I'm really hoping mechanics like this don't start creeping their way into AoS. To anyone else's knowledge is there any one single ability that removes your capability of controlling your own units? This seems dangerous as hell, and for one ability makes you have to dramatically change how you play. I honestly don't see how this this managed to pass any sort of balance testing without there being some sort of roll. It even mentions in the flavor that "The sting arrows... awakens the beast within their victims" making it seem like there SHOULD be a chance this should miss. Maybe I'm overreacting here, but I really don't like the idea of losing control of my units in a game based around strategy and positioning.
It's a bad rule imo. But not bad as "bring it on". Horrible rule, horrible balance ... I save nothing of it.
I lean on over reacting. So some guys move in 12, doesn't affect your hero phase, movement phase, or shooting phase. If they ran that deep to try and pull out a character, they could have just charged said character, or you could reroll to fail the charge. Unlike 40k, there is no real downside to declaring a charge and failing. They're not gonna pelt you with spears because you were forced to declare a 12" charge. At best I see it making outflankers slightly more annoying by giving a bit of area denial if they fail their own charge, or making your movement a bit harder. Besides that being forced to declare a charge doesn't seem like a big downside.
this can pull units off of an objective point it forces chafe wizards and artillery to charge elites. its there whole army so you can pull apart death stars. they are a fast army so any slower guys idono like all of cities have verry little control over where they can go. this also kills suport heroes the hero that has to stay within 12" cant because he is charging into a combat he cant live thrue. TL DR this is one of the best crowd control and aria denial abilities in the game and makes dozens of units unplayable if you are facing bonesplitas
Also, don't forget, it completly screws up your backline. Say you got 5 skinks blocking the orruks from reaching a skink priest. There's going to be plenty of space for the skink priest to charge in. So despite him being "save" behind a screen he's just going to run to his death cuz reasons. You're not going to have to keep at least 12" distance with your support and ranged units, regardless of any potential screens you have which would normally allow you to stay much closer. Hell, you can't even lock a unit in place so another unit can safely pass besides it. Seriously, who came up with unconditional crowd control in such a massive area. Slaanesh has some abilities like this like on their endless spell that's a mirror I think. Though it's conditional and only on 1 or 2 units. Not on the entire army. Does it though? The bastiladon isn't ethereal, so his rend protection should still work (idem with our shields and whatnot).
Well it doesn't say who has to charge first our heroes can't fly so if you charge with them before your sirens does they won't be able to get around them. Also it says you must make a charge if you can we can't run and charge so if you don't want your priests to die run with them every turn
The fact that there are ways to mitigate the issue, doesn't make it a good rule. It's an horrible rule, the last of a series of bad rules that screw with the basic mechanics of the game (see the units that can attack before you and you cannot do anything about it).
While I agree that the enemy charging rule can be mitigated with clever play and it probably isn't the end of the world, I think it should have a random component. Let it be on a 3+ or 4+
I go back to my original point. If they are close enough that you are likely to charge them, they could have charged you anyway.
yeah, but the options for mitigation are minor at best. A horde of 40 will be relativly useable to keep your backline safe. But an army that plays with smaller units, say 5-10 models, is regularly going to run into issues because a support unit can just run around the screen. Not to mention this terrible situation: Despite the fact that the orruks are locked in combat with unit 1 unit 2 will not be able to run past and claim the objective as it'l be first to charge into the orruks somewhere along the way. Which is just awefull. It gives the orruks an astonishing area of control. If you make halfway clever use of it you can easily control half the table. And the worst part of it all is that I like the principle behind the mechanic. Being able to screw with your opponent's positioning like this is a brilliant mechanic. Provided your opponent can work around it in some way besides "just stay the hell away". Hell it'd be simple enough to fix. Your unit will only be tempted to charge if the orruk isn't in combat. That way a screen will still serve it's protective purposes & you can still lock the orruks in place while you run past it. It'd still be hellishly powerfull, but at least you'd have some actual tools now.
...and Seraphon still have it halfway good. LoSaT helps a bit, and the Skinks' wary fighters ability doesn't count as a retreat (I think. Retreats are happening in the movement phase). And waiiiit.... if you run in the movement phase then you are not allowed to charge. The way I read "bring it on" forces them to attempt a charge if they can. But if they ran then they cannot.
If you declare a run action in movement and roll the dice do you HAVE to move the full value of that extra roll? Or can we just pretty much always say it against Orruks and not care about this ability at all ever?
No you don't have to. You can roll a six and still only move one inch. Yes. The problem is: then you can never shoot. Or charge intentionally.
you could just move back and forth until your out of movement it's going to need a faq if that does work the ability is usless if it doesn't that meens every one who fights bonesplitas gets run and charge which could hurt them more then help them
I think we could still possibly work with this by having overlapping layers of skink lines, declare runs with skinks and our casting heroes. They don't need to shoot anyways, they just cast spells which would be done already. Then artillery (like in thunderquake) couldn't make charges anyways due to being unable to fit in any gaps. Maybe with skink layouts like below to give them more coverage? X X X X X X X X X X EDIT: this example didn't work at all, but I envisioned a checkerboard like pattern with gaps between them as wide as possible. At this point just trying to brainstorm whatever ways we can to counter this mess.
The more I think about it the more I like the ability. It is risk (depending on positioning maybe mitigatable) vs reward. If you don't run, then you cannot charge, so the Orruks cannot force you to do it. But then you cannot shoot and you cannot charge. The main problem would be: imagine that there are two Orruk units near. Some buffed up Brutes are 6" away and some squishy archers are 10" away. You want to either charge the archers or not at all. If you decide to not run, then you might get forced to charge and roll low, forcing you to charge the Brutes that will smash you. If you roll high you can still charge the archers. So your Orruk opponent might not be too eager to force your charge, since he cannot decide which unit you charge. It depends on the roll. If you run then they cannot force you to charge, but you cannot charge the archers either.
That'd make skinks even more useless offensivly then they already are. Not that it's that big of a lose, but it just feels so very wrong... Also, I honestly don't think running counter the mechanic. The rule says "units within 12" must attempt to charge, and must make the charge if it is possible" The first bit implies that normal limitations on charging like, you can't run & charge, don't prevent this ability from triggering. The second bit seems to just be intended to mean "if you roll a high enough for your charge to reach the orruks, you must charge" . This does have 1 interesting implication though, if you want to charge you could abuse their own mechanic to be able to run at them and still charge.
Also: I think Shadowstrike Starhost and LoSaT will become very important. If we can position our Skink screen far enough toward the Orruks then the rest of our units can stay away far enough so they don't have to charge into the enemy suicidally.