It doesn't have to carry 10, but that's the size of a mechanized skitari demi-century so it kind of makes sense that it could carry them.

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-Vaaish

But....your core choices are units of 5 tanks. I mean, there's no issue with a War engine Flying transport carrying multiple formations, and I guess it's roughly equivalent to what a Space marine Landing Craft transports, it just seems air transporting groups like that is the Space Marine's thing, and this list seems to be impinging on that with no real balancing downsides.

Some thoughts:
-Price. This should be expensive and limited. 500-550 points probably .
-Tactical restrictions vis only deployable via Arc Mechanicus is interesting and helps balance.
-This thing in no way should be anything more than DC4 and probably can do with less (or low armour)
-If it can take 10 units then I'd suggest the WE 0cm and some additional scatter effect or perhaps BM on rough landing potential
-If it takes 5 DC1 units then making it play like a more traditional lander is appropriate.
-No way in hell should this thing have Battle Cannons. Twin Linked HBs, Twin Linked LasCannons would be appropriate and fine for shooting attacks. Aaron is totally correct that this needs to NOT be a T3 monster. An opponent should have plenty of reasonable chance to down her. OTOH Speaker is right that T3 air drops have never been a game breaker. Keeping it closer to Marine LC level is fine and Ad Mech are no where near the staying power of Marines in the late game air drop. It should be a highly risky ploy but one that can pay off well for an aggressive Ad mech player.

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What's the impetus behind this dropship by the way? The linked screenshot specifically references Imperial Guard and not AdMech. I don't think Skitarii are particularly renowned for combat drops etc like marines are, are they?

The reason behind it is to give some variety to the list. I thought it was a cool idea from Ben's old armored skitarii draft that could be used to drop in a few tanks to flank and gain crossfire bonus. However, there isn't exactly a name for an admech dropship floating around and I don't like making up units. The Devourer was linked in and it seemed a good starting point.

We don't have a whole lot of info on cataphractii as far as I know, but we do know they are the armored companies for the skitarii and I'd wager that they have some way of dropping in units at the front lines. It's not a drop assault like marines, but more of a drop for crossfire bonus shooting and objective grabbing.

Another note about T3 drops. I wan't to avoid a scenario where most of your army is off the board until T3. It makes for very boring and frustrating games.

Last. I think we might just limit the transport capacity to 5 and base the look of the model on the old oop dropship. 5 tanks or 1 superheavy is a decent load and we aren't aiming for a death star. For now I'm also going to allow it to take 10x infantry or LV. I'll adjust the stats in the second post. Points perhaps more like 300 to make it a somewhat more expensive thunderhawk but not quite the marine lander.

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-Vaaish

The old OOP dropship could carry a decent amount of infantry, but definitely no tanks. The model and ramp is no-where near large enough and a tank wouldn't fit (I own the model so am familiar with it). Just invent a new vehicle this once, the AM would realistically have dozens or patterns of dropcraft in use.

I'm for making the AM dropship smaller, 1 superheavy sounds sensible. Could it's transport capacity be 6 vehicles though? That way you can drop a tank formation plus an attached Hydra, to give them AA coverage after it leaves. Both the Landing Craft and the common 2 Thunderhawk Transporter formation allow carrying a full formation plus an AA tank.

I've got some of the dropships myself. I believe they were originally to be used with spacefleet or bfg, so I wouldn't use the models physical size as a means of judging how big it is. Just look at the size of the thunder Hawks.

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-Vaaish

Huh? No it isn't, it's an unreleased Epic model from the early days that got a limited release through US mail order later. Same as the Epic Exodites or the Psi-Titan. Definitely not Space Fleet or BFG.



The turrets have hatches on for the chap inside to poke his head out of - it's Epic scale, not spaceship scale.

Here's the catalog page for it. I believe it was originally sculpted for Epic but didn't get done in time and then was released for Space Fleet/BFG.

http://www.collecting-citadel-miniature ... Ship_A.jpg

There is a craft very similar to this in Tactica Imperialis called the Tetrarch Heavy Lander. It's capable of dropping off a mechanized IG company and IG Armored Regiments. I dont think it would be a difficult stretch for the OOP Lander to be a craft of the same class but different pattern.

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-Vaaish

I had also thought the model was for epic, as the sculpting of the lettering on the prow is very similar to that on the psi-titan. suggested this back on p3 …

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Another note on scale. Don't use "hatches" to determine size. The Epic Lucius Warlord model from GW has two hatches on the shoulders and one on the back side of the titan. Compared with the cockpit and having a rough estimate of crew and the space needed to fit them in, that makes the door on the back something like 20 feet tall and the hatches 10 feet in diameter.

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-Vaaish

So would anyone oppose changing this to the Tetrach Lander rather than the Devourer? It'll likely mean a change in weapons for it and we'd keep 5x AV/DC and 10x INF/LV.

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-Vaaish

any thoughts on switching from the devourer dropship to a Tetrarch Lander? Sorry Apoc, things just got lost in the shuffle, but we swing around eventually

Second, any further discussion on the remaining outstanding points, especially the blessings SR we mentioned and then dropped?

Last, if anyone would like to put together an alternate cataphractii list for us to try as well, now is the time for it. I don't see any harm in trying out several list styles to gauge what works best and what everyone has the most fun with.

We do need to do this in a bit more orderly way so it would likely be folks use the first list for a while to get a feel for it and then we release alternates sequentially and gather feed back on each before picking one to go with.

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-Vaaish

Blessings of the Omnissiah:

At the start of each game, roll 1d6 for each detachment in your army that is composed entirely of AV or WE. On a roll of 4+ the detachment is given the invulnerable save special rule until the end of the game.

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-Vaaish

I'd rather see something related to field repair then a magic save. Given the small number of formations and the likely relative size disparity (some will be huge, some tiny scouts) is this likely to be unbalanced within the confines of an isolated game?

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