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.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:

Trollbert wrote:
I guess the predator without weapons should be 70 pts and the auto cannon should be 30 rather than 40.

The full lascannon outload would be 170 points, which I think is fair compared to lascannnon havocs, which are a bit more glass cannony.
And the HB Autocannon would be 120, which I think is fair in comparison to the armiger which is more durable and mobile.

No one is paying 120 points for that predator gun and 6 heavy bolter shots and no POTMS. The offense it brings is inconsequential.

And yet people pay 170 points for two of that predator gun, but zero heavy bolter shots...

If the predator was 170 points and had 4d3 predator autocannon shots it might be worth it. But this is fantasy land, there is no way the predator gets that kind of buff.

Why is 170 with ~4 extra Str 7 AP -1 D3 shots so much better than 120 with 6 extra Str 5 AP -1 D1 shots? Is the damage stat really that important that you'd trade 2 shots and 50 points for it?

Just so we're on the same page here, strength 7, AP-1, 3 flat damage is a solid meta-buster right now. Many big targets have a 4+ invuln or a 3+ invuln, making -1 AP the efficient choice.

Also, yes it's 6 shots, but they're:

36" instead of 48"
Strength 5 instead of 7 - big deal
1 damage, instead of 3 damage - big big deal

And it's a fictitious trade; the predator doesn't cost 120 points. When the space wolves codex drops, a 3 damage weapon with limited AP is going to be *the* choice for clearing out TWC.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Trollbert wrote:
The platform is better, it has an invul and can move and shoot without penalty.

On the other hand, it costs a detachment and you have to take 2 afaik.

Is taking multiples REALLY something you're considering to be a negative? Redundancy is key for a reason.

At 120 points, the Autocannon HB Pred would be really flexible and a nice filler option.

On the other hand, you "only" have to spend 360 points to get to use the killshot stratagem.

It's not like one would be the obviously better choice that way, both units would have their uses, depending on the rest of the list.

I've been consistently playing tournaments since 8th dropped and Mono-Guard being broken ended around when CA dropped.

If Guard vehicles were half as good as you guys are whinging about, they'd be seeing a lot more play competitively, but they're not There's many more factors that go into whether something is actually good or not than its points cost and theoretical damage output compared to some other similar unit in a vacuum. But I think that's the thing a lot of you who are calling Guard vehicles OP will disagree with at the core level. To you, that's how the game should be balanced because it's the obvious way to go about balancing units. The problem is that it doesn't factor in those intangibles that show up on the table. Terrain, LOS, mission objectives, stratagems, and most importantly, how that unit interacts with the rest of the army as a whole. An army can have mathematically 'broken' units, but still put out a pretty mediocre performance as an army on the table due to all these confounding factors.

In the two Mono Guard armies that placed top 3 in a Major during March and April (BoK doesn't have anything past April for some reason), there is a single Basilisk and zero Leman Russ tanks. There is a third Guard army, but it uses the old Celestine HQ/Cyberwolves to fill a BDE trick so it's not even a legal list any more and even that one didn't use Basilisks or LR's. I'm not seeing anything coming from the data at the higher levels of play, or even from personal experience at numerous local tournaments to indicate these units are actually a problem.

If you're getting spanked by Guard at your local store, then all I can say is I'm crushing at mine with Deathwatch, so anecdotes are pretty worthless regarding balance.

How do you beat them with dw that very poor at?

With the release of knights, there is absolutely no reason to ever run predators anymore, the Auto cannon knights are all around better.

same toughness, same armor save, invuln, better movement, no penalty to moving and shooting, can split its guns, can hold its own in melee with kicking and only costs a few points more then a dakka pred.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
With the release of knights, there is absolutely no reason to ever run predators anymore, the Auto cannon knights are all around better.

same toughness, same armor save, invuln, better movement, no penalty to moving and shooting, can split its guns, can hold its own in melee with kicking and only costs a few points more then a dakka pred.

Yep. So true. Better in every way.

I categorize basilisks as "Good". They are not OP in any way or "super" because it's hard to hide them using normal rules, they're T6 (meaning even autocannons wound them on 3+), and at the end of the day they only have BS4+. I don't care if it can be buffed, because every army has strategies for buffing their to hit rolls.

Want to kill them? hit them with anything long ranged Str 7 or above, or get them into melee. I bring 3 of them pretty often, and people don't complain about them much, it's the other stuff in my armies they're worried about.

As for the whole "IG are too powerful in general" argument. They good, probably around the 75th percentile as far as performance (make sure you actually look up what percentile means). I could easily see an IK list giving IG a lot of trouble since their codex came out.

 chrispy1991 wrote:
I categorize basilisks as "Good". They are not OP in any way or "super" because it's hard to hide them using normal rules, they're T6 (meaning even autocannons wound them on 3+), and at the end of the day they only have BS4+. I don't care if it can be buffed, because every army has strategies for buffing their to hit rolls.

Want to kill them? hit them with anything long ranged Str 7 or above, or get them into melee. I bring 3 of them pretty often, and people don't complain about them much, it's the other stuff in my armies they're worried about.

As for the whole "IG are too powerful in general" argument. They good, probably around the 75th percentile as far as performance (make sure you actually look up what percentile means). I could easily see an IK list giving IG a lot of trouble since their codex came out.

I can already tell you they don't give them problems, if you are talking a pure IG list basalisk are good, but when you get 4 of them they are great. And knight lits drop to guard like fly's.

Assuming we know the lists, vostoyan supreme command detatchment, shadow sword, hitting on 2s wounding on 2s rerolling both hit and wound. So, GG knights

The cheapness of the volcano cannon is definitely a hurdle to be overcome.

Martel732 wrote:
The cheapness of the volcano cannon is definitely a hurdle to be overcome.

Honestly the shadow sword should be like 150 points more then it is

RogueApiary wrote:
I've been consistently playing tournaments since 8th dropped and Mono-Guard being broken ended around when CA dropped.

If Guard vehicles were half as good as you guys are whinging about, they'd be seeing a lot more play competitively, but they're not There's many more factors that go into whether something is actually good or not than its points cost and theoretical damage output compared to some other similar unit in a vacuum. But I think that's the thing a lot of you who are calling Guard vehicles OP will disagree with at the core level. To you, that's how the game should be balanced because it's the obvious way to go about balancing units. The problem is that it doesn't factor in those intangibles that show up on the table. Terrain, LOS, mission objectives, stratagems, and most importantly, how that unit interacts with the rest of the army as a whole. An army can have mathematically 'broken' units, but still put out a pretty mediocre performance as an army on the table due to all these confounding factors.

In the two Mono Guard armies that placed top 3 in a Major during March and April (BoK doesn't have anything past April for some reason), there is a single Basilisk and zero Leman Russ tanks. There is a third Guard army, but it uses the old Celestine HQ/Cyberwolves to fill a BDE trick so it's not even a legal list any more and even that one didn't use Basilisks or LR's. I'm not seeing anything coming from the data at the higher levels of play, or even from personal experience at numerous local tournaments to indicate these units are actually a problem.

If you're getting spanked by Guard at your local store, then all I can say is I'm crushing at mine with Deathwatch, so anecdotes are pretty worthless regarding balance.

https://www.bestcoastpairings.com/r/9eb9prk3

Going undefeated and averaging 32 points per round is pretty damn solid in ITC land.

This list has a Shadowsword, a couple Basilisks, 2++ Bullgryns, Hellhounds.

A list like this would probably see Leman Russ tanks if Shadowswords weren't stupid strong, and immune to turn 1 alpha by just outflanking.

The argument that Leman Russ tanks aren't showing up at top tables is kind of silly because Guard is still a top-tier army, even without them. You are implicitly saying that if Guard had to use Leman Russ they would fall out of top tier, which is not true, and you definitely haven't made any effort to prove that it is.

 Backspacehacker wrote:

 chrispy1991 wrote:
I categorize basilisks as "Good". They are not OP in any way or "super" because it's hard to hide them using normal rules, they're T6 (meaning even autocannons wound them on 3+), and at the end of the day they only have BS4+. I don't care if it can be buffed, because every army has strategies for buffing their to hit rolls.

Want to kill them? hit them with anything long ranged Str 7 or above, or get them into melee. I bring 3 of them pretty often, and people don't complain about them much, it's the other stuff in my armies they're worried about.

As for the whole "IG are too powerful in general" argument. They good, probably around the 75th percentile as far as performance (make sure you actually look up what percentile means). I could easily see an IK list giving IG a lot of trouble since their codex came out.

I can already tell you they don't give them problems, if you are talking a pure IG list basalisk are good, but when you get 4 of them they are great. And knight lits drop to guard like fly's.

Assuming we know the lists, vostoyan supreme command detatchment, shadow sword, hitting on 2s wounding on 2s rerolling both hit and wound. So, GG knights

I haven't fought knights yet with my guard, so I can't really make a call from personal experience. I do know from personal experience that ranged invul saves combined with high toughness really messes with IG though.

A Shadowsword in the list you just mentioned will only do an average of 17 unsaved wounds to a knight using the ion shield stratagem, and let's face it.. they will be. That's not even enough to bracket a hawkshroud knight, and any mechanicus knight is just going to run at highest bracket anyways with their strat. If that knight happens to have the ion bulwark trait too, then it goes down to just 8 unsaved wounds.

Also, serious question as I may just be missing something, but where is the rerolling 1's to hit coming from on the shadowsword in a Vostroyan detachment? I didn't factor it in to my math because I can't figure where that comes from.

It should also be noted that if the IG player doesn't get first turn, which is more then likely to be the case, that Shadowsword will be dead on the first turn hands down.

Nah vastoyan does more then that, if we assume pure average on every roll, I can break it all down if you want.
It's going to end up doing 21 wounds if they have a 4++ and 14 wounds if they do a 3++.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Volcano canon gets +1 to hit and reroll wounds. Tank commanders gives him a reroll to hit, and vastoyan strat is another +1 to hit. So 2 on 2s rerolling it all


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Now or course first turn alpha strike has always been an issue especially with big guys

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Tank commanders gives him a reroll to hit, and vastoyan strat is another +1 to hit. So 2 on 2s rerolling it all

Tank Commanders can only issue orders to Leman Russes. A Shadowsword cannot receive the order to reroll 1's to hit.

 CommunistNapkin wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Tank commanders gives him a reroll to hit, and vastoyan strat is another +1 to hit. So 2 on 2s rerolling it all

Tank Commanders can only issue orders to Leman Russes. A Shadowsword cannot receive the order to reroll 1's to hit.

Sure on that? Maybe it was getting got another way I know it can be done hold on.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ok I found how he did it, my friend made this list he likes tank commanders turns out guli was in there, so it was a turbo hate craft list, so that will give you a reroll or 1 but I won't count that so re assuming statistical average it comes out to...

5 wounds needing to be saved, so honestly it's really close to the same thing, almost negligible if you are assuming average.

But still a shadow sword with 2 on 2 rerolling wounds is brutal.