First battle report is up. My impressions are in the last post:
viewtopic.php?f=84&t=26011&p=493377#p493377

We have a Red Corsairs player in our group. She regularly takes a Thunderhawk, and it seems to disappear too quickly for the price. So giving the thing fearless was part of a brainstorm of ideas to give it that shot in the arm. Frankly I'm a little surprised that the T-hawk is the WE that has garnered such a reaction. The Slaanesh titans and knights need a good testing to see if they're OTT (titan stats will stay of course as they're in other lists much more established than this one; price can change though). I'd like play testers to try adding knights to the WE section (still 0-1) and see if that's a bit fairer to opponents. If they have the time to compare them as support and WE section formations, so much the better.

@Kyusinchains: I look forward to your input as you use the list. Your help would be much appreciated

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Let us playtest like the Greeks of old... You know the ones I mean

The list looks like a good start to me.

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"I don't believe in destiny or the guiding hand of fate." N. Peart

I was already complaining about having noticed the EC TH being better in a couple of ways than the RC CSM TH, but it having fearless on top as well is just crazy and wrong. No offence was intended or expected to be taken, I just particularly object to object to this idea and wanted to emphasise that.

Rather than clutter up the EC list with a post about the Red Corsairs I've responded over in the Red Corsairs thread instead.

Why are the Titans so expensive by the way? Epic-UK cost them as 275 and 225 in their Emperor's Children list (worth a look over if you're not familiar with it).

Could you outline how this list does/does not follow on from the old EC list? i assume it is a total re-start from what you've said, what were the problems with the old list to require this?

DC2 knights – what's the justification? it makes sense for knights to be DC2, but this is not the way knights are played in other lists. They are DC1 and/or just AV. DC2 knights as you have them look very powerful for the price, even at 0–1. You could move them to w/e allowance as mentioned in bat rep, but then they should not be DC2 WE to start with if comparing to other lists. (compared to, say, a LR, knights are DC2 size, but compared to other lists in NetEA they should not be). RC, AMTL, Knight world and the old EC list all had/have DC1 or AV for core knights (aside form castellans).

Thunderhawk – already being discussed They have drawn a strong reaction as they allow a new play style to be introduced to the list. If you want to base the list off a balanced chaos list using thunderhawks why not use the RC? using BL because it is balanced but then adding fearless thakws would seem to defeat the purpose of starting with a balanced list. I'm not opposed to thunderhawks per se, i agree the fluff is there, but surely this means BL, DG, WE, TS should all get them … seems like a decision that should be faction wide.

I like the flavoured LR/pred!

Pretty sure Ben has playted the RC list a fair bit if you want more input on that front?

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AFK with real life, still checking PMs

The list is intended to be a substantial rewrite, yes. The rationale behind it was to get it closer to the current/near past version of the BL. I chose this framework because it provided a more stable baseline of testing (presumably a balanced starting point), would allow players to take existing BL armies and tweak them a little bit to make a flavorful EC army, and give the army a hybrid legion-war band feel to fit the fluff. The RC list structure is very flexible and war band style, but also (for good fluff reasons) very codex marine-style. With all the chaos goodies (even before I added some more) it has available, the RC list structure is not feasible for this army.

The previous list framework was 1 core unlocking 6 support FMs, the core being noise marines. Core FMs being all fearless and unlocking so much support seemed too flexible to be balanced. Not every emperors child is a noise marine either. Fluff reasons therefore were a factor. As a practical matter a structure similar to that of the BL would allow more play without people collecting minis that would only work for this list.

On the knights, the fluff on them indicates that while they are knights in name, they are a different bread of cat now, basically daemons in various-sized walkers. The SM/TL stats had two of them as superheavies and all of them very shooty. Giving the bigger ones 2DC was a way to differentiate them. They're designed to be pretty weak in CC. However, as you've already noticed, I'm concerned that they are a bit overpowered. The most likely remedy is to move them to the WE section, but I'd also consider limiting the 2DC ones to 4/FM.

For the Thunderhawk, (this goes for the knights too), I do not presume that its inclusion should affect other lists. Actually I would prefer that it not. I have the feeling it's going to be difficult enough to get the thing tested in this list, let alone all the others you mention. Testing common units across lists in a very holistic manner may be ideal, but is a recipe for gridlock. I put the t-hawk in this list to give it a more fast/light feel, the other half of that was dropping the battle titans. It is up to other ACs to make such trade offs in their lists if it's warranted.

The titans got a substantial price bump because they are very fast and have either more shots on one hand, and much better CC on the other, than the warhound.

Back to the thunderhawk: the first play test included one, and I wasn't blown away, even with fearless. This leads me to aim for more play testing. Calling it crazy and wrong and using bold and underlined text is not going to get it removed, no matter how much there is. Theory-hammer is just slightly more valuable. What neither takes into account is actually using the unit in the context of an actual wargame. Evidence demonstrating the viability of this and other units would be very appreciated. I'll refer everyone to the first post as to what I consider evidence. I assume everyone likes to actually play E:A, so that shouldn't be a problem.

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Let us playtest like the Greeks of old... You know the ones I mean

Thanks for the detailed response

Is it intended that the smallest knight can be taken in the thunderhawk?

If sticking to DC2 I think the larger knights may have to bite the bullet and get a points increase. Compared to a 75pt LR they are pretty good, and the +25pts they cost over the hell-strider buys you so resilience (and WE class) for such a low upgrade price. 0–1 and WE allowance might balance it, but on paper the DC2 ones look such good value at those points that a points change or re-stat might be a simpler fix. Playtesting may prove otherwise, however!

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AFK with real life, still checking PMs

No knights in thunderhawks, ever.
That's something to consider on the knight stats. 5+ RA 2DC is similar to a 4+ RA AV. Not sure what INV does to that.

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Let us playtest like the Greeks of old... You know the ones I mean

from list:
'Transport (eight infantry units or armoured vehicle units with the walker ability'

Currently means you can pile hell-striders into a thawk

on knights: add fearless into the equation for knights as well, much harder to kill.
*edit: and the extra DC makes it better in assaults, it's a big buff.

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AFK with real life, still checking PMs

Ah, good catch. Still, not intended. Please don't use it. If you must, add "takes up three transport slots" to the AV knight stats. That should fix things

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Let us playtest like the Greeks of old... You know the ones I mean

Subjucators should have 2x hellblades each (giving 2 TKd3 extra attacks in total).
You also have the Subjucator and Questor at 1+ initiative, both have always been 2+ and I believe the critical has been changed to match the Warhound (auto extra point of damage).

You are right. Scout titans should be 2+ initiative. The tournament pack has only 1 hell blade per Titan though. Perhaps a typo there? I think we might have actually played with the new crit during playtest 1. If it was indeed supposed to be applied to Slaanesh titans, then play testers should do so.

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Let us playtest like the Greeks of old... You know the ones I mean

The new crit is a stumble and automatically take an extra point of damage, we just did the the stumble.

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Dave

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Squats 2019-10-17

Got playtest feedback of a kind, not ideal as will be seen … hopefully more useful than nothing! Drew up the following list for a game over the weekend, but ultimately decided not to use it for *that* game, as I felt a list with so much fearless would not be fun against an opponent with relatively little epic experience. However, having got the army out and with a table of terrain left over I ended up playing the list against myself in two games vs. army lists (NetEA Steel Legion, NetEA Codex Astartes) drawn up by a third party (Kyussinchains), with additional (remotely provided) move suggestions by same third party.


EC 4.0 2k/7 activations
Retinue (+1 CSM, +2 noise marine replacements)
Retinue (+4 noise marine replacements, +1 dreadnaught) (sup com in one of the two rets but i forget which :/)
Terminators (+DP replacement)
Knight pack (5* hell-scourge) BTS
Thunderhawk (carrying the dreadnaught retinue)
Subjugator
Hellblades
(I really should have added a hunter, but forgot they were in the new list.)

Subj was played as having 2 hellblades, but had no significant role in either game aside from getting shot at, broken and/or killed.


Outline of games
Table was slightly under standard size (forget exact dimensions), but then only playing 2k points. Don’t have full batreps, but to give context to thoughts (see second post) here is a rough outline of each game:

vs. Steel Legion
Lots of flanking action. EC knights and air assault knocked out SL on one flank, SL warhounds knocked out the EC on the other. Knights put heavy casualties on the RHQ and used their 10cm 2DC WE cohesion to spread across objectives, followed up by an air assault attempt on a commissar-shadowsword (which had just popped a knight). Air assault would have been a disaster except most of the EC units were fearless (including the thawk), so only 2 stands and the dread were lost. On the other flank warhounds mauled the subj, lost a couple of DC to terminators and went on to the EC blitz (held by a ret). Played disrupt incorrectly here, and gave noise marine disrupt hits to the hound from void shield hits, resulting in 3–0 to EC. Had disrupt vs. voids shield been played correctly it would have been 1–0 to EC.

vs. Marines
Meat grinder of a game concentrated in centre of the board, at the end marines only had their BTS and a single thunderbolt remaining, the rest had been wiped out. Knights broke on T1 from terminator air assault, lost assault and 3DC from hits but took no further casualties due to fearless and withdrew to terrain in middle of board (N.B. realised later I had misread the hell-scourge FF as being 5+ (not 3+) from the hell-knight data entry). Subj broke from predator and speeder crossfire and ended the turn broken in cover along from the knights. Both rallied, subj then killed immediately by predators, in exchange for knights wiping out the speeders. Warhound moved in and shot everything at the knights, poor dice rolls only taking off 1DC. Turn three saw the warhound killed by chaos terminators and the marine terminators coming in for a second round of air assault (having been picked up again t2) on marshalled knights (knights having been re-BM-prepped for assault by thunderbolts). Assault went badly, one knight lost in exchange for the three remaining terminator stands and the thunderhawk. Chaos air assault came in and wiped out the predators. 2–0 EC.

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AFK with real life, still checking PMs

Thoughts on two main areas:

Air assault: hard to judge effectiveness from above games as one air assault went very badly (vs. commissar-shadowsword with good dice rolls) while the other was against a soft target. Fearless was the only thing that saved the thunderhawk in the assault that went wrong. More testing to be done.

Knights: current new stats are too good, overpowered both internally and externally. Formation basically holds all the cards, except that it sometimes gets in its own way in assaults with WE LoS blocking. It’s very fast + walker, can spread out massively (though lacks scout that slaanesh knights have elsewhere), good in assault, about twice as tough as it should be at that cost, AND fearless – so even if you beat them in assault it does you little good. Predators in second game might have messed them up pretty badly, but the subj was there presenting a sustained fire cross-fire target, which was too good to miss! Strongly opposed to current stats/price both in theory and practice – these need a re-think before playtesting I feel.

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AFK with real life, still checking PMs

Thanks, Apoc. Kyussinchains too for assistance in your modified solitaire play. Much appreciated. What would have happened (and I realize this is guesswork) if the T-hawk wasn't fearless? Would you have been able to build the same list if the knights were in the WE section?

What kinds of list builds did you use against the EC?

I generally share your feelings on large numbers of fearless FMs. With noise marines featured heavily because who the army represents, they add up quickly. I should be getting some more play tests in soon. A bit more time should yield a good sample of game play and decisions can be made then.

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Let us playtest like the Greeks of old... You know the ones I mean