The all powerful Initiative

skrak wrote:

Mattall wrote:

There are many possible solutions, here are a few examples:

2. For example, some troops are initiative 2 for no real reason (GW said so back in the day). Change them to initiative 3 or 4.

What troops are you talking about? The Initiative 2 troops I know have I 2 for a reason: T4, good save, better strenght being the most common.


3. Charging could grant troops +1 initiative

Ok, I think it would be a good change.


4. Calvary charging could grant troops +2 initiative.

Totally agree, cavalry need some buff in the charge. It doesn't make sense to me that orc boar riders or equitanian horsemen strike after most infantry.


Lizards and raptors are incredibly fast in nature.

No, they aren't. Lizards are slower than warm blooded relatives, rats, cats, etc. We don't know much about raptors in nature. By the way, real velociraptors are 1-2 feet tall (45 cms), they are cute, not scary.

However, wouldn't lizards and raptors be incredibly faster than humans.

• Lizards wouldn't be faster than human. They are coldblooded, which means they have to warm up with sunlight before moving eficiently. Their reflexes depend highly in the atmosphere temperature. If the air temperature is about 20º they would move almost as fast as a human (never equal or faster). If the air temperature is 0º even a little girl with a knife could defeat a big lizard. Their methabolism is slow compared to human's. A lizard consumes less calories than a human but has slower movement/reflexes. Comparing a lizard to a human would be like comparing a ferrari to a solar car, the ferrari would win the race and consum much more fuel.
  
  
  
• About raptors, it depends if you are taking fiction jurassic park, or real dinosaur ones. The jurassic park ones are really fast, no doubt about it. For the real ones, (I would better take a deinonichus [6 feet tall 2 meters tall] than a velociraptor [1-2 feet tall, 45 cms tall] as a reference) there is a bit of controversy about them beign cold or warm blooded. The race adaptation and height they have fits more with warm blooded living things. Furthermore there are no livin thing that is as big, fast and coldbloded like jurassic park raptors. In conclusion if they are big and fast they are warm blooded and should enhance their initiative, but lose the coldbloded rule.
  
  

I don't care if the game is realistic at all.

OK, forgot about the 3 last pharagraphs I have written

Vitnar wrote:

skrak wrote:

Mattall wrote:

There are many possible solutions, here are a few examples:

2. For example, some troops are initiative 2 for no real reason (GW said so back in the day). Change them to initiative 3 or 4.

What troops are you talking about? The Initiative 2 troops I know have I 2 for a reason: T4, good save, better strenght being the most common.


3. Charging could grant troops +1 initiative

Ok, I think it would be a good change.


4. Calvary charging could grant troops +2 initiative.

Totally agree, cavalry need some buff in the charge. It doesn't make sense to me that orc boar riders or equitanian horsemen strike after most infantry.


Lizards and raptors are incredibly fast in nature.

No, they aren't. Lizards are slower than warm blooded relatives, rats, cats, etc. We don't know much about raptors in nature. By the way, real velociraptors are 1-2 feet tall (45 cms), they are cute, not scary.

However, wouldn't lizards and raptors be incredibly faster than humans.

• Lizards wouldn't be faster than human. They are coldblooded, which means they have to warm up with sunlight before moving eficiently. Their reflexes depend highly in the atmosphere temperature. If the air temperature is about 20º they would move almost as fast as a human (never equal or faster). If the air temperature is 0º even a little girl with a knife could defeat a big lizard. Their methabolism is slow compared to human's. A lizard consumes less calories than a human but has slower movement/reflexes. Comparing a lizard to a human would be like comparing a ferrari to a solar car, the ferrari would win the race and consum much more fuel.
  
  
  
• About raptors, it depends if you are taking fiction jurassic park, or real dinosaur ones. The jurassic park ones are really fast, no doubt about it. For the real ones, (I would better take a deinonichus [6 feet tall 2 meters tall] than a velociraptor [1-2 feet tall, 45 cms tall] as a reference) there is a bit of controversy about them beign cold or warm blooded. The race adaptation and height they have fits more with warm blooded living things. Furthermore there are no livin thing that is as big, fast and coldbloded like jurassic park raptors. In conclusion if they are big and fast they are warm blooded and should enhance their initiative, but lose the coldbloded rule.
  
  

I don't care if the game is realistic at all.

OK, forgot about the 3 last pharagraphs I have written

Lizards are slow? Let my acquaint you with good ol' iguana my friend i.imgur.com/arVszsi.gifv

Vitnar wrote:

skrak wrote:

Mattall wrote:

There are many possible solutions, here are a few examples:

2. For example, some troops are initiative 2 for no real reason (GW said so back in the day). Change them to initiative 3 or 4.

What troops are you talking about? The Initiative 2 troops I know have I 2 for a reason: T4, good save, better strenght being the most common.


3. Charging could grant troops +1 initiative

Ok, I think it would be a good change.


4. Calvary charging could grant troops +2 initiative.

Totally agree, cavalry need some buff in the charge. It doesn't make sense to me that orc boar riders or equitanian horsemen strike after most infantry.


Lizards and raptors are incredibly fast in nature.

No, they aren't. Lizards are slower than warm blooded relatives, rats, cats, etc. We don't know much about raptors in nature. By the way, real velociraptors are 1-2 feet tall (45 cms), they are cute, not scary.

However, wouldn't lizards and raptors be incredibly faster than humans.

• Lizards wouldn't be faster than human. They are coldblooded, which means they have to warm up with sunlight before moving eficiently. Their reflexes depend highly in the atmosphere temperature. If the air temperature is about 20º they would move almost as fast as a human (never equal or faster). If the air temperature is 0º even a little girl with a knife could defeat a big lizard. Their methabolism is slow compared to human's. A lizard consumes less calories than a human but has slower movement/reflexes. Comparing a lizard to a human would be like comparing a ferrari to a solar car, the ferrari would win the race and consum much more fuel.
  
  
  
• About raptors, it depends if you are taking fiction jurassic park, or real dinosaur ones. The jurassic park ones are really fast, no doubt about it. For the real ones, (I would better take a deinonichus [6 feet tall 2 meters tall] than a velociraptor [1-2 feet tall, 45 cms tall] as a reference) there is a bit of controversy about them beign cold or warm blooded. The race adaptation and height they have fits more with warm blooded living things. Furthermore there are no livin thing that is as big, fast and coldbloded like jurassic park raptors. In conclusion if they are big and fast they are warm blooded and should enhance their initiative, but lose the coldbloded rule.
  
  

I don't care if the game is realistic at all.

OK, forgot about the 3 last pharagraphs I have written

Lizards are slow? Let my acquaint you with good ol' iguana my friend i.imgur.com/arVszsi.gifv

skrak wrote:

What troops are you talking about? The Initiative 2 troops I know have I 2 for a reason: T4, good save, better strenght being the most common.

Kreon wrote:

Just doing the math for beastherds:
8 Minotaurs with paired weapons against 50 Wildhorns with paired weapons (but -1 Initiativ so they strike last). Both units gets primal fury:

Round 1: Minos makes 20 wounds including impact hits and stomp. Wildhorns makes 10 wounds. So 5 Minos vs 30 Wildhorns.
Round 2: Minos makes 13 wounds including stomp. Wildhorns makes 7,25. So 3 Minos vs 17 Wildhorns.
Round 3: Minos makes 7,5 wounds including stomp. Wildhorns makes 5. So 1 Mino vs 10 Wildhorns
Round 4: Mino makes 2,5 wounds (no stomp). Wildhorns makes 3,5. So 7 surviving Wildhorns.

So 680 points of Minotaurs is ground down by 600 points of Wildhorns. This assumes of course that the wildhorns doesn't break, but as they are stubborn and will usually have a BSB nearby this isn't unlikely.

Against a similar amount of Longhorns the Minos win easily when going first and the longhorns win if they go first - so I guess the lesson is that when two units, that can effectively delete each other in one round of combat fights against each other, the one that hits first wins (rather obvious). But if you hit a unit you cannot delete with one of these glasshammers you are in trouble.

To me that is however a rather trivial point - and a far cry from Initiativ being "all powerfull".

skrak wrote:

Kreon wrote:

I am sorry to tell, but I think your maths are wrong.
I think minotaurs are 4 x 2 formation and wildhorns are 10 x 5, am I right? In this situation, only 8 front wildhorn should be able to attack, thus dealing up to 32 attacks total, not 40. I ilustrate what should happen on average dice, calculated with simple combat calculator and represented thanks to universalbattle.com

The result of this combat is really close, so either of them could win/decimate each other. Don't expect many survivors for any part.

Beardling wrote:

sorry but in which rulebook is such a charge on open field legal? You have to maximize, you cannot simply put ur minotaurs on the edge of the fight to avoid more attack from the wildhorns.

Paperplane wrote:

Maybe I did miss the point but arguing that initiative is too strong and is the only factor that decides combat seems to be backwards if the problem is units wiping other units before they can strike. Someone has to hit first, but maybe it shouldn't be alive to do an average of 20+ wounds in one round of combat.

Vulcan wrote:

What always bugged me about Initiative in 8E (and now T9A) is how an elf with a short sword gets to hit a charging knight with a twelve-foot lance first...and if the knight survives the elf then runs back in front of the lance so the charging knight so the knight can get his charge bonus.

What the... heck?

Unless all elves have reflexes like the Flash, that should be outright impossible. And even if they do, they shouldn't be suicidal enough to go back to be hit by the lance.

IT MAKES NO SENSE.

WhammeWhamme wrote:

When it comes to the clash of elite units:

- Strength only matters a little because Flails, Great Weapons+Lightning Reflexes and Halberds (+AP) make it basically easy to get enough Strength as long as you're an elite unit. It doesn't really matter if your race has S4 base because elves and humans easily hit S5/S6 with weapons. (So it matters, but it doesn't matter what ARMY BOOK you have)

Sure you can Strength quite easily, but if you are not an Elf (and those are these dudes you pay a buckload of points for just so they can fall over when beeing hit by a stiff breeze?) you can't use those Great Weapons without sacrificing the "all powerfull initative". Flails are of course the prime example of a Weapon that wants to strike first, but which Elite Infantry Unit got those? Using Halberds you are mostly at a point where Toughness means a lot and you can't wipe out units in one Round.


- Weaponskill doesn't matter that much because W3-5 is still hitting on a 4+ vs. WS5 enemies and vs. Shield-using enemies. (So it sometimes matters, but not very much)

Hitting on 3's instead of 4's means 5 more Hits if you are in Horde Formation... Wouldn't consider that useless. Against Parry it is indeed.


- Attacks do something, but you can get three ranks attacking no matter what AB you're using, and that's at least 21 attacks vs. a 5 wide unit, and 30 vs. an enemy horde.

Tell me how Ogres can get three full ranks. And your equation doesnt work out as soon as you are on 25mm bases. Like Iron Orks, they get only full attacks if the enemy is in Horde Formation as well and they lose almost halve their attacks against 5 Wide 20mm Units.


So even a unit that's barely elite puts a decent dent into the enemy if it swings first, while a unit that's super-elite that swings second is going to lose the grind.


So 34 Longhorn with Halberds against 30 Deep Watch (Same Price) Both in Horde Formation. Long Horns do 6,5 Wounds, Deep Watch does 9 Wounds back (with Grudges and Primal considered). Next round Longhorn do 3,6 Wounds and Deep Watch 5,4 Wounds. Deep Watch win the Grind even though they attack after the Long Horns and they pass their Primal every round.
And one should consider that the Deep Watch is quite harder to kill by shooting.


It doesn't really matter if you're S5 or S6, it doesn't really matter if you're A1 or A2 - what matters is "are you armed with a decently hitty weapon?" and "are you swinging first?".

But that, again, means that Strength is more important. Would you be rather I3 with S10 or S3 with I10? I think that is clear.
And everyone except Elves have a hard time getting any Strength without beeing I0.


I mean, against Lion Guard or Executioners? T4 and 4+ save is literally useless. And there simply aren't any infantry units that get better than that, so defense doesn't matter. WS doesn't matter much against them either (W1-4 is really bad, WS6 doesn't really matter because you're still taking a mauling before your swing), and your own S and A values only matter if you have enough bodies to actually get some attacks.

Sure they hit like a Truck, but if they didnt, they would die like flies. If you are Strength 6 and hit with good initiative, you are very likely super squishy. Executioners, White Lions they all die to S4AP1 Shooting like flies.


And having allready fought a 28 White Lion Unit in 7 wide Formation with a 12 Man Tribesmen Unit, I can tell you, I don't care who strikes first. Noone will reduce the other unit of attacks in the first two rounds of combat, and by then support should arrive.


Yes, their other stats matter, but yours don't.


Parry does, Ward Saves do, Regeneration does....


Sure. Other stats matter to the package - but once Sufficiently Killy units *exist*, the only stat *that helps you beat them* is having equal or higher initiative so that you can kill them before dying.

Or be super tanky or super cheap.