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 tauist wrote:


I haven't started collecting an army just yet, have only bought the digital rules and one Astartes infantry kit to get a feel for the scale and the new models. I want to start with Adeptus Titanicus first, since that is already considered a mature game, and it comes with stuff that is easier to slot into "proper" LI games than just the two warhounds that come in the LI starter. Was just thinking GW needs to come out with more stuff soon, every list will basically be very samey until they do.

But yeh, a box of Kratos is a solid chunk of points for an Astartes player.

With LI out now I'm selling my AT compendiums and terminals/cards if you're getting into AT. Books are a bit on the heavy side and I think most are digital so its really only a collecting thing, but terminals for AT are a necessity and sadly the kits only come with thin unpunched paper terminals if at all. LI I'm still trying to figure out how necessary unit cards are to track casualties/wounded/when formations break but I'm glad I didn't pre order the detachment cards. Was hoping LI needed less sideboard than AT does.

Good news is it seems it's not fixed to 5x4, can be played on smaller boards at smaller point levels so gonna start at 4x4. Really wanting havoc lanchers for all my rhinos now.

 tauist wrote:
Was just drafting some lists and man, it's not easy getting even 1000 points worth of Astartes from the currently available models! You need to max out almost every slot in the formation, including all optional ones..

As such, I feel like the second LI model wave cannot be far really. We are lacking a lot of flavour ATM, almost feels like HH2 launch all over again..

I trust you know you aren't limited in formations right? Apart from more mandatory choices can take more and indeed are heavily encouraged to do so.

I have made 2k lists and not even maxing out upgrades(mainly as don't have more than 3 inf box coming so just 6 terminators etc)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

leopard wrote:
its actually interesting when you see the probabilities, a 2d6 roll means +/- 1 actually matters, but the change between +4 and say +5 is minor.

Well depends on what the opponent has for his CAF.

CAF1 vs CAF0 is 63% vs 37%. Same as CAF5 vs CAF4.

Vs CAF0 CAF4 to 5 goes from 90% to 95%.

The rend is huge and is why SA will be surprisingly mean in melee. Power axe infantry already superior to terminators in melee and with ogryns it just get plain mean.

I thought its only one Formation per 1500 points? Since 1500 points is the army size I'm initially aiming for, that leaves me with 1 Formation max.. unless I am mistaken?

Anyhoo, like I said, taking my time with LI so all this will be moot by the time I'm ready to start collecting. I was planning on going drop pod & flyer heavy anyway, because I want more "Space" for my Space Marines, and a drop pod/flyer heavy army will be way cheaper and easier to pull off in Epic scale than in 28mil

It’s one primary formation per 1500 points, not of 1500. So you could have as many formations as you squeeze in, with the proviso that allies can’t exceed 450 points (the 30%)

MarkNorfolk wrote:
It’s one primary formation per 1500 points, not of 1500. So you could have as many formations as you squeeze in, with the proviso that allies can’t exceed 450 points (the 30%)

To clarify a bit further its not that you can only take 1 formation per 1500, its you must take at least 1 per 1500 pts.
So for 3000pts you would need at least 2 and for 4500pts at least 3 but there is no upper limit.

Titans etc would be even harder to fit if it would take 1 of your formations if they were limited.

One of my 2k lists had 5 formations 2demi company, armoured company, titan and knight

Titan section of the book says you must have 1 Titan maniple or Knight lance in your army if you include them, and it didnt say this would add in to your main army's formations, so I never thought I'd be limited to just 1 formation for everything, just one for my main army for every 1500 points.

But if I can just spam Formations, that changes things considerably. Thanks for setting me straight Now, I don't want to take too many, since then those formations will then be easy to break, but a couple seems the way to go

I'll still need a bunch of Tactical stands though if I add in formations.. but I reckon I'll be better off going with 2 formations for my 1500 point list. MSU will make more sense for stuff like Kratos etc, that melta cannon thingy will be great for deleting buildings at close range with a unit of 2

Think you still want 4. 1 shot hitting 4+. You preferably want to shoot the building semi-reliably in one go.

Oh and myself bit off in that allied formations indeed dont count for 1/1500 but are separate things. And you can only take 1 per primary so no 1 main and 2 knight detachment even if points allow.

Well. So far my lists haven't broken that rule yet.

With two Kratos firing, a 50% chance to hit should make it quite likely for at least one hit to the building. 4 would absolutely guarantee it no doubt, but since splitting fire is only a thing for point defence, you'd be wasting quite a lot of firepower IMHO just taking down one building with 4. Also, 4 Kratos will make a more tempting target for the opponent. I'd much rather have 4 long range AT Kratos in one detachment, and 2 Bunker smashers than the other way around

One hit has no effect though. You need 2 to take down even smallest building. 1 means you have to spend next turn as well shooting at it.

Not that 4 is quarantee either. Odds of missing 3 4+ out of 4 isn't THAT small. 2 is average amount. You still score 0 or 1 hits about 30% times


It might be just a building...or building with bunch of infantry inside.

tneva82 wrote:
One hit has no effect though. You need 2 to take down even smallest building. 1 means you have to spend next turn as well shooting at it.

Not that 4 is quarantee either. Odds of missing 3 4+ out of 4 isn't THAT small. 2 is average amount. You still score 0 or 1 hits about 30% times


It might be just a building...or building with bunch of infantry inside.

Crap, I totally forgot buildings have wounds! In that case, 4 Kratos with meltas is required for any reasonable chance of downing a 2 wound building in one turn. Perhaps a better solution is just to spam Frag Missiles into infantry detachments garrisoned in buildings, they mitigate most of the benefits of being in buildings, right?

Happily got a shipping notification today! Whew, was worried about stock with the rate I saw these going.

SU-152 wrote:

 Matrindur wrote:
So i have a question if I understood the withdrawing rules correctly:

When a detachment loses a combat and fails the save role it has to withdraw D6 plus movement value on the shortest possible route to the controlling players board edge. You can move through enemy units during that move and you have to roll saves if you do unless you are 3 sizes larger than them (Knights vs infantry for example). But that is only if you move through them, if you end your move overlapping an enemy model your model is just destroyed.

So lets say you have an Acastus Knight that has to withdraw. You can't control the move as you have to go the whole distance on the shortest path to the board edge so a straight line unless terrain is in the way. So if there is a single infantry base where you would end up you are just unlucky and your Knight is instantly killed?

So, loser fails a morale check: withdraws 1d6+M.

- Directly to own edge.
- Ignoring basically any model and engagement zone.
- But moving though any other Det. forces a save (unless scale 3 larger).
- Ending on top of friend: no problem, just move aside. Moving on top of ANY enemy: destroyed, so yes, an big knight can be destroyed by infantry.

So you can't divert around the enemy while withdrawing? That is going to result in some very odd set ups where your units are trying to line up the board edge and enemy units in straight lines in case they break so you can try and force saves on them.

What it means is that there is some proper reason to maneuver, as you can set up killing bands of troops behind enemies you're trying to break through clipping assaults. That somewhat compensates the lack of crossfires, escalating engagements and such, if not exactly stealing the show.

Assembling pair of acastus I have had laying around took a glance at their rule...and am I missing something or is ion shield practically useless?

AP0 or -1, I'll take 2+ save over 4+.

AP 2 or 3, I'll take 4+ or 5+ over 5+.

AP4. 6+ vs 6+.

AP5 or better ion shield at least provide 6+ save...

Not much better with questor. Provides 5+ save instead of 6+ vs AP3. and 6+ vs AP4 or better.

think the shield is mostly useful against "titan grade" weapons

a 2+ isn't bad given "light AT" goes to AP0, las cannon spam will eat them I suspect though, same as any other armoured vehicle

How many AP5 weapons there is?

I'm not saying 2+ is bad. I'm wondering what is the point of ion shields. As is ion shield 4+ and 5+ have super limited use. Questor gets to save on 5+ vs AP3 but beside that invulnerable save 6+ would do the same job.

Unless I'm missing something.

I dont think you're missing anything. I think someone just didn't think through the mechanical design all that well. They cooked up an ability that seemed ok, threw it on their, and moved on without doing any real mechanical analysis or playtesting to validate it.

chaos0xomega wrote:
I dont think you're missing anything. I think someone just didn't think through the mechanical design all that well. They cooked up an ability that seemed ok, threw it on their, and moved on without doing any real mechanical analysis or playtesting to validate it.

This.

Half the special rules are useless bloat.

Ion shield? just give them invulnerable.

If I don't misunderstand there is one more advantage to the ion save in that the armourbane rule doesn't work against it as it only works against armour saves.
So for example the Acastus gets shot at by a -1 armourbane weapon so its normal save is reduced to 3+ and the ion save stays at 4+. Normally you'd say why have the ion save in the first place then but if you use the normal armour save you would have to reroll the save due to armourbane which isn't the case for the ion save.
So with that shot you'd have a 44% chance to save at your normal 3+ with a reroll but a 50% chance to save at the 4+ ion save.
Same for higher AP:
AP2: 25% chance to save on 4+ save vs 33% chance to save on 5+ ion save
AP3: 11% chance to save on 5+ save vs 33% chance to save on 5+ ion save
AP4: 2.7% chance to save on 6+ save vs 16.6% chance to save on 6+ ion save
And AP5 and up you will only have the ion save anyway

SU-152 wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
I dont think you're missing anything. I think someone just didn't think through the mechanical design all that well. They cooked up an ability that seemed ok, threw it on their, and moved on without doing any real mechanical analysis or playtesting to validate it.

This.

Half the special rules are useless bloat.

Ion shield? just give them invulnerable.

It's insane how some are incredibly to the point and others are like 10 paragraphs. I tend to agree I wish they just had an invul save at this point.

Got my Baneblades today. They're tiny compared to the variants I printed myself, haha, I did print mine huge because I was trying to hit the point where they felt like they were worthy of their rules.

Now to decide whether I reprint my Baneblade-variants smaller or just leave it.

 Matrindur wrote:
If I don't misunderstand there is one more advantage to the ion save in that the armourbane rule doesn't work against it as it only works against armour saves.
So for example the Acastus gets shot at by a -1 armourbane weapon so its normal save is reduced to 3+ and the ion save stays at 4+. Normally you'd say why have the ion save in the first place then but if you use the normal armour save you would have to reroll the save due to armourbane which isn't the case for the ion save.
So with that shot you'd have a 44% chance to save at your normal 3+ with a reroll but a 50% chance to save at the 4+ ion save.
Same for higher AP:
AP2: 25% chance to save on 4+ save vs 33% chance to save on 5+ ion save
AP3: 11% chance to save on 5+ save vs 33% chance to save on 5+ ion save
AP4: 2.7% chance to save on 6+ save vs 16.6% chance to save on 6+ ion save
And AP5 and up you will only have the ion save anyway

Good point. Vanquisher cannon take that!

Also works with cover save too. Take cover if facing armour bane.

One could see it in the points of both, but after another game involving Knights and SuperHeavies, it saddens me the turn in relative power.

I mean, in all previous versions of Epic, a Superheavy was more powerful than a Knight (hey, not the big Acastus). Now it is the other way around? Was it like that in the background/fluff?

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Got my Baneblades today. They're tiny compared to the variants I printed myself, haha, I did print mine huge because I was trying to hit the point where they felt like they were worthy of their rules

My Baneblades are on the way, and are going to be painted in Death Guard colours

A bit annoying with the 2 tank pack, if I want to play a company of them in original Epic I will need another box or to pick up a spare 2nd hand.

SU-152 wrote:
One could see it in the points of both, but after another game involving Knights and SuperHeavies, it saddens me the turn in relative power.

I mean, in all previous versions of Epic, a Superheavy was more powerful than a Knight (hey, not the big Acastus). Now it is the other way around? Was it like that in the background/fluff?

In earlier versions a super-heavy was just a tank that could take 2 hits and had a bunch of extra guns. A bit like now, in fact. It's a toss up whether Andy Chamber's early rules for knights were more or less powerful, with their off-centre shield. It was in Epic 40,000 super-heavy tanks got promoted to 'War Engine', with a critical hit chart (but since a lot of the results were 'vehicle destroyed' it wasn't a great leap in power).

MarkNorfolk wrote:

SU-152 wrote:
One could see it in the points of both, but after another game involving Knights and SuperHeavies, it saddens me the turn in relative power.

I mean, in all previous versions of Epic, a Superheavy was more powerful than a Knight (hey, not the big Acastus). Now it is the other way around? Was it like that in the background/fluff?

In earlier versions a super-heavy was just a tank that could take 2 hits and had a bunch of extra guns. A bit like now, in fact. It's a toss up whether Andy Chamber's early rules for knights were more or less powerful, with their off-centre shield. It was in Epic 40,000 super-heavy tanks got promoted to 'War Engine', with a critical hit chart (but since a lot of the results were 'vehicle destroyed' it wasn't a great leap in power).

In epic 40k SHTs were way more powerful than standard Knights. Same in Epic Armageddon (with both SHTs and Knight having a Critical : Destroyed).

It feels weird now, is it like that in the fluff? I doubt it but anyways

 Pacific wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Got my Baneblades today. They're tiny compared to the variants I printed myself, haha, I did print mine huge because I was trying to hit the point where they felt like they were worthy of their rules

My Baneblades are on the way, and are going to be painted in Death Guard colours

A bit annoying with the 2 tank pack, if I want to play a company of them in original Epic I will need another box or to pick up a spare 2nd hand.

I had already printed up some falchions, but yeah, they're big boys



Are Legion operated Baneblade variants still in the fluff? I thought they only existed until GW released the SM-specific Baneblade variants (Falchion, Glaive, Fellblade).

Thanks AllSeeingSkink, that is indeed a big boy!

I am not sure if it's canon, pretty sure there is some artwork in Collected Visions but then there are also giant open top rhinos full of about a dozen space wolves so know it is not generally thought to be completely kosher

HH 2.0 still has marine-operated Baneblade variants in the Legacies document, yes, just like Perturabo has his Tormentor. They are hilariously overpriced in the game, but haven't been excised from the background.