But if you use one shot at the shorter range and the rest at long, you can "stretch" the range in to the 0-30cm band.

Edit - Or stretch the range in using the Hypasists Heavy Bolters.

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SG

Ghost's Paint Blog, where everything goes that isn't something else.

This seems extremely gamey to me and definitely not in keeping with the intent of the rules or the spirit of the game. I think I'll have to make the longer range shot a MW4+ shot to keep people from twisting the intent even though I don't believe it accurately represents the weapon.

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-Vaaish

I'm not saying I'd do it personally, but it is within the letter of the rules. Making it a MW instead would solve the problem in a Demi-Century, but not as an upgrade to a MW armed Ordinatus. Just trying to cover the bases here...

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SG

Ghost's Paint Blog, where everything goes that isn't something else.

upon further thought, this seems like a situation that can come into play with any unit having weapons with different ranges. For example a baneblade or Leman russ. The difference here being the weapon has two profiles which gives benefit to gaming the system for a better shot. Part of the issue with creating a new weapon. There are really only three things I can think of to fix it.

First, reword the notes to say:
A hit caused by a conversion beamer using the second profile may only be assigned to units outside of 30cm.

Second, change the conversion beamers second profile to MW4+ or 5+

Or finally, eliminate the split profile and grant the beamer an extra FF attack:
Conversion Beamer 45cm AP3+/ AT4+ Ignores Cover AND (15cm) Extra attack (+1)


The first should make it clear how the beamer operates and prevent people from gaming the system to get the better profile on units inside the range. The second will bring the same issue into play with the minorus or majoris although there may be less issue here since I don't think taking the secutors with the formation would be the most efficient. The last option doesn't show quite as well the increased capability with distance but it should reduce the issue to the same level as any other mixed range unit.

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-Vaaish

Range stretching is actually an intended part of the game. It's not player's using the letter of the rule to defeat the spirit it is what the designers originally intended. It was done to speed up play without the need to track hits and measure range individually. That section of the rules you posted should be read within range and LOS of all units firing not of each individual unit. When E&C gets back from the tournament this weekend I'm sure he will post on this issue as well.

The only real "gamey" part of it is when AT weapons are used to stretch the range of AP shots. It is a major part of the Tau list where the guided missiles on the Devilfish technically allow FW's to stretch their range up to 90cm.

The rule is there because epic is a game of formations attacking at each other, not individual units. Range stretching is normally very small - you still need something in range to be able to fire at all.

The conversion beamers two ranges and minimum range creates headaches, but that's a problem when you make a weapon that works so differently from other weapons. I'd still test it as is - is the situation where you "stretch" the range to the furthest range band that common, and when it happens, how often is it obviously gamey, and how often is it more a case of hitting something that's 27cm away with a shot or two at full power?

This isn't how we've played and it seems a bit counter-intuitive, but whether or not it's intended isn't really isn't the point of the discussion so I guess we'll just disagree and leave it at that. Since range stretching is present the conversion beamer needs to account for it to prevent people from gaming the system for an unintended advantage using the weapon.



The gamyness comes into play when people start deliberately try to position a demi-century so that they can use the much better long range profile of the conversion beamer and pull it onto units that are within 30cm. Ideally position yourself so that only one or two units are outside of 30cm and the rest are inside of 30cm.

It's the difference between getting 10 AP5+ shots augmented by 4 AP6+ shots or having 10 AP5+ shots augmented by 4 AP3+ ignore cover shots. The reason it becomes an issue is that the break between the profiles is 30cm which makes it advantageous to position yourself with as much of the target formation inside of 30cm as possible so that your HB can fire while leaving a couple of units outside of 30cm so you can get the better CB profile and pull any hits generated back onto the closer units that don't fall in range of the better CB profile.

While it might not be broken, it's still unintended and the result may as well just have a single profile for the CB to avoid it entirely.

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-Vaaish

There is alot of discussion of range stretching and its effects here:

http://www.tacticalwargames.net/taccmd/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=18737&p=362709&hilit=range+stretching#p362709

Edit - Discussion starts on that page and continues through thread.

and here:

http://www.tacticalwargames.net/taccmd/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=18887&hilit=range+stretching

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Crusader: sentienl replacement, is supposed to be a lighter faster scout robot hence the LV.

Colossus: the configuration is dictated by the information available and 2x Autocannons + lascannon is what they can take.

Sagitarii: these are what heavy weapons troops are called that are NOT part of a semi-century. Heavy weapons units attached to a demi-century are just called hypaspists. They are meant to be a separate detachmenet, that's why you can't add them to a century.

Secutors: won't ever be more than two. They are supposed to be few in number. still working on the Conversion beamer. Much of the previous discussion has been about it.

Gorgons: not coming back, no need since a minorus can be used in the same role. On top of that it feels too DKOK to have your troops riding around in gorgons. In any event, they didn't come back when the list switched back from rhinos.

Praetorians: they got AA and Sagitarii or robots took their role. Moved to infantry upgrade to bring more foucs to the demi-century.

Infantry upgrade: I can put it back in, it was only removed to help clean up the options in the infantry upgrade and because it's a very guardesque upgrade that I don't think I've ever seen taken.

TBH, there's hardly anything really in flux with the infantry. The core Demi-century is the same which accounts for a majority of Skitarii infantry and the praetorians can still be fielded. It's mostly a rearranging of the layout to accommodate more options to make the list more interesting.

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-Vaaish

If you can position the conversion beamer so it straddles the 30cm range, it's a good bet that you could have placed it so that the majority of the targets were outside 30cm too.

You could also add a note that the improved profile can only be used with a sustained fire, to prevent movement shenanigans.

Crusader Robots - I rather like them as they are - they are useful as scout screens, same as the old sentinels, but add an element of danger in engagements, at the cost of 50 points. Works for me.

Colossus Robots - They represent Cataphracts, Castellans and Conquerors too, right? I think "heavy robots" can reasonbly be given any three weapons the list designer likes. Personally, I like to have two flavors, one for CC and one for ranged support, but that's just me.

Robots in general: The fluff suggests that thay are fielded in units of 3-5. Couldn't the Maniple formations reflect that? It would also make it easier to fit the model collections to the army.

Sagitarii: They are five units, mostly with 5+ save, in a fairly expensive formation, that needs to move close to the enemy to be useful. If they don't have transports, they're basically bullet magnets.

Transport options: Could we perhaps revisit the Minorus transport upgrade? I still think a minorus moving 30cm is odd... May I suggest
1) Increasing the Minorus speed in general to 15cm. Moving at the pace of infantry is not unreasonable.
2) Changing the Corvus pod to add +5cm to the speed of the vehicle, in general. Then transport ordinati (both sizes) will move 20cm, which is useful but not excessive. I don't think it is a problem to let Titans get the same benefit either, losing 1/4 or 1/3 of its firepower is penalty enough.

At this point they just represent colossus and Conquerors. Outside of siege hammers and power fists the 2x AC and lascannon could be fielded by either robot. I'm sticking to the info we have for armament for these variants. I'm not opposed to adding a CC variant in the future, but these still have some work to go before they are ready



I believe the compendium said it was maniples of 4 robots and a tech priest who monitors things. I've chosen to represent that by having 4 robots on the field and assuming that the tech is in remote contact off the table. 4 robots will also better represent people using sentinels which come in packs of 8.


I've set them at 225 points which is 25 points less than a dev detachment and they have slightly better but shorter ranged weapons. I don't think they are quite the bullet magnets you think they will be. They will probably change a bit with testing but I'd rather them be a bit more expensive right now and get a drop in points. I posted the draft so we can have a solid set of changes to test rather than discuss theoretically.


This is quite possible to revisit, but I'm not ready to attach transport to the sagitarii until we get some data from testing the current round of changes.

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-Vaaish

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I believe the Chimedons replaced the chimeras and that the rhinos were dropped right after they were added. E&C must have felt differently about the Gorgon issue since they didn't return and I don't see them as necessary to the list. Why does AMTL NEED to have these? How does adding them back make them play differently than other army lists or make them MORE AdMech?



The point of this draft list is to test changes before going into the next update. Right now, I wouldn't be modeling anything new from the draft. With any luck this stage can hammer out lots of the problems and keep the list mostly stable. I'm doing the best I can to keep collections valid and usable while expanding the options in the Skitarii list, but to a degree, modeling things up in a list that's still in flux can be dangerous.

However, things like the core demi-century aren't going to be changing so if you're building those then you shouldn't have too many worries. There have only been two added infantry types, Secutors and Sagitarii. Everything else has just shuffled around a bit but already existed.

BTW, what robot upgrades? they are both stand alone formations with the crusader designed to work with sentinels proxying them so people wouldn't need to get new models.

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-Vaaish