Maybe, I was getting defensive. Surely you can see that at the end most of the questions were either rhetorical or rephrased to try and poke holes in my rules suggestion.

Though again I want to reiterate that I was lobbying for a change to the rule, not necessarily my rules. I said that repeatedly.

I know what it is like to get irritated on the forums (you know this better than most out here, if you recall my explosion over the art competition ) so that is why I suggested taking a break from the thread.  I didn't mean for you to obliterate it!  

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-Malakai

"You'll never understand how much watching other people's pain gets me off, hearing their screams and knowing that I have the power of a god." -Velvet Acid Christ

Actually, the general feeling was, "Playtest it and show us the results"... heck, some people even agreed with you... and, if it wasn't "your rules", but a desire for a "general rule", why have any personal stake in it at all?

No one called you a "schmuck" about your suggestions, they *did* say "Show me the money"... and also gave counter-examples... I believe that *is* considered a discussion.

And, rules get changed/examined all the time, it's just that "Army Champions" want information to back up those changes.

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"EPIC: Total War" Lead Developer

Now living in Boston... any EPIC players want to meet up?

No-one was saying "playtest it and see if it's feasible". They were saying "we've tried it before, several times. No-one could get it to work, but if you're dead-set on using it this way get together with your friends and house-rule it (i.e. play it however you want in your own games) but this won't be changed.

No one called you a "schmuck" about your suggestions, they *did* say "Show me the money"... and also gave counter-examples... I believe that *is* considered a discussion.

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-Malakai

"You'll never understand how much watching other people's pain gets me off, hearing their screams and knowing that I have the power of a god." -Velvet Acid Christ

Umm, with great respect Malakai, Neal Hunt and I among others thought that it could be possible, but that it was not really practical. You may recall that my one note of caution here when drafting a rule for this was that neither formation should gain from the manoeuver.

For example, considering your suggestion of a Falcon formation moving to pick up some Guardians (or Aspects) in turn #1, depositing them in turn #2 and then moving separately to control Objectives in turn #3. This sounds a nice idea until you consider the practicalities and alternatives.

1) To do this in turn #1, either the infantry formation must have been reduced to '5' units through enemy action in order to fit into the Falcons, or you are picking up '5' Rangers (which are usuall spread out, so must have moved together prior to being picked up)

2) The Guardians cannot have any upgrades or swap units for Heavy Weapons, because these options cannot be carried in the Falcons even if the formation has been reduced in size. Put another way, planning to do this puts a constraint on the intial formation compositions

3) The Falcons must be at full strength, and cannot contain Firestorms (typically taken for AA). This again puts a contraint on formation composition.

4) The manoeuver will almost inevitably place one or both formations near enemy formations, relying on these missing when shooting throughout the process. This is especially true of the Falcons, which with 5+ armour are notoriously susceptible to shooting. Indeed, it also places a constraint on the locations where embarking can take place safely.

5) Embarking troops prevents the Falcons from being popped-up for shooting purposes (because they only pop-down at the end of the activation, after shooting)

6) Adding WaveSerpents to either formation for 200 is a better transport option as they have much better armour and can carry the complete formation.

7) Using Storm Serpents is a much a better option both because they can deliver an assault at a much greater distance and they can transport upgraded Guardians. Even adding Support weapons for 50 points make the Guardians stronger, and a fully upgraded formation with Wraith Lords and Wraith Guards is both a whole lot more powerfull and resilient.

Finally as I tried to point out, there are actually very few formations that this applies to, and even fewer opportunities to use this if any. Later in the game when formations have been reduced to appropriate sizes, the process takes too long and reduces the activation count, while earlier in the game it is either impractical or there are better options.

======================================

Here is a **Very** rough draft if you want to carry this further in your gaming group.

Formations with transport capacity may transport units from another formation providing that formation can entirely fit inside the transports. Troops are embarked in one of two ways:- Either the transports move to the formation to be picked up (which embarks immediately before the transports shoot), or the troops move to the transports embarking immediately. Either way, neither formation may subsequently activate until the following turn.  

In a subsequent turn the transports may disembark the troops at the end of their movement in the same way as normal transport vehicles (ie within 5cm of each vehicle). Formations carried in this way may not activate in the turn that they disembark, but may shoot or fight in an assault with the transports. Both troops and transports are considered a single formation for all purposes until the end of the activation in which the troops disembark, after which they are considered to be separate formations once more.

Please by all means try it out, and publish the results in a Bat-rep. As Chroma says, I believe the general response was negative yes, but not totally dismissive. If you can show us that you have a practical use that also fits within the E:A rules (and guidelines above), then I for one would be very pleased to be proved wrong.

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"Play up and play the game"

Vitai lampada
Sir Hemry Newbolt

Don't let me stop you!

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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.

@Malakai: Oh i know how you feel Most of my variant Chaos Space Marine lists where ignored and my SteelLegion PDF now seems to be completely ignored. Yet i never would delete anything. Have them spit and bicker at your proposal. At least someone will try out what you suggests, even if he doesn't post anything. There are alot of lurkerson this forum who never post

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We are returned!
http://www.epic-wargaming.de/

Maybe I'll just start my own thread.




With blackjack.




And hookers

Add some blow and sign me up!

I will own up to the fact that this is pretty close to what I was saying.

Moving transports around is not often going to be useful in-game, so the benefits are slim, and it's totally unrealistic, which is a substantial negative.  I'm not convinced it would be a net positive change even if we had an airtight set of rules right this very second.

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Neal