| Purestrain |
 |
Joined: Thu Feb 13, 2003 10:52 pm
Posts: 9617
Location: Nashville, TN, USA
|
Just my 2 cents...
I think the general dislike of the Tbolt is sorely misplaced. They are a darn fine unit, even in formations of 2. I think the problem is that most people misuse them. They want to either use them as a deep-strike bomber or they want to use them as a high quality interceptor but their real strength is in close air support, working under the IG flak umbrella to hit vulnerable units or to protect vulnerable IG formations from impending threats. In that role, they are stellar and I rarely see Tbolts not easily make their own points back just through kills.
Hence, the inclusion of more heavily armed or better interceptor stat lines for Tbolt variants.
The Marauder is simply not worth the points for IG and until there are different point values in the IG list and the SMs, there will be no way to balance them for both lists. The Marauder's main capability, delivering fire anywhere on the board, primarily through the barrage templates, is done much cheaper by IG arty so the plain should be a bit cheaper for IG. OTOH, Marine arty is much weaker for the points and the Marauder is much better in that context (though possibly still slightly too expensive).
The barrage table means that the loss of a single plane drops the firewpoer by more than 50%, which means the formation is a bit more fragile than it appears. The main "fix" proposed by people is a DC2 version (whether as revised stats for the basic Marauder or as a Marauder Destroyer), typically with 5+ armor. This adds more than half again to the toughness of the aircraft. Average hits to kill go up by 50% from 2 to 3 and just as importantly, the chance of killing from a single hit drops from 50% to 11% (failed save + crit).
Finally, there's the fact that people just really want to play with the spiffy FW models. 
To address your talking points:
1 - which models are most commonly used and should the rules reflect that (Thunderbolt is the current example of this)
I'm not sure this matters much. Variation in models due to source or time period in which they were purchased is exactly why the "counts as" rule was invented.
2 - how much reference to the Imperial Armour rules should be done for figuring out the Rules for EA (a 40k Marauder has 3 Structure points like a Thunderhawk, the Thawk in EA has DC2 4+ while the Marauder has 4+, the Tbolt example also applies)
I'd say not a lot. Past general guidance for armament and relative toughness I don't think we're obligated to take the detailed stats into account.
In particular, the aircraft should probably not have all the armament generally credited them in the 40K stats. An Epic turn is roughly 15 minutes. A ground formation firing gets to spend a lot more time shooting at the target than an aircraft making a pass so the armament should be disproportionately light compared to equivalently armed ground units.
3 - keeping 1 weapon 1 stat on the Aircraft
Aircraft are notably exempt from this guideline. I don't particularly like it that way, but that's still the state of affairs. Roughly speaking, the same weapon on an aircraft is going to be shorter ranged in order to keep it balanced in game. There is a rough guideline that says that turretted mounts have shorter range than fixed mounts.
Note that's EXTREMELY general and exceptions abound even in the official stats.
4 - looking at the various Flak weapons to decide if the EA rules keep them viable against aircraft and to match capabilties from background and 40k.
That's another reason to keep the aircraft stats in check. If aircraft were made as proportionately deadly as they would "in real life" then flak units would have to be uber-wicked to counteract that and would essentially become mandatory. No one wants to play a game where an entire battle is decided by who took the best combination of flak and aircraft.
Well, some people probably do, but there are games out there to do just that. Epic isn't supposed to be one of them.
Regarding flak range, when aircraft and flak have the same ranges the aircraft wins because it always picks its position. If it wants to avoid flak on the way in, it just comes in so the edge units are in range and the flak is not. Flak units can't go on the edges because then even ground units can pick them off.
_________________
Neal
|
|
