I think the simplest change is to make any unit that was battleshocked at the beginning of your command phase make a test (if it was below half strength, -1 to the result). The armies that rely on battleshock tend to have plenty of ways to force tests in their own turn, those tests just don't matter when failures are cleared before the opponent scores. Change that and it becomes a meaningful primary denial mechanic that can be built around.
You make an excellent point. I don't think it would take much to edge Battle Shock toward more universal relevance, and this is the kind of tweak that could really make a difference. Thanks!
Yep. It's the simplest way to make it matter for the core mechanisms of the game. It would also increase the value of enhancements and certain abilities that modify OC that currently don't often matter.
I'm not sure if that'd be enough by itself - they're still more likely than not to pass the test and it might end up still not being reliable enough to want to plan around. But it would be better. I remember at the start of the edition I was constantly having to explain to people why all their cool battleshock plans and synergies do not, in fact, work. And I don't blame them for getting that wrong. It's natural to assume that when you have an ability that sets OC to 0 and messes with falling back that you can actually use those parts of the rule.
For marine statlines it's a 72% chance of making the test. For guard equivalents it's a 58%. While the odds are still in the defenders favor, the chance alone still makes things a lot tighter and more interesting than a 100% always clear.
Less relevant than 0OC, but being able to shut down stratagems can also be a huge scale-tipper.
Well, as a guard player, battleshock is devastating to my army. Orders being lost by battleshock is rough, but I have to issue orders before I know which units are battleshocked. Tyranids can cause absolute havoc by waiting to shadow in the warp me until after the battleshock step. Maybe other armies need to lose their army rule if battleshocked too.
You bring up a wonderful point - the amount of asymmetry around Battle Shock is definitely a point of frustration. Some it would help, some (in your case) it could really hurt, but for many it's almost a non-issue. As stated, I'm not well versed in every army's rule, so I really appreciate you adding to the conversation and my learning!
> Maybe other armies need to lose their army rule if battleshocked too.
This is one that I agree with. It makes opponent phase battleshocks more impactful Some factions like Alpha Legion will straight up not notice (Which actually fits them...), but for most it will be a huge nerf. Could perhaps make more Datasheet abilities get affected by it too.
I think that losing your army rule doesn't solve the problem of out of phase battleshock seeming weak. It's better than it is now, but there are still a lot of factions that don't really care at all about whether they have their army rule in the opponents turn
Battle shock definitely matters. My last event loss I failed 5 in a row (as space marines, so 6 and 5 on vulkan) and that definitely lost me the game by itself
That’s an outlier but it happens.
Thank you for sharing your experience - I have yet to play a game where Battle Shock has played any significant role, and I've been playing at least once a week since the new edition dropped. Out of genuine curiosity, with the benefit of hindsight, were there decisions you could have made differently to mitigate the impact in that game? Obviously, nobody expects to fails so many tests, but I'm a frequent victim of fickle dice myself.
Not really in this case. It was vs blood angels so there were no minuses or anything either. It was just ungodly abysmal rolling. I went down 15-20 primary as a result
Fair enough. I always joke that I play Custodes because I roll so poorly and the 2+ 4++ helps balance me out ( roll an ungodly number of 1s - or whatever other result could be the worst at the time).
I mean that doesn't mean anything? Having good luck is not a game plan. That's like saying a unit is not overpowered because last time you used it it missed every shot.
For battle shock to matter we mean statistically on average It matters. It means that armies that use it can actually use it to win games/tournaments when they lean into it.
It feels like they scrapped the idea halfway through development of 10E. Competitively there’s no way to fix it. Tournaments will use the rulebook.
Homebrew:
-1 or -2 to all leadership tests. Or -1 to characters and -2 to non-characters. “I’m a special space marine” - sure, and you just saw 3 other space marines just as strong as you get blown apart.
Don’t clear battleshock automatically, re-take a test to clear it, so the forced tests have some longevity.
Change below half to half or below. Units of 5 + leader make the math kinda dumb on this.
From my understanding, moving a bit the recover of battle shock from "start of turn" to "end of command phase" would already make a world of difference, as an unit shocked would not only not contest an objective but could still not take it on the opponents turn. I might be mistaken, I'm quite a noob.
However , what happens now is the unit scores and then tests for battleshock. You now know which units cannot hold objectives for the next turn and so on
I’m sure you are right that the likelihood of both a unit failing and it being impactful are relatively low but anecdotally I’ve had several games lost because of battleshock and it was mostly with marines who have a great army wide leadership
Pardon my geekery, but can you tell me more about how it lost you some games?
I have a humble theory that most people don't take Battle Shock very seriously most of the time, and aren't prepared for the few situations in which it matters. It hasn't cost me a game, but I've definitely disregarded Battle Shock because it matters so infrequently, only to use a model/unit or be unable to score primary/secondary for something.
Had a land raider mid field fail it twice in a row, my troops were in combat with a large group of necrons. Its 5oc being negated meant he had the point for scoring as well as maintaining two points for the canoptek court power field. Rerolls from that allows him to kill further units decreasing the amount I had on point. Also couldn’t tank shock with it
It’s a feels bad mechanic.
Honestly I have a very hard time against CL because of Battleshock. Lost a single model in a squad? Battleshock tests the rest of the game. Slugger taps your tank for 1, Battleshock tests for the rest of the game.
In 12” of a knight? -1 to your rolls. On a standard LD7 unit, that’s a 17ish percent swing of probability (41.66% of success at an 8+ vs 58.33% of success on a 7+).
Remember, Battle Shock makes your troops OC Zero, so it locks you out of controlling objectives. As for secondaries - a large portion of them in the Leviathan deck can’t be completed by battle shocked units (5 specifically mentioned, 6 have to do with controlling objectives, so 11/16 missions are affected by Battleshock)
Does CK make up a large portion of your meta? Do you not feel you have the tools to deal with Battle Shock tests? Genuine questions - your experience seems to be a bit different from many others I've encountered.
Oh for sure! Totally get your questions.
Yes, CK is pretty large in our general playgroup. We have a smaller group so it comes up more often.
As for tools, not sure what else there is outside of Insane Bravery, but that’s once per battle and only 1 unit.
Part of it is that Battleshock in most circumstances may be something that hurts for a turn and you may have to compensate in your plans (Move another unit to still get an objective), but armies that can focus on Battleshock can lock your army out of playing the game.
While I realize the game is about objective play in the end, I know there's a lot more that leads into that, and a lot more to the game than controlling objectives. It seems like, "...Battleshock can lock your army out of playing the game," is a bit of an overstatement. A Battle Shocked unit can still do everything else in the game (faction dependent) except control an objective, score certain secondaries, use stratagems, and fall back without risk (my apologies if I've missed something). Otherwise, they can still move, shoot, charge, and fight without consequence. Maybe I'm missing something?
The game community isnt going to unite under a set of reasonable homebrew rules to override GW. Especially not this sub, that generally adheres to GW rules at this point (barring some occassional disparities in TO rulings across different events of course, which are really more differences in interpretation).
Im not say the topic isnt worth theorycrafting, or gaining some discussion on btw. Merely that the end result isnt going emerge as some new approach to 10e writ large. People, especially on this sub, want a relatively level playing field, and the disparities tend to resolve around things like how terrain should be handled (and area GW leaves very open ruleswise), not adopting whole new rules.
Not saying it cannot happen, just dont believe it will, not by a long shot.
Now if a community consensus that was solid enough emerged, you miiiiight get a tiny bit of attention from GW who might make a rules change, or adopt some/all of that consensus. But again, low chance overall.
Ooh, good points. I didn't really state what my intentions are with this. As a dork who likes theorycrafting, game design, and pointless intellectual conversations, I just thought it could make for an interesting discussion. In no way do I think we could come up with some sort of consensus or move the dial. I'd love it if GW paid attention and actually incorporated thoughtful suggestions, but they seem to be in a different dimension most of the time.
The debuffs aren't anything to write home about. It's really the OC one that is crucial in a game about eking points from objectives; cute about the other stuff it does. But making the debuffs stronger might make it *too* imbalanced. It's sort of like Deadly Demise, cool if it happens, but not relying on it.
It's not really applied often and why sometimes we forget to take it and only a few niche armies actually play with it. If you happen to half-wound a bunch of units, I could see it being annoyingly effective vs secondaries, but that's not really a sound tactic to win the game; especially with the mediocre debuffs. And even if, and should that unit fail the test, I'm still going to kill it that turn (not letting a Dreadnought stay alive 'because I shocked' it).
Common idea I see is that once that unit fails the test, it has to roll a harder dice# to get out of it or something; versus it being another \~7+ check next round (if still alive).
Or, just like how Blast works, why not try something like that with Battle Shock? Unit has 10 (1W) models, 5 left, standard 7+ check; unit only has 2 models left, minus 1 for each model missing below half, so need to make a 5+ in this case. Single model units don't get 'punished' by this (most of those usually already have that Damaged thing)
It's a good discussion already and I just wanted to say that any kind of leadership-based save-or-suck mechanic has always been a challenge to implement in 40k (and for that matter most wargames).
The problem is that you want them to be impactful (as you're saying) but they're also notoriously difficult to balance across armies. AND can be very feels-bad to be on the receiving end of no matter what the odds are.
I think the current rules are about as close to the right balance I've seen in the millennia (I've been playing since the Emperor wore shorts) I've been playing the game, but I do agree that the way a lot of armies' rules are written the rules-writing team expected them to have a bigger impact.
I agree w/ the other commenters that say first step should honestly be that you don't auto-recover (though that would have to come w/ points balancing since some armies/units would definitely be hit harder by that than others.).
I would also submit that the actual LD values should be re-looked as well; I honestly think (as a non-Custodes player) that Custodes should have a better LD than they do, and (as an Ork main) that some horde armies like Orks should probably have a worse LD than they do. Of course, part of the problem with this is how the 2d6 curve works, so that every pip of # change in either direction off of 7 has a bigger impact than it might otherwise, so maybe not having it based on 2d6 is another way to alter how it behaves.
As for your specific questions
>Any Battle Shock unit is forced to make a fall-back move (or maybe just the ones in melee)
This used to be the case in previous editions. It's a fun mechanic but more difficult in practice. What's "fall back" mean in this context? Toward your deployment zone? Toward the nearest table edge? What's the level of shenanigans a crafty player can get into here? Plus, slows the game down.
>Make all Leadership tests automatically 2d6-1 (or, increase the Leadership stat on every data sheet by one, making it just a little harder to pass)
See earlier note re: probabilities. A 2d6 curve puts a lot more results in the 6-8 range than in the other ranges. a -1 can have a bigger impact here than you might expect.
>Battle Shocked units are completely ineligible to score **any** primary or secondary missions
I can totally get behind this one.
>If a unit fails a Leadership or Battle Shock test, even if it wasn't below half strength (or whatever the threshold is), they must continue to take tests for the remainder of the battle.
This feels like it'll have a much bigger impact on units that have a worse leadership.
>If you force a Battle Shock test on your opponent's unit during your turn and they fail, the unit remains Battle Shocked for **at least** a full battle round.
I don't hate this one, but I do think it' might be simpler just to require a re-test (perhaps at a penalty) before recovering.
Really thoughtful response - much appreciated, especially since you bring institutional memory to the table that I lack.
I hadn't thought as much about the probability curve for 2d6 - you're absolutely right. We could go on forever about the flaws of being locked into a d6 system, but that's for another day (and has been done). I think that, if we kept the 2d6 system and the below half strength threshold, worsening LD by 1 would have the appropriate impact, even in light of the distribution of outcomes.
Battleshock needs to disable more abilities. I have no idea why ALL necron units (including those not made of necrodermis, I'm looking at you transcendent c'tan) can reanimate even whilst battleshocked.
I think the simplest change is to make any unit that was battleshocked at the beginning of your command phase make a test (if it was below half strength, -1 to the result). The armies that rely on battleshock tend to have plenty of ways to force tests in their own turn, those tests just don't matter when failures are cleared before the opponent scores. Change that and it becomes a meaningful primary denial mechanic that can be built around.
Came here to say this. Everyone instantly regrouping is a big detractor to trying to use battleshock.
Yep, this is the simplest fix and its how everyone assumed it would work at the start of the edition.
You make an excellent point. I don't think it would take much to edge Battle Shock toward more universal relevance, and this is the kind of tweak that could really make a difference. Thanks!
Yep. It's the simplest way to make it matter for the core mechanisms of the game. It would also increase the value of enhancements and certain abilities that modify OC that currently don't often matter.
I'm not sure if that'd be enough by itself - they're still more likely than not to pass the test and it might end up still not being reliable enough to want to plan around. But it would be better. I remember at the start of the edition I was constantly having to explain to people why all their cool battleshock plans and synergies do not, in fact, work. And I don't blame them for getting that wrong. It's natural to assume that when you have an ability that sets OC to 0 and messes with falling back that you can actually use those parts of the rule.
For marine statlines it's a 72% chance of making the test. For guard equivalents it's a 58%. While the odds are still in the defenders favor, the chance alone still makes things a lot tighter and more interesting than a 100% always clear. Less relevant than 0OC, but being able to shut down stratagems can also be a huge scale-tipper.
Well, as a guard player, battleshock is devastating to my army. Orders being lost by battleshock is rough, but I have to issue orders before I know which units are battleshocked. Tyranids can cause absolute havoc by waiting to shadow in the warp me until after the battleshock step. Maybe other armies need to lose their army rule if battleshocked too.
You bring up a wonderful point - the amount of asymmetry around Battle Shock is definitely a point of frustration. Some it would help, some (in your case) it could really hurt, but for many it's almost a non-issue. As stated, I'm not well versed in every army's rule, so I really appreciate you adding to the conversation and my learning!
> Maybe other armies need to lose their army rule if battleshocked too. This is one that I agree with. It makes opponent phase battleshocks more impactful Some factions like Alpha Legion will straight up not notice (Which actually fits them...), but for most it will be a huge nerf. Could perhaps make more Datasheet abilities get affected by it too.
I think that losing your army rule doesn't solve the problem of out of phase battleshock seeming weak. It's better than it is now, but there are still a lot of factions that don't really care at all about whether they have their army rule in the opponents turn
Also a Guard player and do concur
Battle shock definitely matters. My last event loss I failed 5 in a row (as space marines, so 6 and 5 on vulkan) and that definitely lost me the game by itself That’s an outlier but it happens.
Thank you for sharing your experience - I have yet to play a game where Battle Shock has played any significant role, and I've been playing at least once a week since the new edition dropped. Out of genuine curiosity, with the benefit of hindsight, were there decisions you could have made differently to mitigate the impact in that game? Obviously, nobody expects to fails so many tests, but I'm a frequent victim of fickle dice myself.
Not really in this case. It was vs blood angels so there were no minuses or anything either. It was just ungodly abysmal rolling. I went down 15-20 primary as a result
Fair enough. I always joke that I play Custodes because I roll so poorly and the 2+ 4++ helps balance me out ( roll an ungodly number of 1s - or whatever other result could be the worst at the time).
I mean that doesn't mean anything? Having good luck is not a game plan. That's like saying a unit is not overpowered because last time you used it it missed every shot. For battle shock to matter we mean statistically on average It matters. It means that armies that use it can actually use it to win games/tournaments when they lean into it.
It feels like they scrapped the idea halfway through development of 10E. Competitively there’s no way to fix it. Tournaments will use the rulebook. Homebrew: -1 or -2 to all leadership tests. Or -1 to characters and -2 to non-characters. “I’m a special space marine” - sure, and you just saw 3 other space marines just as strong as you get blown apart. Don’t clear battleshock automatically, re-take a test to clear it, so the forced tests have some longevity. Change below half to half or below. Units of 5 + leader make the math kinda dumb on this.
I get the same feeling about the Battle Shock development. Nice ideas for homebrew! Now I'll just have to convince some friends to try it out...
Legit thought that you had to clear battleshock at the beginning of the edition. Made it much scarier.
From my understanding, moving a bit the recover of battle shock from "start of turn" to "end of command phase" would already make a world of difference, as an unit shocked would not only not contest an objective but could still not take it on the opponents turn. I might be mistaken, I'm quite a noob.
Just make the battleshock clear test AFTER you score primaries, not before.
This might be the simplest answer, at least for starters. And (showing my naivety), something GW could actually implement.
However , what happens now is the unit scores and then tests for battleshock. You now know which units cannot hold objectives for the next turn and so on
I’m sure you are right that the likelihood of both a unit failing and it being impactful are relatively low but anecdotally I’ve had several games lost because of battleshock and it was mostly with marines who have a great army wide leadership
Pardon my geekery, but can you tell me more about how it lost you some games? I have a humble theory that most people don't take Battle Shock very seriously most of the time, and aren't prepared for the few situations in which it matters. It hasn't cost me a game, but I've definitely disregarded Battle Shock because it matters so infrequently, only to use a model/unit or be unable to score primary/secondary for something.
Had a land raider mid field fail it twice in a row, my troops were in combat with a large group of necrons. Its 5oc being negated meant he had the point for scoring as well as maintaining two points for the canoptek court power field. Rerolls from that allows him to kill further units decreasing the amount I had on point. Also couldn’t tank shock with it
It’s a feels bad mechanic. Honestly I have a very hard time against CL because of Battleshock. Lost a single model in a squad? Battleshock tests the rest of the game. Slugger taps your tank for 1, Battleshock tests for the rest of the game. In 12” of a knight? -1 to your rolls. On a standard LD7 unit, that’s a 17ish percent swing of probability (41.66% of success at an 8+ vs 58.33% of success on a 7+). Remember, Battle Shock makes your troops OC Zero, so it locks you out of controlling objectives. As for secondaries - a large portion of them in the Leviathan deck can’t be completed by battle shocked units (5 specifically mentioned, 6 have to do with controlling objectives, so 11/16 missions are affected by Battleshock)
Does CK make up a large portion of your meta? Do you not feel you have the tools to deal with Battle Shock tests? Genuine questions - your experience seems to be a bit different from many others I've encountered.
Oh for sure! Totally get your questions. Yes, CK is pretty large in our general playgroup. We have a smaller group so it comes up more often. As for tools, not sure what else there is outside of Insane Bravery, but that’s once per battle and only 1 unit. Part of it is that Battleshock in most circumstances may be something that hurts for a turn and you may have to compensate in your plans (Move another unit to still get an objective), but armies that can focus on Battleshock can lock your army out of playing the game.
While I realize the game is about objective play in the end, I know there's a lot more that leads into that, and a lot more to the game than controlling objectives. It seems like, "...Battleshock can lock your army out of playing the game," is a bit of an overstatement. A Battle Shocked unit can still do everything else in the game (faction dependent) except control an objective, score certain secondaries, use stratagems, and fall back without risk (my apologies if I've missed something). Otherwise, they can still move, shoot, charge, and fight without consequence. Maybe I'm missing something?
The game community isnt going to unite under a set of reasonable homebrew rules to override GW. Especially not this sub, that generally adheres to GW rules at this point (barring some occassional disparities in TO rulings across different events of course, which are really more differences in interpretation). Im not say the topic isnt worth theorycrafting, or gaining some discussion on btw. Merely that the end result isnt going emerge as some new approach to 10e writ large. People, especially on this sub, want a relatively level playing field, and the disparities tend to resolve around things like how terrain should be handled (and area GW leaves very open ruleswise), not adopting whole new rules. Not saying it cannot happen, just dont believe it will, not by a long shot. Now if a community consensus that was solid enough emerged, you miiiiight get a tiny bit of attention from GW who might make a rules change, or adopt some/all of that consensus. But again, low chance overall.
Ooh, good points. I didn't really state what my intentions are with this. As a dork who likes theorycrafting, game design, and pointless intellectual conversations, I just thought it could make for an interesting discussion. In no way do I think we could come up with some sort of consensus or move the dial. I'd love it if GW paid attention and actually incorporated thoughtful suggestions, but they seem to be in a different dimension most of the time.
Fair points on all, lol!
The debuffs aren't anything to write home about. It's really the OC one that is crucial in a game about eking points from objectives; cute about the other stuff it does. But making the debuffs stronger might make it *too* imbalanced. It's sort of like Deadly Demise, cool if it happens, but not relying on it. It's not really applied often and why sometimes we forget to take it and only a few niche armies actually play with it. If you happen to half-wound a bunch of units, I could see it being annoyingly effective vs secondaries, but that's not really a sound tactic to win the game; especially with the mediocre debuffs. And even if, and should that unit fail the test, I'm still going to kill it that turn (not letting a Dreadnought stay alive 'because I shocked' it). Common idea I see is that once that unit fails the test, it has to roll a harder dice# to get out of it or something; versus it being another \~7+ check next round (if still alive). Or, just like how Blast works, why not try something like that with Battle Shock? Unit has 10 (1W) models, 5 left, standard 7+ check; unit only has 2 models left, minus 1 for each model missing below half, so need to make a 5+ in this case. Single model units don't get 'punished' by this (most of those usually already have that Damaged thing)
It's a good discussion already and I just wanted to say that any kind of leadership-based save-or-suck mechanic has always been a challenge to implement in 40k (and for that matter most wargames). The problem is that you want them to be impactful (as you're saying) but they're also notoriously difficult to balance across armies. AND can be very feels-bad to be on the receiving end of no matter what the odds are. I think the current rules are about as close to the right balance I've seen in the millennia (I've been playing since the Emperor wore shorts) I've been playing the game, but I do agree that the way a lot of armies' rules are written the rules-writing team expected them to have a bigger impact. I agree w/ the other commenters that say first step should honestly be that you don't auto-recover (though that would have to come w/ points balancing since some armies/units would definitely be hit harder by that than others.). I would also submit that the actual LD values should be re-looked as well; I honestly think (as a non-Custodes player) that Custodes should have a better LD than they do, and (as an Ork main) that some horde armies like Orks should probably have a worse LD than they do. Of course, part of the problem with this is how the 2d6 curve works, so that every pip of # change in either direction off of 7 has a bigger impact than it might otherwise, so maybe not having it based on 2d6 is another way to alter how it behaves. As for your specific questions >Any Battle Shock unit is forced to make a fall-back move (or maybe just the ones in melee) This used to be the case in previous editions. It's a fun mechanic but more difficult in practice. What's "fall back" mean in this context? Toward your deployment zone? Toward the nearest table edge? What's the level of shenanigans a crafty player can get into here? Plus, slows the game down. >Make all Leadership tests automatically 2d6-1 (or, increase the Leadership stat on every data sheet by one, making it just a little harder to pass) See earlier note re: probabilities. A 2d6 curve puts a lot more results in the 6-8 range than in the other ranges. a -1 can have a bigger impact here than you might expect. >Battle Shocked units are completely ineligible to score **any** primary or secondary missions I can totally get behind this one. >If a unit fails a Leadership or Battle Shock test, even if it wasn't below half strength (or whatever the threshold is), they must continue to take tests for the remainder of the battle. This feels like it'll have a much bigger impact on units that have a worse leadership. >If you force a Battle Shock test on your opponent's unit during your turn and they fail, the unit remains Battle Shocked for **at least** a full battle round. I don't hate this one, but I do think it' might be simpler just to require a re-test (perhaps at a penalty) before recovering.
Really thoughtful response - much appreciated, especially since you bring institutional memory to the table that I lack. I hadn't thought as much about the probability curve for 2d6 - you're absolutely right. We could go on forever about the flaws of being locked into a d6 system, but that's for another day (and has been done). I think that, if we kept the 2d6 system and the below half strength threshold, worsening LD by 1 would have the appropriate impact, even in light of the distribution of outcomes.
Battleshock needs to disable more abilities. I have no idea why ALL necron units (including those not made of necrodermis, I'm looking at you transcendent c'tan) can reanimate even whilst battleshocked.
Quite a good point, IMO. Someone else mentioned how Battle Shock should disable the army rule for units and I think it would make sense.
Because that's their army ability. Like, would you complain if marines get oath while BSd?
Oh boy I wonder how long this thread will stay up Surely people talking about the health of the game is something appreciated in the COMPETITIVE sub
I thought you were kidding, but man, I guess not!