Now that Tau are on the same level as other rated B and A factions, when will C and D rated factions get the same level of power as factions like Eldar, Tau, Necrons, Marines, etc. I'm curious, I want to start my 2nd army towards the start of next year. So far I'm leaning towards Tau,
anyone want to persuade me to field a different faction? I'm open to all opinions.
I really wished other armies such as Eldar, Necrons, and Marines get the Chaos Marine treatment. Most Brutal Nerf Bat I have ever seen. Make Scat Bikes 40ppm, Wraith Knigh 390pts, Necrons 20ppm. Cmon that bogus 5+++ fnp and the army wide gause has got to be 6pts. Just make everything cost more.
Mmmmm....... no. Sorry but necron warriors are not worth 20pts each, the gauss isn't as well as it seems, they only have a 4+ armor save and a 5+ reanimation which fails more than you think it would, they may be durable but they're not 20ppm durable.
plus, i'd rather see everyone get buffed rather than nerfed, i think it would make a better game.
Kharne the Befriender wrote: Mmmmm....... no. Sorry but necron warriors are not worth 20pts each, the gauss isn't as well as it seems, they only have a 4+ armor save and a 5+ reanimation which fails more than you think it would, they may be durable but they're not 20ppm durable.
plus, i'd rather see everyone get buffed rather than nerfed, i think it would make a better game.
See, that was sort of his point. Lower tier armies have units that are overcosted, so do the same thing to the top tier armies. You explaining why he's wrong is making the point he was trying to make.
The Tau will get the Tau treatment and sooner than you think given our new found popularity.
Warzone: Monte'ka I'm betting we'll see unique models/suits/options for FSE in the book.
With Farssight stuff in it as well as the inevitable defeat of one of the largest crusades the Imperium of Man has ever launched at anything let alone the "weak" Tau Empire.
It will be defeated because it was foretold by a Grey Knight/Farsight/Prophecy.
Edit
It remains to be seen who will win the Tau/Admech FW book though.
As soon as they finish giving every codex marine chapter a broken Decurion detachment.
Also if you think any currently weak faction is gonna be good with a decurion you're wrong.
Those armies are fundamentally underpowered. The decurion is just a blanket buff that doesn't fix any existing weak units (see storm guardians, vespids, etc) it just makes the strong ones stronger. GW isn't balancing to fix the weak units, and the decurion bonuses are "fluffy."
Think about GWs rules "fluff" for orks and CSM for a minute. Remember how often they win/get to have good rules.
Vector Strike wrote: Tyranids, IG and both Chaos books we'll get updated - if GW doesn't change style, they'll get at least powerful formations.
The others which came before Necrons... won't get anything till 8e, I'm afraid.
Chaos will get absolutely nothing...
The real reason being that our model line is too old and mostly stuck back in 3rd edition. It would take too much effort and too big a financial risk for GW to properly address just how utterly useless the bulk of our kits are.
The "real" reason though as we all know, is that Chaos players aren't allowed to have any nice toys, because it's more important that Imperial players keep walking all over us with 0 effort so that GW can keep selling 'oodles of Space Marines to Little Timmy!
Well, you could ask for an Age of Sigmar style rule set and then none of your models are bad if you and your opponent agree to fair games of your own design. Just saying. I'm down for that.
Filch wrote: I really wished other armies such as Eldar, Necrons, and Marines get the Chaos Marine treatment. Most Brutal Nerf Bat I have ever seen. Make Scat Bikes 40ppm, Wraith Knigh 390pts, Necrons 20ppm. Cmon that bogus 5+++ fnp and the army wide gause has got to be 6pts. Just make everything cost more.
Wouldn't Wraithknights need to be like 888 pts to have been nerfed as much as CSMs?
Chaos isn't allowed to have nice things. Not since we took over the galaxy back in 2003 during the Eye of Terror campaign and proved Chaos was superior to the smurf fanboys GW caters to. Chaos isn't allowed to win anymore. We reached for the sun and in doing so burned our wings.
As a lover of all things entropic, chaos are awesome since if you ever lose all you say is my Dex is so weak I could never have a hope of beating that army "soft win" or if you do win the game you can be like jeez didn't think this really weak list would have beaten your power gamer list "hard win".
One day, in the distant future, GW might remember that CSM is an army. And on that day, they will give us a half-assed release and three mediocre formations. They will talk about how they've switched to "focusing on game balance", before buffing Necrons again a fortnight later. And we, the CSM players, the battered, worn-down, discarded hive scum of the crumbling GW empire, will look up from amongst the filth and say to each other; "Hey guys, we've got one gimmicky build that kind of works..."
Kharne the Befriender wrote: Now that Tau are on the same level as other rated B and A factions, when will C and D rated factions get the same level of power as factions like Eldar, Tau, Necrons, Marines, etc. I'm curious, I want to start my 2nd army towards the start of next year. So far I'm leaning towards Tau,
anyone want to persuade me to field a different faction? I'm open to all opinions.
oldzoggy wrote: I promise to buy orks again when they are in too
True that. Naturally, my second army is Orks and I dislike SM as more than a modelling project. Because apparently good codexes are for other players...
Filch wrote: I really wished other armies such as Eldar, Necrons, and Marines get the Chaos Marine treatment. Most Brutal Nerf Bat I have ever seen. Make Scat Bikes 40ppm, Wraith Knigh 390pts, Necrons 20ppm. Cmon that bogus 5+++ fnp and the army wide gause has got to be 6pts. Just make everything cost more.
This.
I would have actually preferred that Necrons, Mehreens, Eldar and Tau had been brought down to a "middle class" state that actually made the whole bunch of codices somewhat balanced. Instead not only many of their units got buffed but also received free cost, all-profit overpowered formations to top it all.
The arms race keeps going and the codex creep follows suit. Mostly because the players want the shiny new toys and as long as their factions get the shiniest toys they're willing to throw as much money as necessary to GW's feet.
Then some proceed to complain about "pay to win" Forgeworld lol.
KnuckleWolf wrote: Well, you could ask for an Age of Sigmar style rule set and then none of your models are bad if you and your opponent agree to fair games of your own design. Just saying. I'm down for that.
No you couldn't because that would mean literally NO balance at all and no baseline to even work from, worse than even the darkest parts of 7E.
People really need to stop saying this...
KnuckleWolf wrote: Well, you could ask for an Age of Sigmar style rule set and then none of your models are bad if you and your opponent agree to fair games of your own design. Just saying. I'm down for that.
You don't need to play a game with no rules for both players to be civil and adjust the game to your own accord.
Filch wrote: I really wished other armies such as Eldar, Necrons, and Marines get the Chaos Marine treatment. Most Brutal Nerf Bat I have ever seen. Make Scat Bikes 40ppm, Wraith Knigh 390pts, Necrons 20ppm. Cmon that bogus 5+++ fnp and the army wide gause has got to be 6pts. Just make everything cost more.
Once again Filch, I find myself agreeing with you here. It would be nice if each codex was designed with some sort of balance in mind, but GW isn't interested in who wins games as long as it sells models. Yet, with every poll I see posted on dakka about what armies are played the most.. CSM is almost always second. If that's any indication of how big the whole playerbase is, a decent CSM release would increase profits for GW significantly. That being said, a crappy release is just gonna push more people away from the game and hurt profits even more. This may be the reason CSM has been getting shafted so hard by codex scheduling. (Cause Eldar and Tau really need to be updated TWICE before CSM.) Of course, this trail of thinking also assumes GW does market research, or is aware of anything besides the depth of their coin vault that they often go scrooge mcducking in.
Sad thing is, The only thing that would keep me playing is a decent CSM release. Most of my friends have quit the game, so any games I do find tend to be pick up games at the FLGS. Which tend to be pretty one sided. Even in friendly games, I only have a chance if I bring powerhouse staples. Anything fluffy may as well be an automatic loss unless its a scenario game, and people who agree to play scenario's are a dime a dozen. So, If the CSM release is disappointing (Which everyone is already assuming it will be, me included), I think i'm finally just dropping the game for good. In the end, you can always vote with your feet, and if I walk away, The game can't hurt me any more.
With regard to the 7th vs 7.5 books, I have mixed feelings.
On the one hand, the 7.5 books are hideously overpowered compared to the pre-Necron ones.
But, on the other, they also have much better internal balance and seem a lot more fluffy. Certainly an improvement on, say, the DE book - which I could have written myself by ripping several pages out of my 5th edition codex and then scribbling out anything remotely fluffy or interesting with a permanent marker.
I'd like all books to have the power level of the pre-Necron books,but with the internal balance and fluff of the 7.5 ones.
Chaos isn't allowed to have nice things. Not since we took over the galaxy back in 2003 during the Eye of Terror campaign and proved Chaos was superior to the smurf fanboys GW caters to. Chaos isn't allowed to win anymore. We reached for the sun and in doing so burned our wings.
This, i cannot Exalt it more then once, and i wish i could.
Someone else brought the fact that maybe we will have powerfull formations.
How i see it is no matter what if the base units taken in the formation are worthless, the formation, no matter their special rules, will be worthless.
Looks at the Brazen onslaugth and the Raptors, Warp talons and Drake formations..., their special rules for the formation while not, stellar are at most nice or honest, but since the base material sucks, the whole thing sucks.
Its like doing a dish using Gordon Ramsey recipy but you only have rotten ingriedents, do you think the dish will be anything else then Horrid and rotten?
Too many things in CSM needs an overhaul or a complete scrap and start over, but alos what we need is Rules to cover the different playstyles, and thats also part of the problem, with 9 Legions and all the warbands, there is too much to cover, even Marines don't all have their own codex( even if you can play and allign a Force that is in the spirit or theme of a said chapter).
They could have fixed this or at least start to work on that in previous editions, but no instead we got nerf bat on nerf bat since 4th Ed, we got sprinkles of new toys in 6th and 7th then the Meta changed so drastically that we end up once again like the passif dude in a gangbang involving tabasco and gravel and no lub on sight anywhere...
Chaos isn't allowed to have nice things. Not since we took over the galaxy back in 2003 during the Eye of Terror campaign and proved Chaos was superior to the smurf fanboys GW caters to. Chaos isn't allowed to win anymore. We reached for the sun and in doing so burned our wings.
This, i cannot Exalt it more then once, and i wish i could.
Someone else brought the fact that maybe we will have powerfull formations.
How i see it is no matter what if the base units taken in the formation are worthless, the formation, no matter their special rules, will be worthless.
Looks at the Brazen onslaugth and the Raptors, Warp talons and Drake formations..., their special rules for the formation while not, stellar are at most nice or honest, but since the base material sucks, the whole thing sucks.
Its like doing a dish using Gordon Ramsey recipy but you only have rotten ingriedents, do you think the dish will be anything else then Horrid and rotten?
Too many things in CSM needs an overhaul or a complete scrap and start over, but alos what we need is Rules to cover the different playstyles, and thats also part of the problem, with 9 Legions and all the warbands, there is too much to cover, even Marines don't all have their own codex( even if you can play and allign a Force that is in the spirit or theme of a said chapter).
They could have fixed this or at least start to work on that in previous editions, but no instead we got nerf bat on nerf bat since 4th Ed, we got sprinkles of new toys in 6th and 7th then the Meta changed so drastically that we end up once again like the passif dude in a gangbang involving tabasco and gravel and no lub on sight anywhere...
The biggest roadblock to us poor Chaos players finally catching up to everyone else, is our abysmal model line...
Dinobots/Hellturkey aside, we have not had anything more than a very occasional polish of our 3rd edition model line. I'm sorry, but after almost 18 years, we just need a complete overhaul!
While everyone else gets to play 7th edition, Chaos is the only army that's been forced to keep playing 3 editions behind the times.
Formations simply cannot fix the rotten core of our army. When everyone else is toting about scads new age toys from Grav weaponry to easily spammed 3/4 shot S5/6 weaponry, our pathetic Autocannons & Plasma guns have 0 chance of competing.
Add in all the other myriad problems from general overcosting to the 'Mark of Chaos Tax' & total lack of synergies within our army, and it's little wonder that Chaos is perpetually stuck as a smear beneath the heels of our Imperial oppressors.
KnuckleWolf wrote: Well, you could ask for an Age of Sigmar style rule set and then none of your models are bad if you and your opponent agree to fair games of your own design. Just saying. I'm down for that.
2 hours of what is fair and what can and cant be used before the game starts is not something I am down for. Would quit immediatley. If they just did their damn job you would HAVE to argue about what is broken or allowed, you would pick based on points and have balance built in. We shouldnt have to do a game developers job.
Don't worry - I'm sure very soon they'll give CSM their decurion. It'll be something that emphasizes the unique character of the army. So maybe like a detachment that gives Champions of Chaos two(!!!) rolls on the Chaos Boon table when they kill an enemy character! And maybe the core formation (3 CSM, 1 havocs, 1 possessed) gives everyone Fear for free! And if you take 2 of them then every model that can take it gets Veterans of the Long War for free! To balance these bonuses out all enemy Space Marines will gain Hatred (Chaos Space Marines) for free.
Abadabadoobaddon wrote: Don't worry - I'm sure very soon they'll give CSM their decurion. It'll be something that emphasizes the unique character of the army. So maybe like a detachment that gives Champions of Chaos two(!!!) rolls on the Chaos Boon table when they kill an enemy character! And maybe the core formation (3 CSM, 1 havocs, 1 possessed) gives everyone Fear for free! And if you take 2 of them then every model that can take it gets Veterans of the Long War for free! To balance these bonuses out all enemy Space Marines will gain Hatred (Chaos Space Marines) for free.
That sounds about right... Though I'm sure we'll also get the incredibly OP ability to take free Flamers & Heavy bolters, but we'll lose access to Plasma guns because... 'Reasons'.
Abadabadoobaddon wrote: Don't worry - I'm sure very soon they'll give CSM their decurion. It'll be something that emphasizes the unique character of the army. So maybe like a detachment that gives Champions of Chaos two(!!!) rolls on the Chaos Boon table when they kill an enemy character! And maybe the core formation (3 CSM, 1 havocs, 1 possessed) gives everyone Fear for free! And if you take 2 of them then every model that can take it gets Veterans of the Long War for free! To balance these bonuses out all enemy Space Marines will gain Hatred (Chaos Space Marines) for free.
Come on, guys. if you keep suggesting OP stuff like this, you'll only be setting yourselves up for a letdown.
"The Tau treatment"? So you want a copy/paste Chaos codex, which fixes absolutely nothing that needed to be fixed, but which gives you a couple new units (likely with terrible models as that's just how GW do) and a stupid detachment that makes the list you were already running even better?
Sidstyler wrote: "The Tau treatment"? So you want a copy/paste Chaos codex, which fixes absolutely nothing that needed to be fixed, but which gives you a couple new units (likely with terrible models as that's just how GW do) and a stupid detachment that makes the list you were already running even better?
I don't think "even better" is an appropriate choice of words when discussing CSM since that implies what you were running before was good.
Sidstyler wrote: "The Tau treatment"? So you want a copy/paste Chaos codex, which fixes absolutely nothing that needed to be fixed, but which gives you a couple new units (likely with terrible models as that's just how GW do) and a stupid detachment that makes the list you were already running even better?
I don't think "even better" is an appropriate choice of words when discussing CSM since that implies what you were running before was good.
Hey now, my 3 Noise Marines units w/ Blastmaster and three blasters each and 5 Spawn with an overcosted biker Lord are alright!
You know, at holding objectives. As long as there's a pile of Daemonettes, Seekers, Soul Grinders and Heralds doing the heavy lifting of course.
Sidstyler wrote: "The Tau treatment"? So you want a copy/paste Chaos codex, which fixes absolutely nothing that needed to be fixed, but which gives you a couple new units (likely with terrible models as that's just how GW do) and a stupid detachment that makes the list you were already running even better?
I don't think "even better" is an appropriate choice of words when discussing CSM since that implies what you were running before was good.
Good? Chaos are just too old and nerfed to ever be good im afraid. I have seen them achieve things.... When a certain friend of mine used two massively OP special characters he had homebrewed for 'fun' but in the end they still died to a three Leman Russ command troop of which two where BT's and one an Eradicator.
I all honesty one of the other people in this thread was right when he mentioned the 2003 Eye of Terror campaign than saw the Imperium wiped out. Now that could have been a good thing as the imperium being shattered and the last remaining fragments desperately trying to survive on their own as the Old Night drew back in would have been an amazing setting but noooo, GW where horrified that anyone could dare to stand against the wrath of the Space Smurfs and so the great nerfing of the CSM began. Coincidentally it was around that time that the regular Marines began to get buffed too.
IG. Holding out for that. Beyond that my interest in 40k is pretty much limited to whatever Gaunt's Ghosts boks come out and FFG's 40kRPGs come out at this point. I think the only thing thatever got my interest peaked was the Admech release, which was nice, even if the Skiitari don't look anything like what I imagined reading Titanicus. Beyond that, Orks and Tyrannids and CSM do need updates, and I hope they get them, it's a shame that the best flavorful factions IMO always get the nerfbat.
Seriously, I'd take any of them being completely OP over ELVES IN SPACE or TOMB KINGS IN SPACE or even MECHA IN...WHERE IT'S SUPPOSED TO BLOODY BE. And yes, Orks are technically ORCS IN SPACE, but they are to dang aweosome and not may sue like to be included.
I honestly hope CSM gets revamped or buffed or something, honestly, I just want all the armies to be equal in power.
*Gets thrown out of plane by GW CEO Tom Kirby*
*Gets shot in in mid air my GW CFO Kevin Rontree*
Who am I trying to fool hear that'll never happen.
I have a feeling that something big will happen soon-ish, but then again I could be wrong.
But we can ALL agree on one thing though.... Eldar have to many D-weapons
And like I said, "the Tau treatment" isn't going to do jack gak for CSM. The book needs to be completely rewritten and designed, and there needs to be a massive reboot of the miniature line to go with it, since not only are they one of the crappiest armies but they're also the worst-looking. Copy/pasting the current codex and giving you formations is still going to leave CSM on the bottom tier.
Tau treatment? They got some ok stuff, moved to upper mid tier, and can get lucky with the top three with a good general. You want that? They aren't that great.
Sidstyler wrote: And like I said, "the Tau treatment" isn't going to do jack gak for CSM. The book needs to be completely rewritten and designed, and there needs to be a massive reboot of the miniature line to go with it, since not only are they one of the crappiest armies but they're also the worst-looking. Copy/pasting the current codex and giving you formations is still going to leave CSM on the bottom tier.
Even if they don't rewrite the book, formations may help. Instead of Mark of Nurgle, Formation of Nurgle gives everyone +1 Toughness and Feel No Pain. Similar things for the others. Getting rid of the Marks, making our stuff Fearless, and getting something that can compete with a <Insert faction> Knight would all help tone down the costs involved. But really, it's the same issue Space Wolves and Blood Angels have. Close combat army in a meta that hates close combat.
When it comes to Chaos I think it would be better for them to go with a series of Demonkin books rather then a single Chaos Space Marine Codex. Khorne Demonkin is a pretty solid book and I think if all of the other "Gods" got the same treatment it would go a long way in solving a lot of Chaos' problems. They could even remake the "Black Legion" Codex for those that want to run a pure Chaos Space Marine book for those players not interested in demons.
Gamgee wrote: The Tau will get the Tau treatment and sooner than you think given our new found popularity.
Warzone: Monte'ka I'm betting we'll see unique models/suits/options for FSE in the book.
With Farssight stuff in it as well as the inevitable defeat of one of the largest crusades the Imperium of Man has ever launched at anything let alone the "weak" Tau Empire.
It will be defeated because it was foretold by a Grey Knight/Farsight/Prophecy.
Edit
It remains to be seen who will win the Tau/Admech FW book though.
*that an Alpha Legionnaire predicted, since he claimed to have no Chapter and was 'Legion'. Just because he wore Grey Armour, doesn't mean he was a Grey Knight. And it's not the biggest Crusade ever, you have the Sabbat Worlds, Macharius and the after math, the Great Crusade, the Scouring...
And all the Farsight update will give (if there is one, which is an assumption that has no basis seeing that the Eldar Iyanden book was never updated) is troop choice Crisis suits and his body guard characters, just like last time. Your assuming they'll release new Tau models after this literal downpour of models? There's what, 9 new kits? (Crisis Suits, Crisis Commander, Stormsurge, Ghostkeel, Fire Warriors, Ethereal, each Fortification section...) I think you are dreaming, kid.
The Crusade has to lose because the Tau have to exist, but that doesn't mean the Tau are going to get off easy. Probably will lose everything they've gained under Shadowsun and Aun'va, to show the Tau the soul crushing futility of their efforts in the Galaxy.
And, because, you know, to make it despite the fact that Farsight won the day, it's Grim Dark Pyrrhic victory where nobody wins.
Gamgee wrote: The Tau will get the Tau treatment and sooner than you think given our new found popularity.
Warzone: Monte'ka I'm betting we'll see unique models/suits/options for FSE in the book.
With Farssight stuff in it as well as the inevitable defeat of one of the largest crusades the Imperium of Man has ever launched at anything let alone the "weak" Tau Empire.
It will be defeated because it was foretold by a Grey Knight/Farsight/Prophecy.
Edit
It remains to be seen who will win the Tau/Admech FW book though.
*that an Alpha Legionnaire predicted, since he claimed to have no Chapter and was 'Legion'. Just because he wore Grey Armour, doesn't mean he was a Grey Knight. And it's not the biggest Crusade ever, you have the Sabbat Worlds, Macharius and the after math, the Great Crusade, the Scouring...
And all the Farsight update will give (if there is one, which is an assumption that has no basis seeing that the Eldar Iyanden book was never updated) is troop choice Crisis suits and his body guard characters, just like last time. Your assuming they'll release new Tau models after this literal downpour of models? There's what, 9 new kits? (Crisis Suits, Crisis Commander, Stormsurge, Ghostkeel, Fire Warriors, Ethereal, each Fortification section...) I think you are dreaming, kid.
The Crusade has to lose because the Tau have to exist, but that doesn't mean the Tau are going to get off easy. Probably will lose everything they've gained under Shadowsun and Aun'va, to show the Tau the soul crushing futility of their efforts in the Galaxy.
And, because, you know, to make it despite the fact that Farsight won the day, it's Grim Dark Pyrrhic victory where nobody wins.
Nah they'll win and push back once again and again. Until the Imperium is nothing. Learning of the futility of trying to stop the Tau from our ascendancy.
Gamgee wrote: Nah they'll win and push back once again and again. Until the Imperium is nothing. Learning of the futility of trying to stop the Tau from our ascendancy.
God, the 42nd millenium would be tedious with the grey freaks in charge. I'd rather the Tyranids got everything...
I all honesty one of the other people in this thread was right when he mentioned the 2003 Eye of Terror campaign than saw the Imperium wiped out. Now that could have been a good thing as the imperium being shattered and the last remaining fragments desperately trying to survive on their own as the Old Night drew back in would have been an amazing setting but noooo, GW where horrified that anyone could dare to stand against the wrath of the Space Smurfs and so the great nerfing of the CSM began. Coincidentally it was around that time that the regular Marines began to get buffed too.
I think that sort of change would have vastly improved the game and the fluff.
For one thing, SMs might have come across as actually heroic - fighting against insurmountable odds. Instead, we're stuck with GW's idea of 'heroic' - wherein the heroes are stupidly overpowered, and can effortlessly vaporise any of the evil armies.
I will predict that we won't hear a single whiff of "real" info on Chaos getting updated until after 'Nids, Guard and likely both Wolves & BA's get updated...
Then there's at least a semi-decent chance that Daemons will get a new book, which will be followed immediately by a new Grey Knights book that turns out to once more be a 110% pure hard counter with the ability to effortlessly auto-win any & all games against Daemons. Again.
Chaos Marines won't get any attention until after Dark Eldar & Orks get their 7.5 books, at which point GW will do an about face and decide that everything needs to be toned way the feth down for the sake of "balance", at which point we'll get a new Chaos Marine codex that removed half our options and has us paying 30pts a pop for a basic Marine.
It's how GW rolls... Chaos players aren't allowed to compete, because heaven forbid we actually kill Little Timmy's precious Mehreeens.
Experiment 626 wrote: I will predict that we won't hear a single whiff of "real" info on Chaos getting updated until after 'Nids, Guard and likely both Wolves & BA's get updated...
Then there's at least a semi-decent chance that Daemons will get a new book, which will be followed immediately by a new Grey Knights book that turns out to once more be a 110% pure hard counter with the ability to effortlessly auto-win any & all games against Daemons. Again.
Chaos Marines won't get any attention until after Dark Eldar & Orks get their 7.5 books, at which point GW will do an about face and decide that everything needs to be toned way the feth down for the sake of "balance", at which point we'll get a new Chaos Marine codex that removed half our options and has us paying 30pts a pop for a basic Marine.
It's how GW rolls... Chaos players aren't allowed to compete, because heaven forbid we actually kill Little Timmy's precious Mehreeens.
If GW's sales don't go well this next few months - say, until xmas - I guarantee you that a CSM release will be coming within the year.
Experiment 626 wrote: Chaos Marines won't get any attention until after Dark Eldar & Orks get their 7.5 books
What on earth makes you think DE and Orks are getting new books before 8th or 9th edition?
Experiment 626 wrote: I will predict that we won't hear a single whiff of "real" info on Chaos getting updated until after 'Nids, Guard and likely both Wolves & BA's get updated...
Then there's at least a semi-decent chance that Daemons will get a new book, which will be followed immediately by a new Grey Knights book that turns out to once more be a 110% pure hard counter with the ability to effortlessly auto-win any & all games against Daemons. Again.
It's how GW rolls... Chaos players aren't allowed to compete, because heaven forbid we actually kill Little Timmy's precious Mehreeens.
As I said, GW thinks that in order to be heroic, models must be outright better than any possible opposition.
Experiment 626 wrote: Chaos Marines won't get any attention until after Dark Eldar & Orks get their 7.5 books
What on earth makes you think DE and Orks are getting new books before 8th or 9th edition?
My well founded pessimism as a long suffering Chaos player of course.
I'd be willing to bet having to wear a Maple Leafs jersey for an entire month that *IF* we get updated, it won't be until just before/after 8th edition drops, AND, we won't see any new/redone kits we actually need.
My bet is for a half baked codex that fixes nothing, removes options, and 2-3 "new" kits which will be Khorne and/or Nurgle themed, while keeping the rest of our gak-fest model line firmly stuck in early 4th edition. (because god forbid we ever get something more effective than an Autocannon!)
Sidstyler wrote: And like I said, "the Tau treatment" isn't going to do jack gak for CSM. The book needs to be completely rewritten and designed, and there needs to be a massive reboot of the miniature line to go with it, since not only are they one of the crappiest armies but they're also the worst-looking. Copy/pasting the current codex and giving you formations is still going to leave CSM on the bottom tier.
Even if they don't rewrite the book, formations may help. Instead of Mark of Nurgle, Formation of Nurgle gives everyone +1 Toughness and Feel No Pain. Similar things for the others. Getting rid of the Marks, making our stuff Fearless, and getting something that can compete with a <Insert faction> Knight would all help tone down the costs involved. But really, it's the same issue Space Wolves and Blood Angels have. Close combat army in a meta that hates close combat.
They should do both. With the Nurgle you just get the +1 toughness, but with a formation of Nurgle it should be the +1 toughness and some extras. Maybe since they are all together there is some kind of cloud of rot around them for maybe a cover bonus.
why do all threads related to balance devolve into csm players whining (not saying they dont have any reason, just why dont you guys make a thread that is titled "whine about your csm!")
Kharne the Befriender wrote: Now that Tau are on the same level as other rated B and A factions, when will C and D rated factions get the same level of power as factions like Eldar, Tau, Necrons, Marines, etc. I'm curious, I want to start my 2nd army towards the start of next year. So far I'm leaning towards Tau,
anyone want to persuade me to field a different faction? I'm open to all opinions.
Astra Militarum have been good ever since I've known about them. they have an answer for all unit types nd toughness's. They compete in every phase. They are bulky, and opponents enjoy playing them because when the opponents shoot, things die a lot which on some human level makes them more "fun to play against", kinda like orks. So if Tau Empire (which has been my favorite faction) isnt your thing, Astra Militarum are pretty fun and painting them is pretty fun to if you like painting (I dont, yet i enjoyed painting my IG).
Kharne the Befriender wrote: Now that Tau are on the same level as other rated B and A factions, when will C and D rated factions get the same level of power as factions like Eldar, Tau, Necrons, Marines, etc. I'm curious, I want to start my 2nd army towards the start of next year. So far I'm leaning towards Tau,
anyone want to persuade me to field a different faction? I'm open to all opinions.
Astra Militarum have been good ever since I've known about them. they have an answer for all unit types nd toughness's. They compete in every phase. They are bulky, and opponents enjoy playing them because when the opponents shoot, things die a lot which on some human level makes them more "fun to play against", kinda like orks. So if Tau Empire (which has been my favorite faction) isnt your thing, Astra Militarum are pretty fun and painting them is pretty fun to if you like painting (I dont, yet i enjoyed painting my IG).
hanshotfirst wrote: why do all threads related to balance devolve into csm players whining (not saying they dont have any reason, just why dont you guys make a thread that is titled "whine about your csm!")
Let's put it this way: Sisters of Battle have received more basic upgrade options than Chaos Marines have. Sure it's only Storm bolters, Inferno pistols & the Bolter/Crossbow combi-weapon, but the point stands. The most neglected army of all has had more basic upgrade options than CSM's have received!!
When Sisters begin getting more toys than someone else, you know it's *really* bad.
Kharne the Befriender wrote: Now that Tau are on the same level as other rated B and A factions, when will C and D rated factions get the same level of power as factions like Eldar, Tau, Necrons, Marines, etc. I'm curious, I want to start my 2nd army towards the start of next year. So far I'm leaning towards Tau,
anyone want to persuade me to field a different faction? I'm open to all opinions.
Astra Militarum have been good ever since I've known about them. they have an answer for all unit types nd toughness's. They compete in every phase. They are bulky, and opponents enjoy playing them because when the opponents shoot, things die a lot which on some human level makes them more "fun to play against", kinda like orks. So if Tau Empire (which has been my favorite faction) isnt your thing, Astra Militarum are pretty fun and painting them is pretty fun to if you like painting (I dont, yet i enjoyed painting my IG).
CrashGordon94 wrote: Be warned, a lot of the IG players here always say they're incredibly weak.
That is definitely not something I hear a lot of.
for example look at this:
40 IG (4 LasCannons, 4 Power Axes)
+3 Psykers (Divination, looking to get forewarning power)
+3 Priests (You can go with less, but its a risk given their LD)
This unit can acccess a 4+ invul save that can be re-rolled in close combat, while bringing 7 Power weapons to bear that re-roll to hit on the first round of combat and can re-roll to wound every round if they make their LD check. Further, until they engage, they can try for the Foreboding power that gives them Counter attack and FULL BS Overwatch! Its an absolute beast to take down. I have lost this unit all of one time, ever, recently, to a Haemonculus coven. Not once outside of that has it died. Its also a Zealot so it never runs.
When you can put that kind of behemoth on a field, you're really cooking.
Now the Lascannons can stay stationary while the rest of the unit moves forward ot the attack. This can allow a lot of cans to be popped and they can have Prescience cast on them and/or use orders to guarnatee it almost.
That leaves you with about 1400 more points to go out and get anti-air and wyverns (GOOD GAWD the WYVERNS ARE AWESOME!) and whatever else you can imagine. Or build another blob just like it. Yeah. Preeeety awesome.
So when someone tells me IG arent good... Well...
And if you do have two blobs, thats also 12 Psyker dice Plus what you roll. In movement phase they have lots of units that deep strike or are fast. In the Psyker phase theyre fine, including cheap goodies like relic plating and the Assault phase? no problem.
hanshotfirst wrote: why do all threads related to balance devolve into csm players whining (not saying they dont have any reason, just why dont you guys make a thread that is titled "whine about your csm!")
Because there are a lot of CSM players. And CSM suck.
40 IG (4 LasCannons, 4 Power Axes)
+3 Psykers (Divination, looking to get forewarning power)
+3 Priests (You can go with less, but its a risk given their LD)
That's 670pts. Hardly a bargain, given that all you're putting out is 4 BS3 lascannon shots and some lasguns.
This unit can acccess a 4+ invul save that can be re-rolled in close combat What is giving them this invulnerable save? , while bringing 7 Power weapons to bear that re-roll to hit on the first round of combat and can re-roll to wound every round if they make their LD check. Further, until they engage, they can try for the Foreboding power that gives them Counter attack and FULL BS Overwatch! All these attacks are WS3, and even the power weapons are only S4. Hope you're not charged by any walkers, because even an armoured sentinel can lock this unit down for the entire game. Its an absolute beast to take down. I have lost this unit all of one time, ever, recently, to a Haemonculus coven. Not once outside of that has it died. Its also a Zealot so it never runs. Yeah, it's so utterly amazing that it's been present in all of zero tournaments.
When you can put that kind of behemoth on a field, you're really cooking. Indeed. Now all you need is an opponent who lacks a brainstem and you're set.
Now the Lascannons can stay stationary while the rest of the unit moves forward ot the attack. Eh? This can allow a lot of cans to be popped and they can have Prescience cast on them and/or use orders to guarnatee it almost. [
That leaves you with about 1400 more points to go out and get anti-air and wyverns (GOOD GAWD the WYVERNS ARE AWESOME!) and whatever else you can imagine. Or build another blob just like it. Yeah. Preeeety awesome. Yeah, I mean, you've spent over a quarter of your points on a unit of about 50 T3 dudes with worthless saves who put out all of 4 lascannon shots.
So when someone tells me IG arent good... Well... And *this* is why you think IG are good?
And if you do have two blobs Um, you know that you can't take more than 3 priests or psykers, right? So, if you want to take 2 of these units - because you're just that eager to lose or something - then you have to take a second CAD, meaning at least one more troop and HQ choice. On top of, you know. the 670pts you're already forking out for this crap. , thats also 12 Psyker dice Plus what you roll. In movement phase they have lots of units that deep strike or are fast. Are you sure you're talking about IG here? Also, if you've just spent about 1600pts on these squads and the requisite HQs and troops, you'll barely have anything else in your army - let alone a load of fast stuff. In the Psyker phase theyre fine, including cheap goodies like relic plating and the Assault phase? no problem. And what about in, oh I don't know, the shooting phase? You seem to think that enemy armies will have trouble removing about 50 T3 guys. Are you playing 3rd edition or something?
hanshotfirst wrote: why do all threads related to balance devolve into csm players whining (not saying they dont have any reason, just why dont you guys make a thread that is titled "whine about your csm!")
Because there are a lot of CSM players. And CSM suck.
40 IG (4 LasCannons, 4 Power Axes)
+3 Psykers (Divination, looking to get forewarning power)
+3 Priests (You can go with less, but its a risk given their LD)
That's 670pts. Hardly a bargain, given that all you're putting out is 4 BS3 lascannon shots and some lasguns.
This unit can acccess a 4+ invul save that can be re-rolled in close combat What is giving them this invulnerable save? , while bringing 7 Power weapons to bear that re-roll to hit on the first round of combat and can re-roll to wound every round if they make their LD check. Further, until they engage, they can try for the Foreboding power that gives them Counter attack and FULL BS Overwatch! All these attacks are WS3, and even the power weapons are only S4. Hope you're not charged by any walkers, because even an armoured sentinel can lock this unit down for the entire game. Its an absolute beast to take down. I have lost this unit all of one time, ever, recently, to a Haemonculus coven. Not once outside of that has it died. Its also a Zealot so it never runs. Yeah, it's so utterly amazing that it's been present in all of zero tournaments.
When you can put that kind of behemoth on a field, you're really cooking. Indeed. Now all you need is an opponent who lacks a brainstem and you're set.
Now the Lascannons can stay stationary while the rest of the unit moves forward ot the attack. Eh? This can allow a lot of cans to be popped and they can have Prescience cast on them and/or use orders to guarnatee it almost. [
That leaves you with about 1400 more points to go out and get anti-air and wyverns (GOOD GAWD the WYVERNS ARE AWESOME!) and whatever else you can imagine. Or build another blob just like it. Yeah. Preeeety awesome. Yeah, I mean, you've spent over a quarter of your points on a unit of about 50 T3 dudes with worthless saves who put out all of 4 lascannon shots.
So when someone tells me IG arent good... Well... And *this* is why you think IG are good?
And if you do have two blobs Um, you know that you can't take more than 3 priests or psykers, right? So, if you want to take 2 of these units - because you're just that eager to lose or something - then you have to take a second CAD, meaning at least one more troop and HQ choice. On top of, you know. the 670pts you're already forking out for this crap. , thats also 12 Psyker dice Plus what you roll. In movement phase they have lots of units that deep strike or are fast. Are you sure you're talking about IG here? Also, if you've just spent about 1600pts on these squads and the requisite HQs and troops, you'll barely have anything else in your army - let alone a load of fast stuff. In the Psyker phase theyre fine, including cheap goodies like relic plating and the Assault phase? no problem. And what about in, oh I don't know, the shooting phase? You seem to think that enemy armies will have trouble removing about 50 T3 guys. Are you playing 3rd edition or something?
You're kind of being a jerk. But okay. I'll respond.
WS 3 doesnt matter. Its 4's to hit, re-rolling (either from Prescience or from Zealot, your pick). WS 3 is fine. The unit hardly takes any damage no matter whats smacking on it unless its powers fail. And that happens for a round sometimes but again... Killed only onece ever. So....
Invul save as mentioned is from Forewarning.
It has been in several tournaments. Actually. You're pretty cool for Insulting opponents though, and for saying that all it does is fire four lascannon shots (and for the record its 40 dudes, not 50), which illustrates that you are totally not seeing it. its a melee unit that happens to shoot. And it can shoot a lot. and its shooting lasts a fair while. So yeah. But mainly the assault.
And you seem confused by the basic concept of the blob moving when the Cannons do not so let me explain: The blob moves except the cannons, which do not. And therefore they can fire freely. Twin linked and with Monster hunter etc... from Prescience and from orders. Not sure whats causing you to say "eh" but there you go. Perhaps you are unaware that 7E allows this.
This unit isn't WHY I say IG are good. Its ONE reason why I say they are good.
And yes. I am reasonably certain i understood that you'd be taking two cads if you ever felt the need to take two of these. So what. Lol. I'm just pointing out that you can.
I personally never needed to.
But yeah the Astra militarum codex might be coming next year for 7E and it should be interesting.
You're kind of being a jerk. But okay. I'll respond.
WS 3 doesnt matter. Its 4's to hit, re-rolling (either from Prescience or from Zealot, your pick). WS 3 is fine. The unit hardly takes any damage no matter whats smacking on it unless its powers fail. And that happens for a round sometimes but again... Killed only onece ever. So....
Invul save as mentioned is from Forewarning.
It has been in several tournaments. Actually. You're pretty cool for Insulting opponents though, and for saying that all it does is fire four lascannon shots (and for the record its 40 dudes, not 50), which illustrates that you are totally not seeing it. its a melee unit that happens to shoot. And it can shoot a lot. and its shooting lasts a fair while. So yeah. But mainly the assault.
And you seem confused by the basic concept of the blob moving when the Cannons do not so let me explain: The blob moves except the cannons, which do not. And therefore they can fire freely. Twin linked and with Monster hunter etc... from Prescience and from orders. Not sure whats causing you to say "eh" but there you go. Perhaps you are unaware that 7E allows this.
This unit isn't WHY I say IG are good. Its ONE reason why I say they are good.
And yes. I am reasonably certain i understood that you'd be taking two cads if you ever felt the need to take two of these. So what. Lol. I'm just pointing out that you can.
I personally never needed to.
But yeah the Astra militarum codex might be coming next year for 7E and it should be interesting.
I've seen people claim that blob IG are good, unitl they hit the table at any sort of competitive tournament. Then they are proven wrong.
WS3 is bad. It means that anyone with WS4 or above and Fearless can decimate you in combat while preventing you from leaving. Park a Bloodthirster or a tooled-up Daemon Prince next to this unit, and you'll be locked down for the rest of the game.
Do you know how often you fail a 4+ save? Fifty percent of the time. Apply some of the massed firepower that out there in 7th edition, especially new Tau, and you'll be shoveling models off the table.
You will have a minimum of twelve psychic dice. At most, you can conceivably get off four, maybe five powers. This does not take into account any Deny the Witch attempts or perils. You have exactly the same problem that summoning lists have, without the ability to mitigate the weaknesses by summoning more psykers.
Do you want to know how many Lascannon shots you need to kill a Riptide or Wraithknight? Even with re-rolls, Ignores Cover, and Monster Hunter four lascannons will take about three turns of shooting to kill a unit like that. By then, it's already too late.
It's a melee unit that's only powerful by virtue of the sheer number of bodies it can put on the table. At most, you can move twelve inches a turn. Any sufficiently mobile army can kite you across the board.
Sure, you can leave the Lascannons behind. Have fun maintaining coherency with the rest of the unit. All someone has to do is move behind the blob and shoot the weapons platforms dead. Alternatively, charge the weapons platforms. What's that? So many guardsmen died that you can't make your pile-in? Tough luck. Hit-and Run is also a rule that counters the blob.
7th edition is about mobility. Imperial Guard are notoriously lacking in cost-effective means of getting around the board. Remember: I don't have to kill or even fight the blob. I can just run around the board scoring objectives and avoiding the blob. Even if I have to kill it, I don't have to kill the entire blob. All I have to do is target the weakest and most isolated parts, and the blob gets pulled in too many directions to be effective.
I f you want a blob army, either use the Green Tide or broods of thirty gaunts. Blob Guard is dead. You pay too many points for too little effect.
You're kind of being a jerk. But okay. I'll respond.
WS 3 doesnt matter. Its 4's to hit, re-rolling (either from Prescience or from Zealot, your pick). WS 3 is fine. The unit hardly takes any damage no matter whats smacking on it unless its powers fail. And that happens for a round sometimes but again... Killed only onece ever. So....
Invul save as mentioned is from Forewarning.
It has been in several tournaments. Actually. You're pretty cool for Insulting opponents though, and for saying that all it does is fire four lascannon shots (and for the record its 40 dudes, not 50), which illustrates that you are totally not seeing it. its a melee unit that happens to shoot. And it can shoot a lot. and its shooting lasts a fair while. So yeah. But mainly the assault.
And you seem confused by the basic concept of the blob moving when the Cannons do not so let me explain: The blob moves except the cannons, which do not. And therefore they can fire freely. Twin linked and with Monster hunter etc... from Prescience and from orders. Not sure whats causing you to say "eh" but there you go. Perhaps you are unaware that 7E allows this.
This unit isn't WHY I say IG are good. Its ONE reason why I say they are good.
And yes. I am reasonably certain i understood that you'd be taking two cads if you ever felt the need to take two of these. So what. Lol. I'm just pointing out that you can.
I personally never needed to.
But yeah the Astra militarum codex might be coming next year for 7E and it should be interesting.
I've seen people claim that blob IG are good, unitl they hit the table at any sort of competitive tournament. Then they are proven wrong.
WS3 is bad. It means that anyone with WS4 or above and Fearless can decimate you in combat while preventing you from leaving. Park a Bloodthirster or a tooled-up Daemon Prince next to this unit, and you'll be locked down for the rest of the game.
Do you know how often you fail a 4+ save? Fifty percent of the time. Apply some of the massed firepower that out there in 7th edition, especially new Tau, and you'll be shoveling models off the table.
You will have a minimum of twelve psychic dice. At most, you can conceivably get off four, maybe five powers. This does not take into account any Deny the Witch attempts or perils. You have exactly the same problem that summoning lists have, without the ability to mitigate the weaknesses by summoning more psykers.
Do you want to know how many Lascannon shots you need to kill a Riptide or Wraithknight? Even with re-rolls, Ignores Cover, and Monster Hunter four lascannons will take about three turns of shooting to kill a unit like that. By then, it's already too late.
It's a melee unit that's only powerful by virtue of the sheer number of bodies it can put on the table. At most, you can move twelve inches a turn. Any sufficiently mobile army can kite you across the board.
Sure, you can leave the Lascannons behind. Have fun maintaining coherency with the rest of the unit. All someone has to do is move behind the blob and shoot the weapons platforms dead. Alternatively, charge the weapons platforms. What's that? So many guardsmen died that you can't make your pile-in? Tough luck. Hit-and Run is also a rule that counters the blob.
7th edition is about mobility. Imperial Guard are notoriously lacking in cost-effective means of getting around the board. Remember: I don't have to kill or even fight the blob. I can just run around the board scoring objectives and avoiding the blob. Even if I have to kill it, I don't have to kill the entire blob. All I have to do is target the weakest and most isolated parts, and the blob gets pulled in too many directions to be effective.
I f you want a blob army, either use the Green Tide or broods of thirty gaunts. Blob Guard is dead. You pay too many points for too little effect.
You can achieve a similar result with allied dark angels and azreal. Take a dark angels librarian formation and get 3x 24" range mind worm and then you can effectively nuder dangerous units on the board for the rest of the game.
I know that it isn't a pure guard list but big fearless blobs with 4+ invuln and massed firepower is a viable tactic.
hanshotfirst wrote: why do all threads related to balance devolve into csm players whining (not saying they dont have any reason, just why dont you guys make a thread that is titled "whine about your csm!")
Because there are a lot of CSM players. And CSM suck.
There are a lot of us, that's for sure. We outnumbered the Loyalists a decade ago so GW had to nerf us to the ground.
I've seen people claim that blob IG are good, unitl they hit the table at any sort of competitive tournament. Then they are proven wrong.
WS3 is bad. It means that anyone with WS4 or above and Fearless can decimate you in combat while preventing you from leaving. Park a Bloodthirster or a tooled-up Daemon Prince next to this unit, and you'll be locked down for the rest of the game.
Do you know how often you fail a 4+ save? Fifty percent of the time. Apply some of the massed firepower that out there in 7th edition, especially new Tau, and you'll be shoveling models off the table.
You will have a minimum of twelve psychic dice. At most, you can conceivably get off four, maybe five powers. This does not take into account any Deny the Witch attempts or perils. You have exactly the same problem that summoning lists have, without the ability to mitigate the weaknesses by summoning more psykers.
Do you want to know how many Lascannon shots you need to kill a Riptide or Wraithknight? Even with re-rolls, Ignores Cover, and Monster Hunter four lascannons will take about three turns of shooting to kill a unit like that. By then, it's already too late.
It's a melee unit that's only powerful by virtue of the sheer number of bodies it can put on the table. At most, you can move twelve inches a turn. Any sufficiently mobile army can kite you across the board.
Sure, you can leave the Lascannons behind. Have fun maintaining coherency with the rest of the unit. All someone has to do is move behind the blob and shoot the weapons platforms dead. Alternatively, charge the weapons platforms. What's that? So many guardsmen died that you can't make your pile-in? Tough luck. Hit-and Run is also a rule that counters the blob.
7th edition is about mobility. Imperial Guard are notoriously lacking in cost-effective means of getting around the board. Remember: I don't have to kill or even fight the blob. I can just run around the board scoring objectives and avoiding the blob. Even if I have to kill it, I don't have to kill the entire blob. All I have to do is target the weakest and most isolated parts, and the blob gets pulled in too many directions to be effective.
I f you want a blob army, either use the Green Tide or broods of thirty gaunts. Blob Guard is dead. You pay too many points for too little effect.
I think you're missing it. Its not just a 4+ invul.... Its a 4+ RE-ROLLABLE invul. So you were saying?
Wraith Knights are difficult all around so using them as some meter against this unit? pointless. Also: I'm pretty sure the blobs Lascannons arent the extent of what the army will be firing. Lol. But sure. If that was ALL your army had, I suppose (and it wouldnt be) then you'd have a point.
And Kiting is fine because the unit is so big that it can multi charge and lock up large amounts of units. Ive done it. If you get the Strategic Warlord Trait for infiltrating? SAWEET!
Wraith Knights are difficult all around so using them as some meter against this unit? pointless.
But where do you stop? You can't claim that IG are great and that this is somehow a amazing unit, only to then say that we should ignore every unit that would prove you wrong.
Sorry, like it or not WKs and such are the meta now. If IG and your super-unit can't deal with them then they're not a good army.
Jancoran wrote: Also: I'm pretty sure the blobs Lascannons arent the extent of what the army will be firing. Lol. But sure. If that was ALL your army had, I suppose (and it wouldnt be) then you'd have a point.
But you're still spending 670pts on a unit that can be taken out of the game by a single WK.
And Kiting is fine because the unit is so big that it can multi charge and lock up large amounts of units. Ive done it. If you get the Strategic Warlord Trait for infiltrating? SAWEET!
Do your opponents never lock down this unit with any of their stuff (like thr aforementioned WK)? Or, you know, take advantage of the fact that it's a blob of T3 models and just shoot the thing to death?
And Hellions are also the best unit in the game. No, you're not allowed to point out any of their flaws. And we can't count any unit that's better than them either.
hanshotfirst wrote: why do all threads related to balance devolve into csm players whining (not saying they dont have any reason, just why dont you guys make a thread that is titled "whine about your csm!")
Because there are a lot of CSM players. And CSM suck.
Yet they don't, actually.
Yeah, they really do suck. CSM are up there for worst army in the game, with maybe 20% of their codex even being viable.
If you have some secret hidden tech that nobody has seen before for CSM, I'd love to hear it.
hanshotfirst wrote: why do all threads related to balance devolve into csm players whining (not saying they dont have any reason, just why dont you guys make a thread that is titled "whine about your csm!")
Because there are a lot of CSM players. And CSM suck.
Yet they don't, actually.
Yeah, they really do suck. CSM are up there for worst army in the game, with maybe 20% of their codex even being viable.
If you have some secret hidden tech that nobody has seen before for CSM, I'd love to hear it.
Don't worry, the can't-fire-sideways chicken from hell will save us!
Yeah, they really do suck. CSM are up there for worst army in the game, with maybe 20% of their codex even being viable.
If you have some secret hidden tech that nobody has seen before for CSM, I'd love to hear it.
Largely the Khorne Daemonkin codex. It takes away most of the guff and makes the khorne bits of the army work the way they should. Hell, I've even seen the slaughtercult make Possessed perform well.....
Sparing chaos players the endless random tables is worth it in and of itself.
As far as Astra Militarum are concerned, a blob trying to do everything will fail at everything. They don't do deathstars and trying to will fall over. Every guard unit needs to be expendable.
But they can compete in each phase.
Melee-equipped blobs can be lethal. Many S4 power axes with zealot are a buzz-saw given how cheap they are. Yes, an armoured sentinel can lock that unit down.....until you realise each sergeant can take meltabombs for 5 points - that's enough S8 AP1 attacks to inconvenience even a monstrous creature.
Shooting? They have a tool for every job - from Punisher gatlings (pask or vulture gunships as you see fit), to wyvern mortar salvos, to demolisher cannons.
Manouvrability? Cheap mechanised infantry, deep strikers.
Psykers? No one 'good' but astropaths and primaris are cheap, and have access to divination & telepathy - the two best disciplines for a support psyker.
Guard aren't earthshaking, but 'incredibly weak' is pushing it.
vipoid wrote: So then, if guard compete in every phase, why is it they never win any tournaments?
I mean, I wouldn't call IG top tier by any stretch of the imagination. I'd probably put them on the bottom of middle tier if I had to place them in the power rankings, and that just isn't good enough to win a tournament in 40k. The power difference between tiers is just too massive to overcome when everyone is a good player.
Personally I don't see the melee blob as being very good. It's too weak against massed shooting, which is common in the game, and it has no way to get to melee unless the enemy allows it to. It only allows a +1 save against shooting compared to cover, so scat bikes still decimate it. It can't out melee any of the death stars currently on the table either, while costing a lot of points. It doesn't have the firepower many of the better deathstars have available as well.
I can see it doing well in a casual setting, but it can't go up against the top tier dexes if they try.
hanshotfirst wrote: why do all threads related to balance devolve into csm players whining (not saying they dont have any reason, just why dont you guys make a thread that is titled "whine about your csm!")
Let's put it this way: Sisters of Battle have received more basic upgrade options than Chaos Marines have. Sure it's only Storm bolters, Inferno pistols & the Bolter/Crossbow combi-weapon, but the point stands. The most neglected army of all has had more basic upgrade options than CSM's have received!!
When Sisters begin getting more toys than someone else, you know it's *really* bad.
That's not a fair comparison, given that unlike SoB's singular troop choice, CSM has 2 (CSM and cultists), plus 4 unlockable variants (Plague marines, noise marines, berzerkers and 1ksons)
Also, they got marks and banners, who are far more than sister's team upgrades.
Not saying CSM are all right, but its really a not fair comparison.
vipoid wrote: So then, if guard compete in every phase, why is it they never win any tournaments?
Because while they have decent movement phase, decent psyker phase, good shooting phase and not horrid assault phase-their various strengths just don't mix properly.
Its like Oreos and Cheeseburger-both are good. but don't really work together.
And their army style goes against the standard conviction of 6th of "have few really powerful units", without really having the tools to play 7th's MSU style (some armies, like IK, still play 6th style very well in 7th. its just their thing.), because while each individual piece is cheap and usually good at it's job, there is zero follow-up.
Add the fact that Renegades and Heretics do the horde system, AND the artillery gunline variations better, and you get yourself a codex that isn't really mastering anything that nobody else can't beat it at, and cant combine its various abilities in a meaningful way.
vipoid wrote: So then, if guard compete in every phase, why is it they never win any tournaments?
I mean, I wouldn't call IG top tier by any stretch of the imagination. I'd probably put them on the bottom of middle tier if I had to place them in the power rankings, and that just isn't good enough to win a tournament in 40k. The power difference between tiers is just too massive to overcome when everyone is a good player.
Personally I don't see the melee blob as being very good. It's too weak against massed shooting, which is common in the game, and it has no way to get to melee unless the enemy allows it to. It only allows a +1 save against shooting compared to cover, so scat bikes still decimate it. It can't out melee any of the death stars currently on the table either, while costing a lot of points. It doesn't have the firepower many of the better deathstars have available as well.
I can see it doing well in a casual setting, but it can't go up against the top tier dexes if they try.
Of the remaining 6th edition codices, I'd say Guard are definitely a solid 3rd out of the 4...
Daemons when they try will absolutely murder them, unless the Guard goes full-on Armoured Co. Tyranids likewise, thanks to their Shield of Baal updates can have fun making Guardsuffer with Pentyrant lists.
On the other hand, Guard simply laugh at anything the poor Chaos Marines can throw at them... Zombie lists simply evaporate to Wyverns, while the sheer number of special/heavy weapons the infantry can bring will mow down the over priced infantry that CSM's can bring. The Hellturkey looses out against Guard as well, since it's template is complete overkill as you only need basic Flamers to remove Guard infantry.
Of the remaining 6th ed books that still need updating, it should honestly go as Chaos Marine re-boot ---> Guard ---> Tyranids ---> Daemons.
Of course, we all know that it'll probably end up being Tyranids ---> Guard ---> Other ---> Other ---> Other ---> Daemon nerf ---> 8th edition... (40,000 years later...) Finally Chaos Marines get a new codex!!!
It's rerollable in melee. Outside of melee you're relying on a 4+ save when virtually every weapon is going to be wounding you on 3s and 2s.
But where do you stop? You can't claim that IG are great and that this is somehow a amazing unit, only to then say that we should ignore every unit that would prove you wrong.
Sorry, like it or not WKs and such are the meta now. If IG and your super-unit can't deal with them then they're not a good army.
But you're still spending 670pts on a unit that can be taken out of the game by a single WK.
Do your opponents never lock down this unit with any of their stuff (like thr aforementioned WK)? Or, you know, take advantage of the fact that it's a blob of T3 models and just shoot the thing to death?
And Hellions are also the best unit in the game. No, you're not allowed to point out any of their flaws. And we can't count any unit that's better than them either.
Its a melee UNIT so YES... In melee! You act as if this isnt the plan!
And Wraith Knights dont invalidate an entire army. ONE Wraith Knight can be taken down by IG firepower. do you think them miraculously immune? Its so weird how people like th throw "Wraith Knight" ut as some excuse for something else sucking. Its like: what do you THINK the rest of the army is DOING in the mean time?
Its fine. do what you want. But I'll happily spend the 600 points because its also a death blossom of 7 units that can explode out to take objectives at the end when the blob hs done all the good it can.
Once you've faced it, you won't be as eager to dismiss it again.
Yeah, they really do suck. CSM are up there for worst army in the game, with maybe 20% of their codex even being viable.
If you have some secret hidden tech that nobody has seen before for CSM, I'd love to hear it.
I have a blog full of examples. Last night, i lost all but three of my Chaos models (the battle damaged Heldrake, the wounded Obliterator and a raptor) but won 20-5. The week before it defeated a Forge World Tyranid force and a Necron Decurion, and had i not been an idiot and remembered to move two rhinos, would have beaten a Nurgle Daemon list. And I played a one off against a guy who had a Dreadnought list. I killed exactly ONE Tactical Marine the whole game and would have won if I could have gotten the last hull pint off his Land Raider which miraculously wouldnt die. So it was a tie.
I have said that Chaos needs a new codex but the codex is usable and you can win with it. I'm not really aware of any codex that I would consider unusable now. they're all in the mix if you know how to play them.
And Wraith Knights dont invalidate an entire army. ONE Wraith Knight can be taken down by IG firepower. do you think them miraculously immune? Its so weird how people like th throw "Wraith Knight" ut as some excuse for something else sucking. Its like: what do you THINK the rest of the army is DOING in the mean time?
And what do you think the rest of the Eldar army is doing? If we're going down this route, then he can just wipe that squad off the board with scatterbikes.
Its fine. do what you want. But I'll happily spend the 600 points because its also a death blossom of 7 units that can explode out to take objectives at the end when the blob hs done all the good it can.
Once you've faced it, you won't be as eager to dismiss it again.
Yes, I'm sure blowing your ~700pt unit off the board in a couple of turns will give me an entirely new perspective as to its value.
I looked through your blog briefly, didn't see the battle report. Link?
I did see your comments on how CSM can take down a wraith knight and saw you got some rules wrong, enough that makes your strategy not work. So....yeah. There is that.
Akiasura wrote: I looked through your blog briefly, didn't see the battle report. Link?
I did see your comments on how CSM can take down a wraith knight and saw you got some rules wrong, enough that makes your strategy not work. So....yeah. There is that.
I edit'd the most recent article. We all make a mistake now and again. Peer editing is good.
As for the batreps... which ones are you looking for specifically?
the dude who works in my local gw store said that the 14th November is going to be a massive release day with A LOT of new kits being released. wonder what will come out of it
Well, technically it's not happened yet.
Would be surprised as all hell if something pops out tomorrow without any of the rumors coming up about it, but just worth mentioning.
the clone wrote: the dude who works in my local gw store said that the 14th November is going to be a massive release day with A LOT of new kits being released. wonder what will come out of it
Kau'yon of course as well as the Dark Angels stuff and possibly the White Scars thing.
the clone wrote: the dude who works in my local gw store said that the 14th November is going to be a massive release day with A LOT of new kits being released. wonder what will come out of it
Kau'yon of course as well as the Dark Angels stuff and possibly the White Scars thing.
Akiasura wrote: I looked through your blog briefly, didn't see the battle report. Link?
I did see your comments on how CSM can take down a wraith knight and saw you got some rules wrong, enough that makes your strategy not work. So....yeah. There is that.
I edit'd the most recent article. We all make a mistake now and again. Peer editing is good.
As for the batreps... which ones are you looking for specifically?
Thanks, I looked over some of your battle reports.
First off, I think I should mention that the lists your opponent run are pretty weak, imo. I didn't see a single example of the stuff you'd see in a competitive meta, and many bad choices are being made. The best example of this I can find is your mechdar battle report, the list your opponent took is....just awful, with not a single strong choice outside of eldrad.
I think this may be coloring your ideas on what can work, like on your article about why warp talons are useful. You don't seem to have a competitive meta, or even a semi competitive meta (which I would consider to be no formations/Allie stuff, but still strong mono dex builds).
Thanks, I looked over some of your battle reports.
First off, I think I should mention that the lists your opponent run are pretty weak, imo. I didn't see a single example of the stuff you'd see in a competitive meta, and many bad choices are being made. The best example of this I can find is your mechdar battle report, the list your opponent took is....just awful, with not a single strong choice outside of eldrad.
I think this may be coloring your ideas on what can work, like on your article about why warp talons are useful. You don't seem to have a competitive meta, or even a semi competitive meta (which I would consider to be no formations/Allie stuff, but still strong mono dex builds).
You didn't think wave spam was powerful? Lol. Im pretty sure the entire interwebz would disagree, if thats the one you're talking about. I'm not really daunted by your opinion because I've played since 4th Edition and i assure you my meta is competitive and veteran.
Its a really easy thing to test though. Play me on VASSAL. then you wont have to wonder anymore.
Thanks, I looked over some of your battle reports.
First off, I think I should mention that the lists your opponent run are pretty weak, imo. I didn't see a single example of the stuff you'd see in a competitive meta, and many bad choices are being made. The best example of this I can find is your mechdar battle report, the list your opponent took is....just awful, with not a single strong choice outside of eldrad.
I think this may be coloring your ideas on what can work, like on your article about why warp talons are useful. You don't seem to have a competitive meta, or even a semi competitive meta (which I would consider to be no formations/Allie stuff, but still strong mono dex builds).
You didn't think wave spam was powerful? Lol. Im pretty sure the entire interwebz would disagree, if thats the one you're talking about. I'm not really daunted by your opinion because I've played since 4th Edition and i assure you my meta is competitive and veteran.
Its a really easy thing to test though. Play me on VASSAL. then you wont have to wonder anymore.
EDIT: Better yet, play them!
Maybe I misread the date, but the new codex spiders and bikes are the strongest. Fire dragons are great too.
Guardians, scorpions, and dire avengers are not the strongest. They are in fact pretty weak, as far as the eldar codex goes. 2 wave serpents and a prism is hardly spam. 5 or 6 is spam.
If it makes you feel better, I've played since 3rd
I don't currently play on vassal, though I appreciate the invite to a game!
Jancoran wrote: No he had three serpents and the prisms. One came on from reserve later, because he forgot to deploy it. And yes. This was pre-7th edition codex.
Right, pre 7th does help the list. Though again;
Why 10 guardians?
Why 10 avengers?
Why a prism at all?
He....forgot to deploy a tank....?
Again, I'm not trying to insult anyone. But compared to a competitive list this looked incredibly tame. 3 wave serpents isn't spamming. Most discussions on here during the 6th dex felt that 2-3 serpents were fine, but 5-6 is where it got spammy.
Jancoran wrote: No he had three serpents and the prisms. One came on from reserve later, because he forgot to deploy it. And yes. This was pre-7th edition codex.
Right, pre 7th does help the list. Though again;
Why 10 guardians?
Why 10 avengers?
Why a prism at all?
He....forgot to deploy a tank....?
Again, I'm not trying to insult anyone. But compared to a competitive list this looked incredibly tame. 3 wave serpents isn't spamming. Most discussions on here during the 6th dex felt that 2-3 serpents were fine, but 5-6 is where it got spammy.
It could by why your CSM are doing so well.
Also,
No fire dragons
No spiders
Well you're stating some obvious things there but that Karandras unit is a HARD CORE Bad ass. It slew a huge chunk of my army and would have kept doing it. You may not have had that kind of unit illustrated to you very frequently since the netlists of the universe so often slap a couple minimum sized Fire Dragons in the Serpents. And that's not a bad way to go but its a fragile exchange unit and some Genrerals do not like Exchange units. I happen to be one, as is my opponent.
Forgetting to deploy the tank was a minor issue. It came on turn two so yeah it was a mistake but its not as if you've never made any. So give the guy a break.
I absolutely agree with his use of ten guardians though. Those things put out a LOT of damage for their cost and if you're taking 5 anyways at 8 points each, why not have a unit of ten? Its not like he was going to get another Serpent out of it. And though he might have gone with 5 Fire Dragons instead of ten guardians, against my force that would make little difference. He actually can do more damage to my army with the guardians ironically. Even if you wouldn't do it, it wasn't a mistake in the context of our matchup. he gets 2.22 rends out of them at least, plus 4 more wounds against my tough 5, so he's killing a little over 3 Raptors in a round (possibly more) as compared to the Fire Dragons who would do slightly less. In both cases, Guardians and Dragons, neither probably survives my charge. So maybe he could have subbed Dragons in and maybe they would be cool against some things? Guardians and Avengers also greatly improve with Prescience. Avengers are particularly cool with their 5+ invuls and getting to rer-roll that and their normal 4+. Pretty hearty unit to wrap Eldrad in without too much more cost. Plus he had to have two troops so I mean... why are you upset that he took those two choices? He had a good reason for at least one of them. he coulda used bikes for the Guardians but they weren't like they are now and he wouldn't get a wave serpent with them. sooo....
Jancoran wrote: No he had three serpents and the prisms. One came on from reserve later, because he forgot to deploy it. And yes. This was pre-7th edition codex.
Right, pre 7th does help the list. Though again;
Why 10 guardians?
Why 10 avengers?
Why a prism at all?
He....forgot to deploy a tank....?
Again, I'm not trying to insult anyone. But compared to a competitive list this looked incredibly tame. 3 wave serpents isn't spamming. Most discussions on here during the 6th dex felt that 2-3 serpents were fine, but 5-6 is where it got spammy.
It could by why your CSM are doing so well.
Also,
No fire dragons
No spiders
Well you're stating some obvious things there but that Karandras unit is a HARD CORE Bad ass. It slew a huge chunk of my army and would have kept doing it. You may not have had that kind of unit illustrated to you very frequently since the netlists of the universe so often slap a couple minimum sized Fire Dragons in the Serpents. And that's not a bad way to go but its a fragile exchange unit and some Genrerals do not like Exchange units. I happen to be one, as is my opponent.
I'm not sure what you mean by exchange units, unless you mean piece trades. In which case, all units in 40k are just piece trades to some extent. Like, say, the guardians or the DA. Melee units most of all, since after melee they tend to stand in the open. The extreme range on the weapons means that piece trades are the main strategy in 40k.
Wave serpents are piece trades, they just tend to trade way way up.
Karandras is a guy who is good in melee, yes. Striking scorpions with him are good, but in 6th, they were clearly not the best the dex can bring. Frankly, the unit is very expensive for what it does and it's relative toughness, though it's a lot of fun to run it into things. Against chaos it would do fine. I'm not sure if I'd like it against a more competitive dex, though I'd be curious to see how it would fair against necrons.
I do not know how you call fire dragons in a serpent a fragile unit. Serpents were the toughest tanks in the entire game. Their sole purpose was to drop the dragons off at some unit, the dragons eliminate a tank or MC, making their points back and then some. The serpent continues to fly around, a lot of damage. Losing the min squad of dragons isn't a big deal considering they were relatively cheap for their fire power. Personally I like spiders (and have since 3rd, when they were weak) and Swooping hawks (which I still can't find much use for outside of their PL) but fire dragons are very good. A competitive list would have at least a squad.
Again, I am merely saying that your meta is most likely not very competitive. This isn't a strong competitive list. It's pretty fluffy. Like you said, the power choices I listed were obvious, and he chose not to take them.
Forgetting to deploy the tank was a minor issue. It came on turn two so yeah it was a mistake but its not as if you've never made any. So give the guy a break.
It's weird for someone in a competitive meta to forget to deploy an entire tank, and it's the only reason I brought it up.
I absolutely agree with his use of ten guardians though. Those things put out a LOT of damage for their cost and if you're taking 5 anyways at 8 points each, why not have a unit of ten? Its not like he was going to get another Serpent out of it. And though he might have gone with 5 Fire Dragons instead of ten guardians, against my force that would make little difference. He actually can do more damage to my army with the guardians ironically. Even if you wouldn't do it, it wasn't a mistake in the context of our matchup.
If he knew he was going to face you and built a list accordingly, he could have done a better job.
If you both built a list for a fun game before hand, then the meta isn't very competitive.
As a TAC choice, guardians are poor.
Either way, it wasn't a competitive option, which is my only point.
he gets 2.22 rends out of them at least, plus 4 more wounds against my tough 5, so he's killing a little over 3 Raptors in a round (possibly more) as compared to the Fire Dragons who would do slightly less.
I have them doing roughly the same, assuming fast shot, but alright.
What you aren't taking into account is that the Fire dragons do comparable damage against an MEQ but do better against;
MC (and these were deadly in 6th)
A tank
TEQ (granted, uncommon). making them great TAC units, especially combined with a serpent, which is what competitive players look for in a unit.
And the serpent honestly does quite enough damage against infantry that the dragons are better off killing things it doesn't want to see across the table.
Not to mention that guardians are horrifically fragile.
Guardians and Avengers also greatly improve with Prescience. Avengers are particularly cool with their 5+ invuls and getting to rer-roll that and their normal 4+.
Honestly, I'd pick better units for the powers. Spiders or the dragons, for example.
Pretty hearty unit to wrap Eldrad in without too much more cost. Plus he had to have two troops so I mean... why are you upset that he took those two choices?
I'm not sure if you mean the Guardians or the Avengers as a hearty unit. Neither are that tough, or as tough as dragons, who have a better save. Eldrad is expensive and critical to the unit, so I can justify the extra points on him.
Generally the competitive choice was 2 min squad of DA with WS and nothing else. Troops are usually bad in most dexes, 6th edition eldar wasn't much of an exception.
Also, I'm not mad. Again, I'm just claiming that your belief that the Chaos dex is fine likely stems from a more casual meta.
At my local store, we have people who used to play the game very competitively from 3rd-5th. I would never see a list like this across from me, and would welcome it if I did. We had to flat out disallow formations and alter the ally rules to even have a game. I still don't take my CSM out as much as I'd like.
He had a good reason for at least one of them. he coulda used bikes for the Guardians but they weren't like they are now and he wouldn't get a wave serpent with them. sooo....
There wasn't a reason to take the max squad of avengers or take Guardians at all. No fire dragons seems weird, as do a lack of spiders (which, next to the WS, were the strongest units in that dex). Prisms are just flat out inferior, I haven't played mine in years sadly.
Again, if this is your meta it's fine. Nothing wrong with it. But you can't come into a thread and tell everyone they've been wrong about balance and not have them glance at your local meta.
This is no different than someone saying they have a tournament winning list, and then posting it to find out it has 2 squads of Howling Banshees, or all their guard take are heavy bolters. It says a lot about what the local mindset is, and where your ideas are coming from.
I find the meta argument to be the second worst argument in Warhammer, right behind "quality of opponents" which is really just the same thing said a different way (sort of).
The reality is that no one is looking at two different codex's. ANYONE with a calculator, which means everyone, can figure out the kill per point ratio vs. MEQ units. Anyone. Anyone can do the math to figure out what the probable effective threat radius is of Thunderwolf Cavalry. Anyone can learn that it is unwise not to have some dedicated AP 2 in the list in order to make sure Terminators and the like have an answer,
The player in question here is not a casual player. Well let me rephrase that. He is not a casual person. He comes for blood when he plays and does not like to lose. I've had to disappoint him of course. But he builds the Paladin Stars and the wave spam lists and all that. So he likes to win and he's absolutely not above cranking it up to 11 with netlists.
i think we should stay away from making coments about my meta though. i dont plan on name dropping. I think its stupid. I will just say this: my meta is about as healthy as they come.
In fact it is healthy enough that some of the better generals choose to win with somewhat more friendly looking armies. =) You will find that once you win enough, you start finding the challenge of not stealing netlists is a truer test of ability.
Jancoran wrote: I find the meta argument to be the second worst argument in Warhammer, right behind "quality of opponents" which is really just the same thing said a different way (sort of).
The reality is that no one is looking at two different codex's. ANYONE with a calculator, which means everyone, can figure out the kill per point ratio vs. MEQ units. Anyone. Anyone can do the math to figure out what the probable effective threat radius is of Thunderwolf Cavalry. Anyone can learn that it is unwise not to have some dedicated AP 2 in the list in order to make sure Terminators and the like have an answer,
The player in question here is not a casual player. Well let me rephrase that. He is not a casual person. He comes for blood when he plays and does not like to lose. I've had to disappoint him of course. But he builds the Paladin Stars and the wave spam lists and all that. So he likes to win and he's absolutely not above cranking it up to 11 with netlists.
i think we should stay away from making coments about my meta though. i dont plan on name dropping. I think its stupid. I will just say this: my meta is about as healthy as they come.
In fact it is healthy enough that some of the better generals choose to win with somewhat more friendly looking armies. =) You will find that once you win enough, you start finding the challenge of not stealing netlists is a truer test of ability.
Well, no one at my local meta is stealing net lists. I appreciate the snide comments about either me or my meta though especially after requesting I stop commenting about your meta.
As you said, anyone can look at a codex and see what is strong. 40k, despite its special rules bloat, is an incredibly shallow game without a lot of tactical depth. This is seen in the lists taken to the ETC this year, which are pretty much "Spam best 2-3 units in dex", with possibly one extra unit thrown in to cover a base that is missing.
Which, given the simplicity of the math in this game, it makes us wonder why you are claiming everyone is wrong about the relative strength of the IG and the CSM.
You posted a unit that, for IG, wasn't that great when DA were first doing IG blobs with a tankier unit out in front, citing it as a strength.
You said that CSM are strong but aren't discussing why. After a look at your battle reports, it seems you face pretty casual lists.
So, I am either left with really two ideas. You and your friends are all either geniuses that are able to overcome the math stacking against your choices (better, even, than everyone playing at the ETC actually!) or your meta isn't that competitive.
I applied occam's razor and reached a conclusion. You could always state why you think CSM are good (I own a huge collection, wouldn't mind hearing some tips on what to bring. I own every model, so go nuts) or post something that works better for IG.
What is the big bad tau treatment that people are fearing? I mean, GW did give a StrD gun to the ranged shooting specialists . . that has a TEN INCH RANGE!?!?!?!?
I mean, how much lazier can they get? 'Hey CSM players, pick up a 30k army and field it with its HH rules. Done.'
carldooley wrote: What is the big bad tau treatment that people are fearing? I mean, GW did give a StrD gun to the ranged shooting specialists . . that has a TEN INCH RANGE!?!?!?!?
I mean, how much lazier can they get? 'Hey CSM players, pick up a 30k army and field it with its HH rules. Done.'
You are so far behind the news mien friend. 4 STR D Missiles 60 inch AND the 10 Inch D gun which is still good at its medium range bracket.
But you have to "unlock" the Strength D destroyer missiles with markerlights. And you get four shots per game, whereas Eldar can keep shooting D at you forever, essentially.
It's mainly the formations and the "Taucurion" that are pissing people off, since everything else is copy/paste except for the new stuff, and the new stuff isn't necessarily any more devastating than gak we already had. Still apparently bad enough to be "NEW ELDAR!", though.
War Kitten wrote: If my guard get the tau treatment I fear for my guardsmen...
Guard are pretty awesome. In the history of 40K, other than the roomsweeper list, I really have always enjoyed those games. they feel gritty. Lots of stuff dies. Waves of humanity and all that. I like them. If they get the Tau treatment, I am not sure WHERE they will get it? Like what units? I sure hope Rough Riders get the Tau treatment cause those are super fun units. They just die like flies but still, Pretty cool. I so want them to get the Tau treatment!
Sidstyler wrote: But you have to "unlock" the Strength D destroyer missiles with markerlights. And you get four shots per game, whereas Eldar can keep shooting D at you forever, essentially.
It's mainly the formations and the "Taucurion" that are pissing people off, since everything else is copy/paste except for the new stuff, and the new stuff isn't necessarily any more devastating than gak we already had. Still apparently bad enough to be "NEW ELDAR!", though.
As a tau player, they are so, so very wrong.
Even without formations, I can do things I never could with the new codex. the changes are subtle, but meaningful.
Even if I choose not to deploy any of the new options at my disposal, the mere fact they exist, means that in a match with pre-known opponents (you know enemy army before building lists) it means my opponents need to spread thinner to cover the extra possibilities at my disposal, or, if they are unaware of just what changed under the surface-risk being blown away by something they did not even consider I might do.
With 0 new models (well, I'm working of scratch buliding a few tactical drones, but that hardly counts), my army list options has become far more flexible.
And that, as said, is without taking formations into account.
Sidstyler wrote: But you have to "unlock" the Strength D destroyer missiles with markerlights. And you get four shots per game, whereas Eldar can keep shooting D at you forever, essentially.
It's mainly the formations and the "Taucurion" that are pissing people off, since everything else is copy/paste except for the new stuff, and the new stuff isn't necessarily any more devastating than gak we already had. Still apparently bad enough to be "NEW ELDAR!", though.
As a tau player, they are so, so very wrong.
Even without formations, I can do things I never could with the new codex. the changes are subtle, but meaningful.
Even if I choose not to deploy any of the new options at my disposal, the mere fact they exist, means that in a match with pre-known opponents (you know enemy army before building lists) it means my opponents need to spread thinner to cover the extra possibilities at my disposal, or, if they are unaware of just what changed under the surface-risk being blown away by something they did not even consider I might do.
With 0 new models (well, I'm working of scratch buliding a few tactical drones, but that hardly counts), my army list options has become far more flexible.
And that, as said, is without taking formations into account.
I actually really like the new Tau codex. The old one I thought was really good, since it's one of the few dexes with synergy. The new one just made it so now, if you want to, you can play against the big 3 if they optimize their list.
The only reason I don't play my Tau often is that people seem to hate playing against Tau. But the army is in a very good place.
What you're talking about is list-tailoring, though, which is very widely frowned upon and (rightfully) considered douchey. Not much point in playing out the game if you can create a hard counter to your opponent's list and be almost sure to win before a single die is even rolled.
Unless you and your opponent are doing a specific scenario and it's all planned out ahead of time, you really want to build "take all comers" lists for casual play, and especially pick-up games.
Why are there people saying CSM's are good....what game are you playing @Jancoran?????
I looked at some of your blog posts, for eg the eldar list you faced 3 serpents, karandras.., guardians...,striking scorpions...,Prisms. That's absolutely garbage if your talking competitive Eldar. (Even if it was the 6th ed eldar codex, it was still terrible). So because your CSM fluffy list can beat eldar fluffy lists CSM must be fine? Ohh dear.
On Topic, I hope all the future codexs get brought up to the same style as Tau, Eldar, Necrons and Space Marines. Packed with plenty of options. But this is GW, they could not balance two items that weigh the exact same. Who knows if they will keep this design trend or revert back to rubbish like the Blood Angels book.
I don't know why people are so difficult about that.
In my local, it's usual that both players knows each other's army (not list, just faction/general vibe) in advance and plan accordingly.
Makes it so much more interesting when every unit in both sides is deployed with thought if what is in front of you, rather than TaC list that get you some stuff that turn out useless (like anti air against sisters or anti horde against imperial knights)
BoomWolf wrote: I don't know why people are so difficult about that.
In my local, it's usual that both players knows each other's army (not list, just faction/general vibe) in advance and plan accordingly.
Makes it so much more interesting when every unit in both sides is deployed with thought if what is in front of you, rather than TaC list that get you some stuff that turn out useless (like anti air against sisters or anti horde against imperial knights)
Traditionally, most table top games actively discourage cooperative list design. Every other table top game doesn't do it, and the tournament scene of course doesn't allow it.
List tailoring has been a dirty word in gaming since 3rd edition.
It actually requires more thought if you don't list tailor, in regards to deployment. If you bring 5 tanks and I only have 2 anti tank units, I have to be very careful in how I use and deploy them or I'll lose. If we list designed I can just take 5 anti tank units for your 5 tanks and the game becomes a lot easier for me.
I'll agree that a lot of the more recent innovations like fliers and knights make tac lists very hard to create.
BoomWolf wrote: I don't know why people are so difficult about that.
In my local, it's usual that both players knows each other's army (not list, just faction/general vibe) in advance and plan accordingly.
Makes it so much more interesting when every unit in both sides is deployed with thought if what is in front of you, rather than TaC list that get you some stuff that turn out useless (like anti air against sisters or anti horde against imperial knights)
Traditionally, most table top games actively discourage cooperative list design. Every other table top game doesn't do it, and the tournament scene of course doesn't allow it.
List tailoring has been a dirty word in gaming since 3rd edition.
It actually requires more thought if you don't list tailor, in regards to deployment. If you bring 5 tanks and I only have 2 anti tank units, I have to be very careful in how I use and deploy them or I'll lose. If we list designed I can just take 5 anti tank units for your 5 tanks and the game becomes a lot easier for me.
I'll agree that a lot of the more recent innovations like fliers and knights make tac lists very hard to create.
Best thing to do is know who the OPPONENT is ahead of the time, which is what he was saying. Know the army, not the list.
CSM can actually put forth fairly decent lists IF we know who our opponent will be ahead of time. With all the widely ranging options available from god powers, creating a TaC list is what's impossible.
What I mean by the Tau treatment is the codex will get copy/pasted and most units won't actually change. So Rough Riders will still be terrible, Ogryns will still be overcosted, and Russes will still not have Lumbering Behemoth back. But hey, I'll get a Decurion formation that will make me buy 50 more guardsmen, and a bunch of other stuff to actually use.
BoomWolf wrote: I don't know why people are so difficult about that.
In my local, it's usual that both players knows each other's army (not list, just faction/general vibe) in advance and plan accordingly.
Makes it so much more interesting when every unit in both sides is deployed with thought if what is in front of you, rather than TaC list that get you some stuff that turn out useless (like anti air against sisters or anti horde against imperial knights)
Traditionally, most table top games actively discourage cooperative list design. Every other table top game doesn't do it, and the tournament scene of course doesn't allow it.
List tailoring has been a dirty word in gaming since 3rd edition.
It actually requires more thought if you don't list tailor, in regards to deployment. If you bring 5 tanks and I only have 2 anti tank units, I have to be very careful in how I use and deploy them or I'll lose. If we list designed I can just take 5 anti tank units for your 5 tanks and the game becomes a lot easier for me.
I'll agree that a lot of the more recent innovations like fliers and knights make tac lists very hard to create.
Best thing to do is know who the OPPONENT is ahead of the time, which is what he was saying. Know the army, not the list.
Right, which is still list tailoring, just to a lesser degree.
Traditionally, in most table top games, you show up with a list prepared and just play a game. You don't swap units in and out because you know you are facing a guard opponent, and will most likely need more anti tank. Such moves have, again traditionally, been treated with scorn and as a dirty move.
The only reason we have moved away from this is because, for the vast majority of the armies, making a TAC list has become impossible. Hence why you see this game moving away from PUGs at local clubs to more of a friends house or close-knit group only setting.
CSM can actually put forth fairly decent lists IF we know who our opponent will be ahead of time. With all the widely ranging options available from god powers, creating a TaC list is what's impossible.
I strongly disagree.
CSM can list tailor to some degree, but if the enemy does the same, we will still lose against the vast majority of dexes. Our only good god powers are slaanesh (very often not great, really only good for cover denial weapons if you need them) and nurgle (which, in a TAC list, is what you spam). Against the stronger dexes, CSM just can't compete with the damage they can put out unless they use a very casual list, as seen in some of the battle reports linked where CSM perform.
Compare the strongest units in the CSM codex to Warp Spiders, or Wraiths, or Centurions. It's not even close in terms of power. You can take the weaker dexes, but ones that are still really good like Tau, and see similar disparities in power.
Many of our options are just bad or flat out inferior to other choices in the same dex (Warp Talons, MoT/K, Fiends, Land Raider, Possessed, Raptors compared to Bikers, Chosen) requiring us to toss out a majority of our options to compete. For those of us who own 1k sons...ouch. Beautiful army, hasn't been good in a very long time.
If you want me to believe that CSM can put forth fairly decent lists, you'll have to post one and list who it's going to go up against, and it should be able to go up against a decent opponent (so not BA foot horde, for example).
Every codex has something thats pretty darn cool Centurions are cool. Heldrakes are cool. the new StormSurge is col, the Militarum Tempestus Formation that twin links you every time you disembark is cool. There's a lot of cool things in every codex.
Even if something is cool, if it has stats it can die. So... Don't despair.
Jancoran wrote: Every codex has something thats pretty darn cool Centurions are cool. Heldrakes are cool. the new StormSurge is col, the Militarum Tempestus Formation that twin links you every time you disembark is cool. There's a lot of cool things in every codex.
Even if something is cool, if it has stats it can die. So... Don't despair.
I'm downloading Vassal now so I can play you as loyalists vs Chaos Space Marines, and see why you think chaos is good.
I'd even limit myself to no FW and no more than 2 detachments.
Heck I'd play you with the old SM codex if you wanted.
Jancoran wrote: Every codex has something thats pretty darn cool Centurions are cool. Heldrakes are cool. the new StormSurge is col, the Militarum Tempestus Formation that twin links you every time you disembark is cool. There's a lot of cool things in every codex.
Even if something is cool, if it has stats it can die. So... Don't despair.
I'm downloading Vassal now so I can play you as loyalists vs Chaos Space Marines, and see why you think chaos is good.
I'd even limit myself to no FW and no more than 2 detachments.
Heck I'd play you with the old SM codex if you wanted.
No need for that. He said "cool", not "good". He's technically correct, there's a some decent flavor and coolness in the chaos book. Sadly, it doesn't add up to a competitive level list though, but it is neat.
Jancoran wrote: Every codex has something thats pretty darn cool Centurions are cool. Heldrakes are cool. the new StormSurge is col, the Militarum Tempestus Formation that twin links you every time you disembark is cool. There's a lot of cool things in every codex.
Even if something is cool, if it has stats it can die. So... Don't despair.
There's also a huge difference between 'cool' and 'Cool!'.
A Hellturkey is cool. It looks awesome, isn't obnoxious/game ruining in it's power level, and plays a solid role within the army.
A unit of Gravcents on the other hand are "COOL!" They're nothing but a point-and-click 'deletes most things that can threaten them' unit, that becomes outright game-winning when you add in additional supports. (Tiggy/Draigo/Severin Lothe/etc...)
Chaos Marines have plenty of 'cool' units. We have absolutely nothing that can honestly fit within the "Cool!" tier however... When your opponents only ever play with top tier lists & options, playing Chaos outside of the one or two equally obnoxious Daemon lists is just a lesson in eating a poop sandwich with grace.
Jancoran wrote: Every codex has something thats pretty darn cool Centurions are cool. Heldrakes are cool. the new StormSurge is col, the Militarum Tempestus Formation that twin links you every time you disembark is cool. There's a lot of cool things in every codex.
Even if something is cool, if it has stats it can die. So... Don't despair.
I'm downloading Vassal now so I can play you as loyalists vs Chaos Space Marines, and see why you think chaos is good.
I'd even limit myself to no FW and no more than 2 detachments.
Heck I'd play you with the old SM codex if you wanted.
Sure. PM me and we'll set a date. I usually find Sundays after the Seahawks game to be an okay time. I'll need to practice with the Vassal interfeace a little to remind myself of all the little hotkeys.
I find the whole concept of a TAC list silly, and borderline insulting.
You are a military commander, not a leader of a ragtag group of mercenary who make due with what you got.
You should have at the very least approximate intelligence of your adversary, and prepare accordingly.
Your space marine capitan would have to be a brick as boreal to bring melta weapons against tyranids, same as a tau commander would be extremely dull to bring light infantry special operation teams to handle a knight household.
You are logically bringing tools who are approximately fitting for the job, because its assumed you are not just wandering around the tall grass, and suddenly a wild xeno army has appeared.
Tournaments for that matter would be so much better if they abandon the whole "TaC" mindset, and advance to sideboards too. sideboards is a major part of any game where there is a large veriaty of possible opponents, allowing you to use "silver bullet" choices, without being punished in games where they silver bullet is irrelevant.
A turnament with sideboards will be far more interesting.
(Example of side-boarding in 40k, a 1500 point turny, where you have to field at least 1000 points of fixed choices, and then fill the rest of what's left as, lets say, 3 optional "sideboards" that you pick from AFTER seeing what the opponent "fixed" choices are. you are never screwed in a fight you had no answer to if you built properly, and you are never sitting in the "free win" seat, again considering competent opponent.)
I dont think so. I think that your troops and training are what they are when invaders arrive. You cant logistically get the perfect combination of counters on the field and deployed fast enugh once youre under attack.
this always begs the question: who WAS the attacker? And we never actually know that. So if you wanted a Sideboard I suppose it would have to be an attacker only sideboard. and that in turn imbalances the game pretty significantly.
so sideboards just dont work for 40K from a fluff standpoint, as you are stating the case from a fluff standpoint.
Jancoran wrote: Every codex has something thats pretty darn cool Centurions are cool. Heldrakes are cool. the new StormSurge is col, the Militarum Tempestus Formation that twin links you every time you disembark is cool. There's a lot of cool things in every codex.
Even if something is cool, if it has stats it can die. So... Don't despair.
There's also a huge difference between 'cool' and 'Cool!'.
A Hellturkey is cool. It looks awesome, isn't obnoxious/game ruining in it's power level, and plays a solid role within the army.
A unit of Gravcents on the other hand are "COOL!" They're nothing but a point-and-click 'deletes most things that can threaten them' unit, that becomes outright game-winning when you add in additional supports. (Tiggy/Draigo/Severin Lothe/etc...)
Chaos Marines have plenty of 'cool' units. We have absolutely nothing that can honestly fit within the "Cool!" tier however... When your opponents only ever play with top tier lists & options, playing Chaos outside of the one or two equally obnoxious Daemon lists is just a lesson in eating a poop sandwich with grace.
Naw, against a ravenwing army a hell turkey is pretty much point click I win with no thinking required. Black mace DPS with wings are nasty too
BoomWolf wrote: I find the whole concept of a TAC list silly, and borderline insulting.
You are a military commander, not a leader of a ragtag group of mercenary who make due with what you got.
You should have at the very least approximate intelligence of your adversary, and prepare accordingly.
Your space marine capitan would have to be a brick as boreal to bring melta weapons against tyranids, same as a tau commander would be extremely dull to bring light infantry special operation teams to handle a knight household.
You are logically bringing tools who are approximately fitting for the job, because its assumed you are not just wandering around the tall grass, and suddenly a wild xeno army has appeared.
Tournaments for that matter would be so much better if they abandon the whole "TaC" mindset, and advance to sideboards too. sideboards is a major part of any game where there is a large veriaty of possible opponents, allowing you to use "silver bullet" choices, without being punished in games where they silver bullet is irrelevant.
A turnament with sideboards will be far more interesting.
(Example of side-boarding in 40k, a 1500 point turny, where you have to field at least 1000 points of fixed choices, and then fill the rest of what's left as, lets say, 3 optional "sideboards" that you pick from AFTER seeing what the opponent "fixed" choices are. you are never screwed in a fight you had no answer to if you built properly, and you are never sitting in the "free win" seat, again considering competent opponent.)
While I do think that "TAC" is a dead concept and that armies should specialize toward their individual strengths, I don't think that sideboards are the answer. You end up with people sideboarding against sideboarding, and it puts another meta sideways on top of the existing meta. House rules are a much better way of leveling the playing field for all armies.
Heldrakes are excellent in all kinds of ways. They hover which is huge, can re-enter reserves and that leads up to objective stealing late game as well as combat efficacy.
Arkaine wrote: Chaos isn't allowed to have nice things. Not since we took over the galaxy back in 2003 during the Eye of Terror campaign and proved Chaos was superior to the smurf fanboys GW caters to. Chaos isn't allowed to win anymore. We reached for the sun and in doing so burned our wings.
At least Chaos had its day in the sun with the Legions Codex.
I don't think Dark Angels have ever had the privilege of sitting atop the megagame, not even for a moment like IG "Leafblower".
BoomWolf wrote: I find the whole concept of a TAC list silly, and borderline insulting.
You are a military commander, not a leader of a ragtag group of mercenary who make due with what you got.
You should have at the very least approximate intelligence of your adversary, and prepare accordingly.
Your space marine capitan would have to be a brick as boreal to bring melta weapons against tyranids, same as a tau commander would be extremely dull to bring light infantry special operation teams to handle a knight household.
The thing is though, you're assuming that armies always know exactly who they'll be facing *and* that they always have the resources to prepare accordingly.
It seems far more likely that this simply won't be the case.
- They might be initially sent to deal with one threat, but then redirected because a different threat has taken priority.
- They might destroy one threat, and then have to deal with a new threat (this is a setting where Daemons, Necrons, Eldar etc. can basically just pop into existence next to them).
- They might not be able to get intelligence on their enemy until, and so have to be prepared for several possible threats.
- Their intelligence might simply be wrong. It might under- or overestimate the number of tanks the enemy has, or make other mistakes that cause them to take the wrong weapons for the situation.
- They might have suffered a defeat, and are then attacked (either by the same enemy or a different one) and have to make do with whatever they managed to escape with.
- There may be problems with their supply lines.
- They might have fought a battle against one opponent, and are immediately called to fight a different one, with their supply base being too far away for them to properly restock and re-equip themselves.
In addition, even if tailoring is possible, in most cases it's likely to be extremely one-sided. e.g. if Necrons invade a planet, you might expect them to prepare for the guardsmen holding it. But, if SMs are then told about the Necron incursion and sent to deal with it, would the Necrons really be prepared for those as well?
Also, to take things a step further, let's say the SMs defeat the Necrons and then a DE fleet chooses that moment to launch a raid. The SMs were tailored to fight Necrons, and the DE (like the Necrons) were expecting to be fighting IG. So, neither side will have prepared for the other.
TLDR: There are many, many possible reasons why an army won't automatically be able to tailor to its opponent. And, it's even less likely that both armies will be able to tailor against each other.
BoomWolf wrote: I find the whole concept of a TAC list silly, and borderline insulting.
You are a military commander, not a leader of a ragtag group of mercenary who make due with what you got.
You should have at the very least approximate intelligence of your adversary, and prepare accordingly.
The problem is that list tailoring might make sense fluff-wise, but in a game like 40k what it really means is that players with more money get to win more. Playing TAC lists puts a cap on the maximum cost of an army because you only have one list to build. But once you start tailoring for specific opponents you have to buy a bunch of extra options to swap in and out, and that costs a lot more money. So what happens is that newbies and players with limited budgets are stuck with a TAC list and maybe a melta/flamer swap or two, while the veterans with unlimited budgets always have the perfect army for each opponent.
Thanks, I looked over some of your battle reports.
First off, I think I should mention that the lists your opponent run are pretty weak, imo. I didn't see a single example of the stuff you'd see in a competitive meta, and many bad choices are being made. The best example of this I can find is your mechdar battle report, the list your opponent took is....just awful, with not a single strong choice outside of eldrad.
I think this may be coloring your ideas on what can work, like on your article about why warp talons are useful. You don't seem to have a competitive meta, or even a semi competitive meta (which I would consider to be no formations/Allie stuff, but still strong mono dex builds).
You didn't think wave spam was powerful? Lol. Im pretty sure the entire interwebz would disagree, if thats the one you're talking about. I'm not really daunted by your opinion because I've played since 4th Edition and i assure you my meta is competitive and veteran.
Its a really easy thing to test though. Play me on VASSAL. then you wont have to wonder anymore.
EDIT: Better yet, play them!
He is right. Wave spam wasent been real competitive since last codex. And "oh yeah, fite me' dosent help you sound right in the argument. If someone brings wave spam against me noe its a huge sigh of relief over REAL eldar cheeze.
He is right. Wave spam wasent been real competitive since last codex. And "oh yeah, fite me' dosent help you sound right in the argument. If someone brings wave spam against me noe its a huge sigh of relief over REAL eldar cheeze.
And if Wave Spam in 7E codex ws the issue that would be fine. But it isn't. so its not fine. We were talking about a battle report that used the old codex.
Experiment 626 wrote: Chaos Marines won't get any attention until after Dark Eldar & Orks get their 7.5 books
What on earth makes you think DE and Orks are getting new books before 8th or 9th edition?
My well founded pessimism as a long suffering Chaos player of course.
I'd be willing to bet having to wear a Maple Leafs jersey for an entire month that *IF* we get updated, it won't be until just before/after 8th edition drops, AND, we won't see any new/redone kits we actually need.
My bet is for a half baked codex that fixes nothing, removes options, and 2-3 "new" kits which will be Khorne and/or Nurgle themed, while keeping the rest of our gak-fest model line firmly stuck in early 4th edition. (because god forbid we ever get something more effective than an Autocannon!)
Yes, I'm bitter... Just like all of my brethren.
No gak, right? There are 2 other major chaos gods and then there's Cypher's little buddy just chillin in the Warp and Savin his ass.
The anit-forgeworld sentiment hurts Slaneesh cult and even FW hasn't touched 1k Sons. Instead we got Astral Claws, which was fine as a story about a new chapter falling in its entirety, but the cults and Legions see no love outside of Khorne and Nurgle...
BoomWolf wrote: I find the whole concept of a TAC list silly, and borderline insulting.
You are a military commander, not a leader of a ragtag group of mercenary who make due with what you got.
You should have at the very least approximate intelligence of your adversary, and prepare accordingly.
Your space marine capitan would have to be a brick as boreal to bring melta weapons against tyranids, same as a tau commander would be extremely dull to bring light infantry special operation teams to handle a knight household.
You are logically bringing tools who are approximately fitting for the job, because its assumed you are not just wandering around the tall grass, and suddenly a wild xeno army has appeared.
Tournaments for that matter would be so much better if they abandon the whole "TaC" mindset, and advance to sideboards too. sideboards is a major part of any game where there is a large veriaty of possible opponents, allowing you to use "silver bullet" choices, without being punished in games where they silver bullet is irrelevant.
A turnament with sideboards will be far more interesting.
(Example of side-boarding in 40k, a 1500 point turny, where you have to field at least 1000 points of fixed choices, and then fill the rest of what's left as, lets say, 3 optional "sideboards" that you pick from AFTER seeing what the opponent "fixed" choices are. you are never screwed in a fight you had no answer to if you built properly, and you are never sitting in the "free win" seat, again considering competent opponent.)
While I do think that "TAC" is a dead concept and that armies should specialize toward their individual strengths, I don't think that sideboards are the answer. You end up with people sideboarding against sideboarding, and it puts another meta sideways on top of the existing meta. House rules are a much better way of leveling the playing field for all armies.
Yet I have yet to see a fair set of house rules that does not invalidate armies (highlander for example, invalidates DA, as they count on multiple scourges for AT)
And why is a meta within the meta a bad thing?
vipoid wrote:
BoomWolf wrote: I find the whole concept of a TAC list silly, and borderline insulting.
You are a military commander, not a leader of a ragtag group of mercenary who make due with what you got.
You should have at the very least approximate intelligence of your adversary, and prepare accordingly.
Your space marine capitan would have to be a brick as boreal to bring melta weapons against tyranids, same as a tau commander would be extremely dull to bring light infantry special operation teams to handle a knight household.
The thing is though, you're assuming that armies always know exactly who they'll be facing *and* that they always have the resources to prepare accordingly.
It seems far more likely that this simply won't be the case.
- They might be initially sent to deal with one threat, but then redirected because a different threat has taken priority.
- They might destroy one threat, and then have to deal with a new threat (this is a setting where Daemons, Necrons, Eldar etc. can basically just pop into existence next to them).
- They might not be able to get intelligence on their enemy until, and so have to be prepared for several possible threats.
- Their intelligence might simply be wrong. It might under- or overestimate the number of tanks the enemy has, or make other mistakes that cause them to take the wrong weapons for the situation.
- They might have suffered a defeat, and are then attacked (either by the same enemy or a different one) and have to make do with whatever they managed to escape with.
- There may be problems with their supply lines.
- They might have fought a battle against one opponent, and are immediately called to fight a different one, with their supply base being too far away for them to properly restock and re-equip themselves.
In addition, even if tailoring is possible, in most cases it's likely to be extremely one-sided. e.g. if Necrons invade a planet, you might expect them to prepare for the guardsmen holding it. But, if SMs are then told about the Necron incursion and sent to deal with it, would the Necrons really be prepared for those as well?
Also, to take things a step further, let's say the SMs defeat the Necrons and then a DE fleet chooses that moment to launch a raid. The SMs were tailored to fight Necrons, and the DE (like the Necrons) were expecting to be fighting IG. So, neither side will have prepared for the other.
TLDR: There are many, many possible reasons why an army won't automatically be able to tailor to its opponent. And, it's even less likely that both armies will be able to tailor against each other.
Jancoran wrote:I dont think so. I think that your troops and training are what they are when invaders arrive. You cant logistically get the perfect combination of counters on the field and deployed fast enugh once youre under attack.
this always begs the question: who WAS the attacker? And we never actually know that. So if you wanted a Sideboard I suppose it would have to be an attacker only sideboard. and that in turn imbalances the game pretty significantly.
so sideboards just dont work for 40K from a fluff standpoint, as you are stating the case from a fluff standpoint.
You both fall for the sameissue, assuming there are real attacker/defender conditions in the base scenarios.
There aren't. these clearly stand for an fight in a greater ongoing conflict. in an ongoing conflict-you'd have an idea of who and what you are fighting.
Not full fledged intel, but a general concept.
Peregrine wrote:
BoomWolf wrote: I find the whole concept of a TAC list silly, and borderline insulting.
You are a military commander, not a leader of a ragtag group of mercenary who make due with what you got.
You should have at the very least approximate intelligence of your adversary, and prepare accordingly.
The problem is that list tailoring might make sense fluff-wise, but in a game like 40k what it really means is that players with more money get to win more. Playing TAC lists puts a cap on the maximum cost of an army because you only have one list to build. But once you start tailoring for specific opponents you have to buy a bunch of extra options to swap in and out, and that costs a lot more money. So what happens is that newbies and players with limited budgets are stuck with a TAC list and maybe a melta/flamer swap or two, while the veterans with unlimited budgets always have the perfect army for each opponent.
That's why you give a fixed number of "sideboards" to pick from. so its not "unlimited choices with unlimited cash".
If each player can prepare just 2-3 sideboards, he needs to prepare the right ones.
And considering most sideboards will probably revolve mostly around gun upgrade choices, and that most people magnitse multi-gun units, it really should not be any more tilted towards budget-heavy players than it's already is.
Especially with casual games, where by facing the same opponent the third+ time, if he has a fixed army-you know what it is.
BoomWolf wrote: That's why you give a fixed number of "sideboards" to pick from. so its not "unlimited choices with unlimited cash".
If each player can prepare just 2-3 sideboards, he needs to prepare the right ones.
It's still a significant cost increase. Your example of 1000 points of "core" units and 3x500 sideboards means doubling the cost of that 1500 point army. And if you can't afford to buy a 3000 points worth of models instead of 1500 points then your ability to compete is seriously limited.
And considering most sideboards will probably revolve mostly around gun upgrade choices, and that most people magnitse multi-gun units, it really should not be any more tilted towards budget-heavy players than it's already is.
Changing gun upgrades doesn't necessarily work. For example, a flamer unit and a plasma unit are probably going to have different tactics, so they might need different transport choices or even to be different units entirely. So the poor player will be limited to marginally-effective gun swaps for their existing units, while the rich player can bring entirely new units for their sideboards and always have the most effective options. The poor player can trade melta for flamers, the rich player can trade infantry for AA tanks.
A valid concern, but is the current "guesswork" method any better?
It still allows the rich player to respond to the changing meta, even more so than the sideboard as an entire army switch is a thing, the poor player will always be behind, but sideboards means he can be at least not useless without changing faction.
TCGs are all sideboards, or even multiple decks because it's a system that works.
Yes, the costs are not the same. But at least in will give a semblance of a fighting chance for everyone involved.
Even that minor melta to plasma change, or combi
-type can be relevant in a list, and it doesn't really cost any more.
Yes, the rich will have more room to make wacky sides, but it's a win for everyone.
You both fall for the sameissue, assuming there are real attacker/defender conditions in the base scenarios.
There aren't. these clearly stand for an fight in a greater ongoing conflict. in an ongoing conflict-you'd have an idea of who and what you are fighting.
Can I ask how you're so certain that it's always an ongoing conflict?
Because it's equal grounds fight with both forces just arriving at the scene, and setting up forces for mutually unexpected contact.
Neither force plays as if he knew exactly when and where contact will happen, but both were ready for a fight. Meaning, it's a known warzone.
And known warzone happens in ongoing conflict areas.
Maelstrom and eternal war are not a defined attacker and defender case, unlike many of the scenarios in campaign books, supplements and such.
An attacker /defender case is not played on equal ground.
BoomWolf wrote: Because it's equal grounds fight with both forces just arriving at the scene, and setting up forces for mutually unexpected contact.
That's a dubious explanation. For one thing, why even fight? Surely fast races like Eldar and DE would just zip away and pick a better time to ambush their enemy?
Neither force plays as if he knew exactly when and where contact will happen, but both were ready for a fight. Meaning, it's a known warzone.
Really?
What happened to all the intelligence you talked about earlier? You're seriously telling me that neither of these races in the 41st millennium had any idea that they were about to blunder into one another?
I mean, we can easily have armies of SMs drop-podding in. Had they been planning to drop in the middle of nowhere and just happened to land smack bang in the middle of the enemy army?
I'm sorry, but this simply doesn't hold up. Frankly, I think the only reason battles are fought like this is that GW either couldn't be bothered working out proper attacker-defender scenarios, or else wanted to charge extra for them.
And known warzone happens in ongoing conflict areas.
But so do ambushes and, even more commonly, attacker-defender scenarios. Also, it is *extremely* rare for two forces to just blunder into one another at the exact same time. More likely, you'd expect one to have been there first and started to set up some sort of defensible position (hence we're back to the attacker-defender scenario).
Why fight - go figure. Maybe something important came up and you can't wait for a better chance.(relic)
What happened to intelligence - its imperfect. You know the area they are in, not the pinpoint coordinates.
Space Marines dropping in are only serving my argument, do you expect then to drop with random guns hoping they fit, when they know enemy positions?
Drop pod armies turn the game to a nearly attacker defender scenario.
There ARE attacker defender scenarios, all over, they are just not the basic ones as it's not "fair" (not mirror matched rules)
And two forces blundering into each other is extremely common.
War is a mess. Battle lines are not set in stone and change all the time, forces are moving, get lost, destroyed, found and engage at seemingly random.
I'm an IDF Mobile Artillery soldier in real life (reserves these days), and we trained at anti-tank, anti-infantry and anti-gunship scenarios for the very reason that despite we are not supposed to meet them directly, it happens. Has happened before. And will happen again.
But we do know what armies we will run into, and what weapons/armor/tools they have in their disposal, even if not exactly who I'll run into in a specific battle.
I know not to bring AT weapons against enemies without tanks, no AA guns if they got no airforce, pack multiple mine cleaners and booby trap defenses because they use it a lot. I have a vague clue of my possible enemies in each boarder, and equip myself appropriately. (and the high ups position relevant units to relevant sectors.)
BoomWolf wrote: Why fight - go figure. Maybe something important came up and you can't wait for a better chance.(relic)
And where did this sodding relic come from? Did the Chaos God of Weak Plot Elements just fart it out while they weren't looking? Why do both factions need it? And, if they do both need it, isn't there a better way to get it? e.g. in the aforementioned Eldar/DE example, why fight on an open battlefield? Why not instead use mobility to harass/ambush the enemy after they've captured it?
BoomWolf wrote: Why fight - go figure. Maybe something important came up and you can't wait for a better chance.(relic)
What happened to intelligence - its imperfect. You know the area they are in, not the pinpoint coordinates.
Space Marines dropping in are only serving my argument, do you expect then to drop with random guns hoping they fit, when they know enemy positions?
But, wait, I thought you just said that they *didn't* know the enemy position. And yet they can somehow land with pinpoint accuracy right in the middle of his army.
And two forces blundering into each other is extremely common.
War is a mess. Battle lines are not set in stone and change all the time, forces are moving, get lost, destroyed, found and engage at seemingly random.
Far less common than you seem to think. Certainly not something you can just say is the reason for every 40k battle.
But, even then, if they're just blundering into one another then how do you know it's always the same forces? What if they blunder into a demonic incursion or a DE raid or such?
War is a mess. Battle lines are not set in stone and change all the time, forces are moving, get lost, destroyed, found and engage at seemingly random.
The forces that 'get lost' are generally small ones that got separated after being forced to flee or such. Not the full (and flawlessly equipped) armies you're talking about.
I mean, it's one thing for some IG veterans and a sentinel to flee a battle and end up lost. It's quite another for an entire IG tank column to end up lost with the enemy apparently having no idea where they are. Moreover, you expect us to believe that this happens for every 40k battle. Can you not see how absurd this is?
I'm an IDF Mobile Artillery soldier in real life (reserves these days), and we trained at anti-tank, anti-infantry and anti-gunship scenarios for the very reason that despite we are not supposed to meet them directly, it happens. Has happened before. And will happen again.
So then, it's entirely possible to end up facing an enemy that you weren't equipped to fight? Isn't that the exact opposite of what you've been arguing?
I know not to bring AT weapons against enemies without tanks
But, you just said you could end up fighting other units. What if you bring no anti-tank guns because you think your enemy has no tanks, only to discover that your intelligence was wrong and they do have tanks? Or that they're being supported by another force with tanks? Or that they've got some newly-acquired tanks from somewhere?
Furthermore, this is just in the real world - where there are no demonic incursions or such. I ask again - what if a force is prepared for one enemy, but then another arrives unexpectedly (Necrons, DE, Eldar, Daemons etc.)?
You are being difficult on purpose, you know full well there is no need or reason for a blanket answer to cover every single case. There are many forces out there, with many reasons to fight.
Why didn't the DE ambushed? What else you call infiltrators, Webway portals and stuff?
The relic could come from a dropped jet and both sides scrambled to get it.
Nobody ever said it's the way every single 40k fight happens, but it's the only way to have a mirror scenario. And basic must be mirror because it's basic.
It's a game design decision, not a reality one. In real fights you won't always have equal forces, it's just for maintaining the game.
If you want attacker defender cases, there are countless ones in campaigns, altar of war, and such.
You should watch more historical battles, it happens more than you think. Entire divisions just get separated in the mess, paratroopers in mass miss the drop zone, a dumbass field commander understood orders wrong and went somewhere he shouldn't be, or just decided he knows better, etc.
Facing the wrong unit? Yes, alot. The wrong ARMY? nearly never.
If I'm around the Syrian boarder, there will be resources directed for AA and AT. At Gaza, the resources would be diverted to tunnel detection, surveillance and pinpoint strikes as the enemy us completely different and has a different set of units I might encounter. No reason to pack AT in the Gaza boarder when they have no tanks.
And these are two human armies here. Dealing with aliens, the difference should be far more glaring.
Bringing anti tank to a nid insurance is absurd, plasma against human renegades is wasteful, psyker defense against tau is redundant, etc.
You shouldn't know the exact mash of your enemy, but at least have a general idea of what races are you facing, and what are their common tools of the trade.
BoomWolf wrote: You are being difficult on purpose, you know full well there is no need or reason for a blanket answer to cover every single case. There are many forces out there, with many reasons to fight.
Why didn't the DE ambushed? What else you call infiltrators, Webway portals and stuff?
That's not am ambush because the enemy already knows they're there and is prepared for them. That's the opposite of an ambush.
Nobody ever said it's the way every single 40k fight happens, but it's the only way to have a mirror scenario. And basic must be mirror because it's basic.
It's a game design decision, not a reality one. In real fights you won't always have equal forces, it's just for maintaining the game.
But why is is you're prepared to let that go, and yet refuse to accept that the equality of the mission itself is also for gameplay purposes? i.e. you can't use it to accurately determine the state of conflict or the nature of the encounter.
In any case, I'm not being deliberately difficult. You're the one who made the claim in the first place - I'm just saying why I disagree with it. I think it's entirely possible that, in many cases, armies won't be perfectly prepared for one another.
Also, you keep referring to real-world conflicts and ignoring the fact that in 40k armies can literally pop out of nowhere. So, even if you *think* you know who you're fighting against, it can change at the drop of a hat.
You can talk all you want about it but when it comes down to it, you're not a general, and this isn't war. This is first and foremost a game, and as such should have some semblance of balance and fair play. Otherwise there isn't much point in playing, or spending all that time and money building an army, when you can essentially decide the winner with the roll to see who goes first or seizes.
5th edition is often cited as the height of 40k's popularity in recent years, and there's a good reason why; because even with an old or "bad" army in 5th edition, you could still participate in the fething game. It would be kind of an uphill struggle sometimes, you couldn't win as easily or as spectacularly as some of the top tier armies, but you could still build a list that could try and compete with them, and if you knew your army and how to play the game well, you could probably win. 5th edition still had lots of issues, but they could have been easily fixed with a few tweaks to the core rulebook, and making an effort to update every army. Far cry from the current state of the game where some armies might as well not even participate because of how uneven the playing field is.
Regardless of how "realistic" it is to field the perfect counter to your opponent's army, it makes for a pretty boring game, since with such a big advantage over your opponent the outcome becomes a lot more predictable. As a Tau player in particular it's even worse, as you said yourself you have a plethora of options, an arsenal that can be equipped to deal with virtually any enemy, whereas some armies legitimately lack answers to certain threats, and/or are forced to commit way, way more points to try and shore up that weakness, which then hamstrings the rest of the army. Tau can pack in anti-vehicle weaponry and still have plenty of S5 shooting to deal with anything else, and building a list to deal with flyers is as simple as slapping an upgrade on the units you already have.
I like the customization, I like the options the Tau codex has, but since not every army is designed that way, it kinda gives us an inherent advantage over everyone else, and our codex is already strong enough as it is simply because of how powerful a Tau shooting phase is. List-tailoring with that in mind is almost like playing Rock, Paper, Scissors where you always know what your opponent's going to pick.
One thing that puzzles me with regard to list tailoring is that some people say that they and their opponent tailor against each others lists.
But, how does that work? I mean, if you both show each other your armies and then tailor against the other chap's army... well now both your armies have changed. They're no longer the ones you tailored against, if you see what I mean.
So, do you need to then show each other your 'revised' armies and tailor again?
Yeah, I don't get it either. "Oh, you're taking lots of melta and haywire for my vehicle-heavy army? Well now I'm playing a horde list instead." It just sounds like it would create an endless loop where you're countering each other with lists instead of playing a game.
Unless it's something less specific than that, like Bob plays Orks all the fething time so I'm taking more flamers and template weapons, or no one runs flyers in our club/store so AA is unnecessary.
It's not tailoring to their list, you both tailor to each others army if choice. More like
"I'm bringing tau today ", " I'm bringing dark angels "
Then you make lists when knowing the enemy army as a whole, but not the specifics.
So you font bring brain dead choices like melta against nids, framers against imperial knights and grav against deamons, but can still be taken by surprise by uncommon unit choices, or a shift from your usual style against repeating opponents.
You both fall for the sameissue, assuming there are real attacker/defender conditions in the base scenarios.
There aren't. these clearly stand for an fight in a greater ongoing conflict. in an ongoing conflict-you'd have an idea of who and what you are fighting.
Not full fledged intel, but a general concept.
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We're not "falling" for anything but i assure you: in an "ongoing conflict", this issue does not change. \someone is still initating the attack. The other guy cannot know because so much of these forces are dropped from space, whats coming. Rememebr that these ground attacks START as naval battles in the 41st Millennium. So EVEN in an "ongoing" conflict, this fight was initiated by one side or the other, by the forces they could MUSTER at the time, which arent ideal ESPECIALL after the attrition of an "ongoing conflict" while the Defender is invariably in better defensive position usually but does not know what's coming until its far too late to order out for more Skyrays!
BoomWolf wrote: TCGs are all sideboards, or even multiple decks because it's a system that works.
Yes, the costs are not the same. But at least in will give a semblance of a fighting chance for everyone involved.
Damn right the costs aren't the same. Playing Warhammer 40k is cheaper than playing Magic the Gathering. A tournament caliber modern deck can cost you $200-300 and must be repurchased every new set, which release 3-4 times per year and require buying or building another deck. Plus this suggests you're going with the smarter cherry picking and trading options, not simply buying boxes and boxes, packs and packs, hoping to get the cards yourself OR visiting ebay or the local game store to purchase rare singles for $20-$70 a pop.
Peregrine wrote: The problem is that list tailoring might make sense fluff-wise, but in a game like 40k what it really means is that players with more money get to win more.
TCGs have sideboards despite costing the competitive players over $1000 per year to play. Using a cost argument against 40k allowing it is ludicrous, money supply differences already exist with FW, super-heavies, and the folks who don't/can't buy them. Clearly you don't need any of those things to win and can do so even using the models you own, there's nothing broken or overpowered about being able to bring different lists when you can do the same, and there's always the option for a rich player to drop his existing army list and buy up a whole new one that he thinks is more viable. There is no evidence supporting your claim and it is debunked. Competing in games is expensive, not everyone has access to the best stuff because they can't afford it, it's a simple reality. So either use your fluffy list that you like the models for and are painted real nice like or pony up the cash to get more.
Peregrine wrote: The problem is that list tailoring might make sense fluff-wise, but in a game like 40k what it really means is that players with more money get to win more.
TCGs have sideboards despite costing the competitive players over $1000 per year to play. Using a cost argument against 40k allowing it is ludicrous, money supply differences already exist with FW, super-heavies, and the folks who don't/can't buy them. Clearly you don't need any of those things to win and can do so even using the models you own, there's nothing broken or overpowered about being able to bring different lists when you can do the same, and there's always the option for a rich player to drop his existing army list and buy up a whole new one that he thinks is more viable. There is no evidence supporting your claim and it is debunked. Competing in games is expensive, not everyone has access to the best stuff because they can't afford it, it's a simple reality. So either use your fluffy list that you like the models for and are painted real nice like or pony up the cash to get more.
While I will agree that Warhammer 40k is an expensive game (but cheaper than Standard-legal MtG), allowing sideboards is a blatant example of bias toward the people who have spent more on the hobby. Not everyone has the money to drop on not just an 1850-2000 point army, but also 750 points of extra models for siding in. In addition, sideboarding overwhelmingly helps out certain armies to the detriment of others. Imperium armies can take allied detachments in sideboards, or flexibly slide in units like Grav Cents and Skyhammer to deal with every threat. What are Tyranids going to sideboard in? More Flyrants? And how does the sideboard play into detachment/source restrictions anyway?
"Just buy more models" is not an acceptable rebuttal. Sure, people can buy a new army, but it often involves selling their existing one. Everyone should have a fair chance of competing with the models they have within the allotted points limit. Letting people go outside that points limit if they have more models is unfair to everyone else. Just because these things exist in other games does not mean that they should exist in 40k.
While I will agree that Warhammer 40k is an expensive game (but cheaper than Standard-legal MtG), allowing sideboards is a blatant example of bias toward the people who have spent more on the hobby. Not everyone has the money to drop on not just an 1850-2000 point army, but also 750 points of extra models for siding in.
Same problem as Forge World creates only in a different way.
While I will agree that Warhammer 40k is an expensive game (but cheaper than Standard-legal MtG), allowing sideboards is a blatant example of bias toward the people who have spent more on the hobby. Not everyone has the money to drop on not just an 1850-2000 point army, but also 750 points of extra models for siding in.
Same problem as Forge World creates only in a different way.
Incorrect. Forge World only provides people with more options from which people can select their models. Who's to say that some Chaos or IG player didn't start off buying Forge World models just so that they can have a decently competitive army?
TheNewBlood wrote: Incorrect. Forge World only provides people with more options from which people can select their models. Who's to say that some Chaos or IG player didn't start off buying Forge World models just so that they can have a decently competitive army?
Forgeworld provides players with access to different models to use for better list building. Sideboards allow better list building as well; you're not getting stronger units or more points in your army, you're getting more options. They both allow for more efficient lists. Having a flexible list doesn't give someone an advantage anymore than using a Land Raider 2.0 that is more cost effective for your build does. Additionally, I can't see the cost argument as valid when you aren't required to include different models anymore than you are required to field Forgeworld. Build a TAC list to fight all the sideboarders just as you would bring anti-vehicle spam to tackle super-heavies. But feel free to continue arguing the fact, it's hypocrisy at its finest.
Arkaine wrote: But feel free to continue arguing the fact, it's hypocrisy at its finest.
No, because the two cases are not at all the same. Having 3x500 points of sideboard added to a 1000 point "core" army is a 66% increase in cost for a 1500 point army. Allowing FW rules does not increase the cost of an army by that much.
TheNewBlood wrote: Incorrect. Forge World only provides people with more options from which people can select their models. Who's to say that some Chaos or IG player didn't start off buying Forge World models just so that they can have a decently competitive army?
Forgeworld provides players with access to different models to use for better list building. Sideboards allow better list building as well; you're not getting stronger units or more points in your army, you're getting more options. They both allow for more efficient lists. Having a flexible list doesn't give someone an advantage anymore than using a Land Raider 2.0 that is more cost effective for your build does. Additionally, I can't see the cost argument as valid when you aren't required to include different models anymore than you are required to field Forgeworld. Build a TAC list to fight all the sideboarders just as you would bring anti-vehicle spam to tackle super-heavies. But feel free to continue arguing the fact, it's hypocrisy at its finest.
Forge World gives people options for things to include in their lists. Sideboards tamper with the list format itself. The two are in no way comparable. Also, there are no cost-effective Land Raiders, even from Forge World.
Detachment and source limits for tournaments already have major effects on list building. It was a huge move that the ITC allowed a second duplicate formation to be taken. Small changes like that have a massive effect on tournaments. What do you think is going to happen when players can sub out huge chunks of their armies to list tailor against certain opponents? How does that not overly benefit armeis that can take advantage of allies and formations to cover their weaknesses against bad matchups?
There's also the problem of actually impormenting the system itself. Who sideboards first? Do you get to counter-sideboard? How much can you sideboard and what can you have? All of these are questions that have to be answered, and will disproportionally affect certain armies (like Tau) more than others.
With this new book, what's to stop Tau from taking more Riptides or Stormsurges from Farsight Enclave in the sideboard? What about an entire Canoptek harvest to cover against melee armies?
In my opinion, you should build the best list you can for a tournament. That also means accepting that you cannot counter everything that's out there, especially in more open formats like the ITC. You will have bad matchups that your army will lose against if you have built toward the meta. The key to winning is metagaming enough to know what things you are likely to face and devise new ways to counter them.
You both fall for the sameissue, assuming there are real attacker/defender conditions in the base scenarios.
There aren't. these clearly stand for an fight in a greater ongoing conflict. in an ongoing conflict-you'd have an idea of who and what you are fighting.
Not full fledged intel, but a general concept.
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We're not "falling" for anything but i assure you: in an "ongoing conflict", this issue does not change. \someone is still initating the attack. The other guy cannot know because so much of these forces are dropped from space, whats coming. Rememebr that these ground attacks START as naval battles in the 41st Millennium. So EVEN in an "ongoing" conflict, this fight was initiated by one side or the other, by the forces they could MUSTER at the time, which arent ideal ESPECIALL after the attrition of an "ongoing conflict" while the Defender is invariably in better defensive position usually but does not know what's coming until its far too late to order out for more Skyrays!
So yeah. i just don't see it.
You don't know exactly what's coming, but you need to be very dense, or completely taken by supersize (in a way the standard scenarios clearly don't represent) in order not to know even what FACTION you are fighting beforehand if you are already in an ongoing war with them on the very planet.
Not knowing the if you are running into a mechanized infantry battalion or a tank convoy is one thing, being oblivious to the fact you are currently fighting the imperial guard? a whole other story.
Even if they are supported by allied marines or something that you were not quite ready for-you should have known what the bulk of the opponent is, and prepared accordingly.
And sideboarding gives you just that.
The standard 40k scenarios very clearly represent a blunder of two forces that are a part of a larger war running into each other in a fluid battle where there is no clear attacker and defender at this specific time and space.
You may argue they shouldn't, and that more sided scenarios will be the norm-but the current case is that its not. all sided scenarios are just that-scenarios. not part of pickup and play eternal war/malstorm
If you want to play sided conflict, and these do seem like they could be alot of fun, there are plenty of scenarios to pick from all over. but malstorm/eternal war just don't fit that narrative.
TheNewBlood wrote: Incorrect. Forge World only provides people with more options from which people can select their models. Who's to say that some Chaos or IG player didn't start off buying Forge World models just so that they can have a decently competitive army?
Forgeworld provides players with access to different models to use for better list building. Sideboards allow better list building as well; you're not getting stronger units or more points in your army, you're getting more options. They both allow for more efficient lists. Having a flexible list doesn't give someone an advantage anymore than using a Land Raider 2.0 that is more cost effective for your build does. Additionally, I can't see the cost argument as valid when you aren't required to include different models anymore than you are required to field Forgeworld. Build a TAC list to fight all the sideboarders just as you would bring anti-vehicle spam to tackle super-heavies. But feel free to continue arguing the fact, it's hypocrisy at its finest.
Forge World gives people options for things to include in their lists. Sideboards tamper with the list format itself. The two are in no way comparable. Also, there are no cost-effective Land Raiders, even from Forge World.
Detachment and source limits for tournaments already have major effects on list building. It was a huge move that the ITC allowed a second duplicate formation to be taken. Small changes like that have a massive effect on tournaments. What do you think is going to happen when players can sub out huge chunks of their armies to list tailor against certain opponents? How does that not overly benefit armeis that can take advantage of allies and formations to cover their weaknesses against bad matchups?
There's also the problem of actually impormenting the system itself. Who sideboards first? Do you get to counter-sideboard? How much can you sideboard and what can you have? All of these are questions that have to be answered, and will disproportionally affect certain armies (like Tau) more than others.
With this new book, what's to stop Tau from taking more Riptides or Stormsurges from Farsight Enclave in the sideboard? What about an entire Canoptek harvest to cover against melee armies?
In my opinion, you should build the best list you can for a tournament. That also means accepting that you cannot counter everything that's out there, especially in more open formats like the ITC. You will have bad matchups that your army will lose against if you have built toward the meta. The key to winning is metagaming enough to know what things you are likely to face and devise new ways to counter them.
You are making this far more difficult then it should be.
Both players sideboard simultaneously, choosing one of their per-prepared options without knowing what of the opponent's per-prepared options he is taken until after the decision is final. assuming a single match for each opponent, a single sideboarding round where you pick what will work best, and think about what he is likely to pick.
Example system, you make three distinct 1500 point lists, of them at least 1000 points spent much be the same across all three lists (akin to how escalation works from 1000 to 1500, except you take the same base and escalate to three different paths), once opponents have been set you review lists as usual, then each picks a single list of the three he owns, discreetly to play, with both players revealing their choices at the same time.
I'm sure better sideboard systems (both more flexible and more consistent) can be made, this is just off the top of my head.
Whats to stop more stormsurges and riptides from the sideboard? whats to stopthem from being spammed in a single main list to begin with? a sideboard is not extra points, its just a shift of points. anything that can be done with sideboard could have been without, its just that sideboard allows you to not shoot yourself in the leg by taking units who are "silver bullets"-good against some armies, useless against others (dedicated anti-air unit is the easiest example as they only matter when they enemy has flyers, and otherwise are complete junk. melta units in nid infested meta is another example.)
Will it be more in favor of the recent "decurion style" armies? possibly. in fact, even likely. they are the most flexible and powerful.
But the "down under" armies are mostly non-factors anyway, simply BECAUSE they are forced to try to answer one specific "meta list" and hope they will luck out and face it. they become what is know as "kingmakers" because they have no hope of winning, but can by sheer chance knock down a candidate for victory who did not prepare for them for the very reason they are irrelevant in the big picture.
When having luck of the draw in facing the armies your list is built to fight and not the armies you "gave up" on preparing to is a major part of the meta, then the meta NEEDS a serious shake. the system of "try to cover all bases" is obviously not plausible, the method of "pick some fights to win and some fights to lose" is lousy. you turned list building and metagaming into the majority of the game, where most games are decided in advance by the pairing lottery.
Sideboarding minimize that factor, as you CAN be ready for multiple opponents if you see them coming-but you can still take people by complete supersize with a wild lists as if they didn't see it coming they never made any of their sides to fight it.
It also punishes the most spammy and boring of lists-because people can afford to be ready for them (spend one of your sides to deal with IK spam with anti-tank saturation), without being utterly screwed against anything else (said anti tank saturation against a random nid assault) it forces variation in lists for the very reason that an overly spammed and predictable list can be countered without ruining your own lists entirely against anything and everything else.
Sideboards are healthy for competitive game. transition period will be hard, and people will bitch and moan about the increase in price to compete (who isn't actually true, as you won't need to own multiple armies to remain competitive any more, but that's another point)but in the end-if they do shift to such a system-the games will be more versatile, more interesting and more in-game skill induced over pairing luck, as the two lists facing each other off will usually be at least remotely fitted to face each other.
TheNewBlood wrote: Forge World gives people options for things to include in their lists. Sideboards tamper with the list format itself.
As though allowing Lords of War and Super-heavies doesn't... GW is starting to introduce them into the codices yet many factions still lack them entirely outside FW.
TheNewBlood wrote: Also, there are no cost-effective Land Raiders, even from Forge World.
A 200 pt Proteus is less taxing than a 230-250 one if all you care about is delivering models into close combat; it's the more cost effective option. This isn't about assault vehicle flyers replacing the land raider in the current meta...
The rest Boom has adequately explained. There are factions, FW tanks, units with D weapons, and formations that sufficiently counter anything they come up against. These are seen as creme of the crop and win all the tournaments because they can counter any list thrown at them. Yet not everyone gets the same treatment and most of the lesser factions have to work very hard to counter a specific threat, often building their list based on doing just that or they stand no chance of winning. Sorry, but not everyone can field Wraithguard or Imperial Knights and take on all comers. Some armies actually need to know what potential units they'll be facing to stand any hope of defeating them. You're being quite unfair to those armies, which are forced to exploit the only half-decent units in their list (lol, 7 flyrants!) just to have any hope of winning. Then you see the guys with TAC-style units and list diversity complain that <insert spammy unit is OP> when if you get rid of that unit, the faction fielding it doesn't have a competitive list to stand on. That's a far bigger problem than your possible tournament impacts.
Peregrine wrote: No, because the two cases are not at all the same. Having 3x500 points of sideboard added to a 1000 point "core" army is a 66% increase in cost for a 1500 point army. Allowing FW rules does not increase the cost of an army by that much.
That implies you are FORCED to buy more models for your army. Are you capable of fielding a 1500 pt list? If so, you have all the models necessary and can sideboard using different loadouts and options either through proxy or magnetization. The guy who doesn't use FW isn't forced to buy more models either, he can run his list perfectly fine without it, same stance you always take. In fact, when I argued that more options means more expense, you and a few others argued against that for an entire thread. If having options means mandatory purchases then you can't argue against FW bans for the same reason. No one is forcing you to bring anything other than your standard TAC list. But if you want to, just as if you want to field some FW models, you're going to have to spend some money.
Sidstyler wrote: You can talk all you want about it but when it comes down to it, you're not a general, and this isn't war. This is first and foremost a game, and as such should have some semblance of balance and fair play. Otherwise there isn't much point in playing, or spending all that time and money building an army, when you can essentially decide the winner with the roll to see who goes first or seizes.
5th edition is often cited as the height of 40k's popularity in recent years, and there's a good reason why; because even with an old or "bad" army in 5th edition, you could still participate in the fething game. It would be kind of an uphill struggle sometimes, you couldn't win as easily or as spectacularly as some of the top tier armies, but you could still build a list that could try and compete with them, and if you knew your army and how to play the game well, you could probably win. 5th edition still had lots of issues, but they could have been easily fixed with a few tweaks to the core rulebook, and making an effort to update every army. Far cry from the current state of the game where some armies might as well not even participate because of how uneven the playing field is.
Regardless of how "realistic" it is to field the perfect counter to your opponent's army, it makes for a pretty boring game, since with such a big advantage over your opponent the outcome becomes a lot more predictable. As a Tau player in particular it's even worse, as you said yourself you have a plethora of options, an arsenal that can be equipped to deal with virtually any enemy, whereas some armies legitimately lack answers to certain threats, and/or are forced to commit way, way more points to try and shore up that weakness, which then hamstrings the rest of the army. Tau can pack in anti-vehicle weaponry and still have plenty of S5 shooting to deal with anything else, and building a list to deal with flyers is as simple as slapping an upgrade on the units you already have.
I like the customization, I like the options the Tau codex has, but since not every army is designed that way, it kinda gives us an inherent advantage over everyone else, and our codex is already strong enough as it is simply because of how powerful a Tau shooting phase is. List-tailoring with that in mind is almost like playing Rock, Paper, Scissors where you always know what your opponent's going to pick.
This!
If we wanted to play "realistic" battles, I would never advance anywhere near the enemy. Artillery and aircraft would pound my foes to dust before I use asymmetric forces to wipe out the weak points in their lines and attack their supply trains. Tau and most of IG would never see the tabletop except to claim objectives from the burning corpses of their enemies, DE would mostly just target small forces with superior numbers of raiders, nids would only attack with several times the number of points than the opponent's army. Except in special circumstances, commanders don't send their forces out with the knowledge that there is a roughly 50% chance of success. They would allocate resources to ensure that they will win.
This would make for a really boring wargame as most encounters would be brutal curbstomp. No gamer wants to sit at the table just to be told that the opponent's IG army has initiated orbital bombardment to clear their bunkers or that the other army is setting up on another army to shell them before picking up the relic in a Devilfish after their forces are wiped out. The forces depicted are not realistic and any attempt to make the game more "real" while damaging the play-ability of the game is of questionable merit.
Someone said that my Guard where A) good and B) competitive in every phase.
I would like this person to come right back here and provide evidence because in my experience this is about as far from the truth as it gets.
That was me. Evidence is in the codex. Take a gander i guess?
Since when were Guard good in melee? Nearly all of our units that could do something in melee are either overcosted (bullgryns) or underpowered (blob squads) sometimes both (rough riders). So tell me, my good fellow, how exactly can Guard perform in the assault phase? It has been my experience that we suck in CC.
I think the Tau player is trolling a little. IG have some psykers, and nominal hth, where Tau have no psykers and no dedicated HtH. He fails to recognize that unplayable units in a sub par Codex don't make his point.
You are making this far more difficult then it should be.
Both players sideboard simultaneously, choosing one of their per-prepared options without knowing what of the opponent's per-prepared options he is taken until after the decision is final. assuming a single match for each opponent, a single sideboarding round where you pick what will work best, and think about what he is likely to pick.
Example system, you make three distinct 1500 point lists, of them at least 1000 points spent much be the same across all three lists (akin to how escalation works from 1000 to 1500, except you take the same base and escalate to three different paths), once opponents have been set you review lists as usual, then each picks a single list of the three he owns, discreetly to play, with both players revealing their choices at the same time.
I'm sure better sideboard systems (both more flexible and more consistent) can be made, this is just off the top of my head.
Whats to stop more stormsurges and riptides from the sideboard? whats to stopthem from being spammed in a single main list to begin with? a sideboard is not extra points, its just a shift of points. anything that can be done with sideboard could have been without, its just that sideboard allows you to not shoot yourself in the leg by taking units who are "silver bullets"-good against some armies, useless against others (dedicated anti-air unit is the easiest example as they only matter when they enemy has flyers, and otherwise are complete junk. melta units in nid infested meta is another example.)
Will it be more in favor of the recent "decurion style" armies? possibly. in fact, even likely. they are the most flexible and powerful.
But the "down under" armies are mostly non-factors anyway, simply BECAUSE they are forced to try to answer one specific "meta list" and hope they will luck out and face it. they become what is know as "kingmakers" because they have no hope of winning, but can by sheer chance knock down a candidate for victory who did not prepare for them for the very reason they are irrelevant in the big picture.
When having luck of the draw in facing the armies your list is built to fight and not the armies you "gave up" on preparing to is a major part of the meta, then the meta NEEDS a serious shake. the system of "try to cover all bases" is obviously not plausible, the method of "pick some fights to win and some fights to lose" is lousy. you turned list building and metagaming into the majority of the game, where most games are decided in advance by the pairing lottery.
Sideboarding minimize that factor, as you CAN be ready for multiple opponents if you see them coming-but you can still take people by complete supersize with a wild lists as if they didn't see it coming they never made any of their sides to fight it.
It also punishes the most spammy and boring of lists-because people can afford to be ready for them (spend one of your sides to deal with IK spam with anti-tank saturation), without being utterly screwed against anything else (said anti tank saturation against a random nid assault) it forces variation in lists for the very reason that an overly spammed and predictable list can be countered without ruining your own lists entirely against anything and everything else.
Sideboards are healthy for competitive game. transition period will be hard, and people will bitch and moan about the increase in price to compete (who isn't actually true, as you won't need to own multiple armies to remain competitive any more, but that's another point)but in the end-if they do shift to such a system-the games will be more versatile, more interesting and more in-game skill induced over pairing luck, as the two lists facing each other off will usually be at least remotely fitted to face each other.
Alright, so under your format everyone brings three lists, each one of which has been list tailored to High Commoraugh to defeat a specific matchup. This still doesn't fix two important balance issues:
1. Some armies do not have as many options for flexibility. Tyranids have Flyrants, Mawlocs, and nothing else. CSM has the Heldrake, Bel'akor, and the ability to ally with Daemons. Orks have nothing. How are they supposed to list tailor against Gladius or Skyhammer or The Standard Eldar Tournament list or the new Tau? The power scale is such that at a competitive level, these armies have very little they can do against the top-tier factions.
2. Some armies are so powerful that they have no real bad matchups. My Eldar army of five Wraithknights is going to do well against pretty much any list CSM or Orks fields, even if I did list-tailor for Tyranids by taking out Scatbikers. New Tau can kill pretty much any army in two turns of shooting. Gladius wins because you can't kill that many bodies on objectives. Thunderdome just eats you alive. Evne if these armies are list-tailored against, they still stand a better chance of winning than any mono-DE force will.
The problem is not that people can spam units. The problem is that powerful units can be spammed, and some armies have no effective counters. Sideboards do nothing to solve the inbalnce problems between factions. Or should things just be as you say, and certain factions just always be set up to fail?
If you are trying to stop people from metagaming, you can't. Metagaming is present in any competitive game that allows people to pick their options. It's just as prevalent in Hearthstone, MtG, and Yugioh as it is in 40k. At a highly competitive level, all these games com edown to good vs. bad matchups and the RNG factor. There is a reason why people choose not to play at this level.
Kudos for not actually addressing how sideboards are biased toward people who have spent more on the hobby. Eliminating the need for allies does nothing to stop someone with 5000 points of Eldar having an advantage over someone with 1850 points of Space Marines.
Arkaine wrote:
TheNewBlood wrote: Forge World gives people options for things to include in their lists. Sideboards tamper with the list format itself.
As though allowing Lords of War and Super-heavies doesn't... GW is starting to introduce them into the codices yet many factions still lack them entirely outside FW.
Arkaine wrote:
TheNewBlood wrote: Also, there are no cost-effective Land Raiders, even from Forge World.
A 200 pt Proteus is less taxing than a 230-250 one if all you care about is delivering models into close combat; it's the more cost effective option. This isn't about assault vehicle flyers replacing the land raider in the current meta...
Arkaine wrote:The rest Boom has adequately explained. There are factions, FW tanks, units with D weapons, and formations that sufficiently counter anything they come up against. These are seen as creme of the crop and win all the tournaments because they can counter any list thrown at them. Yet not everyone gets the same treatment and most of the lesser factions have to work very hard to counter a specific threat, often building their list based on doing just that or they stand no chance of winning. Sorry, but not everyone can field Wraithguard or Imperial Knights and take on all comers. Some armies actually need to know what potential units they'll be facing to stand any hope of defeating them. You're being quite unfair to those armies, which are forced to exploit the only half-decent units in their list (lol, 7 flyrants!) just to have any hope of winning. Then you see the guys with TAC-style units and list diversity complain that <insert spammy unit is OP> when if you get rid of that unit, the faction fielding it doesn't have a competitive list to stand on. That's a far bigger problem than your possible tournament impacts.
Superheavies and Lords or War can be balanced. Believe it or not, every major faction has them. You should keep up on your Imperial Armour.
A 200 point Land Raider that has a transport capacity of eight? Ye gods! It's now only slightly more expensive than my Riptide! Ban this sick overpowered filth!
You accuse me of being unfair to armies on the lower end of the power scale? The problem is not that nothing in the Ork codex can reliably kill a Wraithknight. The problem is Wraithknights and other equally broken units and combinations. The best solution is to tone down the most powerful armies and bring up the weakest until everyone is on the same level of power.
Arkaine wrote:
Peregrine wrote: No, because the two cases are not at all the same. Having 3x500 points of sideboard added to a 1000 point "core" army is a 66% increase in cost for a 1500 point army. Allowing FW rules does not increase the cost of an army by that much.
That implies you are FORCED to buy more models for your army. Are you capable of fielding a 1500 pt list? If so, you have all the models necessary and can sideboard using different loadouts and options either through proxy or magnetization. The guy who doesn't use FW isn't forced to buy more models either, he can run his list perfectly fine without it, same stance you always take. In fact, when I argued that more options means more expense, you and a few others argued against that for an entire thread. If having options means mandatory purchases then you can't argue against FW bans for the same reason. No one is forcing you to bring anything other than your standard TAC list. But if you want to, just as if you want to field some FW models, you're going to have to spend some money.
Options for purchase are by no means mandatory. Just because I can purchase a Phantom Titan does not mean that I will.
What happens when your standard "TAC" list at 1500 points just happens to contain a Forge World Army using Forge World models? Ex: Renegades and Heretics out of IA13: The Book That Makes Chaos Marines Playable? Just because someone apparently chose poorly with their faction to suit your ill-conceived and entirely arbitrary house rules does not mean they should be excluded. What happens if people sideboard in Forge World models to cover weaknesses i.e. a Chaos Fire Raptor against Flyer armies? It still doesn't help Chaos or any other army fight top-tier factions like new Tau.
Someone said that my Guard where A) good and B) competitive in every phase.
I would like this person to come right back here and provide evidence because in my experience this is about as far from the truth as it gets.
That was me. Evidence is in the codex. Take a gander i guess?
Just because a codex has options in every phase does not make that codex effective in every phase. It is possible to build an IG army of melee blobs, an all-shooty Ork list, or an Eldar army focused on melee. That does not mean that they are effective in every phase against typical opposition. Okay, the Eldar melee army is a bad example, but my point still stands.
Feel free to chime in on how Imperial Guard can beat new Tau, which with a certain build can table any army in the game in two turns of shooting.
Cover? Nope.
Mech? Nope.
Deathstars? Nope.
MSU? Nope.
Fun? Yes, if you're the Tau player and you're a complete sadist.
I ignored the "rich player" problem as it's irrelevant, it's just as true without sideboards anyway as they can shift to match meta, while the "just 1850" player can't.
Same thing with your ork/nids/csm argument. It's irrelevant, it's true already anyway. This is not the problem solved by sideboard but an inherit flawed codex issue, one that will never be fixed by any sort of tournament format short of mass banning, mass buffs or a new godamn codex.
Going against a change for the best because it doesn't solve every single problem is not a logical argument. Had the game allow subpar armies a chance at it was taken away by sideboards you would have a point, but as things stand you just bring an irrelevant factor the need for rules update for these armies to be remotely viable is already a fact.
IG is in the unique point if "just under par" that sideboards actually turn it viable, as with the ability to spam guns beyond belief if you just know what you need is strong in them,and they got enough choices to be workable against most targets they list against , just not at once. (they still need upgrade. But less so than CSM or orks for example)
Someone said that my Guard where A) good and B) competitive in every phase.
I would like this person to come right back here and provide evidence because in my experience this is about as far from the truth as it gets.
That was me. Evidence is in the codex. Take a gander i guess?
Okay, I scrolled back and took a look at your so called 'power build'
4 Guard sections blobbed together with three psykers and three commissars right? Upgrade the sections to have a Lascannon each? total of 46 models for around 670 points.
I could wipe this with a grand total of 240 points taken from the exact same codex.
My unit of choice is a tank squadron made from two of the weakest tanks in the entire IG codex, the over priced and near useless Eradicator.
Deployment: You set up with your Lascannons midway backboard, at the rear of your blob and I deploy my Eradicators exactly 42" away, hull down in cover.
1st turn: I will be generous and give you the initiative. You move forward 6" and then run an average of 4" (I am being generous) for a total of 10" moved. As you moved the blob your Lascannons can not fire even if you left them still. Current range: 32"
I respond by firing with my Eradicator cannons for an average of 6 hits each (yes I know it would probably be a lot higher but I am being very generous) for a total of 12. S 6 AP 4 so I need 2's to kill. I wound 10, and you go to take your cover sa... Oh, wait. The Eradicator ignores cover. So 10 Guard die (once again we shall say they are all meatshields, no special characters). I then fire my hull mounts for one wound. Total remaining blob: 35
2nd turn: You advance again and run once more, this time getting a 3, so you have advanced 9". Owing to casualties removing the front rank I am still 23" away.
I fire my main cannon again and kill another 10 infantry before spraying you for one more bod. Current remaining blobbers: 24
At this point you have to take a morale test which you pass.
3rd turn: you advance and run another 10" taking you too 13" away.
At this point I feel that you are too close for comfort and reverse my tanks a grand total of 6" away increasing the range to 19" and then fire once more. 10 blobbies die reducing you too 14. Owing to a general lack of bodies a psyker also falls at this point.
At this point you fail a morale check and the three surviving commissars execute the last three regular bods. current survivors: 11: 2 psykers, 3 commissars, 4 sergeants, 1 Lascannon.
4th turn: You advance and run 9" bringing you within 4" of my tanks
I reverse and shoot, killing another 6 (your last lascannon, a psyker, two commissars and two sergeants). Total blobsquad survivors: 5 - 1 psyker, 1 commissar, 2 sergeants.
5th turn: You advance and charge. For sheer generosities sake we shall say that each commissar and sarge had a Melta Bomb. You have three attacks of which one fails to hit (I moved so you need 3's to hit) and the remaining two damage. One tank is now on 1HP
On my turn I reverse again and shoot you once more. Your 5 survivors vanish in a fireball.
That was me killing your 670+ point blob with a 240 point tank troop. Now remember that I have another 430+ points of stuff as well to call on as well so in reality your blob is unlikely to make it past turn two, three if they get lucky.
The Guard have never been strong. We had a moment of brief glory where, provided your opponent was willing to play at 2K+ points and allow Inquisition allies, we where a top tier army but apart from that we have never been good.
Claiming that this current pile of garbage for a codex (rightly referred too as the 'Nerfdex' by many) is strong and competitive is a good way to be laughed off Dakka by many of us here. The current Guard codex is an extremely bad one which saw the nerfing of us because so many little timmies whined about how OP Guard where removing their Marines left right and centre when they tried to charge across open ground (yes I have seen this happen).
We have no mobility, or rather the mobility that we have we pay through the nose for and it is in all honesty crap (12/10/10? Have fun with all that S4+ out there).
In the shooting phase Space Marines can out shoot us. Hell, even ORKS can out shoot us at the moment.
In the psychic phase we have a very small number of overpriced and underpowered resources to call upon, each of which can be picked off by a well placed blast/template/shot.
In the Assault phase we can compete... Provided that Tau player let more than 10% of our force survive long enough to melee them. Or our opponent is not anything tougher than another Guardsman.
In other words we are boned. OUr codex is full of overpriced and massively underpowered options and even the seemingly good ones are done better by other armies (Space Marines do tanks better, Tau do amassed shooting better, almost everything does melee better, Eldar bone us in every damn phase, Orks have more bodies than we could ever hope to deal with, etc) so as you can see we are not in a good position.
By the way, I glanced at your battle reports on your blog and I can say that I envy you. Your meta is a very casual and easy going one and by the looks of things there are almost no tournament goers there. Believe me when I say this: You have it easy compared to some of us.
It's where you've got a smaller pool of resources to switch in with your main pool of resources depending on the match up.
Examples:
Say you've got 60 cards in a MtG red-black deck and you're up against a green deck with powerful monsters. In your main deck, you have got very limited tools to deal with them but hey look! In your sideboard, you've got several cards that can kill those monsters by themselves, so you'll swap out the inefficient cards in your main deck for the good counters in your sideboard.
In 40k terms, let's say you've got a grounded SM force. It's good, but it doesn't have a lot of AA prescence, you wanted ground forces. Suddenly you come up against a flyer spam army (let's say PenTyrant). In your current army, you've got practically nothing to deal with it, but in your side board, you've got a Fire Raptor and two Storm Talons specfically for Flyers, so you'll swap out an equivalent number of points to fit in the Flyers to give you a better chance of winning.
It's where you've got a smaller pool of resources to switch in with your main pool of resources depending on the match up.
Examples:
Say you've got 60 cards in a MtG red-black deck and you're up against a green deck with powerful monsters. In your main deck, you have got very limited tools to deal with them but hey look! In your sideboard, you've got several cards that can kill those monsters by themselves, so you'll swap out the inefficient cards in your main deck for the good counters in your sideboard.
In 40k terms, let's say you've got a grounded SM force. It's good, but it doesn't have a lot of AA prescence, you wanted ground forces. Suddenly you come up against a flyer spam army (let's say PenTyrant). In your current army, you've got practically nothing to deal with it, but in your side board, you've got a Fire Raptor and two Storm Talons specfically for Flyers, so you'll swap out an equivalent number of points to fit in the Flyers to give you a better chance of winning.
I don't know what MtG is so I won't ask. But sideboarding sounds illegalish, what kind of matches allow that?
It's where you've got a smaller pool of resources to switch in with your main pool of resources depending on the match up.
Examples:
Say you've got 60 cards in a MtG red-black deck and you're up against a green deck with powerful monsters. In your main deck, you have got very limited tools to deal with them but hey look! In your sideboard, you've got several cards that can kill those monsters by themselves, so you'll swap out the inefficient cards in your main deck for the good counters in your sideboard.
In 40k terms, let's say you've got a grounded SM force. It's good, but it doesn't have a lot of AA prescence, you wanted ground forces. Suddenly you come up against a flyer spam army (let's say PenTyrant). In your current army, you've got practically nothing to deal with it, but in your side board, you've got a Fire Raptor and two Storm Talons specfically for Flyers, so you'll swap out an equivalent number of points to fit in the Flyers to give you a better chance of winning.
I don't know what MtG is so I won't ask. But sideboarding sounds illegalish, what kind of matches allow that?
In 40k there is no sideboard.
In WMH, they use a different version of side boarding that is strict in what you are allowed to swap. It's had mixed results. It's made some niche units suddenly very viable, but also made certain tier lists become way too strong.
I have mixed feelings about it. I think a two list format would be better, or maybe just a small 250 point sideboard.
Kharne the Befriender wrote: I don't know what MtG is so I won't ask. But sideboarding sounds illegalish, what kind of matches allow that?
Magic: The Gathering. The forums automatically translate some abbreviations, the text turns yellow and you can hover over it to see what a term means.
The assumption with sideboards is that both players have access to them, and can use them to alleviate "hard counter" match-ups, or surprise their opponent--but of course, their opponent can do the same. The Warmachine tournament rules have also allowed it as an optional tournament variant (ie, the organisers decide if they're using it for any given tournament).
Someone said that my Guard where A) good and B) competitive in every phase.
I would like this person to come right back here and provide evidence because in my experience this is about as far from the truth as it gets.
That was me. Evidence is in the codex. Take a gander i guess?
Since when were Guard good in melee? Nearly all of our units that could do something in melee are either overcosted (bullgryns) or underpowered (blob squads) sometimes both (rough riders). So tell me, my good fellow, how exactly can Guard perform in the assault phase? It has been my experience that we suck in CC.
Ignoring JohnHwangDDMade and his pessimism, as i have said in another thread: My blob squad has died a total opf one time ever and it demolishes almost everything. It's an expensive unit and you have to be willing to pay that price. I am. I have noticed that some people focus a LOT of time and energy on what things cost instead of what they do. I get it. In a vacuum, on a forum, lots of things LOOK Expensive. Then you use them. Then you realize that it ceased to matter.
So I won't derail the thread other than to say that if you want to know more, feel free to PM me. On with the Tau show!
They are both horde armies that rely on volume of models rather than quality of shoots.
In game, how they play are very different. They are both currently sporting weak codexes. You may see Orks, IG, BA, CSM, or DE lumped together. It's not that they play in a similar manner, its that they are scraping the bottom of the barrel currently.
Take the IG blob that is being mentioned right now. Most of the power armies can remove it without trying to hard, or can field death stars that put it to shame.
Someone said that my Guard where A) good and B) competitive in every phase.
I would like this person to come right back here and provide evidence because in my experience this is about as far from the truth as it gets.
That was me. Evidence is in the codex. Take a gander i guess?
Since when were Guard good in melee? Nearly all of our units that could do something in melee are either overcosted (bullgryns) or underpowered (blob squads) sometimes both (rough riders). So tell me, my good fellow, how exactly can Guard perform in the assault phase? It has been my experience that we suck in CC.
Ignoring JohnHwangDDMade and his pessimism, as i have said in another thread: My blob squad has died a total opf one time ever and it demolishes almost everything. It's an expensive unit and you have to be willing to pay that price. I am. I have noticed that some people focus a LOT of time and energy on what things cost instead of what they do. I get it. In a vacuum, on a forum, lots of things LOOK Expensive. Then you use them. Then you realize that it ceased to matter.
So I won't derail the thread other than to say that if you want to know more, feel free to PM me. On with the Tau show!
This thread is about "other factions", not Tau, so it's not a derail to ask you to justify your statement that IG are a good, fully competitive army on the tabletop.
Merely claiming to have an uber-blob that "demolishes almost everything", and then saying "wrong", "wrong" and redirecting to PM when asked for details makes the claim look more trollish than not.
Given that you made the original claim publicly, the onus is on you to either back it up publicly, or retract it publicly. Not to take it private, and let people imagine that your bold claim just sits without challenge. I will accept silence on your part as an admission that you were just making stuff up.
This thread is about "other factions", not Tau, so it's not a derail to ask you to justify your statement that IG are a good, fully competitive army on the tabletop.
Merely claiming to have an uber-blob that "demolishes almost everything", and then saying "wrong", "wrong" and redirecting to PM when asked for details makes the claim look more trollish than not.
Given that you made the original claim publicly, the onus is on you to either back it up publicly, or retract it publicly. Not to take it private, and let people imagine that your bold claim just sits without challenge. I will accept silence on your part as an admission that you were just making stuff up.
Im not merely claiming anything. You have the codex? It's not a super complicated concept. Just saying they can build a very good deathstar and there arent too many things that like seeing it. And it WAS wrong. he's misquoting both the list and the rules!
In order to demolish something, a guardsmen blob first needs to survive. And today there are many, many things out there that can pulverize a guardsmen blob very, very quickly.
Hell, a guardsmen blob is probably one of the very few things in the current game that mere, basic marines armed with boltguns can actually kill quickly and effectively.
Korinov wrote: In order to demolish something, a guardsmen blob first needs to survive. And today there are many, many things out there that can pulverize a guardsmen blob very, very quickly.
Hell, a guardsmen blob is probably one of the very few things in the current game that mere, basic marines armed with boltguns can actually kill quickly and effectively.
Yet...not this one. I appreciate that if you know nothing about deploying and moving stuff in an intelligent way, you might well do poorly but thats true of anything and thats a stupid assumption,. Assuming you understand the unit, it will serve you exceptionally well, and can then death blossom on objectives at the end when needed. And it does. It is just a good unit. Try it.
JohnHwangDD wrote: This thread is about "other factions", not Tau, so it's not a derail to ask you to justify your statement that IG are a good, fully competitive army on the tabletop.
Merely claiming to have an uber-blob that "demolishes almost everything", and then saying "wrong", "wrong" and redirecting to PM when asked for details makes the claim look more trollish than not.
Given that you made the original claim publicly, the onus is on you to either back it up publicly, or retract it publicly. Not to take it private, and let people imagine that your bold claim just sits without challenge. I will accept silence on your part as an admission that you were just making stuff up.
Im not merely claiming anything. You have the codex? It's not a super complicated concept. Just saying they can build a very good deathstar and there arent too many things that like seeing it. And it WAS wrong. he's misquoting both the list and the rules!
That's not an answer. That's blowing more smoke. How about you actually explain how your IG "deathstar" blob is composed and how it works, given that it's a just a slow, squishy mass of T3 models that get no save against 90+% of the things on the board.
Korinov wrote: In order to demolish something, a guardsmen blob first needs to survive. And today there are many, many things out there that can pulverize a guardsmen blob very, very quickly.
Hell, a guardsmen blob is probably one of the very few things in the current game that mere, basic marines armed with boltguns can actually kill quickly and effectively.
Yet...not this one. I appreciate that if you know nothing about deploying and moving stuff in an intelligent way, you might well do poorly but thats true of anything and thats a stupid assumption,. Assuming you understand the unit, it will serve you exceptionally well, and can then death blossom on objectives at the end when needed. And it does. It is just a good unit. Try it.
Korinov wrote: In order to demolish something, a guardsmen blob first needs to survive. And today there are many, many things out there that can pulverize a guardsmen blob very, very quickly.
Hell, a guardsmen blob is probably one of the very few things in the current game that mere, basic marines armed with boltguns can actually kill quickly and effectively.
Yet...not this one. I appreciate that if you know nothing about deploying and moving stuff in an intelligent way, you might well do poorly but thats true of anything and thats a stupid assumption,. Assuming you understand the unit, it will serve you exceptionally well, and can then death blossom on objectives at the end when needed. And it does. It is just a good unit. Try it.
Ad hominem attacks on Korinov do nothing to reinforce your case.
Again, define exactly what your blob is and what it does. Explain how you're "deploying and moving" "in an intelligent way" so that "it will serve you exceptionally well". Explain how it is "a good unit".
If all you can do is say "wrong" and "it works", that's nonsense.
Korinov wrote: In order to demolish something, a guardsmen blob first needs to survive. And today there are many, many things out there that can pulverize a guardsmen blob very, very quickly.
Hell, a guardsmen blob is probably one of the very few things in the current game that mere, basic marines armed with boltguns can actually kill quickly and effectively.
Yet...not this one. I appreciate that if you know nothing about deploying and moving stuff in an intelligent way, you might well do poorly but thats true of anything and thats a stupid assumption,. Assuming you understand the unit, it will serve you exceptionally well, and can then death blossom on objectives at the end when needed. And it does. It is just a good unit. Try it.
Thanks for the advice, Mr. I-have-a-blog, but just fyi, Imperial Guard is one of my two armies alongside CSM. If you happen to be playing in a mostly casual-friendly and non-competitive meta where guardsmen blobs can actually recover their points and not find themselves completely slaughtered by turn 2, cheers to you. But take into account that the world outside may be a different place to play. And it's not like my meta is extremely competitive by the way, just competitive enough that guardsmen blobs are no guarantee of anything.
Try deploying and moving your 30 or 40-man blob "in an intelligent way" while it's being shot by barrage weapons that do not need LOS to fire at it, shot by moderate amounts of S4-5 AP5 weapons (that are virtually everywhere in the game) or just wait for some nice and friendly marines deep-striking nearby inside a drop pod and saying hello with their flamers. I'm just wondering where you're going to hide that blob of 30, 40 or 50 models so it won't be getting shot at from every side.
Deathstar unit in 40k are typically high-cost unis that stack multiple bonuses together to form a unit that has a disproportionate amount of offensive and defensive power. Utter pain in the ass.
The "IG Deathstar Blob" mentioned above has little to no applicable use on the TT, and can be eliminated on T1 very very easily.
This thread is about "other factions", not Tau, so it's not a derail to ask you to justify your statement that IG are a good, fully competitive army on the tabletop.
Merely claiming to have an uber-blob that "demolishes almost everything", and then saying "wrong", "wrong" and redirecting to PM when asked for details makes the claim look more trollish than not.
Given that you made the original claim publicly, the onus is on you to either back it up publicly, or retract it publicly. Not to take it private, and let people imagine that your bold claim just sits without challenge. I will accept silence on your part as an admission that you were just making stuff up.
Im not merely claiming anything. You have the codex? It's not a super complicated concept. Just saying they can build a very good deathstar and there arent too many things that like seeing it. And it WAS wrong. he's misquoting both the list and the rules!
\
Just for a counter example, a unit of 10 scat bikes cost 270 points and puts out 40 S6 shots at 36".
So, let's say you take 2 squads (I know no one would take max squads, but it makes life easier).
So, 80 S6 shots for 540.
That's 53.3 hits, 44 wounds, 22 deaths (which cause instant death to anything in that squad I believe).
So, even with ~100 points less, this unit can be destroyed by scat bikes in 2 turns, way before they reach CC with anything in the eldar army, for less points than the blob costs.
Tau can do this nearly as well as the scat bikes, though the guard might get to shoot. Against the scat bikes they can only fire with their las cannons assuming there is no LoS blocking cover for the bikers to scoot behind.
Let's do a similar thing with marines.
You can take about ~4 drop pods without upgrades, or 3 with and have a decent amount of points left over. We'll do 3.
30 Marines rapid fire (because pods have accurate deep strike) in a triangle pattern
60 shots
40 hits (53 hits if you take the right chapter tactic)
27 wounds (35 with the 53 hits)
13.5 or 17.5 kills.
3 Drop pods can fire the Strength 5 Pie plate. Assuming 4 hits per pie plate, we get 12 hits
So 10 wounds
5 kills.
So 18.5 or 22.5 kills total.
So roughly half the squad dies. You assault one squad, and only one squad because deep striking intelligently in a triangle is a thing, and take
20 shots, 3 hits, 2 wounds, 1 kill.
Let's say the marines do 1 kill total in CC before being wiped.
Let's say you down 1 drop pod with the cannons.
Next round you take 40 shots
27 hits
18 wounds
9 deaths
The drop pods hit only 3 people each (since you are losing guys by the bucketload now)
6 hits
5 wounds
2.5 kills.
So at this point, 30 people have died (with the better CT, this is more like ~35).
The squad is effectively weakened to the point it no longer becomes a good blob. It can assault another marine squad (assuming it can reach them, since it's so slow and triangle is a thing) but it may lose. If it does win, you get wiped next turn by the remaining marines.
So you've killed effectively 340 points of marines, basic marines with almost no upgrades (flamers would have been worse, for example, and a PG might have helped) while they have wiped 600 points of IG.
With 40 marines, this becomes a lot worse, but you are using more points then the IG (The blob basically kills 1 marine squad, maybe, and then is ineffective, but it's much harder to deepstrike 4 pods turn 1).
This isn't even the best possible use of points for the marines. Regular marines aren't great.
Compare that to wraiths, centstar, or WolfCav and you'll see why most of us aren't impressed by your death star. It's not that people don't want to spend points (death stars have been a viable tactic for many armies since 3rd) its that IG in particular don't run a very good death star. People were talking about a similar unit with DA and IG allies, and it wasn't amazing back then. The power of the top tier codexes has only gotten higher since.
The Marine Pod attack is unfair because it requires strategery and taktiks.
I regularly run a small squad or two of AMs with dual Flamers. For less than half 200 points, I shut down that IG "deathstar", because 4 Flamer templates and he's done. AMs are generally considered suck, and yet, they're a decent enough counter to his IG blob. The remaining points buy me an IKT that lobs Battlecannon rounds and mega-Frag into it every turn. For the same 600-ish points, I have vastly superior firepower from the IKT and adequate bubblewrap from the AMs.
Martel732 wrote: Marine pod attack has been around since the beginning of 5th. People should know how to set up against it by now. Especially IG.
While I agree you can stop pods from destroying tanks, and maybe stop flamers, I'm having a hard time seeing how you stop the pods from being able to target a huge blob.
I actually picked marines in pods because its a common and not a great option (especially with no special weapons).
I could have done sternguard with flamer spam and special ammo and done a lot better. The Chapter Tactics also make a big difference in this fight.
Martel732 wrote: Marine pod attack has been around since the beginning of 5th. People should know how to set up against it by now. Especially IG.
While I agree you can stop pods from destroying tanks, and maybe stop flamers, I'm having a hard time seeing how you stop the pods from being able to target a huge blob.
I actually picked marines in pods because its a common and not a great option (especially with no special weapons).
I could have done sternguard with flamer spam and special ammo and done a lot better. The Chapter Tactics also make a big difference in this fight.
You can't protect the blob. I wasn't trying to say that one could. I meant a regular IG list.
JohnHwangDD wrote: The Marine Pod attack is unfair because it requires strategery and taktiks.
I regularly run a small squad or two of AMs with dual Flamers. For less than half 200 points, I shut down that IG "deathstar", because 4 Flamer templates and he's done. AMs are generally considered suck, and yet, they're a decent enough counter to his IG blob. The remaining points buy me an IKT that lobs Battlecannon rounds and mega-Frag into it every turn. For the same 600-ish points, I have vastly superior firepower from the IKT and adequate bubblewrap from the AMs.
Two Wyverns are 130 points. Barrage, Shred and AP4. Designed to turn light/medium infantry to shreds no matter where it hides. Two Wyverns alone will mutilate any light infantry blob without even trying. You don't even need the flamer vet squad in a Chimera or a Hellhound to make sure there's nothing left.
What really irks me to no end is that a Gravcent is just 4pts more than a MoN Oblit. You know Chaos Marines are the worst army in the game when our supposedly "cheesiest" unit isn't even a full melta bomb cheaper than a damn god-tier level unit.
I just want a chance to get some cool toys like everyone else has been gifted with. Instead we're stuck trying to compete against Scatbikes & Gravcents with freaking autocannons and plasma guns, and a bunch of special rules we can only get if we pay an arm, a leg and our first born for.
Korinov wrote: In order to demolish something, a guardsmen blob first needs to survive. And today there are many, many things out there that can pulverize a guardsmen blob very, very quickly.
Hell, a guardsmen blob is probably one of the very few things in the current game that mere, basic marines armed with boltguns can actually kill quickly and effectively.
Yet...not this one. I appreciate that if you know nothing about deploying and moving stuff in an intelligent way, you might well do poorly but thats true of anything and thats a stupid assumption,. Assuming you understand the unit, it will serve you exceptionally well, and can then death blossom on objectives at the end when needed. And it does. It is just a good unit. Try it.
That's not an answer. That's blowing more smoke. How about you actually explain how your IG "deathstar" blob is composed and how it works, given that it's a just a slow, squishy mass of T3 models that get no save against 90+% of the things on the board.
No, its just not rewarding trolls.
But its really straight forward. 40 Guardsman (4 Lascannons, 4 Power Axes), 3 Psykers, 3 Priests.
The unit is primarily melee, but obviously it can shoot like crazy if needed. In Melee it gets 28 Power Weapon attacks, of which 12 can be Force Activated. The 40 IG are 4's to hit, but re-rolling if missed! They are re-rolling to wound as well. The unit is getting 5+ Deny the Witch defense of course but also 4+ if the enemy Psyker happens to be less powerful (such as a Strike Squad might be). Making the unit ever more doughty is that it can give itself the 4+ invulnerable save (on its own very good), which it gets to re-roll in close combat. The unit auto-passes its morale and pinning and the unit is huge.
Lastly at the end game, it can death blossom, meaning that whereas you had one big unit around midboard or wherever it ends up, the individual parts of the unit can explode out to take different objectives if you're going second. Less useful when going first obviously.
So it essentially must be shot to death... While the other 1300 to 1400 points of your army deals damage. And it never really dies. People take too much damage from other things in the list and after a while have to turn their attentions to easier things to kill lest they just get themselves locked up interminably.
tThe unit also Can Overwatch at full Ballistic skill if it gets the Divination power off for that. Ultimately you have six tries and the 4+ invul is the important power. It is also possible to do this with the IG using NON IG, but i think the point of the exercize was to show that IG on its own was able to make a pretty cool deathstar and since it died just once ever, I'm not really inclined to increase it to 50 dudes. But you can, which adds yet more power weapons to the mix...
Dark Eldar Haemonculus Coven got it once. Took a Talos unit and two Grotesque units plus two Wrack units the better part of a game to smash it to pieces but they got it done. Lol. As I will freely admit, there just isn't anything IN 40K that cant be killed. if it has stats, it can be killed.
As for the Lascannons, those can fire as long as they themselves don't move. The unit can start taking up space, firing away with Lasguns and using the orders to make sure the Lascannons are doing damage enough to convince the enemy to come attack us. If enemies don't, we keep shooting and taking up space until we can force the issue, while out other stuff kinda plows the fields.
I do not claim it to be the second coming. It is, however, terribly effective. it also gives the army a lot of defense dice to at least get a shot at stopping an enemy power every round so that's cool and anything that casts ON the unit is as I said quite a bit easier to stop. Shooting is the thing that can work against it but again... thats if you can and will keep firing at it?
I suppose if someone wants to tailor JUST to kill this unit they can get it done. Like every other unit in the galaxy.
JohnHwangDD wrote: The Marine Pod attack is unfair because it requires strategery and taktiks.
I regularly run a small squad or two of AMs with dual Flamers. For less than half 200 points, I shut down that IG "deathstar", because 4 Flamer templates and he's done. AMs are generally considered suck, and yet, they're a decent enough counter to his IG blob. The remaining points buy me an IKT that lobs Battlecannon rounds and mega-Frag into it every turn. For the same 600-ish points, I have vastly superior firepower from the IKT and adequate bubblewrap from the AMs.
Two Wyverns are 130 points. Barrage, Shred and AP4. Designed to turn light/medium infantry to shreds no matter where it hides. Two Wyverns alone will mutilate any light infantry blob without even trying. You don't even need the flamer vet squad in a Chimera or a Hellhound to make sure there's nothing left.
That's not an answer. That's blowing more smoke. How about you actually explain how your IG "deathstar" blob is composed and how it works, given that it's a just a slow, squishy mass of T3 models that get no save against 90+% of the things on the board.
No, its just not rewarding trolls.
But its really straight forward. 40 Guardsman (4 Lascannons, 4 Power Axes), 3 Psykers, 3 Priests.
The unit is primarily melee, but obviously it can shoot like crazy if needed. In Melee it gets 28 Power Weapon attacks, of which 12 can be Force Activated. The 40 IG are 4's to hit, but re-rolling if missed! They are re-rolling to wound as well. The unit is getting 5+ Deny the Witch defense of course but also 4+ if the enemy Psyker happens to be less powerful (such as a Strike Squad might be). Making the unit ever more doughty is that it can give itself the 4+ invulnerable save (on its own very good), which it gets to re-roll in close combat. The unit auto-passes its morale and pinning and the unit is huge.
In melee, yes, the unit is good. No one is denying that this unit isn't good in melee (though it does fail against the better deathstars and melee units in the game, since its slow).
The problem, as everyone has pointed out, is that it's absurdly slow and not very tough. It's about as tough as a Dire Avenger unit when it comes to shooting, and costs 600+ points.
The shooting isn't good. 40 lasguns won't put a lot of wounds down field, and 4 lascannons in that many points is worse than DE anti-tank.
Lastly at the end game, it can death blossom, meaning that whereas you had one big unit around midboard or wherever it ends up, the individual parts of the unit can explode out to take different objectives if you're going second. Less useful when going first obviously.
So it essentially must be shot to death... While the other 1300 to 1400 points of your army deals damage. And it never really dies. People take too much damage from other things in the list and after a while have to turn their attentions to easier things to kill lest they just get themselves locked up interminably.
You'll notice that so far, 2 commonly seen options (scat bikes and basic drop pod marines) were able to drop this thing in 2 turns. Using less points.
For marines there may be more dangerous things to pod in against (wyverns, for example) but scat bikes can destroy this thing pretty much free of charge. It's not uncommon to see 30-40 bikes across the table, plus spiders. 40 bikes could destroy this unit turn 1.
tThe unit also Can Overwatch at full Ballistic skill if it gets the Divination power off for that. Ultimately you have six tries and the 4+ invul is the important power. It is also possible to do this with the IG using NON IG, but i think the point of the exercize was to show that IG on its own was able to make a pretty cool deathstar and since it died just once ever, I'm not really inclined to increase it to 50 dudes. But you can, which adds yet more power weapons to the mix...
I don't know what you're facing locally, but considering 2 squads of bikes and 3 squads of bolter marines in pods dropped it in 2 turns...it seems very weak.
Again, this wasn't even list tailoring. I could have used BA flamer squads, sternguard with combi weapons or special ammo, spiders, a huge unit of wraiths, all of these would have handled this unit. These are commonly seen units that handled this pretty easily, with only suffering ~200 points in damage at worse (the bikes maybe lose 2 bikes).
Dark Eldar Haemonculus Coven got it once. Took a Talos unit and two Grotesque units plus two Wrack units the better part of a game to smash it to pieces but they got it done. Lol. As I will freely admit, there just isn't anything IN 40K that cant be killed. if it has stats, it can be killed.
As for the Lascannons, those can fire as long as they themselves don't move. The unit can start taking up space, firing away with Lasguns and using the orders to make sure the Lascannons are doing damage enough to convince the enemy to come attack us. If enemies don't, we keep shooting and taking up space until we can force the issue, while out other stuff kinda plows the fields.
Again, can be removed in 2 turns and is very very slow. Who is 4 lascannons threatening? It's not a lot of fire power, you'll be dropping a rhino or razorback a turn.
I do not claim it to be the second coming. It is, however, terribly effective. it also gives the army a lot of defense dice to at least get a shot at stopping an enemy power every round so that's cool and anything that casts ON the unit is as I said quite a bit easier to stop. Shooting is the thing that can work against it but again... thats if you can and will keep firing at it?
Which I just proved is absurdly easy for most armies to do, and this unit really can't stop them from doing so.
I suppose if someone wants to tailor JUST to kill this unit they can get it done. Like every other unit in the galaxy.
I would hardly call 2 units of bikes or 3 drop pod marines list tailoring.
If your meta isn't competitive I guess I can see how you think 2 units of bikes is list tailoring (?) but 3 units of marines in pods??
JohnHwangDD wrote: The Marine Pod attack is unfair because it requires strategery and taktiks.
I regularly run a small squad or two of AMs with dual Flamers. For less than half 200 points, I shut down that IG "deathstar", because 4 Flamer templates and he's done. AMs are generally considered suck, and yet, they're a decent enough counter to his IG blob. The remaining points buy me an IKT that lobs Battlecannon rounds and mega-Frag into it every turn. For the same 600-ish points, I have vastly superior firepower from the IKT and adequate bubblewrap from the AMs.
Two Wyverns are 130 points. Barrage, Shred and AP4. Designed to turn light/medium infantry to shreds no matter where it hides. Two Wyverns alone will mutilate any light infantry blob without even trying. You don't even need the flamer vet squad in a Chimera or a Hellhound to make sure there's nothing left.
Wyverns are ruthless.
And are commonly seen in IG armies. 1/2 the points of your blob in wyverns will defeat your blob and be much more useful.
Honestly, this death star isn't very good. It dies to shooting from commonly seen units in the majority of mid tier dexes. If this is the best IG can do, everyone was right to call them bad.
Jancoran wrote: But its really straight forward. 40 Guardsman (4 Lascannons, 4 Power Axes), 3 Psykers, 3 Priests.
Honestly, this death star isn't very good. It dies to shooting from commonly seen units in the majority of mid tier dexes. If this is the best IG can do, everyone was right to call them bad.
[SNIP!]
I was going to go through Jancoran's points but I think Akiasura basically covered everything I would have said. Except i would have had more snark and more emphasis on the super units I love (i.e. IKTs).
KaptinBadrukk wrote: Referring to the OP here-since Tau are powerful now, is that good or bad?
It is good in the sense that Tau are par with Decurion-class Codices.
If all the weaker codexes got to be at Tau power levels, 40k would be a lot better. With only minor house rules the game would suddenly become playable.
I doubt this will happen.
In melee, yes, the unit is good. No one is denying that this unit isn't good in melee (though it does fail against the better deathstars and melee units in the game, since its slow).
The problem, as everyone has pointed out, is that it's absurdly slow and not very tough. It's about as tough as a Dire Avenger unit when it comes to shooting, and costs 600+ points.
The shooting isn't good. 40 lasguns won't put a lot of wounds down field, and 4 lascannons in that many points is worse than DE anti-tank.
You'll notice that so far, 2 commonly seen options (scat bikes and basic drop pod marines) were able to drop this thing in 2 turns. Using less points.
For marines there may be more dangerous things to pod in against (wyverns, for example) but scat bikes can destroy this thing pretty much free of charge. It's not uncommon to see 30-40 bikes across the table, plus spiders. 40 bikes could destroy this unit turn 1.
I don't know what you're facing locally, but considering 2 squads of bikes and 3 squads of bolter marines in pods dropped it in 2 turns...it seems very weak.
Again, this wasn't even list tailoring. I could have used BA flamer squads, sternguard with combi weapons or special ammo, spiders, a huge unit of wraiths, all of these would have handled this unit. These are commonly seen units that handled this pretty easily, with only suffering ~200 points in damage at worse (the bikes maybe lose 2 bikes).
Again, can be removed in 2 turns and is very very slow. Who is 4 lascannons threatening? It's not a lot of fire power, you'll be dropping a rhino or razorback a turn.
I do not claim it to be the second coming. It is, however, terribly effective. it also gives the army a lot of defense dice to at least get a shot at stopping an enemy power every round so that's cool and anything that casts ON the unit is as I said quite a bit easier to stop. Shooting is the thing that can work against it but again... thats if you can and will keep firing at it?
Which I just proved is absurdly easy for most armies to do, and this unit really can't stop them from doing so.
I suppose if someone wants to tailor JUST to kill this unit they can get it done. Like every other unit in the galaxy.
I would hardly call 2 units of bikes or 3 drop pod marines list tailoring.
If your meta isn't competitive I guess I can see how you think 2 units of bikes is list tailoring (?) but 3 units of marines in pods??
JohnHwangDD wrote: The Marine Pod attack is unfair because it requires strategery and taktiks.
I regularly run a small squad or two of AMs with dual Flamers. For less than half 200 points, I shut down that IG "deathstar", because 4 Flamer templates and he's done. AMs are generally considered suck, and yet, they're a decent enough counter to his IG blob. The remaining points buy me an IKT that lobs Battlecannon rounds and mega-Frag into it every turn. For the same 600-ish points, I have vastly superior firepower from the IKT and adequate bubblewrap from the AMs.
Two Wyverns are 130 points. Barrage, Shred and AP4. Designed to turn light/medium infantry to shreds no matter where it hides. Two Wyverns alone will mutilate any light infantry blob without even trying. You don't even need the flamer vet squad in a Chimera or a Hellhound to make sure there's nothing left.
Wyverns are ruthless.
And are commonly seen in IG armies. 1/2 the points of your blob in wyverns will defeat your blob and be much more useful.
Honestly, this death star isn't very good. It dies to shooting from commonly seen units in the majority of mid tier dexes. If this is the best IG can do, everyone was right to call them bad.
Actually the unit doesnt fail against most deathstars. It never dies basically so I'm not sure what your definition of failure actually is. But it took an avalanche to kill it the only time it was killed so I dont understand this comment you made. "Fail" is so overused and vague (and in this case inaccurate) that I think you need to explain "fail". In fact I kinda like it when those Deathstrs get to me, on the whole. Means they will be going nowhere and doing nothing the rest of the game. and I'll probably kill them!
Your arguments have boiled down to this:
1. Slow
2. Lascannons dont do "enough"
3. Other Deathstars can beat it up (somehow?).
4. Some super tailored list could maaaaaaybe ignore the other 1400 points of the army and try to focus it down despite 4+ invul saves?
Yet... None of those things matter. It can be slow because there are 5-6 turns. Where is it going that it needs to hurry any faster? If the enemy is going to try to match it in melee, they will probably fail. its that simple. By probably I mean demonstrably over time it has shown them to fail. If they want to shoot at us, okay fine too. We also shoot, with high accuracy (Presceince) if that's the game that is being played. That and...the rest of the force. So stand back and shoot me but don't expect a lot of quivering in fear if that's your strategy. IG forces can have a good old fashioned shoot out as good as anyone and if your melee is no threat at all, then we only have to weather one phase.
Lascannons are a staple if IG life and a necessary thing to knock units out on overwatch (with Foreboding) and to kill the blasty threats to us. But becaue we SPREAD OUT, templates and blasts aren't the problem you're making them to be. They'll do damage though. Yessir, of course they will. Kill the unit? No. demonstrably they won't usually kill the IG unit. 4+ invul is hard core with that many bodies on the field. if I don't get that power, then it may have to be used in a more traditional way. I might even split the units up. I have options. Depends entirely o nthe opponent. And it would be funny to see the 20 scatterbikes decide that shooting all 20 at my 10 man squad was a good idea. hehehe.
Again I am sure you can tailor to it and bring some improbable 3x20 bike army. But then... if thats the conversation you want to have, whats the point? Are you going to argue next that Imperial Knights are invalid because: 3 units of Wraithguard? Lol. That kind of silly argument is a waste. Oh you mean you're meta isn't tough and no one does that? See how dumb that sounds?
As for Lascannons downfield: who cares? those Lascannons are great against an army that has armor. It just keeps demolishing tanks a round at a time until melee happens and if they never engage me and i never engage them (both unlikely), well, I'll keep killing tanks. There's no downside. and if I get Foreboding, then almost no one sane charges that thing. A WraithKnight might try but then its not going anywhere for a real long time. Worth it to try? Maybe? So maybe we shoot that Wraith Knight first...with LASCANNONS!
And you're wrong. Two "commonly used" armies Haven't managed to kill it. I face those armies (in several forms). None have but one. No one takes 40 Scatterbikes but if you want to CALL that common and NOT list tailored..uh... sure. Good luck when all your army can do is kill the assault vehicles that are going to disgorge your doom for the next round, because Im not the only army you'll be facing in a tournament and i can play the "perfect storm scenario" game with you too.
I DO play a guy with 11 drop pods. Travis got into me with 35 flamer hits. 35!!! I had deployed spread out but missed a hole just small enough to fit hid drop pod in. Clumped too much. Anyways, net result: tabled him minus five drop pods. The unit survived to the end. 4+ for the win.
I play a couple of guys guy who love their scatterbikes and Wraith Knight combo. Never lost the unit. The Lascannons killed the Wraithknight with help from other units in turn two in our most recent battle. TL Lascannons that ignore cover are pretty cool when they fire unabated for two rounds, plus full BS overwatch when he tried to get in on me and tie me up finished it. And then theres that other 1300-1400 points we talked about...
Now I cannot tell you all the different things I will see in a given tournament. Neither can you so lets not waste each others time on that. Using nonsense "perfect storm" scenarios to illustrate why a unit that has in actual games died once "isn't good" is just... not the remotest bit fair minded.
How it works is really basic: it doesnt die, it throws out some weak but accurate pewpew as it advances (and they do damage over time), wrecks a couple vehicles if that's a better target and then locks up stuff and butchers it with a mass of Power weapons buried in ablative wounds. at the end if going second your guys can leave the unit and go take objectives if needed. The end.
And it CAN die. For the record. We finally proved that much. So I am sure when the dude shows up with 60 Scatter bikes or whatever, I'll have to adjust or die. Can't win 'em all. Have you, using your knowledge and "better meta" (weak argument) won them all? I think not.
if you ever even play Guard, try it. Build a good list around it obviously that will support its mission and mesh with your style of play. You'll collect many tears from many sad faces. And then at some point a Dark Eldar player will come along and gitcha. Can't win 'em all. You'll win a lot. Even without the "Tau Treatment".
Oh one last tidbit: Strategic Warlord Traits are awesome. if you get to infiltrate this unit, it can really be fun. I've done that before and that's a lot of fun.
Okay, I scrolled back and took a look at your so called 'power build'
4 Guard sections blobbed together with three psykers and three commissars right?
Wrong. But you can hit me up on PM if you wanna talk about it.
No thankyou Jancoran, if you are truly such a master of the Guard and have such brilliant game winning strategies you will not mind posting them here where myself and the others can all see them.
As for your power build I was wrong, it has 3 priests. That just makes it even squishier as the priests can do sweet feth all against my two tanks.
1st turn:As you moved the blob your Lascannons can not fire even if you left them still. .
Also wrong
Ah, maybe I was wrong. Im not quite sure how the rules work in regarding mixed units - is it the heavy weapon itself that has to move or not or is it the entire unit? Either way though, you are playing to a disadvantage as if you are leaving the Lascannons in the backbench you will have to congaline your blob from them. All it takes is one blast... If you want some AT then you would be better off dropping those 4 Lascannons for 4 Meltas which are chaper and can be fired on the move.
In melee, yes, the unit is good. No one is denying that this unit isn't good in melee (though it does fail against the better deathstars and melee units in the game, since its slow).
The problem, as everyone has pointed out, is that it's absurdly slow and not very tough. It's about as tough as a Dire Avenger unit when it comes to shooting, and costs 600+ points.
The shooting isn't good. 40 lasguns won't put a lot of wounds down field, and 4 lascannons in that many points is worse than DE anti-tank.
You'll notice that so far, 2 commonly seen options (scat bikes and basic drop pod marines) were able to drop this thing in 2 turns. Using less points.
For marines there may be more dangerous things to pod in against (wyverns, for example) but scat bikes can destroy this thing pretty much free of charge. It's not uncommon to see 30-40 bikes across the table, plus spiders. 40 bikes could destroy this unit turn 1.
I don't know what you're facing locally, but considering 2 squads of bikes and 3 squads of bolter marines in pods dropped it in 2 turns...it seems very weak.
Again, this wasn't even list tailoring. I could have used BA flamer squads, sternguard with combi weapons or special ammo, spiders, a huge unit of wraiths, all of these would have handled this unit. These are commonly seen units that handled this pretty easily, with only suffering ~200 points in damage at worse (the bikes maybe lose 2 bikes).
Again, can be removed in 2 turns and is very very slow. Who is 4 lascannons threatening? It's not a lot of fire power, you'll be dropping a rhino or razorback a turn.
I do not claim it to be the second coming. It is, however, terribly effective. it also gives the army a lot of defense dice to at least get a shot at stopping an enemy power every round so that's cool and anything that casts ON the unit is as I said quite a bit easier to stop. Shooting is the thing that can work against it but again... thats if you can and will keep firing at it?
Which I just proved is absurdly easy for most armies to do, and this unit really can't stop them from doing so.
I suppose if someone wants to tailor JUST to kill this unit they can get it done. Like every other unit in the galaxy.
I would hardly call 2 units of bikes or 3 drop pod marines list tailoring.
If your meta isn't competitive I guess I can see how you think 2 units of bikes is list tailoring (?) but 3 units of marines in pods??
JohnHwangDD wrote: The Marine Pod attack is unfair because it requires strategery and taktiks.
I regularly run a small squad or two of AMs with dual Flamers. For less than half 200 points, I shut down that IG "deathstar", because 4 Flamer templates and he's done. AMs are generally considered suck, and yet, they're a decent enough counter to his IG blob. The remaining points buy me an IKT that lobs Battlecannon rounds and mega-Frag into it every turn. For the same 600-ish points, I have vastly superior firepower from the IKT and adequate bubblewrap from the AMs.
Two Wyverns are 130 points. Barrage, Shred and AP4. Designed to turn light/medium infantry to shreds no matter where it hides. Two Wyverns alone will mutilate any light infantry blob without even trying. You don't even need the flamer vet squad in a Chimera or a Hellhound to make sure there's nothing left.
Wyverns are ruthless.
And are commonly seen in IG armies. 1/2 the points of your blob in wyverns will defeat your blob and be much more useful.
Honestly, this death star isn't very good. It dies to shooting from commonly seen units in the majority of mid tier dexes. If this is the best IG can do, everyone was right to call them bad.
Actually the unit doesnt fail against most deathstars. It never dies basically so I'm not sure what your definition of failure actually is. But it took an avalanche to kill it the only time it was killed so I dont understand this comment you made. "Fail" is so overused and vague (and in this case inaccurate) that I think you need to explain "fail". In fact I kinda like it when those Deathstrs get to me, on the whole. Means they will be going nowhere and doing nothing the rest of the game. and I'll probably kill them!
Fair enough, I can define fail as far as death stars go.
1) Can the unit get to where it needs to be (in this case, melee)?
No, this unit can not. It is a fail here.
2) Can this unit be delivered to its effective range (again, melee) safely?
No, this unit can not. As demonstrated, it loses to 20 bikes or 30 marines.
3) Is this unit effective against threats it is likely to meet in its effective range (melee)?
Yes, it can defeat the majority of units it reaches in melee.
4) Can this unit defeat other top tier choices in its effective range?
No, wraith stars and cent stars will shut it down.
So, it can do 1/4, which is a 25%.
In my classes, a 25% is a failing grade.
1. Slow
2. Lascannons dont do "enough"
3. Other Deathstars can beat it up (somehow?).
4. Some super tailored list could maaaaaaybe ignore the other 1400 points of the army and try to focus it down despite 4+ invul saves?
Yet... None of those things matter. It can be slow because there are 5-6 turns. Where is it going that it needs to hurry any faster?
Hopefully to melee, since it takes only 2 turns to destroy it with shooting. In that time, it will contribute 8 lascannon shots to the battle.
If the enemy is going to try to match it in melee, they will probably fail. its that simple. By probably I mean demonstrably over time it has shown them to fail.
Not really. Put them up against 15 wraiths with a good formation (T5, Init 5, 3++, 4+ FnP, 2W, HoW attacks) and see how you do. That's not even a death star, its a commonly seen selection in most necron lists.
Heck, put them up against similar points in flayed ones. They still lose.
In an extremely casual meta, sure they do okay in melee. Compared to other deathstars who re-roll 2++ saves and are sporting T5 and a bucket ton of quality attacks, this falls down.
You have yet to demonstrate anything.
If they want to shoot at us, okay fine too. We also shoot, with high accuracy (Presceince) if that's the game that is being played. That and...the rest of the force. So stand back and shoot me but don't expect a lot of quivering in fear if that's your strategy. IG forces can have a good old fashioned shoot out as good as anyone and if your melee is no threat at all, then we only have to weather one phase.
Again, not really. You'll notice in my examples I actually used LESS points than you did to destroy the squads (about 20% less in each case) and took commonly seen units. In each case, it took 2 turns, way less time than it takes you to reach melee (except against the drop pods, where you did manage to destroy 1-2 squads before dying and only earning half your points back).
Eldar still have the vast majority of their forces on the table. I could take 2 wraithknights or something similar. The SM could easily fit a centstar with their remaining points, posing a credible melee threat. Both of those are a lot scarier than anything the IG bring to the table.
If you are shooting your rapid fire weapons, you aren't charging (the only phase you are good in, I figured you would not want to shoot. We can do it without charging if you want).
Lascannons are a staple if IG life and a necessary thing to knock units out on overwatch (with Foreboding) and to kill the blasty threats to us. But becaue we SPREAD OUT, templates and blasts aren't the problem you're making them to be. They'll do damage though. Yessir, of course they will. Kill the unit? No. demonstrably they won't usually kill the IG unit. 4+ invul is hard core with that many bodies on the field. if I don't get that power, then it may have to be used in a more traditional way. I might even split the units up. I have options. Depends entirely o nthe opponent. And it would be funny to see the 20 scatterbikes decide that shooting all 20 at my 10 man squad was a good idea. hehehe.
You'll notice, again, I did use the invul save in my calculations.
You'll notice that I only used blast weapons with the marines (which did a total of...6-7 wounds?).
You realize eldar typically take min squads, yes? It'll be more like 4 bikes firing into your 10 man squad over the course of two turns to eliminate it. I used 20 guys at once for ease of math, but that is not what is typically seen. It's a troops choice after all, no reason not to spam it.
It's crazy, but the opponent can make half way intelligent decisions too.
Again I am sure you can tailor to it and bring some improbable 3x20 bike army. But then... if thats the conversation you want to have, whats the point? Are you going to argue next that Imperial Knights are invalid because: 3 units of Wraithguard? Lol. That kind of silly argument is a waste. Oh you mean you're meta isn't tough and no one does that? See how dumb that sounds?
You'll notice I used 20 bikes and 3 drop pod marines. No one is using 60 bikes, I don't know why you felt the need to bring it up again and again. I used drop pod marines too.
If your meta doesn't include 20 bikes (easily the best choice in the dex, and not even spamming) or 3 drop pod marines (pretty common since...5th?) than I don't know what to tell you.
I didn't tailor. I took common units from good dexes (20 bikes, 30 marines, 15 wraiths) and placed them against you. And won.
As for Lascannons downfield: who cares? those Lascannons are great against an army that has armor. It just keeps demolishing tanks a round at a time until melee happens and if they never engage me and i never engage them (both unlikely), well, I'll keep killing tanks. There's no downside. and if I get Foreboding, then almost no one sane charges that thing. A WraithKnight might try but then its not going anywhere for a real long time. Worth it to try? Maybe? So maybe we shoot that Wraith Knight first...with LASCANNONS!
4 lascannons in 600 points of troops is awful. Even with prescience, you're looking at 3 hits a turn. You won't kill a single Wave serpent a turn, let alone decimate armor. Even a Rhino in cover might survive that.
It'll take you nearly the whole game to kill a wraithknight, assuming he leaves you alone. The blob costs more and has about 2 turns to do its damage before the blob just ups and dies against an eldar army.
And you're wrong. Two "commonly used" armies Haven't managed to kill it. I face those armies (in several forms). None have but one. No one takes 40 Scatterbikes but if you want to CALL that common and NOT list tailored..uh... sure. Good luck when all your army can do is kill the assault vehicles that are going to disgorge your doom for the next round, because Im not the only army you'll be facing in a tournament and i can play the "perfect storm scenario" game with you too.
Again, it was 20 scat bikes. 20 scat bikes are common in competitive metas (tbh that seems a little low to me).
3 Drop pods isn't list tailoring either.
As for no one taking 40 bikes, I suggest you look at the ETC and Nova (those are competitive, btw). You'll see nearly every list includes 40 scat bikes and spiders.
But again, I used half of that and had no problem destroying this unit. For less points than it costs.
I DO play a guy with 11 drop pods. Travis got into me with 35 flamer hits. 35!!! I had deployed spread out but missed a hole just small enough to fit hid drop pod in. Clumped too much. Anyways, net result: tabled him minus five drop pods. The unit survived to the end. 4+ for the win.
11 drop pods is a terrible list imo. You usually see a few for tank hunting or alpha striking, and a strong deathstar central unit (which can change depending on marine flavor.
Again, you are probably playing in a casual meta if this unit is working.
I play a couple of guys guy who love their scatterbikes and Wraith Knight combo. Never lost the unit. The Lascannons killed the Wraithknight with help from other units in turn two in our most recent battle. TL Lascannons that ignore cover are pretty cool when they fire unabated for two rounds, plus full BS overwatch when he tried to get in on me and tie me up finished it. And then theres that other 1300-1400 points we talked about...
You'll have to excuse me if I don't believe 8 lascannon shots can destroy a knight on average. Because they can't.
With prescience, you're looking at 6 hits. You need a 3+ to wound, so already down to 4 wounds. Then a 5++ invul, so about 3 wounds.
So yeah. About 4 turns to destroy one knight, which costs half of your blob, and is incredibly fast. When your blob can be destroyed by two turns of shooting with a decent amount of scat bikes.
If he meleed that squad with a Wraithknight, knowing you had those powers, than he isn't very good. Again, casual meta is casual.
Now I cannot tell you all the different things I will see in a given tournament. Neither can you so lets not [/i]waste each others time on that. Using nonsense "perfect storm" scenarios to illustrate why a unit that has in actual games died once "isn't good" is just... not the remotest bit fair minded.
How it works is really basic: it doesnt die, it throws out some weak but accurate pewpew as it advances (and they do damage over time), wrecks a couple vehicles if that's a better target and then locks up stuff and butchers it with a mass of Power weapons buried in ablative wounds. at the end if going second your guys can leave the unit and go take objectives if needed. The end.
Well, all the math I posted kinda proves everything you said wrong. And I used common units.
But if it works for you enjoy. I wouldn't brag about it when it seems pretty terrible.
And it CAN die. For the record. We finally proved that much. So I am sure when the dude shows up with 60 Scatter bikes or whatever, I'll have to adjust or die. Can't win 'em all. Have you, using your knowledge and "better meta" (weak argument) won them all? I think not.
Nope.
And again, it's 20 bikes. I'd only need 40 to destroy it in 1 turn, but I used 20.
if you ever even play Guard, try it. Build a good list around it obviously that will support its mission and mesh with your style of play. You'll collect many tears from many sad faces. And then at some point a Dark Eldar player will come along and gitcha. Can't win 'em all. You'll win a lot. Even without the "Tau Treatment".
I don't really enjoy guard, and people don't play them much locally anymore since the dex is so bad.
I can always ask a friend to run it against my Eldar Aspect warrior shrine list, but that seems cruel considering how many models he'll have to unpack and put away. BS 5 avengers and Spiders are just brutal, especially with a decent amount of LoS blocking terrain.
Oh one last tidbit: Strategic Warlord Traits are awesome. if you get to infiltrate this unit, it can really be fun. I've done that before and that's a lot of fun.
That seems good, but you still need 2 turns for melee. If you go first and if you get that...then the unit could destroy something in melee.
If that something is worth 600 points than yeah, the unit would be worth it.
Your unit seems interesting but I have several questions. Why does it have lascannons? You state that this unit's primary purpose is to get into assault (where it could be effective with shear number of attacks), but then give it an expensive heavy weapon. Even if you just move the blob, the weapon's accuracy has dropped to negligible levels and if you try to run (to reach the enemy to get into combat), then you cannot fire it at all. Would it not be better to save your shooty stuff for the shooty units and let your fighty units fight?
Second, the blob still suffers from not having anything stronger that S: 3 in close combat. This means that they will be at a disadvantage against most common units. Going against this with basic units like bikerboyz or SM on bikes (T: 5) would mean that you can only wound us on 6s before having to get through an armour save.
Third, your blob is too big. Having played blob orks, playing a mob this big means that you have to accept that there is no way to put this thing in cover if you want to advance across the board. Any choke points caused by things like buildings set any close to each other will result in you forces either spaghettiing as they try to avoid bunching up (making it harder to get the ones in the back into close combat where you want them) or will result in your troops being forced to move close together and becoming vulnerable to blast weapons.
Your mob is too slow to be an effective close combat squad. Close combat currently suffers because you have to be able to reach your opponent to make it happen. Any turn spent walking and running towards the enemy is a turn where your opponent is shooting you and you do not get to make any points back. A lot of the close combat builds get around this limitation by being fast (bikerbuilds), being durable (flyrants), or by having the numbers to ignore losses (by numbers I mean stuff like the ork mob that has 100 models minimum). Your mob would spend too many turns walking (especially if they waste time with those lascannons) that they won't have enough time in close combat to earn their points back. Their speed also limits their use as last turn objective grabbers because you have to be close to all the objectives that you grab, unlike a biker star that can explode and grab objectives all across the board.
Finally, you mob is still consisted of basic guardsmen with T:3 and weak armour. They will die in handfuls to enemy fire and to your opponent's close combat attacks. Even tau will be able to remove guardsmen in close combat. Basic guns like the boltgun and shoota wound on a 3+ and the spammable high rate of fire dakkagun can remove guard on a 2+, quickly reducing this unit below a use able capacity. Once this squad has been reduced to 20 or so guradsmen then it no longer poses much of a threat in close combat because they lost their insane number of attacks and can be safely ignored.
While the unit may work for you, it is hardly optimal and suffers from some questionable choices. I think you need to consider the age old adage "boys before toys" when considering the addition of the lascannons and all those special characters, dropping the squads point price by a lot would go a ways towards making it a distraction unit that can camp an objective (though still suboptimal compared to camping some of the stuff in other codices).
Actually the unit doesnt fail against most deathstars. It never dies basically so I'm not sure what your definition of failure actually is. But it took an avalanche to kill it the only time it was killed so I dont understand this comment you made. "Fail" is so overused and vague (and in this case inaccurate) that I think you need to explain "fail". In fact I kinda like it when those Deathstrs get to me, on the whole. Means they will be going nowhere and doing nothing the rest of the game. and I'll probably kill them!
And yet everyone here has thus far proven that this so called 'Deathstar' can be killed, very easily and for a lot less points than it costs.
Your arguments have boiled down to this:
1. Slow
Painfully slow in fact - the lack of a transport option means that you are reduced to footslogging across the board with what are essentially Light Infantry
2. Lascannons dont do "enough"
For what they cost in a Guard army Lascannons do not do near enough.
3. Other Deathstars can beat it up (somehow?).
Because they can quite easily. Hell, my 2 Eradicators are no where near Deathstar level and yet they munch this unit. Factor in Wraithbrigade and Scatbike spam (two very common lists) and everything else and this unit of yours falls to pieces easily.
4. Some super tailored list could maaaaaaybe ignore the other 1400 points of the army and try to focus it down despite 4+ invul saves?
My 2 Eradicators are a footnote on my list and yet they eat this thing for lunch. Tailoring is not required, my regular lists laugh at this invunrablob... And these are fluffy lists.
Yet... None of those things matter. It can be slow because there are 5-6 turns. Where is it going that it needs to hurry any faster?
Because in those 5-6 turns it will not be there. In fact it will probably cease to exist, if not entirely, as a viable threat somewhere around turn 2. You seem to forget that people will shoot the hell out of it.
If the enemy is going to try to match it in melee, they will probably fail. its that simple.
How have you gotten in to melee? It is now turn three and I am delegating a couple of tanks and possibly an Infantry section or two to mop up the remnants of your unit. With shooting.
By probably I mean demonstrably over time it has shown them to fail.
I wish I was facing your opponents. I could do with easy mode for a while.
If they want to shoot at us, okay fine too. We also shoot, with high accuracy (Presceince) if that's the game that is being played.
Okay, feel free too. Three Lascannons and a few lasgun shots are not exactly scary, even when psybuffed.
That and...the rest of the force. So stand back and shoot me but don't expect a lot of quivering in fear if that's your strategy. IG forces can have a good old fashioned shoot out as good as anyone and if your melee is no threat at all, then we only have to weather one phase.
The rest of your force... you mean minus the 670+ point sink? IG shooting is, and I say this as a veteran IG player, currently close to its lowest. One shooting phase? How the hell are you magically teleporting across the battle field. It will take you three turns at last to reach me.
Lascannons are a staple if IG life and a necessary thing to knock units out on overwatch (with Foreboding) and to kill the blasty threats to us.
Nope. Lascannons are bad for IG and I would rather take HB's over them any day.
But becaue we SPREAD OUT, templates and blasts aren't the problem you're making them to be.
Its what, a maximum of 1 inch between models? Good luck.
[quote demonstrably they won't usually kill the IG unit. 4+ invul is hard core with that many bodies on the field.
Okay, a 4+ invun is nice. Better pray for the dice though. Also they will kill enough of your unit to render it no longer a threat.
if I don't get that power, then it may have to be used in a more traditional way. I might even split the units up. I have options. Depends entirely o nthe opponent. And it would be funny to see the 20 scatterbikes decide that shooting all 20 at my 10 man squad was a good idea. hehehe.
Finally a good suggestion. Just remember that you have to decide at deployment whether to blob or not though. Also, that it 10 scatbikes shooting your 10 guys and another 10 shooting elsewhere. Scatbike units are a maximum of 10 in number.
Again I am sure you can tailor to it and bring some improbable 3x20 bike army.
No tailoring needed, as demonstrated above. Also 60 scatbikes is an average Eldar army.
But then... if thats the conversation you want to have, whats the point? Are you going to argue next that Imperial Knights are invalid because: 3 units of Wraithguard? Lol. That kind of silly argument is a waste. Oh you mean you're meta isn't tough and no one does that? See how dumb that sounds?
Congratulations, you just described the average 40K meta
As for Lascannons downfield: who cares?
Everyone here whom is seeing this and going WTF. Lascannons downfield are A) moving and thus only snapshooting and B) stupidly close to enemy shooting and melee in an area they can not hope to compete in.
those Lascannons are great against an army that has armor.
Middling at best. Meltas are far better.
It just keeps demolishing tanks a round at a time until melee happens and if they never engage me and i never engage them (both unlikely), well, I'll keep killing tanks.
How? Your moving and thus only snapshooting. That and your average tank has 3 HP. That is three shots that need to hit AND damage.
There's no downside. and if I get Foreboding, then almost no one sane charges that thing. A WraithKnight might try but then its not going anywhere for a real long time. Worth it to try? Maybe? So maybe we shoot that Wraith Knight first...with LASCANNONS!
Why charge you? I can just delegate another two tanks to blast you as well, or maybe a Punisher to drown you in shots.
And you're wrong.
Or your local meta is incredibly weak
Two "commonly used" armies Haven't managed to kill it. I face those armies (in several forms).
As I said above, your local meta is soft.
No one takes 40 Scatterbikes but if you want to CALL that common and NOT list tailored..uh... sure.
actually I DO call 40 scatterbikes a common list because it is.
Good luck when all your army can do is kill the assault vehicles that are going to disgorge your doom for the next round, because Im not the only army you'll be facing in a tournament and i can play the "perfect storm scenario" game with you too.
Waitwhat? 1) The Imperial Guard do not have assault vehicles 2) There is no non forgeworld transport in the game which can transport that many models
I DO play a guy with 11 drop pods. Travis got into me with 35 flamer hits. 35!!! I had deployed spread out but missed a hole just small enough to fit hid drop pod in. Clumped too much. Anyways, net result: tabled him minus five drop pods. The unit survived to the end. 4+ for the win.
I call that very bad playing with the flamers.
I play a couple of guys guy who love their scatterbikes and Wraith Knight combo.
Clearly you do not.
Never lost the unit. The Lascannons killed the Wraithknight with help from other units in turn two in our most recent battle. TL Lascannons that ignore cover are pretty cool when they fire unabated for two rounds, plus full BS overwatch when he tried to get in on me and tie me up finished it. And then theres that other 1300-1400 points we talked about...
At this point I am calling your opponents competency in to question...
Now I cannot tell you all the different things I will see in a given tournament. Neither can you so lets not waste each others time on that. Using nonsense "perfect storm" scenarios to illustrate why a unit that has in actual games died once "isn't good" is just... not the remotest bit fair minded.
I do not need a perfect storm. I need two Eradicators and a line of sight.
How it works is really basic: it doesnt die
Yes it does
it throws out some weak but accurate pewpew as it advances (and they do damage over time)
This it does indeed
wrecks a couple vehicles if that's a better target
How? needing a 6+ to hit and then a whatever to damage, even if TL'd and then accounting for cover...
and then locks up stuff and butchers it with a mass of Power weapons buried in ablative wounds. at the end if going second
Just wondering how these masses of PW and ablative wounds actually made it through 3 - 4+ rounds of shooting to get into CC?
your guys can leave the unit and go take objectives if needed. The end.
I assume you mean the characters as regular infantry blobs can not split back into individual units during the game.
And it CAN die.
FINALLY, he admits it!
For the record. We finally proved that much.
We proved it many, many, pages back.
So I am sure when the dude shows up with 60 Scatter bikes or whatever, I'll have to adjust or die.
Or his two/three Eradicators plus supporting units. Or his wraithbrigade. Or his Riptide's. Or his...
Can't win 'em all. Have you, using your knowledge and "better meta" (weak argument) won them all? I think not.
Better Meta. Yours is better by far, it is far easier and more laid back.
if you ever even play Guard, try it.
Been playing since 3rd edition dropped.
Build a good list around it obviously that will support its mission and mesh with your style of play.
Yep, you build a fun army
You'll collect many tears from many sad faces
But in return you will lose a LOT of games.
And then at some point a Dark Eldar player will come along and gitcha
Or an Ork player, or a Tau player, or a Space Smurf player or a [insert 40K faction here]
Can't win 'em all.
But you can win some
You'll win a lot. Even without the "Tau Treatment".
I find this hard to believe. Not when every other army out there has access to better units, better priced units, better vehicles per point, better shiny toys, formations and freebies, can ignore most of our strengths and at the same time exploit our weaknesses, etc.
Man alive, you need to be really fast in replying here. Also, agreed that the IG blob isn't that awesome, due to it being so slow and such a large target.
Also, the 1/6 chance of it Infiltrating means that it loses X rounds of shooting it's 4 Lascannons while it is in Reserves, meaning that the remaining 900+ points is at significant disadvantage fighting the opponents full 1500+ points.
That said, if the meta and skill are both grossly sub-par, maybe crap units like the IG blob can appear to be "good".
I think Force Weapons, 4+ invul and rerollable wounds/saves might do really well against Wraiths, actually.
@Jancoran, obviously nothing is as compelling as results on the tabletop but have you tried running this concept with a 3+, meaning a 20x Sisters of Battle blob with a Lib Conclave? I'd be curious to see how it stacks up.
As for your power build I was wrong, it has 3 priests. That just makes it even squishier as the priests can do sweet feth all against my two tanks.
Ah, maybe I was wrong. Im not quite sure how the rules work in regarding mixed units - is it the heavy weapon itself that has to move or not or is it the entire unit? Either way though, you are playing to a disadvantage as if you are leaving the Lascannons in the backbench you will have to congaline your blob from them. All it takes is one blast... If you want some AT then you would be better off dropping those 4 Lascannons for 4 Meltas which are chaper and can be fired on the move.
Umm... And why...would...that...matter? Exactly? That I cant affect your two tanks with the Priests? You think its the PRIESTS that do the damage to tanks?
and yes. you were wrong about moving the LasCannons. and no one blast doesnt ruin things for me. Blasts kill the closest thing. if you MEANT barraghe, that assumes they have one. And if they have one that its big enough, hits on target, wounds, i fail my four plus saves aaaaaand dont have enough guys to just move back on my turn...aaaaaand only then if my intention isn't to charge the next round (and it generally is).
That, sir...is a ton of if's. =)
Automatically Appended Next Post: Akiasura... heres what you just said:
1) Can the unit get to where it needs to be (in this case, melee)?
No, this unit can not. It is a fail here.
2) Can this unit be delivered to its effective range (again, melee) safely?
No, this unit can not. As demonstrated, it loses to 20 bikes or 30 marines.
3) Is this unit effective against threats it is likely to meet in its effective range (melee)?
Yes, it can defeat the majority of units it reaches in melee.
4) Can this unit defeat other top tier choices in its effective range?
No, wraith stars and cent stars will shut it down.
So, it can do 1/4, which is a 25%.
In my classes, a 25% is a failing grade.
Heres where my mirth comes from. You state...that it cant get to where it needs to go. And since that is untrue this makes no sense. You're ignoring the obvious fact that it DOES get to where it has to go. YOU don't define where it needs to go. Lol.
You havent demonstrated that it loses to any of those bikes or Marines. I have demonstrated, literally, that it does not. Not on some forum. In fact. because it isn't IN a vacuum. So STATING that this happens does not turn it into a fact.
You agree it smashes things. Fine.
Then you try to place YOUR value judgement as to where it places in the top 25% as the deciding factor as to whether it is in the top 25%. You basically say "Iit is isnt because I said so, no matter how many times it refused to die and no matter how many times it wins or loses me the battle or has no say in the final outcome". This unit has eaten Wraith Stars (we have a fair number of Necron players in the general vicinity) so here again: no idea what you're talking about. The sheer volume of attacks is enough to grind them ever so slowly down. It has butchered Centurion Stars. Its done all this. A
Those things you mention are busy being whittled and shot before they ever arrive if not outright killed... or... they are busy with other elements of the army. No ones suggesting those things arent good. But they arent the answer to THIS. You'd WASTE a Centurion stars shooting on this guard unit? They fire the equivalent of STR 5 guns when it comes to us and wounding it on 5's. So... I mean... thats insane to even suggest.
If all you want to do is say "Centurions are cooler in my opinion" you do that. Denturion star with Tiggy is what? 400 points or something like that? Without a transport? That has zero, literally, to do with whether the Astra Militarum need the "Tau Treatment". They don't need it. this unit is a very good way to counter a lot of cool things in 40K. The sheer volume and accuracy of pewpew, the sheer variety of targets it can take out, and the psyker defense and death blossom effect is just really good. The rest of the army finds it much easier to do its job when these boys are on the job.
None of your points really answers the question at all on hos it failed. it doesn't fail to get where it needs to go just because you DECIDE it can't., it takes out most anything it fights and the things it can't fight (generally IK's, though I suppose if you add meltabombs it might do that too) the "Tau Treatment" isn't necessary.
I really do think you'd have a different opinion of you had to face it and all that comes with it. Butthe unit itself is tremendously effective in actual demonstable games, tailoring aside.
As for your power build I was wrong, it has 3 priests. That just makes it even squishier as the priests can do sweet feth all against my two tanks.
Ah, maybe I was wrong. Im not quite sure how the rules work in regarding mixed units - is it the heavy weapon itself that has to move or not or is it the entire unit? Either way though, you are playing to a disadvantage as if you are leaving the Lascannons in the backbench you will have to congaline your blob from them. All it takes is one blast... If you want some AT then you would be better off dropping those 4 Lascannons for 4 Meltas which are chaper and can be fired on the move.
Umm... And why...would...that...matter? Exactly? That I cant affect your two tanks with the Priests? You think its the PRIESTS that do the damage to tanks?
and yes. you were wrong about moving the LasCannons. and no one blast doesnt ruin things for me. Blasts kill the closest thing. if you MEANT barraghe, that assumes they have one. And if they have one that its big enough, hits on target, wounds, i fail my four plus saves aaaaaand dont have enough guys to just move back on my turn...aaaaaand only then if my intention isn't to charge the next round (and it generally is).
That, sir...is a ton of if's. =)
[lots of other stuff that I shall leave for now]
The fact that you cannot affect my two tanks with your priests is a big one as that essentially means that nothing in your blob can hurt them unless you either:
A) Purchase a number of power axe's/mauls for your Sergeants.
or
B) spend another (10xnumber of Infantry sections) points to give everyone Krak Grenades.
Both methods are expensive and the first one is not really a good idea against armour.
Eh, I didnt realise about the Lascannon thing, thanks for pointing that out to me.
Okay the problem with your conga line is that your combat effectiveness is reduced by a number of models equal too the distance your unit has travelled divided by two. So for an average 36" assault range you will lose your 6 Lascannoneers plus another 18 models for a grand total of 24 attacks that you are not getting.
Another thing that you fail to account for is the fact that I will not be sitting still. Barrages are all very well and good but what about a flanking unit hitting your conga line? Suddenly the closest models ARE the all so vital conga and suddenly your blob is out of unit coherency by a vast amount. It wont happen you say? Well I have done similar before, although not to a conga of this length. And this length means that I just get to choose my engagement point better.
As for your power build I was wrong, it has 3 priests. That just makes it even squishier as the priests can do sweet feth all against my two tanks.
Ah, maybe I was wrong. Im not quite sure how the rules work in regarding mixed units - is it the heavy weapon itself that has to move or not or is it the entire unit? Either way though, you are playing to a disadvantage as if you are leaving the Lascannons in the backbench you will have to congaline your blob from them. All it takes is one blast... If you want some AT then you would be better off dropping those 4 Lascannons for 4 Meltas which are chaper and can be fired on the move.
Umm... And why...would...that...matter? Exactly? That I cant affect your two tanks with the Priests? You think its the PRIESTS that do the damage to tanks?
and yes. you were wrong about moving the LasCannons. and no one blast doesnt ruin things for me. Blasts kill the closest thing. if you MEANT barraghe, that assumes they have one. And if they have one that its big enough, hits on target, wounds, i fail my four plus saves aaaaaand dont have enough guys to just move back on my turn...aaaaaand only then if my intention isn't to charge the next round (and it generally is).
That, sir...is a ton of if's. =)
Automatically Appended Next Post: Akiasura... heres what you just said:
1) Can the unit get to where it needs to be (in this case, melee)?
No, this unit can not. It is a fail here.
2) Can this unit be delivered to its effective range (again, melee) safely?
No, this unit can not. As demonstrated, it loses to 20 bikes or 30 marines.
3) Is this unit effective against threats it is likely to meet in its effective range (melee)?
Yes, it can defeat the majority of units it reaches in melee.
4) Can this unit defeat other top tier choices in its effective range?
No, wraith stars and cent stars will shut it down.
So, it can do 1/4, which is a 25%.
In my classes, a 25% is a failing grade.
Heres where my mirth comes from. You state...that it cant get to where it needs to go. And since that is untrue this makes no sense. You're ignoring the obvious fact that it DOES get to where it has to go. YOU don't define where it needs to go. Lol.
The unit itself defines where it needs to go. It has a ranged output of 4 lascannons (which, for 600+ points, is 150 points per lascannon). It needs to be in melee to have a hope of earning its points back or having an impact on the field.
You havent demonstrated that it loses to any of those bikes or Marines. I have demonstrated, literally, that it does not. Not on some forum. In fact. because it isn't IN a vacuum. So STATING that this happens does not turn it into a fact.
I have. Do you need me to link the math again? Or perhaps walk you through it?
Again, you haven't demonstrated anything. You've provided some batreps that are sounding worse by the minute, tbf (A wounded wraithknight charging a unit like this knowing it has the ability to destroy it from overwatch? Really?).
Everything I have stated is a fact based on math. On average, 20 scat bikes will eliminate this squad in 2 turns. On average, 3 deep striking marines armed with no special weapons will destroy this in 2 turns. On average, equivalent points in wraiths and flayed ones will roll this squad.
Then you try to place YOUR value judgement as to where it places in the top 25% as the deciding factor as to whether it is in the top 25%.
I never claimed it isn't in the top 25%. I said it isn't as good as the best deathstars in the game.
And it's not. Go look at the NOVA or ETC or any other large tournament. This blob is absent, while most of the other deathstars are out in force. This game isn't complicated, there is a simple reason for that. Compare the two in regards to field impact, durability to shooting, and melee punch and this comes up short in most categories.
You basically say "Iit is isnt because I said so, no matter how many times it refused to die and no matter how many times it wins or loses me the battle or has no say in the final outcome". This unit has eaten Wraith Stars (we have a fair number of Necron players in the general vicinity) so here again: no idea what you're talking about. The sheer volume of attacks is enough to grind them ever so slowly down. It has butchered Centurion Stars. Its done all this.
Again, I have a hard time seeing this unit butchering wraiths. They strike first and can eliminate a decent number of enemies (I want to say 15 or so in the first turn). Most of your guys need 4's to hit and 6's to wound, combined with a 3++ and 4+ (better toughness than your troops, and you only outnumber them 2 to 1 at this point). The axe troops fair slightly better, needing a 5 to wound, but is still pretty bad since you won't ignore either of their saves.
Cent stars are even worse, since they usually manage to get some sort of extremely low rerollable save and have really nice firepower on top of it.
Again, we are comparing what happens on average (using math) versus what you claim happens in your local games (which are sounding more and more casual).
Those things you mention are busy being whittled and shot before they ever arrive if not outright killed... or... they are busy with other elements of the army. No ones suggesting those things arent good. But they arent the answer to THIS. You'd WASTE a Centurion stars shooting on this guard unit? They fire the equivalent of STR 5 guns when it comes to us and wounding it on 5's. So... I mean... thats insane to even suggest.
No, with marines I'd drop 3 drop pods on this squad and pretty much cripple it. If it wants to engage me in melee combat I'd let it, since it's pretty easy to roll over. I could always just move away from it since it's slow.
I'd shoot your tanks with the grav star.
You'll notice I never once suggested the centstar would be shooting at this unit. I suggested it could outmelee this unit while ignoring it's firepower, and so it can.
While a cent star is more expensive than this squad, the counters I listed are less expensive and can target you pretty easily. The rest of the army doesn't factor into it.
But if you want to compare the SM/Eldar dex to IG and say who has brought the better "rest of the army", go ahead.
If all you want to do is say "Centurions are cooler in my opinion" you do that. Denturion star with Tiggy is what? 400 points or something like that? Without a transport? That has zero, literally, to do with whether the Astra Militarum need the "Tau Treatment". They don't need it. this unit is a very good way to counter a lot of cool things in 40K. The sheer volume and accuracy of pewpew, the sheer variety of targets it can take out, and the psyker defense and death blossom effect is just really good. The rest of the army finds it much easier to do its job when these boys are on the job.
If 4 lascannons with re-rollable bs 3 is a lot of firepower to you, that's great. Sadly in most competitive meta's 150 points per lascannon is just terrible.
It can't take out a lot of units at range. In melee, sure. But it won't do so until late game, and the enemy has to not shoot it (since it's pretty easy to remove, as I've shown), so it seems like it only does well against bad generals and casual lists. Which is what we've seen from your reports so far.
None of your points really answers the question at all on hos it failed. it doesn't fail to get where it needs to go just because you DECIDE it can't., it takes out most anything it fights and the things it can't fight (generally IK's, though I suppose if you add meltabombs it might do that too) the "Tau Treatment" isn't necessary.
I answered each one of them in kind. Again, I used math and commonly encountered scenarios.
If you want I can talk about how bad the IG blob was when it first released under DA allies back in the day. It was a bit tougher then, but it still wasn't anything special.
I really do think you'd have a different opinion of you had to face it and all that comes with it. Butthe unit itself is tremendously effective in actual demonstable games, tailoring aside.
Again, I didn't list tailor.
I took 3 drop pod marines. 3. They are an extremely common unit, and that is the most common way of taking them. I didn't give them flamers or anything they wouldn't normally take.
20 scat bikers is also an extremely common thing to see. Go to any competitive tournament army list section and you'll easily see double that being used.
15 wraiths isn't anything special either. I see many lists with twice that locally.
No one is list tailoring. Many common units wipe this unit off the table without losing more than 20-30% of equivalent points. SM in pods do the worse and still do it okay.
Your unit seems interesting but I have several questions. Why does it have lascannons? You state that this unit's primary purpose is to get into assault (where it could be effective with shear number of attacks), but then give it an expensive heavy weapon. Even if you just move the blob, the weapon's accuracy has dropped to negligible levels and if you try to run (to reach the enemy to get into combat), then you cannot fire it at all. Would it not be better to save your shooty stuff for the shooty units and let your fighty units fight?
Second, the blob still suffers from not having anything stronger that S: 3 in close combat. This means that they will be at a disadvantage against most common units. Going against this with basic units like bikerboyz or SM on bikes (T: 5) would mean that you can only wound us on 6s before having to get through an armour save.
Third, your blob is too big. Having played blob orks, playing a mob this big means that you have to accept that there is no way to put this thing in cover if you want to advance across the board. Any choke points caused by things like buildings set any close to each other will result in you forces either spaghettiing as they try to avoid bunching up (making it harder to get the ones in the back into close combat where you want them) or will result in your troops being forced to move close together and becoming vulnerable to blast weapons.
Your mob is too slow to be an effective close combat squad. Close combat currently suffers because you have to be able to reach your opponent to make it happen. Any turn spent walking and running towards the enemy is a turn where your opponent is shooting you and you do not get to make any points back. A lot of the close combat builds get around this limitation by being fast (bikerbuilds), being durable (flyrants), or by having the numbers to ignore losses (by numbers I mean stuff like the ork mob that has 100 models minimum). Your mob would spend too many turns walking (especially if they waste time with those lascannons) that they won't have enough time in close combat to earn their points back. Their speed also limits their use as last turn objective grabbers because you have to be close to all the objectives that you grab, unlike a biker star that can explode and grab objectives all across the board.
Finally, you mob is still consisted of basic guardsmen with T:3 and weak armour. They will die in handfuls to enemy fire and to your opponent's close combat attacks. Even tau will be able to remove guardsmen in close combat. Basic guns like the boltgun and shoota wound on a 3+ and the spammable high rate of fire dakkagun can remove guard on a 2+, quickly reducing this unit below a use able capacity. Once this squad has been reduced to 20 or so guradsmen then it no longer poses much of a threat in close combat because they lost their insane number of attacks and can be safely ignored.
While the unit may work for you, it is hardly optimal and suffers from some questionable choices. I think you need to consider the age old adage "boys before toys" when considering the addition of the lascannons and all those special characters, dropping the squads point price by a lot would go a ways towards making it a distraction unit that can camp an objective (though still suboptimal compared to camping some of the stuff in other codices).
Lascannons dont move, rest of the unit does. They fire at full BS, re-rolling with prescience (possibly with more rules from orders) like all heavy weapons that don't move within their units. The Lascannons cannot be hidden better in any place on the board than they can in the 40 man blob so they are safer there. In addition it takes away the enemies option to say "Well I cant beat it in melee but I can stop the incoming fire and lessen it". Which they probably WOULD wish to do, thinking from my opponents realistic side of his brain. the Prescience is useful in all phases so having it affect the cannons necessarily gives my melee the boost it also needs without a second casting being necessary so its more efficient use of the Psyker dice as well.
The Str 3 is an issue but remember we are re-rolling to hit and to wound. the Guardsman damage is kind of icing on the cake. Because the real damge is done when we fire off 28 Power Axe attacks. Clearly this solves a lot of problems that you mention. and if you are lucky on rolls, you might even get a stray smash attack from a Priest (STR 6 ap 2) though this is of relatively minor consequence in the grand scheme and hes not really there to do that. Since we cannot break, it is somewhat like what happens when Scarab Swarms hit you. if you've ever had 14 of them hit you you kind of know what I mean. The Guardsman are much MUCH more devastating than that though. 4+ re-rollable saves? It matters little what we're fighting. We will lose almost no one. We will kill plenty. We will force the issue.
I agree as to the effects of terrain. Terrain does slow it down. Unlike orks who MUST get as FAR forward as possible as quick as possible to avoid annihilation, we don't have nearly that problem with a 4+ invul save (plus 5+ armor too if that fails). So we're really not relying on cover like Orks do. Once you engage us, or we engage you, that combat wont end until one of us is dead (Zealots). As I illustrated, that pretty much means when the enemy is dead And we will get a lot of terrain free movement from that and consolidations! Charges also do a lot for those intervening distances but really the blobs job also isn't the same in this sense: unlike orks, we are content to control the board from the center depending on the enemy type. I mean I am sure you can imagine that some enemies will definitely prompt us to move and move hard (for which the Move! move! Move! rule is quite handy and again cares nothing about terrain as orks would). Our presence and girth force the enemy units far to the sides if they want safety and to avoid giving us that free movement (and movement was your point) which protects our Lascannons and other machines of war. So unlike the orks who you really rely on so much to do the work, we are accomplishing a little bit more just because we can take so much more punishment. We are giving a BIG chunk of our army a relatively longer life span to do its damage using a completely legitimate threat that you cant just hope to force your way past. Deep Striking units will try to get around it and with some success i might add. At that point, if the pod lands, you have a tough choice to make: hurt the blob but lose your unit and give up free movement oooor... kill something else and maaaaybe not lose your unit?
As for your mantra of boyz before toys: i get that too. This is an atypical unit for me to build, actually. the Lascannons are very safe in that unit and if someone wants ot rumble, they will be free to fire again quite soon if needed. Those are just the realities. It takes a SERIOUS unit with a loto f wounds to give in order to slow it down as the Talos were able to do with a lot of help. But even they were in peril from instant death and would have eventually succumbed without help (which they got). and lets face it: not everyone had a 600 point Talos unit to fight a 600+ point IG squad. though its titan on titan at that point. So...
Honestly, It's an ok unit. But it will be wrecked by a squadron of wyverns. And for much cheaper to boot. I don't care if you have a 4+ invuln. A squadron of wyverns firing on that blob will force so many wounds through that the blob WILL lose models.
Go look at the NOVA or ETC or any other large tournament. This blob is absent, while most of the other deathstars are out in force. .
Well if you're playing Space Marines youre not too likely to be using an IG blob are you? Lol. So as Imperial Guard lists went, I note that BOTH the unit was absent and IG were absent from the top rankings simultaneously. Hmm... I see a correlation there somewhere... Or maybe its just a coincidence. Probably is. But you cant demonstrate that so...
No, with marines I'd drop 3 drop pods on this squad and pretty much cripple it. .
Travis thought so too. This simply is not the case though. He dropped in with that AND his Fragioso! 35 hits. Pretty good sicne I was dpread out. that's 23 wounds. Saves: 11 or 12 dead. Also pretty good. My multicharge took them all out in a few phases. and hid me from two rounds of his shooting. 30 marines gone. Seems like a poor exchange. But he had to try something right?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
master of ordinance wrote: Please Jancoran, can you tell me where all these 28 Power Axe attacks are coming from? Is every psyker, priest and sergeant so equipped with one?
4 sergeants with x 4 attacks on the charge (or counter attack withthe Foreboding power as the case may be). 16 attacks.
3 psykers with Force Weapons on the charge (or counter attack with foreboding). 12 attacks.
thats 28 attacks
Also: Re-roll to hits (prescience or more likely, Zealot rule). More importantly, Re-rolls to wound (Priest). Enemy will go first so I will get 4+ invuls, re-rolling (priest).
I do enjoy how it's assumed that this unit will always have the necessary psychic supports... If we're going that route, then I can just as easily say that my mono Tzeentch Daemons will always have a LoC gaining Corpulescence + Daemonic Resilience and Precognition for a tidy 305pts of your blob!
Plus the additional fistful of WC's my army has that will shut down your critical augments... (you're relying entirely on Forewarning for protection - I can typically rock 16+ WC's without breaking a sweat!)
And a max unit of Flamers that'll rock re-rolled 2++ saves...
And a couple units of 'counts as' Beasts that can counter-charge the blob's target unit(s)...
And Screamers who can simply annoy the crap out of it with their slashes...
I've played against a few Guard 'deathblobs' with a highly friendly Tzeentch Daemon list, (including Flamers, Locus of D6Str. Horrors, 'counts as' Beasts), and never once had trouble dealing with it.
Honestly, I love the idea of a scary close combat guard blob. I would love to do a proper Feral Guard regiment myself!
However, it would be better off rocking Santic+Divination for better synergies, (Forewarning + Sanctuary & Hammerhand), or else just allying in better psykers with access to Telepathy for full blown Invis OP'ness and the ability to Shriek away most things that could threaten to lock it down.
Not bad, it will certainly wreck face against some things in close combat.
However it does have to get their first which is where it suffers. That and the giant congaline of attacks and bodies you are not getting.
Removing the Lascannons and splitting this into two 20 man blobs with Meltas might be a good idea.
War Kitten wrote: Honestly, It's an ok unit. But it will be wrecked by a squadron of wyverns. And for much cheaper to boot. I don't care if you have a 4+ invuln. A squadron of wyverns firing on that blob will force so many wounds through that the blob WILL lose models.
Yup. You'll lose some models. Did i say otherwise? Nope.
Also: there are 1300-1400 points of "kill the wyverns and other stuff we dont like" trying to mitigate that damage. Including the blob which may well get to ignore cover (gotta roll for it but...). You're not wrong. We will take damage EVERY turn from all kinds of stuff. I don't think that was in doubt.
I do enjoy how it's assumed that this unit will always have the necessary psychic supports... I
I've played against a few Guard 'deathblobs' with a highly friendly Tzeentch Daemon list, (including Flamers, Locus of D6Str. Horrors, 'counts as' Beasts), and never once had trouble dealing with it.
You "love it" how that was assumed? Even though I mention in multiple posts it may not happen? Hmm... Weird.
Though a 5+ re-rollable save actually isnt terribad either and thats happened of course!
And before you say "IK suck because: three units of Wraithguard (becaue thats the kind of arguments Dakkadakka loves) I have already conceded that it COULD be killed. in fact it was. Exactly once. I imagine before my life is over or this codex expires it may well happen again. But if it does... Shall I hand back all the wins i got before it? Or should I keep those?
Newer generals sometimes shift their lists constantly with each loss. and thats fine. Veterans understand the simple truth that its a dice game. you could not win them all if you tried. but you can stack the probabilities up like cordwood and This unit does that. So I'll take my chances and when and if the Aforementioned Daemons are still flying around when it matters and if they kill the blob (which could tactically speaking not matter) and when the score is tallied and I've lost, I'll shake your hand and say "Cool. Lets play again".
No, with marines I'd drop 3 drop pods on this squad and pretty much cripple it. .
Travis thought so too. This simply is not the case though. He dropped in with that AND his Fragioso! 35 hits. Pretty good sicne I was dpread out. that's 23 wounds. Saves: 11 or 12 dead. Also pretty good. My multicharge took them all out in a few phases. and hid me from two rounds of his shooting. 30 marines gone. Seems like a poor exchange. But he had to try something right?
Travis should have dropped his pods in such a way that a multicharge is impossible. It's not that hard. Even beasts have issues getting multicharges.
35 hits out of 60 shots (30 marines) is below average (it's what I'd expect from Guard, not marines. Certainly not with chapter tactics). If he had flamers this is even worse, as the flamer only needs to score 2 hits to be better than a bolter.
So, if Travis clumped up his guys so you can multicharge and managed to punch way under par, I'm not surprised you won.
Against a competent opponent who sets up better and manages to roll the average, I would expect the math I posted above to win out.
Which matches with what everyone has been telling you this entire time.
Well if you're playing Space Marines youre not too likely to be using an IG blob are you? Lol. So as Imperial Guard lists went, I note that BOTH the unit was absent and IG were absent from the top rankings simultaneously. Hmm... I see a correlation there somewhere... Or maybe its just a coincidence. Probably is. But you cant demonstrate that so...
If the blob was as strong as you think it is, people would play IG.
Do you really think every competitive player out there not taking this unit is a coincidence?
eh... no. The Centurion star isnt going to win that combat friend.
Sure, even assuming you can get everyone into range with this small squad you are looking at;
6's to hit (invisibility)
6's to wound
2+ save or invul on tiggy.
You're much more likely to face something else in CC with a marine army though. Being so slow, you can't dictate the fight.
Again, assuming the enemy even lets you reach CC. Tiggy is frequently deep striking these guys all over the place. The most common loadout would allow them to fire
5 gravshots with rerolls to wound
6 TL bolter shots
Per model. They can easily decimate the squad in a round of shooting if needed as well, though I'd rather use something more suited to this like pods.
A wraith wing would be actively trying to tackle this squadron, possibly after 1 round of it being softened up. Though it doesn't need to.
A unit this slow with no ranged firepower and being this weak to bolters, of all things, must reach CC to earn it's points back. It's too expensive for anything else, not to mention too fragile.
Would you like to see how it fares against cents at ranged or scatbikes? I assure you, it's not great.
War Kitten wrote: Honestly, It's an ok unit. But it will be wrecked by a squadron of wyverns. And for much cheaper to boot. I don't care if you have a 4+ invuln. A squadron of wyverns firing on that blob will force so many wounds through that the blob WILL lose models.
Yup. You'll lose some models. Did i say otherwise? Nope.
Also: there are 1300-1400 points of "kill the wyverns and other stuff we dont like" trying to mitigate that damage. Including the blob which may well get to ignore cover (gotta roll for it but...). You're not wrong. We will take damage EVERY turn from all kinds of stuff. I don't think that was in doubt.
I do enjoy how it's assumed that this unit will always have the necessary psychic supports... I
I've played against a few Guard 'deathblobs' with a highly friendly Tzeentch Daemon list, (including Flamers, Locus of D6Str. Horrors, 'counts as' Beasts), and never once had trouble dealing with it.
You "love it" how that was assumed? Even though I mention in multiple posts it may not happen? Hmm... Weird.
Though a 5+ re-rollable save actually isnt terribad either and thats happened of course!
And before you say "IK suck because: three units of Wraithguard (becaue thats the kind of arguments Dakkadakka loves) I have already conceded that it COULD be killed. in fact it was. Exactly once. I imagine before my life is over or this codex expires it may well happen again. But if it does... Shall I hand back all the wins i got before it? Or should I keep those?
Newer generals sometimes shift their lists constantly with each loss. and thats fine. Veterans understand the simple truth that its a dice game. you could not win them all if you tried. but you can stack the probabilities up like cordwood and This unit does that. So I'll take my chances and when and if the Aforementioned Daemons are still flying around when it matters and if they kill the blob (which could tactically speaking not matter) and when the score is tallied and I've lost, I'll shake your hand and say "Cool. Lets play again".
That's 40K.
Fair enough. It's just been my experience that blobs don't tend to do that well, even with priest/psyker support. Maybe that's just bad dice luck for me as you said. Oh well. Good Luck convincing the others though.
Travis should have dropped his pods in such a way that a multicharge is impossible. It's not that hard.
If the blob was as strong as you think it is, people would play IG.
Do you really think every competitive player out there not taking this unit is a coincidence?
A wraith wing would be actively trying to tackle this squadron, possibly after 1 round of it being softened up. Though it doesn't need to.
You've mentioned several times examples of actual play. You've also linked us to your blog which has batreps.
t.
No because he had special weapons and i assume a pistol for the sergeant so 35 isnt really a bad roll at all. So whatevs
So you think he controls scatter dice with his mind? And you think that he perhaps can avoid a multi-charge from a unit that large? Eh... You're grasping at straws now.
And what I think, Akiasura, is that many a person listens to naysayers far more often than they listen to new possibilities. I think people in their quest to try and look right are hell bent on zero sum thinking within which one thing must NOT be good for another thing TO be good. any winner in life doesnt subscribe to that kind of thinking. Therefore there's plenty of them. Here I concede points when they are there to be conceded (the terrain comment, the point on it not being invulnerable, the point on it definitely taking wounds from a crap ton of bikerz and so on). I stand when standing makes sense.
That's what I think. I think that its a fact that these guys who go to tournaments ARENT all top tier. I also note factually that this tool isnt being used and incidentally these maybe-competitiors aren't taking the gold either. Would they? neither of us knows. But until we DO know, you have no more reason to doubt it and more than I can say it would solve their woes. Maybe they just suck. maybe they are just too wrapped up in Forge World tom foolery. Who knows.
What I am doing here for the benefit of anyone willing to learn from a success story is explaining how and why.
It doesnt affect anything that you disagree and a lot of your disagreements have come without any convincing argument other than you said so and some appeal to higher authority. So while i appreciate that you are right that there are powerful units like Centurion Stars that exist and do their thing, THIS thread was about other factiosn getting the Tau treatment and all i'm here to testify to is that the IG dont NEED it. it would be nice. But lots of things are nice and yet not necessary. Lots.
Fair enough. It's just been my experience that blobs don't tend to do that well, even with priest/psyker support. Maybe that's just bad dice luck for me as you said. Oh well. Good Luck convincing the others though.
The General matters. Terrain matters. the dice matter. The matchup matters. the random number of turns matter. The list that SURROUNDS the blob matters. It's quite difficult to know in the grand totality of things, how those all combined to create whatever experience we have. What I can say is that the overwhelming evidence I have says that it overcomes all those obstacles if they are obstacles, more often than it doesn't. A lot more often. Like overwhelmingly often. And what more is a general looking for on these boards than a nugget of possibility that might spark them to great success and tons o fun?
This is such a nugget. Took me a couple games to really get the hang of the unit and not be as tentative as i was used to being with Guardsman. Once I got that outta my system, it was party time!
Jancoran wrote: THIS thread was about other factiosn getting the Tau treatment and all i'm here to testify to is that the IG dont NEED it. it would be nice. But lots of things are nice and yet not necessary. Lots.
I'm pretty sure, if you were to ask the IG players, they would pretty overwhelmingly tell you that the IG *do* need a series of significant buffs to reach Decurion-level power.
Jancoran wrote: THIS thread was about other factiosn getting the Tau treatment and all i'm here to testify to is that the IG dont NEED it. it would be nice. But lots of things are nice and yet not necessary. Lots.
I'm pretty sure, if you were to ask the IG players, they would pretty overwhelmingly tell you that the IG *do* need a series of significant buffs to reach Decurion-level power.
Everyone whines. What's new. Lol. I'm an IG player. Im a Tau Empire player. I play Chaos Space Marines, Grey Knights, Eldar, Dark eldar, Orks and the list goes on. i am well versed in them, and not just from reading. All I can say is that an upgrade WILL be cool. I'm not disagreeing. i just think that whining about what you have now is misplaced.
If IG were roughly competitive with SMs and Tau and Eldars and Necrons, that would be one thing. However, they are not competitive in their current book. Nobody is saying how IG are broken and need to be banned. That would be a sign of the IG having some decently competitive units and builds.
Instead IG are getting pity like CSMs and Sisters.
I, the original poster, here by decree that the debate, that rages on reffering to the strength of the unit of Imperial Guard mentioned, end with this simple answer to this debate....
Its decent and it's effectiveness is situational.
Now on to more troublesome topics... Like other factions and maybe some improvements we want to see?
This post is turning into an argument and is ruffling my petticoats.
JohnHwangDD wrote: If IG were roughly competitive with SMs and Tau and Eldars and Necrons, that would be one thing. However, they are not competitive in their current book. Nobody is saying how IG are broken and need to be banned. That would be a sign of the IG having some decently competitive units and builds.
Instead IG are getting pity like CSMs and Sisters.
You don't understand! He gets results at his locals where lists are below mediocre! It means something, even though he won't attend high end tournaments because apparently he has nothing to prove!
You should see his posts in the FW thread. It's bloody hilarious.
Travis should have dropped his pods in such a way that a multicharge is impossible. It's not that hard.
If the blob was as strong as you think it is, people would play IG.
Do you really think every competitive player out there not taking this unit is a coincidence?
A wraith wing would be actively trying to tackle this squadron, possibly after 1 round of it being softened up. Though it doesn't need to.
You've mentioned several times examples of actual play. You've also linked us to your blog which has batreps.
t.
No because he had special weapons and i assume a pistol for the sergeant so 35 isnt really a bad roll at all. So whatevs
30 marines fire 60 shots. 40 should hit, more with chapter tactics. If he took meltas, and dropped in against this squad, that was a bad call. He should have targeted something else and just took long range shots at this unit, since it's long range firepower isn't anything special.
If he took flamers, that's really bad. Flamers should do more hits than a bolter, so the numbers should go up.
Do you mean he took a plasma pistol? Pistols in general are awful pieces of wargear.
Did the pods not have their Str 5 pie plates? It costs a marine and generally does more than a marine, there is little reason not to take one.
So you think he controls scatter dice with his mind? And you think that he perhaps can avoid a multi-charge from a unit that large? Eh... You're grasping at straws now.
Not really. You deploy in a triangle, with the drop pod blocking the charge lane. Every unit is going to get about 6-7 kills, so that should cost some inches providing you deploy correctly since the IG player has to spread out.
While you don't control scatter dice, drop pods are incredibly accurate in scattering since you can deploy from them and they are quite large, and can't mishap. This unit leaves a large enough foot print where its easy to get it near different edges.
If the IG player bunches up, you brought 3 Str 5 pieplates to the game to land even more kills. That also happen to be coming from the front, and increase the charge range.
You are roughly 15-16 inches away from his units, and he is down to less than 22 models after the inital shots. Less if he decided to bunch up for some reason. Him managing to move 6" in every direction and then roll 9-10 on the die and make every charge is grasping at straws.
I've faced IG blobs before. They weren't scary then, they aren't scary now.
And what I think, Akiasura, is that many a person listens to naysayers far more often than they listen to new possibilities. I think people in their quest to try and look right are hell bent on zero sum thinking within which one thing must NOT be good for another thing TO be good. any winner in life doesnt subscribe to that kind of thinking. Therefore there's plenty of them. Here I conced points when they are there to be conceded (the terrain comment, the point on it not being invulnerable, the point on it definitely taking wounds from a crap ton of bikerz and so on).
I like to think most people listen to math, but I'm a scientist so my outlook is obviously biased.
If facebook has taught me anything, it should really be that people don't care about math at all.
I find that most of the winners in life usually define winning in a way that applies to their own life and moves forward from there. They tend not place these definitions of winning on others, and are content with themselves. YMMV, and that is wildly off topic.
That's what I think. i think that its a fact that these guys who go to tournaments ARENT all top tier. I also note factually that this tool isnt being used and incidentally these maybe-competitiors aren't taking the gold either. Would they? neither of us knows. But until we DO know, you have no more reason to doubt it and more than I can say it would solve their woes. Maybe they just suck. maybe they are just too wrapped up in Forge World tom foolery. Who knows.
Forge world isn't actively encouraged, and in many tournaments LoWs and GMCs are banned (which only benefits your unit). Yet you still don't see it played.
I'm not sure what your "taking the gold" comment means. Are you implying that we can't see the winning lists? We can.
Sure not everyone is going to be top-tier at a tournament. Lots of people go to play strangers.
But if I'm looking for good units in a game like 40k, I browse the tournament lists and see what's going on after running some initial calculations. They serve to verify my thoughts on a unit (they are taken) or cause me to double check a unit for something I missed (like what happened with swooping hawks earlier, which I am very happy about).
But really you've given us two real choices here, in regards to this blob and competitive play;
1) Every competitive player and all the math is wrong, and this unit is fine and the IG are in a good spot.
2) You and the people in your meta (a meta that includes someone who thinks 3 pods is list tailoring, a meta that thinks 20 scat bikes is rarely seen list tailoring, a meta that includes a guy who charges a wounded wraithknight into one of the few squads in the IG codex that can kill it with OW, despite it being an insanely fast GMC) are so amazing that none of the other large tournament players approach you.
I hate to sound like a serial killer, but I'll be reaching for my friend occam's razor yet again.
What I am doing here for the benefit of anyone willing to learn from a success story is explaining how and why.
What you are doing is defending your meta and poor decisions. I don't think anyone so far as said this unit is good and can compete.
If your objective was really to help anyone willing to learn, I think you've failed.
It doesnt affect anything that you disagree and a lot of your disagreements have come without any convincing argument other than you said so and some appeal to higher authority.
Let's be clear, both of our arguments are based around "Because I said so". Most arguments are.
My arguments have the backing of math and a gander at what some of the best players around are taking.
Your argument completely relies on "Because I said so".
So while i appreciate that you are right that there are powerful units like Centurion Stars that exist and do their thing, THIS thread was about other factiosn getting the Tau treatment and all i'm here to testify to is that the IG dont NEED it. it would be nice. But lots of things are nice and yet not necessary. Lots.
And my argument, and most of the other posters who have chosen to speak in this and other threads is that you are flat out wrong. IG do need a buff. So do DE, BA, and CSM. Probably orks too, but most ork players I know don't seem to care too much about playing and just want to yell waaaagh and roll dice.
The strength of a dex is relative, and relative to the better dexes, the IG fall short. This blob does nothing to fix it. For IG, this blob isn't bad, but against the better dexes it'll fall over without them trying too hard or accomplishing anything.
Not since 5th. I haven't faced them much since 7th, since nobody wants to play them. Horde armies in general have gotten less popular since it's a pain to carry and they tend to be bad (oh how the tables have turned).
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Kharne the Befriender wrote: I, the original poster, here by decree that the debate, that rages on reffering to the strength of the unit of Imperial Guard mentioned, end with this simple answer to this debate....
Its decent and it's effectiveness is situational.
Now on to more troublesome topics... Like other factions and maybe some improvements we want to see?
This post is turning into an argument and is ruffling my petticoats.
I think listing what changes need to be made to each dex is probably too taxing and GW won't listen.
In general, the weaker armies suffer because the vast majority of their dex is bad. They need more internal balance, which would offer more options for actual gameplay instead of the monobuild nature of many of these armies we currently see, even in casual play.
For the armies with fan bases that seem the most angry, its because the special rules are bad or actively punish the player. They need to be completely re-worked. On dakka this would include DE, BA, CSM, Orks, IG. For CSM, Orks, and IG I believe it's because they used to have "chapter tactics" of their own, and lost them while marines (and eldar in a way) still have them.
Bringing those back would be a big step in the right direction.
Chaos is hampered most of all by it's ancient model line... We just need a full on re-do ala Dark Eldar, which would then allow for GW to finally bring our armoury out of 3rd edition and into 7th edition.
While everyone else's basic weaponry & upgrade have gotten better, whether by being cheaper, or gaining an improved profile, or else simply gaining new toys, we're still stuck using the exact same Plasma guns & Autocannons that were beginning to fall behind the curve waaaaaaay back in early 4th edition!
'Legion Tactics' or 'Chaos Doctrines' similar to Chapter Tactics would be amazaballs, but I'm not holding my breath.
JohnHwangDD wrote: If IG were roughly competitive with SMs and Tau and Eldars and Necrons, that would be one thing. However, they are not competitive in their current book. Nobody is saying how IG are broken and need to be banned. That would be a sign of the IG having some decently competitive units and builds.
Instead IG are getting pity like CSMs and Sisters.
Well... I play Sisters of Battle and have won more tournaments with them than any other army. So I suppose I won't be that sympathetic to those comparisons.
I get the idea you're trying to express. IG arent broken. I agree. But they aren't some decrepit 90 year old in a Decathalon either. I've given one extremely solid example of the way IG can compete. if soneone doesn't actually wanna' do it, that's not because the codex doesn't allow it. Just saying. that's choice.
Nah, 41K. That would mean you could have it being the imperium reeling from the chaos win during the 13th crusade. Imagine if they took out the astronomicon. That would limit the imperium to short ranged calculated jumps, and cut out most form of FTL communication. This would allow the other armies to take advantage of this and make huge gains, with groups like the tau growing to a reasonable scale so that they can be considered a galactic threat, and big enough so they could suffer real losses without being destroyed completely.
30 marines fire 60 shots. 40 should hit, more with chapter tactics. If he took meltas, and dropped in against this squad, that was a bad call. He should have targeted something else and just took long range shots at this unit, since it's long range firepower isn't anything special.
If he took flamers, that's really bad. Flamers should do more hits than a bolter, so the numbers should go up.
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Who cares? This is so irrelevant! He has what he HAS. Youre now going to try and make this about him? "Should" is not even an ARGUMENT. Holy crap! What a bizarre argument to even try to make about this. YOU said 30 marines could do it. Since WHEN do Drop Pod marines not use freaking Meltas more often than they dont? How is this a "mistake"? Are you even listening to yourself? Here is this guy firing what i would guess were 51 shots, hitting 35 times. THAt is not WEIRD in the LEAST and you're making it some kind of an argument? Give. me. A. Break!
Nah, 41K. That would mean you could have it being the imperium reeling from the chaos win during the 13th crusade. Imagine if they took out the astronomicon. That would limit the imperium to short ranged calculated jumps, and cut out most form of FTL communication. This would allow the other armies to take advantage of this and make huge gains, with groups like the tau growing to a reasonable scale so that they can be considered a galactic threat, and big enough so they could suffer real losses without being destroyed completely.
Plus Tau Empire would RULE if the Astronomicon took a dump. YUS!
Not really. You deploy in a triangle, with the drop pod blocking the charge lane. Every unit is going to get about 6-7 kills, so that should cost some inches providing you deploy correctly since the IG player has to spread out.
While you don't control scatter dice, drop pods are incredibly accurate...
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Situation is king. not your theoryhammer. Theyre factually not more accurate, just less affected by the innaccuracy. LESS. And theres terrain that YOU are not considering that he did! So why are you even questioning this when the dice nd terrain decided it all? He did his best and the dice LIKE ALWAYS did the rest. Yet you are now going to argue that this is somehow his fault? Lol. Its jut laughable.
JohnHwangDD wrote: If IG were roughly competitive with SMs and Tau and Eldars and Necrons, that would be one thing. However, they are not competitive in their current book. Nobody is saying how IG are broken and need to be banned. That would be a sign of the IG having some decently competitive units and builds.
Instead IG are getting pity like CSMs and Sisters.
You don't understand! He gets results at his locals where lists are below mediocre! It means something, even though he won't attend high end tournaments because apparently he has nothing to prove!
You should see his posts in the FW thread. It's bloody hilarious.
If he's won on generalship at a large enough event, then I'd agree there's nothing to prove. If not, well, maybe I'll continue to be a touch skeptical.
Kharne the Befriender wrote: Now on to more troublesome topics... Like other factions and maybe some improvements we want to see?
I think listing what changes need to be made to each dex is probably too taxing and GW won't listen.
In general, the weaker armies suffer because the vast majority of their dex is bad. They need more internal balance, which would offer more options for actual gameplay instead of the monobuild nature of many of these armies we currently see, even in casual play.
For the armies with fan bases that seem the most angry, its because the special rules are bad or actively punish the player. They need to be completely re-worked. On dakka this would include DE, BA, CSM, Orks, IG. For CSM, Orks, and IG I believe it's because they used to have "chapter tactics" of their own, and lost them while marines (and eldar in a way) still have them.
Bringing those back would be a big step in the right direction.
The weaker armies suffer because they have poor external balance. Making a weak Codex uniformly weak regardless of what you take doesn't make it competitive - it makes it playable against itself, a la 30k. Massively buffing (via formations, if necessary) and deliberately undercosting a small number of units in an otherwise mediocre or weak Codex makes for an externally-balanced monobuild, which will do just fine for both sales and competitive play.
As an IG player, I would not mind it if Platoons got a BOGO formation, and the Russ formation added a free Command Tank to every squadron. That would be competitive and highly playable. It would encourage certain builds, and that would be totally fine, because it would be thematic.
The biggest issue with the armies you call out is that they are not effectively Fearless like SMs and Nids and Necrons. Losing entire units when things start to turn is what kills armies dead.
If he's won on generalship at a large enough event, then I'd agree there's nothing to prove. If not, well, maybe I'll continue to be a touch skeptical.
Duly noted. ____
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Nice. Which large tournament allowed you to have your opinions? Just curious.
Ive been to two Seattle GT's, and they talked me into finally going to TSHFT. I've only ever lost one game at each of those events. My paint wont ever put me in the higher echelons of those anyways. My paint is so poor its like crayons (not literally, but...). Although after my Cornea Transplants 1+ years ago, it has significantly improved. =)
So I haven't won a "big tournament" that allows me to post on Dakkadakka like you and the other Adepticon champs here (got a stack of em, but no majors). But I have done so well, that I thought I'd venture some opinions anyways.
Now anyone who HASN'T won is on notice that you, JohnHwangDD, will be skeptical of their opinions. Even if they have won a lot. Sorry fella's.
You know though... Here's a thought from left field to join all my other ones. What if we assumed just to be civil that people who win a lot might have...earned it? Might have something to share? Might even be on this board without winning a single major! Whuuuuuut? But yes! That would be crazy, yet... consider the possibilities...
30 marines fire 60 shots. 40 should hit, more with chapter tactics. If he took meltas, and dropped in against this squad, that was a bad call. He should have targeted something else and just took long range shots at this unit, since it's long range firepower isn't anything special.
If he took flamers, that's really bad. Flamers should do more hits than a bolter, so the numbers should go up.
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Who cares? This is so irrelevant!
Considering you are using this experience as a counter-example to my argument that 3 drop pods can take down the blob, it's relevant. If your opponent rolled worse than average, or made tactical mistakes, it makes the example non-equitable and a useless counter point from you.
He has what he HAS. Youre now going to try and make this about him?
Actually, you did that first. I'm explaining why it's not equitable. I don't like to bring personal experiences into things since people can be making them up, or dice can perform weird, or people get strange ideas about how good their local meta is.
If you want I can tell you how I recently defeated the local undefeated WMH player with my Cryx army 11 times in a row. It doesn't prove Cryx is broken or that trolls are weak though, so it seems pointless.
Sure it is. On average, a unit "should" inflict so many wounds/hits/kills. If a unit did below that, it's underperforming when compared to an expected value.
Do you not know how averages and SDs work? I can compute the SDs if you want, they'll be higher for the marines since there isn't a ton of shots, but it won't be that high.
Especially considering you are claiming he had a flamer, which should have saw him go above the average.
Holy crap! What a bizarre argument to even try to make about this.
YOU said 30 marines could do it. Since WHEN do Drop Pod marines not use freaking Meltas more often than they dont?
Drop pod marines genuinely come in 2 flavors;
1) Melta spam. These go after tanks or MCs if no tanks are available. Typically you see 2 Mg's and a combi-mg to try to ensure the tank dies.
This type of unit should not go after a horde, unless you literally took no tanks or better targets.
2) PG spam. These go after infantry, heavy or otherwise. This is, IMO, more common, since 2 plasma shots are pretty good against rear armor when compared to one melta shot. These have been more common since 6th edition, to answer your question, since tanks now die to massed fire rather than meltas.
These should have gone against your infantry blob. Its the same number of shots, with a slightly better to wound chance.
Either way, where were the drop pod weapons? They are cheap and aren't bad.
How is this a "mistake"? Are you even listening to yourself? Here is this guy firing what i would guess were 51 shots, hitting 35 times. THAt is not WEIRD in the LEAST and you're making it some kind of an argument? Give. me. A. Break!
It's a tactical mistake if he used a dedicated anti-tank unit to target an IG blob, when IG are known for taking...well tanks.
It's a tactical mistake to deploy in such a way that a multicharge against all 3 units is possible.
It's a tactical mistake to use the flamer in such a way that only 1-2 hits were scored (unless you weren't counting those among the 35 hits? It seemed you were and I made it clear I was, you didn't correct me). It's a flamer against a blob, how is he scoring so few hits?
It's a list mistake to not take drop pod weapons. They are great and a no-brainer choice.
Either way, your counter example of this Travis person isn't equitable and fails to dismiss my claim that 30 marines in drop pods can kill your unit. I made the following assumptions;
The unit had no special weapons. Your person had 9 anti-tank weapons.
The unit is deployed in such a way that a multi-charge, after casualties, is extremely difficult.
The unit takes the drop pod weapons, since it's a bit of a no-brainer.
You may want to calm down. You seem awful heated, and this is an internet debate about a sub-par faction when we all own or play against sub-par factions. We aren't discussing the future leader of the free world, your grades in my class, or a debt.
Situation is king. not your theoryhammer. Theyre factually not more accurate, just less affected by the innaccuracy. LESS. And theres terrain that YOU are not considering that he did! So why are you even questioning this when the dice nd terrain decided it all? He did his best and the dice LIKE ALWAYS did the rest. Yet you are now going to argue that this is somehow his fault? Lol. Its jut laughable.
Of course it's his fault. It's drop pods, not a DS unit.
Drop pods scatter, yes, but they move to where they can deploy first in the case of a situation where they can't land, so its not hard to get them close to where you want them.
Then you have the base of the model, which is quite large.
Then you can deploy 6" out from that.
It's very hard to not be in effective range when coming out of a drop pod. They are amazing, while normal DS is crap because of the scatter and mishap issues. Hence why I claim that oblits are bad at objective grabbing but DPing marines are amazing at it (though bikes still beat the both of them).
If the terrain is so heavy that there is no where to position in 12" of a 40 man spread out IG blob, then don't target them. Go after something else. As you say, you still have 1200 points or more of other stuff. Saying "Screw that, I'm going to mash all my guys together and hope I roll well over average or beat him in CC when he charges me with a slow unit I could easily avoid just by deploying anywhere else " is entirely his fault.
Considering you are using this experience as a counter-example to my argument that 3 drop pods can take down the blob, it's relevant. If your opponent rolled worse than average, or made tactical mistakes, it makes the example non-equitable and a useless counter point from you.
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Except that makes no sense. He hit 35 out of 51. So. Literally... Everything you're saying here... Makes no sense.
Actually, you did that first. I'm explaining why it's not equitable. I don't like to bring personal experiences into things since people can be making them up, or dice can perform weird, or people get strange ideas about how good their local meta is.
If you want I can tell you how I recently defeated the local undefeated WMH player with my Cryx army 11 times in a row. It doesn't prove Cryx is broken or that trolls are weak though, so it seems pointless.
.
You... Dont recall that it was you who said three drop pods could handle it... and yet... You're now goingto state after I pointed out that they DIDNT in fact handle it with all those shots, that this is now about HIM....
{should is an argument} On average, a unit "should" inflict so many wounds/hits/kills...
And you understand of course that statistics actually are a function of the number of opportunities you have to create the bell curve. and you also understand that 35 out of 51 is...uh.. Actually one higher than average riiiiight? Lol.
Considering you are using this experience as a counter-example to my argument that 3 drop pods can take down the blob, it's relevant. If your opponent rolled worse than average, or made tactical mistakes, it makes the example non-equitable and a useless counter point from you.
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Except that makes no sense. He hit 35 out of 51. So. Literally... Everything you're saying here... Makes no sense.
Again, this was not my example that I used when I said that 30 marines can kill this blob over two turns.
No anti-tank weapons were used (a small difference).
The blob is not able to multi-charge 3 different squads in marines, despite casualties and being 12" away.
The 2 surviving squads have 2 turns total to target the blob.
None of these happened. And you mentioned he included a flamer in those 35 hits, so he should have been way over the average (Flamers score way more hits against a blob than a bolter).
Actually, you did that first. I'm explaining why it's not equitable. I don't like to bring personal experiences into things since people can be making them up, or dice can perform weird, or people get strange ideas about how good their local meta is.
If you want I can tell you how I recently defeated the local undefeated WMH player with my Cryx army 11 times in a row. It doesn't prove Cryx is broken or that trolls are weak though, so it seems pointless.
.
You... Dont recall that it was you who said three drop pods could handle it... and yet... You're now goingto state after I pointed out that they DIDNT in fact handle it with all those shots, that this is now about HIM....
Again...
I claimed that 30 marines could destroy this blob over 2 squads assuming no special weapons (PGs would be fine, meltas drag it down obviously. PGs are more common in the competitive scene unless they are specializing).
To get 2 turns (which your friend failed to do) requires the player be able to use Drop pods effectively to not get multicharged by an incredibly slow unit. He's got 12" of range plus whatever he gets from kills.
With drop pod guns, he should be buying at least 3" of space if you are spread out (if you aren't the pods kill more and you can't maintain unit cohesion and get all 3) making it unlikely you can get to all 3 squads.
Your friend obviously failed to do that.
Of course if someone can't pull a strategy off correctly it won't work. That should be obvious.
{should is an argument} On average, a unit "should" inflict so many wounds/hits/kills...
And you understand of course that statistics actually are a function of the number of opportunities you have to create the bell curve. and you also understand that 35 out of 51 is...uh.. Actually one higher than average riiiiight? Lol.
Please read above. The situation I used and the mistakes your friend made are not remotely the same.
It's a tactical mistake if he used a dedicated anti-tank unit to target an IG blob, when IG are known for taking...well tanks.
Wait. So... What was he supposed to attack with if tnot the 30 marines you told me he should attack with?
You're backtracking.
No, I never claimed a unit that takes 9 Melta guns (obviously kitted out for anti-tank) and that, for some reason, decided not to take the drop pod weapons should deploy close enough and grouped up enough to allow a multi-charge against 3 different squads despite being 12" away + kills.
He should have gone after 3 different tanks instead, since he kitted them out for, you know, tanks.
He probably could have done it in 2 turns if he didn't drop in such a way that you are able to multi-charge all 3 squads. And used the good chapter tactics.
Did you even read my example of how a commonly taken unit could destroy this?
It's a tactical mistake if he used a dedicated anti-tank unit to target an IG blob, when IG are known for taking...well tanks.
It's a tactical mistake to deploy in such a way that a multicharge against all 3 units is possible.
It's a tactical mistake to use the flamer in such a way that only 1-2 hits were scored (unless you weren't counting those among the 35 hits? It seemed you were and I made it clear I was, you didn't correct me). It's a flamer against a blob, how is he scoring so few hits?
It's a list mistake to not take drop pod weapons. They are great and a no-brainer choice.
You're..an educator?
To the point at hand:
You dont "deploy in such a way" when deepstriking. you deep strike and see what you CAN do.
You dont tell anyone to take 30 Marines to kill a blob and then ignore that someone did so and it didn't work. it WONT work most of the time. Your advice is terrribly misguided and dripping with a surety it does not deserve in the face of actual games played. Sorry man.
The drop pods should pay for the launchers? Because those would be so useful against Imperial Knights? No tlike he knew what i was going to play til he got there. Should he take it against FMC spam too? But wait... Like we said... he doesnt know who he will face. RIGHT? Right! So as a tournament list you're telling Dakkadakka.com how obvious it is that they take 20 point pod upgrades?
Riiiiight. No wonder you don't think 11 pods is good. You spent all your points on their blast templates so you could fire them at Wraith knights and Scatterbikes in the final round. Makes sense.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Somebody else did. If that's the case either way, you should actually be more embarrassed. Marines have Chapter Tactics by default.
No, I never claimed a unit that takes 9 Melta guns (obviously kitted out for anti-tank) and that, for some reason, decided not to take the drop pod weapons should deploy close enough and grouped up enough to allow a multi-charge against 3 different squads despite being 12" away + kills.
He should have gone after 3 different tanks instead, since he kitted them out for, you know, tanks.
He probably could have done it in 2 turns if he didn't drop in such a way that you are able to multi-charge all 3 squads. And used the good chapter tactics.
Did you even read my example of how a commonly taken unit could destroy this?
i am amused by this hair splitting wherein you say that him having a melta vs a bolter matters. A total of 3 shots difference against my 4+ invul. but sure if you're selling that whatever. The way i deployed forced him outward nd though his Fragioso got its flamer in there it couldnt hit a lot of them because of how I bubble deployed.
Here's my bottom line. if he wanted that unit dead, he ws goingto have to shoot it. If he was going to have to shoot it he was going to have to use his Marines and his Dreads. He did. that's it. He also DID kill three tanks the same turn by the way. So his army did what it was supposed to. it was successful in anti tank operations and he got me good on the blob. And normally it would have been impressive. but this was a different kind of blob. So it wasn't impressive. And it usually isn't.
It's a tactical mistake if he used a dedicated anti-tank unit to target an IG blob, when IG are known for taking...well tanks.
It's a tactical mistake to deploy in such a way that a multicharge against all 3 units is possible.
It's a tactical mistake to use the flamer in such a way that only 1-2 hits were scored (unless you weren't counting those among the 35 hits? It seemed you were and I made it clear I was, you didn't correct me). It's a flamer against a blob, how is he scoring so few hits?
It's a list mistake to not take drop pod weapons. They are great and a no-brainer choice.
You're..an educator?
Specifically, I am a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at a state university.
I teach general chemistry, physical chemistry, and biochemistry at the graduate level. My research is mainly in cancer treatments, though I've worked on various poisons in the past.
You dont "deploy in such a way" when deepstriking. you deep strike and see what you CAN do.
And for every other unit but drop pods, this would be correct.
With drop pods, you don't worry about mishaps so you can drop where you want. Even if you do scatter, you have the base size of the model + 6 to get into position.
It's really hard to mess up drop pods so bad that you end up with 3 different squads clustered together, if they were supposed to deploy as far away as possible.
So...reasonable assumption is your friend made a mistake with deployment and this got him killed.
You dont tell anyone to take 30 Marines to kill a blob and then ignore that someone did so and it didn't work. it WONT work most of the time. Your advice is terrribly misguided and dripping with a surety it does not deserve in the face of actual games played. Sorry man.
We can agree to disagree. When something doesn't met in expected outcome, you usually analyze it first to see what went wrong. Believe it or not, experimental errors are common, especially when experience is lacking.
I think 3 squads in rapid fire range without being close to each other is a reasonable thing to achieve. You clearly think it's completely random.
I'm not going to convince you otherwise, and I've personally done it many times against IG blobs in the past with little trouble.
I detailed how to do it and the math supports that it's possible. You're free to think what you will.
The drop pods should pay for the launchers? Because those would be so useful against Imperial Knights? No tlike he knew what i was going to play til he got there. Should he take it against FMC spam too? But wait... Like we said... he doesnt know who he will face. RIGHT? Right! So as a tournament list you're telling Dakkadakka.com how obvious it is that they take 20 point pod upgrades?
The launchers should always be taken.
It's a str 5 pie plate that costs a little more than a marine, and will almost always do more damage than a single marine. It forces your opponent to target the drop pods and dedicate shots into an extremely cheap unit rather than ignore them.
Put it this way;
If you face Knights or FMCs, eh, you wasted 60 points. Not the biggest issue.
If you face scat bikes, GEQ, MEQ, bikers from other armies, or really any infantry unit at all, they will probably earn their points back. Especially in absorbing shots where they would be ignored before.
If I could take them on rhinos I would in a heart beat.
Riiiiight. No wonder you don't think 11 pods is good. You spent all your points on their blast templates so you could fire them at Wraith knights and Scatterbikes in the final round. Makes sense.
11 pods is bad because splitting your entire army up is a bad move. At best you took min sized squads so it's only 55 marines with pods. So about a 1/4 to 1/3 of your army won't arrive until turn 2+, and it has the inferior firepower offered by podded troops (unless they are containing a lot of sternguards).
If it's full squads its even worse.
I don't see how you can think the launchers are bad when they nearly always earn their points back except against rare exceptions (Wraithknight spam, IK spam) but 11 pods is an excellent strategy.
No, I never claimed a unit that takes 9 Melta guns (obviously kitted out for anti-tank) and that, for some reason, decided not to take the drop pod weapons should deploy close enough and grouped up enough to allow a multi-charge against 3 different squads despite being 12" away + kills.
He should have gone after 3 different tanks instead, since he kitted them out for, you know, tanks.
He probably could have done it in 2 turns if he didn't drop in such a way that you are able to multi-charge all 3 squads. And used the good chapter tactics.
Did you even read my example of how a commonly taken unit could destroy this?
i am amused by this hair splitting wherein you say that him having a melta vs a bolter matters. A total of 3 shots difference against my 4+ invul. but sure if you're selling that whatever. The way i deployed forced him outward nd though his Fragioso got its flamer in there it couldnt hit a lot of them because of how I bubble deployed.
Really, its the fact he let a multi-charge happen and didn't take the launchers. Which is different from the scenario I outlined.
Here's my bottom line. if he wanted that unit dead, he ws goingto have to shoot it. If he was going to have to shoot it he was going to have to use his Marines and his Dreads. He did. that's it. He also DID kill three tanks the same turn by the way. So his army did what it was supposed to. it was successful in anti tank operations and he got me good on the blob. And normally it would have been impressive. but this was a different kind of blob. So it wasn't impressive. And it usually isn't.
What did he kill the tanks with? How many pods did he have...?
And he took dreads? Dreads are terrible.
And this was a BA list?
So...pretty much proves the point that against a bad dex with a bad player, this works fine. Against anyone who knows what they are doing, my idea works fine.
Lascannons dont move, rest of the unit does. They fire at full BS, re-rolling with prescience (possibly with more rules from orders) like all heavy weapons that don't move within their units. The Lascannons cannot be hidden better in any place on the board than they can in the 40 man blob so they are safer there. In addition it takes away the enemies option to say "Well I cant beat it in melee but I can stop the incoming fire and lessen it". Which they probably WOULD wish to do, thinking from my opponents realistic side of his brain. the Prescience is useful in all phases so having it affect the cannons necessarily gives my melee the boost it also needs without a second casting being necessary so its more efficient use of the Psyker dice as well..
No, no and no. The lascannons are being taken as part of the blob, meaning the *have* to move. The're the same goddamn unit. If you've been playing this where the lascannons don't move all game, but everyone else does, you've been cheating.
Lascannons dont move, rest of the unit does. They fire at full BS, re-rolling with prescience (possibly with more rules from orders) like all heavy weapons that don't move within their units. The Lascannons cannot be hidden better in any place on the board than they can in the 40 man blob so they are safer there. In addition it takes away the enemies option to say "Well I cant beat it in melee but I can stop the incoming fire and lessen it". Which they probably WOULD wish to do, thinking from my opponents realistic side of his brain. the Prescience is useful in all phases so having it affect the cannons necessarily gives my melee the boost it also needs without a second casting being necessary so its more efficient use of the Psyker dice as well..
No, no and no. The lascannons are being taken as part of the blob, meaning the *have* to move. The're the same goddamn unit. If you've been playing this where the lascannons don't move all game, but everyone else does, you've been cheating.
Nothing forces them to move in the Movement phase, and 7th made movement-effecting-shooting a model-by-model basis, meaning that a Heavy Weapon trooper can fire at full BS in the shooting phase as long as they didn't move, even if the rest of their units did. That said, they have to still make pile-in and charge moves in the Assault Phase with the rest of the unit (not that the unit should ever be able to do that, though, considering how slow it is).
What did he kill the tanks with? How many pods did he have...?
And he took dreads? Dreads are terrible.
And this was a BA list?
So...pretty much proves the point that against a bad dex with a bad player, this works fine. Against anyone who knows what they are doing, my idea works fine.
uh... he... killed tanks with the meltas YOU said were a bad idea. Lol.
He had 11 pods... Like i said several times. He took Dreads and Dreads ARENT bad. he hd melta in spades so his Fragiosos were there to do in units just like mine. and they are realy quite good at it if you can get them close which he easily did with the pod. Scatter of course being the wnech she is, he had to wait a turn and by then I immobilized it and later killed it.
You dont know my opponent so you can stuff that opinion. His Dex wasnt why he lost. So give that a rest. he lost because that blob ate him. That blob ATE him. That's it. argue that all day if that's what you wanna do but since you're a science type let me throw this out: RESULTS, not theory, form science.
No, no and no. The lascannons are being taken as part of the blob, meaning the *have* to move. The're the same goddamn unit. If you've been playing this where the lascannons don't move all game, but everyone else does, you've been cheating.
Yet you're dead wrong. You're welcome for the correction.
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Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Also you completely mislead us that don't want to read your stupid blog. "Space Marines" is a lot different than "Blood Angels".
Yes I selected you specifically to be misled. That's right. That's exactly what happened...
The lascannons are an upgrade ro a unit. Tactical marines with lascannon upgrades have to remain in unit coherency, and so to HWT upgrades.
Additionally, firing them precludes charging, too.
Specifically, I am a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at a state university.
I teach general chemistry, physical chemistry, and biochemistry at the graduate level. My research is mainly in cancer treatments, though I've worked on various poisons in the past.
What did he kill the tanks with? How many pods did he have...?
And he took dreads? Dreads are terrible.
And this was a BA list?
So...pretty much proves the point that against a bad dex with a bad player, this works fine. Against anyone who knows what they are doing, my idea works fine.
uh... he... killed tanks with the meltas YOU said were a bad idea. Lol.
I said they were a bad idea to drop a dedicated anti-tank unit against an infantry blob. As you like to keep saying, situation is key.
But in general, yes, he's better off taking plasmaguns. The rear armor of most of your tanks is 10/11, so 6 plasma shots are more likely to destroy a tank then 3 MG shots unless the tank in question is open topped.
Since open topped tanks are so rare, and usually have fewer HP anyway, it's not really worth it. Especially with gravstars in the list teleporting around...anything the 6 PG shots in the rear can't handle the gravstar will with split fire.
He had 11 pods... Like i said several times. He took Dreads and Dreads ARENT bad. he hd melta in spades so his Fragiosos were there to do in units just like mine. and they are realy quite good at it if you can get them close which he easily did with the pod. Scatter of course being the wnech she is, he had to wait a turn and by then I immobilized it and later killed it.
Yes, the dreads are so good he wounded two guardsmen with a flamer and was immobilized.
Dreads are bad. They have been bad for a very long time, with 2 exceptions; GK dreads (which now you want the Dreadknight, but the Riflemen were great for a while) and the HQ Dread that BA got (this is no longer the case).
11 Pods are a terrible list. It allows you to fight his army in pieces rather than all at once. At any given turn, he is playing with only 50% of an army and that 50% is usually in range of your entire army. If pods had better firepower and could cause 50% casualties, sure, it would be good.
Also, you really don't need that much melta. 2-3 is fine. PG is nearly always superior, you only need a few against AV 14 all around if it shows up. Against Wraithknights, two shots at 7 is better than one at 8 as well.
You dont know my opponent so you can stuff that opinion. His Dex wasnt why he lost. So give that a rest. he lost because that blob ate him. That blob ATE him. That's it. argue that all day if that's what you wanna do but since you're a science type let me throw this out: RESULTS, not theory, form science.
This is a common misconception about how science works from people who don't practice it.
When someone publishes something that flies in the face of a well accepted theory, the first thing we do isn't wildly embrace it with passion. We normally dissect it very carefully and find out if any experimental errors were made. Most of the time, that is the case.
You'd be surprised how many scientists spend their time disproving other's research. It's probably more common than original research.
And again, I am not flat out saying his dex made him lose (although BA are pretty terrible, and I was clearly taking about SM the entire time).
I am saying his terrible list building and tactical mistakes made him lose.
Which, you know, is pretty common in a 40k game.
I state these opinions based on what you've told me about his list (Melta spam, which hasn't been good since 5th, taking dreads, taking 11 pods (which has never been good), not taking the upgraded pod gun, being unable to drop in such a way that you don't get a 3 man multi-charge from an incredibly slow unit).
Really, its the fact he let a multi-charge happen and didn't take the launchers. Which is different from the scenario I outlined.
Yeah/. he "let me" charge him after podding in. So silly of him.
It was pretty silly, wasn't it Hopefully he'll learn from his mistake and deploy a little better. There are diagrams and strategies online from 6th edition on how to drop in against the IG blob if he can't figure it out.
And this is really the kicker. 220 points in Launchers? Hey if that works for you, cool. But...
He'd probably have been better off with 220 points in launchers then taking that much melta.
But no, I wouldn't take 220 points in launchers because I would never take 11 drop pods. It's a god awful list, and my meta is pretty competitive with the limitations we've established.
You usually see 3 or 5 at most in pods, since that lets you drop 2-3 squads in turn 1. 2-3 squads is usually enough to destroy most of the tanks people take nowadays, and against most tough infantry, marines in pods don't cut it. You could do sternguard, but they are fragile.
Marines are fast enough where you don't need 11 pods and to deliver your army in nice little chunks to the enemy.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Also you completely mislead us that don't want to read your stupid blog. "Space Marines" is a lot different than "Blood Angels".
Yes I selected you specifically to be misled. That's right. That's exactly what happened...
Well, it is a bit misleading since I was clearly talking about marines the entire time, and BA are pretty bad, relatively speaking.
But really the big factors here is that your friend doesn't know how to build an effective army list or deploy correctly.
Either way, it's very different from the examples I posted. Commonly seen units that will destroy the blob in 2 turns.
You could lose the scatter bikes too if you rushed them forward and let them get charged. But considering their speed, 36" range guns, 2d6 move in the assault phase....well...
BA are arguably the worst list in the game, and even worse than that with 11 pods. Please link the actual report so I can see exactly what this person did.
Do you mean the blobs? I would imagine not well, Tesla is pretty good at wound spamming. I'll have to admit I don't often see tesla taken. Necrons as a whole have excellent infantry clearing (Wraiths, Basic warriors are tough, Destroyers, Blades, flayed ones even do the job) but tend to lack anti-tank weapons in mass. They rely on gauss weapon spamming to take down tanks, so that's what you tend to see on the base infantry.
It'd be pretty easy to run a test. Take about 500-600 points of Tesla and see how many wounds it inflicts on this squad and at what range. If you can kill it before it reaches you, it does fine. Necrons in general are pretty tough so I imagine survival isn't a big issue and it would clear the blob with only light casualties.
I might sound rubbish but that whole discussion about the IG "deathstar" (lol)...NO ONE fething CARE.
ITs not the object of the Thread, you're all too much focused on this, Jancoran said he wins with this in his meta?, then okey he wins with this in his meta, is that going to change your lives?, nope, no it won't.
i know a guy who played that kind of guard blob, never lost against it, its annoying has feth, but i was not impressed by it, but thats in my Meta, not any of the others, so no one fething cares.
So please stop making this the greatest issue of the world, causs it isn't.
Slayer le boucher wrote: I might sound rubbish but that whole discussion about the IG "deathstar" (lol)...NO ONE fething CARE.
ITs not the object of the Thread, you're all too much focused on this, Jancoran said he wins with this in his meta?, then okey he wins with this in his meta, is that going to change your lives?, nope, no it won't.
i know a guy who played that kind of guard blob, never lost against it, its annoying has feth, but i was not impressed by it, but thats in my Meta, not any of the others, so no one fething cares.
So please stop making this the greatest issue of the world, causs it isn't.
Well, it come up mainly because we were discussing CSM, IG, DE, BA, and Orks are commonly seen as the worst armies and could use a power lift.
We were told we need to learn to play and git good, as these dexes are all fine.
Naturally, many of us took offense to that and well, here we are.
Honestly there isn't a lot to discuss with the original topic. When will other dexes get the tau treatment? Hopefully when the dexes release, which will hopefully be soon. GW doesn't tell anyone anything so we don't have a lot of information unless there is something new in news and rumor.
Do you mean the blobs? I would imagine not well, Tesla is pretty good at wound spamming. I'll have to admit I don't often see tesla taken. Necrons as a whole have excellent infantry clearing (Wraiths, Basic warriors are tough, Destroyers, Blades, flayed ones even do the job) but tend to lack anti-tank weapons in mass. They rely on gauss weapon spamming to take down tanks, so that's what you tend to see on the base infantry.
It'd be pretty easy to run a test. Take about 500-600 points of Tesla and see how many wounds it inflicts on this squad and at what range. If you can kill it before it reaches you, it does fine. Necrons in general are pretty tough so I imagine survival isn't a big issue and it would clear the blob with only light casualties.
Yeah, the only thing with Tesla is scythes, barges, blades, and immortals
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Slayer le boucher wrote: I might sound rubbish but that whole discussion about the IG "deathstar" (lol)...NO ONE fething CARE.
ITs not the object of the Thread, you're all too much focused on this, Jancoran said he wins with this in his meta?, then okey he wins with this in his meta, is that going to change your lives?, nope, no it won't.
i know a guy who played that kind of guard blob, never lost against it, its annoying has feth, but i was not impressed by it, but thats in my Meta, not any of the others, so no one fething cares.
So please stop making this the greatest issue of the world, causs it isn't.
Gamgee wrote: The Tau will get the Tau treatment and sooner than you think given our new found popularity.
Warzone: Monte'ka I'm betting we'll see unique models/suits/options for FSE in the book.
With Farssight stuff in it as well as the inevitable defeat of one of the largest crusades the Imperium of Man has ever launched at anything let alone the "weak" Tau Empire.
It will be defeated because it was foretold by a Grey Knight/Farsight/Prophecy.
Edit
It remains to be seen who will win the Tau/Admech FW book though.
*that an Alpha Legionnaire predicted, since he claimed to have no Chapter and was 'Legion'. Just because he wore Grey Armour, doesn't mean he was a Grey Knight. And it's not the biggest Crusade ever, you have the Sabbat Worlds, Macharius and the after math, the Great Crusade, the Scouring...
And all the Farsight update will give (if there is one, which is an assumption that has no basis seeing that the Eldar Iyanden book was never updated) is troop choice Crisis suits and his body guard characters, just like last time. Your assuming they'll release new Tau models after this literal downpour of models? There's what, 9 new kits? (Crisis Suits, Crisis Commander, Stormsurge, Ghostkeel, Fire Warriors, Ethereal, each Fortification section...) I think you are dreaming, kid.
The Crusade has to lose because the Tau have to exist, but that doesn't mean the Tau are going to get off easy. Probably will lose everything they've gained under Shadowsun and Aun'va, to show the Tau the soul crushing futility of their efforts in the Galaxy.
And, because, you know, to make it despite the fact that Farsight won the day, it's Grim Dark Pyrrhic victory where nobody wins.
Nah they'll win and push back once again and again. Until the Imperium is nothing. Learning of the futility of trying to stop the Tau from our ascendancy.
It was mad clear at the end of kayoun that the Imperials are going to win the Damocles war. Sur they won't exterminate the Tau, but the book clearly foreshadows the recapture of agrellan and other worlds
No they won't.
Book 2 will have the enclaves getting involved,turninh the fight around under the leadership of the most manly tau in history.,the space samurai Farsight.
Selym wrote: The lascannons are an upgrade ro a unit. Tactical marines with lascannon upgrades have to remain in unit coherency, and so to HWT upgrades.
Additionally, firing them precludes charging, too.
I'm sorry but you need to know the rules. And the rules state extremely clearly that as long as the Lascannons themselves do not move, they can fire normally. How do people not know this? Obviouly I cannot charge if I fire them. Obviously.
He'd probably have been better off with 220 points in launchers then taking that much melta..
Yeah you're reaching so far and s wide to try and save your argument that I just cant entertain it any more. Sorry but this and a dozen other things you've said that are literally just wrong or are assuming information this guy wouldnt have coming to the table that... yeah. thanks for participating so actively but there's literally no point in continuing if this is the kind of advice I can look forward to.
So if you ever even pick up an IG army and play it, you can try it or not. I dont even CARE much anymore. lol.
I really don't see the tau hype. They have huge weaknesses still. Drop pod heavy spam, grey Knights shunting, purifiers wreck tau like a knife wrecks butter.. And there is no hard tau counter to these. Not even interceptor or sky fire... Those are subpar
Martel732 wrote: BA are arguably the worst list in the game, and even worse than that with 11 pods. Please link the actual report so I can see exactly what this person did.
There is no report. And you're losing focus on the point of the discussion anyways. This UNIT is an example of how IG compete. The rest of the army is a whole other issue but this unit can be dropped into my Militarum Tempestus army or my IG army and used. It's excellent for both.
Well since AP doesnt matter, i suppose it matches up pretty good. I haven't played it specifically against Tesla spam although obviously Tesla has been used in some volume. I dunno, fine i would think.
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Yoyoyo wrote: From what I've read the main issue in ITC is mobility of the blob vis-a-vis Maelstrom VP points.
Well this blob has seven pieces so ideally you can death blossom at the end. the unit isn't just one unit. Its seven. thats doesnt solve all mobility issues but it does solve some, namely that you CAN use it to ultimately take 2 or more objectives at the end. that will just largely depend on where the objectives are placed, terrrain etc... which can vary enormously so...
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Slayer le boucher wrote: I might sound rubbish but that whole discussion about the IG "deathstar" (lol)...NO ONE fething CARE.
ITs not the object of the Thread, you're all too much focused on this, Jancoran said he wins with this in his meta?, then okey he wins with this in his meta, is that going to change your lives?, nope, no it won't.
i know a guy who played that kind of guard blob, never lost against it, its annoying has feth, but i was not impressed by it, but thats in my Meta, not any of the others, so no one fething cares.
So please stop making this the greatest issue of the world, causs it isn't.
I did ironically attempt to disengage on it quite a while ago and was attacked by several people for not going further into it and "defending or explaining it". So i did. Though honestly my first response was "go look in the codex. Its not a complicated unit."
that wasn't enough, apparently...
And the thing is, this unit isnt acting in a vacuum, so the rest of the list is doing stuff. This just happens to be kind of the biggest piece of the puzzle.
Selym wrote: The lascannons are an upgrade ro a unit. Tactical marines with lascannon upgrades have to remain in unit coherency, and so to HWT upgrades.
Additionally, firing them precludes charging, too.
I'm sorry but you need to know the rules. And the rules state extremely clearly that as long as the Lascannons themselves do not move, they can fire normally. How do people not know this? Obviouly I cannot charge if I fire them. Obviously.
He'd probably have been better off with 220 points in launchers then taking that much melta..
Yeah you're reaching so far and s wide to try and save your argument that I just cant entertain it any more. Sorry but this and a dozen other things you've said that are literally just wrong or are assuming information this guy wouldnt have coming to the table that... yeah. thanks for participating so actively but there's literally no point in continuing if this is the kind of advice I can look forward to.
So if you ever even pick up an IG army and play it, you can try it or not. I dont even CARE much anymore. lol.
That's fine, considering the constant strawmanning and casual nature of your meta I really doubt we'll ever agree on anything. We just move in two very different worlds, no harm in it.
I would strongly urge you to tell your friend to try 5 drop pods max, pg instead of melta, and take the launcher. It'll improve his game against most lists dramatically
That being said, what exactly is the Tau treatment? I've been using it to mean the other dexes being brought up to Tau levels of power, but looking over the changes they received the raw dex hasn't changed that much. It's really the formations and such that allow them to compete with the big boys, which seems okay considering where they were at in the power rankings. But I don't want Chaos or Guard to be tied to formations so closely, given their current power levels. It'll just mean they'll be regulated to a mono build that abuses the formation, and that is the last thing I think we want.
I'd rather honestly see a re-work of the entire dex, rather than a supplement tossed our way to patch us up that is just OP formations.
If he's won on generalship at a large enough event, then I'd agree there's nothing to prove. If not, well, maybe I'll continue to be a touch skeptical.
Nice. Which large tournament allowed you to have your opinions? Just curious.
Ive been to two Seattle GT's, and they talked me into finally going to TSHFT. I've only ever lost one game at each of those events. My paint wont ever put me in the higher echelons of those anyways. My paint is so poor its like crayons (not literally, but...). Although after my Cornea Transplants 1+ years ago, it has significantly improved. =)
So I haven't won a "big tournament" that allows me to post on Dakkadakka like you and the other Adepticon champs here (got a stack of em, but no majors). But I have done so well, that I thought I'd venture some opinions anyways.
Now anyone who HASN'T won is on notice that you, JohnHwangDD, will be skeptical of their opinions. Even if they have won a lot. Sorry fella's.
You know though... Here's a thought from left field to join all my other ones. What if we assumed just to be civil that people who win a lot might have...earned it? Might have something to share? Might even be on this board without winning a single major! Whuuuuuut? But yes! That would be crazy, yet... consider the possibilities...
GenCon SoCal, back in the day.
I am more skeptical about claims of competitiveness if they've not won anything, particularly when those particular claims are strongly counter to the broad experience and my personal experience. I see nothing wrong with that point, and I doubt anyone would find fault with that. We are talking about competitiveness, so it makes perfect sense to me that someone with actual wins would be a better speaker on the topic.
When that someone makes crazy claims about how competitive the IG are, highlighting an absolutely terrible unit (IG blob) in the current mobility-focused meta, no, I'm OK to let them share. Just like I allow toddlers ramble on about their favorite dinosaurs. That doesn't make them paleontologists, though.
Jancoran wrote: There is no report. And you're losing focus on the point of the discussion anyways. This UNIT is an example of how IG compete. The rest of the army is a whole other issue but this unit can be dropped into my Militarum Tempestus army or my IG army and used. It's excellent for both.
How IG competes in your meta, where it seems nobody bothers to bring proper anti-infantry weapons to the table.
Okay Jancoran, you seem to be missing the major point being made here:
Your supadupa killy unit is gak
It is massively expensive, relies heavily upon you getting the required three powers, which is a pretty damn risky thing in itself, requires you to conga line your unit in order to keep the Lascannons firing - something which can easily be beaten by using barrages, droppods or flanking units to ensure that the conga is the closest models to the shooter. It needs you to get into combat, forcing you to pray that the enemy does not just blitz all 38 meatshields away within two turns (it will happen). Ah, but one does not even need to kill all 38 meatshields for you have yourself stated that they are forming a conga so as to keep your lascannons in formation. Thats what? 1 per 2" of space covered by the main unit. So 3 per movement phase plus 2 per running phase. By turn two I have wiped your meatshields, half your sergeants and one or two characters. By turn three the unit has ceased to exist.
You also forget that I can deny your psychic powers, preventing you from getting them. You also forget that whilst I have tasked my two weakest tanks to deal with your unit (something that they will do exceptionally well) I may also task some other units if there is nothing close enough or I feel that you are getting a little too lucky. I could also just drop in with that anti psychic assassin (pretty standard for my army) and pretty much halt your psychic powers completely.
You have proven nothing. IG are weak, we are in a gak position right now with only CSM being anywhere near as bad as us. Please understand that your meta is an exceptionally weak and casual one which seems to lack even the most common of modern lists. Hell, you think that 20 scatbikes is list tailoring. Around most parts 40+ scatbikes are standard.
Okay Jancoran, you seem to be missing the major point being made here:
Your supadupa killy unit is gak
It is massively expensive, relies heavily upon you getting the required three powers, which is a pretty damn risky thing in itself, requires you to conga line your unit in order to keep the Lascannons firing - something which can easily be beaten by using barrages, droppods or flanking units to ensure that the conga is the closest models to the shooter. It needs you to get into combat, forcing you to pray that the enemy does not just blitz all 38 meatshields away within two turns (it will happen). Ah, but one does not even need to kill all 38 meatshields for you have yourself stated that they are forming a conga so as to keep your lascannons in formation.
Thats what? 1 per 2" of space covered by the main unit. So 3 per movement phase plus 2 per running phase.
By turn two I have wiped your meatshields, half your sergeants and one or two characters.
By turn three the unit has ceased to exist.
You also forget that I can deny your psychic powers, preventing you from getting them.
You also forget that whilst I have tasked my two weakest tanks to deal with your unit (something that they will do exceptionally well) I may also task some other units if there is nothing close enough or I feel that you are getting a little too lucky.
I could also just drop in with that anti psychic assassin (pretty standard for my army) and pretty much halt your psychic powers completely.
Okay Jancoran, you seem to be missing the major point being made here:
Your supadupa killy unit is gak
It is massively expensive, relies heavily upon you getting the required three powers, which is a pretty damn risky thing in itself, requires you to conga line your unit in order to keep the Lascannons firing - something which can easily be beaten by using barrages, droppods or flanking units to ensure that the conga is the closest models to the shooter. It needs you to get into combat, forcing you to pray that the enemy does not just blitz all 38 meatshields away within two turns (it will happen). Ah, but one does not even need to kill all 38 meatshields for you have yourself stated that they are forming a conga so as to keep your lascannons in formation.
Thats what? 1 per 2" of space covered by the main unit. So 3 per movement phase plus 2 per running phase.
By turn two I have wiped your meatshields, half your sergeants and one or two characters.
By turn three the unit has ceased to exist.
You also forget that I can deny your psychic powers, preventing you from getting them.
You also forget that whilst I have tasked my two weakest tanks to deal with your unit (something that they will do exceptionally well) I may also task some other units if there is nothing close enough or I feel that you are getting a little too lucky.
I could also just drop in with that anti psychic assassin (pretty standard for my army) and pretty much halt your psychic powers completely.
And yet still better than any unit from C:BA.
I would argue that point. It takes an inordinate amount of luck for me to dent MEQ's.
You would be wrong. The laws of large numbers of dice dictate that marines die at a 33% to any incoming wound. Perhaps you have a mental block when it comes to meqs, because BA have no good deathstars, no good firepower units, nothing that makes them a good 7th ed list. Nothing. Not a thing. Not even this blob strategy you are hating on so much. The BA aren't even good enough to even have a debate over.
If you factor in FW, BA are certainly the worst list, because the bump CSM gets is much higher than the bump BA get.
Meqs die like little bitches in 7th. Even to IG when played properly. Meqs aren't making any marine list good anymore. It's the other stuff. The stuff that BA don't get.
Martel732 wrote: You would be wrong. The laws of large numbers of dice dictate that marines die at a 33% to any incoming wound. Perhaps you have a mental block when it comes to meqs, because BA have no good deathstars, no good firepower units, nothing that makes them a good 7th ed list. Nothing. Not a thing. Not even this blob strategy you are hating on so much. The BA aren't even good enough to even have a debate over.
If you factor in FW, BA are certainly the worst list, because the bump CSM gets is much higher than the bump BA get.
Meqs die like little bitches in 7th. Even to IG when played properly. Meqs aren't making any marine list good anymore. It's the other stuff. The stuff that BA don't get.
Well, to tell the truth I have yet to face BA so I cant say too much, but given what I have seen from the resident player I dont think they are quite as badly off as you make out Martel. That said I lack the experience to comment.
Also: You forget that those shots have to first hit AND wound :/
Martel732 wrote: You would be wrong. The laws of large numbers of dice dictate that marines die at a 33% to any incoming wound. Perhaps you have a mental block when it comes to meqs, because BA have no good deathstars, no good firepower units, nothing that makes them a good 7th ed list. Nothing. Not a thing. Not even this blob strategy you are hating on so much. The BA aren't even good enough to even have a debate over.
If you factor in FW, BA are certainly the worst list, because the bump CSM gets is much higher than the bump BA get.
Meqs die like little bitches in 7th. Even to IG when played properly. Meqs aren't making any marine list good anymore. It's the other stuff. The stuff that BA don't get.
Well, to tell the truth I have yet to face BA so I cant say too much, but given what I have seen from the resident player I dont think they are quite as badly off as you make out Martel. That said I lack the experience to comment.
Also: You forget that those shots have to first hit AND wound :/
So what magic does your resident player bring to the table?
Given that I have played against IG many, many times with BA, maybe you should listen to me about this. IG do the same thing to BA as the Tau do, just with some mechanical differences. But the core concept is all the same.
All the players who slap me around like a stooge know the BA codex very well and know the BA units very well. Understanding a foe is key to defeating them. Once you understand BA, you realize how god awful they are.
TWICE before 
