Thanks again for the report, sounds like a good game Shame about the poor dice rolls in those assaults!

People have different styles of play but to me the Scions list taken looks a bit unoptimal competitively. Hope I can offer a few comments/suggestions? Chaplains are excellent in assault units but not worth it everywhere. Most people generally recommend 3-4 activations per 1,000 points played in EpicA so 15-20 would be the ideal range at 5k and 12 activations rather low. Warhounds are much better taken as singletons rather than a pack and spending 350 points on a Scout formation is excessive and better spent elsewhere. Thunderbolts are 175 in the Tournament Pack by the way, not 150.

You are doing defensive AA attacks for the aircraft yeah? Hopefully so, but thought I'd make sure. Thunderhawks should have at least 1 AA5+ attack at Stormtalons from any angle before the Stormtalons get to attack but I can't seem to see a BM next to the Stormtalons in the photos. Aircraft take a BM if they come under fire (any amount of times) during their approach move and another BM if they got shot on their disengage.

Have you considered taking Sword Brethren Terminators? With CC2+ and a character upgrade they would on average get 3.3 normal hits and 4.2 MW hits, which would have made a mess of enemy infantry or Land Raiders. You could either teleport them or the formation can be transported in 2 Land Raider Crusaders due to their larger transport capacity (making moble Terminators viable without being too expensive like regular ones needing 4 LRs are). With no titans in the list it's otherwise lacking in MW.

Sword Brethren in a Landing Craft could be good, consider planetfalling it in perhaps as you'd then get to attack 3 formations that turn rather than 1 and you'd avoid any AA. Drop Pods with Sword Brethren could be good too – they lack shooting normally, but would get the Deathwind attacks. After drop podding in SMs are slow and can struggle to get range to engage but the Sword Brthren would have more chance with their 30cm move.

I will potentially consider upping the Thunderhawk Transporter to FF5+ but I don't think it needs it myself (and I'd probably want to up the cost slightly if it did get changed) and I'd like to see it tested a fair bit more at it's current stats first. The THTs background focuses them very much on being transports and it's not really fitting for them to go launching assaults on their own, which would be more tempting with higher FF. I also wanted to have more FF hits be an advantage of the Landing Craft. At present 3 THTs cost the same as it but have 2 more 4+ reinforced DC and can't be wiped out by an unlucky critical, so they need disadvantages in comparison.

The table at the end is wrong by the way (says Scions had 0 victory condition when they had 2).

Have to agree with the others on activation numbers, though since both sides were constructed in a similar way that was less of an issue in the battle. You may find it instructive to play either of these armies against a more 'tournament' orientated list with 20 activations - let alone one of my 'pop-corn' style armies that aim for 5 activations per 1000, or 25 activations here .

I also agree with Glyn that the Templars work well when a significant part of the force arrives by planetfall, preferably with other formations flying on in support. This allows a rapid concentration of overwhelming force at a key point, while others can be used to exploit the successes (or perhaps to support the retirement of failed assaults as in this case).

I did note that the Landing Craft was deemed destroyed when it lost the combat. As the Landing Craft is 'Fearless' it does not get destroyed under these circumstances - though given the poor dice rolls I am not sure it would have made much difference.
Note - The last sentence of 4.2.5 (stating that aircraft which lose an engagement are destroyed) is merely reinforcing the last sentence of 1.13.3, both of which are ignored by 'Fearless' units.

For the Black Templars testing we'll definitely be sticking to 4+ Reinforced Armour for the Thunderhawk Transporter and the stats could do with a load of testing to see how it plays and if it needs any small tweaks.

Your 5+ Reinforced Armour THTs in the Scions list are balanced enough, they just don't represent the unit from the background or 40k rule very well. Lets not go over the old arguments again though; we have in the past at length but have very different opinions on it.


I welcome the comment and feedback I was just responding with my thoughts and mentioning my reasoning for keeping it 6+ for the moment but seeing how it goes.

LoL - We are in danger of re-hashing the THT debate all over again

Point is that these are primarily *Transports* not assault craft, so their stats are much reduced from the standard THawk . . . .

Very well done AAR as usual Greg. I wish I'd been there. I'm sure my dice rolling would have been an improvement (not). :- )
As was said earlier folks, we play our games for fun so they may not always be the most competitive armys or army lists. We always have a good time though.