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Well that's about average. And yes still too lethal(should be 540 pts) but it's common in GW games that things are overly lethal. 300 vs 180 to in average one shot is actually on good side in terms of durability for a GW game.

GW don't seem to have a decent handle on how durable things should be or how deadly they should be, this applies in virtually all their games really

And that generally bleeds to players who look at can X point one shot Y and if not they complain how X is bad...

Well guess it's bad in terms of GW games but that just shows how twisted GW game lethality is...

tneva82 wrote:
And that generally bleeds to players who look at can X point one shot Y and if not they complain how X is bad...

Well guess it's bad in terms of GW games but that just shows how twisted GW game lethality is...

yes does seem to be "this can't one shot X, therefore this is terrible", regardless of cost, and when it can its "overpriced"

trouble is the real issue is stuff doesn't scale right

one Vanquisher round with a 50% to hit and a 66% to kill may not seem over powered, and indeed against a tank squadron of a similar size its not too bad given its only one shot. Some of the cannons are twin shot which becomes more problematic, but then you have your Titan out for a quite stroll, minding its own business and comes across roughly its points in Vanquishers, 6 of them and now there is more of a problem as they have a not unreasonable chance to one shot the thing. and to be fair with suitable weapons it can potentially return the favour.

to me thats out of whack, yes a proper anti tank round should be able to kill a tank, no question there, however 300+ points of X should not be able to kill 300 points of Y in a single round with any reasonable probability, even doing it over two rounds sucks

if not careful you have "Team Yankee" syndrome, where if its seen, its dead (probably) so the game becomes about not being seen, and eventually that bush you hide behind gets shot at.

pretty much all GW games are the same, Yahtzee with models, roll enough dice, it dies, especially when you remove the modifiers that Battlefront added, e.g. harder to hit at longer range, a target that itself isn't firing can be harder to hit, cover or concealment makes you harder to hit, and more than a 6 needed and you cannot be hit

weirdly it works, its not that easy to get to the magic 7+ to hit, Team Yankee makes it harder, Flames is easier as TY lets armour ignore a lot of the modifiers for range, smoke etc

however here stuff dies, too quickly, movement is a bit weird but if you want a five turn limit (which with progressive scoring is needed unless you can what you can pick up from any objective on its own) but it works, I think the number of dice rolled needs to scale in a non-linear way though, or the chances of a kill needs to be reduced (though not with 3+ saves on all infantry), potentially more wounds on things, but also maybe tag with the save roll, so for "anti tank" weapons firing at armour, a save roll of a "1" means it does an extra wound. now if a normal tank has two wounds you can still one shot them, maybe, but are more likely firing the six shots, getting three hits and maybe killing one and damaging one, not killing two

then larger stuff gets more wounds, not vastly more, the aim is to increase survivability, not make models immune to damage, they will grind down, it just takes longer

as things stand why would any faction in the game universe invest in a tank? when one group with a few rocket launchers are likely far cheaper to recruit and train than the tank is to build and its crew to train and in a lot of cases the infantry are better?

infantry and light stuff like scout walkers get one wound, ditto weapons platforms, armoured dreadnaughts and medium tanks get two, heavy tanks like the Kratos and Land Raiders maybe three. super heavies 4-6 depending on that they are, or more, e.g. Capitol Imperialis. then titans more - but with various weapons able to do more than one point of damage, e.g. via the "engine killer" rule

small stuff can grind down armour, just takes longer, heavier stuff becomes the best choice to take on heavier stuff, and armour can support an infantry advance without evaporating, making anti infantry armour viable

 ashlevrier wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Crablezworth wrote:

SamusDrake wrote:
Finally had a flick through of the core book and the rules for the Knights appear to be better implemented this time around, and should have been a primary force. Titans feel slapdash and would keep their use to a minimum, if used at all, as they're far better implemented in Titanicus.

Might be having a game on Sunday to give it a whirl, but it would have to be open play with AT and AI models as I can't get hold of any LI kits at this time, unless its a bunch of Melta-Reavers.

Thinking of 1K points of 4x Thunderbolts, 2x Cerastus and a Warhound. The second force would be 2x Acastus and 3x Questoris.

Knights are far far far better than in AT and much closer to the prowess they show in like 30k/40k, but that's also where I'm gonna totally disagree and say a knight only faction in LI wouldn't only be boring, but massively broken. I'm not just saying this to say it, the core problems of LI are unit costing in general, especially not costing most weapons, knights make a mockery of this, even with weapons/upgrades they pay for. I'd go as far to argue that they largely outshine the titans, they're that good. Even an armiger has 2 wounds, a shooting attack with demolisher and engine killer and a cc attack with rend for like 60pts. That's the smallest knight unit and it's still insanely strong. Moriax and styrix have cc weapons with ap -5 rend and wrecker (3), like who needs a titan when a knight can like one shot a structure. The atrapos's cc weapon is just as insanely good and is also a gun lol, and it has macro extinction protocols, giving it re-rolls to hit against titans knights and super heavies AND it can re-roll a dice of its choice very fight.

i one shot a knight with 3 of the marine fighters. 12 dice hitting on 4s half with rerolls. -1 AP. but to be fair it almost 300 points in AC against 180 in knight

.

180 points of SM missile launcher will one shot that knight. Or 150 of TH will probably do it too so...

Missiles yes, th 2 wounds(remember -3 makes saves on 5+ and armourbane ignored with ion shield so it's flat save of 4+)

Still swatting up for this evening's game, and loving the fact that the order symbols are also featured on the AT order dice...

...are you pondering what I'm pondering, Pinky?

SamusDrake wrote:
Still swatting up for this evening's game, and loving the fact that the order symbols are also featured on the AT order dice...

...are you pondering what I'm pondering, Pinky?

keep in mind orders need to be placed in secret though..

the counters the game comes with are both rubbish and far too few in number

Of course, not for a proper 2-player mode. But it might be the beginnings of a solo mode...

leopard wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
And that generally bleeds to players who look at can X point one shot Y and if not they complain how X is bad...

Well guess it's bad in terms of GW games but that just shows how twisted GW game lethality is...

yes does seem to be "this can't one shot X, therefore this is terrible", regardless of cost, and when it can its "overpriced"

trouble is the real issue is stuff doesn't scale right

one Vanquisher round with a 50% to hit and a 66% to kill may not seem over powered, and indeed against a tank squadron of a similar size its not too bad given its only one shot. Some of the cannons are twin shot which becomes more problematic, but then you have your Titan out for a quite stroll, minding its own business and comes across roughly its points in Vanquishers, 6 of them and now there is more of a problem as they have a not unreasonable chance to one shot the thing. and to be fair with suitable weapons it can potentially return the favour.

to me thats out of whack, yes a proper anti tank round should be able to kill a tank, no question there, however 300+ points of X should not be able to kill 300 points of Y in a single round with any reasonable probability, even doing it over two rounds sucks

if not careful you have "Team Yankee" syndrome, where if its seen, its dead (probably) so the game becomes about not being seen, and eventually that bush you hide behind gets shot at.

pretty much all GW games are the same, Yahtzee with models, roll enough dice, it dies, especially when you remove the modifiers that Battlefront added, e.g. harder to hit at longer range, a target that itself isn't firing can be harder to hit, cover or concealment makes you harder to hit, and more than a 6 needed and you cannot be hit

weirdly it works, its not that easy to get to the magic 7+ to hit, Team Yankee makes it harder, Flames is easier as TY lets armour ignore a lot of the modifiers for range, smoke etc

however here stuff dies, too quickly, movement is a bit weird but if you want a five turn limit (which with progressive scoring is needed unless you can what you can pick up from any objective on its own) but it works, I think the number of dice rolled needs to scale in a non-linear way though, or the chances of a kill needs to be reduced (though not with 3+ saves on all infantry), potentially more wounds on things, but also maybe tag with the save roll, so for "anti tank" weapons firing at armour, a save roll of a "1" means it does an extra wound. now if a normal tank has two wounds you can still one shot them, maybe, but are more likely firing the six shots, getting three hits and maybe killing one and damaging one, not killing two

then larger stuff gets more wounds, not vastly more, the aim is to increase survivability, not make models immune to damage, they will grind down, it just takes longer

as things stand why would any faction in the game universe invest in a tank? when one group with a few rocket launchers are likely far cheaper to recruit and train than the tank is to build and its crew to train and in a lot of cases the infantry are better?

infantry and light stuff like scout walkers get one wound, ditto weapons platforms, armoured dreadnaughts and medium tanks get two, heavy tanks like the Kratos and Land Raiders maybe three. super heavies 4-6 depending on that they are, or more, e.g. Capitol Imperialis. then titans more - but with various weapons able to do more than one point of damage, e.g. via the "engine killer" rule

small stuff can grind down armour, just takes longer, heavier stuff becomes the best choice to take on heavier stuff, and armour can support an infantry advance without evaporating, making anti infantry armour viable

The reality is formations control very little and you can spam basically any unit you want. This isn't ideal but thankfully rule of cool has seemingly kept skew lists to a minimum as only have a few unit types doesn't even look hat cool imo.

But, if one wanted to, like with highlander back in the day, could easily agree to change certain unit caps or halve them ect. Right now detachment of leman russes go to 10, kratos to 6, those could be halved and I don't think I'd have any problem tbh. You also need to limit formatons for that to really mean anything but it'd be a start. I think where epic will be a problem for everyone is when someone wants to field just too many of one units and nothing currently really prevents that at all. Much like nothing prevents marine armies from looking like crayola crayon boxes if players want to max out legion benefits by formation.

personally the "support" vehicles, e.g Vanquisher, that could be a problem should be "support" options, not able to fill "core" slots

leopard wrote:
personally the "support" vehicles, e.g Vanquisher, that could be a problem should be "support" options, not able to fill "core" slots

Well there is a high likelyhood bordering on certainty that more russ optons for turrets are on their way, pics in rulebook of twi autocannon turret and plasma turret, So maybe that will help bring a bit of choice into the mix. And I can totally see an event or genre like highlander with hard caps on detachments, like cutting the max in half or reducing by 2-4 or more. Big tank detachments feel weird to me, like more than 3 super heavies together would feel off, and does sorta feel off with kratos.

Now having three Infantry boxes worth of, erm, erm, Infantry?

Must Grumble!

Dreadnought Talons. Start at a 4 count, which is fine. For that is the contents of One Box. And we can expand a given slot. And each expansion adds 2 Contemptors. Lovely!

But…I can only expand by three choices. Which means I now have 2 Contemptors on the Subs Bench.

No need!

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Now having three Infantry boxes worth of, erm, erm, Infantry?

Must Grumble!

Dreadnought Talons. Start at a 4 count, which is fine. For that is the contents of One Box. And we can expand a given slot. And each expansion adds 2 Contemptors. Lovely!

But…I can only expand by three choices. Which means I now have 2 Contemptors on the Subs Bench.

No need!

It's quite frustrating that kheres is so much worse than accurate lascannon. Also odd they don't have rending, but for 5 more points you can get 4 leviathans with rending, wrecker and 5+ inv vs 6+.

Now what is cool is you can add leviathans to contemptor squads, and it's in 2's. What like about that is I can do las contemptors and have a couple rending leviathans for combat or taking down structures. But the point costs are weird.

By all indication when the leviathan box comes out you'll get 2 and 2 again like contemptor, cyclone melta/quad autocannon. Same with deredeo, 2 autocannon 2 plasma. I assume it will be the same for rapiers and tarantulas as they'll be in the same box/on the same sprue seemingly.

I’m not overly bothered by in-game efficiency. Like an Ork, the Dice tend to do what I believe they’ll do 🤣🤣

It’s more just….give me an extra pick. Just one. Then. From three Marine Infantry Sets? I can get really close to maxing out a Demi-Company.

But as you kind of point out, at least I can fine tune what I am fielding to predominantly Lascannnon or predominantly Assault Cannon as the fancy takes me.

well keep in mind the tank companies of old were like 10 land raiders, or Leman Russ (they may have been 12 strong?), though in smaller detachments

but then I'm also used to playing Soviet armour in WW2 where in some case units of 16 are not uncommon

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I’m not overly bothered by in-game efficiency. Like an Ork, the Dice tend to do what I believe they’ll do 🤣🤣

It’s more just….give me an extra pick. Just one. Then. From three Marine Infantry Sets? I can get really close to maxing out a Demi-Company.

But as you kind of point out, at least I can fine tune what I am fielding to predominantly Lascannnon or predominantly Assault Cannon as the fancy takes me.

Kheres aren't the end of the world in that both versions still have the bolter, and it's actually pretty good in that at half range it doubles its shots because of the assault rule and it has point defense as well. Just a shame they don't have rend as its very important in combat. I would have settled for a usr that's like half rend, extra d3 instead of d6 in a fight.


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leopard wrote:
well keep in mind the tank companies of old were like 10 land raiders, or Leman Russ (they may have been 12 strong?), though in smaller detachments

but then I'm also used to playing Soviet armour in WW2 where in some case units of 16 are not uncommon

I just know the folly of activations all being like very dice heavy, it can certainly speed the game up but then it really does start to feel a bit like activation lottery if both sides just have maxed out firepower tit for tat. Msu just feels more fun than both sides goin ham.

MSU works, and works well, but you need a mix between MSU and survivable units - e.g. assault formations and SA formations with slightly worse morale need larger units to test for morale less often and assault units need to be able to take the hits

have a 2k game coming up, just over 1k of which is due to be the SA armoured formation I'm working on now, will have three detachments of six Leman Russ, 16 Vanquishers and the two normal battle cannot hulls I have (one of which likely will end up as the HQ) plus a Baneblade, backed by a pair of lightning fighters

I feel six is probably decent for Leman Russ units, even then they will likely focus fire to actually kill stuff at range, then do their own things once the laser cannon is in range as well.

the other half will be infantry, likely a pioneer formation and maybe another, these will have some small units in for activations

I figure with the fighters it matters to be able to force the enemy if they have air to deploy it first, to then "intercept" upon arrival (or try to)

Hopefully we get more Russ turrets, more Contemptor weapons, maybe more infantry weapons too. sadly I expect the plasma russ to be a total lemon

I regret to inform you all of the loss of two fine Thunderbolt pilots, and a toast in their honour will be held in the Officer's club. My brother's Knight force, on the other hand, went out in the same professional manner as Private First Class William L. Hudson.

Legions is hilariously unbalanced, but so much so that we laughed right up until the end. While I can't see it being taken seriously as a competitive game, it's simple to get started and light enough for wargaming greenhorns.

SamusDrake wrote:
I regret to inform you all of the loss of two fine Thunderbolt pilots, and a toast in their honour will be held in the Officer's club. My brother's Knight force, on the other hand, went out in the same professional manner as Private First Class William L. Hudson.

Legions is hilariously unbalanced, but so much so that we laughed right up until the end. While I can't see it being taken seriously as a competitive game, it's simple to get started and light enough for wargaming greenhorns.

it is amusing to play, and very swingy

first three games I had with aircraft myself and my opponent had access to a pair of Xiphon, both using one, first two games he deployed his, I had more activations then deployed mind, and shot his down in the first shots

third game, he returned the favour with a Kratos squadron splatting both of mine, before a single AS sentinel downed his with overwatch..

It certainly has it's comical moments.

In hindsight - but with only one game under our belt - I do think that Epic 40K fans dodged the bullet on this one, and it's probably for the best that GW played around with the 30K era before tackling the 40K era.

So played today. 1500 points. Results are a marine victory.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
so today was the frist win for marines vs aux. the mission was no mans land.

take away from this game. knights can kill each other real easy. he did a wound to me. i did 3 to him.
i was able to hold most objectives for two turns. this gave me a lead in points that he could not recover from. so we called it at end of turn two. i had 18 VPs to his 3 VPs.

Two pics from the game

Re the kratos autocannons, mathwise theyre the best option to take due to volume of fire and accurate. Ya, the las are 6" longer, but you also already come with an autocannon that breaks that ranged synergy of 20-22". The battle cannon also has the 10" option, so there's a further benefit to pushing up instead of sniping at 20 (on top of los blocking forcing some sort of closer movement to get a shot off anyways. If you build your Kratos with autos, you shouldn't worry at all about that choice.

Contemptors definitely get hosed on the infantry box build, as kheres are complete junk and you're stuck with a couple. The las are really solid, and you're paying 17.5 per model on the initial unit for that on top of it's solid profile. I think them missing rend is kinda deliberate as a result; they're a ranged unit with some melee capabilities to keep them out of trouble. Tacking on rend would make them equivalent to ogryns in terms of dice and modifiers, with an accurate lascannon, a point defence combi, 4+ that nullifies Light AP and allows rerolls, and an invul (plus whatever legion rules), all for 20 points more for the base unit. It's pretty obvious the leviathan is the reverse of the contemptor to force some choice; very short ranged shooting options that are fairly unreliable, but with an extremely capable melee punch. I'd say that you'll usually not choose to use their guns, as they'd probably prefer to march into range or charge once they get there; the volkite bouncing off of the meltas preferred targets doest help. So ya, either mix leviathans in to the contemptor unit to get some dedicated melee in that shooting unit, or take them by yourself if you just want dreads to punch stuff in melee. Contemptors don't need rend (but they do need that lascannon lol).

Re knights and their survivability. Most things in this game die if you put them in front of 18 bases that wound on 4s and can affect their save. Similarly most things die when getting blasted by an airwing lol. As an ally capped at 30% of points and coming in increments of 180, they're very manageable at the moment, as you can respond to the 2-3 that can be taken in 1500-2000 in the same way as a Kratos/baneblade/Russ brick. Dealing with up to 8 knights/4 knights and 12 armigers, all across the board, in 1500 might be a different story though. Light bounces from them, melee mostly fails against them (esp if you're going into double melee quests, Lancers/atrapos, and armigers), they're really fast (18"/16" charges, yay), can hit stuff in buildings with most classes, can get barrage on quests, and more. Them being so hideable doesn't help their ease of charging either.

 Skimask Mohawk wrote:
Re the kratos autocannons, mathwise theyre the best option to take due to volume of fire and accurate. Ya, the las are 6" longer, but you also already come with an autocannon that breaks that ranged synergy of 20-22". The battle cannon also has the 10" option, so there's a further benefit to pushing up instead of sniping at 20 (on top of los blocking forcing some sort of closer movement to get a shot off anyways. If you build your Kratos with autos, you shouldn't worry at all about that choice.

Contemptors definitely get hosed on the infantry box build, as kheres are complete junk and you're stuck with a couple. The las are really solid, and you're paying 17.5 per model on the initial unit for that on top of it's solid profile. I think them missing rend is kinda deliberate as a result; they're a ranged unit with some melee capabilities to keep them out of trouble. Tacking on rend would make them equivalent to ogryns in terms of dice and modifiers, with an accurate lascannon, a point defence combi, 4+ that nullifies Light AP and allows rerolls, and an invul (plus whatever legion rules), all for 20 points more for the base unit. It's pretty obvious the leviathan is the reverse of the contemptor to force some choice; very short ranged shooting options that are fairly unreliable, but with an extremely capable melee punch. I'd say that you'll usually not choose to use their guns, as they'd probably prefer to march into range or charge once they get there; the volkite bouncing off of the meltas preferred targets doest help. So ya, either mix leviathans in to the contemptor unit to get some dedicated melee in that shooting unit, or take them by yourself if you just want dreads to punch stuff in melee. Contemptors don't need rend (but they do need that lascannon lol).

Re knights and their survivability. Most things in this game die if you put them in front of 18 bases that wound on 4s and can affect their save. Similarly most things die when getting blasted by an airwing lol. As an ally capped at 30% of points and coming in increments of 180, they're very manageable at the moment, as you can respond to the 2-3 that can be taken in 1500-2000 in the same way as a Kratos/baneblade/Russ brick. Dealing with up to 8 knights/4 knights and 12 armigers, all across the board, in 1500 might be a different story though. Light bounces from them, melee mostly fails against them (esp if you're going into double melee quests, Lancers/atrapos, and armigers), they're really fast (18"/16" charges, yay), can hit stuff in buildings with most classes, can get barrage on quests, and more. Them being so hideable doesn't help their ease of charging either.

the kratos autocannons, mathwise theyre the best option to take. i find the heavy bolters to be the best right now.

knights just die. like today. in a knight vs knight fight. one was just shot off the board in a single round of shooting. its only 3 wounds you have to get through and when most AT weapons have -1. they are saving on a 4 most times.

kheres are complete junk. agreed. there pretty bad. i just think of the dreads with the Kheres as body guards for the las dreads. they die first. the dread hand bolter is the most used and best weapon they have.

i dont know how a entire knight army will work. i feel they will die all the same. but even if they dont die. there OC is so low that they cant take objectives. also as they will be bigger than most things even if they are in combat with a unit they can still get shot at.

It might be my familiarity with Epic 40k and Epic Armageddon talking, but... boy oh boy, does this game look like you spend more time removing pieces from the board than actually playing or doing much else.

Is it me, or does stuff don't really stay much on the table?

first turn sees a lot die, if one or both players advance, after the first turn the amount of firepower has dropped significantly

but yes lethality is currently too high, to the point as I've suggested stuff needs more wounds

anything scale 2 should have 2, scale 3 three, scale 4 at least 4 and so on, in effect infantry in the open still suffer, but other stuff sticks about longer

I also think the "all knights/titans" games will see different scenarios so the buggers can actually score, unless GW somehow forgets this bit

Possibly facetious comment? I’d recommend not getting too attached to any given unit. Consider everything disposable, and focus on bagging those early objectives.

To me, Epic should be a blood bath. It’s 40k’s setting writ large (but also smol).

Let me enjoy wiping out a modern Chapter’s worth of Marines with contemptuous ease, only to have my Titan’s Tipped in the next turn.

That what I want to see. That’s what I want to experience. I want that reward of marshalling my surprisingly fragile force to victory. That’s where I get my jollies.

Other opinions are available and just as valid

Yeah, I feel differently myself. I like to see units have effectiveness degradation without having to outright die. You can have a bloodbath AND units gettin pounded so that they can't advance or shoot no more without dying, those two are not really mutually exclusive. But if the only, for sure way of deleting the enemy for realsies is going there and getting your hands dirty (aka close combat/firefights at 40k ranges)... then you have to do it, which makes it more like 40k IMHO.

Maybe my problem is that everyone goes to the slaughter without a second thought, as there's not much if at all in the way of morale.

Incidentally, the way objectives work with/against army morale in Epic 40k feels a lot more... integrated... than simply earning points, IME (the different types of objectives either add or substract points from yours' or the enemy's army morale)

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Possibly facetious comment? I’d recommend not getting too attached to any given unit. Consider everything disposable, and focus on bagging those early objectives.

To me, Epic should be a blood bath. It’s 40k’s setting writ large (but also smol).

Let me enjoy wiping out a modern Chapter’s worth of Marines with contemptuous ease, only to have my Titan’s Tipped in the next turn.

That what I want to see. That’s what I want to experience. I want that reward of marshalling my surprisingly fragile force to victory. That’s where I get my jollies.

Other opinions are available and just as valid

this is essentially how I play, I adopt quite a "Soviet" play style, think its tied to the 5 turns mentality, GW want stuff to be dead, not "crippled and hiding" or having run off