Ah, well, don't you think another reasonable person might, instead, come to the conclusion that "in range" clearly refers to any unit that is eligible to receive an attack? I mean, if they aren't in range how can I hit them? Units that are "in range" are the set of all units that can be hit, by at least one reasonable definition of the terms.

And thus a rules arguement is born.

And as for AVs fearing infantry, sure, they should. BUT, if our goal is to somehow convey the 'nature' of Howling Banshees in terms of the Epic rules, I don't think that AVs should have to fear HBs more than any other infantry. Quite the opposite, in fact (again, based on the nature of Howling Banshees specifically).

In anycase, sure, sniper may be a fine option, but it isn't the only way to go, and it certainly isn't necesarily the best or simplest. The main thing sniper has going for it is the fact that it isn't already used by some other aspect warrior type.

Okay.  Assuming that Sniper is CC-only for allocation, what could you possibly like about this?

If Sniper hits can only be allocated to units in base contact, and units in base contact are normally the ones applied to first, you gain nothing in terms of hit allocation.  It's just a -1 armor save.

It will actually cut down on the number of different units that might possibly be hit.  If you double up and both those Banshee units get a hit, both hits have to go on that one unit.  Meanwhile, the next unit over gets away without a hit when a non-sniper CC hit would have rolled over.  So, unless they have enough movement to hit lots of different units without doubling up, they might actually do less damage because of the range restriction, even accounting for the armor save benefit.

Basically, it is a minor boost at best.

And it adds a bunch of fiddliness.  Because every Banshee has one target in range and every other would-be target is out of range you have to roll for each and every Sniper target separately.  That technically applies to normal ranged Sniper fire (or FF Sniper fire) as well.  However, as there are generally multiple targets in range of each Sniper, it rarely matters in practical terms and you can just roll for all of them.

What is good about Sniper CC?

_________________
Neal

Generally it's less fiddly because the banshees are FS.  So say we have a mixed fm of 4 x banshees and 4 x Dire avengers.

Work out the FS damage, this shouldn't be too difficult, then resolve the engagement.  Where was the difficulty?  It's certainly a lot easier than resolving a round of shooting with FWs at 15 cm.

It depends on where the Banshees are and who they are engaged with.  Every unit type has to be tracked separate.  Are you in base contact with a SM character?  You have to roll that Banshee stand separately and only allocate those hits to that particular stand.  The hits on Joe Marine cannot be allocated to the commander regardless of having Sniper.  Same for any mixed target formation.

You also have to break out any units which are doubled up.  Suppose 2 of the Banshees could only reach one SM unit.  You can't just roll 4 dice and assign them all the way across the formation.  Those doubled Banshees both have to attack that unit so if they double up on hits, they have to be assigned to the same unit.  Therefore, they need to be rolled separately from the 1-on-1 pair ups.  To add more of a problem, doubling up can cause a double up on allocation which otherwise wouldn't occur and would actually reduce kills.


You didn't answer my question.  Even assuming that the fiddliness is low most of the time, what is the difference in the end result?  Have the Banshees gained anything substantial?  How does Sniper improve them?

_________________
Neal

Don't people just use different colour dice for stuff like this?  

Our dice bucket has five or six different colours of dice so roll-time can be minimized: "The whites are AP, the greys AT, the blues are Macro, and the black is a TK shot." *grabs dice and rolls*

Just having two different colours of dice would do wonders to reduce "fiddliness".

And, to me, the benefit of sniper is that it gives the -1 to armour saves to represent the Banshee's power weapons without making them Macro-Weapons.

Aside - I really wish there was a Weapon Special Ability that granted just that aspect of the sniper ability, just like I wish scouts could be broken up into two distinct abilities.

_________________
"EPIC: Total War" Lead Developer

Now living in Boston... any EPIC players want to meet up?

What Neal is trying to present is that if 'Sniper' is applied to CC, the only eligible target is the unit in B-B, so you would need to resolve each HB attack separately. For example 8x HBs attacking 4x terminators would get 2x HB per termie, and you would have to resolve the four combats separately because the hits caused by a HB can only be allocated to the target it is touching - it just adds another level of fiddliness.

I am much more concerned about making them into titan killers. Consider a full formation of HBs getting into B-B with a Reaver. Assuming 2x Exarchs that is 10x dice or 8.33 hits (on CC2+). This will inflict 4-5 damage on average with a reasonable chance of killing the Reaver outright before any support fire kicks in - is that really what we are looking for from a 350 point formation???

_________________
"Play up and play the game"

Vitai lampada
Sir Hemry Newbolt

I was just envisoning 40 Banshees leaping all over the place, climbing up a Reaver's hull and slashing through all manner of cables & exposed circuitry.  I don't care if it is realistic or not - the image was fantastic.    

Thanks for that picture.  Was it as good for you?

_________________
author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

Ok, don't all scream at once. To expand on Chroma's wish, is it worth considering a new capability of 'Assassin'?

Definition:- Assassin confers -1 to infantry saves.

This would benefit the situation here, but it would also assist the Tyranids and potentially other units that work better against infantry. Ideally you would confer this on a weapon rather than the unit, and it is more general than "Sniper". Indeed it might also help resolve the issues with that definition as well.

And I do realise that people have been asking for something like this before which has been generally rejected, but it would better represent what people want.

_________________
"Play up and play the game"

Vitai lampada
Sir Hemry Newbolt

Only if it's just me thats allowed to use them  

Just briefly, because I have to go to bed, it's not that Howling Banshees cannot kill lightly armoured troops, rather it is that they are more effective at killing heavier armoured troops, particularly elite troops, such as Marines, so giving them the ignore cover option makes them more effective against a unit type they not supposed to be as effective against, hence why I don't like it.

_________________

It would also assist on the Ordos Xenos Inquisition list.  Lord Inquisitor had an assassin character that we could never iron out and -in the end- he simply clipped it from the list.  A special rule for this would help bring that back.

With that aside, can anyone explain to me why they are soooo unhappy with the 2+ CC they received on this last round of changes?

_________________
author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

Moscovian,

I think the theory is that, even with the CC2+ stat line, that HBs are still inferior and/or have a less useful role than the other aspects.

If that is the only case, IMO the only way to make everyone happy on the stats is to adjust the point value of the formation.  Some notation in the pricing as Banshees being -25 points or whatever. While they are at it I'd make the Warp Spiders +25 points.  Of course, this opens up all sorts of other complicated arguments on the other Aspects.

It's a no-win situation.

_________________
author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

I believe the answer to that question has been presented many times in this thread.
1) The HB does not fulfill the general role in the Fluff,
2) Being a CC specialist, it is much harder to use
3) It is so specialist that the other Aspects work better in virtually every area, even with CC2+:-

- Striking Scorpions have better attacks and saves
- Shining Spears move faster and have better saves
- Warp Spiders are better at clipping and have better saves
- Other FF Aspects have more attacks, shoot as well or have other abilities

Changing the costs goes against the design principle behind Aspects as you know so I suggest we have to think "outside the box" here.

If we return to CC3+ with infiltrate and 'Assassin', would that have the desired effect of making the HBs specialists in killing 'power armour' infantry? Equally, is that niche sufficient to make them attractive or do we need to do more?

Put another way, what would we need to do to make people want to take these CC First strike specialists in preference to other Aspects???

_________________
"Play up and play the game"

Vitai lampada
Sir Hemry Newbolt

I think adding a new general ‘Assassin’ ability as described sounds like a fantastic idea for the Banshees, which could also have applicability in other lists. Gets my vote