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Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
That's because you don't care about actual balance in the game.

For the argument "Are VV almost always better than ASM, from a balance perspective", with the caveat that FW is available, is "Almost always yes".

There are corner cases where you just need those 10 points, but those are going to be rare. ASMs do 80% of what non-blinged VV do for 90% of the cost.

Without FW being an option, they're still usually outshined by ASM, but there are more corner cases - such as PA spam needing FA choices.

Those points aren't being heavily debated. This guy is just a corner case.

Bharring wrote:
For the argument "Are VV almost always better than ASM, from a balance perspective", with the caveat that FW is available, is "Almost always yes".

There are corner cases where you just need those 10 points, but those are going to be rare. ASMs do 80% of what non-blinged VV do for 90% of the cost.

Without FW being an option, they're still usually outshined by ASM, but there are more corner cases - such as PA spam needing FA choices.

Those points aren't being heavily debated. This guy is just a corner case.

It is a corner case, absolutely.

I would say that if your purchasing VV over ASM, you're mostly looking to deal damage. If you actually want to deliver meaningful damage, cost goes up more because you want to bring some fancier gear. A couple power weapons doesn't cost much, but the moment you give them a power axe is the moment you could get another body in the ASM squad. Another body is possibly another turn of being obnoxious, so if you're just looking to run interference I think the cheaper guys are better.

Imo, it's really splitting hairs depending on how tight you are on points. For exactly the cost of minimum VV you can get ASM with a Power Axe and a Melta Bomb. Too lazy to do the math on that, but the fact that a Meltabomb does D6 damage probably shifts in favor of the ASM for some situations.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
That's because you don't care about actual balance in the game.

Now that's just incoherent.

Back on the main topic, what about when it's not an army trait. You have things like Lictors that have a -1 baked in and other units that can give them another -1 for -2. Pre-nerf the lictor could pop in with a unit of Venomthrops and a bunch of psychers and stand there with -2 to hit shielding the characters. Got to be other examples too. Is this ok?

Do any Tyranid -1 to hit stack?

Lictor and Venomthrope do, as I described.

Okay I wasn't sure what might have been in FAQs

The FAQ stopped them being able to deepstrike together with the Lictor stratagem. They can still stack the -1 to hit to get -2.

Well, I guess descent of angels got a little better.

Huh? How is that related?

If I go punch them, I don't have to worry about venomthropes. Most Tyranid lists are overtuning for shooting now. They won't expect it.

 Insectum7 wrote:

Bharring wrote:
For the argument "Are VV almost always better than ASM, from a balance perspective", with the caveat that FW is available, is "Almost always yes".

There are corner cases where you just need those 10 points, but those are going to be rare. ASMs do 80% of what non-blinged VV do for 90% of the cost.

Without FW being an option, they're still usually outshined by ASM, but there are more corner cases - such as PA spam needing FA choices.

Those points aren't being heavily debated. This guy is just a corner case.

It is a corner case, absolutely.

I would say that if your purchasing VV over ASM, you're mostly looking to deal damage. If you actually want to deliver meaningful damage, cost goes up more because you want to bring some fancier gear. A couple power weapons doesn't cost much, but the moment you give them a power axe is the moment you could get another body in the ASM squad. Another body is possibly another turn of being obnoxious, so if you're just looking to run interference I think the cheaper guys are better.

Imo, it's really splitting hairs depending on how tight you are on points. For exactly the cost of minimum VV you can get ASM with a Power Axe and a Melta Bomb. Too lazy to do the math on that, but the fact that a Meltabomb does D6 damage probably shifts in favor of the ASM for some situations.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
That's because you don't care about actual balance in the game.

Now that's just incoherent.

It isn't incoherent. You refuse to acknowledge how unbalanced units in the game really are. The real incoherence is your thoughts on how Assault Marines are useful in any way, shape, or form.

They're not. Stop defending them.

Drager wrote:
Back on the main topic, what about when it's not an army trait. You have things like Lictors that have a -1 baked in and other units that can give them another -1 for -2. Pre-nerf the lictor could pop in with a unit of Venomthrops and a bunch of psychers and stand there with -2 to hit shielding the characters. Got to be other examples too. Is this ok?

Jorm can still pop Venonthropes up alongside other tunneling units, and Lictors can pop in next to them. That'll be a -2. Put Deathleaper in there and he's got a -3. Which sounds nasty, except A: They're not particularly dangerous units. and B: Target priority will probably be the Venomthropes, which aren't particularly tough either.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

It isn't incoherent. You refuse to acknowledge how unbalanced units in the game really are. The real incoherence is your thoughts on how Assault Marines are useful in any way, shape, or form.

They're not. Stop defending them.

It's incoherent when you tell me I don't care about balance because I don't want to buy gun turrets for my power armor spam army.

I've outlined my argument and feel I've made my point enough for others who may be reading. I'm sorry you disagree with it, but you are free to do so. It's pretty clear this branch of conversation has long run it's course, however. Unless you have something specific other than "stop defending them", I think we're done.

 Insectum7 wrote:

Drager wrote:
Back on the main topic, what about when it's not an army trait. You have things like Lictors that have a -1 baked in and other units that can give them another -1 for -2. Pre-nerf the lictor could pop in with a unit of Venomthrops and a bunch of psychers and stand there with -2 to hit shielding the characters. Got to be other examples too. Is this ok?

Jorm can still pop Venonthropes up alongside other tunneling units, and Lictors can pop in next to them. That'll be a -2. Put Deathleaper in there and he's got a -3. Which sounds nasty, except A: They're not particularly dangerous units. and B: Target priority will probably be the Venomthropes, which aren't particularly tough either.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

It isn't incoherent. You refuse to acknowledge how unbalanced units in the game really are. The real incoherence is your thoughts on how Assault Marines are useful in any way, shape, or form.

They're not. Stop defending them.

It's incoherent when you tell me I don't care about balance because I don't want to buy gun turrets for my power armor spam army.

I've outlined my argument and feel I've made my point enough for others who may be reading. I'm sorry you disagree with it, but you are free to do so. It's pretty clear this branch of conversation has long run it's course, however. Unless you have something specific other than "stop defending them", I think we're done.

Which is why you miss the entire point.

You want to run what you want. Fantastic, as I almost finished my stand-in Anton Narvaez. Own up to it though when a unit is bad. You want a Brigade? Tarantula Turrets are 81 points to do that and fulfill a role that's necessary. You miss the entirety of unbalanced units when you defend their use to the death. I don't care whether it fits your "theme" or not. If the unit that's being defended is bad, it's bad.

"It's a corner case" isn't defending them to their death.

"I don't use ForgeWorld" isn't defending them to their death.

"I don't want to offer up ideal targets that my list otherwise wouldn't have" isn't just a "theme". If you look at a lot of good lists, it's quite common to see similar profiles across their choices to make the game harder for their opponent. It's a very valid part of strategy.

If a unit is bad, except all other options are worse for the particular case at hand, the unit is the appropriate choice. Anything else is fanaticism.

Apparently some BA units lost the ability to take jump packs, so that's kind of addition by subtraction for me. And I can hump meltas which hopefully get a price cut some day.

Yeah, the removal from codexes is really annoying.

I want my Power-weapon DA Exarchs - not just swords and glaives!

Martel732 wrote:
Apparently some BA units lost the ability to take jump packs, so that's kind of addition by subtraction for me. And I can hump meltas which hopefully get a price cut some day.

I haven't read the BA codex, but if you can always take the index version of something instead of the codex, per GW's ruling for the same on Astra Militarum. I still have shotgun wielding company commanders and I still see rough riders on the table, despite them being only in the index.

I'm shying away from that when i can.

Martel732 wrote:
I'm shying away from that when i can.

Understandable, but we need to force GW to acknowledge the rules they've made for previous units. I will throw a fit if they permentantly got rid of Biker and Steed HQ's, and there's still a duty to remind them that Steed HQ and Rough Riders don't have access to army traits.

macexor wrote:
Unless I'm counting something wrong or don't see all the options, it's as follows;

1) 10 man Assault Squad costs 160pts and gets 21 attacks
2) 10 man Vanguard Veteran Squad costs 180pts and gets 41 attacks

It's not really a "preference" choice. Unless you're in a dire need of a Fast Attack slot, the Veterans are just better. Since their Sergeant has 1 more attack, he's also a much better platform for some special weapons. And there's that +1 Ld thing. All that just for 20pts.

Huh? Is that just a math mistake on the VV? How are you getting 4 attacks each?

2 base +1 chainsword = 30 +1 for champ = 31

VV are Elite
Assault are FA

10 VV with CS = 160 or 5.2 points per attack.
10 AM are 130 or 6.2 points per attack.

I feel l ike you'd be wasting VV on chainswords though.

So either you really need the 10 pts (5man), you really need FA, or you only have ASM models and not VV models. Any of which is a corner case. But they do happen.

Nobody is saying VV aren't better in most situations. Some people are saying they're always better, others are saying there are corner cases.

Asm need to cost 13 ppm. That fixes the issue. Tacticals of the sky.

Bharring wrote:
"It's a corner case" isn't defending them to their death.

"I don't use ForgeWorld" isn't defending them to their death.

"I don't want to offer up ideal targets that my list otherwise wouldn't have" isn't just a "theme". If you look at a lot of good lists, it's quite common to see similar profiles across their choices to make the game harder for their opponent. It's a very valid part of strategy.

If a unit is bad, except all other options are worse for the particular case at hand, the unit is the appropriate choice. Anything else is fanaticism.

1. There IS no corner case. Vanguard have more LD and attacks for 2 points. Melta Bombs are worthless now and a Power Weapon on the Sergeant is not gonna propel them anywhere.

2. Actually it's part of it, as FW is part of the game. When you say "I don't want to use it because FW", it's literally saying "I know the option exists and I refuse to acknowledge it".

3. Deny ideal targets? Tarantula Turrets are 37 points each! Who cares if a Lascannon fires at it? They've got 4 wounds. That's like saying you won't use the Primaris entries to deny multi-wound weapons.

That's 111 points for 12 wounds and 18 BS4+ Heavy Bolter shots. It's only a good strategy if you are Guard or Tyranids as you have bodies to make the strategy work. Marines do not, so the strategy is pretty lousy.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
Asm need to cost 13 ppm. That fixes the issue. Tacticals of the sky.

They technically are without the Jump Packs. At that point why bother with them though?

Because 13 ppm with jump pack gives them enough bodies over the vanguards.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

1. There IS no corner case. Vanguard have more LD and attacks for 2 points. Melta Bombs are worthless now and a Power Weapon on the Sergeant is not gonna propel them anywhere.

5 ASM with a Power weapon on the sarge average 1.5 wounds against MEQ. If the ASM Sargent lives he can jump away and land a S 8 AP -4 D6 wound shot on something. I'd argue that could be more important than:

5 Vanguard with Chainswords average 1.77 against MEQ.

It's not a big gap. But to make a worthwhile difference you gotta start spending points on specials, which is fine, but then relative cost starts going up pretty quick.

So fun story: yesterday I rolled the night fighting maelstrom mission against an Alaitoc army. Dealing with -3 to hit on all of his most important units, you can imagine how that one turned out.

Penalties to hit should not stack, ever.

 Arachnofiend wrote:
So fun story: yesterday I rolled the night fighting maelstrom mission against an Alaitoc army. Dealing with -3 to hit on all of his most important units, you can imagine how that one turned out.

Penalties to hit should not stack, ever.

Oooh. I mean, that's flavorful and kind of cool in concept, but also obviously problematic for fun play.

 Arachnofiend wrote:
So fun story: yesterday I rolled the night fighting maelstrom mission against an Alaitoc army. Dealing with -3 to hit on all of his most important units, you can imagine how that one turned out.

Penalties to hit should not stack, ever.

There must be a misunderstanding here.

You can get -1 outside of 12" for being Alaitoc, no problem.
You can get -1 for being a Flyer or a Shadow Specter or an advancing bike, that makes sense. -2 for an Alaitoc Flyer outside of 12" still seems ok.
You can get -1 for being in Conceal, which also makes sense, so -2 outside of 12" for any Alaitoc unit, or -3 outside of 12" for an Alaitoc Flyer within 3" of a Warlock or Spiritseer.

So he likely had that one blob within Conceal range that would be hit on -2 outside of 12" and -1 inside of 12", totally vulnerable to assault and dependent on not failing to cast and not being denied one single power that can't be cast twice.

Make that Maelstrom and suddenly, that one "hard to kill" blob really doesn't make much difference since it can't hold that many objectives.

At least that's how I read those rules.

I'm not saying it's not really good, but I don't think it's a no contest and I don't believe there's such a thing as "-3 to hit on all of his most important units"

You're missing the mission rules, which give another -1 to hit if you're outside of 18". So -3 to hit on the hemlocks and the concealed dark reapers.