That's the part I don't agree with

The War Engine cannot place any part of it's base over friendly infantry after a counter-charge because doing so would count as barging the friendly infantry which, as we've discovered now, is not allowed.

Either there is enough space for the War Engine to clearly move completely over the friendly infantry or the War Engine has to go around the friendly infantry. For a Gorgon this is going to be difficult because of the 5cm counter-charge movement.

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On the barging question, I am convinced that you should not be able to 'barge' your own troops, because allowing this opens up some spectacular abuses for attackers. Consider a formation containing WE assaulting an enemy formation, I think many would be concerned if the infantry made their maximum move, and then the WE 'barged' them a bit further. There would be an even bigger outcry if this tactic resulted in more infantry getting into more favourable positions. If we reject barging friendly troops when assaulting, IMHO we must also reject it when the WE is the target of an assault. So, I agree with Onyx that you may only move formation vehicles to locations where there is sufficient space for them to be positioned without moving other units.

The comments on army size above are a little misleading;
The question on whether an army has a 'low' or 'high' activation count depends to some extent on the basic race. If you refer to the Epic-UK tournamnet lists, you will find that IG armies have a slightly lower count than the others, but in general all tournament armies vary from 8-14 formations, with most being between 10 - 12 formations. While most races can theoreticaly field up to 18-22 formations, in practice these 'pop-corn' armies are not really viable.

However, Gorgons are definitely too cheap at 50pts - 65pts each!
If you prefer a different perspective, are you seriously saying that they are worth less than 50% the cost of Ork Battlefortress and Gunfortress at 125pts and 135pts respectively?? I agree that the Gorgons do not have much firepower, but their armour is twice as good, they carry significantly more troops and the critical is "miserly"! If you want an Eldar comparison, consider a transported Guardian formation at 350pts for a 12x strong fomation while the proposed Krieg formation is only 75 pts more for a 26x strong formation! Come on guys while the Eldar have some advantages over the Krieg, they are not that significant!!

I agree that, whether attacking or defending, you can't barge your own troops (or rather, since the FAQ isn't clear on this, that you shouldn't be able to).

You can move WE (and any AV) over your infantry during a charge or counter charge, which we agree is not the same as barging. However there isn't anything in the rules that says that a war engine can't barge an enemy unit that is already in contact with a friendly unit, which would mean the friendly unit is dragged along too. That is why the question I was posing is:

Let's just put them head to head with one of the other popular assault formations being used in the same campaign and see what happens.

Kult of Speed ('Uge) 550
Skorcha x24
Mekboy Speedsta

Regimental Command 525
Krieg infantry x20
Supreme Commander, Commissar
2 Gorgons

Assumptions: With a 50cm assault range the Ork player gets to pick the charge. However the Ork does not put BM on the formation before assaulting, or go in to base contact to lock any units in to the gorgons, or attack from an angle that gets hits on infantry before Gorgons, or clip the formation so that not every unit is in the fight, and both Gorgons are able to get to the front of the formation to absorb the first hits.

FIGHT!!!

The orks roll 24x 4+ FF attacks, causing 12 hits. The first 6 hit Gorgons, causing 1.5 damage. The next 6 hit infantry, killing them instantly.
The Mekboy then adds a Macroweapon attack on a 4+, absorbed by the Gorgon which raises it to 1.75 damage.
There is roughly a third of a chance a gorgon will be immobilised by a critical, and the formation has taken 7.75 wounds.

The Krieg infantry roll 20x 5+ FF attacks, causing 6.6 hits, and the Gorgons roll 6x 6+ attacks causing one more for 7.6 total. One of the Mekboy's shield absorbs 1 hit, and Skorchaz have 5+ armour, reducing the tally to 4.4 casualties.

Orks win by 3.35. 20 Skorchas remain vs 14 infantry and two DC3 war engines (one with 1.25 wounds remaining). Since you use the WE's starting damage capacity this is 20 vs 20. Krieg has an inspiring leader for +1.

Orks win by 2.35



And that was without adding some BM, clipping them, softening up with AT and similar bonuses

The FAQ actually states:


This makes it simple and the WE can only counter-charge over or around friendly infantry. The WE cannot end it's counter-charge on top of friendly infantry because that would entail barging friendly infantry which is against the rules.

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Gavin, Gorgons might look cheap next to ork battlefortresses, but the kreig infantry companies are intentionally expensive to keep activations down. So their true cost in other lists might be higher.

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The Orb gets him coming and going; if he leaves them inside the gorgon you fire the TK(d6) mode of the Orb at it and kill them all!

Good point.
That must be why Matt made sure that all 4 of his Gorgons stayed out of Line of Sight of the Orb for most of the game!
Or it had juicier targets like 3 Warhounds all broken in 1 shot... of course all 3 rallied in the end phase as happened with both his Shadowswords I broke in the 1st turn...

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'How to deal with opponents who have a plan' is a different thread

BTW good luck with the Epic games today Steve, knock em dead with those Necrons.

Yup, that's just him playing well. The Orb is the perfect anti-gorgon tool, but if you don't get a chance to use it you've just been outplayed, or you'll find that the threat of it alone is enough to keep the formation away from useful areas.

Wait a minute, I just re-read that



Is your complaint that the Necron Orb broke 3 warhounds in one shot, but was unable to simultaneously kill all the gorgons and infantry inside them? If so, post in the Necron thread, it sounds like the Orb needs a price reduction.

I don't mind admitting that Matt has out-played me more than once. Afterall, he is the best gamer I've ever met!

I've used the Orb in 3 games over the last 2 weeks and it's been destroyed in every game. It does have a giant bullseye on it because of the effect it has on the opponents movements but sadly it's not proving too hard to nullify. As said before though, that's for another thread.

On the out-played part though, in the game vs Matt, I broke 2 Shadowswords in one shot (both rallied at the end of the turn) and I broke 3 Warhounds in one shot (all 3 rallied at the end of that turn). Non even needed to use re-rolls. I know I've mentioned this before but it seems to have been glossed over. This is great luck and certainly allowed the Gorgons to keep out of trouble. If some of the 5 formations I broke had failed to rally (as would be expected) I'd have been in a much better position.

This along with another game where Necron Pylons had 5 shots at Krieg War Engines and missed every single time means that I've played using a lot of the tactics mentioned in this thread and just had luck go the other way at key moments in the game. Matt has capitalised on those moments and won games (as he invariably does because, as I've said every chance I can, he is a great gamer).

That's an error that I have made aswell when facing Gorgons. They are 60cm range artillery. To say that Matt's army has limited ranged firepower is not really correct. Matt has really used the Gorgons brilliantly. For someone to forget about the Gorgon artillery ability is a great mistake!

Thanks for all the useful posts in this thread, it has been very helpful.

Cheers,
Steve.

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It's true Steve has had some bad luck in recent games (eg missing EVERY SINGLE titan killing pylon shot for instance) while I've had great luck (eg rallying every single broken formation so easily I started to wonder what a supreme commander is for), so that does make it a little harder to judge the relative strength of forces.

Maybe we should do some more detailed battle reports. There is an Epic tournament this weekend, after which I'd be happy to play as another army vs someone playing Krieg and see if I can help demonstrate some of their weaknesses.



That is referring to the option Gorgons have to drop their 2x twin heavy bolters in exchange for a one shot mortar. It has only got range 30cm (60cm if standing still to sustain) and drops the gorgon from FF5+ to FF6+, but I reckon it's worth it as long as you plan ahead and position well.

As they're your de facto assault formations, I wouldn't have imagined a single 4 point barrage was worth losing a turn of movement/assault would be worth it.

It doesn't necessarily have to be an indirect fire barrage (i.e. sustained fire).