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Fan-List. Heavy Mechanised IG.

 Post subject: Re: Fan-List. Heavy Mechanised IG.
PostPosted: Sun Jan 08, 2017 2:52 am 
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Cheers James

The company composition is a relatively recent addition to the list, to try and make fairly flexible formations, rather than large ones that don't get upgrades (because usually people just want to keep the activation count up rather than take upgrades).

The wording probably needs some work, but a company is made up of two or more platoons, one of which is compulsory for the company type. So the heavy mechanised infantry company must have a heavy mechanised infantry platoon, and can have one to three other platoons. Any of them.
So if you want to take a dc2 army, you can have heavy tank companies made up of 1 macharius command tank, one macharius tank, and 1-3 other macharius chassis vehicles of your choosing: Tanks, Omegas, Crassus, Skykillers.

I have left things like the chimeras, leman russ, and hellhounds in the list because it makes it easier for people to field the list using the models that they already own (if they have a steel legion army for example). They just need a few of the dc2 superheavies and they can get stuck in. Importantly people don't have to take the smaller stuff if they have plenty of the big items.

If anyone ever requests that this list begin the approval process for tournament play, and that the army champion is interested, then I imagine some of these choices may get pretty heavily scrutinised.

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 Post subject: Re: Fan-List. Heavy Mechanised IG.
PostPosted: Wed May 10, 2017 5:31 am 
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So I took out the Heavy Mechanised List for a run last night.
Battle report up in the Epic Armagedon Folder: Epic 4K: Biel Tan vs Heavy Mechanised Imperial Guard
Or direct to Mark's account of the encounter: Biel Tan vs Heavy Mechanised Imperial Guard

OK, so this was the worst possible match up for the air-assault Eldar force.
I had just finished painting support tanks so took 3 formations of 2 Praetor Sky-Killers.
These have current stats of: RA4+, DC2, and each have 2 x AA4+ out to 60 cm.
So better range and same killing power as Eldar Firestorms and on a pillbox armour.
Extremely intimidating for an air heavy list and well protected behind the front line of more RA4+ armour.

The Praetor Assault Launchers also raised eye-brows. 300 points for BP4 every turn on
a very resilient platform, DC2 and RA4+. Compared to Manticores, at 250 points for alternating
BP4/BP2 shoots on a three stand, Arm 6+ formation.

The Tank Companies did not really get engaged but one of them, with OK shooting dice,
and very poor armour saves killed all 5 ranger stands in one activation. They got compared
with a Leman Russ Company (which are perhaps overcosted? if EpicUK stats/armylists are to
be believed) - although I'd prefer to compare them with a (Minervan) Super Heavy Tank Company.

I fear the army does not pass the "is it fun to play against test". Whether or not it is balanced.
So what to do. Here are some thoughts. Generally I'd like to see a reduction in stats rather an
increase in points costs (but see below).

Praetor Assault Launchers. Could we say that the extra ammunition load means they are not
as robust and therefore only get Armour 4+. And/Or perhaps say the re-loading process is not as
rapid and therefore they only fire every other turn - although in this case upping to BP3 each might
be appropriate. Although 3 BP each might cause problems for a formation of three.

Praetor Sky-Killer. The long reach of these produces a large overlapping AA bubble. AA4+ seems pretty good.
Toning them back to a single long range AA shot might be possible. Dropping to AA5+ a possibility.
I'd also like to see them still with an option to imbed within an armoured company. For this reason
I'm less keen on the reduce to Arm 4+ option but that might be ok too. Say the extra gear for firing Anti-Air
is more vulnerable to damage. Leaving both these on DC2 platforms seems in keeping.

Heavy Tank Company. So this feels a little like a SHT Coy-lite. The disadvantage of being a high cost formation goes away. The main guns on the tanks have a longer range than most SHTs and certainly a higher firepower at that range, 75 cm, than is typical. In company with SHTs their poor 6+ CC factor is largely ignored as part of the war engine rules because they can use FF against enemy stands in contact with other units in the formation. They are somewhat less vulnerable to blast weapons since there is only on throw to hit if they are under the centre of a blast template (half of DC rounded up still only equals 1). As DC2 units they can also spread out to 10 cm separation so can avoid having so many units under the templates. Is it necessary for the higher quality gun on the command tank version? Perhaps have those as upgrades for the formation and/or as a free upgrade for the supreme commander. Forcing a bigger formation might be an option? How have these formations fared in the Death Korps of Kreig lists?

The Tank Platoon in the list offers 6 Lemon Russ for 400 points. In most ways this seems inferior to the Heavy Tank Company (available in the core selection) for 325 points. Perhaps I am missing something? I don't think that the extra 5 cm per move is worth that much. The tanks do have a little more close range fire power, but that is probably not that decisive - an extra 6 x AT5+ shots at 45 cm and an extra 3 AP5+ shots at 30 cm. There are lots of perks (see above) for the Macharius tanks.

Hvy Mechanised Company. These initially felt like Gorgon mounted Kreig-lite infantry to me. Those Kreig formations have been revised up in cost (now 500 points for 2 Gorgons and 19+1 Infantry) to address balance issues. Having a smaller more agile, but still relatively effective formation, with better shooting and a longer mounted move (25 cm cf 20 cm) is an advantage in the activation war. The extra reach of the auto cannons in the formation is definitely a plus (2 ea for Crassus, HQ and half of infantry stands) if you don't manage an assault.

I have not managed to paint enough Troop Carriers to push these formations yet. Just gluing some up now.

The Macharius Chassis. I gather from vaguely remembered fluff, that these tanks were less technologically sophisticated versions of the regular SHT range. Perhaps they could all be dropped to RA5+? Would that impact other lists too much? Perhaps, . . .

Has anybody tested Macharius spam with the Kreig List?


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 Post subject: Re: Fan-List. Heavy Mechanised IG.
PostPosted: Thu May 11, 2017 2:31 am 
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Looking back through previous posts, including on the Kreig list and the Epic UK lists, lots of people previously felt that the Macharius Tanks were over costed hence the drop to 325 points here/there/everywhere. In particular Matt Shadowlord published a spreadsheet highlighting the issues as he sees them: And that is why I never use them

So clearly I am missing something. Has anybody stress tested them with lots. I am currently running 12 tanks in four formations. More to come once they get painted, . . .


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 Post subject: Re: Fan-List. Heavy Mechanised IG.
PostPosted: Thu May 11, 2017 3:18 am 
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Andrew_NZ wrote:
Looking back through previous posts, including on the Kreig list and the Epic UK lists, lots of people previously felt that the Macharius Tanks were over costed hence the drop to 325 points here/there/everywhere. In particular Matt Shadowlord published a spreadsheet highlighting the issues as he sees them: And that is why I never use them

So clearly I am missing something. Has anybody stress tested them with lots. I am currently running 12 tanks in four formations. More to come once they get painted, . . .


The trouble with that analysis is it leaves out the niches where it has the advantage.
Analysis stops at only >30cm range, rather than including >45cm, and >60cm which are a main advantage of it after all.
Resistance to close combat, and superiority in firefight to everything else listed as someone notes later in that thread, is also not a minor thing.
The other thing it doesn't take account of is that you can't expect a generalist tank to be better than specialists in any role. Also it is in small formations to help with activation advantage, rather than unwieldy ones like Leman Russ.

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 Post subject: Re: Fan-List. Heavy Mechanised IG.
PostPosted: Thu May 11, 2017 4:38 am 
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Yeah I haven't ever fielded more than one formation of them, in either this list or the Kreig one. They may well be an easter egg in there, that was previously overlooked for the massive, cheap gorgon units. I think that there are a couple of things that come to play with this list too, with the abundance of 4+RA WE meaning that the few tk and mw shots are spread thin across the whole army. This probably increases the value of said units in a list like this, vs one that has only one or two formations of them. I think most of the WE in this list could probably benefit from a points increase to try and allow for this.

Soooo, after some feedback (from a few sources, but most recently Markconz and Andrew_NZ), and a little soul searching ;) here is a rapid fire summary of the next proposed changes:

Hvy Mech Inf Coy - modest increase in points cost to crassus (+25pts ea). Reduce ff value by 1 to 5+, but have +1ff (4+) for hvy bolters option.

Heavy Tank Coy - review points to bring in line with current DKoK (100pts per tank, 125 for cmd tank, currently 75pts and 175pts in this list which was copied from unapproved but submitted DKoK changes) but...
- increase minimum base macharius in coy to 2 from 1, and increase minimum coy size to 5 from 3 (to reduce spammability and reduce number of activations, as the smaller formation is a support formation in the DKoK list). If it's still out then we can look at a further points changes.

Praetor - Increase points cost to 200ea from 150ea. Decrease armour from 4+RA to 5+RA (increases chance of suppressing one from shooting). Limit formation to 2, so 400pts. Keep shooting as is for now. Unsure of impacts on Dominus, I'll duplicate these changes for it too for now.

Praetor SK - Increase points cost to 150pts ea from 100pts ea. Decrease armour to 5+RA. Decrease AA from 2x 4+ to 2x 5+. Remove as formation from Support, make 0-1 upgrade for Coy's.

Macharius Omegas - Remove from support (to reduce list bloat a little), make 0-2 upgrade for Coy's.

Some of this might be an over adjustment, but I'm being mindful of the most important bit f feedback I've received so far, which was along the lines of "This list isn't fun to play against".

So after these adjustments a 3000pt list might look like this:
Coy's
Hvy Tank coy: 1 cmd tank, 3 macharius, 1 praetor sk 575pts
Hvy Mech Inf coy: 1 cmndr+sc, 12 inf, 2 crassus 500pts
Hvy Mech Inf coy: 1 cmndr, 12 inf, 2 crassus 400pts

Supt:
1 Superheavy Artillery - 2x Praetor 400pts
1 Superheavy Artillery - 2x Praetor 400pts
1 Shadowsword 200pts
1 Shadowsword 200pts
1 Salamander scouts+command 125pts

1 thunderbolts 150pts

9 activations. A smattering of commissars wherever they take your fancy.
2950 points. Could swap out an infantry platoon for ogryns with leftover points, or similar.

Very hard to spam the ground based AA, as it slows down the infantry companies (so ok for a blitz guard or defensive formation - is a straight swap for an infantry platoon) and is best added to the Heavy tank coy's, which are now bigger and more expensive.

Thanks again all for the feedback.
Thoughts?

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 Post subject: Re: Fan-List. Heavy Mechanised IG.
PostPosted: Thu May 11, 2017 6:30 am 
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First quick impression is that those changes are a definite improvement in the right direction, and more comparable to standard guard, good job. :) You don't say it but presume the Hvy infantry company is standard guard 12+1 rather than half company, as is suggested by the sample list you give.

The Crassus is still a significantly better transport option with 4+RA than Chimeras though, so needs to be priced more than them, (SL Mech company is 400, so at least 450 or more for Crassus version I would think).

Artillery is likely still overpowered given it doesn't have slow firing, as it will still take about 4.5 hots on average to break with 5+RA, but closer to being balanced than it was.

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 Post subject: Re: Fan-List. Heavy Mechanised IG.
PostPosted: Thu May 11, 2017 9:17 am 
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I could make the praetor 3BP slow rather than 2BP normal, which might help. It's probably less of an auto include over the Dominus then.

As for the Crassus, I can bump it up a bit. But when you lose one to a crit when it's full of troops you see the value in the chimeras!

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 Post subject: Re: Fan-List. Heavy Mechanised IG.
PostPosted: Thu May 11, 2017 10:54 am 
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Yeah some sort of nerf for the Praetor like that sounds ok.

Re Crassus, yes there is occasional critical, but run the numbers with with Crassus and over 83% of the time you're considerably better off, 4% of time considerably worse. That's what you need to base points on.
Average 5/6 of time 8 hits to kill Crassus (and its 6 infantry), would have destroyed 5.28 Chimeras and 10.56 infantry.
Average 1/6 of time 4 hits to kill Crassus (and its 6 infantry), would have destroyed 2.64 chimera and 5.28 infantry.
Average Macros 5/6 of time 4 hits to kill Crassus (and 6 infantry), would have killed 4 Chimera and 8 infantry.
Average Macros 1/6 of time 2 hits to kill Crassus (and 6 infantry), would have killed 2 Chimera and 4 infantry.

It is also worse vs a TK (D3) but that takes quite some incompetence to be loaded in front of.
And vs artillery (far harder to protect against) the Crassus is vastly better because you only have 2 chances for hits rather than 7, and look at numbers above to see effect of hits.

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 Post subject: Re: Fan-List. Heavy Mechanised IG.
PostPosted: Fri May 12, 2017 3:40 am 
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Happy to have a crack at the new points/costings.

Since I'm playing Mark I'll try Crassis at +50 points to put a standard company at 450 points.
But will look forward to wider reflection.

Think that going to a minimum size of 5 vehicles for the tank company is a little too far.
That would lift the core formations to 400 (or 450) points for Mech Infantry and 525 points
for the Tank Company. A serious challenge when combined with the 1:2 ratio for support.
Perhaps that is what is needed but would it be OK to try it at 4 "platoons" for the moment?
Minimum cost for that is therefore 425 points?

With the current flexible configurations a low cost Company could be formed with:
Cmdr, 6 Infantry, Crassis, Macharius for 350 points. But that is pretty compromised speed wise
and in terms of capabilities so probably not worth worrying about.


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 Post subject: Re: Fan-List. Heavy Mechanised IG.
PostPosted: Fri May 12, 2017 3:57 am 
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Yes I was also wondering if 4 platoons might be better, and checking the army list structure I agree it probably is.

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 Post subject: Re: Fan-List. Heavy Mechanised IG.
PostPosted: Fri May 12, 2017 7:33 am 
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Sounds good to trial. When are you guys playing next? I can try to get an updated PDF out if you need it.

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 Post subject: Re: Fan-List. Heavy Mechanised IG.
PostPosted: Fri May 12, 2017 7:56 am 
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Well I'm free next Tuesday again, will see if Andrew is.

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 Post subject: Re: Fan-List. Heavy Mechanised IG.
PostPosted: Fri May 12, 2017 11:06 am 
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Matty_C wrote:
Sounds good to trial. When are you guys playing next? I can try to get an updated PDF out if you need it.

Yes please. Have been planning some forces to use (4000 points in our case) based on your/our notes.
But do think, based on this, that it would be cleaner to have a more concrete list to work off. If you have time.


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 Post subject: Re: Fan-List. Heavy Mechanised IG.
PostPosted: Sat May 13, 2017 5:20 am 
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Andrew_NZ wrote:
Matty_C wrote:
Sounds good to trial. When are you guys playing next? I can try to get an updated PDF out if you need it.

Yes please. Have been planning some forces to use (4000 points in our case) based on your/our notes.
But do think, based on this, that it would be cleaner to have a more concrete list to work off. If you have time.

v0.8 is up in the first post. Have at it!
(and let me know if you see anything I mucked up). :D

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 Post subject: Re: Fan-List. Heavy Mechanised IG.
PostPosted: Sun May 14, 2017 1:12 am 
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Assume you meant the Infantry Company could be plus ONE to three extra platoons.
So they could be a basic 2 Crassus, Cmdr and 12 Infantry for 450 points.
Rather than monsters at 650 points for the 3 basic platoons.

Thanks for the list. Definitely helps with organising a force to test it out.


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