Tactical Command | View topic

Page 2 of 2

[ 25 posts ]

Go to page Previous 1, 2

View unanswered posts | View active topics View unread posts | View new posts | View your posts

Coordinated fire

Honda

Post subject: Coordinated fire

Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2006 1:25 pm

Brood Brother

Joined: Wed Aug 10, 2005 11:44 pm
Posts: 1891
Location: Katy, Republic of Texas

Hah! Coord fire = First, Drones Double to claim crossfire, place a BM. Second, Pathfinders kill the marines dead.

Ok, so you just immobilized half your army to kill maybe one unit. Now you are vulnerable to the rest of SM army who rarely has trouble activating units and doing what they want.

Your point is?

_________________
Honda

"Remember Taros? We do"

- 23rd Elysian Drop Regiment

Top

nealhunt

Post subject: Coordinated fire

Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2006 2:31 pm

Purestrain

Joined: Thu Feb 13, 2003 10:52 pm
Posts: 9617
Location: Nashville, TN, USA

Honda: You're blowing the activation count out of proportion.

Attacking first is a benefit. Period.

That's why people retain intiative and why the Eldar triple activation is so wicked. If it weren't advantageous people would never retain. It can be done in a stupid way, overextending and allowing the enemy to counterattack but that's no different than any other aggressive play. It doesn't change the fact that it's extremely beneficial when done properly.

It's not the activation count that is the issue. It's the need to avoid overextending that you're really talking about.

_________________
Neal

Top

Honda

Post subject: Coordinated fire

Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2006 6:33 pm

Brood Brother

Joined: Wed Aug 10, 2005 11:44 pm
Posts: 1891
Location: Katy, Republic of Texas

@Neal

Honda: You're blowing the activation count out of proportion.

So, here's the part where I get to say, "all due respect, Neal, but I disagree".

I'm not denying that attacking isn't beneficial. I'm also not denying that retaining initiative isn't a good thing, given the right circumstances.

What I am saying is that for the cost of destroying or severely mauling one unit, the loss of activations due to taking the Co-fire is situationally dependent.

In the case where the Tau outnumber the opponent when it comes to activations, it behooves the Tau player to use Co-fire in order to adversely effect a unit, because we all know that if you kill a unit, then it can't be used again.

However, in a case where the Tau are outnumbered, yielding extra activations in the latter stages of the turn is not recommended. If you're not sure why that is, then I'd be glad to introduce you to our local Eldar player should you venture our way.

_________________
Honda

"Remember Taros? We do"

- 23rd Elysian Drop Regiment

Top

asaura

Post subject: Coordinated fire

Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2006 8:07 pm

Brood Brother

Joined: Fri Sep 05, 2003 11:34 am
Posts: 481

(Honda @ Sep. 11 2006,13:25)

QUOTE

Your point is?

Merely pointing out to Hena that there is more than one way to use CF. He's recently been used to the fact that I get to activate six formations at the beginning of a turn.

Top

nealhunt

Post subject: Coordinated fire

Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2006 8:40 pm

Purestrain

Joined: Thu Feb 13, 2003 10:52 pm
Posts: 9617
Location: Nashville, TN, USA

If you're not sure why that is...

No, I understand completely why that is.

In your Tau-Eldar game, both sides are trying to pick off what they can without committing too far. You're playing a knife dance where both sides are constantly in range of counterattacks. Essentially, your entire forces are "overextended" in one way of thinking because the only thing that's preventing them from being mashed is potential counter attack. Having activations, or a set of activations, with which to counter attack is a major portion of your defense. If you're having a hard time using co-fire, your opponent's probably also having a hard time using Farsight retentionl.

I'm just saying that's due to play style. Or perhaps it is a near unavoidable consequence of 2 forces that are fast, fragile, and packing heavy firepower. Either way, it is situational and not an inherent drawback of taking multiple activations.

_________________
Neal

Top

Honda

Post subject: Coordinated fire

Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2006 10:49 pm

Brood Brother

Joined: Wed Aug 10, 2005 11:44 pm
Posts: 1891
Location: Katy, Republic of Texas

@asaura

Your point is?

Merely pointing out to Hena that there is more than one way to use CF. He's recently been used to the fact that I get to activate six formations at the beginning of a turn.

In re-reading this, I realized that my response came across as rather harsh, so apologies. That was not my intent.

@Neal

To date, most of my games have been against Eldar, IG, Bugs, and Orks. I've had a few against SM, but from what I've seen, Co-fire is helpful against IG and Bugs, but not as helpful against the rest.

Again, I think it boils down to what I think I can get away with and armies that have lower activation numbers allow me to blend my count to get heavier hits with less risk.

Also, some armies tend to force you a little farther apart to prevent making all the targets too accessible. watching Terminators drop in, shoot you up, then followed by air assaults, tends to keep you from bunching up too much, which also hurts when it comes to getting some of those needed supporting rolls.

Anyway, as you point out, it may come down to playing style, but I do tend to use the ability against some armies more than others.

_________________
Honda

"Remember Taros? We do"

- 23rd Elysian Drop Regiment

Top

sampy

Post subject: Coordinated fire

Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 12:57 am

Brood Brother

Joined: Sun Aug 13, 2006 11:59 am
Posts: 29

Last 9 games I have played in epic, I have found that co-fire and retaining initiative can be extremely usefull in most circumstances.

Yesterday evening I played agaist my friend with my Tau (he had his eldar), and retained initiative 2 times in first round, killing over 900 points (it was 2000 pts game)!! He managed to give me couple of blast markers. And in the first thing in the 2nd round I wiped out his firesupport tank unit + avatar before he could said cheese. That was quite a game, fast but greatly fun. Dices were totally in my side, but still, like Neal said, Tau agaist eldar is like Drizzt Do?Urden agaist Artemis Entreri, both using cover and LOS + LOF as well as possibly avoiding straight contact before his own precise attack: shooting(tau), assault(eldar). And that?s a game where dance is really in the edge of the blade....

And in retaining (for my opinion), is most important that one can see that "can my opponent possibly harm me in this OR next round more than I can harm him IF I retain or co-fire"? I mean that it is good if one can see few moves ahead when must decide that should one retain/co-fire or not.

And agaist Marines, co-fire and retaining has been very useful. Even so much; that in my doctrine co-fire and retaining initiative is key in to success agaist assault armies. Ofcource, always depending on situation and so on...sometimes it?s easy to forget what the real goal of the game is.... It?s not the destroying enemy, or hunting objective markers, or even winning...but Having FUN!!!

_________________
"We are the Bor...I mean Tau, resistance is futile."

Top

sampy

Post subject: Coordinated fire

Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 1:44 pm

Brood Brother

Joined: Sun Aug 13, 2006 11:59 am
Posts: 29

And, after the game, we discussed and play tested in smaller scenarios some game situations again, and the result was very different in many cases.

What I?m trying to say, is that even if the co-fire ability feels powerfull in most cases, there is nothing wrong in it. It should be powerfull because it is Tau way to do the necessary damage for larger/tougher enemy units.

Every army has it?s own way to deal with particularly tough or dangerous enemy unit; Marines and IG have commanders for multible formation assaults, Eldar have 2 retains (example to get more units into 15cm from enemy to give fire support when assault to some unit), Tau has co-fire.

Just unable to see the problem in the co-fire rule.

_________________
"We are the Bor...I mean Tau, resistance is futile."

Top

CyberShadow

Post subject: Coordinated fire

Posted: Wed Dec 27, 2006 12:25 pm

Swarm Tyrant

Joined: Thu Jan 02, 2003 6:22 pm
Posts: 9348
Location: Singapore

I must admit that I don?t have a whole lot to add to the current discussion on the co-ordinated fire rule, but I do want to flag this as having my attention.

A few of my simple thoughts on the matter to date:

It seems an ability which works well in some cases, can be difficult to set up, works better against some forces than others and is not something that should be used without thinking about the consequences.

The Tau force obviously shouldn?t use the commander ability, and needs a replacement, and this rule is in keeping with the Tau doctrine.

I am not sure that limiting the ability to once per turn will make any difference, as I rarely see it used more than a few times each day, and I don?t recall ever seeing it used more than once in a single turn.

I am also not so sure that forcing the co-ordinating formations to keep closer will make much of a difference ? since the current range of 15cm is usually enough to force the Tau player to pull at least one formation out of cover to pull this off.

If the co-ordinated fire ability is shown to be marginally too powerful (and at this point my feeling is that it is working as intended), then we could look at additional penalties for a failure to pull off the ability ? such as a blast marker for each formation involved, or even a ?1 to any subsequent activation roll or to hit rolls for the formations, representing them training their weapons on a target without being given the order to fire. As I say, at this point, the penalties are speculation only.

I would like to hear about actual instances of this ability being used against a variety of opponents, from Tyranids and Orks to Imperial Guard, Eldar and Marines.

_________________
https://www.cybershadow.ninja - A brief look into my twisted world, including wargames and beyond.
https://www.net-armageddon.org - The official NetEA (Epic Armageddon) site and resource.

Top

baronpiero

Post subject: Coordinated fire

Posted: Tue Jan 02, 2007 2:04 pm

Brood Brother

Joined: Sat Jul 09, 2005 1:38 pm
Posts: 186

Actually, the more similar to commander the better.

IMO, what lacks the most to coordinate fire is an obvious trade-off as compared to retain initiative. Maybe it should be more complementary to retain initiative rather than just be a safer, scaled-up version of it.

Some time ago, coordinate fire had a big tradeoff since Tau formations participating were all moving and shooting at the same time:
- meaning you only placed a single blast maker for shooting a the target rather than one for each formation participating. So the tradeoff for execution speed was a net loss in efficiency.
- meaning the target formation was not broken until all shooting was resolved (the target was never directly shot at while broken). There's pros and cons to that one, tough.
- meaning retain initiative still had its own specific uses. For example, shield stripping on titans was not made so easy as it is now because coordinate fire didn't allow that.

ah and happy new year everyone!

Top

Print view

Previous topic | Next topic

Page 2 of 2

[ 25 posts ]

Go to page Previous 1, 2

Who is online
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 5 guests

You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum

Jump to:

Coordinated fire

Who is online