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Glocknall wrote:

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:

Glocknall wrote:
I agree with you on the platform issue but I highly doubt that the Grav Gun ignores cover. It certainly doesn't for non-vehicle models. It does however ignore the shield. It's RAW at its worst if you play it like that.

How is it at its worst? It is plain as day, no gaminess, and even makes perfect sense from a fluff point of view. What are cover and a shield going to do against getting dragged into the ground?

So how do you rationalize that non-vehicle models get a cover save and vehicles do not rules wise.? Ignores Cover USR has similar wording and no TO I know says that Ignores Cover doesn't affect vehicular cover saves. I do believe that the serpent shield does not work however.

I don't need to rationalize it because I didn't write the book; IMO nothing should get cover against Grav, but that's not what this thread is about.

The Ignores Cover USR has nothing to do with any of this. The rules for vehicles say that get a cover save against glancing and penetrating hits. The Grav Gun causes neither. It is the exact same reason that the Shield doesn't work against Grav, so arguing one works and the other doesn't is a blatant double standard. There is nothing lawyery about it, there is nothing gamey about it, it is as clear as day whether people like it or not.

Ignores Cover specifically states it denies cover to wounds caused by shooting. So you do think this USR doesn't work against Vehicles. It's the same line of thinking.

Serpent Shield is an after "wound" save per se. It take the pen and downgrades it. There is no pen in a Grav Gun hit, just a result. By pure RAW your right, even though there is no rational reason why cover can block a GG hit on infantry yet a Vehicle cannot.

I suggest you read the rules for vehicles getting cover and read the rules for Graviton weapons; those Serpents are getting no cover and no shields. They also don't need to kill the Serpent as getting a single 6 Immobilizes it and thus nueters it for the game, as it can no longer move and thus gets no Holo-Field bonus, and will be forced to keep its Shields up if it wants to survive, reducing its firepower significantly.

No shields, sure. No cover is certainly debatable. I don't do Holo Fields, so no worries there.

The realistic math is a Bike Squad with two Grav Guns and a Combi-Grav Immobolizes a Serpent on average per turn. That's good enough as dead for Serpents.

Is it? You are already in 18" range if you are firing those Grav Guns. Which means the Serpent is in range of everything. They still have 36" on the Scatter Laser and 60" for the Shield. They can also start popping out Avengers or Guardians to dakka down those bikes.

Also JGrand, as Kangodo said above, we're not necessarily talking about spamming it here, but the Grav Command Squad with perhaps a back-up Grav Bike Squad is something that will threaten Serpents. I agree that going all Grav would be a mistake.

Sure, this is reasonable.

I don't think you get the point of them.
Each unit will put out 4 hits, that's a 2/3th chance to remove a Hullpoint and Immobilize a transport.
At that point it's a sitting duck since it cannot Jink anymore. Any second 6 will kill the vehicle since it's immobilized!
Against "one vehicle", that 1200 points of shooting would do 7HP of damage!

And if you want a vehicle dead, I would prefer the CCS that shoots 15 shots and has a great chance to kill a vehicle in one shooting.

Uhhhh...what am I missing here? Further immobilized results cause a loss of a Hull Point. So, three 6's to kill a Serpent. I have no clue where you are getting 7 HP of damage from 36 Grav Shots. On average it is 4.

The key to why it's 7 HPs of damage is the specifics of immobilized damage:

(74 on the small rule book):

"Immobilized: Any immobilized results suffered by an already Immobilized vehicle, or aflyer with Locked Velocity, instead removes an additional hull point"

Thus a second 6 from grav bcomes 3 total HPs of damage (1 from the first hit, 1 from the second and the third being double immobilized) and one dead tank.

Indeed, so 2 6's with Grav is enough to kill a 3HP-vehicle.
And you have 4 hits to do that with.
It's a 50+ percent chance

Kangodo wrote:
Indeed, so 2 6's with Grav is enough to kill a 3HP-vehicle.
And you have 4 hits to do that with.
It's a 50+ percent chance

I still don't think it's going to be reliable enough. In a pinch, yeah, but I wouldn't want to rely on it.

Has anyone given a thought to how an IF army will look?

I've been having a look at it and I'm thinking that Tactical Squads with Bolters and a HB with whatever Special Weapon you wanted in the squad would be pretty good.

Just keep everything with Bolters as much as you can. The accuracy bonus is pretty good.

Got to remember with the bolter drill is that it is an approximately 11% improvement in efficiency.

So if you fired 9 shots you are approximately firing 10 with bolter drill.

It is handy but not something I would build an army around.

Tank hunter on the other hand......

Tank Hunter is really good.

I wouldn't take Devastators though. Centurions would be better just for the survivability vs Drakes and Twin Linked.

Kangodo wrote:
Indeed, so 2 6's with Grav is enough to kill a 3HP-vehicle.
And you have 4 hits to do that with.
It's a 50+ percent chance

That's incorrect.

 Leth wrote:
Got to remember with the bolter drill is that it is an approximately 11% improvement in efficiency.

11% extra firepower is pretty significant.
I agree that its hard to build an army off of it, but its certainly a nice bonus.

That tank hunter though....man that just calls to me.

Overall opinion on the new Space Marine Codex is fairly decent. Not exactly anything that makes me go "THIS IS AWESOME", but good enough. Price drop on Librarians is great, but the removal of Space Marine psychic abilities is meh. No price change on Land Raiders mean they still stink compared to units such as the Tau and Eldar MCs point-wise. Centurions seem high-risk, high-reward, you really have to watch out for the lack of invulnerable saves. Piss-poor range of Grav weapons make them less appealing to me.

One thing I am amused about is how you can kit out the Chapter Master to just be a nuisance. Give the Chapter Master Terminator Armour and The Shield Eternal chapter relic. You now have a unit armed only either the stormbolter or power sword and has 2+ armour and 3+ invulnerable saves, Orbital Bombardment that it can fire after moving thanks to Terminator Armour's relentless, as well as Adamantium Will and Eternal Warrior, which ensures the 4 wounds last on a toughness 4 model. Sure, the points cost in total is 220, but it is worth it just because of how ridiculous(ly ineffective) it is.

Krak grenades are still the best way to kill wave serpents (saying this as someone who also plays Eldar). Any serpent that gets caught by a couple of guys with kraks is going down--no shield, no cover.

Grav guns are optimized for dealing with the 2+ and 3+ save monstrous creatures. The fact that they have a chance to hurt vehicles too is just a bonus.

So Vs. Eldar, you use the grav guns to take down the wraithknight that is guarding the serpents, then assault the wave serpents with krak grenades. I'm glad I didn't spring for a wraithknight model, because grav guns pretty much own them.

Martel732 wrote:
That's incorrect.

Yup, you are right. That was the chance of at least 1 six; Double 6 is around 12%
But that is still good enough for me!
Equipping bikers with Melta has a 0% chance when you start 30" away

What I really like is the 20% chance to kill a Land Raider with a group of CCS-bikes.

PS. I love this website: http://www.vassarstats.net/textbook/ch5apx.html

 Flavius Infernus wrote:
Krak grenades are still the best way to kill wave serpents (saying this as someone who also plays Eldar). Any serpent that gets caught by a couple of guys with kraks is going down--no shield, no cover.

Grav guns are optimized for dealing with the 2+ and 3+ save monstrous creatures. The fact that they have a chance to hurt vehicles too is just a bonus.

So Vs. Eldar, you use the grav guns to take down the wraithknight that is guarding the serpents, then assault the wave serpents with krak grenades. I'm glad I didn't spring for a wraithknight model, because grav guns pretty much own them.

You are right about the krak grenades or about any unit with S4 or higher assaulting such a skimmer. But Eldar should better keep the enemy at arm's length.

An immobilized Wave Serpent is a dead wave serpent.

The biggest problems marines face is being out shot & out manoevered. I don't think either we're really addressed. Also space marines have the worst vehicles in the game hands down. Name literally any other codex & I would swap vehicles with them. Every vehicle is overpriced with the exception of the rhino, which is just a mobile first blood sacrifice.

The big problem with the LR(worse for chaos) is cost v durability which went down considerably with the advent of hull points & the fact it's not a very good shooting platform. You are basically paying a premium for the AV & weapons. But if you move the weapons decrease significantly in effectiveness.

The predator (except BA) is just the worst tank in the game. Just reading all the fluff for preds & dreds, then looking at the rules for them makes me sad:((. It's supposed to provide mobile fire support but if it moves its basically useless. Add to that most xenos vehicles are either fast, have only 1 main gun, or are being replaced by non-AV based weapon platforms. Many SM vehicles have become obsolete because new weapon options haven't been added, price deflation hasn't happened, and all the cool vehicle equipment from 2nd Ed has ceased to exist.

I think this was some of the impetus for the centurions but unfortunately they fell flat, failing to make it anywhere near as effective as comprable equivalents the broadside & obliterator.

Grav weapons, great idea, new weapon type. If you roll lots o 6s it could be good against WS spam. Problem is it is so obvious to counter by bubble wrapping weaker units with bad armor saves. The tau adl gun line becomes even better, as do kroot, IG, guardians, etc. The target for grav will be hard to get at when a smart opponent deploys correctly. Bikes are the best option as a delivery platform, but not very durable. Limiting the grav amp & cannon to centurions is a hard pill to swallow. Allowing it to be taken as a normal hvy weapon would have really brought lots of powerful options. Overall though we have a new set of weapons that is very weak against most basic troop types & so not a great idea to spam since it will be so easy to counter.

Where are my grav equipped terminators, predators, dreads, land speeders, etc?

I agree on that last stuff.
Where are the Grav-cannons on vehicles?
Where are those options for terminators and stuff?

Yes that I can agree on as well. I think they're supposed to be quite rare relics, but still...

Martel732 wrote:
An immobilized Wave Serpent is a dead wave serpent.

This is the key here, not necessarily using all your grav units to hp-wreck serpents. Spread out your shots until every one of them is immobile.

Without a move, they gain no jink save. They are auto-hit in assault with grenades. The serpent shield counts as hull mounted facing forward so it's very easy to side step out of it's arc of sight. They're purchased as a dedicated transport almost always for t3 guys that must now disembark from the rear only and slog it to objectives.

Playing with a few serpents myself, I'd be in worse shape if both were immobilized on turn 2 than if one was wrecked and one untouched.

 Fulcrum wrote:
The biggest problems marines face is being out shot & out manoevered. I don't think either we're really addressed. Also space marines have the worst vehicles in the game hands down. Name literally any other codex & I would swap vehicles with them. Every vehicle is overpriced with the exception of the rhino, which is just a mobile first blood sacrifice.

Huh? The Rhino is great, the Predator is great, the Stormtalon is great, the Whirlwind is great for the price though overshadowed by the TFC, and the Vindicator is very solid in the right build. Plus, Dreadnoughts.

 Fulcrum wrote:
The predator (except BA) is just the worst tank in the game. Just reading all the fluff for preds & dreds, then looking at the rules for them makes me sad:((. It's supposed to provide mobile fire support but if it moves its basically useless.

A Predator with twin lascannon turret and no sponsons provides effective mobile firepower. Sponson-based Predators are less mobile but provide very effective firepower for their points. A tri-las Predator is very, very good for its price.

 Fulcrum wrote:
I think this was some of the impetus for the centurions but unfortunately they fell flat, failing to make it anywhere near as effective as comprable equivalents the broadside & obliterator.

Centurions aren't even tested yet and you're calling them a failure? Personally, I think they're better than Obliterators or Broadsides, though they are certainly less versatile than either.

 Fulcrum wrote:
Grav weapons, great idea, new weapon type. If you roll lots o 6s it could be good against WS spam. Problem is it is so obvious to counter by bubble wrapping weaker units with bad armor saves.

Wave Serpent spams don't exactly have tons of bubblewrap handy.

 Fulcrum wrote:
The tau adl gun line becomes even better, as do kroot, IG, guardians, etc

Luckily, the Thunderfire Cannon just got much better against those units.

 Fulcrum wrote:
Limiting the grav amp & cannon to centurions is a hard pill to swallow. Allowing it to be taken as a normal hvy weapon would have really brought lots of powerful options. Overall though we have a new set of weapons that is very weak against most basic troop types & so not a great idea to spam since it will be so easy to counter.[/quote[

Where are my grav equipped terminators, predators, dreads, land speeders, etc?

Grav cannons on other units would be totally crazy though. Even at 20 points, a Tactical Squad with grav-cannon would be brutal to go against.

My buddy out here runs iyanden with SS, 3 wraith guard squads in WS(1 w blades), 3x WW w/scatter&lance(I think ?), 2 nightspinners, & a wraith knight. He hasn't lost a game (35-0 ish) & he plays different opponents all the time. So ya enjoy getting up close & personal with grav against that army. Pop the WS with either grav or cc & take some dweapons to the face.

Kingsley man I don't know your meta or opponents but I disagree with everything you said except for the TFC being good. How can you think 3 S9 AP2 shots on a basically immobile platform is good for 140pts?

That's why he didn't list Tacticals it's terminators or vehicles we want!

And what is your opinion on Centurions?
Because I think that:
Melee => Rather have 5 Assault Termies with TH/SS
Dev/las => Rather have Devastators
Dev/grav => Rather have a CCS on bikes with Grav.

Kangodo wrote:
That's why he didn't list Tacticals it's terminators or vehicles we want!

And what is your opinion on Centurions?
Because I think that:
Melee => Rather have 5 Assault Termies with TH/SS
Dev/las => Rather have Devastators
Dev/grav => Rather have a CCS on bikes with Grav.

I'm not sure on Assault Centurions. But las/missile Devastator Centurions look very strong, especially with Imperial Fists Chapter Tactics, and I'm pretty sure Devastator Centurions with grav are going to prove quite effective as well.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Fulcrum wrote:
My buddy out here runs iyanden with SS, 3 wraith guard squads in WS(1 w blades), 3x WW w/scatter&lance(I think ?), 2 nightspinners, & a wraith knight. He hasn't lost a game (35-0 ish) & he plays different opponents all the time. So ya enjoy getting up close & personal with grav against that army. Pop the WS with either grav or cc & take some dweapons to the face.

I don't know what your buddy's tactics are like, but to be honest I consider that a highly favorable matchup for Marines even using the 5th edition Codex.

 Fulcrum wrote:
Kingsley man I don't know your meta or opponents but I disagree with everything you said except for the TFC being good. How can you think 3 S9 AP2 shots on a basically immobile platform is good for 140pts? Or 1 for 100?

How can you not think 3 S9 AP2 shots are good for 140 points? That's on par with a Vendetta (commonly considered one of the most underpriced units in the game), and on a more resilient chassis.

 Kingsley wrote:

Kangodo wrote:
That's why he didn't list Tacticals it's terminators or vehicles we want!

And what is your opinion on Centurions?
Because I think that:
Melee => Rather have 5 Assault Termies with TH/SS
Dev/las => Rather have Devastators
Dev/grav => Rather have a CCS on bikes with Grav.

I'm not sure on Assault Centurions. But las/missile Devastator Centurions look very strong, especially with Imperial Fists Chapter Tactics, and I'm pretty sure Devastator Centurions with grav are going to prove quite effective as well.

Maybe if they didn't cost more than a LR for a unit whose combat effectiveness is cut by 33% every 2 wounds. How can Cents be good when terminators(non-SS) suck so hard, no invul so they die even easier to plasma, & no deep strike, cheap transport, or alternate move/deploy options?

I really hope I am wrong on Assault Centurions.
Maybe their strenght is in the "shoot and assault".
But TH/SS have that 3++ that is just so strong.
Armourbane sounds nice, but 3 Centurions charge with 9 attacks.
5 Terminators bring 15 attacks.
So we are roughly looking at:
3++ VS Flamers and hitting on initiative.
I know what I'd prefer.

But what does a Dev-Centurion bring that 5 CCS with Grav-guns on a bike don't bring?
Maybe it's me and I don't see it.
I really want the Centurions to be good, but I'm not seeing it.

How sold are any of you on Legion of the Damned for potential mid-field dominance? One full squad of ten would be enough to tank high strength hits?

PROS:
Static 3++
Ignore Cover
2 attacks base on guys that also have regular Bolters

CONS:
No chapter tactics
No mission or character makes them scoring
Points cost... maybe..?

 Fulcrum wrote:
Maybe if they didn't cost more than a LR for a unit whose combat effectiveness is cut by 33% every 2 wounds. How can Cents be good when terminators(non-SS) suck so hard, no invul so they die even easier to plasma, & no deep strike, cheap transport, or alternate move/deploy options?

Compare Devastator Centurions to Broadsides, not Terminators.

RancidHate wrote:How sold are any of you on Legion of the Damned for potential mid-field dominance? One full squad of ten would be enough to tank high strength hits?

PROS:
Static 3++
Ignore Cover
2 attacks base on guys that also have regular Bolters

CONS:
No chapter tactics
No mission or character makes them scoring
Points cost... maybe..?

This is an interesting option, but I would be much more on board with it if the Legion could take grav weapons. However I do think this is a valid choice, especially given the amount of backfield threat it exerts.

 Kingsley wrote:

 Fulcrum wrote:
Maybe if they didn't cost more than a LR for a unit whose combat effectiveness is cut by 33% every 2 wounds. How can Cents be good when terminators(non-SS) suck so hard, no invul so they die even easier to plasma, & no deep strike, cheap transport, or alternate move/deploy options?

Compare Devastator Centurions to Broadsides, not Terminators.

Am I the only person who finds this funny?

 Kingsley wrote:
Compare Devastator Centurions to Broadsides, not Terminators.

Why? My Space Marine can choose between Terminators or Centurions, so that's what I am comparing.

 RancidHate wrote:
How sold are any of you on Legion of the Damned for potential mid-field dominance? One full squad of ten would be enough to tank high strength hits?

I wet my pants when I saw them, I was so excited!

I also like their Deep Strike and their weapon-options
Their three USR's are great!

A 5 man LotD might be interesting as skimmer/tank hunter with melta/multi-melta or just general high strength weapons and a secondary to get rid of annoying pathfinders. (as all there ranged shooting attacks ignore cover)