Quote: (Evil and Chaos @ 02 Jul. 2009, 13:32 )
Quote: (Mephiston @ 02 Jul. 2009, 13:17 )
The forlorn hope have 2 'brakes' on them, 1 you can only have 1 per retinue taken and 2 they pay for the dreadclaws.
They pay just 20pts for their Dreadclaws for the formation*, and their spacecraft is 50pts cheaper (and much better!) than a Strike Cruiser...
* Meaning the whole Forlorn formation costs 155pts, just 5pts more than 4 (inferior, barring ATSKNF) Scout units.
This is all true, but misses the most important factor.
The big limitation on a "Forlorn Hope Barrage" is the way Forlorn Hope are purchased in conjunction with Retinues. Unlike the SMs who can drop/teleport/air assault with their entire army into the enemy's face on Turn 1 with a Scout Drop, the CSMs are forced to either split their forces into ground (retinue) and deepstrike (Pod/Chosen) elements or to delay their drops until later in the game.
That makes for a tremendous difference in strategic options. Splitting for a Turn 1 drop is, obviously splitting your forces so the CSMs will be outnumbered locally (something like 20-25% on a maxed FH drop entirely in the enemy's face). Waiting until later so your troops consolidate means you give the opponent a turn to maneuver against a vastly outnumbered CSM force and you lose the advantages of a deployment zone drop pod barrage.
That makes for some hard decisions. Do you max the number of barrages, or do you try to limit the number of ground troops that have to be separate? Do you play aggressive, sucking up the local outnumbering situation and hoping the barrages make up for the difference? Do you drop to the enemy's flank, losing some of the pod barrage but limiting the enemy's local outnumbering advantage? Do you drop back towards your own lines, again losing some of the pod barrage, but allowing your ground forces to reinforce that much faster? Do you wait until Turn 2, hoping your ground troops can move and survive so you have a consolidated position after the drop? Do you wait until Turn 2 and try to feint with your ground troops to draw the enemy to where you want them?
Lower SR gives the opponent the possible counters others have mentioned and I don't think anyone has pointed out that 2+ Initiative means your spacecraft might fail to activate, a risk never faced by SMs.
Those strategic questions and other limitations make it really freakin' hard to abuse a FH drop. I took a min-maxed Forlorn Hope drop army to a tourney back during playtesting, when you could take Cult Marines in the FH formation, precisely because this was a major fear that had not been tested to that point. It fared rather poor-to-mediocre against SM, Ork and Eldar. Every opponent thought it was just fine.
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...this does raise the related, but totally off topic question as to why Chaos Space Marine Drop Pods get Deathwind attacks? They're specifically not allowed to have such things in Warhammer 40,000/the background. They're meant to use their Spacecraft for prep-bombardments...
