I (and others) have said it before, and will say it again. Making units pay for their ability to air assault is bad list design. Incredibly so. Make the bloody transport pay for it, since it's what makes it possible.

Otherwise, I insist that Terminators be revised to cost 150 points, while Tacticals cost 600. After all, you can take them both in the same list, so it must balance out, right?

_________________
The Apocrypha of Skaros 1.1
Rogue Trader Expedition 0.4
The Horus Heresy 0.5
Night Lords 0.1
My Trade Thread

Putting all the cost on the aircraft does not give superior results. It just changes which combinations are optimized. Air assault is a "force multiplier" element. Some units benefit tremendously from it. Some don't gain much. As a result, there will always be some combination that does not work as well as another.

So, using the classic Assault Marine/Thunderhawk dilemma, you have 3 choices:

A) Price Assault Marines based on Thawk insert, so that they are too expensive for other uses, knowing that will reduce Assault Marine use in every other context; or

B) Price Thunderhawks based on an Assault Marine insert, so that they are too expensive for other uses, knowing that will mean that Thunderhawks are only ever used to deliver Assault Marines; or

C) Split the "effective point boos" across the two units, trying to keep a little bit of flexibility for each, but knowing that it is also a serious limitation on two formations instead of just one.

All of those are imperfect, but none are "bad design". It's a forced choice of which units/formations are going to be more flexible.

See, A and C are both bad design (at least in a list that purports to represent more than just air assault, though I would argue they're bad design in an air assault list as well).

A forces Assault Marines to be used in one way. C forces Assault Marines to be used in one way (though to a lesser extent than A, and thus it's better than A). B forces Thunderhawks to be used in one way. Which is fine, because Thunderhawk Gunships have one purpose - transporting troops to and from combat zones.

Maybe that's a balanced consideration when you just look at two units in a vacuum. But when you add in every other unit in the list, A and C are forcing them all to be used in Air Assaults, or to be used inefficiently. B forces only the Thunderhawk to air assault - which it wants to do anyway.

Something tells me that when you look at Tacticals with Dreadnought, Assault Marines, Devastators, Terminators, and the various other combinations that fit into Thunderhawks, the benefits they all gain will cover a fairly similar range. If they don't, that's a sign that some units are disproportionately useless outside of this particular context - they should be improved outside of this context, rather than just making everyone else pay for the fact that this one unit isn't as good. As it is, Assault Marines suck outside of Air Assaulting, and everyone else gets to pay for it.

Furthermore, while there may be disparities in how much units benefit from air assaulting, building a list around the idea that units should pay for the potential of doing something is a bad idea on the face of it - if you make them pay for the potential of doing it, then they have to do it, or you're paying for things you're not doing. I mean, various units can potentially take the Commander upgrade, but some gain more than others. Maybe we should decrease the cost by 25 points and increase the cost of all units by 25 points. Almost everyone takes a Hunter, but some units benefit more from it - maybe we should increase the cost of those detachments by 25, and drop the cost of the Hunter to 50. Or what about Dreadnoughts. Nobody uses those, so let's charge 25 points each for them, and increase the cost of all units that can take them by 25. If I seriously proposed any of those, I'd be laughed off the forum. But for some reason it makes sense with Thunderhawks.

B restricts only the Thunderhawk, for all that it may require some care to balance. A and C restrict everything else. For a list which purports to be flexible, I think it should be obvious which is a better option.

_________________
The Apocrypha of Skaros 1.1
Rogue Trader Expedition 0.4
The Horus Heresy 0.5
Night Lords 0.1
My Trade Thread

The ideal is of course that certain formations should pay a surcharge to be thunderhawked, but of course that doesn't really work with the epic ruleset.

Because the delivery method is decided at the start of the game, after lists are written, there is no perfect method.

Actually, there is. Have the Thunderhawk pay extra to add the ability to transport those units (as in make it an upgrade). Alternately, give the units requiring a surcharge an upgrade which allows them to count as X for transport purposes - and remove the ability to transport them from the Thunderhawk. It's gamey as hell, but it could work.

Alternately, improve those units in ways that air assault won't help as much, so the need for a surcharge goes down. If (as an example) Thunderhawking improves Assault Marines 50 points and Devastators 25, it would seem best to improve Assault Marines 25 points somehow (in some way that them air assaulting doesn't influence as much).

_________________
The Apocrypha of Skaros 1.1
Rogue Trader Expedition 0.4
The Horus Heresy 0.5
Night Lords 0.1
My Trade Thread

Well, a lot of marine lists like to use thunderhawks as bombers or on extraction missions. Its actually more fun to have a unit that can be used in so many ways rather than just air assault. If the price is assault marines, that seems fair enough.

But coming back to Land Raiders, yes it would be better for balance across multiple types. Some clearly are just tanks while others are very good if inserted next to the enemy, whether it is to fire at point blank range or assault.

This is not accurate. If Thawks are supposed to transport all sorts of troops to and from the battlefield, then this is also poor design. Thunderhawks priced to transport Assault Marines would only be cost-effective transporting Assault Marines. So, that's not "Thunderhawks just air assault" but "only Assault Marines in Thawks."


They aren't. Assault Marines gain the most. Tacs + Dread the least. Devs and Termies are probably comparable.


Actually, the "it works better with X than with Y" factor is a pretty routine consideration. We talk about that virtually any time there is a discussion of internal list balance for any army. In the multitude of discussions about "mud marine" army lists a plethora of suggestions to drop core formation costs and increase air transport costs in various combinations were dissected in excruciating detail.


The question here is, "How?" The simple fact of it is that an assault formation benefits disproportionately from any "deepstrike" option. You can't change that without changing the essential character of units. The only choice is individual pricing for each deployment option.

I suppose that is a 4th option - detailed point costs based on deployment.

The problem with that should be obvious. Even if you can reasonably separate payloads into 3 "premium" bands for the Thunderhawk (maybe 0, +25, +50), that requires identifying every possible permutation and determining what that particular load's band should be. The LC combinations are, obvious, an order of magnitude more complex. Then, when you get into something like the BA list that can range from 4 to 8 Thawk-able units in all manner of combinations, you increase the number of permutations even farther.

The success of detailed pricing depends on how elegant you can make the pricing formula. If the hassle of calculations is less than the niggling idea that there are a few points "left on the table" then it is worth it. If the calculations cause as much headache and mistakes as the slight imbalance, then it is not worth it. You're talking about maybe 50 points of "effective point differential" in a 3000 point list.

Can that really be reduced to some sort of small ruleset that would allow people to easily remember the costs and that is less bothersome than the perception of a 50 point discrepancy? I won't say the answer is no, but we've not figured it out so far.

Which is still an improvement over "everything not in a Thunderhawk is paying for being in a Thunderhawk anyway." You're not looking at the whole list. Let's say Thunderhawks are now overpriced for everything but transporting Assault Marines. So what? Thunderhawks are taken one, or perhaps two, to a list. Wheras other detachments will be what, four or five to as much as seven or eight? If Thunderhawks are overpriced by twenty-five or fifty points, you lose at most a hundred points. If everything else is overpriced by twenty-five or fifty points, you lose anywhere from about a hundred to four hundred. I know which strikes me as the greater imbalance.

And even if you overlook all of that, what about the simple philosophical problem that the list is built assuming a particular tactic in mind. It is assumed you will be taking Thunderhawks - no exceptions. And what's worst about this is that the list doesn't acknowledge that this is so.



I said range, not that they were completely equivalent. By fairly similar range, I meant that Assault Marines aren't gaining +100 while Tacs and Devs gain nothing.



I know it's a routine consideration. It's just that the solution used to it in this case is one that looks ludicrous when applied elsewhere. If you told people "well, they can take that option, so we're going to charge them part of the cost for it up front," people'd think you were nuts. The solution in other lists is almost always to bite the bullet and accept that some units get more benefit from some options than others.



Then you improve the Assault formation until it is more useful when not deep striking, thus justifying a higher points cost, thus reducing the disproportionateness of the degree to which it benefits from riding in a Thunderhawk. Alternately, you make the Assault formation less useful in a Thunderhawk, thus decreasing its benefit and thus the disproportionateness. Alternately, you accept the idea that Assault Marines get more benefit from riding in Thunderhawks (which makes sense - they would), and move on with your day, with points costs set appropriately. 'Most efficient use' justifies Marines paying for being able to ride in Thunderhawks, I'm sure it can justify Thunderhawks paying for being able to carry Assault Marines. And finally (perhaps the most drastic option), you eliminate the detachment. Because a unit that is useful under only one circumstance isn't worth keeping as an independent unit. Indeed, Assault Marines could work decently as an upgrade to Tactical Detachments.

None of those require changing the essential character of units or individual pricing for each deployment option.

Indeed, considering that Assault Marines are basically conceded to only work as Thunderhawk loads (if at all), I am curious why they are an independent detachment. They'd work quite well as an upgrade, and their role makes sense as a supporting one.



Except it's not 'a few points'. It's anything up to several hundred. A significant percentage of the list.



Perhaps part of the reason no one's figured it out is the insistence that it's not really a problem? The Space Marine list, whenever the possibility of problems are discussed, sees an immediate closure of ranks and denial that it has anything wrong with it from most of the netERC. That's hardly conducive to the development of solutions.

Hell, the Apocrypha of Skaros was initially supposed to be partly an attempt to create a list where the burden of air assaulting moved onto the Thunderhawks rather than staying on the infantry. But there was much pressure to abandon that as a concept, since it would duplicate an existing list. And while I'm not sure I disagree with that reasoning, if you can't make another list and you can't change the current one, what is supposed to be done?

Anyway. Not really the point.

Land Raiders. And all that.

Personally, I support FF 4+.

_________________
The Apocrypha of Skaros 1.1
Rogue Trader Expedition 0.4
The Horus Heresy 0.5
Night Lords 0.1
My Trade Thread

er guys, before you get into some kind of pissing contest, the title of the thread says "Land Raiders" not SM list development

There's a big difference between "this is as good as we think we can make it" and "there's nothing wrong."


Um... no. I don't recall a single person saying you should not try this based on the concept.

I commented early in the 1.0 series that it seemed too cheap because you could build armies just like some that were competitive in other lists, but substantially cheaper. That's the same pricing issue that's always come up with every proposed "make the Thawks pay" ground pounder list. That's pricing, not a concept problem (though it does illustrate exactly my point about trading one set of problems for a different one).

I encouraged the overall concept of a different kind of SM ground force than the Sallie/Scion/Mech and the "Fast Attack" Codex build (with the caveat that you avoid the same-but-cheaper pitfall above):

The presentation from the netERC has generally come across far more as the latter then as the former, at least to me.

[quote=Hena]
The point is that Marines don't shoot very much. You can get around this by putting more units on the ground, but that isn't special forces anymore. Then you can play like IG and the whole point of being Marines gets diluted. Marines aren't a line force. They don't behave like that. In 40k everything behaves like that as it's the nature of the game. In epic that isn't a requirement so armies can behave differently.

AND

I already pointed out a ground based army using the list. So obviously it does work if done properly.[/quote]

[quote=nealhunt]

I can get SM ground-pounders to work. They need to use deepstrike options, but they don't need to be heavy on air assault or take lots of Warhounds.

AND

All that said, they are still quite unforgiving if you make a mistake and you have to play a maneuver game. You have to work on claiming objectives. SMs are extremely unlikely to win on points.[/quote]

That doesn't look like "it's as good as we can do". That looks like "it's OK/it's not really a problem". I'd expect people stuck with whatever was as good as they could do to be encouraging attempts at improvement, rather than claiming nothing was wrong.

_________________
The Apocrypha of Skaros 1.1
Rogue Trader Expedition 0.4
The Horus Heresy 0.5
Night Lords 0.1
My Trade Thread

Well, you see, Space Marines can shoot very effectively, and are quite brave. They make Rhinos a lot more effective.

_________________
The Apocrypha of Skaros 1.1
Rogue Trader Expedition 0.4
The Horus Heresy 0.5
Night Lords 0.1
My Trade Thread

I find the usual suggestions of points tweaks only take into account a single style of T/Hawk and LC list,the straight air assault. Points are usually worked out by adding +25/+50 points to the T/Hawk's and LC's and subtracting -25 points from other formations.

What about the other styles of use for them, the re-cycle style Air Assault list,T/Hawk Bomber list or the multi Teleport and drop pod with T/Hawk pick ups lists. These would be greatly effected with points tweaks , some drop lists could even benefit.

Adjusting any list to make certain styles of play more viable is tricky when it has effects on multiple other styles of play in that list too.

I think the simplest solution is to re-name the Codex Marine list the "Adeptus Astartes Rapid Insertion list" and create an "Adeptus Astartes Ground Insertion list" which would omit THawks/LC's and Spacecraft.

Don't even need to eliminate them, just sticking all aerospace assets into the 1/3 limitation is a massive dynamic change.

Did Hena just break this out of the LR thread?
=================

The issue is that there is a never-ending set of digressions and eventually things become recursive. The chain of this-necessitates-that comes back around to some earlier point in the chain, but with a different answer.

Cheaper air-transportable units and more expensive air means cheaper drop pod forces. Charge for pods?
More expensive air means planetfalling aircraft are even more underpowered. Cheaper spacecraft?
Cheaper space craft means cheaper drop pod forces. Charge for pods ... again?

And so on.

Eventually, you have to reach a point where the tradeoffs are close enough and live with the remaining oddities.