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 Orblivion wrote:
Honestly I'd be all for assaulting out of reserves. I'm doing my best to be unbiased about it, I'll leave it to you guys to decide whether or not I succeeded.

With the addition of overwatch and interceptor, it really wouldn't be OP. Granted those are only snapshots, but compared to dedicated shooty units who can arrive via deep strike even assaulting out of deep strike would be at a disadvantage.

A unit that wants to shoot out of deep strike only has to worry about scatter and maybe interceptor. They can fire away all they want, despite the "disorientation" that units suffer from the act of deep striking. They also don't have to worry about return fire during their own turn. By comparison, a unit that wants to assault out of deep strike has to worry about scatter, maybe interceptor, charge range, and overwatch. And the combat works both ways, the assaulting unit will usually take some wounds in return.

There are plenty of shooty units that can do more damage out of deep strike than a squad of assault marines could achieve, so why not give a limited number of BA units assault from deep strike?

This. Exalted for truth. I'd be amazed if I ever saw an assault deep strike unit manage to land next to a land raider, blow it up, then kill all the terminators inside before their army could blink.

Because I've seen a combat-squad'ed sternguard pod do exactly that, half combi melta then half combi plasma on the termies.

In addition to say...a farsight/shadowsun bomb landing right where it wants to with a ton of plasma and fusion with split fire making a ring of death and destruction around them, ignore cover, twin-link, with a ton of ablative wounds, stealth, shrouded, an init 5 hit and run, and one tagalong marine ally for atsknf so they can't be swept. That's less of a unit and more of a one-unit army though.

Shooting has had some crazy powerful "sudden arrivals" in various shapes and sizes. Assault on the other hand....Vanguard veterans who cost 200000 points a model before wargear?...5th ed. Ymgarl genestealers, and only from terrain? IIRC, I was able to assault after infiltrating my genestealers in 3rd, and one of the missions let me be within 12" with infiltrators...I think it was stronghold assault. I kind of recall getting to wipe a unit on turn 1 like that a couple times.

Jefffar wrote:
Interceptor isn't as common as you'd think and to be honest, if I am going against Tau I'd rather face interceptor from a unit than it being able to shoot me wih all sorts of Markerlight buffs in its shooting phase.

Overwatch rarely does anything, of course there is the exception of the Tau massed overwatch, but there are still counters to that (hint, attack with multiple units at once).

And deep strike disorientation does apply to shooting, the unit counts as having moved, which restricts some weapons to snap shooting and others to not firing at all.

The thing is, once an assault starts, one or more units will die. Shooting can rarely match this level of finality between two units. Even with Tau I have to focus fire a large portion of my army on the target if I want it dead. Just a single unit of assault troops in my gunlines garuntees I'm going to be losing a least a unit a turn to it.

So which is more potent, an entire army killing a unit a turn or a single unit killing a unit a turn?

Not true. If an assault unit wins the assault, they just get shot to death the next turn.

Jefffar wrote:
Interceptor isn't as common as you'd think and to be honest, if I am going against Tau I'd rather face interceptor from a unit than it being able to shoot me wih all sorts of Markerlight buffs in its shooting phase.

Overwatch rarely does anything, of course there is the exception of the Tau massed overwatch, but there are still counters to that (hint, attack with multiple units at once).

And deep strike disorientation does apply to shooting, the unit counts as having moved, which restricts some weapons to snap shooting and others to not firing at all.

The thing is, once an assault starts, one or more units will die. Shooting can rarely match this level of finality between two units. Even with Tau I have to focus fire a large portion of my army on the target if I want it dead. Just a single unit of assault troops in my gunlines garuntees I'm going to be losing a least a unit a turn to it.

So which is more potent, an entire army killing a unit a turn or a single unit killing a unit a turn?

Overwatch and Interceptor shouldn't cancel out assault from deep strike completely as that would defeat the purpose, but they can soften it at times and at other times nullify it. My point though was that there are plenty of shooty units that can do a lot of damage right out of deep strike, so as Almighty Walrus already said why is it so frowned upon for an assault unit to do the same?

Because the Taudar overlords disapprove :(

 Orblivion wrote:

Jefffar wrote:
Interceptor isn't as common as you'd think and to be honest, if I am going against Tau I'd rather face interceptor from a unit than it being able to shoot me wih all sorts of Markerlight buffs in its shooting phase.

Overwatch rarely does anything, of course there is the exception of the Tau massed overwatch, but there are still counters to that (hint, attack with multiple units at once).

And deep strike disorientation does apply to shooting, the unit counts as having moved, which restricts some weapons to snap shooting and others to not firing at all.

The thing is, once an assault starts, one or more units will die. Shooting can rarely match this level of finality between two units. Even with Tau I have to focus fire a large portion of my army on the target if I want it dead. Just a single unit of assault troops in my gunlines garuntees I'm going to be losing a least a unit a turn to it.

So which is more potent, an entire army killing a unit a turn or a single unit killing a unit a turn?

Overwatch and Interceptor shouldn't cancel out assault from deep strike completely as that would defeat the purpose, but they can soften it at times and at other times nullify it. My point though was that there are plenty of shooty units that can do a lot of damage right out of deep strike, so as Almighty Walrus already said why is it so frowned upon for an assault unit to do the same?

If they are given an even footing, assault is more powerful than shooting. Units that shoot can subsequently be assaulted, whereas units that assault successfully can NOT subsequently be shot. If a unit can assault out of deep strike, it allows them the option to completely bypass enemy gunlines and go directly into their wheelhouse. Don't get me wrong, I play a succession of Deep Strike armies (4 of them!) and would love nothing more than to be able to do this, but I don't think it's balanced.

Well, I have a large BA army on my shelf.

What I'm expecting is a hard cover codex.

What I want is a playable army. The Imperial Knight might change the way a fast moving army like BA with lots of jump packers and fast tanks can be played.

 Jimsolo wrote:

 Orblivion wrote:

Jefffar wrote:
Interceptor isn't as common as you'd think and to be honest, if I am going against Tau I'd rather face interceptor from a unit than it being able to shoot me wih all sorts of Markerlight buffs in its shooting phase.

Overwatch rarely does anything, of course there is the exception of the Tau massed overwatch, but there are still counters to that (hint, attack with multiple units at once).

And deep strike disorientation does apply to shooting, the unit counts as having moved, which restricts some weapons to snap shooting and others to not firing at all.

The thing is, once an assault starts, one or more units will die. Shooting can rarely match this level of finality between two units. Even with Tau I have to focus fire a large portion of my army on the target if I want it dead. Just a single unit of assault troops in my gunlines garuntees I'm going to be losing a least a unit a turn to it.

So which is more potent, an entire army killing a unit a turn or a single unit killing a unit a turn?

Overwatch and Interceptor shouldn't cancel out assault from deep strike completely as that would defeat the purpose, but they can soften it at times and at other times nullify it. My point though was that there are plenty of shooty units that can do a lot of damage right out of deep strike, so as Almighty Walrus already said why is it so frowned upon for an assault unit to do the same?

If they are given an even footing, assault is more powerful than shooting. Units that shoot can subsequently be assaulted, whereas units that assault successfully can NOT subsequently be shot. If a unit can assault out of deep strike, it allows them the option to completely bypass enemy gunlines and go directly into their wheelhouse. Don't get me wrong, I play a succession of Deep Strike armies (4 of them!) and would love nothing more than to be able to do this, but I don't think it's balanced.

What? Assault has historically been weaker except in third edition, I mean sure if given an even footing, but even then as it is shooting has been far stronger.

Because an army wide assault on turn 1 or 2 is pretty much the end of the game right there.

Most of the crazy drop and shoot units have one or more of the following limits.

1) there can be only one in the army
2) crazy expensive
3) only one shot with their killing weapons then they are just any other unit
4) easily killed in the subsequent opponents turn

Throwing down multiple units that will kill a unit (or more) each and potentially be immune to enemy shooting in the next turn (getting locked in combat has its advantages, I've had opponents declare against multiple of my units just so he could garuntee being in combat on my turn) without the chance for the opponent to manouvre or fire to avoid the threat is pretty huge.

 Jimsolo wrote:

 Orblivion wrote:

Jefffar wrote:
Interceptor isn't as common as you'd think and to be honest, if I am going against Tau I'd rather face interceptor from a unit than it being able to shoot me wih all sorts of Markerlight buffs in its shooting phase.

Overwatch rarely does anything, of course there is the exception of the Tau massed overwatch, but there are still counters to that (hint, attack with multiple units at once).

And deep strike disorientation does apply to shooting, the unit counts as having moved, which restricts some weapons to snap shooting and others to not firing at all.

The thing is, once an assault starts, one or more units will die. Shooting can rarely match this level of finality between two units. Even with Tau I have to focus fire a large portion of my army on the target if I want it dead. Just a single unit of assault troops in my gunlines garuntees I'm going to be losing a least a unit a turn to it.

So which is more potent, an entire army killing a unit a turn or a single unit killing a unit a turn?

Overwatch and Interceptor shouldn't cancel out assault from deep strike completely as that would defeat the purpose, but they can soften it at times and at other times nullify it. My point though was that there are plenty of shooty units that can do a lot of damage right out of deep strike, so as Almighty Walrus already said why is it so frowned upon for an assault unit to do the same?

If they are given an even footing, assault is more powerful than shooting. Units that shoot can subsequently be assaulted, whereas units that assault successfully can NOT subsequently be shot. If a unit can assault out of deep strike, it allows them the option to completely bypass enemy gunlines and go directly into their wheelhouse. Don't get me wrong, I play a succession of Deep Strike armies (4 of them!) and would love nothing more than to be able to do this, but I don't think it's balanced.

And Taudar shooting gallery is so balanced. Maybe if Eldar ever were in threat of an unplanned CC, they would have more CC elements than jetseers. Then again, maybe not.

Jefffar wrote:
Because an army wide assault on turn 1 or 2 is pretty much the end of the game right there.

Most of the crazy drop and shoot units have one or more of the following limits.

1) there can be only one in the army
2) crazy expensive
3) only one shot with their killing weapons then they are just any other unit
4) easily killed in the subsequent opponents turn

Throwing down multiple units that will kill a unit (or more) each and potentially be immune to enemy shooting in the next turn (getting locked in combat has its advantages, I've had opponents declare against multiple of my units just so he could garuntee being in combat on my turn) without the chance for the opponent to manouvre or fire to avoid the threat is pretty huge.

Problem is that none of that actually appless for shooting, plenty of powerful ranged units are not only one, not crazy expensive, not one shot, and are not easily killable.

WS is far worse then BS, you still get to strike back against them in melee in most cases, they have the chance to become locked and forced against a weak unit and unable to attack next turn, and more reasons why shooting is generally better then assault.

Any way to get in CC by turn 2 would be great. I don't know, Assault vehicle?
Assault from DS or ability to deep strike at T1?

Jefffar wrote:
Because an army wide assault on turn 1 or 2 is pretty much the end of the game right there.

Most of the crazy drop and shoot units have one or more of the following limits.

1) there can be only one in the army
2) crazy expensive
3) only one shot with their killing weapons then they are just any other unit
4) easily killed in the subsequent opponents turn

Throwing down multiple units that will kill a unit (or more) each and potentially be immune to enemy shooting in the next turn (getting locked in combat has its advantages, I've had opponents declare against multiple of my units just so he could garuntee being in combat on my turn) without the chance for the opponent to manouvre or fire to avoid the threat is pretty huge.

I never suggested the whole army should have it, only certain units.

EDIT: Sternguard laugh at your first 3 points. Sure their combi-weapons are one shots, but their special ammunition is still excellent.

 Orblivion wrote:

Jefffar wrote:
Because an army wide assault on turn 1 or 2 is pretty much the end of the game right there.

Most of the crazy drop and shoot units have one or more of the following limits.

1) there can be only one in the army
2) crazy expensive
3) only one shot with their killing weapons then they are just any other unit
4) easily killed in the subsequent opponents turn

Throwing down multiple units that will kill a unit (or more) each and potentially be immune to enemy shooting in the next turn (getting locked in combat has its advantages, I've had opponents declare against multiple of my units just so he could garuntee being in combat on my turn) without the chance for the opponent to manouvre or fire to avoid the threat is pretty huge.

I never suggested the whole army should have it, only certain units.

EDIT: Sternguard laugh at your first 3 points. Sure their combi-weapons are one shots, but their special ammunition is still excellent.

I use Sternguard laoded with Palsma and there is not much that can stand up to 10-20 Plasma Shots in one turn and then after that Wound on 2+ Ammo takes care most everything else after that.
My Second Sterngaurd is Loaded with Melta is about the same way.

 Jimsolo wrote:


If they are given an even footing, assault is more powerful than shooting. Units that shoot can subsequently be assaulted, whereas units that assault successfully can NOT subsequently be shot. If a unit can assault out of deep strike, it allows them the option to completely bypass enemy gunlines and go directly into their wheelhouse. Don't get me wrong, I play a succession of Deep Strike armies (4 of them!) and would love nothing more than to be able to do this, but I don't think it's balanced.

Errrrr... If by even footing you mean removing the 24+ inches of table between the two armies, then maybe. But last I checked, any given assault army still had to weather 2 turns of shooting and an overwatch before being able to do anything at all back. Deep strike changes this a little, but you also run the risk of mishaps.

No sane enemy commander would ever see a mostly-deepstrike enemy force and not make a big blob of guys with the least valuable on the outside.

Also a unit that assaults successfully can subsequently be shot! After they win and they stand around cheering for a round, they usually end up dead. It's especially prominent with tau, who are so outmatched in melee that they pretty much guarantee that the unit will be out in the open with a big target on their heads on your turn.
As opposed to say, a shooting marine army that could hold their ground and die on the wrong turn, letting the opponent immediately charge again.

 Anpu42 wrote:

 Orblivion wrote:

Jefffar wrote:
Because an army wide assault on turn 1 or 2 is pretty much the end of the game right there.

Most of the crazy drop and shoot units have one or more of the following limits.

1) there can be only one in the army
2) crazy expensive
3) only one shot with their killing weapons then they are just any other unit
4) easily killed in the subsequent opponents turn

Throwing down multiple units that will kill a unit (or more) each and potentially be immune to enemy shooting in the next turn (getting locked in combat has its advantages, I've had opponents declare against multiple of my units just so he could garuntee being in combat on my turn) without the chance for the opponent to manouvre or fire to avoid the threat is pretty huge.

I never suggested the whole army should have it, only certain units.

EDIT: Sternguard laugh at your first 3 points. Sure their combi-weapons are one shots, but their special ammunition is still excellent.

I use Sternguard laoded with Palsma and there is not much that can stand up to 10-20 Plasma Shots in one turn and then after that Wound on 2+ Ammo takes care most everything else after that.
My Second Sterngaurd is Loaded with Melta is about the same way.

Yes, but the return fire should obliterate your Sternguard. That's not a fair trade 90% of the time.

 soomemafia wrote:
Any way to get in CC by turn 2 would be great. I don't know, Assault vehicle?
Assault from DS or ability to deep strike at T1?

You mean like:

I think a better method (and I said part of this earlier in a long list) is to allow units full of DoA jump packers to declare themselves part of the drop pod count during deployment. So if you have 3 JP assault squads and 2 sternguard pods, you could bring in 3 of those units turn 1.

Another interesting chapter strategy might be the ability to start rolling for reserves on turn 1, and auto-get turn 3, a round earlier than other armies.

from me on page 4?

Martel732 wrote:

 Anpu42 wrote:

 Orblivion wrote:

Jefffar wrote:
Because an army wide assault on turn 1 or 2 is pretty much the end of the game right there.

Most of the crazy drop and shoot units have one or more of the following limits.

1) there can be only one in the army
2) crazy expensive
3) only one shot with their killing weapons then they are just any other unit
4) easily killed in the subsequent opponents turn

Throwing down multiple units that will kill a unit (or more) each and potentially be immune to enemy shooting in the next turn (getting locked in combat has its advantages, I've had opponents declare against multiple of my units just so he could garuntee being in combat on my turn) without the chance for the opponent to manouvre or fire to avoid the threat is pretty huge.

I never suggested the whole army should have it, only certain units.

EDIT: Sternguard laugh at your first 3 points. Sure their combi-weapons are one shots, but their special ammunition is still excellent.

I use Sternguard laoded with Palsma and there is not much that can stand up to 10-20 Plasma Shots in one turn and then after that Wound on 2+ Ammo takes care most everything else after that.
My Second Sterngaurd is Loaded with Melta is about the same way.

Yes, but the return fire should obliterate your Sternguard. That's not a fair trade 90% of the time.

But if it is not there it can not Retaliate.
If I do things right including Combat Squads it can eliminate 4 Units in one Shooting Phase out of Pods.

I wouldn't hold my breath on that one. Sternguard alpha strike is not so strong that it wipes out all retaliation. The really good stuff is gonna be bubblewrapped.

Martel732 wrote:

Yes, but the return fire should obliterate your Sternguard. That's not a fair trade 90% of the time.

If I don't see a good trade for the sternguard, I just don't suicide them. I put em somewhere a bit safer and start firing in like +1 tactical marines. But out of everyone I play, NO ONE runs a 150+ model army, probably because they don't want to move all those models every round. All of them take at least one elite style unit or deathstar, and that's where the stern come in.

Also, point values aren't black and white on the board. Losing 300 of your 2k while he only lost 200 of his sounds like a bad trade on paper, but if that 200 was a unit that was particularly threatening to you, such as an ion riptide against jump marines, or leman russ punisher against your hormagaunt horde army, then it's still a good trade, because that unit was going to make far more than its own point value back for its owner, had it gotten to do stuff.
It could've also been strategically important or a force multiplier. EG a LRC for a crazy assault deathstar to get across the table, or venomthropes when your army has almost no ignores cover.

And those key models aren't bubble wrapped why again? If everyone plays like a fool, of course Sternguards look like gods.

Martel732 wrote:
I wouldn't hold my breath on that one. Sternguard alpha strike is not so strong that it wipes out all retaliation. The really good stuff is gonna be bubblewrapped.

What if you go for the 2nd best stuff, and land in a spot where terrain makes it hard for the rest of his army to retaliate? Yeah, it involves a mistake on the part of the defender, but its honestly not a crazy large mistake. There might be enough terrain in his deployment zone that it kind of messed up his deployment plans.

And those key models aren't bubble wrapped why again?

Some armies don't have enough wrap, some opponents think that their unit A is most important when you want unit B dead more, sometimes the combat squad ability lets a single unit of sterns wipe out the wrap, AND the unit they wanted to kill, and sometimes, they just fail the cover saves for intervening models. What can they do?

niv-mizzet wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I wouldn't hold my breath on that one. Sternguard alpha strike is not so strong that it wipes out all retaliation. The really good stuff is gonna be bubblewrapped.

What if you go for the 2nd best stuff, and land in a spot where terrain makes it hard for the rest of his army to retaliate? Yeah, it involves a mistake on the part of the defender, but its honestly not a crazy large mistake. There might be enough terrain in his deployment zone that it kind of messed up his deployment plans.

Then you probably can't do much damage with your Sternguards. Defender wins. Needing to get within double tap range is their major achilles heel.

Martel732 wrote:

Then you probably can't do much damage with your Sternguards. Defender wins. Needing to get within double tap range is their major achilles heel.

do some damage, don't get retaliated against = he wins somehow?

You also seem to insist that every army I could ever play against has the spare points to have a 12" radius around each of their valuables filled with guys whose job is to stand around with picket signs that say "no drop pods." If it's any less than that, I'd be perfectly willing to risk 5+ intervening model cover if the target was juicy enough.

That's another advantage shooting has over assault. The shooter can force-feed the assaulter a unit, since he can't assault through it. The shooter can shoot at whatever he can see, even if he's seeing it between the legs, through a pair of fingers, past a cliff, through a window, off the backboard, nothin but net, with just an intervening model cover save. And hey, if you have ignore cover, or your shots weren't going to ignore their armor anyway, it's totally downside-free!

Also there's an edit above while you were posting.

Yeah, I know that shooting picks the target. Even with the absurdly costed BA, I can use terrain and my other models to keep my best stuff out of double tap range. If Sternguards can't double tap, they are not doing nearly enough damage to justify their cost.

niv-mizzet wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Okay then. Let's get super serious: would you design this to survive Taudar firepower or not? If so, how do you do this with T4 models?

I think one of the biggest issues marines face is that s6 and higher treats them like gretchin/ratlings. There's no statistical difference.

Therefore, if I could, I would add the following rule to the base rules, and would be faq'd to apply to all "marine" models. IE not sisters, guard, inquisition or the like, just the boys with the gene-seeds. This WOULD include chaos marines:

-Closer to monster than man (name WIP): Due to the intense amount of alterations, the astartes' bodies are much better equipped to handle extreme damage that would place other races in mortal peril. As long as all models in the unit possess this special rule, any roll to wound made against a model with this rule automatically fails to wound on a roll of 2, in addition to the normal automatic failure of rolling a 1.

Just an extra 17% chance for each guy to survive battle cannons, ion accelerators, plasma and the like might give the marines in general, including the heretic ones, the push they need to compete.

This is fething genius. Give this man a medal.

As for what I want from 6th ed Codex: Blood Angels

1. Cheaper HQs and troops obviously. Everything else is high costed but somewhat makes sense. Might see some minor price reductions elsewhere but mostly I'd just like to not spend 60% of my points on mandatory things that suck.

More reason to take the things that BA is famous for

2. Make assault marines/DC better than just "marines with a sword that fly". Higher base initiative would be good due to the cascading casualty effect we see leading to victorious close combats in 40k

3. make our fliers more about air superiority and rapid redeployment of resources rather than confused gunship-transports

4. make our fast vehicles gain more on the battlefield for moving faster than our other marine brothers. I heard someone tossing around Jink and I think that's a great idea as well as somehow protecting their contents in someway if it's a transport (Rhinos and Razorbacks granting some kind of cover save to disembarking units would be cool)

And 5. Would be for new shinies. Preferably something with access to our new psychic table or something that flies. Maybe both? Maybe? Nah.

Yeah, that was a good idea on his part. Because S6/7 is eating meqs badly.

niv-mizzet wrote:

 soomemafia wrote:
Any way to get in CC by turn 2 would be great. I don't know, Assault vehicle?
Assault from DS or ability to deep strike at T1?

You mean like:

I think a better method (and I said part of this earlier in a long list) is to allow units full of DoA jump packers to declare themselves part of the drop pod count during deployment. So if you have 3 JP assault squads and 2 sternguard pods, you could bring in 3 of those units turn 1.

Another interesting chapter strategy might be the ability to start rolling for reserves on turn 1, and auto-get turn 3, a round earlier than other armies.

from me on page 4?

Yeah, I saw that

Just wanted to point out that it's one possibility among the others.

 bocatt wrote:

niv-mizzet wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Okay then. Let's get super serious: would you design this to survive Taudar firepower or not? If so, how do you do this with T4 models?

I think one of the biggest issues marines face is that s6 and higher treats them like gretchin/ratlings. There's no statistical difference.

Therefore, if I could, I would add the following rule to the base rules, and would be faq'd to apply to all "marine" models. IE not sisters, guard, inquisition or the like, just the boys with the gene-seeds. This WOULD include chaos marines:

-Closer to monster than man (name WIP): Due to the intense amount of alterations, the astartes' bodies are much better equipped to handle extreme damage that would place other races in mortal peril. As long as all models in the unit possess this special rule, any roll to wound made against a model with this rule automatically fails to wound on a roll of 2, in addition to the normal automatic failure of rolling a 1.

Just an extra 17% chance for each guy to survive battle cannons, ion accelerators, plasma and the like might give the marines in general, including the heretic ones, the push they need to compete.

This is fething genius. Give this man a medal.

Yep, that's a new solution I've not seen before that'd be good. +1.

Martel732 wrote:
Yeah, that was a good idea on his part. Because S6/7 is eating meqs badly.

Since the day 40k was invented

 Anpu42 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Yeah, that was a good idea on his part. Because S6/7 is eating meqs badly.

Since the day 40k was invented

Didn't exist in the volume/quality it does now though.