N18 Overseer Clarification

[el_guestos]

Bit of help please guys, we're trying to fully understand the overseer rule. A member of our gaming group has overseer on his leader and is placing his renderizer fighter within group activation range of his leader. He is then group activating the renderizer when he activates the leader. Then essentially the renderizer has 2 movements within the same round.

We've started to question if this is legal for 2 reasons,

1. If he activates the renderizer fighter using overseer first, when it comes to the renderizers 2nd move he is now out of group activation range. Can he still be counted as group activated this round and there fore move in the same round using his own group activation or does he now have to wait to activate himself in a following round?

2. If the renderizer activates first very often he will end up outside of overseer range at the end of his first action and so now cannot legally be activated.

So how is everyone else playing this can overseer be used to give 1 model 2 actions in the same round or does it (generally) end up being split of 2 rounds?

 

[TopsyKretts]

We play it once you start within, you get double activation. Must start within 4" for group and 6" for overseer (according to latest updates).

Overseer is powerfull and you can find discussions since the start 1 year ago about it and various house rules to balance it.

 

[Stoof]

If it helps, think of it like this:

The champ activates, and because he is close enough to the leader, uses the leader's unspent activation to do some stuff. He then uses his own activation to do some more stuff - it doesn't matter where he is in relation to the leader when he does his own activation.

And because the leader surrenders his entire activation to use Overseer, he does not get to use his group activation, so letting the champ do two smaller separate group activations of his own seems reasonable (albeit overpowered if you're running blitzkrieg gang).

 

[Malo]

And because the leader surrenders his entire activation to use Overseer, he does not get to use his group activation

The problem is that the Leader is not surrendering his entire turn per se. Group Activation is not an Action, it's an ability of being a Leader or Champion separate from Actions. Overseer is a Double Action. The Group Activation is initiated when you Activate the Leader, with the resulting following activations of other fighters following after the Leader has completed his own Activation. Remember, the Leader has Activated in order to either a) use Group Activation, or b) Use Overseer and you don't just wait for the activations to complete before finishing the Leader's. Group Activation is "at the same time" but you still have to complete each Activation in turn before moving onto the next, starting with completing the Leader's who is already activated.

So the Leader has Group Activated and intends to also use Overseer. Group Activation requires within certain range but that's already fulfilled when using that ability (assuming the fighter is within 4"). For the Leader's turn, he uses Overseer to have the Champion perform a double move, which are immediate Actions, during the Leader's Activation which then completes the Activation. The Champion can now perform their own Activation as normal, which was initiated by Group Activation prior to Overseer being used, even if they're more than 4" away.

So Overseer is never done "first" if intended to combine with Group Activation, as it's an Action performed after Group Activation is initiated. And you can do both as long as the intended fighter is within 4" when initiated by the Leader.

 

[FlatMattie]

The problem is that the Leader is not surrendering his entire turn per se. Group Activation is not an Action, it's an ability of being a Leader or Champion separate from Actions. Overseer is a Double Action. The Group Activation is initiated when you Activate the Leader, with the resulting following activations of other fighters following after the Leader has completed his own Activation. Remember, the Leader has Activated in order to either a) use Group Activation, or b) Use Overseer and you don't just wait for the activations to complete before finishing the Leader's. Group Activation is "at the same time" but you still have to complete each Activation in turn before moving onto the next, starting with completing the Leader's who is already activated.

So the Leader has Group Activated and intends to also use Overseer. Group Activation requires within certain range but that's already fulfilled when using that ability (assuming the fighter is within 4"). For the Leader's turn, he uses Overseer to have the Champion perform a double move, which are immediate Actions, during the Leader's Activation which then completes the Activation. The Champion can now perform their own Activation as normal, which was initiated by Group Activation prior to Overseer being used, even if they're more than 4" away.

So Overseer is never done "first" if intended to combine with Group Activation, as it's an Action performed after Group Activation is initiated. And you can do both as long as the intended fighter is within 4" when initiated by the Leader.

Well I've been doing this wrong , I firstly missed the update where the range of Overseer was down to 6 and I've been having gangers activate as part of a group before the leader/champion has completed their activation.

Thanks for clearing that up

 

[Thorgor]

I firstly missed the update where the range of Overseer was down to 6 and I've been having gangers activate as part of a group before the leader/champion has completed their activation.

The 'update' is part of the revised rulebook that will only be released tomorrow, so you didn't miss anything yet.
Even if you play it as the other fighters in the group activating before the fighter who initiated the group activation, it still works. You can initiate a Group activation by activating the Champion and make the Leader the second member of the group. Then use the Leader activation to make an Order action and double Move your Champion. And then play the Champion's activation.

 

[Kitcar]

The 'update' is part of the revised rulebook that will only be released tomorrow, so you didn't miss anything yet.
Even if you play it as the other fighters in the group activating before the fighter who initiated the group activation, it still works. You can initiate a Group activation by activating the Champion and make the Leader the second member of the group. Then use the Leader activation to make an Order action and double Move your Champion. And then play the Champion's activation.

That's a lot of activity.

 

[UncleFester]

We played that it allowed double activation also. I used it with my Goliath gang with the Renderizer and a desperate attempt to make the Krumper Rivet Cannon work. Neither was overwhelmingly successful. Certainly not the Rivet Cannon. I'm surprised anyone felt the need to balance it considering your Leader (your best guy) gets no other action that turn. Then again, our battles tend to be extremely defensive, conservative, "risk-averse" chess matches. Even with Overseer, a Goliath Champ only has an effective Charge distance of 13" - 15" and if I ever got that close, my opponents usually backed off.

I would absolutely take Nerves of Steel before Overseer, but if I played against people who took more chances...

Also, I did all that back when Heavy Bolters hadn't been introduced yet, so I don't know... maybe using Overseer to have a Champ fire a Heavy Bolter (or a Plasma Cannon) twice in a round?

 

[Thorgor]

Even with Overseer, a Goliath Champ only has an effective Charge distance of 13" - 15" and if I ever got that close, my opponents usually backed off.

19"-21" actually. Because Stimm-slug stash.

 

[UncleFester]

As for the Group Activation, we just played that all fighters activated at the same time and it was player's choice who to resolve first. So the Leader and the Champ are activated, Leader is resolved first and uses Overseer to move the Champ, then the Champ (who was already activated with the Leader) resolves his action regardless of the fact that he is now out of group activation range. He was previously activated - now you just need to resolve it.

It's only a matter of claiming which comes first, but if for some strange reason I chose to resolve the Champion first, then he would be out of range of the Overseer skill when the Leader action was resolved. But that's getting nit-picky.

 

[UncleFester]

19"-21" actually. Because Stimm-slug stash.

Yeah, Stimm-slug stash. I stopped using them because I was at about 50% going down with SI or just OOA at the end of the turn. I called it the Widowmaker stash. Didn't seem worth the 30 credits with my luck.

 

[TopsyKretts]

Yeah I hear good things, but reading the rules I don't want that risk!

 

[Vonvilkee]

Yeah, Stimm-slug stash. I stopped using them because I was at about 50% going down with SI or just OOA at the end of the turn. I called it the Widowmaker stash. Didn't seem worth the 30 credits with my luck.

Yeah I hear good things, but reading the rules I don't want that risk!

Yep high risk high reward... I just put them on a ganger I didn't really care about, made it clear which model had it, never planned to actually use them to charge, profited at the disruption he caused while the rest of my gang moved into position.

 

[Wulfyn]

When a leader of champion is activated you can declare a group activation. At this point you must nominate which fighters are part of the group activation. But then you can resolve those in any order you like. Just because you activated the Leader does not mean that s/he needs to go first within the group activation.

Original rulebook:

The player must nominate all of the fighters who will be activated before any of them makes an action. Then they pick one of the nominated fighters and activate them as normal ... Once that fighters activation is complete, they activate another fighter ...
​

New rulebook:

The controlling player must nominate all of the fighters who will be activated in this way before any of them are activated. The controlling player must make it clear to their opponent which fighter is leading the Group Activation, be they the Leader or a Champion. Once all participants of the Group Activation have been nominated, the controlling player picks one and activates them as normal, fully resolving their activation before picking the next fighter nominated as part of the Group Activation to activate ...
​

Overseer also makes it clear that you can have the fighter make a double activation:

Order (Double): Pick a friendly fighter within 6". That fighter can immediately make two actions. as thought it were their turn to activate, even if they are not Ready. If they are Ready, these actions do not remove their Ready marker.
​

Note that group activations have reduced from 4" to 3". But a flamer champion with hip shooting getting a double move then shot, and then getting to activate again (I suggest shooting once and then making a normal move away) is still a horribly horrible broken thing. Two unanswered shots, auto pinning (unless skills), and then with a 75% chance to set on fire anyone who is still left standing is frightening. A few of my games have boiled down to who gets this move off first (often it's my flamer champ vs an enemy close combat specialist).

 

[autoxidation]

We ended up just banning overseer for our campaign and generally I'd say it has made the game healthier. Now the incentive to actually use a leader for their combat stats is there, instead of as a naked support character hiding behind terrain.

 

[TopsyKretts]

While I can see it broken in scenarios detailed above, I really really want it as a boost to close combat. Or, if removed, I want some other replacement that allow for reaching close combat more often.

 

[UncleFester]

I agree the Overseer on a Champion with Flamer is a ridiculously deadly combo.

However, it's really a one-shot deal because once you move the Champion away, he is no longer in range of of the Overseer skill, and you'd have to spend a turn or two getting your Leader/Champ back into position. Also, I've found that when you use Overseer as a means of really getting out there into attack position, it often leaves the fighter exposed and is sometimes a suicide mission.

So personally, I don't have a problem with it, but if you feel it's totally unacceptable, I wouldn't argue. However, I also agree with @TopsyKretts that I would like to see a replacement. Or maybe just not allowing the fighter to do both activations in the same activation. (Meaning, if you use the Overseer skill to activate the Champion, you cannot then use the Champions activation until your next go. So the Champion can move up into position from Overseer (and he doesn't lose his Ready marker), but he can't use his activation until after your opponent has had a chance to go.)

That way, the skill can still be useful, and still deadly in certain situations (like when your opponent doesn't have any more Ready fighters), but it gives the opponent an opportunity to react, maybe even just pin the advancing fighter, or moving away, etc.

But as I said I don't find it that over-powered, and I think reducing the effectiveness makes it not worth taking.

Just throwing some thoughts out there...

 

[PolyOne]

Sounds like you guys cleared this up, just thought I'd our impression of overseer from our campaign as well:

We allowed the rules as written during our first campaign. I thought this was a bit bonkers and decided to make a point by using my leader as a support character throughout the campaign. Final match had me charging a champion 21 inches across the field, without the enemy capable of doing anything about it, then used a flamer to burn away at his two best characters. This would have been even more silly if I had the run and gun skill, potentially getting up to 28inches during a single activation, AND firing two times along the way.

We've now agreed to disallow combining group activation with overseer. Overseer is powerful enough as it is.
This works well for us, but we're also not overly-competitive about our campaigns anymore. We've gathered that N17 doesn't really work well for that sort of crowd, it's been way more enjoyable since we started to relax the rules a bit and just focused on having fun.

 

[el_guestos]

Cheers guys, good points and you've cleared it up for us nicely, I still wont be taking it personally myself as in our games it's proved on many occasions to just ruin the dynamic of the game as players build their entire strategy round it which makes for very boring play generally but good to see how others are finding it.

 

[UncleFester]

Interesting. I had written-off Overseer way back when there were no Flamers and Goliath had crap weapon choices. If I used it to Charge, it just meant that, even if I took my opponent out, my guy was now surrounded by a bunch of Escher with Stilettos and I was going out too. So unless I was Charging an Escher Leader, he was getting the better end of that deal.

My buddy that I play with, is uber-conservative. He takes zero risk and always tries to stay out of my range, but within his. (Which was easy to do since the Grenade Launcher was the only weapon Goliaths had that could shoot more than 18". (Which is why I hated that people wanted to nerf the Grenade Launcher.)

Just to give you an idea what it's like in our campaign, I've now started playing Van Saar and my opponent has now taken "Spring Up" on every fighter that gets a skill. He uses it to Dive for Cover, and I can't target a pinned fighter that is in cover, then he uses Spring Up, and if successful, takes a shot, then Dives for Cover again. If Spring Up is not successful, he just Dives for Cover again. So he gets to take shots and I can't target him back. (Blast / Template weapons, here I come!)

So against a player that is all about defense, I had a real hard time making Overseer useful. I might use it to move into position, but then I'd miss the shot ('cause I have THE WORST luck - in one battle, I missed 2+ shots 5 times! I was 1-for-6 on 2+ shots) and was a sitting duck. Or even if I was successful, my guy was still so exposed it was usually a one-way mission. And with Goliath so much more expensive than Escher, I was always outnumbered, so the 1-for-1 sacrifice wasn't worth it.