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JNAProductions wrote:Edit: Guys, can we take a moment and ask Tradito what he wants?

Because if he wants a balanced game, I think we can agree with him (his aspiration for the game, that is-not his method).

Yes.

And that's what I'm complaining about here. There is no sense in which an IK at 23 power compared to a tactical squad at 5 power is balanced.

In fact, if I spam lascannons, I should slaughter an IK list simply because the lascannon should be the rock to the IK's scissors.

But that indeed is not what we are getting.

Fisrt off power level is not a refined system. Furthermore you can bring meltas and combi meltas in the squads as well. Game over for the ik. That's 12 weapons with d6 damage.

He's clearly just another "No super heavy anything in my 40k" people. I really don't get why anyone even replies to him anymore. If nothing is balanced unless a small tac squad with bolters can kill it, then you should really look into playing a new game.

 mmzero252 wrote:
He's clearly just another "No super heavy anything in my 40k" people. I really don't get why anyone even replies to him anymore. If nothing is balanced unless a small tac squad with bolters can kill it, then you should really look into playing a new game.

Maelstrom's Edge is pretty cool. But I'm pretty sure Tradito doesn't WANT a balanced system-he wants his specific brand of bad lists to be the best.

 mmzero252 wrote:
He's clearly just another "No super heavy anything in my 40k" people. I really don't get why anyone even replies to him anymore. If nothing is balanced unless a small tac squad with bolters can kill it, then you should really look into playing a new game.

This is a complete caricature of what I've been saying in this thread.

Learn to read.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 mmzero252 wrote:
He's clearly just another "No super heavy anything in my 40k" people. I really don't get why anyone even replies to him anymore. If nothing is balanced unless a small tac squad with bolters can kill it, then you should really look into playing a new game.

Maelstrom's Edge is pretty cool. But I'm pretty sure Tradito doesn't WANT a balanced system-he wants his specific brand of bad lists to be the best.

Seriously. Knights aren't even that good. Scary, yes. Not a clue why.
I run sisters so if I start seeing my opponent placing anything scary I put down a knight. Know what it gets me? Maaaaaybe 1 dead enemy squad, 2 rounds of shooting not dedicated to killing my sisters, and maybe an assault phase distraction. It never does anything more than that. I move it forward to drive the enemy back but half the time they just charge it and wreck it before it can do anything.

Even if it took you two turns to kill a single knight of 4, you still eliminated 1/4 of their ENTIRE army in two turns.

Your devastators can pile bodies into their units that cost the exact same as tactical marines and give them ablative wounds.

Your ludicrous desire to ignore every option available that you didn't buy 15 years ago is in no way a symptom of bad game design. It may take 28 lascannon shots on average to kill a knight, but half of the time it will take less and half the time it will take more.

It's a damn dice game for crying out loud. The imperial knight went from completely immune to anything strength 5 or less to having a possible chance to be wounded by lasguns.

The devestator with a lascannon is not, nor was not ever, THE best antitank weapon in the game. There were always weapons that hit harder than that and for some reason you aren't fielding them either.

You want to stop a knight, charge it with a rhino. He can't move over it, nor has he been given the ability to charge after disengagement.

Ram the big nasty, when he steps back shoot him again. If he doesn't focus on the tank, ram him again. You have actual board control now.

As it stands, your complaints about the new addition are unfounded and nonsensical rubbish with not a single thread of legitimacy. If you feel you should be able to take a single long range heavy weapon and remove 1/4 of the enemy army with it a turn you haven't been paying attention to how this game plays. You have ALWAYS needed a diverse weapon portfolio to succeed in this game. Even grav spam and scrabble spam have counters currently, and with scatterlasers there is actually a niche for them as opposed to being the all around super gun they were before.

Get ahold of yourself traditio, you're falling apart because you refuse to use glue to fix what you believe is broken.

 Traditio wrote:

 mmzero252 wrote:
He's clearly just another "No super heavy anything in my 40k" people. I really don't get why anyone even replies to him anymore. If nothing is balanced unless a small tac squad with bolters can kill it, then you should really look into playing a new game.

This is a complete caricature of what I've been saying in this thread.

Learn to read.

Except your posts are caricatures of themselves.

one thing worth noting is we dunno what suprises are gonna pop up in various armies that we dunno about. Take Primaris Marines. right now we know about intercessor squads. which can only take bolt rifles, (which are an improvement over standard bolt guns) for asll we know there is some sort of primaris anti tank squad with "super lasguns"

Lythrandire Biehrellianl wrote:Even if it took you two turns to kill a single knight of 4, you still eliminated 1/4 of their ENTIRE army in two turns.

And?

The fact remains that, in order to remove that single knight by the end of turn 2, I would:

1. Have to kit my ENTIRE ARMY out with lascannons (in other words, I would specifically have to tailor my army to play against IKs and not take a "general, TAC" list)

and

2. expend the firepower of my ENTIRE ARMY and focus fire that ONE Imperial Knight down.

And by the time that ONE imperial knight goes down, the remaining 3 are within range to wreck the remainder of my army.

And that's under ideal circumstances on my part. That assumes that I've SPECIFICALLY TAILORED my list to take on IKs. If I haven't done it, then it's essentially auto-lose for me.

That's

It may take 28 lascannon shots on average to kill a knight, but half of the time it will take less and half the time it will take more.

This is not a legitimate objection. That's just how averages work.

The imperial knight went from completely immune to anything strength 5 or less to having a possible chance to be wounded by lasguns.

This is a ridiculous point that's not even worthy of consideration.

It would take, on average, 27 boltgun shots at BS 4 or 36 lasgun shots at BS 3 to remove a single wound from an IK.

It would require 648 boltgun shots at BS 4 or 864 lasgun shots at BS 3 to defeat even a single IK.

Boltguns and lasguns are not a serious threat to IKs, and even if, yes, you potentially could strip the last wound from an IK with either lasgun or boltgun fire, this is offset by the fact that it has TWENTY FOUR of them.

The devestator with a lascannon is not, nor was not ever, THE best antitank weapon in the game.

Aside from melta or grav, what else would you use in the SM codex?

You want to stop a knight, charge it with a rhino. He can't move over it, nor has he been given the ability to charge after disengagement.

This suggestion is absolutely ridiculous. An IK has 4 attacks. What do you think the rend value of those attacks is going to be? What do you think the damage of those attacks is going to be?

Do you seriously think that a rhino is going to last more than a single fight phase against an IK?

If you feel you should be able to take a single long range heavy weapon

Do you mean "a single" in number or kind?

If you mean "in kind," then that's a perfectly reasonable expectation on my part. If I only have plasma guns and my opponent only has terminators, then I should win every single time. If my opponent only has Leman Russ battle tanks and I only have drop pod melta, then I should win every single time. If I only have flamers and my opponent only has grots, then I should win. Every. Single. Time.

If you mean "in number," then you clearly haven't understood a word that I've written in this thread.

You have ALWAYS needed a diverse weapon portfolio to succeed in this game.

No, you don't. That's simply not true. To win a game, you have always needed the APPROPRIATE weapons given what you are facing. If I have lascannons, flamers and plasma guns, then most of my weapons are going to be wasted against LRBT spam.

Thus my complaint in this thread: A lascannon should be an APPROPRIATE weapon to deal with a model like an IK. So if I spam lascannons and you spam IKs, then I should win easily.

But it takes 23 lascannon shots to take a single IK down, and yet their power is only 23 compared to a tactical squad's 5.

That's ridiculous.

I don't know about boltguns (mostly because it's more difficult to field them in large numbers), but lasguns are certainly a threat to knights.

Earlier in this thread I even showed a demonstration of an 1850 point Guard army alpha-striking a Knight to death, and they weren't even in rapid-fire range. That poor knight took 32 wounds, and 16 of those were from lasguns. Lasguns boosted by a psyker and FRFSRF order, sure, but that's a legitimate tactic.

And the rest of the Knights on the opposing side were similarly boned simply because they had no reasonable way to chew through 200+ bodies even if all of their attacks were 100% successful.

The fact of the matter is if you have no other targets you might as well shoot with everything you have, because if you even manage to strip 1 extra wound, that still speeds up the kill. Wounding on 6 isn't that big of an obstacle when you're throwing so many dice that you need a bucket for them.

In 7th if someone had 4 IK and I was playing my Nids I knew I was in for a bad time.

In 8th I have more hope that will not be the case.

 Gloomfang wrote:
In 7th if someone had 4 IK and I was playing my Nids I knew I was in for a bad time.

In 8th I have more hope that will not be the case.

What does your Tyrranids list look like?

Because the fact remains that you are going to have to spam S8 (preferably S9) or higher, Rend -2 or better weapons to kill one.

And good luck trying to do that in melee.

Any str greater than 4 will work fine. You can chip away with heavy bolter type weapons just fine.

Martel732 wrote:
Any str greater than 4 will work fine. You can chip away with heavy bolter type weapons just fine.

Practically speaking, that would be an exercise in futility. See math below for BS 4, S 7 and AP 2.

2/3 (to hit) X 1/3 (to wound) X 2/3 (to bypass saves) = 4/27 X 1/24 = 4/648 = 2/324 = 1/162

It would take 162 plasma equivalent shots to take down an IK.

The numbers are even worse when we talk about rend values of -1 rather than -2 or better.

2/3 X 1/3 X 1/2 = 2/18 = 1/9 X 1/24 = 1/216

It would take 216 heavy bolter rounds to take down a single IK.

That's over 70 heavy bolter volleys.

There is no way that an IK should be roughly equal to 4 1/2 tactical squads.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Let's look at MELTA within half range (which would average 4 damage per shot).

2/3 X 1/2 X 2/3 = 4/18 = 2/9 X 1/6 = 2/54 = 1/27

You would need 27 melta shots at half range to take down 1 IK.

OP!

BROKEN!

You're silly. IKs will not be a problem.

Martel732 wrote:
You're silly. IKs will not be a problem.

No.

I'M capable of basic math.

And YOU'RE looking forward to the fact that you're going to be able to crush your power-gaming, "no, I hate terrain; let's play on map bowling ball" meta with your IKs.

The reason I pointed out your fallacies of average is because you could fire strength 16 Ap-6 heavy 20 weapons at a knight and never kill it. Probability only matters over the course of thousands of games. You could cry all a morning about how you had to tailor a list to fight knights and kill 2 in the first round due to a couple lucky sixes.


I said devestators with lascannons. You can take a twin lascannon razorback for each squad. Your heavy bolters can hurt it (only needs a 5+ to wound now) and plasma guns will most likely be wounding on 5+ with a -3 ap and two damage base.

Yes, bolters aren't very viable. But considering you went from "they can never do anything" to "they can take off a wound or two" that is a definite step up in capability.

You are a librarian away from mortal wounds which don't care about a knight's toughness. You are a couple lascannon razorbacks away from dramatically increasing you lascannon count and your missile launchers, meltaguns, plasma weapons, and heavy bolters saw a drastic increase in viability with the new wound chart.

Every single space marine weapon can now be brought to bear against it and you're spending your time throwing around orks using fouls language instead of simply figuring out ways to succeed.

There is no such thing as superheavy vehicles anymore. It is just a big vehicle with no special survivability rules at all. Are you going to scream about how open landraiders are? They'll more than likely be t9 2+ save with 20 wounds. How's your lascannon going to deal with that? Or when a monolith comes down with a similar statline, will you decry their model as "op"?

Face it, your issue isn't going to be game balance or strategy. You want the base game of 40k to be a slightly upscaled version of shadow war where every basic infantryman is a pivotal piece of your army.

This is a war game, not a skirmish game. Your models will die and there are big ones on the table. Deal with it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
A knight isn't broken, nor is it op.

Your ignoring the huge penalties to accuracy and speed accumulating as damage is pile on by relying solely on averages.

and yet their power is only 23 compared to a tactical squad's 5.

you keep spamming this like it's relevant. power level is a very VERY rough balancing tool, one intended for people who are intreasted more in a general story then a complex game. also we have NO idea what other balancing tools may end up in the mix with narrative, just for example, a scenerio that allows for Imperial knights could read something like this.

"the defenders consist of 30 points of troops from the IoM, 10 points of heavy support, 5 of fast attack and 50 points of Lords of war" "the Attackers consist of 30 points of troops. and 65 points of heavy support"

a devestator squad could well end up being 5 or 6 points as well. so within that kinda scenerio, you're not trying to take down a Knight with tac squads, no, you're killing knights with 5 fully kitted out devestator squads each, meaning each turn each IK on average is gonna be hit with 20 lascanon shots.

in short, we don't have eneugh info about narraitive games to make any statement at to what power levels actually MEAN.

Power levels are not points. Power levels are for narrative games, with a very differant requirement. there is a reason why points cost is a completely differant animal. so take a chill pill.

 Traditio wrote:
But it takes 23 lascannon shots to take a single IK down, and yet their power is only 23 compared to a tactical squad's 5.

Lolwut? Why are you using tactical squads, a generalist troops unit with very limited options for heavy weapons, as your anti-tank benchmark? Compare the knight to devastators and their mass lascannons and I bet things look a lot more reasonable.

Also, you have a completely broken idea of what balance means. No, you aren't going to kill that knight on turn 1, but your lascannons are going to damage it and eventually destroy it. There would be a major problem if focusing equal-points fire on the knight could consistently kill it in a turn or two, since those anti-tank squads would then be killing way more than their point cost over the ~6 turns of a full game. And do you really want that same level of power, where a single knight can kill its points worth of marines every turn, just like the marines kill their points worth of knights every turn? I suspect you'd be pretty unhappy if a knight's shooting killed 2-3 tactical squads every turn and then every turn after the first it charged and killed 1-2 more.

Peregrine wrote:Lolwut? Why are you using tactical squads, a generalist troops unit with very limited options for heavy weapons, as your anti-tank benchmark? Compare the knight to devastators and their mass lascannons and I bet things look a lot more reasonable.

We'll have to wait and see what the power level of a devastator squad is.

But my suspicion is that even when you compare apples to apples, the numbers are going to be skewed in the IK's favor.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, for the lols, somebody ask me what I think the power level of an IK should be.

 Traditio wrote:
But my suspicion is that even when you compare apples to apples, the numbers are going to be skewed in the IK's favor.

IOW, you have no idea what the actual comparison is going to be, so you'll just assume that it favors your position.

Also, you have a completely broken idea of what balance means. No, you aren't going to kill that knight on turn 1, but your lascannons are going to damage it and eventually destroy it. There would be a major problem if focusing equal-points fire on the knight could consistently kill it in a turn or two, since those anti-tank squads would then be killing way more than their point cost over the ~6 turns of a full game. And do you really want that same level of power, where a single knight can kill its points worth of marines every turn, just like the marines kill their points worth of knights every turn? I suspect you'd be pretty unhappy if a knight's shooting killed 2-3 tactical squads every turn and then every turn after the first it charged and killed 1-2 more.

I find it highly amusing how many pages this has gone on for. I look forward to the next faction focus and Traditios next mental breakdown.

 Traditio wrote:

Peregrine wrote:Lolwut? Why are you using tactical squads, a generalist troops unit with very limited options for heavy weapons, as your anti-tank benchmark? Compare the knight to devastators and their mass lascannons and I bet things look a lot more reasonable.

We'll have to wait and see what the power level of a devastator squad is.

But my suspicion is that even when you compare apples to apples, the numbers are going to be skewed in the IK's favor.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, for the lols, somebody ask me what I think the power level of an IK should be.

Maybe, we can't be sure, it depends on how they figure it, I mean a NAKED devestrator squad is basicly just glorified taticals. so I suspect a devestator squad'll be 5-7 points. even on the more expensive end thats a lot of firepower, also you have to keep in mind power levels aren't points. they're a rough number for people more intreasted in telling a story. as I was explaining to my friend who plays Necrons, if we wanted to put out armies down, have an even match, and see who was the better general? we'd use matched play. but if we wanted to construct a story that would play out on the table top, of his custom necron dynesty waking up (I need to get him to post the info he put together for it here, it's good stuff) and slaughtering the local guard, only to have a space marine company deploy to hold the line while the settlement evacs? then that's something you proably would use narraitve rules for. thing about narraitve play is you're both trying to tell a story, so perfectly precise points aren't needed, because there is the assumption of "not being a dick"

Just to demonstrate my point, let's compare the two units we know the power points for:

The tactical marines need 23 lascannon shots to kill the knight (less to cripple it, but we'll go for a kill), and you can buy 4.5 tactical squads for the price of a knight. At one lascannon per squad that's about five turns of shooting to kill the knight.

The knight, assuming its double battlecannon continues to be twice the shots of a LRBT's gun, will average 3.5 hits per turn (since you are always moving with a knight, and suffer the -1 penalty) against the marines which it then has to convert into wounds. IOW, it will not be able to kill a tactical squad with shooting alone, but it can probably charge and finish them off. So probably a partial tactical squad on turn 1, since you can't charge, followed by four over the next four turns. IOW, the knight takes about 5 turns to kill the tactical marines.

So, same power points, each takes the same time to kill the other. Seems balanced to me, and we aren't even comparing the knight to a dedicated anti-tank unit. This is just more of your obsession with removing all LoW-size models from 40k, regardless of their power level.

Part of the issue is that it looks like the old mathammer ways of calculating things doesn't work with a great number of calculations anymore due to calculated averages meaning little in the wide spread of values. Back when things were much more granlar it would work better, but that's not the case. A lot of people are starting to move to distribution curves to calculate things.

The average is still where those gaussians are centered.

 Peregrine wrote:
Just to demonstrate my point, let's compare the two units we know the power points for:

The tactical marines need 23 lascannon shots to kill the knight (less to cripple it, but we'll go for a kill), and you can buy 4.5 tactical squads for the price of a knight. At one lascannon per squad that's about five turns of shooting to kill the knight.

The knight, assuming its double battlecannon continues to be twice the shots of a LRBT's gun, will average 3.5 hits per turn (since you are always moving with a knight, and suffer the -1 penalty) against the marines which it then has to convert into wounds. IOW, it will not be able to kill a tactical squad with shooting alone, but it can probably charge and finish them off. So probably a partial tactical squad on turn 1, since you can't charge, followed by four over the next four turns. IOW, the knight takes about 5 turns to kill the tactical marines.

So, same power points, each takes the same time to kill the other. Seems balanced to me, and we aren't even comparing the knight to a dedicated anti-tank unit. This is just more of your obsession with removing all LoW-size models from 40k, regardless of their power level.

And it should be noted we've only seen the Power Level for the Knight with Thermal Cannon - it's entirely possible that the Paladin (the Knight used in Peregrine's example) has a slightly higher Power Level (currently it's the more expensive of the 2 iirc).

 Peregrine wrote:
Just to demonstrate my point, let's compare the two units we know the power points for:

The tactical marines need 23 lascannon shots to kill the knight (less to cripple it, but we'll go for a kill), and you can buy 4.5 tactical squads for the price of a knight. At one lascannon per squad that's about five turns of shooting to kill the knight.

The knight, assuming its double battlecannon continues to be twice the shots of a LRBT's gun, will average 3.5 hits per turn (since you are always moving with a knight, and suffer the -1 penalty) against the marines which it then has to convert into wounds. IOW, it will not be able to kill a tactical squad with shooting alone, but it can probably charge and finish them off. So probably a partial tactical squad on turn 1, since you can't charge, followed by four over the next four turns. IOW, the knight takes about 5 turns to kill the tactical marines.

So, same power points, each takes the same time to kill the other. Seems balanced to me, and we aren't even comparing the knight to a dedicated anti-tank unit. This is just more of your obsession with removing all LoW-size models from 40k, regardless of their power level.

The problem with your assessment is that we are talking about lascannons.

As you yourself have previously noted, if A is rock and B is scissors, then A shouldn't be "equal" to B. A should be more effective against B than B is against A.

The lascannons should be more able to kill the IK than the IK is able to kill the lascannon marines.

If I have a points equivalency in lascannons and I'm JUST breaking even with an IK, that's a problem.

Also, did you see the numbers I posted on melta within half range?

It's absolutely ridiculous.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Peregrine wrote:IOW, you have no idea what the actual comparison is going to be, so you'll just assume that it favors your position.

Also, you have a completely broken idea of what balance means. No, you aren't going to kill that knight on turn 1, but your lascannons are going to damage it and eventually destroy it. There would be a major problem if focusing equal-points fire on the knight could consistently kill it in a turn or two, since those anti-tank squads would then be killing way more than their point cost over the ~6 turns of a full game. And do you really want that same level of power, where a single knight can kill its points worth of marines every turn, just like the marines kill their points worth of knights every turn? I suspect you'd be pretty unhappy if a knight's shooting killed 2-3 tactical squads every turn and then every turn after the first it charged and killed 1-2 more.

I don't think that you guys are fully understanding my point.

Do you know how many lascannons it would take to fire 23 shots in one turn?

It would take almost 6 full devastator squads armed with lascannons.

3 full devastator squads armed with lascannons to kill it in 2, and that's assuming that these squads lose at most ONE lascannon marine as a casualty after having fired the first volley.

And that's lascannons. That's a weapon that should be the rock to the IK's scissors.

Does that sound right to you?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I will say this though!

We have no clue if there are any restrictions on these detachments in Matched Play.

It could well end up being the case that you can't use the LoW formation in matched play unless conditions x, y and z are met.

Keep dreaming. They won't restrict units just because you want to whine about big walkers in matched play.