http://www.3plusplus.net/2013/03/instability-aint-fearless/Instability Ain’t Fearless
40K Daemons, like their Fantasy counterpart, got a big change with their latest book when it comes to the Leadership department. Specifically, they got changed to where they have to care about it more rather than just totally ignoring that entire section of the game, which is good- no other army could unconditionally sweep aside so many rules (although Marines certainly do their best to try.)
With this change a lot of people looking at the book are assuming a lot of things about Daemons down that… really just aren’t true. Daemonic Instability, while certainly a very powerful ability, is NOT Fearless. It’s not even “Fearless but better”; in fact, it’s arguably worse in a lot of ways despite some nominal advantages, because it doesn’t let you do the same kind of things, especially when applied to a melee army.
Daemonic Instability essentially has two relevant “halves” to the rule. The first one is pretty simple: you never take Morale, Pinning, or Fear tests (and you can’t choose to fail them.) This part of the rule is strictly beneficial, the “can’t choose” clause aside, since you’ll never really care about that part. In fact, it’s more than just beneficial- it’s incredibly good. Unlike Fearless, which stops you from going to ground, Instability leaves you will essentially a full range of actions available, so your troops can hit the dirt if need be but never have to risk running off an objective/board edge at an inconvenient time. This combination of reliability and survivability is essentially unmatched in the game outside of Daemons and it’s a very powerful tool.
However, there is another side to the rule that applies in melee, and that one is a LOT more punishing. Should you lose a combat, you have to make a Leadership test or suffer some automatic casualties, and what’s more the test is made with a penalty based on how much you lost the fight by. You are permitted no saves of any kind against these wounds, although Feel No Pain will still apply if appropriate.
This relevance of combat results is what separates Fearless from Instability; the change from 5th Edition (with No Retreat!) to 6th (without it) was HUGE for Fearless units and almost singlehandedly revitalized the Tyranid and Ork armies as viable competitors despite their problems. It comes up constantly; I can freely throw little bugs into fights where they suffer major casualties without consequence, or at least without worry, since I know that losing combat simply doesn’t affect me. It means they can function as a delaying tactic or as cannon fodder, holding off superior forces until I am ready to deal with them. Any combat result of a tie or worse is irrelevant to my units, since they are essentially just too dumb to care how many of them you punch to death.
Instability, on the other hand, brings with it significant risks. Even just losing combat by a single point means that the unit risks outright destruction or major additional casualties as a result, especially if not lead by a Herald. Moreover, every unit must test individually, giving the opponent potential to do shenanigans with multicharges (even nerfed as they are in 6th.) If you lose a combat with a Troop/Elite/Fast Attack unit, you can expect to be rolling looking for a five or less, meaning 2-4 “free” casualties for the enemy each time this happens. Now, certainly Daemons are a strong melee army and are better than most enemies in close combat, but that hardly means you’ll win every combat; for one, the lack of grenades combined with weak overall saves means that you are always one lucky roll away from losing a lot of models to some Tactical Marines or the like. Ditto with a round of lucky saves on the enemy’s part or whiffs on your side of things, both of which can turn a fight very quickly.
Some units will suffer this more than others- elite units with relatively small numbers of attacks and wounds (like Monstrous Creatures) are one victim- it’s not all that hard for a Bloodthirster to miss with most of its attacks even with WS10, and if the other guy manages to push through 1-2 wounds from a Power Fist, Poison, or similarly big critter, it means that you have a pretty fair chance of dying instantly. Similarly, units with low damage output against Marines (Nurgle is a special mention here, particularly Beasts and Plague Drones) but very high resilience are particularly vulnerable to this, as a lost combat can easily do more damage to them than two or three turns of swings by their opponents.
Instability is actually a lot like the vulnerability of most armies to Sweeping Advance; it means that losing combat can have very significant consequences. Of course, they actually function much like flip sides of each other- Sweeping is most dangerous to large units of models, since it can completely destroy them regardless of size, whereas Instability is more likely to affect you (since you don’t get a free chance to “escape” from it) but is more dangerous to smaller units that will suffer badly from the few casualties it will do.
The bottom line is that while Instability is a good ability and by and large does exactly what it was designed to, it will NOT let you dive into fights you can’t win the way Fearless will nor is it a “stick in every fight to the last man” ability. Like their CSM counterparts, Daemons have to be careful about picking their battles and weighing the odds of winning versus losing. Too many people are looking only to its functionality during the shooting phase, which is certainly important enough, but sooner or later you will have to get your Daemons into assault if you want to win and that means dealing with sometimes losing.
