RE: [Epic] RGMW Newsgroup.

From: Miller, Chris <CMiller_at_...>
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 10:28:45 -0600

> Depended on initiative a lot. Move first and those jetbikes on
> charge
> got to sit there looking impotent. MOve second and they just didnt
> come (
> actually that was probably the nastiest thing about Mr Chaos - he had
> the best
> luck of winning initiative when needed :|.........). Dropping a thawk
> BEHIND
> the first firers and then letting them charge in (hey the marines
> charged in
> the shortest path - damn there were too many thawk owners in our
> group....)
> made FF worthless - at least for the falcons/tempests. Usually the
> result was
> most of the targets died. Then next turn of course the bikes had the
> option
> do nothing and stay away or charge marines on FF who have no arc
> probs. And
> assuming they lived its only an even fight btw pretty much even points
> units
> (ok the bikes are a little cheaper). *sigh*
>
-------> Yes, that initiative roll got pretty hairy once the HTH troops
started getting acquainted. Been a long time since any other game had me
sweat that much. I will agree on the t-hawk thing as well...some Chaos
armies turned into Marine armies with different colors - and a few
daemons too.
>
> > Changing the pop-up rule does make a big difference, to Eldar more
> than any
> > other army.
> depends what you mean by 'change' it was more 'interpret' as the
> rules
> were somewhat ambigous in places- this being one of them.
-------> Interpret Schmerpret - I don;t recall seeing "pop ups must go
before other units in the FF phase" anywhere, just that only other units
on FF could fire back, and yes this does allow one to be mean if the
other person doesn't have much FF and wait til he's shot everything
before using the pop-up units. I've seen what you do as a house rule,
and could probably be talked into, but not if I was an Eldar excusive
player, as that change doesn't impact orks or chaos at all, and with
Imperials it affects what, Land Speeders? There's one army it
weakens.(and yes, I know Chaos could take Speeders : ))
> >
> Yeah he never TRIED for a scorp/minotaur match up unless he was
>
> desperate. Trolls (when I was trying to kick them off objectives) was
> another
> matter. First turn I roll in with scorps in say falcons and kill 4
> trolls.
> 2 get back up. Next turn the 3 scorps score 3-1 odds. 4-5 trolls die
> 2-3 come
> back 3 scorps are dead. As such we have 1 scorp left vs 5-6 trolls. If
> more
> scorpion units turn up IM really asking to be plagued. Especially
> considering
> the transports are also in range. Heck with regen even 300 points of
> scorps
> will take turns to take out trolls.
-------> That's great if you can actually get the trolls anywhere.
They're maybe the one unit which really needed that Plague Tower. Won;t
argue that they're hard to knock off (except with Wave Serpents -SHOVE-)
but they're even slower than other troops.
> >
> > ---------> 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
> Hmmmmmmmm void shields did give a 4+ save against it
> depending on whether you let the psy-lance or the TL rules take
> precedence.
> And I always found titans worked better when they were armed to do one
> job.
> Like 2 Pulsars , 2 Tremor Cannons , 1 Pulsar 1 Heat Lance (2 Las
> Cannon wings
> a must here). Having 1 say pulsar and 1 PL didnt fit my theory of
> doing this.
> 2 Psy Lances and the titan suddenly looks horizontally challenged :).
-------> Was there ever a definitive answer on the PsyLance vs shield
thing? We tended to go with the more specific wording when systems
conflicted (lance specifically mentions no shields, shields don;t
mention lance, and it is a _different_ weapon) but I thnk we ended up
allowing the save vs the PL now that you mention it.
    Weapon fits: Nasty comboes, for sure. Mine went like this: Heat
Lance + Tremor Cannon, Pulsar + Power Fist, Pulsar + Tremor Cannon,
Warlock has PL + Power Fist. I think the Pulsar + Tremor Cannon was the
most effective single one, but I've done well with all of them at one
point or another.
> >
> > -------> 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.
> True but under cover only 3 of the 5 swarms were useful. Damn
> were
> jet bikes ever more useful than the more expensive vypers.
--------> Yep. OOOHh -longer range shots! OOOHHHHH!
> > --------> 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.
> Hmm heres where we differ. I HATED the spirit host. First 2
> games
> I played against chaos he wrecked himself getting just enough
> objectives
> and kill points to get close to the limit (I would have POUNDED him
> the next
> turn with heaps of low strength units and few chaos cards) at about
> the 2nd
> or 3rd turn. Hes sitting around looking desperately for a way to get a
> few
> extra points. Freaking Nurgles rotted the SH Warlock for 5 points and
> got
> another 2-3 points worth of bystanders. 2 Times in 2 games this
> happened and
> pushed him just over the limit. Only ever took the spirit host once
> more.
> Must have been fate or something but a vortex that missed a titan
> rolled 10cm
> into the middle of a forest and landed right on.............Game over
> AGAIN.
------> The Spirit Host was pretty fragile, though some of yours sounds
like just bad luck. I just have a thing for dreadnoughts, even though
many sucked. Built in Warlock was nice vs Chaos too. This was mainly a
sit & shoot force for me.
> The same sort of problem stopped me taking exarchs.
-------> Oh - don't get me started...I've had 'em knock out titans, but
mostly I've had 'em cough up 4 vp's for 4 easy shots...

> The last was lucky the first 2 merely par for the course.Also I always
> thought
> falcons did the same sort of job as war walkers merely much
> better.......
------> We just liked the redone mini's, though I have two sets of the
old.
> Free scouts - well that was common enough :).
------> Better than the Avatar. : )

> > 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 always saw tempests as the ultimate target for THawked troops
> and
> titans - had 3 , rarely used them.I preferred DA's to Dragons -
> falcons could
> do the tank hunting themselves :).
-------> there's that pop-up thing again. Guess which detachment always
went last in our FF phase?
> >
> > ------> 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.
> Yup there may have been a few others too.
>
> > 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? ; )
> Well the table was about 250cm long by 115cm wide. The distance
> between set up lines was about 75-80 cm (just under normal but not
> much).
> Not wanting to have a large amount of worthless objectiveless ground
> in the
> middle typically there were 3 objectives on each side and 2 in the
> middle.
> Trolls and minos could easily (ie first turn) cover the ones on the
> chaos side.
> As for the middle - stretching it a bunch of minos (trolls were
> unreliable)
> could make it by turn 2 - and really be there by turn 3 (most games
> tended
> to go 3-4 turns). I never saw either unit get right up the back - that
> was
> always left to marines.Still they could come into play on 4-5
> objectives - which
> isnt too bad.
>
> > 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...: )
> The marines definately gave chaos mobility they otherwised
> lacked. I
> really really hated that Q&A that turned chaos from decent to gross
> (thanks
> Mark Watts - amazing who was the chaos general in the Epic battles
> book - heck
> it could have just been a ploy to sell more minis to chaos players too
> :) ).
> Heck even with your rules,assuming the geometry is right -
> points wise
> a fair fight is 6 falcons vs 15! tarantulas. 6 Falcs go first - 12
> Tarants
> remain - which should blast just under 3 falcons on average
------> But the Eldar will usually have lots of stuff on FF, while the
Chaos player will not. My FF's will go last, after you've fired
everything...
> - + whatever
> they can get in advance fire.
-------> Can't hit me with advance fire as I'm back down again, out of
LOS
> Not exactly a good trade (though hopefully the
> falcons maeuverability should help reduce the number of T's firing
> back). It
> wasnt just falcons they screwed up though - the tarantulas kept large
> areas
> free of deathstalkers - which in turn helped GDs a lot. We normally
> didnt bitch
> about stuff up to about 3 (though even 2 units of waveserpents was
> unpopular
> as was more than 2 weirdboyz).
-------> That's the kind of stuff that amazes me - I've seen 10 Wave
serps filled with scorpions on the board, I've seen 6 prism cannons,
just all kind of over the top comboes - which some people will say ain't
illegal, others will say it's over focussed on CC troops. Both true,
but it's wildly out of character from the fluff, at least.
> Yes the chaos player stretched this the most.
> There was an episode early on where we had 2 allied armies (4 players
> , 2 a side) . He turned up with 6 Tarantula batteries and 7 THawks.
> His partner saved
> us the trouble of finding some big sticks and politely explained he
> wanted
> some CHALLENGE in the game (quick army redesign followed). Usually 4
> Tarantula
> batteries and a few too many Thawks was the best we could talk him
> down to
> (hey theyre so cheap-you can have 650 points of bikes why cant I have
> 650
> points of .........).
-------> If he's going to load up on t-hawks you have to grab snapfire
units - the Eldar had one of the best. To me, anything over 3 t-hawks
(enough to move one company) is fishy, and he shouldn't compain if you
have 3 or 4 AA units.
> Also given the state of marine only armies our group
> was inclined to let the marine player take a few more of given units
> of stuff
> than other armies could. Heck they needed it (and its not that they
> had that
> much variety to begin with). So Mr 'I play a chaos marine army"kept
> bringing
> that up as well(and didnt like the no troll , no demon , no chaos card
> why
> the hell dont you just play marines and call them chaos marines
> suggestion
> a few of us made :) ). Maybe we should have played him less and given
> him a
> hint - but it was always too much fun when our all too rare victories
> occurred (I was one of the better ones and was running at about
> 20-30%)......
> JAC
>
        ---------> that was my other beef with some players: If T-hawks
are so great why not just play real marines and drop the other stuff,
most of which they wouldn't use anyway.. Anytime they have more marine
cards than chaos cards, regardless of points, I get annoyed. I actually
saw some armies witrh no Juggers...can you believe it? : ) A Chaos army
with no Juggers...<sigh>


Chris Miller
Received on Thu Feb 26 1998 - 16:28:45 UTC