auticus wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

 auticus wrote:
I agree... you need poiints for structure for pick up games. Thats why I don't mind Power Level, and thats why I wrote Azyr Comp for AOS when it first came out.

Now for our 40k campaign coming up that uses Power Level you are restricted to a certain number of upgrades period. So you can't just take everything.

So again it requires agreed to restrictions, to work properly. The reason PL works for most pick up games is that if you play WYSIWYG most people have built things for points, so armies are not using every upgrade, if PL became the common means of balance, unless accompanied by restrictions, people would start to build their units with max upgrades.

But people build their models right now with max efficiency upgrades, so I'm not seeing a giant difference overall.

Because in theory those upgrades are pointed out to some semblance of balance, it is clear PL does not take them into account beyond, average cost, of all available upgrades. In theory it is just a shift in meta, but I'm not sure it is a good one.

 auticus wrote:
Its especially true if both players are min/maxing power level because they both have a min/max list, same as points. You'll get roughly the same quality of game.

Then why use power levels? If the quality of the game is similar then you're conceding that power levels have no advantage to make up for their disadvantages. Is this just another case of people wanting to use a less-balanced system for virtue signalling about how "casual" they are?

 Peregrine wrote:

 Kaiyanwang wrote:
For me, very causal player, this is one of the thing I love of listbuilding. I don't want to exploit the system but I like to make a plan and choose units and options, and equip my units for the mission. I restared with 8th and I love my Plague Marines because, at least theoretically, you can equip the squads in many way, carry them in many vehicles to accomplish the mission. They are cool, with all different teams! Melee, ranged, anti-horde, anti heavy infantry...

You can do all of this with points. Using the less-accurate point system of power levels adds nothing here.

I am all for point, fanatically, because I like to thinker the list in the details.
Sorry for being unclear. I quoted you but I meant more to answer to Auticus. As someone else said, people that want to exploit the system will find a way.
At this point, is better to write a solid and nuanced system for those that can appreciate.

Right. That goes back to the pretense of balance, but there isn't really balance there. Its the illusion of balance.

I've been using PL for a while and like I said, the quality of games is nearly identical to points.

I'll just stop there. I'm not trying to change anyone's mind. I'm just saying that points = balance is a fallacy to me. Points = structure, not balance.

Two guys min/maxing PL is going to result in the same game as two guys min/maxing points.

But I think it's somewhat silly to try and compare something like a wyvern to a taurox prime. They're completely different units that serve completely different roles with completely different weapons. You can't just look at "wounds/point" in a vacuum.

What is the difference between a marine with a bolter and a marine with a lascannon? They serve different roles, but have the same "body".

One will be in back probably behind cover. One will be up front taking fire.

You don't point models on whether they are in cover or not.

One is BS4. One is BS3.

This is covered by the cost of the weapons. See the BS3 Melta and BS4 Melta.

One can transport.

And you have to buy a unit to put in it.

One has double the range of the other. LOS ignoring.

Convered by the cost of the weapon.

Rerolls.

At no point should rerolls be costed into the receiving unit. Nor are they currently. RG and devastators anyone? I don't see anyone calling for Devastators to get increased.

Regiment benefits.

These are a player choice. They are responsible for what their list turns into. I take a Defiler with the express purpose of using it alongside Blasphemous Machines and Daemonforge. If I didn't take it then I wouldn't use those CP. But at no point should I ever pay for CP I may or may not use.

There are too many differences.

Not really.

And it's especially silly to determine that "rerolling wounds = weapon should cost double" for a guard artillery piece based on a marine melee weapon.

Are you sure about that? It gives us insight into their logic and VERY specifically tells us what rerolls to wounds means on a weapon where there are otherwise NO differences.

 BoomWolf wrote:
The obvious power cards are often detected before the set even out, and so does the bad, to the point of "strictly better" IS actually a thing there (two cards who are completely indentical except one is cheaper, or identical except one has a strict numerical advantage like doing 1 more point of damage)
Other than an odd metabreaker (like lictorshame), the meta soldifies within a week or two from a new release, bad cards never see play outside casual because they are instantly identified as such, etc.

A week or two is still far, far more than it takes to figure out most of the GW meta. And you're ignoring the fact that much of that "strictly better" issue involves things like limited formats, where MTG is really multiple games in one package and vast parts of each set are intended only for limited. Limited depends on having that power curve in place, and when you exclude cards that are deliberately weak to make limited work things get a lot more even in power level.

The meta "evolved" so far that most decks there can with a good draw kill you before they even get a turn, and with a lousy draw, kill by turn 2. (if they are lucky enough that the enemy also draws badly enough to have them live that long)
Without the rotation, MTG is outright unplayable given just how poorly the balance in that game is.

Actually, that situation exists primarily because of WOTC's early mistakes with the game. Most of the cards that have to be banned/restricted in those formats are cards from older sets (with most of the rest being combo pieces that had some obscure and unforeseen interaction with a card from 20 years earlier), before WOTC had a good understanding of the game they had created and how to balance it. The similar format that only allows cards from the past ~10-15 years is much less degenerate and much more interesting. It's like if there was a "everything legal" 40k format where people brought instant-win lists built on exploiting 2nd edition insanity like virus grenades.

 BoomWolf wrote:

The obvious power cards are often detected before the set even out, and so does the bad, to the point of "strictly better" IS actually a thing there (two cards who are completely indentical except one is cheaper, or identical except one has a strict numerical advantage like doing 1 more point of damage)
Other than an odd metabreaker (like lictorshame), the meta soldifies within a week or two from a new release, bad cards never see play outside casual because they are instantly identified as such, etc.

A lot of those bad cards are there for draft and never intended for constructed play. Booster draft and cube draft are some of the most popular ways to play MtG. While cube draft is casual, booster drafts have major tournament presence.

I'm not sure what the GW equivalent of that would be, but requiring players to think on their feet and adapt rather than netdecking the best combos adds a lot to the MtG competitive scene.

 auticus wrote:
Right. That goes back to the pretense of balance, but there isn't really balance there. Its the illusion of balance.

I've been using PL for a while and like I said, the quality of games is nearly identical to points.

I'll just stop there. I'm not trying to change anyone's mind. I'm just saying that points = balance is a fallacy to me. Points = structure, not balance.

Two guys min/maxing PL is going to result in the same game as two guys min/maxing points.

To some extent, but with much less room for GW to tweak balance, the number of units that are 4, 5, 6 PL make if very hard to make changes without giant balance issues. So while true that min-maxing will happen in either case, there is little recourse for PL. This is already a problem with points on the low end, just look at conscripts they change 1 point they go from good to trash (yes other changes occurred as well), but when you are down to single digits it is really hard to represent differences between units.

 auticus wrote:
Two guys min/maxing PL is going to result in the same game as two guys min/maxing points.

It really won't. The game with points has a greater potential diversity of choices, because more units have point costs that accurately reflect their value on the table and are in the "viable in a min/max list" pool. With power levels fewer units have accurate point costs, so the subset of viable options is likely to be much smaller. Extend the scenario to a group of 10 people playing dozens of games each over a full year and you'll see that diversity pay off.

Depends on what they play.

I've played Power Points in games with newer players. They've modeled what they have. They're fielding what they have.

If you just want a quick WYSIWYG game without much list building, it can be useful. My Harlequins only have 2 weapons and 2 pistols in their 5-man. But that's how they're modeled, and how I field them. In PP, they cost a lot of points for what they do. But then, typically if PP were chosen just to quickly put the collections on the table, the opponent has the same kinds of inefficiencies.

If you field it and just say "This unit has all the upgrades, because points don't matter", I feel like a points game is going to be better. And if you want more nuance than "I'm bringing a Tac squad!" in list building, PP doesn't help you. But, in either of those cases, I don't think you're the person PP are for.

I much prefer points overall, but PP have a place.

 Asmodai wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:

The obvious power cards are often detected before the set even out, and so does the bad, to the point of "strictly better" IS actually a thing there (two cards who are completely indentical except one is cheaper, or identical except one has a strict numerical advantage like doing 1 more point of damage)
Other than an odd metabreaker (like lictorshame), the meta soldifies within a week or two from a new release, bad cards never see play outside casual because they are instantly identified as such, etc.

A lot of those bad cards are there for draft and never intended for constructed play. Booster draft and cube draft are some of the most popular ways to play MtG. While cube draft is casual, booster drafts have major tournament presence.

I'm not sure what the GW equivalent of that would be, but requiring players to think on their feet and adapt rather than netdecking the best combos adds a lot to the MtG competitive scene.

The GW equivalent would be the old "Apoc only" units that were way too good in standard games, but worked fine when each player had 10k points. GW moved away from having units designed for "separate" games because they found that many people did not buy those units because they only wanted to play standard 40k

Breng77 wrote:

 Asmodai wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:

The obvious power cards are often detected before the set even out, and so does the bad, to the point of "strictly better" IS actually a thing there (two cards who are completely indentical except one is cheaper, or identical except one has a strict numerical advantage like doing 1 more point of damage)
Other than an odd metabreaker (like lictorshame), the meta soldifies within a week or two from a new release, bad cards never see play outside casual because they are instantly identified as such, etc.

A lot of those bad cards are there for draft and never intended for constructed play. Booster draft and cube draft are some of the most popular ways to play MtG. While cube draft is casual, booster drafts have major tournament presence.

I'm not sure what the GW equivalent of that would be, but requiring players to think on their feet and adapt rather than netdecking the best combos adds a lot to the MtG competitive scene.

The GW equivalent would be the old "Apoc only" units that were way too good in standard games, but worked fine when each player had 10k points. GW moved away from having units designed for "separate" games because they found that many people did not buy those units because they only wanted to play standard 40k

Although those units aren't actually dominating the meta atm, lol.

So, I'm an ork and I'm totally fine with the CA changes.

It's an odd feeling being satisfied with a rules release. This must be how it feels to play space marines.

I kind of wish they would have fixed kustom shootas, which should be 2 points, like storm bolters, not 4 points, for some unknown and unknowable reason. But I will happily take fixes to klaws and KMKs, the rest was just gravy. The relic + warlord trait on a warboss also seems awesome.

The stratagems aren't great, but eh. More are coming. The shooting stratagem is kind of cute, at the very least.

Stompas are vastly overpriced, but from what I can tell most titans got vastly more expensive, so maybe I should be glad stompas didn't get more useless.

Kill tanks took quite a points increase, but in fairness, they were pretty underpriced before.

I'm also very surprised gargantuan squiggoths didn't take a points hit. They're almost the same price as kill tanks now. They are VASTLY underpriced.

They didn't help out deff dreads, battlewagons, or trukks, which are all too expensive to be any good, but I'm still happy with what I got.

But for me this was a big

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

 Asmodai wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:

The obvious power cards are often detected before the set even out, and so does the bad, to the point of "strictly better" IS actually a thing there (two cards who are completely indentical except one is cheaper, or identical except one has a strict numerical advantage like doing 1 more point of damage)
Other than an odd metabreaker (like lictorshame), the meta soldifies within a week or two from a new release, bad cards never see play outside casual because they are instantly identified as such, etc.

A lot of those bad cards are there for draft and never intended for constructed play. Booster draft and cube draft are some of the most popular ways to play MtG. While cube draft is casual, booster drafts have major tournament presence.

I'm not sure what the GW equivalent of that would be, but requiring players to think on their feet and adapt rather than netdecking the best combos adds a lot to the MtG competitive scene.

The GW equivalent would be the old "Apoc only" units that were way too good in standard games, but worked fine when each player had 10k points. GW moved away from having units designed for "separate" games because they found that many people did not buy those units because they only wanted to play standard 40k

Although those units aren't actually dominating the meta atm, lol.

Not at this point no, they have had a lot of toning down since the APOC only days, when they had 10" D blasts, which basically auto-removed models from the table, had their own special rules, damage tables etc.

I don't think MTG are a good comparison. Many cards are made deliberately bad and "simple" for new players or just to make bigger the number of cards in a expansion.
At least Hearthstone does it this way And they have said it without qualms. I don't know if Magic does it too.

I think thats one of the problems of GW. As others have said, they should post a WarCom article when they release books like this, to explain why they have buffed/nerfed things.
In Hearthstone they do it everytime they nerf a card. (As it is a computer based MTG they can actually nerf cards instead of just bann them). You can disagree with it, of course (Many people do, you just need to see the forums), but in the long run, the vitriol is much less durable.

Of course, Blizzard gained 600 millons $ just with Hearthstone in 2015, when GW did 6 millions of pounds of benefit this past year, so their size is very different. But GW could do better.

Breng77 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

 Asmodai wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:

The obvious power cards are often detected before the set even out, and so does the bad, to the point of "strictly better" IS actually a thing there (two cards who are completely indentical except one is cheaper, or identical except one has a strict numerical advantage like doing 1 more point of damage)
Other than an odd metabreaker (like lictorshame), the meta soldifies within a week or two from a new release, bad cards never see play outside casual because they are instantly identified as such, etc.

A lot of those bad cards are there for draft and never intended for constructed play. Booster draft and cube draft are some of the most popular ways to play MtG. While cube draft is casual, booster drafts have major tournament presence.

I'm not sure what the GW equivalent of that would be, but requiring players to think on their feet and adapt rather than netdecking the best combos adds a lot to the MtG competitive scene.

The GW equivalent would be the old "Apoc only" units that were way too good in standard games, but worked fine when each player had 10k points. GW moved away from having units designed for "separate" games because they found that many people did not buy those units because they only wanted to play standard 40k

Although those units aren't actually dominating the meta atm, lol.

Not at this point no, they have had a lot of toning down since the APOC only days, when they had 10" D blasts, which basically auto-removed models from the table, had their own special rules, damage tables etc.

Not sure they were dominating the meta then, either.

In 5th edition, tournament armies ran 0 superheavies (though to be fair they couldn't).
In 6th, you could take a superheavy, and for all the shrieking, I don't remember them being terribly OP.
In 7th, the Wraithknight and Imperial Knights dropped, and people shrieked at the top of their lungs, but I'm 99% sure the Wraithknight was the only superheavy that showed up in competitive lists - and it was never an Apoc Only unit; it was intended for regular 40k.
In 8th, Lords of War have been (like everything else) redesigned to fit into the game at its current scale, and seem to be fine on the whole.

Hrm, not sure I agree with drawing too much from this, we don't know the rationale behind them, I'd argue that in the Chimeras case it's painfully overcosted (and as a result you see very few on tables), and the Predator has a *notably* higher cost despite having only one addiitonal wound and fewer features (no transport ability, no self repair, no out-of-LoS weapons) than the other platforms there (before buying its weapons, only one of which is mandatory).

The predator also bring the heaviest load out of all of those vehicles. The Chimera base cost is fine. It's the mandatory weapons that sink it, but only by comparison.

I take a clean Rhino for 70 points.
You take a Chimera for a minimum of 93 when all you wanted was a transport.

So mentally you shake your head about how unbalanced that is when it isn't the points that are the problem, but your expectations for what you want and what you have available in your army.

This is not a problem with the system.

If the line of thinking is "X is bad, so lets nerf Y", there's a huge number of issues with that. There's zero context of where the two units actually perform, the reasons for taking them, what roles they fill and what places they take in the army? Just because Sentinels are bad and Tauroxes are better Autocannon sources doesn't mean that nerfing the Taurox is going to make people take Sentinels or that the Sentinel a good landmark for balance decisions.

It's not like Tauroxes were exactly Grade A competitive list units, aside from attempting to tie performance to units that are seen as decidedly uncompetitive, there's very little rationale for nerfing them, nobody thought they were an issue.

I'm not trying to promote that logic. These were highlighted, because this is what mix-maxers look for in units. The best ratio of weapons to points and wounds to points.

If you're going to balance the durability of units there is going to be some underlying logic for different saves, toughness, and so on. It's the same reason that a Forgefiend packing a 5++ and a heal is 39 points more than a predator.

From there you WILL have some variance to promote units that are a little weaker to make them better choices, but you WON'T have very many wide difference between these values.

This isn't the last Chapter Approver, either. Just because some things were not touched now does not mean they won't be in the future.

However, we have zero evidence that this is how GW costs units (who have themselves stated many times through many editions, including this one, that such formulae tend to be little more than passing fads around the studio and most costing is subjective), this costing paradigm ignores all context in which these units are used and employed, focused solely on wounds per point to the exclusion of all else.

We have pretty good evidence. Your statement to the contrary is "Old GW". If you could find a recent source of such statements that would be appreciated.

A power sword is 4 points. A power axe is 5 points.
They just adjusted the force sword to double a power sword and a force axe to double a power axe, because they statistically do 2 wounds on average.

Stats don't always scale linearly, FoC slot location, tabletop role, armament choices, transport ability, etc and more all factor into costs in ways every analysis of yours is failing to capture.

Strong inbuilt abilities are considered - look at the Wave Serpent. Basic things like smoke launchers, transport, etc are all a pretty minimal cost.

Armaments are costed into weapons and in cases like the Predator they pay more for the priveledge.

FoC slot is irrelevant given we have detatchments to fit all types. The cost there is not how many CP do you wish to gain instead of costing a unit by slot.

A tabletop role is also not a pointable offense. Should you pay more points for an anti-tank chassis when you take all heavy bolters? Why would you pay more for simply "being" anti-tank if your opponent might not have any tanks?

In theory? Potentially, sure. In practice? Not really, the Sentinel is taller than a Russ, the bulk of its mass is higher (with some things like fences or low walls or an Aegis line its actually quite possible to get an LRBT 50% obscured but not a Sentinel because its body is so high), and in a squadron of two or three they don't really have any smaller of a footprint.

Fair enough though i've found 2 or 3 separate sentinels with heeavy flamers to be quite a pain when you can't draw good weapons on them.

This is getting really reachy, we're really struggling to take a unit nobody rates and attempting to tie it as some sort of balance measure through the aspect of heavy anti-tank guns being overkill and less effective than against the heavy battle tanks they're intended for. The sentinels are much easier to hurt and destroy with small arms fire and mid-range weaponry like Plasma guns and Autocannons, and the big heavy anti-tank guns are still rather effective against the Sentinels, even if more circumstancial as to when you want to bring them to bear.

It's a consideration that should be had for any value judgement of units you're going to take. What is the role you need to fill and what pros and cons each bring to the table? Armored sentinels without a heavy flamer are indeed "anemic" on the move so it's left to decide whether or not they're offering what you need.

A unit of infantry is 40 points. But when faced down by a unit with 8 RF bolters and 2 RF plasma they'll lose 5 to bolters and 2 or so to plasma, which is basically a dead squad after morale. The sentinel is still ticking with 2 wounds left. Even outside of RF the infantry will lose half the squad and be in jeopardy. The sentinel is otherwise pretty healthy at 4 wounds.

So you'll get less shooting out of a sentinel for sure, but you're also getting a more durable disruptive unit that can find lots of safety in melee as well if they're not packing a fist.

This value judgement changes if your opponent is somehow packing nothing, but plasma yet that is not a reason to discount it, because people still run tanks when RG and las dev squads are out there.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

 Asmodai wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:

The obvious power cards are often detected before the set even out, and so does the bad, to the point of "strictly better" IS actually a thing there (two cards who are completely indentical except one is cheaper, or identical except one has a strict numerical advantage like doing 1 more point of damage)
Other than an odd metabreaker (like lictorshame), the meta soldifies within a week or two from a new release, bad cards never see play outside casual because they are instantly identified as such, etc.

A lot of those bad cards are there for draft and never intended for constructed play. Booster draft and cube draft are some of the most popular ways to play MtG. While cube draft is casual, booster drafts have major tournament presence.

I'm not sure what the GW equivalent of that would be, but requiring players to think on their feet and adapt rather than netdecking the best combos adds a lot to the MtG competitive scene.

The GW equivalent would be the old "Apoc only" units that were way too good in standard games, but worked fine when each player had 10k points. GW moved away from having units designed for "separate" games because they found that many people did not buy those units because they only wanted to play standard 40k

Although those units aren't actually dominating the meta atm, lol.

Not at this point no, they have had a lot of toning down since the APOC only days, when they had 10" D blasts, which basically auto-removed models from the table, had their own special rules, damage tables etc.

Not sure they were dominating the meta then, either.

In 5th edition, tournament armies ran 0 superheavies (though to be fair they couldn't).
In 6th, you could take a superheavy, and for all the shrieking, I don't remember them being terribly OP.
In 7th, the Wraithknight and Imperial Knights dropped, and people shrieked at the top of their lungs, but I'm 99% sure the Wraithknight was the only superheavy that showed up in competitive lists - and it was never an Apoc Only unit; it was intended for regular 40k.
In 8th, Lords of War have been (like everything else) redesigned to fit into the game at its current scale, and seem to be fine on the whole.

In 5th you could not take them
in 6th for most of the edition you could not take them (most tournament did not allow escalation), until the tail end when knights dropped, and they were highly compeititve early on with their formation (adamantium will or something that gave a better invul save)
in 7th they changed the D rules which toned down superheavies quite a bit.

Also to be fair they were never allowed in tournaments when they were APOC only units, as that was done away with in 6th with escalation, though with that book you still got bonuses for playing against superheavies.

So again....when they were APOC only they were broken and not meant for normal size games....they have never been both APOC only and allowed in standard games at the same time. The fact that those units have the same name, but different rules is irrelevant to the time period when they were APOC only. Though to be fair some of the points recosting of titans in CA seems to lend credence to the fact that some units are meant not to be used in smaller games.

I'm still not sure the Apoc-only stuff was that OP.

In 2nd, superheavies were not Apoc (or Epic) only as there were rules for them in 28mm 40k.
In 3rd, superheavies were not Apoc only as Apoc didn't exist.
In 4th, superheavies could be used in both.
In 5th, superheavies were in fact Apoc-only.

So there was a minor aberration in 5th where they couldn't be used in normal games, and that's not even true - in fact, 5th is when I built my first Baneblade company because the Battle Missions book allowed for a 1500 point game between 3 Baneblades and a 1500 point army. That convinced my playgroup that a Baneblade company was fine, and I often played 3 Baneblades vs 1500 points of badguy, and probably went 20/80, since they couldn't score on objectives or anything, and were unlikely to table most armies.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I'm still not sure the Apoc-only stuff was that OP.

In 2nd, superheavies were not Apoc (or Epic) only as there were rules for them in 28mm 40k.
In 3rd, superheavies were not Apoc only as Apoc didn't exist.
In 4th, superheavies could be used in both.
In 5th, superheavies were in fact Apoc-only.

So there was a minor aberration in 5th where they couldn't be used in normal games, and that's not even true - in fact, 5th is when I built my first Baneblade company because the Battle Missions book allowed for a 1500 point game between 3 Baneblades and a 1500 point army. That convinced my playgroup that a Baneblade company was fine, and I often played 3 Baneblades vs 1500 points of badguy, and probably went 20/80, since they couldn't score on objectives or anything, and were unlikely to table most armies.

APOC dropped in 4th ed with books indicating APOC only units. The Baneblade was one of the least crazy versions of superheavy available as it had no D strength weapons to my recollection.

In 2nd it was considered extremely poor form to bring anything from armorcast without your opponents permission. Especially if you were bringing one of their epic models that were made for 28 mm. It was the equivalent to turning up to a casual game with a hyper competitive tournament list and would often get you labeled TFG.

Breng77 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I'm still not sure the Apoc-only stuff was that OP.

In 2nd, superheavies were not Apoc (or Epic) only as there were rules for them in 28mm 40k.
In 3rd, superheavies were not Apoc only as Apoc didn't exist.
In 4th, superheavies could be used in both.
In 5th, superheavies were in fact Apoc-only.

So there was a minor aberration in 5th where they couldn't be used in normal games, and that's not even true - in fact, 5th is when I built my first Baneblade company because the Battle Missions book allowed for a 1500 point game between 3 Baneblades and a 1500 point army. That convinced my playgroup that a Baneblade company was fine, and I often played 3 Baneblades vs 1500 points of badguy, and probably went 20/80, since they couldn't score on objectives or anything, and were unlikely to table most armies.

APOC dropped in 4th ed with books indicating APOC only units. The Baneblade was one of the least crazy versions of superheavy available as it had no D strength weapons to my recollection.

Yes, that's true, but not all of the units were apoc only. In fact, most of the ones in the Apoc book also had normal variants from Forge World that edition, though they tended to be downplayed (e.g. the Strength 9, 2 shot Turbolaser Destructor, whose only advantage over a 2-shot lascannon was Small Blast, versus the Strength D ones that the GW rules writers put out).

Wayniac wrote:In 2nd it was considered extremely poor form to bring anything from armorcast without your opponents permission. Especially if you were bringing one of their epic models that were made for 28 mm. It was the equivalent to turning up to a casual game with a hyper competitive tournament list and would often get you labeled TFG.

This is true. You did, in fact, have to be a kind, thoughtful person when you played 2nd edition, or else the whole thing came crashing down. Superheavies were not the only culprit, as I'm sure others can attest, but were one of many things that you had to warn your opponent about before hand if the game was going to be enjoyable.

Super heavies in 3rd and 4th (pre Apoc) could only be used in games of 2000pts or more.
The pre Apoc rules for the Baneblade and Shadowsword were actually pretty mild, with the Baneblade battle cannon being a simple S9 AP2 Ordnance1 weapon. For 650~ish points, it was certainly not OP, especially not in a 2k game.
The Apoc rules slashed their cost, made them more resilient (no longer possible to blow them up in a single shot by getting chain reaction results on the damage table) and gave the baneblade that silly huge 10" template.

Panzergraf wrote:
Super heavies in 3rd and 4th (pre Apoc) could only be used in games of 2000pts or more.
The pre Apoc rules for the Baneblade and Shadowsword were actually pretty mild, with the Baneblade battle cannon being a simple S9 AP2 Ordnance1 weapon. For 650~ish points, it was certainly not OP, especially not in a 2k game.
The Apoc rules slashed their cost, made them more resilient (no longer possible to blow them up in a single shot by getting chain reaction results on the damage table) and gave the baneblade that silly huge 10" template.

You could chain-reaction tanks to death until the arrival of Hull Points in 6th. All Apoc did was add the 4+ save to the Primary Weapon in 5th when weapon destroyed results were no longer random.

The 10" template was silly, but not actually very good. They never dominated tournaments.

Really, people seem to have an irrational fear of superheavies; I can't recall a single tournament that was won by an army with a Baneblade (there may be like, 1, because I am human and fallible).

So no change to skyrays? I swear they could be 50 points and I’d still have a hard time justifying bringing them.

 Jaxler wrote:
So no change to skyrays? I swear they could be 50 points and I’d still have a hard time justifying bringing them.

There were not any Tau changes as far as been shown. There are not Necron changes either, leading to speculation that these will be after Chaos Daemons.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Jaxler wrote:
So no change to skyrays? I swear they could be 50 points and I’d still have a hard time justifying bringing them.

There were not any Tau changes as far as been shown. There are not Necron changes either, leading to speculation that these will be after Chaos Daemons.

Taunar doubled in points and they nerfed the manta.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

You could chain-reaction tanks to death until the arrival of Hull Points in 6th. All Apoc did was add the 4+ save to the Primary Weapon in 5th when weapon destroyed results were no longer random.

Oh, I guess I remember it wrong, then. But yeah, they were never really that powerful. And the Baneblade still isn't. In many cases it falls short of 3 regular Russes (more or less same cost), as it can't take orders or double its firepower when moving half or less.

Panzergraf wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

You could chain-reaction tanks to death until the arrival of Hull Points in 6th. All Apoc did was add the 4+ save to the Primary Weapon in 5th when weapon destroyed results were no longer random.

Oh, I guess I remember it wrong, then. But yeah, they were never really that powerful. And the Baneblade still isn't. In many cases it falls short of 3 regular Russes (more or less same cost), as it can't take orders or double its firepower when moving half or less.

Yeah. Which is why banning low is still. Because it bans Baneblades.

Panzergraf wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

You could chain-reaction tanks to death until the arrival of Hull Points in 6th. All Apoc did was add the 4+ save to the Primary Weapon in 5th when weapon destroyed results were no longer random.

Oh, I guess I remember it wrong, then. But yeah, they were never really that powerful. And the Baneblade still isn't. In many cases it falls short of 3 regular Russes (more or less same cost), as it can't take orders or double its firepower when moving half or less.

Yeah but it can shoot while it's locked in combat, that's not to be underestimated. It also suffers no penalties for moving and shooting.

 Marmatag wrote:

Panzergraf wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

You could chain-reaction tanks to death until the arrival of Hull Points in 6th. All Apoc did was add the 4+ save to the Primary Weapon in 5th when weapon destroyed results were no longer random.

Oh, I guess I remember it wrong, then. But yeah, they were never really that powerful. And the Baneblade still isn't. In many cases it falls short of 3 regular Russes (more or less same cost), as it can't take orders or double its firepower when moving half or less.

Yeah but it can shoot while it's locked in combat, that's not to be underestimated. It also suffers no penalties for moving and shooting.

Yes, all of this is true.

And yet, by your own metric, superheavy-centric armies do about as well as Tactical Marines in the competitive scene (e.g. I think one placed highly once, and that's it).

The meta has evolved to counter super heavy. Just as it has evolved to counter space marines. You don't even see Guilliman lists doing well anymore.

You can thank Eldar for that, their codex is strong.

 Marmatag wrote:
The meta has evolved to counter super heavy. Just as it has evolved to counter space marines. You don't even see Guilliman lists doing well anymore.

You can thank Eldar for that, their codex is strong.

Yes, this is true.

The meta brings tons and tons and tons of antitank weapons, and then whines and complains they can't kill hordes, so then hordes are nerfed and people can continue bringing a ton of anti-tank guns. That's just how it is. :(

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
The meta has evolved to counter super heavy. Just as it has evolved to counter space marines. You don't even see Guilliman lists doing well anymore.

You can thank Eldar for that, their codex is strong.

Yes, this is true.

The meta brings tons and tons and tons of antitank weapons, and then whines and complains they can't kill hordes, so then hordes are nerfed and people can continue bringing a ton of anti-tank guns. That's just how it is. :(

No matter how many times you say that it doesn't change the fact that good anti-horde largely doesn't exist.

 Arachnofiend wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
The meta has evolved to counter super heavy. Just as it has evolved to counter space marines. You don't even see Guilliman lists doing well anymore.

You can thank Eldar for that, their codex is strong.

Yes, this is true.

The meta brings tons and tons and tons of antitank weapons, and then whines and complains they can't kill hordes, so then hordes are nerfed and people can continue bringing a ton of anti-tank guns. That's just how it is. :(

No matter how many times you say that it doesn't change the fact that good anti-horde largely doesn't exist.

It exists in melee, but people don't wanna bring that for other reasons.

 Arachnofiend wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
The meta has evolved to counter super heavy. Just as it has evolved to counter space marines. You don't even see Guilliman lists doing well anymore.

You can thank Eldar for that, their codex is strong.

Yes, this is true.

The meta brings tons and tons and tons of antitank weapons, and then whines and complains they can't kill hordes, so then hordes are nerfed and people can continue bringing a ton of anti-tank guns. That's just how it is. :(

No matter how many times you say that it doesn't change the fact that good anti-horde largely doesn't exist.

Yeah, if good anti horde existed, then we could be talking about a changing meta. If horde becomes dominant, bring anti-horde. If tanks become dominant because everyone is spamming anti-horde and people start using tanks, then bring anti tank.
But isn't the case. Theres no good anti horde weaponry that isn't efective too agaisn't elite units.

All of what you say doesn't change the fact that if you're having problems with 60 Genestealers, bringing 4 heavy bolters instead of 4 lascannons is probably a good place to start, instead of privately wondering if genestealers are OP.

I actually spam the feth out of heavy bolters, hurricane bolters, etc... because they look badass.

The problem is not that they don't kill hordes. They kill them, not enough, but they do the work. The problem is that they are even better at killing Space Marines, Terminators, etc...

You need the lascannons against IG lists that have shooty tanks protected by an endless wall of cheap chaff. The only option is to shot past the chaff. You can't even begin to kill it, especially with an elite list.

 Galas wrote:
Theres no good anti horde weaponry that isn't efective too agaisn't elite units.

Wasn't the case before.

no one took anti elite weapons in the past because of the ap1-2 premium

it was easier to just spam scatter lasers and other mid str high rate of fire weapons.

ether way isnt it a bit early to be screaming doom and gloom? its not even 2018 yet.

Oh, I'm not screaming doom and gloom. I apologize, you are right. I should leave this before this thread becomes again a battle of the same posters with the same arguments for other 30-40 pages.

 Galas wrote:
Oh, I'm not screaming doom and gloom. I apologize, you are right. I should leave this before this thread becomes again a battle of the same posters with the same arguments for other 30-40 pages.

Wasn't specifying anyone in general

first page was funny though.

Hordes by themselves aren't dominating the way people suggest. It's when you can bring a horde to screen undercosted artillery/tanks, while also deep striking super undercosted BS3+ anti-tank and anti-elite guns for cheaper than anyone else in the game, while also simultaneously having the best anti-horde weaponry in the game.

 Galas wrote:
I actually spam the feth out of heavy bolters, hurricane bolters, etc... because they look badass.

The problem is not that they don't kill hordes. They kill them, not enough, but they do the work. The problem is that they are even better at killing Space Marines, Terminators, etc...

I feel like this is misleading.

A hurricane bolter kills 10 points of Orks and 8.6 points of marines.
A HB is 8 and 8.6 respectively.
A Taurox Gat is 25 and 22.

An assault cannon would be no different. Any varying number of bolter shots would be no different.

Please help me understand "even better".

 Marmatag wrote:
Hordes by themselves aren't dominating the way people suggest. It's when you can bring a horde to screen undercosted artillery/tanks, while also deep striking super undercosted BS3+ anti-tank and anti-elite guns for cheaper than anyone else in the game, while also simultaneously having the best anti-horde weaponry in the game.

Cultists make CSM function as well.

Daedalus81 wrote:

 Galas wrote:
I actually spam the feth out of heavy bolters, hurricane bolters, etc... because they look badass.

The problem is not that they don't kill hordes. They kill them, not enough, but they do the work. The problem is that they are even better at killing Space Marines, Terminators, etc...

I feel like this is misleading.

A hurricane bolter kills 10 points of Orks and 8.6 points of marines.
A HB is 8 and 8.6 respectively.
A Taurox Gat is 25 and 22.

An assault cannon would be no different. Any varying number of bolter shots would be no different.

Please help me understand "even better".

Well, yeah, Hordes with a 6+ save like Orks, Hormagants and Termagants aren't a problem. Daemonic chaff for 3pp with a 4++, or 4ppm units with a 5+, on the other hand...

It's less the 6+ save and more the price. Boyz cost 50% more than Guardsmen. Termagants are plenty durable. Cultists less so because they tend to have morale issues. Although unlike Guardsmen, the other two can have durability-enhancing traits. Horrors are just in a class of their own.

But, I mean, it's pretty hard to believe that someone who just happened to pick Orks to run the comparison with was doing so honestly. Everyone already knows all of this.

 Galas wrote:

Well, yeah, Hordes with a 6+ save like Orks, Hormagants and Termagants aren't a problem. Daemonic chaff for 3pp with a 4++, or 4ppm units with a 5+, on the other hand...

Ahh, gotcha. That makes sense. Thanks for the clarification.

I feel like Brims and Conscripts are in a pretty nerfed position and the solution is more finding a way around rather than through them, but that might be impractical, too.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Dionysodorus wrote:
But, I mean, it's pretty hard to believe that someone who just happened to pick Orks to run the comparison with was doing so honestly. Everyone already knows all of this.

Completely honestly. It was a very generalized statement that stuck out to me.

Brimstone Horrors should have a rule like Nurglings. Anything with -1AP or more should eliminate their invulnerable save, like Nurglings with Disgusting Resilient and Squiasheable.

But the Horror Family should be totally reworked. Theres should be two versions of Pink Horrours, the ones that divide and the ones that don't, with the price of the blue and brimstones on the cost.
Make Pink Horrours a chaff daemon with a decent ranged attack, so they can offer a interesting tactical choice to Daemons players compared with Daemonettes, Blodletters and Plaguebearers.

 Galas wrote:
Brimstone Horrors should have a rule like Nurglings. Anything with -1AP or more should eliminate their invulnerable save, like Nurglings with Disgusting Resilient and Squiasheable.

But the Horror Family should be totally reworked. Theres should be two versions of Pink Horrours, the ones that divide and the ones that don't, with the price of the blue and brimstones on the cost.
Make Pink Horrours a chaff daemon with a decent ranged attack, so they can offer a interesting tactical choice to Daemons players compared with Daemonettes, Blodletters and Plaguebearers.

We may yet see something like this with the new book. Crossing my fingers.

Daedalus81 wrote:
What is the difference between a marine with a bolter and a marine with a lascannon? They serve different roles, but have the same "body".

Well presumably the difference is the range of the lascannon allows the lascannon marine to sit way far back out of harm's way, likely in cover, and plink away, especially so because the lascannon being heavy means you don't want to move. One is meant to be a cheap generalist objective-grabber ideal to be thrown in a transport, the other a backline anti-tank/monster. Again looking at strictly "wounds/point" misses a ton, as range indirectly factors into durability. As does the codex/index internal balance as a whole. Is anti-tank super plentiful as is? Does it come at a premium? Is this supposed to be the army's weakness or strength? This should all factor into the points.

Daedalus81 wrote:
You don't point models on whether they are in cover or not.

Tell that to Vindicare assassins and ratlings. I'm not saying they're fairly or unfairly costed, but GW assumes you will have these in cover. Just as anyone would assume characters like commissars will be behind troops or artillery will be in the back or tanks will be bubble wrapped (that last one's a bit more questionable).

Daedalus81 wrote:
BS3vsBS4...This is covered by the cost of the weapons. See the BS3 Melta and BS4 Melta.

Is it? None of the tank weapons cost any more being taken on a tank commander. None of the special or heavy weapons besides plasma (and now melta) cost any more being taken on veteran squads. BS3 ratlings pay the same for their sniple rifles as BS4 special weapon squads.

Daedalus81 wrote:
on transports... And you have to buy a unit to put in it.

Yeah. But the wyvern doesn't have the option to transport anything, does it? I mean, it wouldn't make sense on an artillery piece and would go against what the weapon implies its role is, but the point stands; the ability to transport makes a unit more versatile, regardless of if you end up actually putting something in it or not.

Daedalus81 wrote:
At no point should rerolls be costed into the receiving unit. Nor are they currently. RG and devastators anyone? I don't see anyone calling for Devastators to get increased.

In the case of the wyvern the rerolls are basically costed into the unit as is. The wyvern has no options. It comes with the mortar and no other unit can take the mortar. It wouldn't make a difference if they put "rerolls to wound" in the weapon profile or in the unit profile. The end result is always the same.. I guess the hull heavy bolter would reroll too then? Hah.

Daedalus81 wrote:
Regiment benefits... These are a player choice. They are responsible for what their list turns into. I take a Defiler with the express purpose of using it alongside Blasphemous Machines and Daemonforge. If I didn't take it then I wouldn't use those CP. But at no point should I ever pay for CP I may or may not use.

In the case of taurox prime vs wyvern, which is what you're talking about here, no, it is not a player choice. The taurox prime can only ever have the tempestus regiment, if any, while the wyvern can have any other regiment. So that IS a big difference between the two.

Daedalus81 wrote:
There are too many differences... Not really.

Yes really. You're comparing an artillery piece to an elite transport. That's like me comparing a hellhound to a Valkyrie because they both put out lots of anti-infantry shots. They're in completely different worlds.

Daedalus81 wrote:
On not being able to compare marine melee rerolls to guard artillery rerolls... Are you sure about that? It gives us insight into their logic and VERY specifically tells us what rerolls to wounds means on a weapon where there are otherwise NO differences.

Yeah I'm pretty sure about it. Even if GW flat out said "you can pay half price for the wyvern mortar if you want it without the ability to reroll wounds" it STILL wouldn't prove that rerolling wounds is worth costing double because the big picture matters. Rerolling wounds is a lot more valuable on low strength weapons than it is high strength (since you'll likely wound anyway). It's a lot more valuable on weapons with a lot of shots. Weapons with lots of range. Would I pay double for a lascannon that rerolls to wound? Hell no! It's probably gonna wound anyway! Would I pay double for a hunter-seeker missile or a deathstrike that rerolls to hit? Hell no! They're one shot weapons.

And what do you mean weapons with no difference? The taurox gatling gun and the wyvern mortar have MOUNTAINS of differences.

What we're seeing here that the attempt to simplify wargear has exposed is that the base cost of some of their units are off.

You shouldn't need to adjust the price of the meltagun if the base unit was costed appropriately.

Scions should pay more for plasma than others.

Or, scions should just be costed appropriately.

 Marmatag wrote:
What we're seeing here that the attempt to simplify wargear has exposed is that the base cost of some of their units are off.

You shouldn't need to adjust the price of the meltagun if the base unit was costed appropriately.

Scions should pay more for plasma than others.

Or, scions should just be costed appropriately.

But then, when Scions can take different weapons, we enter in the problem of some weapons being just plain better with the unit if the cost of the sinergy of that unit with the generic weapon that has only 1 cost across all the army is pointed in the base cost of the body.

Scions are well priced, ever since plasma cost was increased.

 BoomWolf wrote:
Have you PLAYED MTG?

The obvious power cards are often detected before the set even out, and so does the bad, to the point of "strictly better" IS actually a thing there (two cards who are completely indentical except one is cheaper, or identical except one has a strict numerical advantage like doing 1 more point of damage)
Other than an odd metabreaker (like lictorshame), the meta soldifies within a week or two from a new release, bad cards never see play outside casual because they are instantly identified as such, etc.

If any, MTG has it far far worse, because at one point WoTC actually admitted to doing that on purpose. at least you can say GW is trying.

The only benefit MTG has, is the "standard rotation" that releases hundrends of new cards every year and then throws them out the game one and a half to two years after they come out, so nothing broken stays forever and the meta shifts constantly and cards go in and out of rotation.
Except, models are far more expensive and requrie some effort to assemble and paint, and if any wargame tried to pull THAT off, nobody would play it.

You know what happens to MTG balance once you take rotation out of the game? try going to a all-cards-allowed turnament (forgot the name).
The meta "evolved" so far that most decks there can with a good draw kill you before they even get a turn, and with a lousy draw, kill by turn 2. (if they are lucky enough that the enemy also draws badly enough to have them live that long)
Without the rotation, MTG is outright unplayable given just how poorly the balance in that game is.

Heck, MTG is so broken and pay=to-win that if EA made it, people would be burning trashcans on the streets.

This is a gross exaggeration of how Magic the Gathering works. You use the extreme of comparing standard to vintage/legacy. Try Modern tournaments. In modern you have everything (aside from a small ban list) to 8th edition. In Modern, every few standards, a new deck type emerges but most of the competitive Tier 1-2 decks remain the same. As new cards get introduced, you have more options, and most of thexe existing deck types have different variations and options. This allows decks to not only be customizable but less insane as "All cards allowed" and less of a price funnel as Standard. In fact, Wizards of the coast has been trying to murder Modern because they're upset that it's becoming more popular than standard and due to the way it works once you build a deck you never have to really buy a new one.

Matches between "Fast" decks usually end between round 3-5. Control, life based, and etc can really increase that to round 9+. Decks in Modern don't end the game on turn 1. Ever.

Also Magic is about as expensive as Warhammer 40k believe it or not. An entry level deck might cost only 250 dollars but you're not winning a major tournament with a 250 dollar deck. Most decks, even in standard, are upwards between 800-2400 dollars.

That being said, I don't really see the problem here and I am against the idea of balancing around the game by Power Level. Points is the better method of doing so.Price adjustments should be small but upping certain units by 15+ or lowering by the same is kind of crazy.

 Galas wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
What we're seeing here that the attempt to simplify wargear has exposed is that the base cost of some of their units are off.

You shouldn't need to adjust the price of the meltagun if the base unit was costed appropriately.

Scions should pay more for plasma than others.

Or, scions should just be costed appropriately.

But then, when Scions can take different weapons, we enter in the problem of some weapons being just plain better with the unit if the cost of the sinergy of that unit with the generic weapon that has only 1 cost across all the army is pointed in the base cost of the body.

Yeah...I don't think I saw anybody complaining about Meltaguns on Scions, it was always specifically Plasma. If anything, I was expecting Melta would go down 1-2 points and Plasma up 1-2 points more, to give Guard a reason to take Melta at all. Poor Veterans just got more expensive out of this too.

I mean, what are Guard's special weapons?
Grenade Launcher - 5 points, and strictly worse than a lasgun in many cases.
Flamer - 7 points, useful depending on circumstances, but too short ranged to defend against deep striking assault, and the main use of a Flamer is assault deterrence. Still useful, but those 7 points could be better spent elsewhere.
Melta - 12/17 points - expensive, single shot, and short ranged. On a hit it will hurt the enemy, even when not at 1/2 range, but the situation in which you are getting your big shot means that the enemy is closer than you would want them to be.
Hot Shot Volley Gun - Scions only, now 7 points. I got no serious complaints here.
Plasma Gun - 7/13 points - the "why not just take this" weapon. For same price of flamer, 3x the range, has good armor penetration, safe to fire at s7 but can be bumped up to s8 and damage 2 in a pinch to either chip down a big baddie or outright kill heavy infantry. Also 5 points cheaper than melta, and fires twice at melta's minimum range. So more spammable, more shots, and cheaper.

Even with melta at the straight 12 points for both 3+ and 4+ units, plasma was often the better choice since it can jack of all trade better.

I can see Marmatang's point though - if Scions be default didn't have deep strike and then paid 1-3 points for it, then Veterans and Command Squads wouldn't get saddled with as heavy nerfs to their guns. If the codex had done that, there would be a reason to take foot Scions/keep them in transports (they are cheaper), and the 3+ weapon price would only have gone up 3 points instead of 6. Same basic result, but it actually gives a reason to not deep strike them, and would mean Vets and Command Squads would be better able to compete with them. The granularity would be 16 point Vet with Plasma, 19 point Scion with Plasma, and 22 point deep strike Scion with plasma, rather than the current 19 point Vet and 22 point Scion.

Still, all this complaining aside, it isn't the end of the world. I'm not huge on Conscripts, prefer tanks to artillery, and my Chimera did not get nerfed, so when the biggest complaint I have personally is that a single weapon I like got a nerfed, I can live. And from what I understand, the Manticore at least truly did deserve its price hike.

Wow. After coming back from Blizzard's Heroes of the Storm forums, with the changes to Stealth Heroes and the Nerf to all the supports, I can say that... DakkaDakka, you are in comparison a place of joy, positiveness and reasonable analisis of every change GW does to his game

But theres something that doesn't change. It doesn't matter how many peoples said that is gonna uninstall the game or stop buying miniatures... they never do that.

And yes Kurhanik. I'll love for Scions to have Deepstrike has a hability they pay for like Primaris Reivers. I feel bad for using my 20 Scions with Hotshot volleyguns in Tauroxes Primes.

ThePorcupine wrote:

Well presumably the difference is the range of the lascannon allows the lascannon marine to sit way far back out of harm's way, likely in cover, and plink away, especially so because the lascannon being heavy means you don't want to move. One is meant to be a cheap generalist objective-grabber ideal to be thrown in a transport, the other a backline anti-tank/monster. Again looking at strictly "wounds/point" misses a ton, as range indirectly factors into durability. As does the codex/index internal balance as a whole. Is anti-tank super plentiful as is? Does it come at a premium? Is this supposed to be the army's weakness or strength? This should all factor into the points.

I think you might be missing the point, but I could be wrong.

The lascannon sits back, but it still pays the same base cost. Devastators are no more expensive than regular marines, but they serve different roles. It is not unreasonable to state that a T6 3+ chassis would be priced similarly to another T6 3+ chassis barring any extras.

Tell that to Vindicare assassins and ratlings. I'm not saying they're fairly or unfairly costed, but GW assumes you will have these in cover. Just as anyone would assume characters like commissars will be behind troops or artillery will be in the back or tanks will be bubble wrapped (that last one's a bit more questionable).

GW does not assume you have cover. Everyone can get cover. There is not need to point for it. A Vindicare or ratlings WILL have those special abilities in their base cost, because they go above and beyond the norm.

Is it? None of the tank weapons cost any more being taken on a tank commander. None of the special or heavy weapons besides plasma (and now melta) cost any more being taken on veteran squads. BS3 ratlings pay the same for their sniple rifles as BS4 special weapon squads.

There are always exceptions to the rule and a couple of under priced cannons on character tanks does not affect the game like 20 to 30 plasma guns that are undercosted. Veterans like infantry can take just one heavy. The impact is extremely limited. The problem is more pronounced when an entire unit can take such a weapon.

Yeah. But the wyvern doesn't have the option to transport anything, does it? I mean, it wouldn't make sense on an artillery piece and would go against what the weapon implies its role is, but the point stands; the ability to transport makes a unit more versatile, regardless of if you end up actually putting something in it or not.

At the cost of not taking bigger weapons. There is a trade off.

In the case of the wyvern the rerolls are basically costed into the unit as is. The wyvern has no options. It comes with the mortar and no other unit can take the mortar. It wouldn't make a difference if they put "rerolls to wound" in the weapon profile or in the unit profile. The end result is always the same.. I guess the hull heavy bolter would reroll too then? Hah.

Again I don't think you're quite understanding. The point was to demonstrate that the cost of the mortar is likely in that range, which makes the cost of the wyvern without weapons similar to other vehicles with that "chassis".

In the case of taurox prime vs wyvern, which is what you're talking about here, no, it is not a player choice. The taurox prime can only ever have the tempestus regiment, if any, while the wyvern can have any other regiment. So that IS a big difference between the two.

This isn't what I was referencing. You'll need to review the original thread.

Yes really. You're comparing an artillery piece to an elite transport. That's like me comparing a hellhound to a Valkyrie because they both put out lots of anti-infantry shots. They're in completely different worlds.

Devastator
Tactical Marine

Why aren't they different base costs?

Yeah I'm pretty sure about it. Even if GW flat out said "you can pay half price for the wyvern mortar if you want it without the ability to reroll wounds" it STILL wouldn't prove that rerolling wounds is worth costing double because the big picture matters. Rerolling wounds is a lot more valuable on low strength weapons than it is high strength (since you'll likely wound anyway). It's a lot more valuable on weapons with a lot of shots. Weapons with lots of range. Would I pay double for a lascannon that rerolls to wound? Hell no! It's probably gonna wound anyway! Would I pay double for a hunter-seeker missile or a deathstrike that rerolls to hit? Hell no! They're one shot weapons.

Fortunately for us both the mortar and the lightning claw are S4 weapons.

 Galas wrote:
Wow. After coming back from Blizzard's Heroes of the Storm forums, with the changes to Stealth Heroes and the Nerf to all the supports, I can say that... DakkaDakka, you are in comparison a place of joy, positiveness and reasonable analisis of every change GW does to his game

I think it's because at the end of the day, regardless of how any of us might disagree about anything in particular, we can all look fondly at our collections and take pride in the work we put into what we've physically built up, as well as the more social environment that tabletop games regularly develop. There's a place of shared empathy because we all can understand some core elements of the hobby that keep us coming back to it, which also serve to provide alternative sources of life to the hobby that allow it to exist beyond simple power balances and provide a bulwark for the absolute worst pain that a major change or shift in power may bring. Essentially, there's always something left to cling on to.

Breng77 wrote:

 auticus wrote:
I agree... you need poiints for structure for pick up games. Thats why I don't mind Power Level, and thats why I wrote Azyr Comp for AOS when it first came out.

Now for our 40k campaign coming up that uses Power Level you are restricted to a certain number of upgrades period. So you can't just take everything.

So again it requires agreed to restrictions, to work properly. The reason PL works for most pick up games is that if you play WYSIWYG most people have built things for points, so armies are not using every upgrade, if PL became the common means of balance, unless accompanied by restrictions, people would start to build their units with max upgrades.

Or not. Funny thing is player self-restriction CAN work. You can have tournament with tournament player asking to limit the spam and broken stuff and lo and behold players actually are capable of doing that. Been there, done that, seen that work.

tneva82 wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

 auticus wrote:
I agree... you need poiints for structure for pick up games. Thats why I don't mind Power Level, and thats why I wrote Azyr Comp for AOS when it first came out.

Now for our 40k campaign coming up that uses Power Level you are restricted to a certain number of upgrades period. So you can't just take everything.

So again it requires agreed to restrictions, to work properly. The reason PL works for most pick up games is that if you play WYSIWYG most people have built things for points, so armies are not using every upgrade, if PL became the common means of balance, unless accompanied by restrictions, people would start to build their units with max upgrades.

Or not. Funny thing is player self-restriction CAN work. You can have tournament with tournament player asking to limit the spam and broken stuff and lo and behold players actually are capable of doing that. Been there, done that, seen that work.

Ummm....but you asked them to do so, therefore it isn't self-restriction but instead one imposed
By the event. Now maybe it was just done through social pressure rather than strict rules, but it was done none the less. If you ran tournaments without asking for said restriction people would start building to max upgrades on their units because that would be the corr ft competitiv choice.

Any major changes to CSM?

Champion of Slaanesh wrote:
Any major changes to CSM?

Some pretty good ones for non-FW stuff:
http://bloodofkittens.com/blog/2017/11/20/chapter-approved-leak-compilation/

 Fafnir wrote:
I think it's because at the end of the day, regardless of how any of us might disagree about anything in particular, we can all look fondly at our collections and take pride in the work we put into what we've physically built up, as well as the more social environment that tabletop games regularly develop. There's a place of shared empathy because we all can understand some core elements of the hobby that keep us coming back to it, which also serve to provide alternative sources of life to the hobby that allow it to exist beyond simple power balances and provide a bulwark for the absolute worst pain that a major change or shift in power may bring. Essentially, there's always something left to cling on to.

Mind if I quote this? It really speaks to the heart

Smfh
Why in Nurgles name did defilers need a points bump?

We need a drop in Rhino points across all codexes; make transports great again!

 Zid wrote:
We need a drop in Rhino points across all codexes; make transports great again!

They did that already. Razorbacks and Stormravens (and to a lesser extent, wave serpents) are among the most powerful unit options out there. Harlequin transports are fantastic. Not only that, but units can charge now after exiting a transport.

HuskyWarhammer wrote:

 Zid wrote:
We need a drop in Rhino points across all codexes; make transports great again!

They did that already. Razorbacks and Stormravens (and to a lesser extent, wave serpents) are among the most powerful unit options out there. Harlequin transports are fantastic. Not only that, but units can charge now after exiting a transport.

When did they lower Rhino costs? CSM ones are 70 points, which is a lot for a box that you can no longer fire from

I see the drop to other transports, which is nice, but... Rhinos are a staple unit. I feel like 50-60 points feels good for what they do

Champion of Slaanesh wrote:
Smfh
Why in Nurgles name did defilers need a points bump?

They went down in points though?

the_scotsman wrote:

Champion of Slaanesh wrote:
Smfh
Why in Nurgles name did defilers need a points bump?

They went down in points though?

If looking at the kitten blog i think they messed up

they put "old then new" in the top but its actually new and old.

otherwise girlyman would of dropped 25 points and the internet would of collectively flipped their lids.

 Zid wrote:
We need a drop in Rhino points across all codexes; make transports great again!

Rhinos are the most undercosted transports in the game, they should be 90 points plus weapons.

 Blackie wrote:

 Zid wrote:
We need a drop in Rhino points across all codexes; make transports great again!

Rhinos are the most undercosted transports in the game, they should be 90 points plus weapons.

Yeah that's why you see them dominating tournaments...Oh wait those are razorbacks with twin assault cannons.

So If ITC or another large tournament organizer came out with recommended points values would any of you any of you use that instead?

Some of these price changes are insane.

I would have no problems using their points in tournaments or random pick&up games. At home no since we don't use matched play points much anyway

tneva82 wrote:

 Blackie wrote:

 Zid wrote:
We need a drop in Rhino points across all codexes; make transports great again!

Rhinos are the most undercosted transports in the game, they should be 90 points plus weapons.

Yeah that's why you see them dominating tournaments...Oh wait those are razorbacks with twin assault cannons.

Yeah razorbacks are dominating but not as transports, just shooty immobile tanks.

If you compare all the other transports in the game you'll certainly notice that 72 points for a T7 10W 3+ transport that can carry 10 guys is a steal. Orks trukks are 82 with T6 and 4+, drukhari raiders even 115 points and only T5 4+ just with a better weapon.

I also couldn't care less about the tournament meta, only WAAC players that spam the same 2-3 units go there. Tournaments lists are not the usual, it's just a minority of players. Rhinos are extremely good, the units that can take them are usually not worthy because SM basically only have shooty stuff. In SW lists with grey hunters, blood claws, wolf guards or even long fangs with heavy bolters rhinos are quite effective. In CSM lists they can be very effective as well.

Yeah, from a CSM perspective rhinos are solid, though I think they'll be replaced by the dreadclaw for most things now that that's priced reasonably.

 Blackie wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 Blackie wrote:

 Zid wrote:
We need a drop in Rhino points across all codexes; make transports great again!

Rhinos are the most undercosted transports in the game, they should be 90 points plus weapons.

Yeah that's why you see them dominating tournaments...Oh wait those are razorbacks with twin assault cannons.

Yeah razorbacks are dominating but not as transports, just shooty immobile tanks.

If you compare all the other transports in the game you'll certainly notice that 72 points for a T7 10W 3+ transport that can carry 10 guys is a steal. Orks trukks are 82 with T6 and 4+, drukhari raiders even 115 points and only T5 4+ just with a better weapon.

I also couldn't care less about the tournament meta, only WAAC players that spam the same 2-3 units go there. Tournaments lists are not the usual, it's just a minority of players. Rhinos are extremely good, the units that can take them are usually not worthy because SM basically only have shooty stuff. In SW lists with grey hunters, blood claws, wolf guards or even long fangs with heavy bolters rhinos are quite effective. In CSM lists they can be very effective as well.

So if others are even more overpointed you need to make the slightly less overcosted thing even more overcosted rather than say fix them all by lowering point costs...

Yeah that makes sense...NOT!

If rhino's were so undercosted as you claim you would see them use all the time. Funnily enough that doesn't seem to be case.

 Dayknight wrote:


So If ITC or another large tournament organizer came out with recommended points values would any of you any of you use that instead?

Some of these price changes are insane.

Depends on the quality of the evaluation and the rate of adoption. Ifa few groups in the boonies made use of such a list, no. But if major tournaments started making moves towards a standardized set, perhaps.

tneva82 wrote:
If rhino's were so undercosted as you claim you would see them use all the time. Funnily enough that doesn't seem to be case.

You did see them all the time pre-codex as a berserker delivery system. They got replaced by the Alpha Legion stratagem in top tier lists but World Eaters players are still using rhinos.

tneva82 wrote:


If rhino's were so undercosted as you claim you would see them use all the time. Funnily enough that doesn't seem to be case.

It's only because SM have a pletora of overpowered/undercosted stuff

If they can have more competitive builts it doesn't mean that rhinos are not undercosted.

The problem about rhinos is not their cost, which is actually a real bargain, but the fact that this edition allows too many deep striking units. IMHO deep strike should have never existed. And as I said the before rhinos don't look particularly competitive for SM because right now they're basically a gun line army.

 Blackie wrote:

tneva82 wrote:


If rhino's were so undercosted as you claim you would see them use all the time. Funnily enough that doesn't seem to be case.

It's only because SM have a pletora of overpowered/undercosted stuff

If they can have more competitive builts it doesn't mean that rhinos are not undercosted.

The problem about rhinos is not their cost, which is actually a real bargain, but the fact that this edition allows too many deep striking units. IMHO deep strike should have never existed. And as I said the before rhinos don't look particularly competitive for SM because right now they're basically a gun line army.

Aaaah yes rhino's only exists in SM army and not in other armies that also make regular appearances in top tournament spots yet aren't brimming with rhino's.

Yep yep. That rhino indeed is still so brokenly good and undercosted despite not appearing in top tournament tables in any significant numbers even when not in SM army. Yeah makes sense.

Complain about price when you see them dominating tournament tables.

Dude, every army in tournaments just spam 4-5 units. It doesn't mean that everything else is garbage.

SW may have better builds but a rhino rush with blood claws can be quite effective in a semi-competitive meta, but also wolf guards, long fangs and grey hunters which now even received a price cut. Berzerkers in rhinos are scary.

You should never consider tournaments to say if a unit is good or bad. It's only a small part of 40k (probably even less than 5% of the games played) and IMHO tournaments are not even real 40k games since 3 turns games are quite different than real ones.

There's a range of value and different shades in the units/wargear, not only garbage or overpowered. Rhinos are very good, the fact that armies can spam a few overpowered units and go to a tournaments with lists that boring doesn't mean that rhinos are not undercosted and an effective transport.

Lads, lads, calm down. Just play PL pickup games, then you never get salty. Works for me.

 CREEEEEEEEED wrote:
Lads, lads, calm down. Just play PL pickup games, then you never get salty. Works for me.

Oh no we ain't falling for your cunning ruse, my name ain't failaddon.

All the guard players are buttmad over this.

Hey, your army was stupid good there for a bit. Guard players were swaggering about, puffing their chests out, acting like they'd mastered some kind of strategy for winning.

Ask me if I care now. Your army is not unplayable, you'll be fine.

And I play guard, too.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:
All the guard players are buttmad over this.

Hey, your army was stupid good there for a bit. Guard players were swaggering about, puffing their chests out, acting like they'd mastered some kind of strategy for winning.

Ask me if I care now. Your army is not unplayable, you'll be fine.

And I play guard, too.

You know I don't think I know anyone like this.

In fact recently I've been trying to find ways to mitigate the unfunness of my Baneblade companies, though I am fairly certain it's not the machines themselves but rather the "skew" tendency of the list.

 Blackie wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 Blackie wrote:

 Zid wrote:
We need a drop in Rhino points across all codexes; make transports great again!

Rhinos are the most undercosted transports in the game, they should be 90 points plus weapons.

Yeah that's why you see them dominating tournaments...Oh wait those are razorbacks with twin assault cannons.

Yeah razorbacks are dominating but not as transports, just shooty immobile tanks.

If you compare all the other transports in the game you'll certainly notice that 72 points for a T7 10W 3+ transport that can carry 10 guys is a steal. Orks trukks are 82 with T6 and 4+, drukhari raiders even 115 points and only T5 4+ just with a better weapon.

I also couldn't care less about the tournament meta, only WAAC players that spam the same 2-3 units go there. Tournaments lists are not the usual, it's just a minority of players. Rhinos are extremely good, the units that can take them are usually not worthy because SM basically only have shooty stuff. In SW lists with grey hunters, blood claws, wolf guards or even long fangs with heavy bolters rhinos are quite effective. In CSM lists they can be very effective as well.

Not even mentioning the Smoke Launchers for -1 to Hit rolls

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
In fact recently I've been trying to find ways to mitigate the unfunness of my Baneblade companies, though I am fairly certain it's not the machines themselves but rather the "skew" tendency of the list.

Yeah, not to be a complete jerk, but when people say their own army isn't 'fun', most of the time it means it's a little broken. 40k has never been a 'balanced' game, but the fact that people have to nerf their own lists to play against anyone other than their own army on the table... there might be a problem.

Guard players are the least fun to play against these days. A few tweak their lists, but otherwise if someone puts down IG you can bet it's the Conscript and Bullgryn smashmob with a bunch of tanks. That's why the Commissar nerf is hilarious to me.

Not much 'fun' for anyone going up against a table full of conscripts, bullgryn, and tanks, and their only response is 'you should have used RG'.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
In fact recently I've been trying to find ways to mitigate the unfunness of my Baneblade companies, though I am fairly certain it's not the machines themselves but rather the "skew" tendency of the list.

Yeah, not to be a complete jerk, but when people say their own army isn't 'fun', most of the time it means it's a little broken. 40k has never been a 'balanced' game, but the fact that people have to nerf their own lists to play against anyone other than their own army on the table... there might be a problem.

Guard players are the least fun to play against these days. A few tweak their lists, but otherwise if someone puts down IG you can bet it's the Conscript and Bullgryn smashmob with a bunch of tanks. That's why the Commissar nerf is hilarious to me.

Not much 'fun' for anyone going up against a table full of conscripts, bullgryn, and tanks, and their only response is 'you should have used RG'.

Actually, if you look back at the thread I made, the biggest problem isn't the OPness of the tanks (though Steel Behemoth makes them borderline broken) but rather the boringness of having only 3 units that do the heavy lifting - essentially, the enemy has 0 target priority choices and0 options other than "kill da baneblade"; it's therefore just not a very interesting game.

I need to fix that without increasing points and that's a very difficult thing to do.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:


I need to fix that without increasing points and that's a very difficult thing to do.

To be fair, the solution is very simple, its just that it'd upset people who play entirely superheavy armies, or use them regularly.

 Blackie wrote:

IMHO deep strike should have never existed. And as I said the before rhinos don't look particularly competitive for SM because right now they're basically a gun line army.

Hear me out. What if deep strike were associated with some sort of risk mechanic, like a scatter, failure, and so on?
I know it sounds crazy but....

 Kaiyanwang wrote:

 Blackie wrote:

IMHO deep strike should have never existed. And as I said the before rhinos don't look particularly competitive for SM because right now they're basically a gun line army.

Hear me out. What if deep strike were associated with some sort of risk mechanic, like a scatter, failure, and so on?
I know it sounds crazy but....

Depending how it's done that can be interesting or horrible. I kinda dig it.

 Blacksails wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:


I need to fix that without increasing points and that's a very difficult thing to do.

To be fair, the solution is very simple, its just that it'd upset people who play entirely superheavy armies, or use them regularly.

Yeah I mean you could always delete the problem units from the game.

That doesn't really mean I get more games with the army I want to play though. It just means I don't get to play Warhammer 40k at all.

Rhyltran wrote:

 Kaiyanwang wrote:

 Blackie wrote:

IMHO deep strike should have never existed. And as I said the before rhinos don't look particularly competitive for SM because right now they're basically a gun line army.

Hear me out. What if deep strike were associated with some sort of risk mechanic, like a scatter, failure, and so on?
I know it sounds crazy but....

Depending how it's done that can be interesting or horrible. I kinda dig it.

That's how it was in 3e/4e - you put the pie plate down where you wanted to go, rolled scatter like it was an actual pie, then you set your unit up within the plate wherever it went.

Oh, and I think there was a roll for them to show up at all that turn.

If it scattered off the table, 100% casualty. If it landed in DT, you had to make rolls against Toughness, I think. Can't remember anymore.

That's part of the reason that airborne type Doctrine wasn't so hot for Guard at the time - you could make a number of units (inf, sentinel) all have Deep Strike, but you risked losing guys on the drop, scattering all your sticks around into useless positions, and so forth.

M.

 Kaiyanwang wrote:

 Blackie wrote:

IMHO deep strike should have never existed. And as I said the before rhinos don't look particularly competitive for SM because right now they're basically a gun line army.

Hear me out. What if deep strike were associated with some sort of risk mechanic, like a scatter, failure, and so on?
I know it sounds crazy but....

I'd love that. Since there are no scatter dice anymore something like rolling a D6: on a 4+ the unit can deepstrike 9'' away from enemy units, on a 2 or 3 it can arrive 18'' away from enemy units, on a 6 it's completely destroyed. No re-rolls (like CP) allowed.

Or maybe just limit the deep strike ability to one unit and one solo character per list.

IMHO the deep strike spam is one of the biggest problems of 40k.

 Blackie wrote:

 Kaiyanwang wrote:

 Blackie wrote:

IMHO deep strike should have never existed. And as I said the before rhinos don't look particularly competitive for SM because right now they're basically a gun line army.

Hear me out. What if deep strike were associated with some sort of risk mechanic, like a scatter, failure, and so on?
I know it sounds crazy but....

I'd love that. Since there are no scatter dice anymore something like rolling a D6: on a 4+ the unit can deepstrike 9'' away from enemy units, on a 2 or 3 it can arrive 18'' away from enemy units, on a 6 it's completely destroyed. No re-rolls (like CP) allowed.

Or maybe just limit the deep strike ability to one unit and one solo character per list.

IMHO the deep strike spam is one of the biggest problems of 40k.

*thinks deep strike is unfun and uninteractive because it removes his units before he gets to use them.*

*wants to introduce a mechanic that instantly kills a deep striking unit before it gets put on the table*

Tourney games are a very good litmus test for balance. Spammed units probably need a nerf bat or alternatives buffed. Marines have very few undercosted options and actually tend toward overcosted.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:


Yeah I mean you could always delete the problem units from the game.

That doesn't really mean I get more games with the army I want to play though. It just means I don't get to play Warhammer 40k at all.

They wouldn't be deleted from the game, just restricted to certain game types, like Apoc of old.

Its pretty melodramatic to say you couldn't play 40k at all; if you were here prior to 6th, everyone got along just fine back when you couldn't run 3 baneblades as a regular, pick up game army.

The scale creep in 40k is hurting it just as bad as power creep. I have no problem with Apoc being a thing, but I feel that 40k would be improved dramatically if the 'base' game had no flyers or superheavies, or at the very least, heavily restricted.

 Blacksails wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:


Yeah I mean you could always delete the problem units from the game.

That doesn't really mean I get more games with the army I want to play though. It just means I don't get to play Warhammer 40k at all.

They wouldn't be deleted from the game, just restricted to certain game types, like Apoc of old.

Its pretty melodramatic to say you couldn't play 40k at all; if you were here prior to 6th, everyone got along just fine back when you couldn't run 3 baneblades as a regular, pick up game army.

The scale creep in 40k is hurting it just as bad as power creep. I have no problem with Apoc being a thing, but I feel that 40k would be improved dramatically if the 'base' game had no flyers or superheavies, or at the very least, heavily restricted.

The problem with "everyone got along just fine back in 5th" is the dramatic increase in lethality.

My 3rd-6th Edition 40k army had 1 Baneblade in it and other stuff. Nowadays, a single Baneblade gets alpha-struck off the board, and I don't actually get to use it. It's not really fun at all; I've tried running just one.

In 7th I transitioned to the Heresy, where Baneblade companies were fine and no one had problems with them.

Now, in 8th, they're dramatically better (sure, that's fine), but there's an issue with skew lists (as usual) so I don't know how to proceed.

 Blackie wrote:

 Kaiyanwang wrote:

 Blackie wrote:

IMHO deep strike should have never existed. And as I said the before rhinos don't look particularly competitive for SM because right now they're basically a gun line army.

Hear me out. What if deep strike were associated with some sort of risk mechanic, like a scatter, failure, and so on?
I know it sounds crazy but....

I'd love that. Since there are no scatter dice anymore something like rolling a D6: on a 4+ the unit can deepstrike 9'' away from enemy units, on a 2 or 3 it can arrive 18'' away from enemy units, on a 6 it's completely destroyed. No re-rolls (like CP) allowed.

Or maybe just limit the deep strike ability to one unit and one solo character per list.

IMHO the deep strike spam is one of the biggest problems of 40k.

Could change reserves so that you rolled a dice for each unit you had in reserves at the start of your turn, and on a 4+, you could pick one of your units from that list to come in. On turn three, all remaining reserves would become available. More reliable than previous editions, but still have to account for not everything being right where you need it when you need it.

@Unit

I can assure you that removing superheavies and flyers (or again, heavily restricted) would eliminate the issues of skew lists using those unit types.

the_scotsman wrote:

 Blackie wrote:

 Kaiyanwang wrote:

 Blackie wrote:

IMHO deep strike should have never existed. And as I said the before rhinos don't look particularly competitive for SM because right now they're basically a gun line army.

Hear me out. What if deep strike were associated with some sort of risk mechanic, like a scatter, failure, and so on?
I know it sounds crazy but....

I'd love that. Since there are no scatter dice anymore something like rolling a D6: on a 4+ the unit can deepstrike 9'' away from enemy units, on a 2 or 3 it can arrive 18'' away from enemy units, on a 6 it's completely destroyed. No re-rolls (like CP) allowed.

Or maybe just limit the deep strike ability to one unit and one solo character per list.

IMHO the deep strike spam is one of the biggest problems of 40k.

*thinks deep strike is unfun and uninteractive because it removes his units before he gets to use them.*

*wants to introduce a mechanic that instantly kills a deep striking unit before it gets put on the table*

Anon (because of the posting style), it was a joke about the old deep strike in the sense that was not 100% reliable so you could not count on the reserves alpha striking the enemy on turn 1 with 100% reliability.
We went from LOLRANDUMB to "whoever gets the first turn".
I do ask, maybe there is a middle ground? Like even roll reserves on a 2+, and mishaps just delay their arrival, with everything automatic at turn 3-4, as suggested.
But what people say above "if I deploy ONE super-heavy gets deleted" tells us that there is something wrong about alpha strike.
And I said this as someone that loves DS and summoning.

 Blacksails wrote:
@Unit

I can assure you that removing superheavies and flyers (or again, heavily restricted) would eliminate the issues of skew lists using those unit types.

Yes, but it also removes my army and interest in the game outside of Apoc, which almost never gets played in my experience.

So aside from "feth you, got mine" do you have any advice that could help me?

 Kaiyanwang wrote:

We went from LOLRANDUMB to "whoever gets the first turn".

Which is actually more LOLRANDUMB than it used to be, as so much hinges on a single roll.
Back in my day all the random reserve rolls averaged out over the course of the game.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:
@Unit

I can assure you that removing superheavies and flyers (or again, heavily restricted) would eliminate the issues of skew lists using those unit types.

Yes, but it also removes my army and interest in the game outside of Apoc, which almost never gets played in my experience.

So aside from "feth you, got mine" do you have any advice that could help me?

Don't play 3 baneblades?

We already went over this. If you want to play with 3 baneblades, no more, no less, there's nothing that can done outside of GW changing the rules.

The solution to your problem is to simply not use 3 baneblades.

 Blacksails wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:
@Unit

I can assure you that removing superheavies and flyers (or again, heavily restricted) would eliminate the issues of skew lists using those unit types.

Yes, but it also removes my army and interest in the game outside of Apoc, which almost never gets played in my experience.

So aside from "feth you, got mine" do you have any advice that could help me?

Don't play 3 baneblades?

We already went over this. If you want to play with 3 baneblades, no more, no less, there's nothing that can done outside of GW changing the rules.

The solution to your problem is to simply not use 3 baneblades.

Thanks for your help, I'm glad you bothered to reply.

And I would be willing to play more, and less, actually. But more just exacerbates the problem, and less has a whole bunch of nonsensical rules issues (loss of doctrines/use of 2/3rds of allowed detachments/loss of command points) while also preventing me from actually using the vehicles, as a single Baneblade is very very very easily alphastruck.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:


Thanks for your help, I'm glad you bothered to reply.

No problem! Always glad to be of assistance!

And I would be willing to play more, and less, actually. But more just exacerbates the problem, and less has a whole bunch of nonsensical rules issues (loss of doctrines/use of 2/3rds of allowed detachments/loss of command points) while also preventing me from actually using the vehicles, as a single Baneblade is very very very easily alphastruck.

I mean, honestly, the solution is to play something other than 3 baneblades. It may not be ideal for any number of reasons, but apparently its not ideal to run 3 baneblades either for your opponent.

If the single superheavy detachment let you run a doctrine, that'd be a help to let you run a single one with the doctrine of your choice, and would probably be an easy houserule.

It sounds like you're screwed no matter what you do anyways, and the choice boils down to running what you love at the expense of some opponents, or running something you're not in love for some opponent goodwill.

Pick your poison I suppose.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:
@Unit

I can assure you that removing superheavies and flyers (or again, heavily restricted) would eliminate the issues of skew lists using those unit types.

Yes, but it also removes my army and interest in the game outside of Apoc, which almost never gets played in my experience.

So aside from "feth you, got mine" do you have any advice that could help me?

Don't play 3 baneblades?

We already went over this. If you want to play with 3 baneblades, no more, no less, there's nothing that can done outside of GW changing the rules.

The solution to your problem is to simply not use 3 baneblades.

Thanks for your help, I'm glad you bothered to reply.

And I would be willing to play more, and less, actually. But more just exacerbates the problem, and less has a whole bunch of nonsensical rules issues (loss of doctrines/use of 2/3rds of allowed detachments/loss of command points) while also preventing me from actually using the vehicles, as a single Baneblade is very very very easily alphastruck.

Your reply confuses me a bit.... on one hand, you are concerned running 3 bane blades is making you too competitive... on the other hand you don't want to take less because it's less optimized.

 Fafnir wrote:


Could change reserves so that you rolled a dice for each unit you had in reserves at the start of your turn, and on a 4+, you could pick one of your units from that list to come in. On turn three, all remaining reserves would become available. More reliable than previous editions, but still have to account for not everything being right where you need it when you need it.

How about you just divide the deep strikers into thirds rounding up.

1/3 can arrive turn 1
1/3 can arrive turn 2
1/3 can arrive turn 3

That means a guy with just 1 or 2 two deep striking units isn't hamstrung.

Then add a stratagem for 1 or 2 CP that allows you to deep strike on additional unit that turn.

Asmodios wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:
@Unit

I can assure you that removing superheavies and flyers (or again, heavily restricted) would eliminate the issues of skew lists using those unit types.

Yes, but it also removes my army and interest in the game outside of Apoc, which almost never gets played in my experience.

So aside from "feth you, got mine" do you have any advice that could help me?

Don't play 3 baneblades?

We already went over this. If you want to play with 3 baneblades, no more, no less, there's nothing that can done outside of GW changing the rules.

The solution to your problem is to simply not use 3 baneblades.

Thanks for your help, I'm glad you bothered to reply.

And I would be willing to play more, and less, actually. But more just exacerbates the problem, and less has a whole bunch of nonsensical rules issues (loss of doctrines/use of 2/3rds of allowed detachments/loss of command points) while also preventing me from actually using the vehicles, as a single Baneblade is very very very easily alphastruck.

Your reply confuses me a bit.... on one hand, you are concerned running 3 bane blades is making you too competitive... on the other hand you don't want to take less because it's less optimized.

Not because it is less optimized - I'm not worried about losing, and in fact dropping 3 Baneblades down to 2 or 1 would probably improve the list.

But

the problem I've encountered is 1 Baneblade is comparatively trivial to alpha-strike for rather normal TAC armies, and is an obvious and hard-to-hide target, so running 1 is essentially a very good way to end up running 0 with a 1500 point army. I want to play with a Baneblade, not set it on the board and then take it off the board and play on with other models.

Two Baneblades avoids this problem, but lack Regimental Doctrines (which is a crucial part of the fluff, really) and takes 2/3 of the max detachment limits, so it severely limits the support options I can bring anyways, though admittedly in this case by detachments rather than by points. I could bring 2 in Supreme Command detachments, but taking 6 irrelevant HQ's just seems weird. Like my 2k army is ten Company Commanders and two Baneblades... that makes sense. *rolleyes*. As an additional, though more minor concern, two Baneblades are still borderline skew anyways, and with 1 being able to be alpha-struck, the second one has only a single turn of retaliation before it, too, evaporates - unless I can destroy the enemy AT assets in that turn, and then the remaining Baneblade dominates. That's... just more skew, again.

 Arachnofiend wrote:
Yeah, from a CSM perspective rhinos are solid, though I think they'll be replaced by the dreadclaw for most things now that that's priced reasonably.

You think so? They still cost fifty points more than the loyalist drop pods (at 83) because reasons. Hard to justify when dread-claws are supposed to be older technology. Maybe theres something im missing that dread-claws do better than drop pods?

On a separate note i say we petition ITC to do some point changes for their tournaments so we can start using those instead of this chapter approved garbage.

Wouldn't the problems with deep striking be cured by not letting them come in turn 1 and then having to roll for each unit individually each turn. Like we did in other editions.

Right now there is no downside to deep striking.

"There is no downside to deep striking"

As designed by the game devs. Because if its not completely reliable... its "not fun".

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Asmodios wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:
@Unit

I can assure you that removing superheavies and flyers (or again, heavily restricted) would eliminate the issues of skew lists using those unit types.

Yes, but it also removes my army and interest in the game outside of Apoc, which almost never gets played in my experience.

So aside from "feth you, got mine" do you have any advice that could help me?

Don't play 3 baneblades?

We already went over this. If you want to play with 3 baneblades, no more, no less, there's nothing that can done outside of GW changing the rules.

The solution to your problem is to simply not use 3 baneblades.

Thanks for your help, I'm glad you bothered to reply.

And I would be willing to play more, and less, actually. But more just exacerbates the problem, and less has a whole bunch of nonsensical rules issues (loss of doctrines/use of 2/3rds of allowed detachments/loss of command points) while also preventing me from actually using the vehicles, as a single Baneblade is very very very easily alphastruck.

Your reply confuses me a bit.... on one hand, you are concerned running 3 bane blades is making you too competitive... on the other hand you don't want to take less because it's less optimized.

Not because it is less optimized - I'm not worried about losing, and in fact dropping 3 Baneblades down to 2 or 1 would probably improve the list.

But

the problem I've encountered is 1 Baneblade is comparatively trivial to alpha-strike for rather normal TAC armies, and is an obvious and hard-to-hide target, so running 1 is essentially a very good way to end up running 0 with a 1500 point army. I want to play with a Baneblade, not set it on the board and then take it off the board and play on with other models.

Two Baneblades avoids this problem, but lack Regimental Doctrines (which is a crucial part of the fluff, really) and takes 2/3 of the max detachment limits, so it severely limits the support options I can bring anyways, though admittedly in this case by detachments rather than by points. I could bring 2 in Supreme Command detachments, but taking 6 irrelevant HQ's just seems weird. Like my 2k army is ten Company Commanders and two Baneblades... that makes sense. *rolleyes*. As an additional, though more minor concern, two Baneblades are still borderline skew anyways, and with 1 being able to be alpha-struck, the second one has only a single turn of retaliation before it, too, evaporates - unless I can destroy the enemy AT assets in that turn, and then the remaining Baneblade dominates. That's... just more skew, again.

Well it just seems like you are really set on playing 3 bane blades (which is fine). But without dropping one or two down instead and excepting they may just die or losing out on some doctrines there's simply no way around your problem. Playing a one-dimensional list will typically lead to a one-dimensional game. Your opponents are either going to have a list with the capability of beating you or they won't. This will never really change when you play a list that consists of one model type as lack of diversity in your list also presents the issue of lack of answers from another.

Asmodios wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Asmodios wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:
@Unit

I can assure you that removing superheavies and flyers (or again, heavily restricted) would eliminate the issues of skew lists using those unit types.

Yes, but it also removes my army and interest in the game outside of Apoc, which almost never gets played in my experience.

So aside from "feth you, got mine" do you have any advice that could help me?

Don't play 3 baneblades?

We already went over this. If you want to play with 3 baneblades, no more, no less, there's nothing that can done outside of GW changing the rules.

The solution to your problem is to simply not use 3 baneblades.

Thanks for your help, I'm glad you bothered to reply.

And I would be willing to play more, and less, actually. But more just exacerbates the problem, and less has a whole bunch of nonsensical rules issues (loss of doctrines/use of 2/3rds of allowed detachments/loss of command points) while also preventing me from actually using the vehicles, as a single Baneblade is very very very easily alphastruck.

Your reply confuses me a bit.... on one hand, you are concerned running 3 bane blades is making you too competitive... on the other hand you don't want to take less because it's less optimized.

Not because it is less optimized - I'm not worried about losing, and in fact dropping 3 Baneblades down to 2 or 1 would probably improve the list.

But

the problem I've encountered is 1 Baneblade is comparatively trivial to alpha-strike for rather normal TAC armies, and is an obvious and hard-to-hide target, so running 1 is essentially a very good way to end up running 0 with a 1500 point army. I want to play with a Baneblade, not set it on the board and then take it off the board and play on with other models.

Two Baneblades avoids this problem, but lack Regimental Doctrines (which is a crucial part of the fluff, really) and takes 2/3 of the max detachment limits, so it severely limits the support options I can bring anyways, though admittedly in this case by detachments rather than by points. I could bring 2 in Supreme Command detachments, but taking 6 irrelevant HQ's just seems weird. Like my 2k army is ten Company Commanders and two Baneblades... that makes sense. *rolleyes*. As an additional, though more minor concern, two Baneblades are still borderline skew anyways, and with 1 being able to be alpha-struck, the second one has only a single turn of retaliation before it, too, evaporates - unless I can destroy the enemy AT assets in that turn, and then the remaining Baneblade dominates. That's... just more skew, again.

Well it just seems like you are really set on playing 3 bane blades (which is fine). But without dropping one or two down instead and excepting they may just die or losing out on some doctrines there's simply no way around your problem. Playing a one-dimensional list will typically lead to a one-dimensional game. Your opponents are either going to have a list with the capability of beating you or they won't. This will never really change when you play a list that consists of one model type as lack of diversity in your list also presents the issue of lack of answers from another.

Right, yes.

I realize this. And it bothers me. There are no solutions. To me, that is worse game design than unbalance - at least if it were unbalanced, I could offer to tone down the special rules or reduce their firepower or something, or if it was unbalanced against me, just accept losing (as I did when I ran the army in 7th).

But this is actually an insurmountable (apparently) problem in the game's structure, and I'm very much upset and alarmed that knight armies, baneblade armies, flyer armies, etc., which in my opinion are some of the coolest and most engaging armies out there fluffwise, are boring.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Asmodios wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Asmodios wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:
@Unit

I can assure you that removing superheavies and flyers (or again, heavily restricted) would eliminate the issues of skew lists using those unit types.

Yes, but it also removes my army and interest in the game outside of Apoc, which almost never gets played in my experience.

So aside from "feth you, got mine" do you have any advice that could help me?

Don't play 3 baneblades?

We already went over this. If you want to play with 3 baneblades, no more, no less, there's nothing that can done outside of GW changing the rules.

The solution to your problem is to simply not use 3 baneblades.

Thanks for your help, I'm glad you bothered to reply.

And I would be willing to play more, and less, actually. But more just exacerbates the problem, and less has a whole bunch of nonsensical rules issues (loss of doctrines/use of 2/3rds of allowed detachments/loss of command points) while also preventing me from actually using the vehicles, as a single Baneblade is very very very easily alphastruck.

Your reply confuses me a bit.... on one hand, you are concerned running 3 bane blades is making you too competitive... on the other hand you don't want to take less because it's less optimized.

Not because it is less optimized - I'm not worried about losing, and in fact dropping 3 Baneblades down to 2 or 1 would probably improve the list.

But

the problem I've encountered is 1 Baneblade is comparatively trivial to alpha-strike for rather normal TAC armies, and is an obvious and hard-to-hide target, so running 1 is essentially a very good way to end up running 0 with a 1500 point army. I want to play with a Baneblade, not set it on the board and then take it off the board and play on with other models.

Two Baneblades avoids this problem, but lack Regimental Doctrines (which is a crucial part of the fluff, really) and takes 2/3 of the max detachment limits, so it severely limits the support options I can bring anyways, though admittedly in this case by detachments rather than by points. I could bring 2 in Supreme Command detachments, but taking 6 irrelevant HQ's just seems weird. Like my 2k army is ten Company Commanders and two Baneblades... that makes sense. *rolleyes*. As an additional, though more minor concern, two Baneblades are still borderline skew anyways, and with 1 being able to be alpha-struck, the second one has only a single turn of retaliation before it, too, evaporates - unless I can destroy the enemy AT assets in that turn, and then the remaining Baneblade dominates. That's... just more skew, again.

Well it just seems like you are really set on playing 3 bane blades (which is fine). But without dropping one or two down instead and excepting they may just die or losing out on some doctrines there's simply no way around your problem. Playing a one-dimensional list will typically lead to a one-dimensional game. Your opponents are either going to have a list with the capability of beating you or they won't. This will never really change when you play a list that consists of one model type as lack of diversity in your list also presents the issue of lack of answers from another.

Right, yes.

I realize this. And it bothers me. There are no solutions. To me, that is worse game design than unbalance - at least if it were unbalanced, I could offer to tone down the special rules or reduce their firepower or something, or if it was unbalanced against me, just accept losing (as I did when I ran the army in 7th).

But this is actually an insurmountable (apparently) problem in the game's structure, and I'm very much upset and alarmed that knight armies, baneblade armies, flyer armies, etc., which in my opinion are some of the coolest and most engaging armies out there fluffwise, are boring.

I wouldn't consider this an issue with the game's design... as this works the same in every game I've played in my life whether it be athletic, card, video or board. If your hockey team plays purely offense and doesn't back check you will either blow the other team out or be blown out. There's no in-between because there your strategy is so one dimensional it either works or fails completely. Play hearthstone and run a pure agro deck and you will always get blown out by decks that can repeatedly clear the board. Spec your mage to be a one-shot monster and you either one-shot people or you lose. I would say that your issue is being created by your own playstyle. It doesn't really matter which game you play if you always focus on a singular aspect of a game it's going to give you dramatic win/loss conditions and make fights either easy or nearly impossible to win.

Asmodios wrote:
I wouldn't consider this an issue with the game's design... as this works the same in every game I've played in my life whether it be athletic, card, video or board. If your hockey team plays purely offense and doesn't back check you will either blow the other team out. There's no in-between because there your strategy is so one dimensional it either works or fails completely. Play hearthstone and run a pure agro deck and you will always get blown out by decks that can repeatedly clear the board. Spec your mage to be a one-shot monster and you either one-shot people or you lose. I would say that your issue is being created by your own playstyle. It doesn't really matter which game you play if you always focus on a singular aspect of a game it's going to give you dramatic win/lose conditions and make fights either easy or nearly impossible to win.

I don't think that's true at all, because I'm not focusing on a singular aspect of the game. I want to run 3 superheavy tanks, sure, but that's one of a whole list of things:

1) I'd like to run 3 superheavy tanks
2) Putting my SOB in with them would be pretty neat too, as I like the imagery of 3 cathedral tanks with sisters around them.
3) Putting in some IG infantry would be good to prevent boardwipes and the like, maybe to screen (though screens are less necessary with Baneblades)
4) Bringing some attached support units of other types would be fun: recon, ordnance and maintenance, logistics - and there's even models to represent them on the tabletop.
5) Perhaps add other mono-focused support units, like a squadron of Hydras or some artillery

etc. etc.

The point is that I don't only want to run tanks - if I played 3k, I wouldn't just bring 6 tanks. But because of the 2k limit and 3 tanks being 1500 points, the game is fairly boring, even if I do bring a couple of recon units, a platoon of infantry, and maybe a maintenance vehicle or so.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Asmodios wrote:
I wouldn't consider this an issue with the game's design... as this works the same in every game I've played in my life whether it be athletic, card, video or board. If your hockey team plays purely offense and doesn't back check you will either blow the other team out. There's no in-between because there your strategy is so one dimensional it either works or fails completely. Play hearthstone and run a pure agro deck and you will always get blown out by decks that can repeatedly clear the board. Spec your mage to be a one-shot monster and you either one-shot people or you lose. I would say that your issue is being created by your own playstyle. It doesn't really matter which game you play if you always focus on a singular aspect of a game it's going to give you dramatic win/lose conditions and make fights either easy or nearly impossible to win.

I don't think that's true at all, because I'm not focusing on a singular aspect of the game. I want to run 3 superheavy tanks, sure, but that's one of a whole list of things:

1) I'd like to run 3 superheavy tanks
2) Putting my SOB in with them would be pretty neat too, as I like the imagery of 3 cathedral tanks with sisters around them.
3) Putting in some IG infantry would be good to prevent boardwipes and the like, maybe to screen (though screens are less necessary with Baneblades)
4) Bringing some attached support units of other types would be fun: recon, ordnance and maintenance, logistics - and there's even models to represent them on the tabletop.
5) Perhaps add other mono-focused support units, like a squadron of Hydras or some artillery

etc. etc.

The point is that I don't only want to run tanks - if I played 3k, I wouldn't just bring 6 tanks. But because of the 2k limit and 3 tanks being 1500 points, the game is fairly boring, even if I do bring a couple of recon units, a platoon of infantry, and maybe a maintenance vehicle or so.

The problem you repeatedly seem to miss or ignore is that the game isn't built for you to bring multiple of that kind of unit at the standard 2k points level. That's on purpose, and the way the detachment system hinders your efforts further reinforces the idea. You're hung up on this super specific list and trying to jam a square peg into a round hole. I don't know what else people can tell you. If you absolutely cannot fathom a game without three Baneblades, then folks have provided you with suggestions on what to do with the remaining points (as you've listed above), but you're still embarking on a path that has all the problems people have mentioned. You keep asking for advice. The only thing I can add is, if nobody around you wants to face three BB's every week, then you've got to change your list. There's a systemic issue and a social issue. Only one can be solved by you.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Asmodios wrote:
I wouldn't consider this an issue with the game's design... as this works the same in every game I've played in my life whether it be athletic, card, video or board. If your hockey team plays purely offense and doesn't back check you will either blow the other team out. There's no in-between because there your strategy is so one dimensional it either works or fails completely. Play hearthstone and run a pure agro deck and you will always get blown out by decks that can repeatedly clear the board. Spec your mage to be a one-shot monster and you either one-shot people or you lose. I would say that your issue is being created by your own playstyle. It doesn't really matter which game you play if you always focus on a singular aspect of a game it's going to give you dramatic win/lose conditions and make fights either easy or nearly impossible to win.

I don't think that's true at all, because I'm not focusing on a singular aspect of the game. I want to run 3 superheavy tanks, sure, but that's one of a whole list of things:

1) I'd like to run 3 superheavy tanks
2) Putting my SOB in with them would be pretty neat too, as I like the imagery of 3 cathedral tanks with sisters around them.
3) Putting in some IG infantry would be good to prevent boardwipes and the like, maybe to screen (though screens are less necessary with Baneblades)
4) Bringing some attached support units of other types would be fun: recon, ordnance and maintenance, logistics - and there's even models to represent them on the tabletop.
5) Perhaps add other mono-focused support units, like a squadron of Hydras or some artillery

etc. etc.

The point is that I don't only want to run tanks - if I played 3k, I wouldn't just bring 6 tanks. But because of the 2k limit and 3 tanks being 1500 points, the game is fairly boring, even if I do bring a couple of recon units, a platoon of infantry, and maybe a maintenance vehicle or so.

Seriously? There is nothing wrong with the game design if your games are boring since you are bringing three of the most expensive shooty tanks in the Codex.

Are you expecting them to powerslide over enemies, sprout arms and punch Dreadnoughts to death?

Your list is insanely one dimensional with three superheavies in 2,000 points. By your same logic, I want to run nothing but Assault Marines and wonder why my games are one of three boring conclusions; 1) I get blown away on the way in since I lack fire support... Or support of any kind 2) I can't hurt my opponents tank heavy army because I didn't bring the tools to do it or 3) I make it into melee with my opponents army on foot and punch them into oblivion because they weren't expecting 80 Assault Marines

If you want more interesting games while running THREE superheavies play at a higher points value. That, or ask the game designers to make your superheavies far worse at everything they do and make them cheaper so you can bring a balanced force.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Asmodios wrote:
I wouldn't consider this an issue with the game's design... as this works the same in every game I've played in my life whether it be athletic, card, video or board. If your hockey team plays purely offense and doesn't back check you will either blow the other team out. There's no in-between because there your strategy is so one dimensional it either works or fails completely. Play hearthstone and run a pure agro deck and you will always get blown out by decks that can repeatedly clear the board. Spec your mage to be a one-shot monster and you either one-shot people or you lose. I would say that your issue is being created by your own playstyle. It doesn't really matter which game you play if you always focus on a singular aspect of a game it's going to give you dramatic win/lose conditions and make fights either easy or nearly impossible to win.

I don't think that's true at all, because I'm not focusing on a singular aspect of the game. I want to run 3 superheavy tanks, sure, but that's one of a whole list of things:

1) I'd like to run 3 superheavy tanks
2) Putting my SOB in with them would be pretty neat too, as I like the imagery of 3 cathedral tanks with sisters around them.
3) Putting in some IG infantry would be good to prevent boardwipes and the like, maybe to screen (though screens are less necessary with Baneblades)
4) Bringing some attached support units of other types would be fun: recon, ordnance and maintenance, logistics - and there's even models to represent them on the tabletop.
5) Perhaps add other mono-focused support units, like a squadron of Hydras or some artillery

etc. etc.

The point is that I don't only want to run tanks - if I played 3k, I wouldn't just bring 6 tanks. But because of the 2k limit and 3 tanks being 1500 points, the game is fairly boring, even if I do bring a couple of recon units, a platoon of infantry, and maybe a maintenance vehicle or so.

Why don't you simply play larger point games? But even at 3k points your list is still heavily lopsided having 1/2 of your points in 3 of the same type of unit.

 Dayknight wrote:

 Arachnofiend wrote:
Yeah, from a CSM perspective rhinos are solid, though I think they'll be replaced by the dreadclaw for most things now that that's priced reasonably.

You think so? They still cost fifty points more than the loyalist drop pods (at 83) because reasons. Hard to justify when dread-claws are supposed to be older technology. Maybe theres something im missing that dread-claws do better than drop pods?

On a separate note i say we petition ITC to do some point changes for their tournaments so we can start using those instead of this chapter approved garbage.

The dreadclaw can act like a rhino after its been deployed (in both the sense that you can hop back into it if you want and that you can use it for cheeky charges to tie stuff up) and the thermal jets are really good, especially against MSU hordes like brimstones. If the dreadclaw was the same price as a drop pod it'd be insane.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:


I don't think that's true at all, because I'm not focusing on a singular aspect of the game. I want to run 3 superheavy tanks, sure, but that's one of a whole list of things:

1) I'd like to run 3 superheavy tanks
2) Putting my SOB in with them would be pretty neat too, as I like the imagery of 3 cathedral tanks with sisters around them.
3) Putting in some IG infantry would be good to prevent boardwipes and the like, maybe to screen (though screens are less necessary with Baneblades)
4) Bringing some attached support units of other types would be fun: recon, ordnance and maintenance, logistics - and there's even models to represent them on the tabletop.
5) Perhaps add other mono-focused support units, like a squadron of Hydras or some artillery

etc. etc.

The point is that I don't only want to run tanks - if I played 3k, I wouldn't just bring 6 tanks. But because of the 2k limit and 3 tanks being 1500 points, the game is fairly boring, even if I do bring a couple of recon units, a platoon of infantry, and maybe a maintenance vehicle or so.

I mean, listbuilding is all about compromising what you want to bring, and what you can bring, and what is feasible to bring. You're purposefully going out on a limb by always taking 3 superheavies. Even though it's allowed, it remains a fringe list. Personally I don't have a problem with it, as it is fluffy, and they're great models. But in taking an extreme list you are setting yourself up for some heavily one-sided matches, in either direction. What's wrong again with taking two and some support? I'd just go that route.

We used to have a guy who would almost always bring a Warhound Titan in 6th/7th. Most of the time it felt like a wasted opportunity of an evening. Either I have the tools to deal with it, or I don't, and a lot of the time the game is decided in the first or second turn. The inter-army dialog is minimal, and it's just not the sort of game a lot of us look for when we're looking for a pickup game. I can remember two interesting games with that guy out of 12+, and one of them was when he didn't bring the Titan.

Ok. I'll just shelve the company till I can play 2500 or 3k. Don't have the enthusiasm to play much else though, and I kinda feel like I'm out of hobby steam.

Sorry for thread derail.

As an Armageddon in steel legion player, these changes aren't that hurting to me (but my Armageddon pattern is Medusa went up a little) and since I get zero complaints to running them I shall continue to to do so.

I think it's more about certain spam rather than spam in general with guard IMHO.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Ok. I'll just shelve the company till I can play 2500 or 3k. Don't have the enthusiasm to play much else though, and I kinda feel like I'm out of hobby steam.

Sorry for thread derail.

Ya know its just the nature of mono lists and mono culture in general.

its the most susceptible to change and it can be quite devastating.

just look at the humble banana.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Ok. I'll just shelve the company till I can play 2500 or 3k. Don't have the enthusiasm to play much else though, and I kinda feel like I'm out of hobby steam.

Sorry for thread derail.

Why not devise a reserve system for the tanks to be used in matched play. I.E. turn 1 has 1 baneblade turn 2 has another show up turn 3 has the final one show up. This will let you have all 3 bane blades while allowing less competitive players the chance to deal with them one at a time instead of getting overrun.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
On the Deepstrike problem. They should make it an upgrade which certain units can purchase including the turn in which they can arrive. Turn 1 arrivals would cost more then turn 2 and turn 3 arrivals would bee the least expensive.

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Ok. I'll just shelve the company till I can play 2500 or 3k. Don't have the enthusiasm to play much else though, and I kinda feel like I'm out of hobby steam.

Sorry for thread derail.

Why not devise a reserve system for the tanks to be used in matched play. I.E. turn 1 has 1 baneblade turn 2 has another show up turn 3 has the final one show up. This will let you have all 3 bane blades while allowing less competitive players the chance to deal with them one at a time instead of getting overrun.

That sounds like a cool narrative scenario, like a tank convoy or something like that, or the tanks are being repaired during the attack and come in as reserves, something like that.

That is a cool idea, but if I can put things in reserve I could drop down to just running one anyways, because then it wouldn't get alpha-struck.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
That is a cool idea, but if I can put things in reserve I could drop down to just running one anyways, because then it wouldn't get alpha-struck.

As well as adding another 40 blokes to your list (as we discussed elsewhere) you could see if an opponent would agree to playing a game 1 on/1 off. So every other game you use your baneblade regiment. This could be cool and fluffy in that your baneblades are breaching a hard point in the enemy lines to allow some allies to break through (baneblade game first) or your allies are clearing the area of mines/other crap that is dangerous to tanks (other game first). Also gives you a concrete idea of what your objectives are and a way to theme your force. One Baneblade Company, paired with a scout/recon company or assault focussed force, depending on the narrative in your head. This links the games and makes them relevant to the SHTC at all times, whilst only playing it 1/2 the time. Adding the supporting elements we discussed elsewhere and adopting this approcah, whilst talking to your opponent about the narrative, will probably get you a fair few games.

Only a few armies can bring down a baneblade in a single turn. In the majority of the games you'll still be able to play all your tanks even with this particular scenario. Losing a baneblade in turn one is something extremely exceptional, unless maybe you face the nastiest overpowered tournament lists and only those ones.

In 3rd-5th edition, you had a really good turn if you took out 20% of the opponent's forces on turn one. With the current rules set and meta, it seems like if you don't do 25% casualties turn one you are just not killy enough in the competitive scene.

The game is far more offensive then it has ever been. There are other games that use this same dynamic but do it well (Warmachine/Hordes to name one) but have less issues with it since the ranges aren't ridiculous; the shooting ranges in 40k (and now the melee threat ranges) are basically the table length in a lot of cases.

It's very fun to charge the opponent turn one for the person doing it. It's very fun to blow a super heavy or Mortarion off the table turn one for the person doing it. It's very fun to destroy 40%+ of the opposing forces on turn one for the person doing it.

Through the ages, the number of shot/attack output from weapons and units have increased. Rapid firing weapons gaining an extra shot trivially now, assault cannons adding 2 shots, twin linking returning to extra shots, the prevalence of rerolls, deep striking always allowing an optimized attack, double firing Leman Russ turrets, FRFSRF and other orders, Trivial turn 1 charges from a significant portion of an army.

All this has lead to the game structuring itself to turn most list choices into something resembling a glass cannon that can trade far above its own value. So now we are seeing some armies wiped off the table or effectively tabled on turn 2, which is great if you are the person doing it. This is why that roll to go first has become so important.

Drager wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
That is a cool idea, but if I can put things in reserve I could drop down to just running one anyways, because then it wouldn't get alpha-struck.

As well as adding another 40 blokes to your list (as we discussed elsewhere) you could see if an opponent would agree to playing a game 1 on/1 off. So every other game you use your baneblade regiment. This could be cool and fluffy in that your baneblades are breaching a hard point in the enemy lines to allow some allies to break through (baneblade game first) or your allies are clearing the area of mines/other crap that is dangerous to tanks (other game first). Also gives you a concrete idea of what your objectives are and a way to theme your force. One Baneblade Company, paired with a scout/recon company or assault focussed force, depending on the narrative in your head. This links the games and makes them relevant to the SHTC at all times, whilst only playing it 1/2 the time. Adding the supporting elements we discussed elsewhere and adopting this approcah, whilst talking to your opponent about the narrative, will probably get you a fair few games.

This is a good idea, but ironically they were kept out of the local narrative campaign because (edit: multiple) LoW are scary. In truth, the best-case use of them would be in a narrative team campaign, where they are sent by my team's supreme commander to aid in crucial battles - like they are in the fluff. That way, if I am bringing a small number of vehicles it is to a team game, and if I am bringing a large number it is for some narrative purpose. Most IG regiments are used like this, in fact, but sadly team games seem rare.

Blackie wrote:Only a few armies can bring down a baneblade in a single turn. In the majority of the games you'll still be able to play all your tanks even with this particular scenario. Losing a baneblade in turn one is something extremely exceptional, unless maybe you face the nastiest overpowered tournament lists and only those ones.

I'm not sure what kind of lists you're playing, but just to give you an example of the things that have one-rounded my Baneblades:

1) 3 Neutron-Laser Onager Dunecrawlers
2) Slaanesh-marked combi-plasma Terminators next to a combi-melta Lord with Endless Cacophony and VOTLW.
3) Alpha Legion Obliterators x3 squads
4) Space Marine Hellblasters near Guilliman
5) Predator Annhilators
6) Stormravens
7) Grey Knight DKGM spam
8) Inquisition smite spam + all melta acolytes falling out of a Valykrie within melta range
9) Other superheavies of various flavors
10) Leman Russ tanks
11) RG Assault Centurions (if they shut down my overwatch like with an Inquisitor's psy power)

I'm sure there's more but that's off the top of my head.

You mentioned about 4 factions, in a game in which there are 20+.

What about orks, SoB, harlequins, gen cult, tyranids, eldar, tau, dark angels, space wolves, blood angels, nercons, thousand sons, deathguard? Most of those armies also have several different types of lists. Even the typical drukhari list with tons of lances doesn't have the math to bring down a superheavy with average rolls unless they tailor the list with only tank essentially.

Smite can't be a problem in turn 1, you should be able to screen the superheavy and the majority of psykers can't even be in range in turn 1.

I didn't say that there aren't things that can bring down a superheavy in first turn, there are many more combinations that can do so, but even most of the anti tank units you listed don't have the math to bring down a baneblade on average rolls. Then if your opponent rolls extremely lucky.... but it's not the norm. A typical TAC list, even with strong anti tank, doesn't kill a superheavy on average rolls.

 Blackie wrote:
You mentioned about 4 factions, in a game in which there are 20+.

What about orks, SoB, harlequins, gen cult, tyranids, eldar, tau, dark angels, space wolves, blood angels, nercons, thousand sons, deathguard? Most of those armies also have several different types of lists. Even the typical drukhari list with tons of lances doesn't have the math to bring down a superheavy with average rolls unless they tailor the list with only tank essentially.

Smite can't be a problem in turn 1, you should be able to screen the superheavy and the majority of psykers can't even be in range in turn 1.

I didn't say that there aren't things that can bring down a superheavy in first turn, there are many more combinations that can do so, but even most of the anti tank units you listed don't have the math to bring down a baneblade on average rolls. Then if your opponent rolls extremely lucky.... but it's not the norm. A typical TAC list, even with strong anti tank, doesn't kill a superheavy on average rolls.

I'll address it point by point:

1) Orks I've not played, so they don't fit into my example. But yes, perhaps they would have a problem. I am the only local SOB player in my meta, but just as an example of one here on DakkaDakka Inquisitor Lord Katherine always brings a Shadowsword for just such an occasion. Gen Cult and Tyranids may or may not be able to one-round a Baneblade with the new dex, but at Nova I had one get charged by 3 Trygons and 20 stealers Turn 1; it didn't die but it was crippled and unable to move, and died the next turn. Eldar have absolutely one-rounded me with WWP Fire Dragons, so you can just add them to my list of nasties. Tau have also done it with 2 Stormsurges, though I did win the game (as again, I have two other tanks), but it's comparatively easy to focus fire Destroyer missiles with Tau given that you only have to markerlight like 1 thing, and 8d3 mortal wounds is half a baneblade's wounds before the Pulse Driver cannon fires. You can add this to my list as well. DA, SW, and BA all have predator annihilators so not sure why they'd have trouble (the Pred Annihilators I mention were BA ones, in fact). Necrons may have trouble like the Orks. Thousand Sons also have predator annihilators and Magnus... so yeah. Death Guard have never gone first against me, so I always alpha-strike their Mortarion, but I'm sure a Warp-Time Mortarion +1500 points of DG could one-round a Baneblade.

2) They came out of a Valykrie. The Valykrie moves 45", and they fall out next to me because Grav Chute Insertion lets them disembark as it moves, then they move 6" closer (so 3" away). And it's unfluffy for me (without a teammate) to screen superheavies anyways, since superheavy tank regiments don't have access to their own integral infantry formations.

3) A lot of what I listed are also parts of a whole - the entire 2k army could one-round a Baneblade (when I said, for example, Predator Annihilators, I didn't mean just one).

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
[
I'm not sure what kind of lists you're playing, but just to give you an example of the things that have one-rounded my Baneblades:
1) 3 Neutron-Laser Onager Dunecrawlers
2) Slaanesh-marked combi-plasma Terminators next to a combi-melta Lord with Endless Cacophony and VOTLW.
3) Alpha Legion Obliterators x3 squads
4) Space Marine Hellblasters near Guilliman
5) Predator Annhilators
6) Stormravens
7) Grey Knight DKGM spam
8) Inquisition smite spam + all melta acolytes falling out of a Valykrie within melta range
9) Other superheavies of various flavors
10) Leman Russ tanks
11) RG Assault Centurions (if they shut down my overwatch like with an Inquisitor's psy power)

I'm sure there's more but that's off the top of my head.

Bloody hell that’s a bad beat. Your local meta sounds like hell for people who want anything lighter than a tournament face smash.

2 things - first, you say that you don’t want your SHTC list to be powerful. And yet when people suggest using 2 instead of 3 tanks part of your response is that if you do that you lose Regiment rules and some CP. So? Maybe part of the balancing act the designers had to perform was using Regiment rules and CP to help empower non-skew lists to give them a chance against skew lists? If you’re really not wanting your army to be powerful surely you’d be glad of the nerf that using two auxiliary SH detachments gives you over a full SH detachment?

Second, it sounds like you need screening units. Badly. A lot of the things you’ve listed wouldn’t be effective if pushed outside of 12”/18”/24” range by screening units - which, being Guard, you have the best of. The longer the range the harder it is to screen but stuff like Plasma and Melta should never be getting in double tap/melta range first turn if you’re using screens effectively. I know you’re into your fluff about a SHTC, but SHTCs don’t go rolling into battle alone, even in the dire circumstances that would require three or more of them. They go with supporting infantry to, funnily enough, stop enemy infantry with specialist anti-tank tools getting in close and messing up the big guys’ day while they’re focused on the enemy’s big stuff. Stuff like melta drops is literally the in-universe fluff reason why these war machines have chaperone elements. Surely you could work a few squads of infantry into your narrative army as specialist anti-saboteur units that are an extended part of the vehicle’s crew?

I still feel like the original sin of this whole conscript debacle was eliminating the platoon structure and making them spammable.

It's not like footguard didn't exist until 8th, but you needed to drop minimum 150 points on other stuff to unlock your 50 conscripts for 150 points. In theory, it was possible to spam conscripts but it would have been really inefficient points-wise. In some ways, those blobs were even better than their 8th ed counterparts -- 50 conscripts with a priest in 7th ed could do real work in CC.

But, alas in the 8th ed Index, then Codex, they eliminate those restrictions and give guard players just two troop options: Infantry Squads, which depending on what you want to do with them, will probably be inferior to SWS, vets or HWS for that job, or Conscripts who at least are dern good at their job of tarpitting, bubble-wrapping and board control.

So they really pushed guard players to take conscripts as their only troops and of course all of the Imperial soup players were all too happy to throw in a bunch of cheap bodies to their lists.

Even in 8th the problem has never been that you might face a single conscript blob, it was that you would face four, surrounding Gulliman and a bunch of tanks.

At each turn I've been stunned that their rules fixes have attacked the symptoms rather than the disease of the spammable conscripts. First attack their their ability to receive orders and unit size, then attack their morale, now make them unfieldable for anyone seeking list efficiency.

Guys, guys guys. Just limit conscripts to one unit per detachment. Or require a certain number of other units to be taken in order to unlock them like in the olden days. It's really not that hard.

kombatwombat wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
[
I'm not sure what kind of lists you're playing, but just to give you an example of the things that have one-rounded my Baneblades:
1) 3 Neutron-Laser Onager Dunecrawlers
2) Slaanesh-marked combi-plasma Terminators next to a combi-melta Lord with Endless Cacophony and VOTLW.
3) Alpha Legion Obliterators x3 squads
4) Space Marine Hellblasters near Guilliman
5) Predator Annhilators
6) Stormravens
7) Grey Knight DKGM spam
8) Inquisition smite spam + all melta acolytes falling out of a Valykrie within melta range
9) Other superheavies of various flavors
10) Leman Russ tanks
11) RG Assault Centurions (if they shut down my overwatch like with an Inquisitor's psy power)

I'm sure there's more but that's off the top of my head.

Bloody hell that’s a bad beat. Your local meta sounds like hell for people who want anything lighter than a tournament face smash.

2 things - first, you say that you don’t want your SHTC list to be powerful. And yet when people suggest using 2 instead of 3 tanks part of your response is that if you do that you lose Regiment rules and some CP. So? Maybe part of the balancing act the designers had to perform was using Regiment rules and CP to help empower non-skew lists to give them a chance against skew lists? If you’re really not wanting your army to be powerful surely you’d be glad of the nerf that using two auxiliary SH detachments gives you over a full SH detachment?

Second, it sounds like you need screening units. Badly. A lot of the things you’ve listed wouldn’t be effective if pushed outside of 12”/18”/24” range by screening units - which, being Guard, you have the best of. The longer the range the harder it is to screen but stuff like Plasma and Melta should never be getting in double tap/melta range first turn if you’re using screens effectively. I know you’re into your fluff about a SHTC, but SHTCs don’t go rolling into battle alone, even in the dire circumstances that would require three or more of them. They go with supporting infantry to, funnily enough, stop enemy infantry with specialist anti-tank tools getting in close and messing up the big guys’ day while they’re focused on the enemy’s big stuff. Stuff like melta drops is literally the in-universe fluff reason why these war machines have chaperone elements. Surely you could work a few squads of infantry into your narrative army as specialist anti-saboteur units that are an extended part of the vehicle’s crew?

The only issue with Regiment doctrines isn't power. I'm mostly just upset that my Tank Crews forget their training / how to use their tanks / what world they come from (Concordia!) when they're only fielded in groups of 2. And the weird part about your point about skew is the Baneblades do get regiment doctrines and CP when you bring 3 (which is more skew) but lose them if you bring 1 or 2, except if you bring a Supreme Command detachment and have some random Company Commanders walking next to the superheavy because reasons.

I would kill for some screening units myself, and am considering taking them for sure. But that only makes my list more powerful and less fluffy, because superheavy tank regiments don't have access to infantry formations, sadly. If I ever play a team game with another regiment player, though, you bet my ass I'm begging for him to screen my tanks with his men. Or sentinels. Or whatever regiment type they play.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I would kill for some screening units myself, and am considering taking them for sure. But that only makes my list more powerful and less fluffy, because superheavy tank regiments don't have access to infantry formations, sadly. If I ever play a team game with another regiment player, though, you bet my ass I'm begging for him to screen my tanks with his men. Or sentinels. Or whatever regiment type they play.

Why are you required to play a single regiment for your army? Just take the superheavy company with a screening detachment of the Cadian 53904534906909045690456th infantry regiment in support. If you can play a team game with a player with another regiment then you can bring two regiments in your own force and have the same fluff.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I would kill for some screening units myself, and am considering taking them for sure. But that only makes my list more powerful and less fluffy, because superheavy tank regiments don't have access to infantry formations, sadly. If I ever play a team game with another regiment player, though, you bet my ass I'm begging for him to screen my tanks with his men. Or sentinels. Or whatever regiment type they play.

Why are you required to play a single regiment for your army? Just take the superheavy company with a screening detachment of the Cadian 53904534906909045690456th infantry regiment in support. If you can play a team game with a player with another regiment then you can bring two regiments in your own force and have the same fluff.

Also, a SHTC is a variant of an armoured company, which often have armoured fist squads. Baneblades have transport capacity, having armoured fist squads that came to the battle mounted in the baneblades, but are now deployed as screens seems fluffy to me.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I would kill for some screening units myself, and am considering taking them for sure. But that only makes my list more powerful and less fluffy, because superheavy tank regiments don't have access to infantry formations, sadly. If I ever play a team game with another regiment player, though, you bet my ass I'm begging for him to screen my tanks with his men. Or sentinels. Or whatever regiment type they play.

Why are you required to play a single regiment for your army? Just take the superheavy company with a screening detachment of the Cadian 53904534906909045690456th infantry regiment in support. If you can play a team game with a player with another regiment then you can bring two regiments in your own force and have the same fluff.

That's actually what I'm considering doing.

Originally, it was 2 things: an attempt to keep the fluff consistent from battle to battle (it's hard to track the histories of two regiments that are only brought together for one campaign and I only have so much fluff-writing time), and also an attempt at self-nerfing because, as people seem to have noticed, screens make Baneblade armies very very very very strong indeed, and with the buff in the 'dex, I also didn't suddenly want to bring a tournament list.

But I'm considering taking one or even two Imperial Guard battalions along with my Baneblade company, because apparently the fact that it is skew is more annoying for people than it would be if it was actually good lol.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Drager wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I would kill for some screening units myself, and am considering taking them for sure. But that only makes my list more powerful and less fluffy, because superheavy tank regiments don't have access to infantry formations, sadly. If I ever play a team game with another regiment player, though, you bet my ass I'm begging for him to screen my tanks with his men. Or sentinels. Or whatever regiment type they play.

Why are you required to play a single regiment for your army? Just take the superheavy company with a screening detachment of the Cadian 53904534906909045690456th infantry regiment in support. If you can play a team game with a player with another regiment then you can bring two regiments in your own force and have the same fluff.

Also, a SHTC is a variant of an armoured company, which often have armoured fist squads. Baneblades have transport capacity, having armoured fist squads that came to the battle mounted in the baneblades, but are now deployed as screens seems fluffy to me.

Yes, although the e-novel Stormlord as well as the novel Shadowsword makes it abundantly clear that such infantry are from other regiments, and not integral formations to the superheavy tank regiment in question (in fact there's a neat scene where the Stormlord company commander squabbles with the infantry company commander about who is in charge, but I digress).

I actually do have a 3-Banehammer transport company in my regiment (the 7th Company, tanks 18-21) but haven't gotten to use them, as the infantry regiment player here has decided that because he is Cadian, moving or advancing at all is for wusses. So even in our team-games, I end up using my Stormsword assault vehicles to push forwards.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I would kill for some screening units myself, and am considering taking them for sure. But that only makes my list more powerful and less fluffy, because superheavy tank regiments don't have access to infantry formations, sadly. If I ever play a team game with another regiment player, though, you bet my ass I'm begging for him to screen my tanks with his men. Or sentinels. Or whatever regiment type they play.

Why are you required to play a single regiment for your army? Just take the superheavy company with a screening detachment of the Cadian 53904534906909045690456th infantry regiment in support. If you can play a team game with a player with another regiment then you can bring two regiments in your own force and have the same fluff.

That's actually what I'm considering doing.

Originally, it was 2 things: an attempt to keep the fluff consistent from battle to battle (it's hard to track the histories of two regiments that are only brought together for one campaign and I only have so much fluff-writing time), and also an attempt at self-nerfing because, as people seem to have noticed, screens make Baneblade armies very very very very strong indeed, and with the buff in the 'dex, I also didn't suddenly want to bring a tournament list.

But I'm considering taking one or even two Imperial Guard battalions along with my Baneblade company, because apparently the fact that it is skew is more annoying for people than it would be if it was actually good lol.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Drager wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I would kill for some screening units myself, and am considering taking them for sure. But that only makes my list more powerful and less fluffy, because superheavy tank regiments don't have access to infantry formations, sadly. If I ever play a team game with another regiment player, though, you bet my ass I'm begging for him to screen my tanks with his men. Or sentinels. Or whatever regiment type they play.

Why are you required to play a single regiment for your army? Just take the superheavy company with a screening detachment of the Cadian 53904534906909045690456th infantry regiment in support. If you can play a team game with a player with another regiment then you can bring two regiments in your own force and have the same fluff.

Also, a SHTC is a variant of an armoured company, which often have armoured fist squads. Baneblades have transport capacity, having armoured fist squads that came to the battle mounted in the baneblades, but are now deployed as screens seems fluffy to me.

Yes, although the e-novel Stormlord as well as the novel Shadowsword makes it abundantly clear that such infantry are from other regiments, and not integral formations to the superheavy tank regiment in question (in fact there's a neat scene where the Stormlord company commander squabbles with the infantry company commander about who is in charge, but I digress).

I actually do have a 3-Banehammer transport company in my regiment (the 7th Company, tanks 18-21) but haven't gotten to use them, as the infantry regiment player here has decided that because he is Cadian, moving or advancing at all is for wusses. So even in our team-games, I end up using my Stormsword assault vehicles to push forwards.

Have you thought, maybe for just a second, that you are profoundly over-complicating this? Again, looking at the scale of a regular 2k game and tying in the fluff, a full 3-tank SHTC doesn't work because it wouldn't be deployed that way. It would be deployed as the spearhead of a massive offensive, like 10k points of models, with full infantry support. You're trying to take 10% of a larger construct in the most limited and inflexible way possible, and seem to have an excuse for every suggestion because of the box you've locked yourself in. You've mentioned reading some of the books, have you read Iron Harvest? That's a great example of a single Baneblade being seconded as part of a mixed army group, with lighter MBTs, infantry and air support. There's plenty of ways to take some of what you love and some of what makes for a fun game, you just seem hopelessly hung on on these super specific nitpicks that don't allow for any deviation or creativity.

THAT IS RIGHT AND AWESOME

but...

1) I'd love to play team games with other regiments, like a Valhallan conscript company or Cadian veteran company, or something. Even a sentinel recon company would be badass. Any imperial thing really.

But, the locals don't play team games that often.

2) I'd love to play apoc, and I agree that the superheavy tanks make sense there!

But apoc is essentially never played in any of the four cities I've lived now. I think the local store in Harrisburg, PA did one once every six months but each player could only bring 1500 points so you couldn't even bring 3 baneblades.

4) Iron Harvest is an excellent book, and I actually am building an Inquisitorial conclave based on the Inquisitor in that book (despite her gruesome end!).

But, I've found that in game mechanic terms, a single Baneblade doesn't actually get to play the game. If the enemy goes first, I can just say "no, no, skip your shooting phase" then pick up the baneblade, then let them go on to charges, etc. Having a single tank is probably good for a regular guard player, as it attracts every anti-tank bullet the enemy has, but I'd like to actually play with the tank, instead of just writing in my fluff "Tank 05/02 Virgin valiantly exploded so that the rest of the army could function."

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

1) 3 Neutron-Laser Onager Dunecrawlers
2) Slaanesh-marked combi-plasma Terminators next to a combi-melta Lord with Endless Cacophony and VOTLW.
3) Alpha Legion Obliterators x3 squads
4) Space Marine Hellblasters near Guilliman
5) Predator Annhilators
6) Stormravens
7) Grey Knight DKGM spam
8) Inquisition smite spam + all melta acolytes falling out of a Valykrie within melta range
9) Other superheavies of various flavors
10) Leman Russ tanks
11) RG Assault Centurions (if they shut down my overwatch like with an Inquisitor's psy power)

I'm sure there's more but that's off the top of my head.

Note quite sure how most of those one shot a baneblade. The Onagers have a less than 2% chance to do so unless i've missed some special rule?

Daedalus81 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

1) 3 Neutron-Laser Onager Dunecrawlers
2) Slaanesh-marked combi-plasma Terminators next to a combi-melta Lord with Endless Cacophony and VOTLW.
3) Alpha Legion Obliterators x3 squads
4) Space Marine Hellblasters near Guilliman
5) Predator Annhilators
6) Stormravens
7) Grey Knight DKGM spam
8) Inquisition smite spam + all melta acolytes falling out of a Valykrie within melta range
9) Other superheavies of various flavors
10) Leman Russ tanks
11) RG Assault Centurions (if they shut down my overwatch like with an Inquisitor's psy power)

I'm sure there's more but that's off the top of my head.

Note quite sure how most of those one shot a baneblade. The Onagers have a less than 2% chance to do so unless i've missed some special rule?

They were near Cawl, like every Onager ever has been that I've played.

Did you remember the minimum 3 damage on the Neutron Laser and take into account the ability to re-roll number of shots with a CP? If I recall, he did that once.

Unit why are you making gak up on the internet.

Just for clarity I am one of the club officers where Unit plays...

We did not prohibit him from bringing his bane-blades in the narrative campaign because they are scary. We gave everyone a stipulation that you could bring ONE LoW per master list (we had a 3k master list with 2k games and potential perma-death over the course of the campaign). We limited it to one LoW because it was a City Fight, Infantry focused campaign and multiple LoW lists would have been incredibly unbalanced. Unit then chose to accuse me of bullying him (when honestly it seems like he has no problem bullying everyone else with 3 LoW lists), and he played his sisters in protest.

Our meta is very casual. I am pretty sure Unit has not lost one game when he has brought all 3 tanks, which is probably why he is now having trouble finding games. Sure there may be occasional things that can alpha a tank (my admech army for example), but we do not have tournament lists in rotation by any stretch of the imagination.

I just also want to say that I have personally offered to house-rule to let him give his tanks a regiment bonuses if he brought less than 3, something which he was not willing to do.

Seriously dude you know I read Dakka, why would you make up imaginary things to whine about?

Valentine009 wrote:
Unit why are you making gak up on the internet.

Just for clarity I am one of the club officers where Unit plays...

We did not prohibit him from bringing his bane-blades in the narrative campaign because they are scary. We gave everyone a stipulation that you could bring ONE LoW per master list (we had a 3k master list with 2k games and potential perma-death over the course of the campaign). We limited it to one LoW because it was a City Fight, Infantry focused campaign and multiple LoW lists would have been incredibly unbalanced. Unit then chose to accuse me of bullying him (when honestly it seems like he has no problem bullying everyone else with 3 LoW lists), and he played his sisters in protest.

Our meta is very casual. I am pretty sure Unit has not lost one game when he has brought all 3 tanks, which is probably why he is now having trouble finding games. Sure there may be occasional things that can alpha a tank (my admech army for example), but we do not have tournament lists in rotation by any stretch of the imagination.

I just also want to say that I have personally offered to house-rule to let him give his tanks a regiment bonuses if he brought less than 3, something which he was not willing to do.

Seriously dude you know I read Dakka, why would you make up imaginary things to whine about?

If you want to start this, that's fine, I suppose.

One LOW per master list is junk. It really is. It's essentially banning me from bringing Baneblades, because if anyone brought anything that could kill one, it'd be dead, off the list, and gone. I am okay with infantry-focused campaigns, but it stung because I didn't know it was infantry focused. Telling me that it's a "cityfight" campaign got me very excited to bring my urban combat superheavy tank regiment, and I had to find out from someone else that it was also supposed to be infantry-focused. So that stung. Also, you know I play and track the fluff for a superheavy tank regiment, and since team games are (inexplicably) not allowed in the campaign, bringing a single Baneblade is essentially a throwaway thing, because it's a campaign and that's the perfect time for a themed, regimental army to play! It's essentially telling me that my main army, my first love and purely narrative construct, is only allowed to show up with one tank out of the possible six (two companies) that a Siege Regiment could send.

Multiple LoW isn't that unbalanced. Seriously, they're not doing that well in competitive play. They're certainly good but not amazing.

I haven't "bullied" anyone with my list; I always let people know ahead of time when/if I am bringing them, and don't force them upon anyone.

The meta is very casual, that's true, but I don't think my list is tournament quality. Hell, just look at the people telling me to bring screens because I "need them."

And the house-rules thing is bupkis. I want to find a way to fix this, because it might become a problem in the other clubs I play at (victory comics and the local GW in Springfield).

But yeah, sure, I'm making things up.

EDIT: There, I added the word "multiple" to my post, as in "..multiple LoW are scary..."

 heckler wrote:


All this has lead to the game structuring itself to turn most list choices into something resembling a glass cannon that can trade far above its own value. So now we are seeing some armies wiped off the table or effectively tabled on turn 2, which is great if you are the person doing it. This is why that roll to go first has become so important.

I think you hit the nail on the head with this one.

It seems like in this edition of 40k ALL armies are glass cannons (unless you have a -2 to hit in shooting or 3++ re-rollable and even then...). This means that armies built around that concept perform well, those not seem to suffer.

Non-LOS weapons, 36-48" range on a 4x6 table w/ 12" deployment zones, ap mods, wound chart, so many high damage weapons, 1st turn charges, scale creep, los rules + lack of cover rules (seeing .1% of my model means you can shoot the whole unit to death...). It is common for me to lose/kill 25-40% of a list to 1st turn alpha @ 2k points.

Dude I am just sick of the passive aggression. When you post online and misrepresent what really happened to make yourself some sort of victim it is infuriating.

I have spent loads of time trying to work with you and explain why 3 baneblade lists are not enjoyable games for your opponent (and this forum has spent time, and other members of our club has spent time) and there is just no effort on your part to adjust your inflexible attitude. I understand 3 baneblade lists may not be inbalanced in tournaments, or in metas with lots of anti-armor, but it is incredibly inbalanced in our local meta where most people play fairly casual TAC lists.

Seriously if you were just nice about it you would probably get the occasional game and people would want to humor you (like your game coming up this weekend), but when you make passive aggressive comments about how we are all trying to ruin your fun because all you care about are skewed LoW lists, and how if we were better it would be easier for us, it just makes me want to tell you to https://www.reddit.com/r/quityourbullshit/

/rant. we can take it offline.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
You mentioned about 4 factions, in a game in which there are 20+.

What about orks, SoB, harlequins, gen cult, tyranids, eldar, tau, dark angels, space wolves, blood angels, nercons, thousand sons, deathguard? Most of those armies also have several different types of lists. Even the typical drukhari list with tons of lances doesn't have the math to bring down a superheavy with average rolls unless they tailor the list with only tank essentially.

Smite can't be a problem in turn 1, you should be able to screen the superheavy and the majority of psykers can't even be in range in turn 1.

I didn't say that there aren't things that can bring down a superheavy in first turn, there are many more combinations that can do so, but even most of the anti tank units you listed don't have the math to bring down a baneblade on average rolls. Then if your opponent rolls extremely lucky.... but it's not the norm. A typical TAC list, even with strong anti tank, doesn't kill a superheavy on average rolls.

I'll address it point by point:

1) Orks I've not played, so they don't fit into my example. But yes, perhaps they would have a problem. I am the only local SOB player in my meta, but just as an example of one here on DakkaDakka Inquisitor Lord Katherine always brings a Shadowsword for just such an occasion. Gen Cult and Tyranids may or may not be able to one-round a Baneblade with the new dex, but at Nova I had one get charged by 3 Trygons and 20 stealers Turn 1; it didn't die but it was crippled and unable to move, and died the next turn. Eldar have absolutely one-rounded me with WWP Fire Dragons, so you can just add them to my list of nasties. Tau have also done it with 2 Stormsurges, though I did win the game (as again, I have two other tanks), but it's comparatively easy to focus fire Destroyer missiles with Tau given that you only have to markerlight like 1 thing, and 8d3 mortal wounds is half a baneblade's wounds before the Pulse Driver cannon fires. You can add this to my list as well. DA, SW, and BA all have predator annihilators so not sure why they'd have trouble (the Pred Annihilators I mention were BA ones, in fact). Necrons may have trouble like the Orks. Thousand Sons also have predator annihilators and Magnus... so yeah. Death Guard have never gone first against me, so I always alpha-strike their Mortarion, but I'm sure a Warp-Time Mortarion +1500 points of DG could one-round a Baneblade.

2) They came out of a Valykrie. The Valykrie moves 45", and they fall out next to me because Grav Chute Insertion lets them disembark as it moves, then they move 6" closer (so 3" away). And it's unfluffy for me (without a teammate) to screen superheavies anyways, since superheavy tank regiments don't have access to their own integral infantry formations.

3) A lot of what I listed are also parts of a whole - the entire 2k army could one-round a Baneblade (when I said, for example, Predator Annihilators, I didn't mean just one).

Well, it doesn't seem like there are many lists that can wreck a baneblade after all. Mostly imperium stuff. But bringing tons of lascannons or equivalents isn't TAC at all, for example a list with 3 las predator may be an hard counter for you but it's not that common since it will struggle against several opponents. T.Sons have those preds as well but you'll never see a huge amount of lascannons in their list, they have other typical builds.

Fire dragons have a crappy 12'' range and only a 6'' melta range, which means that they shouldn't even be able to target the superheavy in turn one if they arrive by WWP, unless your list just has the lone big tank in turn 1 and nothing else. I think you have points for other stuff to mess deep strikers' arrive.

The tyranids anectode is a good one, but I'm sure it wouldn't be the norm if you play against tyranids.

Some examples are matches against other superheavies. If the opponent has a baneblade or even 2 stormsurges I don't think he/she would have a problem in facing your favorite list and you'll certainly be able to deploy all tanks in turn 1.

And as you said a lot of what you listed were part of the same army, which strenghtens my point when I say that there are actually a few possible lists that can cripple a baneblade in turn 1 with average rolls.

We're not even considering the fact that you should be able to have first turn at least 50% of the games, since you'll certainly have a few drops compared to the average 40k list. Again killing a superheavy in the first turn is something exceptional, even for competitive lists. Unless they are tailored against you.

Once I've played a list with 210 boyz/stormboyz, with also a KFF for a 5+ invuln and the painboy for a 6+ FNP. I started second and the opponent managed to kill all my infantries by turn 3 and not a single ork did manage to charge. Ok, I failed to cast Da Jump in turn 1 and the following turn I failed the 9'' charge, but it did happen. Killing 90-120 boyz in the first turn is possible but luckily not the normal. I just started second against a list that was optimized against infantries and I poorly rolled a couple of key rolls. It doesn't mean than orks will lose 210 boyz by the enemy shooting in an average game.

Unit1126PLL wrote: And it's unfluffy for me (without a teammate) to screen superheavies anyways, since superheavy tank regiments don't have access to their own integral infantry formations.

It's totally fine to do this - indeed, that is Normal in our current real world formations.

Usually you will take elements (such as a company) from an Armored Division and attach it to some larger Infantry formation.

TheNightWillEnd wrote:I still feel like the original sin of this whole conscript debacle was eliminating the platoon structure and making them spammable.

It's not like footguard didn't exist until 8th, but you needed to drop minimum 150 points on other stuff to unlock your 50 conscripts for 150 points. In theory, it was possible to spam conscripts but it would have been really inefficient points-wise. In some ways, those blobs were even better than their 8th ed counterparts -- 50 conscripts with a priest in 7th ed could do real work in CC.

But, alas in the 8th ed Index, then Codex, they eliminate those restrictions and give guard players just two troop options: Infantry Squads, which depending on what you want to do with them, will probably be inferior to SWS, vets or HWS for that job, or Conscripts who at least are dern good at their job of tarpitting, bubble-wrapping and board control.

So they really pushed guard players to take conscripts as their only troops and of course all of the Imperial soup players were all too happy to throw in a bunch of cheap bodies to their lists.

Even in 8th the problem has never been that you might face a single conscript blob, it was that you would face four, surrounding Gulliman and a bunch of tanks.

At each turn I've been stunned that their rules fixes have attacked the symptoms rather than the disease of the spammable conscripts. First attack their their ability to receive orders and unit size, then attack their morale, now make them unfieldable for anyone seeking list efficiency.

Guys, guys guys. Just limit conscripts to one unit per detachment. Or require a certain number of other units to be taken in order to unlock them like in the olden days. It's really not that hard.

I'm personally all for Conscript armies, because in my opinion there needs to be a way to demonstrate varying levels of quality in Guard armies.

Also because I wrote part of my guard faction as making use of Mass Infantry formations to hold territory :p

It's the Soup that's the issue, it sounds.

M.

Valentine009 wrote:
Dude I am just sick of the passive aggression. When you post online and misrepresent what really happened to make yourself some sort of victim it is infuriating.

I have spent loads of time trying to work with you and explain why 3 baneblade lists are not enjoyable games for your opponent (and this forum has spent time, and other members of our club has spent time) and there is just no effort on your part to adjust your inflexible attitude. I understand 3 baneblade lists may not be inbalanced in tournaments, or in metas with lots of anti-armor, but it is incredibly inbalanced in our local meta where most people play fairly casual TAC lists.

Seriously if you were just nice about it you would probably get the occasional game and people would want to humor you (like your game coming up this weekend), but when you make passive aggressive comments about how we are all trying to ruin your fun because all you care about are skewed LoW lists, and how if we were better it would be easier for us, it just makes me want to tell you to https://www.reddit.com/r/quityourbullshit/

/rant. we can take it offline.

I'm not trying to be passive aggressive, and if I come out that way, then I apologize. But I'm not "misrepresenting" anything. I'm telling it like it is. I do feel a bit victimized; I introduced myself as a guy that plays an "urban combat superheavy regiment" and then get told later we're doing a cityfight campaign. I was ecstatic. I was like "cityfight, narrative campaign? That's the PERFECT context for which I have been building this army! This is my dream came true!"

I painted like a mad man to try to get some neat stuff done. I threw together a bunch of trial 3k master lists and kinda dicked around with various options.

And then I was dick-punched by "no max one LOW, it's infantry focused."

Oh... okay then. Wish I'd've known before I got all excited. So yes, I feel like a victim.

And I do understand why 3-Baneblade lists are unenjoyable. I really do. It's why I'm okay not getting games; if I didn't get one this weekend, I'd go to Victory Comics instead where they are okay with it.

So yes, I feel ostracized and I did before I started worrying about it online & verbally.

 Blackie wrote:
Well, it doesn't seem like there are many lists that can wreck a baneblade after all. Mostly imperium stuff. But bringing tons of lascannons or equivalents isn't TAC at all, for example a list with 3 las predator may be an hard counter for you but it's not that common since it will struggle against several opponents. T.Sons have those preds as well but you'll never see a huge amount of lascannons in their list, they have other typical builds.

Fire dragons have a crappy 12'' range and only a 6'' melta range, which means that they shouldn't even be able to target the superheavy in turn one if they arrive by WWP, unless your list just has the lone big tank in turn 1 and nothing else. I think you have points for other stuff to mess deep strikers' arrive.

The tyranids anectode is a good one, but I'm sure it wouldn't be the norm if you play against tyranids.

Some examples are matches against other superheavies. If the opponent has a baneblade or even 2 stormsurges I don't think he/she would have a problem in facing your favorite list and you'll certainly be able to deploy all tanks in turn 1.

And as you said a lot of what you listed were part of the same army, which strenghtens my point when I say that there are actually a few possible lists that can cripple a baneblade in turn 1 with average rolls.

We're not even considering the fact that you should be able to have first turn at least 50% of the games, since you'll certainly have a few drops compared to the average 40k list. Again killing a superheavy in the first turn is something exceptional, even for competitive lists. Unless they are tailored against you.

Once I've played a list with 210 boyz/stormboyz, with also a KFF for a 5+ invuln and the painboy for a 6+ FNP. I started second and the opponent managed to kill all my infantries by turn 3 and not a single ork did manage to charge. Ok, I failed to cast Da Jump in turn 1 and the following turn I failed the 9'' charge, but it did happen. Killing 90-120 boyz in the first turn is possible but luckily not the normal. I just started second against a list that was optimized against infantries and I poorly rolled a couple of key rolls. It doesn't mean than orks will lose 210 boyz by the enemy shooting in an average game.

I don't understand your post; are you saying "I should take screens, and I'm losing tanks because I'm not" or are you saying "other people with superheavies can handle it sure, but I don;t personally run them so they don't exist?" or "people don't bring a ton of lascannons and melta?"

Because if it's the last one, there's literally a post somewhere on this forum where someone has like, 2 lascannon dev squads, 1 multi-melta dev squad, and is asking how to beat genestealers with this so-called "TAC" list.

And I do understand why 3-Baneblade lists are unenjoyable. I really do. It's why I'm okay not getting games; if I didn't get one this weekend, I'd go to Victory Comics instead where they are okay with it

.

You do realize this statement is passive aggressive though right? It is some sort of weird threat that you are going to leave and go play with another group that doesn't victimize you.

 Infantryman wrote:

Unit1126PLL wrote: And it's unfluffy for me (without a teammate) to screen superheavies anyways, since superheavy tank regiments don't have access to their own integral infantry formations.

It's totally fine to do this - indeed, that is Normal in our current real world formations.

Usually you will take elements (such as a company) from an Armored Division and attach it to some larger Infantry formation.

I am planning on starting. Earlier I hadn't for a couple of reasons elaborated earlier in the thread, but if it helps other people see my list as more balanced and normal than I will.

The only thing I'm afraid of is that it will make the list better and even more unfun to play against.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Valentine009 wrote:

And I do understand why 3-Baneblade lists are unenjoyable. I really do. It's why I'm okay not getting games; if I didn't get one this weekend, I'd go to Victory Comics instead where they are okay with it

.

You do realize this statement is passive aggressive though right? It is some sort of weird threat that you are going to leave and go play with another group that doesn't victimize you.

No that's not what I meant; Victory Comics plays from 6-9 on saturday so I could do both!

Rather than a threat to leave, it was an illustration that for some reason other clubs don't have this problem, that's all.

And yet another thread is hijacked for Unit to ask for the same advice, receive the same answers and make the same excuses.

 Scott-S6 wrote:
And yet another thread is hijacked for Unit to ask for the same advice, receive the same answers and make the same excuses.

Oh my god I'm becoming martel.

Send help!

 Unit1126PLL wrote:


They were near Cawl, like every Onager ever has been that I've played.

Did you remember the minimum 3 damage on the Neutron Laser and take into account the ability to re-roll number of shots with a CP? If I recall, he did that once.

Ah ha - forgot Cawl - makes sense - thanks!

Though that is well over 700 points of stuff.

I've noticed a lot of players being totally inflexible with casual/narrative/fluffy campaigns.

There should be campaign and game options for new / inexperienced / fundamentally "bad" players to enjoy the game without getting waxed.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
That is a cool idea, but if I can put things in reserve I could drop down to just running one anyways, because then it wouldn't get alpha-struck.

Can't you just run one and say it's Tallarn for the Ambush stratagem

 Arachnofiend wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
That is a cool idea, but if I can put things in reserve I could drop down to just running one anyways, because then it wouldn't get alpha-struck.

Can't you just run one and say it's Tallarn for the Ambush stratagem

That's actually genius...

... this is exactly why I post on the internet to ask for help. People are far smarter than me.

There's a way to keep a superheavy in reserve! I can't believe I didn't see it before.

I wish I could hold up a huge sign that says "problem solved!"

FWIW: I did exalt the post, if that helps.

What does any of this have to do with Chapter Approved?

AdmiralHalsey wrote:
What does any of this have to do with Chapter Approved?

Nothing. As someone above mentioned, I hijacked the thread. My bad!

I am very happy I found a solution, even so, though at this point the discussion has, in fact, completely deviated off topic.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Arachnofiend wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
That is a cool idea, but if I can put things in reserve I could drop down to just running one anyways, because then it wouldn't get alpha-struck.

Can't you just run one and say it's Tallarn for the Ambush stratagem

That's actually genius...

... this is exactly why I post on the internet to ask for help. People are far smarter than me.

There's a way to keep a superheavy in reserve! I can't believe I didn't see it before.

I wish I could hold up a huge sign that says "problem solved!"

FWIW: I did exalt the post, if that helps.

Wait ... are you kidding ?! I'm reading these posts.thinking . He does know the Tallern strat right....

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Scott-S6 wrote:
And yet another thread is hijacked for Unit to ask for the same advice, receive the same answers and make the same excuses.

Oh my god I'm becoming martel.

Send help!

I laughed so hard reading this. Still waiting for Martel to chime in on the BA news and rumors. I watch that thread daily waiting for him to come in and gak on everyones good vibes. Lol.

I won't till i know more. It all depends on the costs of a few units.

 zedsdead wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Arachnofiend wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
That is a cool idea, but if I can put things in reserve I could drop down to just running one anyways, because then it wouldn't get alpha-struck.

Can't you just run one and say it's Tallarn for the Ambush stratagem

That's actually genius...

... this is exactly why I post on the internet to ask for help. People are far smarter than me.

There's a way to keep a superheavy in reserve! I can't believe I didn't see it before.

I wish I could hold up a huge sign that says "problem solved!"

FWIW: I did exalt the post, if that helps.

Wait ... are you kidding ?! I'm reading these posts.thinking . He does know the Tallern strat right....

He DOES know about it I talked to him about it LITERALLY the day the IG came out. Give me an hour.

EDIT: FOUND IT I was wrong about it being the day IG came out forgive me.

 Quickjager wrote:
His fluffy list; fluffy list generally have a weakness, Unit's weakness is literally what everyone else suffers from. I Got Shot Before I Could Shoot Syndrome. Very deadly to all forms of models in 40k, recently the I Got Stabbed And I Didn't Do Nothing Syndrome is making a comeback as well with this edition but to a much less extent.

So he has a weakness and he wants to fix it. Well with his remaining 500 points he could buy a few Infantry Squad to screen his Baneblades. Or he could get Sentinels, or even 6 Hellhounds which he could turn sideways with a few inches of space in between them. He could even decide to go Tallarn and invoke their 3 CP stratagem to hide his Baneblades in reserve. He could stop bringing the FW repair vehicle as if he losses 2 tanks in his first two turns it obviously is being useless. He could even invest in buildings to block certain approach angles.

He has all the tools to succeed. But he is just sitting there being punched in the face saying, "I want MY list to work". At a certain point if you are LOSING games consistently, it isn't working so you should probably try changing the list up a bit.

So why is his tank blowing up so much?
-He is playing 80% of the same list every game against the same people, obviously they aren't robots, so of course they know what to do.
-He played in NOVA, where quite simply any non-optimized list is eviscerated.
-He won't take the tools to prevent it.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I would kill for some screening units myself, and am considering taking them for sure. But that only makes my list more powerful and less fluffy, because superheavy tank regiments don't have access to infantry formations, sadly. If I ever play a team game with another regiment player, though, you bet my ass I'm begging for him to screen my tanks with his men. Or sentinels. Or whatever regiment type they play.

My final thoughts on the subject. You say that just taking one Superheavy means it gets blown off the board immediately by alpha strike. Ok, fair enough. You also say that you’d like to add some screening elements, but 3 superheavies plus screens is too powerful for casual games. Yeah, I can get behind that.

What’s wrong with the middle ground? Take one Superheavy and screen it effectively. That should stop it being alpha-struck off the board, while not being unmanageably powerful. You get to play with your favourite unit, your opponent has the rest of your army for the rest of their army to interact with, and your games shouldn’t be so one-dimensional. Sometimes you will come up against an army that is capable of shooting over the screen and removing the tank before it gets a turn, but that just happens sometimes. It’s just a bad match-up.

If that bad match-up is happening routinely, one of two things is happening. Either you play in a super-competitive meta, in which case, tough break man, or you have a reputation as ‘the guy who always brings superheavies’. The latter means people will list-tailor against you and do something they normally wouldn’t - like bring triple quad-Las Predators. There’s only one solution to having a reputation work against it in a very clear manner. Play a dozen games without a superheavy and people will start to realise that tailoring against you won’t work. There’s no shortcut to changing your reputation (in any aspect of life, sadly).

Martel732 wrote:
I won't till i know more. It all depends on the costs of a few units.

If feel like it's problematic to chime in when there is something negative, but to wait to process all the info if there is something positive. Though I guess that's the MO of the board...

Why can't he just take battle tanks and a superheavy. Makes sense. You can even keep doctrines if you make it a supreme command with tank commanders.

I really dont see an issue here.. im trying to figure out wtf posting comment after comment on why his gaming group has issues with his 3 Baneblades and 1 Baneblade isnt terribly good. ?!

I play 3 Baneblades myself. When i want a practice game for Tournament i tell my club members, local friendly clubs and game store players that i am looking for a game against my 3 Baneblades. Never... have i not been given a game.

When i play a friendly (non competitve game) i leave 2 of them home and play with 1. I have plenty of other AM units to field.

Its not like Magnus, Morty, Imp Knights, FW units..ect arent in play in my area. 1 Baneblade should really never be an issue unless its a new player.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Colonel Cross wrote:
Why can't he just take battle tanks and a superheavy. Makes sense. You can even keep doctrines if you make it a supreme command with tank commanders.

yup...hell you can even grab 2 Baneblades using 2 SC detatchments.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:


I don't understand your post; are you saying "I should take screens, and I'm losing tanks because I'm not" or are you saying "other people with superheavies can handle it sure, but I don;t personally run them so they don't exist?" or "people don't bring a ton of lascannons and melta?"

Because if it's the last one, there's literally a post somewhere on this forum where someone has like, 2 lascannon dev squads, 1 multi-melta dev squad, and is asking how to beat genestealers with this so-called "TAC" list.

I'm saying all these things

You should defintely take screeners, and with 3 superheavies in a 2000 points lists I don't think you'll have points for something different than cheap fillers.

If your opponent loves superheavies you won't have problems to play regular games against him/her. Why should you reserve your baneblades when the other player is allowed to bring two stormsurges? I've never said that the list with 3 superheavies is overpowered, just very boring to face and many lists have only one tactic against it, focussing on a sinlge tank and scoring objectives. Maybe even only scoring objectives and completely ignoring the tanks.

A list with tons of lascannons may exist but like you said, it struggles against a lot of common lists like an average tyranids army and in fact he's asking help because that list doesn't work. I'm sure the answers that player will get about making his list more competitve are about cutting some anti tank and bringing more anti infantry. A list like that one is a beginner's mistake, he's going to fix that soon.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

kombatwombat wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I would kill for some screening units myself, and am considering taking them for sure. But that only makes my list more powerful and less fluffy, because superheavy tank regiments don't have access to infantry formations, sadly. If I ever play a team game with another regiment player, though, you bet my ass I'm begging for him to screen my tanks with his men. Or sentinels. Or whatever regiment type they play.

My final thoughts on the subject. You say that just taking one Superheavy means it gets blown off the board immediately by alpha strike. Ok, fair enough. You also say that you’d like to add some screening elements, but 3 superheavies plus screens is too powerful for casual games. Yeah, I can get behind that.

What’s wrong with the middle ground? Take one Superheavy and screen it effectively. That should stop it being alpha-struck off the board, while not being unmanageably powerful. You get to play with your favourite unit, your opponent has the rest of your army for the rest of their army to interact with, and your games shouldn’t be so one-dimensional. Sometimes you will come up against an army that is capable of shooting over the screen and removing the tank before it gets a turn, but that just happens sometimes. It’s just a bad match-up.

Exactly this. 100% agree.

How is this another thread with Unit trying to make his cheese 3 baneblade lists "okay because I like fluff"

Then EVERYONE telling him it's not fun, just play something different

Then Unit replying every time "I know it's because I use 3 baneblades but I like playing them so it's okay despite it being real cheese people should just play me"

Man that gak is getting old real fast.

 AaronWilson wrote:
How this another thread with Unit trying to make his cheese 3 baneblade lists "okay because I like fluff"

Then EVERYONE telling him it's not fun, just play something different

Then Unit replying every time "I know it's because I use 3 baneblades but I like playing them so it's okay despite it being real cheese people should just play me"

Man that gak is getting old real fast.

Yeah. It's pretty stupid. It really shouldn't be freaking rocket surgery to figure it out. A 3 or so page pity party about running 3 superheavies, where any advice given is just ignored to try and garner more pity. Nope. All set.

2 things:

1) With the Tallarn stratagem: somehow, until very recently, I had convinced myself that Baneblades with sponsons were more than 7" wide. Having dismissed the stratagem, I did not think to revisit it (even after being corrected about the width). So yes, it was a mistake, but I am glad I have been reminded.

2) I will try not to bring it up as often. I do wish GW would balance the game enough that it isn't such a problem to bring 3 big tanks. It is a fluffy list and is fairly TAC, able to deal with a wide variety of threats and whatnot, and if I build the list right I can get 6 10-man obsec units with it. But for now, with the Tallarn stratagem, I can run one.

Sorry for thread derail.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
2 things:

1) With the Tallarn stratagem: somehow, until very recently, I had convinced myself that Baneblades with sponsons were more than 7" wide. Having dismissed the stratagem, I did not think to revisit it (even after being corrected about the width). So yes, it was a mistake, but I am glad I have been reminded.

2) I will try not to bring it up as often. I do wish GW would balance the game enough that it isn't such a problem to bring 3 big tanks. It is a fluffy list and is fairly TAC, able to deal with a wide variety of threats and whatnot, and if I build the list right I can get 6 10-man obsec units with it. But for now, with the Tallarn stratagem, I can run one.

Sorry for thread derail.

A 3 baneblades list is TAC? At this point my friend I believe you're just disillusioned.

 AaronWilson wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
2 things:

1) With the Tallarn stratagem: somehow, until very recently, I had convinced myself that Baneblades with sponsons were more than 7" wide. Having dismissed the stratagem, I did not think to revisit it (even after being corrected about the width). So yes, it was a mistake, but I am glad I have been reminded.

2) I will try not to bring it up as often. I do wish GW would balance the game enough that it isn't such a problem to bring 3 big tanks. It is a fluffy list and is fairly TAC, able to deal with a wide variety of threats and whatnot, and if I build the list right I can get 6 10-man obsec units with it. But for now, with the Tallarn stratagem, I can run one.

Sorry for thread derail.

A 3 baneblades list is TAC? At this point my friend I believe you're just disillusioned.

TAC is "take all comers" right? As in, able to deal with most threats that are likely to appear?

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 AaronWilson wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
2 things:

1) With the Tallarn stratagem: somehow, until very recently, I had convinced myself that Baneblades with sponsons were more than 7" wide. Having dismissed the stratagem, I did not think to revisit it (even after being corrected about the width). So yes, it was a mistake, but I am glad I have been reminded.

2) I will try not to bring it up as often. I do wish GW would balance the game enough that it isn't such a problem to bring 3 big tanks. It is a fluffy list and is fairly TAC, able to deal with a wide variety of threats and whatnot, and if I build the list right I can get 6 10-man obsec units with it. But for now, with the Tallarn stratagem, I can run one.

Sorry for thread derail.

A 3 baneblades list is TAC? At this point my friend I believe you're just disillusioned.

TAC is "take all comers" right? As in, able to deal with most threats that are likely to appear?

Take ALL corners is NOT 3 superheavy tanks. Your list is a skew list.

I won't carry on to derail this thread / other threads after this is point as it's HUGELY obvious from the fella that knows you's post and your responses here's the situation.

You really want to play 3 baneblades, it might be because you like crushing people with them, it might be the fluffiest thing ever existed and it's probably a mix between the two. Repeatedly you have said "People don't like playing me / 3 baneblades what can I do?" People have given you probably up to 100 different good responses from this thread or the 5+ other threads that have derailed into this topic.

Your constant response is "I don't want to not use 3 Baneblades as If I use less then 3 it's less powerful / fluffy or some variation of this answer". This has happened for like - 5 separate threads.

The answer is 3 bane blades is NOT a "regular game" of 40k and if you want people to enjoy playing you're going to have to play a less "powerful" or fluffy army - yes you're going to have sacrifice something for your opponents happiness. If you don't want to do that, don't play those people. That's the definitive line.

Ok; I thought TAC just meant a list that could handle a variety of expected opponents and threats and didn't know it precluded a list being skew as well.

Thank you for correcting me.

In reply to the rest of your post, yeah, I will shut up about it. I can PM you some more thoughts if you like but I doubt you're interested in them.

With all due respect can you guys take this Baneblade/TAC discussion to another thread?

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
2 things:

1) With the Tallarn stratagem: somehow, until very recently, I had convinced myself that Baneblades with sponsons were more than 7" wide. Having dismissed the stratagem, I did not think to revisit it (even after being corrected about the width). So yes, it was a mistake, but I am glad I have been reminded.

2) I will try not to bring it up as often. I do wish GW would balance the game enough that it isn't such a problem to bring 3 big tanks. It is a fluffy list and is fairly TAC, able to deal with a wide variety of threats and whatnot, and if I build the list right I can get 6 10-man obsec units with it. But for now, with the Tallarn stratagem, I can run one.

Sorry for thread derail.

in regards to #2 they cannot possibly do this and have those tanks represent what they are supposed to. It is things like this that make me wish imperial knights had never been a stand alone army. You cannot possibly balance the game around armies being able to kill 200 models that are low T, and 3-4 that are super durable at the same time. I think there really need to be more restrictions if you want the game to be competitive, for fun fluffy games I think take whatever works fine, but in a competitive environment it only ever leads to skew lists.

This is one reason I like the old way that WHFB did army construction using percentages 8th edition were

at least 1 character (lord or hero) and 3 non-character unit

You had Characters that could be up to I think 25% of your total points -and you needed to include at least 1 I believe
Core choices (troops essentially though could also be some lower level elite/fast/heavy choices) had to be at least 25% of your total points (perhaps consider a cap in points spent here to prevent some of the larger horde armies, or individual horde choices need to be capped)
special choices- (most elites, fast smaller heavy support units) no more than 50% of your list - no more than 3 duplicates of a choice unless playing larger armies
Rare choices - huge monsters and such (where super heavy units should go) - no more than 25 % of your list - only 2 duplicates unless larger games.

Now you could tweak the percentages around a bit for 40k depending on typical point value played(WFB was 2500 most of the time I believe), and armies would need to be restructured to fit units into these different categories, but this is they type of army construction that is needed to consistently avoid skew lists. For instance a 500 point super heavy would take up your entire rare slot at 2000 points, likely you cannot field an all tank army. I will say that for this to work it really requires good internal balance among units otherwise every army just ends up looking the same (though competitively this is often true now anyway).

I'm not suggesting this exact break down (as it does not stop things like playing all boyz for orks.)

Now people will come on here and say "But I only want to play with my tanks, and I should be allowed to do so, it is fluffy" I agree that it is fluffy, however if what you want is balance and to avoid skew lists you cannot allow for inherently unbalanced scenarios to exist. A composition system like this basically ensures that no matter what unit you take it will always have a target that it is reasonable for dealing with.

The issue right now is GW has blurred the lines between "narrative/fun/themed" games and "competitive" games because they don't want to restrict what people will buy (see move of super heavies into regular games, because they were not selling as well prior to that) They want people to buy 3 Baneblades, and if they can only ever use 1 in most games lots of people won't buy 3. But that doesn't create a balanced game, it creates a game where lists are very skewed because they are allowed to be, even encouraged to be.

Got my copy in - which is weird since I'm pretty certain it's not supposed to be released yet and my FLGS is rabid about obeying street dates.

I like the apoclypse section - the idea of bidding on timed deployments sounds fantastic. The rest of the book feels like it should be a couple White Dwarf articles instead of a seperate book. The VDR is everything I'd hoped for, but only valid for land raiders and open play, leaving me out in the cold since the FLGS only does matched play. The index faction buffs are nice, but probably didn't need a whole book just for that.

The point cost changes are weird. We were all but promised a Smite spam fix, but only a handful of psykers got a point cost increase and there is no change to how the power works.

I get that this is a all-but mandatory purchase so GW doesn't need to provide much beyond the point costs, but some fluff or hobby material would have been nice. I feel like I paid 35USD for a 10USD book.Not looking forward to next years Chapter Approved.

 ChargerIIC wrote:
Got my copy in - which is weird since I'm pretty certain it's not supposed to be released yet and my FLGS is rabid about obeying street dates.

I like the apoclypse section - the idea of bidding on timed deployments sounds fantastic. The rest of the book feels like it should be a couple White Dwarf articles instead of a seperate book. The VDR is everything I'd hoped for, but only valid for land raiders and open play, leaving me out in the cold since the FLGS only does matched play. The index faction buffs are nice, but probably didn't need a whole book just for that.

The point cost changes are weird. We were all but promised a Smite spam fix, but only a handful of psykers got a point cost increase and there is no change to how the power works.

I get that this is a all-but mandatory purchase so GW doesn't need to provide much beyond the point costs, but some fluff or hobby material would have been nice. I feel like I paid 35USD for a 10USD book.Not looking forward to next years Chapter Approved.

Anything interesting on terrain rules changes?

 ChargerIIC wrote:
I like the apoclypse section - the idea of bidding on timed deployments sounds fantastic.

Bidding on deployment time was in the original Apocalypse rulebook.


Hooray for innovation!

I think an apocalypse rule set was needed. For this alone, i'll probably buy the book. My narrative campaigns need apoc games, they're tons of fun and drive major story arcs. Especially when you impose a time limit. Finish your turn in 20 minutes or start suffering d3 mortal wounds to every unit on the table. The game goes fast and feels very harrowing and pressured. But it looks like they came up with some rules to speed up the game, so i'm looking forward to it.

And the points increases for some things was absolutely critical.

Malefic lords, ans psykers in general, are being totally abused. Primaris Psykers should have doubled in price, though. Nothing should have full smite for less than 50 points. It's still ridiculous that they're only 46.

I'm okay with some of the point changes for guard, but they should have been more. Artillery is simply too strong in 8th edition, and really takes a lot of tactics out of the game. Especially with how spammable it is now. Manticores and Wyverns only going up like 10 points? A joke.

I still think we need a mechanic fix for smite instead of point values. Right now a lot of support psykers are only worth it as smite batteries. If Smite was a once a turn thing (like certain other stratagems and physic powers), for example, I think we'd do much better because the point balancing would be simpler.

The main problem with artillery seems to be the non-mobile version because they are dirt cheap. You can complain about 110 pts wyverns, but tournament players are going to keep fielding their 25pt discount on using the Earthshaker carriage and battery versions. Seriously, the Earthshaker battery is what ? 70ish pts now?

 ChargerIIC wrote:
I still think we need a mechanic fix for smite instead of point values. Right now a lot of support psykers are only worth it as smite batteries. If Smite was a once a turn thing (like certain other stratagems and physic powers), for example, I think we'd do much better because the point balancing would be simpler.

The main problem with artillery seems to be the non-mobile version because they are dirt cheap. You can complain about 110 pts wyverns, but tournament players are going to keep fielding their 25pt discount on using the Earthshaker carriage and battery versions. Seriously, the Earthshaker battery is what ? 70ish pts now?

The FW non-mobile versions were updated in CA to now be *more* than their more resilient and mobile Codex chimera-hull based alternatives. Nobody is going to be using them, they got hammered into oblivion.

 ChargerIIC wrote:
I still think we need a mechanic fix for smite instead of point values. Right now a lot of support psykers are only worth it as smite batteries. If Smite was a once a turn thing (like certain other stratagems and physic powers), for example, I think we'd do much better because the point balancing would be simpler.

The main problem with artillery seems to be the non-mobile version because they are dirt cheap. You can complain about 110 pts wyverns, but tournament players are going to keep fielding their 25pt discount on using the Earthshaker carriage and battery versions. Seriously, the Earthshaker battery is what ? 70ish pts now?

I think they went up to like 105 or 115 or something - essentially the same as a basilisk. Though I could be mistaken.

GW confirmed that the Smite fix will come with March's FAQ.

 ChargerIIC wrote:
I still think we need a mechanic fix for smite instead of point values. Right now a lot of support psykers are only worth it as smite batteries. If Smite was a once a turn thing (like certain other stratagems and physic powers), for example, I think we'd do much better because the point balancing would be simpler.

Implementing the rule of one for smite would screw over Thousand Sons and make Grey Knights even more of a non-army than they already are. No thanks.

 Galas wrote:
GW confirmed that the Smite fix will come with March's FAQ.

Just out of curiosity, where was that? Did they give any more details?

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Galas wrote:
GW confirmed that the Smite fix will come with March's FAQ.

Just out of curiosity, where was that? Did they give any more details?

Yeah I'd like to hear that too, All I know is that there is supposed to be some balance upodate in march via warhammer Tv.

 Arachnofiend wrote:

 ChargerIIC wrote:
I still think we need a mechanic fix for smite instead of point values. Right now a lot of support psykers are only worth it as smite batteries. If Smite was a once a turn thing (like certain other stratagems and physic powers), for example, I think we'd do much better because the point balancing would be simpler.

Implementing the rule of one for smite would screw over Thousand Sons and make Grey Knights even more of a non-army than they already are. No thanks.

Honestly Grey Knights are a total joke outside of 1 model, i wouldn't consider them for the purpose of balancing real armies.

I genuinely don't mean to upset Grey Knights players - they are one of my favorite armies - I would play them all the time if they weren't total ass - but at this point, you're really just waiting for 9th edition. Sorry.

 Marmatag wrote:

 Arachnofiend wrote:

 ChargerIIC wrote:
I still think we need a mechanic fix for smite instead of point values. Right now a lot of support psykers are only worth it as smite batteries. If Smite was a once a turn thing (like certain other stratagems and physic powers), for example, I think we'd do much better because the point balancing would be simpler.

Implementing the rule of one for smite would screw over Thousand Sons and make Grey Knights even more of a non-army than they already are. No thanks.

Honestly Grey Knights are a total joke outside of 1 model, i wouldn't consider them for the purpose of balancing real armies.

I genuinely don't mean to upset Grey Knights players - they are one of my favorite armies - I would play them all the time if they weren't total ass - but at this point, you're really just waiting for 9th edition. Sorry.

You didn't hurt our feelings; we know.

Earth127 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Galas wrote:
GW confirmed that the Smite fix will come with March's FAQ.

Just out of curiosity, where was that? Did they give any more details?

Yeah I'd like to hear that too, All I know is that there is supposed to be some balance upodate in march via warhammer Tv.

They confirmed it on their Twitch. Theres no more info. Just "Smite fix will come with March FAQ"

For right now our campaign fix is simply "you get smite once per turn like all powers".

Or you could have only the first casting counts as mortal wounds.

Well, the "Smite Fix" is heavily rumored to be a max of 3/turn, so that's probably the best way to limit it since it'll likely be the real fix come March.

Top meme of the day is bumping Gulliman by 5 pts. Stupid.

Wayniac wrote:
Well, the "Smite Fix" is heavily rumored to be a max of 3/turn, so that's probably the best way to limit it since it'll likely be the real fix come March.

Hmm. I hope they don't count little smites in that figure.

stewe128 wrote:
Top meme of the day is bumping Gulliman by 5 pts. Stupid.

He went up 25 points IIRC

I'd imagine they won't because it would hurt Grey Knights and Thousand Sons, etc. So I'd imagine that sub-Smite powers would remain normal.

Daedalus81 wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
Well, the "Smite Fix" is heavily rumored to be a max of 3/turn, so that's probably the best way to limit it since it'll likely be the real fix come March.

Hmm. I hope they don't count little smites in that figure.

There is no earthly reason why a squad of Paladins, 10 strong, at almost 600 points, is dealing 1 smite moral wound. That's obscene. 50% more than Magnus for 1 damn mortal wound.

Grey Knights are in a really bad place.

GW needs to do something about them. If this is supposed to be the balanced edition, this really shouldn't stand.