Mythantor wrote:The focus of my opening post was the tactical marines.
I understand that the focus of the DA book will always be Bikes and Terminators.
It would just be nice if we got acces to some of the fancy new toys. (AA tanks, grav weapons, Centurions, and competent flyers)
I think you might be stunned by the shiny of the new toys....
The
AA Tanks don't look like they will be usable for competitive play. While a
TAC list needs a way to deal with flyers, taking a unit that is ONLY effective against flyers and skimmer is kind of silly. Vanilla marines will accomplish their anti-air with Storm Talons, the Quad-gun, mortis dreads (and contemptors), Hyperios platforms and twin-linked weapons, just like today. You cannot sink points into a unit that is only effective against 1 type of opposing unit, especially when it doesn't even have interceptor, as most opponents will either kill it before the flyers show up, or kill it with the flyers when they show up, assuring it will almost never be effective at it's primary role.
The grav weapons are almost entirely inferior to plasma weapons, and from what I've heard they cost about the same. With only the pistol and "rifle" variants available to tactical squad and bikes, and the rifle being salvo (which only an 18" range at that) I don't think you will see it being used very often. It might be okay on the bikes though, but doesn't really compare to rad grenade launcher
DA get.
Centurions....well, the lascannon, missile and heavy bolter variants are all garbage, who wants to pay 60-90+ points for a T5 W2 2+ unit with no invul? Same with the melee variants. I mean, predators/dreads are only a few points more expensive than these things. The only interesting loadout I've see so far is the grav-cannon and bolter or missile combo.
SnP + salvo 5 + upto 6
TL-bolter shots per guy isn't awful, and if you slap prescience and the ignore cover saves power on them via Tigurius (the ONLY character with access to divination
BTW) then you might be looking at a bad ass anti-
Meq/terminators/
MC/vehicle unit.....but are looking at 240 points plus another 170ish for Tigurius. Expensive, but potentially decent.
As for effective flyers....well, the Storm Talon is cool, but don't really consider the Storm Raven as effective. Sure, it's better than anything the
DA get, but that's not saying much. It just doesn't stack up to Nightscythes, Vendettas and the like, and we all know flyer transports are largely death traps/point sinks.
UnadoptedPuppy wrote:
AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Mythantor wrote:The focus of my opening post was the tactical marines.
I understand that the focus of the
DA book will always be Bikes and Terminators.
It would just be nice if we got acces to some of the fancy new toys. (
AA tanks, grav weapons, Centurions, and competent flyers)
Has anyone gotten access to the new
DA toys? No? Then why should you get the new toys of another Codex?
Because besides PFG and the Bolter banner, all our new toys suck. The fliers are terrible, knights are really cool but not great for competitive play, you can't even play a
DW army with hopes of winning, bikes get torn to shreds by Helldrake (since we have no solid
AA option). I think if our army had more competitive builds people wouldn't be complaining.
If you want solid
AA, get a mortis or mortis contemptor dread, some hyperios platforms or look into allies. Don't think for a second that vanilla marines won't have the exact same problems with helldrakes as you do now.
From what I've read so far, the vanilla book is shaping up to be marginally better than the
DA book, but without access to any of the excellent biker options, almost no additional scoring outside of scouts and tacticals (so you are going to have to play the vanilla equivalent of greenwing basically), no divination outside of Tigurius and Ultramarines and less effective melee than the 5th edition book has.
Frankly, I don't see vanilla being better than a mid tier book unless something in the relics or points costs we haven't heard about is totally whacked out. I think you are getting bent out of shape for nothing, and if you really want to, you can always just use the vanilla book with your
DA models and just call them "The serpent guard" or something, and use them as a successor to any of the other chapters.
