I just think that recently titans have become popular across all the races at UK tournaments.

Is this really a bad thing with the scale of game that epic is trying to portray?

Must say after reading through all this stuff
http://www.tacticalwargames.net/forums....t=16610
I've come round to no ranged fire for grey hunters (as long as they don't become air assault bunnies) as they have what, 1 plasma gun between 10?

Thinking about Space Wolf army composition, other ways to depart from the codex marine layout would be to have a strict 1 grey hunter/3 other split or grey hunter core/others support as the former, but then rarer stuff (blood claws with jump packs, scouts, allies) all in the 1/3 restriction, or simply rarer stuff in with the allies, everything else in the main bit.

Another random thought. The Space Wolf codex makes a big thing about Sagas. Different to a defunct game console these seem to do all sorts. How about to represent them the Space Wolf characters lose Invulnerable save but get +1 attack? (FF for Rune Priests, CC for the others.) So they have their grand tale (I killed everything but the kitchen sink), but get to die more gloriously(easily) (He killed everythign but the kitchen sink).



It seems I can't send attachments by pm and helo Dave doesn't have a separate email address so I am attaching these here. Note they are for Daves eyes only so no one else look.

Curses it seems zips don't attached anymore, so here is a consolidated word file.

And the file is too big? Bloody Microsoft. Here is a PDF instead.

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'Abolish red trousers?! Never! Red trousers are France!' – Eugene Etienne, War Minister, 1913
"Gentlemen, we may not make history tomorrow, but we shall certainly change the geography."
General Plumer, 191x

Looks good to me, I'm not sure some of the changes to FF values will go down too well.

I'll mail you something more thoughtful....

Bikes: armor 5+.

Wolf riders: armor 3+.

Really?

I CANNOT UNSEE IT NOW!

Seeing as people are reading it anyway, I might as well post here

After reading the proposal I like the majority of the suggestions, there's now quite a bit of a different feel to the list (and you're now forced to take Grey Hunters, which is good for me).

I agree with the Thunderwolves going in the restricted section, or at least be limited (0-1 or something), just calling the restricted section 'Allies' (i.e. formations not from the great company, although it causes a problem for the Skyclaws, again maybe a 0-1 per Grey Hunter formation upgrade?)

I will admit to not being a fan of the following:

the Various 'Claw' units losing a point of firefight.
afaik they're all armed with bolt pistols or bolters, which have traditionally conveyed firefight values of 5 and 4, they might not be as expert as the other users, but then a Guardsman fires and Autocannon as well as a Havoc in this game

Also, the bikes losing a point of armour save, again they're not scout bikes, the chaps riding them are in power armour.

I agree that to be completely fluffy the Blood Claws (and similar) need to have some sort of penalty representing their status as noobs, what about dropping them to initiative 2+ instead?

I think this would be an excellent approach and would certainly be something "new" in a Marine army!

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

Could call the limited section 'Great Wolf Sanctioned' or some such. The scouts were in there along witht he claws because they are cheap. The fluff reason is skyclaws are rare and scouts are a non great company formation.

Init 2+ is possible - though begs the question why not have it for other chapters scouts, who are less trained than the Space Wolves 'claws. The biggest problem is its a lot of testing and you have to account for 1+ air transports bypassing it.

The big thing behind the dropping of the FF was actually the weapons (and is why marine bikers have a higher FF than assault marines). The swift claws for instance have between 3 - 3 twin bolters, 1 plasma gun, 2 bolt pistols.

Regular bikers would have 3 twin bolters, 2 plasma guns, 1 plasma pistol/combiplasma gun.

They carry significantly less weapons than regular codex marines in all the blood claw variations, which is understandable considering they have a ton of special rules to make them as good at close combat. In a way its similar to the grey hunters who only get half the special weapons of regular marines, so not worth giving them a shot but the FF stays up.

The lower BS meaning they hit almost 20% less I discounted along the same rational as the Guard. However I do think it is factored into the Firefight (as they have FF5+ as opposed to marines 4+).

A further important aspect is in regular marine armies Bikes work as tactical marines as both have FF4+. Here it again creates a role for Grey Hunters. The army looks like it has poor FF, until you factor in Grey Hunters, vehicles, land speeders etc. Stuff regular marine armies don't always use.

The drop for the bikes was to allow a bigger formation without the cost running away and the fact they are toughness 4 compared to toughness 5. This I think means they are 20% easier to kill which is almost a drop to 5+.

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'Abolish red trousers?! Never! Red trousers are France!' – Eugene Etienne, War Minister, 1913
"Gentlemen, we may not make history tomorrow, but we shall certainly change the geography."
General Plumer, 191x

Sorry to be pedantic but you seem to have a confused concept of truth.

Let's have a look at your statement.



Not stressed as an opinion.
Not stated as an estimate.
Not clarified to be only 'successful' Marine army lists.

Stated as researched fact.

Epic fail.

Again sorry to be nitpicking but I can't stand inaccuracy, false statements, and opinions stated as facts.

You analysis in your later post does indeed show Warhounds are very dominant in most Marine armies. So stated as an opinion that most Marine armies include Warhounds, and most have more Warhounds than Tacticals is sound, and I agree. I don't think this is the intended background for most Marine armies, just a flaw in the Marine list (a lack of alternate hard units/ MW's/ etc).

As we are being pedantic


I looked at a dozen lists. I actually only looked at the top placing lists (the ones with more were 9th, 10th and 12th, the even ones were 8th, 11th and 18th).
In those lists I looked at in my limited field indeed not a single one had more or was on par.

If you read this missing out the first line 'Using the handy EpicUK tourny records I just looked at a dozen marine lists from this year'. And instead inserted 'Looking at every list ever' you would indeed come to the conclusion my comment was erroneous. However I had first limited the field, though communicating this imprecisely.

When a full and more exhausted search is done it indeed reveals less than a third of lists have par/more and that they also place lower than lists with less.

However I feel overall I was precise enough to communicate the relative unattractiveness in competitive play of Tacticals to titans in the context of ensuring Grey Hunters end up a core choice unlike their codex brethren.

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'Abolish red trousers?! Never! Red trousers are France!' – Eugene Etienne, War Minister, 1913
"Gentlemen, we may not make history tomorrow, but we shall certainly change the geography."
General Plumer, 191x

As I noted above, if the Codex Marine list were to incentivise matching the background, then a typical 3000pt army would include 3-4 Tactical formations.

That 0-1 is the more typical range in Tournaments presumably shows that this formation type is of limited utility in a Tournament setting (generally only used as a Supreme Commander's formation, as it has a bit more staying power than other Marine formations).

I've been wondering for a long while whether a 25pt price drop wouldn't be justified.

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

Is it more a case that thunderhawks and warhounds give cheaper staying power (relative to achieving tournament goals)?

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If using E-Bay use this link to support Tac Com!
'Abolish red trousers?! Never! Red trousers are France!' – Eugene Etienne, War Minister, 1913
"Gentlemen, we may not make history tomorrow, but we shall certainly change the geography."
General Plumer, 191x

I would say it is simply that Tactical formations underperform for their assigned points cost, and so the points are better-spent elsewhere.

A 25 point price drop may well serve to allieviate this.

_________________
Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

Were can one find this level of 'fluff'?

I'd have thought for the size of battle epic portrays that a battle company plus attachments would be the norm. So 1 Tac, 1 Dev + 1 assault.

If people are getting all upset over titan over representation why are there not similar howls over the number of terminators employed?

Dropping the points on Tac's wouldn't, imo, change the numbers of warhounds. The fearless, void shielded and fast moving unit will always be the option of choice.

I think it's a combination of those reasons and a few others.

Yes, the Warhound provides a far more resilient unit than most 4x stand Marine formations. More resilient in terms of Fearless, shields and lastly armour in most cases- for the same pts as say a Devastator formation.
It is also one of very few places Marines can gain decent ranged Macro Weapons.

The Tacticals on the other hand, Assault can fight combat better than them, Devastators can provide fire support (and actual firing) better- as is the intention in the background.
As long as your smart in deploying these 2 formations where they excel best (and with high mobility and SR 5 it's not hard), there is no need to include the jack of all trades, master of none of Tacticals.

The only place they have worth is as the Supreme Commanders bunker on the ground, purely because they have more numbers- as E&C points out.


The Warhound is near compulsory because it fulfills a role Marines lack- that of a very tough little unit with high mobility and Macro Weapons.

I find this a flaw, because I believe the Titan/Aircraft should be desirable, but optional, there should always be an alternative choice in the 'core' of the army.
For example, Imperial Guard can take Tank Companies instead of Reavers for similar firepower, endurance, etc. They can take Shadowswords for Titan Killer.
They can take Artillery and AA to fulfill the role of the Aircraft.
The Titans and Aircraft in the Guard list are desirable, but not compulsory.

I say this because I don't think armies of Guard or Marines will always have a Titan Legion on call for every skirmish, or even full Imperial Naval support.