Dropping Furioso as upgrade for Devastators makes sence. There is no point having pure CC units in a pure FF formation

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We are returned!
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Land Speeder Storm has been revealed:
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws....=105440


It's a 'stretched limo style Land Speeder.
'

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

I wish that piece of trash website actually worked for once. I swear, it's impossible to link to items within it :/

All this is with an eye towards featuring an Assault Marine bias in the list.
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Assault formation:  I think it might be okay at 250 points.  With an upgrade to 8 Assault Marines that would be 325 for 8 in a Thawk.  However, the larger formation has some disadvantages, not least of which is that it would only have 1 slot for a Chaplain.

It's interesting that you could make a one-formation LC load out of this with only 2 infantry transport slots unfilled (assuming you don't want a 15cm dread slowing down your formation).

Death Company:  I think it should be +1 unit per 1000 points or fraction thereof.  I still think the company should be 0-1 instead of 1 mandatory.  Death companies don't form for every battle.

Devs:  I think having Furiosos with them is okay.  It's not a good combination strategically, but if someone wants to do it, so what?

Scouts:  I'd save the Land Speeder Storm for a more scout oriented list, but it's not a big deal.  I agree with the idea of removing the Sniper option.

Tacticals:  I'd cut the Fast Attack upgrade.  If they want organic assault capability, make them take Assault Marines.

Fast Attack Upgrade:  I'd consider fixing this at +2 units rather than per-unit.  All the other upgrades are +2 units for +X points.  There is generally a lot of flexibility in these formations through the upgrades, both in terms of size and mix of shooting v assault ability.  It won't hurt to make this standard, just in case there's some sort of min-max we're not seeing.

Heavy Support/Land Raider upgrades:  Make it one upgrade.  I can't see any way for it to be abused.  I'm on the side of picking either the LRC or the Redeemer rather than including both.

Also, I'd say the Baal can be dropped to the same price as the Annihilator.  Even at the somewhat reduced Redeemer stats being batted around, there's no contest.  The Baal should be cheaper.  It has arguably better firepower than the Annihilator but it's just as fragile and it's shorter range means it doesn't have the "sit back and shoot" option of the Annihilator to help it survive.

Razorback:  With the wording on the Razorback upgrade and the availability of transport capacity from the Heavy Support upgrade, you can have a formation with large amounts of surplus transport capacity, e.g. Tacs + 6 Razorbacks (the amount needed to transport the formation) + 2 Land Raiders is 6 units and 10 transport capacity.  It's not necessarily a problem (in fact, I think it might be critical to making SM mech infantry a viable option), but something to keep an eye on.

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Edit:  E&C:  How comfortable are you with this being stable?  Ready to go to the ERC?

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Neal

It's a bit better in an initial air assault where you know you can CC but I thought from the discussions above that it was going to cost more.  After the initial assault it's slow (unlikely to CC again) has about 80% of the ranged firepower, and 90% of the FF ability, so it's probably worse.

Heavy Support/Land Raider upgrades:  Make it one upgrade.  I can't see any way for it to be abused.  I'm on the side of picking either the LRC or the Redeemer rather than including both.

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Neal

I'm coming around to this view.

Scouts:  I'd save the Land Speeder Storm for a more scout oriented list, but it's not a big deal.  I agree with the idea of removing the Sniper option.

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

Death Company is not the only iconic BA feature.  Going codex requires dropping all iconic features, not just DC - no Baal, no Furioso, no reinforced Assault Marine detachment.  The BAs would fight with all of those even in the absence of a Death Company.

I think it's one of GW's more idiotic ideas that this extremely rare occurrence which has been kept secret for millenia is mandatory for every 20-man skirmish.

I'll play the list without DC no matter what E&C decides, but it would be nice to remove that illogical requirement.

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Neal

But not making the DC mandatory allows non-BA players to take "slighly more assault oriented" Marine list; making variants accessible like that is something I highly encourage.

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"EPIC: Total War" Lead Developer

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

Just because they have a wider array of choices, it doesn't nessesarily follow that they'll be 'better'.

You could have two army lists, one with 2 unit choices and the other with 50 unit choices, but with the same overall level of power, as long as everything is balanced properly.

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

Upcost the various non-Death Company formations slightly, and make the Death Company "free".

People not actually playing Blood Angels then pay for the "improvements" of the list by not fielding a Death Company.

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"EPIC: Total War" Lead Developer

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