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SU-152 wrote:

 ingtaer wrote:
Has anyone tried running an Aerial Assault detachment yet? Is it viable?

I played against one (we already have the miniatures from previous Epic editions).

Extremelly flexible and powerful to grab objectives. THs delete armoured detachments in one run. It seemed OP even when making the mistake of treating it as 1 W only

Yeah I'm guessing the that's why the easy 6's are there, when a plane heavy list shows up it can just bring so much firepower that without the occasional good fortune of a few getting shot down to less than stellar shooting it will be a quick game. It's just unfortunate that running just a few flyers is so glasshammer.

chaos0xomega wrote:

I think anyone who played AI likely has a leg up in terms of being able to run one.

Certainly true for me. I have a total of 12 Xiphons, 6 Storm Eagles, 2 Fire Raptors, and a Thunderhawk that I never got around to building for AI, which will now serve me well for LI instead (and also AI if I ever manage to get a game of it in in the future).

In terms of SA, I can legitimately feel squadrons of at least 8-12 aircraft of every plane in their arsenal easily, in some cases a good bit more as I double dipped to cover variant designs (i.e. Thunderbolt vs Thunderbolt Fury).

Agreed though, flyers seem way overpriced for what they bring to the table. The game (like most minis games that feature fliers) sets them up to be glass hammers, which is appropriate, but then makes it a relatively trivial affair to hit them rather than representing the challenge posed by their speed and maneuverability. They never seem to hit quite as hard as they would need to in order to truly be a "hammer", but they are definitely "glass", and an expensive one at that. Most flyers seem to be overpriced by about 10-20 pts IMO.

I have to say that MOST units in the game are glass hammers, the rest are crystal cannons.

The only models with a decent defense/attack ratio are garrisoned infantry and shielded Titans.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Crablezworth wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:

I think anyone who played AI likely has a leg up in terms of being able to run one.

Certainly true for me. I have a total of 12 Xiphons, 6 Storm Eagles, 2 Fire Raptors, and a Thunderhawk that I never got around to building for AI, which will now serve me well for LI instead (and also AI if I ever manage to get a game of it in in the future).

In terms of SA, I can legitimately feel squadrons of at least 8-12 aircraft of every plane in their arsenal easily, in some cases a good bit more as I double dipped to cover variant designs (i.e. Thunderbolt vs Thunderbolt Fury).

Agreed though, flyers seem way overpriced for what they bring to the table. The game (like most minis games that feature fliers) sets them up to be glass hammers, which is appropriate, but then makes it a relatively trivial affair to hit them rather than representing the challenge posed by their speed and maneuverability. They never seem to hit quite as hard as they would need to in order to truly be a "hammer", but they are definitely "glass", and an expensive one at that. Most flyers seem to be overpriced by about 10-20 pts IMO.

The one area I'd disagree is, once you get to a level of having a lot of bombers they can be insanely strong, because you can also outfit them with wing bombs for maximum insanity in the movement phase or all missiles for 30 inch sniping. Cost is sorta all over the map.

Glass hammer is more or less right idea for planes, but they just let too much hit/target them. Like right off the bat a solution could be if you're on advance order you just can't, you need to be on first fire, the idea too of a tank driving full speed while hitting a fixed wing air craft with 120mm cannon is just, it'd never happen unless it was chopper.

Side note, I also think it was a mistake to allow advance to overwatch, first fire outside of very long range/high quality shooting rarely ever seems useful unless the unit has no plans of going anywhere anyway like a detachment in a structure holding/guarding an objective.

You know what's funny? Mole mortars being specially good against planes with nice range and a -2 to armour (AP -1 + hitting rear arc).

LOL


Oh man that's good, picturing mole mortar bursting from the ground b-lining right into a plane

I now have to get some mole mortar purely to see the look on an opponents face

Now I really really really need rapier mole mortars

 ingtaer wrote:
Has anyone tried running an Aerial Assault detachment yet? Is it viable?

i have 6 total aircraft. 3 fighters and 3 storms. i need way more to do a air list.

Been looking at putting together a detachment of command and tacticals, tacticals, missiles in 3x Storm Eagle. 8x Assault in TH, 4x Contemptor in TH and having two fire raptors run interference/fire support. All the planes can act like skimmers so can use the terrain as cover. Major downside I can see is obviously points but can anyone think of other weaknesses? Maybe need some redundancy or trade 2 Eagles in for another TH?

Main thing I see is that you're investing ~800 pts into flyers by my rough approximation, to get 7 vehicles coming in at 9 wounds, whereas the same points can get you ~18 predators + 2 Sicarans for 20 wounds (and a lot more guns) or 12 Kratos for 24 wounds and still a lot more guns. The other thing to consider is that of all those flyers, only the tempest rockets on the fire raptor have AP-2 and the turbolaser on the THawk has AP-3, all else is AP-1 or 0 which leaves you incredibly light against something with high armor like a titan, other than that you have armorbane only on the hellstrike missiles carried on the THawk and nowhere else, which likewise limits your efficacy against heavy armored targets.

Basically, again - you're very mobile but made of glass, and though they hit hard on a per model basis, they don't really hit hard enough nor do they have the volume of firepower needed to overcome the shortage of high ap or armorbane.

Finally had a flick through of the core book and the rules for the Knights appear to be better implemented this time around, and should have been a primary force. Titans feel slapdash and would keep their use to a minimum, if used at all, as they're far better implemented in Titanicus.

Might be having a game on Sunday to give it a whirl, but it would have to be open play with AT and AI models as I can't get hold of any LI kits at this time, unless its a bunch of Melta-Reavers.

Thinking of 1K points of 4x Thunderbolts, 2x Cerastus and a Warhound. The second force would be 2x Acastus and 3x Questoris.

chaos0xomega wrote:
I would love it if GW would learn how to design games that predominantly use something other than a d6, but I'm not holding my breath for it.

This is the community version that was quite literally written with that in mind
[url]
https://imperiusdominatus.org/[/url]

D10s instead of D6s to give that granularity, so you have differences in armour save for different armour marks and things like that. Even if you won't play it, it's quite interesting to read as it shows what sort of thing GW might have done if the designers had been permitted to go further.
Although it is still based on SM2/NetEpic, so is very similar mechanically.

SamusDrake wrote:
Finally had a flick through of the core book and the rules for the Knights appear to be better implemented this time around, and should have been a primary force. Titans feel slapdash and would keep their use to a minimum, if used at all, as they're far better implemented in Titanicus.

Might be having a game on Sunday to give it a whirl, but it would have to be open play with AT and AI models as I can't get hold of any LI kits at this time, unless its a bunch of Melta-Reavers.

Thinking of 1K points of 4x Thunderbolts, 2x Cerastus and a Warhound. The second force would be 2x Acastus and 3x Questoris.

Knights are far far far better than in AT and much closer to the prowess they show in like 30k/40k, but that's also where I'm gonna totally disagree and say a knight only faction in LI wouldn't only be boring, but massively broken. I'm not just saying this to say it, the core problems of LI are unit costing in general, especially not costing most weapons, knights make a mockery of this, even with weapons/upgrades they pay for. I'd go as far to argue that they largely outshine the titans, they're that good. Even an armiger has 2 wounds, a shooting attack with demolisher and engine killer and a cc attack with rend for like 60pts. That's the smallest knight unit and it's still insanely strong. Moriax and styrix have cc weapons with ap -5 rend and wrecker (3), like who needs a titan when a knight can like one shot a structure. The atrapos's cc weapon is just as insanely good and is also a gun lol, and it has macro extinction protocols, giving it re-rolls to hit against titans knights and super heavies AND it can re-roll a dice of its choice very fight.

 Crablezworth wrote:

SamusDrake wrote:
Even an armiger has 2 wounds, a shooting attack with demolisher and engine killer and a cc attack with rend for like 60pts. That's the smallest knight unit and it's still insanely strong.

Hmm what do you mean?

The smallest Knight detachment is 180 points ( and consist of a minimum of 1 knight Questoris, + upgrades), and it is not good for the points. So in order to include Armigers, it is min 360 points (you get 4 knights but still not very point efficient - but I guess it depends on what you compare with...it's way better than Malcadors).

basically write the entire point system off currently, its essentially FUBAR, a phoned in system that had neither care nor thought applied to it

it is what it is sadly

the "meta" will change with each new wave of releases, pretty much everything outside infantry hunkered down in buildings can be killed and killed reasonably easily, a lot going to whoever shoots first

SU-152 wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:

SamusDrake wrote:
Even an armiger has 2 wounds, a shooting attack with demolisher and engine killer and a cc attack with rend for like 60pts. That's the smallest knight unit and it's still insanely strong.

Hmm what do you mean?

The smallest Knight detachment is 180 points ( and consist of a minimum of 1 knight Questoris, + upgrades), and it is not good for the points. So in order to include Armigers, it is min 360 points (you get 4 knights but still not very point efficient - but I guess it depends on what you compare with...it's way better than Malcadors).

And the cost isn't prohibitive if they're a primary faction and not fitting into 30% of another, that's my point. The armigers you'd add to a questoris, you get 3 for 180 so for that 360 you've got a pretty good force, but now that your'e not limited to it being only a small percentage, it gets silly fast. Acastus are very strong all comers, fantastic ranged fire and AA.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

leopard wrote:
basically write the entire point system off currently, its essentially FUBAR, a phoned in system that had neither care nor thought applied to it

it is what it is sadly

the "meta" will change with each new wave of releases, pretty much everything outside infantry hunkered down in buildings can be killed and killed reasonably easily, a lot going to whoever shoots first

Yeah but see that's a problem of alternating activation anyway, at least the last point. This is also my problem with overwatch the way it currently, it just devalues first fire even more.

As for the point system, the ultimate balancer is even with things being fubar, you're always able to field what your opponent can, that's not exactly great for races to the bottom but the benefit of the system is provided model access isn't limited, anyone can join said race to the bottom,

The even sadder part was that they had community systems which have been playtested to destruction over the past 15 years by hundreds of players and are now nicely balanced (NetEpic and Net Armageddon) - they had it sat right there for the taking and I'm sure none of the guys maintaining those rules would have minded helping out. But, we know that they weren't even contacted.

Also agree on overwatch/FF. Again it's another example of needless over-complication. The first fire mechanic neatly covered the abstraction of someone charging into a gun that was waiting for them (with the exception of artillery) and then just use a Snap-fire mechanic for fliers, as in Titan Legions. There was no need to add rules for overwatch, point-defense in my opinion.

personally I prefer the way Flames of War handles closing fire

this is a game that has no overwatch, no reaction fire mechanic

essentially unit "A" charges unit "B", they move up, make contact. unit "A" then gets to shoot at them. using normal shooting rules (which rules out using area effect barrages etc due to proximity). hits resolved as normal, if more than five hits (or now eight for larger units, used to be ten, and slightly different for armour) are scored the assault is pushed back 2" and the combat never occurs

this is combined with a "pin" mechanic that reduces rate of fire

works quite nicely and is quick

anti aircraft fire is likewise quick, a unit declares its firing AA, it is resolved, it is then marked up as having fired and doesn't get to fire again. and not all weapons can fire in an AA role, and quite a few that can are reduced to a single dice

 Crablezworth wrote:
[
Knights are far far far better than in AT and much closer to the prowess they show in like 30k/40k, but that's also where I'm gonna totally disagree and say a knight only faction in LI wouldn't only be boring, but massively broken. I'm not just saying this to say it, the core problems of LI are unit costing in general, especially not costing most weapons, knights make a mockery of this, even with weapons/upgrades they pay for. I'd go as far to argue that they largely outshine the titans, they're that good. Even an armiger has 2 wounds, a shooting attack with demolisher and engine killer and a cc attack with rend for like 60pts. That's the smallest knight unit and it's still insanely strong. Moriax and styrix have cc weapons with ap -5 rend and wrecker (3), like who needs a titan when a knight can like one shot a structure. The atrapos's cc weapon is just as insanely good and is also a gun lol, and it has macro extinction protocols, giving it re-rolls to hit against titans knights and super heavies AND it can re-roll a dice of its choice very fight.

Mixed feelings on the Armigers, when weighed up against Leviathan Dreadnoughts which are 75 points for 4 Dreads, and 2 Heavy sentinals at 35 points. A single Armiger would cost 60 points in comparison, and can be outgunned by those units. But I do strongly feel that passing judgements is foolish before having played the first game, as what looks good on paper may not work in practice, and I suspect that I'll be disappointed once again, as I was with Titanicus.

Titanicus seemed to be decided by whoever landed the first solid blow with little real way to come back from it, encouraged sitting on shoot orders behind buildings such that anyone who moved to get a shot would be shot first

SamusDrake wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:
[
Knights are far far far better than in AT and much closer to the prowess they show in like 30k/40k, but that's also where I'm gonna totally disagree and say a knight only faction in LI wouldn't only be boring, but massively broken. I'm not just saying this to say it, the core problems of LI are unit costing in general, especially not costing most weapons, knights make a mockery of this, even with weapons/upgrades they pay for. I'd go as far to argue that they largely outshine the titans, they're that good. Even an armiger has 2 wounds, a shooting attack with demolisher and engine killer and a cc attack with rend for like 60pts. That's the smallest knight unit and it's still insanely strong. Moriax and styrix have cc weapons with ap -5 rend and wrecker (3), like who needs a titan when a knight can like one shot a structure. The atrapos's cc weapon is just as insanely good and is also a gun lol, and it has macro extinction protocols, giving it re-rolls to hit against titans knights and super heavies AND it can re-roll a dice of its choice very fight.

Mixed feelings on the Armigers, when weighed up against Leviathan Dreadnoughts which are 75 points for 4 Dreads, and 2 Heavy sentinals at 35 points. A single Armiger would cost 60 points in comparison, and can be outgunned by those units. But I do strongly feel that passing judgements is foolish before having played the first game, as what looks good on paper may not work in practice, and I suspect that I'll be disappointed once again, as I was with Titanicus.

Well you're not wrong on instinct, the leviathans do look disgustingly strong for 75pts, one consideration with armigers is they have 2 wounds each, keep in mind generally stuff that is multi wound is like 75-100pts, like baneblades and kratos. Their thermal spears, though short ranged, are great at hitting buildings and engine killer on something so small is very strong. Not to mention rend, also moirax can get a wrecker cc attack similar to leviathans. Leviathans definitely do seem very good for the points though. Heavy sentinels are a surprisingly good amount of firepower but a bit weak to incoming fire.

The main thing with the armigers is they won't be alone as they are upgrades to knights that tag along, so while they are quite short ranged, especially armed with thermal spear, the knight they're with may have longer range weapons, like an acastus.

That is the one thing I'm not so happy about is the Armgiers having to follow the larger Knights around the battlefield, like little ducklings. They're supposed to be Lords of War in their own right dammit!

SamusDrake wrote:
That is the one thing I'm not so happy about is the Armgiers having to follow the larger Knights around the battlefield, like little ducklings. They're supposed to be Lords of War in their own right dammit!

however part of the cost of units is the ability to wander off and do their own thing, allowing far too many cheap activations basically breaks thre system unless GW go down the route Battletech uses with activations so whoever has the initiative always gets the final move as well as the first shot

leopard wrote:
Titanicus seemed to be decided by whoever landed the first solid blow with little real way to come back from it, encouraged sitting on shoot orders behind buildings such that anyone who moved to get a shot would be shot first

It was too weighed down by external stuff, what started as a very visual game, the terminals, the weapons cards corresponding to modular weapons quickly got bogged down with upgrades, that aren't visual, and made worse by corruptions and mutations that again were largely not modelled, and gw was no help there either way. Then you've got the stratagem cards and their limited availability, and the matched play book introducing hands of them, forcing one to play magic cards while also playing AT apparently. Great looking game and scale but it all gets/got bogged down, setting up for it feels like ae slog, the terminals are great but the space they require just sorta kills its viability for a lot of people and to be played in a lot of places. Even the die hards show the absurdity of the game with the mega battles that get like 2-3 turns max in a day of gaming. Hopefully the rules for titan/knight games in the great slaughter are better for that sort of thing.

As much as I miss the detail of titanicus, they could have done a bit more to flesh out weapons if they weren't going to cost them, like something akin to gets hot. Also could have had something along the lines of auto simulacra.

What they did get right is titans being able to remove obstacles and damage structures as well as move over intervening detachments if they have enough movement. The splitting fire per dice can be a bit silly, a warmaster targeting 5 structures is sorta nuts.

was only the base game the times I've played it, as usual the point values felt like little more than a token effort

but every game came down to who got a lucky shot first winning, when you only have two or three units in a game, one getting hammered is basically game over

Agreed regarding the titan terminals; one of the reasons we liked the Cerastus Lancer so much was that not only was it the only Knight worthy of the game, but Knight terminals can easily be reduced by 2/3rds in height, as most of them was just repeated information. The Warhound terminal also had room for reduction, but not enough to make a difference.

leopard wrote:
was only the base game the times I've played it, as usual the point values felt like little more than a token effort

but every game came down to who got a lucky shot first winning, when you only have two or three units in a game, one getting hammered is basically game over

Yeah quite swingy, a lot of games felt over by turn 3.

I remember being under the impression that weapon weight would play a part in Titanicus, but that never happened.

the earlier editions with "grades" on the hardpoints was nice, and the ability to vary them - like strip down a Warlord for greater speed, how the Reaver without the carapace mount could have heavier arm mounts etc

There's a good point; does a Reaver have to take a carapace weapon in Titanicus? I've not noticed anything that says it must.

Don’t think Titans pay points for weapons, so there’s no reason not to?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Don’t think Titans pay points for weapons, so there’s no reason not to?

I was asking about Titanicus, not Legions.