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We have lots of los blockers in itc, almost none for ca.

LoS blocking isn't hard, even with CA. What CA lacks is more ways of gaining cover.

Lots of GW stuff with open windows and walls with holes and gaps makes LoS blocking hard imo.

 Crimson wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
WTF are you talking about? Which units in BA benefits from tactical doctrine?

Most of them?

It's kinda sad that the beautiful BA tactical squad sculpts are basically pretended to not exist.

 Melissia wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
WTF are you talking about? Which units in BA benefits from tactical doctrine?

Most of them?

It's kinda sad that the beautiful BA tactical squad sculpts are basically pretended to not exist.

Especially since the Chapter is bascially Codex Compliant.

BA tac squads became crap when the heavy flamer did.

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
WTF are you talking about? Which units in BA benefits from tactical doctrine?

Most of them?

It's kinda sad that the beautiful BA tactical squad sculpts are basically pretended to not exist.

Especially since the Chapter is bascially Codex Compliant.

Mhm. I've used them to good effect. It's not like BA lacks shooting unless you explicitly build them that way.

the_scotsman wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
What are you talking about?

You are playing an objectively less efficient version of what is currently far and away the most efficient army in the game. The folks stuck with tyranids, necrons, harlequins, GSC, Daemons, etc will all play you a sad song on the world's smallest violin.

"Sniffle - I guess I'll just shift into my INFERIOR version of the doctrines rules that your army doesn't get, and shoot at you with my WORSE intercessors who are only rapid fire 2 at 30" range and can't even get rapid fire 4....oh, woe is me...."

And then the realisation kicks in and you realise that Daemons and Harlequins are the absolute worst examples in the entire game to bring up if you want to complain about Doctrines, seeing as they're both characterised by a bunch of models that have little to no armour but invulnerable saves and to-hit modifiers instead.

Besides, the Tyranid players should be ashamed; there are little kids in Africa who are STARVING right now! They'd kill (literally!) to only have to worry about what plastic army is worse than another!

Get the point yet or should I go on?

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Besides, the Tyranid players should be ashamed; there are little kids in Africa who are STARVING right now! They'd kill (literally!) to only have to worry about what plastic army is worse than another!

It's a good thing I'm pretty sure you're being sarcastic, or I'd have just lost any and all respect for you, as that was an amazing poe.

Yes, /s obviously.

Martel732 wrote:
Just to let you know what's outside the Dakka bubble, this is taken straight from a "how to win with BA" article:

"I’m going to start with what many might view as a very controversial point of view on list design. That is, we are an assault army. This is where the army really shines with utilzing their biggest strengths being Red Thirst, Savage Echoes, and a variety of hard hitting units and characters. One of the biggest mistakes I see Blood Angels players make are trying to use shooty units to supplement our forces. This is a mistake because our army has very little available to make our shooting more than middle of the road. We are not Iron Hands, Imperl Fists or Ultramarines. We are Blood Angels. And true to form, Blood Angels work best in combat."

This is impossible to reconcile with the advice being given here.

https://www.40kstats.com/gigabyte-alphastrike

Third place list is pure BA. I look at that list and I see an assault focused list with adequate anti-chaff assault (scouts) and shooting (Intercessors, Aggressors) to clear the way for the main assault. It also has Eliminators to remove key threats/buff sources to soften up for the main assault. If it's good enough to podium at a major GT its decently competitive.

I feel like Mattel is a skew player who doesn't parse TAC lust building the same as a TAC player would.

Im not. I use all kinds of lists. My latest list only has one assault element.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
LoS blocking isn't hard, even with CA. What CA lacks is more ways of gaining cover.

CA seems like it expects terrain to be placed on large rubble bases for cover. The rules work fine... just not with the terrain GW actually sells...

 LunarSol wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
LoS blocking isn't hard, even with CA. What CA lacks is more ways of gaining cover.

CA seems like it expects terrain to be placed on large rubble bases for cover. The rules work fine... just not with the terrain GW actually sells...

Dont you find that to be problematic?

Martel732 wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
LoS blocking isn't hard, even with CA. What CA lacks is more ways of gaining cover.

CA seems like it expects terrain to be placed on large rubble bases for cover. The rules work fine... just not with the terrain GW actually sells...

Dont you find that to be problematic?

I don't think this deserves to be called "problematic" - it's merely inconvenient. It's not that hard to make some mdf bases for your terrain.

Or to make hills and other rubble using Styrofoam.

Martel732 wrote:
We have lots of los blockers in itc, almost none for ca.

There is nothing in CA that says you can't play with lots of LoS blocking terrain.

Where do you get this gak from?

That's not what I'm saying. The terrain we have stops being LoS blocking once you take away the ITC rule for 1st floor ruins.

Martel732 wrote:
That's not what I'm saying. The terrain we have stops being LoS blocking once you take away the ITC rule for 1st floor ruins.

Then get different terrain?

 Blood Hawk wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
That's not what I'm saying. The terrain we have stops being LoS blocking once you take away the ITC rule for 1st floor ruins.

Then get different terrain?

I second this, for ~$20 you can go to the dollar store and get everything you need to make passable terrain. From there it's just an afternoon of work.

We've got lots of GW terrain being used for events though. I'm not sure it's that easy.

Martel732 wrote:
We've got lots of GW terrain being used for events though. I'm not sure it's that easy.

If you build a bunch of nice terrain and donate it to the TO/FLGS I bet that they'd be willing to at least test it out. Worst case you have a bunch of nice terrain that you can use for your own pick-up games.

I mean we have some. But the vast majority is GW. It's a lot easier to use the good looking GW stuff with the ITC rules.

All it takes is one person saying 'We should use GW's terrain, because that's what the game is balanced around' to turn it into a contentious issue.

You have to remember that there are a lot of people who play with insufficient LOS-blocking terrain, and assume that's how the game is meant to be played- just have a look at the photos players post to social media. I've had pick-up games where people insist that I've put too much terrain on the board, because I've followed the old 25% guideline, whereas they expected more like a single ruin in each deployment zone and a big rock or something in the middle. They're not trying to be a jerk or WAAC or anything, they just don't know better, but if I'm running a melee-heavy list and they're running a gunline, then it can get a bit touchy.

If folks know I'm a Tyranid (or Daemon, or Ork, or anything melee-focused) player and see I'm donating a bunch of big LOS-blocking terrain to an event just out of the blue, someone is going to think I'm trying to skew the event in my favor. That's not a fun conversation to have and somebody is bound to walk away unhappy.

I am all for building your own terrain for home, clubs, playing with friends, etc. but when it comes to organized events, the closest there is to a standard is the terrain GW sells. And their current terrain rules don't work very well with it.

Martel732 wrote:
I mean we have some. But the vast majority is GW. It's a lot easier to use the good looking GW stuff with the ITC rules.

That helps clarify things. My suggestion would be to prop those pieces onto a riser to give better LOS blocking to units with a building between them but not turn things into magic boxes for units inside.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 catbarf wrote:
All it takes is one person saying 'We should use GW's terrain, because that's what the game is balanced around' to turn it into a contentious issue.

You have to remember that there are a lot of people who play with insufficient LOS-blocking terrain, and assume that's how the game is meant to be played- just have a look at the photos players post to social media. I've had pick-up games where people insist that I've put too much terrain on the board, because I've followed the old 25% guideline, whereas they expected more like a single ruin in each deployment zone and a big rock or something in the middle. They're not trying to be a jerk or WAAC or anything, they just don't know better, but if I'm running a melee-heavy list and they're running a gunline, then it can get a bit touchy.

If folks know I'm a Tyranid (or Daemon, or Ork, or anything melee-focused) player and see I'm donating a bunch of big LOS-blocking terrain to an event just out of the blue, someone is going to think I'm trying to skew the event in my favor. That's not a fun conversation to have and somebody is bound to walk away unhappy.

I am all for building your own terrain for home, clubs, playing with friends, etc. but when it comes to organized events, the closest there is to a standard is the terrain GW sells. And their current terrain rules don't work very well with it.

I think that's an issue to bring up with your local TO privately then.

Honestly I've never seen such things come up but maybe I've just played with less insane people.

Also if the board doesn't look like a city fight are you even using enough terrain? Even planet bowling ball should have hills and valleys to work with, or dug out trenches.

Ok this is just a bunch of repeating the same things over and over. Yes combined arms can work but why hinge a bunch of benefits to CC if running heavy that way is such a poor idea ?

It is entirely reasonable to say if you're going to run heavy guns with some CC why not run a group that does better with the shooting and has alright CC groups ? As shooting can win on its own you can even ignore it but you can't really ignore shooting.

I get people don't care about CC but the fact is and still remains they push it as a path to victory and outside of being a tool for a couple units it really doesn't get the job done. You'll live or die based on fire support mostly.

Nothing trotted out even claims that isn't so just that " You don't run all CC armies dummy..duh everyone knows that " To that I say, exactly and that is the problem and my point.

Why should this be the way ? How can they fix this at least in so far as the doctrines system ? Why not just ignore focusing on CC for marines then if its so outdated and crap.

AngryAngel80 wrote:
Ok this is just a bunch of repeating the same things over and over. Yes combined arms can work but why hinge a bunch of benefits to CC if running heavy that way is such a poor idea ?

It is entirely reasonable to say if you're going to run heavy guns with some CC why not run a group that does better with the shooting and has alright CC groups ? As shooting can win on its own you can even ignore it but you can't really ignore shooting.

I get people don't care about CC but the fact is and still remains they push it as a path to victory and outside of being a tool for a couple units it really doesn't get the job done. You'll live or die based on fire support mostly.

Nothing trotted out even claims that isn't so just that " You don't run all CC armies dummy..duh everyone knows that " To that I say, exactly and that is the problem and my point.

Why should this be the way ? How can they fix this at least in so far as the doctrines system ? Why not just ignore focusing on CC for marines then if its so outdated and crap.

I don't disagree, but some factions, like Marines should be combined arms factions who don't go all in on any one tactic (as fits the lore). But a green tide or Daemon infestation? Yeah, those need some help as they don't currently hit like they should.

AngryAngel80 wrote:
Ok this is just a bunch of repeating the same things over and over. Yes combined arms can work but why hinge a bunch of benefits to CC if running heavy that way is such a poor idea ?

It is entirely reasonable to say if you're going to run heavy guns with some CC why not run a group that does better with the shooting and has alright CC groups ? As shooting can win on its own you can even ignore it but you can't really ignore shooting.

I get people don't care about CC but the fact is and still remains they push it as a path to victory and outside of being a tool for a couple units it really doesn't get the job done. You'll live or die based on fire support mostly.

Nothing trotted out even claims that isn't so just that " You don't run all CC armies dummy..duh everyone knows that " To that I say, exactly and that is the problem and my point.

Why should this be the way ? How can they fix this at least in so far as the doctrines system ? Why not just ignore focusing on CC for marines then if its so outdated and crap.

The worry with buffing CC is that MeleeHammer is universally less fun than ShootingHammer due to the way CC works. Just look into past editions where units used to sweeping advance and chain CC together for how 'fun' that was for non-CC armies.