Hey guys,

Been playing with Dave a few times now with my Squats (which are finally all painted) and have come to a few questions. Now keep in mind I'm new here and probably don't deserve to have an opinion, given that it's an ill-informed one.

I'm not sure why someone would ever take a Land Train. I own one, and have two or three of each battlecar (Except the ol' rad bomb, of which I have one) - and every time I sit down to use the one I have lovingly restored and painted, I just can't bring myself to do it. Dave and I play 3k games almost exclusively, and for the points I'd always rather take a Colossus if I'm taking a war engine. So, would love some feedback on that?

Second up is the warrior brotherhood. For 300 points, even with free rhinos, I'm having a very, very difficult time finding a reason to bring it along. It can hardly shoot - missile launchers every other stand - and it's pretty bunk in close combat. I can bring thunderers along, but then the unit gets to be rather enormous and it's over 400 points by then. This may be because I'm only just now learning assaults and how to survive/initiate them (and last week's Tyranid game didn't help, Dave! ) but I feel like I'd rather take two squads of berserkers and just leave the warriors at home at this point.

Lastly I admit I'm having terrible trouble winning games. Dave of course is a very good player and he doesn't pull punches, because we've both agreed I won't learn anything. I did come out 300 points on top of a guard game after his dice were abysmal, but having some trouble making the stunties work. So basic advice would be lovely.

Again I apologize for my lack of brain regarding Epic. I grew up playing it and love it to death - but it'd be nice to finally get a bit better at it.

Best,
Adam S.

P.S.

If folks are interested, my list looks something like this at 3k (don't have it in front of me ATM) -

Colossus (warlord)
Goliath Mega-cannon
Overlord
Mole Mortar battery
Thudd Gun battery
Warrior brotherhood, thunderer attachment (rhinos)
Berserker squad (rhinos)
Berserker squad (rhinos)
Thunderfire cannon unit
guild biker unit
guild biker unit


Dave says we can't be friends if I take two more goliath mega-cannons, also!

So to summarize:

Dave wins all the games
Dave doesn't pull any punches
Dave says you can't field more mega-cannons

not a fan of the Land Train myself but if u go all out u have a unit with a stack of DC and Void Shields...rumble it forward, shooting as u go...ur opponent has to commit serious resources to smash a maxed out Land Train...

i prefer the Colossus as well and normally put my Living Ancestor in it...Living Ancestor is a must just for the special ability

I too was dubious of Warrior Brotherhoods but now i put my Grand Warlord in a unit of them mounted in rhinos...sure they arent shooty but i have found them fairly resilient in engagements...more than once i have seen off chaos marine companies with a Warrior Brotherhood...its a big size unit, u get Leader & Inspiring with the Hearthguard, it can absorb decent amount of punishment before broken and if u pick ur combats they should be able to hold their own...also use them a reserve unit, ready to move where i need them...

dpnt forget the Commander ability of the Guildmaster in the bike units...means u can drag nearby friendly units (within 5cm) into engagements.

Iron Eagles are something to look into as well....roving battlecannons with great movement

_________________
May your tankard never be dry and the Dice Gods look favourably upon your endeavours!

Cheers Frosthammer, thanks for the help. Will take that into consideration! Will have to find some gyrocopters at some point, it's the last unit I haven't got.

Heh, heh - can't offer anything particularly constructive but I'm with dracca; you can't go all out *and* have any say over your opponents list. Sounds like maybe you should stop pulling your punches too!

Below is from a long post that I put together on the Squat war engines but never posted, the list started moving on so points that were raised weren't needed, however:


The thing to note is that I feel that the Land Train is a tough moble artillery piece that can be used to capture objectives and not a great offensive unit.

On the case for taking Warriors I'd say forget that they have a shooting attack and don't for the meantime bother with Thunderers. Instead see them as a blocking formation, much like your Berserkers, but they then follow up as a formation which will either initiate or support engagements. With their formation size they can put out a lot of shots and this is where they will come out on top.

On beating Dave, I've never played him but when I'm playing against less experienced players I offer every so often to swop armies. This then allows a opponent to see what I'd do with their list against mine. It might give you some more ideas seeing the Squats being played against you rather than trying to work it all out yourself. You will also see which units of his own force Dave concentrates on first.

Oh, I do Dave a disservice - most of what I write about our gatherings of armies is a bit tongue-in-cheek. I don't know that I'd want to go up against two goliath formations myself!

He did offer me the chance to use his 'Nids, maybe I should take him up on it. I've been a Fantasy player for a long, long time, and I've seen swapping lists to be helpful in that system.

At 3k I've been running a colossus, a goliath battery, and an overlord - the problem is that once I start taking anything other than that, I can't fill the 1k of war engine points really well. I find enabling force projection is much more difficult with squats than guarding the blitz, and I don't know that I'd take a 400-ish point land train when I could take, say, another colossus, which I find offers reasonable force projection on a TAH objective. I admit I've given up for the most part on capturing my opponent's blitz - I can't seem to run enough bikes/berserkers in rhinos up to it to capture it or hold it.

On the Warriors, in comparison to an IG company they're pretty similar. Squats have less stands and no Commander, but their save, CC bonus and special rules would start to make up for that I think. I can see them sitting around 250, maybe 275 if they start to become a no brainer.

On the Land Train, I still like the idea of making in a stock unit: one engine, 4 cars (one of each type) with a crit destroying a car (player pics a car, destroys its weapon and the starting DC/VS go down by 1). I think it be easier to balance then how it is currently.

On the Goliaths, my comment on Adam taking more of them had more to do with they're good for their points. The humor shouldn't be mistaken for anything more than that.

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Dave

Blog

NetEA Tournament Pack Website

Squats 2019-10-17

The Warriors aren't all that great, true, but you still need them. Their numbers give them resilience and they fill the roles of lineholders, holding objectives and supporting other units so they don't get overwhelmed by superior numbers. They are the PBI in short...

The land train needs help. Tiny Tim has been giving me some good suggestions and I will be incorporating them into the 1.4 list (which should be done soon... Tomorrow?). I don't doubt you've had a difficult time picking it... I've been playtesting the army a lot and I still couldn't bring myself to bring it at the last tournament.

I approach the Warriors differently than Tim, but we both agree it is an excellent blocking formation. The last tournament I was at (NEAT IV or whatever number it was) I brought Warriors alone, but the game after that I built them up as my BTS with Thunderers and a Warlord. That is a huge amount of firepower and it made it stand way above my War Engines as the main target. With my opponent focusing on that huge infantry formation, I was able shrug off blast markers with a lot of marshaling and still shoot stuff and hold objectives. I even won an assault against a Big Ork formation, so don't doubt their usefulness.

Glad to see another Squat player giving us feedback. Feel free to comment further.

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author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

Ha I asked the same question on WestGamer
PFE100 gave this excellent answer:

dubhgilla1 wrote:
Could you please give me an idiots guide to the land train? I just can't get my head around how it works. I fully understand its rules just not how you use it. Why Berserker Battle Cars? Cheap? Add them for ablative wounds + extra shields?

Another great report.


The Land train has now became a jack of all trades master of none IMHO. The battle cars taken will depend on want you want it to do or who you face as a opponent...

I think it very imported that the land train gets into 5th gear straight away, and travel march pretty much turn one and turn two. This will change depending on the speed of your opponent and how you configured the land train. The other thing is support the land train as its moving, in the AAR I use the cyclops since I was facing titans, so if they try and molester the land train the cyclops can help and if they try the cyclops the land train can support it. The other one is use the road the on table if you have one, that 5cms can make a different.

I take the Berserker Battle Cars since they give me extra attacks for CC & FF, so taking three of them will give you 3 extra dice to roll in CC or FF. I will also go for a FF since I can get my void shields to count....to soak up a few hits. The dragon cars are there to give some range shots in way of AP, so firing 12 AP4+ shots ignore cover is nothing to sneeze at....The below are some other combos that could be done, I give brief reason why i will use them

1) Train and 6 mortar cars= 6 bps every turn or 12 bp every second turn, with 6 void shields and at least 8 DC, of course only 90cms indirect fire range- This one is my artillery battery, so I wont be charging across the table and mostly fire for full effect and then march move next turn, to some point on the table......Then turn three fire full effect again.....
2) Train and 6 berserk cars= OK this one is for FF & CC, so that 6 extra dice in FF and CC. If you aim for FF you will get your shields. This is one that needs to get into the opponent side of the table asap........
3) Train and 6 Dragon cars= 24 AP4+ shots with 6 void shields and at least 8 DC- This is one I will use for the tyrainds and orks...
4) Train and 6 bomb cars = so that either 6 shots at 4BP or 2 shots over three turns, which will make it 8BP. This one that will get used for big games, its not cheap, you can hit any thing on the table.........

I hope I have help you, if you have any question dubhgilla1 please let me know and I will do my best to answer them for you. Thank you the feed back and questions..........

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Hey, thanks for all the replies! Gosh, hadn't expected this to garner such a response.

So, some thoughts on the land train post above -

Even if I go with the cheapest option, with 6 berserker battlecars, that still runs me 500 points. I don't know if I'm correct in thinking that a lot of the rules are written/developed with 3k in mind, but if I take that car setup, I'm cutting out a lot of my force projection options - so it's either going to be a colossus filling the rest of my 1k war engine allowance, or I'll grab goliaths and can't afford anything else out of the war engine listing. A 6 engine train of any other description will almost certainly knock out the ability to take a colossus - which so far I've found to be superbly useful.

I guess I'm coming around to the idea that even with such FF potential as a 6-berserker-car loadout, I'd rather try to get that job done with some of the "standard" formations rather than pull it out of my war engine allowance. I just don't see it being as useful as the goliaths or the colossus - or even overlord spam. The land train is slow, even on the march; hard to hide; and paying a premium for something we've got cheaper already, while simultaneously keeping us from taking other, better options out of the WE section. I guess I could take a three-car train but that goes back to the original problem of "what's the point?" when I could take goliaths over mortar cars, or a colossus/cyclops/overlord to do long-range force projection/titan killing/infantry murder.

Uh, at least that's my take on it. I certainly don't mean to be rude or dismissive - I thought a lot about what you'd written there before making the response. Just sort of throwing ideas around.

Thanks all!

No worries. You should always play the army you want the way you want.