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 Karhedron wrote:

 Blackie wrote:

If I can move the vehicle, disembark and charge I can get into assault almost for sure. Otherwise If the vehicle moves and I can't assault the crew will likely remain inside it, letting the enemy unit move away. Which means a really long charge that can be easily failed. If you charge with the vehicle and the crew embarked only the vehicle is allowed to fight and tipycally vehicles are useless in combat, they just act as tarpits.

You are assuming a long flat board and no movement penalties. Frequently if the enemy moves away from you, they will be at a disadvantage. Heavy weapons will be at -1 to hit. They may be moving away from cover or objectives they need to hold. Granted some units may not suffer from backing away from your transport but even they will run out of board to back away onto after a turn or so. On a 6x4 board, backing away from an approaching transport will likely only work once, particularly if you have multiple transports approaching.

If the enemy is simply reacting to your moves instead of choosing his own, you are dictating the terms of the battle and that can be a big advantage in itself.

I've just noticed about how assault transports were in 7th and how they are now. The -1 penalty for heavy weapons is nothing, in 7th they would hit on 6s if they move and a -1 penalty is nothing compared to the scenario in which that unit is obliterated in close combat, or at least stuck and not allowed to fire next turn.

The majority of assault units can't bear a whole turn of shooting, if they don't reach combat in turn 2 (if not turn 1) they're screwed. And the entire army with them.

In 8th there are only a few transports that carry assault units while being common in casual games (I'm not even mentioning competitive formats). The most common transports have become razorbacks and serpents, which carry mostly shooty units. Even the dark eldar have become a full shooty army once again, grots in raiders are almost disappeared. Orks trukks usually carry tankbustas and nothing else.

I've always played assault armies and the new transports mechanic is huge, a great penalty for close combat oriented armies. Which are also suffering from the ability that ALL enemy units now have to run away from combat. Yes transports are now more resilient but even way more expensive. Assault units in trasports are almost gone, only expensive elite squads are still viable and tipycally they ride in heavy tanks or flyers, not ordinary transports.

Aeldari transports are still viable.

The Wave Serpent is the best or 2nd best transport in the game. Its very durable and good weaponry.

One of our DE players fields everything based on Venoms, Raiders, and Ravagers. No troop units, just Trueborn with blasters and splinter cannons. This army is quite feared.

Harlies need transports to get where they want to.

Another issue (although, relatively minor) is that units are not changing the Role of Heavy Support and Fast Attack Transports to being Dedicated Transport as much any more. It happened all the time from 3rd Edition on up through 7th (Terminators in Land Raiders, for example). This is not so much the case any more.

 wuestenfux wrote:
Aeldari transports are still viable.

The Wave Serpent is the best or 2nd best transport in the game. Its very durable and good weaponry.

One of our DE players fields everything based on Venoms, Raiders, and Ravagers. No troop units, just Trueborn with blasters and splinter cannons. This army is quite feared.

Harlies need transports to get where they want to.

Harlequins and drukhari can't play without vehicles. But drukhari's raiders and venoms are now mostly reserved for shooty units, what does the wave serpent carry usually? Shooty units. Only harlequins are assault oriented that ride in transports but with only 8 units available including 4 characters it's not a matter of choice, they are forced to play like that.

 Blackie wrote:

 Karhedron wrote:

 Blackie wrote:

If I can move the vehicle, disembark and charge I can get into assault almost for sure. Otherwise If the vehicle moves and I can't assault the crew will likely remain inside it, letting the enemy unit move away. Which means a really long charge that can be easily failed. If you charge with the vehicle and the crew embarked only the vehicle is allowed to fight and tipycally vehicles are useless in combat, they just act as tarpits.

You are assuming a long flat board and no movement penalties. Frequently if the enemy moves away from you, they will be at a disadvantage. Heavy weapons will be at -1 to hit. They may be moving away from cover or objectives they need to hold. Granted some units may not suffer from backing away from your transport but even they will run out of board to back away onto after a turn or so. On a 6x4 board, backing away from an approaching transport will likely only work once, particularly if you have multiple transports approaching.

If the enemy is simply reacting to your moves instead of choosing his own, you are dictating the terms of the battle and that can be a big advantage in itself.

I've just noticed about how assault transports were in 7th and how they are now. The -1 penalty for heavy weapons is nothing, in 7th they would hit on 6s if they move and a -1 penalty is nothing compared to the scenario in which that unit is obliterated in close combat, or at least stuck and not allowed to fire next turn.

The majority of assault units can't bear a whole turn of shooting, if they don't reach combat in turn 2 (if not turn 1) they're screwed. And the entire army with them.

In 8th there are only a few transports that carry assault units while being common in casual games (I'm not even mentioning competitive formats). The most common transports have become razorbacks and serpents, which carry mostly shooty units. Even the dark eldar have become a full shooty army once again, grots in raiders are almost disappeared. Orks trukks usually carry tankbustas and nothing else.

I've always played assault armies and the new transports mechanic is huge, a great penalty for close combat oriented armies. Which are also suffering from the ability that ALL enemy units now have to run away from combat. Yes transports are now more resilient but even way more expensive. Assault units in trasports are almost gone, only expensive elite squads are still viable and tipycally they ride in heavy tanks or flyers, not ordinary transports.

In 5th, transports were "move 12, disembark 2." In 6th and 7th, they're "move 6, disembark 6." So from 14" of threat to 12". This is before getting into changes to Fleet and 6th ed making charge distances random of course. If anything, the main thing that weakened transports in 6th/7th was removing the ability to charge from a stationary transport; this means transports were better as pillboxes, or for delivering short-range shooting (ex: Tau Breachers) than for assault.

In 8th, it's now "disembark 3, move (usually 6)" or about 9". So in all, the main point of giving assault units transports (more speed) has been gradually diminished. Given a transport could still fire 1 gun normally after moving 6 and disembarking, this in itself is a nerf in a vacuum. However, the changes to twin-linked (double shots) combined with reroll auras make it a wash...if you're an Imperial that is. Better luck next time, Orks.

Not a lot of love for the Chimera it seems. I'm not really into Scions, so this weekend I plan to put in an attack with:

3 x Chimera with 2 H Flamer and S bolter, carrying -

6 x flamer (in 2 weapons squads)
Company Commander and 8 x plasma (2 x command squads)
3 x melta and shotguns (vet squad)

Devil Dog

Knight Paladin.

I have no idea how it's gunna go? But I can unequivocally say it's gunna be a hell of a lot of fun

 wuestenfux wrote:
Aeldari transports are still viable.

The Wave Serpent is the best or 2nd best transport in the game. Its very durable and good weaponry.

One of our DE players fields everything based on Venoms, Raiders, and Ravagers. No troop units, just Trueborn with blasters and splinter cannons. This army is quite feared.

Harlies need transports to get where they want to.

Not nitpicking. Just curious cause I just came back to hobby.
If wave serpent is the second best transport, what is the best?

macexor wrote:

 wuestenfux wrote:
Aeldari transports are still viable.

The Wave Serpent is the best or 2nd best transport in the game. Its very durable and good weaponry.

One of our DE players fields everything based on Venoms, Raiders, and Ravagers. No troop units, just Trueborn with blasters and splinter cannons. This army is quite feared.

Harlies need transports to get where they want to.

Not nitpicking. Just curious cause I just came back to hobby.
If wave serpent is the second best transport, what is the best?

I assume the "best" is considered to be the Razorback, with it's option for Twin Linked Assault Cannons. It's just very shooty for the price.


More to the point on this thread though, I just played a game with 3 Drop Pods and a Rhino in a 2000 point match. It was an experiment, but it went well. Using the transports to protect the models inside and counterplay when not going first has it's uses. The fact that they aren't "dedicated" is also useful, allowing to swap out your passengers from battle to battle, depending on how you want to play it. Very situational, but we were playing with the mission cards and we drew "Slash and Burn" (I think that's what it's called). Arguably, if we hadn't drawn the card that forces a second win condition, I could have dropped my Ob Sec troops onto his three objectives in the first turn and just won the game outright, as he had no troops. Instead I fought it out and the counter-positioning put me in a good place by the end of turn two (we couldn't finish the game for time.) I will be trying Drop Pods out again.

If drop pods could transport bulky models like wulfen or dreads they would be good or at least decent once again. Otherwise a rhino is cheaper, mobile and can do the same job.

Blackie,
If one wants a Can in a Can, there is still the good old Lucius Pattern Dreadnaught Drop Pod.
Also, as I just spent 15-30 minutes and am still puzzling - why do you think Wolfen are not allowed in Drop Pods?

 Blackie wrote:
If drop pods could transport bulky models like wulfen or dreads they would be good or at least decent once again. Otherwise a rhino is cheaper, mobile and can do the same job.

Oh god no, a Drop Pod gets you across the table, the long way, on demand. Nuthin faster, and you can't shoot it on the way. If Drop Pods don't work for you that's fine, but a Rhino is no replacement for the Drop Pod if you want the entire table open to you on a whim. My Rhino protected models in my deployment zone for a turn, then died. I Dropped in two phases, turn 1 and 2, and the drops were no where near my original battle line, the last drop might have been 30" away from my previous, and both combat squads shot and then assaulted successfully against models with the game winning objective, clearing it and taking it themselves. Can't do that with a Rhino.

Rhinos can soak a lot of firepower though, while pods don't. Power armor guys are easy to kill in the open, and pods don't work with meltas or flamers, just multi meltas which are quite expensive. I used to run 3 pods with SW in 7th edition but at the same cost you can have 3 razorbacks with assault cannons now which can also benefit from the wolf lord/bjorn ability to re rolls failed hit of 1s.

With the exception of devastators/long fangs with multimeltas other units in power armor don't seem particularly effective if carried by drop pods, they're not extremely deadly in shooting and they're average at most in melee.

But I'm seeing the matter from my perspective maybe, I usually run assault oriented armies and pods would not work against orks, dark eldar or even SW. And they're definitely not working with SW.

Transports like Rhinos can also be useful in the assault phase.

Just charge with the Rhino first into the enemy unit. It can fire overwatch. But if the Rhino survives, it will not be able to fire overwatch again when the next (more valuable assault) unit charges into it.

My gaming group plays 2000 pts standard now, and even then it's not enough for overpriced transports (of which I have dozens).

My poor Orkz took it the worst. An ork trukk costs the same as 12 boyz, that would have a bigger impact overall.

That said I do enjoy the greater durability of vehicles now.

With the changes to a move stat and advance, on the average table there's not much need for a transport to get you where you need to go. That said, I do take a lot of units that can deep strike.

The secondary role of being a weapons platform advantages Razorbacks over Rhinos.

 Nightlord1987 wrote:
My gaming group plays 2000 pts standard now, and even then it's not enough for overpriced transports (of which I have dozens).

My poor Orkz took it the worst. An ork trukk costs the same as 12 boyz, that would have a bigger impact overall.

That said I do enjoy the greater durability of vehicles now.

Yeah got to say having faced trukks mobz they are not scary at all 12 boys just don't threaten my blood claws much and bounce off terminators, you really need those big mobz to do anything.

 Nightlord1987 wrote:
My gaming group plays 2000 pts standard now, and even then it's not enough for overpriced transports (of which I have dozens).

My poor Orkz took it the worst. An ork trukk costs the same as 12 boyz, that would have a bigger impact overall.

That said I do enjoy the greater durability of vehicles now.

The second place player in my local league ran a Battlewagon in his list, but rarely loaded anyone up into the thing. Apparently, he won quite a few games because of the thing, but it did everything except transport model, since it couldn't fit his Boyz mobs inside of it until after they had been neutered beyond uselessness.

I think Orks problem is that the transports are all smaller than the minimum squad size at which the extra attack kicks in.




The first place list [mine, Mech Dominions] was also was fully mechanized and used transports to transport things. I think transports are quite powerful this edition, actually; I just think that some armies have not been provided with ones that adequately meet their transporting needs. After all, if your squad size basically has to be 30 but your biggest transport only holds 20, you're not going to be fielding a lot of transports, are you?

 Blackie wrote:
[
In 8th there are only a few transports that carry assault units while being common in casual games (I'm not even mentioning competitive formats). The most common transports have become razorbacks and serpents, which carry mostly shooty units. Even the dark eldar have become a full shooty army once again, grots in raiders are almost disappeared. Orks trukks usually carry tankbustas and nothing else.

My Razorbacks carry Grey Hunters who are decent in assault at a pinch.

My Wave Serpents regularly transport CC infantry. I played against AdMech yesterday and I had a unit of Banshees in one Serpent and a unit of Wraithblades in the other. The Wraithblades made it into my opponent's deployment zone on turn 2 and carved up the units he was using to guard his home Objective. The Banshees hung near the Reapers and when some Skitarri teleported in to try and assasinate the Reapers, the Banshees hopped out and promptly sliced them to ribbons.

Transports work perfectly well as assault-enablers, particularly if they have a 16" move like the Wave Serpent.

 Karhedron wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
[
In 8th there are only a few transports that carry assault units while being common in casual games (I'm not even mentioning competitive formats). The most common transports have become razorbacks and serpents, which carry mostly shooty units. Even the dark eldar have become a full shooty army once again, grots in raiders are almost disappeared. Orks trukks usually carry tankbustas and nothing else.

My Razorbacks carry Grey Hunters who are decent in assault at a pinch.

My Wave Serpents regularly transport CC infantry. I played against AdMech yesterday and I had a unit of Banshees in one Serpent and a unit of Wraithblades in the other. The Wraithblades made it into my opponent's deployment zone on turn 2 and carved up the units he was using to guard his home Objective. The Banshees hung near the Reapers and when some Skitarri teleported in to try and assasinate the Reapers, the Banshees hopped out and promptly sliced them to ribbons.

Transports work perfectly well as assault-enablers, particularly if they have a 16" move like the Wave Serpent.

SO because they get special rules that make them far better then the average transport they are ok to take.....let that sink in

I sometimes find transports to be useful. Chaos Rhinos are a great way to get Berzerkers or Possessed up the field for not too many points, plus they can take the heat off of said units by charging and soaking the overwatch. For loyalist marines (like my Dark Angels and Space Wolves), Razorbacks and Rhinos are decent, but Drop Pods, once the greatest transport in the game, are now hot garbage. For Tau, Devilfish are reasonably durable and absolutely necessary for getting any mileage out of Breacher teams. Pathfinders can make good use of them also if they need to relocate (or get into RF range with Rail Rifles). I also have a friend who plays Genestealer Cult, and he swears by the tactic of using Acolytes in a Goliath Truck and doing a Demo Charge drive-by. It's pretty mean, I can tell you from experience.

So many transports these days are taken for their guns, rather than their transport abilities. The Razorback, Stormraven, Taurox Prime, and Land Raider Crusader are all good examples of this (although many do use the LRC as a transport as well). Maybe tanks need a price drop to encourage players to take actual battle tanks instead of APCs for their gunlines.

SemperMortis wrote:
For Orkz our trukkz went from 30 to 88pts....so Why would you pay 88pts to transport 72pts of boyz? especially since hte trukk is useless afterwards except as a bullet sponge.

You just answered your own question right there, a bullet sponge. If your opponent is busy shooting at an empty trukk, he's not shooting at another unit that is more useful Vehicles have a psychological effect on people, it seems like they generate an unreasonable amount of hate and people feel they absolutely must die, even if that means spending more effort than it's worth.

It's simple maths. They cost more so you'll see less.

Let's take a hypothetical real world scenario:
Apple's cost you 40silver, for 20gold (100silver to 1gold) you could get 50 before. Then all of a sudden the (far) right wing media moguls who control over 80% of your media start to try to brainwash the population into fearing anyone with an unusual (to them) sounding name and a different passport, although realisitcially it wasn't 'all of a sudden' but instead a decade of subversive far right rethoic presented as 'representing the people'. After this they pressure the government they basically own into hosting a vote to leave the largest economic bloc in the world as they do not like the regulations and workers rights trying to restrain the extent of the inequality gap between themselves and their fellow billionaires in comparison to the average person.

At the same time, the right wing government in power put a decade long pay freeze on all public sector workers despite huge hikes in inflation meaning over 10 years they received the equivalent of a 17+% pay cut. Whilst also absolutely gutting the benefit safety net forcing a huge swathe of people into poverty. All this whilst corruptly selling off vast amounts of the public sector at 'mates rates' to friends and family, ensuring off shore tax havens run in the countries territories are kept open for these friends and family. Also failing to invest in infrastructure and the public services (instead making cuts in these) and quadruppling the national debt.

Now in this hypothetical scenario, the majority of the population become a lot poorer in comparison to before and have to be a lot more careful with where they spend their money. That should mean prices come down due to competition, but this doesnt become the case as it then becomes apparent that they are in a global market and other countries havent cut off their nose to spite their face and unfortunately the countries imports are well exceeding what is going out of the country and prices remain the same or increase. Combined with this is the fact that small businesses are struggling because of the lack of spending by the majority of the population and the tightening restrictions of attempting to get any loan from the banks. The economy within the country becomes even more tilted towards the major corporations who can afford to have a 10meter by 10meter 1 floor headquarters in a tax haven.

Inflation rockets, especially since the central national bank, who print extra money, owned by a certain billionaire friend of the media moguls, has always been pushing to stretch the inequality gap. He is extremely successful and inequality reaches the highest it's been in the country for 150 years. The population stay in a catatonic state brainwashed by 80% of the media, who they never realise are not working in their interests. Even despite their being multiple independent studies highlighting how the nationally owned news is highly (but subtly) biased towards the right, lets call them the CCB, huge trust is still placed in this corporation who backs the government enacting everything that is going wrong in the country. In the eyes of many, it's still the fault of those people with the funny names though, and the country needs to get rid of most of them and break away from the countries they came from.

The country becomes the second biggest laughing stock in the world (not the first but that's an entierly different hypothetical story) yet it's people still won't wake up to the fact that they are suffering the biggest scam in history played upon them by the media billionaires and the governmental puppets they have in their pockets. Especially since they savage the opposition at every opportunity yet rarely criticise the government. Some companies leave, others threaten to, despite amazingly low corporation tax (the lowest by far in the 20 most powerful nations, lets call this group the F20) they realise the population won't vote against the people destroying the country. The Independent Monetary Fund, named the FMI in this story, say they are very worried about the country becoming the first failed first world state in history.

Due to all of this prices rocket on everything and the price of apples go up to 100 silver (or 1gold) meaning you can only afford 20 now with your 20 gold.

Basically, same points but higher cost means you can afford less, so of course you'll see less in games.

I hope my hypothetical explanation helped.

 Karhedron wrote:

My Razorbacks carry Grey Hunters who are decent in assault at a pinch.

6 grey hunters are good in assault against few units to be honest. I also field them in razorbacks but those tanks are basically sitting and shooting the entire game because their best quality is the twin assault cannon for dirt cheap, even better if combined with the re-rolls of a wolf lord or bjorn. If you move the tanks you cripple their shooting and the units that are embarked are not superstars in melee, so they're not worthy as a transport. I mostly use those grey hunters to prevent enemy assault units to charge the tanks, screening them, or to footslog towards an objective after turn 1.

Rhinos are better for supporting assault units, they're cheaper, they don't care about moving and shooting since their weapon is a basic rapid fire gun and they can carry more bodies. I actually think that rhinos are the best transport in the game, along with wave serpents and sororitas tanks. Razorbacks are amazing right now beacuse of their shooting abilities, they're cheap and resilient gun boats, they should be priced around 130-140 points if equipped with assault cannons or lascannons.