Mortal wounds and resistance

[jamierk]

18 minutes ago, TheKingInYellow said:

A Dwarven Cannon and an Organ gun.  300pts for me, 160pts for him.  Sitting back and setting retaliation netted him +140pts.

He used destiny dice to force mortal wounds through.  Dwarves have no mitigation for mortal wounds.  Now I didn't have warmachine fire to thin his tarpits and his Tzaangors cleaned up.

I think you will find in AoS that what you describe as 'edge case' deployment is really not that uncommon and quite often necessary. AoS requires you to play differently than 8th ed fantasy, and there are times it makes the board look quite different. But as has been pointed out above, by deploying the war machines aggressively as you did, you offered yourself the chance to net the points from that unit before he'd even used them by getting the first turn, and not getting the first turn cost you. War machines can now move and shoot! It brings a lot more tactics into how you use them, and playing against them is actually enjoyable now, as opposed to the old 10 from the back cannons of 8th ed. Think about perhaps swapping out the organ gun for a grudge thrower, these things don't need line of site and has great range. I use mine to clear threats for the cannon who i will then push up the board looking for targets. I've sent war machines through realm gates to take surprise shots at things, its a totally different game. What you experienced from the Tzeench player was his army working optimally, but it was hardly like there weren't counters available to you. Also remember, you have the option of choosing from ALL of the forces of order, so consider taking a mage, or some fire slayers or any of the other excellent units available. As stated above, mortal wounds prevent 2+ armour save creatures from being overpowered. 

[TheKingInYellow]

I think this is getting off-topic, so I apologize about that.

The reason I brought up this case, is that if I had been able to take my 5+ with +1 from cover from the machine, it would be a different scenario, agreed?  Mortal wounds, and the lack of mitigation (list building aside) in certain armies, is an issue to my mind.

 

edit: To put it more succinctly, "Don't get shot" is not mitigation. 

[Kramer]

41 minutes ago, TheKingInYellow said:

I think this is getting off-topic, so I apologize about that.

The reason I brought up this case, is that if I had been able to take my 5+ with +1 from cover from the machine, it would be a different scenario, agreed?  Mortal wounds, and the lack of mitigation (list building aside) in certain armies, is an issue to my mind.

 

edit: To put it more succinctly, "Don't get shot" is not mitigation. 

But a loss is also no reason to change a core mechanic. 

I think the reaction you are seeing is because you advocating making it more difficult to kill stuff. Which will slow down a fast and fun game. 

[TrexPushups]

My opponent went first, had 16" of movement and 16" of range on a 48" board.  Cover doesn't matter against mortal wounds and it's nearly impossible to hide all three crewmen from a raised model with TLOS.  He didn't need to roll a single die to guarantee 3 mortal wounds in my organ gun crew.
What should I have done differently?  Cover wouldn't help them.  He'd still have range if they deployed on my table edge, my table edge didn't have LOS blocking terrain.  
I get that this applies to both sides and I was at the disadvantage of running a compendium Army against the newest toys as well, but this is what the lack of player agency is. 

Your opponent is spending his fate dice resource to do this.

Spending a limited resource to accomplish something in game is as good as player agency as one can get.

Unfortunately the older warscroll you are using interacts especially badly with accurate ranged weapons. Crews really should be rolled into the warmachine profile to avoid this precise issue.

Expensive units that become useless after suffering 3 wounds do not mix well with reliable long range weapons.


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[Bimli]

19 hours ago, TheKingInYellow said:

I'm just starting out with AoS after waiting for the fallout to end from WHFB, and I'm still finding mortal wounds to be one my biggest issue with the system.  Anything that completely removes player agency from the game is a problem. 

I played one of my first games last night and brought out my Dwarves against the new Tzeentch book, and seeing that the combination of mortal wounds and destiny dice remove all the crew off my warmachines in turn one with *nothing I could do* was not a good start.

How did they go about doing this? Do you not out range them?

[TerrorPenguin]

My death army would agree with you that mortal wound resistance is 'nice to have' rather than a must have.

Also, if you could tell me where all the 5s and 6s are to actually do some mortal wound resistance, that would be great

[Gaz Taylor]

Personally I think the mortal wounds mechanic is fine. It's that killer blow that deals major damage and is only really an issue when some armies can take it in spadefuls. But then you can mitigate this by trying to stay away from those units or trying to play the scenario to win the game.

@TheKingInYellow you are right this has drifted off topic and you could create a new topic (  ) but I think the issue you have is that war machines are a bit of a hangover from Fantasy Battles. I think these will gradually be phased out over time and replaced with new models which will probably have a all in one profile. Its just GW haven't gotten to these sorts of units yet

[jamierk]

Just my opinion but the 'don't get shot' is a means of mitigation, it requires positioning and tactics, there are other ways to not get shot apart from being out of range i.e. target saturation.

What i really LOVE about mortal wounds is that everyone knows what they are! It's not like you need to look at someone else's rulebook and read 20 lines of 'if this attack hits and you stand one one leg then you don't get an armour save'. I like that AoS keeps the number of core rules which cause damage to a minimum, so the games flow reasonably quickly enough.

 

[jamierk]

18 minutes ago, TerrorPenguin said:

My death army would agree with you that mortal wound resistance is 'nice to have' rather than a must have.

Also, if you could tell me where all the 5s and 6s are to actually do some mortal wound resistance, that would be great

So much this, even a 4+ mortal wound save is useless when my dice only appear to have come with 1's, 2's and 3's on them... (and I play a Phoenix temple list)

[rokapoke]

42 minutes ago, jamierk said:

So much this, even a 4+ mortal wound save is useless when my dice only appear to have come with 1's, 2's and 3's on them... (and I play a Phoenix temple list)

You ought to replace your D3s with D6s then... ?

[TheKingInYellow]

I appreciate the discussion, and I guess I am a bit salty here, so I'll let it go.

I think I just hit a perfect storm of rules that, in this case, leaves a pretty sour taste.  Dwarves without Warmachines might as well be men, or worse, Elves.

[KevenM]

Interesting discussion. Although spaming mortal wounds has never been a massive problem in my games, one of the best ways I've found to deal with them has simply been to bring more models to the table.

D3 mortal wounds isnt a big concern to your block of 40 whatevers (warriors in your case). Plus most things in AoS have 4+ or worse saves anyways which means that mortal wounds often provide only a situational advantage over regular wounds (espeicially when considering fairly widespread rend)

[Andreas]

Having just skimmed through this thread I find a little bir funny that fyreslayers 4+ ward (in som cases) is considered a hard counter to mortal wounds.

Me personally (rolling average for the most part) would think that most similarly priced 2 wound models would be as good counter to mortal wounds as 4+ ward on a one wound model. (I understand that after the price drop they might be a bit better priced than most 2 wound models but I havent played with the new points yet.)

What I think is the real strength of at least my fyreslayer lists is the easy access to rerolling of the "normal" save. (Besides tunneling and shooting which is the biggest strength of Fyreslayers). I don't really like going up against mortal wound spams, I want fight no rend, no mortal wounds, lots of attacks or high damage armies if I could choose. For example Blight Kings or skeleton hords, ogors etc...

[KHHaunts]

I think the mortal wounds are a key part of the game for the reasons already mentioned. And i think for the most part their advantages are made up for. However i will admit that their are some instances where it seems like the balance needs to be tightened up a bit with regards to mortal wounds.

What do people think of Spirit hosts?

I use them alot and find that the "Mortal wound or go home" element to their attacks is very balanced and interesting. The one thing that really makes them deadly is having ethreal on top of that.

Do people think they are "balanced". Sometimes if feel like they are but some players do despair when up against them.

I suppose Spirit hosts and mortal wounds in general are alot harder to counter in matched play as your playing with a set list and mortal wound protection is a very specific skill set.

Perhaps a standard spell next to Arcane bolt at Mystic shield that helps ward Mortal wounds (Perhaps a 5/6 roll stops them) would help soften the blow? It would still make MW a heavy element to the game as you wont be able to employ the spell everywhere but at the same time it give the victim SOME tactical control over that particular game element.