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Author Topic: Soulburst Vs. Health of the Game  (Read 2365 times)

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Offline Cavalier

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Soulburst Vs. Health of the Game
« on: February 18, 2017, 07:57:28 AM »
Hey guys. So as soon as I started to wrap my head around Soulburst my immediate thoughts were for the health of the game. I already have a hard time rustling up opponents with my Eldar as it is. I can only imagine what my opponents would feel like when I told them... oh yeah now I get to go in YOUR turn as well... on top of potentially going twice with multiple units in my turn.

My first instinct is its beyond over the top, and I can't believe Phil Kelly came up with this idea and that it made out of GW HQ unchallenged.

The Traitor Legions book just came out... and I loved the tone of the rules. Gathering Storm I came out and I loved the Hero Hammer aspect it brought and the combined Imperial forces option. When Gathering Storm II was previewed I thought sweet... a combined Eldar army will be awesome! But Strength from Death on top of that was completley unnecessary IMO.

Giving access to those powers to the Visarch, Yvarine and Ynncarne would be fine, and perhaps a few formations. Its also fantastic for DE + Harlies who have built in pronounced weaknesses, but for Eldar whose damage output is horrendous as it is, I just boggles my mind.

However that was my first thought... I've seen people make some decent cases for the high risk/high reward angle as you have to get deadly close to pull it off. Furthermore you actually have to kill what you are targeting or you are gonna get pasted.

As I understand it, these out-sequence-actions are nothing new. Many games use them including Age of Sigmar. But for it to be an Eldar exclusive thing, with the almost unpredecented firepower they bring to bear I just cannot bring myself to accept it. I love the idea of the Ynnari, all Eldar factions, but I just feel like the mechanic is too overpowered for the already mighty Eldar.

I'd love to know your thoughts on the matter. If we can lets confine the discussion to its impact on the game, not how much it makes us angry. Anyway other than that let rip!
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Offline Looshkin

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Re: Soulburst Vs. Health of the Game
« Reply #1 on: February 18, 2017, 12:33:20 PM »
I think it's good for the game. It's a new way of playing. It rewards really aggressive play, but over commit, and you can well be punished for it.

Like everything in this game, it will take some learning from both the Ynnari player and also their opponent.

If you are facing a Ynnari list, maybe it will change how you approach target priority. For the most part, you target units with the express view of wiping them off the face of the planet, whereas against a Soulburst army, maybe a thorough crippling is the best way of playing. Target a flank and dismantle it slowly, so that, if you do trigger a soulburst action, it will be against a seriously understrength part of the force. Any reprisal shooting will be hampered by the fact the unit is already crippled.

Shooting at the Ynnari with weaker units first may make sense. The Ynnari will take damage, but by the time you are destroying units with your best shooters, the army around them is significantly weaker.

Think of playing the Ynnari less as bludgeoning them off the table and more as Death by a Thousand Cuts. Nibble at them until they die. Don't be sucked into taking a big bite.

Can the Ynnari be overwhelmingly powerful? Yes, in the right hands and against a poor opponent, they can.

Can Ynnari be beaten? Yes, by strategising correctly...at least you know that the units won't be shooting then hiding through Battle Focus every turn.
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Offline Sarkrim

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Re: Soulburst Vs. Health of the Game
« Reply #2 on: February 18, 2017, 12:36:41 PM »
I agree, that the potential for damage is terrifying, but at the same time I see the rule is a truly scary defensive power.

Yes the offensive use of it, is something to be feared if you can pull it off, but as an alpha strike counter? It would destroy a lot of alpha strike armies, in *their* shooting phase. E.g. a Skyhammer annihilation force lands and 1 of the devastator units shoots and kills a target. The reborn warhost is now allowed a soulburst action in return, 2 if your army includes more than 7 units, and the return fire erases the other devastator squad and an assault squad. Completely blunting their power. Eldar alpha strike through scatterbikes, sure they might kill something but your own bikes or other long range units fire back and flattens units that haven't shot yet, taking away a lot of the firepower.

It's the same story across the board, with maybe Tau as the exception as they tend to outrange most of the eldar stuff. Combine soulburst with an Ulthwë Strike Force for your own massive alpha strike and eldar just got to a level, not even battle companies and deathstars can match in scary.

I'm worried about what that rule will do to the game, but it requires a lot of testing to see if it's anywhere near as bad as it seems on paper. However the command benefits of the Reborn Warhost does allow for an extreme degree of MSU, where you can afford to throw away units to get the soulburst started.

Offline Cavalier

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Re: Soulburst Vs. Health of the Game
« Reply #3 on: February 19, 2017, 07:32:52 AM »
@Looshkin- Hey great to see your thoughts on the other side of the hobby. I REALLY hope you are right... what your describing is how I hope things pan out. I'm usually not the "Sky if Falling" type and usually just wait things out and dont have much of a reaction to things at first... so hopefully I jumped the gun. I can very easily see what are you saying come to pass. I'm gonna start play testing stuff soon just to see how it works. Ulthwe Strikeforce first... then I'm gonna give the Ynnari a whirl.

@Sarkrim- Yeah I see that too. I'm a total beta-strike, reserve everything player because all I've faced is Space Marine alpha strikes for the past number of years. I'm so used to having to dodge the first blow, but this is a total game changer.

At the same time if you can kill the Eldar at a distance... most Eldar units top out at 36" with ranged weapons... so if you can just sit back with artillery and whatnot you can still whale on them at extreme long range and while they can duck and cover, most units wont be able to do anything offensive in the early turns.

Also Flyer heavy lists I think will do well too. I'm thinking Thousand Sons especially with Magnus and Flying Daemon Princes as Eldar AA is really, really weak. They can soulburst all over the place but they aren't really going to be able to do much, especially at buffed up psychic FMCs.
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Offline magenb

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Re: Soulburst Vs. Health of the Game
« Reply #4 on: February 19, 2017, 10:51:55 PM »
Go and re-read the Strength from Death special rule, specifically how close you need to be for it kicks in. So Drop pod style armies might need to slightly adjust their tactics.

Alpha strike will focus on long range elder weapons now, which just means a couple of their squads get to move closer to your guns...

If you trash a Ynnari unit in assault you cop an extra round of shooting... so if your going to assault, pick carefully lol.

It could make them a little harder to remove from an objective, however if you've just dumped enough firepower on them to trash an entire squad, your not really going to have that much trouble removing the second one.

Lets say someone is lucky and gets the power to trigger it. A 4 man scatlaser jet bike will on average do ~3 unsaved wounds to a marine squad... seriously if anyone is browning their paints over that power, don't read the chaos codex or your head will explode.

All of the Ynnari new models are geared towards CC. Even in a situation, they get an extra charge, you lose 1 round of firing at them but they lose all charge bonuses and most likely can't attack you.. also note that DE under the Ynnari banner do not get power from pain.. so they are just bubble wrap/soulburst fuel for the aspect warriors ;)



Offline Aurics Pride

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Re: Soulburst Vs. Health of the Game
« Reply #5 on: February 20, 2017, 01:57:26 AM »
At first when I read it my thoughts were "Holy Amphetamine Parrot, GW Have broken the game"
After some re-reading and a bit more thought it's really not that bad.
I think Loosh has near enough nailed it although I don't agree that it's good for the game.

The way I see it:
1) In game terms 7" isn't very much, to make the most of this you are going to need to be right in someone's face or castled up. Niether are particularly good ideas for Eldar.
2) The extra shot is the Dangerous part here but a lot of the Eldar's most effective shooting comes from it's vehicles (Crimson Hunters, Warp Hunters, Hornets) which can't soulburst. Dark Reapers could possibly be the big winners out of this, that and aggressively used Fire Dragons.
3) For anything bar Jetbikes the extra move is essentially just Battle Focus, nothing new to worry about here.
4) The extra assault is at Initiative step and while Eldar are fast none of their characters are generally beatstick enough to wipe out a unit before the rest of their unit gets to strike, good for just tying someone up or for making a counter charge.
5) There are still ways to break it, The Yncarne with Nova powers and his Teleporting being one that jumps out to me. D-Scythe Wraithguard are another possible but if your opponent is stupid enough to deploy two units within Flaming distance knowing that unit is coming in then more fool him/her!

To fight against it it seems that spreading out and choosing your target priority is key. As most games go on the Eldar player is going to need to start spreading out so then you pick off the stragglers until they fully commit.
Also most Alpha strike armies are fully understanding that they are going to lose their units after dropping. If my Grav Devastators take out a Wraithknight on the turn they drop then they've still done their job, even if they do then get wiped out.
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Offline Cavalier

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Re: Soulburst Vs. Health of the Game
« Reply #6 on: February 20, 2017, 07:41:30 AM »
@Magenb- Yeah the more I'm seeing this, the more I'm starting to realize how tough it is to get up close and personal. I still do worry about people trying to exploit the new Ulthwe Guardians/Jetbikes for deepstrike blitzkriegs, but woe to those players should it fail... I just listened to the Chapter Approved podcast from FLG and they were saying its a potentially scary buff but it requires a lot of thought, and bad dice and one bad descision can make for a crash and burn scenario... or at the very least lead to a huge chunk of your army getting blown away after gambling on a failed attempt at a mulit-unit soulburst.

@Auric's Pride- Fascinating.... great points Auric. Yeah their are a swath of units that this doesnt really apply to... and some real heavy hitters are taken out of the equation like the Skathatch, Warp Hunter, Hornets etc. Plus if you are playing single CAD, or detachment, your access to Wraithguard with deepstrike ability is 3... two WWP's and a Raider or Gate of Infinity so thats really not that bad.

I have to go give myself a refresher on the Assault Phase terminology because being only on my first cup of coffee and not knowing the actual phrases worth a damn is twisting up my brain! As you know I'm all about that Eldar Assault life and its what I'm most interested in exploiting lol... so let me brush up on that and I'm sure I'll have more questions for you guys.

@Everybody- Fantastic responses guys! You guys have allayed of the angst of my first reaction. Plus a lot of the high end tourney guys have already seen this in AoS so they aren't as shell shocked by the idea as I am. Really appreciate the well thought out responses... its give me a lot to think about.
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Offline MagicJuggler

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Re: Soulburst Vs. Health of the Game
« Reply #7 on: February 20, 2017, 11:36:00 AM »
Soulburst is problematic, simply because it's an ability that rewards Eldar for going MSU while punishing opponents for doing the same; free rounds of Scatpack shooting will be more dangerous and more likely to go off against a Gladius instead of, say, a Barkbarkstar.

Anything that pushes the game towards more "deathstars"/super-units isn't going to help the overall state of the game.

Offline magenb

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Re: Soulburst Vs. Health of the Game
« Reply #8 on: February 20, 2017, 03:20:10 PM »
soulburst is not really that OP, but is a symptom of a great problem. Effectively GW's given up on trying to have a balanced and fun game.  Here have some formations so you can take whatever you want with little to no taxes (even stupid amounts of freebies) and a bunch off rules that just make the game unpalatable for your opponent.

The comp I'm in at the moment has a lot of restrictions, no LoW, No allies, no Forgeworld, no formations, and everyone is enjoying it more than the full game, even against the hardcore tourney players.


The full game is difficult for new players to get into, beside the mass of rules, it used to be the core rule book and a codex. Talk to your friend about what their army units could do and you could build a list and have a reasonable chance, now new players are faced with a mountain of options just in their own army let alone the options they need to try and counter from other codexes and supplements.

We can all see the current 40k is heading to AoS as far as it being Hero-hammer and just a bunch of army formations that get released all over the place. If you've tried to get into AoS, you would find it difficult to find all your possible formations as they are in multiple books, some you can even only get access to when you buy the right box set and that's assuming your just using a single army.

Releasing in this adhock manner gives GW the ability to make units you wouldn't normally take uber for a while and so they get to shift more stock, but its really not healthy for the game long term as your going to have to keep raising that OP bar. Can you imagine how different the game will be by the end of an edition?




Offline Fenris

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Re: Soulburst Vs. Health of the Game
« Reply #9 on: February 20, 2017, 04:38:43 PM »
I don't see a problem with Soulburst concerning the health of the game, it's always been unbalanced. However the health of 7th ed is declining rapidly, I guess they are testing out some new rules before the new edition by letting us do the playtesting for them.
Soulburst is just another armywide(ish) rule like ATSKNF, reanimation protocols or Supporting fire.

For a balanced game those kind of rules should be left out and only used in narrative campaign scenarios IMHO. Problem is where to draw the line between normal and special(narrative) rules. Sadly GW seems hellbent on giving competitive and tournament players a hard time by constantly skewing the balance.
This ultimately forces players to write their own set of rules, in one form or another composition score and banning formations, GC's and superheavies are just one of many examples of players writing the rules.
Why should we then keep paying money for rules that we write ourselves, sure the books are a good source of fluff, but that's about it.

As for wether Soulburst is OP, no I've seen worse meta changers, but soulburst is still more powerful than battle focus.
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Offline Partninja

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Re: Soulburst Vs. Health of the Game
« Reply #10 on: February 20, 2017, 06:58:21 PM »
So I've played/witnessed a few games with the new book. Generally speaking, I see it like a horoscope. Sounds great when the stars, moons and planets are all aligned, but generally doesn't play out how you think. I do feel it is better suited for DE and Harlequins, but only because they don't have much better alternatives. At the same time, they're just weaker armies. The biggest boon is just being able to play all the pointy ears at the same time, within the same army. That alone makes for some OP combos regardless of soulburst.

The problem, is things have to die to get the bonus (whole squads of things). They have to die at the right time and in the right location. This is easier said than done for some units. It also relies on your opponent making very poor choices. It also relies on you sacrificing units. To me this is way too clunky and extremely difficult to pull off effectively, efficiently, and repeatedly.

Running through so many scenarios is my head, I know my Eldar would be better off with battle focus (multiple turns of safe shooting/positioning) as opposed to 1 or 2 possible turns of extra actions.

There are some obvious combos that will make use of soulburst with ease, but a lot that can't (so lack of diversity). Other units will need a lot of doubling up and team work but can hurt your overall efficiency just to soulburst. Again, assuming your opponent allows his units to be positioned in a way for you to make that extra assault, or keep those D-Scythes in range.

The biggest boon is just being able to play all the pointy ears at the same time, within the same army. That alone makes for some OP combos regardless of soulburst. THAT is the real power of the book.

Offline magenb

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Re: Soulburst Vs. Health of the Game
« Reply #11 on: February 20, 2017, 09:07:04 PM »
The biggest boon is just being able to play all the pointy ears at the same time, within the same army. That alone makes for some OP combos regardless of soulburst. THAT is the real power of the book.

Alot of those neat combo's already existed thanks to allies, but it does make things a little easier, such as mixing transport options, sadly can't mix the dedicated options yet.

I'm not sold completely on the idea of the Ynnari yet, losing power from pain will hurt the DE infantry seriously and the lack on battlefocus means we'll have to play aspect troops the old way.. Still I think you could have some fun matches with them.

I wonder if forgeworld are going to drop their hat into that ring, droping corsairs into that mix would be rather intersting.. really though kind of about time GW just grabbed the corsairs and made them an offical army anyway... then forgeworld could start tinkering with exodites...

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Re: Soulburst Vs. Health of the Game
« Reply #12 on: February 21, 2017, 07:28:51 AM »
The problem, is things have to die to get the bonus (whole squads of things). They have to die at the right time and in the right location. This is easier said than done for some units. It also relies on your opponent making very poor choices. It also relies on you sacrificing units. To me this is way too clunky and extremely difficult to pull off effectively, efficiently, and repeatedly.

Running through so many scenarios is my head, I know my Eldar would be better off with battle focus (multiple turns of safe shooting/positioning) as opposed to 1 or 2 possible turns of extra actions.

The biggest boon is just being able to play all the pointy ears at the same time, within the same army. That alone makes for some OP combos regardless of soulburst. THAT is the real power of the book.

@PartNinja- I find this reasoning, really, really insightful. I'm really glad I put this out to you guys.... because I'm doing a podcast on it this week (shameless plug).

I was playing a game yesterday (using Black Guardians which are awesome BTW) and I was totally thinking the whole time, how hard it would have been to pull off Soulbursts. I was playing against my brother who had deployed his units masterfully and was maintaining proper distances throughout the game to avoid outflanking and deepstrike units... but maintaining an excellent "range game" throughout the entire throwdown. I think their were like 3 opportunities in the game where I could have used Soulburst.

Now my list was by no means tooled up to the nines, but even still to get that close you are gonna have to hoof it like there is no tomorrow, or load up on transports which in the case of Wave Serpents are expensive, or even with the Deepstrike ability of Raiders, Venoms, Starweavers you have access to a maximum of 3 for super shooty CWE units... all of which are competing in the Elite slot with Wraithguard, Dragons and all the Black Guardian units...

Anyway great points Partninja always appreciate your insights.
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Offline magenb

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Re: Soulburst Vs. Health of the Game
« Reply #13 on: February 21, 2017, 02:57:43 PM »
Now my list was by no means tooled up to the nines, but even still to get that close you are gonna have to hoof it like there is no tomorrow, or load up on transports which in the case of Wave Serpents are expensive, or even with the Deepstrike ability of Raiders, Venoms, Starweavers you have access to a maximum of 3 for super shooty CWE units... all of which are competing in the Elite slot with Wraithguard, Dragons and all the Black Guardian units...

The transports with CWE would be competing against, Warp Spiders, Reavers, Skyweavers, air support and maybe Swooping Hawks and that's assuming your running a CAD only list. The question then is do you drop troops for highly mobile shuriken fire or a heavy hitters from elites or maybe some super long range assaults or do you go with a bit of fun and drop some rangers into a venom with splitercannons.

 


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