Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So you want to waste another 250 points on tacticals to babysit the short ranged Typhon so it can kill two to five models a turn? If I wanted to waste 250 point I could turn the Typhon into a Fellblade and quadrupole the range with a now 7 blast.

Reactions mean heavy weapon squads aren’t vulnerable. If you shoot them you’re giving the opponent a free turn of ten lascannons.

The game isn’t rock paper scissors. Tanks are just weak and over costed. Artillery is overcosted and has been deliberately nerfed into oblivion. Basic troops are pointless objective tokens. There’s nothing balanced about it.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
Typhon is a joke for 425 points and a Lord of War slot. You’re buying what is a worse version of a Demolisher cannon from the previous edition.

For that you could get an entire Contemptor talon or 20 lascannons or a Primarch. They’re a massive opportunity cost just to take the cool looking tank.

It would only ever make its points back if your opponent blocked everything up and didn’t take any anti tank to remove 6HP as it slowly rumbles towards you at 10 speed. You’d have to kill fifty marines or twenty terminators for it to be a win.

This is a rare case of Games Workshop not wanting my money. 😄

Agreed, in 1.0 it's a 10 inch blast with no cover

Not just Typhons, any unit. Anything that excels in one phase but is weak is another wants babysitting. Besides, the whole point of tacticals is to be bullet and charge catchers, for as cheap as 100 if you don't want to spend extra points on them. They rarely do much in the way of heavy lifting outside of objective holding.

And there are several ways to get around reactions, pinning tests and psychic powers that turn off reactions with all the ease of a ld9 test. It's the reason I prefer a telepathy librarian over any others, it's a useful toolbox.

If tanks are so weak no one would take them, the meta would swing to anti infantry. Then people would lack the anti tank weaponry in their list building and tank spam list would become stronger until it swung back. It's the nature of having an armour value over a wound count honestly.

cody.d. wrote:
Not just Typhons, any unit. Anything that excels in one phase but is weak is another wants babysitting. Besides, the whole point of tacticals is to be bullet and charge catchers, for as cheap as 100 if you don't want to spend extra points on them. They rarely do much in the way of heavy lifting outside of objective holding.

And there are several ways to get around reactions, pinning tests and psychic powers that turn off reactions with all the ease of a ld9 test. It's the reason I prefer a telepathy librarian over any others, it's a useful toolbox.

If tanks are so weak no one would take them, the meta would swing to anti infantry. Then people would lack the anti tank weaponry in their list building and tank spam list would become stronger until it swung back. It's the nature of having an armour value over a wound count honestly.

TBF, the issue to me is, that between heavily neutered blasts on certain tanks (rip SA and their BC's) that the often alternative contemptor is just the better more durable choice.
Tapping into brutal and heavy firepower for often cheaper than a pred? NVM being virtually imune against one-shots and having a ++ whilest the pred has excaclty AV 13 to protect.
And on that note, the one savong grace so far i found is that the HH crowd IS far less competitve where i am, however once can clearly see a picture when game after game the contemptor you field outperforms 2 predators.

one core issue of the neutered blasts especially on artillery is, that SA basically got castrated output wise, meanwhile unlike marines which got undeniably a durability boost from the weakening of AP and Blast AP SA got nothing. And there are now a lot of AP4 blasts out there, ontop of having rules that lead to piling your units up.

Then there is also the fact that specials and heavies tac squads have weapons options that are internal completly out of balance points wise aswell, cue specials with volkite calviers being more expensive than heavies with the far superior calverin.

It creates the perfect storm so to speak, ontop of that we also have custodes which are bluntly put highly problematic due to certain units and

Mild grump regarding Sponsons.

On something like the Typhon, Lascannons seem pretty much essential. Without them, a single Weapon Destroyed, and there goes your Dreadhammer. Same for the Cerberus. But, being S9 and therefore not Defensive, the Lascannons can soak Weapon Destroyeds.

Which in turn, renders Bombard somewhat moot, as sans Defensive weapons, I’m just not getting the benefit.

Upside of course is a 10 point upgrade on a 425 point tank is hardly breaking then points bank. And it’s not like Lascannon suck.

It would be prudent for the active HH community to begin working on their own rule system just like the 9th Age crowd did. Sure it would take some time but the results would be better than the embarrassing stuff GW peddles to us.

In some cases, the Lascannons may even do more damage!

(To enemy vehicles, which as mentioned above have twice the chance of being exploded by lascannons as the dreadhammer, assuming both pen)

True. But they’re still useful to have, especially on a pretty resilient chassis.

It’s something I think might affect Predators more. Turret Weapons aren’t especially cheap, but adding Lascannon slows them down if you’re keen on super efficiency.

However this is a non-game experience based, entirely hypothetical opinion. And for from unique to the examples I offered. I just feel that on something as already expensive as a Typhon or Cerebus they’re less an upgrade and more a form of compulsory insurance.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
On weapon profiles in general, I’m pretty happy.

Nothing seems to be a One Size Kills All overall. To continue the theme of the current conversation, the Dreadhammer is a good example.

It can knock many things for six, and certainly won’t have trouble damaging vehicles, but it’s not gonna be detonating a vehicle.

I’m completely fine with that. If it had AP2, it would be just too ubiquitous, which I don’t see as a bad thing. After all, if I want to squish Tanks at range? I’ll take its variant.

Likewise the much maligned Battlecannon. Whilst the range is frankly bizarre and you won’t find any attempt at justification/rationale from me? Not having a common AP3 Pie Plate Launcher feels right for Heresy, given we’re not only talking Predominantly Space Marines, but often fair sized squads of Space Marines.

Mind you, I’m a fully paid up member of the Sad Old Git Society, and so am heavily informed by my earlier impressions of 40K. And hence the maxim on the arming of Titans being a compromise.

Sure we’re not talking about Titans here (well, I’m not any way) but I feel it should be something the game includes across the board. If a given tank or specific weapon is just One Size Kills All? Its a flaw in game design, just as “but why would I ever field Heavy Bolters when I can take Autocannon” is also a flaw. Albeit one I’ve embraced because I love the Autocannon model. And even then, the relatively humble Autocannon is still a bit In Between unless taken across a Squad.

About the only weapons I’m particularly not fond of? Heavy Bolters (see above, but also consider the plethora of Bolters I’ll be taking anyway) and most Plasma weapons. Yes Plasma has Breaching 4+. But for their cost, AP4 and Gets Hot just feels a bit anaemic. Exception of course made for any Plasma Weapon which doesn’t have Gets Hot.

That’s not to say those weapons are objectively bad, just they don’t suit my tactical and risk appetite.

 Strg Alt wrote:
It would be prudent for the active HH community to begin working on their own rule system just like the 9th Age crowd did. Sure it would take some time but the results would be better than the embarrassing stuff GW peddles to us.

Considering the active HH community has taken to HH 2 and it's a minority that is insisting on the new edition being rubbish, I think we'll be fine. I've yet to meet someone IRL that actually thinks HH 1 is better than HH 2 and the Crusade & Heresy FB group isn't filled with the level of negativity that would be expected if the community actually didn't like the new edition.
The majority of complaints have been that GW has been bad with a model release schedule and bad with the Legacies PDF schedules.

 Strg Alt wrote:
It would be prudent for the active HH community to begin working on their own rule system just like the 9th Age crowd did. Sure it would take some time but the results would be better than the embarrassing stuff GW peddles to us.

They have it already, HH 1.0

 Crablezworth wrote:

 Strg Alt wrote:
It would be prudent for the active HH community to begin working on their own rule system just like the 9th Age crowd did. Sure it would take some time but the results would be better than the embarrassing stuff GW peddles to us.

They have it already, HH 1.0

Ahm, no. HH 1.0 was still written by GW implying a sales-driven ruleset with units outperforming others by the nature of "meta" nonsense. You would need a clean slate and start from scratch. Complacency doesn´t improve matters it only makes things worse.

You don't what understand what "meta" is if you think a fan ruleset won't have "meta nonsense".

 Rihgu wrote:
You don't what understand what "meta" is if you think a fan ruleset won't have "meta nonsense".

White Knighting for Gee-Dubbs has been out of fashion a LOOOOONG time ago.

 Strg Alt wrote:

 Rihgu wrote:
You don't what understand what "meta" is if you think a fan ruleset won't have "meta nonsense".

White Knighting for Gee-Dubbs has been out of fashion a LOOOOONG time ago.

Who's white knighting for Gee-Dubbs? I'm simply advocating for knowing what words mean. It applies to every ruleset ever made from any company or person.

 Strg Alt wrote:

 Rihgu wrote:
You don't what understand what "meta" is if you think a fan ruleset won't have "meta nonsense".

White Knighting for Gee-Dubbs has been out of fashion a LOOOOONG time ago.

That's not white knighting for GW.
No game is without a meta. A well-built and well-balanced game will have a healthier one, but that's not the same as not having one.

Example given earlier in the the thread, why take a typhon when you can take several dreads instead given the points. And that's really it, the meta of 2nd isn't healthy because even with the clear imbalance when it comes to dreads and termies, the points are also inflated for units that got universally worse like vehicles. This affects the meta because after enough games its difficult for players to forget what they've learned in terms of what performs well and what performs poorly, its pretty easy for just about everyone who loves their super heavies to put them back on the shelf and reach for units that perform much better for the cost.

HH 1.0 isn't perfect, but it's much much better than HH 2.0, I wouldn't say the factions are perfectly balanced, but playing HH 1.0 in a predominantly marine meta is at least a start, custodes, mechanicum and daemons of the ruinstorm will all do very well but there are reasons for that and a lot of them almost foreshadow HH 2.0, those armies contain mc's or a high wound character units with a lot of resilience and also the point costs for some stuff was out of wack as well. Still, most marine and marine felt pretty balanced, and it was also pretty rare to see stuff like mc's outside of allies.

2.0's biggest failure was to turn dreadnoughts into mc's, make termies more resilient and then make template weapons worse across the board. That's a far more egregious change to try and sell bodies than anything in 1.0.

That depends entirely upon the player intent.

For someone interested in overall points efficiency, it’s a consideration.

For someone interested in just fielding what they think looks cool, it isn’t.

And that’s ultimately the truth of any game meta. If you’re playing for aesthetic or literally just to see what you can do? The meta isn’t a concern.

I do stress this isn’t to be taken as a “sToP pLaYiNg WrOnG” post. Because it’s not, and shouldn’t be taken that way.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
That depends entirely upon the player intent.

For someone interested in overall points efficiency, it’s a consideration.

For someone interested in just fielding what they think looks cool, it isn’t.

And that’s ultimately the truth of any game meta. If you’re playing for aesthetic or literally just to see what you can do? The meta isn’t a concern.

I do stress this isn’t to be taken as a “sToP pLaYiNg WrOnG” post. Because it’s not, and shouldn’t be taken that way.

The meta is there whether one builds to it or not though. People playing rule of cool in 1.0 vs 2.0 are gonna have a better time. Case in point you can go the other way and be "wack as hell" running as many dreadnoughts as possible while falling back on rule of cool or "It's a total coincidence" my dreadnought heavy force keeps winning. Better game and more balanced meta lifts all ships IMO.

Depends how pronounced it is.

My skepticism for meta gaming comes from people seriously crunching numbers, and taking even the slimmest of allegedly favourable choices - but often failing to factor in Not Playing Against A Similarly Influenced Army.

For my money, Dreadnoughts should be Monstrous Creatures, not vehicles. And I’m planning a Fury of the Ancients because I bloody love Dreadnoughts as a concept. Plus as a Sad Old Git, I’ve waited bloody ages to have an all Contemptor Army. Ever since I properly got started on 2nd Ed Epic, where the Contemptor aesthetic debuted. To the point I was mildly disappointed when 2nd Ed brought the new Dreadnought, and they went for the Not As Cool But Admittedly Still Kind Of Cool box Dreadnought look.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Depends how pronounced it is.

My skepticism for meta gaming comes from people seriously crunching numbers, and taking even the slimmest of allegedly favourable choices - but often failing to factor in Not Playing Against A Similarly Influenced Army.

For my money, Dreadnoughts should be Monstrous Creatures, not vehicles. And I’m planning a Fury of the Ancients because I bloody love Dreadnoughts as a concept. Plus as a Sad Old Git, I’ve waited bloody ages to have an all Contemptor Army. Ever since I properly got started on 2nd Ed Epic, where the Contemptor aesthetic debuted. To the point I was mildly disappointed when 2nd Ed brought the new Dreadnought, and they went for the Not As Cool But Admittedly Still Kind Of Cool box Dreadnought look.

Can we agree that just conceptually not being able to one shot a dreadnought but being able to one shot a 400+ point tank isn't a good thing for a combined arms war game? I can meet halfway on dreads and say vehicle rules didn't encapsulate them fully, a good example is none of the rules modelled dreadnoughts ability to turn at the waste, but in making them mc's and giving them armour saves on top of invul saves, it's just gone too far. Example, most beatface characters/hq models were more or less on par point for point with dreads in 1.0, now its no contest, when you see how much a character ends up costing next to the cost of dreads its one more thing pushing the meta that way and even if you bite the bullet you end up being heavily incentivized to ensure you have a weapon with brutal. We can all butt heads on point costs of any one unit needing to be a bit higher or lower but can we agree that even for people who aren't that concerned with unit costs would still suffer if random units had their points altered up or down by 50%. Some of the big tanks in the pdf's the points really are staggeringly inflated for such mediocre units. The costing problem is also compounded by the fact that people like to play big games, so if points really are out of whack like 40-50% on very expensive units, it gets out of hand fast in terms of game balance, again two people having a great attitude about that and still enjoying rolling dice doth not make it any less of an s-show in terms of game. And it extra sucks when you can look back at their HH 1.0 rules and they're fantastic. I had just finished painting a friend's shadowsword as the pdf's came out and it was like "ya 1,0 sounds good" after that.

It depends,

To one shot a tank, you need an Anti-Tank weapon. And it’s not especially likely unless I’ve left my tank where it can be easily shot at. And it means I do have to worry about where my tanks are.

And in a way, such a vulnerability means all tank lists (such as my nascent Iron Wing) are far from insurmountable, even when my opponent isn’t loaded for that particular bear.

I’ll freely admit I’m perhaps being naive and possibly unrealistic, but if I’ve put something in my list on the expectation or requirement it does serious heavy lifting, it’s not the game system’s fault if I’ve not considered the drawbacks, and planned accordingly.

There’s also an odd thought process for stuff like the Typhon, where it’s seen as flawed because all your opponent needs to do is spread their troops out, with the presupposition that’s always going to be possible, and done perfectly every time.

I’m probably being unfair on folk here, but most of the alleged drawbacks only really kick in if your area is heavy on the meta. And not everywhere is.

But remember. None of this is “sToP pLaYiNg It WrOnG” intent. I mean, if your area is meta heavy, and your preference is closer to my own of “take what tickles my fancy, worry about tactics later” then you’re less likely to have a good time. And that sucks,

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
it’s not the game system’s fault if I’ve not considered the drawbacks, and planned accordingly.

Yes but the game systems flaws are there in the background waiting to be discovered regardles of one taking notice because the problem is at a unit type level not any one problem unit per se, if a whole unit type gets better its one thing, but what has happened in addition to dreads getting a big buff is so too have terminators both directly and indirectly with the big changes to blast size and ap across the board, but also whole unit types have gotten worse like bikes losing toughness or skimmers that can no longer skim over friendly or enemy models like the javelin, those too are other things that make whole unit types better point for point than others. There are core functional problems that are really hard to ignore over time for a game the is supposed to be combined arms. They could have dealt with high ap large blast weapons by upping cover saves, but they've gone the other way on cover saves too sadly.

Like put it another way, the sin of 8th edition was homogenizing units types so far into absurdity to where you basically have 2, units that fly and units that don't. 30k 2nd ed thankfully didn't go quite that far, but it did really upset the apple cart in terms of unit type balance that is really pronounced. It's costing them too I would argue, in the push to sell more infantry with blasts/tanks getting nerfed badly, they may have sold more termies and tacs but people aren't exactly reaching for the tanks as much as they would have in 1.0. Either way its great to get so many plastic tanks, but I do feel bad for people with super heavies or armies that tended to be built around them like auxillia. 2.0 has really been unfair to them.

Here’s where I come up against my lack of modern gaming experience, as I simply don’t have sufficient frame of reference to offer a meaningful response.

Hopefully getting to roll some bones come the New Year though!

Play your fury of the ancients list mad doc. In the real world people aren't too worried about lots of dreads. They're definitely a bit too strong but it's not a big deal and you'll find at events everyone has a fun time and the game is really enjoyable to play. You might get a jokey comment or two but noone is really going to complain if you want to run fury of the ancients.

Remember v1 has some hideous things like custodes and thousand sons being hilariously over powered, the glaivez and the irronfire rite of war. All of which were far worse even to the point of being completely unfun to play against, yet the game was still good, and v2 only improves from this.

Also just regarding the whole "noone taking tanks" I'm not seeing that. There's a lot of tanks being played at all the v2 events I've been to. There's also a lot more variation in what people are bringing. Youre seeing the majority of the legiones astartes list being used.

Infact I took armoured breakthrough to my last event and it performed well all weekend while not being oppressive like it was in v1.

Tldr. Play what you like and don't worry too much. Play your dread army sand fulfill your dream. My mate has done the exact same thing he started building his fury of the ancients last edition when it was crap and now suddenly that's been turned on its head power wise. Next edition it might suck again. Who cares


If you are super worried. Heresy isn't a competitive game like 40k. There's no prizes for winning. So if you and your opponent thing it's going to be unbalanced. Give them some free meltabombs or deliberately pick a mission that makes things seem like an even battle.for both sides

That's not super true. People will largely be nice about it, especially at a paid event, and won't want to throw away games but the one dude who brought a FotA list has now sold it because he was told by the EOs that it was widely considered a really brutal list. It was unfortunate that he couldn't tone it down or swap armies but he himself admitted he hadn't expected the list to be so good nor other players to actively shun it.
There is definitely a social contract out on the FotA RoW to heavily suggest that players don't abuse it at best or entirely avoid it at worst.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Here’s where I come up against my lack of modern gaming experience, as I simply don’t have sufficient frame of reference to offer a meaningful response.

Hopefully getting to roll some bones come the New Year though!

Well this thread is now like half a year old so been tracking 2nd edition since the leaks then release but I try and give examples. My perspective even before any rumour of second was I personally didn't want or need a new HH edition, and people mostly wanted it for obvious reasons, plastic models and hopefully more opponents. There's nothing wrong with wanting either, I want both as well but didn't NEED either, still enjoying the plastics very much as they work just as well for either edition. The response to pretty valid global criticisms (notice I've tried to leave out reactions and focus just on changes to units types) though are often character assassination or just blanket statement that 2.0 is better or fixed something without saying specifically what it improved, which other than the psychic phase, I don't think there's much consensus anything else was "fixed".

Hope you get to roll them bones in the new year


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Gert wrote:
That's not super true. People will largely be nice about it, especially at a paid event, and won't want to throw away games but the one dude who brought a FotA list has now sold it because he was told by the EOs that it was widely considered a really brutal list. It was unfortunate that he couldn't tone it down or swap armies but he himself admitted he hadn't expected the list to be so good nor other players to actively shun it.
There is definitely a social contract out on the FotA RoW to heavily suggest that players don't abuse it at best or entirely avoid it at worst.

Right so rule of cool and the best of intentions still eventually have to deal with reality and truth. Dreadnoughts are too strong for the points paid across the board.

 Crablezworth wrote:
Right so rule of cool and the best of intentions still eventually have to deal with reality and truth. Dreadnoughts are too strong for the points paid across the board.

Not what I said at all. Dreadnoughts are good. Fury of the Ancients means they are very good. But even in HH 1, a guy running FotA Iron Hands with 7 Contemptors, 4 Leviathans, and a Deredeo would still be a nasty list. Most other players at this event brought two or three Dreadnoughts and they were perfectly reasonable to deal with, I killed two Space Wolves Contempters with Bolters (technically because they took the last wound off, shut up it counts). There were far more oppressive units such as Phalanx Warder blobs, Gorgon Terminators (until met with the fury of ramming speed Rhinos), or Pyroclasts. One of the Imperial Fists lists was downright cruel and had zero Dreadnoughts.
So when the issue of Dreadnoughts being good faced the reality of an event, 39 out of 40 players didn't heavily invest in Dreadnoughts but instead took largely themed lists that still proved to be tough as nails.

 Gert wrote:

So when the issue of Dreadnoughts being good faced the reality of an event, 39 out of 40 players didn't heavily invest in Dreadnoughts but instead took largely themed lists that still proved to be tough as nails.

You just said most people had 2-3 dreadnoughts. That's not a light investment.

 Gert wrote:

Most other players at this event brought two or three Dreadnoughts and they were perfectly reasonable to deal with

 Crablezworth wrote:

 Gert wrote:

So when the issue of Dreadnoughts being good faced the reality of an event, 39 out of 40 players didn't heavily invest in Dreadnoughts but instead took largely themed lists that still proved to be tough as nails.

You just said most people had 2-3 dreadnoughts. That's not a light investment.

 Gert wrote:

Most other players at this event brought two or three Dreadnoughts and they were perfectly reasonable to deal with

Dunno, in plastic it's kinda cheap......

 Crablezworth wrote:
You just said most people had 2-3 dreadnoughts. That's not a light investment.

Between 400 and 600 possible of a 3k list is light. In terms of money, 2-3 Dreadnought variants is cheaper than 12.
All of which conveniently skirts around the fact that reality has shown that in a narrative/casual environment players self regulated on the topic of Dreadnoughts.