8th Ed. Question about the impact of Magic in 8th

[clt40k]

The internet seems to be advocating large blocks of troops to make them steadfast… and everyone says “you need that 5th rank”

But at the same time everyone is bitching about how “broken” magic is now…

So, given that you see a number of spells now that will pretty much NUKE a unit and you’ll have a very difficult time stopping it…. Here are some thoughts…..

1. Will it cause the game to shift towards running more units at the expense of unit size? (ie, if you run 2 units of 25 vs 1 unit of 50 – dwellers won’t hurt you as bad cause you’re mitigated your risk by not running a mega block) Seems to make sense to me… you give up steadfast, but gain a measure of protection vs the nuke

2. How viable is that big “uber unit” when they can get popped pretty easily by devastating magic that you really can’t stop reliably? Will magic will cause a decline in the character heavy pointsink blocks?

Would love to see comments.

 

[Gojira]

You have to balance all that with the new meta of 8th, which is point denial. VPs are harder to get now.

You only get points for completely wiped out units, units that have FULLY fled the table, not just fleeing, and then you have bsb and general and underdog.

Half killing, units currently fleeing, table quarters, all no longer count for who wins.

Having lots of units that are smaller means I can get my VPs easier. Casting dwellers on a unit of 25 would still work out well, because it could take the unit down enough that it's a tasty target for VPs from salamanders, or the like. Casting dwellers on a big unit will still leave enough to make you reconsider what you're gonna charge or shoot at.

Basically, killing a big chunk of a massively expensive unit means nothing if you can't finish it of entirely.

 

[strewart]

You really need to look at the points efficiency for each sized unit and weigh up what advantage you get from a few extra ranks compared to the cost for the extra models or indeed compared to two smaller units. And this is different for every troop you look at.

Skaven Slaves, a unit of 50 is going to cost you 100-150 points. Why not? Its a massive unit cheap, it can absorb a hell of a lot of casualties and probably keep steadfast for a long time.

Saurus, a unit of 50 is more in the range of 500+ points. That is a big chunk of your army in one unit. Is it really going to outperform say a unit of 25 by enough to warrant double the cost? Probably not.

Magic is I guess very very unpredictable now. They might not even roll the uber spell they want, they might fail to cast it, you might be able to dispel or scroll it, or it may go off irresistably. I don't think you should shy away from decent sized blocks just because of a couple of spells, because your smaller blocks will have lots of trouble with opponent large blocks. And at the moment I still see the most powerful spells being the augment and curse types, they can singlehandedly turn a decisive combat victory into a massive loss and lose you the whole unit from fleeing rather than just the big damage spell which blows away half the unit.