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[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2023/12/25 00:59:22


Post by: ashlevrier


So in the few games I have played So far. It seams like the aux have the advantage over marines.

I am trying to find videos or other articles to read. But right now it seems like not a lot of online activity.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2023/12/25 03:12:34


Post by: chaos0xomega


Well it's a bad time to launch a game, lots of people are preoccupied with the holidays and don't have time to hobby or play. Couple that with product shortages everywhere and there's a lot of people who are missing parts of their armies or even their rulebooks, etc.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2023/12/25 10:09:31


Post by: SU-152


 ashlevrier wrote:
So in the few games I have played So far. It seams like the aux have the advantage over marines.



My experience is the opposite. Same model count on the table and marines are better (better armour, better CAF and the most important, better morale).


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2023/12/25 10:25:03


Post by: Formosa


Solar Aux dominate the heavy armour and flyer game quite heavily at the moment until the marines get their AA and things like the fire raptor get re released, the marine have speed and infantry dominance for the most part, a full detachment of terminators dropping in with double tap and re rolls is really hard to counter and can easily clear a objective to hold.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2023/12/25 12:24:55


Post by: leopard


Think the first thing that needs to be clarified is if you are only using the as yet released models, or if these are augmented with alternative models to use the rules for models not yet officially released.

Auxilia currently lack a good transport option thats easily available (not counting FW resin here), when they get that a few things change.

Auxilia do certainly have better armour for anti-armour with the Vanquisher cannons on both the Russ and the Malcador, and if you managed to grab a Baneblade before they sold out their armoured formations are nasty

ditto air is good, if you got hold of it

I think currently the available options make the game skewed somewhat, longer term I expect the Auxilia will play a good "stand back and shoot" game and prove good at holding ground and being generally difficult to chew through - they have some good assault options, though lack transports currently.

Marines I think will generally be more mobile, flexible and better at assaulting

and I think the winning deployment will be combining the two not trying to use just one, likely workable with either leading and the other supporting


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Formosa wrote:
Solar Aux dominate the heavy armour and flyer game quite heavily at the moment until the marines get their AA and things like the fire raptor get re released, the marine have speed and infantry dominance for the most part, a full detachment of terminators dropping in with double tap and re rolls is really hard to counter and can easily clear a objective to hold.


while this is true, Terminators can certainly drop in and shoot troops clear of an objective, this is diluted somewhat if the objective is held from an adjacent building or area terrain as they cannot drop & assault. They can also only target a single enemy unit, an objective held by two causes a problem (unless you can get some ranged fire to support them of course), and to be honest eight stands with a 4+ save likely won't last long against the enemies fire.

Have used, smaller, terminator units already, while they are a threat, and cause enemy units to be held back, which to be honest I think is the greatest use for them (as in the threat in being while off the board can tie up far more than their value in enemy units) when they actually arrive I've found they tend not to last very long.

of course an enemy who doesn't guard the rear will regret it.

I wonder if dropping two units of four would work better than one unit of eight, can still focus on one enemy if needed, but can now stick 8 shots into each of two, and also harder to remove?


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2023/12/25 16:34:03


Post by: ashlevrier


SU-152 wrote:
 ashlevrier wrote:
So in the few games I have played So far. It seams like the aux have the advantage over marines.



My experience is the opposite. Same model count on the table and marines are better (better armour, better CAF and the most important, better morale).


When the axe men come they win almost every time in combat.

The 5+ save is almost pointless. The better caf is also pointless because aux have rend. Rend averages out to be a +3 for them.

Morale is the only thing marines got. But it don't matter if your dead.

Every game we have played has been a one sided aux victory.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
leopard wrote:
Think the first thing that needs to be clarified is if you are only using the as yet released models, or if these are augmented with alternative models to use the rules for models not yet officially released.

Auxilia currently lack a good transport option thats easily available (not counting FW resin here), when they get that a few things change.

Auxilia do certainly have better armour for anti-armour with the Vanquisher cannons on both the Russ and the Malcador, and if you managed to grab a Baneblade before they sold out their armoured formations are nasty

ditto air is good, if you got hold of it

I think currently the available options make the game skewed somewhat, longer term I expect the Auxilia will play a good "stand back and shoot" game and prove good at holding ground and being generally difficult to chew through - they have some good assault options, though lack transports currently.

Marines I think will generally be more mobile, flexible and better at assaulting

and I think the winning deployment will be combining the two not trying to use just one, likely workable with either leading and the other supporting


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Formosa wrote:
Solar Aux dominate the heavy armour and flyer game quite heavily at the moment until the marines get their AA and things like the fire raptor get re released, the marine have speed and infantry dominance for the most part, a full detachment of terminators dropping in with double tap and re rolls is really hard to counter and can easily clear a objective to hold.


while this is true, Terminators can certainly drop in and shoot troops clear of an objective, this is diluted somewhat if the objective is held from an adjacent building or area terrain as they cannot drop & assault. They can also only target a single enemy unit, an objective held by two causes a problem (unless you can get some ranged fire to support them of course), and to be honest eight stands with a 4+ save likely won't last long against the enemies fire.

Have used, smaller, terminator units already, while they are a threat, and cause enemy units to be held back, which to be honest I think is the greatest use for them (as in the threat in being while off the board can tie up far more than their value in enemy units) when they actually arrive I've found they tend not to last very long.

of course an enemy who doesn't guard the rear will regret it.

I wonder if dropping two units of four would work better than one unit of eight, can still focus on one enemy if needed, but can now stick 8 shots into each of two, and also harder to remove?


I have to base my thoughts on what is available at the time. I can't just sit and hold out hope the game gets better.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2023/12/25 16:49:15


Post by: tneva82


leopard wrote:


while this is true, Terminators can certainly drop in and shoot troops clear of an objective, this is diluted somewhat if the objective is held from an adjacent building or area terrain as they cannot drop & assault. They can also only target a single enemy unit, an objective held by two causes a problem (unless you can get some ranged fire to support them of course), and to be honest eight stands with a 4+ save likely won't last long against the enemies fire.


Terminator shooting isn't particularly impressive though. And short ranged. They can easily scatter out of range or nearby bullding going poof. Cunning opponent also leaves holes in formation so that 1 stand fits there but rest won't resulting dead stands.

Inside thunderhawk seems best to get to melee which is where termies want to be.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2023/12/25 16:55:35


Post by: leopard


Can scatter out of range, however keep in mind they can still move after landing.. though if too close to a building they become "at one with the structure"

agree they need an assault transport of some sort to get stuck in


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2023/12/25 17:50:42


Post by: Formosa


tneva82 wrote:
leopard wrote:


while this is true, Terminators can certainly drop in and shoot troops clear of an objective, this is diluted somewhat if the objective is held from an adjacent building or area terrain as they cannot drop & assault. They can also only target a single enemy unit, an objective held by two causes a problem (unless you can get some ranged fire to support them of course), and to be honest eight stands with a 4+ save likely won't last long against the enemies fire.


Terminator shooting isn't particularly impressive though. And short ranged. They can easily scatter out of range or nearby bullding going poof. Cunning opponent also leaves holes in formation so that 1 stand fits there but rest won't resulting dead stands.

Inside thunderhawk seems best to get to melee which is where termies want to be.


yes and no, so I have 2 storm eagles with 2 sets of marines inside 2 storm eagles, ram them up the board, disembark and deep strike the terminators next to this detachment as they do not scatter if they are bought as part of the detachment and are dropping within 6" of it.

sure its a lot of points but I am yet to fail to get an objective with this tactic.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2023/12/25 19:56:55


Post by: FrozenDwarf


 ashlevrier wrote:


I have to base my thoughts on what is available at the time. I can't just sit and hold out hope the game gets better.


You have to, what we have now is just a teaser.

It took AT 6 months to get the titans needed to properly play the game. LI will take atleast that long if not longer (first expansion book) to get what both factions needs.

So as mentioned above, run both solar and sm, and wait with mono faction play until all units has been released.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2023/12/26 00:17:31


Post by: ashlevrier


 Formosa wrote:
tneva82 wrote:
leopard wrote:


while this is true, Terminators can certainly drop in and shoot troops clear of an objective, this is diluted somewhat if the objective is held from an adjacent building or area terrain as they cannot drop & assault. They can also only target a single enemy unit, an objective held by two causes a problem (unless you can get some ranged fire to support them of course), and to be honest eight stands with a 4+ save likely won't last long against the enemies fire.


Terminator shooting isn't particularly impressive though. And short ranged. They can easily scatter out of range or nearby bullding going poof. Cunning opponent also leaves holes in formation so that 1 stand fits there but rest won't resulting dead stands.

Inside thunderhawk seems best to get to melee which is where termies want to be.


yes and no, so I have 2 storm eagles with 2 sets of marines inside 2 storm eagles, ram them up the board, disembark and deep strike the terminators next to this detachment as they do not scatter if they are bought as part of the detachment and are dropping within 6" of it.

sure its a lot of points but I am yet to fail to get an objective with this tactic.


You still scater from deep strike. I will read the rules again. But from my understanding you will still scater.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I am certain that the rule says you have to have deep strike and independent. Terminators only have deep strike


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Formosa wrote:
tneva82 wrote:
leopard wrote:


while this is true, Terminators can certainly drop in and shoot troops clear of an objective, this is diluted somewhat if the objective is held from an adjacent building or area terrain as they cannot drop & assault. They can also only target a single enemy unit, an objective held by two causes a problem (unless you can get some ranged fire to support them of course), and to be honest eight stands with a 4+ save likely won't last long against the enemies fire.


Terminator shooting isn't particularly impressive though. And short ranged. They can easily scatter out of range or nearby bullding going poof. Cunning opponent also leaves holes in formation so that 1 stand fits there but rest won't resulting dead stands.

Inside thunderhawk seems best to get to melee which is where termies want to be.


yes and no, so I have 2 storm eagles with 2 sets of marines inside 2 storm eagles, ram them up the board, disembark and deep strike the terminators next to this detachment as they do not scatter if they are bought as part of the detachment and are dropping within 6" of it.

sure its a lot of points but I am yet to fail to get an objective with this tactic.


There's also the chance to get shot down with over watch. It's pretty easy to do. Aux walkers have a lot of krak missiles and multi Las. Also the rando vanquisher round that downed a marine aircraft. Lol


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2023/12/26 07:06:22


Post by: Formosa


you are right you need independent, Assault marines have that not terminators, my mistake. back to the drawing board.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2023/12/26 11:36:54


Post by: ashlevrier


 Formosa wrote:
you are right you need independent, Assault marines have that not terminators, my mistake. back to the drawing board.


It's okay. I am going to try large units of marine infantry. As many as I can bring and just swarm the objectives


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2023/12/26 12:22:24


Post by: tneva82


I have list in mind with about 200 plus 60 rhinos to haul them.

Won't get for ages enough infantry to run it though. Beside such skew not being #1 to collect gw can't keep marine infantry available for long.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2023/12/27 03:23:42


Post by: Crablezworth


There are certainly balance issues unit to unit. Why do malcadors if russes do it better point for point? 10 russes with vanquishers/las is 10pts cheaper than 6 malcadors.

The marine planes definitely need an faq/errata for their heavy bolters to give them light at like their solar aux counterparts.

Balance wise the only thing seemingly contributing to combined arms is just the random level of access players seemingly have to build their armies with. But for those who have had no problem purchasing a sizeable amount of models or printing a sizeable amount of models to draw from to list build.
A good example too of some players getting ahead of things is in the AA department with player printing tarantulas/AA.

A big factor that seems to contribute to most units not being able to take hits too well is the games lack of a core cover save mechanic for units other than knights and titans which get a -1 or -2 to be hit depending on how much cover/how obscured they are to the attacker (25%, 50%+).

Something that may have to be considered as well is the 6 always hitting stuff unlike titanicus which could at times see integers pushed to like 7 ect. I've noticed with flyers it just seems too easy to dump fire into them and hope for 6's.



I understand marine player's frustrations with ogryns and veletari, I think this is more an issue of how clunky combat is and how critical they've made rules like rend.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2023/12/27 08:27:03


Post by: SU-152


 Crablezworth wrote:



I understand marine player's frustrations with ogryns and veletari, I think this is more an issue of how clunky combat is and how critical they've made rules like rend.


Yet Marine Missile Launchers and Dreadnoughts are way more broken than Veletari and Ogryns. It seems they forget models cost points.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2023/12/27 10:18:10


Post by: Pacific


 Crablezworth wrote:


I understand marine player's frustrations with ogryns and veletari, I think this is more an issue of how clunky combat is and how critical they've made rules like rend.


I find it really interesting they've given the rend/extra D6 rule, as historically that was a really powerful melee advantage. If you think in SM2, AFAIK only one unit had that (Striking Scorpions) and that unit was so powerful in melee that it got nerfed for the community (NetEpic) version of the game! And it was how big units of less powerful infantry could mob and take down close combat specialists.
As most combats are that two dice roll-off, I think you're going to get a lot of people taking World Eater assault troops, again similarly that dice re-roll is an incredibly useful trait and will mean they win most combats.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2023/12/27 13:30:40


Post by: Sherrypie


 Crablezworth wrote:


Something that may have to be considered as well is the 6 always hitting stuff unlike titanicus which could at times see integers pushed to like 7 ect. I've noticed with flyers it just seems too easy to dump fire into them and hope for 6's.


Titanicus has natural sixes always hitting, you just can't do voluntary penalties like aiming if they'd go past 6+.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2023/12/27 13:50:57


Post by: tneva82


That's his point. Too easy to just fish on 6's.

But seeing how strong airplanes are already not sure is buffing them right idea. Having them even harder to kill is not what i would want to see


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2023/12/27 14:27:27


Post by: Sherrypie


tneva82 wrote:
That's his point. Too easy to just fish on 6's.

But seeing how strong airplanes are already not sure is buffing them right idea. Having them even harder to kill is not what i would want to see


Point being made was that LI would let you fish and AT wouldn't, which is incorrect. Both games have sixes always hitting, AT just has additional bits you cannot opt for if the penalties would take you to that point.

A working example would be something like 40k 8th, where you would indeed be unable to hit things if you reached a 7+ to hit from modifiers.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2023/12/27 14:53:01


Post by: Crablezworth


 Sherrypie wrote:
tneva82 wrote:
That's his point. Too easy to just fish on 6's.

But seeing how strong airplanes are already not sure is buffing them right idea. Having them even harder to kill is not what i would want to see


Point being made was that LI would let you fish and AT wouldn't, which is incorrect. Both games have sixes always hitting, AT just has additional bits you cannot opt for if the penalties would take you to that point.

A working example would be something like 40k 8th, where you would indeed be unable to hit things if you reached a 7+ to hit from modifiers.


Yes and unlike AT units other than knights and titans in LI don't naturally benefit from -1 or -2 from 25%/50%+ obscured without being entirely within area terrain or in base contact with obstacles.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
tneva82 wrote:
That's his point. Too easy to just fish on 6's.

But seeing how strong airplanes are already not sure is buffing them right idea. Having them even harder to kill is not what i would want to see


Well the issue is because they're not forced to move a minimum on to the board they can be used very cynically on account of the 30 inch range on their missiles for example combined with pre measuring.

This also makes them incredibly disgusting if fielded in medium to large units. They also largely circumvent terrain rules so it can be frustrating. Added complication to that is planes with hover mode can enter in hover mode limiting their target options but also granting them plenty of safety via los/cover.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Pacific wrote:
 Crablezworth wrote:


I understand marine player's frustrations with ogryns and veletari, I think this is more an issue of how clunky combat is and how critical they've made rules like rend.


I find it really interesting they've given the rend/extra D6 rule, as historically that was a really powerful melee advantage. If you think in SM2, AFAIK only one unit had that (Striking Scorpions) and that unit was so powerful in melee that it got nerfed for the community (NetEpic) version of the game! And it was how big units of less powerful infantry could mob and take down close combat specialists.
As most combats are that two dice roll-off, I think you're going to get a lot of people taking World Eater assault troops, again similarly that dice re-roll is an incredibly useful trait and will mean they win most combats.



Yeah and my only concern with people taking any legion is that they're not doing a super friends list where every formation is a different legion to gain that specific advantage. Got no prob playing against world eaters, but if they've got friends its a bit much.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2023/12/27 15:01:22


Post by: tneva82


 Sherrypie wrote:
tneva82 wrote:
That's his point. Too easy to just fish on 6's.

But seeing how strong airplanes are already not sure is buffing them right idea. Having them even harder to kill is not what i would want to see


Point being made was that LI would let you fish and AT wouldn't, which is incorrect. Both games have sixes always hitting, AT just has additional bits you cannot opt for if the penalties would take you to that point.

A working example would be something like 40k 8th, where you would indeed be unable to hit things if you reached a 7+ to hit from modifiers.


And unhittable is not good. You can't have unhittable things in game and expect game still to work.

So 6's hit is good.


The planes are silly good already so unkillable would be bad and unkillable units are always source of npe.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2023/12/27 20:26:28


Post by: Albertorius


OR you'd need to invest some resources into AA. Coming from other editions of Epic, I personaly prefer that option... but in my preferred version of Epic, flyers don't stay on the table and die (or need to abort mission) pretty easily to the right counters.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2023/12/27 20:34:48


Post by: leopard


wonder if the way it used to work would help here, its not "a natural six always hits!" but provides a way to have a 7, 8 or 9 through a six then re-roll for a 4+, 5+ or a second 6


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2023/12/27 21:40:13


Post by: Albertorius


Ah, I forgot to say: additionally, other editions flyers' had to spend a turn rearming/refuelling after completing each mission, so at most they'd be doing stuff only half the battle.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2023/12/27 22:06:20


Post by: leopard


 Albertorius wrote:
Ah, I forgot to say: additionally, other editions flyers' had to spend a turn rearming/refuelling after completing each mission, so at most they'd be doing stuff only half the battle.


though IIRC previous editions didn't have a set number of turns, but played until some win condition was met? (IIRC usually breaking the enemy army)

and in that case the idea of "fly your attack run, then spend a turn turning round" sort of made sense, the idea they sod off to refuel and reload makes less sense but its just a reason for it to be every other turn

thinking here the trick with aircraft and how they go down is to simply not bring them on initially, except interceptors that fight at extreme range and try to stay out of enemy range - leave them off until the enemy has been thinned out a bit and its a bit safer?


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2023/12/27 22:34:59


Post by: Albertorius


Well, take into account that the "engagement scale" was different... for example, a single Epic Firefight (when two detachments met at 15cm or less, which was bolter range, and duked it out) was equal to a full 40k 4-turns battle, and the idea was that every turn was a longer amount of time than just a couple minutes, so there was a certain amount of abstraction.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2023/12/27 22:46:39


Post by: leopard


everything is an abstraction, its more find a mechanic that works, then "justify" it, in whatever way works


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2023/12/27 23:05:58


Post by: Albertorius


leopard wrote:
everything is an abstraction, its more find a mechanic that works, then "justify" it, in whatever way works


There is also that, of course.

But it justified having those cwute cardboard airfields out of the board to keep your flyers on ^^


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2023/12/27 23:15:53


Post by: leopard


 Albertorius wrote:
leopard wrote:
everything is an abstraction, its more find a mechanic that works, then "justify" it, in whatever way works


There is also that, of course.

But it justified having those cwute cardboard airfields out of the board to keep your flyers on ^^


Oh so very much yes


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2023/12/28 00:15:36


Post by: ashlevrier


SU-152 wrote:
 Crablezworth wrote:



I understand marine player's frustrations with ogryns and veletari, I think this is more an issue of how clunky combat is and how critical they've made rules like rend.


Yet Marine Missile Launchers and Dreadnoughts are way more broken than Veletari and Ogryns. It seems they forget models cost points.


Ogryns will wipe a unit of dreads in close combat. trust me i know from experence. dreads only hope is to over watch with hand bolters and kill the Ogryns before they get there. the marine missile launchers are the same as the aux walker. but the aux walker is better and can spam it. good bye airplane.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
tneva82 wrote:
That's his point. Too easy to just fish on 6's.

But seeing how strong airplanes are already not sure is buffing them right idea. Having them even harder to kill is not what i would want to see


we have stopped taking planes because its to easy to shoot them down. aux and marine players alike.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2023/12/28 02:00:12


Post by: Crablezworth


 ashlevrier wrote:
we have stopped taking planes because its to easy to shoot them down. aux and marine players alike.



Yeah my problem is the volume of fire of some units activations sorta negates the need for 6's, you're likely to get some if you're throwing like 12 shots.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2023/12/28 10:36:29


Post by: SU-152


tneva82 wrote:
 Sherrypie wrote:
tneva82 wrote:
That's his point. Too easy to just fish on 6's.

But seeing how strong airplanes are already not sure is buffing them right idea. Having them even harder to kill is not what i would want to see


Point being made was that LI would let you fish and AT wouldn't, which is incorrect. Both games have sixes always hitting, AT just has additional bits you cannot opt for if the penalties would take you to that point.

A working example would be something like 40k 8th, where you would indeed be unable to hit things if you reached a 7+ to hit from modifiers.


And unhittable is not good. You can't have unhittable things in game and expect game still to work.

So 6's hit is good.


The planes are silly good already so unkillable would be bad and unkillable units are always source of npe.


I do not agree. 6s always hit is lazy design, and makes lots of weapons, some covers, and negative modifiers useless and worthless.

The best approach is (again) Epic Armageddon: 7+, 8+, 9+ (that's rolling a 6 and then rolling again to get 4+, 5+, 6+).


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 ashlevrier wrote:
SU-152 wrote:
 Crablezworth wrote:



I understand marine player's frustrations with ogryns and veletari, I think this is more an issue of how clunky combat is and how critical they've made rules like rend.


Yet Marine Missile Launchers and Dreadnoughts are way more broken than Veletari and Ogryns. It seems they forget models cost points.


Ogryns will wipe a unit of dreads in close combat. trust me i know from experence. dreads only hope is to over watch with hand bolters and kill the Ogryns before they get there. the marine missile launchers are the same as the aux walker. but the aux walker is better and can spam it. good bye airplane.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
tneva82 wrote:
That's his point. Too easy to just fish on 6's.

But seeing how strong airplanes are already not sure is buffing them right idea. Having them even harder to kill is not what i would want to see


we have stopped taking planes because its to easy to shoot them down. aux and marine players alike.


Ogryns won't get to HtH, they will die in droves with the 6+ save (or maybe 1 or 2 stands reach base contact?). They will also die to the Dreads Light weapons (PD on top).

Again, you are missing the Armoured trait on Dreads, which makes them extremely survivable against point defense weapons.

Again, the aux walker is worse than SM missile launchers (it cost more points, which you insist in ignoring), and do not benefit from structure cover or the Armoured trait. Oh and it is actually worse vs planes than the Dread (accurate las-cannon), which you also forgot to mention.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2023/12/28 16:17:37


Post by: Formosa


the Heavy sentinal is not bad, that multi laser and missile launchers with a 4+ save is fairly solid, being able to move up before the game starts is also good.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2023/12/29 00:33:28


Post by: ashlevrier


SU-152 wrote:
tneva82 wrote:
 Sherrypie wrote:
tneva82 wrote:
That's his point. Too easy to just fish on 6's.

But seeing how strong airplanes are already not sure is buffing them right idea. Having them even harder to kill is not what i would want to see


Point being made was that LI would let you fish and AT wouldn't, which is incorrect. Both games have sixes always hitting, AT just has additional bits you cannot opt for if the penalties would take you to that point.

A working example would be something like 40k 8th, where you would indeed be unable to hit things if you reached a 7+ to hit from modifiers.


And unhittable is not good. You can't have unhittable things in game and expect game still to work.

So 6's hit is good.


The planes are silly good already so unkillable would be bad and unkillable units are always source of npe.


I do not agree. 6s always hit is lazy design, and makes lots of weapons, some covers, and negative modifiers useless and worthless.

The best approach is (again) Epic Armageddon: 7+, 8+, 9+ (that's rolling a 6 and then rolling again to get 4+, 5+, 6+).


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 ashlevrier wrote:
SU-152 wrote:
 Crablezworth wrote:



I understand marine player's frustrations with ogryns and veletari, I think this is more an issue of how clunky combat is and how critical they've made rules like rend.


Yet Marine Missile Launchers and Dreadnoughts are way more broken than Veletari and Ogryns. It seems they forget models cost points.


Ogryns will wipe a unit of dreads in close combat. trust me i know from experence. dreads only hope is to over watch with hand bolters and kill the Ogryns before they get there. the marine missile launchers are the same as the aux walker. but the aux walker is better and can spam it. good bye airplane.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
tneva82 wrote:
That's his point. Too easy to just fish on 6's.

But seeing how strong airplanes are already not sure is buffing them right idea. Having them even harder to kill is not what i would want to see


we have stopped taking planes because its to easy to shoot them down. aux and marine players alike.


Ogryns won't get to HtH, they will die in droves with the 6+ save (or maybe 1 or 2 stands reach base contact?). They will also die to the Dreads Light weapons (PD on top).

Again, you are missing the Armoured trait on Dreads, which makes them extremely survivable against point defense weapons.

Again, the aux walker is worse than SM missile launchers (it cost more points, which you insist in ignoring), and do not benefit from structure cover or the Armoured trait. Oh and it is actually worse vs planes than the Dread (accurate las-cannon), which you also forgot to mention.


your ignoring my point from experence. armoured is good. but then vanquisher pops dread. the aux walkers are better at shooting down aircraft because more dakka. they also have a free move at start of game. frag missile to clear out buildings. half my dreads have las. the other half has assult cannon. all aux walkers have the same load out.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Formosa wrote:
the Heavy sentinal is not bad, that multi laser and missile launchers with a 4+ save is fairly solid, being able to move up before the game starts is also good.


yep. they are a good option for the aux. lots of dakka for the points.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
https://youtu.be/xRsivs31swc?si=DBESxff2NCZPeHeZ


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2023/12/30 18:12:24


Post by: leopard


had another game, 1,500 again, this time rolling in the secondary objectives - which in the end didn't matter much.

one slight change we have made is that objectives within 3" of a building are moved, or the building is moved, such that infantry within a building cannot control it - may revert this when games get larger but at present removal of such is awkward.

defeat for my XIV & Auxilia, moving forward to grab ground and hold it didn't work this time, such is dice.

Aircraft did essentially nothing, I had a pair of Xiphon, that killed a Vanquisher and plinked a wound on a Malcador, opponent had one, that did nothing - but both flights being kept back to avoid massed overwatch - to be honest points would have been better used elsewhere

Think I need to change how my SA infantry are organised, I currently have two formations, which is fine, one for each side of the board with a commander in each, good on one side, naff on the other.

so far they get broken before they get to charge, managed one charge this time which was bounced by overwatch with a failed morale check.

think whats needed is an assault detachment and a stand off detachment such that its hard to break the formation before the assault one gets where it needs to be. likely needs (another) box or two so the stand off lot can basically be cheaper bodies and the Ogyrn can be in the lead.

may be looking for some suitable STL files as I need more plain bodies but don't really need a lot of the rest (though another box for more axe murdering lunatics would be good)

also seriously need to adjust the marine infantry, the rocket launcher is just too good not to be bringing more of, "ignores cover" as expected is worth its weight in gold - and is also why the Auxilia didn't live long enough

Marine infantry the last units to die though, and put out some damage.

still close at the end, scenario with three central objectives, neither of which got taken until the third turn such was the slaughter around them


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2023/12/30 18:19:54


Post by: Crablezworth


leopard wrote:
had another game, 1,500 again, this time rolling in the secondary objectives - which in the end didn't matter much.

one slight change we have made is that objectives within 3" of a building are moved, or the building is moved, such that infantry within a building cannot control it - may revert this when games get larger but at present removal of such is awkward.

defeat for my XIV & Auxilia, moving forward to grab ground and hold it didn't work this time, such is dice.

Aircraft did essentially nothing, I had a pair of Xiphon, that killed a Vanquisher and plinked a wound on a Malcador, opponent had one, that did nothing - but both flights being kept back to avoid massed overwatch - to be honest points would have been better used elsewhere

Think I need to change how my SA infantry are organised, I currently have two formations, which is fine, one for each side of the board with a commander in each, good on one side, naff on the other.

so far they get broken before they get to charge, managed one charge this time which was bounced by overwatch with a failed morale check.

think whats needed is an assault detachment and a stand off detachment such that its hard to break the formation before the assault one gets where it needs to be. likely needs (another) box or two so the stand off lot can basically be cheaper bodies and the Ogyrn can be in the lead.

may be looking for some suitable STL files as I need more plain bodies but don't really need a lot of the rest (though another box for more axe murdering lunatics would be good)

also seriously need to adjust the marine infantry, the rocket launcher is just too good not to be bringing more of, "ignores cover" as expected is worth its weight in gold - and is also why the Auxilia didn't live long enough

Marine infantry the last units to die though, and put out some damage.

still close at the end, scenario with three central objectives, neither of which got taken until the third turn such was the slaughter around them



If you search milky way on yeggi I think there's some decent bodies.


Planes I'm finding a bit frustrating, we both ran a couple yesterday and it still feels like they're too easy to destroy. I really don't want the only way for them to feel viable being a unit of like 3-4, because the sheer firepower gets insane.

Marine missile launchers are great, wish solar aux had something with a decent range for infantry that could go in units, even if it was just like a multi laser or something. I need some rapiers.





[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2023/12/30 18:35:50


Post by: leopard


yes aircraft being fragile is tempered by how they can hit quite hard, they need care, I've swapped to the sort of tactics I use with Flames mid war Panzers, think of them as glass hammers and position to limit return fire - making them your last movement activations if possible.

you limit potential targets but also limit the chance you don't get to fire at all - avoiding stuff on First Fire seems to be a good idea too

cheers for the hint, will go have a look have seen various guardsmen type models, hoping to get stuff I can use as plain bodies that don't look too out of place (even if they end up in dedicated units)

and yes the lack of organic heavy weapons for the SA is a problem

I have Tarantula, I want a decent Rapier solution, push comes I can model the carrier, the crewman may take a bit more but could just go old school, a tracked carrier and a pair of crew standing near it


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2023/12/30 18:39:07


Post by: Crablezworth


I've got about 8 tarantula painted, have you ran yours yet?


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2023/12/30 18:47:22


Post by: leopard


not yet, not finished painting, have 4 of each flavour in base & wash

have held off as agreed with regular opponent not to use stuff he doesn't have access to (will be printing him some in the new year)

they look interesting tactically

deploy too far forward and they will be easily killed, too far back and they are less useful - I think they are more a bit of a speed bump than serious threat

reasonable range on their guns, accuracy nothing special on the las-cannon one and not too hard to shove something cheaper they will lock on to in place of something heavier - their saving grace being when they fire

I'm hoping they slow down an enemy who feels obliged to kill them before coming closer, while distracting some fire from my infantry

the air defence one is likewise interesting, this has to be thrown forwards or enemy aircraft will just stay out of range while picking off your units that advance beyond them (this also makes mixed batteries harder)

I think for the points though I'm very tempted to run a few units, and make them large enough they are awkward to kill, or small enough they are a waste of decent firepower


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2023/12/30 19:15:10


Post by: Crablezworth


leopard wrote:
not yet, not finished painting, have 4 of each flavour in base & wash

have held off as agreed with regular opponent not to use stuff he doesn't have access to (will be printing him some in the new year)

they look interesting tactically

deploy too far forward and they will be easily killed, too far back and they are less useful - I think they are more a bit of a speed bump than serious threat

reasonable range on their guns, accuracy nothing special on the las-cannon one and not too hard to shove something cheaper they will lock on to in place of something heavier - their saving grace being when they fire

I'm hoping they slow down an enemy who feels obliged to kill them before coming closer, while distracting some fire from my infantry

the air defence one is likewise interesting, this has to be thrown forwards or enemy aircraft will just stay out of range while picking off your units that advance beyond them (this also makes mixed batteries harder)

I think for the points though I'm very tempted to run a few units, and make them large enough they are awkward to kill, or small enough they are a waste of decent firepower



Ya been holding off for same reason, wanted opponent to have time to paint theirs. The air defense seem great, but almost not needed yet as neither of us have a sizeable airforce just yet. I am excited about the las tarantulas, very cheap and lots of decent ranged shooting. Hoping it pairs well with smaller detachments holding objectives in the backfield.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/01 02:30:20


Post by: ashlevrier


leopard wrote:
had another game, 1,500 again, this time rolling in the secondary objectives - which in the end didn't matter much.

one slight change we have made is that objectives within 3" of a building are moved, or the building is moved, such that infantry within a building cannot control it - may revert this when games get larger but at present removal of such is awkward.

defeat for my XIV & Auxilia, moving forward to grab ground and hold it didn't work this time, such is dice.

Aircraft did essentially nothing, I had a pair of Xiphon, that killed a Vanquisher and plinked a wound on a Malcador, opponent had one, that did nothing - but both flights being kept back to avoid massed overwatch - to be honest points would have been better used elsewhere

Think I need to change how my SA infantry are organised, I currently have two formations, which is fine, one for each side of the board with a commander in each, good on one side, naff on the other.

so far they get broken before they get to charge, managed one charge this time which was bounced by overwatch with a failed morale check.

think whats needed is an assault detachment and a stand off detachment such that its hard to break the formation before the assault one gets where it needs to be. likely needs (another) box or two so the stand off lot can basically be cheaper bodies and the Ogyrn can be in the lead.

may be looking for some suitable STL files as I need more plain bodies but don't really need a lot of the rest (though another box for more axe murdering lunatics would be good)

also seriously need to adjust the marine infantry, the rocket launcher is just too good not to be bringing more of, "ignores cover" as expected is worth its weight in gold - and is also why the Auxilia didn't live long enough

Marine infantry the last units to die though, and put out some damage.

still close at the end, scenario with three central objectives, neither of which got taken until the third turn such was the slaughter around them


i played two 1650 games. i was 3rd legion the other side in both games was Aux. i lost the first and got a draw on the second.

i had 5 aircraft in my list. 3 fighters and 2 storms. the Xiphons in a group of 3 killed some tanks. the 2 storms didnt do so much. second game i used them as assult transports for the assult marines. they did good that time.

i ran two units of 12 stands of infrantry. one unit had rhinos the other didnt. but i did have just 4 rando rhinos for taking objectives and activations.

marine tanks are good for one thing i think. overwatch when the axe men come. first game i got swarmed with mass units of ogers and axe men.

second game had more tanks and less axe men and ogers.

the draw game was close. marines still have a 0 win rate in the local group. marine tanks just die unless its the heavy tank.

i may make smaller units instead of large infantry swarms. also rhinos are amazing at overwatch when the axe men come.

kind of a moment of pride is when the baneblade opened up on the rhinos and not the infantry.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/01 15:21:37


Post by: FrozenDwarf


leopard wrote:


Think I need to change how my SA infantry are organised, I currently have two formations, which is fine, one for each side of the board with a commander in each, good on one side, naff on the other.

so far they get broken before they get to charge, managed one charge this time which was bounced by overwatch with a failed morale check.

think whats needed is an assault detachment and a stand off detachment such that its hard to break the formation before the assault one gets where it needs to be. likely needs (another) box or two so the stand off lot can basically be cheaper bodies and the Ogyrn can be in the lead.



I think you should drop one infantry formation and boost it for durability. It is the tanks that are the work horses in solar, not the infantry. How big are your core units when you use two sub cohort formations??

In my 1500p force i am planning on using only 1 sub-cohort with 3 core units of 12 bases (8 las + 4 flame), 8 ogryns, 8 sentinels and 8 storms. That puts me at strenght 51, bp 26. Then i allso plan to add some russes with the defualt cannon instead of air support. bp of 26 using just the content of one infantry box may not sound too strong, but as a solar you are ment to sit back with the infantry until the armor element has done the heavy lifting.

Allso solar dont have ground transport models, dont have light armor and dont have artillery, when we get that survivability of the infantry should go up a little.



[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/01 16:20:37


Post by: leopard


core units currently run eight strong, aware thats on the small side

the four lasrifle, a pair with flamers and a pair of Ogyrn

built that way as I had one box to start with, then gained a second, thinking of doubling them up to be honest.

while at 8 strong they die the interesting bit is more that they break before they die, to the point that I do double them up its going to be asymetric with one unit being basically just the las rifles who sit back - the job being to hold ground, survive and stop the formation breaking, while the other gets boosted with six Ogryn and six flamers

they have a pretty simple role currently, advance on the flanks, letting marines handle the centre, and distract enemy fire from the marines - they need to look scary while not being too many points.

not run their armour as yet, need to jiggle the list about a bit for a 2k game thats coming up


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Follow up: game coming up, someone I've not played yet, apparently the local club have a few who have fiddled with the points system and force design slightly

you have a point value, main and allies as usual, but cannot buy knights or titans with it, then there is either an extra total which can only be used for knights & titans or a set number of knights & titans get added.

the thinking is the point values are so out of whack as to neutralise them and remove the ability to forgo the titan and bring a lot of extra ants to swarm the board with - while still permitting the bigger toys to be used.

I actually think, not having tried it yet, this is perhaps not a bad way to go


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/01 16:30:37


Post by: Skimask Mohawk


If you look at the units and what they actually do, a tercio isn't much except a vehicle for more ogryn and veltaris, or a screen for valuable shooting units. They have very basic shooting and no melee flexibility unlike tacticals. And if the tercio isnt a great unit, the current selection of units means the sub cohort isn't either.

Until the next expansion when they hopefully release a light armour, more transports and artillery unit, the pioneer company is the best bet. It still gives you all the good infantry options, without the tercio tax, with access to bastion, with two slots for air, and giving all your infantry infiltrate (compensating for the lack of transports).

Ogryns and veltaris seem to be a bit of an issue for a lot of people. They have a lot of ease of use with the 15" march and able to melt through every terrain feature people commonly put on the table (obstructing and structures both allow full infantry move), while denying los to them. New people tend to not not read rend until it's time to melee and assume dreads or whatever can take them. Once more people get access to rapiers, I have a feeling the ogryns and veltaris will be easier to interact with; 120 for 18 30" 4+ -1barrage shots does wonders at picking off infantry.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/01 16:41:40


Post by: leopard


have got twelve rapiers sitting waiting primer arriving this week currently, six thudd gun and six laser destroyer - and I agree the lasrifle bodies are more or less a tax (though useful for sitting on an objective once its taken as in cover they still take effort to shift)

will be moving to a Pioneer formation for the Auxilia shortly, basically avoiding the need for transports as they can largely deploy where they will need to be and can then stay there

likewise Marines likely going for a Garrison formation for infantry so similar reasons. in both cases getting the assault bodies somewhere useful

and with barrages more likely transports likely become even more important to shelter from them


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/02 00:38:28


Post by: ashlevrier


okay so played a 1500 point game today. almost a mirror match against a marine player. my take away from this game. seams like its very easy to get a large lead on VPs if you can nab a objective. i just needed his home objective for one turn to get a win. at 1500 it still fells like a knife edge. i had his home objective for two turns. that would have been 18 VPs alone.

he had two aircraft i had one. i shot down one of his with a single tank. go 6s. the other got shot down by my plane. but mine was also shot down. aircraft are just to expensive to get hit with a lucky 6.

deap striking terminators are what gave me the win. landed on the home objective and just pulled a dwarf. come and take it.

i was more aggressive so i had more of the board early.

so my first marine win. but seeing as how it was a marine vs marine fight. its kind of a wash.

preads did okay this time. i kept them at 22 inches and just shot at other tanks. sics did meh. one got a shoot down a plane. my kratos all failed me. but that was more to do with rolls not the tanks them selves.

MVPs again is the humble Rhino. little guys all over the map taking pot shots at infantry. or in the case of two of them hunting down tanks with multi meltas. they did get a tank kill this time


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/02 01:09:17


Post by: Crablezworth


 ashlevrier wrote:
okay so played a 1500 point game today. almost a mirror match against a marine player. my take away from this game. seams like its very easy to get a large lead on VPs if you can nab a objective. i just needed his home objective for one turn to get a win. at 1500 it still fells like a knife edge. i had his home objective for two turns. that would have been 18 VPs alone.

he had two aircraft i had one. i shot down one of his with a single tank. go 6s. the other got shot down by my plane. but mine was also shot down. aircraft are just to expensive to get hit with a lucky 6.

deap striking terminators are what gave me the win. landed on the home objective and just pulled a dwarf. come and take it.

i was more aggressive so i had more of the board early.

so my first marine win. but seeing as how it was a marine vs marine fight. its kind of a wash.

preads did okay this time. i kept them at 22 inches and just shot at other tanks. sics did meh. one got a shoot down a plane. my kratos all failed me. but that was more to do with rolls not the tanks them selves.

MVPs again is the humble Rhino. little guys all over the map taking pot shots at infantry. or in the case of two of them hunting down tanks with multi meltas. they did get a tank kill this time


Yeah planes it just feels like the message is you must take like 3-4 to a unit and go full ham, it really sucks how expensive they are when you just want a one or two on their own. As you said the lucky 6's are too easy to come by. I think there are two possible solutions, one is allow jink like a feel no pain save, or weapons without skyfire can only shoot planes at half range, it'd cut way down on the bs overwatches.

The progressive scoring is not something I'm a particular fan of, have you considered trying a scenario but doing end game scoring for objectives? Could still do the secondary thing but it helps cut down on one side getting a big lead early on.

Deep striking terminators are very good, being able to reliably choose when they want to come in is very strong. I've yet to see them miss hap but I also don't really like that as a balance, would much rather they get delayed or placed by opponent that just wiped out.

Nice to hear about rhnos with meltas hunting down tanks, that sounds awesome


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/02 01:15:40


Post by: ingtaer


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


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/02 03:23:45


Post by: chaos0xomega


I'm building one - 3 Thawks, 2 Fire Raptors, 3 Xiphons, 4 Storm Eagles (so far), but haven't played yet.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/02 13:44:18


Post by: Skimask Mohawk


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


It's pretty much the most specialised, most money/resource intensive to print, so id imagine not many people have ran a full version of it.

Hard to imagine it's not viable though. You can dump full units of assault marines and terminators (and min units of dreads) out of hawks, which can also use their hellstrikes and turbo lasers to do the hangback and snipe out of Overwatch.

Needs proper play though. When you have so much choice for movement and what to target you can make more mistakes.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/02 17:19:20


Post by: Crablezworth


I think anyone who played AI likely has a leg up in terms of being able to run one. It's more difficult to gage how marine air force will do because of 2 factors, the first being they need, imo, a fix to their heavy bolters to bring them in line with solar aux, not being able to shoot down other flyers seems sorta silly. Second, most of the marine flyers have hover, this is actually a massive deal because they can switch from being in los to the whole world and vice versa, to actually being where they are physically and drawing los from their accordingly. So the concern in general with flyers seems to be flying on and maximizing long range weapons like 25-30 inch ranged missiles, it's sortof a middling threat with only a plane or two but if a huge portion of the opponents army are flyers it could be quite scary without aa.


My problem with flyers currently is they really do feel like paper for the most part. We've both only ran a few per game, but that's sorta the problem, detachments of one aren't exactly resilient and it's shame given their elevated point costs, often approaching the cost of a baneblade. That said, until the local game shifts to being more flyer heavy on both sides, I almost want to make jink an additional save that can always be taken. I'd probably regret that change once we're both rocking larger detachments of planes but for now it really sucks that garbage ground fire en masse actually stands a pretty good chance of shooting down a plane, which really isn't a fair model of how AA works even now, there is quality aspect seeking/guided missiles that are very expensive that excel at shooting down air craft, and then there are aa units firing hard shells/bullets and they waste a tonne of ammo and often can't hit fixed wing aircraft unless they're very low flying, they're much more of a threat to choppers. In real life you had whole iraqi villages and cities dumping ak fire into apache's doing very little. If modelled like LI every 10th ak would be downing a boron armoured combat chopper worth god knows how much, I don't doubt an autocannon could down an aircraft no problem, but it has to hit first, same with the insanity of tanks firing their turrets at planes, they could maybe hit a chopper if it was just hovering but a fixed wing air craft with a tank cannon? Seems next to impossible.

I could also see only allowing weapons without skyfire to shoot planes within half range or something. It's also fair to say that, it's not like AA is particularly expensive for marines or solar aux, its just that currently only people who already have appropriate models or printers have AA. The dedicated aa missiles on the acastus are very very good.

I think the reality for now without any alteration is flyers are sorta a bit cynical in that one is sorta forced to either be a little pedantic on the pre measuring side of things to get an idea of potential threat radius of enemy fire/overwatch fire. What messed me up first time running flyers was thinking for some reason HAD to move the full movement stat like with flyers in 30/40k, but it seems like with that not being the case the name of the game is come in short and dump long range fire to neutralize any threats first, or do some while coming in in hover mode to also now limit possible incoming fire because los matters now.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/02 17:32:40


Post by: leopard


to be fair though, its not exactly hard to kill a baneblade either

when three predators stick out six AP -1 shots, three re-rolling to hit and a 4+ or a 6 v fliers they are reasonably likely to get enough to splat a baneblade or a flier. something like a sicaran detachment with higher rate of fire and 'tracking'

have been bringing one or two Xiphon in here, towards the flanks, and aiming to be in range (just) of the desired target, which itself is a more forwards located enemy armoured unit to minimise return fire

sometimes soaking overwatch from say a quartet of Kratos for a turn can be worth their loss


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/02 17:39:30


Post by: Crablezworth


leopard wrote:
to be fair though, its not exactly hard to kill a baneblade either

when three predators stick out six AP -1 shots, three re-rolling to hit and a 4+ or a 6 v fliers they are reasonably likely to get enough to splat a baneblade or a flier. something like a sicaran detachment with higher rate of fire and 'tracking'

have been bringing one or two Xiphon in here, towards the flanks, and aiming to be in range (just) of the desired target, which itself is a more forwards located enemy armoured unit to minimise return fire

sometimes soaking overwatch from say a quartet of Kratos for a turn can be worth their loss


My issue is, some players are a bit more obsessive/contemplative than others and I fear every time a plane or detachment of them come in it will take them or me far too long to figure out where to place them given the unlimited ability to measure everything. This only gets worse in larger 2v2 games imo, I'm getting flashbacks of taking 20 minutes to decide where to put deep strikers only for them to get intercepted by broadsides no matter where you placed them



[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/02 17:47:40


Post by: chaos0xomega


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


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

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

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


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/02 17:53:39


Post by: Crablezworth


chaos0xomega wrote:
I think anyone who played AI likely has a leg up in terms of being able to run one.


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

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

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



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

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

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


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/02 17:59:05


Post by: leopard


cost is all over for the whole game, GW seem to have been doing that a lot recently, just phoning points in. have expect some suggestion about "power levels" to be the solution here

(when in practice the two turrets of the Leman Russ for example should just have been two different units in the "Battle Tank" slot, at different costs, with maybe the option to add one to a normal squadron for a set cost)

I think once the kit for the tarantula comes out air power will be less common

there is also a solution to people who take an age to decide anything, start packing up - make a few comments about opponents dropping dead of old age etc first, but when people are that slow its a problem for you, basically stop playing them

have one locally who seems to need to map through every single option, measuring, placing dice etc before deciding anything (this is in other games mostly)


Automatically Appended Next Post:
side note, do think grounded aircraft and an airbase will make for a quite interesting board, will have to adapt some of the STL I have with landing gear deployed and find something suitable for hangers/control towers etc

overwatch on advance.. personally I'd allow it, with the detachment determining how many dice it has for each weapon

then halving them


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Further thought

Legions is still a new game, its got one book with units in, its ripe to make a change before it gets too developed

move to a D12, rolls and is nicer to hold than a D10, easy to convert, but provides half increments to what we currently have

e.g. a las cannon goes from a 4+ to a 7+

then maybe run with a -1 when over half range, so the current "hits on a six" becomes "hits on 11+", and can take the modifier to be a 12


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/02 18:38:00


Post by: chaos0xomega


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


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/02 18:46:46


Post by: leopard


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


nor me, the HH boxed games, well Burning of Prospero, certainly used others

amazed they haven't done something with like a "D14" and a trademarked shape


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/02 21:31:46


Post by: SU-152


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


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

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


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/02 21:38:04


Post by: Crablezworth


SU-152 wrote:
 ingtaer wrote:
Has anyone tried running an Aerial Assault detachment yet? Is it viable?


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

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


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


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/02 21:39:45


Post by: SU-152


chaos0xomega wrote:
I think anyone who played AI likely has a leg up in terms of being able to run one.


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

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

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


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

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


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Crablezworth wrote:
chaos0xomega wrote:
I think anyone who played AI likely has a leg up in terms of being able to run one.


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

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

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



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

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

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


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


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/02 21:54:39


Post by: Crablezworth


LOL


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


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/02 22:24:41


Post by: leopard


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


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/02 22:57:41


Post by: Crablezworth


Now I really really really need rapier mole mortars





[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/02 23:34:08


Post by: ashlevrier


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


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


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/03 00:35:54


Post by: ingtaer


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


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/03 01:30:45


Post by: chaos0xomega


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

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


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/03 07:56:12


Post by: SamusDrake


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

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

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


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/03 08:58:24


Post by: Pacific


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


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

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


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/03 09:44:19


Post by: Crablezworth


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

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

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


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


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/03 11:11:32


Post by: SU-152


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


Hmm what do you mean?

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


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/03 11:31:28


Post by: leopard


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

it is what it is sadly

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


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/03 11:58:12


Post by: Crablezworth


SU-152 wrote:
 Crablezworth wrote:
SamusDrake wrote:
Even an armiger has 2 wounds, a shooting attack with demolisher and engine killer and a cc attack with rend for like 60pts. That's the smallest knight unit and it's still insanely strong.


Hmm what do you mean?

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


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


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

it is what it is sadly

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


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

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



[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/03 12:11:24


Post by: Pacific


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

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


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/03 12:30:26


Post by: leopard


personally I prefer the way Flames of War handles closing fire

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

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

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

works quite nicely and is quick

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


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/04 15:15:45


Post by: SamusDrake


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


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



[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/04 15:28:00


Post by: leopard


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


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/04 15:34:06


Post by: Crablezworth


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


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



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

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


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/04 16:32:57


Post by: SamusDrake


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



[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/04 16:56:26


Post by: leopard


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



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


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/04 19:15:59


Post by: Crablezworth


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


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

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

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


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/04 20:08:31


Post by: leopard


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

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


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/04 20:30:12


Post by: SamusDrake


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


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/04 21:30:11


Post by: Crablezworth


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

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


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


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/04 21:46:44


Post by: SamusDrake


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


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/04 21:49:30


Post by: leopard


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


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/04 22:41:45


Post by: SamusDrake


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


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/04 23:08:49


Post by: Mad Doc Grotsnik


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


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/04 23:49:25


Post by: SamusDrake


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


I was asking about Titanicus, not Legions.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/04 23:52:26


Post by: Sherrypie


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


I was asking about Titanicus, not Legions.


Yes. At the beginning of the rulebook, where they go over the anatomy of the terminals, it is stated that titans must have a weapon in all slots available.


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


That is very far from my experience, having played a lot of Titanicus. Sitting tight and letting the other side run the maneuvering is a pretty surefire way to lose almost any mission.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/05 10:40:41


Post by: SamusDrake


 Sherrypie wrote:


Yes. At the beginning of the rulebook, where they go over the anatomy of the terminals, it is stated that titans must have a weapon in all slots available.



Page 28, last two paragraphs...yup. Cheers for that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Sherrypie wrote:

That is very far from my experience, having played a lot of Titanicus. Sitting tight and letting the other side run the maneuvering is a pretty surefire way to lose almost any mission.


Same here. Quite a few times my Titans have refused to go slightly into the night...


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/05 16:01:16


Post by: Crablezworth


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


I was asking about Titanicus, not Legions.


Yes. At the beginning of the rulebook, where they go over the anatomy of the terminals, it is stated that titans must have a weapon in all slots available.


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


That is very far from my experience, having played a lot of Titanicus. Sitting tight and letting the other side run the maneuvering is a pretty surefire way to lose almost any mission.



Ya but that's the problem, titanicus's missions were awful. And the tagline for the open engine war cards was like "no two games ever need be the same again" and I can't help but feel that's titanicus's problem, it's impenetrable and when it did try to do match play it made magic card hands a core component. I loved the models and the setting but AT just is difficult to love, much happier with LI even in it's half released state.



What I'm loving about LI is its much more fluid when it comes to orders and actually playing, and a lot less demanding on sideboard space, I can't stress how much of a big deal that is in terms of getting in new blood, telling friends the 130 dollar warlord titan box didn't even come with a thick card terminal and they'd have to buy those separately was like watching most potential players interest in AT die in real time.





[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/05 16:05:04


Post by: leopard


AT was, and is fun, though the point on cards being "extra" and, invariably, out of stock basically killed it locally. a few have it, doesn't get played much and seems a game you need to play a fair bit to get the hang of

but also then when you have played a fair bit, someone who hasn't has no chance


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/05 16:13:00


Post by: Crablezworth


leopard wrote:
AT was, and is fun, though the point on cards being "extra" and, invariably, out of stock basically killed it locally. a few have it, doesn't get played much and seems a game you need to play a fair bit to get the hang of

but also then when you have played a fair bit, someone who hasn't has no chance


The strat card thing was what made the decision in the matched play book to have hands of cards so baffling, like outside of the starter strat cards, making a core game mechaninc like reliant on cards no one can get, it just seemed like everything was done to ensure it remained the nichiest niche game to ever niche. LI I can basically gift a friend some tokens and he's a third of the way there to being able to play.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/05 16:35:24


Post by: leopard


yes have printed a few sets of tokens off here, really not a fan of cards, heck its why Flames V4 isn't a game I play..

"optional" command cards without which many forces flat out don't work or are not even possible.. where the details are not in the book

reference cards are fine, when all the information is in the damned book

I think AT was crippled by the "oh look, X Wing sells!" mentality, except GW being GW took the cards out of the box and made them virtually impossible to get hold of

Necromunda is similar with the tactics cards, its annoying


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/05 16:52:34


Post by: Crablezworth


leopard wrote:
yes have printed a few sets of tokens off here, really not a fan of cards, heck its why Flames V4 isn't a game I play..

"optional" command cards without which many forces flat out don't work or are not even possible.. where the details are not in the book

reference cards are fine, when all the information is in the damned book

I think AT was crippled by the "oh look, X Wing sells!" mentality, except GW being GW took the cards out of the box and made them virtually impossible to get hold of

Necromunda is similar with the tactics cards, its annoying



At didn't know what it wanted to be, it ran a lot better stripped down more like a board game at like 3-7 activations, to add all the bloat on top of a game that is random af when titans die like all the faction rules, pretending knights were a faction and then book after book of paint swatches and slight rules updates when the more significant things really were the new weapon releases or unit releases.


LI for all its faults still feels like a fairly weel oiled machine, if you take away secondary objectives from most missions/scenarios they're fairly high speed low drag in terms of deployment or pre game stuff, the only downside of fixed objective locations is it can make board setup a bit stale/limited but it's nice and fast for events. AT, a lot of events used the open engine war cards which, as cool of an idea as they are, if you used like 7 cards for a mission it was just silly, even with the cards on hand as a reference it was like a lengthy choose your own adventure take on mission making, some planet effects or missions had paragraphs of stuff to read just on one card. LI is immediately much more accessible and if it shares any limitation with AT it's new players needing to get their hands on enough small scale terrain.



[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/05 16:57:05


Post by: leopard


we have adapted the objectives to say no building can be within 3", to prevent infantry camping in a building claiming them

and yes the AT cards for tertiary objectives were odd, it wasn't a bad idea, but didn't seem to fit the size of the game


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/05 18:35:01


Post by: Pacific


That's a shame you can't do that as I'm games of Epic I always liked placing objectives on specific things that meant something: factories, a runway, buildings, hill overlooking a valley etc. or perhaps on mini diorama counters. Rather than having 'patch of grass B' it felt it added some cool visual narrative to the game.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/05 18:45:09


Post by: lord_blackfang


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


Page 53, all card slots on terminals must be filled.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/05 18:51:45


Post by: leopard


 Pacific wrote:
That's a shame you can't do that as I'm games of Epic I always liked placing objectives on specific things that meant something: factories, a runway, buildings, hill overlooking a valley etc. or perhaps on mini diorama counters. Rather than having 'patch of grass B' it felt it added some cool visual narrative to the game.


oh it can be done, and when more stuff is out it will be, just at present infantry in a building take a bit of shifting, once more options land and stuff is back in stock.. easier


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/05 19:27:24


Post by: SamusDrake


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


Page 53, all card slots on terminals must be filled.


Well done. Its rather amusing how the paragraph, on page 53, refers to page 53 of the manual.

But it never crossed my mind before as it seemed bizarre why one wouldn't take at least the missile launcher. Its just the idea of adding a weight feature, and how a Reaver might lose some to become faster. And even if one could, I suppose one would have to add some detail to the top to cover up the connection, where a magnet may reside...

But yes, cheers for that.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/06 00:20:58


Post by: Sherrypie


 Crablezworth wrote:

Ya but that's the problem, titanicus's missions were awful. And the tagline for the open engine war cards was like "no two games ever need be the same again" and I can't help but feel that's titanicus's problem, it's impenetrable and when it did try to do match play it made magic card hands a core component. I loved the models and the setting but AT just is difficult to love, much happier with LI even in it's half released state.



Can't agree with that at all, really. I know your local scene has a particular taste on mirrored missions, whereas I find the variation and asymmetry in AT missions great in general and moreso in accordance with the way that game in particular is designed to operate in as situations develop on the table. As for the impenetrability, eh. AT is an involved game from the get-go, but for missions you just pick one of the multiple ways to generate a mission and go, I can't see how that's particularly hard. You don't need to know whether to pick the rulebook or the deck or the campaign book or the matched play guide, they all work. I've never had a problem with a new player not being able to give their opinion on what to play by just proposing this or that.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/06 14:24:35


Post by: Mad Doc Grotsnik


Now I’ve got my infantry painted and based, I can better visualise what a Formation might look like.

Man, the Demi-Company is really restrictive compared to what I have and what’s commercially available.

Definitely going to have to field a Legion Armoured Company I think.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/06 16:18:37


Post by: Crablezworth


 Sherrypie wrote:
 Crablezworth wrote:

Ya but that's the problem, titanicus's missions were awful. And the tagline for the open engine war cards was like "no two games ever need be the same again" and I can't help but feel that's titanicus's problem, it's impenetrable and when it did try to do match play it made magic card hands a core component. I loved the models and the setting but AT just is difficult to love, much happier with LI even in it's half released state.



I can't see how that's particularly hard.



It's actually a massive ask, I get the benefit of endless, limitless mission variables and tertiery's ect but this borders on asking me to build a game for them. This is the sandbox problem, this is the problem of video games like arma 3, if there's no limit to scope or guidance, it really just a collection of stuff/assets/models and maps, and that's arma's problem, for the limitless possibilities it represents, few people are making a game out of it, most mods are just assets, there have been great mods in the past like dayz, but sadly a game few play is what happens with sandboxe's . For weekly or semi regular gaming, the scope needs to be realistic. LI is much more grounded in that regard, there's only 12 missions/scenarios currently.

LI you can summarize what happened over the course of a battle faster than you could read a titanicus mission, I made custom missions with the open engine war cards with fluff descriptions and even I hate them, it took 5 minutes to read the damn mission/scenario and even longer to comprehend it. LI you can look down, see the deployment map of objectives and the scoring and you're rolling dice. Don't get me wrong, I fear LI has perhaps thrown the baby out with the bathwater compared to AT in terms of missions, the lack of much variance in deployment maps is something I don't love about LI, AT didn't lack for creativity and options in that area, it just had way way too much.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Now I’ve got my infantry painted and based, I can better visualise what a Formation might look like.

Man, the Demi-Company is really restrictive compared to what I have and what’s commercially available.

Definitely going to have to field a Legion Armoured Company I think.



May humbly suggest fielding as many kratos as possible, they're great


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/06 16:23:16


Post by: Mad Doc Grotsnik


Oh I have eight of those. Well. Four built, four to be built today.

Second box was a proper blessing. FLGS’ system said they had no stock, yet I found one on their shelf. So naturally I snaffled it.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/06 16:24:48


Post by: Crablezworth


 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Oh I have eight of those. Well. Four built, four to be built today.

Second box was a proper blessing. FLGS’ system said they had no stock, yet I found one on their shelf. So naturally I snaffled it.


Accurate hull lascannons are great.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/06 16:30:04


Post by: Mad Doc Grotsnik


I’ve gone with Autocannons to make my Kratos nice all-rounders.

This may prove folly in the future, but I don’t really care


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/06 17:07:54


Post by: leopard


eight Kratos...

bully...



[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/06 17:23:16


Post by: Mad Doc Grotsnik


Just buying what I can get my digits on!


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/06 17:32:37


Post by: leopard


Kratos are evil...

this opinion is in no way shaped by an opponent who runs a detachment of four that tend to obliterate whatever they are pointed and and have enough dice to be a very good flak battery too


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/06 20:17:06


Post by: Mad Doc Grotsnik


First list scrawled, based on what I now have assembled.

Whilst infantry are dirt cheap, I’m impressed by how quickly they tot up. Also, the Demi-Company is not as restrictive as I first thought. And I’ve some space left to squeeze in the next eight Tactical Legionaire bases that are waiting to go. Think I’ll add in Plasma Gunners and Missile Launcher as their upgrades, and then expand the Terminators and Assault Marines which currently stand as Support detachments in their own right.

I’ll also admit to having been a bit dubious about how you expand Tactical Detachments with bells and whistles. But visually, I now really really like it!


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/06 21:14:37


Post by: leopard


 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
First list scrawled, based on what I now have assembled.

Whilst infantry are dirt cheap, I’m impressed by how quickly they tot up. Also, the Demi-Company is not as restrictive as I first thought. And I’ve some space left to squeeze in the next eight Tactical Legionaire bases that are waiting to go. Think I’ll add in Plasma Gunners and Missile Launcher as their upgrades, and then expand the Terminators and Assault Marines which currently stand as Support detachments in their own right.

I’ll also admit to having been a bit dubious about how you expand Tactical Detachments with bells and whistles. But visually, I now really really like it!


the tactical bodies are largely ablative wounds for the more useful rocket launchers and plasma guys, though can do work up close. you don't need many more than your opponent but you do want to out number them when assaulting.

there is certainly going to be a balance point where more bodies doesn't really help but fewer means breaking easily, not found it yet

running eight stand units here, which I think are a bit small, I do have a couple more but need more Rhinos to run them, or to have one unit on foot but to date the mobility, and ability to shrug of small arms is useful


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/06 23:45:20


Post by: lord_blackfang


 Sherrypie wrote:
Can't agree with that at all, really. I know your local scene has a particular taste on mirrored missions, whereas I find the variation and asymmetry in AT missions great in general and moreso in accordance with the way that game in particular is designed to operate in as situations develop on the table. As for the impenetrability, eh. AT is an involved game from the get-go, but for missions you just pick one of the multiple ways to generate a mission and go, I can't see how that's particularly hard. You don't need to know whether to pick the rulebook or the deck or the campaign book or the matched play guide, they all work. I've never had a problem with a new player not being able to give their opinion on what to play by just proposing this or that.


Just came back from a 1850 pts game of AT (it took 3 times as long as a 1500 pt game of LI on the table opposite)

Have to say, as a community who are just getting into AT it's pretty confusing, nobody online seems to be playing quite the same rules, the book that sounds like it would be the definitive matched play document is out of print, and nobody can give me a straight answer on how many stratagem point I get.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/07 01:43:23


Post by: chaos0xomega


Yep, sounds like the typical "specoalist" game in the modern day after a few too many rulebooks.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/07 01:58:39


Post by: Crablezworth


 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I’ve gone with Autocannons to make my Kratos nice all-rounders.

This may prove folly in the future, but I don’t really care


Autocannons are ok, but the range band doesn't mesh as well with the battlecannon at 20 inches, the lascannons are ideal because they do. The autocannons are still decent, but i wouldn't recommend them for all kratos. I'd avoid bolters unless you're doing the melta turret. I'd especially avoid bolters in the hull if you're doing battlecannon, the autocannons or las in the hull have the accurate trait where as the bolters in the hull do not, you can always take bolter sponsons but just keep in mind the hull ones really do compete with superieror choices in the auto/las because they're effectively twin-linked, you re-roll misses.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
chaos0xomega wrote:
Yep, sounds like the typical "specoalist" game in the modern day after a few too many rulebooks.


AT can be a great game sorta stripped down, but its in some ways an objectively sillier game, like how knights work is just overly punitive to knight banners, you can like see 1 knight of 3 and kill all 3 on account of how activations and weapons fire are resolved, LI is actually much more gradiated and thoughtful in terms of wound pools and los.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/07 11:17:14


Post by: MarkNorfolk


Well, that serves me right for missing the Accurate trait. I’ve put bolsters on the hull and lascannons on the sponsons. Oh well. I’ll just have to cope.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/07 14:57:23


Post by: Crablezworth


MarkNorfolk wrote:
Well, that serves me right for missing the Accurate trait. I’ve put bolsters on the hull and lascannons on the sponsons. Oh well. I’ll just have to cope.


Is there still time to rip off the las and put bolter sponsons? At least all bolter works well with melta turret, especially for clearing infantry out of structures.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/07 15:42:19


Post by: MarkNorfolk


 Crablezworth wrote:
MarkNorfolk wrote:
Well, that serves me right for missing the Accurate trait. I’ve put bolsters on the hull and lascannons on the sponsons. Oh well. I’ll just have to cope.


Is there still time to rip off the las and put bolter sponsons? At least all bolter works well with melta turret, especially for clearing infantry out of structures.


Nah. All set in place. I’ll just make do with a suboptimal load out.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/07 16:24:23


Post by: ashlevrier


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


your biggest problem is going to be getting shot down. you can do pop up attacks with skimmers. i dont remember is dedicated transports can do that. but a TH is scary if it can.


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

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

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


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


i one shot a knight with 3 of the marine fighters. 12 dice hitting on 4s half with rerolls. -1 AP. but to be fair it almost 300 points in AC against 180 in knight


Automatically Appended Next Post:
leopard wrote:
personally I prefer the way Flames of War handles closing fire

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

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

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

works quite nicely and is quick

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


i love flames. they also have the best missions.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/07 16:34:20


Post by: tneva82


Well that's about average. And yes still too lethal(should be 540 pts) but it's common in GW games that things are overly lethal. 300 vs 180 to in average one shot is actually on good side in terms of durability for a GW game.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/07 16:44:57


Post by: leopard


GW don't seem to have a decent handle on how durable things should be or how deadly they should be, this applies in virtually all their games really


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/07 16:49:29


Post by: tneva82


And that generally bleeds to players who look at can X point one shot Y and if not they complain how X is bad...

Well guess it's bad in terms of GW games but that just shows how twisted GW game lethality is...


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/07 17:09:28


Post by: leopard


tneva82 wrote:
And that generally bleeds to players who look at can X point one shot Y and if not they complain how X is bad...

Well guess it's bad in terms of GW games but that just shows how twisted GW game lethality is...


yes does seem to be "this can't one shot X, therefore this is terrible", regardless of cost, and when it can its "overpriced"

trouble is the real issue is stuff doesn't scale right

one Vanquisher round with a 50% to hit and a 66% to kill may not seem over powered, and indeed against a tank squadron of a similar size its not too bad given its only one shot. Some of the cannons are twin shot which becomes more problematic, but then you have your Titan out for a quite stroll, minding its own business and comes across roughly its points in Vanquishers, 6 of them and now there is more of a problem as they have a not unreasonable chance to one shot the thing. and to be fair with suitable weapons it can potentially return the favour.

to me thats out of whack, yes a proper anti tank round should be able to kill a tank, no question there, however 300+ points of X should not be able to kill 300 points of Y in a single round with any reasonable probability, even doing it over two rounds sucks

if not careful you have "Team Yankee" syndrome, where if its seen, its dead (probably) so the game becomes about not being seen, and eventually that bush you hide behind gets shot at.

pretty much all GW games are the same, Yahtzee with models, roll enough dice, it dies, especially when you remove the modifiers that Battlefront added, e.g. harder to hit at longer range, a target that itself isn't firing can be harder to hit, cover or concealment makes you harder to hit, and more than a 6 needed and you cannot be hit

weirdly it works, its not that easy to get to the magic 7+ to hit, Team Yankee makes it harder, Flames is easier as TY lets armour ignore a lot of the modifiers for range, smoke etc

however here stuff dies, too quickly, movement is a bit weird but if you want a five turn limit (which with progressive scoring is needed unless you can what you can pick up from any objective on its own) but it works, I think the number of dice rolled needs to scale in a non-linear way though, or the chances of a kill needs to be reduced (though not with 3+ saves on all infantry), potentially more wounds on things, but also maybe tag with the save roll, so for "anti tank" weapons firing at armour, a save roll of a "1" means it does an extra wound. now if a normal tank has two wounds you can still one shot them, maybe, but are more likely firing the six shots, getting three hits and maybe killing one and damaging one, not killing two

then larger stuff gets more wounds, not vastly more, the aim is to increase survivability, not make models immune to damage, they will grind down, it just takes longer

as things stand why would any faction in the game universe invest in a tank? when one group with a few rocket launchers are likely far cheaper to recruit and train than the tank is to build and its crew to train and in a lot of cases the infantry are better?

infantry and light stuff like scout walkers get one wound, ditto weapons platforms, armoured dreadnaughts and medium tanks get two, heavy tanks like the Kratos and Land Raiders maybe three. super heavies 4-6 depending on that they are, or more, e.g. Capitol Imperialis. then titans more - but with various weapons able to do more than one point of damage, e.g. via the "engine killer" rule

small stuff can grind down armour, just takes longer, heavier stuff becomes the best choice to take on heavier stuff, and armour can support an infantry advance without evaporating, making anti infantry armour viable


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/07 18:00:00


Post by: SU-152


 ashlevrier wrote:


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

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

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


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


i one shot a knight with 3 of the marine fighters. 12 dice hitting on 4s half with rerolls. -1 AP. but to be fair it almost 300 points in AC against 180 in knight

.


180 points of SM missile launcher will one shot that knight. Or 150 of TH will probably do it too so...


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/07 18:29:22


Post by: tneva82


Missiles yes, th 2 wounds(remember -3 makes saves on 5+ and armourbane ignored with ion shield so it's flat save of 4+)


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/07 18:41:01


Post by: SamusDrake


Still swatting up for this evening's game, and loving the fact that the order symbols are also featured on the AT order dice...

...are you pondering what I'm pondering, Pinky?



[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/07 18:53:50


Post by: leopard


SamusDrake wrote:
Still swatting up for this evening's game, and loving the fact that the order symbols are also featured on the AT order dice...

...are you pondering what I'm pondering, Pinky?



keep in mind orders need to be placed in secret though..

the counters the game comes with are both rubbish and far too few in number


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/07 19:03:29


Post by: SamusDrake


Of course, not for a proper 2-player mode. But it might be the beginnings of a solo mode...


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/07 19:21:12


Post by: Crablezworth


leopard wrote:
tneva82 wrote:
And that generally bleeds to players who look at can X point one shot Y and if not they complain how X is bad...

Well guess it's bad in terms of GW games but that just shows how twisted GW game lethality is...


yes does seem to be "this can't one shot X, therefore this is terrible", regardless of cost, and when it can its "overpriced"

trouble is the real issue is stuff doesn't scale right

one Vanquisher round with a 50% to hit and a 66% to kill may not seem over powered, and indeed against a tank squadron of a similar size its not too bad given its only one shot. Some of the cannons are twin shot which becomes more problematic, but then you have your Titan out for a quite stroll, minding its own business and comes across roughly its points in Vanquishers, 6 of them and now there is more of a problem as they have a not unreasonable chance to one shot the thing. and to be fair with suitable weapons it can potentially return the favour.

to me thats out of whack, yes a proper anti tank round should be able to kill a tank, no question there, however 300+ points of X should not be able to kill 300 points of Y in a single round with any reasonable probability, even doing it over two rounds sucks

if not careful you have "Team Yankee" syndrome, where if its seen, its dead (probably) so the game becomes about not being seen, and eventually that bush you hide behind gets shot at.

pretty much all GW games are the same, Yahtzee with models, roll enough dice, it dies, especially when you remove the modifiers that Battlefront added, e.g. harder to hit at longer range, a target that itself isn't firing can be harder to hit, cover or concealment makes you harder to hit, and more than a 6 needed and you cannot be hit

weirdly it works, its not that easy to get to the magic 7+ to hit, Team Yankee makes it harder, Flames is easier as TY lets armour ignore a lot of the modifiers for range, smoke etc

however here stuff dies, too quickly, movement is a bit weird but if you want a five turn limit (which with progressive scoring is needed unless you can what you can pick up from any objective on its own) but it works, I think the number of dice rolled needs to scale in a non-linear way though, or the chances of a kill needs to be reduced (though not with 3+ saves on all infantry), potentially more wounds on things, but also maybe tag with the save roll, so for "anti tank" weapons firing at armour, a save roll of a "1" means it does an extra wound. now if a normal tank has two wounds you can still one shot them, maybe, but are more likely firing the six shots, getting three hits and maybe killing one and damaging one, not killing two

then larger stuff gets more wounds, not vastly more, the aim is to increase survivability, not make models immune to damage, they will grind down, it just takes longer

as things stand why would any faction in the game universe invest in a tank? when one group with a few rocket launchers are likely far cheaper to recruit and train than the tank is to build and its crew to train and in a lot of cases the infantry are better?

infantry and light stuff like scout walkers get one wound, ditto weapons platforms, armoured dreadnaughts and medium tanks get two, heavy tanks like the Kratos and Land Raiders maybe three. super heavies 4-6 depending on that they are, or more, e.g. Capitol Imperialis. then titans more - but with various weapons able to do more than one point of damage, e.g. via the "engine killer" rule

small stuff can grind down armour, just takes longer, heavier stuff becomes the best choice to take on heavier stuff, and armour can support an infantry advance without evaporating, making anti infantry armour viable



The reality is formations control very little and you can spam basically any unit you want. This isn't ideal but thankfully rule of cool has seemingly kept skew lists to a minimum as only have a few unit types doesn't even look hat cool imo.

But, if one wanted to, like with highlander back in the day, could easily agree to change certain unit caps or halve them ect. Right now detachment of leman russes go to 10, kratos to 6, those could be halved and I don't think I'd have any problem tbh. You also need to limit formatons for that to really mean anything but it'd be a start. I think where epic will be a problem for everyone is when someone wants to field just too many of one units and nothing currently really prevents that at all. Much like nothing prevents marine armies from looking like crayola crayon boxes if players want to max out legion benefits by formation.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/07 21:19:00


Post by: leopard


personally the "support" vehicles, e.g Vanquisher, that could be a problem should be "support" options, not able to fill "core" slots


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/07 21:27:32


Post by: Crablezworth


leopard wrote:
personally the "support" vehicles, e.g Vanquisher, that could be a problem should be "support" options, not able to fill "core" slots


Well there is a high likelyhood bordering on certainty that more russ optons for turrets are on their way, pics in rulebook of twi autocannon turret and plasma turret, So maybe that will help bring a bit of choice into the mix. And I can totally see an event or genre like highlander with hard caps on detachments, like cutting the max in half or reducing by 2-4 or more. Big tank detachments feel weird to me, like more than 3 super heavies together would feel off, and does sorta feel off with kratos.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/07 21:30:22


Post by: Mad Doc Grotsnik


Now having three Infantry boxes worth of, erm, erm, Infantry?

Must Grumble!

Dreadnought Talons. Start at a 4 count, which is fine. For that is the contents of One Box. And we can expand a given slot. And each expansion adds 2 Contemptors. Lovely!

But…I can only expand by three choices. Which means I now have 2 Contemptors on the Subs Bench.

No need!


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/07 21:47:39


Post by: Crablezworth


 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Now having three Infantry boxes worth of, erm, erm, Infantry?

Must Grumble!

Dreadnought Talons. Start at a 4 count, which is fine. For that is the contents of One Box. And we can expand a given slot. And each expansion adds 2 Contemptors. Lovely!

But…I can only expand by three choices. Which means I now have 2 Contemptors on the Subs Bench.

No need!


It's quite frustrating that kheres is so much worse than accurate lascannon. Also odd they don't have rending, but for 5 more points you can get 4 leviathans with rending, wrecker and 5+ inv vs 6+.

Now what is cool is you can add leviathans to contemptor squads, and it's in 2's. What like about that is I can do las contemptors and have a couple rending leviathans for combat or taking down structures. But the point costs are weird.

By all indication when the leviathan box comes out you'll get 2 and 2 again like contemptor, cyclone melta/quad autocannon. Same with deredeo, 2 autocannon 2 plasma. I assume it will be the same for rapiers and tarantulas as they'll be in the same box/on the same sprue seemingly.




[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/07 21:53:28


Post by: Mad Doc Grotsnik


I’m not overly bothered by in-game efficiency. Like an Ork, the Dice tend to do what I believe they’ll do 🤣🤣

It’s more just….give me an extra pick. Just one. Then. From three Marine Infantry Sets? I can get really close to maxing out a Demi-Company.

But as you kind of point out, at least I can fine tune what I am fielding to predominantly Lascannnon or predominantly Assault Cannon as the fancy takes me.




[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/07 21:59:00


Post by: leopard


well keep in mind the tank companies of old were like 10 land raiders, or Leman Russ (they may have been 12 strong?), though in smaller detachments

but then I'm also used to playing Soviet armour in WW2 where in some case units of 16 are not uncommon


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/07 22:00:40


Post by: Crablezworth


 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I’m not overly bothered by in-game efficiency. Like an Ork, the Dice tend to do what I believe they’ll do 🤣🤣

It’s more just….give me an extra pick. Just one. Then. From three Marine Infantry Sets? I can get really close to maxing out a Demi-Company.

But as you kind of point out, at least I can fine tune what I am fielding to predominantly Lascannnon or predominantly Assault Cannon as the fancy takes me.




Kheres aren't the end of the world in that both versions still have the bolter, and it's actually pretty good in that at half range it doubles its shots because of the assault rule and it has point defense as well. Just a shame they don't have rend as its very important in combat. I would have settled for a usr that's like half rend, extra d3 instead of d6 in a fight.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
leopard wrote:
well keep in mind the tank companies of old were like 10 land raiders, or Leman Russ (they may have been 12 strong?), though in smaller detachments

but then I'm also used to playing Soviet armour in WW2 where in some case units of 16 are not uncommon


I just know the folly of activations all being like very dice heavy, it can certainly speed the game up but then it really does start to feel a bit like activation lottery if both sides just have maxed out firepower tit for tat. Msu just feels more fun than both sides goin ham.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/07 22:31:41


Post by: leopard


MSU works, and works well, but you need a mix between MSU and survivable units - e.g. assault formations and SA formations with slightly worse morale need larger units to test for morale less often and assault units need to be able to take the hits

have a 2k game coming up, just over 1k of which is due to be the SA armoured formation I'm working on now, will have three detachments of six Leman Russ, 16 Vanquishers and the two normal battle cannot hulls I have (one of which likely will end up as the HQ) plus a Baneblade, backed by a pair of lightning fighters

I feel six is probably decent for Leman Russ units, even then they will likely focus fire to actually kill stuff at range, then do their own things once the laser cannon is in range as well.

the other half will be infantry, likely a pioneer formation and maybe another, these will have some small units in for activations

I figure with the fighters it matters to be able to force the enemy if they have air to deploy it first, to then "intercept" upon arrival (or try to)

Hopefully we get more Russ turrets, more Contemptor weapons, maybe more infantry weapons too. sadly I expect the plasma russ to be a total lemon


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/07 22:39:57


Post by: SamusDrake


I regret to inform you all of the loss of two fine Thunderbolt pilots, and a toast in their honour will be held in the Officer's club. My brother's Knight force, on the other hand, went out in the same professional manner as Private First Class William L. Hudson.

Legions is hilariously unbalanced, but so much so that we laughed right up until the end. While I can't see it being taken seriously as a competitive game, it's simple to get started and light enough for wargaming greenhorns.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/07 22:42:42


Post by: leopard


SamusDrake wrote:
I regret to inform you all of the loss of two fine Thunderbolt pilots, and a toast in their honour will be held in the Officer's club. My brother's Knight force, on the other hand, went out in the same professional manner as Private First Class William L. Hudson.

Legions is hilariously unbalanced, but so much so that we laughed right up until the end. While I can't see it being taken seriously as a competitive game, it's simple to get started and light enough for wargaming greenhorns.


it is amusing to play, and very swingy

first three games I had with aircraft myself and my opponent had access to a pair of Xiphon, both using one, first two games he deployed his, I had more activations then deployed mind, and shot his down in the first shots

third game, he returned the favour with a Kratos squadron splatting both of mine, before a single AS sentinel downed his with overwatch..


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/07 23:02:34


Post by: SamusDrake


It certainly has it's comical moments.

In hindsight - but with only one game under our belt - I do think that Epic 40K fans dodged the bullet on this one, and it's probably for the best that GW played around with the 30K era before tackling the 40K era.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/08 02:16:41


Post by: ashlevrier


So played today. 1500 points. Results are a marine victory.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
so today was the frist win for marines vs aux. the mission was no mans land.

take away from this game. knights can kill each other real easy. he did a wound to me. i did 3 to him.
i was able to hold most objectives for two turns. this gave me a lead in points that he could not recover from. so we called it at end of turn two. i had 18 VPs to his 3 VPs.

[Thumb - 20240107_134036.jpg]


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/08 02:43:14


Post by: ashlevrier


Two pics from the game

[Thumb - 20240107_140842.jpg]


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/08 04:22:02


Post by: Skimask Mohawk


Re the kratos autocannons, mathwise theyre the best option to take due to volume of fire and accurate. Ya, the las are 6" longer, but you also already come with an autocannon that breaks that ranged synergy of 20-22". The battle cannon also has the 10" option, so there's a further benefit to pushing up instead of sniping at 20 (on top of los blocking forcing some sort of closer movement to get a shot off anyways. If you build your Kratos with autos, you shouldn't worry at all about that choice.

Contemptors definitely get hosed on the infantry box build, as kheres are complete junk and you're stuck with a couple. The las are really solid, and you're paying 17.5 per model on the initial unit for that on top of it's solid profile. I think them missing rend is kinda deliberate as a result; they're a ranged unit with some melee capabilities to keep them out of trouble. Tacking on rend would make them equivalent to ogryns in terms of dice and modifiers, with an accurate lascannon, a point defence combi, 4+ that nullifies Light AP and allows rerolls, and an invul (plus whatever legion rules), all for 20 points more for the base unit. It's pretty obvious the leviathan is the reverse of the contemptor to force some choice; very short ranged shooting options that are fairly unreliable, but with an extremely capable melee punch. I'd say that you'll usually not choose to use their guns, as they'd probably prefer to march into range or charge once they get there; the volkite bouncing off of the meltas preferred targets doest help. So ya, either mix leviathans in to the contemptor unit to get some dedicated melee in that shooting unit, or take them by yourself if you just want dreads to punch stuff in melee. Contemptors don't need rend (but they do need that lascannon lol).

Re knights and their survivability. Most things in this game die if you put them in front of 18 bases that wound on 4s and can affect their save. Similarly most things die when getting blasted by an airwing lol. As an ally capped at 30% of points and coming in increments of 180, they're very manageable at the moment, as you can respond to the 2-3 that can be taken in 1500-2000 in the same way as a Kratos/baneblade/Russ brick. Dealing with up to 8 knights/4 knights and 12 armigers, all across the board, in 1500 might be a different story though. Light bounces from them, melee mostly fails against them (esp if you're going into double melee quests, Lancers/atrapos, and armigers), they're really fast (18"/16" charges, yay), can hit stuff in buildings with most classes, can get barrage on quests, and more. Them being so hideable doesn't help their ease of charging either.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/08 05:20:14


Post by: ashlevrier


 Skimask Mohawk wrote:
Re the kratos autocannons, mathwise theyre the best option to take due to volume of fire and accurate. Ya, the las are 6" longer, but you also already come with an autocannon that breaks that ranged synergy of 20-22". The battle cannon also has the 10" option, so there's a further benefit to pushing up instead of sniping at 20 (on top of los blocking forcing some sort of closer movement to get a shot off anyways. If you build your Kratos with autos, you shouldn't worry at all about that choice.

Contemptors definitely get hosed on the infantry box build, as kheres are complete junk and you're stuck with a couple. The las are really solid, and you're paying 17.5 per model on the initial unit for that on top of it's solid profile. I think them missing rend is kinda deliberate as a result; they're a ranged unit with some melee capabilities to keep them out of trouble. Tacking on rend would make them equivalent to ogryns in terms of dice and modifiers, with an accurate lascannon, a point defence combi, 4+ that nullifies Light AP and allows rerolls, and an invul (plus whatever legion rules), all for 20 points more for the base unit. It's pretty obvious the leviathan is the reverse of the contemptor to force some choice; very short ranged shooting options that are fairly unreliable, but with an extremely capable melee punch. I'd say that you'll usually not choose to use their guns, as they'd probably prefer to march into range or charge once they get there; the volkite bouncing off of the meltas preferred targets doest help. So ya, either mix leviathans in to the contemptor unit to get some dedicated melee in that shooting unit, or take them by yourself if you just want dreads to punch stuff in melee. Contemptors don't need rend (but they do need that lascannon lol).

Re knights and their survivability. Most things in this game die if you put them in front of 18 bases that wound on 4s and can affect their save. Similarly most things die when getting blasted by an airwing lol. As an ally capped at 30% of points and coming in increments of 180, they're very manageable at the moment, as you can respond to the 2-3 that can be taken in 1500-2000 in the same way as a Kratos/baneblade/Russ brick. Dealing with up to 8 knights/4 knights and 12 armigers, all across the board, in 1500 might be a different story though. Light bounces from them, melee mostly fails against them (esp if you're going into double melee quests, Lancers/atrapos, and armigers), they're really fast (18"/16" charges, yay), can hit stuff in buildings with most classes, can get barrage on quests, and more. Them being so hideable doesn't help their ease of charging either.


the kratos autocannons, mathwise theyre the best option to take. i find the heavy bolters to be the best right now.

knights just die. like today. in a knight vs knight fight. one was just shot off the board in a single round of shooting. its only 3 wounds you have to get through and when most AT weapons have -1. they are saving on a 4 most times.

kheres are complete junk. agreed. there pretty bad. i just think of the dreads with the Kheres as body guards for the las dreads. they die first. the dread hand bolter is the most used and best weapon they have.

i dont know how a entire knight army will work. i feel they will die all the same. but even if they dont die. there OC is so low that they cant take objectives. also as they will be bigger than most things even if they are in combat with a unit they can still get shot at.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/08 07:57:06


Post by: Albertorius


It might be my familiarity with Epic 40k and Epic Armageddon talking, but... boy oh boy, does this game look like you spend more time removing pieces from the board than actually playing or doing much else.

Is it me, or does stuff don't really stay much on the table?


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/08 08:53:30


Post by: leopard


first turn sees a lot die, if one or both players advance, after the first turn the amount of firepower has dropped significantly

but yes lethality is currently too high, to the point as I've suggested stuff needs more wounds

anything scale 2 should have 2, scale 3 three, scale 4 at least 4 and so on, in effect infantry in the open still suffer, but other stuff sticks about longer

I also think the "all knights/titans" games will see different scenarios so the buggers can actually score, unless GW somehow forgets this bit


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/08 09:08:03


Post by: Mad Doc Grotsnik


Possibly facetious comment? I’d recommend not getting too attached to any given unit. Consider everything disposable, and focus on bagging those early objectives.

To me, Epic should be a blood bath. It’s 40k’s setting writ large (but also smol).

Let me enjoy wiping out a modern Chapter’s worth of Marines with contemptuous ease, only to have my Titan’s Tipped in the next turn.

That what I want to see. That’s what I want to experience. I want that reward of marshalling my surprisingly fragile force to victory. That’s where I get my jollies.

Other opinions are available and just as valid


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/08 09:22:37


Post by: Albertorius


Yeah, I feel differently myself. I like to see units have effectiveness degradation without having to outright die. You can have a bloodbath AND units gettin pounded so that they can't advance or shoot no more without dying, those two are not really mutually exclusive. But if the only, for sure way of deleting the enemy for realsies is going there and getting your hands dirty (aka close combat/firefights at 40k ranges)... then you have to do it, which makes it more like 40k IMHO.

Maybe my problem is that everyone goes to the slaughter without a second thought, as there's not much if at all in the way of morale.

Incidentally, the way objectives work with/against army morale in Epic 40k feels a lot more... integrated... than simply earning points, IME (the different types of objectives either add or substract points from yours' or the enemy's army morale)


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/08 09:29:50


Post by: leopard


 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Possibly facetious comment? I’d recommend not getting too attached to any given unit. Consider everything disposable, and focus on bagging those early objectives.

To me, Epic should be a blood bath. It’s 40k’s setting writ large (but also smol).

Let me enjoy wiping out a modern Chapter’s worth of Marines with contemptuous ease, only to have my Titan’s Tipped in the next turn.

That what I want to see. That’s what I want to experience. I want that reward of marshalling my surprisingly fragile force to victory. That’s where I get my jollies.

Other opinions are available and just as valid


this is essentially how I play, I adopt quite a "Soviet" play style, think its tied to the 5 turns mentality, GW want stuff to be dead, not "crippled and hiding" or having run off


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/08 09:34:45


Post by: tneva82


One thing that i thought. If you expect something might overwatch you better tempt him before he activates said detachment. Say 10 russ ahead. Park fliers with comparable range you think he will overwatch(not sure how many but thunderhawk's 30-40"). Ideally so that not every russ in range.

If he overwatch then it's not with everything hopefully. You can migate damage.

Then said overwatching unit isn't shooting at later nor can he move(since you pulled ow before they moved). You can ram your anti-tank weapons in their face knowing they can't move nor return fire.

Basically as OW is once per turn when you move dictate when opponent can OW on YOUR terms.

Incidentally thought about this when I was thinking what to do with thunderhawks if there's no good spot T1 to land without risking too risky OW.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
leopard wrote:

I also think the "all knights/titans" games will see different scenarios so the buggers can actually score, unless GW somehow forgets this bit


Well in titan vs titan it's more easy to be on objective alone at which point you control it regardless of are you titan or not.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/08 11:38:39


Post by: SamusDrake


One thing we did like was that the Knights have far more to do in Legions, and the anti-aircraft role of the of the Porphyrion's Helios missiles. In this regard its a shame that the Questoris is still lacking the Icarus Autocannons, and the Helverin could have an alternative profile for it's Autocannons which includes sky-fire, to bring it more into contrast with the close-quarter Warglaive which also doubles up as a demolisher.



[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/08 13:21:15


Post by: The_Real_Chris


leopard wrote:
They can also only target a single enemy unit, an objective held by two causes a problem (unless you can get some ranged fire to support them of course), and to be honest eight stands with a 4+ save likely won't last long against the enemies fire.


I miss the terminators with a 75% chance of saving all but the heaviest of shots :(


Automatically Appended Next Post:
tneva82 wrote:
I have list in mind with about 200 plus 60 rhinos to haul them.

Won't get for ages enough infantry to run it though. Beside such skew not being #1 to collect gw can't keep marine infantry available for long.


Surely all those first edition plastics mean you can do it now...


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/08 13:53:33


Post by: tneva82


A) don't have them b) they look silly next to current ones so sure as hell not going to hunt them from ebay i rather spend that money getting new models as they come available.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/08 15:14:51


Post by: Skimask Mohawk


 ashlevrier wrote:
 Skimask Mohawk wrote:
Re the kratos autocannons, mathwise theyre the best option to take due to volume of fire and accurate. Ya, the las are 6" longer, but you also already come with an autocannon that breaks that ranged synergy of 20-22". The battle cannon also has the 10" option, so there's a further benefit to pushing up instead of sniping at 20 (on top of los blocking forcing some sort of closer movement to get a shot off anyways. If you build your Kratos with autos, you shouldn't worry at all about that choice.

Contemptors definitely get hosed on the infantry box build, as kheres are complete junk and you're stuck with a couple. The las are really solid, and you're paying 17.5 per model on the initial unit for that on top of it's solid profile. I think them missing rend is kinda deliberate as a result; they're a ranged unit with some melee capabilities to keep them out of trouble. Tacking on rend would make them equivalent to ogryns in terms of dice and modifiers, with an accurate lascannon, a point defence combi, 4+ that nullifies Light AP and allows rerolls, and an invul (plus whatever legion rules), all for 20 points more for the base unit. It's pretty obvious the leviathan is the reverse of the contemptor to force some choice; very short ranged shooting options that are fairly unreliable, but with an extremely capable melee punch. I'd say that you'll usually not choose to use their guns, as they'd probably prefer to march into range or charge once they get there; the volkite bouncing off of the meltas preferred targets doest help. So ya, either mix leviathans in to the contemptor unit to get some dedicated melee in that shooting unit, or take them by yourself if you just want dreads to punch stuff in melee. Contemptors don't need rend (but they do need that lascannon lol).

Re knights and their survivability. Most things in this game die if you put them in front of 18 bases that wound on 4s and can affect their save. Similarly most things die when getting blasted by an airwing lol. As an ally capped at 30% of points and coming in increments of 180, they're very manageable at the moment, as you can respond to the 2-3 that can be taken in 1500-2000 in the same way as a Kratos/baneblade/Russ brick. Dealing with up to 8 knights/4 knights and 12 armigers, all across the board, in 1500 might be a different story though. Light bounces from them, melee mostly fails against them (esp if you're going into double melee quests, Lancers/atrapos, and armigers), they're really fast (18"/16" charges, yay), can hit stuff in buildings with most classes, can get barrage on quests, and more. Them being so hideable doesn't help their ease of charging either.


the kratos autocannons, mathwise theyre the best option to take. i find the heavy bolters to be the best right now.

knights just die. like today. in a knight vs knight fight. one was just shot off the board in a single round of shooting. its only 3 wounds you have to get through and when most AT weapons have -1. they are saving on a 4 most times.

kheres are complete junk. agreed. there pretty bad. i just think of the dreads with the Kheres as body guards for the las dreads. they die first. the dread hand bolter is the most used and best weapon they have.

i dont know how a entire knight army will work. i feel they will die all the same. but even if they dont die. there OC is so low that they cant take objectives. also as they will be bigger than most things even if they are in combat with a unit they can still get shot at.


Heavy bolters are a great anti infantry tool and pair very well with aggressive movement to bring the melta or 10" shot in range. But if you're not using them like that, it's hard to argue with the longer range guns.

Knights can absolutely die, no argument on that. But it's the details that tend to add up; was it a skew of undercosted guns? Almost double it's points? Dedicated engine killing stuff? I'd also ask about terrain, as this game makes it really easy to hide stuff behind obstructing, while also just blasting through with a huge charge. The lancer and atrapos are very strong melee units, with a 3+ ion and nimble to see them through. Armigers are ogryns on crack. Like, people can't simultaneously have issues dealing with ogryns while easily killing knights, as los blocking is what allows both to perform. Their low oc also only really matters if the units haven't died in combat to them, and with huge access to rending weapons and the reach off the lancer, it's pretty hard to survive.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/08 15:21:45


Post by: ashlevrier


 Albertorius wrote:
It might be my familiarity with Epic 40k and Epic Armageddon talking, but... boy oh boy, does this game look like you spend more time removing pieces from the board than actually playing or doing much else.

Is it me, or does stuff don't really stay much on the table?


everything dies fast in this game. but the problem now is how to stop the run away if someone has the objectives. by end of turn two i had a lead that he could not over come. we talked about that to do and it seams turn one is march everying to the objectives. turn two is charge turn. turn three is hold.

for me i march the Rhinos up to the objective and drop out the troop. if they are on the objective when they get out then i will give them a advance order. if they need more speed to get there a march order. that means my marines can get 18 out of the transports and 15 with a walk. that a total of 33 inches of move in one turn. 12 stands of dudes makes it hard to brake them too.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/08 15:27:17


Post by: ashlevrier


 Skimask Mohawk wrote:
 ashlevrier wrote:
 Skimask Mohawk wrote:
Re the kratos autocannons, mathwise theyre the best option to take due to volume of fire and accurate. Ya, the las are 6" longer, but you also already come with an autocannon that breaks that ranged synergy of 20-22". The battle cannon also has the 10" option, so there's a further benefit to pushing up instead of sniping at 20 (on top of los blocking forcing some sort of closer movement to get a shot off anyways. If you build your Kratos with autos, you shouldn't worry at all about that choice.

Contemptors definitely get hosed on the infantry box build, as kheres are complete junk and you're stuck with a couple. The las are really solid, and you're paying 17.5 per model on the initial unit for that on top of it's solid profile. I think them missing rend is kinda deliberate as a result; they're a ranged unit with some melee capabilities to keep them out of trouble. Tacking on rend would make them equivalent to ogryns in terms of dice and modifiers, with an accurate lascannon, a point defence combi, 4+ that nullifies Light AP and allows rerolls, and an invul (plus whatever legion rules), all for 20 points more for the base unit. It's pretty obvious the leviathan is the reverse of the contemptor to force some choice; very short ranged shooting options that are fairly unreliable, but with an extremely capable melee punch. I'd say that you'll usually not choose to use their guns, as they'd probably prefer to march into range or charge once they get there; the volkite bouncing off of the meltas preferred targets doest help. So ya, either mix leviathans in to the contemptor unit to get some dedicated melee in that shooting unit, or take them by yourself if you just want dreads to punch stuff in melee. Contemptors don't need rend (but they do need that lascannon lol).

Re knights and their survivability. Most things in this game die if you put them in front of 18 bases that wound on 4s and can affect their save. Similarly most things die when getting blasted by an airwing lol. As an ally capped at 30% of points and coming in increments of 180, they're very manageable at the moment, as you can respond to the 2-3 that can be taken in 1500-2000 in the same way as a Kratos/baneblade/Russ brick. Dealing with up to 8 knights/4 knights and 12 armigers, all across the board, in 1500 might be a different story though. Light bounces from them, melee mostly fails against them (esp if you're going into double melee quests, Lancers/atrapos, and armigers), they're really fast (18"/16" charges, yay), can hit stuff in buildings with most classes, can get barrage on quests, and more. Them being so hideable doesn't help their ease of charging either.


the kratos autocannons, mathwise theyre the best option to take. i find the heavy bolters to be the best right now.

knights just die. like today. in a knight vs knight fight. one was just shot off the board in a single round of shooting. its only 3 wounds you have to get through and when most AT weapons have -1. they are saving on a 4 most times.

kheres are complete junk. agreed. there pretty bad. i just think of the dreads with the Kheres as body guards for the las dreads. they die first. the dread hand bolter is the most used and best weapon they have.

i dont know how a entire knight army will work. i feel they will die all the same. but even if they dont die. there OC is so low that they cant take objectives. also as they will be bigger than most things even if they are in combat with a unit they can still get shot at.


Heavy bolters are a great anti infantry tool and pair very well with aggressive movement to bring the melta or 10" shot in range. But if you're not using them like that, it's hard to argue with the longer range guns.

Knights can absolutely die, no argument on that. But it's the details that tend to add up; was it a skew of undercosted guns? Almost double it's points? Dedicated engine killing stuff? I'd also ask about terrain, as this game makes it really easy to hide stuff behind obstructing, while also just blasting through with a huge charge. The lancer and atrapos are very strong melee units, with a 3+ ion and nimble to see them through. Armigers are ogryns on crack. Like, people can't simultaneously have issues dealing with ogryns while easily killing knights, as los blocking is what allows both to perform. Their low oc also only really matters if the units haven't died in combat to them, and with huge access to rending weapons and the reach off the lancer, it's pretty hard to survive.


i posted a picture of the game. both knights where the same set up. battle cannon, chain sword, rocket pod.

i play the marines agressively so the heavy bolters do lots of work. got to get on those objectives fast and hold them. marines dont have the range of the Aux.

a knight might win in combat. but your knight is fighting one unit. what do you do about the other 3 on the objective taking it from you. i will refur to pics of my last battle


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/08 15:44:43


Post by: tneva82


If enemy rush to objective you can still shoot the units off there. Only so much you can cram into the objective...And when you are in objective you are in open and ready to be blown apart.

So yeah rush to objectives early is good but that's going to cost you a lot as you need to expose to shooting lots of units as enemy will be blowing those detachments in range of objective.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/08 15:50:05


Post by: leopard


assuming the objective doesn't have some terrain deployed masking it from fire from one direction or another

or doesn't have a decent sized building within 3" of it

so far rushing objectives has done me quite well, usually takes 2-3 turns to be removed from them (remembering that reinforcements can move up) and with luck thats 3 turns and the game is mine even if they are lost for the last two

its practically early WW2 Eastern front or WW1 trenchline stuff, human wave assaults and "we have reserves"

just need more bodies than they have bullets for just long enough


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/08 16:00:22


Post by: Crablezworth


Progressive scoring is just not good for this game, infiltrate makes a mockery of it as well.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/08 16:04:06


Post by: tneva82


leopard wrote:
assuming the objective doesn't have some terrain deployed masking it from fire from one direction or another

or doesn't have a decent sized building within 3" of it


Well if you set terrain like that don't be surprised if game goes.

No garrison here inside 3" and los block covers only some directions so move&shoot doesn't make units invincible.

Tradeoffs and decisions. Do you keep units safe or vp's. No have cake and eat it too.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/08 16:11:08


Post by: leopard


have adopted no structures within 3" here, may revise when more stuff comes out but for now its sensible

however masking terrain doesn't have to be too close, a wooded area between one objective and where the enemy wants to sit is enough, only have to mask some firepower (or distract it) to work.

however not everything and every location on a table will have a clear shot at anything sat on any objective

trick is to put the stuff scoring you points never quite in the position of "I can kill that in one shot" and also never higher than #2 on the enemies "thats got to die and die now" list

works quite well

also works nicely with terrain going down before scenario is rolled for

1d3+1 bits per quarter, players alternate in picking something and placing it - stuff then moved back to be more than 3" from objectives


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/08 16:17:04


Post by: Crablezworth


 Albertorius wrote:
It might be my familiarity with Epic 40k and Epic Armageddon talking, but... boy oh boy, does this game look like you spend more time removing pieces from the board than actually playing or doing much else.

Is it me, or does stuff don't really stay much on the table?


Part of this is deliberate, they're expecting 3000 as a baseline and doing all they can not to discourage the spamming of any one unit for the most part, but speed of play would be drastically affected if both side were arguing % of cover constantly. Stuff does die very easy, but a fix could be as simple as letting units of infantry burn their order tokens to "go to ground" like the 40k mechanic, basically self pin and gain a cover save/-1 to hit. Tanks and vehicles could similarly burn orders tokens to use counter measures like popping smoke.

This is also an artifact of alternating activation in a game where the most common order allows just about any detachment to move its full movement stat and fire at full range. Like titanicus, sadly for all the strategy and tactics sometimes it does feel a bit to predicated on winning that initiative roll. The tit for tat destruction possible at like 3000-4000 points with fully maxed out units just seems a bit nutty, but GW is like a casino, they of course want this game to skew more towards larger battles and armies than smaller skirmishes because it sells more models, to their defense they could have gone much more cynical by not limiting knights and titans but thankfully they did and the game is better for them only accounting for 30%. A lot can be done to reduce the deadliness of each activation, very easy to force a bit more msu by reducing detachment's max sizes or even changing their min sizes. The good news for the games simplicity there is its very easy to do and might reduce the deadliness of each activation.

The last straw is just playing with a tonne of area terrain with very healthy cover saves/hit modifiers.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/08 16:29:01


Post by: leopard


GW also skew towards randomness being more important that skill, both matter but the skew makes it easier for a new player, in theory, to pick up

and then the units they put out cancel it out


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/08 22:04:02


Post by: SU-152


SamusDrake wrote:


In hindsight - but with only one game under our belt - I do think that Epic 40K fans dodged the bullet on this one, ...


I wonder why you think that....


Automatically Appended Next Post:
leopard wrote:
first turn sees a lot die, if one or both players advance, after the first turn the amount of firepower has dropped significantly

but yes lethality is currently too high, to the point as I've suggested stuff needs more wounds

anything scale 2 should have 2, scale 3 three, scale 4 at least 4 and so on, in effect infantry in the open still suffer, but other stuff sticks about longer

I also think the "all knights/titans" games will see different scenarios so the buggers can actually score, unless GW somehow forgets this bit


I would suggest to remove "6s always hit" for 7+, 8+ & 9+ mechanic.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/09 01:40:56


Post by: ashlevrier


tneva82 wrote:
If enemy rush to objective you can still shoot the units off there. Only so much you can cram into the objective...And when you are in objective you are in open and ready to be blown apart.

So yeah rush to objectives early is good but that's going to cost you a lot as you need to expose to shooting lots of units as enemy will be blowing those detachments in range of objective.


did you not see the pics of the game i posted. he tried to shoot me off of the points. but i had 18 VP to his 3VP.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
tneva82 wrote:
leopard wrote:
assuming the objective doesn't have some terrain deployed masking it from fire from one direction or another

or doesn't have a decent sized building within 3" of it


Well if you set terrain like that don't be surprised if game goes.

No garrison here inside 3" and los block covers only some directions so move&shoot doesn't make units invincible.

Tradeoffs and decisions. Do you keep units safe or vp's. No have cake and eat it too.


your argument is basicaly. if terrain is not right game is broken. yah that sounds like a good system. how many games have you played. i want to see pics of your games


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Crablezworth wrote:
Progressive scoring is just not good for this game, infiltrate makes a mockery of it as well.


i think we are going to try and use the flames of war missions next time. they will at least make more narative sense.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/09 07:22:18


Post by: tneva82


 Crablezworth wrote:
Progressive scoring is just not good for this game, infiltrate makes a mockery of it as well.


Progressive scoring has over DECADES proven to be better though. With end game there's no reason whatsoever to go to objectives. All that would then archieve is losing your units FOR NO GAIN. There's no benefit for exposing your army to maximum damage output.

Opponent will just shoot at your units at objective, charge, kill your units faster than you and then at the end when your army is dead take one objective. Your army dead=0 vp, he scores something=he wins.

This has happened again and again and again over cause of decades. End game isn't some new untested system. It's been used and it results in static gunlines again and again and again. Not surprising since there's no incentive to move and lots of penalty from going forward...

For end game to have any reasonable chance you would need game to have lethality down so much that at least 70% armies are still on board toward the end...

Guess your army is long range armoured company that wants to spend most of game first firing. As only static gunline armies prefer end game scoring.

Just learn to play vs infiltrate. Shoot at units at objectives. And charge front line. Player who goes army front will struggle to have army LEFT after 2nd round. 2 round scoring vs 3 round scoring...

Also you can transport stuff forward. Every army has transports. Multiples even.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/09 08:06:33


Post by: Crablezworth


tneva82 wrote:


Just learn to play vs infiltrate.



That's not an argument.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/09 08:11:22


Post by: Pacific


Tneva, the game that this is based on (Epic Space Marine) did not have progressive/cumulative scoring for objectives though, which is perhaps the more important point. So in SM2 you had a VP 'benchmark' that you needed to hit for victory which was based on the total points value of each army. You got VPs calculated at the end of each turn (5VP per objective marker, plus VPs for breaking units) and the first person to hit that total won the game, otherwise it was a draw. This meant very mobile armies could go racing forward (Marines, Eldar etc.) and grab as many objectives as they could, but they then had a race to 'hold on' and try and break some units while the more ponderous but powerful armies (Orks, Chaos, Imperial Guard etc.) came back at them by damaging them and eventually force them back off objective markers (you then lost those VPs). I think it was a really balanced dynamic and more often that not you ended up with very close games and coming down to the last roll of the dice.

The designers of Legions, whoever they might be, have decided to go with a different approach here. I won't say it's better or worse until I have thoroughly playtested, but it definitely produces a different type of game. The picture I am getting is of massive armies (and this is why the 3k points comes in), smash together in the centre of the table over the objectives (the increased movement and firepower means this new game is extremely deadly and most of that mass of soldiers/tanks are destroyed) and it's 'smash and grab' as quickly as you can. I suspect it is an attempt to create the extremely brutal warfare described in the HH books and the like as the marines annihilated each other. But, it's definitely a design decision, and where the designers have moved away from the work of Rick Priestley, Andy Chambers, Jervis Johnson etc.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/09 09:43:31


Post by: leopard


There are many ways to skin the "how do I win?" cat

GW like a victory point based system for most of their games, though how you score them varies.

Flames has it as "sudden death" - capture the objective and you win, with then a points system based around your losses

some games do it based on damage scored or a ratio of damage scored and damage taken

have also seen a wonderful WW2 air combat system that has no point values, each aircraft is worth "1" victory point, you can bring whatever sized force you want, to win you need to score victory points equal to half the size of your own force.. so bring too much and winning could be impossible, whereas a small force need only ping a bit of a larger one to win - with some extra points laid over this for doing specific things

GW seem to have moved to progressive scoring over time (Middle Earth being the exception here, you have a defined win condition to end the game, and then score), largely to avoid the game turning into a static fire fight with a last turn dash which has hurt earlier editions of some games and bled over into others.

what would probably be useful for Legions is to have different scenarios score differently, so some are progressive some are pure win/lose, or potentially lose/lose (something Flames 3 had and was excellent), some based on doing specific things, some based on casualties

heck throw in asymmetric games too, you both build your army but maybe one side only gets half their force, but is fighting a delaying action or something

across the gaming world there are a lot of scenarios and a lot of ways to win, a decent game system can cope with using several


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/09 10:10:25


Post by: westiebestie


I'm a handful of games in, maximum 1500p yet. So far liking it a lot even though it has its issues.

Here are some quick lessons our group has learned so far (only Astartes vs Astartes yet).

-Playing tactically for the Scenario at hand is rewarded
-Going overly aggressive to score VPs turn 1 is punished by Divide & Conquer and the other player has so far swing round and won for us (not yet tested infiltrate, this is with turn 1 March/air deployed assault marines. Infiltrate is stronger, so looking forward to facing that, except maybe in Retrieve & Forward Push)
-Overwatch is crucial, it's much easier to stop Infantry/transports BEFORE they can garrison
-Buildings within 3" of an Objective are a death trap. They go down easily. So far I've stayed maximum 1-2 turns in a Garrison, using Transports to redeplpy before it collapses
-Point Defence is a strong ability both in Overwatch & firing out of sequence/split fire
-Flyers deal pain but are taken out easily by weight of fire since everything can shoot at them (boo)
-Reaver is a bit too strong at 1500p, where not enough detachments are available to strip its Shields & overwhelm it. We'll probably leave it to 2000+ and go for a Warhound next time round.
-Knight Questoris are pretty deadly but also far from Invulnerable
-A & B weapon choices for the same points cost aren't balanced at all. Case in point Contemptors, TLLC is crazily betterer than AssCans.

Here's my review & Comparison with EA30K/EpicAU 30k that I really like.

I will update after bigger games and any Erratas and if course once we get more complete army lists with core transports & artillery.


Rules 8/10
Balance 5/10
Weighted 7.5/10

+Good terrain rules that really affect gameplay, same as EA30k, but also terrain that you can affect (by targeting structures)
+Balancing mechanics built into Army building, Formations limiting what you can take to limit spam & Strategic assets being limited
+Detachments with higher initial cost and reduced expansion cost forces you to choose if you want more activations or larger Formations/Detachments that are harder to break
+Multiple Victory Condition scenarios
+Objective Control/Tactical Strength values is a good mechanic
+Scale rules, larger units can shoot and/or leave cc and move over smaller units
+/- The USP of LI, its Hybrid phase/alternating activation system. Orders locked in start of turn forces you to think ahead but at the cost of reactivity during the turn. Subphases of taking turns activating vs true alternating activations. Means no possibility to move after everything has shot.
Also activations are not necessarily alternating, if player 1 has chosen fewer or no prders for a certain phase player 2 potentially gets to do lots in a row
+/- Legion Traits add flavour, but at the cost of balance as the power level is very unequal. Could have cost points per Formation to balance them?
-A bit slow. Very granular with (too) many special rules and traits for large games. CC with one vs one pairing also slows the game.
-No supression/pinning mechanic. Just focus fire to kill and hope to break as there is no pinning units you can't kill enough of to break. Morale plays little role over all as even broken formations' units can be ordered to Move & Shoot & charge
-No degradation of Multi wound units as they are damaged. Together with lack of supression this means everything is at full capacity until dead. Which will again reward larger/tougher units and make it sometimes pointless to shoot at things you can't finish. e.g. a Warlord Titan with 1W remaining is as dangerous to you as an undamaged one.
-Bad internal balance. A&B weapon choices for the same points where one is clearly statistically better. Also Titans in particular gain more in power level than points increase, bigger is stronger per point
-Everything gets to shoot at flyers

Here images from our last games for terrain density reference, if your group has come to other conclusions. We are working on more scatter, obstacles & obstruction area terrain.

The balance can be improved by Erratas & house Erratas.

Its also early days, incomplete game without assault/core transports & artillery.

[Thumb - IMG_20240105_123034.jpg]
[Thumb - IMG_20240105_151116.jpg]
[Thumb - IMG_20240105_162349.jpg]


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/09 10:20:39


Post by: leopard


100% agree on scatter terrain being needed, stuff to slow movement, obstacles that can provide cover


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/09 10:27:25


Post by: westiebestie


For sure. We realized early we are lacking in that department. But one can only paint so many things in a given time, so they will be added as soon as we can get some painted. We're pretty good on LOS blocking though IMO. Big terrain painting effort coming up I sense. Buildings, scatter, obstacles, area terrain.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/09 10:34:12


Post by: leopard


the tables look very good. I've got some 3d print buildings aimed for Titanicus, they largely sit on raised plinths which provide nice obstacles to hunker down behind. printing some Jersey barriers

think also barricades, burnt out wreckage etc will be good

also pondering industrial areas that can be considered area terrain with pipework etc over it so good for infantry to lurk in and while passable for vehicles slows them down


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/09 10:51:52


Post by: westiebestie


Sounds good, we are planning for industrial pipelines, barrricades, ruins, wrecks.

Plinths are an interesting idea, hadn't thought about that.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/09 11:02:26


Post by: leopard


the files come with three heights of them, end up about 8" square or 8"x4" roughly, the lowest is enough for infantry generally to be out of sight behind, the highest will hide tanks, medium lets turrets fire over but thats about it

not got enough for a large area done yet but they look decent and give defined roadways that can then be further blocked

have also noted the lowest as an obstacle for vehicles and the other two as impassable, the highest impassable to all but infantry. medium and low have stairways for walkers etc


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/09 12:17:50


Post by: Mad Doc Grotsnik


I’m really hoping the next wave of LI is soon.

I feel a nearly maxed out Demi-Company is a good start for infantry. But whilst I could certainly go another, I want different Dreadnoughts, and some Tarantula or Rapiers to mix up my tactical options some.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/09 13:15:44


Post by: tneva82


I'm dying for some drop pods and jetbikes for my blood angels


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/09 13:19:18


Post by: leopard


high speed stuff and hopefully flanking stuff is going to mix the game up a fair bit, especially drop pods


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/09 14:18:13


Post by: chaos0xomega


I know I gave some of y'all a lot of crap over all the bitching about some of the stuff like drop pods and bikes/land speeders, etc. not being part of the core rulebook... but I've come to the conclusion that most of the second wave content should have been included in the first wave.

In my efforts to try to build thematically and fluffily appropriate lists for multiple legions, I've hit various roadblocks due to the absences of various key units (how are you supposed to build a white scars army without bikes!?). Insofar as I can tell, once this next wave releases that should no longer really be an issue (though not having things like recon marines or breacher marines, etc. is still a bit disappointing) and there will be enough variety to actually start getting into specialized formations and the like, but the first wave I think was overly limited and vanilla.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/09 14:31:08


Post by: leopard


I'm pondering if we will ever see Breacher teams, despoilers etc


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/09 14:40:40


Post by: chaos0xomega


I have to imagine that we will, eventually. If GW can make a model of it and sell it, they eventually will, especially long term once they've run through a lot of the vehicle options.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/09 14:45:37


Post by: Mad Doc Grotsnik


Hopefully we’ll get a Recon Company. That’d be pretty cool.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/09 14:54:13


Post by: leopard


 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Hopefully we’ll get a Recon Company. That’d be pretty cool.


and with sniper abilities pretty useful too, small, likely easily killed unless they get something like they cannot be targeted outside a certain range

hmm. I've actually got some Mk II recon dudes in 28mm that could perhaps print to 8mm, not game purpose as yet except maybe as an objective marker


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/09 15:07:40


Post by: Mad Doc Grotsnik


I was meaning Scouty Type Gubbins. Speeders, Bikes, Jetbikes, Speeder Bikes, Bikejets, Speeder Jets and that.

I honestly don’t know if we’ll see Breachers and Destroyers. I wouldn’t say No to them, but at this scales would it work? Not just in the units acting distinctly enough, but being visibly different on the board.

I’ve already painted the rim of the Plasma Gunners to stand out more, so I’m not opposed to that approach. But I do have concerns the game itself just isn’t suited to such specialist infantry.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/09 15:25:29


Post by: leopard


maybe not, I am looking forwards to speeders, jet bikes, bikes and other such light recce stuff

and wondering what the "light armour" slot will end up with


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/09 15:27:14


Post by: westiebestie


@Mad doc: Both Breachers & Destroyers have models to print, and rules in EA30k. Breachers are easily identifiable on the board, Destroyers not so much.

I have some on my desk, awaiting LI rules. Might play them as tacticals/Ass Marines until then, just because they are cool.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
leopard wrote:


and wondering what the "light armour" slot will end up with


Sabre light tanks. Small, cool af imo. Available to print already, probably coming in plastic later since they have that slot.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/09 15:37:33


Post by: Mad Doc Grotsnik


I can see Breachers being rules suited to clearing out buildings, as that’s about as close to a boarding action as we’ll likely get for LI’s scale.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And I guess Destroyers could be Assault Equivalent, but able to render area terrain Dangeous or something with Rad Bombs or what have you.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/09 16:03:06


Post by: tneva82


Phosbex rule for breachers would accomplish that one


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/09 18:53:34


Post by: SamusDrake


SU-152 wrote:

I wonder why you think that....


Well, y'know...because reasons, dude!

The 40K audience is far greater than that of 30K, and the effort thus far would have attracted far more scrutiny and scorn. I honestly don't believe we'd have enough cheese for that amount of whine.

The other reason is that 30K tends to be more popular on the narrative side, where players are generally more forgiving. Thats at least how I find them...


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/09 19:06:55


Post by: Crablezworth


leopard wrote:
100% agree on scatter terrain being needed, stuff to slow movement, obstacles that can provide cover



One key thing to keep in mind that's actually pretty crucial about the obstacle rules is the units having to make base contact. One thing the obstacles rules sorely lacks is a method to split the wound pool like with area terrain between models getting and models in the open. The area terrain rules are not perfect but expedient, you basically as attack get to decided to only target the models in the detachment in he open, limiting the wound pool, or they all get -1 to hit. It's not a perfect solution but it keeps it consistent with area terrain. Also combats the sillyness of 1 base out of 16 touching and behind an obstacle gifting -1 to 15 models in the open


For my own boards I'm focusing building/acquiting barricade style obstacles. Basically the ruin box came with 3 little sections of defense line, and I want more stuff like that, basically low cover/walls style stuff you'd see in 40k/30k just smaller.

Right now the meta, because the most common order is advance and first fire is a bit lacking, is basically hide behind los blocking terrain, pre measure a lot, when you think something might be in your range, move out and hope to activate frist when it comes to shooting.

But a lot of reason for not seeing first fire in our games, other than it not being the only order that lets you overwatch as it should be imo, is that other than tanks, there's very little reason to rank up and move your infantry other other shorter to mid range units into a line. This is also why Iaugh about static play because half the armies in the game don't even have ground transports yet and the most common order is move and shoot lol. But other than the lack of longer sections of low cover ideal for infantry and tanks to get a -1 to hit on my boards currently, there aren't really any weapons that require a detachment to not move, so that also sorta skews terrain more towards playing peekaboo with los blocking terrain.

I think we're actually fortunate to alll see the game at a phase where many only have predominantly civitas structures to make a board. Because it shows the folly of that too, of not having like a healthy mix of terrain types. The terrain rules are interseting like that, as its a much older approach this isn't quite telling players to make their own terrain, but it's obvious for all to see that things like area terrain are not 100% slam dunks the way gw would have you play them, making weird implied areas of terrain delineated by ruin corners. I've seen the odd game using the occasional piece of area terrain but it hasn't been common because outside of the aos trees that are way too tall, gw doesn't really sell area terrain. It's more of a battlefield in a box thing.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
 westiebestie wrote:
@Mad doc: Both Breachers & Destroyers have models to print, and rules in EA30k. Breachers are easily identifiable on the board, Destroyers not so much.

I have some on my desk, awaiting LI rules. Might play them as tacticals/Ass Marines until then, just because they are cool.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
leopard wrote:


and wondering what the "light armour" slot will end up with


Sabre light tanks. Small, cool af imo. Available to print already, probably coming in plastic later since they have that slot.



I think your review is pretty spot on, I'd only take one exception and that's that the formations don't actually limit very much without limiting the total number of formations a player can take. This is because they're very loose, example, I could field a formation for solar aux that is all of 70pts, just to get an extra commander, conversely I could field a single detachment that is over 3000 points and its made up entirely of baneblades and leman russes. Some formations are broken in conception, the pioneer company just lets a whole swathe of solar aux infiltrate. You're absolutely correct that the legions traits aren't created remotely equal, well that formation basically make solar aux able to be raven guard. Limiting formations won't fix all the other issues, especially the a and b options stuff, which you are definitely correct is a glaringly obvious problem esp with contemptors and prtending kheres is anywhere near an accurate lascannon.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
SamusDrake wrote:
SU-152 wrote:

I wonder why you think that....


Well, y'know...because reasons, dude!

The 40K audience is far greater than that of 30K, and the effort thus far would have attracted far more scrutiny and scorn. I honestly don't believe we'd have enough cheese for that amount of whine.

The other reason is that 30K tends to be more popular on the narrative side, where players are generally more forgiving. Thats at least how I find them...


I honestly am very glad it's not 40k and multiple factions, gw never could fight the temptation to make xenos have some sorta janky nonsense that just messses a little too much with the core rules, A great example, i'd have been fine with bfg only ever being imp vs chaos/traitors, it was when the eldar and necrons showed up that they just were too damn broken or had far to involved rules like eldar ships and the sun edge ect.

The real benefit of the 30k setting and limited factions with a lot of overlap is like with titanicus, the whole player base generally gets to benefit from a new book/release. A lot less jealousy because any new unit that performs well, isn't locked away from anyone, it's an allie chart away from being taken in their own army.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/09 19:31:07


Post by: westiebestie


 Crablezworth wrote:





 westiebestie wrote:



I'm a handful of games in, maximum 1500p yet. So far liking it a lot even though it has its issues.

Here are some quick lessons our group has learned so far (only Astartes vs Astartes yet).

-Playing tactically for the Scenario at hand is rewarded
-Going overly aggressive to score VPs turn 1 is punished by Divide & Conquer and the other player has so far swing round and won for us (not yet tested infiltrate, this is with turn 1 March/air deployed assault marines. Infiltrate is stronger, so looking forward to facing that, except maybe in Retrieve & Forward Push)
-Overwatch is crucial, it's much easier to stop Infantry/transports BEFORE they can garrison
-Buildings within 3" of an Objective are a death trap. They go down easily. So far I've stayed maximum 1-2 turns in a Garrison, using Transports to redeplpy before it collapses
-Point Defence is a strong ability both in Overwatch & firing out of sequence/split fire
-Flyers deal pain but are taken out easily by weight of fire since everything can shoot at them (boo)
-Reaver is a bit too strong at 1500p, where not enough detachments are available to strip its Shields & overwhelm it. We'll probably leave it to 2000+ and go for a Warhound next time round.
-Knight Questoris are pretty deadly but also far from Invulnerable
-A & B weapon choices for the same points cost aren't balanced at all. Case in point Contemptors, TLLC is crazily betterer than AssCans.

Here's my review & Comparison with EA30K/EpicAU 30k that I really like.

I will update after bigger games and any Erratas and if course once we get more complete army lists with core transports & artillery.


Rules 8/10
Balance 5/10
Weighted 7.5/10

+Good terrain rules that really affect gameplay, same as EA30k, but also terrain that you can affect (by targeting structures)
+Balancing mechanics built into Army building, Formations limiting what you can take to limit spam & Strategic assets being limited
+Detachments with higher initial cost and reduced expansion cost forces you to choose if you want more activations or larger Formations/Detachments that are harder to break
+Multiple Victory Condition scenarios
+Objective Control/Tactical Strength values is a good mechanic
+Scale rules, larger units can shoot and/or leave cc and move over smaller units
+/- The USP of LI, its Hybrid phase/alternating activation system. Orders locked in start of turn forces you to think ahead but at the cost of reactivity during the turn. Subphases of taking turns activating vs true alternating activations. Means no possibility to move after everything has shot.
Also activations are not necessarily alternating, if player 1 has chosen fewer or no prders for a certain phase player 2 potentially gets to do lots in a row
+/- Legion Traits add flavour, but at the cost of balance as the power level is very unequal. Could have cost points per Formation to balance them?
-A bit slow. Very granular with (too) many special rules and traits for large games. CC with one vs one pairing also slows the game.
-No supression/pinning mechanic. Just focus fire to kill and hope to break as there is no pinning units you can't kill enough of to break. Morale plays little role over all as even broken formations' units can be ordered to Move & Shoot & charge
-No degradation of Multi wound units as they are damaged. Together with lack of supression this means everything is at full capacity until dead. Which will again reward larger/tougher units and make it sometimes pointless to shoot at things you can't finish. e.g. a Warlord Titan with 1W remaining is as dangerous to you as an undamaged one.
-Bad internal balance. A&B weapon choices for the same points where one is clearly statistically better. Also Titans in particular gain more in power level than points increase, bigger is stronger per point
-Everything gets to shoot at flyers

Here images from our last games for terrain density reference, if your group has come to other conclusions. We are working on more scatter, obstacles & obstruction area terrain.

The balance can be improved by Erratas & house Erratas.

Its also early days, incomplete game without assault/core transports & artillery.




I think your review is pretty spot on, I'd only take one exception and that's that the formations don't actually limit very much without limiting the total number of formations a player can take. This is because they're very loose, example, I could field a formation for solar aux that is all of 70pts, just to get an extra commander, conversely I could field a single detachment that is over 3000 points and its made up entirely of baneblades and leman russes. Some formations are broken in conception, the pioneer company just lets a whole swathe of solar aux infiltrate. You're absolutely correct that the legions traits aren't created remotely equal, well that formation basically make solar aux able to be raven guard. Limiting formations won't fix all the other issues, especially the a and b options stuff, which you are definitely correct is a glaringly obvious problem esp with contemptors and prtending kheres is anywhere near an accurate lascannon.





Thanks. Yes I agree with you, the Formations themselves are very loose and not limited in maximum number. I was more talking in principle. If they were to introduce Formations with fewer Option slot, or we as players limit which and how many Formations a player can take, we somewhat balance army building. Legion Demi-Company is a pretty balanced building block for example. Restricting Pioneer company if one wants can also be done, and probably will be done.

Since GW won't provide point costs for weapon options which means the balance can never be as good as we/I like, I am toying with a group/house Erratas that introduces point costs for A&B options where they are the most different. Kheres/LC, Vanquisher/BC, Titan weapons etc. But we are awaiting more games and with the more complete lists after the expansion drops before considering that.

Right now I just laugh at my silly 6 Kheres Contemptors accomplishing nothing in shooting, while my main gaming buddys 2x8 LC Contemptors spew out Accurate AT. We tried considering the one attack dice a typo and gave it 2 dice similar to the HB in our last games, it's still really weak but at least can take out a few models with weak saves then.

Re: Obstacles I am building the pipes from the Manufactorum set, and got some FW barrricades incoming. Waiting for the GW ruins to come in stock so we can build matching ruin areas and have some more patches of difficult terrain.

For the next board, I purchased Lazy Forgers awesome new modular industrial stl's and his research complex. Walls, gates, pipelines galore. Can almost make a Zone Mortalis with that. Might be a year off though given the painting backlog.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/09 19:39:54


Post by: Crablezworth


 westiebestie wrote:
 Crablezworth wrote:




Automatically Appended Next Post:
 westiebestie wrote:
@Mad doc: Both Breachers & Destroyers have models to print, and rules in EA30k. Breachers are easily identifiable on the board, Destroyers not so much.

I have some on my desk, awaiting LI rules. Might play them as tacticals/Ass Marines until then, just because they are cool.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
leopard wrote:


and wondering what the "light armour" slot will end up with


Sabre light tanks. Small, cool af imo. Available to print already, probably coming in plastic later since they have that slot.



I think your review is pretty spot on, I'd only take one exception and that's that the formations don't actually limit very much without limiting the total number of formations a player can take. This is because they're very loose, example, I could field a formation for solar aux that is all of 70pts, just to get an extra commander, conversely I could field a single detachment that is over 3000 points and its made up entirely of baneblades and leman russes. Some formations are broken in conception, the pioneer company just lets a whole swathe of solar aux infiltrate. You're absolutely correct that the legions traits aren't created remotely equal, well that formation basically make solar aux able to be raven guard. Limiting formations won't fix all the other issues, especially the a and b options stuff, which you are definitely correct is a glaringly obvious problem esp with contemptors and prtending kheres is anywhere near an accurate lascannon.





Thanks. Yes I agree with you, the Formations themselves are very loose and not limited in maximum number. I was more talking in principle. If they were to introduce Formations with fewer Option slot, or we as players limit which and how many Formations a player can take, we somewhat balance army building. Legion Demi-Company is a pretty balanced building block for example. Restricting Pioneer company if one wants can also be done, and probably will be done.

Since GW won't provide point costs for weapon options which means the balance can never be as good as we/I like, I am toying with a group/house Erratas that introduces point costs for A&B options where they are the most different. Kheres/LC, Vanquisher/BC, Titan weapons etc. But we are awaiting more games and with the more complete lists after the expansion drops before considering that.

Right now I just laugh at my silly 6 Kheres Contemptors accomplishing nothing in shooting, while my main gaming buddys 2x8 LC Contemptors spew out Accurate AT. We tried considering the one attack dice a typo and gave it 2 dice similar to the HB in our last games, it's still really weak but at least can take out a few models with weak saves then.

Re: Obstacles I am building the pipes from the Manufactorum set, and got some FW barrricades incoming. Waiting for the GW ruins to come in stock so we can build matching ruin areas and have some more patches of difficult terrain.

For the next board, I purchased Lazy Forgers awesome new modular industrial stl's and his research complex. Walls, gates, pipelines galore. Can almost make a Zone Mortalis with that. Might be a year off though given the painting backlog.


Nice the complex is probably one of the best sets you can get for li. The walls if kept unbasted can be destructible to tanks ramming through them, but infantry could be allowed just to move over, so good for ambushes/lurking out los. I could also see the gate houses being a fun place to make some homebrew rules about who control which gate.

I'd also recommend the asian school buildings as they're quite big and branching without being needlessly tall and can fit 25mm's on top.

I think the critical thing is, infantry being only so tall, the design of terrain specifically for them is important because even 1 mm too tall and it can totally blocks los. This also ties into the criteria that units/bases must touch to gain the benefit, otherwise players would be constantly checking/arguing over cover saves. I feel this was a very deliberate decision on the designers part. Also I think why pre measuring for everything is allowed because distance and los are basically the only determinants of what models are in and out of a wound pool.



[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/09 19:57:04


Post by: SamusDrake


 Crablezworth wrote:

The real benefit of the 30k setting and limited factions with a lot of overlap is like with titanicus, the whole player base generally gets to benefit from a new book/release. A lot less jealousy because any new unit that performs well, isn't locked away from anyone, it's an allie chart away from being taken in their own army.


Absolutely. The Imperial aesthetic isn't for everyone but its awesome when the opposing player might say "well, I got a spare Reaver you can use for our game, being as you're some points short".


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/09 20:07:45


Post by: Mad Doc Grotsnik


It also makes balance a lot better, as everyone has more or less the same army building options.

Sure, we’ll still get some duff match ups here and there, but that’s down to a specific list and not because, say, Pete Haines wrote your Codex


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/09 20:18:23


Post by: SamusDrake


There's that as well.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, there are a lot of Legions threads on the go. I still think a 30K section, with it's 4 games, is worth consideration.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/09 21:34:03


Post by: leopard


another game, 2k+ warhound

enemy was marines, armour & demi, with a pair of thunderhawks eating a good few points

I have Auxilia, armour & pioneed, plus marine garrison

so yes..

- Thunderhawks can be annoying when you only have -1 AP firing at them, but not half as annoying as a pair of lightnings removing one in "intercept" mode with decent dice
- Vanquishers are broken, yes I had 16 of them out of 18 Leman Russ, one unit of six one shotted his warhound, another deleted most of a block of nine predators.
- having assault marines, on charge orders as a reserve in place is wonderful for dealing with enemy who think they have gotten a charge off against armour only to find friends drop by to say hello
- thudd guns are evil little sods

by turn four we called it, as by then while we were equal on points I had half my army to the marines having basically nothing so the 5th turn was mine, and I was on all three objectives. I also had my secondary and he didn't to add in

I think the big stuff is seriously over costed for its robustness


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/09 21:37:46


Post by: Mad Doc Grotsnik


Looking at the Demi-Company.

We’re as yet without Vanguard and Light Armour things to choose. And the only Transport option are Rhino, which we also, more importantly, can have as Dedicated Transport freebies.

This needs to change. Pronto.

I’ve nearly maxed out my Infantry options. All I’m short of are two bases each Heavy, Plasma, Assault and Terminators, all of which are comfortably covered by Just One More Box.

Oh, and Bastion, we need Bastion. But the models for that are coming in the form of Deredeo and Tarantulas.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/09 21:40:43


Post by: leopard


I would have had tarantula tonight, they are still sitting on my desk where I left them

*rage*

though as it turned out my opponent was quite glad I lacked four more skyfire units

certainly need more units, and different units able to do different things

marines need an assault transport, Auxilia need a decent transport, the various marine scouting units will make a different too I think, especially if stuff like land speeders are reasonable points with an anti tank option


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/09 21:46:12


Post by: Mad Doc Grotsnik


Yeah. Until we’ve a wider suite of options, I think it’s safe to say we’re not seeing the game at its full potential


Automatically Appended Next Post:
For instance? Whilst they seem destined to be a Bloody Menace, I wonder how curtailed Vanquishers will be once Marines have Speeders, and Drop Pods. Something which lets them really move up the table rapidly.

Same with the Xiphons come to think of it, as they pack a decent AT punch. I think. Whilst none of the above are simply a Delete button, it’s all stuff things like Vanquishers won’t want to act incautiously around. Like Little, Smiling, Wrinkly Old Bald Man.

Which is of course Rule 1. Rule 19 being a to ask yourself “how come Rule 1 exists?”



[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/09 21:50:47


Post by: leopard


totally, only have to look at the Heresy lists to see the scope of capabilities currently missing

Auxilia armour will be a lot less dangerous when marines have fast moving stuff that can flank it to get past the armour for one thing

can see a marine v Auxilia game coming down to marines hitting, and hitting hard for two turns with strike units, if the Auxilia survive they win, otherwise they will be broken, but only then will their own slower moving assault units come into play

should be an interesting dynamic

Tarantula and similar will make for good speed bumps, dangerous enough you have to kill them, but then that slows the advance down


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/09 21:55:50


Post by: Mad Doc Grotsnik


Or allows the Marine to cede a flank for a turn or two by leaving some unpleasantness, reinforcing it as needs be with Drop Pods and/or Rhino mounted infantry.

I am hoping Land Raiders and Spartans fall under Transports. That’d be cool.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/09 22:03:26


Post by: leopard


guessing if they do it right Land Raiders will fall under armour, with some formations able to take them as transports or some detachments as dedicated transports

Spartans the same, though maybe slightly more restricted

wondering on the stats, 2+ armour at a guess, and for the basic land raider a hull heavy bolter and a pair of "accurate" las-cannon sponsons, perhaps lacking the "Arc (Front)" rule

issue is the Spartan if they give it four "accurate" las cannon will either be too expensive or over powered in game, personally I'd give it three "accurate" dice

could go with a 1+ save on them as well, so a 2+ if you flank them, or a 2+ with a note they do not suffer the -1 from the rear


Automatically Appended Next Post:
thoughts on some of the tank weapons options, have a "base" tank and then "variants"

you have up to one in three in a "core" detachment as the variant or can take variant options as full platoons in non-core choices

so say a Solar Auxilia Armoured Company runs two detachments of Leman Russ, with no more than one in three as a Vanquisher, or they are full battle cannon units and the "optional" slots can be pure vanquishers

potentially with a note that an "option" slot cannot have more models than a "core" slot of the same type

so now 2x4 Leman Russ then 2x8 Vanquishers

basically put the "variant" tanks in as the minority


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/09 22:56:20


Post by: Crablezworth


leopard wrote:


I think the big stuff is seriously over costed for its robustness


Well, yes and no, I think if people want to do close in skirmishers knights are a far better way to go, like one questoris with3 melta/ccw armigers is a way better way to go than a close range warhound. The builds I'm looking at for hound are all like maxing the 35 inch range so I an just huge the middle of the board and hopefully keep deep strikers and tanks way away from me or just out range them with movement.

The reality though is something like a reaver that can take 8 40 inch ranged very high ap shots when played similarly is very very very good, they have to commit a lot to kill it, vanquishers can certainly do it but its really just an activation game then because it can just as readily outrange and destroy them wholesale.

Bottom line though I feel like for cc it's more about questoris/laners/atrapos/styrix/magaera and especiall armigers and moirax. Armigers in particular are insanely good for the 60pts a piece you pay,

But ya, titans seem best when putting out silly amounts of dice hopefully at a decent range. It's nice to be able to damage structures and remove obstacles, but I feel like they're ideal to just max on long range and own whole section of the board. Skirmishing up close is how they get swamped, it really is a knights game for mid to close imo. When people play with a bit more natural impassable terrain like rocks/cliffs and really start having to deal with gap/breach fighting, they'll realize how strong something like the lancer is up close, reach can save a lot of time if you're only able to make contact with a few bases of infantry or tanks. Very very strong.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/09 23:16:22


Post by: Mad Doc Grotsnik


I’m hesitant to suggest restrictions until we’ve got more Toys to play with.

Vanquishers are of course nasty, and short of a FAQ/Errata will continue to be so.

But once Artillery and other stuff is in play rules wise, and for me commercially available, it just seem too early to call.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/09 23:26:59


Post by: leopard


was thinking more how a Thunderhawk is a 2+ save with just two wounds in a world of "always hits a on a six AP-1 laser cannons"

also a warhound being turned into evaporated milk tins in a single volley

as for restrictions, I'm only really thinking of such for now, it needs to be re-evaluated with each new book released which provides more options

e.g. stuff that can get on the flank of 2+ armour makes pushing 2+ armour forwards more risky, in turn making it harder to score with them, changing their worth

the game tonight though I had three units of six Leman Russ @ 260 points each, as noted, one one shotted a warhound

I also had 100 points of baneblade that did practically nothing, and then died

the LR are 43 points per wound they have, the Baneblade 50, which is crazy when you consider the firepower

comes down to the usual with GW: the points system is screwed, I also suspect its not actually going to be changed due to the way they have arranged the books

I also had a warhound, it survived, because my opponent lacked 30"+ range weapons, but to be honest a 4th Vanquisher unit for less points would have been vastly more useful


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/10 00:40:43


Post by: Crablezworth


 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I’m hesitant to suggest restrictions until we’ve got more Toys to play with.

Vanquishers are of course nasty, and short of a FAQ/Errata will continue to be so.

But once Artillery and other stuff is in play rules wise, and for me commercially available, it just seem too early to call.
+

Well its not just vanquishers, its that they're on very good chasis with 2+ save and decent speed, add to that they can be taken in 10's, which to leopard's remark about a warhound being destroyed by I believe a detachment of just 6. So many detachments if maxed out have very large amount of firepower, like 6 baneblades/10 russes are just very strong.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
leopard wrote:
was thinking more how a Thunderhawk is a 2+ save with just two wounds in a world of "always hits a on a six AP-1 laser cannons"

also a warhound being turned into evaporated milk tins in a single volley

as for restrictions, I'm only really thinking of such for now, it needs to be re-evaluated with each new book released which provides more options

e.g. stuff that can get on the flank of 2+ armour makes pushing 2+ armour forwards more risky, in turn making it harder to score with them, changing their worth

the game tonight though I had three units of six Leman Russ @ 260 points each, as noted, one one shotted a warhound

I also had 100 points of baneblade that did practically nothing, and then died

the LR are 43 points per wound they have, the Baneblade 50, which is crazy when you consider the firepower

comes down to the usual with GW: the points system is screwed, I also suspect its not actually going to be changed due to the way they have arranged the books

I also had a warhound, it survived, because my opponent lacked 30"+ range weapons, but to be honest a 4th Vanquisher unit for less points would have been vastly more useful


I think for gamse where both sides are going pretty light on air power, either that fight ace idea i mentioned where both sides either get or can purchase the ability to take both armour and jink when possible.

Another idea I had was ditching, allowing plains to immediately go back into reserve if overwatched but they burn their whole turn. I also would much prefer if deep strike scatter had a simple mishap table, where instead of just auto dead there's a likelihood of being delayed or placed by opponents. Even with a shorter scatter and deep strike being so strong, it doesn't feel like the correct way to balance it, especially with the added control players have of when and where they come in unlike other games that usually had an element of rolling for reserve.

On the vanquisher stuff, its sorta nutty how many you can have in a single formation. 50 russes and 12 baneblades and its still under 3k by 35pts, break point of 31 too....


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/10 07:33:54


Post by: Pacific


 westiebestie wrote:
@Mad doc: Both Breachers & Destroyers have models to print, and rules in EA30k. Breachers are easily identifiable on the board, Destroyers not so much.

I have some on my desk, awaiting LI rules. Might play them as tacticals/Ass Marines until then, just because they are cool.


I did some Destroyers, they are pretty easy to represent due to the colouring.


I always thought Destroyers were one of the biggest missed opportunities in AoD 30k. You have all of these amazing descriptions of nuke/chemical weapon-carrying marines and all of this other crazy stuff, and then the model came out and was armed with.. pistols.
So I went OTT with mine; have rules which are fairly short range but high AP/CAF and able to avoid cover and things like that. You could also add some fun stuff that there is a chance the unit detonates when destroyed and takes out nearby units.

We played one scenario once where the Destroyers have to escort a nuclear-bomb vehicle to a point in the board. The rest of the World Eaters force had to withdraw, the Destroyers were expected to remain with the bomb and not return.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/10 08:37:11


Post by: leopard


one other I was thinking of was to allow aircraft with "Interceptor" to be taken as part of a unit of aircraft without it, and gain the "Escort" special rule

this requires them to remain within 4" of the aircraft they are escorting, prevents them from attacking non-flier targets, but allows them to use their "Interceptor" to get the jump on anything trying that against the escorted craft.

as in your move your escorted flight and escorts, I bring in an interceptor flight to attack it, but the escorts will get to fire first

also allows hits scored on the group to be assigned to the escorts, rolling against their saves etc first.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
also while Six Vanquishers did drop a warhound, they had some lucky rolls to do it and the warhound fluffed its saves


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/10 09:03:54


Post by: tneva82


leopard wrote:

also while Six Vanquishers did drop a warhound, they had some lucky rolls to do it and the warhound fluffed its saves


Well that's given Average is 3 lascannon hit and 3 vanguisher.

That leaves 1 vanguisher to be saved(obviously warhound will tank the vanguisher cannon to void shields) for 75% chance and 3 lascannon so 1.75 wounds in average out of 4.

That's assuming warhound isn't hugging terrain for -1/-2 to hit by hiding part of the titan out of sight. Which scout titans with their manouverability generally should aim to do. They are also small enough that the -2 to hit isn't even super hard to get.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/10 09:22:10


Post by: leopard


tneva82 wrote:
leopard wrote:

also while Six Vanquishers did drop a warhound, they had some lucky rolls to do it and the warhound fluffed its saves


Well that's given Average is 3 lascannon hit and 3 vanguisher.

That leaves 1 vanguisher to be saved(obviously warhound will tank the vanguisher cannon to void shields) for 75% chance and 3 lascannon so 1.75 wounds in average out of 4.

That's assuming warhound isn't hugging terrain for -1/-2 to hit by hiding part of the titan out of sight. Which scout titans with their manouverability generally should aim to do. They are also small enough that the -2 to hit isn't even super hard to get.


it was a clear shot, he positioned it to be partly in cover, then added "first fire" orders, I moved the tanks to get a clear shot

six lascannons got four hits, slightly above average but not unexpected, dropped both shields and got lucky to do a damage point

six vanquishers got three hits and two more failed saves and good night Mr Wobbly was nice knowing you, this after it fired at a bunch of rapier laser cannons, which actually wasn't a bad choice, it wiped most of them and in turn protected an objective, just got unlikely

have more terrain in the works including more larger buildings specifically as LoS blockers, some industrial stuff that blocks sight but cannot be occupied is also in the works.

my Warhound lived by hanging back out of range for the most part - which is another issue with the Vanquisher, the long range, though here I had moved up to get the laser shots and hardly used the range


Automatically Appended Next Post:
oh, and had it survived there was another six waiting.. which ended up without a viable target on the first turn, so in effect while only six killed it, it "took" the fire of twelve


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/10 09:28:46


Post by: westiebestie


Yeah let's wait about 4 weeks so we see the full army lists with Artillery and assault transports, Drop Pods and Fast Attack as well as SA core transports before tweaking points or lists shall we? Those things will shake up what's good a fair bit and introduce counters to mainly Gun lines.

Vanquishers are a bit OP currently for sure, but soon (TM) we can approach and charge them out of Land Raiders & Spartans, or Drop Pods around them and throw Dreads at them.

Already you can Turn 1 charge them out of a Thawk which is pretty survivable to Overwatch without Skyfire. SA needs air cover to protect them from that.

I thought it was only Assault marines that could turn 1 charge as I thought you had to change to Skimmer in the end phase only. But Paragraph 4 of the Embark/Disembark rule p97 states Flyers w Hover can touch down during their move to disembark troops, immediately changing to Skimmer. Disembark Terminators or Contemptors on a Charge order. What survived Overwatch should be able to take out those Vanquishers tanks. Then the Thawk changes to Flyer in the End phase and flies off, becoming a useful strafing Gunship for Turns 2+. Assuming it survived. This means Astartes can charge out to 25+1+10 = 36" Turn 1. Glass Cannon, but deadly. Works best with multiple Thawks as you might loose one or its contents. People brag about taking out a full Armoured Comp with a twin Thawk Turn 1 Charge.

At the very least it forces Tank players to think about their deployment.

Anyway Drop Pods soon bring this to a lot of units and anywhere on the table, presumably for cheaper.

leopard wrote:
guessing if they do it right Land Raiders will fall under armour, with some formations able to take them as transports or some detachments as dedicated transports

Spartans the same, though maybe slightly more restricted

wondering on the stats, 2+ armour at a guess, and for the basic land raider a hull heavy bolter and a pair of "accurate" las-cannon sponsons, perhaps lacking the "Arc (Front)" rule

issue is the Spartan if they give it four "accurate" las cannon will either be too expensive or over powered in game, personally I'd give it three "accurate" dice

could go with a 1+ save on them as well, so a 2+ if you flank them, or a 2+ with a note they do not suffer the -1 from the rear




I am Thinking

LR Transport, 1W 2+, 2 Accurate (TL) Lascannons

Spartan Transport/Heavy Armour, 2W, 2+, 4 Accurate LC shots or 2x Laser Destroyers (4 Shots)

Spartan should be balanced by point cost, its a strong, survivable vehicle.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/10 09:41:02


Post by: leopard


oh for restrictions I'm just thinking that as a stop gap for now that I'm going with myself

charging is another one where the activations game matters, you bring in your Verminators and manage a charge on the tanks, which may or may not overwatch, more likely their escort unit will overwatch (i.e. something nearby specifically there for the purpose)

if you have the number of activations to wait for the tanks to activate, or they are on first fire, its gravy. if not the tanks are not pinned by the infantry and can just back off (unless you can surround them of course)

so its not perfect, especially if you are burning points on expensive assault transports, and even if you are thats a lot of points to kill a unit of tanks

unless you are also grabbing an objective or key part of the board in the process naturally

will be more stuff soon though thats going to make rear area and flank defence a lot more important and allow marines to do what they are meant to be doing, working as shock troops


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/10 10:01:52


Post by: westiebestie


Yup, but I don't consider the Thawk cost a Tax as its pretty great IMO. And yeah you have to play the activation game, as always. Come in last, target something that has already advance moved so it can't drive out of CC, or is on FF. It pretty much forces the SA player to dedicate escorts, and stay back, avoid the best lanes of fire, and avoid FF. Which means objectives are yours. A threat in being. Terminators also bring a lot of TS so once there, they can threaten any objectives. 80pts of Terminators very likely take back 2-3x their cost by taking out a big SA tank detachment even if taken out immediately after.

Anyway for now it's expensive, soon anything in a LR can Assault out to 16+1+10 = 27" from your DZ.

Drop Pods anywhere you like Turn 1. LC dreads getting rear arcs and/or charges. Wonder what the Dread Pods will cost in points.

This will drastically alter what's possible.

Also note that Vanquisher Russ squadrons have very few shots, if powerful. So in a game of rock, paper, scissors they come out a lot worse on Overwatch then let's say a Sicaran against a rush charge. Russ roll 2 dice each, Sicarans throw out 3+2+1/2 sponson dice, so 6-7 each. 2/4 of which are on 5+ instead of 6+. Suddenly those OP Vanquishers are only OP if allowed to do their thing.

A rounded list once we get complete lists will have to contain fast threats. To chop the shooty. And balance defensive capability to shoot the choppy.

Heck even Knights get to 32-36" with a turn 1 March & turn 2 Charge.

I can't see any army really counting on avoiding melee by Turn 2.

Lets see how lists look with Artillery, Pods, Transports & Assault Transports.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/10 10:14:57


Post by: Albertorius


 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Yeah. Until we’ve a wider suite of options, I think it’s safe to say we’re not seeing the game at its full potential

This, of course, has nothing to do with GW approaching it as DLCs

I will be very interested on seeing the final opinions when the game is actually complete ^^


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/10 10:28:26


Post by: leopard


is any GW game actually complete?

this is a joke and I know what you mean, I suspect there will be a lot of options but a few rock-paper-nuke lists that work and a lot of stuff thats nice on a shelf

it will however be very different.

and yes Thunderhawks are not a tax unit as they can do work, assuming they last more than until the next activation after they arrive of course (and a unit able to reasonably reliably bring it down will be even more expensive in Intercept mode), they are however very expensive given assault bods especially have a pretty decent move on their own

I think with more area terrain like trees the ability to operate them in skimmer mode for pop up attacks and really only ever face overwatch will be decent

have also seen the Auxila fliers in action now, two flights of two lightnings is far from cheap but they did a lot of work and all four survived, indeed were never even fired at, using 30" range missiles and only closing the laser range towards the end of the game


Automatically Appended Next Post:
what is notable from last nights game is that as usual the first turn was brutal, about a quarter of my models and a third of the enemy destroyed in the turn

also I have previously seen it but my opponent now has as well, sending assault marines after troops in buildings that out number you is a waste of good models, they need to be going in to clean up a crippled unit

apparently in previous games he had been using titans as building demolition tools, he didn't try it here, largely because it didn't live that long but also he noted getting that close was suicidal

also a 100% focus on the way to score points is critical


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/10 13:26:59


Post by: SU-152


leopard wrote:

the LR are 43 points per wound they have, the Baneblade 50, which is crazy when you consider the firepower

/quote] /quote]

Haven't you thought about comparing the LR firepower with the TH firepower? because the later seems way more OP than the former.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/10 13:31:32


Post by: leopard


not sure I think the TH is overpowered in terms of firepower, faced too last night and I think between them they killed about two infantry stands

as with other things they can have a lot of guns but die quickly

problem is a TH is a lot of points, takes two wounds and is dead. six LR(V) can take six wounds, and work as degrading performance as they are slowly removed. but anything with the likes of "engine killer" can still only splat one wound from them


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/10 13:35:14


Post by: The_Real_Chris


 Crablezworth wrote:

Another idea I had was ditching, allowing plains to immediately go back into reserve if overwatched but they burn their whole turn.


Yes, depending on how the rest of the releases pan out suffering damage from Overwatch could bounce the aircraft (and their payload/transported units) back into reserves. Maybe miss next turn as well. Note if they attack with bombs during their move then get brought down they are dead not bounced as caught during attack run.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/10 13:37:37


Post by: Crablezworth


The_Real_Chris wrote:
 Crablezworth wrote:

Another idea I had was ditching, allowing plains to immediately go back into reserve if overwatched but they burn their whole turn.


Yes, depending on how the rest of the releases pan out suffering damage from Overwatch could bounce the aircraft (and their payload/transported units) back into reserves. Maybe miss next turn as well. Note if they attack with bombs during their move then get brought down they are dead not bounced as caught during attack run.


Yeah good point about the bombing run.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/10 13:38:26


Post by: The_Real_Chris


How are people finding a horde of small activations vs a few large ones style match ups?


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/10 13:39:19


Post by: leopard


looked at the bomb option for the lightnings, not sure I see a situation to ever use it, not because they don't look decent, they do, but the target has to be within movement range of my board edge (unless I can drop into hover mode), and means a lot can decide to fire overwatch so the most effective will

better to stay at range with missiles


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/10 13:50:57


Post by: Crablezworth


The_Real_Chris wrote:
How are people finding a horde of small activations vs a few large ones style match ups?


The problem is the core of the game is like AT in that a lot just comes down to who shoots first, but combined with the fact that the most popular order is advance, move and shoot, so the balance is keeping the tempo of activations.

Stuff that messes with that imo is really maxed out units in terms of firepower. Do the math on 10 vanquishers shooting just about anything and it's a bit upsetting. There's no right or wrong answer mind you, and that's sort of the other problem. Formations don't limit very much, I could make a 50 leman russ tank formation with 6 activations or an 8 leman russ tank formation with 3. But nothing is limiting those formations other than point cost, Case in point with the low end, I could have 6 formations of 8 leman russes and baneblade at 460pts per formation for a grand total of 18 activations anyway.

so if i doubled up all those units into two detachment teams working in tandem, basically 2 units of 4 russes instead of 1 of 8/10 I double up activations and available targets, both units can also move out from cover at the same time.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
leopard wrote:
looked at the bomb option for the lightnings, not sure I see a situation to ever use it, not because they don't look decent, they do, but the target has to be within movement range of my board edge (unless I can drop into hover mode), and means a lot can decide to fire overwatch so the most effective will

better to stay at range with missiles


It's perhaps useful on boards with a lot of area terrain. But with sentinels and marine missile launchers also having ignores cover, doesn't seem as useful. The lightning to me seems all about maxing missiles and sniping long range.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/10 13:57:31


Post by: leopard


The_Real_Chris wrote:
How are people finding a horde of small activations vs a few large ones style match ups?


I have found you don't need a horde of activations, but you do want to maintain having two or three more than your enemy, provides potentially a huge advantage

e.g. force his stuff to charge while I still have an assault unit on charge orders to come to the rescue in a way it cannot be pinned, force fliers in before my interceptors

you do want some decent sized blocks though so as to be able to get the bulk of your firepower out quickly


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/10 14:34:55


Post by: Pacific


SamusDrake wrote:
There's that as well.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, there are a lot of Legions threads on the go. I still think a 30K section, with it's 4 games, is worth consideration.


I agree. Where is a good place to ask, Nuts & Bolts section?

This place has gone from about 4 or 5 of us regularly posting before Legions to about 50!* I guess a good problem to have but not ideal if you aren't interested in that game I guess.

*and I almost certainly wouldn't have been told I am 'breaking the social contract' and am a dastard for mounting my missile launcher marines on strip bases before


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/10 14:46:15


Post by: westiebestie


The_Real_Chris wrote:
How are people finding a horde of small activations vs a few large ones style match ups?


A bit more activations than your enemy is a big advantage when it comes to getting charges to stick, unless your scale is enough to pin them you want to charge after they've already moved so they can't advance away.

There's a small points premium to bring more activations, as adding models to a Detachment is cheaper per model. So 4 Kratos are cheaper than 2+2 for Example. 4 costs 260p, 2+2 cost 300p. That's 15% more, so it adds up and is not negligible imo.

So it forces one to think during army building.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/10 17:07:31


Post by: tneva82


leopard wrote:
tneva82 wrote:
leopard wrote:

also while Six Vanquishers did drop a warhound, they had some lucky rolls to do it and the warhound fluffed its saves


Well that's given Average is 3 lascannon hit and 3 vanguisher.

That leaves 1 vanguisher to be saved(obviously warhound will tank the vanguisher cannon to void shields) for 75% chance and 3 lascannon so 1.75 wounds in average out of 4.

That's assuming warhound isn't hugging terrain for -1/-2 to hit by hiding part of the titan out of sight. Which scout titans with their manouverability generally should aim to do. They are also small enough that the -2 to hit isn't even super hard to get.


it was a clear shot, he positioned it to be partly in cover, then added "first fire" orders, I moved the tanks to get a clear shot

six lascannons got four hits, slightly above average but not unexpected, dropped both shields and got lucky to do a damage point

six vanquishers got three hits and two more failed saves and good night Mr Wobbly was nice knowing you, this after it fired at a bunch of rapier laser cannons, which actually wasn't a bad choice, it wiped most of them on the first turn, so in effect while only six killed it, it "took" the fire of twelve


Note you resolve all hits and then defender allocates. Obviously he'll allocate vanquishers to void shields.

Well guess he could but why allow titan to be hit by armourbane when you can drop void shields instead


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/10 17:21:55


Post by: ashlevrier


 westiebestie wrote:
I'm a handful of games in, maximum 1500p yet. So far liking it a lot even though it has its issues.

Here are some quick lessons our group has learned so far (only Astartes vs Astartes yet).

-Playing tactically for the Scenario at hand is rewarded
-Going overly aggressive to score VPs turn 1 is punished by Divide & Conquer and the other player has so far swing round and won for us (not yet tested infiltrate, this is with turn 1 March/air deployed assault marines. Infiltrate is stronger, so looking forward to facing that, except maybe in Retrieve & Forward Push)
-Overwatch is crucial, it's much easier to stop Infantry/transports BEFORE they can garrison
-Buildings within 3" of an Objective are a death trap. They go down easily. So far I've stayed maximum 1-2 turns in a Garrison, using Transports to redeplpy before it collapses
-Point Defence is a strong ability both in Overwatch & firing out of sequence/split fire
-Flyers deal pain but are taken out easily by weight of fire since everything can shoot at them (boo)
-Reaver is a bit too strong at 1500p, where not enough detachments are available to strip its Shields & overwhelm it. We'll probably leave it to 2000+ and go for a Warhound next time round.
-Knight Questoris are pretty deadly but also far from Invulnerable
-A & B weapon choices for the same points cost aren't balanced at all. Case in point Contemptors, TLLC is crazily betterer than AssCans.

Here's my review & Comparison with EA30K/EpicAU 30k that I really like.

I will update after bigger games and any Erratas and if course once we get more complete army lists with core transports & artillery.


Rules 8/10
Balance 5/10
Weighted 7.5/10

+Good terrain rules that really affect gameplay, same as EA30k, but also terrain that you can affect (by targeting structures)
+Balancing mechanics built into Army building, Formations limiting what you can take to limit spam & Strategic assets being limited
+Detachments with higher initial cost and reduced expansion cost forces you to choose if you want more activations or larger Formations/Detachments that are harder to break
+Multiple Victory Condition scenarios
+Objective Control/Tactical Strength values is a good mechanic
+Scale rules, larger units can shoot and/or leave cc and move over smaller units
+/- The USP of LI, its Hybrid phase/alternating activation system. Orders locked in start of turn forces you to think ahead but at the cost of reactivity during the turn. Subphases of taking turns activating vs true alternating activations. Means no possibility to move after everything has shot.
Also activations are not necessarily alternating, if player 1 has chosen fewer or no prders for a certain phase player 2 potentially gets to do lots in a row
+/- Legion Traits add flavour, but at the cost of balance as the power level is very unequal. Could have cost points per Formation to balance them?
-A bit slow. Very granular with (too) many special rules and traits for large games. CC with one vs one pairing also slows the game.
-No supression/pinning mechanic. Just focus fire to kill and hope to break as there is no pinning units you can't kill enough of to break. Morale plays little role over all as even broken formations' units can be ordered to Move & Shoot & charge
-No degradation of Multi wound units as they are damaged. Together with lack of supression this means everything is at full capacity until dead. Which will again reward larger/tougher units and make it sometimes pointless to shoot at things you can't finish. e.g. a Warlord Titan with 1W remaining is as dangerous to you as an undamaged one.
-Bad internal balance. A&B weapon choices for the same points where one is clearly statistically better. Also Titans in particular gain more in power level than points increase, bigger is stronger per point
-Everything gets to shoot at flyers

Here images from our last games for terrain density reference, if your group has come to other conclusions. We are working on more scatter, obstacles & obstruction area terrain.

The balance can be improved by Erratas & house Erratas.

Its also early days, incomplete game without assault/core transports & artillery.


-Going overly aggressive to score VPs turn 1 is punished by Divide & Conquer. every time i play aggressive i win. but so far you have only played marine vs marine. as i am one of two marine players in the group and everyone else is aux. i have sean both armys be played. establishing board control and forcing the other guy into his corner or deployment zone so i can hold the objectives is for now the winning strate.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
leopard wrote:
high speed stuff and hopefully flanking stuff is going to mix the game up a fair bit, especially drop pods


i hope drop pods have a way to not come into contact with buildings. otherwise they die with no save. i lost a full unit of terminators because they scattered into a building.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/10 17:29:10


Post by: Mad Doc Grotsnik


Also, seems folks haven’t yet encountered Really Big Things, like Warlords and up in scale, because it seems our collections aren’t large enough to hit the point threshold to allow such Behemoths.

So again, not and to never doubt the experience of others, Spesh when I’m yet to roll the bones and actually, y’know, play? We’re collectively yet to see the game at its full potential.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/10 17:32:52


Post by: Crablezworth


 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Also, seems folks haven’t yet encountered Really Big Things, like Warlords and up in scale, because it seems our collections aren’t large enough to hit the point threshold to allow such Behemoths.

So again, not and to never doubt the experience of others, Spesh when I’m yet to roll the bones and actually, y’know, play? We’re collectively yet to see the game at its full potential.


Reavers even with warp missile banned are very strong at 1500 points. And warlords can be taken at 2000. The reaver if kitted for long range is just very strong like the warlord. In the case of the last game, reaver had two laser blasters and the turbo laser up top, a lot of 40 inch range shooting, 8 dice worth and 2 of those are accurate so can be re-rolled. It's not that it killed a bazillion points but it did remove a kratos unit very easily at long range, it was that it just had so much of the board in range, even with a fair amount of los blocking, It can also split this fire pretty efficiently if need be.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 ashlevrier wrote:


i hope drop pods have a way to not come into contact with buildings. otherwise they die with no save. i lost a full unit of terminators because they scattered into a building.


I don't like that the only real balancer for deep strike is the risk of total destruction. I think the mishap table handled it better, I'd rather the unit just went back into reserve and was delayed or at worse got placed by the opponent. Both of those still seem better than the unit getting wiped.

With that said, there really needs to be some limits on it, I sorta don't want to see giant armies of pods, I think they're really cool in combined arms but in a skew list its gonna get boring fast even if deep strike remains really deadly in terms of scatter.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/10 17:43:47


Post by: ashlevrier


leopard wrote:
another game, 2k+ warhound

enemy was marines, armour & demi, with a pair of thunderhawks eating a good few points

I have Auxilia, armour & pioneed, plus marine garrison

so yes..

- Thunderhawks can be annoying when you only have -1 AP firing at them, but not half as annoying as a pair of lightnings removing one in "intercept" mode with decent dice
- Vanquishers are broken, yes I had 16 of them out of 18 Leman Russ, one unit of six one shotted his warhound, another deleted most of a block of nine predators.
- having assault marines, on charge orders as a reserve in place is wonderful for dealing with enemy who think they have gotten a charge off against armour only to find friends drop by to say hello
- thudd guns are evil little sods

by turn four we called it, as by then while we were equal on points I had half my army to the marines having basically nothing so the 5th turn was mine, and I was on all three objectives. I also had my secondary and he didn't to add in

I think the big stuff is seriously over costed for its robustness


-Vanquishers are just the better option for killing tanks. also because so much of the aux weapons out range the marines. marines have to play aggressive. that vanq has 32 inches i think.
-the knights and titans seam to be lacking fire power or deffence for there points. like we bring knights for fun because there just not. 3 vanqs ends a knight.
-i dont own any thunders yet. something we have though about doing with them is pop up attacks. turn them into longbows basicaly.
-in the last game we played the aircraft didnt even matter. as i firmly had almost 1500 points on all the objectives the two lightings just didnt have the fire power to do anything to me.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Also, seems folks haven’t yet encountered Really Big Things, like Warlords and up in scale, because it seems our collections aren’t large enough to hit the point threshold to allow such Behemoths.

So again, not and to never doubt the experience of others, Spesh when I’m yet to roll the bones and actually, y’know, play? We’re collectively yet to see the game at its full potential.


at 3k you just need 2100 points of marine or aux. the last 900 can be a warlord and a knight. because the warhound is 330 you cant bring a warlord and warhound in the same list a 3k.

i have 2100 points of marines and i have a large number of titans and knights. but no one else seams to be ready to play at 3k yet. the game may play completly def at that level. but until then i dont know.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/10 17:50:22


Post by: leopard


I think the thunderhawk could make a good, if expensive, "Apache longbow"


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/10 17:51:55


Post by: ashlevrier


 Crablezworth wrote:
 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Also, seems folks haven’t yet encountered Really Big Things, like Warlords and up in scale, because it seems our collections aren’t large enough to hit the point threshold to allow such Behemoths.

So again, not and to never doubt the experience of others, Spesh when I’m yet to roll the bones and actually, y’know, play? We’re collectively yet to see the game at its full potential.


Reavers even with warp missile banned are very strong at 1500 points. And warlords can be taken at 2000. The reaver if kitted for long range is just very strong like the warlord. In the case of the last game, reaver had two laser blasters and the turbo laser up top, a lot of 40 inch range shooting, 8 dice worth and 2 of those are accurate so can be re-rolled. It's not that it killed a bazillion points but it did remove a kratos unit very easily at long range, it was that it just had so much of the board in range, even with a fair amount of los blocking, It can also split this fire pretty efficiently if need be.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 ashlevrier wrote:


i hope drop pods have a way to not come into contact with buildings. otherwise they die with no save. i lost a full unit of terminators because they scattered into a building.


I don't like that the only real balancer for deep strike is the risk of total destruction. I think the mishap table handled it better, I'd rather the unit just went back into reserve and was delayed or at worse got placed by the opponent. Both of those still seem better than the unit getting wiped.

With that said, there really needs to be some limits on it, I sorta don't want to see giant armies of pods, I think they're really cool in combined arms but in a skew list its gonna get boring fast even if deep strike remains really deadly in terms of scatter.



yeah. like i know they deep strike all the time into ships and buildings just fine in the books. why they made it the most leathal of things here is beyond me. "teleport in to the walmart of doom, find your self in the back rooms"


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/10 17:52:54


Post by: leopard


the bigger titans look a lot more robust and scary, not going to be scoring points but can certainly deny some

disappointment was the Baneblade, its no more robust than a Malcador, which feels wrong


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/10 17:53:27


Post by: ashlevrier


leopard wrote:
I think the thunderhawk could make a good, if expensive, "Apache longbow"


i think anything with hover can do the pop up attack. but the thunder has that 40 inch range laser


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/10 17:54:23


Post by: westiebestie


Agree with C, Reavers are strong, long range Reavers deleting a structure at will in one turn scares you away from garrisoning. This is at 1500. At 2000+ And with more counters it might be different.

Warp missile we are not playing cause they are broken. We currently expect to limit them to 0-1 per army and assign them a point cost, later on..

Warlords+ I expect to dominate at 2000-2500 currently, we'll see.

 ashlevrier wrote:


-Going overly aggressive to score VPs turn 1 is punished by Divide & Conquer.

Every time i play aggressive i win. but so far you have only played marine vs marine. as i am one of two marine players in the group and everyone else is aux. i have sean both armys be played. establishing board control and forcing the other guy into his corner or deployment zone so i can hold the objectives is for now the winning strate.



Opposite experience for me, only Astartes at my club. All are pretty experienced alt activation players and tactically shrewd, so dont fall for e.g partial rushes. Just playing the long game of divide & conquering the aggressive parts of the enemy army first, and thenoutscoring turns 3-5 has worked so far. Yet to face a full rush air cav, the most so far have been 1 Thawk + 2 Eagles worth of Terminators, Ass Marines supported by 16 rushing Dreads at 1500, with the rest of his army coming in transports behind. Overwatch and AA is pretty decent if positioning well. Sicarans do work. My counterchargers handle the rest, then I can deep strike behind their front portions and start to counter.

When I get to face SA I plan to go very aggressive, both as they are better at long range, weak on AA and weak on RoF so weak on Overwatch given everyone and their mother seem to be going only max Vanquisher Cannons currently.

People also tend to miss the humble Heavy Bolter, maxing Lascannons. That 5+ Overwatch does a difference.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/10 18:00:37


Post by: tneva82


Trust you remember warp missile errata?

Played game today and damn got to be careful of going to building with acastus around...4 shots -4 hitting on 2+...

Losing 10/13 infantry before able to shoot missiles into his infantry in building hurt.

Thankfully he was so focused on killing thunderhawks and reaver my armoured company after 2 turns was at full strength.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/10 18:06:30


Post by: leopard


 ashlevrier wrote:
leopard wrote:
I think the thunderhawk could make a good, if expensive, "Apache longbow"


i think anything with hover can do the pop up attack. but the thunder has that 40 inch range laser


have to say the very best counter to something like that is an army lacking large high value targets


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/10 18:06:31


Post by: westiebestie


tneva82 wrote:
Trust you remember warp missile errata?

Played game today and damn got to be careful of going to building with acastus around...4 shots -4 hitting on 2+...



Yup, its nerfed vs Titans but still deletes any detachment on 2+. Baneblades, Kratos, coming Fellblades etc. Bye bye. Too good in our opinion.

Yup, Reavers and Acastus mean building denial.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/10 18:24:10


Post by: The_Real_Chris


 ashlevrier wrote:
i lost a full unit of terminators because they scattered into a building.


Stick to teleporting into spacehulk corridors, far safer


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/10 18:30:00


Post by: tneva82


Yea that's odd. Teleporting amidst enemy/space hulk fine, building bad.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/10 18:30:44


Post by: ashlevrier


 westiebestie wrote:
Agree with C, Reavers are strong, long range Reavers deleting a structure at will in one turn scares you away from garrisoning. This is at 1500. At 2000+ And with more counters it might be different.

Warp missile we are not playing cause they are broken. We currently expect to limit them to 0-1 per army and assign them a point cost, later on..

Warlords+ I expect to dominate at 2000-2500 currently, we'll see.

 ashlevrier wrote:


-Going overly aggressive to score VPs turn 1 is punished by Divide & Conquer.

Every time i play aggressive i win. but so far you have only played marine vs marine. as i am one of two marine players in the group and everyone else is aux. i have sean both armys be played. establishing board control and forcing the other guy into his corner or deployment zone so i can hold the objectives is for now the winning strate.



Opposite experience for me, only Astartes at my club. All are pretty experienced alt activation players and tactically shrewd, so dont fall for e.g partial rushes. Just playing the long game of divide & conquering the aggressive parts of the enemy army first, and thenoutscoring turns 3-5 has worked so far. Yet to face a full rush air cav, the most so far have been 1 Thawk + 2 Eagles worth of Terminators, Ass Marines supported by 16 rushing Dreads at 1500, with the rest of his army coming in transports behind. Overwatch and AA is pretty decent if positioning well. Sicarans do work. My counterchargers handle the rest, then I can deep strike behind their front portions and start to counter.

When I get to face SA I plan to go very aggressive, both as they are better at long range, weak on AA and weak on RoF so weak on Overwatch given everyone and their mother seem to be going only max Vanquisher Cannons currently.

People also tend to miss the humble Heavy Bolter, maxing Lascannons. That 5+ Overwatch does a difference.


-All are pretty experienced alt activation players and tactically shrewd.
we in my group we invented a minis war game based on alt activation. https://acpgames.com/about-2/ you should check it out. though i think its dead now.

-Sicarans are great at over watch. i out fit mine with he heavy bolters and the autocannons. considering they only have 16 inches of range. most AC can just stay out side there range and not get shot down. but the few times i have been able to get a plane in range. i have shot it down.

in my local group we have one aux player that will bring two units of 12 ogers and a large unit of axe men. he also dose large units of normal infantry. backed by tanks with vanqs. the other aux player not wanting to play a one note army trys the combined arms balance list build. i will tell you the first one has been working better than the second.

marines have a good amout of point defence weapons. but there short ranged so we have to get aggressive and close. bolter is only 8 inches.

also i have seen over watching vanqs shoot down some planes. also over watched my knight one time that charged them. vanqs are just good


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The_Real_Chris wrote:
 ashlevrier wrote:
i lost a full unit of terminators because they scattered into a building.


Stick to teleporting into spacehulk corridors, far safer


lol look in my head they just went to the back rooms and are lost for ever. warp none sense.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/10 19:14:50


Post by: ashlevrier


Some pics of my stuff

[Thumb - 20240110_123609.jpg]
[Thumb - 20240108_222347.jpg]
[Thumb - 20240104_220604.jpg]


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/10 19:19:03


Post by: westiebestie


@Ash: cool, haven't heard of it, will check. I didn't mean that your group is any less experienced btw, I trust you and your experience its just I think there are so many variables with terrain & tactics. And SA being rather limited on options, especially if they load up on Vanquishers with only LC hull weapons to kill the high value stuff and leave themselves open to not stopping the Infantry assaults due to weak overwatch. Yes, Ogres are brutal on charge I hear.

Sicaran Overwatch is 16/8" (or 22 w LC sponsons ) but I use it to shoot the things coming out of the airplanes or transports on charge orders, and we were talking about aggressive early rushes working or not, not long range flyer duels. You have to unload within 10" to get the charge in, and during the charge you get within 8" so it can Overwatch with all its weapons. Dont waste them on the Hawk.

They're quite effective at stopping aggression imo. Deredeo & my flyers can try to bring the Thawks down. Storm Eagles I can Overwatch down or shoot its contents, they're more fragile.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
I am expecting the Sicaran to be a pretty decent defence to drop Pods too. I bring 10 at 1500p, they're my jack of all trades with a bucket of dice. 60-70 Overwatch dice, a lot of it on 5+, make a big dent in any Terminators, Assault marines & Dreads (currently Contemptors) disembarking/charging.

Turn 1 I position myself to counter play any early aggression if I see air cav, typically placing Sicarans a bit to each side, behind LOS blockers with diagonal or sideways lanes of fire to Overwatch. Will do the same vs pods. If no rush comes Turn 1 or they dont have any capability to charge Turn 1 it's a normal game and I can just build on the objectives for Turns 2-5 trying to both outscore & outkill locally as needed depending on scenario.

The big problem will be an all Assault Transport/pod rush list that should overwhelm my rounded list, and probably most rounded lists. We'll see how that goes. My Night Lords buddy intends to play that.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/10 19:30:12


Post by: Mad Doc Grotsnik


I’m also looking forward to Mechanicum joining the fray. Because MOAR is what I want.

Of everything. All of it.

MOAR.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/10 22:45:30


Post by: tneva82


Certainly more variety on opponents wouldn't hurt.

Daemons could be fun too if GW decides to do those for legions. So far not much of sight on regular HH either though...


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/11 00:27:24


Post by: Piousservant


 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Looking at the Demi-Company.

We’re as yet without Vanguard and Light Armour things to choose. And the only Transport option are Rhino, which we also, more importantly, can have as Dedicated Transport freebies.

This needs to change. Pronto.

I’ve nearly maxed out my Infantry options. All I’m short of are two bases each Heavy, Plasma, Assault and Terminators, all of which are comfortably covered by Just One More Box.

Oh, and Bastion, we need Bastion. But the models for that are coming in the form of Deredeo and Tarantulas.




A properly maxed out "demi-company" formation is really over a company's worth (fluff wise) of infantry...! Must admit its bugging me slightly how to structure my detachments and formations with that in mind....


On th vanquishers point, the release of additional might make them less OP overall, but I don't see that's likely to address the real issue with them which is that they are just flat out better than the regular russ. I appreciate the internal balance between the (uncosted) unit weapon options is pretty poor across the board, but it's particularly frustrating imo on what is one of the key units if you want to run SA armoured formations.



[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/11 01:14:51


Post by: Crablezworth


Piousservant wrote:
 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Looking at the Demi-Company.

We’re as yet without Vanguard and Light Armour things to choose. And the only Transport option are Rhino, which we also, more importantly, can have as Dedicated Transport freebies.

This needs to change. Pronto.

I’ve nearly maxed out my Infantry options. All I’m short of are two bases each Heavy, Plasma, Assault and Terminators, all of which are comfortably covered by Just One More Box.

Oh, and Bastion, we need Bastion. But the models for that are coming in the form of Deredeo and Tarantulas.




A properly maxed out "demi-company" formation is really over a company's worth (fluff wise) of infantry...! Must admit its bugging me slightly how to structure my detachments and formations with that in mind....


On th vanquishers point, the release of additional might make them less OP overall, but I don't see that's likely to address the real issue with them which is that they are just flat out better than the regular russ. I appreciate the internal balance between the (uncosted) unit weapon options is pretty poor across the board, but it's particularly frustrating imo on what is one of the key units if you want to run SA armoured formations.




I think they need more special rules that interact with choosing not to move. There are some in the book but so far none of the models utilizie them, for example siege weapon is a great rule, if the model with the weapon doesn't move it can double the weapons range.

Maybe it just needs a rule where it can't move and fire or it reduces its accuracy.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/11 03:45:58


Post by: ashlevrier


Piousservant wrote:
 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Looking at the Demi-Company.

We’re as yet without Vanguard and Light Armour things to choose. And the only Transport option are Rhino, which we also, more importantly, can have as Dedicated Transport freebies.

This needs to change. Pronto.

I’ve nearly maxed out my Infantry options. All I’m short of are two bases each Heavy, Plasma, Assault and Terminators, all of which are comfortably covered by Just One More Box.

Oh, and Bastion, we need Bastion. But the models for that are coming in the form of Deredeo and Tarantulas.




A properly maxed out "demi-company" formation is really over a company's worth (fluff wise) of infantry...! Must admit its bugging me slightly how to structure my detachments and formations with that in mind....


On th vanquishers point, the release of additional might make them less OP overall, but I don't see that's likely to address the real issue with them which is that they are just flat out better than the regular russ. I appreciate the internal balance between the (uncosted) unit weapon options is pretty poor across the board, but it's particularly frustrating imo on what is one of the key units if you want to run SA armoured formations.



I think it's a problem of all weapons being able to target anything. Like if the vanq could not target infantry at all then it would not be so good.

Flames has a rule called no HE. Tanks with this rule can't shoot infantry.

If they did that in legions. Have weapons with HE and weapons with out it. It might go a long way to helping the game.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/11 07:55:01


Post by: tneva82


Elsewhere after posting my game report person commented how vehicles are too good and infantry dies too easy.

However I pointed out opinions might be coloured by people not actually using much of infantry...

My game I had 2000 pts list with 2 box worth of infantry(all the infantry I had bar 3 commander stands)...That's...less than 300 pts.

Call me stupid if you want but I don't see it weird that 1700 pts has more durability than 300 pts

So out of curiosity I went for not complete infantry spam but put in 4 detachments and about 1300 pts with infantry and then added some support stuff.

End result was bit over 170 infantry model...And I would say that swarm is going to be not so easy to remove. And indeed would have in yesterday's game been pretty darn mean anti-list counter seeing how many armourbane missiles and vanquisher cannons I was facing.

Currently people aren't actually using that much infantry. And yes I can understand WHY. Tanks are cool. Tanks are cheap to bulk up points. Starter comes with tanks. Infantry swarms you can play in 40k while tank hordes less so. And GW's supply issues don't make collecting huge swarm at once easy(hell local FLGS got exactly 0 boxes of basic marine infantry at the first wave...still waiting for those...).

But maybe the "infantry dies too easy" comments starts to slow down when people actually use significant % of points and not an after thought.

My opponent had even less of infantry with 1 box

Above 170 model list had 8 marine and 6 SA box worth of stuff. Not optimized though so would have plenty of extra stands. Would be painting half blood angels, half imperial fist for siege of terra theme if I went for it. 8 boxes with same colour scheme would get boring for me.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/11 10:16:42


Post by: Mad Doc Grotsnik


Infantry sure is cheap!

My Demi-Company currently stands at 546 points, and is comprised of…

One Command Stand
Troops with 3 increases of Heavy (10 stands)
Troops with 3 increases of Plasma (10 stands)
Troops with 3 increases of Tactical (10 stands)
Support of 10 Contemptors
Support of 6 Terminators
Support of 6 Assault Marines


That’s a lot of stands, and a pleasing spread of combat capabilities. For basically Sod All Points. And it came from just three infantry sets.

I think I’ll, in due course, be in the market for another three, maybe four boxes if I want to max out the support elements and add a matching Demi-Company.

And as I’ve said before, the options on a Demi-Company really aren’t as restrictive as I originally thought. Not once you’ve enough stands to start specialising squads.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/11 10:22:56


Post by: tneva82


Yep. The infantry is dirt cheap. In points. In cash and availability not quite so So far haven't seen any youtube report with even 4 box worth. Frankly don't remember 3 box one...

And btw those contemptors add up quite a lot of points so remove that and...

Yeah those infantry come in pittances in points

And from my game hardly reasonable to expect 300 pts to survive just as well as 1700 pts ;-)

I'll be getting boxes slow and steady myself. Have 2 marines and 1 SA now. Have ordered marine box from GW(no sign of delivery so far...) and FLGS has order standing. These will be blood angels giving me full 8 assault marine formation. When I get around to getting more marines will start imperial fist force.

SA will be more of backburner project but some more infantry to use though ally point limit restricts bit. Can't add just as freely as marines.

And 170 stands is...still lot to scythe through. At least there's no resurecting units in LI


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/11 10:45:53


Post by: Mad Doc Grotsnik


Really must seek a buyer for my Solar Auxilia half.

Ideally Swapsies, but probably missed the boat on that one 🤣🤣


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/11 10:49:51


Post by: Pacific


A photo I yanked from FB of someone playing 3k points. The tank parking lots in FoW and Team Yankee used to annoy me a bit, but this takes it to another level. I know we are dealing with fantasy concepts of super humans fighting thirty thousand years in the future, but this still tramples the suspension of disbelief bit for me, which it will do for anyone with even a passing acquaintance with real-life military history.

Spoiler:


It will be interesting what other big-points units come along to soak up some of those 3k points, I guess units moving on via drop-pod (or in reserve) will also help with the cramming of miniatures. Or the game just ends up settling on 2k as a standard. Or, I might just be making more of a fuss than is needed and this doesn't bother most people!



Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Really must seek a buyer for my Solar Auxilia half.

Ideally Swapsies, but probably missed the boat on that one 🤣🤣


If you try either the Middlehammer or Epic 30k Legions Imperialis FB groups you will probably find someone who wants to swap, there are still some posters on there asking that sort of thing.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/11 10:59:12


Post by: Mad Doc Grotsnik


On tank heavy?

I do wonder how much of that is the difficulty in getting mitts on new toys, and points intensity?

For instance, if I get a box of Marine Infantry, that’s what, 250 points tops, and not particularly effective on the board? But, a box of 4 Kratos? That’s 260 points

Same pounds, more or less the same points, just about. But the Kratos? They’re ready to go as a full unit. You could, but don’t need, to add a second box to bulk out the unit, because the four as they come are already plenty effective,


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/11 11:13:18


Post by: tneva82


 Pacific wrote:
A photo I yanked from FB of someone playing 3k points. The tank parking lots in FoW and Team Yankee used to annoy me a bit, but this takes it to another level. I know we are dealing with fantasy concepts of super humans fighting thirty thousand years in the future, but this still tramples the suspension of disbelief bit for me, which it will do for anyone with even a passing acquaintance with real-life military history..


Wonder if any point sink etc is going to really change that...

People have habit of maximising power and cramming models side by side allows concentration of range and stops enemy from skirting range.

Imagine you have 9 predator spread out. I skirt ranges with 9 predators of my own so that I'm in range of roughly what I aim to kill.

I shoot 9 predators. You shoot 4-5.

Yes I'm capping maybe bit if I spike high but capping your damage output unless YOU spike over the odds.

This won't change whether you have room on board or not. Concentration is still what you want to maximize rule benefit.

Moving side by side also helps hiding behind terrain.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/11 11:45:23


Post by: leopard


infantry, in terms of how many points each wound costs, are the best thing out there

they may die easily, but do you have enough bullets to get all of them?

infantry suck in small numbers with a few exceptions, e.g. marine heavy support bods in a building will do work, but to advance you need a lot, it means several large units advancing as a wave, dilute enemy firepower, with your own long range stuff supporting

its basically WW2 tactics, having run large infantry formations I smiled when facing tanks, they simply lack the rate of fire to splat enough infantry to stop them

but you need a lot, as in "I can take your P75 output for two turns and still have enough bodies"

and by that I mean I can take notably above the average damage result, the result you only have a 25% chance of exceeding.

say if you have four shots, that will likely do three hits, that means I need to be able to take six hits and still have enough to kill you

a pair of sicaran are 105 points, assume loaded for little guys so AC/HB, 5 shots, on a 5+, assume 3.5 hits, so seven hits, half with AP-1. facing Auxilia thats likely seven kills

for the same points I get 16 las-rifle stands, or any of the similar cost infantry upgrades

for good output you will break them, but not kill them, on average they will probably have a few more stands survive, assuming you went HB not LC on the sides.

but its a seriously large unit, which short of printing not many people will have access to, especially since you really need to be running them in triples, and probably two triples, which is still only a bit over 600 points, to which the support axe lunatics and commanders need to be added so maybe a 750 point pair of formations, thats a lot of bodies. especially with someone aggressive, march orders first turn, then charge orders if they get close

will take luck to stop, or a specific anti infantry load out

and thats probably less than half the SA army, so it can bring a brick of tank hunters as well


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/11 13:26:00


Post by: Crablezworth


 Pacific wrote:
A photo I yanked from FB of someone playing 3k points. The tank parking lots in FoW and Team Yankee used to annoy me a bit, but this takes it to another level. I know we are dealing with fantasy concepts of super humans fighting thirty thousand years in the future, but this still tramples the suspension of disbelief bit for me, which it will do for anyone with even a passing acquaintance with real-life military history.

Spoiler:


It will be interesting what other big-points units come along to soak up some of those 3k points, I guess units moving on via drop-pod (or in reserve) will also help with the cramming of miniatures. Or the game just ends up settling on 2k as a standard. Or, I might just be making more of a fuss than is needed and this doesn't bother most people!




Yeah it's less than inspired, I think this is also why I'm finding 1500 point enjoyable and looking at 3000pts at sort of obnoxious for the exact reason in the photo.

I remember thinking when I saw the white dwarf battle report pics how silly it looked to see 6 sicarans or 6 kratos so close together. I think in addition to a limit on formations, some detachment sizes might need to be addressed as well, 10 vanqs is very strong.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/11 13:31:29


Post by: leopard


could be worse, could be the Mil24D helicopters from Team Yankee.. where if you fit the rotors to them look good individually, deploy two, in unit formation and they now look stupid

but not as stupid as the bod who took six, didn't bother with the rotors to get them side by side

to the point someone posted the picture to Battlefront with a "is this really what you want the game to look like?"


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/11 13:38:28


Post by: tneva82


 Crablezworth wrote:

I remember thinking when I saw the white dwarf battle report pics how silly it looked to see 6 sicarans or 6 kratos so close together. I think in addition to a limit on formations, some detachment sizes might need to be addressed as well, 10 vanqs is very strong.


Wouldn't change. If you make 10 russ forced into 2x5 russ the 2 detachments would be simply side by side. Same # of models would be b2b.

If you limit # of detachments AND limit size of detachments then you are just limiting size of game that can be played turning more toward 40k with small models. And the models would STILL BE b2b.

People cram models close because unit works better as small group. You could have 10'x10' board with unit of 2x5 russ as entire army for both and they would still move models b2b. Why? It gives advantage.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/11 13:55:24


Post by: leopard


yes, and the only way you counter it is to give a disadvantage, many games thats some sort of blast template, or a similar effect.

personally I'd go with you nominate a model as your target, all fire into that detachment but you nominate a single model

+1 to hit if anything of the same scale is within say 1" of it, causes spreading out a bit

won't work on this scale with how many models are here


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/11 14:01:53


Post by: Crablezworth


tneva82 wrote:
 Crablezworth wrote:

I remember thinking when I saw the white dwarf battle report pics how silly it looked to see 6 sicarans or 6 kratos so close together. I think in addition to a limit on formations, some detachment sizes might need to be addressed as well, 10 vanqs is very strong.


Wouldn't change. If you make 10 russ forced into 2x5 russ the 2 detachments would be simply side by side. Same # of models would be b2b.

If you limit # of detachments AND limit size of detachments then you are just limiting size of game that can be played turning more toward 40k with small models. And the models would STILL BE b2b.

People cram models close because unit works better as small group. You could have 10'x10' board with unit of 2x5 russ as entire army for both and they would still move models b2b. Why? It gives advantage.



You're missing my point, the entire take away was 3000 didn't look that good, the idea is to make the game function better at lower levels for me, not to limit anyone wanting to play 3000. I just think 4 russes in a detachment looks better than like 6 sicarans. For what it's worth I think seeing giant units of dreadnoughts makes no sense at all, would have much rather they were closer to armigers in prowess and had far fewer in a detachment like 1-3.

One can do stuff very easily to make things seem a bit less silly, limit formations, even go so far as to make each one 0-1 so solar aux can't spam pioneer company. Slash vehicle detachments in half or more so at most you see like 3-4. The current system controls for nothing and the only limiting factor has been the game's popularity, people can only get what they can get, doesn't mean in 6 months time people won't have crazy amounts of stuff. On the print side we can already see people perfectly capable of fielding like 60-70 tanks. I'd love for this game to be combined arms and not parking lots, currently the incentives are a bit wonky. For what it's worth I don't think a detachment of 16 solar aux looks cool or awesome either, 4-8 bases seems fine for most infantry detachments.

A final thing I'd address in terms of lower point level and immersion is, it's one thing to lose a flyer to another flyer or some precision guided heat-seaking death missile from an acastus, but to lose one to bs weapons just dumping dice is just too easy to have happen at times, just like light weapons can't scratch vehicles, there should really be more limitations on weapons targeting flyers at lower point level games. I think I understand what its so easy at high point levels because the output of a lot of larger flyer units is disgusting, but for a game with all this granularity it tends to round off a few too many corners at times. I'd rather have the reality be that one need both dedicated ground AA and likely flyers to counter other flyers than just needing 6's, but it largely seems like anything with decent range and light at will do if the rate of fire is high enough, looking at swarmer missiles for example.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/11 14:07:14


Post by: chaos0xomega


leopard wrote:
could be worse, could be the Mil24D helicopters from Team Yankee.. where if you fit the rotors to them look good individually, deploy two, in unit formation and they now look stupid

but not as stupid as the bod who took six, didn't bother with the rotors to get them side by side

to the point someone posted the picture to Battlefront with a "is this really what you want the game to look like?"


The trick is to have varying height flying stands so you can position them right next to eachother but separated by several inches of height. Doesn't look quite as dumb then.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/11 14:24:37


Post by: leopard


chaos0xomega wrote:
leopard wrote:
could be worse, could be the Mil24D helicopters from Team Yankee.. where if you fit the rotors to them look good individually, deploy two, in unit formation and they now look stupid

but not as stupid as the bod who took six, didn't bother with the rotors to get them side by side

to the point someone posted the picture to Battlefront with a "is this really what you want the game to look like?"


The trick is to have varying height flying stands so you can position them right next to eachother but separated by several inches of height. Doesn't look quite as dumb then.


dunno, a game where a guy with a pistol at one end of the thing can't hit someone at the other has issues

and yes you can vary the flight stands but even then you tend to get rotors overlapping (would have been nice to have a clear disc for the rotors anyway, the kit ones are nice but fragile)


Automatically Appended Next Post:
plastic Arvus inbound!


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/11 14:34:34


Post by: The_Real_Chris


 Pacific wrote:
A photo I yanked from FB of someone playing 3k points. The tank parking lots in FoW and Team Yankee used to annoy me a bit, but this takes it to another level. I know we are dealing with fantasy concepts of super humans fighting thirty thousand years in the future, but this still tramples the suspension of disbelief bit for me, which it will do for anyone with even a passing acquaintance with real-life military history.


What is your point? Look they left gaps!

Hmm, maybe should multibase the tanks


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/11 14:36:39


Post by: SU-152


 Crablezworth wrote:
tneva82 wrote:
 Crablezworth wrote:

I remember thinking when I saw the white dwarf battle report pics how silly it looked to see 6 sicarans or 6 kratos so close together. I think in addition to a limit on formations, some detachment sizes might need to be addressed as well, 10 vanqs is very strong.


Wouldn't change. If you make 10 russ forced into 2x5 russ the 2 detachments would be simply side by side. Same # of models would be b2b.

If you limit # of detachments AND limit size of detachments then you are just limiting size of game that can be played turning more toward 40k with small models. And the models would STILL BE b2b.

People cram models close because unit works better as small group. You could have 10'x10' board with unit of 2x5 russ as entire army for both and they would still move models b2b. Why? It gives advantage.


A final thing I'd address in terms of lower point level and immersion is, it's one thing to lose a flyer to another flyer or some precision guided heat-seaking death missile from an acastus, but to lose one to bs weapons just dumping dice is just too easy to have happen at times, just like light weapons can't scratch vehicles, there should really be more limitations on weapons targeting flyers at lower point level games. I think I understand what its so easy at high point levels because the output of a lot of larger flyer units is disgusting, but for a game with all this granularity it tends to round off a few too many corners at times. I'd rather have the reality be that one need both dedicated ground AA and likely flyers to counter other flyers than just needing 6's, but it largely seems like anything with decent range and light at will do if the rate of fire is high enough, looking at swarmer missiles for example.


I insist in trying the 7+, 8+ & 9+ mechanics. That's a 6 followed by a 4+, 5+ & 6 like in other GW games... Instead of 6s always hit.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/11 15:03:04


Post by: leopard


I think that single change, bringing back the 7, 8 9 to hit table, would solve quite a few problems

I mean yes you will still have shots into the dark taking time, indeed more time with the second roll, but it stops the "don't care about penalties, its a six anyway" stuff

I mean a heavy bolter hits on a 5+, a las cannon on a 4+.. not sure why waving at both from a window suddenly is a great equaliser

also resolves a few of the air issues

and note, I'd also hit "skyfire" with -2 to hit targets that are not fliers, hover mode of not (and would permit actual landing at which point they are considered to not be either, just a normal vehicle)


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/11 15:19:42


Post by: SamusDrake


The Arvus announcement this afternoon has given me a lot of confidence for future releases, and looking forward to putting in an order for the little darlings. Naturally they'll need troops to transport, so in the meantime I think a box of Solar infantry is in order!



[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/11 15:42:12


Post by: tneva82


leopard wrote:
yes, and the only way you counter it is to give a disadvantage, many games thats some sort of blast template, or a similar effect.

personally I'd go with you nominate a model as your target, all fire into that detachment but you nominate a single model

+1 to hit if anything of the same scale is within say 1" of it, causes spreading out a bit

won't work on this scale with how many models are here


Blast temples just artificially twist situation if one side is.

And irl you don't drive leopards plate to plate even without artirelly and facing just t-72.


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leopard wrote:
I think that single change, bringing back the 7, 8 9 to hit table, would solve quite a few problems

I mean yes you will still have shots into the dark taking time, indeed more time with the second roll, but it stops the "don't care about penalties, its a six anyway" stuff

I mean a heavy bolter hits on a 5+, a las cannon on a 4+.. not sure why waving at both from a window suddenly is a great equaliser

also resolves a few of the air issues

and note, I'd also hit "skyfire" with -2 to hit targets that are not fliers, hover mode of not (and would permit actual landing at which point they are considered to not be either, just a normal vehicle)


Then we get to flyers are autotake or ennmy has unkillable unlts and unkillable units never been good for pleasant game experience.

As is yesterday 6 lightning and 2 thunderhawks ate silly amount of flrepower and 3/8 were still alive.


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SamusDrake wrote:
The Arvus announcement this afternoon has given me a lot of confidence for future releases, and looking forward to putting in an order for the little darlings. Naturally they'll need troops to transport, so in the meantime I think a box of Solar infantry is in order!



Funnily got box yesterday. Add that and its 250 pts ally det(bit more if i take sentinels) with 2 plane wings to carry units to grab lone objectives plus 4 stands left to slog.

Tasty.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/11 15:52:59


Post by: ashlevrier


tneva82 wrote:
Elsewhere after posting my game report person commented how vehicles are too good and infantry dies too easy.

However I pointed out opinions might be coloured by people not actually using much of infantry...

My game I had 2000 pts list with 2 box worth of infantry(all the infantry I had bar 3 commander stands)...That's...less than 300 pts.

Call me stupid if you want but I don't see it weird that 1700 pts has more durability than 300 pts

So out of curiosity I went for not complete infantry spam but put in 4 detachments and about 1300 pts with infantry and then added some support stuff.

End result was bit over 170 infantry model...And I would say that swarm is going to be not so easy to remove. And indeed would have in yesterday's game been pretty darn mean anti-list counter seeing how many armourbane missiles and vanquisher cannons I was facing.

Currently people aren't actually using that much infantry. And yes I can understand WHY. Tanks are cool. Tanks are cheap to bulk up points. Starter comes with tanks. Infantry swarms you can play in 40k while tank hordes less so. And GW's supply issues don't make collecting huge swarm at once easy(hell local FLGS got exactly 0 boxes of basic marine infantry at the first wave...still waiting for those...).

But maybe the "infantry dies too easy" comments starts to slow down when people actually use significant % of points and not an after thought.

My opponent had even less of infantry with 1 box

Above 170 model list had 8 marine and 6 SA box worth of stuff. Not optimized though so would have plenty of extra stands. Would be painting half blood angels, half imperial fist for siege of terra theme if I went for it. 8 boxes with same colour scheme would get boring for me.


i run 3 infantry boxs of marine infantry. i need at least 1 more box of Rhinos. if i had one more box of dudes i feel i could just swarm the objective and not get pushed off of it.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/11 15:56:46


Post by: Mad Doc Grotsnik


How have you assigned the support infantry?

I’ve specialised a Troops with 6 Heavy stands, and another with 6 Plasma Stands.

I think there may be some merit to mixing them up for “kill a bit of everything”, and certainly that’s easily enough done later. But for now, I think specialising is the order of the day.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/11 15:57:14


Post by: ashlevrier


 Pacific wrote:
A photo I yanked from FB of someone playing 3k points. The tank parking lots in FoW and Team Yankee used to annoy me a bit, but this takes it to another level. I know we are dealing with fantasy concepts of super humans fighting thirty thousand years in the future, but this still tramples the suspension of disbelief bit for me, which it will do for anyone with even a passing acquaintance with real-life military history.

Spoiler:


It will be interesting what other big-points units come along to soak up some of those 3k points, I guess units moving on via drop-pod (or in reserve) will also help with the cramming of miniatures. Or the game just ends up settling on 2k as a standard. Or, I might just be making more of a fuss than is needed and this doesn't bother most people!



Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Really must seek a buyer for my Solar Auxilia half.

Ideally Swapsies, but probably missed the boat on that one 🤣🤣


If you try either the Middlehammer or Epic 30k Legions Imperialis FB groups you will probably find someone who wants to swap, there are still some posters on there asking that sort of thing.


i used to think the FoW car parks was so dumb and unrealistic. till i saw ukraine. some times i looks like a flames of war game.


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leopard wrote:
infantry, in terms of how many points each wound costs, are the best thing out there

they may die easily, but do you have enough bullets to get all of them?

infantry suck in small numbers with a few exceptions, e.g. marine heavy support bods in a building will do work, but to advance you need a lot, it means several large units advancing as a wave, dilute enemy firepower, with your own long range stuff supporting

its basically WW2 tactics, having run large infantry formations I smiled when facing tanks, they simply lack the rate of fire to splat enough infantry to stop them

but you need a lot, as in "I can take your P75 output for two turns and still have enough bodies"

and by that I mean I can take notably above the average damage result, the result you only have a 25% chance of exceeding.

say if you have four shots, that will likely do three hits, that means I need to be able to take six hits and still have enough to kill you

a pair of sicaran are 105 points, assume loaded for little guys so AC/HB, 5 shots, on a 5+, assume 3.5 hits, so seven hits, half with AP-1. facing Auxilia thats likely seven kills

for the same points I get 16 las-rifle stands, or any of the similar cost infantry upgrades

for good output you will break them, but not kill them, on average they will probably have a few more stands survive, assuming you went HB not LC on the sides.

but its a seriously large unit, which short of printing not many people will have access to, especially since you really need to be running them in triples, and probably two triples, which is still only a bit over 600 points, to which the support axe lunatics and commanders need to be added so maybe a 750 point pair of formations, thats a lot of bodies. especially with someone aggressive, march orders first turn, then charge orders if they get close

will take luck to stop, or a specific anti infantry load out

and thats probably less than half the SA army, so it can bring a brick of tank hunters as well


this is where the marines or the other Aux player needs to target and kill the aux command. Aux have weak leadership.

i have faced the large boddys of dudes you are talking about. my Sics and Kratos have heavy bolters. with 4 sics i killed all but one charging Oger out of 12. when the axe men charged the heavy tanks fired overwatch and killed all 12. also dreads and Rhinos are also good at overwatch. because you can say "i overwatch fire when you are at 2 inches from me. double the shots ouf of the unit firing. 10 Rhinos on overwatch is a scary wall of fire for infantry.

my preds all have las i keep them at the back to deal with tanks. my infantry lead the way mounted in Rhinos. march the transports 18 inches. advance the troops inside thats 5 inches. if i reall need to get there. march the dudes inside for 15 inches instead.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
How have you assigned the support infantry?

I’ve specialised a Troops with 6 Heavy stands, and another with 6 Plasma Stands.

I think there may be some merit to mixing them up for “kill a bit of everything”, and certainly that’s easily enough done later. But for now, I think specialising is the order of the day.


i run the heavy weapons in a unit of tacs and i do the same for the useless plasma. that way bolter bots can take the hits and the heavy weapons can still live to shoot stuff. i like to run at least two units of 12 stands each. the blob of infantry will take all objectives.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/11 16:52:03


Post by: SamusDrake


tneva82 wrote:


Funnily got box yesterday. Add that and its 250 pts ally det(bit more if i take sentinels) with 2 plane wings to carry units to grab lone objectives plus 4 stands left to slog.

Tasty.


Sounds good. I think we'll mostly use the models in Horizon Wars, but I can see us giving Legions another try at some point.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/11 17:22:28


Post by: Crablezworth


 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
How have you assigned the support infantry?

I’ve specialised a Troops with 6 Heavy stands, and another with 6 Plasma Stands.

I think there may be some merit to mixing them up for “kill a bit of everything”, and certainly that’s easily enough done later. But for now, I think specialising is the order of the day.


Plasma is just worse than missile unfortunately, and missile is very very very good. I have two plasma bases, and no real plans for more than 2 more. Missiles on the other hand, are just insanely good, 8 bases for 70pts have the same firepower minus the multilaser as the solar aux heavy sentinels and are quite at home in a structure.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/11 18:06:39


Post by: leopard


fair few locally are running "all plasma troops are actually missile troops"

and yes target the detachment with the SA command is viable, it can be mitigated by taking say three formations instead of two, each of two detachments instead of three - however it gets more expensive with the support choices required and means lower break points

they are largely crippled by being forced onto advance orders though


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/11 18:09:57


Post by: tneva82


 ashlevrier wrote:


i have faced the large boddys of dudes you are talking about. my Sics and Kratos have heavy bolters. with 4 sics i killed all but one charging Oger out of 12. when the axe men charged the heavy tanks fired overwatch and killed all 12. also dreads and Rhinos are also good at overwatch. because you can say "i overwatch fire when you are at 2 inches from me. double the shots ouf of the unit firing. 10 Rhinos on overwatch is a scary wall of fire for infantry.
.


You are overwatching 1 det though. Wall of infantry comes with multiples. With maybe some rhino's spread around. Those charge and you get pinned so infantry is safe from shooting.

Also 6 sicarans. Average 11 hits. Let's say 1 6+ save. 10 dead. Det 245.

Full 16 strong detachment 105. You kill 4 lasrifles and 6 las/flamer/axe. Leaves 6 axe's charging in.

And that's for half the cost.

Don't underestimate infantry. And I wouldn't be surprised if # of real heavy infantry armies haven't been tested. At this point 3d printing most likely solution(kind of tempted to proxy with cardboard "bases" to be honest)


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/11 18:45:54


Post by: Crablezworth


Well I can say that, infantry aren't terribly fun to build, especially if 3d printed. It's not only boring clipping supports but anxiety inducing because some of the aux models are very easy to damage with clippers.

Add to that, the infantry bases are more fiddly to interact with over the vehicles. I'm also far less afraid of dropping a vehicle than an infantry base. My first instinct is to try and find some clear or thin movement trays to help speed play up if needed.

Infantry are indeed strong because combat is so brutal. I think rend needs a baby brother special rule that's about half as potent, think extra D3 instead of D6, You still have infantry with rend like veletari and ogryns that are perhaps a bit too strong. I can't help but feel like for how slow and detailed the combat process is, it's really lacking in interesting interaction. By defaulting to neither side getting saves, basically both sides causing just enough ap for saves to be irrelevant, they wanted all infantry to be able to hurt tanks and vehicles up close, which is fine. The problem is it doesn't leave room for much nuance or specialty. I get not making everyone buy krak grenades but defaulting to melta-bombs that are also power weapons for everyone seems a bit much. It leaves you wondering why terminators and contemptors feels so weak in combat vs veletari and ogryns.

Infantry are good but I get sick of the lack of options, I don't want my army to be a sea of charonite ogryns, so I run some with proxies making them look like rough riders on mukaali. Problem there is the look a bit silly occupying a structure. The ratios players are able to field infantry in are also a bit all over considering even multiple infantry boxes still limit the better units and also sorta burden players with less than ideal units. Where as again on the 3d side, its very easy sadly for the brrr to really affect what a player is able to put down. Very easy to max out only the better infantry and not even have to deal with the others other than buy in for formations.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/11 19:25:05


Post by: ashlevrier


tneva82 wrote:
 ashlevrier wrote:


i have faced the large boddys of dudes you are talking about. my Sics and Kratos have heavy bolters. with 4 sics i killed all but one charging Oger out of 12. when the axe men charged the heavy tanks fired overwatch and killed all 12. also dreads and Rhinos are also good at overwatch. because you can say "i overwatch fire when you are at 2 inches from me. double the shots ouf of the unit firing. 10 Rhinos on overwatch is a scary wall of fire for infantry.
.


You are overwatching 1 det though. Wall of infantry comes with multiples. With maybe some rhino's spread around. Those charge and you get pinned so infantry is safe from shooting.

Also 6 sicarans. Average 11 hits. Let's say 1 6+ save. 10 dead. Det 245.

Full 16 strong detachment 105. You kill 4 lasrifles and 6 las/flamer/axe. Leaves 6 axe's charging in.

And that's for half the cost.

Don't underestimate infantry. And I wouldn't be surprised if # of real heavy infantry armies haven't been tested. At this point 3d printing most likely solution(kind of tempted to proxy with cardboard "bases" to be honest)


if i was underestimating infantry i A would not be putting heavy bolters on all the tanks. B running 12 stands of infantry with APC support to wipe out and provide overwatch for my own infantry.

i dont care for math hammer. because math hammer can fail to account for what the situation is really like. the unit overwatching does not need to be the one getting charged. lets say you charged a unit of tanks A. unit of tanks B fires overwatch. later unit A just drives away form the fight because they have not activated yet and they fire there weapons during the advance stage of the turn. or lets say unit A is a unit of 12 infantry. now its 12 to 6. your going to die. even with rend every second one of my guys gets to swing 3 dice just like you.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
i also forgot to add. you rolled a 1 for your moral after taking over 50% losses. your charge has failed and your order token was replaced with a fall back token


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/11 20:59:36


Post by: leopard


infantry lists with mechanics like this are always a dice game, but can easily have the odds in their favour

you deal with them by having some infantry to screen your tanks, infantry they have to get through to get to the objective


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/12 16:12:36


Post by: LordBlunt


Quick question:

I read a suggestion from a poster a few posts prior recommending a few house rules, one of which was Gone To Ground. (I believe it was taken from FoW)

Would template weapons/blasts allow Infantry to gain a -1 to be hit when the Infantry remove their Order counter and Go to Ground? (I'm thinking that Infantry would NOT get a -1 against template weapons, but that's applying modern physics and not "40K/30K" universe physics)

Thus, an Infantry stand Goes to Ground, gains a -1 to be hit. Can they claim the -1 GtG modifier against template weapons???


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/12 17:43:08


Post by: tneva82


 ashlevrier wrote:

i also forgot to add. you rolled a 1 for your moral after taking over 50% losses. your charge has failed and your order token was replaced with a fall back token


Brave assume i roll 1 and not 4 5 6. But that's why i send in 2 det's i assume 1 dies.

Or even better go msu. Rather than 2 det send in 8. Your overwatch kills less than half of what it could.

You assume infantry weak but has anybody really faced 170+ list at 2k? Even better 250+ if one doesn't go for token tanks.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/12 17:55:07


Post by: leopard


have run infantry in WW2 games I have seen generally the only thing that actually stops them tends to be more infantry - of course you need less to stop them as you are not taking losses while advancing etc

it is tempting to find some suitable Auxilia files and go, already have MK V and MK III files for marines.

suspect it will be glorious, but not something to do too often, just something to let an opponent know they may end up facing, or maybe they will face every Vanquisher ever made

comes back to a point made earlier, slew lists break games


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/12 19:11:55


Post by: tneva82


Well so far people tend to take anti-armour skew lists. I want myself infantry horde to scare people to take more balanced list that isn't throwing armourbane everywhere


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/12 20:34:16


Post by: leopard


tneva82 wrote:
Well so far people tend to take anti-armour skew lists. I want myself infantry horde to scare people to take more balanced list that isn't throwing armourbane everywhere


strangely enough this is exactly why my WW2 German flames list was grenadiers, with zero armour, and I also have a Soviet Strelkovy infantry force, again zero armour. people tend to look at both and go "oh" as their list designed to fight panthers etc now has a slight problem

and when I noted people bringing a hell of a lot of machine guns and mortars but not much else.. well thats when the Tigers came out to play


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/12 23:46:11


Post by: Crablezworth


LordBlunt wrote:
Quick question:

I read a suggestion from a poster a few posts prior recommending a few house rules, one of which was Gone To Ground. (I believe it was taken from FoW)

Would template weapons/blasts allow Infantry to gain a -1 to be hit when the Infantry remove their Order counter and Go to Ground? (I'm thinking that Infantry would NOT get a -1 against template weapons, but that's applying modern physics and not "40K/30K" universe physics)

Thus, an Infantry stand Goes to Ground, gains a -1 to be hit. Can they claim the -1 GtG modifier against template weapons???


I would say for simplicity yes, the -1 would be against everything that doesn't have the no cover rule. If you really want to go more punitive, say the whole detachment fights at -1 to their caf roll or something. so going to ground isn't just losing their order but also potentially doing worse if assaulted. Just a thought, I don't even think it needs the second part as basically taking a units ability to activate/shoot/overwatch is already pretty big.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/13 04:19:02


Post by: Skimask Mohawk




leopard wrote:
tneva82 wrote:
Well so far people tend to take anti-armour skew lists. I want myself infantry horde to scare people to take more balanced list that isn't throwing armourbane everywhere


strangely enough this is exactly why my WW2 German flames list was grenadiers, with zero armour, and I also have a Soviet Strelkovy infantry force, again zero armour. people tend to look at both and go "oh" as their list designed to fight panthers etc now has a slight problem

and when I noted people bringing a hell of a lot of machine guns and mortars but not much else.. well thats when the Tigers came out to play


The big disparity in list archetypes for LI are pretty easy to explain:

-marine infantry have wonky details/marine tanks have really nice details
-its way faster to build and paint vehicle boxes to completion compared to infantry
-vehicle detachments tend to give a more immediate impact for their box price than infantry
-infantry boxes have a really discouraging mix of support units, preventing mass missiles/assaults/terminators in the same was as preds/kratos
-legacy ai/at collections

Let's be real in that it's mostly a combination of the second, fourth, and fifth points, and especially the AI planes. The amount of posts I've seen on Facebook of low point starter games with like, 3-6 planes in them is unreal. I think I even saw one today of 600 points with 3 xiphon in it.

Infantry heavy can really skunk things if you don't respect it, with the sheer damage you can get from missiles, aggression from assaults and terminators, or just presence from rhino tacs (to say nothing of solar aux melee DPS). But you can also gun down mass infantry with ease when you take a lot of the infantry support stuff like rapiers, missiles and rhinos.



[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/13 09:15:55


Post by: Pacific


Yes definitely, speed and ease of painting is part of why you will see more tanks than infantry at the moment - especially as we are barely 2 months into release and people are still getting their stuff together.

I haven't played in a few years but you always used to see a lot more tank and armoured companies in FoW as painting infantry companies takes loads more time - although I would argue painting infantry at 8mm is easier than 15mm as for the most part you don't have the details to pick out.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/13 10:39:16


Post by: tneva82


I find tanks slower to paint to complete state than infantry though.

Easier to get playable though as infantry needs paint first before basing. Grey tanks can be played with easier than empty base.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/13 15:28:26


Post by: leopard


8mm SA infantry is a lot easier to paint that 15mm Soviet, though to be honest I found painting the damned based (urban rubble theme for Stalingrad) took longer than the actual infantry - and thats with all colours as three layer

it is though, apparently, why Flames 4 is rubbish compared to Flames 3, the focus moved from infantry & combined arms to armour as "thats easier to paint" and they thought it would bring in more players

personally I have found the GW Solar aux infantry a doddle to paint, small enough that a spray base, wash with thinned earthshade then a couple of contrasts and a drybrush is plenty.

it helps the SA box has a much more sensible mix of models, to the point the marine box really is actually quite bad and should have been two boxes - have the starter box be tacticals and then one of the support, heavy, assault or terminator - and have the rest in another box so you get usable quantities of stuff


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/13 18:38:04


Post by: chaos0xomega


The reason flames 4 moved to focusing on tanks is because tank kits is where battlefront makes its money. It's what players find cool, not little man-shaped blobs of metal. They've been investing into plastic infantry in the hopes the improved detail generates more interest in infantry from customers as the details improve


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/13 18:45:45


Post by: leopard


chaos0xomega wrote:
The reason flames 4 moved to focusing on tanks is because tank kits is where battlefront makes its money. It's what players find cool, not little man-shaped blobs of metal. They've been investing into plastic infantry in the hopes the improved detail generates more interest in infantry from customers as the details improve


plastic they did for "open fire" for the infantry was very good, the less said about their resin faceless horde the better, at least thats a mistake GW haven't made


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/13 19:04:04


Post by: tneva82


Facebook post i read mentioned capitol imperialis. Got myself curious and calculated size. If gw does it in titan's scale it's 30cm long. If in infantry scale 36cm...

Will that be equilavent of 40k plastic thunderhawk


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/14 12:24:42


Post by: leopard


guessing that will be slightly rescaled... could still be 40k rhino sized though


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/14 14:43:33


Post by: chaos0xomega


The infantry and the titans are in the sane scale.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/14 14:47:39


Post by: Mad Doc Grotsnik


Trouble with the Capitol Imperialis is traditionally, it’s not been great in combat.

It looks sweet, and everyone loves a mobile command centre. But for combat? You want a Leviathan.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/14 14:59:43


Post by: leopard


agreed on that, it was a transport, with decent protection and a decent long ranged gun, and some close in defences, but it wasn't a battle fortress

epic model though


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/14 16:36:08


Post by: tneva82


chaos0xomega wrote:
The infantry and the titans are in the sane scale.


Nope. When you measure titans and infantry and calculate you will find that infantry is 1:220. Titans 1:269.

We know size of things in fluff(warlord 33m tall, non-primaris marines 2.1m). We have tools to measure models and then it's simple calculation(can even calculate it in head but if you don't want to do trivial math calculator helps).

There's no point to arque gw didn't change scale since at. We even have designer of warlord saying they sized it so that marines would be 8mm(which would mean scale isn't 8mm). Incidentally marine at 1:269 scale would be...7.8mm....

Math doesn't lie and it's easy enought to prove titans are 1:269 scale and if infantry was so solar auxilia wouldn't be 8mm, marines wouldn't be 10mm. It would be 6.5mm and 7.8mm instead.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/14 16:52:37


Post by: leopard


keeping in mind the "fluff" height of titans is something of a variable feast over the years I run with "so long as it looks good", and they are impressive compared to the infantry without being impractically large so I'm happy

IIRC even in 1st the scale wasn't consistent, though the Hellbore and Capitol Imperialis were massive neither was large enough for what it was clamed to do

the Leviathan when that came out looked like a cute little baby thing next to it - by which point GW had given up all pretence of having a scale for this


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/14 16:58:01


Post by: chaos0xomega


Sorry tneva. The sculptors and designers say they are in the same scale, therefore they are in the same scale.


[LI] Thoughts on legions so far @ 2024/01/15 08:53:23


Post by: Albertorius


 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Trouble with the Capitol Imperialis is traditionally, it’s not been great in combat.

It looks sweet, and everyone loves a mobile command centre. But for combat? You want a Leviathan.


It's a cool scenery centerpiece, more than anything else.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
tneva82 wrote:
chaos0xomega wrote:
The infantry and the titans are in the sane scale.


Nope. When you measure titans and infantry and calculate you will find that infantry is 1:220. Titans 1:269.

We know size of things in fluff(warlord 33m tall, non-primaris marines 2.1m). We have tools to measure models and then it's simple calculation(can even calculate it in head but if you don't want to do trivial math calculator helps).

There's no point to arque gw didn't change scale since at. We even have designer of warlord saying they sized it so that marines would be 8mm(which would mean scale isn't 8mm). Incidentally marine at 1:269 scale would be...7.8mm....

Math doesn't lie and it's easy enought to prove titans are 1:269 scale and if infantry was so solar auxilia wouldn't be 8mm, marines wouldn't be 10mm. It would be 6.5mm and 7.8mm instead.

So AT titans are not 25% the size of 40k titans? Because AFAIK, that's what the AT/AI/Legions scale is, not really any "X mm".