In this test game, Jy2 busts out Be'Lakor and an FMC/Soulgrinder Daemon/CSM list against an insane Mash-up list Spam Adam pilots that consists of Eldar/Dark Eldar/Tau and a Revenant Titan! Under current 40K rules, all of this stuff is legal for "standard" games. Would you want to play games like this in a tournament or no?
Yeah, this is clearly not the answer, for me. Hahaha, that game was actually really fun because we were laughing our asses off the entire time. But, it was not what I would call in any sense of the word fair.
But you could run 3-4 GT's in a single day at that rate!
I do think that this is a nice addition for the missions, etc. but D weapons are just crazy when talking about anything resembling "fair"...arms race indeed.
There's actually a twist to this game, and that is.... (I'll put it in spoilers - go watch the report first)
Spoiler:
Jy2 wins!!!
How?
Adam got Linebreaker, Warlord and First Blood for 3-pts.
I only got 1-VP for taking off 4 HP's from the titan. However, that 1-VP counts towards the Primary mission, thus giving me 1-0 to win the primary for 4-pts!
Jy2 you are the man. Despite getting D'ed and D'ed hard you still managed to win.
BTW Triptides list was completely illegal anyways. So at worst it is a no contest. I also like the new list. I would like to see that list against something that doesn't kill 90% of it each turn.
The point is....D weapons don't belong in normal games unless both players agree to bring titans to the game. Otherwise, it becomes rather quite lopsided.
There are people out there complaining about re-rollable 2++'s and how D-weapons will balance them out. Well, I can tell you that is a bad solution. You're trying to fix something broken with something that is even more broken, at least in normal games. That is what I call trying to solve a problem with an even bigger problem.
I definitely am strongly against running Titans in tournament play, where people really don't have a say on whether they want to or not face these units. It'll just suck the fun out of the game.
BTW, this was my list:
1750 Jy2's Soul of LoC-N-Load Daemons w/Be'Lakor
Primary:
Fateweaver - Forewarning, Warp Speed, Invisibility Lord of Change - Lvl 3, 1x Exalted Gift, 1x Greater Gift - Grimoire, Re-roll Inv's, Forewarning, Misfortune, Flickering Fire
That may have been one of my biggest upsets in the game ever....and we didn't even know it at the time!
ansacs wrote: Jy2 you are the man. Despite getting D'ed and D'ed hard you still managed to win.
BTW Triptides list was completely illegal anyways. So at worst it is a no contest. I also like the new list. I would like to see that list against something that doesn't kill 90% of it each turn.
I actually have a game coming up this Sunday with my Soul of LoC-N-Load daemons against an O'vesa-star Tau/Tau army:
But, we didn't play it though to completion, you might have gotten tabled! haha, the Turkey was the only thing you had left and the game did go another turn that we didn't play out as you conceded =)
Reecius wrote: But, we didn't play it though to completion, you might have gotten tabled! haha, the Turkey was the only thing you had left and the game did go another turn that we didn't play out as you conceded =)
Yeah, technically I conceded because we all thought it was all over. But I wouldn't have been tabled (he had no guns to take it down really) and I wouldn't have flown my birdie off the table.
Anyhow, it was an interesting game. I actually thought I had a chance to win, that is, if Be'Lakor came in just 1 turn earlier (or if I had won the roll to go first). If Be'lakor had come in on T2, it would have been sayonara Baron, Warlord and Hellions....eat 4 Prescienced D-blasts!
Actually I think Jy2 had it in the bag. The titan couldn't hurt the turkey unless Jy2 dropped into hover or presented rear armour.
I look forward to that batrep. Much better showcase for the army.
I totally agree that allowing D weapons with no reservations into 40K is crazy. It can be mitigated by taking the new void shield fortifications to a tiny degree and interestingly enough some of the armies that struggled just hot a whole lot better. Vect based maximum dark lance spam and IG max DS melta+vendetta+MSU foot horde should hold up well to most of the common D weapon carriers.
I think you guys are right to ban D weapons from tournaments until and unless some sort of balance can be established.
ansacs wrote: Actually I think Jy2 had it in the bag. The titan couldn't hurt the turkey unless Jy2 dropped into hover or presented rear armour.
I look forward to that batrep. Much better showcase for the army.
I totally agree that allowing D weapons with no reservations into 40K is crazy. It can be mitigated by taking the new void shield fortifications to a tiny degree and interestingly enough some of the armies that struggled just hot a whole lot better. Vect based maximum dark lance spam and IG max DS melta+vendetta+MSU foot horde should hold up well to most of the common D weapon carriers.
I think you guys are right to ban D weapons from tournaments until and unless some sort of balance can be established.
If titans were to be commonplace in tournaments, the meta will have shifted once again. There will be 2 new top armies to battle against them - Necron flyer-spam and daemon FMC-spam.
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Happygrunt wrote: Well... can't we have fun with 40k anymore? This was stupid. At least tell me that Stronghold Assault didn't suck.
This report really reminded me about the Milk Challenge CronAir battle report. The game itself was so ridiculous that we all had a great laugh.
Haven't tried out or even seen the Stronghold Assault yet.
Happygrunt wrote: Well... can't we have fun with 40k anymore? This was stupid. At least tell me that Stronghold Assault didn't suck.
This report really reminded me about the Milk Challenge CronAir battle report. The game itself was so ridiculous that we all had a great laugh.
Haven't tried out or even seen the Stronghold Assault yet.
Don't get me wrong, that game looked like a blast. But not very "rewarding" if that makes any sense. Neither play really got much out of the game besides a good laugh.
As much as every makes fun of "forging the narrative", I honestly think thats the best way to play. Two themed armies going toe-to-toe is a lot of fun to play and watch. Escalation seems like it is all about who can give the D harder (and who has the bigger wallet).
Really disappointing, I was hoping to field some of the IG super heavies as "center pieces" for my mech army. Like a macharius or a shadowsword (love those models). Won't be doing that now based on how badly these rules are written.
That's the point. Titans in regular games is really stupid and unfun....to the point that we could only laugh hard with incredulity. It's like watching a movie that is so bad that you just have to laugh at the sheer ludicrousness of it all.
ansacs wrote: Actually I think Jy2 had it in the bag. The titan couldn't hurt the turkey unless Jy2 dropped into hover or presented rear armour.
I look forward to that batrep. Much better showcase for the army.
I totally agree that allowing D weapons with no reservations into 40K is crazy. It can be mitigated by taking the new void shield fortifications to a tiny degree and interestingly enough some of the armies that struggled just hot a whole lot better. Vect based maximum dark lance spam and IG max DS melta+vendetta+MSU foot horde should hold up well to most of the common D weapon carriers.
I think you guys are right to ban D weapons from tournaments until and unless some sort of balance can be established.
Flyers will be key as they cannot be hit by D weapons.
I think that's an issue with D more than an issue with super heavies. The revenant in particular is off the charts insane. I don't know why they included that and not one of the eldar tanks, which are a lot more reasonable.
And how come the D weapons are all large blast?!? It's a laser. It should hit one thing very hard, not erase everything from a 10m circle.
I almost like this release. Thee are cool things. I'm a fan of the IG tanks (though I don't get how suddenly they can move 12" and fire everything) and even the shadow sword seems more or less ok for its cost. The stompa and lord of skulls are probably sort of ok too. It's really just the revenant and it's "remove that...and that" attacks that mess it up. Plus of course the 36" move, the 4+++ save and the stomp attack. Other than those few minor issues it's fine. Tau got a richly-deserved slap in the face with this release, with an almost totally pointless aircraft.
There are D weapons in stronghold assault as well.
Also, you cannot fire the super heavy walker at two different targets, only super heavy vehicles can according to the rules in the front of the escaltion book. Checked it last night as we also thought that titan would be the best. I am thinking that still or one of the guard tanks (volcano gun one).
Changing D-type weapons to S10 AP1 with Destroyer rule(ID on a to-wound roll of 6 on toughness models and auto-pen on 2's on vehicles, possibly Ignore Cover as well) would diminish the IWIN effect of the things, while still being immensely powerful.
I fail to understand why D weapons are so powerful. A Str 10 blast is only one step lower, so why does it negate all saves and FnP? Sorry, but if you're T9 the difference shouldn't make it as though you might as well be T5. Furthermore, ignoring invulnerable saves is stupid.
Heck, there shouldn't even be strength D weapons in the game. Aside from the fun-factor of telling your friends they're about to get the D, making the weapon S10 AP1/2 forcing a re-roll of successful invulnerable saves or simply making them take their save -1 (so that Storm Shield 3+= becomes a 4++ against a Destroyer weapon). Call it destroyer, but make it less OP and bland.
Reecius wrote: Yeah, we made some mistakes and Jim did win due to the format of our BAO system. Fair point.
But I think the more important point to take away from this is that D Weapons need to be carefully considered before using them in normal games.
Absolutely false. The take away is that 6th edition lists needs to adapt to 6.5 lists. Why don't you show a better of a 5th edition list against a 6th edition list. Then bemoan all the changes the 5th edition list would need to have to adapt to the new meta. That's the equivilent of this matchup.
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jy2 wrote: That's the point. Titans in regular games is really stupid and unfun....to the point that we could only laugh hard with incredulity. It's like watching a movie that is so bad that you just have to laugh at the sheer ludicrousness of it all.
Not true at all. You did not bring a list that adapted to the new meta. You brought an older edition list against a newer one.
Some people might say another type of list is stupid and unfun. Like one where it has a 2+ rerollable armor /cover save or or one that shoots 72 cover ignoring, tank hunting shots a turn or one that keeps all its scoring units hidden in flyers and attacks the enemy with non scoring invulnerable save close combat units.
Reecius wrote: Yeah, we made some mistakes and Jim did win due to the format of our BAO system. Fair point.
But I think the more important point to take away from this is that D Weapons need to be carefully considered before using them in normal games.
Absolutely false. The take away is that 6th edition lists needs to adapt to 6.5 lists. Why don't you show a better of a 5th edition list against a 6th edition list. Then bemoan all the changes the 5th edition list would need to have to adapt to the new meta. That's the equivilent of this matchup.
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jy2 wrote: That's the point. Titans in regular games is really stupid and unfun....to the point that we could only laugh hard with incredulity. It's like watching a movie that is so bad that you just have to laugh at the sheer ludicrousness of it all.
Not true at all. You did not bring a list that adapted to the new meta. You brought an older edition list against a newer one.
Some people might say another type of list is stupid and unfun. Like one where it has a 2+ rerollable armor /cover save or or one that shoots 72 cover ignoring, tank hunting shots a turn or one that keeps all its scoring units hidden in flyers and attacks the enemy with non scoring invulnerable save close combat units.
This is why we can't have nice things.
There's a difference between natural meta-shift and sheer ludicrousness.
DarthDiggler wrote: Ludicrousness? The Titan's army lost the battle. It is in the losers bracket for the rest of the tournament.
I will say this. Escalation probably solves the time issues at tourneys.
Actually, JY2 conceded so the Titan's army won the battle.
Furthermore, the Titan's army would only have lost due to the mission format of the BAO, not really indicative of how they are not a huge middle finger to the rest of 40k.
It also destroys any semblance of 'balance' that was left in 40k. Seriously, if this book isn't restricted to might as well call tournaments "mini Apocalypse games".
Reecius wrote: Yeah, we made some mistakes and Jim did win due to the format of our BAO system. Fair point.
But I think the more important point to take away from this is that D Weapons need to be carefully considered before using them in normal games.
Absolutely false. The take away is that 6th edition lists needs to adapt to 6.5 lists. Why don't you show a better of a 5th edition list against a 6th edition list. Then bemoan all the changes the 5th edition list would need to have to adapt to the new meta. That's the equivilent of this matchup.
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jy2 wrote: That's the point. Titans in regular games is really stupid and unfun....to the point that we could only laugh hard with incredulity. It's like watching a movie that is so bad that you just have to laugh at the sheer ludicrousness of it all.
Not true at all. You did not bring a list that adapted to the new meta. You brought an older edition list against a newer one.
Some people might say another type of list is stupid and unfun. Like one where it has a 2+ rerollable armor /cover save or or one that shoots 72 cover ignoring, tank hunting shots a turn or one that keeps all its scoring units hidden in flyers and attacks the enemy with non scoring invulnerable save close combat units.
Are you kidding me? This sounds like a post from someone who has never faced the "new" D-weapons before (and I'm not talking about 5th Ed. Destroyer weapons).
You've got to play against them with the new Apoc rules to "appreciate" how stupidly unbalancing and powerful they are in a regular game of 40K. Then maybe you'll change your opinion. Til then, what you're saying is sheer nonsense.
5th Ed list? Since when does a 5th Ed. list have 3 flying monstrous creatures and 1 of the most powerful flyers in the game today? Since when does 5th Ed have 4HP AV13 walkers with Invuln's who are dang resilient against normal 6th Ed. armies? Since when does 5th Ed. have a unit like Be'Lakor.
If you think my list isn't a strong 6th Ed. lists, then you are seriously mistaken. Put a titan against anything else other than necron flyer-spam or a pure FMC-spam daemon list and they will get blown out much, much earlier than this. Seriously, I am a competitive player and my lists are always strong TAC lists that take into consideration the strengths of the current meta. And as a competitive player, I have a high tolerance for what many consider as "broken" in this edition. They say Tau is broken with their cover-ignoring and super-shooty shenanigans, eldar and daemons with their re-rollable 2+ saves and necrons with MSS and troops in flyers. I say, bring it on. However, even I have a line that I don't cross. Well, 6th Ed. Destroyer weapons in regular games of 40K is one that crosses the line. It is literally picking up your models and putting them away without even a reasonable or slim chance of surviving. Only flyers/FMC's have a prayer against Destroyer blasts and only 1 power in the entire book has any chance of success against them at all....and that is a power that isn't even guaranteed for all but 1 guy in the game!
I honestly don't understand how anyone could find that matchup fun to watch, much less play. It was fun in the sense that it was stupid to the point of hilarity, but it certainly wasn't a fun game on the tabletop. Sorry, I'm calling anyone who says it was a sneaky bugger with an ulterior motive.
Araenion wrote: Changing D-type weapons to S10 AP1 with Destroyer rule(ID on a to-wound roll of 6 on toughness models and auto-pen on 2's on vehicles, possibly Ignore Cover as well) would diminish the IWIN effect of the things, while still being immensely powerful.
Dakkamite wrote: Cheers for that 'batrep', really opened my eyes to the sheer scale of the problem
What would you think of Titans without the D weapons? Or with S10 AP1 or something as mentioned above?
Personally, I am against Titans in regular tournament play. Period. However, it would be ok with me if the tournament was split up into 2 different tournaments like they do in Adepticon. In Adepticon, there is the Championships, which is regular 40K, and there is the Gladiator where each person can bring up to 1 super-heavy. Thus, if you advertise it like that, then I am ok with it as people will know what they are getting into.
Otherwise, I am normally against altering the rules in most cases. Either allow it in all its glory in a Gladiator-type event or ban it completely. Destroyer weapons never really was meant to be in regular games anyways but GW just had to go and screw the pooch when they basically said, to hell with balance and tournaments.
But in a friendly, casual game, any house-rule you guys come out with is fine as long as both parties are ok with it.
McNinja wrote: I fail to understand why D weapons are so powerful. A Str 10 blast is only one step lower, so why does it negate all saves and FnP? Sorry, but if you're T9 the difference shouldn't make it as though you might as well be T5. Furthermore, ignoring invulnerable saves is stupid.
Heck, there shouldn't even be strength D weapons in the game. Aside from the fun-factor of telling your friends they're about to get the D, making the weapon S10 AP1/2 forcing a re-roll of successful invulnerable saves or simply making them take their save -1 (so that Storm Shield 3+= becomes a 4++ against a Destroyer weapon). Call it destroyer, but make it less OP and bland.
You, my friend, need to get a copy of Apoc to see why they are so powerful.
There is almost no saves of any type against it. No cover, no invuln's, no FNP, even Reanimation Protocols isn't allowed! The only "save" that is possible are from Eldar Titan Holo-fields, and those are only available on Eldar and Titan models. S10 is about a mile lower. Daemons laugh at S10 with their invuln's. People behind the Aegis laugh at S10. With cover/invuln's, there is a high chance of survival even against S10. With D-weapons, it is just literally pick up your models...see ya, wouldn't wanna be ya. With vehicles, there is only a 1 in 6 chance of surviving (with a penetrating hit). Otherwise, it is auto-kill. You know that 300-pt 5HP land raider spartan that you just got? Gone in a blink of an eye. Hell, the revenant can easily kill 2 of those LR's in just 1 turn!!!
You my friend need to get a copy of the fortification rule book.
Void shields > than D Weapons. I thought the fortification book allows anyone to buy a void shield for 25-40pts.
Seriously drop in 5 deep striking meltaguns and see what happens to the Titan. Try deep striking the Soul Grinders with torrent and see what happens to the squishy troops. Try using the fortification book which also came out wit the Titan.
How many D Weapons can hit a flyer?
Your whole rant misread what I wrote. You played a 6th edition list against a 6.5 edition list. I was equating that to playing a 5th edition list against a 6th. I did not say you played a 5th.
The fact remains you did not utilize all the new resources in your game. It proves nothing, contrary to what you and Reece hoped to show, except that the meta needs to adapt using ALL the rules. Not just cherry picked ones.
You my friend need to get a copy of the fortification rule book.
Void shields > than D Weapons. I thought the fortification book allows anyone to buy a void shield for 25-40pts.
Seriously drop in 5 deep striking meltaguns and see what happens to the Titan. Try deep striking the Soul Grinders with torrent and see what happens to the squishy troops. Try using the fortification book which also came out wit the Titan.
How many D Weapons can hit a flyer?
Your whole rant misread what I wrote. You played a 6th edition list against a 6.5 edition list. I was equating that to playing a 5th edition list against a 6th. I did not say you played a 5th.
The fact remains you did not utilize all the new resources in your game. It proves nothing, contrary to what you and Reece hoped to show, except that the meta needs to adapt using ALL the rules. Not just cherry picked ones.
Void shields are crap. Fire a missile launcher or autocannon at the void shield to get rid of it and then fire your D-weapons afterwards. Also, eldar titans have guns that can bypass Void shields entirely.
Remember, you can only reserve half of your army. If you DS the soulgrinder, then you've got to leave a FMC deployed on the table or all of your troops (and in an objectives game).
1 unit of melt-gunners won't do much to a titan. You need to DS at least 3 units of meltagunners to even have a chance, that is, if your opponent doesn't bubble-wrap it and force you out of the 6" melta double-tap range. BTW, not sure if you realize this, but titans ignore everything on the damage charts except an explosion result. You can never shake or stun it and you can't immobilize or blow away its gun. In other words, it'll always keep on moving and shooting until the day it literally dies.
Also, don't forget about the amount of Interceptor weapons on the Tau formations.
Flyers are the strongest solution to Destroyer titans, and even they are an underdog at best. Everything else will just get annihilated. But you know what? Smart titan players will bring cheap bodies to bubble-wrap their titans and lots of anti-flyer weaponry to address their weaknesses.
What the heck is the difference between 6th Ed. and 6.5th Ed. So does that mean everyone is forced to bring in formations, dataslates and titans just to play on a level playing field. My god, is that what the game has become? Well, tell that to the masses - to the 90% of the people out there who isn't competitive or don't have the resources to "modernize" their armies.
If the Escalation rules were followed, this seems to be another half-arsed product by GW. I expected them to tone those down for 40k, but guess they didn't bother to do that.
I have new simplified rules for 7th. Instead of ranges, saves etc just roll to hit by an unit, if hit scored remove target unit from game.
The whole play a 5th edition against a 6th is an utter crap rebuttal. Some of us have been playing 5th edition lists still and have found effect with them in 6th. Only when I throw ork fliers into my list does my list ever evolve past what would be considered still a 5th edition list. Even then, arguing the effectiveness of editions is not a way to justify further unbalancing. Look at armies that do not have access to a plethora of D weapons compared to armies that do not. Dark Eldar and Tyranids both do not have ready access to D weapons so arguing that D weapons bring new balance is further crap.
Where as armies like standard Eldar and Space Marines can bring quite an effective load out of D weapons, it is kind of just taking the already broken mechanics of apocalypse and trying to cram them into standard play.(The main tactic for apocalypse is pack as many D weapons into your loadout slots for supers as you can. Good example is Imperial/Chaos titans.) Most players don't bother taking what would be considered phenomenal guns in standard play into apocalypse game types. Once again I'd point at imperials titans, the comparison between a Volcano Cannon and a Meltacannon, Volcano Cannon gives you a d weapon with 240" range, where as Meltacannon is a 72", both have large blast templates but the Meltacannon will rarely be seen due to the fact it is not a D weapon so suffers from actually having to roll to wound/pen.
Further example how broken D weapons are is that almost all LGS I have gone to for an apocalypse game has some sort of House rule to either give incentive to take other loadouts, outright restricts the amount of D weapons per side/player. Example of incentives are D Weapon Target Priority is one where you are required to aim at Titans and other super heavies first, I've seen ones where the scatter is required(Not always good either if it just scatters onto another infantry unit.) Yes Fluff wise these things are giant monsters that utterly decimates battalions of infantry, but hey in Fluff so are Marines.
jy2 wrote: What the heck is the difference between 6th Ed. and 6.5th Ed. So does that mean everyone is forced to bring in formations, dataslates and titans just to play on a level playing field. My god, is that what the game has become? Well, tell that to the masses - to the 90% of the people out there who isn't competitive or don't have the resources to "modernize" their armies.
Quite. Used to be you could just buy a new rulebook and that's that. A difference between two wholly different editions is just one book. A difference between this so called 6.5ed and 6th edition is god knows how many dataslates and supplements they still have planned. Do I need all of them to have a chance to play on a level playing field? Do I also need an ipad or a tablet so I can actually get them? Do I need to spend several hundred dollars on a single model that is far too big for a regular sized table? That's not a game I'm willing to play and fortunately none of the players in my area want to play such a game either.
The problem, in my opinion, with D-Weapons in normal games is that it renders so much of the armies bland and meaningless. Tanks, whether rhinos or landraiders will get popped just as quickly, as will infantry, whether paladins or grots.
The only things that are relevant are the titan, the few things that can kill the titan, and minimum cost scoring units. Draigowing is dead, screamerstar is dead, Seer Council is dead, anything that remotely resembles a small, elite army is dead.
So much flavor of the game vanishes under a pummeling from the D.
Yup. That Bat Rep pretty much went the way most of us were expecting. Let's hope we never see this kind of broken nonsense being allowed in tournaments.
ImotekhTheStormlord wrote: The problem, in my opinion, with D-Weapons in normal games is that it renders so much of the armies bland and meaningless. Tanks, whether rhinos or landraiders will get popped just as quickly, as will infantry, whether paladins or grots.
Yup, it pretty much renders most of the rest of the options in the game meaningless. Why spend 1/4k on a Landraider, when it's gonna be one shot killed? Why spend extra points on elite or better armoured troops when it's not going to matter what they're wearing? True, you still have the non-D weapon components of your opponents army to worry about, but, even then....
ImotekhTheStormlord wrote: The problem, in my opinion, with D-Weapons in normal games is that it renders so much of the armies bland and meaningless. Tanks, whether rhinos or landraiders will get popped just as quickly, as will infantry, whether paladins or grots.
The only things that are relevant are the titan, the few things that can kill the titan, and minimum cost scoring units. Draigowing is dead, screamerstar is dead, Seer Council is dead, anything that remotely resembles a small, elite army is dead.
So much flavor of the game vanishes under a pummeling from the D.
Any sane TO should ban these things.
Well said, William.
An unintended consequence of Titans with D-weapons is that it will also stymie the variety in the game and that is never a good thing. It's also going to render a lot of armies obsolete and that will piss off a lot of people. In the extreme case, you are going to see a lot of people leave the hobby because of this and that is a very bad thing.
Jy2, did you see my post about the super heavy walker only being able to shoot at one target?. I couldnt find anything in the Esclation book last night to say that it could fire at two targets, this slightly lessens the pain as then you could only lose one unti a turn....
MarkyMark wrote: Jy2, did you see my post about the super heavy walker only being able to shoot at one target?. I couldnt find anything in the Esclation book last night to say that it could fire at two targets, this slightly lessens the pain as then you could only lose one unti a turn....
Super heavy walkers follow the same rules for shooting as super heavy vehicles, so yes, they can fire at as many different targets as it has weapons.
Yeah...I can say I won't play against titans in a normal game. There's simply no way for me to be competitive against it without spending money on a superheavie for me, and I don't enjoy being tabled, so there wouldn't be a whole lot of reason to play.
MarkyMark wrote: Jy2, did you see my post about the super heavy walker only being able to shoot at one target?. I couldnt find anything in the Esclation book last night to say that it could fire at two targets, this slightly lessens the pain as then you could only lose one unti a turn....
Super heavy walkers follow the same rules for shooting as super heavy vehicles, so yes, they can fire at as many different targets as it has weapons.
Do you have the Escaltion book then? as it doesnt say that in there?. (unless I missed something of course!)
Check page 121. Super-heavy walkers are super-heavy vehicles and use the rules for shooting, vehicle damage, etc...
To all those people claiming that we just need to bring better suited lists...please show us what you're talking about. We've mentioned that Necron Flyers and FMC Spam can stand a chance (only because they can't be hit by those blasts). What else?
Jy2 should have played a better list? Like what? What changes would you make to his list to make it stronger against something like that?
MarkyMark wrote: Jy2, did you see my post about the super heavy walker only being able to shoot at one target?. I couldnt find anything in the Esclation book last night to say that it could fire at two targets, this slightly lessens the pain as then you could only lose one unti a turn....
I actually haven't even seen the Escalation rules yet so no, I don't know.
However, in the Apoc book, a super-heavy walker acts just as a super-heavy vehicle, which means they can fire all of their guns and at different targets as well. So unless the Escalation supplement altered the rules which was in the Apoc, then what he did should have been legal. The only thing that might not have been legal is the firing arcs as walkers can only pivot 45 degrees in either direction. That means a 90 degree firing arc only. In other words, his titan shouldn't have been able to jump on top of the building and blow away both soulgrinders on T1 as only 1 of them would have been in his arc. However, that little mistake most likely wouldn't have affected the outcome at all. He still had the firepower left to blow away the 2nd grinder on T2.
You my friend need to get a copy of the fortification rule book.
Void shields > than D Weapons. I thought the fortification book allows anyone to buy a void shield for 25-40pts.
Seriously drop in 5 deep striking meltaguns and see what happens to the Titan. Try deep striking the Soul Grinders with torrent and see what happens to the squishy troops. Try using the fortification book which also came out wit the Titan.
How many D Weapons can hit a flyer?
Your whole rant misread what I wrote. You played a 6th edition list against a 6.5 edition list. I was equating that to playing a 5th edition list against a 6th. I did not say you played a 5th.
The fact remains you did not utilize all the new resources in your game. It proves nothing, contrary to what you and Reece hoped to show, except that the meta needs to adapt using ALL the rules. Not just cherry picked ones.
Void shields are crap. Fire a missile launcher or autocannon at the void shield to get rid of it and then fire your D-weapons afterwards. Also, eldar titans have guns that can bypass Void shields entirely.
Remember, you can only reserve half of your army. If you DS the soulgrinder, then you've got to leave a FMC deployed on the table or all of your troops (and in an objectives game).
1 unit of melt-gunners won't do much to a titan. You need to DS at least 3 units of meltagunners to even have a chance, that is, if your opponent doesn't bubble-wrap it and force you out of the 6" melta double-tap range. BTW, not sure if you realize this, but titans ignore everything on the damage charts except an explosion result. You can never shake or stun it and you can't immobilize or blow away its gun. In other words, it'll always keep on moving and shooting until the day it literally dies.
Also, don't forget about the amount of Interceptor weapons on the Tau formations.
Flyers are the strongest solution to Destroyer titans, and even they are an underdog at best. Everything else will just get annihilated. But you know what? Smart titan players will bring cheap bodies to bubble-wrap their titans and lots of anti-flyer weaponry to address their weaknesses.
What the heck is the difference between 6th Ed. and 6.5th Ed. So does that mean everyone is forced to bring in formations, dataslates and titans just to play on a level playing field. My god, is that what the game has become? Well, tell that to the masses - to the 90% of the people out there who isn't competitive or don't have the resources to "modernize" their armies.
Simple simple Jim. You and Reece suffer from the same Chicken Little syndrome. Right now you have a 900pt unit surrounded by every counter to it that you can imagine. How many points is that army that bubble wraps a Titan (keeping it from moving 36" a turn I guess), shoot down flyers, disable Void Shields, open Christmas presents, shine it's shoes and does all its homework. All under 1750pts right.
Your last statement speaks volumes. You complain everyone is forced to change their army now, but didn't that happen when 6th introduced? Excuse me but I don't see you playing Purifier Spam in rhinos anymore. Did you have to change your army? I don't see Reece playing Bjorn Wolves anymore. Did he have to change his army?
The masses, 90% as you say DO NOT change their armies no matter what. That's why the same guys win big tourneys. Those are the guys willing to change their armies with the new rules or have I been blind and all these recent tourney winners have really been playing Necron catacomb Command Barges (remember the douche canoe? Didn't last long did it.), 5-man purifier spam, and flamers of Tzeentch spam? No they adapted, they changed their armies for the meta and they won the big tourneys.
At the beginning of 6th Reece wanted to band. TO's together and do away with random assault ranges. Now he wants to band together and eliminate, no rewrite, whole sections of the rulebook. Let's ban Escalation and Stronghold assault because it scares us. Let's rewrite the main rulebook and eliminate 2+ saves. Let's play Myhammer 40k because I don't like Warhammer 40k.
If I were king I would eliminate allies or at least reduce all Battle brothers to Allies of Convienance. There is no list that can't function without BB. That one rule has done more damage than any other. If that can't be done then I want everything allowed Workshop says is allowed. Otherwise all anyone is really doing is picking and choosing which armies will win and which will lose. Which armies can break and FOC and which can not.
Honestly, what I dont like in 40k and what puts people off playing it, from my experince, is removing models off the table with no way to save them, be it Tau gun lines shooting guard off with ignores cover and massed shooting, low ap attacks in combat etc, no one likes to do that. And that will happen a lot with D weapons. It will become a arms race but who will win is whoever has the best super heavy, ala apoc. If I wanted to play Apoc I would but I dont. It will make cookie cutter lists worse.
Siphen wrote: Check page 121. Super-heavy walkers are super-heavy vehicles and use the rules for shooting, vehicle damage, etc...
To all those people claiming that we just need to bring better suited lists...please show us what you're talking about. We've mentioned that Necron Flyers and FMC Spam can stand a chance (only because they can't be hit by those blasts). What else?
Jy2 should have played a better list? Like what? What changes would you make to his list to make it stronger against something like that?
Same what we beat Screamerstar, jetseerer star, paladins, etc... Ignore it, kill the enemy scoring units and play to the objectives of the game.
Simple simple Jim. You and Reece suffer from the same Chicken Little syndrome. Right now you have a 900pt unit surrounded by every counter to it that you can imagine. How many points is that army that bubble wraps a Titan (keeping it from moving 36" a turn I guess), shoot down flyers, disable Void Shields, open Christmas presents, shine it's shoes and does all its homework. All under 1750pts right.
Your last statement speaks volumes. You complain everyone is forced to change their army now, but didn't that happen when 6th introduced? Excuse me but I don't see you playing Paladin Spam in rhinos anymore. Did you have to change your army? I don't see Reece playing Bjorn Wolves anymore. Did he have to change his army?
The masses, 90% as you say DO NOT change their armies no matter what. That's why the same guys win big tourneys. Those are the guys willing to change their armies with the new rules or have I been blind and all these recent tourney winners have really been playing Necron catacomb Command Barges (remember the douche canoe? Didn't last long did it.), 5-man purifier spam, and flamers of Tzeentch spam? No they adapted, they changed their armies for the meta and they won the big tourneys.
At the beginning of 6th Reece wanted to band. TO's together and do away with random assault ranges. Now he wants to band together and eliminate, no rewrite, whole sections of the rulebook. Let's ban Escalation and Stronghold assault because it scares us. Let's rewrite the main rulebook and eliminate 2+ saves. Let's play Myhammer 40k because I don't like Warhammer 40k.
If I were king I would eliminate allies. None allowed no matter what. That one rule has done more damage than any other. If that can't be done then I want everything allowed Workshop says is allowed. Otherwise all anyone is really doing is picking and choosing which armies will win and which will lose. Which armies can break and FOC and which can not.
I can see how some purists and competitive players want to leave the game as is, with all of its imbalances and imperfections as well. That's fine. As a TO, you can choose to do whatever you want with your tournament and as a player, it is your right to go to or not go to any tournament you want.
My concern is that the majority of the players out there are actually still ignorant of how unbalancing Strength D guns are. They are way more unbalancing than any othe mechanism existing in regular 40K today. Even the seer council and screamer-star antics pale in comparison. There is literally no way to avoid them except with flying units and even those flying units have to land at some point to try to win the game.
If you want to say that is ok for the game, then you are most likely in the minority. First of all, it will discourage many players from this game. No one likes to be slaughtered in game, especially one where they had no chance at all. Update, you say? What about the armies who don't have access to titans, destroyer weapons or flying units that actually don't suck. What about the people who don't have ipads/tablets to download the latest and greatest from GW or the money to buy titans of their own or in essence, buy/build practically a new army more capable of dealing with titans.
Secondly, titans will not only shift the meta, but they will change the entire landscape of the game. They are going to discourage variety. Now, to take into account titans, only certain specific builds are viable. What's going to happen to the other armies that can't adjust? What's going to happen to the armies with a lack of ranged shooting, access to titans with destroyer guns or access to decent flyers? More importantly, what happens to the people who plays these armies and don't really have other armies (or other armies that they want to play as their main armies)? GW is just shooting themselves in the foot. Sure, they're going to get some sales from these Apoc units, but they're also going to see a lot of players leave the game because of this. In the process, people in tournament play are going to be seeing the same builds over and over again.
In any case, this is probably a topic much broader than for this battle report so I'll probably stop here. Reece and I aren't really concerned as much about keeping the game as pure as possible. We are more concerned with the long-term health of the gaming community on the whole and personally, Reece has a much bigger stake in this than I. After all, it's his living.
So it seems Michael Bay wants to be a Tabletop wargame designer..
Ok so one question, is Escalation a supplement or expansion?
Imo, Escalation could be quite healthy (awaiting my soap from Dakka) but only because to me it could boost army's currently really down the drain, such as Orks for example, adding a Stompa could really boost them up to a decent level as they can now combat the broken units that everyone complains about.
To me it will breathe life into my Orks after so long, get me more motivated to finish painting my Stompa and seeing awesome stuff happen
All I can say is, I hope this is a supplement so I can shout WAAAGH!! once again
I think people in here are just a bit to excited and are getting ahead of themselves. Thank you to jy2, spam adam and Reecius for the report firstly! I think it was fun and somewhat informative to folks like me who have no idea how apoc units work but I can also see how in their rush to be first in line to inform they have made some HUGE accusations.
I can see how D weapons are powerful and will slaughter wholesale but condemning them for that is no different then condemning impossible to kill units. Actually I would rather be tabled in 20 minutes by a titan then to struggle through 3.5 hours of rerollable saves and 48" movement but that doesn't mean either outcome is healthy for the game.
Actually the saddest part of this report was seeing the tau fireblade dataslate tossed into the mix where you don't see its ramifications. I mean any army just about including taudar can have a riptide and 6 broadsides. Whats that btw? You say they came with their own tank hunter for literally nothing? And you don't need to pay any tax to take them or use FOC slots? And I can have inquisitors as well? Yup, 40k just became one massive buffet of pick and choose.
While 40K in recent years has been a series of small buffets where players min max 4-5 units in their book, picking and choosing, allies and now worse yet dataslates has made it idiotic. There is literally no reason not to bring the SAME crap.
I find it hilarious that so many people still talk about 40k as a competitive game. It literally has been an arms race all of 6th. It is so obvious GW needs 4th quarter sales here. The new kits are being pushed to players like crazy. I mean there isn't one dataslate for an army outside the last 4, CSM just piggyback CD. Could it be more obvious?
Now I think the game is still fun and the kits are better then they ever have been. So as a hobby the problem is not as bad, but to the gamers who look at this game as if it were a sport, it's been destroyed... for a while. All the top battle reports or player recognition comes from the same 4 armies.. WAIT, wait! I know, I know it's always been top 4 but where as before we had time to actually paint, play to gain skill and respect for our builds it is shifting week to week at this point. Sorry but I have no interest in keeping up any more, I have a job, school and a great woman I'd like to marry none of which are possible if I tried to keep up with the game "competitively." I am not knocking anyone who tries by saying that, just dropping my 2 cents.
Perspective, something we all need to keep while discussing our opinions.
@Reece- Yea I am at the point where I think allies and supplements may need to be shelved. The new supplements have no drawbacks which is a big problem when some books haven't gotten an update in years, yet others have multiple sources. Worse yet when you consider most of those are battle brothers. It lets taudar pull from 4 books and soon to be two data slates... oh yea sorry forgot the slates are allies rules 2.0, make that 3 with marines
Of course these restrictions probably will never happen and will get me laughed at but as I said, I personally think competitive and 40k are not possible anymore. Not without stretching the definitions of the word competition anyway. I mean how competitive can a game be when you need a patch bigger then the damn boat to keep it from sinking?
Valek wrote: Tbh my Pylon disagrees... 3 D shots with interceptor/skyfire, oh joy... and yes a fatass ctan will be fun...
I have both of those. While good, honestly, they really can't compete with the likes of a revenant or warhound. The pylon is only 6 HP's and the c'tan only 6W. Just 1 D-blast could potentially wipe them out, let alone 4. The pylon will on average hit only twice and cannot fire at 2 separate targets, whereas the C'tan will probably get its blast off once and then get smoked. .Necron super-heavies are ok, but not great against other super-heavies. However, necrons still have a better chance than most due to its flyer build.
I don't know if this was covered but did they change the rule that super heavies can't be affected by psychic powers? Because I thought they were immune to non str based psychic attacks. So can you puppet master a Titan now?
Chancetragedy wrote: I don't know if this was covered but did they change the rule that super heavies can't be affected by psychic powers? Because I thought they were immune to non str based psychic attacks. So can you puppet master a Titan now?
AFAIK this is still the way it works, so no prescience on a titan, and no puppet master either.
DarthDiggler wrote: [
Simple simple Jim. You and Reece suffer from the same Chicken Little syndrome. Right now you have a 900pt unit surrounded by every counter to it that you can imagine. How many points is that army that bubble wraps a Titan (keeping it from moving 36" a turn I guess), shoot down flyers, disable Void Shields, open Christmas presents, shine it's shoes and does all its homework. All under 1750pts right.
The number of non-titan counters to a titan are few and far between. If the titan gets first turn, all major on-board threats will be neutralized. Pod units can be rendered invalid by a bubble-wrap. You can very easily get a kroot squad, a skyfire/interceptor riptide, 3 skyfire broadsides, a defense line, couple guardian squads and some HQs for 850 points.
Your last statement speaks volumes. You complain everyone is forced to change their army now, but didn't that happen when 6th introduced? Excuse me but I don't see you playing Purifier Spam in rhinos anymore. Did you have to change your army? I don't see Reece playing Bjorn Wolves anymore. Did he have to change his army?
The masses, 90% as you say DO NOT change their armies no matter what. That's why the same guys win big tourneys. Those are the guys willing to change their armies with the new rules or have I been blind and all these recent tourney winners have really been playing Necron catacomb Command Barges (remember the douche canoe? Didn't last long did it.), 5-man purifier spam, and flamers of Tzeentch spam? No they adapted, they changed their armies for the meta and they won the big tourneys.
This is not a normal meta shift. This completely changes the way 40k is played and lists are built. List building becomes a spam of minimum cost troops, a titan and titan-killers. Something like this is violating both the skirmish atmosphere of 40k and eliminates diversity to a degree never before seen. In order to be competitive, you MUST have access to D weapons, no two ways about it.
At the beginning of 6th Reece wanted to band. TO's together and do away with random assault ranges. Now he wants to band together and eliminate, no rewrite, whole sections of the rulebook. Let's ban Escalation and Stronghold assault because it scares us. Let's rewrite the main rulebook and eliminate 2+ saves. Let's play Myhammer 40k because I don't like Warhammer 40k.
If a tournament organizer wants to modify the rules, they may. If Reece and other TOs feel (as I do) that this expansion is deeply detrimental to the game, they have a perfect right to modify the rules of their events. Ultimately, it is the decision of the TOs as to how the game is played in their event. If Warhammer 40k is inferior to Myhammer 40k, then it should not be played.
I do that more testing is required before we can jump to that conclusion though.
A titan can be locked in combat? I was thinking Nids are going to be auto lose against this titan but 30 gargoyles can tarpit one potentially? IF you can get a charge off at least. I can't think of any other way nids could fight this thing unless you shell out $$$$ on the nids super heavy.
Alright, wow. A lot to cover here, so let's get started:
First thanks Reece, Jy2 and SpamAdams for getting this batrep out on day 1 of the escalation release. That was amazingly quick, so good job.
That matchup was pretty unfair. Of all the super heavies allowed in the escalation book, the Revenant Titan seems to break the game the most (900 pts for 4 D-blasts at 2 targets/turn). However, the overlook of the Warlord table that Jy2 didn't get a chance to roll on, as well as the illegal Tau FireStrike Cadre (missing 4x broadsides, easily 340 points worth with skyfire missilesides) put a couple early factors in SpamAdams' favor.
I've been on the receiving end of an uphill battle and/or No Win Scenario many times in 40K. Especially with Dark Eldar vs my Tyranids - it just seems unwinnable. But if super heavies, this titan especially, become commonplace in the meta, can we not adapt to meet the challenge much as we always have?
Deep strikers with melta will strip points off of super heavies, every '6' does D3 additional hull points, which means a meltagun getting a pen and rolling a 4+ can do 2-4 hull points of damage per gun. Getting 900 points off the table should be a difficult investment but you could do it easily with 400-500 dedicated AT units.
Flyers with said melta and other strong weaponry (tesla destructors will hull out a titan by volume of fire) can glance them down.
Void Shield Generators and LOS blocking terrain will save you from many of the super heavy alpha strikes, because a large portion of the enemy army is tied up in that SH Vehicle/Walker. Yes a single missile CAN strip a void shield, but when you have a generator that projects 3 of them, and you only have a 1/2 chance with a s8 missile, it would take 6 hits, therefore 9 shots (with Line of sight) from space marines with missiles to do it. possibly more.
I'm getting long winded in defense of the supplement - Be'Lakor was a champ and puppet master certainly saved the day. As could locking the titan in CC with a monstrous creature from the beginning - WS3, 1 Attack, the stomp attacks are only 3" blast s6 ap4. Not very intimidating vs a bloodthirster that swoops in (to avoid the S-D blast) then moves 12" and assaults. Yes the damn titan moves 36" (but not all of them do, just THIS one) but the board is only 6x4', you can box it in.
Games workshop has said many times they don't view 40K as a competitive game. These releases we're seeing today are proof positive that is true. However, as long as there is a game there will always be gamers who want to take to the next level. I say, that's fine. Just like in 5th edition when you needed meltaguns in every unit to combat the metal bawkses that were EVERYWHERE (as well as nob bikers, paladins, etc), this will be another balancing act.
Superheavies kill deathstars with 2++ re-rolls Deep strike suicide melta units kill superheavies 2++ re-rolls kill deep strike suicide melta units
Play tournament hammer, or casual hammer, but in either environment arrive prepared and you should still have an OK game. I'm just a gamer in WV, i don't own or operate a store and I haven't ever traveled to a serious GT. Maybe i'm wrong...but what if i'm right? Maybe take another shot, Jy2, re-write a list not to tailor vs the revenant, but with a TAC attitude that you'll see a super heavy of any sort, and rematch? Hell, worst case scenario you'll lose and you'll be 1-1 vs the escalation supplement. Also make sure your opponent has a legal list and gives you access to that bonus warlord table should you decide to use it.
Edit to add: One thing also to remember, not that it matters i guess nowadays, but you only get the Lord of War slot in your Primary detachment, so players wanting to "throw in" a revenant, or baneblade, etc into their existing army that doesn't use that super heavy can't cherry pick them. Again with the way the allies system works, it might not be that much of a deterrent for cheese but it's there.
Second post-script afterthought: It's been stated many times that Warmachine and Hordes are better balanced than 40K - namely their game system is basically "Everything is Broken!". Maybe GW is trying to head in that direction, but they're doing it with expensive $400 Forgeworld resin kits?
Could JoTWW, one shot a titan/super heavy/gargantuan creature?
Lukas the trickster, has a rule where he could freeze anything upon his death, in the old apoc rules this included imperator titans as well; Now I don't know the exact wording of that rule (or if its been updated to 6th) but couldn't that one shot a titan/super heavy/gargantuan creature?
Now granted that this is only for mainly imperium allies but could this be a way of taking out the big things in escalation?
The changes to super heavies(being affected by psy powers and being able to be locked in combat) means that IMO they aren't that harsh.
And before everyone yells "You obviously haven't played against sD before..." I have. I have played against an Emperor Titan, my brother has a Shadowsword that he uses in every Apoc game, and I have a Revanent. I am well aware of their power. I think this batrep cannot be used for a good telling of whether or not the new Escalation is crazy. There were too many mistakes made in that game, and you were playing against someone who hadn't faced the new sD before.
I am not mad at you guys for the mistakes, thanks for the report and trying to educate us on the new 6th edition. But would you guys be able to do another batrep where spamadam doesn't misuse the formations? I think the superheavies can be beat, as proven by the fact that jim won the battle. And that was with the Tau being there illegally. It is n't writing over a problem with a bigger problem imo, all you need to do is throw something flying on the board, focus on the mission, and you can likely win.
I understand that certain armies are at a disadvantage here, that's always been the case(poor sisters of battle have never won a GT in 40k history right?). But I think if the rules were played right super heavies are fine. How you guys feel about super heavies is how I feel about screamer/seer star. Both of those are silly combos, yet no GT has banned them. Banning super heavies seems hypocritical. All that is needed, if you feel that sD is OP, is to make some changes to how sD functions, punishing players for taking a certain number of sD(automatic +1VP for each 2 sD weapons your opponent has for instance). And i think some are forgetting that the Revenent costs a staggering 900(or is it 950? I always forget). If a 900-950 pt model can't kill a 180 pt model or two(the soul grinders) in a turn then it is absolute crap.
And lastly, for those who think that sD is unreasonably powerful: Read the fluff. It is described as being powerful enough to 1-shot a titan. Do you really think that something that can kill a TITAN in a single turn would get stopped by your IRON HALO that your captain has?! C'mon guys, think a lil bit here!
Anywho, that's my rant. I appreciate the batrep but because of the rules-flops that were had(especially as much of the cheating seemed to benefit the side with the titan) I can't really hold this as conclusive at all.
Valek wrote: Tbh my Pylon disagrees... 3 D shots with interceptor/skyfire, oh joy... and yes a fatass ctan will be fun...
I have both of those. While good, honestly, they really can't compete with the likes of a revenant or warhound. The pylon is only 6 HP's and the c'tan only 6W. Just 1 D-blast could potentially wipe them out, let alone 4. The pylon will on average hit only twice and cannot fire at 2 separate targets, whereas the C'tan will probably get its blast off once and then get smoked. .Necron super-heavies are ok, but not great against other super-heavies. However, necrons still have a better chance than most due to its flyer build.
Disagree. Titans are stupid (and the fact they've let in the Revenant boggles the mind) but the C'tan is literally good at everything. It's fast, it has decent saves, high toughness and amazing shooting. The Revenant is good (okay, flat out broken) until it goes second. If it goes second, it's very underwhelming as AV12 vehicles are easy to kill; a C'tan with Seismic assault accompanied by the shooting of 3 annihilation barges should easily kill a Revenant. Likewise, cron air with haywire crypteks (that popular build back from the start of 6th) laughs in any super heavies face. The real advantage the C'tan has is that it doesn't matter if you go first or second as the model is really small; it can easily hide totally out of line of sight. It's also the only model I know which massively penalises the enemy for killing it. Basically, this is my point: the only thing which kills a C'tan is Str D, whereas many things can kill a Revenant at range. I mean, let's face it - if you're not a Reaver/Phantom or better, you can always die in one Str D shot because the roll of 6 is absurd. That, IMO, makes the C'tan a superior TAC choice insofar as you can have one in a match where there's a gun that basically just removes stuff.
Honestly, I'm pretty disappointed with this report. I hate the idea of str D being in 40k but this really just played like a "we've decided it's going to be awful so we played one game and said it was dumb without really trying". It's kinda like taking a Tau gunline against a green tide, or mass footcrons and then calling the entire codex bad because it doesn't work. Sure, you made the point that the build he made was dumb but... so? There's loads of dumb builds in 40k that you never see because they basically autolose against other lists as they're so imbalanced. This seemed exactly like one of those and to top it all off, the list wasn't even legal and the warlord traits weren't mentioned at all (which when one gets rid of the 6 result of Str D could have been a pretty huge deal). I've gotta say I don't get it - what was the point? That Titans are really good if they go first, one player doesn't know all the rules, the other person's army is illegal and they face a mostly assault army in a single game? Well... yeah? I dunno, just felt like it wasn't up to normal quality.
Honestly, I at first was on the side of "Wow, that super-heavy is ridiculous." But after some thought, I'm no so sure.
Just last year, you guys did a battle report about AirCrons versus Space Wolves, which where the top dogs not 6 months previously. It was just as one-sided as this was.
And now what do we have? AirCrons are arguably not even in the top 3, and fliers in general have faded in dominance compared to FMCs and the larger amount of potent AA fire.
I'd like to see new TAC lists, built with the idea of Titans as possible opponents in mind, and see how those battle reports go before passing judgement at this point.
We all may be crying the sky is falling as a knee-jerk reaction.
We all may be crying the sky is falling as a knee-jerk reaction.
Its exactly that.
tbh as I see it, yeah people are going to be using titans and sure they will be one massive zog-off unit, but just remember that that titan costs, and how much does it cost?
Furthermore only very few can fire at different units, but id wager that most of them will not be, and that none of them will be in squadrons so there will most likely be one of them on the board, ever.
Yeah its not going to be an easy task bringing down a super-unit but then again is it as easy as taking done a Seer-star? Screamer-star? Flying Necron French Bakery? Wave Serpent spam?
Its just another tool to add to the "competitive scene" and tbh I don't think we are going to see that many super-units simply because it suffers from the main problem that Farsight bomb has: Yes it will kill and wipe shed loads off the board, but as they say it is too many eggs in one basket.
Could JoTWW, one shot a titan/super heavy/gargantuan creature?
Lukas the trickster, has a rule where he could freeze anything upon his death, in the old apoc rules this included imperator titans as well; Now I don't know the exact wording of that rule (or if its been updated to 6th) but couldn't that one shot a titan/super heavy/gargantuan creature?
Now granted that this is only for mainly imperium allies but could this be a way of taking out the big things in escalation?
JotWW doesn't affect vehicles so it won't work on super-heavy vehicles. It will, however, work on gargantuan creatures. If they fail, they will take 1D3 wounds instead.
Lukas' rule may work on super-heavy vehicles. I'd have to look into that. However, again, it would only cause D3 wounds to a gargantuan.
Valek wrote: Tbh my Pylon disagrees... 3 D shots with interceptor/skyfire, oh joy... and yes a fatass ctan will be fun...
I have both of those. While good, honestly, they really can't compete with the likes of a revenant or warhound. The pylon is only 6 HP's and the c'tan only 6W. Just 1 D-blast could potentially wipe them out, let alone 4. The pylon will on average hit only twice and cannot fire at 2 separate targets, whereas the C'tan will probably get its blast off once and then get smoked. .Necron super-heavies are ok, but not great against other super-heavies. However, necrons still have a better chance than most due to its flyer build.
Disagree. Titans are stupid (and the fact they've let in the Revenant boggles the mind) but the C'tan is literally good at everything. It's fast, it has decent saves, high toughness and amazing shooting. The Revenant is good (okay, flat out broken) until it goes second. If it goes second, it's very underwhelming as AV12 vehicles are easy to kill; a C'tan with Seismic assault accompanied by the shooting of 3 annihilation barges should easily kill a Revenant. Likewise, cron air with haywire crypteks (that popular build back from the start of 6th) laughs in any super heavies face. The real advantage the C'tan has is that it doesn't matter if you go first or second as the model is really small; it can easily hide totally out of line of sight. It's also the only model I know which massively penalises the enemy for killing it. Basically, this is my point: the only thing which kills a C'tan is Str D, whereas many things can kill a Revenant at range. I mean, let's face it - if you're not a Reaver/Phantom or better, you can always die in one Str D shot because the roll of 6 is absurd. That, IMO, makes the C'tan a superior TAC choice insofar as you can have one in a match where there's a gun that basically just removes stuff.
Honestly, I'm pretty disappointed with this report. I hate the idea of str D being in 40k but this really just played like a "we've decided it's going to be awful so we played one game and said it was dumb without really trying". It's kinda like taking a Tau gunline against a green tide, or mass footcrons and then calling the entire codex bad because it doesn't work. Sure, you made the point that the build he made was dumb but... so? There's loads of dumb builds in 40k that you never see because they basically autolose against other lists as they're so imbalanced. This seemed exactly like one of those and to top it all off, the list wasn't even legal and the warlord traits weren't mentioned at all (which when one gets rid of the 6 result of Str D could have been a pretty huge deal). I've gotta say I don't get it - what was the point? That Titans are really good if they go first, one player doesn't know all the rules, the other person's army is illegal and they face a mostly assault army in a single game? Well... yeah? I dunno, just felt like it wasn't up to normal quality.
The C'tan may be good against normal forces, but he really crumbles when facing Destroyer weapons. With only 6W, he dies just like a trygon or wraithknight to them. D-weapons have gotten so powerful in this edition as compared to last edition that they have basically rendered gargantuan creatures almost obsolete. Only An'ggrath, Aetaos and the Harridan - the flying GC's - have any chance of surviving and even their chances aren't very good due to the fact that they can be grounded just like any other FMC. And this is coming from someone (me) who owns all of those gargants - hierophant bio-titan, harridan, the hierodules, An'ggrath, Scabieathrax, Zarakynel and the Ascendant C'tan. If you reduce the C'tan to cowering behind buildings, then he is of no use in the game anyways and if you advance him in the face of enemy Destroyer weaponry, he will be toast.
Believe me, I was playing the game with the intention of winning and also with the belief that I could. I know exactly how to play against titans. Unfortunately things didn't go my way (I didn't get 1st turn, Be'Lakor didn't come in on T2, etc.) and my opponent just blew away my army so easily that it looked like we weren't really trying. But what you're feeling is probably what a lot of people will be feeling - unless you bring a titan yourself or tailor your army to fight titans, yeah, what's the point? You're just removing models without even rolling dice.
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McNinja wrote: No kidding. Suddenly, getting sevrin Loth and be'lakor in one army is looking like the best counter aside from melta spam.
Be'lakor will be an auto-include if titans become prevalent. Loth will have some problems. Namely, how to keep him alive long enough to do anything. At least Be'lakor can stay in the air while casting his power. Loth will have to disembark from whatever transport he is in, maybe get 1 Puppet Master off and then die to strength D shots.
Well, the main problem I can see is D-weapons not Titans. So basically the Revenant is broken, and a select few IG tanks are pretty good too, but not as bad. The splitfire thing may be the worst, as the Revenant killing one unit a turn would be manageable. As it is, a Drop Pod army could kill a Revenant, and that's basically it... FMC spam might be able to, but we'd need 3-4 of them at once to reliably kill it. Also, Gargantuan Flying creatures can be grounded? That might be the least logical rule in the game. Lasguns. LASGUNS can ground an FGC? That's just wrong, and makes not want to even consider a Harridan, let alone the number of games I'd be refused.
Aren't Lord of War slots limited to 25% of your total? So only 437.5 points for 1750 and 500 for 2k? That'd mean a Revenant wouldn't be allowed until you're at 3600 points, at which point you probably could get something in to counter it.
Red Corsair wrote: I think people in here are just a bit to excited and are getting ahead of themselves. Thank you to jy2, spam adam and Reecius for the report firstly! I think it was fun and somewhat informative to folks like me who have no idea how apoc units work but I can also see how in their rush to be first in line to inform they have made some HUGE accusations.
I can see how D weapons are powerful and will slaughter wholesale but condemning them for that is no different then condemning impossible to kill units. Actually I would rather be tabled in 20 minutes by a titan then to struggle through 3.5 hours of rerollable saves and 48" movement but that doesn't mean either outcome is healthy for the game.
Actually the saddest part of this report was seeing the tau fireblade dataslate tossed into the mix where you don't see its ramifications. I mean any army just about including taudar can have a riptide and 6 broadsides. Whats that btw? You say they came with their own tank hunter for literally nothing? And you don't need to pay any tax to take them or use FOC slots? And I can have inquisitors as well? Yup, 40k just became one massive buffet of pick and choose.
While 40K in recent years has been a series of small buffets where players min max 4-5 units in their book, picking and choosing, allies and now worse yet dataslates has made it idiotic. There is literally no reason not to bring the SAME crap.
I find it hilarious that so many people still talk about 40k as a competitive game. It literally has been an arms race all of 6th. It is so obvious GW needs 4th quarter sales here. The new kits are being pushed to players like crazy. I mean there isn't one dataslate for an army outside the last 4, CSM just piggyback CD. Could it be more obvious?
Now I think the game is still fun and the kits are better then they ever have been. So as a hobby the problem is not as bad, but to the gamers who look at this game as if it were a sport, it's been destroyed... for a while. All the top battle reports or player recognition comes from the same 4 armies.. WAIT, wait! I know, I know it's always been top 4 but where as before we had time to actually paint, play to gain skill and respect for our builds it is shifting week to week at this point. Sorry but I have no interest in keeping up any more, I have a job, school and a great woman I'd like to marry none of which are possible if I tried to keep up with the game "competitively." I am not knocking anyone who tries by saying that, just dropping my 2 cents.
Perspective, something we all need to keep while discussing our opinions.
/rant
I hope everyone enjoys the holidays!
You're welcome.
It is always like this initially. There is some fear with regards to the new changes and then eventually, people will settle in. However, titans are a game-changer. Like ImotekhTheStormlord said, it is much bigger than just a meta shift. It will shape the landscape of the game until a new edition comes out.
As for me personally, frankly, I'm not all that concerned. It'll be a tough fight, but it is one that I can definitely win. Moreover, the competitive players will start adjusting their lists and bringing in titans of their own.
However, my concern is for the average, casual gamer. I voice my concerns from their perspective, but with a dose of my own knowledge and experience added in. That is why I feel strongly about this subject.
And you're right. GW doesn't really care to make 40K competitive. However, they have gone a step beyond that. No, they have gone 10 steps beyond that. Now they have made the game extremely unbalanced as well. Balance is what makes the game competitive. Extreme unbalance is what makes the game broken (we may as well go play rock-paper-scissors instead). If TO's want any semblance of a playable game in their tournaments, don't count on GW to do anything about it. They're going to have to take steps to make the changes themselves.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: Aren't Lord of War slots limited to 25% of your total? So only 437.5 points for 1750 and 500 for 2k? That'd mean a Revenant wouldn't be allowed until you're at 3600 points, at which point you probably could get something in to counter it.
If that's true, then good. We need something like that. Unfortunately, I don't have the supplement so can't really say.
Slagmar wrote: A titan can be locked in combat? I was thinking Nids are going to be auto lose against this titan but 30 gargoyles can tarpit one potentially? IF you can get a charge off at least. I can't think of any other way nids could fight this thing unless you shell out $$$$ on the nids super heavy.
That is 1 tactic that some armies will have no choice but to employ. However, only certain titans can be locked in combat - namely super-heavy walkers and gargantuans. You can't lock super-heavy tanks in combat.
It won't be as easy as you'd think though. Good players will surround their titans with anti-assault elements. Many titans themselves have the firepower to easily wipe out a unit that is getting too close. Other titans like the Revenant can just jump 36" out of the way or gargants like the harridan or Aetaos can just fly away if they really needed to. On top of that, you have the rest of the titans' army that can kill any units that gets too close. It is still doable, and for some armies, they really don't have any other alternative, but these armies will still be huge underdogs against an army with a titan.
The titans would have been much better balance if the reserves rules for the no LoW player changed to apoc style where the reserved units can come in automatically turn 1.
The real problem is that the revenant is better than 4 waveserpents of durability with firepower that makes 8 wraithknights pale in comparison. Pricing wise it should be worth more than 4 wraithknights at the very least and yet it is 3.75 WK in price. The ability to remove elite units and vehicles from play at will makes a huge number of dexs and builds invalidated. It isn't a matter of adding titan killers because the damage one of these can do in a single turn makes killing it turn 2 probably not soon enough. Much of this would be fixed if the reserves rules were like those in 5ed or Apoc or D weapons were not so extreme in their effects but those are wishlistings.
Can they be dealt with? Yes
Do they invalidate 75% of the games variety in builds? Yes.
Can they be great fun if done right? Yes.
BTW the reason the escalaction warlord traits are not mentioned is CD really need fatey's warlord trait to work. This game could have been much better if Jy2 would have seized or gotten Bel'K in turn 2 but even then the titan basically invalidated every other unit on the field. It was literally a single model doing everything in this game. The fact that that existed in any degree has made people angry for over a year (helldrakes vs bike armies) and now that exists for everything but fliers.
jathomas2013 wrote: The changes to super heavies(being affected by psy powers and being able to be locked in combat) means that IMO they aren't that harsh.
And before everyone yells "You obviously haven't played against sD before..." I have. I have played against an Emperor Titan, my brother has a Shadowsword that he uses in every Apoc game, and I have a Revanent. I am well aware of their power. I think this batrep cannot be used for a good telling of whether or not the new Escalation is crazy. There were too many mistakes made in that game, and you were playing against someone who hadn't faced the new sD before.
I am not mad at you guys for the mistakes, thanks for the report and trying to educate us on the new 6th edition. But would you guys be able to do another batrep where spamadam doesn't misuse the formations? I think the superheavies can be beat, as proven by the fact that jim won the battle. And that was with the Tau being there illegally. It is n't writing over a problem with a bigger problem imo, all you need to do is throw something flying on the board, focus on the mission, and you can likely win.
I understand that certain armies are at a disadvantage here, that's always been the case(poor sisters of battle have never won a GT in 40k history right?). But I think if the rules were played right super heavies are fine. How you guys feel about super heavies is how I feel about screamer/seer star. Both of those are silly combos, yet no GT has banned them. Banning super heavies seems hypocritical. All that is needed, if you feel that sD is OP, is to make some changes to how sD functions, punishing players for taking a certain number of sD(automatic +1VP for each 2 sD weapons your opponent has for instance). And i think some are forgetting that the Revenent costs a staggering 900(or is it 950? I always forget). If a 900-950 pt model can't kill a 180 pt model or two(the soul grinders) in a turn then it is absolute crap.
And lastly, for those who think that sD is unreasonably powerful: Read the fluff. It is described as being powerful enough to 1-shot a titan. Do you really think that something that can kill a TITAN in a single turn would get stopped by your IRON HALO that your captain has?! C'mon guys, think a lil bit here!
Anywho, that's my rant. I appreciate the batrep but because of the rules-flops that were had(especially as much of the cheating seemed to benefit the side with the titan) I can't really hold this as conclusive at all.
The thing is, playing an Apoc game is much, much different from playing a regular game but with titans in there. In Apoc, you have a lot more resources to try to take out the titan. In a 2K game or less, your resources is much, much more limited. Last edition of the Apoc rules, it could still have been done, but in this edition, the new Destroyer rules are just too strong.
I can tell you that even if we played all the rules perfectly, the army with the titan will still have a massive advantage (though I will still insist that I will win. )
Screamer-star and seer council is annoying. I've played as or against them many times and sure, they are difficult to play against. But I have never seen an army pick apart my own with such ease. At least with those 2+ re-rollable units, you can still win or at least give them a good fight. With titans, it is just staggering how much more powerful they are in regular 40K than any other 40K shenanigans that I've come across. If not for Be'lakor and his shenanigans, the game wouldn't have even been close at all.
As for banning/changing the rules of units, that's entirely up to the TO and his customers.
And you're right. GW doesn't really care to make 40K competitive. However, they have gone a step beyond that. No, they have gone 10 steps beyond that. Now they have made the game extremely unbalanced as well. Balance is what makes the game competitive. Extreme unbalance is what makes the game broken (we may as well go play rock-paper-scissors instead). If TO's want any semblance of a playable game in their tournaments, don't count on GW to do anything about it. They're going to have to take steps to make the changes themselves.
In all honesty, GW really threw game balance out of the window after the DA codex release, look as how medicore CSM and DA are? they have a few good things here and there, but ultimately a majority of their codex's are not game breaking..
Then you see Tau and Eldar with Jets-seer's and markerlight/missileside/Riptide spam, look at daemon's? The screamerstar and Grimore giving 2++ everywhere, do you think that is healthy balance?
Fact is GW really never cared for game balance ever and Escalation is no different, all it is now is just another tool.
However, my concern is for the average, casual gamer. I voice my concerns from their perspective, but with a dose of my own knowledge and experience added in. That is why I feel strongly about this subject.
Don't worry about us casual's tbh, if we see any super-unit on the field, we will forget about the main mission and just focus on killing the big thing as long as we kill the big thing we will be happy
In all honesty, I would highly recommend you give Escalation another go, as many have pointed out that this game as it looks has not been as thought out, so I would recommend you have another go at it and read the Escalation rules as well as fielding legal forces, as it may change your opinion on Escalation tbh
And you're right. GW doesn't really care to make 40K competitive. However, they have gone a step beyond that. No, they have gone 10 steps beyond that. Now they have made the game extremely unbalanced as well. Balance is what makes the game competitive. Extreme unbalance is what makes the game broken (we may as well go play rock-paper-scissors instead). If TO's want any semblance of a playable game in their tournaments, don't count on GW to do anything about it. They're going to have to take steps to make the changes themselves.
In all honesty, GW really threw game balance out of the window after the DA codex release, look as how medicore CSM and DA are? they have a few good things here and there, but ultimately a majority of their codex's are not game breaking..
Then you see Tau and Eldar with Jets-seer's and markerlight/missileside/Riptide spam, look at daemon's? The screamerstar and Grimore giving 2++ everywhere, do you think that is healthy balance?
Fact is GW really never cared for game balance and Escalation is no different, all it is now is just another tool.
However, my concern is for the average, casual gamer. I voice my concerns from their perspective, but with a dose of my own knowledge and experience added in. That is why I feel strongly about this subject.
Don't worry about us casual's tbh, if we see any super-unit on the field, we will forget about the main mission and just focus on killing the big thing as long as we kill the big thing we will be happy
In all honesty, I would highly recommend you give Escalation another go, as many have pointed out that this game as it looks has not been as thought out, so I would recommend you have another go at it and read the Escalation rules as well as fielding legal forces, as it may change your opinion on Escalation tbh
And now titans, formations and dataslates have just made these armies - the top armies like Tau, Eldar and Necrons - now even better. It's like the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. The imbalance gap is widening. Hell, with all these changes, there's even less of an incentive to play the lower-tiered armies.
I definitely will give Escalation another go. I actually love Apoc and if I were to field my titans in an escalation game, no one is going to beat me anytime soon. Hell, I actually can't wait to play Escalation again, this time bringing my own titans, but I'll only do it against someone else who is bringing titans. If I were to start bringing titans to my LGS in regular games, pretty soon no one will want to play against me.
Ricter wrote: Honestly, I at first was on the side of "Wow, that super-heavy is ridiculous." But after some thought, I'm no so sure.
Just last year, you guys did a battle report about AirCrons versus Space Wolves, which where the top dogs not 6 months previously. It was just as one-sided as this was.
And now what do we have? AirCrons are arguably not even in the top 3, and fliers in general have faded in dominance compared to FMCs and the larger amount of potent AA fire.
I'd like to see new TAC lists, built with the idea of Titans as possible opponents in mind, and see how those battle reports go before passing judgement at this point.
We all may be crying the sky is falling as a knee-jerk reaction.
To be fair, I am only against Destroyer weaponry in normal 40K. Playing against titans sans D-weapons isn't as bad. It's still a tough fight, but it is nowhere near as unbalancing. I'd have no problem with that.
But comparing CronAir to titans isn't really fair. Only 1 army has CronAir - necrons. On the other hand, multiple armies have titans and some armies have really nasty titans. Thus, titans are going to be much more prevalent and as a result, impact the game on a much larger scale, one that I guarantee most people will have never seen before.
And now titans, formations and dataslates have just made these armies - the top armies like Tau, Eldar and Necrons - now even better. It's like the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. The imbalance gap is widening. Hell, with all these changes, there's even less of an incentive to play the lower-tiered armies.
Sounds like England if you lived up north
I can see your perspective, but would you be able to say that it would have given lower-tired armies a bit of a boost at least? I think it would highly most certainly
I definitely will give Escalation another go. I actually love Apoc and if I were to field my titans in an escalation game, no one is going to beat me anytime soon. Hell, I actually can't wait to play Escalation again, this time bringing my own titans, but I'll only do it against someone else who is bringing titans. If I were to start bringing titans to my LGS in regular games, pretty soon no one will want to play against me.
Awesome, I personally am not a fan of apoc (with one bad experience with a player put me off it) but would love to field my Stompa again, so this is kinda perfect for me
To be fair, I am only against Destroyer weaponry in normal 40K. Playing against titans sans D-weapons isn't as bad. It's still a tough fight, but it is nowhere near as unbalancing. I'd have no problem with that.
This. Warhounds with double Vulcan Mega-bolters would still hurt like hell, but it's 750 points of shooting that you at least get to save against if appliccable. Same with Plasma Blastguns, monstrously powerful but doesn't ignore saves. It's the utter annihilation of D-weapons that is the issue.
And now titans, formations and dataslates have just made these armies - the top armies like Tau, Eldar and Necrons - now even better. It's like the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. The imbalance gap is widening. Hell, with all these changes, there's even less of an incentive to play the lower-tiered armies.
Sounds like England if you lived up north
I can see your perspective, but would you be able to say that it would have given lower-tired armies a bit of a boost at least? I think it would highly most certainly
I definitely will give Escalation another go. I actually love Apoc and if I were to field my titans in an escalation game, no one is going to beat me anytime soon. Hell, I actually can't wait to play Escalation again, this time bringing my own titans, but I'll only do it against someone else who is bringing titans. If I were to start bringing titans to my LGS in regular games, pretty soon no one will want to play against me.
Awesome, I personally am not a fan of apoc (with one bad experience with a player put me off it) but would love to field my Stompa again, so this is kinda perfect for me
And I look forward to that Batrep
It can definitely give the lower-tiered armies a boost, especially if your opponent doesn't bring a titan of his own. But if you bring orks with a stompa against eldar with a revenant titan, you're still going to get stomped hard. Orks with stompa becomes great. Eldar with a revenant becomes holy-ship- WTF-ridiculousness.
And now titans, formations and dataslates have just made these armies - the top armies like Tau, Eldar and Necrons - now even better. It's like the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. The imbalance gap is widening. Hell, with all these changes, there's even less of an incentive to play the lower-tiered armies.
Sounds like England if you lived up north
I can see your perspective, but would you be able to say that it would have given lower-tired armies a bit of a boost at least? I think it would highly most certainly
I definitely will give Escalation another go. I actually love Apoc and if I were to field my titans in an escalation game, no one is going to beat me anytime soon. Hell, I actually can't wait to play Escalation again, this time bringing my own titans, but I'll only do it against someone else who is bringing titans. If I were to start bringing titans to my LGS in regular games, pretty soon no one will want to play against me.
Awesome, I personally am not a fan of apoc (with one bad experience with a player put me off it) but would love to field my Stompa again, so this is kinda perfect for me
And I look forward to that Batrep
It can definitely give the lower-tiered armies a boost, especially if your opponent doesn't bring a titan of his own. But if you bring orks with a stompa against eldar with a revenant titan, you're still going to get stomped hard. Orks with stompa becomes great. Eldar with a revenant becomes holy-ship- WTF-ridiculousness.
Depends, though. If you get first turn and your Stompa blasts everything into the enemy Titan chances are the Revenant will turn into a smoldering wreckage.
To me it seems that the problem here isn't so much superheavies and gargantuan creatures in regular games of 40K, but D-weapons. In Apocalypse, you can spend points to return destroyed units back to the game, units that can then unleash their D-weapons back at the enemy. So you can wipe out a superheavy or gargantuan creature with a D-weapon, then the enemy can spend a point to bring that unit back into the game, and back and forth all game. In regular games you don't have that option of bringing destroyed units back.
So the simple solution is to just say "no D-weapons" in regular games. Most superheavies and gargantuan creatures have a list of wargear options that aren't D-weapons but are still powerful. If a model doesn't have any non-Dwpn options, then it can't be used: those models are reserved for Apocalypse. That way people can still run their superheavies and gargantuan creatures and the game can still be somewhat "balanced."
The C'tan may be good against normal forces, but he really crumbles when facing Destroyer weapons. With only 6W, he dies just like a trygon or wraithknight to them. D-weapons have gotten so powerful in this edition as compared to last edition that they have basically rendered gargantuan creatures almost obsolete. Only An'ggrath, Aetaos and the Harridan - the flying GC's - have any chance of surviving and even their chances aren't very good due to the fact that they can be grounded just like any other FMC. And this is coming from someone (me) who owns all of those gargants - hierophant bio-titan, harridan, the hierodules, An'ggrath, Scabieathrax, Zarakynel and the Ascendant C'tan. If you reduce the C'tan to cowering behind buildings, then he is of no use in the game anyways and if you advance him in the face of enemy Destroyer weaponry, he will be toast.
Believe me, I was playing the game with the intention of winning and also with the belief that I could. I know exactly how to play against titans. Unfortunately things didn't go my way (I didn't get 1st turn, Be'Lakor didn't come in on T2, etc.) and my opponent just blew away my army so easily that it looked like we weren't really trying. But what you're feeling is probably what a lot of people will be feeling - unless you bring a titan yourself or tailor your army to fight titans, yeah, what's the point? You're just removing models without even rolling dice.
Look, I agree that Str D is stupid, but this just isn't true. On average, Str D does just over 3 wounds/HP of damage (EDIT:3.86 HP, 3.58 wounds). The C'tan in that regard is barely weaker than any Super Heavy. That's true for most GCs - in general, the amount of Str D needed to kill them is literally exactly the same as SH vehicles. The only exception is Eldar Titans due to the stupid holofields rule. The only reason GCs are worse is they have fewer Str D shots, trading that for a substantial gain against small arms fire and massive assault advantages. Let's not pretend that the Str D change has magically made a Hierophant less survivable than a Warhound - it hasn't, it's just now the Warhound's shooting is that much more devastating. That's the crux of the problem - mass Str D shooting beats everything. Before it was amazing, now it's just flat out broken. If you advance ANYTHING in the face of mass str D it dies, so everything has to hide from it. Is that really a waste? The C'tan hides until the mass haywire comes in to kill the Str D titans, then you win. Works in Apoc, should work in this. Having to wait 2/3 turns to be able to just wipe entire units is not what I'd call "no use". That's the only reason I'm against the C'tan and the Revenant being in Escalation - their Str D is way better than any other unit in the book and they have ways to negate their weaknesses fairly easily. How you came to the conclusion that GCs are almost obsolete is, frankly, beyond me because they're just as frail as any other super heavy - which is to say, not particularly frail unless they face a specific counter. That pretty much summarises the issue with Str D in small games to be honest - it's everything's counter.
i always look forward to your batreps but the 'sky's falling' reaction to these new toys is just a bit much. I'd like to think that the biggest problem is the shock at how fast models are removed from the board. The old 6th Ed. got us used to the ebb and flow of things being removed. Long gone are the days of surprise Vortex Grenades and the horror of having to just pick up your decked out commander without even a roll. The game's gotten soft IMO.
I think the masses have really taken to this 2++ reroll crap. To top it off, anything that would force them to shelve such awesomeness is not going to be accepted. I get it Dweopons are insane. They shoot, they hit, they kill. Very fast and effecient. What 6th ed was 2 days ago was a game where it was normal to be shot 100's of times without losing a single unit (maybe even a single model). The 6-up to hit flyers made those new toys more durable and well recieved. Now that the new kid on the block excells at something nothing else can compare to, we are seeing threads like this were people talk about banning or limiting such new toys. I'm honestly shocked. You guys play dozens apon hundereds of games and the first thing you do is come on here and say "uh, no."??? I looked to you guys to give me insight on 40k from a competitive standpoint. Now I'm hessitant to see revelence in your tournaments if GW 6th ed 40k approved items are going to be pick and chosen based on personal views towards them.
Again, I love both JY2's and Reece's videos/batreps. I also enjoy their insight into competitive 40k but I'm just dumbfounded that in this instance the immediate reaction is to dismiss this portion of 40k as an aberation or an exeption from the other rules. I'm of the mind that you ban one thing broken, you ban it all. I don't think you can go swinging the ban stick at Titans/D-weopons without admitting that Seercouncil/Screamerstar is just as bad but from the exact opposite perspective. I see Titans as the Unstopable Force and Screamerstars as the Immovable Object. Each have their flaws, you must admit but neither/either are really THAT much fun to play against.
The Eldar Revenant Titan is an armor 12 walker with 9 hull points. It's like fielding 3 Chaos Helbrutes in cover and we all know how hard those are to kill. Yes it does a lot more damage, but that's what 900pts are for.
You don't need to pen armor 12, just glance it. How fast can a broadside unit with tank hunter strip 9 hull points off the thing? How fast can brightlance Warwalkers with Guide? Awful fast when every 6 on the damage table is stripping 2-4 hull points and not just one.
Looking at the Revenants void shield rules it actually leaves out glancing hits. By RAW the a Eldar Void Shield on the Revenant have no effect on a glancing hit. It says it only grants a 4+ save on penetrating hits.
Every army should be able to deal with an armor 12 vehicle. There is no great meta shift to deal with armor 12 vehicles with a 4+ save. You torrent them away and seeing how these super heavies are 3 victory points you don't even need to play to the mission as much as just down this thing and you win.
What I like about them is they are Deathstar killers. Very few people have bought them and it is to easy to have 1/3 of your army ready to take one out so I don't see a rush to buy more.
However the mere possibility of them on the table will cause current Deathstar players to rethink their lists. Maybe force some more models on the table. More units, more diversity of power. You can't do well against a super heavy if your list is 1-2 deathstars and min sized troops to score at the end. That's what I like about them right now.
I dunno. If it goes first, sees over all terrain, moves 36" and can blow anything that is a threat to it away in a single turn, I think you have a skosh of a problem.
Ok, here is my philosophy on the Escalation supplement.
For me personally, I actually love it! The competitive gamer in me looks forwards to the challenge of trying to kill some titans in a regular game. The Apoc player in me is thrilled to finally be able to use all my super-heavies/gargantuans (and yes, I have a lot of them). I will look forwards to using my titans against others with titans as well. Anywhere, anytime. As a matter of fact, I'd be willing to put up money to anyone who can beat my army and titan in a game of Escalation.
However, for tournament games, I disapprove of using Escalation for the time being. At the very minimum, I'd wait at least 6 months before even considering allowing them in tournament play, but realistically, I'd wait maybe a year or until another major tournament show that it is no big deal. There's no need to rush it. Trying to shoehorn Escalation into a tournament 2 months from now is too much, too soon. People need time to adjust - to get exposed to them and to grow their army to include super-heavies or at least counters for them. Allowing them in tournament play so early is a big mistake in my opinion. As a TO, you can potentially hurt the reputation of your tournament (and your bottom-line as well) if you try to introduce something before people are ready. It's one thing to allow dataslates and formations, which IMO are just minor changes. However, allowing titans, and especially those with Destroyer weaponry, is too big of a change in too small of a time frame. Sure some people - the competitive players or the players who scour the interwebz - may be ready to face them, but IMO the majority of the players won't. If I were to run a tournament at this moment, I would ban Escalation. For those who don't agree with this, then just don't go to those tournaments. That is your prerogative.
I'm also not against all titans, just mainly the ones with Destroyer weapons.
slaede wrote: I dunno. If it goes first, sees over all terrain, moves 36" and can blow anything that is a threat to it away in a single turn, I think you have a skosh of a problem.
Void shield generators cost the same as a land speeder and have a 12" range. They can also overlap and prevent any d weapons from doing any damage until they go down. Those protect you if the Titan goes first. Also the Titan adds + 1 to the Sieze roll of your opponent so it's not always going first right Mr. Coteaz.
Boys, Jim and Reece, I still love you. I'm just in a spirited mood today. Don't take it personally. Hey I'm still buying some Mega Mats. Those things are awesome and I'm dieing to see the Alpine mat.
slaede wrote: I dunno. If it goes first, sees over all terrain, moves 36" and can blow anything that is a threat to it away in a single turn, I think you have a skosh of a problem.
Void shield generators cost the same as a land speeder and have a 12" range. They can also overlap and prevent any d weapons from doing any damage until they go down. Those protect you if the Titan goes first. Also the Titan adds + 1 to the Sieze roll of your opponent so it's not always going first right Mr. Coteaz.
Boys, Jim and Reece, I still love you. I'm just in a spirited mood today. Don't take it personally. Hey I'm still buying some Mega Mats. Those things are awesome and I'm dieing to see the Alpine mat.
No worries. We are both students of the game and I know us veterans like to philosophize a lot about the game. My philosophy is normally very much like yours. Normally, I think that there is nothing broken in the game and that everything has a solution. But what both Reece and I are trying to say is this....D weapons in normal games is going to change the meta more than you would think and we are both concerned.
BTW, there is also a problem with the +1 Seize. Namely, if you don't go 1st, are your really going to deploy your heavy hitters on the table? Do you really want to take the chance of not seizing and then having your most awesome units blown sky high? My bet is that you will leave your heavy hitters in reserves (like I left my FMC's in reserves) so then what do you have on the table that can take on his titans?
I think this definitely needs more playtesting(I'd LOVE to see that batrep with the Stompa/Baneblade!). I can't wait to try it out, and I honestly think this might be a step in the right direction. Jim, you played to win and you pretty much did. The only way for Adam to win would've been VERY lucky shots with the chest-mounted pee-shooter on the Revanent.
Keep the batrep's coming, I think this rules change might surprise us...
On a sidenote, I can't believe all space marines get a fracking THUNDERHAWK...That's insanity. At least a Revanent is hit on normal BS can be hit in combat! Sure the thunderhawk only has one D, but it's a flyer that holds 30 models! that's pretty darn crazy.
Anywho, rant aside, I think further opinions might be best waiting until we have more than a single batrep to go by
happygolucky wrote: So it seems Michael Bay wants to be a Tabletop wargame designer..
Ok so one question, is Escalation a supplement or expansion?
Imo, Escalation could be quite healthy (awaiting my soap from Dakka) but only because to me it could boost army's currently really down the drain, such as Orks for example, adding a Stompa could really boost them up to a decent level as they can now combat the broken units that everyone complains about.
To me it will breathe life into my Orks after so long, get me more motivated to finish painting my Stompa and seeing awesome stuff happen
All I can say is, I hope this is a supplement so I can shout WAAAGH!! once again
This. Our Superheavy is a lot more modest than the Revenant (no D templates, only reliable D has a range of 2d6 unless it's changed in escalation), and frankly, I'd be happy to forfeit a few games to Revenants if that means I never have to see another screamer/seer star again.
The fact that the Stompa is essentially free for anyone willing to build it is another bonus too
Too bad that like everything else the Orks have, it's only "reasonable" and not "game breakingly superpowered"
Edit: When you think about it, D weapons are pretty much just the 6-spells of 40k. In Fantasy these spells do a good job of balancing enormous deathstar units there, and I think that frankly 40k is in need of a similar mechanic
happygolucky wrote: So it seems Michael Bay wants to be a Tabletop wargame designer..
Ok so one question, is Escalation a supplement or expansion?
Imo, Escalation could be quite healthy (awaiting my soap from Dakka) but only because to me it could boost army's currently really down the drain, such as Orks for example, adding a Stompa could really boost them up to a decent level as they can now combat the broken units that everyone complains about.
To me it will breathe life into my Orks after so long, get me more motivated to finish painting my Stompa and seeing awesome stuff happen
All I can say is, I hope this is a supplement so I can shout WAAAGH!! once again
This. Our Superheavy is a lot more modest than the Revenant (no D templates, only reliable D has a range of 2d6 unless it's changed in escalation), and frankly, I'd be happy to forfeit a few games to Revenants if that means I never have to see another screamer/seer star again.
The fact that the Stompa is essentially free for anyone willing to build it is another bonus too
Too bad that like everything else the Orks have, it's only "reasonable" and not "game breakingly superpowered"
Edit: When you think about it, D weapons are pretty much just the 6-spells of 40k. In Fantasy these spells do a good job of balancing enormous deathstar units there, and I think that frankly 40k is in need of a similar mechanic
Actually that is a fair comparison but only if you compare it to old Teclis with almost guaranteed irresistible force. Because there is NO defense against D weapons. (even void shields are easy to pop with minimal AT)
I didn't mind the screamer star/ seer star units so much as good play could largely negate them and they usually could not deal out enough damage and were not scoring. My only real problem with D weapons is they completely invalidate builds with less than 12 non flying units. (aka a revenant titan can easily kill this many units in a 6 turn game if you cannot kill it). I have the armies to field MSU 16+ and swamp the opponent but is it supposed to be a good thing that to "fix" the 2++ rerollable a leman russ is an afterthought to destroy and TH/SS termies went from bad for points to worse than a scout even if they were the same pts? Because the scout can outflank, score, and has the same chance to survive against D weapons. I am not sure if people fully appreciate the power of 4 Large Blast D weapons a turn. It makes 4 riptides with automatic 3 markerlights on each unit a joke. It is incredibly compounded BTW when someone actually starts building lists to take advantage of these units. You will have to let me know how fair this is when a revenant titan has 4 void shields protecting it, a farseer guiding it, and possibly fortune and a 4++ invulnerable save. All while having a cheap screening unit to block melta or assault. Did I mention that it can annihilate 2 units a turn with relative ease? Jy2 was perhaps not playing an anti lord of war list but Adam was not playing an optimized lord of war list either. Ironically there is now 4 classes of list building that are important 1) lord of war, 2) Anti Air, and 3) lord of war support...4) scoring as an after thought. These units will dominate games to the point they are the only thing that matters. It can definitely be balanced but it simply does away with a huge chunk of the game and reduces the pool of army lists that can win a tournament even further.
I must say that revanent model in this game convinced me to buy one. It is gorgeous looking.
It seems to me that the problem is the Revenant with its superior mobility and firepower compared to the other Titans is the problem rather than the Titans and D weapons themselves.
I don't think people would have a problem with D weapons if you could only get one shot or maybe a 2 shot single weapon on a slow moving unit.
Its just the speed that allows it to easily gain LoS and prevent it getting bogged down in assault combined with 4 D str weapons.
Revenant Titan does not have a normal void shield. It have, effectively, a 4++ vs. Shooting if it moved and a 5++ vs. Shooting if it stayed still like on turn 1. The Void shield rules as written do not allow it a save vs. Glancing hits.
The void shields you can but are different. They do protect from any damage until they are glanced. It can be easy to drop an armor 12 shield, but not in today's meta. I mean it is easy to drop if you have a unit with one lascannons, maybe you'll need two of them, but today's meta don't have those units. Today's meta has units that fire 3000 str 7 shots. Yes you will drop a single shield with that volley, but then have very little to follow it up with.
Today's meta favors a concentration of firepower in a few core units. This is not good against void shields as all those extra shots are wasted. Dispersion of firepower throughout the list is better against void shields.
I can have 3 void shield generators protecting a Bastion or even a parking lot of heavy support choices. It will take minimum 3 and most likely 4-5 Riptides firming into that position to drop all the void shields. After that how much fire does an Ovesastar have left at range?
Most of today's lists concentrate their firepower in a few very hard to kill units and void shields really threaten that list archetype.
slaede wrote: I dunno. If it goes first, sees over all terrain, moves 36" and can blow anything that is a threat to it away in a single turn, I think you have a skosh of a problem.
Void shield generators cost the same as a land speeder and have a 12" range. They can also overlap and prevent any d weapons from doing any damage until they go down. Those protect you if the Titan goes first. Also the Titan adds + 1 to the Sieze roll of your opponent so it's not always going first right Mr. Coteaz.
Boys, Jim and Reece, I still love you. I'm just in a spirited mood today. Don't take it personally. Hey I'm still buying some Mega Mats. Those things are awesome and I'm dieing to see the Alpine mat.
No worries. We are both students of the game and I know us veterans like to philosophize a lot about the game. My philosophy is normally very much like yours. Normally, I think that there is nothing broken in the game and that everything has a solution. But what both Reece and I are trying to say is this....D weapons in normal games is going to change the meta more than you would think and we are both concerned.
BTW, there is also a problem with the +1 Seize. Namely, if you don't go 1st, are your really going to deploy your heavy hitters on the table? Do you really want to take the chance of not seizing and then having your most awesome units blown sky high? My bet is that you will leave your heavy hitters in reserves (like I left my FMC's in reserves) so then what do you have on the table that can take on his titans?
So I get to Sieze on a 5+. Reroll if I have Coteaz. I get to Sieze on a 3+ if I have Necron or DE special character. Will top players take that gamble with the Revenant? I don't think so. I think only lower skill players will want to gamble. The threat of its presence is all it takes to shift the meta away from no interactive deathstars. That's what the community wants.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Here is what I think will happen. Escalation gets banned from almost all tourneys. GW releases Lords of War units in each subsequent codex. All hell breaks loose at that point.
Revenant Titan does not have a normal void shield. It have, effectively, a 4++ vs. Shooting if it moved and a 5++ vs. Shooting if it stayed still like on turn 1. The Void shield rules as written do not allow it a save vs. Glancing hits.
The void shields you can but are different. They do protect from any damage until they are glanced. It can be easy to drop an armor 12 shield, but not in today's meta. I mean it is easy to drop if you have a unit with one lascannons, maybe you'll need two of them, but today's meta don't have those units. Today's meta has units that fire 3000 str 7 shots. Yes you will drop a single shield with that volley, but then have very little to follow it up with.
Today's meta favors a concentration of firepower in a few core units. This is not good against void shields as all those extra shots are wasted. Dispersion of firepower throughout the list is better against void shields.
I can have 3 void shield generators protecting a Bastion or even a parking lot of heavy support choices. It will take minimum 3 and most likely 4-5 Riptides firming into that position to drop all the void shields. After that how much fire does an Ovesastar have left at range?
Most of today's lists concentrate their firepower in a few very hard to kill units and void shields really threaten that list archetype.
No, what it has is far more powerful - it's more like FNP(4+). It takes cover AND holo saves against most shooting. Many armies can also get through one void shield easily without wasting their good AT shooting, so the rest of this isn't really true. On top of that, nothing stops the Revenant also hiding in a void shield generator bubble. The thing about it only working VS penetrating hits is just flat out incorrect - you make the roll before armour penetration rolls happen at all. That means before you check whether it's a glance or a pen, you roll to see if it hits. No idea where that misconception has come from.
Plus, if you're facing a Titan, void shields make no difference. The other part of the army kills the shields, the titan kills everything else. I've never seen an army struggle to get down void shields in any game.
OK the arguments being put forth that the rest of the titans army will destroy you are ludicrous. At 900 points you are not going to be bubble wrapping, capturing objectives, downing void shields etc. etc.
If void shields ony cost that of a land speeder then gimme a break. That Phantom was just invalidated. I am with diggler here, letting Vect or imotek seize on a 3+ or any imperial army getting corteaz is really going to deter these things.
If you reserve it, that's 900 points in reserve! Sorry that never wins you games. OK hardly ever. Now your apparently 850 of bubble wrap/shield breakers needs to survive 2 turns unsupported?
At this point in time the game has almost no balance left. Heck I am remaking my beloved DE finally, replacing my 1998 models That book has almost no internal balance. It's a Kelly book, obviously a scourge with a shard carbine should pay the dame as a warrior to get a SC right? That's at a single book level, add the fact that the new books are even WORSE internally and externally and the fact that the allies matrix was never fair and the best armies have access to all the other top armies and yea.... There goes the game.
I say let it all in because there is no way to justify banning escalation or D weapons and not banning other similarly abusive combos. I for one would love a crack at a Revenant, I know exactly what and how to kill it now and I no even my awful pure DE can bring her down in a turn. That's a lot of wraith bone for the cause
The best thing I think TO's and players alike need to do is get some games under their belts with these rules and see how it plays out. Between Escalation and Stronghold Assault, there is a lot to digest. The Revenant Titan was just the obvious one based on its shooting.
And another posted did state one thing I also think will happen. You will see a Lord of War piece in a regular codex and then what will the community do?
Those books are a part of the game and just autobanning (tourneys and pick up games) based off of speculation rather than actually playing the game out is a bit disappointing to say the least.
Depends, though. If you get first turn and your Stompa blasts everything into the enemy Titan chances are the Revenant will turn into a smoldering wreckage.
True enough. Nothing is a sure thing. Still, I don't like their (orks) chances. Even if they go 1st, I don't believe they can take down a Revenant with their crappy shooting. It would require crazy luck to do so.
DarthDiggler wrote: So I get to Sieze on a 5+. Reroll if I have Coteaz. I get to Sieze on a 3+ if I have Necron or DE special character. Will top players take that gamble with the Revenant? I don't think so. I think only lower skill players will want to gamble. The threat of its presence is all it takes to shift the meta away from no interactive deathstars. That's what the community wants.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Here is what I think will happen. Escalation gets banned from almost all tourneys. GW releases Lords of War units in each subsequent codex. All hell breaks loose at that point.
Good players won't even take the combo of Coteaz + Vect or Coteaz + Imotekh. You're relying on a "trick" to try to gain an advantage. That's not what I call good tactics for a balanced TAC army.
Not only does the presence of titans shift the meta away from deathstar builds, but now you've got a game with a very narrow scope. A lot of armies are going to be excluded from competitive play. Now, it's going to be the age of the titans, the titan-killers and the flyers. The thing I don't think is healthy for the tournament scene is that people are going to get bored from seeing titans on the top tables and also getting stomped on by titans. It's the battle of the have's and the have-nots, and I'm afraid the have-nots are going to say, "why even bother going to tournaments anymore when I have to face those things and I've got no chance."
Lord_Mortis wrote: To me it seems that the problem here isn't so much superheavies and gargantuan creatures in regular games of 40K, but D-weapons. In Apocalypse, you can spend points to return destroyed units back to the game, units that can then unleash their D-weapons back at the enemy. So you can wipe out a superheavy or gargantuan creature with a D-weapon, then the enemy can spend a point to bring that unit back into the game, and back and forth all game. In regular games you don't have that option of bringing destroyed units back.
So the simple solution is to just say "no D-weapons" in regular games. Most superheavies and gargantuan creatures have a list of wargear options that aren't D-weapons but are still powerful. If a model doesn't have any non-Dwpn options, then it can't be used: those models are reserved for Apocalypse. That way people can still run their superheavies and gargantuan creatures and the game can still be somewhat "balanced."
Yeah, basically, D-weapons are more of the problem. In casual games, between friends, I don't mind as long as both players consent and bring their own titans (or not). I just don't like the idea of 1 player blind-siding another player who isn't prepared to face a titan. That usually makes for a very unenjoyable game.
It's in tournament play where I would say no to D-weapons. Either ban it or nerf it. In time after most people have been exposed to titans, then that's when I don't mind allowing it in tournament play, but right now is just too early.
The C'tan may be good against normal forces, but he really crumbles when facing Destroyer weapons. With only 6W, he dies just like a trygon or wraithknight to them. D-weapons have gotten so powerful in this edition as compared to last edition that they have basically rendered gargantuan creatures almost obsolete. Only An'ggrath, Aetaos and the Harridan - the flying GC's - have any chance of surviving and even their chances aren't very good due to the fact that they can be grounded just like any other FMC. And this is coming from someone (me) who owns all of those gargants - hierophant bio-titan, harridan, the hierodules, An'ggrath, Scabieathrax, Zarakynel and the Ascendant C'tan. If you reduce the C'tan to cowering behind buildings, then he is of no use in the game anyways and if you advance him in the face of enemy Destroyer weaponry, he will be toast.
Believe me, I was playing the game with the intention of winning and also with the belief that I could. I know exactly how to play against titans. Unfortunately things didn't go my way (I didn't get 1st turn, Be'Lakor didn't come in on T2, etc.) and my opponent just blew away my army so easily that it looked like we weren't really trying. But what you're feeling is probably what a lot of people will be feeling - unless you bring a titan yourself or tailor your army to fight titans, yeah, what's the point? You're just removing models without even rolling dice.
Look, I agree that Str D is stupid, but this just isn't true. On average, Str D does just over 3 wounds/HP of damage (EDIT:3.86 HP, 3.58 wounds). The C'tan in that regard is barely weaker than any Super Heavy. That's true for most GCs - in general, the amount of Str D needed to kill them is literally exactly the same as SH vehicles. The only exception is Eldar Titans due to the stupid holofields rule. The only reason GCs are worse is they have fewer Str D shots, trading that for a substantial gain against small arms fire and massive assault advantages. Let's not pretend that the Str D change has magically made a Hierophant less survivable than a Warhound - it hasn't, it's just now the Warhound's shooting is that much more devastating. That's the crux of the problem - mass Str D shooting beats everything. Before it was amazing, now it's just flat out broken. If you advance ANYTHING in the face of mass str D it dies, so everything has to hide from it. Is that really a waste? The C'tan hides until the mass haywire comes in to kill the Str D titans, then you win. Works in Apoc, should work in this. Having to wait 2/3 turns to be able to just wipe entire units is not what I'd call "no use". That's the only reason I'm against the C'tan and the Revenant being in Escalation - their Str D is way better than any other unit in the book and they have ways to negate their weaknesses fairly easily. How you came to the conclusion that GCs are almost obsolete is, frankly, beyond me because they're just as frail as any other super heavy - which is to say, not particularly frail unless they face a specific counter. That pretty much summarises the issue with Str D in small games to be honest - it's everything's counter.
I'm comparing apples (titans) to apples (titans) here. If you want to compare apples to oranges (regular units), then of course titans will have the advantage. They are designed to be tough to kill by conventional means. They used to be designed to withstand even punishment from super weapons - the Destroyer weapons - but the times have changed. Destroyer weapons in 6E Apoc has far exceeded the power level of those in 5E. Right now, most Gargants can only take at most 2 D-hits on average and then they are dead. Yes, the Transcendent C'tan is very good. However, no gargants nowadays can compete with the power of the D. In the age of Escalation, the Revenant is king. The only titan that stands a chance is the Harridan but even he can be grounded by conventional means nowadays (he couldn't before). In tournament play assuming they allow Escalation units, the Revenant is going to dominate all but necron flyer-spam and daemon FMC-spam. Any gargants you take is going to be rendered obsolete when going up against these types of Escalation armies. Yeah, they'll do great against any other army, even Escalation armies sans Destroyer weaponry, but they just can't hold a candle to the big D. You're just going to have to try to win it with the rest of the army and write off your gargant in the face of multiple destroyer shots.
Mass haywire from necrons? You do realize that you are exposing your troops, right? You can risk killing his titan, but now you can't take objectives because all your troops will be dead. And this is assuming your opponent doesn't put in skyfire and interceptor units to address what is a titan's weakness.
Currently there is only 1 gargant with any destroyer weapons - the Transcendent C'tan. The problem is, he is actually quite slow with an 18" movement and also quite short-ranged with only a 16" template. Yeah, he may kill a couple of things that the opponent leaves out in front, but most experienced titan players will leave their titans in the back due to their superior range. Honestly, I feel bad. I actually own almost all the gargants out there (tyranids, chaos, c'tan) and I know they have no chance in Apoc now, not when we have a Warlord, several reavers and several warhounds and shadowswords in our Apoc gaming group.
In the age of Escalation, the Revenant is king. The only titan that stands a chance is the Harridan but even he can be grounded by conventional means nowadays (he couldn't before). In tournament play assuming they allow Escalation units, the Revenant is going to dominate all but necron flyer-spam and daemon FMC-spam. Any gargants you take is going to be rendered obsolete when going up against these types of Escalation armies. Yeah, they'll do great against any other army, even Escalation armies sans Destroyer weaponry, but they just can't hold a candle to the big D. You're just going to have to try to win it with the rest of the army and write off your gargant in the face of multiple destroyer shots.
I'd think that the thunderhawk is the king of escalation. Being immune to most Ds by value of flight, a transport capacity and packing a D gives it a greater degree of versatility and resiliency.
DarthDiggler wrote: The threat of its presence is all it takes to shift the meta away from no interactive deathstars. That's what the community wants.
I would much rather play against a well painted titan and lose in 30 minutes, than have to spend 2+ hours watching my opponent play a game of solitaire. I cannot comprehend why ANYONE who says a 2++ rerollable army is easy to beat, or defeatable "if you just play well," is scared of a Titan. It is exactly the same - you need to play perfectly, your opponent probably needs to make a mistake or two, and/or the dice need to be in your favor. That is how you regularly win against either council, and that is how you will regularly beat a Titan.
To me? As a "middle of the pack"-er at best, I would infinitely prefer to pick-up my models (and get to go watch a buddy play) than sit there futily pushing models around a table. I know if I am going to have a chance by T2 in both cases, one just gets me where I am going faster than the other.
Voting with my wallet and skipping tournaments is getting boring, I am all for Lords of War being legal.
In the age of Escalation, the Revenant is king. The only titan that stands a chance is the Harridan but even he can be grounded by conventional means nowadays (he couldn't before). In tournament play assuming they allow Escalation units, the Revenant is going to dominate all but necron flyer-spam and daemon FMC-spam. Any gargants you take is going to be rendered obsolete when going up against these types of Escalation armies. Yeah, they'll do great against any other army, even Escalation armies sans Destroyer weaponry, but they just can't hold a candle to the big D. You're just going to have to try to win it with the rest of the army and write off your gargant in the face of multiple destroyer shots.
I'd think that the thunderhawk is the king of escalation. Being immune to most Ds by value of flight, a transport capacity and packing a D gives it a greater degree of versatility and resiliency.
However, it is limited by restrictions of flyer movement and it can't fire its D-cannon at other flyers. Moreover, it's got Rear AV10 only! You can deal with it as you do other flyers. IMO, it is nowhere near as bad as a Revenant.
Valek wrote: With Necrons i could see following become popular,
Big C'tan or Pylon, or the sphere, if 3*6 s7 Tesla would be good
enough to screw a titan over 3 times and still have a shot against a lot of armies...
to much points with the superheavy but you get the idea...
Be'lakor is pretty much going to be an auto-include for chaos players/allies in games of Escalation. For the necron HQ, I actually wouldn't go with Anrakyr. With BS4, his Mind in the Machines isn't actually very reliable and then next turn, he is dead. Rather, I'd include Trazyn because he's scoring. Leave him in the flyer to score and the end and this way, you also preserve your Warlord. Also, with Trazyn, I can play my storm-teks more aggressively and as sacrificial units against other titans.
It kinda sucks, but you can't run a Pylon in Escalation. Don't know what's the deal with that, but if your opponent doesn't mind, then go for it. I really like the pylon because you can also deepstrike the sucker and get the alpha-strike with it if you're going 2nd.
But yeah, that's a template for a nasty necron Escalation army.
Hey Reecius and crew, so most of the discussion seems to revolve around strength D weapons, not the super heavies themselves. However, not all superheavies have strength D. So what do you think about just banning strength D, rather than all super heavies? Would that make things "fair" or does the advantage still lie with the super heavy army at that point?
Perhaps even a rule that dictates any strength D is now strength 10 ap 2 ignores cover?
Mythantor wrote: It seems to me that the problem is the Revenant with its superior mobility and firepower compared to the other Titans is the problem rather than the Titans and D weapons themselves.
I don't think people would have a problem with D weapons if you could only get one shot or maybe a 2 shot single weapon on a slow moving unit.
Its just the speed that allows it to easily gain LoS and prevent it getting bogged down in assault combined with 4 D str weapons.
The Revenant is the boss. He is the king of Escalation currently until they expand it to include more super-heavies.
Red Corsair wrote: OK the arguments being put forth that the rest of the titans army will destroy you are ludicrous. At 900 points you are not going to be bubble wrapping, capturing objectives, downing void shields etc. etc.
If void shields ony cost that of a land speeder then gimme a break. That Phantom was just invalidated. I am with diggler here, letting Vect or imotek seize on a 3+ or any imperial army getting corteaz is really going to deter these things.
If you reserve it, that's 900 points in reserve! Sorry that never wins you games. OK hardly ever. Now your apparently 850 of bubble wrap/shield breakers needs to survive 2 turns unsupported?
At this point in time the game has almost no balance left. Heck I am remaking my beloved DE finally, replacing my 1998 models That book has almost no internal balance. It's a Kelly book, obviously a scourge with a shard carbine should pay the dame as a warrior to get a SC right? That's at a single book level, add the fact that the new books are even WORSE internally and externally and the fact that the allies matrix was never fair and the best armies have access to all the other top armies and yea.... There goes the game.
I say let it all in because there is no way to justify banning escalation or D weapons and not banning other similarly abusive combos. I for one would love a crack at a Revenant, I know exactly what and how to kill it now and I no even my awful pure DE can bring her down in a turn. That's a lot of wraith bone for the cause
Luckily for you, your DE can take a revenant as well. And with the low-cost of a DE army, they can actually make for a very good Escalation army. As a matter of fact, I'd say MSUDE can be downright scary in Escalation.
Sarigar wrote: The best thing I think TO's and players alike need to do is get some games under their belts with these rules and see how it plays out. Between Escalation and Stronghold Assault, there is a lot to digest. The Revenant Titan was just the obvious one based on its shooting.
And another posted did state one thing I also think will happen. You will see a Lord of War piece in a regular codex and then what will the community do?
Those books are a part of the game and just autobanning (tourneys and pick up games) based off of speculation rather than actually playing the game out is a bit disappointing to say the least.
By the time that happens - if it happens - then it probably won't matter anymore. It'll already be 7th Ed. 40K already. It'll be a whole new ballgame then.
As for tournament banning, if you don't like it, then just don't go. Simple as that. If you really want to bring Escalation into tournament play, then lobby your TO for it. Tournaments probably will eventually allow Escalation, but it'll take time IMO.
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ultimentra wrote: Hey Reecius and crew, so most of the discussion seems to revolve around strength D weapons, not the super heavies themselves. However, not all superheavies have strength D. So what do you think about just banning strength D, rather than all super heavies? Would that make things "fair" or does the advantage still lie with the super heavy army at that point?
Perhaps even a rule that dictates any strength D is now strength 10 ap 2 ignores cover?
They're testing out the non-D superheavies. I believe you will see another batrep out shortly. Personally, I'd have no problem with non-D superheavies in tournament play.
I'm comparing apples (titans) to apples (titans) here. If you want to compare apples to oranges (regular units), then of course titans will have the advantage. They are designed to be tough to kill by conventional means. They used to be designed to withstand even punishment from super weapons - the Destroyer weapons - but the times have changed. Destroyer weapons in 6E Apoc has far exceeded the power level of those in 5E. Right now, most Gargants can only take at most 2 D-hits on average and then they are dead. Yes, the Transcendent C'tan is very good. However, no gargants nowadays can compete with the power of the D. In the age of Escalation, the Revenant is king. The only titan that stands a chance is the Harridan but even he can be grounded by conventional means nowadays (he couldn't before). In tournament play assuming they allow Escalation units, the Revenant is going to dominate all but necron flyer-spam and daemon FMC-spam. Any gargants you take is going to be rendered obsolete when going up against these types of Escalation armies. Yeah, they'll do great against any other army, even Escalation armies sans Destroyer weaponry, but they just can't hold a candle to the big D. You're just going to have to try to win it with the rest of the army and write off your gargant in the face of multiple destroyer shots.
... did you actually read what I wrote? Str D writes anything off. In a battle between two Revenants, the one which wins is the one with first turn. So what? What are you even trying to say? Str D is broken? I already said that. What you apparently missed is that the C'tan is good against everything. Revenants are not. Many armies, given first turn, can easily wipe a Revenant off the board at range. Tau can. Eldar can. Necrons can. Absolutely nothing BUT a Revenant has the guarantee to do that to the C'tan. Please stop repeatedly saying that gargantuans will be obsolete in the face of titans/mass str D when I know from experience that they are in absolutely no way rendered obsolete. What tend to actually happen is they get into chain combats so they can't even be hit or in the case of the C'tan, it hides so you can't even shoot it. You are just plain wrong here because, again, everything is wiped by mass Str D, but GCs are not wiped by conventional means whereas SHs easily can be. Once again, SHs are no more durable against str D proportionally points wise - up to 600 points, most GCs/SHs take 2, 600-1200 takes 3 and 1200+ takes 4+. I really don't know what else I can say - you've basically just told me that when you look at two units, the more durable one is less durable. How am I meant to react?
Mass haywire from necrons? You do realize that you are exposing your troops, right? You can risk killing his titan, but now you can't take objectives because all your troops will be dead. And this is assuming your opponent doesn't put in skyfire and interceptor units to address what is a titan's weakness.
Skyfire/interceptor in enough quantities to deal with 3/4 flyers, plus bubble wrap for the titan, plus have decent scoring in an Eldar main army? So what, min Eldar + IG platoon with sabres? Besides, who cares if I expose 2 troop units to kill a 900 point unit when doing so nets me 3 VPs and total board control? Seems like a decent option to me.
Currently there is only 1 gargant with any destroyer weapons - the Transcendent C'tan. The problem is, he is actually quite slow with an 18" movement and also quite short-ranged with only a 16" template. Yeah, he may kill a couple of things that the opponent leaves out in front, but most experienced titan players will leave their titans in the back due to their superior range. Honestly, I feel bad. I actually own almost all the gargants out there (tyranids, chaos, c'tan) and I know they have no chance in Apoc now, not when we have a Warlord, several reavers and several warhounds and shadowswords in our Apoc gaming group.
You don't seem to have actually played new Apoc then. Any decent player of that would tell you that by turn 2, you can absolutely guarantee not only that the C'tan will be alive but it'll be in the enemies deployment (unless that's over 72" away). It's not even hard, you just use shield generators, blind barrages + translocational flight, no scatter monolith drops... there's tons of ways. You're talking to someone who plays in an area where one of the guys is trying to get the largest Titan collection in the world and has 9 warhounds, 4 reavers (one for each chaos god), 2 warlords and a WIP Emperor, as well as an Eldar player with 2 Revenants and a Phantom and a Tau player with a Manta and 2 Tigershark AX-1-0's. I know how deadly Str D is. I know how good Titans are and how to use them. I am telling you that the C'tan is at least on par with the weaker ones of these. You can feel bad all you want, but you're just wrong here. GCs are if anything better than SHs in current apoc, as although they die to Str D, you can easily stop Titans before they fire with some of the new formations/assets, plus they can repeatedly come back for 1 VP which bigger Titans cannot. Now, this isn't true in Escalation but really, a Revenant is a one trick pony. It shoots, it kills. That's great - when it goes first. If it doesn't, you can lose 900 points before it does anything.
Again, you can lose 900 points before it does ANYTHING to normal shooting. Tau can do it easily.
With a C'tan, this is ONLY true against other SHs/GCs which have Str D. That means if you hide it for the first 2/3 turns and kill the Titan (not too hard for Necrons who tailor for it and they have no reason not to) you gain a massive advantage. Hell, here's the really great thing - a C'tan with Seismic Assault and 3 Annihilation Barges next to it (aka every Necron Escalation army which will ever be made) has over a 75% chance to kill a Revenant in one turn. So, tell me, which is the best option to take to a tournament - the unit which you can hide and save easily or the Titan which requires first turn, not facing a flyer army and never getting unlucky?
Great batrep guys (is that one of those new battle-mats I see), thanks for sharing. As a TO for my local shop tournament, I like to see a lot of these things before I need to take action. Seeing as how facepalm-y the Revenant is w/ four S: D blasts, then, for right now, I am going to put the brakes on D weapons and only allow Super-heavies/gargantuans w/o D weapons. I want to see how things shake out through casual play, and then maybe make some rules changes for the tournament if need be.
Can't wait to see batreps with non-D super-heavies.
I'm comparing apples (titans) to apples (titans) here. If you want to compare apples to oranges (regular units), then of course titans will have the advantage. They are designed to be tough to kill by conventional means. They used to be designed to withstand even punishment from super weapons - the Destroyer weapons - but the times have changed. Destroyer weapons in 6E Apoc has far exceeded the power level of those in 5E. Right now, most Gargants can only take at most 2 D-hits on average and then they are dead. Yes, the Transcendent C'tan is very good. However, no gargants nowadays can compete with the power of the D. In the age of Escalation, the Revenant is king. The only titan that stands a chance is the Harridan but even he can be grounded by conventional means nowadays (he couldn't before). In tournament play assuming they allow Escalation units, the Revenant is going to dominate all but necron flyer-spam and daemon FMC-spam. Any gargants you take is going to be rendered obsolete when going up against these types of Escalation armies. Yeah, they'll do great against any other army, even Escalation armies sans Destroyer weaponry, but they just can't hold a candle to the big D. You're just going to have to try to win it with the rest of the army and write off your gargant in the face of multiple destroyer shots.
... did you actually read what I wrote? Str D writes anything off. In a battle between two Revenants, the one which wins is the one with first turn. So what? What are you even trying to say? Str D is broken? I already said that. What you apparently missed is that the C'tan is good against everything. Revenants are not. Many armies, given first turn, can easily wipe a Revenant off the board at range. Tau can. Eldar can. Necrons can. Absolutely nothing BUT a Revenant has the guarantee to do that to the C'tan. Please stop repeatedly saying that gargantuans will be obsolete in the face of titans/mass str D when I know from experience that they are in absolutely no way rendered obsolete. What tend to actually happen is they get into chain combats so they can't even be hit or in the case of the C'tan, it hides so you can't even shoot it. You are just plain wrong here because, again, everything is wiped by mass Str D, but GCs are not wiped by conventional means whereas SHs easily can be. Once again, SHs are no more durable against str D proportionally points wise - up to 600 points, most GCs/SHs take 2, 600-1200 takes 3 and 1200+ takes 4+. I really don't know what else I can say - you've basically just told me that when you look at two units, the more durable one is less durable. How am I meant to react?
Mass haywire from necrons? You do realize that you are exposing your troops, right? You can risk killing his titan, but now you can't take objectives because all your troops will be dead. And this is assuming your opponent doesn't put in skyfire and interceptor units to address what is a titan's weakness.
Skyfire/interceptor in enough quantities to deal with 3/4 flyers, plus bubble wrap for the titan, plus have decent scoring in an Eldar main army? So what, min Eldar + IG platoon with sabres? Besides, who cares if I expose 2 troop units to kill a 900 point unit when doing so nets me 3 VPs and total board control? Seems like a decent option to me.
Currently there is only 1 gargant with any destroyer weapons - the Transcendent C'tan. The problem is, he is actually quite slow with an 18" movement and also quite short-ranged with only a 16" template. Yeah, he may kill a couple of things that the opponent leaves out in front, but most experienced titan players will leave their titans in the back due to their superior range. Honestly, I feel bad. I actually own almost all the gargants out there (tyranids, chaos, c'tan) and I know they have no chance in Apoc now, not when we have a Warlord, several reavers and several warhounds and shadowswords in our Apoc gaming group.
You don't seem to have actually played new Apoc then. Any decent player of that would tell you that by turn 2, you can absolutely guarantee not only that the C'tan will be alive but it'll be in the enemies deployment (unless that's over 72" away). It's not even hard, you just use shield generators, blind barrages + translocational flight, no scatter monolith drops... there's tons of ways. You're talking to someone who plays in an area where one of the guys is trying to get the largest Titan collection in the world and has 9 warhounds, 4 reavers (one for each chaos god), 2 warlords and a WIP Emperor, as well as an Eldar player with 2 Revenants and a Phantom and a Tau player with a Manta and 2 Tigershark AX-1-0's. I know how deadly Str D is. I know how good Titans are and how to use them. I am telling you that the C'tan is at least on par with the weaker ones of these. You can feel bad all you want, but you're just wrong here. GCs are if anything better than SHs in current apoc, as although they die to Str D, you can easily stop Titans before they fire with some of the new formations/assets, plus they can repeatedly come back for 1 VP which bigger Titans cannot. Now, this isn't true in Escalation but really, a Revenant is a one trick pony. It shoots, it kills. That's great - when it goes first. If it doesn't, you can lose 900 points before it does anything.
Again, you can lose 900 points before it does ANYTHING to normal shooting. Tau can do it easily.
With a C'tan, this is ONLY true against other SHs/GCs which have Str D. That means if you hide it for the first 2/3 turns and kill the Titan (not too hard for Necrons who tailor for it and they have no reason not to) you gain a massive advantage. Hell, here's the really great thing - a C'tan with Seismic Assault and 3 Annihilation Barges next to it (aka every Necron Escalation army which will ever be made) has over a 75% chance to kill a Revenant in one turn. So, tell me, which is the best option to take to a tournament - the unit which you can hide and save easily or the Titan which requires first turn, not facing a flyer army and never getting unlucky?
I think that we can just agree to disagree on this issue.
My background is large Apocalypse games where my opponents tend to bring lots of D-weapons. Back then, it was hard enough keeping my Gargants alive and that was when D-weapons only did 1W to gargants. Fast forward to current day Apoc where a shadowsword can potentially take out an entire 1000-pt hierophant bio-titan with 1 shot and you're going to have to forgive my doom-&-gloom prediction for gargants in modern day Apoc. And you're right, I haven't played the new Apoc yet.
Now we scale down to Escalation and the gargants become much, much more viable than they are in Apoc. Honestly, I am ecstatic about that. I really am. However, in tournament play that allows Escalation, you're going to be seeing a lot of the Revenants (damn eldar, as if they needed more help), especially from the more competitive players. You really think they are both just as durable, especially when 1 side has the advantage of Strength D firepower on their side? Yeah, the Revenant maybe slightly easier to kill by conventional shooting, but the firepower of the eldar army with the Revenant is probably 10x better than the firepower of a necron or tyranid army with a gargantuan. Necron firepower doesn't really begin until Turn 2 when their flyers come in. I don't just compare unit to unit directly. I look at the firepower of the entire army on the whole. And yeah, stating that gargants are obsolete may be somewhat of an over-statement, but I just don't see them doing all that much against an eldar army with a Revenant in it. That doesn't mean necrons can't win against Eldar in Escalation. They still can and if they go 2nd, they actually have a decent chance. However, the key against the space elves lies with their flyers, not with their gargantuan.
I'll try to set up a game between my necrons w/C'tan against eldar w/Revenant to show the people what I am talking about.
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Ironwill13791 wrote: Great batrep guys (is that one of those new battle-mats I see), thanks for sharing. As a TO for my local shop tournament, I like to see a lot of these things before I need to take action. Seeing as how facepalm-y the Revenant is w/ four S: D blasts, then, for right now, I am going to put the brakes on D weapons and only allow Super-heavies/gargantuans w/o D weapons. I want to see how things shake out through casual play, and then maybe make some rules changes for the tournament if need be.
Can't wait to see batreps with non-D super-heavies.
Frontline is going to come out with an Ork+stompa vs IG+baneblade videorep very soon (most likely on Monday). Look out for it.
I'll try to set up a game between my necrons w/C'tan against eldar w/Revenant to show the people what I am talking about.
My group played a Carnage type game last week using all superheavies and gargantuan creatures. The Transcendant C'tan with his 6D6 Str 8 weapon blew the Revenant apart twice (we allowed one respawn per model) and pretty much dominated the game. They are small enough to take advantage of LOS blocking terrain and so can avoid being shot at, and then pop out and blast things with that weapon. Truly nasty.
"You're talking to someone who plays in an area where one of the guys is trying to get the largest Titan collection in the world and has 9 warhounds, 4 reavers (one for each chaos god), 2 warlords and a WIP Emperor, as well as an Eldar player with 2 Revenants and a Phantom and a Tau player with a Manta and 2 Tigershark AX-1-0's."
Sounds like there might be just a bit of a bias. Its great you've got a group that loves the really big stuff but really I don't think that's the norm.
Sounds like there might be just a bit of a bias. Its great you've got a group that loves the really big stuff but really I don't think that's the norm.
Oh but when people find out that seer council/ screamer star/ and draigo wing are no longer viable you might just start to see a shift. I play draigo wing but even I know others don't enjoy it that much. People might be slow to acquire these $400.00 toys but when they do, I hardly feel it's anyone's business to tell them they can't use them.
I'll try to set up a game between my necrons w/C'tan against eldar w/Revenant to show the people what I am talking about.
My group played a Carnage type game last week using all superheavies and gargantuan creatures. The Transcendant C'tan with his 6D6 Str 8 weapon blew the Revenant apart twice (we allowed one respawn per model) and pretty much dominated the game. They are small enough to take advantage of LOS blocking terrain and so can avoid being shot at, and then pop out and blast things with that weapon. Truly nasty.
Wow, amazing. Necron must've rolled really great.
Let's see what the averages say, assuming the Revenant moves for the 4+ Holo-field saves.
6d6 shots, 21 shots on average, 14 hits (assuming BS4) vs AV12 = 2.33 glances + 4.67 pens. Holo-fields save 1/2 so 1 glance + 2.33 pens. That's 3 HP's plus whatever is rolled on the damage charts.
It is possible to kill a Revenant with the C'tan's shooting, but you've got to have some luck and roll 6's on the damage charts to kill it in 1 turn of shooting. In other words, the C'tan would have to roll very well to do so.
Interesting. I just may try out the 6D6 shots as opposed to the Wave of Withering though IMO, the WoW is the best armament for the C'tan.
Sounds like there might be just a bit of a bias. Its great you've got a group that loves the really big stuff but really I don't think that's the norm.
Oh but when people find out that seer council/ screamer star/ and draigo wing are no longer viable you might just start to see a shift. I play draigo wing but even I know others don't enjoy it that much. People might be slow to acquire these $400.00 toys but when they do, I hardly feel it's anyone's business to tell them they can't use them.
They can still use it in Escalation-sanctioned tourneys. Also, keep in mind that tourneys will evolve with their players. Tourneys may not allow them initially, but I can see this changing as people start to grow their collection(s) of super-heavies and as more people get used to seeing/playing against them.
My prediction is that the earliest tournaments will probably not allow them. 6 months from now, you may start to see some of the smaller tourneys allow limited Super-heavies. Probably a year from now, perhaps the larger tournaments will start to allow them. It's going to be a slow process but I think it will happen eventually. But to rush it and allow it so early will be a mistake IMO.
This should be an expansion rather than supplement. And also it clearly says: apocalypse didnt sell much, buy super heavies.
Like someone else wisely said, keep your apocalypse out of my 40k please. BTW jy2 you rock man.
I'll try to set up a game between my necrons w/C'tan against eldar w/Revenant to show the people what I am talking about.
My group played a Carnage type game last week using all superheavies and gargantuan creatures. The Transcendant C'tan with his 6D6 Str 8 weapon blew the Revenant apart twice (we allowed one respawn per model) and pretty much dominated the game. They are small enough to take advantage of LOS blocking terrain and so can avoid being shot at, and then pop out and blast things with that weapon. Truly nasty.
Wow, amazing. Necron must've rolled really great.
Let's see what the averages say, assuming the Revenant moves for the 4+ Holo-field saves.
6d6 shots, 21 shots on average, 14 hits (assuming BS4) vs AV12 = 2.33 glances + 4.67 pens. Holo-fields save 1/2 so 1 glance + 2.33 pens. That's 3 HP's plus whatever is rolled on the damage charts.
It is possible to kill a Revenant with the C'tan's shooting, but you've got to have some luck and roll 6's on the damage charts to kill it in 1 turn of shooting. In other words, the C'tan would have to roll very well to do so.
Interesting. I just may try out the 6D6 shots as opposed to the Wave of Withering though IMO, the WoW is the best armament for the C'tan.
BS 6 makes a lot of difference... trancendants tend to have better stats than normals...
6d6 shots, 21 shots on average, 14 hits (assuming BS4) vs AV12 = 2.33 glances + 4.67 pens. Holo-fields save 1/2 so 1 glance + 2.33 pens. That's 3 HP's plus whatever is rolled on the damage charts.
Try BS 6. First time, the C'tan went first, and got to shoot the Revenant before it moved. Second time, Revenant had moved, but the C'tan got 27 shots out of 6D6. The BS 6 of the C'tan really makes a difference. And that was without re-rolling the misses due to having BS 6.
Ok ballistic skill aside yes the seismic assault is really good, and with an effective threat range of 66 inches with stride it can shoot the revenant wherever it is on a 6x4. So what happens when the revenant gets cover from a building (or a cheap bastion?, thats a 3+ cover) and still gets its holofield? Thats what i would do. The revenant is obviously too big to hide out of LOS on anything but the most wild terrain boards, but it's really easy to get it a 4+ from a two story ruin. And since its guns only need LOS and ignore all save mechanics it can just plunk down behind a tall building or that cheap bastion and fire away
Also on the note of the C'tan, take Zahndrekh and give the guy Tank Hunter! Makes Seismic even better vs the titan. With tank hunter he should average something like 2.25 glances and 4.5 pens after holofields. So at least 6 hull points plus whatever you roll on the damage.
Put your first D shot into the bastion and EXPLODE it I guess
Also, for people wanting to ban models with D weapons, just keep in mind that some titans (ie Stompa, Lord of Skulls) have a D CCW that they can't get rid of, while the Rev can just swap it's D out. Any balance homerule would have to alter the nature of the D weapon and not flat out ban models that have them.
Dakkamite wrote: Put your first D shot into the bastion and EXPLODE it I guess
Also, for people wanting to ban models with D weapons, just keep in mind that some titans (ie Stompa, Lord of Skulls) have a D CCW that they can't get rid of, while the Rev can just swap it's D out. Any balance homerule would have to alter the nature of the D weapon and not flat out ban models that have them.
+1, just make it S10 ap1 instakill, problem solved
Dakkamite wrote: Put your first D shot into the bastion and EXPLODE it I guess
Also, for people wanting to ban models with D weapons, just keep in mind that some titans (ie Stompa, Lord of Skulls) have a D CCW that they can't get rid of, while the Rev can just swap it's D out. Any balance homerule would have to alter the nature of the D weapon and not flat out ban models that have them.
I think it's the ranged D-weapons that are the problem. A Stompa has to get up close and personal in order to use his close combat weapon, and will take some shooting hits on the way in, possibley even destroying it before it gets into combat. So perhaps it should be "no D-weapon shooting attacks in regular games" as a way to "balance" things out some. I'm all for superheavies and gargantuan creatures in regular games, but some things, such as D-weapons, should stay in Apocalypse where the mechanics of the game are different from regular games (such as things being destroyed by D-weapons being able to return to the game by spending points). Or if not a "ban" on shooty D-weapons in regular games, then at least permit invulnerable saves to be taken. Either way, it still makes the superheavy or gargantuan creature a major threat to the enemy.
I haven't finished reading Escalation, but the only issue to me seems to be D pieplates. Maybe D shooting in general, but definitely the pie plates.
It's like AP2 or Ignores cover or S10 - regular shots of it are ok but with all the pieplates that get it now the game has become a crazy shooting gallery that makes termies, cover troops, or T5 W2+ squads next to worthless.
I'm pissed that they took out the wrecking ball. D strength 2" strip of destruction extending 2d6 in any direction. Range 60" pie plates were fine but not this? feth you GW
I'm gonna field the Stompa with or without D anyway - the potential of getting first turn against screamers or seer and dropping an S10 AP1 7" blast on them is too good to pass up. Doing that once would be worth all the effort of building one.
Maybe to keep tournaments balanced and an even chance for all who cannot afford/access SH/GCs ect then you revisit list submission for the time being unitl the dust settles and people can assess the impact. Nothing is perfect but just spitballing some ideas.
I'm not a TO or even experienced in with SH/GCs but the arguments for and against escalation seem sound. Maybe a soultion for tournament play could be something as simple as allowing escalation and SH/GC ect with the following caveat (or something similar):
1. Each player who brings a SH/GC in their army can brings 2 lists. The first is a GC/SH without D weapons and their primary list which they will use for all games.
2. The second list is their SH/GC with a D weapon (if they choose to take a D weapon) which they can only use if the are playing against an opponent who also has a SH/GC with a second list and a D weapon.
3. The second list (with D weapon) can only drop units or wargear out of their origional list to make room for the D weapon. No adding or changing other wargear, no adding/swapping/changing additional units or add on's anywhere else. Simply drop as many units or wargear items as you need to make room for the D weapon.
Example:
I am playing SM with a Thunderhawk. List 1 has no D on the Thunderhawk, list 2 has D on my Thunderhawk (in list 2 I had to drop a unit/wargear items of whatever to afford the D upgrade but otherwise my list remains unchanged).
a) If on round 1 I play against an army without a SH/GC then we play the game as normal and I use my first list that doesn't have any D.
b) If on round 1 I play against another SH/GC army that doesn't have a second list with any D then we play as normal and I use my first list that doesn't have any D.
c) If on round 1 I play against another SH/GC army that has a second list that includes D then we both play our lists with D in it.
That seems even and fair to me whilst also including the new rules until people get a chance to figure out the D!
I don't know how you deal with SH/GC's that have default D weapons that cannot be swapped.. Thoughts from more experienced TO/Apoc players?
I'm with allowing it. Full tilt. If GW puts out rules that reintroduce the alpha strike donkey stomp tournament lists, so be it. 2+ re roll saves will disappear and you'll see haywire, meltas, and reserve heavy lists appear to balance vs the super heavies. Add in void shield terrain and vortex missile silos (which are 1/4 the price of that revenant and about 60% it's point cost) and the meta simply shifts once more.
The (tournament) game will always be dominated by power hungry combo abusers - O'vesa star, seer star, screamerstar, super heavy, 5th ed paladins and nob bikers. Money is a straw man argument -- 4 riptides costs $340. Until now that seemed like a broken list.
Open the floodgates and let the super cutthroat players drown in dice. The rest of us will continue to have fun games where we discuss what is and isn't appropriate for a friendly game before we set our models on the table.
tetrisphreak wrote: I'm with allowing it. Full tilt. If GW puts out rules that reintroduce the alpha strike donkey stomp tournament lists, so be it. 2+ re roll saves will disappear and you'll see haywire, meltas, and reserve heavy lists appear to balance vs the super heavies. Add in void shield terrain and vortex missile silos (which are 1/4 the price of that revenant and about 60% it's point cost) and the meta simply shifts once more.
The (tournament) game will always be dominated by power hungry combo abusers
I won't post more on this topic because this is exactly what I wanted to say all long. I will only add that I expected this out of JY2's and Reece's mouth, as they are at the forefront of showcasing and using such power hungry combos so far in this edition (i used some of that cheese too) You could say that bodes poorly for the D plates, since the Kraft and Macaroni of Cheese condemn them, from making a tournament splash. I think however that you'll start to see ways to "handle" such abusive monstrosities. I use "handle" that way because that's in direct relation on how people view facing off again 40k 6.0 edition abusive units.
I will part with this. I remember 2nd ed. I remember just placing models down and picking them up without even rolling a die for them. Charactors and models that I personaly chose wargear for (pricey wargear at that) and watched them die without being used. It sucked. It sucked the second, third, forth, fifth, and sixth times it happened. However, I got the hint. I took it apon myself to see what resources I really had at my disposal and made the best I could with it. As stated, the meta shifted. Whereas I took a beating 3 weeks in a row, come week 4 I'd go on a hot streak where it was point/counterpoint forever and ever until we get to today. I'm not shocked that 20 years later people cry foul when picking up handfuls of models. Models who are the exact same ones from which countless GT's have been won with, but now are yesterdays news. I've been there. Now I'm wise enough to see that everything gets its time in the sun. This time it's D-Cannons. No different from Seercouncil, 'nidzilla, doomrider, or the lictors of old. A win is a win. Something will present itself that counters or something will be released even more broken.
Yeah, Reece is Macaroni and I am Krafty. Heh, heh....
Ok, enough doom and gloom about the state of 40K. I am actually excited for the new Escalation supplement, despite my demeanor in this thread. I love Apoc and I love competitive games. Escalation actually fulfills both for me.
I'm actually going to come out with a series of articles on Escalation tactics and army lists. Be on the lookout for them in the next few days.
jy2 wrote: Yeah, Reece is Macaroni and I am Krafty. Heh, heh....
Ok, enough doom and gloom about the state of 40K. I am actually excited for the new Escalation supplement, despite my demeanor in this thread. I love Apoc and I love competitive games. Escalation actually fulfills both for me.
I'm actually going to come out with a series of articles on Escalation tactics and army lists. Be on the lookout for them in the next few days.
Looking forward to that! After all, same things were told about flyers. And here we go again...
That is why apocalypse exists. That is the purpose of playing super heavy. I don't see the reason to follow what GW produces. The game will be ruined totally if the worldwide community embraces this hilarious GW failure.
avedominusnox wrote: That is why apocalypse exists. That is the purpose of playing super heavy. I don't see the reason to follow what GW produces. The game will be ruined totally if the worldwide community embraces this hilarious GW failure.
Mr Morden wrote: What polls where? Isn't that just the opinion of those who are aware of them and can be bothered to vote?
Also what question was being asked?
I am not sure either way about this yet myself.
Frontline Gaming has sent a poll to all of those who are registered to the Las Vegas Open on whether or not they want to allow Escalation/Stronghold Assault at the event (i'm guessing - he mentioned it in the Saturday Podcast).
While he is openly against it he's doing the poll to see if he's in the minority. Obviously a tournament should cater to its players (somewhat) so i agree with his method of polling.
That said I think an open poll should be created for the general masses to vote on their opinions over this subject, just as a social experiment.
Not being a tournament player I had not seen - but that's kinda the point its a opinion of a proportion of the people who play 40K who have a strong enough opinion to see it and vote.........nto really conclusive.
I have been saying that FW in tounies is unbalanced for the exact same reasons,
under 2k, or in a tourny, no FW of any kind, no incestuous allies, and we are good.
I dont think the bat rep is an accurate portrayal either though...
seing as how the guy with the eldar titan actually lost, and I am pretty sure it can only fire at one target a turn, not two as with other super heavies that are not walkers
Dozer Blades wrote: Anything is okay in a pickup game if both players consent. Tournaments is another subject.
Agreed. In pickup games, you can just say no, I don't want to play against a titan. In tournament play, you have no choice if they allow it. The problem is, there are still a lot of people who really don't know about Escalation and Stronghold. When you go to a tournament and you have to face the likes of those units unprepared, some people are going to be pissed. Not good for the game and definitely not good for the tournament unless they take the time to advertise their tournament as a no-holds-barred Escalation-allowed tournament (and even then, there will probably still be people feeling butthurt and pissed).
I think it is more the d weapons, being told to remove models because they are dead is harsh, espically to the un suspecting player. I always feel bad when I roll 11 on the warp storm table and replace their farseer/synpase creature/warlord etc with a herald. Also with the heralds and horrors shooting, ap4 with prescience and prefect timing is not nice against 4+ armour saves either, recently killed 20 guardians plus farseer and spiritseer in one volley, wasnt nice to tell my opponent they are all dead and he didnt like it either. So d weapons being so strong you will be telling your opponent to remove models with no possible saves not just on armour saves but invul and cover as well is not how I like to play this game.
Also I was wrong about the Titan, it can indeed shoot more then one target, I missed the wording on my first glance for super heavy walkers
Sargow wrote: Not sure if it is allowed but how is the sD weapon worded?
cause from what i have read the bastion seems to be a very good counter to it.
Buildings suffer a detonation result vs any d shot, so a bastion turns into stream if it even gets clipped by a d blast.
Sargow wrote: Not sure if it is allowed but how is the sD weapon worded?
cause from what i have read the bastion seems to be a very good counter to it.
Buildings suffer a detonation result vs any d shot, so a bastion turns into stream if it even gets clipped by a d blast.
Sargow wrote: Not sure if it is allowed but how is the sD weapon worded?
cause from what i have read the bastion seems to be a very good counter to it.
Buildings suffer a detonation result vs any d shot, so a bastion turns into stream if it even gets clipped by a d blast.
On a 2+ buildings suffer a detonate result.
yeah true, you can still roll a 1 and not have it turn to steam.
I think the problem people have with D weapons is their hero hammer deathstar units being countered so easily.
No one wants their epic group of heroes to be D-stroyed in one shot. Of course its not automatic like everyone is saying here.
models hit suffer an effect on a 2+
one of those effects results is d3+1 wounds. so there is actually a decent chance a D weapon will not kill any model with 3+ wounds in 1 hit. Its not automatic removal of the models.
16% chance if you are hit of nothing happening,
66% chance of d3+1 wounds
16% chance of worse.
So if your uber deathstar unit did get splatted by a D weapon there is a 38% chance any models with 3+ wounds will live, a ~60% chance any models with 4+ wounds live, and a ~85% chance any models with 5+ wounds live.
Sargow wrote: Not sure if it is allowed but how is the sD weapon worded?
cause from what i have read the bastion seems to be a very good counter to it.
Buildings suffer a detonation result vs any d shot, so a bastion turns into stream if it even gets clipped by a d blast.
On a 2+ buildings suffer a detonate result.
yeah true, you can still roll a 1 and not have it turn to steam.
Good luck with that!
Automatically Appended Next Post:
blaktoof wrote: I think the problem people have with D weapons is their hero hammer deathstar units being countered so easily.
No one wants their epic group of heroes to be D-stroyed in one shot. Of course its not automatic like everyone is saying here.
models hit suffer an effect on a 2+
one of those effects results is d3+1 wounds. so there is actually a decent chance a D weapon will not kill any model with 3+ wounds in 1 hit. Its not automatic removal of the models.
16% chance if you are hit of nothing happening,
66% chance of d3+1 wounds
16% chance of worse.
So if your uber deathstar unit did get splatted by a D weapon there is a 38% chance any models with 3+ wounds will live, a ~60% chance any models with 4+ wounds live, and a ~85% chance any models with 5+ wounds live.
Good bye old DeathStar... Say hello to the new and improved DeathStar!
Exactly, if you think deathstars are OP and too much for your army will till the super heavy lists come out, I have thought of one that is pretty horrible, looking forward to trying it out really but not something I want to play with or against in a tourny.
I think SH;s will make cookie cutter lists worse as well, so good luck with thinking SH's are a good counter to deathstars, its just replacing one problem with another....
While obviously it's incredibly early to be making sweeping statements, I feel this might not actually end up being the end of the world.
I feel that there exists a good possibility that adding a unit that hard counters the crazy over the top 2++ units who itself is vulnerable to any kind of quick massed melta unit might actually balance things out.
I don't think we'll see everyone switch to a Revenant based tournament list, but enough of them along with the (most likely) more common single D weapon SH would seriously encourage people away from the 2++ super units.
Sargow wrote: Not sure if it is allowed but how is the sD weapon worded?
cause from what i have read the bastion seems to be a very good counter to it.
Buildings suffer a detonation result vs any d shot, so a bastion turns into stream if it even gets clipped by a d blast.
One thing to note is that you cannot shoot at a bastion if it is not occupied. Thus, against titans with D-guns, it's better just to hide behind it than in it.
Yes, it is a poll to paid registered attendees. There is a public poll also in the tournament discussion thread that I started that is giving feedback, but I goofed the first question (it should not have been in there as it throws off the rest of the data) but it still provides useful information.
And yeah, I state how I feel about stuff but at the end of the day, we give our players what they want. So, I may eat crow and allow things my instincts tell me now to.
@Thread
Don't forget everyone, that void shields go both ways and are hardly a solution, in my mind. And while yes, the Deathstars get the D hard, so do everyone else! I honestly feel it isn't the smart play to use D Weapons in anything but Gladiator style events, narrative events and scenario play.
Sargow wrote: Not sure if it is allowed but how is the sD weapon worded?
cause from what i have read the bastion seems to be a very good counter to it.
Buildings suffer a detonation result vs any d shot, so a bastion turns into stream if it even gets clipped by a d blast.
One thing to note is that you cannot shoot at a bastion if it is not occupied. Thus, against titans with D-guns, it's better just to hide behind it than in it.
That would be a really crappy way to have to play.
blaktoof wrote: I think the problem people have with D weapons is their hero hammer deathstar units being countered so easily.
No one wants their epic group of heroes to be D-stroyed in one shot. Of course its not automatic like everyone is saying here.
models hit suffer an effect on a 2+
one of those effects results is d3+1 wounds. so there is actually a decent chance a D weapon will not kill any model with 3+ wounds in 1 hit. Its not automatic removal of the models.
16% chance if you are hit of nothing happening,
66% chance of d3+1 wounds
16% chance of worse.
So if your uber deathstar unit did get splatted by a D weapon there is a 38% chance any models with 3+ wounds will live, a ~60% chance any models with 4+ wounds live, and a ~85% chance any models with 5+ wounds live.
I'm glad you broke it down, it's really so easy then. I just need to bring my deathstar of models with 5+ wounds.
their alterations list didn't look too bad but Deldar still has a 2++ reroll while daemons would lose theirs. that's hardly going to go unnoticed. aside from that (and my personal opinion that anything with 40k approved should be tournamen legal) i would be all for a council of peers (all noteworthy TOs) coming up with a tournament standard errata/ban list. I wouldn't be surprised however if GW didn't find a way to get involved with this however. (as they stand to lose out on alot of sales from banned/restricted models).
tetrisphreak wrote: Dropping all battle brothers to allies of convienience and banning the grimoire would take care of 95% of current issues.
so, for that last 5%, ban D-weopons and roll some dice? looks like from the poles in the tournament forum and numberous "haters" hating on them that they won't be willing to accept any changes w/out D-weopons being on the list of things nerfed/removed.
I am not a daemons player but I have to say that the grimoire is really what keeps them in the top tier. In the end the grimoire relies on a lot of rolls and the warp storm table plus failing the roll can easily make that unit very vulnerable for a turn, not to mention turn 1 they are mincemeat against alpha striking wave serpents. 300+ point characters with a 4++ or worse spells disaster.
Plus, if GW notices this and it really affects their sales hopefully it will make them clean up their act.
tetrisphreak wrote: Dropping all battle brothers to allies of convienience and banning the grimoire would take care of 95% of current issues.
You waited for the Escalation to be released in order to remember you Daemon problems?
When Draigowing was at its top did we said in 5th to ban it? I don't get you people? Is it super heavies and D weapons that bother you? Or the whole "other than my armies" codexes that you think broken? I don't see anyone here speaking of necrons?? French bakery?? Mr lighting guy?? 4 riptides and broadsides?? Seercouncil?? I guess that 4 heldrakes or 12 oblits are not a problem either.
Oh and alliance matrix needs a fix but not the kind you mention. eldar + DE + inquisition?? Seriously??
What's with all the Screamerstar hate? It's a total garbage build that is easily tarpitted or slowed down by feeding it garbage. Has it won anything bigger than Duelcon where there were like 30 people? I'll admit I don't track every single tournament out there, but I'm pretty sure it hasn't won anything major. Now we have Feast of Blades outright banning the Grimoire because of one crappy build.
The bikeseer council with the Baron has hit and run, a rerollable 2+, no major weaknesses and is better by leaps and bounds. Yet nobody proposes measures to curb this. This is what happened at Da Boyz. They put comp in to stop a lot of builds, including Screamerstar, but did nothing about Bikeseer, so Barjamovich and Kopach finish 1-2 in battle points running the Bikeseer army.
I don't care if you want to ban Screamerstar. It's overrated, but let's cover all our bases here. It's not Daemons at the top of the hill. Last I checked TOF, Eldar were ruling the roost.
@avedominusnox
Interesting you should rant like that because most of the things you listed would be taken care of with his all allies are allies of convenience "fix".
Not that I particularly think that is necessary. I also am curious why french bakery and 12 oblits made that list? Yet serpent spam did not.
I was just commenting in feast of blades' approach. Calm down. Many combo builds have been broken in the past but it seems overwhelming lately for some reason.
As for me personally? If someone has the actual model and it's wysiwyg I'll allow it in my tournaments. I'm all for the "when everyone's super, nobody is" approach.
tetrisphreak wrote: I was just commenting in feast of blades' approach. Calm down. Many combo builds have been broken in the past but it seems overwhelming lately for some reason.
As for me personally? If someone has the actual model and it's wysiwyg I'll allow it in my tournaments. I'm all for the "when everyone's super, nobody is" approach.
I am sorry for that. Its clearly overwhelming as you state. I went over to the LGS and I was shocked to see two kids playing, one 13 and 15 years old. Tau vs eldar. The tau kiddo had triptide and 9 broadsides. The eldar was going for 2 wraithknights, 3 flyers and some bikes and a couple of serpents. This is the new meta. The edition bolstered new codexes and vise versa. And now we have D. We all want to use effective ways in our games that will help us win. This is a game and I don't think that anyone who plays it doesn't want to win.
It seems to me that what the inclusion of escalation has done, as added the equivalent of the metagame clock to 40k. I know lots of 40k players are pretty derisive of Magic, but I'm getting into 40k from there.
The way I see it, you've got your three primary archetypes of deck/list: Combo / deathstar, Control / D-Weapons, and Aggro / Deep striking anti-tank spam. The comparisons aren't perfect, but I think that they are close enough to actually consider.
Sargow wrote: Not sure if it is allowed but how is the sD weapon worded?
cause from what i have read the bastion seems to be a very good counter to it.
Buildings suffer a detonation result vs any d shot, so a bastion turns into stream if it even gets clipped by a d blast.
One thing to note is that you cannot shoot at a bastion if it is not occupied. Thus, against titans with D-guns, it's better just to hide behind it than in it.
Acutally, according to the new rules in stronghold you now can shoot the bastion, and furthermore on a 7 it is removed from the table...
Sargow wrote: Not sure if it is allowed but how is the sD weapon worded?
cause from what i have read the bastion seems to be a very good counter to it.
Buildings suffer a detonation result vs any d shot, so a bastion turns into stream if it even gets clipped by a d blast.
One thing to note is that you cannot shoot at a bastion if it is not occupied. Thus, against titans with D-guns, it's better just to hide behind it than in it.
Acutally, according to the new rules in stronghold you now can shoot the bastion, and furthermore on a 7 it is removed from the table...
Oh wow....I did not know that. Haven't had time to check out the new Stronghold supplement yet because I am currently working on a tactica (or rather, a series of tacticas) for Escalation.
blaktoof wrote: I think the problem people have with D weapons is their hero hammer deathstar units being countered so easily.
No one wants their epic group of heroes to be D-stroyed in one shot. Of course its not automatic like everyone is saying here.
models hit suffer an effect on a 2+
one of those effects results is d3+1 wounds. so there is actually a decent chance a D weapon will not kill any model with 3+ wounds in 1 hit. Its not automatic removal of the models.
16% chance if you are hit of nothing happening,
66% chance of d3+1 wounds
16% chance of worse.
So if your uber deathstar unit did get splatted by a D weapon there is a 38% chance any models with 3+ wounds will live, a ~60% chance any models with 4+ wounds live, and a ~85% chance any models with 5+ wounds live.
I'm glad you broke it down, it's really so easy then. I just need to bring my deathstar of models with 5+ wounds.
There are possible competitive builds that do not rely on a very expensive unit using allies that puts most of the power of your army and points into one unit.
Skimming through escalation all the D weapons are pretty much blast so they are not targeting flyers, and do not auto hit, they do not auto kill all units they touch, and your Warlord has a decent chance (more than 50%) of surviving a single direct D-stroyer hit.
Most models that can take D weapons are quite costly, and are not firing a large amount of D shots a turn, (1 or 2) given that they can scatter/miss/have little to no effect I honestly do not think D weapons are the end of 40k. I think they are an obvious counter to people that play certain builds that have a single expensive large deathstar. I do not think that is the only way to play 40k competitively, I think those builds are just ways to play 40k easily.
No, D-weapons are not the end of 40K. What they are, however, are the end of Elitist armies in 40K (with the exception of FMC-spam). That's one of the things I dislike most about introducing D-weaponry into normal 40K - they're going to discourage variety in army builds.
jy2 wrote: No, D-weapons are not the end of 40K. What they are, however, are the end of Elitist armies in 40K (with the exception of FMC-spam). That's one of the things I dislike most about introducing D-weaponry into normal 40K - they're going to discourage variety in army builds.
Same can already be said for Taudar though. I am not disagreeing just pointing that out. When 80% of the competitive field comes from 3-4 books, I say whats the difference? Well the difference is, you will see less varity by concept ie. less draigowing type builds, but you will also see more variety in armies in general IMO, DE, IG etc etc... Only time will tell though.
The daemons hate is very annoying. That post on 3++ has the grimoire as the only thing that is banned so far, yet the screamerstar is obviously not winning tournaments. Tau and Eldar DOMINATE tournaments, and there is no hate there.
I tested what each codex could do to each of the lords of war today at the world do battle. The revenant is tough only due to his possible 3++ invulnerable. After that he is weak sauce, tie him down with basic troops that cannot do anything to him and he is useless. The stompa is tough only due to having 12 hp. The one to worry about is actually The Lord of Skulls. All his CCW attacks are D. He has a 5++ daemon. If you plan for those, you will gain a minimum of 4 VP on top of the mission.
Spaz431 wrote: I tested what each codex could do to each of the lords of war today at the world do battle. The revenant is tough only due to his possible 3++ invulnerable. After that he is weak sauce, tie him down with basic troops that cannot do anything to him and he is useless. The stompa is tough only due to having 12 hp. The one to worry about is actually The Lord of Skulls. All his CCW attacks are D. He has a 5++ daemon. If you plan for those, you will gain a minimum of 4 VP on top of the mission.
It's not even a 3++ invul. It's just another roll to hit. Mass S7 should be useful against it.
jy2 wrote: No, D-weapons are not the end of 40K. What they are, however, are the end of Elitist armies in 40K (with the exception of FMC-spam). That's one of the things I dislike most about introducing D-weaponry into normal 40K - they're going to discourage variety in army builds.
Same can already be said for Taudar though. I am not disagreeing just pointing that out. When 80% of the competitive field comes from 3-4 books, I say whats the difference? Well the difference is, you will see less varity by concept ie. less draigowing type builds, but you will also see more variety in armies in general IMO, DE, IG etc etc... Only time will tell though.
D-weaponry are going to hit Taudar hard as well.
But Tau is good enough such that they can re-adjust. In games of Escalation, you are going to see more deepstriking fusion suits. It will also be the return of the Farsight-bomb as the dominant Tau deathstar. That is probably the main Elitist build that can actually thrive in Escalation.
JY2 and I played another Escalation game last night, even with Void Shields, other D weapons and flyers, the Rev still killed everything on the table! haha
IMHO, the best answer to lords of war is to do two things. Firstly, treat strength D as S10 AP1 Armourbane Fleshbane. This means SD is still very strong, but prevents it from getting one-hit-kills as easily and devaluing ignore cover weaponry. Infantry can rely on cover to shield them until SD is taken out but they will still take heavy casualties, and any unit caught out of cover is pretty much dead unless that have an invulnerable save, similarly to something less overwhelming like a Demolisher, just a little better to account for the higher cost. Personally I would also like to see optional D weapons banned so that titans have a reason to actually choose which weapons they want, but for the sake of simplicity this isn't required.
The second change I would implement is using the Horus Heresy lord of war system, minus Primarchs. Firstly, that would limit lords of war to no more than 25% of your force, cutting out the 1750pt Reaver titan builds. Secondly, it would give a few more options - you have the option to take 0-2 SHVs with 6 hull points or less or 0-1 SHV with 7+ hull points, or the option to take 0-2 8 wounds or less gargantuan creatures, or 0-1 9+ wounds gargantuan creature. It might seem ridiculous allowing multiples, but due to the points restriction the only thing you can take multiples of at 2k points is the Malcador, which is literally the most balanced super-heavy in the game and only really relevant for fluffy armies.
You can also just nerf strength D and impose the points limit, but this way you add a cool fluffy possibility and some legitemacy since it's not just arbitrary rules, they are drawn from an official GW publication. The sections on primarchs and imperial navy support even state heresy-era games only. My only worry with this system is that it's potentially a bit unfair to Tyrnaids, I'm not sure they have a GC cheap enough to be played at 2k unfortunately.
CthuluIsSpy wrote: Yep, the rev is over powered alright. It's not a new thing either - even in the old Apoc I remember Eldar Titans being ridiculous.
Then again, that could just be my prejudice towards Eldar in general talking.
For games of 2K and below, I agree that the Revenant is probably one of the best titans currently. But in Apoc, bigger is usually better.
thisisnotaseriousaccount wrote: IMHO, the best answer to lords of war is to do two things. Firstly, treat strength D as S10 AP1 Armourbane Fleshbane. This means SD is still very strong, but prevents it from getting one-hit-kills as easily and devaluing ignore cover weaponry. Infantry can rely on cover to shield them until SD is taken out but they will still take heavy casualties, and any unit caught out of cover is pretty much dead unless that have an invulnerable save, similarly to something less overwhelming like a Demolisher, just a little better to account for the higher cost. Personally I would also like to see optional D weapons banned so that titans have a reason to actually choose which weapons they want, but for the sake of simplicity this isn't required.
The second change I would implement is using the Horus Heresy lord of war system, minus Primarchs. Firstly, that would limit lords of war to no more than 25% of your force, cutting out the 1750pt Reaver titan builds. Secondly, it would give a few more options - you have the option to take 0-2 SHVs with 6 hull points or less or 0-1 SHV with 7+ hull points, or the option to take 0-2 8 wounds or less gargantuan creatures, or 0-1 9+ wounds gargantuan creature. It might seem ridiculous allowing multiples, but due to the points restriction the only thing you can take multiples of at 2k points is the Malcador, which is literally the most balanced super-heavy in the game and only really relevant for fluffy armies.
You can also just nerf strength D and impose the points limit, but this way you add a cool fluffy possibility and some legitemacy since it's not just arbitrary rules, they are drawn from an official GW publication. The sections on primarchs and imperial navy support even state heresy-era games only. My only worry with this system is that it's potentially a bit unfair to Tyrnaids, I'm not sure they have a GC cheap enough to be played at 2k unfortunately.
I'd also give it Ignore Cover and perhaps D3 Wounds to multi-wound units. In the original Apoc, they were Insta-Death. D3 wounds is so that it isn't too under-powered against MC's.
Kustom Stompa w/ 2x Burst Kannons and a Powerfield
Two 7" D blasts and a built in non-recharging void shield. Combine with 9 Mekboyz inside it for 9x 4+ repairs and its pretty scary.
Not as powerful as the Rev, but costs only 560 points w/o the repair crew
Nice combo. Going to have to take a look into that.
ansacs wrote: Actually with the orks able to do hordes so well they may have just become a major contender. I would have to see the pts cost of that build.
