPEN - I run the TRIOS event with Troy, if you want to do a team trios, and are seeking others for your team, please shoot me an email or leave a reply to this post! I want the Trios to be even bigger this year than ever!


SIGN UPS FOR IT! //RAWR//

Personal life updates

- Changing jobs, moving locations. Will post more in the future.

Huzzah Hobbies RTT - 40k 1850 This Sunday 7-20

Greets all,

Normal 40k RTT at huzzah Hobbies this sunday. (7/20).

Please arrive between 10am and 10:45. Round 1 will start at 11am. No need to sign up though it is preferred. You can call the store at  703-466-0460 or visit their website www.huzzahhobbies.com for location / number. We have room for about 30 people, so come one come all!

1850pts.

We are following the NOVA open missions / FAQ's this month. So that means Single CAD, and only two sources for your units (so no INQ/ SW/ SM nonsense). Please do note though that every stronghold assault model is allowed, (which is a slight difference from NOVA), so feel free to bring whatever, just please no networked building / systems. If you show up with two bastions or two void shields i'm going to tell you to re-write your list.

Costs are $15 and include lunch! All the rest of the money is rolled back into prize support.

Anyone with questions please just reply to this post.

ATC Battle reports (sorta!) - Ziggy Wardust and the Hammers from Mars recap

Team Ziggy Wardust and the Hammers from Mars!
http://whatc.org/40kstandings.php

We got 6th place with 530 pts.
Mark had an AV13 necron wall, and was 2 points from best Necron player
Tilly was in contention for best CSM player with spawntide with deamon screamer star allies
Justin played balanced waver serpent / wraithknight elder
Chip played a drop pod marines with dark angel ally army
James played 5 Imperial melta knights




Tilly and Mark  vs. round 1 opponents

Ben, super chill guy

Warner, super enthusiastic it seems!

Neil !

Wooo screamer star

The Gaming hall

Round 1 vs. 2 Minutes to ATC


 

Round 1 top of turn 2

I was matched with Ben who had a very unique Vanilla marines list. I felt pretty awful about this round, but he did the best he could given the tools he had. I just kinda stomped across the board and kicked the marines around. 30-0 win.

Round 1 bottom of 4

Round 2 vs. The Gypsy Curse



I deployed first and let my opponent have first turn. His army was a typical tau gunline and elder allies list. Broadsides with buff commander in a bastion, two riptides, wraithknight, 2x jetbikes, firedragons wave serpent and an autarch.


 

Round 2 - Middle of turn 1

I moved forward and left a knight titan within melta range (though closer than I actually wanted) to bait the fire dragons into going for an easy kill. They did, costing me the knight titan, but I was able to shoot/assault them the following turn removing the largest threat from the board. Other than that I stomped forward with tow knights, and help my side with two, and slowly eliminated the opposition. I think we tied emperors will, but otherwise I got 22 or 24 points from the round, and he got 6 or 8.



Round 2 - Turn 4

Round 2 - Turn 5






Round 3 vs. Killer Koalas

Round 3 - Turn 1 / 2

For this one, I fought an elder wave serpent army with three wraithknights, and a farseer on a jetbike with the laughing god mantle. It was a tough match. At the end of it, he had a wraithknight and some dire avengers on the emperors will objective. I had a single knight titan standing on the emperors will. His wraithknight claimed an objective. So we split. I got KP and he got objectives, we both tied emperors will. I got first blood, warlord and he got warlord. So I won 16 - 14. It ended on turn 7.



Round 4 vs. Name Pending

This match was pretty interesting. Three knight titans with Pask / IG allies, vs 5. At the end of the game, my warlord and one knight titan remained, meanwhile he had a single wyrven, and a taurox and two squads of vets. He had bottoms, so was able to use a Taurox to contest my emperors will, hold an objective with a wyrvren and vet squad, and hold his emperors will with a vet squad. I got First blood, warlord and linebreaker and kill points. He got Emp will, objectives, and linebreaker.
 

Round 4- Deployment

Round 4 - Turn 1 bottom.

Round 5 vs. The Sons of Vulcan

Due to some pairing issues.. *cough cough*, I ended up playing vs. an all flyer necron army. This is a huge facepalm for me, as I literally can not even hurt the flyers or do anything about them. Meanwhile they have tons of shots to fry my knights. My saving grace in this game was rolling outflanking warlord trait, which let me outflank my warlord and two knights, the deployment being hammer and anvil (to reduce potential arcs of movement for him), and winning the roll to decide who goes first. I made him go first, and having bottoms was super useful as it always is vs. a necron army.
I got lucky with this game, I lost three knight titans, but was able to contest emperors will, win kill points, and lost objectives. But I did get first blood, warlord, and linebreaker, which gave me 16, and the win.
I found out my opponent was a super cool guy, and, better, was a fellow ork player! So we spent a lot of time shooting the shit about orks. I also lost my cool at my dice, when after 3 rounds of shooting at a squad of 5 immortals with all of my guns, I couldn't kill them (because of scatter and general rolling of 1's to wound). But I was mad at myself, not my opponent, so I composed myself quickly and apologized.

Round 5 - Top of turn 2

Round 5 - Top of 5

Round 6 vs. Roll to Wound

So because all the top teams had already played each other, we, as the team in 7th place, somehow got paired with Tony Kupachs team, which was in 2nd place. Nicks list was put out as a defender, and Justin placed me to attack. I was fortunate in two things in this game which were super clutch, one, Nick did not roll any greater deamon summons except on his book herald, and I won deploy first, so made him take first turn.

Turn 1 Nick summoned plague bearers to prep for assaulting me turn 2, and moved his pink horrors forward. I assaulted the plaguebearers rather than let myself be assaulted, managed to roll 3 stomps in the combat, and the remove from play ability, and promptly stomped out a herald who was about 6 inches away, woooo. Nick lost another herald due to a bad perils roll. So that was super advantageous. From there, lots of combats with deamons ensued, and a ton of plaguebearers were summoned, and assaulted by knights. Fortunately I got a few D stomps, and they evaporated reasonably quickly.

The game ended on the bottom of 5, with me winning objectives, killpoints, slay the warlord, linebreaker, and first blood. We tied emperors will. Nick got linebreaker.

Round 6 Top of turn 2




Round 6 - Turn 2



Round 6 - Bottom of 5

SO MUCH RECAP- ATC Thoughts - Tim G's team's antics

Greets all's,

This post contains edits in light of new information and feedback from the TO and other sources.


So this post is going to have a lot. I just returned this morning from the ATC. For those who don't know, it mimics the ETC style tournament. This means you go as a team, but play individual games which collectively score for the team. Pairings for each round are based off of overall team score, and individual game pairings are determined by the two teams playing each other. In essence one team will put forward a player / army list, and the other team will select an opponent for them to play. Then that team will put forward a player / opponent, and the first team will select an opponent for them to play.

It results in really interesting matches and is really quite a fun format.

http://whatc.org/40kstandings.php


So let me get out front and center that Tim G and his team, "The Gypsy Curse", are a bunch of cheaters and were caught multiple times at the event doing so. In my opinion Tim should not have been given best grey knight player.

- Tim round one "Misplayed" Coteaz's "I've been expecting you", by not following the RAW and resolving the shots immediately after the unit arrived from reserve, and instead waited for a drop pod player to bring in/deploy his entire army, then shooting all of them (essentially crippling him). His opponent trusted him as Tim is a GT player, big mistake. He did not find out until after the game ended that Tim has misplayed it, and by then of course its to late.
- Tim was lying to an opponent saying Banishment is a 24 inch NOVA power. His excuse was that he had a BOLS print out saying it was so... Right....
- A team called a judge over for suspicious dice rolling
- They brought an army that was explicitly banned (Legion of the Damned), and played it. Despite the fact that lists are turned in a week a head of time, this was unfortunately missed. It was not caught by players until round 4. The TO's of the event solved this problem by docking 10 points per game played by the LOD player, and forcing him to change the LoD to vanilla marines.

There were lots of other word of mouth rumors about the bullshit he and his team were pulling, but those were the only ones I can directly verify as truthful / accurate, by direct participation or direct contact with opponents / judges.

Those alone, add up to a picture of a cheating, disingenuous team. As the saying goes.. fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.. Tim's repeated shengigans each round should have been more than suitable to incur serious repercussions

So that's out of the way..

What did I think of the event?

Positives
- The venue was solid and was priced beneficially to maximize player returns. The on site food  / drink vendors was good.
- Shane and his judges made sure their presence was felt. They were responsive and friendly. I never felt like I couldn't find a judge, or couldn't have a reasonable conversation with one.
- The event more or less kept on schedule reasonably well
- Location was good with lots of hotels, food places and such
- Table themes, I enjoyed that the event organizers attempted to keep each table themed, so it felt cohesive and not a hodpodge of random types.
- The format was good, the atmosphere was positive and energetic, and that was quite an accomplishment considering how annoyed many of the attendees were by the before mentioned BS.

Other notes

- It was difficult to see round to round progression and verify the results were correctly input. Only the overall results were displayed which is not ideal for a nervous team hoping their 72 points were entered properly and forgot their previous overall scores.

- Lack of clarity on terrain types and placement. Spending the first few minutes of a game having to discuss or arguing with your opponent about how to rule terrain pieces can be awkward. Especially as people play all sorts of different ways, impassible vs. not, battlescapes vs. difficult terrain, what's considered a ruin etc. I had the normal GT issue where people shoved their terrain out of the way to put models / displays / books on the table. Then left it that way at round end, and unfortunately next round opponents insisting that we don't touch it to fix it.

- The quality of the terrain. Many of the tables were just fine, but there were always one or two tables in each team match that needed some extra LOS blockage.

- Starts to damn early. I think it'd be better to do 3-3 rather than a 4-2 split. But that's just me grumping about waking up super early, so maybe its fine.

- Prize support did not follow as stated on their website. Their website explicitly stated teams 1-6 would receive prizes, instead at the event only teams 1-4 received prizes, and the top two teams were allowed to select a second prize each.  Shane has noted since the event that this was an accidental oversight, and that the teams involved will receive their appropriate support.

- CSM award  - Edited based on Shane's feedback.

- Swag bags could have used a bit more oomph. A secret weapon miniature base + random other thing, and a ton of advertising.

- Objective markers were randomly colored poker chips. When trying to run an event with 6 objectives on each table, 4 of one type and 2 of another,  it left open the potential of people forgetting which colors represented which type of objective over the course of a long game. Shane has noted this was not the intent of the ATC to use the poker chips, but was to correct a last minute problem.

I'm sure there's more I'm forgetting for both positive and negative. So Shane and company, if you read this, I hope you take this as a critique, instead of me just bashing. The event is promising, and I think with a few changes it'll be much better in the future. I'll state for the record I do plan on attending again, so clearly I have faith that the team will fix issues, tighten up the rules ship and handle things properly.

Ork Codex review / thoughts / RTT 1850k July 20th, NOVA OPEN format

Hey all,

So I specifically waited to post this as I wanted to make sure I had time to absorb the ork codex, see other peoples thoughts and play some game with it to make sure I didn't miss anything. I'm glad I waited as my opinion now is not the same as a week ago.

Also we have our monthly RTT on July 20th this month. We'll be using the NOVA OPEN missions, and nova open FAQ. Same things as usual, show up around 10:30!
What this means importantly is, please note that the nova open is not allowing double CAD, so neither will we. However, As I do believe stronghold assault is fine now, all of stronghold assault is still legal. (despite nova FAQ otherwise).

Last time we had 20 people turn out, lets try and repeat that!


Ok. So orks.

When I got the codex last week and had a first go, it looked like the codex was actually weaker than the 4th edition codex. There are far less options in it, no neat FOC manipulations or use of combinations to make the sum of the parts greater than the whole.

Having now gotten several games in with it, trying different lists and all of the models. I feel that this codex is just barely stronger than the previous ork codex. It's gained a lot with a few specific units, but its lost a lot with its lack of FOC manipulations, and as mentioned, there are very few "combinations" of units that are what i'd consider effective. That said, there are a few, and I'll outline the few things I like below.

Let me state again for the record, I think GW screwed up big time by not maintaining, or adding unique FOC combinations to give orks a unique twist. People have been pointing to the formations as the unique combination elements. That's nice, it's not the core rulebook. Not everyone allows formations.

Fear not loyal reader! Despite my misgivings, I will continue to make orks work through all 7th edition. My CSM are mostly hitting retirement for now. I've played them almost all of 6th and its time to mix things up. So we'll give it a go.

So here are the models / list I'm currently using, and the reasons why.

Warboss  - Mega armor - da lucky stikk
- This is good. So so so good. This gives orks a re-rollable 2+ save, and a warboss who is almost always going to hit and wound. It's cheap and powerful.

Big Mek w/ KFF - a 5++ invuln vs. shooting is still useful, even if it doesn't extend beyond a vehicle and is only models not units. I recommend running him outside of your vehicle on the top of turn 1, then hopping in and joining a ride.

Mad Dok Grotsnik - Holy crap is this guy good now. He still can't leave a unit after he joins it, but he gives fearless and rampage. Seriously I had to read the rules for this several times. He literally gives the unit those rules, if he dies for some reason, or if its an IC in the unit he's "conferred" it to, as it were, that unit/IC keeps the rules. As according to the raw text, they "HAVE" the rule, simply because he joined them. So, use this to give your orks so much needed umph. Combo this with meganobz/warboss for a really good time.

Slugga choppa boyz -  Shoota boyz are infinitely better in almost every way, but its not worth 7pts a model. So now is the time of the slugga/choppa boy. I previously advocated for using big shootas, now is also the time of the rokkit, use them instead of big shootas. Anytime previously you thought of using a big shoota, or you get a big shoota, simply make a it a rokkit, this goes for all units in the codex.

Meganobz - same as always, dead hitty and resilient. Now more so with a painboy for FnP

Trukk - Cheap rokkits and fast

Warbuggies - these guys were great in 5th, and now they're great again in 7th. 25pts for a rokkit buggie is solid. Run them in squads of 2 or 3.

Battlewagons - still great, don't bother with upgrades though. Deffrollas are trash now, seriously don't bother. If you want to buy things, give them wreckin balls, boarding planks or rokkits. I'm running mine with just a single rokkit though to keep the points cost down.

Tankbustas - Now amazing, its hard to argue with EVERYONE GETS A ROKKIT AND MELTABOMB! They're very effective at killing MC's and tanks. Use them, seriously. I'm running squads of 10 in trukks or bwagons depending on how I feel. Trukks can be solid for 12 inch movement, and snap firing out. Super awesome in the elite slot.


Of the other models that are new or rules revamped.

Gretchin artillery - this stuff is still a trap - admittedly a cheap one. You're talking about a maximum of 5 shots, 3 which hit, and maybe do something. For a fairly low cost. The real problem? They are in the heavy support slot, where you want to grab better things like b-wagons or lootas.

Lootas - Still good, and slightly cheaper, shame they share the heavy support slot

Morkanaught / Gorkanaught - I complained about these guys previously, and i'll do it again. They're at least 150pts way to expensive for what they do. Even then, they'd still be questionable for useful in an ork army. These are more like pretty models you felt like painting than combat effective monsters. They needed to be a super heavy, and i'm not sure why they are not. Seriously GW, go FAQ that shit and make them one. It's not like you guys have a problem changing other things (i.e. super deamon ally friends with the heralds)...
For their point cost, they need to be super heavies. They should also be assault vehicles, like seriously.

RTT This sunday April 15th (yes its fathers day, what better way to celebrate than with your friends! Instead of family!)

Hey all

So I've been getting a lot of questions about how to handle the RTT this weekend.

I've thought about it, played some games of 40k, and generally messed around with 7th. I'm going to say, I'm very annoyed at how the summon shenigans works now. Being able to summon 1300pts of models into an 1850 game in 5 turns is generally unacceptable to me. That has occurred in several games without even trying hard. So, GW, you dropped the ball, hard.

That's in a battleforged army btw, I can't even imagine how abusive it could get in an unbound army.

So, what shall we do for this Sunday?

D-weapons have been nerfed, so that's a thing. I could allow lords of war possibly, but some of them are still stupidly over-powered (baneblade transports)..

So those are all things.

So, something you all may not have caught. Things like the bastion were removed from the core rulebook so we don't know how to use them except via the Stronghold assault rules.

Soooo, I think no matter what I decide I'm going to be wildly unpopular. So I'm going to stick with what I think tournaments will be running based on talking to other TO's & friends. (I.e Matt, BLAME MATT)

So 1850 pts.

- maximum of 2 sources for armies

- Must be battleforged

so any two detachments (ie 2 combined arms, 1 combined arms 1 ally, 1 combined arms 1 formation, 1 combined arms 1 inquistion, etc etc)

All models from stronghold assault are now legal. HOWEVER, please still no networked systems. meaning if you have a void shield, its only a single void shield generator. Not 2-3. Can't have multiple bastions etc.

No lords of war, full stop. I'm going to investigate them further, but atm, no.

EDIT- People have been asking me how we are going to do terrain. As if you didn't notice, area terrain is no longer a thing.

So, all previous "area" terrain is now a battlescape. That means it'll confer a default 5+ cover for being toe in. All buildings/ruins remain as ruins, so that'll be a 4+. Note that  ruin terrain now provides it regardless of if obscured by elements or not.

People have also been commenting about the CADS - We are testing the waters here, if I end up thinking its retarded to have multiple CADS, then it'll get dropped from the next RTT.

Other than that, we'll start at the normal time, 10:00, and we'll do pizza and stuffs.

See you all there!

New Ork Walkers thoughts - Also ork codex removed from GW website.

Greets alls,

Looks like the ork codex pre-orders should be going up this weekend. Despite rumors to the contrary. I was unable to find the ork codex on the GW website. So that's usually a pretty good indicator shit's about to go down. Someone let me know if I'm just stupid and missed it.

- Now thoughts on the ork walkers

The new Ork units in the white dwarf are pretty sexy, BUT BUT, they are missing two vital rules, which I hope is in the codex, or these will be -never going to fucking take - wonders. Seriously. Not to mention ,if the rumored points values are true (Gorkanaut 245 points, Morkanaut 230). Then they're stupidly over-priced regardless, especially if they take up a much coveted heavy support slot.

Assault vehicle and/or Fleet.

They definitely need to be an assault vehicle, if nothing else.

Why?

It's guns are so - so (good for orks, bad.. because orks are shooting them). It's got good CC abilities.
So hiding  a core of scoring units in it is plausible while it shoots, but not a good idea. The game plan is going to be run this thing full tilt across the board at the enemy.

So what's the problem?

Things a walker, it's slow as shit.

Turn 1

Turn one move 6' run ..average of 3. Now it's 6 inches behind your leading vehicles (because you want to maintain that KFF bubble). If you don't care about your kff bubble, its 6-12 inches behind (vehicles move 12, flat out 6)


Turn 2

Turn 2, all your vehicles move forward 6; guys disembark 6, and your assault is on. (hopefully, unless your opponent is playing hammer and anvil and moved the hell back, in which case its stretching to reach them.

But for the sake of things, lets pretend its not hammer and anvil, or didn't back up far enough

So your walkers moved forward 6, and is now (6 + distance from b-wagons previous turn) away from your battle line.

You now have a choice, disembark the... 6 man squad (most like 3 meganobz or some flamer bro's), and run them forward with the walker to go for turn 3 assault, exposing them to all sorts of nasty firepower. (Now 9 to 24 inches away from your battle line, depending on your dice rolls and vehicle speeds)

or simply run forward and wait for turn 3 to unleash its cargo, for a turn 4 charge.

Either of which, is not a super amazing choice. Lets hope they have one or those two rules.

Assault already got hit hard with nerfbat, and 7th edition hasn't changed that one bit. If your assaults need to happen as rapidly as possible, in a timely reliable way in order to be useful and make up for this. Given the mobility of a lot of armies (and more so elder), they need to be effective at getting there as well, not to mention with enough bodies to absorb inevitable overwatch.


I can see a couple useful roles for the walkers, but mainly Counter assault/second wave assault, AV13 will make them durable and reliable in CC. They have plenty of hitting capacity, and pretty decent anti-infantry firepower. Also Firepower soaks (same reason).

The squad you hold inside of it, needs to have a similar role, or it will be essentially useless. And you can't have counter assault, if the squad can't assault out of it. Especially if the thing explodes, which it's likely to do, as its a big scary walker and an obvious target for anti-tank.


It's fairly clear since the transport capacity is only 6 models, that the intention is for some sort of small elite squad to be moved about inside this vehicle. GW needs to give them the means to be practical using it. Otherwise the transport capacity might as well not exist.

FAQs are live ! also, eldar buffed further.. like seriously Dafuq

FAQS are live people, go take a look. Looks like lots of things got nerfed pretty solidly including helldrakes, rune priests (space wolves in general).. etc

Based on my reading of this, no more 4+ shut down of psyker powers, and good bye space wolf specific psyker powers. No more jaws etc. 

I could be wrong though on this, as it seems the FAQ part may not be the most clear. The FAQ instructs to replace the third sentence of runic weapons with "furthermore a model with a runic weapon adds 1 to deny the witch roles". Looking at the space wolf codex the runic weapon rule on page 36, the sentence it's actually replacing is " A runic weapon is a force weapon". So I guess it depends on where the rule starts, as the first two sentences are actually literally fluff. Unless that's a comma not a period at the end of that sentence, which I doubt, as "Furthermore" is capitalized.  So, I think the intention is clear, but the rules lawyers out there.. have at it.

So... Thoughts on that? GW SNAFU?

Second edit, so as pointed out below by Hudson, I misread the FAQ change for the SW- I read the first part that stated the SW FOC would now follow the book one (and thus thought what I said below), and completely missed the following rule change, which allows two HQS per FOC slot, so disregard that. Todays just not my day apparently!
Also huge changes to space wolves FOC, no more double rune priests etc.


So, for salt in the wound, Eldar ghosthelms act exactly the same as they do now. So, if Eldar perils, they can just basically ignore it.

So Edit here, people pointed out to me I was incorrect about this, but leaving it in so comments make sense still (in italics) Additionally, runes of warding got a huge buff, it now adds +2 to the deny the witch roll. Which means it can be used even to deny blessings.

I think runes of warding just became auto-take.

That also means, my previous post was spot on. Good bye other forms of death-stars. Your powers will be to unreliable to get off.

Behold, now it is the time of the Eldar!

Prepare yourselves for beaststars and seer councils.



Other misc: Gloom prisons for necron are now +2 to deny the witch, otherwise pretty much the same
CSM - Helldrake nerf, now a hull mounted gun, meaning no more 360 arcs of fire.

New edition thoughts - In the grim dark of the future, there are only Eldar.

So I notice a lot of idiots are posting/cheering about how Deathstars are going to go away, specifically beast-stars, seer council etc. Notably on BOLS and Faeit....

My description of those people should tell you what I think of that.

Invis + Fortune = "I Win".

Invis, to those who have not yet read the book, means you have to snap fire at the unit, and can only hit them on 6's in CC.  It's stupid, because as far as I can tell, ignore cover doesn't remove invis. So having to snap fire is atrocious. It also means blasts / template weapons can't be shot into them.... (as its not a snap fire). Then you can't assault them, because you'll hardly touch them. Meanwhile, they'll play with you just fine.

Give those two powers to an army that can assault turn 2, and throw tons of attacks, have reliable invulns, have plenty of IC's to spread around abilities or break away to kill shit, and a lot of psyker levels, and you've got a recipe for super death stars.

Seriously invis is stupidly good. What were they thinking?

A lot of people are championing the return to MSU - They are wrong. Vehicles are slightly more durable than they were previously, but the gains are uneven in each army. Wave serpents benefited immensely, while rhinos only slightly improved. So your scoring MSU'd vehicle army is only slightly more durable than it was in 6th (unless you play wave serpents of course).

 It's nice to know that those AP3 and worse guns won't insta-gib a vehicle. But, all that requires is a few weapon swaps to get back to the status quo. Prepare for a lot more AP2/AP1, or S6+ torrent to simply glance stuff out.

Vehicles needed more hullpoints, or 6+ invuln saves (representing armored systems.. or whatever take your pick), not just booming on a 7+. It's a helpful change but not the best.

Seer councils / beast stars weren't having a problem tabling people in 6th, MSUing your units isn't going to really change that, it just means that the seer council or beast star might include more wave serpents to boom your vehicles (as they do it quite easily and reliably), and less wraith knights (As cover saves are dumb now). Or just a few more anti-tank ranged units.

It's also a thing, that you can summon your own daemonic allies (at least atm, we'll see with FAQS), so you can rush that more durable than ever death star across the board, and it can summon more units, to help kill whatever it might be facing.

And because your MSUing, that deathstar player knows you won't have your own deathstar to oppose theirs. So they can toss their stuff forward and go full bore into you, and summon daemons every turn to bolster their army, allowing them to hunt down your squads efficiently and effectively.

I will tell you, that some deathstars are going to disappear real fast. This is very unfortunate as before we had a sort of balance occurring, with several deathstars able to nock each other out, so at least it wasn't monolithic.

Forget that for now. In the grim dark of the future, there is only Eldar.

Centurian stars, ovesa star, these will be gone. Ovesa isn't legal anymore (unless faq'd otherwise by GW), and centurian stars relied on either having a buff commander for ignore cover, twin linking, etc, or on psyker powers, which will now be much harder to get off vs. a seer council player who can toss all their dice with no fear of retribution into shutting down your crucial roles. Do you as a tournament player, really want to risk your death star getting its shit pushed in by someone who can shut down your crucial buffs 1/3 the time. Not to mention, Centurian stars will rely on throwing a lot of dice to get the powers off, risking perils! Something Eldar don't fear.

I saw someone pointing out that Eldar players won't want to risk their armor save improvement powers because of the new casting things...

So what?

A re-rollable 3+ and/or 4+ is still good.

Additionally the changes to how cover saves work (standing in terrain by itself is no longer cover), means MC's and weak troops are now super easy pickings for ranged attacks.

For those who missed it, being obscured by difficult terrain is now a 5+, and being in any part of a ruin (but not necessarily obscured) is a 4+.

So armies with good troops, or good transports to hide them in will be vastly improved. Armies without.. well. GTFO? Especially with the proliferation of barrage potential from imperial armies and.. Eldar.

So expect to see -- Seer council w/ wave serpents; Beast Stat w/ Wave serpents; Cheeky drop podding marines (which will go away just as quick, as they realize helldrakes are still going to rip them a new asshole, not to mention the previously mentioned armies will have no problem shredding them once they adjust to bringing some more anti-tank guns to nock down their stuff).

I was hoping IG would be awesome. Now I don't think so. The change to invis is just to much, a solid deathstar like described above can simply come across and kill them.

A lot of people are looking hard at GK to problem solve this. It's an interesting idea, but ultimately I don't think it will pan out. GK's are not going to win an assault fight vs. seer council or beast packs, and they're not going to shoot them down if they have invis. So it'll really depend on if the GK player can roll enough dice to cancel the Eldar players power. That's some chancy shit tbh. Especially if backed up by wave serpents the elder player with some careful target priority can quickly reduce the number of dice the GK player can toss to block powers.

In case you all missed it, template/blast weapons no longer work based on ruin levels. It's simply models under the template. So those of you hiding under skyshields, that doesn't work anymore. But it also means spreading your troops across ruin levels to protect against them is more or less pointless. Also barrage now comes from the center of the first landing spot. So if your models were standing in some difficult terrain that obscured them from the front, but not from the rear (where our hypothetical blast has landed), despite standing in terrain, no cover saves(unless in a ruin). So that's kind of a big deal.