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I’m glad old killshot is gone, it was too all or nothing. Kind of sad they didn’t just make a 1 tank buff Killshot.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Like reroll all failed hits AND wounds? For all units in a 6” bubble? With more buffs besides?

What are you talking about ? No GW unit can re-roll all failed hits AND wounds.

Are gw's rules for dreadnought bad? Competitively maybe. They have gotten a lot better with the base point drops each chapter approved. The units themselves are fine to a point. Iron hands makes them very good. Just taking 2 regular dreads now in iron hands with Las cannons and missiles making them chrs makes you a firebase that's pretty hard to reach. Plus hitting on 3's rerolling 1's? Not a bad option at all.

However they are not so cheap they are auto include, not so good there are no other units that can replace them, and not so tough that they can't be killed. To me this puts them in semi competitive territory. If you like them you can get a lot from them. If you don't your not losing anything that could not be found from another unit.

Forgeworld is a different story all together. I seriously don't think forgeworld is broken. I think the issue comes down to not enough people actually play with it or against it enough to know what the units do, which leads to you feeling like you have been gotten when the unit does something nasty that you didn't expect, or survives something a normal dread wouldn't. That and it's not as easy to get ahold of the units and rules.

Taking piracy out of the equation many people can't or don't want to buy from gw directly and that's really the only way to get forgeworld stuff a lot of the time. Many local game stores don't want to use forgeworld because their business is selling. If they run tournaments and new people come in and see these amazing awesome looking models they may want to go buy some. Then to be told you can't buy them here, you have to go online only, then the store is losing money. I mean if I have to go online to buy the models why not buy everything at once online?

So the store puts a no forgeworld at tournaments policy in place. No big deal, but this leads to the first problem. If I can't use my stuff in tournaments that I regularly go to why would I buy the forgeworld in the first place?

Again I think forgeworld is fine. Sure there can be rules issues that pop up due to these crazy weapons no one actually ever sees until this one guy with this one chapter tactic and one strat did this crazy thing and suddenly forgeworld is op.... but that's more of a urban legend situation.

For a long time, Bobby G.

They fixed that-but it took years.

Maybe this thread should be renamed, "IH Leviathans: Broken or Not?"

There are other chapters in the game, including one (Raven Guard) that specializes at sniping characters in the open. Have you seen the profile for Ex Tenebris? Did you notice that Eliminators don't need LoS?

How long will a strategy work when it requires an Iron Father to be standing around outside his transport? IH vehicles become a lot less durable without the 5++ bubble and the repairs.

Even the Leviathan.

They do have that martyrdom strat though. That one char might take 2 turns to go down which is long enough.

What I’m wondering about now is are Executioners really that great or not? Of course right now they seem clear winners, big AT that is tough to kill in an aura. But, the very same numbers also prove how mediocre they are for the mirror match and it’s safe to assume there will be a lot of mirror matches shortly.

 Flavius Infernus wrote:
Maybe this thread should be renamed, "IH Leviathans: Broken or Not?"

There are other chapters in the game, including one (Raven Guard) that specializes at sniping characters in the open. Have you seen the profile for Ex Tenebris? Did you notice that Eliminators don't need LoS?

How long will a strategy work when it requires an Iron Father to be standing around outside his transport? IH vehicles become a lot less durable without the 5++ bubble and the repairs.

Even the Leviathan.

We're talking about a T5, 7 wound Character with a 2+, 5++, 5+++ and a Grot shield made out of Intercessors.

Even without the Grot shield you need like 7 rounds of shooting with Eliminators to do him in out of LoS.

Note that no iron hands character should ever be in line of sight. They’re smaller than a tank

stratigo wrote:
Note that no iron hands character should ever be in line of sight. They’re smaller than a tank

Today's Frontline podcast actually mentioned this exact case as they noted to remember that Repulsors hover and can be shot under to hit characters behind them.

bort wrote:

stratigo wrote:
Note that no iron hands character should ever be in line of sight. They’re smaller than a tank

Today's Frontline podcast actually mentioned this exact case as they noted to remember that Repulsors hover and can be shot under to hit characters behind them.

This has been keeping me up at night. like what if i put some rocks under there..

bort wrote:

Today's Frontline podcast actually mentioned this exact case as they noted to remember that Repulsors hover and can be shot under to hit characters behind them.

Well, you can technically see under almost all vehicles in 40K. Yet most people don't try to shoot you through the gaps in Rhino's tracks. But yeah, technically true.

 Crimson wrote:

bort wrote:

Today's Frontline podcast actually mentioned this exact case as they noted to remember that Repulsors hover and can be shot under to hit characters behind them.

Well, you can technically see under almost all vehicles in 40K. Yet most people don't try to shoot you through the gaps in Rhino's tracks. But yeah, technically true.

Yeah, I guess the Repulsors do hover a bit, but it does seem kinda pushing that true LOS rather hard in a setting where most people would rather have nicely posed models than standing stiffly with arms tucked in to be as hard to see as possible. I had planned to use Impulsors to block LOS if I took them, but guess not if people are going to shoot under them...

 Flavius Infernus wrote:
Maybe this thread should be renamed, "IH Leviathans: Broken or Not?"

There are other chapters in the game, including one (Raven Guard) that specializes at sniping characters in the open. Have you seen the profile for Ex Tenebris? Did you notice that Eliminators don't need LoS?

How long will a strategy work when it requires an Iron Father to be standing around outside his transport? IH vehicles become a lot less durable without the 5++ bubble and the repairs.

Even the Leviathan.

The leviathan has 4++.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

bort wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

bort wrote:

Today's Frontline podcast actually mentioned this exact case as they noted to remember that Repulsors hover and can be shot under to hit characters behind them.

Well, you can technically see under almost all vehicles in 40K. Yet most people don't try to shoot you through the gaps in Rhino's tracks. But yeah, technically true.

Yeah, I guess the Repulsors do hover a bit, but it does seem kinda pushing that true LOS rather hard in a setting where most people would rather have nicely posed models than standing stiffly with arms tucked in to be as hard to see as possible. I had planned to use Impulsors to block LOS if I took them, but guess not if people are going to shoot under them...

Snipers usually are positioned on high ground, which means they cant see through a gap below hover vehicles.

Greyshield.

Who has ideas for interesting combos?

I'm thinking of an Ultras list which runs pure dakka, probably 300+ bolt rounds in turn 2. Combined with IF tactic for exploding 6s could be very nice, but is it worth 2cps?


Any other ideas?

bort wrote:

stratigo wrote:
Note that no iron hands character should ever be in line of sight. They’re smaller than a tank

Today's Frontline podcast actually mentioned this exact case as they noted to remember that Repulsors hover and can be shot under to hit characters behind them.

The gap is rather small, depending on the angle of the attacking unit, it very well might not see. Ultimately razorbacks do the job, and you're gonna see a fair few of those too.

For Iron Hands I think the improvements to Repulsors and maybe Redemptors stand out more than the Leviathan's. Any Leviathan with -50% damage taken is insanely hard to kill, not just an Iron Hands one.

But the repulsor and redemptor both gain a 5++. The redemptor gets to move and shoot without penalty, making it far better at crossing the board. It ends up being not all that much less tough than a leviathan, for about half the price.

The overall effect is that an Iron Hands gunline is able to survive going second against another gunline. That's a huge benefit. Once you factor in the 5++, 6+++ and Ironstone that parking lot takes less than half as much damage than another army would take against a lot of weapons. The Ironstone is particularly strong in a meta featuring a lot of D2 weapons.

Someone has already won a RTT now with 3 IH executioners and 3 redemptors. It's now an army you need to be able to beat if you expect to win a tournament.

Mandragola wrote:


But the repulsor and redemptor both gain a 5++. The redemptor gets to move and shoot without penalty, making it far better at crossing the board. It ends up being not all that much less tough than a leviathan, for about half the price.
.

T7 W13 3+ 5++ is a lot less tough than T8 W14 2+ 4++.

 p5freak wrote:

Mandragola wrote:


But the repulsor and redemptor both gain a 5++. The redemptor gets to move and shoot without penalty, making it far better at crossing the board. It ends up being not all that much less tough than a leviathan, for about half the price.
.

T7 W13 3+ 5++ is a lot less tough than T8 W14 2+ 4++.

Right, obviously, but not the point I'm trying to make.

Iron hands rules make leviathans more or less immortal - but they are already very tough models. An ultramarine leviathan also has a 2+/4++ and the same strat to halve damage. It gains nothing from Feirros' 5++ aura. It does benefit from the FNP and Iron Stone though, and Feirros' repairs. But an ultramarine one can fall back and shoot and an Imperial Fist one looks like it'll do more damage with heavy weapons - if the rumours are true. So there are good reasons why you might choose to run leviathans as another chapter.

But things like repulsors and redemptors gain a 5++ where they had nothing. And rather than being a >300pt model that can be tagged in combat and taken out of the game, the redemptor costs half as much and can hit back, while the repulsor is very difficult to charge and can fly away regardless.

In the end I'd be a lot happier to face an Iron Hands leviathan than repulsor executioner. The leviathan's range and inability to fall back and shoot make it quite vulnerable to being taken out of the game. You can only do that to a repulsor by killing it. An Iron Hands redemptor upgraded to a character with Student of History warlord trait is sort of unreasonable.

 p5freak wrote:

Mandragola wrote:


But the repulsor and redemptor both gain a 5++. The redemptor gets to move and shoot without penalty, making it far better at crossing the board. It ends up being not all that much less tough than a leviathan, for about half the price.
.

T7 W13 3+ 5++ is a lot less tough than T8 W14 2+ 4++.

When the same points gets you T7 W26 3+, 5++ vrs T8 W14 2+,4++ it's not the massive difference your making it out to be.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

It costs about as much as a Knight with none of the survivability and anything not Ultramarines just gets tied up in melee indefinitely.

It's a good unit but hardly broken. It only appears broken because a lot of the Dread options are actually just terrible and always have been. There's a distinction ya know.

Hyperbole without factual framing does not constitute evidence, friend, but your bumptious opinion is noted.

Vortenger wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

It costs about as much as a Knight with none of the survivability and anything not Ultramarines just gets tied up in melee indefinitely.

It's a good unit but hardly broken. It only appears broken because a lot of the Dread options are actually just terrible and always have been. There's a distinction ya know.

Hyperbole without factual framing does not constitute evidence, friend, but your bumptious opinion is noted.

Slayer Fan isn't wrong about melee being a problem for Leviathans. It's clearly their weakness and it's the main reason I don't like them.

I took a leviathan to last year's LGT with my Crimson Fists - who were obviously a lot worse then than they are now. I found it pretty awkward to use. The combination of a short-ish range, not wanting to be in cc ever and LoS-blocking terrain was a real problem. Some turns it couldn't see anything to shoot and it did get tied up quite a lot. You have seriously fast units coming at you, plenty of which can charge after starting a turn outside the leviathan's range, some without even letting you overwatch. It did also kill a fair number of things with overwatch to be fair, and didn't get killed much.

Left unmolested the leviathan did great work for me. It certainly wasn't an awful unit and I went 3:2 in the end, so not too bad. But I do remember that opponents could frustrate it.

This doesn't really happen with repulsors. I found that if I had a repulsor or two kicking around in mid to late game, I was in great shape for a win. They just keep firing dakka until every enemy model is removed - and this was normal repulsors, not the new executioners.

Can't wait to get the proper rules for my Crimson Fists so I can finally start making proper lists for them. I took knights instead to the LGT this year and went 5:0, but I'm not at all confident my list would win vs Iron Hands. I'd be in good shape if I went first and zerged them with all four knights I think.

I will say that, so far, Raven Guard look the most interesting army to me, at least for ITC format with lots of LoS blockers. If you were playing at Warhammer World (with more open lines of sight) the Iron Hands would probably take it.

If I were to run IH I’m thinking I’d use maybe 2 executioners and 3 redemptors as my Feirros firebase core and save the rest of the points for troops and screens...But since I own 0 of any of those vehicles, this might make the choice to play RG for me :p

 JNAProductions wrote:
Like reroll all failed hits AND wounds? For all units in a 6” bubble? With more buffs besides?

Well they nerfed that. Then introduced more broken auras. Like -1 damage.

The idea has always been to combine the most broken GW and FW stuff to create unintended interactions which dominate the game. This has always been popular.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

bort wrote:
If I were to run IH I’m thinking I’d use maybe 2 executioners and 3 redemptors as my Feirros firebase core and save the rest of the points for troops and screens...But since I own 0 of any of those vehicles, this might make the choice to play RG for me :p

2 Executioners a levi and 30 intercessors will work best. IMO. You can do 2 battalions with this setup.

bort wrote:
If I were to run IH I’m thinking I’d use maybe 2 executioners and 3 redemptors as my Feirros firebase core and save the rest of the points for troops and screens...But since I own 0 of any of those vehicles, this might make the choice to play RG for me :p

My issue is that I actually do own three redemptor executioners, just with a leadbelcher undercoat on. The temptation to slap some black paint on them right now is huge. Embarrassingly, I've probably got enough grey plastic of shame to build the rest of a 1750 army and take it to the GT finals next year.

FWIW I do think that it makes sense to run all three, and not worry too much about getting a second battalion in. The army actually isn't that CP-reliant. My plan would be to take a couple of squads of infiltrators to screen. Not sure what the third troop would be.

It's a bit awkward that this doesn't let you take any more HS choices. I'd like at least one TFC but I'm not sure I want to have to buy another HQ to unlock it.

Vortenger wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

It costs about as much as a Knight with none of the survivability and anything not Ultramarines just gets tied up in melee indefinitely.

It's a good unit but hardly broken. It only appears broken because a lot of the Dread options are actually just terrible and always have been. There's a distinction ya know.

Hyperbole without factual framing does not constitute evidence, friend, but your bumptious opinion is noted.

Then point out where I'm wrong in that statement. I'm looking forward to the same non-reply I just got.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Vortenger wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

It costs about as much as a Knight with none of the survivability and anything not Ultramarines just gets tied up in melee indefinitely.

It's a good unit but hardly broken. It only appears broken because a lot of the Dread options are actually just terrible and always have been. There's a distinction ya know.

Hyperbole without factual framing does not constitute evidence, friend, but your bumptious opinion is noted.

Then point out where I'm wrong in that statement. I'm looking forward to the same non-reply I just got.

I'm not going to come out and say the Leviathan is broken, as tournament results will be the deciding factor for that IMO.....BUT;

Leviathans were already one of the best space marines units pre-codex, and dreadnoughts were....not.
Both both serious force multiplier buffs added to them in the new doctrines, chapter tactics, stratagems, auras and relics.

Making something that's already really good significantly harder to kill is kind of the formula for making something broken IMO. All of the buffs were absolutely needed to get "normal" dreads to a playable level, but when these are stacked on Leviathan it kind of gets insane. Looking over that mathhammer blog post from earlier was a little disgusting with how much firepower a fully kitted out Leviathan takes to kill. The obvious answer is just kill the other stuff of course, but your opponent having a neigh immortal unit in their list is disheartening and rather unfun overall. Having something this powerful also starts to heavily slant space marine players into using the unit/chapter, and has knock-on meta repercussions as well.

The burden of proof is upon you when you call someones analysis 'literally wrong' with no evidence of your own. That's how debate works. You don't have to agree with their opinion, but don't call it wrong without being able to back it up with facts. Fine, I'll bite.

A leviathan has easy access to invulnerability saves, stratagems, and relics that increase its survivability to be equal to or greater than many knights. It is repaired more easily than its knight counterpart. You say it gets tied up in melee, I say it does not. It can happen, but can does not equal does, and presumably you are piloting this thing with the intent to circumvent your own weaknesses. Look at the previous post regarding someone's in-game experience with SCA overwatch.

The Leviathan has been an exceptional, not just good, performer for all of 8th edition and has rocketed to bonkers with recent releases. One of which will heavily dictate the tournament meta. You might claim it is specifically IH that puts it over the top, to which I ask did the Castellan need a nerf if it was only too strong when used with a specific relic, stratagem, and household? It was too good and needed a fix. This is no different. A lot of the dread options are terrible. Sure. We aren't discussing those.

I believe that covers all your concerns? I can provide statistics if you'd like, but they've been discussed.

Vortenger wrote:
The burden of proof is upon you when you call someones analysis 'literally wrong' with no evidence of your own. That's how debate works. You don't have to agree with their opinion, but don't call it wrong without being able to back it up with facts. Fine, I'll bite.

A leviathan has easy access to invulnerability saves, stratagems, and relics that increase its survivability to be equal to or greater than many knights. It is repaired more easily than its knight counterpart. You say it gets tied up in melee, I say it does not. It can happen, but can does not equal does, and presumably you are piloting this thing with the intent to circumvent your own weaknesses. Look at the previous post regarding someone's in-game experience with SCA overwatch.

The Leviathan has been an exceptional, not just good, performer for all of 8th edition and has rocketed to bonkers with recent releases. One of which will heavily dictate the tournament meta. You might claim it is specifically IH that puts it over the top, to which I ask did the Castellan need a nerf if it was only too strong when used with a specific relic, stratagem, and household? It was too good and needed a fix. This is no different. A lot of the dread options are terrible. Sure. We aren't discussing those.

I believe that covers all your concerns? I can provide statistics if you'd like, but they've been discussed.

The Leviathan Dreadnought is not overpowered.
The stacking buffs and stratagems that can be applied to the Leviathan Dreadnought, however, are overpowered. It's at the top of the list because it's the largest dreadnought, and thus uses those buffs and stratagems most efficiently, but any other dreadnought will see similar results. Were the Leviathan to get nerfed to oblivion, we'd just see this same conversation about Deredeos, or Relic Contemptors, or Redemptors.
What we need is to have the stratagems and other abilities patched so that they cannot stack or are balanced around size. (For example, charging an extra CP for halving damage on dreads with more than 10 wounds, similar to how Rotate Ion Shields costs more on the bigger knights.)

Vortenger wrote:
The burden of proof is upon you when you call someones analysis 'literally wrong' with no evidence of your own. That's how debate works. You don't have to agree with their opinion, but don't call it wrong without being able to back it up with facts. Fine, I'll bite.

A leviathan has easy access to invulnerability saves, stratagems, and relics that increase its survivability to be equal to or greater than many knights. It is repaired more easily than its knight counterpart. You say it gets tied up in melee, I say it does not. It can happen, but can does not equal does, and presumably you are piloting this thing with the intent to circumvent your own weaknesses. Look at the previous post regarding someone's in-game experience with SCA overwatch.

The Leviathan has been an exceptional, not just good, performer for all of 8th edition and has rocketed to bonkers with recent releases. One of which will heavily dictate the tournament meta. You might claim it is specifically IH that puts it over the top, to which I ask did the Castellan need a nerf if it was only too strong when used with a specific relic, stratagem, and household? It was too good and needed a fix. This is no different. A lot of the dread options are terrible. Sure. We aren't discussing those.

I believe that covers all your concerns? I can provide statistics if you'd like, but they've been discussed.

1. You say "ease of access to Invul saves" without realizing it had a 4++ to begin with baked into its cost. So the new Techmarine guy does nothing except repair. So do you actually know the unit you're discussing or not, and just flailing your arms about screaming "OP" for no reason other than it shows up?
2. You want to add those Strats and Relics? That comes at a cost. Techmarines are what, 50 points? That's an extra 50 if you want the Ironstone, which means to get the most of the points you got to surround with other stuff. Character Strat does nothing unless you want to surround the thing with Intercessors to intercept wounds, which is more baked into the cost. Remember this is a 300+ point unit here.
3. Oh please on the Overwatch. It kills three to four Marines on Overwatch on average, which is not a lot, and that's not covering the units ignoring it or anything more durable. The thing gets terribly tied up in melee because it hits like a wet noodle with no melee weapons and has no attacks basically the moment you get a big gun.
4. No the Castellan suffers from core rules like Relics being free for example, as well as making the most of Strats. The Levi gets no relics or interesting Warlord Traits.

So no you're just fearmongering over a good unit when you're used to bad ones and I don't buy it.

+1 CP to codex astartes strats when applied to units with the RELIC keyword.

Tones down WW scorpius, levi dreads and other outliers but doesn't kill them for other armies (where they are fine and have been fine for 2 years).

IH not penalizing them for moving, native re-rolls 1s along with the -1 damage relic definitely makes them better and they are pretty good to begin with. Not sure how to address that but if levis haven't needed a nerf through 2 years of this edition (what % of GT final lists have one if any?) the issue isn't with the model but with the crazy stacking of strats/abilities.

I don't think GW understands how important mobility is. There is a significant drop of offensive power when going from hitting on a 2+ to a 3+ (or 4+ to a 5+ when shooting at anything with a negative) so being able to keep shooting with a 2+ makes them so much better. Then the small change of re-rolling all failed hits from only re-rolling 1s means the best defense against them (range and negs to hit) all took a hit.

All that being said, they do like 6 damage to a knight (20->20->7->3 = 6). They kill primaris really well (thank god) but barely better than a relic knight Gatling cannon. They really shine against marines but suffer from range, negs to hit or kiting against most other targets.

They probably wreck casual armies but against real competitive lists/players they are at most an annoyance (unless you are playing marines, then they are really good). Worthless in the mirror match (4 wounds vs an IH repulsor chassis or 3 vs another levi). They are less resilient than pox-walkers (per point vs most weapons) so their not the toughest thing in the game and their offensive output is good against a lot of targets but not great and is mitigated by range/los (not tall enough to see over a lot of terrain and not long enough to see around a lot of stuff, no fly to get on top of stuff).

I still think the executioner is better but for some reason people are fixated on the Levi.