Why do they get all the benefits of Aircraft and Skimmers and none of the penalties of either?

You've never walked the Yorkshire Dales or the Welsh Mountains, when you hear a jet, look for the damn thing, and realise it's actually below the ridge you are walking along, playing slalom with the sheep.    It's an RAF speciality.

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Robert Fripp - DGM

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I've seen that on video.  Very nice stuff.  Heck, we used to run the Sedona ridgelines and Meteor crater in Arizona all the time before some of the locals got irritated at us.  Apparently people didn't like their homes being buzzed.  After 9-11 such activity became a BIG no-no I am sure (it was frowned upon in the 80s and 90s so you an imagine).  But I remember my eyes darting around like crazy from the horizon to my instruments, not sure if I was the happiest man alive or merely terrified - and that was flying a plane that weighed less than my car.  

Oh other bad obstacles... Birds.  Birds are bad for all flying things: airplanes, helicopters, Mantas.

If you recall there was a bad accident in Italy where the US Marine pilot clipped the gondola cable and those poor people plunged 1000 feet to their death.  My point is there are many reasons to stay up in the air.

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author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

On the "all the benefits of Aircraft and Skimmers and none of the penalties", Support craft are also open to Overwatch fire. I know AA has a similar process but ceratin Overwatch situations are far mopre deadly than some AA fire (I often have to face multiple squadrons of Vultures on overwatch... That can really ruin a Manta/Morays day   ).

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Just call me Steve.

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Some of my Armies.
My Hobby site.

Funny that was going to be my solution to them as well.  

Am now considering what my other armies will do.

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Show me the thread which "discusses it at length"?

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author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

As I recall it, the "troops can embark as normal" bit was to simplify the "troops may only disembark after a planetfall" oddity in the rule.  It was just weird - fiddly, limiting to no apparent purpose, and violates the background fiction describing the Manta as a functional transport.  Just letting them load/unload as normal was much simpler.

Disembarking from a high altitude is easy from background.  Using anything from grav chutes to jump packs to old-fashioned ropes, it can be accomplished in short order.  Mounting up requires the loading formation to use an action, which indicates substantially more effort to board.  The exact methods available - "popping down" to load, magnetic grapples, jump packs, grav elevators, whatever - would vary from army to army and unit to unit but it's not important from a mechanical perspective.

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Neal

A thread started by Evil&Chaos that ironically has him saying the Support Craft isn't a big deal.

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

Then why did you agree to every single one of Cybershadow's points on the rule?  There is nothing wrong with saying you changed your mind.  My point was to show that the concern over support craft is relatively new and generally unfounded.

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author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

I did change my mind, it went from 'no negative opinion' to 'very negative opinion'.

I agreed with CS's proposals at the time because they seemed like a step in the right direction (And they were, IMO)... I hadn't had the kind of cogitations on the Support Craft back then that I subsequently had.

It's not an unfounded opinion; My current opinion on the Support Craft rule as it interacts with the Tau army list was formed after dozens of non-enjoyable games.

I haven't had a chance to play against any Support Craft in the Dark Eldar list yet (It may well interact in a different and less irritating manner with a list that isn't designed for the 'stand off and shoot' style), and won't until Zombocom returns from the USA in a couple of months (Zombocom didn't start his Dark Eldar army until Raiders was released).

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

I haven't had a chance to play against any Support Craft in the Dark Eldar list yet (It may well interact in a different and less irritating manner with a list that isn't designed for the 'stand off and shoot' style)

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Fear is for the enemy, fear and bullets.
-James O'Barr, the Crow

I doubt you will play your brother with an Executor...  He has already made a stand that it isn't fitting for the Dark Eldar list.

If he changes his mind, you will find it to be a transport first and a war engine second (as it was designed).  It has the ability to drop lots o' stuff stuff, shoot at you, then run away before it explodes... sometimes.

I agree that the Moray has a few people twisted up.  I just am not convinced that tweaking the support craft rule will fix it.  This rule was really developed with big stuff in mind.  I am sure it can be applied to other things but perhaps the Moray isn't one of them.

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author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

My favorite Dobbsy quote-

Quote:

Moscovian - maybe that's the issue. Maybe we have a good set of rules for it as is, but the units themselves just need work???

I will generally air on the side of what makes more sense regardless of abstraction.

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Fear is for the enemy, fear and bullets.
-James O'Barr, the Crow