While that is true, I think it would be a bit of an oddity to have one support craft (or APU) in the list. The whole point of making the manta a bomber is because it's a neater solution, and because support craft just doesn't quite gel as a concept.

Surely the background to the Moray could be reworked a little to make it a superheavy skimmer? Or the stats changed to differenciate it from the AX-1-0?

Or maybe it's not terrible to just have it as a skimmer with a note saying it's always popped up.

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It's not better than the new Harbinger bomber (BP6, Ignore Cover, Disrupt, would often get many more hits than 8x AP shots hitting on 5's or 6's if shooting into cover).

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Seems to me that the Manta is trying to do several different roles:- Battlefield Titan, Transport and possibly bomber. Is there any milage in costing separate variants of the Manta for each role??

Also note that historically at least, multi-role vehicles / aircraft have usually ended up being mediocre in each of the various roles.

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BATTLEFIELD TITAN:

The Manta should not be a frontline battlefield Titan, its weapons should be able to take on a Warhound with confidence, but a Reaver Titan should best it 9 times out of 10.

As Zombocom says, its TK weapons are TK(1) in Warhammer 40,000, not TK(D3) as they've become in the Epic lists, and its ranged weapons should be considerably less also... again as Zombocom says most of its ranged firepower should be 15cm AP5+ attacks...


TRANSPORT:

This should be the Manta's primary role, an assault transport capable of shuttling the Tau around the tabletop in a similar manner to a Marine Landing Craft.



BOMBER:

This should be the Manta's secondary role, after it has dropped off the troops/tanks, it should fly in CAS of those units.

What it should not do is then go Titan-hunting... that should be the preserve of the Tau's dedicated Titan-hunting units like the AX-1-0.

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If the Manta only has a single TK(1) shot thenit hardly is good at Titanhunting.
A formation of 2 or 3 AX-1-0s would do better (even with a single TK(1) shot each).

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If neccesary the armament could be reduced further by switching to 4 twin linked burst cannons, though that's not what it's supposed to be armed with.

It certainly wouldn't be worth anywhere near 900 at those stats!

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Epic: Hive Development Thread

It's weapon is better than a volanco cannon in 40K.

A Shadow sword volcano cannon is
range 120" Stength D AP2 5" blast

a heavy rail gun is
range 110 strangth D AP1 5" blast

the range is less, but the flyer ruler makes up for this small short full.  Howevr itis AP1 and destroyer.  Which means any hit will auto penatrate and add +2 to the damage roll, compared to the shadow swords auto penatrate ona hot +1 on the damage roll.

This results in the following rolls needed

weapon          Dc of damage   Dc of damage and a reroll
volcano cannon       4                  5+
rail cannon          3                  4+

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Tyranid air marshal

Huh?  when did the note Titan Killer in 40k not mean TK(d3) in Epic?  The 'Titan-killer' note in 40k has always meant 'does d3 structure points damage'.

Just to restate, I prefer re-aligning the canon vehicles with 40k as much as possible.  That means a Manta would only have one TK(d3) attack, and a twinlinked Ion phalanx, plus BCs and GMs.  That's Reaver-titan weapons.  I'll make an exception for the AX10 (at least for weapon range), since a 105cm gun on a plane is unplayably out of balance.

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Every other 'Titan Killer' weapon in Warhammer 40,000 is actually noted as being Titan Killer (D3).

The Manta's weapons are effectively noted as being Titan Killer (1) in 40k, in contrast to all the other TK weapons.

Ya dig?

Just to restate, I prefer re-aligning the canon vehicles with 40k as much as possible.  That means a Manta would only have one TK(d3) attack...

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Those are the apocolypse stats, I'm going by the imperial armour stats.

I don't really care either way if it's TK(1) or TK(d3), I'm more interested in having the correct weapon layout (1 twin railcannon) rather than two shots. I'm mostly just looking for a way of downgunning it somewhat to make it balancable as a bomber.

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Negative, E&C.  My copy of IA1 lists the Shadowsword, Stormblade, and Stormsword as 'Titan Killer' (note that there's no (1), (d3), or (d6)).  The VDR rules state that 'Titan Killer' weapons do d3 structure points of damage, as it isn't said anywhere in the IA books.  Also, the Q&A for IA1 mentions that 'Titan Killer' weapons do d3 Mass Points of damage to Gargantuan creatures (ie, 'Nid WEs).  'Titan Killer' in 40k = TK(d3) in E:A.

Per IA3:  The Manta is armed with twin-linked heavy railguns, 3x twin-linked long-barreled Ion Cannons, twin-linked missile pods, 16 drone-controlled long-barreled burst cannons (fired using BS2), 10 Seeker Missiles (fire a maximum of 2 per turn) and a network Markerlight.

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Fair enough... that's one problem with going back and forwards with different rule set versions I guess!

Manta and moray should have 1x TK(d3) rails, not multiple TK(1) rails.

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Interesting, I was going by the Pylon stats, which specificially specify D3 damage, whereas the Manta didn't, but I'll certainly agree that you appear to be right.

It should certainly be only one shot in that case.

Interestingly, the plasma blastgun on a warhound is listed as Titan Killer, so perhaps copying stats directly isn't such a good idea anyway.

The weapon layout should be the same though, and a range reduction is probably essential, and can easily be explained away by the height at which it operates.

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Epic: Hive Development Thread