Ish

Well, I mean, don’t we all? I want a body like Chris Hemsworth, but I also want to eat like Chris Farley.

It’s not the Hellblasters that I want to transport, I’m perfectly happy with having a demi-squad or two of them standing in my deployment zone and taking long range shots at enemy armor. I want a battle taxi for my Intercessors. So they can move up and hold territory that my Aggressors/Inceptors/Reivers have cleared out. Since that doesn’t seem do-able, I’m going to just say to heck with it, and figure out the best way to maximize being a slower footsloggin’ army.

I’ve run the numbers, the best Hellblaster weapon for general purposes is the standard Rapid Fire Plasma Incinerator. The Heavy Plasma Incinerator is the second best, but, you have to treat the unit as sort of a “light lascannon” Devastator Squad. The Assault Plasma Incinerator is only of real use for Black Templars and Salamanders.

You’re making the mistake of comparing things across codices. That’s not how GW designs the game, a unit must be considered in relation to other units from its own faction. Something that is incredibly useful for Orks, because they have nothing like it, can be a “meh” option for, say, Chaos Marines because they have other stuff that does it better. Imagine giving a Imperial Guard a unit where every single model had M14, BS3+, 24” rapid fire 2 4/0/1 guns, and two WS3+ S4 attacks! And a 3+ Save! They’d trip over themselves to get a ‘em. Meanwhile, most Chaos Space Marine players consider Bikers to be kinda “meh.” To sum up: the Repulsor is an assault transport that can't carry efficient assault troops, a skimmer that's too slow to maneuver in any way worth mentioning, a quasi-heavy-tank with less armor than a Chimera, but with enough firepower to take out an entire enemy Platoon in one shooting phase. It’s not good at what you want a Dedicated Transport to do, packs so many guns it’s a guaranteed fire magnet, but is too weak to stand up to the incoming fire... If not for the stupid Primaris restrictions, I could get a Rhino and a Predator, for less, to do the jobs and do it better. Alternatively, if I really wanted one vehicle to do both jobs, I could get a Land Raider and it’d still be better since it actually can stand up against the attention it attracts as fire magnet. Y’know, honestly, I think I’m going to skip the Repulsor entirely just because I’m mad at it.

Statuesque Miniatures female heads, Dreamforge Games infantry models, and the contents of your bitz box can make some very nice Sisters of Battle.

Another option for dynamic, good mêlée, strong shooting, and low(ish) model count would be an All Biker Army: White Scars, Black Templars, and Iron Hands (Vanilla); Ravenwing (Dark Angels); and Blood Angels can all field very solid Biker Armies. To be optimal, White Scars want you to bring a couple Tactical Squads in RhinoBacks; Ultramarines and Blood Angels want you to add a splash of Assault Squads, Vanguards, or Inceptors; Black Templars want you to add a splash of Crusader Squads; and Ravenwing wants some Land Speeders and Termies... But you can go pure Bikes and do fine. A basic Biker Marine without any upgrades brings you a 14” Move, T5, 3+ Save, twin boltguns, and a chainsword (two S4 AP – attacks. Not bad at all.

I’m still confused as to why you cited the Department of Defense as example of “a wargame company with better internet presence/community presence than GW.”

Custodes, Knights, and Deathwing (Dark Angels) are probably the lowest model count armies in the game. But, here’s some other options: Tempestus Scions the Storm Troopers of the Imperial Guard were given a stand-alone codex in the previous edition and then folded back into the full Guard ‘dex in the present. However, you can still field a “pure” Tempestus force. Model count is about on par with a non-Primaris Marine force, they’re very dynamic, very elite, and very pretty army. (Plus you have built-in access to damn near everything else in the Guard ‘dex if you decide to expand.) Tyrannids: Massed hordes of cheap gribblies seems to be the en vogue way to play them these days, but, Tyranid Warriors and Genestealers are both Troops Units. ‘Stealers cost about as much as a Marine, Warriors about as much as Terminators. Both hit like bricks in mêlée. Fill your core slots with them, splash some points on the really big Godzilla-sized bugs, and call it good. (Plus, you can always expand into Genestealer Cults.)

Don’t forget Drop Pods, @Sgt. Rock! I’ve always leaned towards Rhinos and Razorbacks over Drop Pods, but that’s just because I’m a treadhead. If Intercessors could ride to the fight in Drop Pods, it’d be a game changer.

Intercessors are the best thing Primaris Marines have for holding a position. Reivers and Inceptors are good at clearing them off, but not so great at holding them. Inceptors are just too expensive. You pay through the nose for their mobility – 45 Points Each! – so having them stand still is wasteful. Likewise, although Reivers have basically the same stats as Intercessors (esp. the bolt carbine and assault bolt rifle flavors) you’re paying for their grappling hooks and/or grav chutes, shock grenades, and leadership debuff... None of which really mesh with holding an Objective for long.

Maybe if I install a Big Red Button.

If I could have one Repulsor acting like a “Flying Razorback” and leading two mostly-unarmed “Flying Rhinos” it’d be a great tank. I just think the thing is stupidly over-gunned – nine %#@& weapons! — for a battle taxi and too fragile for a main battle tank. Clearly is was designed by committee. A bunker and some trenches, on the other hand, is cheap. Decently protects 2+ squads that are in or behind the trenches and really protects whoever is in the bunker. But it does limit my mobility...

It did, but the absolutely cheapest possible configuration of its nine(!) weapon option still results in a 252 Point tank. Swapping it’s options around for a slightly more balanced, but still modestly priced, loadout puts it a 289 Points*. I like this configuration because it throws out a ton of 5/-1/1 from the two Gatling guns (18 altogether), but still has the S7 and S9 shots from the rockets and lascannons to threaten enemy armor. Plus just about everything is 24” range. Since the Repulsor has PotMS, it can shoot while moving without issues. Thing is, one of them doesn’t do me much good. I’d want two or three... at which point we’re looking at 504-756 Points minimum and, more realistically, 578-867 Points. That’s real money. * 2x Krakstorm Grenade Launchers and Autolaunchers on the turret; Twin Lascannon Hull Mount; Heavy Onslaught Gatling Main Turret Gun; Onslaught Gatling Turret Coaxial; 2x Storm Bolters over the doors; and a Icarus Rocket Pod on the rear.

I’m wondering if, rather than invest in Repulsors that are over 300 pts. per model and kinda fugly, if I might not be better off going full on “I am fortifying this position.” and grab a Wall of Martyrs Bunker and two-part Trench Line. The bunker hold ten models, with firing points for five, making it a good place to stash a demi-squad of Hellblasters, an Apothecary, and a Lieutenant. The trenches can each hold ten-men, giving them Cover and +1 Leadership... That’s a 2+ Save and Leadership 9 for most of my units. 210 Points with a Quad-Gun, 180 Points unarmed... Far less than even a single Repulsor, solid protection for a significant chunk of my army, and not too pricey cash-wise.

Anyway, my point is that Hasbro hasn't changed. They are still a toy company focused on profit in the long term. The 1989 Hasbro and the current 2019 Hasbro are the same thing. They have improved how others view them, but they are still the same profit focused company. And that's true to their mission statement: Yeah, I mean, I’m totally shocked to learn that the people who make the toys I liked to play with as a child – and that my children like to play with today — have the unmitigated gall to want to be paid for their work. How gauche.

If a game is ever actually balanced, that would make it a solved game: one whose outcome (win, lose or draw) could be correctly predicted from any position, any point of play, any state, assuming that both players play perfectly. Connect 4 is a solved game, checkers is a solved game, tic-tac-toe is a solved game... ...and solved games are boring as hell.

Yeah, but if you stack’em and rack’em like Mordians, it’s only one square inch per gretchin. So they’ll fit in every deployment zone, base to base to base to base to...

Well, like I said earlier, a grot on a 25 mm base is approximately 1 square inch. But if you space them out about 1/2” to 1” apart, it’s basically 2 square inches per grot.

Okay, so I took the time to do the mathematics. Because I love you people. Spearhead Assault is 936 square inches; Dawn of War is 864 square inches; Search and Destroy is 800 square inches; Hammer and Anvil is 1,152 square inches; Front-Line Assault is 756 square inches; and, Vanguard Strike is 832 square inches. Things get tight in Vanguard Strike and you can’t do it in Front-Line Assault... Unless there’s an appropriately tall ruin.

Depends on the deployment zones for the missions, but, all almost all six of the deployment maps for Matched Play in the BRB (p.216-17) have enough room... Provided you don’t have any wholly impassible terrain in the zone (and even if you do, you might also have some multi-story ruins to make up for it).

Battalion consisting of one Big Mek with KFF (from the Index), one Big Mek with Shokk Attack Gun, and six squads of 30x Gretchin. Approximately 700 Points. You should be able to get three of these, with minor tweaks, into a Battle-Forged tourney legal army. 540 Grots! One quarter of a 6’ x 4’ table is approximately 864 square inches. A grot on a 25 mm base takes up approximately one square inch, assuming you allow a half inch between each grot, that’s 810 square inches... Leaving enough room for your six Orks. Have fun.

They do this now. They do this now. But there’s no way that a couple dozen play-testers playing with things for a few months can ever replicate tens of thousands of people playing it for only a weekend. Let’s say 24 people play two games a day, five days a week, for two months: That’s 960 games. That’s a drop in the bucket. That how many games get played in one day at AdeptiCon... and AdeptiCon is in no way attended by a majority of the fan base. Probably not even 1%. No business on Earth exists only to sell to an existing customer base. If you don’t expand, you die. I think you are attributing to conspiracy what is better explained as cock-up. Wargames have a lot of “moving parts,” there’s only so much you can do. Any tweak to one element of the game will have dozens of foreseeable effects on other elements of the game and will inevitably have several unforeseen effects on others.

So this company, FTD Scenery, has popped up in my Facebook feed a couple of times. Nice looking stuff, but looking at their forests made me remember this conversation. The trees in the picture range between 7 to 17 mm (approx. 3” to 7”). So you can see how effective it is to mix tree sizes.