I don't really get this thread. The squats have what I would call "average to good" AA capability already. Seems a bit of creep going on here. And 45cm is a "good" AA unit's range. 60cm is "extraordinary", justifiable for squats, krieg etc only because it's a a static unit. The skyray is probably an outlier here. It seems weird for a mortar to have a long range, in particular.

Take a look at tyranids if you want to see what poor AA looks like.

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I'll try to explain Kurt. "On paper" it looks like Squats have good AA, but in reality it's not about being 'good and bad' but about having poor internal balance that leads to weird list building.

It goes a bit like this:

1) Bob picks up Squats as his new Epic army and sees
* Decent infantry, great barrage, some fast attack
* No tanks, aircraft or spacecraft.
* The only decent AT and AA is on the thunderfire

So he takes a pair of Thunderfires and plays a game

2) He finds out in his first game that
* He can't really move outside the Thunderfire bubble otherwise aircraft will rip him up
* That thunderfires are a bit of a glass cannon. With no tanks for the opponent to shoot at, the thunderfires get a lot of attention and are easily shot at and killed/supressed

3) Bob realizes that 2 thunderfires are not enough, and so takes 4 or 6. He also needs to protect them so he then has some robots/warriors/bezerkers and sits the whole blob on his blitz marker.

And since he has spent all these points on siege protection, he may as well throw a few more goliaths, mole mortars, thudd guns, a colossus and a ring of scout gyrocopters to protect from teleporters. He might have a few small bike units or something to contest objectives, but they don't want to venture far from the siege blob because they are unsupported and vulnerable to aircraft


Congratulations you now have a 'Castle' army list. It's effective but very, very boring for both the opponent and the squat player. No real maneuvering, just sit and shoot. The same problem exists for Dwarfs in Warhammer Fantasy and it could be one of the main reasons people dislike playing squats

Here's a complaint posted just two days ago:




Personally I want to 'break' the squats on the dependency on castling by opening up other playstyles. Fast Moving bike/gyro wing. Big warmachines/warriors rumbling up the center. None which will work unless there is mobile AA in the list. In return some of thunderfires might need a downgrade to balance the whole list out.

Tyranids have weak AA, but it's mobile and can be doubled up/moved to where it's needed (but I think the poor Tyranids have a lot of issues that need looking at, they are a bit on the weak side)

Surely that set up can be defeated fairly easily by objective placement?

I didn't say it was OMG TEH BESTEST overpowered set up, just that it was effective, difficult to deal with, and most of all boring.

You can stick 2 mole mortars, 6 thunderfires, 4 goliaths and 1 thud gun together for only 1500. That unit puts out a punishing amount of Indirect Fire blast markers that are either disrupt or Ignores cover. The other half of the squat army can go out and contest objectives while the barrage formation of doom blow you apart from range. The squat player doesn't have to maneuver or think, just keep placing those templates.

It's frustrating and dull.

Just a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation to that castle blob - it can destroy/break any unit in the game in a single round of shooting should it be foolish enough to step within the very large threat range of 75cm of it.

Including an Imperator Titan.

And most of the fire power can be delivered anywhere on the board, over and through cover

Four turns of shooting from that and there is no opposing army, leaving the other half of the squat army, mounted on bikes, to do anything they please

How does that compare to a siege arty castle out of interest?

I can accept that squat are too good at defensive artillery style, it just seems odd to me that you think the solution to this is to give them more, better, long range AA. Unless you remove AA from the thunderfires (but won't that just make the land train be used defensively)? If what you are describing is so effective, adding a new unit with a bit of AA isn't going to persuade them to change their entire strategy is it?

You seem to have chosen to interpret mspaetauf's post as somehow justifying this addition, but it says the opposite - don't give them even more AA to cover up a needed existing weakness.

So, I think before steaming ahead and discussing "which extra AA option do we want?" you should be thinking about how to reduce the effectiveness of that defensive castle. If you think that can be done by nerfing thunderfires' AA, do that first. Personally I don't see how you can do it unless you severely reduce their range to 30 or remove AA from them entirely, but let's hear it.

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Siegers get limited AA (move zero LVs in emplacements). I get round this by garrisoning the flak forward along with other units, can't the squats do this as well to generate forward bubbles of cover?

Siegers get strat 1, init 2+, 3 AA Guns, plus three gun emplacements (-1 to hit, 5+ save) or three Tractors - 150 points
LV MV0cm SV- CC- FF6+ 60cm AP5+/AT5+/AA5+

Thunderfires get to be AV's, have AP3+/AT3+/AA4+, get to be part of every 3 for core not 2 for core, and cost 175 for 3 (or an even better 100 for 2!).

I am struggling to see how these things are naff?

This makes a difference as your opponent will place the objectives so that they are as far away as possible from any cover for the Thunderfires.

I would like to see Thunderfires have the option to take emplacements and that is all I see the list needing in terms of AA changes.

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I have never seen a Siegemasters army plaid so I claim ignorance on that.

No one is claiming that Thunderfires are naff - but that Squat Anti-Air as a whole is wonky and needs an overhaul.

Imperial AA works out quite well. You have a variety of relatively cheap but OK AA tanks (hydras and hunters) that you can attach to a unit, is mobile and can't be easily suppressed. You also have a wide variety of aircraft that can fly all over the board shooting down enemies and protecting the army as a whole.

It's not super powerful but it's tactical, flexible and scalable.

Squats are wonky. With no aircraft all they have is the Thunderfire (which is 2 for 125pts). It's a glass cannon, with amazing output but no defenses. It is zero move, little armour and is suppressed very very easily.

The math goes something like this:
One pair of thunderfires are supressed/broken too easily and aren't worth the 125pts
Two pairs? Well they can start to cover each other, both in AA and overwatch 2+ AT. They are probably worth the 250pts you spend on them
Three pairs gets even more synergy, meaning the 'worth' that they bring to the table is more than the 375pts you spend on them

And it gets even worse as you pile up more artillery/artillery protection, all providing synergistic cover fire to each other. And suddenly you've got boring castle playstyle. They tried last list with putting AA5+ on the blimps (which I was in favour of) but they are too fragile.

The way to 'break' this problem is twofold

1. Give the Squats some basic mobile AA. We're talking about a AA5+ on a single 500pt Warmachine. It can't be easily suppressed, is mobile and isn't overpowered. It can also scale up with more cars, uses up a 'useless' car choice and give a reason to take a sub-par land train.

2. Part two is to fix the Thunderfires. They need to either be limited in power, made to synergise less, or limited in some number. I am finding that when I ask squat opponents what unit they found the most annoying, the #1 answer is the "the damned thunderfires". With Goliath Cannons as #2

The end goal is a balanced, flexible force that people enjoy to play against and with, so it will get approved for tournaments.


Of course this is my personal view of how things stands. I am sure that the more experiences army champions would have things to say.

Sure, they should lose the gamey 2 unit formation, get emplacements and be happy with 3 with emplacements for 200?

That has been along my train of thought.

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The train carriage plus the idea of 3 Thunderfires with emplacements sounds good to me,

Squats being miners and good architects should be able to build emplacements for their AA units easily enough.

The idea is NO train car but instead emplacements for Thunderfires. Both would be very much OTT I think.

Also, my comment earlier was to illustrate the power of the existing Squat AA, not vice-versa.

cheers,

I think it's fine too. No train car needed.

They can garrison forward anyway
AND have a long range. The best an opponent can do with objective placement is limit them to 15cm back from the centre line. Hardly "no forward AA cover".

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