NWansbutter wrote:Is this debate getting esoteric enough yet?
Yeah, that's sort of my point. You're fine if the commissar shoots, but if you try to use the standard to circumvent this, you sort of fall into a philosophical vortex.
NWansbutter wrote:
P.S. How much did the Koplow precision dice set you back? There are no prices on their website. I tend to roll well below statistics, I could use a set of those ...
I actually got mine from
here. Koplow aren't precision dice proper, they're just better-than-chessex-nonsense. They're like twice as expensive as chessex, but, as you can see, they're not exactly expensive either. After shipping, it was $12 for 20 dice that don't roll 1's like they're on a 1D4...
So far, they've been rolling much closer to average than my blue dice, but my blue dice also had a grace period when they rolled normally before they started to suck it up game after game.
pchappel wrote:But in general the AV 14 "lots of shots" was one I tried several times before ditching it in favor of a Hydra or two.. More shots, and I still brought the Russ, just standard ones for the template and big target no one dared ignore... I was just unimpressed by the AC/HBs mounted with BS 3 and armor saves for everyone usually...
Right, I was originally very unenthusiastic about exterminators compared to hydras. You don't get to ignore
SMF, and you get half the shots (per point).
What eventually swung me over towards them was the AV14. An exterminator, is, at worst, half as durable as it's points in hydras, but it's WAY more durable (in some cases, infinitely so). Looking around local meta, there are shockingly few armies that are trying to get into close combat with my tanks, while more than one person includes anti-tank firepower. Until that changes, the exterminator is ultimately the better deal.
Perfect circumstances sees the hydra do 2x damage, but when they're spending the game shaken by shuriken catapults and missile launchers...
-Nazdreg- wrote: In this game they didnt do too much, did they?
Actaully, I forgot to comment on this earlier. Assuming that Grimnar counts as 3 terminators, my opponent brought 24 terminators. Roughly 15 were killed by my tanks. 63% of his forces destroyed by 33% of my points expenditure really isn't that bad, especially given that exterminators are NOT tailor-made to take down 2+ armor saves.
Yes, I had some serious things going my way this game, but still, this all gives me a boost of confidence for my choices of
HS slots. Even in this non-optimal role, they were still able to do well.
ChrisWWII wrote:Great battle report, I was honestly surprised to see a Vanquisher with SPONSONS in your list.
Lol. Once I got over the idea of including a VANQUISHER in my list, little else seemed holy
I will agree that, on the face of it, the
HS choices as I've taken them look confused, at best. The reason why I went with what I did has to do with the peculiarities of what I was looking for.
Firstly, I wanted anti-skimmer. Exterminators were the most obvious choice with a vanquisher being not a terrible option either. Executioners were also on the list, but they're expensive, and I wanted 3 russes, not 2.
Once it was established that that was the tank, the question became one of upgrades. Naturally, including a hull lascannon made a lot of sense, as lascannons are also weapons suitable for shooting at skimmers. Plus, 3 lascannons on tanks I already had cost less than half the price of putting them in a
HWS. It's not like I'd be wasting the shots.
Once I came to this point in my list, I had 65 points to play with. I considered taking Marbo, but I just couldn't do it. With him out of the picture, it was what to spend the points on. 65 points isn't a lot to buy a new unit with. It would be like a single lascannon sentinel, or a single flamer
SWS or something. Nothing was really doing any boat floating. Then I figured I could take 6 heavy bolters with those points. Nothing else promised as much firepower.
But seriously, a lascannon+heavy bolter tank? Well, remember my secondary objective with these things is to kill monstrous creatures. Heavy bolter spam works against monstrous creatures (I can only assume roughly as well as it works against terminators). Plus, it also helps out with AV10 skimmers. As such, as tortured as it sounds, a exterminator or vanquisher with a hull lascannon and sponson heavy bolters seemed to be the best support unit of this type I could take for my specific needs.
I don't expect it to catch on any time soon...
