Re: [Epic] Uncheesy detachments

From: John Chapman <john_at_...>
Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 10:36:21 +1100 (EST)

> ---------> Well mainly I was talking about the non-pinning of bikes in
> close combat after TL. All those engines, marines, tanks or whatever
> following along behind the initial wave could now shoot those bikes to
> pieces, where before they weren't a valid target, so the CC ability of
> Eldar armies dropped a notch IMHO. They were still more than able to
> roast Chaos at range, and they still had scorps and banshees for up
        As noted before it wasnt so much that the wind host was absurdly
cheap as the bike and vyper detats were overpriced. The fetish for 50pt
increments in units was probably the cause of this. As to shooting stuff in
CC - even the chaos player thought it was silly that if there was enough
separation to clearly shoot at one unit that there wasnt enough to shoot at
the other (large size differences not included here). We normally played
either shoot at either or neither (not in the one game of course). It worked
fine and compared to IG or Ork Bikes point for point we never really had
wind host troubles - they were good but never a problem unit.
> close, the ever-present WR hosts just weren't quite as handy for daemon
> busting. Now the one-turn mass swarm vs a titan might still work as that
> didn't change...
>
> ---------> Yeah, between Psycannons, Prism cannons, Psykers (Warlocks)
> in more numerous quantities than probably any other army, Striking
> Scorps rolling 3d6 +6 in CC, Harlies with free re-rolls and shooty
> transports to get them into range, in addition to those things you
> mention above, it was hard to do much with Chaos against them. Falcons &
> Tempests on Pop-up were a pain to any army, but they were plenty
> adequate to nuke the few units you had which were a)not vulnerable to
> psykers and b) having any kind of armor save. It's sad when you can't
> out-shoot them, and the alleged "CC Superiority" of chaos armies really
> just meant you didn't have a ranged attack, and the Eldar could match
> your CC rating. Orks or Impies were fun to play, but against Eldar, you
> really had to have faith...
        Ummmmm do the words 'Minotaurs and Trolls' mean anything to you ?
POint for point these were about the nastiest CC troops in the game. And there
was (rules wise at least) no real limit on how many you could take. The number
of games that our resident chaos player won by just heaping trolls on 2-4
objectives (ie you kill them and assuming they dont regenerate they still
cover the freaking objective for the rest of the turn - and the number of times
the troll covering the objective came back 3-4 times was astounding....).
Keeping them safe for a few turns. Then on one turn we'd see an all out effort
by legions (ie 2-3) of rhino and T-Hawk bound marines who's job was to take just
 enough Vps worth of objective to push him over the req'd number. Sure a marine
isnt great but an awful lot of chaos cards flew in that time. That was the
gross thing about those cards they were effectively a mobile reserve - extra
points where needed...... Oh yeah the other gross thing was the use of the
Nurgle reward. Pre TL days would often see him win initiative move second
and decimate a horde of infantry with that card(I hated THawks)
. There wasnt much you could do
about it either - the area that covered was too big to really spread out
effectively and high priced units like exarchs , scorpions etc just made it more
 effective. Burning bodies when it showed up did a similar thing...Chaos marines
 stat wise were point for point better than normal marines to start with they
didnt really need that extra boost.
        As for guns - this guy had gone and made himself about 20 Tarantulas.
5 Shots at 75cm 5+ and -2 for 100 points in the FF phase and then another 5
in the advance fire phase ? They were too cheap and effective to take on. TO
a large extent the eldar (and anyone else)army tended to wind up hiding from
 them - which had the subsequent effect of making the previously mentioned
tactics more effective. What shooting power he didnt get from tarantulas he
got from land raiders (good but not great units) or chaos titans - which pre-TL
were about the best in the game (Same as imperial pretty much but get some
albeit minor - free extras). All in all chaos didnt have a lot of different
shooty units but what they did have was good and had no limit on numbers. Ok
there were a lot of average (even crap) chaos units - but the chaos marine
army with a small amount of help from select units was found to be very hard
to beat around here. Sorry to all of you that have heard this before from me.
                        JAC
>
> Chris Miller
>
> (BTW 9 prism cannons and 50 falcons? Did he actually have mini's for
> this? Painted? Heck, I thought 20 in one battle was enough...)
>
        Heck I had 30 painted falcons - they accumulated fast with the
old packaging. Sadly I had only 4 prism cannons......
Received on Thu Jan 01 1970 - 00:00:00 UTC