Confused by Coherency

[Ormly]

I'm still pretty new to playing, and while I understand coherency rules, I don't really understand why they work that way. My main opponent plays FEC, and he can line up a unit of 30 ghouls in a single row across our conflict line. But I can't line up my dryads to meet them, or use them as screens nearly as effectively. Because the base size is... very slightly larger? I don't get it. What's the idea behind this? Was it meant to solve some problem? We're on v3 of the rules apparently, but some rules just seem silly, like they'd be more sensible by a third version. And this one is near the top of my silliness list.

For one thing, I just can't figure out how to use a group of 6 Kurnoth Hunters with swords at all. Makes me wish I'd built them with the other weapons, especially because $108 USD is not a small amount of money to me. I play them in 2 groups, but I was rather irritated that I had to.

[yukishiro1]

GW has always struggled with the mm to inch conversion. The fact that having 25mm bases are a super power that allows you to do things fundamentally different from what every other base size can do is stupid, but it's been a feature of the game since launch, and they only made the discrepancy worse in 3.0, not better, so it seems unlikely to go anywhere any time soon.

The move to w/in 1" of two for units of 6+ was terribly executed given how many elite units come in 3s, but again, they went through with it anyway so it doesn't appear to be much of a priority for them. The problem it was meant to solve was units of 30 being strung out across the entire board, and it sort-of solves that, but at great cost to a lot of stuff that wasn't problematic at all. 

A less proud, more openminded company would have adopted some version of cloud coherency the way most modern systems do. But that isn't GW. GW always wants to come up with its own solution, even if it's far inferior to the solution everyone else came up with years ago. 

Edited January 28, 2022 by yukishiro1

[Gailon]

Cloud coherency seems way better. But yes, this was meant to address some problems. Mainly units spread out in preposterous ways that made them not really look like it play like a single unit. 
 

when a unit is octopus armed all over it really doesn’t make sense that it needs to be a single unit at all. 
 

I think they were also partially addressing super hard hitting hammers. Where the games became charge and delete. Rather than charge as fight. 
 

they seemed to specifically aim for more MSU with reinforcements limited.  
 

unfortunately they didn’t really solve any of these problems. They just moved them around. My 10 skinks is a smaller screen, and my friends Hearthguard are no longer snaked all over the entire board. But in my last game my friends 60 zombies had a ridiculous tail of single file models way out to barely touch an objective. A bunch of 5 model Calvary units are moving around sideways as screens and hammers still exist, just only with 2” range or 25mm bases. 
 

they seem to want you running those kurnoths in two units of 3. But my 6 scythe hunters still delete almost anything they hit. So, no solutions. 
 

but there was some intent there, yeah. They just seemed in denial about how big 25 mm is. 

[Doko]

****** this coherency is new for 3.0 and is stupid and makes play a pitifull experience if you havent 20" bases.

For your kurnous with swords im sorry,if you play them is better use them as two separate units of 3 because they are bad in units of 6. And if you want play in units of 6 models the scytye is tye best option because they can atack two ranks.i dont think your friend have any problem letting you use your sword kurnouth as scythes.

[Charleston]

As others stated:

• Coherency was supposed to tackle that line-blobbs but due to 25mm bases being less then 1" that slipped past GW's rulewriting. This indeed makes units with 25mm bases stronger as they are also allowed to fight in two ranks in addition to lining-sheningans which makes them annoying as screens or objective grabbers.
• Meanwhile the new Coherency rule punished all bigger models that do not have a higher weapon range of 2-3" with a few exceptions. One could assume that GW desired to make big units of big models less desirable so people need to split them up and therefore also have to split up the buffs. This seems like a solid approach to the deathstar-heavy design of mid 2.0

It is weird and shouldn't be this way, but I assume that while nerfing bigger models was planned, smaller models were "buffed" by accident as they simply were unaffected by the changes which made the whole thing a lot less fair.

[yukishiro1]

I don't think either was really intended TBH. They just decided they didn't like the daisy chain and did the quick and easy fix of "just do what they did in 40k" and said "job's a good 'un," forgetting or not caring that there are big differences between the way 40k and AOS work that fundamentally alter how the change plays out. I really can't believe GW really intended to do what it did re: nerfing random units for no real reason simply because of the conjunction of big base sizes and 1" range attacks on them, there's just no rhyme or reason to it. 

[Ormly]

So is GW just not really responsive to feedback about this?

[Gailon]

4 hours ago, Ormly said:

So is GW just not really responsive to feedback about this?

On the one hand it’s a rule in the base game and published and then seem rightfully reluctant to change a rule like that. 
 

on the other hand they just changed unleash hell and amulet of destiny. 
 

but they could fix some of this by changing weapon ranges. Even if it isn’t the best solution.