Now there is another 40k boogy man out there that many are decrying and calling for nerf. Again this is really shortsighted and patience needs to be exercised, especially when there are ways to get around it, besides simply ignoring the invisible unit until it fails to get it off. I don't see the need for a nerf, it is one of those thing that is powerful when it works, but requires a significant investment to do so at the risk of unreliability.
The problem with it is really the same with psychic powers in 7th, its less reliable, needs more WC to have a reliable chance and with it increases perils, plus you can deny it though unlikely. Its WC2 so your going to need 5 dice to have anywhere near a reliable chance at getting it off. And it won't go off every time. So simply ignore that unit, if it doesn't have hit and run, tarpit it until it fails to cast or you get lucky and deny it. That is the first thing you can do.
Some of the other things you can do is use attacks that do not require to hit rolls, the most obvious being hammer of wrath. For the Imperial Guard we only have a few of those, but armored sentinels can be good against the right invisible unit, getting hits in and knocking a few guys out, then tarpiting it till it fails invisibility. Rough riders can use this as well, though you will be sacrificing your lances on the first charge, so its better to wait to use those on another target first, then charge the invisible unit for the hammer of wrath hits. There are other things like Knights stomp attacks that can be used as well. I'm not going to pretend I know all the attacks that don't require to hit, but look through your army and the BRB and you'll find at least a couple that you can make use of.
Another thing that will work is scattering barrage and blast weapons. You cannot target the unit directly per the snap shot rules, but you can target the unit next to it, and hope for scatter. This is where the IG can really take advantage of the barrage rules with a couple of units. The wyvern is really the first and prob best one. A squadron of even two will have 8 blasts. Fire at the closest unit to the invisible one and start scatter walking those blasts onto it. If you are close it won't take much to get them on target. Remember a hit roll allows you to place onto ANY previous blast hit location, so remember where all of them hit as its important. Keep rerolling till you get the scatter or hit rolls you want and put them on the invisible unit.
If that unit is a vehicle, its going to be tougher but units like basilisk batteries can do the job, if less reliably than the wyvern. If you are going to do this, then prescience is a must to get the rerolls to hit so you can have a good chance at the scatter. The tactic is the same as before, scatter those large blasts as close as possible to the target unit.
These are only a few tips but wil help in getting around the invisible unit. For many, simply tarpitting a one that doesn't have hit and run will be enough. These units usually have a lot of points sunk into them and will feel the pain of munching through a few useless guardsmen while you deal with the rest of their army. Invisibility is not reliable inherently and if you play the waiting game or get lucky with deny, you can hit it when it fails that power. I really don't see the need to nerf the power, there are tactics and ways to get around it and the hype over it is overblown.
GG
Thanks for these. I hadn't thought about using hammer of wrath! Barrage is also really nifty!
ReplyDeleteI believe you could also get them with a wall of flame attack (defensive flamers if they charge you).
you are correct, wall of death is auto hit, good catch. Harder to control that happening but can def help.
DeleteInvis will need a nerf. In a vaccum it isn't a big deal, invis space marine squad? Who cares. Invis landraider? Enh just shoot at his other stuff, its just two lascannons and a heavy bolter. Invis Knight titan? Whaaaa....hmm...that is something else all together. That is alot of firepower to just ignore as it is charging your lines. "Well kill the pycher casting it" you say. Reasonable, but what happens if you can't SEE the caster? Here is a broken sort of list I would like you to try and mathhammer against. Banblade wit D-weapons blocking line of sight on two sanctioned psychers and a squad or two (or three) of wyrdvanes. Now maybe the wyrdvanes don't roll invis but with all those psychers, the odds are good one of them will. Each turn I'm just gonna throw a ton of dice at invis on the baneblade, if the wyrdvanes are casting it, who cares about about perils, i'll lose a few models. Now sure you can use weapons that don't care about line of sight to hit a unit but how many armies have those? 3? Thats just one combo I can think of, but any deathstar becomes even more deathy. God help the player that has to kill an invis revnant titan. With a ghosthelm i can throw every dice but one to get the power off and nulify any perils with one WC, not to mention it only costs one WC because of Jewel.
ReplyDeleteServicious, the Disgruntled Dark Eldar
well wyrdvanes can't roll on telepathy, the only IG psyker that can is the astropath and you can only get two in a single CAD, so likely hood is small. Barrage is pretty common, and armies that don't have them have mobility and flyers or FMCs that can see over things pretty easily. The revenant is not the beast it once was, you can ignore it, the rest of his army will be negligible with the points sunk into psykers to get the powers off, which will be not that hard to kill. And in any case, thats not going to be common gaming experience, I've yet to see people just walking around every weekend with their revenant/warhound. Its certainly can be a very hard combo to break, but not broken.
DeleteTouche salesman! Despite that wyrdvanes can't roll telepathy a guard unit can easily get 4 astropaths in a 2000 list. Your meta may not include many Lords of War, but mine sure does, especially IG (though a few eldar boys have anounced they will be grabbing revenants now that 7th has dropped.) Don't believe me? Try it yourself, I know you can. Run your warhound with 4 troops and 4 astropaths (maybe a wyrdvane or two for extra dice rolls points permitting). Try to get inivs on all of them and see if anybody can beat you. I'll bet you they can't (unless they have similar cheese of their own). I'll await your results in the next podcast!
DeleteServicious, the Disgruntled Dark Eldar
Actually under 7ths rules you can bring 2hq and 2 troops as many times as you can fit in and still be bound
DeleteI played a game with a friend last weekend and we played silly lists to test 7th. I ended up with two invis dreadknights which as you can guess caused him a huge amount of problems. by turn four it was all but over and we concluded we will house rule invis back to what it used to be. In this game we were looking for game braking play and boy did we find it.
ReplyDeleteOh and on a side note flamers are good vs invis, its about the only time I had to roll saves. He targeted my grand master behind my dreadknight with a heavy flamer which also hit the DK, as he wasnt targeting it directly i had to roll a save, dirty tactic but smart and i liked it very much : )
DeleteWell, use barrage vs the invis casters, you don't need to see them.
ReplyDeleteBut I know your pain with invis. I tried playing tempestus, there's really nothing I can do vs invis, tank Spam, Bikers... ^^
Of course, but not all armies have access to barrage weapons and a smart player will stick the psycher in a unit to soak up wounds. Can you say 'Look out sir' lol? Bottom line it needs a nerf, even something as minor as 'can only be cast on infantry'.
DeleteServicious, the Disgruntled Dark Eldar
Can a mawloc's deep strike work vs an invisible unit?
ReplyDeleteI don't see why not, depends on how the mechanics are worded.
DeleteMawloc will definately work because its just a deepstrike, but it won't do much to vehicles or Lords of War, which is where the abuse of invisibility lies. Invis is fine on its own, but with Lords of War it is a bit over the top.
DeleteServicious, the Disgruntled Dark Eldar
I'd either like to see Invis errata'd to allow templates and blasts or reworded to reduce opposing units that target the invis'd unit to BS1/WS1 which I actually like better, but is a more drastic change in wording. Eseentially reducing bs1/ws1 means markerlights wont work, blasts scatter further and most weapons still require a 6 to hit.
ReplyDeleteI've seen this before (also against fliers) and it sounds good at first then you start to math hammer and realize it's silly... If the point of inviz (and skyfire) is to show how hard it is to hit something why are blasts direct hitting 1/3rd of the time?
DeleteOut of interest have you played against an invisibility psyker or a demon psykic army, or are both the posts about these things speculation?
ReplyDeleteplayed against invisibility, but not a full demon spam, but have seen a game of it.
DeleteWe deemed the spell too strong in our gaming group and reverted to the old invisibility and replaced Shrouded with Puppet Master (that spell was cool, we were sad). Even a blob of 50 guard becomes a pain in the ass with that spell. Do it on Imperial Knight Titan, Lords of War or deathstars and you're in for pain. Even on ''normal'' stuff like Deathwing Knight or Land Raider Spartan, it's a joke. There may exist some form of shenanigans like firing barrage besides the target to hit it (if it's like 3'' from the said invisible unit?), but in normal situation you're probably not gonna do squat about it. This spell is more an example of poor thinking than a fun addon to the game. It's not like the old invisibility was outright crap.
ReplyDeleteI've used Invisibility in my Thousand Sons/Tzeentch Daemon list. It's really powerful. But I do agree with GG in some ways, There are ways around it. I think it only gets overpowered, and frankly feels really silly, when used on a LOW. That's where it really stops being fun - "All guns on the enemy Titan!" "What Titan?"
ReplyDeleteHey, I'm one year late!
ReplyDeleteSince the beginning of the 7th ed I only played "soft" games with few points list.... then suddently last Sunday I went to a real tournament.
I met round 1: Invisible Grey Knight, round 2: Invisible grey knight and invisible Imperial Guard, round 3 Invisible Centurion Deathstar with Tigurius allied with Space Wolves. My poor Deldar with just one L2 psyker were completely useless... I had 2 units with 5 weapon templates each, and they shoot only once in 3 games...(5 templetes hit 20 times with S4 ap2 ignore cover.... and killed only 2 Grey Knight!)
Saturation shooting is laughable, because hitting 1/6 of the times, wounding 1/2 of the times, and pass through the 2+ armor save 1/6 of the times means 6*6*2*2(terminators have 2 wounds) means 128 shoots only to kill one invisible centurion of 10.... ah no, wait! with the "look out sir!" he can put one wound each terminators... so it means that I will need 640 shots to kill one invisible terminator (and wound all the others) I don't know if Tau can provide a similar amount of shooting, my army cannot.
Ignore them? they destroy 1/2 units every turn, walking through the tabletop, taking objectives etc.
Hoping they miss a dice throw, or denying? They have 15-20 dice and have to roll 4+, I have 3-6 dice and must roll 6...
No, there is no way to deal with invisible units for a non-psyker army. I know that the psionic phase is important in 7th ed, but, for instance, you can build an army that does not shoot, or an army that do not assault and play your game against shooting/assaulting army...
Agreed. I am not sure the author has played against a competently built invis army.
Delete