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Bought a Civitas Imperialis buildings bundle and enough street tiles to cover a 6 x 4 foot table, so that's 450€ added to the pile. Mainly for AT18 at this point, but will obviously use the same terrain for LI when I eventually start collecting an army for it for reals.

I now have a 6 x 4 foot table for Epic scale in two flavours, urban and rural (my regular Realm of Battle board pulling double duty). It was expensive but I figured it'll last me for decades so yeh. I am in this for the long haul

I can't stand the straight roads of those tiles.

Why isn't there any boards with diagonical roads...

Whopping 1 scenario where there wouldn't be straight line along road from deployment zone to deployment zone.

Imperial sector RoB is even worse, it has only two different tiles.. and yet, even that is an ok backdrop for many interesting looking cityscape boards. You can always deploy diagonally, if that's your thing One redeeming quality of the Imperials Sector tiles is the fact that many of its details are exactly 2" long, makes stuff such as determining exact positions for objective markers a lot easier..

I guess you could mix in Zone Mortalis floor tiles to mix up a Civitas Imperialis board a bit? Make it some sort of industrial zone or something.. And one can always combine RoB rural 2x2 pieces with the tiles to create a hybrid board.. like, add 8 straight road tiles to the center of the board to represent a rural highway, or go half and half to represent an edge of a city.. etc

I will need some sort of city walls at some point..

tneva82 wrote:
I can't stand the straight roads of those tiles.

Why isn't there any boards with diagonical roads...

Whopping 1 scenario where there wouldn't be straight line along road from deployment zone to deployment zone.

Proper City Planning?

Much as I love my wee windy side streets, the grid system is more logical for town planning.

tneva82 wrote:
I can't stand the straight roads of those tiles.

Why isn't there any boards with diagonical roads...

Whopping 1 scenario where there wouldn't be straight line along road from deployment zone to deployment zone.

I downloaded a set of buildings and road tiles to sit them on that have the same issue, solution here will be to take some of the straight plain road sections and curve them so while the centre may be a grid its not aligned to the board edges

its actually something Battletech does well (and the terrain is largely compatible), hexagons so 60 degree bends not 90.

not that roads really matter so its quite easy to have smaller urban areas that do not look like an American city centre crossed with Slough

best thing you can add though is a range of rolling gentle hills and ridge lines that are enough to block line of sight

Expanding the scope of this thread.

Looking over what I’ve bought? I don’t think it’s a secret that Tanks provide a more points intensive experience.

For instance, you need 4 boxes of Astartes Infantry to pack out a Demi-Company with Infantry. Yet, points wise? 512 points.

But, if I got day, two boxes of Kratos, and two of Predators? For exactly the same cash outlay, I’m getting a staggering 940 points.

Now that actual cost entirely aside? I worry those on a more limited budget might be forced to favour tanks, which seem to offer less flexibility in the field compared to Infantry?

Yep I definitely think that's the case. A lot of the ridicule that the new drop pod box is receiving (around it's price) isn't due to the model size or detail, but just because it offers such a low cost to points ratio.

To be fair a lot of games suffer from this. The classic is Flames of War where you could make an army with a £30 box of plastic veteran Tiger tanks - or spend hundreds on a Soviet Strelokvy infantry company for the same points value. I guess at least it does allow people who don't have (or don't want to spend) the money to play the game in some form.

 Tyranid Horde wrote:
I picked up the flamer malcadors and the SA support box from Dark Sphere along with the book from GW. That's another £78. £363 in total.

Added a box of marine infantry, solar aux cards and the manufactorum terrain set to my ever growing list of purchases. Also split a box of arty and little pigs.

£492 total and that is me done for the for the time being.

That's over 3000 points of Solar Aux, 3000 points of Titans and over 1500 points of Marines.

Any future purchases will be books or high points cost boxes like tanks. Waiting on a Marine heavy tank that isn't a Kratos, the SA baneblade variants and dracosans.

Payday tomorrow. And Chaos Card is just around the corner. And they do have a lot of Drop Pods on the shelf.

They’re not quite my preference, but the temptation remains, as thanks to the Dark Angels special rules, my infantry get Phosphex. So relatively sacrificial prawns for early seizing/clearing of buildings, then being as much of a nuisance as possible holds some appeal.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Expanding the scope of this thread.

Looking over what I’ve bought? I don’t think it’s a secret that Tanks provide a more points intensive experience.

For instance, you need 4 boxes of Astartes Infantry to pack out a Demi-Company with Infantry. Yet, points wise? 512 points.

But, if I got day, two boxes of Kratos, and two of Predators? For exactly the same cash outlay, I’m getting a staggering 940 points.

Now that actual cost entirely aside? I worry those on a more limited budget might be forced to favour tanks, which seem to offer less flexibility in the field compared to Infantry?

I think it depends on a lot. How much terrain is on the field (particularly buildings that you can garrison), what mix of infantry you bring (rocket marines are one of if not the most OP thing in the game), if you have infiltrate/outflank/scout/droppods, your available transports (argus lighters are...something special, but not what I would call generally good).

Some of the big ticket units do need their survivability upped, since you're right that cash strapped players will have to rely more on things like Titans. But that also ties in to how good some units are (air), how bad or wonky some mechanics are (void shields), and how awkward some units feel (the argument can be made that knights in general fall somewhere between underperform and just plain bad).

My friend and I have been playing with some house rules and things like giving Titans an unmodified 5+ on their void shields, giving the Baneblade an extra wound, etc. really help them feel much better without significantly degrading the infantry experience.

It may shift over time as we get more releases.

Astartes for instance are currently hurting for Battle Tanks. In terms of affordable expansion? It’s basically Kratos. Which aren’t bad tanks so far as I can tell, but are points intensive, and being Heavy Armour, relatively restricted in list building.

Once we start getting Light Armour and Artillery for Astartes, I think (well, hope is probably the better word!) we’ll see the gap close. They’re likely to be cheaper points wise, and better suited to complimenting Infantry.

Anyways. Knock £50 off my total spend, as I sold on the Warhounds. Which now I think about it paid for the Spartans!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
So, not account for big boxed sets and arguable discount if you can sell the side you didn’t pick? I’m now on….(FLGS prices are those of my local plastic crack house, so will vary)

4 set equivalent of Astartes Infantry - £120 RRP, £100 from FLGS

1 set equivalent Predators - £30 RRP, £25 from FLGS

1 set equivalent Sicaran - £30 RRP, £25 from FLGS

2 sets of Spartans - £60 RRP, £50 from FLGS

3 sets Astartes Support - £90 RRP, £75 from FLGS

2 sets of Rhinos - £60 RRP, £50 from FLGS

So RRP is £390.00, FLGS £325. And it totals in excess of 3,000 points, allowing me to field a Demi-Company, Garrison and Armoured Company as a single list, with more than a few models left over (for instance, my current list only uses 2 of my 12 Rapier platforms). So for my money I’ve some list making options to boot. Which I have to admit makes me feel like I’ve got that little bit of extra value from it, as I don’t need to spend more to mix up my list.

I mean, I will. But only to add entirely new units.

I got Rhinos, more Drop Pods and the Mechanicus sector terrain set, thats about 120€ on top of what I had already. Starting to feel like I want to pace myself after these, I don't want to end up with too much of the same stuff, and what I got already will be enough for playing other games with the models. A little less buying, a lot more building and painting..

Well this week I picked up a box of Arvus & two more boxes of Basilisks. So (with discount) just shy of another $150 for my Solar.

Let's see, what's that bring my Solar up to & the cost??
*2 boxes of Support weapons
*3 boxes of Baneblades
*4 boxes of basilisks
*1 box of Arvus
*3 boxes of Macador Infernus/Valdor
*+3 boxes of Infantry
*+4 Russ from Ebay
*a squadron of Lightnings - out of a heavily discounted Aeronautica set (let's call them $45)
*a squadron of avenger strike Fighters - out of another heavily discounted Aeronautica set (let's call them $45)
*a squadron of Thunderbolts - $80 - maybe over priced, but my favorite 40k aircraft. and they came decently painted!
*a box of Dire Wolves
*a decently discounted box of Adeptus Titanticus ($150)
*a Warlord Titan
*both packs of unit cards
*The Great slaughter book
** The original LI base box (Christmas Gift, so no cost on my end)
**something close to negligible for metal washers to glue those super flimsy order tokens to.
**another tape measure (every army I build gets one)
**another legal pad/notebook & pen
**more glue....

Yeah, I've dropped a good bit of $$$ into this game so far.
To date I've played about a dozen games.
And I haven't even looked at doing a SM force yet.... (though the Titans will become duel use at that point)


What I should really spend some $ on now? A proper carry case & foam.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
It may shift over time as we get more releases.

Astartes for instance are currently hurting for Battle Tanks. In terms of affordable expansion? It’s basically Kratos. Which aren’t bad tanks so far as I can tell, but are points intensive, and being Heavy Armour, relatively restricted in list building.

Once we start getting Light Armour and Artillery for Astartes, I think (well, hope is probably the better word!) we’ll see the gap close. They’re likely to be cheaper points wise, and better suited to complimenting Infantry.

I mean, for lighter tanks, Astartes do have predators and sicarans. They just generally aren't run because they have better choices. Which I feel is fine, it's the player's choice and if they want to go super min-max, they're going to do that regardless of the choices.

This isn't 40k where marines have to have the best of everything. It's okay that they have some gaps in their army.

They already have the best, most flexible infantry. They have the best transports, by a mile. They have decent air coverage in the form of Xiphons and their fat air transport is amazing especially combined with assault marines. And, of course, astartes have the best walkers. They have the more versatile formation rules, and aren't crippled being away from their command squad.

So I'm okay with SA having superior tanks. Especially with how quickly tanks can die in this game, particularly to melee...which is the Astartes forte. I'd argue that the starter box+a kratos+a spartan box will give an Astartes force plenty of meat for minimal investment, possibly less than $200 if they get decent enough discounts.