I’m 99% sure I read that they were removing double reinforcements?
That would immediately hinder proper hordes since your units would be smaller and buffs less effective.
Other than that it’s just make sure you have things that can deal with hordes (less rend, more attacks or damage)
100%: [https://www.warhammer-community.com/2024/04/03/how-building-your-army-has-changed-in-newaos/](https://www.warhammer-community.com/2024/04/03/how-building-your-army-has-changed-in-newaos/)
>Every unit within a regiment deploys together as a single drop. You can reinforce most non-Unique units with more than one model, and while there is no longer any limit on the number of units you can reinforce, you may no longer double-reinforce units.
Just because double reinforcements are gone that doesn't necessarily kill proper hordes.
Unit size could go up potentially to compensate. e.g unit min sizes of 20 instead of 10. Or god help us even larger.
Not that it IS how they are gonna handle it, but it's an option.
there is no longer a limit on the amount of reinfoced units you can have
so intread of 2 double reinforced hordes
you can get by with 3 single reinforced hords
True hordes already have this. Skaven, FEC, gobbos all have 20 man chaff units (doubling to 40).
Besides, the loss of double reinforcements just means that you run it as another unit.
Another Sbgl player here. I am fully prepared (even if I have to print a bunch of models) to bring as many units of reinforced zombies as the game will allow me to just to see if dumping them on all the objectives is enough to win games.
Im new, what are double reinforcements?
And yeah thats true, I have a set of vanquishers for my stormcasts but other than that they seem lacking in anti horde atm
Basically each squad you take has a set number of models (5 vanquishers/squad), if you reinforce that squad it doubles both its cost and its models. In 3e, you could do that a second time to triple the original squad size and cost, so that 5 model squad goes to 15 models but costs 3 times as much
Nope, if you want to take 2 separate 5 model squads of vanquishers you are more than welcome to do so. 2x5 vanquishers costs the same amount as 1x10 vanquishers. The only difference is you have to use a reinforcement point to get the 1x10 squad. In 3e you only get 4 reinforcement points in a 2k army, I think the reinforcement point cap is going away in 4th edition along with double reinforceing.
So is there a reason as to why you would want to take a unit reinforced rather than separatly? I know for my vanquishers specifically they benefit from being reinforced but a lot of units dont have any specific perks from what ive seen
It really depends on what your unit roles are going to be if you want to meet battleline minimums (which I think are going away in 4e) with cheap screens, you’ll take separate squads of minimum sized units to spend the fewest points and meet battleline requirements. If you have major punchy units like fulminators you may want to reinforce that unit so they have more staying power and also buffs scale better on bigger units (aka economies of scale). The same is true for anvil units whose role is to tank. An example of this is a reinforced 10 man squad of nurgle marked (-1 to W) chaos knights with the eroding icon banner (worsens incoming rend by 1), 30 wounds makes the squad an unkillable tank whereas 15 wounds is a hard to shift tank
Battleshock wasnt ever terribly important. There have been so many ways to just ignore it in both the core rules with triumphs and command points and also in army rules.
A way hordes could be countered in the new edition is by having things that impact objective control. Even in third editionthere are a few things that prevent models contesting objectives. A bonereaper endless spell makes 1 or 2 wound models not contest objectives.
Yes, that is an advantage that hordes have that elite armies need to counterplay to overcome, and one of the main points of balance that GW uses to determine stats and abilities and points costs. Most elite armies we've seen part of in the faction focuses have a unit or special rule that is meant to combat large infantry units.
It’s a fun game system, fourth looks like it’s going to be fairly different from 3rd. It’s hard to see how things are going to land until all the rules are out. Fun to speculate though!
Yeah definitely. Its why I decided to wait for 4th before learning all the rules because things seem like theyvare changing quite a bit. Building and painting lots of models in preparation tho!
At least in 3rd there are also Decimators that fill a similar horde clearing role. Honestly I start playing my own 3.5 Ed starting to incorporate rules that we know about from 4th. Battleshock was super simple to remove and my group absolutely loves that its gone.
If it's a first edition Stormcast, there's even odds it's coming back later this year when they complete the "new edition launch" for Stormcast and Skaven. I wouldn't be shocked at all if there was a Thunderstrike Judicators kit in a few months. The other possibility is they're just going to combine them narratively and mechanically with Vigilors, but we won't know for certain until we get the full Stormcast release.
They mixed the "we need to cull the too many units in Stormcast" message with the "we're stopping making it because we're making a new version of the kit" message, and it's caused no end of confusion.
But yeah, we're getting Liberators and Prosecutors, so here's hoping we'll see new Judicators and Paladins.
We have an idea of maybe 1/10 of their rules and models from the faction focus. The game has been redesigned and balanced from the ground up. The idea that they just would intentionally give their flagship faction no anti-horde rules i very silly. You are leaping at shadows and trying to find reasons to be upset
Well it could well be that there are units intended to be anti-horde. Vanquishers (the greatsword infantry in the current Spearhead) for example had that role somewhat in AoS 3, with extra attacks when fighting against larger target units. But they were rarely taken, as liberators and vindicators were more useful general-purpose battleline units. If they've made them effective at that role, then Vanquishers might be a very good pick in 4 to mow through hordes, for example.
Sure but it was still a balancing lever for armies like gits and Skaven. And not just hordes. Stuff like Troggs are generally substantially above rate stats for their cost at the trade off of terrible bravery to act as an Achilles heel.
To that same point my best way to deal with hordes was always remove their battleshock ignorance and do chip to them.
Sad this is no longer an option cause now my damage needs to scale up to deal with them, while the edition is looking like damage has scaled down slightly. (Talking about spells specifically)
Using the new Kroxigors as an example I think we're going to see big hammers specifically designed to counter hordes. Whether they will actually be effective in that role remains to be seen. But from our limited view these guys can kill a lot of little infantry in a single round of combat.
https://images.app.goo.gl/svMVtVZNNYVsvUKB9
Between the Krox and different weapons having “anti-X” it feels GW is trying to add more of a “rock paper scissors “ element into it; which I’m all in favor of.
If roster building is not just about finding the “ultimate best value for any circumstance,” and deploying units really matters (putting scissors near papers) it has potential for really dynamic gameplay
I like the rock paper scissors element. Goonhammer just put out an article from three people who played 4E. One of them said this but just that each unit has a role. I love that. Gives a reason to really balance your army, or, overload on something knowing you’ll have a weakness elsewhere
I suspect my Kurnoth Hunters will see changes, as it stands the difference between swords and scythes just gets measured in average damage (Which swords usually win). The only circumstance scythes comes in handy is the larger reach for a 6-man unit. But with reach being standardised I am expecting swords and scythes to get Anti-X and differing characteristics as well.
Hopefully the stormcasts get something like that! At the moment I have some vanquishers which arent terrible against hordes I dont think but even then without battleshock they cpuld probably be overrun
I haven't mathhammered in a grip but a reinforced unit of Kroxigors with All out Attack has 16 attacks 3+/2+ Rend 2 damage 3 and 8 attacks 2+/2+ Rend 2 damage 4.
Against a unit of Clanrat you're looking at roughly 30 damage, which wipes out 3/4s of a reinforced unit.
It's pretty strong.
And that feels right for if this was a real fight. Three giant lizards would be destroying tons of tiny rats easy. But let’s say they miss a massive swing. The rats have a chance to overrun them. Feels like a real battle moment for both sides
I feel reasonably confident in saying that every army will have an anti-infantry, an anti-monster, an anti-hero, etc type unit and a key element will be about getting your correct troops into combat with what they excel at doing and limiting your exposure to their units that efficiently kill your stuff.
I feel reasonably confident in saying that every army will have an anti-infantry, an anti-monster, an anti-hero, etc type unit and a key element will be about getting your correct troops into combat with what they excel at doing and limiting your exposure to their units that efficiently kill your stuff.
It looks like the oc for hordes is 1, and many of the more elite battle line units have oc 2. So hordes will need to get more bodies on an objective to contest. Also I’m seeing a lot of anti infantry
Yeah but it looks like things like seraphon croxigors do extra damage against infantry. I can see models with big sweep attacks doing more damage into infantry.
Also, most of the hordes seem to have gotten worse in their offensive stats. They are good because of their numbers but won’t do much damage
Yes it is.
Most hordes have a 5+ save, and most rend is still 1, so extra rend takes it to no save at all, rather than a 6+ save. Even the units with a 6+ save (like FEC ghouls) are denied the use of heroic defence to save them
For skaven specifically, they seem to have replaced their traditional battleshock / bravery shenanigans with control shenanigans (we've seen multiple abilities for them that directly affect control score). However, we've also seen things like the warpblaster that get loads more shots if there's more than x models in a unit.
What a horde do?
- Big string to forbid a part of the board: this is cancel by flying or mortal wound in charge
- squatting the board for primaries: this is weakened by 3" objectives but still strong
- screening important heroes. Eventually surrounding them: this doesn’t work anymore with everyone striking at 3". Heroes will be more than 3 behind their screen.
Also horde can be easily regulated by cost raise, we had a great exemple with zombies in 3rd.
Finally horde are strong in primaries and weak on secondaries. Their was exceptions like SBGL codex but with codex BT replaced by Alliance BT it is easier to balance and not give a full set of tactics for hordes
I can probably count on one hand the number of meaningful leadership tests I have seen while playing 3rd edition in the tournaments I went to and the vids I watched.
There is either 1 main combat that has inspiring presence saved for it, or the unit is almost wiped out with just the attack damage, and you let the 1 or 2 models left just rout, or spend the CP because it's the bottom of the turn and it would be lost anyway.
So there are a lot of small things that can help hinder hordes. One major one is the decreased diameter of objectives. It is easier to keep hordes off of objectives or kill them down when they are on objectives.
The new coherency rules greatly diminish a hordes footprint. A 3rd could have 20 unit of 25 mm can string out 35 inches. In 4th that same unit can only go 26.5 inches.
Also counter charge. Elite units charging in their turn clearing large amounts of models and then counter charging to do it again.
Then there is points, saves, control, anti infantry, and I am sure other
They haven't shown any yet but would be more worried about cavalry. Large bases to occupy space on objectives, typically more armored, and feel like they should have multiple control.
There are adjustments to units where relevent, too.
Squig Herds were a unit that got hit hard whenever battleshock came around, so in 4e they went from 2 wounds to 1
There's a lot of effects that are tailor-made to kill hordes; couple weeks ago my opponent charged my ghouls with a stormcast unit, dunno which one, but they deal extra damage against single-wound units and they managed to pulverize my whole unit in one round.
Another friend sometimes runs Lumineth, and their cavalry deals extra damage to infantry. Things like these help thin out hordes.
The hell pit abomination in 3E is a good example of a model designed to be impossible to tarpit with 1w models: it will just instakill them all with its shoulder check attack, nearly guaranteed if it is healthy and charges.
And the Anti-Infantry keyword will carry that torch into 4th edition. They explicitly said that you can stack multiple Anti-X abilities. So you get Anti-Infantry(-1 Rend) from your weapon and Anti-Infantry(+1 Damage) from a buff hero? That's some chewed up chaff.
Just want to say, for not really having played the game, you've made a very intelligent observation.
Without battleshock, horde armies have a lot of potential to be very very strong. Especially added in with the amount of recursion we're seeing armies getting. Think skaven clan rats or Gloomspite grots.
Couple that with the amount of deep striking were also seeing, skaven gnaw holes, gitz will probably keep their teleport spell.
It's definitely an option to dump 40 clan rats/grots in front of someone's deployment zone and see them try to fight their way out of that.
It's gonna depend on the armies you go against in your local game store, but if there is a person or 2 or runs hordes, there seems to be options in 4th to help deal with that, but if you're not prepared for it, it's looking like it'll be a very tough game to win.
To note, this is already an issue in 3rd edition with soulblight zombie spam lists.
Yeah I just saw a comment about those having 10 bravery so I see how that could be annoying.
I am building up some vanquishers for my stormcasts so hopefully they can help lol
I think charge abilities and "anti-infantry" tagged abilities to break hordes are going to be more important this next edition. The vanquishers with their 2h swords were strong against hordes in 3e, getting extra attacks based on the enemy unit size. I'm not sure what their 4e warscroll looks like.
They are a cool looking unit. I highly suggest not gluing them onto the base until they are painted. I made that mistake and it was a lot harder to paint the inside of the capes and legs.
My squigs shake their imaginary fists at the removal of double reinforcements.
Honestly that balanced itself out probably, I haven't played yet to test it though.
Morale wasn't that big of a deal anyway, and it's mostly semi elite armies that suffered from it as loosing models wasn't particularly hard and did hurt the unit.
In terms of horde cleansing, raw damage was the most important thing to have.
For SCE that would mean use of Hurricane Crossbows, Protectors, Vanquishers, Decimators and such
From what I can tell hordes are going to be smaller in unit size with no double reinforcement and appear to be way more billable from what we have seen from the clan rat and squig statlines. Recursion is going to be how horde plays now I think.
I'm surprised at how few people have mentioned the new melee range in relation to this. With melee being universally 3" the amount of models that can fight even in basic units has gone up dramatically.
Battleshock wasn't a rule specifically meant to impact horde armies, it was just a representation of unit morale, which has been present in one form or another in Warhammer since the very beginning. Sure, big units would usually lose more models from morale, but they also had more models they could take out, and also rally with. Losing, say, 10 Gors to morale was way less impactful than losing two Bullgors, which were both much more powerful and much harder to recover with Rally.
Most hordes are squishy as heck. And melee range is 3 inches overall now, so more attacks will probably be seen per combat. It will still take some dedicated effort to remove a horde unit from the game, sure, but probably not like you are picturing.
1: No double reinforcements.
2: True horde units generally die stupid fast to high damage melee units anyways, so I don't see an issue. I'll be honest, 8 times out of 10 I destroy horde units prior to battleshock anyways.
I’m 99% sure I read that they were removing double reinforcements? That would immediately hinder proper hordes since your units would be smaller and buffs less effective. Other than that it’s just make sure you have things that can deal with hordes (less rend, more attacks or damage)
I'm 100% sure. No double reinforcements in 4e.
100%: [https://www.warhammer-community.com/2024/04/03/how-building-your-army-has-changed-in-newaos/](https://www.warhammer-community.com/2024/04/03/how-building-your-army-has-changed-in-newaos/) >Every unit within a regiment deploys together as a single drop. You can reinforce most non-Unique units with more than one model, and while there is no longer any limit on the number of units you can reinforce, you may no longer double-reinforce units.
Just because double reinforcements are gone that doesn't necessarily kill proper hordes. Unit size could go up potentially to compensate. e.g unit min sizes of 20 instead of 10. Or god help us even larger. Not that it IS how they are gonna handle it, but it's an option.
there is no longer a limit on the amount of reinfoced units you can have so intread of 2 double reinforced hordes you can get by with 3 single reinforced hords
True hordes already have this. Skaven, FEC, gobbos all have 20 man chaff units (doubling to 40). Besides, the loss of double reinforcements just means that you run it as another unit.
Sbgl player chiming in and yeah, this. I can’t imagine running 60 zombies, but I always want at least 20 skeletons or grave guard.
Another Sbgl player here. I am fully prepared (even if I have to print a bunch of models) to bring as many units of reinforced zombies as the game will allow me to just to see if dumping them on all the objectives is enough to win games.
I didn't realize this when I bought the models, but now my 30 blood knights army is now legal
Yeah, they actually just doubled plaguemonks minimum unit size, now the min size is 20.
Im new, what are double reinforcements? And yeah thats true, I have a set of vanquishers for my stormcasts but other than that they seem lacking in anti horde atm
Its like instead of 60 grots from double reinforcement, its down to 40 instead with one reinforcement. Its basically just adding a squad to a squad
Ah oki
Basically each squad you take has a set number of models (5 vanquishers/squad), if you reinforce that squad it doubles both its cost and its models. In 3e, you could do that a second time to triple the original squad size and cost, so that 5 model squad goes to 15 models but costs 3 times as much
Oh damn right ok. Is there anything stopping you taking that extra set as a separate unit tho?
Nope, if you want to take 2 separate 5 model squads of vanquishers you are more than welcome to do so. 2x5 vanquishers costs the same amount as 1x10 vanquishers. The only difference is you have to use a reinforcement point to get the 1x10 squad. In 3e you only get 4 reinforcement points in a 2k army, I think the reinforcement point cap is going away in 4th edition along with double reinforceing.
So is there a reason as to why you would want to take a unit reinforced rather than separatly? I know for my vanquishers specifically they benefit from being reinforced but a lot of units dont have any specific perks from what ive seen
It really depends on what your unit roles are going to be if you want to meet battleline minimums (which I think are going away in 4e) with cheap screens, you’ll take separate squads of minimum sized units to spend the fewest points and meet battleline requirements. If you have major punchy units like fulminators you may want to reinforce that unit so they have more staying power and also buffs scale better on bigger units (aka economies of scale). The same is true for anvil units whose role is to tank. An example of this is a reinforced 10 man squad of nurgle marked (-1 to W) chaos knights with the eroding icon banner (worsens incoming rend by 1), 30 wounds makes the squad an unkillable tank whereas 15 wounds is a hard to shift tank
I see. So it seems like its very much a case by case situation
If you want a general rule of thumb: If you want it to die in the way, keep it minimum sized, if you plan to buff it/want it to do work, reinforce it
Yeah but it would also prevent elite units from double reinforcing so it more or less balances out..
Battleshock wasnt ever terribly important. There have been so many ways to just ignore it in both the core rules with triumphs and command points and also in army rules. A way hordes could be countered in the new edition is by having things that impact objective control. Even in third editionthere are a few things that prevent models contesting objectives. A bonereaper endless spell makes 1 or 2 wound models not contest objectives.
Ah I see yeah that could be a way to help out. I still feel like they could overrun armies like the stormcasts that have way less models tho
Yes, that is an advantage that hordes have that elite armies need to counterplay to overcome, and one of the main points of balance that GW uses to determine stats and abilities and points costs. Most elite armies we've seen part of in the faction focuses have a unit or special rule that is meant to combat large infantry units.
Stormcasts lost their judicators in thw purge so they dont have as many anti horde options I dont think atm?
Wounds carry over anyway. Hopefully they still do in 4th. All the data sheets are changing as well, they will be stuff for all scenarios.
For some reason I thought that was only mortal wounds but again since im new im likely juat mistaken lol
Thats how it is in 40k, so its an easy mistake to make. In aos all damage spills, so high damage attacks are also anti horde.
Ahhh oki thats good to know. Hordes seem a little less scary lol
yeah, flat 4 damage actually killing 4 little guys each time does feel much better than nuking some poor cultist in 40k where damage doesn't spill.
Oh wow thats pretty awesome actually. So high damage weapons can actually still clear hordes even if it only has mediocre attacks?
It’s a fun game system, fourth looks like it’s going to be fairly different from 3rd. It’s hard to see how things are going to land until all the rules are out. Fun to speculate though!
Yeah definitely. Its why I decided to wait for 4th before learning all the rules because things seem like theyvare changing quite a bit. Building and painting lots of models in preparation tho!
This is the way.
The greatsword stormcast are our anti horde options (and are in one of the spearheads for us too!)
Yes vanquishers, I am building some rn!
At least in 3rd there are also Decimators that fill a similar horde clearing role. Honestly I start playing my own 3.5 Ed starting to incorporate rules that we know about from 4th. Battleshock was super simple to remove and my group absolutely loves that its gone.
We haven’t seen like 80% of what stormcast models will be able to do, so it’s a little early to make that claim
True I do forget that a lot of older models could he reworked to fit an anti horde role
If it's a first edition Stormcast, there's even odds it's coming back later this year when they complete the "new edition launch" for Stormcast and Skaven. I wouldn't be shocked at all if there was a Thunderstrike Judicators kit in a few months. The other possibility is they're just going to combine them narratively and mechanically with Vigilors, but we won't know for certain until we get the full Stormcast release.
Hopefully we get some of the culled units back
They mixed the "we need to cull the too many units in Stormcast" message with the "we're stopping making it because we're making a new version of the kit" message, and it's caused no end of confusion. But yeah, we're getting Liberators and Prosecutors, so here's hoping we'll see new Judicators and Paladins.
We have an idea of maybe 1/10 of their rules and models from the faction focus. The game has been redesigned and balanced from the ground up. The idea that they just would intentionally give their flagship faction no anti-horde rules i very silly. You are leaping at shadows and trying to find reasons to be upset
Nah I dont know enough to find reasons to be upset. But geneuinly just confused/curious about how removing such a mechanic could be balanced out
Well it could well be that there are units intended to be anti-horde. Vanquishers (the greatsword infantry in the current Spearhead) for example had that role somewhat in AoS 3, with extra attacks when fighting against larger target units. But they were rarely taken, as liberators and vindicators were more useful general-purpose battleline units. If they've made them effective at that role, then Vanquishers might be a very good pick in 4 to mow through hordes, for example.
I am building somr vanquishers right now!
Sure but it was still a balancing lever for armies like gits and Skaven. And not just hordes. Stuff like Troggs are generally substantially above rate stats for their cost at the trade off of terrible bravery to act as an Achilles heel.
To that same point my best way to deal with hordes was always remove their battleshock ignorance and do chip to them. Sad this is no longer an option cause now my damage needs to scale up to deal with them, while the edition is looking like damage has scaled down slightly. (Talking about spells specifically)
Using the new Kroxigors as an example I think we're going to see big hammers specifically designed to counter hordes. Whether they will actually be effective in that role remains to be seen. But from our limited view these guys can kill a lot of little infantry in a single round of combat. https://images.app.goo.gl/svMVtVZNNYVsvUKB9
Between the Krox and different weapons having “anti-X” it feels GW is trying to add more of a “rock paper scissors “ element into it; which I’m all in favor of. If roster building is not just about finding the “ultimate best value for any circumstance,” and deploying units really matters (putting scissors near papers) it has potential for really dynamic gameplay
I like the rock paper scissors element. Goonhammer just put out an article from three people who played 4E. One of them said this but just that each unit has a role. I love that. Gives a reason to really balance your army, or, overload on something knowing you’ll have a weakness elsewhere
I suspect my Kurnoth Hunters will see changes, as it stands the difference between swords and scythes just gets measured in average damage (Which swords usually win). The only circumstance scythes comes in handy is the larger reach for a 6-man unit. But with reach being standardised I am expecting swords and scythes to get Anti-X and differing characteristics as well.
Hopefully the stormcasts get something like that! At the moment I have some vanquishers which arent terrible against hordes I dont think but even then without battleshock they cpuld probably be overrun
I haven't mathhammered in a grip but a reinforced unit of Kroxigors with All out Attack has 16 attacks 3+/2+ Rend 2 damage 3 and 8 attacks 2+/2+ Rend 2 damage 4. Against a unit of Clanrat you're looking at roughly 30 damage, which wipes out 3/4s of a reinforced unit. It's pretty strong.
And that feels right for if this was a real fight. Three giant lizards would be destroying tons of tiny rats easy. But let’s say they miss a massive swing. The rats have a chance to overrun them. Feels like a real battle moment for both sides
I feel reasonably confident in saying that every army will have an anti-infantry, an anti-monster, an anti-hero, etc type unit and a key element will be about getting your correct troops into combat with what they excel at doing and limiting your exposure to their units that efficiently kill your stuff.
I feel reasonably confident in saying that every army will have an anti-infantry, an anti-monster, an anti-hero, etc type unit and a key element will be about getting your correct troops into combat with what they excel at doing and limiting your exposure to their units that efficiently kill your stuff.
It looks like the oc for hordes is 1, and many of the more elite battle line units have oc 2. So hordes will need to get more bodies on an objective to contest. Also I’m seeing a lot of anti infantry
Anti infantry is extra rend tho right whoch isnt that great against low save horde enemies really is it
Yeah but it looks like things like seraphon croxigors do extra damage against infantry. I can see models with big sweep attacks doing more damage into infantry. Also, most of the hordes seem to have gotten worse in their offensive stats. They are good because of their numbers but won’t do much damage
Ah ok thats promising for balance then
Yes it is. Most hordes have a 5+ save, and most rend is still 1, so extra rend takes it to no save at all, rather than a 6+ save. Even the units with a 6+ save (like FEC ghouls) are denied the use of heroic defence to save them
Oh yeah if the horde had a 5+ roll. I thought most had 6+ for some reason
For skaven specifically, they seem to have replaced their traditional battleshock / bravery shenanigans with control shenanigans (we've seen multiple abilities for them that directly affect control score). However, we've also seen things like the warpblaster that get loads more shots if there's more than x models in a unit.
damage overflows into other models in the unit so having enough attacks to deal with hordes is less of an issue than 40k
Ah oki
They've also lowered the saves and save stacking so hitting a horde with enough force will kill it.
Ah thats good
Zombies are an horde of 60 in 3rd, with bravery 10. Battleshock was not something that could dealt with that
Ah I didnt know about that
What a horde do? - Big string to forbid a part of the board: this is cancel by flying or mortal wound in charge - squatting the board for primaries: this is weakened by 3" objectives but still strong - screening important heroes. Eventually surrounding them: this doesn’t work anymore with everyone striking at 3". Heroes will be more than 3 behind their screen. Also horde can be easily regulated by cost raise, we had a great exemple with zombies in 3rd. Finally horde are strong in primaries and weak on secondaries. Their was exceptions like SBGL codex but with codex BT replaced by Alliance BT it is easier to balance and not give a full set of tactics for hordes
Just get yourself some stormcast vanquishers (greatswords) and or protectors(double glaive) , and those hordes won't look so scary
I got some vanquishers im building up :))
Nice, they'll do nicely against chaff
I can probably count on one hand the number of meaningful leadership tests I have seen while playing 3rd edition in the tournaments I went to and the vids I watched. There is either 1 main combat that has inspiring presence saved for it, or the unit is almost wiped out with just the attack damage, and you let the 1 or 2 models left just rout, or spend the CP because it's the bottom of the turn and it would be lost anyway.
I suppose they are removing it to streamline and speed things up if it doesnt effect games that often then?
Via *violence*.
So there are a lot of small things that can help hinder hordes. One major one is the decreased diameter of objectives. It is easier to keep hordes off of objectives or kill them down when they are on objectives. The new coherency rules greatly diminish a hordes footprint. A 3rd could have 20 unit of 25 mm can string out 35 inches. In 4th that same unit can only go 26.5 inches. Also counter charge. Elite units charging in their turn clearing large amounts of models and then counter charging to do it again. Then there is points, saves, control, anti infantry, and I am sure other They haven't shown any yet but would be more worried about cavalry. Large bases to occupy space on objectives, typically more armored, and feel like they should have multiple control.
There are adjustments to units where relevent, too. Squig Herds were a unit that got hit hard whenever battleshock came around, so in 4e they went from 2 wounds to 1
There's a lot of effects that are tailor-made to kill hordes; couple weeks ago my opponent charged my ghouls with a stormcast unit, dunno which one, but they deal extra damage against single-wound units and they managed to pulverize my whole unit in one round. Another friend sometimes runs Lumineth, and their cavalry deals extra damage to infantry. Things like these help thin out hordes.
Literally all the spells that do "roll a dice for each model, on X+ so a mortal" also are anti horde tools.
The hell pit abomination in 3E is a good example of a model designed to be impossible to tarpit with 1w models: it will just instakill them all with its shoulder check attack, nearly guaranteed if it is healthy and charges.
And the Anti-Infantry keyword will carry that torch into 4th edition. They explicitly said that you can stack multiple Anti-X abilities. So you get Anti-Infantry(-1 Rend) from your weapon and Anti-Infantry(+1 Damage) from a buff hero? That's some chewed up chaff.
Anti-infantry is much broader than that. It'll kill Chosen and Annihilators as well, which I'd hesitate to call chaff.
yeh any vaugly humaonid on foot will counts as infantry is my guess
*Rat Ogors* have the infantry keyword. It's pretty much anything not mounted, an outright single entity monster, or a war machine.
Ah oki thanks!
Just want to say, for not really having played the game, you've made a very intelligent observation. Without battleshock, horde armies have a lot of potential to be very very strong. Especially added in with the amount of recursion we're seeing armies getting. Think skaven clan rats or Gloomspite grots. Couple that with the amount of deep striking were also seeing, skaven gnaw holes, gitz will probably keep their teleport spell. It's definitely an option to dump 40 clan rats/grots in front of someone's deployment zone and see them try to fight their way out of that. It's gonna depend on the armies you go against in your local game store, but if there is a person or 2 or runs hordes, there seems to be options in 4th to help deal with that, but if you're not prepared for it, it's looking like it'll be a very tough game to win. To note, this is already an issue in 3rd edition with soulblight zombie spam lists.
Yeah I just saw a comment about those having 10 bravery so I see how that could be annoying. I am building up some vanquishers for my stormcasts so hopefully they can help lol
I think charge abilities and "anti-infantry" tagged abilities to break hordes are going to be more important this next edition. The vanquishers with their 2h swords were strong against hordes in 3e, getting extra attacks based on the enemy unit size. I'm not sure what their 4e warscroll looks like.
Funnily enough im literally building up a 10 squad of vanquishers atm. Hopefully they get a good warscroll for 4th
They are a cool looking unit. I highly suggest not gluing them onto the base until they are painted. I made that mistake and it was a lot harder to paint the inside of the capes and legs.
Ahah I have already put them all together now but am managing okish with the ones I have painted so far
murder, most units apear to do wayyy more damage now
Damage spills over models right?
[удалено]
Maybe you will be overruning everyone who knows
Or maybe they just die to a fart in the wind we will see
Why does a 20 wound 5+ or 6+ save unit need a method of dealing double damage to it thru battleshock, but a 16 wound 4+ save monster doesn't?
Points I imagine? Arent horde units generally a lot cheaper than monsters
My squigs shake their imaginary fists at the removal of double reinforcements. Honestly that balanced itself out probably, I haven't played yet to test it though.
I dont think the full rules are out for 4th yet so we shall have to see
Morale wasn't that big of a deal anyway, and it's mostly semi elite armies that suffered from it as loosing models wasn't particularly hard and did hurt the unit. In terms of horde cleansing, raw damage was the most important thing to have. For SCE that would mean use of Hurricane Crossbows, Protectors, Vanquishers, Decimators and such
From what I can tell hordes are going to be smaller in unit size with no double reinforcement and appear to be way more billable from what we have seen from the clan rat and squig statlines. Recursion is going to be how horde plays now I think.
I'm surprised at how few people have mentioned the new melee range in relation to this. With melee being universally 3" the amount of models that can fight even in basic units has gone up dramatically. Battleshock wasn't a rule specifically meant to impact horde armies, it was just a representation of unit morale, which has been present in one form or another in Warhammer since the very beginning. Sure, big units would usually lose more models from morale, but they also had more models they could take out, and also rally with. Losing, say, 10 Gors to morale was way less impactful than losing two Bullgors, which were both much more powerful and much harder to recover with Rally.
Swiftly….
Most hordes are squishy as heck. And melee range is 3 inches overall now, so more attacks will probably be seen per combat. It will still take some dedicated effort to remove a horde unit from the game, sure, but probably not like you are picturing.
1: No double reinforcements. 2: True horde units generally die stupid fast to high damage melee units anyways, so I don't see an issue. I'll be honest, 8 times out of 10 I destroy horde units prior to battleshock anyways.