Temp wrote:
>Okay. Chaos is at a disadvantage vs. Eldar. Most people on the list have
>granted this point, although I think my experience is among the most
>extreme. I've never lost using Eldar against Chaos. One of the few games I
>didn't win in the last 3 years (only about 8 or 10 games, actually) was a
>tie when I tried to take chaos against an Eldar force. It just seems to be
>a quirk of the forces. They were doing better after WD 173 allowed them to
>take thawks, but with the advent of AA guns, they fell back to a losing
>proposition.
Congratulations for the tie. I don't feel like being able to obtain this
result in the same situation (I mean, if I don't take 50% IG in my army) .
>>4. I saw some "fast Chaos forces", but I admit there was not enough Thawks
>>to pass through the Firestorms. So...
>
>There are other ways to make them fast. Rhinos can reach midboard in one
>turn, and since they are separate detachments, they can later do kamikaze
>charges to capture objectives. Bikes and beast riders, and Warhounds can
>help considerably.
Yes, but then, I'll have the same comments as before: kamikaze charges just
make me shout "fresh meat" during the battles.
>>5. Why is it like that? Why Chaos armies seem useless in our group and not
>>in others, even at 5-6000 pts?
>
>It's just Chaos vs. Eldar. They perform better against the squats, ne c'est
>pas?
Yes, but they don't win without IG.
>>Is it that we found a way to transmute a GW,
>>CC-oriented game into a firefight game? Actually, this was not intented and
>>so, I don't know how we did it...
>
>Really high point values will do that. Inflicting casualties becomes more
>important than objectives, and maneuver is less important because the board
>is so crowded that no one can hide, and everyone has targets.
Inflicting casualties: you're right. Crowded board: not really on a 10 feet
table. Rather, it tends to create several battlegrounds. Maneuvering
remains important, but some armies are better than others, then. More on
that below, as you're talking about that later in your post.
>>Your cheap infantry will be chewed up before firing. At least, in my group,
>>it would. My point was, as usual, based on the range consideration and not
>>on the save mod, of course.
>
>By 6 shots that hit on a 5+ and a handful of bolter ona 6+? They aren't
>that good at hitting stuff. And if they go anywhere near cover, then the
>chances of them killing any significant amount of infantry is ridiculous.
>I've been doing an insane amount of math recently, so I won't, but I am sure
>that a 200 pt IG tactical detachment with 10 stands has almost the same
>chance of killing an Overlord as a 500 pt det of Tempests.
Assuming the Overlord is the only model able to fire at the infantry. Rare
occurence, really: it would mean that the squat is just flying his Overlord
toward his opponent, without support.
>>2. I understand that with the playing philosophy in your group, 2 Wind
>>Riders Hosts charging across the battlefield could do important damages. In
>>my group, this is just giving up 14 VP's. BTW, the Squats tried this during
>>the battle, launching an all-out attack with 2 Bikers Guilds to destroy my
>>artillery. I confess I was a little bit worried at the end of turn one, as
>>their remnants were obviously in range of my precious Tempests, Doomweavers
>>and Firestorms. On turn two, FF infantry and Falcons, combined with some
>>Scorpions and Harlequins charging them in CC easily solved the "problem".
>
>Well, he made a mistake moving them within charge range of your specialty
>troops. Jet bikes don't have that problem, they can't be pinned. Mostly,
>though, I would call that a mistake.
What I would call a mistake was to charge across the battlefield. And it
was really dificult for him to avoid being targeted by reserve troops and
counter-charged by infantry loaded in Falcons and Wave Serpents...
>>Sure, you're interested, or sure, I will be terribly defeated?
>
>Yeah, I'd like to hear it. But if your opponent makes similar mistakes to
>the jet bike fiasco above, I wont' consider it a valid test.
He'll have jet-bikes. But if he uses them as his bikers guilds, indeed...
>>And I never
>>talked about Tempests firing at infantry: I only mentionned "webbing" the
>>infantry with Doomweavers - seems reasonalble to me after first turn,
>>because you seemed to lack of other troops being able to deal with the IG
>>infantry.
>
>The proximity of the sentence about "lots of shots" and "Tempests, et. al.
>are the key" makes it sound like that is what you intended. Doomweavers are
>fine if you want to stop the troops from advancing, but they dont' have to
>get very far to be effective. One turn on charge puts even a tactical
>company's effective range 70 cm into the playing field.
Yes, but Doomweavers can also kill several of them if the webs land
correctly (I said "if"...). and indeed, you should have many other units in
range. So, I still don't understand your problems with advancing/charging
infantry. I'm pretty sure you're advancing too far across the battlefield
and so you give good opportunities to your opponent. Some calculations:
Assuming you don't move at all (irrealistic, I know, this is just to make a
point) and the opposing infantry starts on the deployment line, they will
take 4 turns to reach you, 2 turns to be in range (for tactical infantry) -
but if they want to fire they stop charging and the problem is solved.
Plenty of time to kill them.
Assuming you're just charging 40 cm ahead, say, to take an objective, it
will take them 2 turn to reach you and you put immediately in range. Not
enough time to kill them, then, I agree.
>If you put a 50cm deployment zone, then range becomes much more important,
>as your shorter range stuff can NEVER get within range of units set far back
>in the deployment zone, and units with 150cm+ range become almost a
>necessity. This would also contribute to your emphasis on firepower.
Of course. But as I said, we only need the 50 cm deployment zone in huge
games. I would say 30/40 cm deployment zones are common in our group (and
this definitely contribute to our emphasis on firepower, I admit it).
>Yes, I meant 4 ft by 10 or 12ft (120cm by 300-360cm). The problems I see
>are that the objectives become very spread apart, and so it breaks the board
>up into individual "battle zones" if you will. A single assault force to
>each small cluster of 1-3 objectives. This means that assault groups for
>slower forces, e.g. chaos, can't support each other. Which, in turn, means
>that if the chaos player misjudges how much force is needed in a particular
>area of the board he can't compensate for the mistake, whereas a speedy
>force, e.g. Eldar, can.
Perfect analysis. And that's why my army is always composed of various
battlegroups with predefined functions... But I'm indeed more flexible than
my opponents during the battle.
>While we are talking about boards, how much terrain do you guys usually use?
>That could also skew the game towards firepower.
Simply the rules: 1-3 random pieces for 60*60 cm squares. I proposed adding
terrain or reducing squares size to help Chaos and the like, but the result
was far from convincing: as they can indeed hide more easily during
advance, I have more places to hide my own troops and what they call my
"damned pop-up rubbish" (not sure about the translation - in French:
"foutue saloperie de pop-up").
>>the only solution I see, is, you mentioned it, putting most of the
>>army in Thawks and going for the fire base. And then? Next time I'll take
>>more Firestorms. So he'll take more Thawks. So I'll take more Firestorms...
>>I don't call that "playing"...
>
>What if they played a waiting game? Charge into the middle of the board,
>hide in terrain by objectives, and say "come and get me." If the terrain is
>conducive to that, it would eliminate a lot of the advantage of firepower.
I think this could be reasonable in 5000 pts games. But obviously, you
can't win a 10.000 pts game by just holding objectives. Always the same
problem. And when it comes to maneuvering, I'm rather confident my superior
mobility would win the game.
Renaud
Received on Fri Apr 04 1997 - 10:17:16 UTC
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