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Red Corsair wrote:All I can say is , welcome to 'Ard boyz. The missions are never clear and to be honest, at 2500 points the games starts to have more and more issues in regards to match ups between codices.

I do agree that they should at the very least proof read these things, but it would be my assumption that the purpose of posting these things so far in advance is to use the public as a huge R&D team, I mean there is know way they could brain storm these missions or scrutinize them as well as the ENTIRE general public.

Now, that being said, if by 9/15 at latest they haven't at least clarified these things then I would say resume the bitch fest.

AB is put on be the sales department, like Janthkin said previously stated I believe, so from a business perspective it only makes sense to lend an advantage to the latest armies that you are trying to sell.

I am not trying to jump on GK more then they have been, but they currently are the easiest army to play.... until Necrons are released ; ) When you have played since 1st like I have you notice these patterns, after all there aim is to make money not just give away free crap...

The thing is Grey Knights are not that expensive to get an army put together.

So, that still doesn't mean they don't want to sell them, and if anything that is more of an incentive for a player to start them, which makes them a good product to push.

Why do you think space marines are there best selling armies? They are easy to play, model and it doesn't take throngs of them to field. GK epitomize this. GK are also not cheap, nothing GW sells is cheap. Consider the fact that Draigowing fields what, 24 models in some builds, of which tally up to and beyond 400 dollars US. That's crazy....

Red Corsair wrote:So, that still doesn't mean they don't want to sell them, and if anything that is more of an incentive for a player to start them, which makes them a good product to push.

Why do you think space marines are there best selling armies? They are easy to play, model and it doesn't take throngs of them to field. GK epitomize this. GK are also not cheap, nothing GW sells is cheap. Consider the fact that Draigowing fields what, 24 models in some builds, of which tally up to and beyond 400 dollars US. That's crazy....

lol buy a sisters of battle army, an IG army, a dark eldar army, or even a Tau army. You will find 400 dollars for an army is actually cheap compared to others.

Am I the only one who feels Necrons would perform very well in this scenario? Provided they had at least 4 warrior squads and 3 monoliths, they could definitely have a strong presence. It would be easy enough to teleport a squad on the first mission, and on the second, monoliths could easily block the enemy from getting inside that 6 inch bubble. The monoliths main enemy is strength 10 weapons, and without a strong tau presence, I think they have a good chance.

BSent wrote:Am I the only one who feels Necrons would perform very well in this scenario? Provided they had at least 4 warrior squads and 3 monoliths, they could definitely have a strong presence. It would be easy enough to teleport a squad on the first mission, and on the second, monoliths could easily block the enemy from getting inside that 6 inch bubble. The monoliths main enemy is strength 10 weapons, and without a strong tau presence, I think they have a good chance.

Lol that would be so annoying if 3 monoliths traingled the middle and put all the warriors inside of the 3 of them. lol

BSent wrote:Am I the only one who feels Necrons would perform very well in this scenario? Provided they had at least 4 warrior squads and 3 monoliths, they could definitely have a strong presence. It would be easy enough to teleport a squad on the first mission, and on the second, monoliths could easily block the enemy from getting inside that 6 inch bubble. The monoliths main enemy is strength 10 weapons, and without a strong tau presence, I think they have a good chance.

4 warrior squads? That is still fail against MEQ armies with 12 combat squads or grey knights with even more. You don't even have to beat necrons by killing them. You just need to move those combat squads to the center or to the table quarters/terrain instead and you'll easily get a massacre.

And while you don't really have to worry too much about Tau railguns, necrons have a much greater concern - grey knights with S10 hammers!

S10 in assault is what stops Necrons and sadly for them, SW and GK are not all that uncommon.

jy2 wrote:

BSent wrote:Am I the only one who feels Necrons would perform very well in this scenario? Provided they had at least 4 warrior squads and 3 monoliths, they could definitely have a strong presence. It would be easy enough to teleport a squad on the first mission, and on the second, monoliths could easily block the enemy from getting inside that 6 inch bubble. The monoliths main enemy is strength 10 weapons, and without a strong tau presence, I think they have a good chance.

4 warrior squads? That is still fail against MEQ armies with 12 combat squads or grey knights with even more. You don't even have to beat necrons by killing them. You just need to move those combat squads to the center or to the table quarters/terrain instead and you'll easily get a massacre.

And while you don't really have to worry too much about Tau railguns, necrons have a much greater concern - grey knights with S10 hammers!

Well the point of what I said though was to block them form getting inside the middle with monolith walls.

This is true, but GK die as easily as any other marine, and they can throw out so many pieplates it's hilarious.

I was so looking forward to this event seeing as I placed 2nd in my local qualifier, but now that I see the scenarios I'm honestly wondering if it's worth the drive. Mission 1 is a freaking joke, and mission 2 is almost impossible to massacre unless your opponent is a massive idiot (not likely at an invitational). I don't mind mission 3 so much, but the other two are just poorly designed, especially mission 1. I really don't like 500 VP's being tossed around by a roll of the dice to see who goes first.

I'm all for inventive scenarios but c'mon GW. You have to do better than this. It's like you don't even know what edition you're in!

Aldarionn wrote:I was so looking forward to this event seeing as I placed 2nd in my local qualifier, but now that I see the scenarios I'm honestly wondering if it's worth the drive. Mission 1 is a freaking joke, and mission 2 is almost impossible to massacre unless your opponent is a massive idiot (not likely at an invitational). I don't mind mission 3 so much, but the other two are just poorly designed, especially mission 1. I really don't like 500 VP's being tossed around by a roll of the dice to see who goes first.

I'm all for inventive scenarios but c'mon GW. You have to do better than this. It's like you don't even know what edition you're in!

The sales team might not know what edition they are in. Also as far as how hard it is to get a massacre, it's supposed to be just that a massacre and if you and your opponent know what you are doing it SHOULD be exceedingly difficult to get one. I hate how people complain that it's so hard to get a massacre but honestly that's why it's called a massacre. If you can't get it (and all of the requirements are achievable) then you don't deserve it. I had a draw in prelims and I definitely didn't deserved anything more than a draw.

If you play against a good general with a balanced list, it should be hard to get a Massacre. But by virtue of the Scenario #2, lost just 1 or 2 scoring units and it is an impossibility to get the massacre. It definitely favors the army with the most amount of resilient troops. Expect Draigowing grey knights to dominate these scenarios.

jy2 wrote:If you play against a good general with a balanced list, it should be hard to get a Massacre. But by virtue of the Scenario #2, lost just 1 or 2 scoring units and it is an impossibility to get the massacre. It definitely favors the army with the most amount of resilient troops. Expect Draigowing grey knights to dominate these scenarios.

Not on my watch! I summon you Dark Eldar! muhahahha all of my shots instant kill ur pretty little models. I love the obj in the center if no terrain is there. If the semi's have a piece of terrain in the middle then that is broken and the TM should go f themselves! lol! I am not even bring my grey knights. I played a couple of missions yesterday. It literally comes down to who goes first. I hate to say it but its true. Vect and the baron will be plentiful in this round!

jy2 wrote:If you play against a good general with a balanced list, it should be hard to get a Massacre. But by virtue of the Scenario #2, lost just 1 or 2 scoring units and it is an impossibility to get the massacre. It definitely favors the army with the most amount of resilient troops. Expect Draigowing grey knights to dominate these scenarios.

I think I would be more concerned with mech-spam IG than 3-4 units of Paladins plus whatever other units Draigo can make scoring. GK's in general have some inherent advantages in this scenario simply because of Grand Strategy, but they still can't overcome their problem, which is a high initial points cost. But the lack of a true KP mission, I think, means that IG armies are the true winners in the "armies tailored to the scenario" contest.

Eldanar wrote:

jy2 wrote:If you play against a good general with a balanced list, it should be hard to get a Massacre. But by virtue of the Scenario #2, lost just 1 or 2 scoring units and it is an impossibility to get the massacre. It definitely favors the army with the most amount of resilient troops. Expect Draigowing grey knights to dominate these scenarios.

I think I would be more concerned with mech-spam IG than 3-4 units of Paladins plus whatever other units Draigo can make scoring. GK's in general have some inherent advantages in this scenario simply because of Grand Strategy, but they still can't overcome their problem, which is a high initial points cost. But the lack of a true KP mission, I think, means that IG armies are the true winners in the "armies tailored to the scenario" contest.

I was going to say the same thing. Draigowing is infinite amounts of not terrifying in the second scenario, simply because of the number of units that they have for scoring...even with grand strategy draigowing isn't an issue because it's mostly walkers being bumped and they die the same as any other tank.

ToI wrote:

Aldarionn wrote:I was so looking forward to this event seeing as I placed 2nd in my local qualifier, but now that I see the scenarios I'm honestly wondering if it's worth the drive. Mission 1 is a freaking joke, and mission 2 is almost impossible to massacre unless your opponent is a massive idiot (not likely at an invitational). I don't mind mission 3 so much, but the other two are just poorly designed, especially mission 1. I really don't like 500 VP's being tossed around by a roll of the dice to see who goes first.

I'm all for inventive scenarios but c'mon GW. You have to do better than this. It's like you don't even know what edition you're in!

The sales team might not know what edition they are in. Also as far as how hard it is to get a massacre, it's supposed to be just that a massacre and if you and your opponent know what you are doing it SHOULD be exceedingly difficult to get one. I hate how people complain that it's so hard to get a massacre but honestly that's why it's called a massacre. If you can't get it (and all of the requirements are achievable) then you don't deserve it. I had a draw in prelims and I definitely didn't deserved anything more than a draw.

jy2 wrote:If you play against a good general with a balanced list, it should be hard to get a Massacre. But by virtue of the Scenario #2, lost just 1 or 2 scoring units and it is an impossibility to get the massacre. It definitely favors the army with the most amount of resilient troops. Expect Draigowing grey knights to dominate these scenarios.

The problem I have with this, as you pointed out jy2, is the lack of balance in scenario #2. Imperial Guard can take upwards of 10-12 scoring units as a single troops choice. One mechanized platoon and a bunch of vet squads could easily dominate that mission over someone like Space Wolves who can only ever take 6 and cannot combat squad. Vanilla Space Marines and Blood Angels have a slight advantage with combat squads, and Grey Knights have no problem with scoring units since they can make any unit in the army scoring, but codices like Dark Eldar, Chaos Space Marines/Chaos Daemons, and Space Wolves can only ever take 6 and must kneecap themselves to do so. Any scenario that requires one army to have MORE scoring units within range of an objective than another goes against the balance of the current codex system since not everyone can take the same number of scoring units. Having 5 objectives on the board and requiring all 5 to be controlled for a massacre is doable with 4-5 scoring units if you play well and dominate the board, and even if you lose a unit. If I table my opponent and only lose 1 scoring unit in the process, how is that NOT a massacre? But if I only had 5 to start with, I wouldn't be able to score one. In the prelims you had to score 5 points more than your opponent, but the objectives were worth more points depending on where they were located, which is much more fair and actually encouraged playing tactically. This type of scenario doesn't require tactics, it requires more scoring units. One army should not have an advantage simply because it can field more of one type of unit than an opponent.

I'm not saying that it should be easy to get a massacre. I am simply saying that it should be possible for everyone, and should not be significantly easier for two codices than all of the rest. I field 5 scoring units at 2,500 points (3 of them max sized), which I consider relatively well balanced for a Space Marine army, but if my opponent is Imperial Guard with 12 scoring units (not unreasonable at 2,500), I have to completely destroy 8 units to prevent him scoring a massacre, and he only has to destroy 1 of mine (or at most 2 if I field 6 scoring units) to prevent me from doing so. In fact, if for some reason neither of us destroys any scoring units and both of us get all of them within 6" of the objective, he can still massacre simply because he is able to take more units. How is that fair?

Mission #1 is just silly and I don't think anyone can argue otherwise. It would be perfectly acceptable with Pitched Battle or even Spearhead deployment, but Dawn of War makes it ridiculously easy for the first player to score 500 VP's, then slam into the opposing unit if they deploy on the line and prevent them from getting across, or even destroy the unit entirely if they have enough firepower. Even if they don't, you are essentially playing mission #3 from the qualifier but with each side having 500 extra VP's. The scenario special rules in this case at best are useless, or at worst favor the first player heavily.

Mission 2: Or you can just park on the objective with 4-8 rhinos/Razorbacks and laugh at him when he tries to get his 10-12 guard squads anywhere near it.

Yeah, i don't buy the whole "IG have an advantage" thing. There's no troop choice I want that close to my IG squads.

@Tomb King- obviously there are armies that cost more to get to the final points cost but that is still a rubber argument made by you. Every GK player I know of plays them in addition to other armies, so in that regard they are well worth pushing. IG has been around forever, I have been playing them for almost 20 years and haven't needed to buy retail models since around 98 considering you can ebay everything you ever would desire for dirt cheap...

@jy2- All I can do is chuckle at that draigo wing nonsense there cost is way too high, at best you'll get 6 scoring units if it is a good draigowing build.... I really don't expect them to dominate that scenario unless they dodge some bullets and get an easy matchup... Paladins weakness is there LD, one bad roll and I have seen them chased off the table along with draigo...

@pretre- Thats all you can do, if they go first they drive their ENTIRE parking lot up onto it and laugh at you...

Polonius wrote:Yeah, i don't buy the whole "IG have an advantage" thing. There's no troop choice I want that close to my IG squads.

This was kinda my thought...if they are dividing out into all those squads, that means the blob squad is not longer the resilient blob it was, meaning they get eaten by everything. In an area that small it's not that hard to multiassault silly numbers of units if they are all trying to get in there. IG also doesn't really wanna be right up in midfield cause nearly every other army does it better...


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Red Corsair wrote: @pretre- Thats all you can do, if they go first they drive their ENTIRE parking lot up onto it and laugh at you...

Except that they can get up to it just barely with a first turn move, so can you...then it turns into a slugfest.

ToI wrote:

Red Corsair wrote: @pretre- Thats all you can do, if they go first they drive their ENTIRE parking lot up onto it and laugh at you...

Except that they can get up to it just barely with a first turn move, so can you...then it turns into a slugfest.

Exactly and Grey Hunters are going to win that slugfest. Guard don't really want to be sitting still in all those Chimeras on the objective. That's a lot of Krak Grenades.

Polonius wrote:Yeah, i don't buy the whole "IG have an advantage" thing. There's no troop choice I want that close to my IG squads.

You really have to think of a mech-IG army as a tank army that buys upgrades (i.e. troop units) to turn their transport tanks into scoring units; and with the ability to have escape hatches for the riders in case the parent transport is destroyed.

After that, it is just a matter of can the mech-IG blow their opponents scoring units off of the table in turns 1-4, and then move to the middle on turns 5-6.

The only missions that keep IG players honest are KP missions (and possibly assault-based missions).

I was under the impression that in the first game, anyone who managed to get their messenger into the other deployment zone got the 500 points so what is to stop anyone from putting their messenger into a skimmer and flying over any attempted "barricade" in the middle? I don't understand why the person who goes first wins automatically according to some people =/. Or is it only the first person to get their messenger over?

Also, unless you do in fact absolutely massacre and table (or come close to tabling) your opponent in the second mission, why should you expect a massacre? The requirements are tough and steep but you'll have to destroy your opponent to be able to claim it safely and I'll be happy with a major or minor win.

I play Eldar so taking 6 scoring units isn't really an option unless I do mech spam but I just don't have 12-14 grav tanks lying around.

mortetvie wrote:I was under the impression that in the first game, anyone who managed to get their messenger into the other deployment zone got the 500 points so what is to stop anyone from putting their messenger into a skimmer and flying over any attempted "barricade" in the middle? I don't understand why the person who goes first wins automatically according to some people =/. Or is it only the first person to get their messenger over?

Also, unless you do in fact absolutely massacre and table (or come close to tabling) your opponent in the second mission, why should you expect a massacre? The requirements are tough and steep but you'll have to destroy your opponent to be able to claim it safely and I'll be happy with a major or minor win.

I play Eldar so taking 6 scoring units isn't really an option unless I do mech spam but I just don't have 12-14 grav tanks lying around.

The reason that people have an issue with the first mission is that the tactical advantage of first turn is amplified greatly because of the deployment and the special tweak. 500 victory points is ALOT of VP to just throw around, and it also doesn't help that you get a bonus for killing the messenger as well so if the first player gets in range to assault the messenger squad first turn, not only is it 500 VP but probably a nice bonus of a full battlepoint...

And the skimmer arguement doesn't work cause there are only a few armies that have skimmers as DT for their troops

Also, victory points favor the person that goes first (more correctly, if favors the person that gets the first damage dealing phase), so this mission amplifies one of the biggest flaws to VP missions.

@preter...Um.... Hellhounds get there first and my bane wolf will keep you in your tanks, blow smoke and I have a nice cover save and you need 6's to hit them with the GH if you assault... Yea, also Valkyries.... What crappy guard armies are you used to playing?

Red Corsair wrote:@preter...Um.... Hellhounds get there first and my bane wolf will keep you in your tanks, blow smoke and I have a nice cover save and you need 6's to hit them with the GH if you assault... Yea, also Valkyries.... What crappy guard armies are you used to playing?

We can go "pewpew I do this" all day long. I was simply saying that it isn't simple enough to say 'Guard wins because they have more troops choices.'

I agree that first turn gets a huge advantage (as I very much so hope to go first) but it is what it is. I personally think it's the wrong deployment for this type of mission. I anticipate a good number of battle wagon ork players where I will be so this will be a pain, for sure. Oh well, I guess my messenger will be a DA model in a WS with star engines, 24" up and 12" in shooting phase, voila, 500 VP from 170 points of models; then after nightfight is over just turbo away from the enemy...lol

I think they should have had a large bonus for killing the messenger also to balance it out as if you get your guy across the board, you have to risk reprisal and think more about when/how to get him across. Oh well.

Red Corsair wrote:@preter...Um.... Hellhounds get there first and my bane wolf will keep you in your tanks, blow smoke and I have a nice cover save and you need 6's to hit them with the GH if you assault... Yea, also Valkyries.... What crappy guard armies are you used to playing?

i happen to agree with the preter. Once you get that close the IG loses the advantage. A mid/shortrange slugfest is not the place that IG wants to be. They have some tools but not that compete with a midrange strong army.

mortetvie wrote:I anticipate a good number of battle wagon ork players where I will be so this will be a pain, for sure.

BW ork players would have (at most) one BW on the line with their messenger in it (assuming Nobs in a BW), possibly with their HQ. That's best case scenario against orks. You find some side armor, pop it and then his nobz are sitting with their butts in the wind and the rest of his army (that wants to get to grips with you) started at the board edge. Mission 1 is not kind to BW orks. Now Mission 2 on the other hand...

@pretre

Well, if BW orks go first, a nob unit in a BW with Ghaz can pretty much charge anything and do crazy damage turn one so that might not be a desirable scenario. Even if they come from the board edge in battle wagons, that's 13" up, 2" from the BW which gives an extra 1" from the bases used, fleet 6 from ghaz' wagh and 6" charge; that is what, 27-28" of threat right there? Yeah, BW orks are still pretty dangerous on first turn even with DOW. In the first mission, they will be able to charge and engage whatever is near or past the center of the board.

Even if they just move up 13" turn 1, the next turn they can pretty much get to where they want to charge so it's really a game of cat and mouse for me against BW orks. It comes down to how well I can keep Ghaz from reaching my Wraithguard hehe.

The second mission, I agree that BW orks have a much clearer advantage and the 3rd, well that just comes down to the players more than armies IMO. It should be interesting.