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Post by nurglitch on May 28, 2012 17:35:54 GMT
Jabberwocky:
Okay, so to change perspectives a bit, how would you kill a fully complex unit of Tyranid Warriors? What units would you take for the task, and what tactics would you employ?
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Post by vecuu on May 28, 2012 18:32:46 GMT
That being said, I doubt the Prime would be thrown into Warriors/Thropes as frequently if he was T4. He's worth 3 Krak Missiles thanks to being T5.
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Post by coredump on May 28, 2012 19:05:49 GMT
Thank you, now we can look at the specific examples to see if you are better off with a homogeneous group, or a unique group... Before we start, however, I want to address the lack of detail. A scenario that starts with "you take 3 ID unsaved wounds" is way to ambiguous for a credible discussion. It really does make a difference *how* those wounds occured. (how many shots total, how many were ID, how many hit, wounds, etc.) Take a brood of Warriors, one unique group of three identical models. Place them in a line and do enough wounds to remove one model. Which one should removed? Not the middle one, because that would put the brood out of unit coherency. It has to be one of the ones at the end of the line. If one gives Synapse to another Tyranid brood, and the other Warrior does not, and you want that Synapse, then the solution is to remove the one that does not give Synapse. Furthermore only three wounds need to be applied to the unit to create the risk of losing one model. Two points, first... there is almost no detriment to taking out the center warrior; so the 'problem' you are trying to solve is moot. Second, if they were 3 unique models *NONE* of them would need to be removed. Which is why the homogeneous brood is a *disadvantage*. If a homogeneous (all the same) brood takes misses 3 ID saves, then all 3 will die. If a unique brood fails 3 ID saves, you may only lose 1. Again, you are much better with 3 unique models. This is not an example, this is a series of 'what if' or 'could be'... followed by some random conclusion. Break this down into one, single example; so it can be discussed specifically without all of the inherent ambiguity. There is no way for me to respond to what you have written, because you have not written anything cohesive enough to respond to. But to hit a couple of points: Yes it takes 5 wounds before you will even possibly lose a model. If they were homogeneous, it would only take 3. Again, there is no real issue removing the middle model. There is also a huge advantage in soaking ID wounds, by piling them on the same model... if models are unique. But please, lets stick with specific examples, and not a series of could bes and what ifs... You are stating the bold part as fact, but have done nothing to establish it as fact. You are making assumptions and hoping we just agree. You need to *show* why a homogeneous brood is better off against 'copious melta' Again, you state this as fact with nothing supporting it. You said you would give examples, but instead you only give assertions. So I will give examples: A tank shoots at your brood of 3. Main gun is S8 AP4 blast and hits and wounds 3 times; Storm bolters hit and causes 4 wounds. Homogeneous Brood: all 3 dead Unique brood: Only 1 dead. An IG squadron sends a barrage onto 4 warriors in area terrain. The S8 guns get 10 hits, causes 8 wounds. Homogeneous group: 50% chance of at least one warrior surviving Unique group: 70% chance of at least one warrior surviving. I can keep going. Unique models almost always have the advantage. The best the homogenous brood can do is 'the same', and even that is only in very specific, rare, situations. But if you can think of ones I am missing... please provide some examples. Examples please.... You have yet to provide one, single, concrete example of when the homogenous brood would have any advantage; material or positional. You keep making assertions.... give us an example... I can think of a couple of examples, but they are all extremely contrived and extremely unlikely. So much so,that they are useless for any reasonable discussion of tactics/strategy/listbuilding. But if you have others...please share.... |
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Post by coredump on May 28, 2012 19:21:21 GMT
Yes, the problem being that we have to move the unit back into unit coherency, which means an additional constraint on movement. Every inch counts, and losing it because were have to move an indirect route means the difference between getting into range, into combat, and being able to control position on the board. You are still doing it. "This could happen..." I really, seriously, doubt it. Give an example. Give an example where you are better off taking a homogeneous brood than a unique brood. In that example, show how it is such a disadvantage to remove one of the middle models. Have you ever used warriors in a game? Your opponent never shot them with anything but S8 AP4 weapons? Getting shot by bolters/heavy bolter/autocannons/etc etc is *much* more likely than some contrived situation where you are somehow punished for having unique models.... Again, two assertions you have never provided evidence to support. Please stop stating things as facts until you have at least provided some supporting evidence. Yeah, I often sit up at night feeling sad for those poor GK players and their unique paladins; and all those ork players forced to win those tourneys with those nob biker squads... must be horrible for them.... By the way, earlier you stated this: Are you now willing to admit that you were wrong with this statement? |
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Post by Jabberwocky on May 28, 2012 19:27:50 GMT
Jabberwocky: Okay, so to change perspectives a bit, how would you kill a fully complex unit of Tyranid Warriors? What units would you take for the task, and what tactics would you employ? The same thing I'd use on most multiwounders. Swarmlord and boneguard. It would be harder than killing a normal warrior brood though. |
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Post by coredump on May 28, 2012 19:31:48 GMT
The thing is, complex get progressively less useful the larger a squad gets, the worse their armor save gets, and the fewer wounds they have. In order for WATs to be useful, you need a smallish unit, a good save, and several wounds. 30 individually equipped Termagants will die as fast as 30 identical termagants, as you'll rarely take enough wounds to go around spreading saves, and if you do, you still need to pass you're 6+ save, which you'll probably get denied anyway. At this point, paying for the upgrades is inane. You are correct. Where complex units would help gaunts/stealers/etc is not in the WATS, but in absorbing damage. Take this example: 200 points: 20 devilgaunts. Move across the board,take 10 casualties. Shoot with 10 devilgaunts. 200 ponts: 15 devilgaunts + 10 vanilla gaunts. Move across the board take 10 casualties. Shoot with 15 devilgaunts. Or a brood of 6 CC warriors. You only need to give the front 2 lash whips since they will be in contact with most of the enemy, another 3 could have dual boneswords. Maybe one vanilla to absorb damage while closing. Stuff like that. |
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Post by DarkGuard on May 28, 2012 19:35:29 GMT
nurglitch, it would appear that you're still not understanding wound allocation on complex multiple wound units properly, did you not read my post with all the nice rulebook quotations? The limitation of removing whole models when possible with instant death weaponry isn't applied before wound allocation, but after wound allocation and armour saves are made.
So if you have 1 wounded deathspitter and 1 unwounded venom cannon it can still go on the deathspitter as that clause isn't taken into effect until after you've allocated the wound. You haven't allocated the wound yet and it doesn't effect wound allocation. all it does is effect how you remove models after saves are rolled (which is wound allocation). If you also had an unwounded deathspitter and you still allocate it to the deathspitter group, then the clause of removing as many wounds as possible activates and the instant death wound removed the unwounded one.
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Post by Jabberwocky on May 28, 2012 20:18:15 GMT
The one time I've regretted having a unique model in a unit, was when I strung my stealers out and mistakenly put the Broodlord too far forward. I wanted to deny a blender dred an assault but was forced to lose my wounded Broodlord, which was a big blow psychologically. Had I instead had more stealers, I would have come out about the same anyway but at the time it was disheartening.
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Post by nurglitch on May 28, 2012 20:54:42 GMT
DarkGuard:
Curiously I could say the same thing, that you're curiously still not understanding how wound allocation works. Curious, isn't it, that I can read the rulebook the same as you and yet somehow disagree. Curious. Or sad. It's still cool to put people down by declaring that they make us sad by disagreeing with us, right?
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Post by N.I.B. on May 29, 2012 8:59:15 GMT
At least it's been entertaining to watch nurglitch trying to wiggle out of this one.
I hope in a few weeks, insta-death and wound allocation abuse will be a thing of the past, my Warriors and Raveners are waiting in the shadows.
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Post by Jabberwocky on May 29, 2012 11:31:04 GMT
At least it's been entertaining to watch nurglitch trying to wiggle out of this one. I hope in a few weeks, insta-death and wound allocation abuse will be a thing of the past, my Warriors and Raveners are waiting in the shadows. ... The shadows....in the warp? Sorry had to be done. |
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Post by coredump on May 29, 2012 14:13:41 GMT
At least it's been entertaining to watch nurglitch trying to wiggle out of this one. I hope in a few weeks, insta-death and wound allocation abuse will be a thing of the past, my Warriors and Raveners are waiting in the shadows. Yeah, it tends to be a pattern. First he makes some claims like they are facts. When he gets called on it, he reply's with a wall of text. When challenged again, he uses a longer wall of text. If that still doesn't work, he picks one tiny tiny thing to comment on, and simply ignores every other part of the challenge..... |
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Post by nurglitch on May 29, 2012 14:31:38 GMT
coredump:
If there's a pattern, it's that I don't respond to 'quote-cutting', which is cutting up a post into quotes and then replying to bits rather than to the whole. I mean, I'd love to discuss these things with you, but you don't seem to be interested in responding on a constructive level.
Take the 'facts' thing. If you and I disagree on the facts, and we're working from the same evidence, perhaps we are interpreting the evidence differently. Hence I need to explain how I'm interpreting the evidence, so you can understand my perspective. Yes, this requires walls of text, but I'm working from the assumption that we're all capable of handling a text-based format.
And if I agree with you, why bother mentioning it? Constructive discussion comes from identifying points of disagreement, not in fellating people who happen to agree with us. I mean, I get the need for approval and validation, it's just that I already have those things in life, and so come to forums like this for constructive purposes.
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Post by coredump on May 29, 2012 16:47:01 GMT
Dude, that is lame. It means you get to say whatever you want, and don't have to respond to directed criticism. Pretty convenient.
But fine.Lets play the game your way.
You made a claim on p. 1 regarding a brood of 3 warriors taking damage. Do you stand by that statement still? Or was that statement in error?
Can you provide any concrete example of when a homogeneous brood of warriors is better off than a unique brood of warriors? A specific concrete example.
You have repeatedly stated that unique broods have no advantages against ID attacks. Do you have any supporting evidence for this? Or do you retract your statement?
You have stated that unique broods will lead to hard decisions regarding which models to lose. Do you have supporting evidence or a concrete example, or do you retract that statement?
You have stated a few times that removing a 'middle' model would be bad. Could you please provide an example to illustrate that? Again, a complete, specific, concrete example would be most useful. (Or do you retract that statement?)
Do you still feel that the positional advantages of a homogeneous unit are better than the material advantages of a unique unit? If you have not done so above, could you please provide an actual example to support this claim? Or do you retract your statement?
There, no 'quote cutting', just simple questions to help me understand how you are interpreting the evidence; so I can understand your perspective. Feel free to use a wall of text, but please try and keep the examples specific and concrete. IOW a single example, not a string of potential 'what ifs'. (You may give mulitple examples if that would help.)
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Post by nurglitch on May 29, 2012 18:42:26 GMT
coredump:
This is a forum. We all get to post what we want, within the limits of the board rules, and none of us have to respond to directed criticism. Discussion is a co-operative venture, not some sort of judicial combat. Thank you for co-operating. Pity about the single-sentence paragraph structure, but at least you've left out the quote-cutting.
On page 1 of this thread I pointed out that the lack of an option for a fully complex unit was not necessarily a bad thing. As I said in response to DarkGuard's post, non-complex and less complex units don't face the dilemma of either removing specialists (unique models), or losing position (unit coherency, etc). That's because, as I pointed out in yet another post, wound-allocation shenanigans aren't "as advantageous to the Tyranid army design as having large, non-complex units."
Now why would I make sure a claim when everyone knows that a fully complex unit is optimized to reduce the number of wounds suffered by a unit? Well, firstly yes, as I pointed out in my comparison (reply #25) of homogenous, partially complex, and fully complex units of Tyranid Warrior, the fully complex Warriors suffer the fewest casualties from non-Instant Death weapons.
However, against units that are armed exclusively with Instant-Death-causing weapons (Grey Knight Dreadnoughts with Psy-Ammunition and Autocannons, Long Fangs, etc), the fully complex unit only has an advantage when the number of wounds exceeds the number of Warriors. Quite how that's an advantage I'm not sure. Still, why not just assume it for the sake of argument? Against units with a mix of Instant Death and non-Instant-Death weapons, the complex unit again appears to have the advantage of suffering fewer casualties.
Okay. So to simpify things, for the sake of argument let's assume that a fully complex unit will suffer half the casualties that even a partially complex unit will suffer from the same putative unit shooting at it. So a fully complex unit suffering one casualty will see a partially complex unit suffer two casualties.
Let's assume, as well, that the brood contains the following units, arranged in a line formation, since that's how they're going to maximize their Synapse footprint, and likewise gain the benefit of things like Spore Cloud and so on. They're on 40mm bases, to let's say their line is visually as follows (the hyphens are 1" distances).
O--O--O
If the fully complex unit takes a casualty, then it might be one on the end, it might be the one in the middle. If it's the one in the middle, then the ones on the end need to close the gap. Closing this gap may mean that the unit cannot assault an enemy unit on either of its flanks, it might put another unit out of Synapse, which is bad considering the parallel positioning that would be implied by the line formation. A casualty on either flank might put the unit out of range of the Spore Cloud, and thus deny them cover, when the next enemy unit shoots.
Now, let's suppose that there is some optimal loss of Synapse, aura synergies and range/assault potential. You want to assign wounds obtain that optimal loss, or even avoid it entirely. But you still have to assign wounds on a 1:1 basis with models; no model can be assigned two until three have been assigned.
Conversely, where a non-complex unit suffers two casualties, you can decide what the optimal position will be for the surviving Warrior. If the optimal position is to provide Synapse, you can do that. If the optimal position is to benefit from some similar aura-synergy, you can do that. You can decide that you don't want to be shot out of a charge next turn, or be out of shooting range.
Compare Warriors to Nobz. What benefits does a unit of Nobz bring to an Ork army? It doesn't matter if the Nobz maintain a particular distance to other units. Nobz don't bring any range-dependent anti-psychic potential. In addition they have access to organic Feel No Pain from a Painboy, and also the option for invulnerable saves. The only reason they have to adopt a line formation is to avoid excessive casualties from blast and template-based Instant Death weapons. And Nobz are Ld7, so they aren't exactly reliable once they start taking casualties. Tyranid Warriors are Fearless.
It's not necessarily a bad thing that Tyranid Warriors cannot be fully complex. It's a good thing from the point of view of not being Ork Nobz. And it's a good thing from the point of view of being components of the Tyranid army - any advantage they might gain from being complex units is outweighed by the disadvantage to the army in having units put out of position.
I mean, there was a reason that the best build for them using the 4th edition codex under the 5th edition rules resulted in a homogenous unit instead of a fully complex unit: Synapse was too important to be left to saving throws.
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