Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
At this point, is there really a good balance argument for the Deathstrike needing such random factors?

It's got a scary weapon, but it only fires once. With the state of the current game, you can bring other units that can fire similar or even more powerful weapons every single turn. While it may cost you 3x as much to bring such a superheavy, you'll get 6x the number of shots and probably 6x the survivability between AV14 and 9HP.

These are alternatives to the current nonsense of being unable to fire the damn thing turn one.

Is there a need for alternatives as opposed to simply removing the restriction? Certainly it can't be worse than a Stormsword doing the same thing turn 1, and then turn 2, and 3...




Just not seeing a need for the turn 1 restriction nor anything really to take its place when you've got stuff like that rolling around

Though that said, I wonder at its inclusion as a normal battlefield frontline unit at all when it should really be more something of a mission objective than a tactically operating support unit.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
At this point, is there really a good balance argument for the Deathstrike needing such random factors?

It's got a scary weapon, but it only fires once. With the state of the current game, you can bring other units that can fire similar or even more powerful weapons every single turn. While it may cost you 3x as much to bring such a superheavy, you'll get 6x the number of shots and probably 6x the survivability between AV14 and 9HP.

These are alternatives to the current nonsense of being unable to fire the damn thing turn one.

Is there a need for alternatives as opposed to simply removing the restriction? Certainly it can't be worse than a Stormsword doing the same thing turn 1, and then turn 2, and 3...

Do Stormswords use the Apocalyptic Blast template?
Serious question as I don't have the most current rules for them.

Just not seeing a need for the turn 1 restriction nor anything really to take its place when you've got stuff like that rolling around

Logically, I can understand the restriction. If I take 3 Deathstrike Launchers against an army which is going to have lots and lots of expensive models deployed on the table at the start, and I'm hucking S10 AP1 Apocalyptic Blast, Ignores Cover, Barrage shots at them turn one...I'm going to thin that enemy force out. If I'm firing three of them, I might actually wipe out the enemy force pretty fast--provided they're not all T6 or have Eternal Warrior or something else to prevent them from being doubled out or they have hefty Invulnerable saves, etc.

That said--given the silly nature of some armies now, I really would like to fire Deathstrikes turn one. Not that I'm bitter against an Eldar player, nope...

Though that said, I wonder at its inclusion as a normal battlefield frontline unit at all when it should really be more something of a mission objective than a tactically operating support unit.

Who says every battle where a Deathstrike is involved is actually a frontline battle? Maybe the enemy broke through the Guard's lines or sent a raiding party through and the battle is to defend the Deathstrike's elevated launch position!

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
At this point, is there really a good balance argument for the Deathstrike needing such random factors?

It's got a scary weapon, but it only fires once. With the state of the current game, you can bring other units that can fire similar or even more powerful weapons every single turn. While it may cost you 3x as much to bring such a superheavy, you'll get 6x the number of shots and probably 6x the survivability between AV14 and 9HP.

These are alternatives to the current nonsense of being unable to fire the damn thing turn one.

Is there a need for alternatives as opposed to simply removing the restriction? Certainly it can't be worse than a Stormsword doing the same thing turn 1, and then turn 2, and 3...

Do Stormswords use the Apocalyptic Blast template?
Serious question as I don't have the most current rules for them.

Just not seeing a need for the turn 1 restriction nor anything really to take its place when you've got stuff like that rolling around

Logically, I can understand the restriction. If I take 3 Deathstrike Launchers against an army which is going to have lots and lots of expensive models deployed on the table at the start, and I'm hucking S10 AP1 Apocalyptic Blast, Ignores Cover, Barrage shots at them turn one...I'm going to thin that enemy force out. If I'm firing three of them, I might actually wipe out the enemy force pretty fast--provided they're not all T6 or have Eternal Warrior or something else to prevent them from being doubled out or they have hefty Invulnerable saves, etc.

That said--given the silly nature of some armies now, I really would like to fire Deathstrikes turn one. Not that I'm bitter against an Eldar player, nope...

Though that said, I wonder at its inclusion as a normal battlefield frontline unit at all when it should really be more something of a mission objective than a tactically operating support unit.

Who says every battle where a Deathstrike is involved is actually a frontline battle? Maybe the enemy broke through the Guard's lines or sent a raiding party through and the battle is to defend the Deathstrike's elevated launch position!

when has that stopped the dubs with the big wub way portal drop with d flamers

I feel if they want to keep that fluffiness down, they could just make it so the longer you wait the better your chances of direct hitting like for every turn you scatter d3 less or something.

 Desubot wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
At this point, is there really a good balance argument for the Deathstrike needing such random factors?

It's got a scary weapon, but it only fires once. With the state of the current game, you can bring other units that can fire similar or even more powerful weapons every single turn. While it may cost you 3x as much to bring such a superheavy, you'll get 6x the number of shots and probably 6x the survivability between AV14 and 9HP.

These are alternatives to the current nonsense of being unable to fire the damn thing turn one.

Is there a need for alternatives as opposed to simply removing the restriction? Certainly it can't be worse than a Stormsword doing the same thing turn 1, and then turn 2, and 3...

Do Stormswords use the Apocalyptic Blast template?
Serious question as I don't have the most current rules for them.

Just not seeing a need for the turn 1 restriction nor anything really to take its place when you've got stuff like that rolling around

Logically, I can understand the restriction. If I take 3 Deathstrike Launchers against an army which is going to have lots and lots of expensive models deployed on the table at the start, and I'm hucking S10 AP1 Apocalyptic Blast, Ignores Cover, Barrage shots at them turn one...I'm going to thin that enemy force out. If I'm firing three of them, I might actually wipe out the enemy force pretty fast--provided they're not all T6 or have Eternal Warrior or something else to prevent them from being doubled out or they have hefty Invulnerable saves, etc.

That said--given the silly nature of some armies now, I really would like to fire Deathstrikes turn one. Not that I'm bitter against an Eldar player, nope...

Though that said, I wonder at its inclusion as a normal battlefield frontline unit at all when it should really be more something of a mission objective than a tactically operating support unit.

Who says every battle where a Deathstrike is involved is actually a frontline battle? Maybe the enemy broke through the Guard's lines or sent a raiding party through and the battle is to defend the Deathstrike's elevated launch position!

when has that stopped the dubs with the big wub way portal drop with d flamers

I feel if they want to keep that fluffiness down, they could just make it so the longer you wait the better your chances of direct hitting like for every turn you scatter d3 less or something.

Turn one launch should be allowed, otherwise it's just a free KP that may or may not earn it's points back, depending on what it launches the missile. Seriously though, it's an ICBM, but if there's an army of enemies coming at them the commander is more than likely going to yell "Feth This!" and scream at the crew to launch it already. If you're worried about the massive alpha strike, just limit Deathstrikes to one per armym, or 2000 pts.

 Kanluwen wrote:

Do Stormswords use the Apocalyptic Blast template?
Serious question as I don't have the most current rules for them.

Aye, same strength, AP, blast size, and gets the ignores cover bit.

Logically, I can understand the restriction. If I take 3 Deathstrike Launchers against an army which is going to have lots and lots of expensive models deployed on the table at the start, and I'm hucking S10 AP1 Apocalyptic Blast, Ignores Cover, Barrage shots at them turn one...I'm going to thin that enemy force out. If I'm firing three of them, I might actually wipe out the enemy force pretty fast--provided they're not all T6 or have Eternal Warrior or something else to prevent them from being doubled out or they have hefty Invulnerable saves, etc.

True, but you can take an Unbound army of 3 Stormswords and do the same thing, with some extra guns thrown in and some points left over in a typical 1500-2000pt game. Particularly as GW's rules writing department isn't restricting itself in the same way most playgroups are with house rules against Unbound and whatnot.

I could understand the restriction in the context of earlier editions. At this point, I think allowing it to fire on turn 1 isn't any more broken than stuff that's possible in the Necron, Eldar, AdMech, etc books.

That said--given the silly nature of some armies now, I really would like to fire Deathstrikes turn one. Not that I'm bitter against an Eldar player, nope...

Exactly. If we're facing a dozen D shots coming from across the board with an Eldar army and the like, I just don't see the point of the restriction anymore.

Who says every battle where a Deathstrike is involved is actually a frontline battle? Maybe the enemy broke through the Guard's lines or sent a raiding party through and the battle is to defend the Deathstrike's elevated launch position!

Possible, but hard to swallow if you're seeing them routinely, and in theory not really something that would be brought to bear against something within small arms distance, most such weapons wouldn't be able to properly function like that short of simply detonating in place.

 master of ordinance wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
It's very simple: in any system, somebody has to be the worst. In 40k, that is the IG. Making Guardsmen heroic diminishes the scale of the rest of the game.

The idea that individual Guardsmen or units thereof should be "good" misses the entire point of the IG.

John, are you an Eldar/Necron/Marine player?

I dunno, maybe you should take a look at my sig and P&M blog sometime...

And what's your point?

Shouldn't the question be whether I am a Guard / IOM player?

And if we're asking questions about personal interest, are you even half as invested into Guard as I am? If not, maybe you should be the one to step back until you've matched me in GW / Imperial spend.

"I spend more money so my opinion is more valid"

That's a pretty bold angle

It's a fair take when he's trying to bring up non-Guard armies to imply something sneaky.

Also, this is GW gaming, so pay to play definitely should matter.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
It's very simple: in any system, somebody has to be the worst. In 40k, that is the IG. Making Guardsmen heroic diminishes the scale of the rest of the game.

The idea that individual Guardsmen or units thereof should be "good" misses the entire point of the IG.

John, are you an Eldar/Necron/Marine player?

I dunno, maybe you should take a look at my sig and P&M blog sometime...

And what's your point?

Shouldn't the question be whether I am a Guard / IOM player?

And if we're asking questions about personal interest, are you even half as invested into Guard as I am? If not, maybe you should be the one to step back until you've matched me in GW / Imperial spend.

To determine Investment on the individual, subjective, and qualitative level, you must take into account the other investments that a person has. In other words a subjective determination on investments, is the comparison between how much you have invested in one thing as opposed to others. I may only have around 2,000 points of guard and thus quantitatively you have a lot more than I do. That does not mean that you have more investment in guard than I do. I am 100% invested in guard, whereas you have diversified investments. If any one of those investments goes wrong for you, then you are not screwed as you have a safety net comprised of different assets. I, as a guard player have no where else to turn if something happened. See Subjective Theory of Value

Now that the Ad Hominem is complete, I'm going to be as short as possible in retorting your arguments. The guard is anything and everything. You are telling me that my Volunteer Group ,that has been hand picked by the planetary governor, has existed as an entity for thousands of years, and operates as light infantry, airborne and guerrilla fighters are supposed to use mass infantry and tanks. How am I supposed to play the way I want to if my guardsmen are just walking corpses? I like infantry, and a well placed shot from any rifle should be able to take anything down. Right now I don't win games because I refuse to take tracked vehicles and other things that are against the fluff of my volunteer organization. Do you know what happens when you put a bunch of veterans without transports, a bunch of sentinels, and vendetta air support against just about any army? I get tabled and/or lose the game before it even starts. So don't tell me how my guard are supposed to play.

My guys don't even have infiltrate or any other special rules that should go along with their fluff and their fighting style. The guard has everything and anything, and the rules should reflect that. Sure we shouldn't be the best at anything, but we also shouldn't be the worst. My veteran fighting force should at least stand toe to toe with other similar infantry, but instead they get gunned down like mooks.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
It's a fair take when he's trying to bring up non-Guard armies to imply something sneaky.

Also, this is GW gaming, so pay to play definitely should matter.

Yeah well my Guard army is bigger than yours, so you're wrong.

The fact that I have 3.5x as my IG as you suggests you can far more easily walk away from Guard than I can. Playing a hand of $1 poker is very different than switching between poker and craps at the High Rollers room.

How do you know I'm not leaving out future projects/unpainted plastic in that total as you do, I looked at your blog "high roller", you're wrong.

Guys stop feeding John. This is exactly how trolls work. He's fething with you.

Be much better if we moved back to the actual topic rather than the current show of oh so interesting puffery we have going on.

Thank you.

reds8n wrote: Be much better if we moved back to the actual topic rather than the current show of oh so interesting puffery we have going on.

Thank you.

Im not quite sure why but this made me laugh, so have an exalt Red.

I will get right back OT but first just one tidgy little thing....

JohnHwangDD wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
It's very simple: in any system, somebody has to be the worst. In 40k, that is the IG. Making Guardsmen heroic diminishes the scale of the rest of the game.

The idea that individual Guardsmen or units thereof should be "good" misses the entire point of the IG.

John, are you an Eldar/Necron/Marine player?

I dunno, maybe you should take a look at my sig and P&M blog sometime...

And what's your point?

Shouldn't the question be whether I am a Guard / IOM player?

And if we're asking questions about personal interest, are you even half as invested into Guard as I am? If not, maybe you should be the one to step back until you've matched me in GW / Imperial spend.

.... John, having looked at your sig and blog I am impressed. You are fairly well invested. However I am not sure how many points I have in my IG, I lost count some years back at the 3Kish mark for my first army.
Currently I have two armies - well technically three, but I am currently running the South Lancashire's and the Whermacht together until they both become big enough to split off from each other and become independent armies on their own. Currently this combined army sits at the 3K - 3.5K mark as well and is set to be expanding soon with some new British Infantry and next year with my local clubs Army Builder which will involve a Panzer Grenadier division with supporting Pioneers, SS, Panzers, Scout columns and possibly Fallschirmjager.
So each army will be looking close to the 4K mark.

Oh, and I have no other 40K armies. I am completely invested in the IG whereas you hav armies from each different race. Please do not try to turn this into an IG dick size comparison.

Vaktathi wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

Do Stormswords use the Apocalyptic Blast template?
Serious question as I don't have the most current rules for them.

Aye, same strength, AP, blast size, and gets the ignores cover bit.

Yep, pretty much although your range is only 36". That said I would rather take my Stormsword any day. It makes for a great Marine killer, is far, far tougher, has more backup weapons and can fire multiple times over.

JohnHwang be trollin' hard.

I've been out of the game for a year....so......if I were to do guard, what should I take to have a fun game?

General Hobbs wrote:


I've been out of the game for a year....so......if I were to do guard, what should I take to have a fun game?

It's going to vary wildly based upon your playstyle and what you want to accomplish in your own local meta.

I like tanks and transports and guys hopping out and mowing people down.

My old list included a bunch of vets in chims and russes and I'd throw in some Inquistion stuff for counter attack.

I almost feel like doing a counts as army with space marine scouts in land speeder storms and speeder gunships, using Guard models and Guardified scratchbuilt transports after reading most of this thread.

General Hobbs wrote:


I've been out of the game for a year....so......if I were to do guard, what should I take to have a fun game?

A 5th edition rulebook.

 vipoid wrote:

General Hobbs wrote:


I've been out of the game for a year....so......if I were to do guard, what should I take to have a fun game?

A 5th edition rulebook.

Hear hear!

All this "troll": name-calling is pretty fething annoying. Just because I have a different viewpoint, and am not afraid to state it, that isn't trolling.

I have spent a metric fethton of both time and money on my IG and allied IoM forces, and the army matters a LOT to me. It has been, and continues to be, a massive undertaking to collect, assemble, and play. And the amount of IG & IoM stuff I can put on the tabletop is tremendous.

If anyone is trolling, it's trolling to suggest that my substantial investments in other forces somehow diminishes the effort and expense I've put into my IG.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
All this "troll": name-calling is pretty fething annoying. Just because I have a different viewpoint, and am not afraid to state it, that isn't trolling.

You've explicitly stated in the past that the outrageousness of your assertions is tied proportionally to how bored you are.

That is basically trolling.

For the deathstrike, I'd like to see it be able to fire no matter what, as in if it is destroyed the missle launches anyway and will it a target randomly determined. I'm not sure how, maybe it will scatter D6, D6's away from the tank in a random direction? I know that is a little bit of orky chaos. But hey a massive fighting force like this is gonna have hilarious blunders as well

Make the Deathstrike missile strength D, keep the random launch, have it cost 160 points.

It's AV12 with 3 HP's, if the opponent can't kill it before it launches they're a bad player and kind of deserve the D-struction anyway.

In the next codex maybe Ogryns will loose ripper guns and instead get Grav guns, that would defiantly make me use my 3 ogryn models, especially if they are priced at 25 points a model

 sumi808 wrote:
In the next codex maybe Ogryns will loose ripper guns and instead get Grav guns, that would defiantly make me use my 3 ogryn models, especially if they are priced at 25 points a model

/ What's that coming out the Chimera,
Is it an Ogryn,
Oh crap it's grav-guns! /

I would love to do that.

Quite frankly the idea of a random one-shot pony is stupid and lacks any sense of tactics or strategic value. It's lulzy - and I love it for that - but it's unplayable now as-is.

A few ideas:
Start of the game, controlling player chooses a warhead (via marker/card) that ranges from HE/Frag to Vortex. Progressively stronger warheads take more turns to prepare. The card is hidden face-down from the opponent until the turn it is used.

Basically forces the opponent to always worry about when it'll go off while giving the controlling player some tactical flexibility.

When the Deathstrike is destroyed, the commander will initiate an emergency fire. The missile will be cold-launched without set coordinates to stop the enemy from getting its hand on the valuable (and tide-turning!) ordnance. Roll for scatter and double the distance.

 Ferros wrote:
Quite frankly the idea of a random one-shot pony is stupid and lacks any sense of tactics or strategic value. It's lulzy - and I love it for that - but it's unplayable now as-is.

A few ideas:
Start of the game, controlling player chooses a warhead (via marker/card) that ranges from HE/Frag to Vortex. Progressively stronger warheads take more turns to prepare. The card is hidden face-down from the opponent until the turn it is used.

Basically forces the opponent to always worry about when it'll go off while giving the controlling player some tactical flexibility.

When the Deathstrike is destroyed, the commander will initiate an emergency fire. The missile will be cold-launched without set coordinates to stop the enemy from getting its hand on the valuable (and tide-turning!) ordnance. Roll for scatter and double the distance.

I would use that. Mainly to scare the pants off my enemy than anything else, but it's an excellent T1/T2 distraction carnifex.

 BlaxicanX wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
All this "troll": name-calling is pretty fething annoying. Just because I have a different viewpoint, and am not afraid to state it, that isn't trolling.

You've explicitly stated in the past that the outrageousness of your assertions is tied proportionally to how bored you are.

That is basically trolling.

Are none of the people on Dakka of sufficient mental acuity to recognize that particular comment may have been made in jest?