Some initial 6th ideas.

I really should apologize for not posting in…a while, especially since I don’t have school as an excuse anymore (well, until this past week anyway). But this will be the last time I do so.

The last time I apologize, I mean. Warhammer has kind of fallen behind for me, including reading articles from YTTH, Implausible Nature and 3++ (something that I will be trying to start again soon), and with the new school year, I’m just going to not post very often. I’m saying this now so that anyone interested has a heads-up and won’t be expecting regular posts. That said, I will be able to finally get some 6^th edition games in soon and I will likely be sharing my thoughts and ideas as they come to me.

Speaking of which I haven’t had a chance to really examine the changes in 6^th edition, but I have been able to look at a few and I thought of some things which might affect Black Templar List building. Like the changes to the vehicle damage chart and my thoughts on the little I’ve read about Black Templars now being worth fielding for close combat, but first, Terminators.

Again, I haven’t read much since before 6^th came out but I did catch a couple of articles by Marshal Learoth about Terminators being more durable now and Terminator based armies (such as 3-5 units of CML Terminators in a single army). Frankly, I don’t really see that happening for a number of reasons.

First, Mech is generally less durable, especially against Torrent of Fire weapons. So there will likely be more anti-infantry firepower in general now. Second, AP 2 is actually different against vehicles than AP 3, so Plasma will begin to re-emerge to replace some of the Missile Launchers. People will also become more aware that Terminators will need to be cleared out by low-AP firepower instead of protected Power Weapons, and Plasma is again a good choice for that.

So while Terminators will be more durable in close combat, I’m expecting there to be more options taken to handle them. They will still be usable, but not really a huge power-boost.

But I mentioned Torrent of Fire being much more effective against vehicles. That’s true now that we have Hull Points you can be guaranteed that three glancing hits will kill most vehicles. Penetrating is still more effective, but without a low AP you’re relying on a chance to score an instant kill and I see weight of fire becoming more rewarding than before.

Since AP 2 is also more effective, Assault Cannons become a more valid choice over the Cyclone Missile Launchers. Twice as many shots and I think rending hits are AP 2 (they were against Infantry, and I think I saw that they are against vehicles now, too). Range isn’t too much of an issue when you deploy correctly, and with Tank Hunter and harmful glances their lower strength isn’t too much of an issue.

They may not become the new standard, but they are a little bit better choice than they were in 5^th.

Related to Terminators and as a side note, Artificer Armor is now “Power Weapon proof” armor. 20 points is still too expensive in my opinion, and Terminator Armor is still better 90% of the time, but it’s worth a brief mention.

Now then, Close Combat. How are we supposed to be better at it again? Rage is a little better than the old Preferred Enemy when we charge, and now we can stack that with Litanies of Hate? Is that it? I guess our Terminators are more durable against Power Weapons, but as I mentioned above they are more likely to be targeted outside of close combat. So what’s our big advantage that makes us a close combat army?

It’s still dead. We will lose our Power Weapons early because we have no Sergeants and after the initial charge we are, at best, marines with an extra attack each. Before we could get by with Accept Any Challenge, because it made us always better in close combat, but now we have one shot and then we wail uselessly against our foes.

I don’t know, maybe I’m just not looking for a close combat advantage because I started out wanting to play more shooty Black Templars, but I just don’t see any real steps in the direction of Close Combat aside from Powerfists being more effective on the first round of combat (but worse afterwards).

Anyway, that’s about all I have for now. Well, there’s a little issue in that we can no longer take Drop Pods in our entire army, but that is a mistake on GW’s part and should be fixed when they get a chance to update the FAQ.

Any comments, thoughts or questions are, as always, welcome. Once I actually get a chance to really read through the 6^th edition rules I may have more thoughts and the same will likely happen for the first few games I get in. Until next time.

FAQ Drop Pod Availibility Change

Hi…

Sorry for my absence, I just haven’t really had much to post about and well, the internet has kinds of otherwise sucked me in. But now I have something important to share.

I was looking through the FAQ changes for the Black Templars and, right around those small changes to the transport options for Command Squads and Terminators I suddenly noticed that Drop Pods weren’t mentioned. I looked at the codex and had a small panic attack when I saw that Drop Pods were never given as an option on any of the units, nor was such a choice mentioned in the Dedicated Transports section.

Then I remembered that it was in the Drop Pod Assault entry on page 22 and I went back and verified that yes, Dreadnoughts, Terminators and Initiates can take Drop Pods. Except that they can’t anymore. Games Workshop has made a huge bungle and now there is no line in the codex which allows any unit to take Drop Pods, because they replaced the entire Drop Pod Assault entry.

It isn’t that the new Drop Pod Assault rules ruin the competiveness of Drop Pod lists now; they completely negate any legal ability to field them! Fortunately, I’ve still only got two of them.

In other news, once I am able to get a 6^th edition rule book, I will likely be doing some posts about my thoughts on the changes and possibly the changes I will be making to the lists I have. I will also eventually try to give some indication of how I did in the local Escalation League that ended last month, so look forward to those.

GateKeeper Tournament

This is a little late in coming, but that's because I got started playing Zelda: Ocarina of Time and I got sucked in for about four days, and then had some busy painting to do. However, I now have an important update!

This afternoon I went to a local tournament in Topeka, Kansas (sister's graduation, so I was back down here for about 10 days). Really rather small, only about 8 total players, 2100 points with three matches. Unfortunately, it used Battle Points. Fortunately, they were only tie-breakers for the top places.

I went in a large Terminator Command Squad with leading Marshal (PW, Plasma Pistol) and attached Reclusiarch, two Dreadnoughts (one Ven. w/ Assault Cannon/ML and one with a MM in a Drop Pod), a close combat Crusader Squad in a Drop Pod with the Emperor's Champion and a Techmarine, two MM Bunkers, two 8-9 man Missile Launcher squads, and a wing of Typhoons.

My first game was against Orks, and through some funny rolling, a mistake or two and running into the time-limit, we tied. It was Dawn of War with KP basically counting for one Objective, as well as Capture and Control. We tied on KP and each held an Objective, though if he had been a little more aggressive with his units he could have gotten a victory.

Second game was Spearhead with 4 Objectives and I faced my first more competent Grey Knights list. The worst portion was the 1,000 point Paladin unit with each model equipped differently and I just made too many mistakes. One was picking the wrong corner, one was focusing on the Paladin squad, one was not looking at his list before I deployed, one was charging his Paladin squad with the living half of my Terminator Command Squad, one was positioning my MM Dread badly, and of course I gave no protection to my Land Speeders. So I lost 3-1.

Third game was Pitched Battle Annihilation against Eldar. Some target priority mistakes left my opponent with a lot of badly damaged things which couldn't hurt me, but weren't claimed as Kill Points either until the very last phase when I could finish off three of them. I also got to use a flamer most effectively on a squad of Pathfinders so I pulled a win by two.

Unfortunately I did not place in the higher-ranks, but I did get some more experience and had a chance to see my large Terminator Command Squad on the battle-field (by large I mean 6, but it looks large with the two Independent Characters with it) and I had a good time, net win.

Anyway that's all I have for now, though if there are any questions I will be happy to answer them. I might go to weekly posting since I noticed that I get spikes of traffic about Friday or Saturday night, so I could get single articles up just before then (say, Thursday night or so) and that would give me an easy, strict posting schedule to stick to. I'll think about it.

Land Raider Pricing

So I visited Algesan’s blog…several weeks ago and he was asking what Land Raiders would have to cost to be worth taking.

I started writing my comment, explaining what I thought they should be priced at (based on the Metric numbers system I am relying less and less on) when I realized that I could neither easily explain how I got to those numbers nor why they were ideal

So I cleared that comment and began writing another, starting from the assumption that Land Raiders would come as a possible alternative to Predators. I started going through the price adjustments to Predators to account for the benefits the Land Raider has and I realized something interesting, which I hope to enlighten now:

Take your standard Auto/Las Predator: 125 points. It is basically a poor-man’s gunboat Land Raider if you consider an Autocannon comparable to a Twin-Linked Heavy Bolter. So adjust the price by multiplying by 4/3 to account for the increased accuracy of having Twin-Linked Lascannon Sponsons (now 8/9 to hit rather than 6/9, or a ratio of 4 to 3). Add PotMS. Transport capacity is 10 models or 5 Terminators, and the closest thing to that is a Drop Pod, so add the price of a Drop Pod; ignore the Assault Vehicle special rule and just assume that it is included with the Drop Pod price increase. AV 14 is a big step, but having it all-round is much bigger. The increase of one could be accounted for by essentially the Blessed Hull upgrade (different effect, but close enough to use the price), but this is different; instead just increase the cost by 50 points and call it good.

So how are those adjustments? They sound pretty fair, but maybe the AV increase is overpriced, drop it to only 30. Where does that put the price of the Land Raider? Right about 255, but 250 is a fine number to round to. So Land Raiders are actually well priced, compared to Predators. So why aren’t they used, and why is it that when they are they weaken the list?

                                                                                                        

How about a different approach? Two Twin-Linked Lascannons and a Twin-Linked Heavy Bolter that can move and shoot at multiple targets while carrying models, sounds familiar?…Of course, that is just like three Razorbacks! Actually not perfectly, the Razorbacks can target three different units instead of two and can move independently of each other; they can also carry a unit each rather than being limited to one. But a Land Raider cannot get chain-shaken and prevented from firing while the Razorbacks can, and most weapons cannot hurt Land Raiders (especially ones that stay back) while Razorbacks can get killed by just about any anti-tank weapon. The price of Razorbacks to equal the guns on a Land Raider is 90, 90 and 70 which equals 250: The price of the Land Raider, which means that a Land Raider should be an equivalent trade-off to three such Razorbacks, with the allowance that Heavy Bolter Razorbacks are pretty much a waste of time and thus this trade is not efficient besides the problem of being forced to leave two infantry squads without a transport.

How about combining the two above comparisons? Two Las/Bolter Predators clock in at 260 points. One the one hand you have AV 14, the ability to carry a unit, and being guaranteed the ability to fire a gun; on the other you have the ability to put gun vehicles in two different positions on the board and more anti-infantry firepower, but you can’t direct all anti-tank shots to tanks while anti-infantry shots go to infantry. But the Predators will be taken nearly every time, often as Auto/Las Predators to save points.

Are these comparisons just not valid? Probably, since even though the prices match the Land Raiders are neglected. My first inclination would be to see how much the price should be adjusted on the Land Raider, but how about looking at these comparisons and see what’s tipping the balance?

Single Predator vs. Land Raider are all price adjustments and make the Land Raider look even over-priced, unless you count the Autocannon worth saving 20 points to drop to the Heavy Bolter, and even then the Drop Pod’s price for the transport capacity seems small, so the only real difference is that the Land Raider is more expensive, and perhaps requires some creative use to get full value.

Razorbacks vs. Land Raider come down to having a spread-out value compared to a concentrated value. The Razorbacks benefit from needing at least 3 shots to kill but the Land Raider will likely need many more unless a specialized weapon is targeted at it. But I suppose you do gain more benefit from the Razorbacks by getting the protection to more units and being more flexible.

Two Predators vs. Land Raider once again, more flexibility with the Predators and more benefit from having two Auto/Las ones, for the same cost. Being Predators Melta isn’t especially a problem while the Land Raider should really be taking advantage of its transport capacity by moving a close combat unit forward.

What does all this tell us? In their current incarnation, Land Raiders should not exist. No, really, they are just too much to have any real, genuine value over taking more, weaker choices. Those choices are just as good, if not better, and add more flexibility to your list. Land Raiders are just doing too much.

How to fix them? Well, you could drop them to AV13 all-round. That would be a balancing effort for the game in general (allowing armies without Melta to have a better chance against them) and it would justify dropping its cost to something reasonable that would make it a valid option to compete for attention with Predators and Vindicators.

Or we could just make them a better value for their cost than anything else in the book. Will it tip things in their favor? No, because they still gimp you for costing so much, but at least it’s a trade-off rather than a simple sacrifice. Now I don’t have a whole lot of objective reason for how much I would price them at, but I like round numbers (to 10s or 20s), and it needs to still be one of the most expensive units that Black Templars can field.

A PotMS Vindicator or Tri-Las Predator will come in at around 160-170, maybe even up to 180 or 190 if you want to drop some upgrades on them. So 180-200 is a good number for the Godhammer Land Raider, and the Crusader should go for about 15 points more, just as it is now. That way it is costing you to go from Predators to Land Raiders and the Crusader variants still demand a specialized role to be worth taking as a transport, but the costs involved are worth it if you have the points. However this does mean that Predators are the choice in lower-point games while Land Raiders become the better option when you have more points to spend.

So I stand by my previous assertion: Land Raiders should not exist. No, Wounds or Structure Points would not solve the problem; they are just too much and need to be priced too high to be worth taking.

++++++

Yes, I’m most likely back to posting regularly. I am going to wait for at least two more posts before being certain that I can get up multiple posts a week. I have a lot of painting finished and possibly a tournament coming up next weekend, so I’ll try to stay updated on here about those.

Escalation, After a Thousand

Alright, this will be a quick update on the Escalation League I mentioned a month or two ago, with an update at the end.

Last month I went with an Assault Cannon/Storm Bolter Dreadnought in a Drop Pod, a Castellan with Power Weapon, Bolter and Holy Orb, and two Crusader Squads: One with a Neophyte and Missile Launcher, the other with four Neophytes, a Flamer and a Drop Pod. Those games did not go well, as I lost all three.

However, while deciding on my list for this month I looked back at my previous list and realized that it did not provide me with the tools to face anything I was going to face. An assault cannon, a missile launcher, a flamer and some bolters? So my thousand-point list was much better built.

Now, part of the reason was that I have since picked up quite a few new toys. I now have three Typhoons, two Rhinos, Plasma Guns, Meltaguns, and a fifth Powerfist Terminator so that I can field the squad without an HQ choice to accompany it. So my thousand point list was as follows:

*Emperor's Champion: Vow (Abhor);
*Terminator Squad (5): 2 CML, Tank Hunters;
*Dreadnought: Assault Cannon, Missile Launcher, Smoke Launchers, Searchlight;
*Crusader Squad (5): Missile Launcher, Plasma Gun; Rhino: Smoke Launchers, Searchlight;
*Crusader Squad (5/4): Meltagun; Drop Pod;
*Land Speeder: Typhoon, Heavy Bolter;
*Land Speeder: Typhoon, Heavy Bolter;
*Land Speeder: Typhoon, Heavy Bolter;
Total:-999

Now I have firepower. I was kind of concerned about only two troops, and in the last game I would have liked to have another, but they did fine. Anyway, compare: 12 Missiles to 1, and an additional three Heavy Bolters. Tank Hull to protect my home squad instead of an extra Neophyte and a more effective Dreadnought.

First game was against Eldar. I killed all of 4-5 models, one of which was pure luck and the others in Close Combat by my Emperor's Champion. I had that bad of shooting for the whole game. I missed three times with my Meltagun. I shook one of his two tanks once. And yet, I would have tied the game if I had just killed one of his tanks with the Meltagun.

Second game was against a really terrible Grey Knight list. 4 Models. The 500 point version had 3. Draigo, two single Paladins, and the fourth was a 500 point Librarian with all the fixin's. Thanks to my mass of firepower and my ability to shoot what I wanted (plus some poor rolls on his part) I tabled him 35 minutes after we started setting up. And yet he had a great time, probably because he wasn't expecting much from them (mostly just trying to get the games done when he could, otherwise it would count as a loss for us both when the month ended), and partially because it just went so fast (he did kill my Terminators though).

Third game was against Tyranids. I realized just before this that I had the ability to pretty much kill a Monstrous Creature per turn, plus all of the small blasts meant I wasn't especially concerned. We called the game early  at the end of turn 5 because the store was closing and I was claiming two Objectives, contesting a third, and he had one. He had a single Hive Guard and two smallish units of Termagants (one in combat with my Terminators), while I still had a large portion of my force left.

The scoring is simply 3 points per win, 1 point per draw, and 1 point per month for using a painted army. Now at the half-way point for the league, I have 8 points out of a potential...26. So after the first month where I had three losses (but with a painted army, so yeah), I'm not doing too well, but I am playing against more people and getting better known, so things are going fairly well.

Anyway, on to the update I mentioned before. I have an almost finalized list for the 1,500 point month, but I would appreciate any opinions on what's missing or queries for why something is the way it is. Here's the list:

*Emperor's Champion: Vow (Accept); -140
*Marshal: Bolter, Power Weapon, Holy Orb; -106
*Terminator Squad (5): 2 CML, TH; -265
*Dreadnought: Assault Cannon, Missile Launcher, Venerable, TH, Smoke; -148
*Dreadnought: Multi-Melta, Storm Bolter, DCCW, Extra Armor; Drop Pod; -150
*Crusader Squad (5/3): PF, Meltagun, Frags; Drop Pod; -173
*Crusader Squad (5): Multi-Melta, Plasma Gun; Rhino: Smoke Launchers, Extra Armor; -154
*Crusader Squad (5): Multi-Melta, Plasma Gun; Rhino: Smoke Launchers, Extra Armor; -154
*Land Speeder: Typhoon, Heavy Bolter; -70
*Land Speeder: Typhoon, Heavy Bolter; -70
*Land Speeder: Typhoon, Heavy Bolter; -70
Total:-1,500

There is also new (for any interested) a Win/Draw/Loss record for all of my games. Right now it's not looking too good, and you have to keep in mind that these are mostly just pick-up games at my local store, but it's getting better.

Tournament Results, Part 2.

Once again I should apologize to anyone who regularly checks to see if I have made any new posts. School this semester really occupies both my time and my thinking, plus my weekly visits to my FLGS suck a fair amount of my time and I’m still trying to catch up on sleep. So while I apologize once more, I also want to say right now that there probably won’t be anymore posts until school is over (after the first week in May). However I do have an actual post for now.

Those nine games I played have demonstrated to me a few things. Part 1 was getting kind of long, and was more intended to give a brief summary of each game but here I want to look at some of the lessons I’ve learned from finally getting to play test all of my lists.

Game 4 demonstrated an innate weakness in the DDP style of list. It struggles with those big units of Terminators. Whether through a strategy I haven’t discovered or a change to the list, I need to be able to handle those (as they form the back-bone of at least three popular types of lists and are common enough otherwise to demand some attention). This problem may exist in other lists but those enjoy the distance to have more time to pound them, so I need some way that a Drop Pod list can specifically deal with them.

Game 5 demonstrated that the theory behind using nothing but TL-Lascannons as Anti-Tank (not entirely true, as I also had Plasma Guns and the Dreadnoughts were armed with Missile Launchers) isn’t a perfect idea. It lacks the number of results on the damage table to reliably kill vehicles, despite re-rolling to hit and the high-strength. It may have just been the horrendous rolling, but the problem is still there.

Game 2 (I’m out of order, deal with it) suggested something a little more…drastic. The winning list that time essentially just used Drop Pods instead of Rhinos for transports. It still had Predators and Land Speeders and about half of the army started on the board. My thoughts were that this would hinder the list by allowing all of the fire to be directed at a few targets, leaving the reserved portion of the list lacking support when it came down (thus, Rhinos should be a better choice for the list). Surprisingly enough, this didn’t happen. Whether it was because of the terrain or because I didn’t target correctly or move correctly or whatever, it suggests that Drop Pods and Rhinos are essentially little different unless you want to do something that the Drop Pod just can’t do (such as fire out of the hatch). Is the cheaper price of Drop Pods worth the potential disadvantages? I don’t know, but it is something that I need to do some research on once I am done with this Tournament thingy (so a long-term plan).

Game 3 made it clear that S5 is not an Anti-Tank weapon. Not even massed S5. And S6 isn’t really either. Add to that my experiences with S3 in Close Combat from Game 6, and I’ve learned something more. Unless you are rolling with a 50% chance or better on the roll (each individual roll, not combined), you are setting yourself up for failure. You are just not likely enough to succeed to get reliable results unless you have A LOT of dice that you’re rolling (given that somewhere around 18 dice is only enough to get maybe 1-2 successes, I really mean a lot). To demonstrate this, in Game 6 I charged a unit of Terminators with 11 Termagants. 22 Attacks, something like 17-18 hits at S3. 3 wounds. Not average? No, but still a reasonable result. What is the other end of a reasonable number of wounds in this case? 9 wounds. If those Termagants were S4 or had poison, 9 wounds would be average, and with luck like what I actually got, I would have had 6 (based here on the chances, not necessarily the actual rolls). So, double the effectiveness even though only half-again the chance. That is the weakness of S3 against Infantry, or S6 against Vehicles, or basically anything relying on basically a 5+. You need better. I need better. And I will be keeping that in mind when I make lists and decisions during games. By the way, this is also very good reason not to include glancing hits in Nike’s Metric System: their average doesn’t accurately represent how they’ll do.

So over all, I will have to be making some changes to at least some of my lists. A lot of the changes will be to the Tyranid lists, as I am less confident in my ability with them and I have seen some of my failures there, but I might be making some posts about changes to the Black Templar lists; we’ll see.

As for what those changes will be, they are straight from the examples above. I need to be able to put results on the damage table against vehicles. I also need to continue to look at how Drop Pod based lists do. So far, it seems that without a good number of Drop Pods (to be landing several down at once) the squads tend to die (which is easily predicted), so at low-points the list looks like it would fall apart. Lastly, I need to make sure that I’m not using mid-strength weapons as my primary anti-tank options (such as Plasma Guns).

One final note: I don’t remember all of the promises I made about posting up lists and, rather than checking back to remember, I’ve decided to just not post them without a request from someone to do so, and here’s why. Someone on YTTH (I believe TKE) mentioned that he’s stopped reading list-building articles because he doesn’t gain anything from them, and that made me realize: I’ve been doing the same thing. I’ve stopped reading list-building articles unless they’re by someone I talk to (like Marshal Learoth or Algesan) or on YTTH (and only then Black Templar and Tyranid ones). So, not being a fantastic list-builder myself, I’m going to stop doing those kinds of posts unless someone asks me to or I think I’ve stumbled onto an idea that I should share (which won’t happen until our new codex, so…).