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Decimators, Ferals and Death Wheels
BlackLegion
 Post subject: Decimators, Ferals and Death Wheels
PostPosted: Fri Mar 07, 2008 1:11 am 
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I only fielded Decimators once. It was a formation with 3 of them against Space Marines.
They seem a bit slow and met a Warhound. They got in a shootout against eachother which destroyed two Decimators and the Warhound in Turn 2 iirc.
In turn 3 the lone Decimator whichwasleft managed to shot at a SM formation for minor damage and spend the rest of the game broken (or was it destroyed? The game it was serveral month ago).

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Charad
 Post subject: Decimators, Ferals and Death Wheels
PostPosted: Sat Mar 08, 2008 10:46 am 
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I have played some games with and against decimators/Deathw/ferals.

Decimators: They are really effective, but only when they are able to shoot. They are slow, they have no fields and max range is 45cms. And against catious/ good player, there is no much change to shoot with sustained fire. Compared to imperial counterparts, it is quite between baneblade and shadowsword, but decimator has insane stats. 4+cc with a tank? IMHO it could lose IC from decimator cannon and CC stat should be dropped to 5+ or 6+, otherwise I see it pretty balanced.

Deathwheel: Fast, durable and long range blast marker delivery system that is at best supporting or launching assaults. It is a bit more nastier version of plague tower, because of speed. Deathwheel has also downside, it has no proper guns for 275pts WE and that makes it quite ok. Perhaps those 2 fields are bit too good (1 could be enough), but seriously not too much.

Feral. Combine those two above and add 25pts... Does it sound ok? No, It shoots like hell and it is pretty effective in engages. This thing is just must to have piece, it has no weaknesses at all and cost is not bad. Feral could lose MW from cannon and fire arcs from head in FF, they are scout titans after all.

Personally I like current BP rules (And I'll be using them, because they add a lot of feeling and balance things between many weapons (zzap/soopa, scorpion/cobra), when titan/SHT is equipped with cannon that shoot bigger shells that trucks, they really should hit easily against big (av and such) targets. And 3bp AT6-> AT5 was a must change.

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Steve54
 Post subject: Decimators, Ferals and Death Wheels
PostPosted: Sat Mar 08, 2008 2:36 pm 
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(zombocom @ Mar. 06 2008,17:02)
QUOTE
[ but the reason the chaos lists get this much verve is simply that they are now more unbalanced than any of the other official lists.

This is simply not supported by any playtesting or tournament results-

- playing BL against Bill Ely and Dptdexys for the last 18 months under book rules we have had no such balance issues. The only change we have used in the past is dropping IC for the MW barrages when using the proposed new MW barrage stats. The general winning % for BL is not appreciably higher than any other race.

- in tournaments one of the great things about the EA lists is their level of balance. In the last 18 months to 2 years tournaments have been won by Eldar, IG, Orks, Speed Freeks, Marines, BL and L&D. Furthermore the players who have started playing BL have not, in tournaments where the majority of experienced players have been present, done any better than they have done with other armies.

Fair enough if people think that the stats or cost of ferals needs to be tweeked, or other issues such as a slight increase in costs for raptors+terminators but widespread change is simply not necessary for the list

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Tiny-Tim
 Post subject: Decimators, Ferals and Death Wheels
PostPosted: Sat Mar 08, 2008 9:52 pm 
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(Steve54 @ Mar. 08 2008,13:36)
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Fair enough if people think that the stats or cost of ferals needs to be tweeked, or other issues such as a slight increase in costs for raptors+terminators but widespread change is simply not necessary for the list

Agreed

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dptdexys
 Post subject: Decimators, Ferals and Death Wheels
PostPosted: Sun Mar 09, 2008 12:03 am 
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(Tiny-Tim @ Mar. 08 2008,20:52)
QUOTE

(Steve54 @ Mar. 08 2008,13:36)
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Fair enough if people think that the stats or cost of ferals needs to be tweeked, or other issues such as a slight increase in costs for raptors+terminators but widespread change is simply not necessary for the list

Agreed

I'd have to agree too.

The BL felt slightly overpowered for the first 12-15 games but having now played atleast triple that amount of games against them they do not feel bad at all.

There may be some internal balance issues as was found with the codex marines but the list in general feels good to play against.
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Evil and Chaos
 Post subject: Decimators, Ferals and Death Wheels
PostPosted: Sun Mar 09, 2008 12:16 am 
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Fair enough if people think that the stats or cost of ferals needs to be tweeked, or other issues such as a slight increase in costs for raptors+terminators but widespread change is simply not necessary for the list


Funnily enough I agree too.

Most of the list doesn't need touching... there are just half a dozen issues, no more really.

For me those issues are:

- Feral Titans (Much too good) & Decimators (Slightly too good).
- 'Free' characters / free Supreme Commander (Could be easily fixed with Neal Hunt's proposed 'base cost + extra unit cost', which would not change the overall cost of any particular army list, but would fix perception issues).
- Greater Daemons are too expensive to summon (The quickest fix is simply lower the summon number to 6/7)
- Chaos Aircraft (Need balanced stats, Hellblade needs to be swapped in in place of the Swiftdeath)
- The prevailence of 3000pt-centric 0-x limits (I'd prefer to see scaling limits in most cases, or even see the limits removed).

That's it, 5 issues in an army list that contains thousands of stats, points costs & structural combinations.

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pixelgeek
 Post subject: Decimators, Ferals and Death Wheels
PostPosted: Sun Mar 09, 2008 1:09 am 
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(Evil and Chaos @ Mar. 08 2008,15:16)
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For me those issues are:

This is the Decimator and Feral topic and not the general CSM topic.

lets not start merging topics into one giant discussion.

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Kleomenes
 Post subject: Decimators, Ferals and Death Wheels
PostPosted: Sun Mar 09, 2008 4:56 pm 
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I used black legion again today (report to follow) and used a formation of 3 deathwheels in the following list, against emperors shadows SM:

2 Rhino mounted retinues
2 folorn hopes
1 minimum size chosen
6 Landraiders
6 Predators
Max size Raptors
3 Death Wheels

The deathwheels started in the centre in front of my blitz in a position to support units around them (raptors and landraiders). They then marched up the centre and opened up the second turn by initiating a firefight with the intermingled whirlwind and SM tactical unit in some ruins on the SM baseline. After two rounds (due to a tie) the WW were wiped out and the marines reduced to 4 tacticals and 2 razorbacks, with the loss of 1 DC and 5 void shields. The game finished halfway through turn three, but the deathwheels were in a position to be able to double back to shoot at some SMs near my blitz.

General comments about these units - they are very fast and very tough, and very powerful in firefight. The high DC, high FF, high speed and void shields mean they are very powerful in this role, and were really unstoppable when facing SM - the best hope would have been to avoid them, difficult in itself given their speed.

I would say in this game I saw them at their strongest - both ES and I felt that if they had been facing IG they would have struggled against deathstrikes/shadowswords and vultures. Considering that 3 is almost as much as a banelord and they really can only do one thing well (firefight), with paltry shooting, it remains to be seen if they will be effective against other opponents.

As I see it, their strength lies in being able to direct concentrated firefight at targets on favourable terms: their high movement and shields allow them to gain a leg up when firefighting. The weakness to TK, assault (5+ cc isnt great and they then lose their voidshields) and probably also massed AT fire (nasty critical!) werent evident here but would be against more shooty opponents.

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pixelgeek
 Post subject: Decimators, Ferals and Death Wheels
PostPosted: Sun Mar 09, 2008 5:23 pm 
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Death Wheels are indeed deadly as Assault support and I am gratified to see that their apparent inability to hit anything with their weapons

Marines really need to play this game with Titans almost every time if they want to compete. Sad really

Thanks for the comments and looking forward to the report

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Irondeath
 Post subject: Decimators, Ferals and Death Wheels
PostPosted: Fri Mar 21, 2008 4:16 pm 
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Decimator/Feral MW barrages:

With the errata published, where do we stand? Without the AT-to-AP column shift, they obviously lost some of their punch. They still kill Marines like flies, though.

I dislike the MW as well.

Both the Decimator and Feral could lose it, in order to give BL less "Ignore cover" maybe keep it on the Hellmouth and lose MW there while retain MW on the Decimator and lose IC.

Speaking of Decimators, spiky bitz and all CC5+ would do.

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The_Real_Chris
 Post subject: Decimators, Ferals and Death Wheels
PostPosted: Sat Apr 12, 2008 3:47 pm 
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I'm a bit late but when i used decimators a lot fearless was an important ability. That, along with the sc re-roll meant I often wanted them to break so I could charge forward (and get behind cover). With high init and the re-roll easy to rally and then strike at close range, with fearless meaning I didn't have to worry about my favoured prey (units without much MW or lots of AT) hurting me.

Ideal use was to hit a garrisson, hope to break, then broken charge and go from there.

I think a lot of the BL WE threat comes from the MW/Ignore cover combo (their is no defence) combined with the drops, teleports etc. You can keep the pressure on while you close so the shorter range is less of an issue.

I haven't used them for ages now but when I did I had the three Ferals, the two single decimators, two lots of chosen, the SC formation, raptors etc. The Raptors and chosen slow down and divert attention because if not dealt with they gobble you up lilke all good CC units in CC range, while the WE make their (not forntal hopefully) approach.

A change in firepower/points makes this simply harder. Losing fearless changes the tactic (to the extent I would have to try really hard to get the decimators to work as well!

The formation size as well. Death Wheels in formations are good (the whole hit allocation thing) whereas for decimators there are no advantages, indeed its a big activation dissadvantage.
Maybe have a structure where its 1 Decimator for x and x-discount for 3, with the Deathwheel unchanged (so split them off) - but of course with all the WE into the allies section.

Indeed with all the WE in the allies section its a bit easier to evaluate them against each other. Deep in my heart i would love it if the death wheel was the most popular, not the Feral, as its just so damn crazy!

Oh and the Decimator regaurdless should be CC6+ - WE can always use their FF on suitable targets and this represents all those guns!

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