RE: [Epic] Uncheesy detachments

From: Miller, Chris <CMiller_at_...>
Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 08:27:16 -0600

> 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.
---------> How on earth did the Chaos player ever get trolls to go
anywhere with a 10cm move and stupidity rules which meant that half the
game they went on "advance" and only moved 10 cm? - unless you were kind
enough to place those objectives on his side of the table... : )
     Minotaurs are fine, but not especially hard to kill. The eldar CC
specialists still stomped them most of the time, and the ELdar, if
anyone, had no problem delivering overpowered CC troops to the right
place.
> 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......
--------> Yep, the cards made the difference pretty often in CC. (Ack -
that stupid growth card...)
> 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)
   The T-hawk plague move was one I ran into later on. Unless you shot
him down (lucky) it was pretty hard to stop. But there were still a ton
of chaos units getting croaked by either pop-up attacks or massed
imperial artillery each turn, and the plague card usually wasn't enough
to change the outcome.
> 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.
 Well that's a new one - massed chaos tarantulas? I still think the
pop-up factor would win it for the eldar, - along with a big mobile
assault force, but that is something I haven't seen before.
> 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
--------> The big flaws in the Chaos marine army locally were a lack of
range (50cm tops for CSM's) and a reliance on easily-killed transport
vehicles (which also lacked offensive capability) to get anywhere.
Playing regular marines, you were lucky to get one turn's use out of
rhinos, as if you stayed in them it was guarenteed death, and I didn't
see any change with chaos, except that now I had to pay for the rhinos
seperately. T-hawks were always great, but no one here overkilled them
as I think 3 on a side was the most we saw - still enough to move a lot
of marines, but not insane. Land raiders were handy for chaos just to
get some decent ranged shots with a -2 save mod, decent armor, and
transport capability, though a little pricy. The plague towers were
slower than slugs, but at least you could use cards to save them (and
the troops inside) until the Eldar titan w/psycannon got a line of
sight.
   Against orks & imperials you had a pretty good game, but against
eldar it was almost always a lopsided win in 3 turns or less (for the
eldar). Squats I didnt play enough to see a trend, and 'nids I ddin't
either, though it seemed like they had easy access to psychic attacks.

Chris Miller
Received on Tue Feb 10 1998 - 14:27:16 UTC