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Hedkrakka wrote:
I did decide to back off in the end, since he started complaining about my army when I went to the LGS this morning: "Are you sure you can have three plasma guns in your command squad?"...

Screw this tournament.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And thanks to all who tried to help.

I would have told him that as he likely sells the IG codex in his store and has such a love for the things he sells in his store...maybe he should read it

Hedkrakka wrote:
I did decide to back off in the end, since he started complaining about my army when I went to the LGS this morning: "Are you sure you can have three plasma guns in your command squad?"...

Screw this tournament.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And thanks to all who tried to help.

Really.

REALLY?

Is the guy THAT clueless hahahaha, he works in a gaming store. You think he would know that kind of crap.

This kinda explains a lot actually. Maybe he really is quite clueless about other armies outside his own, and thus didn't realize how much he was hamstringing others. *sigh*

The guy seems like a twerp. Befriend him, but kinda patronize him. It should help things a little.

It was my impression that one can not even ban forgeworld from tourneys. How can one even entertain banning Vendettas?

Martel732 wrote:
It was my impression that one can not even ban forgeworld from tourneys. How can one even entertain banning Vendettas?

As a TO you can do whatever the hell you damn well please, its up to the players to determine if it was smart or not by whether or not they attend

Okay. If I were a TO, I'd have a hard time justifying banning Forgeworld, because its not like GW is a paragon of balance to begin with.

Could you post the army that won the tournament if you know who won?

Hedkrakka wrote:
when I went to the LGS this morning: "Are you sure you can have three plasma guns in your command squad?"...

This statement means that he is 110% unqualified to run a Warhammer 40K tournament, and clearly has no understanding of the impact of his chosen "Store Rules".

Sorry, compadre. Maybe you can offer to run the next one, or to run an escalation league for him.

Peregrine wrote:. Tell the TO to stop running stupid tournaments and take your business elsewhere.

What? Lots of tournaments and local groups use plenty of house rules to do things that can't be found in the rulebook.

I'd be surprised if you'd ever be able to play in any tournaments with that kind of attitude.

Hedkrakka wrote:I did decide to back off in the end, since he started complaining about my army when I went to the LGS this morning: "Are you sure you can have three plasma guns in your command squad?"...

Screw this tournament.

Of course, if the person is a jerk, regardless of what was set up as tournament rules, then you don't have to play him. People forcing homebrew "rules" down your throat and being an ass about it scarcely sounds conducive to a worthwhile social experience.

That said, I'd actually recommend that you voluntarily play without vendettas for awhile. If you're having a hard time figuring out how guard could be played without them, then play without them, precisely so that you can figure it out. If you're stuck with auto-include units that you're using as a crutch, there's probably a great deal of horizon expanding that you could benefit from.

Of course, don't expect others to stop using the tools available to them just because you've chosen to hamstring yourself.

 Grimnarsmate wrote:
Could you post the army that won the tournament if you know who won?

5 chocolate cookies on Necron flyer spam!

 Ailaros wrote:

That said, I'd actually recommend that you voluntarily play without vendettas for awhile. If you're having a hard time figuring out how guard could be played without them, then play without them, precisely so that you can figure it out. If you're stuck with auto-include units that you're using as a crutch, there's probably a great deal of horizon expanding that you could benefit from.

I totally agree with you that we should learn how to play without any one unit, especially since I believe that the Vendetta will cost like 200 points and/or lose TL or transport capacity in the next update (this is a case like the 80 point Carnifex in the 4th edition Tyranid codex, and look what's happened to it now...). I will do that in a few friendly games for sure. But that still leaves the question of how to cover the bases-what is the best way to get AT and AA without them? The ADL with support from EACs was the obvious choice for the latter, but I'm still unsure about the AT part. I had platoon LCs for that, but they aren't known for their great effectiveness against heavy armor... Combine with Melta Stormtroopers, maybe? Or get some Demolishers as infantry support tanks?

Well, so one of the things you can try doing is to ignore the air war altogether. Fliers can't score or contest objectives (well, their passengers can if applicable, but they have to get out to do so), which means, strategically speaking, they can be ignored. Also, just because a flier is hard to hit doesn't make it invincible. When I even bother shooting them at all, most of the kills I've made on fliers so far have been with meltaguns. Flood the field with them, and you're practically guaranteed to have one in range (sometimes even in +D6 range if you can get under them). Fliers are generally rather flimsy, and Ap1 makes a one-hit takedown shockingly likely. Add in BiD and a bunch of lascannons, and your anti-tank can easily double as anti-flier.

Plus, you're not going to be burdened by taking weapons that are more or less only worth taking against fliers on those times when you'll be facing off against opponents without ones.

As for anti-tank, you can get lascannons outside of vendettas. I've been spamming the hell out of lascannons in my infantry squads, for example. You also have things like medusas and melta stormies as well. Plus, russes are now heavy, which means that you can trundle around and fire hull weapons like lascannons and multimeltas. MM's won't get in good range until mid-game, but russes have the armor to survive until then, and can make a very terrible mess of things when they do.

The imperial guard has an awful lot of anti-vehicle. Just look in the back of your codex for things labeled melta, ordnance, or are Ap2 or better. We didn't have a problem handling tanks before we got vendettas, and we still don't have problems now, vendettas or no.

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll see how they work in a few games. I could hardly believe my eyes when I read about meltaguns taking down flyers, but hey, with an 18" threat range, it could work with a lot of luck. Lascannon spam+BiD also looks OK if it works, but I'm concerned about whether the CCS would survive long enough for the LC to have nothing better to shoot at than the flyers. Nevertheless, I'll certainly try LC spam sometime with AC counts-as LC, and if it works, hey, time to bust the ACs off the stand.

well, not THAT much luck. Let's say that you're going to be shooting at AV11 necron fliers, and that you'll always be out of melta range. A meltagun hits 1 in 6 times for 1 in 2 pens for 1 in 2 wrecks. Yeah, only a 1 in 24 shot. Then do it with 6 meltaguns over two turns, and you've suddenly brought that down to a 1 in 2 chance. That's not bad odds. For guns that you're not terribly likely shooting at anything else at the moment. Throw in some lascannons or some orders, or spam meltaguns harder, and you've got a pretty decent chance against fliers.

Plus, as mentioned, fliers are usually strategically irrelevant. In half the games you can just take out the scoring units if they brought a lot of fliers, and if they didn't bring a lot of fliers, then just ignore them.

Problem with that and the necron air list is they are transports with the troops choices inside. Might get lucky and get one or two when they come in then one or two go off the board so you cannot shoot at em then they zoom in at the end transport the troops down and capture or contest all the objectives. If you shoot one down no str 10 hits on the guys inside either =/ they just go back in reserve. On the other hand against my ork flyers I have had 4 guys with bolters shoot mine down with luck rolling lots of 6's so it's better than nothing when you do have nothing better to shoot at (to bad they are not av10 as well). I could see saying no Vendettas but don't also take out the skyfire tank and then when he thought no ADL's or other emplacements it was like ok that way to much (still don't expect the quad gun to last to long but at least those wound up being allowed).

Ailaros wrote:well, not THAT much luck. Let's say that you're going to be shooting at AV11 necron fliers, and that you'll always be out of melta range. A meltagun hits 1 in 6 times for 1 in 2 pens for 1 in 2 wrecks. Yeah, only a 1 in 24 shot. Then do it with 6 meltaguns over two turns, and you've suddenly brought that down to a 1 in 2 chance. That's not bad odds. For guns that you're not terribly likely shooting at anything else at the moment. Throw in some lascannons or some orders, or spam meltaguns harder, and you've got a pretty decent chance against fliers.

Plus, as mentioned, fliers are usually strategically irrelevant. In half the games you can just take out the scoring units if they brought a lot of fliers, and if they didn't bring a lot of fliers, then just ignore them.

Trouble with this is you forgot about the Night Scythe's saves; because it does just as much damage snap firing its TL Tesla Destructor as it does firing at full BS. You're actually looking more at a 1 in 4 chance spread across two turns; and this is only assuming there is a single Night Scythe, and not 4-6 of 'em. Then add in the fact that those Night Scythes will be tearing apart IG blobs with Str 7 Tesla, and it generally just doesn't make this a reliable strategy. I'm not saying it's impossible to deal with NS spam; I just don't see this as being practical.

 Ailaros wrote:
well, not THAT much luck. Let's say that you're going to be shooting at AV11 necron fliers, and that you'll always be out of melta range. A meltagun hits 1 in 6 times for 1 in 2 pens for 1 in 2 wrecks. Yeah, only a 1 in 24 shot. Then do it with 6 meltaguns over two turns, and you've suddenly brought that down to a 1 in 2 chance. That's not bad odds.

Twelve meltagun shots to maybe bring down a 130 point vehicle? Ailaros, that is in fact really bad odds.

Corollax wrote:


Twelve meltagun shots to maybe bring down a 130 point vehicle? Ailaros, that is in fact really bad odds.

Then you missed his point. If you actually read what he was saying the suggestion was: if there is no other target.
Ailaros was clearly saying ignore the air fight, but when you can shoot a flier with melta-guns, then do it. Since there is a chance (albeit small) that you'll knock it out.

The idea of ignoring fliers is a valid tactic, it may not win all the time but it works. I say this from experience of people at my FLGS ignoring my vendettas. It's actually rather irritating when they decide that there's far more easy targets to have a go at.

Corollax wrote:

 Ailaros wrote:
well, not THAT much luck. Let's say that you're going to be shooting at AV11 necron fliers, and that you'll always be out of melta range. A meltagun hits 1 in 6 times for 1 in 2 pens for 1 in 2 wrecks. Yeah, only a 1 in 24 shot. Then do it with 6 meltaguns over two turns, and you've suddenly brought that down to a 1 in 2 chance. That's not bad odds.

Twelve meltagun shots to maybe bring down a 130 point vehicle? Ailaros, that is in fact really bad odds.

If you have 12 meltaguns left, and you aren't shooting them at anything, chances are there are no more tanks to kill. They got nothing better to shoot at.

And for the most part, unless it's Necron fliers, I ignore them. I have my AA, but I don't overly worry about it. The most my FLGS has in fliers are Necrons and Dark Eldar (and DE have like, AV10 so no big deal). Reason why I don't ignore Necron fliers is because most of them are actually dedicated transports, and have troops in them so I need to pop the transport before getting the troops out (because the Cron player I play with doesn't like to disembark until he is sure it's safe, because he knows his fliers are strong).

Hedkrakka wrote:
I did decide to back off in the end, since he started complaining about my army when I went to the LGS this morning: "Are you sure you can have three plasma guns in your command squad?"...

Screw this tournament.
And thanks to all who tried to help.

Glad that you went the route you did and glad we could help. I have to ask for the sake of my own curiosity, did you still go to your FLGS to possibly watch this train wreck of an event or know of anyone that did go or witnessed it?

While its their business to ban whatever they want, ive seen no fortifications and no special characters (im looking at you Draigo and Belial) it just seems silly to me that a whole lot of armies are getting taken down in the shuffle, esp since GW is notoriously lazy on making models with all the options. DE being a prime example, half of their units do not even have an official model and the rest of their wargear does not even have visual representation. If anything id say keep on playing at the store, but buy nothing else except cheap stuff from the internet out of pure spite. Also, id like to point out that i built my vendetta using the cast off TL Lascannons from an old Land Raider, magnetized of course, so there is ZERO forgeworld on that model. Also kindly point out that the model is in the Codex, so its not some fevered FW knock off either.

Yeah there should be some more blog posts and articles about dealing with dinky TOs

Actually DE are only missing a couple of units (Voidraven and Vect's pimp-ride are the only ones that come to mind) , and a few SC's.

The wargear issue i'll agree on though.

If the tournament wants to ban Vendettas (and they can) you can either man up and play without the undercosted vendettas (there ARE other options in the codex...not that anyone takes them because the vendettas are stupidly good at the price..) or tell him to feth off (as you have). Either route is fine.

He doesn't get your patronage/participation in the event. You don't have to play without your Vendettas.

Story done.

As the TO he can do what he likes with his tournament. If he wants to declare that only those with orange beards wearing tutus can compete he can. You don't have to attend.

Furthermore, even with the absurd notion that meltaguns cost 10 points PER SHOT, it's still a good deal to have 120 points take down a 130 point unit.

As others have mentioned, though, my point wasn't that meltaguns are a premiere AA weapon, but rather that meltaguns can still take down fliers.

For some reason, people have this strange idea that you need to have skyfire weapons to be able to hit fliers at all. If terminators fail armor saves, then regular weapons hit fliers.

Griddlelol wrote:The idea of ignoring fliers is a valid tactic, it may not win all the time but it works. I say this from experience of people at my FLGS ignoring my vendettas. It's actually rather irritating when they decide that there's far more easy targets to have a go at.

You can no more ignore the Necron flyers than you can ignore a rifleman dreadnought, as they're effectively the same thing insofar as offensive output goes. On top of it all, the NS is also a troop transport.

Ignoring Necron flyers is a very easy way to lose a game.

 azazel the cat wrote:

Ignoring Necron flyers is a very easy way to lose a game.

I said it was a valid tactic, not that you would always win. Necrons are one of the few armies that you can't really ignore due to the potential number they bring. It's the exception really, unless of course you count elysians, but they're no where near as common and have plenty of weaknesses of their own. However, if they don't go all out airforce, you can quite easily ignore them.
When the doomsythe comes on and wipes out a tank or two, it won't make a lot of different whether I had vendettas for AA or not. The damage is done. A quad-gun similarly has a tiny chance of actually destroying it.

 Evil Lamp 6 wrote:
Glad that you went the route you did and glad we could help. I have to ask for the sake of my own curiosity, did you still go to your FLGS to possibly watch this train wreck of an event or know of anyone that did go or witnessed it?

No to the first question, yes to the second one. Three of my friends attended and two of them (with Eldar and BT) were eliminated on Day 1 (two games).

 Ailaros wrote:
For some reason, people have this strange idea that you need to have skyfire weapons to be able to hit fliers at all. If terminators fail armor saves, then regular weapons hit fliers.

It's a lot easier to wound a T4 model than penetrate an AV12 vehicle. And when you're trying for those 1/6 chances, you want to be able to roll a lot of dice.

So? Meltaguns and lascannons still can and do take down fliers. You don't need dedicated AA in order to handle fliers.

And as for ignoring necron fliers being an auto-loss, I highly disagree. I've won roughly half the games I've played against my local mult-flier necron army, and I've done it largely without dedicated AA weapons.

Necron stuff is expensive. In order to have a decent air force, you've got to make serious sacrifices to either ground firepower or scoring units, both of which can easily be a strategic Achilles's heel.