Re: [Epic] RGMW Newsgroup.

From: Chris Miller <ironstar_at_...>
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 21:43:43 -0600

> We've already determined
>your group and our group played pop ups in a different manner - one which
made
>them considerabbly worse from my point of view (and didnt any chaos player
>EVER drop a thawk load of marines in behind your horde of vehicles waiting
to
>do a pop up?
---------> Sure, but there was usually at least one jetbike detach waiting
to jump in and mix up the CC. And charging a unit on FF is not a real good
idea much of the time. If they were lucky, they got off a vortex or a
plague, but not that often.

 - maybe you played with larger hunks of cover so you could spread
>out the skimmers more (or whoever your eldar player was. Maybe your chaos
player
>/s were kinda average at chaos while ours was great with em (he was pretty
>average with other armies though.....) that would be hard to tell though
cos
>we aint got no way to compare their respective abilities.maybe most of us
>sucked...).
----------> I believe Chaos was the one who needed the cover, since most of
their troops had to get into CC to be effective.
Changing the pop-up rule does make a big difference, to Eldar more than any
other army.

> From our perspective what use were pop ups when the units they faced
>would point-wise suffer more than the units they were attacking (remembring
>we played pop ups happened at the start of FF. Tarantulas are cheaper than
>falcons / LRs are tougher and have a bit better fire power (albeit for
16points
>more).
---------> I remember this. Again, it's the pop-ups that make the
difference, as Falcons are normally quite effective as they snipe from
cover. Requiring them to go first dilutes that PDQ. If you know that going
in, you can't complain too much if it bites you.

CC troops - Chaos termies are unit for unit a match for Banshees and
>not far behind harleys. The same pretty much applies for trolls/minos (ok
>250 points for a slow unit with no guns - the eldar CCs you complain about
>have pretty much no gun and from memory only the harleys move faster. Only
>the SS's ability makes them stand out - the banshee's ability disappeared
>against even a 6+ save - which conveniently, most high CAF units
had.......).
-------> all of the 4-stand CC specialist detachments were 150 points, so
the cost is a pretty much a wash (I'll take 300 points of Scorps over 250
points of Minotaurs most days as the extra dice means the second attacker
has no advantage) The Banshees were weak against many Chaos troops - so
don't take them. Harlies and scorps do fine. The advantage the Eldar CC
units had wasn't so much their shoot ability (only harlies had it) but the
fact that they had access to 25cm base move skimmers as transport units and
so could get somewhere quick to use that CC ability. The knock on many of
the Chaos troops is that they were also slow, but had no ranged attack and
no transport vehicles to offset this weakness, nor were they especially
cheap.

>Psychic weapons - Deathstalkers were decent , warp hunters a joke , psy
lances
> - well they prevented a titan from taking a better weapon. If I only took
>one or 2 titans with them they disappeared fast (not great for stopping CC
and
>without the ranged titan-punching power of other weapons - bad for when
>shooting wars started.)
---------> Agreed on the first two. The Psy Lance is Weak? It's a barrage
template which has a 4+ chance to hit (on a Warlock titan) anything under
it, no armor save,void shields do not stop it, daemons are automatically
destroyed, and titans take an automatic head hit. The only weakness is the
50cm range, which can be a problem, but that's mainly because the titan is
an automatic target anyway. As for CC, the Eldar didn't have any CC
enhancers anyway, and the only multiple shot weapons were the missile wing
(kinda built-in), the Pulsar (not bad) and the power fist , which works as
well as anything else with 4 shots at a 4+ and a -1 armor save.
   I always made it a point to hose 'em bigtime, but it didn't always stop
it from getting used.

. As for hiding demons - from my experience I cant see
>how you found it to be a problem. As long as they dont operate alone its
also
>hard to gang up on them effectively - and heck the number of times I hit
one
>with a bunch of expensive troops only to get Giant Growthed (is that is
name
>....?)....
------------> Pop-ups "are able to look down over any terrain." That makes
it kinda hard to hide. We used the standard bodyguard routine, but no one's
jumping them in CC - they're getting sniped.
    And you already know I hate that growth card : )

....How many GDs DID you see. In 4000 pt battles it was never more than 3
here......
>As I said before - the worst thing was numbers. If
>enough Eldar CC units got in one place to have a numerical advantage
against
>a chaos force you WOULD see the plague wind or burning bodies. Heck most
>of those fights the eldar wouldnt expect to win if they moved first and
>consequently got ganged up on anyway. It doesnt matter how good your
>troops are when they have to fight dispersed (or die) vs a concentrated
force.
>Chaos cards - used when and where required also tipped many,many CCs.
Remember
>trolls/minos come in 10s - a lot of chaos cards affect units - big units
use
>them better.
-------> Cards were handy, but use them freely in CC and suddenly those
non-psychic shots start to hurt. The Eldar rarely had a problem
concentrating force as the elites could be asissted by jetbike swarms to get
the multiple attacker bonus's.
And again, I never saw minos and trolls move fast enough to really get into
the main battle area, so they weren't a major factor worth playing cards on.
> Call me blind (hey whewre ARE my glasses) but for every weakness you
>seem to see in Chaos wrt Eldar I can see a strength. OK chaos had tons of
really
> cruddy units.
--------> not cruddy, just slow. The Eldar would get there 'first with the
most men" and wipe out the Chaos bikers or termies while the other units
were still marching on over.
 Most demons , a fair hunk of the GDs and quite a few other troops
> - but heck I never had the crap fielded against me. Well not more than
1-200
>points worth in a BIG game. We also get to the point where , as other
groups ,
>people start looking at you funny if you take more than 2-4 of the same
unit.
------> Sure. We rarely took more than 2 of _any_ Eldar unit. Chaos, now, we
would sometimes take 3 units of Juggers, but that was about it.
>Well heck there goes my huge number of scorpions/deathstalkers. Its pretty
>easy to take out problem units where theres only 1-2 of them.
-----> I hope you're not thinking it took some kind of munchkin force with
10 scorpion units or something...
COnversely taking
>2 units of trolls 2 of minis (not a commons example) or 2 legions you have
1000
>points of the appropriate type - whereas I CANT field more than 450 points
>of say scorpions (600 If I stretch it - and I never did). Hey maybe I
suffered
>from artificially limiting myself (or by playing rules that restricted me
more
>than the opposition) but how much fun do you have playing against armies
that
>rape their lists?.......
--------> Ok, typical Eldar army in our neck of the woods:
Wind Riders + Warlock, Spirit Host + Free Avatar, Falcon Host +Harlequins,
Guardian Host + Free Scouts.
You might see a Warlock titan, might see a phantom host depending on battle
size. Exarchs are nice but at 100 pts per stand they're also absent from all
but the biggest fights. In smaller fights we'd drop the guardians,
sometimes they'd be replaced by a jetbike host due to player taste. The only
thing you would see 3 cards worth might be prism cannons, though usually
fewer were present. The avatar would be dumped for a warlock quite often
also, against Chaos. Some players favored war walkers and would take 2-3
cards worth of those.
   My standard deployment always included the 2 cards of 'weavers, 2 scorps,
1 harley, 1 reaper unit, 1 dragon unit (tank hunters transported by falcon),
1 vibrocannon unit, 1 set of nightwings, 1 set of walkers and 2 firestorms.
The # of prisms would vary, as would tempests, but I don't think we were
ever on the "cheese-meter"

> I dont believe we're still discussing this :)
> JAC

------> yeah, I know. Keeps coming up somehow.
I think our particular case of mutual befuddlement boils down to two things:
1) Different pop-up rules which drop the Eldar a notch IMO, making Chaos a
notch more competitive indirectly.
2) Your guys found some way to make the Chaos grunts effective by getting
them to the decisive point of the battle which I admit still baffles me. A
20cm move just ain't that good. Marines, sure - rhinos, land raiders,
T-hawks, even deathdealers, but hoofing it : ) is just slow. Were you
playing on a small table? ; )
3) A greater emphasis on marine equipment - mainly in the case of the massed
tarantula fire which only makes a difference given #1 above, as here they'd
just be easy targets for falcons- which I admit we didn't use on that scale.
One chapter, maybe two at most in one battle. and BTW, if more than 2 of
anything is cheesy, tarantula-man is way over the mark...: )

Chris Miller
(again, no flames here)
Received on Thu Feb 26 1998 - 03:43:43 UTC