Do any of you ever use slow and steady spacecraft at regular points value games? I don't think I've ever seen any, outside of mega-battle with tens of thousands of points a side, but that's different. With the nature of the game it's not worth paying a lot for a spacecraft that can only come on turn 3 (if it passes it's activation test that turn with some armies).

I think it would have been a lot better if the rulebook had just prevented them coming on on the first turn, that would still be a drawback, but made them usable and allowed for a wider range of lists builds. The rulebook is fixed and not going to change but what about a house rule allowing slow and steady craft to come on from turn 2?

Would you use any of the slow and steady ships under such a house rule? Do you think they'd become good to use? Would any of them become too good?

All drop pod / planetfall armies might become more viable and interesting to play with and against, but the enemy would still have all the first turn to move and put onto overwatch

Well S&S ships have definitely never appealed to me for the reasons you state, and I wouldn't have objections to this sort of rule. Having said this I've never actually used a S&S ship... maybe I should. Will be interesting to hear what others think.

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2.1.19Slow and Steady
Some spacecraft units are noted as being slow and steady. They may not be used on the first two turns of a battle unless the scenario specifically says otherwise

Any list wanting it could use the rule:

Any games played with this list count as scenario play for purposes of the Slow and Steady rule

I wouldn't want first turn slow and steady craft! That would be overkill. It's good to have a differentiator between the two and a turn one battle barge or similar deployment would likely be overpowered.

I had it in mind probably as a house rule but if you were going to do it properly in lists (without changing the rulebook) you could replace all references to slow and steady on the relevant spacecraft in the lists with 'Ponderous - may not be used on the first turn of a battle.'


Me too, I think it would be a good idea, but I'm interested in the opinions of others. There are a lot of experienced players out there.

Turn 2 and forward is a way better option.

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Easy - in your tournament you just include it in the notes about the tournament scenario. Epic uk already does this for the TSNP goal.

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It surprises me that it wasn't originally turn 2 really. I wonder what the thinking behind it when writing the rules was. Surely people would have playtested slow and steady ships and found them poor?

My memory from such distant discussions, was a decision that it was better to lean towards overcosting the orbital support options. This was a deliberate design principle to keep the game focused on ground operations rather than a game where everyone was blowing things up from orbit. I.e. it was added as a nice occasional feature to add variety and interest to the game, but not as effective as a regular ground options except via the surprise factor generated by the rareness and unexpectedness.

Other people who were around at the time besides myself like Neal Hunt might be able to recall the design principle more precisely and correct me if I'm wrong.

The possible problem with the above, is that it just doesn't seem to be used at all in my experience. In the last decade I've seen marines use it once!

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Let's change this around a little, if you haven't seen or used them how do you know they don't work at 3K/4K level. The few times I faced them they do work well but players have had to plan their list and style to suit and you see a gradual change of list to work with the Space craft instead of their normal list but with BB replacing the SC .
I know they are rarely used and we see few at tournaments but it looks as though this is a case of "this unit doesn't appeal to me lets change it" instead of how can I change my tactics and armies to make it work.
I wouldn't be against testing a turn 2 S+S but we already get a lot of grumblings on Taccomms about the Marine drop armies, to me, from what I've seen this would make that worse.
I remember it as Markonz states, design focusing on ground game and adding units like BB for scenarios and completeness of lists.

Yeah, if that was the reason I think they may have been over-cautious and left them useless.

To quantify the discussion with numbers I spent a few minutes searching through the lists used at tournaments on Epic-UK's site and counted how many of them that had the option to take a Slow and Steady spacecraft actually did so. The result reinforces their rarity: only 1 out of 455 lists that could take a slow and steady craft chose to do so, specifically a Battle Barge in a Black Templars list in 2011. I think Epic-UK have dropped the prices of some of the spacecraft even further than in the Net-EA lists, but it's not led to anyone taking any.


Thanks dptdexys! Drop armies would be where it would make the most difference and would need the most testing.

Personally I play a drop army very rarely, but quite welcome the different style of play and game. It just requires different tactics. A battle barge could do a more extreme drop army than a strike cruiser, though the opposition would have more time to prepare, move out of the deployment zone and go on overwatch. I guess playtesting could see how it goes in practice and points values could be increased a little for some ships if needed.

Not to split hairs, but no, they wouldn't have time to do that in one turn

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The problem with spacecraft, all spacecraft is that they are not affected by events on the table. It was originally felt that as we were playing a table top game and designing lists for tournament play then both sides should be focused that way. The larger spacecraft were included so that they were given stats, but then restricted in tournament play. This frees up for scenarios to use the larger spacecraft when suitable for the situation.

Looking at it from playing the 'big game' over Christmas, having a massive barrage come down at the start of turn 1 really put my defending forces on the back foot. This coupled with the further initial barrages gave the attackers a big initial advantage. I would not be happy to see this transferred to tournament play though as I would IMHO massively change the meta of the game.

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I'm actually thinking about battle barge lists now, if I can paint enough devs I may take one sometime....

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I've tried to design all sorts of Marine lists with one included. Threw everyone in the bin. It's just not a winner in any aspect.
Drop your big barrage in turn 3 after guessing where the opponent will be sitting? Opponent chuckles inwardly as it completely misses.
Drop almost all your force in turn 3? BOOOOORING! Who wants to play that list?
Drop almost all your force in turn 3? Opponent rubs his hands with glee as all his forces sit on objectives on OW waiting....
Drop a lot of your force and try your best with the rest of it on the table? Opponent picks off the piecemeal formations and then sets up on OW....
It goes on.

About the only decent possibility I could come up with is bunch your objectives close and hit the area with the OB hoping to clear up some enemy units before dropping your force in the middle of the golden triangle and hoping for the best.

The problem is even with a huge barrage you're still hitting on 4+/5+ (less if things hide in cover). I used a SC two Cancons ago. Except for one game where I was crafty and targeted my Blitz waiting for the enemy to fill the carefully laid trap I laid by vacating the blitz, it was extremely underwhelming - even then it didn't kill much to effect the contest of the blitz. OB is mainly just psychological.

Remember anything touched by the big template gets 4 blast markers not counting any potential hits, then they take extras from the deathwind attacks too...... you could easily break a reaver titan like that..... it's quite easy to guess where an opponent might be too, epsecially if you have activations on the tabletop to burn and force them to move.....

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