2 assaults from winning positions, the Cyclops was 1 up as well . You were well worth the win though. I tried too hard to recover quickly from losing the land train in your first activation and ended up throwing away units as you cleverly picked me off. But yes, definitely illustrates the difference between an overlord and a fearless shadowsword. My campaign to have them dropped in points or made fearless begins now

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Come to think of it, it was 4 assaults that turn wasn't it? Not a glorious turn for the squats really... Gotta say that was one of the more glorious games for the shadowsword though, and beating the berserkers really was the icing on the cake

Oh god it was, which adds insult to injury it being the turn I finally got to go first! That said, your activation rolls were as bad as my assaults. The shadowsword was sensational. They're a really great unit.

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Bunch of dizzy drunken dwarfs - no wonder the nids kibbled them all and left nothing but boots and beards

Seriously though, since army champions are generally looking for feedback on their lists, the feedback I can offer is that 6 battle cannon shots from each overlord is the one I've heard objected to most when the list is used* (once involving the other player checking the list to make sure there wasn't some 'fixed' small print, which is usually a sign it's not intuitive).

Combine that with the maths I posted showing how much higher the damage output vs all targets at all ranges is due to those 6 Battle cannons and it is probably something worth looking at.


*The list used here doesn't have mortars with 6 disrupt barrage so that hasn't come up here yet

6 battlecannon shots sound a lot until you actually look at what damage that's actually doing. Say an Overlord advances and shoots at a mech infantry company, which is out in the open. It hits 3 times on average (shooting at the Chimeras) and 2 should die. Now consider shooting at a tank co - it will manage at best 1 kill if it's lucky on average. It's got a lot of shots, but the impact of them really isn't that huge on the whole, and it's crazy vulnerable to assault, especially when you factor in the squat's rather lackluster strategy rating, allowing a lot of armies with higher ratings to run up on the previous turn near it, prep it, and then assault to kill.

They're great in certain roles, and overall a pretty solid all round model - but they're really not broken at all (certainly when with the E-UK list the spotter rule was removed)

Thanks for your comments we will certainly be keeping an eye on them.

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www.epic-uk.co.uk - home of the UK Epic tournament scene
NetEA NetERC Xenos Lists Chair
NetEA Ork + Feral Ork + Speed Freak Champion

Totally agree. Their shooting output isn't actually that much better than a defiler company who usually sport 4 battle canons (though defilers can be suppressed). It's definitely good, especially at very close range and sustaining (though the latter is hard because of your fire arcs) but even then you're not going to find it easy to shred units with their shooting. Don't get me wrong they're a strong unit but not at all broken. I didn't even think they were with spotter as it made you take more risks with them meaning they're more likely to get assaulted and killed.

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So there were 2 Squat armies at the Winter Warmer last weekend (mine and Mark's). Not a mole mortar in sight. Mark and I were also both giving serious thought to taking fewer overlords in future lists as well (I brought 2 and lost 1 per game - they certainly didn't win me anything). So from the first instances of tournament play I wouldn't be getting too concerned about a scene dominated by mole mortars and overlords!

Most of the units played out pretty much exactly as you'd expect, eg Cyclops is good against warhounds, Thunderfires provide very solid AA, etc, etc

The unit I was pleasantly surprised by was the bike co which I thought now it's down to 7 models (as opposed to the netea list which has 8 units) was too small and vulnerable but it proved to still be handy for counter assaults and late game objective grabbing.

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Thanks for the feedback

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www.epic-uk.co.uk - home of the UK Epic tournament scene
NetEA NetERC Xenos Lists Chair
NetEA Ork + Feral Ork + Speed Freak Champion

Played against them at the WW, only game I've had against them, so this is just initial impressions;

Overlords didn't seem too bad, lots of firepower but they needed to move in order to fire. Didn't have to much trouble with them (but I.had lots of volcano cannons).

War engines didn't seem too bad either.

However what was obviously noticeable was they can spam lots of cheap fast units and still have lots of points to spend on big stuff.
For 1525pts I could have 5 units of beserkers and 3 of thunder fires. That's 8 activations, each which can move 30cm, 5 of which have inspiring, with enough AA to provide an umbrella for all of it. That then leaves left over nearly half of the points to spend on big stuff to blow the enemy up with.

Jon's right to say Bezerkers are one of the major strengths for the Squats. For pretty much every army in Epic that gets cheap, effective mobile infantry(Tau, dark eldar, speed freaks, feral orks) this is a big plus.

The 5 units of bezerkers sounds intresting - I think it would ultimately be only be about as effective as a more rounded list(I had 3 bezerkers+bikes) as it's the fact that your shooting units can put you so far ahead in assaults that makes bezerkers effective. (This was the case in my game with Jon, where generally the bezerkers only assaulted units with both casualties and BMs)

The WW did show the possible downsides taking 3 Overlords - versus the Necrons and Steel Legion none survived beyond early turn 2. Shadowswords blew them out the skies whilst the necrons teleported in and assaulted them with ease. I think there a great unit but possibly too dependent on favourable match ups to be a defintive tourney choice.

Most importantly the army felt fun to play, less capable of some of the sneaky plays of say, the Eldar or Necrons but requiring a bit more thought than say, Speed Freaks or siege masters to use right.

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Thanks Mark

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www.epic-uk.co.uk - home of the UK Epic tournament scene
NetEA NetERC Xenos Lists Chair
NetEA Ork + Feral Ork + Speed Freak Champion

Yep, i think you're pretty spot on there Mark overall, and the berzerkers are an interesting one, adding a lot of mobility to the list while giving a solid mid-tier assault unit. They're far from being broken though as their size limitation does make them rather vulnerable to more serious assault units, but certainly makes them a threat against small units.

I think the big warrior units could be worth a look at personally, as i think they'd add that extra assault 'oomph' to a list, as well as give a relatively safe haven for the supreme commander.

The one unit though that i think deserves notable mention are the Iron Eagles though - they might be the same points as an overlord, but they're a really solid unit.

Agree on the bezerker front. They're a good 200 point infantry unit, so fine when they launch assaults but not so much when they receive them (see guardians, skorchas etc). Which in a strategy rating 2 army is common. A similar weakness to the overlords. So my thoughts are that they're a pretty balanced unit. For the record I also took 3 squads of bezerkers but pretty much only because I didn't have enough rhinos painted to do anything else.

Agree with Richard, the iron eagles are great (though again hard to keep alive). They won me 2 of my games.

I think the key thing with the list is that it's actually very balanced. You can go crazy and spam all kinds of units but those lists are very dependent on match ups (eg overlord spam is great if you play nids but against marines or guard you're gonna get butchered).

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Actually, i'd say overlord spam would be awful against nids. It might seem good on paper, but given you can't blast marker them to death, and the Overlord's over-arching weakness is assaults, i think the Nids would run over them like they were a mild speed bump. Even against stuff like Speed Freeks, they just don't care about getting shot - there's plenty more of them to assault you, even if you manage to shatter a few units.

Their biggest problem is similar to Jon's shadowsword list imo, you become unstuck as soon as you come up against an assault-centric army.