My thoughts on those above questions:

1)Yes, but you do pay for it. for 650 points, I could have a Reaver in any other list. Not too bothered though as I think I'd only ever use units of 3. But some people do point out that 3 strong units can be quite fragile.
2)To be fair I support the above comment on the Baron. He is pretty pricey considering he's no longer inspiring.
3)Only thing I thought was weird was the moving of Lancers to core really.
4)I LOVE the idea of 2DC

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The Cru/Cast do get more firepower than a Reaver, but they're initiative 2 and their firepower degrade as they take fire. Fearless makes a huge difference, they draw lots of assault attention in our games and loosing 100 points to hack down hits hurts.

Why is a points increase not the way to go? It's perfectly viable if the unit is outperforming its current stats.

The Baron has twice the shots of a Lancer, better armor, CC and FF, Fearless and SC to boot. At 125 that would be a 25-35 point difference in comparison to the Lancer. SC alone, on average, is +50 points.

Fluff-wise the Lancers could be core, but see my points here: http://taccmd.tacticalwargames.net/view ... 24#p512424

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Squats 2019-10-17

Found another two typos. The AA Gun and Howitzer Battery costs are swapped.

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Squats 2019-10-17

I do think the Baron should have Inspiring though...

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"You have a right to be offended" - Steve Hughes
"Your feelings are hurting my thoughts" - Aron Flam

I second that.

Also RE: Lancers to core, If you only use say, 4-5 in a unit (or 3 for that matter) how many kills are going to get with a FS FF value of 5+ anyway? 1-2? then 1-2 again with regular hits. AND that's if your opponent doesn't get to charge you first and get into CC. Or am I misremembering here and WE walkers can always choose to use FF value?

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I thought that was skimmers that could choose FF in assaults...

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"You have a right to be offended" - Steve Hughes
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All war engines can choose ff, just as long as there are targets available not in cc with them.

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Epic: Hive Development Thread

Ok so I've now had 3 games with the same list against 3 different forces (2 dev, 1 standard). First batrep is up here: http://www.tacticalwargames.net/taccmd/viewtopic.php?f=84&t=27018

Generally happy with the list and my own force needs some work to make it more competitive but the things that bug me are the total loss of the shield when not initiating the assault and the lancer's lack of teeth.

Surprisingly the levy infantry have been one of my favorite units whilst the support knights are causing lots of fear in the enemy but generally causing little damage.

I've missed the warhounds titans I usually take but I probably just need to play a little more defensively as the knights aren't proving very effective for me in assault, strange? hhmm.. perhaps its just me but they keep loosing to much cheaper units or getting torn apart on a counter charge by other fast cheap units.

I also need to take some artillery or airpower to allow me to interdict enemy units in depth or skimmers such as eldar fire prisms. My only AA so far has been the 3 AA guns and they have died first activation of every game I think.

What do people think of wardens, I was going to take some but for 300pts they seemed expensive for the (average?) weaponry. Testing will tell of course but 300pts could be very useful elsewhere.

The final comment would be the baron and senechals do feel a little underwhelming in the assault due to them not providing any EA or inspiring.

Wardens with AA guns offer a LOT of anti-infantry fire if your opponent doesn't take them seriously (which, lacking MW CC attacks, I've discovered people often don't).

Rough Riders or Sentinels, you need some throwaway scouting units. ZoC-locking either the expected enemy assault formation, or the support/prep formation (ex: vindicator formations supporting assault marine formations) can help tip the balance in your favor, force your opponent to maneuver creatively, and leave them exposed so that it's your Engage move, not theirs. I try to take at least two sacrificial scout formations specifically for that purpose.

My next battle, I plan on taking offensive bombers. AA is definitely an army list weakness, but I swear, I've seen Marauders just plow through any and all flak defenses. I figure turning the tables and forcing the opponent to play a defensive air game should keep some of the heat off the Knights while advancing. That said, if you're taking Wardens for AA, remember it's only a 30cm envelope; you won't keep ground attacks off a unit, but you will at least get to apply a little boot to them as they finish the run and go past. Seriously though, Wardens can clean house on infantry if your dice decide to cooperate, which makes them good if you can get them into position to prep a formation for an assault too.

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I like the Wardens, too. The two times I played with this list I had Marauders. They were definitely worth the points for me.

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I'd like to see a few more games with the shield not being active when defending. If that isn't working for people we'll try Apoc's suggestion where it won't work against support instead.

On the Lancers, you got one assault in with them from your report and they missed with all their attacks. That's the dice talking. Compared to a Paladin, they're faster and have a FS, MW at FF5+ instead of a MW at CC4+. FS and FF over CC more than make up for the one 1/6th reduction in the to-hit value. For the same points I can't see how they lack teeth over Paladins.

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Squats 2019-10-17

Well if they aren't *substantially* better than Paladins, (indeed, they have only a third chance of hitting rather than a half chance!) then why not leave them in core? The other support units are arguably better, and therefore worth their point and stat increase, justifying them as support units. FS for me isn't actually much to jump around about, if 2 times out of three they'll miss anyway.

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