Played a game today where the advantage to going first was painfully obvious. Each of us had shooting style titanic units, and it honestly felt like the game was decided after we rolled to see who goes first. Are there any ideas to combat this? One thought I had was the strategem below for Lords if War

"This strategem can only be used during the first battle round. If your Lord of War is destroyed, it may either fight as if it's the fight phase, or shoot as if it's the shooting phase." 3CP

This would allow the side that went second a chance to somewhat even the odds before losing a ton of their firepower before their first turn.

Riggs wrote:
Played a game today where the advantage to going first was painfully obvious. Each of us had shooting style titanic units, and it honestly felt like the game was decided after we rolled to see who goes first. Are there any ideas to combat this? One thought I had was the strategem below for Lords if War

"This strategem can only be used during the first battle round. If your Lord of War is destroyed, it may either fight as if it's the fight phase, or shoot as if it's the shooting phase." 3CP

This would allow the side that went second a chance to somewhat even the odds before losing a ton of their firepower before their first turn.

Place said Lord of War into reserve with the Tallarn strategem. There's a Knight strategem to do the same thing, I think.

Alternatively, even better, don't depend upon the Lord of War. Make sure it isn't your only source of antitank or anti-infantry, and make them pay for the effort they put into destroying it.

But yes, losing a Lord of War is a lot of your planned power in one go in a way losing a Leman Russ and a few infantry squads isn't, but plan for that eventuality, because someone will kill it.

Umm- don't use Titans?

They've never been suitable for standard 40k and have been jammed into a game that's not scaled for them.

"Just don't take them" not really the point of this thread, generally speaking when someone asks how to fix a balance issue, make a rule more competitive, or change a unit, they are by definition not hoping to just not take that unit

Riggs wrote:
"Just don't take them" not really the point of this thread, generally speaking when someone asks how to fix a balance issue, make a rule more competitive, or change a unit, they are by definition not hoping to just not take that unit

But Grimtuff is right. Even LOS-blocking terrain suitable for big models like Land Raiders won´t help you mitigate the first turn advantage against units that are TITANIC.

What kind of Titanic unit?

Knights have a household stratagem where if they get destroyed, they can stand back up 75% of the time after re-rolls.

Titans and Titanic Units are not the same thing. Titanic units like Baneblade and Knights are, like it or not, a core part of the game now and if they are sold and presented as such need to be balanced into the game.

First turn advantage is a big issue, the OP's experience is just one example of the issues it causes. Not taking Titanic Units does not solve the problem of the first turn advantage by any means.

Stux wrote:
Titans and Titanic Units are not the same thing. Titanic units like Baneblade and Knights are, like it or not, a core part of the game now and if they are sold and presented as such need to be balanced into the game.

First turn advantage is a big issue, the OP's experience is just one example of the issues it causes. Not taking Titanic Units does not solve the problem of the first turn advantage by any means.

I meant Titanic unit of course. OP doesn't even mention what he or his opponent were using or what kind of game it was, so we have literally no idea what he's talking about.

For clarification it was my Castellan Knight against his two Shadowswords, but there are a number of units and combinations where this problem exists

Yeah, getting your Knight destroyed by two Shadowswords presumably rocking sponsons is not terribly surprising. Shadowswords are an anti-LOW LOW, and this guy brought two of them. His army did what it was supposed to do.

House Taranis has a good shot at keeping you alive there.

Otherwise - yeah, your Knight list will have problems with someone taking multiple LOW-class units designed to kill Knights. You brought paper and his army is all scissors.

Riggs wrote:
For clarification it was my Castellan Knight against his two Shadowswords, but there are a number of units and combinations where this problem exists

While Sally Forth doesn't work on a Knight Castellan, you can have it be Taranis, get it back on it's feet 75% chance, and then fire at full profile using Machine Spirit Resurgent for one final hurrah, which you can use to kill pretty much anything.

In addition, you should not make your army so dependent upon a single unit that you can't win if it dies. He took 2 Shadowswords, it WILL die, going first won't let it live versus them, the surviving Shadowsword will kill you with its supporting troops. That's redundancy

The iconic Necron Monolith has the Titanic keyword, why, I don't know.

Yeah Shadowswords are designed to kill Titans. They were gross(ly fun) in Epic and are ridonkulous in 40K after the Codex buffs. Shadowsword players *hope* you bring all Knights and Titans!

 JohnnyHell wrote:
Yeah Shadowswords are designed to kill Titans. They were gross(ly fun) in Epic and are ridonkulous in 40K after the Codex buffs. Shadow sword players *hope* you brall no Knights and Titans!

And castellan is designed to bust things like shadowswords. Here it worked becausn shadowswords were 2 and they went first. 1 on 1 castellan can go 2nd and still win without super bad luck. Obviously if it goes first thus 2 shadowsword lose...

So in short, shadowsword vs castelln castellan wins. 2 shadowsword vs castellan who goes first wins(barring sufficiently big los blocker)

They had a really well designed Epic game in the early 2000s. Well designed well balanced, reasonibly quick to play.

Players took turns moving and shooting. I move a unit then you move a unit, until all moving was done, then take turns shooting. Assault still went army wide (I think),

really the only way to tone down first turn bias is with something like that. Even deep strike doesn't negate it, it just moves it. Advantage goes not to the fisrt turn, but the first successful ambush from deep strike. Which would be fine if you set up your ambush on the board, but you don't you set it up in a white room with a spread sheet.

Welcome to a super broken game! The best part is you will be blamed by the community for being dissatisfied with a lazy product!

I've found that you don't even need to have Titanic units on the table to be at a great disadvantage if you go second. You can easily lose 300-500 points on the first turn, so it's effectively a 2000 pts vs 1500 pts game on your turn. The gap snowballs even further pretty fast.

Only remedy I can think of is a full revamp of the IGOUGO turn structure to an alternating activation system.

 Weazel wrote:
I've found that you don't even need to have Titanic units on the table to be at a great disadvantage if you go second. You can easily lose 300-500 points on the first turn, so it's effectively a 2000 pts vs 1500 pts game on your turn. The gap snowballs even further pretty fast.

Only remedy I can think of is a full revamp of the IGOUGO turn structure to an alternating activation system.

While i agree with you, the alpha strike thing was purposefuly pushed up to 11 because games that last too long are “problematic” in GW eyes.

I think GW will have to remove IGOUGO at some stage. It's a pretty outdated mechanic at this stage, or at least in the nuance-free way GW implement it. The problem with GW is they have the manoeuvrability of an oil tanker. It'll take about five years for them to actually implement it. Goodness knows why.

Yeah, first turn advantage is really a thing. There's no real good way of dealing with it in current 40k, save hoping for bad dice to screw your opponent or maximizing your durablity.

Did you give your Castellan a 3++ against the Shadowswords with the Warlord Trait and Rotate Ion Shields?

 Blndmage wrote:
The iconic Necron Monolith has the Titanic keyword, why, I don't know.

Maybe...its because its one of the largest non-LoW units in the game?

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Blndmage wrote:
The iconic Necron Monolith has the Titanic keyword, why, I don't know.

Maybe...its because its one of the largest non-LoW unit in the game?

And larger than some LOWs (compare a Valdor Tank Hunter to a Monolith...).

There's plenty of ways for IK's to survive shadowswords, but the first turn alpha is still devastating. Statistically, 2 cadian shadowswords shooting at a knight with everything (including 4 sponsons each) will knock off 24 wounds from the knight even with a 3+ invul save. This doesn't factor in the Cadian overlapping fields of fire stratagem, but you get the idea. At the same time though.. 2 knight crusaders with gatling cannons, stormspears, and thermal lances, are going to do an average of 25.68 unsaved wounds to a shadowsword. I would agree with others that it's easiest just to make sure there's plenty of other anti-tank in your army, or take questoris knights and use the Sally Forth Strategem.

Change your terrain. Easy.

 Weazel wrote:
I've found that you don't even need to have Titanic units on the table to be at a great disadvantage if you go second. You can easily lose 300-500 points on the first turn, so it's effectively a 2000 pts vs 1500 pts game on your turn. The gap snowballs even further pretty fast.

Only remedy I can think of is a full revamp of the IGOUGO turn structure to an alternating activation system.

The only way to balance out the current levels of alpha that turn 1 advantage gives and still have IGUG is to have a slightly wierd turn structure.

Turn 1 Player 1
Turn 1 Player 2
Turn 1 Scoring
Turn 2 Player 2
Turn 2 Player 1
Turn 2 Scoring
Turn 3 Player 2
Turn 3 Player 1
Turn 3 Scoring
Turn 4 Player 2
Turn 4 Player 1
Turn 4 Scoring
Etc

This is based upon trying to learn AoS but finding it has some issues aswell.

 chrispy1991 wrote:
There's plenty of ways for IK's to survive shadowswords, but the first turn alpha is still devastating. Statistically, 2 cadian shadowswords shooting at a knight with everything (including 4 sponsons each) will knock off 24 wounds from the knight even with a 3+ invul save. This doesn't factor in the Cadian overlapping fields of fire stratagem, but you get the idea. At the same time though.. 2 knight crusaders with gatling cannons, stormspears, and thermal lances, are going to do an average of 25.68 unsaved wounds to a shadowsword. I would agree with others that it's easiest just to make sure there's plenty of other anti-tank in your army, or take questoris knights and use the Sally Forth Strategem.

It's hard to survive, especially if the shadow sword is vastoyan, averages 21 wounds on a 4++ knight and 14 on a 3++ knight iirc

 Backspacehacker wrote:

 chrispy1991 wrote:
There's plenty of ways for IK's to survive shadowswords, but the first turn alpha is still devastating. Statistically, 2 cadian shadowswords shooting at a knight with everything (including 4 sponsons each) will knock off 24 wounds from the knight even with a 3+ invul save. This doesn't factor in the Cadian overlapping fields of fire stratagem, but you get the idea. At the same time though.. 2 knight crusaders with gatling cannons, stormspears, and thermal lances, are going to do an average of 25.68 unsaved wounds to a shadowsword. I would agree with others that it's easiest just to make sure there's plenty of other anti-tank in your army, or take questoris knights and use the Sally Forth Strategem.

It's hard to survive, especially if the shadow sword is vastoyan, averages 21 wounds on a 4++ knight and 14 on a 3++ knight iirc

If you include the sponsons, it's 18 unsaved wounds on a 3++ knight using vostroyan strat.

Agreed though, the point is that it's hard to survive on both ends. 2 shadowswords kills a knight, 2 knights kill a shadowsword. It's just a matter of who goes first, and whether the model is on the board to be shot at.

Thing is a knight with 18 wounds is as good as dead, it's crippled so badly with a degrading bs

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Thing is a knight with 18 wounds is as good as dead, it's crippled so badly with a degrading bs

They have a stratagem that lets them ignore that.

 Crimson wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Thing is a knight with 18 wounds is as good as dead, it's crippled so badly with a degrading bs

They have a stratagem that lets them ignore that.

Oh I know, but if you do that to 2 of the knight

Going first is a huge advantage in most cases regardless of lists. Some of them are just affected more than others. Nothing you can do without rulechanges.

You need to make it so that killyness is lowered and that scoring is at the end of both turns for objectives. Get rid of deep strike limitations so second player can hide their troops off the board.

By making scoring at the end of each turn, player two will have a bigger advantage at getting objectives, and by being able to hide more off the board, it’ll make going second able to protect more.

Also make it the roll first and then first player deploys and then the person who goes second deploys. Let’s you deploy defensively if your screwed and makes seize a mechanic that makes sense again.

Maybe they should bring first turn night fighting back

Or rip a page from kill team

Enemy contact: During turn one, armies are coming into contact with one another and battle lies are being drawn. Druing the first turn of shooting, units enemies that are more then half the range of your weapon profile take a -1 to hit.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

Riggs wrote:
Played a game today where the advantage to going first was painfully obvious. Each of us had shooting style titanic units, and it honestly felt like the game was decided after we rolled to see who goes first. Are there any ideas to combat this? One thought I had was the strategem below for Lords if War

"This strategem can only be used during the first battle round. If your Lord of War is destroyed, it may either fight as if it's the fight phase, or shoot as if it's the shooting phase." 3CP

This would allow the side that went second a chance to somewhat even the odds before losing a ton of their firepower before their first turn.

Place said Lord of War into reserve with the Tallarn strategem.

You can only do that if you dont take it in a Super Heavy Aux detachment right? Doesnt the only other deatchment you can take a LOW in require like 3 HQ or something? i dont remember all the detachments.

 Billagio wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

Riggs wrote:
Played a game today where the advantage to going first was painfully obvious. Each of us had shooting style titanic units, and it honestly felt like the game was decided after we rolled to see who goes first. Are there any ideas to combat this? One thought I had was the strategem below for Lords if War

"This strategem can only be used during the first battle round. If your Lord of War is destroyed, it may either fight as if it's the fight phase, or shoot as if it's the shooting phase." 3CP

This would allow the side that went second a chance to somewhat even the odds before losing a ton of their firepower before their first turn.

Place said Lord of War into reserve with the Tallarn strategem.

You can only do that if you dont take it in a Super Heavy Aux detachment right? Doesnt the only other deatchment you can take a LOW in require like 3 HQ or something? i dont remember all the detachments.

This is correct but with how criminally cheap guard HQs are, oh no, you need to twke 100 points worth of hqs

 Backspacehacker wrote:

 Billagio wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

Riggs wrote:
Played a game today where the advantage to going first was painfully obvious. Each of us had shooting style titanic units, and it honestly felt like the game was decided after we rolled to see who goes first. Are there any ideas to combat this? One thought I had was the strategem below for Lords if War

"This strategem can only be used during the first battle round. If your Lord of War is destroyed, it may either fight as if it's the fight phase, or shoot as if it's the shooting phase." 3CP

This would allow the side that went second a chance to somewhat even the odds before losing a ton of their firepower before their first turn.

Place said Lord of War into reserve with the Tallarn strategem.

You can only do that if you dont take it in a Super Heavy Aux detachment right? Doesnt the only other deatchment you can take a LOW in require like 3 HQ or something? i dont remember all the detachments.

This is correct but with how criminally cheap guard HQs are, oh no, you need to twke 100 points worth of hqs

120 at the cheapest, making a max-sponson Shadowsword cost 660 (instead of 540) points and making you spend 3CP to outflank it.

EDIT:
Though, if I'm not mistaken, it's actually fine to do in a Superheavy Aux, as they only don't get Regimental Doctrines. You can still use Regimental stratagems, Warlord Traits, etc. on them.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:

 Billagio wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

Riggs wrote:
Played a game today where the advantage to going first was painfully obvious. Each of us had shooting style titanic units, and it honestly felt like the game was decided after we rolled to see who goes first. Are there any ideas to combat this? One thought I had was the strategem below for Lords if War

"This strategem can only be used during the first battle round. If your Lord of War is destroyed, it may either fight as if it's the fight phase, or shoot as if it's the shooting phase." 3CP

This would allow the side that went second a chance to somewhat even the odds before losing a ton of their firepower before their first turn.

Place said Lord of War into reserve with the Tallarn strategem.

You can only do that if you dont take it in a Super Heavy Aux detachment right? Doesnt the only other deatchment you can take a LOW in require like 3 HQ or something? i dont remember all the detachments.

This is correct but with how criminally cheap guard HQs are, oh no, you need to twke 100 points worth of hqs

120 at the cheapest, making a max-sponson Shadowsword cost 660 (instead of 540) points and making you spend 3CP to outflank it.

EDIT:
Though, if I'm not mistaken, it's actually fine to do in a Superheavy Aux, as they only don't get Regimental Doctrines. You can still use Regimental stratagems, Warlord Traits, etc. on them.

Correct, they retain the <TALLARN> keyword even if they're not in a <TALLARN> detachment. For the same reason you can use <ALAITOC> stratagems on Ynnari reapers. No need to bring 3 HQs.

Super heavies should not be able to outflank or deep strike, just from a balance standpoint.

Of if they do, then all super heavies should. *Cough* deep strike primarch*cough*

 Marmatag wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:

 Billagio wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

Riggs wrote:
Played a game today where the advantage to going first was painfully obvious. Each of us had shooting style titanic units, and it honestly felt like the game was decided after we rolled to see who goes first. Are there any ideas to combat this? One thought I had was the strategem below for Lords if War

"This strategem can only be used during the first battle round. If your Lord of War is destroyed, it may either fight as if it's the fight phase, or shoot as if it's the shooting phase." 3CP

This would allow the side that went second a chance to somewhat even the odds before losing a ton of their firepower before their first turn.

Place said Lord of War into reserve with the Tallarn strategem.

You can only do that if you dont take it in a Super Heavy Aux detachment right? Doesnt the only other deatchment you can take a LOW in require like 3 HQ or something? i dont remember all the detachments.

This is correct but with how criminally cheap guard HQs are, oh no, you need to twke 100 points worth of hqs

120 at the cheapest, making a max-sponson Shadowsword cost 660 (instead of 540) points and making you spend 3CP to outflank it.

EDIT:
Though, if I'm not mistaken, it's actually fine to do in a Superheavy Aux, as they only don't get Regimental Doctrines. You can still use Regimental stratagems, Warlord Traits, etc. on them.

Correct, they retain the <TALLARN> keyword even if they're not in a <TALLARN> detachment. For the same reason you can use <ALAITOC> stratagems on Ynnari reapers. No need to bring 3 HQs.

Super heavies should not be able to outflank or deep strike, just from a balance standpoint.

interesting, so if I took a shadowsword in a Super Heavy Aux detachment and said it was Cadian, I wouldnt get the doctrine but it could still benefit from relics and such?

Riggs wrote:
Played a game today where the advantage to going first was painfully obvious. Each of us had shooting style titanic units, and it honestly felt like the game was decided after we rolled to see who goes first. Are there any ideas to combat this? One thought I had was the strategem below for Lords if War

"This strategem can only be used during the first battle round. If your Lord of War is destroyed, it may either fight as if it's the fight phase, or shoot as if it's the shooting phase." 3CP

This would allow the side that went second a chance to somewhat even the odds before losing a ton of their firepower before their first turn.

Stock 40k has a blatant turn 1 advantage.

My group plays almost exclusively ITC, even for narrative games where we'll often implement the turn by turn scoring structure, and it helps a lot. With ITC you score points every single turn and there are certain goals like "kill more" and "Hold More" than the opponent being scored at the end of the round meaning that whoever goes second has a major advantage.

Although to be 100% honest, some sort of alternating activation NEEDS to be implemented. Its a major stumbling block holding the game back and it really needs to be addressed.

Pancakey wrote:
Welcome to a super broken game! The best part is you will be blamed by the community for being dissatisfied with a lazy product!

Could you detail a system that is perfectly balanced when two models face each other and are almost always capable of killing each other when they activate? It must also not unbalance any other aspect of the game.

I eagerly await your reply.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 MrMoustaffa wrote:


Although to be 100% honest, some sort of alternating activation NEEDS to be implemented. Its a major stumbling block holding the game back and it really needs to be addressed.

Sure, but how does alternating activation solve a Shadowsword vs a Castellan?

 Daedalus81 wrote:



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 MrMoustaffa wrote:


Although to be 100% honest, some sort of alternating activation NEEDS to be implemented. Its a major stumbling block holding the game back and it really needs to be addressed.

Sure, but how does alternating activation solve a Shadowsword vs a Castellan?

The Castellan gets to shoot before the second Shadowsword gets to fire. A single Shadowsword isn't dropping a Castellan in a shooting phase, neither is a Castellan dropping a Shadowsword in one shot. That problem is therefore about as solved as you can get in a board game unless you want to try and work in some sort of "simultaneous" activation system where both players activate a unit and have them act at the exact same time. Which would be very interesting, but I'd imagine quite tricky to pull off with a game that is the scale of 40k.

Alternating activations give you the chance to do at least some counterfire with high value models before the opponent's entire army just nukes it, unlike now where if you go second against some armies you just have to accept that certain models are going to die and there's nothing you can do to stop it.

Allow all units to activate 1st turn even if they have already been destroyed?

A little tricky for melee units but at least the person who goes second isn't looking at a 20%+ disadvantage that can just snowball the rest of the game.

We already use wound counters to keep track of wounds so they could be applied to units. A couple of unit/model destroyed tokens and the booking shouldn't be too arduous.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Pancakey wrote:
Welcome to a super broken game! The best part is you will be blamed by the community for being dissatisfied with a lazy product!

Could you detail a system that is perfectly balanced when two models face each other and are almost always capable of killing each other when they activate? It must also not unbalance any other aspect of the game.

I eagerly await your reply.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 MrMoustaffa wrote:


Although to be 100% honest, some sort of alternating activation NEEDS to be implemented. Its a major stumbling block holding the game back and it really needs to be addressed.

Sure, but how does alternating activation solve a Shadowsword vs a Castellan?

Well, if you have another anti-armor unit you activate that to take out the shadowsword if it attacks the castellan. Of course, that only really works if you kill it in one turn, which is hard to do with a single unit.
Super Heavies really feth up the game...

It's the same syndrome that is in the 2nd Avengers movie. It takes a super heavy to fight a super heavy. They've become so prolific in my meta that I'm shelving my GK until at least December. As it is now GKs can't deal with a super heavy in any reasonable manner.

Maybe if we send enough emails to them they'll nerf Super Heavies or at least give armies the means to fight them without super heavies of their own.

Suggestions go the FAQ address, right?

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
It's the same syndrome that is in the 2nd Avengers movie. It takes a super heavy to fight a super heavy. They've become so prolific in my meta that I'm shelving my GK until at least December. As it is now GKs can't deal with a super heavy in any reasonable manner.

Grey Knights can’t handle any competently made army in any reasonable manner.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Thing is a knight with 18 wounds is as good as dead, it's crippled so badly with a degrading bs

1cp, shoots at full. Eat volcano lance and cawl's wrath puny shadowsword. Oh and il'' reroll all 1's.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Backspacehacker wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Thing is a knight with 18 wounds is as good as dead, it's crippled so badly with a degrading bs

They have a stratagem that lets them ignore that.

Oh I know, but if you do that to 2 of the knight

Then you haven't destroyed 1 knight. 1 shooting at full strength, 1 at bs4 is better than 1 at full strength and 1 dead.

Knight player WANTS you to be silly enough to split fire against his knights. The more you split better it's for knights


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 MrMoustaffa wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 MrMoustaffa wrote:


Although to be 100% honest, some sort of alternating activation NEEDS to be implemented. Its a major stumbling block holding the game back and it really needs to be addressed.

Sure, but how does alternating activation solve a Shadowsword vs a Castellan?

The Castellan gets to shoot before the second Shadowsword gets to fire. A single Shadowsword isn't dropping a Castellan in a shooting phase, neither is a Castellan dropping a Shadowsword in one shot. That problem is therefore about as solved as you can get in a board game unless you want to try and work in some sort of "simultaneous" activation system where both players activate a unit and have them act at the exact same time. Which would be very interesting, but I'd imagine quite tricky to pull off with a game that is the scale of 40k.

Alternating activations give you the chance to do at least some counterfire with high value models before the opponent's entire army just nukes it, unlike now where if you go second against some armies you just have to accept that certain models are going to die and there's nothing you can do to stop it.

Actually raven castellan pretty much WILL one shot shadowsword. Dam 3 plasma gun and rerolling 1's make that uber vehicle buster.

Arguably, the best solution at this point would be that all units do everything at the same time. Both players shoots/fights simoultaneously.

This way, both shadowsword will blow up the castellan and each super tank will be killed by one of the arms of the castellan! Woooo!!

People just need to play with more tall, line of sight blocking terrain. It forces gunlines to move while allowing melee armies time to close. It also hides tall models long enough to trade shots against less enemies. Until people realize this fact, the b!tching will continue.

Once you stop playing on Planet Bowling Ball, you stop worry about 1st turn advantage.

SJ

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
People just need to play with more tall, line of sight blocking terrain. It forces gunlines to move while allowing melee armies time to close. It also hides tall models long enough to trade shots against less enemies. Until people realize this fact, the b!tching will continue.

Once you stop playing on Planet Bowling Ball, you stop worry about 1st turn advantage.

SJ

While I agree in general, it takes quite a large piece of terrain to hide a castellan/2 shadowswords/another superheavy

shortymcnostrill wrote:

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
People just need to play with more tall, line of sight blocking terrain. It forces gunlines to move while allowing melee armies time to close. It also hides tall models long enough to trade shots against less enemies. Until people realize this fact, the b!tching will continue.

Once you stop playing on Planet Bowling Ball, you stop worry about 1st turn advantage.

SJ

While I agree in general, it takes quite a large piece of terrain to hide a castellan/2 shadowswords/another superheavy

if the terrain does not influence your battle plan/deployment/movement, you're doing something wrong.

It's quite easy to make something(scratch built or kit) big enuff.
a well placed hill or bunched together something else that blocks LOS (whether it actually does or not) is the solution.

It's very hard to find a piece of terrain that is both solid and big enough to hide a Castellan behind. You can put large building/ruin models on the table but unless they don't have windows/holes in them you can still see the Castellan and therefore shoot it. Finding a hill that tall isn't easy and it would dominate the entire table.

So it's not so easy to hide a Castellan.

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
It's very hard to find a piece of terrain that is both solid and big enough to hide a Castellan behind. You can put large building/ruin models on the table but unless they don't have windows/holes in them you can still see the Castellan and therefore shoot it. Finding a hill that tall isn't easy and it would dominate the entire table.

So it's not so easy to hide a Castellan.

I cover the windows of my terrain with stained glass and piles of rubble and dusty glass and all sorts of things, including blood spatters. Do you really think a modern tank could see through a house from one window, across it, to an open doorway? There's bound to be everything from wrecked furniture to cowering civilians in the way. Block those windows!

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
It's very hard to find a piece of terrain that is both solid and big enough to hide a Castellan behind. You can put large building/ruin models on the table but unless they don't have windows/holes in them you can still see the Castellan and therefore shoot it. Finding a hill that tall isn't easy and it would dominate the entire table.

So it's not so easy to hide a Castellan.

I cover the windows of my terrain with stained glass and piles of rubble and dusty glass and all sorts of things, including blood spatters. Do you really think a modern tank could see through a house from one window, across it, to an open doorway? There's bound to be everything from wrecked furniture to cowering civilians in the way. Block those windows!

Does a tank need to see that well? I'd imagine the giant laser/shell/goblin being fired would go through said house.

pm713 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
It's very hard to find a piece of terrain that is both solid and big enough to hide a Castellan behind. You can put large building/ruin models on the table but unless they don't have windows/holes in them you can still see the Castellan and therefore shoot it. Finding a hill that tall isn't easy and it would dominate the entire table.

So it's not so easy to hide a Castellan.

I cover the windows of my terrain with stained glass and piles of rubble and dusty glass and all sorts of things, including blood spatters. Do you really think a modern tank could see through a house from one window, across it, to an open doorway? There's bound to be everything from wrecked furniture to cowering civilians in the way. Block those windows!

Does a tank need to see that well? I'd imagine the giant laser/shell/goblin being fired would go through said house.

Depends on the house really. Sadly, long gone are the days when 40k cared if the house was made of wood or solid adamantium. It's just TLOS. So if the house is made entirely out of paper mache, it still blocks titanic laser cannons.I have no answers. *shrug*

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
It's very hard to find a piece of terrain that is both solid and big enough to hide a Castellan behind. You can put large building/ruin models on the table but unless they don't have windows/holes in them you can still see the Castellan and therefore shoot it. Finding a hill that tall isn't easy and it would dominate the entire table.

So it's not so easy to hide a Castellan.

I cover the windows of my terrain with stained glass and piles of rubble and dusty glass and all sorts of things, including blood spatters. Do you really think a modern tank could see through a house from one window, across it, to an open doorway? There's bound to be everything from wrecked furniture to cowering civilians in the way. Block those windows!

Does a tank need to see that well? I'd imagine the giant laser/shell/goblin being fired would go through said house.

Depends on the house really. Sadly, long gone are the days when 40k cared if the house was made of wood or solid adamantium. It's just TLOS. So if the house is made entirely out of paper mache, it still blocks titanic laser cannons.I have no answers. *shrug*

All Imperial houses now come with a built in Divine Field preventing all heretical and xenos weaponry from damaging them* and loyal Imperials will never risk damage to your home!

*Field takes several days to activate and will only protect your home after the invasion begins.

pm713 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
It's very hard to find a piece of terrain that is both solid and big enough to hide a Castellan behind. You can put large building/ruin models on the table but unless they don't have windows/holes in them you can still see the Castellan and therefore shoot it. Finding a hill that tall isn't easy and it would dominate the entire table.

So it's not so easy to hide a Castellan.

I cover the windows of my terrain with stained glass and piles of rubble and dusty glass and all sorts of things, including blood spatters. Do you really think a modern tank could see through a house from one window, across it, to an open doorway? There's bound to be everything from wrecked furniture to cowering civilians in the way. Block those windows!

Does a tank need to see that well? I'd imagine the giant laser/shell/goblin being fired would go through said house.

Depends on the house really. Sadly, long gone are the days when 40k cared if the house was made of wood or solid adamantium. It's just TLOS. So if the house is made entirely out of paper mache, it still blocks titanic laser cannons.I have no answers. *shrug*

All Imperial houses now come with a built in Divine Field preventing all heretical and xenos weaponry from damaging them* and loyal Imperials will never risk damage to your home!

*Field takes several days to activate and will only protect your home after the invasion begins.

Forge the Narrative!

Unit is right, you should block the windows on tall buildings in the center of the map.

Without significant LOS blocking terrain in the middle of the map, games are really, really bland. You should be able to shield a decent portion of your army from enemy fire on turn 1.

Things have so much movement that it gets really hard to hide anything out of LOS. Knights can move like 14" before they shoot in some cases, that isn't going to keep anything hidden for long.

Ravagers, eldar flyers and the like. Hell Tallarn ambushing shadowswords, even in their own deployment zone, have a pretty good shot at drawing LOS to something they want to shoot. It's hard to not have some bit sticking out where they can see you.

Unless there is basically an impenetrable wall between both armies like 18" high "just add more LOS blocking terrain" isn't a solution. Not to mention your stupid hive-guard and IG artillery just dominate even more on that type of board...

I say it constantly, yet another issue that would be fixed if GW was willing to use alternative activation. They already realize it's better, they're just too stubborn to apply it to the big franchise.

bananathug wrote:
Things have so much movement that it gets really hard to hide anything out of LOS. Knights can move like 14" before they shoot in some cases, that isn't going to keep anything hidden for long.

Ravagers, eldar flyers and the like. Hell Tallarn ambushing shadowswords, even in their own deployment zone, have a pretty good shot at drawing LOS to something they want to shoot. It's hard to not have some bit sticking out where they can see you.

Unless there is basically an impenetrable wall between both armies like 18" high "just add more LOS blocking terrain" isn't a solution. Not to mention your stupid hive-guard and IG artillery just dominate even more on that type of board...

Those are just excuses, not actual problems. The game is based on playing with densely packed tall terrain, not open fields of fire. Try it, and most complaints go away.

SJ

Seeing terrain gw uses and what gw sells hard to say meant like that. Without scratch building impossible to have los blocking even for rhino nevermind castellan

tneva82 wrote:
Seeing terrain gw uses and what gw sells hard to say meant like that. Without scratch building impossible to have los blocking even for rhino nevermind castellan

Not true at all. Tall line of sight blocking terrain is functionally free, you get the “building blocks” for it with every box you purchase.

SJ

Aka scratch building it. Surely you don#t suggest just putting boxes like that? That's one of the dumpest suggestions ever. Playing with 2d counters is better than that

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Yeah, first turn advantage is really a thing. There's no real good way of dealing with it in current 40k

Set up your army behind LOS blocking terrain? Or IN terrain that provides +1 to Sv cover?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Billagio wrote:
Maybe they should bring first turn night fighting back

Also this.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Or rip a page from kill team... Druing the first turn of shooting, units enemies that are more then half the range of your weapon profile take a -1 to hit.

Also not bad


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
It takes a super heavy to fight a super heavy.

IMO this is a MAJOR problem. It turns the game into the haves and the have nots - You either have a Super Heavy and you win, or you don't have a Super Heavy and you lose. So the guy who wins all the time is the one with the biggest wallet.

2 Cadian Shadowswords with overlapping fields of fire and full sponsons still should struggle to kill a 3++ knight using a strat reroll and the grand strategist reroll.

tneva82 wrote:
Aka scratch building it. Surely you don#t suggest just putting boxes like that? That's one of the dumpest suggestions ever. Playing with 2d counters is better than that

Guess you started gaming after plastic terrain was available, rather than before when every piece of terrain was as scratch built. A piece of the hobby has died. /sad

SJ

tneva82 wrote:
Aka scratch building it. Surely you don#t suggest just putting boxes like that? That's one of the dumpest suggestions ever. Playing with 2d counters is better than that

The terrain used by nearly all of the largest tournaments is actually worse than that. Why are you complaining?

phydaux wrote:
IMO this is a MAJOR problem. It turns the game into the haves and the have nots - You either have a Super Heavy and you win, or you don't have a Super Heavy and you lose. So the guy who wins all the time is the one with the biggest wallet.

Totally disagree. Tau can take down Knights with nothing other than a bunch of Fire Warriors and some markerlights. Other armies also have good anti-Knight options, like strong melee characters (Slamguinius, Daemon Princes, Custodes), mortal wounds sources like psykers or haywire cannons, Agent of Vect, etc. You absolutely do not need a LOW to deal with Knights.

Hell, the runner up at BAO destroyed multiple Knights with nothing more than a few golden bois.

Also as far as biggest wallet goes are low's even that expensive per point? Knights might well be one of the cheaper armies to build up


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 DarknessEternal wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Aka scratch building it. Surely you don#t suggest just putting boxes like that? That's one of the dumpest suggestions ever. Playing with 2d counters is better than that

The terrain used by nearly all of the largest tournaments is actually worse than that. Why are you complaining?

Why you think i avoid those tournaments? If terrain isn#t invested no point investing in modeis. And then might just as well play with 2d counters.

Though have yet to see tournament with bare miniature boxes as terrain. Closest was london gt and even there foam was cut and often at least sprayed. And that was waaaaay worse than average.

 MrMoustaffa wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 MrMoustaffa wrote:


Although to be 100% honest, some sort of alternating activation NEEDS to be implemented. Its a major stumbling block holding the game back and it really needs to be addressed.

Sure, but how does alternating activation solve a Shadowsword vs a Castellan?

The Castellan gets to shoot before the second Shadowsword gets to fire. A single Shadowsword isn't dropping a Castellan in a shooting phase, neither is a Castellan dropping a Shadowsword in one shot. That problem is therefore about as solved as you can get in a board game unless you want to try and work in some sort of "simultaneous" activation system where both players activate a unit and have them act at the exact same time. Which would be very interesting, but I'd imagine quite tricky to pull off with a game that is the scale of 40k.

Alternating activations give you the chance to do at least some counterfire with high value models before the opponent's entire army just nukes it, unlike now where if you go second against some armies you just have to accept that certain models are going to die and there's nothing you can do to stop it.

Rts style. You move and shoot and fight everything at the same time. You throw dice at your opponent, he throws his dice at you and you run around screaming.

Tneva82 is just complaining to complain. Anyone can build appropriate terrain for next to free, given the excessive amount of waste packaging we encounter in everyday life. It takes next nothing to cut, form, base, and pain cardboard cereal boxes into 40k scale buildings, or to cut, base, and paint foam inserts into hills or bunkers. Complaining that someone else needs to supply that for you or you won’t play just let’s the rest us say, “Bye, Felecia!”

SJ

Wait, are we talking about Lord of War type Titanic units, or all Titanic units?

Tatanic units have been around for all of 8th.

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
Tneva82 is just complaining to complain. Anyone can build appropriate terrain for next to free, given the excessive amount of waste packaging we encounter in everyday life. It takes next nothing to cut, form, base, and pain cardboard cereal boxes into 40k scale buildings, or to cut, base, and paint foam inserts into hills or bunkers. Complaining that someone else needs to supply that for you or you won’t play just let’s the rest us say, “Bye, Felecia!”

SJ

You are hard pressea to convincb anything with half the brain that gw intends game to have castellan blocking los when they don't sell any and are so hostile to scratch building.

Besides there's something wrong with game if you need terrain to hide your entire army for game to work.

Plus it actuaily just changes issue. If both players can hide army victory goes from first turn the one who doesn't leave hiding place first. Not good game either. Gw has simply screwed up rules which isn't surprise seeing they approach it like amateurs. Hell they ARE amateurs

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
Tneva82 is just complaining to complain. Anyone can build appropriate terrain for next to free, given the excessive amount of waste packaging we encounter in everyday life. It takes next nothing to cut, form, base, and pain cardboard cereal boxes into 40k scale buildings, or to cut, base, and paint foam inserts into hills or bunkers. Complaining that someone else needs to supply that for you or you won’t play just let’s the rest us say, “Bye, Felecia!”

SJ

Cereal box "buildings" also look like trash, so they're only an option if you have low standards for your terrain. If you want nice terrain you're either dealing with kits (and the LOS problems that come with them) or spending months/years scratchbuilding it.

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
Tneva82 is just complaining to complain. Anyone can build appropriate terrain for next to free, given the excessive amount of waste packaging we encounter in everyday life. It takes next nothing to cut, form, base, and pain cardboard cereal boxes into 40k scale buildings, or to cut, base, and paint foam inserts into hills or bunkers. Complaining that someone else needs to supply that for you or you won’t play just let’s the rest us say, “Bye, Felecia!”

SJ

almost nothing in my country comes in boxs. Cerals come in plastic bags, milk too, ice comes in plastic boxs, but you need at least 3 to get anything decent size, plus you have to explain to your parents why you bought and ate 3kg of ice on your own. Stuff like stoves, TVs etc come in cardboard boxs, but you can't use those for terrain, becauese without them the warrenty becomes invalid.
You could steal some some crates from ukrainian fruit and vegetable vendors, but that is risking an ass kicking, and which is a much bigger problem. you would have to be good at making wood look scifi. AND then the store owner or your parents would have to be ok with you storeging that stuff.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

tneva82 wrote:

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
Tneva82 is just complaining to complain. Anyone can build appropriate terrain for next to free, given the excessive amount of waste packaging we encounter in everyday life. It takes next nothing to cut, form, base, and pain cardboard cereal boxes into 40k scale buildings, or to cut, base, and paint foam inserts into hills or bunkers. Complaining that someone else needs to supply that for you or you won’t play just let’s the rest us say, “Bye, Felecia!”

SJ

You are hard pressea to convincb anything with half the brain that gw intends game to have castellan blocking los when they don't sell any and are so hostile to scratch building.

Besides there's something wrong with game if you need terrain to hide your entire army for game to work.

Plus it actuaily just changes issue. If both players can hide army victory goes from first turn the one who doesn't leave hiding place first. Not good game either. Gw has simply screwed up rules which isn't surprise seeing they approach it like amateurs. Hell they ARE amateurs

yeah, if the goal is for armies to not shot each other, then why not just put down some sort of a rule that makes shoting turn 1 impossible. Call it fog of war, and the stuff is done. melee armies can advance, some specific ultra rare units can ignore the the fog rule. I wonder why GW havent put such a rule at least as an option in their rule book or IA.

tneva82 wrote:

You are hard pressea to convincb anything with half the brain that gw intends game to have castellan blocking los when they don't sell any and are so hostile to scratch building.

Hostile to scratch building? howso?

Sure, back in 4th they provided 'heres how to do some basic terrain' guides in the core rulebook, but since everyone has the internet now with access to superior resources, it's understandable they wouldn't bother. Is that what you mean?

On topic; an imperial bastion is (just) tall and wide enough to hide a questoris knight side-on - bring your own tactical advantage terrain if you need LOS blockers and can't count on them at your venue

I think it's okay that it's sort of hard to hide a Castellan. Is size has advantages and disadvantages.

Complaining that large units die when they are shot at by units designed to counter them seems foolish to me. There is always going to be a list that hard counters you, but it's likely to be bad at other things. The solution is to encourage less list tailoring, and play more opponents to widen the number of armies that both you and your opponents face, causing a more TAC meta to develop. This is why these lists aren't an issue in large tournements or diverse metas.

How about titanic units work in their own turn phase after normal units for both players after normal units have moved, shot and finished combat. Then the real kick of it is, like age of sigmar the players roll off to see who's titanic units would go first each game round. A game turn would look like this:

Player 1 wins the roll off to go first for normal units after seizes.

Turn 1:

Players 1 moves, shoots etc
Player 2 moves, shoots etc

Players roll off

Player 2 wins the roll off

Player 2's Titanic unit moves, shoots etc
Player 1's Titanic unit moves, shoots etc.

Turn 2:

Turn 1:

Players 1 moves, shoots etc
Player 2 moves, shoots etc

Players roll off

Player 1 wins the roll off

Player 1's Titanic unit moves, shoots etc.
Player 2's Titanic unit moves, shoots etc

And so on and so forth...

it obviously presents an issue for certain armies like knights maybe, so perhaps they have their own rules to mitigate this, though the super knights would still work outside the normal turns etc.

The issue isn't specific to knights or other LoW.
Just armies of only 4-5 models show how bad the turn 1 alpha stike is under the current rules.

So, you guys are saying your model kits come in bags? What about parcels delivered in your mail, are those bagged too? What about canned goods? Chicken wire and newspaper?

The box your Titanic unit came in is the size of 40k building. It takes very little effort to skin the outside of that box to look like a building, and you can still use it for storage.

You can even use cloth to make 3D buildings, hills, and forests with small amount of effort and creativity. And best part of using cloth is that it stores much easier than plastic kit terrain.

Does your community/internet browsers have access to an aquarium supply store? Lots of tall, alien looking terrain.

Does your community have trees, bushes, and grass? If so, you’re in luck! Old branches and clippings are free terrain!

I can only give you a hand up, not a hand out. The fix to your complaint exists, it just takes slightly less effort than it took to assemble and paint the same units you are complaining die too fast. The game is balanced around tall, line of sight blocking terrain cluttering a standard size game table. If you are dying turn one to shooting attacks, you are not using the correct terrain for the game.

SJ

Since it got ignored by terrain talk, I'll ask again:

Are people having issues with all Tittanic Units, just Loerds of War, or are we taking about just Knights?

Each choice leads to very different discussions, and they all sound interesting.

Well the original example was a knight and two baneblades. It's not a valid complaint, though, because you're always going to lose a Castellan if it's visible and enemy has 1000 points of anti tank units and he goes first. It's also worth noting that you could take two Castellans and do the same thing back.

This whole thing is a non issue.

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
So, you guys are saying your model kits come in bags? What about parcels delivered in your mail, are those bagged too? What about canned goods? Chicken wire and newspaper?

The box your Titanic unit came in is the size of 40k building. It takes very little effort to skin the outside of that box to look like a building, and you can still use it for storage.

You can even use cloth to make 3D buildings, hills, and forests with small amount of effort and creativity. And best part of using cloth is that it stores much easier than plastic kit terrain.

Does your community/internet browsers have access to an aquarium supply store? Lots of tall, alien looking terrain.

Does your community have trees, bushes, and grass? If so, you’re in luck! Old branches and clippings are free terrain!

I can only give you a hand up, not a hand out. The fix to your complaint exists, it just takes slightly less effort than it took to assemble and paint the same units you are complaining die too fast. The game is balanced around tall, line of sight blocking terrain cluttering a standard size game table. If you are dying turn one to shooting attacks, you are not using the correct terrain for the game.

SJ

No idea what a parcel is, but stuff sent through mail general comes bubble wraped in ton of tape and some old cardboard. As the GW boxs go they seem to be very soft, wouldn't stand on any table, people would start cheating by moving terrain around. As cloth used as terrain, that is true warmachine players here do it all the time, in fact I think all of their terrain including bunkers and trenchs etc are cut outs. The problem with w40k terrain is that it can not be abstract.
As cans go, we don't buy stuff in cans. Everything either growths in the backyard or in the backyard of someone grandparents. Cans are crazy prized too. a 1kg of peas from field doesn't even cost 1/3$, and in can it costs 1$. From what I know the closest aquarium shop is Elblang, that is a 6 hour trip there and back, and they may have no useable stuff. Collecting fish isn't a very popular hobby around here, it costs too much and takes up too much space.
As wood goes, good luck explaining to your parents why you are using fire wood to play.

you'd be surprised at how strong the gw boxes are with a little plastic sprue reinforcement.

Not every battlefield should have tbe same cover.

Lol at not being able to make terrain. It must be tough living in Dilbert's Elbonia. it's a miracle you have a table to play on.

Cryogenicman wrote:
Lol at not being able to make terrain. It must be tough living in Dilbert's Elbonia. it's a miracle you have a table to play on.

It sounds like Poland is having some really rough times, there's no call to rip on them or where they live. We're all gamers here.

I would tell them to use their imagination, but it appears they don’t have those either. So I will just say use the Internet, there are thousands of videos on-line on how to craft free gaming terrain from junk. People that can’t build cheap terrain for their expensive hobby are probably not in the right hobby.

SJ

Locally we started to ignore the MACRO rule. After a few large apoc games became very one sided very quickly.

We also learned that in 5000pt+ games. Deep strike is basically useless. So we have apoc house rules for each turn, the 9" range goes down. So turn 3 it's a 6" range, turn 4 is a 3" range. T5" is 1".

Added a lot of fun to the game. Titans could still wipe out big non titan models really easily. Turbolaser will kill a knight or land raider pretty reliably without MACRO, but another warhound will survive a shot, instead of dying pretty easily.

 gwarsh41 wrote:
Locally we started to ignore the MACRO rule. After a few large apoc games became very one sided very quickly.

We also learned that in 5000pt+ games. Deep strike is basically useless. So we have apoc house rules for each turn, the 9" range goes down. So turn 3 it's a 6" range, turn 4 is a 3" range. T5" is 1".

Added a lot of fun to the game. Titans could still wipe out big non titan models really easily. Turbolaser will kill a knight or land raider pretty reliably without MACRO, but another warhound will survive a shot, instead of dying pretty easily.

I agree with these changes. The MACRO rule is just bonkers (yay for all caps!), and the deep strike rule sounds fun!

Macro? Rule?

Headlss wrote:
Macro? Rule?

They are a weapon type in the Forge World books. Basically they do double damage to buildings and <Titanic> units

Yeah, and the problem is that many 20-22 wound large vehicles have a <TITANIC> keyword and thus are wiped out immediately by any Titan firing its weapons. etc.

Karol wrote:

No idea what a parcel is, but stuff sent through mail general comes bubble wraped in ton of tape and some old cardboard. As the GW boxs go they seem to be very soft, wouldn't stand on any table, people would start cheating by moving terrain around. As cloth used as terrain, that is true warmachine players here do it all the time, in fact I think all of their terrain including bunkers and trenchs etc are cut outs. The problem with w40k terrain is that it can not be abstract.
As cans go, we don't buy stuff in cans. Everything either growths in the backyard or in the backyard of someone grandparents. Cans are crazy prized too. a 1kg of peas from field doesn't even cost 1/3$, and in can it costs 1$. From what I know the closest aquarium shop is Elblang, that is a 6 hour trip there and back, and they may have no useable stuff. Collecting fish isn't a very popular hobby around here, it costs too much and takes up too much space.
As wood goes, good luck explaining to your parents why you are using fire wood to play.

What, is firewood more expensive than a shadowsword model? How well does resin burn? Maybe you should be heating your house with forgeworld models.

 Elbows wrote:
Yeah, and the problem is that many 20-22 wound large vehicles have a <TITANIC> keyword and thus are wiped out immediately by any Titan firing its weapons. etc.

I never understood the logic behind it doing more damage to a TITANIC unit than a infantry model

 Billagio wrote:

 Elbows wrote:
Yeah, and the problem is that many 20-22 wound large vehicles have a <TITANIC> keyword and thus are wiped out immediately by any Titan firing its weapons. etc.

I never understood the logic behind it doing more damage to a TITANIC unit than a infantry model

I assume it's because a shell the size of a tank can only kill a guardsman so hard. Whereas it could knock the leg off a titan.

IronBrand wrote:

 Billagio wrote:

 Elbows wrote:
Yeah, and the problem is that many 20-22 wound large vehicles have a <TITANIC> keyword and thus are wiped out immediately by any Titan firing its weapons. etc.

I never understood the logic behind it doing more damage to a TITANIC unit than a infantry model

I assume it's because a shell the size of a tank can only kill a guardsman so hard. Whereas it could knock the leg off a titan.

Which is what the Damage stat is for. Why does MACRO do double damage to TITANIC units but not to other units?

Shooting at a Bastion with a Titan gun doesn't double the damage, but shooting at a Baneblade does, despite being essentially the same idea (except one can move).

jcd386 wrote:

Headlss wrote:
Macro? Rule?

They are a weapon type in the Forge World books. Basically they do double damage to buildings and <Titanic> units

It's a terrible rule.

Terrain needs to go back to the very simple concept of "you can see in, you can see out, but you cannot see through" for things like ruins, forests and similar, TLoS is "ok" (I guess) for some things but utterly ridiculous for others.

you could do with something that says the first turn is at extreme range so everyone needs a "6" to hit, or something.

Experimenting locally with APOC modification so only troops and HQ can start on the board, everything else must move on later so everything else always gets the chance to move and fire before its zapped

leopard wrote:

Experimenting locally with APOC modification so only troops and HQ can start on the board, everything else must move on later so everything else always gets the chance to move and fire before its zapped

Did that (inc fast attack for what it was worth) in my last titan dance off, was an excellent decision.

WRT the macro rule, I always figured, since nearly all of them are energy weapons, that it represented the extra damage sustained fire can do over a larger surface area. i.e. a titan plasma blast against a dreadnought would 'splash' outside of the dreadnoughts' silhouette, but a direct hit on an IK or BB would be fully absorbed by the target's structure. With the various flavors of laser, the significant bulky points would be sliced through or cored, where on a leman russ there'd be a lot of wastage (shooting the air) due to the smaller target area.

That said, the implementation is janky as all get out, and titan dance offs come down to 'who has the more rerolls, and who went first' :|

I have two large LOS blocking pieces for my games (usually use one in the centre of the table).

Double bastion (essentially two joined together) and a Fortress of Redemption.

Terrain, terrain, terrain. Without it you're going to have a bad time.

 Crimson wrote:

jcd386 wrote:

Headlss wrote:
Macro? Rule?

They are a weapon type in the Forge World books. Basically they do double damage to buildings and <Titanic> units

It's a terrible rule.

I like the 'can't fire overwatch' bit - especially for carapace mounts and superheavy tank fixed guns it makes sense - but I never understood the damage boost.

Note that kill team has got an alternating activation, and works very well as a result.

locarno24 wrote:
I like the 'can't fire overwatch' bit - especially for carapace mounts and superheavy tank fixed guns it makes sense - but I never understood the damage boost.

Note that kill team has got an alternating activation, and works very well as a result.

Guess they could have upped shots and damage ratios. Guess they just wanted rule that shows those weapons are primarily titan killers. Like special rule titan killer in epic armageddon.