It was a draw

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A winning draw to me, no? :-p

I'll reply to stomp tomorrow, it's baby time now. :-)

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oh I agree. I wasn't trying to equate Squats with Marines as clearly they're not, I was just posing the question of whether Squats rallying as easily as Marines is what you're trying (at least partly, with other bits'n'pieces) to represent with Stubborn. I don't have any strong opinion in either direction, I only think that it's a question worth asking.

Ah found some time.

I dislike -1 when near enemies because the conditionality of it turns the rule into a weapon whose main use is to get up in the face of the enemy and stop them rallying.

Contrarily, if you've got a constant +1, the squats are not incentivised to run towards the enemy heedless of the risks of not rallying, because they will suffer -1 to their usual rally roll if near enemies.

They are not the same thing, because one rule incentivises gimping the enemy's rally rolls because there's no drawback to not doing so (other than those that come with being near an enemy formation in the first place), whilst the other maintains a greater level of tactical choice/complexity even though it is a larger boost to the army's potency overall.

It's a subtle difference.

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It doesn't incentivise you, it just doesn't penalise you. You could also view it as the squat's defence against the same tactic.

I see the philosophy you're applying and take your point. However, your philosophical answer isn't very pragmatic for the reasons already stated. The end effect is still the same but overall, a universal boost is more powerful.

If people are going to rush towards the enemy to make it harder for them to rally when broken, they're going to do it no-matter what and whichever rule is used the result is still the same.

Gimping the enemy's rally rolls is a well accepted and widely used tactic regardless.

That being said I still think a universal boost to rallying is better than any of the other suggestions for stubborn and wouldn't be terribly unhappy if that's what was settled on and the points went up accordingly.

In my opinion this is where you're wrong, obviously.

There's a subtle difference in playstyle that goes with "no -1 when rallying near enemies" that is simply more of a push towards "railroad gaming" (where moves are always obvious, ala 40k) instead of tactical complexity.


Absolutely no disagreement, you get a more powerful Squat list.

My objection is based far more on what I feel the "no -1" does to the game's play style.

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I've had a little break from Squats to use my White Scars at Into the Breach. However, I've had two games since Black Templars - 4k versus Epic UK Tau and 3k Epic UK versus Ulani. Hope everyone else is getting plenty of games under their belt.

I just want to show another awkward engagement range. Here we can see a Warrior Brotherhood on the turbo-aggressive trying to engage a formation of Griffons (here proxied with Vindicators) intermingled with a Commissar Baneblade.



At 10cm move - none in base contact. Five in Firefight.
At 15cm move - one in base contact. Plus eight in Firefight.

Ignoring Rhinos, it's almost halving participation in engagement. And they don't really have the chance to shoot as their Heavy Bolters are useless versus an army of tanks.

Moscovian, to address some points you made in the sadly-locked Squat thread...



Why is this a problem? Black Templars are pretty similar to Codex Marines, especially if you consider Stomp took neither the Emperor's Champion nor Thunderhawk Transporters.



Nope. Stomp himself has also used his Biel-Tann and Ulthwe Eldar against the Squats.



How would you have played it? I had my Warriors in a nice central position flanked either side by the faster units. Have one of the games you've photographed been against aerial insertion marines?

I don't need a cheap shot about photos of my batreps - I know I need to get them up on the boards. Family > Job > Church > House > Epic That's how my commitments stand. The thread you are referring to was locked because Stompzilla's tone was so unbearable it actually drove people away from TacComms.

But referring to your game, I didn't want to get into a debate over tactics and strategy because ultimately the full pool of batreps reflects how well a list is balanced, regardless of playstyle. However to answer your question, I typically set up a castled position when it comes to aerial insertion armies. When they are dropping with drop pods, I normally set up in corners and fully set back against the edge of the board. Because of the scatter, most players aren't willing to risk those areas and will drop just off center if they make a turn 1 drop at all. Anyone dropping in those areas will quickly find themselves in a crossfire.

But getting back to the Squats (since this isn't a thread to improve anyone's game), did you try out your own suggestion for the Never Surrender, Never Retreat / Stubborn idea? If so, how did it pan out?

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

Re: Engaging the arty/baneblade: do you*** feel that, stylistically, Engaging that target is what Squats would do?

I continue to feel that a lack of ranged firepower could be directing the squat warriors into a role that doesn't quite fit their aesthetic, regardless of their movement speed.

Ie even if they were 15cm move, would squats choose to Engage that target, or shoot at it with their ranged firepower? Orks and Marines would certainly Engage. IG might shoot or engage. Tau would shoot. Where on that behaviour scale should squats be sitting?


***not specific to any one person.

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I agree with E&C here, the lack of firepower is pushing the squats towards engagements as they don't have the ability/option to sit back and shoot, back in the days of SM2, as far as I recall, the squats were probably on a par, or perhaps even above Guard in terms of pure firepower. They were probably the shootiest army in the game, and I don't think the current stats reflect this, while I don't agree with the 10cm move as I feel that the game just wasn't designed with it in mind (I can't give any real examples, I just get the heebie jeebies when I think about it) I do think that if squats had firepower in abundance, it would be less of an issue as they would quite happily hunker down and shoot you to bits while their bikers and gyrocopters nabbed objectives, rather than feeling that they have to move to be effective at damaging the enemy

edit: on E&C's scale, I would say somewhere between IG and Tau, 75% of the time they would shoot, 25% engage..... (this is purely from a fluff/background/rose tinted spectacles POV of course)

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I agree that squats were the shootiest army in the game last time they had rules, and that they would sit between IG and Tau on today's scale. The current squat list has their infantry as less shooty than Ork boyz. I worry that people are looking in the wrong place to fix the list, regardless of the speed issue (which I agree might cease to be a concern if the firepower level was ajusted).

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I am in agreement that one or both elements need to change. One of the things I really liked about Curis' suggestion was eliminating the 10cm move for most infantry formations while simultaneously 'penalizing' them on their withdrawal move. While we may need to tweak the original idea, I think we're looking at a good solution.

I also feel that the heavy bolters need to be replaced with missile launchers. The problem I run into his do we do every other stand or every stand. I really would like to keep the Warriors as a core formation under 300 points, but when we start upping their range (45cm), diversity of shots (AP and AT), and doubling their shots from 5 to 9 for the formation, it is going to drive the cost of the Warriors way up. I'd like to keep them every other stand for now. How does everyone else feel?

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author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

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

I think it's more important Warriors match previous incarnations than that they come in under some artificial points limit. As a legacy list people are playing largely because they played them in older editions. That means that they need to match those editions - there's no divide between current 40k stats and historic stats like other armies.

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SG

Ghost's Paint Blog, where everything goes that isn't something else.

^This^

While I appreciate that it may not be as flexible as people would prefer, I think accurately reflecting the squats as a bunch of stubborn, heavily armed dudes is more important to the flavour of the list than whether they have a cheap 'building block' formation......

what about an option to upgrade them from HB (1 per stand) to missile launchers (1 per stand) for 50 pts?

I know I'd pay it, and would be glad I could still include a cheap garrison force if need be

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