Posted By thehod on 04/15/2007 11:15 PM
so What tactics does a 13th Company Employ when facing a 3 Falcon Eldar Army?
Maybe a Walking Ork army vs a Tau Fish of Fury army?
What good will tactics do on a board that has just a few peices of terrain and your a Dark Eldar army vs a Space Marine SAFH?
Do you think Tactics will save some of these armies from these matchups?
These are all extreme examples. The o
utliers of a curve naturally formed in game with so much variety in armies, missions, and table setups.
13th Company is a gimmick sublist of a particular army. GW’s been very clear for at least the eight years I’ve been playing that minor offshoot lists are not intended to be as well-rounded and competitive as full codices. They’re intended to stick to a theme, and may have some bad matchups.
Orks are widely acknowledged as the codex most badly in need of an update. In 3rd edition, originally Wraithlords and Dreads were a hideous problem, because Nobs could be singled out in close combat and would never get to swing their Klaws. By comparison, Grav Tanks were a relatively small problem. The trial assault rules gave everyone the hidden powerfist that was previously the exclusive <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placetype w:st="on">province</st1:placetype> of <st1:placename w:st="on">Space Wolves</st1:placename></st1:place> and Black Templars, and Wraithlords (as long as you were smart enough to take a Klaw) were no longer a problem. The tanks were always tricky, but the revised vehicle damage chart in 4th is mostly responsible for the Falcon with Holofield being as tough as it is now. That and the new revised Vectored Engines. Still, none of this is exactly new. Orks have always had a problem with Eldar, much like Eldar have a problem fighting Necrons.
DE on open table vs SM shooty army: Well, if they’re a webway army, they don’t much care. They just need one of the haemonculi to survive turn one (or just go first), and they’re off to the races. If you can’t protect an IC for a single turn, there must be no terrain on the table AT ALL. If they’re an infantry heavy shooty force, they have a metric ton of AP2, can take two heavies and two specials per squad, have BS4 and cost half as much per model as SM, so they should have a fighting chance in a shooting match. Only if they are a Raider army are they really screwed on an open table, and then really only if the SM get first turn. If the DE do, you’re probably looking at multiple first turn assaults, and the incoming fire drops considerably.
But as long as you have a table with decent terrain (25% coverage suggested in the book), just about any army has a chance as when you play the mission. Tactics of maneuver, scoot and shoot, and localized superiority really do matter and really do happen in 40k if you play with any reasonable amount of terrain. Now, assuming that both players are equally skilled at tactics, of course some armies start out handicapped against some other armies, and some armies fare worse or better in certain missions and on certain tables. But that comes part and parcel with having a large variety of armies, missions, and table setups.
If you want a closer balance, you might want to check out Warmachine/Hordes, and this year’s current league format, many of the missions for which tell you exactly where to place terrain, and of what size. The missions are very well-written, and overall there seems to be a bit better balance in WM/Hordes (which only have nine “codices/armies” ). But for me it’s still no substitute for WH and 40k.
