Nice work Knave! I'll try and get some games with this list in over the holidays. I have a bunch of tacticals icthing to get out on a level playing field with all the prissy specialists (assaults, devs, scouts, thawk stickjockeys and warhound princeps)who think they're the real fighting strenght of the Chapter...  

The Terminus... a supercharged LR on speed. No transport capacityfor extra generators to feed the las-cannons. It IS a simple and logical solution. I'll try and make a model that looks decent. Because, yeah, at least I have more LRs than I can possibly use, so any balanced and interesting variant to tinker with is appreciated.

Oversized marine formations. As long as they are costed right, it prolly won't bet that much of a problem. Won't they be vulneraböe to clipping assaults? Well, let's play-test.  

_________________
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- Lieutenant General Michael O'Neal

On the LR Terminus:

I do think you need to keep it. I agree, from a design perspective, it's... , however, from a game effectiveness perspective (40K), it is quite powerful and allows the SMs to skip the ol' "I need a SHT in my list" and to deal with other races WE equivalents.

So, please do consider leaving it in, if only for what capabilities it gives a grounder list.

_________________
Honda

"Remember Taros? We do"

- 23rd Elysian Drop Regiment

Here's one  

1) Thunderhawk
2) Thunderhawk
3) Terminators + Librarian          
4) Tacticals + Hunter + Supreme Commander
5) Tacticals + Chaplain
6) Devastators + Hunter
7) Land Speeders
Scouts
9) Warhound
10) Warhound
11) Thunderbolts

Ares:


If it's not power-armored with a bolter, it's not really a Space Marine. Give 'em what for for me!  



With old Space Marine era LRs, my plan is to just pop the sponsons off one and put them on the other one somewhere.  The sponsonless one gets HBs and becomes a Prometheus.  They're already less-than 100% representations of the actual stats, a little more won't hurt.  

With the newer ones, the best thing (aesthetically) may be almost a double turret - a forward TLLC where the TLHB should be and two LCs behind that on the hatch.  Alternately, strap the LCs to the TLLCs (making them TrLLCs, I suppose.  ;)) and put the other TLLC where the TLHB normally goes.  



The (understandable) worry is that adding more units increases effectiveness exponentially rather than linearly.  Then it becomes almost impossible to balance the formations, and one either needs to do something kind of like the Orks (having different formation scales) or scrap the whole idea altogether.  If all the options together are more powerful than separately, there is a problem - and it's one that's hard to deal with.  

* * *

Honda:


In textual form, this quote is hilarious.    



That was the plan.  The unfortunately unsightly plan.  



Don't worry.  It's not going anywhere, at least not until it's demonstrated that it's completely redundant and useless.  And that you can't fit enough Lascannons on the model to represent it.  

Speaking of which, I think I'll convert my Prometheus and a Terminus tonight.  Now to decide which Chapter goes first - Ice Lords or Steel Dogs.  Or even both!  

* * *
dptdexys:


And how'd it do, then?

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It won London 2009

http://www.epic-uk.co.uk/ukepicachampio ... don09.html

Well, darn.  

Oh well.  Doesn't necessarily mean Tacs aren't overpriced, and if they're undercosted in this list I think it'll become pretty obvious pretty fast.

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The Tacs are only overpriced if you play a fully ground focused army.

For the average SM list with Pods and T/hawks they are fine at 300.

The list posted above would work well with 3 Tactical formations (swopping the Devs for the extra Tacs and dropping the Speeders to scouts).

The average SM list really is trying to do many things at once, isn't it...

Fortunately, since this pretty much is a fully ground focused army and Thunderhawk cost has been increased by the difference between the old Tac cost and the new Tac cost, I think I'm in the clear.  

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I may be missing something but doesn't the prometheus require a captain or supreme commander to be in the same formation to use its special ability currently? That is the special ability is to do away with the 5cm restriction for using commander.



As a general design point high priced highly fragile units are not worth it. The Rhino is crap and waiting to die in Epic, hence I think the far more sensible 25 points, gives leader, alternative to a character. Keeps your ground formation moving as they pick up more bm's than airborn ones.

2 tacticals in a landing craft are nifty as well.



No AA weapon has the same range as the pure ground equivalent. A hydra autocannon is on just the ground version 60cm, heavy bolters on a thunderhawk or marauder are 15cm. Etc.

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I agree with the concerns about large TSKNF formations.  It's something to keep an eye on.

Razorback - The defined "2 for 1" swap means it is impossible to have a formation with extra transport capacity.  That actually makes a mech infantry list less viable because the first vehicle hit slows the formation unless there are commensurate infantry casualties.

Land Speeders definitely don't need a price drop.  Tornadoes should be a free exchange.

Land Speeder Tempests... It's a small formation even for Marines.  It will be fragile under fire and pretty weak if caught in an assault.  I'm not sure what the point of it is.  Are you using a separate formation to avoid a Tempest in every Speeder formation for the token AA?

I'd be interested to see what happens with Mechanized Assault Marines.

Thunderfire cannons are definitely not worth 65 points.  Compared to Devs, they have worse speed, armor, CC and FF, and 2/3 the firepower with slightly better range.  There are only a few situations where the special abilities make up the difference in firepower but they cost more.  You can do a similar comparison with Vindicators.  These should be closer to 50 points.

I'm not sure Thudd Guns are better than Devs, either.  Mostly the same, but with slower speed, just over half the firepower and indirect fire, which is useful but needs as many units with IDF as possible to maximize.  That sounds like an even swap to me.  As an internal balance comparison, a Thudd Gun "arty" formation would be 330 points (Devs @250 + 80 for 4 upgrades).  They might be more durable than Whirlwinds and can garrison but they pack less firepower and don't have the Whirlwind ability to move out of harm's way if necessary.  Are there situations where you'd rather have Thudd Guns than Whirlwinds, considering the point difference?  I'd say something closer to an even trade is the way to go.

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Neal

If I seem terse, it's because my desktop locked up twice while typing this.  So I've answered all these questions three times.    
Two replies below:
TRC:


"Allows characters assigned to unit to replace the commander special ability’s '5cm' restriction with 'any formation on table' for purposes of combined assaults."  Unit in Epic refers to a stand or a model, not to the formation, quiaff?  By a literal reading, this means that the LRP's ability can only be used by a Commander assigned directly to the LRP - other Commanders would be part of the same formation, but not the same unit.  I may be wrong, or that may not be what the rule's supposed to say.  But that's how it seems to work right now.  



Except that doesn't fit well with what the Damocles does or when it is deployed.  It's deployed for major campaigns and is a more powerful command vehicle than the Prometheus.  It's used to communicate between far-flung forces and coordinate efforts - having it be a source of inspiration for the soldiers in the same unit feels weird.  It's simply not a commander substitute.  

The Damocles has the same abilities as the Prometheus in 40K - and then more on top of those.  It's supposed to provide a commander with almost any information he can think of and allow communication between all the elements of forces.  That seemed worthy of a reroll.  I'd pondered trying to represent the orbital bombardments, air support or teleport homers, but decided most of those weren't very useful and it made more sense to represent the fact that it's even better at coordinating forces and providing a commander with information than the Prometheus is.  

Would a lower price make it better?  It is supposed to be quite vulnerable, but very useful if you can keep the enemy away from it.  At the moment it may be hard to get 75 points of useful out of it.  



Fair enough.  I'll reduce the range in the next version.  I'm keeping the speed the same, though.  There's no reason for it to be slower than the normal Land Speeder - they're both still heaps faster than all the other Space Marine vehicles.  

* * *
nealhunt:



Don't worry.  The intent is not to have marines wandering around the battlefield in unstoppable, unkillable formations.  One of the two, maybe.  But certainly not both.  ;)  



Since you can cheerfully leave your men behind to die, commensurate casualties are available on-demand!    

I've always seen the "extra Razorback" as an unintentional consequence of the way its rule worked, rather than an intended ability.  I may be wrong.  If the change turns out to greatly weaken things, I'll undo it.  



Probably.  For that, I went with the NetEA standard, on the theory that there presumably was a reason it was changed back.  



Pretty much, yeah.  That's not how they're used in the fluff.  



Fair point.  My points calculations for a lot of things were laboring under misapprehensions that, in hindsight, make no sense whatsoever.  The Thudd Gun one is worse.  



I originally figured +10, just to be on the safe side.  Then I forgot that Devastators had two shots, so it became whatever it is now. Thanks for pointing it out - it'll be changing...

EDIT: So far, I've got about seven changes that 100% will happen (add the Scouts cost, change LS cost, change Tempest stats/formation/cost, reduce Damocles cost, increase Demi-Company cost slightly, and reduce Thudd Gun cost to about 5).  I'll likely update pretty soon, then leave the list alone until the New Year (I'd leave it alone right now, but at least half the above is stupid mistakes I shouldn't have made).

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I hate that The answer is use a word processor program or a decent browser that remembers what you type.



Thats curious, we have it as any commander in the formation in the Salamanders list, doesn't make sense to have a marine commander 'riding' a desk! Where are you getting your description from?


It might be the background word for word, but this is not 40k. A system fine with a weapon that is toss a coin, win if its heads. If you have a powerful but weak vehicle in a formation that is not flak it will get sniped by aircraft or even simply killed 2/3's of the time it is hit. You might want to have the worlds most tooled up Rhino but in Epic its just too binary - units work best when their survivability and power is more on par as they are easier to balance and less affected by optimal use.

Is then your design goal to have a functioning vanilla marine infantry ground list, or something else? You will find out yourself during play, if you don't go and read the past threads and simply find out, that marine ground formations need to deal with transport and bm issues to remain effective. Having a 25 point leader option does that and as the Damocles fills the idea of a command and control rhino. Also it makes it less all powerful than a Land Raider C&C which is appropiate as they are packed with a lot more gear.

And I wouldn't see Leader as inspiration, rather as improved command and control - something this is meant to do.



I think that was meant as a balancing mechanism with other land speeders and to ensure it couldn't flak rush all over the place.



You need to go back and read all the marine transport threads and salamander threads. Marine suffer from a problem no other race does - their infantry is tougher than their transports. As a result you run out of mobility before you run out of men. The Razorback thing was unintentional but actually turned out to be a vital patch as any regular ground suffering marine player will say.

A summery of all the games and fixes to date would be the razorback stop-gap, the added ablative predators (normally in addition to the razorback) and the salamander (sorry if I keep mentioning them but most of their development was a struggle to find ways of making mechanised mariens work, with the added caveat of trying to get them to embody the chapter) fix which was to remove the 'free' razorback but allow the addition of 1-2 land raiders in addition to rhinos and razorbacks, effectively buying more tranpsort slots and armour. Here the trade off is speed and points for armour and transport, the added pred and razor option being points for an ablative unit and extra transport slot and the stop gap as a cheap way of getting an ablative unit/possible spare transport slot.

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In the Salamanders List you have to put a Captain in the Land Raider Prometheus (the Upgrade not theu nit with the Captain) in order toloose the 5cm restriction for combined assaults.


And for the record: In the Imperial Armour 2 update the Land Raider Prometheus looses allit's specialrules. It has only different weapons cpmpared to a generic Land Raider. he Damocles Rhino kept his special rules.

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Oh, I did.  But after it locked up the second time I switched computers.  I think the fan's dead on the desktop, so everything's overheating in minutes (the way my computer case is, I can't look and see.  But it certainly doesn't ACT like it's working).  



NetEA Compendium.  Though I'd be curious where BlackLegion is getting his info from, as well, since he seems to be under the same impression as me.  

Also, screw Imperial Armor update.  It's just trying to keep us down.  ;)  



I'm actually OK with it getting killed each time it's hit.  I just want to price it competitively so if you can keep it from getting hit, it's a sweet deal, and if you can't, it's still mildly useful.  In short, for this, I'm OK with optimal use et al.  It's a command vehicle - it getting destroyed should be damaging, and it surviving should be very helpful.  



I was going for functioning vanilla marine infantry ground list with a few more options for fun/flavor and to prevent this from basically being "recosting of Codex: Astartes list, v3.9".  



Er...the Damocles is supposed to be more powerful than the LR, not less...  The Damocles is packed with a lot more gear than the LR - the LR keeps room for ten men, while the Damocles fills that all with comms.  



Fair point.  However, it's limited to one formation, which really goes against the concept of a powerful comms vehicle.  Providing leader to all formations would be too powerful - how about providing leader to any one formation on the tabletop at a time?  Gives you the whole powerful, long-ranging comms thing, and is a little more useful.  Also a little less redundant with the Supreme Commander.  

With that and the LRP ability, would 50 points seem fair?  Or would 65 be better?  Or is this one of those "playtest it a lot first" things?  



Possibly.  Didn't see much discussion on it in the thread.  I don't think it's likely to be overwhelmingly powerful with the extra 5cm.  



As someone else commented in one of those threads, the fact that every other race can take craploads of ablative transports and marines can't is not necessarily a problem with marines.  This thread recaptures the debate splendidly, I think.  In that it's a mess that ends with no real answer either way.    

Keep in mind - the list does provide for ablative Predators/Vindicators.  Adding Land Raiders would be another option, but you can add up to four ablative tanks to the formation right now.  

Another option would be to make it so LR formations could transport other units.  Likely would be worth bumping the points on a LR formation up to 375 or so, but it'd provide an option.  It'd be very messy to work out, though, and I'm not sure I'm really comfortable with the idea, or at least with all its ramifications.  



If you didn't mention the Salamanders I'd be a little concerned.  You have been working on them for a while, after all.  And the advice has been quite helpful, so don't worry about that.  

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It does BL?

Cut and paste -
Notes: Reinforced Armour, Thick Rear Armour, Transport (may carry one Terminator unit OR two of the following units: Tactical, Devastator & Scout units), any unit in the same formation as the Prometheus may ignore the 5cm restriction when using the commander special ability.

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