Old Miseryguts, or where has my game gone?

[Obsidorox]

I think the flyers are ok. I still think they will inevitably balance themselves out as more codex are updated. Really the current flyers are more akin to an apache helicopter - aerial ranged support against ground targets. I don't think any of the "fighters" are spectacular against other aircraft. They all seem more geared for strafing and shredding ground targets. Bombers are a little silly though...

Out of all the 6th edition flyers, helldrakes do seem a little over the top. I don't think any of the flyers should have front and side AV12 especially in a world where AA is typically Str 7 or less. But everything else - meh. The other thing that bothers me with the helldrake is it acts like a FMC with none of the drawbacks and hits harder than any FMC in the game.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus

[lordofthebrood]

Jun 7, 2013 11:55:59 GMT guidebot said:

Wraithguns have always been really, really nasty against anything with multiple wounds (and, indeed, anything in general!). Wraithguard get five in a squad for half the price of a wraithknight. Yes, they've got less range and maneuverability, but it just seems really underwhelming to me that a wraithknight has a paltry two shots for it's price. That's two dice it rolls. They can miss. They can fail to wound. They can be saved by cover. Even though eldar can get around these limitations (psychic powers and wraith marking) it's no more potent a tactic than many, many others in the game. They have only a 1/6 chance of the instant death per hit. I just don't see it being that great. Big models die in one hit all the time, and this seems like a fairly unreliable way of doing it.

I find a unit of long fangs far more scary for my MCs. And they can afford two units of long fangs for the cost of the wraithknight.

I think I'm beginning to see what you mean. On average they'll get 1.3333 hits, 1 wound... 1/6 chance of ID.

Does each wraith cannon count as one weapon? So it can only fire those two shots?

[guidebot]

That's right, each wraithcannon counts as one weapon - it has no allowance for firing any more than two weapons (even the shoulder weapons) each turn.

[lordofthebrood]

Oh. Thanks! That's actually okay then

[commandersasha]

Guidebot, my thoughts WERE at first that I was tired of the game, but I have found that when these units are absent, I have a great time.
My main issue is that whilst these units are potentially involved, I HAVE to accommodate for them, not helped by the fact that neither Nids not DE have good dedicated AA unless I buy the models I'm arguing against, and once they arrive on the table, the game becomes ALL about them, at the cost of all strategy.
My gaming buddies had the same problem the one time I brought a Hierophant (proxy) to an Apoc game, with old Warp Field rules and pre-Mindstrke; it's like Paris Hilton turning up at a night club: nobody wants her there, and the whole gig becomes about her!

[Squire]

After reading a long thread of dakka about the viability of the wraithknight I'm not so worried about my tyranids coming up against it. The ideal outcome would be the CC flyrant getting to grips with it (LW&BS, ST, toxin sacs) though whether it can make it to combat is another matter. If I'm coming up against a wraithknight or riptide on a regular basis I might even give him an implant attack in games bigger than 1500 points.

Alternatively there are toxic gants and tervigons. The most important thing would probably be focusing on the game and the rest of the opponent's army rather than worrying too much about the WK.

[Geneva]

My gaming group came up with something called Softcore 40k a few months back. Basically fliers count as Fast Skimmers, CC units charge 6"+d6 and unanimously agreed upon 'bad units' got a slight points reduction. Carnifexen would only be around 140 points instead of 160 for example. I only played one game with the rules (with my IG too so no advantages on my side) and it made the game a lot more fun in a beer and pretzels sort of way. It kind of messed with my target priority a bit but I enjoyed it.

I don't like the 6th Ed competitive scene much at the moment. It doesn't feel like an improvement on 5th but rather an even more exclusive shift in the meta. Before it was tanks, now it's shooting. I feel that 6th was definitely designed more for home games where everyone builds their list in good faith and house rules get thrown about the place. From a tactical perspective it's admittedly a bit of a mess.

And to echo Yori for a moment, yes, the cover system has lost waaay too much of its depth.

[Psychichobo]

Definitely. It's why I don't really play competitively if I can help it - when the armies are less focused on what is best and more on what the player likes the idea of, you tend to avoid the game being balanced heavily in favour of what works. But even then that has problems, and the more I see of 40k the more I wonder whether it's still got a friendly appeal - even the most fluff-heavy players I know are starting to produce lists that wouldn't seem out of place on a tournament roster.

And when the game ekes closer to list building than straight tactics that's always a little bit worrying.

[ZergLord]

For me, 6th Ed is a mixed bag. GW screwed up and made the balance quite chaotic IMO. The 5th Ed was based around Mecha and since you knew that everyone would bring a lot of transports and tanks you built Mech armies and/or made lists that could efficiently deal with vehicles.

Now in 6th Ed, game is supposedly based around flyers - but now Flyers are either OP (Helldrakes, Necron Croissants, Vendettas or Valkyries or whatever they're called) or bad (every other flyer). In any case no army except Tau and IG, I think, has cost effective anti-air. Vehicles are still a good option but not something common anymore. Now I can't build my lists around something because I honestly don't know what I'll face - I don't know will I face flyers, don't know will I face mech, foot, or whatever.

[jocke01]

I don't think that the big units are as bad as you would say but they do change the tactic and army lists. With nids the only real problem I have had is with AV 12 flyers since the only thing that can hurt these things are hive guard (flyrants rarely live past turn 2 for me and do too little dmg) so if I bring enough guard I shoot flyers if not I have no choicce but to ignore it. I recently started to play marines again and I feel quite eh about this edition.

The problem I have with 40k now is that so many units are so durable and assaults are so much harder to do. For example the riptide, each game my friend brings this thing I either use all my firepower to take it down or I ignore the best I can becuase 5 wounds with +2 5++ (or 3++) is just to hard to take down if you don't focus it several turns. AV 12 flyers is really hard to take down if you don't ally in some tau skyfire. So that's another unit I just ignore or I go buy tellion and a aegis line but ugh why must every army use this aegis line it's like 6th edition forces everyone to go gunline and grab as much 3+ or better covers as possible.

Now except for the helldrake the dmg they do to my army when ignored isn't that bad since my troops aren't relly hurt by it and most battles goes down to all troops sits in area terrain or ruins on objectives going to ground every turn and trading snap shots with each other while stuff like the riptide or flyers kill my vehicles and such.


With nids I don't have to much problem with 6th edition now with my new list but when I play space marines god dang is every game the same thing.
both armies put down their defence lines and takes turns shooting at 3+ cover and then the guy/gal who got warlord and first blood won.

As long as Tyranids get's some decent AA in the next codex I will have no problem if they want to spam flyers, riptides or whatever since then I can deal with them.

[andy089]

I think 40k actually has a special kind of scale: an exponential one. So basically your infantry are to scale but the bigger things get, the smaller they are in the game. With ranges it's the same.

Thinking about it that way, 48" range of a weapon is a veeeeeery long distance in "real scale".

That's why a rhino is slightly too small for 10 marines but a land raider way too small for 16. Because a rhino is in 1:60 scale and a land raider in 1:75 or something like that.

Obviously this system has Problems with big vehicles with visible guys inside, such as flyers, which are out of proportions or look like flying cockpits because of this.

[revx]

Jun 7, 2013 4:12:11 GMT infornography said:

The hull of the M1A1 is 26 feet long. That is roughly 4 and a third tall humans laying foot to head.

Take a baneblade and start laying guardsmen down next to it. I think it is roughly the same. I don't have a baneblade model but I've seen several and looked up images on the internet. Estimating a guardsman model is around 1.5 inches tall if they are standing upright, maybe with counting the hats and such, and a baneblade is 20 cm long according to an internet post I dug up. that is about 5 and a quarter guardsmen for a baneblade.

So the baneblade is slightly bigger, but should be MUCH bigger.

The baneblade is a good bit wider than an Abrams though.

Point still stands that vehicles are not represented on the same scale as infantry. Ever try to fit 10 space marines in a rhino?

given your 26FT an M1A1 scaled down to 28mm would onlt be around 13.5cm 6.5cm shorter than a baneblade or 25+% smaller

[revx]

Jun 11, 2013 17:40:13 GMT andy089 said:

I think 40k actually has a special kind of scale: an exponential one. So basically your infantry are to scale but the bigger things get, the smaller they are in the game. With ranges it's the same.

Thinking about it that way, 48" range of a weapon is a veeeeeery long distance in "real scale".

That's why a rhino is slightly too small for 10 marines but a land raider way too small for 16. Because a rhino is in 1:60 scale and a land raider in 1:75 or something like that.

Obviously this system has Problems with big vehicles with visible guys inside, such as flyers, which are out of proportions or look like flying cockpits because of this.

48" in real scale would be 232FT - not long range at all

a rhino is real scale is as large as the M1A1 refrenced earlier; APCs are smaller than M1A1 and carry 10 men so why again would the rhino be too small? yes fitting 10 28mm scaled SM in may not work but i'd argue that the infintary in this game may have the scaling problem and not the vehicles.

[andy089]

I am afraid you didn't quite grasp the concept of exponential scale:
If the scale decreases exponentially, then longer distances get even longer and shorter distances get even shorter.
So say a guardsman (and eldar) are to scale, then ripper swarms are smaller than converted real scale and a Land Raider bigger than converted to real scale, do you know what I mean?
And in THIS respect 48" is a very long distance.

So marines are a bit bigger than they are in converted realscale, vehicles are quite a bit bigger, gaunts and rippers are smaller etc. Pistols are pretty short ranged (they probably would be to scale I suppose) while Lascannons are extremely long ranged.

[infornography]

Thing is it is entirely inconsistent. Fluffwise the thunderhawk is 26.6 meters long. It's 19 inches on the tabletop is about right for that.

Consider also that the models for an astartes and a guardsman are about the same height when space marines are supposed to tower over their unaugmented counterparts.

I wish that the scale were predictable and/or representative in any reliable fashion but it just isn't. Ultimately I am ok with that, if tanks and flyers were as big as they should be they would dominate the table. I kind of like that the infantry are not quite so dwarfed by them as they probably should be.

The sizes of things on the tabletop are really just a vague approximation at best.