AbusePuppy

6 hours ago, Ish said:

I really have no clue what GW was thinking when they broke up the old WHFB armies into new sub-factions. Especially since some of the “old” became “new” without any separation of units (e.g., Lizardmen/Seraphim) and several others lost almost nothing (e.g., Slaves to Darkness, Beasts of Chaos).

It's actually really simple: GW has to make money by selling models; existing players reusing their old models gains them nothing as a company. Add in the push to make AoS more unique and differentiated from the generic Tolkienesque fantasy world that was WFB and there's a very obvious impetus there to not only abandon some of the older factions that didn't have anything distinct about them while strongly pushing new factions that functionally replace them.

It makes a lot of sense if you look at which factions "survived" and which have been kicked to the curb. Seraphon already had a very unique aesthetic going on and had no real direct equivalents in other fantasy worlds; but dwarves, and high elves, and dark elves, and the Empire, and many of the others that vanished were really pretty boring and had little to distinguish them from the D&D equivalents. Similarly, the various servants of Chaos were already fairly distinct in character and had established gimmicks that set them apart from other generic bad guys, but things like Orks really didn't so much.

AoS is weird like that, there's a ton of factions that only have a handful of options to their name. It really seems like they should've filled out the "new" factions a bit more if they were going to abandon the old ones.

Man, you poor, poor SM players with hardly any named characters at all. I mean there are, what, only like thirty-seven HQ choices in that book, more than the total unit in the Harlequin codex five times over? You really must be absolutely desperate for options. 😛

There honestly is no good reason at all that Primaris can't use Rhinos or Drop Pods. It's such an incredibly flimsy justification that makes what is supposed to be the new premiere units just really, really bad.

Reivers also aren't really much of a Scout replacement because they don't do any of the important things Scouts do, i.e. sneak onto the field before the first turn and claim territory. Aggressors are I guess supposed to be the "heavy close combat" primaris unit?

4 hours ago, Romans832 said:

Thanks Pete!
Too bad Cavalier doesn't live on here.

Would love to pick his & @AbusePuppy's brains on Eldar

Pick away, my dude.

I think Cavalier is broadly correct in his assessments of things, although I don't agree with all his ideas. Wave Serpents lose out slightly (but are still a good tank), Shining Spears are still very good; I think you'll keep seeing essentially the same Ynnari build as previously, just with ~60 fewer points to play with. Scorpions + Karandaras is on the borderline of being useful if Orks get popular enough, as they can absolutely mulch a unit in the right circumstances, but I don't think they generally are going to be a big deal. Wraithlord I rate a little higher than he does, especially with the Flamers dropping in price as well, but honestly it probably still isn't enough- the Talos is still a better unit. Wraithknight I think he overestimates- it's still just a middling version of an Imperial Knight, no matter how you kit it. (Suncannon + Starcannons averages 10 S6 shots, which is two fewer than the Avenger Cannon gets and also has no flamer/stubber as backup and also also doesn't get a melee weapon.)

The Warp Hunter is the big takeaway from things- it may be possible that we'll start seeing a true mechanized build for Eldar. Four Serpents, two Warp Hunters, three Venoms, three Ravagers, and then various support units seems like a pretty solid starting place to fit into 2K.

It looks like I'm the captain for Invalid Command this year.

Quote

– Three datasheets: Custodian Guard Squad, Venerable Dreadnought & Land Raider

For all the players out there who looked at the Militarum Tempestus codex and said "Man, I'm never gonna get to field all these different units! I need something simpler, without so many choices to distract me!"

I started to type up a post here to argue the point with you, LH, but then I remembered why I had avoided bothering to do so in the first place. So sure, strawman me into whatever argument you want to think that the imaginary version of me in your head is in favor of if it makes you feel better- nothing I say is gonna change your mind about how you approach mission design nor how you assume the game to work, and you certainly aren't going to bother reading the things that I actually type.

Quit while you're ahead, West. It ain't gonna get you anywhere.

I feel like bringing the Marines (Tacticals?) to 10mans would be a big benefit, since that lets you Combat Squad and get heavy/special. Rhinos are ideal for that sort of setup, generally speaking. I might go 2x10 with Flamer and either Multimelta or Lascannon, depending on your deployment preferences (Las sits in the back on an objective, MM, rides in the Rhino alongside the other combat squad.)

6 hours ago, Threejacks said:

Reading other forums and some are saying this Gathering Storm stuff is leading to a June reboot of the game..any truth to that?

No, not really. If there was a June reboot of the game, the rulebook (and models) would already be in production at this point (or more accurately, would've gone into production 2+ months ago) and we've gotten essentially no word on that.

Basically, it boils down to the fact that people are unhappy with the state of the game and they want things to be different, and the easiest wish-fulfillment fantasy that gets them that result is the release of a new edition.

10 hours ago, WestRider said:

You're missing my point. I'm not talking about the Alpha Strike Player Seizing. I'm talking about them getting Seized on. If the Alpha Strike Player wins the roll to go first, they have to be careful how aggressively they Deploy, because getting Seized on can absolutely wreck them. If there's no Seize and they get First Turn, the Game is pretty much set by the Deployments, and actually Playing it out is often more or less irrelevant.

More or less this, although you'll never convince LH of it. The real problem is the fact that players are acting with every unit in their army before the opponent gets to do anything to respond; if it used a system more like Malifaux/Infinity/X-Wing/etc where there were alternating activations, Seizing wouldn't be necessary as a mechanic because alpha strikes as a concept wouldn't be so overwhelmingly powerful in so many situations.

Yeah, just "no MCs or LoWs" is a very broad guideline and actually doesn't touch many of the stronger tournament lists out there, while simultaneously disqualifying many armies that are quite weak (like Tyranids) from taking almost any units.

I think there are plenty of people who would be interested in a casual-styled event, but you'd want to have good guidelines on what is/isn't acceptable and some sort of way for people to test the waters with their list to see if it's okay. (I would also avoid calling it a "tournament" if you aren't trying to get people to bring strong lists- otherwise, you get into a weird "bring a list that is strong but not too strong but stronger than that" kinda issue.)

I'd take the Fearless that half the legions get over ATSKNF.

Agreed on the VV weapon pricing, though.

Shay and I will travel to most tournaments given the opportunity, presuming it's not on a weekend where other stuff is going on.

If you're doing a "friendly" event you should definitely have guidelines in place in terms of what that is supposed to mean, though- different people have different idea of what a "friendly" tournament is and what power level of lists is appropriate.

Huh. From the look of things there, Fallen are actually worse than Chaos Chosen, in most cases, since the champ can't take a special weapon.

There's nothing really interpretive about it at all. You can't add a Warhound to a Castellans detachment any more than you can add it to a 10th Company Strike Force.

Yeah. It's really not that complicated- if it's on the Castellans list, you can take it. If it isn't on the list, you can't take it.

The Castellans detachment is different from a Combined Arms or Allied detachment where you can take any unit that has the appropriate Battlefield Role- you can only take the units on its list.

I'm not sure how you're fitting the Warhound in- I don't believe it can be taken as part of an Imperial Knights detachment, as it does not have the Imperial Knights faction. I could be wrong on that, though, I don't know if they've updated the Warhound's rules at all.

I would much rather have a Librarian + Terminators than 2x Interceptors. You lose out in terms of bodies slightly, but the Librarian has vastly more utility- he's providing you with psychic dice to use, he's defending your other units from enemy psykers (a lot more relevant with Magnus around), and he has several really powerful tables he can roll on depending on your needs.

And the Libby + Termies costs about the same as the double Interceptors as well, so it's not like you're even saving a lot of points.

But the GK HQs are better than the GK fast attack units?

No, because the Castellans detachment explicitly specifies what units are allowed to be part of it. You can't take other units not on the list, even if they are of one of the factions that can be part of the Castellans.

It's good they got this out quickly, at least. I'm not super-thrilled with being unable to start in each others' rides, since it basically means that the whole "Ynnari are their own faction" thing is completely meaningless, but it's not exactly unexpected. The wrecked vs. exploded transports differentiation is also pretty baffling.

The one question they didn't actually answer, though, is how you determine ally levels. Like, an Archon taken in a Reborn Warhost is both DE and Ynnari. If you've got some Space Marines around, does he have to make One Eye Open checks? Because Ynnari are Allies of Convenience with them, but DE are Desperate Allies.

6 hours ago, Dusldorf said:

Yeah, that was needed.

No grenades on such a high initiative hero is pretty dumb though lol

The Visarch is basically garbage. No grenades, no invuln, middling stats most places, and the worst of the weapons carried by the Triumvirate. His only interesting gimmick is hanging in a squad with Yvraine to do wound-regaining shenanigans, but even that isn't all that exciting.

6 hours ago, Dusldorf said:

Do we know his point cost yet?

I have heard the number 350 tossed around, but that's not confirmed.

Sure, for the Counter-Attack part. But that very rarely comes up, since not a lot of units will actually shoot -> charge you.

The Drop Sentinel is a FW unit printed in Imperial Armour 1. It's a little on the pricey side, but IG don't have a ton of options for busting heavy armor.

Those are the only times you will get it pretty much, yes.