Re: [Epic] T'Hawks

From: John Chapman <john_at_...>
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 1997 16:29:29 +1000 (EST)

>
> I heard Chris Pinson scream:
> > how would people rate thunderhawks just used as ground attack fighters ????
> > I was thinking of a detahcment of 2 (185 points) ????
> > Let me know what you think.
>
> Personally I think it is strange that Space Marines dont have their own
> fighter escorts(much like whirlwinds) as this would reduce their reliance
> upon the imperium for fighter escort. Sure Thunderhawks are big and
> armored but even Ork Fighta-Bommerz can take them down at a fraction of
> the cost.

        Fighta Bomerz ARE in fact one of the better units to go up against
thunderhawks. But consider this
        Ork FB goes first and has 2 shots. These shots have a 11/36 chance
of scoring at least one hit on the THawk.(The FB has just over a 1/20 of killing
 it).
        Thawk Shoots back-now theres only a 25/36 chance of it still being
there to shoot back.The odds of it hitting the FB at least is just over 80%.
The chance of it killing the FB is about 37.5% (3/8). So when we combine
the thawk being around and hitting the FB the odds are about 5/9. The odds
of it killing the fb are about 26%. That means 1-1 a thawk is about twice as
likely to damage a FB as the FB is to damage it and over five times as likely
to kill a FB as the FB is to kill the Thawk.(sheesh I hope that maths worked
out ok or else Im going to look pretty stupid here :) ).
        Now the main thing to be said in the FBs favour here is that hey
its only 30 points. True. If you want to gang up your FBs 2(or more) on one
you shout be able to drive off a slightly greater number in points worth of
THawks. However you still (i think) will expect to lose more FBs than your opponent will lose THawks. So basically youre spending points which at best are
only likely to neutralize a similar number of points from the opposition.
For an army like eldar - where the fighters are 40 points each and have
exactly the same effect on Thawks the equation is even worse.Whats more
even ganging up on the thawks the odd one or 2 will still get to carry out
the ground attack - so basically you both have a lot of points basically
cancelling each other but the opponent gets some small attacks on you.......
        Now lets just think about what this means. Great big lumbering
transports and unless fighters can meet them 2-1 or better and the transport
will win. Thats a bit silly isnt it (ok we're not playing a great game if
we want to worry about reality but.........)? The main problems seem to
be in the effect of the 6 armour and the fact that the get so many dice in
air to air (heck whats the mane of that value again?) . If they got 2 like
most other transports/bombers (Maurauder/Vampire/Pheonix etc) or possibly
even 3 they wouldnt be so devastating air to air (thank god they can only
target one opponent!).Why they get 4(Vampire/Pheonix 6 Firepower , 2 dice
Thawk 8-4 ?!?!) is beyond me. It really is a tough decision unless I have
LOTS of spare Nightwings to actually intercept them because Im probably
going to lose the fight. The answer might be buy more Nightwings but then
we get down to an arms race of flyers - Id hate to have to buy 20 Nightwings
because i was worried about 5-6 Thawks and 5-6 Thunderbolts (it really starts
getting cheesy when you start really overloading on a unit like that - or
at least I feel it does)........
        The only other point where this seems to happen in the game is
comparing land raiders to other tanks. Its not just that they get 6 armour.
More that they always get to roll 2 dice which always hit at 4+ . The poor
old lemann russ for 3 points less gets 1.5-2 dice needing a 6. Even blast
markers dont really cut it - sure they lose at the same rate as you but
in proportion the LRdrs are always better (go hit them in CC or with support
platforms i guess - tough on orks though). The combination of a few
factors means that the price differential doesnt reflect the difference in
use of the units mentioned here. It could be worse I guess heck in other GW
games it often IS worse. It would be nice if they got it right for once and
we didnt have to have arms(cheese) reduction talks before a game :).
        Hmmmm you people seem to have hit upon one of the few points that
I really dont like in an otherwise decent game. Sorry for the rant.
                                                JAC
Received on Thu Jan 01 1970 - 00:00:00 UTC