Latest Version:

Version 3.16a


Partially due to concerns about overly-cheap Reavers and Warlords, I have instituted the following changes:

Made the Lysander fighter cost 75pts
Changed CCW to +25pts
Restricted Reavers to 1 free weapon
Restricted Warlords to 2 free weapons
Created the God Machines special rule



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I would note that whilst the infamous 3 minimum cost reavers + spam list can achieve pretty reliable minor victories on turn 4, it struggles to achieve major victories on turn 3 and thus is unlikely to ever do well in tournaments.

To do well in tournaments, you'll have to take a more interesting list, and approach the game with an attitude other than "if I stall for 4 turns I can claim a minor win on turn 4".

This may end up being one of those things ala 'aircraft sniping', where the rules won't technically ban a certain behaviour, but if you do it (especially in friendly games) everyone will know what you're up to and tell you not to be a beardy git.

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

Good timing, E&C. I'm playing tomorrow. I'm not sure if I'll be playing AMTL or Skitarii, though.

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"I don't believe in destiny or the guiding hand of fate." N. Peart

You forgot to mention the CML in the above list of changes.

Nitpicking: In the 'God Machines' rule, "The Adeptus Mechanicus worships their Titans..." should be either "...worship their titans..." or "...worships its titans...".

Otherwise looking good. I'm relieved to see that lone Warhounds are still an option.

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"Good ale, the true and proper drink of Englishmen. He is not deserving of the name of Englishman who speaketh against ale, that is good ale."
- George Borrow

How frequent are these changes?

I do not expect another update for an extensive period of time, in fact hopefully the AMTL list is now finished and will never need another update.

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

I don't see anything wrong with that. I always capitalize Titans, treating them as proper nouns and AM is a group of people, so "their" would be used.

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"I don't believe in destiny or the guiding hand of fate." N. Peart

I agree on this

if "their" is used then is should be "worship" rather than "worships"

The Adeptus Mechanicus worship their Titans

or

The Adeptus Mechanicus worships its Titans

Are both acceptable, depending on whether you're using AM as a proper or collective noun (similar to "the united states" / "these united states")

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http://www.troublemakergames.co.uk/
Epic: Hive Development Thread

Oh right, I missed that.

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"I don't believe in destiny or the guiding hand of fate." N. Peart

I'm not sure that restricting reavers to one free weapon is all that effective. Once you take that free weapon, there is almost no reason to not take TLD making the other free weapons less attractive.

Warlords, I don't see the restriction to two free weapons as necessary. It's a little difficult for me to articulate what I mean, but basically in building warlords I don't see people taking more than two free weapons all that often or that doing would provide a lot of benefit given the cost of a warlord to begin with.

God machines rule: I dislike this because I feel it's a gimme for TK heavy armies and really reduces the utility of taking reavers because they go down a good bit easier than a warlord.

CML: I would rather see the marauder and tbolt moved out of support slots and into allies. I believe that doing this would make the tbolt a much more attractive alternative to the CML since it would also give a means to gain an extra activation rather than use one of the few available for a formation that can't hold an objective. As it stands now, the CML even at 50 points is a much better option because I can still get some AA coverage on my battle titans and use a support slot for a "scoring" unit. The only time the Tbolt becomes usefule is if you are running three or more battle titans and slots aren't so much a worry and you need to boost activations.

Warhounds: was there a reason the singes weren't removed?

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-Vaaish

One of the drawbacks of this list is supposed to be few activations. If the Navy were in an Allies section, it would be a natural choice to always add 3+ Thunderbolt formations to your army to boost activations.


I'm cautious on that one. I was toying with restricting singles 0-2 per pack chosen, but ultimately didn't go for it.

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

What if each battle titan granted you one allied slot and two normal slots? That might make the tbolts more attractive and keep it from getting out of hand. Another route could be you may take 5% of the total points in allies for each battle titan fielded instead of the normal 1/3 points.

I think though that the small numbers of battle titans actually fielded combined with the number of support slots contributes to the desirability of the CML and will be so long as the tbolts are competing with warhounds and sentinels for those slots.

Further ruminations on the god machines rule:
Instead of granting the enemy BTS, perhaps the loss of a battle titan could give BM equaling 1/2 the titan's starting DC to all AMTL units within LOS? That way it would affect the army as a whole rather than becoming a gimme objective against AMTL.

For example, say a reaver dies within LOS to a fresh warhound and a fresh warhound pack. that would give the single warhound three BM breaking it and supress one titan from the warhound pack.

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-Vaaish

Noticed another minor error in the God Machines special rule: "...awesome firepower; The loss of..." That T should be lower-case; there's no need for a capital letter following a semicolon.

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"Good ale, the true and proper drink of Englishmen. He is not deserving of the name of Englishman who speaketh against ale, that is good ale."
- George Borrow

That is true; I shall edit that.

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

There is only one minor issue I have in that I think that free Battle Titan only weapons should probably be exempt from the free weapon limits (Or at least the CLP and Corvus, not sure on a Reaver with 3 Laser Burners)