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Ok am up to page three, so apologise if this is countered later.

First, use spoiler tags for large images - with my small screen I have to move it back and forth like a typewriter with every line. Ping.

Second, yes I too would like to do a tourney. Not least because I have awesome terrain'd table.

Then to the problem. As TO, org point would definitively be that all units must clearly belong to their formation. Base colours, flags, jingles. Don't care, they need to be.

I would _probably_ limit formations. Spamming small ones has pros and cons, the main con is speed...

They will resolve things a bit, but as you say, space. Would have to play around with it, can I have trailing lines of dead coming off each formation? A counter unit like a Kings of War multibase formation (tracks hits to a unit). Blast markers/other counters. Currently if it has to be offtable I think a bulk buy of those different colour small squares used to learn to count in school (not dice, they get rolled by accident), or similar tactile multiple colour objects that can be used as dead piles.

small formations are so easily broken they are seriously fragile and can lose utility at that point

some care less than others but for all the +1 morale effect can be significant in the "brave Sir robin" factor

as long as its clear, and clear "at a glance" what is part of what its not too bad so far (three formations at 1,400 so far here, opponent has four).

do wonder on adding a victory point for breaking a formation as a general thing, its not much but a slight discouragement to split them up more than tactically useful

could have a counter for each formation, I have a small block I use in LotR, holds four dice and follows characters about - something like that, start with the breakpoint of the formation showing, placed near the formation in the same colour or where its visible - then count down as casualties come

with some penalty in effect to discourage "mistakes", it should be easy to check - formation size at start v whats currently on the table.

The_Real_Chris wrote:


Then to the problem. As TO, org point would definitively be that all units must clearly belong to their formation. Base colours, flags, jingles. Don't care, they need to be.

That's not one system though, so how will you, the TO, implement this standard in terms of verification? Like I get its simple to communicate it as a requirement, but on the other end of that, verifying they complied, that's potentially a lot of headache. If someone hasn't marked their models accordance to their formation, or done so poorly, how would you verify that? I'm not trying to put this on you, but gw gave us no objective standard or method for any of this. They didn't include flags or a system ect. There are practical considerations as well, colours on a base don't help colourblind players, that may sound specific and it is but in my case one of my potential opponents would be colour blind, so handing him a chart with colours that indicate formations isn't much help, he'd need a number or letter system. I've heard suggestions of number under bases, which is at least objective, but you have to pick them up to observe that, so again it's good but not great.



And how will you be handling the based tank brigade? (people who base units that shouldn't have bases and do not come with them) Because that appears to be the next delicate subject for events. But I mean surely if an event has strict modelling requirements like ensuring every model has in an objective indication of which formation it belongs to then asking players not to glue their tanks to bases should be an easy one.

It's a bit of a pain for the TO, but you can get rubber bands in massive quantities for fairly cheap.

Ask players to submit lists at least 1 week before event (or whatever feels reasonable to the TO to have enough time to pull this off).

TO goes through lists, marks rubber bands with I, II, III, IV, V, etc to correspond with formation, puts them in a little baggie, and hands it to the player on signing in.

Player puts rubber bands around model as appropriate for their list.


Probably untenable due to each player probably needing 100+ rubber bands to cover their models (I'm honestly not sure how many models the average army brings). But with enough time and volunteers tempted with free beer/snacks could work.

This at least avoids the issues of
1) Making players paint a certain way
2) Making players come up with their own bespoke system
3) Marking bases and doing ???? to vehicles.
4) Does not cause issues if 1 or more player are color blind

From the player's perspective, they sign up, submit lists, and receive a baggie of game aids. Easy Peasy.

 Rihgu wrote:
It's a bit of a pain for the TO, but you can get rubber bands in massive quantities for fairly cheap.

Ask players to submit lists at least 1 week before event (or whatever feels reasonable to the TO to have enough time to pull this off).

TO goes through lists, marks rubber bands with I, II, III, IV, V, etc to correspond with formation, puts them in a little baggie, and hands it to the player on signing in.

Player puts rubber bands around model as appropriate for their list.


Probably untenable due to each player probably needing 100+ rubber bands to cover their models (I'm honestly not sure how many models the average army brings). But with enough time and volunteers tempted with free beer/snacks could work.

This at least avoids the issues of
1) Making players paint a certain way
2) Making players come up with their own bespoke system
3) Marking bases and doing ???? to vehicles.
4) Does not cause issues if 1 or more player are color blind

From the player's perspective, they sign up, submit lists, and receive a baggie of game aids. Easy Peasy.

Or they could just combine the break numbers of their formations into one number and now you only have to police people putting bases on things that don't have them.

 Skimask Mohawk wrote:

 westiebestie wrote:


Well, drawing indications from available data sets are much more indicative and reasonable than saying it is or isn't so based on no data or argument. The samples are enough to see indications. You can't tell if the responders are new comers or already existing ones as you indicate. Feel free to post relevant polls if you feel the need to dive deeper, or provide any other data or argument that you think supports your claim that RG infiltration is indeed not a minority case, or indeed an issue.

My claim is that it's incredibly easy to add Raven Guard or Alphas on to pre-existing forces. My next claim was that polling using "data" with no numbers is disingenuous. The third claim was that taking a get hype poll to make an argument for strategy viability is incongruous; should I claim any legion tech is unlikely because nothing broke 9% of votes? Just never worry about getting charged by world eater assault infantry because they only got 4% of votes at 25 people.

Later on once SA get their required Rapiers we'll see if the Pioneer formation is popular. With only minority printers currently having theoretical access to it it can't be common. Right now I've yet to see any SA print army contain them. Have you seen it played, at all?

I'll let you know after our next game since yes, we have SA rapiers. And why wouldn't it be popular, especially right now? It's the only source for barrage from the SA faction and is the higher scaling between them and marines (who also have a ton of competing choices for the support slot). You also get the very useful veltaris, and another source of super-valuable HQ aura. Plus infiltrate and forward deploy for tanks. It's 150 minimum and is the better formation to dump detachments into for SA simply because they get benefits as opposed to...none.

As told now by numerous responses by numerous people, we don't see Infiltration as hard to counter or an "issue".

Ya but you guys also just ignored half of what I wrote re: screens in and out of detachment, ease of implementation in list, tempo in a scoring system known to prompt snowballing, etc... Almost like you didn't really read what I was saying or something.

All Astartes have access to Storm Eagles & Assault marines. SE is an Assault Transport, Ass Marines can disembark during flight, charge order and get a bonus CAF vs garrisoned structures to boot. SE moves 25", Ass Marines charge 14". Thunderhawk works too.

Got me there on the storm eagles and thunderhawks. But I'll point out that 200 points in storm eagles to carry 30 points of 4 ASM loses to that single Alpha Legion 13 model brick of a detachment that was ~155 and had 2-8 ASM. That's also ignoring that the storm eagles need to pray they don't get overwatched pre-disembark (as in, as soon as they enter range) as that 1 wound and a 3+ base doesn't do much. I'll also point out the irony of using the unavailable storm eagle as a counter-example, after all this talk about niche/minority. It's a strategy that lets you have a chance of breaking their early scoring, but it just costs way more and is at the mercy of a few factors (terrain for placement, detachment comp for either just out-fighting the maximum of 4 ASM getting out of the Eagles per formation or for blowing them up, enemy orders, etc...). So it's kind a less efficient strategy. And only works on one objective per formation unless you run the Air one.

As soon as Land Raiders drop this threat expands to most infantry. 16" ish March for LR + 10" ish charge + 10 DZ takes you to 36", well past midfield objectives unless the table is huge.

As soon as the venators and tanks with shock pulse drop it cuts it all in half. So does access to currently available quake blasts. But most importantly, you can't drive over intervening enemy models lol. That's the entire point of taking screening units; you put them in front of your scoring ones to prevent them from getting charged. Also, that whole thing about tempo and point investment efficiency

Leaving data indications aside as we clearly view that differently, we can just agree that regardless of interpretation no available data indicates RG will be common, but view it differently if the available data indicates they are un-common.

Yes, it's super easy to add any Legion Formation. I think the difference is you think adding RG might be common because of Infiltrate and Infiltrate is seen as an issue.

I say lets see, I don't think they will be because there are much stronger exploit builds possible and I don't see any problems with Infiltrate as there are already many counters and more coming. If you find there's a short window now before e.g. drop Pods & assault transports arrive that Infiltrate is hard to counter for you guys then you'll find there are other gaps and exploits too until we get complete army lists. Lack of AA, Transports, Artillery etc. Its a subset of the game yet.

Arguing Storm Eagles are unavailable even though they've been for sale for years, many of us have them already and they are available to print since long, is strange. Especially while also claiming the availability of unreleased SA Rapiers only available to print armies is not a limiting factor and should be "popular, especially right now".

Let us know how the SA Pioneers go! I think it would be fun for both. Unless enemy is also SA maybe, as they have much fewer counter options than Astartes.

Oh I read your messages, I didn't comment on the screening or reinforced early lead strategy as there are many tactical counters mentioned and drawbacks to that aggressive early strategy. See below for examples. Since you thought Astartes can't get further than 14" a turn I think that coloured your perceptions. Midfield objectives are about 14" from DZ so bear in mind you can get to within scoring range of them with a lot of untransported stuff too.

Yes, Storm Eagles are expensive. Yes, taking just one would be difficult to do much with vs maximum infiltration, thats not what I would recommend. You need to see the army as a whole, that's one option to have you assault from behind screens and all the way out to the enemy deployment zone objectives ability (40" from own edge), it costs and should cost. There are cheaper ways of getting just to the middle. You keep talking about screens and air dropped troops mean you have to spread out your screen to 360, which is difficult. Anyway real soon cheaper Drop Pods are reducing the cost and limitations of this strategy. They are also arriving Turn 1 and pretty much anywhere.

You mention infiltration Venators. Overwatching all approaching Assault Transports with your one Infiltrated Armour detachment per Pioneer Formation and hitting on 6s in general. With luck you'll stop one approaching detachment for sure. Only being able to Overwatch once vs each approaching Assault detachment also limits redundancy strategy.

Analyzing Infiltrate. I think you'll find it's a double edged sword. Its essentially a gamble, as you open yourself up to divide & conquer for early gains. I like when an opponent uses it because it opens up more tactical options for me.

Some of the tactical exploits I think about when the enemy deploys infiltrated to ~midfield objectives
-Opens up possibility to Charge already turn 1, great for any assault focused army components
-Opens up possibility to focus fire on a part of his army with my full army, which is now also within reach of shorter range weapons. Divide & conquer.
-Opens up possibility to drop units behind his units to get past any screens
-Opens up possibility to drop units behind his units to cut off Fallback paths
-Opens up possibility to drop units behind any Infiltrated Armour to get Rear Arc shots (arguably limited use until we get drop Pods to drop Dreads / Melta Infantry)
-Opens up options to contest objectives in his now weaker deployment zone, since he spread out his army

I am sure greater players have many more tricks to choose from.

So to summarize, I welcome Infiltrate, regardless of Scenario scoring type. It makes for interesting games, some times an opponent will benefit from a Reinforced early infiltrate strategy, many times they will instead loose big due to exploits of their spread out army.

Game designers clearly gave AL, RG and SA Pioneers the ability to play in character, and all players more tactical variation in how they want to fight a battle. I think thats great.

 Crablezworth wrote:

The_Real_Chris wrote:


Then to the problem. As TO, org point would definitively be that all units must clearly belong to their formation. Base colours, flags, jingles. Don't care, they need to be.

That's not one system though, so how will you, the TO, implement this standard in terms of verification? Like I get its simple to communicate it as a requirement, but on the other end of that, verifying they complied, that's potentially a lot of headache. If someone hasn't marked their models accordance to their formation, or done so poorly, how would you verify that? I'm not trying to put this on you, but gw gave us no objective standard or method for any of this. They didn't include flags or a system ect. There are practical considerations as well, colours on a base don't help colourblind players, that may sound specific and it is but in my case one of my potential opponents would be colour blind, so handing him a chart with colours that indicate formations isn't much help, he'd need a number or letter system. I've heard suggestions of number under bases, which is at least objective, but you have to pick them up to observe that, so again it's good but not great.

Does there need to be one system? If the formations are easily discerned, by whatever method, isn't that enough? All the tanks in the Armoured Company? Sorted. Two demi-legios? Is one is Dark Angels, the other Imperial Fists? Or is one on blue bases and the other on red bases? No wukkas. Does one player have a finely painted army with company markings, another with coloured/numbered tokens next to each detachment? Cushty, mon bruv.

And how will you be handling the based tank brigade? (people who base units that shouldn't have bases and do not come with them) Because that appears to be the next delicate subject for events. But I mean surely if an event has strict modelling requirements like ensuring every model has in an objective indication of which formation it belongs to then asking players not to glue their tanks to bases should be an easy one.

Should be a rare occurrence. I did base my old Forge World Vanquishers just to protect that long thing main weapon barrel a bit. A note about measuring from/to the vehicle itself will do, surely. As long as the base is a 'tight fit' to the model then issues should be trivial.

That sounds a sensible way of doing it. We used to have the same thing with Flames of War, some people preferred to base their tanks, you just ignore that for sake of measurements and go from the vehicle itself - job done.

Yes, it's super easy to add any Legion Formation. I think the difference is you think adding RG might be common because of Infiltrate and Infiltrate is seen as an issue

I guess it's just my experience of playing GW games. People figure out what works and gives them the best advantage in the game and take it. It happened in 6th with allies (and then everything else they added on), 7th with detachments and formations, 8th with loyal 32, 9th with all the various op armies and builds, 10th with eldar and knights, heresy 2nd with contemptors and las heavy supports, AT with Vulcan/plasma hounds and acastus. People have brought up already playing against mixed legions with world eater assaults, death guard obj campers and another legion for the tanks. It's just a matter of time. I'll also use this opportunity to say i reread the allies/multi legion rules and having multiple legions doesn't make them allies; alphas get the full 3 detachments and EC get the initiative steal.

i say lets see, I don't think they will be because there are much stronger exploit builds possible and I don't see any problems with Infiltrate as there are already many counters and more coming. If you find there's a short window now before e.g. drop Pods & assault transports arrive that Infiltrate is hard to counter for you guys then you'll find there are other gaps and exploits too until we get complete army lists. Lack of AA, Transports, Artillery etc. Its a subset of the game yet.

I'll admit that maybe when the full compliment of artillery is out you'll be able to bomb the infiltrating units with ease, ignoring any los blocking terrain, break up the screens, and allow fast moving stuff to actually get on the objective. But, and I'll keep on saying it, the ability to bubble wrap and screen the objectives really deflects ground assault, pods, and some air drops depending on the board context. These counters aren't really counters; they let you interact with the the opening strategy, but you're still down on tempo and points needed to solve the problem. Like, the nature of infiltrate allows for the infiltrating player to react to their opponents deployment and create the most favourable set up for themselves.

Arguing Storm Eagles are unavailable even though they've been for sale for years, many of us have them already and they are available to print since long, is strange. Especially while also claiming the availability of unreleased SA Rapiers only available to print armies is not a limiting factor and should be "popular, especially right now".

I...didn't. I said it was ironic you were using it as an example after the whole infiltrate is a minority tactic and shouldn't be worried about. Like, the only people who own storm eagles are people who played AI, or played community modified Epic; also a minority of players considering the volume of sales LI. I also never claimed the bit about rapiers lol. You asked if I had seen anyone with SA rapiers, i answered yes. I realize i worded my answer oddly though; I meant "right now" as in the context of the current wave. Once the rapiers are fully available, then the formation should be super popular in the current rules set for all the reasons I mentioned.

many tactical counters mentioned and drawbacks to that aggressive early strategy

But there really aren't many...counters. You're not at risk of losing the game if the opponent spends like 3x the amount of points to trade out your advanced objective holders.

Since you thought Astartes can't get further than 14" a turn I think that coloured your perceptions. Midfield objectives are about 14" from DZ so bear in mind you can get to within scoring range of them with a lot of untransported stuff too.

No, i thought astartes stuff couldn't charge past 14" from turn 1 starting in their DZ lol. That's very, very different from moving more than 14" in general. And yes, you can obviously march into range, which is why i keep on suggesting some sort of screen and bubblewrap play. Make them move around impassable terrain/through difficult and around the screen, and then they won't have enough tactical strength within 3" to contest, let alone flip (since you're pushed back 1" from enemy models).

Storm Eagles are expensive. Yes, taking just one would be difficult to do much with vs maximum infiltration

It wasn't even maximum infiltration. It was one detachment that costs 108-120 points. And also I said two storm eagles, because you need 2 to transport 4 bases of assault marines.

You keep talking about screens and air dropped troops mean you have to spread out your screen to 360, which is difficult. Anyway real soon cheaper Drop Pods are reducing the cost and limitations of this strategy. They are also arriving Turn 1 and pretty much anywhere.

See above about how it practically functions. You don't need the screen to be 360, you just need it to stop stuff coming from the front. Drop pods have the potential to contest if you dump a large enough detachment and they don't lose models. But also, you know, another example of a unit that can easy snowball a lead on progressive GW scoring lol.

You mention infiltration Venators. Overwatching all approaching Assault Transports with your one Infiltrated Armour detachment per Pioneer Formation and hitting on 6s in general. With luck you'll stop one approaching detachment for sure. Only being able to Overwatch once vs each approaching Assault detachment also limits redundancy strategy.

Or whatever you take from alpha legion when the sicarans/falchions/Sabres are out. As part of your 3 detachment per formation. And like usual, if your opponent is sending multiple detachments in assault transports and wildly out spending you just to contest an objective, then that's fine. And also like usual, if you have that line of a screen you're forcing people to waste movement driving around.

I feel like i need to take some pictures or something to illustrate my point.

Analyzing Infiltrate. I think you'll find it's a double edged sword. Its essentially a gamble, as you open yourself up to divide & conquer for early gains

No, i don't. It's been one of the strongest usrs to have on a unit since it's been introduced in GW games, even with end game scoring. It's not a gamble; the infiltrating player has full control about where to place their models, with full information from your opponents deployment.

Only issue is bigger footprint which could be used to block movement etc but don't be jerk and if need be move vehicles so the infantry fits where they could go(i'm assuming vehille player doesn't want models over his base.

Based vehicles work in other games without officially having base. Not really issue.

infiltrate is strong, specifically due to the way the scenarios score - if you can score one more objective than your opponent on the first turn, or more, they are now on the back foot the rest of the game and you can afford to fall back to defend

 Skimask Mohawk wrote:

Analyzing Infiltrate. I think you'll find it's a double edged sword. Its essentially a gamble, as you open yourself up to divide & conquer for early gains

No, i don't. It's been one of the strongest usrs to have on a unit since it's been introduced in GW games, even with end game scoring. It's not a gamble; the infiltrating player has full control about where to place their models, with full information from your opponents deployment.

I cut down your response even though I read it all and appreciate your experiences, to be clear.

In essence, we have contradictory experiences. In multiple game systems and editions I've seen some of the most crushing defeats when one player spreads out too aggressively, gets overextended and the divide&conquer exploitation effects follow. I've also of course seen devastating Alpha Strikes and early leads not being clawed back, and games won by Infiltrating as a start. Way fewer times though outside of tactically simpler games like 40k though. It's anecdotal both ways and our experiences differ so that's that.

Since I dont know how your community plays to tactically reinforce or counter Infiltrate there's no possibility or point in arguing why you feel it can't be countered just as any strategy, tactic, deployment has answers. Yes it's a type of play opening that opens yourself to answer and in this case even exploits. You can say there are no counters all you want. Or swap the word to a word you like that corresponds to response to a early game style, countering it. I also note you left out my spelled out list of counters and exploits I use of your quote.

Any Lost/Broken Infiltrating Formation or lost Detachment(s) is the drawback of the double edged sword. If you first played a subset of your army against an entire army and later play the remaining army against that full army, you'll be at a disadvantage in both phases. I dont know why your experience is that the divide & conquer player can't then profit back in scoring, 40k aside.🤷

Anyway in LI, most Armies as they seem to look right now will likely choose to focus fire on infiltating Formation (s) with their entire army and any shrewd player will aim to Break infiltrators Formation, one at a time. Firing with an entire army on them should mean they Break quickly given the lethality. Once Broken failed Morale checks due to casualties will increase which makes it snowball a little and any clever opponent will focus on one unit at a time if they want later casualty Morale checks already in the turn 1 to be made at -1 Moral in the now Broken Formation. Detachments that remain but are in a Broken Formation can't First Fire Turn 2. They can still Overwatch on Advance order but can be both First Fired and CCed before we get to Turn 2 Advancing Fire stage so might have to go through another few Morale Checks at -1 before they eventually even get to shoot.

So to summarize you find it difficult to the point of it being an issue dealing with Infiltrate in LI, ok noted. I think it adds more tactical layers to the game while allowing certain armies to play in character. I see multiple possible ways of dealing with it and more coming. You think it will be common in competitive play. Ok noted, let's see.

Here are some other Legion Trait builds examples you might want to think about if adding Formations for competitive (ab)use is your angle & worry

-WE mass assault infantry
-WS/EC air superiority / air cav w improved Jinks & choice of Initiative once
-UM Armoured Companys, with small cheap high RoF detachments "painting" units with hits, used to give bigger units re-rolls
-minimal DG Formation just for robbing the enemy of key terrain
-IW Demi-Company with stacked Tactical Strength bonuses to Walkers, running Infantry at TS 6-7, Walkers TS 4-6.
Etc

Combine with the usual min-maxing and/or skew/spam list building concepts. Check the FB groups, there are interesting people & ideas there. Personally the scariest skew list I've yet to see proposed is the all Infantry SA list.

Have a nice day!

Edit: quoting tags

amusing bit is bring a Death Guard formation, even a small one, and you get their ability

let your opponent gloat about it, bide your time, later remind him that only his Death Guard can safely enter those objective areas they now also want

leopard wrote:
infiltrate is strong, specifically due to the way the scenarios score - if you can score one more objective than your opponent on the first turn, or more, they are now on the back foot the rest of the game and you can afford to fall back to defend

How do you mean?

If the Infiltrating side score the midfield ones Turn 1 and then falls back, weakened (or not), that leaves opponent to score them turns 2-5 comfortably swinging the vp result.

In most scenarios the Infiltrating side needs to last a majority of Turns on the non DZ objectives before falling back if the vp Maths are to add up. 3 Turns in a 5 Turn game. More if secondary scoring rewards table control that is also given up by retreating.

 westiebestie wrote:

leopard wrote:
infiltrate is strong, specifically due to the way the scenarios score - if you can score one more objective than your opponent on the first turn, or more, they are now on the back foot the rest of the game and you can afford to fall back to defend

How do you mean?

If the Infiltrating side score the midfield ones Turn 1 and then falls back, weakened (or not), that leaves opponent to score them turns 2-5 comfortably swinging the vp result.

In most scenarios the Infiltrating side needs to last a majority of Turns on the non DZ objectives before falling back if the vp Maths are to add up. 3 Turns in a 5 Turn game. More if secondary scoring rewards table control that is also given up by retreating.

mean if you can infiltrate you can grab turn one, you then move up and consolidate with other units - its not falling back, it only puts you ahead by a bit. but once you have them you reinforce them but have little need to go further.

my fault for not making this clearer.

have managed to make this sort of work with bods in Rhinos, infiltration is a cheaper way to do it and you can use that to be there to block enemy in transports from just walking up

leopard wrote:

 westiebestie wrote:

leopard wrote:
infiltrate is strong, specifically due to the way the scenarios score - if you can score one more objective than your opponent on the first turn, or more, they are now on the back foot the rest of the game and you can afford to fall back to defend

How do you mean?

If the Infiltrating side score the midfield ones Turn 1 and then falls back, weakened (or not), that leaves opponent to score them turns 2-5 comfortably swinging the vp result.

In most scenarios the Infiltrating side needs to last a majority of Turns on the non DZ objectives before falling back if the vp Maths are to add up. 3 Turns in a 5 Turn game. More if secondary scoring rewards table control that is also given up by retreating.

mean if you can infiltrate you can grab turn one, you then move up and consolidate with other units - its not falling back, it only puts you ahead by a bit. but once you have them you reinforce them but have little need to go further.

my fault for not making this clearer.

have managed to make this sort of work with bods in Rhinos, infiltration is a cheaper way to do it and you can use that to be there to block enemy in transports from just walking up

Aha, yeah you wrote "you can afford to fall back to defend" which is the opposite of reinforcing, I couldn't make sense of that. Then we're on the same page now! Reinforced forward deployment exploit. Then possibly fall back to Castle defence after amassing unbeatable lead.

Basically anyone Infiltrating in a standard progressive scoring needs to net hold more objectives for a majority of Turns, while facing divide & conquer challenges, for it to work in the end. Which is part of the reason I find its often not worth it, even before taking in the varied scoring types you are likely to face. Infiltrate builds with only End game scoring for example, while all the other more generic Legion buffs are useful in any scenario.

The smallest possible modification I can think of to diminish that strategy's chances of success for any reason, would be the common practise of removing scoring Turn 1 in progressive scoring scenarios as previously discussed.

ah yes my bad, by fall back I was more thinking you infiltrate to secure and block an objective then fall back to cover to defend it

hardest part here so far, in smaller 1,400 games though, is defending the rear from deep striking units while having enough advancing to grab the midfield

my usually opponent likes to sit back, in cover and try to pounce late game. as the game grows I will have rear area stuff (likely a SA formation so rear objectives have some warm bodies on them as they are cheap enough)

@westie ya Dakkas quote system is frustrating; similarly i did read your answer.

I left out your list of counters because I've already covered the charge aspect enough times, and the rest fall into a lot of speculation because we have no rules for pods and need to see the pod specific formation. Ultimately, forcing deepstrikers to react and drop in the midfield where most of the game is going to be taking place already, is a positive. You're forcing a big commitment to prevent you from taking a lead, while concentrating the enemy's forces and drawing out some of their disruption? Seems like you're ahead in game tempo.

Stuffs going to die. These detachments being put ahead to score are going to die at some point; it's only a problem if it dies/runs before getting any value, or breaks with some of the formation being in a position that would require march/first fire. But meanwhile, of course, you have the rest of your army to use as your opponent is trying to prevent you from taking an early lead. Like I'm not proposing to send out faramir to hold osgiliath without reinforcement and just turtle in Minas tirith if you know what I mean.

And you know what, i totally agree you can jam other legions in to a list to get gamey advantages. All those things just reinforce the strengths of the detachments...and you can do it all in combination with some forward objective grabbing formations lol. There is 0 game reason not tool your formations for a given legion to squuze more juice.

I also agree that there's stronger lists and that adding infiltrators to your army makes it broken. And that swarms of ogryn tercios is terrifying. But my entire original point is that both systems of scoring has optimal, gamey, strategies for securing the win. And infiltrate (and pods) is one of the tools for progressive scoring.

@Skimask: fair, I understand your points. I don't necessarily agree on your takes but I respect and value your perspectives.

The easiest to play and least costly counter is of course simply focussed shooting on the smaller Infiltrated force, breaking and decimating it at a higher tempo than it can do back to your full force. You can also choose to charge Turn 1 with pricy options or contest with cheap if you decimated any screens. Regardless you can mass charge turn 2 without. Weather screens & footprint blocking can be reinforced or not is going to decide how that goes. But a full army First firing into an opponent using part of his army to move up behind should kill at a higher rate.

Scoring tempo wise, an early lead is only good if it can be held to the end, if you indeed pay the price for being divided & conquered by fading it will swing and you net loose in the end. Its the beauty of it. Makes those games pretty interesting imo.

Interesting for sure to see if assault transports & pods can be taken in any general Transport slot of e.g. a Demi-Company.

Finally the point we agree most clearly on, ease of mixing multiple Legion Formations. Competitive list builders generally don't like situational benefits, like only valuable in certain scenarios. They tend to exploit the easiest to use general buffs. Especially in a Tournament context with a mix of Scenarios & scoring types. Infiltrating in an End game scoring only scenario, in an alternating activation game where Alpha strike benefits are mostly out, is opening yourself to exploits and risk for little or no scoring benefit. Similarly when you face CC monsters like WE or mass Ogryns, the last thing you want is starting closer to them.. When you could instead have chosen general buffs.

I guess we'll have to wait and see how the wider community and the competitive one build their lists, and if Infiltrate is popular/strong enough to feature or not in those contexts. Now and later on once we have more complete army lists.

Enjoy your games & day!

PS. Love the Faramir reference. DS.

Yep. Going to objectives 1st gives you vp's to begin with but you are going to take higher casualties. So it will be balancing act whether you can keep it. So there's 2 ways to play.

Meanwhile end game going to objectives early has zero value and you are punished heavily. Armies like blood angels, world eaters, sons of horus etc might just as well not show up.

tneva82 wrote:
Yep. Going to objectives 1st gives you vp's to begin with but you are going to take higher casualties. So it will be balancing act whether you can keep it. So there's 2 ways to play.

Meanwhile end game going to objectives early has zero value and you are punished heavily. Armies like blood angels, world eaters, sons of horus etc might just as well not show up.

Years and years of 40k has never shown either of those to be what happens.

8th-10th of 40k has had going first into progressive objectives always result in a higher winrate. Taking an early lead and compounding it is the literal name of the game of winning progressive objectives, as they need to make up for both the points they lost and the points you gained.

Close combat-ranged armies also didn't flat out lose due to end game scoring. Blood Angels and the like were notorious in 3rd for rhino rushing into combat and winning. Orks were great for editions off the strength of melee and super short ranged shooting. Like, maybe if it was only ever planet bowling ball or something equally terrible in terms of terrain.

key is you may take higher casualties, trick is going to be managing and mitigating that.

e.g. grab both mid field objectives where there are two, but pick the one you will be able to hold - e.g. there is a building between it and the enemy you can both occupy and have bods behind.

you get the early lead and now your opponent is the one under pressure, infantry are harder to shift when they don't need to move.

but even the objective you think you will not hold, grab it, get the points, then give it up - you had both for a turn and focus on holding one, you will stay ahead

then the secondaries start to matter, as does taking advantage of a poor defence in the rear.

will come down a fair bit to the terrain layout and density

 Skimask Mohawk wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Yep. Going to objectives 1st gives you vp's to begin with but you are going to take higher casualties. So it will be balancing act whether you can keep it. So there's 2 ways to play.

Meanwhile end game going to objectives early has zero value and you are punished heavily. Armies like blood angels, world eaters, sons of horus etc might just as well not show up.

Years and years of 40k has never shown either of those to be what happens.

8th-10th of 40k has had going first into progressive objectives always result in a higher winrate. Taking an early lead and compounding it is the literal name of the game of winning progressive objectives, as they need to make up for both the points they lost and the points you gained.

Close combat-ranged armies also didn't flat out lose due to end game scoring. Blood Angels and the like were notorious in 3rd for rhino rushing into combat and winning. Orks were great for editions off the strength of melee and super short ranged shooting. Like, maybe if it was only ever planet bowling ball or something equally terrible in terms of terrain.

Well 40K is not an Epic game, and 40k has not alternate activation...

...but, Epic Armageddon uses end game scoring and it is one of the most balanced games out there (can't say the same for LI seeing the points costs of the units though)...

SU-152 wrote:

 Skimask Mohawk wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Yep. Going to objectives 1st gives you vp's to begin with but you are going to take higher casualties. So it will be balancing act whether you can keep it. So there's 2 ways to play.

Meanwhile end game going to objectives early has zero value and you are punished heavily. Armies like blood angels, world eaters, sons of horus etc might just as well not show up.

Years and years of 40k has never shown either of those to be what happens.

8th-10th of 40k has had going first into progressive objectives always result in a higher winrate. Taking an early lead and compounding it is the literal name of the game of winning progressive objectives, as they need to make up for both the points they lost and the points you gained.

Close combat-ranged armies also didn't flat out lose due to end game scoring. Blood Angels and the like were notorious in 3rd for rhino rushing into combat and winning. Orks were great for editions off the strength of melee and super short ranged shooting. Like, maybe if it was only ever planet bowling ball or something equally terrible in terms of terrain.

Well 40K is not an Epic game, and 40k has not alternate activation...

...but, Epic Armageddon uses end game scoring and it is one of the most balanced games out there (can't say the same for LI seeing the points costs of the units though)...

Yeah unit balance is a bit all over with point costs. It's really obvious as you go up in points on titans, it's obviously a curve and not a linear progression in terms of what you get for your points. The 150 point difference between a warlord and warmaster is a good example of that, even the 75 point difference between a normal warlord and a psi one is a hell of deal. This is also my concern for planes, they seem pretty fragile with the exception of the thunderhawk. What's also setting planes apart is hover mode seems like a big deal, because being able to enter in hover mode means you can make use of los to keep incoming fire to a minimum. Only needing 6's to be hit can mean a really bad day with enough dice coming at you. We had initially thought jink stacked with armour as opposed to simply taking the best one.


An aspect I like about end game scoring with objectives is I feel it makes the story telling aspect of a battle or battle report a bit easier to grasp in that it's who held what in the end. This is also a bit of a hurdle to overcome with largely fixed objective locations. I just like the battlefield having like 4-6 important areas or structures, is is also how white dwarf did mega battle reports in the past. Very low victory points across the board so it was easier to track turn to turn. You got a good sort of ten thousand foot view of the boards turn to turn and maybe some diagrams to help piece things together, but visually you could track the battle or battles from page to page and in the end see a fairly straight forward summation of the battle, largelty in terms of who held what in the end and maybe if a special character was killed.

There's something much more straight forward to my mind being able to read like "imperials 6vp or 4vp" and have a breakdown of who held what like "the orks held the submarine depot, the marines held firm on the spaceport, the bridge remained contested" that to me just seems more comprehensible than who got what medals for holding what the longest even if they lost it. It's not that it isn't interesting to hear "the stormtroopers held the pumping station for 4 turns gaining them x vp that can't be taken away, only to lose the pumping station in the end to the meganobz, who for some reason got fewer vp even though it was theirs in the end". It's the same way some strategic objectives aren't super glamorous but like who holds a bridge or air strip for 6 minutes just doesn't seem like something I want to bother scoring. I do think though that perhaps having random game length might be something worth considering if end game scoring is going to be the majority scoring for scenario/mission packet I think that's the way I'll go initially.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Skimask Mohawk wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Yep. Going to objectives 1st gives you vp's to begin with but you are going to take higher casualties. So it will be balancing act whether you can keep it. So there's 2 ways to play.

Meanwhile end game going to objectives early has zero value and you are punished heavily. Armies like blood angels, world eaters, sons of horus etc might just as well not show up.

Years and years of 40k has never shown either of those to be what happens.

8th-10th of 40k has had going first into progressive objectives always result in a higher winrate. Taking an early lead and compounding it is the literal name of the game of winning progressive objectives, as they need to make up for both the points they lost and the points you gained.

Close combat-ranged armies also didn't flat out lose due to end game scoring. Blood Angels and the like were notorious in 3rd for rhino rushing into combat and winning. Orks were great for editions off the strength of melee and super short ranged shooting. Like, maybe if it was only ever planet bowling ball or something equally terrible in terms of terrain.

Something not considered too is, it's more difficult to document alternating activation games than turn based, so in terms of documenting a legions game, end game scoring is much easier to follow in terms of just the a-b-c of what happened. Only thing that might need more documenting is like planes coming and going off the board back into reserve but even with a very coles notes report of the battle you can have the final global picture of the board with simply what is left, where it is and what if anything it controls. That's so different then telling the turn by turn tale of where the score is/was at. 40k was more enjoyable before 8th.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

leopard wrote:
ah yes my bad, by fall back I was more thinking you infiltrate to secure and block an objective then fall back to cover to defend it

hardest part here so far, in smaller 1,400 games though, is defending the rear from deep striking units while having enough advancing to grab the midfield

my usually opponent likes to sit back, in cover and try to pounce late game. as the game grows I will have rear area stuff (likely a SA formation so rear objectives have some warm bodies on them as they are cheap enough)

I'm very much wishing for just a normal reserve option for units. Deep striking and outflank are powerful because the controlling player can just choose the when and where, deep strike at least has some element of risk and I actually would prefer a mishap table over simply the unit being removed from play if they can't be placed. With that said though, if normal reserve was perhaps limited but allowed the same level of choice in terms of when you want a unit to arrive from your board edge. Even if it was 0-1 per 1000pts it'd still be useful. Could have he same limitations as outflank in that I don't think you can arrive with charge order.

An aspect I like about end game scoring with objectives is I feel it makes the story telling aspect of a battle or battle report a bit easier to grasp in that it's who held what in the end. This is also a bit of a hurdle to overcome with largely fixed objective locations. I just like the battlefield having like 4-6 important areas or structures, is is also how white dwarf did mega battle reports in the past. Very low victory points across the board so it was easier to track turn to turn. You got a good sort of ten thousand foot view of the boards turn to turn and maybe some diagrams to help piece things together, but visually you could track the battle or battles from page to page and in the end see a fairly straight forward summation of the battle, largelty in terms of who held what in the end and maybe if a special character was killed.

There's something much more straight forward to my mind being able to read like "imperials 6vp or 4vp" and have a breakdown of who held what like "the orks held the submarine depot, the marines held firm on the spaceport, the bridge remained contested" that to me just seems more comprehensible than who got what medals for holding what the longest even if they lost it. It's not that it isn't interesting to hear "the stormtroopers held the pumping station for 4 turns gaining them x vp that can't be taken away, only to lose the pumping station in the end to the meganobz, who for some reason got fewer vp even though it was theirs in the end". It's the same way some strategic objectives aren't super glamorous but like who holds a bridge or air strip for 6 minutes just doesn't seem like something I want to bother scoring. I do think though that perhaps having random game length might be something worth considering if end game scoring is going to be the majority scoring for scenario/mission packet I think that's the way I'll go initially.

Totally agree with this.

VP scoring is not inmersive at all. Just numbers.

End-game goals like in Epic Armageddon is a way more engaging and narrative experience.

I do think the points/army lists discussions are premature as we have another 6 months of releases before the armies actually take shape. With spotty testing if at all things will be all over the place for ages.

The_Real_Chris wrote:
I do think the points/army lists discussions are premature as we have another 6 months of releases before the armies actually take shape. With spotty testing if at all things will be all over the place for ages.

while this is quite obviously correct keep in mind the humble Rhino pays points for a weapons upgrade, where as the Warlord titan, and indeed everything pretty much with a few exceptions, doesn't

then you have heavy support marines for the same price as the tactical support marines when one is quite clearly better than the other in just about every practical application

points are going to be all over unless GW get a grip

lists will be all over until more stuff comes out, and manages to stay in stock long enough to matter

The_Real_Chris wrote:
I do think the points/army lists discussions are premature as we have another 6 months of releases before the armies actually take shape. With spotty testing if at all things will be all over the place for ages.

Well some are more ahead of the curve than others, individuals 3d printing or using models from epic to fill gaps of what has rules but hasn't officially released, so that's some planes, deredeos and leviathans, aa/las tarantulas and rapiers for both sides. All of those have rules in the book and are not particularly difficult to proxy. Yes there's a lot more coming next year, but that doesn't change the analysis that can be made now.

For starter, it's plain to see point costs are on a curve and not linear. Starting with titans and knights, clearly the balance thought here wasn't points related but the realization that these units would not be common on account of the 70/30, meaning neither side can spam too much of it without going very very high point level games. That in addition to the options at least being identical for both factions does something for balance, but as leopard rightly points out a single rhino is being asked to pay 2 or 4 points for its weapon upgrade options while whole titans and knights are exempt from this with a few exceptions related to "upgrades" that are really just different sub classes of knight.

What that means is, it's already plain to see some units are just much better for the point costs, the only thing containing things somewhat is again the 70/30 overall availability with that ratio. A unit of armigers added to a knight is 180pts, it's 6 wounds, very good weaponry and overall prowess.

The titan's don't pay for weapons loadouts, so again there will be obvious winners and losers, plasma blast gun for example. The curve is evident when you look at what titans get for their point cost, the 150pts between a warlord and warmaster, it's staggering difference. Again this is a bit contained by the fact that you'd have to be playing a pretty big game to even field a warmaster, but a warlord can be fielded at around 2000pts level. Either way, this doesn't bode that well for stuff coming out, as there will likely be winners and losers.

From unit to unit now there's a few factors, what does it cost, how much do you save when adding to an existing detachment vs starting a new one. There's again point costs where you look at scratch your head a bit, leviathan vs contemptors, now granted you can add leviathans to contemptor detachments but either way, the point costs between the two units, give what you get for that point difference is difficult to ignore. Granted yes the contemptors with accurate las cannons are still good and different, they don't have close combat capabilties or 5+ inv save. In other words when we compare two units that are at least baseline similar and try and parse out the point costs differences and account for them, you realize something is indeed a bit odd with rhinos paying 2-4pts for their weapon upgrades or a thunberbolt randomly paying 3pts to upgrade its guns. So going back to titans not paying for theirs or at least not paying more for some of the options sorta rubs me the wrong way. The upside is that the list building is smoother as something a simple as a weapon choice doesn't throw off your whole list's allie ratio (70/30) but that comes at the cost of, it won't be long until certain builds just sorta reign supreme. I've seen a youtube video ranking weapon options on a warhound and it was quite in depth and well reasoned. Titanicus struggles to price weapons well even with them costing extra because the integers of 5pts don't leave much latitude to point things on an okay gradient so I'm not saying it's an easy task on the li side either, but it's something to note.

Lastly, maxed out detachments start having the game sorta frey at the seems, you're saving points all along the way and it's not really containing msu that much. You also get to a point where the sheer firepower of each activation, at least when it comes to tanks and planes, is so devastating it doesn't really matter that you can't split fire for most things.

At least these issues are well spread out, and with both factions being able to take the other as an allie, there's no one unit out of anyone reach, so that's also worth mentioning, but still, that doesn't change economy, that doesn't change people will do the math, combine it with their first hand experience and will simply have better lists for the points they spend. I actually think it's not worth obsessing over though it is a guarantee to happen, I feel the best way to go is find a point level where balance is less of a problem. I think it's also difficult to ignore that without limiting formations, marines armies with multiple legions could prove to be rather annoying, because all legions rules also have their winners and losers.

I think the upside though is unit types seems decently conceived, especially terrain wise. So that helps balance in that there are a lot of small considerations that may be difficult to cost out. Only concern is expansion making this worse, for example if heavy presence of drop pods isn't well conceived, it along with terminators could become rather oppressive, especially in the context of what will already possibly be a meta heavy with infiltration to gain early scoring on account of largely progressive vp scoring.

But ya points are whacky and so are formations, you can make 3000+ army from a single armoured formation. It will have fewer activations than most but the sheer firepower of each activation/detachment is very high in a game where other than titans and knights, being obscured does not naturally give any benefits, without also being in base contact in the case of obstacles, or being entirely within the boundaries of area terrain. Put another way, it has been my experience that on account of that fact, detachments die very fast.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

SU-152 wrote:

An aspect I like about end game scoring with objectives is I feel it makes the story telling aspect of a battle or battle report a bit easier to grasp in that it's who held what in the end. This is also a bit of a hurdle to overcome with largely fixed objective locations. I just like the battlefield having like 4-6 important areas or structures, is is also how white dwarf did mega battle reports in the past. Very low victory points across the board so it was easier to track turn to turn. You got a good sort of ten thousand foot view of the boards turn to turn and maybe some diagrams to help piece things together, but visually you could track the battle or battles from page to page and in the end see a fairly straight forward summation of the battle, largelty in terms of who held what in the end and maybe if a special character was killed.

There's something much more straight forward to my mind being able to read like "imperials 6vp or 4vp" and have a breakdown of who held what like "the orks held the submarine depot, the marines held firm on the spaceport, the bridge remained contested" that to me just seems more comprehensible than who got what medals for holding what the longest even if they lost it. It's not that it isn't interesting to hear "the stormtroopers held the pumping station for 4 turns gaining them x vp that can't be taken away, only to lose the pumping station in the end to the meganobz, who for some reason got fewer vp even though it was theirs in the end". It's the same way some strategic objectives aren't super glamorous but like who holds a bridge or air strip for 6 minutes just doesn't seem like something I want to bother scoring. I do think though that perhaps having random game length might be something worth considering if end game scoring is going to be the majority scoring for scenario/mission packet I think that's the way I'll go initially.

Totally agree with this.

VP scoring is not inmersive at all. Just numbers.

End-game goals like in Epic Armageddon is a way more engaging and narrative experience.

It almost needs to be not so much boring as just, an actual objective or set of objectives that sound somewhat believable in a boilerplate war fiction sort of way. Like we don't need to go in depth with each one, people can put two and two together why taking a refinery or spaceport might prove important. The progressive scoring feels like we've reduced those things even further to the point of being food items in a buffet and units are just chomping down on them. "Oh the kratos got another hunk of the dockyard, they just can't get enough dockyard, it does look quite delicious!".


Basically the story of this game would be who controlled which of these objectives in the end.




Always good to tell a story with a game






Automatically Appended Next Post:

leopard wrote:

The_Real_Chris wrote:
I do think the points/army lists discussions are premature as we have another 6 months of releases before the armies actually take shape. With spotty testing if at all things will be all over the place for ages.

while this is quite obviously correct keep in mind the humble Rhino pays points for a weapons upgrade, where as the Warlord titan, and indeed everything pretty much with a few exceptions, doesn't

then you have heavy support marines for the same price as the tactical support marines when one is quite clearly better than the other in just about every practical application

points are going to be all over unless GW get a grip

lists will be all over until more stuff comes out, and manages to stay in stock long enough to matter

Yeah I think the winners and losers unit wise won't be too difficult to sniff out. Some units almost feel like traps in that there are many many ways to load them out but can serve as a bit of a distraction, like the malcador with 36 possible builds but a lot of them have really mixed range bands. Also not to be cynical but I think heavy bolters are ok but its easy to over value them given their range, lascannons actually do get work done in numbers, an all las malcador or predator is bring the full weight of its detachments firepower to bear because its all same range band, that adds up fast when there's 3-4 of them.

Some units have just such obvious winners and losers in terms of loadouts, russ and contemptor dreads come to mind. For russ, vanquisher is like no contest. For contemptors, accurate las vs terrible kheres is obvious choice as well. So then we might ask why weren't these options "upgrades" that cost more points? It's super weird that that logic applies to a rhino but not a warlord titan indeed.

with the objective stuff I think a couple of pages on table design wouldn't have gone amiss, specifically pick the scenario, then layout the table so that there is "something" to explain why the objective is where it is

is it a key bit of high ground, or just behind such giving control of the high ground and some shelter?

is it some key building or group of buildings?

is it a transport hub? a bridge? a landing field?

does it guard the approach to any of these? (ones near board edges for example placed on roads can be considered to be guarding a route to "something" just off table

helps to avoid objectives being in "WTF is that there for?" places and helps tell a bit of a story, even if only a basic one.

likewise having structures made by human or other hands in some sort of logical layout, not just randomly dumped about helps. this is where the GW tiles actually really suck - unless you have a high density of buildings WTF are all the roads for?

and when artillery comes in it will matter that boards are designed specifically to discourage the static gun lines and artillery duels of the past

and heavy bolters.. interesting beasties, personally I've got ~one in three tanks with HB sponsons, so they have something for anti infantry and semi decent overwatch, this may get revised upwards. likewise my Leman Russ so far are 50/50 Vanquishers with las cannons and normal with heavy bolters, not perfect against anything but flexible.

and yes I know what you mean by larger detachments being nasty, regular opponent has a group of four Kratos that like to be on First Fire orders.

mind you so far my limited air force is enjoying them

 Crablezworth wrote:


Yeah I think the winners and losers unit wise won't be too difficult to sniff out. Some units almost feel like traps in that there are many many ways to load them out but can serve as a bit of a distraction, like the malcador with 36 possible builds but a lot of them have really mixed range bands. Also not to be cynical but I think heavy bolters are ok but its easy to over value them given their range, lascannons actually do get work done in numbers, an all las malcador or predator is bring the full weight of its detachments firepower to bear because its all same range band, that adds up fast when there's 3-4 of them.

Have you compared the Malcador to the Kratos? it is ridiculous. How can the Kratos be cheaper?