Matt vs. Rob (one-sided) Escalation Battle Report.

[andalucien]

I wonder if we shouldn't replace all instances of the word "superheavy" with "Revenant Titan."

The revenant titan is certainly a lot better than many superheavies, but I don't think he's unique.  My experience with the Transcendant C'Tan was similar, and I think it would have been just as good as the Revenant in this game.

And, if you take into account the new list ForgeWorld opened up, the Revenant (while still perhaps the best of them all) starts to seem less and less unique.   Reaver Titans, Warhound Titans kitted out with D and probably some other stuff would all have a similar effect on any army that wasn't specifically kitted out to kill superheavies.

There are certainly things Rob could have done to threaten the Revenant.  For example, it's possible to run 8 teleporting harbingers of the storm;  I believe that this would usually take out the Revenant in 1 turn if they don't deviate badly on their deep strike move. 

But to me, the main point isn't that Superheavies are hard to beat, it's the WAY that they win when they do win.  These kinds of "Game over on turn 2" victories used to be extremely rare, in fact I know that it's never happened to me before, nor have I ever witnessed it happening or heard of it happening at an event I attended (although I'm sure it's always been possible).   

And.... though I haven't heard about any concrete experiences in this regard yet, I suspect that games in which the superheavies lose will often be equally anticlimactic.  You put all your eggs in one basket.  If the basket falls, you lose... if the basket doesn't fall, you win.

[Chase]

I think that *certain* units are hard to beat, like one that can move 36 inches and fire Str D a couple times.  Are they harder to beat than some things in "normal" 40k tournaments?  Do they require more or less "specfic tools" to handle than things found in "normal" 40k?

I'm not going to get into another "debate" about this, but I think it's almost undeniable that the vast majority of superheavy / gargantuan units are fine or "bad" in most games.  Is Str D a problem?  Yeah, I guess it is when you're looking to preserve people's perception of what a 40k game looks like and plays like.  Is there an example of a superheavy / gargantuan that doesn't have Str D and is "too good?"

Games and events that allow them have to be approached with them in mind.  People seem to dislike the fact that "normal" 40k has changed due to their inclusion.  Why would people try to use any sort of "normal" list against them?


I'm not sure even 1 Str D weapon is usually a game winner.  I think models that are highly mobile, have 4+(or better) invulnerable saves, and can shoot more than 1 Str D weapon are probably pushing it.


There's a Doubles event on the horizon that I'm going to be allowing the superheavy / gargantuan guys in.  I'm not 100% sure that I'm going to do with FoCs, point totals, or Str D yet, but we'll certainly see.

I can say for sure that from my perspective (as a guy affiliated with a store) that I don't like how Str D has sped up the game so much.  It seems to be a win big or lose big type of thing.

A 3k tournament may or may not happen soonish.  It might be replaced with a 2500 point event instead.  We'll let stuff go "unchecked" in Feb at some point.  Probably in Abington and not on the 22nd (which makes things tough).

[andalucien]

Yeah, I'm totally down with that.  Now that GW has given us this, I totally think it makes sense to experiment with it so that everyone can see how these things actually work...   Basically, everyone is just going to want to see for themselves how games with these types of Superheavies will play out.

[Typhus]

Is there an example of a superheavy / gargantuan that doesn't have Str D and is "too good?"

Baneblades are pretty beefy - Str 10 cannons, 4 lascannons, all the weapons can fire at separate targets.

[PhoenixFire]

Is there an example of a superheavy / gargantuan that doesn't have Str D and is "too good?"

Baneblades are pretty beefy - Str 10 cannons, 4 lascannons, all the weapons can fire at separate targets.

I'm a fan of the hellhammer variant myself. Shorter range and 7" plate instead of 10" but str 10 ap1 vs the str9 ap3 of the baneblade and ignores cover.

Personally I think the toughest super heavy to kill may be the Tyranid flyer but can't really say how good it is offense wise.

[andalucien]

  Is there an example of a superheavy / gargantuan that doesn't have Str D and is "too good?"

Getting into some theory hammer here, if Superheavies were allowed, but D weapons were not,
The giant ForgeWorld lord of change would be basically impossible to kill. 

999 points, a whole stack of good stuff, here are some highlights

Toughness 8, 9 wounds, 3+ invul save, flying.

He's got a gun which does a bunch of stuff but most importantly essentially inflicts 7-9 haywire hits on a vehicle, which in a couple turns would remove anything like a Revenant, etc.

He also creates a new LARGE unit of Pink horrors anywhere on the board, every turn.  So, you can take him and he also provides all the scoring units you could ever want, so you don't really need to spend any more points on troops (just take 2 min squads of nurglings).

[andalucien]

Thinking it over, though, that all sounds great, but I don't know if it's TOO good for 999 points... it certainly wouldn't end the game on turn 2 the way lots of D blasts/templates will.

[PhoenixFire]

Thinking it over, though, that all sounds great, but I don't know if it's TOO good for 999 points... it certainly wouldn't end the game on turn 2 the way lots of D blasts/templates will.

That's the crux of the problem though,  you need D to take something like that down and he's a flying MC. There are almost no straight shooting D weapons that don't use pie plates or a template. I think the only D weapon with sky fire is the thunderhawk.

Take this thing, keep him flying, shooting and popping out pink horrors and likely your only chance is to ground him and hit him with some D

[robpro]

I don't think one game proves anything, it just shows what we already knew - these are powerful units that require different tactics to handle.

Well, OK, but it felt pretty conclusive to me, conclusive enough I don't especially feel the need to repeat the experiment.  My feeling was that you didn't really have a shot at winning, no matter what you did. 

I disagree.

I knocked 5 hullpoints off the revenant in 2 turns, and I made a mistake too (only one barge was in range to fire on it turn 1). We rolled up kill points, which is a mission type that favors the revenant over others (although it gives up 4 VPs if its killed, it will likely earn first blood and 2-3 kills before it goes). After Matt's objection to the void shield generator, I had to change my list fairly quickly (also under some time constraints). I would probably not have run the Prince at level 3 without the void shield generator to tuck him under, and the generator itself was 100 points, so there's about 175 points to fool around with.

I really think the daemon prince, had you rolled puppet master, would be your best chance to win.  But you didn't, and I don't think super-heavies having this one niche, single power weakness really illustrates anything.  I don't know how you think different mission types would make a difference:  your army didn't exist at the end of turn 2.  Mission type wasn't even relevant. 

As I mentioned, had I not been silly first round, you would have done only 3 hull points. 

Without the void shields to protect the prince turn 1, I probably wouldn't have kitted the prince out as much because if you go first he'll be off the table before I can use him.

The Tau potion of Matt's army killed considerably more than the Revenant, truth be told. Turn 1 the DP was in position to charge the Revenant if Matt forgot it could move 36, but it was also in position to get the jump on his riptide/buffcomander/farseer unit if he didn't move them away from the quad gun.

Huh?  Why do you think I would forget the revenant could move 36"  If I had, what would that prove?  The Tau killed the Daemon Prince and 2 nightscythes, pretty sure that's around 500 pts.  The revenant kill all the wraiths, the destroyer lord and 3 annihilation barges.  You'd have to do the math for me, but I'm pretty sure that's more points.  Unless you want to count the troops inside, but they didn't die, they were just forced into reserve (which they did not have a chance to come back from), and I think that's a little weird. 

It was around 550 points in just those 3 units, but throwing the guys inside into reserves (about 90 points of dudes each, where they would do nothing for the rest of the game walking on from my board edge) certainly counts.

Two big pieces of LoS blocking terrain somewhat centrally located would really help mitigate the effects of the titan. Necrons also don't really have a good way to threaten the riptide/buffmander/farseer on turn 1, so armies with better tools to close early on would really have given his setup trouble.

So any LOS blocking terrain would have to be REALLY big, as the revenant is quite tall (your old armorcast one I think is like half the height of the new one).  I also know of no big GT atm that's even trying two pieces of LOS blocking terrain, though NOVA is considering it.  What sort of army do you think could do better?  I can't think of any. 

My revenant is actually the same size or slightly taller than the forge world one. The forge world phantom (which is what I think you're picturing) is much taller, but it's also still slightly shorter than the Armorcast one. Every table I've played on in 6th ed has less terrain than what the rulebook would typically require on average for a board, it's certainly something to look into.

All in all, I would say I had fun. I still had units in reserves or I wouldn't have been tabled. Matt, how do you think a 3k would go if both sides could have 1-2 super heavies if they chose, or cooler units kitted out to deal with those things? I don't think it would take 7 hours to play one of those. I think what we consider "normal" 40k is just evolving.

Well, I'm glad you had fun.  For me, there was little opportunity for the sort tactics and strategy I enjoy....just shooting fish in a barrel, really.  I don't understand your obsession with 3k battles....if you like those, you should probably play apocalypse.  Maybe a super-heavy makes more sense at those points levels, that wouldn't surprise me.....but I have no interest in playing 3k games, at least not routinely. 

I suggest tying one at 3k. I played one yesterday, took about as much time as an 1850 and we got through 5 turns. It just adds another layer of things you might have to deal with (like flyers). I think it's important to remember that none of the units good at killing super heavies are bad at killing non-super heavy units either, you've just got more points to play around with when figuring out the best way to do it.

The game would still revolve around the super-heavy.  The game might last longer (the more points, the more time it takes to table) but the D weapons are still going to be removing very expensive units, the attributes of which -- their toughness, their cover, their wounds, etc -- now no longer really matter.  More points means you might have a better chance to kill the super-heavy, but it's still going to kill most of the important stuff before it dies.

And the same can't be said of screamerstar, broadside units with missile teams, seerstar, necron bakery, ripstars, armies that just have 4 riptides, serpent spam, etc?

Really, no matter how you slice it, the superheavy takes away a huge amount of the tactics and strategy of 40k.  They make a huge amount of factors usually present in a game -- the abilities of units, your movement, where you positioned them, whether they're in cover, or not, etc, completely irrelevant. 

People said the same thing about flyers. If you brought 3, people said you were just shooting fish in a barrel with your nigh-unkillable units. Super heavies are actually EASIER for many armies to deal with than someone running 5-7 flyers (not that I think it's good to run that many flyers, it's just an example of the hysteria from the start of 6th that continues to this day in many playgroups).

Rob you seem to want to play Escalation at 3k (which to me, sounds no different than apocalypse).  OK?  Then you should find like-minded people who want to do that.  I don't have much interest in it, though, and I think it's clear it has no place in tournaments.  (beyond "galdiator" style tournaments, charity events where you can buy re-rolls, things like that)

I don't think any of those things are clear. I think there are plenty of things the list you brought against me is weak against and I don't know what tactics you felt like you were missing out on. I brought the models I had available, I feel like if you'd had 900 more points of Tau the result would have probably been about the same. The D weapons were just resolved much quicker than skyrays or broadside units with missile teams or a ripstar splitting fire or whatever else.

[Benjamin]

IIRC, Aetaos'rau'keres has insane jealousy and will attack other large Daemons on his own side over other enemies. Depending on the range of that and others' abilities, it may be difficult to buff him. But yeah, I've always wanted to play with this, because it is Capital D Dick of the highest caliber.