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at some point its worth kicking off a tactics thread for ways to use and ways to counter all these wonderful toys

That is probably a good idea!

Love the description 'tiger terror' Leopard, think that is spot on for how they behave.
They can definitely be a massive PITA, and that ability to discorge the infantry onto an objective, or some other annoying place, and then back it up with a few nasty shots I don't think can be overlooked.

leopard wrote:


it all varies a bit, given the 30" range on the lightnings missiles the things only need move to 30" from the thunderhawks, this may well be outside of the range of anything to overwatch them - hence my comment on their escorts coming on first, well ahead of the thunderhawks planned location, specifically to make their own overwatch weapons (4+ to hit base, 6 for overwatch - though yes with a re-roll on four shots per Xiphon) be within range, or the interceptor have to be out of range of the T'hawk

and the T'hawk comes on in one activation, the bods dismount on the next activation so a single interceptor flight can come in and take a shot, though its a single weapon system so for me usually two dice of skystrike missiles, hitting on a 6 with a re-roll.. and the T'hak ends up saving on a 3+ so its got a pretty good chance to live

Skyfire overwatch -1 to hit, not -2. Hence xiphon missiles on 5+ rerolling.

Also disembark is on transport activation. Interceptor can't stop. Only overwatch.

missed the -1 bit, guess the actual overwatch rules noting -2 and the skyfire bit being elsewhere doesn't help.. noted though

also on the disembarkation, thats cunning, though overwatch from other units will be more dangerous anyway - point with interceptor is that can do it and still fire later

still, sit corrected and my thanks

Yea. But if guys in transport want out it's on transport activation. Of course every turn might not want. Depending on how dangerous i might not want to disembark t1 and instead shoot from far big dangers from relative safety

tneva82 wrote:
Yea. But if guys in transport want out it's on transport activation. Of course every turn might not want. Depending on how dangerous i might not want to disembark t1 and instead shoot from far big dangers from relative safety

which is of course perfectly valid, stay out of range of enemy air defences, or at least minimise the amount of fire if there is a safe location to snipe from - e.g. have that mahoosive cannon ready if other stuff drops a titans shields

not immune to damage of course as fliers can still move into range, of course bring your own air defences and you can create a reasonably safe pocket to operate from

I actually think the idea of keeping the bodies on board until T2 or T3 will make their value shoot up as by then half the enemy will be dead anyway

same with the full on marine air wing formation, doesn't need huge units in multiple Storm Eagles if half the targets are already dead and its a clean up operation.

do need to get around to sorting some air transports to try that sort of thing, given enemies now expect the Vanquishers of Doom (tm) or similar with marines, swap a chunk of the list into flappy birds brigade and see how it goes

wow this thread certainly delivered on what I expect out of dakka dakka.

So after playing some games, my thoughts on Legions so far. I'll call it The Good, The Bad and The Ugly/Pretty

The Good
- Firstly, and most importantly, the game is definitely fun. Had an absolute blast! Once we got going (more on that later).
- I liked how dynamic/fast moving it is. The increased movement (over previous versions) and reduced ranges means there is a lot more of units rushing around the table and blowing each other up, a lot less slow 10cm trudging move and not doing anything. And it is a *lot* more destructive. Don't get too attached to any unit, as it will generally die when it is shot.
- Alternating activation keeps both players involved, having to think of what order to fire your units or move to engage.
- The missions and objectives system, as this was one area perhaps lacking a bit from previous versions. I liked that most of them are based around capturing your objectives rather than just 'kill stuff' and it really encouraged you to dive in.

The Bad
- The Rulebook. In terms of barrier to entry, if this book was a pair of chastity pants they would be made of wrought iron, covered in spikes and double-padlocked. I *love* Epic and reading this book was an absolute chore. Like the Age of Darkness book, just the complete lack of colour, of artwork, even the po-faced background bits are boring. And the rules themselves are a needlessly wordy; I think someone pointed out before it is to stop 'TFG' reading them upside down and coming to some daft idea of how to play it, but the net result is that they read like the T&Cs from my car insurance.
- The Crunch. Barrier to entry part II. It's not quite as bad as I first feared, so as to make the game unplayable, but I've been wargaming for 30 years, played a ton of the previous versions of Epic, and was playing against people of a similar experience level and we still struggled. Once we got going it was OK (we had to use a third-party app of the Armylist builder to help rules reference) but it took some getting there. I would not want to be coming to this game as a relative newbie or casual player from something like Age of Sigmar, Warcry or One Page Rules systems. There is just so much additional bumf in the rules, references from one rule to another, that could have been handled much more efficiently without altering the feel of the game. So in that respect, I do not think it is well written and could have done with a more forceful editor.
- Table size & miniature count. I assume this might change as the roster gets filled out (we are essentially playing an unfinished beta version of the game at present) but even at 1500pts the game board feels very crowded. This has removed tactical agency as you effectively just swarm things forward to die.
- Multiple weapon loadouts and WYSIWYG - I don't think this is a good idea at this scale. It's quite funny that GW have obviously aimed the game at a certain age demographic, without accounting for fading eyesight. We have just used a 'this unit is armed with this' approach and gone through the list at the start of the game, which I think worked better, even though I know this won't be acceptable to some players.

The Ugly/Pretty
In summary I will say there is a great game there, underneath. It's a bit of a gourmet meal, you have to crack through some shellfish to get at the succulent parts within and if you spend the effort you can enjoy it. But I think a lot of gamers, and especially the more casual, will not be willing or able to make that effort - and so I think because of this (combined with short stock levels and marketing/coverage - not a single mention in the new WD for example) is only ever going to be a fringe system. Which is a shame, as all of us over a certain age (and remembering Epic Space Marine as the game that got us into the hobby) know that it could have been more and held widespread appeal.
Anyway - the miniatures look beautiful (actually, they look like the tiny drawings in the old 1st edition book of dozens of tiny beakies fighting each other, which is jsut awesome). I'm looking forward to the first, much needed, expansion to be released so we can get to play the game in its full form.

The book is definitely a slog, it feels often like my inner monologue takes on the voice of ben stein when reading some of the most tedious parts. The game is undeniably fun. I gotta disagree on the wysiwyg, it's a balancer, if it didn't matter in the games I've had, there would be far less variance in weapon loadouts and a lot more homogeneity. The only thing keeping that tank having a battlecannon right now is it physically having one and me not having a vanquisher to replace it with. Being overly permissive on wysiwyg in this situation would mean me not even having to put in the effort to even convert these russes, could just pretend they have vanqs. Speaking only from experience, the only thing keeping myself or my opponent from running very cynical builds/loadouts is simply the lack of physically having every model in the ideal loadout currently, like running some contemptors with kheres for now because we have them but likely to be all lascannon in the near future. But in a game that's already so permissive when it comes to army construction AND the rarity of weapon upgrades costing any additional points, not playing wyswyg seems less than ideal, it can be a decision born out of compassion for an opponent with a less than ideal collection of miniatures, but going the other way as like an event policy, the ambiguity can be so badly abused, to say nothing of the effect on immersion as well.




I think 3 main points of focus to ponder given wave 2's delay:



- Tackling the game feeling at times top heavy, this might be through missions design, we've debated the merits of progressive vs end game scoring and given the insane vp scores you see even in small games its worth considering. Other consideration would be encouraging/forcing some units into reserve, all the functional rules bits for reserve are already in the book, a missions just needs to communicate its basic functions. Missions/scenarios in general may need to limit/cap stuff like infiltrate/deepstrike.


- Limiting formations at certain point levels. I'd like to maybe try and do an event around 1500-2000pts but would want to cap it at 4 formations max, for example. This might also include having to limit players to one marine legion unless they want to burn their 30% allies to take a second. That's both balance and aesthetic. As much as I very much look forward to big 2v2 games with multiple legions on the board, I just don't love how cynical one can go to take advantage of the different legions rather varied special rules. I don't even think limiting formations is much of a silver bullet for balance, more just to get people used to being told no in an otherwise very permissive game.



- Keeping an eye combined arms being incentive or made to be the focus. The reality is, while many are still struggling to get their hands on all the models they want, certain things going brrr change the supply and possibilities for some. And that's a reality that I don't think has hit everyone yet in terms of just how permissive and unconstrained army construction really is when supply/access isn't an impediment. One truly can run a single formation 50 leman russ and 12 baneblade army and its just under 3k, one really can run 8 lightnings for all of 610pts in a single pioneer formation for solar aux (would still need a few key things), Skimask mohawk has pointed out on b&c you can get like 48 missile launcher bases in a single demi company and its like 520pts. The aforementioned 50 leman russ army could be all vanquisher/lascannon. So not that there's anything wrong with taking a lot of detachments in a mass battle game, if we also want it to be combined arms, I'm hoping the balance is found in the real need for a variety of unit types, I really hope some silly skew lists or just spamming a good detachments with the best loadouts as many times as possible don't become the norm, so worth keeping an eye on. The game is an all you can eat buffet, my concern going into wave 2 isn't just players potentially taking crazy portions of only the best things but full on going past that and stealing the steam tray. It's not even a concern in terms of cynicism, access can lead to disparities as well. Can't fault a marine player if their army is majority kratos if its the only box of tanks they can buy that aren't rhinos. And if no delay or supply issues existed, things going brrr or players with deep pockets both lead us to the same place.

The book is certainly needlessly wordy, and for all the "its to make it precise"... it isn't, the extra words seldom help clarity and more often confuse it.

at least its not "DBA 2.0" level "look at me, aren't I clever" language, and I's much prefer, if they want wordy, something closer to the Star Fleet Battles "Engineering document" style of writing and cross referencing - the latter part of which would certainly help when a rule is in one place, and a host of exceptions are elsewhere

e.g. the "skyfire" rule would be a lot better if it had a list of exceptions, with page references, as a bullet point list below it.

this sort of page referencing is made a lot easier when you number paragraphs and sections and use that instead of page references

main issue with that of course is GW's mix of paranoia and inability to think ahead as it largely requires a completed rules framework for all of the edition before any of it is published - and to be honest they should have the rules nailed down before the first book is written - add the fluff, add the units etc later but the actual mechanics should be known up front.

I think its a good game, it has the potential to be an excellent one, but its not there yet and without a few changes to approach it can't be (e.g. weapons upgrades being wildly unbalanced)

and note this latter point is actually reasonably easy to fix. take the humble Leman Russ and the Vanquisher option

make them separate units, which can have different point costs

the basic unit can then maybe allow one or two Vanquishers to be added to the basic four at a higher cost than adding more basic ones

yes its a re-write of the units, but doesn't change any of the core rules, formations can note that maybe they can/cannot be "core" units

most of the weapon disparities can be addressed in this way without having to back down on "upgrades cost no points, except for Rhinos because feth Rhinos"

the bit on how some people will always have access to more stuff applies in every game system out they beyond card counters systems. its being helped locally with the approach of "don't use printed units unless your opponent has access to similar" combined with "be willing to help fellow players access stuff"

e.g. I've printed Xiphon for a few people, one guy has a few Thunderhawks so I don't feel bad printing a few Storm Eagles etc

Well Epic Warpath will be almost the exact same game but probably explained in like 16 pages

 Crablezworth wrote:



- Limiting formations at certain point levels. I'd like to maybe try and do an event around 1500-2000pts but would want to cap it at 4 formations max, for example. This might also include having to limit players to one marine legion unless they want to burn their 30% allies to take a second. That's both balance and aesthetic. As much as I very much look forward to big 2v2 games with multiple legions on the board, I just don't love how cynical one can go to take advantage of the different legions rather varied special rules. I don't even think limiting formations is much of a silver bullet for balance, more just to get people used to being told no in an otherwise very permissive game.

Agreed. There is a minimum of formations stablished by the rulebook. I would also stablish a maximum (something like 2xminimum or 3xminimum).

 Crablezworth wrote:


- Keeping an eye combined arms being incentive or made to be the focus. The reality is, while many are still struggling to get their hands on all the models they want, certain things going brrr change the supply and possibilities for some. And that's a reality that I don't think has hit everyone yet in terms of just how permissive and unconstrained army construction really is when supply/access isn't an impediment. One truly can run a single formation 50 leman russ and 12 baneblade army and its just under 3k, one really can run 8 lightnings for all of 610pts in a single pioneer formation for solar aux (would still need a few key things), Skimask mohawk has pointed out on b&c you can get like 48 missile launcher bases in a single demi company and its like 520pts. The aforementioned 50 leman russ army could be all vanquisher/lascannon. So not that there's anything wrong with taking a lot of detachments in a mass battle game, if we also want it to be combined arms, I'm hoping the balance is found in the real need for a variety of unit types, I really hope some silly skew lists or just spamming a good detachments with the best loadouts as many times as possible don't become the norm, so worth keeping an eye on. The game is an all you can eat buffet, my concern going into wave 2 isn't just players potentially taking crazy portions of only the best things but full on going past that and stealing the steam tray. It's not even a concern in terms of cynicism, access can lead to disparities as well. Can't fault a marine player if their army is majority kratos if its the only box of tanks they can buy that aren't rhinos. And if no delay or supply issues existed, things going brrr or players with deep pockets both lead us to the same place.

It is boring how people keep mentioning vanquisher again and again and again when missile launchers are way more broken, and can be taken if way higher numbers (and armoured companies should fit perfectly at this scale). But yeah, you are at least mentioning those too. right now SM missile launchers + rhinos is the most broken (and annoying due to potential numbers).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Well Epic Warpath will be almost the exact same game but probably explained in like 16 pages

I've seen their beta rules, and they have actually taken the best of Epic editions (LI haven't, and should have done), so not the same game, but better. I would say LI is a straight bad game (and I do not even take balance into account as I played narrative only so far), and I do not blame GW per se because the same department made ToW which is way way better (and took the best from previous editions).

think there is an issue with missile launcher teams for sure (as in they need to cost slightly more than they do, and perhaps be limited to two stands in a tactical unit)

its actually the same issue as the vanquisher, though not quite so obvious, both fall into the "why wouldn't you?" category, for the points there being no real downside

both should be good in specialist units, both are too good currently taken as general stuff.

both come over, indeed quite a bit comes over, as GW thinking the number in the box is a limit and "no one will spam them", though obviously a 100% vanquisher build is possible and there really is no reason not to currently

sorting the SM missile launchers to cost slightly more and maybe be limited in numbers in tactical units also makes the plasma guys perhaps worth a look where as presently they essentially are shelf happy

still not sure there is a need for a maximum number of formations, having too many makes them individually small and individually fragile. I do think that for marines you should have one legion as your force and others fall under the "allies" percentage however

SU-152 wrote:
I've seen their beta rules, and they have actually taken the best of Epic editions (LI haven't, and should have done), so not the same game, but better. I would say LI is a straight bad game (and I do not even take balance into account as I played narrative only so far), and I do not blame GW per se because the same department made ToW which is way way better (and took the best from previous editions).

might be the simple difference that with TOW we have the rules first and models+background later (and also changing the background to fit the rules), while usually GW works the other way around, making models and background first and than write the rules to fit those

I think that is, in very broad terms, whats wrong with a lot of GW games - they do not sit down and create the rules framework and mechanics first, its almost an afterthought

I think that's just a matter of how GW see themselves. They're a company that makes models. The rules are an accessory, and an optional one at that. If you use their rules with proxy minis, they don't make much money. If you buy the minis just for the fun of assembling and painting them, and never actually play a game, they still make plenty of money.

its also why the better sets of rules come from companies without a line of models to flog

So something that's come up is with the exception of firestorm weapons mentioning touching one end to the weapon, nothing in the book talks about los and how to draw los in much detail.

It also would seem blast weapons and possibly firestorm weapons can target models that are engaged/pinned. Quake doesn't pick a target detachment, you just pick a point on the board, roll to hit/scatter and that's it.

In the case of firestorm it also basically has split fire.

Just as a quick note I have noticed that the latest Legion Builder app update has included loadout selection - so it now includes this in your prints etc. So the game's most useful/helpful tool just got a bit better.

I haven't got a copy of the Great Slaughter so don't know if they have included all of the stuff from that yet, although it did look like the formations list has expanded.

 Pacific wrote:
Just as a quick note I have noticed that the latest Legion Builder app update has included loadout selection - so it now includes this in your prints etc. So the game's most useful/helpful tool just got a bit better.

I haven't got a copy of the Great Slaughter so don't know if they have included all of the stuff from that yet, although it did look like the formations list has expanded.

Yeah it's a great tool, they have indeed added the stuff from the great slaughter, there was a few error last I saw but mostly spelling mistakes.

Just slapped some color on all the different legions to find out which ones I enjoy painting. I already have a small Salamander and Deathguard army each, with a detachment of Sons of Horus. A detachment of Iron Warriors and World Eaters will also follow for sure. As for the rest, still undecided... The black colored legions look dull and Thousand Sons didn't turn out great. Maybe Alpha Legion? Realy nice that you can mix and match some legions in LI and keep it fluffy and working still.

 Garfield666 wrote:
Realy nice that you can mix and match some legions in LI and keep it fluffy and working still.

visually it can have great appeal if limited, game-wise it's not great, has lead to very cynical combinations for less than awesome reasons, like taking just enough emperor's children for a re-roll.

cheesemongers will always find a selection of mature chedder to play with

Yeah, the EC are something you can abuse easily, but most of the others can be added without any cheese.
Thinking about doing a White Scars detachment in honor of a buddys 40k favorites.
There are so many instances in the books where several legions fight alongside each other, but in 40k that was unreasonable outside of big mega battles.

 Garfield666 wrote:
Yeah, the EC are something you can abuse easily, but most of the others can be added without any cheese.
Thinking about doing a White Scars detachment in honor of a buddys 40k favorites.
There are so many instances in the books where several legions fight alongside each other, but in 40k that was unreasonable outside of big mega battles.

Sure but having no limits? A legal 18 legion army? Why doesn't the second legion come out of the 30% allies?

Worse, one could have a legal 18 legion army only made up of land speeders. For a game that just announced a third yet to be titled book it really should think about saying no to stuff on occasion


Automatically Appended Next Post:

leopard wrote:
cheesemongers will always find a selection of mature chedder to play with

It's not even really cheese mongering necessarily, its just a really weirdly permissive army building mechanic on gw's end. Like I can no more fault someone running 2 legions in an army than i can fault them for running like 5 and allies. I think for events though I'm def gonna cap marines at 2, and the 2nd legion will come out of the 30% allies. On the other end, can't stop solar aux from taking a really cynical marine like EC, I just really hope that doesn't become a thing.

had another game tonight, ~1,100 points, 4x4 table, no secondaries basically as we both wanted to keep it simple.

got roasted, fun though, this is without "allies", both only had two formations, no faction rules.

thankfully cheese of any strength isn't a massive issue as neither of us enjoy it so we don't bother.

the simple solution is to stick legions other than the primary one into the allies bit, have as many as you can fit into that.

proper allies matrix would also be useful

Eeeeh! Legion Support boxes are on their way from Element!

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Eeeeh! Legion Support boxes are on their way from Element!

Result

local shop has a few boxes in now, still no marine infantry, boxes are the newer bits mostly, the stuff people are not buying as they can't get the book with the rules in

hopefully the book issue gets sorted at some point

XPG of Dover has mail order copies in stock

https://www.xpg.co.uk/products/legions-imperialis-the-great-slaughter?_pos=1&_sid=06980c307&_ss=r

Looking forward to getting the new stuff painted, and then starting to muck about with Army Composition.

Definitely intrigued by Drop Dreads as a potential concept.

Think drop assault stuff has a lot of potential, come in T2, maybe T3 on rear objectives, or to boost a home objective

very flexible, and can be infantry & a few dreads as by then a good bit should be dead and they can live a bit longer