RE: [Epic] 40K/IG infantry Detachments

From: Fred Lado <lado_at_...>
Date: Tue, 29 Apr 1997 08:39:15 -0400 (EDT)

>They can't move past an enemy detachment in the assault phase. They have to
>move towards the enemy, not necessarily the nearest enemy, but they cannot
>move past one enemy unit to get to another.
>
>Anyone else see anything a little wrong with this? I can sort of understand
>the logic, but it seems a little 'gamey' to me. Half the fun of having highly
>mobile troops is to strike where the enemy least expects it, to mount sort of
>lightning raids behind lines. One of the things that really gets me about the
>snap-fire rules is that it stops thing from moving. I wish there was some rule
>for speeding past the enemy, like if your base speed was 10cm or more than the
>snap-firers you did not have to stop or something. This would represent troops
>and tanks driving through thin spots in the enemy lines to attack vital
>targets. obviously moving through a mass of troops would not be a good idea,
>but that one tac stand wouldn't stop a tank company from going past him.

I quite like the rule, and I would even go so far as to say it is long
overdue. Firstly, I never really liked the way in which fast units,
particularly bikes, could zip within a centimeter of an enemy unit during
the movement phase and still completely ignore it. This seems far more
unreasonable and "gamey" to me than the current rules. Second, the
current rules, IMO, are more condusive to tactical thinking. If you
want to hit the artillery behind the tacs, you have to form some sort
of plan. In SM/TL, you ended up with this sort of reasoning: "Well,
it's turn 2, so I know my jet bikes can hit his artillery no matter
where they are." There was no strategy to planning an attack, since you
could simply bum-rush the target with a bunch of fast troops. The real
strategy came in *stopping* the attack, not launching it. The new game,
it seems to me, has more involved strategy because it is now possible
to create a defensive perimeter.

Fast troops can still get at the rear line units, because they are just
as fast, if not faster, as they were before. You just have to put a
little thought into it. For example, you can load a bunch of orks on
battle wagons, move them forward and dismount them in front of the
screening troops. During the assault phase, the infantry can charge
the screeners while the battle wagons zip on past to get the infantry.
Such a convoluted plan would have been almost pointless in SM/TL,
even with the screening rules (which, IMO, were so confusing and poorly
written that most people didn't even recognize them for what they were).

David
Received on Tue Apr 29 1997 - 12:39:15 UTC