Escalation and Stronghold are launched!

[Chase]

Just wondering. How many people here have actually played with the new rules form the new books? Of those people how many of you have played more than one game with the new rules? My guess would be zero.

Safe money is on you being right.



I saw one game here on Saturday night where they played 1850.  One dude had a Warhound titan (it was gorgeous) and the other took an IG list that was pretty balanced in terms of comp.  They played a mission where you got a VP for every hull point you took off the superheavy.  The IG dude killed everything but the titan.  He ended up losing with ~900-1000 points of models left on the table simply because the titan (which isn't in Escalation) has like 9 hull points.  Only 2 or 3 of the hull points were removed at the end of the game because the void shields kept coming back.

Both players are very reasonable people and agreed that the Warhound wasn't oppressing.  It's one game, but it echoes what lots of people have said after previous Megabattles.

I really, really think that superheavies will not usually be a good idea for competitive players playing competitive lists.  MAYBE there will end up being one of them that is good enough and efficient enough to make it into some kind of "Deathstar" list (which is what ends up happening in most other skirmish games that have giant, point sink, all-in, type models).  Only time will tell.... Or not because no one will play it for no good reason.

[Sir_Prometheus]

Yeah, that was an apocalypse game where both people wanted to play Apocalypse.  Not a 40k game where one guy wanted to play 40k, and the other guy wanted to play....apocalypse, I guess.

I don't like to play Apocalypse, that is well-informed opinion at this point.  Just because apocalypse works amon people that want to play that, really has nothing to do with whether it's good for regular 40k or not. 

[Chase]

Yeah, that was an apocalypse game where both people wanted to play Apocalypse.  Not a 40k game where one guy wanted to play 40k, and the other guy wanted to play....apocalypse, I guess.

Huh?

I thought it was an 1850 game where one person wanted to use a Warhound and the new rules in the Escalation book (because that's a thing now) and the other just played a pretty balanced list.

[Dan Bunker]

This is a bad example to base anything off of. IG has a ton of low point models to kill, most every other army would lose 100's of points per shot from the titan some armies would lose quit a bit more. There needs to be a lot more testing done before we decide as a community if we should go forward with superheavies and D weapons in competitive play.

[MM3791]

The Warhound is not in the Escalation book, so I guess technically its still not legal yet (unless they release a data slate on it, which I'm sure they will), however the difference is not far off from the other legal units like the Stompa, Revenant, Terrasect Vault, Thunderhawk, Skull dude, etc.

Also in the Escalation book, they're not called superheavies, they're called "Lords of War"

Just to clarify any confusion 

[andalucien]

Does a Warhound have D weapons?  And if so, what type?  (I honestly don't know).

[MM3791]

This is a bad example to base anything off of. IG has a ton of low point models to kill, most every other army would lose 100's of points per shot from the titan some armies would lose quit a bit more. There needs to be a lot more testing done before we decide as a community if we should go forward with superheavies and D weapons in competitive play.

This isn't news dude, how is that any different then when the Tau codex got updated and players were forced to square off against 900 points of Crisis Suits and Riptides? In fact I bet some deepstiking Crisis teams can put some serious hurt on ANY titan.

[Dan Bunker]

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/567366.page

Lol the only thing the demon player could do was puppet master the titan to kill its own side

[andalucien]

So, as far as droppin' the D goes, a properly equipped Transcendent C'Tan seems nearly as good as a Revenant.

If you buy Transliminal Leap and Withering wave, you can

- make an 18" move.  Anything you pass through takes a D hit
- shoot a hellstorm template (like a flamer template but 16" long and 5" wide at its widest), and everything underneath it takes a D hit.
- Also shoot another weapon somewhere else, for example, a 10" blast strength 9 AP 2 gun, or another Hellstorm template which is str 6 AP2.

If the C'Tan starts in the middle of the table and goes first, I could easily see it killing its points (about 800) on the alpha strike.  The fat end of the template would be able to reach anywhere on the table except for the very corners.

[andalucien]

Interestingly the Thunderhawk might have a little bit of self-balancing built into it, in that it's a flyer, so it can't show up till turn 2 at the earliest.  So the enemy is going to get at least 1 turn of facing off against basically half an army.  If it doesn't arrive till turn 4, the army is kinda screwed.  It's kind of like how it's scary to run flyers in the 500pt games, because it's just too horrible if the thing doesn't arrive in a timely manner.

[Chase]

Here, I'll boil that video and post down for everyone:

"Man... this sucks!  In order to accommodate a potential shift in the metagame I might have to think for a second or two."


Do you guys realize that the game is deep enough to handle pretty much anything at this point?

Who cares if 700 point models kill hundreds of points per turn.  700 points of other stuff would too.  That's how the game works.  "Good" units are capable of killing their cost in models every turn, given solid targets, right?  What's the difference here?  What's wrong with having to play around that fact?

How the hell is something that's likely to have a real impact on the metagame BAD for 40k right now?  I really don't understand why people aren't excited about this.

Game planning for a superheavy + whatever else you might see has got to be awesome.  Lists will change, new things will become decent, players will have to risk things.  It could be potentially amazing and very exciting simply because they MIGHT show up.

[Dan Bunker]

Chase, it doesn't come down to models killing their points worth. This game is about position and timing. Being able to move 36 inches and have 4 shots with a pie plate that instant gibs everything under it except for a vehicle on a role of one takes nearly all strategy out of the game. Either I play a drop army and hope I survive turn one or I play a titan and hope to go first to kill their titan before mine dies. Bottom line is you cannot get away from that model. The video may not be their best but these are the people responsible for nearly all major tournaments on the west coast.

[Sir_Prometheus]

Yeah, that was an apocalypse game where both people wanted to play Apocalypse.  Not a 40k game where one guy wanted to play 40k, and the other guy wanted to play....apocalypse, I guess.

Huh?

I thought it was an 1850 game where one person wanted to use a Warhound and the new rules in the Escalation book (because that's a thing now) and the other just played a pretty balanced list.

Whatever you were describing, if it had a warhound titan, it wasn't Escalation. 

You seem very gung ho about this, but it also feels like you don't have a very large frame of reference.  We've all played with D weapons before, we are NOT saying it's bad idea out of ignorance. 

Look, if you have a tournament with Escalation it's possible it will work ok because not too many people actually feel like showing up with D-weapons...same way the tournaments work OK because not too many people show up with crazy FW stuff like thud guns.  But if 3 people showed up with thud guns, I'm pretty cure you're not going to have a good time, and if someone shows up with a revenant, we're really not going to have a good time. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynxPshq8ERo

[Chase]

That's fair, especially because Str D ignores cover (all saves).  You're not realistically going to be able to out maneuver something with a 60 inch range.

It (they) will definitely require people to take lists that are different than normal.  An "all comers" list, which probably doesn't exist anymore anyways, certainly won't exist.  At a large tournament you'll have to hop to dodge the Revenant.  Most of the others aren't nearly as "bad."

You guys wouldn't enjoy the challenge of building and testing against something like a Revenant?

Is the game currently a "skill always wins out" type of thing?  Is it okay if it shifts from that?  Magic, the most popular and most competitive "hobby game," get criticized all the time because it's becoming more "noob friendly."  Sometimes the power level of the cards can just beat a superior player.

Magic has grown rapidly year after year after year.

Is it cool that veteran players can lose against something like a Revenant Titan taking their "same old list" even if the Revenant's pilot sucks?  Well, it depends on who you ask.  Some think it's awesome and some think it sucks.  Will it drive some people away from events?  Sure.  Will it attract people?  Sure.

It is what it is.  It's different.  Is the Revenant okay?  Maybe.  Why not play and find out?

[Chase]

You seem very gung ho about this, but it also feels like you don't have a very large frame of reference.

I can promise you that my frame of reference for people whining and crying about D weapons is larger than you can possibly imagine.