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I have a quick question. Why do people hate hatlings so much? all the experince i have had with it have been well worth the price. It just seems to me that people dont use them correct.
Am i very wrong?
Ratlings are sort of okay, but mostly they're just not as effective as other stuff in the codex. I do use them myself, but normally only a few on the off chance they actually do wound the daemon prince or whatever. I've ran ten man squads of Ratlings in the past, and they always need a huge amount of luck to make their points back. They just haven't got a lot of killing power, no matter what they're actually shooting at.
They're flimsy as well, low Ld, low toughness, no armour save - guardsmen look like Space Marines standing beside them. Yes, Infiltrate and Stealth are good, but as a guard player I tend to be up against plenty of flamers, and the poor Ratlings cower in a bush, waiting for the flamer to come. Or they can charge them, and probably take them out in a turn.
Or, worse still, opponents could probably ignore them completely and take little to no damage from them
Sometimes it's fun to be the bad guy for a change. That's why I play Grey Knights.
Well, they're extremely squishy as they're Tough 2. Just about anything will blow them apart, and they have a LD of 6 so they'll probably end up breaking and running off the board after getting shot at by one squad.
I mean, they do have their uses, but I think they're more of a 'try to take out someone important before running away' kind of deal.
Yes i know they are very squishy and with they low LD they run for a good word.
But with the sniper rule that gives percision shot allways wound on a 4+ and pinning and rending they just preform so very next to a guardsmen with a sniper rifle simply for the BS 4
the problem with any sniper in IG is that there is always something that you can take that will be better than one so most people ignore them and do take the things that are better like plasma and melta... also they contend with the same force org slot as stormies which makes them even more useless in the eyes of some.... personally i dont use elites in guard at all so the point is moot for me but these are the main arguments
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kestril wrote: Page 1: New guard topic
Page 2: FW debate
Page 3: Ailaros and Peregrine fight. TO THE DEATH
I swear I think those two have a hate-crush on each other sometimes.
At the price of 30 for 3 and up to 10 for 10 each and they got infiltrate and stealth. i think its very good spending for your points.
Since i dont think you should use more the one squad of storm troopers in a normal game and the rest of the elites are to costly (minus marbo)
and since most people ignore them they can pick off or slow down a vital squad of enemys
And since i play as a IG gunline i find this usefull in game where i dont bring in ST. To bring in 3 squads of them simply to harass the sides of an attacking force
The way i see them is that if you get a squad of SM devestators to focus on killing them insted of your LRBT for only 30 points basic its worth it. even if its only for a turn or two
Because by the time I've spent enough points to have enough ratlings to do something useful, I could've bought a tank, or a vendetta, or an artillery piece, or a vet squad with a ride, etc.
Why would I bother trying to snipe a guy out of a squad, when for the same or slightly more, I can just kill the whole squad outright?
I'll admit that has more to do with my personal dislike for snipers, but that's going to be most IG players reasoning in a nutshell. You know, besides ld 6 and T2 and all that.
'I've played Guard for years, and the best piece of advice is to always utilize the Guard's best special rule: "we roll more dice than you" ' - stormleader
"Sector Imperialis: 25mm and 40mm Round Bases (40+20) 26€ (Including 32 skulls for basing) " GW design philosophy in a nutshell
I find that If I have >100 points left in a list that a unit of Ratlings makes a good filler. Stealth in a ruin gives them 3++, and with the changes to snipers in 6th (precision, rending, pinning, etc) they almost always make their points back.
Even if in an entire game they only kill six or seven models, that is six or seven pinning tests the enemy has to make. If he fails even one of them, the Ratlings have done their job. Also, with the way snipers always wound on a 4+ I have on more than one occasion killed a Demon Prince outright with a unit of 9 ratlings.
You know what also wounds on a 4+? A plasma gun. Except when it wounds on a 2+.
There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices.
I like ratlings and usually pick them in 3squads of 3 or 2squads of 5.
I would even say that they payback their points about 80% of all my games since they allways kill something and are generally ignored until they become such a pain that the enemy are forced to fire upon them and with their stealth they tend to survive more than they should (allways hide in ruins).
Then on the rare occasion an enemy fail their leadership test the pinning can be really devastating when forcing a long fang squad to go-to-ground, or just keeping that nasty assault squad at bay.
Have also tired picking them along with a psyker squad to use their "weaken resolve", and FYI keeping a GK Paladin squad pinned for 3turns is hilarious.
Sure they are squishy and take up a elite slot but IMO they are the best choice in elite section and I will keep using them.
Oh and they are the cheapest models to scratch build since you only need a gun barrel sticking out of a hiding place and you are good to go.
Because they die even when a enemy unit looks their way, oh and they seldom if ever will do the job you need them to do. But that said, I do enjoy their fluff and the one in a million time they really shine. But I never field them anymore, I need units who are going to be making their points back. Not units that are even more fragile than a Guardsman in mele
