In danger of derailing the Black Legion updates thread and as corollary to Soren's Minervan Support thread I think we need a new one.

I have reconsidered my belief that the Minervans can do with 2 Support slots.

Unless you take 4+ formations of Thunderbolts its almost impossible to compete with the list as written, with the cheapest core formation at 500 points they need to use the same Support ratio as the Steel Legion.

Also the 5 SHTs are not even remotely balanced.

Stormhammer is king, it displaces the Baneblade and Stormsword entirely.
The Shadowsword is, as always brutal in its niche and iffy outside of it.
The Stormblade is a beast, not as much as the Hammer, but it is killer as an all-rounder, if it weren't for the range and people's love of WEs it would be better than the Shadowsword.
The Stormsword is awful, the AP niche it fills is worthless since most SHTs do fine against infantry and there's plenty of cheaper ways to improve AP power for the Minervans.

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Stormhammer is king, it displaces the Baneblade and Stormsword entirely.

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Would it help if the StormSwords FF went to 3+? It does have loads more close range firepower after all? Would give it an advantage over the the other superheavies.

E&C most of that is reasonable,

I think 10cm speed is very slow and will make Hammers March at least once a game while likely having to Double and never Engaging. but its worth trying.

Slow Firing on Blades isnt an issue since it cant shoot first turn, fires twice on turn 2 and in companies can just engage turn 3 and be free to shoot or not on turn 4. Its FF hasn't been overpowering, a 5+ would certainly make me use uniform companies rather than mixing them and Shadowswords.

45cm range would greatly improve the Stormsword

Another thing that needs doing is the Minervans need to explicitly state that each upgrade may only be taken once, and that Support formations may not take upgrades.

3 Stormhammers + 3 Salamanders can garrison and it is ruthlessly broken.

Dacone2:
I think both 'blades should have 3+ FF. both are heavy, close range tanks. The Hammer outclasses the Baneblade in both shooting and assaults, the problem there is more the poor stats on the 'blades than the Hammer's firepower (outside the speed issue).

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Out of curiosity, any reason why they all have to stay the same point cost? Russ variants have different costs, why not the new SHs that were added in this list?

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No particular reason other than my belief that they are pretty much equal in combat ability, with only a few small tweaks they become nicely balanced against each other.

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I think the Russ Variants all have point costs works because its hard to switch the weapons around on AVs and make them equal, especially when one is just a clearly better version of another (Vanquisher, I see you over there!)

On SHTs we can just mess with the stats to allow swapping them in and out more easily and it seems very IG to have modular SHTs.

Also, GW started that by claiming the Baneblade and Shadowsword have the same cost despite the blade needing serious work.

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Fear is for the enemy, fear and bullets.
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I've done some fiddling with the Tank Company (who would have know working on the DE would have lead me to become such a treadhead...)

Thunderers are junk they are too slow, its never worth it to take them over Demolishers.

Destroyers are also junk, they have a TK weapon but its an AT not a MW so its of no use against Infantry. Since its Rare it gets put in with mostly stock Russes since its got a 75cm weapon you may as well use it with the other 75s to try and play to its very narrow strengths. but since its 50 points more than a 65 point Russ its crap.

The Executioner is nice, but given its Rare you can't get much use out of it because it has to be put in with other units and all the other Russes have conflicting roles. Either its got too much range that is never used ot its got too little range to allow the standard method of slow advance and stand-off power of the basic Russ.

Exterminators are also less great than advertised, they're role of medium range infantry killer is overshadowed by the Demolisher which is also a vastly superior Tank hunter losing ony 1 AT shot at 45cm but having 4 AT shots at 30 or 3 AP shots at 30 compared to the Exterminators 2 AT at 45 and 3 AP at 30. Not to menthion the Demolisher has flat out better numbers. The 10 point cost break wont buy you anything in a Minervan list, you don't have access to either cheap Support formations or Support slots to put them in even when you can afford them.

I do like the Conqueror, its simple speed has turned the tide on a few occasions and been quite a surprise given the otherwise tortoise-esque army. If it had a 4+ FF I would pay normal Price for it, as iss you can't get any benefit out of the -10 so its slightly underpowered.

The basic Russ and Demolisher are the best all-round. though I would prefer if the Demolisher had MW Plasma Cannons like the Steel Legion does. Was there some kind of review/edit that I missed or was this tank changed assuming there was one that never happened?

That said, the list doesnt much suffer from lack of MW, its enourmous AT power can generally handle any WE.

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Fear is for the enemy, fear and bullets.
-James O'Barr, the Crow

I would prefer if the Demolisher had MW Plasma Cannons like the Steel Legion does.

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Well E&C, it does in the book I'm looking at, as well as the PDF I have.

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Fear is for the enemy, fear and bullets.
-James O'Barr, the Crow

The Demolisher does have 2 Plasma Cannons but they are not MW.
- 30cm AP4+/AT4+ SF.

*According to my rulebook.

With regard to the SHT's, as I've stated before, it is VERY unlikely that I would ever use a SHT that only moved 10cm no matter what it's other stats are. I believe a pts increase for Stormhammers would be better.

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Well, that's surprisingly odd.

Are they AP/AT4+, slow firing at least?



EDIT- lol, if I could read I'd know Onyx answered that...

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Fear is for the enemy, fear and bullets.
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While I appreciate the comments, I am taking the 'Honda approach' to things these days - playtest rules, opinion drools.

Given the number of actual games played with the Minervans GLOBALLY has probably not even hit 30 (sadly that includes both the previous and current ACs), I'm inclined to leave the list as is.

To preview where my mind is going though, I will probably relegate the Stormhammer to a collector's model status on the next iteration (May 2009) with a change in its stats to ?.

As always, battle reports are welcome information.

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It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

I've had 10 games with the Minervans now.

I've been forbidden to use Stormhammers.

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Fear is for the enemy, fear and bullets.
-James O'Barr, the Crow