Smiling Skulls Space Marines

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Ish said:

Yes, but I’m specifically referring to units native to Codex: Death Guard. Once you start bringing in allies and other options, things change.  

 

Have you had significant trouble with flying vehicles specifically in this edition? Even with spammy lists, flying vehicles are really expensive in this edition and typically rather lacking profiles when compared to similar cost non-flying vehicles. Plus you can charge them with winged/jump models.

I've had trouble with eldar and their -3 to hit mods, but them being flyers wasn't really the problem there.

Are you perhaps fielding an exclusively-fight-phase-ground-force? Sounds more like a Khorne issue. That's more the kind of problem I'd run into with World Eaters.

[Ish]

Not really, but it is a factor I try to plan for in my list building. Not as high a priority as anti-heavy infantry and anti-vehicle options, but still something to consider. 

[WestRider]

Since Flyers don't have any inherent protection against Auto-hitting Weapons in 8th, don't overlook the fact that DG can have a ton of S6-7 Auto-hit Weapons. And since the Plague Spitters are Assault, you can Advance and still fire them, which gives Bloat Drones and even Plagueburst Crawlers a surprisingly large threat radius. The fact that they re-roll to-Wound rolls of 1helps significantly, and if you've got an Arch-Contaminator Warlord in the area, they re-roll all failed Wounds. They're not going to one-shot anything, but let's be real, a Hydra or Stalker isn't going to either, and they will drag stuff down eventually if it stays anywhere near them.

[Ish]

Fair point... Still wish they had a Devastator Squad equivalent though.

[WestRider]

31 minutes ago, Ish said:

Fair point... Still wish they had a Devastator Squad equivalent though.

Truth. I was in the middle of making a Death Guard Autocannon Havoc Squad when 8th came through and took that option away from them.

[Ish]

Given the Legion’s background as the Poor Bloody Infantry trench warfare grunts, man-portable heavy weapons seem like an obvious tool for them to make extensive use of... and why they had Havoc Squads in prior editions. 

Part of GW’s recent “if we don’t have a box for it, it doesn’t have rules” game design philosophy, I suspect.

[Guest]

53 minutes ago, Ish said:

Given the Legion’s background as the Poor Bloody Infantry trench warfare grunts, man-portable heavy weapons seem like an obvious tool for them to make extensive use of... and why they had Havoc Squads in prior editions. 

Part of GW’s recent “if we don’t have a box for it, it doesn’t have rules” game design philosophy, I suspect.

Unless it's FW. If it's FW, giving it a model is iffy sometimes. Still waiting on just official pictures indicating what kit half the weapons in the chaos index represent. Several units are also without any clear distinction on which model represents them. 

And I did contact FW about it, who said it was a question for "another department" and that they would forward it, but never anything mentioned beyond that. It's great from a conversion standpoint, but also makes me suspect there won't be rules support for half the chaos options in the next edition (they'll just do entirely different things or lose chaos model support entirely).

[Guest]

1 hour ago, WestRider said:

Truth. I was in the middle of making a Death Guard Autocannon Havoc Squad when 8th came through and took that option away from them.

And I wish havocs could just use the Devastator kit. They've got a great kit this time around, and havocs are limited to the options found in their Finecast incarnation of the Havoc Kit. No plasma cannons or multi-meltas for chaos infantry, no sir. Grav would be nice too.

[WestRider]

30 minutes ago, paxmiles said:

And I wish havocs could just use the Devastator kit. They've got a great kit this time around, and havocs are limited to the options found in their Finecast incarnation of the Havoc Kit. No plasma cannons or multi-meltas for chaos infantry, no sir. Grav would be nice too.

Chaos Marines haven't had Man-portable Plasma Cannon or Multi-Meltas since Rogue Trader. I don't really see them getting them any time soon. A plastic Havoc box would be really nice, tho.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, WestRider said:

Chaos Marines haven't had Man-portable Plasma Cannon or Multi-Meltas since Rogue Trader. I don't really see them getting them any time soon. A plastic Havoc box would be really nice, tho.

I really want GW to just re-box the devastator sprue as havocs. Maybe add in that update sprue that they added to the Chaos Marine troops a while back when they merely added to, but didn't replace, our troops box set.

And you say since rogue trader, but how many incarnations of the havocs are there? If we count finecast versions of metal models as the same kit, I don't feel like we've really had that many versions of the havocs. Despite 8 editions, can't be more than 3 versions of havocs. Devastators, on the other hand, are on their second all-plastic kit, with many earlier versions in metal or partial metal.

[Guest]

The funny bit, is that with all this primaris stuff, GW overlooked that chaos actually needs a rebooted infantry line, and SM doesn't....

[Guest]

3 hours ago, Ish said:

Given the Legion’s background as the Poor Bloody Infantry trench warfare grunts, man-portable heavy weapons seem like an obvious tool for them to make extensive use of... and why they had Havoc Squads in prior editions. 

Part of GW’s recent “if we don’t have a box for it, it doesn’t have rules” game design philosophy, I suspect.

I recall the Emperor's Children making extensive use of Land Speeders, too...

[Ish]

I miss the Good Old Days when you could easily buy blister packs of accessories. Things like heavy weapons, special weapons, jump packs, and so forth used to be sold separately from the troops.

Buy a box of ten plastic riflemen. Want to turn them into a heavy weapon squad? Buy four blister packs of missile launchers. Need to make them close combat specialists? Buy this blister pack of axes and pistols. Easy.

There’s a ton of third-party conversion bitz manufacturers out there doing just this, not to mention 3D printable options (the price of the printers is dropping rapidly too). So it is a little weird GW doesn’t get in on this themselves... Maybe they’ve crunched the numbers and determined it’s not profitable. I dunno. 

[WestRider]

1 hour ago, paxmiles said:

I really want GW to just re-box the devastator sprue as havocs. Maybe add in that update sprue that they added to the Chaos Marine troops a while back when they merely added to, but didn't replace, our troops box set.

And you say since rogue trader, but how many incarnations of the havocs are there? If we count finecast versions of metal models as the same kit, I don't feel like we've really had that many versions of the havocs. Despite 8 editions, can't be more than 3 versions of havocs. Devastators, on the other hand, are on their second all-plastic kit, with many earlier versions in metal or partial metal.

Yeah, not counting Rogue Trader era Models, there have been three different versions. The first two were sold as individuals in blisters, with metal bodies and weapons. The third is the current one, with plastic bodies, and metal/finecast weapons. In that same span of time, Devastators have had four versions, two with metal bodies and weapons, sold in blisters, and the two plastic boxed sets. So not really all that much more, especially when adjusted for the fact that SM always get more than anyone else.

Just doing them as a re-pack of the Dev Box with an extra Chaos sprue almost certainly isn't going to happen. What I really want is for Havocs (and regular CSM) to get a re-design along the lines of what Raptors got at the start of 6th. But add more weird Daemon-infused Heavy Weapons. Certainly don't just give them Plasma Cannon, but maybe give them man-portable Ectoplasma Cannon like Forgefiends have. Stuff like that.

[Guest]

Okay, renegade Knight rules. Got the free ones from GW, asking for a second opinion to make sure I understand them:

So if I have 3x Renegade Amigers forming a single Super Heavy Detachment, the Renegade Knight Lance rules change the command benefit of the Super Heavy Detachment to ZERO and one of the Armigers becomes a CHARACTER. Right so far? If I want, the CHARACTER can be the warlord, but can't take the QUESTOR TRAITORIS warlord trait because they are not TITANIC (I could still take one of the 3 basic rulebook warlord traits if I'm reading this right). And if he is warlord, Traitor's Mark is the only relic he has access to. All good?

Mainly wondering for the purposes of modeling. Means I should make one of the Amigers look more "character-y" than the others.

 

[Ish]

Pretty much spot on. GW was clearly intending the detachment to be used with the Questoris-pattern Knights (and the other big guys) but there’s no mechanical reason it can’t work with the Armiger-pattern chassis.

Interestingly enough, Renegade Armiger Knights can be in mixed squadrons of Helverin and Warglaives, Loyalists cannot mix them this way. In theory, this give the Renegades a nice safety net of mixing a Warglaive into every squad since Helverin are pretty lousy in mêlée. 

[VonVilkee]

5 hours ago, Ish said:

Pretty much spot on. GW was clearly intending the detachment to be used with the Questoris-pattern Knights (and the other big guys) but there’s no mechanical reason it can’t work with the Armiger-pattern chassis.

Interestingly enough, Renegade Armiger Knights can be in mixed squadrons of Helverin and Warglaives, Loyalists cannot mix them this way. In theory, this give the Renegades a nice safety net of mixing a Warglaive into every squad since Helverin are pretty lousy in mêlée. 

But they act independently once deployed so doesn't matter so much... unless the renegade rules are drastically different than the loyalist. 

[Ish]

But they only take up one slot on the Force Org chart.

[Guest]

10 hours ago, Ish said:

Interestingly enough, Renegade Armiger Knights can be in mixed squadrons of Helverin and Warglaives 

On the other hand, the cap on duplicate unit entries means that I can only have a max of 3 armiger "slots" in my army, regardless of type. Loyalists could field 3 of each, for a total of 6 units (though for price, 6 is unrealistic at 2k). 

Same with the other Knight types. Chaos can only field 3 regular knights, 3 dominus knights, and 3 units of armigers  per 2k. Not really a big problem due to point costs, but if I have 5 of the regular knights, I can't field all 5 in my rengade knight army at 2k. 

[VonVilkee]

2 hours ago, Ish said:

But they only take up one slot on the Force Org chart.

If you are having limited slot concerns over 3 armigers I'm thinking you are doing it wrong...

At 2 armigers I would have to concede the point but at any other number I'm not seeing the benefit. 

[Ish]

Why would Renegade Knights be limited to three Knights of a given type?

The Super-Heavy Detachment has 3-5 Slots for Lords of War. You can fit four Questoris-pattern Knights in there for under 2,000 Points.

In fact, I’m kind of thinking about buying two of the Imperial Knights: Renegade boxes for myself (if I get the rumored holiday bonus) and making a four Knight army:

•  Tzeentch Renegade Questoris Knight (Dual Avenger Gatling Cannon w/ Heavy Flamer Arms, Hull Meltagun, Icarus Autocannon Carapice; Warlord) [ 516 Points ]

• Nurgle Renegade Questoris Knight (Battle Cannon w/ Heavy Stubber Arm, Reaper Chainsword Arm, Hull Heavy Stubber, Ironstorm Missle Carapice) [ 439 Points ]

• Slaanesh Renegade Questoris Knight (Thermal Cannon Arm, Thunderstrike Gauntlet Arm, Hull Meltagun, Icarus Autocannon Carapice) [ 443 Points ]

• Khorne Renegade Questoris Knight (Reaper Chainsword Arm, Thunderstrike Gauntlet Arm, Hull Meltagun, Stormspear Missle Carapice) [ 412 Points ]

• Necoho Renegade Armiger Knight (Dual Autocannon Arms, Heavy Stubber Carapice) [ 174 Points ]

[VonVilkee]

7 minutes ago, Ish said:

Why would Renegade Knights be limited to three Knights of a given type?

The Super-Heavy Detachment has 3-5 Slots for Lords of War. You can fit four Questoris-pattern Knights in there for under 2,000 Points.

In fact, I’m kind of thinking about buying two of the Imperial Knights: Renegade boxes for myself (if I get the rumored holiday bonus) and making a four Knight army:

•  Tzeentch Renegade Questoris Knight (Dual Avenger Gatling Cannon w/ Heavy Flamer Arms, Hull Meltagun, Icarus Autocannon Carapice; Warlord) [ 516 Points ]

• Nurgle Renegade Questoris Knight (Battle Cannon w/ Heavy Stubber Arm, Reaper Chainsword Arm, Hull Heavy Stubber, Ironstorm Missle Carapice) [ 439 Points ]

• Slaanesh Renegade Questoris Knight (Thermal Cannon Arm, Thunderstrike Gauntlet Arm, Hull Meltagun, Icarus Autocannon Carapice) [ 443 Points ]

• Khorne Renegade Questoris Knight (Reaper Chainsword Arm, Thunderstrike Gauntlet Arm, Hull Meltagun, Stormspear Missle Carapice) [ 412 Points ]

• Necoho Renegade Armiger Knight (Dual Autocannon Arms, Heavy Stubber Carapice) [ 174 Points ]

Big faq update limits matched play to 3 max of the same data sheet... you have 4 of the same, loyalist have different sheets so can include more of that pattern. 

[Ish]

Well... That’s incredibly dumb. Is that universal or just for the Super-Heavy Detachment? I fail to see any justification for making it impossible to field a vanilla Space Marine Battle Company or Imperial Guard Platoon.

[Ish]

Okay, that’s less dumb, but still pretty dumb. It does mean that, at larger point values, you cannot field a full vanilla Battle Company (four Assault Squads and four Devastator Squads).

It also renders my Deathwing army completely unplayable.

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, Ish said:

Okay, that’s less dumb, but still pretty dumb. It does mean that, at larger point values, you cannot field a full vanilla Battle Company (four Assault Squads and four Devastator Squads).

It also renders my Deathwing army completely unplayable.

I agree, still dumb. but within point contraints, it doesn't come up much. Mostly just limits really spammy armies. I don't think knight armies are really what it is intended to limit. You could ask GW if the knight thing is meant to apply there, since it does seem entirely likely that this is an oversight (since they love selling those knight kits).

Could also go forge World, as they have other knight options. Or trade/convert one of your 4 knights into one of the other types. 

Not sure on the Deathwing thing. I am thinking you could field the DW command squad, the DW terminator squad, the DW knight squad, and maybe some of the HH terminators. Each entry is limited to 3 per 2k. So it shouldn't be hard to field lots of terminators, it just limits spamming a single type of terminators. And you could still "counts as" the different types. 

I will note that the restriction is specifically directed at list creation. If you obtain additional units during the game, like via reinforcement points, those are exhempt. For example, I can field 3 of the same type of bloodthrister, then summon additionals of the same type during play. I just can't start with 5 bloodthirsters of the same type.