Calling all marine players and Sub-ACs!

Based on recent developments in the marine metagame, the following list or a close variant of it reared its ugly head

Assaults
Assaults
Scouts
Scouts
Thunderhawk
Thunderhawk
Thunderhawk
Thunderhawk
Thunderhawk
Thunderhawk
Thunderhawk
Thunderbolts
Thunderbolts
Thunderbolts
Thunderbolts
Thunderbolts
Thunderbolts

Doesn't look much fun huh? for the uninitiated, the thunderhawks spend the first 2 turns flying around shooting stuff, with a particular preference for AA targets, the thunderbolts then drone around blasting the living crap out of targets, largely at their leisure, then on T3 the thunderhawks land on objectives and dump their cheap-yet-quite-resilient-actually loads onto objectives..... cue not much fun for either player, and bad feelings all round

EpicUK have solved this by moving the thunderhawk into the 1/3 allowance for allies and war engines, and frankly I would like to flex my AC muscle and suggest that this limitation be applied to all current and future NetEA marine lists that have unrestricted access to thunderhawks

I'm aware the feedback from the more opinionated will likely result in something like this:


But I feel pretty strongly that we need to prevent abusive-yet-legal builds rather than leaving it up to a TO and some nebulous idea of what is abusive and what isn't

so, have at it

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Do it.

It's probably fine to even do it by fiat but yeah, I'd be chill with it. Wheaton's Law and all that.

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I suggested what was done in the RG, effectively making a Thawk 0-1 per infantry formations. Also, are TBolts still 150 points in the UK list?

SM Detachments (any number): Assault, Bike, Devastator, Scout, Tactical, Terminator

SM Support Formations (any number): Land Raider, Land Speeder, Predator, 0–1 Strike Cruiser, Vindicator, Whirlwind

SM Aircraft (0-1 per SM Detachment): Thunderhawk, Landing Craft

With that, the best you could hope for would be: 5 detachments, 5 THawks and 5 TBolts

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I think it's a great idea (OP suggestion)! Do it!

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Actually you can get the following list together:

Assault
Scout
Scout
Scout
Scout
Scout
Thunderhawk
Thunderhawk
Thunderhawk
Thunderhawk
Thunderhawk
Thunderhawk
Thunderbolts
Thunderbolts
Thunderbolts
Thunderbolts
Thunderbolts

into 3k so it doesn't really diminish the issue over much

Tbolts are still 150 in EpicUK, but Dan took his list to the euros using NetEA points, and the list above is using NetEA costs too

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It would crimp the list I just built (2x Thunderhawk, 2x Single Warhound, 1x Tbolts), but honestly it seems like a fine change.

I thought about that, but 6 BTS's seemed like a bit much. You could always move Scouts into support as well, making the core formations those you find in a battle company.

My hangup with the 1/3 suggestion is that it doesn't just target the THawk spam list but others like Noisy's.

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I totally agree that the Thawk spam list is both ugly, OTT and really no fun to play against. This is a no-brainer as far as I am concerned and can be passed (if you really must) without voting.

However, there are Landing Craft lists that are valid under the proposed changes which are almost as nasty at 3k, and worse at 4K, eg

3x LC
Marines + SC
4x scouts
Thawk
5x TBolts

These lists work in exactly the same way as the THawk list above by using the WE to suppress enemy AA allowing the TBolts to smash formations, paving the way for the final objective grabs in turns 3/4. It may take a little longer having slightly fewer aircraft, but with 2x AT shots per LC, and much larger and more flexible assault capabilities, the final assaults in turn 3/4 can be just as viable.

My recommendation (which was not tabled, so not part of this testing) has always been that all aircraft be limited by an additional clause 1 a/c per 500 points. This stops all such lists, while also allowing people to combine titans with limited aircraft capacity.

Rant over

The issue and main point of pressure for the Thunderf$ck list above is the 75cm cannon plink. Best the LC has is the 45cm Lascannon. While still outside many AA bubbles in isolation, it's far harder to be a bell end with them and requires the opponent to place AA poorly to make.the most of. If it turns out we're needing to reel that in too, then we can. I think this is the simplest solution.

(I do like Dave's approach too in that 'regular' thawks are there to transport so a 1:1 would make fluff/tactical doctrine sense)

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yeah the landing craft is a non issue, it's got 30cm shorter range and costs nearly twice as much, it's not neccessarily about the AT capability of the battlecannons but rather their ability to lay multiple blast markers from a reasonably safe distance, coupled with a ridiculous activation count

I'd be happy to test a LC-spam list but I just can't see it being remotely as effective as the thunderhawk list

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Sadly, the 0-1 per infantry formation fails with the scout spam inherent in the above lists, and the tourney lists would take termies with SC (what Dan actually took) or at least Marines and SC (more fluffy and in my LC list) to get around the multiple BTS issue. You would need to find some wording to differentiate ‘key’ formations in some way, excluding scouts and assault marines at the very least, and quite possibly bikes as well . . . And where do you stop?

Adopting the transport logic might just work, “sufficient THawks to transport the troops of the army with none left over”, but that would need reviewing. Indeed you could include “THawks and Landing Craft” and tidy up both areas at the same time, which would be really cool

And thanks for considering testing ‘LC’ spam. I agree it is less abusive, but still just as ‘boring’ to play against.

E&C runs a 3 Landing Craft list which is a challenge to face but not broken.

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Together with 4-5x Tholts and a Thawk, which is the whole point of the WE spam.

I don't think an 'only enough' rule is very elegant, especially if it includes landing craft. I don't think you should be expected to fill every aircraft. For example you should be able to take 1x assault in thunderhawk, 1x devs in pods, 1x scout on ground, terminators in thunderhawk, preds in landing craft. But you can't because 12 of the infantry would fit in the landing craft. It's also a pain to work out.

Since there is no actual correlation between those infantry and the aircraft they are 'assigned' to, It's just a proxy for the actual desired effect which is a simple ratio of aircraft to non-aircraft. So why not just keep it simple and enforce that ratio. And it's thunderhawks in particular IMO. So to me the 1/3 seems fine, largely because it invalidates very few lists: you can still do 5 thunderhawks and a landing craft and have the entire army airborne, but you can't also do it with 2 single warhounds and a bunch of thunderbolts.

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