Signal wrote:
That is a terrible, terrible thing :P Minervans are probably the foe that this list is least capable of dealing with at the moment, potentially even worse than a Titan Legion!
yup, i told him before the game that i was expecting it to go very badly, but if i couldnt take him on with the new units, it would still provide some useful playtest data.
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Here's the problem I see here: You took the Engineers in Marauders. When dealing with large numbers of armored vehicles, that's what the Vendetta's are for. They're the real bulk killer part of that formation, with the Engineers being designed so that if stand-off shooting is a bad idea, they can close into close combat while the Vendettas provide fire support. Marauder drops are primarily for Sentinels. Keep in mind that 4.2.5 in the rulebook points out that when you drop ground units, the unit can't activate later on in the turn. I'd be tempted to give them access to grav-gliders, but the Vendettas are really the focus of that anti-tank formation.
i really viewed the engineers as 'terminators light' basically an assault macroweapon unit. vendettas, i'd considered, but i decided to leave them behind because they would get in the way of an assault, and split the focus into an assault and shooting list (and my experience with engineer style units is that you get 1 assault out of them before they're wiped out, so attaching vendettas was a good way to lose them)
i totally missed the 4.2.5 (i've only ever air assaulted out of planes before, and infact had to check the list to see if it was allowed at all, as i said to my opponent, 'we're trying something here that is not only not present in the rules, we also only made it up 2 days ago') but i gotta say, without the ability to activate the unit, i dont see any sort of reason to ever use marauders as transports. dropping sentinels is not much use when they have grav chutes already. still, i'll be putting engineers into vendettas anyway from now on, to give them tighter drop control. does mean that marauder transports are pretty much useless though.
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The pinpoint strikes from the Onero actually can only target War Engines, so you couldn't have fired them into the Basilisks. :) They're intended to let you drop the shields on those titans, which would have made it a good bit easier to take out that reaver ;)
oops, i'll admit that this was the first time i'd ever actually taken a pinpoint spacecraft. i guess it would have been better to use the onero against the titan and the strikes against the basalisks, but i was really pleased with the idea that the overflight cleared artillery off (cause if i'd not killed them before the drop i would have been even more boned than normal)
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I am concerned about the effort required to scatter each unit individually, but in a way that's one of the iconic elements of a drop list. Something I will definitely be paying attention to during my game tomorrow as well.
yeah, i certainly got the feel of the iconic 'failed air operation' from all that scatter, but, like i said, thats not an experience i think we want to promote with this list. if only for simplicity, it was a huge pain, and thoroughly intermingled the formations. which made remembering which was which to extricate them very tricky aswell. tactics wise, this seems like a very 'things need to go well' army so all that extra scatter may make things very hard to handle.
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yeah, I kinda hate the stock vultures. They're supposed to be carrying 6 Hunter-killer missiles, and it'd be much better if instead of 2 x 120cm AT2+ One Shot, they were 2 x 60cm AT4+. I'd make a new variant, but it seems like it would clutter things up a bit too much.
i think i'd rather take a vendetta with its 3x45cm than a 2x60cm vulture variant. vulture missiles as is are very cool, and give a neat feel to the list, but i just dont see the formation as worth 300 points. if they had 'slow firing' then yes, i'd believe that, but as is, they're not. and watching them flutter about for a turn without any missiles left, they really did suck, they couldnt kill a single damn salamander!
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I am definitely interested in the potential difficulties involved in the actual GravChute insertion, but Drop Pods don't really feel quite right. Something vaguely similar might work, but it also reduces some of the "parachute" feel, which can result in a catastrophic misdrop :P
i agree that 'can result in a catastrophic missdrop' is a good thing to have in the list, but right now it feels like 'will result' especially given that i was using the smallest unit sizes possible and it still failed. (also the 'we dropped two of our virtually all AP units right in front of a titan' goes a long way to representing 'catastrophic'
maybe if marauder bombers where adjusted so they had scatter, but could still assault, that would work better (i know it feels odd that the low ground stuff scatteres while the halo stuff doesnt, but the marauder needs to be avoiding flak, and the oneros would likely have much more precise sensors and whatnot)
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Marauders aren't going to be Air-Assault capable. That just doesn't work with what is supposed to be a low-altitude drop. Having the Engineers be able to assault directly into an enemy might be a bit too potent, which is why I didn't give them glider access. It might be worth reconsidering, but their primary use should be as a force multiplier for the Vendettas.
see above, but i'm just not seeing the engineers as a good choice if they cant assault before getting whacked. i really viewed it the other way, planetfall gets you into position, but its not as precise, and you need to preplot, marauder drops let you suicide assault into the scary formations without blowing up the marauder itself (as a note, if jump troops can assault out of a thunderhawk, how is it not 'representitive' of a low altitude drop?)
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I'm not sure the spectre would have helped too much, but it's definitely worth a try. I'll go ahead and add it in, but it's going to be probably 225-250 to begin with. (probably will be reduced, but it needs to not overshadow Lightning Strike Fighters.)
i like the strikes (and will definitely be taking them again, 3 AT ground attacks is better than 1 TK attack against regular tanks)
given my rolls, they mightnt have, but they'd have killed or broken his baneblades, which would have given the titan less support when i assaulted it, or they would have finished off the titan, leaving my engineers to deal with the tank companies of some description. i expect i would have still lost the game, but it would have been closer
as to price. i reckon they'd really only be worth 175, after examining the tigershark, which has slightly less AA, but better ground attack and better armour, and comes at two for 350, i reckon i was about right at 175, but i'll happily take them at higher costs (although 3 strikes is much better value at 225)
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What about having the core formation be mixed somewhat? Instead of Commander + 5 Warhawks, it could be Commander, 3 Warhawks, and 2 Stormtroopers. Warhawks are supposed to be tightly integrated with Stormtroopers, so I'd rather not have them completely separate.
my concern there i twofold, firstly, its making scouts become a mandatory option, which could be overbalanced, and secondly, mixed formations will be harder to tell apart (for myself, i'll be using
these as my basic troops. i'd love to use actual GW stormtroopers, but at that price, i expect i'll be using the DRMs as stormtroopers aswell.
i quite like the 3 option setup at the moment (or i would if i wasnt going to be only taking valks from now on ;)) so i'd not really want to see that changed
how about to represent them being 'tight' with each other, you let the stormtroopers in valks formation back in, but make it a core formation? that'd be pretty rocking i'd think...
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The AC130's are really closer to being equipped with Turbolaser Destructors than a Volcano cannon :p The YAL at least is built around a single weapons system.
to be fair, thats why i was talking about the AC130U 'spooky2' rather than the spectre, which trades its two mini artillery weapons for a single ridiculous high explosive gattling gun, which is the closest thing we've got to a volcano cannon right now ^_^
plus, the marauders kinda look like the AC130, the YAL, looks like a boeing passanger jet with a funny nose (because it basically is, it was based on a civilian template, not a military one)
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I really don't want Multimeltas on the Fire Support teams, as it fails to actually extend the threat range of the formation any. Lascannons aren't a bad idea though. Keep in mind that the Harakoni aren't really like WW2 Paratroopers (which are Elysians) due to their heavy-infantry status. Lascannons would actually be fairly in character for that sort of regiment.
fair enough. i think extending the range may be overrated. the commander still has an autocannon, so can drop a BM on people from 45cm away if need be, giving them a nice juicy FF punch may be just what the doctor ordered, plus badass dudes lugging a multimelta around is pretty cool XD
anyway, good luck with your game (or perhaps, terrible luck so you can reach the same conclusions as me XD)