On support formations: What about moving Skitarii, Sentinels, Forge Knights, and aircraft into the "Allies" allowance?

They'd still be limited in total points, but wouldn't be competing for valuable support slots.


God Machines doing something with BM's is a common enough suggestion that I think we should go in that direction.

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Tunes in with the novel "Helsreach" where the Princeps of an Emperor Titan feld the death-cry of a fellow Reaver Titan oveer the manyfold and was quite shaken by it.

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I don't think this would be effective to deal with the support formations. It does nothing to adjust which formations are worth taking and instead creates a situation where spamming formations is much easier. Say I have a 30% allies allocation. Sure my sentinels and thunderbolts aren't competing for a slot anymore, but now I have 900 points to split up however I want. I'm still probably going to take sentinels and CML since the point costs for the two equals the same as a thunderbolt squadron and expands the few ground activations able to hold objectives. I may also take a squadron of Thunderbolts in there just to add more AA but it wouldn't be a first choice.

As far as spamming, if I wanted to I could now take 9 sentinel formations plus the warhounds and two battle titans. Sure they aren't durable activations, but I can stall all day and that's a lot of sentinels and scout ZOC to avoid or shoot at.

Are there any inherent problems with just swapping the support and scout allocation? I think that puts the structure on better footing to limit warhounds (which I remember large number of being brought up as a problem) and open up for more diverse and viable armies.

Last, I think that none of these changes will really affect things without points adjustments in the support formations. All of them are slower than a warhound and I don't see any outside of the Sentinels and Tbolts as highly useful when compared to the ability to take a warhound in the plentiful scout slots, as I outlined before. I spent some time last night experimenting with army lists using the point values I'd mentioned earlier and swapping the support and scout slots. I found that I ended up taking thunderbolts more often and sentinel not as often. I also was able to fit together a few lists that worked in skitarii and forgeknights into a usable structure. Whether or not that's the best route to go, I think it's important that the cost of the support detachments be brought closer or less than the cost of a single warhound to help make support options more useful.

I'm very much for BM in the god machines rule. I had some favorable results when I tested that out a couple of months ago.

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-Vaaish

On Sentinel Spamming, the idea of making larger formations to stop spamming still stands.

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Were you thinking 8 strong maybe 200 points?

Not that it matters, but I can't say I'm entirely for enlarging the formation. I think there are benefits due to the point increase for enlarging the formation, such as keeping them from becoming activation boosters, making thunderbolts more interesting and useful. However, I think a large formation models could substantially increase staying power and capability to screen a titan making it difficult to eliminate.

Any thoughts on skitarii and Forge knights?

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-Vaaish

I think they're statted and pointed about right, it's just activation pressure that's making Sentinels more important.

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The problem I see with Skitarii is that they very easily become the only target for AP weapons and there is not much we can do to get around this in a list centred around Titans, but I think the removal of the need for a CAP to field them may make them more appealing to me at least.

I actually like the idea of large Sentinel Formations and feel like it would make it more of a choice between them and Skitarii due to the survivability issues of light vehicles.

I honestly cant see a way of making Forge Knights more balanced in the AMTL list and field that they work fine in the PDF list but I would rather take Warhounds for the points (As I should in a AMTL list, in my oppinion.) It seems to come down to list flavour, there is nothing wrong with Knights it's just that Titans do it better in the way I play may lists.

Kris

I agree with the stats, they fit the models, but I'm not convinced about the points. Even with sentinels removed from the list I can't really see taking forge knights at their current points with other options available. Not that there have been a great number of battle reports, but I don't remember forge knights showing up often outside of a game or so Onyx posted and I don't think it's entirely due to sentinels.

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-Vaaish

I kind of like the 6 for 150 option. It makes the sentinels and thunderbolts the same cost but makes the choice between getting AA and ground activations more difficult since you can't get a 100 points sentinel detachment and a 50 point CML for the same cost as a thunderbolt squadron. It also gives slight boost in durability to the sentinels which might not be a bad thing by effectively making you kill three before the formation breaks.

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-Vaaish

On Forge Knights has there been any consideration of dropping the formation size to 4 or 5 at something like 250 or 325pts.

What about making Sentinals variable in size units of 4 then 20 points per sentinal up to 8?

I also like the smaller size for Forge Knights, that could help.

Kris

Nope.


A formation of 4 might be interesting.

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I'm willing to try anything that makes forge knights useful and brings their cost down

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-Vaaish